35@35 #2:Belief

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #2: "What you believe isn't defined by what you say you believe. It's defined by what you do." Mars One, a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands recently started accepting applications for people who want to be part of the first manned space mission to Mars.

There's a slight catch with this mission, however: it's a one way trip. The people who are part of this mission will not be coming back. Ever. They will leave Earth and spend the rest of their lives on the Red Planet.

When they opened up for applications, they received over 200,000.

Two hundred thousand!

They have since started narrowing the search down and are now down to 1,000 viable candidates.

They are going to choose six teams of four people to start training in 2015.

Here's what I'm curious to see: how many of the people they choose to undertake this mission will accept it?

It's one thing to say 'I'd like to go to Mars'. It's quite another to step on a spaceship after saying goodbye to everybody you ever knew.

You can call yourself a Martian astronaut as much as you want, but until you're rocketing away from earth at 66,000 miles an hour, you're just talking.

Similarly, you can spend a lot of time telling people what you believe:

"I think every kid should receive a strong education."

"I feel like I'm supposed to be a musician."

"I think Jesus is God in the flesh."

The question is this: what are you doing about it? If you really believe something, isn't it going to have an effect on your actions?

If you think we as a society have an obligation to make sure kids are able to read, and write and learn valuable academic and practical skills, what are you doing about it? Are you tutoring in low income areas that need help? Are you involved in local schools that are struggling to achieve that goal?

If you believe you should be a musician, are you taking lessons? Are you practicing for hours a day? are you releasing material for people to hear?

If you believe in Jesus, are you doing the things he told us to do? Feeding the hungry? Clothing the naked? Visiting the prisoner? Caring for the sick? Giving drink to the thirsty?

In fact, a Jesus' brother in law, a guy named James, talked about this very thing in a letter he wrote:

“How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” (James 2:18b)

We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. From that viewpoint, it's very easy to see how you're a good person because of what you 'believe', whereas most people are uncaring because they don't demonstrate to you that they care.

It's an incredible level of hypocrisy that we can all easily fall into. I know I've often struggled with that.

In some instances, we even legitimize feelings like this. Once faith (that I won't call out, because I'm not trying to write an attack ad - and God knows we have enough problems in Christendom to solve) actually says that thinking about doing a good act counts as a good act, and actually doing it counts as 10 good acts, whereas doing a bad act only counts as one bad act.

With that mindset, I can act terribly, but if I consider doing good things, it all evens out in the end.

Another faith (again, I won't mention it) thinks that you can put up flags with prayer on it, and every time that flag flaps in the wind, it counts as a prayer.

With all due respect, this are cop outs.

What you do tells me what you believe. You may think you care about an issue, but if you never do anything about it you don't have a belief. You have an opinion.

That doesn't make you a bad person. We all have opinions. But just sharing them on Facebook doesn't change the world.

Figure out what it is that you believe in life.

And then go show everybody those beliefs.

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35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #1: Change

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #1: "People rarely change, and even then it’s never on their own." We are in the season of New Year's Resolutions. We want to work out more, eat healthier, do more charity, be a better parent or spouse, go back to school, quit smoking, save money, or perhaps all of the above.

These are great ideas. Surely things that would improve the lives of those who undertake these endeavors.

So why is is that only about 8% of New Years Resolutions are actually fulfilled?

I read a quote once (but now can't remember where) that said this: "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because they both keep doing what they've always done."

This idea doesn't just apply to money: apply it to a healthy lifestyle. Apply it to your engagement as a parent or spouse, apply it to pretty much anything in your life.

So why is it so hard for us to change ourselves?

The simple answer comes from Isaac Newton's first law of motion which is often summed up this way: A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

Unless an outside force exerts force on an object, that object will keep doing what it has been doing. (That's actually the third law).

In other words, if we want to eat differently, or stop doing something (like smoking), or start doing something (like saving money), we're going to have to exert force in that area of our life.

We quickly figure out that it's way, way easier to just let the thing do whatever it was already doing. And then we often give up.

For me to carve out time during my week to write a regular series of blog posts is going to require effort. And that's just a short essay. Being a better husband or father will take not only time, but energy, and sacrifice.

So the bigger the change (or the bigger the object we're trying to move), the more force it will require. No wonder we can give up so easily.

Honestly, some things are just to big and too heavy for us to move on our own. That is where a person of faith will need to engage in a relationship with God to help move the object. And because God is a redeemer rather than a genie, the process will still take time and energy.

This is why we so often fail: because it isn't easy. Who wants to choose the rocky, difficult path when the wide paved way is always right in front of us?

But that begs the question: why do we get so frustrated when other people don't change?

When we fail to change, we are often able to justify that failure (I was too busy, I was too stressed, I was too (fill in the blank)), but when others fail, we turn in to a results based person. I don't care why you didn't do a better job at X, the bottom line is that you let me down.

We recognize the cost of change in our own life and excuse ourselves when we are not prepared to pay that cost. We must learn to extend that same grace to others. If we are not willing to do that, we would be wise not to interact with other people at the point of that frustration we have.

(This is why it's so important to keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards, as Ben Franklin famously said)

It is possible for us to help somebody change: a friend asks you to help them go to the gym on a particular schedule, or asks for you to provide accountability over a particular area of their life.

But it must be noted that this can only occur when you have been invited to do so. The other person must want to change before you can help them in their journey.

So the bottom line is this: people rarely change because change is hard. It's much easier to stay in the rut we've carved out for ourselves.

But if we're ready to ask for help from a God who offers empowering grace, there is always hope.

"Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." (Romans 12:2a)

"Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” ~ Jesus (Matthew 19:26b)

35 Things I've Learned At 35: A New Blog Series for 2014

I have created two personal goals for 2014. First is to read the stack of books that has been growing on my desk for the past year. So I will probably need to read 20-30 pages a day minimum, which is totally do-oable.

Second is to write a series of blog posts. 35 of them to be specific, with 35 things I’ve learned now that I am the ripe old age of 35.

I’ve had a word document for over a decade that I titled ‘TCs Guidelines and Principles of Life’ that I like to think of as my version of Solomon’s Proverbs.

To be clear: I think Solomon’s are better, but hey, I’ve got what I’ve got.

Some of these are my own original ideas, some are adapted, some are cliches, and some are totally stolen from others. They are simply the list of idioms that I have put together which have helped me navigate life.

If you find something that works for you, please feel free to steal it for yourself.

Happy 2014 everybody!

#35@35

OUTRAGED: a note to people who don't agree with me

outrage

Man! Can you believe that thing that just happened? Where that person said that thing!? And then those people responding to that thing said such stupid stuff?? I AM OUTRAGED BY WHAT THOSE PEOPLE SAID!!

EVERYBODY on my facebook is talking about it.

It was about a new piece of legislation.

Actually, I’m pretty sure it was about the Methodist minister who just got defrocked.

Or wait, maybe it was the comments by the Duck Dynasty guy.

No, I’m sorry. It was totally the Chick Fil-a owners comments.

Anyway, it was one of those things, or something similar to that.

I’m trying to tell everybody what they should think, but they don’t seem to be listening to me no matter HOW LOUD I GET ABOUT IT.

I just don’t know what’s wrong with some people.

I mean, screaming at people is just how we’re supposed to deal with issues. That’s how politicians do it through the media. If you watch any TV cable news, they’re going to have multiple talking heads yelling at one another.

Because that’s the only way we can reach resolution: by smashing the other side to bits.

If you show a willingness to actually discuss a topic and validate the fact that other people have value whether you agree with them or not, that shows weakness, and nobody wants to hear what a weak person has to say.

Aristotle was 100% wrong when he said “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” He SHOULD have said “people who don’t agree with me must be BLASTED ON FACEBOOK.”

Meek people never inherit anything.

Peacemakers are compromisers and should be ignored.

Mercy is is the ultimate sign that you don’t have any true convictions.

I know Jesus talks about those things in Matthew 5, but that must be one of those ‘non-literal’ parts of the Bible.

I like the part where Jesus makes a whip and runs a bunch of people out of the temple. I can't remember why he did that, I just like it.

So I’m going to keep arguing and yelling at people until they agree with me. I’ll never stop, because that would be abandoning my principles.

I’m sure you agree with me.

And if you don’t:

YOU’RE WRONG!!!!! WRONGEST PERSON EVER!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU THINK SOMETHING DIFFERENT!! IT’S MY CONSTITUTIONAL GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO TELL YOU HOW TO THINK!!!!!

NOW GO HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

The Problem with New Life

When we choose to follow Jesus, we are offered a new life. No. That's not right.

We are not just offered a new life. We're promised a new life.  We're called to have a new life. A life that God gives us.

"...anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This new life is rich and satisfying (John 10:10)

This new life is eternal (John 3:16)

This new life means our sins are washed away (Titus 3:5)

This new life means we are free from any and all enslavement (Romans 7:6)

Wow! What a great thing to have, this new life! Why in the world would anybody NOT want it? Nobody would say no to freedom and redemption and eternal joy. At least nobody who isn't crazy, right?

But there's a problem.

A life already exists in the place where this new life is supposed to exist. I mean, if you are giving me a new life, what does that mean to the life I now live?

There is only one possible solution:

The old life must die.

If I have a grove of orange trees, and I would rather have apple trees in the same place, my only real solution is to get rid of the orange trees.

But my old life wasn’t an orange tree. It was a briar patch.

Pulling up those thorny branches is going to take a long time. And it's going to hurt.

I could just clear a tiny bit of it and plant an apple tree, but it wouldn't take long for the briar to overgrow it and kill it.

No. If I want an apple orchard, I'm going to have to kill all the the briar patch.

Dietrich Bonheoffer said ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him ‘come and die’.

Jesus told stories about how new wine can’t be placed in old wineskins.

If we want to follow Jesus and receive all the amazing benefits of that life – there’s going to be a great cost.

The cost of dying.

That's why Paul says this:

"My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

Nothing can free you from this correlation.

The more your old life stays alive, the less new life you have room for.

This cost ends up being a reason that many people never accept this amazing offer. Giving up what I have is scary, and difficult.

Jesus never pretends it will be easy. But he makes it pretty clear that it will be worth it.

Choose new life. Choose to remove what was there so that God can place new life in those spaces.

Anything less is not what God wants for us.

Guilt vs. Shame

I’m reading a book called Daring Greatly by Dr. Brene Brown right now. It’s a good book so far, and she has some great stuff to say. Right now, I reading about the difference between guilt and shame. It’s been useful, because I didn’t understand the distinction between these two concepts very clearly.

Guilt looks at a situation where you come up short of the standards you hold in your life and say ‘I did wrong’ or ‘I came up short there’.

Shame looks at those situations and says ‘I’m a horrible person’ or ‘I’m such a loser’.

Guilt is useful only insofar as it makes us aware of our need for the mercy that God so willingly gives us when we fall short, and the grace which empowers us to live a life closer to the one Jesus calls us to live.

Shame is wholly destructive, and leads us to believe that we don’t deserve the mercy and grace that God wants to share with us.

Brown makes the case that using shame to correct behavior is completely counter-productive in parenting, managing, teaching, or any other leadership situation.

I couldn’t agree more. We are all children of God, and we inherently all have worth.

Instead of calling people to live up to the standard of following Jesus, to the calling that God extends to us as partners in the ever expanding nature of his Kingdom, shame attacks their very self worth.

It’s an effective trick.

That must be why Satan likes it so much.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan tells Eve that she has no worth if she doesn’t eat the apple. “…as soon as you eat it…you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)

If you don’t eat that apple, you’re going to stay a loser. Shame on you if you don’t eat that apple.

When Jesus was at the end of his 40 day fast, Satan came to Jesus and gave him several challenges. The first two started the same way: “If you are the Son of God…” (See Matthew 4:1-11)

Unlike the response he gets in the garden, Jesus does not let shame manipulate him. He looks to the guidance and standards given by God in the scriptures and avoids the trap.

Shame is still a favorite tool of our enemy today. When you find yourself devaluing the inherent worth you have as a person, adjust this internal monologue with what God says about us.

That you are beautifully and wonderfully made by God. (Psalm 139:13-15)

That God greatly values you. (Luke 12:6-7)

That nothing can separate us from God’s love. (Romans 8:38-39)

It’s okay if you see areas in your life that do not yet measure up to the life God has called you to live, but don’t think that’s where your self worth comes from. Those feelings of guilt are simply there to point you back to the one that says he is working in us, and won’t quit until the work is done. (Philippians 1:6)

What My Job (As A Pastor) Is Not

I have the amazing privilege of being a Pastor. It is, by far, the best job I have ever had. Not the easiest job - on the contrary, it’s more challenging than any other position I’ve ever held. But it is so worth it.

I get to help lead a community of people that follow Jesus in our goal of bringing God’s light and life and love to our local community. And you’re not going to believe this: they pay me to do it.

I know, nuts, right? But that’s where I am.

I’m about a couple weeks away from hitting my one year anniversary in this position. It feels like I only just got here. I have a better understanding of that story in the bible where Jacob works for 7 years to earn the right to marry Rachel, but because of how much he loved her, it only felt like a few days (Genesis 29:20)

In that year, something I have learned previously in ministry has proved itself true to me again: that you can’t make people passionate about something that they are not truly passionate about.

See, my job as a minister is not to make somebody a better follower of Jesus. I could preach and teach until I am blue in the face and I’m not going to create passion in somebody. I may be able to hype them up, but hype fades.

Passion lasts.

Hype is like fireworks: showy and exciting for a moment, but fades quickly. And it doesn’t accomplish much in the long run. You can’t cook a meal with fireworks.

Passion is like a a bonfire. It has tremendous energy and can accomplish great purposes. It can also grow and shrink, depending on whether you feed it.

And as I said, I cannot create passion within people for anything, let alone for Jesus.

The only one who can create passion in people is God.

So what is my job?

My role is to facilitate the passion that God gives to people. To help those who accept that passion and want to help it grow.

My job is to help these people connect to:

• God (by way of his Holy Spirit)
• God’s purposes in their live and the world at large (by helping them connect with the local and global community)
• God’s guidance (through reading and studying the scriptures)

I and the leadership team at my church work extremely hard to cultivate what God has given people in the places where they engage their passions.

We provide ministry opportunities: volunteering with our ministry teams like hospitality, creative arts, community outreach or children’s ministry

We invest in leadership development so that they can generate positive influence in their spheres of influence.

We have a Sunday Morning celebration so that people can engage with worship and teaching.

And we have discipleship opportunities like classes and small groups.

None of these processes, programs or ministries will ‘manufacture’ followers of Jesus.

Likewise, they will not cause people to become more passionate about God.

But they will act a fire in the life of a person who has accepted God’s passion and has started to burn brightly for him.

Our job is to maximize what God is doing in the life of the individuals in our community. To cultivate the growth that the Holy Spirit causes.

And that, in my opinion, is the best - and most challenging - job in the world.

Breaking the Rules

Recently, I heard Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K from Duke) speak about leadership. He talked about being the coach of Team USA, which included players like Kobe, Lebron, Kevin Durant, etc.

I dont’ know about you, but I was insanely curious to find out how he lead a team full of alpha dogs like that. And not only that, he led them in a way that left every single one of them singing his praises, after they won the Gold medal.

He revealed the approach he took with them: that he did not put a single rule in place for the team.

See, most NBA teams have rules like, ‘If you’re late for a meeting, you have to pay $1,000’. For somebody making $20+ million per year, this is basically a joke.

Coach K didn’t want to use meaningless fines to convince people to fully engage with what the team was doing.

So instead of rules, he asked the players of the team to help him create standards by which the team would conduct themselves.

Rules, he said, are external. But standards are something we hold internally. They are how we truly judge our actions.

So the team created standards: Nobody late for a meeting. No bad practices. Nothing short of a Gold Medal.

Coach K told us that nobody was ever late for a meeting. Nobody had a bad practice. In the London Olympics, they took home the Gold Medal.

I realized that I had made a similar switch from rules to standards in my own life, I just hadn’t recognized that change.

But lately, I have been seeking an overall standard for everything I do. A lens whereby I can view everything I do and don’t do and determine whether I’m doing the right thing.

For some people, the phrase What Would Jesus Do? filled this role in the 90s.

To be honest, I was never really in love with this standard.

I have no idea if Jesus would watch this movie, or read that book, or how much money Jesus would give to that charity.

Jesus lived in a totally different culture than mine.

I learn a ton of valuable principles from Jesus, but I also know this: I’m not Jesus.

There’s a lot of stuff he did that I haven’t been able to do yet (see: raising people from the dead). And there’s a lot of stuff I do that Jesus never would (we can start the list with driving a car and move into other stuff like ‘being selfish’).

So WWJD was a nice idea that didn’t work for me.

Here’s what I’ve come up with lately: before I do or don’t do anything, I’m trying to ask myself the following question:

Is this helping me become more like Jesus?

Because while I may never be just like Jesus, I can certainly become more like him. And I believe that is exactly what I have been called to do.

To be honest, I haven’t fully deployed this question in my life because I’m scared of where it will take me.

I’m going to have to start doing some stuff that I would probably rather avoid. And there’s stuff that I’ll probably have to stop doing that I like.

The thing is, I know that becoming more like Jesus is going to outweigh anything I have to sacrifice or give up.

I want that to be a standard in my life. Something I aspire to instead of a rule that mocks me when I fail.

What standards do you hold up before you?

Simple vs. Easy

If you find following Jesus to be easy, then with all due respect, you’re doing it wrong. Jesus is rarely complicated. In fact, when a man asks Jesus to summarize everything required of us under the old covenant (or old testament if you prefer), Jesus basically says this: Love God and love people with everything you are.

What does that look like?

Be generous.

Don’t hate.

Don’t lust.

Be humble.

All of those things are simple. And much of the time, really tough.

Most first century Rabbis required their students to attend many years of schooling. They had to demonstrate extraordinary quality before the Rabbi would ever consider asking them to become a disciple. It was a long, arduous, complicated process.

Jesus, on the other hand, walked up to some fisherman and said ‘Come with me, and I’ll teach you how to fish for people.’ They dropped their nets and started to follow Jesus.

Simple.

But not always easy.

As they lived in the moment of God’s mission to renew and restore a broken world, they were constantly criticized by the religious crowd. They had to deal with constant demands by needy people - begging for food and deliverance.

Eventually, many of them would be jailed and executed for daring to be identified as a follower of this man, Jesus.

At a conference recently, John Maxwell talked about how great ideas develop.

He said they start at a level of being simplistic. Simplistic is fast and shallow.

From there, they move to being complex. Complex is long and deep.

Many ideas get stuck at complex. Being a follower of God was insanely complex when Jesus was born. There were hundreds of rules to follow.

But complex doesn’t work. It must make the last evolution: Simple.

Simple is fast and deep.

Jesus boiled all these rules and requirements down to: Love God and love people with all you’ve got.

If your faith is simplistic; that is, you just believe what you’ve been told, keep working to develop it.

If your faith is complex, meaning you can’t communicate what’s important to people who are unfamiliar with it, keep working to develop it.

When your faith is simple, make sure it stays focused on the things Jesus emphasized.

And don’t become discouraged, and give it up. Because while a life of simple faith isn’t easy, I promise you that it is worth all your efforts.

You are part of God’s simple plan to make all things new.

Why You Shouldn't Struggle With Self Worth

What defines you? Is it how you look?

Is it what you’re good at?

Could it be your job…or how much money you have?

Or perhaps it’s your religion.

Or maybe what defines you is how you view yourself.

What about how other people view you. Is that what defines you?

The other day I was reading in the book of Romans when I found something that Paul wrote:

“The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.”

Paul says that we are defined by the one who created us and what he does in us.

Jesus makes this same point in John 15. He says that God is the vine and we are the branches. I don’t care how productive or beautiful a branch is, if you cut it off from the vine, it shrivels and dies like any other.

Your identity, if it comes from the stuff I mentioned above: money, looks, religion, others opinions…can falter and fail.

The thing about God is that he gives us some guarantees in the scriptures. One is that he doesn’t change (Hebrews 13:8). Another is that he will always be at work in us (Romans 11:29).

If we accept that who we are - our self worth - is rooted in the one who made us and loves us, nothing can affect that.

God himself, through the prophet Isaiah says this: “From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done.” (Isaiah 43:13)

Nobody - nothing - has the ability to change your worth. If you feel that way, I encourage you to look at what God says about you - he says that you were worth the sacrifice of his own son, so that you could live the life he wants you to have.

God doesn’t change, and therefore, neither does your worth.

The Echoes of God

1 Kings 19 tells the story of the prophet Elijah. Elijah reaches a point in his life where he’s depressed and frustrated - to the point where his only prayer left is asking God to let him die.

God summons Elijah to a particular mountain and tells Elijah to prepare for God’s arrival.

As Elijah stands inside a cave, awaiting the arrival of the almight, a hurricane wind arrives and literally shatters rocks on the mountain. But the scripture says that ‘God wasn’t to be found in the wind’.

So Elijah continues to wait.

Next, a great earthquake rocks the mountain. But God wasn’t in the earthquake.

So Elijah continues to wait.

A great fire rages across the mountain next. But God wasn’t in the fire.

So Elijah continues to wait.

What happens next is that God shows up. Not in a show of force and power, but in a quiet whisper.

As soon as Elijah hears the quiet whisper, he covers his face out of great respect and walks to the mouth of the cave to meet with God.

I often have people asking me how to hear from God. I believe God is constantly speaking within all of us. It simply requires us to listen to the whispers in our heart.

This voice mixed with the essence of who we are, and it sounds very much like our own inner thoughts when it arrives.

To an analytical person, it will be analytical. To an emotional person, it will be emotional.

The secret to hearing from God is simply to listen. God’s thoughts will be found within you, if you will just look for them. If you will just listen to what is flowing out of your heart as you seek him.

This quieting down takes practice. Meditating, praying, reading the scriptures, fasting, worshiping - these practices help us to quiet ourselves down and to hear the echoes of God within our own soul.

When Jesus arrived on this planet, the scriptures say there was nothing noteworthy about his appearance (see Isaiah 53).

God is secure in his greatness - he has no need to use parlor tricks to prove himself. That’s why he will speak in a gentle whisper. That’s why he walked this earth as a simple, ordinary man.

God does not shove his greatness down our throat. Instead, he fills the background of the universe with his greatness. If we choose to ignore it, we can easily do so. But if we will spend a very little effort searching for it, we find it everywhere.

Echoes are a little quieter than the sound they come from. We can only hear echoes if we stop making noise.

God’s greatness is echoing through our universe, our world, and within our own souls. I encourage you to occasionally take time to stop what you’re doing and listen.

The day will come when we no longer live in a land of echoes, but rather in the midst of the very greatness that reverberates everywhere.

But for now, we must look past the wind and the earthquake and the fire that would distract us, and listen for the whisper of the one who is greater than them all.

Under New Management

Who owns the Kingdom of God? Before you say ‘God’, followed by ‘that’s a dumb question’, let me include something Jesus says in Luke 12:32.

“Don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.”

Uh-oh.

Wait, maybe ‘give’ in the greek means something totally different. Let’s check it out at blueletterbible.org.

 to give something to someone

a) of one’s own accord to give one something, to his advantage

1) to bestow a gift

b) to grant, give to one asking, let have

c) to supply, furnish, necessary things

d) to give over, deliver

Oops.

So here’s my question to you: have you been treating the Kingdom of God like you are an owner?

I was a business owner for a period of time. I worked late, I worked weekends, I spent a lot of my own personal money to run it. I gave it everything I had.

When I went back to working for a corporation, I never, ever worked late. You couldn’t have gotten me there on a weekend with a cattle prod.

I didn’t care if that company made or lost a billion dollars. I did my job, and I did it well enough to get raises and promotions, but I didn’t really care about it.

Jesus talks about this difference in John 10:12-13 as it pertains to shepherds:

“A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.”

So let me ask you you again: do you treat the Kingdom of Heaven like the co-owner you are? Or are you just treating it like a meal ticket?

Is it so much a part of your life that it’s a part of your identity, or is it just something you do?

Personally, I wouldn’t trust me with God’s shoe. But God has given me so much more.

The difference between an owner and an employee is that an owner bears ultimate responsibility. There’s no one to pass the buck onto. If, as an owner, you don’t do the work - it simply doesn’t get done.

The Kingdom of God is under new management - you.

When people encounter it, are they going to want to become a co-owner with you?

Who Are You Becoming?

Facebook changed the layout on my profile the other day, and one of the things it does is make ‘notes’ you have written somewhat more prominent. Because of this, I found several notes I had written back in 2009 and earlier.

They were about topics like evolution, the environment, abortion, etc.

Here’s the fun part about these notes that I wrote: As I was reading them, I mostly disagreed with them.

That excites me so much.

Why? Because that means I am growing. I am changing. I’m not the same person I was 4, 5 , 6 years ago.

That’s a good thing, because I wasn’t perfect 4, 5 or 6 years ago. I had areas of my life that needed to change, and needed to grow.

I hope that 5 years from now, as I’m reading my tumblr/wordpress archive, I find some posts that I think are silly, just like I now think my facebook notes are silly.

Growth and change are so important to me because I know I’m not just like Jesus yet. In fact, I have a ways to go in order to get to that point. To be honest, I’ll probably never actually reach that goal. But I can grow closer than where I’m at now.

I find that my hard edge of theological rigor has been supplanted by humility and love.

I’m spending less time trying to be superior, and more time trying to be relatable.

I’ve learned that you can’t argue people into the kingdom of God, but you can love them into it.

Yesterday, I read this in Romans 2:4 (MSG) - “God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness, he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.”

I look back at my life and I see that I’m not the same that I was. I realize that I am becoming something other than I was. And that speaks to God in my life.

Because people rarely change, but when they do, it’s almost never on their own.

If I’m different, I believe it’s because I have invited God to be a part of my life. And he loves me enough to not leave me the same as he found me.

Please forgive me for all my imperfections, and in the areas where I am getting it wrong. Because the most important thing about me is is this:

I am becoming more like Jesus.

As you open your life to him, I know you are too.

How to Receive God's Guidance For Your Life

I was reading the Bible today, and I found this: “One day as they (several prophets and teachers in a prominent church) were worshiping God - they were also fasting as they waited for guidance - the Holy Spirit spoke…”(Acts 13:2) These first century believers - among them somebody who has to be considered if we ever build a Mt. Rushmore of church fathers, Paul - have no idea what to do next.

So they’re waiting, and seeking God’s guidance. How? By worshiping and praying.

It doesn’t say that were freaking out. Doesn’t say that they were starting dozens of new initiatives simultaneously to find the right one. It also doesn’t say that they sat around and waited for opportunity to knock.

These people clearly want to know what God’s plan is. Rather than going off in a random direction, they waited until they knew it so they could cooperate with God’s plan.

Imagine a builder who doesn’t get the blueprints from their architectural firm by the time they are ready to start construction. Does this builder just say, ‘oh well’, and start building whatever comes to mind? I hope not. I hope they would wait, and seek out those blueprints.

I hope they would realize that building without a plan is not only foolish, it’s dangerous. And when the blueprints arrive, the first thing they would have to do is tear down the mess they started.

Paul and the other believers realize that God has a blueprint. For their lives, for their church, for the world. And rather than just starting to build as fast as they can so that people see ‘results!’, they take the time to seek out what the blueprints say.

I don’t know why God sometimes withholds these plans from us. I do know it drives us nuts. At least it does that for me.

But this does teach me patience. It teaches me dependance. It teaches me faith.

It reminds me of the value of the Planner.

So the way to receive God’s guidance for your life is to seek them, and don’t start building until you have them. Again, this isn’t a license for laziness. Remember the story about the master who goes on a trip and expects his servants to be productive while he’s gone?

While we’re waiting for the plans, we should be productive. Meeting with other believers, having devoted prayer time, fasting - these are all efforts. I guarantee you they were also reading the scriptures and being a part of the local community of believers.

You can plant shrubs and mow the grass while waiting for the plans to build.

Don’t let your life become a vacant lot, or overgrown mess while you wait. Just don’t start major renovations without a plan.

How to Have Peace in Frustrating Circumstances

In the past couple of years, I was in a situation where I felt that God was telling me about a coming transition, but I could never find signs of that transition being imminent. Most of my despair and frustration came from the fact that I didn't know if I had really heard from God, so I was almost always wrestling with despair.

In situations like these, I think about the story in Matthew 8 where Jesus and the disciples are in a boat when a huge squall comes up. The disciples start to freak out, but Jesus remains asleep.

Keep in mind, several of these guys are professional fishermen. They have seen storms before. If they think they're going to die from this storm, chances are good that they knew what they were talking about.

So in this panic, they wake Jesus up. He calms the storm, then he says something that was troubling to me: "Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!" (Matthew 8:26)

Seriously, Jesus?

We're seriously supposed to find ourselves in the midst of deadly storms, look over to see you asleep and say 'No worries!'?

But I found something interesting in what I was reading today.

In Acts 12, Peter has been arrested. He's kept in jail for several days, guarded by 16 guards. The church is praying for Peter, but the day of his execution has arrived.

To be extra sure that Peter isn't going anywhere, he has been chained directly to TWO guards!

And what is Peter doing, hours before his scheduled murder, in prison, chained to the guards?

"Peter slept like a baby." (Acts 12:6)

Wow.

Well, maybe Peter knew God would free him, and that's where his faith came from. Except that after an angel appears and busts him out of prison, Peter says this:

"I can't believe it - this really happened!" (Acts 12:11) Peter wasn't expecting to be freed. He figured the worst would happen, but he was willing to accept God's plan.

I am reminded of a story that's not in the bible, so take it with a grain of salt. A man named Smith Wigglesworth - a great evangelist - once woke up in the middle of the night to find satan himself standing at the foot of his bed. Wigglesworth said 'Oh. It's just you.', then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Faith isn't about believing the best will happen until it finally does. Faith is about fully accepting that what will happen is according to God's plan. We can certainly ask God to do things - the church was fervently praying for Peter's release. But when Jesus prayed to avoid the cross, he accepted that then answer was 'no'.

If God tells you something is going to happen, trust in it. Jesus wasn't worried in the boat because he knew God's plan. Nothing would derail it.

Peter isn't worried because even though he doesn't know God's exact plan, he knows that nothing will derail it.

God is in control. That's why we can sleep in the storm. That's why we can sleep like a baby when our execution is scheduled the next day. That's why we don't need to worry about the health of our children, or about where our next job will be.

I know it's easier said than done, but there is hope. Peter went from freaking out in the storm to being at peace in the darkest of circumstances.

Let us continue to grow in our faith until we can rest easy when everyone else is freaking out. I can't think of many more powerful ways to point to God in our lives than that.

A Christian View of Tragedy

Today, America again experienced an attack of mass violence. The detonations near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed 3 people, maimed many more, and injured more than a hundred.

One of the two victims, it has been confirmed, was 8 years old. My oldest daughter is 8 years old, so this information was particularly impacting to me. I’m not sure how it would feel to lose any of my kids, and I certainly hope I never have to find out.

This comes after the terrible events late late year in Newtown, Connecticut where 26 children and adults lost their lives in another mass attack.

In the recent past, we have seen attacks in movie theaters, malls, schools and colleges.

I am of the opinion that these types of events, for the foreseeable future, will continue. (Until the depression, mental illness, anger, frustration, etc that cause these events has been dealt with, I don’t assume peoples’ actions will suddenly go in a different direction.)

Columbine, a decade ago shocked us to our core. If that event happened again today, we would shake our head and lament it as the latest event in a series of others. The 13 deaths in that event (Or 15, if you include the shooters who took their own lives) may be viewed as thankfully lower than Virginia Tech, Newtown or Norway.

How are the believers in an all-powerful and all-loving God supposed to view these events?

Are they part of God’s mysterious plan?

That would leave us in the place where we must bury our questions and our feelings of deep sadness - for to do otherwise would be to doubt God. I reject that stance completely.

I think God is just as saddened as we are by these events. I mentioned the pain I would feel if my daughter was killed.

Well, each person is a son or a daughter to God. Their loss is great to him. And also painful is the fact that one of his children committed the terrible act.

Jesus, after all, wept at the grave of his dear friend Lazarus - and he knew that he was about to resurrect Lazarus!

Jesus understands the pain of personal loss. The idea of a need to be stoic - that is, essentially emotionless - in the face of such event is foreign to the Jesus I see in the scriptures.

In fact, Jesus specifically addressed two events of mass violence and tragedy that were on the mind of people who were listening to his message.

In Luke 13, Jesus is informed that Pilate (the same one who would eventually sentence Jesus to death) had just executed some people as they were offering sacrifices at God’s temple.

You can be sure that this news hit the ears of those in Israel as hard as the news of Newtown hit mine and yours.

In response, Jesus reminds his followers of another recent tragedy, where a building fell on and killed 18 people.

And Jesus tells them this: That these people were no better or worse than anybody else.

They didn’t die because they were bad or evil. They died because Pilate was cruel. Or they died because a building was poorly constructed.

Jesus doesn’t go into a long explanation about mankind having free-will, and therefore at fault. He doesn’t  start talking about how God works in mysterious ways, or that it was ‘just these people’s time’.

He says “Unless you turn to God, you, too will die.” (Luke 13:1-5 The Message)

In other words, the only thing you can control is whether or not you are ready to stand before God.

Jesus says as plain as day that we will have to deal with tragedy and pain in this world. (John 16:33) There is no way around it. Following Jesus isn’t insurance against pain.

But here is what he guarantees: That he’ll never leave us. He’ll never forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5) He also guarantees that he’ll make something beautiful out of the mess (Romans 8:28)

C.S. Lewis said that God “whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.”

You don’t need to believe that God causes pain, but I encourage you to believe him when he says that his kindgom is overtaking us, and that he brings with himself the healing and peace that we all long for.

I don’t know when or where the next act of mass violence will occur in our nation. And I can’t tell you that it’s part of God’s plan.

But I can tell you that it won’t derail God’s plan.

And I can tell you that he invites all of us to be a part of his plan to restore this world.

In the second to last chapter of the Bible, God says he is making all things new.

We’re not there yet, but I assure you that God fulfills his promises.

Why Easter?

When Jesus made the greatest sacrifice - willingly dying to accept the penalty for the sins, one of the last things he said was ‘it is finished.’ In other words, what he wanted to accomplish on the cross was done. For all time. No further sacrifice for sin would ever need to be made. When you or I screw up, Jesus doesn’t have to get back up on the cross to take care of it.

So why Easter?

Why raise from the dead?

Sin has been paid for.

Because Jesus didn’t just come to forgive our sin. He came to give us a new life. He came so that once sin was no longer anchoring us, we would then be able to unfurl our sails and start a journey, an adventure of living.

If Jesus was still laying in his tomb today, it means our sins would be paid for, but that there would be no power available for us to take advantage of that.

In John 10:10, Jesus says that he came not only so that they work of the enemy would be broken in our lives, but that we may have a more abundant life.

God doesn’t want you to solemnly sit around and acknowledge that he died for our sins. He wants us to understand that, then start to LIVE.

We’re not sitting around waiting to get to heaven. God has placed heaven inside of us. And it’s the job of believers in Jesus to give it away!

We don’t just serve a God of forgiveness and mercy.

We serve a God of rebirth and resurrection and renewal.

What was broken isn’t just fixed, it’s been completely overhauled and restored to it’s originally intended glory.

As you celebrate Easter with your family, know that God is for you, God is with you, and God won’t let anything stand in the way of you connecting with him. Not even death.

Rejection

I was reading John chapter 12 today in the Message translation when I got to verses 47-48, where Jesus says this: “If anyone hears what I am saying and doesn’t take it seriously, I don’t reject him. I didn’t come to reject the world; I came to save the world. But you need to know that whoever puts me off, refusing to take in what I’m saying, is willfully choosing rejection.”

Jesus says that he doesn’t reject anybody. But some people reject him.

I look at the infinite patience Jesus had for people who were leading corrupt or broken lives. I wondered how Jesus did that. How could he show such mercy and grace to people that were living in a manner completely opposite to what God had called them to?

I think it’s because they never rejected him. You never see a prostitute or thief or leper that Jesus forgives or heals telling him off; questioning whether he is sent by God.

The people who rejected him were the ones who didn’t think Jesus had the right to forgive and even heal. They didn’t take him seriously. Those were the ones who Jesus had to confront and combat regularly.

It’s very easy to see fault in other people’s lives. But when our response stops being compassion and acceptance, I think we become people who don’t take Jesus seriously.

Whispers in the Deep

I love how Anne Lamott describes God in Help, Thanks, Wow: Way beyond us and deep inside us. God is a being far beyond our comprehension. I mean, seriously, how am I supposed to understand a being for whom time and place are not limitations? Whose existence fills both without effort? The God who describes the whole of planet earth as a footstool (Isaiah 61)?

Yet this same God says the place he most wants to dwell is not within grand structures of stone, marble and gold. He says he wants to live within us. Humanity. His creation. (1 Corinthinans 6:19-20)

But instead of some process where God ends up destroying us by his overriding presence, he desires to live alongside us. To be a wellspring of life that does not diminish us, but rather increases us. To give us fuller life - a life “more abundant” is how Jesus describes it. (John 10:10)

I love that God is willing to be a ‘whisper’ within me. So that I have to seek it out. To quiet myself to hear it.

God, who could make it impossible for me to ignore him, makes it easy and effortless to disregard him.  The most valuable things in life are available in an unlimited supply (love, hope, faith, joy, etc), but they are not gained without pursuit.

I love that God is the same. His presence is in infinite abundance, but it is in no way common. Taking it for granted will ensure that we are never able to find it.

Walls

Walls are built for a purpose. That purpose is either to a. keep something in or b. to keep something out.

An example of keeping something in would be the Berlin Wall. It was erected to prevent people in Eastern Berlin from emigrating out. The leadership there had created an oppressive government and had to resort to building a wall (along with mines and guard towers) to keep the citizens from leaving.

An example of a wall being built to keep something out would be the Great Wall of China. Built (originally) by a Chinese emperor circa 200 BC, it was rebuilt by the Ming Dynasty largely for the purpose of keeping Mongols out of China.

We (humanity) naturally want to build walls. We like to carve out our own place and protect it.

Those of us who have chosen to become members of the Body of Christ must resist this temptation.

We have often succumbed to the temptation to keep ourselves safe from the elements of the world that are less than savory. Elements that we can’t imagine could ever be sanctified. More specifically, to keep out the “wrong kind” of people.

And in doing so, the walls we built to keep ourselves safe and sanctified have become the walls of our own tombs.

Walls, as I have pointed out, are designed to keep people in and/or keep people out. The church should be in the habit of neither of these efforts.

Show me where Jesus built walls around his ministry. He had infinite grace to be among these “disreputable sinners” and “scum” (Mark 2:15-16 NLT). The only people who found themselves on the outside looking in were the very people who had built walls in the name of God: the religious leaders. The people who filled God’s temple with con artists.

Even then, Jesus did not lock them out. They repeatedly came to him, and had access. It was their own choice to ostracize Jesus. To build walls attempting to keep him out.

You should note something in common with the famous examples of walls I listed at the beginning of this article: they both failed. The Berlin Wall fell. The Great Wall failed multiple times at preventing invasion.

Our churches must not become stale and stagnant like water in a bottle. They must remain free and alive like a river.

By accepting everyone and empowering members to go out into the community, we build ties with the community. We become integrated, and we have the opportunity to make an impact. Just like a guy I read about: wait...what was his name? Oh, right. “Jesus”.

Our purpose is not to carve out a safe, secure, comfortable area in this world. It’s to expand the borders of God’s kingdom. A kingdom of grace, peace, acceptance, justice, forgiveness and healing.

Look at Revelation 21:25 - at the end of this age, when the New Jerusalem comes upon the earth, it’s gates never close.

If ‘keeping people out’ isn’t a priority in God’s eternal kingdom, is that something we should practice in our churches here and now?

I, for one, don’t think so.