About Me...

While the thoughts expressed here are mine, the very idea of a post entitled “About Me,” seems somewhat inappropriate.  After all, the thoughts I seek to express are about God.  Still, there remains some value, I would imagine, in knowing something about the one whose thoughts you are reading and considering.  So, I would offer the following “about me.”

I am, first and foremost, a man who stands amazed at the matchless mercy and grace of a perfectly Holy God Who sovereignly transforms hearts of stone, into hearts of flesh, building a spiritual house, by His Grace and for His Glory, one living stone at a time (1 Peter 2:4-5).  Even more amazing is the thought that He chose to include me as one of the living stones in that spiritual house.

As you have, no doubt, already noticed, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a writer.  I have no college degree, and no formal theological education.  I simply offer here some of the thoughts and insights I have been graced to glean from His Word, as I seek to find and follow His way on this pilgrim journey.

From the time, more than 30 years ago now, that the Lord chose to reveal Himself to me through His Word, Sacred Scripture, I have had an insatiable appetite for reading and studying the Bible, and for reading and studying the works of those saints He has gifted and used to teach His people through the centuries.  It has been said by some that I like to read the writings of “old, dead guys.”  I must admit, that’s true.  Of particular note, Augustine, Calvin, Turretin, Edwards, and Owen, to name just a few.  However, the death of the author is not a necessary prerequisite I feel somehow compelled to confirm before reading someone’s work.  I also value highly the writings of living authors such as R.C. Sproul, D.A. Carson, Sinclair Ferguson, Tim Keller and John Piper, as well as many others whose commentaries, essays and other writings I continue to look to, and benefit from.

Beyond His gracious and indescribable gift of forgiveness of sin and life in Him, provided at such a great cost, He has also provided me with the privilege of serving Him through preaching and teaching, both at our home church, and at a variety of other churches.

But, enough “about me.”

By His Grace, and for His Glory,

Victor

"...God is invisible, and I am blind..."

The gift of sight is something I continue to appreciate, more and more, especially as I get older, and my vision is no longer what it once was.  To be able to see and marvel at the wonder of creation, to be able to see and enjoy the beauty of a smile on my wife’s face, to be able to see and appreciate art, in its many forms, to be able to see and read words on a page, thoughts and insights that I might learn and grow...this is a precious gift from God.  But, beyond the beauty of creation, beyond the beauty of my wife’s smiling face, beyond the beauty of art, beyond the beauty of words on a page, there is one “vision” that has captured the desire of the souls of men throughout the ages...the “Beatific Vision,” the desire to “see” God.

Sacred Scripture records the expressed desires of  men like Moses, David, and even the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, all yearning to “see” God.  However, Scripture also identifies two daunting problems we are faced with in seeking to satisfy our desire to see Him.

First, God is Spirit, He is invisible.  As a result, if I am to “see” Him, He must reveal Himself to me in a manner suited to my finite, creaturely, sensory capacities.  Second, I am blind.  A problem of my own making...the direct result of my sin, and a problem I am incapable of resolving.  Therefore, if I am to “see” Him, He must heal me...He must give me “eyes to see.”

Thankfully, Scripture does not leave us without hope.  Rather, Scripture reveals that the solution to both of those problems, the fulfillment and complete satisfaction of our desire, has been provided by God in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, He, (Jesus), is the image of the invisible God...He is the radiance, the out-shining of the Glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature.  In Him, all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell.  Second, in Him, and in Him alone, God has provided for, and accomplished the healing of regeneration, giving me eyes to see, as well as ears to hear.

In the Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him alone, we see accurately who God is...we see accurately who we are...and, we see accurately who we are created, called to be.

"I know worship in heaven will be rockin' and rollin'...."

I find it interesting that we are prone make such definitive statements about subjects which, in the first place, we have no first-hand knowledge of, and in the second place, we simply cannot substantiate from the revelation we find in Sacred Scripture.  That said, this tendency is common to most of us.  So, as a good, and wise friend of mine often reminds me, when I have one finger pointed out, there are three fingers pointed back at me.

Have you ever heard someone make a statement like... “I know worship in heaven will be rockin’ and rollin’.” When questioned as to the basis for such a statement, the individual might initially intimate that their idea was based on their reading of Scripture...perhaps the book of The Revelation.  When pressed a bit further, however, they might realize that they would have to admit, it was just the way they felt.

Of course, the initial statement could just as easily have been... “I know worship in heaven will be filled with the great hymns of the Church, sung by a choir of saints to the music of the greatest pipe organ, in the most magnificent cathedral.”  I think you get the idea. 

I doubt that there is a true believer anywhere who has not thought at all about what worship in heaven will be like.  What we fail to realize, I fear, is that our expectations regarding what worship will be like in heaven are necessarily born out of what moves us...what satisfies us...what overwhelms us...what fills us...now.  Too often then, we seek, or at the very least are drawn to, those statements in Scripture which might tend to “prove” our point.  Such a process is both flawed and dangerous.  It is eisegesis, reading our thoughts into Scripture, rather than exegesis, reading God’s truths out of Scripture.  In our current state, we must remember, we are still struggling with sin, and our responses in worship are in no way immune to being influenced by that struggle.

It will not surprise me at all to learn that worship actions and styles in His presence are nothing like the actions and styles we know now.  Rather, the sense of satisfaction of soul...the sense of fullness, of completion, of reverence, of joy, of ecstatic pleasure and adoration that overwhelms us and moves us will likely be beyond our current ability to measure or comprehend or appreciate.

Because our current actions and efforts are so limited, influenced and impacted by our sin, as well as by our inability to fully comprehend Him, I doubt that either traditional or contemporary music styles will be recognizable...I doubt that either western European or African or Latin or oriental or third-world practices will be identifiable.

Rather, our responses to the fulness of His self-revelation will likely be characterized by an awe, a wonder, a purity, an honesty, an appropriateness, that's simply not possible in our current state.  And, the blessed sense of satiation, satisfaction, ecstasy and completion we experience, resulting from the final, yet everlasting, perfect union in Him will be our joy and delight, completely independent of any "means.”  Immediate...

We can, and should, be ever striving to properly engage in the worship of Our Lord in a manner that pleases and glorifies Him, and Him alone.  That striving will, of necessity, include an effort to understand from Sacred Scripture what worship was like before the fall, and what worship might look like when we are finally with Him for eternity.

We can not, and should not, however, yield to the temptation to mistakenly equate what moves us now, with what worship in heaven will be like.