A beautiful scandalous night

Following Jesus.  Why do it?
Why choose Jesus?
What does he offer you or me?

I will let this video speak for me on this.
This will also explain about what Christians call "good Friday."
It was a scandalous, horrible, beautiful event that occurred that day almost 2000 years ago now.

Beautiful Scandalous Night

Here are the full lyrics:

Lyrics to Beautiful Scandalous NightGo on up to the mountain of mercy

To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified
Follow Christ to the holy mountain
Sinner sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flows
For you and for me and for all

At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful, scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night

On the hillside, you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross justified
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours
From our blessed Savior's side

Syncretism, good 'ol American style

"Hip hop cannot be Christian."
"You must wear a tie and trousers with a belt to follow Jesus."
"If you cut your beard, you are sub-Christian."
"If you will not eat with a knife and fork, you must not be filled with the Holy Spirit."

A while back I heard part of a panel discussion that was actually affirming the first of the foregoing statements. I cannot fathom how anyone who knows Jesus today can still hold to such nonsense.  But I have also realized that it is actually a deeper problem than simple bias for our own culture- in that case I suppose it was white/European/high brow culture or some such.  One of the panelists actually said we should be taking our forms of art from the Scripture, too.  Hmmm. So I guess we need to make Hebrew acrostic poetry and wear Hebrew style clothing and speak Hebrew to be closer to God.  This, actually, seems to reflect what the deeper problem is, because he probably thinks that his musical styles and dress, etc, are a a biblical form in some way.

The deeper problem is syncretism, a blending of culture with Biblical truth such that the Biblical truth is distorted.  And anyone who argues that some form of music cannot be made into something to proclaim the greatness of Jesus has syncretized their culture with Biblical truth.  They are in error. And further, I would argue, this is one of the reasons why so many in America are leaving the Church- because they see through this and are sick of it. Churches that syncretize their culturally accepted forms with Scripture, and are unable to say there is a difference, have members who don't know what truly makes them Christian, and what part of their expressions are simply their particular culture.  Thus when a member begins to reject the cultural forms they have been in for some reason, they feel they must also reject Scripture and Jesus.  But they don't need to.  This was solved in Acts 15.  Christians did not have to become Jews to follow Jesus. They could remain within their culture, with a few prohibitions (including ones related to sexual immorality and idolotry).  And so can each of us.  We MUST see that there IS a distinction, or we will in fact syncretize our cultural views into Scripture.  And we will be wrong every time.

Here's  a simple test. If you went to Madra Pradesh, India, and were going to tell Hindus there about Jesus, and following Him, what would you tell them that they needed to know and do?  Is it possible to go and tell them and have them meet the Savior of the world?  Christians in Madra Pradesh would tell you that it is.  Would you require them to dress like a westerner?  "Of course not!"  In another day people did think they needed to.  It was called Colonialism.  It was wrong.  Does dressing like a westerner bring people closer to Jesus?  Does singing hymns softly with no piano bring people closer to Jesus than using a piano?  On what do you base that opinion?  Neither is better.  Neither is commanded by God, so neither is better and both are fine for seeking God.  As long as we come to Him through Jesus and His finished work for a sinful humanity.  As long as we live and depend on the gospel to return us into fellowship with the Creator of the Universe.  "But some forms are inherently unredeemable." One of the panelists speaking about hip-hop music actually said something similar to this in relation to hip-hop.  Hmmm. So is that form that is unredeemable hip hop plus low-brow German pub music? Country Western? The arrogance involved in such thinking as to deny the cultural forms of some peoples is striking, and I think it is also offensive to the heart of God.  HE will have people from every tribe and tongue and people and tribe in heaven with His Son.  I suppose people in the panel think that in heaven all these tribes will be transformed into white anglos in heaven?  As shocking as it sounds, I believe that shows how fundamentally wrong such thinking is that would denigrate another culture for the sake of our own.  

Misty life - on to glory

Life. Fragile, broken, death.
Life. Glory, honor, full.
Will we be here tomorrow?
Will you?
People die every day. all over the planet.
babies, old men, middle aged women, young girls,
intelligent, bored, overweight, beautiful...
ALL people are susceptible to death. 

The Bible says we are mist that appears for a little while.
That is God's perspective of the nature of our existence on this planet.
He knows we have an eternity before us in which we will continue, either in a state of grace and love and friendship with him,
or in a state of emptiness and deadness and unredeemed awayness from him.
And compared to that, this time here is a mist.
Our time here is so short.  Recorded history is about 6000 years- meaning written down.  Maybe 20 to 30,000 if you include cave paintings or other artistic expression.  And yet our lives are less than 120 years almost guaranteed.  For many they are around 80 years here in America.  But not all.  Some are much shorter.  And we don't know when our end will come.  We don't. 
It might be tomorrow.  It might be in your sleep.  It might be in 60 years, or 20, or 2 or 1 hour. 
We are a mist. Poof. Gone.  Even to the so called great people. They do their "greatness" and then they too die.  Their life ends.  If they were on God's agenda, it ended for them on this planet when they breathed their last.
But God brought us here for his glory.  This world and its history is about God's glory and it is the story of his glory that at present we may not see clearly, but we will one day.  We will know.
And amazingly, we can allow him to produce glory to him in and through US.
And even though there is death, and sometimes brought on painfully, intentionally by others, or brought on by disease, or by accident, such sufferings are not full of weightiness, not really.

"I consider that are present sufferings are NOT WORTH COMPARING with the glory that will be revealed in us." Romans 8:18 niv

Glory is what mists are not. Glory is weightiness, gravity, solidity, greatness, majesty, heaviness, that which inspires awe and wonder and trembling.  A lion's roar has a taste of glory.  Stand in a zoo near the lions as they roar and you will feel some glory.  Now imagine the bars are gone, the lion is hungry, and he roars at you.  Terror. Glory.

I want glory.  I may be a mist here, but in my mistiness God says I can have a part in glory.
"Therefore, since you were raised with Christ set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory." Colossians 3:1-4 niv

May I not waste one second of the misty life producing anything except what will shine in glory.

detestable - day 7 - trusting technology

"He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."" Luke: 16:15


This is the 3rd blog on putting God in a box.  The first one condemned the use of techniques to replace God, the second on using God to get what we think we need or want, and this one will focus on the detestableness of trusting technology over God.

Does God need our technology to win the world for His glory?  Does He?  Now this topic is a fine line, but if our dependence is on things, instead of God and His Holy Spirit, then we have made an idol of the technology and it is detestable.  This is important in our day when there is so much technology available that seems to be full of promise and power to accomplish God's will.  But are they full of power?  NO.  The power we are promised in Acts 1:8 NIV is this:  "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  Notice the connection word, and, that connects our reception of the Spirit on us to being Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth.  He is our power.  So what I am wanting to do here is call us from TRUSTING technology for anything, to trusting God's Spirit.  And then we can properly use technology for God's glory.  And if it breaks down, who cares?   God's Spirit is NOT LIMITED BY OUR TECHNOLOGY.  If you think He is then you are an idolater and need to repent.

I think there is little doubt that often we trust technology of various kinds to solve our problems and accomplish God's purposes.  We trust the technology of instruments without which we will have less of a heart to worship God - I know I need my IPod, or "outloud" music to help me find a closeness to God I don't generally find otherwise- but should I?  We depend on Powerpoint and microphones to preach our messages (do we spend as much time seeking God in prayer as we do preparing the powerpoint?).  We depend on the Jesus film.  We depend on email and I-phones to communicate.  And all of these can be useful tools.  But if you read the list of the armor of God in Ephesians 6, there isn't any technology listed other than God's word.  Truth, gospel of peace, righteousness, faith, salvation, sword of the Spirit which is the world of God, prayer.  No technology is listed and no technology will defeat the devil for you.

Just as God is not against medicine, I don't think he is against technology per se.  But if either become what we trust in, and many trust in both, then they are detestable and idols.

"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death."  2 Corinthians 1:8-9a NIV So what did Paul do?  Did he turn to a consulate?  Or the emperor?  Did he get soldiers with swords, or build a fortress to protect himself?  "But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.  He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us."  2 Corinthians 1:9b-10a NIV  There is no technology to raise the dead.  There is God, and Him alone: both the physical dead and the spiritual dead can only be raised by God.  "On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.  Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many."  2 Corinthians 1:10b-11 NIV  Our prayers have power ONLY because we pray to the living God who is able to hear and answer us.    May we trust in this God who loves us and hears us and answers us for His own glory. 

detestable - day 6 - using God

"He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."" Luke: 16:15


The issue today deals with viewing God as the vending machine or the one who leads us to greater things than Himself.  The reality is that THERE IS NOTHING GREATER THAN GOD HIMSELF.

On detestable -day 4 - I said that, "God is in control and we CANNOT put him in a box. We need Him, and He didn't come here to lead us to someone greater or some more fantastic idea."

John Piper has said that, "God is most glorified by us when we are most satisfied in Him."    God will be glorified, and we can most seek His glory by finding him the most satisfying "thing" we strive for and long for.  We do not seek Him to get something else, unless that something else is in him.  He is our joy, as David Crowder has sung, and so we seek Him to find joy, but in him.  To seek God to get a better job, or more money, or healing, while it may be a place we start with God, he will lead us beyond that.  If we stay there, we are functioning as an animist.  Animists sometimes seek to appease the spirit world to deal with what plagues them.  They may do so by wearing an amulet to ward off an evil spirit.  If we seek God just to ward off evil spirits, then in some way he has become a type of amulet for us.  We cannot stay there.  Obviously there will be times we need him to send away and defeat evil spirits in our lives, and he is the only one who can (our status as his children give us authority that comes from him that we exert when we command evil spirits "in the name of Jesus").  But if we constantly only turn to him as the solver of our problems, if we just use him to "get" peace and etc, how are we treating him differently than an animist?  But to find joy itself in God himself is a different thing.  Then we are exalting that which is worthy, God himself, and not using him, but finding completion in him.  He is the end.  Francis Schaeffer has said, "It is not that there is a moral absolute behind God that binds man and God, because that which is farthest back is always finally God.  Rather, it is God Himself and His character who is the moral absolute of the universe." from He is There and He is not Silent.  As we search for one thing that leads to a better thing, etc, or for a truth that leads to deeper truth, we end at God himself.  He is not the way to a higher thing or greater this or that, he is the end of our search.  So if we are searching for joy, ultimately it is God himself.  He is life, hope, joy, freedom, etc, all ideas that find there fulfillment and reality in God.  And so it is for Him we search.

Sometimes in our philosophical posturing or in trying to construe an idea from scripture that is sort of says, we venture into this form of using God.  We value to ideas or systematic theology or philosophy we created more than we value God himself.  We feel content because we think we can fit ideas of God or his word into some understandable form.

I think it will be difficult for some of you to see that you do this, that you use God.  So let me ask some questions that might ferret this out.
What do you think more about, a) statements men have made about God, or b) what he says in his word?

What makes you more glad, a) communing with God or b) a hearty philosophical discussion?

Do you worry more that a) you might lack some agreement with a confession or summary of theology, or b) that you don't make disciples or seek the face of God enough?

Do you pray about a) all kinds of things at many times, or do you mainly pray b) when things are bad?

Do you a) balance your prayer life with praise and worship and thanks, or b) do you mainly pray to get things from God?

If your answers were clearly a, b, a, b, b- you are more at a place of using God.  Be honest, there is no point in justifying yourself.  Jesus knows who we are.  He wants to change us.  The key to me is asking God to make Himself the focus of our thoughts and desires.  Colossians 3:1-4 NIV "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory."  Our hearts and minds are set above (not a on a generic heaven, but "where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."  It is where Christ is.  Earlier in Colossians a wonderful passage says the following: "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.  See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.  For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority."  Colossians 2:6-10 NIV  So what fills our waking thoughts and heart, our desires and longings?  Ideas about God, ideas from mankind?  Politics?  Or God himself?  The glory of God and his greatness?  The mercy and grace of God? 

Oh, God, cause your people to worship you and find in you their longing and fulfilment, their glory and wonder, the end of all their seeking and searching.

detestable - day 5 - while we were sinners He loves us

May we always be reminded that however detestable our thoughts or actions or worldview may have become, or whatever is in our hearts, or if we are the worst of sinners and rebels against God our creator, Jesus wants to save us, and has paid the highest cost to do so.  He loves us.  Let him embrace you in his love.  "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Romans 5:8 NIV

How He Loves - by David Crowder

Most of All - by Glenn Kaiser

detestable - day 4 - putting God in a box

"He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."" Luke: 16:15


Controlling God - manipulating God - overdefining God - God as the vending machine

There are many sides to this issue, and so I will talk about it in 2 or 3 posts here.  It is one of the most despicable and detestable ways we demean and dishonor our creator.

One of the particular ways I have seen this expressed is the way in which we try to make God into the one who honors our techniques.  "If we just say the prayer this way, God will be pleased and will answer."  "If you just start with this question and then go on to that verse then you won't have fear in evangelism."  "If you just have a quiet time every day, things will be better for you."  "If you just replace that bad thought with these good ones you won't have issues."  "If you just say a positive word, God will honor that and agree to it."  It is a way of saying to God that we don't really need him eminently present, but we can manipulate him or the situation or the spiritual world by a technique, and all will be well.  I realized at one point in the recent past that I had never really been told clearly to rely on the Holy Spirit in evangelism, but I had always looked for this or that or the other technique on how to share my faith.  But Acts 1 makes it very clear that we need the Holy Spirit for the power to be God's witnesses.  NOT a technique, not a Bible verse, but God's Spirit.  Now relying on a technique is different from relying on a promise of God.  Or should be.  Promises are words God has spoken that He plans to back up, not clever ideas we have come up with that we try to hold God to.  There can be a fine line, and it is one of the reasons we must be very careful when interpreting God's word.

The evangelical world is OBSESSED with writing clever ideas, with finding principles to live by, with finding the next great A, B, C program that will solve all our problems.  Well, I have news for us: we are not going to find anything in this search other than dust.  What we need is God Himself to invade our lives and thoughts and lead us to Himself, and to enable us to overcome in the struggles we have.  This obsession is UNGODLY and wrong; it is believing in the ability of man to overcome.  Basically, it is humanism.  I am not saying that God's word provides no principles, but fundamentally that is NOT what scripture is- it is God's story of redeeming humanity to bring Himself glory and to bring blessing to all peoples and to Himself.  Scripture is truth, but we get on shaky ground pretty quickly when we think we can easily identify IDEAS based on scriptural truth that will guide us; we need God's Spirit to guide us.  We are told HE will guide us into all truth in John 16.  In John 14 and 16 we see Jesus pointing to the comforter as the one who would guide us, not ideas, or techniques, but the living 3rd person of the trinity.  CS Lewis said through his Chronicles of Narnia, and I agree, that God doesn't do things the same way twice.  Reading the scriptures much, this seems pretty clear.  Did I just derive an idea?  Yes, I suppose, but it is the anti-control idea: God is in control and we CANNOT put him in a box.  We need Him, and He didn't come here to lead us to someone greater or some more fantastic idea, but more on that next time. 

Again, let me say, that God did give us His word, and he does say that it is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."  2 Tim 3:16b-17   But this is GOD'S WORD ITSELF.  God's Spirit uses God's word to correct us, to rebuke us, to train us, to teach us.  God's word doesn't lead to something else that is better- some technique or idea, some philosophy.  God's word leads us to Jesus.  In John 5:39 NIV Jesus said: "You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.  These are the scriptures that testify about be, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."  When we think that scripture is given for some reason other than leading us to God, to Jesus, to know and fellowship and walk with HIM, we are confused about what it is for. 

And when we try to control God with these things or manipulate him or the spirit world by them, it is detestable.  It is a form of idolotry, to make God into some manageable idea or technique we can control.

I'll end with a poem:

 "I would like to buy three dollars worth of God, please.

Not enough or explode my soul or disturb my sleep,

But just enough to equal a cup of warm milk, or a snooze in the sunshine.

I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man, or pick beets with a migrant worker.

I want ecstasy, not transformation.

I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.

I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.

I would like to buy three pounds of God, please."–Wilbur Reese

Yes, God finds this detestable.

detestable - day 3 - time time time

"He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."" Luke: 16:15


This is somewhat of a difficult topic, and because the scriptures don't deal a lot with this issue directly, it can be harder to see the evil in our approach to time.  But I do think at least some of how we approach time is something God finds detestable.  Perhaps you are sneering at me right now, just as the Pharisees were at Jesus when he said you could not serve God and money.  Well, you cannot serve God and time, either.  God will have no rivals; NONE.  He alone is worthy of glory and honor and praise, and what he deems as good  is good.  People, for one, are more important than time.  The first two commandments upon which all the law and the prophets hang is to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.  Ummm, time is not mentioned there.  We are not to love God and our neighbor when it is convenient.  But in America, that is largely what we do.  I think perhaps the primary way in which we idolize time here is by seeking first the career we most prefer in the time fashion we deem best, rather than seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Why are our worship services so tied to time here?  Because the worship of time we have in other areas has clearly determined what we do in our worship of God.  Do we never see the transcendent greatness of God to the extent we cannot leave our time of worship?  Are we never in awe such that we forget time and are drawn into closeness with God?  Having travelled a little bit, and from what I hear from at least some other places in the world, it is good to know not the whole world has these issues.  But Americans do, and it is time we repent. 

In American culture, time is worshipped.  Being on time is goodness, and being late is badness.  It can get you fired from work, it is seen as impolite, and you can be sure you will miss something because no one is really waited on (very often) when they are late.  This is something HIGHLY valued among mankind, at least in America, and probably a few other western nations, and when it comes at odds with what God values, our service of time becomes detestable.  Certainly things beyond ones control are accepted as excuses, but nothing as "lame" (to an American) as the need to spend time with someone who happened to show up.  Americans are OBSESSED with time, to the point of lunacy.  This is THE lesson ALL American school students are taught EVERY day- be on time to class and if you are not, and are tardy, you are in trouble.  Students might be kept after school for being late in what is called detention; or perhaps this will occur at lunch.  With enough tardies a student might be given a suspension where they are not allowed to come to school.  So, the school sees that it is correct to make the student miss something after school for being late to enough classes, or the student to miss school itself for enough lateness to classes.  Yes, we really do believe in punishment in American schools for tardiness.  I'm talking 5 seconds late to class.  I enforced this as a teacher.  My question is why?  Why are we SO obsessed with time in this way?  It ties to our views of work, and orderliness, and our "get it done" attitude.  It ties to the value of making money, and a saying like "time is money."  We have watches on our hands and clocks in practically every room of the house.  We wake up to alarms (unnatural ones, not the chickens for most of us), and go to bed as scheduled (most of the time for working people, anyway). 

There is a good side to time, such as being aware of how long an anaesthetic will keep a person asleep, or knowing how long it takes for the body to break down a drug, and hence the time before you can take another dose.  When time serves us or is used in the service of people, it is a good thing.  That is when we are loving God with our minds, by thinking clearly about what will help people and serve them, and not put them in chains or harm them. 

Jesus said, "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34   A similar passage that speaks to our over desire to plan is found in James 4:13-17 NIV  "Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."  As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."  What God condemns here is not planning, but not submitting those plans really and truly to the will of God.  This is probably the main American abuse of time, and where God finds our view and use of time detestable.  There are just some realities that are more important than time, such as loving God enough to put His will above our plans and to trust Him enough that if our plans don't work out in our time, it is okay.    

Remember when Jesus said that if you were presenting your gift at the altar and remembered your brother had something against you that you should leave the gift and fix your relationship with your brother?  How many of us would do that because of concerns over time issues?

Time should just not dictate all that it does.  Where it is a useful tool, by all means we should use it for good ends.  But where we end up serving it, or putting our relationships, particularly with God, into the servitude of time, that is detestable.

This will take courage and a willingness to change a lot about American society if we truly do repent of our worship of time, but it will be worth it, and we will have a richer society and culture for the change. 

detestable - day 2 - the praise of people

"He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."" Luke: 16:15 NIV


Listen to Jesus' exchange with some Pharisees: "I do not accept praise from men, but I know you.  I know that you do not have God's love in your hearts.  I have come in my Father's name and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.  How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?" John 5:41-44 NIV 

This sums up much of our self worship and adulation and seeking of praise from others.  People come in their own quirkiness and accomplishments and we readily praise and love them.  Jesus saves the world and so many give him no second thought.  I didn't, until he revealed himself to me, including in a dream at age 18.  I thought he was a crutch for people.  I found out he is so much more.  We accept and look for praise from one another; it is HIGHLY valued among people.  This is what the whole stardom thing is about.  I would argue to some degree it is what posting for many people on Facebook is about.  We want to be viewed as clever, or cute, or ironic, or outrageous; basically we want to be noticed.  Now obviously I use Facebook, and I want people to read my posts or go on to read my blogs, etc.  But God willing, I have not made myself an idol I worship and hope you notice.  We want to see how many hits on Youtube we can get.  We want viral videos.  We want to be rock stars, so we invent TV shows looking for the next one.  We have magazines that follow the lives of the "stars" so we can vicariously partake of their life; if only we had their praise.  We want to touch stars so we can say we have been with greatness; to somehow get near someone who has received the praise of men, to be near an idol.  We want their autograph.  Then, we ourselves, want Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame.  And in doing so, we make ourselves into idols looking for the praise of our fellow human beings.

The problem isn't wanting exposure, it's in wanting the praise of others.  To the detriment of God's praise of us.  That's why Jesus would not accept the praise of men.  He did, at times, receive the praise of men, but not to the detriment of His Father's praise. He was willing to have people "hosanna" him into Jerusalem, but he was also willing to have them yell, "Crucify, crucify" soon thereafter, at the bidding of his Father.  That's where we hedge.  Because this praise has to do with making ourselves into idols.

Jesus taught his disciples to go into a room by themselves when they pray, and not to pray for others to notice.  If they did the latter, the only answer they or we will get is that the others noticed.  Maybe we impressed them; we got the praise of people.  No, we should go into a room by ourselves and seek God's pleasure of us, and then God will reward us.  Maybe this puts this all in the right frame: don't live your existence here for others to notice you, or praise you, but live your time here for God to take pleasure in you, live before Him alone.  Then He will reward you.

Listen to this story about a man who couldn't refuse his dinner guests: "Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Phillip's wife, for John had been saying to him: "It is not lawful for you to have her."  Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.  On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.  Prompted by her mother, she said: "Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist."  The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in prison."  Matthew 14:3-10 NIV    In Mark we read this that gives more light on the situation: "For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested and put in prison.  He did this because of Herodias, his brother Phillip's wife, whom he had married.  For John had been saying to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."  So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him.  But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man.  When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him."  Mark 6:17-20 NIV

So really it was Herodias that wanted John dead, and Herod was probably some hurt by his preaching, too, but we see that he had actually been protecting John.  He probably knew he was right; why else consider him righteous?  Herod was drawn to John.  But in the situation, he said something he was unwilling to take back in front of his dinner guests, even at the cost of a man's life.  That is the worship of the praise of men.  We see in the first passage how he was also afraid of the people, and that he did want to kill John, but wouldn't due to the people.  Herod lives his time here in complete obedience to the praise and whims of those around him. 

This is something God detests: looking for the praise of people, to the exclusion of God's voice.  His voice should be paramount to us, and if we happen to receive praise, then we do.  But if people say "Crucify", we bear that, too, for the glory of the only praise that matters: God's praise.  "Well done, you good and faithful servant." 

"We live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.  Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.  What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience."  2 Corinthians 5: 7-11 NIV

detestable day 1

"He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts.  What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.""  Luke: 16:15

I don't know about you, but this is a highly frightening, or powerful verse.  There are so many things we highly value, and take for granted, and don't think much about that we put high value on, and God detests them.  WOE.  Woe is us.  And we will certainly try to justify the goodness of whatever we are onto or into, but God knows the truth.  He sees past our justifications. 
I don't think Jesus is saying that anything we find value in is wrong, but what men in general together find of high value, without their creator, God detests.

So I think we will start looking at some of these 1 day at a time.  What is something highly valued among men, that they value apart from their creator?

We will start with something obvious.  Greed and the love of money.  Oh yes, mankind values this above almost all things.  We believe in America we should have as much of this as possible, in the form of cars, and extravagant houses, and bigger, and more, to no end.  We generally believe what Gordon Gecko said in the movie Wall Street, that "Greed is good."  We view the rich as blessed, and the poor as cursed.  We believe that to solve problems you must have money.  And the more money you have, your problems are solved. 

Jesus said, "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, "  and "What does it profit a man to gain the world and forfeit his soul?" 

The particular context for the passage we started with is Jesus telling a parable related to earthly wealth and then ending with, "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money."  The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.  He said to them, "You are the one who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts.  What is highly values among men is detestable in God's sight.""  Luke 16:13-15

I think it will be particularly hard for American Christians reading this to be honest about our love of money. 

Do we think we CAN serve God and money?  Not in theory perhaps, or we wouldn't say that, but in practice we try to.  Our lives are generally oriented around money and what it buys and does for us.  We do not view money as simply a tool that serves the way of living we choose for the Kingdom of God.  We let money dictate the way of living we choose, and then try to throw God's kingdom on top of that.  This passage from 1 Timothy 6:9-10 NIV is us: "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that  plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."   THAT is God's perspective on the love of money and what it does to people.  Remember Jesus parable of the soils in Mark 4?  Mark 4:18-19 NIV: "Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."  The deceitfulness of wealth.  It deceives us.

The love of money has become for many the guiding factor in their lives.  It tells them what to want and desire.  It guides them.  Wealth deceives them.  Hmmmm.  Sounds like a god to me.  And that is what Colossians says about greed: "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry."  Col. 3:5 NIV  So this whole thing has to do with idols and serving a false god, which is probably what Jesus was getting at.  God will have NO rivals, including money.  Because it seems clear from scripture that God does NOT condemn money itself, or even riches.  "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share."  1 Timothy 6:17-18 NIV 

So if our stance is we love wealth, we long for wealth and riches, we want to get rich, and we hope in wealth to solve our problems, we are the one with the problem.  It is called idolatry, and the living God is against us and will bring judgement upon us. 

But if we trust in God, and put our hope in God to solve our problems, and see God who provides for us (and not money), then we are in a good place.  1 Timothy 6:19 goes on to say: "In this way they will  lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."  Just as Jesus said: "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

So this is something God detests: the love of money, and greed. 

Are we seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and allowing money to fall out where God provides along with all these things we need?  Or are we seeking all these things we need and hoping it happens that somehow we can seek God's kingdom along the way, too?  Or perhaps you are in a place where you don't even care about God's kingdom.  What will it profit you if you lose your soul while seeking riches?

Can life be found in the red rubber ball?

Where is life found?


In America, important topics like life and death and meaning and purpose are hard to talk about. Everyone has his or her own viewpoint and we try to respect that. But sometimes we differ and we don’t like to offend our friends. So I offer this little essay to my friends to hear a bit of my personal journey of discovery where it can be read in quietness and thought. I hope you will simply hear it as the discovery of a friend and consider what I say. Some things are too important to keep to ourselves.

A few years ago I heard a man talk about his “little red rubber ball.” He was creating a metaphor for searching and finding meaning in the little red ball he had chased as a boy on a playground. That ball had pointed to his athletic ability, and to what was most important to him. The metaphor is powerful because it says we should follow our dreams, the things that really make us come alive, wherever they take us. In his words, “Once you find it, you must follow it, and that takes courage, strength, and imagination”

Much of my life I have tried to pursue life by how well I got through a day or how much I enjoyed what I was doing in my life, by the use of my wits and my ability to explain hard things in a simple way. But I have come to the place where I know this is fruitless and has not satisfied who I find myself to be in a deep way. I have come to see that things or vocation or time or even pleasures cannot be my little red rubber ball, nor anything that is only of temporary existence. I know I am made for more than that. These things just do not fulfill. What if maybe all this is looking for and at “life” in a fundamentally wrong way? What if life cannot be found in day to day existence, and really isn’t about making it through another day, or having our heart beat for another year, or even in finding out what we do best or are really skilled at? Maybe life really isn’t just our biological existence, and the ways we make that tolerable or interesting. So where then do we find a life that is actually life?

If the universe is fundamentally impersonal, then why should we expect life to be found anywhere at all? I don’t think, in the case of a cold and empty universe where all there is is physical matter, that life can be found. How could it be? My “life” would just be existence for a mere 70 to 80 years and then back to dust. No matter how interesting or eventful my existence was, that would be the fundamental thing. Life would be simply prolonged death, and there is no meaning. But what if? What if the universe is fundamentally personal? What if a personal but infinitely powerful being made this universe and calls us into personal fellowship or friendship with himself as the fundamental thing life is? Then that would mean that all the searching for purpose and meaning and “life” in the impersonal, in things or existence or physical pleasure, whatever I can do and muster up, was searching in all the wrong places. These things I have known, and I have believed that knowing my creator was very important. But the new idea, is that He Himself is life.

The right to place to search would be in the realm of the personal, the realm of the creator who is personal. This is what I now believe life is. It is not existence biologically, no matter how interesting or extravagant that existence is. It is friendship with the one who is the personal core or center of this universe: its creator. Many years ago I was approached by this creator to start a friendship, but it has taken many years for me to realize that He did not want to make my “life” better or easier or more satisfying. He wanted to become my life itself.

Now for some of you, you may not agree with me when I say that Jesus is the answer to this question (and I am going to talk about him some more in this). But I have found that He is. I didn’t believe that growing up, and even for many years as his follower, I didn’t get that he himself is life. So if that is where you are at, I would encourage you to read the New testament for starters (start with the book of John) to check out who Jesus is and what he has said and done.

Jesus Christ said that eternal life is to know this one true God, and himself, who had been sent by God. Life is found in the personal creator God. Jesus also said that if we heard his words and believed the one who had sent Him, we had crossed over from death to life. Fundamentally we are dead apart from knowing Him. But we are also alive when we hear him and begin to believe him and to have a friendship with him.

I am not saying that life is anything about becoming religious, joining a church or synagogue, giving money to poor people, or becoming a good person. Those won’t make dead people come alive. But the person who holds the power of life and death can. And He wants to. And he says that life is in knowing him. Jesus said He had come to give us life, and to the full. And he gives it through Himself.

Jesus gave himself for us in this world and he took away the cause of our alienation from his Father, the guilt of our evil that is a very part of our natural selves. Not guilt feelings, but actual guilt because of wrong choices and actions and motives. We see this spring up often, in the lies we tell to protect ourselves and in the desires we have to advance at others’ expense. We see it in the self centered nature of our existence where we primarily protect our own existence and in the lack of concern we have over our creator’s desire to be loved by us. It permeates us. So does a specialness, no doubt. We have a sense that we are special and valuable and worthy. But that does not negate the fact that we have fallen short in many ways of what we know we should be. We can pretend we are fundamentally good, but we know better when we are alone and realize we don’t have friendship with our creator just because we might wish to. And so, as the basic biblical message says that we come to God on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus in history, it is because his sacrifice of His life is the real sacrifice that makes us friends with God in light of the wrong we have done. This sacrifice took away our guilt. Again, this is our true guilt because of evil, not just guilt feelings. Jesus did this so we could know Him and find life in Him. “He died for us, so that…we might live together with him.” He also was raised from the dead, and therefore we can know him now.


Again, I am not saying that being someone who knows Jesus is about being a good person or a church person or someone who helps the poor, although at least some of Jesus’ followers these days do things like that. Someone who knows Jesus is to be someone who is finding life in him. We start by stopping our effort at giving ourselves life, and instead let Him give us life by what he did for us in His death and resurrection from the dead. And then we can begin to know and love him, to become his friend. And life is forever found in knowing him more and more.

Back to the metaphor of the red rubber ball. Someone put that red rubber ball on the playground for that little boy to find. So, I don’t need a red rubber ball, what I need is the one who put the red rubber ball on the playground. I need the person, not the impersonal thing or passion or vocation or work he has given me that seems to satisfy for a while. And once I begin to know him, I can be content. And then he may just give me a rubber ball to express much of my love and friendship for him in a way that suits me best. But that keeps the red rubber ball (or is it golden, or another color?) in the right place.

Thoughts from your friend,

Kevin.

Life is...

What is life?

What is the meaning of life?

When you say, "X and Y just happened in our lives", what do you mean by your life?

Are you alive?  When you say you are alive, does that mean anything different from a tree or a frog that are "alive?" 

Jesus made two statements that should cause us to reflect on how we use and think about "life." 

"I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by me."  John 14:6 NIV

What does He mean that He is "the life?"  Does it strike you as strange that he would say the he, a particular person, is life?

Then again he said:   "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"  John 11:25-26 NIV

In the John 11:25 passage, Jesus is correcting Martha who just said that she knew her brother would rise again at the resurrection.  Seems like pretty good theology, but not when said to the one who is resurrection, and who is life, and he just said her brother would rise.  She didn't get it.  Resurrection is not a thing far off that mechanistically will happen to people.  Resurrection is JESUS personally calling us to be with him.  This is what he is saying to Martha.  "Martha, him coming back is not about some time in the future, it is about me.  I will raise him because I am the resurrection, and I am life.  He's dead now because I chose that, and he will live now because I will also choose that."  Look what Jesus had said in verses  14 and 15: "So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."   Jesus was GLAD he was not there to rescue Lazarus.  Huh?  Because believing in Jesus is more important to Him than prolonging our existence, He was glad Lazarus died; He brought that to pass.  He is Lord of all, life and death.  And if letting Lazarus die would help these disciples, Mary and Martha, and the others, to believe, then even death served a good purpose for Jesus. 

Look at the following passage in this light and see if this all makes sense.  This is from 1st Timothy:
"The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives." 1Timothy 5:5-6
 
The idea in this "living for pleasure" is stated in the NASB as: "But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives."  The other place this verb, spatalao, is used is in James 5:5: "You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter."  The idea is living luxuriously or voluptuously.  Basically, it seems it is finding meaning and purpose, or life, in pleasure, luxury, etc.  So the person is dead.  Because they are not finding life in God, in Jesus. 
 
How we think about this idea of life is very important.  When Jesus says life, He means Himself.  Our existence is NOT our life.  In one sense we can use the word that way, as the scripture does a bit, but not much.  For instance, Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Jesus is life).  The life I live in the body (my existence) I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me (he is my life)."  Galatians 2:20

So sometimes when we say "our lives" we mean our existence, our breathing and heart pumping, but maybe not always.  Maybe sometimes we are saying something more, and for those of us who trust Jesus, we need to rethink this and come to grips with how He views this.
 
So even the idea of eternal life needs to be understood in this light: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."  John 17:3. 
 
So life, eternal life, it is all about knowing Jesus. 
 
Heaven is not a philosophical good; it is being with Jesus and He defines what good is, good does not define him.  He is life, and in Him we find life.  He is not the way to something else we call good or heaven, He is the way to His Father, and to Himself.  "For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him."  1 Thessalonians 5:9-10  See, he didn't die for us so we could go to some impersonal heaven, he died for us so we can be with him.


So test yourself in this:  When you think about having a better "life", what comes to your mind? 
More parties on the weekend?  More football?  Better food?  A bigger television?  Retirement so you can stop working hard and relax?  A new hairdo?    When we think in these ways how are we really different from the widow who "gives herself to wanton pleasure?" 


Certainly a better existence is an okay thing, but we can have a terrible existence, and still find meaning and purpose and true life in Jesus.  People who are tortured for their faith know this deep inside.  Richard Wurmbrand lived many years in torture and prison in Romania, and he said he forgot the Bible.  But he came to know the truth in it by experience.  He met God in a very profound way even though his existence was the stuff of nightmares.  And likewise people who have a very extravagant existence can also feel their "life" is meaningless and empty.  The book of Ecclesiastes teaches us this very clearly.  Solomon had everything but saw that it was empty.  When people feel this emptiness they are feeling the truth; and the answer is finding the person of Jesus.


The only place life is is in Jesus. 

For those of you who want to hear more on this topic, I encourage you to listen to John Piper talk about this in two sermons on John 11: 1-16 (link to John Piper on John 11:1-16,) and John 11:17-44 (link to John Piper on John 11:17-44).

Rich Mullins - None are Stronger

Rich Mullins says in this video much of what I have tried to say in the blog.  Jesus said one time in Luke 16:15: "He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts.  What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.""  He was speaking to Pharisees who were sneering at him as he had told his disciples that they could not serve both God and money.  The text says that these Pharisees loved money.  I think this is the spirit in which you should listen to what Rich has to say.  Men have all kinds of ideas about what the world needs, but God has his, and it is those we should follow and lay down our lives for.  He is the only one who has good news to give us that can our souls for eternity; governments and education can do nothing in this regard.  Yes, God CAN work through those institutions, but it is His people that are given the work and message of the gospel for the whole world.  And at bottom line, men's ways that are opposed to God's are, in fact, something He finds detestable.  That's a strong word, and so we better listen to what God thinks; He holds our fates in His hands, not men.  So, I give you, Rich Mullins speaking and sharing his song: None are Stronger.

The rescuer has come: a take on Christmas and the message of Christ

    Rich Mullins once said that, "God is a wild man."  God is totally at home in the wilds of the earth, the deeps, the roughest mountains, the coldest winters, and raging seas.  He loves these places and called them good.  His love is wilder and more romantic than all the books and stories ever written or told.  His desire for friendship and fellowship with us is more genuine than the most naive and innocent young person, yet more grounded in the truth of who we are than the most worldly-wise street punk we can imagine. 
     Some of us are bewildered that Jesus was born in a stable, and his parents not given better accommodations.  Jesus was completely at home, in fact, if it had been wilder or more remote he would not have fretted an ounce.  His parents might have.  So in His grace He didn't make it too hard on them.  I wonder if years later when He was told of where He was born He didn't chuckle and say something like, "Just like my Father to do that." 
     I wonder if our silly focus on the stable or the animals around Him as being beneath His dignity, or as something that was so horrible, etc, is because we really continue to not see the reality of what He was coming to do.  The wildness of the whole story is beyond comprehension.  Before creating the universe, or as the Bible says, "Before the beginning of time," the triune God knew what He was planning, and the rescue of humanity was part and parcel of it.  The reality of a heinous and hateful villain terrorizing His creation and Kingdom was a part of this story He wrote.  Real pain and death and tragedy were not left out.  And most amazingly, He Himself became one of us, and the central person of the whole story of history.  And His dying for us and rising again were and are the pinnacle of this amazing history.  And He has sent His people to deliver this story to the ends of the earth, and often to suffer and die for their part in the story.  Stables and a few cows don't seem so wild anymore, eh?  God would lower Himself to become a man??  To then willingly DIE????  To be killed on a cross after being beaten, and mocked, between two thieves??? 
     Oh yes, God is a wild man, He is the wildest and most romantic rescuer that there will ever be, and He is the greatest thwarter of the most vile and evil villain.  And He is the most noble and gallant and trustworthy King.  Oh, THIS is Christmas.  This is the good news of God.
     My friends, let Him rescue us, and give to the Son of God the reward of His suffering: us.  He came for me.  He came for you.  He came for all of us.  He loves us.  He wants us to be with Him forever.

stop hiding

     Recently I read how someone on facebook was "so blessed that we live in America where we can worship freely", unlike another country where they face persecution.  I wrote about this in another post on here.  Why do we have freedom in America?   It is NOT so we can indulge ourselves in luxury and waste and hide from the pain of the rest of the world, that much I know.  In 1 Timothy 6 it says that those who are rich should be rich in good deeds.  We are extremely rich, and must use the freedom we have to do good to the rest of our brothers and sisters who are suffering.  In Hebrews 13:3 it says that we should remember those in prison as though we were there too, and those who suffer as though we did also.  Do you do this?  Do I?  Do we really care about those that are hurting and in pain and beaten and killed for their faith?  We must stop using America as an excuse and place to hide from the troubles of others; we must join them to every degree possible and help them through their struggle.
     In general, we need to STOP saying how we are thankful for our freedoms here in America IF we are unwilling to go on to praying for and caring about people who are suffering in other places.   "What do you mean, stop saying we are thankful for something?"  I mean it, in that if we won't go on and then do something about others' concerns and hurt, we are very self focused and it's not a thanks God is very honored by.  When we say thanks in this self focused way we isolate ourselves from our brothers and sisters around the world as though we live in special place, and "Oh, it's just so sad others suffer the way they do."  We don't live in special place, and we aren't getting off, but God has an assignment we must do, and we better get after it.  We ARE suffering too, because they suffer, and we must join those in their physical suffering by agonizing for them, and stop thinking we got off easy.  We are part of the same body, and therefore, we are in pain and we ought to be realizing that the whole body is taking a blow from its enemy; we must begin to pray for the world in such a way that we won't stop until there is no more suffering anywhere, "But that will take until the Lord comes back." Exactly! 
     "But it's wrong to not be thankful."  Yes, and they would be thankful where they live if their toil and terror was lifted, as we should be here since we don't have much at all of it.  But if they suddenly became as self focused as Americans, they too would need to be shown a better way, and a bigger world.  The way most of us thank God for "our" freedoms is thanking Him for all the wrong things in that it is a shallow thanks, untempered by the pain of others and the great call of God to join them (Hebrews 13:3).   How can we thank God for "our" freedoms, and stop there, when someone in Nigeria is being murdered for their faith, or someone in China is being put into a mental hospital because of their preaching?  So is being an American more important, or is being a disciple of Jesus?  If being a disciple is more important, than until those in China can preach without concern, and North Korea, and Burma, etc, etc, etc, we are not really free at all.  It means we must begin to see the body of Christ as bigger than my congregation, or the Christians in America.  And we must value being a disciple of Jesus more than being an American.  I wrote a rather strong blog about this here: Reflections on Being a disciple of Jesus who is from America.  So while we have the respite here we do, yes, breathe a word of thanks, and then continue in that prayer until the whole world is free.
    Brothers and sisters, let's stop hiding behind the red, white and blue, and start suffering for our Savior along with all those who call on His name from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

dead man walking

What if you died, went to heaven, saw all the glory of God there, and then He asked you to go back to earth and now live here again?  The thing was, He set you down on earth like in the terminator where they go through time with no clothes and nothing at all?  (Okay, so you get one set of clothes to start with). 

But He also gave you a set of priorities: 1) build His kingdom and love Him first, no matter what  2) love all the people you meet  3) do what you can to get people of all the ethnic groups in the world following Jesus  4) strengthen other people who believe as much as you can in their faith and love for God  & 5) do as much good as you can anywhere you can, but especially for other believers.   The tools He did send with you are 1) His written message for the world  2) His presence and person inside of you  3) access to Him to request help, and anything, really, that you need to accomplish His priorities  4) His promise that He will be with you and never leave you and that IF you keep His priorities first, He will take care of all your needs for living in this world and 5) the reality that there are other people on earth who are followers of this same God.

How would you set off to arrange what you would do here on earth?  Where would you start? 

What would you begin to do? 

I want to propose that the VERY LAST THING you would ever consider would be to adopt living like 99.9% of American people live as your first priority.  It would be laughable.  "Oh, I will first go get a job so I can buy my own house and invest in 2 cars and enough clothes to have a change for every day of the year and so I can have enough electronics to entertain myself for most of the hours I am not working at my job.  Oh, and I want to make sure that I have enough food so I can eat as much as I want every day.  And I have to be sure to have my own dwelling place with enough furniture to fill every room.  I will also pay money to make sure if I die that my heirs have a million dollars to live on and never have to work.  Yeah, that's how I will start."  Umm, what does ANY OF THIS have to do with the priorities you were given or the tools God gave you when He sent you back here? 

Yet that is where I have found myself and I am undone.  I have to go back to the start.  The first sentence.  This is me and this IS us.  But I find myself with pretty much a lot of that stuff now with me.  I have had it backwards.  You don't start, I should not have started by thinking I should focus on fulfilling the second half of tool number 4 listed above.  Why would I even think that?  Because that is just what is done here in America.  Oh... the American dream.  To me has become a nightmare of sorts.  "Let me go, I want to be free, I want to live, and follow the One who brought me back from the dead."  "NO, YOU MUST SERVE THE AMERICAN DREAM AND GIVE ALL YOUR SOUL TO FIND IT; YOU MUST NEVER FOLLOW THE PRIORITIES THAT GOD GAVE YOU AFTER HE BROUGHT YOU BACK ALIVE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA."

So now I MUST re-Imagine my life.  Start with the priorities of God, start with His tools He gives me.  And whatever else gets in the way of those, and does not help or serve those, they go.  Adios.  Hasta la vista, baby.  They must.  "If anyone wants to be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."  If we want to be Jesus' disciple, we have to say to ourselves NO!  Then we must DIE.  Then we are given life and we follow Jesus.  And following Him means we adapt to His priorities and use the tools He gives.

We DON'Tadapt his priorities to us, to our way of life, and make His tools serve our purposes.  Oh God have mercy.  This is NOT ABOUT MONEY.  It is about priorities and whom I am serving.  But in America we give lip service to saying we get that it is not about money. WE DON'T GET IT.  We do serve money and live for money and follow money and do everything we can to preserve our way of "life" instead of putting everything on the pyre for the use of the King and reorienting everything about us toward His mission, His goals, His priorities.  If we do that and He lets us have money aplenty to bless and do good, praise His name.  And if He lets us live with 4 other families and share 2 cars and eat rice and beans so we can follow Him, praise His name.  And if He lets us live on 100 dollars a month and have one set of clothes and live in a tent and walk from town to town to share the good news and we are beaten by the unbelievers there, then Praise His Glorious name.  And we might then understand how our Indian evangelist brothers, maybe some of them, live their lives for the King.  Would it not be better to be laughed to scorn, thrown to the lions and lose our very lives than to sell our souls for money and follow a dollar?  We are children of the great King, and we bear the name of the suffering servant: and no servant is greater than his master.  Let us follow HIM wherever He leads.  And one day, on THAT day, to hear from His lips, "Well done, my good and faithful servant," oh what bliss.  We will know that we have pleased Him who is our very LIFE.

Unless we can re-IMAGINE our way of living to accomplish God's priorities with the tools God has given us, we will continue to be sucked along with the American way of life.
Christians: we are dead people brought back to life.    Re-Imagine your time here with faces solidly focused on our Savior.  We must, we must, we must, we must.

If you want to read more on this, read Francis Schaeffer's book, "True Spirituality," and Romans chapter 6.

Is the red rubber ball enough?

In America, important topics like life and death and meaning and purpose are hard to talk about. Everyone has his or her own viewpoint and we try to respect that. But sometimes we differ and we don’t like to offend our friends. So I offer this little essay to my friends to hear a bit of my personal journey of discovery where it can be read in quietness and thought. I hope you will simply hear it as the discovery of a friend and consider what I say. Some things are too important to keep to ourselves.


A few years ago I heard a man talk about his “little red rubber ball.” He was creating a metaphor for searching and finding meaning in the little red ball he had chased as a boy on a playground. That ball had pointed to his athletic ability, and to what was most important to him. The metaphor is powerful because it says we should follow our dreams, the things that really make us come alive, wherever they take us. In his words, keep chasing the red rubber ball no matter what.

                                                                 

Much of my life I have tried to pursue life by how well I got through a day or how much I enjoyed what I was doing in my life, by the use of my wits and my ability to explain hard things in a simple way. But I have come to the place where I know this is fruitless and has not satisfied who I find myself to be in a deep way. I have come to see that things or vocation or time or even pleasures cannot be my little red rubber ball, nor anything that is only of temporary existence. I know I am made for more than that. These things just do not fulfill.

My discovery is that maybe all this is looking for life in a fundamentally wrong way. What if life cannot be found in day to day existence, and really isn’t about making it through another day, or having our heart beat for another year, or even in finding out what we do best or are really skilled at? Maybe life really isn’t just our biological existence, and the ways we make that tolerable or interesting. So where then do we find a life that is actually life?

                                                                          
Only 86,400 seconds in a day; it’s not enough!!!!                         Tick tock tick tock tick tock


Philosophical thought: If the universe is fundamentally impersonal, then why should we expect life to be found anywhere at all? I don’t think, in the case of a cold and empty universe where all there is is physical matter, that life can be found. How could it be? My “life” would just be existence for a mere 70 to 80 years and then back to dust. No matter how interesting or eventful my existence was, that would be the fundamental thing. Life would be simply prolonged death, and there is no meaning.


                               

                                                               No meaning in this by itself


But what if?


                                 But what if?





                                                         But what if?


What if the universe is fundamentally personal? What if a personal being made this universe and calls us into personal fellowship or friendship with himself as the fundamental thing life is? Then that would mean that all the searching for purpose and meaning and “life” in the impersonal, in things or existence or physical pleasure, whatever I can do and muster up, was searching in all the wrong places.

The personal God creates




                                                                           The personal God puts all here into His creation

                                             


The right place to search would be in the realm of the personal, the realm of the creator who is personal. This is what I now believe life is. It is not existence biologically, no matter how interesting or extravagant that existence is. It is friendship with the one who is the personal core or center of this universe: its creator. Many years ago I was approached by this creator to start a friendship, but it has taken many years for me to realize that he did not want to make my “life” better or easier or more satisfying. He wanted to become my life itself.

Jesus Christ said that eternal life is to know this one true God, and himself, who had been sent by God. Life is found in the personal creator God. Jesus also said that if we heard his words and believed the one who had sent Him, we had crossed over from death to life. Fundamentally we are dead apart from knowing Him. But we are also alive when we hear him and begin to believe him and to have a friendship with him.

I am not saying that life is anything about becoming religious, joining a church or synagogue, giving money to poor people, or becoming a good person. Those won’t make dead people come alive. But the person who holds the power of life and death can. And He wants to. And he says that life is in knowing him. Jesus said He had come to give us life, and to the full. And he gives it through Himself.

Jesus gave himself for us in this world and he took away the cause of our alienation from his Father, the guilt of our evil that is a very part of our natural selves. We see this spring up often, in the lies we tell to protect ourselves to the desires we have to advance at others’ expense. We see it in the self centered nature of our existence where we primarily protect our own existence to the lack of concern we have over our creator’s desire to be loved by us. It permeates us. So does a specialness, no doubt. We have a sense that we are special and valuable and worthy. But that does not negate the fact that we have fallen short in many ways of what we know we should be.

We can pretend we are fundamentally good, but we know better when we are alone and realize we don’t have friendship with our creator just because we might wish to.

Historical thought: God has said all through history that the way to come to Him is by offering a sacrifice of a life for all the evil we do; you can read about this in the Bible in the book of Leviticus, and many other places. It is called the Jewish sacrificial system. All those sacrifices that have been offered point to the real sacrifice that makes us friends with God in light of the wrong we have done: the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a cross in the year 30 AD or so in the land of Israel.
 

Religions, or doing good, these are not life!

We feel  alone; alienated; self centered.

Sacrifice after sacrifice
POINT to One sacrifice for all time.
One final sacrifice to take away all guilt

                           One resurrected Lord we can know forever!    

                                                                                                                                         

Jesus did this so we could know Him and find life in Him. “He died for us, so that…we might live together with him.” He also was raised from the dead, and therefore we can know him now.

Being someone who knows Jesus is to be someone who is finding life in him. We start by stopping our effort at giving ourselves life, and instead let Him give us life by what he did for us in His death and resurrection from the dead. And then we can begin to know and love him, to become his friend. And life is forever found in knowing him more and more.

Back to the metaphor of the red rubber ball. Someone put that red rubber ball on the playground for that little boy to find. So, I don’t need a red rubber ball, what I need is the one who put the red rubber ball on the playground. I need the person, not the impersonal thing he has given me that seems to satisfy for a while. And once I begin to know him, I can be content. And then he may just give me a rubber ball to express much of my love and friendship for him in a way that suits me best. But that keeps the red rubber ball (or is it golden? Or grey? Or green?) in the right place.

"I am your life, not the ball.

I gave you the ball, find life in ME.

Enjoy me as you play with the ball I give you."

Thoughts from your friend,
Kevin.

where are all the eyeballs and gotees?

This message is for all the 20 and 30 somethings that have decided church life is not for them. 

There are some bodies walking around our country missing some eyeballs, gotees, lips, ears, arms and legs.  If you are someone who knows Jesus, really knows Him, His body needs you.  One of the reasons I suspect you dropped out was that the church you were a part of, either growing up, or briefly as an adult, offended, bored, alienated, pushed, or became irrelevant to you in some way.  However, what you failed to realize for some reason, maybe not your own fault, was that leaving permanently was like taking the eyes and ears of that church with it.  Especially if you left because you saw or heard things that seemed wrong, there is a good chance that church even lost its mouth.  If you had stayed and spoken of those things that bothered you, a humble body that knew it needed wise words might have listened.  If not, no doubt the disease might have gotten worse and they may have smacked themselves in their own mouth.  Prophetical people don't exist in a vacuum, God puts them among other sinful saints.  That's the deal.  But if parts of the body get up and leave, that body is left without a gift to it, and it weakens.  If the mouth is cut off, perhaps God wants to give a mouth or eye to some other body in need of it.  A  transplant.
     You may think that they don't need you and you can get along without them.  Can an eyeball and mouth make a body?  No.  They die.  So if you have found like minded people you now hang out with, good chance that you are missing some key parts, like legs and hair and feet.  Who knows.  But likely all the parts are not represented.  You need the body and it needs you.  "Well, I ain't goin' back."  Fine.  Jesus wants you simply to encourage other believers and be part of a body that is operating like a body.  Read Hebrews 10 and 1 Corinthians 12.  Start a new body that follows Jesus.  Change what you didn't like and follow Him together.   But you will probably need some people that are different than you and who do or say things that make you feel uncomfortable.  Rebuilding Frankenstein had to hurt.  But, at least he was alive.
      We need our young voices, our young eyes and ears.  Don't leave if you are presently part of a body.  Learn to speak up and make those around you listen.  If your body doesn't like a mouth that says too much, try to whisper.  But don't try to become a toe; God made you as a mouth.  Same for any other part.  Our old bodies need to change, no doubt.  And we need the eyesight Jesus is giving you about what the world is like now to change in the right ways.  We need your sensitivity (nerves) and your insight.  We need you to be a mouth, or an elbow, or the feet willing to go places that older people won't go. 
     This is important.  Jesus' body on earth needs to be whole.  We need you.

     20 or 30 somethings, please stop the bloodshed; build a body or join one as a transplant.  Please.

Americans complain about all the wrong things

 "I hate housework"
"I have taxes that are too high"
"I hate getting up early for my work"
"Raising children is too hard"
"I am done being a mother"
"We have too many laws in our country restricting us"

To which I reply:
At least you have a house.  Would you prefer a cardboard roof or the shanty of a Brazilian slum dweller?

At least you have a government that does help its people.  Would you prefer a military junta that offers no education for the children of the country like in Myanmar, or one where the teachers take the money but don't show up like in NE India? 

At least you have work that pays you 10 dollars or more per hour.  Would prefer work that pays you 2 dollars per day like around 800 million people in India live on? 

At least you have children.  Would you prefer the one child policy of China?  Or the tradition that leads to most baby girls in India being killed because of wanting more males? 

At least you are a mother.  Or would you prefer to be barren or to be left in old age with no one to think of you or visit you? 

At least we have law and order.  Would you prefer to live in Sudan or other places where there is genocide or guerrilla warfare?

We Americans are rich and spoiled.  We have so much and take so much for granted.  Maybe more of us should take a trip to see another spot in the world.

What is "life"?

I want us to think hard about what "life" is.  Our answer to this questions really shapes us and our experiences as a human being.  I believe that most of my time here on this planet I have been answering this question deistically.  Let me explain.

If we view life as our experience of time and the events that occur within it, we are not approaching "life" any differently than a rock or a flower, because they also "experience" time and events, in that time and events march forward around them and affect them and change them.  We are no more alive than they are in that sense, and no less.  When we think of life in this way, as the motion forward of time and our experience of events and moments and feelings and biological existence, how do we view God?  He becomes the mover of that "life", and perhaps one more experience and mover of our "life".  He is an outside actor influencing us, and nothing more.  He might be a great influencer and very important to us, but that is all He can ever be if our framework for life looks like this.  This is a deistic view of God.  While we may see Him as personal, He is interpreted as only another great influencer of our "life".  Everything about what we believe "life" is simply goes forward whether He speaks or not.  You see, He is just an add-on in this way of seeing.

Jesus said many things that touch on this, but unless we reorient our understanding of "life", we will miss what He said.  We must let His words rock us to the core.  I am going to quote several verses, and then you put these up against the former definition I discussed.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6  If life is simply our experience, this makes no sense.  Life is a person, a particular person, Jesus the messiah, the second person of the Trinity.  It is not an experience or event or biological process, it is HIM.

"This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent." John 17:3  A very clear definition that life is knowing God and His Son.  Life is a personal relationship, not deistic, that centers on knowing God.  To have "life", we must have a knowing of God, and of Jesus.

"I am the bread of life."  John 6:35    We must "feed" on Him to have life; we must draw life from Him.  It is not external to Him anymore than the nourishment of bread is external to it.

""I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24  The only way to enter into life begins by hearing His voice and entering that vital personal experience with Him.  Otherwise we have no life; we are dead.

"I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself." John 5:25-26  Jesus has life in Him, as does His Father. 

"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life." 1 John 5:11-12  Without Him we have NO life.

"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." John 5:39-40  We must absolutely go to Jesus to have "life."  There is no other way.  Any talk of finding eternal life apart from Him is meaningless.

"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him."  1 Thess. 5:9-10  Heaven and eternal life are being with Jesus.  Just as life here is not in our experience of time or biological activity, eternal life is not an endless experience of that either: eternal life is an ongoing experience of Jesus.

"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26  Jesus Himself is life, and if we believe in Him, death itself does not take "life" from us, because it cannot take Him.

People who do not know God experience existence, but they do not have life.  They are dead.  And they will know this deadness forever.  O Lord, have mercy on the people of this world so they might see your Son and hear His voice now before it is too late.

Life is Jesus.  Life is knowing (in experience) God.  Life is knowing (in experience) Jesus.  It is a personal union and experience of and with the one true God.  

One of the reasons I have been so up and down in my "life" is that I have viewed "it" wrong.  Going through a day has been about the endless 24 hour cycle.  This is not life.  And so I have been buffeted by every experience and event and activity around me.  This has changed, and is changing, now.  Life is Jesus.  So instead of my going through a "life", life is in me and I know Him, who is life.  These other things are simply the backdrop for my experience of Him.  They are what I walk in as I walk with Him.  I think it used to be vica versa.  He was the backdrop as I experienced events and activities.  And when it was that way, my view of Him could change with the weather, so to speak.

If you ever read John chapter 10, read it with these other verses in mind.  I will finish these thoughts with a quote from that chapter, and then a few comments: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10  Amen Jesus, let me have YOU to the full.  The thief is not looking to make "life" hard, but to steal us from Him, to kill our union with Him, to destroy us from ever knowing Him.  And Jesus wants us to have Him in fullness.  This is what He meant.  He did NOT mean that we should have happiness (unless we know that is in HIM) nor ease nor great experiences of time and biology; He meant and means for us to have HIM.  O Lord, make it so.

So tomorrow, when I get up, I get to experience Jesus some more during my waking hours.  I get Him.  He is no longer just in my life tomorrow.  He is my life .  I won't endure Him to have 24 hours tomorrow of life.  I have Him tomorrow, and if He wills, 24 hours will pass while I walk with Him and experience life in Him.  And His wonderful love and goodness I get to know and enjoy.   Thank you Jesus, for opening my eyes, to this reality that centers in you.