Author Archives: Jeff

Note to Self: Jesus is Big.

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From Note to Self:

Dear Self,
…
“The bigger and more biblical your understanding of who Jesus is, the more likely he is to be such an object of love and adoration that the idols that aim at capturing your attention and swaying your allegiance will lose their power. This is why you sometimes lack earnestness for the kingdom and the glory of God while you overflow with passion concerning temporal things. Instead of making a joyful noise and singing earnestly for the victory Christ has over sin and death, you express a dispassionate approval and mouth the words to the songs sung in worship. But there is often fire in your belly and shouts of joy when your favorite college football team is victorious over the competition. This is probably why the church is shrinking in North America—because small Jesus does not inspire awe, command respond, lead to worship, or compel us to talk of him (much less suffer for him). And small Jesus is too little to arrest the attention of the world.

So please remember—Jesus is bigger than you tend to think. He is the perfect revelation of God, the radiance of his glory, the exact imprint of his nature; he is the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. Everything belongs to him and exists for him. He is the author of your salvation, the perfecter of your faith, and the only one in whom you can find life.”

—Joe Thorn, Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself, pp. 47-48.

 

Access: Poorly dressed beggars.

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“Imagine that your prayer is a poorly dressed beggar reeking of alcohol and body odor, stumbling toward the palace of the great king. You have become your prayer. As you shuffle toward the barred gate, the guards stiffen. Your smell has preceded you. You stammer out a message for the great king: ‘I want to see the king.’

Your words are barely intelligible, but you whisper one final word, ‘Jesus, I come in the name of Jesus.’ At the name of Jesus, as if by magic, the palace comes alive. The guards snap to attention, bowing low in front of you. Lights come on, and the door flies open. You are ushered into the palace and down a long hallway into the throne room of the great king, who comes running to you and wraps you in his arms.

The name of Jesus gives my prayers royal access. They get through. Jesus isn’t just the Savior of my soul. He’s also the Savior of my prayers. My prayers come before the throne of God as the prayers of Jesus. ‘Asking in Jesus’ name’ isn’t another thing I have to get right so my prayers are perfect. It is one more gift of God because my prayers are so imperfect.”

—Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracted World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 2009), 135.

[Quote originally posted at deTheos.com on July 11, 2009. HT: Of First Importance]

 

 

Naturally humble?

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Originally posted on 20 July 2009 at deTheos.com.

No one is humble by nature. In fact, the person who appears naturally humble is usually too lazy to be ambitious or too fearful to take risks. If a person is not tempted to control, especially in a crisis, this is often a symptom of despair and fatalism. Humility comes from humiliation, not from the choice to be self-effacing or a strong urge to give others credit.

Humility that has not come from suffering due to one’s own arrogance is either a pragmatic strategy to get along with others or a natural predilection that seems to befit only a few rare individuals. For most leaders, humility comes only by wounds suffered from foolish falls.

This is the terrible secret about leadership and life: we achieve brokenness by falling off our throne. To be broken is not a choice; it is a gift. I don’t know anyone who has made the decision to be broken and achieved it as an act of the will. But to experience brokenness and humiliation, all you have to do is lead. We who lead know that things happen that make little sense and that seem to have no immediate solution yet involve some failure on our part. …

Leading others gives you the opportunity to first be caught in the crossfire of competing goals and agendas and then to deal with that crossfire with limited resources and inadequate information. Every decision you make in such adverse circumstances will be favored by some and opposed by others. And in such circumstances, someone will certainly consider you a failure. Leading invites humiliation and brokenness.

Clearly there are only three possible responses to the absurdity of leadership: control, flight, or brokenness. Given the futility of control and the uselessness of flight, the only viable option for leaders who want to mature is to embrace being broken.

—Dan B. Allender, Leading With a Limp: Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness, pp. 69-71 (emphasis added).

 

Worth a read: Your Jesus is Too Safe.

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Originally posted on 10 August 2009 at deTheos.com.

Below are some of my thoughts after reading Your Jesus is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior. [Read the book interview with author Jared Wilson in the last post.]

It’s a great book, and may now be in my top 10 favorites. Seriously, I read many dead guys, and am constantly dabbling in a few books at a time. This one made me put down all others and dive in. There are only a couple other authors who can do that to me (one is my gifted writer wife).

What’s the purpose of this book? Wilson writes:

“to remind us, for the glory of God and the hope of the world, of the original message of the historical person Jesus Christ, who was, in fact, God in the flesh” (p. 15, introduction).

That’s because “to really know God, one must really know Jesus” (ibid.). Wilson had me in the introduction; I was hooked.

Diving into Your Jesus is Too Safe, I was challenged, excited, laughed often, got riled up at some of my jacked-up views, and came back thirsty for more of this Jesus. Wilson points past himself. He wants us to know and see Jesus! The thing is, we think we know enough about Jesus. But we only know enough to make us dangerous. And we each have “a Jesus” in mind when we hear His name. Is yours “ATM Jesus” or “Therapist Jesus” or “Hippie Jesus” or “get-out-of-hell-free-Jesus”? Perhaps you like “friendly legalist Jesus,” who gives you 5 easy steps to better finances, God’s way. Scrap all of those — and any others — and open up the Bible to get to know the Real Jesus, the God-Man who is the full revelation of what God desires us to know about Him now.

Somewhere along the way we Evangelicals fell in love with ourselves and made a plastic “Jesus” in our own image. Nevermind that He’s the self-proclaimed Image of God. We like Him to be like us, just a slob like one of us — but in a cleaned-up, respectable sort of way. Don’t get too comfortable with “your” Jesus.

As I mentioned, I can’t recommend this book enough. In fact, I bought copies for our youth volunteers, to go hand-in-hand with a series through the Sermon on the Mount that is all about Jesus. If you want to be challenged to see Jesus’ worth, words, works and ways, pick up this book, read it next to the Gospels, and get to work. You won’t be disappointed.

Wilson is a capable writer, and he’d be the first to admit that the path to getting published in non-fiction is quite arduous, if you don’t have a PhD (and thus no one will read it), or if you are not a celebrity pastor (in which case many would read it).

What’s in the book?

Your Jesus is Too Safe is comprised of twelve “portraits” of Jesus emerging from the Scriptures. It’s an accessible “mini-biblical theology,” tracing Jesus from Genesis to Revelation (cover-to-cover, through the ages) to see how He embodies these dozen paradigms. Sandwiched between and introduction and conclusion, here are the twelve chapters:

  1. Jesus the Promise
  2. Jesus the Prophet
  3. Jesus the Forgiver
  4. Jesus the Man
  5. Jesus the Shepherd
  6. Jesus the Judge
  7. Jesus the Redeemer
  8. Jesus the King
  9. Jesus the Sacrifice
  10. Jesus the Provision
  11. Jesus the Lord
  12. Jesus the Savior

The book may make the most sense to Christians, but I won’t hesitate to hand it to non-Christians.  If we silly believers are often stumbling blocks to reflecting the true Savior, perhaps this raw take from the Scriptures can illuminate what we darken, and clarify what we make fuzzy. Whether you think you know about Jesus, or you know very little, pick up this book and learn the old truth through a new encounter. Plus, at about ten bucks, it’s a sweet deal. Skip three coffees over the next couple of weeks and read this book to energize your day. A few of the chapters (1, 4, 8 esp.) are worth the price alone.

Here’s a sampling of some of my favorite excerpts from Your Jesus is Too Safe: Continue reading →

 

Author interview: Jared Wilson on Your Jesus is Too Safe.

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Originally posted on 10 August 2009 at deTheos.com.

A new book arrived a month or so ago [July 2009]: Your Jesus is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior by Jared C. Wilson (Kregel Publications). With an advance copy in hand, I was happy to participate in the Your Jesus is Too Safe Blog Tour. It’s a great book — read on! [Book review here.]

About the Author

Jared Wilson is a faithful husband and devoted father, plus the pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont. He blogs at The Gospel-Driven Church, and is on Twitter, Facebook (become a fan of the book), and MySpace (why MySpace?). Anyway, he’s connected and has a bent for all things literary (more at The Thinklings, a group writing project) and is a top researcher with the Docent Group — more about Jared can be found on his site here.

My thoughts and a short review will follow in the next post (here).

Read on as Jared answers questions about Your Jesus is Too Safe and life and ministry.

Interview Questions with Jared Wilson

Jeff Patterson: It was hard to pick a favorite chapter—each one was somehow better than the previous—and almost equally difficult to choose a favorite footnote. Those are hilarious (e.g., p. 79, fn. 7, about asking telemarketers for their home phone numbers so you can call them at their home at your convenience; you do that too?). So, what’s @theBecky’s favorite chapter or footnote/anecdote?

Jared Wilson: Beck says her favorite chapter is Jesus the Provision. She’s an optimistic, hopeful, always-expecting-the-miracle person, though, and that chapter deals more with Jesus’ miracles then others do.

She says her favorite snarky footnote is in Chapter 6, footnote #3, related to Jeroboam getting his arm shrunk. It reads, “If you don’t think this is awesome, something is wrong with you.”

[Editor’s note: theBecky is obviously Jared’s wife Becky (or Beck, as he calls her).]

JP: You seem to assume the reader has “a Jesus” in mind, that is of course “too safe,” and needs to be outgrown. You’re real tough on the American Jesus as “ATM Jesus.” Do you think he’s the primary version you confront into in the south, the Bible Belt? (Other than perhaps “get-out-of-hell-free Jesus.”)

JW: I think the safe Jesus plaguing the Bible Belt is sort of a “friendly legalist” Jesus. I have long thought that most of our churches are dealing in legalism without even knowing it. We get around this, it sneaks in, because most of us think of legalism or Pharisaism as stuffy, traditional, judgmental, arrogant, etc. But legalism is just making the message of God one about doing things and not doing other things. No gospel. And that’s what we’re dealing with when our messages are about practical, relevant steps to victory, change, success, or better what-have-you. It’s casual and hip and happy and comes with a rock band and a speaker with a fauxhawk, but it’s still legalism. And consequently there’s lots of people who are starving for Jesus even as they think they’re getting closer to God through their behavior.

JP: Tell us a bit about the subtitle, “Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior.”

JW: Well, that’s one of those marketing things. I don’t even know if I came up with that. Was part of the titling process, I believe. But I like it. It speaks to both the consumeristic and the therapeutic that comes through in our modern alternative Jesuses.

JP: In the first paragraph of chapter 8, “Jesus is King,” you write, “His kingship is perhaps the primary thing we must know about Jesus, the primary way to see him.” Do you think our Jesus is too safe primarily because we see him as an add-on to our lives, and not as our lives—calling all the shots as King of All?

Continue reading →

 

Towards a virtuous life: use worthy means.

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2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
—Peter’s second letter (1:2-11)

How do we move towards this life, of adding virtue to our faith? Continue reading →

 

He has so well gnawed away at the bitter bark of the nut.

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I needed to read this today, from the spiritual counsel of Walter Hilton, on one’s attitude towards a virtuous life:

“Many people possess virtues — such as humility, patience, charity towards their neighbors, and so on—but only as a matter of rational choice and directed will, having no love or spiritual delight in them. Such a person will perform virtuously, but often with grouching, heaviness, or even bitterness in the doing. Nevertheless, perform he does, prompted rationally out of a fear of God.

Such a person has virtuous reason and a disciplined will, but no proper love or affection for virtue for its own sake. Yet when, by the grace of Jesus and by appropriate spiritual and bodily disciplines, reasons are transformed into light and iron will into love, then this person will possess his virtues in love. It is as if at last he has so well gnawed away at the bitter bark of the nut that he has broken through, and is now able to feed himself on the sweet kernel. Suddenly the virtuous deeds which were once so heavy a duty are changed into a sweet delight. The person now rejoices in meekness, patience, purity, sobriety, and charity as he would in any delightful thing.”

—”True Spirituality: The Goal of the Contemplative Life,” from Toward a Perfect Love: the Spiritual Counsel of Walter Hilton, translated by David Lyle Jeffrey [Amazon | Google Books]

 

What drives us? Perhaps nothing?

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Time for installment four of our What Drives Us series looking at why we do, think and feel the way we do. The core idea is this: we either make our decisions based on God’s promises in the Gospel, or on something else.

We’ve looked at Preference, Perfection, and Protection. Now it’s time to consider the strongest force among my generation: apathy.

Perhaps ‘nothing’ drives me? And perhaps the greatest danger facing my generation and those who will follow us is not the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, a down economy, or a tsunami. No, we are being washed away by wave after wave of triviality. We’re a generation deeply committed to being entertained, and thus prone to taking very little seriously. Perhaps our priorities may be a bit askew? (I am asking myself this question too.)

Does nothing drive you?

Let’s look at how this may play out in life.

Situation … response:

  • When all is well in my life … I don’t think much about God; I’m doing okay on my own.
  • When trials enter my life … I ask “why?” and blame others, because I feel like a victim.
  • When I am criticized, I … act cool and pretend it doesn’t bother me.
  • My relationship with God … good or bad, depending on the circumstances around me.
  • Motivation: Whatever feels good at the moment.
  • When I sin … I think it only affects me and don’t feel bad unless consequences impact daily life.
  • I trust … in not very much or many people. (I trust in myself.)
  • My greatest strengths/ weaknesses are … my strength is how easy-going I am; my weakness is that I won’t rise to meet challenges.
  • My identity is found in … what I think of myself, which is probably different than how others perceive me. (I pretend ‘I don’t care what others think or say about me.’)

What is the antidote?

The maturity process brought to us through accumulating responsibilies in the normal course of life. Paul talks about the transition to manhood specifically when he writes, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11). That comes in the middle of a poetic section on love. Love takes courage, putting away childish ways marked by a perspective of greed and one’s feelings of personal pride. We move past our sense of entitlement when we continually recognize all that we have comes by grace. Our hearts will overwhelm with gratitude, and we will live in humility before others and God. Maturing people grow in gratitude and humility because what drives them is something greater than themselves.

So, when a young man, for example, has not developed the skills necessary to enter a career, but has completed his college degree — something’s clearly wrong. The system has failed him and parental influences have not prepared him well for life as a responsible adult.

And it’s not just that the economy is down, though that could be the reason for joblessness for a season. Let me suggest that the real issue is that for years this young man was coddled into thinking the world revolved around him, and he was happy to live in that fantasy world. (“You can do and be anything you want to be,” his parents told him.) Things came easily, as he didn’t have to work or sacrifice too hard.

Then when a real challenge comes along he will escape into the world he knows best. This may help explain why for some men their hobbies are self-oriented (and take valuable time from their families to go ‘recreate’), while for maturing men their hobbies are renewing and constructive (the true meanings of ‘re-creation’).
Continue reading →

 

Withness.

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Everything changed when Jesus rose from the dead. He conquered sin, death and Satan. And then He told His followers:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

He not only sent them out — go do this! — He was to go with them. How did the Father send the Son? He went with Him. How are we ‘sent’ by Jesus. With Him, in relationship with Him, to live His life, a resurrected life that will never end. He is with us. One could call this “withness.”

There’s a famous quote from William Carey, an ambitious believer who was a key shaper of the modern missions movement. In what came to be called the “Deathless sermon,” Carey said:

“Expect great things from God;
attempt great things for God!”

I think Carey would agree: we don’t do things ‘for’ God. In Christ we get to do things with Him. Withness.

Grateful for the reminder from Pastor Matt Kottman in his Easter 2011 sermon on John 20:19-23, “So I Send You.”