Posts Tagged ‘grace’

May
17
2013

God’s Purpose and Mental Illness

Today, for my weekly Leadership Journal Interview, I had the chance to talk with Amy Simpson, author of the new book, Troubled Minds. I asked her about some of the misconceptions we have about mental illness. Among her answers was this very hopeful one:

Many people also mistakenly believe that people with mental illness are doomed to live wasted and unproductive lives—that they can’t contribute to the life of the church. We have this sense of spiritual hopelessness about mental illness that we don’t have about other treatable conditions, even when they’re very serious. But God has a purpose for everyone. Mental illness may alter the course of a person’s life, but it doesn’t mean that person’s life is no good anymore. Psalm 139 is a beautiful reminder of our value to God, and his attention to the details of our lives. Verse 16 celebrates, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” God is not surprised by any of our suffering, and he wants to use all of us. His redemption is always at work, and he uses suffering to make all of us more like him and to qualify us for ministry to others. If the church gives up on people, that is the church’s doing. It’s not God’s policy.

You can read the rest of the interview here:

May
14
2013

Why Your Spiritual Growth Matters to the Community

Last week I preached a Mother’s Day message from 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9. Paul compares discipleship to the actual practice of a mother nursing her child. In this, the mother is a source of life for her child. So it is that we as Christians, must be conduits of life-giving spiritual nutrition for those around us.

This has a lot of implications for the way we live. First, it matters what we ourselves are eating. A mother who is breast-feeding has to be very, very careful about her diet because what she consumes will then make up the milk for her baby.

As a Christian, what are you consuming? Are you growing yourself? Are you taking in the meat of the Word so you can feed others. You see, there is a progression here. You can’t exactly give a baby a steak or pork chops or pizza. A mother has to take in the food, chew it up, digest it, and then her body produces milk. A baby’s digestive system needs the simple formula that breast milk gives.

When our little Emma was a baby, she had such digestive problems that we had to purchase very expensive formula–$45 a can. It broke down the proteins so finely that it enabled her sensitive system to process it and for her to get good nourishment. Paul’s comparison to a nursing mother and her baby tells us something about the way we grow. We begin, as spiritual infants, with milk. Another Apostle, Peter, picks up this theme:

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1 Peter 2:2-3 (ESV)

Notice Peter’s words. We begin with the pure spiritual milk of the Word—not diluted or polluted–but the pure milk of the Word. Kingdom as children, taking in the very basics, the very pure, refined, simple milk.

But, God doesn’t intend for us to stay that way. He intends for us to grow up. To do that, according to Paul, it seems we need to be fed and nurtured by someone more mature than us. Someone who can take the heavy meat of the word and feed us and help us to grow.This is why pastors and teachers and spiritual leaders are given to the Church (Ephesians 4).

Sadly, there are some Christians who still drinking milk who don’t pursue growth. Paul discussed this, in his frustrations with the Corinthians:

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
1 Corinthians 3:1-2 (ESV)

This is a crisis. Imagine my little Emma Rose—now three years old—is still on that expensive $45-a-can formula. When she was a newborn, it was a stage we knew she’d get through. But if, at three, she is still on the milk, we’d be going to doctors and experts and wondering what is wrong. She should be on to the meat by now.

And so it is with some Christians. They are still drinking milk. They’ve not pursued, with intentionality, the deeper things of God. They are content with milk. And something is wrong. It’s not always a matter of how old you are or how long you’ve been a Christian. It’s the way you approach your spiritual nourishment.

Sometimes you can present a child with food, but he doesn’t eat it. A good parent makes their kid eat. God as a good father, bring circumstances in your life that force you to look deeply into the word, to lean on him, and to grow up in your faith. But if you continue to resist, you will not grow. It’s up to you to take your fork and eat.

This means you prioritize church. This means you make Bible study, reading and prayer a habit. I think of Paul, who at the end of this life, was still asking for his books. I’m amazed that my wife, who watches four children, homeschools our two older ones, runs woman’s ministries, takes care of the house—she still finds time to grow in her faith. She’s probably read more books this year already than many Christians. Did I mention to you that she’s dyslexic and has a hard time reading?

The truth is that there are may Christians who are still spiritual infants, who haven’t grown much in the last few years, and still need milk. And here’s the tragedy of this, really. God has created each of us to a fountain of spiritual nourishment, a conduit of His grace to others. But when we fail to grow, we can’t feed others. We can’t help build the church. We can’t be a light in our communities.This was the concern of the writer of Hebrews:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (ESV)

Do you see what Paul is saying here—it should be a sober warning to all of us. You see, to live on milk means we can’t digest, can’t handle the meat of the Word. And the reason we need to handle the meat of the Word is not so we can be Bible nerds and know all the ways to pronounce Hebrew words, but so we can feed and give life to others.

The Christian life is to be one of giving, of making disciples, of growing up into salvation. It is allowing the gospel to so capture us that we grow up, so that we handle the deep things and pass them on to others.

There are people in our world God is calling us to feed, to love, to care for, to disciple, to nurture—are we fulfilling our role?  When we don’t grow spiritually, it’s not just a matter of our own malnutrition, it directly affects the community. People may be starving because we haven’t grown enough to feed them.

May
01
2013

How Should Christians React to Hate?

It’s no secret that the biblical sexual ethic, a beautiful monogamous relationship reserved for marriage between a man and a woman, has swiftly fallen out of favor in our culture. The recent declaration by Jason Collins, a veteran NBA center, has exposed the deep rifts in our society on the issue of homosexuality. While most of the world celebrated Collin’s courage, ESPN NBA reporter, Chris Broussard, a committed evangelical Christian, had his own courage to say, into a stiff wind of opposition, that Collin’s lifestyle choices conflict with the Christian faith.

Nothing in this story should surprise us. Society has been moving this direction for some time now. But what caught me off guard, I guess, was the public shaming of the Christian position on marriage. I heard many, well-respected sports commentators, guys I’ve listened to and followed for many years, seemingly equate Christians like Broussard with bigots and with the ignorant and unlearned. The sweeping intolerance of Christianity, the crude names leveled at Broussard and others seems to mark a new moment in our country. The reality is that holding the biblical sexual ethic will now invite open scorn. I only expect it to get worse. I only expect those who stand firm on the Scriptures to experience further persecution and hostility. And we shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus himself promised that his followers would endure some level of persecution. “They hated me, they will hate you,” he predicted (John 15:18).

So the question is this: how now shall we live? What should our reaction be? In my view there are two wrong responses and one right one.

1) We can cave in and seek the approval of men rather than the approval of God. There is a growing movement in the evangelical world that is seeking to make complicated what the Scriptures make plain, namely that perhaps the Bible is not so explicitly condemning of homosexuality as we think. As a person wired to avoid conflict I’m sympathetic to the desire to find this in the Bible, but it is just not there. Jesus himself affirmed the law of Moses when he repeated the words from Genesis, “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to His wife” (Matthew 19:5). And while Jesus offered grace to the women who violated the biblical marriage ethic and condemned the Pharisees who wanted to stone her, he also told her, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t act as if her sexual activity out of marriage was okay. He said it was sin. Sin that brought him to this earth and nailed him to a cross. Sin he graciously has forgiven. Sin which invites the grace and holiness of God. As much as we want to cave in on marriage, because to do so would make our lives as Christians much, much easier, to do so is to abandon the way of Christ. I’m reminded of Peter’s words to the persecuted believers of the 1st Century, “Stand firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:19).

2) We can ratchet up the angry, hateful, personal rhetoric. As shameful it is to cave in on Scriptural truth, it’s equally sinful to sort of use our position as an increasingly marginalized minority to lash out at those who don’t agree with us. But if we’re to take serious the truth we claim to uphold, we have to listen to all the words of Jesus, including his words, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:43-48). And we have to listen to the words of that same Apostle Peter. The same guy who told us to “stand firm” also told us to do it with civility and respect (1 Peter 3:15). I find it interesting that Peter, speaking to an increasingly marginalized, persecuted group of Christians, found it important to say, essentially, “Make sure you suffer, not for your own evil, but for doing good” (1 Peter 2:20; 1 Peter 3:17). In other words, we are to speak firmly, but with kindness, winsomeness, charity, and grace. If we are honest, we would admit that the Christian community does not always do this well. We should disagree with Jason Collin’s choices, but we should not mock him, we should not post crude or hurtful slurs online. We should not slander those who disagree with us. We should lead with grace, remembering that Jesus didn’t come to condemn, but to offer salvation and life. Jesus came for sinners and so we should seek to love sinners as much as He did. We should, like Paul, remember that we are counted in that group: we are as much sinners in need of grace as the unrepentant homosexual. I find it interesting that Paul, at the end of his life, nearing the time of his martyrdom at the hands of a cruel despot, surveyed the entire landscape and said, “I am the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Imagine that. Paul looked around the entire world, saw wicked men like Nero and the soft Christians who betrayed him and yet said, “They may be sinners, but I’m worse.” What a spirit of humility! This is the spirit that should inform our engagement on these issues where most of the culture resists. We should ask the Spirit to help us fight the urge to return rhetorical evil with rhetorical evil (1 Peter 3:9). We should reject the sort of knee-jerk, crude, mean-spirited kind of speaking that seems to characterize much of our public discourse. Civility is not unimportant and it’s not overrated and it’s not the enemy of courage.

3) We can respond with love and grace.

2 Timothy 3:12 reminds us that “all who live godly in Christ will suffer persecution.” The level of persecution we face today in America is low-level at best. Much of what we think is persecution is simply consequences of our own inability to treat people with grace. But we’re moving into an era where our positions on the issues may invite charges of bigotry. This is where we must not react with surprise or fear–remembering that trials are an opportunity for joy (James 1:2) and occasions for growth and Christlikeness (John 15; James 1:2-4). Fear stems from a lack of faith and fear causes us to react in unloving ways. But if we believe that God is completely sovereign and that we have been tasked by Him to the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18), it is incumbent on us to model Jesus’ behavior and react to hatred and intolerance with grace and love. We should be wise about responding to every charge with a countercharge. We should hold our fire sometimes, as Jesus did in the face of false accusations (John 18:33-38). We should forgive others, looking to Christ’s own forgiveness of us (Ephesians 4:32) and His forgiveness of those who crucified him, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:42). We should not be defensive, whiny, petulant. We should work hard to see every human as someone worthy of respect (1 Peter 2:17), created in the image of God (James 3:9). We should not make our fight personal or political (Ephesians 6:12). The real enemy doesn’t have a human face, but is our adversary (1 Peter 5:8). And our real hope is not in a short-term victory, but in the future hope of a coming kingdom, another world, a city whose builder and maker is God (Matthew 6:10; Hebrews 11:10).

As followers of Jesus, we’re not simply called to be counter-cultural with our sexual ethics, but also in the way we talk, speak, and articulate these things. If we are called to suffer for our faith, let’s pray God gives us the courage and grace to endure and that our lives are but a small glimpse of Christ within.

Apr
30
2013

How to Build Community in Your Church

As a pastor of a small church, I’m particularly sensitive about building a sense of community. I don’t think community is just another 21st century buzzword, I think it reflects the body life described for the church in the New Testament. For example, in our latest study of the Lord’s Prayer, I’ve been struck by Jesus intructions for how to pray. You will notice the use of the plural. “Our Father”, “Give us our daily bread”, “Forgive us our debts.” This pattern is all through the gospels, the epistles, the pastoral letters–commands and encouragements given in the plural. The point is this: Christianity was not meant to be lived individualistically. When you put your faith in Christ, you are baptized into a body, joined to a people. 

So it is an important function of the church to create environments where this body life, this community, can flourish. Much of this falls on church leadership. They must work hard to create environments for God’s people to fulfill the “one-another” commands, where gospel fellowship, confession, repentance, friendship, encouragement, and life can happen together.

But there is a role for the church member as well. Since I’ve been in some form of church leadership for a long time, I’ve really never had the experience that many Christians have in choosing a church. But in talking to people who have joined our church and talking to friends, it seems finding community is at the top of the list when deciding between equally strong, gospel-preaching churches. People will attend and stay at a church where there have friends. But what role do the church members, not the leaders, have in creating such an environment? I want to offer five ways for church members to create community. You’ll notice that these are more pragmatic in nature. I didn’t mention thinks like small groups, bible study, etc. Those are sort of assumed. I’m talking here really of just developing friendships.

1) Attend the Potlucks

I realize that if you attend a large church you may not know what a potluck is. And if you attend a small church, maybe you think it’s outdated. I realize that I’m speaking out of my own experience at a church under 100 in attendance. But my larger point is this: attend social functions at your church. You may think that potluck or chili cook-off or ice-cream social is kinda lame. Maybe there is an NFL game on that night. Maybe you’re on a vegan diet. Maybe you’d rather clean out your car. You should attend the potluck anyway and here’s why: you can’t create community simply by going to church on Sunday morning, checking it off your list, and going home. At some point you need to break bread with people, to experience life with people, to see where your church is going as a body. There is a lot in Scripture about “breaking bread” together, because something beautiful happens when people enjoy a meal together. It breaks down differences and unites you in your need to sustain yourself with food. I’ve often said that what happens at a potluck may be as important as what happens in church. Don’t mistake what I’m saying. Preaching and corporate worship are vital to the body. So is good doctrine. But you can do those two things and not have community and therefore not experience body life and therefore experience a void in your relationship with God. So, go to the potluck and eat the bad lasagna. You’ll thank me later.

2) Host other people at your home

If you want to experience community, you need to invest yourself in creating it. In my five years of pastoring, I’ve noticed something kind of funny. All the friendly people who go out of their way to make friends somehow manage to develop deep friendships. And all the stand-offish people who don’t lift a finger to create friendships seem to complain about not being able to make friends. Relationships take work, they take time, they take effort, they take intentionality.

And if you believe the local church is important, if you think that the way we love each other is a picture to the world of God’s love for us in Christ, then you’ll not consider your church friendships as a sort of neat option, but as something vital to God’s mission. Maybe you’ve never thought of this before, but it could be that having another family over to your house for dinner and developing lifelong, deep Christian friendships may affect the gospel proclamation in your community. Putting that extra roast in the oven may seem sort of pedestrian, but it may be contributing to God’s mission in your community.

There is a level of discipleship and spiritual growth that only happens in long conversations over food.

3) Help someone move

It’s amazing how much you can learn about a person as you are lifting a couch with them. I know it sounds weird, but working with someone, outside of church, outside of the sort of dressed-up official Christian functions goes a long way to developing life-long relationships. Plus, as Christians, we’re supposed to serve our brothers and sisters in the Lord in their needs. So maybe it’s giving an elderly person a ride to the doctor or maybe it’s helping a Christian brother with his basement remodeling job or maybe it’s shoveling snow for a widow. Either way, you develop deep, good, rich friendships as you are working and sweating and struggling alongside people and learning their unique sorrows and joys.

I’ve found myself that once I’ve spent a day with someone doing something other than church stuff I’ve gone somewhere with that person. I’ve learned about their jobs, their families, their history. I’ve earned a bit of relationship capital, the right to speak into them and they’ve earned that with me.

4) Get involved in a ministry

Again, I’m showing my small-church bias here. In a larger church, ministry opportunities may not be as readily available. Maybe they are. Regardless, you begin to make the church community your own by rolling up your sleeves and getting involved. Taking ownership of an area where you can apply your unique set of gifts and talents. And in many cases, you get a chance to work alongside someone you may not know. Perhaps it’s folding bulletins or maybe it’s working on a church project. Last year we remodeled the outside of our building. Many of our guys came out to work on Saturdays–as a result we got to know each other very well and developed deeper friendships. Many who work in our children’s ministries have said the same thing–they’ve had the chance to get to know and make friendships as they’ve worked alongside others.

Plus, by serving in whatever capacity you are gifted and wherever there is a need, you demonstrate to the church body that you care about them, that you’re not just at church to receive, but to give, that the welfare of the church matters to you. So much so that you’re willing to give time and effort to ensure the community is served.

5) Know and pray over the needs of others 

Do you pray for the people of your church? Do you know what to pray for? In order to pray rightly for your brothers and sisters, we actually need to know what their needs are. And to receive intercessory prayer, we need to be a bit vulnerable and share our own needs with others. Every church has a different mechanism for prayer requests. You have the formal lists that go out via email and other forms–we should take these seriously and pray for them. But you might also find that person who sits next to you at church this coming Sunday and just lean over and say, “Is there anything I can pray about for you today?” And perhaps if you’re having a difficult season, you might ask someone in church to pray for you. Open up a bit and say to them, “Hey, I could use some prayer–would you mind praying with me?”

I’ve found this to be a vital part of my own spiritual life. I have several folks in the church that pray for me specifically. I’ve had moments where I’ve pulled in a brother and said, “Hey can we pray over this really quickly?” And I’ve had brothers and sisters pull me in and ask for prayer. Something powerful happens in a friendship when you pray together.

Apr
23
2013

The Rhythm of Forgiveness and Repentance

This past Sunday, in our sermon series Teach us to Pray, we looked at this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Now this phrase of this prayer would be really wonderful if it stopped at “Forgive us our debts.” That’s how most of us pray, if we’re honest. The Bible tells us we enter life with a debt–a massive gap between us and God (Romans 3:23; Romans 5:12, among others). Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection erased paid that debt and offers reconciliation with God. Anyone who has put their faith in Christ can pray this prayer with hope, knowing his debt has been forgiven.

But the prayer doesn’t stop there. Jesus says that we’re to pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This word “as” is not just a fill-in word here. It’s a real Greek word, hos that means , wait for it, . . .  as. So Jesus is saying exactly what we think He is saying, “Forgive us our debts in proportion to the way we forgive our debtors.” And just to be sure we understood what Jesus is saying, Jesus comments on this verse in verse 14—the only additional commentary he offered on any of these requests in the Lord’s Prayer—with this:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, Matthew 6:14 (ESV)

Jesus talked like this over and over again. He is communicating some very hard truths here. They are difficult to swallow. He seems to be saying to us this: you are only forgiven as much as you forgive. Augustine called this a “terrible petition” because in this, we are really praying for God to withhold his forgiveness of us in proportion to how we forgive others. Charles Spurgeon said of this passage that to pray this, without practicing forgiveness is to “sign your own death warrant.”

What exactly does this passage mean? I think it can have several implications.

First, it can mean that if you have no ability, no desire to forgive others, perhaps you have not been forgiven yourself. One of the effects of the gospel is that it softens our heart and causes us to forgive, to let go of grudges. Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” The mark of a true believer is his ability to forgive. Not that you’re not struggling with forgiveness. Not that you don’t wrestle with it. I like what Kent Hughes says by way of explanation in his Preaching the Word commentary on Matthew:

I am not referring to those who find that bitterness and hatred recur even though they have forgiven the offender. The fact that you have forgiven and continue to forgive is a sign of grace. We are not talking about people who are struggling with forgiveness. It is those who have no desire to forgive who are in soul danger. There may also be some who have been recently offended and are still in emotional shock and so have not been able to properly respond with forgiveness. The point is: If we are Christians, we can and will forgive!

These are hard words by Jesus, but words needed for those who perhaps may act religious, who have gone through the motions and think they are close to God yet have not been truly regenerated. One way to test your heart is to see if you are willing, able to forgive. This was the case of the Pharisees. They were religious. They kept the moral law. They were the conservatives of their generation. And yet Jesus said their hearts were like open graves. They couldn’t forgive.

And yet we know it can’t be saying that the way to get to Heaven, the way to earn God’s forgiveness of us is by forgiving. It’s not teaching a “works-based” salvation. It’s not saying, to earn favor with God, go forgive people. The point of this passage really is saying that as you are forgiven, so you forgive. A great parallel passage is in Matthew 18 and the parable Jesus shared of a king who forgave a man who owed a tremendous debt and then could not forgive the man who owed him a little one. To quote my friend, Ray Pritchard, “it was the king who first forgave.”

This is how the gospel begins in us. First, we’re forgiven by the king and then we forgive. We can’t ever forget the ordering of these two things. If we are to believe the gospel, we have to say that we can’t truly forgive until we’ve been forgiven. We don’t have the power. Romans reminds us that God “sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts by faith.” The gospel is the wellspring of forgiveness. This is what Paul means when he tells the Ephesians in 4:32: “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do you.” You forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

Secondly, this is a diagnosis of a Christian’s heart. We know Jesus’ primary audience is his disciples, who, by virtue of faith in Christ’s coming death and resurrection, will receive forgiveness. This is why they can call God abba to begin with. The gospel restores us to that intimate relationship with God. So in this phrase He asks us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” He is saying that we will feel and understand the full weight of God’s forgiveness of us as we forgive others.

In other words, God has forgiven us in Christ, but we often don’t fully enjoy that grace, we can’t rest in it, because we are committing the sin of unforgiveness.

At the same time, this prayer diagnoses the reason Christians hold grudges and can’t forgive. Why? Because they’ve forgotten the debts they’ve been forgiven of God. It again relates to Jesus’ parable in Matthew 18 about the King who forgave an enormous debt of one man, who then couldn’t forgive a smaller debt. Jesus is speaking to us, saying, “I’ve forgiven you the equivalent of trillions of dollars, say several times the national debt and you can’t forgive your brother five bucks.”

The reason we don’t forgive, the reason we harbor it in our hearts, is simple: We’ve forgotten the gospel. Forgiven people forgive. The problem is that we, like the Pharisees, often think God forgave us because we were already pretty good to start with. This pride keeps from forgiving others. This is especially a problem of longtime Christians. We hear the gospel and get converted and then we think we have to “move past it.” We don’t see ourselves the way God saw us before we came to Christ. We see ourselves as deserving of His mercy and grace. We don’t realize the great huge debt God forgave us.

That’s why I love Paul’s declaration that he was the “chief of sinners.” In other words, Paul looked around and said this, “As bad as others are, I’m worse. I’m the worst. God needed more grace for me than anyone else.” And that attitude kept Paul in the flow of God’s rich grace and able to forgive others.

You will not experience the full weight of God’s forgiveness of you until you learn how to forgive others. And you will not learn how to forgive others until you understand the full weight of Gods’ forgiveness of you.

Our forgiveness of others demonstrates how much we understand how much God has forgiven us. Our ability to forgive others tells God what we think of the gospel. If we think it was cheap, then we’ll forgive others cheaply. But if we see the cost, then we’ll forgive deeply

To pray and to live out this prayer is to be in the rhythm of repentance and forgiveness of the Christian life. We are constantly in need of repentance and constantly called to forgive. You will find this spiritual rhythm over and over in the Scriptures. It is the way of grace. And every relationship we have depends on this: repentance and forgiveness are the oil of human relationships.

This concept can radically change your marriage. If you recognize that you are a sinner in need of your spouses’ forgiveness and that your spouse is a sinner in need of forgiveness. So often Christians forget this principle and they let their relationships sort of harden and calcify. They’ve forgotten the gospel in their marriage and this is why there is bitterness, anger, and detachment. Marital intimacy depends on the gospel, this life cycle of repentance and forgiveness.

This concept also radically can alter your parenting. You as a parent must constantly ask your children for forgiveness and you must constantly forgive them. And on and on it goers throughout all of our relationships. This is why Jesus mentions this in the same context as our need for bread. Because a tranquil heart, right with God and man, is as vital as bread.

Apr
17
2013

How NOT to grow spiritually

How does a person grow? Specifically, for followers of Jesus, how does a person grow spiritually? Another word for growth is sanctification–that supernatural process by which the Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and forms us into Christ’s image. Growth is primarily a work that God does in us–I can’t, essentially, make myself grow.

And yet you can’t escape the New Testament’s overwhelming pulse that God commands us to intentionally pursue Him, that growth is, in some ways, our job as Christians. There are quite a few texts that illuminate this, but 1 Timothy 4:7 comes to mind. Paul here tells us to “discipline ourselves to godliness.” In other words, yes the Holy Spirit does the work in us, but we also will not grow if our Christian life consists of us sitting on the couch and waiting for growth to happen.

So how do we grow? What are the tools God uses? That question could fill up a year’s worth of blog posts. It certainly has motivated the writing of many books, sermons, etc. But maybe a better question is this: what are some ways to ensure that we DON’T grow spiritually? I’ve got five ways to ensure that you, as a Christian, do NOT grow spiritually:

1) Don’t Be Intentional About Your Spiritual Life. I’m amazed at how little Christians prioritize their spiritual growth. If you treat church as something you do if you can feel like it, then don’t be surprised if you don’t “get fed” at the place you worship. If you don’t intentionally pursue knowledge about God through reading of good books and listening to good podcasts, don’t be surprised at a lack of spiritual fruit. If you don’t prioritize a study of God’s Word, prayer, and the spiritual disciplines, you will not see continued growth. You will stay the same. If you don’t want to grow in Christ, make sure your spiritual life is something that gets the leftovers of your times and energy and effort. Make sure you never read a book that makes you get out a dictionary. Feed your soul on the light fare and the junk food.

2) Always Hang Out With People Just Like You. One of the ways God stretches us is by placing us with people who are radically different from us. We live in a world of radical individualization and, if you are not careful, this can creep into your life, especially as you get older and more secure in your worldview. You’ll be tempted to hang out only with people who agree with you and reinforce your own biases. This will ensure that you have the exact same opinion on every single issue as you did five years ago. It will also keep you from being exposed to people from differing cultures, tribes, and perspectives. If you don’t want to grow, keep looking for friends, churches, associations, blogs, books that just tell you what you like to hear all the time. Make sure you never have conversations with people who disagree with you, radically. Yeah, do that. This is a real growth killer.

3) Never take any risks. If you want to ensure that you are the same exact person you were five years ago, be so conservative in everything you do that you don’t take any risks. But here’s the thing, if you construct a life with minimal risk, you’re essentially editing out the need for faith. I heard this last week from a talk by Bryan Lorits. He essentially said that faith assumes risk. Imagine if Abraham stayed in Ur, because Ur was more secure. Would he have experienced all the richness of God’s love? Would he have grown into the mighty man of faith we see in Hebrews 11? No, he wouldn’t have. We probably wouldn’t have heard of him, would we? Take some risks in life. Put yourself in some situations, relationships, job assignments–that are completely and totally foreign, that will require maximum effort and knee-knocking faith.

4) Keep patting yourself on the back. There is a reason that the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). You only grow and you only find wisdom for life when you realize that you need to grow and that you need wisdom for life. Lot of young guys do this. They don’t read, study, ask questions, because they think they’ve got it figured out. This was me until I became a father of four and realized I have no clue about life and I need God to pour wisdom into me. I find this dynamic in my role as a pastor. The most humble, searching, digging-into-the-Scriptures guys are the ones who have lots of responsibility (family, job, etc). They know they are in need of divine guidance. If you don’t want to really grow spiritually, keep thinking you know stuff. Wisdom only comes after you’ve bowed your knee in humility to the God who knows all things. As long as you think you are the master of your universe and that you don’t need any help with anything, you will ensure that you will not grow.

5) Chase trends and dis faithfulness. If you want to have a life of unfruitfulness, keep chasing new trends and paradigms. Keep looking for the easy way out, the shortcut. People who stay the same are people who don’t like to work hard at growth, who don’t want to put in the blood, sweat, and tears of a life of impact. My generation–we love to talk big about how we are going to change the world–but I wonder if we value faithfulness and steadiness like previous generations. If you want an insignificant life of spurts and starts and stops, keep chasing the next big thing, keep avoiding the hard choices, the sweat, the grind of daily life. Keeping your hand at the wheel, year after year, ensures a life of depth, of weight, of character.

Apr
10
2013

5 Ways Adult Children Can Honor Their Parents

How should an adult grown (presumably married, but not necessarily) child relate to his or her parents? There is a tension in Scripture between obeying the Scripture which says to “leave and cleave” in forming your own adult identity and family (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5) and obeying the Scripture which says to “honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2).

Every family has it’s own rhythm. Every family has its own share of circumstances, from abusive to permissive to annoying, etc. So how one adult child handles his or her parents isn’t necessarily a blueprint for another. Still, the Scriptures seem to indicate an intentional approach to the way we love our parents as adults.

This is a journey I’ve travelled in the last few years. I seem to have endured the typical cycle: being cared for and nurtured by my parents as a child, distancing and forming my own identity as a teen (though still wanting their money and food), thinking my generation will solve all the mistakes my parents made, and finally where I am today: appreciating my parents and figuring out how I can love them better. I’m guessing you’ve travelled a similar road.

As I’ve pondered this important relationships, I’ve come up with five general guidelines for the way adult children should handle their parents. Like most of my lists, this is not exhaustive and I know that after reading this some outraged and enterprising blogger will create a response. So be it. Here’s the list:

1) Always respect your parents, even when it is difficult. By honoring, I think the Bible is saying more than simple respect. But it’s not saying less. I’m amazed at how I hear otherwise good, godly people treat their parents. I’ve been in nursing homes where kids are literally yelling and berating their parents. I realize that sometimes parents are not the easiest people to love, but this is why love is something we do and is not something we feel. Your parents, regardless of their flaws, brought you into the world. They nurtured and cared for you and loved you the best way they can. Give them some respect, treat them with kindness and deference, and realize that one day you’ll be the one with the walker and the really bad elastic pants. You don’t want your kids yelling at you that way, do you?

2) Find ways to affirm the good things they did in your childhood. I’m not sure there is a generation with more childhood angst than mine. We really think our parents messed everything up so badly and that we’ll get it just right. I thought this way right up until I became a father and realized just how difficult parenting could be. I understand the need for cartharsis and fleshing out past hurts and using your past as context for your future. Yes, I get it. But do we have to start every negative conversation with, “Growing up . . . .” I’m speaking to myself here. Let’s instead find ways to affirm the good our parents gave us–which is likely a lot more than we think. Let’s tell them to their faces how much we appreciate their care, their love, their goodness. Parents, especially as they age, can be incredibly reflective. They question themselves, Did I do the right thing? They have regrets, some even have shame. So be an encouragement to your parents. Do this often and do it with intentionality.

3) Find ways to bless them in physical ways. Sometimes this simply means going out for coffee and shutting up and letting them talk. Let them tell those same stories they’ve told before. It’s good for them and good for you. Sometimes this means lending financial support if your parents fall on hard times (and please, save the lectures on wise money management. You should not be Dave Ramsey to your parents. Just help them if you can). Sometimes this means doing physical things, helping them clean out their home, taking them to doctor appointments, the airport, or anything they need. Sometimes this means allowing them, in advanced age, to stay in your home and care for them. All of this, I think, is in the spirit of what the Scripture says when it says to “honor your father and mother.” It means to make sure they are always well-cared for as best you can. It’s ironic how the life cycle goes, is it not? Our parents spend their most productive years caring for us and now we get to return the favor and care for them.

4) Set healthy boundaries. You need to set healthy boundaries with your parents so they know where the lines are between your family and them. They don’t always know this and sometimes if the distance is too big, they think they are imposing every time they come over. If the distance is too small, it can suffocate your own family. You need to “leave” your parents in the sense that you need to be financially and physically separate as best you can. You’ll have to have some frank conversations at times. Again, every situation is different, so no judgement here, just some general wisdom. In setting boundaries, always, always, always do it with grace and respect (see #1 above). Make sure you are making your own decisions in your family, but don’t hesitate to ask your parents advice. You don’t have to take it but you just might learn something from it and it will make them feel good as well.

5) Don’t try to change your parents. The real way to love and honor your parents is to simply just love and honor them, despite their flaws, despite the annoying things you disliked when you were a kid. Put up with whatever it is they do that annoys you. Do it, not because you’ll get a tangible benefit, but because they are your parents and you are to love them. Let them know they are welcome in your home, that you enjoy having them around, that they don’t have to walk on eggshells around you. Yes, you’re way of doing family may be different (that’s okay), yes they will probably give your kids candy before dinner (that’s okay, too), yes you wish they were a little more this way or a tad more that way. But hey, they are your parents, they brought you into the world, and if you are serious about obeying and following Jesus, you’ll honor them and love them.

 

Apr
09
2013

My 5 Rules of Writing

I’ve been working with words, in one way or another, since I was in high-school and it has been work with words that has formed the majority of my adult working life, both as a writer, editor and now in my role as a pastor. Writing is one of my loves and one of the few things I think I can do reasonably well, though I’m a long, long way from good.

Lots of people ask me what my “method” is for writing. I haven’t given much thought about it, but perhaps it’s worth a blog post. So here are my five rules of writing, if you are interested:

1) Don’t despise small things. Most people start with a book idea, the magnum opus of their lives. But if you start with that, your book won’t be very good. Better to start with small projects for lesser-known publications. Do this for two reasons: 1) To cut your teeth writing and get experience and 2) to build a resume of credits. Magazine editors and book publishers like to see that you’ve been published before. Blogging is starting to flatten that a bit. Still, it’s important to start blogging when only your mother and your wife reads what you write.

2) Above all, keep writing. The best way to get better at writing is to . . . well, write. So to piggyback off of #1, start writing when you’re a nobody and keep writing when you have no audience. For almost 8 years I wrote in total obscurity for a Christian organization, managing their publications, converting sermons into devotionals, articles, and books. This, as I look back, was one of the most important seasons of my life. It taught me to write fast and to produce something.

3) Be editable. Hold your words and ideas loosely. I recently had someone tell me their first draft was ready for publishing. This was the first draft of anything they’d ever written before. It’s not ready for publication. It needs a trained eye, some seasoning, some polishing. The best writing is collaborative. That is to say that you write the very best you can at that moment (a lesson Cecil Murphey taught me) and then allow others to heavily criticize it and edit it. Those red marks are not your enemy, but your best friend. If you’ve read a good book recently that inspired you its because the author had a few unseen eyes polish it. Be grateful for editors. This is God’s way of keeping you humble. In the immortal words of one of my editors, “You’re not Hemingway, so you need an editor.” Yes, yes. The older you get, the more you will actually seek out good editors to look at your stuff. I have two or three folks who do this for major book projects.

4) Find your voice. The thing about writing and getting more and more experience writing–is that you find your voice. Don’t strive to be the next ______. To quote Jon Acuff, that slot is already taken. Be you. And your voice will mature and grow as you mature and grow. Fill up your soul with good reading, life experiences, faith, and love. Drink deeply from a variety of sources and allow your ideas to be shaped and formed. This, more than anything, will make your writing sparkle and grow and inspire. The words I wrote as a young college student probably would inspire nobody now, mainly because I was writing from a position of perceived knowledge, but had not endured any of the real rhythms of life in a fallen world.

5) Find your own method. Some more disciplined writers get up every day at 5 am and crank out 5,000 words, regardless if they have a project. For many years I beat myself up, thinking that needed to be me. Then I realized that this just doesn’t work for me. I’m a deadline guy. I need a deadline to produce. So what I do is continually seek new projects and new ideas which give me new deadlines. Blogging makes this a bit more challenging, however, I’ve committed myself to two or three blogs a week. What’s really cool about this is that I simply write a blog whenever I’m inspired with a short idea that won’t be suitable for an article or a chapter. Then I just sit down and write it and schedule it. So this blog here came right before I was to work on a chapter. I scheduled it to post today. Interestingly, I don’t have a set time that works best for me. I can write at night, in the morning, late at night. Typically with a book project, I do this: I sit down for a large chunk of time and do the writing and I write until I absolutely can’t write anymore. Then I put it to rest for a few days and go back and start editing and then start writing again. Works for me.

A few other thoughts on finding my own method. I tend to work best with music on. For some that distracts. For me, it inspires. I have a hymns playlist that really gets me in the mood for deep reflection. Another key thing for me, is to have a pad of paper handy to write down key thoughts for that chapter or book–to sort of frame a loose outline. For some unexplainable reason, a pen in my hand and paper is better for capturing first seed thoughts. For a while I felt bad that perhaps I should have a more digital tool for this–Evernote or something. But then I remembered that it’s really okay to use a pen and paper. Sometimes digital tools make life more complicated. Lastly, I tend to like to do a bunch of research first, online or in books, and mark it up and organize it before I do my chapter (I do this with my sermons as well). Then I print out the online stuff. I know I could easily just read it online, but again, something about paper and pen here that serves well. I do use Evernote for online articles–just to have one place to keep them for going back and doing footnotes. By the way, I hate footnoting, I hate this work, but it’s important and publishers really keep you on your toes about sources. And as a reader I enjoy being able to see the sources for folks in their books. Still, I hate footnoting. Cool feature of Heaven, btw? No footnoting.