Jesus | religion sucketh

Bono, On Christmas

December 24, 2011 — 0 Comments

This quote is becoming a Christmas tradition for me, but it so perfectly summarizes what Christmas means to me that I’m posting it again. Forget, for a moment, your opinions of Bono, good and bad. Forget, for a moment, the ways we’ve changed and even perverted the Christmas story. If you call yourself a Christian, read this quote and tell me it doesn’t resonate with you, because if it doesn’t, I’d be worried.

The idea that God, if there is a force of Logic and Love in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in shit and straw… a child… I just thought, “Wow!” Just the poetry… Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came streaming down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this.

This weekend will be busy for many, between family and friends, parties and presents. Make sure to take some time to remember the real reason for our celebration. The day and season aren’t important – God incarnate, living a substitutionary life and dying a substitutionary death – that’s what is really important, and should be celebrated daily, not just once a year.

In Jesus

Only God Can Judge Me?

December 21, 2011 — 0 Comments

As I was driving to work today, I was listening to Matt Chandler, from The Village Church, and he said something that got me thinking:

Our culture loves the law, and justice, and judgment; we love it! How many television shows are built around detectives, or courtrooms, or lawyers? All of the ones that aren’t about doctors. We so love judges and justice, that we literally have shows that are about judges.

Matt Chandler is right. Ever since the dawn of television, there have been shows about law, justice and judgment. From Dragnet to Adam-12 and Law & Order to CSI. Beginning in the 1980′s, shows like The People’s Court took things even further, by bringing the home audience into the courtroom, and that continued on into the twentieth century with shows like Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown. And while those courtroom shows are likely fictional, if you want to see the real thing, just turn to CNN or Fox News and watch the latest media circus……er, trial. We are obsessed with justice and judgment – and yes, the two go hand in hand. Which is why it’s ironic that our culture preaches “Only God can judge you.”

Really?

I get that it’s in reference to moral judgments, but what’s disturbing is when people claim “Only God can judge me” is found in the Bible. And they’re fully prepared to point to Matthew 7:1 to back up their claim; but when we read the verses immediately following, we see Christ is not telling us to not judge, he is telling us to not judge hypocritically. As he says in verse 7: “…take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” We see judgment more clearly in verse 8, where Christ tells us: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” How are we supposed to know who the dogs and pigs are without proper judgment and discernment? And that’s the key word: PROPER. If we were honest with ourselves and each other, we all judge. Even those who have “Only God can judge me” tattooed on their body judge people on a daily basis. The guy who cut you off in traffic, the person weaving all over the road because they were playing on their phone, the barista at Starbucks who was a little short with you this morning…… what did you think to yourself about them? What did you say to others about them? Did you pray God would bless them? Did you say a little prayer for them? Every time I see a woman walk into my store, wearing stockings for pants and letting it all hang out up top, my first thought isn’t “Oh, what a lovely young woman!” I’m sorry – it just isn’t. The same goes for every rude person I’ve encountered in my life. I’m not thinking, “What a great sense of humor”, or “They’re such a great conversationalist”; I’m usually thinking “What an asshole.” Yet I’m sure I’ve called someone an asshole, when they were just having a bad day. I’m sure I’ve been an asshole to complete strangers, and for no reason, other than fate deemed that they be in my path that day.

The point is, we want judgment, and, I would argue, need judgment. Our obsession with it only shows our craving for it. The problem is too many of us judge unrighteously. When we start to take into account our own failed, sinful, broken lives, we might find righteous judgment.

In Culture, Jesus, Life

Jesus + Nothing = Everything

November 21, 2011 — 0 Comments

Lately I’ve been trying to catch up on podcasts, so I was listening to The Village Church podcast and instead of Matt Chandler, I got Tullian Tchividjian. I already subscribe to Tchividjian’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian podcast, but he always has great messages, and seeing as how this one was titled after his new book, I figured I’d give it a listen.

All I can say is WOW! He packed more into that hour than many preachers do in a year! There were so many quotes I wanted to share, but I don’t want to be that guy who posts something to Twitter or Facebook every 30 seconds. So, here’s a few snippets from the sermon:

The gospel is not simply the ABC’s of Christianity, but it’s the A-to-Z of Christianity. – Tim Keller, as quoted by Tullian Tchividjian

The gospel isn’t simply the power of God to save us, it’s the power of God to change us once we’re saved.

The gospel is not a command to do anything at all; it is announcement that Christ has already done it.

Christ not only died a substitutionary death, but He lived a substitutionary life. He fulfilled the law. That’s what He said He was coming to do. “I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.” He came to fulfill the law. We were the law breakers; He was the law keeper. If we don’t understand that Christ came, not simply to die in our place, but to live in our place, if we don’t understand that He came to fulfill the law in His life, then at His death there is no righteousness to impute. The righteousness that is imputed, that glorious exchange that takes place on the cross, the early church father Athanasius referred to it as a glorious exchange where Christ exchanged our sin for His righteousness. That was a righteousness that He fulfilled, that He deposited into our bankrupt bank account. The gospel is the story where Jesus is the hero. It’s all about Him, what He has done. It has nothing to do with us at all, nothing. There is nothing whatsoever about the gospel that encourages us to focus on ourselves, nothing. In fact, there is a tremendous amount of Christian narcissism, Christians who are absolutely fixated and obsessed with how they’re doing. It’s called spiritualized naval gazing. We become remarkable obsessed with how we’re doing. Are we doing okay? Are we doing everything right? It’s unbelievable. And we do it under the guise of pursuing holiness and practicing godliness and sanctification. But the fact of the matter is we are remarkably obsessed with ourselves and our performance. And the gospel is the good news that our relationship to God has nothing to do with our performance. It has everything to do with Christ’s performance for us.

I think most Protestants believe that our righteousness is as filthy rags, that our good works don’t earn God’s favor and there’s nothing we can do to get ourselves into heaven. My struggle isn’t believing that my good behavior can earn God’s favor. My daily struggle is believing that my good behavior can keep God’s favor.

Because it’s not about getting better. If you could do it, Jesus becomes unnecessary and irrelevant.

My mother once said something that has stuck with me to this day. We were talking about proverbs that are often attributed to the Bible, but are nowhere to be found in the Bible, and I brought up the old saying, “God helps those who help themselves.” To which she responded, “God doesn’t help those who help themselves. If we could help ourselves, we wouldn’t need God’s help. God helps those who can’t help themselves.”

This all makes me ask, if it really were about getting “better”, why then, when nearing death, did the apostle Paul claim to be the foremost (most prominent) of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15?

To listen to the whole sermon (just under one hour in length) or to read the transcript, click here.

To purchase Tullian Tchividjian’s new book, Jesus + Nothing = Everything, click here.

In Church, Jesus, Religion

You Can Be Christian And……

October 5, 2011 — 1 Comment

be a Democrat.
be a Republican.
be Catholic.
be Protestant.
be pentecostal.
be cessasionist.
be old.
be young.
live in a urban jungle.
live in the sticks.
drink.
smoke.
cuss.
be naive.
be gullible.
have a high I.Q.
be ignorant.
be well-informed.
be rich.
be poor.
be a metalhead.
be a hick.
have atheist friends.
have agnostic friends.
have Muslim friends.
believe in a young earth.
believe in a billion-year-old earth.
believe our differences divide us.
believe our differences unite us.

No matter how good your theology is, because you are human, your theology will always be flawed.

In Jesus, Life, Religion

God Bless America?

September 6, 2011 — 0 Comments

I’m kind of shooting from the hip on this one, so forgive me if I ramble or have any grammatical/spelling errors. This past Sunday I linked to a post from Matthew Paul Turner titled This is what’s wrong with American Christianity. For those who haven’t read MPT’s post, it was written in reaction to a trailer for a new sermon series at First Baptist Dallas – Twilight’s Last Gleaming, where First Baptist Dallas asks, “Are we witnessing America’s last days?” As MPT points out, while First Baptist Dallas claims this is a new series, it really isn’t. This is something that has characterized many American evangelical churches for decades. Pick a crisis (in this case, it’s the economy) and place the blame on liberal politics and whatever sins of the nation seem to be trending. Coincidentally, I also linked to a post from Brett McCracken over at Relevant listing 6 areas in which Christians disagree. And wouldn’t you know it – some of the same causes of America’s downfall are on that list.

So while I was digesting those two posts, something dawned on me.

We like to say “God bless America”. In sermons, prayers, songs, poetry… you name it. Go to a Hallmark store around Independence Day and see how many greeting cards use the phrase “God bless America”; you’ll eventually lose count. Some Christians even believe that America has replaced Israel as God’s chosen nation. And many Christians look at our nation and say things like, “I wish things would go back to the way they used to be”, thinking that if we could somehow turn back the clock and return to being the God-fearing Christian nation that they knew, or their parents or grandparents knew, then God would bless America once again.

But the fact is God did not bless America because of our service to Him; God blessed America IN SPITE OF OUR SINS AGAINST HIM. Genocide, slavery, racism and prejudice, just to name a few. And these aren’t merely the sins of our past, some are very much a part of our present. Human trafficking has been reported in all 50 states and an estimated 14,000 people are trafficked into America each year and forced into slave labor and prostitution. Racism – that’s an obvious one. It’s been nearly 10 years since 9/11, yet I still meet people who think every person of Arab descent is a closet terrorist. The same goes for prejudice – look at the way in which many people still treat homosexuals. And before I get any comments about “approving sin”, there is a huge difference between acceptance and approval. But far too often, we Christians think that by accepting and loving someone for who they are, we are somehow condoning their lifestyle, and so we decide that in order to truly love them, we need to tell them they’re going to Hell and then distance ourselves from them. That isn’t love – that is hate, plain and simple. Maybe, as Christians, instead of focusing on how America is “going to Hell in a hand basket”, we should focus on Jesus. After all, He did command us to love our neighbors (Matthew 22:39), as well as our enemies (Matthew 5:44), and in 1 John 4:20 John tells us that we cannot love God and also hate a brother at the same time. Maybe if we took their words to heart, things would change in America.

Just sayin’.

In Jesus, Religion

Belief

August 24, 2011 — 0 Comments

I was listening to Matt Chandler’s message Gospel Clarity while driving home from work yesterday, and he touched on a subject that I’ve been wrestling with for awhile now.

What does it really mean to “believe”?

Romans 10:9 says that is we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved, yet, James 2:19 says even the demons believe in God, but we wouldn’t consider demons to be believers, in the Christian sense. So what did Paul mean when he told the Romans that “if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead”?

This is something that I’ve been mulling over for months now, and Matt Chandler summed it up much more succinctly than I can:

Belief is more than intellectual assent. Belief is more than, “Here are the facts.” Belief is, “I’ve been transformed by this reality.” If you have no transformation, it should bring about you questioning your salvation. I’m not saying you get up at 4:30 in the morning by the waking of the Holy Spirit and read Jonathan Edwards for three hours before you memorize the book of Galatians. That’s not what I’m saying. But I’ll ask some legitimate questions. Is there a yearning in you to know God, to serve God, to walk with Him, to submit to Him and to make much of Him? Now we stumble about as we do this. But is that yearning there? Is that longing there? Is that desire there? Because I’m just going to lovingly tell you that if it’s not there, then something is broken. And maybe that’s a hardness of heart that occurred long ago when God said, “Go left,” and you went, “You know what? I’m not going left. I’m going right.” Maybe you were wounded deeply by someone who bore the name of Christ. Maybe you were part of a church that was unbelievably unhealthy. There are other reasons where that flame of yearning for you could have gone down to just a little spark, but Hebrews clearly says, “Let us worry if we have not entered into His rest.” So do you love Him? Do you want to worship Him? Do you want to follow Him? Do you want so serve Him? As strongly as I can put it to you, if you don’t, I would question and doubt your salvation for the good of your eternal soul.

For the full recording of Gospel Clarity (only 30 minutes long), click here.
For a full transcript of Gospel Clarity, click here.

In Jesus

A Morning Prayer

August 19, 2011 — 0 Comments

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
Exalted for you or brought low for you.

Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine, and I am thine.

So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer, as it appears in From the Library of A.W. Tozer: Selections From Writers Who Influenced His Spiritual Journey, compiled by James Stuart Bell.

In Jesus, Life

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die

July 17, 2011 — 0 Comments

Yet another in a long line of “I went to Heaven, met Jesus and came back” books. I wonder if the last name of the authors is any indication of the book’s content?

In Church, Dreams, Jesus

It’s All About Jesus

June 16, 2011 — 0 Comments

“The Bible is not fundamentally about us. It’s fundamentally about Jesus. The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to consistently and constantly show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome.”

- Tim Keller

In Jesus

One Christian’s Thoughts on Gay Marriage

May 27, 2011 — 3 Comments

I should probably share a little personal history before diving into this post. Most of you know I was raised in church. Some of my earliest memories are of church services. From a very early age, I was taught that homosexuality is a sin, but that we love the sinner and hate the sin.

But I didn’t see a whole lot of that love in action.

Sure, we would profess with our lips that we loved sinners, but, I didn’t really see too many sinners. I’ve lived my whole life in the South, where “everyone’s a Christian”, and those who are different get cast aside, or cast out entirely. I look back and wonder, how would we have reacted if a gay man or lesbian had walked into church, sat through a service and left unchanged?

Would we have invited them back, or would we have made up an excuse and moved on?

This is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind for a few years now. As Christians, we believe that, because of Adam, everyone is born into sin. Some even go so far as to say that each of us is predisposed, from birth, to a specific sin, which would explain how, from a young age, some people struggle constantly with lust, and yet they have no issues with anger, while others don’t have any problems with lust, but as far back as they can remember, they’ve always had a temper.

But when is the last time you heard a Christian say they struggle with same-sex attraction?

Probably not often, and for good reason – I’ve read a few stories from Christians who confessed to struggling with same-sex attraction being berated, forced from their churches and one, who was the worship pastor at his church, was fired on the spot. Not because he had committed a sin, but because he struggled with lust. I wonder if his lusts had been heterosexual, would he still have his job? Not to mention that having a predisposition to sin negates the “homosexuality is a choice” argument.

And there’s more out there. A lot more – but they’re scared to share their struggles with others for the very reasons listed above. Yet James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, so that we may be healed. In this scripture, the word “healed” isn’t just in reference to a physical ailment – it’s also talking about spiritual ailments, i.e. SIN. What James is saying is, even though we are now on this journey with Christ, we’re not perfect – we’re still sinners. The trick is to have someone to go to when you’re struggling, to confess to when you’ve sinned and to ask us the hard questions, the questions that make us uncomfortable, but that keep us accountable. Otherwise, one sin will turn into another, then another and another, until it’s a lifestyle.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I believe you can be a Christian and gay, as long as you are pursuing a relationship with Jesus and not acting on your lusts. It took me a long time to come to that realization, because for years all I heard was it’s either straight or not, and if it’s “not”, then you’re living in a sin that you chose, because you were not born that way. Never mind the fact that you may not actually be doing anything sinful – the fact that you aren’t attracted to the opposite sex is bad enough. Or at least that’s how it was presented to me. But what is the difference between a heterosexual pursuing a relationship with Christ and remaining sexually pure, and a homosexual pursuing a relationship with Christ and remaining sexually pure?

All that being said, I believe the Bible is very clear when it talks about homosexuality. Not same-sex lust or struggles, but actually living a homosexual lifestyle. Romans 1:25-27 says that because we have exchanged the truth for a lie and worshiped and served the creation and not the creator, God has given us up to homosexual acts and relationships, which the scripture refers to as “dishonorable passions”. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 that those who practice homosexuality (among other sins) will not inherit the kingdom of God. So, according to the Bible, the practice of homosexuality is a sin.

This brings me to the title of this post. Over the last decade, there has been much debate concerning gay marriage. Some are for, others are against. Some are against gay marriage, but for civil unions. Others are for or against both, and some even want to amend the constitution (national and/or state) to more clearly define the boundaries of marriage. When it comes to gay marriage and civil unions, I’m not going to tell you how to vote or what to believe – that’s between you and God. But John Piper recently wrote an excellent blog post concerning this debate, and while I don’t agree with him 100%, one thing that stood out to me is this statement:

Humans don’t create or define marriage. God does.

If the Bible is true, a homosexual couple getting married does not put them in right-standing with God any more than a unmarried heterosexual couple claiming they are “married in God’s eyes” makes everything OK with God. If both couples are sexually active, according to the Bible, they are both sinning, because they are both acting outside the Biblical boundaries of marriage.

So, as far as I’m concerned, I am no longer against gay marriage. I am also not in support of it either. I’m just indifferent, because, either way, it doesn’t change what the Bible says about marriage and homosexuality.

***Note from Author***

I realized after re-reading my post this afternoon that I left something out.

While I don’t condone gay marriage (or homosexuality), I don’t believe legislation is the answer. To use abortion as an example, pro-life activists have spent millions, if not billions, in attempts to use the law to decrease, and eventually end, abortion. However, thousands of abortions still occur daily. And while abortions have slowly began to decrease recently, it’s likely due to improvements in technologies such as ultrasound, not the result of legislation.

My point is, while my faith plays a large role in how I vote (as it should for every Christian), I don’t believe legislating morality is the answer. Amending the constitution to prevent gay marriage won’t stop gays from being gay.

For those interested in going further with this topic, Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Dallas, TX held an excellent Q&A on the subject of homosexuality as part of their Culture and Theology series last year, which can be viewed by clicking this link. The video lasts a little over 37 minutes.

In Church, Culture, Jesus, Life, Religion