After a two-month break to end the year, I’ve just finished writing our first issue of 2023. If you’re on the mailing list, you’ll see this in your mailbox soon. If you’d like to receive a copy, always free of charge, sign up here.
As a reminder, you can always access PDF copies of past mailings whenever you want. I upload them as soon as they go out by mail.
A short note on providence
If you’re not familiar with the idea or term of providence, my short letter will not do it justice. Instead, I recommend another resource that walks you through providence in a series of 10 short 10-minute videos. I would encourage you to begin to study this concept and I think you will find it a helpful perspective shift to increase and heighten your view of God.
Looking ahead
In previous years, I’ve written and published lists of themes that I believed would characterize the Church.
I won’t be doing that this year. Instead, I want to offer a single verse for us to keep in mind. Let me show it to you from multiple angles so we may get a fuller picture of what is being said.
“Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NKJV)
We must not be those who dwell upon the past; who wish things back the way they were. Who feel our best days are behind us. Who see little else positive in this world besides a fond longing for the former days. For, if you inquire about this, you do not inquire wisely.
“Don’t long for ‘the good old days.’ This is not wise.” (NLT)
As if there were such a thing. Any student of history will tell us about the repeating cycles of mankind. One empire rises, another falls, and then it happens all over again. What one does, another undoes. We may call certain ages ‘enlightened’ but make no mistake, evil, albeit taking many forms, will always and has always permeated man’s best intentions. To long for the good old days is not wise because, in a certain sense, you long for something that never existed.
“Say not thou, ‘What is the cause that the former days were better than these?’” (KJV)
We are not even to examine the causes that have led us to the state we are in now. For it is all too possible that our conclusions lead us to misidentify the enemy, saying, “They did this to us. It was their agenda, their actions, their lawlessness.” Now we are engaged in carnal warfare, against flesh and blood, forgetting our true adversary, the Devil, and the sin which lies within the human heart, and oh how it must be eradicated. No amount of policy change can cleanse the conscience. No tracing of the roots back to so-called better days can purify the hands. Nothing can be implemented or reimplemented that has any chance of producing true and lasting righteousness. We have only one hope — the Divine intervention acted out in regeneration. Where the wind wishes to blow, it blows, no one can say, ‘oh it blows always from the former days,’ or, ‘it’s stopped blowing in our day.’ No, we can only confess we need the wind. Blow, mighty breath of God, blow! Revive Your work in our day!
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
fill me with life anew,
that I may love the way you love,
and do what you would do.Breathe on me, Breath of God,
until my heart is pure,
until my will is one with yours,
to do and to endure.Breathe on me, Breath of God,
so shall I never die,
but live with you the perfect life
for all eternity.-Breathe on me, breath of God by Edwin Hatch (1878)
“For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” (ESV, NASB)
You will be tempted to ask, “Why are the former days better?” But do not yield to the urge, for it is not from wisdom that you ask this, but from an earthly, sensual, and demonic place. It feeds the flesh, pits one man against another, leads to irritability and impatience, and gives an excuse to not do the good today that you know to do, which is sin.
Instead, “the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” James 3:17
May it be from this wisdom that we ask our questions and make our stand.
Let me end by reminding us of something I wrote in last year’s, “The Church in 2022: 13 ways she will be renewed.”
A renewal of powerful confrontation. Before men — we will confront with the beatitudes. Meekness in the face of arrogance, peace in adversity, blessing and prayer for our enemies, giving at our own expense to see the one who hates us restored, forgiveness even when we have been wronged, a kind and gentle word in response to wrath, and a shutting of our mouths to come to our own defense, preferring the pleasure of God to the favor of men.
Before God — we will wage war in the heavenlies, knowing that the weapons of this battle are not carnal, but mighty in God, as we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (2 Corinthians 10:4-6, Ephesians 6:12)
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Friends, let us not dwell upon the past, fight against the wrong enemy, or spend our days wallowing in the thoughts of the supposed good old times.
Rather, in 2023 and onward, let us be a people of patient, hopeful, confident, loving, endurance. So satisfied in God, that whether in plenty or in poverty, we can say with joyful contentment, “I have enough and exactly what I need.”
Pressing on to take hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of us. Not that we have already apprehended it; but, one thing we must do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, we press on and take hold — toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind. (Phil. 3:12-15)
That the genuineness of our faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:7)
Now to Him who is able to keep us from stumbling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)
In love,
Derek