Category: Christian life

Posted on

Living in a Broken World

A young wife loses her husband, a child loses a parent. An elderly parent leaves this life. A middle aged man loses his job and sees no prospects ahead. Marriages struggle. Church leaders struggle with the demands of ministry while others succumb to the temptation of celebrity. In some corners of the world, believers are imprisoned and killed simply because they follow Jesus.

Anyone who thinks that because we are Christians, our lives are supposed to be sweetness and light, needs to wake up to the reality that we live in a broken world. Sometimes, life sucks. Things don’t always go the way we think they should and we are sometimes left wondering. At times, the stuff of life can be overwhelming. We are tempted to give up and despair. Words of comfort fall on deaf ears. I don’t have any words of wisdom. I don’t have any explanation for most of what happens. I definitely don’t want to spout out empty platitudes that may do more harm than good.

There is one thing I believe, and hold on to. I believe that God is good. When things don’t make sense, God is good. When the stuff piles up, and the pressure gets unbearable, God is good. When everything seems to fall apart, God is good. As I’ve gotten older and been through a few things, I am certain of less than I used to be. At the same time, I have become more certain of the goodness of God, more certain that my Father loves me and desires to do me good, even though I may not understand what that good might be. Unlike people I have known who said they were trustworthy and failed to follow through, my Father can be trusted to do what is loving and what is good.

Take heart, friends. God is a loving Father who knows what it is like to suffer. His heart is good to you, and he knows the end from the beginning. Even though it is hard, trust God’s heart. Trust his love and his grace. Trust that, though we currently live in a broken world, your Father is redeeming and restoring all things.

Posted on

Book Review: Undiluted by Benjamin L. Corey

This is my first attempt at a book review, so be gentle.

Benjamin Corey and I grew up in very similar environments. The difference between us is that he had his evangelical fundamentalist paradigm turned upside down while in seminary, while it didn’t happen to me until I was a few years older. Corey begins his book with this statement:

As Christians in America, we’re often lulled into the false belief somehow we have a monopoly
  on the pure and undiluted version of the message of Jesus. Unfortunately, we don’t. Christianity
     by nature has a tendency to blend in and become obscured by the cultural influences that surround      it —such has been the case for nearly 2,000 years of Christian history.
     Our experience is no different.
He then proceeds to tell how his world was turned upside by what he calls the undiluted message of Jesus. 
Corey’s premise is that Christianity as we know it is not what it was meant to be in the beginning. He makes the case that we have watered down the message of Jesus into something that fits our lifestyle, our economics, our politics and our personal comfort. In each chapter we find an area where our version of Christianity has lessened the original message and how going to back to what Corey calls the undiluted message of Jesus changed his life. 
This is not an easy book to read. As the author states, “In doing so (recovering the undiluted message of Jesus), you might experience a few deaths.” How many deaths will depend on how tied to cultural Christianity one may be. I found myself challenged to think about where I wasn’t simply following Jesus, and reaffirmed in ways I had already left diluted ways of thinking behind. 
I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to take a good hard look at what they believe and why. Some may not like what Corey has written. Some may even dismiss him as another one of those “liberals.” I have found through the years that it is best not to dismiss things out of hand, but rather to see what is there that is worth keeping and depending on the Spirit to guide me. You may not agree with everything in this book, but there is much there that is worth keeping. At the very least, Corey will make you think. And that’s good. 
Posted on

What I Did During My “Summer Vacation”

On June 5, the last day of school, I left the teacher’s assistant job that I had held for the past 8 1/2 years. On the same day, my father-in-law fell in his garage and broke his hip. Thus began a very interesting summer.

Because of the accident, I actually didn’t go in for my last day. I won’t go into the details here, but it was time to leave. I had been looking for other work, preferably in sports and recreation, for a few months. I didn’t think it would be a hard or long search but, as seems to happen quite a bit, God had something totally different in store for me. Jan and I spent a good bit of the next few days at the hospital. Thankfully, everything happened in the same city in which we live. There were a few complications, so there were some times when we wondered what was going to happen next. Thankfully, the complications were taken care of and my father-in-law moved into a rehab facility. At the time, the goal was to get him healed and rehabilitated to the point where he would be able to return home and live his life as he had before the accident. During this time a number of possible work opportunities presented themselves. None of them were in sports and recreation, and none of them were immediate.

Fast forward to the end of July. Jan’s dad was finally able to put weight on his leg, so the therapy to get him walking and hopefully back home could begin. We would know something in about two weeks. At the same time a few of the possible job opportunities faded away. The one that remained was taking care of my father-in-law during the day, and possibly doing some tutoring on the side. In the midst of all this, our son found out that he had a mass on his thyroid that might be cancerous.

After a couple of weeks of rehab, we were told that Jan’s dad would not be able to go home unless someone could be there 24/7. So, we went on a search for an assisted living place that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and that would be good for him. We found a good place that was affordable, and moved him in just last Friday. He seems to be adjusting well. Two weeks ago, Josh had surgery to remove the thyroid and the biopsy report on the mass showed that there was no cancer! We are thankful for the way we have seen God provide in both of those things the past couple of months.

This past Wednesday, school resumed. I slept in. I still have nothing in the way of what could be called a regular job. There are possibilities still, but nothing concrete yet, except for the responsibility of being my father-in-law’s financial representative. There is much to be done in that area in the next few months. I may be subbing in a local Christian school, and there are preparations to be done for Jennie’s wedding in September. So, at least I won’t be bored.

The road continues to be shrouded in mist, and the way ahead is not as clear as I would like. I am learning to trust that my Father loves me and wants to give me good things. I am learning to live, not in expectation of certain outcomes, but in expectancy of what God is going to do as he expresses his love and grace to me.

So, the road goes on and on.

Posted on

Blast From the Past: You Are More

This was first posted on March 1, 2011.

In our gathering Sunday, we were discussing who we are in Christ. We were talking about how we often react to certain situations and people according to old scripts that tell us we are this or we are that. We listen to lies that people have told us, saying that we are worthless, that we are stupid, that we are unloved. Because we believe those scripts, we have a hard time believing that God really loves us, and we are not free to love ourselves or to love others as Jesus has loved us. One of our brothers played a song by the group Tenth Avenue North titled “You Are More.”

Here are the lyrics:

There’s a girl in the corner
With tear stains on her eyes
From the places she’s wandered
And the shame she can’t hide

She says, “How did I get here?
I’m not who I once was.
And I’m crippled by the fear
That I’ve fallen too far to love”

But don’t you know who you are,
What’s been done for you?
Yeah don’t you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

Well she tries to believe it
That she’s been given new life
But she can’t shake the feeling
That it’s not true tonight

She knows all the answers
And she’s rehearsed all the lines
And so she’ll try to do better
But then she’s too weak to try

But don’t you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,

You’ve been remade.

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

‘Cause this is not about what you’ve done,
But what’s been done for you.
This is not about where you’ve been,
But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,
But what He felt to forgive you,
And what He felt to make you loved.

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

You’ve been remade
You’ve been remade.
You’ve been remade.
You’ve been remade.

You are more. More than what you have done, more than what has happened to you. You are more than what the old scripts tell you. You are a beloved child of the Creator, a co-heir with Christ. You are made in God’s image, more than simply a “sinner saved by grace.” You are free! Let me repeat. You. Are. Free! Free to love your Father with reckless abandon, knowing that he loves you the same way.

You are more. So much more.

Posted on

Forgiveness and Reconciliation

I’ve been thinking a bit about forgiveness and reconciliation, and I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the biggest problems in our relationships with others, both in and out of the church. I also believe that very few of us really understand what it means to forgive and be reconciled. There are times when I struggle with this myself.

I believe that forgiveness goes much deeper than most of us know. So often, we see forgiveness as the kind of thing where we simply don’t hold something against another. And, there may be times when that is the case, such as when the other person has died. For those of us who follow Jesus, forgiveness also carries the idea of reconciliation. Again, there will be instances where that simply is not possible.

When Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who sins against him, Jesus replied that he was to forgive 49 or 490 times. The number is not really the issue. Jesus is telling us that we are to forgive others, especially our family in Christ, as many times as necessary. That presupposes a relationship with that person. That’s where reconciliation comes in.

In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus tells us that being reconciled with a brother or sister in Christ is a higher priority than worship. If there is something in the way of our relationship with another, we are to get that right before we come present our worship to God. I believe Scripture goes even farther. In 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Paul tells us that Christ has reconciled us to God. When we come to Jesus and become a member of God’s family, he doesn’t say to us, “Well, you’re forgiven and all that, so I won’t punish you. But, I don’t really want you around. I forgive you, but I don’t want to have a relationship with you, so stay away.” On the contrary, God welcomes us into a close relationship with him. He is pleased to be called our Father. As our Father pursues us and reconciles us to himself, so his children should pursue reconciliation with our brothers and sisters.

Beyond the family relationship, in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul tells us that we are all members of the same body. He even goes so far as to say that we are members of one another! I don’t totally understand what all that means, but is seems that our relationships with our fellow followers of Jesus are pretty important. Jesus said that the world would know that we belong to him by our love for one another. I fear that what the world sees is a lot of infighting, anger, bitterness, and a lack of forgiveness. Can we expect those outside to want what we have when it doesn’t seem to make much difference in what are our most important relationships?

God help us to seek reconciliation and show the love of Christ to a watching world.

Posted on

Blast From the Past: Delight and Desire

This was first published on May 18, 2010.

Psalm 37: 4 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I was taught growing up that if you had God as your greatest delight, he would change your desires so they would be in line with what God wanted. and then those desires would be granted. This meant that our desires would become things like having bigger ministries, or other things that meant we were becoming better Christians. Another interpretation is that if we really delight in God, all of our wishes will be granted, even if those include a luxury car, a nicer house, and plenty of money.

Both of these interpretations have one thing in common. They both treat God as a kind of divine vending machine. If you put something in, you get something out. Usually the way you prove your delight in God is by doing more Bible reading and praying, by going to church more often, or by doing any number of practices. Any of these things are fine in and of themselves. The problem comes when we do them thinking that it will obligate God to do certain things for us. It doesn’t matter if those things are material or not, if we see them as payment for the things we do, we are wrong.

We were talking about this in our gathering on Sunday, and I got to thinking. What if delighting in God is the desire? God doesn’t put the priority on what we do, but rather on being in relationship with him. Jesus said that eternal life is knowing the Father, and knowing the Son. We are given life not just to live a moral life and then go to heaven when we die. We are given life in order to intimately know the Father and the Son. Everything we do comes out of that relationship.

When a married couple love each other, they each take delight in the other. That delight does bring about certain actions, but it is not the actions that bring about the delight, rather it is the other way around. The goal of the delight is not to get things from the other. Instead it is delight that is rewarded with greater intimacy, which brings greater delight, which brings…you get the picture.

I believe that it is that way in our relationship with our Father. When we delight in him, when our beings are wrapped up in getting to know him better and living in his love, God gives us the thing we desire, more intimacy with him. That causes more desire, which brings about more delight, and so on. As I look at Psalm 37, I see God blessing his people in ways that go beyond just material and physical.

Posted on

Church Signs: H.O.P.E.

The other day on my bus route, I saw a message on a church sign. The message was the acronym HOPE, with the letters standing for Hold On Pain Ends. As always, the wheels started to turn. I thought, “You know, that’s true. Pain will end at some point, either during our lifetime or when we die.” Then I thought of another way to look at it.

The message could be, “Hold on, pain will be redeemed.” I know that doesn’t work as an acronym, but that’s the way it goes. In Colossians 1:27, Paul writes that the hope of glory for the Christian is Christ in us. Paul also says in that chapter that his sufferings serve in some way to continue or complete the sufferings of Christ himself. Paul saw his sufferings as part of the sufferings of the Messiah. The ancient Jews believed that Israel and the world would have to go through great suffering before the inauguration of the age to come. Paul, and the early Christians, believed that Jesus had undergone that suffering on the cross, and had begun the age to come with his resurrection.

Because the new age is not fully realized until Christ returns, there is still suffering to undergo. The early church got this. One of the reasons they could rejoice in the midst of persecution and suffering was the belief that the suffering they endured served to advance the kingdom in some way. They believed that because Christ in them was their hope of glory that their pain would not only end at some point, but that it would also be redeemed by God.

Much of the church today doesn’t get it. A great deal of what is taught and practiced in churches is designed to alleviate and play down suffering, if not to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Jesus told us that we would have trouble in this life. He never promised that life would be a piece of cake. Paul doesn’t say that we have Christ in us, the hope of our best life now. It is true that we are glorified with Christ. It is equally true that the completion of that glory will only come when we see him. Our redemption is now, and not yet.

Take heart in your suffering. There is hope. Christ in you seals your glory. Your suffering will end, some day. It will also be redeemed for good.

Posted on

Blast From the Past: Gluttony

I went to an all you can eat pizza place today with the kids I work with today. It reminded me of this post from January 24, 2011. In the interests of full disclosure, I ate fair amount of pizza myself.

One night a couple of years ago we went to Ci-Ci’s for dinner and I realized that one of America’s biggest sins is gluttony. In the traditional sense of overeating yes (I admit I was rather stuffed when we left), but also in the larger sense of over consuming and wasting. As we were eating, Jan pointed out the amount of crusts and entire pieces of pizza that were left on plates. People go into a place like Ci-Ci’s and see the tremendous amount of food displayed before them. So they load up their plate and begin to eat. Since this is an all-you-can-eat buffet, they go back for a second plate. Then, if they don’t go back for a third plate of regular pizza, they have a few pieces of dessert pizza. The problem is many of those people find that they can’t eat all they have taken. So they leave it. They leave it to be thrown away and wasted.

Then I thought about our culture. Gas prices keep going up, and how many really change their driving habits. There are many examples of wastefulness in our society. Most of you could come up with a few.

My question is: What does this say about our culture? More importantly, what does this say about those of us who claim to belong to Jesus? Are we doing what we can to conserve and not waste the things God has given us? These things include gas, food, natural resources, time, talents, relationships. Christians should be the best environmentalists. Not in a worship Mother Earth, man is a virus type of way, but in a way that recognizes that this world was created by God for us to wisely and compassionately use for the Kingdom. God didn’t give man the right to abuse creation. We are stewards and are to take care of the gift we have.

Posted on

God In the Day-To-Day

In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, John the Baptist comes on the scene, baptizing and calling people to repentance. A group of priests and Levites asked John who he was. They wondered if he was the Messiah, or Elijah, or maybe the Prophet that was to come. They thought that, since he was baptizing and drawing large crowds, that maybe he was the Christ, or at least a forerunner. They were looking for a big name. After all, the Messiah would have someone major setting things up for his coming, someone who would make a splash. John, however, answered that he was nothing more than a voice crying in the wilderness. The priests then asked why John was baptizing, if he wasn’t an important person. He didn’t answer the why question, but again stated that he was a nobody who was  unworthy to perform even the duties of a common slave who would untie the sandals of his master. John also stated that the One to come was among them, but they were missing it.

The people of Jesus’ day were looking for a Messiah to come as a conquering hero, one whose arrival would be heralded by great prophets like Elijah, one whose rank would be obvious. Instead, he arrived as an ordinary man in a group of ordinary people and was announced by a strange character who wore skins, ate locusts and honey, and hung out in the desert. Not at all what they expected. All through Jesus’s time here on earth, he failed to live up to folks’ expectations of himself, all the while bringing God’s kingdom to earth. Finally, he died as a criminal, crucified by the forces of the empire. Most of the folks didn’t recognize that by dying, Jesus defeated the powers that be, including death itself. Most of them missed it because they were looking for the wrong thing in the wrong places.

I wonder how many times we miss Jesus. Like the 1st century folks, we have a tendency to look for the next big thing. We run from conference to conference. We read about this ministry or that church and their flashy programs, and try to copy them. Look at the speakers at conferences, or the popular speakers on television. They are the ones who have the huge churches, who write all the best sellers. We have created a class of celebrity Christians, just like other generations before us. Our celebrities are more famous because of the reach of media. We search for churches that have great music, dynamic speakers, and plenty of programs. We get so proud of them that we put their names on our cars, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and whatever else we can put out there for others to see. I wonder if we have given the watching world the impression that Christianity is for those who have it all together, that our celebrities are better than theirs. We try to compete with all the flash that is out there.

As humans, we can easily get our eyes off the One we say we are following and onto the ones who are putting on the show for us. I’m convinced that many of the scandals that have happened in recent years are because a ministry began with good intentions, and then got too big too fast for the people involved. Those people then began to believe their press and started to think of themselves as bullet proof. Their are plenty of examples out there of good people being corrupted by the celebrity cult.

If we are not one of those that “God is greatly using,” as evidenced by a lot of outward good stuff, we can too easily think that we don’t matter. A mother who stays at home to raise her children, a man who works your basic 9-5 job, the pastor who shepherds a small flock with no TV presence and no invitations to speak before thousands of people. These are the folks that get missed when we think about the ones God is using for the kingdom. We forget that Jesus came as an ordinary man. His arrival was proclaimed by an ordinary preacher. The spectacular was not a part of what he did. Most of his followers down through the centuries have been ordinary men and woman who were simply following their Master as they went through their ordinary days. These are the kinds of people who turned the world upside down in the 1st century.

If you are one of those “ordinary” pastors, moms, dads, whatever, take heart. Jesus does not ask us to be great. He simply calls us us to be faithful with what he has given us. Everything we have is a gift from our Father, and everything we do with love is important in his eyes. Simply live your life as a disciple of Jesus. Focus on loving God and loving others as you go about your day-to-day. Be who God made you to be. That is enough. Let God work through you as he worked through the countless unnamed disciples through the centuries.

Posted on

Blast From the Past: Too Comfortable With Jesus?

This was first posted on  February 16, 2010.

In Mark 6, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in his hometown. The people are amazed at his teaching and wisdom. Matthew 13 tells us that his neighbors also were amazed at his miracles. They asked how Jesus got all this wisdom and power. After all, this was the same man who had grown up in their town. They knew his family. He had played with their children. Jesus had probably done work for them. They knew Jesus, or at least they thought they did. He was one of them. They were comfortable with this neighbor.

According to the text, thinking that they had Jesus all figured out caused a lack of faith in them. They couldn’t believe that this small town boy could do the miracles he was doing or teach with the wisdom he was showing. Even with the evidence staring them in the face, their familiarity with Jesus blinded them to what God was doing. Consequently, Jesus did not do many miracles in his hometown.

How easy is it for us to become comfortable with Jesus? Growing up, I heard the stories. I saw the flannel graph pictures. I became familiar with this soft spoken. gentle, fair-haired Savior who seemed to float serenely through first century Palestine ( except for the time that he really got ticked off at the money changers in the Temple). I was a Christian. I had asked Jesus to come into my heart, and since I had my “get out of hell free” card, I grew complacent in the relationship. I prayed, and asked forgiveness when I sinned, but the relationship was not really a close one. I had my image of Christ, and didn’t really expect him to ask much more of me than being a good boy and “worshipping” him when the church doors were open. I’m afraid that the image many churchgoers have of Jesus is not very different from that.

In the past couple of years, I’ve begun to learn to see Jesus more as he is. Through a few authors, particularly N. T. Wright and Dallas Willard, I have seen a different side of the Savior. Jesus the King has stepped into my path and shown himself to be exactly who the Gospels say he is. He is the Christ, the Anointed One of God. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is God incarnate. His Kingdom is now, not just in the future. Along with that, he is my brother and friend, and he calls me to follow and obey him out of love and gratitude for what he has done for me on the cross.

Jesus also calls me into a relationship with him, a relationship that is in many ways like those with other humans, but is so much better. That relationship is one where I am learning to not think that I have him all figured out, but rather to be open to anything he might do. In the Gospels, Jesus didn’t fit into any one’s preconceived notions, and he dealt with different people in different ways. So it is in my life. I am learning to expect the unexpected.

May we never say, “We have Jesus figured out. We know how he does things, and we know how he doesn’t work.”