Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62).
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14).
I can't help but reflect (look back) and see my life as a giant mess. I think it's fair -that is one of the things it was certainly before I believed the Gospel.
It was also terribly obscene, unloving and deceitful. It was fleshy and lusty and full of abusive and dangerous and hurtful words and thoughts, and all those things that the prophets and Jesus would demonstrate, and insist, man's non-regenerative life, and heart, is. But more so than anything, overwhelmingly, it was utterly wasteful. All the selfishness and ambition and lust drowned out almost every conceivable opportunity to make a loving impact in this world. That was my life. It's hard not to lament about it.
But I can take comfort in Saul's life. Before he became the Apostle, Saul was as self-righteous as any person we can imagine. After his conversion, Paul lived the most impressive life of any fallen human. He realized he was "the worst sinner of all", yet he lived his words: "Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead."
In February my wife and I are expecting, thanks be to God, to welcome a new person into this world. The start of any new life is exceedingly exciting - it's an amazing gift, an opportunity.
Many of the things that will be strong influences to this newborn are of this world. Soon too this child will feel the consequences of Adam - the cravings of sin, the false hope of self-sustainment, the false promises of ambition and security, the self-centeredness we all strongly reek of.
Straining ahead for Paul meant spreading the Gospel of Grace no matter what the cost. For me it means being a gentle, guided hand to this child, the clear and strange beckoning of the Holy Spirit to good and great things. Things like mental and physical development, intellectual advancement, and future possibilities will dominate the conversations. I want God to bless me with a healthy baby. Sure. But the rest of those things I'm not concerned with - they aren't what matter. I'm concerned - no, consumed - with being a loving, steady presence in my child's life. I'm consumed with showing love that is comforting, eternal, and, most of all, unconditional.
I need to have this love because I want that baby to know that as deceitful and cunning and abusive and predatory this world is (and how he or she may very well become to some degree all those things), that all of those things are meaningless and temporal. I want that baby to know that how many times myself or his mother or everybody else in this world let him/her down, their is one that will never let them down. I want that baby to know that he/she could grow up to be happily married with a large family, to grow up and be a famous actress, or a professor, or an engineer, or a basketball player, or a congressman (or another basketball player turned congressman), to have all the money and prestige and "security" in the world - and yet they will realize that none of that matters. I want that baby to know that no matter how badly things ever got, no matter how much their dreams fade, it does not matter. I want that baby to know the only thing that matters is faith in a God of Love expressing itself through ridiculous, incalculable, unexpected, non-bias, non-prejudicial, always available, spontaneous, selfless love. I want that baby to know that God is Love, and we can love because He loved us first (1 John 4:19).
And back to me. Why? Because even though I am re-born I am still self-centered enough to have a blog and expect people to care about what I have to write. I'm still vulgar enough to use the F word three times consecutively because I made yet another mistake at work. Better yet, I'm still at work because I cover selfish ambition up with the notion that the advancement of my work is vitally important to the welfare of cancer patients. Meanwhile, I continually neglect my wife, God's ministry work I'm involved in (half-heartedly at times), my very talented mother's play on Friday night, and tens of things a week for late nights in the lab. Selfish ambition. Worldly lust for prestige. These are only the tip of the iceberg of the things i struggle with not daily, but minutely, that pull me away from living a life worthy of my calling. This is part of my humanity that will improve with time, but will always be very, very imperfect until the day I see Him (1 John 3:2).
I've wasted most of my life. It's gone. I continue to waste most of my life. But looking forward, not looking back, I earnestly try so share the free gift of love that I have been given with others. This is exactly what Jesus of Nazareth asks of His followers. And this is how the rest of my life is defined and directed. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. And since I live the life I live in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20), my primary responsibilty as a parent is helping show our child that there is a point to all that he or she will face in this world. There is a response to all that he or she will face in this world. And this response is accepting the unconditional love of our God, and then sharing it. And then, yielding to Christ's and Paul's advice, not looking back and lamenting on a life wasted. And for me, (most importantly of course), just like the love that I and my wife have received in our lives from family and friends that helped direct our lives toward the Love of God, my life post-wasted life is to show uncondional love to this child, in order that just once, before I go to be with Christ, I hear the desiring, believing whisper of this child as he or she gazes upward- "Abba", "Father" - and watch this child crawl, walk or run back into the loving arms of their one and only True, Holy, Eternal, and Loving Father.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
From the internet to visions: The Muslim phenomenon
"For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." (Luke 9:56A)
"Did you receive the Holy Spirit by following the Law or by believing what you heard?" (Galatians 3:2).
As we approach the Christmas Season, the mercy and love of God seems to be particularly effectual. As this season of mercy arrives, we are compelled more than ever to preach the Good News of the Gospel so those whom believe will be sealed with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2, Ephesians 4:30, 2 Corinthians 1:21) until the day of redemption. I want to say a word about a phenomenon that is an amazing manifestation of the promise of God to Abraham to bless the descendants of Ishmael.
Thousands upon thousands (at least) of Muslims have reported visions of Jesus Christ that has prompted their conversion to Christ. Even as we are just now starting to reach the Muslim masses with the Gospel of Christ, it would seem the Holy Spirit is directly evangelizing these God-fearing folks, reaching those zealous for God with the Gospel of Christ without human intermediates. I encourage you all to read and investigate this further - there has been an increasing amount of available literature on this.
One of the greatest joys of Christian life is watching God bring his lost sheep to the herd. I am involved in an organization called Campus Crusade for Christ - last year there were over a million indications of people who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior by "digitally hearing" the Gospel message on the internet or over their cell phone. Many of these were from dominantly Muslim areas of the world.
Whether we share the Gospel with a lost soul or they receive it through vision, the Holy Spirit is still and always the active agent. Just like Jesus corrected James and John, following rejection after trying to secure a stay in the Samaritan village on their way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:55-56), we all could use this kind reminder as Christmas 2009 approaches: God did not send His one and only Son in this world to condemn it, but to save it (John 3). The Gospel of Christ is the message of God's available and intimate love for all those whom are willing to receive it (John 1:12)- all one needs to do is open themselves to the transforming love and forgiveness of God. Let us remember the Easter message of God's redemptive power is only made possible by the Christmas message of God's unconditional love for every person. Thanks be to God, this message is being received all over the world at unprecedented numbers, through unprecedented methodology. Thanks be to God, His promises are always true, wonderful, and eternal.
"Did you receive the Holy Spirit by following the Law or by believing what you heard?" (Galatians 3:2).
As we approach the Christmas Season, the mercy and love of God seems to be particularly effectual. As this season of mercy arrives, we are compelled more than ever to preach the Good News of the Gospel so those whom believe will be sealed with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2, Ephesians 4:30, 2 Corinthians 1:21) until the day of redemption. I want to say a word about a phenomenon that is an amazing manifestation of the promise of God to Abraham to bless the descendants of Ishmael.
Thousands upon thousands (at least) of Muslims have reported visions of Jesus Christ that has prompted their conversion to Christ. Even as we are just now starting to reach the Muslim masses with the Gospel of Christ, it would seem the Holy Spirit is directly evangelizing these God-fearing folks, reaching those zealous for God with the Gospel of Christ without human intermediates. I encourage you all to read and investigate this further - there has been an increasing amount of available literature on this.
One of the greatest joys of Christian life is watching God bring his lost sheep to the herd. I am involved in an organization called Campus Crusade for Christ - last year there were over a million indications of people who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior by "digitally hearing" the Gospel message on the internet or over their cell phone. Many of these were from dominantly Muslim areas of the world.
Whether we share the Gospel with a lost soul or they receive it through vision, the Holy Spirit is still and always the active agent. Just like Jesus corrected James and John, following rejection after trying to secure a stay in the Samaritan village on their way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:55-56), we all could use this kind reminder as Christmas 2009 approaches: God did not send His one and only Son in this world to condemn it, but to save it (John 3). The Gospel of Christ is the message of God's available and intimate love for all those whom are willing to receive it (John 1:12)- all one needs to do is open themselves to the transforming love and forgiveness of God. Let us remember the Easter message of God's redemptive power is only made possible by the Christmas message of God's unconditional love for every person. Thanks be to God, this message is being received all over the world at unprecedented numbers, through unprecedented methodology. Thanks be to God, His promises are always true, wonderful, and eternal.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Love of God, the God of Love, and Richard Cory
"For God so loved the World that He gave His one and Only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8).
Richard Dawkins is a leading biological scientist, who has written many, best-selling, highly-regarded books, is a highly-coveted and gifted speaker, and is an intellectual giant in his field. And he is an atheist evolutionist.
I remember reading "The Selfish Gene" in graduate school. It's peculiar when I think back on some of my impressions from the book. I remember thinking, more than anything, this guy sounds angry. I didn't really understand what was behind it. But tonight I received some clarity. Back to that later.
For instance, this is what Dawkins has to say about God in the OT, in his book, "The God Delusion".
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocial, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal…"
Is this whom God is?
This was been a struggle for some for quite a while. In fact, the idea that the OT God could not be the same as the NT God was amongst one of the earliest Heresies, called Marcionism. A cursory look of the OT and the NT can indeed lead to perceived differences between the revealed character of God in the OT and the NT. However, this is poor perception. God is immutable (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8) and God is, and has always been, love (1 Tomothy 4:10). Not only is God love, but we can love, "because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). This is a remarkable verse in Scripture.
Our entire capacity to love is based on our Creator. Yes, God is severe. There is nothing more severe than judgment of humans, particularly if the deck is completely stacked against us. Again, God is most certainly severe. But He is severe because He is Holy. He is severe because He is Perfect, and the only way we can spend eternity with Him in bliss is if we are perfect too. God's gift to us - our perfection through the imputation of Christ's perfectness. Why? Because God is Love. I remember when I first was aware of the Holy Spirit indwelling me. I was in graduate school. At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given to Peter and the apostles, the non-believers accused them of being drunk (Acts 2). I know what they mean. I felt like I was drunk for days. Weeks. Months. It was something that I cannot explain adequately. It was the love of God. It was more than I could handle, and it was just a small drop of the non-exhaustive "well" of love that God offers to all who want His blessing. If you asked me to describe God's Love during that time, I wouldn't have the words. I still don't.
I once read about a famous preacher whom lived and preached in 19th century America. He once gave a week-long sermon on John 3:16. Every single day he preached on the verse he would take the level of thought and analysis to a deeper and deeper meaning and exegesis. For five straight days all he did was lecture on the love of God. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Then came Friday night and as he reached to somehow, in words he had learned, in a language he had learned, in any communicative manner he had at his disposal, unveil the love of God in one last climatic way, the preacher, looking out at the crowd, could only say this. "How can I describe the love of God?... For God so loved the World, He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
One of the most beloved parables, if not the most, that Jesus told was the Parable of the Lost Sheep recorded in Luke 15. Most know the story well. It is here that God goes after the lost sheep and leaves the other 99 in the open country. It is here that the God of the OT and of Creation delicately and precisely out of nothing creates the sky and all in it, the land and all on it, the sea and all under it, and, as He surveys His work, and all that would follow over the next millions and millions of years, still in all His omniscience and Majesty says , "It is very good." It is here the Psalmist steps in and proclaims, "His love endures forever." It is here that God knows "every hair on your head" "the number of days of your life" the "deepest crevices in your heart." And He still says, "It is very good." He still leaves every last sheep in the open country, yet seeks you with fervor and purpose and hunger. One of things I hold incredibly comforting whenever I let doubt creep into me into how much God loves His Creation is the idea that God was content with extremely simple organisms crawling around this world for millions of years. God was utterly in love with His Creation even at levels of what we perceive, relative simplicity. How can anyone doubt His love for every human being that is conceived? "It is very good."
My pastor says from time to time that what keeps him up at night are the people that never experienced the love of God. The people that have been so hurt and marginalized and abused by this horrible world we have re-created ourselves, that they cannot even understand a God of love, nevermind repent towards one. These people are more than the obvious cases; they are and have been historically and geographically ubiquitous. Some are worldly successful, worldly rich, worldly powerful, even seemingly happy. Like in Edward Robinson's famous poem, even though "Richard Cory" was "admirably schooled in every grace", and everyone wished they "were in his place", he took his life, despite all he "had", "one calm summer night." There are as many Richard Cory's as there are African children who have grown up around violence and rape and corruption;there are as many Richard Cory's as there are sexually abused children who pay it forward;there are as many Richard Cory's as there are overtly sad, displaced and broken human beings. Today in the United States people are worried about H1N1 virus. There are more people that will die from heroin overdoses this winter than H1N1 virus. All over the world, as I type and you read, mothers are holding their children for the last few precious minutes on this earth after watching helplessly as they have starved to death, slowly. This world is filled with hurt covering hurt. And underneath it, there is always a person that has no idea what John 3:16 is about, because at this moment there life of hell is drowning out every promise of life and love. At this moment they cannot identify Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is love and the world is pain. They cannot identify God because God is love and the world is hate. They cannot respond to the Gospel because they have never even tasted what love feels life, what love hopes for, what love conquers. They have never had the chance, as the thief on the cross did, to feel what it is like to gaze into the eyes of a Loving God.
I suspect Richard Dawkins has no idea what it is like to lose a child to hunger. I suspect Richard Dawkins has no idea what it is like to be born into a world with a craving for a drug he would have never known otherwise. I suspect Richard Dawkins has never lost a mother to Alzheimer's or watched a friend die in war. But I do suspect Richard Dawkins is a lot like Richard Cory. I suspect he may have been outcast early for his intellect; maybe his parents weren't overly loving to him, maybe they were pre-occupied with their own artificial happiness. Maybe he had his heart broken over and over again. We don't know. But i have to guess, with some level of certainty, that, like Richard Cory, Richard Dawkins did not know what sincere and unconditional love feels like. He cannot believe in a God of Love, because he has been deprived of any taste, any clue, any fix of it. How do we reach these people with the Gospel?
We have made such a mess of this world, we have allowed these people to be formed by all the hurt. We can look up in exasperation to the heavens, but God needs just focus our attention back into the Garden. This is how we wanted it to be. We wanted to be our own Gods, re-create His creation. How do we reach these people with the Gospel?
Richard Dawkins is a real victim here. It sounds foolish and naive and absurd. But it's true. He's not a poor child starving or a woman that is HIV-ravaged, but he is still a victim nonetheless. He will grow older and frailer and his once sharp mind will eventually desert him, and whatever perceivable purpose he thinks he has, will evaporate. And unless we, yes, we, can show him and every other unbeliever the love of God which we have received, Richard Dawkins will be no closer to not calling and believing God to be all those horrible things on the day that he dies. God is Love, and we must be that love in this world that God somehow, someway, still loves. And we must be that love in this world to do everything we can to reach the Richard Corys and the Richard Dawkins of this world with the Gospel.
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8).
Richard Dawkins is a leading biological scientist, who has written many, best-selling, highly-regarded books, is a highly-coveted and gifted speaker, and is an intellectual giant in his field. And he is an atheist evolutionist.
I remember reading "The Selfish Gene" in graduate school. It's peculiar when I think back on some of my impressions from the book. I remember thinking, more than anything, this guy sounds angry. I didn't really understand what was behind it. But tonight I received some clarity. Back to that later.
For instance, this is what Dawkins has to say about God in the OT, in his book, "The God Delusion".
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocial, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal…"
Is this whom God is?
This was been a struggle for some for quite a while. In fact, the idea that the OT God could not be the same as the NT God was amongst one of the earliest Heresies, called Marcionism. A cursory look of the OT and the NT can indeed lead to perceived differences between the revealed character of God in the OT and the NT. However, this is poor perception. God is immutable (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8) and God is, and has always been, love (1 Tomothy 4:10). Not only is God love, but we can love, "because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). This is a remarkable verse in Scripture.
Our entire capacity to love is based on our Creator. Yes, God is severe. There is nothing more severe than judgment of humans, particularly if the deck is completely stacked against us. Again, God is most certainly severe. But He is severe because He is Holy. He is severe because He is Perfect, and the only way we can spend eternity with Him in bliss is if we are perfect too. God's gift to us - our perfection through the imputation of Christ's perfectness. Why? Because God is Love. I remember when I first was aware of the Holy Spirit indwelling me. I was in graduate school. At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given to Peter and the apostles, the non-believers accused them of being drunk (Acts 2). I know what they mean. I felt like I was drunk for days. Weeks. Months. It was something that I cannot explain adequately. It was the love of God. It was more than I could handle, and it was just a small drop of the non-exhaustive "well" of love that God offers to all who want His blessing. If you asked me to describe God's Love during that time, I wouldn't have the words. I still don't.
I once read about a famous preacher whom lived and preached in 19th century America. He once gave a week-long sermon on John 3:16. Every single day he preached on the verse he would take the level of thought and analysis to a deeper and deeper meaning and exegesis. For five straight days all he did was lecture on the love of God. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Then came Friday night and as he reached to somehow, in words he had learned, in a language he had learned, in any communicative manner he had at his disposal, unveil the love of God in one last climatic way, the preacher, looking out at the crowd, could only say this. "How can I describe the love of God?... For God so loved the World, He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
One of the most beloved parables, if not the most, that Jesus told was the Parable of the Lost Sheep recorded in Luke 15. Most know the story well. It is here that God goes after the lost sheep and leaves the other 99 in the open country. It is here that the God of the OT and of Creation delicately and precisely out of nothing creates the sky and all in it, the land and all on it, the sea and all under it, and, as He surveys His work, and all that would follow over the next millions and millions of years, still in all His omniscience and Majesty says , "It is very good." It is here the Psalmist steps in and proclaims, "His love endures forever." It is here that God knows "every hair on your head" "the number of days of your life" the "deepest crevices in your heart." And He still says, "It is very good." He still leaves every last sheep in the open country, yet seeks you with fervor and purpose and hunger. One of things I hold incredibly comforting whenever I let doubt creep into me into how much God loves His Creation is the idea that God was content with extremely simple organisms crawling around this world for millions of years. God was utterly in love with His Creation even at levels of what we perceive, relative simplicity. How can anyone doubt His love for every human being that is conceived? "It is very good."
My pastor says from time to time that what keeps him up at night are the people that never experienced the love of God. The people that have been so hurt and marginalized and abused by this horrible world we have re-created ourselves, that they cannot even understand a God of love, nevermind repent towards one. These people are more than the obvious cases; they are and have been historically and geographically ubiquitous. Some are worldly successful, worldly rich, worldly powerful, even seemingly happy. Like in Edward Robinson's famous poem, even though "Richard Cory" was "admirably schooled in every grace", and everyone wished they "were in his place", he took his life, despite all he "had", "one calm summer night." There are as many Richard Cory's as there are African children who have grown up around violence and rape and corruption;there are as many Richard Cory's as there are sexually abused children who pay it forward;there are as many Richard Cory's as there are overtly sad, displaced and broken human beings. Today in the United States people are worried about H1N1 virus. There are more people that will die from heroin overdoses this winter than H1N1 virus. All over the world, as I type and you read, mothers are holding their children for the last few precious minutes on this earth after watching helplessly as they have starved to death, slowly. This world is filled with hurt covering hurt. And underneath it, there is always a person that has no idea what John 3:16 is about, because at this moment there life of hell is drowning out every promise of life and love. At this moment they cannot identify Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is love and the world is pain. They cannot identify God because God is love and the world is hate. They cannot respond to the Gospel because they have never even tasted what love feels life, what love hopes for, what love conquers. They have never had the chance, as the thief on the cross did, to feel what it is like to gaze into the eyes of a Loving God.
I suspect Richard Dawkins has no idea what it is like to lose a child to hunger. I suspect Richard Dawkins has no idea what it is like to be born into a world with a craving for a drug he would have never known otherwise. I suspect Richard Dawkins has never lost a mother to Alzheimer's or watched a friend die in war. But I do suspect Richard Dawkins is a lot like Richard Cory. I suspect he may have been outcast early for his intellect; maybe his parents weren't overly loving to him, maybe they were pre-occupied with their own artificial happiness. Maybe he had his heart broken over and over again. We don't know. But i have to guess, with some level of certainty, that, like Richard Cory, Richard Dawkins did not know what sincere and unconditional love feels like. He cannot believe in a God of Love, because he has been deprived of any taste, any clue, any fix of it. How do we reach these people with the Gospel?
We have made such a mess of this world, we have allowed these people to be formed by all the hurt. We can look up in exasperation to the heavens, but God needs just focus our attention back into the Garden. This is how we wanted it to be. We wanted to be our own Gods, re-create His creation. How do we reach these people with the Gospel?
Richard Dawkins is a real victim here. It sounds foolish and naive and absurd. But it's true. He's not a poor child starving or a woman that is HIV-ravaged, but he is still a victim nonetheless. He will grow older and frailer and his once sharp mind will eventually desert him, and whatever perceivable purpose he thinks he has, will evaporate. And unless we, yes, we, can show him and every other unbeliever the love of God which we have received, Richard Dawkins will be no closer to not calling and believing God to be all those horrible things on the day that he dies. God is Love, and we must be that love in this world that God somehow, someway, still loves. And we must be that love in this world to do everything we can to reach the Richard Corys and the Richard Dawkins of this world with the Gospel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)