Tag Archives: renewal

The Beatitude Life

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We have been living as if the most important things about us are what we perform before others, and it’s making us miserable and anxious. Jesus tells us that the most important things in life are done in secret, before the Father, who loves us simply because he loves us.

One counterargument to this might go like this: “Yes, but doesn’t Jesus also say, ‘Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven’” (Matthew 5:16)? Yes, he does. Why, then, would he say just a few passages later (in the same sermon!) that we ought to practice our good works in secret? Which is it—practice your life in public to be seen by others, or resist that line of thinking and keep your life secret before God?

On the surface, these two verses seem to contradict each other. Either Jesus forgot what he just said and is confused, or he is misleading us and shouldn’t be trusted. Well, don’t worry—there’s a third option.

When Jesus tells us to practice our lives in secret, he is talking about our virtues—giving to the poor, praying, and fasting; things we might be tempted to perform before others to look impressive. But in Matthew 5:16, when he calls us to shine our works before others in such a way that they’ll see and glorify God, he has just finished unveiling the Beatitudes (vv. 3–12): Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who are meek, those who mourn, those who are persecuted, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and those who are slandered for Christ’s sake.

You can give to the poor, pray, and fast outwardly, but inwardly the substance of your life can still be based on pretense. You can do all these wonderful acts of virtue and still be a hypocrite. But poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, joy in suffering, and endurance of slander form substance that is deeper than outward impressiveness. Living this beatitude life will produce a kind of attraction that glorifies God rather than you. In other words, it’s hard to perform the Beatitudes. Jesus isn’t concerned about performative meekness; he’s concerned about performative prayer and performative justice.

But the Beatitudes Jesus describes in Matthew 5:3–12 do not just grow from nowhere. A heart that can rejoice in slander must first learn to resist the praise of others and live in secret with the Father. Jesus lived out this pattern in his own life. In John 2:1–11, after he turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana and performed many great signs, a large crowd began to believe in and follow him (v. 23). But John’s gospel shows us how Jesus responded: “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people” (v. 24).

We tend to think this verse is primarily about what’s inside a person. And it certainly is about that! The rest of John’s gospel shows the frailty of our beliefs. But it also reveals what’s inside Jesus: He “did not entrust himself to them.” Jesus knew how to practice the principle of Matthew 6, resisting the world’s praise. He entrusted himself to something deeper than man’s approval—a deeper reward, so to speak. It’s almost as if Jesus is singing Psalm 102 to himself: “They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment . . . You are the same, and your years have no end” (vv. 26–27).

If you consider the end of John’s gospel when the praises of man were no more and the people cried, “Crucify him!” and wanted to exchange his life for that of Barabbas, Jesus could quietly embrace the cross because his life never depended on the praise of others. And so when Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him (Matthew 16:24), this pattern of not entrusting ourselves to others must be deep within us.

Do you see? Jesus had a heart that could endure the cross and be slandered for righteousness’ sake because his heart was hidden in secret with the Father who loved him. The heart that takes these small crucifying steps of learning how to resist praise from others can be formed into a heart that follows Christ—even (or especially) when it costs us deeply.

I want to emphasize that these are small crucifying steps. The work of unwinding our hearts is difficult and slow. It’s remarkable that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t instruct us toward grand or famous acts of faith and courage, just ordinary spiritual obedience done in a hidden way. But even so, practicing these ordinary things—these small crucifying steps—in a hidden, intentional way has a transformative effect.

—John Starke, The Secret Place of Thunder: Trading Our Need to Be Noticed for a Hidden Life with Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023). Available from Christian Book, Logos, and everywhere else books are sold.

 

More by less.

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Every time we add something new to our schedule, we must take something out. Alongside your ‘to do’ list think about keeping a ‘don’t do’ list as well.

“Many times, developing the ability to spend time in the Bible and to hear what it’s saying is less about our aptitude for scripture and more about all the noise that exists around us. We all know we could use more Bible, but we often forget we could use less of everything else.”
—Jared Wilson, Abide

 

Our hearts are longing for the more-ness of our Creator.

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One of the greatest challenges we have as parents is to keep our children from settling for less.

The world offers less.

The great lie is that our heart’s longing can be satisfied with the lesser things of this world. We attempt to make a god of created things instead of worshiping the creator. This is why we never find a sustained sense of satisfaction or contentment. Our hearts are longing for the more-ness of our Creator. 1

The beauty of the Creation story is that it paints a picture of the one we worship. The all-powerful, all-sovereign, all-loving, all-just completeness of our God. Here’s the opportunity:

Our struggle as parents will always be to keep the bigness of God in our homes. As parents, we get the enormous opportunity to help our children connect the dots of their deepest desires to the source: their magnificent God.

So let’s help them DREAM and let’s help them to SEE the realities beyond this world. Through it all, they just might develop a taste for the kingdom of God. God is and will always be the best conversation that you can have with your children.

Rooted in Scripture, this prayer of the Apostle Paul for us and with us:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being…
—Ephesians 3:14-16

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Story Catechism Prayer Challenge

  1. Day 01, Story Catechism Back 2 School Prayer Challenge ↩

 

The beauty of duty and dependence. 

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It is the beauty in Christ that fuels true obedience in us.

“Our pleasure and our duty,
Though opposite before,
Since we have seen His beauty,
Are join’d to part no more:
It is our highest pleasure,
No less than duty’s call,
To love Him beyond measure,
And serve Him with our all.”
—John Newton, “We Were Once As You Are” (Olney Hymns)

We delved into this dynamic last Sunday with “Beauty of Duty & Dependence“.

“Do not rest until love and faith in Jesus are the master passions of your soul.” —Charles Spurgeon

“We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.” —A.W. Tozer

 

Create a Crisis for a Change.

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“Is it okay that I read your wife’s blog? Her writing challenges me every time I read.”
—recent comment from a man friend 1

Right now our kids are scurrying from the yard to driveway pretending to be a peregrine falcon and Thompson’s gazelle, respectively, so we’re safe to write for a few minutes. Until a playful predator comes.

That would be a crisis to their uninterrupted play time.

That’s what I want to talk with you about: crisis. Crises, in fact. Lots and lots of mini-crises, created from our own hands.

A crisis is when you need God to come through, because otherwise you’ll fail. You don’t have what it takes, so you take what He alone can give.

Of course, we cannot create anything ourselves, but all of our creative powers — our creativity — is on loan from the Creator. It’s borrowed to be used well. Whether we steward these powers for good or spend them foolishly on self, we better know what kind of power we’re dealing with. Too many people use their supposed “power” to play it safe, seek comfort, take no risks. That’s some kind of tragedy. A power failure. (Others create all sorts of drama for themselves and every moment seems like a crisis. That’s sad but not in view here.)

RUNRISE

Humanity has been made in God’s image. We may not look like Him in outward appearance, or take a representative form too often, but our essence, our createdness, is in the similitude of God. Makes sense, since He’s our Father.

God has created us for crisis. We were made to shine brightly in dark situations. Yet a person will only know if he or she is ready to trust Him in the inevitable big, unplanned crisis, if they’ve first learned by experience to trust Him with many mini-crises.

That is one secret to Jesus’ life. He is the definition of true humanity, coming to recreate what has been broken lost in us. Yet He did not do it by Himself. Jesus the Son depended moment by moment on the love, approval, and power of God the Father. He imaged the Father well. Perfectly, in all manner of crises. Never hurried, ever-present, calm and collected to unleash the power of God on the situation of Their choosing.

~~~

On my wife’s blog Sacred Mundane (on which this post first appeared) she reflects on various mini-crises encountered each week. As crises help you consider ours, each can find perspective to keep on creating these crises and growing as people. It is because of her steadfastness in the face of these crises, forged in fact by each crisis itself, that each us gets to read on the Sacred Mundane. That’s why many men I know read her blog. There’s meat there, substance more than mere style. Using the mundane moments of each life, what seems at first so un-spiritual, she makes connections to the Gospel. Every man, woman and child can benefit from that. Kari makes public many private details, though each is processed in prayer and with her husband (me), and together we sense the Spirit’s leading for her to share. Frankly, it would be easier to not share anything personal. Just “write about God,” but while the words would be true, they would not be real.

Realness is where the crises happen. Realness is what we’re after.

Actually, wholeness is the goal. Wholeness in Christ. We’re convinced real wholeness is only found in Him, and only on the other side of embracing realness.

There is a gap for each of us between the ideal and real, between what we say we believe and how we really live it out.

Most men I know … scratch that: every man I know likes to do things he feels confident about. Some only do the things they feel confident about. It’s why some don’t search for a better job, and why others like to fish. Confidence makes one work on their own car, and for the same reason others take it to the dealer to get serviced. Confidence. One can have the appearance of confidence with mere talk, yet to truly reveal one’s confidence, a crisis has to do it’s work.

Continue reading →

  1.  This post originally appeared on Sacred Mundane, as guest writer for my wife Kari. ↩

 

Love: Fitness, Fatigue & Form

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In recent months a few friends have asked me to help them get in shape. Mostly through “friendly” encouragement, but sometimes more directly (and firmly) as a coach would. Various requests came in the form of invitations to run together, so we formed the Arch Bridge Running Club (Tuesdays, 5:00 AM running in/between Oregon City and West Linn). 1 A couple of us are training for a triathlon. Mostly we’re just running buddies.

RiskOne friend — not a runner nor desiring to become one! — asked me earnestly one day in mid-January if I would help him get in shape. Sure!

It took 86 days for his verbal desire to become “day one” of action. This month he began the journey through physical fitness. His resolve is now taking the shape of a new habit. (Don’t give up. Habits are usually stronger than desires.)

The key for him? Probably many things, like being disillusioned with getting older and sedentary. The inspiration of others on the journey, and a commitment to eating healthier has helped. Probably, like me, saying “no” is a challenge for him, so that there’s little left for cultivating a whole life.

Yet the key factor was this: beginning a new routine alongside his wife. (Yes!) This meant saying no to the customized fitness plan I had sent him (85 days prior) in order to say yes to a better and more realistic plan. (Principle: It’s good to say no to your friends for the sake of your wife.)

Personally, I default to doing just about anything alone. Which is precisely why I must not do so. Sure, there are times of solitude, and out of six runs in a given week, five usually are alone before the sun comes up (though with Strava you’re never really alone). Tuesday mornings are a reminder that I am both known and needed, and not just because I’m the one who usually sets the week’s running plan.

Being known is about vulnerability, where others can see you as you are: whether fit and fresh or fat and fatigued. In physical terms that means getting up early, when no one else will (especially yesterday’s you), to hit the road or gym hard. It means showing up to give your best, while not looking your best. It means turning on screens in order to get needed sleep. It means running slower on recovery days, since that’s wisdom. It means asking someone significant to check on what you’ve eaten, what you’ve spent, giving personal access to someone to see the behind-the-scenes of your life. The same holds true spiritually, relationally, emotionally. This is the pursuit of wholeness, where we see God’s love at work it us, whether fit or fatigued. Continue reading →

  1. The Arch Bridge Running Club is open to all, though for your enjoyment some basics and baseline fitness are needed: 1) Be able to run continuously for thirty minutes, 2) sustain sub-9:00/mi for three miles, 3) a desire to be challenged. There are no dues, nor t-shirts (yet). ↩

 

Let’s get uncomfortable!

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“Western culture has things a little backwards right now. We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we’re so comfortable we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. We get in a car, we get in an elevator, it all comes easy. What I’ve found is that I’m never more alive than when I’m pushing and I’m in pain, and I’m struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there’s a magic.”1

That’s a keen insight from long-distance runner Dean Karnazes. His words apply to all “adventure,” really all of life, as running and training can be a good metaphor for the real “endurance” events we call daily life. The ordinary, common, everyday activities are where we need the will to persevere and willingness to get uncomfortable.

In short: We can either be comfortable and stagnate or stretch ourselves—become uncomfortable—and grow.

We tend to think that comfort leads to happiness. It doesn’t. “Happiness” comes from growth, a deeper joy than temporal circumstances. In comes in part from making commitments and keeping them. We find a measure of joy in making progress, and especially joining others in their development. When we persevere, we grow.

Let's run up those hillsFor me that means hitting the pavement in search of some hills almost every morning. In reality, running is the easy part. It’s the other “endurance” events of life where we must embrace the uncomfortable: relationship tensions, hard decisions, confrontation, adversity, setbacks, each new challenge an opportunity. This is essential if we are to reject apathy.

I wonder if one reason 80%+ of people fail on their New Year’s resolutions is they remain committed to their own comfort. The love of comfort keeps them from a better adventure. People embrace apathy, which is a slow death. And a love of self-comfort keeps them for pursuing health and wholeness for the sake of others. If we are to benefit—and better yet: if others are to develop under our care and leadership—we must get uncomfortable. Seek out a measure of adversity, and train for the real adversity than will inevitably come your way.

“Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity.”2

  1. Dean Karnazes in an interview with Outdoor Magazine, published online December 2006. ↩
  2. Timothy Keller, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. ↩

 

We cannot love the world until we stop loving the world.

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“You cannot love the world until you stop loving the world.”
—Kari Patterson, teaching OSU Real Life college students last weekend at Lake Shasta

An idol is anything you add to Jesus as a requirement for being happy. 

There are four common idols: Comfort, Approval, Control, and Success.

Life coming into focus as students enter the waters to be baptized in response to Jesus reconciling them to God

Life coming into focus as students enter the waters to be baptized in response to Jesus reconciling them to God

In teaching about Love, Kari and I explained each of these four as representing the false gods of our age — which then represent numerous others, for our hearts are idol factories. Our flesh is tempted by the world system most clearly in these four common ways.

Each pretend god promises good things but in the end lets us down. It’s easy to see why: we not meant to find comfort, approval, control or success apart from the loving protection and provision of our Creator. He is our Father, and He is good. We need not run to other seemingly “good” things to find satisfaction.

Real life comes into focus as we give up control to receive approval from God the Father, because of the successes of His Son Jesus, who gave up all His comforts for us and for our salvation.

What Do You Love?

Many students asked about this helpful tool, delving into the root desires, fears, and problem emotions, of each idol. Here’s a page from The Gospel Primer on the four common idols (click to enlarge image):

Four idols

As you can see, this discussion on heart idols moves far beyond sin-is-bad-behavior, for even very “good” things can become destructive in our hearts when they take the place of God. Worldliness is anything that steals your full enjoyment of Father’s Love. That’s why we must say we cannot love the world (people, creation) until we stop loving the world (system). Pride, greed and foolishness have not more place in our lives. Let us not tip-toe around worldly thinking and living; let us dive deep into God’s Love.

Love: What the World Needs Now

We taught the weekend’s main sessions tag-team, side-by-side, focusing on asking and answering three key questions:

  1. Who loved you? (on the Father’s Love, our identity in Christ, and receiving His love)
  2. What do you love? (on idolatry and removing obstacles to reciprocating Father’s love)
  3. Who will you love? (on whole-life intercession by relaying God’s love to others)

The first two deal with our relationship with God, yet if we stop there we will only get to thinking about life through this lens: “How will this affect me?” That’s not deep enough. Jesus told the story of the (Good) Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) to lead us far beyond asking how situations affect ourselves. He desires us to capture His heart and ask: “How will this affect her? How will this affect him? How will this affect them?”

Throughout the weekend we heard leaders comment how nothing was exactly what they expected, and a refrain “this is deep.” The unpredictable weather provided a metaphor and helped us get to the end of ourselves: we cannot control outcomes. Salvation visited those shores, and many crossed the line into the Kingdom. Because Jesus loves us He does more than give us a motivation talk about our missed potential. His words are better than vague, pithy, positive sayings. He heals us by first wounding us. Only through embracing and embodying God’s Love in Jesus can we love as loved ones. That’s the kind of love the world needs now.

Students & leaders at #rlshasta 2014

college students & leaders at #rlshasta 2014

 

The God with dirty hands.

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What does God think of the messiness of our lives? Is He mad like the parent who tells the kids to clean their rooms only to return and find them dirtier and more disheveled than before?

I’ve found through Jesus God the Father comes and cleans up the mess alongside us, even doing the hardest parts gladly, yet letting us feel like we’ve contributed to the project. Of course, without Him it (and we) would still be a mess, and simply put, He’s done it all. All because Jesus proves God doesn’t mind getting messy.

“We worship a God who gets His hands dirty, forming humanity from the dust of creation, becoming human and breathing His first breaths in the filth of a stable, and living an ordinary life as a carpenter. His hands are stained with blood and dust as He climbs Golgotha and His hands are forever scarred by nails as He dies for you and me. The story of the Gospel is a story that takes place within our world, beginning in a garden, journeying through deserts, and showing up in the landscapes and living rooms of our own stories, where we first came to know Jesus and hear what He’d done to bring us back to God.
… Though Jesus has ascended to heaven, He’s not finished with getting His hands dirty. Now, though, His intent is to get His hands in the dirt through you and me as we live in the world on His behalf.” 1

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  1. Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for a your a Spiritual Journey, 195-196. ↩

 

Supernaturally brilliant.

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“What is merely human, however brilliant, will not pull us out of the ditch we have fallen into. But the words that Jesus spoke to us, they are spirit and they are life.”
—Ray Ortlund, Jr., preface to Supernatural Living for Natural People: The Life-giving Message of Romans 8

In the eighth chapter in his Epistle to the Romans, Paul takes the words, work, will and ways of Jesus to the depths our hearts need. Personally, I cannot get enough of it, and have wore out a few Bibles over the last decade from underlining and revisiting the life-giving words of this chapter.

Luther said our Bibles should be so worn from use that they almost automatically open to Romans, and especially to a crease in the binding at the brilliant eighth chapter.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” —Romans 8:1

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Whenever I need renewal and revival in my heart, I turn to this chapter, drawer from the deep well, plenty of water for this thirsty soul.
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Renewal: leading our families in the Gospel.

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School starts next week and calendars are quickly filling.

Does your weekly schedule include: Discipling my children to know and love God?

Although Sunday school, kid’s programs, vacation Bible school, and AWANAs are all awesome, no one has more power to influence your child for Jesus than YOU.

You are the most important person, your home is the most important place, and your daily life is the most important program.

This week at RENEW we’re challenging each other to take steps toward leading our families to Jesus. The husbands and fathers were particularly challenged, but all of us can influence our homes and help create habits that foster faith, love, hope, grace, renewal. We’re not experts, but here are some simple ideas Kari and I collaborated on toward making small starts:

1. A little something done consistently is better than a big bang that fizzles out. Teaching your child just one short verse each week (such as Letter Lessons) is better than attempting an elaborate program only to quit after 5 days and do nothing at all. Our pride and egos tend to push us toward bigger and better and flashier programs and curricula, but small simple steps of meditating on God’s Word, praying, and practicing real everyday faith are more effective long-term. Start small and go the distance.

2. Do something within your gifting. If you love to read, read. If you love to act and play more active games, act our Bible stories with your kids. If you love to play instruments, sing! If your heart is for prayer, pray! Don’t stress too much about having the perfect devotional program, just do what you enjoy and let your joy and passion inspire your children. If you actually enjoy what you’re doing, chances are they will too.

3. Schedule it in. We only actually do what we make a priority. If we think family devotional time will just naturally wiggle its way into our day, we’re dreaming. Again, it doesn’t have to be every single night (although that’s awesome if it is!) but plan 2-3 times a week of intentional family time seeking God. Plan it the way you would a sports practice or swim lessons. Decide what you want to do and schedule it in. Right now is the perfect time, before school starts, to put family devotional time as a priority on the calendar. Make it a priority this year.

4. Find a great resource. Below is a list of family devotional resources. Browse and perhaps buy or download one that works for you. Start by getting a good family Bible. Since most kids are visual learners, and since knowing the Big Story is more helpful than getting bits and pieces of bite-sized morals, let us recommend a few possibilities for a parent-kid-family Bible:

  • The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, by Sally Lloyd-Jones (also a read-aloud edition, and deluxe edition with audio CD). This one has become our favorite, even though it’s probably aimed for reading to younger kids. I’ve recommended it to many new Christians (even those without kids) simply for getting a grasp of the Story of God, and the Hero — Jesus. The words flow with a poetic cadence, making them memorable, and each story points to who Jesus is, why He came, and what it means to follow Him.
  • The Gospel Story Bible: Discovering Jesus in the Old and New Testaments, by Marty Machowski and A. E. Macha. Each story covers two pages (less pictures and more words), yet told in an engaging style. Each lesson has questions aimed to help kids notice the people and features of each biblical story, and it’s connection to God’s character, His Son, and the Gospel.
  • The Big Picture Story Bible, by David R. Helm and Gail Schoomaker. Another good picture Bible giving the over-arching narrative of God’s story. Stellar illustrations, though you’ll need to come up with your own questions for interaction and inciting wonder.
  • Long Story Short: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God, by Marty Machowski. This one is more of a plan for daily discussions and lessons, for preschool-to-elementary-aged kids.

We have each of those, having added one a year to give new perspectives. As our kids have become familiar with the biblical narrative and story of Jesus we let them choose a story from two Bibles, and then read them together. It doesn’t take long, and each conversation has the opportunity to take a thousand twists and turns (in the form of questions). We see this as “quantity time becoming quality time.”

A Beginners Guide to Family Worship by Winfield Bevins

One last resource to mention:
A Beginners Guide to Family Worship by Winfield Bevins ($2.99 ebook published by Gospel-Centered Discipleship)

Summary: Every Christian parent can lead their home in family worship — simply coming together as a family and worshipping God in the home. This little book has been prepared as an introduction to family worship and to help you teach your children basic Christian beliefs and to memorize Scripture.

(This ebook is 24 pages, and available in your choice of ePub, mobi, or PDF format.)

Right now is the perfect time to establish godly habits to lead our families to Jesus. I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and resources suggestions for your own family worship times. Thanks so much for reading, and sharing!

 

Survival.

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The challenge we face, as people and churches, in our fight to survive:

“The ‘ultimate concern’ of most church members is not the worship and service of Christ in evangelistic mission and social compassion, but rather survival and success in their secular vocation. The church is a spoke on the wheel of life connected to the secular hub. It is a departmental sub-concern, not the organizing center of all other concerns. Church members who have been conditioned all their lives to devote themselves to building their own kingdom and whose flesh naturally gravitates in that direction anyway find it hard to invest much energy in the kingdom of God.

They go to church once or twice a week and punch the clock, so to speak, fulfilling their ‘church obligation’ by sitting passively and listening critically or approvingly to the pastor’s teaching. Sometimes with great effort they can be maneuvered into some active role in the church’s program, like a trained seal in a circus act, but their hearts are not fully in it. They may repeat the catchwords of the theology of grace, but many have little deep awareness they and other Christians are ‘accepted in the beloved.’ Since their understanding of justification is marginal or unreal – anchored not to Christ but to some conversion experience in the past or to an imagined present state of goodness in their lives – they know little of the dynamic of justification.

Their understanding of sin focuses upon behavioral externals which they can eliminate from their lives by a little will power and ignores the great submerged continents of pride, covetousness and hostility beneath the surface. Thus their pharisaism defends them both against full involvement in the church’s mission and against full subjection of their inner lives to the authority of Christ.”
—Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Renewal, page 204-05.

Questions » How do you see this in your own heart? In your community?