Do You Daily Live as if the Resurrection is True?

As I spent some time in silence this morning, I found myself evaluating how different my life might look if I truly lived every single day as if the Gospel is true. I mean, yes, I certainly believe that I’m sinful, that Jesus died for my sins, and was resurrected, proving that He has power over death and sin and that He is God – but on a daily basis, does the way that I spend my time, treat others, and spend my money truly reflect my belief that Jesus is the victorious King over the entire universe?

We already know the end of the story, that Jesus is coming back to renew and restore everything, and that all people will give an account for how they lived their lives.

In his book, The King Jesus Gospel, Dr. Scot McKnight suggests that the boldness of our evangelism has been removed by somehow taking the resurrection out of our gospel.

And I’m guilty as charged.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ stands at the center of history as the most important event that has ever and will ever occur. It’s either true, or it’s not, and the ramifications of which side we come out on change everything. If taken seriously, it’s impossible to live somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, as if the Gospel is half-true.

I would do well to live every moment of every day in light of the resurrection of Christ, desiring to not take another breath that doesn’t in some way glorify Him. The Gospel demands such obedience and worship.

At the end of the day, my apprehensions about boldly declaring the Gospel because I don’t want to alienate a friend or have someone think that I’m weird, or my apathy toward injustice and my unwillingness to spend more of my time and money in an effort to bring the hope of the Gospel to the least of these, or my tendencies to build my significance and satisfaction in life upon anything but Jesus Christ – all of these things should be decisively demolished in light of the fact that Jesus is risen, He sits at the right hand of the Father, and through Him, I have the power to affect real, significant, and eternal change in a broken, wounded world that is lost without Him.

So I ask, right this very moment, are you living your life as if the Gospel of our resurrected Savior is true?

God help us to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel.

-CK

*A quick note for those that might be reading this and haven't come to a decision about whether this whole Jesus thing is true: I compassionately but strongly urge you to look into it and figure it out. Read the Gospel of John, a good Christian apologetics book, or talk to a pastor. If you decide the resurrection is not true, then by all means, go about your life as usual - but if it's true, and I believe it is - then nothing else in all of the universe is more important. It simply changes everything.

Perspectives on Redemption - Brennan Manning, The Apostle Paul, and the Beauty of Redemption

One of the first books that I read after becoming a Christian eight years ago was a book called The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I was blown away by Manning’s ability to bring the ideas of grace and God’s love to life in a way that was tangible to me and I immediately longed (and still do) to experience God’s grace in the way that he seemingly had. 

Several months ago I read Manning’s memoir, All is Grace, which started to bring into focus how and why he had experienced God’s love and grace in such a rich way as he outlined his struggles in marriage and with alcoholism – at least those that he can remember as the effects of years of drinking have eaten away at his memory.

I was also struck by the unique, even messy, ways that the redemption that comes through the Gospel has played itself out throughout his lifetime. Redemption certainly isn’t neat and clean, and the ways that God sometimes brings glory to Himself don’t often make sense at first glance.

There are numerous examples of this in Scripture, but we need look no further than one small section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians to get an amazing picture of God’s work of redemption.

“For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preaching him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone.” (Galatians 1:13-16)

Paul makes it clear that God brought him into a relationship with Himself in order that he might preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. But this statement from Paul about his calling to preach to the Gentiles immediately follows his description about his “former life.” Even though this entire letter was written for the purpose of validating Paul as an apostle and therefore his ministry and gospel so that he might be able to defend it against those preaching a different gospel, his past life of persecution and intense legalism is not something that he tries to hide or avoid. Rather, it’s a significant part of his story, who God has made him to be, and the Gospel that he preaches.

It’s often interesting to see the types of people that God chooses to carry out certain missions or tasks. God could just as easily have used one of the original apostles in place of Paul in order to reach the Gentiles, but he instead (or additionally) chooses to call someone to himself and redeem someone who was violently persecuting the early church.

Here are three significant ways that God redeems Paul’s “former life”:

      1) In Paul’s letters, he is constantly reminding people of the Gospel, probably because he himself needs to hear it constantly lest he revert to his former life of legalism. In doing so, he has helped millions of Christians throughout history tune their hearts to the grace of the Gospel instead of the legalism of the Law.

      2) God needed someone who was bold, courageous, and zealous for him, so instead of wiping out those things in Paul and his pre-conversion personality, He mends Paul’s heart and tweaks his passions so that they might be directed toward Kingdom purposes and used for His glory.

      3) The full redemption and significance of Paul’s life takes thousands of years to play out, and is in fact still working itself out. It would have been easy for Paul to get caught up in regret regarding his former life, the “thorn” in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12), or the struggles of his churches, and for him to think that God wasn’t using him and he wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped, but thousands of years later, Paul is one of the most influential missionaries of all-time and his letters have helped bring countless Christians into a relationship with Christ.

So how does this glimpse into the many colors of redemption affect our own lives? Again, three thoughts:

     1) We are called into a relationship with Christ for a purpose, and that is to bring glory to God. The ways in which our lives are redeemed are meant to be turned back to God in praise and service, not so we can pursue our own goals.

    

      2) Don’t merely forget what God has brought you through – those things may have happened for a very specific reason. How might your past experiences benefit others or be shaping you into who God wants you to be?

      

      3) We should have confidence that God will use us despite our past, present, and future failures, and regardless of how difficult following Jesus and becoming more like Him can seem at times, God will carry his work of redemption in our lives out to completion.

For Brennan Manning, even as a Catholic priest who was traveling the world for speaking engagements and writing books, he often found that his life was spiraling out of control. Yet God used him in the midst of all kinds of things. Redemption didn’t always play itself out in visible, tangible ways in his life in the sense that there’s a victory story of getting “all cleaned up” and overcoming alcoholism or restoring his marriage, yet he preached a message of grace and love that he himself continuously needed to hear. And as it turns out, so did millions of other people, including myself.

So how will your story of redemption play out? How might God want to use you in spite of, or maybe even because of, your past pain or failures?

But be “sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)

-CK

Who Would God Vote For? - The Politics of God

I have the luxury of living in a swing state where 90% of the ads on TV or on the radio are from political campaigns. One that I’ve seen several times in the past week is a Mitt Romney ad that closes with Romney telling the country that he will best “maintain America as the hope of the earth.” I sure hope the “hope of the earth” doesn’t rest in America’s hands, because if it does, our issues extend far beyond healthcare, gun control, and abortion.

So where does our hope lie this season? And if it’s not in the American government, how should we approach politics, especially as we vote in a few days?

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This year’s presidential election has had a decidedly different feel than back in 2008. In some ways, the circumstances surrounding the United States are quite different today, even improved, as the recession no longer has the same stranglehold on the economy it once had and our foreign engagements are comparatively peaceful.

Yet in 2008, there was a sense of hope and change in the air, regardless of which nominee took office, that could not be more different than the tense debates and disillusioned voters of today who are pessimistic that either candidate offers much hope. (And results in videos of little girls crying like this one!)

From abcnews.go.com

Perhaps people have come to more fully realize that neither political party or candidate is able to completely deliver on the hope and change that they have promised – this after one of our most promising, likeable, well-spoken, elected leaders in recent history has himself failed to live up to some peoples’ expectations.

More on this later.

My main motive for writing this is to plea with Christians everywhere to guard against placing our hope in the wrong places and to make sure our zeal for the Kingdom of God continuously outweighs our political fervor, especially in the midst of election week.

I sincerely hope that a few days from now, as the election results roll in, regardless of who is elected as the next president, that there is no mention of the anti-Christ or of our country coming to an end, and that there is no need to write an apology to non-Christians like this one. Four years from now, we’ll likely be back in the same spot, unsatisfied with what our government has done for us – but the United States of America will remain intact and the sun will continue to rise in the morning and set in the evening.

But come Tuesday evening, our reactions to the election results will be a telling indicator as to where our hope truly lies.

The good news is that God is in control and He will not flinch, regardless of who is voted into office.

Colossians 1:16, speaking of Jesus, says, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together…that in everything he might be preeminent.”

So if all things were created by God and for Him, this begs the question of how we can honor God through the political process.

So I ask, what does God care most about come election season and every other day of the year?

Life – from conception to the grave.

And while one political party focuses almost entirely on life in the womb, the other thinks that whatever is in the womb is not life. Neither party has the same regard for the entirety of human life as God.

So then, how should we approach politics as Christians?

Two things:

First, we must advocate for the entirety of human life, and when the government steps out of line with Kingdom values, we must prophetically speak truth where there are lies and deceit and light where there is darkness. As our Colossians passage mentions, the government was created for God and at the end of the day, is responsible to Him first, and all politicians will give an account of what they did with the power and resources they were given.

So when politicians allow for and support abortion, we stand up for all of the unborn babies who have been killed. And when they seek to repeal new healthcare policies that offer affordable healthcare to those who otherwise can’t afford it or simply stick to the status quo, we advocate for the uninsured. And when politicians plan to revoke conscience protection for healthcare workers, we speak up for our moral rights. And when they refuse to clean up gun control policies so that weapons intended for militaries and mass killings won’t end up on the streets, we speak against that too.

Second, we live out the coming of God’s Kingdom and Christian values better than the government ever will or even has the ability to.

We help the poor in our neighborhoods, support single mothers and offer alternatives to abortion, we ensure that medications and supplies make it to those that need them here in our own country and abroad, we get involved in the political process and lobby for changed policies, and we certainly support those within our own churches and congregations so that “there is not a needy person among [us].” (Acts 4:34)

As Julian, emperor of Rome from 332 to 363 AD said of the Christian Church,

“It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”

So think hard, and humbly go to the polls and vote for whomever you’d like. In fact, I don’t buy that we shouldn’t “push our values on others.” Everyone “pushes their values on others” because everyone, Christian or not, votes according to their own worldview. And at the end of the day, we are responsible to God for who we give the authority to run our country (though not in a way that might put one’s “soul in jeopardy,” as some have falsely and unwisely claimed) just as the government itself is responsible to God.

But vote not because your hope is in one candidate or the other but because you believe one perhaps embodies Kingdom values better than the other.

And whoever wins, honor and respect that person. Encourage and pray for that person – and humbly critique them when they’re wrong. But don’t expect one man to fix everything you think is wrong with our country in the next four years.

The reality is, neither Republicans nor Democrats fully embody the things that God cares about. And when we hold strictly to party lines or create a dichotomy between the two and describe one as purely good and one as purely evil, we’re tragically wrong and we completely alienate about half of the U.S. population by holding such views.

As Dr. Mark Young has said about this year’s election, "I think it will be time for us as the people of God to call ourselves to repentance. We have tried to sanctify and make distinctly Christian that which is not and give [our] lives to it in ways that only further separate the Gospel from those who need to hear it."

But thankfully, at the end of the day, God is in control and He holds all things together.

And we don’t have to put our hope and trust in a corrupt political process because a God exists who created the world, sent His only Son into the world to live a sinless life, and to die a horrible death but rise again three days later so that death might be destroyed, our sins might be forgiven, and the whole earth, and every nation, tribe, and tongue, would be restored to Him.

It’s through this that we find “the hope of the earth.” 

For thousands of years, people have put their hope and trust in a political ruler who would empower them and give them everything that they need, and for thousands of years, God has been pointing to the Cross and reminding people that that's not the way that He works. God already has his Man and He sits in the ultimate seat of authority and power, holding everything together.

May our hope be found in Him, and Him alone.

-CK

"The king is not saved by his great army;

a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

The war horse is a false hope for salvation, 

and by its great might it cannot rescue.

Our soul waits for the LORD;

he is our help and our shield.

For our heart is glad in him,

because we trust his holy name.

Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,

even as we hope in you." (Psalm 33)