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Blast From the Past: God’s Camera

This was first posted on October 2, 2008.

Yesterday, I saw a sign in front of a church that read, “Smile, you’re on God’s camera”. I wondered what was meant by that. Growing up, I always was given the impression that God was up in heaven watching what we were doing and grading us on our actions. This would determine whether God was pleased with us or not. I was always told that I couldn’t hide anything from God in an attempt to keep me doing things I shouldn’t. This worked, some of the time. Most of the time I didn’t even stop to think that God was watching, so my “little hands” weren’t careful what they did; my “little eyes” weren’t careful what they saw; and my “little feet” certainly weren’t careful where they went.

I don’t believe that’s what the Psalmist intended when he wrote, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” It is true that there is nowhere we can go that takes us out of God’s presence. It is true that God knows our every thought and deed. But I believe that David wrote these words in Psalm 139 as praise to the God who was always with him and would always take care of him, not as a complaint that God was always watching so David couldn’t get away with anything. I am not saying that God is not watching or that we can get away with anything, I just don’t believe that’s the thrust of this Psalm.

God is not sitting “up” in heaven taking a picture of us so he can hold it against us – “Look what you did”. Jesus redeemed us, every bit of us, including the times we screw up. Anyway, does anyone really doubt that God already knows when we sin? Does he need to “watch”?

Now if the message on the sign meant that God was taking my picture just as any proud father enjoys taking pictures of his children, because he loves and enjoys them; well, I can live with that.

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Weekend Wanderings

It’s been a couple of weeks for Weekend Wanderings. I hope you didn’t miss it too much. It seems like winter is slowly releasing it’s grip here in the sunny South. Hopefully things will start to thaw out in the rest of the nation as well. Russia is flexing its muscles in Crimea, and it doesn’t look like things are going to settle down any time soon. Pray for the folks in Ukraine. It’s time for the annual insanity during the fourth month of the year. I guess I can go ahead and say March Madness, since not enough people read my blog to get me in any trouble with the NCAA. The tournament should be interesting as there doesn’t seem to be a dominant team. Should be fun.

On to the links:

Good article.
Buzzer beater. Three times. Against the same team.
Top 100 things people are giving up for Lent. And tweeting about it.
Disney posters.
Rejection.

In case you’re planning on booking a flight.
Here are 31cleaning tips.
The risks of loneliness.
Chaplain Mike reviews All is Lost.
Wayward Son on Noah.

Ministry beards.
Unity or uniformity?
40 must-see photos from the past.
Questions.
Ghost ship.

Andy Stager on being contradictable.
Is your church average?
These photos are pretty cool.
Emily Wierenga on the gospel.
Hannah Brencher on the gospel.

That’s all for now. Have a blessed week!

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Thoughts on Lent

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and our church held a service, with ashes and everything. It was the first time I had ever participated in such a service, having been raised in a tradition that pretty much ignored everything before Easter. The service was beautiful, and challenging. As I think about the season of Lent, a few things come to mind.

Lent is a way of remembering the journey of Jesus to the cross to die for our sins. It was for our sin that he died. It is always good to keep that in mind. Lent is also a season of sacrifice, of giving something up. That sacrifice can be anything from food to television, from smoking to the internet (if you’ve given up the internet, it’ll be a while before you read this). The problem with giving things up is that it can become an exercise in self-righteousness and self-justification.

Lent is a time of remembering that we came from dust and will return to dust. In other words, we’re going to die. As someone who believes that Jesus has redeemed our bodies along with our souls, this remembering comes with the knowledge that we will be resurrected, with real bodies as well as souls.  This union of body and soul comes in when we give up something physical in order to focus on the spiritual. For instance, if we give up food, we can remember that Jesus is our source of life. Unfortunately, this too can become an exercise in legalism.

I believe Lent can best be observed as a time of repentance. Not as an exercise in self hatred but as an acceptance of the fact that, on our own, we can not love God or others as we ought. We can’t live this life on our own. In Luke 9, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, to the cross. On his way, he calls others to follow him. They make various excuses, and Jesus tells them that they have to give up everything in order to follow him. Jesus calls us to follow him. Follow him to the cross, the place of death. He calls us to come and die.

The good news is that when we die, we find that it is then that we truly live. We live in Christ and he
lives in us. When we give it all up, we realize true freedom. As Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” When we give it all up we have nothing to lose because we have everything that we cannot lose. As we follow Jesus to the cross, we know that we have also been raised with him.

This Lent season, we remember. We give up, not because we need to “do,” but because Jesus has already “done.”

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This Is Your Life. Or Not

Imagine a scene. You are a Christian who is standing, or sitting, with all of the other folks who have believed on Jesus down through the centuries. You are waiting in anticipation, when suddenly, up in the sky, your life is being played out. Every good thing you have ever done and every bad thing you have ever done is all out there for everyone to see, including your thoughts and motives. As some of the sins you have committed are shown, you begin to hang your head. The tears start to flow as you realize how disappointed God is in what you have done. You know you’ll still get into heaven, but there are an awful lot of tears God will have to wipe away.

Sound familiar? It does if you grew up in dispensational fundamentalism. I can’t tell you how many times that was used as motivation to get us to behave and do what was right. After all, we wouldn’t want the whole world to see the shameful things we’ve thought and done. We were admonished that we didn’t want to get into heaven by the skin of our teeth. For most of us, I think that worked for awhile. At some point though, some of us didn’t buy into it enough to keep us from doing things we weren’t supposed to be doing. There are still some who live their lives always looking over their shoulder, always worried that they are going to commit some sin that will later leave them ashamed before God.

I have come to believe that Scripture teaches something far, far different. I do believe that believers sin, because sin is still present with us. I do believe that we need to confess those times we sin, to God and to others. What I don’t believe is the teaching that there will be some sort of cosmic movie that will display all the bad stuff we’ve done. While Scripture does indicate that there will some sort of reckoning for what we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ, I see nothing about all of our deeds being displayed in some sort of celestial multiplex.

Instead, I see a number of places that tell us who we are and what we have in Christ. We are united with Christ. We are in him and he is in us. Because of this union, everything that Christ has, we have.
We have his righteousness, and when our Abba looks at us he sees beloved children with whom he is well pleased. Because of the cross, our sin is no longer an issue between us and God. All of our past sins, all of our present sins, and all of our future sins are under the blood. We are told that we will one day stand without shame before God. Christ has finished the work. There is nothing we need do except believe it.

Performance based religion says, “Do, so you will stand acceptable before the Father.” The gospel says, “Done. You are acceptable, because Christ is acceptable. Welcome home.” Believe the gospel and throw away the movie ticket. You won’t need it.

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Suffering and Glory

“Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.” So says Eliphaz, one of Job’s “comforters.” Unfortunately, it is easy for us to “comfort” others in the same way. We sometimes don’t know what to say when someone is suffering, and we go ahead and say it anyway because we feel we should say something. So much of what we say can come across as uncaring or cliche and usually does more harm than good. Often times, simply being with the one who is suffering and being quiet is the best thing we can do at first.

Suffering is a fact of life, and Scripture recognizes this. One of the characteristics of the Christian faith is the recognition that we suffer. Many of the other religions of the world seek to escape suffering, or teach that it is all a state of mind. Unfortunately, within Christianity itself there are a couple of streams that see suffering as something to avoid or escape. Some preach that suffering is something that comes straight from the devil, and that God wants us to not suffer. Others preach that we will one day escape this evil old world, and in the meantime we just put up with it. Both groups miss the idea that God works through and redeems our suffering. So, where does the connection between suffering and glory come in?

In Romans 8, Paul tells us that our suffering doesn’t even begin to compare with the glory that will be revealed to us. Just before this statement, he says that this suffering enables us to share in Christ’s glory. It seems that our suffering is an indication that we are children of God and fellow heirs with Christ. The early church understood this. They saw their suffering as bringing the kingdom to earth the same way the suffering of Jesus did. That’s why they could rejoice in their troubles.

Paul continues to state that the very creation is groaning and waiting for the final redemption of our bodies. We live in a broken world and will deal with that brokenness until Christ comes again. We can take comfort in knowing that God is with us in our suffering. He knows what we are going through, because he suffered in the incarnation. We also can know that the sufferings we go through
are things that  our Father can and does redeem and work for our good and for the good of his people. God works through our troubles to make us more like Jesus.

Paul goes on to tell us that we not only will be glorified with a glory far surpassing our suffering, but that we are already glorified. God has begun the glorification in us and will finally bring it to completion when Jesus returns. We can look at our suffering and see it not only as something that will bring God’s glory in us in the future, but also something that is bringing God’s glory in us in the here and now. We also know that there is absolutely nothing that the powers of this world or the powers behind those powers can do that will rip us out of our Abba’s loving arms.

When we suffer, let us take heart in the realization that God is with us in the midst of our suffering, and that he is working through it for his, and our glory.

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Blast From the Past: Fixed?

This was first posted on October 29, 2008.

On Tuesday, October 28, John Fischer wrote about “falling into grace” here. In this article he wrote about churches full of Christians who attempt to give the appearance of being fixed rather than broken and needy. He then went on to speak of the burden this puts on those who act as if they are fixed, yet know deep down how broken they really are.

I started thinking that maybe a big reason for the impotence of today’s Church is the belief, or at least the appearance, that we are “fixed”. Think about it. What does a veterinarian do to a male dog to keep it from siring puppies? He “fixes” it. Maybe churches are not multiplying because the people inside are “fixed”. Maybe in our attempt to appear as if we have it all together, to “keep a good testimony”, we have neutered the Gospel.

We are all broken. We are all in desperate need of God’s grace in our day-to-day. None of us has it all together. As Switchfoot sings:
“We are a beautiful letdown,
Painfully uncool,
The church of the dropouts
The losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools…”

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Weekend Wanderings

The sun is out here and it seems as if we actually might have Spring this year. Of course, even here in the sunny South there is always the possibility of a late freeze just about the time the peach trees are budding. The Winter Olympics are winding down and it’s getting closer to the time of year college basketball fans look forward to all year. Yes, March Madness is just around the corner. Pray for the folks in Ukraine and Venezuala, as there is a lot of bad stuff going down in both countries.

Here are the links of the week:
In case you missed it, there’s been a big dust-up over Elevation Church Andrew way they do things. Here are a couple of posts with some balance:  from Slow Church, and from Daniel Wells.
A spring of water.
Excellent post from Dan Edelen.
Encouraging post from Bobby Auner.

Be vulnerable.
Another look at Philippians 4:13.
On banning “making a difference.”
The Bible’s vantage point.
A million moments.

M. Morford on prophets.
A good article on dumpster diving.
Kurt Willems on 5 church types to avoid.
John Frye on taking Jesus back for America.
This is interesting.

The least of God’s holy people.
Don’t just sit there!
Interesting facts about Martin Luther.
A sign of the Apocalypse?
Jesus doesn’t want to be a part of your life.

Have a blessed week!

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Blast From the Past: The Presence of God

This was first posted on January 26, 2009.

Have you ever been in a church service and heard someone pray and thank God for the chance to come into his house and worship in his presence? Or maybe you’ve prayed that yourself? I have. Or maybe you’ve sung the hymn, “In the Garden.” You know, the one that talks about meeting Jesus in a particular place at a particular time and then going out on your own into the world outside the “garden.” I think songs like “In the Garden,” and prayers that speak of “coming into” God’s presence have unwittingly helped foster a dualistic way of looking at the world.

Growing up, I was always taught that it was important to have a time and place set aside to “meet with God”, to spend some time reading the Bible and praying in order to be able to face the challenges of the day. We were told that first thing in the morning was the best. On top of that we should attend church services on Sunday morning and Sunday night to be prepared for the week ahead, and also show up on Wednesday night in order to refresh your faith for the second half of the week. Behind it all was the idea that if you weren’t in church three or more times a week and having your own devotional time, you weren’t spending enough time with God.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that setting aside a regular amount of time to read Scripture and pray is a bad thing. I am NOT saying that a time of corporate worship and instruction is a bad thing. I AM saying that we fall short of the life that Jesus came to give us when we act as if those are the only times we are in the presence of God.

I see this in the theology that teaches that salvation is only spiritual and guarantees that one day we will escape this old world of sin and misery and go to our home in heaven. I believe that if we see heaven as “somewhere beyond the blue”, it makes sense to believe that God isn’t really with us in our day-to-day, and that it is essential that we go to church a lot and carve out a special time to “meet” 
with God. While folks may protest that they don’t believe that, I think the evidence in their lives shows that they really do. Having said that, I know that there are people who use the words of this 
theology because that is what they grew up with, yet live as if they are always in the presence of God.

If we believe that God fills all of creation and that he is not limited to a particular place, then we can realize that heaven is all around us and that God is making all things new right now, and will finally restore his creation when Jesus returns. If we really believe that, then while we may set aside a certain time and place to focus on the Father, we will live in our day-to-day aware that we are continually in God’s presence and don’t have to rely on whether or not we had our “devotions that morning. We have the Spirit in us to guide us and reveal to us what God wants us to know and do.

Yes, we need to read and know the Bible. Yes, we need to pray. But we should never think that a certain time of the day or day of the week is the only time we are in God’s presence. As the Psalmist asked, where can we go where God is not there?

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World Vision Wednesday

One of the major problems caused by Typhoon Haiyan was the destruction of clean water sources and sanitation facilities in the Philippines. World Vision is providing help, including generators to restore clean water systems. For more information on their efforts and how you can help, see this.