Josh Benner

Category: Commentary

  • The gospel in Home Alone

    Like many Americans, one of the ways I celebrate the Christmas season is watching Christmas movies. Some of my favorites include A Muppett Christmas Carol, The Santa Claus, and Elf. But my all time favorite Christmas movie, by far, is Home Alone.

    Many classic Christmas movies have wonderful redemption themes (Christmas Carol is a great example of this). But Home Alone revolves around redemption. A couple of years ago, Les Lanpere of the Reforemd Pubcast made a video outlining redemption themes and asking if Kevin’s character finds faith in the film?

    It’s a fascinating argument that Lanpere presents (and as much as I enjoy Home Alone, he’s clearly put much more thought into it than I have). Now, it’s impossible for me to not watch Home Alone through the redemptive lens that Les gave to it. (more…)

  • From nothing to a Navy SEAL: David Goggins and mental toughness

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    I’ve been going through the new book “Can’t hurt me: master your mind and defy the odds” by David Goggins.

    I’m about halfway through the book, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Earlier this fall, I saw some interviews Goggins had done, and I was intrigued by his story, but the book gives so much more elaboration.

    (Spoiler Alert)

    In previous interviews I’ve seen, Goggins talks about having been overweight (just under 300 pounds). He had no goals, no accomplishments, and was unhappy with where he had come, while working an unfulfilling job. He had previously tried to join an elite unit within the Air Force but a genetic condition gave him an easy out to quit.

    After one particularly bad day at work, Goggins had a change of heart and decided he was going to become a Navy SEAL. In three months, he trained for the SEALS, lost 106 pounds, and improved ASVAB scores to be able to go to Navy SEAL training (BUDS).

    If you read the book, you see that he didn’t have great advantages. He grew up with a physically and emotionally abusive father. As a young kid, he basically had to work a full time job and he fell far behind in school. He had to resort to cheating to keep passing grades. His mother left his father, and spent years struggling to make ends meat. Later, his mother met a man whom they loved but who was murdered. Spending most of his childhood in a small town in rural Indiana, as a minority, he faced racism.

    He struggled academically and often cheated to get by. This would eventually hurt him as he got far behind academically.

    In the book, Goggins doesn’t believe in using those disadvantages as an excuse.  Instead, Goggins talks about in this book is the importance of taking ownership of our disadvantages, flaws and failures.

    We love to look at people like a David Goggins and think they’re special, and have things the rest of us don’t have. There’s also a lot he didn’t have.

    Goggins doesn’t believe in using those things as excuses. It’s a pretty vulnerable book. He talks of the struggles and fears he battled.

    He talks a lot about mental toughness and how our mental ability to overcome challenges and setbacks is something we are all capable of. He talks about how we all need to find ways to push ourselves. For Goggins, it was joining the Navy SEALs and becoming an ultra marathoner. We don’t all need to go that route. But if we don’t challenge ourselves, we also won’t grow.

    There is a lot of language in the book. Reader discretion is advised.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • God’s truth is true. Even if we don’t like it.

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    I was recently reading a profile on a popular singer. The profile said that she had been raised going to church but she had stopped going because she disagreed with the church’s teachings on LGBT issues. Because the church didn’t agree with her, she left.

    We try to dictate what truth is, based on preferences.

    LGBT issues are a hot button political topic right now. Many don’t like the idea of a God who disapproves of those lifestyles and so, just like the singer, people decide that God affirms it. They overlook clear Biblical teachings and concoct arguments based on feelings.

    God is awesomely holy and perfectly righteous. We are not.

    And because we’re not, there can be times where we read something in the Bible, where our initial gut reaction is to dislike what God has done or to dislike his moral will.

    There are people who don’t like that God is just and a judge. So people simply decide to ignore those texts. They throw out the true notion of God for one that accepts everything they want to do.

    Some people want to believe that a person doesn’t have to have faith in Jesus to be with him, and so they decide that being a good person is the basis on which God judges the human soul. But that’s not a Biblical idea. Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father except through me” (John 14:6).

    There are people who like to speak for God and suggest that God is too distant. That such an infinite God wouldn’t care about the world, therefore it doesn’t matter what we do. That’s an assumption which contradicts the Bible. These people still often assume there’s a heaven. So they believe in a God who made the world, but doesn’t care about it. Yet, he made a paradise for people from the world that he didn’t care about?

    Based on what?

    Based on nothing! Based on what a person wants to believe. Based on the god a person makes up in their own mind.

    We’re created in God’s image, he’s not created in ours. And it’s tempting to believe in a God who only believes in what you believe in.

    Or people pick and choose which teachings of the Bible they want to apply to life and disregard the others. All sorts of ways that humanity tries to speak for God.

    It can be really hard for us to not want to create these caricatures of God.

    Even for people in the church. We might not talk about it. We might not say it in Sunday School or in a small group. But is there something about God, where you see it in the Bible but have a justification for why it’s not true?

    If you believe in a God who never disagrees with what you think, you might be worshipping a god you’ve made in your own image rather than you worshipping the God in who’s image actually you’re created.

    There can be times where we don’t understand a teaching, perhaps we don’t like a teaching. In those times, let us walk by faith, to trust that his ways are good. That his ways are higher than our ways.

    Do you have any areas of your life today where you struggle to not justify a certain sin?

    It’s so tempting to want to believe in a God who only believes in what you believe in. But God’s truth is not up for a vote.

    It’s so tempting to undermine the gospel and to say it’s really about how someone lived, regardless of what they believe.

    It’s about trusting in Jesus.

    That is how the unholy are made holy. Jesus is the great high priest who gives us access to God. And that is true, regardless of what we want to be true. Salvation is entirely the work of Christ.

    People undermine the morality of the Bible. They suggest that it’s just teachings created by men. Or suggesting that God doesn’t really care how we live.

    Again, that’s an assumption people make based on what they want.

    The God of the Bible does care. Because he’s a Holy God. And he made us for Holiness and righteousness. Maybe you have an area where you struggle to accept something about God’s word. I pray that the Holy Spirit would convict you of that. I pray that you might know that God is good. When I say his truth is true, regardless of what we want, that it’s not up for a vote, my point isn’t that it’s just a top down dictator imposing things upon us.

    Thanks for reading my 500th post! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life

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    But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
    -Galatians 5:16-17
    God is supposed to be the focus of everything we do, everything we have, everything we are, everything we think.
    God doesn’t get the scraps, he gets our whole lives.
    To some, that might not sound appealing.
    “I want to do may own thing,” or “”That’s too demanding.”
    Then you’re not going to have much of a relationship with the Lord.
    But if you want joy, if you want peace, if you want kindness, if you want love, walk in the Spirit.
    It’s about having a love for God.
    Walking with God. Not so he will love you. Not so you’ll earn brownie points. But so that you’ll live on earth as it is in heaven. So that you’ll experience God more fully. So that you’ll have a fuller life, based around God not based around yourself, or your hobbies, or your own pursuits.
    God freely gives grace. But having a relationship with the Lord takes commitment and intentionality. We must cooperate with the Spirit.
    Philippians 2:12-13 says: “As you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
    The Christian life is not meant to be a bunch of rules. It’s living life in the Spirit of a good God who brings life and purpose.
    It’s about seeing the beauty of God.
    Psalm 27:4 says:
    One thing have I asked of the Lord,
    that will I seek after:
    that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
    to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
    and to inquire in his temple.
    Psalm 50:1-2 says:
    The Mighty One, God the Lord,
    speaks and summons the earth
    from the rising of the sun to its setting.
    Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth.
    It’s about enjoying the goodness of God.
    Psalm 34:8
    Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
    So again, the Christian life is not about “do this” or “don’t do that.” Rather, the more closely you walk in step with the Spirit, the more your love and affection are in the beauty and glory of God, the more you taste and see that the Lord is good, the more you hunger and thirst for righteousness, the more fruit God produces in your life and the more your life reflects God’s moral character.
    The Spirit enables us to live out God’s law.
    Galatians 5:18 says, “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
    Romans 8:3-4 is a significant verse on this idea:
    For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
    We couldn’t follow the Law. We needed a savior. The law is kept by virtue of faith and through walking according to the Spirit.
    Submit your life to the leadership of the Spirit.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Beholding the glory of God

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    Those who look to him are radiant,
    and their faces shall never be ashamed.
    -Psalm 34:5

    This is one of my favorite ideas in all of Scripture. Beholding the glory of God.

    I think it’s one of the most underrated views in all of scripture.

    The soul filling, sanctifying reality of beholding the Lord. Looking to the Lord. Turning your focus to the Lord.

    What it means 

    When David talks about looking to God, he is not talking about seeing God literally.

    Exodus 33:20, God tells Moses: “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

    But merely being in the presence of the Lord gives this radiance. In the Book of Exodus, Moses was in the presence of the Lord receiving commands from the Lord.

    “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” (Exodus 34:29)

    In Exodus, the people were actually alarmed by it. Someone’s face luminously glowing. So Moses  would actually have to wear a veil to cover up the glory that shone in his face. God is that full of life and righteousness .

    Christians have more of the picture

    We are able to look to Christ, to look to the cross, to look to the place where sin was defeated, to look to his grace, to look to the love that he has for us.

    We are able to see how much God loved us: because Jesus went to the cross.

    We are able to see what forgiveness looks like: because Jesus went to the cross.

    We are able to see what justice looks like.

    We are able to see the cost of our sins.

    We are able to see what God invites us into at the cross.

    That is transforming.

    With Christ, we no longer need the veil, as Moses did:

    2 Corinthians 3:16-18 says:

    But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

    Beholding the glory of the Lord, transformed from one degree of glory to another.

    Look to the Lord and then live out what you see.

    Jesus said “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

    Have you ever meet someone, and you’ve never met them before, but you look at them and think “I bet they’re a Christian.”

    You can just tell.

    There’s like this inner light that you can sense.

    Maybe you even asked them if they were…

    May we all shine as light. Jesus said:

    In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

    “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16). 

    It’s meant for all Christians  

    It’s interesting. David doesn’t say “I looked at him and was radiant.”

    Those who look to him are radiant.

    It wasn’t something just for David. Whoever looks to the Lord. Whoever trusts in the Lord. Whoever places faith in Jesus.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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