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. |
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