Words from the Wise: Abraham Joshua Heschel

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement…get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

–A.J. Heschel

Words from the Wise: Henri Nouwen

Emptiness and fullness at first seem complete opposites. But in the spiritual life they are not. In the spiritual life we find the fulfillment of our deepest desires by becoming empty for God.

We must empty the cups of our lives completely to be able to receive the fullness of life from God. Jesus lived this on the cross. The moment of complete emptiness and complete fullness become the same.

-Henri Nouwen

Words from the Wise: Rob Merrill, on being a free person

To be free is to be someone who can hear the cry of the weakest and poorest among you. It’s to be able to hear the cry of those who are still in an Egypt. To be a person who can hear and see the world as God hears and sees it.
–Rob Merrill

Words from the Wise: Howard Bess

The scandal of the Christian churches is the corruption of the meaning of the word salvation. Rather than a word that begs for a broad participation in life, salvation has come to mean a promise of a place in an ill-defined heaven following death. Shalom [the Hebrew word for peace and well-being], on the other hand, is the offering of the whole and complete life during our tenure here on earth. The root meaning of salvation is wholeness, completeness. Shalom and salvation are conceptual companions.
–Howard Bess

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