Have you noticed people are becoming more and more inconsiderate out in public? If not, can I come live where you live?
An argument for why Christians should strongly consider not voting in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
Multiple times, Jesus was asked to “Go Away” in his ministry. Let’s look at why.
Lately, I've come to a realization: that the primary way our world is broken is found in one primary area: relationships.
Where there is a lack of relationships, the void that exists causes great pain to people.
Relationships are not always easy. It involves caring about other people and communicating.
I've had both negative and positive examples of this in my life lately. Lemme share a few with you...
Can I be honest for a minute? The last year of my life has been pretty difficult. I've had to look for ideas and concepts to keep my sanity.
One of the things I've focussed on comes from the famous Corinthian love passage: "Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."
I'm not very in touch with my emotions, but I love God as best I can.
Hope has become too painful in my life because I confuse it easily with creating my own expectations, so I'm trying to stop doing that. I call this the Shawshank protocol.
I equate faith with trust. Trust is essentially the last thread left that I'm holding onto.
I don't know about you, but sometimes I have moments that cause me to say something along the lines of "Seriously, God?"
When some things (or everything) simply doesn't make sense in my life, I quickly discover a bit of entitlement I hold in my heart - that God owes me a life that makes sense, or at least an explanation when it doesn't.
I know this is completely contrary to many scriptural examples, but sometimes I'm way too selfish to care.
If we are worried about unhealthy relationships, proposing a solution of having NO relationships is lazy, foolish and ultimately harmful. We must be willing to seek how Jesus points us to having healthier relationships.
Jesus always wants us to have a better, healthier, fuller life than what we would choose for ourselves.
When dealing with dysfunctional situations, I think the answer for a Christian should never to be turning a blind eye or a deaf ear.
One of my hobbies is trying to manipulate God.
I don't think it's a particularly healthy hobby, and it's certainly not a productive one, but what can I say? I'm really self centered, and like a car with a "pull" to one side or the other, I often find myself drifting over the line into this silly behavior when I'm not fully engaged in living an emotionally and relationally healthier life which Jesus calls me to.
My goal in the deals I offer God is to make what I'm offering so helpful, so useful to God, that God would have to be crazy to say no. And since we know God isn't crazy, it basically a full proof plan.
To steal from the Godfather, I make God an offer he can't refuse.
Recently, I've spent time thinking about what would have happened in the 1960s if people had ignored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and listened to more militant voices.
America would almost certainly have descended into another civil war.
I am very worried that we are moving towards learning the reality of that "what it" question today.
I don't know who came up with the phrase, "sticks and stone can break my bones, but words can never hurt me", but that person was at best gravely mistaken and at worst delusional.
Words are perhaps the most powerful thing in our world. I find support for this idea in the scriptures:
The creation narrative of Genesis involves God speaking to give purpose to all he has created.
John opens his Gospel by drawing a direct parallel between God and the Word of God.
Words draw their power from the fact they come from the essence of who we are.
When I say, "I love you" or "I hate you" or "I forgive you", I'm revealing the very core of my being - things that exist far deeper than the level of my intellect. It's conveying a part of who I am.
Matthew at one point records Jesus explaining to a crowd who believed that ritual eating laws led to holiness, "It's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth." (Matthew 15:11)
Sticks and stones indeed...words are far more like weapons of mass destruction - or at least they can be.
I was talking with a good friend recently and he asked me a good question: What's the difference between having hope in God during a difficult time and simply putting our own expectations on God?
Hope is clearly supposed to be an important part of a life of faith. According to Paul, it's one of the three most important things in life, but expectations can be a killer.
So what's the difference between hope and just making a list that I want God to complete?
God has created each of us for a purpose, yet the very nature of God's engagement with this world - through mysterious and confusing uses of his power - often leads us wondering if we're totally out of step with what God is doing in us and through us.
I usually tell God that if I only knew what he was up to, I'd be good to go. But unless I think I'm a better person than people like John the Baptist and Esther, I'm probably just fooling myself.
Let me explain...
I can be a bit of a control freak, but it only shows up in a few areas:
I can drive better than anybody else on the road and they should listen to me.
I have great kids, and if they do exactly what I say, they can pretty much hit perfection.
I know exactly what my favorite sports teams should do to be better.
Also, in every other area of my life, people should listen to me because I know exactly what should happen. Other than that, I don't have too many control issues.
Any of this sound familiar to you? If so, you may be a control freak, like me.
So, what is the point of Christianity? I reject the answer that it's about 'getting to heaven'. To steal a line from N.T. Wright, the scriptures are pretty clear that God's purposes aren't about getting us into heaven, but rather getting heaven into us.
There's talk of us having the fullest possible life. There's the part of the Lord's Prayer asking for God's kingdom and will to be present on earth. In John 17, Jesus prays for everyone who will ever believe in him (v.20) and he specifically says, "I’m not asking you to take them out of the world..." (v.15).
No, our goal isn't to escape this world. It is to be part of God's restoration of this world. To prepare the way for God's justice and redemption by seeking those things in the areas of our life where we have the opportunity to make a difference.
So then, back to the question at hand. How do I know if I'm doing this correctly?
In Matthew 6, Jesus twice tells the people who are listening to the Sermon on the Mount that God the Father already knows "all your needs" and therefore we should not worry. These statements comes immediately before and after he explains how to pray; which includes statements about keeping prayer short and keeping it private.
So clearly, prayer is important...but, what is it supposed to look like in my life?
If you ask, in a church celebration, how many people have been hurt in or by a church, the vast majority of hands will go up.
This is an unfortunate dynamic, but one that reinforces something that we already know - believing in Jesus doesn't make any of us perfect people.
I have no doubt that many who read this have dealt with frustrations or hurts suffered at the hands of a church or specifically church leadership. I am no different. In fact, I was thinking recently about my journey through churches and what I've had to endure.
I wish to share some of my story here, and at the end, to explain why I seem to refuse to 'learn my lesson' and swear off church forever (though I essentially did avoid it for a time) in order to avoid the possibility for further pain.
I'll spare you the full story and jump right to the breaking point...
I seem to have two choices: get on board with the reality of a place of eternal torment or ignore the whole thing as best I can.
I'm not the kind to ignore stuff, and I can't get happy about the first option, so here are some perspectives I apply to the concept of hell as I try to put it into proper perspective in my life of faith:
Evangelism.
When you see that word, what do you think?
Do you picture a guy with a bullhorn?
Do you picture yourself telling the lady sitting next to you on the plane about how she's heading for hell?
Is it the 'Jesus sales pitch' you learned in Sunday school complete with visual examples, like your keyring?
I gotta tell you, I don't get excited by any of those situations. Let me explain why: I love genuine relationships and chances to build community with people. But when somebody has an ulterior motive, it ruins the chance for relationship.
If you start telling me about how you think I'd be a great sales rep for your multilevel marketing business, we're probably done talking. I don't think you're interested in me, I think you're interested in what you can get out of me.
But on the flip side, I take Jesus seriously, and he talks about making disciples throughout the world. So how can I spread the Good News of Jesus without coming across as a disingenuous huckster?
In the last couple of years, conversations about race in America have gotten louder and more inflamed than they have ever been since my adulthood (I was 14 when the LA riots happened in the aftermath of the LAPD-Rodney King incident).
From Trayvon to Ferguson to Eric Garner to Freddie Gray, the conversation has been growing, especially on social media.
Hoodies. Hands up, don't shoot. I can't breathe. Black Lives Matter.
As a white man living in a suburb, what am I supposed to do with all this? Anyone who isn't white may be disheartened to hear this, but It would be pretty easy for me to ignore all this.
Well, I didn't win the $1.5 billion Powerball.
You can tell because I'm not writing this from my new gold plated space shuttle.
I know some people will have a problem with this, but I bought a ticket. I never for a minute thought I would actually win. The reason I bought it was so that my family could enjoy the entertainment of the 'what would we do with it' conversations.
I’m not too disappointed that I did not win, because the thing is - that much money would probably ruin my life.
