All This Convenience...

...and yet I still continue to wrestle daily with time spent studying the Word, conversing with the Lord, being with His people and intentionally in the world.

I didn't wake up and build a fire. I didn't harvest and roast my own beans. I didn't grind the coffee. In fact, this morning I didn't even prepare the coffee or push the button. I simply poured it into my cup and sipped...slowly.

I like technology. I like the accessibility and the freedom. I like the convenience. But I say that I love Jesus. I say that I only want to glorify Him. I say that I'm eternally thankful for salvation. And I believe that I am...but why so little time focused on Him when so much more time is available to be with Him thanks to these modern conveniences.

'As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him - you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood' 1 Peter 2:4-5

How awesome a house this is! We are a priests and priestesses. We aren't couch potatoes or workaholics neither of which own a righteous focus or offer 'acceptable sacrifices.' We are recreated to move and breath and live and serve and all very intentionally for the glory of God in Christlikeness.

Use the coffee maker. I will. I can't imagine life without it. But the moment you and I, the living stones, abuse this convenience for self devotion...we've missed the blessing of it.

Rather than wasting that beautiful coffee time...use it. Use it to fullest to 'come to Him, the living Stone.'

What conveniences in your life need to be reevaluated or redeemed or rejected?

Students of Students of Teacher

Always students.

'Go and make disciples.' Now this is imperative. This is no special call to a handful of believers but is a mandate of the Messiah to the entire Church.

There's a word most of us despise in our culture, an idea really, and that's obligation or indebtedness to another. That Christ would not simply say something is good, or great, or even the best choice for a Christian...but an obligation! is crazy talk.

Paul notes the obligation we have in living according to the Spirit those who are in Christ. He doesn't simply say that it would be best if we stop living according to our worldly desires, lusts and Americanized dreams...he says that only true heirs of God will cease this faulty mindset and lean into the fullest picture of life that exists, one of faith and hope and love and all from Christ.

In fact Paul goes on to say to believers, mind you, that death occurs if the professing Christian continues to live according to the flesh! What he's saying is simply that without a renewed mind that leads to a renewed lifestyle...the professing believer most likely isn't actually a follower of Christ! Christ = Life. Flesh = death.

Back to the discipling mandate. Go - Baptize - Teach. These three elements are rooted in the making of disciples.

'Teaching' is really a way saying that those who teach will have students whom they are pouring into. To pour into someone is more than simply inputting knowledge, but is sharing the experiential wisdom of knowing Christ and being Christlike.

This is a personal process. It's organically centered around authentic relationships. It's slow and messy and fruitful and exciting. It's passing on the life of faith, through Scripture, one day at a time.

Now the 'go' part isn't a call to find your place in a foreign country, at least not always. For most it's finding your place in your current world structure. Your daily rhythm. Go into your context and make things new. If sent, go elsewhere too.

'Baptize' of course is that beautiful element the Church has been commissioned to display the renewal externally of life internally.

Making disciples is not a strategic method or form of church and community coming back around for another go of it. It's THE call. 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,' and what does Christ do with that eternal authority and power...He tells us to make disciples. It's a slow. Messy. Gritty. Personal. Painful. Joy-filled. Community building. Gift releasing. Faith inducing and producing...call.

Now of course what discipleship looks like is more defined in how Jesus did it, how Paul relates to his own disciples and so on...which may not be mandated but should and does give us a good taste of what Jesus meant when He spoke of discipleship.

And by the way, 'I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'

We are always students of Christ. For each us this tangibly looks like being a disciple of a more mature believer for a season. For all of us this looks like being a discipler at some point. Regardless we're always students of Word.

Read Matthew 28:18-20 - Romans 8 is a great call to the Spiritual life as well. The book of Acts will solidify the tension between obligation, call and renewed passion. And read Robert Colemans 'The Master Plan of Discipleship'

terrible nights yet...Hope

'my heart is  breaking for my sister and the con that she called love
but when I look into my nephew's eyes man you wouldn't believe
the most amazing things that can come from some terrible nights'
- fun. some nights

Hope. Even after a night or a season of ill-fated, mis-defined, un-love...something beautiful was yet revealed. Though emotional, mental, spiritual, physical baggage may and will remain in differing degrees, one can still look into the eyes of an unplanned child from a broken beginning and be encouraged. See hope. Note faith. Feel a particular sort of supernatural love.

'Now these three remain: faith, hope and love.' 1 Cor. 13:13

Hope. It finds its root in Christ (1 Tim 1:1). It exists because He exists. Because He holds the fabric of life together (Colossians 1), everyone is capable of experiencing this prompting. It's supernatural at it's core, that mankind would seek something 'other'.

Archias of Mytilene (pre-Christ) bewailed the birth of boys, believing there was nothing in life but relentless evils awaiting them and that physical death alone was the cure. How depressing it must have been/be to assume life is nothing more than evil waiting to pounce and relief alone comes from the grave. To have accepted a worldview that rests on despair and gloom. And this according some of the greatest minds in history.

Yet another message contrasts with Archaias' greatly, the message of Christ. One of hope. Hope that the Kingdom of Heaven is moving onward and upward. Hope that love truly is abounding and that reconciliation with God truly means life, and life to the fullest.

Paul proclaims that Christ is hope.

While Christ was the usher of hope in the flesh, He sent the Spirit to continue the message and experience of hope in everyone who believes. To remind the world that while sin abounds, hope abounds all the more. That even in the life of a mother whose con-artist lover left her and her child feeling robbed and abandoned...hope had abandoned no one. The very life of that child in that particular song, in that particular story is a testament to a divine love touching us all.

That while earthly fathers may not fulfill their call to love, God has, does and will - and all through His own son, Jesus.

Hope abounds. Even after a terrible night. Even after a terrible season loaded with undesirable consequence. Hope.

Read 1 Corinthians 12-14 - Read Johns Gospel to feel truly loved here and now - Listen to fun. and hear a culture seeking faith, hope, love, all that Christ offers and is...how to connect this culture with Christ.

Emotion and Truth and Four

This morning my little boy displayed his first truly defined bout of sadness regarding our recent cross-country move. In other words he freaked out for a while.

Some little frustration, like not being able to play the Sonic video game he wanted with his cousins, was the catalyst to being able to express his general sadness, pain and frustration about the move. In his own way at that.

He misses his friends. He wants to sit at his desk chair and watch Octonauts. He wants to be in control of his environment. He wants to know that the same God that made the trees in Wisconsin is here as well, right now.

Now of course his tears set the stage for my wife's and, not surprisingly, my own.

So I was reading in Romans this morning. That the Spirit brought me into the fold of Gods family is comforting beyond compare. We're made in His image and comprehensively at that, so the sadness I partake in with my own son and wife is a mirror image of the pains and burdens the Father carries on my behalf.

My wife and I continue to remind our little dude (and ourselves) that it's not only okay to feel sad, but it's a sign of truth, that love does exist even when unexplainable and that Christ-like community is so good that when it's gone, even for a moment, it should leave us wanting.

Read 1 Corinthians 12 for the importance of community - Romans 8 for the awesome work of renewal the Spirit brings - Study the 'one anothers' and discover the necessity of true community to live these out appropriately. Read!

Word of Beard

'Remind them of these things...' 2 Timothy 2:14

So in order to remind other believers of Truth...you and I actually have to remember it ourselves. We actually have to embrace it deep within our guts. Jesus promises the Spirit to help remind disciples of His teachings - so if the Spirit is within us and we're filled with the living word - then remembering and reminding others is not simply a good Christian thing to do, but it's imperative that all believers do it!

In order to remind others of Truth we must remember it ourselves. In order to remember it we must meditate on it daily. If we meditate on it daily we'll plant it deep within our souls. Word planted deep within us transforms us from the inside out. We are made new, new creations with a transformed attitude in line with Christ.

Remember these things...

Die with Christ and so live with Him. Endure struggle and persecution in His name as a reborn disciple and experience the honor of reigning with Christ.

However if we deny Him, if we reject Him, He will deny us and hand us over to what we're actually embracing. If we're faithless in our relationship with Him...He remains faithful, in line with His character and promise...He remains faithful to His people.

Nomads and Discernment

1)  Physical: An experiential reminder of what we truly need in order to do life...no computer, ipod, personal library etc.

2)  Social: With community: shared meals, shared parenting, shared laughs, shared life, shared imperfect-but-beneficial-to-all Christ-based-community.

3)  Mental: Appropriate time to ponder what Christ is doing through His Spirit in this season...without said modern distractions. As one famous punk singer called this sort of thing 'a cerebral scrub!'

4)  Emotional: Time outside the norm. Time to be separate. Time for distance. Space for renewal. Who doesn't like a good cry?

5)  Familial: Simply being with my family through heat, cold, rain, thirst, packing, cooking, firing, kids, bugs, swimming, sand, tantrums, laughs, challenges, joys, new experiences. Growth.

6)  Hygienic: Well, it's camping, not to much say about that...fresh undergarments anyone?

7)  Spiritual: All of the above and more combined to create a very real, very tangible movement of the Spirit in real time, away from the normal rhythm of life and regular time in the Word.

This camping trip has been a metaphorical taste of the greater nomadic journey my family and I are venturing out on. No place to attach our name to - though borrowing a room in a home to live in until the Lord provides other means. No job to commit my time to, nor receive compensation from - until that door opens in due time. New social arena. New environment to ponder life in and about. New spiritual season in which to set up camp with all it's challenges and joys, many of which are parabolic to the very nature of camping itself.

I am exhausted and yet refreshed. I am humbled and yet filled anew with confidence. I am discerning what's best and yet banking on the Spirits guidance, yet knowing little of what's in store.

'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion' (Romans 9:14-16). Is God unjust in saying this to myself and my wife, who are giving up our home, community, comfort for His work? I don't think so.

He is the Creator of life and definer of purpose and justice. We are the created and the receptors of His purpose and His justice. He died on our behalf so that we would know Him personally, eternally. I may miss out on the American Dream version of comfort while serving Him in this indefinite season and yet still be blessed more than I will ever comprehend.

He remains merciful by allowing me to know Him. He is gracious in calling me to follow.

So we'll continue on with a camping mindset, in His love and care, filled with the knowledge of His goodness and provision, whether meager or bountiful. Is it possible for every believer to live as called wanderers? Is it necessary? I don't know, but it's a good experiential reminder of what we're really about.

Read Hebrews 11 and Romans8:18-9:29 and spend some time in the forest, see the trees.

Processed Goodness (and all my subjective crap)

I remember trying to process 'goodness' as a teenager. Trying to define what it meant to be a good person and if I really wanted to be a good, kind, upright son and citizen.

I remember wrestling internally with those parts of me that wanted so desperately not to care about what good and evil meant. I remember wanting to be free to do as I pleased regardless the consequence, a subjective goodness I suppose. Yet I also recall wanting to be free from my careless selfish thoughts and actions. I fought internally to hold onto a definition of goodness as I understood it in my context without the knowledge of Christ.

'God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen...' - Paul noted this in Romans 1.

He goes on later to explain that the Law of God made sin apparent. The Law, in pointing out and defining some of the characteristics of God, His nature and His holy expectations, also pointed out sin and evil.

Even before I heard the Gospel story I was witness to it's power in all of creation (Romans 1). Having been made in God's image my spirit, my heart, soul and mind, longed for unity with a creator and yet also longed for selfish desires too, and were they different? The Law, by nature of God's presence in creation and obvious residue in all our aspects of American law, justice, love, peace, grace, truth, hurt, pain, equality, unity etc. - brought about a struggle within me that desired deeper connection with truth...while I was aware of truth thanks to Law and creation and culture, I wasn't yet able to define it.

'through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death,' Paul goes on to say in Romans 8.

In being reconciled to my Creator, definable Truth brought about victory over my selfish desires, perfectly in an eternal sense and yet physically it remained in tension. The struggle has changed, I'm no longer confused about goodness and it's role in life, Truth demolishes absolute confusion (though maturing in Christ brings about clarity). Goodness is defined by Christ and victory comes physically, mentally, emotionally when I'm willingly obedient to Him, let me say again, eternally it never changes.

Wrestling with this stuff as a teen was crazy. Wrestling with this Truth as an adult in Christ is healthy. Truth is fact in Christ and conceptual in it's foundational principles in this culture. It illuminates and guides. It defines and causes one to question other 'truths.' It's universal and personal at the same time. Eternal and immediate, here and now.

Years later, I'm thankful that I can define goodness and sin. I am thankful I am not still foraging for definitions that sound, look and feel good in a particular moment in such an imperfect life. I'm free from the slavery of confusion and indecision and bound to unchanging truth.

'In the beginning was the Word...In him was life and that life was the light of men.' John 1:1,4

Wrestle with this stuff. Read John's story of Christ. See how the Spirit moved throughout the early church in Acts. Read Paul's letter to the Romans to wrestle alongside Paul with these concepts of goodness, evil, truth etc.