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The only thing we have to fear is fear…

…and yet we live in fear. Parents fear that something is going to happen to their children. Children fear that something is going to happen to their family. Democrats and Republicans both fear that the other party is going to win the White House. Christians on the right fear losing the “culture war”. Christians on the left fear the right being an influence. Some fear being deprived of their freedoms, others fear the influence of “the world”. Ministers fear that their ministries will fail.
We fear the future, and we fear the results of past actions. At some level, we all fear failure. We don’t want to not measure up, to not please God.

I’ve been reading Following Jesus by N.T. Wright and Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson, and one of the things they both emphasize is that fear is not to be a part of the Christian’s life. We are children of the God who raised Jesus from the dead. The fact that Jesus is raised from the dead changes everything. It means that God is in control, that no matter what happens, God is making all things right. His Kingdom is coming and His will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We are also children of a God who has loved us with an everlasting love, and has shown us an infinite amount of grace. Because of this love and grace, we can be sure of the promise that God will work everything out for the purpose of making us into the image of Jesus. The Apostle John tells us that this perfect love drives out fear. God’s grace is free and is inexhaustible. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor and there is nothing we can do to drive His favor away.

Think about it. We don’t have to live in fear. The resurrection of Jesus and the grace God has shown us mean that God is going to work in us and all of His children. We don’t have to worry when our spiritual growth is not where we think it should be, or when someone else’s growth is not where we think it should be. We can live freely, knowing that our Father loves us and takes everything in our lives and works in and through that. Even when we screw up, God’s grace is still ours and His Spirit is still working.

I want to live a life that is free of fear. I want to totally depend on God’s grace and His resurrection power. I want to sin boldly and trust God even more boldly, to paraphrase Martin Luther.

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Hummingbirds

I’m been a bit beat down by the flu the past couple of days, so the thinking process is going even slower than normal. So, I’m posting something I wrote a few months ago.

We have a hummingbird feeder outside our back porch and it’s fun to watch them hover and drink the sugar water. It’s interesting that they have to come back often to drink because of the amount of energy they expend flapping their wings at such a fast rate.

Another thing I’ve noticed about hummingbirds is that they are very territorial. An aggressive hummingbird will chase others away from the feeder and will actually sit in a nearby tree watching for an interloper. In fact, a beautiful ruby throated hummingbird that was the first to come to the feeder was driven away completely by a brown one. It seems to me that an amazing amount of energy is wasted defending something that never belonged to them. The feeder is there because of the good graces of my wife and me. So instead of sharing the bounty with the other birds, one bird wastes his energy to defend something that is a gift and not his to keep.

How often are we, the Church, like that. We take the grace that has been freely given us and jealously guard it from those who don’t agree with us in everything. We think that God’s grace, like the sugar water, was given to us alone. We put God in a little box and try to interpret everything by the limits of that box. We waste an awful lot of energy defending things that either are indefensible, or are not vital. Then, we don’t have the time or energy to spend on the real work that Jesus gave us to do – making disciples who follow the Christ.

I’m not saying that Biblical truth doesn’t matter or that we should adopt an “I’m okay, you’re okay” philosophy. I am saying that we need to take a hard look at what we believe and make sure that we believe it because it matches up with what God says rather than because “it’s the way we’ve always been taught”. Is our Christianity Biblical or cultural? Did the faith we hold begin in the 1st century or in the 19th and 20th centuries?

Are we disciples of Jesus? Or, are we hummingbirds?

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Thoughts on the culture war

There’s a great article on the culture war here . It’s the article by S. Michael Craven on Feb. 14.

I agree with his assesment. The splintering of the “Religous Right” and the willingness of younger Christians to consider voting for more liberal candidates shows that the war is over.

Now maybe we can stop fighting and get back to doing what we are called to do in the first place – make disciples.

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Giving it all up

In A Renegade’s Guide to God, David Foster tells a story of a wealthy man who built a large art collection with his son. The son goes off to war and is killed. Later a soldier shows up at the man’s door with a portrait that he had painted of the man’s son, saying that the son had saved his life. The portrait is given an honored place in the man’s art collection.

The wealthy man dies and his entire estate is put up for auction. The first item is the portrait of the son. The crowd is waiting for the “good stuff” i.e. the Picassos, Rembrandts, and other great works. No one bids on the portrait. Finally a man bids ten dollars. It is the one who painted it and ten dollars is all he has to give. Because no one else bids he is the highst bidder. The auctioneer then says that the auction is closed. There was a clause in the will that states that the son’s portrait was to be the only thing auctioned and that whoever bought the picture would get the entire estate. So the soldier, who gave everything he had to get the son’s picture, also got everything else.

That’s what being a Christian is all about. You give up everything you have to “get the Son”, and you get everything else that the Father has. It’s all about a relationship with Jesus. It’s not about a bunch of rules, how you dress, what kind of Bible you carry, how you vote, what kind of music you listen to, whether you smoke or drink, or any other external things. It’s about whether you realize that you can not save yourself and that Jesus Christ loves you and has died for you so you don’t have to die. It’s about having a relationship of love with the Creator. It’s about following Jesus and letting his Spirit guide you and form you into his image.

Jesus said he came to give us a life that is abundant and full. That’s the way Christians should be. Are we?
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Are you a hippie?

Are you a hippie?

You are a Hippie

You are a total hippie. While you may not wear birks or smell of incense, you have the soul of a hippie.
You don’t trust authority, and you do as you please. You’re willing to take a stand, even when what you believe isn’t popular.

You like to experiment with ideas, lifestyles, and different subcultures.
You always gravitate toward what’s radical and subversive. Normal, mainstream culture doesn’t really resonate with you.

I wonder if some of the things that supposedly make one a hippie are some of the same things that are characteristic of a follower of Jesus.

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Lent

Over at http://www.jesuscreed.org, Scot McKnight suggests a good thing to do for Lent. I’m going to do this as a way of doing something positive rather than just giving something up. You’re invited to join in, as something on its own or along with something you are already doing.

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Meme

I was sort of tagged by a couple of people. So here’s the way this one goes:
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
Find page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

Here’s my 3 sentences.
“Reading my essay usually took me about ten minutes, though I have heard of men who occupied almost the whole hour. Lewis listened with extreme intentness, not, I am all too sure, because of the fascination of my words, but because it was his duty. Once, in the middle of my essay, his phone rang.”

I figure since there are probably only 5 people who read this, I’ll tag all of you. 🙂

Edit: Thanks to re:patrick for bringing to my attention that I forgot to mention the book title. 🙁 It’s Remembering C. S. Lewis: Recollections of Those Who Knew Him

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The End?

Internet monk has an interesting post concerning evangelicalism here

What do you think? Is the end of evangelicalism as we know it near?

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Commitment

In The New Christians: Dispatches From the Emergent Frontier, Tony Jones writes:

“Just ten percent of Americans are not affiliated with a church or synagogue, and another five percent hold a faith other than Judaism or Christianity. That leaves eighty-five percent of Americans who can write down the name and address of the congregation with which they are affiliated. Yes, that bears repeating: eighty-five percent. There are about 255 million church-affiliated Americans.What can be questioned is the level of commitment that Americans have to their churches. They may know the address, but do they know the doctrinal statement? Or the denominational affiliation? Do they care? The answer to the last question is most decidedly no. American Christians care less and less about the denominational divides that are so important to their seminary-trained pastors.”

He is answering the notion that America is becoming more and more secularized by stating that the majority of Americans are spiritual, but without the concern with denominational teachings that divide. I think to some degree that is true, especially with those who consider themselves emerging. The emerging conversation definitely cuts across denominational lines.
The statement, “What can be questioned is the level of commitment that Americans have to their churches”, raises a different issue. Looking at the fact that eighty-five percent of Americans are associated with a church (or synagogue), I question the level of commitment that American Christians have to Jesus.
We are called to be salt and light. Salt flavors and preserves, and light allows us to see. When a great deal of what passes as the “Christian” arts is nothing more than cheap knock-offs of what is already out there, and when much of the preaching is really self-help philosophy wrapped in Scripture – where is the flavoring? When we are more concerned with beginning more programs and building bigger buildings than we are with the homeless, the poor, and the hurting in the neighborhoods surrounding those buildings – where is the preservation?
We say we have the light, but instead of going and shining that light into the darkness, we want people to somehow stumble out of the darkness into the light inside the walls we have put up to protect the light.
We have become so afraid that somehow the corruption in society will overcome the salt, or that the darkness will overcome the light that we have put ourselves in a ghetto where we are safe within its walls and from which we lob scud missiles at those outside – with the same effect.
We say we believe that God has called us out of darkness into the light, that he has saved us by his grace, that grace gives us the power to follow Jesus and that God is forming us into Christ’s likeness. We say that Jesus told us to go and make disciples. We claim to follow the King of Kings. Yet we live in fear. Fear of the culture capturing and corrupting us, fear of screwing up, fear of somehow not quite measuring up.
We are loved by the Creator of the universe! His word tells us that this love is perfect and that perfect love drives fear out! If we belong to Jesus, our day-to-day life, not just our salvation, is by God’s grace and not our feeble effort! Our Father loves us and accepts us just as we are, and will change us and make us grow. He will not leave us in our current state. Yes, there are commands in Scripture for us to follow. We are not absolved of all responsibility. But the power is from the Holy Spirit.
As we focus on Jesus Christ and the amazing grace that God has given us, we will desire to follow Jesus closer and closer. We will, as the Jewish rabbis used to say, be “covered in the dust” of our Rabbi. As we become more like Christ we will truly be salt and light. We will mess up from time to time. We will fall. When we do, we just pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, agree with God that we screwed up, and turn away from it and move on. I believe it was Martin Luther who said, “Sin boldly, trust God more boldly still.” Walk with Jesus and trust him to guide your steps.