New Year’s Challenge

There are few books that constantly challenge me, day after day, to re-examine where I am with God. John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life (Crossway, 2003/2009) is one of them.

Some days ago, I came across the bit in Piper’s book where he asks (with reference to 1 Peter 3:15):

“When was the last time someone asked you about ‘the reason for the hope that is in you’?” (p. 108)

That stopped me in my tracks. When indeed? And why not? Piper suggests the following reason:

“Why don’t people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don’t look like they are on the Calvary Road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don’t need to be rewarded in this life.” (p. 109)

I have to ask myself (and I hope fellow believers in Christ will ask themselves too): What kinds of messages are we sending with our lives? Are our lives, our preoccupations, our lunch time conversations, our favourite music, our outlook, our ambitions (and the way we talk about them), our responses to problems, our work ethic, our attitudes towards our possessions etc. so radically different from those of the people around us that we “shine like stars in the universe” (Philippians 2:15)? Does everything about us proclaim the fact that we serve Jesus, the risen Lord, in all we do? Are we so radically sold out for God that people take a second look at us and wonder, “What’s with him/her?”

If Christians are not noticeably different from everyone else, we can hardly expect anyone to ask us “the reason for the hope that we have”.

I know that my problem is that I sometimes forget. I know very well what is truly important on this earth. It’s not money. It’s not reputation. It’s not career. It’s not providing a comfortable life for our families. These are not necessarily bad things in themselves, and Christians are not called to neglect such responsibilities. But they pale in comparison to the weight of eternity. We were created to know God, to glorify Him, and to help others find their way to Him … because at the end of our earthly lives, only one thing will matter: whether God will say to us “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21) and welcome us into His presence for eternity, or whether He will refuse us entry into Heaven, saying to us “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:23).

John Piper has said that it is crucial for Christians to adopt a “wartime mind-set”. He explains why he finds this phrase helpful:

“It tells me that there is a war going on in the world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used, but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite: heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).

I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth “home”. Before you know it, I am calling luxuries “needs” and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I don’t think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. … I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.” (John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, Crossway, 2003/2009, pp. 111-112)

At the start of this new year, I know that I need to challenge myself … to not love the same toys that the world loves, to not forget that my faith is to be in what God can do and not what man can do, and above all, to not forget that there is a war going on for the souls of people yet unsaved.

And to all fellow Christian believers, I leave this thought: May many ask you this year for the reason for the hope that you have.

  .

Photograph (by R Tang): Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 2011

Advertisement