Basic Identity

One of the purest things I’m learning about myself these days is also the most basic and true identity we own as human beings:

I am LOVED and CREATED by God. And YOU are too. We all are.

Our breath and life are real gifts given to us by God to freely live.

Do you ever feel it necessary to ask permission from someone or something to actually live? Me too. And I don’t think we are alone.

Permission finds it roots in understanding our most basic identity.

I love the way Henri Nouwen says this…

The great conversion [of our life is to] learn the courage to say, ‘I don’t have to ask permission from the world to live. I am not what other people say I am. I am not what I produce. I am not what I own. What I truly am is the chosen, beloved child of Divine God.’

Who or what is greater than the ‘Divine God?’

It is so good to have permission to be so freely alive and loved so greatly! 

At The Center Of Them All

How might you rate God’s place in your life?

Is he number one? What tool of measurement is accurate to even rate such a thing? Many people rate God’s importance in their lives by the following equation:

GOD 1st + everything else placed 2nd = GOD IS IMPORTANT!

Our relationship with God is the most important relationship of our lives on earth. This is true. But perhaps the way we measure that importance is different than we may usually think.

I’m not sure we make God the Lord of our lives by rating everything else in our lives as: second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on. I’d like to challenge that! Now, I know I’m playing semantics here, but go with me on this. What if we changed the way we envision God’s preeminence in our lives.

From a list that looks like this…

1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Vocation
5. Interest, and so on…

To something like Fig.1 [pictured above]; God being at the center of everything.

Family. Friends. GOD. Vocation. Interest.

Don’t we more properly honor God when we value family, friends, vocation, and interest, not with a secondary kind of value, but rather as a primary value that flows out of God’s place being at the center of them all.

Rather than think God’s position means everything else is secondary or less important, it is precisely because God is at the center [or "number one" if you'd prefer], that everything else actually matters more.

I think the way in which we value ‘everything else’ may in fact be the best indicator of where God’s place actually finds itself in our lives.

Unity, Freedom, Love, & Diversity

We live in a culture that bombards us with all they ways we are different.

To name a few: dress, speech, religious beliefs & rites,  family upbringing, skin color,  food, music, age, appearance, intelligence, political persuasion, economic status, race, and theological perspective.

Here’s a question for us to really ponder…

When God looks upon us, and considers the uniqueness in which he created each of us, do you think the above mentioned are atop his list of those he values most?

These really don’t make us much different, at least not at the core level of our being in which God would take great delight in.

Although we are diverse, we are not really all that different.  We discover commonality at the center of our humanity.

And I’d argue that God takes greater delight (and we should be too!) in the things that unite us rather than the differences that divide us.

As a pastor, one of the ways I see this played-out, is in the arena of religious belief, rites, and theological perspective. Too many of us draw dogmatic lines in the sand that divide more than they unite.

This leads us more toward biting and devouring of one another than uniting us. It further closes us off to the experience and perspective of others, creating dissonance on the surface, with what otherwise may actually be harmonious at a deeper level.

Unity begins with the understanding of our common humanity with others. That is still quite important to our lives relationally.

The discovery of this leads us back to the unity beneath our differences. There we’re united in our diversity and awaken to the reality that we are not the only favored and loved ones of God. To suggest or think otherwise, is the sinful nature at it’s best in the form of pride. And pride will always polarize us from both God and one another.

In the context of discovering unity, freedom, and love among our diversity, consider this…

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.”

- Galatians 5:13-15

We live in freedom to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us.

Not freedom to do or think whatever we want. Freedom to live in the tension of diversity as we serve one another in love.

It’s our duty as Christians to talk about the ways in which we differ theologically. And we are to do it in: love, honesty, openness, intelligence, humility, patience, and certainly out of our devotion for Christ.

In essential matters: we have unity

In non essentials: we have freedom

In all things: we have love

But isn’t one’s non essential another’s essential and one’s essential another’s non essential. Exactly! That’s when and why we must ‘use our freedom to serve one another in love‘!

It’s difficult and requires maturity to live in the reality of freedom in Christ in such a way. But it’s how I believe the spirit of Jesus invites us to live.

One Final Thought: Perhaps Freedom in Christ is more than just something we claim for ourselves. It may actually be something we offer one another that unites us even in our diversity!

Ash Wednesday Prayer

Today is Ash Wednesday.

And I believe it can be more than just empty ritual for those who take this season of Lent seriously. Click Here: for yesterday’s post on Lent.

Ashes give us a real important picture. They remind us that LIFE IS SHORT! We are fragile and need to be forgiven.

Ashes played an important part in the ancient world of the scriptures, they were used as an external way of identifying outwardly with what was happening in their hearts.

Ashes were also a SYMBOL OF CLEANSING. In ancient cultures when they didn’t have soap, they’d cleanse themselves with ashes. Ashes remind us that cleansing is possible because the LOVE and GRACE OF GOD ARE SO GREAT!

So ashes then symbolize both OUR need to repent and GOD’S cleansing of our hearts and lives!

“Now, now, – it is the Lord who speaks, come back to me with all your heart… for God is all tenderness and compassion…” (Joel 2)

ASH WEDNESDAY - PRAYER OF REPENTANCE

Please, Lord, be with us at every moment and in every place. Give us the strength and the courage to live this life faithfully and hear this prayer…

Most holy and merciful Father: (We confess to you, Lord) and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven. We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit. (Have mercy on us, Lord).

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of our lives, Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, Our anger at our own frustration and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves, Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work, Our negligence in prayer and worship and our failure to commend the faith that is in us. (Have mercy on us, Lord).

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, for all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us. (Accept our repentance, Lord).

Lent: A Call To Examination

Our lives are so absorbed in the day-to-day experiences of life.

We focus on the…

Name brand of our clothing.

Square footage of our houses.

Balances of our bank accounts.

Year and make of our cars.

Esteem in which others hold us.

All the symbols of our own power and accomplishments!

As a result of these focuses, we can too often and easily forget our Maker and Redeemer, replacing God with things and selfish-ambitions. Lent is the season that we do something about that.

It calls us back to God, back to the spiritual realities of our lives that ground us. It’s a time to examine our lives and return to God in the places where we have begun to stray. It’s also a concentrated period of time leading up to Easter that invites us to come to God for restoration, healing and wholeness where we may have broken apart.

We need the reminder that WE CAN BE PUT BACK TOGETHER.

In our Americano version of Christianity, with all its seven quick steps to do and fix everything, the Lenten season invites us to slow down and create space for soul-searching—not rushing to fix ourselves, but rather opening our hearts to God in the most meaningful places of our lives to be touched by Him.

As we enter into Lent…

We pause.

We examine.

We listen.

We reflect.

We repent.

We return.

Lent’s ultimate goal is to reflect on what it means to change, and that we CAN be changed, as we humble ourselves before our creator who’s redeeming every part of our lives.

It is necessary, however, that, while fasting, praying, and rededicating ourselves, we seek to surrender our whole life and practice virtue. We don’t want to just talk about words such as: love, generosity, forgiveness, mercy, humility, confession, repentance, faithfulness, sacrifice, and selflessness, but we want them to be actually how we live.

May we all draw closer to God in this season and know that He is not far from anyone of us. “For it is in Him that we live and move and have our being!”

What Is Hell Like? Does It Exist?

In the wake of this weekend’s internet blow up over Rob Bell’s upcoming book release, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, I’m praying for humility and ‘cooler heads’ to prevail, which should remind us…

We all need to know the Christian faith beyond our own experience. None of us has all of the angle on truth to take in and comprehend all of it; we need one another!

I haven’t read Rob’s latest book yet (although I definitely will), but I firmly don’t believe that he is a heretic or a universalist. I’m excited about an honest and respectful dialogue emerging in the Christian community about hell–I believe it’s needed and actually a very good thing to re-explore together.

I immediately thought of this video clip from N.T. Wright on the topic of hell. It was a compelling initiator for me in desiring to explore and study hell more thoroughly from both the historical tradition and scripture. Check it out…

“I’d love to be a universalist and say, it will all be alright, everyone will get there in the end. I actually think the choices you make in the present are more important than that.” - N.T. Wright

Hidden Greatness

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself,” the writer says, in Phillipians 2 (vs 5).

So, how did Christ think of himself? Verse 6 tells us…

“He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status.”

Jesus’ humility inspires me as much as it challenges me, in contrast to the values of this world which have found roots in my heart and life.

The truth is: I see prominent and successful people and think I need and want what they have to truly be great.

But I’ve also grown weary of wrestling with my restless heart and its tendency to cling to a false and “needy” self. That self has an insatiable hunger to be seen, praised, and admired.

Then, I see Jesus,  and I know what I really need and desire is the kind of greatness He possessed. It’s different and even better than the greatness most of us pursue every day.

“There is much emphasis on notoriety and fame in our society. Our newspapers and television keep giving us the message: What counts is to be known, praised, and admired, whether you are a writer, an actor, a musician, or a politician.

Still, real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility. Some of the greatest works of art and the most important works of peace were created by people who had no need for the limelight. They knew that what they were doing was their call, and they did it with great patience, perseverance, and love!” - Henri Nouwen

May we be shaken loose from the values of a world obsessed with image, power, and prestige.

May we all get a glimpse of the truth of greatness that so gently but plainly reveals how deeply confused about what being truly great is all about.

And, finally, may the GREATNESS of JESUS not be so hidden to us any longer, so we can know what true greatness really looks like.

Love’s Like Gravity

What is the most powerful force in the universe? No question in my mind, it’s Love!

I read an article from the New York Times awhile back on a discovery called antigravity: A force of chaos in the universe that’s pulling everything apart as gravity works to bring everything together.

It got me thinking, that’s a very good metaphor for love and hate. Love is the force in the universe that brings everything together while hate drives everything apart.

Love is the gravity that unites us!

This video is a cinematic illustration of love’s creative power. And, at least in some part, an expression of the love I know and feel for my wife, Debbie, which draws us to each other.

Ugly + Grace = Beauty!

Most of us feel guilty when we’ve done something wrong. Have you ever given much thought as to what guilt might be producing in your life?

For instance, if we never felt any guilt, no one could ever heal–it’s the first warning sign that something’s not right!

The truth is that guilt can either help heal or harm us depending on how we use it.

The helpful result of guilt should be to restore health, not feel bad. In fact, guilt has ‘directional movement’ pointing us toward more than just a mood or bad feeling.

It can help us when it reminds us of our place as human beings accountable to God. It can hurt us when we punish ourselves for not measuring up to someone else’s standard–perhaps even a parent’s, religious system’s, or society’s.

When guilt directs our movement toward accountability to God, we progress through three things:

• GRACE: God’s unique free gift to us.

Our sin is often so great, that GRACE has to be greater [Romans 5:20-21]: Covering the shame. Taking the blame. Removing the stain. Grace is so GREAT that it finds the goodness in everyone and everything and makes beauty out of ugly stuff.

Ugly + Grace = Beauty!

Grace meets us surprisingly with something unexpected and undeserved. And it leads us through the rest of this guilt-freeing progression as it moves us along…

• REPENTANCE: the steps we take to return to the person God made us to be.

We need to repent because somehow we’ve be lured off God’s path for various reasons and we know we’re not being true to who God made us and the life he gave us. To repent, then, is to say…

“God,  I’m so sorry. How messed up is this thing I’ve done. Please restore me!”

It’s not just being aware of our brokenness or a better kind of life. But intentionally taking steps back onto to God’s path for us. And these steps are guided by God’s grace and not just guilty feelings.

True repentance is a prayer of surrender that might sound like this: “Jesus, I need to be united with you in the DEATH of THIS, so that I can be united with you in the RESURRECTION of LIFE OVER THIS!“

• CONFESSION: involves sharing the secrets about ourselves that we try so diligently to hide.

Central to confession is the idea that we’re no longer carrying guilt around alone, otherwise it can become too heavy and wear us out! We often forget that confession is part of the healing process.

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” – James 5:16

Honest confession might be the only way to silence the “shaming voices,”  as author Keith Miller puts it. Our secrets control us and hold power from the threat of being revealed. When we voluntarily share these secrets in spiritual community, says Miller, we break the power of shaming voices which opens us to even greater healing.

The goal in this entire progression is to restore our health, which can only take place if we fully cooperate in the process and use guilt appropriately leading us to grace.

Rejecting Heaven

This is a clip from the Poets, Prophets and Preachers conference which I attended back in 2009.

I loved this parable Peter Rollins shared about how we can affirm and/or reject the resurrection every day–one of the most inspired and convicting moments of the conference for me!