Christmas, The Highest Value. Isaiah 3:8

It's easy to replace His presence as a highest value with other things. Christmas season has this same battle raging within; So many competing values with Gods presence for Christmas. Our actions without meaning it become that of selfishness even in giving. Wanting for ours and our own. A value of family distorted by the increasing shame of not being able to do for our own kids as much as we want in the context of Gifts. Where does that shame come from? How did the value of family become about stuff over presence?  It's the right heart but wrong action that distorts the highest value, Gods presence "with us". The prophecy that should awaken our souls bounces off the surface of our hearts holding tight a different dream of bought affections. I so want my kids to know my love for them and Christmas threatens to define that as presents not presence. 

How do I fight it:
1. With every gift bought a prayer of gratefulness to God.
2. Context every gift with presence and schedule time with that kid with that gift. (Blake's art set a sitting with him as he draws, Gabe's shoes a challenge to a one on one game of hoops, Caden's gym a personal training session with him lifting.)
3. Give a coupon with every gift for time with them with that gift. My wife as well. Others as well. 
4. A scripture attached to each gift that contexts the gift in Christ Jesus.

More Than Evangelism

This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me. (Colossians 1:26-29 MSG)

This Scripture is vision. It extends the purpose of the church far beyond the just reaching people for Christ. It has poetic overtone of that of a bride being prepared for her groom.  Prepared in the old context. It was a being made holy and presentable. It was a developing the heart, the mind, the physical body for the groom. What if we have missed it as the church. What if we have painted the picture of this glorious thing when you receive Christ.  Our culture interprets good for me as comfortable, as convenient, as pleasant. Funny how Paul never describes it this way. He never invites people to this. As a matter of fact, neither does Jesus. It's not like he was up against that different of a culture. Yet he didn't water down the invitation nor the journey.  Maybe that's why there is such a celebration when a person comes to really know Christ. Because they see with new eyes. They don't receive a convenient Jesus but the leader Jesus who leads them on "paths of righteousness", that leads them to "springs of living water that never run dry;" who leads them through "valleys of the shadow of death.". It's an invitation to life, to mission, to purpose, to meaning, to eternity, to selfless sacrifice that reveals our significance and releases joy. To tell of it is of some use.  To vision cast it necessary.  Both are a deflated balloon that in order to really capture the imagination and excite the soul requires the life of another surrendered to Christ that adds breath and life and makes real the fantasy.

A church full of these people becomes the vision, the means, and the motivation that becomes a portal to the kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven". This kind of church leads people as Christ did.  It walks into the valleys of the lives of people and guides them through the turmoils of life and into the pain of sin their own sin in order to create in them a righteousness that is made only by gazing for long periods into the blinding light of the sun that reveals all and burns the darkness of sin away. For Grace River to be this place we must each be willing to be held ourselves in the fiery gaze of a holy Jesus. We must be willing to stand in the fire of redemption and be made by Him into his likeness where our lives become a blinding reflection of that same glory!  Only then can we be found worthy to hold another there in that same place with the same love, grace, and mercy as our Savior holds us.

In what area of my life am I refusing to turn hard into the direct gaze of the savior?

Autonomy, The God Killer

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV)

Perhapse the number one downfall of mankind is Autonomy.   This is why So many fight Christianity so hard; their desire for autonomy.  I have a friend who recently came to know Jesus.  He was one of these people.  His history with people and his job made him deeply distrusting of anyone.  This made his greatest admission concerning people, "I don't like them.".  As an interrogator, his everyday encounter with people was constant evidence of the brokenness of humanity.  Daily he saw the insecurities of people that bred dishonesty.  So people were unsafe and something to avoid and guard against. This created a very small world where the leading value was autonomy.  

Interesting that what began to unravel his whole world was when he came with his wife to our growth group.  What he encountered there were authentic people on a real journey to know God through Jesus and love each other along the way.  5 months later my friend gave his life to Jesus and believe it or not, has begun to love people and even like a few. 

The first place we see a need for autonomy is in Genesis with the fall of mankind from the grace and favor of God. It was Eves and Adam's dissatisfaction with perfect relationship with the creator and each other that created the rift.  That was the root of what is now broken in all the world. When relationship becomes, not enough, we find ourselves broken.  When relationships become not enough the core of our created identity becomes broken. The new need is to fill the need for identity; to replace what God intended to be how we understand ourselves, understand Him, understand others that gives complete meaning to life.  Outside of relationships as core identity, only one option remains, autonomy; the search for meaning in ourselves. 

That search can be best understood as a search of pride.  The need to explain ourselves outside of God and others becomes a search for something then only we could create for ourselves. For many that is identity found in their own intelligence. The quest for knowledge becomes their ultimate pursuit. This quest is driven by a need to understand life outside of God. These people then become antagonist to the faith. Their block is a pride at the most fundamental core of their own being.  But intelligence isn't in competition with Faith. That is why the more we discover seems if anything to create even greater argument for a creator.  The problem isn't intelligence. The problem is pride that needs intelligence to replace relationship. 

Adam and Eve's pride, a need for equality with God, created a dissatisfaction with perfect relationship with God. Is that not the core condition of sin in our lives as well. Is it not our need for control, to be the writers of our own futures rather then allow God authorship of our lives in perfect relationship that has us straining for autonomy when the prescription for our emptiness is relationship.  

No wonder Faith is the only prescription for the brokenness of humanity. Faith is the antibody to autonomy. Here is why. Faith is an abandonment of the need to create life for yourself.  Faith gives the power to someone else to create life. Where you put your faith is who you give that power to. Gods perfect redemptive plan was a restoration of faith in a relationship with Him through his son Jesus that restores cosmic identity in our souls that rebirths life there. A restored identity in the creator and his eternal Love. 

I challenge you to look at where you have placed your faith.  Where you have placed your faith is where you have placed your dependency. For some it is their Job. They have put their faith in a job to supply their needs and give meaning. So their life's pursuit is to maintain that job. Life becomes completely unstable then one that person even entertains for a second the thought of losing that job. For others it is their kids. The thought if only for a second of losing relationship with a kid rocks their entire world.  For others it is their own intelligence, personality, or abilities. The thought of those of those being taken away destroys meaning.  

Interesting that every place but one can be taken from us and leave our worlds completely collapsed. That one is God and relationship with Him. It is also the one thing we don't have to worry about abandoning us. That makes it the one thing we don't have to compromise ourselves in order to protect.  It is the unconditional Love of God demonstrated through his son Jesus. 

Where does Pride live in me. It is that place that the original sin breeds and resists the unconditional love and acceptance of Jesus. It is the place where autonomy threatens life. 

So how do yo find our way back?  

First is to recognize and confess that pride that is breeding autonomy in us.  It is an authentic conversation with God in praying the psalmist prayer, Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23, 24 NIV) 

Second, it is repentance that asks God to replace that area of our life with his presence. 

Third it is ongoing awareness to look for those moments though out each day where we are acting out of that autonomy and not out of relationship and quickly altering our behavior to match the new truth.   

Fourth is accountability.  The reality is that we are blind to ourselves and need other eyes.  Only in holy community does autonomy begin to fade from our identity as we live in and out of relationships reflective of the heart of God.

  

Family Values (Genesis 1:2-4)

As parents we determine the quality of the relationships our kids have one to another . We create the culture and that culture is set deep into the hearts of our kids. Our values then dictate that, culture. Our values are not what we would like to live; they're what we live. Every decision we make, bad and good, set and reinforce our values. Jacob and his wives set the culture for their family. It was kids for me and my satisfaction and gain. Their kids were born out of an emotional need to satisfy an emptiness within themselves. So they compromised everything in order to have them. Funny how that value didn't die with the birth of their kids, rather it was fueled by their arrival. Now their kids became chess pieces for them to gain first place in the eyes of Jacob. The need to satisfy the emptiness in their soul was not satisfied by the arrival of their kids. So their personal selfish need bred dissension. The family value became personal gain and favor in the eyes of Jacob.

Guess who inherited that value? The kids. Not just the children of the maidservants given by Jacobs wives to Jacob so they could have these bargaining chips. But Joseph as well. The son of Jacob and his real wife. Jacob then is as guilty. His own prejudice becomes the driving force for his families disfunction. The scripture said he favored Joseph over the others and when the others realized it, which happens as kids grow up, they hated Joseph. Kids are not dumb. They smell our values.

So as parents, how do we discover our values? Look at the kids values. They usually reflect our own. Then it's the hard work of expressing and living consistently the new values. Thats for the next post.

Going For Bronze!

USA Today sited a report on the contentment of Olympic athletes. Not surprisingly was that Gold mentalist seemed most content. Very surprisingly silver mentalist proved less content than bronze mentalist. Psychologist call this phenomenon as counter factual thinking. You see silver mentalist look at what they could have had and regret how close they were, where bronze mentalist look at what they almost missed, grateful to just have medaled.

In America we are the most privileged society in all the world. Only housing 5% of the Worlds population we consume 30% of the worlds resources. If you drive a car, your amongst only 8% of the inhabitants on our planet. Yet we are the most unsatisfied and discontent society on the planet.  What does that say about our pathology and theology?

According to scripture we are not to look at what we have not but what we have. By doing so it transports us from evolution into revolution.  Evolution is survival of the fittest. Looking to what you don't have and focusing all your energies to build that world of privilege. Revolution is the heartbeat of a people to fight the injustices of the world for a better world. Revolution looks at what it has to give.  What if the body of believers known as the church really mobilized as scripture says, towards the needs of others.

I dare easy we would be happier and the world would be better!

"Seek he first the kingdom of God and all these things would be added to it." Matthew 6:36