God asks us to do hard things

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 18-12-2009

Category : God, barbarian, bible, choice, different, taking action

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Never think that God won’t ask you to do something hard.

In fact, that seems to be God’s favorite thing to do.  He never seems to say, “You know what, if you go on vacation to this exclusive resort, that will really get the people believing in me!”

Instead he says things like “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek”.  Or if you are like Hosea, he tells you to marry a prostitute.

Ouch.

A while back I wrote that God never gives us more than we can handle.  It’s one of the most popular posts on R3.  People have a hard time understanding why a “loving God” gives us hard things to do.  We don’t really want a God; we want a super powerful Santa Claus.  But taking an easy path in life isn’t always the best way to go about living.  I think God knows this.  He knows that sometimes the most growth happens when we have to struggle.  He knows that some people will be held in bondage unless we act.  He knows that evil won’t stop, just because we don’t want to get involved.

Sometimes the only way to advance the Kingdom is to push.

The more I struggle to understand what it means to be a parent, the more I realize just what God goes through.  When I look at my own parents I realize they held me to high expectations, not because they were being “controlling” or “demanding” but because they knew I had more potential in me then even I realized.

We don’t really want a God; we want a super powerful Santa Claus.

It’s the same with God.  He knows how much we can grow.  How much we can handle.  And sometimes to bring out our full potential, we need to work really hard.

There are things more important to God than giving us an easy life.

This is clearly seen in the Bible.  God has always been more interested in our relationship with him than in our sacrifices (for Jews) or following a bunch of rules (for Christians).  But we can’t seem to get that through our heads.  We keep trying “harder” to please God, when that misses the whole point.

When God gives us something hard to do (like telling Hosea to marry a prostitute) we change not just ourselves, but the world.

You can’t find a story in the Bible where something amazing wasn’t experienced when hard tasks were done.  You can’t find a friend who has been obedient to God, who hasn’t grown.  You can’t find lives changed when we, as Christians, do the hard thing.

What else can you make that claim about?

So when God comes to you and says, “I have something hard for you to do.”  Don’t fight him.  Instead, say, “how can I do it?”  And then go and do it.

how the internet influences faith

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 11-12-2009

Category : God, faith, taking action

Tags: , , , , , ,

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There was once a time when the Catholic Church had a monopoly on information.  At least religious information.  But thanks to Martin Luther and the printing press that monopoly is long gone.  In that moment an explosion of thought, innovation, and not surprisingly, faith occurred.  For the first time, people were able to have open access to the Bible.

For centuries, though, our thinking was still influenced by the people immediately around us: our teachers, our family, our friends.

But that’s not the case anymore.

Thanks to the internet, people are once again being flooded with a staggering amount of information.  I recently saw a study that said each of consumes, on average, 34 gigabytes of information.  That’s not in a year, or a month, or even in a week.  That’s per day.  That’s 7 DVD’s worth of stuff for those of you scoring at home.

Just by the fact that you are reading this is enough to prove all of that.

Now none of this is new.  The internet has been around for a long time.  At least by technology standards.  The real focus of this post is that despite all of this information most of us don’t take advantage of it.  We are content to learn passively.  And I think that’s a shame.

The three biggest sources of influence on my theological life come from my home church, Greg Boyd, and Erwin McManus.  Without the internet I never would have been exposed to these thoughts, let alone been transformed by them.  But their influence is unmistakable on my writing.  My faith is deeper.  My convictions stronger.  And my passion for God fuller.

Of course with knowledge comes responsibility.  We can’t simply absorb more information and become “smarter” Christians.  We have to do something with our knowledge.  And that means serving.  It means loving our enemies.  And it means being vulnerable.

It also means we can no longer blindly follow faith.  We have to know what we believe and why we believe.  Knowledge is a double edge sword.  Especially on the internet.  A little bit can be harmful.  It can confuse us, misdirect us, and even convince us of things that aren’t true.  (There’s a reason conspiracy theories thrive on the internet!)  The web is filled with people waiting to knock your faith out from under you.  Knowledge is the best way to stand strong.

There was a time we were limited by region, money, and who we knew personally.  But that’s not the case anymore.  The internet really is the great equalizer when it comes to building a deeper relationship with God.  I hope you take advantage of it.

i don’t want to go through the motions

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 25-11-2009

Category : Jesus, Matthew, fear, living a life of faith, taking action, trust

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I admit it.  The last few weeks have been a bit up and down on R3.  I haven’t been able to post the usual three times a week.  It seems events have been conspiring against me.  At first I was sick.  Then I realized it was NaNoWriMo.  (That’s National Novel Writing Month for those of you scoring at home.)  And after writing about 20,000 words of a book, I had to put virtually everything on hold because, my friends, I have some good news to share.  I was offered a job on Monday and accepted.

That means after all this time I will finally be employed.

If you’ve been following R3 for any length of time you know that this last year has been hard.  I’ve been unemployed since the first of the year.  And that takes a toll on you.  More than just financially though. You can easily begin to doubt yourself.  And at times I really questioned where I was going.  Unemployment can also shake your faith.  There were times when I really wondered if I was really following God or just going off on my own tangents.  It also can impact your relationships.  It’s hard to be loving and engaged when you wonder where you will get enough money to pay the bills.  It’s also hard to stay active with your friends when they want to go do something that costs money and you don’t have the funds for that.

Looking back on the year I realize just how much I have learned and just how much I’ve grown.  I don’t even feel like the same person anymore.  And none of that would have been possible without trusting God and quitting my job.  The ironic thing is, that despite all the pain this year has caused, it’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything.  In fact, it’s probably one of the best years I’ve ever had.

You see I don’t want to go through the motions.  I don’t want to look back on my life and wonder, “did I really give everything?”  I don’t want to just be that guy who punches the clock and that’s it.  I want my life to make a difference.  I want to advance the Kingdom in powerful ways, or at least in whatever ways I can.

Jesus once told the parable of the talents.  In it he described three men who were each given talents (which was a sum of money equivalent to about 3 months of wages).  Two of the men doubled what they had been given.  But the last man didn’t do anything with his talent.  He was afraid and therefore didn’t act.

When the master of the three men returned he demanded an account of how they had used the money.  The first two were rewarded greatly, and the last man was punished.  Not because he lost the money.  But because he didn’t do anything with his talent!

That terrifies me.

I would rather lead a life of adventure, and chaos, and unpredictability than live a safe, comfortable life that wasn’t about pursuing God.  I knew that I had a choice to make about my job.  Stay there and be comfortable, but do nothing with my “talent.”  Or be willing to trust God so much that I would walk into a completely unpredictable world.

I chose to act.

I don’t always choose to act.  And I’m not saying everyone should quit their job.  But I don’t want to look back some day and think, “why did I waste my talent?”

This is why the Matthew West song “The Motions” has become a theme song of sorts.

I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
Without your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
Instead of going through the motions?”

That’s how I want to live.  How about you?  Are you going through the motions?

God gives us freedom

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 20-11-2009

Category : God, Jesus, different, taking action

Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Football coaches are known for their paranoia.  They fear that the slightest bit of information might give an advantage to their opponent.  Now in a game that can be decided by fractions of a second or just a few inches of height that seems understandable.  How many games have been decided by a ball that just flew over the outstretched fingers of a defender?  It seems like the last couple of Super Bowls have played out that way.

But sometimes coaches get caught up in their paranoia.  It takes on a larger role than just a precaution, it begins to determine their actions.

One such example comes from a former University of Pittsburgh coach.  During the middle of practice the head coach began to suspect his team was being spied upon.  So he called down to two police officers and told them to check out the “suspicious” guy who was leaning against a telephone poll a few hundred yards away.

The police, doing what they were hired for, jumped in their car and sped toward the man.

A few minutes later they returned.

“Well?” asked the coach.

“He’s waiting for the bus.” they replied.

The problem with freedom isn’t that we can’t have it – it’s that we don’t know how to get it.  We’ve fallen for the lie that to get something we have to “power up.”  That if we aren’t fighting for what’s “ours” we aren’t going to get anything.  Then, when we do get something, we need to be so controlling that we start hoarding it.

That’s what the University of Pittsburgh coach thought.  He was so set on protecting his winning record that he saw a spy behind every telephone pole.  Fortunately not all of us make the news when we’re paranoid or controlling.  But we all have areas where we struggle.

You might call these areas “strongholds.”

We start out thinking these strongholds are going to keep us safe.  If you’ve ever been hurt by a loved one, you can understand this.  We build walls so high around our heart that no one can ever enter.  But eventually we learn these aren’t to protect us, they are to imprison us!

What was once a way to protect our broken heart has become the very thing that makes us so lonely.

Freedom does not come from strongholds.  It doesn’t come from being on the attack.  Or defending what’s ours.  It comes from God.

Freedom is being who God designed you to be.

The reality is, every stronghold you have prevents you from experiencing that freedom.  Those walls keep you a prisoner.

So how do we break free?  Simple: by enabling other people to become free.

That sounds pretty radical.  But then does pretty much everything Jesus said.  Do you think the Pittsburgh football coach was free assuming that everyone was out to spy on him?  Do you think you are truly free when you hold onto your anger and pain over being wronged?  Of course not.  But those are the natural results of what happens when we try to do it “our way.”

Jesus recognized that as long as we try and hold onto our resentment and bitterness we would never be free.  It’s only be releasing our claim on people who have wronged us, that we can become free.  That’s why it is God’s place to judge.  That’s why Jesus said we should love our enemies.  It’s why Peter told Jews (who were slaves to the Romans) to be subject to their masters.

Holding onto anger, resentment, pain puts us into bondage.  It steals are freedom.  It is no way to live a life of faith

Only by giving up control can we set others free.  And only after we set others free, can we ourselves be set free.

what to do when you make a mistake

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 13-11-2009

Category : Paul, bible, failure, faith, sin, taking action

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What do you do when you make a mistake?

That’s a question I think very few people actually think about.  Oh sure we all do something when we’ve made a mistake.  But very few of us actually think through our actions, we usually just react.

The way I see it, there are only a few options.

  1. Do nothing – we essentially say, “I did something wrong and I am so scared of doing it again, and so scared of the consequences, I will never do anything again.”  When we do nothing, we shut down.  We can’t be used by God because we aren’t interested in being used by God.  We become like the ostrich who shoves his head in the sand, thinking he is hiding.
  2. Do the same thing – we make a mistake, but choose to do the same thing over and over.  This is the whole, “I am sorry I hurt you/ was a jerk, etc…” line.  And then the next day you’re back to your old habits.  We say it, and maybe in the moment we are sorry.  But not sorry enough to actually change.  This is where we are when we continue to commit one of our “favorite” sins  (for instance, you repeatedly get angry at a coworker).
  3. Repent - True repentance.  This is where we truly turn to God and say, “I am sorry, help me never to do this again.”  Where we fully turn away from our actions and embrace God.

Why do I bring all this up?  Because Carrie Prejean, a former Miss USA winner is involved in another controversy.  It turns out she was involved in making a “sex tape.”

For some celebrities this wouldn’t be a big deal.  Society often seems to reward people who do this.  We’ve all read the stories about a celebrity “losing” provocative pictures in a PR attempt to revitalize a career.  But for Prejean, who has started teaching and talking about “family values” this is a big issue.

Rarely do we talk about current events on R3.  I believe that the Bible offers us timeless principles that apply no matter the event.  And I almost never talk about a specific individual.  There’s enough gossip and junk out there, we don’t need to add to that.  But sometimes I make exceptions.  And that’s where I am with this.

I have no idea what’s on the tape.  I don’t know why it was made.  And frankly I don’t want to know.  To me that’s irrelevant.  What matters is how Prejean decides to act.  And to a lesser extent how we, as a society, respond.

We all have made mistakes.  How many of us would really feel comfortable having our mistakes be national news?  What Carrie Prejean did was wrong, and it was a mistake, and that’s not an excuse.  But does this prevent her from ever talking about family values?  There are many people who very much want that to be the case.  (As I was flipping the channels late one night I saw one panel of “experts” gleefully declaring this meant she could no longer talk about family values.)

Personally I don’t know if this tape excludes her from talking about family values.  I know there are a lot of people who are gleefully hoping that will be the case.  For her to fall, would be a major victory for them.  This situation brings legitimate questions that she must answer.  But when I look at the Bible I see people who aren’t perfect.  I see people lose their temper, act in fear, commit adultery and murder.

Yet God still uses them in powerful ways.

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. But he does ask us to repent.

Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was actively seeking to kill Christians prior to his conversion.  Does that mean he can’t talk about sin?  Or does it mean he has unique insight into the redemption that Christ offers?  Moses murdered someone before God chose him to become the leader of Israel.  Did that exclude him from talking about freedom to Pharaoh?  Peter acted in both anger and fear in the last hours of Jesus’ life – but God used him as the rock upon which the church was built.  Was God wrong in all of this?

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.  But he does ask us to repent.  And in each of these cases, they repented and turned away from their sins.  So I ask you, what do you do when you make a mistake?

Carrie has the same three options that we do.  She can do nothing.  She can do the same thing.  Or she can repent.

I don’t know what she plans to do.  Right now it sounds like she wants to repent.  But saying you want to repent and actually repenting can be two different things.  It’s much easier to offer false promises than to take the hard work of repentance.  Is it any different for us?  So again, I ask you, what do you do when you make a mistake?

biblical leadership: owning stuff

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 09-11-2009

Category : God, Jeremiah, living a life of faith, taking action

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“Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?” (Jeremiah 22:15)

Most of us don’t want cedar.  What would we do with it anyway?  I’m not even sure you can sell it on Amazon.  But during the time of Jeremiah, cedar was hugely important.  It was the sign of wealth, power, and affluence.  It was the Rolls Royce of building materials.

And God is calling out Shallum son of Josiah.

Shallum wanted to prove his “greatness” by building a palace to himself filled with cedar.  It would be like you or I building a house out of marble.  Sure it’s nice, but does it really matter?  That’s the question God is asking.  You see, God doesn’t measure greatness by how nice your house is, or what kind of car you drive.  God measures greatness by different standards.  He measures your greatness by your heart and by your actions.

In short, it’s who you are that matters, not what you have.

It is all too easy to confuse the trappings of office with true leadership.  We think that just because someone has a corner office, a big desk, and an impressive title that they are a leader.  But that’s not how God measures leadership.  Biblical leadership isn’t defined by how much stuff you have.  It’s defined by your heart.  It’s defined by who you are and what you do.

In short, it's who you are that matters, not what you have.

Biblical leadership is about self-sacrifice.  It’s about doing something with what you have.  It has nothing to do with looking like a leader.

The next time you are tempted to buy something because it makes you look important, remember that biblical leadership isn’t about nice stuff, it’s about the core of who you are.  You don’t want to find yourself in the same position as Shallum son of Josiah.

This is part of an ongoing series on Biblical Leadership.

what is my mission?

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 06-11-2009

Category : living a life of faith, mission, taking action

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One of the areas we, as believers, can get hung up is on our mission.  For some reason we think that we can’t act until God comes down in a beam of light or burning bush and directly tells us what to do.  To put it bluntly: that’s a load of crap.

I told you it would be blunt.

The Bible gives us more than enough stuff to work on.  At the very least your “mission” is to fulfill Jesus’ words “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19).

This is even called “The Great Commission.”

Of course that can look like a lot of different things.  God is a creative guy, you can be creative too.  What matters is that you’re being obedient to God.  And while I don’t know what your specific mission may be.  I do know that if God wants you to do something specific he will let you know.  That’s part of what happens when we are obedient – God has an easier time giving us specific instructions.

Perhaps, though, you will never have  a specific mission.  That’s okay.  This isn’t some kind of competition.  You aren’t less of a believer just because you haven’t seen a burning bush.  Living out a life of faith is about being active.  Not sitting back waiting for your “moment” to come.  Even if you are never given anything specifically, you can still live out a life of faith.

So go.  Act.  Do something.

the logic of a life of faith

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 02-11-2009

Category : choice, different, faith, living a life of faith, taking action

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“One day I realized there was no God, no one behind reality, no life after death. I realized existence is a meaningless accident, begun by chance and destined for oblivion, and it changed my life. I used to be addicted to alcohol but now the ‘law of natural selection’ has set me free. I used to be greedy, but now the story of the Big Bang has made me generous. I used to be afraid, but now random chance has made me brave.” - John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

This, tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek quote from John Ortberg illustrates something I’ve been thinking about the last couple of weeks: reasoned thinking.  I recognize this isn’t any great revelation, but as a society we have seemingly abandoned reason and logic.  On the one hand this can be good.  Pure reason and pure logic can lead us to cold and unmerciful decisions.  Playing the “odds” can dehumanize problems.  It can take human suffering and tragedy and make it a statistical anomaly.  Isn’t that the point of the Borg in Star Trek?

But I think there is more to logic and reason.

I’ve been a fan of Greg Koukl and Stand to Reason for a few years now.  Their biggest teaching effort is in “clear thinking.”  By that they mean teaching people to think logically about problems.  And since I’ve been listening to the Stand to Reason podcast, I am utterly shocked at how few world views really apply logic across their beliefs.

There are perhaps no worse places for this then watching children’s TV shows.  Which, I suppose, is another post all together!

Stories are powerful movers to a human.  How many of you immediately picked up on my Borg reference?  Did it not create an immediately concrete image in what it means for logic to run amuck?  It’s not a coincidence that politicians spend a lot of time, energy, and money trying to create a story for the public to hear.  TV ads don’t sell facts to us, they sell experiences and lifestyles.  We, as people, fall for stories.  And that can be a good thing.  Even God uses stories to illustrate what it means to live out a life of faith.  It’s called the Bible.

Ravi Zacharias has commented that if stories are powerful on their own, think of the power they have as a culture.

Every day we are given competing world views.  Every day we are told that the way to happiness lies through sex, drugs, wealth, and power.  That’s a view that is logically inconsistent with what God teaches.  Someone has to be wrong.  Both world views can’t be right.

This brings us back to Ortberg’s quote from his book Faith and Doubt.  Why is it, that you don’t hear quotes like this from naturalists?  If there is no life after death, and there is only randomness and chance, how do we ever have hope in anything?  How can we believe that something good can happen?  How do we break free from the grips of alcoholism if it ultimately doesn’t matter?

I believe it goes back to logical consistency.  Most of us don’t want to follow the logical consequences of our beliefs.  Atheists want morality because it’s convenient and offers protection.  But morality is impossible to explain if there is no God.  Because you’ll never be able to overcome the argument of “might makes right.”

Believer want the blessing, protection and hope that God provides.  Yet we often aren’t willing to count the cost.  We don’t want to follow the logic of what it means to live out a life of faith.

The world is filled with world views that don’t make sense.  We are inundated with views that contradict themselves but no one seems to notice.  No one is immune to problems of logic.

But what good is a world view if you don’t apply it consistently?  What good is believing in God if you don’t live that way?

football as an idol

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 26-10-2009

Category : barbarian, choice, faith, living a life of faith, taking action

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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I love football.  That’s pretty obvious if you’ve spent any time rummaging around R3 or ever glance at my twitter feed.  It’s in pretty much every conversation I have from August to February.  Yet I’ve noticed a problem – I can be obsessed.  I love football so much that a loss by the Steelers can derail my entire week.  I can be in a bad mood just because of one bad play.

And you know what?  I hate it.  I hate that football has that much impact on me.  It’s just a game.  But in my heart I know I often treat it as more than just a game.  Sometimes I tell myself, “don’t get so worked up”  However I can’t escape the fact that if football doesn’t have much of an impact on me, it’s not really worth watching, is it?

So I am caught in this love-hate relationship with the greatest game ever devised.

Here’s the thing though, the closer I get to God, the more I dislike these things in my life.  I don’t want anything to impact my mood except God.  I want him to be the center of who I am, not whether the Steelers win or lose.

Over the last year or two I’ve made great progress with having football as an idol.  I’ve learned to let a lot of frustration go and just enjoy the game for what it is – a game.  But at the same time, in the moment I have yet to fully control that emotion.  Now I don’t believe that God cares if I get excited about football or not.  But I do believe he cares about the way I project my relationship with him.  I can hardly call myself a Christian if I go off on someone because the Steelers lose.  That’s not exactly Christ-like behavior.

To me, football is an idol.  And that’s something I need to wrestle with each week.

Idols are dangerous.  They seep into our lives.  Stealing much of the joy in life with promises of a “better” or more “exciting” life.  Those are lies though because they seem so believable.  But they are lies none the less.  Only God provides true freedom and true  life.  Everything else is just a shallow imitation.

Even football.

biblical leadership: that you my king should die for me

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 07-10-2009

Category : Jesus, bible, choice, faith, living a life of faith, revolutionary, taking action

Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Leadership.  Each of us has an opinion about what makes a leader.  Some people will argue that leadership is all about your genetics – it’s what you’re born with.  Others will argue that leadership is something you can learn.  Or maybe that it’s about the situation you are in.  While we can’t always articulate what leadership really is, we tend to give the old cliche “I know it when I see it.”

But what does the Bible have to say about leadership?  Is there such a thing as Biblical leadership?  The short answer is “yes.”  The Bible makes a strong case for what leadership should look like.  And it looks a lot like sacrifice.

Does that surprise you?

It should.

Because it goes against almost everything we’re told about leadership today.  Most leaders have people who are willing to die for them.  That’s the whole idea behind the Secret Service or a body guard.  The idea is that the leader is so important that he (or she) can not die.  Therefore someone else must be willing to sacrifice their own life to protect the leader.  In other words we die for the King.

In the Bible, however, leadership looks a whole lot like the King dying for us.

The Newsboys capture this in the song You Are My King.  The song says, “Amazing love how can it be?  That you, my King, should die for me”

The world tells us that we need to lay down our lives for our King.  That our lives are less important than the King’s.  Yet the Bible is the reverse.  The King should lay down his life for us, the servants.  Jesus had everything he needed.  He didn’t need to die for us.  He chose to die for us.  The one person who should not have to suffer chose to suffer.  To save people who don’t want to be saved.  That, my friends, really is Amazing Love.  That is revolution.

Don’t be fooled though.  Biblical leadership isn’t something reserved for an “elite few.”  It’s supposed to be lived out by everyone who has a relationship with Jesus.  It happens when you live out a life of faith.  When you chose to sacrifice to protect someone weaker than yourself.  When you chose to give something up so that someone else can have something more.  When you lay your own life down, and pick up the cross that God hands you.  That’s living out a life of faith.  That’s Biblical leadership.

That’s a revolution.

Where are you supposed to take leadership in your life?  Who are you to lay your life down for?  Who are you to sacrifice for?  Your wife?  Your boyfriend?  Your kids?  A stranger?

Where will you display Biblical leadership?

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