Borrowed Light

I’ve heard that phrase quite a few times by some relatively prominent pastors. I’ve also heard it from a fair share of prosperity gospel teachers. I think they mean something different when the say that.

How You Can Never Out Give God

The Scriptures are clear that every good and perfect gift comes from above. This principle alone makes it impossible to out give God. If you give someone a good gift then it you did that because “He first gave to you”. When we understand that God owns everything then it’s not much of a jump to understand that it’s impossible to out give God because we don’t have anything to give.

Randy Alcorn once said, God is the greatest giver in the universe, and He won’t let you outgive Him.” If what people mean by this phrase is something similar to Alcorn, then I’ll just give it a thousand “amen’s” and shut my pie hole. The Father gave us Jesus. He has in Him give us every spiritual blessing. Nobody is going to top that.

How You Can Out Give God

This, however, isn’t how I most often hear that phrase. What I hear more of is something like this:

A man was motivated to give a rather substantial gift to help start a local church. He gave $100,000 as a gift to the church. The next day he was called and given a $250,000 bonus. He called the pastor back to share this testimony of God’s provision and said, ‘You cannot out give God, pastor. I’ve tried and it doesn’t work.”

Now, I’m not intending to question this story or God’s provision. Not for one second. I’ve seen things like this myself. There have been times when we’ve given sacrificially to someone else and then saw God’s provision back upon us. I’ve had times when I’ve felt absolutely empty and dry and yet opened my mouth to offer what little bit of comfort and counsel I could only to find my own soul strengthened. So, I’m not intending to question that at times God does do exactly this.

But…

Doesn’t the word sacrifice mean something?

If I give as a backdoor way to achieve a blessing that seems a bit off to me. Not only that, I’ve also known people taken in by the shysters on television who gave their last dollars into a sham ministry with the hopes that it’ll come back to them in a blessing. It didn’t. They ended up broke, discouraged, and questioning the goodness of God.

By 1885 the book sales for Charles Spurgeon totaled some 26 million dollars. And as Christian George has shown that is only a small fraction of what he would have acquired. Yet when Spurgeon died in order to make ends meet his wife had to sell the furniture, Charles’ library, and their estate. He didn’t get back what he gave.

And that’s the point that I’m attempting to make. It is possible to give to God and not get back what you gave.

That is not to say that you will not be greatly rewarded. It’s not to say that you’ll look back upon your life with one ounce of regret or feel as if God ripped you off. Those with big hearts to give and sacrifice usually reflect the heart of David Livingstone who said, “What sacrifice? I never made a sacrifice.”

So yeah, you cannot out give God. But you might give and never get it back. You’ll give years of your life that you will never get back. You might give money that you never see again. You might shed tears and endure wounds that never heal. You might even lose your own life. But you won’t regret that for one second. Because these light and momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

I suppose you can out give in the transient. But you’ll never out do him in the eternal.

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Why Avoiding Trigger Words Isn’t the Ultimate Answer To Your Angry Heart

February 23, 2018Mike Leake

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. –Matthew 5:29”

I suppose our eyes are the culprit when we are speaking of traditional pornography, and they are likely the culprit with outrage porn as well. Or perhaps it’d be more accurate to say that the heart is the real culprit. That’s not to be missed in Matthew 5:29. Jesus’ point here is not that plucking out eyes will seal your heavenly fate. His point is that we must take sin seriously. As the Puritan, John Owen, rightly said, “We must kills in before it kills us”.

So what does it mean to pluck out your eyes when it comes to outrage porn?

It might mean taking a season off of social media. You might need to unplug. As I would tell any guy struggling with traditional pornography you need to take this seriously. If unplugging from the internet helps you in your fight then you need to do it.

In studying for this series I read many articles on outrage porn. One particular piece suggested several tips for setting filters to redirect certain trigger words. Or to put in place a redirection system so that if you go to one of those outrage sites it will redirect you to something safer…something that won’t make you as angry.

Now, if that provides some help for you I don’t want to knock it…much. But I’m convinced that things like this don’t actually address the heart. This is why I’ve said previously that bouncing the eyes is incomplete advice when it comes to addressing the monster of lust.

The same thing I said then applies to outrage porn:

Real healing is found in a Person.

You and I need Jesus Christ to pour His grace upon us. We need forgiveness for the way that we’ve made shipwreck of God’s good gift. The guilt of our sin needs to be removed from us as far as the east is from the west. This is what Jesus loves to do. He loves to wash those that have engaged in the vilest of sexual acts and viewed the worst of pornography.

Only through Jesus Christ is the monster of lust decisively slain. And only through Jesus Christ do we regain our true identity. If you are in Jesus Christ, your fundamental identity isn’t as a “porn watcher”. Your fundamental identity is as one that has been washed—you are redeemed. And that is your identity no matter how many hours of porn you watch after coming to know Jesus.

Furthermore, it is through Jesus Christ that our minds are restored. It is through Him that we are able to view men and women as His creation and not as objects of our desire. If we are to win the battle with lust, He can (and must) change our view of people. This he does.

Marriage won’t fix your heart. Bouncing your eyes won’t fix your heart. Accountability groups won’t fix your heart. Only Jesus Christ. Fight porn through Him. Yes, you might need to do various things like unplugging your computer, not going to the beach, and turning your eyes on occasion. (That’s the axe work). But that is incomplete. You need Jesus to transform that which you view as objects into people.

In the same way the real rescue against outrage porn will not come by redirecting websites or training yourself to stay away. It’ll come when their no longer appealing because you’ve found your identity in Jesus. You engage in outrage porn because you are trying to find either pleasure or comfort from it. When your heart is really captivated in this area by Christ you’ll find that He is your pleasure and that He is your comfort.

So, maybe do something like gouge out the eyes of the internet for a season. Unplug. Get off social media. But don’t stop there. Use that sabbatical of staying away from the negative media to be filled up in Christ. And keep at it.

May Jesus transform our hearts so that the pull of outrage porn is no more.

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Photo source: here