Changes

I mentioned earlier that I was closing in on marriage, and most of my posts lately have not been terribly personal in nature.  This is my fault, it's my nature to look at things from 30,000 feet, to take something small and use it as a microcosm of a larger picture.  And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, but it's only so helpful to myself or to others.  At the end of the day if I'm talking with someone who doesn't know Jesus, maybe someone who's even offended by the whole idea, being able to discuss big points of theology is only so useful.  It's absolutely necessary, and I have no intention of stopping, but being able to express Jesus' impact on my heart and my life requires more than an ability to explain the concept of atonement and propitiation.

And so, how has Jesus affected me?  Well, he has made me able to love a woman, to desire to be a godly husband to her and to be willing to give up my self for her own sake.  Those are not things I would willingly do on my own.  If you came to me ten years ago and said "Okay Dave, here's a woman, and she's going to do things you don't like and you're going to disagree on some things and there will be points that certain things you like will have to be let go of," I would have told you to kindly move along, I had no interest in such things.  But because I saw exactly how much Jesus was willing to give up for the sake of saving me--His life--and through His gentleness and grace shining through all the crud in my life to lovingly pull me closer in to Him, I have had the desire to be likewise with Jessica.  Rather than begrudgingly going along so that "I get what I want" out of a relationship, the Holy Spirit has planted in me a desire to become a husband that looks like Jesus in the way that I am with my wife.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.  “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.--Ephesians 5:22-33

Now, I want to make one thing clear: the difficultly in expressing personal things here really comes from the fact that the work being wrought by the Spirit sounds so much more straightforward and simple than the actual path and walk through life while enduring it.  As I said: my natural inclination is to do what I want.  Doing what I want by its nature precludes being able to be the sort of husband described above: giving of all of my self for another's sake, seeking to present her without blemish rather than taking what I want, loving her as I love myself.  It is only by God's grace that the desire to be this way has been given to me, and I'll tell you right now...there are still times where I just want to say "Screw it, I'm gonna sit this event out."  There are times that I encounter that old, selfish self and again by God's grace, I'm able to be aware of it, to not be enslaved to sin but instead to know the danger lurking in front of me.  When those times come, there are still times where I have done the wrong thing...but God has been gracious to give me a loving and forgiving wife that prays with me and for me.  And so through up and down, sinful desire and frustrated prayer, God has slowly, lovingly continued His work to create a new man where an old angry, bitter, selfish one once stood.  My daily prayer is to endure day by day and rely solely upon the grace of Jesus on the cross, knowing that now He is my great high priest, interceding for me and providing what I need daily.

One point of contention that has caused frustration and conflicts that have required us both to spend a lot of time talking and praying for guidance has been church.  We come from different church backgrounds and while I have been a member of the Village for some years now, it seems that she has never been able to find a place there.  I have no intention of dragging her to a place she does not desire to be, but I am also concerned that we end up in a place that is a good watering ground for growing in the Gospel.  We live in the Bible Belt, with a seemingly endless number of churches around us--but many of them are run by "peddlers of God's word," endorsing self-help philosophies and theological notions that have nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus and more to do with feeling better about yourself and hoping in earthly gain of some kind, whether of the health and wealth type or of the self-righteousness type.

I do not pretend that there is a perfect church out there, because all churches are run by men and will have things that just don't work or end in the right place.  But after spending so much time in a church run by and filled with men and women who desire to submit themselves to the Gospel and have a deep love for Jesus, I can't bear to settle for less than that.  Jessica and I will have to work through and find a place that satisfies us, but I know that for both of us it will be a matter of sacrificing and of God working in our hearts to transform us further into the image of Christ.  We have had moments of frustration and charged discussions about it, but we love each other and we know that God is working actively in our lives to achieve the greatest good.  And so, we trust Him and walk forward, praying for a light to guide each step.

I've also been taking time away from the performing world, and I have stopped performing with the band I had played with for several years.  There are a few reasons, but it can be summed up in feeling that God was calling me at least out of that position.  More pragmatically, my job had become too much to deal with sudden trips out of town and the wedding preparations demanded more attention.  But again, here was a place that God had moved in me to make me open-handed about it, rather than trying to cling to it desperately until God had to painfully pry me out of it.  His mercy worked slowly, gently to change me, and I am thankful for His grace.  I'd like to get back into playing, and I have some plans I'm kicking around but I will probably wait until after the wedding and the busy season of work to start initiating them.

I don't know where God will take me, and to be honest I don't think I expected to be here.  But one thing that's been made clear, from all the work He's been doing in my life, is that He will not stop until He's accomplished what He set out to do when the Gospel fell in my heart.  I praise His name for that, and I desire that the things that hold me back from living it out fully would be healed and removed, so that more people would see the love of Christ in me.

Utterly dependent

Fireworks still echo outside, both from the seemingly infinite city-sponsored shows surrounding my neighborhood and from the many people who have taken the liberty of shooting off their own.  It's fun, and certainly there are few other American freedoms that can be enjoyed more viscerally than blowing crap up.  The reason is certainly a good one as well: the establishing in words of the founding principles of this nation, principles worth fighting for to be sure.  God blessed this nation with founders who were able to take a collection of loosely affiliated states that had plenty of their own squabbles and problems with each other, and found a nation based upon those ideals.  Founded and further forged in the fire of war, God has done mighty works in this country for His glory. 

But this is not a "And it's all going downhill because of those dang liberals!" speech.  If you look a couple posts down, you'll see something much longer I've written on the same general subject, but I felt this deserved revisiting on this, the day we celebrate our independence from England: our nation is one established by God, for His purposes and glory, subject to His will, and nothing will disrupt that.  Last night I flipped on the radio and heard a host earnestly addressing his audience that it is utterly imperative that we defeat Barack Obama in the general election--and in general, I agree that I would prefer this outcome.  I think his policies are bad and that they've had a measurably destructive effect on the country, economically and otherwise. 

But he insisted that Obama will "destroy this country" if he's reelected, that there is little to no chance of recovery if he does.  Is he right?  Maybe, in the sense that this country may tend towards socialist ideals and a notion that one may as well just accept the handout, rather than fight the growing machine.  But this country's destiny is in the hands of God.  It his the common grace of law and order that He has extended us that has maintained it, and God willing continue us into the future.  He has appointed our leaders for His purposes and it is his nation to give and take away.  I will vote, I will discuss and debate, but my desire for those opportunities, and especially for the words I speak is that they point to Jesus as the real hope of the world.  There is no ultimate political solution, no government that will perfectly rule, no politician or despot or king that will organize a society into perfection except for the King of Kings. 

I do pray for God's mercy on this nation, but that mercy may look like difficulty and struggle as God goes after hearts and removes comforts from our lives so that we cannot shut Him out.  Friends of mine who have been working on mission in nations that actively persecute Christians report that believers there will sometimes pray that we here will undergo more persecution ourselves, that we might become more active and less complacent about our walks.  I don't know if I'd care to ask for that myself, though I do ask that God would begin to transform many hearts across this land and historically, that has not happened during times of great wealth and comfort. 

My hope is in no elected or unelected man.  It is in Jesus, and in God's grand design to transform men's hearts from rebellious and sinful into obedient and loving, to break the bonds of sin for all of us by showing us the cross of Christ and letting us know the immense price paid for our salvation.  I pray that I would love the Lord more and that I would shed sins that hold me back from displaying that love, things like selfishness and greed, and a lust for earthly things.  We are a free land, but we are utterly dependent on a God that loves us and calls us to live as adopted and redeemed children, heirs of the greatest treasure in the universe.

The innermost lie

Each day I load up my Facebook homepage, and I see a growing cascade of frustration and anger roll down the page. My conservative friends and my liberal friends, seeing grave threats in the other, commenting harshly and posting links to their favorite bloggers/columnists/videos that impugn their target. Doom is spelled out, should the other win--and not simply because the other believes certain things, but because there is a moral imperative to victory, and an immorality to the other, to the point where anyone even speaking in defense of said other simply cannot have a conception of anything right, like someone who believes down is up and the moon is the center of the universe.

There have been a lot of concerned writings out there calling for a return to some sense of decorum, for people to return to a more civilized discourse; while I would certainly prefer that, that's not my point. My point here is to call the dichotomy we see in our world a lie: the man across the street with an opposing political sign in his yard, or who is attending a protest against what you want, or who is on TV running for office in opposition to your candidate, he is not your enemy. We look back on the past and scoff at how foolish people were, how they could endorse some of the hatreds humans held in the past, yet today we embrace all new hatreds and defend them with just as much fervor as before. We are able to consider each other evil, and therefore believe that other people are so below contempt that it would be better if they were dead. An exercise that might be helpful here is to consider the thoughts that pass through your head as you have conversations or read the news: who can you regard thusly? How are you able to justify in your mind speaking evil of other men, no matter how right you may consider yourself to be?

I contend that while humanity has discovered much of the wonders of the universe and amazing technologies that link our world together and let us do incredible things, the idea that humanity is somehow more advanced in its heart and mind than in centuries and millenia past is a conceit of the modern age, not true by any observable definition. Even the good things we do become excuses to embrace self-righteousness and attack others for not being as charitable as we are.

This manifests on a larger scale in the political battles going on, carried to a personal level through the reposting of articles, videos and images on social media that are designed to transform "the opponent" into "the enemy." The man who holds an opposing view is not to be contended with, to be engaged in reasoned debate. He is to be villainized and demeaned; find the worst, most awkward picture of him, put a snarky caption on it and your job is done: he is now beneath you. The question of what this does to one's heart raises, but being Right is more important.

Two passages always cross my mind when I see these things scroll by on my Facebook homepage no matter the political stripe. The first is perhaps the most obviously applicable, Ephesians 6:12: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Paul is speaking to believers telling them to engage in life in the strength of the Lord and not their own strength. This verse, as is normal for the Bible, cuts two ways: it calls believers to rest in God knowing that He provides strength to engage the challenges we face. But just as much, it serves as a reminder that the men and women around us, no matter how belligerent, disagreeable or even dangerous, are not our enemies. The only thing separating us is grace, a grace which we are called to preach and walk in lovingly towards them.

And most important to remember, Paul was not writing to an audience of free Americans who can go or not go to a religious service of their choice. He lived, and died, in the Roman empire at a time when being a Christian didn't simply earn scornful Facebook remarks--it was likely to earn death. Paul is speaking to an audience of people who could have been arrested and murdered for their beliefs and telling them, "The man who comes to arrest you, the governor who sentences you, the executioner who picks up the axe or sword or opens the lion cage: pray for them, preach the Gospel to them, love them. All they can do is send you to Jesus, and there is no greater gain a man could ask for." And not one to live different from his preaching, Paul did the very same, as documented in Acts and his letters.

I have been blessed to be a part of a church that is not single-minded politically by any means, and having a campus in a college town like Denton and another in middle class Flower Mound helps that quite a bit. It brings a constant reminder that Jesus was not about political ends, nor did He come to endorse a platform for election. I think at all churches Christians need to remember this: your opponent is not your enemy. Your opponent is not who you are defeating, and no matter where you stand on an issue, no matter how close it is to your heart, your ultimate goal is to be able to speak the truth of the Gospel in love into his life.

The other passage is a little more complex as it relates to this, but I think it bears discussing:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are being saved, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:22-25

Paul sets up two camps, Jews--in a more global conception, religious types--and Greeks, Gentiles--those with a secular worldview. The religious root their wisdom in the idea of a deity who they are able to please, and therefore because they are able to perform the right acts and not perform the wrong ones, they feel justified. The Jews had the law and sought to live by it, though because our rebellious human nature is opposed to living in this way there was of course a system put in place to atone for sin, of which there was no end.

Those from the secular viewpoint seek to understand the world, believing that the power of man's mind and the understanding he can unlock of the world, there is an end to suffering and pain, a perfection that awaits all people arriving on the same page. Yet all attempts to reach this hit one huge roadblock: as broken people, we have no true conception of what such a thing looks like. Any system set up to try to enforce a particular image inevitably becomes tyrannical and murderous towards those who would point out its flaws, while systems like our own that seek to balance debate and allow people to pursue their own lives become targets for those who point out the injustice in letting the weak and helpless fall to their own fates.

And so, we arrive at Jesus, the power and wisdom of God. God gave the Jews their religious system, but laced throughout it was blatant images of what the Messiah would do when He came, how atonement would once and for all be wrought. But because Jesus came not as a conquering king but as a lamb led to slaughter, a man who was cursed and died accursed, he was a stumbling block for the religious, just as He is today. Whether 2000 years ago or in the present day, the religious demand a Messiah who will justify them as they are in their own righteousness, not call them to a deeper righteousness rooted in a faith that is itself a gift which cannot be earned.

And of course, the whole idea makes little sense to a man who is wholly earthly and irreligious in his views; the problem is error, the solution is correcting the error. But if the lens through which you look is broken, each correction simply leads to new error, ultimately leading to a state of being utterly and completely lost. It is only by the grace of God that a man who sees himself through that cracked lens is able to suddenly know the truth of the state of his heart: to see the sin piled up, the wrongs committed against others and against God, and yet in that moment to know that God reveals this for the purpose of calling him to Himself. That great love has cracked open so many hearts hardened by the world, puffed up by knowledge but not finding truth.

We look at each other, seeing the faults, knowing the wrongs and pointing to them, demanding correction while we excuse our own. We see the hypocrisy all around us, but try to hide our own. It is a part of the human condition; in John 21, even Peter reveals his willingness to run to this defense when speaking with Jesus:

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”--John 21:15-23

And again, in Galatians, Paul talks about how quickly Peter retreated into Jewish legalism for fear of how he was being seen by other Jews:

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”--Galatians 2:11-14

Each of us is called to be accountable to God for ourselves, for what he has given us as responsibility. We are not excused by the error of the world or of others, nor by our inability to perform up to par; indeed, it is that inability to live up to the standards of true righteousness that convicts us. However, we are justified by the Gospel, by the fact that Jesus died and absorbed the wrath of God for sin, and in believing and walking in that faith we are free to pursue God's call on us to the best of our ability. Our mistakes, our slips and struggles are not merely excused--they are covered up, and what is seen is the pure righteousness of Jesus Christ in our lives. We could ask for no better gift from God.

I close with a reminder that this is not a plea for a return to civility, for civility is nothing more than a covering of the lie within our hearts. This is a call to believe in the Gospel and be saved, to be truly free.

RFRC: We're not there yet

For so many believers there are remarkable stories of when they met Christ, when He became a real savior to them. I don't happen to think mine is terribly dramatic, but that moment still stands out to me as something life-giving and transforming. It was also something that had nothing to do with me doing enough good and right things, pleasing God by praying or giving enough, or achieving anything special. On the contrary, if anything I was at my weakest--God had systematically kicked away the idolatrous and prideful supports I had used to sustain my self- and worldview: academically, musically, financially. He didn't do it out of spite or anger, but life-giving love:

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.--Hebrews 12:7-11

And of course, such discipline did not end when I was baptized in the Spirit. It continues and I continue, pressing on towards the goal. There is so much to encourage me, in the Word and in the support from my brothers and sisters, but always the enemy works to trip up and discourage.

Being in Christ is a complex thing, and so it seems as Jesus uses so many different analogies to explain what He was establishing on earth. In Matthew 13 He compares the kingdom to a mustard seed and leaven, both things which start out so small as to be insignificant yet have a great impact: the mustard seed growing into a mighty tree, leaven growing and moving throughout a jar of flour until all the flour is leavened and ready to make bread. He compares the kingdom of God with a hidden treasure, one so valuable that when a man finds it, he'll rush off to sell everything he has so that he can afford it--and in the same moment, to a net that is thrown into the sea and drawn out bearing many fish, keeping the good ones and throwing the bad back into the sea. And yet each parable only shows a single facet of the mighty glory of the kingdom of God, slowly rotating the diamond before our eyes; it is here among us, growing and saving and granting life, yet at the same time those of us drawn into it are unsatisfied, longing and aching for the day that our King will return and set all things right. We pray that the eyes of our heart may be on Christ so that when the day comes that all eyes will see His return, we will rejoice at His coming, not fear in the unworthiness of our sin.

But the way to that day of culmination is not a complete mystery, as we see it plotted in the life and works of Jesus Christ. We follow Him in daily life, as we strive to love the people around us whether friend, neighbor, co-worker, stranger, or the guy who just cut us off on the highway. We follow Him in our roles in life, those proscribed by the Scriptures and what we are led to in the Spirit. What weighs most heavily on my mind is what Paul talks about in Ephesians 5:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.--Ephesians 5:25-33

I'm not married, yet the imperative of preparing my heart for this hangs before me--and yet knowing that the best way to prepare myself for that is to simply continue, walking daily with Him and trusting that He will provide each measure of faith necessary to see through. Loving my wife as Christ loves the church...a tremendously tall order. That is not simply following Christ in the way that I interact with the guy at the lunch counter, though certainly that is a part of it. That is giving myself, all of myself with nothing held back, for her sake. Western Christians scarcely can wrap our minds around such a sacrifice except perhaps in theoretical or symbolic terms; perhaps, for example, a man gives up all of his pride for the sake of lifting up his wife and protecting her, showing her deepest love and yet following behind Christ in putting her before myself.

Jesus led out by giving all of himself. He gave up His pride and dignity, descending to the level of a servant, allowing Himself to be turned over to wicked and violent men, men whose very beings were held together because He willed it so, and was mocked, savagely beaten, humiliated, and murdered. And yet He did it out of joy. He continued on the journey set before Him because there was something so much bigger and more beautiful at the end. And it is into that we are called to follow. How can I, a man proven to be wicked, selfish, lustful and arrogant, possibly be able to lead anyone on such a journey?

Only by the grace of God, by the blood of Jesus and the immeasurable joy that He has displayed before the eyes of my heart; I have seen it, and glimpse it in the distance before me. And so there is no room for arrogance. There is no time to stop and show off to all the other people around me, though I will joyfully call to others around me, "Can't you see! Look--there is life, there is the fulfillment of all things before us! Run with me!" There's no arrogance there! To believers who find themselves where I was, holding their beliefs like a weapon against other men...put it down. Look to Christ, and see life, and know that you are called to pray and work for the salvation of your "enemy."

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.--Romans 8:18-25

Rules for radical Christians

Some years ago I used to run my own website and a blog that was attached to it. Inspired by a lot of other writers of both the web and dead tree worlds, I was inspired to take to the Internet in defense and promotion of my conservative political beliefs. I was never any kind of "mover and shaker;" I wasn't saying anything new, I was no one of even remote consequence, and I was no better a writer than anyone who was already prominent. I was more a place for me to get on and vent about things that aggravated me in the news. And in the course of doing so, I said a lot of stupid, insulting, and nasty things that these days I regret. Thanks be to God, then, that His grace is bigger than my stupidity.

And I'll take just a second to reach out to my friends, to random readers, to people who find themselves in the position I did. Liberals: your enemy is not George W. Bush. It's not Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. Conservatives: your enemy is not Barack Obama. It's not Keith Olbermann or Jon Stewart. Our enemy, is the enemy, as well as our own sinful hearts that are so "deceitful and desperately sick" that we cannot truly understand them.

At any rate, there are still a couple of blogs I have read since back then, like Instapundit and a couple others. They're good roundups of news and interesting commentary, and it's been a habit for me like the morning paper is for others. I was scanning one of them and saw a link to a blog that was discussing Saul Alinski's book Rules for Radicals. The idea of people in power being the brain children of such thinking and desires is vexing to a great many people for reasons both good and bad, but it's not my purpose here to discuss that, nor is it my desire to make any sort of political case. My reaction is to the notion floated there that conservatives' response to liberal actions should be to use those rules against them, turn them back on those who have gained power through their execution. The entire notion is rooted in the idea that those who oppose me politically are not simply people with different viewpoints, different notions of how the world ought to work, but rather they are my enemy and it is my moral imperative to strike them down.

This inspired me to stop and take stock of where I was and where God has brought me in my heart. A mere five or six years ago I would have been right there, angry, full of self-righteousness and the belief that if "the enemy" wins the country is lost. The truth of Christ's victory rendered such thinking foolish to me. The enemy is no human, nor will any man turn aside the will of God. And even with an active enemy that is real, our victory is already won.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.--Ephesians 6:12

And so, the idea of writing this as the beginning of a series of posts came to mind. Not because I feel like I have the authority to dictate "rules" to other believers, but it is more of a time for me to outline, clarify and seek for myself more and deeper truth about the way God has called me to lead my life, inspired by what I wrote last week on the subject of living in such a way that my treasure is in Christ and not on Earth and what I can get here.

The word "radical" is bandied about a lot--as an epithet for beliefs another finds troubling as well as a badge of pride worn by those who consider themselves outside the bounds of normal society. It is, therefore, a good descriptor of the way the Bible calls us to be as Christians, though it is decidedly limited at the same time. Does living "radically for Christ" mean that you sell all you have and move to a remote island to spread the gospel to unreached people groups? It might...if that's the call God puts on you. Or it might mean that instead of just associating yourself with the people you work with, you spend time praying for them, seeking ways to love them and sharing the gospel with people around you just as needy and, in many cases, just as unreached as those who are far away.

That brings me to the first "rule:"

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
This comes from 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." Paul here is speaking directly about the issue of sexual immorality, but it descends from a word at the beginning of the chapter on the wrongness of believers suing one another. The entire chapter speaks to the greater point, that what we have and who are are is not to honor or glorify either ourselves, or anything else on earth, but is intended to honor God and point all glory to Him.

In this day of overhyped fear the driving urge is to dig in, or to fight--or, to shut it all out and just roll through life trying to ease the way as best we can. Yet we are again faced with a truth that apparently the writer of the Proverbs felt was important enough to mention twice, in 14:12 and 16:25: "There is a way that seems right to a man,but its end is the way to death." So no matter who is in office, no matter who sits on a nation's throne or in a governor's mansion, no matter how much we gather together for ourselves in terms of money or power or comfort, as long as we are relying on our own wisdom it will have only one, tragic ending. This is the struggle to comprehend the true weight of our inability to be good enough:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.--Ephesians 2:1-10

Or as Isaiah put it:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
--Isaiah 64:6

So what does this have to do with your life not being your own? If God has moved to purchase us, to adopt us, and make us His own by the blood of Jesus, what is there to be afraid of? God has established his sovereignty over all things, including rulers and authorities, so there is no profit in doing politics as if you are fighting an enemy rather than ministering to a friend, to a brother. There is no value in being dishonest or unscrupulous in business to gain extra profit or get ahead because God provides everything, and everything is for the glory of Christ.

If you would pick up Jesus and use Him as a tool to achieve an end, then as the kids would say, you're doing it wrong. Jesus came to save, to give life,and to do the only work that truly matters: giving glory to the Father. To honor Him is to worship Him as Lord. If you are a believer you push to build communities that love and honor Christ as Lord through loving discipleship and giving to fill what is needed, not to build a self-righteous community of moralists. And that charge goes in all directions, whether your particular moral issue is, well, declining moral standards, or whether it's the felt needs of your community, or a political and social end you believe will better the city, nation or world. Christ is the beginning, the end, and the means by which we travel from one to the other; as soon as something else becomes the end we arrive at idolatry and things go very wrong.

And so, since we regularly flee this truth due to our fractured nature, we try to soothe our souls through accomplishment and addiction. For me this takes two main forms: building myself up through the use of my musical talent, and my struggle against lust and the idolatry that drives it. Everyone has something, unique in specifics but uniform in end, that draws us away from God. We either make that thing God or we are set free to worship the true God.

And the most vexing of all, even those of us who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, who have been saved by grace through faith as a gift of God, we still struggle with hearts that remain broken and heavy-laid with the scars of sin. We still struggle against desires to run back to the sins that destroyed us, the old ways of pursuing meaning and pleasure when we have already known a far, far greater joy. It's why Paul can write in Romans both:

Let not sin therefore reign in your moral body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present yourselves to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.--Romans 6:12-14

and a chapter later:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. --Romans 7:21-25

There is no disagreement, no conflict here in the Scripture, except in that we see the conflict that is the new self, the life granted by God, conflicting with the old, dead self that is perfectly happy in its death, because in that death it got to rest and be comfortable in its own twisted ways on the trip to hell. We call the world to life, true life and real, lasting joy in Christ! This is not a list of rules. This is not a social cause. This is being called into our real identities, like coming to see clearly when before all things were fuzzy and learning the beauty of a sunset over a lake when before it was just growing darkness and water.

Our life is not our own, it was bought with a price, and that price was paid by Jesus on the cross. Because it is not our own, because of the river of life that is flowing to feed and strengthen us, we move in ways that make no sense to an earthly thinker. We give away our possessions and move to the darkest corners of the world to help and love and preach. We love our neighbors because Christ loved us. And we submit each day to Him that He might be glorified in it.

Life's worth knowing Him

"O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!
Selah

Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
--Psalm 39:4-6

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."--Luke 12:13-21

Why wait til you're old to live like you're retired?--billboard I saw while driving

These weeks have been fruitful with word from God through His Spirit, His Word and His people. The call is to reject the American call to pursue wealth, comfort, security, and to run after Christ with all speed. I don't know what that looks like in full at this moment; I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of important things and all I can do is wait for the sun to come up and show me a glimpse of what I'm about to leap into. So at the moment, what that looks like is going to work, loving the people around me and praying for them, prayerfully seeking opportunities to witness to them and taking life day by day like I do.

What I pray for is that God would loosen my hands around my earthly desires, the things that drive me to fear--because in those fears lie idols. Fear of losing financial security, fear of losing the ability to control and pursue what I want, of not being able to provide for myself or whatever family lies in my future. Those are fears that demonstrate where I don't trust God and I pray day after day that God will set my heart free from them.

"But God, being rich in mercy," has been gracious enough to teach me these things immersed deep in His love and through the words of grace with which he authored salvation for me and all who follow His call. I can't do enough to please God. I can't dig myself out, make myself better, clean myself up, prepare my own way--it is done, it is finished, in Christ and that burden is off my shoulders for now and all eternity. Knowing that makes me desire all the more to obey Him and to love Him above all things. Not that I'm there, but that God has shown Himself faithful to lead in love to make me what He intends for me to be.

And so when I drove past that billboard, the incredible wrong-headed, broken point of view seen there just struck me. The whole point of life, at least life in America, is...to get to maximum comfort and a life of ease as fast as possible? To flee any attachment or responsibility beyond pleasing ourselves?

What a phenomenal waste.

But even being able to recognize that is only possible through God's grace and His work in me; there was a time I would have gladly embraced such a thing, the classic American ideal of working to get as much as you can until you can bail out and live free and comfortably.

So what's my point? My point is the gospel. God saved me through the blood of Christ, filled me with His Spirit and has intended me for work to glorify Him, because there is no greater task one can have before them. I have no clue what that looks like tomorrow, but I know God will show me and I pray for a spirit obedient to run after it. His beauty is great beyond measure and yet I have to go to war against foolishness and sin in me that distracts me, blinds me to that and makes me want to cling to earthly things that do not save even in their moment, let alone ultimately.

Knowing Jesus, walking with Him and being able to know that He's made a path to where He intends for me to go for my good and His glory is the most freeing thing I've ever known in life. I'm free to take a risk, free to speak life to a loved one, free to give when I'm called and receive when I need. That certainly does not free me from pain, nor does it let me walk through life unhindered by the cold realities of this world--on the contrary, that's another mistake that points to my idolatry of comfort, trying to use Jesus as a painkiller when what He does is give pain meaning. Pain refines, it reminds, it restores. Joy in Christ is cold water in the desert, I walk knowing I'm going somewhere--the only place one could ever want to go. I'm going home.

I pray for you, friends. Not because I'm superior--I am right there with Paul calling myself chief of sinners. I pray for you because there is life here at the foot of the cross, there's real life and meaning beyond anything you can hope to find in work or family or religion or any of the billion other ways humans pour their lives away. I want you to know this joy, to walk in it and come to know Him.

Useful God

This weighed heavily on me this morning driving in, and requires a big chunk of Scripture for context, so here goes:

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!"

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

[...] On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.--John 6:1-15, 22-59

No matter the century, the circumstances or the technology, one of the biggest struggles over our view of Christ is that we are limited to this earthly scope, and for so many it becomes a question of what Jesus is providing for us. Last night I was thinking back over my testimony and this has been a huge part of what held me down for a long time. Unsurprising, of course, as comfort is a huge idol for me (and most Americans). I had to stop and think, where have and where do I look to Christ for what He will give me, rather than for Himself?

This passage displays one of the big points where people split away from Christianity into a place where they turn it into some kind of religion--if I do this, and think thus and so, then Jesus will be happy with me and I'll get to have x. But Jesus isn't after people performing a few cursory acts of goodness to curry favor. He's after the whole heart, after a true relationship. The Jews here had seen Jesus do amazing things, and as at other points in the gospels they were ready to declare Him their king, under the belief of their day that the Messiah was to come in order to throw off the shackles of Roman oppression and restore Israel to its position of prominence that it had held for a period of about twenty minutes under Solomon, before their own idolatry and rebellion resulted in a split kingdom and then, decades of slavery in a foreign land under the Babylonians. Now, it seemed, the predicted prophet, king and savior was here--now they can have what they desire!

But that's not what God was trying to effect all throughout the Old Testament and it wasn't what Christ came to establish in the New. Jesus didn't come to fulfill earthly, temporal desires, but rather to transform them into eternal ones, to point them towards what they were really after.

I struggle with the same thing, and have throughout my life. I viewed Jesus as a lot of different things before the Gospel really fell in me: as the provider of what I needed (true enough, but what I need isn't always what I understand it to be), as the one who would come to set things right (also true enough, but for a long time I viewed it through a moralistic/political lens that let me set myself up in self-righteousness), and as the one whom I could stand next to as I pointed to others and said "See? I told you so!"

Many times we set other things, good things like having enough money or being healthy or having a family and make that thing ultimate, and then we look to Jesus as the one who gives us those things. The thing is...He does give those things. But He gives us what He does that we might see Him in them, be pointed to Christ and through it all be sanctified.

Here's the big thing that I see in this: either we are in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ by the grace of God, where our hearts are transformed over time as God refines us through the circumstances of life, hewing the rough edges, burning out the impurities...or, we're in the process of becoming more and more opposed to God, each life circumstance pushing us farther away until finally the day of judgment comes and there is no reconciliation possible anymore, because you are so far off. Our hearts are in so much danger and yet we subject them to so much that distracts and destroys joy in God, and we look to God, to Jesus, as what will get us what we want. That manifests in some ways that are more extreme than others--for example, the guy who sees Jesus as the way to a nice car and a big house--but here, the Jews see Jesus not as their savior from sin but as their savior from hunger and oppression.

And we struggle with that. Hunger is bad, right? Oppression is evil. Why wouldn't we look to God for freedom from those things? Because the end goal is not to be full of bread. It's not to be free from current government tyranny. The end goal is to know God, to love Him and be with Him; to be full of the Bread of Life, to be free from the tyranny of sin. If God fulfills my desires, grants me freedom from earthly oppression and lack, but doesn't give me Himself, lets me grow deeper into opposition even if I acknowledge in some begrudging way that He gave me these things, how on Earth is that good or loving? He's damned me and rightfully so, for I worshipped His gifts and not Him. And no matter the culture, or the time, or the circumstances, this is what we struggle with as humans--loving God, versus loving what He has made.

Lately I have been struggling with the desire for a wife. That sounds like a strange thing to pair with the word "struggle," but I do it because I recognize two important things: 1) I have let that desire drive how I worship, and 2) I have let that desire push me into sinful areas, such as lust and manipulation of others. A desire for something good, for a wife to love and serve and lead humbly in the way that Christ loved the church, is perverted so easily into a lust for comfort, self-fulfillment in something other than God and a desire to be served, by the enemy. I have to confess that continually, make war against it and offer my own weakness up to God, because whatever it is He gives me in the course of my life, I want the ultimate thing, the one thing greater than anything else I experience, to be Him. And so I pray, and walk, and trust that He knows better than I ever could each day so long as He gives me the grace to have such a realization.

Father, I thank you for letting me hear such truth in Your Word, through the gifts you've given men like those that teach in my and other churches and write great and sweeping books that point to You. I pray that I will be able to point to you as well in so enthusiastic and holy a way, not to glorify myself because to that end lies death, but to glorify You and love You more. The weight of your glory presses me and in such pressure and weight is a joy and freedom as I have never known. I thank You for it, and desire more, desiring You above all things. All this I pray in the name of Your Son..Amen.