The Difference

There's a difference between wanting America to be more "Christian" out of a desire to be more comfortable (as a Christian) and what it would actually mean to have a passion to see people's lives transformed by the Gospel.

From what I observe, most Christians who demand a return to Biblical values are more concerned with their own desire to be around people who are more like them, share their opinions, etc. and less about a genuine heart for people and a passion to see the Kingdom of God advanced.

In other words, most Christians in America are more concerned with their own comfortability than they are with the conditions of people's lives and hearts outside their home.

If you want America to value the Word of God, you'll have to preach and live out the Gospel.

If you really want to put "Christ" back into Christmas, you'll have to start spending more money on the poor than on yourself. You'll have to give up some of your comfort and let go of some of your wealth in order to share some of that abundance you have with those who have nothing.

This is as much true for me as it is for anyone else.

Death to my status quo. Let His Kingdom come.

Peace,
kg

RE:FOCUS

There’s almost nothing worse than being in a movie theater where the projectionist isn’t paying attention and you have to scream, “Focus! Focus!” to get them to adjust the picture.

That’s how I feel when I listen to most Christians talk these days. They’re technically correct, but focused on the wrong ideas.

For example, earlier this week I received a message from someone who wanted to know my opinion about gay marriage. Beyond the “right or wrong” aspect of her question was a deeper reality. Her friend had walked away from church over feelings of rejection from her Christian leaders.

Can we identify the behaviors that are categorized as “sinful” accurately? Most certainly. In fact, we’re very, very good at that in the Body of Christ. We can go to verses like 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and read:

“Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

The scriptures are pretty clear about who does, and who doesn’t, make it into the Kingdom. But what do we do with that information? Do we go to our co-worker who isn’t a believer and place our hand on their shoulder and inform them that they are a sinner and that because they get drunk on the weekends that they will not be accepted by God? Or do we go to our neighbors and knock on their door and say, “Hello, I just wanted you to know that since you’ve been married more than once, you are an adulterer and God won’t allow you to enter His Kingdom.” Hopefully not.

But when our first thought about homosexuals is to proclaim that they are sinners and to inform them that this disqualifies them from entering God’s presence, that’s exactly what we’re doing. It’s sort of a reverse evangelism. We wouldn’t go out into the world and start separating all non-believers into various categories of sin in order to condemn them, would we?

Not only is this wrong-headed, it’s actually non-biblical. By that I mean, we do not ever see the Apostles or the early Christians going out to identify all the sinners around them. They did not say, “Hey you greedy drunkards, you’re not welcome in the Kingdom of God.” Instead, what we see time and again is the proclamation that the Kingdom of God is available, and wide open to people just like those "sinners".

 

When Paul stood before the Athenians he did not condemn them as evil sinners because of their idolatry (something he specifically identifies in 1 Cor. 6 as sinful). Instead, Paul takes the time to commend them for their religious zeal! He then tells them how wonderful God is, and how they can get to know Jesus who has risen from the dead. No mention of condemnation for their sins, just an appeal to their desire to know the truth about God and an opportunity to meet Jesus personally.

Most of us, I believe, wouldn’t dream of saying to an unbelieving co-worker or friend, “Hey, you’re a sinner and that means you can’t enter God’s Kingdom.” But when we walk around proclaiming that homosexuality is a sin and that those who practice this are going to hell, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Are we factually correct? Yes. Are we right? No. Because Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 6 were made to Christians, not to unbelievers. And notice how he finishes that statement about who will not enter the Kingdom of God:

“And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (v.11)

See? The people he was writing to were formerly sinners themselves. He is reminding them of how far they have come. Why? So that they will not be tempted to look down on “those sinners” over there, because all of them were once in the same condition.

Our posture towards those outside the Kingdom of God should be to love them, to befriend them, to have them over to dinner, to bless them in the name of Jesus. Whether they are drunkards, or adulterers, or liars, or greedy, or homosexuals, or whatever, we should take the time to get to know them, and to love them, and to wait for the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with them so that they can see that God loves them and that His Kingdom is wide open to them whenever they are ready to follow Him.

Isn’t that what Jesus did for us when we were sinners? Didn’t he welcome us? Didn’t he love us? Didn’t he overlook our sins in order to show us what life with him could be like if we would simply take his hand and follow him?

It’s the kindness of God that leads to repentance. Our role is to love people into the Kingdom. If we go out proclaiming that everyone else is a sinner and that the pathway to Jesus is closed to them, what’s the point? Instead, let’s go out proclaiming the goodness and mercy of God towards everyone, admitting that we are sinners too. Let’s invite people to know Jesus personally so that He can transform them into His image as they learn to trust Him daily.

There’s nothing worse than being unable to see the big picture because we’re distracted by the wrong things.

Focus! Focus!

-kg

 

 

SUBVERSIVE RADIO: Google Chat with Herb Montgomery

 I'm honored to share a recent Google chat conversation I had with my good friend, Herb Montgomery.

 Herb shares his testimony and we talk candidly about following Jesus into non-violence, caring for the poor, and the Gospel of the Kingdom.

HERE COMES THE JUDGE

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matt. 7:1-3)

You'd think that this verse would be clear enough at face value. But, it's not. Christians still want to wiggle out of this one. Lately I've heard some creative excuses to skirt around this clear command from Jesus. 

To quickly recap:

Jesus contrasts Love and Judgment as two opposite actions. (see Luke 6)

This means that we can't do one if we're busy doing the other.

If our mandate from Jesus is to love like God does, then we can’t waste our time judging the hearts of others.

Simply put, we can't love and judge at the same time.

Paul says that when we judge others we're actually passing judgment on ourselves. (see Romans 2:1)  

Paul even draws a distinction between correcting sinful behavior of those within the Church (1 Cor 5:12) with the right to judge those outside the church.

James chapter 4 tells us that when we judge others we're putting ourselves in God’s place.

So, according to the New Testament, followers of Jesus have no business trying to condemn those around us. In fact, by judging them we're ignoring the much larger sin in our own hearts.

The responses? Well, I’ve had people try to explain to me that we all judge every day because we have to “judge” whether or not to eat at a certain restaurant or not, and we have to “judge” whether or not our kids are lying about who broke the lamp, etc.

I’ve also had Christians try to make the case that calling something sinful that God has already identified as sinful isn’t the same as “judging” others, and when we vote in the polls we are making a “judgment”.

So, see, Jesus was just kidding about that “do not judge” stuff. Ok?

Well, no. It’s not ok.

What do you think Jesus means by saying we should love others and not judge them? Do you think it's possible to condemn people with the truth rather than love them and point them to the Truth?

Simply put, the other examples of “judging” are not even close to what Jesus was referring to. The examples above are about making a decision about where to eat, or what to believe, or about casting a vote on an issue. None of those things, in and of themselves, are about turning to another person and calling them “evil”.

What Jesus was forbidding us to do was to treat people differently – negatively – because of a determination we had made ourselves (in our own hearts) about the “goodness” or “badness” of that person. This is the very specific kind of judgment that Jesus forbids us to do.

But, didn’t Jesus also say, “By their fruits you shall know them”? Yes, he did. But when he said that he was warning his disciples not to be like the Pharisees – who, by the way, were quite judgmental of others.

So, again, Jesus has commanded us not to judge and not to emulate the judgmental behavior of religious leaders among us who behave in this way.

But, how else will people know that they are sinners? Well, I try to think of how I came to know Jesus. Your experience might be different, but I know that as a 9 year old boy I was mainly overwhelmed with my need for God. I couldn't have told you the first thing about sin or repentance or any of that. I just knew I needed Jesus desperately. Now, the Holy Spirit told me about my sin, and I responded to that and I repented. But it wasn’t a person who helped me to see my sin, it was God.

A friend of mine once told me that before he came to Jesus he already knew he was a sinner. No one needed to point that out to him. He got that. What he didn't know was what to do about it.

But, how else will we share the Gospel if we don’t hold up the “sinner” mirror to everyone? Personally, I think our evangelism should be more about loving people first (and that can only be done in relationship), sharing our own testimony (i.e. “I’m a sinner. I’m desperate for Jesus.” ), and inviting people to know and trust Jesus, too.

I think God will convict people of their sins just fine without us. Because that's what He said He would do (and the Holy Spirit would do), and He specifically told us that it is not our place to convict people of their sins.

Another example I can share is a couple we met at the motel several years ago. They were like sheep without a shepherd. We continued to serve them and love them in practical ways as they had need. They eventually started reading through the Gospel of John with us and suddenly they both began to realize that they were sinners. They suddenly started to tell us that they needed to make some changes in their life. That was the Holy Spirit, not us. Today they are continuing to read the Word of God and to allow Him to change their hearts. We never once had to say anything to them about their sin. We just loved them and let God do the rest.

But: "Isn’t voting a judgment of what is right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse, etc.? So, if I vote for same-sex marriage to be illegal, I'm judging same-sex marriage to be wrong. Right?"

I'd suggest that by voting against same-sex marriage you are not necessarily judging any persons. [And this is really where Jesus wants us to be careful]. As a Christian, if you vote against adultery or fornication, etc. then you are simply in agreement with God's judgment about those behaviors. HOWEVER: There is a difference between judging an action sinful and judging a person sinful. Even if you're right, you've stepped into a place reserved only for God - judging the hearts of other people.

My point is this: If we love people we make room for the grace of God to touch their hearts. (The kindness of God leads to repentance). But if we judge people, our condemnation becomes a barrier to them and they cannot see the love of Jesus in us - and where else are they supposed to see it?

Jesus commanded us not to judge others. He did command us to love others. We can't do them both at the same time. 

Do the math. Then do what Jesus told you.

-kg

ONLY MORE LOVE

Last night as I was falling asleep I started thinking about all the different ways I've been hurt emotionally over the last few years. I started asking God to heal me of those. During the night as I woke up over and over I would pray and ask the Lord to heal my heart in those areas.

I woke up this morning with the Peter Gabriel song "Digging in the Dirt" in my head, especially the line, "I'm digging in the dirt to find the places I got hurt". So, I listened to that song in the car this morning on my way to work.

As I was talking to the Lord about this I realized that I had shut myself off from pain, and therefore lost my heart for others.

See, I have a little secret. Over the last several months now I’ve felt very numb. I have lost my passion for things that used to drive me and excite me. Even though I have prayed about this often and taken it to the Lord, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the cause of this loss of passion might be, although I had a few suspicions.

I thought that it could be the loss of my friend Robert Higgins to bone cancer about a year and a half ago. But still I wasn’t sure. I’ve recently lost a lot of people, a lot of friends, for various reasons and the pain is still very real to me. Sometimes people have moved away to pursue a career or to follow God’s calling. Some friends just walked away from me because of differences in theology. Some just stopped returning emails or phone calls and I have no idea what, if anything, I did or said to create the space. Others have drifted away. Some friends that I care about have insulted me or made comments that have hurt me deeply. Over time, all this accumulation of pain has slowly paralyzed me.

As I was driving to work listening to the Gabriel song on my stereo and talking to God about this, I thought about the word, “Passion.” I had slowly lost my passion for things like poverty, social justice, the Gospel of the Kingdom, making disciples, organic church, and everything else that used to interest me. The word passion means literally “to suffer.” Then I thought about another word, "Compassion" which means "to suffer with". This is what I had lost. I realized that I had lost my heart of compassion for others because I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

Essentially, I have retreated to my comfort zone, and I'm very snuggly and warm and comfortable now. I’m safe and I like it. No one can hurt me here. But at the same time, I am unable to engage with the people that God has called me to serve, and to share in the sufferings of those who need to experience the tangible love of Jesus.

I can think back over the last few months and see places where I’ve held back from serving or sharing with others. Now I can see why, and it doesn’t excuse my apathy, but at least now I can sort of understand what was happening and why.

Now that I’m aware of my situation, I can at least start to fight my way out of this. But I know it won’t be easy.

Honestly, I’m not sure how to escape this soft, comfy prison I’ve made for myself. The hardest thing for me right now is to even want to escape it, because my flesh is resisting the process of stepping out again into the cold to share in the suffering of others.

It's really just so much easier to stay where I am and to remain disengaged. At the same time my spirit and my heart know that this is wrong and that I need to return to the Lord and to take up my cross again and die to myself. I need those nails. I need to let Jesus crucify this flesh again.

One of the only people in my life who has stood beside me, loved me, cared for me, and encouraged me through it all is my amazing wife, Wendy. Before I left for work in the morning I had shared with her my confusion over my lack of passion of late. When I got to work I sent her an email to explain a bit more about what I had discovered after praying in the car and listening to the song.  Her response to me was to keep on pouring myself out to the Lord in service to others and in thanksgiving. Then she said she had already heard from the Lord to share a quote with me that we both love from Mother Teresa that says, “I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, there is no hurt, only more love."

In the end, it’s still all about daily putting myself to death. It’s about enduring the cross so that I can allow the life of Jesus to thrive within my heart.

Please God, help me to throw off these soft chains that so easily entangle me, and let me press on to the high calling of sharing in the sufferings of Jesus, my Lord and King.

Conversatio Morem! Death to my status quo!

Amen.

-kg

Love: How much is too much?

As we’ve been in the process of helping and serving the homeless here in Orange County, my wife and I, and our house church family, have encountered more than a few challenges.

Sometimes people get concerned that we are doing too much to help people. Some suggest that it would be better for us to allow people to “hit bottom” and sleep in homeless shelters so that they will be more motivated to change their own lot in life. Others feel that we are enabling them to remain in their condition by propping them up from the outside without addressing their internal sin issues more directly. Still others are not comfortable with our helping them in more practical ways because by helping them we might somehow be showing approval to their questionable lifestyles (i.e. – having children out of wedlock, using drugs, abusing alcohol, etc.).

None of these concerns are taken lightly. In fact, over the years, my wife and I have withheld assistance from people who did not take the proper steps towards escaping their condition – whether that be homelessness, or addictions – and we’ve also questioned ourselves at times about whether helping someone does more harm than good.

For example, when the scripture says, “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:17), maybe the question is really about what the real “need” is. Someone might tell you that their “need” is for $100 to cover their rent. But maybe their real “need” is for someone to help them understand how to budget their money so that they can pay their own rent?

Hopefully I can think out loud here and invite you and others to weigh in on this discussion, because it’s something I’m currently still debating with myself, and because I freely admit that I do not know exactly what I am doing all the time.

My reaction at first was to say that most of these people are not followers of Christ, and so I cannot withhold kindness to them based on their sinful behaviors. After all, doesn’t Jesus urge us to be like God and to show mercy to the “just and the unjust” as God does? (see Matthew 5:44-45)

Secondly, my own spiritual calling and gifting is largely in the area of hospitality and service. Showing practical kindness and serving others is how I communicate the Gospel of Jesus to people. I’m not likely to take 45 minutes to attempt to convince someone to agree with me that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. I am not an evangelist in this sense of the word. However, I do feel that I communicate the truth and the power of the Gospel message by doing acts of service and showing mercy to people in my path. For me, this IS evangelism. It is an apologetic that no one can argue with or disagree with (except perhaps for overly judgmental evangelicals who might say that I am a horrible witness).

So, I’m not very comfortable with the idea of imposing my will onto people by threatening to withhold the grace of God to them if they do not take the steps that I want them to take. For example, it has been suggested that our house church family not help people with addictions unless they agree to attend at least one AA meeting a week and find a job. At first blush this seems more than reasonable. They need jobs and so what’s the harm in adding an incentive? They need to break their cycle of addiction, so what’s wrong with saying that we won’t take care of them if they won’t take care of themselves?

Over the weekend, I spent some time listening to college students share their experiences getting to know the homeless at Isaiah House in Santa Ana. As we shared, the idea of imposing our will on them “for their own good” was brought up. I was reminded of a similar conversation I had regarding church discipline in the house church. In that context, I argued for the power of love and relationship to generate the necessary repentance rather than incorporating an external (or internal) authority structure to threaten people to act righteously. This is still my conviction, and now suddenly I could see how my desire to impose my will upon this homeless family – even though it was for their own good – was the equivalent of “bringing in the Bishop” to address ethical or theological errors in the Body. It seemed inconsistent to argue for the power of love and relationships in one context and to deny it in another.

I caught myself saying, in the discussion on Sunday afternoon at Isaiah House, that it’s better to speak to people out of a sincere love for them; out of relationship; to let people know that because we love them we wish they wouldn’t smoke, or take drugs, or remain homeless. I argued that it was more effective than withholding basic necessities from people as a way to gain leverage over them and coerce them into changing their behavior. Suddenly my theoretical discussion was reflected back at me and I realized that I was in the process of trying to apply pressure to these homeless people in just the same way.

Later this week I sat and talked with my friend Thomas Crisp (a professor of Philosophy at Biola) about this same issue. He agreed that it was an abuse of our authority to treat other human beings this way. In fact, he appealed to the exact same premise found in Dallas Willard’s book, “The Divine Conspiracy” as an example. Our interaction with others should be out of sincere love for them, not tainted with manipulation – even if we think we know what’s best for the person.

Certainly, we treat our children this way don’t we? Yes, but I think in the case of a parent to a child it’s appropriate to set expectations on proper behavior and to impose punishments when disobedience occurs. But this is between a parent and a child, not between one brother to another. I mean, for me to exalt myself over another human being outside my actual family (as if I were their father) is insulting and presumptuous. Maybe even sinful?

For someone in the Body of Christ, authority rests on Jesus and the Spirit of God and the Scriptures, not on me or any other authority figure. Outside the Church it should still be the Word of God and the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin – not you or I. And to be more blunt, what these people need more than a job and more than to be legally married, and more than to be free from their addiction, is Jesus. Only Jesus can change their hearts and only Jesus can convict them of sin and give them a real hope to escape their situation.

So, for me, by showing love for people in practical ways – even in the midst of their sin – we ARE showing them Christ. We are bringing the Word of God and the Spirit of God to them as we continue in relationship with them, as we pray for them, and meet with them, and even as we model right behavior for them.

As we serve people in this way, many of them have made comments to us about the difference our service and mercy and kindness has made in their lives. Even seeing how people love one another, how husbands treat their wives in our fellowship, how children are given a voice, how the poor worship alongside the rich, has challenged them to be more understanding and patient and loving of one another. So, we’re not at the finish line yet, but we have cleared several hurdles in our lane so far.

To be fair, I can understand when someone says that they’re not comfortable helping people who are living in sin. Those are all pretty huge issues for me. Do we, as a church, send the wrong message to people when we bless them in practical ways, even when we know that the entire relationship is outside of God’s perfect will?

If we are called to show extravagant love to those on the edges of society like this, we will have to continually confront these issues and answer these challenging questions. To be honest, anytime you buy a cheeseburger for a homeless person you – potentially – enable that person to spend the $5 they would’ve spent on food to buy alcohol or drugs. So, maybe you should just never help anyone ever again because potentially your help – even a cold cup of water in Jesus’ name – could result in further sinful behaviors.

Maybe it seems I’ve already made up my mind about this, but let me assure you I have not. I am still wrestling with this question. For now, I am inclined to continue to love and serve whoever Jesus puts in our path. Right now I’m leaning towards showing the unconditional love and praying for God to work on their hearts, but even as I write this article I am still not 100% sure.

What do you think?

-kg

HOMELESS FAMILY IN NEED

I've been running around today trying to help a family with a 3 week old baby. We met them on Sunday for the first time at the motel church. The father is hispanic and I believe he's here legally. The mother is from South Carolina but they're both unemployed right now. Living at the motel (for at least another week) until they figure something out.

What I'm learning is that all the different non-profits and shelters in Orange County are completely useless. Most of them have a waiting list of at least two weeks or more. None of them have empty beds to offer. And all of them have different hoops to jump through. The Christian groups won't help you if you aren't married. (They're not). Some of them require you to be employed and demand some or all of your paycheck, others require you to be unemployed and ask you to quit your job to enter their program. (So they can help you find a job later?) It's madness.

So, after making a few phone calls to people I know and trust, it came down to this: They could either take their 3 week old baby girl into a homeless shelter (Salvation Army) and sleep apart on either end of a segregated facility, or the mom could take her baby and sleep at a women's shelter (because they don't take men) and the father could sleep on a park bench and hope he didn't get arrested for "public camping".

What really breaks my heart is knowing that organizations that I've championed for years cannot do a thing to actually help these people. The truth is, I'm learning, they never were capable of actually helping anyone beyond the 10 or 12 people they were currently helping, even though they were receiving millions of dollars a year from the Government to fight homelessness in Orange County. (Most of their funding finances are spent on paying their staff and keeping the lights on in their facilities).

I think when it really comes down to it the only real solution to helping people like this are you and me. The followers of Jesus have to step up and help. We have to invest our lives in their lives. We have to let them sleep on our couches, or lend them money to buy food, or share our resources with them, or put them up in a motel until they can get help, or they will never get off the streets.

The system is designed to keep people on the streets. The motels they stay at nickel and dime them for every little thing. You can't use the phone in your motel room because the management charges you more than it costs to walk across the street to use the pay phone bolted to the telephone pole.

You can't get a job because you don't have a computer to type out a resume, or the money it takes to pay Kinko's $4 an hour to use their computer and print from their printers. Even if you do have that money, you still need more for the bus pass to get to the Kinko's, and with your 3 week old baby under your arm and no diapers or food for her, not to mention no food for yourself either, it's going to be hard to justify that $7 for a resume at Kinkos when your baby is crying out in hunger.

If you don't have a car and you spend your last $5.00 to take a 3 and a half hour bus ride to get your social security card and find out that they won't see you until you run over to the courthouse to get something signed or stamped (another 30 minute bus ride), then you've wasted an entire day for nothing. This sort of thing happens all the time.

All we can do is help one person, or one family like this, at a time. The system is broken. The shelters are full. The rescue mission is understaffed and their waiting lists are so long that people will die of exposure before they get one of those beds.

Only those who claim to follow Jesus can ever hope to make a difference. How? By giving until it hurts and by serving those who can never pay us back. By sharing what we don't want to give up and by allowing the problems of the homeless and the poor to become our problems.

We'll have to love more than we think we can. We'll have to give more than we're expecting to. We'll have to do even greater things than these.

-kg

More Love, Less Politics

American Christians will always be frustrated by a desire to see our laws correspond with the Bible. The truth is, it never will. Why? Because our laws are built around a document called the Constitution, not the scriptures.

So, for example, if our courts have to determine whether or not it is legal to enforce a law that gives one set of rights to some people and a different set of rights to others, they will look at the Constitution and see that everyone is considered equal under the law and rule against that law.

Under the law of our land people have the right to enter into marriage with one another. Any law that gives this right to some people and takes it away for others will be considered unconstitutional.

Christians will always want those laws to be interpreted primarily by the Bible and secondarily by the Constitution, but since these two documents have different authors, and different purposes, they will not agree on most issues, including homosexual marriage.

When our nation was founded and our Constitution was written, they did not feel any need to write down laws which reinforced the morality and the common practice of society around them. It was a given. Therefore they wrote laws which, in tandem with their existing morality and observable societal norms, combined to create a harmonious nation of free people.

What has changed? Our Constitution is fundamentally the same, but the morality and practice of our society has changed. The laws we write cannot hope to touch our inner person. Laws do not change hearts.

If you hope to write and create laws to govern society you look to politicians and lawyers and presidents. However, if you hope to influence behaviors and change the heart of a person you look to clerics, priests, teachers and parents.

Our society has failed to live up to the ideals of our past because our churches have failed to pass on the morality and the practice of hospitality and brotherly love. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We have not been known for our love. Our laws have stayed the same, but our Churches have gotten off track and lost focus.

American Christians have become so disillusioned with the world around them, and yet they have no one to blame but themselves. For the last several decades the Church in America has been embracing a mentality of retreat. We have created a neat and comfortable little version of the world with a cross on top where our interaction with "those unbelievers out there" is minimized as much as possible.

Because we have refused to be salt and light as Jesus commanded us, the society around us has slowly become more and more "un-Christian" and really, what else should we expect it to become like? If we have reduced our interactions with others, focused all of our time and energy on ourselves, built larger and more expensive buildings to hide in, and invested millions of dollars building empires of entertainment, fashion and communication to occupy our time and tell us what we want to hear, how else should our world have developed in our absence?

In our frustration we have now turned to politics to create the change we have failed to create by avoiding contact with unbelievers. Now we hope to dominate these people politically and have our way, regardless of whether or not they agree.

In some ways, I wonder if it's too late for any of this. Too late for us to get back to our original calling to love and serve and live out the selfless beauty of the Gospel. Too late to attempt any sort of dialog with people we have avoided for so very long. Too late to be the Church that Jesus intended for us to be.

The solution to the problems facing American society is not found in changing our laws, and even if it were that would be a job for a lawyer or a politician, not a follower of Jesus.

Our only job is to love and to serve and to model a society where all people are equally important in the eyes of God.

Let's do our best to obey our Lord and Savior when he commands us to be known for our love.

If it's not too late....


-kg

SOLIDARITY WITH THE POOR

As I sat with my friend Tom Crisp this week over lunch, we talked about the radical way in which the early church engaged with the poor. Their perspective was so Kingdom-minded that they fully embraced the idea of being in community with the poor at any cost. Their compassion for the needs of their brothers and sisters that they gladly surrendered their earthly possessions to ensure that everyone in the Body had enough to eat and a place to sleep.

In contrast, I began to see how the Church today – and this includes myself – has focused largely on engaging the poor by attempting to improve their economic status. Rather than give up what we have, our energies have been applied to helping the poor in our society to acquire the skills necessary to become like us and join the middle class of society.

Essentially, the early church sold off their possessions to become one with the poor, and today the modern church holds on to its wealth and looks for ways to eliminate poverty.

I say this less as a critique and more as an observation. I find this intriguing. In fact, I’m surprised that I’ve never heard this idea expressed before. And of course a wide array of questions begin to form and splinter outward from this realization.

Should the church be moving into poverty rather than moving the poor into the middle class?
Can we ever truly eliminate the “us versus them” mentality without becoming poor ourselves?
What does this idea of surrendering my wealth and my status in society have to do with following Jesus?

Certainly, if I wanted to, I could make a pretty strong case from scripture that following Jesus means laying down our lives, the poor are rich in faith towards God, and a whole lot more.

At the same time, I understand that there is a balance to this conversation. Scripturally, Jesus didn’t tell everyone who wanted to be his disciple to sell all that they had and give it to the poor first. However, in that same context, Jesus affirmed that all of the disciples had done just that and would be blessed a hundred fold in this life and in the life to come.

I also understand that, as a father and a husband, the idea of becoming one with the poor in this radical fashion brings more than a little discomfort. How can I reconcile this idea of giving up my possessions and my wealth if it means my children don’t have the food they need, or the education, or a place to sleep at night?

As I consider this new testament perspective on engaging the poor in this way, I am reminded that these same early Christians also developed a policy that said, “he who won’t work won’t eat.” So, I understand that there’s a balance somewhere between absolute poverty and begging for food versus working to provide for your own needs – and the needs of others.

Obviously, I have not fully thought this all out yet. I’ve only just recognized a difference between the posture of the early church towards the poor versus our posture – and my posture – to the poor today.

Like most of what Jesus taught us, putting his words into practice is not easy.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Peace,
kg

GO FIRST

I know that when we look at the Kingdom of God we usually talk about how it’s upside down from the reality we were born into. We emphasize that the greatest in the Kingdom of God is the servant of all, and how the first are last and that we should put the needs of others above our own. However, I believe there’s an exception to this rule in the Kingdom of always allowing others to go first out of love for them.

Sometimes we must be the first in order to express the love of God to others. For example, we should always be the first to ask forgiveness, or admit our mistakes, or to take off our masks when we’re gathering with others. We should be the first to confess our sins to one another. We should be the first to admit our weaknesses. We should be the first ones to humble ourselves and reconcile ourselves to those who have hurt us.

Yes, in God’s Kingdom the first are last and those who lose their life find it, even though they die daily. But sometimes we need to be willing to go first, even if it means falling flat on our face. The risk is great, but the potential for learning humility and sharing in the sufferings of Christ are worth it. After all, Jesus asked us to take up our cross, but He went first.

Be the first so that others can be set free from their guilt, their sin, their pride and their failures. Don’t wait for someone else to go first. Jesus is with those who take the first step in faith.

-kg

CHRISTMAS IN REVERSE

For the last three years now my family has been making an effort to shift the way we celebrate Christmas. I guess it all started when we partnered with a sister church here in Orange County to bring a blessing to a single mom with brain cancer and her teenage son a few years ago. I remember walking back to the car afterwards and telling my wife, "That was my Christmas. From now on, don't buy me anything for Christmas. Let's just bring a blessing to as many people as we can."

So, for the last few years that's what we've done our best to do. This year our family is helping to buy Christmas gifts for children living in a local motel with their families. Our house church is working to provide free groceries, buy gifts, and share what we’ve been given with our friends living in this motel. We're also putting together several baskets of food to give to a local orphanage, and this week we're going to sing carols at a local senior care center down the street from our house.

Just last week I read an article from the great John Fischer about how we should change the question, "What did you get for Christmas?" to "What did you give for Christmas?" I completely agree. More than changing the question, we're changing the emphasis of Christmas. When we focus on giving then all that matters is what we give away, not what we receive in return.

The most amazing thing, however, is that even though my family does not buy me a Christmas gift to put under the tree anymore, I still get plenty of gifts. In fact, I receive significantly more for Christmas now than I have ever received before. It's just that what I get for Christmas now is the sort of stuff that won't fit inside any box, or be contained by mere wrapping paper.

I know of many other families who are doing exactly what we've started to do this Christmas. Maybe you do too? Or maybe you and your family would like to start a new tradition of giving away more than you receive?

If you're really lucky you'll start to realize that you can give extravagantly no matter what time of year it may be. People in need are hungry and lonely and thirsty on all the other days of the year, so why should we only give to them once or twice a year?

Someone once said that whenever we measure our generosity we tend to measure how much we give away, but when God measures our generosity, He measures how much we keep.

If Christmas is really about giving, then let's focus on giving. And if Christmas is about the miraculous, incarnational birth of God in the flesh who came to be "Emmanuel" - God with us - then let's follow His example and give ourselves away for the sake of others.

Peace to you,
Keith