Love God with Your Mind

Originally written for the Oakland Independent Dec. 2016

Love the Lord your God with all . . . your mind. Matthew 22:37

Who is the smartest man who ever lived?

If you know your Bible, you might say Solomon, because it declares him to be the wisest man ever up to that point. If you think through history, then perhaps Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, or even Confucius might come to mind. I would argue though that the smartest person ever was none other than Jesus of Nazareth. A man from a small town who never wrote his own teachings down, but whose life and teachings have none the less transformed the world as we know it. In fact, western civilization itself is grounded upon the life and teachings of this young itinerant preacher.

But you say, no fair, Jesus is was not just a man, He was God and therefore had all wisdom, so we cannot put Him in the same category. While that is true, Jesus was also a real human, born as a real hey born, who as a human had to grow in wisdom and strength. Luke 2:52.

He calls us to follow Him and become like Him and one of the ways that we do this is by loving God with all of our minds. Many of the wisest and smartest people in history were specifically motivated by their desire to know God and His world better. Famous mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler said about his own discoveries, "I was merely thinking God's thoughts after him."

Here are some suggestions about how we become more like Jesus and love God with our minds well.

First, read good books, because they help us think about ideas from different perspectives that broaden our lives. Of course, the most read book of history is the Bible, which is actually of compilation of 66 books, so start there. I am constantly reading through the Bible with one plan or another. In it God tells us about Himself, the world, and even ourselves from a perspective that we could never get on our own.

Classic books are another place to find wisdom. They are classics because they had an impact on people that continues. You can find lists of classic books on the internet or at libraries, and many of these books are free in electronic format and from your library. Years ago, I got some lists of classics and have been slowly working my way through them. People like, Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Tolkien, Lewis, and many more, have enriched by life by introducing me to other worlds, times and ideas. 

Second and related, is to find wise people and listen to them. Parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, coaches and community leaders all have a wealth of learning that they can give you. Listen to their stories and ask them about their favorite books. For example, a older pastoral mentor of mine always has book recommendations that end up impacting my life.

Finally,  disciple yourself to learn and study. This means stopping other activities and dedicating time. This is especially true if you are reading classic literature or studying new material that is hard  to understand. Our brains are like muscles and so reading a hard section of the Bible or a Russian author whose style is very different, is like lifting weights for your brain. The more you challenge yourself, the easy it will be, and the rewards will be a healthier mind. 

All truth is God's truth and as Christians we are encouraged to discover the world that God made. In the process, if we let truth found in His Word and His world transform us, we will become more like Jesus, which will make us better humans in all of our endeavors. 

Giving Good Gifts

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.

During the Christmas season, we often focus on the giving and the getting of gifts. This is a great impulse that shows how the Christian holiday still impacts the larger culture. Christmas, after all, is a celebration of the greatest gift ever given, namely God giving Himself to the world in the form of the baby Jesus. The world may have perverted the idea of gift giving into merely a giving and receiving of material gifts, but we can and should continue to give in the way God gives. Here are a few Biblical principles of giving that can help us give like Jesus.

First, our giving should be done willingly and gladly. Paul tells the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 9:7 that each person should give what they want from their heart, and that God loves a cheerful giver. He reminds them how much God gives them, and that they will receive a reward from the Lord for their giving. The reward for giving to the Lord would not necessarily be material, but rather comes in the form of deepened relationship with God and others. Furthermore, while they were giving to God, the actual money was going to poor Christians in Israel who needed material help, so by giving to God, they ended up help fellow believers too.

When we give out of love to other people, we are ultimately giving back to God. This understanding of giving will lessen the transactional nature of giving that our modern society has. Many people give big gifts because they want to see the reactions of those receiving the gifts and to hear the praise about how great the gift was. Sometimes this comes out of an emotional need to be needed, rather than loving desire to see the best for the other person. If when we give, we are simply giving it all to God then we trust Him and have joy in Him regardless of the reaction of the individual getting the gift.

This will also help us learn the second lesson of giving, namely that we need to learn to give sacrificially just as Jesus did for us. Many of us in America are very wealthy compared to the rest of the world and people throughout history. We can give a lot and not really feel the loss in any real way. Thus we need to learn how to give up something of value to us for the sake of giving to others. In Mark 12:41-44, we see Jesus pointing out that a poor widow who only gave a few cents to the temple actually gave more to the Lord than did the rich people because she gave all that she had to the Lord. 

I have often experienced that people who have the least are often those who are most generous. In my first ministry, the poorest family in the church always had and open door and was always willing to have you join them for a meal, while the wealthiest family never had me in their house in the three years even though I was on their doorstep several times.

To learn how to give sacrificially, we need to examine the areas of our lives, both time and money, to which we hold on the tightest. We then need to give those areas over to the Lord and ask Him how we might give these very things away to show His love to others. Perhaps you can find a needy family have your whole family give them Christmas presents. Operation Christmas Child, Angel Tree, and many local ministries focus on the needs of people who might otherwise not get gifts. You could also spend time helping at a mission or find some other way to serve your community. In these ways, we can both learn to give up our time and money and also help people who have real needs.

Finally then, if our giving is really to be a reflection of the love of God, then we need to give wisely. God desires to give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11), but He does not always give us what we want. Rather when we ask, he gives us what we need.

So when we give we need to make sure that we do not give gifts that may end up being harmful. For instance, giving a pocket knife to three year old would not be wise, but giving a cellphone or gaming console to a preteen may be just as harmful if they do not have the discipline necessary to set limits on their time or the content they watch. We could also end up hurting our family or ourselves if we go into debt to give gifts. We are not loving others well if in buying the present we give away the future. 

By learning these biblical principles of giving we become more like the ultimate giver of good gifts and become part of giving His love to the world. 

Can you Bring Joy to God?

A favorite Christmas songs is Joy to the World, where we sing about Jesus coming into the world to bring God's joy to a dark world where joy is lacking. During the Christmas season, I have often reflected on how much I need joy from God, because I am sad or I have been trusting in things that bring momentary happiness, but do not bring lasting joy. Because of what Jesus has done, God does give us great and lasting joy through our worship of Him. But is the reverse true, can I bring joy to God?

Having grown up in a religious household, I knew it needed to behave to please God, but I never really felt like my life could possibly bring Him joy. My focus was on how far short I fell of God's expectations. Therefore, I have always struggled believing that God liked me, because I was unconscously convinced that His favor was dependent on my behavior. I have met many people from small towns and good Christian homes who have felt the same.

Therefore, when I read a verse like this:

Zephaniah 3:17
The Lord your God is in your midst;
he is a warrior who can deliver.
He takes great delight in you;

he renews you by his love;

he shouts for joy over you.

I do not immediately feel the impact of it. Here God is talking to a group of Israelites who are humble and meek, and who God has brought through a time of judgment that others in their nation had faced because they did not want to follow God. In other words, these are people who wanted to be children of God and now God comforts them by telling them that He will watch over them and delight in them as a good father does his children.

A good comparison to God's love and delight during the Christmas season is the delight you take in giving your kids and grandkids presents. For me, I get much more joy from showing my love by giving gifts than receiving gifts. Likewise, God loves to give good gifts to His children (see Matt. 7:11), and He does it not because we have done anything for Him, but rather simply because we are His kids.

God's greatest gift is Himself, in the person of Jesus. He offers this gift to everyone, and like the ancient Israelites, we have the opportunity to accept this gift. When we do, we too become His special children in whom He delights. His love renews us and He actually shouts for joy over you!

I am so encouraged by this incredible truth. Not only is Christmas a time to be reminded that God came to bring us joy, but we can take more joy in the fact that by accepting His gift we can bring joy to God our ultimate good father. 

The story of the Bible from Andrew Kavan

He is an excerpt of Andrew Klavan's book, The Great God Thing, where he describes the story of the Bible as he saw it as a young man many years before he ever believed it was true.

"The fact was, as a story—even leaving out the supernatural, especially leaving out the supernatural, taking it all as metaphor, I mean—the Bible made perfect sense to me from the very beginning.

I saw a God whose nature was creative love. He made man in his own image for the purpose of forming new and free relationships with him. But in his freedom, man turned away from that relationship to consult his own wisdom and desires. The knowledge of good and evil was not some top-secret catalogue of nice and naughty acts that popped into Eve’s mind when a talking snake got her to eat the magic fruit. The knowledge was built into the action of disobedience itself: it’s what she learned when she overruled the moral law God had placed within her. There was no going back from that. The original sin poisoned all history. History’s murders, rapes, wars, oppressions, and injustices are now the inescapable plot of the story we’re in.

The Old Testament traces one complete cycle of that history, one people’s rise and fall. This particular people is unique only in that they’re the ones who begin to remember what man was made for. Moses’ revelation at the burning bush is as profound as any religious scene in literature. There, he sees that the eternalcreation and destruction of nature is not a mere process but the mask of a personal spirit, I AM THAT I AM.

The centuries that follow that revelation are a spiraling semicircle of sin and shame and redemption, of freedom recovered and then surrendered in return for imperial greatness, of a striving toward righteousness through law that reveals only the impossibility of righteousness, of power and pride and fall. It’s every people’s history, in other words, but seen anew in the light of the fire of I AM. It made sense to me too—natural sense, not supernatural—that after that history was complete, a man might be born who could comprehend it wholly and re-create within himself the relationship at its source. His mind would contain both man and God. It made sense that the creatures of sin and history—not the Jews alone but all of us—would conspire in such a man’s judicial murder. Jesus had to die because we had to kill him. It was either that or see ourselves by his light, as the broken things we truly are. It’s only from God’s point of view that this is a redeeming sacrifice. By living on earth in Jesus, by entering history, by experiencing death, by passing through that moment of absolute blackness when God is forsaken by God, God reunites himself with his fallen creation and reopens the path to the relationship lost in Eden. Jesus’ resurrection is the final proof that no matter how often we kill the truth of who we’re meant to be, it never dies."

Confess Your Sins to One Another

This last week I was reminded of one of reasons that God made us for intentional authentic relationships. We need someplace to be honest with others and therefore ourselves.

James 5:16a says, "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

Confessing our sins to another person is not easy, but it is good for us. Often we are bound up in some sin that is wrecking our emotions and relationships, and we cannot find freedom anywhere but in confession and release of that sin.

When we keep our sin and our deepest life secret we are not forced to confront the darkest parts of ourselves. Sometimes we talk to God about it and confess it to Him, but because He seems removed, we don’t really get brutally honest with ourselves. We are physical creatures and when we have to talk to people about our thoughts and sins, they become more real to us. Therefore we take them more seriously, and we are more willing to truly repent. True repentance leads to true change. When we know we have to face someone it is harder to sin in the same way again, and it is also easier to know we are forgiven and release the guilt when someone else confirms it.

1 John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Walking in the light is a great place to be, and to live there we need to establish relationships where we are committed to being honest. Find safe, maturing Christians who really love you, and who will meet with you consistently. Make a commitment to honesty and confidentiality, and then challenge each other to be honest. God created us for such relationships, and when we have this kind of fellowship it will deepen our relationship with Him, with each other, and even the world. In fact, if you do not have such relationships then you cannot be maturing as a Christian the way you should. So you should this if for no other reason than to be obedient to the Lord, and you will find freedom and joy in the process.

A Powerful Woman

Here is a story that I shared in church on Sunday. Mabel's life is an amazing example of someone who found joy and power in Jesus. I encourage you to read it.

I got it from William Lane Craig's, Defender 3 series, here is the link to the podcast transcript. He is telling the story of a colleague of his, Thomas Schmidt.


Few of us, I think, really understand this truth. But I had a colleague when I taught at Westmont College who got to know a woman who did understand this. He used to make it a practice of his to visit shut-ins in nursing homes in the community in an attempt to bring some bit of cheer and love into their lives. One Mother’s Day he was visiting a nursing home in which he met a woman whom he would never forget. This is his account of that woman and that friendship.[2] He says:

On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases. Strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.

As I neared the end of this hallway I saw an old woman strapped in a wheelchair, her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek and it had pushed her nose to the side, dropped one eye and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I also learned later that this woman was 89 years old and that she had been bedridden, blind, nearly deaf and alone for 25 years. This was Mabel.

I don’t know why I spoke to her. She looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, “Here is a flower for you, Happy Mother’s Day.” She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it and then she spoke and much to my surprise her words, though somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, “Thank you, it’s lovely, but can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it you know, I’m blind.”

I said, “of course,” and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one and stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, “Here, this is from Jesus.”

It was then that it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. . . . Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. . . . It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder. And I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say. . . .

During one hectic week of final exams, I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me, what does Mabel have to think about? Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it is day or night. So I went to her and asked, “Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?”

And she said, “I think about my Jesus.”

I sat there and thought for a moment about the difficulty for me of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes. And I asked, “What do you think about Jesus?” She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote, and this is what she said,

I think how good he has been to me. He has been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied. . . . Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus, he is all the world to me.

And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:

Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him, I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go.
No other one can cheer me so.
When I am sad, he makes me glad.
He’s my friend.

This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know, I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening – and she laid there and sang hymns.[3] How could she do it?

The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there, in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone . . . , she had incredible power.[4]

Loving God With Your Whole Heart

This was originally written for May 2016 Oakland Evangelical Free Church Newsletter.

In Matthew 22:37 we are told that the greatest commandment is to love God with our whole heart, soul and mind, which is really another way of saying love God with all of yourself. How many of you have ever completely lived this out at any time in your life? The truth is none of us have ever loved God with our whole heart, soul and mind, and therefore, God will continue to call us to love Him more completely. 

One area of loving God that I have noticed is particularly in need of growth for many of Christians concerns our emotions and inner thought life. You know those areas that are private and that you would never discuss with anyone. Perhaps they may even be areas that are so scary or painful that you do not even approach them.

Each one of us is different so our inner heart issues are going to be different. For one person it might be the abuse or neglect from a father that causes them not be able to really trust any authority. Someone else might be really struggling with a hidden addiction that they think would bring great shame on them or their family if they ever let anyone else know. Maybe you have a loveless or even hateful marriage, but you put on a good face in public because that is what you are “supposed to do.”

Others desire love and acceptance so much that they don’t have good personal boundaries, and unintentionally drive their would be friends away, while all the time inwardly screaming for love. Maybe you feel the need to please everyone (one of my issues), and therefore you have trouble saying no, which leads to you having no space in your life to even consider the state of your heart. Some people have an anger issues that seem outside of their control, and they explode in sinful ways at the slightest provocation. Perhaps because of past hurt or loss you are always melancholy and have trouble letting yourself feel anything.

All these things and many others are indications that we have places in our hearts that we have not fully surrendered to the Lord. Unfortunately, we are often unconscious of the real inner issues and so we never address them. They remain barriers to a closer walk with the Lord, to healthy relationships with other people, and personal peace and joy.

But have hope!  We do not need to remain trapped by our emotions and heart issues. Christ came to set us free from sin and its effects! Romansh 8:6 says "For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” The key to freedom in these areas is to let the life of the Spirit live in us, and then we will begin to see the fruit of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, take over us. 

Practically, what we need to do is take the faith step of asking the Lord to reveal to us the areas of our heart that need to be surrendered to Him. I like to pray Psalm 139:23-24 “ 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!

 Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"

Secondly, God gave us the church for a reason. We need to find safe mature Christians who we can trust to confess our sins (James 5:16), and who we can trust enough to help us examine ourselves. Sometimes we have blind spots that we would not be willing to examine unless someone else helped challenge us (see Proverbs 27:6). 

If we are serious about loving God with all of ourselves, then let’s take the step of opening up our whole heart to His wonderful healing hand. He loves you enough that you can trust Him with the deepest parts of yourself. 

Transgender Bathrooms and Paypal

Why I am going to stop using Paypal.

Recently, Paypal, an internet payment company that is related to the internet auction site, Ebay, made a decision to withdraw their plans to build a global operations center in North Carolina. (Link to Paypal's corporate release).They said their decision was based on a new law in North Carolina, which they claim denies people in the LGBT community equal rights, and therefore goes against their values. They were referring to a new law in North Carolina, HB2 which mandates that bathroom and changing facilities that are used by multiple people at a time, only be used by people of the same biological sex. (Link to the NC Bill).

This state bill was written in response to a Charlotte, North Carolina regulation that was going to allow anyone to use any bathroom or changing facility based upon their self identification rather than their biological sex. What this would have meant is that all businesses and public facilities would have been required to allow a biological man, who identified as a woman, or a biological woman who identified as a man to use whatever facility they wanted based on their own gender identity. 

The Charlotte regulation allowing transgender bathroom use was not the first of its kind in the county, but the state bill responding to it really is the first time a political entity has pushed back in a big way.

This situation has lead me to ask some questions about what my response should be as a citizen, a consumer, and as a Christian. Do I have any responsibilities to not do business with companies that are doing immoral things or that are promoting harmful policies? If so when do I make that decision, because every company is run by sinful humans and will at some point do something that I find wrong or that does not 100% agree with my point of view. 

Many of the companies whose products I use are run by people who have different values than I do as a conservative Christian, but I still use them. This blog will be posted on blogger, a Google site, Facebook, and Twitter. I am quite sure that all of them have executives who have a very different view of sexual morality than I do, but I am continuing to use them for the moment. 

In this case though I am going to stop using Ebay and Paypal because of their very public and political stance on an issue that I believe could lead to very harmful situations for innocent people, including innocent children. In their desire to support the gender identity of limited number individuals, they risk violating the privacy of the rest population. If we cannot have bodily privacy in bathroom and changing areas, then where can we expect to have them.

My rationale for making this decision is based on the public move by Paypal. Likewise, a few years ago, Mozilla fired their CEO, Brendan Eich, because he had given a donation to the Prop 8 campaign in California in support of traditional marriage. Like Paypal, Mozilla was making a public statement that traditional values are going to be actively opposed by the company. How can I continue to support a company that actively promotes harmful behavior or actively opposes my own worldview?

Now this is not an easy decision for me because I have been a regular of Paypal and Ebay for years because their products and sites have benefitted me. I have bought and sold products on Ebay recently and used Paypal as my primary payment method to both receive payment and to pay others. Therefore, this decision will have a cost for me, but I am hoping that though my actions and words (and other like me) it may also have a cost for Paypal, letting them know that they cannot actively support policies that directly contradict values of a number of their customers. 

In making this decision, I am not trying to say that anyone else must do as I do, but rather encouraging you to at least think about your morals and how you are interacting with the world around you.

I have included with following this post the letter that I sent to Paypal explaining my decision.

I encourage you to think deeply about your values and how they affect your life. Paypal executives are making decisions based on their values and so should we.

Paypal letter

To whom it may concern:

I have used Ebay and Paypal for a number of years now. I am not a huge user, but I have done consistent business and as the IT guy in my family I have also directed other people to use your business. For instance, I purchased and sold a number of items on Ebay with Paypal as my primary payment method. I have also used your credit card scanner in a small business and encouraged a family member to use it as well.

While Ebay with Paypal is not my primary internet way of shopping, I have used it a number of times for thousands of dollars over the years. In other words, while not a huge customer, I have been a regular customer.

Your recent decision to no longer locate your global center in North Carolina based on your corporate values makes me question whether I can still do business through you because of my values.

I read the text of North Carolina HB2 concerning use of bathroom and changing facilities and biological gender, and not only can I find nothing wrong with the bill, I can agree with its sentiments. The idea written into some laws and municipal codes that bathroom and changing room use should be determined by the beliefs / orientation of the individual rather than biology will and has lead to the violation of the rights of other individuals right to bodily privacy.

I have 4 kids, and the concept that they could be exposed to someone with opposite biological genitalia or may be forced into having their bodies exposed to someone of opposite genitalia based on the mindset of the other individual is repugnant to me. For me to knowingly allow such a thing would be tantamount to child abuse, and yet that is exactly what a new regulations will allow and encourage.

The North Carolina law was clearly written to protect the bodily privacy of individuals who might be exposed in a multiple use bathroom or changing room setting (go read the law). It does not apply to single use settings and it explicitly allows for making accommodations for individuals who may have differing gender identities while still protecting the rights of the majority of people who would be using a multiple use facility.

Therefore, for you to say your corporate values have lead you away from locating in North Caroline based at least partly on this law makes me question whether you have thought through the consequences of those values. In an attempt to accommodate the gender identity of the small minority you would trample the rights of the majority and risk exposing even young children to psychological harm.

Therefore, while I am not closing my account just yet, I am going to stop using it. Already in the past 2 days I have made the decision not to shop for something on Ebay and not to pay for something else with Paypal. Furthermore, I am actively looking for other options for when I need to make a sale. I am notifying my friends and family via social media of my decision and my rationale. Now maybe they will continue to use your business and maybe they won't, but it will at least be some bad publicity for your companies.

I do not wish to have to make this decision because I have benefited from your business, but just as you need to make decision based on your values, so do I. 

Good News

In last week's paper, you may have seen on the front page the good news that my daughter, Rebekah, won the Geography Bee at school. (Yes, I am a proud Daddy.)

 I am sure in this week's newspaper you can read about the good news of the Oakland - Craig Girls Basketball team winning the conference championship.

One of the differences between a small town paper and big newspapers or national news outlets is that they often include as much good news as bad news. Most of the time national news leads with the most sensational stories, which are often disasters,  shocking crimes or political candidates tearing one another down. If you spend all of your time on that type of news you can get depressed by all the bad news.

Christians are called to share the good news about Jesus, but often the news does not seem very good to others. Sometimes they look at our lives and do not see much joy, so they assume the news about Jesus must not be very good if His followers do not act like it. At other times, they assume the news from God is all about condemnation of their sin. People think church is all about judgment, and that they need to clean themselves up before they can come and be like the "holy" church goers.

Not all misperceptions of the gospel are the fault of Christians, but we can do things to make sure that the front page of our lives shows the good news about Jesus.

If you know Jesus, then the fruit of the Holy Spirit should be growing in you, so your friends and family should experience your growth in love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. People will be attracted to you and then to Jesus more if these qualities are present and growing. They see and feel God's love working through you toward them.

Furthermore, we can make the good news clear while still being honest about the bad news. The bad news is that people and the world are broken by sin. Therefore, we do need to repent for our sins because sin leads to pain, rather than true happiness and fulfillment. The good news is not that God ignores sin or takes it lightly, but rather that He forgives sin and desires to transform us into people who can live happy and fulfilled lives following Him. He does this through the work of Jesus on the cross, which makes forgiveness possible, and the work of the Holy Spirit that continues the redemption in our lives. The good news is then is all about what Jesus has done and is doing in us.

Christians, living out the gospel, can be honest about the problems of life, but can show people hope beyond the bad news to the wonderful news about Jesus. My encouragement to you is to make sure that you know the good news of Jesus, and that the front page of your life tells His story.

Win the Prize

Have you looked at the sports section yet? Did your team win? Are they moving up or down the rankings? I love sports, both as a spectator and as a participant. I like to compete and to win, because it feels like we (I) have accomplished something. I am finding though, that my 40 something body does not allow me to do as much, so now I participate vicariously through my kids and other kids in town. 

Do you ever think about winning at life? What would that even mean? The old saying goes, “That he who dies with the most toys wins,” but it is countered by the more meaningful phrase, “he who dies with the most toys, still dies.” One day your name may appear on the sports page as the winner, but some day it will appear among the obituaries.

The Apostle Paul also paid attention to sports and compared them to life, saying, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). He compared life to competing as an athlete, but he wanted to make sure he was competing for a prize that could not be taken away. Likewise, Jesus also said that we in this life could build up treasures for heaven (Matthew 6:20).

These imperishable prizes are not trophies, sports cars, 4-wheelers, boats, guns, or tractors (even green tractors!). All of these things are perishable prizes. Either they will go away or you will go away from them. So what kind of prize is really imperishable?

The only things that are going to survive beyond this life are people, so the only prizes that last beyond this life are our relationships, specifically our relationships with God, and other people who will be with God. Therefore, for us to compete for an imperishable prize we need to make sure we know God and are growing in relationship with Him. We come to know God by knowing who Jesus is, what He has done, and believing in Him for salvation. By focusing our life on growing our relationship with God we earn the eternal imperishable prize of a fantastic life with Him for eternity.

Along with that relationship, God wants us to have the prize of many, many eternal relationships. So the more we introduce people to Jesus, the more people will join us in eternity. The more time and energy we spend loving others and building them up, the more we are preparing for eternity. This life is a training room for eternity, and the more we spend time training for an imperishable prize, the more prepared for eternity we will be. Furthermore, by training hard for eternity, we actually get a prize in this life of deeper relationships here with God and others, which adds a richness and meaning to this life that cannot be found by seeking after any other prize.

Don't waste your life playing the wrong game and seeking the wrong prizes. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these other things will be added to you!

New Life in a New Family

Here is an article, I wrote that was published recently in our local newspaper, the Oakland Independent.

When you open the paper, did you turn to see if any new babies were born? Babies are almost universally loved, because they are cute, innocent, and helpless. We love babies, because they represent the future.

Often though, kids do not reach their full potential. How disappointed are we when someone, especially one of our own children goes astray? Perhaps you even look back on your life and wish that you could go back have a do over.

In a favorite movie for our family, Napoleon Dynamite, Uncle Rico is a character that is constantly reliving  his glory days of high school football. He imagines that if only he could go back, get in the big game and win that state championship his whole life would be different. Many of us have similar regrets about life and we wish we could just go back, get a clean slate or at least believe that the future still holds new possibilities for us.

The Jewish teacher, Nicodemus came to Jesus for a conversation one night (John 3), and Jesus told him about a chance for a type of do over. Jesus said that he could be "born again," but Nicodemus wondered how he, as an old man, could enter once again into his mother's womb. Jesus responded that the new birth and the new life is not physical like the old life, but rather it is spiritual. What God offers is to remake us on the inside and give us a new identity as His child.

Further, this offer is for everyone no matter how many regrets, mistakes, or even major sins you have in your life. It also does not matter how old you are, God could even make an old man like Nicodemus a new child of His. When you are reborn into new life with Christ, your past is forgiven and you are given a future with new possibilities. You become a spiritual child with a new Father who will love, accept and walk with you as He helps you become the person that He made you to be.

The condition to receive this new life is to be willing to give up your old life and humbly admit you need the new life that God offers. Like a child with their parent, we need to trust that God can and really does want to make you a new person. Now this does not mean you will suddenly become perfect, but you become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and become a part of the family of God (1 John 1:12). Once in the family, God does not kick us out when we sin, but rather lovingly works with and in us to forgive and restore. No longer do our failures have to define us, because we can always run back to our loving Father.

To close, here is a poem from an unknown elementary school teacher, that describes the constant renewal with the new life in Christ.

He came to my desk with a quivering lip,
the lesson was done.
“Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher?
I’ve spoiled this one.”
I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted
and gave him a new one all unspotted.
And into his tired heart I cried,
“Do better now, my child.”

I went came to the throne with a trembling heart;
the day was done.
“Have you a new day for me, dear Master?
I’ve spoiled this one.”
He took my day, all soiled and blotted
and gave me a new one all unspotted.
And into my tired heart he cried,
“Do better now, my child."

The Last Act is Tragic

This is a column I wrote for our local paper, the Oakland Independent. It is the first in a series that uses different parts of the paper to encourage people to examine their lives.

What is one of the first places you flip in a local newspaper? I bet most of us look pretty quickly at the obituaries. Did you turn there to see if someone you know or someone famous or someone too young died.

Why are we the living so interested in death? Might it be because we know that death is a destination where we are all inevitably headed. No matter what modern medicine might do, we have not conquered death. No matter how significant your life here might be, it will someday, perhaps someday soon all be over.

Blaise Pascal wrote about our situation like this, "Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men."

No matter what we do to try to ignore and put it off, death is inevitable. Whenever we read the obits or watch the news of another war or murder, we are reminded of our fate. Even if your life now is great, you will eventually die, and as Pascal also said, "The last act is tragic. They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever." Ecclesiastes declares that everything under the sun is vanity or a vapor, and this includes our very lives. They are here today and gone tomorrow, and if this world is all there is, then death is the final word.  

But Christians have hope that death on this earth is not the end. We believe that Jesus conquered death, and so we do not view death as the same kind of tragedy as those who do not know their fate or who believe death is the final end. In fact, we believe that Jesus conquered death and that when we trusted Him as our Savior, that He gave us eternal life. So we can now declare with the Apostle Paul, "Death where is your victory? Where is your sting?" 1 Corinthians 15:55, because we believe that death in this life simply transfers us to a new and even better kind of life.

This kind of confidence makes a huge difference, and if you don't believe me, then just join me for a funeral of someone who knows Jesus. We have had three such funerals at our church this last year. While there is sadness for us at parting from someone we love, there is also an incredible joy in the confidence that they are now with Jesus and that we will one day see them again.

If death comes for you today, tomorrow, or 50 years from now will you be ready? Are you confident that death is not the end? Are you confident in where you will spend eternity? The time to examine death and life is now, not some time later. If life is not just about what you can do while living under the sun, then you should figure out why you are here and where you are going before they throw dirt over your head.