I Don't Care!

I'm feeling kinda good today and in the mood for a blog post.

What I'd like to share is a biblical insight that has made a profound impact on me. It is the kind of insight that will—at the risk of sounding pedestrian—revolutionize your life, and the insight is this: I DON'T CARE!

That's right. I don't care what you think of me, I don't even care what I think of me. Now before you pass this off as in keeping with inane youthful rebellion, I'd like you to reckon with Paul's words first:

"But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God." (1 Cor. 4:3-4)

What is Paul saying? He's not recommending throwing off the "shackles" of consideration for others, neither is he advocating a reckless abandon bordering on masochism. What Paul is saying is that his identity is so bound up in Christ, so inextricably linked with his union with Him, that the only verdict on his person that matters is Christ's. And what is this verdict:

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Rom. 8:1)

Are you beginning to taste and savor the utterly delicious freedom of this truth? It offers, not rudeness, nor unkindness, but the spiritual power and strength to enjoy all that is ours in Christ, to be defined by this, and to live our lives not in a perennial state of seeking a righteous judgment from others, ourselves, and things, but as free men. As grateful men.

Timothy Keller adds:

"Paul was a man of incredible stature. I think it would be hard to disagree with the view that he is one of the six or seven most influential leaders in the history of the human race. One of the most influential people in history. He had enormous ballast, tremendous influence, incredible confidence. He moved ahead and nothing fazed him. And yet, in 1 Timothy, he says ‘Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief’ (1 Tim. 1:15 NKJV). Not I was chief, but I am chief. Or ‘I am the worst’. This is off our maps. We are not used to someone who has incredible confidence volunteering the opinion that they are one of the worst people. We are not used to someone who is totally honest and totally aware of all sorts of moral flaws – yet has incredible poise and confidence.

We cannot do that. Do you know why? Because we are judging ourselves. But Paul will not do that. When he says that he does not let the Corinthians judge him nor will he judge himself, he is saying that he knows about his sins but he does not connect them to himself and his identity. His sins and his identity are not connected. He refuses to play that game. He does not see a sin and let it destroy his sense of identity. He will not make a connection. Neither does he see an accomplishment and congratulate himself. He sees all kinds of sins in himself – and all kinds of accomplishments too – but he refuses to connect them with himself or his identity. So, although he knows himself to be the chief of sinners, that fact is not going to stop him from doing the things that he is called to do.

We could not be more different from Paul. If I think of myself as a bad person, I do not have any confidence. If I think of myself as a sinner, as someone who is filled with pride, someone filled with lust and anger and greed and all the things that Paul says he is filled with, I have no confidence. No, because we are judging ourselves. We set our standards and then we condemn ourselves. The ego will never be satisfied that way. Never!

Paul is saying something astounding. ‘I don’t care what you think and I don’t care what I think.’ He is bringing us into new territory that we know nothing about. His ego is not puffed up, it is filled up. He is talking about humility – although I hate using the word ‘humility’ because this is nothing like our idea of humility. Paul is saying that he has reached a place where his ego draws no more attention to itself than any other part of his body. He has reached the place where he is not thinking about himself anymore. When he does something wrong or something good, he does not connect it to himself any more." (The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness)

Chaotic Change

The process of being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, called sanctification, is a lifelong dynamic of the Holy Spirit revealing the nature and extent of indwelling sin, with the attendant horrors of being confronted with the reality of our ugly selves in the light of God's beautiful holiness. This also involves the Spirit leading us by the hand and incessantly reorienting our hearts and minds toward the Goal through the Gospel. Exhausted and horrified, we are grateful for the righteousness, peace, and joy that is ours in the midst of our failures and we are invigorated by undeserved grace. We get up, dust ourselves, and pursue Christ once again in grateful obedience.

The fact of the matter is that change is most often a process and seldom an event. Change happens chaotically. It comes unannounced, in fits and starts. We don't wake up and say, "Hey, I think I'll create all kinds of change today." Change is pushed upon us by a persevering Redeemer, who will not walk away from the work he has begun...He will put the need of change before us in the most inopportune moments. He will not submit to our schedule or agenda for our day. He has not promised that change will be enjoyable each time or a comfortable process over the long haul. He has promised to stay near us, giving us everything we need, and he has guaranteed that we will be more than we ever thought we could be. (He will not cease working until we are like Jesus. Now, how's that for a goal!) So, he calls us to be patient. He calls us to be willing to wait. He calls us to continue when continuing is hard, and as we are continuing, to look for any way we can to incarnate his transforming love. (Paul D. Tripp, What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage [Illinois:Crossway, 2010], 131-132)

Calvin the Peacemaker

Breaking the bond of fellowship between brethren is no small matter. In fact, it is so serious that Paul could declare, "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11).

Aside from foundational doctrinal differences, churches in fraternal relations, I would think, have no valid grounds for cutting off communion with each other.

Regarding the matter, the ff. piece exposes John Calvin's heart:

The Blows Beckon Us Back

"It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes" (Ps. 119:71).

Why is it that something which would be absent in future glory be deemed by the Psalmist as something good?

Because suffering brings us back to God. It is reality on a megaphone blaring in our ears, "Creature!" It puts us in our rightful place—close to God, in a relationship of humble and grateful dependence on Him for everything pertaining to our well-being: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Ps. 34:18).

Dad's Day Didactics

Today is the day of dads, and as a dad myself, I've discovered that the one thing that figures prominently in the lives of many dads is the anxiety that comes with the job of being a dad itself. All dads endowed with the common grace of sanity desire to be able to provide the best that they possibly can for their families. In this the analogy of the human dad as a reflection of the fatherhood of God is expressed, in the desire to cater to the well-being of one's children.

Therefore, I've deemed it appropriate to present two passages on the issue of anxiety, first and foremost from the Word of God, and secondly, from an esteemed poet. Happy Father's Day to us, dads!


Matthew 6:25—34 (Do Not Be Anxious)

"Therefore I tell you, f do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. h Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For l the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first o the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."


The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

What is the Nature of Your Treasure?

Living in a world besmirched by the aftermath of sin, it must then be that pain, suffering, and disappointment are inevitable. To be human is to have trouble as a constant companion (Job 5:7). However, one's soul is adversely intruded upon by trouble only when the object of one's affection, or one's treasure, is assailed or threatened. Therefore, the key to soul stability in times of suffering rests solely not on desiring that which is affected by the fallenness of the current order of creation, thus changeable, but on desiring that which transcends the world, thus unchangeable. To be at peace in whatever circumstance is to have the Unchanging One as one's Chief Desire and Only Treasure.

The nature of what one pursues as the "apple of one's eye" determines the state of one's joy. Anxiety, fear and worry must necessarily rest upon those who have purposed to find joy in the volatile; but these soul torments have no intelligent and logical basis for those whose soul-satisfaction owes itself to the One who does not change (Malachi 3:6).

John 16:33
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.