beliefs

Homesick for God?

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“How many people have you made homesick for God?” (Oswald Chambers, Disciples Indeed)

That’s the key to evangelism, I think. It’s not constantly reminding people how sinful they are or ridiculing their worldview. I think in that approach we forget that we too were once sinful and had wrong beliefs about the universe.

What was it that won you over? What was it that made you want to know and love God? Was it really someone telling you what an awful person you were? Was it someone constantly berating your beliefs?

I think the key is to make people long for God to the point where they’re homesick for God. I think people seeing you loving God and living out of the overflow of God’s love for you will want to know God. People who see you loving others well the way God loved you well will crave that kind of love, even if they don’t have a name for it.

The way the early Church drew people was in how those believers loved each other. They loved lost people as well, but mainly it was in their love for each other that made people want to hear their gospel message.

If all you have is a well-defined set of doctrines and beliefs, no one cares. If all you have is a passion for making people as moral as you are, then no one wants to hear about it. But when you live transformed and let the life of Christ in you permeate everything you do, then people can’t help but see and be drawn to what they don’t have.

The key is to make people homesick for a home they’ve never known but want to go to more than anything or anywhere else. Make them homesick for God.

Be Nice

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I think I can safely go on record and declare that I am an Independent. I don’t drink the kool aid of either political party. I refuse to be blinded by ideology to the point where I can no longer see any flaws in the person who represents the “right” side.

That said, I have some advice, particularly for those of faith who are wading into political waters. Two words: be nice.

You can disagree with someone and still be friends. You can hold opposing viewpoints and still be civil. You can admit that maybe the other side isn’t evil and may have some valid arguments. You can hold your convictions with humility and reverence and remember that there’s always more than one perspective.

You gain nothing if you descend into throwing insults and defaming the character of the opposition’s candidate. That does nothing to address the issues and ailments of our society or to give aid to those in need.

Jesus said to love your enemies. He said to pray for them. He didn’t qualify that statement. He didn’t say “Treat them right only if they treat you right.” He didn’t say, “Pray for you enemies unless they insult you.”

Hopefully, you can support your candidate without making those who don’t your enemies. Still, you will have those who will vilify you anyway. You can still choose love.

At the end of the day, you don’t fight hate with more hate. You fight hate with love. Your weapon is the kind of love that led Jesus to the cross to die for sinners and enemies. It was a love that said, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Don’t compromise your convictions. Take a stand for your beliefs. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Do whatever you do out of love.

My Takeaways

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Here’s what I’m taking away from the Supreme Court’s decision to essentially legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

1) I don’t agree with the decision, but I’m not going to bash those who disagree with me. It doesn’t accomplish anything and is counterproductive to how Jesus told me to love people regardless of whether they agree with me or even love me back.

2) Just because I disagree with someone’s beliefs or lifestyle doesn’t mean that I hate that person. The old adage stands true that you can love the sinner (a category which includes all of us) while hating the sin, or more accurately, what the sin does to the person.

3) If you’re my friend and you’re gay, know that I won’t love you any less or be any less of a friend to you. I may not agree with you on everything, but I’m sure you wouldn’t agree with me (or anyone) 100%. Jesus Himself chose to dine with sinners and said that He didn’t come for those who were righteous, but for those who know they need lots of help.

4) Jesus died for sinners. Period. There were no exclusions or exceptions to who Jesus went to the cross for. If you believe in Jesus with your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved. Period. PS You won’t just be saved from hell, but saved to an incredible, amazing, everlasting and full life.

5) If you believe in Jesus sincerely and solely for your salvation, you are saved, whether you are gay, straight, bipolar, alcoholic, prideful, arrogant, drug-addicted, lazy, or anything else. Jesus doesn’t ask for anybody to clean up his act and get his life together before salvation can take place. Jesus will meet you where you are,  but He won’t leave you there.

6) There will be a lot of people who will use this as an excuse to condemn other people and pronounce judgment on them. I won’t be one of those. I know that if anyone has a right to judge and condemn, it’s God. I also know that God could very easily judge and condemn me for what I’ve done and said and thought in the past. So I choose grace instead.

I think that about covers it.

 

My Occasional Soapbox Post Strikes Again

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I have to admit something. I’m a little concerned about evangelical Christianity in America.

I hope I’m wrong about this, but it seems we’ve sold out. In order to get along with everybody and to be at peace, we have compromised our convictions and doctrines in order not to be offensive. We’ve come to the point where we believe that all lifestyles and beliefs are valid and true and where no one can ever say that anything anybody else says or does is wrong. At least not if we don’t want to be labeled as “judgmental” or “bigots” or “hate-mongers.”

From what I know about Christianity, the gospel itself is offensive. It’s scandalous. If we’re faithful to proclaim it and to strive to be conformed to the likeness of Christ, we will be rejected. And ridiculed. And persecuted. How do I know that? Because He Himself promised it would happen.

The Bible says that we apart from God love darkness and hate the light. We hate the truth and anything or anyone associated with it. It takes more than just convincing of our logic. It takes the love of God invading our hearts for us to be transformed.

I think part of the problem is that we interpret what the Bible says through the lenses of emotion or sexuality or politics. It should be the other way around. The truth is not politically correct and it isn’t always the popular opinion. In fact, many times, the truth will be in the minority.

I do believe in the Bible the same way orthodox believers have believed in it for centuries. My faith is the faith of the apostles and saints through the ages. That is Christianity. Anything else is not. You are free to believe and practice your belief however you choose, but if your faith has stepped outside of the boundaries of orthodox faith, you are believing in something other than the Christ of Christianity. I don’t say any of this out of pride or arrogance. In fact, I’m a fairly lousy Christian at times, saying one thing and living another. Or in my case, not really saying anything at all.

I still believe that Christians are called to love those who think and act differently, regardless of whether they ever change. Jesus loved those who opposed Him most vehemently, yet still proclaimed the truth boldly, calling a spade a spade. Jesus died for the ones who murdered Him.

Love is still the way to go, but not love that has no standards. That’s not love. That’s just permissiveness. God’s love says in effect, “I love you just the way you are right now, but I refuse to leave you that way. My love will make you everything I created you to be.”

As always, I’m just a ragamuffin out there telling other ragamuffins where to find the Bread of Life.

 

 

Twelve Years Later on 9/11

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“In honor of all those who have come behind…. in honor of Christ who lived like that: Go into a hurting world and live your life as a First-Responder.”

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I still can’t believe it happened. Even 12 years later, it doesn’t seem real to me.

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I googled 9/11 images today and found hundreds of pictures ranging from patriotic and stirring to emotionally gripping and heartbreaking to chilling and disturbing.

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I still remember exactly where I was when my boss at the time called me into his office to witness replays of the first plane hitting the first of the World Trade Center twin towers.

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Almost 3,000 people lost their lives that day. And yet it could have been much more catastrophic. Thanks to the heroism of first-responders, many who sacrificed their own lives, there were far less fatalities than there could have been.

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The best in us rose to the occasion for when the worst in us showed its ugly colors.

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Yet around the world, many people still face on a daily basis what we faced on one day twelve years ago. Many will lose their lives today simply because of their beliefs, their ethnic origins, their gender, or out of pure evil. Many will see loved ones massacred in many horrific ways.

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I’m praying for us as a human race today. I’m praying for our nation.

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But I’m not praying for God to save us from extremist Islamic terrorists.

I’m not praying for God to deliver us from President Obama and the liberal agenda or the Tea Party and its right-wing policies.

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I’m praying this prayer today: “Lord, save us from ourselves. Lord, save me from myself.”

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imageI’ve seen in my worst moments what I could have been apart from grace, and it is not pretty. I can be petty and vindictive and selfish and lazy and hateful and rude. Left to myself, there’s no telling what I’m capable of.

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We as a human race are our own worst enemy. We have a worldwide pandemic raging through our population, affecting every single person who has ever lived called sin. Because of the Fall, we are fallen and broken people living in a fallen and broken world. Thousands of years of history has proven that we can’t save ourselves from ourselves. We are in desperate need of a Savior.

We have one. That pandemic called sin didn’t actually affect every single one of us. Jesus, the God-man born of a virgin, lived and died a sinless life and an atoning and sacrificial death on our behalf. He did for us what we could never do for ourselves– He came to save us.

So I remember 9/11 again on this day, but I also remember that one day Jesus is coming back to set all things right again, to restore what the locusts and the terrorists and the politicians and the narrow-minded pharisees have stolen. He’s coming to bring true peace and true joy and true life.

So I pray on the 12th anniversary of 9/11, but not just on this day: “Jesus, come quickly.”

Kingdom of God, Here and Now

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“If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it” (Frederick Buechner).

The Kingdom of God is here and not here at the same time.

It’s not here because there is still so much evil and injustice in the world. Seemingly bad people prosper and seemingly good people suffer.

It’s here because we’re here. The Kingdom of God is the rule of God in the people of God and it is breaking through.

If we’re truly citizens of the Kingdom of God, that trumps nationality and politics. We don’t have a flag and a President so much as we have a King and a Kingdom.

If we’re truly citizens of this Kingdom, then it should show in the way we live.

We should date differently, work differently, and play differently.

We should have Kingdom friendships, Kingdom marriages, Kingdom families, and Kingdom purposes. What does that mean?

It means your marriage is more than a perfect you and a perfect spouse in a perfect setting. It’s about serving together in a way that you never could apart and alone. It’s about two people whose love for each other testifies to how much Christ loves His Bride, the Church.

It means you love those who aren’t easy to love. You serve those who can never repay you. You forgive and bless those who hurt you because God forgave and blessed you when you had been His enemies and hurt Him deeply.

It means you are God’s living Word to the word. That when someone sees the way you live, they see what you truly believe, whether that harmonizes or conflicts with what you say you believe.

It means of all people, we should be the most joyful, the most hopeful, the most optimistic people. Not because we have no sorrow or pain, but because we’ve been shown the Last Page of the Great Story and we know it ends happily ever after. We know every tear, scar, wound, and loss has been worth it when we see Jesus and we’re finally healed and whole and just like Him.

Lord, forgive me. So often, I am petty and vindictive and self-centered. Help me to not think less of myself, but think of myself less and be concerned with people seeing Jesus in me.

Lord, may Your Kingdom come in its fullness. May You have free reign in me from this moment on. Amen.

Becoming the Un-cool Church

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I’m taking a break from my Things I Love series. I figure I’ve earned it after coming up with 1,400 entries. Plus, I’m seriously running out of ideas.

So tonight, I’m writing my own take on the Church, inspired by one or two articles I’ve read (more like skimmed) on Facebook in the past week.

I think too many post-modern churches are trying to hard to be hip and edgy and trendy and forgetting why they’re here. The millennial generation is leaving the Church, as I read in an article, not because they find it too hip, but because they’re not finding Jesus there.

I look at it this way. Churches can be all about having 50 different kinds of coffee and come across as a second-rate Starbucks. No matter how edgy the music, somewhere out there someone is doing it better. Watered-down messages and feel-good theology only work for so long until people run into difficult seasons in their lives and find out that Christianity Lite just doesn’t work.

I’m not against coffee or modern worship music. I’m not even against churches being culturally relevant, though I think I’d personally rather see a church be faithful and committed to Jesus. And if the Church isn’t faithful to Jesus, no matter how relevant it is it will be eternally outdated and obsolete.

The church will always be second-rate at the things it was never called to be, but what it can do better than anyone else– what it has always been called to do– is be a dispenser of grace and a displayer of the love of Jesus. Grace is a uniquely Christian commodity. By that, I mean the grace that turns the other cheek, blesses those who curse them, walks the extra mile, and forgives those who persecute them. It’s the grace that loves enemies and forgives the inexcusable in others because you knows God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. Or so said some British guy with the last name of Lewis.

That kind of radical love and obedience isn’t hip or trendy or cool. It will make you look very foolish in the eyes of pop culture and the media and the rest of the world. They won’t understand it and they will revolt against it (and you). But those who need God’s grace and love the most will be drawn to what they see. Those nearest to God’s heart– the outcast, the downtrodden, the poor in spirit, the nobodies of the world– will find their place in this Kingdom ruled not by dictators and power-mongers, but by Lovers and Servants.

The Un-cool Church just doesn’t talk about Jesus. They think Jesus is the most brilliant Man who ever lived and want more than anything to live out what He taught. Not just have the right answers or the right beliefs, but to actually do what Jesus said to do. All of it.

I still love the motto of a church I used to attend, which goes something like this. “Everyone’s welcome. Nobody’s perfect. Anything’s possible.” My prayer for the church is not another hip club or trendy coffee spot or a Christianized meet market for singles. It’s not a neverending behavior modification seminar. It’s about grace that transforms and love that heals and Jesus doing what only Jesus can do– save.

A Real Man

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I want to put in a disclaimer at the start of this blog: this is by no means an exhaustive treatment of the subject of manhood. Exhausting, maybe. But not exhaustive.

You don’t really get a true idea of biblical manhood from most of the voices clamoring for your attention these days. Manhood means virility. It means physical strength. It means having the right car and wearing the right suit and living in the right house and making ungodly amounts of money. According to some.

Sometimes, you get manhood spoken of derisively to refer to caveman-type behavior and values and it’s expected that any man will be rude and gross and inconsiderate.

I don’t think so. Here’s what true masculinity is, according to me.

It means holding on to what you believe, no matter what. It means having principles and values and sticking to them, regardless of who else shares them or stands with you. Even if you stand alone, you still don’t compromise your beliefs.

It means that who you are in public is the same as who you are in the dark when no one else is watching. It means you are the same person around friends and around strangers.

In terms of faith, a Christian man is one who seeks single-minded obedience to Jesus, no matter what it costs him in terms of popularity, money, fame, friends, health, and even his own life. Obedience as I heard it described very recently is doing what you know to do because it is the right thing to do and doing it as consistently as possible.

I’d also add that being a true godly man means knowing when to ask for help from others and from God. It’s the bravery to admit weaknesses and faults, the strength to shed tears, the ability to care for the helpless, and the wisdom to know when you should stand and fight and when you should back away. And by fighting, I mean speaking up for those who can’t speak for themselves and standing up for those who no one else wants to help.

A true man is passionately and unashamedly in love with Jesus Christ and doesn’t care who knows it. A true man will be the one who, after he’s gone, people will remember not him but the Spirit of Jesus in him.

There are probably a lot more good characteristics of a godly man that I left out or simply forgot. But these are just a few of the ones that I think make a real man. In this man’s humble opinion.

Switching the Price Tags

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I heard a great illustration today, followed by an equally great point. The story follows that on the night before an estate sale, people broke in to the house. Only they didn’t steal anything. They switched the price tags around. The next morning, some people got astoundingly good deals on big-ticket items while others paid way too much for junk.

Isn’t that a picture of contemporary society. The media and culture hold up trinkets as priceless and dismiss treasures as worthless. Sex without love is prized, yet true committed love is trashed. People spend crazy amounts of time and money pursuing fleeting pleasures, but hardly will take the time to seek after eternal joys.

The old saying goes that something’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So how much are you worth?

God showed how much you’re worth by sending his Son Jesus to die for you. That speak volumes about your worth. You are valued far more than any gold or silver or diamonds or bank accounts or lavish mansions. You are priceless.

So don’t ever settle for less. Don’t ever give yourself, your values, your beliefs, your body, your mind, or your health away. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you don’t belong or don’t matter. Don’t believe for a moment the lie that the world would be better off without you in it or that it would have been better off if you had never been born.

God saw you at your worst and thought you were worth every precious drop of his Son’s blood. All of it. He couldn’t pay high enough of a price for you. That’s how much you’re worth.

I’m certainly not claiming any originality for these thoughts. I heard them tonight from a pastor and I’m sure he heard them from someone else. I just want every single person who reads this to know that you are not worthless. You’re priceless.