Five Facts About Loving God

What is the relationship between loving God and neighbor, and how can both Jesus and Paul say that loving our neighbor fulfills the law (Matthew 7:12; Romans 13:8; Galatians 5:14)? Isn’t love for God an even higher priority?

Moses helps us answer these questions in Deuteronomy 10:16–19, where he portrays a radical love of neighbor as the key test to measure whether we are loving God with all.

With an echo of the call to love God with all, Moses opens Deuteronomy 10 by calling Israel to maintain radical God-centeredness (Deuteronomy 10:12–13). Yahweh is always to be the blazing center in his people’s solar system. He then notes that such wholehearted, life-encompassing allegiance to God was warranted from Israel because he created them and because he rescued them from Egyptian slavery (Deuteronomy 10:14–15). In light of these truths, Moses then applies the call to radical love for God into Israel’s everyday lives, and in the process, he reveals how far they were from God’s ideal. I see five significant points regarding love for God in these verses.

Moses first charges Israel to “circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (Deuteronomy 10:16). Israel was hardhearted, and hardhearted people cannot love God. Indeed, their hardness went deep, controlling the core of their very identities. As Moses said in the previous chapter, “You are a stubborn people. . . . From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD” (Deuteronomy 9:6–7). Until their hearts got fixed, love would not be evident.

The reason why hardheartedness is such a problem is because God rightfully demands all our allegiance, and any hardness toward him is an idolatry problem. “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God” (Deuteronomy 10:17). Yahweh is the only God in the pantheon of heaven (Deuteronomy 5:7; 6:4), and therefore he alone holds the right to our absolute surrender (Deuteronomy 5:8–10; 6:5). He alone is the preeminent savior, sovereign, and satisfier, and therefore misplaced affections are foolish and suicidal. God is to be the sun in our solar system, not one of the planets circling us. Idolatry separates us from love.

It is at this point in Moses’s sermon that we begin to see more clearly how intimately he tied the call to love our neighbor with the call to love God. Indeed, implied in the text is that those who have hearts of love toward God will ultimately begin to resemble God himself, who “is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:17–18).

Idolatry of the heart is seen in a failure to love as God loves. Love for God is displayed in whether we are willing to love our neighbor, even those who are most difficult to love –– to sacrifice our time, treasures, and talents for the sake of those whom God loves.

In my own life, I feel that only recently have I begun to understand what it means to love God in this radical neighbor-love way. Over the last five years, my family has journeyed the road of trans-racial, international adoption, seeing the curse of orphan status broken in the lives of three little treasures. By faith the saints of old “were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, . . . were tortured . . . suffered mocking . . . of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:34–38).

Radical neighbor-love magnifies the worth of God, regardless of the cost, and displays the type of love God himself has shown. “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant . . . even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:26, 28). “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12–13). May God help us love this way.

Having identified the hardness, idolatry, and godlessness of his hearers, Moses now urges them to love the broken –– to see their hearts surrendered wholly to Yahweh’s supremacy, manifest in care for the needy: “Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). Loving God with all is about loving others as we ourselves have been loved. Israel knew what neglect, abuse, emptiness, hunger, and poverty were like; they had experienced all these in their past. They knew what it meant to be dirty, and they knew what it meant to be redeemed. Believers today have experienced an even greater redemption through the victorious work of Christ Jesus. Sins are forgiven, and righteousness is won. And “if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

Radical neighbor-love is birthed in the soul of one who has tasted the sin-overcoming, mercy-saturating, joy-filling love of God, now manifest in the person of Christ. “We love because he first loved us” (4:19). Loving the broken is overflow from the life that has been filled with love from God. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

Many recognize how difficult it is to pour out our own resources in love for the hurting, the weak, and the marginalized. Love for the broken is messy and wearying and unattractive, apart from the amazing grace of God. In the end, this kind of radical neighbor-love is impossible without God’s help (Deuteronomy 29:4), and therefore it becomes a key test for knowing whether we are connected to the source of love.

Pornography: The New Narcotic

The new narcotic. Morgan Bennett just published an article by this title. The thesis:

Neurological research has revealed that the effect of internet pornography on the human brain is just as potent — if not more so — than addictive chemical substances such as cocaine or heroin.

To make matters worse, there are 1.9 million cocaine users, and 2 million heroin users, in the United States compared to 40 million regular users of online pornography.

Here’s why the addictive power of pornography can be worse:

Cocaine is considered a stimulant that increases dopamine levels in the brain. Dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter that most addictive substances release, as it causes a “high” and a subsequent craving for a repetition of the high, rather than a subsequent feeling of satisfaction by way of endorphins.

Heroin, on the other hand, is an opiate, which has a relaxing effect. Both drugs trigger chemical tolerance, which requires higher quantities of the drug to be used each time to achieve the same intensity of effect.

Pornography, by both arousing (the “high” effect via dopamine) and causing an orgasm (the “release” effect via opiates), is a type of polydrug that triggers both types of addictive brain chemicals in one punch, enhancing its addictive propensity.

But, Bennett says, “internet pornography does more than just spike the level of dopamine in the brain for a pleasure sensation. It literally changes the physical matter within the brain so that new neurological pathways require pornographic material in order to trigger the desired reward sensation.”

Think of the brain as a forest where trails are worn down by hikers who walk along the same path over and over again, day after day. The exposure to pornographic images creates similar neural pathways that, over time, become more and more “well-paved” as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. Those neurological pathways eventually become the trail in the brain’s forest by which sexual interactions are routed. Thus, a pornography user has “unknowingly created a neurological circuit” that makes his or her default perspective toward sexual matters ruled by the norms and expectations of pornography.

Not only do these addictive pathways cause us to filter all sexual stimulation through the pornographic filter; they awaken craving for “more novel pornographic content like more taboo sexual acts, child pornography, or sadomasochistic pornography.”

And it gets worse:

Another aspect of pornography addiction that surpasses the addictive and harmful characteristics of chemical substance abuse is its permanence. While substances can be metabolized out of the body, pornographic images cannot be metabolized out of the brain because pornographic images are stored in the brain’s memory.

“In sum,” Bennett writes, “brain research confirms the critical fact that pornography is a drug delivery system that has a distinct and powerful effect upon the human brain and nervous system.”

None of this takes God by surprise. He designed the interplay between the brain and the soul. Discoveries of physical dimensions to spiritual reality do not nullify spiritual reality.

When Jesus said, “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28), he saw with crystal clarity — the way a designer sees his invention — that the physical eye had profound effects on the spiritual “heart.”

And when the Old Testament wise man said in Proverbs 23:7, literally, “As he thinks in his soul, so is he,” he saw with similar clarity that soul acts create being. Thinking in the soul corresponds to “is.” And this “is” includes the body.

In other words, it goes both ways. Physical reality affects the heart. And the heart affects physical reality (the brain). Therefore, this horrific news from brain research about the enslaving power of pornography is not the last word. God has the last word. The Holy Spirit has the greatest power. We are not mere victims of our eyes and our brains. I know this both from Scripture and from experience. And I will write more about it next Tuesday.

Jesus Saves

The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10)

Christianity is summed up in these words: Jesus came to seek and save the lost. If we were asked to describe in a sentence the heart of the gospel, there it is.

There is no other news like this. Every other religion says it backwards. Every other religion tells us to seek. We are advised to climb trees like Zacchaeus, to depend upon our own exertion for any hope of ascending to the divine. We are told to bridge the gulf by our effort. If you want salvation, they say, then seek it.

In a sense, that is the world — we live in a planet full of seekers. We are, in one way or another, tree-climbers, maneuvering ourselves to gain some advantage, to achieve some perspective, to find personal peace. And then Jesus comes.

We are lost in our own seeking until Jesus comes and says to us, “Hurry and come down” (Luke 19:5). Stop your searching. Stop trying to save yourself. I have come to seek and save the lost.

Our exertion is then silenced. All our seeking — our trying to reach the divine on our own — is silenced when we learn that the divine has reached down to us . . . by becoming one of us. Here we are, spinning our wheels in hopes of getting God, and then God, despite our belittling works, comes to get us. That gulf we couldn’t bridge is the burden he takes upon himself.

We were lost, sinners who rightly deserve God’s judgment. And Jesus came to take the judgment for us. He suffered in our place on the cross, was dead and buried, and then on the third day was raised to life. He ascended to the Father’s right hand from where he reigns over all. Jesus sought us, and he has saved us, if we trust him. Do you believe this? Do you feel the wonder of this salvation?

Jesus, you are the one who saves, not us. Thank you for rest, for hushing the furious winds of our faithless works. Thank you for stopping the strivings of our souls. Overcome us more and more with the glory of your grace, and make our posture toward others echo this summary of your gospel: “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

It’s Time to Celebrate

“He heard music and dancing.”

This line introduces the first main action of the “older brother” in Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son. The rest of the story culminates with what he doesn’t do.

On his way home from the field, the older brother heard the commotion. “Music and dancing,” we’re told. And we’d expect, if there’s music and dancing, there’s laughter and cheers. This is a party. The father had ordered a celebration: “Let us eat and celebrate” (Luke 15:23). Which is what happened: “And they began to celebrate” (Luke 15:24).

It doesn’t take us readers long to see that this is a big deal. The word for “celebration” is used four times in this parable, and it means merriment! It was the kind of rejoicing that if found in other contexts for different motives it would be wrong, which is the case when this word is used two other times in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 12:19; 16:19).

But the older brother wants no part in this party. He got mad when he found out the news behind this noise. Literally, “he did not desire to enter” (Luke 15:28). He refused to join the joy. So his father came out to him and entreated him. The father pleaded, implored, urged his eldest son to share in his pleasure. But the eldest son still refused. He complained, twisting what the father had graciously done for his brother to be about what he had not done for him. He recoiled at the display of mercy and no doubt exposed several signs of corruption deep inside. But his father’s response simply called out the obvious . . .

The older brother’s problem was that he was not glad when he should have been.

“It was fitting,” the father says, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32).

In the full picture of Luke’s Gospel this parable stands as an indictment against the unbelieving Jewish leaders. Jesus had launched a new day in redemptive history. The unfolding drama of God’s salvation was extending beyond the borders of ethnic Israel — even to “the highways and hedges” (Luke 14:23). The wayward sons and daughters from afar were being gathered. This was a promised day, a long-awaited day in the history of Israel and the world. This was the day of salvation — a day to celebrate which continues to the present (2 Corinthians 6:2). But the Jewish leaders in the midst of this day were not glad, and they were wrong. And if we are not glad now, the same goes for us.

God commands us to be joyful: “Delight yourself in the L???” (Psalm 37:4); Rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4). The basis of this joy is God himself. He displays his manifold perfections and satisfies our deepest desire. “Come, everyone who thirsts!” he tells us (Isaiah 55:1). This alone is enough to necessitate our joy.

Now add to this the mighty works of God occurring at this particular epoch of human history. The Holy Spirit is on the move. The gospel is advancing to all nations. Jesus is building his church. It is fitting that we celebrate and be glad. And therefore, in a real sense, to the degree that we refuse to celebrate and be glad, we show ourselves to be out of touch with God’s triumph in this world. And if we are indifferent, if we prefer to huff and puff, we must be as clueless as the Pharisees.

To be clear, there is nothing shallow about this joy. The event that inspires this pleasure goes deeper than the superficial successes that tend to snag us. The point is not to celebrate and be glad because a reality TV show about Christians is topping the charts. Rather, this joy is a kind not of this world. It’s more like: our brothers and sisters in the Middle East are being killed, our buildings are being burned, our children are threatened, our witness marginalized, but the gates of hell will not prevail. Sinners are being saved.

The good news of Jesus, simultaneous to our sufferings, and often through them, is penetrating the darkest darkness all over this world. There is no depth his love cannot reach and no power that can stay his hand. Jesus is building his church. Whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, this is cause to rejoice.

The time is right. It is fitting to celebrate and be glad.

What to Neglect to Have a Rich Life

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)

This verse from Colossians is so full of nourishment that there is no way to put the whole thing in our mouths at one time. It’s going to take a few blog bites to chew on it.

Today, all I want to do is chew on the first word: “let.” Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Another way to say it is, don’t stop the word of Christ from filling you to satisfaction. Or stop stopping it.

Here’s the thing: we are frequently impoverished spiritually by our own not letting ourselves be rich. On our shelves or bed stands or in our tablets or computers is a bank vault of “true riches” (Luke 16:11). But the pawnshop trinkets of worldly words are deceptively attractive. We can even be on our way to spend our time (the currency of life) on the riches in the vault and end up spending it in the pawnshops along the way.

What Paul wants us to do is neglect things that make us poor and not neglect things that make us truly rich.

If the word of the Wall Street Journal or World Magazine or Wired Magazine or David Brooks or David Letterman or David McCullough, or John Mayer or John Steinbeck or John Paul II or John Calvin or Richard Dawkins or Richard Branson or Richard Baxter or Bono or Bach or blogs (even this one) dwells in you more richly than the word of Christ, you’re poor. You might be impressive at a dinner party or around a conference table or at small group. But you’re poor. You’re storing up dust.

You don’t need to be in the know.

You don’t need to be admired among the literati or respected in the guild. You don’t need an impressive net worth. You don’t need to be well traveled or well read. You don’t need to be conversant in Portlandia or know how many Twitter followers Taylor Swift has. You don’t need to be politically articulate, or up on the mommy blogs or the young, restless and reformed buzz. You don’t need to see the movie. You don’t need to read the novel. You don’t need to look hip.

But what you desperately need, more than anything else in the world, is the word of Christ dwelling in you richly.

No one speaks like Jesus Christ (John 7:46). He is the Word of God and the Word that is God (John 1:1) He is the Word of Life (1 John 1:1) and when he speaks, his word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and he shows you the path of life (Psalm 16:11) and his words give you hope and joy and peace (Romans 15:13).

Jesus is the one human being in all of history who speaks the very words of eternal life (John 6:68) and when you listen and believe his word, it becomes your life (Deuteronomy 32:47), your food (John 6:51), your drink (John 4:14) and your light (Psalm 119:105).

Only Jesus has the words of life. Only him. That’s why the Father pleads with us, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7).

Everyone else’s words are dust in the winds of time and to chase them is to chase the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). The precious few helpful, enlightening, even mortal life-preserving words are only of superficial help to us and in the end will blow away.

The only exceptions are those that help us (and others) listen to the word of Christ.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Don’t neglect it. Listen to his word. Soak in his word. Memorize his word. Eat and chew it slowly. Don’t stop it from benefitting you.

Neglect the TV, blogs, social networks, video games, theaters, magazines, books, hobbies, chores, and pursuits that keep you from the Vault. Neglect the impoverishing pawnshop trinkets of words that will turn to dust in a day, a week, or a few years.

When it comes to life, time really is money. Time is how you spend your life. Don’t waste it. Spend your best time buying “true riches.”

 

Four Keys to Satisfying Your Starving Soul

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. –2 Peter 1:3–4

If we’re honest, we’re all hungry. We’re starving for something to sustain us, to preserve our hope, to strengthen us through trials, to help us conquer sin. We’re starving for food that will fill us for the everyday fight of faith.

But what does the fight look like? And how do we find the food we need?

Our aim is to be with God and like God, to “become partakers of the divine nature” (1:4). Peter wants us to enjoy greater and greater fellowship and intimacy with God by becoming like him, by growing in godliness. We enjoy more life by being more like God, who is Life.

If we’re not careful, we easily slip into other aims that will rob us of life, aims that promise much and ultimately deliver very little — selfish gain, lustful thoughts, godless obsessions, excessive consumption, restless laziness. These aims may be easy and temporarily pleasing, but they only leave us hungrier. What our souls need is God.

If you’re believing in Jesus, forgiven and rescued from your sin, you are and will be still imperfect and broken. Our new aim in this new life is not perfection, as if that could earn us a place in heaven. Our aim is to live lives that are more and more pleasing to the Lord we love, and, by doing so, to experience more and more life and joy in him.

So if that’s our aim, what’s in our way? In order to be like God, we must escape “the corruption of sinful desire” (1:4). Our greatest obstacle to enjoying more of God is our own corrupt desires. They’re striving to starve our hungry souls and leave us begging for scraps along the highway of eternity. God knows better, and he offers us better.

The reality is I will suffer in this life, people will sin against me, and the devil lies in secret plotting to steal my hope and faith. But my greatest adversary is not suffering, sinners, or Satan. It’s me –– the lingering sin yet in my heart.

If we want to know God, be like him, be with him, we must be continually rescued from our sin in this life. For lovers of Jesus, this war has already been decided, and we’re now working out our victory every day until Jesus returns and ends the war once for all.

Jesus did the decisive work once for all on the cross, but we have a role to play. We have real choices to make. We must take steps to confront this enemy within us and be killing him.

The death of my sin sounds really sweet, until of course I try to kill it. Our greatest adversary, sin, is also our greatest handicap. It’s perfectly positioned to undermine the great aim of our new life. Praise God he doesn’t stake the battle on our ability. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…”

The way to enjoy more of God is to live like him. And the power to live like him is not yours, but his. We find sure help in God’s hands, in his power — the power that formed mountains, that dug rivers, that lights stars, and breathes life into bears, sharks, and bald eagles; the power that establishes the universe, governs the nations, and judges all people. When you live by that power, you lack nothing on the road to godliness.

God “has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature” (1:4). The ammunition for our daily battles are God’s promises — specific, blood-bought promises. This is the feast. When your hungry soul groans, this is what it wants. These promises are specific. You can find them, understand them, memorize them, and share them.

When we’re physically hungry, we don’t just talk about what food is. We find real food — a turkey sandwich on wheat, a Wendy’s cheeseburger with chili, a grilled chicken salad, some trail mix, or a Cliff bar. The idea of food does nothing for our hunger if we don’t identity something specific and edible and put it in our mouth.

The same applies to God’s promises. We don’t win battles over sin, suffering, and Satan by just acknowledging we need promises. No! What are they? How do they keep me from sinning or despairing or doubting? If promises are going to fulfill their God-given purpose, we have to know them, rehearse them, and voice them to one another. Promises like these:

We all are being transformed into the image [of Christ]. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. (Revelation 21:4)

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

At least as often as your stomach gets hungry, your heart and soul get hungry. Look for God’s promises when you read the Bible, specific promises, and feed your hungry soul. Eat them. Eat them every day and throughout the day. Eat full meals. Eat snacks. Eat planned meals. Eat spontaneously.

And as you do, you will become more like God. And as you become more like him, you will experience more of the abundant life he has given you and less of the sin from which he has rescued you.

When Jesus Haunts Your Halloween

Unclean spirits stir. Demonic thrones and dominions gather. Cosmic powers over this present darkness come to attention. And the devil himself, ready to devour and destroy, ignites his fiery darts and stretches his legs for the lion’s prowl.

As All Hallows’ Eve draws nigh, the spiritual forces of evil align, and Satan prepares his hordes for the party of the year — the grand harvest festival, celebration of darkness and death, when they pretend to be their strongest.

Halloween is almost here. But so is their final defeat. Jesus haunts their Halloween.

As the demonic rulers and authorities make ready, the one who sits in the heavens laughs (Psalm 2:4). To him, the devil is no threat, with all his orcs and goblins and the wickedest of witches. This is no evenly matched bout. If the incarnate Christ, in his humblest state, commands unclean spirits and they obey him (Mark 1:27) — how much more the risen and glorified Lord? Jesus does the real haunting.

Even as his adversaries marshal their best, they can’t escape serving his purposes. It is all through him and for him. “By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). Jesus haunts their Halloween.

No demon lurks apart from his will. No spirit pounces apart from his plan. He is sovereign over even the movements of evil minds. “God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled” (Revelation 17:17).

Luther nailed it — one little word shall fell them. Jesus haunts their Halloween.

It is precisely when the devil feigns to be his fiercest that Jesus delivers the deathblow. It was a Halloween-like gathering of ghouls and goblins at Golgotha when “he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15).

Jesus came to conquer fear, to haunt whatever haunts. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). He stooped to share in our flesh and blood “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14–15).

Those who are in Christ have no need to fear the night. This is now our day. He has won it for us, and will not leave us to fend for ourselves in the devil’s domain. God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). This we know: “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

“Take heart; I have overcome the world,” he says (John 16:33). Every inch of this universe — every single one — is his. And that includes All Hallows’ Eve and all its worst. He is the one who empowers us to “withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13). And he says that just as he squashed the Serpent’s skull with his heel, so “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20). Our feet. Get your boots.

Jesus haunts their Halloween. And so too he must haunt ours.

When Jesus haunts our Halloween, we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14) and “put on the new self” (Colossians 3:10). Dressed in the full armor of God, we “stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11) on the exact night when he’d most want us to circle the wagons. We have a Book and will “not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs” (2 Corinthians 2:11). We take up the shield of faith “with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16).

When Jesus haunts our Halloween, we pour in the extra energy and creativity to capitalize on this opportunity to meet new neighbors and go deep with the old — whether we’re ushering our kids from house to house or leaving our lights on and giving out the best candy.

When Jesus haunts our Halloween, we remember that our enemy is not the scariest-clad Halloween reveler, but “the god of this world” who has blinded their minds and keeps them “from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). We war not against unbelievers but “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

When Jesus haunts our Halloween, we look on the cheekiest carousers with compassion — as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). On this night, as much as any, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” and so we “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37–38). And we walk in faith to be those workers.

And when Jesus haunts our Halloween, we fight not only Satan, but fear in our souls. We see that our Halloween horrors reveal our lack of faith in who Jesus is, what he has accomplished, and that he has commissioned us.

When Jesus haunts our Halloween, we do not flee, but go on the offensive. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). We don’t retreat, but resist — with level heads and open eyes. “Be soberminded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9). We engage, with care and with courage.

When Jesus haunts our Halloween, we remember that the forces of evil, which we can be so prone to fear, are actually terrified of Jesus. Everyday is a spook for the devil and his demons, and Jesus does the haunting. The decisive blow has been dealt, and soon we will land the final punch.

Jesus has promised his gospel will advance (Matthew 24:14). He will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail (Matthew 16:18). And so when Jesus haunts our Halloween, we join the triumphant anthem:

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55–57)