Lent for Everyone Else

Lent has a rich and storied tradition in the church – forty days of self-denial, reflection, and prayer. I must confess that I have not been overly enamored with Lent. There’s a good reason for this – Lent became something else for me to do. Some other rule to keep among a host of others. I gave up rule-based Christianity for a heart-based version about eight years ago. In doing that, my relationship with God improved drastically and I became a tolerable individual. Plus, it keeps my heart-rate down. Now, I run away screaming from anything that resembles legalism in the slightest.

 

Lent for most folks today is a second chance at recouping the losses of New Year’s Day resolutions…only this time, there’s a little divine intervention. Others opt for silly self-denials – caffeine, sugar, candy. If we refuse to stress out over Lenten commitments we often end up trivializing them. Neither does anything for the soul. What’s more, I understand the importance of fasting, but am put off by people gearing up to fast for a specific period of time for no good reason. Once God began to show me the importatnce of living a “fasted” life, my need for a calendar date to start a fast went out the window…and with it, the relevance of Lent.

But (as is often the case) I’m wrong. Not for decrying triviality or legalism, but for not approaching Lent in a different way. Lent is important when it promotes serious reflection, healthy spirituality, and improves relationships. Okay. Great. But how? Well, this is what I’ve come up with. You’re welcome to adapt it as you see fit. Rather than giving up sweets or sodas, I try to “fast” things that will improve my quality of Christianity. Here are two examples.

First, I have fasted people for Lent before. Rather I should say that I fast a person’s influence over me. Let me explain. We all have people in our lives that irritate us or get under our skin – classmates, co-workers, relatives, even our friends. I don’t fast their presence in my life – they are gonna be around me anyway. But I do fast their control over my emotions and ability to wreck my mood. I fast those sleepless nights where I continually play a conversation I had with them while thinking up extremely clever comebacks to say. I figured out that when I do those things I am giving that person extreme control over my thought life that would be better used for something that actually matters. So I “fast” that person for 40 days. It’s absolutely liberating.

Another example: I have fasted expectations I have for another person for 40 days. Often times, my disappointment with another has to do with what I believe they should be willing to do rather than what they actually are doing. Of course, this can be a problem in marriages, but it applies to all the same people groups I mentioned above as well. Most times our anger towards others involves a big, fat SHOULD: how we believe others should behave rather than allowing them the liberty to live their own lives as they please. So, I will locate an individual upon whom I have placed unrealistic expectations – a spouse, child, co-worker, church leader – and I’ll completely relax any expectations of them for those 40 days. Of course, I don’t tell them, but I do notice that our relationship improves dramatically simply because they can feel that freedom in our relationship. The great thing is that after the 40 days, the relationship is usually going so much better that I continue that relaxed state. Truthfully, God means for our relationships to be that way all the time – Lent is just a way to jump start that process.

Be creative with Lent this year. Forget the cokes and candy. If used correctly, Lent can be a liberating way to create new avenues of spiritual health in our lives.

Pay Me What You Owe Me: The End of a “Profession”

I had a watershed moment this past week.

I attended a conference with a number of church planters from around the world. I’m not talking about our average “safe” conference where everybody flashes a lanyard to get in and sits around citing demographical research and discusses the latest Zondervan book. I have been to those and find them helpful. But this was different. These people were planting churches where no statistical data is available, if you get my drift. These people were hardcore. They were extremely kind and accommodating to me. But it became pretty clear that I was sitting with a class of minister far above my own.

One story struck me in particular. A guy had been making advances into a country for several years. Now, when I say that, I’m not saying that he’s got a 500 member congregation and health benefits. We’re talking about four converts in three years. That kind of thing. Hardcore. He was giving praise that someone in that group had invited him to visit again and was going to pay for his travel costs.

Here’s where it gets radical. I said, “Isn’t that a standard arrangement? How else would you get there?”  He said, “No. Normally I have to pay them to have the opportunity to witness to them. That’s why it’s a miracle.” Read that again. He has to pay them.

We send speakers and ministers around the world at our own expense. After all, motivational  speakers and ministers are worth the money right?  In the U.S? Yes. Elsewhere? Nope. In the U.S., the people who are paying are already Christians and deeply entrenched in that consumer paradigm. Outside of that paradigm, no one else gives a rip. A flying rip.

Don’t call me a doomsday prophet just yet, but I believe this is on the horizon in all Westernized nations as well. Many would say it’s already here. Presently, I would venture to say that roughly anywhere between 10-20% of any U.S. city has contact with Christianity and that number is decreasing every day. As it decreases, any prestige associated with the “profession” of ministry will eventually collapse. It’s status as a reputable and viable occupation will cease and (as in other nations) it may bring scorn upon those who embrace it.

Then something else will happen. People will have a choice: they will either wait for someone to fund them or they will spend their own money to share Christianity with others. Right now, ministers and church planters still think someone else needs to pay for their services. But ministers of the future will no longer ask for funding for themselves and their families. They will ask for funding so they can “pay” someone else to listen to the Gospel.

Do you think that’s a radical idea? Let me know what you think.

Six Months of Soul, Part 1

I took a break from blogging about six months ago to get some material written for our church start and give more attention to transitions in our home. But I didn’t stop thinking about stuff. So, the next three post are topics that I have spent significant time thinking about during the last six months. I thought I’d share my thoughts about them with you. First up:  shame. Sounds riveting, right? Actually, it is one of the more important spiritual issues of today and the reason people are leaving the church in droves. Shame is the “quiet motivator” in our churches for everything from good behavior to political positions to social issues. The worth we assign to ourselves and to each other determines how we treat others. We just don’t see it unless someone exposes it.

Shame is a sense of worthlessness or inferiority that plagues all of us at some level. Those who live with chronic shame feel inadequate, unwanted, rejected and often engage in self-contempt through negative talk. They never feel “good enough” for anyone. It’s also our own sense of shame that causes us to turn on others or engage in addictive behavior. It’s a horrible cycle – one that I have struggled with at times in my own life. Maybe you have as well.

The Bible has some really important things to say about shame and our relationship to it. It starts in the book of Genesis (2:25, 3:7). In chapter 2, we find humans comfortable with who they are. They are open, vulnerable, and sincere in their relationship with each other and with God. But by chapter 3, we find them hiding from God. Now, at that point, they we guilty of sin…but God did not shame them for their decision. They internalized their guilt as worthlessness and hid from God. Kinda like we still do today.

Guilty? Sure. But worthless? Hardly. Most people still can’t tell the difference.

Sadly, for many, their experience with religion has heightened their sense of shame. Their worthlessness is bantered around in sermons and liturgy every week that invite them to grovel before God’s feet. What’s worse, the church often “talks dirty” to get the attention of the shamed, rejected, and unwanted. But the church never addresses the deep inferiority people feel by giving them the acceptance they truly need. People need more than pardon. They need healing.

It’s important for people to know they are forgiven. Hebrews 10:22 says we are not only forgiven but cleaned from a “guilty conscience.” But something even deeper happened on the cross – God healed our shame. Luke 18:32 says that Jesus was specifically treated “shamefully” when he was crucified. In that moment of abandonment, Jesus carried the deepest and most pervasive emotional scar that any human can carry: shame.

At the cross, God said to every person that would listen, “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. You are unconditionally loved and accepted by me.” God’s heart breaks for his abused and shamed children. They are made in the image of God but they refuse to believe it. Shamed people don’t need a more acute sense of their own sin. Instead, they need a sense of just how loved and accepted they are by their Creator.

Though God gives us final value and esteem, each of us can choose to be agents of grace to those around us. We can give others small amounts of value in each conversation and act of kindness we display. You have the chance to help heal another person’s inadequacy, inferiority, and rejection. To help heal their shame. Or, better yet, we can embrace what God really thinks about us and allow him to heal our shame, worthlessness and rejection. After all, those are our feelings, not God’s.

Evangelism Is Dead

I was driving to speak at a men’s conference about two months ago when I saw a church marquee that caught my attention. It said:

What would you need to see on our sign to get you to come to church?

Hmmm. Now, granted, it was a more traditional church with no inkling of forward motion in a while. But the sign angered me. It essentially said to the unchurched in the area: “Come to us. We’re not coming to you.” Or maybe we could put it this way: “We have the truth. If you’re seeking it, you should probably show up here at our predetermined service times. This may inconvenience you. But the truth is worth your inconvenience.” What would someone need to see on that sign? Nothing. Because the message of that sign speaks to a bygone era. The cold hard fact is that the days of “propositional” evangelism are gone.

Let me explain what I mean. Propositional evangelism is the idea that sharing the gospel with someone involves  reciting a series of facts that others are supposed to believe simply because you have informed them. A couple of things are wrong with this. First, this type of evangelism assumes that information changes someone. And some information does change us and our perspective on life. But spiritual truths run deeper than a pamphlet or the “Roman road.” In the U.S., the idea that you can share the basics of Christianity with someone and they will smack their forehead and said, “Oh!  I had no idea!” really doesn’t exist anymore. The second issue revolves around truth. In our postmodern age, there are truth claims that compete against each other…and no longer is Christianity held as the highest pinnacle of truth attainment. In every area of society, we now live in the “marketplace” of ideas – a giant supermarket full of ideologies that are all marked half-price.This makes those who are into propositional evangelism extremely angry… because they have no leg of established credibility to stand on since their “market share” is the same as everyone else’s.

What does exist is relational or trust-based evangelism. Since no one has to “buy in” to the Christian paradigm anymore, people come to understand more about Jesus through their relationships with others and the slow and steady trust built through long-lasting friendships. People are certainly interested in ultimate truth – they always will be. But the doorway to speak to others about that truth has nothing to do with the accuracy of truth claims. Those with the relationships will ultimately be granted the opportunity to answer questions about truth. This is bad news for many of us in the evangelical camp… because we are lazy.  We’re not used to having to work at relating to others simply because we assume that everyone will be enamored with our wisdom. They’re not.

I heard a quote several months ago by a pastor named John Lynch. He said:

Truth is never received unless it is given in the context of trust.

That doesn’t mean the truth is up for grabs. But it does mean that the method by which it can be relayed as changed drastically. Only when I have earned someone’s trust based on friendship and service am I able to share with them what I believe about God. After all, that is  the message of the gospel. Jesus scrapped all his positions and titles to live amongst us (Philippians 2). And by living with us, he showed us how to live.

 

Book Review: Kissing Fish

I just finished a really interesting book yesterday. It’s by Roger Wolsey and it’s called Kissing Fish. The book is somewhat of a spiritual manifesto on a movement that is taking shape in America: Progressive Christianity. Notice I didn’t say liberal Christianity or modern or postmodern. I said progressive. Roger is an extremely approachable guy. He’s ordained Methodist and ministers at the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado – a place not exactly known as a bastion for conservative Christianity. And that’s what I like about this book: it gives real and practical thoughts about ministering to a generation where they are, not where we think they should be.

Roger puts it this way in his opening chapter: “I discovered the disappointing gap between idealistic notions of what the Church can and could be – and the decidedly non-ideal, petty, political, conflicted, dysfunctional beautiful messes that most of them are” (45).  Hopefully, that doesn’t put you off…particularly since Paul Tillich voiced similar sentiments in his History of Christian Thought: “…the gap between its claim and its reality.” Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski has said the same about primitive religions. So, Roger is in good company.

Progressive Christianity seeks to develop a something other than a religion about Jesus. It focuses on the religion of Jesus: “his actual beliefs, practices, and lifestyle” (58). Sanctification is at its core: the slow gradual growth towards Christ-likeness in individual piety and social justice. Not one of the other. Both. Progressive Christianity is more tolerant for the sake of inclusion, reconciliation, and healing. Along with that is a level of inclusivism for other religions and alternative lifestyles and a blending of religious traditions that may make conservative evangelicals nervous.  That’s okay. The label “progressive” appeals to a different demographic. And as a wise woman told me a few weeks ago, “alternative” is quickly becoming “mainstream” where religious preference is concerned.

For the first half of the book, Roger works his way through a loosely knit systematic theology, tweaking it as he goes. He says gems like “…what Jesus talked about most wasn’t himself…”(161) or “”[Progressives] concern is more upon living and loving in God’s Kingdom right now and faithfully helping to manifest it all the more” (177).  These quotes don’t sound progressive to me – they sound like accurate notions of biblical Christianity. Even in the deep South (where I live), people are whispering similar phrases in dark alleys where it’s safe.

The second half of the book is a more practical outworking of these ideas. Roger starts off this way:

As the old Swing era hit put it, “‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” and brother-sister, love is that swing. You can meditate and pray, go to church, get baptized and take communion, light candles and burn incense, read sacred texts, chant, fast and do yoga, and even help out at soup kitchens, but if you aren’t doing them with love, it’s all a bunch of vapid, empty horse apples. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve got a shed full of them (250).

See why I like this guy?! He then spends several chapters unpacking the practical nature of love in action. He covers everything from practical acts of kindness to the spiritual discipline of “centering prayer.” Now, what’s great about that is usually we lean to one side of the other: we focus on Christianity as meeting the needs of others or meeting our own needs. Roger holds them in tandem…just like God probably designed to begin with.

This is good book. Particularly if you’ve never read something from this paradigm before. I have one drawback: it could’ve been shorter and had the same impact. The word “redaction criticism” should’ve never made it in this work simply because those concerned with hermeneutics won’t be reading it. Still, it’s a fun, personal and engaging book. I liked it. Roger tells you in the postlude that’s he’s not saying anything new…and that’s true. I would add the names, Richard Rohr, Dallas Willard, Henri Nouwen, John Wesley, and (my theological hero) Horace Bushnell to the list. But what Kissing Fish  does represent is a growing ensemble of voices originating in places other than what some would call “left field.” There was very little I disagreed with in this book and I consider myself to be a “post-conservative” evangelical. Roger may use the word “progressive” but what he is describing is very quickly becoming the norm. And for that, Kissing Fish is worth the read.

The Way, Pt. 3

Okay. So here’s one final idea about Jesus as “the way.” After we see Jesus as the way to understand God and after we surrender to Jesus as our salvation, we can then see Jesus as our way to action. Sometimes we get this backwards and start here instead of with the first two points. We plunge people into service at church when they are really struggling to connect with God on a personal level. That’s too early. It’s only when we find our bearings in relationship with Jesus that service to others flows naturally.

Now, lots of people think they have to do something “special” for God. Christians say stuff like that pretty often. Do I think God has specific things that he wants us to achieve as his sons and daughters? Sure. But there’s a flip-side to that equation. What I think God really wants from each of us is to live a life daily that reflects him. It doesn’t have to be super-impressive. It doesn’t have to be amazing or conspicuous. The Christian walk needs to be only two things: consistent and true. The responsibility of the Christian is to live life consistently in each of life’s scenarios. Through each season of life. Here’s why. You only get the chance to do something for God that will be categorized as amazing our life-changing in life once. Maybe twice. And even then that doesn’t mean anyone will recognize what you’re doing. But if we live life consistently in regards to our families, finances, occupation, and relational choices, then we will be in a position to risk something out of the ordinary because the other areas of our life will be stable.

You don’t have to be a Bible scholar. Simply start by memorizing a Bible verse or two. If you desperately want to raise funds for missions, try paying off your credit card first. Guys, if you want to be the world’s greatest dad, start by simply leaving the office earlier each night. And if that goes well, then start emptying the dishwasher without any fanfare. Want to do something amazing for God? Do the basics. Draw your sword, raise your battle cry, and charge up the hill to conquer the obvious and the insignificant. Small is the new big.

Jesus did things for others that were radical and counter-cultural. But he also did them simply and effectively.  And that the true mark of Christian service: simple acts of grace and kindness that reflect the love of God for others. Simple acts of generosity that bring much attention to God and very little attention to us. One of the best ways to do this is in a small group. Or in your Sunday school class. Find out what God is leading your group to do. Here’s how you know: it’s something that comes up over and over in conversation.  God may be teaching your group about mercy or faith or financial responsibility. And then think of simple ways that you could impact someone’s life for the better. Nothing over-the-top. Just something simple that reflects the heart of God.

One of my favorite stories from church history revolves around this idea. There’s this Roman historian named Tacitus who said something interesting about Christians around 100 a.d. Rather than calling them “Christians” he named them “Chrestians.” Now, that may look like a spelling error but when we find our way back into the original languages of the Bible it makes something very clear. Chrestotes is the Greek word for kindness, benevolence and goodness.

You see, the first century Christians were known for two things happening when they were around: something miraculous and something kind. When a Roman historian wrote about the early Christian movement, he was much more impressed with the generosity and simple acts of goodness than with their theological accuracy. Now, know that the theology was sound and that their beliefs were strong. But what interests me about that is how a deep relationship with Jesus can translate into a wide-ranging impact for good in a community.

When Jesus is the “way,” he not only meets our individual desire for relationship with God, he also empowers us to reach people in a profound and meaningful way. I confess that sometimes I find myself back at the first point: still trying to understand God by understanding Jesus. And other times, I end up at the foot of the cross overwhelmed by the revelation of God’s love for me in the sacrifice of Jesus. And then, the love of Christ compels me to do what I can for others as the Holy Spirit leads me. All are essential to the Christian walk. And they all flow from the strong son of the living God: Jesus Christ.

The Way, Pt. 2

Here’s another idea about Jesus as “the way”: Jesus is the way of salvation. Jesus exchanged death for life on the cross. Paul says in Romans 5 that it was while we were still sinning left and right with little regard for what we’ve done that Jesus dies for us. It’s through the blood of Jesus and in the power of his resurrection that we are even here at all.

Sometimes we forget this. We treat the sacrifice of Jesus like it is some math equation…you know, sin + sacrifice = eternal life. As if we only get in the restricted area if we punch in the right “code.” But it’s more than that. It’s a revolution in how we approach God and how we live life. Part of the Christian walk is understanding that giving Jesus our heart means more than filling out an attendance register. It means more than working to better our community. It means more than dropping some money in the offering plate. It means completely turning over our lives to honor God.  Of course, those other things follow but they are not the goal. Surrendering to Jesus is the goal.

Now here’s something we need to talk about for a minute: what exactly is salvation? Well, it’s more than simply joining the church. It’s the decision to allow God to have access to every area of your heart. A lot of folks think that salvation is the end. But really, it’s just the beginning of learning to walk out life “Jesus-style.” It’s important for us to remember that we are on a journey towards sanctification. That simply means that the longer we walk with Jesus by surrendering our lives to him, the more we begin to look and act and think like him. That’s what abiding in Christ is all about: Jesus living life “in” us and “through” us on a daily basis. So, salvation is not a one-time event to be forgotten or placed on a shelf – it’s the constant process of turning our face toward God and saying, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Now, we are a socially conscious group of Americans…and rightfully so – it’s our responsibility to meet the needs of our community and the world as best we can. But what I’m talking about here has little to do with anyone but you and God. If we are experiencing salvation to the fullest – the way God intended – our relationship will progress. We will see ourselves grow more comfortable with prayer. We will begin to desire to open the Bible simply to gain advice on how to live. We will carve time out of our schedule to be in God’s presence. Not because someone told us these are the things we are supposed to do…but because we want to do them! There should be something dynamic happening in our hearts regardless of the work that is done otherwise. One comes before the other.  God has to work in you before God can work through you. From the overflow of our relationship with God comes the ministry to our community.

The Way, Pt. 1

I like Jesus…so I thought I’d blog about him for a bit…

I want to talk for a while about what Jesus said in John 14 – that he is “the way.” Whatever that means. Sometimes when we are familiar with a passage of scripture we assume that we know what it means. But I’d like for us to try and unpack this verse and see if we can think about it in a way that we may have never done before – some way that can speak to us currently and practically.  What did Jesus mean? What does that mean for us? So, that’s what we’re gonna explore together for a few posts.

So, first off, let’s do a little word study. The word “way” means more than just a particular direction. It means a natural path that is obvious to everyone. Have you ever seen a sidewalk that made right angles or took the “long” way around to get to a destination? What do people do? They make their own path…and as people wear down that spot in the grass (ignoring the “do not walk on the grass” signs) a path shows up. And then others take that path too because anyone with a lick of sense knows that’s the shortest route to their destination, right? Occasionally, you may see a person who likes to follow the rules stay on the sidewalk. But really, they are the exception, aren’t they? It’s like that Staples advertisement: we’re gonna punch the “easy button” if we can, right? We want an easy way to understand or navigate our lives. We are willing to follow directions…but more often we follow people. People we know and have relationships with. We follow crowds. We follow the leader. Once a leader has cut a new path, people are willing to follow.

And that leads me to the first point: Jesus is the way to understanding God. He cut a new path to understanding. You see, people in the Bible were having problems with this. Kind of like we do today. In fact, up until Jesus, the entire biblical story was the story of people struggling to understand who God was and the proper way to relate to him. In the books of Joshua and Judges, some related to him through military conquest. In the books of Samuel and Kings, some related to him through a king or ruler. In the book of Leviticus, people related to him through a sacrificial ritual. And all the while, you have the prophets screaming at the people that they are missing the heart of God. Here are some passages where God is pleading through the voice of the prophets. Listen to the frustration in their words:

Isaiah 29:13

And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.

Hosea 6:6

I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.

Hosea 10:13

But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. You have depended on your own strength and the strength of your chariots and on your many warriors. 

Jeremiah 25:3-4

For twenty-three years, the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. And though the LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention.

So, what’s going on here? If the prophets sounds a little ticked off, it’s because they are! Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke sums up the Bible to this point nicely: “My friends what we have here is failure to communicate.” People were taking what they assumed God wanted them to do and turning it into something else. And that’s why Jesus is the “way.” He’s the final commentary on how God deals with us and how he expects us to live life in his name. Jesus shattered all the preconceived ideas of what God should look like and act like. He flipped the funnel. He said things like: “I’ve come to serve and give my life as a ransom for many.” He gave us a radically different description of power: “If you want to be first, be the servant of everyone you know.” Jesus is our way of understanding God.

More later…

The Heretic Next Door

Back in the first centuries of the Christian movement, a priest from Africa named Arius stirred up some trouble. Though Arius spent the majority of his days as a religious upstart at Alexandria, he was trained at Antioch. That’s an important bit of info. There were two main “schools” of thought in Christianity then: Antioch and Alexandria. Alexandria was known for interpreting the Bible in an allegorical fashion. Much of the Alexandrian writings are first year church history for seminary students. Antiochan giants like Theodoret of Cyrus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Diodore of Tarsus held to a strict literal interpretation of biblical passages. These are really important theologians who receive very little attention nowadays.

Arius began devoting his sermons to investigating the question: “Was Jesus really God or was he just a human?”Arius had trouble believing God and Jesus existed together prior to the incarnation. This really isn’t that surprising. Antiochian theology focused on the “humanness” of Jesus – it was only a slight misstep that would lead Arius toward a form of adoptionism. So, for roughly the next three centuries, Alexandrian-heavy councils dragged Arius and company through the mud in their writings using nasty words like “heretic.” And for most Christians, that’s all we know about him. Was Arius wrong? Sure. Jesus is God. But there’s more to the story.

People rarely ask why Arius struggled with the divinity of Jesus. His reasoning is not much different from many struggling Christians today. Most of us were taught growing up that God the Father was a sovereign despot concerned with protecting his image of magisterial omnipotence. Liberal Protestant preacher Lyman Abbot put it this way: God is a “kind of awful omnipotent police justice” and each of us is a “scared culprit who knows he is liable to punishment but does not clearly know why.”  And that keeps many Christians in line. Afraid of God…but in line.

There’s only one problem. Jesus looks very different than that…and in John 14, Jesus had the gall to say he was just like the Father. And that’s what bugged Arius so long ago. He had been taught that God was unfeeling (impassible) and Jesus seemed so different. And because God did not seem to possess the qualities associated with Jesus, Arius assumed they weren’t the same at all. He was protecting the Father’s impassibility over against the “human” suffering in Jesus. If God did not feel our pain, how could he become one of us? Arius’ answer was simple: he didn’t. Arius’ responded when asked if Jesus and God are the same: “No! I would never insult the majesty of God that way!” This thought pattern also affects how many view the cross today: good Jesus protecting us from bad God.

There’s a good lesson here. People’s actions make it in the textbook. But their intentions rarely do. And what’s important to note here is that a struggling priest was attempting to think outside the box when reconciling his ministerial training with what he actually read in the Bible. He’d been taught that God was a “police justice” and wasn’t sure what to do with the compassionate Jesus he read about in the gospels. No one else had a good answer either so he courageously took a stab at it and was branded a heretic for the ages. But really, he was just a man attempting to understand God a little better. Maybe we shouldn’t call him the heretic for the ages. How about the heretic next door?

We should be careful when reading our history books. While it’s important to oppose false doctrine, we need to be careful not to disdain the struggles, fears, and mistakes of people in the process. Arius was doing the best he could. May we have grace to do the same.

All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, Part 2

More about power…

People are looking for a revolution or a cause or a chance to make their mark on the community or maybe even the world. The problem is we assume that the world is changed by our own might or invention or strength. It’s not. It’s changed by giving our lives away. There’s this really great passage in Isaiah 55 that really sums up this idea. The first half of the chapter, the prophet speaks of God’s ability to call the nations to himself and describes his power to establish his reign on the earth.

Then around verse seven, there’s a slight turn. The prophet says that God will have mercy on those who really only deserve judgment. And his justification for granting mercy? Verses 8-9 say: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Do you see what he’s saying there? We wrestle people to the ground for our own agendas. We retaliate against those who betray and use us. We use our power in the way that seems most fitting to us. Jesus did the opposite. He didn’t do what comes so naturally to us – that’s what makes him God.  Jesus didn’t display power over others. He displayed power under others – the power of service, sacrifice, and love. You see, God is not in the business of overpowering you. His greatest hope and desire is to empower you without guilt or shame or manipulation to become the living bride of Christ. Jesus’ entire life was given to that purpose.

In John 12, we see the Pharisees declare Jesus’ growing influence. We see crowds cheering as he enters that city. We see people from other nations seeking out his healing power and wise teaching. If there was ever a time to capitalize on his influence, this was it! Any good publicist could see this coming from a mile away! Yet, just a few chapters over, we find the Son of God bleeding out on a cross while the multitudes who were chanting his name earlier are nowhere to be found. His thoughts were not their thoughts. His way of displaying power was not our way of displaying power. His message of peace sabotaged his follower’s desire for political influence and spiritual power.

Jesus actually knew what to do with the power he had – he laid it down.