R3: radical, revolutionary, different

I’d like to say that I’m home after a few weeks of travel. But I’m actually back on the road. Which is nice because where I live it’s snowing and where I am its 70 degrees. You have to love that! So while I’m on the road I want to take care of a little housekeeping and expand upon an interesting idea.

Christopher sent in an email about the king of the hill post.

The part of your post that I really wanted to comment on though is about being an individual and learning to submit to authority. From my own experiences in Christ, I have to say that once we do start to practice submitting to authority for the sake of the Lord, it has been for me, another one of those new found freedoms in Christ that you begin to experience. You’re no longer weighed down by thoughts and feelings to “defend” your ground, or to come up with arguments of justification for your actions.

Practice. It’s something I usually don’t’ associate with living out a life of faith. But you know what? I think that’s a great way of looking at it. It’s very rare that we instantly become people who can live in perfect faith. Usually it takes weeks, if not years, to overcome some of our sinful behaviors.

I think this is one of the most dangerous times of being a Christian. When we become frustrated that we aren’t changing as fast as we should be, we run the risk of giving up. We can become so upset that we keep making the same mistake we wonder, “will I ever be able to overcome this?” It’s easy to say we’re never going to overcome our selfishness, our lust, our greed, and so we give up.

But if we look at it from a practice perspective, things change. Our weaknesses no longer become impossible to overcome. Instead they represent a chance to learn and try again. In the book, God is closer than you think, John Ortberg has a prayer that simply says, “God I’m sorry I failed, please help me start again.”

God can never change our hearts if we’re running away from him because we see ourselves as failures. But he can radically change us if we keep getting back up and saying, “God, I failed, help me to stand up and try again.” This is the balance between truth and grace.

Maybe it’s true what they say: practice makes perfect.

Sometimes it’s easy to get down on ourselves.  We blame ourselves for our sins, for our failures.  We start thinking that God can’t use us because we’re not perfect.  God offers us an infinite number of “do overs.”  But we need to be willing to go to him and accept that. 

When I think of that I’m reminded of this shirt:

 Image courtasy ShirtADay

(For those of you who didn’t grow up playing video games this is known as the Konami cheat code, which gave you 30 lives in various video games.)

I don’t know who came up with the idea that “seeing is believing” but they couldn’t have been more wrong.  Trusting what you see is one of the fastest ways to get you into trouble!  I think we all recognize that we can’t trust our eyes.  That’s why it’s so fun to play with optical illusions. 

Yet the truth is, we live in a world that is visually manipulated.  Like optical illusions sometimes it’s for fun.  But other times it’s done intentionally, with the goal of manipulating us.  Our advertisements are manipulated.  Our television images are manipulated.  Even the “truth” is manipulated.  We are surrounded by distortions of what “real” is. 

Now I get what some of you are thinking.  ”Sure, we get that the news portrays current events for ratings not news.”  Or, “I know Hollywood is full of it, I’ve seen Mythbusters!”  The sentiment is that manipulating what we see just isn’t that big of a deal.  “It’s only TV.” 

But is it? 

Sins like greed and lust work on this exact principle.  They tell us that what we don’t have is more appealing that what we do have.  Lust plants the idea that what we need, no, what we deserve, is another woman (or man).  While greed whispers that we owe it to ourselves to get a “little more” money no matter the cost. 

Consistently the world tells us that if only we would go after those things will we be satisfied.   We just need to consume more things and then we’ll be happy.  Just one more drink.  Just one more cigarette.  Just one more purchase. 

Can you feel it?  Can you feel those desires tugging at your heart?

I can.  And the truth is, sometimes they win.

What we see is a lie.  What we see is not reality.  It’s a myth.  It’s something the world desperately wants to be true, but is so far from God’s Kingdom.  Think about your own life, and then compare it to what we see.  Hollywood portrays sex and drugs as ways to live your life.  But when you have sex and do drugs does your life improve?  Or do you feel more empty than when you began?  Hollywood never shows us the consequences.  Because that would show that their world doesn’t exist.

Advertisements tell us that we’ll be happy if only we have a new set of furniture, or a new game, or a nice vacation.  But do you feel satisfied after that purchase?  Or do you feel stress, fear, and worry because you don’t know how you’ll pay for it.  Advertisements show us a great life - but they don’t tell us that the happy couple doesn’t exist.

Only God offers us a clear image into reality.  Everything else is photoshopped.

Sometimes people don’t always see how their faith impacts their life.  “It’s a personal thing” or “it’s between myself and God” are expressions of this idea.  But faith, and the way you live your life, can never be separated.  What you believe impacts how you behave.

Just look at the financial mess the world is facing.  While there are so many factors, perhaps too many to understand, that have triggered these events there is one thing we can look at: human behavior.  We see executives taking huge amounts of money while their companies go under.  Is there anything wrong with this?  Maybe not.  But can you imagine Jesus doing this?  The point of being a Kingdom person is that we are willing to sacrifice everything for our brothers and sisters. 

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15: 13)

The same should be true of the people we place in government.  Unfortunately it’s not.  By the time this is all said and done we will find politicians on both sides of the aisle (and other world leaders) who knowingly acted for their own welfare, sacrificing the welfare of their countries.  God warned Israel that the minute they put a king over them instead of God, the best of everything they had would belong to the state. 

But Christians can change this.  Not by forcing non-Christians to live by God’s rules, but by living out those rules for ourselves.  There is nothing more powerful than witnessing a life lived out in faith.  Nothing more convincing that God exists.

So in the midst of all of this, remember that faith applies to your life, just as much as it does to CEO’s and Senators. 

Jesus once encountered a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.  After listening to the man’s story, he asked an odd question - “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)

At first I didn’t really understand this question.  Who wouldn’t want to be healed of their ailments?  Who wouldn’t want to be healthy?  But then it occurred to me, we often define ourselves by our problems and by what we can’t do.  Our troubles become who we are. 

If Jesus came to me and said, “do you want to get well?”  I’d have to be honest and say, “Sometimes I like my sin.  Sometimes it’s fun.”  Part of my identity is still grounded in sin.  And every time I think I get rid of it, I realize just how deep that identity goes. 

Part of me still doesn’t want to be healed.

Are you defined by your sins?  Or do you want to be healed?

Like Darth Vader, the King of Tyre turned his gifts into his curse.  His looks, his wisdom and his wealth all turned against him.  All because he began to misuse them.  But he’s not the only one to do that, is he?  You’ve done it.  I know I’ve done it.  We all use our talents and gifts to abuse our power.  To manipulate people.  And to make ourselves feel better when we should be helping others.

Scientists have a term for this, it’s called “human nature.”

But God always calls us to something greater.  That’s what makes our sins so tragic - the very gifts God has given us to change the world, we use to destroy ourselves and other people.  When I screw up, and I realize it, I find it hard to turn back to God.  I know I should, but he feels so distant, and unreachable.  I tell myself, “I don’t deserve to talk to God right now.  I haven’t earned my way back.”  I feel like I need to make amends, to set things “right” before I can start talking with God again.

But that’s not what God wants.  He doesn’t want us to be punished, he wants us to be saved.

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

That doesn’t sound like a God who wants us to suffer.  It sounds like a God who loves us a great deal and is heart broken when we fight against him.  It sounds like a God who just wants us to turn from our mistakes and embrace him.

I am constantly amazed at God’s patience.  No matter how many times we openly, and aggressively reject him, God is always willing to forgive us.  “If I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right….None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him.” (Ezekiel 33: 14-16)

It’s hard in our culture to accept things we don’t earn.  We want to earn things so we can prove our worth.  We want to show that we deserve to be here.  But neither our salvation nor our worth is something we earn.  They are both things that God gives to us.  Freely.  Simply because he loves us. 

All the King of Tyre had to do was tell God he was sorry, and turn away from his pride and arrogance.  But he couldn’t do that.  He had lost control of his greatest strengths and they had become his greatest liabilities.   He began to worship himself instead of God.  And that’s not how we’re designed to operate.  No matter how many times he was warned, he didn’t want to hear it.  

At least Darth Vader recognized his mistake, and repented.  And just like God often does, his weaknesses once again became his strengths, and he was able to save not only his son, but the galaxy.   

God wants to forgive us, we just have to be willing to ask.   

God wants us to change the world.

Sometimes that’s hard to believe.  We’re so used to hearing “it can’t be done” or “you’re not good enough” that it’s hard to imagine God would give us such a crazy task.  Of course God would never send us out to do something he hasn’t prepared us for.  That’s why he gives us each a unique set of gifts.  That set of skills and experiences is something only we can use.

No matter how talented you think someone is, or how brilliant you think they are, there are things that they can’t do, and only you can.  That’s why God calls each of us to a mission.  Because there are tasks that only we can perform.

One of my favorite movie scenes is the moment when Darth Vader reveals his true identity.  “Luke, I am your father” is probably one of the most quoted lines in movie history.  It was such a huge moment that Lucas eventually went back and made three prequels to explore how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.

Anakin, as we learn, was a kid of near unimaginable potential.  He was naturally gifted.  Naturally talented.  And naturally better than almost anyone.  He excelled quickly despite his surroundings.  In fact he had more gifts than most of us combined.  But what started out as his greatest gift turned into something that nearly destroyed an entire galaxy.

When he lost focus of what was important - using his gifts to improve the world – and because of that he became Darth Vader and lead a life consumed with revenge and hatred.

Rick Warren, in the Purpose Driven Life, says “even abilities used to sin are God-given; they are just being misused or abused.”

We see this played out in the writings of a man named Ezekiel.  His mission was to tell Israel why it was being punished.  But he also spoke to the surrounding nations, and even addresses his comments to specific people, such as the King of Tyre.

Now the King of Tyre was an interesting guy.  God had given him some pretty amazing gifts.  He was good looking, had a knack for making money, and was wise.  As they say, it’s good to be the King!  The problem was he lost track of what was really important and allowed his greatest gifts to become twisted.  The King of Tyre became proud because of his looks (Ezekiel 28:17), he had become violent because of his wealth (28: 16), and lost his wisdom because he was focused on luxury (28:17).

The King threw everything away.  In fact it got so bad that he actually began to believe his own marketing hype, and declared himself a god!  (28:2)

Just like Darth Vader (but without the cool helmet) the King of Tyre lost track of his mission.  By losing his focus on the eternal, and focusing exclusively on the present he went completely astray.  In fact he went so far off course that it led to the destruction of both his kingdom and himself.

It is so easy to lose focus on what’s really important (God).  We get busy, and tired, and scared.  And just as dangerous we get wealthy, comfortable, and lazy.  That’s why it’s so important to remind ourselves that the race really is long, and we need to plan accordingly.   

As we get ready to move into 2008, something occurs to me - we need to jealously protect our relationship with God.  The Bible often talks about how God is a “jealous” God.  That’s not because he’s insecure or needy.  But because God knows what’s best for us.  After all, he’s the one who designed us!

God knows that when we worship other things, other idols, we are moving in the wrong direction.  We’re moving towards a place that God never intended us to go.  That’s why he’s jealous – because he wants to keep us to live our lives to their fullest potential.

I think the same applies to us: we need to be jealous of our relationship with him.  Not because we are insecure (although we are) or needy (although we are that too), but because our bond with God can be so easily severed by sin.

That’s not to suggest God moves away from us, because he doesn’t.  In fact the opposite is true.  Sin moves us away from him.  And the further away we move the harder, and more painful, it can be to find our way back.  That’s the true nature of sin - it literally separates us from God.

So as you enter 2008 consider this: keep God close to your heart and don’t let anything separate you.

Have you heard about the man in India marrying a dog?  Sounds pretty crazy, right?  Sounds like something you’d never do, right?  That’s what I thought until Thursday morning.  (And no, I didn’t find myself asking Lassie to marry me.)  You see, that guy believes that his actions can atone for the mistakes he’s made in his life.  And what he did to those dogs was pretty bad.  So a bad sin requires a major correction, right?  

When I first read about this story I thought about it from a Hindu perspective.  I figured if you believe people are reincarnated into all manner of things (including dogs), and you did something horrific to that dog, then that doesn’t bode well for you.  As they say, Karma’s a bitch.  Ok, I don’t know if anyone says that.  But maybe the should.

That was the framework I was using until I read Bob Hyatt’s blog.  His take fundamentally shifted how I look at this (and other) problems.  Hyatt said, “We find endless creative ways to atone for our own sins.”  How true.  So many of us, myself included, are trapped into this mentality that we need to earn our way into salvation.  That somehow what we do impacts how much God loves us.  And that can drive us to do strange things. 

For this man it meant he needed to find a way to make up for his mistakes.  And because he did something radical to the dogs, he believed a radical step was needed to fix the problem.  The irony here is that in a way he’s right.  A radical step is needed to atone for sin.  It’s just that Jesus was that radical step.  He took the hit for all of us.  He died so we don’t have to. 

Nothing we can ever do will atone for a sin we make.  There are no “do overs.”  There is only grace and forgiveness. Thank God (literally!) for that.

“What has happened to all your joy?” (Galatians 4:15)

There are days when we get into a rut, where we lose the excitement in our lives.  It happens with work, with friends, and even with fun.  In fact, it happens with everything.  It’s too easy to lose sight of why you started on something as you get hassled with new responsibilities and new requirements.  Have you ever started on a project, something you really wanted to do, only to lose interest?  For me it was writing a book.  For you maybe it’s building a classic car or learning a foreign language, or maybe even just finding more time to spend with people you care about.

When you began didn’t you feel a bit of excitement?  Wasn’t there a time where you couldn’t wait to get home so you could work on it?  But that doesn’t last, does it?  Things start out with so much potential, but before long you’ve become bogged down in details and lose sight of why you started it in the first place.

In a way that was happening to the Galatians.  They had started enthusiasm for knowing Jesus.  They were living completely sacrificial lives.  So much so Paul exclaims, “you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.”  Now that’s commitment!  And yet, somewhere along the way they got bogged down in legalism and their joy was crushed.

Of course it’s not only the Galatians that have this problem.  We do too.  Or at least I know I do.  Some days I’m overwhelmed by what it means to be a Christian.  I begin to worry about sinning.  I worry about being generous.  I worry about being a good example of what Christ has done in my life.  I worry about my temper or my greed.  I worry that I’ll never be able to really live up to the expectations Jesus has of me. It becomes a burden instead of freedom.

When I’m feeling this way the first thing to go is the joy and the excitement I feel about worshiping God. I look at it as an obligation.  A formality.  A duty.  Just one more thing to “do.”

Of course this is entirely the wrong perspective.  Losing my joy at worship shouldn’t be a result of stress, it should be the sign of stress!  As soon as I begin to feel this way I need to stop and ask myself, “what’s the problem here?”  If I’m feeling burdened by my sins, I don’t need to, because Jesus has that covered.  If I’m feeling time-crunched, I don’t need to, because God tells us to rest even when we’re busy.  

We won’t always be joyful when we worship.  That’s part of what it means to live in a “fallen” world.  But if we lose our joy like the Galatians, we need to address that.  Paul clearly believes that joy is a natural part of knowing Jesus.  And I have to think he’s on to something there…

So the next time you don’t feel very excited to be worshiping God, stop and ask yourself why.  Are there serious problems in your life that you need to address?  Or are you just burdening yourself with useless legalism?