Why do we fight it...

This post has been a long time in the making.

When I mean making, it's sort of like a crock pot rather than a microwave.

You see, about a month ago, while listening to the Daily Audio Bible, I heard the story of David prior to his being made king of Israel and with his struggle with the king at the time, Saul (1 Samuel).

Several attempts were made on David's life by Saul, including throwing a spear at him, plotting to kill him, etc.

At the same time, however, David had opportunities to kill Saul and refused to do it. Why? Because he refused to take on the job of killing God's anointed king.

Fast forward to Romans 13 (the Daily Audio Bible hasn't gotten this far yet). The first verse reads.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. (Romans 13:1 TNIV)

Then I hear of the pastor who is praying for President Obamas death (an extreme case but...). I also hear conservatives who call themselves Christians who are also quite outspoken about the president. How is this any different than David's situation. These people believe that somehow, what is in their best interest is in danger so they slander and defame the man in the office. A man that, if I read the passage above correctly, God appointed.

Then I think back to David... I will not kill God's anointed king...

Hmmm...

About Books

I just ordered a copy of Jesus Manifesto. You can read a good review/commentary of the book here.

Marj just bought 2 copies of Alter, a book my friend Dave wrote.

Once I get time to read one or the other, I'll review them here.

What's A Blog?

AOL (America on line) posted this video where they asked people in Times Square....

I wonder how many of their statements define me.

Watch more AOL News videos on AOL Video

Sheep & Shepherds

John 10:14-18 struck me as I heard it yesterday. This is from The Message version

“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father.”

Do we truly know Jesus' voice? Do we really know how to listen to Jesus' voice?

An elephant in the church?

Dallas Willard was interviewed in Conversations Journal in an article called Getting the Elephant out of the Sanctuary.

In this interview, he discusses transformation and views of the atonement.

God's Love

Since the week after Easter, Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN has been teaching a series on God's Scandalous Love, a series I am really enjoying.

So far...

• Love Is... - It is impossible to fully grasp God's love because it is infinite! The best we can do is humbly recognize our limitations in this way and give ourselves over to the overwhelming love that God extends to us. Focus Scripture – 1 John 4:8
• God Is Love - The love of God expressed in Christ on the cross was “foolishness to the Gentiles” and “a stumbling block to the Jews”. God’s love is scandalous to us all in different ways. Focus Scripture – 1 John 4:8
• Covenantal Love - The love of God expressed in Christ on the cross shows the radical lengths God is willing to go to restore us. This healing of our relationship with God takes the form of a covenant, not a contract. Focus Scripture – 2 Corinthians 4:4
• Victorious Love - God’s love is victorious! But perhaps not in the way that you’d expect. We often associate victory with our ability to control or defeat others but God’s victory encourages our freedom rather than squelches it. (We love discovering art that connects us to God in unique ways. Focus Scripture – 1 Corinthians 1:18,23-24

The take away point from "Victorious Love" is that if your view of God is not scandalous (see 1 Cor 1:18, 23-24), you have the wrong view of God.

Jesus on the Main Line

This was posted on the CoverMe blog (Songs done by someone other than the original performer). Check out the bass singer at the end!

This is Ry Cooder performing the song...

Reading Paul

Some time ago, I subscribed to Paul Young's blog. Paul is the author of "The Shack". It had been quite since 2007 (you think I go a long time between posts?). Suddenly, early this month, he announced 30 days of blogs which he will write on the road. While he recounts his journeys over the last month, it is interesting to watch how God works through him and how the book he wrote has worked through others.

Good news came in the mail today!

I got a letter today from a company that wants to make a plaque for me. Why? Because I was awarded Patent Number 7697503 for a Dynamic Speed Dial List. Of course, Qwest actually owns the patent but I am the inventor.

In short, Qwest would provide a service that would track the phone calls placed or received at your home, organizing them into a web accessible speed dial list that could be used easily from your computer...

If you look, the Patent was actually submitted a little over 4 years ago and was rejected once. Fortunately for me, Qwest chose to pursue the application further.

And no, I don't think I want to spend the money on the plaque...

Degrees of Separation

Exodus 20:18-19

When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram’s horn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear.

And they said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us, or we will die!”

Deuteronomy 5:23-27

“The Lord spoke these words to all of you assembled there at the foot of the mountain. He spoke with a loud voice from the heart of the fire, surrounded by clouds and deep darkness. This was all he said at that time, and he wrote his words on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

“But when you heard the voice from the heart of the darkness, while the mountain was blazing with fire, all your tribal leaders and elders came to me. They said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Today we have seen that God can speak to us humans, and yet we live! But now, why should we risk death again? If the Lord our God speaks to us again, we will certainly die and be consumed by this awesome fire. Can any living thing hear the voice of the living God from the heart of the fire as we did and yet survive? Go yourself and listen to what the Lord our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.’

Deuteronomy 18:15:17

Moses continued, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you yourselves requested of the Lord your God when you were assembled at Mount Sinai. You said, ‘Don’t let us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this blazing fire, for we will die.’

Each of these passages describe the people of Israel discovering that God can speak and fellowship with humans. Out of fear, they ask Moses to intercede for them, one "degree of separation". They asked for rules rather than relationship.

Even though we have a new intercessor (Romans 8:26-27), I wonder if we don't often choose a human intercessor rather than relationship (spiritual leaders of all sort). Have we chosen to follow some man-made set of rules rather than to foster a relationship with the triune God.

Tim Hawkins

Tim Hawkins was on the Drew Marshall Show last weekend so I thought I'd share some of the songs I enjoyed...

Good Friday Thoughts

I appreciated Baxter Kruger's thoughts on Good Friday. He writes:

I just read an essay on Jesus “absorbing the wrath of God” on the cross. It almost made me throw up. With such ease and passion and not a little patronizing the writer split Jesus’ Father into two different persons, and then ripped the Father-Son relationship apart, apparently without even knowing it, or caring. What madness. I suppose the Holy Spirit just stood there dazed wondering whose side he was supposed to join. There is something sinister about the need to have the Father vent his rage upon his own Son. And even more so when one then tries to call such an act “glorious grace.” But punishment is not forgiveness, and murder is not grace, and Jesus did not suffer the wrath of his Father, and the Holy Spirit was not torn between two lovers.

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.” (MT 20:18-19)

It was the human race—not the Father—who condemned his Son. We cursed him. We poured our scorn, our wrath, our rage upon Jesus. We murdered him. And Jesus deliberately submitted himself to us and to our bizarre wrongheadedness. He bore our wrath. He suffered our enmity and died in the arms of our scorn. And he was not alone. His Father and the Holy Spirit were with him. And that is just the point. In the murder of Jesus the life of the Father, Son and Spirit found its way into our greatest sin—and overcame it. The cross is not about Jesus being forsaken by his Father; it is about the Father’s Son incarnate and the One anointed in the Holy Spirit submitting himself to the darkness of the human race, and thereby establishing a relationship with us as gross sinners. In the genius of the blessed Trinity our rejection and murder of Jesus were turned into the ultimate act of acceptance and embrace. In the murder of Jesus the blessed Trinity was “absorbing the wrath of the human race,” thereby forming oneness with us in our sin, and including us in Jesus’ relationship with his Father in the Holy Spirit. That is glorious grace, and forgiveness, and atonement, and real reconciliation, and love, and holiness, and right relationship, and mercy, and judgment.

Thank you Father, Son and Spirit for loving us beyond our wildest dreams.

To Busy Disorder?

Think you have Too Busy Disorder? Visit toobusydisorder.com

The Irony of our youth

It strikes me that it is ironic that a generation that doesn't seem to want to read would use Facebook and texting as a major form of communication.

Repost: Liberated from Legalism

Scot McKnight has been blogging about "Liberated from Legalism", you can read the series here.

In this series, Scot is exploring 'how Galatians helps us see that we are liberated from "legalism."'

Here is a summary of the posts:

1. What is Legalism? Post 1 & 2
2. How does it affect our relationships? Post 2
3. What is Freedom? Post 3
4. What has Christ done for us? Post 4, 5 & 6

I liked the way the last post defined legalism:

Legalism is any practice or belief that is added to the gospel that compromises the sufficiency of Christ as Savior and jeopardizes the adequacy of the Spirit in moral guidance.

Legalism then is the charge against you or me, often sensed at the deepest level, that we are not accepted by God in Christ and indwellt by the Holy Spirit.

The question we should be asking ourselves, then, is "What sorts of legalism do I practice? Where do I add to the gospel of Christ?".

Put down the duckie

Here is a great object lesson...

Twitter

I am not a huge twitter user but do have an account and several people who think it is worth following me on twitter. I do, however, follow a couple of people who are quite active. Yesterday a name came though on his feed that surprised me... Darlene Zschech

While I do not know her personally, I know of her reputation and her work as a worship leader and song writer.

If you want to follow her on twitter, her feed is at the bottom of the page linked above.

No Love?

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

This is the start of one of the more popular chapters in our Bible. Although it is often read at weddings, the chapter is really more about the love God has for us and we are to have for others. All too often, I have sped through these verses to get to "the good stuff".

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. 1 John 4:7-8 (The Message)

Love for others is really the measure of our faith and our knowledge of God.

How does this all tie together? All too often, those who claim to be followers of Christ (Christians), appear too unloving. Like many of those around us, we often assume "the end" -- many times we have our favorite cause which we somehow attribute to God's cause -- "justifies the means". Instead we come across as spiritual bullies... As unloving.

As first passage I quoted points out, it doesn't really matter how you talk, how much faith you have or even what you do, if you do not exhibit love, the people who really need to hear are going to hear you as more of an annoyance.

Ultimately, I am bankrupt without love for those around me.

Kyle is officially a TaeKwonDo Black Belt

After lots of years of preparation, Kyle has officially earned his black belt. He was unanimously approved by the other black belts in the school. This is a picture of him with his teacher in his new school uniform and belt (complete with embroidered name) ...

Yes, I am a proud father.

So Beautiful

As I mentioned here, I've been listening to Leonard Sweet's book "So Beautiful". This book is really resonating with me. In it he talks about the DNA of the Church (not a particular church). He uses the term MRI which stands for Missional, Relational and Incarnational. This has been an interesting book. There is a promotional video below.

So Beautiful, by Leonard Sweet from David C. Cook on Vimeo.