Tag: jesus

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The shock of being an insider.

This is a quote that rocked me to the core last week.  It’s something Tim Keller references in his study Gospel Christianity 101 (which you should immediately purchase, read, and use as the curriculum at your small group)  He quoted Richard Hays from his book The Moral Vision of The New Testament:

God’s… invasion of the world has wrought an inversion: God has reversed the positions of insiders and outsiders.  Those who are in positions of authority and privilege reject Jesus and the message.  However, people of low or despised position in the social world of first-century Jewish culture receive the gospel gladly, for their need is great… Those familiar with the story should not  under-estimate the shock of this inversion.

It’s a great quote.  It’s not something terribly new to me, but what rocked me this time as I was reading it is the harsh realization that in my church, in my ministry, and in my life I consistently become an insider.  In fact, at times it is my primary goal. I get a new teaching, or a new way of doing things, and I make and “inside” and an “outside.”  I’m always an insider, scratching and clawing my way to be recognized, applauded, and accepted by the other “insiders.”

The gospel alone forces me to admit being an outsider.  But once I am out in the cold, with no way of saving myself, that same gospel shows me (and in some mysterious way gives me) a righteousness that is unshakable.

May God continue to push us out into the cold, lest we believe the compelling lie that there’s something we did (or can do) to save ourselves.

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Sometimes readers of the Bible see the conditions that God lays down for his blessing and they conclude from these conditions that our action is first and decisive, then God responds to bless us.

That is not right.

John Piper’s Blog.  Read the rest of the post.  So good.

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Feed my Sheep.

John 21:15

“Do you love me more than these?  These what?  Oh, these 153 fish that I just caught?  I sure do, Jesus.  I’d gladly give up fishing—my very livelihood—if it meant being with you.”

How quickly Peter answered.

Jesus is asking me lately whether I love him more than financial security, or even providing for my family.  He’s not, I think, asking me to forgo money (just as he wasn’t telling Peter to never fish again).  He’s simply asking what I trust in more.  At the end of the day, when all seems lost and I want to crawl in a hole, what do I trust more?  Who do I love more?

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An Open Letter to the Halloween Protest Organizer Yesterday.

I am having a hard time figuring out your target audience.  Jesus providentially didn’t have me stop at that intersection, as I’d have probably gotten out and never made it where I was going, but the signs I got a glimpse of at 40 MPH were:

Christmas = Jesus, Easter = Jesus, Halloween = ???

and

Avoid any appearance of evil: (didn’t catch the rest of it)

It looks to me like you are trying to convince Christians to not celebrate Halloween.  Thus making the busy intersection on Patton Avenue a less than stellar place to have the conversation.

I’d love to defend why my son is going to be dressing up (like a overly-cute giraffe) and asking the neighbors for candy this weekend, but your condescending signs that have about a 5th grade level understanding of Scripture make it difficult for me to get into the conversation.  Honestly, I have to continually check myself not to just totally blast you in this conversation.  I’m trying to love you.

Because, after all, we’re family.

I’m not mad at the participants in your little protest.  This letter is not to them.  I’m talking to the guy who organized it.  The guy who came up with (or gave the thumbs-up to) the smug, arrogant slogans on the signs, and arranged the carpool.

What is your motive, brother?  Do you want people to meet Jesus, or just become irritating religious punks?  What would be “success” for your little rally yesterday?  If people closed their doors, turned out the lights, and went to church on the only night this year that dozens of their neighbors are going to willingly ring their doorbell?  Or would success be folks pulling over to join you in your crusade against candy?

Here’s the thing.  I know that Halloween has some dubious underpinnings, and there’s a lot of occult things associated with it.  I got that.  But, to my knowledge, none of the 6-year-olds that are going to come to my house are going to head back home to sacrifice a kitten on their front lawn, or participate in a seance.  And even if they did, I could never point to my own actions as anything better.  There are two teams in this contest: (1) Bad, twisted sinners and (2) Jesus.  I’ll let you guess which team you and I are on.  For me to pretend that my not participating in the occult ritual makes me any better of a person is to totally miss the gospel.

I should further clarify.  I am OK if you feel called not to celebrate Halloween (I too was that guy once.)  What I object to is your trying to enforce what is clearly a personal conviction on others as though it were a biblical mandate, and printing signs and yelling on a street corner.  If we’d put the same amount of time, energy, and money into really engaging the non-Christians in our neighborhoods with the gospel (that Jesus has conquered sin, death, and hell on our behalf), imagine the outcome!

As for us this weekend, as long as we’ve got neighbors coming to our house, we’re going to give them candy.  And we aren’t going to skimp on it either.  We’ve got Snickers.  I’d love it if some of my non-believing neighbors’ kids were to head back home and say “That house over there gives out the best candy!”  As Christians, we ought to have the reputation of being the sweetest.  After all, our sins have been paid for by the most loving act in the history of the world.

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I’m anxious enough to sing.

I was driving today, listening to conservative talk radio (because it’s as funny as Jon Stewart during the Bush years) and all the flailing and panicking and minor-key interludes that accompany advertisements for reseeding packets and buying gold.  Then, I turned off the radio, and looked over the tops of the brilliantly colored red and yellow leaves to notice a hawk flying high on a background of white, wispy clouds.

Despite what is clearly an attack on our way of life, and the worst economic meltdown of the century, and the rise of fascist dictatorships, and eminent inflation, and the end of life as we have known it, and the rolling over of the founding fathers in their graves (according to the show I had just turned off), it was strangely peaceful.

Almost as if God is not worried.

Almost as if the designer of the beautiful leaves and amazing blue sky didn’t stop painting and creating long enough to fret about his kids worrying and thinking he’d left the throne.

God is so worried that he started painting.  Maybe we should take that hint.  We Christians ought to be so vexed and perplexed that we start singing.  The tomb is empty.

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