I'm thankful that in heaven we will be protected from suicide bombers like the ones in Moscow yesterday. We will be protected from random transients who accidentally drive off with our children while simply attempting to steal our car at a Circle K, like the one that took place in Phoenix today.
Heaven is primarily about getting together with God for the sheer enjoyment of Him, but part of it is about our desire which has been dragging on for years which is our cry out to God, "When will you protect us from these things?" Part of it is about His protection which has always answered, "Yes, I'm doing away with all of this and I will protect you from all of this forever. I will keep them from you forever. All evil will be stripped away. I will never let it touch you again."
One interesting point in Heaven is that we will even be protected from ourselves and others will be protected from us. It will be the ultimate form of protection. God says, "Will you let me strip all of your sin?" This has actually been His question to us all along. It is the question that speaks without words from the cross. Our cry is, "God, when will you protect us?" He says, "Yes, I will." He also says, "Will you let me protect you from yourself? Will you let me protect the others from you? I can't let you hurt them anymore."
There will be some surprises when we get there. Repentant terrorists who grieve over what they have done will welcome us in with grace-filled smiles. Unrepentant kindergarden teachers who do not want God's protection and argue over the terrorists' presence will be absent. It will be for our protection and to God's credit who has heard our cry. No evil, no matter how small will ever start a slow, trickle down process that has lead to the destruction and folly we experience in this present reality. It is God's answer to the Problem of Evil. It is the way He has chosen to solve it. He simply said, "Yes. I will defend you. I will answer your cry. No more suicide bombers. No more kindergarden teachers who make you feel ashamed of coloring outside the lines."
We might be tempted to say, "What about now? Why so long before it happens?" Have you ever dealt with a child in the back seat on a drive home who says, "Are we there yet?" Five minutes later, "Are we there yet?" Five seconds later, "Are we there yet?" Or, how about the child who is dying for Christmas to come so that he or she can get presents. "I wish Christmas were tomorrow," she says with a little pout and stomps her foot. As adults, we smile a little and get a little frustrated because the child doesn't see time as we do. We know we'll get home in just a little bit. We know Christmas is just around the corner. Academia is filled with lots of psychologically hurting and harmed adult philosophers who argue the Problem of Evil based on their childhood belief that Christmas should start tomorrow.
Now I'm not saying we shouln't belt out our frustrations at God for all the evil in the world. I'm right in the middle of it. I'm not saying we shouldn't say, "God, why not now? Why not eliminate it now? When is Christmas coming?" This is grace. This is a God who wants our anger, our frustration, and our pleas. We just have to remember that He has said yes to our cries. He has said, "I will protect you." From God's perspective, heaven is just around the corner. For us, it feels so long away from now.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Motivation and Maturity
For the Christian, the reasons to grow in maturity are often bogged down in shame and poor self-image. There must be new reasons for maturity or else everything turns into more wounding.
Absence in the Heart = Deep Hope
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. ~C.S. Lewis
More on Communion
I really like taking communion. It isn't the ritual involved. I understand the good feelings that come from the rhythm of rituals. Nothing wrong with that. But what I really keep getting blown away by is this whole thing about the God of the universe fighting and dying for me. (This is what communion represents). A God who fights for me isn't a God who simply puts up with me. He wants me. This is my belief.
Inward-Outward Connection
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech
The Religious Nature of Any Organization
The "Secular Free Thought Society" at ASU (athiest organization) wants to network with religious organizations on campus. Is officially registered as a religious organization and want invitations to networking activities with those organizations. Most interesting is they disbelieve God, but want to be a religious-organization, the very thing I believe that they are: religious in nature.
Serving Doesn't Require a PhD
Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Repentance, Obedience, and Sanctification
Repentance:
Repentance isn't doing something about my sin, it's recognizing that I can't do anything about my sin. ~Thrall, McNichol, Lynch
Recognize the impossibility of trying to figure out how to fix the harm you've done and will do to others, as well as your resistance towards God. I'm a safe place of forgiveness and protection you can reside in where healing and restoration take place (Jesus in Matthew 4:17 SDT).
Obedience:
In my opinion, the highest form of obedience is to believe that God has forgiven you and turned you into something amazing. All other forms of obedience fail in comparison.
Sanctification:
Sanctification is a flowery, theological term that means: healing, cleansing, getting healthy, and so forth. If we are to truly understand the gospel in all it's forms, then we must recognize the importance of treating sanctification as a gift. In this light, we must understand that God's view of us never changes based on how "well" or how "poorly" we do during this lifetime. He's already made His decision about His feelings for us apart from anything we've ever done or could do. In the end, sanctification becomes something He offers to us without any retribution or ill will towards us, should we not choose it. It is always an open gift, with no strings attached. Only when we know this truth, will we actually move forward in the sanctification process anyways.
As believers, our relationships with other people and even with our own selves do change as we mature or fail to mature. This is true. But, we must separate this from God's opinion on the matter. Only when we really come to understand this separation between our relationship to Him and our relationship to others, can our relationships with others become more healthy in the first place.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Separating the Christian from God (Short Version)
How we feel about ourselves as Christians and how God feels about us as Christians are two totally different animals. God believes there is no problem in our relationship with each other because He has stripped all our sin away and made us new people (Rom 8:1, 2 Cor 5:17, 2 Cor 5:21). We are tempted to believe (and maybe even often believe) that there is a problem or something wrong between us and God because we experience feelings of shame in the here-and-now when we sin, are sinned against, or even make mistakes and fail (which isn’t even sin in the first place). We project these feelings of shame and disappointment upon God as if they belong to Him—as if this is how He feels about us.
The question is: Are we going to believe what God says or what we feel? This is where we have to get into touch with our separateness from God, so to speak. How He feels and how we feel are two totally different animals. Get in touch with this separateness and neat feelings of healthy attachment are complementary. Believing what God has to say about the matter is one of the greatest honors we could ever give Him.
The question is: Are we going to believe what God says or what we feel? This is where we have to get into touch with our separateness from God, so to speak. How He feels and how we feel are two totally different animals. Get in touch with this separateness and neat feelings of healthy attachment are complementary. Believing what God has to say about the matter is one of the greatest honors we could ever give Him.
Separating the Christian from God
There is a misperception many followers of Christ have that their relationship with God is sometimes good and sometimes bad. This is a misunderstanding of the Gospel.
God's perception (not the believer's) IS reality, and according to Him, there is NEVER a problem with the relationship between Him and His children (Rom 8:1, 2 Cor 5:17, 2 Cor 5:21). Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Sure, but what about when I sin now? Isn't there a problem then, even if I'm still technically saved?" Again, this is a misunderstanding not only of the Gospel, but also a misunderstanding of what's happening when you do sin, which is completely SEPARATE from what God is thinking. Coming to understand that what God thinks as being totally SEPARATE from what we think about us is a huge landmark in the Christian's life, because it is a breaking of the bonds of co-dependancy. A co-dependancy that influences our theology.
Remember, this is really about belief. What does the follower of Christ REALLY believe? God says "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ" (Rom 8:1). The believer is tempted to say, "But, what about when I went off on my wife today?" God says, "For the Christian, the old has gone, but the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). The believer is tempted to say, "But what about when I was trying to manipulate my business partner into doing something that I knew would hurt him but help me, instead of playing fair?" God says, "I'll turn myself into sin so that My children can turn into righteousness" (2 Cor 5:21). The believer is tempted to say, "But, what about this adultery I'm in the middle of right now? I don't know what to do? What does God think about that?" The reality is that God does have something to say about that. He says, "I've already stripped it away." See, He knows you from beginning to the end. He doesn't just know you in the here-and-now. Do you really think God is merely constrained to this present tense we live in? That is a self-centered view point which is a misperception. God's perception is the real you or the true you. The real you has no sin. Even the you that existed before you became a Christian is now without sin. This is God's reality which means it is your reality whether you believe it or not all the time. He knows the real you. The new you.
The real question we have to ask ourselves is what do we believe? Do we believe what God says? See, the greatest honor we can make to Him is to actually believe what He says, which is basically that from His perspective, there is NEVER any problem between Him and I. How can this be? This is because reality is based upon what HE has done and what HE says, not what I have done or what I believe about the situation. What I believe about the situation is independant from reality.
The big problem is that when we commit real sin that is harmful* and offensive to God, ourselves, and others, that we feel guilt and shame as a result of our actions. Our shame tries to tell us that we are horrible, awful, unlovable people incapable of receiving God's love, and the big problem is that we take this shame that WE experience and we project it upon God. We believe that He feels this way about us. This is a form of co-dependancy that influences our theology. We have difficulty separating how we feel from how God feels. Our theology and our shame become intimately connected. A true theology is that there is NEVER a problem in our relationship with God. The real problem is that how we feel about our relationship with God is way off-base compared to what God knows to be true because of what He has declared about us.
What He's trying to say in these verses I've listed above is that He has DECLARED that there is no problem in our relationships with Him. End of story. The question is: Are we going to believe what He says or are we going to believe how we feel?
This is where we have to separate ourselves from God, so to speak. Ironically, this type of separateness leads to all sorts of deep feelings of closeness and attachment towards God in the process. It also is one of the greatest honors and pleasures we can give Him, by believing what He says.
_____________________________________
*I do believe that our sin harms God, but only because He has chosen to let it harm Him. By this I don't mean that it causes Him to be reactionary, feel shameful, or triggers all sorts of insecurities in Him. No. What I mean is that all of the harm that we have committed to ourselves and one another has been heaped upon Him by His own desire to rescue us. He bore the weight of our eternal suffering at the cross. Therefore, it harmed Him, but out of his own romantic love for us. By romantic I mean heroic and self-sacrificing.
God's perception (not the believer's) IS reality, and according to Him, there is NEVER a problem with the relationship between Him and His children (Rom 8:1, 2 Cor 5:17, 2 Cor 5:21). Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Sure, but what about when I sin now? Isn't there a problem then, even if I'm still technically saved?" Again, this is a misunderstanding not only of the Gospel, but also a misunderstanding of what's happening when you do sin, which is completely SEPARATE from what God is thinking. Coming to understand that what God thinks as being totally SEPARATE from what we think about us is a huge landmark in the Christian's life, because it is a breaking of the bonds of co-dependancy. A co-dependancy that influences our theology.
Remember, this is really about belief. What does the follower of Christ REALLY believe? God says "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ" (Rom 8:1). The believer is tempted to say, "But, what about when I went off on my wife today?" God says, "For the Christian, the old has gone, but the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). The believer is tempted to say, "But what about when I was trying to manipulate my business partner into doing something that I knew would hurt him but help me, instead of playing fair?" God says, "I'll turn myself into sin so that My children can turn into righteousness" (2 Cor 5:21). The believer is tempted to say, "But, what about this adultery I'm in the middle of right now? I don't know what to do? What does God think about that?" The reality is that God does have something to say about that. He says, "I've already stripped it away." See, He knows you from beginning to the end. He doesn't just know you in the here-and-now. Do you really think God is merely constrained to this present tense we live in? That is a self-centered view point which is a misperception. God's perception is the real you or the true you. The real you has no sin. Even the you that existed before you became a Christian is now without sin. This is God's reality which means it is your reality whether you believe it or not all the time. He knows the real you. The new you.
The real question we have to ask ourselves is what do we believe? Do we believe what God says? See, the greatest honor we can make to Him is to actually believe what He says, which is basically that from His perspective, there is NEVER any problem between Him and I. How can this be? This is because reality is based upon what HE has done and what HE says, not what I have done or what I believe about the situation. What I believe about the situation is independant from reality.
The big problem is that when we commit real sin that is harmful* and offensive to God, ourselves, and others, that we feel guilt and shame as a result of our actions. Our shame tries to tell us that we are horrible, awful, unlovable people incapable of receiving God's love, and the big problem is that we take this shame that WE experience and we project it upon God. We believe that He feels this way about us. This is a form of co-dependancy that influences our theology. We have difficulty separating how we feel from how God feels. Our theology and our shame become intimately connected. A true theology is that there is NEVER a problem in our relationship with God. The real problem is that how we feel about our relationship with God is way off-base compared to what God knows to be true because of what He has declared about us.
What He's trying to say in these verses I've listed above is that He has DECLARED that there is no problem in our relationships with Him. End of story. The question is: Are we going to believe what He says or are we going to believe how we feel?
This is where we have to separate ourselves from God, so to speak. Ironically, this type of separateness leads to all sorts of deep feelings of closeness and attachment towards God in the process. It also is one of the greatest honors and pleasures we can give Him, by believing what He says.
_____________________________________
*I do believe that our sin harms God, but only because He has chosen to let it harm Him. By this I don't mean that it causes Him to be reactionary, feel shameful, or triggers all sorts of insecurities in Him. No. What I mean is that all of the harm that we have committed to ourselves and one another has been heaped upon Him by His own desire to rescue us. He bore the weight of our eternal suffering at the cross. Therefore, it harmed Him, but out of his own romantic love for us. By romantic I mean heroic and self-sacrificing.
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