Cheat Sheet on Financial Giving

The topic of "how much am I supposed to give" has come up on more than one occasion in the past week. It got me thinking about how I respond in a variety of situations. The bottom line is that there is a lot of confusion out there around the type of generosity a Christian is called to. Some of it stems from poor theology, some of it stems from a bad experience with a church, some of it stems from hard hearts that want to believe that our money is our money and you better keep your hands off of it.

I'm not sure what it was for the guy sitting behind my wife while she waited for jury duty. "The church is just a business!" he expressed, apparently to whoever was listening. "They said that I had to give 10% of my gross income! All they wanted was my money." There wasn't any arguing with him, so Christi didn't intervene. Unfortunately, he's not alone in his confusion. Even seasoned Christians argue about whether we're supposed to give 10% of our gross or our net income. The problem is, we're arguing about the wrong thing.

What I'm going to do in this post is highlight some New Testament principles on giving. It's not a theological treatise (which you wouldn't read) or a proof-text of why I'm right and you're wrong (which would be ridiculous). It's just principles that can help us understand what God calls us to give, how he calls us to give it, and perhaps most important of all, the context in which we are called to give.

First, 10% is not mentioned as a giving standard in the New Testament.

On top of that, it's a bit of a misleading statement to say that 10% was the Old Testament norm. But before you start putting down your checkbooks and unregistering for your online giving in your unbridled enthusiasm, let me explain. A "tithe" means "10%", but in the Old Testament, but God's people were required to give two tithes and a third one every third year. So yes, 10% chunks. For a total of about 23% a year averaged over three years. In the New Testament, the old manner of supporting the temple and governance structure of the Kingdom-Temple paradigm was done away with, and giving in the New Testament was replaced with the language of "generosity". The principle all along, Old Testament included, was one of generosity. The law of 10% revealed that even God's people were incredibly stingy, and not very generous at all. The good news of Jesus, in which God himself leaves all the wealth of heaven to become a pauper and ultimately to die a cursed death on a cross for the gain of his people, should, in the end, break down our stinginess and burst forth into generosity.

Fast forward a few thousand years to the man's comment about "the church wanting 10% of my gross salary!" Why are we asking about whether or not God wants 10% of the net or the gross? It's rarely because we want to give away more. Usually it's because we want to make sure that we're meeting the bare minimum requirement, and how foolish would we be if we found out that we'd been giving based on our gross income when all God really required was 10% of our net. All that money, wasted!

(For the record, if you are GOING to use a percentage based giving system, you would use your gross salary, especially if you are going on an Old Testament-like principle. Your salary is what you earn pre-tax. The government bases your tax percentage on that salary. If you are basing your giving off some number, it's that one. Not after the government gets theres.)

Second, all that God's people have is given for the good of the kingdom of God. 

Period. This is true in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. God always operates through individuals for the good of communities. If you have been blessed with wealth, God did not bless you so that you alone would be blessed. He blessed you so that you would be a blessing to his community of people. Put another way, if God allows you to make one million dollars next year, the proper perspective is that God has given his church and his community of people one million dollars, and he has made you the steward.

Now plug in your salary.

Next year you are going to earn 65,000. The proper perspective, biblically speaking, is that God, through you, has given his community of people (his church) 65,000, and he has called you to manage that 65,000 dollars well.

Third, you give what you have, not what you do not have. 

When Paul appeals for money in the New Testament, he doesn't use percentages and he doesn't use dollar figures. He uses capacity as the measurement of generosity. What is your capacity for giving? Or, to ask it another way, how much has God given you to manage? All other things being equal, if you have a family of five and you make 65,000 a year, your capacity for giving is probably going to be significantly less than a family of five who makes 250,000.

If you took that scenario and judged based on percentages, say, 10% of gross income, you end up with one family looking somewhat generous and the other not looking that generous. Family one, making 65,000 dollars a year, would "only" have given 6,500. Family two, making 250,000 a year, would have given 25,000! How generous! Except that it's really not very generous at all, since they still have significantly more money leftover to spend on themselves. Neither the dollar value nor the percentage are an accurate reflection of true generosity. (Remember Jesus story of the woman who gave her last two coins? That was more generous than someone who gave 100 coins our of their wealth.)

GENEROSITY

So let's assume that we understand the Gospel, that Jesus literally gives up everything for the sake of his people, the church. Jesus does what the law could never do. He actually frees us from condemnation so that, instead of attempting (and failing) to follow the law to the letter, we are free to live in the spirit of the law. It's not just that the Christian doesn't murder; in the kingdom of God we don't even have hate in our hearts. It's not just that the Christian doesn't commit adultery; in the Kingdom of God we don't even look at a woman lustfully. At least, this is the ideal. It's not the letter of the law, it's the spirit of the law that was the most important thing. What the law, in it's letter, revealed to us, was how far we fall short of the spirit of the law and how much we need Jesus. (We couldn't even give 10%, let alone actually have glad and generous hearts!) And now that Jesus has come, and has transformed our hearts, so our hearts, more and more, daily and progressively, are in tune with the spirit of the law which is the spirit of God.

So here's what generosity requires.

First, it requires that we understand the Gospel. You can't just ecide to be generous. Maybe by the world's standards you can, but not by God's. Generosity is a heart issue. It's giving with gladness. And that only happens when we understand the transforming power of the Gospel.

Second, it requires that we understand what God requires. Answer: everything. It's not yours to begin with. It's his. You are called to be a steward of it for the good of his Kingdom.

Third, it requires that we understand our capacity. Not everyone can give the same amount, but I know from experience that most people assume they are on the lower end of the scale rather than the higher end, and they are almost always wrong. My guess (and a fairly educated one) is that most of us could give substantially more than we are currently giving. The only way to know, however, is to have a realistic perspective on our capacity.

Here's the thing: it requires money to live. That's reality. We have a job and earn money for two reasons: first, to provide for ourselves and our family, and second, so that we can give money away. God ants you to provide for your family, and he does not want you to go into debt so you can give. You must take a realistic assessment of what it requires for you to provide for your family, and recognize that you will only have a certain capacity for giving. 

In the example above, one family of five found out that they could live on 57,500/year, because that's what they had after giving to the church. The other family was living on 225,000/year. Why the discrepancy?

Let me be clear: Jesus was not a socialist and the New Testament church was not a socialist utopia. Anyone who argues that has an agenda and they are being ridiculous. There were wealthy people in the church and poor people in the church and some of them owned mansions and others were servants in someone else's home. Yet each of them was called to give what they could, according to their capacity. The system worked because the Holy Spirit had moved in people's hearts to such a degree that everyone wanted to give whatever it was that they had to give. Some gave more and some gave less. But all gave according to the same spirit. That is generosity.

We don't all have to drive white Honda accords and wear one-piece silver v-neck jumpsuits. We don't all have to have the same size house on the same kind of street with the same length driveway. The lower-income person can rob themselves of their capacity for giving by buying the most expensive cell-phone, and the higher-income person can rob themselves of their capacity by buying the biggest house on the block. It's okay to have differing levels of income, it's not okay to fool yourselves into thinking that you don't have more capacity for giving.

(And for the record, lower income people in the American church give a substantially higher percentage of their income than higher income people. The statistics for actual dollar amount given per household look a little better, mostly because there are some people who give massive dollar amounts that bump up the average.)

Here is how you will know that you are striking the right balance between what you need and what you are giving: when you look at your bills, and think, "I genuinely wish I could give more", you've probably got a good balance, and quite frankly, it will motivate you towards good financial stewardship. If you think, "thank God I don't have to give more" or "there's no way I could give more" or "I'm giving plenty as it is", you've got some heart work to do.

None of us are perfect, and we're not going to get there tomorrow. I'm just saying that if we're more concerned about what we have to give away than we are with what we get to keep for ourselves, we've probably got the wrong perspective. Whatever you have is given to you to steward for the good of the community around you. It doesn't always feel good, but that's when we need the Holy Spirit to change our hearts. Overtime, slowly but surely, he'll turn us into a generous people after all.

Freedom from Condemnation & Parenting

This is part one of a four part series on freedom from condemnation. The four parts ended up being Freedom from Condemnation, Repentance, Parenting, and Drivenness.

I was sitting next to a friend last week in a seminar on age-graded ministry. He currently works in youth ministry; I used to. The seminar/discussion was related to ministry in the church for specific age groups, and striking the balance between offering age-focused ministry and honoring the fact that it was the parents who were called to lead their children spiritually. A few of the pastors in the group seemed to tread pretty close to the, "I tell people how to raise their kids" line, and my friend leaned over to me and asked, "so I'm supposed to watch you parent and then parent my kids the same way?" It was a tongue in cheek question. His kids are older than mine, and he's older than me. He has five kids. I have five kids. We can learn from each other, but it would be foolish to suggest that somehow I've got the one-up when it comes to parenting.

I had been thinking about this idea of freedom from condemnation and how it relates to our parenting. For one thing, there are a lot of parents who feel condemned in their parenting. We live in a day and age when everyone and there mother wants to post on social media about their parenting best practices. We never stop to consider context, economic status, or whatever. It's easy to buy all organic food when you have one kid and are in the top financial tier of society. It's not easy to do that when you have five kids and are surviving on an average salary (or nearly any salary, for that matter.) That's not to suggest that eating organic food is wrong or bad in some way; it's not, and it's commendable if you can do it. You can't hold it up as a parenting law, however, and make others feel bad if they can't attain that standard. That's the condemnation we're supposed to be freed from.

The other related idea, though, is not just how we as parents feel condemned, but how we raise our children without making them feel condemned. How do we teach our children to obey the law, something we are commanded to do, teaching them to essentially live out their lives according to God's ideals, without making them feel guilty and shamed when they inevitably fail?

Here's why this relates to my story about telling parents how they should parent. My role as a pastor is to help people see how the Gospel relates to their parenting; not to tell them how to parent. That fine line is important. If I fell too heavily on the telling people how to parent, I will inadvertently create a law that may or not be in line with God's expectations. I will lead parents into condemnation rather than Grace. On the other hand, if the Gospel relates to our parenting, so that we live in the beauty of God's call on our lives and yet our total freedom from condemnation, perhaps we will find joy in our parenting rather than guilt, both for us and our children.

(For the record, I think the other people in the discussion I was a part of believe that too, but it didn't come across that way. Hence my friend's somewhat snarky comment.)

So how does the Gospel relate to our parenting? I'll address the two that I already mentioned, starting with our own sense of failure as parents.

FREEDOM FROM OUR OWN CONDEMNATION

It takes very little to feel condemned as a parent. We don't call it condemnation. We call it "feeling judged", but it's the same thing. Every time you get "the look" from the patron in the restaurant, you immediately feel it. It's that feeling of failure; it's the knowledge that that person believes they would raise their children better than you would. "The look" conveys what they are thinking. Their kid would never act like that in a restaurant.

And then, of course, the next time you are in a restaurant and your kid is eating their french fries, and someone else's kid is acting up, you can't help but glance over, wondering, "what's wrong with those parents? Why don't they stop him?"

Even worse, some of you just read that last paragraph and thought, "I can't believe he feeds his kids french fries."

You get this condemnation from strangers, from friends, from parents, and from siblings. Every younger sibling who has no children believes that they will raise their children better than their siblings. "My kids will never act that way; I'll never let them get away with _______________". 

Every child feels it from their parent on at least one occasion. Grandma or Grandpa tries to enforce their will on your children, whether you are around or not. "We didn't raise our kids to act like that."

There are two parts to this problem. The first part is that we, as people, are incredibly self-righteous, and we believe that whatever it is we think we will do, we are doing, or we have done, is the right way to do it. That's what "righteousness" is. It's the "right way". And we think we nailed it.

The second part is that we, as people, have all these little areas that we haven't really embraced the freedom of the Gospel, and our parenting is one of those little (or not so little) areas. We want to be free from condemnation, but every time we feel that look there's a part of us that thinks they are right, and we really are a failure.

The Gospel re-focuses our parenting so that we can keep first things first. In my initial post on freedom from condemnation, I said that one of the things that this freedom allows is that we can evaluate expectations that we our others place on us and decide whether they are really relevant and worthwhile. Most of them aren't. Freedom from condemnation gives us a filter to judge what is really important in our parenting, since we are now free to examine what God desires of us, without the need to feel like the people around us will think we are a failure if we disagree with what they desire of us.

Surely, there are expectations of the Christian parent. We are called to raise our children to love Jesus. We are called to teach them the ideals of God. We should desire that our children understand God's word and grow to love God's word. We should be concerned with our children's  "heart, soul, mind, and strength". We should ensure that they are healthy in their mind, their spirits, and their body. They have been assigned to us, by God, so that we can show them the good news of Jesus and the greatness of their Father God, to the best of our ability.

In spite of all of that, or perhaps because of all of that, we are free to live without condemnation, even when we mess up or don't live up to the expectations. The Gospel is the reminder to us that we can't save ourselves, and we can't save our kids. That's God's work. So even when we mess up, we can have the confidence that we couldn't do any of it without God anyway.

As for other's expectations on us, it requires a two-way grace. First, the grace to apply to yourself to remind you of your freedom, and then the grace to apply to them, to realize that they are still a self-righteous work in progress as well.

FREEDOM FROM CONDEMNING OUR CHILDREN

This is the freedom with which we raise our children. The unfortunate reality is that many, many people have grown up under the pressure of "obedience" without the pressure-release of "freedom from condemnation". Such was the case for much of my childhood. The attitude I experienced wasn't, "we want you to learn to live according to God's ideals because of God's love for you"; the attitude was, "we want you to live according to our ideals because otherwise we'll be embarrassed." One of those is obedience based on freedom; the other is obedience based on guilt and shame.

I could recount moments of "shaming" disguised as discipline, but it's not worth it. Must more important for us is understanding how we can raise our own children to be disciplined without being shamed. I've mentioned the "pendulum" of culture before. In a lot of cases, if parents grew up in a shaming household, they go the total opposite way and try to raise their kids boundary free. The wrong-headed belief is thinking that the opposite of shame-brought-on-by-law is absence of law. In other words, get rid of the law, and we'll get rid of the shame. Boundary-free, no limit parenting is the wave of the future. Even gender remains up for debate. It's "whatever you decide", and as a result, we think, there will be no guilt and shame.

Of course, it never works, in part because the law is a deeper reality than some external restrictions. We can remove external boundaries all we want, but we can't remove the internal ones. And if we could, we wouldn't want to. If we truly lived our lives as if rules and boundaries didn't matter, it would obviously be chaos. Shame doesn't get removed because we remove the law.

The Gospel actually handles it exactly the opposite of culture. If culture says, "get rid of law, and we'll be rid of shame", the message of the Gospel is, "get rid of the shame, and enjoy the law." It isn't absence of law that brings freedom, it's absence of shame. When the shame is gone, we are not only free to obey without the fear of condemnation, we are also free to receive loving discipline that keeps us on the path when we don't obey.

When my son misbehaves, therefore, what I want him to understand is that whatever consequence he may face as a result has zero impact on how I view him as my son. I don't love him less when he misbehaves, and I don't love him more when he behaves. (And just to be clear: I'm a sinner, so yes, when he misbehaves I'm annoyed with him and when he behaves I'm grateful. I feel the need to say that so that you don't think that I have this down, like the Heavenly Father loves us. If there is loving discipline in our lives from God our Father, it has zero impact in God's view of us, because he actually is perfect and loves us with a perfect love. But I digress.) When I discipline my son, I want to make sure that he knows that the reason I'm disciplining him is because I love him. When he is disrespectful to me or my wife, there are consequences. And the reason there are consequences is because I honestly believe that it is better for him to be respectful than it would be to allow him to continue in his disrespect. It's love that leads to discipline, not lack of love. It's for his good, not mine. I love him no matter what.

Furthermore, I'm not shocked when he misbehaves. I don't think less of him when he misbehaves. I already knew he was going to misbehave, and I knew it from before we got into this parent/child relationship. 

I know he's going to misbehave.

I don't love him any less because he misbehaves.

I correct him because I love him.

That's the Gospel. If there is loving correction from God, it has nothing to do with whether or not he needs me to behave. He doesn't. In his eyes, I'm already perfect. If there is correction, it is for my good and ultimate joy.

As a result of this, we are free to discipline our children without leading them into shame and guilt. We can at the same time teach them that there is a way to behave, and not shame them when they fall short.

I fail at this all the time, but I'm trying, and by God's grace, I'm okay, and so are my kids.

Freedom from Condemnation & Repentance

This is part of a four part series on freedom from condemnation. The four parts ended up being Freedom from Condemnation, Repentance, Parenting, and Drivenness.

After writing last week about our freedom from condemnation, I began to think about all the ways that this freedom actually plays itself out in real life. The idea that I've really been wrestling with is this view that what we is ultimately destroyed by the cross is our condemnation, but not the law, even though the law is a shadow. So as the author of Hebrews states, the sacrifices are done away with because Jesus in his perfection is the final sacrifice; there is no necessity for further sacrifices, not because the law is destroyed, and not because we will perfectly fulfill the law, but rather, because Jesus has perfectly paid the just due for all those who would be imperfect and break the law. Again, the condemnation is gone. We are freed. We are viewed as perfect in the eyes of God, because he sees us through Jesus.

The interaction of this freedom with the rest of life came out in at least three ways that I started considering. One was the idea of "drivenness". Some folk are just driven people; often, that drive is fueled by internal or external expectations, and while that might be a good thing, the challenge is to maintain the drive while losing the fear of condemnation. Another area was that of "parenting". Obviously we teach our children to "obey"; that's our parental duty. Additionally, we punish our children when they don't obey. How do we square that with the idea that we are no longer condemned? And finally, a third area was that of repentance. What does repentance look like in the Christian life? It is this third one, repentance, that I decided to cover first.

Freedom from Condemnation & Repentance

I was sitting at a luncheon with some friends when one member of the group said that they felt the need to repent of something that had happened the night before. Honestly, most of us probably didn't even know it happened, and the way that it was addressed made it even more awkward than if he had never addressed it in the first place. I wasn't sure whether it was awkward because I wasn't used to people repenting, or because I just didn't think that's what repentance meant. In other words, was repentance something that was done verbally, almost in an AA-like manner, where you have to confess to the people you feel you may have offended? Or was repentance something that was less about the verbal confession and more about the change of heart? To state it differently, was repentance about identifying what happened yesterday, or about what you were going to do tomorrow?

Answering those questions in depth would take a different post. The short answer is that it's a little bit of both. On the one hand, it's clear that confession is part of repentance. (1 John 1). On the other hand, it's also fairly obvious that confession without some sort of change in behavior or outlook would be fairly empty. I might say that confession indicates recognition of the need; the change in behavior or outlook is the evidence.

In any event, this week I've been thinking about repentance in relation to our freedom from condemnation. How is it that repentance is still required of Christians, and should mark our lifestyle, while condemnation is not? The question can only be answered if we understand that the law is still valid and good, even if it is only a shadow of the true reality which will ultimately be the kingdom of God, where there is no need for a law because we would all live perfectly according to God's ideals.

The fact is that repentance is only possible when we understand that while the law still exists, condemnation does not. Ultimately this is the reason that anything we do as Christians matters. God's ideals are not destroyed because Jesus was perfect; quite the contrary. Instead, we are finally able to live in freedom, without the guilt and shame of our own imperfection, because Jesus has a) already identified the problem and provided the solution and b) already dealt with any lingering doubts that we might have by giving us his perfection for free.

What that means practically is that we can live under the goodness of the law of the Spirit that is constantly transforming us and aligning us with God's ideals, and we can live under the freedom from condemnation which means that we can freely admit when we fall short. If there was no law, there would be no need for repentance, because it would be impossible to be a rule-breaker when there are no rules. There would be nothing to turn from. Since there is a law, and God's ideals actually exist, there is not only something to turn from (inability to meet the ideal whether willingly or unwillingly) but there is also something to turn towards. Furthermore, since the condemnation has been removed when we do fall short, we can repent without implicating ourselves in our own crime. We can actually admit, without guilt, and without shame, that we have fallen short; we don't do it out of fear or out of embarrassment but out of freedom, with the full knowledge that the very foundation and need for the good news of Jesus is the reality that we can't save ourselves, and that we are always constantly destined to fall short. 

We are free, then, to unload the burden of our failures through repentance, without the fear that if we do so, "whatever we say can be used against us in a court of law." It can't, and won't, be used against us. Repentance is the true mark of freedom, because when we repent we are again reminding ourselves and those around us that we can't save ourselves, but that Jesus has saved us by his cross. In a sense we are staring down the face of punishment and turning aside, relieved. The punishment can't touch us anymore. We're free.

If we are in a context that makes us feel like repenting will mean guilt, shame, embarrassment, or defeat, then we are not in a gospel context. Repentance is freedom, because only a person who is free from condemnation can truly repent. If condemnation still exists, then repentance is done out of fear. But if it doesn't exist, then repentance is done out of freedom, and if it's done out of freedom, it leads to life.

That's the joy of the Gospel.

Freedom from Condemnation

This is part of a four part series on freedom from condemnation. The four parts ended up being Freedom from Condemnation, Repentance, Parenting, and Drivenness.

I've been reflecting on our freedom from condemnation over the last several days. On Sunday night, as I was closing out the Youth Retreat that I was leading, the message of freedom from condemnation was the message I wanted to send them home with. All of our life is filled with law that leads to sin and death. It's law that kills us. Law that reveals our inadequacy and failure, whether the law is the biblical law, some internal law that we create for ourselves, or some external law that others place on us. They all carry condemnation. They remind us that we cannot ultimately succeed. Paul's claim, and ultimately the claim of the Gospel, is that the Christian person is set free from the expectation that we can ultimately attain our righteousness through the law.

The tension for the Christian–and really, it is no tension at all, but it is one that we create–is trying to figure out exactly what that means. One tendency, and the easy one to debunk, is to believe that Paul must be mistaken and that, while Jesus death covers our past sins, it is now on us to make sure that from here on out we fulfill the law more than we break the law. This is simple to throw away because it is not good news. I can't keep the law, and I'm reminded daily. In fact, this is the very thing that the law is designed to do! So if I have to earn something now that Jesus has covered my sins, I'm in deep trouble.

The other tendency is to believe that the law no longer exists, or no longer has any value. Thus, to be set free means that the law has been erased and therefore has no hold on us. We find this idea challenging to accept, and rightfully so. If it's true that there is no law and therefore no expectation, then what has Christ's death really done? It has certainly freed us, but freed us to do what? Has it freed us to sin all the more? Paul is clear that this is not the case, but then by which measure do we understand sin, if there is no law?

No, the freedom Paul speaks of is freedom from the condemnation of the law. That is, because the Law (of God) has been so ultimately fulfilled by Jesus, we no longer live under it's condemnation. It is still completely valid. It is right. It is good. It's just not condemning for us. We don't worry about our own ability to perfectly fulfill what God has commanded, because Jesus has perfectly fulfilled it on our behalf. We don't consider our accomplishments in relationship to the Law to increase our righteousness either. We are already perfectly righteous because of Jesus.

The reason we create a tension where there doesn't have to be one is that we cannot comprehend of a legal system where the law is still valid but the punishments are not. It doesn't make sense that "murder", for example, continues to be wrong, but if we do murder, we get off free with no condemnation. If it is the case that we are truly free from the condemnation of the law, then we really are ultimately free from the law itself. In other words, we are free to live however we wish to live. "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Thus, the tension: is it possible that we are saved, and so therefore we can sin freely?

At the most basic level, the answer is "yes". If it is true that we are totally, one hundred percent covered by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, so that there can be nothing held against us anymore, that there can be no accusers, that we can no longer be condemned, then we are truly and radically free and no amount of sinning after the fact can change it. That's freedom.

A more nuanced answer, however, will be "yes, but we won't". That is, yes, we can sin. We can live however we wish. But we won't, because we have been utterly transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Since it is the Spirit who sets us free, and makes us new, it is the Spirit who empowers us to actually carry out the very spirit of the law; it is the Spirit that enables us to truly love God and love others, and that is the crux of the whole matter. So while we are totally and radically free to go out and live however we want, the transformation in us is such that we will actually begin to live more fully the way that God intended in our love for God and others, so that even without the law we are fulfilling the law. This is why the same apostle who so radically declares our freedom from condemnation and the law can at the same time express confidently that what will be evident in us is fruit; the Spirit will be working. It is not optional. We are being transformed.

This is the first response to the tension we feel in response to our freedom: the "law" that we are now under is the "law of the Spirit"; the transforming spirit that enables us to carry out the intentions of God from the very beginning, which is to love God and others.

The second response to the tension that there can be a valid law without condemnation is really the heart of the Gospel message. Jesus himself says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. The law continues to carry with it punishments. The great breach of the law was the failure to love God and to love others; the punishment was, and is, death. Jesus repairs the breach and takes the punishment. He perfectly loves God and others, and assumes on himself the punishment that the breach required. We are free from condemnation not because the law no longer carries condemnation–in fact, it does–but we are free from condemnation because Jesus was condemned on our behalf.

The law and the punishments remain in full force, so I have a few options. I can either perfectly fulfill the law, and therefore avoid the punishment, or if I can't perfectly fulfill the law (which I can't), then I can assume the punishment myself. Since I can't perfectly fulfill the law, I can't please God. In fact, my very efforts to do so become hostile to God! So then, since I am a lawbreaker by nature, the still-valid punishment must be satisfied, and it will be satisfied either by myself or by a substitute. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus is the substitute.

So then not only is the law valid, but the punishment is valid as well. For the Christian, however, the punishment has been taken by Jesus, so that we can confidently declare that no matter how much we break the law going forward, there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. The law is still good and right! But we are not condemned when we fail, because of Jesus.

That message of freedom from condemnation not only applies to the biblical law, but to the internal and external law I mentioned. One author (Paul Zahl, I believe) referred to the internal and external law as the bastard children of the law. They are the natural outcome of attempting to define our lives, our righteousness, and our justification by our own efforts, and then taking those expectations and applying them to others, so that we also view their righteousness and justification through that lens. Freedom from condemnation takes those expectations and turns them on their head. They no longer define us. Our life now is defined by Jesus. Our law is defined by Jesus. The things that matter, the expectations of God, are defined by God himself. Even when we fall short of those expectations, we are not condemned; we cannot be separated from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

That is the perspective by which we measure both the internal law and the external law. In both cases, attempting to earn our "rightness" by fulfilling the law will ultimately lead to oppression. This is not to say that there are no good expectations for ourselves; we may expect that we will perform well at our job, for example. There is nothing wrong with that expectation, it is good and right. What the Christian understands is that they are no more righteous if they meet that expectation, just as they are no more condemned if they don't. Their identity is in Jesus. He defines the expectations that matter.

Freedom from condemnation means that we are free from accusation when we don't measure up to expectations of ourselves or others. As a perfectionist, the most freeing thought I can have is that I am still free even when I don't meet the expectations that I place on myself. I am not bound to that perfectionism. Not only do I not have to be perfect, but I don't have to worry about whether or not other people think I'm perfect either. I do not stand condemned anymore. Because Jesus accepts me and has paid my dues, it really doesn't matter much whether others think I am measuring up.

But perhaps even more importantly, however, is the second reality:

Freedom from condemnation means that we are able to disagree on whether or not an expectation is valid to begin with.

There is no doubt that Paul instructs the early Christians to certain standards: they will be hard working, for example. If you are lazy, you are not considered "needy"; you are considered "lazy". There are other expectations that he allows, but doesn't necessarily condone. Celebration of certain religious feasts, for example. It's not harmful, he would say, so long as you don't think you are earning your righteousness from it. If it helps you focus on Jesus and his righteousness, enjoy it! But since you earn no righteousness from it, you can't expect others to join you in your feasting. It's not a necessity; it's a false expectation.

False expectations abound. "All good parents feed their kids organic food." "All cool teenagers play sports." "All men make a lot of money." "Successful people drive brand new cars." "True Christians read their Bible an hour a day." And one my wife is particularly passionate about, not for her sake but for other moms who feel the pressure so powerfully, "All good moms have immaculate houses." Here's the thing about this expectations: some of them are just wrong and unbiblical ("Successful people drive brand new cars.") Others might work for you, but aren't binding on others (Buying only organic food or keeping an immaculate house). Freedom from condemnation means you are free to make the distinction between the expectations that matter, and those that don't. The key is remembering that if you can keep them, you aren't more justified, and if you can't, you're not more condemned.

You are totally justified, and never condemned, because of Jesus. This is the freedom of the Gospel.

Restarting & The Christian Life

The Christian life is a life of restarts.

I read or heard something recently that put the lie to the old adage that God is the God of second chances. Now that I'm thinking about it, I believe it was in a sermon from Tullian Tchividjian. He said that to believe that God is the God of second chances is to believe that there is still something of our own effort that is at play in the Christian life. That somehow, God is judging us by our mess-ups, but thankfully, he gives us another chance. Tullian (or whoever it was) said that God is the God of one chance and a second Adam. That is, Adam had a shot, and he blew it. But Jesus is the second Adam, and he succeeds. Speaking in biblical terms (and Gospel terms), we are all going to either be judged by the first Adam and the second Adam. Jesus wasn't really a "second chance"; he came to fix the problem that occurred when God gave us a chance at all.

In any event, this is the Gospel: that because God's love for me is not dependent on me at all, I can continually repent and just start over. God's not waiting for me to mess up. He's not waiting for me to succeed. I already have succeeded because of Jesus. So whatever I do, whether I do it well or poorly, I do out of a genuine freedom that I've found because of God's love for me in Jesus.

I say all that for a couple reasons. First, because I read a blog just recently about how to start blogging, and the author said, "just start writing." Stop thinking about the design, what you are going to say, whatever. Just start writing. He's right that during my days of journaling, which I've mentioned before, when I was writing 1500+ words a day and did so for more than a year, I didn't ask myself each morning what I was going to write about. I just got up and started writing, and out it came. So, he said, most bloggers get caught up wondering what they are going to write about when most times, the solution is just to start writing. (I ought to add here that I'm hoping to go back and find a link to his "10 things I would tell myself if I restarted my blog" or whatever it was titled, but to do that right now would be to defeat the purpose of just starting to write...)

The hope by even stating that is to maybe get my head in gear to actually start writing again. Also–don't worry about the audience. That was sort of his advice, I think. Or another piece of it. I can't remember. If not, I think maybe he intended it to be. The point is that I'm not entirely sure that you could know who the audience is when you begin; also, you might find (as I often do) that you are so beholden to who is reading it and what they might think or not think or whatever, and thus create what psychologists/sociologists call the "invisible audience" that you don't actually write what you want to write or even think, but you write with this invisible audience constantly in mind. How many more people would write world and life-changing things down if they weren't concerned about what their invisible audience thought about it before it even got onto the paper?

Secondly, I was struck by this idea of consistent restarts as I was preparing a message for a youth retreat I'm leading in a couple of weeks. I was reading from the Gospel Centered Life curriculum, and it mentioned the two sides of the Christian life that we tend to default towards: either legalism, which is assuming that we can meet all the criteria of God's law (usually by bending the law to make our actions seem less bad), or license, which is the assumption that since we can't meet God's law, and yet he forgives us anyway, we may as well go on sinning. In either case, it's a failure to understand the Gospel. Again, the Gospel is that God loves me in Jesus Christ, and I find my identity in Him. Not through my good deeds (where I might, in some miraculous alignment of desire, will, and action actually succeed in meeting God's law) and not through my bad deeds (where I constantly believe that I am a failure because I can't attain God's law.) Instead, I am confident that since Jesus has fulfilled the law, I am perfectly covered by his righteousness and thus, I am now free to do God's law (freedom=free from guilt, shame, the burden of the thought of failure, freedom from the eternal consequences). 

So there you have it. When you understand the Gospel, the Christian life becomes less about missed opportunity and failed chances and much more about just saying, let's try that again. Let's restart. The past can actually remain in the past. The future is wide open. Let's give it another go.

Denominations: God's Hilarious Joke, Part Three

I was asked to write a post about "getting along with your denomination", and this is what came out. I'm presenting it in three parts, because it's too long for one post. This is part three. (Read Part One and Part Two.)

Opportunities for Grace

I wanted to close with what I think is probably the most important reminder that's needed when dealing with a denomination: it provides us an opportunity for Grace with other brother's and sisters that can demonstrate what unity looks like in the church of Jesus Christ.

When I was outside of the denominational context, I thought just the opposite. I thought that denominations were proof that Christians were divided. And it's true that historically, denominations have often formed because of disagreement over various theological issues large and small. The solution to that problem, however, is not an even greater fragmentation of the Christian church; the solution is greater unity. And that unity is often most clearly seen in the denominational context, particularly when variety and loving disagreement continue to exist within it's ranks.

My denomination allows for the ordination of women, but also allows local bodies of Elders in a particular local church to decide for themselves based on their theological convictions. I am convinced that the Scripture is clear on the issue of eldership, and that elders (and therefore ordained Pastors) are supposed to be men. That creates a tension that I and my church have had to navigate.

On the one hand, I wish my denomination took a more definitive stance on the issue. I wish it was something that all the churches agreed upon, so that I didn't have to handle it on a local level. (It'd be nice to simply refer to "official policy" and avoid a debate!) On the other hand, it has offered me far more opportunities to have grace for my brothers or sisters in disagreement than I would have had otherwise; the fact is that if they did take a definitive stance, it would have led to the departure of some significant portion of the churches.

I'm reminded when I see my ordained sister's-in-ministry that even though we disagree on the issue of Eldership, we agree on the issue of Jesus. I'm reminded that they are lovers of Jesus like I am a lover of Jesus and they desire that people come to know him like I desire that people come to know him. I'm reminded that one of us might be wrong and the other one might be right but even if I'm right on this doctrine, I'm probably wrong (or at least incomplete!) on another one. And yet, at the end of time, we're both going to stand before our master and he's going to say, "well done, good and faithful servant". The Christian life is a life of grace–for the sinner, and for the "righteous". 

CONCLUSION

I'm still not a denominational apologist; I don't think you have to be a part of a denomination in order to have a proper church, nor do I think that denominational churches are necessarily healthier spiritually or organizationally (in fact, a cursory glance at the church in America would indicate that they're not!) What I've learned, though, is that we're often too quick to reject them and reject many of our brothers and sisters in the process.

Several years back, as I was exploring my call to plant a church, I read the church profile form of a church that was searching for a Senior Pastor. They were one of several churches from that denomination in the area, and it was evident to me that none of the churches were doing very well. This church profile form in particular indicated some frustration. It said something to the effect of, "we want to move forward, but we want someone who is going to lead us and not just push us around."

What they meant was, "we want someone who will love us." 

I wondered to myself, with all the talk of church planting, who will love these people? What leaders and pastors will love these saints, who have endured the hard road of the faith for many years, who established churches long ago, and may have lost their way? Who will endure the red-tape, and the hoops, to re-introduce these saints to Jesus and remind them of the beauty of the Gospel?

I said to myself at the time, "I guess someone else will have to do it." And then God pulled a fast one. And we've been laughing ever since.

Identity & Conduct

Over the last week or so, my alma mater Gordon College has been making headlines because of a letter that was sent to the White House requesting an exemption from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that President Obama was expected to sign and enact via Executive Order. The letter was co-authored and signed by a number of evangelical leaders, including the President of Gordon College, D. Michael Lindsay. I may, if time allows, put together another post with all the links that you need to read up on the issue yourself, including the original letter, the resulting petition from moveon.org, as well as responses from the President and the Chair of the Trustees of Gordon. In the meantime, I’ve decided to put some thoughts to paper (or screen) that I hope will help to provide some clarity if you, like me, are wrestling with the myriad of questions that have arisen as a result of the letter.

It has become obvious to me as I’ve watched the back-and-forth in social media, the outrage by some in the Christian community (and general confusion by others), and the carefully crafted responses from Dr. Lindsay and the College is that most Christians have a lack of clarity when it comes to both the issue of religious freedom, as well as the College’s position on homosexuality.

To be clear, Dr. Lindsay and the College have carefully articulated their position as it relates to religious freedom in the United States apart from homosexuality as a particularly defining issue. This is wise. The issue of sexual preference/gender identity is a defining issue of our day and must be dealt with in the context of honest dialogue and loving relationship. The freedom to have a particular defining stance as it relates to that issue, however, is a different thing altogether, and that is what the original letter to the White House was addressing. Dr. Lindsay and others are defending the right of a religious institution to have particular religious thoughts and convictions, regardless of what those thoughts and convictions may be, or whether or not they are in agreement with the social and cultural views of the day.

(The ENDA, for what it’s worth, would only have applied to institutions that received federal funding or federal contracts. The argument in the letter sent to the White House was that the ENDA would force religious institutions to choose between their religious convictions on the one hand, or the government funding on the other. If they stuck with their convictions–something any serious religious institution would do, of course–it would mean that whatever services they provided to the community would undoubtedly suffer because of the loss of funding. There is a question here about the extent to which the government should be involved in religious organizations, and vice versa, but that is a discussion for another day.)

Inasmuch as Dr. Lindsay and the College have avoided the discussion of the college’s position on sexual preference/gender identity, however, the reality is that the petition and response to the letter were primarily motivated because of what people interpreted–rightly or wrongly–as a request to willfully discriminate against the LGBT community. I’d argue that it was a misinterpretation of the letter, but one that was at least understandable, if we don’t know what the Bible teaches about identity and conduct. That’s acceptable for a non-Christian–why should they care what the Bible says? It’s a sad thing, however, when so many Christians seem confused. But then that is the issue: without a proper understanding of identity and conduct, Christians will be woefully unprepared to deal with culture issues such as the one at hand.

After all, this is the foundational claim being made by those that are fighting for what they claim are “civil rights” for those in the LGBT community. It is a civil rights issue precisely because of the fact that it is an identity issue. Just like society eventually realized that we shouldn’t discriminate against someone because of their skin color (an identity issue), we shouldn’t discriminate against someone because of their sexual preference (also an identity issue).

In other words, we shouldn't discriminate against someone based on something that is part of their biological nature. That is to say that a person who has dark skin is no less of a person than someone who has light skin, and therefore, they shouldn't be treated any differently by society. The same goes for someone who was "born" with a particular sexual preference, or even for people whose sexual preference or preferential gender identity doesn't necessarily match up with their biological gender identity, as is the case with transgender people. Their sexual preference, or preferred gender identity, as the case may be, does not make them any less of a person, and therefore, they shouldn't be treated as any less of a person.

There is an assumption being made here, of course, which is that sexual preference or gender identity is something that is inherent to our genetic makeup; it's something we're born with. A gay person is born gay the same way that your skin color is determined by your DNA. And while Christians have in some instances tried to make the case that it is not genetic, I don’t think that argument is helpful nor even particularly intelligent. Firstly, the question of whether or not there is a “gay gene” in a person’s DNA is a scientific question requiring scientific methodology, observation, and inquiry. Secondly, in the end, it doesn’t matter for the Christian perspective.

In any event, culture at large believes that identity will necessarily lead to conduct. Or, belief will lead to behavior. And while we as a society don’t believe in discriminating against people based on their identity, we all agree that we should be able to discriminate against people based on their conduct. That is to say that we typically wouldn’t deny service to someone in our restaurant for looking a certain way, but we would discriminate against someone if they entered into our establishment and began screaming, shouting, and generally acting unruly and obnoxious. In most cases, we would not just refuse service, but we would forcibly remove them, regardless of what they looked like. We discriminate based on behavior all the time, either because we think the behavior is dangerous or because we just don't like it.

(I was almost discriminated against on a golf course because I didn't realize that I couldn't drive the golf cart across the par-3 fairway. Unfortunately, as I sped across the grass, blissfully ignorant, the ranger spotted me and gave me a tongue lashing. He could have kicked me off the course because of my behavior.)

What we recognize as a culture is that conduct is directly related to our identity, or our behavior demonstrates what it is we really believe. And, in many cases, we reserve the right to discriminate against you if your behavior (or conduct) indicates that you weren’t who you said you were (identity), or don’t believe what you said you believe. Just ask the NBA.

The NBA recently made clear to Donald Sterling that people like him weren't allowed in their club; he wasn't allowed to be a part of their establishment. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who thinks that the NBA's discrimination towards Sterling was not warranted; what he said was extremely offensive and shockingly obtuse. What we'll discover in short order, however, is whether or not it was legal. Most people think it was. The reason? Donald Sterlings behavior was contrary to the code of conduct set forth by the NBA and the NBA owners, a constitution that he himself agreed to. He claimed, in principle, to believe what the rest of the NBA and the owners believed. Unfortunately, his actions proved otherwise. And based on those actions, the NBA felt justified in removing him from involvement in their organization.

Identity necessarily leads to conduct. That’s the point. Our conduct reveals who we really are. How can we force someone to behave contrary to who they are? To do so would not only be cruel, it would effectively be impossible. And as Christians, we should whole-heartedly agree. Our conduct will necessarily follow our identity; that is exactly what the Bible teaches.

The central theme of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that we don’t need a change in conduct, we need a change in identity. Only once our identity is changed will our conduct be changed. Our behavior will follow our beliefs, and not the other way around. So fellow Christian, do not miss what the Bible teaches about you: your identity is found in Christ. This is the dramatic overhaul that has happened in you, through the Holy Spirit, because of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross.

This is the reason it really doesn’t matter whether our sexual preferences are genetic or whether or not they are learned. Christianity teaches that all of our desires–genetic or learned–are going to be warped. We have a tendency (and more than just a small tendency) to want to do things our own way, to make ourselves the center of the world, to have all choices and decisions revolve around us, and largely, to ignore anything or anyone that says differently, including, even, a creator God. At least we're all on the same page, rebellious people that we are. It’s our natural-born identity.

What does matter, however, is that we have been renewed by the Holy Spirit so that our identity is no longer found in our nature, it is found in our spirit. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation!” (2 Cor. 5:17) This doesn’t mean that our natural-born self suddenly disappears. Far from it! It does mean, however, that because our very identity has changed, our conduct will no longer be forcibly driven by our nature. Since our identity has been changed, by grace, it will become increasingly obvious in our conduct and how we behave.

The standards of conduct set forth by an institution like Gordon College seek to articulate what that obedient life looks like, an obedient life that is only made possible because of our new identity in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. For example, the Bible articulates God’s ideal for sex and marriage as being between one man and one woman in an unbreakable covenant relationship. Thus, anything outside of that would be considered outside of God’s ideals, and thus, "disobedient", including viewing pornography (also prohibited in the standards of conduct, if I remember correctly) and extra-marital sex. The Christian person who finds their identity in Christ may be tempted towards those things because of our nature, but won’t continue to find them compulsory. Their identity in Christ means that they can choose God’s ideals, and in fact, will desire God’s ideals, based on that identity, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Lindsay, and the Chair of the Trustees, carefully articulated in their letters what all Christians should believe: we do not discriminate based on people’s fundamental nature, because Jesus does not discriminate based on our fundamental nature. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...” (Romans 3:23) Yet they also made clear that there is a discriminatory marker, and that is our conduct. If a staff member or a student consistently conducts himself in a manner that is contrary to the schools standards, based on the college’s view of what the Bible teaches as an obedient lifestyle, they may face discipline or removal. It is a code of conduct which every faculty member and student agrees to at the time of hiring or admission.

What they didn’t articulate was that the reason for this is because of the deeper issue related to identity. The very reason that Gordon can discriminate based on conduct is because conduct reveals who a person really is. Is your identity really found in Christ? It will show through in your conduct and your desires and your ability to be obedient. Imperfect obedience, of course. The Christian life is a life of repentance, not perfection. But our new identity will compel us closer to obedience, and not further away from it. So, as one reformer said, “the greatest perfection of the Christian is the desire to make progress...”

The bottom line is that without Jesus, and the new identity that we receive through faith, we are completely powerless to choose against our biological impulses and our biological nature. But we have a new identity, and we are not powerless, and as a result, we can live a life of obedience to God and his word even when it goes against everything that culture tells us or that culture believes. It’s not cruel to ask the Christian person to choose against their old nature; in fact, it’s cruel to ask them to choose against their new nature! That is who they really are now, because of Jesus Christ.

I don’t expect the world, at large, to understand that. But I hope and pray that we Christians do.

Colossians 3.

A Special Place in Hell

Every time I hear someone use the expression, "a special place in hell", I cringe a little inside.

We use it in reference to someone who we believe is particularly deplorable; someone who has done something that we can't possible imagine. Surely, this person is worse than we are. Surely, out of all the bad people, this one deserves more punishment than the rest. Surely, if God is going to subject anyone to an eternity of torture, this one here deserves it more than the rest. So much, in fact, that they must be given a special place. Like a back room. Where extra torture happens.

Unfortunately, I think the statement says more about us than it does about the person that we're referencing. At very least, it reveals a lot about what we believe. For one, it reveals that we believe, in some sense, that there are universal standards of right and wrong. We don't exact this type of judgment on just anyone; we reserve it for those people who have done something that we fairly assume will universally be condemned. Of course, there is also the self-righteousness of the whole thing. Clearly we believe that we have a higher moral or ethical standing than the person we have condemned to the back room. Finally, it reveals our complete misunderstanding of who God is, what he's up to these days, and what hell actually is.

Out of the three, it is only the first one that is at least mildly constructive. We live in a day and age when we are increasingly embracing the idea that there are no universal absolutes; indeed, all morality or ethics are relative to the culture that we live in. In other words, something we consider deplorable might be perfectly acceptable in another culture; and thus, a person practicing those acts cannot be considered "evil" or "wrong" so long as they are operating according to the morality or ethics subscribed to by their culture. Most people don't live with this philosophy for very long before they realize the major pitfalls and ethical dilemmas that it raises. (For example: bombing innocent people. Maybe we are the only ones who think they are innocent. Maybe someone else thinks they are guilty. It's all relative, isn't it?) The failures of cultural relativism become clear in light of particularly deplorable acts, and we acknowledge it with statements like "a special place in hell". To that end, it is constructive. But it is only the beginning of the unraveling.

The second problem immediately arises when we consider that somehow we are morally or ethically superior to someone else. By what standard? If it cannot be a cultural standard, and there are absolutes that we inherently acknowledge, then what is the basis for those absolutes? Who gets to create those absolutes? Who enforces the absolutes? And how do we know what they are?

This is the great question that will come home to bear on our culture. As Christians, I believe we must be prepared with an answer. So often we have resorted to simplistic responses–"just believe in Jesus", "Just invite Jesus into your heart"–and have failed to address the very real and deep questions faced by humanity. But Christianity is nothing if it cannot address the deep, spiritual questions that each of us, as spiritual creatures, carry within us like a constant reminder of a life once lived.

When my philosophies have proved to be a failure; when my resources have not provided me what I am looking for; when my success has not made me feel any more important; when my pursuits have not provided me love; when, in the end, I am still unhappy, where do I turn? We can mute the questions for a time, but we cannot ultimately ignore them. At some point, even if for a moment, they return to the surface and beg to be answered.

Christianity provides an answer. There is an absolute, and it was created and established by the God of the Universe. But this God is not a dictator who creates the absolute for his own enjoyment; he is a Father who creates the world a certain way for his children's enjoyment. And the absolute are not rules, per se. Not as we think about rules. They are simply the way things are. God is perfect and good and holy and beautiful, and anything that is not perfectly in harmony with goodness or holiness or beauty simply cannot exist. It cannot be one with the Father. So long as we are in perfect harmony with all that God is by his very nature, we exist in perfect joy. This is the description of how things were upposed to be.

It is that very union that was broken. Broken, as the Bible says, by representatives of the human race. Instead of living in the perfect unity that we had with the Father, we instead opted out; we chose our own way. Something else looked to be more beautiful and more good; but when we experienced it, we realized that we had been deceived. The promise of a greater beauty or a greater good was a lie; it could never exist; it could never deliver what it promised.

The result of this broken unity is disunity. It's disordered living. It's a disruption in the way that things were intended to be. Rather than harmony, we have chaos. Rather than goodness and beauty, we see evil and ugliness. Everything that was, the way things were really intended to be, was broken. And worse, imperfection can never achieve perfection again. Even if it could to some extent, it would carry around the memory of it's brokenness. Perfection will require outside intervention.

All of this explains how things are. Yes, there is disruption in the universe. Yes, there are absolutes. Yes, there is evil. Yes, there is brokenness. We see it, experience it, and all to often, know it in an intimate way either as the perpetrator or the victim. Most of the time, we are a combination of both. Our feet are firmly planted in how things are; firmly rooted in rebellion against how things were supposed to be.

So there is no morally superior ground. Imperfect is imperfect. One flaw or many. In broad categories, the label reads the same: damaged goods. And we have been experiencing the penalty ever since: separation from our Father. In short, we have been experiencing the precursor to hell.

Whatever else Hell is, it begins with this: complete and utter separation from God. The natural outcome of the divorce from his perfection, goodness, and holiness. Complete brokenness. There are no "special places" in hell. Everyone suffers the same fate. There is no worse thing imaginable than complete separation from our source of life. It couldn't get worse even if we wanted it to.

But the good news is that there is a way home; there is another representative who did for us what we were always supposed to do, but couldn't. Another representative who bore the penalty of our rebellion, and suffered Hell on our behalf. Another representative who chose not to opt-out of God's goodness, but rather, chose to endure extreme pain and ultimately separation so that you and I could opt back in. That representative, of course, is Jesus. And because of his sacrifice, as your representative, God judges you based on him. So when God sees you, he sees perfection. You are united with him again. The way things were supposed to be has come again, and you can have it.

Imagine that the memory of the life once lived was a memory of pure joy; you know you had it once, and you have been struggling to find it again ever since. Jesus is the pathway home.

So back to the original impetus for this thought: a special place in hell. 

There is no special place in hell. None of us are superior to anyone else and in fact, what we deserve is, across the board, exactly the same: we deserve total and complete separation from God because this is what we chose, it's what we choose, and it's what we will continue to choose for as long as we have breath. We will choose our own way. The path where we get to decide what's best. There's only a back room in hell reserved for the worst of us if it's big enough to hold all of us.

But there is a special place in heaven reserved for Jesus. And the good news is that it actually is big enough to hold all of us. But we only get in with Him. When we go to Jesus house with him, his Father adopts us as his kids and gives us a room.

Jesus is not interested in condemning people to hell; he is supremely interested in inviting them to heaven. The great and beautiful message of the Gospel is that he has already secured the pathway and ensured a safe passage for all who put their confidence in Him.

The Way that Leads to Life

“There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.”

— Proverbs 14:12; 16:25

The wisdom saying above occurs twice in the book of Proverbs, and why shouldn’t it? It is a summary of the way in which each of us walks his own way.

One can almost hear the thoughts of Adam in the Garden of Eden as he listened to his wife discuss the potential benefits of the “forbidden fruit” with the Serpent. In the end, after hearing the arguments, it is as if he thought to himself, “It seems like this is right. This is the best path forward to where I want to be.” He knew that God had said it would lead to death, but this way seemed more “right”.

Most of the time it is not the things that we know are wrong that get us off track; it is the things that we believe will be right for us. Perhaps it is only our motivation that is wrong, like performing good deeds for self-recognition. Maybe we assume that the ends justify the means, like lying on our resume because we believe that having this new job will allow us more flexibility to give of our time and our resources. Or, maybe we justify our actions by creating a greater evil that we are combating, like cheating on our taxes because we think the government will do worse with the money than we will.

Jesus did not walk according to his own way, but walked according to the way that God his Father had laid out for him. Because he perfectly walked God’s way, he was the perfect sacrifice for all of us who had walked according to our way. Because of his perfect life, his perfect sacrifice, and defeat of death, the way we must now walk is in the way—that is, we must walk in Jesus. (John 14:6)

You Are Responsible for Your Story

“Child, I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”

— Aslan in The Horse and His Boy

It's amazing how much information you can find out nowadays. You hear about some allegations being leveled against someone as unknown as a pastor (let's face it: even some of the most well-known pastors are only well-known because most Christians live in a bubble), and a couple of Google searches and Facebook posts later you've learned all that you need to know. Or at least, all that you can know by looking on the internet. Suddenly your mind is filled with information that you almost certainly don't need, and you are left to your own devices to sort it all out.

Let's call them "non-relational reflections". Or something of the sort. It's the type of thing you think about when you don't really know a person and all you have in front of you is data. At least, you think it's data. It may be gossip. Or it may be true. It's hard to say.

It got me thinking a little bit about responsibility, and what I'm supposed to do with all this "truth" I discovered online. And then it got me thinking about my own story; the one that I'm living right now. The one that I actually am responsible for.

I've been reading The Horse and His Boy with my boys, Michael & Anthony. Does that make me the horse? If it does, then I am a wild stallion. Or perhaps one of those Budweiser horses. But I digress.

As Aslan explains to the boy, Shasta, why things happened for him the way that they have, Shasta eventually begins asking questions about his traveling companion, Aravis. What was the meaning of her story? Aslan's response stuck with me: "Child, I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own." Later, Aravis receives the same reprimand from the Lion when she asks about Shasta.

It stuck with me because of the regularity with which I can and do find out about what is going on in someone else's life; someone else's story. It starts with curiosity. Then I form opinions. Eventually I act as if what is happening in someone else's story–a person I don't know and have never met–is somehow my responsibility. Either my responsibility to call out their bad behavior; my responsibility to reprimand them or warn others about them; or my responsibility to simply know. Then it's my responsibility to let everyone else know what I think. Judging by all the information and opinions I found on the internet, I'm not the only one who has a problem.

The trouble is that it can lead to at least two really dangerous paths. The first path is that we start wishing that we had someone else's story. The second path is when we start criticizing someone for how they are living their story.

The first path–wishing we had someone else's story–is human nature. We already know that we're prone to coveting what someone else has. More often than I care to admit I find myself wanting what someone else has; I wish that what happened to them would happen to me: they get a new house, new car, new clothes, their church grows faster than the one I'm at, etc. 

The second path, however, is much more subtle: criticizing others for how they are living their story. The reason it's more subtle–and I think, more dangerous–is because we can couch it in a whole lot of nice sounding things like "brotherly concern", or treat it as if we're just trying to "protect the sheep from wolves", or "hold them accountable!" or whatever other spiritual jargon we want to throw at it.

No one says, "for your own good and the glory of God I think you should give me your house." There's no way to be spiritual about your covetousness. But it's easy to be spiritual about your criticism.

Here's the thing. Well, the two things. First of all, we're all going to have different stories and Jesus makes pretty clear that when he's talking to Peter at the end of the book of John that it's a really good idea for us to worry about the story God has for us and not the one he has for someone else. And secondly, and I think, as a result of the first, we need to be really careful about these "non-relational reflections" into or about other people's lives. 

Yes, we should hold people accountable–but it's supposed to happen in relationships. The proximity of our relationship has a major impact on the responsibility of our relationship. If you don't have a relationship with someone, no matter how much information you can Google about them, no matter how many blogs you read about them, it's almost always going to be best to keep the criticism to yourself. Better yet, stop reading it altogether. What good does it do? If you have no responsibility to correct this person in the midst of their story, and you aren't going to do anything with the information but sit there thinking about how screwed up that persons story is or how stupid they are, then just leave it be. Most of the time, the people we are quick to criticize are people that we don't know and therefore have no responsibility for.

So I'm left with the data in front of me and I have to sort it out and then I conclude with this: it doesn't matter. It's almost impossible to figure out what's true and what's not true, and at the end of the day, it's almost never even information that I need. I'm responsible for me, my family, how I live my life, the choices that I make, and how I lead the people that God has told me to lead. I hope to live my story well, and I hope you live yours well.

I guess at the end of the day I hope that the pastors I read about on the internet live their story well, too. I'm just going to stop worrying about it so much. I have enough responsibility already.

“When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!””

— John 21:21-22

Teasing & Grace

Our kids know that they aren't supposed to tease each other. They understand that if they do it, they are being disobedient. Nevertheless, the regularity with which they tease one another must border on legendary. Twin boys, age 6. A younger sister, also age 6. Three kids ten months apart, all of them in their teasing prime.

So there they are. Knowing that "obedience" and "behaving" is a positive quality that we would like to help them learn. And yet, battling daily with their internal desire to tease. On the way to school each day, it is nearly inevitable, except on those rare days when God is gracious to us, that at least two of the children will begin to tease one another. The third will be silent. We will remind. We may scold. Finally, we may yell. And when we are close to silencing the teasers, so that three children are once again in line with our expectations, the third will finally speak: "Daddy, I'm the only one behaving." He may as well add a "nanny nanny boo boo" for effect.

And thus, all three children descend into rebellion.

Someone said that God gives us children so that we will understand what it is like to create someone in our own image who denies our very existence. It isn't that they pretend we're not there; they just completely ignore our "sovereignty" over the situation as parents. They know the rules, they just have a really hard time keeping them. The internal push to do the wrong thing is too strong. It's almost worse than pretending we weren't there. They look us in the face and do exactly the opposite of what we asked them to do, and what they know they should do.

Of course it really is just a microcosm of our own rebellion. It's the reason that religion doesn't work. The internal push to do the wrong thing is too strong; the rules only highlight our desire and make it worse, like someone telling us "not to look" at something. Our first reaction, without even thinking, is to look. Had no one ever told us not to look, we may have never looked, or at very least, we wouldn't have known it was wrong to look. It's when we hear the law of not looking that our desire becomes evident and we do the one thing we aren't supposed to; we look. But the problem is deeper.

Even if we don't look, and we don't descend into obvious rebellion, we still end up in the wrong spot. We say, "See, I didn't look." But our heart (and our tone!) reveals what we really mean: "see, I knew I was better than all those lookers; all those rebels." It's a much more subtle form of rebellion; an implicit rebellion; a rebellion couched in righteousness. A rebellion that elevates our selves and denigrates others because, after all, we really are better than them.

Religion creates rule breakers and rule keepers and neither of them are righteous.

The only one righteous is the one who not only kept all of the law, but loved keeping it, not because anyone would notice, but simply because he delighted in God and delighted in keeping his ideals. There was no self-interest involved; only God-interest. He fulfilled the law not because he was a law-lover, but because he was a God-lover. He loved God fully, so he loved others fully. So love is the fulfillment of the law.

What does that mean for three kids who tease each other incessantly? I don't really know. But what I do know is that they need grace more than they need law, and I need grace more than I need another parenting manual. That doesn't mean I don't help them to behave, it doesn't mean I don't give them rules, and it doesn't mean that they don't have consequences. It just means that the first thing they get when they get to school is a hug and an "I love you", and that's the first thing they return to every day. And they get it regardless of whether or not they teased each other in the car.