Category Archives: Christian Living

Pixelated – Taking a Closer Look at Our Lives

Posted on February 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

I have a graphic design friend who is a genius at his job. Watching him work photoshop is like watching a master pianist quickly playing his keyboard to create something beautiful. Out of sheer inspiration after seeing him work his magic, I decided that I need to learn to do what he does. Unfortunately, as with most things, it is harder than it looks.

I have come to understand some of the basics of using programs like photoshop – working in layers, and using the different tools – yet it is usually the picture I am trying to create or manipulate that gives me the most problems.

In the digital age, colors are no longer blended together like mixing paint. Instead, everything you see on your computer screen is made up of extremely small squares called pixels that are each made to look a certain color, and as your eyes see the transitions from pixel to pixel, it appears that the colors are blended together to create the beautiful graphic you are looking at…

That is, unless you are looking at a graphic that I designed. Then, although it may be difficult to figure out exactly why, there usually seems to be something that is wrong.

My problem in using photoshop is that I cannot get the pixels to blend or run together to create the specific shapes that I am needing to make. Now, you can look at some of my little creations and they look ok, but then some, there is just something off-putting about them. It isn’t that they look bad, or that you can’t tell what it is supposed to be at all, it is just that at the pixel level, something is going wrong.

I think our lives are very similar to digital artwork.

When we look at our lives, it can be like we are seeing the picture on a computer screen. When asked how our life is going, we tend to say that things are going well or that their not, talking about the whole picture.

We also tend to break down our lives’ “whole picture” into different categories such as work, family, school, hobbies, friends, etc. These categories, then, would be like the colors that blend together to make our life what it is.

Now, this breakdown of our lives is usually as far as most of us go. Especially in casual conversation. We may get the whole life question, “How are things going?” But then at other times, we get the smaller color-specific questions, “How’s the family,” or “How’s work going?”

If that’s as deep as we look, though, then what about those times in our lives when everything is going good, yet something still seems to be completely be out of sorts and we can’t quite put our finger on the problem? Work is great, home life is great, and we have some free time to pursue our hobbies, yet for some reason, and we just can’t figure out why, there seems to be something wrong somewhere. These are the times that many of us tend to shut down and stress out. I think the problem lies in that most of us are not trained to do the pixel work in our lives.

You don’t have to look to the pixel level of the picture to see the separation of colors. Pixels are what you have to look at when you must begin to blend those colors together. This is the area where your family life and business life must overlap. This is where we can say things are going well at work, and things are good at home, but there is something in that transition that just isn’t right.

Before I stretch out the analogy too far, let me state my point as simply as I can.

As Americans we tend to look at our lives either as one big general picture, or categorically as the array of colors, but to take a digital pallet of colors and form them into a masterpiece, you can’t ignore the pixel level. The shades of colors must match up and blend together smoothly.

What if your life, no matter how good things seem to be going in each area of it, doesn’t match up? Let me give an example: Let’s say your home life is that of a solid Christian family that serves their local church, is involved in community service and wants to be a force for good in the world. Your work life, on the other hand, is that of a shrewd businessman who uses underhanded business tactics to build your business and keep customers. Although both of those things may be working great for you within their own realm, whenever you try to keep those things lined up with one another, you can’t blend the pixels together to make it work. They don’t match up.

So what do we do?

I think the place to start is to sit down and look at your God-given purpose and calling in every area of your life. If God is the Lord over your life, then He will work things to make you the person He wants you to be in each category of life and the whole picture will be beautiful and glorifying to Him.

If, however, you decide to determine your own life purpose and direction, then each area of your life will become very self-serving and ultimately disjointed. You may end up with a complete picture, but it will be obvious that something is wrong.

Where to start?

Try this. Sit down for an hour or two and make a list of every category of your life and then spend some time in prayer asking God what type of person He wants you to be and how He wants you to lead and serve in that area.

As He begins to give you that direction, if you will walk in obedience as His Spirit leads you, I promise that the pixels of your life will start to smooth themselves out. In following Him, your life will become the beautiful picture it was intended to be.

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Have you had a chance to check out the new website for Heart of God International? Here it is. Let us know what you think. 

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An Open Letter to Sasha Laxton

Posted on January 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

If you have not yet read any of the recent news articles about Sasha Laxton, the child whose parents are raising him as “gender-neutral,” you can do so here.

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Dear Sasha,

I know that you are too young to understand what I want to tell you right now. I also know that you will probably never read this letter, but still my hope is that one day this beautiful truth will find it’s way to you one way or another.

What you may already know is that your parents are kind of crazy. Not crazy because they are trying to raise you as a gender-neutral kid, but crazy because all parents are crazy to one degree or another. Also, though, they are crazy over you. Everything they are doing as parents is because they love you and although they are misguided, deep down they really do want to do what is best for you. I hope you remember that when you get older. It’s a blessing that many children do not have.

However, what I want you to know is that no matter what your parent’s intentions are, there is no such thing as a gender neutral person. You see, having decided that equality between humans means that differences must be abolished, our society is going to great lengths to ignore reality. The truth is that you are a boy and we can’t ignore that. Physically, you have certain body parts unique to little boys, and you also have DNA and hormones that will one day grow you into a man emotionally as well. Sure, you can find doctors who can change a lot of those things, but to do so is to mutilate who you are meant to be.

I know that phrases like “meant to be” will be foreign to you at this point in life, and I’m sure you will hear the opposite of that plenty from people near you. Nevertheless, it is true. You do exist with a purpose, and being a boy is part of that.

See, the reality that people like your family want to ignore is that men and women were created equal, yet different, by a God who doesn’t make mistakes. The Bible says that God created humanity as male and female, and then stepped back and said that it was “very good.”

Later on in the Bible a great King named David sang this as part of a song to this God:

“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.”
(Psalm 139:13-16 ESV)

My favorite part of that song is when he says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” It was true of King David, and it is true of you, Sasha.

God made you to be who you are, and that includes the fact that you are a boy. That doesn’t mean that you cannot grow up to be sensitive, like things that our culture doesn’t consider masculine, or refuse to be a macho “alpha male.” What it does mean, though, is to deny what God has wonderfully created you to be is a slap in the face to a Heavenly Father who loves you infinitely more than your parents here on earth are able to.

He sees you in His perfect love, and wants you to grow up to be a mighty man of God, who follows in the example of His firstborn Son, Jesus Christ.

See, Jesus got a bad reputation, too, because although He was the epitome of what it means to be a man, He didn’t fit into the box of what His culture thought He should be. However, He didn’t bow to meet anyone’s expectations, either. Instead, He lived His life committed to following the path God laid out for Him, even though that path carried with it a lot of pain.

Sasha, I know your life will be confusing, and that you are going to have a lot to deal with one day as you begin making real life decisions about who you are, and who you want to be. Just know, that no matter what pressures you feel from outside, and no matter what it is your desires are going to lead you to become, God loves you, and wants you to follow Him. He has the best plan for your life if you are willing to follow Him.

If the life of Jesus-follower is the one you decide, I hope your parents will still be as open-minded about the decision you make. Maybe through your journey they could meet this Jesus, too. Know this, though, there are many of us out here who you will never meet, but we are praying for you all the same.

I hope you find your way to accept who you are, even in the face of those who want to deny it.

May God bless you and keep you,

Sincerely,

Scott Ingram

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Celebrating New Year’s for Eternity

Posted on December 26, 2011 | 1 Comment

Well, it is now the last week of 2011. It almost seems as though the year just began, and now it’s over.

Many of us at this time of year begin to do some introspection of ourselves and analyze our lives over the past 12 months. We ask what we did well, and what we could have done better. We enjoy recalling the happy times and still feel sadness over the losses.

Although January 1 is only another date on the calendar, for most of us it marks a new beginning; a new season of life. It’s a chance to start over. But then you give it a few months into the new year, and we all return to the words of King Solomon:

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
     vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
     at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
     but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
     and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
     and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
     and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
     but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
     there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
     a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
     nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
     and what has been done is what will be done,
     and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
     “See, this is new”?
It has been already
     in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
     nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
     among those who come after.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:2-11)

When we look at things from Solomon’s perspective, what we must realize is that we continually live between New Year’s celebrations. The farther behind us the last one gets, the closer we are to the next. And there is nothing that really changes on those days except the numbers on the calendar.

If we can be really honest with ourselves, if this is the totality of human existence — we live, and work, and watch the years come and go, until we finally die — then it really is all vanity. If this endless cycle is all we get, then we must purpose ourselves to take as much joy from our brief and meaningless existence as we can. “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32).

But for the Christian, our vision is much bigger than this. In Christ, our hope is set on the idea that there is something more than this life. We are eternal being created in the image of the eternal God. This thing that we find ourselves in now is only a small glimpse of the joys that we will experience when we move on and dwell with Him forever.

What that means then is that as Christians, we don’t despise the joys of the world as some have done, but we don’t look to worldly joys for our ultimate satisfaction either. Instead, we delight in God as we enjoy the good things He has made and allows us to experience here, year after year, and we look forward knowing that the days will only get better and better forever with God.

Yesterday morning on my way to church, I was listening to a song by Aaron Keyes that says, “You’ve only just begun to show your greatness and power. We’ve only just begun to see Your almighty hand,” and this thought came to me. Even a million years into our eternal existence with God, those lyrics will still be true. We will only have seen and experienced the beginning of the goodness of God. Even in eternity we will find that there are new aspects of God to delight in every day forever, and it will never get old.

That is why Christians have for centuries, now, declared in song that “when we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.” Every day of those 10,000 years will be filled with more and more reason to praise God. His goodness will overflow forever. We will never run out of time or reasons to delight in Him.

So bringing it all back down to earth, today: 2012 is about to enter the scene, pushing 2011 out for good. And in this new year as in the old, there will be reasons for celebration and reasons for sadness. So, just for now, before getting overwhelmed with grand ideas of how life will be different in the new year, can we just stop for a moment and recognize that no matter what has happened in the past or what the immediate future holds, that what our hearts are really longing for is to see and experience God’s goodness that will last for eternity.

If you haven’t taken the time to do so before, let me invite you one more time in 2011: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8) And then as we move into 2012, realize that the joy that comes truly is only just the beginning of what God has in store for you for eternity.

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Why Do Bad Things Happen to God’s People?

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

 

“Why do bad things happen to good people?” We hear that question a lot. It very well could be the oldest cliche in the English language.

As a Christian, we know the default answer: “There are no good people.” Right? I mean, Jesus Himself told the rich young ruler, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18).

So then, if there is no such thing as a good person, then the question is not legitimate.

But for the Christian – those who have put their faith in the work of the cross and have been adopted as God’s children – the question changes. We do know that we are “not good,” but that doesn’t change the fact that we are God’s possessions.

So for us, the question changes. “Why do bad things happen to God’s people?”

And here is where we come into one of the most confusing aspects of the Christian life.

Right now, I have multiple friends who are Christian and living lives submitted to Kingdom work, yet (although very different circumstances from one another) are dealing with major suffering in their lives. Realizing that in times of crisis people’s emotions are heavily involved, this question can’t just be answered appropriately unless we are first clear on the nature and character of God toward His sons and daughters.

If you are born again in Christ, you are not under the wrath and punishment of God.

God cannot pour His wrath out again on a sin committed by a Christian who’s sin has already been dealt with on the cross of Christ. If Christ took the wrath of God for you, then it would be unjust for God to pour out punishment for that same sin again. Injustice is against the nature and character of God.

The truth is that if you are a Christian, all of God’s desires for you are all out of love and intended for your growth toward maturity in Christ-likeness. In fact, is is because of what we know of God’s grace, through the sacrifice of Christ, that we can understand what God means in the Old Testament when He said things like, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:11-13).

God ONLY EVER seeks good for His people!

So then, back to the question at hand. “Why do bad things happen to God’s people.”

I suspect that the individual reasons for every bad thing that happens are as wide spread as the bad things themselves, yet I think the one thing that is certain in every one of them is this: God wants to use these things to draw you closer and closer to Himself.

The reality is that if God only ever gave you good things, and showered you with every blessing you wanted, you would lose a sense of love for Him and instead hold a sense of entitlement toward His stuff. That is what happens at the fall of man in Genesis 3, and what is repeated in human nature over and over again, as shown by the example in Romans 1:18-32. God will not stand to have spoiled children.

This is the difference between punishment (which Christ took for us) and discipline, which God promises to all that He loves to keep us from being spoiled brats.

 “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?:

‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,nor be weary when reproved by him.For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,and chastises every son whom he receives.’

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons”

(Hebrews 12:5-8).

What God wants more than anything else is for you to grow up into maturity as a child of God, and one that will run to Him when things go wrong or when you fail, rather than running away from Him. That is what this discipline is for. God is training us in righteousness as His children.

That thought, then, brings me to one of my favorite passages of scripture: Psalm 51:3-12

“For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

This passage demonstrates the epitome of Christian maturity: “God, I know that I am a sinner, I have always been a sinner, and my sin is directed against You. I also recognize that You are the only one that can clean me up, forgive me of my sin, and make me new again. God, no matter what that process looks like, don’t send me away. Don’t take your Spirit from me. Keep me close and give me strength to endure.”

That makes a great prayer, and one I wish I remembered to pray more often. However, in my little paraphrase, I did leave out one phrase from the scripture that none of us really want to acknowledge is there. Is is phrases like this that our eyes tend to pass right over because they make us uncomfortable.

“Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.”

What? In God cleaning us up and bringing us back to Him, bones get broken? That certainly isn’t the Christianity that most of us signed up for. And yet, in the context of the scriptures there is beauty in the pain that God will bring us. Broken bones CAN rejoice when they’re broken for a reason. Matt Chandler says it like this: “Sometimes God will crush your fingers to get your hands off of what will harm you. And that’s been true in every book of the Bible, in every year in the history of man.”

So why do bad things happen to God’s people? The answer is always to make us better at being God’s people. To put it very simply, when things go right most of us forget about God and don’t pursue Him, but as soon as things go badly, we pray more, we read the Bible more, and we run to Him more looking for hope. So God delights in sending us blessing but He also sends the bad things to draw us in. Or to use the words of J.I. Packer, “And still (God) seeks the fellowship of His people and will send them both joy and sorrow to detach their hands from the things of this world and attach them to Himself’.”

Christian, no matter what you are going through today, I pray that you will be encouraged. God is not out to get you. Quite the opposite. God is for you, and is working things out for your good (Romans 8:28).

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Love God and Do As You Please

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 4 Comments

“Love God and do as you please.”

I think that is a great statement.

Don’t agree? Well, don’t label me a heretic just yet.

That is actually a quote from St. Augustine of Hippo, or rather a modern version of a quote from Him.

Augustine’s exact quote within it’s surrounding context is this: “Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.”

And to offer the modern translation of that last phrase in the paragraph, I have seen it translated this way: “Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.”

Now, let me reiterate. I think that a great statement?

The reason I bring this up is that it goes hand in hand with my post from last week when I said, “…we as Christians no longer live our lives according to a list of commands — “do this and don’t do that.” We no longer submit ourselves to a rigid pattern of what is right and wrong or good and bad. Instead, as Christians we live our lives according to one standard: will doing this thing or not doing this thing draw me closer or push us farther from God?”

I know that when we as Christians begin talking about Paul’s statement that all things are lawful to u, it becomes really easy for us to slip into the category of belief where the grace of Christ becomes a license to sin. However, the Paul that says all things are lawful to us, is the same Paul that says we are not to continue to sin so grace can abound (Romans 6:1). Then we also have James saying that when a person knows the right thing to do, but doesn’t do it, to him it is sin (James 4:17).

I still don’t think this changes what I said last week, or what Augustine is saying in the above quote, but rather determines how in the love of God, we are to interpret and put into practice the freedom we have to do all things as we please.

So back to Augustine’s quote: What he is saying is that if you are living your life with a mind continually set on loving God, then nothing else you can do following that will be sin. To put it another way, if our primary objective is to love and please God, then no other thing we determine to do secondarily will offend or grieve God.

I think this is why the Bible tells us to “delight ourselves in the Lord and He will give us all the desires of our heart” (Psalm 37:4). It is because when we delight in Him, our desires will naturally be pleasing to Him.

This is why Paul goes into and extended explanation in Romans 14 to say that if you have faith to eat meat offered to idols, eat it, but if you don’t have that much faith, it would be sinful to eat it. We are accountable to our level of faith and the effects on our conscience and the conscience of those around us at the time.

Although I’m hesitant to use it because I don’t want this to become a post on the debate over alcohol use, I think that this is a fair, modern equivalent of this passage. If you have faith enough, while loving God and others to drink alcohol (like most Presbyterians), then there is no sin in doing so. However, if you do not have the faith that grants your conscience freedom to drink alcohol (like most Baptists), then it would be a sin for you to do so. Neither side, though, is wrong. The problem comes in when one side declares theirs the absolute way for all Christians, and pushed their level of faith onto others.

Now, let me get pretty confrontational here to both sides of the use of Christian freedom.

To the people who are going to run with what I say here and act like you are incapable of wrongdoing due to the freedom we have in Christ, remember that Paul tells us not to use our liberty as an opportunity for the flesh (Galatians 5:13). There are some things that you need to abstain from no matter how much you desire to do it, because at least for you, giving into those desires may never happen in faith and out of love for God. There will always be something you must abstain from because it will damage your love for Christ. And hear me clearly, those things may well be things other people can do without any problem.

If there is nothing in your life that you feel the need to abstain from for the sake  of your relationship with Christ, then chances are, you don’t have a relationship with Him in the first place.

On the flip side, to those who are proclaimers of absolute rules that in their version of Christianity, everyone must keep. You are just as wrong. And oftentimes, you are sinning by your efforts to return a liberated brother to religious bondage under your own subjective set of rules. It is an affront to the grace of Jesus Christ who for freedom’s sake has set us free (Galatians 5:1).

The truth is, if you are a person who requires absolute adherence for all Christians to your own selective list of right and wrong, I fear that you really do not understand the gospel which offers liberty to the captives. And to be honest, while there is a biblical command on others to not offend a brother with their freedoms, I also must agree with Martin Luther when he condemns those who oppress their brothers with legalistic bondage and says:

“There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of liberty and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of the liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins….Use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and the stubborn so that they also may learn that they are impious, that their laws and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up.”

Luther was not commanding the use of Christian freedom to offend the conscience of a brother, but rather insisting that we regularly offend the false piety and legalistic religion of those who have seen the offer of free grace, yet continue back to a life of “grace by works.”

I think if I return to the alcohol example, I can explain this better. Alcohol use, in scripture, is clearly something that should be done with maturity so as not to become enslaved to it’s effects, but never is it outright forbidden. The Gospel, then, delivers both, the alcoholic, and the “grace-by-abstinence” preacher to a place where they can enjoy God’s creation.

It delivers the alcoholic from their bondage to the drink, and for that former abuser, it is probably a good idea, at least for an extended period of life, to abstain from all use of alcohol in and effort to grow in their sanctification and love for Christ. That is this person loving Christ first and their lifestyle following.

On the other hand, though, the Gospel also frees up people in bondage to religious rules to have a glass of wine and lighten up (Ps. 104:15). You can enjoy alcohol without becoming a slave to it, because Christ is your first love, and everything else is flowing from that.

Again, I’m not debating alcohol here. The fact is, there is a good and righteous way to use everything on the planet, and then there is a sinful and rebellious way to do so. This is why we have the simple commandment given to us that whatever it is we decide to do, do it to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). If you can glorify God and do whatever it is by faith, do it. If you can’t do it to His glory, then don’t. But whatever you do, don’t turn this thing in either wrong direction, whether it is freedom for everyone to do whatever they want, or to a new lifestyle of selective rule keeping based on your own conscience and lack of faith. Instead, preach freedom to those who can walk in freedom, and maturity to those who cannot.

When all is said and done, God created the world and everything in it and then stepped back, looked at it, and said that it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). For the Christian, then, who has been restored to the love for God intended in the Garden of Eden, this world and everything in it was created for us to enjoy and to honor God with. When we can learn to do that, we will truly know what freedom is and how Christ intends us to live.

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Identity Crisis

Posted on December 5, 2011 | 2 Comments

“Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.”

I’m sure you’ve heard that old adage before. What people mean when they quote it is that the only hope for the Christian is not in religious actions or pious discipline, but only in our relationship with the Savior, Jesus Christ. This is because after the fall of man into sin, even our best actions are not good enough to save us. Sin is the human identity. In fact, in this state, even our most righteous actions are so disgusting to God that in the original language of the bible they are compared to both menstrual cloths and fecal matter (Isaiah 63:6 and Philippians 3:8 respectively, although the English translators make an effort to use less offensive language).

That means that the Christian (or any other religious person) who is trying to clean himself up in order to be acceptable to God, is working towards a completely unattainable goal. If your righteous acts are as disgusting to God as the things we humans flush down the toilet are to us, what makes us think that God is sitting in heaven hoping we’ll make more of those things to “offer” to Him? Do you want to find those under your tree on Christmas morning, and if they are there, do you think you’ll accept that the person who gave them to you did so out of love? I wouldn’t.

God is not up in Heaven telling us “be more righteous.” Instead the Holy Spirit is continually trying to get us to the point of realization the we do not have the ability on our own to be righteous at all. Our only hope is to accept the fact that Jesus already paid the penalty for our sinful deeds (both the morally bad and morally good ones), and then by faith to clothe ourselves in His righteousness, freely offered to us by grace.

I struggle with this.

I hold on to a religious attitude toward Christianity way too often.

I stress out over my lack of ability to measure up to the “standard” of what a Christian “should” be. I look at myself and know that I am not good enough. And the fact is, no matter how much harder I try, I can’t seem to fix myself.

The problem is that when I hold on to this religious approach to the Christian life, it KILLS my relationship with Christ. Instead of running to Him as one loved despite my failures, I try to run away from Him as one who thinks that God could never love me like this.

I try, fail, and end up hiding from God. That is what religion gets me.

That is completely backwards from the truth of scripture.

Scripture first tells us that once we receive salvation from Christ, our identity is changed.

The bible tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8) meaning that our identity is not changed by works. Or as 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, “…you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us… righteousness and sanctification and redemption…”

If you are in Christ, then terms like ‘sinner’ and ‘unrighteous’ no longer apply to you. That is no longer your identity. This is why later in 1 Corinthians 6, after identifying types of sinners like idolators, adulterers, thieves, greedy people, drunks, and more, Paul goes on to say, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Did you catch that? That is who we WERE in the past. NOW we are WASHED (that is, cleaned up), SANCTIFIED (meaning set apart for God), and JUSTIFIED (or NOT GUILTY), by God’s Spirit in the name of Christ.

That means that we are already righteous, we are just waiting on our lives to catch up. Even that fact, though, does not throw us into a legalistic, religious pursuit of holiness. Instead, it leads us into a lifelong pursuit of Christ. In fact, another truth we find in scripture is that the only way we are going to get our lives “fixed” is by spending time with Christ, and it is while observing Him that we are “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Paul even seems to imply that Christians are no longer capable of committing sins when he  says, “ ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). This is because we as Christians no longer live our lives according to a list of commands — “do this and don’t do that.” We no longer submit ourselves to a rigid pattern of what is right and wrong or good and bad.

Instead, as Christians we live our lives according to one standard: will doing this thing or not doing this thing draw me closer or push us farther from God? Will it help us “run with endurance the race that is set before us,” and keep our eyes fixed on “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2)?

I believe this is exactly what Paul is saying in Galatians when he tells us, “…the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal. 2:20),” and ”it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith. (Gal.3:11)”

So not only is our salvation by faith alone, but our sanctification is by faith alone as well.

I am very burdened by the fact that too many Christian leaders, even many that I personally know and respect, miss this point. They fall back into a life of seeking sanctification under the law, and leading others back into this slavery. “Don’t watch that movie.” “Don’t go to that place.” “Don’t hang out with those people.” “Don’t drink.” “Don’t cuss.” “Don’t listen to that music.” And then at the end of the day, when these people have kept their list of rules, they get puffed up in self-righteousness, offer up their used tampax to the Lord, and still don’t understand their identity in the Lord.

So, Christian, just for clarification sake and to put an end to this identity crisis, let me simply allow scripture to tell you who you are in the Lord no matter how big of a failure (or how big of a success) you think you are right now:

  • You are God’s child — John 1:12
  • You are a friend of Jesus — John 15:15
  • You are justified — Romans 5:1
  • You’ve been united with the Lord and are one with him in Spirit — 1 Corinthians 6:17
  • You’ve been purchased by Christ…you belong to God — 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
  • You’re a member of Christ’s body — 1 Corinthians 12:27
  • You’ve been chosen by God and adopted as his child — Ephesians 1:3-8
  • You’ve been redeemed and forgiven of all your sins — Colossians 1:13-14
  • You are complete in Christ — Colossians 2:9-10
  • You have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus — Hebrews 4:14-16
  • You are free from condemnation — Romans 8:1-2
  • You cannot be separated from the love of God — Romans 8:28
  • You are free from any condemning charges against you — Romans 8:31-34
  • You’ve been established, anointed and sealed — 2 Corinthians 1:21-22
  • You were washed…you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God — 1 Cor 6:11
  • You are hidden with Christ in God — Colossians 3:1-4
  • God started this work in you, and he will bring it to completion — Phil 1:6
  • You are a citizen of heaven — Philippians 3:20
  • You haven’t been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind — 2 Timothy 1:7
  • You are born of God, and the evil one cannot touch you — 1 John 5:18
  • You are a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His life — John 15:5
  • You have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit — John 15:16
  • You are God’s temple — 1 Corinthians 3:16
  • You are a minister of reconciliation — 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
  • You are seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm — Ephesians 2:6
  • You are God’s workmanship — Ephesians 2:10
  • You can approach God with freedom and confidence – not because of your obedience…but because of Jesus’ obedience — Ephesians 3:12
  • And finally, when you are faithless, he will remain faithful…because he cannot disown himself — 2 Timothy 2:13

(This list of scriptures is borrowed and adapted from UnearthedPictures.org)

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Did you know that in January I will be moving to Haiti for about 6 months to assist the leadership of Heart of God – Haiti‘s, Victory Center Orphanage. Unfortunately my current level of fundraising for this trip is not quite adequate. Would you consider making a charitable contribution or perhaps a small monthly donation to my ministry to help me serve these wonderful people? A gift of any amount will be greatly appreciated and all gifts are tax-deductible.

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Confession and Community

Posted on November 28, 2011 | 4 Comments

Last week I preached for Missions Emphasis Month at my church (you can listen to that sermon here). What I want to share this week is something that the Holy Spirit began convicting me about while I was preparing that sermon, to the point that I had to take action. It wasn’t the sermon message that really got to me, but rather a couple of sentences during the invitation at the end. What I said was this.

“There is NO shame in confessing your struggles with sin to God and finding help within the church community, but there is GREAT shame in refusing to deal with your sin and acting like everything is ok.”

Even as I write down that statement now, a sense of conviction is still stirring in me because I am a great example of someone who finds it too easy to do the latter.

Now, while I am not willing to confess my sins on the internet for the world to read, let me share with you the details of what God pressed on me and then how I think we as Christians have to change our response to our own sin.

Any leader in a church or a Christian ministry can testify with me that there tends to be an unspoken (and unreasonable) expectation that a person in Christian leadership is supposed to have their spiritual lives completely in order, and having attained a superior Christian walk for themselves, only then can they lead others.

Now, while the Bible clearly expects and even commands a level of maturity for anyone in Christian leadership, perfection is always unattainable this side of heaven. Even so, that doesn’t halt that expectation from being there.

I will admit that this expectation of people following the leader, to some extent, does push the leader on to strive for a deeper maturity, but if I was honest, this expectation also does quite a bit of harm as well.

Harm in the fact that during those times when temptation will not go away and the struggle with pressing sin is an in-your-face reality, it becomes really easy for any Christian, but especially Christian leaders to hide their battle from others, vowing to handle it themselves, so as not to throw questions over the ministry.

The problem with this is that where the bible clearly commands us to confess our sin and with the help of the Christian community to put that sin to death (James 5:16), we tend to refuse to confess our sin and attempt to manage it instead. We think that if I have control of my sin, never letting it get out of hand, and for sure never letting it leak into public view, then I am doing alright. In reality, though, that’s like keeping a rattlesnake in your briefcase, trying to feed it only enough so that it doesn’t bite you and making excuses for that rattling sound coming from under your desk. IT’S CRAZY.

If I can be honest with you for a moment, whether I  know you personally or not I know one thing a for certain about you based on what scriptures tell me: YOU’RE NOT OKAY. No one is. We are all struggling to overcome something. We are all in the middle of an identity crisis, trying to figure out who we are in Christ. We are all sinners. Not one person reading this is ok.

Now that that is out on the table, can I encourage you to accept your not-okayness and learn from the mistakes of others. Specifically, think of all of the major sinful failures we have seen in recent years from men and women who were supposed to be great leaders in Christianity before they were found out, crashed, and burned. Their testimony is always the same. “I have struggled with this for years, but I thought I had it under control.”

I said that the conviction I got from this required action. What that meant is that last Sunday before church, I went into my pastor’s (and one of my best friend’s) office and told him exactly where I have been struggling, and confessed that I had been trying to manage my sin rather than kill it. He counseled and encouraged me, and then prayed over me, and then we both acknowledged that it is a good thing that we can be open like that with one another.

As believers we are called to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), but the only way that is possible is when we will admit to each other that we are carrying burdens in the first place, rather than putting up a front and acting like we’re OK.

One piece of advice I have given multiple people recently is that if you are really going to be an overcomer in Christ, you need to find a brother or sister in Christ who you can be completely honest with about your heart. Someone who will give you biblical advice, who will pray for you and will walk with you hand in hand until you’re out of your negative situation. That is the biblical community we are supposed to be walking in.

I am honored by the men of God in my life who I can be honest with about my struggles. It has been the most helpful and freeing thing I have found in my own sanctification. You must find someone like that for yourself, too.

My point is, you can’t control a rattlesnake, and you can’t manage your sin. The only way to make sure you don’t get bit by either one is to kill it and then get as far away from the still-poisonous corpse as possible.

So, I will end the same way I began.

“There is NO shame in confessing your struggles with sin to God and finding help within the church community, but there is GREAT shame in refusing to deal with your sin and acting like everything is ok.”

So will you do what God has called you to do. Will you lay your sins and struggles at the cross of Jesus, repent openly, and lean on your Christian brothers and sisters for the strength to not pick those things back up again.

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Thanksgiving?!? Humph…

Posted on November 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

Well, it’s Thanksgiving Week, but I am already having a rough time of it. Take today for instance. Things started out ok this morning, but then I got out of bed. It was already an hour later than I wanted to be up, but it’s hard to complain about an extra hour of sleep when you don’t really have to be up.

Next, I went to get a haircut. I told the barber exactly what I wanted, showed her a picture, we talked it over, then she just did something else and it ended up way too short and not at all what I wanted.

Still pretty frustrated, I went and took a shower then called a married couple from church to see if they wanted to grab lunch, hoping it’d cheer me up some. Nope. She had stayed home sick and he was taking her food on lunch break. So alone, I headed to Chick-fil-a just planning to grab food and get to work at church. Fortunately I found some friends already there, and ate with them.

Next, I went to Best Buy with my Pastor to try and find a converter to hook up some A/V cables from a computer to a T.V., but we were informed that they didn’t have what we need, and the worker was skeptical that they even make them…

So you can understand why I’m thinking, “THANKSGIVING? Yeah right. Life keeps coming at me to fast to be thankful…”

But wait. Life IS happening. I guess that is something to be thankful for. At least I’m not dead or dying today…

And I do go to a church that has A/V capabilities at all. That is way more than a lot of churches have and it’s really just a luxury for our ministry more than a necessity anyway. I guess that’s something to be thankful for too…

And I have enough friends that I can just run into some of them at a restaurant. I’m sure some people always have to eat alone…

And I can afford to go to a barber, pull out my iPhone to show a picture, talk about hairstyles and hair products and actually give into a little vanity about my hair which isn’t a luxury a lot of people have…

And I slept in a real bed, in a comfortable house, and even got to sleep in…

So I guess the reality is that my being grumpy today isn’t necessary at all, but is completely by choice. I have plenty of things in my life that should drive me to have a thankful heart.

The problem is that I get too busy looking for my joy in these things rather than finding it in God for the blessings He has given me.This is why when those things don’t do what I want them to, instead of joy, I turn to bitterness.

If I really found my joy in God alone, then no matter what the day looks like, I still have reason to thank Him for grace. So it isn’t that I need an attitude adjustment. It is simply that I need to adjust my focus off of stuff and onto the God who gave me the stuff in the first place.

I’m not saying that as I write this, realizing that this is my issue, that it is going to automatically make my day go better, but for sure it is a calling for me to try and approach things with a more biblical perspective and attempt to keep a thankful spirit when things don’t go my way.

I think is is what Paul meant when he quoted to the Corinthians that, “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” and then told them, “so, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.(1 Corinthians 10:26,31)” On God is where our focus should be and what we find in Him should be the determiner of our attitude towards life. That attitude, then, will always be thanksgiving.

“Lord, as we enter this season of Thanksgiving as a culture, enable us to remember that You are the giver of life and of all things good. Give us a right perspective to honor you with all the gratitude and worship for every gift you have given to us. Amen.”

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

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Righteous and Pursuing Righteousness

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

I know this blog is a day late, and to be honest, it isn’t the blog I intended on posting this week either, but after a good Gospel-centered discussion I had with my pastor and a few others from my church today, it is where my mind has been. I know that this is something that I continually need reminded of in my Christian walk, and since it is at the forefront of my thoughts, I figured this is what I’d post instead.

I simply want to ask you two questions about your life and how you view yourself in Christ and hopefully push you on in your sanctification efforts.

QUESTION 1: ARE YOU GETTING BETTER?

The first thing that I want you to look at your life and ask is, in view of what Christ has done in your life, are you getting better? By that I mean that for most Christians we can look back five or ten years and see the person we used to be, and then look at ourselves now and realize that by God’s grace, we aren’t that person anymore. We have been made more like Christ as time went on.

So what about today? Are you living a life that is pursuing Christ in such a way as to continue moving forward? Or have you stagnated? Do you see a need for more sanctification? Or do you think that this is as good as it’s gonna get?

I hope your answers lean towards knowing change still needs to happen and that you are continuing to purse Christ for that change. But the reality is, looking back at who we were and realizing the great work God has already done in us, sometimes that alone can seem so miraculous that getting any better seems incomprehensible. In fact, if you are like me, most major sins aren’t an issue any more, yet the sins we do struggle with seem so ingrained in who we are, that we either think it impossible to overcome or not worth the fight at all. And yet, the fight to put our sin to death  is still supposed to be the ongoing pursuit in our move toward Christ-likeness.

This is why Martin Luther said that the life of the Christian is one of continual repentance. That means that just when we think the filthiness of our hearts is beginning to get clean, God will move us deeper in Him and reveal a whole new level of sinfulness within us, and we return to square one and begin again putting that sin to death.

On the other hand, though, if we are continually being shown our sinfulness and can’t ever be perfect this side of eternity, then why try at all. Why not wait until we get to the other side and God cleans us up completely? This leads to the second question.

QUESTION 2: DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE ALREADY HOLY AND BLAMELESS IN CHRIST?

If we are daily in the trenches, battling to put our sin to death, for many of us it becomes a difficult thing to see ourselves as already holy and blameless in the eyes of God. Sure, we know that at death, when we stand before Him, there is a transformation that will have taken place in our passing, and we will be completely restored in the image of Christ. But the Bible, contrary to how we may feel, really does teach that we are already in perfect standing with God, even before our flesh is all cleaned up. That is the reality of what Christ did on the cross when He took our sin into Himself and imparted His righteousness to us.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he (that is God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” And then Colossians 1:21-22 tells us, “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him…”

To be honest, I think it is the need to biblically answer the second question, seeing ourselves as “holy and blameless” in Christ that enables our continual battle with our sinfulness in response to the first question. This is why Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we have been created anew in Christ and that in Him we are both called to good works and have the ability to walk in them.

So where are you at today? Do you see yourself as righteous now because of the work of Jesus Christ in the past? You should. And are you getting better? I hope so. If not, then my prayer is that today will be the day you pick up the battle again and pursue Christ for some needed change.

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The Lord Was With Joseph

Posted on November 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

Yesterday I had the privileged of speaking to my friend’s youth Sunday School class, and I spoke on the story of Joseph and the fact that at every stage of Joseph’s life (Genesis 37-50), no matter how bad it seemed like things got for him, it is clearly stated that God was with Joseph or that Joseph is following as God led him. But the more I thought about the story of Joseph throughout the day, I began to see an even deeper storyline in Joseph and his interaction with God that I feel worth pointing out.

Now, before I go into the details, I am assuming you know the life story of Joseph. For sake of clarification, I am specifically talking about the son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, and great-grandson of Abraham in the Old Testament. If you are not familiar with his story, it begins in Genesis 37:2 and goes through the end of that book. It is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, and would be worth your time to read before reading the rest of this post.

To keep it brief, here is what God has shown me. While, as I have already stated, God’s presence is represented clearly to the reader at every stage in Joseph’s life, that reality and his reaction to God’s presence is shaped and strengthened continually throughout the story as well.

Here are the highlights:

  • Genesis 37:1-11 — Joseph has dreams that, although he recognizes them to be prophetic in nature, he never says that they are from God. The reader understands this as part of the story, but Joseph doesn’t say if he knows this or not. At best, he knows it but is more concerned with what the dreams mean for his status in his family and society and less about the fact that God is at work.
  • Genesis 37:12-36 — Joseph’s brothers, angered by his arrogance, throw him  in a pit, conspire to kill him, and then sell him into slavery instead.
  • Genesis 39:1-20 — Joseph is placed in the service of Potiphar. “The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man. (vs.2)” At some level, we have to believe that although slavery was not what Joseph imagined would be involved in the fulfillment of his dreams, he does recognize God as his authority and someone to be obeyed because when Potiphar’s wife makes advances on him, he flees saying, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? (vs.9)” This ultimately leads to his imprisonment.
  • Genesis 39:20-40:23 — Joseph lives in prison for a few years, but “the Lord was with Joseph…and the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge… (39:21-22)” One day as he finds that a couple of prisoners are down due to troubling dreams, Joseph offers to give them the answers to the dreams’ mysteries, saying, “Do not interpretations belong to God? (40:8)” Although up to this point the reader, and possibly even Joseph has understood that it is God’ working in Joseph’s story, this is the first time Joseph directly recognizes and responds to God’s work and giving Him all the credit. Where the dreams seemed to puff Joseph up, now he knows that if God gives him the answers here, it should be God, not himself, who gets the recognition.
  • Genesis 41-50 — The Pharaoh of Egypt has a troubling dream and Joseph is brought out of prison to interpret the dream. Joseph again gives God the credit for the interpretation, but also goes on to give what we have to assume is a God-provided answer to how Pharaoh should deal with it. Pharaoh responds by saying to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” And for the first time, God is no longer recognized as an outside influence on what would happen in Joseph’s life or the one leading Joseph’s actions. It is now clear that it is the Holy Spirit Himself working directly through Joseph. This recognition ends up fulfilling the prophetic dreams from Genesis 37, and many people are saved from death by famine because of it.

So what’s the takeaway?

The biggest reason this stuck out to me is that all Christians fall somewhere on this same pattern of recognizing God’s work in their lives.

For most new believers, their faith becomes something that is directly linked to themselves and their destiny – often a simple matter of not going to hell. They don’t seem to care much what else God may have in store.

As believers begin to grow and begin the discipleship process, God’s working and leading in their lives become evident, and they begin to serve others, although their own status and well-being tend to be major factors in how much they respond and how much credit God is given.

By the time believers reach a mature level, God breaks through most of their self-serving attitudes and actions, making it clear that it is His Spirit at work in the life of this person and ends up impacting the lives and eternal destinies of many people through it.

The problem I see though is that too often Christians don’t pay attention to what God is doing at all – never looking for Him to move or giving Him credit when good things come – and they blind themselves to how God is revealing Himself in their life. This blindness stunts the growth of the believer, and they never move on to become a mature follower of Christ.

So the question is, where are you on this timeline right now? How do you see God moving and leading in your life? And how are you responding to His direction? Are you following, seeking to grow; or are you looking the other way and stunting your spiritual growth by default?

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