Author Archives: Jeff

Weighty Words: as … so …

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“As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” —Colossians 2:6

[Kari writes]: I’ll never forget the first time those words echoed in my heart. College, probably sophomore year, Pastor Mark read them slowly. So walk… the room stood still.

So walk in Him. Of course!  Why hadn’t I understood it before? I was striving, struggling, trying trying trying to live a life of faith. I was frustrated, defeated, discouraged. What was I doing wrong? No matter how early I rose in the morning or how long I prayed I still seemed to struggle. Ready to raise the white flag, I came to Bible study.

As you have received Christ …

How did I receive Christ? As a child. A 5-year-old child. Did I have anything to offer God? Nope. Did I have to rise at 5am to earn His love? Did I try really hard and pray exactly the right words and sweat my way into His kingdom?

No.  How did I receive Christ?

I bowed. I clasped my starfish hands and …

asked.

I asked. I brought empty hands and bowed my head and bent my knees and asked God for the gift of grace.

So walk in Him…

Why do we think that we continue any differently than we began?

Sinners are not only saved by grace through faith, but the saved sinner lives by grace through faith.

Grace is the way to life and the way of life.

[Read the rest.]

Tomorrow, verse 7.

 

Weighty Words: But as for you.

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To find out what a person values most, there’s little need to ask him or her. Just watch what they pursue.

“But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
—1 Timothy 6:11-16

Even in run-on sentences like these, Paul never uses religious jargon, and none of his words are wasted in charges like these. The weight of the words is not so much in what Timothy was to do in response. The gravity is found in who God is: the “blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kinds and Lord of lords,” who alone will never die (is eternal and immortal). He dwells in unapproachable light and deserves all honor. He is the perfect benevolent Monarch; no need for democracy in his kingdom, as He always gets it right and richly provides for even the least in His land.

Often we look around the room to find the most talented, successful, charismatic, and powerful person, and then almost like clockwork get set in motion trying to earn their approval. (Paul describes those kinds of people — the rich, powerful and famous — in the verses that follow.) We strive to be noticed and go to great lengths to earn distinction before that person. There’s no need to do that. Only the One described above has words weighty enough to be obeyed. Through the generosity and integrity found in His character, He can compel us to follow hard after Him. Flee the old life. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Become famous for those attributes.

 

A Prayer of Lament.

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Lord, as we gather, celebrating Your glory and goodness,
we acknowledge the shadow of today’s anniversary.

Together, we remember September 11th, 2001.
We mourn for the lives lost in New York City,
Washington D.C., and on Flight 93.
We lament death’s reign, the visible and invisible forces of evil,
the principalities and powers of this dark world,
and the evil that lurks in the hearts of all men… including our own.

With the Psalmist, we cry:

“How long, Oh Lord?
How long will Your enemies scoff?
How long will You withhold Your justice
from a world that is desperate to see it?”

We lament a world at war, and we ask You for peace

  • In Afghanistan
  • in Iraq
  • in Libya
  • in Israel and Palestine
  • in Egypt and Syria,
  • and all of the nations of the earth that long for freedom from oppression.

We ask for protection over our loved ones and families who serve overseas,
We pray for the fatherless and the widow,
for the poor and oppressed.
We lift up our global leaders
that by Your grace they might lead with wisdom and justice
and work for peace.
And we acknowledge that all such hopes and longings point us to one who will soon return and bring an everlasting peace and justice.

Together we proclaim:

Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the LORD! – (Psalm 146:2-10)

Amen, Come Lord Jesus.

—source: Sojourn Community Church, Louisville, Kentucky. For corporate lament in their worship gathering, Sept. 11, 2011.

Photo taken by Alister Knock.

 

Weighty Words: SENT.

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(Maybe it should be called Pure Words instead. Read on.)

[John 17] Jesus is about as calm as the eye of a hurricane as He awaits an inevitable betrayal, arrest, conviction and crucifixion. So He intently goes to a familiar place to pray. An urgent conversation awaits Him. His closest friends are oblivious to the weight of the scene; the only weight they feel is their eyelids shutting as they sleep instead of watch. I would chide them expect for the fact that I would have done the same.

What Jesus prays is both shocking and re-assuring. He wrestles with the Father, resigning His will to what must be done. (For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame [Hebrews 12:1-3].) Then His prayer takes the tone of a man giving his final resolution, a battle cry of certainty. Jesus doesn’t say much after this, at least not for a few days. The risen Christ had much to say on the other side of the grave.

He had just said His peace to His betrayer, Judas, who would come onto the scene soon after this hour of prayer. Earlier, at the Last Supper, celebrating the substitution of the Passover Lamb, Jesus told His adversary to get on with what he intended to do.

What Jesus needed to say next He said to the only one who did not betray Him. Though the Father would soon turn His face away, He is the only One in Jesus’ life who would keep all His promises.

This was a moment of sweet communion and a glimpse into the most pure conversation to ever take place on planet earth. No pretense or manipulation. No one ‘winning,’ and getting his way through whining or verbal abuse. The strength of Their wills is unfathomable, their rights as Deity immeasurable. But — check this — neither asserts His rights.


Continue reading →

 

Sacred token, signed by the president.

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The inside cover of my wife’s grandfather’s pocket Bible, his constant companion as a merchant marine serving in the military during WWII:

20110902-095912.jpg

When you get to a page like this, keep reading. What follows is even better. It’s far better than the previous page describes as “A Sacred Token.”

Howard Zoet signed the cover page on March 26, 1942. He read the Bible often because he loved the God of revealed in its pages more than life itself. Grandpa Zoet was changed as he read and responded. No mere “sacred token” here.

—
Happy Labor Day weekend. Thanks for reading.

 

Grow your emotions.

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How are you growing your emotions, like as one tending to a garden? Matthew Elliott writes in FEEL:

“At the time the New Testament was written, there was a lot of talk about the emotions. Stoics and Epicureans saw emotions as a disease, something we were to be cured or by using the power of reason. Later Stoics, following Plato, looked at the emotions as irrational forces to be defeated. As we’ve seen, their model, and their solution to emotional problems, was tragically wrong. And yet, the New Testament, coming out of the same time and place, takes a very different view and adopts a totally different model—one that scientists and psychologists today are embracing. The Bible brings emotion and reason together into the unified ‘heart.’

I believe this three-part garden of emotions — Grow, Keep, Done — along with the gardener’s toolbox we’ve already put together — Focus, Know, Value, and Believe — can significantly help us if we are struggling in our emotional lives. It can also be a guide to help us develop the Christlike character God wants in us.

<<>>

The Bible specifically indicates four emotions that God wants us to grow:

  • Love for neighbors, God, and goodness
  • Joy in God, good relationships, and the good things in life
  • Hope in [Christ who is the focus of] our eternal destiny, in God’s supreme power, and in his promises
  • Hatred of evil
  • (One can rightly add the Fear of God, which is a complex reality.)

Each of these emotions is not just hanging out there by itself. It is very important to remember that every emotion is connected to an object. It is tied to what we think, know, value, and believe about something. Determining the place that a particular emotion should have in our lives involves understanding why we feel it and the nature of its focus on a particular object — a person, idea, or thing.”
—Matthew Elliott, FEEL: The Power of Listening to Your Heart, pp. 164-65.

 

Route 66: A Crash Course in Navigating Life with the Bible [book review].

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20110825-053822.jpgEver left reading a so-called “Christian” book feeling empty? It happens to me all the time. Even as a new Christian 15 years ago I was almost shocked how sappy and substance-less the market was for books branded to help Christians grow. Whenever a solid book comes along, combining substance and style, I take heart. (There’s a false dichotomy separating those two, as if to be faithful and true we cannot be compelling? Or to be creative we must become soft on the true message?) I’m convinced that for us to have substantial lives we need to be challenged with solid truth and not just palatable platitudes. Please, no more easy-believism.

I was invited to participate in a blog tour for the new book, Route 66: A Crash Course in Navigating Life with the Bible, by Krish Kandiah. Here’s my review provided freely in response.

Buckle up, we have quite the adventure ahead. The subtitle of Krish Kandiah’s latest work Route 66 [paperback|kindle] summarizes the intent well: “a crash course in navigating life with the Bible.” Oftentimes the driving metaphors used in Bible summaries are such a far reach that it’s painfully obvious the message has morphed to fit into a new mold. Route 66 employs the metaphor of a touring a highway, navigating life with a guide in hand (Route 66 here in the States; think of the winding road in the Pixar animated CARS if that helps). Why 66? That’s the number of books in our English Bible.

What makes this book unique is the author is not content to try to fit God in the glovebox. He is not in the car along for the ride with us. He is in the driver’s seat, showing us the way. Unfortunately that’s rare in popular level Christian writing. Encouraged by the opening pages I grabbed my keys and began down the road optimistic about what lay ahead. Continue reading →

 

When you’ve been hacked.

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We’ve all been hacked, in one way or another. You know the drill: messages send from your email to your whole address book, selling health products or hacked pharmaceuticals shipped from an unnamed country north of here. (I receive at least one of those every day.)

Maybe it was your Facebook account (a grease fire waiting to happen). If you’re like me, your Twitter account was hacked this morning. I guess hackers want everyone to lose weight. Continue reading →

 

4 steps to good decisions.

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From Matt Perman, “4 Steps to Good Decision Making“:

  1. Understand the objectives
  2. Consider the alternatives
  3. Consider risk
  4. Decide

He summarizes: “Very basic, to be sure. But it is surprising how often we go into important decisions haphazardly, without taking an intentional (albeit simple) approach.”

For an over-analyzer like me — who thinks through opportunities, risks, and rewards on every little thing — this streamlines things. Plus, for those of us prone to living in the past (“hindsight is always 20/20” is actually a dumb adage, don’t you think?), second-guessing our decisions that are not of a moral nature, we can confidently move into the future knowing that no real damage has been done. When you consider the options to good decision-making, a little process is worth the risk.

Go … you are now free to make good decisions. (In the good will of God.)