New Lessons from an Ancient Law

I have been reading in Deuteronomy recently and it is not at all how I remember it. In my memory I can never distinguish between Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Even though I just read it not too long ago I cannot remember what the theme of Leviticus was. Numbers, I remember, was when God told Moses to take a census of the Israelites and the he was given some laws that I don’t remember. Deuteronomy apparently means “Second Numbers.” In that way it is a continuation of the Book of Numbers which was a large part of the law. Deuteronomy is also the recorded final speech of Moses before the Israelites finally entered the promised land and Moses when up on a Mountain to die.

The thing that I think about to put all this into perspective while I am reading is that God is in the process of setting Israel apart to be his people and a demonstration to the world of who He is. It has stood out to me during Moses’s speech that Israel was not a better or more righteous people than the people that they were going to destroy and replace in the land. Instead it was because God had chosen them and loved them that they were going to inherit the land and be his people. Moses says, “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of theses nations that the Lord your God is driving out before you in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham Isaac and Jacob.”[1] God had chosen his people five hundred years earlier by calling out Abraham and promising that the Lord would make Abraham a great nation. Now He was making good on His promise.

It strikes me that while at some points God is so frustrated with the Israelites that he considers wiping them out, I do not think he ever stopped loving them. Looking ahead to the cycle of rebellion, punishment, repentance, and redemption that Israel falls into when they inhabit the land, God did not stop loving them then either. Then finally when God decided that He’d had enough, I do not believe He stopped loving them even when He exiled them from the land. Their exile even came with a promise, that after 70 years they would be redeemed. God was again fulfilling His promise that he would punish Israel for their disobedience to bring them back to Him.

What an encouragement it is that while God may use different means to correct us or get our attention. We can have faith that since he has chosen us and loves us, he will not stop loving us because we do wrong. This is not an enabling fact so that we can live in sin, but a humbling truth that we owe everything to God’s willingness to love us, redeem us, and not give up on us.

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”

John 1:12

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[1] Deuteronomy 9:5 NASB

On Addictions: What is Clouding Your Message?

Do you know how Christians started to be called "Christians"? Early in the movement some Greeks in a Roman city called Antioch started making fun of them because they did not worship Caesar. They called them Little Christs, or Christians, because they tried to act like the Christ. It was an insult, but the Christians realized this was exactly what their goal was. They wanted to point people to Jesus Christ by imitating how he taught and lived. they knew that how they lived their life was their best witness to the goodness of God. This is why as Christians, we do things that are odd to the rest of the world. It is also why we avoid things like drugs, alcohol abuse and pornography. These things are dangerous and do not point people towards the freedom that Jesus gives us. It is simple to say that we avoid these thing because God says so and if that were the only reason it would be enough. But the New Testament (God's instruction manual for how life works) also includes the reasons why we avoid them.

When Jesus was on earth he famously said that the entire law and the prophets - everything that anyone ever knew about God - could be summed up in two laws. First, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and second , "Love your neighbor as yourself."[i] This is what we are demonstrating to the world; in the words of my Dad and I'm sure many others, "Love God, and Love People."

When we lose our self control and abuse things like drugs or alcohol we are not loving God or loving people. We are only being selfish by making decisions that we think will benefit ourselves. Paul says in a letter to the Galatians, "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh." And just in case we want to split hairs and ask what those kinds of things are, he give us a laundry list: "The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like." all of these things are selfishly motivated decisions that often harm others. It becomes hard to point people to Jesus when we are acting with selfish motivation.  And not only does it get in the way of our witness, the entire point of our salvation, but it also is rebellion against of God's instruction to take care of our body. [ii]

When we mistreat our bodies by allowing them to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, which by the way is both a drug AND a poison, or pornography we are destroying the beautiful housing that God has made for us. Paul also wrote a letter to the Corinthians where he said that while we have been set free to make our own choices that does not give us liberty to do things that are unwise. “'I have the right to do anything,' you say—but not everything is beneficial. 'I have the right to do anything—but I will not be mastered by anything.'" Paul argued that pushing the boundary and putting yourself and your body in danger of becoming dependant on something was bad stewardship of the body God has given you. He finishes his thought by saying, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." Our bodies belong to God just as we do. We need to use them to point to Jesus, and to nothing less than Him. [iii]

Please do not hear in this that the act of taking drugs, or of drinking alcohol is in itself sin. Please DO hear me loud and clear however that there is no value of getting anywhere near that line. The sin occurs when you chose to put your own values and desires ahead of what God values and desires for you. This is called rebellion, and I would argue that the indulgence in pornography is itself sin because by the time you are engaging with it you have already made the decision to act against what God has instructed. When we choose to overindulge ourselves or become addicted to something we are setting up that thing as an Idol and worshiping it instead of God.

The heart attitude that chooses something God has made over God himself is present with any addiction.  A while back I gave up coffee for Lent. One of the reasons that I did it is because I love coffee and drink a lot of it. Coffee is itself not bad and it is not a sin to drink coffee, but the temptation for all coffee drinkers is that when we are cranky or tired we want to say, "well I just need coffee." That is a lie. We have put that thing up as an idol and convinced ourselves that we need Coffee instead of God. I know they are just words but it is the heart that matters and it is out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.[iv] It's the same for drugs, alcohol, pornography and addictions in general. As soon as we think we need to have that thing to live or feel good in general, we worship it as an Idol before Jesus.

Why does God call us to avoid addictions and the misuse of drugs and alcohol and pornography all together? Because they keep us from demonstrating who Jesus is; because it causes us to destroy the bodies that he built for us; because when we do we set up idols in our lives and worship things that are not Him and will destroy us. But God did not set us free through salvation to be ensnared by an addiction. So in a letter to the Ephesians, Paul warned that, "It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light."[v] As leaders, people intentionally or unintentionally influencing people in a direction, be especially aware that how you live in secret will affect your people whether you like it or not.

So, as Christians who are looking to point people to Jesus, to honor God with our Bodies, and to worship Him only, how are we to live? Fortunately, the new testament, that manual for how to do life, makes it very clear. We are to point people to Jesus by looking to him ourselves. Paul goes on to say to the Ephesians, "Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil...Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit."[vi] Instead of turning to addictions, turn to Jesus and praise Him!

As Children of God made in his image how are we to honor God with our bodies? By focusing our minds on things that are wholesome. Paul says to the Philippians, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."[vii] Pastor Andy Stanley says that Every wrong decision you make morally is produced by a series of small unwise choices. Focus on wholesome things, and it will keep you far away from major morally wrong decisions.

Finally, as People of God how do we keep him first in our lives? By living by the Spirit. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that we have to keep Gods commands through our own ability. In fact, we are not strong enough. But God has given us the Holy Spirit who empowers us to follow God's will. This is what living out God's will through the Holy Spirit looks like, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."[viii] When we follow God through the Power of the Holy Spirit, It looks like Maturity, and that maturity will develop habits in you to keep you safe from addictions. As my Dad also likes to say, "Take the baby steps."[ix]

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[i] Matthew 22, NIV.

[ii] Galatians 5, NIV.

[iii] 1 Corinthians 6, NIV.

[iv] Matthew 12:34, NIV.

[v] Ephesians 5, NIV

[vi] ibid.

[vii] Philippians 4, NIV.

[viii] Galatians 5, NIV.

[ix] Dad.

I gave up coffee for 40 days and this is what happened

   This year for Lent I decided to give up Coffee. This is a big deal for me because I love coffee; it is one of the things that makes life beautiful to me. I am also, by nature of the 2-3 cups I drink per day, addicted to the caffeine within the coffee like all other coffee drinkers out there. I anticipated that the forty day fast from coffee was going to be challenging, and also a little sad.  Lent about half way through now and here is what I have to report: the most challenging part of this whole thing has been not complaining about how I want coffee and cannot have it.

   Just so that we are on the same page, let me briefly explain what Lent is and why I do it. Lent is the forty day period leading up to Easter that starts on Ash Wednesday. In old church tradition there was a baptism held on Easter and Lent was a time for those who would be baptized to prepare themselves. The forty days is based on the forty days that Jesus fasted in the wilderness.[1] The point of Lent is to change something in your regular life that allows you to focus more on God. Common examples of Lent practices are fasting from Netflix, or from social media, or from coffee. Lent is often associated with the Catholic Church but it is something that any church might be found observing.

   I usually observe lent for one big, broad reason and one more specific reason. From a big picture perspective, I observe lent because the point is to focus more on God; and I want to focus more on God. From a more specific perspective lent provides me with a chance to remember that I am not dependent on anything but God; and I am whole dependent on Him. Every time I wish I could have coffee I am reminded that I am not having coffee because I am choosing to declare specifically that I am not dependent on coffee but on God.

   To complain about how I miss coffee during this season of Lent would really be the entire opposite of the point. To complain about it would be to declare that A) I do actually depend on coffee and not God, and B) my attitude is also entirely dependent on my having coffee and I am not strong enough to maintain a good attitude without it.  Now here is the hard part: these things are still true apart from Lent. Man, the truth hits hard sometimes.

   I am not necessarily saying that it is a sin to complain, but it is something with which we have to be very careful. The things that we say and the way that we act are demonstrations what is going on in our heart, which we call our attitude. And this is the thing that God cares the most about. Jesus says that “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”[2] When we complain, it shows that we are not trusting that God will care for us. So it’s not that complaining is always wrong, but the amount that we complain shows how much we actually believe God.

   I didn’t expect that managing my complaints to be the most challenging part of give up coffee. I’ve learned how much I complain about small things and, to be honest, it shows how little I tend to trust that God will take care of the small things. So you ask “can giving up coffee for 40 days really bring you closer to God?” Yes, it absolutely can.

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[1] Matthew 4:2

[2] Luke 6:45 NIV

A Story of Holy Irony

I want to tell a story about something that happened to me this week. It’s not a very flattering story but it was an important lesson to… um, experience. The point of the lesson, and the story, is that often I still take pride in trying to run my own life and the little money that I have is a large part of that pride. Also, God has a way of making these things clear.

Here is the Story: in the near future I am probably going to start raising support for the ministry that I am a part of right now. To prepare for it I have been learning that when you ask people for money you are really asking them to join you in being a part of what God is doing, something that is bigger than themselves, and that is the more important part. Henri Nouwen says though that you cannot really ask people to share their money in this way unless you are completely free from feeling like you need the money more than you trust God.

I have never really wanted to make a lot of money or be rich, that's just never been a goal of mine. Two years ago I actually quit my sufficiently paying tech job to take a job, actually jobs, that didn't pay enough but were things I wanted to be doing. It's one thing to say that money isn't a big deal but I learned it's another to actually make moves to let go of even what little you have. God has been faithful though and I have always ended up with what I needed though I can't really explain how. So in light of my life situation I can usually say with confidence that money really isn't a big deal.

But so here's the point: this past week I was biking from work to home as I usually do and in a moment of carelessness I hit a taxi's side mirror and totally destroyed it. Half an hour of frustrating conversation with the driver later, I owed a substantial (for my circumstances) amount of money to him for breaking his mirror. The whole thing could have been worse but it was cold, I was tired and hungry, and I was very unhappy about the situation. All I could think about was that I had just wasted half of my paycheck. I don’t believe in coincidence anymore but I just could not understand why that had just happened.

About twenty minutes later while still riding home, an impatient driver cut me off with a somewhat risky move only to stop at a red light. It was not an wise thing to do by the driver but really it was no big deal. I, however, flipped out at him, yelling and cursing and personally insulting him as I passed by. He of course could only honk at me, so he did. Predictably the whole thing left me feeling not at all better. I immediately thought about what I had said to our College Group about cursing just days before. What I had said is this: using four letter words is not in itself a sin, but it is a demonstration of what is going on in our heart. Often when we curse, it shows that we don't trust God to take care of us in our situation. I very clearly was not trusting God to take care of me in light of the money that I now owed.

So to recap, I'm learning about how it will be important in the next step that I am taking to be totally confident in God and not be attached to the money I will be asking for.  Then I unexpectedly owe money that I can't really afford because of a moment of foolishness. THEN I demonstrate how tightly I still hold the money that I do have by taking it out on this poor guy. I think God has a masterful sense of timing.

The point of course, is that I often still take try to run my own life and the money I have to build myself some security. When Jesus says we cannot serve two masters He is right. If I am trying to give myself value by running my own life, I am a slave to myself. If I rely on the money that I have instead on the Promise of my Creator, I am a slave to the money. But Jesus died to break our bondage to anything that keeps us from running to him. That’s why I hit that guy’s mirror.

The Hustle Prayer

   During my last year of college, I had so much to do and so little time to do it that I would write down all my assignment dates on a calendar and tape it to my wall. I called it my Semester Evacuation Plan. I do not credit this with me making it through that last year; instead I give that credit to the Hustle Prayer.

   The Hustle Prayer was a prayer that I made up in college for when things got really difficult and I didn’t feel like I had enough time in the day to do everything that needed to be done. I would say, “LORD, Please help me get done today what needs to get done. What doesn’t get done I trust You that it didn’t need to get done today.” The thing that I noticed was that on the days that I did not pray like this on my train ride to school, I was far more stressed than on the days that I did pray this way. It wasn’t about the words that I was saying, instead it was the change was in the attitude of my heart and the invitation for God to come fill it that God responded to. The days that I prayed the Hustle Prayer I was more intentionally relying on God’s promises to take care of me instead of carrying that burden all by myself.

   Recently the Hustle Prayer has been coming back into my mind because sometimes I don’t feel like I have the energy or the focus to get all of the things done. Earlier this week as I was praying it occurred to me: what if I applied the Hustle Prayer not just to today, but to my whole life? To be honest this was a scary thought. I have a lot of things that I would love to do, or try, or learn, in this one lifetime that I have. At the same time a large part of my relationship with Jesus has been when and how much do I submit to his will for my life and how much do I rebel and try to do my own thing? (The answer, of course, is that I should always submit to my loving Creator, but I don’t always make wise choices.) So to trust God that the things that need to happen in my life will happen and to trust that the things that do not happen did not need to happen is a very uncomfortable Idea.

   We love to think that if we try hard enough we can make some value for ourselves. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who at some point wasn’t trying to feel a sense of self-worth because of what they accomplished.  But do we really want to live like that forever, in this world where we can’t even guarantee who will live past tomorrow? It seems like a very difficult and unnecessary burden to take on. I am all for trying things that are hard, but no matter what we accomplish that feeling of self-worth eventually goes away and where are we left? Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”[1] We were designed to rely on the loving Designer and then everything else falls into place. The easiest time to remember this is when you have more on your plate than you think you can handle. The hardest time to live this out is when you actually have to let go and trust that God is actually a loving Designer and will not let you down.

   I heard someone say once that engineers think: “I could lift the world if you gave me somewhere to put the crane” meaning that the same laws of Physics that apply to very small things also apply to very big things. What if every day I committed to rely on my Creator for my full life plan the same way I do for the days that seem so hard? How would that change the way I anticipate the future?

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[1] Matthew 11:28 NIV

What are you worth?

   When I became an adult I thought that I would finally have everything figured out, and that the other adults around me would have it figured out too. Not only did I find out that’s not true, but I also found out that everyone is trying to figure out what the heck they are doing. Adults, Teens, kids, we all want to know what we are worth, and we all desperately cling to things that we hope give us value.

   This upcoming weekend is the Youth Group’s Coffeehouse event. Coffeehouse is our big event that is part family dinner, part live music, and part talent show. My favorite part of the event is that it is entirely planned and executed by high school students with one college leader as a point person. While Coffeehouse has evolved over the years as the Youth Group’s interests have changed, it has always been a significant memory within the family. Coffeehouse is a big deal in my world, and between it, Thanksgiving, and the impending Christmas season, November feels like a busy month. As a result I have been feeling more acutely my weaknesses in time management and staying on top of things.

   This week I feel like I have not been very productive and it leads to me feeling insecure like I am inadequate. I am not by nature a planner; I tend much more to be a figure-it-out-as-you-go-along person. This makes me very good at last minute situations, relative to the population, but not very good at preparing things well in advance. I have found that in working with youth, being adjustable is very valuable; and however, it is certainly not the most efficient method of getting work done. This is not new to me of course, I have been wired in a certain way all of my life, but moments come when I forget who I am and feel like I am supposed to be more effective, more productive, and more efficient. These feelings almost always result in a voice saying that I am not good enough and that in the end, I am inadequate.

   This, however, is not the truth. The truth is that my value is not connected to my productivity or my efficiency or my effectiveness or even my ability as a leader or even my adequacy as an adult in general. My worth is not determined by who hires or fires me, or what my boss or the people around me think of me, or even what you, the reader, think of me. I am valuable because the Creator God, who designed me and gave me purpose, loves me and says that I belong to him. This is what I was reminded of this week when I felt like I should have been more productive this week. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, wrote, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.”[1] And most amazing of all, there is nothing that I can do to diminish my worth because God will not disown me. Paul, who began his career BY PERSECUTING BELIEVERS later wrote, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”[2] My Creator delights in me, and no matter how bad things get there is nothing that will ever change that.

   One of our undercurrent themes this year at Youth Group is that living as a Believer is counter-cultural. The reminder I got this week is the perfect example of that. This world works in a way that screams that your value is in what you contribute, or your monetary “net worth”, or what people think of you (including what your legacy will be). It is totally 100% the opposite to live with the truth that, while some of those things have value, none of them have anything to do with what you are worth. Your worth is based only on the love that the Creator has for you, and that will never go away.

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[1] 1 John 3:1

[2] Romans 8:1

You Can Do Hard Things

You can do hard things. I can’t count how many times I heard that from my Father growing up. It’s funny to me now because I say it to my students all the time, and this week I have taken it up a notch. Not only can we do hard things, it is our job to do them. We must step into the difficult situations that come up, and do the hard things.

Doing hard things then means getting past your fear of what might happen. Most hard things are hard to do because we are afraid of something. Put more simply, it is fear that makes things hard. We hesitate to do hard things because we do not want the pain, the embarrassment, the potential failure; in short we are afraid of the cost. This is not a judgment, its just an assessment: fear makes it hard to do hard things. This is why having courage is so important: because it takes courage to do hard things. Courage doesn’t mean not being afraid, it means being willing to do something even though you are afraid. This is what it means when to do hard things. This is we can do hard things, because God has given us the gift of courage to push through the discomfort or the fear or the pain. It’s a good thing too, because it’s our job to do hard things.

Let me explain why it’s our job to do hard things in a story. In the Old Testament story of David and Goliath, David is a young boy from a small village that has been left at home while his older brothers went to fight and invading army led by the giant Goliath. In the story, David is sent by his Father to bring food to his brothers at the Front. When he finds that the giant Goliath has been challenging anyone on the Israelite side to a duel and that everyone on the Israelite side has been hiding from Goliath in fear. David goes to the king and declares that he will fight Goliath. Of course the king laughs at the idea of David, who is a boy, fighting the giant Goliath who has been fighting for longer than David has been alive. But when he sees that David is determined, the King decides it is worth a shot. He dresses David in his own armor and gives him his own sword to make him more battle-ready. But David, who is a boy, is too small for the armor and not accustomed to fighting with the sword. He claims he cannot fight with them and instead goes out to meet Goliath with just his sling.

This is one of the most amazing things to have been recorded in history (you can read the rest in 1 Samuel, chapter 17) but, of course, there’s more going on under the surface. Earlier in the book of Samuel, before Goliath brings his army to Israel, we meet David. Samuel, writer of the book, prophet of God, is sent to anoint a new king because God has rejected King Saul. Samuel ends up at the house of David’s father and sees all of David’s well-built older Brothers. Samuel expects to anoint one of them but God rejects them all. David is finally sent for from where he was taking care of his father’s animals and Samuel anoints him as God’s chosen king of Israel.

Think about David’s moment with the King now. King Saul, the one David has been chosen to replace (though Saul doesn’t know it yet), is supposed to be the one facing the threat of Goliath and leading his men into battle. Instead it is David, who is a boy, doing what the King should be doing and making the hard decision to not be held back by his fear. David the anointed King was leading the nation of Israel the way that Saul the real king was supposed to be doing. David recognized it was the King’s job to do the hard thing and he stepped into it.

We are called to be different. To have value and make decisions that fly in the face of what our world says makes sense. This is hard; and it’s hard because it is scary. What will people think of you? What will they say? What if you do it and you’re wrong? But Jesus says he will never leave us and that he loves us. And because he loves us we can trust him when he says that he has made his plan in our best interest, we simply need to follow where he is calling us. And that takes courage.