Master Mind - Chapter Excerpts
Chapter 1 “Don’t make me prove I exist.”
“The revelation of God to man does not begin with a litany of arguments, hopefully trying to prove his existence to a human jury. No. It begins with a simple assumption that he is, and that he is the supreme Creator. God does not scramble around to pull together a case to make his presence among us believable; he just starts talking about what he has been up to lately. There is a confidence there, not in the human sense, but still a confidence indeed.”
Chapter 2 “Fear me, or fear everything else.”
“So what is God thinking when he asks us to fear him first? What does it mean to fear God as opposed to fearing…stuff? Is this just referring to respect and reverence for him, or should we actually be scared of God? Maybe.”
Chapter 3 “It’s going to take a little effort on your part to find me.”
“It’s no wonder we have warped thinking regarding finding God in the midst of our chaotic twenty-first century lives. We are not the same people we were even twenty years ago. Networking instantly with each other all over the globe is now the norm. We have become so cyber-inundated that we are tempted to think connecting with God should be as easy as clicking on a link that immediately takes us to his website. Bingo! We’re there, with access to everything godly.”
Chapter 4 “I’m good with broken stuff.”
“In the realm of humanity, broken often implies the end of the story; these days, we do not give much thought to repairing many of our electronic gadgets when they break. In the mind of God, however, broken takes on a whole new meaning. When it comes to a human approaching God in hopes of something spectacular happening, broken is not the end of the story—it’s the beginning; in fact, it’s the only beginning that God is interested in, the only beginning that works.”
Chapter 5 “Forgiveness is my favorite part.”
“Yes, there are pleasantly powerful by-products of forgiveness that can be experienced by the one who chooses to act merciful, but that should not be the main motivation for us to absolve someone of their sin against us. God does not forgive because it makes him feel better. God forgives because he is good, and forgiveness is the good thing to do. As we begin to think more like God, we will forgive, not because it will make us feel good, but primarily because it is the good thing to do, yea, the only thing to do.”
Chapter 6 “I’m really quite interested in radicals.”
“He is not a spectacular human; he is God and he is holy. He is pure and perfect far beyond all mortal comprehension, the exact opposite of all that is worldly. Accordingly, to think like God involves ideas and behaviors that are contrary to the ebb and flow of normal human activity. Put simply, following God involves being a radical, a rebel against worldliness. One biblical writer likened it to being an alien on someone else’s planet.”
Chapter 7 “Here’s what I mean by faith.”
“Are we confused when good Christian people are cut down in their prime? Of course. It is not how we humans think it should be done. John the Baptist was confused when he was being cut down in his prime. A young man around 30, cousin and boyhood friend of Jesus, he baptized the Messiah and proclaimed him to the world. He was at the peak of his ministry when he was thrown in jail, and then eventually beheaded on the whim of an evil queen.”
Chapter 8 “Sooner or later human pride will be humiliated.”
“Why are we so enamored with successful people? What is it about billionaires, professional sports stars, rock idols, movie celebrities, and political luminaries that make us stop and ogle? Why do we want to glance at the tabloids as we go through the grocery line? ... It is unfortunate that we expend so much energy tracking and adoring human greatness because the game is so worldly. Far too much human greatness is accompanied by human pride, and human pride has but one verdict: annihilation. Every arrogant sports star may have his spotlight and every supercilious diva her day, but sooner or later, human pride will be humiliated.
Chapter 9 “Sin is sneakier than you think but it can be mastered.”
“We will always be dumber than our sin. If we think we can win a head game against that rascal, we are sorely mistaken. In our natural state, sin is our master. We are its slave. We cannot not sin. And the more we sin, the dumber we get. We start panting more and more for the creation rather than the Creator. Regular and repeated sinful practices make our brains do dim-witted things. After a while, we cannot tell what is right and wrong. What once seemed morally obvious to us in elementary school is now a mysterious ambiguity as a veteran sinning adult.”
Chapter 10 “Integrity is everything.”
“There are a certain amount of “living in a fallen world” challenges that the average person can deal with in their own human strength, but when tremendous disappointments and painful sorrows attack us mercilessly, our true character will undergo a test and it will be manifest for what it actually is. If our lives were to begin to unravel today, would our internal character pass the test?
Chapter 11 “It’s dangerous in the dark.”
“But there is often a sense of cockiness in our perception of our situation. Frequently, we have an exaggerated sense of our own security and safety as we ignore God’s thinking regarding darkness. What we really need to understand is that if we play around in the dark, we are not nearly as safe as we think we are.”
Chapter 12 “Stop flying below the radar.”
“When it comes to the importance of living your Christian life in public, Jesus does not beat around the bush. Confessing Christ openly is an integral part of our salvation (Matthew 10:32). If we claim to be followers of Christ, but implicitly or subtly deny him before others, Christ will not vouch for us before God. If that doesn’t scare you a little, maybe you need to read it again.”
Chapter 13 “The hard way is probably the right way.”
“If we are feeling that it is not that hard for us to follow Christ, we may want to ask ourselves: Is the bar high enough in my life? Have I perhaps dropped the bar so low that I am clearing it with very little effort? Let me put it this way—it can’t be easy or else Jesus was lying. If it is easy, we need to examine our lives to determine if we are only submitting in the areas that are effortless for us. Taking up our cross daily in every area of our lives is challenging, even excruciating—like death on a cross.”
Chapter 14 “Sex is one of my best gifts: Handle with care.”
“Sex is God’s idea. He doesn’t blush when we talk about it. He is not embarrassed by its intricacies, nor does he want his creatures to be so. Naturally, discretion is always prudent when discussing topics involving sexuality, but when the audience and the context are appropriate, there is only room for truth on this matter. Christians need to get over their taboos regarding sex. Instead of the church leading the way in celebrating the glorious truths of this good and perfect gift which has come down from above (James 1:17), we have left this task to the world, and they have done a rotten job of it.”
Chapter 15 “I really don’t mind body modification.”
“Human thinking at this point in history values self-expression over conformity. Since the 1960’s, conformity has become depicted as a ridiculous notion of the past, where everyone brainlessly did what their elders expected them to do. Conformity now carries with it the stigma of weakness, of caving in to outside pressures that stifle personal creativity. What does God really think of all this? What value is there in being a unique individual?”
Chapter 16 “Some thanks would be nice.”
“Ingratitude is one of the most repulsive of all possible human qualities. We are not surprised by its presence in young children but we work hard to massage it out of them. We are frustrated by its lingering presence in adolescence and disgusted by its existence in adults we meet. If we are annoyed by a lack of thankfulness, imagine how it grieves God, the giver of all life…If God were more human, he would exist in a continual state of immeasurable angst, pointlessly waiting for his creation to show its appreciation for his ongoing goodness.
Chapter 17 “My favorite worship is holy obedience.”
“True worship of God is inextricably easier and harder than we make it out to be. It’s easier because it all boils down to one main idea—obedience; it’s harder because deep down in our hearts we don’t really want to obey…Human thinking on this matter is quite muddled. We mistakenly view our various forms of worship as part of a deal that we have with God, a transaction. We think that, in exchange for our salvation, we pay God back with acts of sacrificial worship… But while we do these things, we subconsciously run a tally sheet in our brain that totals the value of our sacrifice so that we can judge whether or not we have done enough, whether or not we think the bill has been paid.”
Chapter 18 “Invest your life, don’t just spend it.”
“Human thinking is naturally selfish. Humans, unsurprisingly, hoard. It takes very little effort to spend our lives on ourselves—we can do that without even trying. A human world-view consciously and subconsciously limits itself to this world and what can be accumulated in it. God-like thinking, however, sees this world and our time here in its proper perspective. God-like thinking sees a human life as a brief moment in time but a human soul as an eternal jewel. God-like thinking sees the kingdom of God as the only thing that really matters.”
Chapter 19 “You need help; I never intended for you to do it alone.”
“But the truth remains—we are not an island unto ourselves. We affect others. We need others. We regularly either encourage or discourage others by the content and tone of our
interaction with them, or the lack of it. If we try to survive on our own, we will eventually fail, especially when the floodwaters come. We were never supposed to be able to do it all alone. The creation of humanity started with the formation of a couple because they were destined to help each other, as are we to this day. Finding your own way by your own strength is a foreign concept in the mind of God.”
Chapter 20 “Get used to disappointment.”
“Living in a fallen world guarantees us at least two things: plenty of surprises and plenty of disappointments. This world in itself sets us up for perpetual sadness and frustration. The attractions that lure us leave us feeling empty. The possessions we cherish break or wear out. The people we trust violate our goodwill. The dreams we chase never appease the angst we thought would be cured by their arrival. And, so often, the person we are is not the person we wish we were. From the confusion of young adulthood to the silly crises of midlife to the disenchantment of old age, we wrestle with the gaping chasm that exists between our expectations and our real life experience.”
Chapter 21 “I love a good paradox.”
“Paradoxes perplex us. They leave us feeling like we don’t know the final answer to the question, and that bothers us. We like to understand everything clearly and have all our ideas and explanations fit into neat little boxes. We don’t enjoy apparent contradictions because we cannot believe that opposites can coexist or that the right answer is something contrary to what rational western thinking would conclude. Though it may never fully make sense to us this side of eternity, to think like God involves reveling in the mysteries of a good paradox.”
Chapter 22 “Trust me.”
“No, our civilization is not the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdom of God is coming to earth but modern western civilization as a whole will not likely be its main participant. The Day of the Lord is approaching when Jesus Christ returns to save the righteous and punish the wicked on earth and firmly establish his kingdom forever. To be truly ready for that day, we need to be trusting in God and not in our civilization.”
Chapter 23 “I like you more than you think.”
“Why do we picture God as being more angry than happy? Many Christians go through life believing God is disgusted with them. They picture him as a peeved father who has, once again, been let down by his incompetent children. Because we do not see ourselves as living up to his expectations, we conceive that he is perpetually disappointed with us. Though this image is hard to shake, if we truly thought like God, we would realize that, as his children, he likes us more than we think.”
Chapter 24 “Will it matter in 100 years?”
“As Christians, we often talk about making decisions in light of eternity. This is not necessarily helpful… Our finite intelligence cannot grasp infinity with even moderate comprehension nor can we talk about it with lucidity. .. Ah, but 100 years we can grasp.”
Chapter 25 “My day will come.”
“He will have the last word, not because he is petty or stubborn, but because he had the first word. No matter what the present circumstances may lead us to believe, God is warning us, ‘my day will come.’”
“The revelation of God to man does not begin with a litany of arguments, hopefully trying to prove his existence to a human jury. No. It begins with a simple assumption that he is, and that he is the supreme Creator. God does not scramble around to pull together a case to make his presence among us believable; he just starts talking about what he has been up to lately. There is a confidence there, not in the human sense, but still a confidence indeed.”
Chapter 2 “Fear me, or fear everything else.”
“So what is God thinking when he asks us to fear him first? What does it mean to fear God as opposed to fearing…stuff? Is this just referring to respect and reverence for him, or should we actually be scared of God? Maybe.”
Chapter 3 “It’s going to take a little effort on your part to find me.”
“It’s no wonder we have warped thinking regarding finding God in the midst of our chaotic twenty-first century lives. We are not the same people we were even twenty years ago. Networking instantly with each other all over the globe is now the norm. We have become so cyber-inundated that we are tempted to think connecting with God should be as easy as clicking on a link that immediately takes us to his website. Bingo! We’re there, with access to everything godly.”
Chapter 4 “I’m good with broken stuff.”
“In the realm of humanity, broken often implies the end of the story; these days, we do not give much thought to repairing many of our electronic gadgets when they break. In the mind of God, however, broken takes on a whole new meaning. When it comes to a human approaching God in hopes of something spectacular happening, broken is not the end of the story—it’s the beginning; in fact, it’s the only beginning that God is interested in, the only beginning that works.”
Chapter 5 “Forgiveness is my favorite part.”
“Yes, there are pleasantly powerful by-products of forgiveness that can be experienced by the one who chooses to act merciful, but that should not be the main motivation for us to absolve someone of their sin against us. God does not forgive because it makes him feel better. God forgives because he is good, and forgiveness is the good thing to do. As we begin to think more like God, we will forgive, not because it will make us feel good, but primarily because it is the good thing to do, yea, the only thing to do.”
Chapter 6 “I’m really quite interested in radicals.”
“He is not a spectacular human; he is God and he is holy. He is pure and perfect far beyond all mortal comprehension, the exact opposite of all that is worldly. Accordingly, to think like God involves ideas and behaviors that are contrary to the ebb and flow of normal human activity. Put simply, following God involves being a radical, a rebel against worldliness. One biblical writer likened it to being an alien on someone else’s planet.”
Chapter 7 “Here’s what I mean by faith.”
“Are we confused when good Christian people are cut down in their prime? Of course. It is not how we humans think it should be done. John the Baptist was confused when he was being cut down in his prime. A young man around 30, cousin and boyhood friend of Jesus, he baptized the Messiah and proclaimed him to the world. He was at the peak of his ministry when he was thrown in jail, and then eventually beheaded on the whim of an evil queen.”
Chapter 8 “Sooner or later human pride will be humiliated.”
“Why are we so enamored with successful people? What is it about billionaires, professional sports stars, rock idols, movie celebrities, and political luminaries that make us stop and ogle? Why do we want to glance at the tabloids as we go through the grocery line? ... It is unfortunate that we expend so much energy tracking and adoring human greatness because the game is so worldly. Far too much human greatness is accompanied by human pride, and human pride has but one verdict: annihilation. Every arrogant sports star may have his spotlight and every supercilious diva her day, but sooner or later, human pride will be humiliated.
Chapter 9 “Sin is sneakier than you think but it can be mastered.”
“We will always be dumber than our sin. If we think we can win a head game against that rascal, we are sorely mistaken. In our natural state, sin is our master. We are its slave. We cannot not sin. And the more we sin, the dumber we get. We start panting more and more for the creation rather than the Creator. Regular and repeated sinful practices make our brains do dim-witted things. After a while, we cannot tell what is right and wrong. What once seemed morally obvious to us in elementary school is now a mysterious ambiguity as a veteran sinning adult.”
Chapter 10 “Integrity is everything.”
“There are a certain amount of “living in a fallen world” challenges that the average person can deal with in their own human strength, but when tremendous disappointments and painful sorrows attack us mercilessly, our true character will undergo a test and it will be manifest for what it actually is. If our lives were to begin to unravel today, would our internal character pass the test?
Chapter 11 “It’s dangerous in the dark.”
“But there is often a sense of cockiness in our perception of our situation. Frequently, we have an exaggerated sense of our own security and safety as we ignore God’s thinking regarding darkness. What we really need to understand is that if we play around in the dark, we are not nearly as safe as we think we are.”
Chapter 12 “Stop flying below the radar.”
“When it comes to the importance of living your Christian life in public, Jesus does not beat around the bush. Confessing Christ openly is an integral part of our salvation (Matthew 10:32). If we claim to be followers of Christ, but implicitly or subtly deny him before others, Christ will not vouch for us before God. If that doesn’t scare you a little, maybe you need to read it again.”
Chapter 13 “The hard way is probably the right way.”
“If we are feeling that it is not that hard for us to follow Christ, we may want to ask ourselves: Is the bar high enough in my life? Have I perhaps dropped the bar so low that I am clearing it with very little effort? Let me put it this way—it can’t be easy or else Jesus was lying. If it is easy, we need to examine our lives to determine if we are only submitting in the areas that are effortless for us. Taking up our cross daily in every area of our lives is challenging, even excruciating—like death on a cross.”
Chapter 14 “Sex is one of my best gifts: Handle with care.”
“Sex is God’s idea. He doesn’t blush when we talk about it. He is not embarrassed by its intricacies, nor does he want his creatures to be so. Naturally, discretion is always prudent when discussing topics involving sexuality, but when the audience and the context are appropriate, there is only room for truth on this matter. Christians need to get over their taboos regarding sex. Instead of the church leading the way in celebrating the glorious truths of this good and perfect gift which has come down from above (James 1:17), we have left this task to the world, and they have done a rotten job of it.”
Chapter 15 “I really don’t mind body modification.”
“Human thinking at this point in history values self-expression over conformity. Since the 1960’s, conformity has become depicted as a ridiculous notion of the past, where everyone brainlessly did what their elders expected them to do. Conformity now carries with it the stigma of weakness, of caving in to outside pressures that stifle personal creativity. What does God really think of all this? What value is there in being a unique individual?”
Chapter 16 “Some thanks would be nice.”
“Ingratitude is one of the most repulsive of all possible human qualities. We are not surprised by its presence in young children but we work hard to massage it out of them. We are frustrated by its lingering presence in adolescence and disgusted by its existence in adults we meet. If we are annoyed by a lack of thankfulness, imagine how it grieves God, the giver of all life…If God were more human, he would exist in a continual state of immeasurable angst, pointlessly waiting for his creation to show its appreciation for his ongoing goodness.
Chapter 17 “My favorite worship is holy obedience.”
“True worship of God is inextricably easier and harder than we make it out to be. It’s easier because it all boils down to one main idea—obedience; it’s harder because deep down in our hearts we don’t really want to obey…Human thinking on this matter is quite muddled. We mistakenly view our various forms of worship as part of a deal that we have with God, a transaction. We think that, in exchange for our salvation, we pay God back with acts of sacrificial worship… But while we do these things, we subconsciously run a tally sheet in our brain that totals the value of our sacrifice so that we can judge whether or not we have done enough, whether or not we think the bill has been paid.”
Chapter 18 “Invest your life, don’t just spend it.”
“Human thinking is naturally selfish. Humans, unsurprisingly, hoard. It takes very little effort to spend our lives on ourselves—we can do that without even trying. A human world-view consciously and subconsciously limits itself to this world and what can be accumulated in it. God-like thinking, however, sees this world and our time here in its proper perspective. God-like thinking sees a human life as a brief moment in time but a human soul as an eternal jewel. God-like thinking sees the kingdom of God as the only thing that really matters.”
Chapter 19 “You need help; I never intended for you to do it alone.”
“But the truth remains—we are not an island unto ourselves. We affect others. We need others. We regularly either encourage or discourage others by the content and tone of our
interaction with them, or the lack of it. If we try to survive on our own, we will eventually fail, especially when the floodwaters come. We were never supposed to be able to do it all alone. The creation of humanity started with the formation of a couple because they were destined to help each other, as are we to this day. Finding your own way by your own strength is a foreign concept in the mind of God.”
Chapter 20 “Get used to disappointment.”
“Living in a fallen world guarantees us at least two things: plenty of surprises and plenty of disappointments. This world in itself sets us up for perpetual sadness and frustration. The attractions that lure us leave us feeling empty. The possessions we cherish break or wear out. The people we trust violate our goodwill. The dreams we chase never appease the angst we thought would be cured by their arrival. And, so often, the person we are is not the person we wish we were. From the confusion of young adulthood to the silly crises of midlife to the disenchantment of old age, we wrestle with the gaping chasm that exists between our expectations and our real life experience.”
Chapter 21 “I love a good paradox.”
“Paradoxes perplex us. They leave us feeling like we don’t know the final answer to the question, and that bothers us. We like to understand everything clearly and have all our ideas and explanations fit into neat little boxes. We don’t enjoy apparent contradictions because we cannot believe that opposites can coexist or that the right answer is something contrary to what rational western thinking would conclude. Though it may never fully make sense to us this side of eternity, to think like God involves reveling in the mysteries of a good paradox.”
Chapter 22 “Trust me.”
“No, our civilization is not the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdom of God is coming to earth but modern western civilization as a whole will not likely be its main participant. The Day of the Lord is approaching when Jesus Christ returns to save the righteous and punish the wicked on earth and firmly establish his kingdom forever. To be truly ready for that day, we need to be trusting in God and not in our civilization.”
Chapter 23 “I like you more than you think.”
“Why do we picture God as being more angry than happy? Many Christians go through life believing God is disgusted with them. They picture him as a peeved father who has, once again, been let down by his incompetent children. Because we do not see ourselves as living up to his expectations, we conceive that he is perpetually disappointed with us. Though this image is hard to shake, if we truly thought like God, we would realize that, as his children, he likes us more than we think.”
Chapter 24 “Will it matter in 100 years?”
“As Christians, we often talk about making decisions in light of eternity. This is not necessarily helpful… Our finite intelligence cannot grasp infinity with even moderate comprehension nor can we talk about it with lucidity. .. Ah, but 100 years we can grasp.”
Chapter 25 “My day will come.”
“He will have the last word, not because he is petty or stubborn, but because he had the first word. No matter what the present circumstances may lead us to believe, God is warning us, ‘my day will come.’”