Lift Her Chin with Love

(article by:  Greg Morse, Content Strategist, desiringGod.org)

She sat staring at me, wondering if I still found her attractive. Her hair was undone, her pajamas on, with what appeared to be two tennis balls stuffed in her cheeks after oral surgery. My eyes became her mirror: Was she still beautiful? Without waiting for an answer, my wife asked me not to look at her.

The request stayed with me for hours. Where had I heard this before?

Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. (Song of Solomon 1:6)

She was a shepherd girl made to work the fields by domineering brothers as a Hebrew Cinderella. She worked with her hands. She sweated. She had dirt underneath her fingernails. She didn’t sit around in embroidered dresses. Evidence of her social class was stained upon her skin. She kept to the vineyards, but her own vineyard of beauty was less tended (Song of Solomon 1:6). Eventually, when her Prince Charming found her, she requested, “Don’t look at me.”

Daughters of ‘Don’t Look at Me’

We live in a pornified culture, where beauty is digitally, and professionally, enhanced. The new standard is beyond reach for those unwilling to starve, inject, photoshop, and undress. The world has set up its beauty pageant, banishing those unwilling to participate, like Queen Vashti of old (Esther 1:10–19). We rarely have a commercial for candy without exploiting some woman’s looks.

We’ve created a culture that expects unwilting beauty. Girls are pressured to become (and remain) Barbie. Women can’t grow old. They can’t gain weight. Can’t have health complications. Can’t have too many children. Can’t work in the fields. Can’t be seen recovering from surgery. Can’t wear gray as a crown of glory (Proverbs 16:31). Their beauty must be undiminished, unwavering, plastic.

And the devil has done his damage in the church as well. God’s daughters — our queens and princesses — are tempted to ask God why he made them this way. Too many inwardly cry to Adam’s sons, Don’t look at me. Such shatters the heart of God and all righteous fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons.

As Christian men, we not only lament this tragedy; we challenge it. We rebuke a society which gives worth to women not based on the imago Dei but the imago Victoria Secret. We resolve, with God’s help, to be men after his own heart, detoxed from the drug of pornography and women-debasing lust. And we do what the husband does in the Song of Solomon: delight in the very place she fears is undelightable.

Love Quiets Insecurity

He addresses her, “O most beautiful among women” (Song of Solomon 1:8). He lifts her sunken chin, surveys her weathered skin, and tells her emphatically, “Let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely” (Song of Solomon 2:14).

He delights in what she fears will be undelightable. While heathen men may be so bold as to blaspheme God’s breathing portrait, the son of God looks at his beloved and sees such loveliness and beauty that he must exclaim, “My beautiful one!” Not just once but again (1:15). And again (2:10). And again (2:13). And again (4:1). And again (7:6).

With every new imperfection that the mirror shows her; with every new sag, scar, and wrinkle; for every stammer of “Do not gaze upon me because . . . ,” her husband corrects her in earnest, “Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes . . . Your hair . . . Your smile . . . Your lips . . . Your breasts . . . You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you” (Song of Solomon 4:1–7). He is a connoisseur of fine art, and, in the glorious confines of lifelong covenant, God has given him a masterpiece to enjoy.

Such is not just a husband on his wedding day, but on the day he wheels his wife down the hallway towards chemotherapy. A man staring at his aged, nearly-deaf dove will say, “You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart” (Song of Solomon 4:9) His captivated heart makes for captivated eyes. His speech teaches others to cherish her as he does (Song of Solomon 5:9; 6:1).

Fighting Back Roots

The Christian husband is not called to flatter, but to be the world’s greatest lover. A kind of “lover” whose affection reaches beyond the bedroom into the hospital wing, the pew, the small group gathering, the car rides, the kid’s soccer games, and into — and through — the funeral home. A lover who speaks for God when his words quiet her insecurities. A lover who is an inebriated man, drunk off of her love, always (Proverbs 5:19).

A man like 90-year-old Roy. Traveling recently to the UK, my wife and I visited the resting place of C.S. Lewis. There we found Roy tending the grave of his wife, fifteen years deceased. He came every morning to fight back the roots of the tree neighboring her grave. He was there so often that the church asked him to be the groundskeeper and give the Lewis tours. When we inquired about his wife, his face lit up, and story after story told us the same from a new angle: “She was the most beautiful among women.”

Lift Her Chin with Love

Brothers, your wife may never be the “most attractive” to lustful men in a KFC world of breasts and thighs. But they cannot see what we see. We behold her as God does: as a creature with imperishable beauty (1 Peter 3:4). An untainted, untouchable, unfailing beauty, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. A beauty that is renewed day by day — though the outer frame wastes away. A beauty that survives longer than a century. A beauty that grows more effervescent the nearer it gets to bursting through its earthly cocoon. An eternal beauty that her God adorns her with even now.

Our Groom sees his church in such beauty. The world’s dead eyes find little beyond a despised and ignored group of unremarkable people — but she is God’s delight. The apple of his eye. She is his “beautiful one.” His lily amongst brambles (Song of Solomon 2:2), his wheat among tares. She is unique, transcendent, superlative. His love has made her so. She bears the beauty of being his. Forever.

And he says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Delight in her beauty. Speak tenderly to her insecurities. Lift her chin with your love.

Climb The Mountains of God’s Mysteries

(article by John Piper)

I have read writers and heard speakers who try to turn our ignorance about God’s ways into the main ground for our amazement and worship. They usually do so by using the positive word mystery to refer to the depths and heights of God so that we are supposed to be moved with wonder and awe at how much we do not know about God.

This has always seemed misleading to me. I’m not drawn to people who do this. The approach of Paul, for example, is very different. He would say that God is most glorified when we are stunned and admiring and worshipful and joyfully submitted to him because of what we do know about him, not because of what we don’t know about him.

Your admiration and wonder at a mountain range might be based on your glimpse from the foothills, where you see the range rise and disappear into low-lying clouds. Or it might be based on years of expeditions into the mountain range only to discover that every time you reach the top of one unimaginably high peak, another entire range of mountains soars before you and above you.

It is no great honor to God to spend your life in the foothills, writing essays and poems about how much you don’t know above the cloud line. Far better to let God put your hand into the hand of Paul — or any of his other inspired writers — and then spend a lifetime climbing with him on the high paths of revelation.

“Unsearchable and Inscrutable”?

One of the most misunderstood and misused passages in Paul’s writings is the great climactic section at the end of Romans 1–11:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
     or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
     that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36)

Here’s the key observation: Paul does not write this soaring admiration of God’s riches instead of revealing those riches, but because he had just laid out those riches in eleven chapters of mind-boggling revelation. He soars because of what he had just unveiled, not because of all that remained veiled. These words of amazement come at the end of eleven chapters in which Paul has taken us into the depths and heights of God’s ways beyond what any of us thought possible.

Just reading the preceding three verses boggles the mind about God’s ways. Not because they are behind a cloud of unknowing, but because they are revealed as utterly unexpected and counter-intuitive and shocking and God-exalting. Paul sums up God’s plans for Jews and Gentiles:

For just as you [Gentiles] were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their [Jewish] disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. (Romans 11:30–32)

Take five minutes to reflect on those verses, and you come away at first dazed, and then amazed, not because you are left in the dark, but because the light is so dazzling you can scarcely believe what you are seeing.

“Unsearchable” but Brought to Light

Paul describes his revelation of God’s ways as unsearchable one other time. And the point is not that he leaves us in the foothills without knowledge.

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things. (Ephesians 3:8–9)

This text does not mean, “Sorry, folks, the riches of Christ are in the darkness of mystery, and they can’t be revealed.” The text says the opposite: “God called me,” Paul says, “and gifted me to bring the mystery to light! The things I write about Christ are the unsearchable riches of Christ!”

They are unsearchable in three senses: (1) They have been “hidden for ages in God” — but no more! (2) They can be known only by divine revelation, not mere human wisdom — and Paul is writing that revelation. (3) There will always be more to see as you climb into the meaning of inspired revelation, and then into the Himalayas of heaven.

To Know What Surpasses Knowledge

This last point is confirmed in Paul’s prayer in the next chapter of Ephesians. He prays that we

may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18–19)

This is it! Because of God’s stunning revelation of his ways in Christ — through the writings of the apostle Paul — we are granted “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” We are taken higher and higher into the mountain ranges of God’s wonders so that we really know what was unknowable, only to find that the mountains rise ever higher.

Sure-Footed Sherpas

Paul was not one of those people who is content to live in the foothills of revelation, waxing eloquent about the value of “mystery” above the low-lying clouds. Paul knew that God gave him a calling not to hide, but to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

Paul knew that God is honored not when we linger in the valley, endlessly extolling the value of unexplored mystery. God is honored when we accept his invitation to lead us into his unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways — when we treat the authors of Scripture like sure-footed Sherpas in the Himalayas of God’s revelation.

He Is Better Than Our Best Dads

(excerpt from message by John Piper)

Jesus encourages us to pray by showing us that our heavenly Father is better than our earthly father and will far more certainly give us good things than any human father would. There is no evil in our heavenly Father. There is evil in every earthly father. This is very important. Fathers need to hear this. Wives need to hear this. Children and grown children need to hear this.

Let’s read Matthew 7:11 carefully and think on it deeply. “If you then, who are evil . . .” Now that’s quite unflattering and blunt — the way Jesus is most of the time. Just picture yourself in the scene here: “I’m John. I’m the apostle of love. If you talk to me that way, I feel beat up.” Why did Jesus do this? “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

“God is ten thousand times better than any good father.”

The Bible not only often draws attention to the similarity between human fatherhood and divine fatherhood; the Bible also often draws attention to the vast differences between human fatherhood and divine fatherhood. Can you think of any other places? Hebrews 12:10: “For they [earthly fathers] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.” The Bible is not unaware of this pain of this reality in the world: that all human fathers are evil — all of us.

So, Jesus goes beyond the encouragement of saying, “You have a Father in heaven.” He goes beyond that and he says, “You have a perfect father who has no evil,” and he contrasts God without evil with all fathers who are evil. Even if you had the very best father, you still have a good thing coming. God is ten thousand times better than your good father. The difference between a good earthly father and a bad earthly father is a millimeter, but the difference between God and the best earthly father is infinite.

Do you think there’s a huge gap between the bad father and the father you wish you had? Well, compared to how much better God is than the best father, it makes that difference very small. Don’t ever limit your understanding of the fatherhood of God to the experience of your own father — no matter how good he was or how bad he was. Rather, take heart that God has none of the sins of your father — none.

God has none of the limitations of your father. God has none of the weaknesses of your father, and he has none of the hang-ups of your father — none of them. The point Jesus is making is that even fallen fathers give good gifts, usually. Almost everywhere in the world — in spite of sin, in spite of evil — fathers are generally jealous for the good of their children. They would say, “If you try to mess with my kid, you deal with me.” That’s inside almost every father — sin or no sin. He’s on the side of his kid when his kid is in trouble. That’s what Jesus is picking up on.

“Take heart that God has none of the sins of your father.”

Jesus says, “If your father — sinner though he be, though you’re all evil — if he knows how to do anything good for his kid, just think of how much more your perfect heavenly Father is eager to do good things for his children.” Let that land on you. Jesus is laboring with people who have imperfect fathers to help you feel hopeful in prayer. That’s what he’s trying to do here.

He’s trying to get kids, grown kids, forty-year-old kids, who have nothing but horrible memories, on their face, full of hope, that the one in heaven is ten thousand times better. That’s what he’s trying to do.

God Is Bigger Than Your Problems  

(article by Scott Hubbard, Editor, desiringGod.org)

The promises of God often lose their power in our lives because God himself has become small in our eyes.

We may be able to recite God’s promises by the dozens. But in our hearts, God is no longer the King who conquers armies and cuts a valley in the sea. He is no longer the Shepherd who seeks his sheep and keeps them safe behind his staff. He is no longer the Lord who walks on waves and calls the dead back from the grave. Slowly, subtly, we have forgotten God’s power, God’s wisdom, God’s tenderness.

When the promises of God seem powerless to quiet our fears, soothe our grief, lift our worries, or motivate our obedience, we need to do more than simply hear his promises again. We need to behold the God who gives them.

Promises Buried

In Isaiah 40, the prophet speaks to a group of broken Israelites. The nation that once shone like the stars in the sky had been blackened by exile.

As Israel looked back from Babylon, the promises of God seemed buried. How would God give Israel an everlasting kingdom when they were slaves in a foreign land (2 Samuel 7:13)? How would God make Israel a blessing to the world when a curse had fallen on them (Genesis 12:3)? How would God raise up from Israel a serpent-crushing king when they were under Babylon’s heel (Genesis 3:15)?

We can ask similar questions when we remember God’s promises from the wreckage of our circumstances. We can look ahead to a life of unwanted singleness and ask, “How can God satisfy me?” We can look back at a devastating failure and ask, “How can God forgive me?” We can look up from the crater of some loss and ask, “How can God comfort me?”

In those moments, we need God to do for us what he did for Israel. We need him to come alongside us, remind us of his promises, and then say, “Behold your God” (Isaiah 40:9).

Behold Your God

Who is the God who gives his promises to us? He is the God of might, who created the world by his word. He is the God of wisdom, who makes a way in the wilderness. He is the God of tenderness, who carries his children home. And he is bigger than all of our problems.

GOD OF MIGHT

Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. (Isaiah 40:10)

Behold the God of might, who created the world by his word.

The God who speaks his promises to us is the same God who said, “Let there be light,” and the darkness fled (Genesis 1:3). When he speaks, stars burn and planets lock into orbit; rivers run and oceans fill earth’s floors; valleys sink and mountains race to the sky. The grass in all the world may wither, and the flower on every hillside fade, but the word of him who made them will stay and stand forever (Isaiah 40:8).

Are your troubles as untamed as the ocean? God holds them in the hollow of his hand (Isaiah 40:12). Are your sorrows as vast as the heavens? God measures them like a carpenter at his workbench (Isaiah 40:12). Are your burdens as heavy as the hills? God picks them up and puts them on his scale (Isaiah 40:12).

Your problems may be massive, but your God is mighty. The sun will fail to shine sooner than his word will fall to the ground — no matter how big our problems.

GOD OF WISDOM

Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? (Isaiah 40:13)

Behold the God of wisdom, who makes a way in the wilderness.

The Israelites thought their future as a nation had fallen with Jerusalem’s walls, and that not even God could raise them up again. “My way is hidden from the Lord,” they said. “My right is disregarded by my God” (Isaiah 40:27).

But Israel’s exile had not taken God by surprise, nor had it cast them out of his sight. “Have you not known?” Isaiah asks. “Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God. . . . His understanding is unsearchable” (Isaiah 40:28). When Israel was lost in the wilderness of exile, and saw no way of getting back home, God paved a highway right through the desert (Isaiah 40:3).

No trouble is too tangled for God to untie. No path is too twisted for him to straighten. No heart is too shattered for him to gather up and put back together.

Your problems may be bewildering, but your God is wise. He sees you. He knows every detail of your trouble. And he knows how to come alongside you as you wait for him and make you rise up with wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31).

GOD OF TENDERNESS

He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11)

Behold the God of tenderness, who carries his children home.

Before God thunders forth his majesty in Isaiah 40, he speaks to Israel with the gentleness of a mother’s hush: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). God is not eager for his people to be tormented and storm-tossed. He wants us to know him as the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3).

If God’s might shows us that he is powerful to fulfill his promises, and if his wisdom convinces us that our circumstances are no exception, then his tenderness assures us that he delights to use all his might and wisdom in love for weak people like us. He is the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find his lost and wandering one. And when he finds him, he bends down, gathers him up in his arms, and carries him all the way home (Isaiah 40:11).

Your problems may be agonizing, but your God is tender. Place all your fears and frailty before him, and ask him to quiet you with his love.

Every Valley Shall Be Filled

Seven hundred years after Isaiah told Israel to behold her God, John the Baptist picked up the prophet’s words and preached them in the Judean wilderness: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low . . . and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:5–6; Isaiah 40:4–5).

Then John stepped aside as a man walked over those valleys and hills and made his way through that wilderness. He was a man of might, who bound hell’s armies and brought heaven’s kingdom. He was a man of wisdom, who silenced the scribes and spoke the very words of God. He was a man of tenderness, who healed the sick and heralded God’s favor.

And then he lay down beneath the biggest of our problems, and allowed them to beat him, bludgeon him, bury him. But only so he could carry our curse to the grave, sink it deep into the ground, and then rise up in the power of an indestructible life. Every promise from God comes to us now through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20), the God with scars on his hands.

Your problems may be big, perhaps even bigger than you know. But your God is bigger, and his promises to you are stronger and surer. So, look up from your problems. Listen again to God’s powerful, wise, and tender voice. And then ask God to help you behold him.

Fill Your Wandering Heart with Thankfulness

(article by John Bloom:  serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God)

Do you know what’s stronger than lust? Thankfulness.

Let me illustrate before I explain. When Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph, why didn’t he succumb to her advances? He explains,

“Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:8–9)

Joseph received Potiphar’s remarkable favor on him as a gift from God. Gratitude was occupying so much space in Joseph’s heart that there was not enough room for the ingratitude of sexually sinning with Potiphar’s wife.

Too Full to Indulge

Now look at your own experience. You have not indulged in lust when your heart has felt full of thankfulness to God. Why? Because lust is a form of coveting: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” (Exodus 20:17). And coveting, in all its forms, is a fruit of ingratitude. It’s a desire for something you want but don’t have, or can’t have; it’s a desire for something God has not provided for you or forbidden to you (James 4:2).

So lust, being a form of ingratitude, is incompatible with gratitude — they cannot cohabit the same space at the same time. It’s one or the other. And thankfulness is the stronger power. Lust might feel powerful, and thankfulness might feel meek. But when thankfulness is truly present, lust is no match for it.

Thanksgiving is not merely a “nice” Christian character trait. It is a sin-conquering force. Gratitude is both a vital indicator of our soul’s health and a powerful defender of our soul’s happiness. Which means we should intentionally cultivate the healthy, happy habit of thanksgiving.

What Thankfulness Says About Us

How thankful we are reveals the health of our souls. When the apostle Paul describes what our being filled with the Spirit looks like, he doesn’t point to ecstatic experiences or miraculous spiritual gifts; he points to thankfulness:

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18–20)

When Paul describes what our being governed by the peace and word of Christ looks like, he doesn’t point to an absence of conflict or our level of theological sophistication; he points to thankfulness:

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:15–16)

When Paul describes what our living in the will of God looks like, he doesn’t point to how well our rolls match our strengths and aspirations; he points to thankfulness:

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

When Paul describes what our freedom from sexual sin, or other kinds of defiling sin, looks like, he doesn’t point to the absence of temptations; he points to thankfulness:

Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. (Ephesians 5:3–4)

If we want to know how healthy our souls are, we should check our levels of gratitude.

How Thankfulness Protects Us

We should monitor our gratitude, not merely for our spiritual health, but also for our spiritual protection. Gratitude is immensely (and subtly) powerful.

Gratitude is what we experience when we perceive that what we have received is an undeserved gift of God’s grace. It is a fruit of humility; it’s inherently unselfish. We don’t feel true gratitude toward ourselves, but only towards someone else who treats us better than we deserve. That’s how Joseph felt being entrusted as Potiphar’s chief steward.

Sins like sexual lust, however, are a fruit of pride; they’re inherently selfish, exploiting others for our own narcissistic purposes. That’s how Potiphar’s wife felt looking on the attractive Hebrew house slave.

Pride always looks more powerful than humility on the outside. But in reality, it’s not. It’s not even close. Humility is stronger than pride like heaven is stronger than hell. Like the cross was stronger than the Roman Empire. Like the Resurrection and the Life was stronger than the grave. In the same way, thankfulness is stronger than lust, and serving is stronger than exploiting.

The more thankfulness is present in us, the less vulnerable we are to sin. 

That’s why the Bible talks so much about thanksgiving. Thankful people have set their eyes on God (Hebrews 12:2), recognizing to some degree how much grace we are receiving right now (2 Corinthians 9:8), trusting him to cover all our sin and work our painful past for good (Romans 8:28), and looking to him for all we need tomorrow and into eternity (Philippians 4:19). Souls that learn to be content in God “in whatever situation” (Philippians 4:11) are souls that are the least vulnerable to temptation, particularly covetous temptations.

Be Thankful

Therefore, cultivating thankfulness should be one of our core strategies in helping each other fight sin. In our small groups and accountability groups, we should encourage each other to “be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). Not out of guilty obligation, but out of an unashamed desire to be happy! Thankful people are not only the most spiritually healthy and spiritually protected, but very often the happiest.

Cultivating thankfulness is not easy. We all need help, and thank God help is available. But there is no thankfulness hack — no four easy steps to a grateful heart. It’s as hard as habit-building. We begin to train our heart-eyes to look for God’s grace — in all circumstances. This looking must become habitual. And habits are built by doing them every day. We get incrementally better at them as the days gradually accumulate to months, and months to years. They become more and more a part of us over time.

But it is worth the effort. Thankfulness is one of the most powerful affections God has given us the capacity to experience. It is far stronger than lust or any bondage of sinful pride. The more it grows in you, the more spiritual health you will experience, and the less power sin will wield over you.