Category: Faith

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Identity

Identity is a big issue these days. You have identity politics, entertainers constantly creating new identities for themselves in an effort to stay popular, and publications and advertising telling the rest of us how to live out a certain identity. There is even a movie coming out that is about a woman who wins the lottery and begins a television program that is simply all about her. All of these have a couple of things in common; a focus on the self, and a very good chance of disappointment.

When I was younger, I built an identity as a pretty decent sprinter. I had dreams of making it to the Olympics. I even made it to being a part of a fairly well known track club, and was close to being a national class runner. I had just one problem. I reached the top of my potential and was not really good enough to continue putting the time and effort into the sport at that level. That identity fell by the way. Then my identity became that of a coach and teacher. I lived that out for a good long time until it too went away. I have had to learn the hard way that my true identity is as a beloved child of the Creator of the universe.

For a person who follows Jesus, the only identity that matters, and the identity from which everything else flows, is our identity as children of a loving Father and as co-heirs with Jesus of everything the Father has. We have been adopted as children with all of the rights and responsibilities of a son or daughter of the King. That identity is something that will never change and will never disappear, no matter what.

This identity means that it really doesn’t matter what others think of us, because God loves us. He not only loves us, he likes us and thinks we’re pretty special. It also means that our future is secure. Not only is it secure, but the renewal of creation is somehow tied in with our final redemption. That blows my tiny little mind! Our identity means that we are part of a family that stretches all over the world and through time. We never lack for brothers and sisters.

Our identity carries with it responsibilities as well as privileges. Because God is our Father, we are to live in such a way that folks see the family resemblance in us. We should be the spittin’ image of our Abba. That means that we strive to treat others with the same grace and love with which our Father treats us, especially those who are part of the family. Our brothers and sisters should be as dear to us as they are to the Father. Since our final redemption is somehow connected to the restoration of creation, we have a responsibility to see creation as something good, to be cared for and stewarded as a gift from our loving Father. That also means using whatever creative gifts God has given us to bless others ands bring glory to our Father.

There is no greater identity than that of a beloved child of Abba. God help us to live in that reality.

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C’mon People…

A few years ago, The Youngbloods finished the phrase with, “Smile on your brother / Everybody get together / Try to love one another / Right now.” It wouldn’t be a bad idea for those of us who follow Jesus to take a closer look at this song and see if we can glean any wisdom.

The song begins with the words, “Love is but a song we sing / And fear’s the way we die / You can make the mountains ring / Or make the angels cry.” When you look at the very basis of Christianity, you find love. God loves us and he calls us to love others. All of God’s law is summed up in the commands to love God and to love others. Love is the song we sing. Why don’t we love like we should? Fear. We fear the other. We fear loss of face. We fear being taken advantage of. We fear any number of things that may happen if we love. So, we don’t love. And, we die. As C. S. Lewis said, “But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” If we love, God is glorified. The mountains sing. If we don’t love, God is dishonored. The angels cry.

As the song goes on, we are told  that we are just “a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass.” Our time here in this life is short, yet we tend to waste it on things instead of spending it on, and for others. We only get a limited amount of time to love those whom God has placed in our lives, yet we spend that time focusing on our interests and desires, building our kingdoms rather than building for the kingdom of heaven. As the song continues, we see that we “hold the key to love and fear / All in your trembling hand / Just one key unlocks them both / It’s there at your command.” We are the ones who are called to cast off fear and love. We are the ones who can love because we have the Spirit of the resurrected Christ in us.

Loving others is not an easy thing to do. It will be messy. You will get hurt. Nietzsche said that Christian love looks like weakness, and it opens us up to manipulation and abuse. He’s right. Look at Jesus’ command to forgive over and over again. Look at Jesus’ statement that the greatest love was laying down one’s life for our brothers and sisters. Look at Jesus asking the Father to forgive those who were murdering him in the worst manner possible. It does look like weakness. It does leave us open to abuse. But it is the way of the King and his kingdom.

Let us love as we are loved.

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My Prayer

Abba Father, let your name be glorified in us, in our work and play, in what we say and do, in our relationships with our brothers and sisters.

Your kingdom is a kingdom of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation, a kingdom of healing and wholeness. Let that kingdom come to our relationships as it is in heaven. Your will is that your children be one. Let that will be done in us as in heaven.

Give us each day what we need. Give us sustenance, grace, and faith.

Forgive us our sins, against you and against others. Help us to forgive those who sin against us, as many times as is necessary.

Don’t let us give in to the temptation to build ourselves up at the expense of others, to prove that we are right and others are wrong, to hold grudges. Deliver us from evil.

Help us to remember that it is your kingdom, your power, and your glory forever and ever.

Amen.

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1000? Really?

I guess this is a milestone of sorts. This is my 1000th post on this blog. When I began this back in December of 2007, I had no idea I would still be writing a little over four years later. Some of you may be wondering why I’m still sharing the sometimes random stuff that rolls around in my brain. Probably because I can? Actually, I keep on because I hope that something I put on here will help, encourage, or challenge someone.

Since that winter day in 2007, the path of my life has taken a few twists and turns. Jan and I left one church, became involved in a couple of church plants (one fizzled and one blew up). I was done with the whole idea of church for a while. Then three years ago, God brought us to a church community that we have grown to love and see as family.

The journey has gone through wide open, sunny spaces and deep dark woods. I have been in a cave and come out again. I have learned over and over to trust the loving heart of my Father, and I have become more amazed at his unfathomable love for me. In the past couple of years, we have added two members to our family with the marriages of our two children.

In June, I lost a job and immediately gained a gig helping to take care of my father-in-law. That continues to this day, but I will have to be getting a regular job in the near future. I am trusting God to provide in his timing, as he always has.

Where this road takes me in the next four years is one of those unknowns. I am sure it will wind through forests, wide open spaces, and valleys. Maybe I’ll crank out another thousand posts. We’ll see. Thank you to all of you who have been with me on part of this trip. I hope that y’all (as we say here in the sunny South) will continue to travel along with me. It should be interesting.

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Too Much Grace?

“You’re encouraging people to sin.” “Folks are just going to use that as an excuse to live any way they please.” These are just some of the complaints aimed at those who teach grace. If you have been a reader here for any length of time you can guess that I am going to disagree with those who say we should ease up on all this grace talk. I agree with what Robert Ferrar Capon once wrote.

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

I believe that when we look at the whole of Scripture, we will see that the message of pure grace is the message of Jesus. During Jesus’ time on this earth, he made it clear that there is no way we could ever be right with God by keeping the Law. The letters written by Paul and the other apostles also are insistent that it is God’s grace and mercy that brings us to him and makes us his children. 

Now, there are some who preach what they call a message of grace, but which is really a message of license. They say that because of God’s grace a Christian is completely free of all sinning and is never convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit. It is true that the Spirit doesn’t pound us down and burden us down with condemnation, but it is also true that we do sin. The conviction is not a judgmental thing but is more a reminder that we are not living as a child of God, but it is still there. When we are called on what we do, whether it is the Spirit or another person, it is not necessarily an accusation from satan.

I believe that an individual who truly has been captured by God’s amazing grace, and who truly understands it, will agree with what Paul wrote in Romans 6. We don’t sin so that there will be more grace. Grace does not mean that we can just do anything we want and God will just let it slide. God’s grace is so powerful that it leads us to want to do whatever our Father wants us to do. The desire of our new heart is to love God with every fiber of our being, and to love others as Christ loved us. Sin is still present in us, and though it is not our nature any longer, we still sometimes choose to do those things that are wrong.

Folks who get grace are not against the Law. Rather, they appreciate the Law because it shows us how desperately we need someone else to do what is necessary to make us right with God. Jesus has fulfilled that Law, therefore it is not an external rule in our lives. Instead, by God’s grace, we have an inward law of love that works in us so we can live like the children of God that we are.

The grace of God is amazing, wondrous, and powerful. It saves us and makes us children of God. It causes God’s love to fill us and overflow onto those around us. As we are filled more and more with that love, we become more and more like Christ. 

That’s pure two-hundred proof grace. Drink deeply.

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Blast From the Past: Love, Love, Love

This was first posted on Feb. 7, 2011.

The Beatles sang, “All You Need is Love”. What the Fab Four didn’t realize was that what they were singing was somewhat Biblical. Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love God with every thing we have and to love those around us as we love ourselves. I am disturbed by the lack of love I see in many who claim to be followers of the One who said that all of the commandments hang on our relationship to God and our relationship to other human beings. We claim to love God yet don’t do what He commands. Jesus said that if we love Him, we would keep His commandments. We tend to do a pretty good job, sometimes, of keeping the commands that have to with praying, reading the Bible, worshipping (to some extent), or other things that deal directly with God Himself.

Where we fail is in the commands to love each other, which is where the second commandment comes in. How often do we look down on those we deem less “spiritual” than we? How many times do we pass along the latest bit of juicy gossip (although we “sanctify” it by couching it as a “prayer request”)? How many in our circle have physical needs that we could meet but don’t? How often do we withholdfellowship from those who don’t dot their I’s and cross their T’s the same way we do? How many times do we show love to those within our circle yet ignore the needs of those who don’t know Jesus? Why hasn’t the Church taken care of the poor and needy and made the idea of a welfare state redundant?

Jesus said that everyone would know that we are His followers because of our love!

Not our Bible version,our systematic theology, our music, preaching style, or dress! Does the world know us for Who we are for, or for what we are against? Paul gives us a warning in First Corinthians 13 when he tells us that anything we might think we do for the Kingdom of God is absolutely a waste of time if we don’t do it out of love.

May God give us a love for Him that overrides everything else and leads us to love those we come in contact with.

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Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015

If there is one word that best sums up the past year here in the sunny South, it would be the word interesting. There have been a lot of changes and adjustments through the year, especially in the second half. I started 2014 by choosing grace as my word for the year, and there have been multiple moments when I have had to lean on God’s grace.

The first five months of the year were relatively normal. Then, things got weird. June 5 was my last day at the middle school where I have been working the past eight and a half years. I didn’t actually go in to work that day though, because my father-in-law fell and broke his hip that morning. That was the beginning of the adjustments. I was without work and my father-in-law was taking a different road in his journey. As it has turned out, being out of work has allowed me the time to help him out and to take care of his financial affairs as well as helping him with doctor visits and life in an assisted living facility.

We made it through the summer, and in the middle of September we flew out to California for our daughter, Jennie’s, wedding. We had a wonderful time with her and with our new in-laws. I also had the honor of being the officiant at the wedding! That was an amazing thing, and I only choked up three times! We came back home, and within a few weeks our son told us that he and his wife were moving from Charlotte to Seattle so he could work with his cousin who has his own architectural design business. The idea of both of our children being on the opposite side of the country has taken some getting used to, but we know that it’s a great opportunity and we are happy for them.

We were able to get together with both of our children at the beginning of December, when we celebrated Christmas and a couple of birthdays. On the 19th, Josh and Alicia set out with all their worldly possessions in a Honda Fit. They drove across the country and arrived in Seattle two days before Christmas. Jan and I celebrated Christmas with her father, and then with some close friends. So Christmas was a bit different, but it was good.

Last night we said goodbye to one year and hello to another. While there are things I could wish had happened differently, I am grateful for God’s hand in everything. As we enter into this new year, I still don’t have a job, and I’m not totally sure how to proceed. The path is shrouded in fog, and we really don’t have a clue what will happen in the future. What we do know is that our Father loves us, and that his heart is good toward us. He knows what is to come, and how we are going to best represent his kingdom.

My word for this year is trust. My prayer is, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!”

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Lessons Learned in a Lifetime

Yesterday marked the end of my 59th journey around the sun. It was a good day, capping off with a pizza dinner with Jan, my sister, who shares the same birthday, and her family. I spent some time thinking about some of the things I’ve learned over the past almost six decades. These are not in any particular order, and I will probably think of others later, but here they are.

1. There is a God, and it’s not you. One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn over the years is that there is a whole lot that I can not control. Thankfully, I trust that my Father in heaven loves me and is in control, even when I can’t understand what is happening.

2. Love those around you, especially your family. They will be gone far too quickly.

3. Enjoy your children while they are growing up. Spend time with them and treasure each moment. The time will quickly come when they will be grown and not around as much. You will  miss them.

4. Enjoy your grown children as fellow adults and friends. They may ask you for advice, they may not. Let them be who they are, and enjoy them.

5. Never, ever sit on a glass fishbowl. Trust me. You don’t want to do this. It’s not fun.

6. Hold most things loosely. Money, possessions, friends, ideas. As life changes, and changes you, so many things you think are important turn out to not be. Don’t make it worse by grasping too tightly.

7. Be teachable. Too many folks go through their lives never exploring, never learning new things. Don’t stop learning.

8. You are not always right. I am convinced that when we stand before God and wait for him to tell us how right some of our pet dogmas were, that he’ll shake his head, chuckle, and tell us that we all had it wrong.

9. Love. Love your family. Love your friends, Love your neighbors. Love your enemies.

10. Love even when they don’t accept your love. Loving is your calling. What they do is between them and God, and is not your responsibility. Love them anyway. Love as Jesus loved you. In case you forget, he gave his life for you.

11. Forgive and seek reconciliation. When Jesus told us to forgive and seek reconciliation over and over again, he probably meant that it was something important to do.

12. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. In other words, give yourself up for her. Period.

13. Don’t be a lone ranger. We can’t go it alone. It is scary, living in community with other folks. It will get messy. It is also the way to love and be loved, and to disciple one another as we learn to follow Jesus together. I’m not advocating a “be in church every time the doors are open” mentality, but rather doing life together with fellow followers of Jesus, sharing each others’ lives, stories, joys, and sorrows.

14. Enjoy the world around you. Creation is not an evil place that we hope to escape some day. It is something that God said was good, and that will be restored one day. The people around you are not your enemies. They are folks in need of the gospel, just like we all are.

15. God’s grace is truly amazing. God’s grace is far wider and deeper than any of us can hope to imagine. I don’t know how all that shakes out theologically (see lesson 8, above), but I do know that we can trust a loving God and his grace.

16. Live free. If you belong to Jesus, God has freed you from sin and guilt, and you can live as a free son rather than a slave. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. As a wise man once said, “Love God, and do as you please.”

Some of these lessons have been harder to learn than others, but they have all been valuable. What has God taught you over your life?

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Who Is Our Shepherd?

In John 10, we have the account of Jesus presenting himself as the good shepherd. We don’t usually have a lot of contact with shepherds, but they were a part of the culture in the first century. Kings were often pictured as shepherds, taking care of the needs of their people. The Jews carried the concept of God as their shepherd. They also saw their leaders as shepherds.

In this passage, the focus is not on the sheep, but is on the Shepherd. Too often, we tend to take our eyes off Jesus and become wrapped up in ourselves, in our interests. We do this as individuals, and also as communities. We do what we do out of a desire to make things better for us. Programs, buildings, schedules, etc. are often built around what we think are our needs. Can you imagine a flock of sheep standing around making decisions about where they are going to graze next? No, they trust the shepherd. They know in their little sheep brains that they are under the rule of the shepherd. He is the one in charge, and all they have to do is trust him and go where he leads them. Jesus is the ruler. He is the one in control, not us.

Jesus is the good shepherd. We can trust him because he lay down his life for us. That is what a good shepherd does. Not only did he lay down his life, he took it back up again. He has defeated death, so it holds no terror for us. We are absolutely safe in the care of our Shepherd. Nothing can harm us. In contrast to Jesus, there are bad shepherds out there that sometimes draw us away. These bad shepherds would be anything that takes our eyes off Jesus and what he has done for us. They could be things like wealth, pleasure, fame, sinful habits. Bad shepherds can also be good things like church activities, our favorite preacher or teacher, family, friends. It is good to ask ourselves from time to time if what we are following is the good Shepherd or a bad shepherd.

Our good Shepherd takes care of us individually and collectively. Jesus states that he calls his sheep by name. He knows our names. He knows us intimately, better than we know ourselves. Each of us who belong to him are his sheep and we follow him. We also follow our Shepherd together. When sheep follow their shepherd, they don’t wander in one by one. While they are individuals, they follow the shepherd as a group. It is when a single sheep gets away from the flock that it is in the most danger. We are no different. We are best served when we follow Jesus together with others. Jesus is the head of a body, not just a collection of body parts. We need community because it is in community that we help each other follow Jesus.

Bad shepherds, whether they take us completely away from our Shepherd or convince us that we can follow him all on our own, are thieves that have only come to steal, kill, and destroy. Our good Shepherd calls us to follow him, to be a part of his flock. In following Jesus, we find a life that is full and abundant. Not in a way that the bad shepherds promise, but in knowing that we are being cared for by a loving, powerful King who is in control.