Theology: Knowing God

I think that studying God, theology, the bible, etc, is like studying the moon.  If you buy the biggest telescope you can find and put it on maximum zoom, you’re going to learn a lot about the part of the moon you can see. You can also move the telescope around a see zoomed in pictures in different areas. But there’s two things to keep in mind:

1. You’re not going to be able to scan the entire surface of the moon with that telescope (or if you do, it’ll be so fast you won’t really see anything)

2. Even if you did see the entire surface of the moon that way, you’d still have a lot to learn about the moon.

See, if we just focus on one area, we’re going to miss a lot. At some point, you need to step away from the telescope and look at the whole sky. To see how beautiful the moon is, suspended in the black with stars around it. To see how the moon affects the tides here on Earth.

Don’t miss the beauty in the midst of the study.

I could focus my telescope on one particular crater and learn everything there is to know about that crater. Then, when people talk about the moon, I could talk for hours about that one crater. And people would be interested for about 5 minutes, then they would want me to shut up. There’s more to the moon than the one crater I know all about.

We can get so fixated on one point that we miss out on what’s really happening.

Alot of evangelical theology is based on the message that people who don’t believe in Jesus are going to hell, and they need to be saved. So we hand out tracts and talk through bullhorns and try to force people to come to church with us where we use an altar call to try and get them to say they believe.

I’m not saying that people aren’t going to hell. And I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s a minor deal.  But God is bigger and greater and grander than ‘the being who sends people to hell.’

God created this world, where we find joy and sorrow; heights and depths; pain and pleasure. More than that, he became one of us. The infinite, in one man. He who holds the galaxies in the palm of his hand, using feet to walk from one town to the next.

People who are so locked into their own theology that they think they are the only one who really ‘gets’ God scare me. A lot.  Because I have totally been like that in my life. And I was so blinded by my ‘right answers’ to let God be who he is. I turned the bible into a book of answers and doctrine instead of what it is: The story of a God and the flawed people he loves.

In Christianity, we say that we don’t have a religion, but rather a relationship. Then we put so much structure and so many requirements on that relationship that it becomes a religion.

I have a feeling that there is a great deal of truth in this world that we refuse to acknowledge because we didn’t think of it.

I believe that everyone is looking for God, whether they know it or not. And I believe that God has left signposts that point to him in the most unlikely places. Signposts that reveal truth about him. People who are paying attention will pick up on these truths, and believe in them.

Nature speaks of a great creator.

Intimacy speaks of a need to be completed by somebody or something.

Dreams point to the existence of something greater just below the surface.

Mercy and compassion reveal that there is something within us that works against the primal urges we’re told that we consist of.

Art reveals a need to see more than just what our eyes can perceive.

I once thought that God needed me. That he needed me to tell people about what he is really like because I had so much insight. He couldn’t sideline me, because I was too clever and smart.

Now, I realize that I’m about as useful as asking an ant to explain a supercomputer. A know-it-all is about the last thing God needs representing him.

I don’t understand God. I can’t explain why he does the things he does most of the time. If I zoom in, I can probably start to explain small parts of him better, but I’d rather step back and see the vastness, the grandeur, the beauty of who he is. And I’m content to be amazed and surprised by what I can’t contain.

The Gospel: Marketing the Message

I was having a debate with another Christian over whether I should forbid my kids from hearing music by people like Lady Gaga. The other person was adamant that because she is lewd and vile, I should ban it from them in any form (including watching the new Chipmunk movie because they do a take on Bad Romance - you know, the whole Rah Rah Ah Ah Ah sequence).

But I disagree. Not that Lady Gaga isn’t lewd and what not. She totally is. That’s her whole image. It’s why people pay attention to her. I’ve seen her before she became the character of Lady Gaga. She was normal. And nobody cared about her. All the hyper sexualization and the crazy hair and clothes styles? Just a sales technique. One that has worked great for her.

Same with Katy Perry. She was a gospel/inspirational singer. Then she did ‘I kissed a girl’, started wearing different clothes (specifically, less of it), and suddenly she’s popular and trending.

I think they just do whatever will get them what they really want: fame and fortune. Selling their soul to gain the world seems like a great deal to them.

But I digress.

The reason I don’t really worry about my kids hearing/liking the music of such “poor role models” is this: If my message is better than Lady Gaga’s, then why should I worry if my kids hear what she is saying?

If my kids see/hear what she’s putting out there, are they going to latch onto it? maybe temporarily. We all try out images and styles from time to time. But we end up going with what proves to be genuine and true for us.

If I give my kids a genuine, true message of love, compassion, joy, etc through my words and my actions, what am I afraid of? That a woman who uses shock tactics to get attention is going to lead them astray? My kids are going to encounter such messages sooner or later. By delaying it until they’re out of my house, I don’t think I’m doing them any favors.

Now, I’m not saying that I have started letting my 7 year old watch MTV. I do believe that there are responsible restrictions to have in place. But letting my kids hear so much as a riff off a song adapted to a kid’s movie? Not one of them, in my book.

We serve the God who made the whole universe, intervened on our behalf by becoming a man, dying for us and preparing a place in heaven for us, yet we’ve made that message so boring that people are looking for something more interesting. How the heck did we get here?

Should we get mad when people at church spend most of the time on their phone playing a game? Or should we figure out why what we’re saying/doing doesn’t interest them? The idea of ‘show some respect and pay attention’ has given way to the attitude of ‘earn my respect and do something to deserve my attention’.

Our sales pitch of ‘come be bored for 2 hours each Sunday because you better be grateful for God’ isn’t working. Nor should it.

Lady Gaga has a terrible message, but she markets it well. So people listen. We have a great message, but we market it horribly.

So in my house, I’m trying to give the message of the true Gospel. Because if my kids see the real deal, I don’t need to worry about a cheap knock off keeping their attention for long.

It’s like if I give my kids hearty, healthy meals every day. Am I going to worry if somebody shows up trying to feed them dog food? Of course not. Shoot, I probably want them to try the dog food at least once so they better appreciate what they’re getting!

People hear lots of messages. I try to ask myself a question regularly: “Is mine worth hearing?” Because if it isn’t, they should probably just go back to playing Words with Friends so I don’t waste any more of their time.

Is It Wrong to Doubt God?

Over the course of the last year, I have had a hard time trying to figure out what God’s plan for me is. Honestly, it’s been disheartening. Because the more I’ve tried to hear God’s input on this topic, the silence has only grown more deafening.

It’s frustrating. I have started to wonder why God doesn’t seem to care. In my head, I know God cares. But in my heart, I feel like David, when he said “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1)

Or again when he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.” (Psalm 22:1-2)

Like Job, who said “Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” (Job 3:23)

I used to push away doubts about whether God sees, whether he cares. Now, I’m embracing them. Not because I believe God is unseeing or uncaring, but because I believe it is part of the divine plan, that we are to wrestle with doubt…to struggle with it.

Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane is begging God to give him a way out of the impending events. On the cross itself, he echos the words David sang about being forsaken of God. (See Matthew 26-27)

Why do we believe doubt is faithlessness?

I understand that we can point to scriptures that say things like “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” (Luke 17:6)

And “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

With these scriptures, we make Jesus into an angry, scowling savior who can’t stand anyone who he so much as catches a whiff of doubt coming from. When Peter walks on water and then begins to sink, maybe Jesus is actually smiling when he says ”You of little faith…why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31) After all, Peter had just WALKED ON WATER. When’s the last time you did that?

Maybe after calming the storm on the lake, when he says to the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40), Jesus isn’t saying that faith and doubt are unable to co-exist. Maybe he’s saying to have faithdespite your doubt and fear. In addition to it.

One of my personal heroes in the bible is the man who came to Jesus and asked him to cast a demon out of his son. The man asked Jesus to help “if he could”. Jesus responds by putting this back to the man: “If you can?…Everything is possible for him who believes.”

The man’s response? “Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

This guy clearly doubts. Anybody can see that. He’s grasping at any straws he can to help his son.  But Jesus sees that along with doubt, he also is determined to believe. To have faith that his son can be made well.  Jesus then makes his son well.

I know God is good. I know he cares. I know he has a plan for me. But sometimes I doubt it. Sometimes I ask God to help me ‘if he can’.

Rather than try to hide my doubt from him, I try to be honest. I don’t keep it locked in some dark closet that nobody can ever know about, pretending it doesn’t exist. I let it out. Because I do believe, and I need help with my unbelief.

Birthday Charity

On the evening of December 23rd, I went out with the Salvation Army to inner city Baltimore in order to hand out hot meals to homeless and/or needy persons. Being only a little more than a day before Christmas, I figured there would be a larger number of people in line for meals that usual. Since people buy presents for kids at this time of year, I assumed that some people who are normally able to make ends meet would need a little help feeding themselves and their family.

When we drove out to the locations, we discovered that there was a large number of people who were in need, but we also discovered that there were many other people and groups passing out food. At one homeless shelter, we passed off several boxes of prepared meals, to find several pizzas being delivered for free as we drove off.

In honor of the Christmas season, it seems giving and charity was abounding. The driver of the truck I was on had a slightly different view. He said, “Oh yeah. Tomorrow if you come out here, there will be food just lying around. But come back a week from Monday and you won’t see any of that.”

It struck me just how tragic this all is. When we actually care and decide to do something about the issues which surround us, we can really do something about it. The problem is, we don’t care enough.

I understand that just handing out food for free all the time isn’t some kind of perfect solution. My point is that when we commit to being generous and charitable, we can really make a difference. Should it happen only once a year? Of course, I say no.

So how can we make sure that we all give the effort to meet the needs in our communities, but not at just one time?  Here’s my idea: we start a new idea that to celebrate your birthday, you do charity work.

That means each day will be covered throughout the year. And it only asks each person to do it one day out of 365. You can’t be much more reasonable than that.

Additionally, it takes an event that we normally direct toward ourselves: getting presents, eating cake, having a party; and we do something to remind ourselves that we’re supposed to be living a life of sacrifice, not just indulgence.

I’m not saying birthday cake and birthday parties are bad or evil. Just that maybe it’s a good time to dedicate ourselves to doing the work of God’s kingdom for another year.

So the next time you have a birthday, call a local charity and ask how you can volunteer on that day. If the million or so people who have a birthday in the United States each day took that chance to show their thanks to God for another year by blessing others, what couldn’t we accomplish!?

Just a thought.

Christianity: Spiritual Microsoft?

I think it’s healthy and valuable to do a broad, sweeping overview of your life from time to time. I’ve started doing that with church/Christianity lately.

What we’re doing doesn’t seem to be working well. I look at all the crime and poverty and famine and war and violence and oppression and selfishness in this world and I wonder why it seems that the Kingdom of God is shrinking rather than expanding.

And why the church seems to be an impotent force in the world at large.

Why do we gather in a “church” building for a few hours on Sunday?

Why do we have “worship leaders”? I never see Jesus including music in his ministry. So why do we feel it’s a requirement?

I’m not saying there should be no music in church. I’m just wondering why we say “okay, church will be 2 hours and the first hour is music”, or something like that in almost every church. It’s like we came up with a template and decided to copy/paste everywhere.

And why do we call that music time ‘worship’ and the music leaders ‘worship leaders’? I love singing to God, and I have been a music leader at various churches for over a decade, but worship? To me, worship is living a life that is devoted to God just as much Monday through Saturday as it is on Sunday. Singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God (Ephesians 5:19) are one part of living a life of worship to God, but without the full life commitment, they’re just nice songs.

Why do we appoint (and often pay) somebody to study the bible and pray, then tell us what we should believe from a pulpit?

What’s our goal? What’s our point?

Is Christianity like the Microsoft of the spiritual world? A good, solid choice that will work for most people and doesn’t need to really do a lot of expanding because it’s pretty popular already?

I’m serious. What is this thing we’re doing???

Church shouldn’t be like groundhog day. Doing the same thing over and over and over. Shouldn’t there be some progression and innovation? What are we doing wrong?

We need challenges, a vision, goals. At least I know I do.

I learned this about myself a while back. I decided that I needed to get in shape, so I started running and doing situps and pushups. It was great for a few weeks, then I slacked off.

A few months went by and I decided to get serious again, so for several weeks I ran and did pushups and situps. Then, it faded.

I finally realized that I needed a goal. So I signed up for a race called the Warrior Dash. I knew that 9 months from that time, I was going to have to complete an event that I wasn’t ready for. I knew that if I didn’t exercise and get in shape, I would embarrass myself in front of my friends on October 21st, 2010. So I spent the next 9 months getting in the best shape of my life. By the time the race happened, I was vastly over prepared for it.

Until I had a goal, a set reason to exercise, I couldn’t motivate myself. I feel like a lot of churches are like this. They don’t have a goal other than some murky ‘We’re going to get 250 people saved in 2012’ type goal.

Is that God’s goal for us? A numbers quota? That we recruit enough people into our club so that the shareholders are satisfied?

What are we trying to accomplish? Why can’t the 1 or 2 billion people who claim to be followers of Christ come up with some kind of unified purpose? I mean, come on! If every Christian committed to some particular plan, is there anything we couldn’t accomplish? If Christianity said: “nobody is going to starve to death from now on”, and we put our money and energy behind it, don’t you think we could make it happen? Or getting clean water to everyone? Or clothing the naked? Or caring for the sick? Or taking in the outcasts?

Instead, we have our little cliques, and most of our time is spent infighting.

I don’t have some great solution. I understand that getting people to give their time, energy, money, etc is tough. I understand that getting people to work together is harder when you start getting bigger groups, probably darn near impossible.

But I also think the way we’re doing church, for the most part, doesn’t seem to be working. Yet that seems to be where we put most of our focus.

We keep the system going because it’s easy. Maintain the status quo and almost everybody is happy.

Rather than saying “I don’t like the way we do church, so I’m going to start my own church and ‘do it right’”, I’m starting to wonder how I can start to undo church. To break down walls rather than put up new ones. I want to break free from the system, because I don’t think it can be fixed. I don’t think God exists in a ‘system’. At least not one I can come up with.

Do You Really Believe What You Say You Believe?

Why do you believe the things you believe? I hope it’s because you’ve examined something to the best of your ability and made up your mind about it.

I fear that all too often, we simply believe what somebody told us.

I read a book a while back by Carlton Pearson called God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu…: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us.

It’s gotta be the longest book title ever, or close to it.

But this book was the journey one man took from being an evangelical Christian pastor and big time leader (I was at a conference he hosted called Azusa 97 that had T.D. Jakes speaking at it) to the point where he embraced Universalism. He now believes that there are many paths to God and that Jesus is simply a good, moral teacher.

In the book, Bishop Pearson talks about how he was raised to believe in the God that evangelicals believe in. He believed in all the orthodox beliefs that many Christians hold to be non-negotiable. At one point, he began questioning how God could allow such suffering in the world. (In case you’re interested in learning a new word, the discipline of explaining why God allows evil and suffering is called ‘Theodicy’.)

Bishop Pearson believed the Holy Spirit spoke to him and explained that the starving children in Africa were not bound for hell, but rather that their hell existed here, on earth.

Once the belief that he was obligated to go and tell every person he could find about Jesus because they were hell-bound crumbled, he began to disbelief everything he’d ever been told. If one thing he has been raised to believe was untrue, then perhaps more things were also not true. He reassessed all his beliefs and dismissed many of them.

Here’s my point in going through all this: I don’t think Carlton Pearson ever believed the things that he proclaimed. I think he believed that the people who told him were right. His faith wasn’t in what he believed. It was in who had told him.

How often do we hear a pastor preach or read a book/blog or hear a televangelist/professor/minister say something, and we just accept it?  We believe it because they told us.

It’s so easy to do that. Because if, in the end, it turns out they are wrong…well, we can’t be to blame for it. “I didn’t come up with that.  It was him/her.”

We sign off on what other people say they believe because it’s much easier than going through the process of examining it ourselves.

Why did Jesus die on the cross? “Well, at my church we say it was to pay the price for my sins.”

Okay. Do you believe that, though?

Are you sure it wasn’t to be an example to us? Are you sure it wasn’t to defeat the forces of evil? Are you sure it wasn’t to appease the justice of a wrathful God? Why did Jesus ask to avoid the cross? What does it mean that God forsook him on the cross?

I’m not saying that what your church says is wrong. I’m asking: do you really believe it? Or are you just accepting what you’ve been told?

Because if it’s the latter, sooner or later you’ll end up in a crisis of faith. Faith has no coat tails. It can’t be imparted or transferred or given away. You can’t just go along for the ride.

Faith is an individual climb up a steep, treacherous mountain. You can’t hook a trailer up to your parents or your pastor or anybody else and simply end up in the same place they do. Without having gone on the journey, you won’t understand how or why you’re in the place where you are, and instead of wanting to venture father into difficult conditions, you’ll be happy to stay where you’re at, until you start to ask ‘why’.  ”Why did we ever come up this mountain in the first place? There’s a perfectly nice, smooth path down at the bottom. All this effort doesn’t seem worth all the trouble.”

I don’t mean this to be rude or disrespectful, but forget what your pastor has told you. Forget what your parents and teachers have told you. Forget about what us bloggers and the televangelists say. What do you believe? What is the purpose of your life? What is it that God wants to do in and through you?

I believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. I don’t believe because somebody told me. I believe because I’ve looked at all the information and evidence, I’ve examined my soul, and I’ve made the leap of faith that goes beyond proof or empirical data. If somebody asks me to show them proof positive that Jesus is real, I don’t have it. But I believe it is true. Everything else is subject to being cast aside.

Because I believe he’s the Son of God, I want to be as much like him as I can. He said to love God and to love people, so I’m trying hard to do that. Not because that’s what is expected of me. Not because other people say I should. But because I believe I should.

Human Flaws and the Perfect Saviour

I always love reading about Peter. I just read Luke 5:8, where, after Jesus tells Peter to go fishing and they pull in a huge haul, Peter falls at Jesus’ feet and shouts, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Peter thought he was the kind of dude that God didn’t love. He was a sinner.  He wasn’t some fancy pants religious guy. Peter did his own thing.

He probably figured that as long as he showed God the proper respect (going to synagogue sometimes, respecting the rabbis, not breaking the ‘big’ commandments, etc) and stayed out of his way, God was content to let him do his thing.

But suddenly, Peter realizes that God’s chosen one is sitting in his very boat.

This was bad. This was really, really bad. All his life, he’s tried to keep himself out of God’s crosshairs. As long as he wasn’t too bad, God didn’t have a reason to single him out for punishment, right?

So when Peter realizes that God has come near, his only reasonable solution is to beg him to leave. Simon isn’t worried about what he could miss out on…he’s worried about what God might do to him.

But what Peter doesn’t realize, at least not right away, is that God isn’t interested in all the people who are acting religious, who are only acting holy, who have the best attendance at synagogue, who have the fanciest looking robes.

Jesus is looking for people who are genuine and real. People who are broken and need to be fixed. People who will respond to the love he gives. And that’s Peter to a tee.

So the first words out of Jesus’ mouth are “Don’t be afraid.” I can’t see him saying that without a smile on his face. He knows all about Peter, and loves him none the less. Then Jesus says that he’s got a plan for Peter: “from now on, you will catch men.”

Despite his gruff, rugged exterior and brash, loud-mouth ways, Peter was looking for something bigger than himself to believe in and to pour his life into. It’s why Peter won’t leave Jesus after the hard sermon in John (see 6:68).

It’s Peter who boldly declares that Jesus is the Messiah when everybody else is debating (Matthew 16:16).

It’s Peter who pledges to die with Jesus, if need be (Matthew 26:33). Peter falters the first time, but he bounced back. Eventually, according to Christian tradition, Peter did die for his faith.

Peter is willing to tell Jesus what he thinks and how he feels. He’s open and honest and raw. Half the time, he’s wrong or mistaken, but Jesus doesn’t send him away or punish him for saying what he thinks and how he feels.

In the church, we seem to want people to be restrained and to suppress how they really feel. Say nice things and smile at all times. I hate that. It’s some kind of creepy, fake gospel that I want nothing to do with.

When I read the Psalms and Job and the Gospels, I see real people who love a real God and have real problems in a real world.

You want shiny happy people all the time? Join a cult.

I follow a real saviour. One who was willing to get his hands dirty and bloody in order to pull me out of the mud pit I was stuck in. I thank God that he’s transforming me, and the transformation isn’t to a boring wallflower.

I want my life to bring attention to how wonderful he is, and the only way I know how to do that is by being genuine.

Does Rob Bell Have a Good Point?

Last year, I had read and talked a bit about a book by Rob Bell called Love Wins. It’s a bit of a controversial book, with a number of Christians feeling that it approaches Universalism, or the belief that all philosophical/theological beliefs have value and that they can all lead to God.

I had two separate friends, both of whom I respect and know that their faith is genuine, question the wisdom in promoting that book in any way. Both of these friends are full time missionaries.

I’m grateful for their challenges, because challenges like that force you to look deeply at your assumptions and beliefs so that you can determine whether they are showing you a blind spot in your own personal matrix of belief.

In the end, however, I did not feel that Bell’s views are harmful or heretical. Whether they are ‘right’ or not, I cannot say. I also read several books that would forcefully disagree with Bell, including Erasing Hell by Francis Chan (who I think is fantastic) and Radical by David Platt.

My friends made the point that if we don’t firmly and strongly believe that people are going to hell and we must tell them the gospel, we’re doing a great deal of harm. I certainly understand their urgency. They have devoted their lives to saving people from everlasting torture. You will not find me criticizing them, they are good and genuine people.

But what I got from Bell, and from C.S Lewis in The Great Divorce, and Peter Rollins in Insurrection is this question: Are we going about this in the wrong way?

Is evangelism of the true gospel supposed to be a numbers game?

“We presented the gospel to 100 people, 37 came forward and accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour.”

Is that a good thing? Should I be happy about that? Seriously, I’m asking.

Do I know for sure that those 37 people have actually made a radical, life changing decision? Does that matter? Have we done our Christian duty by signing them up?Whether they make the payments or not, well, that’s not my problem.

Isn’t that the kind of attitude that caused the current American mortgage crisis? Overzealous sellers gave loans to people who couldn’t or wouldn’t actually follow through on the commitment. In the end it causes a financial crisis. I would argue that we are seeing an enormous spiritual crisis. We’ve got a whole bunch of people who say they’re committed to following Jesus, but aren’t actually willing to pay the price.

What about the 63 who didn’t? Have they had their chance, so now they can burn in hell without it being my fault? Do we just move on to the next group of potential converts? Have we ‘planted seeds’, so that our apparent failure isn’t really a way to judge our true results?

I read a book recently called Insurrection by Peter Rollins. He wants to help un-Christianize the world. To de-evangelize them.

He makes the argument that if you offer people eternal life in God and they accept it, they’re not really after God, they’re after eternal life. That we can’t just throw God in as a box they can’t un-check when they’re completing their purchase.

If we throw God at people as a quick fix to all their problems, why would they see him as anything more than magic genie?

Jesus healed 10 lepers, only 1 returned to thank him and hear Jesus say “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19)

The other 9 didn’t want a Lord or Saviour, they just didn’t want leprosy.

When the rich young ruler turned down Jesus’ call to sell all he had and follow him, Jesus didn’t run after him warning him of hell.

When Jesus went to the parties where ‘disputable sinners’ hung out, the Pharisees were angry that he didn’t spend his time condemning them, rather he was treating them as people.

Jesus protected and forgave one adulterer before she ever repented! (John 8:7)

In other words, he spent much of his time protecting the downtrodden from the religious establishment of that day. The ‘church’, if you will.

I’m absolutely not saying we shouldn’t do missions. Or that we should not spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m saying that I think we’ve spent a lot more time spreading our own message. And that I think our message sucks.

It’s either ‘Come get a great free gift when you activate your God account’ or ‘You better start acting right or God is gonna get you’.

I think the altar call is possibly the greatest mistake we’ve ever invented.

You can’t trick people into loving or following God. And doing so harms them and the church.

The true gospel must be lived and seen. You think if I took a bullhorn to India I could spread the gospel better than Mother Teresa?

I used to feel guilty because I wasn’t always warning people that they were on the way to hell and that they needed to accept Jesus.

Now, I try to help them with their problems. I listen to them. I respect them as people. I ask them questions about what they think and believe. And I try to live a life dedicated to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. I apologize when I screw up. I admit where I fall short. And I purposely try to improve this world. Why? Because I serve a God of hope and love.  Because God said to love people, so I’m doing my best to carry that out.

The only way people are going to care about what I believe is if they see it causing me to act different. And if people aren’t asking me why I act the way I do, I guess I’m not acting any differently than anybody else, so who cares what I believe? Shame on me if I then resort to threats or tricks to cover up the fact that I’m not living the life Jesus said he was giving me - the abundant life.

The Opposite of God

The opposite of light is dark. The opposite of up is down.

The opposite of God…is nothing.

God does not have an equal.

We seem to forget sometimes that the opposite of God is not the devil. The devil’s opposite is an archangel, like Michael or Gabriel. (see Jude 1:9)

The devil is a dog on a leash. He can only go as far as God permits him to go. Remember the story of Job? The devil can’t even touch Job until God gives the okay.

I’ve just finished reading through the minor prophets of the Old Testament, and God repeatedly warns his people to repent or he will allow other nations to defeat them. It is only once God allows other nations to dominate Israel that they achieve this. The devil can’t ‘have his way’ until God sanctions it.

God and the devil are different in many ways, but I believe the one of the most important differences is that God is non-linear, the devil is not.

Non-linear means that God is not bound by time.

There is no tomorrow for God. There is no yesterday. There is only ‘now’. He is right now at the creation of the world, right now at the crucifixion, right now at the end of this age. Right now.

Remember the name he provides when asked by Moses? I AM WHO I AM. Not I will be. Not I was. I AM.

Jesus drove the Jewish religious leaders wild with rage when they questioned how he knew Abraham and he said ‘before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

The reason “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8) is that he is eternal. Above and outside time.

God knows the future, because for him, it is the present. The devil is not all knowing. He’s read the bible, so he knows his eventual future, but not everything else.

The devil can’t read your thoughts, but he has thousands of years of experience to have a good idea of what you’re thinking. That’s how he always seems to know how to kick you when you’re down.

God has no opposite. He has no equal. The God you serve, the God you love and who loves you is the biggest, baddest cat in this neighborhood we call the universe.

That’s why Paul said “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” (Romans 8:31) Because the answer, obviously, is no one.

God is unequaled, and he is unopposed.

The Weapons of War

You’ve heard Isaiah 54:17a: “no weapon forged against you will prevail”. But many Christians have been martyred, by guns or swords or lions or various other methods. So what is God talking about?

First, I think perhaps he is revealing that, as a whole, God’s people will never be wiped out. Despite fierce persecution in the first 4 centuries of Christianity, we’re a billion+ strong now.

But I also think there’s another aspect of this.

Jesus alludes to it in Matthew 10:28: “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. “

Jesus is like, ‘Guns and swords? Don’t even worry about those. They can only kill the part of you that’s going to die anyways.’

I think the real weapons that our enemy has forged against us are greed and lust and self-pity and hate and fear; among many others.

But the reason these weapons are not supposed to affect us is because Jesus makes us immune. His joy is stronger than depression. His peace can’t even be understood, much less defeated.

It’s when our life is “hidden with Christ” (Colossians 3:3) that we become completely untouchable to the weapons of the enemy.

We live in the cross fire. Bullets of selfish thoughts and actions are always heading our way. People living without Jesus are riddled with holes from these attacks. I think a lot of Christians are, too - when they drag their world-proof vest behind them in the mud instead of wearing it.

Paul is pretty clear about this in Romans 13:13-14: “Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.”

Only in Jesus are you immune to the weapons of the devils warfare. Stay in him. Don’t try to do it yourself. There are no medals of honor to be won in heaven, because Jesus already won them.

Sodom and Gomorrah

In reading through Ezekiel right now, I came across an interesting snippet about Sodom. I frequently hear America compared to Sodom and Gomorrah, with the implication that we will be destroyed due to homosexuality and gross debauchery. But in Ezekiel 16:49, I read this: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

Whoa.

Now let me clarify, I believe (as the bible clearly teaches) that homosexuality is a sin. No doubt about it. But so is heterosexual sex outside of marriage. And adultery. And lying and stealing and pretty much anything else that isn’t loving God and your fellow human beings.

If I was going to hate gay people for their sin, I’d have to hate everyone else, including myself. And that is the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches us.

But in reading this passage, I realized that perhaps all the debauchery in Sodom (like the attempt to rape angels in Genesis 19 - that’s probably not a great idea) resulted due to Sodom’s selfish attitude, which it had cultivated through being completely self-centered and self-serving in all things.

Instead of helping people, they sought to please themselves. And that led them down a path were they ceased to care for anyone other than themselves. Seeking pleasure in any way they could, with no regard for God or fellow man.

This is why they were destroyed.

The wickedness there was a symptom of selfishness, not the disease itself. Maybe the rich were bored and looked for new ways to get off. Or maybe the poor, being oppressed, ended up doing horrible stuff out of despair and a desire to exert some control.

Whether or not God views America as being similar or dissimilar to Sodom, I have no idea. Probably in some ways we’re like them and in other ways we are not.  But what I do know is that in my own life I have discovered a great deal of selfishness. I worry about my petty problems more than I worry about life and death problems in the lives of others.

I have clean drinking water, so why should I worry about the 1 billion who don’t? I have plenty to eat, so why should the huge percentage of underfed people in the world impact me? I have a loving family, so why should I be concerned for those in prison or alone in a nursing home?

God, help me not to turn toward my own comfortable situation when I see need and despair and hurt. I want to be a vessel for your kingdom to overcome the gates of hell on this earth.

The Strongman

Imagine somebody comes into your house with a knife. They brandish it about and threaten to hurt you if you don’t do what they say. You’re in a bad spot. You don’t have much choice but to obey the knife wielding person or else get hurt. But what if an ally of yours comes in and they have a gun?  They walk into the room and point it at the person with the knife and order them to stand down. The person with the knife can no longer hold you hostage. They are in check.

Now, after a little bit of time, you aren’t in fear of the person with the knife anymore. You see that they are under the submission of the person with the gun. They’re not so tough.

So you tell your ally with the gun they can go home. And as soon as they leave, the guy with the knife is in control of you again.

I think this is frequently how we deal with sin and the devil and our own fallen human nature.

We struggle under the oppression of sin and our flesh and the devil, but at some point we cry out to God and he comes to our rescue and puts hell on lockdown within our lives.

But after a while, we’re like, “Okay God, it’s all good now. You can leave. I got this.”

God, who chooses to be involved in our lives only to the degree we permit him - rather than forcing himself upon us, accepts our foolish request and withdraws.

Here’s the thing about Christian life: Christian maturity does not involve becoming independent from God…it’s just the opposite.

You will never outgrow your need for God.

The devil isn’t afraid of you by yourself. Sin is stronger than little old you. You, on your own, aren’t going to knock down the gates of hell.

Samson made the mistake of thinking it was all about him, that God was freeloading off of Samson’s awesomeness. But when he decided he could run the show on his own, it led to his destruction. (see Judges 13-16)

No matter how spiritually mature or awesome you become, you need to remember that it’s still not about you.

My toaster does a great job making toast, but not when it’s unplugged. The most beautiful flower starts to die the moment it’s cut.

The goal of Christian life isn’t to get to a point where you can do it all without God’s help. It’s that you don’t do anything apart from what he does in you and through you.

God is the elephant, you are the flea. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you shook the bridge.

Lavish

I read 1 John 3:1 today: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” That word hits me like a ton of bricks. “Lavished”.

Do you ever feel like you screw up so much that God must love you only despite how annoyed he is with you?

Or worse, perhaps you view God as a brooding, angry being who tells you that you better love him, or else he’ll throw you into the fire. (David Dark talks about this inThe Sacredness of Questioning Everything).

Yet that’s not what God does. He doesn’t teach us lessons by withholding his love until we ‘get it right’.

He lavishes his love on us, pouring it out, not in an effort to make us feel bad; but rather to draw us to himself.

He does not regulate his infinite supply, but instead he opens it in full.

Next time you’re feeling low, feeling like you don’t deserve the affections of a perfect God, remember this: that he is lavishing you with his love. You only have two choices: to accept it, or to reject it. There isn’t a third option where you can earn it or deserve it.

He is an endless spring. You are a cup. You can either be filled or stay empty. Whichever choice you make, it doesn’t take anything away from the spring. So why not be filled?

Whether or not you deserve it doesn’t matter. He gives it anyways. You just need to accept.

Battlefield Earth

I started reading “Waking the Dead” by John Eldredge this morning.  In this book, he is talking about a lot of the same themes I’ve been working on lately: kingdoms, war, soldiers. He looks at the fact that when we encounter hard times, we usually think that either A.) We’re doing something wrong or B.) God is letting us down.

But if this earth is a battlefield, maybe that’s not the case. The solider that engages in a firefight with the enemy didn't do something wrong to get there or get let astray by command.

His job is to fight, to battle the enemy. Contact with the enemy doesn’t indicate something has gone awry.

Jesus tells us this is how it’s going to be. “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Look, I’ve secured the victory, but you’re still going to have to fight.

When life gets hard, when you feel like everything is arrayed against you, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have some secret hidden sin that you have to repent for in order to get away from the heat.

“God, I think I borrowed one of those small pencils from the library and forgot to return it a few years ago! Is that why you aren’t giving me a husband/wife/child/job/whatever? Please forgive me!!”

Earth is a battlefield, and sometimes firefights just explode into existence. One minute everything is quiet, and the next minute fire is erupting from every direction.

When a solider finds themselves caught in the crossfire, he or she doesn’t start weeping and get on to the radio to command HQ and ask them to make it all stop. They dig in and start fighting back. It’s that, or be defeated.

Matthew records something Jesus said that we would probably prefer to ignore: “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

There will be peace once we’ve arrived at God’s kingdom. But our purpose on earth is not temporary peace. It’s to bring the eternal peace of God to everyone. And satan hates your guts for that.

So man or woman up. Remember that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)  And when you get up and go out today, do so on war footing. Not looking for comfort or luxuries, but looking to advance against the enemy and take ground for the Kingdom.

Lock and load.

The Universe

Science isn’t sure whether our universe is actually infinite or not, but they say it’s “at least” 93 billion light years in diameter. One light year equals 5,865,696,000,000 miles. I’ll tell you what, let’s just go with ‘really, really big’.

Some people wonder whether we are alone in the universe. Is there life out there on other planets in other solar systems or galaxies?

I have heard the question asked ‘how can we be so silly as to think that in a universe as amazingly vast as ours, that we are the only life’?

But what if the whole, unbelievably enormous universe wasn’t made for us? What if it was made for a different purpose?

David said this in Psalm 19:1 “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.”

What if God made this astounding creation for the purpose of showing how great he is? To give us some kind of hint as to his expansiveness?

A creation does two things: it points to the skill of the one who created it, and it points to the greatness of the one to whom it is given.

Imagine a kings crown, made with purest gold, inlaid with resplendent gems and jewels. It reveals the skill and creativity of the craftsman who made it, but it also points to the greatness of the one on whose head it sits.

John 13:3 says “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.”

This great creation points to the one who is greatest of all.

So if this universe - in all its greatness - isn’t actually about us, but rather has the purpose of pointing to how great God is; I wouldn’t say it’s too big or too grandiose.

I’d actually say it’s just about the right size.

Fruit of the Spirit

We all know the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5: ”love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this fruit recently, wanting to see more of it. So I started really working on one or another at different times.  One a given day, I might determine to be patient. On another, to be good. On I would go, acting like a pinball, careening from one item to another. In the end, I think I looked like one of those people who twirl plates on sticks.  Once he gets up to nine or so, he’s madly dashing from one nearly falling plate to another with no rest. This is no way to live the Christian life.  I realized yesterday that fruit of the spirit is more like a warning system. If the Holy Spirit is being allowed to live and flourish in your life, these fruit are just going to be there.  You don’t have to put forth some superhuman effort to manufacture them. They’ll simply rise up and come out of you.   It’s when I DON’T see patience that I need to be aware that I’m not letting the spirit function in my life the way I should. When I’m not being gentle, it’s because I am living in my own power rather than God’s.

The ‘alert’ of a lack in any of those listed fruit is like my computer giving me an error if I try to get to a certain website. My network connection to that site has been disrupted; and until that connection has been restored, that website is not available.

Real Christians Limp

Some television-personality ministers seem to want people to think that being a Christian means being healthy, wealthy and wise.  Also, you apparently have ridiculously white teeth and an expensive hair cut (or in the case of some, an expensive hair piece). But I have noticed a couple people in the Bible who may not agree with such sentiments.

Jacob met God in the form of a man (Genesis 32). After wrestling with God and refusing to give up until God blessed him, God puts his hip out of socket.  Ouch.  Jacobs’ encounter with God resulted in him limping away, but with a new identity: Israel.  He didn’t walk away with more money, or whiter teeth and certainly not healthier.  Wiser, maybe.  But he was definitely changed. His destiny was cemented. After wrestling with God, Jacob walked different. People could see something had changed in him.

Paul had a thorn in his flesh that God refused to take away (2 Corinthians 12).  It seems to have been some kind of illness that most people found gross (Galatians 4). Was it leprosy perhaps? No way to know. But Paul didn’t walk in complete health or wealth. Maybe his disease even made his teeth really, really not white.

We Christians tend to forget how temporary our time on this earth is. We’re not writing the novel of our lives here, we’re only doing the preface. We’re just setting the stage for the real story.  If our goal is to be healthy, wealthy and wise on this earth, then we’d better stay away from God. Because his purposes seem to include thorns and limping far more often than we would prefer.

Real Christians limp.

Comfort Levels

I’m reading a book right now called The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark. It’s an interesting book. There’s a quote in it that hit me: “If the words of Jesus of Nazareth…strike us comfortable and perfectly in tune with our own confident common sense, and our likes and dislikes, our budgets, and our actions towards strangers and foreigners, then receiving the words of Jesus is probably not what we’re doing.” (emphasis his)

Jesus isn’t here to help us build a little cocoon of faith that we can nestle comfortably in while the rest of the world goes to hell.

He’s trying to get us to do to opposite. Get out of your little world and into the big wide one that needs to hear about a God of love. It’s going to cost you time, energy, money and perhaps your very blood.

If you think the Bible is a book designed to make you feel content and comfortable, then I respectfully submit (in agreement with the quote above) that you’re not really reading it.

It’s not a book designed to make us happy.

Moses, Solomon, Noah, Isaac, Paul, Stephen - these are just some of the stories in the bible that don’t end in a feel-good, happily-ever-after kind of way (at least on this side of eternity).

Jesus talks about taking up your cross before you can follow him.

The Bible give us food for thought…ideas expressed, often imprecisely or unclearly that we must wrestle with. It’s a book that is trying to get me to take a good, hard look at myself: Why do I do the things I do? Do I hate? Lust? Love the things of this world in a disproportional manner?

It refuses to let us stay the way we are. It’s whole purpose is to help bring about change in our live. Real change isn’t easy. And it usually isn’t fun. So I guess it’s not surprising many people don’t read it at all. And some who do, don’t take it too seriously.

Doing so is really tough. Everyday you see how far short you fall. And until you understand that, God’s grace is just a nice concept.

But seeing yourself as you really are is tough. A mirror that reveals imperfections can cause you to start doing something about those imperfections, or cause you to avoid the mirror.

I avoided the mirror for quite a long time. Now, as I am looking into it daily and letting God work in my to change myself, I can say most assuredly it’s tough.  I screw up all the time.

Some days it seems like it would be easier just to let myself and God down rather than to pick myself up again and continue walking this difficult path.

But I know that’s not really an option. After all, where else would I go? Only in Jesus can I find the words that give eternal life. (John 6:68)

Two Kingdoms

I believe that there are two kingdoms. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of his enemy.

I believe these kingdoms are at war on the earth today.

The Kingdom of God has already secured the ultimate victory, but his enemy is unwilling to lay down his arms and peacefully surrender. He wants to cause as much damage as he can before he is destroyed permanently.

The kingdom of his enemy does not require any oaths or commitments. Everyone is by default a citizen of this kingdom from birth.

The Kingdom of God requires one to commit their life to the service of the King and renounce their citizenship to the kingdom of the enemy. It requires one to lay down his or her plans, desires and purposes and instead work only at the command of the King.

It does not require effort to advance the kingdom of God’s enemy, because disunity and confusion advance his purposes. Everyone may set their own agenda: money, power, comfort, religiosity, sex; these are all common individual purposes in the kingdom of the enemy.

It is also the reason that the enemy’s kingdom will not stand. It has no unified purpose other than to consume all that it comes in contact with. It is at war with itself all the time.

As as the Kingdom of God unifies behind the King - not behind a particular denomination or doctrine - he leads us in a great campaign of sabotage against the enemy.  He sent his son to lead our campaign: “the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8)

Our purpose is two fold: to press back the advancing lines of the kingdom of the enemy from his attempts to rule over the people of this earth, and to rebuild what his army has destroyed. He uses a slash and burn campaign, destroying anything he cannot have.

We share the secret that anyone in the kingdom of the enemy is free to defect. The miserable existence they lead now under the oppression and infighting of the enemy can be left behind.  The Kingdom of God is exclusive in so far as it is only for those who will stand with the King.

I serve at and for the pleasure of the King. And by my life or my death, I will advance his kingdom on this battleground called earth.

I don’t do this in my own strength, but in his. For unlike the kingdom of the enemy, who only takes from his denizens, our great King actually puts his life into us. He doesn’t make us hired soldiers. He makes us sons and daughters. He adopts us.

I stand with the King.

Challenges

Remember the blind guy that Jesus heals, then the disciples ask whether he was blind from his own sin or his parents sin?  Then Jesus says it was neither of those things, but rather that “this happened so the power of God could be seen in him”? Then Jesus heals him. (John 9) And remember Job? How God allows the devil to do anything short of killing him to see whether Job will stay faithful to God in adversity? But instead Job insists that God is righteous and just, despite all that happens to him. Then God blesses Job with twice as much as he had before.

What if the challenges you face are in fact an opportunity for you to give God glory by having faith and trust in him even when there’s no evidence to support your actions? And God wants people to see you trusting in him when it seems stupid to do so, so that when he blesses you, everyone will say that God did it.

Maybe the challenges and trials in your life aren’t about you, but they’re about God. They’re about an opportunity for you to show that God is greater than the troubles we encounter on this earth.

The two men I talked about up top showed faith and trust in God and God honored them. Those events became scripture and have encouraged every believer who ever read them. Maybe God wants to make your life a living testimony to those around you. They may not read the bible, but in your life perhaps they can see it in action.

God deserves our devotion because of who he is. Period. Not because of what he does, but simply by being the God who made the universe and everything in it.  Worship God when logic says not to and see God respond and glorify his name in your life.