SnowCover

We got a pretty crazy amount of snow over the last 24 hours! So we are sitting here without power —  safe, warm and enjoying how ridiculously beautiful it is outside.

Snow has some mystical, and often deceptive, power. It magically smooths everything out and gives the world a gloriously clean facade. It dampens the noise of the world while slowing everything down to a crawl. But…underneath the surface…

After I graduated college I worked at a youth camp (Sonlight) in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for a ski season. We’d have to get up early to get the kids fed and lunches packed, but then I’d usually be able to ski Wolf Creek for a few hours. On one beautiful powder day I was skiing the back country, away from the slopes, just going downhill between trees. As I went down a dip in terrain I painfully realized that there was a fallen tree under the surface of the snow. My skis and feet when under the tree while the rest of me went over it, bringing me to an immediate stop. What looked incredibly beautiful ended up cracking my leg (but not so bad that I couldn’t take some advil and keep skiing).

This is often how we view what God has done to our sins. He “covered” them for sure, but they still lurk underneath. We often don’t feel clean, just covered. But this is our old religious self rearing it’s accusing head, telling us that we are dirty, worthless and really testing God’s patience. Yet instead of latching onto the cleansing hope of Jesus, we just keep trying to cover our heart’s fallen trees with religious, behavior-management snow so that nobody (often including ourselves) can see the danger underneath. Jesus confronted this with the religious elite:

Matthew 23:27-28
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

He was telling them, and telling us, that our hearts are dead and rotting, in need of re-creation, not just cleaning. We need new hearts, not repaired old hearts. King David, the great great (etc) grandad of Jesus, had some heart road-kill deep down and realized that he needed an outside surgeon…leading him to Psalm 51, his poem of repentance:

Psalm 51:7
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

This is why Jesus had to come. He had to have a heart like ours so that he could equally swap with us, giving us his pure heart along with all it’s benefits while taking ours, along with all it’s penalties. So our hearts are not snow-covered, they are snow-colored. They are pure because we’ve been given His.

So enjoy the snow, and let it remind you of your true identity in Jesus.

Living Wisdom

Every moment of every day we look for, find and answer this question: “What do I do with my resources?”

  • What do I do with my time today?
  • How do I spend or save my money?
  • How do I use my talents?
  • How do I utilize my stuff?

To be honest, we almost always answer this with sheer instinct, or with what we are “supposed to do.”

  • We hit the snooze button because we determined that the best use of the next 7 minutes, which we will never get back, is to get a tad more sleep.
  • A cup of coffee for $2.50 is better than saving that money or giving it to the guy on the corner.
  • Using 24 specific words to comfort a co-worker is better than using 46 words online to prove that somebody is wrong.Wisdom, as we will see in the Book of Proverbs, is the real-life working out of Truth. The real question is…which Truth? When our “truth” is that I need to build and keep my value, then it will be worked out in a “me first” avenue. When Truth is that Jesus has wooed me and given me infinite love and value, then it will be worked out in a “God first” and “others first” avenue.

In life we constantly ask “what should I do” in an infinite number of situations (parenting, job, pain, success, church etc). The first question should actually be “what do I believe?” because  it’s out of our belief that we will make decisions.

In the midst of that, there are still countless situations, circumstances and questions that simply don’t have simple and clear answers. It is in these real-life scenarios where we have freedom and are empowered with the very Spirit of God inside of us to speak, guide and even carry us moment by moment. So the real question under “what should I do” is “what do I believe?”, and the real question under that is “can I trust God?” Can I trust that God is for me and has the power to make all things work for the good of those who know him and are called by him? The answer to that is simply found here:

Romans 8-32
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Free At Last

5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

This has got to be one of the most debated, misunderstood and abused verses in Scripture. This even begin to understand this verse, we have to unpack what we mean by “freedom.” What does freedom mean to you?

  • A day to yourself on the couch?
  • You and your best friend going on a hike?
  • Something a bit more “naughty”?

Our initial reaction almost certainly and understandably involves something that makes me feel good. It involves removing whatever we feel is binding us down. These can be things that we love and are really good (like relationships) or just the regular things of like (like responsibilities). But when we define freedom from this perspective, we are thinking way way too small. What is it that is truly chaining you down and enslaving you? Isn’t it the fear and insecurity of life? This is the freedom that the Gospel is inviting us into: to accept and actually enjoy the absolute and full approval of God thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus, who exchanged his freedom for our imprisonment, and enacted by the Spirit who breathes a new creation into our being.

This is freedom: that all fear of divine-rejection has been eaten up on the cross, fully and finally securing divine-approval on our behalf. Because of this there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) regardless of our behavior. But because of this secured freedom, we are empowered by the Spirit to live a life of free-gratitude as we perpetually get brought deeper into personally owning the incomprehensible affection of our Father. An affection that is not fickle, being based upon how well we live up to our new identity. When I fail to live a life of love, Jesus’ love doesn’t falter. When I actually love others from a humble heart, Jesus’ love doesn’t rise. This is because all who are in Christ already have 100% of his love. He isn’t holding any back! We’ve got it all. For good. Forever. I don’t have to live in fear of disappointing him and having him begrudgingly accept me. And I don’t have to live in fleeting arrogance when I think I’ve “done better” than others (and I better keep it up, or else). Because it is through Love that we are brought home, and for love that we are empowered to live.

So what does that mean for my life? It means freedom. It means that, as I bask in the warmth of his smiling face, my heart if melted and I smile back. To him and to others.

Saint Augustine put is like this: “Love God, and do as you please.”

Yes, this scary and messy. Yes, it boils up a lot of questions of what I should do and not do. Yes, it forces us to enter an honest, conversational relationship with Jesus instead of leaning on the safer list of rules. And yes, this is the freedom that Jesus has secured on our behalf so that we can do what Malachi 4:2 promised: But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

Polarizations

Galatians 4:12
Brothers, I entreat you,
become as I am,
for I also have become as you are.

We are a polarized and polarizing people. We all sit on top of our pedestals as we look down and judge others for not being as enlightened as we are. We stereotype others, creating “straw-men” that we can blow over with our brilliant arguments.To make it more insidious, there’s people like me that polarize the polarizers! I arrogantly see myself as being more enlightened and wise so as to not pigeonhole others into simple categories…as I pigeonhole those who don’t see it my way. Here is the problem: we operate with a self-kingship mentality. From the very beginning of time (in the garden) we have decided that we wanted authority over everything and everybody (including God…especially God?). And we live this out in our regular, everyday lives, not really living “with” others but “over” them.

In light of this cultural and spiritual polarization, the verse above offers a lifestyle-hope called “incarnational ministry.” Paul entered the real, regular, messy, everyday life of the people of Galatia. He opened a small business (tent-making), lived in their neighborhoods and engaged their art forms (he would quote regional artists in some of his sermons). He became as one of them…he listened, learned and sought to actually understand; he actually loved them with a loving passion (he would call them his “children” and his “brothers”). But he didn’t stop there. In the midst of his relationships with them he also invited them to know the Jesus that loved and redeemed him from emptiness. His METHOD and his MESSAGE were the same thing: sacrificial relational love. He didn’t just stay on the outside, telling the Galatians to just be better, nor did he entering their world but without the hope of the gospel. He did both. Relationship plus hope.

And this is exactly what Jesus did; who Jesus was. He was the Word (God’s very voice) made Flesh. He was simultaneously God himself and man. He “incarnated” (“made flesh”) as one of us in order to bring us back home. On the cross he was divided from the Father so that our division (“sin”) would be paid for on his back while giving us the his Father-Unity we lost back in the garden and have been craving ever since. This is the WHY and the HOW of doing incarnational ministry. It’s not simply “because Jesus did it.” It’s because we are His and have been fully empowered by his indwelling presence to God’s representative (“ambassadors” according to 2 Cor 5:15-21) to the whole world. God is bringing people back home and using us to do it. What a privilege to not just be in his family, but be instrumental in his Kingdom while being real, raw and honest in our real world.

Gospel Amnesia

Are you forgetful? How often do you forget where you keys are? What that guy’s name is? Where you parked? The answer to that test question (that you just read in  your book)? What that smell reminds you of?

 

Us people have memory problems. Even if you have a pretty solid memory for the logistic things in life, when it comes to deep heart-memories, we have spiritual amnesia.

Going through the book of Galatians we see Paul reminding us over and over and over about the heart of the Gospel: Jesus Plus Nothing. And the leaders of the church, the ones that actually spent years and years with Jesus himself, fully agreeing, and then forgetting. Look at Galatians 2:11-14

But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 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. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 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?”

Let’s be honest. Peter and Barnabas are far smarter and spiritually knowledgeable than we will ever be. Yet they forgot. They KNEW the Gospel, but were deeply influenced by what others thought and acted out of step with the Gospel that they knew.

When and How do you forget the Gospel of Jesus?

1) When you are tempted to pursue your own satisfaction in a relationship rather than realize you are fulfilled in Jesus?

2) When you refuse to forgive yourself for a sin for which Jesus has fully paid?

3) When you drop names and your spiritual resume so others will think more highly of you rather than leaning on Jesus’ resume.

4) When you envision God’s looking at you with a scowling or at least disappointed face instead of believing that he looks on you as His adopted, beloved, valuable child?

 

Paul is inviting us to live “in step” with the freeing Gospel of Jesus rather than “in step” with hopeless self-performance. But first we have to continually know and re-know the hope of Jesus, because it is really easy to forget.

Advent 2 – Peacelessness


Peace, man.

The world would be such a better place, if only ____.
If that person would just _____, then things would be ok.
If ____ gets elected, the world would be a better place.
We all desperately search for and attempt to bring about “peace,” as defined by us individually. Some of your answers to the above little pop quiz might in fact make life and the world a better place, but that’s not the point. The reality is that there are endless opinions on those answers, and many of them are the opposite of yours (to which you say “well, if that person would just see things my way, then the world would be a better place”.) And the reason is that we all want peace, harmony and love. We are designed for that from the very beginning and spend our whole lives trying to make it back to Eden. But we do it by trying to rebuild Eden here, in this broken world among broken people. It is absolutely true that we are called to be agents of love and peace in this world, fighting for the oppressed and against darkness. But we do this not in an attempt to make heaven here and now but as an act of love spilling over from the just righteousness of our God who cares for His creation. And though we are called to be agents of peace, every worldly step forward will be temporary (though we are still called to do it).
And this is why Jesus came as the Immanuel, God With Us. He came to bring actual, perfect, eternal peace to all of creation firstly by bringing peace between us and God. Sin is our treasonous attempt to overthrow our King as we declare ourselves Lord of All. So Jesus came as a Child King from Nazareth so that, in his death, all the just-judgement that stems from our Peacelessness has been paid. How ironic that the sign that hung above Jesus’ head on the cross (“INRI”) said “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”…which mimics Luke’s account of Jesus birth:
Luke 1:26-27
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
Jesus came full circle, from Heaven to Nazareth as the Ultimate King in the line of David to bring his people back home into perfect Eden-Shalom, into peace and rest, which motivates us and even empowers us to Live-Eden now.
Clearly this doesn’t mean that life in the here and now is easy and “feels” peaceful. Life can be really hard, but the Great War is OVER. Jesus has made a peace-treaty on our behalf. In this world we will have trouble, but Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33)!
Dig Deeper: The Bible Project is an excellent resource for young and seasoned people to engage and learn about Scripture and it’s application to real life. This link will take you to 4 Advent videos that unpack the Hebrew and/or Greek words for Peace, Hope, Joy and Love…the 4 Sundays of Advent.

Advent 1 – Eucatastrophe

I know this is awkward, and I hope you aren’t too squeamish, but this is my shoulder after my third surgery. I have the problem of being built with gymnast joints (flexible) but an obsession for competitive (and contact) sports. When you combine those two traits, the result is a myriad of bone dislocations. This scan shows the result of shoulder surgery #4 with some glorious screws holding my bones together. The thing with dislocations is that, when that bone is out of socket, you (pretty much) look normal from the outside, but the inner stuff is totally out of wack and causes horrific pain. After too many dislocation episodes I have now figured out how to get the bone back in, even if I am by myself (though that one was pretty tough, and the words that were uttered may have made some animals on the bike trail blush). But…once that bone goes in, I can’t begin to tell you the instant relief that courses through your body. It’s almost like your whole body gets put back into socket. And this is the Gospel. In our sin we are “out of socket” from the “image of God” in which we are made. We may look “normal” but we are disconnected and causing horrific pain. So Jesus became dislocated from the Father so that we could be “re-located” into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

This idea came from a letter (#89) of J.R.R.Tolkei: “I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary ‘truth’ on the second plane (….) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection (and BKL would also say about Advent) was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.”

Rest. Stop.

Hebrews 4:1-2
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians who had been taught about “entering God’s rest” for thousands of years, starting back in Genesis 1 where we were created to be at rest in God, then through Joshua as they entered the Promised Land and then in David as their powerful King under whom they could “rest”. But throughout it all, they (and we) have been a perpetually un-restful people. We were designed to have full and utter peace without friction. We walked around “naked and unashamed” without any anxiety or sideways glances about what others think. More importantly, we were designed to not have any tension between us and God as we walked together in the cool of the morning in perfect relationship. But sin is our attempt to find hope, peace and rest in something else, in “more”. More information. More stuff. More pleasure. More morality. MORE ME! The ultimate and inevitable product of this pursuit of personal peace is to bring me LESS PEACE because it’s built on a sinking flood plane of this world.

In 2016 a podcast called S-Town came out and has become by far the most downloaded podcast of all time. It is a radio-interview-biography centering around a middle-age atheist genius named John B. McLemore and his home of Woodstock, Alabama, which he angrily refers to as “S-town” (“S” being an expletive). He is constantly angry, critical and restless as we complains about how horrible the world and all it’s inhabitant are. He and his 20-something year old friend Tyler, who also finds himself in the throws of strain and stress, can find no peace. So what they do is start “church”. Church is when Tyler strolls across the road and into John’s into home-based clock-repair workshop to get drunk on Wild Turkey while piercing various parts of John and tattooing him to no end. In order to get relief from the pain of life, John wants to experience some degree of acute “manageable” pain. He even had his back whipped by his friends so that Tyler could then tattoo duplicates of the real-life whip marks.

We are all in the throws of inner turmoil, seeking peace, hope, fullness and rest in the most exhaustive and exhausting ways. Only to be left less peaceful than when we began.

John B. McLemore is by no means unique. Back in 400AD a guy names Augustine spent the early part of his life seeking inner-peace through every conceivable means of pleasure he could find. He knew the Gospel, but wanted, like us, to forge his own path and find a salve for his soul. He would say this about his sin: “I loved my own error – not that for which I erred, but the error itself.” Simply put, he liked the sin. He found pleasure in putting himself over God. He would even pray “Lord give me chastity and continence, but not yet!”

But later in life he would come to the end of himself and realize the futility of his peace-seeking, and pen this: “My heart is restless until it finds it’s rest in Thee.”

This is all of us. We work and work and work in life, looking for it to pay off in ways that only the Finished Work of Christ can. When Jesus was dying on the cross he declared “It is Finished!” He was essentially repeating Genesis 1 where it says that, after 6 days, God was finished with his act of creation. We would then break creation, but Jesus would ultimately finish our Re-Creation so that, though our works in this broken world will continue and bring with it tension, our “works” to satisfy God’s righteous commands have been completed in Jesus and granted into us by His Spirit. Meaning that, when it comes to our relationship with Him, we can finally and perfectly REST. We cannot add to Jesus’ works; we cannot subtract from his works. It’s done. Relax. Rest. Be still and Know.

The Other Side of Town

John Prine is an incredible artist, writer, musician. He has a song called The Other Side of Town that features a guy (he jokingly says is not autobiographical) that mentally checks out when his wife goes on nagging a bit too long. So he is physically sitting there and going through the motions while he is “actually” on the other side of town waiting for the lashing to be over.

It’s funny because it’s true, and we all want to laugh and say “Man, it would be horrible if that was me” while we realize that…it’s all of us. Don’t you remember doing this when you were a kid and your mom or dad went ballistic on you when you didn’t do your chores (or lit the kitchen on fire or cheated on  your homework)? This “dissociation” is simply a survival technique we’ve mastered, engaging our auto-pilot without even realizing it.

As a teacher and preacher it’s a stark reality that a good portion of folks sitting in the auditorium or classroom are doing this exact thing….and that I am doing it to God. When I see him as a nagging parent who is utterly disgusted with me, my actions and my heart as he sits on his pedestal wagging his finger at me, I go to the other side of town until he’s done, at which point I will “assume the body of the person you presume who cares.”

But I have it all wrong. Actually, I have it absolutely and utterly REVERSED! Because of Jesus’ sacrificial gift of life on the cross, the Father is completely SATISFIED with me. Yet I am the one that casts stones at him, putting onto him a scowling brow that no longer exists. I tell God that it’s not cool to “hurt someone who’s so in love with you.” He then says that this is exactly what I have done to Him; what we’ve all done. But then he did the impossible because…“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)”

God is not nagging you. He wants life for us, and then for us to live out of our new lives in worship and glory. He is utterly satisfied, so come out of that chair behind your ears and rejoin your body at the kitchen table with your Abba Father and enjoy a sweet meal together.

 

Does God Care?

Does God care? Really care?

In Mark 9 we get a powerful and liberating story about a dad in dire desperation. His son had been berated by the demonic his whole life, throwing him into epileptic seizures. He tried to get the disciples to heal the boy, but they couldn’t. So in a panic, he broke through a crowd to beg Jesus for help….

help sos

Mark 9:21-24
And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

This dad asks for two things:

1) Have compassion. It isn’t enough for God to be powerful, we need to know that he deeply cares for us. Not just generally for the “world” but for me. For my problems. For my hurts. For my fears amidst my faithlessness.

2) Help. It also isn’t enough for Jesus “just” to care. He has to be able to do something about it. There’s plenty of folks in my life that care about my problems, but don’t have the power to truly and practically do anything about them.

So I need both. A God who Cares and a God who Helps. And both of these desperate needs became incarnate and displayed in the person of Jesus. Because God has a perfect Fatherly compassion (a deep, gut-level ache for us), he denied himself and sent his Son. He put us over himself; our needs over his position; our life over his. And intermingled with his love is the ultimate powerful help. First for our very souls and relationships (foremost our relationship with Him). But secondly for our lives this side of heaven. Jesus didn’t just tell them to suck it up and focus on heaven. He met them in their mess and healed the son by driving out the darkness that oppressed him.

help-concern
And ultimately that’s exactly what the cross is about. The Father perfectly drove out our darkness by absorbing it and “being thrown down” like the boy…only to the point of death, so that death and the demonic will no longer have control over us. Yes, we will be die. And yes, we will be influenced by the demonic. But all believers have the Holy Spirit inside of us, replacing any other spirit that wants to get in. And this indwelling Spirit doesn’t cast us down but lifts us up; doesn’t try to destroy but successfully resurrects, which is the word used of what Jesus did to the boy.