Beautiful Chaos

Conventional wisdom and popular thought over the short twenty-three years of my life have lead me to believe that at moments of catastrophe, when the world is its most chaotic, people stop caring about one another, lose all of their civilization, and revert to not much more than animals who see life as “every man for himself”, “dog-eat-dog”, and “kill-or-be-killed!”  However, as I grow older I have begun to find this “assumed truth” to be less and less true.  When life throws humanity into the very heart of chaos and disorder a unique opportunity arises for us; the opportunity to move beyond ourselves and become truly selfless.  Fear in these situations often motivates us to aid our neighbor and make them “safe”; even if we ourselves are not “safe”.  This posture of self-sacrifice is nothing more than a beautiful picture of “God on Earth”.  Even in the Screwtape Letters we see the character of Screwtape upset about the level of service and selflessness that danger and chaos can have on a local community (Chapter 28). 

In fact, chaos almost seems to be a positive aspect of human existence.  Chaos, danger, and “the unknown” seem to keep humans on our toes.  In times filled with more rest than unrest I have often found myself drifting from the attributes of my God: loving others, disciplined seeking of Him, and intentionally attempting to make my world a better place.  When I get too comfortable “I” become the main focus of almost every one of my actions, but chaos causes me to focus outward.  

“This, indeed, is probably one of the Enemy’s motives for creating  dangerous world—a world in which moral issues really come to the point.” ~~ Screwtape Letters (ch.29)

When chaos hits home, people tend to love each other the way God loves…

Precision Virtue

"To be greatly and effectively wicked a man needs some virtue. What would Attila have been without  his courage, or Shylock without self-denial as regards the flesh?  But as we cannot supply these qualities ourselves, we can only use them as supplied by the Enemy."

Screwtape (Senior Demon)

This hit me like a ton of bricks.  Perhaps the greatest weapon in the enemy's arsenal is the twisting of the gifts and virtues that God has given. I despair to think how true this may be in my own life. I say that because it can be so hard to know or see since virtue in the person always seems a good thing.   And virtue is a good thing; its a God thing.  My enthusiasm, acceptance, and drive all seem to me like honorable things. But if I were honest it is in those places I most often find myself missing the mark (sinning).

Our virtues need aimed.  If their aim is off they take out innocent bystanders. The aim of my virtue only need to be off a hair and the wake of the hurt I can cause is vast.  In other words, my enthusiasm and drive aimed at the wrong things can have no regard for family, friends, relationships, or God. My acceptance can wrongly include sin in others that would not have me stand for justice in times justice is the focus.

Our virtues are gifts, and so is Christ. The gift of Christ is the gift of good aim at the right targets that deliver hope, love, justice, and feed faith.  That encourages me!!!  We have a God who gave us such good gifts and does not leave us alone to figure them out but offers his presence as a guiding force of love that make us sharpshooters of love and grace.

Death...Evil or Good?

"They, of course, do tend to regard death as the prime evil and survival as the greatest good.  But that is because we have taught them to do so.  Do not let us be infected by our own propaganda."
Screwtape - Senior Demon

I read this line and I realize I live that same bad theology.  Is this the natural trap of being a finite being. I guess so.

I saw a friend of mine recently give way to the disease of cancer.  He was young.  He left three young kids and a wife behind.  That to me when looking at it holds little hope.  It only looks like pain to me,  And is pain not of the evil one?  So how can death not be a prime evil?  Because death is the entrance into eternal life.

Why is this such a hard thing to live?  For my own life I can only answer this way.  When it is the hardest to live is when I have little connection to the presence of God in my life.  Without God's presence we only have what is this side of heaven.  My ability to live death as entrance to eternal life is if I am experiencing life itself.  Not the illusion of life but the life that is delivered by the presence of Christ.

This does not remove pain but does give it perspective.  Now sorrow is for my gain in that it leads my heart to the next chapter, and that is heaven.  The best part is that I can begin living it now.  For me that is worship.  When I get in that place where all that is left is God.  That presence lifts me and fills me and let's me walk back out into another day now with purpose.  That purpose is for others to experience that same thing.

So what are those moments of worship?

• Scripture that invites me into another world.
• Community worship experiences where the bigness of God engulfs me.
• Moments of perspective when God rectories something for me that reminds me of his presence. 
• Moments of community when the connectivity of the relationships around me have me experiencing the things of Christ like acceptance, grace, unconditional love.   

What about you?  What are the moments that make death a less evil concept and more a hopeful moment?

Home Really Is Where the Heart Is!!

Yep, this one hits home, where the heart is!  Screwtape Letters unveils what we know but would rather not know... that prosperity, having enough (though we all think we could use a little more) to do some things, buy some things, eat places, etc., "knits a man's heart to the World.  He feels that he is finding his place in it while really it is finding its place in him." (page 155)

Home is where my heart is, what I think about, dream about, long for.  So the question that cuts through is, "Where is my heart?"  Is my heart wrapped around the Kingdom of God?  Where does my joy lie?  In worship and serving, in experiencing the Lord through His word or in places I can go, things I can do?  What gets the most of my thinking?

Years ago I was wanting to buy something special, something I had been saving for, something I wanted.  I suppose most of us live that way, at least I do, anticipating a fun trip, a purchase, a cool place to eat.  As I was thinking about it one day the Lord clearly convicted me, "You may not buy that!"  The word was clear and strong.

Why?  It was just a gun truth be told.  I could see no reason to be forbidden but I was nevertheless.  "You may not..."  Really?

The item itself had no moral value.  But... my heart was being knit to the world.  This was a call to the Lord to make sure my heart was after Him, not anyplace else.  Years later it seems almost hysterical.  Yet, deep inside I know this was a clear word from the Lord.  Statistics say the more we make the less we give!  I hate that.  I don't want to be a part of that stat.  Whatever prosperity I have I want to make sure my home and my heart are with the Lord.

What does the evidence point to in my life?  How about yours?  Home really is where the heart is!!

Vision Rich!

I was amazed at the response to "Next" (the vision gathering for the Fall).  GraceRiver is full of people with big vision, people who are committed to the Lord and to each other, people who are anticipating the Fall as a time of "Prayer and Planting".  This is such a special move of God!  I am so thankful for this church and for the hearts of so many who are investing their lives to lead others to real life in Jesus!

The trap of "Cause"

The purpose of Christ is not social Justice, a moral society, or a means for the advancement of any other cause we may have bought into. I know that sounds rough but listen longer.  This is an easy trap; to worship the religion (Christianity) rather than Jesus himself. It happens every time we put the focus on what a relationship with Jesus produces rather than relationship with Jesus itself. The power of the Gospel is not in what it produces but who is producing it.

Here is the other trap; when we begin to chase after the outcomes of a relationship with Christ rather than the relationship itself we cease to hear from Christ which was the power of the relationship in the first place. Instead now we hear some set of moral values or code and somehow build a system that we feel is maintainable and make it the standard of which we live by. We call it being a good person.  A moral code was never the standard.  The standard was Jesus and his spirit that reveals all.  Revelation is the power of Christ. His ability to reveal truth not our ability to discover it.  The standard of God is Jesus. It always has been and always will be.

Why this is a big deal to me is because at GraceRiver Church our mission is to "lead people to real life in Jesus."  I don't think I have ever been a part of a church who has gotten this so right before.  What I mean is that for GR real life isn't an invitation to being a better person or adopting some code of conduct.  The invitation really is to life in Jesus.  Everything is built around the presence of Christ in our lives and not our ability to just be better people.  I love that about our church.  This is why I know GR is on the cusp of something great.  Because we are a body of people who deeply desire to know Christ and have him alive in us.  So when we invite people to GR we are inviting them to that life; real life.

-From chapter 24 of The Screwtape Letters.

No More Partial and Piecemeal Lives!

Loneliness eats at the human heart like a cancer.  Odd that the more social media available the more alone we seem to be.  We live full out fast lives with little time to really sit and listen to another and have them ask about us... and listen as well.

Just wondering if one of the reasons we are alone is our "small lives".  I and II Corinthians calls us to live large, not small (this is literally said in The Message Translation).  A small life centers on me, how am I doing, what's good for me.  I control the conversation and talk rather than listen.  That's the mantra of the culture but the odd thing is that it seems that the the culture hasn't figured out yet that "me" centeredness is smallness.

Living large is living in the full experience of God's way.  That is more than just doing right.  It is living in community with others.  Asking about them.  Caring about their hurts, joys, challenges.  One key measure for me is when I am in conversations will I focus on the other or do I have to get to my story, my life, "me"?

I Corinthians 14 is a chapter about gifts.  I am jazzed that we are headed into a study of spiritual gifts at GraceRiver coming this Fall.  It's going to be a really special season.  What is even more special is we are going to do this in our growth groups.  Discovering my spiritual gifts is not about discovering how special I am, what God is doing in me!  The Message speaks of this as living a partial and piecemeal life!  Spiritual gifts study is discovering how special we are, how the Lord has made us together, placed us together to live large and have a significant difference in the world.

Significant difference is not about me... it is about us!  It is how God moves in me in cooperation and coordination with how the Lord moves in you (plural)!  GraceRiver is a community, people placed together for a larger purpose.

If we are not careful, the discovery of spiritual giftedness can drive deeper our aloneness as we focus on ourselves.  However, when I discover I am gifted for you, for your benefit, for the benefit of others and even those beyond the church I begin to enter a larger life!

Ironic that in the Kingdom of God one of the ways out of loneliness is finding our fit in the body and moving toward others (not away) to serve (not to receive).

GraceRiver is becoming this body!  We are moving beyond small lives gathered on Sunday to go to church.  We are becoming people who care for one another, who invest in one another, who love others as we love ourselves.  You see, Jesus not only tells us to love others as we would love ourselves he gives us a specialness (spiritual gift) to make that contribution and connection.

I am jazzed at the move of God here at GraceRiver.  This Fall will be so incredible as we learn about how the Lord has placed us together uniquely by giving us spiritual gifts, unique ways God expresses Himself through each of us.  I hope you will be a part!

Super Spouse!

I read 1 Corinthians 7 and it is a reminder to me.  It is a reminder to me that my wife, Janann, isn't my salvation.  What do I mean?  I have mistakenly put way too much responsibility on my wife for my joy, happiness, and satisfaction.

Here is the trap.  Without realizing it I have looked to my wife to be things to me that she was never designed to be or do.  Many of us fall into this trap of marriage.  We marry because that person makes us feel like no other person has ever made us feel.  We feel alive with them.  We feel special and valuable to them and with them.  So we look to them to constantly feed that to our hearts.

Here is the problem.  My wife's purpose is not for my satisfaction, my feeling alive, my feeling fulfilled.  Did you heart that?  My wife isn't God.  Satisfaction, life, and fulfillment are things only God can deliver.  When I put my wife in that spot she never measures up and then she becomes the target of my frustration and hurt.

I remember when I learned this.  Moving to Orlando I left many friendships and relationships I had built in Lakeland, Florida.  It was just Janann, my three kids, and me.  We struggled here our first year because I put my wife in the spot of God.  I needed her to satisfy the void of relationships with other guys that I had lost leaving Lakeland.  I don't know if you've noticed, but my wife isn't a guy and thankfully so.  My point is that I was looking for her to provide something she was never meant to provide.

Yes, my wife is the best expression of God's love for me in that she feeds my heart.  But my wife was not meant to be my everything.  Jesus is.  My marriage has grown when I learned that.  Now, Janann is someone I serve with and out of the love of Jesus for me.  I receive the same from her.  We both know, however, that it is the love of Jesus that we give to each other.

Expecting your spouse to be more than they were ever meant to be?

The trap of "Mine"

"The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we must keep them doing so.  Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they 'own' their bodies."  -Screwtape (Senior Demon)

One of my favorite scenes from a Disney Pixar movie is the scene in "Finding Nemo" where Nemo is trapped on the dock trying to get back in the water and the flock of seagulls see him.  Their voices, in seagull like fashion, is an orchestra of one word, "mine."

Do we realize the trap of that one word?  It, like a cancer, breeds a mentality that evades our entire soul that under-girds our sin and brokenness.  When I think my body is mine then my satisfaction physically becomes my leading muse.  If I think my time is mine, then you are my enemy if you demand any of it in ways that don't serve "my" purposes.  If I think my money is mine then I stand directly in the way of God's redeeming of the world since his people are his means of redemption through Jesus.

The world becomes about me and even God becomes something that I, in the most recessed parts of my mind think, is mine to manipulate and broker to satisfy my needs, desires and longings.  

In my life it's subtle.  Like Screwtape declares, it starts at childhood with the possessive word of mine and secretly leaks into every facet of my concise and subconscious.  "My wife", as I introduce her, then is for my pleasure, needs and service.  "My kids" are not something then I am responsible to God for to lead as scripture says, "in the way they should go," but the way I want them to go to feed some swelling ego in me.

It's subtle in my life but rears it's head often.  It causes pain in my relationships and doesn't allow God to be the center of my world.  I wonder how life would look different if I realized the truth of ownership...

"And all the time the joke is that the word 'Mine' in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything.  In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say 'Mine'of each thing that exists, and specifically of each man."  -Screwtape (Senior Demon)