Click this link to hear John Piper try to say God controls everything (everything!) http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/how-do-you-process-public-tragedy

and think about his mistaken tweet above, which has since been deleted.

Generally unabashed Calvinists are consistent as John Piper has been. But, after deleting this tweet and another as hurtful as that one I can’t help but wonder if criticism against people with his type of theology is not only justified but not ratcheted up enough.

How can one say there is not even a molecule that is controlled by God and take themselves seriously!? I don’t know if one can disconnect between a theological stance and its implications in real life. Not unless one is ignorant of that stance or doesn’t believe it. Perhaps in moments and circumstances one can act differently then they believe but ones theology is a relationship to their world, at least it should be, and that exception would probably be an aberration of some flaw in character.

Perhaps you are a Calvinist and have a blind spot to this stance? If that’s you let Piper be a lesson to the ignorance and potential pitfalls of thinking about God so unhealthily. If God controls everything then whose proper response would you have in moments where grief and love should be the right response? How can one be obligated to empathy and compassion if every thought is ultimately controlled by God? How can the universe be different from God if he controls every detail of it?

Does God author evil? Then God is not good and love.

The good news is The Good News, the Gospel, doesn’t require seeing God in such deterministic terms. God’s greatest mystery, his relationship and answer to sin, death and evil is persons: through his Messiah by his Spirit. Christ didn’t say he was controlling the universe he said he was the authority over it. His message was his authority would be exercised by his heralds (you and me who believe) by the power of his Spirit. The universe is not controlled by a dictator it’s ruled by a lover for all who will allow him to be who he is: Lord, leader, and lover of all.

Truth is objective, impartial, and accessible to all. Why would the embodiment of truth be any different?

The ignorance of theology like Pipers is it makes the mistake of thinking God added himself to the world rather than he added humanity to himself through the Gospel. The difference is all the difference. If you add the finite to infinity it’s essentially nothing for the infinite to handle but if you add the infinite to the finite it consumes and overtakes.

Don’t worry God doesn’t control you, your thoughts, or tornadoes. He does allow us freedom and responsibility with his universe so take care of it and love.

If you can’t give up the deterministic parts of your Calvinism at least be honest instead of cop out like Piper did by finding alternative excuses rather than explaining what he actually believes about reality (that God controls it all directly)! http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/those-deleted-tweets
One.

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The Gospel and the Kingdom intersect and become one when one is established and at peace with the reality of grace on their lives. That is because true grace is an established epiphany of ultimate reality for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see this revelation in an aspect of their lives:

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” Rom 11:36

The Bible sees the adopted people of God, the good news of God, and the effective range of God clearly being realized in Christ. And any good Trinitarian knows that wherever one person of God is there he all is one.

Let him be the reference, or be “in Christ” as the Bible puts it, and watch grace make you a reference point for God too. It’s not circular it’s coherence, goodness, and complete just as life should be.

“the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus”

-Apostle Paul

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“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.” Dallas Willard

Faith without works is dead because it takes work to allow grace to be what it is. #faith #grace

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The next step is to understand that God is good. This is why I’ve been so adamant against Calvinism and Reformed theology’s propensity to accept that God authors evil or some form of compatiblism. This leads to logical problems, and ultimately to non-Christian propensities like denying Christ’s eternally begotten essence or the Spirit’s eternal procession. Now, I understand that Reformed churches don’t officially promote these heretical views, like that God authors evil, or promote subordinationism but these ideas are prominent in this strand of Christianity more than others in mainstream American culture and it’s worrisome.

The good news is that the Good News, the Gospel, is premised on Jesus and the idea that God is good in essence. Thank God! How you learn to answer and articulate that truth without erroring with some weak form of determinism, compatiblism, or subordinationism may take some work but it’s not hard once you’ve learned the simple fact: God is good.

A good view of God starts with Jesus, understands he’s good and next time we’ll get into other aspects of a good view of God.

Be blessed.

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Dallas Willard died yesterday and the news truly broke my heart. There’s a dimension of a healthy life that is expanded and transformed by good old fashioned study, reading, and thinking long and patiently on what matters most. Dallas had a way of connecting with people on that level like very few in his time.

His books were incomparable if you could catch their power in subtlety. His lectures seemed slow to the impatient ear. But to the studious hearted he communicated with a patience that could respectively calm the most hurried storms of the mind. He will be greatly missed. You did great with that one God, thanks.

There is one lesson above the many that Dallas taught me through his writings that I hope the Lord can pass the message of thanks because it has literally saved my soul: that is on how to hear God’s voice.

There was a time recently when I over extended my stay in a couple of dimensions of vocations. I was burnt out, told people, but under played it. Inside I was dying and rather than come out and say it I told half truths; I expressed my fatigue but didn’t explicitly say I needed to quit and find new avenues to grow.

It was in the final stretches of this season, just before those things I was doing with a dying heart, that I found Dallas’ work on hearing God’s voice.

In one session with Dallas I practically learned more than 30 years of church. My whole life I was taught to hear God in some wild experience or pay attention to a still small voice. But Jesus is alive in no small way!

Dallas made it so simple, it clicked. And what he wrote was what my dying heart needed at the time before those seasons came to a violent and abrupt end.

Basically, he said the key to hearing God’s voice is learning to be in alignment with God’s word, my circumstances, and the Spirit. Easy like Jesus. We have Jesus, a conscious, a word ready to train and equip for any situation, and a capacity to understand the circumstances we find ourselves in. That’s a whole lot grace he’s given us Christians and just by default!

If God’s word, circumstances, and his guiding presence are clear, then the opportunity to respond well will be obvious and easy and make sense. All that is real and true is grace and it only takes engaging its creator in simple and truthful ways to accomplish things you otherwise couldn’t do on your own. He’s set it up that way for reasons, we’d be wise to learn. God’s voice is the default of a Christian life and tuning in with just a little dedication to learning is all that’s needed.

Next time your taught to think about the still small voice remember it’s important but only one third of the default way God has graced us to hear his voice. Impressions of the Spirit, passages of scripture, and circumstances are waiting patiently for you to recognized their ease and compatibility. It’s a harmony of Grace. Listen, learn, and experience God.

After learning those three ingredients I put them into practice and when I could no longer fake the circumstances I couldn’t ignore his voice because the circumstances were so blunt. God massaged my broken heart in ways so many people I thought were trustworthy didn’t even attempt to. God is good.

I’m still healing but Jesus is here listening to my learning and he’s caressing my leaning. He loves it when I press in and trust. I love him too.

God bless Dallas Willard. We’ll meet someday and share experiences. I can’t wait.

(Don’t read this blog and think I got it all together, I don’t. I just love sharing how much I think God gots it all together. This is the default way to here him but not the only one btw.)

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A key factor to religion is masking
conviction behind rules because of fear of failure, as though failure is an option in Christ. (It’s questionable whether he even knows that word.)

Rules are a just masked religion. Conviction above persons, principles above grace and mercy. God is the ultimate rule breaker, we’d be wise to follow suit, or not, whatever. How do you put a person at the core of thoughts and behaviors?

The Trinity alone.

Today I ponder how i can allow him to teach me how to put himself where I can’t.

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Jesus is the Author of life not the author of evil. God is love and light not immoral and dark. BUT IF GOD IS IN CONTROL I CAN’T SAY THAT WITH THE DOGMATIC CONFIDENCE I WANT TO HAVE.

The Calvinistic view of God falls in the face of scrutiny. God is not in control. I hope he’s more creative and powerful than that. Faith is trusting he’s more imaginative than that. Hope is trusting he’s more capable in your weakness. Love screams out these facts. And forgiveness understands that things can change.

I don’t need grace, the universe is grace, I need mercy. That’s the Savior I trust in.

For those who disagree, please don’t be offended. It’s just a blog. If you can’t believe otherwise go head, it’s not an issue worth being angry over.

Be blessed.

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I hope God’s not in control that would suck. Faith is trusting he’s more imaginative than that. Hope is trusting he’s more capable in your weakness. Love screams out these facts. And forgiveness understands that things can change.

I don’t need grace, the universe is grace, I need mercy. That’s the Savior I trust in.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. -Paul

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