Where to Find Christ

Leave a reply

Because you inhabit my praise and thanksgiving, Lord, I know I can always draw near to you there. (Ps 22:3) Because it is your will, I know you desire intimacy with me and that this intimacy brings you glory. (1 Thes 5:18) You have made the two become one.

Because I can praise your rich blessings even if I find myself in darkness or pain, I am never alone and never desolate. (Ps 139:8) It is you who causes my heart to keep beating, you who breathes life into my nostrils each moment, and you who gives me all good things and makes my life have meaning and purpose.

Who else would I go to, Lord, when you alone speak the words of eternal life. (John 6:68) Who have I in heaven but you, Jesus, and what better can I hope to find down here on earth. (Ps 73:25) #JesusCalling.

God Over Circumstance

Leave a reply

God is the creator of all things so there is no situation or circumstance that is bigger than him. If God is for us, who can be against us. We are more than conquerors those Jesus who loves and nothing can separate us from him.
Rom 8:31-39; Num 14:7-9

Babel

Leave a reply

I attended a fantastic summit on Decision Sciences this week.  It was all about the next wave of technology using data in incredible ways because it is now affordable enough to keep so much data, it is connected, and we have tools that can combine and analyze it rapidly despite it’s volume, variety and the velocity at which it is growing.

They had a repeating information presentation playing before it started – the type with facts that make you think.   An interesting one read:

In the year 320 BC all the data in the world was believed to be recorded at the Library at Alexandria.  Today there is enough data in the world to give every person on earth 320 times that much data.   If all of it was put on CD and stacked, they could reach from the earth to the moon five times over.

Surely they took some liberty with this but clearly we are living in a world of exponentially growing data. 

The growing tools and skills to mine this big data world are bringing about amazing promise and scary possibilities.  There is no doubt that the personalization possible will enable companies to tailor great experiences to users. However, the convenience comes with many challenges to security, privacy, and ethics in general.  While I intend to blog more about this technology on my business blog.  Here on my Christian blog, this idea made me think about Babel.

While much of social media data may be seen by some as not much more than babble, it was the imagery of five stacks of CD to the moon that made me instantly think of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11 in the Bible.  If you don’t know the story, people essentially reasoned as follows:

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:4

I was reading an excellent book on God’s mission by Todd Ahrend on my way to the conference.  He shared that the people were trying to avoid God’s command to “fill the earth” by staying in one place.  Also, they didn’t trust God’s promise not to flood the earth again so they build a tower in an effort to overcome this.  There is lots of fear and pride in these motivations. God’s response?

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.  Genesis 11:5-7

It would be easy to think by comparing big data to Babel that I am saying big data is bad or evil.  Christians tend to fear the new thing on the block.   I am suggesting no such thing.  I am very excited about this new field and what mankind will discover even though I am very aware it will be used for evil as well as good. That is the way of mankind.

The thought for me is more how we will tend grossly overstate it’s value.  As we can mine and correlate the collective knowledge of all people, it could seem a somewhat god-like power.   But it is so much less.  For all it’s potential glory it is still nothing but a tower of Babel – men trying to attain to god-like status.  All the collective knowledge of people is vastly less than the knowledge of God.  Our knowledge is tainted by the knowledge of good and evil for one thing – much of that collective data is noise, inaccurate, and worthless.  But even if it was all perfect, it would still be impossibly less than God’s knowledge.

It is interesting that God says in the Genesis passage, “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them”.  Clearly much is impossible to mankind and God knows that.   I believe the point of this statement and God’s decision to confuse their language and scatter them is because of God’s mercy and mission. 

I’m sure it looks to some like God is being somewhat mean to people in this passage.   What must be understood is that God created this world for the mission of filling it with sons and daughters of God.  Allowed to our own devices, we find and fill our lives with purposes that mean nothing. It is impossible for us to do anything, but filling up our lives with our own meaningless purpose is not impossible to us.   However, it is impossible to make those purposes God’s – we must start with His purpose if we ever hope to find our true purpose.  God, in his mercy, redirects us back to His purpose because it is the only real purpose for us. 

Besides, knowledge is not that powerful or valuable anyway.  It won’t give you peace or love – those come from God alone.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  – Philippians 4:6

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.  Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  – 1 Corinthians 13:2,8

What we need.

Leave a reply

When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they walked with God and talked with God and had direct access to him. They knew him intimately. Yet when Satan comes along to tempt them, they easily find in themselves a desire separate from God.

This creates a huge challenge for us. How can we, who have sin dwelling in our body and who have had our minds influenced by sin all of our lives ever hope to avoid sin if Adam and Eve couldn’t.  We don’t have a direct line to God like they did. Or do we?

If we know Jesus, we indeed have a direct line to God. In fact, we have something better. The Bible tells us that when we asked Jesus into our life, our lives are transformed. It says that Jesus himself becomes our very life. So, while Adam and Eve knew God intimately, it was side-by-side, walking in the garden. When we know Jesus, he becomes our very life and that is very different. 

It is different for many reasons. First, it means that his life is what God sees when he sees us. This means even when we do sin, it is canceled out by the life of Jesus in us. The Bible says that God knows that we are made of dust. So he provided a solution that overcame the sin that dwells in our body. He also knew that our minds are polluted by the world in which we live. So, having Jesus dwell in us, we actually have the mind of Christ available to us always. 

Still, we seem to regularly not take advantage of the wonderful gifts that he has given us in Christ as our life. The Bible says that God will meet all of our needs and he actually does that by giving us Jesus as our very life when we accept his grace. 

A big part of the problem for us fully accessing the gift is that we want more than what we need. Said another way, our wants and our needs frequently don’t match. Sometimes, when we feel like we need something, we really just want something, and we actually need something different. Every parent knows  what this looks like from the way in which they have had to interact with their children. God, who is our father, has the good of his children in mind when he is dealing with us. Sometimes, we can just be a little bit spoiled and throw temper tantrums when we can’t have what we want.

The question is, if God was really trying to give us our needs and we pushed to have our wants instead, what did we miss by not having our actual needs met? Substituting the best for merely the good and often times the not-so-good absolutely has a cost. Denying ourselves is very hard indeed, but it is the only way we can come to know abundant life. God, alone, has our best interest in mind. The world certainly doesn’t and, clearly, we frequently don’t either.

The Bible says the truth will set you free and we can know the truth. The truth is certainly in Jesus who says he is the way, the truth, and the life. It’s interesting that he says the truth and the life in the same verse. The truth is what we need is vastly more important than what we want and God has met our need by giving us Jesus as our very life. So, today, are we going to scream for cotton candy or have real food?

Returning Son

Leave a reply

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. – Hebrews 2:10

jeremyMy older son who has served in the Army for the last four years is exiting the military and moving to Arlington next week so he will soon be much closer to me. My younger son, Jeremy, just returned to Austin after working in Houston for a year.

Though Jeremy and I did not have a broken relationship at this time, still I am ecstatic that I am watching him talk with my wife on our back patio as I write this. I can relate to the father of the prodigal son on just how wonderful it is to have your son with you. Luke 15:11-31

When we think of the mercies of God, we sometimes think of them in terms of self. But our God is relational to his very essence. The trinity contains Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together as one. God’s very glory – which he is all about exclaiming to all creation – is completely wrapped up in expanding his household with many sons and daughters.

It is a form of suffering to have children grow up, depart your home to live and find their own way. It is suffering to be apart from them but it is glorious to watch what God is doing in their lives – though it is often terrifying too. We often think God’s mercies are about providing us comfort and they do, but God’s mercy is born out of the suffering of his holiness. It cost God everything to provide mercy to us and it is far more valuable and rich than our desire for an easy life.

God is willing to forgo comfort, he is willing to pay the cost of mercy to give us his love. The father of the prodigal son gave everything to gain his son, not just the riches, but the son himself. It is heart-wrenching to let your child go to where they want – especially when you scared that it may not go well for them. I’m confident that the father is the story did not find complete comfort a single day while his son was gone.

God longs to have us in his home so much he gave up Jesus to come and gain us and waits patiently for our return. Because Jesus came, we are one with him and he is one with us. We can boldly call him brother and be assured we can call God our Father. This is a real mercy and real grace – seeing our Father and knowing he sees us fully as his children no matter where we are in this world and no matter what the world throws at us.

  • What mercies of God can you see today right in front of you?  What is less clear?
  • What sufferings have you experienced that ended in God’s mercies.  Fill free to share your experiences.

Jubilee

1 Reply

There is a theme in freedom that it must be declared before it is achieved. American’s celebrate July 4 as Independence day but is it actually when our  forefathers declared independence which did not come until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and after a great cost was paid between those points in time.

When Moses tells Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, he is essentially declaring their independence but there’s all sorts of activity that occurs before they are actually free from Egyptian rule.  And after freedom from Egypt is obtained, there is so much more they go through to learn how to live free.  It was easy to understand what it would be like to be free from Egypt but not so easy to know what it would be like to be free to serve God as His people – forty years in the wilderness and then all that effort to secure the promised land, which never really fully occurred.

The Israelites were told by God to celebrate a ritual every 50 years called Jubilee. It was a year for freedom where each person was to set slaves free, to free their brothers and sisters from any debts, to return to the freedom to God alone and his economy – but they never celebrated Jubilee.

Jesus walked into his home-town church near the beginning of his ministry and reads from the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

then after reading this, he tells them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”. He is literally declaring Jubilee and the response of his nearest friends and neighbors who had known him all his life is rejection – to the point of not only driving him out of town, but also trying to throw him off a cliff. Wow!  Freedom is an explosive topic.

It is strange though – that Jesus, who has the power to secure instantly the freedom he wants only declares it.  Why is this? When the American forefathers declared independence, they invited all Americans into the drama to gain freedom.  Jesus invites us into the drama to gain freedom too – not from an external power but to his internal reality in our lives.

In believing that his spirit has become one with our own and living in pursuit of this incarnational reality, we also find the freedom from seeming external realities.  We can’t control our world externally but the freedom Jesus brings cannot be taken away if we don’t allow it.  It is treasure where moth and rust do not destroy, not in heaven only, but in our hearts where the King of Heaven already resides for those who’ve allowed him in.

This is all nice to say but hard to do.  Every moment here, our humanity, our world and God’s enemies try to point us to the scenes around us as evidence of the futility of loving God and others.   David said in the Psalm – speaking of Jesus prophetically:

You were forged a strong scepter by God of Zion;
now rule, though surrounded by enemies! Psalms 110:2 Message

When Jesus makes us free, we are free indeed!  It is not just a declaration.  It is real freedom – we are truly like him, sons and daughters of God, princes and princesses.  We get confused and think this must mean later since we are still being told we are slaves because we are still surrounded by enemies. But who we are is not dictated by where we are.  We need to learn to ignore the temporary things of this world and keep our eyes on the son of God indwelling our life.   We, with him, are noble children of the King of all kings, God Most High.  So what if we are surrounded by enemies. We are free!

  • Do you believe you are really FREE?  If you don’t, whose voice are you listening to?
  • Can you see that Christianity is more about our NOBLE Identity than the cheap religious substitute of morality?
  • If you aren’t free, who are you enslaved to?  Who can stand against God?
  • Consider writing your own declaration of independence in agreement with Jesus.


Seek Ye First

Leave a reply

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Matthew 6:33

Before you read this post, you may want to first look up the word first.  See what I did!? I used first in the context of time which I suspect is our first inclination. (puns intended)

If you did look it up, you noticed it could apply to order, rank, importance or other items, things, preferences. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that our Lord was not saying first seek the kingdom of God – now that you’ve done that, go, eat, drink, be merry. 

I think the idea he is getting to is closer to primary or essential or foundational.   If you do that thing, all the other things will occur and will make sense.  But don’t expect that to be true the other way around.  Everything that comes after fits on that foundation or framework.  But the various pieces won’t hold together on their own.

Putting the kingdom of God first makes sense considering that the son of God is the speaker – but what does that mean?  Clearly he is not saying, seek to get past this life to heaven as he intentionally left us here. – see John 17:15,18

A clue may be found in the many Gospel references that the kingdom of God is at hand or has come near. It is Jesus that was at hand and available to men and he alone enables us to enter the kingdom of God.    But he is not out there somewhere to seek.  He is here, at hand.  Our seeking is not outward – to find a place in the world – but inward to find him who placed the world into the universe making a place for his life in us and therefore a place for everything else in our world to fit is a way that makes sense.

As we grasp that Jesus is our very life and how that makes all the other stuff in our life come together, we realize there really was no life beforehand. We realize who we really are as a son or daughter of God in Christ – and this is real freedom and real life abundant.

Taken all together, our seeking first first of the kingdom of God is seeking who we really are – by asking the only one who really knows to reveal it to us.  Seek you first – by asking him who knew you first before the foundations of the world.  It is the height of arrogance to assume you could know yourself any other way or that you could construct a better you than God has designed – yet that is exactly what we are doing if we aren’t seeking him first to find out who we really are.

  • Are you still seeking success rather than God.
  • Have you realized that seeking freedom from something is seeking success? What would happen if we sought him first and let him free us?
  • James said, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives” (James 4:3) What wrong motives do you have? Can you see that this are not seeking God first?  What would happen if you swapped motives.
  • When you seek God about who you are in Christ, what are you hearing him tell you? Hint: you are my child!  I love you. what you do or have is completely secondary to that.  I will always love you.