Simple Instruction from Jesus to His Disciples

"You received without paying; give without pay."

- Matthew 10:8b

The Life You Save

"What God says, is 'The life you save is the life you lose.' In other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself, and only a life given away for love's sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of human wisdom, he was a Perfect Fool. And if you think you can follow him without making something like the same kind of a fool of yourself, you are laboring under not a cross but a delusion." - Frederick Buechner

Be Present

The Reality of Resurrection

Be a realist. 

Forgive Me Asking

One from Propaganda's new album, "Excellent". Beautiful stuff here.

A Warning to My Readers

A poem from Wendell Berry:

Do not think me gentle

because I speak in praise

of gentleness, or elegant

because I honor the grace

that keeps this world.

I am a man as crude as any,

gross of speech, intolerant,

stubborn, angry, full

of fits and furies. That I

may have spoken well

at times, is not natrual.

A wonder is what it is.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above" James 1:17

A sobering reminder that everything and anything good in us is the result of God's grace. 

Poverty and the Gospel-Part 4: Life as Intended (continued)

My apologies on being a week since I last posted on this topic. Life has been a bit busy :). Continuing on our topic of what is really at the heart of poverty, and how it applies to the gospel, we have first established that at the heart of Jesus mission was to reclaim or restore life. He came proclaiming the good news of God's Kingdom, whereby everything that was lost in the fall would be restored. Since God came to restore us to our image bearing as God intended,  last week we asked what all does it entail to bear God's image. I broke it down into 4 relationships. In order to fully live as God's image bearers, we were created to be in a vertical relationship with our God, an internal relationship with our selves, a horizontal relationship with others, and also a relationship with creation.

So what did these 4 relationships look like before the Fall? What were they intended to look like? To see this, we will look at Genesis 1 and 2.

Let's start by looking at our vertical relationship. First, as image bearers, human beings were made to worship. This is innate inside of every human. We all worship something. In the beginning, before sin entered the world, God, our Heavenly Father and Creator was the sole object of our worship. In fact, God was so much the sole object of our worship that there wasn't even a need for a separate time for worship (like church on Sunday's) because Adam's entire life was worship. All of his days and in everything he did, Adam was worshipping God. It must have been awesome to be able to worship God in all activities in an unhindered fashion.

Something else that defined Adam's vertical relationship with his Creator was intimacy. Notice that in Genesis 1 and 2, Adam talked openly with God. There was no separation or barriers. Adam was able to stand and communicate with God with complete transparency, openness and confidence. There was complete harmony. God walked with Adam in the garden. Adam lived completely in God's presence.

Lastly, as it was intended, there was a proper Creator/creature distinction. The main reason why life was perfect before the entrance of Sin was the way in which Adam rightly lived under God's loving and righteous eternal rule. The only way life can be in order or harmony, is if we are living under our Creator's intentions. Now, at first this may seem like God is a bit like an overbearing task master who demands that we stay in line with him. To this, we must realize that God's intends for us to live under his loving and righteous rule because it is 100% good for us. He doesn't demand that we live under him because he's mad, or wants us to suffer. Rather, we suffer when we choose to be our own God. We suffer when we lose this Creator/creature distinction. When we look at the effects of the Fall, we will see this more clearly. But, it is safe to say that life as intended includes humans, as God's image bearers, living an unhindered life of worship before their Creator with constant relational intimacy between us and our God. 

The Self-Sufficiency of God

"Were all human beings suddenly to become blind, still the sun would shine by day and the stars by night, for these owe nothing to the millions who benefit from their light. So, were every man on earth to become an atheist, it could not affect God in any way. He is what He is in himself without regard to any other. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections; to doubt Him takes nothing away."

A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

Poverty and The Gospel: Part 3-Life as Intended

So far we've established that Jesus came to restore life. His mission was bigger than just forgiving sins. It was bigger than acts of love or giving hand outs to the homeless. The good news Jesus brought was a pronouncement that through him, God was reclaiming creation. God was reclaiming creation by the ministry of his Son. The reason we need this is because under our own self-autonomy, EVERYTHING is out of line. EVERYTHING is distorted. Jesus came to restore life. Now, we are asking the question, how is life distorted? What was life supposed to look like? What went so wrong that God had to send his own son to restore life? What does true life consist of? To see this, we need to go back to Creation, since everything after the Fall, humanity, or life, has been distorted.

"So God created man in his image. 

In the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them."

Genesis 1:27

The simplest answer to these questions about life are that humans were created to be God's image bearers. Life as God intended it to be consists primarily of bearing God's image. This is what makes us unique. This is what we were created for. This is what true life is. To give a simple definition, I'm going to say that life as God intended it to be, or true life, is living in a full expression of our image bearing.  But what does it mean to bear God's image?

I propose that in the Creation account, we find 4 relationships which humans, as God's image bearers, were created for. Together, these four relationships make up a full expression of image bearing, or according to our definition above, true life. Let's look at these relationships. (I am going to unpack each one in the days to come, this is more of a fly by)

First and foremost, the primary relationship which humans were created for was our vertical relationship with our Creator. I say this is the primary relationship because without the proper vertical relationship with our Creator, all of the other relationships with be out of whack. Our other relationships are completely contingent on our relationship to God. If we wrongly relate to our Creator, we can't possible properly relate to his creation. To have true life, to live in a full expression of our humanity, we must have an unbroken relationship with our Creator. 

The following three relationships are what I call "horizontal" relationships. They are the result of our primary relationship and have to do with God's creation. One of these relationships is our relationship with our self. As image bearers, we were meant to have a self-image based on our  vertical relationship with God. More on this relationship in the days to come. Next, in the creation account we see that as humans, we were meant to live in relationship to others. Humans were not created on an island. God never intended us to live in isolation. Therefore, part of what it means to live in a full expression of our humanity is to live in community. Lastly, as God's image bearers, we were given a particular relationship to the rest of creation. There is way to much to say here in this quick fly by, but the Genesis account is clear that humans were meant to live life with a harmonious relationship with creation. This consists of having dominion over God's creation. We'll talk more about that later. 

From this post (I know it was brief and I didn't say a whole lot), all I'm trying to establish is that to live in a full expression of what it means to be human, to have life as it was intended, we must have all 4 of these relationships. They must be unbroken and exist in harmony. Further, for them to do this, they must exist under a unhindered vertical relationship with our Creator. Once our vertical relationship is out of line, all of the other relationships follow suit.

Poverty and The Gospel: Part 2-Gospel of the Kingdom

Before we start digging into how the gospel relates to poverty, I want to start with a bigger question, "What did Jesus come to do?" What were the intentions of his ministry? Most of this will be based off of a post I wrote a little over a week ago, The Intention of Jesus, which lays this out a little more thoroughly. I'm going to try and be brief.

The reason many of us don't see poverty as a gospel issue is because our view of the gospel is too small. Either we (reformed folks) limit the gospel to justification by faith (which don't get me wrong, is absolutely central to the gospel. Yet, the gospel is bigger and effects more than just our individual standing with God) or, we forget this central tenant of the gospel (justification) and move on to the social issues that Jesus cared about. Last post we saw that both extremes are misconceptions.

To look at what Jesus came to do, I want to let him answer the question himself.

"Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" Mark 1:14-15

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4:18-19

I'm going to try and be brief here. A couple big picture takeaways.

First, Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom. In other words, the good news is that God's kingdom is at hand. God is reclaiming his rule and reign. He gives the call to repent and believe, because in reclaiming God's Kingdom, he is calling us to turn from our own little kingdom of self-autonomy. Jesus came inviting us to be a part of God's rule and reign, wherein we live under the love and righteousness of our Creator.

Second, as seen in Luke 4, under God's rule and reign (The Kingdom of God), all things are being set right. Look at all the comparatives he gives in Luke 4. The poor are receiving good news, the captive is set free, the blind see. At the heart of God's rule and reign is the restoration of humanity. Under his rule and reign, all things are being made right again. This is because under our own rule and reign (self-autonomy), we are really ruled and reigned by sin. Under the curse of sin, everything is distorted. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Therefore, if under our own self-autonomy, everything is jacked up, I propose that under God's rule and reign, EVERYTHING is being made right. In other words, Jesus came to restore life.

To get a glimpse of what God intends life to be like, we need to look at Scripture. The place we will look at primarily will be the Creation account, because this was the only time when life was unhindered by the Fall. Genesis 1 and 2 are the only times in human history where humanity itself wasn't distorted by our own self-autonomy.

Poverty and The Gospel: Part 1-Misconceptions

The other day I posted a simple statement, "Poverty is the lack of what it means to be truly human." 

In the coming days, I want to unpack this statement a little bit and look at how the gospel really gets at the heart of what poverty really is. To start, I think it is important that we ask ourselves, what is poverty? First and foremost, we must ask ourselves this question because it is evident throughout Scripture that this is something God is passionate about. In the Old Testament, God continually calls his people, Israel, to extend his rule and reign by being compassionate to the hurting, by welcoming the sojourner, defending the fatherless, and carrying for the widowed, orphaned, and poor. In the New Testament, not much changes. God's people (The Church, or the New Israel), are called to the same mission of social justice. In addition, in Jesus' ministry, it is glaringly apparent that he has a unique passion for the poor. We will certainly unpack this more in the coming posts, but just by doing a fly by glance at the whole Bible, it is safe to say that God's heart is for the poor.

Further, it is important we ask the question of, "what is poverty", because the way in which you define poverty greatly effects how you will determine its solution. Whatever we deem the problem to be determines what we deem the solution to be. For example, if poverty is simply the lack of financial resources, then the solution is to provide financial resources. I bring this up because we all bring preconceived notions of what poverty is. We all come to the table with past experiences that have shaped our worldview, and that consequently have a deep effect on how we define something like poverty. That being said, if we want to get at the heart of what poverty is and how the gospel relates, it is imperative that we approach the topic with humility, being willing to recognize our own misconceptions and the ways in which our limited worldview distorts God's biblical truth. 

I'll give a couple examples from within Christian circles. On one end, there are those who tend to focus on the simply spiritual  aspect of the gospel. The good news of Jesus primarily becomes a pronouncement of forgiveness of sins and justification by faith for the individual. In essence, this is the error and misconception that many conservative evangelicals bring to the table. The gospel is about individual forgiveness, and helping the poor is merely an extra curricular mandate for some. On the other other end of the spectrum are those who make the focus of the gospel God's restoration of social justice. God is about the poor, so the primary goal of the gospel becomes ministries of mercy. These individuals and churches tend to be passionate about actually caring for the poor in the forms of homeless shelters, soup kitchens, providing resources for the under privileged, and extending love to the socially marginalized (homosexuals, single moms, immigrants, etc) at the expense of God's message of repentance from and forgiveness of sins. 

I hope that as we unpack what is at the heart of the gospel that we will see that in themselves, both extremes are wrong. In this case, the gospel isn't an either/or, but is a both/and. One of my main goals in the coming days is to show that poverty is a gospel issue, and poverty alleviation is at the very heart of the gospel. As some see it (conservative evangelical Christians), it is not just an extra curricular biblical mandate. It is not something some people are called to be passionate about and others not so much. On the other end (liberal mainline churches), poverty is much deeper than just a social justice issue. The gospel is so much bigger and more beautiful than simply alleviating the material and physical elements of poverty in this life. In fact, you can't actually help those who are physically poor without the dynamic power of the gospel that is the message of salvation for all who believe. The poverty issue lies within the very fiber of the gospel. 

To see this, I want to redefine poverty within the context of the biblical narrative. I want us to retrace what poverty is according to God's story. But first, my next post will look at what Jesus actually came to do. What were the intentions of Jesus? 

From This Valley

A song by the Civil Wars, From This Valley: Great band (hope to see them live sometime) and great lyrics.



From This Valley

Oh, the desert dreams of a river
That will run down to the sea
Like my heart longs for an ocean
To wash down over me.

Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray 'til I see your smiling face.
I will pray (pray, pray) to the one I love.

Oh, the outcast dreams of acceptance
Just to find pure love's embrace.
Like an orphan longs for its mother.
Oh may you hold me in your grace.

Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray 'til I see your smiling face.
I will pray (pray, pray) to the one I love.

Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind
That will float beneath her wings
Like a voice longs for a melody.
Oh, Jesus carry me!

Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray 'til I see your smiling face.
I will pray (pray, pray) to the one I love.

Oh i will pray, pray, pray 'til I see your smiling face.
I will pray (pray, pray) to the one I love.

Counterfeit Gods

The Essence of Poverty

"Poverty is the lack of what it means to be truly human."

So what does it mean to be truly human? Humans were created to be God's image bearers. Therefore, poverty is the distortion of this image bearing. More to come on this in the coming days.

New Humanity in the Gospel

I still think this is one of the best sermons I've ever heard.

Free to Serve

"Live as people who are free, 

not using your freedom as a cover up for evil,

but living as servants of God."

1 Peter 2:16

What we decide to do with our freedom shows where our hearts desires truly lie. The Christian is one who has been freed from bondage. We are no longer enslaved to anyone or anything. We are free. Yet, in our freedom, we willfully submit ourselves to our loving Lord and Savior. In a culture that prides itself on freedom and personal choice, this very idea of submitting yourself as a servant to someone else probably seems disgusting. It seems ludicrous to use your freedom to make yourself a slave. But, I think this is the true measure of love and trust. Once we have tasted of the immeasurable love that our Master has for us, it is easy to turn to him and trust him. It is a joy to run to our Redeemer, the one who has freed us, and willingly lay our lives down at his feet. Ultimately, we can look to Jesus as the prime example of this, who, though he is God, came to earth and confined himself to a human body, and willingly died the death we deserved, in order that we could be freed from our bondage. Now we are free to serve. 

Once You Know That God Loves You

"If I speak in the tongues of mean and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritating or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends..."

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

"Once you know that God loves you as you are, you are free to make the choice that love makes: not to rejoice at wrongdoing but to rejoice with the truth that God has grace for other sinners. You are also ready to do what love does: you are ready to forgive, ready to serve, and ready to pour our the treasure of your heart for Jesus."

Phil Ryken, President of Wheaton College, commenting on 1 Corinthians 13.

Set aside a day for rest?

I benefited from reading some of Ray Ortlund's thoughts on setting aside a day for worship, rest and time with family every week. Personally, rest is not something I do well (that sounds funny for some reason, ha). Often I think resting is just the absence of doing anything, but actually, I think it requires a lot of intentionality. It requires planning, and it requires trust that it will be okay even if I forego doing some of the things I think are absolutely necessary to get done. Obviously, some emergent things can't be neglected at times, but you get my drift.

Anyway, this practical implement of worship and rest into one's week has been very hard for me to adapt of the past few years. But I have realized, when the Lord has given me the grace to prioritize it, it has been quite a blessing to me. I hope we all pray for the discipline, faith and wisdom to set aside more time for the Lord during our week. I think Ray does a nice job summarizing the purpose of a "Sabbath rest" during the week. 

....

Is the Sabbath still relevant? Ray Ortlund

Is the Sabbath still relevant?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”  Exodus 20:8

Let’s not dictate Sabbath observance today.  The point of the Sabbath is a dress rehearsal for a future eternity of glad rest in God.  So, for now, every one of us can work out the details personally.  But in our frantic modern world, the Sabbath offers wisdom that has lasted since the beginning (Genesis 2:2-3).  It is not written on our calendars as much as we are built into its calendar.  It seems to be part of the God-created rhythm for weekly human flourishing.

If we did set apart one day each week for rejuvenation in God, we would immediately add to every year over seven weeks of vacation.  And not for doing nothing but for worship, for friends, for mercy, for an afternoon nap, for reading and thinking, for lingering around the dinner table and sharing good jokes and tender words and personal prayers.

How else can we find quietness of heart in today’s world?  If anyone has a more biblical (and more immediately beneficial) place to begin, I’m open.  But raising hermeneutical objections to the Sabbath principle doesn’t in itself actually help any of us.

I wonder if the very concept of “the weekend” is biblical.  It seems to me that “the weekend” turns Sunday into a second Saturday.  Home Depot may gain, but we lose.  It turns Sunday into a day to catch up on what we didn’t do Saturday or a day to ramp up for what’s ahead on Monday.  It hollows out our whole week, because it marginalizes God and church and sermons and all the other vital things that happen in our lives only when we make the vital things also the central things.  If we accept the concept of “the weekend,” we risk “fitting God in” rather than centering our every week around him.  We risk living soul-exhausted lives, and wondering why God isn’t more real to us, why we’re grumpy.

If we want to find our way back into quietness of heart and reality with God, the first step might be simple.  Bold, but simple.

What Do You Treasure?

""The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. 

When a man found it, he hid it again,

and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." 

The notion of hidden treasure may seem a bit antiquated for modern times. I mean, we aren't the pirates of the Caribbean, and none of us are Jack Sparrow. Yet, I don't think the hot pursuit of hidden treasure is that far from our hearts. Think about it. We are all after something. Whatever it is that we value most, we will chase after. Whether it be the pursuit of money, a career, a football scholarship, recognition, respect, or simply academic success. Whatever is precious to us, we will be willing to sacrifice and chase after. 

This raises the question: What do you treasure? In other words, what do you value most, or what is most precious to you? In this passage, the thing that was most valuable to the man was the hidden treasure. He chased after it with all that he had, even selling everything that he owned just to get this treasure. This brings us back to the question, what do you treasure?

In life, just as with the man in this short parable, we can tell what our treasure is by what we are willing to give up to get it. When something is supremely valuable to us, we are willing to sacrifice for it, we are willing to spend time and energy to get it. This treasure will captivate us and we will be drawn to it in such a way that we are willing to follow it with everything we have. 

So why would Jesus tell this short parable to a large crown in Matthew 13? How is the Kingdom of God like this hidden treasure? I think what Jesus is telling us is that being in a relationship with Him is a lot like finding that treasure. Knowing God is more valuable, more precious and more captivating than anything else in this world. So much so, that if we come into this relationship, we will be so drawn to Jesus, so captivated by His glory and beauty, that all the  treasures in this world, the treasure we so often chase, will soon loose their appeal. Jesus is the supremely valuable treasure that we are all looking for. 

Lastly, if we look at God's actions, what does this say about what or who he treasures? Based on the criteria of what you are willing to sacrifice for, you treasure, it is evident that God treasures us. We know this  because he was willing to give everything for us. And this is the good news; God so loves and treasures each one of us, that he sacrificed his only son, that we could discover him as the true treasure. 

Live Forever

Admittedly, I am not the most aesthetically astute person out there. Nonetheless, I wanted to share this song on here because I believe it exudes beauty and captures the true essence of life, and, to go one step further, life in Christ. In particular, my favorite verse is the second one, which goes"

Some people say faith is a childish game

Play on, children, like it's Christmas day

Sing me a song, sing me a melody

Sing out loud, you're a symphony

I don't think these lyrics are especially profound or extraordinarily magnificent. Rather, they are pretty plain and simple in nature. But, it is the simplicity of these lyrics, along with the music wherein its beauty lies. So, how do these words capture what life in Christ is like.

I love the imagery of the children playing on Christmas day. I picture the pure joy a child has in waking up that morning; the excitement they have in running down the stairs. The exceeding elation they experience in opening up the presents given to them. There is a sense of newness. With the dawning of that new day, there is a new sense of life.

Moving onto the next couple lines, I think they also capture this sense of life. The whole 2 lines, "sing me a song, sing me a melody, sing out loud, you're a symphony' communicate to me that life is meant to be more than a methodical drum beat. Life is not meant to be lived alone, quiet, and without joy. It is meant to be lived out loud, with others, experiencing and enjoying all the intricacies that exist in creation.

And I think that is what true life is supposed to be like. It isn't meant to be lived in fear, but in freedom. It isn't meant to be dull, it is meant to be new, fresh, exciting, and full of joy. This is what Jesus came to give us. This song, and most specifically this 2nd verse, leaves me with the feeling that life is supposed to be vibrant. The gospel is the good news that Jesus has come to restore us to true life and to make our lives vidid and vibrant once again. Jesus brings us out of darkness and into the light. He turns our black and white pictures into a colorful masterpiece. He turns our lives from a banal drum beat into a symphony.

Some people say believing, following, and giving your life to a guy who died over 2,000 years ago is foolish. But, having experienced this joy, having been brought from darkness into the glorious vibrancy of life in Christ, I cannot help but play on like it's Christmas day.

Listen to the song. Think about life. Enjoy.