Victory!

A few days ago President Obama signed the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. This commits the United States to step in and make a change. Hopefuly we will soon see the end of Africa's longest running war: child soldiers freed, starving families fed, displaced citizens given homes and jobs and HOPE. Praise God for the possibilities! Believe the unbelievable. Every war has an end. This end is within reach.

Read more here: http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2010/05/obama-speaks-the-president-declares-his-commitment-to-the-lra-bill/

Because Grace is Scandalous

….more Jon Acuff (www.stuffchristianslike.net)

A few weeks ago, someone emailed me a question about you.

That’s right, it was about you. Readers, folks who comment, people who peruse the halls of Stuff Christians Like. And it was nice to have a question that wasn’t about me. I get those sometimes. A person once asked me, “Do you have a theologian read what you write on your site before you post it?” I want to be honest, with over half a million words on the site, that would be one generous theologian. So I replied with, “Yes, I have a small theologian who lives in a closet under the stairs. He eats cracklin’ oat bran exclusively and reads everything I write.” OK, I didn’t respond that way. I told him I could see doing that with some Serious Wednesday posts. But that’s not the point. The point is that someone had a question about you. What was it? Here is an excerpt of what they asked:

“Have you ever noticed that frequently your comment section can go a little too far with the whole “Christians are covered by grace” thing? I’ve noticed that quite a few SCL commenters seem to see grace as a license to sin.”

Essentially the question they were asking is simple, “Do you feel like some people take grace too far?” I wrote them back and let them know I would address their really well written email on the site.

Here’s what I think:

I believe we risk a great danger when we try to say that people “go a little too far with the whole ‘Christians are covered by grace’ thing.” And the danger is simply that we downsize grace.

We establish a limit to grace and God’s love. We start to draw boundary lines on grace and it’s not the first time we’ve seen this kind of thing happen.

There was a guy in the Bible who was the worst. He was such a failure. He lied once and got an entire village murdered as a result. A priest and his family were killed because of his lies. He committed adultery. He cheated. He trusted in his own strength instead of the Lord’s. And when he did, when he failed, thousands and thousands of people died as a result. His family suffered from incest and murder and his hands were so covered with wrongfully shed blood that eventually God wouldn’t let him do something really important.

Now imagine if that person was a commenter on Stuff Christians Like. Imagine if they confessed to homicide and adultery and a laundry list of other sins. I mean there have been some crazy comments on this site, but no one has ever said, “I saw this girl online and thought she was really hot, so I slept with her, got her pregnant and then arranged on craigslist for her husband to be killed.” But this guy, the guy in the Bible, he could have left that comment. And if he did, would you or me or the writer of that email instantly think, “He didn’t take grace too far?” No, we’d be horrified. We’d be terrified.

So how is he referred to in the Bible? Here is what God says about him:

“I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart,”

What? Are you kidding God? David, the murderer? The adulterer? That can’t be right.

Surely David himself knows what a mess he’s made. Aren’t we all our worst critics? David knows that there is blood on his hands. How does he describe himself in Psalm 26?

“Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.”

No. No. No. David hasn’t led a blameless life. He hasn’t trusted in the Lord without wavering. He ran away and got people killed by trying to cover up his tracks when he was afraid. How can David say these things? How can God say these things?

Because grace is scandalous.

Grace does not make sense to our tiny human brains. We can’t control it. We can’t draw boundaries and borders on it. And when we try I think it breaks God’s heart.

I think we insult the cross when we act as if we can “out sin” it.

I think we wound our father when we think we can “out filth” his love.

I think we hurt our Christ when we believe that we have found the end of his grace.

I know, I know, I know that it is possible to mistreat the Lord. To blasphemy his name with our actions and our attitudes. David certainly did and he paid the consequences. I don’t think we get discipline or grace. I think we get both. I think discipline is a by product of grace and in my own life I have received large amounts of it.

But above that, I think God understood the grand risk when he offered us grace. A book called “True Faced” called it the New Testament Gamble. I think God knew the risk that we’d misunderstand grace and try to take advantage of it. I think he knew we’d try to find the limits of it with our sinfulness. Which is why he made it limitless, which is why he made grace infinite and never ending.

I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t know your life or the bumps or bruises. Maybe you actually have murdered more people than David. I don’t know. But I do know, as many readers pointed out on this post, we serve a God who accepts our repentance and confession. We serve a God who when offered a chance to reveal himself to Moses, chose one thing to show, the most important thing, his goodness.

We serve a God who “rises to show us compassion.”

A God who delights in you.

A God who sent his son to the cross not to show the end of his grace, but rather the beginning

Facebook Friend Suggesting Jesus

(Another post by Jon Acuff from Stuff Christians Like. He tends to inspire me. Check him out if you please. www.stuffchristianslike.net)

I will accept anyone’s friend request on facebook. I don’t discriminate. I don’t filter out weird people or hate on anyone that has a unibrow, like me. I see facebook as a cool chance to connect with readers of this site. So if you ask me to be your friend, please know I am going to accept that offer.

But I never accept friend suggestions. If you’ve never used facebook, a friend suggestion is a feature where you can send a note to someone and essentially say, “I think you should be friends with this other person.” You get the other person’s name and a little photo of them. If you choose to accept it, then you send that suggested person a friend request.

It’s meant to be a neat little way to connect people, but I’ve started to get some random suggestions. Someone will send me a suggestion like, “Tammy Smith, Red Bluff High School.” I’ll look at it, quickly realize that I don’t know Tammy Smith and think, “If I accept this friend suggestion, Tammy Smith, a high school sophomore, is going to get a random friend request from a complete stranger, that happens to be a 33-year old married man, living in the suburbs of Atlanta with his two kids, who doesn’t even use his full name on facebook and kind of has a weird smirk in his photo.” Wow, the only thing missing from my induction into the creepy hall of fame is perhaps a mustache and a scar running down my cheek from a knife fight I got into behind a dumpster at a truck stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.

That’s a completely silly thought, but while thinking about that the other day at 5:00 in the morning, I realized that I approach witnessing to people about God in a pretty similar fashion. (I know, whoa, did he just leap from the New Jersey Turnpike knife fight story to witnessing to people about the everlasting love of Jesus Christ? Yes, yes I did.)

The truth is that sometimes I drop Jesus into someone’s lap like I’m sending a random friend suggestion on facebook. I don’t really tell them much about Him. I don’t really invest in the life of the person I’m talking too. I don’t even really listen to their story. I’ve just rushed to the end of my agenda and essentially said, “Yeah, yeah, regardless of what’s going on with you and your whole situation, I’d like to send you this friend suggestion to connect with Jesus. Here you go, vaya con dios stranger.”

It’s kind of like a Jesus drive by, me just spraying folks with the name of Christ and hoping it sticks. I don’t think that’s a particularly good thing. I can’t imagine that’s what God had in mind when He gave us the great commission. So what can we do to change that? How do we not just “friend suggestion” Jesus?

I don’t know. I’m all out of silver bullets, and to be honest there are about 3700 other blogs that have better advice about sharing your faith. But I have started to do something differently in the last few months. I’ve started to ask people questions I genuinely want answers to. Instead of asking a question and then forcing the conversation back into my framework regardless of their answer, I’ve tried to just listen and let people talk and remain engaged in what they have to say. The more I’ve done that, the more I’ve been amazed at how willing people are to open up when you actually listen. And sometimes, when I feel like God is cool with it, I get to ask my favorite question of all, “Who is carrying all that with you?”

Because everyone has an “all that.” Whether you’re going through a divorce or the most wildly successful season of work in your life, everyone has an “all that” they’re carrying. (Sometimes success is the most crushing “all that” you can face because what you thought would make things perfect just isn’t and that’s pretty terrifying.) 99 out of 100 times the answer to that question is “no one.” One woman told me she didn’t want to burden her happy friends with her sadness so she keeps it hidden. One man told me he wasn’t a guy’s guy and since he didn’t understand football it was hard for him to form relationships with other guys.

Time after time, the answer to the question “Who is carrying all that with you” comes back as “no one.”

But it’s not one of those questions you can ask and then disappear as soon as you’ve friend suggested Jesus. You have to be willing to carry the “all that” with the person you’re talking with. You can’t fade into the weeds of life like dissolving into the sea of profiles of facebook. That’s why witnessing is hard. That’s why it’s easier to friend suggest Jesus to strangers than it is to introduce your friend Jesus to someone.

It’s not right, but I think that’s why it happens. And I’m tired of it happening with me.

Lessons from Jesus People

Sometimes God works in ways you never expect. Sometimes he just hits you up in the most creative ways. Last night I was invited to go out to the Cornerstone Festival grounds to hang out with a group of people who I had never met before. ...I went. The group that was staying out there was with the organization called Jesus People USA. (JPUSA) They are based out of Chicago and own and organize the festival. Pretty much, they're really cool people. And since they own the land, sometimes groups of people stay out there just to vacation and chill. So I was invited to go join them last night. It was really random and kind of awesome. And they taught me things.

I went and sat in a small trailer with a group of mud-covered, alternative looking Jesus freaks in desperate need of showers. I sheepishly looked around, feeling kind of intimidated by the overwhelming amount of gauged ears, pierced lips, and ripped clothing I was witnessing. I sat quietly and observed, soaking in the surroundings. Then my friend looked over at me, looked around, and said "They're all so happy."

WOW. They were all so happy. These smelly, dirty, nonconformists were living in JOY. They didn't care that they looked different. They didn't care that they acted different. They didn't care that that trailer was probably only made to fit half as many people as were present there. I looked around again. And I saw peace. I saw smiles. I saw people who weren't bogged down by worries and stress. I had barely talked to anyone, but I knew that these people were free. They weren't carrying burdens. They weren't self-conscious. They danced to blasting music while they poured insane amouts of waffle mix into a bowl for dinner. I didn't say anything. I just wanted to watch.

I desire what these people have. Freedom from stress and worry and burdens. They lived carefree. And I know why. They were surrendered to God. Full. Surrender. And it worked. It all made sense. Life fell into place. They were living for today and not worrying about tomorrow. Everything makes sense when you surrender. I want to live more carefree.

The Jesus People taught me much. Not by words, but just by living. What an adventure, God. Thanks for inviting me.

to be written

I would like to write something. I have a writing thirst that must be quenched. I think I would like to write about God, because I LOVE him. So much. He's so...real. I think I will explain my last post. It says "I feel written." I do. I feel written. Life is a story. And every story has an author. So I've been just sort of...breathing in my life lately, taking time to soak it all in and realize how beautiful it is and how breathtaking God's presence is. God spoke the world into existence, and he's speaking my life into existence. He is writing my story. Words. He is using words to beautifully create this life that I am living in. Look at your life. Look at your story. Doesn't it just feel.....written? Look at the birds and the trees and the sunsets. Look at your family and your friends and your relationships. Look at your job and your education and your plans. Look at the afternoon spent at the park, the snow day spent building a snowman, and the crazy passionate fire you experienced at a retreat. Look at God in YOUR life. Look at the beauty of everything unfolding. Don't you feel written too?

i feel.....written.

Isaiah 55:1

Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters.

I'm messy, and even though you're different from me, I bet you're messy too.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope;
be patient in affliction;
be persistent in prayer.

dirty me

release me from these chains
and all this weight that drags me down

release me from my sin
and please. destroy. myself.

like a lover in las vegas
like a drunkard at the bar

my iniquities are endless
oh God, make new my heart!

The fight against me

to forget about me

if only for a moment

to let go of myself

and each desire that comes with

this is what I thirst for

selflessness would make me pure

it is not me that i long for

my life needs to be restored

with every thought that crosses

and each word spoken by these lips

i act like i'm the hero

the one who gave a second chance

it is all filth

disgusting. trash.

these selfish thoughts consume my brain

i strive to be on top

as prideful blood pumps through my veins

oh, to forget about myself

in that sweet, glorious moment

i will let go of all my sin

and let my Yahweh cover it