It's Complicated

We live in a country and time period that offers a lot of choices.  When I lived briefly in China, I would sometimes dream of grocery aisles filled with twenty varieties of peanut butter and jelly.  I would wake up sweating because I had forgotten what it was like to have that many choices.  

Having so many choices isn't necessarily a bad thing; however, if we aren't clear what we are all about, these choices can unnecessarily complicate our lives.  What we all need is a simple break down of what are the most important areas of our lives. What are our purposes and goals?
When we understand our mission, it becomes easier to make our choices because we want the consequences of our choices to line up with our vision for our lives.
The early church nailed this mindset. They knew they had one purpose---Christ made this clear before his ascension in Acts 1:8. Their job was primarily to share the Gospel and make disciples. This single-mindedness inspired many to give specifically and to reach out to those around them. This single-mindedness also strengthened them when the winds of persecution blew up on them. They didn't give up their faith, they didn't grow quiet because they knew that what they were doing was important.

So what is important to you?  What do you focus on as your primary goal in life? What about your children? What goals do you have for them?

Do our goals line up with Scripture? Are we focusing our time, energy, and money on things that really matter?

Psalm 86:11 "Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; unite [give me singleness of heart] my heart to fear Your name."

Lord, help us to focus on what is essential, so that we might be about Your business.  You know our hearts and how easily they are led astray.  Unite our hearts, give us a singleness of heart, to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.  Burden and inspire our hearts with what burdens and inspires Your heart.  Remove those distracting things from our lives that only serve to complicate and confuse.

Amen

True Liberty

As an English teacher of several years, there have been many times in class where we have discussed controversial topics and written persuasive essays or speeches arguing either for or against different stances.  One time in a college class, we discussed whether or not there should be a thing called fat tax.  This is basically a tax that the government imposes on those foods that are deemed unhealthy, so as to discourage people from eating them.  Around the time of this discussion, New York had decided to try to ban large sodas because they weren't healthy (which was fortunately rejected as outside of their jurisdiction).  My student argued that these things were actually good and should occur because unhealthy, overweight people became a burden on society.  And many in the class had no answer to this.  Ironically, it is this kind of thinking that truly sets us all back years and years into immaturity.  What is being said is that we are too stupid to make good choices for ourselves and must have the smarter people (ie government officials etc) to make these decisions for us.  And with this mindset, we kiss our freedom goodbye.  

I myself might not even have recognized this trend if God hadn't taken it upon Himself to start teaching me several years ago about the true meaning of freedom.  One of these ways was by having me become a mother.  It didn't take long into my mothering career that I realized how important it is for my children to understand the basic fact that their choices have consequences.  If they choose to obey--good consequences.  If they choose to disobey--negative consequences.    If they choose to go to sleep when Mommy puts them to bed, they awake in the morning refreshed and ready for the day.  If they keep getting out and playing, they get disciplined and find themselves feeling not so great the next day.  Very, very simple.

And, yet, with the trend in America to take away the consequences of choices (or sometimes the very choice itself), we find ourselves left with a group of people who no longer have the skills or even the inclination to make a choice while keeping in mind the consequences that might result from this.  This is so very dangerous on so many levels.  We will have a country of children who have never grown up or learned the basic truth that our choices affect our lives.  We become a group of people who always think that the problems in our lives are the result of other people (and never ourselves).  

And, as horrifying as this is in our current finite lives, the result of this kind of thinking is even more precarious as we consider our spiritual lives.  If we truly believe our choices don't have consequences, why would we ever consider how the choices we make now might affect what happens after this life has passed.  The Gospel is a choice.  A choice that can be rejected, but a choice that has consequences like all real things in our world.  Because God values our freedom, He will not make this choice for us.  No one will be forced into heaven and God's presence who does not want it and ask for it.  

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."  John 3:16

Our job as Christians is absolutely simple:  we just have to explain the choice in the clearest way possible so that people (with all of the information) can accept or reject the Gospel.  We don't have to make it pretty or exciting.  We just have to make it clear.  

My prayer:
Lord, I do pray right now that you will help us all become mature in the understanding our great liberty.  We get to choose.  Even in the garden, you demonstrated your love of liberty by allowing Adam and Eve the choice to accept or reject you.  As parents, help us teach our kids that their choices have consequences, so that when they grow up, they know how to think for themselves and to make choices that are a blessing and not a curse.  And, finally, Lord empower us with your Holy Spirit to speak the truth so clearly that people can understand the message of the Gospel without the confusion of religious language.  
In Jesus' name, Amen.

Are We Ready?

Last night, my husband and I sat down to watch a new show together that we started watching earlier in the week.  It had an interesting story line even if some of the elements were a bit ridiculous.  However, it wasn't long into the show that we meet the town's minister.  An ugly, drug-addicted man who, with the other town leaders, is participating in some unknown (but surely diabolical) scheme.  To top it off, even while continuing in this, he often spouts little Christian phrases like "God bless you!"   After several episodes, he goes crazy (following a "repentance"), flailing his Bible around while screaming to the town that they are sinners and God will judge them.  Eventually this character is killed, and no one is sorry to see him go.  

This is how we're seen, folks.  Hypocritical.  Selfish.  Insane.  Locked in a fantasy land that has no bearing in reality.  Delusional.  Judgmental.  The list could go on.  

My first reaction to this caricature was anger.  It didn't seem fair.  What about all the Christians all over the world who give and give and give?  What about all the homeless shelters? Orphanages? Programs to rescue those in sex-trafficking?  What about all the money we send to stop hunger both here and abroad?

The thing is it doesn't matter.  The reason it doesn't matter is because we don't do these things to be seen.  We do these things because they are issues that matter deeply to God.  We do them because we are meant to love.  And we are meant to love even when we are being attacked.

Yikes.   It's absolutely frustrating to be misunderstood.  But this week as we study Jesus's life leading up to Resurrection Sunday, it's hard to miss that most of Jesus's ministry was misunderstood.   In fact, it was a steady stream of attacks and abuse culminating in his death.  They twisted what he said.  They mocked him.  They attacked him physically.  They tried to trick him.  

Now, unlike him, we bring some of this condemnation on ourselves.  Because--let's be honest with ourselves--we often are hypocritical, selfish, and judgmental (like ALL humans).  And when we are called to account there should only be one response--confession and repentance.  

However, what happens if we are attacked just because we are following Jesus?  What happens when we don't deserve the criticism? The hatred?  Here we must follow Jesus's example completely.

"When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly." 1 Peter 2:23

It is becoming increasingly unpopular to be Christian (or any religion for that matter).  And our response to this change is an important part of our witness.  In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus discusses this.

“'Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.


You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[b] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.'" Matthew 5:11-14

First,note that Jesus said that when we are attacked on His account (not because of our stupidity) that we are blessed.  This word (makarios) means happy, fortunate, to be envied (Strong's Concordance and Vine's Bible Dictionary).  Jesus basically said that if people say hateful things about us because we are imitating Christ that this is a great thing.  He then moves on to describe our purpose in this world: to be salt and to be light.  I don't think it was an accident that teaching about being a witness and an influence in our world comes on the heels of a passage describing our persecution.  

That's because being a witness and an influence aren't particularly popular things to be.   When you look throughout history at the people who made the greatest contributions to our world, they were often treated horribly and faced intense opposition.  But they didn't let that stop them.  I think of great men like John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and many more.  If we want to make this world a better place, if we want to stand up for life, for truth, for freedom--it will cost us. 

Coming back to the text, let's discuss what Jesus is saying here.  First, we are called to be salt.  Salt was used as a preserver during that time.  It kept things from spoiling.  We are also called to be preservers.  However, we must make sure that we are preserving is truly what needs preserving and not just our traditions.

Second, we are called to be light.  Our job is shine our lights (by our good works) so that God will be glorified.  There's a bit of a catch to this.  First, lights shine brightest in the darkness.  The darker our culture is the brighter our lights will shine.  Second, the brighter our lights shine, the more noticeable we will become.  And with that, we will attract attention we don't always want.  

Are we ready for this?  For a long time, the "Christian" culture of America didn't demand that we stand and be noticed for being different.  But that is changing.  In our country with broken families, with addictions to everything from technology to drugs, and with a mindset that there are no real consequences to choices, we must be different.  We must do our good works (and not just the churches, but each individual believer).  We must respond to criticism with love and patience.  We must fight to protect rights for all people.  

We need to be a people characterized by love, so that even when they criticize us (which they will) our own good works will speak as a testimony (1 Peter 2:12).  

For some great resources about how to do this, check out the following books:

David Platt's Radical (focus on how to be an American Christian--absolutely awesome book)

Nik Ripken's Insanity of God (speaks about the testimony of the persecuted church and how we can handle it)

Francis Chan's Crazy Love (challenges believers to really understand God's love and to align ourselves with biblical Christianity)

Is it Enough?

Recently as I cleaned my house, a million times I thought that I wished something was different. I need to replace those blinds. This closet needs to be reorganized. This carpet has a bump in it. I wish I was better at decorating. 

Then I'd catch myself and feel guilty for obsessing over such external things. I'd think of my Christian brothers and sisters in India who would look at my house and be amazed. I have to admit to myself that I really don't know how to live in an affluent country and keep my focus pure.
As I sat and talked to Jesus about this, He helped me see that at the bottom of all my worrying is a simple question: Am I enough?

This is a common problem for American Christians, I believe. The problem is that almost universally we answer that question incorrectly.  We decide our effectiveness, success, happiness by comparing ourselves to our neighbors.  This is exceedingly dangerous and an effective strategy of the enemy.  When we do this, we are rendered completely impotent.  We no longer look to our Creator and Lord for direction and clarity, but we look around and develop our values according to what we see around us.

I am just as guilty as the rest.  Recently in a conversation with my husband, I admitted how I have been challenged by the book I am reading called Revolution in World Missions.  In it, he talks about the huge need to support native missionaries in reaching their own people.  These missionaries, on fire for God, are risking great peril and suffering greatly in order to reach the world's most unreached people groups.  Many times they cannot adequately provide for their families as a result.  

I know such families.  In India, we have partnered with George and other pastors who work full time jobs and have families but also take in homeless children, support tribal pastors off of their small salaries, travel frequently to train and support these pastors, and many more things.  Time and time again, I have been humbled by their unwavering focus.  And I'm convicted.

As American Christians, we live in a totally different world.  One that encourages us to not be too extreme and definitely don't make our lives uncomfortable for the Gospel.  And I admitted to my husband that I could easily make most physical sacrifices (send money to these native missionaries, have less clothes, spend less on entertainment) if everyone else around me was also.  You see it's hard to be the one who is doing without especially when you see everyone around you having fun, going on trips, and having their kids do all these extracurricular activities.  When I see these things, I feel like I'm missing out.  I want to try harder to have have this kind of life.  And slowly I find myself aligning my goals and purposes, not with the vision God has given me, but with the vision the American church has embraced so readily--comfort.

I am telling you the absolute truth when I say that I am seriously struggling with this.  And I doubt I'm the only one.  

Recently, we've been studying the minor prophets in our Sunday school class.  Sometimes this message can be a bit repetitive, and I have been tempted to just gloss over the lesson and assume I already know what it's going to say.  This morning as I studied Zephaniah and looked over my notes from Nahum, I saw something that I have been missing. 

Over and over God was warning the people of Judah that a day of judgment was coming.  He warned, threatened, and pleaded with them to see that their empty religious activities were offensive to Him. They denied God's involvement in the world: "...and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good or evil!" (Zephaniah 1:12).  They took advantage of their neighbors; they worshiped false gods.  They didn't really think God cared about what they were doing.  They thought they could get away with living the way they wanted with no consequences.  

God does all he could to warn them of this dangerous thinking.  He says over and over in the Bible that what you do matters.  God sees.  We will reap what we sow.

Yesterday at the Vero Beach Prayer Breakfast, I was told that Phil Robertson issued a warning to the American church--I wasn't there so I can only summarize what I heard from others--saying that Isis (and many other serious problems) wasn't our main threat.  The true danger lies within us and our inability to recognize the spiritual implications.  

Judah eventually received the judgment that God warned them was coming.  The judgment came in the form of the Babylonian invasion.  Jerusalem was destroyed.  The nobility and a large portion of the population were exiled and made little more than slaves.  God used an outside force to bring the judgment that He said would come, but the power to stop Babylon was always there.  Humility.  Repentance.  Passion.

I believe this same message applies to us as a church.  It applies to me.  

"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have carried out His ordinances; seek righteousness, seek humility.  Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger." (Zephaniah 2:3)

To what are we looking to define our purpose and our ambitions?  

I cannot tell anyone what to do in this regards, but I say from with absolute sincerity that I fear that my selfish life will reap what I don't want to reap.  I have to actively work against my natural tendency to hoard and to protect.  I instead want to know that the life I've lived here on earth was done with the purpose of getting to know Christ better and of making Him known to others.  

For each of us, living this life will look differently (God loves diversity), but our passion and focus will be the same.  When the church unites under the common vision of reaching the world for Christ, the world will finally understand what unity means.  It doesn't mean that we all always agree with each other!  It means that we are willing to lay aside our personal preferences in order to work together towards a common goal!  This is how marriage represents this beautiful image.  You can't get more different creatures than a man and a woman.  On top of that, you have different personalities, different ways of processing information, different ways of relaxing, and the list goes on.  And yet it is possible for these two completely different people to work together for the common goal of making a home.  It means at times that one or the other will have to give up something that they want and sometimes something that they need.  But the final image is something that shines brighter than any light in our world.  Something our world yearns for.  

True love.

Zephaniah spends the first two chapters of the book warning of what is to come.  Pleading with the people to see the danger.  But it ends with some of the most beautiful passages of Scripture I've ever read.  A reminder of God's heart towards us, of His steadfast love.

"The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

Trusting the Author

     I'm an avid  reader, and, when I find an author that I like, I will read everything they've ever written. I love that once I know what an author is like I can relax into their writing.   I begin to learn their style: how they resolve conflicts, what their goals are for their characters, their themes and their messages.  When I know what to expect, it makes it that much easier to enjoy. 

     Recently I was reading a book with a very intense conflict that was introduced fairly early on in the story. Because I had invested so much emotionally in the characters,  I frequently caught myself praying for them (yes, I'm ridiculous).  I was so scared for these characters because I couldn't see how they could avoid this huge pitfall coming towards them.  It was seriously stressing me out!

     At one point in my reading, I had to stop and remind myself that I knew this author  and read her other books and knew how she resolved conflict. I could trust her to handle these characters in a meaningful way, so that even if the feared tragedy occurs, there will be a redemptive element that would help make sense of it.  And I was not disappointed--it was not resolved in the way that I thought it would be resolved, but it was a good ending, and it was consistent with how she had been developing the story line (in fact, the hint of how she would resolve it was in the first chapter!).  

     It occurred to me one day that so much of our life is about trusting the author. Our lives are a story too--a story with an author.  The amazing thing about our lives is that we get to know our author.  We can even learn His style in the lives of real men and women in the Bible. We learn how he handles conflict, how he develops his characters, and what his overall message is.  When we learn to trust the way He works then we aren't so afraid of what might happen next.
    When we look at the Bible and the way God interacts with people, we see over and over again God encouraging His people to trust Him.  Trust Him when it's hard.  Trust Him when it hurts.  Trust Him when it costs you.  Trust Him when what He's doing makes no sense whatsoever.  
    All we need to do is see how God has worked in the past to help us understand what He's doing now.  We see Him challenge Abraham to do the impossible (offer up his child), but then see God do the unexpected (provide the sacrifice).  We see God tell Joshua to do the ridiculous (march around Jericho for six days), but then see God do the miraculous (the walls fall down and an insurmountable enemy is made vulnerable). We see God tell Gideon to give up what is needed (a large army to fight an even larger army), but then see God do the amazing (defeat the army from within).
   So what is God doing in our lives?  Is He asking you do something impossible, ridiculous, or to give up something you seem to need?  Is He maybe telling you to wait while He works out details you cannot yet imagine?  The response to all of these is simply to trust Him and believe that His plan is best.  When our time here is done, I hope we will get to step back and see the skillful weaving of God's greatest story, of which our lives play a part.  Because, after all, the stories that we remember, the stories that thrill us, are the ones where the most impossible situations are faced, but then are resolved in amazing ways.  And the cool thing is we get to be a part of that.

Renewed Day by Day

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I really have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I am aging.  I keep thinking I'm still in my early 20's, and that my body is that same 20-year-old body that I used to have.  There's something profoundly humbling about growing older every year knowing that my body is becoming, for the most part, less effective and less reliable.  It's also a bit scary.

What's weird is that I feel like I've learned so much in life that my mind is full and bursting, and it seems like my body should have the same exuberance and energy.  It seems like I should constantly be getting better, not becoming weaker.  And even though I know in my mind that this isn't the way the real world works, something in my heart balks at the idea that I am slowly breaking down, decaying.  Nothing hit this point home harder for me than the death of my father three years ago.  I should have known that one day my father would die.  Granted, he was only 63 and his death by heart attack was unexpected and gut-wrenching, yet my response to his death wasn't simply about the earliness of his death--my reaction was horror that it happened at all.  It didn't feel right.  It felt unnatural.  My grappling with the realization that he was gone and that there was nothing left of him rocked me to my core.  How could someone I love so much, someone whom I'd accepted as a staple of life, be gone?

And then it hit me.  One day, I too will be gone.  I too will just be a memory attached to photographs and a few old possessions.  And my body is slowly preparing for this day--every year showing the signs of wear and tear.  It was a wake up call for sure.  I do believe that many of us live in denial of the fact of death.  We defy it with our vitamins and weight loss regimes, we thwart it with our lotions and exfoliations, we ignore it with our entertainment and our devices--but still it's there waiting in those quiet moments when we are alone whispering what we most fear.  That one day it will all be over.

This is a message that kills hope.  This is a message that makes us want to crawl into a corner and cry.  It is the theme that haunts every book, every movie, every work of art--how to escape the end.

But, thankfully, that isn't the only message out there.  "[He] will deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." (Hebrews 2:15 ESV).  This chapter speaks of the plan of God to redeem man, to bring a glorious salvation.  One in which this tiny, feeble life of ours is just the beginning--the seed that needs to die in order to birth who we were really meant to be.  The part of us that is meant to live forever.  You see, we know this intrinsically, don't we?  I've spoken to non-believers and nominal believers who don't subscribe to the biblical view of things, and most seem to feel that there has to be more.  That something else happens after death.  In theory, many can say that nothing happens when we die, but it's hard to live with that philosophy.   Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has also set eternity in the human heart..."  We were created to long for more.  I love the way Blaise Pascal words this, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus."  Even better is C.S. Lewis's, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

So how do we live here on the horizon of eternity?  How do we live as we watch ourselves die?

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though the outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day." 2 Corinthians 4:16 NKJV

It's all about perspective. The rest of this verse spells it out clearly: "...we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things that are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

You see, there's no doubt about it--our outward man is perishing. We can see that every day. But there's more to us than bodies. There is a reality that is unseen but more real than this one. One that that we are daily being prepared for.  The question is are we ready for it?

The Bringer of Peace

Recently, I have been reading some historical fiction based on the times during WW1 and events proceeding it.  I must admit that I had an idealized vision of my mind of what America was like during that time.  I didn't know that this was when the Klu Klux Klan was rampant.  I had forgotten about the Great Depression and how it destroyed many families.  I didn't know much about the gangster control of large cities.  I didn't even think about the persecution and judgment endured by different people groups.  It wasn't a time of peace as I thought.  People weren't any better than they are now.

I don't think I'm the only one who gets a little idealistic when I look at the past.  It's hard not to look at a different time and say it had to be better than now.  When we watch the news and we see rioting, police men killed at point blank, and children being massacred in Pakistan, how can we not look back and think "If only we lived in another time"?

The problem is that no matter what time we go to in history, evil still exists.  History shows us wars, abuse, tyranny, massacres, selfishness, greed, and hatred.  

The world Jesus was born in to was much the same.  This was a world ruled by the Roman empire.   Their reign brought stability, but they ruled with an iron fist by the power of their well trained army and sustained themselves off the taxes of the territories conquered.  This tax load was heavy on the poor farmers (who made up the majority), but there wasn't any mercy if they couldn't make their payments.  "The Romans would sometimes destroy an entire village for late payment either enslaving or killing all its inhabitants. When an individual could not pay his debts, he was often tortured. We have accounts of tax collectors first torturing the head of the household for non-payment. If he still did not pay, they would torture the man’s family while he watched" ("Who Were the Romans").  Click here for the entire article.  For the average person living during this time, there wasn't any hope of change.  There wasn't someone they could call out to to help save them from the injustices they were experiencing.  The Roman empire was a vast, unstoppable force.  And the alternative to Roman rule wasn't that much of an upgrade.  Man isn't a creature of peace.    

But into that dark night shone a light.  For the first time in centuries, there is hope that man can change.  That he can become something better than he is.  That he can become free in the truest sense.  That maybe there was a chance that all that was wrong in the world could be made right.

"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder.  And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."  Isaiah 9:6-6

I italicized the words government because they encompass several important ideas.  The first is that God desires to reign.  But it's necessary to note that his reign is unlike any other reign in history--it is one of peace and justice and it is a reign that doesn't end.  But the biggest difference is that His reign isn't set in a country, or a system, or a building.  His reign begins in our hearts.  His kingdom is the kingdom of believers, of those who call upon His name.   

And His reign can only bring peace as we submit to it and as we reach out to make a difference in the world in which we live.  We cannot be surprised by evil, but we know how to overcome it.  

"And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony..." (Revelation 12:11).