Mere Reflections

[This, of course, is my response to the question raised by Eric in the directly preceding post. Please feel more than welcome to join our conversation. But in the comments, of course. Please don't try to hack our blog and create an account for yourself. Unless you're Andrew, in which case you should feel free to do so. Anyways, back to the article.]

In the previous post, Eric asked “What is the purpose of Social Media?”* And just to clarify, I think that his question was not meant literally, but was rather asking, “In light of the chief end of man (to glorify God and enjoy Him forever), to what extent ought the Christian participate in social media? Can it be edifying and beneficial, or is it inherently pointless?”** So that’s the question I’m going to attempt to answer.

In my response to Eric’s original post (see the first comment), I established that I don’t believe any of the social media to be inherently wrong, or even inherently frivolous. However, I believe that Christians who choose to engage in social media on the interweb*** need to be careful to not fall into several of the traps that Eric listed–namely, the addictive, self-promoting, and time-wasting nature of many forms of social media. We must make sure that in all our actions, including what we do on the internet, we are living out our purpose (soli deo gloria), and not just doing stuff because we want to. Jonathan Edwards wrote when he was still young, “Resolved, Never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s”–we have been bought with a price. I don’t think we fully realize the seriousness and totality of this call, but if we have resolved that we don’t want to waste our lives–that we want to give God glory with our lives–then we must lay hold of that principle. Edwards’ Resolutions can once again be helpful to us here: he also wrote, “Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can”. If we take serious the call of Christ to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him, we must adopt a similar attitude to what Edwards expressed.

Now, I want to make a slight caveat at this point to keep from erring on the side of radical asceticism. I am not proposing that Christians can never do anything simply “for the fun of it”. I am not suggesting that all forms of entertainment are inherently wrong. I am not even implying that we should always have spiritual thoughts forefront in our minds. I believe there is a place for doing crazy and/or somewhat pointless stuff for the sake of fellowship and building relationships. I believe there is a time to just kick back and watch a movie or read a book because you’re stressed out and need to just wind down. And I certainly believe that it’s possible to honor God in all things without actually consciously thinking the thought “God, I give you glory in this”. But here’s what I am saying: if we really believe that true joy and true satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment are found in Christ alone, then we must determine what it means to abide in and treasure Christ in the midst of ordinary, everyday life that goes beyond just “having a quiet time”. We must be intentional about what we do with our time and energy and resources, asking “how will this enable me to better love God with my heart/soul/mind/strength?”

Okay, so now to get to the question of social media. Here would be my rule of thumb for the use of social media (and time spent on the internet in general for that matter): am I using this _______ as a tool for the development of the kingdom in my life and/or others’ lives, or is it simply something I do for the fun of it? And if the answer is the latter, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should cut it off altogether, because like I said earlier, I believe there is a time for doing stuff for the fun of it. But I would submit that that amount of time should be severely limited. And I mean pretty severely. I remember in perhaps the best Piper sermon I’ve heard****, he says “If you watch TV and don’t read biographies, then you’re…making a mistake” (he wanted to say worse, I think, but managed to restrain himself). So I think that a decent test to see if we are spending too much time in leisure–just doing things for the fun of it–would be to consider what we are or are not doing, like reading, spending time in serious prayer, carving out intentional time to evangelize, etc. And if we aren’t doing those things, but are spending three or four hours a week on social media just for the fun of it, we might be wasting our lives.

Now, if the answer to the question (tool or pleasure) is that we are using the social media as a tool, then I think we are on the right track to being good stewards of the time God gives us. What remains to ask is how effective we are being with our time, how pure our motives are, and how important the “work” we are doing on said social media needs to be in our priorities. I really appreciate Eric bringing this question up, because those of us who blog and tweet and facebook need to stop occasionally–often, actually–and reevaluate what exactly we are doing and why we are doing it, to ensure that we really do love God with all our hearts, and all our minds, and all our strength, and all our time, and all our resources, and all our blogs, and all our words. Let us not waste our lives, but press on toward the goal, which is to know Christ more.

Soli Deo Gloria

*By “social media”, I’m assuming that he is referring to social networking sites (facebook, twitter, myspace, etc) and the blogosphere. Perhaps this is a slightly flawed definition, but it’ll have to do for now.
**I’m assuming that this was really his question. If not, then I guess you’ll get a nice little unasked spiel from me for free. But I guess everything on Mere is both unasked and free, so it wouldn’t really be anything new.
***I’m pretty sure that at some point, this word originated as an inside joke somewhere, but from what I can tell, has passed into common usage to refer to the internet. Also, I’m trying to jack up my footnote count.
****It’s called “How to Fight for Joy”, I believe. In other news, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that I’ve reached the point with asterisks that it’s starting to look like I wanted to cuss but edited myself. Which is awesome. #excessivefootnotesftw

What is the purpose of social media?

Let me begin with my initial ideas:

Social media is addicting. Apparently, activity on your wall or blog causes a reaction similar to feeling affection, which therefore causes addiction (see this). And addiction to anything isn’t terribly good (quite the contrary, I’d argue).

Social media is inherently self-promoting. This is and the previous point are similar. As men, we can easily want to be more in the opinion of others, and social media can so cause self-centeredness, which is absolutely contrary to the way God wants us to live. Trevin wax makes this point here.

Social media is time consuming. To this I’m sure we can all testify first-hand. How long do you spend blogging, tweeting, or Facebooking? And what fruits do we bear? In Trevin’s post above, he writes that he needs to “take a step back and evaluate the spiritual effects (both good and bad)” of social media. Does the time we spend justify our use of it?

I see these three points primarily as results of using social media, and I make them without regard to [social media's] actual purposes. So, what is the purpose of social media? How would you reconcile these three points with social media’s real purposes?

And specifically, how would you reconcile these three points with a blog’s purpose? Facebook’s purpose? Twitter’s purpose?

I told Andrew that I didn’t like The Idiot (by Fyodor Dostoevsky), which I believe is one of his favorite books (or so I understood), and he asked me to explain. So here it is.

The reason I didn’t like The Idiot is this: it paints a hopeless picture of the world. After finishing the book, I was left with a sense almost of despair. It left me not wishing that the story hadn’t ended, but with a feeling of relief that is was done, although it was a bittersweet relief, because the ending is so depressing that it doesn’t even feel right to end it there. I understand the Dostoevsky was an existentialist, and so this is what I should expect, but even in the extremely dark book Brothers Karamazov, there was at least hope in the end. Things started toward a path of redemption: Characters grew better, not worse; their struggles and conflicts and mistakes ended up being redeemed, not culminated in destruction; the moral of the book seemed to be one of faith and perseverance, rather than emptiness and perversion.

(At this point, if you haven’t read The Idiot, you can probably skip this paragraph and not really miss anything.)
Maybe I’ve misunderstood what Dostoevsky was saying in The Idiot, I don’t know. I’m not very experienced in interpreting fiction or picking up on what the author was really trying to convey–I’m very willing to admit that–but the primary feeling I got from reading the book was simply depression. I mean, everything just seems to go horribly wrong. The main character goes from healthy to sick again, form totally innocent to morally confused, from simply naïve to socially embarrassing, from in love with a either a madwoman or a whore (it’s hard to really say which–even the characters are quite undecided on this one) to in love with a spoiled brat, and in my opinion from mostly likeable to completely incomprehensible. And you know, I never really understood how Mishkyn (the main character) is any sort of Christ figure at all. I just don’t see it. Oh, and another thing: I feel like Dostoevsky’s portrayal of humanity is even worse than we actually are. I mean, everyone (with the exception of Ganya’s family) is totally absurd. I know (God is great, beer is good, and) people are crazy, but I feel like he’s pushing it a little too far. Some of the things his characters do and say are so off the wall it’s hard for me to relate.
(End rant about everything I didn’t like about the book. I’ve already covered way too much for Andrew to respond to at once.)

I guess this is what it boils down to: when I picked up the book, I expected, as I do with all (fiction) books, to be caught up in the beautiful language, captured by the depths of the characters, engaged by the twists and turns of the plot, and overall–this is the main one–encouraged by the essence of the story. When I read a book, I want to be transported to another place, which perhaps is not always easier or more pleasant or nicer or “better” than the real world, but at least is a place where things go right. If I want to see things go wrong, I don’t have to look very far: the news, the world and our country and our city and the Church and my own heart are full enough of prime examples of things going wrong. When I read a story I want to be reminded that things won’t always be this way. That one day, when the King returns, all things will be made right, and the ground will yield fruit and crops instead of thorns and thistles, and the lion will lie down beside the lamb instead of eating it, and the son will love his brother instead of killing him. That one day, there will be no more tears caused by suffering and grief, that there will be no more scars left from hurt and pain, no more destruction caused by wicked people (us) doing wicked things. That one day, things won’t be broken anymore.

I know I’ve probably said before (and I probably said it in a really snobby, arrogant way–sorry for my stupidity) that “I hate cliché stories, where the good guy always wins and gets the girl, and that I prefer more realistic books, where bad stuff happens and sometimes the bad guy wins, because that’s how it goes in the real world”. I sincerely apologize if I said something like that to you. I see the error of my ways, and I understand now why so many stories end in that “cliché” way. It’s because that’s how they should end. If this world was how it should be, the good guy would beat the bad guy and get the girl. And so we keep reading those books and watching those movies because it reminds us of the world how it could be, and should be, and will be one day.

So the reason why I didn’t like The Idiot is that there was no hope. And because of God’s grace in Christ Jesus, there is always hope for us. So while I appreciate a realistic view of man’s depravity, a story is not realistic that does not include hope. Because “hope does not disappoint”.

So there you have it, Andrew. Feel free to rebut any and every part of this post that you see fit.

[For an explanation/back-story of this little bit of flowery prose, see my post about it on my home blog.]

Today is a beautiful day. The sun has stayed mostly hidden behind some scattered cumulous clouds, and a gentle breeze provides some welcoming relief from the normally stifling Houston humidity. As I sat in on my bed reading I thought to myself: why am I sitting inside my stuffy little room when it is so nice outside? So I grabbed my notebook and Bible and jumped in my car and drove to the nearest place where I figured I could find some nature to sit and write in.

I decided to go to the creek that runs behind the Heatherwood clubhouse, and try to find somewhere relatively shady to plop down. Big Cypress Creek is normally a pretty serene place, at least as serene as you can get in the middle of a large residential zone. This time of year everything is bright green, and the grassy weeds on the broad banks–which slope down gently until they abruptly stop about ten feet from each other, in which chasm a lazy, dirty creek meanders along–is well over knee-high, and starting to be strewn with all the different varieties of Texas wildflowers. A fairly wide strip of level ground on either side of the banks is regularly mowed, and both sides have well-worn paths–one dirt, the other paved–which account for most of the human traffic I’ve encounter in the spot I chose.

That spot is a large, scraggly willow tree, that by some incredible feat of nature, has grown almost completely parallel to the ground, rather than the vertical orientation one might expect to find in trees. Towards the base of the tree the trunk is only a couple feet off the ground, and then it suddenly angles up to about chest-high, where it levels off and then zig-zags up a again a few more times. On the lowest little perch I sat down–it’s conveniently about the height of a low couch–facing a thin little forest of oaks and pines and assorted shrubs which encloses the banks on one side of the creek. At my back is an old, rusted, but quite sturdy iron passenger bridge that spans the seventy-five or so feet across the creek and connects my neighborhood to the paved path on the far side of the creek. The only sounds that reach my ears are the distant hum of traffic from the nearby road, the occasional quiet rumble of the gusting wind, the ever-present cricket chorus and songbird ensemble, and the occasional pop from the air-pistol of a couple junior high boys who seem intent on shooting a blue jay or a squirrel or something.

But now I’ve strayed far from what I originally intended to write about. As I sat in this beautiful, peaceful little spot and enjoyed the wholesome effects of simply being inside and admiring nature, I began to examine the tree I am sitting on. About an arms reach away from me a small shoot comes off the trunk of the tree, the only kind of branch on willows that has any leaves on it. But as I looked at it a little longer, I noticed that most of the leaves are half-eaten and discolored: a rare dark green, a sharp contrast to the bright, lively shades one normally finds in Houston during Spring. So I looked further down the branch and discovered that it is twisted at the base–a practically dead branch. I concluded that such was the cause of the branch’s demise, and continued to look around me and enjoy this beautiful day. But then as I stared out at the creek, I noticed that another branch right in front of me, not the object of my focus but in between me and what I was looking at, is also similarly disfigured like the other branch. The leaves are full of holes, and appear as if most of them had bites taken out of them from some herbivore, still others are completely gone, and all alike are that same sickly dark green color. So I looked up and down the branch, but this one looks like it should have been totally healthy, for it grows upwards, strong and straight. So then I glanced around at all the branches of this tree I had chosen to sit on, and to my surprise I noticed something which I have never seen before (and I have been by this tree many times): the entire tree is diseased. Every single leaf on that tree is eaten, or getting eaten, or about to be eaten, by whatever it is that has infected this tree. From a distance the tree looks perfectly healthy, a bit strange, perhaps, because of it’s horizontal growth, but nonetheless quite sturdy and green. But up close, as I sit right here next to it (or on it, I suppose), I can very clearly perceive that it is far from healthy, and in fact it is probably long past any hope of remedy. I doubt that any insecticide or fungicide or iron supplement or other fertilizer could nurse this tree back to health.

And it strikes me: this is the effect of the fall. No matter how strong nature may look, or how perfect nature may seem, or how wholesome nature may feel–She is still sin-sick. Creation is subjected to entropy and death and futility because of the Fall of Man from the paradise of the Garden, and so She will remain until after the last tear falls*. As I said at first, today is a beautiful day, and our Creator God is good, and so is the work that He has made. But oh, how my soul longs and groans with creation for the day when all things will be made right! When not only the new heaven, but the new earth will be revealed, and God will bring about the redemption of our bodies–our adoption as Sons and Daughters–and the restoration of all Creation!

But as for now, I will gladly soak in the sights and sounds from “the windows in the world, a little glimpse of all the goodness getting through”*, and the mere reflections of the glory to come. And I will keep loving and learning and longing to better know my great God and Savior, and I will keep crying out to Him: “Oh, let it be known, that You are the Lord of all of Creation! Oh, let it be seen, that You have the strength to make everything whole!”

And all the earth awaits and groans
The day of Resurrection
Our souls alike yearn for the day
When we shall reach perfection
For on that Day we’ll see His Face
To which we’ve been conformed
We’ll join the rest of God’s creation
Singing “Glory to the Lamb”

*Credit to Andrew Peterson

We sit and think, but Nothing sings
We lie and dream, but Nothing sees
We try to feel, but Nothing’s real
We blankly stare, but Nothing’s there

God, save us from Nothing
Else it’s what we’ll become

Psalm 13:1-2
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Isaiah 1: 4-6
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.
Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.

It’s easy to ask the question “How long, O Lord?!”. It’s easy to cry out in desperation to God because we just don’t feel His presence, or just can’t defeat a certain sin, or just don’t see any change in a friend’s life. It’s easy to question and wonder and accuse God when the season is dry, or the times are stormy, or the road is hard. It comes naturally to us–just ask the nation of Israel.

But I think if we could stop our questions, or really more like complaints, I think we would hear God saying in reply: “How long? How long will you continue to live in rebellion? How long will you continue to try to hide your injuries from me? Come to me and be restored! Come to me and be healed!”. Oh, if only we would stop and listen to God’s voice, revealed in His Word and spoken within in by His Spirit. Jesus cries out to His Church “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Mat. 23), and yet we continue despising the messengers He sends and disregarding the His voice. He cries out to us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mat. 11). He graciously offers, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4). He promises “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15). And He confidently assures us, ” Go and make disciples… [for] behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mat. 28).

And yet most of the time we refuse to rest in Him. We long for His comfort, but refuse to run into His arms. We beg for Him to speak, but never listen for His voice or read His words. We pray for Him to move, but are unwilling to be His hands and feet. We yearn to feel a passion for His name, and yet go whoring after temporary pleasure instead.

Perhaps when we pray “God, hallowed be your Name in my heart–set your holy Name apart within me so that I glory only in You”, perhaps then God is saying to us “Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel?”.
Maybe the reason we don’t have joy in our lives is because we are neglecting to fight the sin in our lives. Sin steals our joy, and unrepentant sin steals our faith. Let us run to our God, for He can and will supply all our needs according His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. And et us put on our armor, and stand in the strength of Christ, and fight for our joy.

I highly, highly recommend John Piper’s sermon called “The Fight For Joy”. Other than Don’t Waste Your Life, this is the most life-altering thing I’ve ever gleaned from Piper. I listen to this sermon probably once every three or four months to remind myself of the things he teaches in that sermon. If we could follow the principles and suggestions he gives in the sermon, we would be so much stronger, so much more mature, so much closer to Christ than we can even imagine. I don’t know where it is online, but I’ll talk to Riley and try to find a way to make the mp3 available. I’ll let you know when I get it.

http://www.hnw.org/index.cfm/pageid/1870/postid/184/blogid/22/index.html#e13288

-Riley

Here are my two cents on the whole deal.

Obviously, “God is love” is true. It has to be true. But I don’t think it means what we sometimes want to think it means.

Obvoiusly, God hates sin, and condemns the sinner (Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5, Lev 20:23, Prov 6:16-19). And yes, Jesus was sent to cover this sin, poured out from the gracious mercies of the Father when we could not help ourselves (Rom 5:6). To tell the unregenerate that God loves them is beautiful, precious truth. It is life-direction-changing truth. But it is not the ultimate truth.

Here’s what I mean. To tell someone that God loves them, especially a lost person, is good. It is very good. But if it’s your main point, then there’s a problem. Because as humans, and as unregenerate people before being covered by the blood of Jesus, we will take that to feel better about ourselves. “God loves us,” we will think, “so we will be okay.” “God loves me how I am.”

God loved me so much that Jesus was sent so that I could be renewed and… live happily ever after? … have a better life? … feel better about myself? … get rid of that pesky sin  debt? No, God loved me and sent Jesus so that I could be cleansed, repent, and glorify Him. It’s all about God and it’s all about glorifying God through Jesus. The love we feel, the grace we experience, the righteousness that we wear, they are all side effects of the glorious main plotline: our glorification of God. So while “God is love” is true, it doesn’t always mean what we think it means. In light of the gospel, in light of Jesus, “God is love” means that everything God does, from destroying iniquity, from condemning the rebellious, from having beautiful mercy on the sinner, from bringing the Church through Jesus to glorify him, is love. They are all love. When we say “God is love,” we must means that “God is God.” They must be synonymous. If they are not, we run into the trap of fabricating a God or leaving the hard stuff out.

This doesn’t mean we stop showing mercy on the brokenhearted, or being utterly devastated to proclaim the Gospel to the lost, or sympathizing with the hurting. But it means we do them for the right reasons. And this doesn’t mean we stop saying “God is love,” but that when we say “God is love,” we point people to God the Father through Jesus. We don’t point people to love. We don’t point people to acceptance or good feelings or a better life. We don’t point people to sympathy, or even mercy. We point them to Jesus. The love, the mercy, the acceptance, the grace, they are all beautiful side effects of knowing the Lord. They are all beautiful results of communion with the Father. They are all characteristics of God that we come to know by first seeking Him. A man without a watch continually needs to be told the time. What he needs is a watch, but he’s too attracted to the concept of knowing what the time is that he forgets to acquire the necessary device from which notification of the current time comes. We could continue to tell him the time, or we could direct him to the Source: the watch. When he gets the new watch, he realizes how much he has needed it. He pours over it, examines it, and excitedly wraps it around his wrist. He puts it to his ear and hears it ticking. He polishes the glass face. He also looks at the time. What was once the object of his search is now the result of a new Object: the watch. Knowing the time is now a result of knowing the Watch. No analogy is perfect, but what a lost person needs is Jesus. They don’t need or deserve good feelings, or acceptance, or provision, or mercy, or grace, or propitiation, or even to breathe their next breath. But when we as humans are directed to Jesus, as the current lost person would be and as we were, we are brought to new life. We enter into communion with the Father. We glorify and worship his Name. And praise the LORD! We also receive his love, and his mercy, and his grace, and we receive eternal communion with Him. Thinking like this makes the Gospel so much deeper and so much more beautifully scandalous.

So what is my point? What am I trying to say? That the watch-less person isn’t looking for the watch. They’re looking for the time, and something to polish, and the sound of the ticking cogs, and the feeling of the solid timepiece on their wrist. But they need the watch. Let’s give them the watch! Even much more so, the lost person is looking for love and acceptance and forgiveness and mercy. But they desperately need Jesus. When they know Jesus, when they glorify Him, when they bring him praise and bow to the ground in worship of His name; when we do those things, it makes the blessing of forgiveness and the depth of mercy in the cross so much more profound. Why does Jesus matter? Not because we escape Hell. Not because he makes us feel loved and accepted. But because he brings us to God and imputes to us his righteousness so that we can worship the One True God. And praise Him! He allows us so many great blessings through this communion. But the object, the object is God. The way and life is Jesus. Giving the lost person a feeling of acceptance, or making them feel loved, these are not our objects. Jesus is. These things will be some of the glorious side effects of communion with a God who is love and life and goodness.

That’s my point. It’s all about Jesus. If it’s all about good feelings and love and peace and grace and mercy, we will keep leading the watch-less man to search aimlessly for all of the qualities of the watch but not search for the true Object: the watch itself. We will keep leading the lost person to search aimlessly for all of the wonderful free gifts through Jesus but not search for the true Object: God Himself.

Let’s give them the Watch.

-Riley

Please give this a read. It’s an article by Shane Claiborne, the author of Jesus for President and The Irresistible Revolution. He makes some great points about Christians and Christianity, and I hope it will inspire you. It definitely inspired me.

“To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn’s Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn’t quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don’t know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, “God is not a monster.” Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, “I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ.” A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That’s the ugly stuff. And that’s why I begin by saying that I’m sorry.

Now for the good news.

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it’s that you can have great answers and still be mean… and that just as important as being right is being nice.)

The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it… it was because “God so loved the world.” That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven… but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our “Gospel” is the message that Jesus came “not [for] the healthy… but the sick.” And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God’s Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” On earth.

One of Jesus’ most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan… you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I’m sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine… but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.

It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David… at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.

After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: “The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you.” And we wonder what got him killed?

I have a friend in the UK who talks about “dirty theology” — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man’s eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay “out there” but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, “Nothing good could come.” It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society’s rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors… a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, “I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.” If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.

Your brother,

Shane”

1. Am I praying constantly and consistently? Not only for myself but for my church and my leaders.
2. Am I tithing generously? Are my money and other resources being given freely to my church and my leaders, or am I just skating by enjoying the fruits of the other parts of the body?
3. Am I helping? Am I just along for the ride, or am I actively working to find places to get involved in the Body? Get to work!
4. Am I rejecting selfishness? Church isn’t only about you. It’s about the Bride and it’s about full, ecclesiastical sanctification that may begin in an individual heart but ends when Jesus collects his whole, pure bride as One.
5. Am I meditating on the Word? Is my day saturated with meditation on the Word, or am I drawing conclusions based on man’s ideas?
6. Am I talking openly with my leaders? If my concerns are indeed serious, am I approaching my leaders directly or am I talking about them and my church  behind their backs? Am I a gossip and a stirrer of dissension?
7. Am I seeking the Spirit’s peace? Am I ever content to trust God and what He is doing, or am I constantly fretting and never letting go of over-meditating on my concerns?
8. Am I submitted to authority? Am I sensitive to and respectful of the leadership of my family leaders (parents) and church leaders (pastors, elders, deacons, etc) or are they objects of my disrespect and contempt? Am I willing to follow them even when it’s not easy for me?
9. Am I concerned with the big picture? Am I actively seeking what God’s plan is in the future of my church and ministries, or am I just thinking about the now and the present? What am I doing to establish precedents for the future?
10. Am I deeply burdened to give God the glory? Are my perspectives of God and the gospel big enough and the view of myself small enough*? Do I truly understand what Christ has done for me? Are my greatest desires to bring God the glory and to be like Jesus? What things do I need to lay at the foot of the cross so that I may further deny myself for the sake of Christ?

* – not that truly, fully understanding while on this earth the fullness of God’s glory and the depth of our sinfulness is easy to accomplish, but that driving forward to further understand these things is key to sacrificial living for the gospel.

A prayer: “God, may we be reminded of the plan that you have for your Church and for her growth and sanctification. May we be truly burdened for our local churches and their leaders and make commitments to be actively obedient to Scripture by loving them, taking part in them, praying for them, and being obedient to them. Thank you for our ability to worship in light of the blood of Jesus. May it continually cleanse us and remind us of how little we are and how big Your glory is.”

Let’s be burdened for our local churches and have a renewed since of devotion to them and a renewed sense of respect and love for our leaders. It’s not all about me.

-Riley