Along with roughly ten percent of all Americans, I have been looking for a job. Early on it’s easy to be optimistic. We often view it as an opportunity for bigger and better things despite it being a daunting task. We dig around and find some job opportunities that generate genuine excitement within us. We apply, apply and apply…then wait, wait, and wait. Time passes and for some reason or another those opportunities don’t pan out. It can be so disheartening.
We keep on keeping on a little worse for the wear. However, after another extended round or two of ‘apply and wait’ we may find ourselves on the brink of severe disappointment if not depression. We easily slide into a funk.
Beyond job searching, this cycle can happen with life in general. Whether we are dealing with difficult relationships at home or work, bad habits, addictions, general economic strife, persecution, severe illness, or loss. We spiral down to the point of questioning everything; our identity, value, abilities, intelligence, strength or lack there of, others…and God.
We lose heart.
The ‘heart’ I am referring to is the central organ of our soul. It serves as the seat for our deepest thoughts, desires, emotions, affections, intentions, etc. This complex mixture creates the unique you-ness that is you. Living from your heart means living from your authentic self. So, to lose heart is to lose one’s self, and that is tragic.
In the recent remake of Alice in Wonderland The Mad Hatter says something to Alice upon her entrance into Wonderland that suits this situation. He says, “You were much muchier last time I saw you, you’ve lost your muchness.” In the context of our heart, when we lose heart we lose our muchness, the weight of who we are. We no longer act as ourselves.
Maybe this is why the Bible says so much about our heart. The writers used the term ‘heart’ in some form over eight hundred times. Much of this heart talk has to do with guarding our heart from all sorts of trouble, including losing our heart. Summing it up, the Bible advises that we fight for our heart and the hearts of others.
So, how do we keep heart? – Hope.
We fight for our hearts with hope. Keeping heart means keeping hope. Simply defined, hope is confident expectation. Keeping heart means confidently expecting God’s presence when we sense our heart is slipping or is long gone. We hope to experience God in the midst of our heartache or heart attack. We hope to grasp a smidgen of redemptive purpose or catch a glimpse of eternal perspective. We hope for a refreshing shower in God’s grace…daily would be nice.
More practically, we hope for divine guidance in order to continually realign our priorities. Remember, wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Maybe we have put our hope in something that simply cannot deliver. Misaligned priorities knock our heart out of rhythm.
Hope helps our heart regain its rhythm.
If hope is confident expectation, then what is it that we expect? …God? Yes. More specifically we expect God’s love. We so badly need to know that we are loved despite the state of our lives or hearts. God’s perfect love drives away fear leaving us with real peace. Our ruthless trust in God’s love buoys our sinking hearts to peacefully roll with the waves no matter how high they become. Tenacious hope leads us into God’s love and restores our hearts.
Hang in there. Keep heart. The world needs your muchness.
The week before last the whole global economy and stranded air passengers groaned as time and millions, if not billions of dollars were lost.
And why? - wind. Yes, wind.
Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano was branded the sole scapegoat while an invisible force caught little blame. Were it not for the wind the volcano could have blasted its ash high into the atmosphere for months without inconveniencing masses of humanity and the global economy. A powerful pointed current of wind pushed the volcano’s ash a thousand miles south smothering northern Europe. Had there been no wind or a northward gust nudging the ash into the arctic we would have seen a few news photos, pulled a tongue muscle while trying to pronounce the volcano’s name, and moved on with our lives.
Wind is powerful. It changes things. It certainly has in the past few weeks. Besides wind energy moving ash over a thousand miles, think about recent tornados, past hurricanes, the winds producing renewable energy everyday via giant windmills, or the daily gusts that direct the surface currents of the ocean. Wind energy moves us and practically everything else.
On the heels of the volcanic ash happenings I traveled to Bulgaria to teach a conference. The trip came very close to being cancelled. In fact, my flight from Paris, France to Sofia, Bulgaria was one of the first flights after service resumed. Ironically, the topic of this conference was wind energy. I spoke about being moved by wind energy in daily life…the wind energy that is God’s Spirit.
The word ‘spirit’ in original language of the New Testament Scriptures is pneuma [new-ma], meaning wind or breath. So, by wind energy I mean God-energy. The Spirit is the personal breath of God. Jesus promised his friends that he would send them a Spirit to comfort, counsel, guide, teach, and empower them. This wind of God moves us internally and externally providing what we need when we need it to carry out one central mission – love. This wind energy means to empower in us a deeper genuine love for God, others, and self.
Like the ash-blowing wind, God’s wind is often unexpected, powerful, and enduring. It serves various purposes in our daily lives. God-wind at our backs moves us forward even when we don’t want to move or think it’s impossible to do so. Other times when we are stuck, God provides a forceful back-wind to free us forward.
Crosswinds redirect us. These side winds provide us with a needed push and/or guidance to change course. They can catch us off guard, causing us to stumble before regaining our composure and balance. Oftentimes we need this kind of jolt to convince us to change our direction.
Wind in our face may serve several purposes. First, it may be the resistance we need to grow. In this case, pushing through a headwind produces character. Second, a gentle breeze on our face serves as a refreshing reminder of God’s loving presence. Finally, a strong wind in our face may serve to turn us around. Once we turn 180 degrees, the same wind provides the energy that is essential for moving forward.
Paul, one of the primary writers of the New Testament, encourages us to fully surrender to God’s wind energy when he writes, “since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives (Galatians 5:25, NLT).” Embrace and enjoy the opportunity to be moved by God’s wind energy in every part of your life.
(This article was originally published in April 2010 in the Henry County Times)
I just heard John Piper speak here in Atlanta. It’s was such good stuff that it’s worth me attempting to regurgitate his main point(s) with a little of my own commentary. He addressed a question that I have personally wrestled with for a long time, “Is God an Egomaniac?” Seriously, think about it…What kind of gall does it take to demand that we love God/Jesus more than parents, spouse, kids, etc? God wants constant worship, all the glory to himself. How could a perfect God with perfect character need constant praise? This sounds like a codependent whiner. Piper noted that this question long hindered C.S. Lewis from embracing the Christian faith…and today hinders plenty of people.
Piper exposed false God-centeredness. We embrace God-centeredness as long as God uses our God-centeredness to make us a somebody. Are we are truly happy with the fact that God is all about getting glory for himself? Are we motivated to bring glory to God even if God were to not make us celebrated among our fellow humans?
Piper explained that God is passionate about God’s glory – in the beginning, in the middle, and to the end. Mysteriously, when God glorifies himself and we join in, we are full of joy. Our joy cannot be separated from God’s glory. The foundation of our salvation is God bringing glory to himself through unspeakable sacrifice. We were forgiven for His Name’s sake – God’s glory. Instead of egomania it’s divine altruism. So, we have a reason to be giddy about God passionately glorifying himself.
It’s is not about us…that’s the beauty. We are able to rest in the power of a God who glorifies himself. We are part something much much bigger. Anytime we truly catch a glimpse of God, God’s greatness, bigness, grace, and indescribable beauty…we see God’s glory and it is only natural for us to worship God. In doing so, we experience joy, real joy. In those moments we (almost) grasp the mystery of our total acceptance. We come full circle – we start out blind, blurred at best wrestling to make our life work (for God), then we catch a glance of this graceful God. Even this glimpse melts our heart bringing us to worship. God is glorified and we are full of joy.
I experienced this very thing just before Piper spoke. The David Crowder band played. They were spot on and literally thousands of people were singing in unison. I was really moved sensing God’s bigness, love, and unbelievable grace. It was so natural to worship God. I wanted to worship God more than anything (and not stop to hear John Piper). No doubt, a deep sense of joy filled my soul.
One of my hobbies is to collect photos of outdoor/streetside church signs. I will be blogging about them from time to time. I didn’t start collecting these because they inspired my connection with God or the churches they represent…in fact the opposite is true. Unfortunately, many of photos have come from my town, even the street outside my neighborhood. You’ve seen them out there; “Eternity: smoking or non,” or “You think it’s hot here. – God.” etc. infinitum. Most often I am mystified as to why the church is representing themselves and God in this way. Do they have any idea how detrimental their message could be anothers’ journey? On the whole I don’t know that those posting the signs really think through what message the sign is communicating about God and their specific church
So, here is the one I took recently, “God sees what you are doing.” This is quite mild really…I’ve seen much much worse. I wanted to dissect a more subtle one to make a point. The meaning taken really has to do with your perception of God. My perception of the church’s purpose in putting these words up is to “convict people of their sin.” My understanding of and experience with God and people has impressed on me two ideals related to this notion.
First, it’s not the role of the church to “convict the world of sin.” I understand this as God’s role, specifically the role of the Holy Spirit. The church does not have capacity to do this… and when they do, the world is not convicted, they see through it. It is understood as blatant hypocrisy. At large this explains why the church is perceived as community of judgment rather than a community of grace and healing.
Second, God’s influence and simply being human is enough to convince people they are “sinful” or lacking abundant life. God’s convincing Spirit and life’s realities here on earth wakes people to their inadequacies. The job of the church is not to convict the world or protect God’s holy reputation. God is capable of doing both. The church is in a unique position to offer life, God’s life, to those who wake up to emptiness and death. Instead of signs communicating death, our signs are to be conduits of hope communicating God’s life.
To read the sign in a positive manner, I can read this sign and think…”thank God that God sees what I’m doing.” Even if what I am doing is suspect or outright foul. God sees me as a son, forgiven, as one in intimate union with himself. Because I am God’s and I am seen and known I can trust in his presence and guidance despite and in the midst of my moronic behavior. In another direction, I can know that if I am in difficult time of suffering…God sees me. God is with me.
We, as people, are in fact a sign, a message, as Thomas Merton says – a word expressed by God. God desires to live in and through us uniquely offering his divine life. God is always giving people a sign, us.
Somewhat recently Len Sweet and Frank Viola released A Jesus Manifesto. I appreciate what they have put together and think it integrates well with my last post, missio me. Jesus as our life, our source, center, our everything….his mission ours. Let me know what you think
A Magna Carta for Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ
A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church
by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola
Christians have made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.
Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.
It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.
Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.
Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.
Jesus by cakeknifeharlot
What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.
In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.
We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”
In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically . . .
1. The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.
2. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.
3. God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.
4. Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation–the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch—is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?
To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.
5. The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.
6. It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.
7. Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.
8. It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.
Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.
The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.
9. Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)
The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.
10. In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”
a Rembrandt depiction of Jesus
If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.
May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.
The two of us may disagree about many things—be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.
But in our two most recent books, From EternitytoHere and So Beautiful – we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ— “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:
Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.
Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.
Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:
Ask ye what great thing I know, that delights and stirs me so? What the high reward I win? Whose the name I glory in? Jesus Christ, the crucified.
This is that great thing I know; this delights and stirs me so: faith in him who died to save, His who triumphed o’er the grave: Jesus Christ, the crucified.
—
Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.
Many of you know I recently finished a big project. This project was born out of ten years or so processing my faith (and lack there of) and more recently a ton of research and reading. I wrote a book currently titled Sacred Flow: Discovering Life in God’s Rhythm.
The book actually started writing itself a little over ten years ago when my life was rocked and rolled. As a result, I stumbled into the beauty of God’s grace in a way I hadn’t before. My life hasn’t been the same since. Very shortly after this (re)awakening, through too many circumstances to explain here, I connected what I was experiencing in my faith with the psychological concept called flow – the zone. You know…that experience you have when you are so engrossed in an activity that time, effort, self, and other things slip away, fade, and your awareness becomes insanely acute. Movement in this space is smooth, fluid, rhythmic. I fully acknowledge that connecting Christian spirituality with this flow may sound wierd, cheesy, or may not mean anything to you whatsoever. That’s ok, I understand.
Reconsidering the life of Jesus, I began to recognize Jesus as someone who flowed with and from his Father. He moved when the Father led, the Father did his works through him, he spoke when the Father initiated, taught the Father’s teaching. Essentially, the Father flowed through Jesus. This did not make Jesus less Jesus or the Father less the Father. It demonstrated the ultimate intimate relationship.
Not only this, but it illustrated to us redeemed, reconciled relationship and what it means to be a real human, a human with focused faith in the Father. Jesus modeled flow – sacred flow. I came to…and I am still coming to understand this is what “Christian” living is all about – living in the sacred flow of God. To flow is to walk in step with the Spirit.
Christ lives within us and desires to live through us uniquely. God’s Spirit is a smooth, rhythmic divine life within longing to empower, guide, teach us in each moment. This is not simply ethereal mysticism, it’s pragmatism. Authentic mysticism leads to trench-living pragmatism. Healthy Christians are what I call pragmystics.
Enough for now…As I continue blogging on this topic I will be dropping in bits and pieces from the book and other worthy pieces that were cut from it.
