Powerful Words

... having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.  And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Therefore let no one pass judgement on you...                          - Colossians 2:12-16

Just as soon as I think I've found a new favorite passage of scripture, I pick up my Bible and find another one.  Through my times of discouragement, one of the things that happens to me is sort of defeatist attitude towards scripture.  "I've read it all.  It doesn't have anything new to say.  I probably will just read it and feel more guilty."

But then I read a passage like this and, I don't know whether it's the coffee I just drank or what, but the gospel just explodes off the page.  And as I wipe gospel shrapnel off my face, I'm thinking, "Wow, that is really, really good.  I wish I believed it more."

I mean, just to think that I was really buried and put to death with Christ in baptism, raised with him by faith, made alive with God in him, totally forgiven, debt nailed to a cross, in a demonstration of power that put all earthly rulers and authorities to open shame, in order that no one (including myself) should pass judgement on me.

Boy, a covering that thorough, a covering of rightness and goodness that is so infused with God's affection towards me, is good, good news.

Often I don't believe that I am lovable.  And when I look at the old me that was buried, I realize that I'm not.  But God shows his staggering love in this, that he loves the unlovable, and not only loves, but moves towards, dies in love, washes in love, and fights in love for me.

And this is for you.  May you rejoice in the powerful words of the gospel this Christmas.  And if they've grown tired and weary to you as they are so often to me, my hope is that you'll hold to them until you hear them afresh, and they grow deeper into you.  Merry Christmas!

Cool Video

I had the privilege of helping work on this video with Cru.  Check it out and share if you get a minute.

How Clouds Break

"All things in heaven, earth, around, within, without condemn me-- the son which sees my misdeeds, the darkness which is light to thee, the cruel accuser who justly charges me, the good angels who have been provoked to leave me, thy countenance which scans my secret sins, thy righteous law, thy holy Word, my sin-soiled conscience, my private and public life, my neighbors, myself-- all write dark things against me.

I deny them not, frame no excuse, but confess, 'Father, I have sinned';  Yet still I live, and fly repenting to thy outstretched arms; thou wilt not cast me off, for Jesus brings me near, thou wilt not condemn me, for he died in my stead, thou wilt not mark my mountains of sin, for he levelled all, and his beauty covers my deformities.

O my God, I bid farewell to sin by clinging to his cross, hiding in his wounds, sheltering in his side."              

- Puritan prayer from The Valley of Vision

This morning I woke up tired and depressed.  I woke up wanting to ride my bike and escape the tasks of the day that loom over me.

Being a "professional Christian" can be really hard when I'm not feeling my faith.  I possess a deep passion for escape, materialism and entertainment (the pleasures that are so easily attainable in my culture) that often and (it seems like) always overrides my passion for God.

Facing my reality, I  feel like an empty shell.  I feel hollow and without much hope.  I feel like I'm attempting to lift a weight of condemnation that I can't bear.  I'm even finding it hard to write.

That's why it was so good to read the words above.  To know that I'm not alone and that many a weary traveller has been my way before - travellers that have seen glimpses of their sin and are overwhelmed.

It is good to know that they found hope in the reality of God.  It is so comforting to know that I have Jesus and his sacrifice to cling to.

A clear vision of Jesus and his mission can break through the heaviest clouds of condemnation.  He lifted the weight.  He carried the burden.  He knows the guilt and shame.

When I am tired and want to give up and give in, I have a savior.  When I am sick of my old ways of escape and entertainment, I have a savior.  When I've exhausted every other avenue in the pursuit of self and satisfaction and am left like an empty shell, I have a savior.

And this savior, this Jesus Christ, not only has "more medication than I have pain" (as a friend of mine put it), but he is with me.

God with me always.  To think that he knows far more about my sin than I do, and that he radically and furiously loves me and covers me, and that he never, ever, EVER leaves me is simply too much to comprehend.  But it is an encouraging thought on grey mornings.

My Story

"Repetitive patterns have become themes in our lives over time, themes that impose structure on us even when a surface evaluation would tell us that these themes are nothing more than personal preference or desire.  We are not wholly our own, we are exclusively the result of what has happened to us.  No wonder reading the plot of our lives is so difficult."  - Dan Allender, To Be Told

Just as soon as I've begun to think that I have a handle on the story of my life, some sort of banner gets jammed in the wheel of my understanding.  I think I have forgiven, only to have something send me off into worlds of bitterness and rage.  I think I know love, only to find that I need so much more than I can give.  I think that I know healing, only to run towards all the wrong sorts of medication.

I have a God who knows all the ins and outs of my story not only because he wrote it, but because he loves it.  My story is so very precious to him.  Now I'm not saying he loves the tragedy both that I've suffered and committed, but he is not only interested in my story, he loves it.

This is a start.  As a Christian, I am in the really unique and weird position of knowing the one who's written and continues to write my life.  I don't know what tragedies or joys are around the bend, I don't even know what I have experienced all that well, but I can rest in the knowledge that the resolution, the climax, the ending will be glorious.

I was thinking about this last night as I sat with our small core church-planting group.  We were talking about hope - "the ernest expectation of things to come."  We were talking about longing.  And we were looking at the painting I've pictured above, "Lift up Thine Eyes."

As we were talking and sitting in silence as well, I was wondering, "What if my deepest hope and longing is true?"  What if all that I most sincerely hope for in the dark will one day explode into the light and color of reality.  What will it feel like to have my heavenly father's kiss, to hear his tender words and to finally, beyond any of the shadows, know that all will not only be well but will be beyond what I've even dared to dream.

My dreams are too small for a God like this.  A God who indeed is working all things for good, not just for the elect but for all creation.  He knows that my eyes are half-shut to his realities.  He knows the internal wounds that bleed and the ways in which I interact with the world simply out of these wounds.

And the great thing is, the fantastic thing, the thing that makes my heart race, is that this is not the end.  In the gospel it will never be the end.  And when it is we will all say "Amen."  Truly.  And just at it was at the beginning, it will be very good.

A New Rule

"For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.  And all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God."  Galatians 6:15-16

My counselor leaned forward in his chair, gave me his full attention and with earnestness in his voice, invited me to envision with him hope.  His hope for me was that I'd be able to walk out of his office, thinking about myself the way he thinks of me and with joy say, "Now what do I want to do?"

That question has been rumbling around my brain for the past 24 hours.  What is it I want to do?

I love to write.  I love to share the gospel.  I love how it shapes us, redefines us and is the reality that is so bigger than any of us.  If I can't write, I know I'd be very very sad.  So I want to write.  And I want to write about the gospel.

I love people.  Well I do and I don't love people.  People are complicated.  But they are infinitely interesting and I want to work with them.  I don't want to get holed away somewhere alone, burying myself in a coffin of to-dos.

But most of all, deeper than I even know, the divine within me, Jesus himself, is calling me to walk according to a rule.  A rule that I am a "new creation."  This rule frees, this rule enables me to breath, this rule is about peace, mercy, love and hope, real hope.

And as I think about this new rule and it's hope and all that I want to do, I'm encountering a deep longing to live near my family (my parents and siblings).  But they live in the Pacific Northwest.

We've moved here to Orlando to take up a place with Cru High School (formerly known as Student Venture), and rather than feeling like I've struck gold, found the place where I belong, I've grown disillusioned, sad and weary.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good minister, but I will not back down from the truth that God is ministering through me.   So I'm conflicted.

Many people suffer similar frustrations with their jobs, thinking they are out-of-place, getting over-looked or not using their giftings.  And many have gone before me and had a dream and chucked it all only to find that they're not any better off "near their family".  Yet I do wonder about my family...

And I'm in a tricky circumstance I'm not even sure I should be blogging about.  I'm a fully-supported missionary financially, and this may cause friends and partners to doubt I am where God wants me to be.  Or it may even make them think I've lost the vision of reaching those who haven't heard the gospel.  It hasn't.

But honestly, most of me believes right now, in this moment, that I am here simply because I didn't know what else to do.  Crazy right?!  I raised financial support for 2 years, put my family on the line through a big move, and now am wondering if I did it all out of fear of not knowing what to do.

So what do I want to do?  I'm not sure.  But I know one thing.  The God that created this new rule, this fact that I'm a new creation, will not only take care of me and my family but enable me to do what I most truly want.  Not my will, but his will be done.

I write all of this in the hope it connects with you, and for the selfish fact that I just wanted to get some of this out of my head.

My Perfection Problem

"But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach among the Gentiles..."  Galatians 1:15

My friend looked up at me, winced and said, "Are you ready to go through the Gospel presentation video script?  I hear it's really shitty."  I smiled and nodded enthusiastically, and not just because I enjoy hearing swear-words.  I'd just read the script and it really was bad.

Here's why:  The video script we had been given to review was based in a coffee house where too young women, one Christian and one not, have a discussion about what Christianity is all about.  So far so good, even if it is cliche.  But then as we read we noticed that when the Christian began to share the gospel she sounded like a robot.  Surely she can't have hardly believed what she was sharing, even if she was fictional.

She talked about how a perfect God loves us, how sin cuts us off from this perfect God, how Jesus bridges the gap to God by his perfect death, and how we can receive God's perfect gift if we pray a prayer (it was probably a perfectly scripted prayer as well).  "Perfect," I was thinking, "all we need are more perfect gospel presentations about perfection."

God didn't offer Jesus up to suffer his wrath and essential hell for us because he simply wanted us to be morally perfect!  Jesus wasn't God's formula for perfection, as if God was a divine perfectionist.

This reminds me of a radio commercial I hear all the time.  It goes something like this:  "Have you ever done anything wrong?  No?  How about the time you took that paper-clip from the office?  Did you know that stealing is a transgression against God's holy and perfect law?  Did you know that any offense cuts you off from the perfect and holy God?"

Really!?  So you can go to hell for paper-clip stealing?!

Is Christianity such a petty religion, is the gospel so truncated, that the best we can do to describe our rebellion and hatred towards God is paper-clips?  Is the gospel about being perfect?

Yes the gospel is about being perfect.  It says so in my Bible.  But it's also about so much more.  I believe that the gospel is primarily relational.

Here's my short take, if I have to make one without the time to go into explaining Israel: God created us as his beloved children.  Satan tempted us to mistrust and disbelieve in God's love, so we rebelled and went our own way.  So God, being the extremely merciful and loving type that he is, put in action the bravest rescue attempt known to mankind.  He put his life on the line for us, so that we would not only know his love and enter in to it, but have something like the cross to point to whenever we are tempted to doubt it again.

So the gospel is not primarily about moral perfection.  If that's all it is, we might as well just say "Thanks God," and be on our merry way.  No the gospel, I believe, is about God showing a perfectly unbalanced love towards us.

Paul above said it was because God was "pleased" with him that he revealed Jesus to him.  I can't think of one perfectly good reason God would do that.  Why reveal Jesus to someone who murders Jesus followers?

Was it just so Paul could have a perfect record and think of himself as sinless?  No, I believe Paul's life reveals a much deeper motivation than that - namely the very fact that God was pleased with him and wanted him, even though he was a sinner.

Fates Entwined

"Whom have you mocked and reviled?  Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights?  Against the Holy One of Israel?"
...
And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 180,000 in the camp of the Assyrians." - 2 Kings 19:22&35

My fate is intertwined with the LORD's.  I know that I am just as unfaithful as the nation of Judah when they faced it's marauders the Assyrians.  I deserve the taunts and the heckles.  But God won't have it.  For his reputation is all mixed up with mine.

It's weird how God does this.  It's strange this sort of love.  That he would take up my cause and make it his own really doesn't make too much sense.  I'm not better off than the Assyrians, and Judah's king Hezekiah had to be aware of his nations unworthiness when he took his nations threat into the house of God.  He had to know that he wasn't better off.  His nation was just as arrogant, unfaithful and idolatrous.

Yet he knew something about God so he went, and there he rolled out the scoll of the Assyrian's taunt.  From here God does the rest, wiping out 180,000 of the invaders.

Do I believe that God cares that much about me?  Or has my sin and unworthiness clouded my understanding of God's covenantal faithfulness, in which our fates are bond together.    

It all seems to good to be true.  That a God would make my cause his own is out of character for gods.  But there you have it.  This is the God of Israel.  And when the clouds of condemnation and disaster gather, I am sure glad he's mine as well.