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Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.
-Blaise Pascal
I launched a new blog yesterday where I can do a little more venting and reflecting of my own—a place where I can let some of my free flowing thoughts roam. It kind of sounds dangerous now that I think about it. And the name I selected is not much safer—Unpackaged Me: some of my selected thoughts on culture, politics, truth and faith—unpolished, unrehearsed and unfiltered. I have a hunch that those who may be reading this and know me are thinking the same thing—dangerous. It’s too late now—I already put up the first post. In putting the blog together I wanted to add something to the author section rather than just merely paste and stick my previous bio that I use on some other blogs. If you have attempted to do so—you know it’s always work to write about yourself. Knowing ourselves, even though we spend every waking moment with ourselves, is no minuscule task.
Anyways, I decided I’d list my favorite meal in the section—less the green beans—My favorite meal would consist of a juicy rib-eye served with a lobster tail drenched in butter, a tasty salad drowning in blue cheese dressing, a baked potato smothered with sour cream, a pint of Guinness, and some kind of devilish dessert made with dark chocolate to top it off. Enough to kill me an hour after consumption with my elevated cholesterol levels.
Peter Rollins writes;
It’s an almost impossible task to describe oneself with any degree of accuracy or honesty. Who we are changes over time and also in relation to our context. On top of that we rarely have enough insight into ourselves to know what really drives us.
It’s easy and spiritual sounding to say that we only desire God or that we never disrespect authority (as mega-church pastor Joel Osteen was silly enough to say last week at his wife Victoria’s trial)—and on and on about what wonderful Christians we are, which gets me thinking—teeth whitening procedures don’t strengthen or make your teeth any healthier—they only hide stains and mask deficiencies. We do that with our stories I am afraid. The trap we fall into is glorifying ourselves while minimizing God’s grace. It’s the coffee stains on our teeth that regular people need to know we have—a real life has a cavity or two. Crest Whitening Strips might make for a nice television smile, but masking the mess that Jesus is redeeming only lessens the impact we can have.
We are the culture fixated with cosmetic alteration all the while we ignore our internal affairs.
To be transparent is an altogether different story than a story that pats ourselves on the back—no disrespect to Osteen, but last I checked, God was the Authority and every time we sin we are disrespecting him. Guys like Osteen need to get real and stop promoting such nonsense. Honestly knowing oursleves—is much more painful than merely admitting we can be passive.
When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ. (Colossians 3:4, The Message Bible)
Who are you?
Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we prohibit and abolish women? The sun, moon, and stars have been worshipped. Shall we pluck them out of the sky?
-Martin Luther
I grew up in a church where you learned very quickly not say the wrong thing—or look, act, or think any other way than you were told. Looking back now, it was rather cultish. Boys had their own section of the beach, the church bus, and the hallway for that matter. Blue jeans were frowned upon and any music that had a beat reminiscent of rock music was of the devil. Movies that didn’t feature Jesus sporting some goofy blue gown and sash were discouraged. Red lip-stick was banned and colorful skirts above the ankles were devices of Satan. Basically, anything that might be fun was frowned upon. I can’t say I looked forward much to hanging out with such a sour group of sanctified saints. Even hanging out was evil—if I remember right.
My upbringing served me well in fostering a healthy skeptism and a grave mis-trust for religion—when I finally did bump into Jesus it was refreshing to say the least.
Because we are aware that freedom can be abused and maybe have seen it firsthand (or in my case—been there, done that) we’d rather err on the side of thinking—Freedom might just not be the best thing, there has to be some restraints to keep this ‘freedom thing’ in check. And then after a few of our own failings, we conclude—I think I’ll write some guidelines for myself. In turn,we put together some guidelines for our weaker-younger brothers making anything that might be an occasion for abuse off-limits and before you know it, we have a whole manual something along the lines of How to be a good-little Christian. It’s no wonder freedom never gets a snowballs chance to even make it’s debut.
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then? (Galatians 5:13-15, The Message Bible)
A major difference between legalism and freedom is that one can be legislated and the other cannot.
Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die; another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.
Jesus is who we run to when we escape the clutches of religion.
I have some Christian brothers I will call them—who share my faith in Jesus and just happen to be very dear to my heart. I have written about these guys a time or two in days gone by. These are the same guys who hugged me when the one person I loved most in this life walked away from a lifetime together—and more painfully, from me—never to return.
These guys are true-blue guys. And what I mean by that is simply this: They are sports-minded, red-blooded, beer-drinking, and girl-liking guys (several are married mind you—so they would be one-girl-liking guys). I know I said they were Christian brothers—and to tell you the truth (I do write about Christian spirituality—you wouldn’t expect me to lie), I’m not so sure if I have ever met too many men over the course of my adult life that I have enjoyed the company of more than these guys. The group was born out of (at least in part) a shared discontentment with religion—it’s limitations, trappings, and barriers in regards to meaningful relationships. Religion can be very isolating and some of you reading this know very well what I am talking about. The group’s rise and success in large measure has been in simply responding to those recovering from the damaging effects of religion and a dire need for true community.
What I took away from my time with these guys was real—a new appreciation for the freedom Jesus came to bring us in his coming to earth two-thousand years ago.
I do have reason for pause however—my concern is that my friends don’t get so caught up in their new found comradeship and shared authenticity, humility, and anti-religious sentiment—that they leave Jesus in the dust in the process of their rebelling against toxic religion and in turn forget the very freedom they celebrated to begin with. We must never forget that true freedom begins at the foot of the Cross and that any lasting freedom must remain there to continue—to forget Jesus would be to abandon the very freedom of God.
To see Jesus is to look freedom in the face—in all it’s fullness.
There were some Greeks in town who had come up to worship at the Feast. They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee: ‘Sir, we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?’ (John 12:20-21, The Message Bible)
Do you want to see Jesus?
You can—he’s not hiding from you.
…To obey the law of the land leaves us our constitutional freedom, but not the freedom to follow our own consciences wherever they lead.
To obey the dictates of our own consciences leaves us freedom from the sense of moral guilt, but not the freedom to gratify our own strongest appetites.
To obey our strongest appetites for drink, sex, power, revenge, or whatever else leaves us the freedom of an animal to take what we want when we want it, but not the freedom of a human being to be human.
-Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
Some times I get the feeling that I am supposed to be a stone statue when nothing could be further from the truth. I think God would rather we mess up once in a while than never attempt to live at all (and no—for the record and those who consider themselves God’s policemen—I am not condoning that we go out and commit some big fat sin because God has no problem with it—because he does).
We have rules all around us that ask us to do that which we can’t do or to abstain from that which we most want to do—and even when we can accomplish or live up to half of these self-sanctioned rules—adhering to these dictates would mean our ceasing to be human. God never demands we check our humanity at the door—it is religion that asks us to do that. God’s idea of following Jesus doesn’t include doing away with fun, desire, or even good sex for that matter—in it’s proper place of course. Following Jesus is to be a life of joy—not sadomasochism.
As I read my copy of the New Testament I am ever reminded that Jesus went to parties and the like—despite the ire of the religious establishment. And I’m certain that some within his own ranks wished he’d have stayed at home in the Synagogue (but Jesus lived among the people). It could even be argued that he was the life of the party (no pun intended, I promise). Jesus laughed and he really made some people mad (and I’ll go out on a limb and say his laughing had much to do with their being so upset—stiff-necked religious people consider it their God given duty to stop any fun before it begins you know). Jesus may have even teed it up a time or two in his sandals over at the country club—although, I’m not so sure that playing a round of golf in a toga in the middle of the desert heat would have been all that comfortable.
We see Jesus being the first guy out in the morning to go fishing and also read of him taking a nap in the stern of a boat—so it’s not hard to imagine him getting his beard trimmed up or him polishing off a stack of pancakes and going back for seconds.
Although Jesus was fully God—he was also fully human.
This is the family tree of the human race: When God created the human race, he made it godlike, with a nature akin to God. He created both male and female and blessed them, the whole human race. (Genesis 5:1-2, The Message Bible)
We do well to remember that we are free to be human ourselves—as a matter of fact—it is us Jesus-followers who should be most human.
There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of freedom and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins… use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and stubborn so that they may learn that they are impious, that their law and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up.
-Martin Luther
Some of you must to be shaking your heads and saying by now—Come on Ken, there has to be some rules, you are giving people the idea that they can live any way they choose and still be a Christian.
I have said nothing of the sort. I will concede—the gospel of grace is abused—but we don’t pull the medicine off the shelves just because some would use it recklessly. What I have said is that we want rules instead of relationship. We like religion over Jesus. We’ll take self-serving outward religious fashion shows over inward and uncomfortable revivals. It’s much more difficult to be genuine than it is to be religious. And it’s much more advantageous when it comes to our fragile and attention-starved egos to follow a man-made code than to follow the Son of the Living God. Let’s face it—we want people to pat us on the back when it comes to our being so religious, so giving, or even so Christlike—we’ll trade the freedom that’s ours for an ata-boy not even thinking a split second about what we are giving up to get the small worthless token.
11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”
13a Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. (Galatians 3:11-13a, The Message Bible)
God understands something that we just can’t seem to get through our thick skulls: A heart set free doesn’t need rules any longer. If you want the unadulterated-unfiltered-cold-hard truth—our hearts never needed rules to begin with. Our hearts were plenty lost without any help. Rules or no rules, we were wretched without Jesus.
You see, a heart set free wants to follow Jesus—it doesn’t need seventy-five rules about how to do anything. Rules got us no where before Jesus and I can’t understand what on earth makes us think they will post-Jesus. Seriously—it’s like learning where to get a spectacular gourmet meal and then returning to the place we were paying the same money to get a maggot covered plate of slop—as if we never found the new restaurant. Maddening behavior really.
What possesses us to return to rules and religion when we have Jesus?
Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry.
-Martin Luther
As we discussed yesterday—Jesus is the Savior, not the judge, for those who trust in him alone. And yes—the news is most terrible for those who don’t.
If you have ever been married you understand the need for exclusivity. Most marriages that are more than simple arrangements won’t last if not. The vast majority of husbands don’t want their wives having a pool boy and the same applies to wives—they won’t tolerate a mistress. If you want your marriage to last—let alone enjoy a good one—there’s only room for one.
I recently watched the film Fracture which featured Anthony Hopkins (a favorite of mine). Hopkins plays a husband who catches his wife in an affair only to have her lie to his face about it—he then murders her in cold blood and ends up framing her lover who just so happens to be the detective who arrives on the crime scene. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out how it turns out.
Some things don’t leave room for two.
The exclusivity presented in the Gospel and the subsequent Epistles of Paul and others goes directly against the grain of modern thought—that thought which runs rampant and says there are many paths to God. There is no tolerance within the Scriptures—or biblical Christianity I’d say—for any such notions of plurality when it comes to salvation. When it comes to Who we must get to heaven by trusting solely we can’t have Buddha and Jesus—or even Jesus and Mary for that matter.
You don’t have to go any further than the most popular television personality on the planet to get a dose of what I am talking about. Oprah shares her views openly:
One of the biggest mistakes humans can make is to believe there is only one way. Actually, there are many diverse paths leading to what you call God.
He says I am the way–not one of several diverse paths.
11 ‘This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:11-12, ESV)
The gate remains narrow—It’s Jesus plus no one.
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. -Jesus Christ (John 12:46-48, ESV)
Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world—it’s already condemned.
We can remain right where we always have been—in darkness—or we can come to Jesus. It gets no plainer than that. I remember coming to Jesus the first time. And now it is a way of life.
I can’t count the times he came to me.
That Jesus didn’t come to point fingers at all of us sinners may not sound like news, but it is. It’s news that needs repeating over and over and over again. We can be sure that to present Jesus as the one who will forgive us no matter what—even if we fail to trust him—is not to present Jesus at all. But presenting Jesus as the grand condemner as the soap-box preachers do—as some sort of hell-bent nut intent on sending as many people to hell as possible—isn’t the Jesus of the Bible either. But the good news will never change no matter who attempts to re-write it—Jesus came to save sinners and to somehow make saints out of them—not to throw stones at them. John 3:16 could easily be the most recited verse in the Bible—but the verse that follows is as good as any in the Holy Scriptures.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17, ESV)
He came to save those who would simply trust him enough to come to him.
Period.
For those of us who wish to put Jesus into a box and somehow fit him into the small ideas we have about him—we need to think again.
The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing, who would have ever been spared?
-Martin Luther
Jesus could have commanded the finest and fittest to enlist in his band of followers. I mean here is a guy—and not just any guy mind you, he was God in the flesh—he stopped the waves in their tracks, shut the mouth of howling winds, walked on water, healed the most afflicted and delivered those tormented by the most evil of spirits. And that’s not all. He also raised the dead, turned water into wine, and fed five thousand hungry people with a couple crumbs that would feed a family of five.
A casual glance at the members among those closest to Jesus from day one—and those closest to him today—is an eternal reminder that God isn’t the friend of the righteous. And while many live lives of incredible sacrifice and service to God it’s always amazing to learn a little more about the real story behind those who follow Jesus best. Why Jesus takes the biggest failures and makes the biggest wonders of them is a mystery I suppose. He could seek out the first class and the pure breeds but he’s ever chasing down the low class and the half breeds.
I’m not real fond of politically correct stands on everything from school choice to immigration to abortion to nativity scenes on court house lawns to what kind car a follower of Jesus is supposed to drive. But when it comes to Jesus himself—I have no tolerance for a politically correct Jesus. The only politically correct Jesus is the one constructed by his character assassins—they are alive and well. While Jesus didn’t care what the high and mighty thought—his approach and his mission more importantly flew in the face of the modern day religious establishment. When it came to whom Jesus hung out with and who Jesus didn’t hang out with, what was expected of him was a bitter disappointment for the majority.
15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’ (Mark 2:15-17, ESV)
A politically correct Jesus picks the right people as his closest confidants while the Jesus of history and Scripture selects the picked over.
Everyone needs compassion
A love that’s never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
A kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations
-Lyrics by Hillsong Australia
People don’t long for religion. They don’t desire rules. They don’t hunger for dogma. And they don’t want to be told who to vote for in the Election this fall.
Jesus isn’t merely the hope of America—he remains the hope of mankind. You can have your preferences or even your convictions—although I’d argue we value much too much that which God doesn’t value and value much too little that which he does. It’s all fine and good if I like green and you like blue. Maybe you like loud music and I like it soft. It’s no matter if you prefer sherbet over ice cream. For all it matters you might like liver, spinach, sushi, and sardines.
It doesn’t matter.
People need a Savior and our culture isn’t about to deliver them one. The world hasn’t delivered on it’s hollow sham promises to provide a quasi savior yet and it’s not about to.
No other savior will do. Do you believe that? The Scriptures couldn’t be any clearer. When we will stop trying to convert people to our way of thinking or our way of doing things? If there is room for James Dobson and Bono within the ranks of our members what makes us think this movement that never ceases—despite man’s best efforts to kill it—is about personalities?
It’s never been about my ideas, your ideas, or Barack Obama’s ideas. Truth be told—we have passed out plenty of opinions to date.
22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:22-25, ESV)
It’s all about Jesus—and it’s about time we start acting like it.
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