Ash Wednesday: The Beginning of the Lenten Season

A short, helpful video about what Lent is:

Words from the Wise: Dallas Willard: What is a Disciple?

Churches today are full of people who haven’t been invited to become disciples. Being a Christian has come to mean going to church and being saved when you die. The ministry of the church is govern over to “making the final cut” and solving problems (marital problems, witnessing problems, apologetics, pain and suffering), not to discipleship.

In the New Testament, discipleship means being an apprentice of Jesus in our daily existence. A disciple, then, is simply someone who has decided to be with another person in order to become what that person is or to become capable of doing what that person does. What does Jesus do that I can be discipled to do? The answer is found in the Gospels: he lives in the kingdom of God, and he applies that kingdom for the good of others and even makes it possible for them to enter it.

Read the whole article at: http://www.janjohnson.org/articles__spiritual_growth_-_a.html

Vision and Fantasy III: Rejecting Self-Hatred

Apart from Jesus, we wallow as creatures that love darkness rather than light. But as his followers, we are delivered from selfishness and self-absorption. In Jesus, we receive power to become the children of God. (John 1:12) In fact, through him, we are NOW (present, active tense) the children of God. (I John 3:2) To remain grounded in reality, we have to hold two realities—our brokenness and our belovedness–in tension. But we tend to get out of balance. And, surprisingly, we get out of balance not by over-emphasizing our chosenness but by becoming fixated on our depravity and brokenness.

There’s all sorts of reasons why we do this, but it ultimately traces back to comfort. It’s simply more comfortable to resist than to receive the love and character of God. We are like skittish dogs, uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the firm and caring hand of a loving master. We find it safer to focus on how unworthy we are so that we can hold ourselves in contempt and keep ourselves at a distance.

Ultimately, isn’t all of our self-contempt and self-hatred simply an elaborate way of maintaining control and power over our lives? We resist being chosen and adopted because receiving that reality would mean surrendering our favorite ways of maintaining control and getting our way. And might beating ourselves up and wallowing in self-hatred simply be a clever way of pre-emptively justifying the ways we numb out and act out?

The problem is that when we over-focus on our depravity and brokenness, we are living in fantasy. Not because there’s not a dark or broken side of us. We all know there is. But, rather, because a different story has been written for us. Until we are willing to surrender our old story and step into the new identity Jesus gives us, we are living in pride. It takes humility and courage to surrender and receive the love that God has lavished on us. It takes character and strength to surrender self-hatred and self-contempt.

Brandon

Vision and Fantasy II: A Two-Fold Reality

There’s a two fold-reality for us as we follow Jesus.

On the one hand, apart from him, we can do nothing. We are creatures who, left to ourselves, are curved over in sin and self-absorption. Creatures who love darkness rather than light. (John 3:19) Creatures who can see what is good but aren’t able to carry it out. (Romans 7:18) We are, as the saying goes, “desperate sinners, saved by grace.”

On the other hand, by God’s mercy, we have been adopted to become God’s beloved children. (I John 3:1) We are God’s workmanship, His masterpiece, His delight. (Ephesians 2:10)

What an incredible paradox! Only when we live in both these aspects of our existence can we live in reality, and forgetting either aspect will cause us to live in fantasy. We must be honest about both sides of who we are—our selfishness, depravity, and brokenness apart from God AND our chosenness, belovedness, and beauty in God.

When we hold both these aspects of our existence in tension, we are kept grounded and humble because we are living in reality. We are guarded from the extremes of self-contempt and beating ourselves up on the one hand and the arrogance of self-congratulation or conceit on the other. And we can live in humble gratitude, seeing our despair apart from God while giving thanks for the life that comes from God.

Brandon

Vision and Fantasy I: Grounded in Humility

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
James 4:10

I met with some pastors recently and we were discussing the difference between fantasy and vision. (It was a facilitated discussion; we don’t generally sit around bringing up such formal questions right after “How’s the weather?”) One distinction that arose from the conversation was that vision is grounded in the reality of what could actually be, while fantasy is just about how we would like or prefer things to be.

The conversation reminded me of something Doug Richardson, the founding pastor of LBCF, once said (that a friend also reminded me of this week): he said that humility is simply being honest about what is. If you are honest about what is real—about who you are, about who God is, about creation—you are being humble. Jesus made some amazing claims about Himself (“I am the Son of Man.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”), but there was nothing prideful in it because he was simply being honest about what is. So to be humble, we must live in reality.

All vision starts with humility, because both begin with simply addressing the realty of what is and what could be.

Brandon

Words from the Wise: Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

I receive weekly wisdom (via email, of course) from The Chief Rabbi of England. His recent thoughts on choosing to love and give over choosing to live in complaint were, in my opinion, worth quoting:

“Love. Love your spouse and you will have a happy marriage. Love your children and you will have a happy family. Love your work and you will have a happy career. Love life and you will be blessed. “If only” is the opposite of love. If only my partner were more attractive, my children more appreciative, my colleagues more friendly, if only I earned more, achieved more. “If only” is toxic to happiness. It focuses on what we don’t have instead of what we do. The consumer cultures invites us to an existence of “if only.” It’s the worst investment of life.

Following Jesus, we get to swim in a tradition that, against the consumer culture all around us, invites us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (I Thessalonians 5:18). Today is a good day to give thanks and choose love rather than complaint.

Brandon

John 3:16

John 3:16 is one of the most well known and well-quoted passages of scripture. We see it quoted all the time: at sporting events, at rallies, on ubiquitous cheap, plastic bracelets. The danger, of course, is that whenever something, no matter how incredible or beautiful or wonderful it is, is quoted all the time, we, ironically, stop hearing it. The wonder gets swallowed up by numbing familiarity.

Cue Dallas Willard’s interpretation of original Greek text, The Gospel of John 3:16:

“God’s care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique Son among us, so that those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have the undying life of God himself.” *

A futile and failing existence. The undying life of God himself. Those words certainly shake off the dust of familiarity and put me back into a state of wonder and awe.

Brandon

* Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy. HarperCollins, USA. 1997. p 1

Pressing In and Surrendering

Over the holidays, I found myself thinking about two seemingly different but intimately interwoven aspects of our journey following God.

On the one hand, we press in. We seek for Him with our whole heart. (Psalm 119:2, Jeremiah 29:13, Hebrews 11:6). Jesus tells us to ask, seek, and knock, and gives us the image of a persistent woman knocking without rest as a metaphor for how we are to seek God. (Matthew 7 and Luke 18) The scriptures tell us to come boldly to the throne of grace. (Hebrews 4:16) Come boldly. Ask, seek, knock. Press in. Run the race. Fight the fight. These are images of action, of expectation, of desire taking wings.

On the other hand, we surrender. We come with arms open wide, aware of our powerlessness. We revel in our weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9). We bow, we fall to our knees, we are made silent. These are images of letting go. Of ceasing from our striving.

The reality is that both of these postures of heart are needed. We press in, but we surrender. We come boldly–we ask, we seek, we knock, but we also bow down in silence and trust. The Holy Spirit at every moment helping us to see which posture to emphasize, and which to let go of. What to embrace and what to release. And maybe we come to realize that two aspect of following God that, on the surface, seem so different, are actually one and the same. Maybe pressing in can look like surrender. Maybe sitting in silent prayer, which seems to inactive, is pressing in. The Holy Spirit showing us in each moment what posture of soul is needed, and which expresses trust in any given moment.

In 2012, may we have incredible wisdom, courage, and trust, to press into and to surrender to God.

Brandon

Words from the Wise: Henri Nouwen

Nouwen’s words continue to be bread for me, pointing me to the depth of life possible in God.

You can sign up for his daily email devotionals here:

http://www.henrinouwen.org/Resources/Meditations_and_Reflection_Emails/Meditations_and_Reflection_Emails.aspx

Here are some of his thoughts on receiving our reconciliation in God:

How do we work for reconciliation? First and foremost by claiming for ourselves that God through Christ has reconciled us to God. It is not enough to believe this with our heads. We have to let the truth of this reconciliation permeate every part of our beings. As long as we are not fully and thoroughly convinced that we have been reconciled with God, that we are forgiven, that we have received new hearts, new spirits, new eyes to see, and new ears to hear, we continue to create divisions among people because we expect from them a healing power they do not possess.

Only when we fully trust that we belong to God and can find in our relationship with God all that we need for our minds, hearts, and souls, can we be truly free in this world and be ministers of reconciliation. This is not easy; we readily fall back into self-doubt and self-rejection. We need to be constantly reminded through God’s Word, the sacraments, and the love of our neighbors that we are indeed reconciled.

Brandon

A Prayer for Christmas

On this day, our longing meets with joy. We stand in the crossroads of time, and we see that God, who created all things, has come to redeem all things, and will reign over all things. In the fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman, to redeem those under the bondage of sin and death, so that they might be adopted as children.

And because, through Jesus, now born in a manger, we have been made children, we cry “Abba, Father!” And we rejoice, for we are not only made children, but heirs, through the mercy of God. For Jesus has come. Our God has come to save us. He reigns and he will reign, forever and ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Amen!