The Goodness of God

I ended my last post stating that all that we see, even the most beautiful things we see, are broken because of our sin.  And the story of God's redemption, both of of fallen humanity and the broken world we find ourselves in, is the story of the gospel.  But before I talk more about that, the issue of God's goodness needs to be addressed.  For all to often, when people consider the brokenness of the world, the fact that evil exists and the sheer magnitude of that evil, people have a tendency to blame God and/or question His goodness.

Evil is a perplexing issue with good reason.  Anyone who honestly looks at the world has to come to the conclusion that something is wrong.  Suffering and pain are real, and they hurt.  And the level of evil in the world at times reaches very dark low points.  When we look at scripture, we are told when evil entered creation (when Lucifer rebelled against God) but we are not told where it came from (i.e. how evil entered Lucifer's heart and where it was before that).  It is one of those things that God has chosen not to reveal to man.  But what becomes crystal clear is that God is sovereign, that He is in control of everything, and that He is good.

Now, that last sentence really bothers people.  The line of thought goes like this: if He is all powerful (sovereign) and if He is in control of everything, then He cannot be good because He allows pain, suffering, and evil to happen.  As someone who has been through quite a bit of pain and suffering (although admittedly not as much as many) let me tell you why that sentence doesn't bother me.  It doesn't bother me because the more I walk with God, the more I see the darkness and sin in my heart and the holiness and goodness of God.  My heart is a dark, dark place and I am capable of heinous things.  This drives me to the cross of Christ over and over and over again.  And the reality is, contrary to popular opinion, my heart is not abnormal.  The heart of every man, woman and child is heinously evil and capable of sin of monstrous proportions.  For me, the real question isn't, "Why is their evil?" the real question is, "Why is there any good in the world?"  We (humanity) are the problem with evil.  Our lack of understanding about (or unwillingness to acknowledge) our sin nature combined with our societies insatiable appetite for comfort clouds the issue of evil in the minds of most.

Combined with that is our lack of understanding about God.  I think Randy Alcorn puts it best when he says, "Behind almost every human expression of the problem of evil stands the assumption that somehow we know what God should do.  But unlike him, we are not all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful, and perfectly good - so how could we know?  As finite and fallen individuals, how can we presume to judge God?  Compared to him, we know very little, and even that is often distorted.  We simply lack the necessary qualifications to assess what God should or shouldn't do" (The Goodness of God, p 54).  This doesn't minimize the pain and suffering that are in this world.    But it should cause us to stop and think about the fact that we are the problem, not the solution.  Christ is the solution.  And it has been my experience that the presence of pain and suffering in my life magnifies the goodness of God rather than diminishes it.

The Grandeur of God

I just finished Matt Chandler's book The Explicit Gospel and there will be much to come on this blog about that book as it was amazing.  However, there was one point in particular that has been blowing me up a little bit the past few days.  It is a point that I have made on this blog before, but which has been hit home yet again since reading Chandler's book, and that is the immense glory and magnificence of God.  Consider this: man is by nature a creature that creates.  We like to build things.  We like to take raw material and make things that are unique and special.  Whether it is taking wood and making a cabinet or arranging a house in such a way that people say, "Wow," we like to create.  Yet we are limited in our creativity by the material we have present.  For instance.  I like to make things out of wood.  Despite the fact that I am limited by my lack of expertise, I am limited by the material I have at hand.  The same is true for "expert" wood workers.  They too are limited by the amount of raw material they have on hand.  Yet consider this (and this is the point Chandler made): God has no such limitation.  God created everything out of nothing (the technical term is ex nihilo).  This fact has been pounded home because my wife and I are currently on a vacation.  Today we took a drive along the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific" and then hiked (a legit, 2000 ft vertical in 3 miles hike) to the Napali Coast.  Cliffs soar out of the ocean and the pictures do not do justice.  For instance, find the helicopter in one of these three pictures... in fact, I'll even tell you it is in the picture that look looks like the Grand Canyon... good luck).  But everything I saw today was created by God out of nothing!!  It's not like He had rocks and said, "Hmmm, let's make a planet and then make a canyon." No, he created the rock itself, and then everything else that makes it look so amazing from nothing. Let that sink in a little and blow you up.  And then let this sink in.... everything I saw today (in the pictures below).... is broken because of our sin.  More to come on that later.

Thoughts on "The Explicit Gospel"

"The religious, moralistic, churchgoing evangelical who has no real intention of seeking God and following him has not found some sweet spot between radical devotion and wanton sin; he's found devastation.  The moralism that passes for Christian faith today is a devastating hobby if you have no intention of submitting your life fully to God and chasing him in Christ." ~ Matt Chandler

I have been reading Matt Chandler's first book, The Explicit Gospel, for the past few days and have been blown away and floored more than I can recount in this blog.  For those of you who have heard him preach, his writing style is very similar to his preaching, that is, blunt and to the point.  His book focuses on the gospel from two vantage points, the ground level (i.e. the individual) and the "30,000 foot level" (i.e. all of creation) and has a section at the end that has some practical implications and dangers of spending all of our energy focused on one aspect and not taking the entire, "explicit," gospel into account.

I am currently half way through the "30,000 foot level" section, but could not wait to finish the book to share a few thoughts, specifically about the "ground level" section.  Chandler focuses on the gospel at the ground level in terms of God, Man, Christ, and Response.  The quote above has really stuck with me since I read it.  Probably because I live and work in a sphere so influenced by moralism.  But this quote really got emphatically pounded home by two other points that Chandler made.  First, we don't properly understand the severity and kindness of God and second, we don't often realize or think about the fact that the gospel ALWAYS elicit's a response.  The Gospel always brings about either "hatred or passion" toward Jesus Christ (ambivalence towards the gospel is just veiled hatred, let's be honest).  

The severity and kindness of God "both come from his (God's) perfect and holy self-sufficiency, and they are both extended justly to his creation, but the chief difference between them - and the reason we don't talk about it as much - is that only severity is deserved" (Chandler).  We don't often think about God's severity towards our sinfulness.  We don't fear God as we should.  This is the only explanation for how people can play the moralistic religious game.  Also, we don't understand that the gospel ALWAYS elicits a response.  This is because it is God who elicits that response to His word.  People are either hardened to the gospel or drawn too it, there is no in between.

We must stop playing silly religious games.  Religion, our ability to conform ourselves to a social or behavioral norm, has never and will never save.  Christ and only Christ can save.  

Easter

For the past several months I have been hooked on reading the Puritans, primarily John Owen.  Although today at the book store I bought several other books in the "Puritan Paperback" series by authors other than Owen.  My reading of Owen, and my perusal of the others, has left me with two deep impressions.  First, the Puritans, perhaps more than any other group in Church history, understood the holiness and glory of God, and longed to see Him more than life itself.  Secondly, they had a better understanding of the natural state of man than most modern minds, especially most modern psychologists, for they understood the sinful nature of man better than anyone I have ever read outside of Scripture (for example, I just bought a 284 page, small font book entitled, The Sinfulness of Sin).

These two thoughts have converged for me this Easter season.  Everyone loves Easter.  Tomorrow most of America, with the exception of the staunchest atheists, will head to church.  Little boys and girls will be dressed up in their spring best, there will be flowers and hats and smiles all around, and meals will be shared with family and friends as kids pass out from a sugar buzz.  And I fear that for most of America, including professing Evangelical America, this will be the extent of it.  The implications of the cross and resurrection of Christ will be lost on most because we don't understand God, and we don't understand how wicked we are that the Son of God had to suffer and die to pay a debt we couldn't bear.

In his new book, The Explicit Gospel, Matt Chandler says, "The work of God in the cross of Christ strikes us as awe-inspiring only after we have first been awed by the glory of God."  Honestly, when was the last time you sat down and thought about the nature and character of God in an attempt to comprehend His glory?  When in life have you been awed by the glory of God?  Let me put that another way, consider for a moment how little you actually know about God and how big He actually is.  John Owen puts it this way, "Will not a due apprehension of the inconceivable greatness of God, and the infinite distance in which we stand from Him, fill our souls with a holy and awful fear of Him?"  Everyone loves the thought of Easter because rather than filling them with a good and holy fear (there is such a thing as good fear) it numbs them to the reality that Easter is all about how holy God is and how awful we are.  

Think about it for a minute, we are celebrating the fact that God came to earth and lived as a man, he suffered horribly and died substitutionary death because we are so wicked that we cannot be in the presence of God unless He did something to fix it.  We are so sinful that when the holy, perfect Son of God walked on earth, the righteous people killed Him.  We are so sinful that we celebrate the ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God while making light of the reason He had to die, our wickedness.  

The more I read scripture, and the more I read great saints of old, and the longer I live the more I am realizing that walking closer with God doesn't mean that I feel better about myself as a person.  No, all it means is that in the light of Truth, I will see more clearly who I really am, and when I the Truth exposes the darkness that dwells in me, the grace of Christ is magnified all the more.  Grace becomes tangible and Christ is glorified as sufficient for everything.  

May this Easter be one in which Christ draws you near and magnifies Himself in your life, that He may become more and we may become less. 

Self-Justification

"As long as your conscience is able to justify your [moral] failure, your soul will never vigorously attempt the mortification of sin." ~John Owen

The other day I was looking back over some past posts and realized that I was seeing a trend in what I have been writing about.  Due in part to a large influence by who I have been reading, I have noticed that many of my posts tend to deal with sin, and our fight against it.  In the past months I have come to the conclusion that American Christianity rarely, if ever, truly hates sin.  I have reached this conclusion for several reasons.  First, rarely is the "s" word ever mentioned in Christian circles.  Often times sin is treated like an ancillary problem that can be dealt with later after we have introduced teddy bear Jesus.  The problem is, no one ever seems to getting around to dealing with it.  Secondly, as I have pursued conversations about salvation, holiness and sanctification with people, the phrase I think I have heard the most (certainly in the top three), is along the lines of this, "I will never be perfect, that's why there is grace."  That is a true statement, but the context in which that statement is used the most is generally when people are making an excuse for a sin.  And I fear that it used to hide the fact that we rather enjoy the sin we are entangled in and don't want to give it up.  Finally, the fear of God is extinct in most churches.  A poor view of who God is, and our infinite distance from Him because of our sin, has bred a weird familiarity with God that lacks holy fear that He is God and I am a sinful man.  The fact that all of saints in Scripture who see God think that they are going to die is lost on us for some reason.

This has been crystalized for me in my reading of John Owen's The Mortification of Sin which has been abridged (and made easy to read thank goodness) by Richard Rushing.  I would recommend it to anyone who is serious about throwing off the sin which entangles us to easily and running hard after Jesus.  The line from the book that I quote above was kind of an "Aha" moment for me.  We are so quick to justify our moral shortcomings.  We are so quick to either look around us and find someone worse off than we are to compare ourselves to or to write off whatever is pressing on our conscience as just a byproduct of being human that will never be resolved.  And while I am not saying that we will be perfect in this life, I am saying that these excuses are silly because they do not create in us an appropriate hatred of sin that is necessary to run hard after Jesus.  Let me put it this way.  If my wife hates a television show that I insist on watching, I will be deprived of time spent with my wife while I watch that show because she will have nothing to do with it.  If we continually make excuses for indulging in something that Christ hates, what makes us think that we will not be deprived of His presence?  Stop making excuses for sin and start fighting it instead.  Or in other words, stop loving the things of this world and desire instead fellowship with Christ.  And if that last line creates in your heart a response of, "Christ cannot be more interesting than x, y, or z" or "Yes, but what about all that is good in life," repent and ask Jesus to reveal Himself to you and remove whatever idol has a grip on your heart.

Tim Tebow / Peyton Manning

I can't help myself.  All day long, and really ever since Peyton Manning was signed and the Tebow countdown clock started, I have been reading facebook and twitter posts from Tebow-ites raging that God will bless whichever team picks up Tebow and curse the Bronco's.  I'm sorry, I'm laughing at you and not with you.  I will play along with your train of thought and ignore the fact that Peyton Manning also claims to follow Christ (ouch, turns out Timmy and Peyton are in fact on the same team, looks like you can't hate the Bronco's anymore...), and address what I see as the silly premise at the base of a lot of this internet tough guy hate.  I think most of these statements reveal the truth, that many professing believers root for Tim Tebow because they see a man living his faith out in a way that makes them feel guilty because they don't live their faith out at all.  And they are rooting for his success because then the paradigm through which they see God is fulfilled: Do good for God and He will give you earthly blessings.  When that paradigm gets blown up, and the truth that has been proclaimed throughout scripture and history, that those who follow Christ adamantly and without reservation usually end up getting the brunt end of the stick, people get angry because they can't handle the idea that God's ultimate good for a person to get him to the place where he does not hold tightly to the things of this earth.  Thus the promises of a hard life, not an easy one.  I work in college athletics at a Christian University and so I can say this pretty definitively: I rarely see anyone interested in the hope we as Christians have after we beat them senseless at a game.  But when we bust our butts and get a raw deal, or when we give it everything we have and lose when we aren't supposed to, that's when people see something different.  Our hope isn't in a game or success in a game, it's in Jesus Christ.  Tim Tebow got a raw deal.  He was busy busting his butt to be the best he could be and got displaced by a first ballot Hall of Famer (who, once again, professes to believe in the same God).  Stop whining about it and start checking your gut to see what you hope in so that when life does the same thing to you, you run to Christ.

Home

Driving a bus from Lakewood, Colorado to Winona Lake, Indiana offers a person quite a bit of time to contemplate lots of things. That is a dangerous proposition when your brain already refuses to shut off. During this week long road trip with the CCU Women’s Basketball team I found myself often contemplating this question, “What am I doing?”  This was not a question arising from the obvious query regarding the sanity of one who voluntarily and joyfully drives a 37-passenger bus across the country (with help of course).  No, this is a question that I have been found asking myself for the better part of three years. Often the question arises during times of contemplation and reflection and serves as a way to, for lack of a better term, recalibrate my bearings towards Christ. Almost as often the question arises out of frustration with surroundings and circumstances. “The grass is greener” mentality is a struggle that I fight with at times. I think job statistics and the number of times a person is likely to change jobs backs up the premise that many people struggle with this, but that may just be me hoping that I am not the only one who struggles with that.

Regardless of what precipitates the question, my answer almost always leaves me longing for home. Not Alaska, where I grew up and still think about often, and not Colorado, where my house and bed currently reside. I find myself longing to be in the physical presence of Christ. I use the term “presence of Christ” instead of heaven on purpose.  Too often people speak of heaven and what they mean is a peaceful utopia where their sinful desires are met without resistance from conscience or fear of judgment. I long to be rid of my sinful flesh and look into the face of Christ for eternity. The more I ask myself the question, “What am I doing?” the more whatever it is I am doing holds less and less appeal. The more I look at my life and the world around me the more I find myself longing to see the face of Jesus.

Home is not here.  Home is in the presence of Jesus.  We are pilgrims.  We are sojourners.  We are here for a moment and then gone.  Why do we waste our time on anything that does not point us towards or bring us closer to home?

Hope pt 3

Last week when I preached I challenged people to test themselves to see what they put their hope in.  The two tests were these: First, if you knew you were going to die or that Jesus was coming back tonight, what response would that elicit?  Often, I think the response is, "That's great, but... there is so much I want to still do in life.  There is (fill in the blank)."  I know this because this was my response for the longest time.  While it is innocent enough, it belies the fact that we are actually hoping more in whatever we feel sadness for missing in life rather than in Christ.

The second test is one I have used on here before. If you got to heaven and it was everything you ever dreamed of, the streets of gold, the perfect bodies that never decayed or died, past friends and family, all the gifts of Christ you could imagine but Jesus was not there would you miss Him at all?  You see, it is possible to hope in heaven and the gifts of God and not in God Himself. 

These two litmus tests have blown me up this week.  I have an idolatrous heart and the world is an endless idol factory.  Thus the admonitions in scripture over and over to hold loosely to the things of this world and cling tightly to Christ.  We cannot serve both.  It is one thing to have mental conviction, and many have it.  It is another thing to have hope in Christ, and I am finding more and more that fewer and fewer people have it.

New Sermon

Got to preach at Westwood church this morning.... here is the link... it starts with a Three Amigo's sound bite, so don't think you clicked on the wrong link... about 25 minutes long.

http://www.westwoodscommunitychurch.org/web-storage/2012_Spring/12.03.04.mp3

The War We Must Fight

I have come to the conclusion over the past few weeks that I, and probably many others, do not wage war against sin as I should.  I am convinced more and more that most American Christians, myself included, focus on salvation to the detriment of sanctification (i.e. the process in which we become more Christ-like during the rest of our lives after salvation).  I have reached this conclusion because more often than not, in my life at least, I think I try to hide sin rather than fight sin.  I wage my war against the fruit of sin (that is the outward actions) while rarely fighting against the root of sin (the sinful attitudes of the heart).  I am currently reading a book entitled The Mortification of Sin by John Owen.  Now the original version of this, which I read several months ago, is very hard to read and I realized that I missed much of its punch due to the fact that I didn't understand it.  However, there is a version of this book that has been abridged and made easy to read by a man named Richard Rushing and it is rocking my world a little bit.

I would like nothing more than to sit here and type quotes from this book, but I will instead try to summarize what is blowing me up so much.  Namely this: there is not a day that will pass from now until I die that I will not be engaged in this war.  If I take a day off, sin will seize upon that day and prevail.  Now, to be clear, it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that one is able to wage this war.  Without Him, this war turns into religious duty that will suffocate and crush whoever tries to fight under their own strength.  But warfare it is non-the-less.  Even when I am not under direct attack from sin, I must be preparing for battle.  Just because a soldier is not engaged in actual combat does not mean that combat isn't coming.  And if that soldier isn't preparing for the enemy while at rest, then he will surely be defeated in battle.  Do I constantly wage war?  Too often not.  Just in the past 72 hours I have allowed my mind and thoughts to be distracted and to venture into sin.  For example, a fairly significant injustice was done to people I care about and rather than fighting against the anger that resulted, I indulged in it.  And before long bitterness and malice were raging in my heart.  This should not be, but the enemy seized upon a moment and before long I was having to repent.  Which brings us back to the point that this war must be waged by the power of the Spirit.  My natural self will always indulge in sin, which is why we are called to take up our cross daily and follow Christ.  Dying to ourselves and our natural inclinations and pushing further and further into His Grace and Truth. 

Hope pt 2 - Politics

So this is a bit of a follow on to the last post addressing what it is we put our hope in.  Besides money, success, and the opposite sex I would argue that the thing Americans like to put their hope in more than anything else is politics.  It has been something of an anomaly for me to watch people (especially college age kids) simultaneously profess a lack of trust in the political system and a strong desire to change society via the political system. And the more I watch the 24 hour news cycle covering the 2012 election (mistake number 1) the more I realize how many people, democrat, republican and independent alike, put their hope in legislating change that they think will bring about utopia.  Now, I will lay my cards on the table before proceeding.  I am a registered republican, I tend to be conservative in my view of life, and I work at a conservative Christian university.  With that said, let me attempt to upset everyone.

In the last election, President Obama hit a chord with people by preaching hope and change.  And people by the millions believed him and bought into his program.  It was hysteria over a man that I have never seen before (until Tim Tebow became the 13th apostle).  53% of our nation put their hope in Obama to change the system.  And the reality is, the right is no different.  Their hope is just in someone else.  Both sides ignore one glaring issue: No empire, kingdom, or republic is eternal save that of Jesus Christ.  America is going to run its course and end some day.  Might be our lifetime, might not.  But Babylon, Persia, pick your Ming dynasty, Greece, Rome, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, England, all have run their course.  Are we really that arrogant to think we won't also.  And in the meantime, we continue to put our hope in politicians and policies.  Rick Santorum won three primaries and the conservatives rejoiced.  Really?  If Barack Obama wins again this year, slightly more than half our country will rejoice and think that hope and change are still coming.  If he loses, then slightly more than half our country will rejoice and think that hope and change are still coming.  Either way, the other half will prepare for doomsday.  Our hope is in the wrong place people.  By all means, exercise your right to vote.  Vote your conscience.  But vote realizing that no matter what you vote, America will end one day and the Kingdom of Jesus won't.  You are born into the first because your daddy had enough game to catch the eye of your momma.  You are born into the second because your hope is no longer here, but in Jesus.  Stop putting your hope in the government to legislate morality (the right) and provide everything for everyone (the left).

Hope

My wife and I are ESPN junkies.  There is a better than average chance that if the TV is on, ESPN is the channel that it is set to.  Tonight we sat down for a quick minute after taking the pooch to the park and there was a show on in which ESPN had put together several pieces highlighting some stars from this past NFL season.  It was a kind of "behind the scenes look" at the lives of these football players, what motivates them, etc.  There were two that stuck out to me because, in one very key aspect, they were polar opposites: Cam Newton and Aaron Rodgers.  Now I don't know either of these guys from the man on the moon, but I couldn't help but notice the striking difference.  

Now I will preface this little commentary with this: I have no idea what was actually going through the minds of these two men during these interviews.  But I did watch their faces, and this is what it looked like to me.  First came Cam Newton who exuded a youthful exuberance.  The future lay before him: there are superbowls to win, pro-bowls to attend, records to be re-written.  The essence of life flowed from a game that he is dead set on conquering.  On the other hand there was Aaron Rodgers.  He has been there and done all that Cam Newton aspires to.  He has re-written the record book, done the pro-bowl, won a superbowl and made a city forget a first ballot hall of famer.  And the look in his eyes while the reported was going over all those accolades with him was one that looked like boredom.  I don't know what he was thinking, but he looked bored, as if he had come to the realization that everything he had achieved still left him lacking.  The reporter then asked him about the NFL MVP award and what it would mean to win that.  For a brief instant, that same exuberance that was all over Cam Newton's face came into the eyes of Aaron Rodgers as he truthfully answered that winning the award would mean a great deal, as it would be a vindication for the work he has put in when no one is looking.  And then, in a flash, that exuberance was gone.  It was as if his mind caught up with his emotions and he knew deep down that it would just be another award that would give him a cheap high and leave him empty again.

What is our hope in.  Hope, by definition, is expectation for that which is unseen and/or unrealized.  Rodgers hopes to win the MVP because he hasn't won it yet and he has real expectation for winning it this year.  If I said I hoped to be married some day you would think I am crazy (because I am already married).  What is our hope in?  Or put another way, what is it that we hope for?

Seven years ago today (the wednesday before the superbowl - which was actually Feb 2 in 2005) I was put under anesthesia for a surgery in which they planned to remove my large intestine.  I remember two things clearly from that day.  First, I remember the surgeon.  She stood at the end of my bed and, after telling me what she thought was wrong, said, "You are never going to fly airplanes in the Navy again."  In the amount of time it took you to read that sentence, my world ended.  The only other thing I remember from that day was crying between the time she told me that and I went under for surgery.  I cried because everything my hope was in was ripped out of my hands in a heartbeat.  My whole life had been dedicated to earning a pilot slot and then excelling in flight school and I had finally made the big leagues.  I had made the equivalent of an NFL roster.  I was flying the newest, most advanced fighter in the Navy.  I was Cam Newton.  Only, I was Cam Newton in training camp and I would never get a rookie season.  I got drafted, signed, and went through training camp only to lose my dream in the first game of my rookie season.  Everything I hoped for, everything I thought was important was gone in an instant.

I ended up being in surgery for five days.  I woke up on the day the Patriots last won a superbowl (maybe that's why I am cheering for them this weekend...).  I woke up in a new world, a world in which my hope was not in flying, could not be flying ever again because as much as I wanted to fight it, I knew I would never fly fast jets again.  And then I came to a realization: everything in this world will fail me.  One day my job will be gone.  My house will be gone.  All my little electronic trinkets that I think are so cool will be in the trash.  Either I will die or the people I love will die and be gone.  This world, and all that is in it, is passing away.  And so I ask, what I had to ask myself: what is your hope in.  Now, there were quite a few other things that happened that I will probably write about in the coming days, but the realization I came to is that my hope must be in Christ.  For if Christ is not God, then there is nothing worth hoping in.  But if He is who He said He is (God) then He is the only thing worth hoping in.

Forgiveness

This video was the introduction for the sermon at church this past weekend.  The pastor spoke about forgiveness out of Mark 2 (which I would encourage you to read) in which Jesus forgives the sins of a paralytic and then heals him.  But this video is what stuck with me.  The magnitude, force, and sheer power of forgiveness is determined by the act that is being forgiven.  Forgiving someone for stealing a quarter is something different altogether from forgiving a person for stealing everything I own.  Likewise, the act of forgiving a murderer carries much more weight than forgiving someone who was angry.  Forgiveness is inextricably tied to what is being forgiven.  This is because the severity of a wrong doing is measured by the worth of that which is wronged.  Forgiving a murderer causes us to shake our head because human life is so precious and valuable.  That is why crimes against children are so atrocious.  That is why when I lie to my wife that I have no valentines day plans when I do, you shake your head and laugh.

And herein lies a fundamental truth about God's forgiveness that I think we often lose.  Go back to the story about the paralytic in Mark 2.  As far as we know, the man never really did anything wrong.  Scripture doesn't list any specific sinful actions.  We aren't told how terrible a guy he was.  All we know is that he was a man.  But that is enough to necessitate forgiveness from God.  Why?  Because all of us were born into open rebellion against God (Ephesians 2).  The fact that reading the previous sentence doesn't cause us to burst into tears is proof that we have little understanding of the infinite value of God himself and the sheer evil and wickedness of rebellion against him.  For when we understand the level of our depravity, then His forgiveness becomes so tangible you can taste it.  His grace becomes so thick it is suffocating.  God's forgiveness of me makes the forgiveness of murderer look like my wife forgiving me for misleading her about my intentions for a date in a lame attempt surprise her (which has not yet happened in our marriage).  And when we realize how much we have been forgiven, then we are able to freely forgive others.  And it is this kind of forgiveness that brings about massive individual and corporate life change.  For being forgiven is a motivator like no other to stimulate life change, while giving forgiveness constantly keeps you dependent on the One who first forgave you.

Death

Death is a rather morbid subject, and I doubt seriously that as many people click on this link from facebook as they did when Tebow was in the subject line, but so it goes.  Seven years ago this weekend I watched the AFC and NFC championship games with my dad in a hospital room in Hanford, California.  I had been admitted to the hospital the previous Friday night (January 21, 2005) because, unbeknownst to me at the time, my small intestine had ruptured and I was dying.  My dad had traveled from Anchorage to Hanford on that Saturday and on Sunday we sat there all afternoon watching the football games.  It was a release from the unending pain and undeniable fact that I was a 24 year old fighter pilot in a hospital.  It diverted my attention from reality.  And the reality was, within 10 days I would be written off for dead by surgeons.  Between now and the Superbowl, I would spend five days in surgery and walk on the edge of death.  But that Sunday afternoon while watching football, I never in a million years would have thought that I would have ended up coming so close to dying.  And while I don't remember much from the week and half between coming into the hospital and surgery, I remember being more worried about not flying airplanes anymore than I was of dying.  

As I have thought about this I have come to two conclusions.  First, most of us, while knowing we will die some day (statistics aren't in our favor), don't think it will be anytime soon and are convinced, or at least live as if we are convinced, that we will have ample warning before it happens.  Second, we are more concerned about the legacy we leave rather than whether that legacy leads us to Christ.  The application from these two conclusions is this: first, while we can't live in fear of dying, we must realize that we are not promised tomorrow nor are we promised ample warning followed by a peaceful death (again, statistics not in our favor).  And if we aren't promised tomorrow, we have to do something with the fact that we will die and what happens after death.  Second, worry about getting more of Christ rather than your legacy.  Quick, name your great, great grandfather on your mom's side.  Dad's side?  What did they do?  I bet most people can't, I know I can't.  If you can't name your own great, great grandfather, what makes you think your great, great grandkids will know who you are or how awesome you were?  We have a tendency to think higher of ourselves and our legacy than we probably should.  We live, we die, and then we see Jesus face to face.  Is your life pointing to that meeting being one of joyous fulfillment in finally, at last, seeing God face to face or terror?  

Tebow Madness

So Tebow mania is sweeping the nation and I cannot keep my mouth shut anymore.  And not because of Tebow himself.  I love the guy's faith, the boldness with which he proclaims it, and the way he plays the game.  In fact, this blog has nothing to do with what Tim Tebow has or has not done.  This blog is about the way everyone else has responded, especially evangelical Christians, and specifically with respect to the evangelical response to Tebow's stat line last week against Pittsburg.  

Unless you are living someplace the US postal service doesn't deliver, you have probably heard by now that Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards against the Steelers, 3 years to the day that he sported John 3:16 on his eye black in the national championship game.  He also averaged 31.6 yards per game.  Adam Schefter, an ESPN columnist, wrote an article dealing with these numbers and several other stats involving 316 in that game that is posted on the ESPN website.  And while I think that the attention that John 3:16 is getting from the world is cool, I am kinda flabbergasted by the downright superstitious response of many Christians.

Now don't get me wrong, I root for the Donkeys, did before Tebow played for them, will when he is done playing for them.  I will watch tomorrow's game and root for the Broncos and Tim Tebow.  But this is a game played by grown men in tights.  And I have heard and read many Christians proclaiming as loud as possible how they see God in the football stats.  Praise Jesus (seriously)!  But at the same time, many of them don't, and cannot, see God in their work, families, lives, suffering, illnesses, finances, relationships, etc.  In fact they question where God is.  Do you see the sad dichotomy here?  I could write for hours about the often times sad state of affairs that occurs when you mix faith with competitive sports in America.  I'm a coach, I've seen it first hand - although I have also seen sports used in amazingly positive ways as well.  But quite frankly, I think Satan is more concerned with the outcome of sporting events than Christ.  Nothing like victory to make you think you don't need God and nothing like defeat to make you blame him.  Christ doesn't care about what is going on in a game as much as he cares about what is going on in your heart.  Christ has given Tim Tebow an amazing platform to make much of Christ, and it appears as if Tebow is doing just that.  But Tim Tebow, and only Tim Tebow, will be the one to give an account for how he uses his platform to make much of Christ.  The rest of us will give an account for how we have used our lives to make much of Christ.  What I see and hear from many professing Christians appears to be them vicariously living their "faith" through someone else.  Get off the bench and into the game.  Make much of Christ and proclaim the goodness and power of God in the hard, dark parts of life and not just when a 24 year old in tights trying to keep a dead animal away from other grown men who are also wearing tights puts up 316 yards. 

Fighting the Good Fight

"I have fought the good fight" (2 Tim 4:7).  The imagery of fighting, straining, running the race and struggling are found throughout scripture. Many times, especially in the athletics, the verses containing these exhortations are bent and contorted in an attempt to motivate people to exert themselves in some worldly endeavor.  But what Paul is referring to here is so much bigger.  The Christian life is a fight, it is a war, not against governments or people groups, but against sin and the powers of darkness.  The more I live life the more I am convinced of, and see the truth in this.  But I think more often than not Christians don't see life as a fight, they see it as a vacation.  

I think there may be a couple of reasons for this, including poor teaching and theology and a basic worldview held by many that we are basically good people with a few imperfections rather than a worldview that holds to the truth that we are basically wicked people incapable of good apart from Christ.  But I think an even bigger factor in this is that we have lost the concept of total war and embraced an ideology based on limited engagement.  We want tactical, surgical hits on the things in our life that we don't like, and we expect them to just disappear and go away after a single battle.  The idea of prolonged, drawn out warfare in which all assets are brought to bear agains the enemy and the goal is the complete and utter annihilation of the enemy is not popular in a society that demands instant gratification and shies away from conflict.  Always being on guard gets tiring.  It gets monotonous at times.  It wears a person down.  Which is why the Christian is continually called upon to press into and depend totally on Christ and not their own power.  And we must emphasize that it is a day by day, minute by minute pressing into Christ, not a once and done deal.  It is not as if we call out to Christ and he comes and tactically nukes our issue and then we just go on living life without struggle no longer having to depend on Christ.  No, we continually press into Him and never let our guard down.  We wage war against sin (and I'm not referring to the Christian right's war against abortion and homosexuality, I am referring to the sin in every person ever born, the natural desire of men to chose themselves and the world over God).  The good fight is one that does not end in this lifetime.  It is long, it is hard, and it will exact a toll on whoever engages in it.  But Christ is sufficient and His power to fight never ending.  And at the end, when finally told by our Lord, we may lay down our sword and enter into His rest.