Announcing the Winners of the If God Is Good Giveaway

Here are the three winners from September’s giveaway, who will each receive a copy of Randy’s newest book, If God Is Good. The randomly drawn winners are:

1) SwitchingGranny (HeisMyJoy)
2) Adam (adamgraunke)
3) Fran (sonflower74)

All winners, please e-mail me at Stephanie (at) epm.org with your mailing address.

Thanks for entering! Be sure to check back at Randy’s blog on October 5 for the next giveaway—we’ll be giving away three copies of The Game Plan for Life with Coach Joe Gibbs. Randy is one of the contributors to the book, which includes a chapter on the subject of Heaven.

Stephanie Anderson
Promotions Director
Eternal Perspective Ministries
www.epm.org

The Church as a Body

I recently read an interesting book by Philip D. Kenneson: Life On The Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999).
Here is an excerpt:

This [the church as a body] is only one important lesson that reflecting on the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ might teach us. Given the rampant individualism that pervades much congregational life, the contemporary church in this country would do well to reflect seriously on this metaphor. For example:

• Bodies are wrongly understood if their parts are considered to be in some way more fundamental than the body itself. The parts exist to serve the well-being of the entire body, a well-being in which each part participates and facilitates to the extent that it looks beyond its own immediate welfare.
• Bodies are wrongly understood if they are regarded as conglomerates of parts that have their own integrity apart from the body. No one would mistake a severed finger on the sidewalk for a body. Such a condition is not only a problem for the part but a problem for the entire body.
• Bodies are wrongly understood if their parts are considered to have unmediated access to the head. Each body part facilitates and participates in vital connections to the head, yet none can sustain this connection to the head alone.
  

www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

www.epm.org

Four Things You Cannot Recover...

A few months ago I happened to see this on The Heart of a Pastor Wife's blog, and thought these pictures were profound.

Four things you cannot recover....








www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

www.epm.org

What do you want your readers to take away from If God Is Good?

(Click here if you're unable to view the video.)

Unbelievers and believers have the same heart-cry in response to evil and suffering: “Something's terribly wrong.” We know we were made for something far better. But our heart-cry itself is revealing—why do we expect more or hope for more? Why are we outraged by evil and suffering when if the atheists are right it’s no more than we should expect in a world of random chance and survival of the fittest? Where do we get the standard of goodness by which we judge evil to be evil?

In If God Is Good, I appeal to unbelievers and believers alike to consider these questions: Why is there so much good in the world? Why do the great majority of suffering people want to go on living nonetheless? Is evil and suffering just bad luck, or is there a rational explanation for it? Is there a redemptive purpose for it? Can we as hurting people, and as those trying to help hurting people, find perspectives that recognize the full force of evil and suffering, yet offer hope? I suggest the answer is yes.

Being a comprehensive book, this is no short and sweet gospel presentation. But its forty-five chapters are relatively short. For the thoughtful unbeliever motivated to hear a biblically based treatment of the problem of evil, the book will serve that purpose. The gospel is woven into it. I pray and expect that some will come to a genuine faith in Christ through reading the book and the Scriptures it cites, and perhaps discussing it with a Christian friend.

The book may first serve to help readers jettison a false faith they may have. If we have a faith that isn’t grounded in reality, we must, by the empowerment of God’s Spirit, lose our false faith in order to find the true one, in Christ.

Some professing Christians will read the book who actually have faiths very similar to that which Bart Ehrman, author of God’s Problem, abandoned. They are being set up to jettison their weak faiths by college professors utilizing Ehrman’s kinds of arguments. I wrote If God Is Good in the hopes that it will serve pastors and serious lay people in assisting Christian young people in coming to terms with a biblical theology of suffering. My prayer is that they will see the spiritual power and reason of Scripture, learn sound theology, and develop a truly Christian worldview to replace their superficial one that will never survive either the arguments or the tests that await them.

Finally, I think serious and growing Christians will benefit most, because they will see a comprehensive (not exhaustive) treatment of a problem that touches nearly every area of theology and Christian living. The believer who cannot address this issue biblically and personally is ill-prepared to represent Christ to a world that so desperately needs Him. The Bible is a sustained historical drama concerning the problem of evil and suffering. Every Christian should know that, and I pray some will come to know it through this book.


www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

http://www.epm.org/

Note from EPM: Randy's new book If God Is Good is now available for purchase online, in local bookstores, and from the Eternal Perspective Ministries website. (Check out the If God Is Good Chapter Summaries for a preview of the book's content.)

God’s Redemptive Purposes for Evil and Suffering

(Click here if you're unable to view the video.)

The stronger our concept of God and Heaven, the more we understand how Heaven resolves the problem of evil and suffering. The weaker our concept of God and Heaven, the stronger our doubt that Heaven will more than compensate for our present sufferings.

If Heaven did not exist, we could never solve the problem of evil and suffering, for we would never receive any lasting compensation for it.

Nanci read me letters written in 1920 by her grandmother, Ana Swanson, to her family in Sweden. Because Ana suffered severe health problems, she moved to Montana to be cared for by relatives. Her husband, Edwin, remained in Oregon, day and night working and caring for their seven children. Ana’s letters tell how Edwin wore himself out, became sick, and died. Ana lacked the strength to raise her younger children, so they, including Nanci’s mother, Adele, were placed for adoption. Ana’s letters reflect her broken heart, her nagging guilt…and her faith in God.

Nanci and I wept as we read those letters. What inconsolable disappointment and pain! Ana and Edwin loved Jesus. Perhaps they asked a good God why he would allow such tragedy. That day, Nanci and I considered what God might give this broken family on the New Earth. Certainly they will be healthy—Ana won’t live with illness, fatigue, grief, anxiety, and guilt. Edwin won’t work himself to death, pining away for his dearest companion. Based on what I know of God, and the promises of Jesus about our earthly fortunes being reversed in Heaven, I believe that in the resurrection God may give this family wonderful times together that the old Earth denied them. Perhaps they’ll travel together and God will grant them indescribably rich times with one another, parents and children.

How like God that would be!

God originally planned that human beings live unswervingly happy, fulfilled, righteous, and God-centered lives on Earth. If our current lives present the only opportunities for that, then God’s plan has failed. But if we know the God revealed in Scripture, we realize his plans do not fail. His promises to resurrect both us and the earth itself guarantee his plan will forever succeed.

We want every chapter of our lives to feel good. It doesn’t work that way. The current chapter may be terribly hard, but the story hasn’t ended. God promises a final chapter in which he ties together all the story’s loose ends and launches us into an eternal sequel of incredibly grand proportions.

Make no mistake—the promise of God is that all his children, including Ana and Edwin Swanson and each of us who know Jesus, will live happily ever after.

In order to share Christ’s glory forever on the New Earth, we must share his sufferings temporarily on the fallen Earth.

When the New Testament discusses suffering, it repeatedly puts Heaven before the eyes of believers. Sadly, many churches fail to follow this example. When we say nothing, or put our hope in a health and wealth gospel, or hope only in medical advances, we rob God’s people of an eternal perspective.

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17). Paul says we will become Christ’s heirs and share in his glory if we share in his sufferings. No suffering, no glory.

F. F. Bruce writes, “It is not merely that the glory is a compensation for the suffering; it actually grows out of the suffering. There is an organic relation between the two for the believer as surely as there was for his Lord.”

As Romans 8:18 emphasizes, our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the future glory that God and we and others will see in us.

Paul offers a one-word answer to the question, “Why suffering?” He replies, “Glory.” Glory is a state of high honor, involving a brilliant, radiant beauty. Our glory is secondary, not primary. We are not its source, God is. He is the sun who shines upon us, bestowing an eternal glory rooted in himself, purchased for us by his suffering on the cross. God will be glorified by imparting his honor to us and sharing it with us.

God’s promise of glory doesn’t minimize our suffering, of course; Paul affirms we will experience great sufferings (see Romans 8). Only an immeasurably greater glory can eclipse our present suffering—and that is exactly what will happen. Romans 8:18 says God will not create that glory, but will reveal it. It’s already there—just not yet manifested.

The treasures we’ll enjoy won’t lie only outside us, but, Paul says, “in us.” God uses suffering to achieve the glorious transformation of our characters to prepare us for service and joy in the next life (see 2 Corinthians 4:17–18).

God will not simply wait for our deaths, then snap his fingers to make us what he wants us to be. He begins that process here and now, using our suffering to help us grow in Christlikeness. Phillips renders Romans 8:19, “The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.” As a master artist’s magnum opus awaits unveiling at an exhibit, so our Christlikeness, forged in suffering, awaits revealing at the Master’s perfect time.


www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
http://www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com/

http://www.epm.org/

Note from EPM: Randy's new book If God Is Good is now available for purchase online, in local bookstores, and from the Eternal Perspective Ministries website. (Check out the If God Is Good Chapter Summaries for a preview of the book's content.)

What is the problem of goodness?

(Click here if you're unable to view the video.)

While atheists routinely speak of the problem of evil, they usually don’t raise the problem of goodness. But if evil provides evidence against God, then shouldn’t goodness count as evidence for him? And wouldn’t that be evidence against atheism?

From a non-theistic viewpoint, what is evil? Isn’t it just nature at work? In a strictly natural, physical world, shouldn’t everything be neither good nor evil? Good and evil imply an “ought” and an “ought not” that nature is incapable of producing.

Augustine summarized the argument in two great questions: “If there is no God, why is there so much good? If there is a God, why is there so much evil?” To many, only the second question occurs. But the first is just as important. If a good God doesn’t exist, what is goodness’s source?

We have no logical reason to take good for granted; its existence demands an explanation. Much of the good of this world, such as the beauty of a flower or the grandeur of a waterfall or the joy of an otter at play, serves no more practical purpose than great art. It does, however, serve a high purpose of filling us with delight, wonder, and gratitude.

Why does anyone feel gratitude? And why do people, even irreligious survivors of a plane crash, so often thank God? Do people thank time, chance, and natural selection for the good they experience? No, because innately we see life as a gift from God.

People speak of gratuitous evil. But what about gratuitous good—purely impractical, over-the-top good that seems to have no explanation?

That we don’t question good’s existence affirms we consider good the norm and evil the exception.

Don’t evil and suffering grab our attention precisely because they are not the norm in our lives? We “get the flu” because we normally don’t have it. We break an arm that normally remains unbroken. Our shock at evil testifies to the predominance of good. Headlines we consider terrible wouldn’t be headlines if they described usual events. At any given time, fewer people are at war than at peace. Even in the bloody twentieth century, a person had less than a 2 percent chance of dying from war or violent civil strife.

The atheist who points out the horrors of evil unwittingly testifies to good as the norm. When we speak of children dying, we acknowledge they usually don’t. When a natural disaster hits, 99 percent of the world remains untouched. Most people in the world go through a lifetime without personally experiencing a devastating natural disaster. Fatal car accidents and murder are rare, relatively speaking. Though fallen, nature still contains more beauty than ugliness.

Without God, the world would be amoral, with no objective goodness or evil.

I heard Christopher Hitchens say in a debate, “The world looks as it would if there were no God.” But if there were no God, would you really expect this world to look just as it does? I don’t think so.

Where does goodness come from? How could it come from nothing? Why would people have such a strong sense of right and wrong? Why would the powerful sometimes sacrifice their lives to save the weak, handicapped, and dying?

Evolution can explain greed, selfishness, insensitivity, survival-preoccupation, and even a certain amount of ruthlessness; but does anything in the blind evolutionary process explain demonstrating kindness, putting other people first, and even risking your life to help a stranger? If so, what? How much good should we expect to see in an impersonal, self-generated world of mere molecules, chemicals, and natural forces?

A system that operates on brute strength, genetic superiority, and the survival of the fittest can explain and justify racism, sexism, and oppression. But it cannot explain goodness, humility, kindness, compassion, and mercy, especially when exercised on behalf of the weak and dying. What should surprise atheists is not that powerful people crush those weaker than themselves—that would be entirely natural. The surprise is that powerful people would sacrifice their welfare to aid the weak. And yet, that very thing often happens. Why?

Despite its current flaws, the world’s beauty and goodness testify to a Creator who designed it with order and purpose.


www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

http://www.epm.org/

Note from EPM: Randy's new book If God Is Good is now available for purchase online, in local bookstores, and from the Eternal Perspective Ministries website. (Check out the If God Is Good Chapter Summaries for a preview of the book's content.)

If God Is Good Releases Today, September 15

Today, September 15, is the release date of my new book If God Is Good. I hope you’ve had the chance to read some of the excerpts from the book that have been posted over the last few weeks. I've enjoyed reading your comments and seeing your responses.

I never feel really GREAT about a book when it’s finished, but I do feel good about this one. It's God’s Word that redeems it—so much powerful Scripture that it will more than compensate for my inadequacies. (He promises in Isaiah 55 that His Word will not return empty without accomplishing the purposes for which He sent it; He never promises that about my words or anyone else's.)

It's a far better book than it would have been as a result of all the time spent listening to critiques and input, and invested in rewriting, revising, and editing. If you don’t want to make a writing project much harder on yourself, don’t ask for serious critique! If you want a far better end product, recruit some smart people who are willing to look at a manuscript at its worst to help you bring it to its best. And then prepare yourself for many long hours of revision. Along with a journalist, a thirty-year-old cancer survivor, a missions director, and some pastors, my readers included a philosopher and several theologians.

I don't know what God will do with If God is Good. He may reach tens of thousands or, like the Heaven books, may touch millions (sales over 600,000 for the big Heaven book alone), but that's up to Him. Any number of people would be worth it. It's a stretch to say "If only one person is touched by this book, it was worth it," because I hope I'd have been able to touch more than one person if I had done something else with the thousands of hours I poured into it! But I do believe the book belongs to Him, and I am happy for Him to use it as He chooses to, no more and no less.

I've always been surprised because the books reach further than I think they will. The only time I really thought one of my books would have a big impact, it didn't. Lesson learned. I love how God surprises us! And it’s all the more fun to see how God will use the book, because, as always, we plan on giving away one hundred percent of the royalties. In fact, those royalties will go to promote good, oppose evil, and relieve suffering around the world.

Some have already asked what my next writing project after If God Is Good will be. It’s been five years since I finished Heaven, my last comprehensive work. I had a three-year break between that project and this one, during which I worked on smaller books and one novel. I need another break now, so I’ll focus on some shorter works (which is what some readers prefer anyway, and they are certainly easier to write). After I have contracts, I’ll talk about them publicly, but one involves some writings of Charles Spurgeon (have to be a little vague for now, but I’m having fun with it; few people I’d rather spend a day with than Spurgeon).

Eventually I’ll return to a major work of fiction. I am considering a historical novel centered on one central biblical story. Eventually I want to do a spin-off from my spiritual mysteries Deadline, Dominion, and Deception. (All I know for sure is that it will start with a D, but that it will have to wait until I regain some energy after finishing If God Is Good.)

In the meantime, I look forward to hearing your responses to If God Is Good. Regardless of the difficulties we face, God offers us profound, moving, and surprising insights that can feed our minds, warm our hearts, and give us the strength to face a world that is not what it once was, or what it one day will be. The comfort centers on Christ, God with wounded hands. Jesus is the only Answer bigger than the questions.

Soli Deo Gloria.


www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

http://www.epm.org/

Note from EPM: If God Is Good is available for purchase online, in local bookstores, and from the Eternal Perspective Ministries website. (Check out the If God Is Good Chapter Summaries for a preview of the book's content.)

Don’t miss tonight’s Facebook party for If God Is Good

Be sure you don’t miss tonight’s (September 14) Facebook party to celebrate the September 15 release of Randy’s new book, If God Is Good. The party, which will take place in the notes section of Randy’s Facebook page from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST, will feature sneak peeks at the book, giveaways, trivia quizzes, videos of Randy, and some surprises. Bring your friends!

So if you’re not already following Randy on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/randyalcorn to become a fan so you’ll be able to join in.

We’re looking forward to celebrating the book’s release with you. See you on Facebook!

Wendy Jeffries and Stephanie Anderson
Eternal Perspective Ministries
www.epm.org

I Wish I Could Be a Brother Like That

This story was sent by my friend Doug Nichols, founder and director of Action International. It is a powerful reminder that the first and second greatest commands are inseparable: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart...love your neighbor as yourself."

Years ago in the Philippines, I heard a story of a man who parked his car in his office complex in downtown Manila. There was a street boy nearby and to pick up some money, the boy asked if he could watch (guard) the man’s car while he was in the office.

Several hours later, when the man came back to get his nice Mercedes, he paid the boy some loose change and, as he was getting in his car, the little street boy said, “Mister, you sure have a nice car.” The man was quite surprised that this boy had even spoken to him and said, “Well, thank you.” Then the little boy said, “Where did you get your car? Did somebody give it to you?” The man replied, “Well yes, somebody did give it to me. My brother gave it to me.”

As he continued to get in the car, he expected the boy to say something like, “Oh, I wish I had a brother who would give me a nice car.” Instead, he heard the little boy say, “Your brother gave it to you? I wish I could be a brother like that.”

The man was so amazed at the statement of the little boy, he asked, “Have you ever been in a nice car like this?” The little boy said, “No.” The man replied, “Well, get in. Let me give you a ride.” The boy jumped up in the front seat and as they drove down the road, the man had to roll down the windows because the little boy was so smelly.

The boy was so joyful and in awe that he said, “Sir, could we go get my little brother and give him a ride too?” The man said, “Tell me about your brother. Where is he?” The boy pointed at a poor slum area of Manila called Tondo. They drove there and parked and the man said, “Go get your brother and we will give him a ride.”

The little boy ran down a filthy alleyway and a few minutes later came back with his little brother on his back, as he was crippled! The man said, “So this is your little brother; what’s wrong with him?” as they put him up in the front seat. The little boy said, “He had an accident. He’s crippled and can’t walk.”

As they drove and talked, the man found out that the brother had a crippling accident and because his family was so poor, they could not get him the medical care he needed.

The businessman said, “Well, my brother is a doctor. Why don’t we go see him and find out what he can do for your little brother.” After the examination they found that after a simple operation, the boy would be able to walk again. The operation was performed and the little boy who could not walk, but had a brother who loved him, was able to walk again.

Why did all this happen? Simply because of the unselfishness of someone caring for someone else, rather than for himself. So, might we have the words on our lips, “I wish I could be a brother (or mother, father, sister, fellow worker) like that.”

In the words of the missionary, the Apostle Paul, “…regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4, nasb).

Yes, “I wish I could be a brother like that.”


www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

www.epm.org

Why does God allow evil and suffering?

Before we get to this question I want to mention John Piper's blog post about President Obama's speech to school children. I think Piper's review of the speech, which includes his selection of excerpts, is a fair and positive assessment. You can read it here.

(Click here if you're unable to view the video.)

In my life, I’d already seen enough evil and suffering to feel deeply troubled by it. What I needed was to find perspective on what troubled me. In this process of writing If God Is Good, I’ve taken most pleasure in focusing closely on God, exploring his attributes of goodness, love, holiness, justice, patience, grace and mercy. While my journey has offered no easy answers, I’ve felt bowled over by how much insight Scripture gives us.

I’ve looked at a God who says, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exodus 3:7). I found great comfort in hearing God speak of a time when he could bear his people’s misery no longer (Judges 1:16). I revel in God’s emphatic promise that he will make a New Earth where he will come to live with us, and on which “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).

Often God has wiped away my own tears as I’ve contemplated potentially faith-jarring matters that have left me, not in despair, but with great hope that defies description and a peace that transcends understanding (Philippians 4:7). In short, I’ve seen Jesus.

This journey has stretched my trust in God and his purposes, yet I have emerged stronger and more refined because of it. I feel more at peace and, I hope, more prepared for my own suffering and for helping others in theirs. Also, I believe I have much more to offer believers who may be questioning their faith, as well as to unbelievers who consider the problem of evil and suffering their single greatest obstacle to faith.

Ultimately, the answer to the problem of evil and suffering is not a philosophy, but a Person; not words, but the Word.

A grieving father asked, “Where was God when my son died?”

A friend answered, “The same place he was when his Son died.”

Despite the statement’s power, it’s not entirely accurate. For God turned away from his Son when he died. Why? So he would not have to turn away when the grieving man’s son died. The man and his son can enjoy eternity together in a world without suffering and death because God’s Son died for them.

I agree with John Stott:

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross.… In the real
world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered
many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before
the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a
smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the
agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have to turn away. And in
imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on
the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow
bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in
God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to
pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for
us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his

.

www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

http://www.epm.org/

Note from EPM: If God Is Good will be released Tuesday, September 15, and will be available for purchase online, in local bookstores, and from the Eternal Perspective Ministries website, where it can be pre-ordered now. (Check out the If God Is Good Chapter Summaries for a preview of the book's content.)

Also, on Monday, September 14 there will be a party on Facebook to celebrate the book's release. The party, which will take place in the notes section of Randy’s Facebook page from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST, will feature sneak peeks at the book, giveaways, trivia quizzes, videos, and some surprises. If you're not already following Randy on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/randyalcorn to become a fan so you'll be able to join in. See you on Facebook!

Giveaway of the Month: If God Is Good

During September we’re giving away Randy’s newest book If God Is Good to three randomly chosen winners. (If you're reading this post on Facebook or Amazon or elsewhere, visit http://randyalcorn.blogspot.com/2009/09/giveaway-of-month-if-god-is-good.html to leave your comment and enter.)

Here’s how to enter:

Leave a comment on this post by Sunday, September 27.

In order to qualify for the giveaway, you must include your contact information (a blog, e-mail address, or website), otherwise we cannot contact you if your name is drawn. (If you do leave an e-mail address, to avoid having it picked up by spammers, I recommend encoding it, such as: youraddress AT yahoo DOT com) Need help posting a comment? Click here for step-by-step instructions. For further assistance, contact me at wendy(at)epm.org.

The three randomly drawn winners will be announced in a blog post on Tuesday, September 29, so be sure to check back and see if you won.

If you're a previous winner, rather than entering, we'd encourage you to share this giveaway with friends who are not familiar with Randy's books and Eternal Perspective Ministries.

I hope you’ve been enjoying reading the posts about the book over the past couple of weeks. Stay tuned to Randy's blog and Facebook in the coming days for more previews from and news about the book, and be sure to mark your calendars for Monday, September 14—you won’t want to miss the Facebook release party to celebrate If God Is Good. The party, which will take place in the notes section of Randy’s Facebook page from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST, will feature sneak peeks at the book, giveaways, trivia quizzes, videos, and some surprises.

So if you’re not already following Randy on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/randyalcorn to become a fan so you’ll be able to join in. See you on Facebook!

Although If God Is Good won’t be released until September 15, you may also preorder your copy from Eternal Perspective Ministries for the introductory price of $16.49 (retail $24.99) plus shipping and handling, and your book will be shipped by September 15.

Wendy Jeffries
Media and Marketing Assistant
Eternal Perspective Ministries
www.epm.org

Short-term Rewards vs. Living for the Audience of One

In the absence of a strong theology of Heaven and eternal rewards, the western church has been permeated by "prosperity theology," the gospel of health and wealth. We've been seduced to look only to short-term rewards of material gain, physical health and safety, and human approval.

The problem with short-term rewards is not that it's wrong to receive them, but that it's wrong for them to be our primary motivation for doing the work. If we take Matthew 6 seriously, when we offer people their name on a brick for giving to a building offering we're saying "Hope you enjoy this brick, because if this is why you're giving, the brick's all the reward you're going to get." What we're offering people is temptation—another wrong motive for doing something that God wants us to do for other reasons, for the applause of God, not the applause of men. (Winning a Gold Medallion may be a fine byproduct of serving God, but it is a terrible goal.)

But notice Jesus doesn't say it is wrong to have our accomplishments be seen or recognized by men, only that we are not to do them "in order to be seen by them." Why? Because then we're trying to please people rather than God, and we're putting them in God's place, which is idolatry. In that regard, there's a hard-to-find little book by Edward Welch I highly recommend called When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man. It is very biblical and insightful about ascribing too much importance to people's approval, which all of us tend to do.

We are to live out our lives before the Audience of One. That doesn't mean if I get an award from men for writing a book I lose my reward from God, but it does mean that if I am writing that book in order to get an award from men, I won't get rewarded from God. It's a question not of inadvertent occurrences, but of motives, focus, and purpose.

It's definitely possible to think too much of what people think and say. What’s really important is God’s evaluation of our life, and He sees us just as we are. He’s the one we are to please. Colossians 3:22-24 says,

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.



www.facebook.com/randyalcorn

www.twitter.com/randyalcorn

http://www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com/


http://www.epm.org/

Is there a purpose for evil and suffering we overlook?

(Click here if you're unable to view the video.)

Our inability to understand all God’s purposes in evil and suffering should not surprise us.

Sometimes we make the foolish assumption that our heavenly Father has no right to insist that we trust him unless he makes his infinite wisdom completely understandable to us. This lays an impossible demand upon God, not because of his limitations, but because of ours. A physicist father bears no blame because he can’t explain quantum mechanics to his three-year-old.

Isaiah 55:8–9 says, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

Luke 2:41–51 gives us an interesting twist on the parent-child analogy. Although the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph thought he had joined their larger group of family and friends. After a day’s journey from Jerusalem, they realized their error. Panicking, they rushed back to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening and asking questions. His mother said, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

“Why were you searching for me?” the Messiah-child responded. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

Relieved as they felt to find Jesus, it didn’t negate their three days of suffering. Jesus could have prevented their anguish by telling them his plans. But he didn’t.

Scripture tells us, “They did not understand what he was saying to them.” Luke adds, “His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” She didn’t merely toss and turn in perplexity, she treasured these things, she ascribed value to the mystery of her Son’s ways. She contemplated the mystery and embraced it. She believed God’s purposes to be right and good, even though they’d caused suffering.

What we call the problem of evil is often the problem of our finite and fallen understanding.

We assume God should answer our questions. But sometimes our questions can’t be answered.

If the problem of evil were the only thing we didn’t understand, our complaint might get sympathy. But we are veterans of not understanding, aren’t we?

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that.”

Sometimes we couldn’t understand the answer even if God explained it. Or God may have explained it in Scripture, but we fail to notice it or refuse to believe it.

Children don’t understand why their parents won’t let them stay up late, eat cookies in bed, or feed chocolate to the dog. They don’t understand why we discipline them, make them clean their rooms, or take them to the dentist. One day, when they grow up, they’ll understand.

And so will we.

God doesn’t explain the particular reasons we suffer, yet millions of people attest to the comfort he has brought them.

When a child falls off a bike, she doesn’t need her father to say, “Sweetheart, here’s why it happened—given your speed and the weight of this bike, it couldn’t tolerate that sharp turn and…” No. The child simply wants comfort. We don’t need explanations; we need “God, who comforts the downcast” (2 Corinthians 7:6).

If God offered constant explanations, our lives would not be free or normal, and would not allow for faith or trust.

While playing softball, my friend John Franklin, then a healthy thirty-nine-year-old, developed a headache and neck pain, so he took himself out of the game. By the time the game finished, he needed help walking.

Taken to the hospital, John became completely paralyzed and unable to speak. Soon he was breathing with a ventilator. John spent seven weeks in ICU and another four months in the hospital. He underwent speech therapy, then a few years of occupational and physical therapy. Now, twenty-two years later, John remains restricted to a wheelchair. Doctors never discovered why it happened.

John’s youngest son, six years old when his father became disabled, wrote me, “I remember always being so mad that God did this to him. One day I asked my dad why he wasn’t angry. He said, ‘Why should I accept good from God and not evil?’ I think my jaw dropped and at the time I was angry at him for saying that. But that experience has forever shaped my view of God and evil.”

This wonderful family has certainly seen God at work. But they still have no clear explanation of his purpose for John’s disability.

Consider what our lives would be like if God regularly explained to us why he allows everything that disappoints us. Suppose you’re a teenage girl, sick on prom day. God could whisper, I let you get pneumonia so you wouldn’t bond with that young man who wouldn’t be right for you, and so your parents would go get you your favorite dessert, where they’ll see a help-wanted poster and tell you so you apply and get the job, and meet the girl who will become your best friend and help you twenty years from now when your husband gets cancer, and…

“Whoa! My husband? What’s he like? And why would you let him get cancer?”

In order to make you more Christlike and help you become more of a servant and…

“But I don’t want to be a servant. And cancer terrifies me!”

…and teach your husband to depend on me, and draw your children and grandchildren closer to you, and…

“I’ll have children and grandchildren? How many? Girls or boys? But how will they deal with their father’s cancer?”

Do you see where this is going? And it’s just one “simple” event. How could God explain his purposes without revealing to us the life he intends for us to live later, not now? And without imparting the grace that he will give us just when we need it, not in advance?

The God of providence weaves millions of details into our lives and into all the lives around us. Maybe he doesn’t have one big reason for bringing a certain person or success or failure or disease or accident into our lives; in fact, he may have hundreds of little reasons. In order to understand God’s explanations, we would have to be God.


www.facebook.com/randyalcorn
www.twitter.com/randyalcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

www.epm.org

Note from EPM: If God Is Good will be released Tuesday, September 15, and will be available for purchase online, in local bookstores, and from the Eternal Perspective Ministries website, where it can be pre-ordered now. (Check out the If God Is Good Chapter Summaries for a preview of the book's content.)

Also, on Monday, September 14 there will be a party on Facebook to celebrate the book's release. The party, which will take place in the notes section of Randy’s Facebook page from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST, will feature sneak peeks at the book, giveaways, trivia quizzes, videos, and some surprises. If you're not already following Randy on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/randyalcorn to become a fan so you'll be able to join in. See you on Facebook!