Beloved, let us love one another
for love is from God
and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God
because God is love.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might live through him.
In this is love,
not that we have loved God
but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God;
if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4: 7-12
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Speaking the Language of the "Lost"
After a long conversation this afternoon with a couple at our Farmer's Market about "community" and how we have lost a sense of wanting to be together, I am thinking a lot about contextualization... how to share the gospel in the "language" that lost people can understand.
It made me think about these words:
For instance, my new friends at the market have a high value of community and wanting deep friendships. That is something that I can affirm because our God is a God of relationships. In the conversation, it was obvious that people want "community" to a point, not not much further. Close relationships are hard and people run from them. People run from getting too close because it is in getting close that our sin and other's sin is more and more apparent. We can confront the sin of fear of close relationships by communicating that, in Jesus, we can get close to each other even with sin because Jesus gives us grace to forgive one another.
One way or another, I loved having the conversation this afternoon! It is so encouraging to see the Spirit give us new friends and also to open up the door to their heart to hear good news...in a language they understand.
It made me think about these words:
To contextualize with balance, we must both enter the culture sympathetically and respectfully... and confront the culture where it contradicts biblical truth...Somewhere in the same book, Dr. Keller essentially states that to connect with lost people and the lostness that we live in, we first need to find the cultural values that we have in common before we can speak authentically into the cultural values that we need to confront.
It involves learning to express people's hopes, objections, fears, and beliefs so well that they feel as though they could not express them better themselves. (Timothy Keller, Center Church, pages 119 and 120)
For instance, my new friends at the market have a high value of community and wanting deep friendships. That is something that I can affirm because our God is a God of relationships. In the conversation, it was obvious that people want "community" to a point, not not much further. Close relationships are hard and people run from them. People run from getting too close because it is in getting close that our sin and other's sin is more and more apparent. We can confront the sin of fear of close relationships by communicating that, in Jesus, we can get close to each other even with sin because Jesus gives us grace to forgive one another.
One way or another, I loved having the conversation this afternoon! It is so encouraging to see the Spirit give us new friends and also to open up the door to their heart to hear good news...in a language they understand.
The Storehouse behind the Trickle
Some days because I am so scattered, to soak in what the Spirit is saying, I have to write it down.
In reading the passage below this morning, I was overwhelmed by how much that I do not "get" the love of God...how often I take his character of love for granted or sentimentalize it to simply be "good feelings."
But in this passage I got a glimpse (a tantalizing glimpse!) of the love of God. The glimpse is like a trickle of water from the Hoover Dam. The God of the Universe has a storehouse of love to give away and for his people to understand... while we only grasp a trickle.
Oh, to understand and joy-fully rest in this love!
Oh, for the Spirit to manifest his love in his people!
Oh, for the Spirit to give everyone around us a glimpse of a cross-defined love that would burn us and heal us to our core!
Please may it be, Father.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God, if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:7-12 (ESV)
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
"Salvation is a Feast"
In reading The Prodigal God with a friend of mine, these words brought me to tears this morning:
"Jesus's salvation is a feast, and therefore when we believe in and rest in his work for us, through the Holy Spirit he becomes real to our hearts. His love is like honey, or like wine. Rather than only believing that he is loving, we can sense the reality, the beauty, and the power of his love. His love can become more real to you than the love of anyone else. It can delight, galvanize, and console you. That will lift you up and free you from fear like nothing else.
This makes all the difference. If you are filled with shame and guilt, you do not merely need to believe in the abstract concept of God's mercy. You must sense, on the palate of the heart, as it were, the sweetness of his mercy. Then you will know you are accepted. If you are filled with worry and anxiety, you do not only need to believe that God is in control of history. You must see, with the eyes of the heart, his dazzling majesty. Then you will know he has things in hand." [Emphasis mine]
Tim Keller, The Prodigal God, pages 121-122
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Psalm 34:8
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
I'm Not (Merely) a Sinner
Words mean a lot to me. Probably too much at times and I get brain tired trying understand what someone really means by what they say. I am probably one of the few people in the world who diagrams sentences in my head while I am talking.
Not one of the few people who can do that, one of the few neurotic people who would do that.
That's why "merely" is in the title of this post. The word "merely" changes everything.
I am not merely a sinner. Though there are days like recent days where my bent to live out selfish desires is more apparent to me than ever before, that is not all of who I am. In all of my striving for humility (highlight for spoiler: striving for humility doesn't work) and as much as shuffling my feet with my head down might give the appearance of a holy attitude, neither of those things deals with the heart of the issue.
"Sinner" is not my deepest identity. "Holy one" is deeper.
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:17-18 ESV)
Oh yeah, this too:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 ESV)
I am a holy one, not because I have it all together (far from it), but because Jesus has me all together. I have not merely been declared "holy" because of Jesus death, I have been made holy in the deepest part of me because the Holy One dwells in the deepest part of me.
Here is the good news: because of everything God has given me in Jesus, the most real, authentic me is not dark, evil, depraved any longer. That is who I was- past tense (see below). Jesus changed me in the deepest part of who I am.
Today, I needed the Spirit to walk me through the gospel again...and to preach the gospel to myself.
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| THIS is one of the reasons I haven't finished a Dickens Novel Yet |
That's why "merely" is in the title of this post. The word "merely" changes everything.
I am not merely a sinner. Though there are days like recent days where my bent to live out selfish desires is more apparent to me than ever before, that is not all of who I am. In all of my striving for humility (highlight for spoiler: striving for humility doesn't work) and as much as shuffling my feet with my head down might give the appearance of a holy attitude, neither of those things deals with the heart of the issue.
"Sinner" is not my deepest identity. "Holy one" is deeper.
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:17-18 ESV)
Oh yeah, this too:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 ESV)
I am a holy one, not because I have it all together (far from it), but because Jesus has me all together. I have not merely been declared "holy" because of Jesus death, I have been made holy in the deepest part of me because the Holy One dwells in the deepest part of me.
Here is the good news: because of everything God has given me in Jesus, the most real, authentic me is not dark, evil, depraved any longer. That is who I was- past tense (see below). Jesus changed me in the deepest part of who I am.
Today, I needed the Spirit to walk me through the gospel again...and to preach the gospel to myself.
I am not- merely- a sinner. I am- much more- a holy one.
And you WERE dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved...
(Ephesians 2:1-5 ESV)
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Heart Swagger's Hope
He had a "humble" swagger about him as he moved from important gathering to important gathering.
An up-and-comer if anyone ever was, he caught the attention of the other leaders. He was the type of man that other men wanted to follow since he seemed to have it all together. They wanted to hitch their wagon to his, and may have even fought and pushed each other over the chance to be a part of his tribe.
The best school bragged that the diploma in his office had its name scripted on it. The best professors announced with pride that he was their student. His single-minded focus and devotion was intimidating to many; unimitatable by all. (Is that a word?)
One could trace his family back to the beginnings of their nation. There was a long history of notable men and women who were in his bloodline and as the family gathered together on holy days they reminded each other at how fortunate they were to be part of their family- and not another.
As he passed people on the streets, they recognized him, but most did not approach him. They knew he was special, gifted, set apart...different from them. "Chosen" maybe. It was not his greatness alone that they hid from as much as they hid their own "ungreatness."
The swagger was "humble," but it was still "swagger." Everything on the outside of the man was everything that people respected. And more than anyone who passed him or knew him, he honored himself. He revered himself more than any other person revered him. No praise of any other man could compare with how he praised himself.
And that is the type of praise that slowly destroys a man from the inside out.
Sadly, most could not see the character cancer that was transforming him into the type of monster that the world would love to revere.
All except Jesus. He could see through the educational prowess, the perceived success, the almost universal respect. He could see the deep death growing within the man...death that was beginning to spill out to the people who Jesus called his own.
But Jesus didn't treat Paul the way Paul was treating him. Jesus didn't see Paul's heart swagger as a wall that He could not breech. On the contrary, Jesus saw the deadness and arrogance of Paul and wanted to show Paul that He what matters most is not Paul's own ability to out perform and to over produce, but Jesus ability to make swaggering monsters into humble givers.
I have realized that you don't have to be a high performer to be a swaggering monster. The swaggering heart is something we all carry and just needs to be turned on by "worldy" success or even the sulking pride of "unsuccess." One way or another, we all swagger. Some people just do it with more pizazz.
Jesus reoriented the world of a man who "owned" the world to tell us swaggerers that there is hope. Here is hope for hard-hearted Pharisees. Jesus doesn't just pursue the monetarily poor and the needy, but those who have everything they need but are poor and needy swagger monsters.
There is hope for a man like me who thinks way more highly and lowly of himself than he should. Grace came to the most unlikely of receivers in Paul to prove to the world that there is no heart too far gone, too proud, or too swaggering.
An up-and-comer if anyone ever was, he caught the attention of the other leaders. He was the type of man that other men wanted to follow since he seemed to have it all together. They wanted to hitch their wagon to his, and may have even fought and pushed each other over the chance to be a part of his tribe.
The best school bragged that the diploma in his office had its name scripted on it. The best professors announced with pride that he was their student. His single-minded focus and devotion was intimidating to many; unimitatable by all. (Is that a word?)
One could trace his family back to the beginnings of their nation. There was a long history of notable men and women who were in his bloodline and as the family gathered together on holy days they reminded each other at how fortunate they were to be part of their family- and not another.
As he passed people on the streets, they recognized him, but most did not approach him. They knew he was special, gifted, set apart...different from them. "Chosen" maybe. It was not his greatness alone that they hid from as much as they hid their own "ungreatness."
The swagger was "humble," but it was still "swagger." Everything on the outside of the man was everything that people respected. And more than anyone who passed him or knew him, he honored himself. He revered himself more than any other person revered him. No praise of any other man could compare with how he praised himself.
And that is the type of praise that slowly destroys a man from the inside out.
Sadly, most could not see the character cancer that was transforming him into the type of monster that the world would love to revere.
All except Jesus. He could see through the educational prowess, the perceived success, the almost universal respect. He could see the deep death growing within the man...death that was beginning to spill out to the people who Jesus called his own.
But Jesus didn't treat Paul the way Paul was treating him. Jesus didn't see Paul's heart swagger as a wall that He could not breech. On the contrary, Jesus saw the deadness and arrogance of Paul and wanted to show Paul that He what matters most is not Paul's own ability to out perform and to over produce, but Jesus ability to make swaggering monsters into humble givers.
I have realized that you don't have to be a high performer to be a swaggering monster. The swaggering heart is something we all carry and just needs to be turned on by "worldy" success or even the sulking pride of "unsuccess." One way or another, we all swagger. Some people just do it with more pizazz.
Jesus reoriented the world of a man who "owned" the world to tell us swaggerers that there is hope. Here is hope for hard-hearted Pharisees. Jesus doesn't just pursue the monetarily poor and the needy, but those who have everything they need but are poor and needy swagger monsters.
There is hope for a man like me who thinks way more highly and lowly of himself than he should. Grace came to the most unlikely of receivers in Paul to prove to the world that there is no heart too far gone, too proud, or too swaggering.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Our Father Runs
I have been asking questions a lot lately about how I envision our God. The question isn't "Who is God?" but "How do I see God?" Who he really is is much more important, but how I see him effects everything I think and do.
That brings to mind what the late pastor A.W. Tozer said in "The Knowledge of the Holy.": "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."
I often think that our God is distant, impatient and he doesn't show affection. There are a lot of reasons for that. I know better, but I do not always feel the truth.
So, I read something again yesterday that I simply need to type and slowly soak in.
Writing about Jesus parable we normally call the Prodigal Son, Tim Keller says this in his book The Prodigal God:
"How can the inner dynamic of the heart be changed from one of fear and anger to one of joy, love and gratitude?
The first thing we need to know is God's initiating love.Notice how the Father comes out to each so and expresses love to him, in order to bring him in. He does not wait for his younger son on the porch of his home, impatiently tapping his foot, murmuring, 'Here comes that son of mine. After all that he's done, there had better be some real groveling!' There is not a hint of such attitude. No, he runs and kisses him before his son can confess. It's not the repentance that causes the father's love, but rather the reverse. The father's lavish affection makes the son's expression of remorse far easier." [The emphasis is mine]
What if I believed my Father in heaven ran to me? How would I act if I knew at the core of my being that he pursues me? What would my view of the world be if my heart caught up with the truth that real love comes, not from my love of God, but that he loved me first? His idea. His initiation.
How would I love others?
I think I would have the strength to run just like he does.
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| I have to apologize for this, but it is too funny not to share. |
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Gwen's Questions are a Sign of the Kingdom
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| The Hi Life. No Legal or Illegal Drugs Were Consumed. Just Good Food |
Gwen looked at the owl covered lunch bag Adrienne brought for our little picky eater and asked where we got it.
"We got it second hand. Someone gave it to us"
I was surprised at how interested our server was at my little girl's food carrier, but she went on to explain. She explained that she looks for fun things like pink owl lunch bags on a site where people in Ballard (her neighborhood in Seattle) give away things for free. Its like an ongoing, online swap meet. She said she likes to give things away, too, because it helps her "relinquish."
Most people don't talk about "relinquishing." When they do, there always seems to be an interesting story behind it. So, we started talking to her about why she wants to "relinquish."
I will spare you most of the conversation, but, to sum up, Gwen shared how she is a "spiritual" lady who does not want to be cluttered with stuff. As someone who just moved, I get "cluttered," for sure.
Thankfully, the restaurant wasn't crazy busy, so she could spend some time with us and talk about "relinquishment" and "community." She said her spirituality didn't need any religion, but she loved that she lived surrounded by people that would help her along her path, even in the little things of taking the things that she wanted to give away.
I briefly shared with her that I could appreciate so much of what she was saying because we came to the city, in part, to live in community similar to what she was describing, but centered on Jesus. She was very kind in her responses, but it was clear that she didn't want to hear much more than that...or so I thought.
We said "thank you" to Gwen and we were waving good-bye when she ran up to us at the door to talk one more time.
"Please, tell me a little more about why you are here and what your church is about."
That stunned me. Most people run from that conversation. She longed to hear more.
So, we got to share with her that we long for heart connections with people too and that we want people to walk alongside us as we "relinquish" the things that hold us back. The difference though, is that the only way to thew community our hearts long for is first to be transformed to center our lives on Jesus. We got to share that real relinquishment comes when we allow God to transform us.
I wish the conversation was as neat and tidy as I am portraying it to be here, but I am trying to describe what I saw in the face and heard in the words of Gwen that night: I saw the Spirit of God speaking to the heart of our server in a way that completely surprised me. He was whispering to her in a way I could never describe, but it was an obvious sign of the kingdom for me.
We left the conversation that way after giving her our contact information. Pray with us that she will connect with other believers. Hopefully it will be us.
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| How Many Owls Can You See in This Picture? |
Monday, August 17, 2015
Temporary Housing
"For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me...And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
(Mark 14:7-9 ESV)
I just got home from a tense community meeting regarding a proposed temporary housing encampment for homeless persons. The city of Seattle welcomed the neighborhoods surrounding the proposed site to come hear about the plan and to express their (our) opinions.
There was a lot of "not in my backyard" talk and some subtle accusations that if a person didn't support the camp then that person is letting people die.
Many neighbors shared about how we should follow "the golden rule" and we should "be kind" also giving practical steps to help people in unfortunate situations. Yes, we could all be there soon. Yes, we should look at another person in an affectionate love that acts to help.
But, I felt something was missing. Something deeper. We want to really love and really help people. That may mean we focus our attention away from the immediate need (as important as it is) and take a risk that the only way to solve the problem is to see the real problem.
When the woman "wasted" the perfume on Jesus, the man carrying the money got self righteously indignant and made the point that that expensive ointment could have been sold and given to the poor. Of course, that was right. It could have helped some poor, but it would not destroy the root of poverty. Jesus said something that would have been shocking at this meeting tonight: he essentially said that treasuring him is more important than giving to the poor.
I could not have articulated that in the time allowed each speaker to speak tonight because it sounds (at first) so unloving.
But, what if it is more loving than our plans? What if it is more practical than our programs to really, deeply and finally help the poor?
What if the real issue of homelessness is not a monetary issue but a heart issue? What if the root cause of poverty is not (merely) lack of resources or an abundance of systemic oppression?
What if the root cause of poverty (and therefore homelessness) is the poverty in our hearts because of our sin? The systems that oppress are created by people in power who use that power for selfish gain. There are thousands of individuals who have made self absorbed choices and have ended up losing their livelihood. There are many who have had their livelihood stolen from them because another person was treasuring their own life over loving their neighbor as their self. Sin complicates everything and it is never quite as simple as we would be comfortable with.
One way or another, poverty is born from a sinful heart and only if those hearts are transformed by the love of Christ will poverty really go away. Only then will we be able to see the end of homelessness.
What Jesus was saying wasn't "I don't want you to give to the poor," but only when we have a heart that treasures him will we ever really, deeply and truly have the heart for the poor. A disciple of Jesus has that kind of heart and the only way we will ever have that heart is if we are transformed by the good news that Jesus died for the sin that gives birth to poverty.
I want to have the same heart for the poor that Jesus does. That scares me because it will cost me in ways that seem too much now, but if I had his heart it would be a joy. I want to look at my poor neighbors and see not just a man who is down on his luck and needs food and shelter (as important as that is), but a man who is precious beyond my imagining and needing much more than a temporary home.
He needs shelter, but he also needs good news. He needs to see that Jesus is a treasure. He needs to see that God's kingdom comes with every new life transformed to treasure him and to repent of systematic oppression.
He needs his heart's true home. He needs an eternal home with Jesus.
I just got home from a tense community meeting regarding a proposed temporary housing encampment for homeless persons. The city of Seattle welcomed the neighborhoods surrounding the proposed site to come hear about the plan and to express their (our) opinions.
There was a lot of "not in my backyard" talk and some subtle accusations that if a person didn't support the camp then that person is letting people die.
Just to be clear, no one communicated (out loud, anyway) that they wanted people who did not have shelter to die. Except for a few unreasonable people who voiced their opinion and then did a "mic drop" and left the building, most people had meaningful things to say that most people would agree with.
Many neighbors shared about how we should follow "the golden rule" and we should "be kind" also giving practical steps to help people in unfortunate situations. Yes, we could all be there soon. Yes, we should look at another person in an affectionate love that acts to help.
But, I felt something was missing. Something deeper. We want to really love and really help people. That may mean we focus our attention away from the immediate need (as important as it is) and take a risk that the only way to solve the problem is to see the real problem.
When the woman "wasted" the perfume on Jesus, the man carrying the money got self righteously indignant and made the point that that expensive ointment could have been sold and given to the poor. Of course, that was right. It could have helped some poor, but it would not destroy the root of poverty. Jesus said something that would have been shocking at this meeting tonight: he essentially said that treasuring him is more important than giving to the poor.
I could not have articulated that in the time allowed each speaker to speak tonight because it sounds (at first) so unloving.
But, what if it is more loving than our plans? What if it is more practical than our programs to really, deeply and finally help the poor?
What if the real issue of homelessness is not a monetary issue but a heart issue? What if the root cause of poverty is not (merely) lack of resources or an abundance of systemic oppression?
What if the root cause of poverty (and therefore homelessness) is the poverty in our hearts because of our sin? The systems that oppress are created by people in power who use that power for selfish gain. There are thousands of individuals who have made self absorbed choices and have ended up losing their livelihood. There are many who have had their livelihood stolen from them because another person was treasuring their own life over loving their neighbor as their self. Sin complicates everything and it is never quite as simple as we would be comfortable with.
One way or another, poverty is born from a sinful heart and only if those hearts are transformed by the love of Christ will poverty really go away. Only then will we be able to see the end of homelessness.
What Jesus was saying wasn't "I don't want you to give to the poor," but only when we have a heart that treasures him will we ever really, deeply and truly have the heart for the poor. A disciple of Jesus has that kind of heart and the only way we will ever have that heart is if we are transformed by the good news that Jesus died for the sin that gives birth to poverty.
I want to have the same heart for the poor that Jesus does. That scares me because it will cost me in ways that seem too much now, but if I had his heart it would be a joy. I want to look at my poor neighbors and see not just a man who is down on his luck and needs food and shelter (as important as that is), but a man who is precious beyond my imagining and needing much more than a temporary home.
He needs shelter, but he also needs good news. He needs to see that Jesus is a treasure. He needs to see that God's kingdom comes with every new life transformed to treasure him and to repent of systematic oppression.
He needs his heart's true home. He needs an eternal home with Jesus.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Affectionate Evangelism
So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
(1 Thessalonians 2:8 ESV)
This is very true:
"Matt rang to ask what he should do. His friend George had asked him to go street preaching. Matt wasn't interested but didn't know how to respond. So the three of us got together. As the conversation began, it was clear that George thought we were selling out in some way. But as we talked about sharing our lives with unbelievers, about evangelism that was 24/7, about opening our homes, George's tone changed. At the end of our conversation he admitted, 'I'm not sure if I'm up for that kind of commitment.'" (Total Church, 57)
(1 Thessalonians 2:8 ESV)
This is very true:
"Matt rang to ask what he should do. His friend George had asked him to go street preaching. Matt wasn't interested but didn't know how to respond. So the three of us got together. As the conversation began, it was clear that George thought we were selling out in some way. But as we talked about sharing our lives with unbelievers, about evangelism that was 24/7, about opening our homes, George's tone changed. At the end of our conversation he admitted, 'I'm not sure if I'm up for that kind of commitment.'" (Total Church, 57)
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Not Good for Man(kind) to Be Alone
Even introverts need people. I smiled so much on Saturday my face got tired.
Last Saturday morning was the Magnolia Summerfest parade. This parade was our first so I didn't really know what to expect from the entire event. I decided to volunteer in order to get to know people by working alongside them. I thought that "trash picker upper" sounded like an easy job.
I was voluntold that I would be, not "trash picker upper" or "horse cleaner after," but Parade Staging Manager. The word is that everyone loves a parade, except for the Staging Manager. (I think I skipped class the day that we talked about helping organize a parade in seminary. That's another story.)
There were great crowds of people lining the streets. Of all of the time we have spent going to community events, nothing no nothing compared to this. People stopped all of the important things in their lives to come out and see clowns on oversized tricycles and grown men dressed as pirates. (Not that there is anything wrong with that :) Candy was thrown to the kids in abundance and parents all got to take a break from trying to be their children's entertainers for an hour.
About the time that the large marching band went through and I finally started to figure out what I was doing, I saw something in the crowds that encouraged me: people didn't just come for the clowns and the pirates, they came to be together. The parade entries were a good excuse.
In a neighborhood where so many people are "alone together," busy being social but oftentimes disconnected from heart-friendships, a parade is a safe way to share experiences but not share ourselves.
But just the fact that people came at all shows me that we all know something that we may not want to admit: we need real relationships. We need to be able to stop telling the world that we have it all together and to be able to be safe in a friendship defined by (real) forgiveness and (committed) acceptance.
The problem is that we know "us" too well. We know that we will not receive grace from another because we know we don't give grace. We know that we will have to be changed to be close to another person and we treasure that sin more than the possible relationship. We know that the vulnerability that is necessary to have a heart-friendship is costly.
I didn't make a hundred new friends on Saturday. I may have made a significant connection with 3 people. Maybe. But, what encourages me is that people still have a longing for real community within the neighborhood. The people, each one made in God's image, who gathered around a parade on Saturday are still longing for relationship.
The only way that longing will ever be filled is if Jesus transforms our fearful and self-righteous hearts and remakes us into people who come together for a different reason: because we are loved too much to (dangerously) stay safely away from real relationship with Jesus and one another.
We need to smile more deeply than we are willing to, but we will never do that alone.
Last Saturday morning was the Magnolia Summerfest parade. This parade was our first so I didn't really know what to expect from the entire event. I decided to volunteer in order to get to know people by working alongside them. I thought that "trash picker upper" sounded like an easy job.
I was voluntold that I would be, not "trash picker upper" or "horse cleaner after," but Parade Staging Manager. The word is that everyone loves a parade, except for the Staging Manager. (I think I skipped class the day that we talked about helping organize a parade in seminary. That's another story.)
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| What a clown! |
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| Thankfully, no children were Shanghaied...this year. |
In a neighborhood where so many people are "alone together," busy being social but oftentimes disconnected from heart-friendships, a parade is a safe way to share experiences but not share ourselves.
But just the fact that people came at all shows me that we all know something that we may not want to admit: we need real relationships. We need to be able to stop telling the world that we have it all together and to be able to be safe in a friendship defined by (real) forgiveness and (committed) acceptance.
The problem is that we know "us" too well. We know that we will not receive grace from another because we know we don't give grace. We know that we will have to be changed to be close to another person and we treasure that sin more than the possible relationship. We know that the vulnerability that is necessary to have a heart-friendship is costly.
I didn't make a hundred new friends on Saturday. I may have made a significant connection with 3 people. Maybe. But, what encourages me is that people still have a longing for real community within the neighborhood. The people, each one made in God's image, who gathered around a parade on Saturday are still longing for relationship.
The only way that longing will ever be filled is if Jesus transforms our fearful and self-righteous hearts and remakes us into people who come together for a different reason: because we are loved too much to (dangerously) stay safely away from real relationship with Jesus and one another.
We need to smile more deeply than we are willing to, but we will never do that alone.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Don't Let Me Tell You I Have It All Together
...In anyway, by words or by silence. There has never been a time in my life I have felt as weak. Never been a time I have felt more out of control. Never.
And I have a really hard time being out of control.
Never felt as open to weakness. Never felt as selfish and angry.
Never felt as frustrated because I can't say the right words. My words feel like they fail whether it is praying or sharing good news or simply loving my family.
Never have I seen how much we need the Father to bring his kingdom and never have I felt as powerless to be a part of it.
I don't want weakness!
I don't want to feel out of control!
I don't want to wonder if I am being faithful. I want success, safety, growth...
Father, have you called us to failure?
I asked the Father to show me how the gospel matters to me...to write the gospel on my heart. He did that for Paul why wouldn't he do that for those who ask him?
Never felt the hunger to know the gospel more...how the good news to the world becomes good news to
me. From one point of view the cross was a failure.
I don't want to tell anyone I have it all together. Not at all. I just want to live a grace full life.
And I have a really hard time being out of control.
Never felt as open to weakness. Never felt as selfish and angry.
Never felt as frustrated because I can't say the right words. My words feel like they fail whether it is praying or sharing good news or simply loving my family.
Never have I seen how much we need the Father to bring his kingdom and never have I felt as powerless to be a part of it.
I don't want weakness!
I don't want to feel out of control!
I don't want to wonder if I am being faithful. I want success, safety, growth...
Father, have you called us to failure?
I asked the Father to show me how the gospel matters to me...to write the gospel on my heart. He did that for Paul why wouldn't he do that for those who ask him?
Never felt the hunger to know the gospel more...how the good news to the world becomes good news to
me. From one point of view the cross was a failure.
I don't want to tell anyone I have it all together. Not at all. I just want to live a grace full life.
Monday, August 3, 2015
Great Gospel Questions (three)
"Why would we care what others will think of us if we're honest about our sin when the One who holds our destiny in his hands has accepted us as if we had never sinned?...
...Why deny who we are and what we need when full provision has been made?...
...Why act as if no one would understand when we have been given a faithful and understanding High Priest who is sympathetic with all our weakness?"
Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies: a Daily Gospel Devotional
...Why deny who we are and what we need when full provision has been made?...
...Why act as if no one would understand when we have been given a faithful and understanding High Priest who is sympathetic with all our weakness?"
Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies: a Daily Gospel Devotional
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Great Gospel Questions (two)
"Why would we allow ourselves to be motivated by shame when Jesus willingly carried our shame?...
...Why would we construct a facade of righteousness when Jesus has given his righteousness over to our account?..."
...Why would we fear God's wrath when Jesus took the full brunt of God's anger for us on the cross?"
Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies: a Daily Gospel Devotional
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Great Gospel Questions (one)
"Why would you and I work so hard to hide or deny what has been fully, completely, and eternally forgiven?...
...Why would we work so hard to pretend that we are something less than sinners when the message of the gospel is that Jesus loves and accepts sinners?...
Why would we hide in guilt when Jesus has fully borne our guilt?"
Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies: a Daily Gospel Devotional
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Sign of the Kingdom: Jesus Still Serves through His People
Really, if you think about it, it does not make any sense. They left their home for a week to come to Seattle when they could be celebrating the fact that they aren't in school. Who would fault them for playing video games, sleeping in and (maybe) filling out paperwork to get into their dream university?
As many people think of high school students they are often portrayed as self absorbed and lazy, unaware and maybe unwilling to give to anyone else. So, for a group of students to come to Seattle to serve at the Ballard Food Bank- and to do it with joy- doesn't seem to make sense. (Did I mention that they paid to do it?!)
There is something "not of this world" when a group of students (and their servant hearted leaders) gets up early to go make sure that people that they have never met get to eat that day. It is a sign of God bringing his kingdom.
What is really "not of this world" is that they did all of this, not from a heart that says "Look at me and how great I am," but with an attitude of joyful, sacrificial love. Don't get me wrong, they are by no means perfect, but the heart that Jesus has given them- His heart!- overflowed in practical service to people who are not used to be treated with authentic kindness and respect.
This group was here to serve alongside Vona Church that my good friend Wil pastors. Wil has counseled all of us that the best way to wisely love the people of his neighborhood in Seattle is to serve them with the attitude of Jesus so that their hearts might be stirred to ask "Why are those crazy people doing that?" (Note: not his exact words) They may not want to hear about Jesus at first, but there is a quality of that kind of love that makes people wonder. Serving others in a world that overvalues those who "deserve" to be served is a sign of the way the world should be...a sign of the kingdom.
A mature lady came to me and asked me all sorts of questions about the students and Vona Church. She was VERY skeptical (to say the least) and asked me questions that revealed that she had been hurt in the past by those who called themselves "Christians." But, interestingly, she was asking questions. She saw something in those students that made her search her heart more than what was comfortable for her. She HAD to know what they were about. I simply told her that those students were expressing the heart of their Savior that he had given them. She scoffed as she walked away, but she also left wondering. The expression on her face showed that she encountered something she couldn't quite explain...and definitely couldn't explain away.
It is a sign of the kingdom that a group of students would joyfully sacrifice time they could be playing to genuinely serve with the servant heart of Jesus. That sign spoke loudly to me and to at least one hurting woman who longs for something better than the life she knows. Our God often shows signs of his kingdom so quietly that we might almost miss how he is pointing us to the better world he is creating in the midst of a selfish world. He is quiet in that way, but, when we notice, the sign is too loud for us to ignore...and we wouldn't want to ignore it.
"In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16 ESV)
As many people think of high school students they are often portrayed as self absorbed and lazy, unaware and maybe unwilling to give to anyone else. So, for a group of students to come to Seattle to serve at the Ballard Food Bank- and to do it with joy- doesn't seem to make sense. (Did I mention that they paid to do it?!)
There is something "not of this world" when a group of students (and their servant hearted leaders) gets up early to go make sure that people that they have never met get to eat that day. It is a sign of God bringing his kingdom.
What is really "not of this world" is that they did all of this, not from a heart that says "Look at me and how great I am," but with an attitude of joyful, sacrificial love. Don't get me wrong, they are by no means perfect, but the heart that Jesus has given them- His heart!- overflowed in practical service to people who are not used to be treated with authentic kindness and respect.
This group was here to serve alongside Vona Church that my good friend Wil pastors. Wil has counseled all of us that the best way to wisely love the people of his neighborhood in Seattle is to serve them with the attitude of Jesus so that their hearts might be stirred to ask "Why are those crazy people doing that?" (Note: not his exact words) They may not want to hear about Jesus at first, but there is a quality of that kind of love that makes people wonder. Serving others in a world that overvalues those who "deserve" to be served is a sign of the way the world should be...a sign of the kingdom.
A mature lady came to me and asked me all sorts of questions about the students and Vona Church. She was VERY skeptical (to say the least) and asked me questions that revealed that she had been hurt in the past by those who called themselves "Christians." But, interestingly, she was asking questions. She saw something in those students that made her search her heart more than what was comfortable for her. She HAD to know what they were about. I simply told her that those students were expressing the heart of their Savior that he had given them. She scoffed as she walked away, but she also left wondering. The expression on her face showed that she encountered something she couldn't quite explain...and definitely couldn't explain away.
It is a sign of the kingdom that a group of students would joyfully sacrifice time they could be playing to genuinely serve with the servant heart of Jesus. That sign spoke loudly to me and to at least one hurting woman who longs for something better than the life she knows. Our God often shows signs of his kingdom so quietly that we might almost miss how he is pointing us to the better world he is creating in the midst of a selfish world. He is quiet in that way, but, when we notice, the sign is too loud for us to ignore...and we wouldn't want to ignore it.
"In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16 ESV)
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Crossing Each Person's Culture
People around us are deep mysteries. To love my neighbors means I need to understand them, to know them deeply even if they try hard not to be known. Every person has a culture and every relationship I have with someone is crossing over into their culture.
The only way I will ever really understand someone is if the Spirit gives me insight into them but, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t do the work of listening to them and observing what they love. Everyone who is a child of God is also a missionary to the people they spend time with. That means we need to think like people who cross cultures, even if we don’t recognize that we are crossing cultures.
In their book, Everyday Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis give counsel on how to observe people and discern culture. They give questions to ponder in discerning how to love people deeply by understanding them and their culture:
Where?
- Where are the places and activities that we can meet people (the missional spaces)?
- Where do people experience community?
- Are there exiting social networks with which we can engage, or do we need to find ways of creating community within the neighborhood?
- Where should we be to have missional opportunities?
When?
- What are the patterns and timescales of our neighborhood (the missional rhythms)?
- When are the times that we can connect with people (the missional moments)?
- How do people organize their time?
- What cultural experiences and celebrations do people value/? How might these be bridges to the gospel?
- When should we be available for missional opportunities?
What?
- What are people’s fears, hopes, and hurts?
- What gospel stories are told in the neighborhood? What gives people identity (creation)? How do they account for wrong in the world (fall)? What is their solution (redemption)? What are their hopes (consummation)?
- What are the barrier beliefs or assumptions that cause people to dismiss the gospel?
- What sins will the gospel first confront and heal?
- In what ways rate people self righteous?
- What is the good news for people in this neighborhood?
- What will church look like for people in this neighborhood?
Saturday, July 18, 2015
This is Good News, Too
Those who follow Jesus are never in the majority...never in control of the culture.
We will always be different. But it is a kind of different that isn't awkward and disconnected with what is going on around us.
It is the kind of "different" that reminds the people around us that what we see in this world is not and is not all that there is. Our "different" reminds the world that God's kingdom is what we have always longed for in ways we may never have recognized.
"If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:19 ESV)
We will always be different. But it is a kind of different that isn't awkward and disconnected with what is going on around us.
It is the kind of "different" that reminds the people around us that what we see in this world is not and is not all that there is. Our "different" reminds the world that God's kingdom is what we have always longed for in ways we may never have recognized.
"If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:19 ESV)
"Look For Signs of the Kingdom"
This statement seems so simple, but it was revolutionary to me at a time I needed it most. I have to share it with you.
A few weeks ago, I went to a new friend to ask for his counsel on how to handle "planting a church" in Seattle. The week prior had been discouraging and it was obvious to both my wife and me that we were missing the point. Asking questions like "why is it so hard to connect with people?" and "what are we doing wrong?", Adrienne and I both knew that our outlook was short-sighted and full of fear.
My friend heard and empathized with my frustrations. He didn't try to wow me by being profound, but pointed me back to a simple truth: we did not move here first a foremost to "start a church," but to be a part of how the King of heaven is working to make the world "right" again by transforming people. He reminded me that faithfulness doesn't simply mean building a new religious organization, but working in the power that God provides to see people flourish because of a restored relationship with the God who gave his son Jesus to rescue us from ourselves.
Its simple. Seek God's kingdom and look for signs of that kingdom. Signs like a man who had never heard that there is a personal God who created him hearing that truth for the first time and being overwhelmed by it. A woman who grieves for restored relationship with her son seeing the Father bring him back home to her. A man who anxiously brought his family to a new city resting again in the truth that the God he trusts can (and will!) do exceedingly more than he can imagine in the lives of people around him. These are signs of the kingdom.
Another friend recently reminded me that when God shows himself to us it is not for us alone, but to share that joy with others. So, as I recognize signs of the kingdom around me, I need to share with others.
The King of heaven is at work in the hearts of the people of Seattle. He is showing us signs of his kingdom.
They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. (Psalm 145:11-12 ESV)
A few weeks ago, I went to a new friend to ask for his counsel on how to handle "planting a church" in Seattle. The week prior had been discouraging and it was obvious to both my wife and me that we were missing the point. Asking questions like "why is it so hard to connect with people?" and "what are we doing wrong?", Adrienne and I both knew that our outlook was short-sighted and full of fear.
My friend heard and empathized with my frustrations. He didn't try to wow me by being profound, but pointed me back to a simple truth: we did not move here first a foremost to "start a church," but to be a part of how the King of heaven is working to make the world "right" again by transforming people. He reminded me that faithfulness doesn't simply mean building a new religious organization, but working in the power that God provides to see people flourish because of a restored relationship with the God who gave his son Jesus to rescue us from ourselves.
Its simple. Seek God's kingdom and look for signs of that kingdom. Signs like a man who had never heard that there is a personal God who created him hearing that truth for the first time and being overwhelmed by it. A woman who grieves for restored relationship with her son seeing the Father bring him back home to her. A man who anxiously brought his family to a new city resting again in the truth that the God he trusts can (and will!) do exceedingly more than he can imagine in the lives of people around him. These are signs of the kingdom.
Another friend recently reminded me that when God shows himself to us it is not for us alone, but to share that joy with others. So, as I recognize signs of the kingdom around me, I need to share with others.
The King of heaven is at work in the hearts of the people of Seattle. He is showing us signs of his kingdom.
They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. (Psalm 145:11-12 ESV)
Saturday, July 11, 2015
A Promise to Love With
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
(Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV)
(Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV)
Friday, July 10, 2015
Heartfelt Wisdom from a Man With a Wig
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| Jonathan Edwards |
An excerpt from Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections:
"The nature of human beings is to be inactive unless influenced by some affection: love or hatred, desire, hope, fear, etc. These affections are the 'spring of action,' the things that set us moving in our lives, that move us to engage in activities.
When we look at the world, we see that people are exceedingly busy. It is there affections that keep them busy. If we were to take away their affections, the world would be motionless and dead; there would be no such thing as activity.
It is the affection called covetousness that moves a person to seek worldly profits;
it is the affection we call ambition that moves a person to pursue worldly glory;
it is the affection we call lust that moves a person to pursue sensual delights.
Just as worldly affections are the spring of worldly actions, so the religious affections are the spring of religious actions."
Friday, July 3, 2015
Look Through Them for Their Sake
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
(Matthew 9:35-38 ESV)
There has been a latent desire in my heart over the last decade that I am just now starting to understand. I have a weak, but yet substantive longing to see people transformed to love Jesus. That is nothing we create on our own, but something that the Spirit gives every believer when he gives us a new heart.
This desire, this gift, grows in us as we trust Jesus more. The more we know him the more we want others to know him too. It is a beautiful thing that brings more and more joy.
Meeting new friends in our area that we want to see trust our God stirs the desire on but yet dries it up. When real people with real names and real eternities are involved it changes.
I have found myself obsessing about it, trying to manufacture it and sustain it. But, the Lord has shown me something even better: "Look Through Them for Their Sake."
Jesus didn't simply tell his disciples in this passage to go and engage those people. That would be good. Jesus set their eyes beyond the people he had compassion on because he had compassion on them.
What our Lord wants for his people is to come home to him to be sure, but also to have his righteous anger over sin, his joy over one who has even the smallest amount of faith in him, and his deep love that welcomes people to the home they long for. Jesus' compassion is too rich and too expansive to simply keep to himself- he wants that heart in everyone who is his child.
So, he pointed his disciples beyond the people right in front of them for the people right in front of them. Jesus called his disciples to look into the reaches of the world that they themselves could never reach...but the people in front of them could. Jesus wants the people in front of us to have the joy of loving the nations.
So, we want to make new friends in Seattle who come to trust Jesus with all of their heart. If my compassion only leads me to see them saved and not see through them to the people they will befriend, then my compassion is much smaller and weaker than Jesus'.
I want to look through the people we will grow to love to the people they will grow to love and the people they will grow to love and the people they will grow to love. I want to look at my new friends, love them deeply and committedly, and longingly work to stir up the joyful gift Jesus' heart in them for the nations. The salvation we are given is more than a ticket out of punishment, but it is also into a full, adventurous life with Jesus.
Jesus never "overlooked" someone for someone else' sake. I don't want to either. I want their joy to be the joy of Jesus when someone comes to trust him. Isn't that what love is?
One more thing. Jesus told the disciples (and us) to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out workers. Every workers was once part of the harvest. May it be that he sends out people who whole-heartedly love him into the harvest field who are, today, in the harvest.
There has been a latent desire in my heart over the last decade that I am just now starting to understand. I have a weak, but yet substantive longing to see people transformed to love Jesus. That is nothing we create on our own, but something that the Spirit gives every believer when he gives us a new heart.
This desire, this gift, grows in us as we trust Jesus more. The more we know him the more we want others to know him too. It is a beautiful thing that brings more and more joy.
Meeting new friends in our area that we want to see trust our God stirs the desire on but yet dries it up. When real people with real names and real eternities are involved it changes.
I have found myself obsessing about it, trying to manufacture it and sustain it. But, the Lord has shown me something even better: "Look Through Them for Their Sake."
Jesus didn't simply tell his disciples in this passage to go and engage those people. That would be good. Jesus set their eyes beyond the people he had compassion on because he had compassion on them.
What our Lord wants for his people is to come home to him to be sure, but also to have his righteous anger over sin, his joy over one who has even the smallest amount of faith in him, and his deep love that welcomes people to the home they long for. Jesus' compassion is too rich and too expansive to simply keep to himself- he wants that heart in everyone who is his child.
So, he pointed his disciples beyond the people right in front of them for the people right in front of them. Jesus called his disciples to look into the reaches of the world that they themselves could never reach...but the people in front of them could. Jesus wants the people in front of us to have the joy of loving the nations.
So, we want to make new friends in Seattle who come to trust Jesus with all of their heart. If my compassion only leads me to see them saved and not see through them to the people they will befriend, then my compassion is much smaller and weaker than Jesus'.
I want to look through the people we will grow to love to the people they will grow to love and the people they will grow to love and the people they will grow to love. I want to look at my new friends, love them deeply and committedly, and longingly work to stir up the joyful gift Jesus' heart in them for the nations. The salvation we are given is more than a ticket out of punishment, but it is also into a full, adventurous life with Jesus.
Jesus never "overlooked" someone for someone else' sake. I don't want to either. I want their joy to be the joy of Jesus when someone comes to trust him. Isn't that what love is?
One more thing. Jesus told the disciples (and us) to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out workers. Every workers was once part of the harvest. May it be that he sends out people who whole-heartedly love him into the harvest field who are, today, in the harvest.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
The Promiser and Mr. Taylor
We have a hard time believing promises until they are kept because we have we have seen them broken too many times. In that way, we think promises aren't are to be broken, but they can be broken as simply as they are made.
Promises do not seem to be worth basing our lives on.
I just finished reading Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret for the 5th or 6th time. My uncle gave it to me to read around 20 years ago but I was much too young and much too fearful to understand the message. I was too immature to "get" the missionary's life and the joys and agonies that came with his gift of faith in a Faithful God.
Mr. Taylor's story didn't resonate with me until I needed to hear it. It isn't that I have grown "older" or "more mature" necessarily, just more desperate.
That's where I am again. Needing someone to constantly remind me with his life that I can trust the promises of the Father. Slow hearted as I am so often, I need someone around that says "see, I told you our Father could be trusted!" Many times that is my wife or a good friend, but this time it was a man long gone Home whose life reminds me that the world of radical, deep [read: normal] trust is the REAL world in Gods kingdom.
Oh, how much the Father would do if we would give him room by giving up fear that leads to small heartedness?! Fear begets more fear, but one act of restful faith in Gods promises dissipates fear and opens our eyes (even if too slowly) to a world where we are free to risk big things that would show how faithful the Father really is. What a big world that is!
Promises, though, are not all sweet and milk toasty. Many seem to inspire deeper fear ("the world will hate you" "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name"), but that isn't a new fear. It's the same old fear that was only awakened when it was heard.
But even in that, the Father beckons us to draw near to him with a faith the people entrenched in the thinking of this world would call foolish and reckless. Those who live the faith of Jesus and who feast on his promises see that the World is an illusion set up by the workers of darkness to draw our attention away from the Jesus who can master the elements of nature by walking on water and fearfully fix our gaze on the wind and the waves.
So, in finishing this book, I am sad to miss out on meeting with my deceased mentor in the life of Christ. So many times the Lord has used Mr. Taylor's story to remind me that He is in our story... at just the right time. I guess now it is time to live what I have been taught.
More than anything, though, I long to know that breaking promises is not in God's character. If that is true, then I can bet my life and everything I care about on them.
Father, show your faithfulness by giving us a heart-felt faith in who you say you are. Make your words more real to us than the narrative spoken to us by the world. May we not depend on faithless, worldly means to live out the lives you have given us. For your names sake, show your strength in our weakness. May your Word by our deepest encouragement and may praying in fellowship with you be the place where we depend on you and know you are coming through. Proclaim your faithfulness to your promises and your character in our lives so that everyone around us will know you are alive and that you for us because of Jesus.
In Jesus' name, for his sake in the hearts of all around us (including us)
Friday, June 26, 2015
Our Unchanging King
The wind was changing and now it has changed.
For some reason over the last 2-3 weeks I haven't been able to sit down and read my Bible. Its isn't for lack of desire, but a lack of concentration. The words get all jumbled together and I can't make sense of them.
So, I have started to listen to scripture in the mornings. My bible app on my phone has a option to stream a golden-voiced man read the Word of God to me. (I don't think it is live. I think it was prerecorded :) This morning my New Testament reading was John 19.
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”
(John 19:1-6 ESV)
It goes on, of course. There is irony in this: the King of the Universe is being mocked by those who do not understand him...but they are telling the truth about him while they mock him! They call him "king" in jest, but in reality they are saying something profound about him: he deserves a crown and he proudly (though painfully) wears it.
He deserves a crown of laurel or of gold, but he willingly wears the thorned crown.
Jesus the king stood quietly among the powers of a world antagonistic toward him while the people he came to save stood outside and jeered him. Yet, because of the depth of his character, his love and his mission were unaffected, unchanged.
There are two things that stand out to me today:
The same King who had the character of heart to absorb the pain of all of our foolishness and the harm we cause to one another is the same king who is ruling over all aspects of the universe. He is a different kind of king than we expect and the only one we really need... and he does not change.
And today, he is still not impatient or fearful. I don't have to be either.
So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
(Hebrews 13:12-14 ESV)
Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
For some reason over the last 2-3 weeks I haven't been able to sit down and read my Bible. Its isn't for lack of desire, but a lack of concentration. The words get all jumbled together and I can't make sense of them.
So, I have started to listen to scripture in the mornings. My bible app on my phone has a option to stream a golden-voiced man read the Word of God to me. (I don't think it is live. I think it was prerecorded :) This morning my New Testament reading was John 19.
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”
(John 19:1-6 ESV)
It goes on, of course. There is irony in this: the King of the Universe is being mocked by those who do not understand him...but they are telling the truth about him while they mock him! They call him "king" in jest, but in reality they are saying something profound about him: he deserves a crown and he proudly (though painfully) wears it.
He deserves a crown of laurel or of gold, but he willingly wears the thorned crown.
Jesus the king stood quietly among the powers of a world antagonistic toward him while the people he came to save stood outside and jeered him. Yet, because of the depth of his character, his love and his mission were unaffected, unchanged.
There are two things that stand out to me today:
- Jesus trusted himself to his Father in such a way that the entire world could be against him, not getting angry nor impatient nor fearful. He still walked the path of love and set his heart on a mission that was not only unhindered by the political power of the day, but encouraged by it.
- Jesus still loved his neighbors who were gloating over his "loss" in the highest court (Pilate's) in their land. They saw him as the enemy of all that they held dear to them. He saw them with compassion.
The same King who had the character of heart to absorb the pain of all of our foolishness and the harm we cause to one another is the same king who is ruling over all aspects of the universe. He is a different kind of king than we expect and the only one we really need... and he does not change.
And today, he is still not impatient or fearful. I don't have to be either.
So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
(Hebrews 13:12-14 ESV)
(Psalm 115:2-3 ESV)
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Thoughts over Breakfast
This morning is chilly, but the heat from the charcoal fire warms us while we wait for the sun to greet us. The long night of working has spilled over and I feel the ache. It seems my clothes will always be damp. What else am I supposed to do, though?
I though it was all over, that he was gone for good to a place that I couldn't follow. Don't get me wrong, I am overjoyed that he came back, but what am I supposed to do? I will just go back to work and do what I know to do. It feels good to work with my hands and see immediate gratification of an immediate response. Though I am weary, the work feels good.
But, even work seems different now that he is here. It is not...I don't know..."enough." The fire is attracting, warm, welcoming, but I do not want to merely sit. That doesn't feel like enough either.
He made breakfast, though. He made us breakfast! It doesn't seem right.
Sitting here enjoying a filing meal after a long night I am both at rest and, at the same time, wanting to move. (If I get up and go will he leave?) It seems like my world has changed and I don't fit in it anymore.
Stirring the fire as he cooks, we talk. We sit in the silence of the dawn, contemplating the newness of the day. This feels like a home I always longed for but never understood. Hope energizes me even in the most mundane of his words, but only through hearing more than what is comfortable. But, that is nothing new.
Oh, for more meals like this one!
Then, he looks at me with a fierceness and tenderness that I cannot run from. I have seen this look before. He is a master at this. What is he about to say? Whatever it is I probably can't handle it. he always asks for more than I have, but in a strange way I welcome it. When he asks a question it always reorients my world.
“Simon, son of John, do you love me...?"
His words reorient the whole world.
I though it was all over, that he was gone for good to a place that I couldn't follow. Don't get me wrong, I am overjoyed that he came back, but what am I supposed to do? I will just go back to work and do what I know to do. It feels good to work with my hands and see immediate gratification of an immediate response. Though I am weary, the work feels good.
But, even work seems different now that he is here. It is not...I don't know..."enough." The fire is attracting, warm, welcoming, but I do not want to merely sit. That doesn't feel like enough either.
He made breakfast, though. He made us breakfast! It doesn't seem right.
Sitting here enjoying a filing meal after a long night I am both at rest and, at the same time, wanting to move. (If I get up and go will he leave?) It seems like my world has changed and I don't fit in it anymore.
Stirring the fire as he cooks, we talk. We sit in the silence of the dawn, contemplating the newness of the day. This feels like a home I always longed for but never understood. Hope energizes me even in the most mundane of his words, but only through hearing more than what is comfortable. But, that is nothing new.
Oh, for more meals like this one!
Then, he looks at me with a fierceness and tenderness that I cannot run from. I have seen this look before. He is a master at this. What is he about to say? Whatever it is I probably can't handle it. he always asks for more than I have, but in a strange way I welcome it. When he asks a question it always reorients my world.
“Simon, son of John, do you love me...?"
His words reorient the whole world.
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