You Are Not Alone

How I want to imagine myself.

You are not alone.

Hebrews 11:30-12:2
³⁰ By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. ³¹ By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.

³² And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: ³³ who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. ³⁵ Women received their dead raised to life again.

Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.  
 ³⁶ Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. ³⁷ They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted,^[f] were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— ³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

³⁹ And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, ⁴⁰ God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

You are not alone.

I. Love. These. Verses. Read them again! Bask in their power!

Feeling down? Abandoned? Hopeless? Like you can't move anymore?

Feeling like you will never finally beat that sin? Like you're too far down the rabbit hole to turn back?

Feeling a little too proud of yourself? Like you don't need anyone else?

Feel like there is no one cheering you on? Like no one cares about what you are facing and going through?

Read those verses again! Feel the power and encouragement flowing from every letter!

All the patriarchs, all the kings, all the prophets, all the saints, all of those "Bible Heroes" that walked with God are cheering us on toward the goal! We are surrounded by those who made it! They cheer and plead and pray and hope that we will make it and stand strong to the end!

Reading these verses this time changed how I view the world around me. Will it change yours? God's people from all the ages want us to be One People under One Creator. They want you, just as they themselves are, to be a child of God. By becoming His child, you no longer have to be alone. Even if you can't see it with your eyes, the true reality is that they are there.

As a Christian I am not alone.

And neither are you.

Stinky Things Happen

Not me. Just found a pic on Google.

At around 1:30AM this morning, I woke up to the sound of our 4-year-old crying loudly. This has happened plenty of times before, usually as the result of a nightmare or just waking up in the dark and getting scared. Being the spouse with night duty, I usually go in, put his covers back on, give him a kiss and go back to bed.

Tonight was not a normal night.

Tonight he had managed to pee out of his pullup (how is a question I do not have an answer to). This is a boy who has had dry pullups for nearly two weeks. Now his pants, shirt, and sheets were wet. Being the loving father that I am, I changed his clothes, grabbed his pillow, and put him to sleep on the couch in his underwear (that was his last pullup, by the way). Thinking it was all over, I went back to bed.

It is not over.

It is, in fact, still not over.

Around 3:30AM I woke to another, though similar sound. It was the sound of our 18-month-old crying. This I am used to. It happens a couple times a week. No big deal, right?

Turns out he had managed to pee out of his diaper. His pants, shirt, and bed were all soaked. So I changed him, took him to my wife lying in bed, changed his sheets, and put him back in.

He's crying (though he just now stopped) as I write this.

I am officially awake. I went to bed at nearly 11PM last night. I usually get ~6 hours of sleep, which is the sweet spot for me (especially when it is a continuous 6 hours). Tonight was full of interruptions and ended with me getting something around 4 hours of sleep.

Sometimes stinky things happen.

Sometimes they also lead to 4AM blog posts.

You see, I may be tired, I may not be functioning at my highest level, and my morning may be all messed up. I am sure that my morning is going to be a bit out of whack, and the rest of the day is going to seem kind of long. I also may need a nap this afternoon.

But I honestly don't really care.

The reason I don't care is because I am doing one of the things that my God has put me here for: taking care of my children. The reason I don't care is because I am able to serve my wife in this way. The reason I don't care about the lack of sleep and whacked out day is because at the end of the day I recognize that in so many ways, God is the same kind of Father to me.

When I am crying about a situation I cannot change, when I am scared because of the surrounding dark and yes, even when I get myself into a mess that shouldn't even be able to happen in the first place, God is there. He doesn't turn around and ignore my cries, He doesn't ignore what I am going through. He comes in, picks me up, comforts me, and helps me get back to the restful place I should be.

He can do the same for you, too, if you will let Him.

Sometimes I think we need to be reminded that when we say "Our Father in Heaven," then that is exactly what He is. He cares for us, loves us, and wants what is best for us. Sometimes that means coming to us and holding us, sometimes that means letting us cry it out so we can get the rest we so desperately need.

Perhaps this is God reminding me that He really is my Father. Perhaps, if you look, you can see and be reminded that He is yours, too.

Covert Attack

If you're over the age of 25, you probably remember at some point seeing one of those 3D image pictures that looked like a bunch of lines and colors until you focused just right. To jog your memory, they looked something like this:

(You can see this on the computer, by the way. It's a bird.)

These pictures were neat, and I have always like them. I thought it was cool that behind all the noise of the picture you saw at first was another image. In order to see that other, hidden image, you had to act like you were looking through the picture, beyond what you saw at first.

Turns out life is a lot like that.

There is a show that just came featuring preachers from L.A., California. Originally I had no intention of ever watching a single episode. It's one of those fake reality shows where they get some suckers to allow themselves to be filmed throughout the day and then squash all the disparate parts together in order to make a storyline. This time, however, the suckers they got were men who lead congregations of thousands of people in the name of God.

Unfortunately, I felt that I did need to at least watch the first episode, which I did alone while everyone else was asleep. The reason I watched it was because I saw a trailer that one of my ministry friends was commenting on. Feeling that I should at least know what is going on, I went ahead and watched it.

I will admit right here that it is very, very hard not to be judgmental while watching this show, especially as a minister myself.

By the time I got to the end of the show, however, I wasn't angry, upset, or even frustrated. I was just kind of disappointed and a little bit frightened. You see, the men and churches portrayed on this show were wrong in so many ways. From the lavish houses to the Bentley, Ferrarri, Land Rover, etc they were wrong. From the "look at me look at me" phrasing to the obviously very expensive sets and stages they were wrong. From the "say this prayer and be saved," to the health and wealth teaching they were wrong.

But in the end, that's not what bothered me the most. Allow Admiral Ackbar to tell you what I really felt like in the end:

(Admiral Ackbar, spotting traps since 1983)

The real problem has less to do with how these preachers and churches portray themselves. The real problem is the attack on Christianity as a whole that this show opens up. By propping these men up, with the lives that they lead and the messages they speak, as leaders in Christianity, it opens up an enormous attack on real Christian faith.

Now I did some research on this show. The producers are both people who grew up going to churches, and who think it is a great way to "reach people." Whether or not they believe what they said in the interview is not for me to decide. I will even give them the benefit of the doubt that they do believe it.

Unfortunately, just believing something is good does not make it so.

Because what you mostly see on the show is a bunch of extremely wealthy men telling people what they want to hear. You also hear soundbites like this:

“The Bible says ‘I wish above all things that you prosper, and be in health, even as your soul prospers.’ I believe that.”

That quote, right there, filled me with rage.

The man speaking obviously has no idea who Jesus really is. The verse (3 Jn. 1:2) is so taken out of context and used so poorly as to make it sound like God is saying He wants us to have material health and wealth more than anything. Really?

First, the verse does not say "I wish above all things," nor is it a quote from God. It is John writing to Gaius, and basically telling him that he hopes everything is going well. It has nothing at all to do with God saying He wants us to be rich in this world.

But back to the covert attack, because in war there is no such thing as friendly fire.

Purposefully or not, the attack comes in this form:

1. Men are propped up as leaders in the Christian movement based on congregation size, money, and power.

2. Showing these men in the midst of their wealth and power, and filming them rationalizing their great material goods.

3. Portray this as "real" Christianity, because after all, these men are "leaders" in Christianity.

3a. Watch people turn away from Christianity in disgust at what they see.

or

3b. Spread a false message of Christianity further than it has ever gone before.

It is not the fact that these men have money that is the problem. It is the how they portray that wealth to the masses. When you drive around in a Ferrari (minimum $100,000 used) or a Bentley (minimum $135,000 used) and live in a mansion or home costing millions, you automatically remove yourself from the common people. It's not the money, it's the use of it. And when you, as a minister, waste enormous amounts of money on stuff that you do not need or stuff that puts a barrier between you and those who desperately need Jesus, that is a problem.

I will add an addendum here that one of the men (the Bentley driver) seems to regularly go to Compton where he grew up to reach out to gang members. I applaud that. Even then, however, I have to ask how much good could he do with the money he has wasted on extravagant creature comforts when that money could likely be used to create an enormous ministry for the very people he wants to help?

I hope I do not sound overly judgmental or apocalyptic, but I do believe it is important to speak out against this in the beginning instead of just pretending it doesn't exist. Fact is we are attacked every day not head-on, but covertly in an effort to wipe out the truth about Jesus Christ and the Gospel that He preached. Make no mistake, the world hates us (Jn. 15:18-19; Matt. 10:22), and it will do whatever it can to get rid of us. 

It will even use those who think they are doing something good in order to turn it against Christ and His people.

So please be aware of what we are really facing. Sometimes we will face a head-on attack, and will have to fight in that way. More often, however, we will be faced with what looks like a straight attack, when in reality it is a feint for something else. Be faithful and endure to the end. We follow Christ and Christ alone, and we need to be sure to show it in our lives every day in order to combat the war that constantly surrounds us. 

Farewell, Farewell! (An Ode to My Smartphone)

Please note that I am not bashing anyone that uses smartphones, nor am I calling for them to be banished from the lives of Christians. That being said...

If you know me, you know that I am a bit of a geek. Video games, technology, computers, hardware and software. You name it, chances are I either know about it or am actively participating in it. When we got our first iPhones I loved it, but hated being locked into it's ecosystem. When we switched to Android, I loved it, immediately customized everything about it, and loved it even more.

Then we got rid of them.

Why?

Well, my wife dropped her's in water, where it immediately went berserk and died (it's funnier if you know the whole story, but that's not for here). We needed to get her something fast, still had over a year to go on our contract, and had no insurance, so I went on Craigslist, found a guy selling basic texting phones for cheap, and we got her one of those (an LG Cosmos 2, if you must know).

Her phone.

We came to find out during our discussions at this time that we had both been considering getting rid of our phones and switching to something simpler. What we had recognized was that they were consuming more and more of our lives, and we didn't like that very much.

In particular, one video I saw linked on Facebook really slapped me across the face. I had recognized my own reliance and addiction to my phone growing, but this pretty much sealed the deal for me. Check it out:

That was me. Not always, not every single moment, but more and more I was living through the 4" screen of my Samsung Galaxy. Even when I thought I was "in the moment," I wasn't. I was busy getting the right angle for a picture, or trying to get the video recorded just right. I wasn't there, I was in a phone.

Any question? Phone. Any ding? Phone. Any flashing light? Phone. No matter what was going on, I would check my phone. Even on vacation, with my family there, I looked around and we were all on our phones. It was freaky. I, of course, ignored it 'cause, you know, Candy Crush (or something similar). So I did some research on the kind of phone I would want, went on Ebay, and plopped down $35 for an LG enV3.

Mine's a manly dark blue.

I've done a lot of reading since then about other people who have dumped their phones for similar reasons. It always ends with something along the lines of "this is what I chose to do, make your own path."

I disagree with that kind of statement. Again, I am not advocating for everyone to chunk their smartphones. I do, however, believe that if we are going to be a holy people of God, that we had better ask and answer some of the tough questions about how we use the tools that God allows us to have, and take the steps needed to fix the problems we find.

I suggest starting with the 5 following steps:
1. Track how much time you are on your phone. (meal times? bathroom? commercials? the spare seconds in the drive-thru window?)

2. Watch to see if you (and those around you) are on your phones when you could be talking, thinking, or otherwise building your relationships.

3. Track how much you are thinking about or listening for your phone. (church? work? time with your spouse? time with your children?)

4. Watch to see if you are on your phone when others are near you, but don't "need" you. (children playing, spouse doing a chore, public places such as the park or in line, etc.)

5. Take a look around and watch people in their daily lives. Make a note of when you see someone on their phone, and what else is going on around them. 

Number five may freak you out a little sometimes. Watching the glow of dozens of phones on parent's faces while their kids run and play and say "look Mommy, look!!" is weird and kind of scary. I will also say that I have been that parent, and I hate that I have been.

Anyways, do those five steps, then do what you need to in order to fix it. Do you need to dump the smartphone? Do it. Do you need to leave it at home sometimes? Do it. Do you need to disable the internet on it? Do it. Whatever you need to do in order to be there, and I mean really be there and present with life and those around you, do it.

The emails can wait for later. So can the tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram pics, games, etc. It will all still be there when you are done living life and being with those around you. Christ didn't die so that we could be sucked into the vortex of the endless internet. He died so that we could live, and live abundantly.

He died and rose again so that we could look at the world around us, form a relationship with those we come into contact with, and show His love to everyone around us so that they, too, could know Him.

It's hard to do that if the only glow seen on your face is that of a phone, and not the Son.

That Great Truth (with pictures!)

Close your eyes just for a moment and picture Christ in your mind. Seriously, go ahead and do it now before reading on.

‘The Lord [God] said to my Lord [Jesus],
“Sit at My right hand,Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." (Acts 2:34-36).

Now close your eyes and do it again, only with the verse above in mind.

Any difference?

All too often we fall into the trap of picturing Christ as a weak, kind of feminine, suffering Man of Sorrows. Far too often the image we have of Christ is one in need of our sympathy, who will forgive us our sins but has no real power. Many times, our image of Jesus goes something like this:

or this:

Now don't get me wrong. I am not trying to dehumanize Christ. He felt human sorrows and felt human pain and was tempted in every way just as we are.  When Lazarus died Jesus wept even though He would bring him back to life. He truly suffered heading towards and on the cross. Living the human experience was by no means a cakewalk for the Savior of the world.

However, we cannot stop there. Jesus did not stay on the cross. He was not a weak, effeminate wallflower who always spoke softly and gently to every person He came across. He flipped over tables and drove animals out of the temple courtyard, He blasted the religious leaders with words I don't think anyone would call "tolerant." He even shut down His own disciples and spoke in such a way at one point that many quit following Him because they didn't want to give what He said it would require.

He lived a human life, He died a human life, but He did not end there. Christ rose again. He came back in power, and He ascended to Heaven to the right hand of God. Jesus is one with God. Perhaps we would do well to remember that. 

The images above make it easy for us to feel sorry for or want to give our sympathy to Christ. But we don't worship a Christ on the cross. We don't worship a weak-willed man. We worship a risen Savior who rules over everything in the universe.

So instead of getting stuck on picturing Jesus as those images above, maybe we could picture Him closer to how He is now.

Maybe something like this:

 
or this:

or this:

Instead of going through the mental hoops of figuring out how to give Christ our sympathy, how to feel sorry for Him and feeling bad because of what He had to do in order to save us from our sins, we can realize that He is above all and over all and has more power and glory than we could ever possibly comprehend. Is it terrible the things that Christ suffered? Yes. Is is heartbreaking to think that He had to do so because I could not? Yes. Is that where I end my thoughts and meditations on Christ? Absolutely not.

This is That Great Truth. All things in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth have been put under Jesus' control and authority. We live on His Time in His Kingdom in His Age. He is the Christ Victorious. He speaks and Heaven and Earth obey Him. He tolerates the wickedness in this world only so that more may be saved by His blood. 

Furthermore, we live because He lives. We live in the Victory of Christ the Risen Savior. We worship the One True Man who is also the One True God. Let us recognize That Great Truth and live in the Power that only He can provide.

The Great God Entertainment

Allow me to be very clear and up-front. These ideas are not my own. I am paraphrasing an essay by A.W. Tozer, because he wrote this in 1955 and it terrifies me to think how much the god of entertainment has grown since then. I am writing this to bring clarity to what he wrote and so more people can consider it than otherwise would. With that said...

A German philosopher many years ago said something like this; the more a man has in his own heart the less he will need from the outside. Excessive need for support from the outside is a sign of the bankruptcy of the inner man.

If this is true (and I believe it is), then the incredible attachment we see to every form of entertainment is evidence that the inner life of modern man is in serious decline. The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no flow from his heart, no inner strength to make it so he does not need repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to keep on living. He has become a parasite on the world, sucking the life from his environment, unable to live without the constant stimulation that modern life affords him.

The philosopher believed that feeling dependent was the basis for all religious worship, and that no matter how strong we may become spiritually, it must begin with a deep need that only God could satisfy. If this need is the basis of normal religion then it is easy to see why the god of Entertainment is worshiped by so many. There are millions who cannot live without amusement. For some of them life without it would be completely unbearable - they look to the relief provided by professional entertainers and other media as much as a drug addict looks forward to their next hit. Without it, they could not face existing in this world.

Now no normal person has a problem with the simple pleasures of life. There is harmless entertainment that relaxes us and refreshes our minds after a hard day. Those kinds of things, used moderately, can even be a blessing to us. But that is one thing. The all-out devotion to entertainment as a major activity for which and by which people live is something completely different.

The abuse of something harmless is the essence of sin. The way that amusement has taken over such a huge portion of people's lives is a real, immediate threat to the souls of modern man. It has been built into a multibillion-dollar racket with more influence on people's minds and character than any other educational influence on earth. And the most terrifying thing is that its power is almost exclusively evil, rotting the inner life, crowding out the long eternal thoughts which would otherwise fill the souls of people, if only the people were willing to entertain them. The entire thing has grown into a veritable religion that holds its followers with a strange fascination. It has become a religion, incidentally, that is dangerous to speak against.

For centuries the Church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was - a device for wasting time, a place safe from a conscience trying to change us, a scheme to pull our attention away from moral accountability. Because she stood against it, the church was constantly abused by the world around her. But lately she has become tired of the abuse and given up the struggle.

She appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god Entertainment she may as well join forces with him and do what she can with his powers. So today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. Religious entertainment is quickly crowding out the serious things of God. So many churches today are little more than peddlers of shoddy products by fifth-rate "producers" with the approval of evangelical leaders who will will quote a Bible verse to defend their wrong-doings. What's worse, hardly anyone dares to raise their voice against it.

The great god Entertainment amuses his devotees mainly by telling them useless stories. The love of stories, a characteristic of children, has taken hold of the minds of the diminished saints to the extent that many make a good living simply by telling these useless and pointless stories and calling it religious speech! What is natural and beautiful in children can become shocking when it continues into adulthood, and even more so when it attempts to pass for true religion in worship.

Is it not frightening, and a wonder that, in a time when mature saints are needed so badly, that the professed followers of the Lord are giving themselves up to religious amusements, or entertainment in general? Why are so many begging for religious toys and spiritual childhood? This is a time when a lost world needs true, mature, strong people of God more than ever.

"Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our shame...The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim" (Lamentations 5:1, 16-17).

Let this not be the end of our story. Let us change and be right with the One True God, and set aside that which pulls us away from Him.

Amen.

Give Up or Give Up.

No one likes giving up. We see it as weakness. As something bad. As something shameful or regretful. YouTube is filled with videos encouraging people to keep going, keep trying, keep straining. I like these videos. It is one small part of the internet where something good is happening.

But that's not the path we're going down today.

Instead, I want to encourage you to give up.

Give up.

I know that goes counter to everything we hear today. Everything we are taught from the time we understand language is filled with the call to not give up. We are constantly told to never give up, never give in, never quit trying and striving for what we want.

But Jesus tells us the opposite.

In Luke 9:23-25 Jesus says this:
“Any of you who want to be my follower must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross that is given to you every day for following me. Any of you who try to save the life you have will lose it. But you who give up your life for me will save it. It is worth nothing for you to have the whole world if you yourself are destroyed or lost. (ERV)

In other words, give up.

Give up trying to help yourself and save yourself. Give up trying to make yourself happy. Give up your search for the perfect mate, perfect job, perfect house, perfect life. Give up.

Because you will never, ever achieve it by yourself.

You can't. You can't do it on your own. If you try, then you will fail. Badly. You will reach the end of your life, wondering what it has all been for, and die.

But that's not where this story has to end.

God wants us to give up trying to make ourselves happy so that He can make us better than happy. God wants us to have joy. To be content. To be fulfilled. To have life. Real Life.

If our goal is to make ourselves happy, we will find mist and shadows. We'll be excited at times, maybe even happy on occasion, but it won't last. It will come and go and, like any addict, we will find ourselves looking for our next fix before the current one even wears off.

If our goal is to become God's, however, there will be something much more permanent. Truth.

The truth of joy knowing we are loved by a God more than we could ever know. The truth of contentment knowing that this world is not all there is, but that we are headed somewhere greater. The truth of fulfillment, knowing that we have lived a life following the only thing that could ever make it worthwhile.

So we have two choices. We can give up on trying to make ourselves happy and filled, or we can give up on becoming joyful, content, fulfilled people of God. Those two are mutually exclusive choices, and ones that can be difficult to manage.

God wants us to be His. He wants us to be happy. But not in the way that we usually use the word. God wants us to be happy that we are His and following Him. He wants us to be excited because we have given up everything to be with Him in Heaven forever. He wants us to be at peace because we know who we are and whose we are, no matter the situation we find ourselves in.

So give up.

It's the only way you'll make it.