Judgment

Judgment and hypocrisy are words that many throw at the church.  Whether they are fair or not depends on the circumstance the accuser is talking about.  Is the accusation of judgment and hypocrisy sometimes an excuse for the accuser to not get serious about Jesus?  Possibly.  It is easy to deflect your own reservations about following Christ based upon excuses.  If I don't want to drop a sinful lifestyle it may be easier to point my finger at the church than figure out if the God of the Bible is really who He says He is.  However, I don't think anyone would argue that Christians are always innocent of hypocritical judgment.  There is definitely judgment that should not occur.  The question is: why do we continue?  Of course we are human, but what mindsets could we adopt to avoid judgmental attitudes?

First, I think we must recognize that there is a place for judgment in the church.  Paul talked a good bit about turning false teachers and others who would not repent "over to Satan".  Doing so seemed to be the last straw, as if there was nothing else that could be done to bring the person to repentance inside the church.  This is an incredibly tough line to walk.  Where is the line between graciously encouraging and turning over to Satan?  That is a question I don't have a clear answer to.  However, I do feel that I have been convicted recently of a new way of looking at Jesus' command to get the plank out of our own eye before we try to get the splinter out of our neighbor's eye (Matt. 7:3; Luke 6:42).  In other words, He commanded to take care of the sin in your own life before you try to point out the sin in another's.  

Here is the issue, we have all struggled with some sort of sin and temptation.  If we are not struggling now, we have in the past, and probably will in the near future.  However, we do not all struggle with the same things.  And, as a result of human nature, it is easier for us to empathize with those who struggle with something we have struggled with.  This is a good thing, those that have battled those sins can counsel those that are just beginning to go to battle against them.  But there is also a downside to us empathizing with those that struggle with the same things as us.  It is easy for us to take a mindset of, "I can understand struggling with this, but that!  That is a horrible sin."  I am not arguing that we take a softer view on God's disdain of sin, but I do think we could benefit from recognizing that a thief may struggle with robbing as much as we struggle with gossiping.  How much more graciously would we deal with homosexuality if we recognized that homosexuals may struggle equally with homosexual desire as heterosexuals do with staying pure in their heterosexual relationships?  The answer of course is not to accept all sin, but the answer is to realize we all struggle with something and that we need to stop criminalizing what we do not struggle with.  The saying that we should "hate the sin and love the sinner" is true.  Let's get serious about our own sin and stop throwing condemnation at what we do not struggle with.  I have heard evangelism compared to beggars simply telling each other where there is bread.  Let's not forget that we are all beggars.  Our poverty manifests itself differently and some of us have known where the bread is for a while, but we must remember that we are still beggars and no one is going to follow us to the bakery if we forget what it is like to be really impoverished.

Superheroes

I went and saw the Dark Knight Rises this afternoon.  It reminded me what a spiritual awakening experience superhero movies can be.  I know the last sentence might sound odd to many, "A spiritual awakening at a secular movie?"  I can understand such a question.  But I also know that God can be seen anywhere we look.  If you can't see God, you may not be looking hard enough.  He can be hard to see sometimes, but His fingerprints are never far.

Of course, I do think that we should avoid gorging ourselves on media, especially media that plays to our temptations.  Movies and television shows can send people into sinful tailspins.  I know by my experience and other conversations with men that one image can lead to a series of lustful thoughts.  I would suppose other people struggle with other sinful behavior as a result of exposure to media.  However, I believe we are to be somewhat in the world, while not of the world.  Understanding the culture is crucial to understanding how God's revelation relates to it.  Not only must we have a sense of the culture to share God's truth with it, we can actually learn lessons about God through exposure to the culture.  Once again, we must be prudent, but lessons are there to be learned.

As I mentioned earlier, I was reminded of some truth today while watching the latest Batman movie.  There is something about stories and especially movies that deliver messages with power.  One of the truths I gained a greater appreciation of through the movie was the destruction that follows selfishness.  In the movie (I will not spoil it), there is a revolution that occurs.  Revolutions can be good.  Sometimes there is evil that must be revolted against.  However, this revolution was selfish and its lack of stability was apparent.  In this case the selfishness was so blatant that its negative outcome was apparent to all onlookers.  As I look to human history I see a struggle of selfishness versus selflessness.  Ruthless dictators have been selfish and people like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. have been more selfless.  It is the more selfless that have left a positive legacy, while it is the selfish that have left carnage.  The essential human question is and has always been: "Are you going to be selfish or selfless?"  I believe this has always been the question because God has made it the essential question.  Are we, our possessions, our job, or our families going to be our gods, or are we going to let Him be God?  When looked at objectively, God deserves worship far before any god.  The question is, are we willing to let ourselves be second?  This question was at the center of much of Jesus' teaching.  Jesus explained that it is the spiritually sick who need a doctor, not the well (Matt. 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31).  The funny thing is, we are all spiritually sick, so the real question is: who is smart enough to go to the doctor?

Another lesson reinforced during the movie was the magnitude of God.  As a Christian, especially a Christian that has been around Christianity my whole life, I can become desensitized to how big God is.  A superhero movie helps me refocus on God's might.  Superheroes are incredibly impressive.  They are doing things that go beyond our everyday experience.  They have strength, intelligence, courage, and power that we marvel at.  However, all of their attributes do not begin to compare the attributes of the God who reveals Himself through the Bible.  I wish it didn't take me seeing a movie to refocus on God's power, but sometimes it does.  Focusing on God's character is an aspect of being in relationship with Him and I pray it comes more natural and with more consistency.  No matter how much I fail to focus on it, however, I will always know that God's might far surpasses the might of all men, corporations, nations, and empires.  I will also know that He rewards man for selflessly seeking Him in every area of their lives.  In fact, He wants man to make it their mission statement.  "First Name Last Name: Selfless Seeker of God"

I Don't Know

There is a lot of pride flying around.  Everyone feels like they must have the answer.  After all, who comes back to someone who does not answer their question?  Who buys something from a salesman who does not know his product inside and out?  The second question may be fair, but Christians need not fall into this trap.  Christians do not need to have all the answers.  We certainly should have more answers than most, but we better not feel we must know all.  Trying to understand everything about God is a dangerous endeavor.  My grandmother likes to say that, "A god small enough to be understood would not be big enough to be worshiped".  This, of course, should not be an excuse to not passionately seek God's face and deeply understand theology, but good theology will lead to an understanding that fully grasping Him is not within our capacity.

Trying to explain everything about God has gotten some people into big trouble.  The way I see it, this was Job's friends' fatal flaw.  For those not familiar with the Biblical account of Job: Job was a man in the ancient Near East from whom God allowed Satan to take nearly everything.  Job was pressed down upon but never crushed.  A lesson from him is perseverance.  Job's friends also provide a lesson: they took it upon themselves to explain everything that Job did wrong--God surely had to be punishing Job because he had sinned.  You see, they had God in a nice little box.  God surely must act in a way that they could understand.  This is the message they convey very beautifully throughout much of the book.  However, in Job, God finally comes on the scene.  When He does, He speaks pretty harshly of Job's friends and the box that they had put Him in.  Beginning in Job 38, God begins speaking in beautifully poetic language essentially saying: did you create this place (the world), do you fully understand it?  The rest of Job seems to build as the magnitude of God is made more evident.  When reading with a pure heart, I begin feeling sorry that I ever tried to pronounce my preconceptions on God's character.

It is clear that God put Job's story in the Bible for a reason  The lesson it great, and it continues to be taught throughout Scripture.  A similar lesson is taught in John 9.  In this passage we find Jesus, His disciples, and a man who had been blind from birth. When Jesus and the disciples encounter this man, the disciples ask whether it was this man or his parents who sinned--resulting in his blindness.  After all, there must be a cause and effect relationship that we can understand.  Jesus' response is awesome.  He responds that this man's blindness is not a result of the man's or his parent's sin; rather, this man's blindness has occurred so that the glory of God can be magnified.  Awesome!  This is not a cause and effect relationship we anticipate.  Blindness must be bad right?  It is a handicap.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  What is a handicap to men, can be a tool to God.  Did you lose your job?  You must have sinned.  Right?  Not necessarily.  That loss of your job may be a way that God is supposed to be glorified.  Do you have a mentally handicapped son?  You must have sinned.  Not necessarily.  That handicapped son may glorify God more than 100 intellectually fit folks.  I know my brother does.  Josh is currently 17, with the mind of a 3 year old, and the joy, peace, and love we should all have.  When someone gets home, Josh is at the door waiting.  When Josh goes to bed he asks me to say prayers with him.  When a parent gets home after a sibling has been home with Josh, the first thing he does is thank the sibling for watching him.  Josh's business is people.  He does not know a stranger, and he is always in a good mood.  God's glory is displayed through Josh.  Josh cannot even read, but he embodies God's character pretty well.

As we continue reading in John 9, we find another example of people who refused to say I don't know.  The blind man healed by Jesus, ends up before Pharisees--a religious sect of the time.  They want to know how this healing happened.  After all, this man was born blind--clearly a sinner.  The Pharisees proceed to get real wound up about how Jesus couldn't be from God because He heals people on the Sabbath.  How dare Him do good on the holy day!  This religious sect was part of the group Jesus reserved His harshest words for-- calling them blind guides and whitewashed tombs (pretty caskets).  He told them that they better stop worrying about how holy others think they are and take care of how holy their hearts really are.  They better let go of their desire for power, influence, and the approval of others and seek God.  They better stop putting God into a box and telling others to jump through their hoops to reach God.  They better learn how to say I don't know when Scripture is not explicit about an aspect of God's character.

These lessons are incredibly applicable to us today.   We have built some great institutions in the name of God.  We better make sure those institutions do not put God in a box.  We better make sure we still seek Him with a broken and humble heart.  We better be wiling to abandon our degrees, buildings, and titles if God makes it apparent we should.  We better stand firm in what is clear and be flexible with what has not been revealed to us.  We better not get caught up dating how old the Earth is and neglect being just.  We better not get so attached to our political beliefs that we forget that those thinking differently than us are not our enemies--even if they were we better pray for them.  We better not get so caught up in our theological school of thought we neglect mercy.  We better put the first thing first, and that first thing can only be first if the person in the mirror is at least second.  The first thing better be God, and we better realize that many questions about His actions will need to receive an answer of I don't know.

Why Pray?

The question in the title of this post baffles me.  There are many that follow it: how long should I pray?  What should my attitude be in prayer?  If I am spending my time just praying, am I missing out on doing other things God would have me do?  Prayer is certainly fascinating.  It is interesting that every culture has seemed to develop a form of it.  It seems there is this innate desire to pray.  We possibly desire to pray just like we desire to eat and sleep.  We sense that a higher being is present, we simply have questions such as: in what form does it exist and how do we go about communicating with it?
I certainly believe that the answer to the first question is the God of the Bible--an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God.  The answer to the second question is much more difficult for me.  When Jesus speaks of prayer during His sermon on the mount, He provides instruction to not offer up empty phrases and also do not pray to be seen.  Instead, He advises that we pray in a closed room and gives us the Lord's prayer as a model.  Jesus also demonstrated the importance of prayer in the amount of time He devoted to it.  He took great care to find quiet places and spend time with His Father.
As I seek to answer the question: "why pray?" I look first to my own experience.  Answers to this question are rich when I look to my own experience rather than seeking to empirically prove the value of prayer.  I cannot do a statistical analysis of my time spent praying in relation to the amount of times God has answered me, but I can speak about the transformation that happens in me--the prayer, when I pray.  First, I believe prayer can take many forms and is primarily about our intentions, but as I speak about prayer for the remainder of this post I will be talking about on my knees, in my room, eyes closed prayer.  I believe that these times can be incredibly rich, not just because God is hearing my praises and requests in these moments, but also because I am transformed every time I pray.  Every time I pray, I stand up and leave my room with a greater sense of God's perspective.  It takes me removing myself from the world and humbly coming before God before He truly gives me His eyes.  Of course He can meet me throughout the day, but there is something about these times.  Honestly, my danger has been spending too much time laying before God simply seeking His face.  But I feel these times are incredibly fruitful, it is in these times that I feel most alive, that I feel everything I do and am have significance.  What are my talents if they are not devoted to God?  Everything is meaningless unless I find the value it has in God.  All of this may sound like uber religious babble, but I know there are others that share my experience, and the fact that so many people at least believe in a form of prayer, makes me think that most people are seeking.  
As I close, I also want to make a case for devoting a concentrated amount of time to prayer.  There are two images I want to provide to make this case.  The first is a scuba diver.  When I pray I view myself as somewhat of a scuba diver.  I am taking time to dive beneath the surface, deep into the character of God.  What a beautiful journey it is.  The problem is, fruitful scuba diving does not take place in five hurried minutes.  I do not want to get a glimpse of the bottom and then have to resurface.  I want to reach the bottom and be able to look closely at the coral and admire the fish.  I want to spend enough time in the depths that I begin to think critically about it.  The scuba diver must spend significant amounts of time below the surface to really soak in the surroundings.
The second image is of a hot air balloon pilot.  In focused prayer, not only do we explore the depths of God's character,  we also get a bird's eye view of the world and our place in it.  Once again, a five minute trip in a hot air balloon will not give you much of a view of your surroundings.  Instead, you must reach the desired elevation and soak in the surroundings.  Likewise, it takes time to strip away the distractions that we bring before God.  It is only once these distractions are peeled away that we can see our circumstances how God would have us see them.  Once we are given a bird's eye view, we can go forth with renewed purpose and hopefully a godly perspective on our lives.
It is my wish that everyone would make eyes closed, on their knees, heart laid bare prayer a significant part of their day.  Thirty minutes, one hour, two hours--schedule it in and stick to it.  I believe that God often shows up when we show up.  Of course, He can do whatever He pleases, but it often seems He doesn't act until we do.

Please Lead

God I’m here,
Doing my best to follow Your lead.

It is only by Your grace that my steps are not my own.
I repeatedly fail.
To some I may not fall,
But Your standard is great,
To that I will never reach.

All I can do is follow.
It is certainly best I do not lead.

Make Your Spirit my closest friend.
A guide that I follow through thick and thin.

This is the only way I will not falter.
Your yoke is easy, make my path straight.

Allow me to overflow with passion for You.
This is all You ask,
Yet even this I cannot do on my own.

Lead me to the foot of the cross,
Taking my every step while gazing at Your gift to humanity.

You didn’t have to do it.
But of this I lose sight.
Steady my vision,
On the cross I must focus.

Solitude

Solitude is the furnace for transformation.
       - Henry Nouwen


Solitude is a beautiful thing.  It is in solitude that one must reckon with who they are.  This term solitude is used loosely, however.  We are never really alone, God's there.  It is our choice whether we recognize His existence or make our time of solitude a time to commune with Him.  If we are intentional, if we long for His double-edged sword to cut into our soul, untangling the thorns and allowing the flowers to bloom, the transformation will be glorious.  The furnace will have left us refined, and utterly transformed.

I Must Love

Lord, I lay on my face before You.
Longing to commune with You.
Longing to find my strength only in You.
Longing to lead others to this place.

A place where I find much peace.
A place where I find my identity.

They can not pray emptily to air.
It must be to You Lord.

Strengthen my resolve to reach them everytime I come before You.
Make me effective.

Do not let me seek the lost to appease me.
Let me thirst to share You because I love.

This love must be pure,
Just as the love exuded at the cross.

It is to this structure that I must lead them.
If I don't, do I really care?

It mustn't be from guilt.
The hurt must be genuine.
Make it be so.
O' Lord make it be so.