Grace.

So I apologize for the lack of entries on here lately, as we've been having some internet problems at the house. But now, faithful readers, I am back, and probably just as amazingly super cool as ever.

I've been thinking a lot about grace lately.

I had the opportunity on Wednesday to carve out a few hours in my schedule to do my own little personal solitude retreat, and I think it was pretty awesome. I wasn't sure how I would like it before I started, but by the time it was over, I felt so spiritually refreshed and renewed. It was great.

In that time, I got the chance to pray for a while, but I also took some time to read the Bible. I finished all of Galatians and also some of Ephesians. I was struck while reading how both of those books really have a theme throughout them that as a Christ follower, I am saved not by anything I do or have done, but by God's grace. In essence, I am given salvation because God saw fit to give a gift to me. Nowhere is that clearer than in Ephesians 2:1-9, which is a passage that's really been working its way around in my mind and heart lately.

For a long time I was a person who suffered from the misconception of the "works gospel." I was one of those people that was always trying, always working, always striving to do the best and greatest things, not because I wanted to, but because I felt like I had to in order to make God love me. I won't lie; I'm still not always sold that God loves me regardless of what I do, but I know that's true. I know that God doesn't judge me on my latest performance; he judges my heart.

But in my time alone with God, I made a realization about myself. I recognized that lately, in my life, I'm suffering from a lot of pride issues. God takes a very strong anti-pride stance in the Bible, so I guess that's something I should definitely work on. But in essence, for whatever reason, I feel like lately in my life I've been walking around, feeling like I'm always right and feeling like I have all the answers, and as such, feeling like I'm better than a lot of folks (as shameful as that is to say). Ephesians 2:1-9 woke me up to the realization that I am just like everyone else. I am saved by God's gift of grace alone, just like the pastor of the mega church down the road, and just like the bum or the prostitute on the corner. When I act like I'm big and important all the time (if that was a spiritual gift, I would be awesome at that), I refuse to recognize that I need God's grace just as much as the next person.

And if that isn't the biggest lie since ever, I don't know what is.

Thank you, God, for grace. May I realize just how much I really need it.

Worlds Are Colliding...

(Just wrote this post for the Suncrest Cultivate blog at www.suncrestcultivating.blogspot.com on Wednesday. I was actually pretty proud of it and think I'll post it here too...)

So I just finished watching a delightful season 7 episode of Seinfeld here on my computer.

Now, for those of you who are not Seinfeld fans (I think the technical term is "heathens." Okay, just kidding), the central character in the show is a guy named Jerry, and he hangs out with his best friends, Elaine, Kramer, and George. Unfortunately for George, he's in a bit of a problem. You see, George's fiancee is not really part of his group of friends, so George has developed a bit of a split personality problem. Around his friends Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer, George acts a certain way and calls this person "Independent George." Around his fiancee, though, George acts another way and calls this person "Relationship George." Problems erupt for George when one of his close friends, Elaine, decides to become friends with his fiancee, Susan. Now, George will inevitably find himself in a social situation with both his group of friends and his fiancee. This, in George's mind, will lead only to his destruction. Take a look...

It might sound kind of dumb to you, but I think that a lot of us do the same exact thing in our relationship with God. We have a tendency to live two lives in our relationship with God. I know that I oftentimes act like one person on the outside, but on the inside, I am knee-deep in stuff like sexual sin, greed, bitterness, hate, and all those other not-so-great things. Yet while I'm struggling big time, I'll try to sweep it under the rug. I've got "Relationship Wes" I bring out around God and on Sunday mornings, and then I've got "Independent Wes," who secretly lives this other life when no one is looking.

You see, God isn't impressed by our acting, no matter how big or small it might be. God wants us to be honest and truthful about ourselves, about our junk, about everything. He might not be satisfied with our sin, but I believe that our relationship with God is a lot better off when we quit trying to hide our junk and come clean. Just think of the story of King David in 2 Samuel 11. David had sex with a married woman while her husband was away at war, and she conceived. So what does David do? Instead of coming clean, he tries to get this woman's husband to sleep with her so everyone will think the child was his (thank goodness Maury Povich didn't have a show back in those days). But alas, David's attempts don't work. Eventually, he arranges for this woman's husband to be killed in battle, and then marries her (a common practice to protect widows in those days), so that everyone will think David and his new wife Bathsheba conceived a child in wedlock and that everything is fine and dandy. David was secretly living two lives, but thought he was going to get away with it.

But while everyone else was fooled, God was not. In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan receives a message from God and approaches David, accusing him of this grievous sin. David had been found out.

Just like George, his worlds were colliding.

Eventually, after many events transpired, David wrote Psalm 51 as a song asking for forgiveness from God, coming clean of his double-life. I think that in a lot of ways, we need to do the same. When we act like a different person before God, we never win. To paraphrase Numbers 32:23, our worlds will always end up colliding. It never ends pretty.

So this Wednesday as I write, I just want to ask you, are you living a double life? Is it time to come clean with God, with others, and with (most importantly) yourself?

wb

The After Sunday Recap: October 11

This Sunday, we unpacked the idea of giftedness, and how God has equipped each of us to serve. God has given us a gift; we must use it to help out Christ's body, the church, as well as further the kingdom of God as a whole. While we may feel our own gifts are insignificant or different, today we unpacked the simple fact that the Holy Spirit has given each of us a gift for a specific purpose.

For me, I think that the most important verse we examined today was 1 Peter 4:10. We are directly commanded to use whatever gifts we have to serve others. I think that for me, part of this also means that I have a responsibility to discover what my gifts are (perhaps even those I don't notice, that are lying underneath the service) so that I can use them in some way to advance the gospel message. I also think it's interesting when Peter says that by using our gifts to serve, we are faithfully administering God's grace in all of its forms. When I share my gift with others, I am directly participating in the sharing of God's grace. I think that's pretty cool.

So I think that after today, we're left with a few simple questions:

• What are my gifts?
• How can I use those for service?

For me, I think a real gift of mine is music, and in fact, because I sense that giftedness, I decided to become a pastor so that I could use that gift in order to serve God. Maybe your gift is administration. Maybe it's leading other people. Maybe it's even something that we would (unfortunately) classify as something ordinary, like the gifts spoken of in Romans 12. Each gift is important. And each gift can be used by us to glorify and serve God (and others) in some way. We just have to have the discipline to figure out how.

Holy Spirit.

So a few weeks ago I watched some video teaching online from Cornerstone Church where Francis Chan (aka my man crush) preaches. He just released a new book called The Forgotten God which is, from my understanding, supposed to be all about the Holy Spirit. I think that's an interesting title, because in a lot of ways that's true. I'm pretty sure that every church I've ever went to has had a good theology or understanding of the Holy Spirit (if you're reading between the lines, you're probably catching that only my theology of the Holy Spirit is the right one. Way to go. Hope you're enjoying the sarcasm here). They either ignore him completely or they totally warp his ministry and objective in this world.

But I was watching the first part of this seven part teaching on the Holy Spirit from Cornerstone, and there's one element that even about a month later that is still rolling around in my head and in my heart, and that is simply this:

Do we grasp that life with the Holy Spirit is better than life with Jesus on the earth?

When I first heard that statement, I really had to do a mental double-take. That just doesn't sound right. Life is always better with Jesus, right? I'm still wrestling with this concept, but I'm discovering that maybe I had overlooked something really important about the Holy Spirit. In John 16:7, Jesus tells the disciples it's actually good for him to be leaving them, because if he didn't leave them, then the Holy Spirit ("the Counselor") will not come to them. I'm not saying that having Jesus on this world wouldn't be great, but according to the Scriptures, it seems like Jesus thinks the Holy Spirit is a pretty big deal... that the Holy Spirit will help us grow as Christ followers maybe even more than Jesus himself would. I'm still really wrestling with that last statement.

We are told in Scripture that those who are a part of God's Kingdom have the Holy Spirit living inside of them. God is living inside of me. And yet, I just walk around without even thinking about it. God lives inside of me. That is pretty stinking cool. It's an awesome reason to worship. I'm praying for a bigger, better, more complete understanding of that truth, that I may truly understand the power of God in me, and the power of the Holy Spirit to profoundly change my life, maybe in an even bigger way than if Jesus were still walking the earth this minute.

Chosen.

I think that sometimes there is nothing scarier in the world than simply being chosen.

We probably don't think of it that way a lot of the time, but that's sort of how it goes. In school, no kid wanted to be the one picked by the teacher to answer a question or read or whatever. At work, it can be sort of scary when your boss chooses you to work on a special project and is really counting on you to do something. Yeah, it's great they have that faith in you, but at the same time, that's a lot of responsibility that you may or may not feel up for. Star athletes face this all the time; I think of all the pressure that must lie on the shoulders of a guy like LeBron James, who has been declared the "chosen one" to bring a championship back to Cleveland. It's nice to be respected, but being chosen comes with responsibility. And that can be scary.

A lot of the time, I think that I'd rather go through life unnoticed. Yeah, you might miss out on some cool stuff, but you also miss out on the deathly experience of being the one who disappoints. Being chosen means that people are watching me. They are waiting on me. They are expecting me to do something. The reward can be high, but so can the potential to totally fail.

Tonight at the suggestion of my dear friend Ryan Trisler, a guy I really respect, I began reading the book of Jeremiah. Ryan's reasoning was that there's something compelling about watching a guy who really wrestles with his own insecurities and has to be told again and again to do God's work. And the book essentially begins with God telling Jeremiah, "I've chosen you."

That's a pretty high calling straight from the God of the universe. I get nervous when folks at church entrust me with bigger responsibilities. I can only imagine the feeling Jeremiah got when he received that calling from the Alpha and Omega. Jeremiah's initial response is simply, "I can't," to which God roared back by essentially saying, "Don't tell me what you can and can't do. I made you, and I made you for this." It takes Jeremiah a little bit to get there, and he wrestles back and forth, but he accepts the call and he moves on it.

I am starting to realize that for the God of the universe, impossible doesn't exist. God doesn't know the meaning of the word "can't" (Luke 1:37, Philippians 4:13). That can be incredibly liberating and also incredibly scary; you simply can't cop out on something when God stands with you.

In John 15:16, Jesus says to his disciples that "you did not choose me; I chose you." Just like Jeremiah, God has chosen me to (in my own unique way) produce fruit. That's an incredible responsibility. But as a Christ follower, I essentially have two choices: I can run from that calling and waste my life like the wicked servant, or I can embrace it and believe that just like with Jeremiah, God is right beside me, guiding, leading, and helping me all the way, even if I don't always see it.

Even though it's scary to me at times, God has chosen me. And I have a responsibility to do something.

The After Sunday Recap: October 4

Yesterday was a big day for our church as we kicked off our fall Contribute-emphasis series, called "Servolution." Part of the DNA our our church (and I believe the church universal) is simply that we should be people marked by our service. Service is a crux of what Jesus taught while here on the earth, and it should be a part of the lives of people who claim to be followers of Christ.

That's something that I can really get behind. And to be honest, I think it's something that just about everyone can get behind. It's good to help others. I don't know that there are too many people on the earth who would disagree with that statement. Yet moving from a simple assent to the statement "we should serve" to actually serving is a totally different thing.

I know it is for me. At CCU, we have a requirement each semester that we need to serve 15 hours somewhere, and to be completely honest, it's a real struggle for me sometimes. Serving takes time... valuable time out of our packed schedules. It takes effort and energy. It requires me to stop always focusing on myself and my desires, and instead to focus on others and how I can help them. This Sunday, we talked a lot at Suncrest about having our heart become "enlarged" so that we will quit saying things like, "I'd like to serve, but..." and actually just start serving.

We identified three basic barriers to us serving:

1. My heart is separated from the need.
2. The need is separated from my life.
3. My life is disconnected from Jesus.

For me, I think the really telling one is #2. I see needs all around me. I know that there are people living in war-torn countries who are homeless and have no idea where their next meal is going to come from, yet what have I done to help out? I know that there are lonely people in nursing homes, our people making difficult decisions at a pregnancy center, yet what am I doing to truly reach out to these people? I know that there are people living on the streets of our cities who just want someone to love on them, invest and believe in them, and show them they are worth something, yet have I done anything to help them? The answer to all of those questions is a resounding "no." James 2:14-16 reminds me that I may care about all of these situations deeply, but unless I am doing something about it, my feelings mean nothing.

Jesus himself said that He came to this world not to be served, but to serve. I think that should be reason and motivation enough for me to contribute, for me to serve, for me to selflessly put others' lives ahead of my own. This week I was reminded that part of truly following Jesus means that I am going to get off my "but" and serve the world that Jesus gave his life to save.

(You can view the 10.04.09 sermon, "Get Off Your 'But'" here.)