Dance-Dance-Revolution

John 14: 1-21

There are three lessons out of this short passage; two of which I’ve never picked up on before:

1)  John the Baptist is killed in prison – and it’s no big deal

This is a hugely important figure in the Bible.  He is a powerful prophet and crazy (some thought quite literally) man of God.  So what was his reward on earth?  He was beheaded in prison as a result of a callous move at a dinner party.   That’s the only mention this important guy gets in the Bible as far as his death.  No mention of any burial rituals…no mention of real mourning…no rioting in the streets.  Just a quick end to his life and the story of the Bible continues on.

At first I was astounded…how could his story end like this?!?!  But when you stop and think about it…how fitting.  What a parallel for real life.  Things aren’t always easily explained and life doesn’t always go like we think it should.  Sometimes significant events happen and there’s little to no fanfare or excitement.  Like the story…things just need to keep moving on.  You have to trust that it’s played out as it should have and know that it’s really not some cosmic wrongdoing on the universes part.  Actually – believers tend to get angry with God and feel wronged like He’s that mean cosmic bully.

Last I checked, though, John got the better end of the deal.  He gets to chill in heaven with God himself.  Sometimes our earthly perspectives are just off…

2) Jesus gets bad news and withdraws to a solitary place

This is not a new lesson for me, and it’s significant.  I relate; I think we all can relate.  Getting alone with God is hugely important.

3) Jesus can’t get away from people even when he want’s to be alone – he does the opposite of what we would want to do

Jesus tries to get alone and can’t.  He even had to get on a boat to get to this solitary place and it STILL didn’t work.  His response however is not frustration, but rather compassion.  Rather than just suck it up and do his priestly duty he really, truly, has compassion in his heart (this is what struck me as I realized how opposite of me this really is).  At the end of the day he doesn’t even want them to go away…he instead multiplies food for them so they can stay.

The beautiful thing about this is that my time in this passage wasn’t even really about the content of the three lessons.  It’s about how God knows me and understands me.  It’s about how I can open up scripture and that He desired to reveal to me what I needed at the time and He’s not simply bound to written words and their inherent meanings by the way they’re strung together.

It’s about how God desires to change me from the inside out everyday and that, if I let Him, He will continue to do this for the rest of my life here on earth.  He will pull new things out of old and bring revelation.  He does not desire that I will stay the same.

What a beautiful thought.  He is with me always.

Even for those who don’t believe in God and think it’s all ridiculous…isn’t that a beautiful idea?!?!?!  To think that you don’t have to try so hard to find new interests/entertainment/hobbies and wait to have more compassion for others in this world…to actually give a crap about something other than myself.  That life will always stay new and we don’t have to be relegated to simply going downhill after our youth is wasted away.

 

So who let that elephant in here?

Paul writes in Romans 3:4  ”Let God be true, and every man a liar.  As it is written ‘so that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge’ “

If I’m not mistaken, I was just called a liar.

You were just called a liar.

Nobody likes that.

It is true however that we’re inconsistent as people.  We (all people) ARE hypocritical.  We lie, we cheat, and we steal what’s not rightfully ours.  We can be hurtful, selfish, and vulgar.  It’s also true that we can be honest, good, sacrificial, and truthful.  We can be virtuous.

Have you ever stopped to think that these virtuous traits might just be tendencies and the exception…not the rule?  That by nature, these good things aren’t in us and that we have to have a reason within us to display the righteous side of ourselves?

If you question this, think about the last time someone offended you.  Or you ranted about another person – a boyfriend/girlfriend (or ex), a boss, or family member.  Didn’t that seem to occur by default?  Isn’t it so easy to jump on the “bashing bandwagon”?  OR look at our current political climate and the discussions around it.  I know plenty of “nice” people who show an interesting side of themselves when they talk about current events.

What if we recognized God as really being the only “true” voice.  That He is always truth.  Every time.  And that we, our voice, is to be delivered (and heard) with much thought and speculation.  That our voice is to be the exception and not the rule.  If God’s voice is always true, always proved right, and always sovereign and our default practices are to the exact opposite how do we rectify that in our lives?  How can we speak anything good at all?

What if the only way to rectify this is by speaking (and living) in spirit AND in truth?  Truth is God’s word and all things according to His word.  Spirit – well…that’s the Holy Spirit…divine revelation.  It would appear we need both.  If we do…we speak with legitimacy.

It’s also interesting to me that in Romans 3:4 the “as it is written” portion references Psalm 51:4 which is David’s psalm that was written after the prophet Nathan came to him after he, David, had committed adultery with Bathsheba.  Verses 3 and 4 say “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge”   Even one of the greatest men to EVER walk the earth acknowledged he didn’t get it right.  That only God is proved right and only He is justified in His judging – because there is no good thing in himself (David).

Does that mean that people, even ones who appear to be “good”, apart from God really are just spinning their wheels?  That they go from high point to low point, success to failure, and disappointment to disappointment in a vicious cycle until they realize they need to let God take over?

Hmmm…that kind of sounds like me.

Enter stage left “grace” and the “pursuit of God”.  (more to come….)

 

When everyone has something to say, who has the time to listen?

It seems like just about everyone you run into feels as though they are entitled to publicly voice their thoughts and opinions.  With a multitude of social media outlets available for free it’s now rather easy (not to mention common place) to tell the world what you did 5 minutes ago, what your about to do in 30, and how the jalapeño humus you had at lunch was “the best thing ever”.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes…I do realize the irony of pondering this and sitting down to blog about it.

Take myself for instance.  Anyone who knows me would tend to say that, in general, I’m fairly prudent in my speech.  I don’t waste many words and I tend to think things over, for better or for worse, before I speak or act.  But put a blog or a facebook profile in front of me and I’ll blabber on about what I had for lunch and also about how the person standing in front of me in line has a shoelace untied and I’m way more annoyed about that than I should be.

When it comes down to it, sometimes we just say too much.

If you doubt the idea of this, just go to the online version of your local newspaper and read the comments after an article.  I’ll think you’ll agree – some people just say too much…and don’t have the desire to filter their language.  I’m often surprised at the number of negative and hurtful comments.

Let’s take this concept further even.  Many people I know are avid followers of different pastors and their teachings, books, sermons, etc.  This isn’t a bad thing, however I’ve noticed some people appear to lose sight of what scripture says and begin to hold speculative ideas in higher regard than the written truth.  I find that there’s an interesting connection between the thing that drives the emotion, passion, and spirit behind of some of these ideas and the drive to write those things that are so easily spouted on a social network.  Maybe because there’s an illusion of safety there – safety in the fact that on-line you don’t have to say anything face to face and safety in the fact that a pastor with a large mega church has a captive audience that may be likely to buy in to an idea.

In the end, I could really care less about what pastor X, Y, or Z says and I’m not likely to read the latest book written on some aspect of faith.  I don’t want to hear about how this person really feels that if Jesus were standing in the room he’d probably be eating pickles and peanut butter.  Instead, I want to hear truth and I want to hear from God for myself.  Now, I’m not advocating that preaching on unique ideas should stop, and I’m not advocating that we shouldn’t have sermons by trendy mega church pastors – what I am saying is that we have a lot of “stuff” thrown at our ears and we’re quick to accept it or we’re quick to drop it completely.

I need to make sure I’m listening more and that I’m listening to the right voices.  The voice of truth.

 

If you’re not first you’re last…

There’s a great lie at work in my head and heart that’s been implanted in me from as early as I can remember.  The purpose of this lie is get into the core of who we as individuals are and how we think.  It’s designed to distract a person from finding true joy and a life fully lived.

And the worst part is………. this is not a lie that’s individual to me; but it’s actually infectious like the flu.  It’s spread rampant throughout all areas of the earth.  And I’ve believed it and been infected by it for so long.

This lie is not so much like a sickness that you contract, suffer through the symptoms, and then you heal and are done with it.  It hangs on like a cough long after you’re up and moving again.

I continue to struggle to make sense of what is real, and what is not.

I’m not alone in this.

The lie is that we need to have nice things to be happy and secure.  That with our own house we can design our own habitat where happiness and joy are always found.  That if we have enough money coming in to save for retirement we can consider ourselves successful.  That if we have things to leave with our children after we’re dead and gone we’ve lived a good life.  That if we’re well-known and respected in the community we will somehow be better off than if we aren’t.  That somehow with this, or that, or her, or him, we’ll be better off.

There is a principle Jesus spoke about in regards to this, which actually involves another principle within it.  “The last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16).    He speaks about it in two instances as recorded in Matthew.  The first is with the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-30) and then again in chapter 20 in a parable with the workers in the vineyard.  Many of us are familiar with the first – the rich man asks Jesus what good thing he needs to do in order to get eternal life and Jesus replies that he needs to obey the commandments.  The man says that he already does obey them – to which Jesus replies that if he wants to be “perfect” he should sell all his possessions and give it to the poor and then follow him.  The man walks away sad because he was wealthy.  Jesus then says it’s actually easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  The disciples who saw this happen came back to Jesus and said it’s got to then be impossible for ANYONE to be saved.  Jesus replies that with man it IS impossible, but with God all things are possible (alluding to salvation coming through himself – Jesus; but He had only mentioned the concept of what would happen at his death once before…they were still new to what was going to occur).  He goes on to say everyone who’s left family/people/stuff for His sake will inherit eternal life and receive much more AND that “many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first”.

“Many” (notice he says not “all”…that’s discussion for another day) of those who are ahead in life are actually farther behind in finding true life.  True life being Kingdom life.

Right after this occurs Jesus talks about the parable of the workers in the vineyard.  He says the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.  Those who were hired early in the day, and worked for the agreed wages, received just as much as those who were hired at both the middle and  the end of the day as he kept going out to get more people to work.  The landowner was still in the right as he responds to his workers saying “don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous”  Jesus ends by saying likewise “so the last will be first and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16).

It appears we have a choice – we can work, toil, gain things and subsequently make things harder on ourselves and our pursuit of the kingdom (“life”)……OR we can be satisfied with less knowing that we don’t have the same burdens as others and we are actually moving forward being in a position of being farther behind.  And I should mention that “being farther behind” is most likely a relative state for each of us individually (ie it’s different for every person).

Now…to throw another log on the fire (that other principle I mentioned) – consider Matthew 19:13-15.  “Then the little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them.  But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.  Jesus said, ‘let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’ “.

What does it mean to be like a child….to be one “such as these”?

Think about the characteristics of a child…are they in a position of being first or last?

With whom did Jesus spend his time with?  Was it the “first” in society or were they the sinners, tax-collectors, and leppers?

To whom did the angel appear and announce the birth of Jesus? (Sheppard’s were as low as you could get next to leppers)

Where was Jesus born?  Someplace secure and warm or was it out in the barn?

Who was Jesus born to?  A no-name person in an obscure country where supposedly no good things came?

It would appear there is a pattern here.

SO – the question to ask myself is what’s more important to me?  Life in fullness in pursuit of the kingdom or the worry and fear associated with not being as secure as my head tells me I need to be (or the pursuit of that security).  What do I spend my time worried with and why?

All that said, the reality is that having stuff isn’t bad.  Wealth isn’t bad.  The pursuit of a way of life isn’t bad.  The difference is what’s DRIVING you?!?!?!  How attached are you to it?  Where is your focus and how do your actions in daily life reflect where your heart is?  Do you consciously make decisions that bring life every day?

OR do you just continue believing an infectious lie and ignoring the principles that are designed to bring true and everlasting joy?

The real stuff.

 

 

 

Hammer time…

I think it’s time…

Time to stop…Time to stop living in the future and start living in the moment…

Now, keep in mind that when I say I should be “living in the moment” I don’t mean the cliché “living in the moment” where you suddenly become impulsive and every shred of common sense/ability to make wise decisions goes out the window.  Rather, what I mean by “living in the moment” is the ability to appreciate what’s happening around me at the present moment in time and NOT be so focused on the way things are “not” at the present moment in time.  And let’s be real; it’s no fun to be focused on what’s not happening.

Ordinarily I consider myself to be a very thankful person – after all to deny God thanksgiving would actually be to deny Him of His goodness over all things.  And in all things God works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).  All things.  Perhaps living in the moment for me means living in a place of thankfulness more consistently.  How can I really be living in a state of thankfulness when I’m busy grumbling….or worrying….or whatever it is my head (or mouth) wants to do at the time.  And if I’m always focused on the future, I need to be carefull that I don’t miss the awesomeness of what’s right in front of me.

Time to be consistent with thankfulness.

What if….

What if right now – right where I’m at, doing what I’m doing right now is EXACTLY where I need to be and doing what I need to be doing.  Just living.  Just trusting.  Just believing.  What if I stopped listing to others who tell me I need to do this, or that, or be involved in this thing, or that thing to be someone who’s actually making a difference.  Why should the walk I’m walking, or the ministry I’m doing, or the leadership I’m doing look like anyone elses?  Why would it NOT be unique?

What if it’s all really very simple?

Just live.  Just let God tell you who you are.  Just let Him love you.  Just let yourself be loved.  Just let Him do it.  Just be who He created you to be and enjoy the things He created you to enjoy.

Don’t worry about a wife (if you’re a guy that is….flip it for the ladies out there…oh, and if you ARE married – be concerned about your spouse).  Don’t worry about a house.  Don’t worry about this or that.  Don’t worry about what you don’t have and what others do have.  They’re them and you’re you.

That’s the way it should be…and it’s beautiful.  Not shameful.

Hindsight only favors good vision…

I find myself thinking about past regrets lately.  For me, this can come about at a variety of levels – there’s regret over not having written a blog post in say…two months or so.  There’s regret over eating that entire pizza the other day in one sitting (ok…I’m not REALLY regretting that one as much as I should be…and for that I have regret as well).  There’s regret over not staying in touch with others as well as I should or could.  There’s regret over having said some less-than-thought-out statements in the past and there’s even regret over things not said.  There are, of course, other things I’ve done in the past that are regret-laden also.

Regret also happens because of things done to us.  Myself for example – I’ve been walked over, taken advantage of, tossed to the side, lied to, forgotten, led on, let down, and otherwise hurt in the past.  These things bring about some regret as well.

To those who say “I live my life with no regrets!” I say you’re as much full of crap as Chuck Norris has flying spin kicks.  Of course you have regrets.  The question is – how do you handle your regrets?

All frustrating situations have the potential to be lessons if you can swallow your pride and allow them to be lessons.  It does us no good to worry over things that cannot be changed.  It only leads farther down into an even deeper and darker pit.  We have a choice to learn from the things of the past and walk in a renewed confidence OR the choice to wallow in self pity and apathy.  The Bible puts it this way:

“whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9)

As for me – life is all about learning.  You don’t learn to ride a bike by not falling off of it and you certainly don’t learn about how to live a life of righteousness without getting your world messed up a time or two.  Luckily we have forgiveness that’s unending available to us.  That will keep us moving.

You just have to know who you’re moving towards…

 

 

Those boots were made for walkin’…but don’t tread on me…

In chapter 8 of the book of John it’s written that Jesus went early into the temple courts and began to teach those who gathered around him.  If you’ve spent any time reading over the life of Jesus, you’d see there are no real surprises here…this was fairly typical.  Wherever he went people would gather around him just to hear what he had to say.  Some, I’m sure, also went to see what kinds of miracles he would do.

What’s not typical about this event is that the teachers of the law and the pharisees brought a woman to him, while he was teaching, that had been caught in adultery.  Since it was early morning…I’m guessing that she was caught that night…needless to say it was not a good morning for her or her real husband.

The punishment for adultery, according to the law of that day, was that anyone guilty of the act was to be stoned to death.

The teachers of the law and the pharisees brought the woman to Jesus to see what he would do or say about the matter.  The plan was that after he gave an answer they would assess that answer and try to catch him in something they could accuse him of and put him away….a twisting of words, something that went against their current law, semantic language, etc.  Jesus listens for a while and then responds that any person who was free of any kind of sin is the one who should throw the first stone.  And it’s at that point something interesting happens – each one begins to walk away….one by one…until only the adulterous woman and Jesus are left.  When it was obvious that none there could condemn her Jesus declares that neither did he condemn her.  He then simply told her to leave her life of sin and continue on.

While this event is a great lesson in and of itself, I actually find myself struck by an unlikely detail.  Each person (teacher/pharisee/bystander) walked away “one by one”  from the situation.  In fact, it’s also mentioned that it was those who were older that walked away first….

Why is it that those who were older walked away first?

Who was the first one to walk away?  Why?  For what reasons?

Who was the last one to walk away?  Why?  For what reasons?

This was a significant event in the lives of those individuals…and ourselves today as we are all brought to the point where we have the choice of living an accusatory lifestyle – towards others AND towards God.

When I am confronted by Christ regarding the areas of sin in my life, and the effects of sin in the lives of those around me, who am I most like out of that group of teachers/pharisees/bystanders?  In other words…”how quickly do I get it?”

How quickly do I come to the realization that Christ reigns supreme in all things that have to do with my life and in the lives of others?  All things.  How quickly do I come to the realization that what He says goes?  How quickly do I come to the realization that I am to live without having the judgement of others be a part of my life?

So….when do I leave the group?  I am the first to take a step back, acknowledge that there’s more to “this”, and then make the decision to live another, better, way?  Or am I the stubborn one…left standing there…the one who’s only motivation to walk away may be the fact that everyone else left and I’ll look like a fool standing there by myself.

In what areas of my life am I brought to this decision point?  The point where I need to jump ship and walk away from an accusatory lifestyle.  ( I say accusatory in the sense that we can, and do, accuse God of doing things/not doing things just as much as we can/do accuse others in our lives)  Could it be judgment like the teachers and pharisees?  Could it even be trusting  that God is good over my life and that He has good things in the future for me.

When do I walk away?

When do you walk away?

Get busy living or get busy dying…but don’t fall out, boy

Once upon a time in a land far-far away (literally) someone called me ”selfish”…I remember it like it was yesterday.

*Insert solemn scratchy violin music here*

Perhaps it continues to remain in my memory because of how offended I was at something that, at the time, I felt was way off base.  It did however send me on a less than expected proverbial path of figuring out what living “unselfishly” looks (and feels) like.  Eventually you run up against the question of “is it even possible to truly live without some level of selfishness?”. 

 Many times in the past I’ve read (and heard used over and over) the verse, Philippians 1:21 which states “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  I’ll be honest – I never really knew what it meant.  So, I simply threw it into the pile of under-used/over-stated, hey-look-at-me-I’m-a-Christian-because-I-can-quote-stuff, soundbite verses we like to throw around in a non-impressive general fashion.

*enter insightful moment music here*

If you think about it we’re technically born selfish.  We are completely dependant on another for food, clean clothing, shelter, and burping.  When we didn’t have any of the above we let the world know.  Quickly.  And loudly.  The lack of our “needs” drove us to make noise and let someone know.  However, If at the time we had the knowledge that our parents weren’t going to let our needs go unmet perhaps the outcome (every 5 minutes) would be different.  And more quiet.

Later on down the road we as adults have our selfishness rooted in and driven by fear; a fear that says our needs right now are going to go unmet.  Because of this fear we react and begin to gather (at any cost) whatever it is we think our needs are.  Some needs are real.  Some are conceptual.  Some are physical things.  Some are not physical things.  The bottom line is, we’re afraid we will run out of whatever it is we don’t want to run out of.

Somewhere along the way we forgot about principles.  Principles which state how things are and what we can count on.  Principles like “To live is to act like Christ and to die to oneself is also to our gain.” 

Jesus gave everything, including his life, to his and our benefit.  He gave, and gave, and gave, and gave, and gave and never ran out.  So why do we think we will “run out”?  Why do we forget about Colossians 1:27? (I know, I know…go look it up)  We feel as though if we continue to give, and continue to get walked over, and continue to lose our arguments with others we will somehow end up worse than dead…if that’s even possible.  Our relationships with others can highlight this feeling. 

Speaking of relationships, take the following for example to highlight this principle: marriage is to be reflective of Christ’s relationship with the church.  Christ came to serve.  He even gave his life up for the church.  A church that, In fact, killed him.  However, with His death came gain to humanity.  His serving and the pouring out of himself brought restoration with almighty God in the end.  Ultimate sacrifice equaled ultimate restoration.

Hello principle.

To live is Christ.  To die is gain. 

If what we’re after is ultimate restoration then the principle says selfishness and the hording of ourselves and our things get in the way of what we actually want.  Selfishness gets us tangled in a lie.  A lie that says hoard unto yourself to gain rather than give of yourself to gain.

I’ve never met a bear I didn’t like – until now…

Proverbs 17:12 – “Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly”

Really?!?!

That, my friends, is what you call an incredible statement.

Why is this incredible?  Because it’s not just some cute statement to frame and put on your desk…it literally is truth.  This is wisdom given from the creator of the entire universe to Solomon.  And God told him that a person would actually be better off  running into a ticked off bear that wants to rip your face off than run into a fool trapped in his or her own foolishness.

This begs the question – what does God consider foolishness?  Or better yet, who are the fools?

That said, I think prudence is my new favorite hobby.  Because one, I don’t want to be considered a fool and two, getting my face ripped off by a bear doesn’t sound like much fun either.

Balance weighs in…

“Life is about balance”

We hear that a lot and we try to live by it (or at least I consciously try to most of the time…granted how it looks to me might be a little different than others).    I’m going to be honest though…I don’t think I even know what that really means.

In order for something to be balanced you have to know where the balance point is.  You have to find the point where things are in perfect harmony; not tipped to one side or the other.  It’s where up equals down and where push equals shove.

I’m sorry…but the idea behind that is straight up crap.

Anyone who’s lived more than a day knows that we tend to spend most of our time on one side of the life seesaw trying desperately to shift our weight or move around so that we move to that equilibrium point.  To say that we can sit directly on top of that pivot, where balance is reached, typically isn’t going to occur (at least right away).  You have to add and take away weight in small amounts so the swing lessens.  You add smaller and smaller amounts to each side until you THEN end up balanced.

Life works the same way.

What if mistakes are part of the road to balance (or wholeness)?  Can we look at them for what they are?