UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH #6: God Wants Us To Love Our Enemies

In our previous installment of this series we talked about how hard it is for Christians to believe that God really loves filthy sinners like killers and rapists and terrorists.

This article examines a very closely related truth which Christians equally struggle with; the idea that God really wants us to love our enemies too.

Because we can't accept that God would love evil people, it just follows that we can't believe that God would expect us to love them either. Of course, the truth is that God really does love evil people and that means that He really does expect us to do the same.

Even if we can accept this teaching in general, or in theory, it is much more challenging to actually take the step of loving our enemies or sincerely pray for these people to receive forgiveness or mercy or grace.

So, when we see the face of a terrorist or a murderer on the news our first impulse is not to stop and pray for that person to be saved and healed and forgiven. But that is what we should do if we are truly followers of Jesus.

Jesus commanded us specifically and in no uncertain terms to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us, and to do good to those who hate us. If we are to treat people who directly harm us and hate us like this, how much more should we love and bless those who have harmed others? Especially since the basis for these actions is found in the character of God. In other words, Jesus appeals to the loving and forgiving nature of God as our model for showing this same kind of love and mercy.

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt. 5:44-45)

One of the main reasons that we find it so hard to love our enemies, I believe, is that we're more influenced by our human nature than by our spiritual nature. We also make the mistake of thinking that loving our enemies is equal to approving of their behaviors, but that's not the case. We can show love to people and extend mercy to them without accepting their actions. For example, my wife and I routinely help and serve people who are homeless. Many of them are addicted to heroin or meth. Do we approve of their drug use? Or their prostitution? Of course not. But that doesn't prevent us from showing them love and mercy and extending the grace of God to them.

If we really hope to be ambassadors of Christ to a world full of imperfect people, we must admit that we are among the imperfect, and then we must allow God to fill us with His perfect love for others, especially those who (in our opinion) do not deserve it.

If we stop and think we'll realize that none of us deserves the love and mercy of God, but we all need it very, very much.

-kg

UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH #5 - God Really Does Love The Filthiest Sinner

For some reason there are Christians who find it difficult, even impossible, to accept the idea that God really does love terrorists and rapists and murderers. Even though they all quote scriptures like "For God so loved the world..." and "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us" and many other verses, the idea of actually believing that God loves those evil people is too much to bear.

When we say that God's love is unconditional, that's exactly what it means. He loves us because He is love, not because of anything we have done to deserve that love. God's love for us is not based on our goodness, in fact it's in spite of our lack of goodness. His love is unmerited. His grace is lavished upon the filthy. That's what makes it "Amazing Grace". Because if we were basically good people then His grace would only be "Nice" it wouldn't be "Amazing."

The truth is that if God can't love Osama Bin Laden, or Hitler, or the Umpire who blew that call in the World Series, then He can't love you and me. We're all sinners. We all deserve punishment. We all sent Jesus to that cross. And what did Jesus say to those who nailed him there? He forgave them. He forgave us all.

Granted, not everyone has received that love and mercy. But if those of us who have received His mercy and amazing grace do not extend it to those who have yet to taste of it, then how else will they ever see it? If those of us who have been forgiven don't love those who don't deserve it, then how will they ever know His unconditional love?

See, it's not just that God loves those filthy sinners, it's that you and I are also commanded to love them too.

"If you love those who love you," Jesus said, "What credit is that to you? Don't the pagans do that?"

We are called to love our enemies, and to pray for those who do evil, and to show mercy and grace and compassion to those who don't deserve it, because we don't deserve it either.

Jesus shared a parable about this once. He told a story about a man who was forgiven a massive debt and then went out and demanded payment from another person for a very small amount. When the Master who had forgiven the large debt heard this, he called the man back into court and said, "I showed you great mercy, and yet you were unwilling to forgive someone even a small debt? Because of this I will throw you into prison and you will not get out again until you have payed me back every penny you owe." (See Matt. 18:21-25)

See, if we really believe that we are sinners saved by grace, then we need to love and forgive others in the same way. Not just those who insult and injure us, but also those who harm others.

Just listen to what the worst sinner of all has said about this:

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” – Paul the Apostle, (1 Tim. 1:14-16)

So, God really does love the filthiest of all sinners. We need to learn to accept this unbelievable truth, because if we can't accept that, then we're lying to ourselves about our own condition. We believe that we are better than everyone else if we can't accept that the worst of all sinners is the one who looks back at us in the mirror each morning. Either God's love is unconditional or it's not. What do you really believe?

-kg

"One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as "those evil people" or "those poor people who need our help." Nor must we search for signs of "loveworthiness." Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.” – Philip Yancy; “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”

 

 

HOW TO MAKE DISCIPLES: PART 2 - The Solution

Now that we’ve defined the problem with discipleship in the church today, let’s think about how to actually make disciples in obedience to Jesus.

First of all, if being a disciple is actually just being a Christian, then discipleship isn’t something you can learn in a class or a course of study that you’ll graduate from after you go through the workbook. It’s not a program, it’s a life that must be lived.

Discipleship to Jesus is simply following Him daily. So, obviously, you’ll have to start with knowing what it was that Jesus taught. That means reading the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John. It means taking the words of Jesus seriously. It means trusting Him daily to teach you Himself about how to love and forgive and serve and everything else.

So, if we hope to make disciples as Jesus commanded, then we first must become followers of Jesus ourselves. Then we can help others learn how to follow Jesus too.

The next thing we must learn to do, and then learn to teach others how to do, is to listen for the voice of Jesus in our daily life. This means spending time in prayer, and not just talking to God about what we want or need, but also listening for His voice. Jesus said that his sheep could hear his voice. If we are his sheep we will hear his voice and over time we will learn to discern what he is saying to us.

Discipleship is a long process. It will take you the rest of your life. You will not graduate from discipleship training, ever. Discipleship is your life in Christ which starts today and carries on into eternity.

Most importantly, do not ask people to follow you. Instead, teach them to follow Jesus. You can't save anyone, nor are you capable of changing their hearts, or leading them where Jesus wants to take them. Neil Cole shared an insightful testimony of his days as a young lifeguard here in California. He said he learned not to try to save drowning people himself. If you let them cling to you then you'll both drown. Instead, he learned to hand them the life preserver ring and stay at arms length away from them. Eventually they would stop struggling and allow the life ring to keep them afloat. Then you could pull them safely to shore. Teaching people to cling to Jesus for life is no different. If you let them cling to you, they will become dependent on you. If you let them cling to Jesus, they'll thrive.

As you might guess, this isn’t something you accomplish through a class. It’s something you accomplish by walking alongside Jesus daily, and if you hope to disciple others, then you must be willing to walk alongside those people for the long haul, too. This means being there for them when they have questions, or face challenges, or make mistakes, or when they learn from their mistakes or get it right and need someone to share the joy. But, again, make sure to show them how to depend on Jesus, and not on you.

Truthfully, this is better accomplished in community. In other words, the church family should all work together to encourage the new disciples whenever they gather. They should also disciple one another as often as possible. Why? Because we all need to be discipled. We all need encouragement when we feel weak. We all need comfort when we screw up. We all need wisdom when we are confused about what to do next. We all need one another, and we all need to continually refer one another back to Jesus.

That’s one of the main functions of the ekklesia – to make, inspire, encourage, and train disciples to cling to Jesus.  It’s often expressed as the “one anothers” in the New Testament.

Belief alone is not enough. Demons believe. But disciples obey, and trust, and love Jesus with all of their heart and they daily take up their cross to follow Him into the Kingdom way of life.

So, what are you waiting for? Start following Jesus today, and help others to follow Him as well. That’s called making disciples. It couldn’t be more simple than that.

-kg

"There is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself or his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus' expense and have nothing more to do with him."  - Dallas Willard ("The Divine Conspiracy")

HOW TO MAKE DISCIPLES: Part 1 – The Problem

Discipleship is a mystery to some Christians in the church today, but what’s even more confounding is the idea that being a Christian and deciding to become a disciple should be viewed as two separate things.

In other words, a disciple is a Christian and if you’re a Christian then you are already a disciple. As it says in Acts 11:26: “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

So, according to the New Testament, disciples are Christians. In fact, the default mode for all of those who follow Christ is classified as “disciple”, which just means “follower”.

If this is so, then how is it possible that Christians wouldn’t understand how to “go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey all that (Jesus) commanded”? It would seem that anyone who is a disciple should understand intuitively how to go and make others who are just like them, at least in terms of faith and practice.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that many Christians still don’t have any clue how to “make disciples”. How can this be?

I believe the main reason for this phenomenon is simple; Christians are largely concerned with making converts. In other words, it starts with the way we understand (or misunderstand) the Gospel and then flows into the way we evangelize.

Most Christians today understand the Gospel as simply saying a prayer so that you can go to heaven when you die. This isn’t the Gospel. It is a simplistic element of the larger doctrine of the Atonement, but it’s not the Gospel. The same problem would arise for example if we were to confuse the Gospel with the doctrine of the Incarnation, or any other doctrine. It’s not that those other doctrines are wrong, they’re not. It’s that we’ve mislabeled the Gospel message that Jesus came and died to preach and thereby lost the point of making disciples.

So, because we’ve misunderstood the Gospel as saying a prayer so we can avoid hell, our method of evangelism has involved asking people if they want a ticket out of damnation and handing it to them by getting them to repeat a prayer of salvation with their eyes closed or by raising their hand when no one is looking as if they are voting for their own eternal security.

Because of this unbiblical practice, there are thousands (perhaps millions) of people who have “prayed the prayer” and who consider themselves Christians although none of them have never made any decision to follow Jesus. This is quite sad.

See, Jesus would not consider someone a Christian if they did not decide to follow Him. Believing in him (whatever that means) is not enough if you do not continue onward to obey the teachings of Jesus.

As Jesus himself said:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

“And why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do the things I say?” (Luke 6:46)

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matt. 7:24-27)

"If you love me, you will obey what I command." (John 14:15)

"You are my friends if you do what I command"- (John 15:14)

"Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me." - (John 14:21)

I could go on and on. But I think you get the point. Jesus came and preached the Gospel (or “Good News”) of the Kingdom which was simply that the Kingdom of God had come to Earth and that by following Jesus you could enter this Kingdom here and now. This is why Jesus’ invitation was to “follow me” and those who did so were called “Disciples”.

If we continue to preach a message that only asks people to vote on their preferences for heaven or hell, then we will continue to fail our Lord Jesus when He commands us to “go and make disciples”.

How then should we evangelize? We should ask people if they are interested in following Jesus today. Why? Because Jesus is awesome. He is glorious. He is the only source of true, abundant life, peace and joy. Nothing else even comes close.

So, instead of asking people “If you were to die tonight would you be in heaven tomorrow?” we should ask, “If you were alive tomorrow, who would you follow and how would you live your life?”

Our invitation should be to ask people if they want to follow Jesus daily, the same way that we are trying to follow Him. If we’re not following Jesus daily, we will certainly have no idea how to teach others to do so.

-kg

"A notable heresy has come into being throughout evangelical Christian circles; the widely—accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to...salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scriptures." - A.W. Tozer.

UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH #4: God Really Lives Within Us

There is an incredible reality to be discovered in the Gospel. One that should revolutionize the life, boggle the mind, and transform the behavior of every single Christian who fully perceives it. However, the sad thing is that, while many Christians are aware of this reality in theory, they mostly live lives that effectively deny it on a daily basis.

The reality? Simply that God lives within every single person who has placed their trust in Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

Think of it. God, the Creator of the Universe, the Great I Am, the Alpha and the Omega, actually lives within you. Not just when you’re praying. Not just when you’re at Church. Not just when you’re doing something Holy or Spiritual, but all the time.

If we really took this truth to heart, it would radically transform our daily routine. Unfortunately, we behave as if this essential element of the Gospel isn’t actually true. We behave as if it’s a metaphor, but not as if the very same presence of the Holy One that used to hover over the Ark of the Covenant in the Jewish Temple is actually residing within our ribcage.

Now, I can go through a fairly extensive list of scriptures right now to prove this reality, but if you don’t already accept this as an actuality, it will only support this idea in theory, not enhance your reality.

As God Himself alluded early on, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?" (Isaiah 66:1)

When King David wanted to answer that question personally by building a house for God, he was told that God would be the one to build Himself an acceptable dwelling place. The one who would accomplish this was the promised Messiah.

But the problem is, when Jesus arrived there was already a very large Temple standing in the center of Jerusalem. So, what Temple did Jesus build? He built the acceptable house "not made with human hands" that is “made of living stones" - the Church.

And who is The Church? We are. Those who follow Jesus are the living temple of God.

This means that we are His resting place. We are house that God has built for Himself.

"I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth." (1 Timothy 3:15)

So, this is more than hyperbole. This is not a nice metaphor. This is reality. God abandoned the physical Jewish Temple in Jerusalem the very moment that Jesus fulfilled the promise by offering himself as the Lamb of God as the High Priest of God in the Temple of His Body when he died on the cross.

Next, God tore the veil in the Temple to emphasize that He would no longer reside behind that veil or hover over the Ark of the Covenant, as He foretold through the prophet Jeremiah:

"In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land," declares the LORD, "men will no longer say, 'The ark of the covenant of the LORD.' It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made." (Jeremiah 3:16)

Where would He reside from now on? Within the heart of every single member of the Body of Christ.

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

Over and over again in the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles affirm the glorious truth – God has come to live in the hearts and lives of every man, woman and child who loves Him.

In fact, this is what the New Covenant (or New Testament) is all about!

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.” (Jeremiah 31:31)

And what was this New Covenant all about?

“This is the (new) covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

See how amazing this is? If you have surrendered your life to Christ, God is actually alive within you right now.

This means that you and I cannot ever escape God’s presence. He is with us this very moment. In fact, one of the names of the Messiah was “Emmanuel” which means “God with us” so it should come as no surprise really.

God’s greatest desire is to make His home in your heart. He wants His thoughts to be your thoughts. He wants your desires to be His desires. He wants to make you His Bride, which as Paul expresses is a “Profound Mystery” for the ages.

What’s sad is that we don’t really believe this is true. We read the words and we say “amen” at the concept, but in actual point of fact we just don’t buy it.

But just imagine for a moment if we did believe it. How would this awesome truth change your attitude, affect your behavior, influence your actions?

If you were fully convinced that every breath and heartbeat was inhabited with the actual Holy presence of the Creator of the Universe, you’d probably love people more, have more patience, treat people with more respect, trust God with your anxieties and fears more, and be more careful about the things you said out loud – and the things you muttered under your breath.

I’m not sure about you, but I think it would be a much better world if we all really believed that God was alive within us every moment of every day.

What do you think?

-kg

*NOTE: This article originally appeared in Yoke Magazine under the title: "An Incredible Reality" and was the inspiration for the series, “Unbelievable Truth” here on this blog.

ATOMIC JESUS

On Saturday morning I woke up with the formula E=MC [squared] in my mind. I didn’t know why.

Since I couldn’t remember what “C” stood for, my wife pulled out our encyclopedia. We knew that “E” stood for “energy” and “M” stood for “mass”, but we didn’t realize that “C” stood for “the speed of light.”

I wondered if God was trying to say something to me about distance, or travelling far away, or maybe he was trying to say something about energy, or spiritual power? At any rate, I finished my breakfast and went about my day.

The next morning, around 3:00 a.m., I woke up thinking again about this formula. Specifically, I was thinking about how that equation described the process of releasing energy. For example, the relative distance between two atoms of uranium may seem very small to us, at the atomic level the distance is relatively equal to the distance between Earth and Pluto.

I also thought about how Uranium atoms were  very dense compared to other atoms, that they had mass or density about 70 times greater than atoms found in lead.

So, when two atoms of uranium, which are very dense, travel that long distance at the speed of light and collide together, the release of energy is massive. To us, their size is beyond microscopic, invisible really. Their distance apart is smaller than the width of a human hair; hardly measurable. But to those two atoms, the distance approaches infinity.

But what does any of this have to do with you and me? What does it mean? Around 3:30 a.m. on Easter Sunday morning, I suddenly realized something – this is the formula for self-destruction. It’s the formula for crucifixion.

Think about it this way: God, in the form of Jesus, leaves his throne in heaven and travels an infinite distance to the Earth. Jesus, “in whom all the fullness of the Godhead lives in bodily form”, collides with all of the sins in the entire universe upon the cross. 

Did you know the Hebrew word “Shekinah” which refers to the Glory of God also means “weight”?  So, when the full weight of God’s Glory collided with the awesome weight of our sins, it created the release of spiritual energy that was not unlike a massive atomic explosion.  

 That explosion darkened the sun. It shook the earth. It opened the graves of the dead at ground zero and brought some of them back to life again. It even ripped the veil in the temple - a three inch thick curtain - from top to bottom.  It even blew a hole in the fabric of this world big enough for mortal men to pass over into eternity on the other side.

When Jesus said, “It is finished!” there was an explosion in heaven that sent ripples throughout the universe.

Boom.

-kg

Easter Sunday in the Park 2013

The Body of Jesus

The body of Jesus was taken down from the cross. It was cold; lifeless; heavy.

They washed his body clean with water and anointed it with spices, wrapping it in a shroud from head to toe.

They laid his body in the cold, dark tomb and rolled the stone over the door. In the silence that followed, the body of Jesus did not stir.

Outside of the tomb, life went on as usual. Most people celebrated the Passover feast with their families, laughed with their friends, played with their children, argued with their neighbors, went through their normal, everyday lives, oblivious to the significance of the cross.

As the lifeless body of Jesus rested in the tomb, people wept for lack of hope.

As Jesus lay motionless, they suffered the unbearable pain of loneliness.
As Jesus’ body did nothing, they fainted from hunger.
As the body was unmoved, they cried out for mercy but no one answered them.

Later, people would claim that Jesus was alive. But when those in pain looked, the body of Christ was motionless.

Some shouted that Jesus had risen from the dead. But then some of those who were hungry noticed that the body of Jesus wasn’t concerned with their needs.

Others waved banners and sang songs about the resurrection of Jesus. But then those in prison wondered why the body of Jesus was still wrapped up and hiding behind a large stone wall.

Is the body of Jesus alive today? Or is the body of Jesus still nestled in the dark of the cold tomb?

We are the body of Jesus. If we want the world to know that Jesus is alive today, we are the physical evidence of his resurrection. If Jesus lives in us, then He must live through us.

If Jesus was truly alive today, where would He be found? In the houses of the poor; beside the beds of the HIV infected; holding the hands of the homeless; comforting the lonely; visiting the prisoner.

And if Jesus is there, wouldn’t it be strange for His body not to be there, too?

-kg

ONE FRIDAY

One Friday was filled with blood.

Skin torn beneath the weight of a hammer, pierced by nails,

adorned with a crown of twisted thorns.

But only love flowed out of those wounded hands.

Only love dripped down that innocent face.

Only love rushed up to cover the nails embedded in his feet.

One Friday was filled with hatred.

Mocking voices raised in defiance, like spears pointed at the sky,

shaken in the fists of men who look just like me.

But only the voice of mercy echoed in reply.

Only mercy spoke their names from lips drenched with compassion.

Only mercy answered them to pardon their naked sins.

One Friday was filled with darkness.

The sun refused to shine. Light itself expired

and hung in the air, motionless.

Even God turned his face away in shame,

as every shadow on earth swelled in to fill the empty space

and wrapped the human heart in a shroud of death.

Angels fell to the ground in disbelief, children wept in the streets, a mother’s heart

was pierced through with sorrow deeper than any ocean.

One Friday was filled with dread, as hope took one last breath,

to dive beneath the surface, descending deeper into that secret place

where darkest darkness wraps itself in a blanket of fear and death and disease.

He swam deeper, his lungs filled with fire, down where blindness thrives, into the face of horror,

towards the darkest terrors as yet unknown to mortal men,

until his fingers found the keys of hell,

and ripped them from the wretched grasp of that cowardly worm.

Turning then beneath those depths, he set his face toward the sky,

raised his arms above his head,

and he began to rise.

By Keith Giles

10 Barriers to Effective Followership

The Christian church is not in need of more leaders today. We are not having a crisis of leadership. We have a leader. He is flawless. He is marvelous. He is sufficient.

What we have today is a desperate need for more followers. We need people who will listen to our leader and put his words into practice.  Nothing else will rescue the Church from complete irrelevance.

Only this is required: Listen to Jesus. Do what He says.

Here are 10 Barriers to Effective Followership:

1. Focusing too much on being the leader.
2. Acting as if only trained professionals are capable of following Jesus.
3. Believing that average people are not “good enough” to be like Jesus.
4. Using the word “leader” too often.
5. Forgetting to be a servant to everyone.
6. Talking more than you listen.
7. Thinking your ideas and wisdom mean more than everyone else’s.
8. Reading books about “leadership” instead of remembering to serve in obscurity.
9. Staying in our comfort zones instead of going out into the world to serve others.
10. Accepting the lie that “good works” somehow nullify God’s Grace.

Please, let’s stop talking about leadership and focusing our attention on leaders. We have a leader. It’s Jesus. Let’s get on with the task of following Him today.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matt. 7:24)

“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:17)

It’s not that I don’t believe in leadership. It’s that we already have a leader and his command to us was not to “Lord it over” one another but to realize that we are all brothers and sisters. He modeled one thing to us: Love. He washed our feet and then told us to do the same for one another.

To be clear: I’m not talking about doing good works to be saved. Those who are saved will do good works. Or, as I often say, “Swimming won’t make you a fish, but if you’re a fish you’ll swim.”

Or, as Paul says:

 

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph. 2:8-10)

Our job is to follow our leader. He is the shepherd. We are the sheep.

“Follow me.” – Jesus

 -kg

 

 

 

HIT START

My youngest son, David (15) has been working on creating his first X-box game. He’s already created over 100 PC games using a simple program called Game Maker Pro over the last few years, but recently he was inspired to move over to actual coding to create a game for X-box Live. With the help of Brent, one of the brothers in our house church family, David has been hard at work the last few months trying to build his game from the ground up. It’s not been easy. In fact, it’s been downright frustrating at times. He’ll make progress one day and then get bogged down on a coding bug and not be able to move forward until he, or his mentor, can identify it and fix it.

A few weeks ago, David hit such a bug. He poured over the code and found nothing. Then he sat down with Brent, who’s already created and published two original X-box Live games of his own so far, and they still couldn’t identify the source of the problem. So, for weeks now he’s been dead in the water.

The problem David was having with the code was that when the player pressed the “fire” button, the bullets weren’t originating in front of the player’s icon. They were appearing at random places instead of where they were supposed to. Eventually, David stopped looking for the solution.

But then, just a few nights ago, David had a dream. He was with our family at an 80’s themed restaurant and I asked him, in the dream, to go back into the kitchen to speak to the head chef. When he got back there he found Paulie behind the stove. Paulie is a regular member of our motel church family. In the dream, Paulie handed David an X-box controller and said, “Don’t give up.”

In the morning, David woke up and remembered the dream. Especially the part about being handed the X-box controller and the words, “Don’t give up.” So, he sat down at the computer and started looking through the code again. That was when he realized something – he had programmed the enemies on the screen to fire tracking bullets at the player. In order for those bullets to track the user’s location it would have to calculate the position of the player on the screen first. Quickly he went to the code for tracking bullets and found what he needed. Then he copied that code and went to place it into the section for where the players bullets would spawn. What he realized was that his code wasn’t actually bad, it was simply missing one capital letter. See, the code is case-sensitive. So, his original code was only off by one letter.

If he had given up he never would have discovered this, and if he hadn’t had that dream he wouldn’t have given it one more try.

What’s even more awesome is knowing that David realizes that God was the one who gave him this dream and spoke to him about not giving up.

So, whatever it is that you have given up on – a relationship, a project, a dream – let me encourage you not to give up. Try one more time. Give it one more shot. Reach out and take that X-box controller from God’s hand and hit “Start” again. You might be surprised what happens next.

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Reflections on Palm Sunday

On the day that the Passover Lamb was traditionally selected, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Spontaneously, the people along the road began to wave palm branches and shout “Hosanna!” but what’s really going on might surprise you. First of all, the people received Jesus as a prophet (Matt. 21:11) but not as the Messiah.

This event was prophesied in Zechariah 9:9:

“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The truth is that the rest of that prophecy was about the Messiah coming as an agent of peace:

“I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.” (v. 10)

Notice that Jesus weeps over the fact that they do not understand what his mission is when he responds to their adulation and palm-waving with this statement:

“As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:41-44)

See, the fact that they were waving palm branches is significant. Those palm branches were a direct throwback to the Maccabean period when the triumphant Jewish warriors rode into Jerusalem and the people celebrated their victory over the Seleucids, which incidentally was followed immediately by a ritual cleansing of the temple. At that time the people waved palm branches as a symbol of military conquest over an oppressive enemy. By waving those palm branches, the people are saying that they are ready for war. They are ready for the blood of the Romans to be spilled in an uprising that they hope Jesus will lead them in. It’s no different than when Peter cut off the servant’s ear in Gethsemane and received the rebuke from Jesus.

Today we usually read that passage about the people shouting “Hosanna!” as an indication that the people received Jesus as their King. But on the contrary, the people were rejecting Jesus as their personal, spiritual Messiah and calling out for him to be their political, militant Messiah. When they shout “Hosanna!” which means “Save us!” they are demanding him to lead the charge of attack against the Romans.

This is why Jesus weeps over the people. He knows that their hearts are far from God’s heart. They want war. He has come to bring peace. They reject him and his mission. They can’t receive him for who he is. They cannot submit to him as he is – a humble servant riding on a donkey – they only want him to meet their expectations for a warrior who will set them free from earthly oppression, but they are unwilling to be set free from their own lusts and desires.

See, this was the day that the Passover Lamb was traditionally chosen to take away the sins of the people. On this day, the people rejected the Lamb because they wanted a Lion instead.

Ironically, the people of Jerusalem would receive the very punishment they sought to bring upon the Romans, as Jesus predicts in Luke 19:41-44, and later in Luke 21:5-38. This is why Jesus weeps. He knows that in AD 70 the Romans will surround the city and kill everyone and destroy the very temple he is about to go and cleanse.

The cleansing of the temple echoes the Maccabean cleansing roughly 200 years before, but when Jesus cleanses the temple this time it is more than ceremonial. Instead, he chases out the corrupt money changers and the sellers of doves who were exploiting the poor, and he clears the floor that was intended to be a place of prayer for the nations.

When you wave a palm branch on Palm Sunday, you should know that it’s a symbol of military power and conquest, not a symbol of humble devotion to the King who rides on a donkey to reign as the Prince of Peace in every human heart.

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UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH #3: God Is Trustworthy

One of the hardest truths for Christians to accept is the idea that God is trustworthy. They can believe in Him – that He exists and that He created the Universe – but to surrender control of their lives to Him? Not so much.

To me this is the most tragic of all the unbelievable truths, because if we cannot trust God then who can we trust?

Our inability to trust God, I think, says more about our need to be in control, or our fear of relinquishing control, than it does about our belief that God isn’t worthy of our trust.

In other words, if we think about it, God is the most trustworthy being in the Universe. He created us. He laid aside His power to become one of us. He allowed us to have power over Him. He forgave us as we were killing Him. He loved us enough to die in our place. He rose again to ensure that we could spend eternity together. He’s preparing a place for us to be with Him forever. So, how could we ever consider someone like this to be unworthy of our trust?

I think it has to be because we just prefer to be the ones in control of our lives. We don’t like the idea of letting go of the steering wheel for anyone else, not even a God who went as far as this to demonstrate His complete and utter trustworthiness. Which is sad.

If we could actually believe this truth that God is trustworthy, and prove it by surrendering our lives to Him, then we’d experience all the sweet joys and wonderful blessings that He intends to share with us. We would rest in Him and trust that He has everything under complete control.  We would experience the sweet peace that only comes from allowing this loving Father to take us with Him on an amazing adventure of life that He has planned in advance for us to follow.

A person who truly trusted God with everything in their life would have no worries about tomorrow, no stress about finances, no concern for what will happen next, and have nothing but complete peace and joy on a daily basis. Much the same was how we imagine winning the lottery might make us feel, actually. Except that those who win the lottery seldom find actual peace and those who are wealthy and famous have just as much (if not more) angst and pain and worry in their lives.

If we believed that God was trustworthy we could obey Jesus when He says that we should “not worry about tomorrow” or about “what we will eat or drink, or about our body and what we will wear” but simply trust that “Your Heavenly Father knows that you need these things” and let go of our worry in order to “seek first the Kingdom of God”.

If only we could trust God with everything. If only we really believed that He was trustworthy.

If only.

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UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH #2: THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST

When we think of Jesus we usually imagine him as the God-man who was perfect in every way. We don’t tend to think of him the way the disciples thought of him – as a man who walked with them, talked with them, ate with them, slept alongside them and occasionally kept them awake with his snoring.

While it’s true that Jesus was by nature divine, we also are told that Jesus was “made flesh” and that he humbled himself to become one of us. What’s more, Jesus affirmed to us when he was here in the flesh that he was just as powerless as you and I are now.

Jesus also affirms that he does nothing under his own power, nor does he teach anything apart from what the Father tells him to.

“Then Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you; the Son can do nothing of himself, but only does what he sees the Father do. For whatever things he [the Father] does, these are also likewise done by the Son.” (John 5:19)

“Of my own self, I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear; and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me.” (John 5:30)

Jesus also affirms that the great words of wisdom and truth that he spoke were not his own words, but that he was hearing them from His Father:

“These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:24)

“For I do not speak of myself, but from the Father who sent me and commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that to obey his command is life everlasting. Therefore, whatever I speak is just as the Father tells me to speak." (John 12:49-50)

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I only do exactly as the Father has instructed me to do.” (John 14:31)

The point seems to be that Jesus lived a life of humility and surrender. It’s clear that Jesus didn’t live out a perfect life on Earth out of any power of his own. Actually, according to the New Testament, Jesus let go of all of his power when he came in the flesh.

What this means is that we cannot say, “I’m not like Jesus so don’t expect me to live the way he lived.” On the contrary, it was because Jesus emptied himself of his glory and power and took on flesh to become nothing that he was capable of doing what he did:

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Plus, the New Testament writers also told us that those who claim to be Christians must behave like Jesus:

“Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:6)

This is precisely why most Christians do not believe that Jesus was fully human during his life on this Earth. If Jesus could do those things as a mere human who was fully surrendered to the Spirit of God, then the implication is that we should all be capable of living such an others-focused life. But, of course, that’s exactly what the New Testament does teach us.

It’s why Jesus tells his disciples:

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

The whole point is that we can do what Jesus did because he was like us; fully human.

If Christians today actually believed the truth about the humanity of Jesus, then they might actually take his call to follow him seriously. We might actually start realizing that it is actually possible for us to love our enemies, and pray for those who hate us, and turn the other cheek, and serve the poor, and everything else that Jesus commanded us to do.

Sadly, it’s so much easier to elevate Jesus into a state of unapproachable holiness so that our ability to reach such heights of perfection is forever out of reach.

But, just imagine if we really did believe this amazing truth? Wouldn’t our churches be filled with people who were more humble and totally dependent upon God daily for the grace necessary to live a life of service? Wouldn’t the poor and the prostitutes and the orphans rejoice that the world was filled with people who took the pattern set by Jesus and truly lived out his example of radical, sacrificial love?

I can’t help but believe that this is exactly the sort of thing that Jesus intended us to do. It’s certainly what his disciples did after his ascension. It’s certainly what the early church did for hundreds of years. Why not now? Why not you and I?

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Unbelievable Truth #1: God Really Loves You

*I'll be publishing a new series of articles called "Unbelievable Truth" here  over the next few days. These articles will each examine a different Biblical truth that most Christians don't actually believe, but should.

Unbelievable Truth #1: That God Really Loves You

God’s love for mankind is an incredible thing. The idea that God, who knows the end from the beginning, would know in advance how much pain and suffering He would have to personally endure as the result of creating the Universe and yet still say the words, “Let there be light” is staggering.

The scriptures are replete with example after example of God’s endless declarations of love for every single person on the planet. Usually these statements are about nations, or about general populations of people, but Jesus goes even further with this idea and affirms that God actually loves each of us individually. This is why Jesus urges us to call God our “Abba” or “Daddy” when we pray. It’s why Jesus says that God loved the world (and that means everyone in the world, and therefore you and me) so much that He sent Jesus to give us life and set us free.

Paul the Apostle encouraged all of us to meditate on God’s incredible love:

“ I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)

God’s love is wider than we can imagine. It’s longer than we can comprehend. It’s higher than we can reach. It’s deeper than we can fathom. God’s love surpasses knowledge. This means it’s beyond knowing. It’s too great for us to wrap our minds around. It means that if you had all the knowledge in the Universe you’d still not be capable of fully knowing God’s amazing love.

God made you in His own image. Just think of how that makes Him feel everytime He looks at you. [Genesis 1:27]

His thoughts about you are more numerous than all the grains of sand on all the beaches on this planet. He is actually thinking about you. Right now. [Psalm 139:17-18]

God has plans for your life. They are good plans. Plans to bless you and not to curse you. Plans to give you a future and fill you with hope. [Jeremiah 29:11]

God is singing over you. Right now. Just try to imagine what His voice sounds like as He opens His mouth and sings a song of love about you. [Zeph. 3:17]

God loves you so much that He would rather die than live without you. How amazing is that? [John 3:16]

The only thing more amazing than God’s awesome love? The fact that you and I can take it for granted, or worse, not fully receive it.

Most Christians don’t really go through their lives with the awareness of God’s astounding love in their hearts. They walk around looking tired, or feeling bored, or stressed out; totally oblivious to the endless showers of love that God is pouring down over them night and day.

I think I understand why we don’t believe that God loves us like this. It’s because deep down inside we’re convinced that we don’t deserve that kind of love, and certainly not from someone as Holy and Perfect as God. But that’s the whole point of God’s love – we don’t deserve it and yet He pours it all over us because of who He is, not because of who we are.

Just imagine if Christians really did believe that God loved them? Wouldn’t they be happier? Wouldn’t this love fill them up and spill out of them like light from under a basket? Wouldn’t a greater awareness of God’s unconditional, endless, boundless and fantastic love change them forever? Wouldn’t this love help them to love others more? Wouldn’t this love make it easier to forgive those who hurt them most? Wouldn’t this love transform their hearts, and their minds, and transform them from the inside out?

There’s only one way to find out.

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Can you think of a truth that Christians don't actually believe in practice? Please post your thoughts in the comments below.

 

 

 

 

Two Rings

Over the weekend I had an opportunity to join two wonderful people in the bonds of Holy Wedlock.

Jude and Carrie are homeless right now. They have been sleeping outside and have nothing to call their own, yet they both wanted to get married.

So, the Body of Christ surrounded them and poured out a marvelous blessing of love upon them. What’s more, God Himself smiled upon them both and personally provided the rings that they placed on one another’s fingers.

Carrie’s Ring

One week before the wedding, at the Motel Church, a volunteer overheard Carrie mention that she did not have a ring for her wedding. This  man, who wasn’t supposed to be serving that day, offered up a ring that he had found laying in the parking lot of a rest area a few months previously. The ring was gorgeous, and appraised for thousands of dollars. When no one claimed it he had first thought to melt it down and offer the money to the Church. But when he heard Carrie’s story he knew that God had given that ring to him so he could give it to Carrie.

Jude’s Ring

On the morning of the wedding I had met with Jude and Carrie at the motel where the motel church meets each week. Some very generous people had offered to pay a few weeks worth of rent at the motel to give them a place to stay as they started out their life together. So, after we had taken care of getting their room set up , Jude and I stepped out of the office and saw Carrie speaking with my friend Mike. Some of you may remember that about a year or so ago we had helped Mike and Marie and their baby Mikala at this same motel. Carrie started to introduce Mike to me, as if I didn’t know him, but before she could I threw my arms around Mike and gave him a big hug. As usual, he smiled quietly and mumbled a soft “hello.”

As Jude and Carrie and I talked about the last minute details of their wedding which would begin that afternoon, I made mention of the fact that we didn’t yet have a ring for her to give to Jude. When Jude and Carrie left to go get ready for the wedding, Mike held out his hand to me and dropped a silver men’s wedding ring into my hand. “Let it be a surprise,” he said.

So, that afternoon when Jude slipped that expensive diamond ring on to Carrie’s finger, and as she slipped that silver ring on to his finger, and as they both repeated their vows to God and to one another, it was marvelous to see how perfectly those rings fit them.

God is so full of love like this for each of us. He knows our needs. He sees us where we are. He takes note of those things that would bless our hearts. He even knows our needs before we ask.

 

He knows the number of hairs on your head, and he also knows your ring size.

Isn’t God awesome?

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