I want to talk with you about this sin. I think it is good that you did some chores after your sin. It is a sign that you recognize your sin and wanted to make restitution in some way. This is a key theme in the Bible and I am glad you want to follow it. I also want you to understand that nowhere in the Bible does restitution – even where it is made perfectly – eliminate the guilt from the sin that required the restitution. This is also true today, especially considering that you did do something but it did not truly restore what was lost from your sin.

God wants your heart, not your restitution. Restitution is something God in His mercy provided to make civil society work better. If people went around sinning all the time with only eternal consequences life for the righteous would be pretty hard. We see that today in countries where certain types of people are allowed to be sinned against without any kind of consequence. In lots of countries, those people are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Restitution is God’s invention and a way He shows his mercy to those who have been sinned against, but it is not sufficient to save anyone.

Many people try to use restitution to say they don’t deserve consequences for their sin. You see this all the time in the news. Someone does something wrong but they want no punishment because of all the good they have done. Or they tell the judge “I’ll never do it again”. These people miss the point. The Bible is clear that there is a big difference between discipline and restitution. Restitution is to protect the heart of the victim against bitterness and restore his/her loss, not to save the sinner from the kind of consequence that will drive him or her to Jesus. Sacrificing something of our own choosing does not in any way remove the guilt of our sin.

The most famous Bible account of this is in 1 Samuel 15. Here God commanded King Saul to destroy everything of the people he was going to war against. After the victory, Saul had a better idea. He decided he would “obey” God by keeping the livestock but sacrificing the best ones to the Lord. God condemned him for that and actually said He was sorry He ever made Saul king. This is the place where we find the verse “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” God wants us to do what we are told to do, not find ways to make up for our failures. This one “little” sin is what caused God to rip the kingdom away from Saul and give it to David.

Think about the implications of that for you. You cannot go through life believing that you can disobey and find a way to “make up for it” later. God loves you too much to let that happen and we love you too much to let that happen. This next point is extremely important. To believe that restitution somehow eliminates your guilt is to deny Jesus Christ, because the truth is His death is the only thing that can eliminate your guilt. The guilt for our sin is not gone because we got better or made up for it but because Jesus paid for it already on the cross. You cannot make past sins go away by future good works.
I hope you know how much I love you. I pray that you will consider these things and how important it is to confess your sin to the Lord and to those your sin against. Ask for forgiveness. It waits for you at the foot of the cross, not in a sink without dirty dishes or a freshly vacuumed floor.

The premise of the book is very simple. It looks at various statements made about a godly woman in Proverbs 31 and after discussing them, turns them into ways you can pray for your wife. The verses are broken up so that there are 31 different entries. Each entry is only 2 – 3 pages and includes a spot for you to jot down specific prayers for your wife related to the topic and record how God has answered your prayers. I have already been blessed by it in seeing new but wholly Biblical ways to pray for my wife. The second part of the book includes some helpful thoughts on effective marriage but it’s only a small fraction of the total content.

Most of the Christian men I know want to be more systematic about praying for their wives but have trouble figuring out how. This book does just that. It also has greatly helped me appreciate Proverbs 31 in a way I hadn’t before. This is not a chapter only women should be meditating on! It’s helped me to guide my wife and my daughters into the kind of women our Lord wants them to be.

It is a book I will keep in my office to remember to pray for my wife (the bright red cover will help with that!)

I am amazed to see all of the ways I should be affected by His life and how little I am. He gave up comfort, perfect fellowship with the Father and Spirit, peace, the praise of angels, and so much more. If Jesus was God and gave up all this for me, how can I not also be ready to give up all that I hold dear for Him?

I hope to add several more posts on my meditations as I prepare.

Are You Better At Being Right or Wrong?.

Throughout the book I was repeatedly moved by the intensity of this man’s faith. Although he repeatedly said he did not believe he had any special gift of faith, I don’t know whether I could aspire to count on God the way this brother did, even in the direst of circumstances. Journal entries covering six decades of work in building and sustaining orphanages provide a well rounded view of how his faith remained consistent over time.

Here is one of his purpose statements for recording these things for us:

Now, if I, a poor man, simply by prayer and faith, obtained without asking any individual, the means for establishing and carrying on an Orphan-House, there would be something which, with the Lord’s blessing, might be instrumental in strengthening the faith of the children of God, besides being a testimony to the consciences of the unconverted, of the reality of the things of God.

More than once in the book he professes great thanks for the many trials that he endured because they increased his faith and dependence on God. This could be the most striking element of the book to me. Listen to how he explains this aspect of his Christian walk:

The more I am in a position to be tried in faith with reference to my body, my family, my service for the Lord, my business, etc., the more shall I have opportunity of seeing God’s help and deliverance; and every fresh instance, in which He helps and delivers me, will tend toward the increase of my faith.

Muller actually looked forward to the times where He saw no earthly solution so he could wait on God to deliver. It is a truly remarkable story in today’s age of “I’ll believe it when I see it”.

The book is highly recommended.

So far things are progressing far better than we would have initially thought. Navigant’s willingness to waive virtually all of my non-compete agreement helped me retain clients without any ethical concerns. They have even continued to refer clients to me as companies approach them about business continuity issues.

I have been able to build a network of about a dozen other independent consultants who can use each other on larger consulting projects. I think many of my opportunities will be higher end things that are very targeted to my skill sets, but it’s great to know that if clients ask me to do something that requires more intensity than a one person consulting firm can address I have teammates waiting in the wings.

I have had several great projects, including some clients who have already budgeted for my time again next year. The idea of repeat clients is really important to me so I’m not starting at zero income every single year. Some of the companies Ive worked for have already asked me to quote fees for phase 2/3 efforts. Even if only half of these are signed I will be a very busy camper.

Of course in all of this we are living in God’s grace. I like the term I heard the other day – “dependent responsibility”. We are always dependent on the Lord to ultimately care for us, but we are responsible to put forth maximum effort as well. This is true in every aspect of our life, but with respect to my transition to independent consulting it means I have to provide really stellar customer experiences and wise counsel that makes them want to keep doing business with me. I often think of Proverbs 21:5…

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

How I ask Kristen to pray for me regularly is that I would plan wisely and work diligently, so feel free to pray the same way.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t use our citizenship properly. Paul did that on multiple occasions – both to make life easier for future Christians and to preach the Gospel in Rome. But Paul didn’t use his considerable rights as a Roman citizen to change the political system anymore than Jesus argued that Caesar should be paid taxes.

One of the more disturbing things I’ve seen in a while is worth a whole blog post (which will be coming). Glen Beck, a Mormon, had a bunch of “evangelical christians” on his show. (Maybe this happens a lot, I don’t know I only see his show once in a while and find it both enlightening politically and entertaining). At one point he looks at these guys and says something like “I’m a Mormon. Is there any reason you can’t fellowship with me?” None of them said anything about the fact that Mormons deny Jesus Christ is God and that it’s a big deal to deny Christ because it means you’re going to hell. About a week later I read online that one of these guys actually said he thinks Glen is saved even as a Mormon. Amazing.

As Christians, we should have hope. But the basis of our hope is not politics or a return of Republican rule in Washington DC. Our hope is based on the fact that God’s Holy Spirit is indwelling us testifying to us that we are His kids. Nothing else matters, not this November and not in 2012.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)

As we talked about it the Holy Spirit brought a lot of clarity to my mind. Less than two hours earlier in our family devotions I had prayed that God would help us functionally apply the Gospel to our everyday lives like when the dog is sick or we fight with our siblings (or our spouse). He very graciously answered that prayer.

I explained to them that rather than be frustrated, she should be thankful for the picture that trying to stubbornly make the bed incorrectly after being given guidance provides, because it is a picture of our relationship with the Lord. The Gospel tells us that we are precisely like that – insisting on doing our own thing to our own detriment and God patiently waits for us. He does not exact retribution for our stubborn pride because He has already poured out 100% of the wrath for the sin of every Christian onto His beloved Son Jesus. All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us to his own way, but the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

We had a very good talk where my daughter, by God’s grace, saw exactly how helpful this picture was and how she failed to imitate God as she is commanded to do as His beloved child. There was no yelling, no screaming, no punishment – just pointing her to the Gospel so she could glory in how wonderful Jesus is. Only a few years ago I would have yelled at them, told them to stop fighting because it was unloving and sent them back to their room. God is very, very good.

To me the most important thing to remember here is that Moses looked to God to establish the work of their hands. He had a nation of 2,000,000 people at his disposal and he still turned to God to establish the work of their hands. I am reminded of the verse “Unless the LORD builds the house the laborers labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). Moses knew that to be true and he trusted God who is completely trustworthy to be the one who directed their steps and established their work. I am a very proud guy and I am often very tempted to think my success is up to me rather than trust God in this way.

More than that, I think it’s important to remember that God is not impaired by economics. Things can be very bad in the economy and God can do what He wants anyway. Do you remember the story in 1 Kings 17. God sends Elijah to meet a woman who is supposed to feed him. This occurs in the middle of a terrible drought and things are so bad for the widow she plans to use all she has to make one last meal so she and her son can eat one last time before they die. Her economic situation was much more desperate than almost anything anyone with America, Canada or Europe’s safety net permits. Yet God provided for her so that her flour and oil did not run out (even though she KNEW there was only enough for one more cake left).

Why did God do this? It wasn’t to be nice to the widow. I presume there were other families equally desperate during this time and we don’t have any records of God being so merciful to them. The reason He did it was to feed Elijah in a way that brought Him glory. God established the work of the widow’s hands to promote His glory.

This is where I start thinking about Job 42:1. After seeing the error of his thinking, Job confesses “I know that you (God) can do all things. No plan of yours can be thwarted.” God does have a plan. His plan might not have anything to do with our economic prosperity or America’s re-emergence as the single global economic superpower. But whatever His plan is, it will not be thwarted under any circumstances.

Are you out of a job as I am? God’s plan for you will not be thwarted. He has promised to provide for your needs and He will do it. You much be humble enough to accept the means of provision He decides. In the New Testament, that seems to be one another love shown by members of your local church.

Are you okay for now but worry about the future? God Himself will establish the work of his faithful servants and there is no cause to worry. There is nothing unemployment rates or national debt or the “wrong” president or Congress can do to stop that.

Are you comfortable living in the generous welfare the country has provided? With extended unemployment benefits, discount health insurance, food stamps, mortgage reductions and so many more things it can be tempting for even a believer to get content in his or her laziness. Remember that Moses prayed that God would establish the WORK of their hands. Paul said those who didn’t WORK shouldn’t eat. One of the very first commands in the Bible was for Adam to WORK in the garden. God invented work and we should seek to glorify Him in whatever work He gives us to do.