I love The Gospel Coalition, and here’s why:

“The Gospel Coalition is a group of (mostly) pastors who are deeply committed to the gospel…and want to think out of the framework of the good news of Christ—crucified, risen on our behalf, reconciling us to God, preparing us for eternity.” DA Carson

“We’ve got our eyes fixed on the fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to be central—it needs to drive everything that we do in ministry and in life.” Joshua Harris

“The gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed.” TGC Confessional Statement

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So a second take on Chelsea King.   

I have been thinking about my prayers and the prayers of the thousands, most of which I assume would appear now to have gone for not.  Chelsea wasn't saved.  She isn't alive.  And most people are left with a feeling of, excuse the passion, "What the Hell is wrong with this world?"

It made me re-think something I wrote two years ago, when a similar thing happened, only that time it was cancer that did the killing.

Prayer changes everything and nothing - all at the same time.
I recently saw the familiar bumper sticker, “Prayer Changes Everything” and of course began to ponder if that is really true. In my opinion, often times prayer changes nothing at all because we are hoping, expecting, and searching for it to change something it was never designed to change – external circumstances. Can God change our circumstances? Sure. Does God change circumstances? Maybe. Is God’s focus on circumstances? Never.

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But even if He doesn’t…

Faith, trust, belief, reliance, hope. I have faith that God will. I trust that God will. I believe God is going to. As Christians today we are smitten with the thought that God will grant our prayers, fix our problems, heal our sickness, deliver us from struggle, and rescue us from tribulation. We claim it. We focus on it. We sing about it. We preach about it. We rely on it.

Perhaps He will and Perhaps He won’t. 

I live in San Diego and if you live here, you can't help but be impacted by the muder of Chelsea King. When she went missing, thousands began to pray for her return.  Thousands turned out to search for her.  Thousands now morn her savage murder.  Over the past week, probably because I am a lawyer that represents death row inmates, people have wanted to talk to me about the case.  Frequently the issue of God's role in all of this comes up and people will talk about it shaking their faith.

We may love the monkeys at the circus, but the dancing bear is what everyone wants to see. Admit it, a beast doing things it should not be capable of is enthralling. When I let worry run the show, everything else becomes a side act. Worry becomes the dancing bear.

Worry controls us, confines us, and consumes us. It can stop us in our tracks. Worry is not a friend. It is an enemy of free thinkers and entrepreneurs. It can even take down those gifted by God. It can destroy anyone who wishes to live freely. From the very beginning of the church we see worry putting a stop to God’s work.

Why does Peter deny Jesus? Worry and (no doubt) fear. Like the trainer—who is likely scared out of his mind when trying to keep the dancing bear at bay—fear is a bi-product.

Picture yourself naked.  In public.  What do you feel?  Exposed?  Self-conscious?  Ashamed?

Adam and Eve knew what it was like to feel this way.  They also knew what it was like to feel something else entirely.  Or perhaps what they also knew shouldn’t be described as a feeling at all.  Perhaps they simply had a lack of awareness of the fact that something was wrong with them, because nothing was wrong with them at first.

They lived in the garden and walked among the trees and made their home there, all while being naked.  Moses tells us:  “The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25).  But then something changed.  They were tempted, they sinned, they knew they were naked, and they hid.  All of a sudden, the freedom they had in relationship with God and one another was consumed by an overwhelming awareness of self.  And what they knew about themselves caused them to hide.

The servant in Isaiah 52 and 53 is one of the most intriguing figures in the prophetic Scriptures. The questions about this passage are many, the interpretations are diverse, and the answers always seem to be different.

Some have looked to Isaiah 52 and 53 in search of Jesus, others to reclaim Israel’s role in the world, and some to find a historical explanation for this prophetic text that seems to have no precedence.

Here's my translation of part of Isaiah 53:10–11:

If she places his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring, he will prolong days ... From the trouble of his life, he will see light. He will be satisfied. In his knowledge, my righteous servant shall make many righteous and he will bear their iniquities.

It’s easy to lose sight of an Infinite God. When God is everywhere, how can you find Him? If He already knows where you have been, what is there to tell Him?

In the midst of great tragedy, like the Haiti earthquake, it is easy to feel like God has abandoned us. It is easy to say, “Any prayer to God would be a waste of time.”

Our conversations with God can get lame— fast. “That thing you already know about, but have chosen not to fix, can you please fix it?” Lame, boring—I am not interested in that dialogue.

But what if our dialogue with God could be more? What if it meant more?

In the Psalms there is record after record of people screaming at God. That’s right, I said screaming. It’s in the Bible. And here’s the kicker, it’s not called “wrong.” Instead, it’s embraced and enforced—yelling at God was part of being an ancient Israelite.

Is it possible to talk too much about the cross?

I ask this question only because some preachers and writers and teachers seem to talk about the cross a lot.  Some do so almost continually.  We can understand why they might carry on in this way because we know the primacy and weight of Calvary.  But there are still times this thought crosses many of our minds:  “Great, so I understand the cross is important.  But can’t we move on to the next topic?”

We say this sort of thing when we feel our faith is about more than Jesus.  And in one sense, we can say this is true.  Our faith is about God’s glory, and our joy, and loving others, and meeting the needs of the oppressed, and being made holy, and sojourning through life, and laying up treasures in heaven, and all sorts of other things.

Over the past year or so, we have been discussing what it means to see the Infinite God in Everything. We have hung out with William Blake, Moses, Thoreau, Jason Mraz, Isaiah, and Paul -- just to name a few perceptive people. In the words of Larry from Veggie Tales, these guys, "Made me laugh, made me cry -- [they] moved me Bob."

But where are we going? This question reveals the most interesting thing about theology I have discovered in the last four years of my life: "We don't know where we are going." Scared yet?

If you have rarely thought about theology, you should be scared. If you think about theology all the time, you should be scared. We should all be. Because ultimately what we believe about God determines the way we act here and now.

The state of my union is not that good. I don’t think you’re supposed to say that sort of thing, but it’s true, so I guess it’s worth saying.

I’m not talking about our country, which remains strong despite its many issues.  And I’m not talking about my marriage, which is still my greatest earthly delight.  The union I’m talking about is the union that matters most:  my union with Christ.

The struggle I face today is the cavern that exists between what I know and what I live.  I say that Jesus is the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings, and I believe this deeply.  But I’m not living in the embrace of this reality today.  There are just far too many concerns on my heart.  I tell myself this is simply a busy season of life, and this will all soon pass, and I’ll be able to reconnect with God once more before long.