My roommates recently told me about this preacher. He’s on television. His church is massive. His books become bestsellers, I guess. I’ve never read them. Like I said, I just heard about this guy. The roomies said he was on Larry King Live so I watched a few clips on YouTube. The guy didn’t want to offend anyone (any potential readers, maybe?) so he wouldn’t say whether or not anyone would go to Hell. His whole message is thick with positivity. He insisted that he believed in Jesus. Jesus, and some good deeds. When asked if Jews or Muslims would go to Heaven without believing in Jesus, he said, “It’s not my place to judge”. He said that other faiths “love God” and are very sincere, so he didn’t want to impose his beliefs on them.
A lady from Minneapolis introduced me to the term “Easy Gospel Church”. This kind of church is the feel-good, non-confrontational, theatrical sort of place. Lots of people come, but many of them don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus. I wonder if the preachers don’t want to offend anyone by saying a judgmental thing like “Jesus alone brings salvation to mankind.”
What do you say we talk about the gospel today? Let’s start with John 3:16, a well-known verse thanks to people with poster board signs at stadium events. But instead of leaving it with the one verse, I’m going to tack on verses 17 and 18. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
The word judgment, in a religious sense, gets a bad rap. We’re told not to be judgmental. Don’t judge lest ye be judged, and all that. If you take John 3:16-18, judgment is given objectively. Jesus is asking, “Do you trust me or not?” God didn’t do this to bring condemnation, but offer the choice. He allows people to accept or reject Him and then people are objectively held to their choice. In one sense, that is easy, and it does appeal to seekers. Circle “yes” or “no”, right?
A woman once told me, “I can’t believe in a God that would send people to hell.” I replied, “Think about it like this. God wanted to spend the rest of eternity with a person. Jesus was kind of like the marriage proposal. If the person accepted the proposal, then he and God would begin to develop an ongoing relationship. But if that person rejects the proposal, God honors that person’s wishes and remains separate from him. And separation from God is Hell.”
That’s the true “easiness” of the gospel. It’s not about a good feeling or the show, or even the eternal security. It’s about putting your trust in Jesus and developing a relationship with God through that trust. But that decision is crucial, and if we don’t present the gospel as such, then what are we doing?
Let’s go back to the mega-preacher. I wrote a post several weeks ago about people who preach the message of Jesus for selfish reasons. I’ll ask the question again. Wouldn’t it be great if that preacher heard his own gospel message and came to really know Jesus as the only Son of God? Instead of image and sales and a feel-good ministry, what if he used his gift of influence to spread the truth?
It’s needed more now than ever. There is a highly debated statistic that predicts 4% of teenagers will be Bible-believing Christians by the time they reach adulthood. Those numbers may or may not be accurate, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that Christianity is dwindling among young Americans. I have to wonder, has the feel-good ministry approach worked? Have the stadium signs brought droves of people to Jesus? Are the safe answers and non-confrontational messages enough? Or are kids starting to see that something doesn’t line up? But what if we developed that deep relationship with God through Jesus, then lived it, and then told people about it?
If that makes you nervous, don’t sweat it. God’s the one proposing to them, you’re just His messenger. Or maybe you’re like the glass of champagne with the ring inside of you. If the person rejects the proposal, you haven’t imposed judgment on them for it. Judgment, like the wedding ring, was theirs to accept or deny.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
God's Backup Guy
Even though I’ve known how to hear God’s voice for over a decade, I didn’t listen regularly until about five years ago. Dad and I had begun work on our book, Stark Raving Obedience, and I wanted to immerse myself in listening prayer. It was practice, research. I’m not sure if I knew how screwy a life of obedience could appear both to me and others. Every once in a while, God would ask me to go somewhere. Sometimes He’d send me to a park or a café, usually a public place. When I would arrive, I’d sit for a while, looking around to see why God wanted me there. Pastors and teachers had often talked about “divine appointments”, where God put people in place to do His work. I would ask, “What’s going on? Am I meeting someone here? Is there a baby about to fall out of its high chair? A fire I have to put out?” And all I would ever hear in reply was, “Wait.” After a while, He’d say, “Okay, you can go.”
You can imagine how this frustrated me. I mean, I guess I wasn’t very busy. I’d been kicked out of college, left my job, been dumped, and so on. I wanted answers from God. He should have guided me back into a stable life, given me peace and comfort, or something. So those times where I felt like God told me to take up space made me a little angry. Then, for a while, we moved on to the peace and comfort part. He brought people into my life who helped me through those hard years. He stopped asking me to “go here and there” to sit. I assumed my lesson was to obey even when it didn’t seem to have a purpose.
About a year ago, He told me to walk to a library. I sat in the main room and waited. Nothing. “Stop playing games, God. I thought we were past this already.” Then He said, “It’s time to go.” After this little episode, I had a conversation with my friend Bob. He told me about God sending him to divine appointments. Sometimes, he would sit in one place until God pointed out the person who needed to talk to him. Other times, God would show him other people He had sent to take care of the situation. If that person didn’t follow through in obedience, Bob would have to step in and do the job instead. I said, “So you’re saying that sometimes God needs a backup guy?”
At that moment, God reminded me of all those times He put me in a place and said, “Wait.” In those days when I needed answers and comfort, God wanted people to speak to me. Sometimes they didn’t obey. Others did obey, and they were the ones who prayed with me and encouraged my trust in God during difficult times. And then later, at the Library, after my trust in Him had strengthened, He needed me to help a person in case someone else didn’t obey. I was God’s backup guy.
It took some time adjusting to the idea that God has a bullpen, people in place and ready in case the starting pitcher leaves early in the game. But then again, it also gave me comfort. There are times when God asks me to call someone or pray for a person or give money to a guy, and for some reason I don’t obey. When I realized that I failed to obey God, I’d feel searing condemnation. It never occurred to me that God’s will for mankind would rest on more than my obedience. He’s got backup. Even if I totally miss my opportunity to further the work of His kingdom, I haven’t ruined His plans. And what about those times when I did obey and nothing seemed to happen? Maybe it was a matter of corporate obedience, like a secret team effort where a few people had to obey at precise times. Does God refuse to bless me because some other people didn’t listen to Him? No, it just means He has to call in other people who will take orders.
One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament takes place outside of a city called Kadesh-barnea. God wanted to give the land to His people after their time of wandering. In preparation for battle, Moses sent twelve spies into the city as reconnaissance. When the spies returned in Numbers 13 and 14, Caleb and Joshua said, “let’s go! The land is amazing, and God has promised it to us.” The other ten spies kept talking about giants and fortresses and convinced the Israelites to back off. God told the people that they wouldn’t enter the land and forced them to wander forty more years. Of that entire generation, only two were allowed to live in the Promised Land: Joshua and Caleb. And they lived out their years receiving God’s full blessing. The disobedience of others didn’t ruin God’s plan for their lives. He brought in another generation to take the Promised Land with them.
In Judges 4, several decades after the time of Joshua and Caleb, Canaanites had taken control of the Promised Land. A prophet named Deborah tells a man named Barak to gather an army and fight their oppressors. Barak says, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Because he wouldn’t step into the authority God had given him and deferred to her, Deborah tells Barak, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera (the Canaanite general) into the hands of a woman.” The Israelites are victorious in battle, but Sisera flees into a politically friendly area. A woman there takes him into her tent and gives him something to drink. When Sisera falls asleep, she drives a tent peg through his skull. Sometimes backup comes from unexpected places.
All of this makes me wonder if Jesus wanted God to find a backup guy for the cross. Maybe that’s why He prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” It was a part of Jesus’s humanity that He should desire to live. When He understood that no other person on earth could bring salvation to mankind, His willingness to obey under duress was the first part of His sacrifice.
I want to be the guy who obeys. I want to see the blessing God has promised to those who obey Him. But if I miss my opportunity, I know that God is bigger than my failures. This also means that I have to find patience in those times when His commands don’t make any sense. Who knows? I just might be God’s backup guy.
You can imagine how this frustrated me. I mean, I guess I wasn’t very busy. I’d been kicked out of college, left my job, been dumped, and so on. I wanted answers from God. He should have guided me back into a stable life, given me peace and comfort, or something. So those times where I felt like God told me to take up space made me a little angry. Then, for a while, we moved on to the peace and comfort part. He brought people into my life who helped me through those hard years. He stopped asking me to “go here and there” to sit. I assumed my lesson was to obey even when it didn’t seem to have a purpose.
About a year ago, He told me to walk to a library. I sat in the main room and waited. Nothing. “Stop playing games, God. I thought we were past this already.” Then He said, “It’s time to go.” After this little episode, I had a conversation with my friend Bob. He told me about God sending him to divine appointments. Sometimes, he would sit in one place until God pointed out the person who needed to talk to him. Other times, God would show him other people He had sent to take care of the situation. If that person didn’t follow through in obedience, Bob would have to step in and do the job instead. I said, “So you’re saying that sometimes God needs a backup guy?”
At that moment, God reminded me of all those times He put me in a place and said, “Wait.” In those days when I needed answers and comfort, God wanted people to speak to me. Sometimes they didn’t obey. Others did obey, and they were the ones who prayed with me and encouraged my trust in God during difficult times. And then later, at the Library, after my trust in Him had strengthened, He needed me to help a person in case someone else didn’t obey. I was God’s backup guy.
It took some time adjusting to the idea that God has a bullpen, people in place and ready in case the starting pitcher leaves early in the game. But then again, it also gave me comfort. There are times when God asks me to call someone or pray for a person or give money to a guy, and for some reason I don’t obey. When I realized that I failed to obey God, I’d feel searing condemnation. It never occurred to me that God’s will for mankind would rest on more than my obedience. He’s got backup. Even if I totally miss my opportunity to further the work of His kingdom, I haven’t ruined His plans. And what about those times when I did obey and nothing seemed to happen? Maybe it was a matter of corporate obedience, like a secret team effort where a few people had to obey at precise times. Does God refuse to bless me because some other people didn’t listen to Him? No, it just means He has to call in other people who will take orders.
One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament takes place outside of a city called Kadesh-barnea. God wanted to give the land to His people after their time of wandering. In preparation for battle, Moses sent twelve spies into the city as reconnaissance. When the spies returned in Numbers 13 and 14, Caleb and Joshua said, “let’s go! The land is amazing, and God has promised it to us.” The other ten spies kept talking about giants and fortresses and convinced the Israelites to back off. God told the people that they wouldn’t enter the land and forced them to wander forty more years. Of that entire generation, only two were allowed to live in the Promised Land: Joshua and Caleb. And they lived out their years receiving God’s full blessing. The disobedience of others didn’t ruin God’s plan for their lives. He brought in another generation to take the Promised Land with them.
In Judges 4, several decades after the time of Joshua and Caleb, Canaanites had taken control of the Promised Land. A prophet named Deborah tells a man named Barak to gather an army and fight their oppressors. Barak says, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Because he wouldn’t step into the authority God had given him and deferred to her, Deborah tells Barak, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera (the Canaanite general) into the hands of a woman.” The Israelites are victorious in battle, but Sisera flees into a politically friendly area. A woman there takes him into her tent and gives him something to drink. When Sisera falls asleep, she drives a tent peg through his skull. Sometimes backup comes from unexpected places.
All of this makes me wonder if Jesus wanted God to find a backup guy for the cross. Maybe that’s why He prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” It was a part of Jesus’s humanity that He should desire to live. When He understood that no other person on earth could bring salvation to mankind, His willingness to obey under duress was the first part of His sacrifice.
I want to be the guy who obeys. I want to see the blessing God has promised to those who obey Him. But if I miss my opportunity, I know that God is bigger than my failures. This also means that I have to find patience in those times when His commands don’t make any sense. Who knows? I just might be God’s backup guy.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Light Armor
In the first book of Samuel, we find the people of Israel in conflict with the Philistines. A giant man, a seriously large dude, named Goliath proposes a challenge during a face-off on the battlefield. “We’ll save the energy and people by avoiding a battle. Let’s just see if any of you can beat me in one-on-one combat. If you win, we’ll become your slaves. If I win, you’ll become our slaves.” Goliath’s got a reputation. Saul, Israel’s king, knows about this guy’s military history. Everyone remains silent while their hearts sink to their sandals. And then this scrappy shepherd boy named David gets pissed and accepts Goliath’s challenge. He even tosses a little defiance into his reply.
This story is so well known that it’s a part of the public lexicon. Every underdog movie is a “David and Goliath” story. A lot of focus is put on the small boy defeating a giant warrior. The little guy wins. My favorite part about this story is how David prepared himself for battle in 1 Samuel 17:38-40. “Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, ‘I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.’ And David took them off. He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.”
The armor should have suited him. I mean, the king gave David his own armor, the best armor. He should have been fit for a battle against a giant warlord. But David took it off and used the tools with which God had trained him as a shepherd. The armor was too heavy to be effective.
Another famous Bible passage is found in Ephesians 6:13-17. “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Portions of the text are in capital letters because they refer to Old Testament scripture. Paul, trained as a Pharisee, had learned scripture in the rabbinical style. Rabbis often used a technique in their teachings called “Remez”. This Hebrew word means that the rabbi mentioned one part of a scripture as a reference to the whole passage.
In Isaiah 59:17, God clothes Himself with the Breastplate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation. But why? The whole chapter of Isaiah 59 speaks of mankind’s separation from God. He saw that no one would intercede and stand up for justice or righteousness, so He came to bring salvation Himself. The feet prepared with the Gospel of Peace refers to Isaiah 52. In this prophecy, Israel has been released from slavery and oppression. God has restored Himself to His people. Isaiah says in verse seven, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” The Belt of Truth is derived from Isaiah 11:5, “Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist.” Bible scholars call this passage “The Peaceable Kingdom”. It’s a picture of the Messiah’s rule over the world.
So let’s look at these three passages, Paul’s three remez. First, God comes to bring salvation to the world. Then, people are sent out to proclaim God’s salvation. At the end, we have the hope of the Messiah’s kingdom. One could see the armor of God as an allegory of the Gospel. If this was Paul’s intention, then the armor takes on a meaning far different from how I had always perceived. Teachers focused on the different parts of the armor, detailing how each piece applies to our lives. If we didn’t have the whole armor on, then we were susceptible to the enemy’s attack. There was a time when I tried to “pray the armor on” every day. It took so much time, and even then I still felt spiritually attacked. But how about daily living in the knowledge and truth of the Gospel? When I began to look at the armor this way, it felt like I had taken off the heavy armor and picked up a slingshot. But that’s all it took to kill a giant.
Revelation 12:10-11 describes how this new, lighter armor defeats the enemy. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.’”
Armed with our trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus and with our stories of God’s work in our lives, we wield a different kind of power than what the world expects. The message of the cross is powerful enough to move hearts, face adversities, and advance the Kingdom of God. Clothed in light armor, we can face the giants in our lives and proclaim, “Look at what God has done!”
This story is so well known that it’s a part of the public lexicon. Every underdog movie is a “David and Goliath” story. A lot of focus is put on the small boy defeating a giant warrior. The little guy wins. My favorite part about this story is how David prepared himself for battle in 1 Samuel 17:38-40. “Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, ‘I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.’ And David took them off. He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.”
The armor should have suited him. I mean, the king gave David his own armor, the best armor. He should have been fit for a battle against a giant warlord. But David took it off and used the tools with which God had trained him as a shepherd. The armor was too heavy to be effective.
Another famous Bible passage is found in Ephesians 6:13-17. “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Portions of the text are in capital letters because they refer to Old Testament scripture. Paul, trained as a Pharisee, had learned scripture in the rabbinical style. Rabbis often used a technique in their teachings called “Remez”. This Hebrew word means that the rabbi mentioned one part of a scripture as a reference to the whole passage.
In Isaiah 59:17, God clothes Himself with the Breastplate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation. But why? The whole chapter of Isaiah 59 speaks of mankind’s separation from God. He saw that no one would intercede and stand up for justice or righteousness, so He came to bring salvation Himself. The feet prepared with the Gospel of Peace refers to Isaiah 52. In this prophecy, Israel has been released from slavery and oppression. God has restored Himself to His people. Isaiah says in verse seven, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” The Belt of Truth is derived from Isaiah 11:5, “Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist.” Bible scholars call this passage “The Peaceable Kingdom”. It’s a picture of the Messiah’s rule over the world.
So let’s look at these three passages, Paul’s three remez. First, God comes to bring salvation to the world. Then, people are sent out to proclaim God’s salvation. At the end, we have the hope of the Messiah’s kingdom. One could see the armor of God as an allegory of the Gospel. If this was Paul’s intention, then the armor takes on a meaning far different from how I had always perceived. Teachers focused on the different parts of the armor, detailing how each piece applies to our lives. If we didn’t have the whole armor on, then we were susceptible to the enemy’s attack. There was a time when I tried to “pray the armor on” every day. It took so much time, and even then I still felt spiritually attacked. But how about daily living in the knowledge and truth of the Gospel? When I began to look at the armor this way, it felt like I had taken off the heavy armor and picked up a slingshot. But that’s all it took to kill a giant.
Revelation 12:10-11 describes how this new, lighter armor defeats the enemy. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.’”
Armed with our trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus and with our stories of God’s work in our lives, we wield a different kind of power than what the world expects. The message of the cross is powerful enough to move hearts, face adversities, and advance the Kingdom of God. Clothed in light armor, we can face the giants in our lives and proclaim, “Look at what God has done!”
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Vain Imaginations
Kids all over the world play make-believe, pretending that they know how to fight fires or shoot bad guys or discover buried treasure. I put myself into anything that I read in books or saw in movies. There were quests to complete, rare elixirs to obtain, princesses to rescue. It was cool until about halfway through elementary school. But for those of us who didn’t play football or street hockey very well, we had to continue this childhood hobby much further into our lives.
Then came adolescence. Many young men and women probably carried their day-dreams and fantasies seamlessly into the hellish experiences of puberty. For some, they might have considered it the only way to endure those awful days. In their heads they were attractive, or brave, or loved, or cool. They could smack the jukebox with their open palm and play the hit parade. They could get a room full of people to orbit around them like metal shavings and a magnetic pole.
I had come to believe that life in my head was as real as, well, reality. So when I started a band at the age of twelve, nothing sounded better than our version of Ramones and Toadies songs. It may have been barely listenable. But in my head, we were hot stuff. No question. We’d play the hippest parties and girls would finally like me. Which leads to another disparity between life in my head and life in the real world. When I met a pretty girl, I’d have figured out the rest of my life with her before I even knew her last name. But why was that important if we were going to get married anyway? Her last name would eventually be Kallman, right?
Right?
This used to happen all of the time. Now, I try to remind myself of all the times fantasy and reality didn’t resemble each other. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever have happy endings to stories, but it keeps my expectations in check. Besides, thinking about all the great stuff that could happen takes up so much time and brain activity that I could easily miss what I should have paid attention to at the present. Allowing my imagination to develop into expectation gives opportunity for disappointment.
My baby sister graduated from college a few weeks ago. The school invited her to give a speech at their final chapel meeting. She spoke of a day when she walked through some woods telling God all the reasons why she felt angry. When she came to the end of her list, she realized that she wasn’t angry at all. What she mistook for anger was really disappointment. She was disappointed that her life didn’t happen the way she thought it would. Now, my sister is happy. She has good friends and her wedding is scheduled this summer. But growing up was pretty hellish for her. It could have been easier. She probably didn’t imagine those fifteen awful years. At the end of her speech, though, she spoke of how God pointed out the ways He used those hardships to make her a spiritually mature woman.
If we know that God has sovereignty in every moment of our lives, then we can still trust Him when the times are tough, keeping our eyes open for how He will use the situation to glorify Himself. And when He moves in unexpected ways, we won’t necessarily have our expectations blinding us.
I love the Jewish people. Ever since I went to Israel in 2000 to help Ukrainian Jewish refugees, serving them helped me understand the roots of my own faith. I met a man there. He would have coffee with my family and I nearly every night. One day, my parents asked him how he could know so much about Jesus, and how Jesus kept the Torah, but still not accept Him as the Messiah. What was keeping him from believing? He said, “The dead were supposed to rise when the Messiah came.” Someone replied, “But some of the dead did rise and interact with many people in Jerusalem.” He said, “Yes, but not all of the dead.”
He told us that every righteous Jew was to have risen with Messiah when He came into Jerusalem. Almost like an army following him in procession. The Jews expected the Messiah to overthrow Rome and act as a political ruler in Israel. In fact, they expected a lot of other things from the Messiah. But Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, which had no borders or political structure as they knew. When Pilate interrogated Him, Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
The Jewish people didn’t see Jesus as Messiah, but as an apostate blasphemously claiming to be the Son of God because He didn’t show the signs they expected. In Matthew 12:38-40, “some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’” This last bit refers to His death and resurrection. The Jewish people got a sign, but one they didn’t anticipate or understand.
Pilate thought Jesus was a foolish man, delusional, but not dangerous. Paul echoes both the Jewish and Gentile reactions to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23. “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.”
I often wonder if these expectations, how we think God should act, sometimes gets in the way of our seeing how He does and will act. If I were in Jerusalem during Jesus’s ministry, would I have known that He was the Son of God? Or would I have stuck to how I imagined the Christ would come? Even now, when God moves, am I paying attention to what He’s doing at present, or am I waiting on something that only exists in my head? Is it possible that my expectations of God have become an idol that gets in the way of my relationship with God?
I’ve said it many times. I prefer a God who surprises me. Not all the surprises are new cars or mysterious checks that cover rent. If I’m trapped in my daydreams, trying to live my fantasies (religious or otherwise) out loud, I could miss some awesome moments in my relationship with God. I want my hopes and dreams to have their proper place instead of confusing it with reality. I want to be humble enough to admit that I don’t have God figured out. If I expect something to turn out bad in a situation, I want God to prove me wrong. If I expect something good, then I want Him to do something better.
Then came adolescence. Many young men and women probably carried their day-dreams and fantasies seamlessly into the hellish experiences of puberty. For some, they might have considered it the only way to endure those awful days. In their heads they were attractive, or brave, or loved, or cool. They could smack the jukebox with their open palm and play the hit parade. They could get a room full of people to orbit around them like metal shavings and a magnetic pole.
I had come to believe that life in my head was as real as, well, reality. So when I started a band at the age of twelve, nothing sounded better than our version of Ramones and Toadies songs. It may have been barely listenable. But in my head, we were hot stuff. No question. We’d play the hippest parties and girls would finally like me. Which leads to another disparity between life in my head and life in the real world. When I met a pretty girl, I’d have figured out the rest of my life with her before I even knew her last name. But why was that important if we were going to get married anyway? Her last name would eventually be Kallman, right?
Right?
This used to happen all of the time. Now, I try to remind myself of all the times fantasy and reality didn’t resemble each other. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever have happy endings to stories, but it keeps my expectations in check. Besides, thinking about all the great stuff that could happen takes up so much time and brain activity that I could easily miss what I should have paid attention to at the present. Allowing my imagination to develop into expectation gives opportunity for disappointment.
My baby sister graduated from college a few weeks ago. The school invited her to give a speech at their final chapel meeting. She spoke of a day when she walked through some woods telling God all the reasons why she felt angry. When she came to the end of her list, she realized that she wasn’t angry at all. What she mistook for anger was really disappointment. She was disappointed that her life didn’t happen the way she thought it would. Now, my sister is happy. She has good friends and her wedding is scheduled this summer. But growing up was pretty hellish for her. It could have been easier. She probably didn’t imagine those fifteen awful years. At the end of her speech, though, she spoke of how God pointed out the ways He used those hardships to make her a spiritually mature woman.
If we know that God has sovereignty in every moment of our lives, then we can still trust Him when the times are tough, keeping our eyes open for how He will use the situation to glorify Himself. And when He moves in unexpected ways, we won’t necessarily have our expectations blinding us.
I love the Jewish people. Ever since I went to Israel in 2000 to help Ukrainian Jewish refugees, serving them helped me understand the roots of my own faith. I met a man there. He would have coffee with my family and I nearly every night. One day, my parents asked him how he could know so much about Jesus, and how Jesus kept the Torah, but still not accept Him as the Messiah. What was keeping him from believing? He said, “The dead were supposed to rise when the Messiah came.” Someone replied, “But some of the dead did rise and interact with many people in Jerusalem.” He said, “Yes, but not all of the dead.”
He told us that every righteous Jew was to have risen with Messiah when He came into Jerusalem. Almost like an army following him in procession. The Jews expected the Messiah to overthrow Rome and act as a political ruler in Israel. In fact, they expected a lot of other things from the Messiah. But Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, which had no borders or political structure as they knew. When Pilate interrogated Him, Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
The Jewish people didn’t see Jesus as Messiah, but as an apostate blasphemously claiming to be the Son of God because He didn’t show the signs they expected. In Matthew 12:38-40, “some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’ But He answered and said to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’” This last bit refers to His death and resurrection. The Jewish people got a sign, but one they didn’t anticipate or understand.
Pilate thought Jesus was a foolish man, delusional, but not dangerous. Paul echoes both the Jewish and Gentile reactions to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23. “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.”
I often wonder if these expectations, how we think God should act, sometimes gets in the way of our seeing how He does and will act. If I were in Jerusalem during Jesus’s ministry, would I have known that He was the Son of God? Or would I have stuck to how I imagined the Christ would come? Even now, when God moves, am I paying attention to what He’s doing at present, or am I waiting on something that only exists in my head? Is it possible that my expectations of God have become an idol that gets in the way of my relationship with God?
I’ve said it many times. I prefer a God who surprises me. Not all the surprises are new cars or mysterious checks that cover rent. If I’m trapped in my daydreams, trying to live my fantasies (religious or otherwise) out loud, I could miss some awesome moments in my relationship with God. I want my hopes and dreams to have their proper place instead of confusing it with reality. I want to be humble enough to admit that I don’t have God figured out. If I expect something to turn out bad in a situation, I want God to prove me wrong. If I expect something good, then I want Him to do something better.
Monday, May 12, 2008
A Short Commercial.
The second edition of my book, Stark Raving Obedience, is now available.
In it, my father and I propose that God still speaks to people today on an individual basis. But how can you discern whether that's really God talking to you, or just your own head, or something else all together? And if God asks you to do something that seems crazy or stupid, would you be willing to obey?
You should be able to see the introduction and first chapter here. Those were my first few posts.
If you are interested in reading the whole book, you can buy directly from me for $15, or you can visit www.hearinggod.org and do that paypal business.
In it, my father and I propose that God still speaks to people today on an individual basis. But how can you discern whether that's really God talking to you, or just your own head, or something else all together? And if God asks you to do something that seems crazy or stupid, would you be willing to obey?
You should be able to see the introduction and first chapter here. Those were my first few posts.
If you are interested in reading the whole book, you can buy directly from me for $15, or you can visit www.hearinggod.org and do that paypal business.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Triumphant Chord – Thoughts on Motive and Grace.
(A guy named Adam left a comment on the tithing post, and I promised to give a response in the form of a post. Adam, I hope I’ve given a worthy answer.)
Over the course of time, I’ll use a lot of the same words to describe God. This can be credited to the fact that, while God is infinite, I am finite and unable to properly describe His complexity. Any Bible teacher will use pictures to portray the different facets of His character, including the writers in the Bible. God is our father, our Lord, our shepherd, our shield, our loving provider, etc. In some periods of our life, we ascribe one of these aspects of God to the situation and assume His attitude accordingly. In terms of sin, we imagine that God is our dad. We just broke a window playing ball in the backyard and He’s going to be pissed when He gets home. Then in terms of repentance, God is like our mom reassuring us that dad really isn’t that mad, that He forgives us. Then she gives us a popsicle and sends us back outside to play.
The fact is that we can’t always assume how God feels about a situation. For example, in Jeremiah 25:9, God calls Nebuchadnezzar “my servant”. This came as a shock, I’m sure, to the Judeans. They were God’s chosen people, but here He was calling a pagan imperialist his servant as if he were chosen instead. In Isaiah 44:48 and 45:1, God calls Cyrus, king of Persia, his “shepherd” and his “anointed”. Calling a goy (a non-Jewish peron) anointed, “messiah” in Hebrew, must have really spooked the Jewish people. It spooks some Christians, too, when they realize the connection. This isn’t to say that Cyrus was THE Messiah, but God chose him for a special purpose in the history of His people.
There you have two examples of people who didn’t serve God, and yet God used them. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, he devastated Jerusalem and killed a lot of people. When thinking about God as a loving parent, this looks confusing. When thinking about God as the Righteous Judge, it makes sense, but then He seems cruel.
Sometimes God is just God. In some circumstances, there are no sufficient comparisons that exist to explain Him. I love this part of God, the inexplicable God, because it means He’ll still surprise me. On a recent family road trip, my mother brought a pile of book-on-tape. For a majority of the drive, we listened to The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien. This extensive mythology begins, like other mythologies, with the story of creation. Creation is represented through a song. God comes up with a melody, a theme, and invites his angels to help build the song. Then one particularly prideful angel has creative differences and tries to make the song dissonant. Instead of letting this jerk ruin the song, God reinvents the theme so that the song resolves out of the dissonance. The magnificence of His resolution causes the whole of heaven to fall down in worship.
I could have wept at the lesson in this nerdy fantasy book. No matter how much evil tries to screw up the beauty of God’s creation and order, He’ll always turn it around and make it good. I often talk about the story in John 9:1-3. “As He (Jesus) passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” God didn’t strike this man with blindness as punishment, as the disciples thought. And they had a right to think this way, because their question came from laws in the Torah. But God is more than the Judge. He is also the Redeemer. Surprise! The song just resolved into a major key again.
Now when he writes in Phillipians about those teaching the gospel for selfish reasons, Paul acknowledges the fact that God will use everything for His glory. If these teachers tell people the truth, then the truth is heard and God is glorified. Their motive can be inconsequential for the result. Now, their motives don’t please God and they risk His judgment for their actions, but I seem to remember a parable where Jesus spoke of weeds planted among a field of wheat. Instead of tearing out the weeds, and thus damaging the grain, the master of the field waits to separate the good from the bad at harvest time.
As a believer, I grieve that weeds are in the field. At the same time, I am thankful for the good that I see growing in the same field. In everything, God will be glorified. I think Paul also talks about this in Romans when he says that sin allows for greater measures of grace, although people shouldn’t sin as if it enhances grace. What a remarkable thing if one of those selfish teachers suddenly heard the truth in his own teaching and came to know Christ!
So don’t worry about the hearts of others. Pray for God’s glory to be done in everything, and it will come. The Farmer will eventually separate the wheat from the weeds, and the Master Composer will finish His song with a triumphant chord.
Over the course of time, I’ll use a lot of the same words to describe God. This can be credited to the fact that, while God is infinite, I am finite and unable to properly describe His complexity. Any Bible teacher will use pictures to portray the different facets of His character, including the writers in the Bible. God is our father, our Lord, our shepherd, our shield, our loving provider, etc. In some periods of our life, we ascribe one of these aspects of God to the situation and assume His attitude accordingly. In terms of sin, we imagine that God is our dad. We just broke a window playing ball in the backyard and He’s going to be pissed when He gets home. Then in terms of repentance, God is like our mom reassuring us that dad really isn’t that mad, that He forgives us. Then she gives us a popsicle and sends us back outside to play.
The fact is that we can’t always assume how God feels about a situation. For example, in Jeremiah 25:9, God calls Nebuchadnezzar “my servant”. This came as a shock, I’m sure, to the Judeans. They were God’s chosen people, but here He was calling a pagan imperialist his servant as if he were chosen instead. In Isaiah 44:48 and 45:1, God calls Cyrus, king of Persia, his “shepherd” and his “anointed”. Calling a goy (a non-Jewish peron) anointed, “messiah” in Hebrew, must have really spooked the Jewish people. It spooks some Christians, too, when they realize the connection. This isn’t to say that Cyrus was THE Messiah, but God chose him for a special purpose in the history of His people.
There you have two examples of people who didn’t serve God, and yet God used them. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, he devastated Jerusalem and killed a lot of people. When thinking about God as a loving parent, this looks confusing. When thinking about God as the Righteous Judge, it makes sense, but then He seems cruel.
Sometimes God is just God. In some circumstances, there are no sufficient comparisons that exist to explain Him. I love this part of God, the inexplicable God, because it means He’ll still surprise me. On a recent family road trip, my mother brought a pile of book-on-tape. For a majority of the drive, we listened to The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien. This extensive mythology begins, like other mythologies, with the story of creation. Creation is represented through a song. God comes up with a melody, a theme, and invites his angels to help build the song. Then one particularly prideful angel has creative differences and tries to make the song dissonant. Instead of letting this jerk ruin the song, God reinvents the theme so that the song resolves out of the dissonance. The magnificence of His resolution causes the whole of heaven to fall down in worship.
I could have wept at the lesson in this nerdy fantasy book. No matter how much evil tries to screw up the beauty of God’s creation and order, He’ll always turn it around and make it good. I often talk about the story in John 9:1-3. “As He (Jesus) passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’” God didn’t strike this man with blindness as punishment, as the disciples thought. And they had a right to think this way, because their question came from laws in the Torah. But God is more than the Judge. He is also the Redeemer. Surprise! The song just resolved into a major key again.
Now when he writes in Phillipians about those teaching the gospel for selfish reasons, Paul acknowledges the fact that God will use everything for His glory. If these teachers tell people the truth, then the truth is heard and God is glorified. Their motive can be inconsequential for the result. Now, their motives don’t please God and they risk His judgment for their actions, but I seem to remember a parable where Jesus spoke of weeds planted among a field of wheat. Instead of tearing out the weeds, and thus damaging the grain, the master of the field waits to separate the good from the bad at harvest time.
As a believer, I grieve that weeds are in the field. At the same time, I am thankful for the good that I see growing in the same field. In everything, God will be glorified. I think Paul also talks about this in Romans when he says that sin allows for greater measures of grace, although people shouldn’t sin as if it enhances grace. What a remarkable thing if one of those selfish teachers suddenly heard the truth in his own teaching and came to know Christ!
So don’t worry about the hearts of others. Pray for God’s glory to be done in everything, and it will come. The Farmer will eventually separate the wheat from the weeds, and the Master Composer will finish His song with a triumphant chord.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Safe Answers, or God as a Magic 8 Ball.
For all of the grief I give my old Sunday school lessons, I really did enjoy them. It's hard to hate flannel graphs and construction paper and cookies and swing sets. The wordless book? Does it come with M&M's? Those were good days. I liked Sunday school up until about the third or fourth grade. Thanks to the sophisticated education I received in the public school system, I learned that information needed to become increasingly complex. Mathematics went from addition and subtraction to multiplication and division. American history eventually mixed in with world history. Music lessons went from singing Raffi tunes and patriotic classics to reading simple sheet music and playing recorders. But in Sunday school, the teachers offered the same simple answers to nearly every question I asked. "It's either Jesus, the Bible, prayer, or church."
My friend Erik told an old joke last weekend at a Christian youth conference. "A Sunday school teacher asked his students, 'what's brown, with a fuzzy tail, and stores acorns for the winter?' One of the students raised his hand and said, 'Well it sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer has to be Jesus.'" We laughed. The kids laughed. Everybody felt a little righteous in knowing that they weren't like those people. But then the guest speaker stood for his half hour lecture. He talked about the common belief that God answers prayer in one of three ways, "yes, no, or in a little while." I'd heard that all through my early years in the church. I graduated high school hearing this from teachers. When the guest speaker brought this up, I leaned forward in my seat, hoping he'd go into the direction of the Holy Spirit in prayer. He was so close. Man was he close. But he left it at another safe answer. "God always wants the answer to be 'yes'. The closer you get to God, the more you'll ask for the things He already wants to give you."
My first thought was this, "You just simplified an already over-simplified answer." Why do we treat a complex, personal, and infinite God like one of those coin-operated fortune-tellers? I’m not saying that every simple explanation of faith bothers me. For example, what’s the basis of my salvation? Jesus came, died an innocent man for the guilt of humanity, and then got up. Sure, there’s more to it than that, but the simplicity of the answer is a true summary of the gospel.
It’s when people read something they don't understand in the Bible that they feel compelled to have a simple explanation. For example, the Bible says that it’s God’s will to heal people. Jesus told his disciples to pray for the sick and heal them. But when some people didn’t see this happening in their daily lives (how do you spell that one guy’s name? Warfield?), they start adding interpretations to life that don’t seem to have any basis in scripture. Suddenly, the gifts of the Spirit were “for those times, but not for now.” It’s like they gave God an easy way out of proving Himself. As if He needed one.
In terms of hearing God’s voice, allowing Him the answers “yes, no, or in a little while” presents another easy out. A person doesn’t need to hear His voice if they only ask God for something and then assume His answer based on whether or not it was given to them. But what about those times when a person is desperate and needs guidance, a solution to a problem? What if they exchange looked like this:
Man: God, what should I do?
God: Yes.
Man: Yes what? How will I ever reconcile with my dad?
God: In a little while.
Man: Okay, I guess that sort of makes sense. But what should I do when the opportunity presents itself?
God: No.
I remember having a conversation like this when I was, like, ten. But it was with one of those Magic 8 Balls. My friends were trying to tell me, “This thing can answer any question. It’s kind of spooky.” I asked questions I knew it couldn’t answer, like “who was President of the United States last year?” and, “Who is a better band, Soul Asylum or Green Jelly?” My friends protested that it couldn’t answer those types of questions. I said, “Yeah, but you can. So I guess that makes you smarter than the Magic 8 Ball."
People ask a Magic 8 Ball for an answer they know it can give. But it’s impersonal and limited. The Christian church says that God is personal (at the very least, a personality) and limitless. Still, if we don’t understand something about His personality, we come up with an answer that sounds more like an excuse on His behalf. In our brilliance, we have to bail God out of a situation He can’t handle with answers that people can’t refute.
If we never have to take the risk of trusting a God who we don’t fully understand, then we never have to risk obeying a command we don’t understand. We never have to humbly take our place as created and finite beings, giving authority to the infinite creator. We’ll never have to look stupid in front of our friends or co-workers. We can keep God at an explainable distance. And it also means that we’ll never have a real relationship with Him.
God pisses me off sometimes. Seriously, He does. I wrestle with Him all the time over things that I don’t understand. But in that struggle and in the conversations, we form a relationship. We develop intimacy and trust that couldn’t exist if I limited Him to answering Yes-or-No questions. A few years ago, I finally realized that it’s okay not to know everything about God. When someone asks me a question about my beliefs, it’s perfectly acceptable to say, “I don’t know yet.” It may not be a very savvy answer, but it’s better than making something up to save face.
My friend Erik told an old joke last weekend at a Christian youth conference. "A Sunday school teacher asked his students, 'what's brown, with a fuzzy tail, and stores acorns for the winter?' One of the students raised his hand and said, 'Well it sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer has to be Jesus.'" We laughed. The kids laughed. Everybody felt a little righteous in knowing that they weren't like those people. But then the guest speaker stood for his half hour lecture. He talked about the common belief that God answers prayer in one of three ways, "yes, no, or in a little while." I'd heard that all through my early years in the church. I graduated high school hearing this from teachers. When the guest speaker brought this up, I leaned forward in my seat, hoping he'd go into the direction of the Holy Spirit in prayer. He was so close. Man was he close. But he left it at another safe answer. "God always wants the answer to be 'yes'. The closer you get to God, the more you'll ask for the things He already wants to give you."
My first thought was this, "You just simplified an already over-simplified answer." Why do we treat a complex, personal, and infinite God like one of those coin-operated fortune-tellers? I’m not saying that every simple explanation of faith bothers me. For example, what’s the basis of my salvation? Jesus came, died an innocent man for the guilt of humanity, and then got up. Sure, there’s more to it than that, but the simplicity of the answer is a true summary of the gospel.
It’s when people read something they don't understand in the Bible that they feel compelled to have a simple explanation. For example, the Bible says that it’s God’s will to heal people. Jesus told his disciples to pray for the sick and heal them. But when some people didn’t see this happening in their daily lives (how do you spell that one guy’s name? Warfield?), they start adding interpretations to life that don’t seem to have any basis in scripture. Suddenly, the gifts of the Spirit were “for those times, but not for now.” It’s like they gave God an easy way out of proving Himself. As if He needed one.
In terms of hearing God’s voice, allowing Him the answers “yes, no, or in a little while” presents another easy out. A person doesn’t need to hear His voice if they only ask God for something and then assume His answer based on whether or not it was given to them. But what about those times when a person is desperate and needs guidance, a solution to a problem? What if they exchange looked like this:
Man: God, what should I do?
God: Yes.
Man: Yes what? How will I ever reconcile with my dad?
God: In a little while.
Man: Okay, I guess that sort of makes sense. But what should I do when the opportunity presents itself?
God: No.
I remember having a conversation like this when I was, like, ten. But it was with one of those Magic 8 Balls. My friends were trying to tell me, “This thing can answer any question. It’s kind of spooky.” I asked questions I knew it couldn’t answer, like “who was President of the United States last year?” and, “Who is a better band, Soul Asylum or Green Jelly?” My friends protested that it couldn’t answer those types of questions. I said, “Yeah, but you can. So I guess that makes you smarter than the Magic 8 Ball."
People ask a Magic 8 Ball for an answer they know it can give. But it’s impersonal and limited. The Christian church says that God is personal (at the very least, a personality) and limitless. Still, if we don’t understand something about His personality, we come up with an answer that sounds more like an excuse on His behalf. In our brilliance, we have to bail God out of a situation He can’t handle with answers that people can’t refute.
If we never have to take the risk of trusting a God who we don’t fully understand, then we never have to risk obeying a command we don’t understand. We never have to humbly take our place as created and finite beings, giving authority to the infinite creator. We’ll never have to look stupid in front of our friends or co-workers. We can keep God at an explainable distance. And it also means that we’ll never have a real relationship with Him.
God pisses me off sometimes. Seriously, He does. I wrestle with Him all the time over things that I don’t understand. But in that struggle and in the conversations, we form a relationship. We develop intimacy and trust that couldn’t exist if I limited Him to answering Yes-or-No questions. A few years ago, I finally realized that it’s okay not to know everything about God. When someone asks me a question about my beliefs, it’s perfectly acceptable to say, “I don’t know yet.” It may not be a very savvy answer, but it’s better than making something up to save face.
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