As I had this on my mind I stopped by one of my favorite blogs, Pyromaniacs, and found a great post by Frank Turk about the priority of preaching Christ.  His argument is that Jesus Christ and the gospel are the solution to culture.  That Jesus Christ is the solution to our problems.  Marital difficulties?  Christ is the answer.  Money problems?  Christ is the answer.  Spoiled kids?  Christ is the answer.  Not self-help guides.  Not 5-step processes to be a better person.  Not man’s wisdom.  Christ and Him crucified.

That may sound a bit oversimplified and you also may be wondering what in the world that has anything to do with material vs. spiritual blessings.  Here’s where they start to come together.  Since we are in Christ, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places.  I think a lot of our problems stem from a misunderstanding of this important gospel truth.

See, we’re looking to God to supply more, special blessings, like our visiting tithe proponent talked about in his posts on tithing.  We expect God to operate simply on the physical plane.  When God promises healing, we expect it to be physical healing.  When God promises blessings, we expect material blessings.  We expect a back-scratching type of relationship with God.  I scratch God’s back with my tithe, and He’ll scratch my back with “special, material blessings”.

Let me illustrate this.  As I was reading Frank Turk’s post about Christ being the answer, my mind, of course, ran to Third Day’s excellent song, Cry to Jesus (please follow the link to listen to it;  they’ve disabled embedding, so I can’t place it here directly, but it is well worth listening to).  I looked up the video on YouTube and enjoyed a few moments of focusing on Christ as the answer to my problems.  Then I scrolled down to the comment area.  Wow.  Let’s be honest.  Anyone who’s ever been on YouTube knows that the comments section is not the place for enlightened, honest, intellectual discussion.  And this was no exception.  But what several people said was very enlightening.

Mac Powell sings this as the chorus,

“There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He’ll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus”

And the problem people run into is that when he says “hope for the helpless” they assume he means physical hope.  When he says “mercy and healing” they assume he means physical healing.  And so when they cry out to Jesus, they are assuming physical categories.  They cry out to Jesus for their mom to be healed of cancer and if she’s not, then they assume the whole things was false.  They cry out to Jesus because of their poverty and expect God to provide a new job, or higher salary.

But that ignores the fact that God has already provided us every spiritual blessing.  We just need to live in the reality of that fact and put our focus in Christ for healing, spiritual healing that is.  Christ is the answer to all our problems.  And He has provided me with every spiritual blessing.  So if I am trying to gain more favor from God by giving my tithe, I’ve missed out on the point of giving.  And I’ve missed out on the fact that even if God leaves me in poverty, that is a spiritual blessing in my life.  That if God leaves me in poor health, that is a spiritual blessing.  That everything that happens in my life has been ordained by Him for my good and His glory.  So talking about extra, special, material blessings that you can unlock by giving a tithe is just nonsensical.

But a materialistic view of God is not only poor interpretation of Scripture, that view creates atheists.  They come to God looking for God to solve their material problems and when he doesn’t do it the way they expect, they assume that the problem is with God.  And when they reject God and still see material wealth or physical health, they think that invalidates God.  Over and over on the YouTube combox.  But the problem is not with God.  The problem is with a faulty view of God.  So focus on Christ when you run into problems and understand that Christ is not necessarily going to fix your problem, rather focusing on Him is the solution to your problem.

ESV Study Bible – This recently came out and has been getting great reviews.  I have really enjoyed the ESV translation and prefer it over the others I’ve used.  The study Bible has tons of useful articles and commentary.  I had read it had a lot of information, but I was still surprised by the amount and quality of the information it contained.  For me, one of the things I appreciate most is the online access.  Purchasing the Study Bible give you access to all of the content online.  Having access to that from anywhere has proven invaluable since the Bible itself is difficult to carry around because of its size.  Its written from a Reformed perspective which is especially obvious in passages and articles dealing with salvation.  All in all, this is the best study Bible I own or have seen.

Guitar Praise – So a while back I was at my sister’s house and somebody had Guitar Hero (or maybe it was Rock Band, I forget) for PS2.  I tried it out and thought it was a lot of fun, but I didn’t care for the music.  I told my wife that if they ever made one with some of my favorite Christian music, I’d buy it.  Well, Digital Praise came out with the PC game, Guitar Praise.  The game works basically the same.  Its not quite the same quality of the other guitar games out there, but the idea is the same.  You have five frets and the strum bar.  You can set the level of play based on your experience.  To start with, you have five songs to choose from and once you complete three of them, you unlock the next five.  The song selection is decent.  A few of them, I’m not sure why they’re included as they aren’t really heavy on guitars.  I’d like to see some bands that weren’t included added later on through expansion packs.  I’m voting for a Third Day expansion pack.  I’d love to play along to songs like Consuming Fire, Tunnel, Rock Star, Agnus Dei, etc.  I’d also like to see some Casting Crowns, Switchfoot (just to play Stars), The Afters, and some others that weren’t included.  All in all, its a fun game and I can easily get addicted.  I’d recommend your computer exceed the minimum system requirements, as I’ve had a few problems playing on my laptop.  I’d also like to get a second guitar to try the two person play with one on lead and one on bass.

Third Day Chronologies – This CD/DVD set comes in two volumes.  Its basically a greatest hits collection for Third Day.  I already owned a lot of the songs, but its revived my interest in many of them as well as introduced me to some that I hadn’t heard before.  Some of the live tracks are great, like “Blessed Assurance”.  I enjoyed the sound of “She Sings in Riddles” (off a rare EP).  I haven’t yet watched the DVD content but I’m looking forward to it.  I saw them in concert a few months ago and thoroughly enjoyed the Bible-saturated, God-centered approach. 

“Over and Underneath” by Tenth Avenue North – A student of mine introduced me to this band and they’ve quickly become one of my new favorites.  Tracks like “Love is Here”, “By Your Side”, and “Hold My Heart” were already familiar, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed new songs like “You Are”, “Beloved”, “Hallelujah”, “Let it Go”.  I could probably list the whole album.  I rarely find an album where I like pretty much every song, but this is one of them.  There are a few bands that are automatic buys for me when they come out with a new album and Tenth Avenue North is now one of them.