Falling Asleep in Church and Other Sins

As a child, I was fairly fidgety. If I was sitting somewhere I was supposed to be quiet, it's as if my body would say, "Quiet, eh? Put the hyperactivity in overdrive, captain!" Needless to say, there were many moments of discipline that had to take place when I let that energy get out of control.

The odd thing about my tendency to be energetic is that I also fall asleep very easily. One might think that people like me have trouble falling asleep. Incorrect. (Where'd you get your degree? Psh...) I can fall asleep almost anywhere. This was also true as a child, and I would often fall asleep during sermons.

Even now, though I'm shaking my legs furiously as I type away, my eyelids want to shut down and take a nap.

For whatever reason, nowadays, I don't have too much trouble staying awake during sermons, unless I've gotten very little sleep over the weekend. If that's the case, I usually sit there trying to force my eyelids open by sheer mental willpower. How often does that work? No comment. After trying to keep my eyes open fails, I sometimes do this head-bob thing where I drop in and out of consciousness. Y'know, your head falls as you fall asleep and then the feeling of your head falling alerts your brain and, in the sad irony of it all, your mind doesn't wake you up enough to keep you awake, but only enough to lift your head back up. Only to let it fall again.

The whole process is quite shameful, to say the least. The preacher is pouring out his heart about a deep spiritual matter and there you are, head-banging to the beat of your cat-nap dreams. Then, the inevitable happens:

Your friend nudges you and wakes you up.

That's the most embarrassing moment of this whole escapade! Because if your friend has noticed that you were rocking away to your own hardcore concert right there in the pew, that means everyone else saw it too! So your cheeks turn red and you get flustered with your buddy for pointing out your pagan ways. Sometimes you try to play it off like you weren't sleeping, but just agreeing ecstatically with the pastor. But let's be honest, who are you fooling?

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6)

The Bible calls us to be accountable to one another. If someone calls us out on something, we shouldn't get upset with that person for pointing out what other people were already seeing. We should rejoice in the fact that we have someone to keep us to a high standard!

So if your buddy wakes you up during church, or calls you out on your pride, or shows you the ways in which you are not being gentle to others, don't shoot the messenger - He's literally doing what the Bible is telling him to by calling you out. Use the opportunity to get angry at your sin, and if you know you struggle with something, tell your Christian brother or sister what's going on before they have to approach you about it. In other words, hate your sin enough to seek accountability for it. So the next time you want to fall asleep in church, don't be upset when the guy you talked to about your tiredness before the service tries to pinch you.

It is a pinch of love.

Read More

A New Grading Scale

I was homeschooled for most of my life, (People tell me that explains a lot, but I'm not sure why. Huh.) but I did have a brief stint as your run-of-the-mill, uniformed, mayonnaise-skinned private-school student from kindergarten to second grade. Yes, I came complete with a mushroom-headed bowl-haircut, a gap in my two front teeth, and khaki shorts. And I probably don't even need to mention the fact that my lunchbox always dominated the other kids' - that should be obvious.

During some of those formative years, I was evaluated according to a grading scale that was different from that of the "big kids." Instead of receiving an A, B, C, D, or F, I received some sort of grade that revolved around the word "satisfactory." Either my work was "unsatisfactory," "needs improvement," "satisfactory," "good," or "excellent." Something like that.

Now, according to this scale, one is obligated to recognize that "satisfactory" is pretty much a C. Sure, it technically meets the requirements of the assignment or test, but getting this grade doesn't fill you with the joy that an "excellent" would. This is because the standard for "satisfactory" was set pretty low.

If I were to tell you that God's love was just satisfactory, you would not rejoice.

Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 2)

If you haven't read Hosea, it is essentially God using an adulteress as a metaphor for the nation of Israel's unfaithfulness to Him. Hosea's wife, Gomer, whored herself away to the pleasures and enticements of other men. So, in order to display God's faithfulness, He tells Hosea to go and pay to get Gomer back.

Gomer's central problem was her idea that Hosea's love wasn't good enough - it may have been "satisfactory," but in no way did she see it as "excellent" as the pleasures she chased. In the same way, Israel saw God's love as only meeting the requirements but not as fulfillment for the soul.

And so do we.

But today, I make an effort to challenge the grading scale. I say that "satisfactory" and "excellent" are one and the same when it comes to the concept of our need and God's love. If the requirement for our hearts to be at rest is a never-ending, all-fulfilling, perfectly-complete kind of love, then anything that could satisfy those requirements would be automatically considered as "excellent." In this way, the "satisfactory" becomes the "excellent," over and above the devastating emptiness of the pleasures that this world offer.

This is why the people of Israel come back, as shown in Hosea 2. They are tired of the brokenness and deceit of worldly pleasure and come back "to His goodness in the latter days."

Dear child, will God's love be satisfactory for you today, or will you chase the abyss?

Read More

I Like the Way You Pray

"I like the way you pray."

I was at a Bible study and I had just prayed (for food or in our small groups or something of that nature). That was when my buddy said that to me.

"I like the way you pray."

The main question that arises out of that kind of statement is, "How does a man pray well?" To be clear, I'm not really sure. I don't really know that there's a scoring system for that kind of thing. But I do have ideas as to some things you can recognize that will shape the way you approach prayer. By no means is this all-inclusive, but it might give you a fresh perspective on talking to God.

You're talking to God.
Think about that for a second. It is one thing to realize that God is as mind-blowingly awesome as He is as the Creator and Orchestrator of everything you can experience. This, in and of itself, is enough reason to bow down and approach Him with worship-minded prayer. It is another thing entirely to recognize the fact that we are sinners who fall completely short of God's standard of perfection - a status that ensures that we are hell-bound. This added realization makes prayer not just a humbling experience, but unequivocally audacious and improper! It's as if a convicted murderer were to eat dinner at the judge's house: totally unacceptable.

Observe what's been done for you.
The last point might not have made you feel any better about prayer, but that's because it has to be reconciled with the fact that Jesus died on the cross so that you could draw near. Because the blood of Jesus Christ covers His followers, they can now "with confidence draw near to the throne of grace." (Hebrews 4) Unbelievable. Not only do we get to draw near without getting killed, we get to do it with confidence.

See the implications.
Not only have you been made right with God, but you have been adopted as His son or daughter (Ephesians 1). Children get to ask things of their parents that no one else gets to ask them, like asking for a glass of water in the middle of the night, or asking to be given a piggy-back ride. The point? Kids aren't scared to talk to their parents. No, it is the most comfortable thing in the world for them. I believe that spirit should apply to us as we pray - not to be driven by formalities, but to pray as a son to His Dad.

I'm still not sure exactly what my buddy meant when he said he liked the way I pray, but I have a feeling that it had something to do with skipping the fancy, King-James speak and talking to God in recognition of what I was doing: approaching the God of all that exists as a sinful, but sanctified son.

Read More

Can McDonald's be Foreign?

I've seen a good bit of the world. This is not to boast, but, rather, I consider it a blessing to have had my mind opened to things quite extraordinary and spectacular. However, I'm left with a striking impression that the world is growing smaller. Even in foreign lands, culture has, for a number of years now, begun to meld together with other cultures - a process that has been sped up by the internet, I believe.

However, there are some cultures which remain truly separate and distinct. This summer, I got to go to Israel (this was right before things started to get really heated up in that area). In this culture, I was truly and undoubtedly a foreigner. I knew none of the language, customs, or setting of life which drove Israeli existence.

If you ever go to Israel, you'll most likely go as part of a tour group. This is pretty much the only option for gringos like us who are so out of place that even ordering from an Israeli McDonald's would be near-impossible. Well, as part of a tour group, you typically go and visit all of the sites where major Biblical events are said to have happened. In most of these places, the Orthodox or Catholic churches have built monolithic Cathedrals to mark the spot.

At a certain point in these tours, everything begins to look the same and your appreciation for the locales that you are being taken to subsides. You become saturated and find it difficult to muster any recognition of the monstrous cathedrals that you're surrounded by. At one such location, named Tabgha, it was told to us that this was the location where Jesus multiplied the fish and loaves of bread for the crowd of 5,000 people.

Well, that's cool, (and probably not a true statement) but I had seen so many sanctuaries by this point that the Koi pond in the front of the building was more fascinating to me than the elaborateness of man-made chapels. As I stared at the fish and our tour group leader droned on with information, I heard something which snatched my audible attention: singing.

And let me make this clear: I had already heard a lot of singing. At every place we stopped, the priest leading our group made sure to sing the Scriptures or some Orthodox hymn. We'd gotten a lot of this ritualistic, chanting-type music along the way. But what I heard in that moment was not some Orthodox tune - it was an evangelical hymn.

As fast as you could say, "Forget the Koi," I up and bolted into the church where I heard the singing and almost immediately joined in song with this group of evangelical believers. Here, in the middle of Israel, surrounded by the foreignness and unfamiliarity of an astoundingly different culture and longing for something that reminded me of home, I was washed with the warm native-ness of what I knew and loved.

 "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ..." (Philippians 3)

Sometimes, this world is unfamiliar. Not because we're not used to it, but because there is, in our hearts, a desire for more. We long for a satisfaction we cannot attain. No one put it more succintly than C.S. Lewis, who wrote, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."

Today, I long for home. To be done with this broken world. To be wrapped in the familiarity for which my soul was made. Brothers and sisters, we will one day be home.

But for now, make much of the journey.

Read More

Jesus Wants You to be a Murderer

I'm not sure when society transitioned from seeing Christians as people of valor, strength, and justice to a view of them being goody-two-shoes whose faith made them weak and unable to fight. It's as if walking with Jesus means that you are now a soft-serve, timid, sheltered, meek-and-mild, quivering creature who is petrified at the very thought that people who aren't believers actually do bad things. Along with this view, there simultaneously exists the perspective that the strong of this world are those who do what they want, when they want to do it. They are those who can get any women they want, experience all the pleasures they can get their hands on, and get the most toys.

This is for my warriors.

This is not a message for non-believers. This is a message for you, my fellow brother or sister who feels antagonized by a world that views you as feeble and weak. For however much this world tells you that it is a thing of weakness to not grab a hold of all the pleasurable sins you can, your resistance is actually a monument to a great strength that sinners have no ability to mentally process. To be surrounded by a sea of beckoning temptation and walk on the waters above it takes unbelievable focus and fight, neither of which are spawned by your own strength or willpower.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2)

I won't go into details, but if you know anything about circumcision, it is painful. It is the taking of a knife to your body. And I don't know how much you know about burial, but it typically means that someone must be dead for it to occur. These symbols are given for a very specific reason:

Jesus wants you to be a murderer.

Christ wants you to to put to death your sin nature - to decisively, intentionally, and un-regrettably drag your flesh out into the streets, put a gun to its head, and pull the trigger without a second thought. And that would be decidedly easier to do if sin didn't look so good. In fact, it's so difficult, you can't even do it! That is why Colossians 2 explicitly states that it is God Himself who accomplishes His task in you throughout your whole life.

Essentially, your warrior-king has given you the strength to do what needs to be done. So as you stand back and are mocked by the world as they drown in their sea of temptation, remember your warrior-king. Remember that the God of infinite power lives inside of you and is working a might in you that is greater than the world can even comprehend. And as you fight with your teeth gritted and your failures mocking you, know that "you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." (1 John 4)

Dear warrior, Jesus wants you to be a murderer.

Read More

You Can't Climb the Clouds

No matter how much they stand as a testament to divine architecture, these divine skycrapers will drop the foot of its first climber. No matter how much you stare from your airplane seat at 30,000 feet and begin to truly think that these colossal marshmallows actually maintain some sort of structural integrity suitable for the fleshy pads we stand on, the clouds will reinforce the foolishness of a climb with the insult of death. And no matter how much they seductively stare back, tempting man with the most spectacular of all rock-climbing opportunities, their end guarantee remains only failure and fatality. For all of their light, beauty and jagged edges masquerading as foot-holes, clouds are liars, visually promising a glorious scale, but not even offering an anchor for your harness.

You can't climb the clouds.

And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11)

I call shenanigans. Satan must be in cahoots with the clouds, teaching them their lying ways. Only, perhaps they have not learned as well as he yet. Oh yes, the clouds are liars, offering the sham of climbing its slopes to its aeroplane-bound onlookers, but one mistake they make: they will not hold your foot even for a second.

You see, Satan will hold your foot. In fact, he is a master of deceptive foot-holds, allowing you to grasp the rock-face of your sin and begin to climb. Don't worry - the steps will hold. And hold they will until you have grasped each vice, pulling yourself up to the pinnacle of this boulder of evil - a peak that promised you satisfaction, acceptance, joy, and love by means of your own self-glorification. But when you get to this peak, you find that this boulder is more like a cloud, and it lets you go as soon as you realize your foot-holds were always a fluffy, bright, beautiful illusion.

You can't climb the clouds.

And as you fall to your shameful and utter failure, you hear these words:

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee. 

This Rock of Ages, this risen Jesus, this Mountain of Shelter with a place carved just for you in its face, can catch you in your descent. And in catching you, it promises something better than foot-holds and dangerously deceptive climbs: to "soar to worlds unknown." 

You can't climb the clouds. But you can fly over them if you want to.

Read More

Warped Together

Everyone who has a passion or hobby of some sort grows to love very specific things within that passion. For a guitarist, he might love the stiffness of a certain, rare guitar pick. For the runner, they find the particular pair of running shoes that best aids the way that their feet... hit the ground? I don't know. I can only speak of what I do know.

I am a prestidigitator - a sleight-of-hand artist, if you will. I love working with playing cards specifically, and I've learned a few things about my own tastes. I like it when card manufacturers use a thicker stock of playing card paper, like Studs (out of production). I appreciate the Linoid finish used on Tally-Ho's. I greatly value the packet-ability of Bee Wynn playing cards. This might all be Greek to you, but to me, I find great pleasure and happiness in appreciating the details. However, the flip-side of that appreciation is finding great annoyance when something is just a little bit wrong.

Warped playing cards.

It's hard to describe just how much I am disgusted with warped playing cards. Even the slightest curve make fan spreads feel wrong. They make you hate to spring the cards, because you know you will only add more distortion to the deck. And you cringe every time you see someone perform a riffle shuffle without completing it (the bridge thing), for you know that they are bending the cards without accomplishing an equal action that will unbend them. It's hard to watch.

One thing that you notice about bent playing cards is that it's almost never just one card that is warped. It is every single card in the entire deck - they are all warped together, with the same horridly unnatural twist running through the whole deck. If it was just one, you might be able to fix it; an entire deck cannot be salvaged. You must put up with them, throw them away, or do what I do and give them to people who want to play a game of cards so that you don't have to give them anything out of your more expensive decks. Selfish? Perhaps - I have 70.

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. (Galatians 5)

The fact of the matter is that we are the lump. You and me? Lump. The whole church of Christ? Lump. A lump of dough cannot be separated. You can't go into it and begin to separate the water from the flour. So whatever you do to one portion of it affects the rest. If you set a lump of dough on a table, with just the end of it peeking over the cliff, what happens? It is not just the little piece on the end that falls, it is a whole section of dough.

Just like a deck of cards, the church acts cohesively. If it allows false teaching in, large amounts of those who aren't careful will be poisoned with lies (as was happening to the Galatians). If someone in the church continues to remain in unrepentant sin, it will affect the people around him. We warp together. It is for this reason that we must be exceedingly careful about what we allow into this deck.

Oh, that we might let go of our self-centeredness and grasp the gravity of the reality that we are all responsible for each other - that what we do has ripple effects for those who God chose to be near to us. Let us not sit with our hands folded at the effects of our own sin and the onslaught of false, demonic teaching.

For this we have been doing far too long.

Read More