My Heart Will Sing No Other Name

I'm taking a break from the Misconceptions series to finally sit down and write about something I've been thinking about more than usual the past several months and was reminded of again last night.

I'm finishing up the book of Joshua, and like all good leaders, Joshua is taking another opportunity to remind the Israelites about all that God has done for them. Moses often gave speeches like this recounting their journey and all that the Lord had done and Joshua is taking a page out of his playbook.

Up to this point, Joshua has been a pretty successful leader. He has led the Israelites into the Promised Land and they're living in a season of peace and right relationship with God.

He also knows that his life is coming to an end, so he reminds the people who God is and about all that He's done, but he finishes with this.

"You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.

But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you. If you violate the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the LORD's anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you." (Joshua 23:14-16)

There's a song we sing at church that has a bridge that simply proclaims,

My heart will sing no other name, Jesus.

I begin to tear up almost every time the song comes to that part and I struggle to be able to sing those words.

Because I start to think about all of the other "names" that my heart "sings" throughout the week. If I'm honest, the idea of "my heart singing no other name" is a nice idea but something I'm infinitely far from.

If you were to take a look at my life, it might sing about a few things, like my family, the Packers, work, or future plans - not that any of those things are bad. The problem is that compared to the amount of time and energy I spend on those things, the name of Jesus is often sadly just a whisper during certain seasons of my life.

For the Israelites, even one season of a lack of intimacy with God or disobedience would likely cost them their lives.

I too, am deserving of God's wrath and justice. It is easy to see my story and the ebbs and flows in my life in the people of Israel.

But praise be to God for the Cross and for loving me enough to send his only Son to take the wrath and justice that I was deserving of upon Himself!

-CK

*See my post from a year ago on idolatry if you're interested in exploring this more.

Misconception #3: Heaven is our Final Destination

We’ve all heard songs, read books, or seen movies that focus on Heaven. While many people don’t believe in a place called Heaven, just as many use the word “heaven” to speak of the all-encompassing place where their loved ones go after death. Peoples’ conceptions of what Heaven is like and who goes there aside, American culture has led people to believe that Heaven is a destination, a place we leave for when we die. But is this true?

Well, kind of, but less so than you might think.

According to the Bible, the Heaven as a destination idea that our culture feeds into does exist, but it’s only a “temporary residence” so to speak, until Jesus returns to restore the Earth and dwell with those who have believed in Him here.

This means that though when we die, for awhile we will go to the realm where God is, Jesus will come back to put evil in its place, God’s Kingdom (or Heaven) will come down to Earth and eternity will actually be lived out on a renewed and redeemed Earth.

John, the author of Revelation, describes what this looks like in his vision:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bridge adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” (Revelation 21:1-5)

And you thought “Heaven on Earth” was just a phrase you say when you’re sitting on the beach with a margarita in your hand!

If you feel like you’ve been tricked into believing something entirely different about Heaven, it’s probably not completely your own fault. Aside from just American culture in general, the Church has not always done a great job of teaching this correctly. For instance, many of the Church’s prominent songs of worship promote this idea that Heaven is a destination we will go to when we die and our permanent resting place. Even some of the most famous hymns ever written have been slightly off-base. Take this one for example:

“When Christ shall come

With shouts of acclamation

And take me home

What joy shall fill my heart”

So what difference does it make? Does it actually make a difference whether I believe that I’ll one day GO to Heaven versus God’s Kingdom coming to Earth and reigning with Him here?

ABSOLUTELY!

The theology of all of this rests squarely on an event that all of Christianity itself rests on.

The resurrection. (If you’ve read more than one blog in this series, hopefully you’re beginning to see a trend!)

When Jesus was resurrected, death was destroyed and something that will take place in God’s future was breathtakingly demonstrated in the present. That all believers will one day be resurrected is a future reality that Jesus demonstrated ahead of time.

Here’s how the Apostle Paul says it:

“But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries…But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father.” (1 Corinthians 15:20,23 – The Message)

When Jesus was resurrected, death was destroyed, Jesus proved that He had the power to forgive our sins, and our earthly realm and God’s realm began to overlap.

This means that God isn’t simply going to do away with this Earth and start from scratch but that He is going to restore, renew, re-energize, and redeem the Earth and EVERYTHING that He’s created, human beings included, and we get to be a part of that (see footnotes). We, sinful, messed up human beings get to pray for and work toward the furthering of God’s Kingdom here on Earth, that His realm of justice, love and beauty might begin to overlap more and more.

This is incredibly mind-blowing and game-changing in a lot of different ways, but here are two that I believe resound all throughout the Bible and don’t hold quite the same punch if we simply end up forever in a Heaven that’s a disembodied destination.

1) We’d better get busy, because what we do on this Earth matters

1 Corinthians 15 is a masterpiece of a chapter that gives us much of our Biblical foundation for the resurrection and why it matters. Each phrase is significant and powerful in itself, but this section reaches its climax and the point that Paul is really striving to get across when he finishes with this:

“With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.”

The efforts we take to care for the Earth, the conversations we have with a hurting friend, the evangelism that we do, the ways in which our work and businesses honor God, the compassion and humility we show in our relationships, the sin we’ve confessed and the lives we’ve lived in submission to God – none of this is done in vain or without eternal significance if Christ has been raised from the dead.

2) There is hope because our God is loving and faithful

If God had essentially created the Earth and created humans and let His entire creation fall to pieces because He was just going to start all over – a new place to live, entirely new bodies, and so on – we would question whether He had considered “good” what He created in the first place if it wasn’t even worthy of rescuing and restoring before it’s all too late.

But God has come, and He has set His restorative, redemptive plan in motion. We are worthy of His love and affection and so He has come to rescue us.

If it was our belief that when we die, we just go to Heaven, there would be absolutely no hope for change and redemption in this life. On the other hand, if we know that God has begun his plan to restore and redeem the land and seas, the deserts and plains, the valleys and mountains, how much more will He begin to renew and redeem us, those He has created in His own image!

God has called His creation “good,” and He will not stand idly by as it deteriorates. Because He loves us and all He has created, there is hope for redemption not just in the “next life,” but in this one too.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, be we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Romans 8:18-25)

-CK

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1 There is somewhat of a debate between scholars whether God will restore the Earth or scrap it completely and create an entirely new Earth. While I don’t have time to go into detail, the theme of God renewing and restoring runs throughout the entire Bible and the similarities between Jesus’ pre-crucifixion body and his post-resurrection body make it much more likely that both the Earth and human bodies will be restored and improved upon, and not simply destroyed and created again from scratch.

Recommended Reading –

Book: Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15

Misconception #2: You Can Earn Your Way to Heaven through Good Deeds

When I was in about 7^th grade, I remember hearing an interview with Megadeth lead singer, Dave Mustaine, on one of the local radio stations. How the interview went where it did, I have no idea, but somewhere in the midst of talking about guitars, tours, and long hair, Mustaine ended up on a tangent about how if you were a basically good person, that would “get you into” Heaven.

I was no theologian at the time (I’m still not, to be fair) but I remember emphatically agreeing with Mustaine’s beliefs and wasn’t afraid to tell my Bible-believing mother about it!

While I don’t think most people are getting their doctrinal views from a washed-up heavy metal star, this idea of being a good person as your ticket into Heaven is one which permeates American culture. According to a Barna study in 2009, 72% of Americans believe that it is at least possible to earn one’s salvation through good works, and even more disturbing is that over 50% of “born again Christians” also leave that possibility open.

Out of all of the misconceptions about Christianity that exist, perhaps none are more dangerous than this one, and anyone that has ever read and understood even a part of the Bible can tell you that you won’t find this type of theology anywhere in the Bible. Not the Old Testament, not the New Testament. Nowhere.

So where does this idea come from?

When I look back on why I believed this kind of theology when I was younger, I think it’s because I was raised in a Christian family and in a Christian culture and was very used to the idea of a God who created the universe. That much I firmly believed.

But having never read a lick of the Bible and having no Biblical foundation surrounding Heaven and Hell on which to fall back on, I had constructed my own view and my own religion based on what I wanted to be true, not on truth itself.

There are both logical and Biblical issues with the idea that you can earn your way to Heaven through good deeds.

Here are a few of the logical ones:

-Who decides the standard for a “good” person? What if you get to the “gates of Heaven” so to speak, God runs his report card on you, and you score a 78. The cut-off was an 80. This would be incredibly subjective.

-Who says our “goodness” would be judged in relation to other human beings? Maybe God’s standard is higher than our traffic laws. God doesn’t grade on a bell curve, and this kind of test is impossibly hard. There’s no grading on a curve when it comes to eternity.

-Enough good works don’t necessarily cancel out all the bad ones. If we can “earn” Heaven by our good deeds, what do we earn with our bad ones?

Hopefully you’re starting to see the problems with this and we haven’t even touched what the Bible has to say. Let’s jump in.

Most of us probably think that we’re pretty good people. Besides, we don’t really break any laws (besides speeding of course…and maybe pirating movies, music, or software).

But Scripture says that we all have sin in our lives, or more simply put, that we miss the mark of God’s standard and fall short of His perfection. This could be something that we do like stealing from our neighbor or lashing out in anger at our spouse, but it could also be the lust, pride, violence, or greed that’s in our hearts.

I’d like to think that I’m a better person than 7 years ago when I became a Christian, yet I know that my own mind and heart is twisted and messed up. If people really knew the real me and could see the things in my heart, no one would want to be near me.

The Bible puts it this way. “We're all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.
Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.
We dry up like autumn leaves--
sin-dried, we're blown off by the wind.” (Isaiah 64:6, The Message)

Grease-stained rags. Our best attempts at doing good are like filthy rags compared to God’s perfection and standard. This means that there is absolutely no earning our own way to God and to Heaven, even through our best efforts.

In fact, though many of us never consider the consequences of our sin and pridefully think that we’re both good enough to white out our mistakes and earn our own salvation, the Bible says that there are very real, devastating consequences to our sin. In Romans 6:23, the Apostle Paul says, “The wages of sin is death.”

This is not good news. Not good news at all. But there is good news – great news, and it comes in the person of Jesus Christ.

Paul continues, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We have no way of dealing with the problem of sin on our own, but lucky for us, God came down to us in the form of a man, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from our sin and to take on His shoulders the consequences of our sin that we should have been responsible for. Three days after He was killed, He rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples and hundreds of other people.

This is all free. We’ve done nothing to earn it and never will. It’s called grace.

The Bible makes it pretty clear that it’s only through faith in Jesus and the work that He did on the Cross that we are able to be forgiven of our sins and have access to God and to Heaven[1]. “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through [good works], Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:21, NIV, translation changes mine)

The tragedy in all of this is that there will be a lot of “nice” people that missed the point and pursued earning their salvation through their own efforts when eternal life and the offer of a relationship with the all-powerful, Creator God was available to them at absolutely no cost.

So who’s responsible for your sin? Is it you? Or have you allowed God to pay for it through the death of his Son, Jesus Christ?

The offer of His free and abounding love and grace is yours for the taking. Take it.

-CK

Recommended Reading –

Book: What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey

Scripture: Ephesians 2

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[1] It may be more appropriate to call it eternal life instead of Heaven. (See future post on misconceptions about Heaven.)

Misconception #1: Christianity is about following a list of rules

If I had a dollar for every person I’ve encountered that has essentially summed up what it means to be a Christian by something similar to these words, I would have a lot of dollars.

The reason I start with this misconception is because everything that will follow is more or less meaningless unless we can clear up this point and everything else will depend upon what will come in the next page or two being true or you can do away with Christianity altogether.

I can certainly see how people outside of the Christian religion and even those exploring it might think that being a Christian is all about doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things. Many churches are certainly guilty of furthering this and often times conveying that morals and ethics are more important than people and what’s at the heart of Biblical Christianity.

It seems that the belief that Christianity is all about following a list of rules is a direct result of people not correctly understanding who Jesus is and what He came to do. Many people throughout history, even well meaning Christians, have believed that Jesus came to be a moral example that we should try to imitate. He gives us rules and guidelines by which we should live, we follow them.

This view of Jesus, however, is wrong. You can’t get more than a chapter into the Gospel of Mark without realizing that Jesus had a much different agenda than this.

Others perhaps believe that Jesus was simply crazy, or a liar. Even many of the Jews during Jesus’ time believed this. Someone claiming to be not just a prophet but actually divine, actually God, had gone completely mad. The Jews were expecting a Messiah, but that didn’t mean someone claiming to be God.

But something happened that would put an end to the debate and validate every claim that Jesus had ever made about Himself, and this is what Christianity is all about.

A hill on the outskirts of town, a cross, and an empty tomb.

Christianity centers on an historical event – the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That people were unable to follow the rules wasn’t really the problem. Many people in Jesus’ day were great at following rules. They were so good, in fact, that they thought they would add some extra rules that weren’t even in the Bible. Yet it’s these very people, the Pharisees, that Jesus often rails against during his short ministry, not the rule-breaking Pagans.

Many Jews followed the rules as closely as possible, yet they missed the whole point.

The Jews and the country of Israel were supposed to bring peace and justice, renewal and the coming of God’s Kingdom, all of which would only be possible through a community that was deeply in love with their God.

This didn’t happen, so God decided to intervene in a way that no one would have ever imagined.

God, in the form of a man, Jesus Christ, came down to us, not so that we might imitate his every move and strive for perfection, but to reveal what the Father’s character, coming Kingdom, and future looked like. He came to renew and restore all things, including humans, both physically and in their relationship to the Father.

Jesus’ ministry and His death on the Cross demonstrated all of this. The poor, lame, and lost were shown love and justice in a way that Israel was supposed to do, and Jesus humbled Himself and allowed Himself to be crucified, bearing on His shoulders the weight of the world’s sin so that we would not have to bear it ourselves.

Yet all men die. What was different about this one was that, three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, substantiating His claim to be God and defeating death forever.

And when Jesus was resurrected, something which no one, even his closest followers would have foreseen happening in the way that it did, God’s Heavenly sphere and our Earthly, human sphere intersected for the first time, and once and for all. With the resurrection came God’s inauguration of His coming Kingdom where there would be peace, justice, love, joy, and the absence of everything evil.

I’ll leave you with how scholar N.T. Wright sums up what happened on the Cross:

The pain and tears of all the years were met together on Calvary. The sorrow of heaven joined with the anguish of earth; the forgiving love stored up in God’s future was poured out into the present; the voices that echo in a million human hearts, crying for justice, longing for spirituality, eager for relationship, yearning for beauty, drew themselves together into a final scream of desolation.

The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel’s destiny, the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns.

Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter. (Wright, Simply Christian)

-CK

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“So What!?”

If this is new to you, maybe you’re wondering where to go from here. The point is that in some ways, Christianity isn’t about following rules or even a Man at all, but about letting that man, Jesus, guide our lives.

Through faith in Jesus and what He’s accomplished on the Cross, both in forgiving our sins and beginning to restore the whole world, including our relationships with the Father, we can know God in an intimate way, similar to how a husband knows his wife. In the context of that relationship, we allow God to lead and direct our lives in such a way that will continue to further the coming of God’s Kingdom, bringing peace, justice, beauty and love.

Watch for the next blog as I explore the misconception that “getting into Heaven” is about being a good person. I encourage you to dialogue with me and others about anything you might agree, disagree, or have questions or comments about.

Recommended reading –

Book: The King’s Cross, Timothy Keller

Scripture: Matthew 9:1-13, Colossians 1:15-23

Misconceptions about Christianity

Do Christians actually believe that’s true?

Where’s that in the Bible?

How can Christianity be relevant to me today?

What’s the big deal about this whole Christianity thing anyway?

Christianity and...

Politics, Science, Rules, Earth, Resurrection, Works, Evolution, Heaven, Republican, Bible, Eternity, Jesus.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering about any of these things or have questions about Christianity in general, stay tuned.

In the next 10 blogs or so, I’m going to explore some of the things that everyone believes about Christianity but aren’t actually true. The intent behind writing about these misconceptions is to help clear the air a bit and provide an entry point for conversation into what Christianity is really about.

Ask me questions, ask other people questions, agree, disagree – but enter into the discussion.

As author and scholar N.T. Wright says,

“Faith can’t be forced, but unfaith can be challenged.”

May we all be challenged to set aside our preconceptions of what Christianity is and what it’s not and let truth lead where it will.

Let's get started.

-CK

Successful Evangelism in the Midst of Faith Journeys

Few things in life make me cringe more than bad 80’s music and the idea of snakes coming up through my toilet, but it ranks near the top of the list when I hear someone finish a story about evangelism or faith by saying, “They didn’t accept Christ, but…”

Many of us have heard the Biblical idea that comes from Jesus’ parables and Paul’s teaching that some plant the seed, some water it, and others harvest, but how many of us actually believe this idea?

It’s the idea that all of these roles are equally important and significant, and we undermine the power of the Holy Spirit and overestimate our own role in someone’s salvation story when we believe otherwise.

I think we tend to want clearly defined boundaries and categories by which to define “successful” evangelism, when in reality, faith and peoples’ journeys toward faith are often unorganized and messy. While I certainly understand the importance and need to challenge people and bring them to a point of decision about following Christ, I don’t think salvation always works like that.

For many, it’s a journey that begins in the context of community and may not have all the same recognizable landmarks of faith as other people. I have heard and seen countless stories of people with long and winding faith journeys that can’t point to a specific day or moment when they “accepted Jesus,” but if you look at the fruit in their lives and ask them who their hope is in, it is evident that though slow-but-surely and not all in one seismic leap, they’ve been living out a life surrendered to God.

Any time we have Gospel conversations with people, the Spirit of God is at work in immensely powerful ways. Just because someone doesn’t come to faith using the same verbiage or may not externalize that process in the way that we’re accustomed to doesn’t mean that there aren’t life-altering, eternity-shaping things going on.

Successful evangelism is stepping out in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. God works on His own timing and in mysterious ways, so why should salvation be any different?

So let’s let God be God and the Spirit work in us and through us to gradually bring people closer to Him, and instead of lamenting the fact that someone didn’t pray a prayer, let’s rejoice in the fact that God even allows us to take part in the story of salvation.

-CK

Sports and Sin

Even this morning, after nine hours of sleep and nearly 11 hours after an incredibly disappointing ending to the Wisconsin football game, I had to jump online to see what people were saying about the final hail mary play. Somehow, if some kind of national controversy had developed over night about the “indisputable” evidence that had overturned the final play, maybe it might take some of the bitterness away from the night before. But alas, nothing.

As much as it might have been therapeutic to write a rant last night about that final call, MSU was clearly the more disciplined team last night, and I’m not writing to vent or complain.

Quite the opposite. As much as sports have the ability to bring some sort of happiness, entertainment, and respite from a long and busy work week, they can also be a considerable source of stress and anxiety, and for me, they can even serve as an indicator at times of how incredibly messed up my heart is.

I don’t think you have to look very far to see evidence of this in American culture. Earlier this year, both sports websites and mainstream news outlets were reporting headlines of a baseball fan in San Francisco that had been brutally beaten by several other Dodgers fans. In 2007, there had been reports of men harassing women, throwing bottles at them, and even groping them at New York Jets games.

While sports certainly have the ability to evoke strong emotions, and large groups of people and alcohol often combine to make for dangerous situations, you can’t simply blame all of these events on sports. Something had been going on in these peoples’ lives and hearts long before they ever took the first swing, made their first harassing remark, or threw their first bottle.

But as with all sin, this can look much more subtle. For me it’s the sometimes hopeless, defeated feeling I get after a close loss, or the anger and frustration that sometimes rises to the surface after a bad call or poor performance by my favorite team. Somewhere, something went wrong, and what was meant to be enjoyable and entertaining at times becomes anything but a source of fun and entertainment.

Football is a good thing. Sports are a good thing. God created humans to be competitive, physical beings, so in some way, football and other sports exist that people may worship and glorify Him, whether by their play or enjoyment of life through sports. Things get a little bit more complicated when sports and how well our favorite team is doing dictates our mood and behavior.

Sports will at times inevitably lead to disappointment, even sadness. Our team can’t always win. I was created to experience both tremendous joy and deep sorrow, great accomplishment and disappointment, so is it okay that I experience some of those same emotions in the context of sporting events? Probably, but that doesn’t mean I’m proud of it.

Disappointment after my team’s loss is completely foolish and the result of the game is utterly meaningless in the scope of eternity. It’s then that I’m reminded of all the worthless things that I devote my affection and energy toward and how deep the rabbit hole of my sin goes.

If a last-second loss can have that drastic of an impact on my enjoyment of life in that moment, alarms should be going off all around me that my focus is not where it should be and perhaps, I need to let God do some work on my heart and let Him realign my passions with His.

But these moments also lead me back to the Gospel. Fortunately, I believe that because of the Cross and the empty tomb, there is much more life, love, and fulfillment to be found than what is available to me through sports.

And there is hope. Hope that my sinful heart and mind will one day be fully redeemed and made perfect, that I might love God and His people wholly and without distractions.

And praise the Lord, because, as much as I love the Badgers, it would be unfortunate if my fulfillment and happiness relied upon the performance of 19 and 20 year-old football players!

-CK

Dig In

Who says a book can’t change lives?

I’m living proof, along with 2 billion other people in the world, that a truly special book can and will change lives.

And I’m not talking about the Harry Potter series.

I’m talking about this book.

Over the last six or so years that I’ve had this Bible, I’ve literally picked it apart and dug through it.

I will never forget, reading this very Bible, the first time I read the account of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet and being blown away that a man of such power, deserving of all honor and glory, would bend over and wash 24 dirt-covered feet. Or being in China as a new believer and reading Paul’s letters for the first time, amazed that God had taken someone so destructive and messed up, redeemed him, and used him to help communicate the true Gospel and spread it to the entire world.

Most nights that first summer in China were spent lying on a bed with my iPod on and this Bible open.

Through this book and God using it to speak to me and mold me in a multitude of different ways, my heart has been rearranged word by word, and my life realigned sentence by sentence. It hasn’t always been a quick change, but I’d like to think that the people that know me best can attest to the fact that it’s been a significant change.

One of the problems with self-help books is that their aim is too low. Sure, maybe something you read to help your anger problem or your addiction will give you a few practical things to do to help manage those things, but as soon as you plug one hole, another one appears.

The Bible, on the other hand, opens our ears to the words of God and that He doesn't just want to plug one hole, but He wants to change every last part of who we are and to change our greatest weaknesses into our greatest strengths.

When thinking about certain people in my life and where they’re at right now, I’ve sometimes had the thought that, “They just don’t see a need for God right now.” The problem with that is that they don’t know what they’re capable of, what they’ve been created for, or who they’re intended to be. They’re content to plug the holes with self-help books, entertainment, or alcohol because their vision for their lives is like a man wandering through the Sahara Desert and assuming that’s all there is. If they would just look a little further they would see a great, blue expanse and much more to discover on the other side.

That’s what reading the Bible is often like for me. My vision for life and myself is too low, and while it’s turned out that reading the Bible has revealed that my hurt, my issues, and my depravity go way deeper than I initially thought, it’s also turned out that life is far more precious and meaningful and God infinitely more gracious and loving than I could have ever imagined. And this God has a purpose for my life that far exceeds self-help books and anything that Hollywood can think up.

So if you’re content with the Sahara Desert, leave the Bible on the shelf.

On the other hand, if you’re ready for your life to be turned upside-down and to be given greater meaning, purpose and love than you ever could have imagined, dig in.

-CK

As He Goes, We Go

We live in a hell of a messed up world. Supreme court judges choking each other, a man chasing after people with a hand-crafted machete, and people taking their own lives because this is what they wake up to every morning and they see little hope – and this has all happened right in my own community in the past several days.

Life is meaningless.

Even as a Christian, there are days when I don’t want to move or do anything because it all seems pointless. There’s nothing I can buy and no adventure that I can go on that is going to make me feel fulfilled when I wake up in the morning.

But what I can’t imagine is even attempting to live in this kind of world without a belief in the God, Yahweh, of the Scriptures. The thought that He’s not real and that the whole Bible is a hoax and all we do is eat and sleep only to die and then return to the ground is easily the most vulgar, crude, depressing idea imaginable. How evil and demonic whatever powers behind our existence would be, whether some other god or science, if this is all that there is.

But even on days like this where the pure nonsense in the world seems overwhelming and overtaking, there is hope, and it comes in the form of a Man.

"When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." –Colossians 3:4

I’ve been captivated by this verse the past couple days because it clearly conveys what I’ve felt for so long.

That Jesus is my only hope.

All of my dreams, my future – everything that I presently have and am and am pursuing and am about is staked on Him. Without Him I am nothing. As He goes, I go. If He’s not up to the task of playing hero, there’s no one else ready to take His place.

If He is not who He says when He claims that He is God, He’s just another lunatic like the guy chasing after people with a machete.

But if He IS God, then there’s a completely different ending to this seemingly tragic story of a world we live in.

Because if He is, then there’s hope that all of the junk that’s everywhere around us will one day be put right once and for all, and we will be glorified and exalted with Christ. But because we’ve put everything on Him like a poor man who has just spent his last dollar hoping to win the lottery, we too will rise from the grave and spend eternity with our Rescuer.

He didn’t make it out of this world without being bruised and beaten either. The horrors that we read and hear about every day eventually claimed His life. But He will have the last word, and when that day comes, “It is finished” will take on a whole new meaning.

Christ is risen, and we too will one day rise.

As He goes, we go. Praise God!

Gazing

Amy and I recently started a summer Bible study at our place with some of our closest friends which has made me realize that I REALLY miss being in the Word with people that I love and whose walks with the Lord I really respect and even admire. Many of them see Christ and relate to Him in a way that I likely never will, so it’s been really refreshing for me the past couple weeks to spend time intentionally seeking the Lord with them.

Topical Bible studies where there’s a specific point to try to get to or to reach can be great – I’ve been a part of and lead many of them – but there’s something significant that happens when a group of people open up the Bible, start to read, and dialogue about whatever the Spirit brings to the surface. In the past two weeks, I’ve seen Jesus’ life and the writings of Paul illuminated in a way that I probably never would’ve seen on my own.

It makes complete sense to me why studying the Bible in this way would be beneficial and edifying. For most of the last several thousand years, rabbis, theologians, and common people all over the world have been dialoguing about matters of faith, who God is, and what his Word says, so it should come as no surprise that the Spirit can move powerfully when people gather together.

Let’s face it. God didn’t give us a self-help book when He gave us the Bible. He knew that we are far too deprived and our hearts far too calloused for our lives to be changed simply through teachings, rules and advice.

So instead, we have the Gospel.

Most of the time, I come into my interactions with God with some sort of an agenda, something I want to learn, or something about myself that I want changed. Not that those things are all bad, but there’s something incredibly freeing about approaching God with close friends and simply gazing upon the person of Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

In Mark 2, seeing that the house where Jesus is teaching is full, a paralytic man’s friends carry him onto the roof, literally DIG through a covering of mud and lower their friend down. (I imagine this scene like a joke from Family Guy that goes on for about 5 seconds longer than you think it should - everyone stopping for an hour or so as all activity in the house grinds to a halt and everyone in the house awkwardly watches until the roof is open and the man is finally lowered into the house.)

They too came into their interaction with Jesus with a very specific agenda, but as the paralytic man interacted with God in the flesh and experienced Him first-hand, he ended up getting a whole lot more than he bargained for. More on this story to come.

For the next several weeks, I hope to write at least one post a week about stories from the Gospel of Mark and the writing of Paul in Galatians that seem to really come alive to us as a group as we study God’s Word together. So stop by periodically, and if you don’t want to miss out on the action, join us on Tuesday nights!

CK

Jesus Loves the Packers

I have a bit of a confession to make. Maybe even an addiction to admit to. For the past year or so, whenever I'm alone and driving, I can't help but...

Listen to sports talk radio.

Colin Cowherd, Scott Van Pelt, Mike Heller, and my personal favorite, Dan Patrick. They all talk about the same things for the most part, but whether they're discussing football or NASCAR racing, I could generally listen to it for hours. (Okay, maybe not if it's about NASCAR racing.)

There's one guy in particular that I listen to based out of Milwaukee that I think, due to his age and wisdom, brings something to the table that no one else does.

That is, every single show (and probably even every hour or so), he bursts out in exhilaration,

"The Packers are WORRRRRRRRLD CHAMPIONS!!!"

It's now over three months past the Super Bowl, and even though several other sports have started their seasons and generally dominate the topics of conversation, he never forgets to remind us that the Packers are Super Bowl champions.

*Okay, so while I'm sure Jesus doesn't "hate" the Bears, it's probably similar to how he uses hyperbole and the word "hate" when comparing one's love for their family with their love for him. Compared to his love for the Packers, his love for the Bears looks like hate. :)

As phenomenal and potentially life-altering as the Super Bowl victory was for Wisconsin sports fans, and as terrific a story line as their overcoming injuries and improbable victories is, there's an even greater and more significant Story that we must remind ourselves of every day. And this Story should never get old.

While the danger in letting the Gospel get old and not reminding ourselves of the Story seems to lie mostly in our emotional connection to what Jesus has done for us, I believe there's much more at stake.

Because if the Gospel is "old hat" or something we only think about on Sundays, we in essence align ourselves to a completely different story that is anti-Gospel.

The story of having to earn love and affirmation, do all the right things to please God, have all of our needs met by our spouses or friends, follow all the rules, read the Bible for 30 minutes every day, or find our identity and significance in what abilities we possess or what job we have.

Or, like Homer, who doesn't want to forget about the Packers being Super Bowl champions for even a day and who wants to celebrate it for all it's worth, we can choose to align ourselves to the story of the Gospel each and every day, and regardless of circumstances, choose to be filled with joy because the resurrection is real and our God is very much alive!

Christ is Risen! (...and the Packers are WORRRRLD CHAMPS!)

-CK

The Osama bin Laden Question

When I first heard the news about Osama bin Laden's death, my mind and emotions seemed to be confused about how I was supposed to react. While celebration and joy didn't feel quite right, neither did mourning his murder.

And while images of teenagers celebrating in the streets of D.C. and chanting "USA!" succeeded in putting knots in my stomach, I also curiously scanned several social media outlets waiting for dialogue that might be sparked by people offended by Christians posting Bible verses about "loving their enemies." And it appeared that many other Christ-followers didn't quite know how to react either.

I can understand both reactions. If Jesus Christ hadn't changed my life seven years ago, I would've been elated and toasting with anyone in sight. The man was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, used religion to manipulate people, and will go down as our generation's Adolf Hitler. Non-believers would be crazy to act any differently because outside of faith, there is little basis for the sanctity of human life, especially a life as evil and abused as Osama bin Laden's. On the other hand, my life has changed and been centered around the Kingdom way of life, one that is ushered in through weakness, peace, and love.

Yet, while I'm not trying to soften Scripture and what it means for us, I don't think it's as simple as "love your enemies" = pacifism and "turn the other cheek." And though I didn't feel like it was appropriate to celebrate bin Laden's death last night, thousands of soldiers and families impacted by this man might beg to differ. And did the Israelites not celebrate when David killed Goliath or their enemies were defeated countless other times? Every person was created in the image of God, but by that same merit, shouldn't we also do whatever possible to preserve life?

These are the questions that theologians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and C.S. Lewis have long tried to figure out and that bring about that feeling I was attempting to describe.

Tension.

And it doesn't just come from issues like war and peace.

Politics,

Free will,

The end times,

Evangelism,

Poverty,

Sexuality,

And so on.

They all bring about tension.

I find that the closer I get to Jesus and thinking I know more of who He is and what He's about, the less I know about theology and life.

...and the more that tension grows.

But I think that's where we're supposed to be as Christ-followers. We can't even begin to pretend that we have the answers to all of those questions. And more importantly, Jesus has already lived the PERFECT life that we were SUPPOSED to live, was crucified, and resurrected. Because of that, we now have the FREEDOM to, by his Spirit, try to figure out how to best usher in the Kingdom through love and grace. In essence, being a Christ-follower means living in and embracing that tension.

By wanting things to be black and white, and being able to know EXACTLY what we need to do and how to behave, is to choose to live by the law, by religion. By this we will always fail. But by accepting that tension and working out our salvation with fear and trembling is to choose grace, and the Gospel.

As for the Osama bin Laden question, I pray that God might somehow use this to bring peace and that the anger and mourning that bin Laden has caused all around the world might somehow be replaced by the hope of the Gospel.

-CK

The Beauty of Lent...err....Easter

*This blog was written several years ago during Lent. Hopefully you will find it illuminating.*

Someone reminded me today that it was Ash Wednesday and that Lent was starting. I had never grown up doing anything special for Lent and never really fully understood what it was all about, so we proceeded to look it up (thank you, Wikipedia) and I did a little further research.

Since somewhere around the 2nd Century, the Church (primarily the Catholic Church), in some form or another, has observed Lent. Simply stated, "Lent is a special time of prayer, penance, sacrifice and good works in preparation of the celebration of Easter" (Fr. William Saunders). Later on, the round, Biblical number of 40 days (the Flood, Jesus' temptation, etc) was established as the duration for Lent, and even later, it somehow progressed to what we more commonly hear about today, people "giving something up" for Lent.

I won't begin to speculate how Lent progressed to the form which we now see (my guess is that the same guy who came up with Santa and the Easter Bunny had something to do with it), and though there's probably little Biblical basis for the specifics of it outside of fasting, I've recently decided that something can, in fact, be gained from it (other than just losing weight or resolving to go to the gym more).

I recently read a blog by Diana Butler Bass found at www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics called "Giving Up Lent for Lent." It would probably be an interesting article to read if Lent is something you're accustomed to, but I wanted to comment on a couple of things that I had never thought about before.

Origins and reasons behind Lent aside, the idea of "giving something up" probably seems pretty hard to some people. Surely after 40 days of trying to give up chocolate, soda, or watching TV, you're likely to take a "mulligan" at least once.

Just the fact that something as worldly and inconsequential as giving up chocolate can be so hard and so frustrating reminds us just how short we fall in the end and sheds light on the depravity of our situation. (Obviously eating chocolate isn't a sin, but if we can't resist eating chocolate for any length of time, surely we come up WAY short in a lot of others ways.)

"The journey to Easter is not a mournful denial of our humanity. Rather, Lent embraces our humanity – our deepest fears, our doubts, our mistakes and sins, our grief, and our pain." (Bass) Forty days of this and one is sure to become guilt-ridden and feel absolutely horrible about themselves...The beauty of this process is not in Lent itself, but in its leading up to Easter.

When Easter finally comes and we are reminded of Christ's resurrection from the dead, the significance of his doing so becomes even more apparent. Christianity is not about trying to fulfill laws and strict rules for our lives…If you want to do that, try doing Lent 365 days a year. In Jesus' resurrection from the dead, we are free to cast off "our deepest fears, our doubts, our mistakes and sins, our grief, and our pain" on God because all of that has already been paid for. That means that Easter, the celebration of Jesus' resurrection from the dead, is a celebration and remembrance of the sacrifice that He made and the triumph that we ALL have over death and the guilt and condemnation of our human situation.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Whether it's from having to take a "mulligan" after eating chocolate cake, a past sin that continues to haunt you, or feeling like no matter how hard you try, you just can't overcome an area of sin in your life, let go of the guilt. It's been taken care of and we have the victory over those things in the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

-CK