There’s nothing wrong with doing things the easy way – but in our easy going society we’re in danger of losing the joy in doing something hard. No one climbs a mountain because it’s easy. Or sails around the world. Or trains for the Olympics. These things are cool because they are NOT easy. Sometimes, when we do something hard, it’s the difficulty that gives it value. Now I love the way companies like Kiva make it “easy” to do a little bit of good. I hope there are more and more companies that can make good-doing as simple and easy… But when it comes to the really meaningful things we do for God, I don’t think they’re supposed to be easy. Whether it’s getting over a besetting sin, or offering a service in God’s name, or being involved in the Jesus-life – part of the value is in the fact that offering these things is not easy. If it were easy, what kind of an offering would it be? So here’s the question: What is God asking you to do that’s hard?
Ever notice that we HATE being corrected? The person doing the correcting or giving advice will often say something like “I’m just trying to help” “don’t you want to do it right?” “how will you ever learn if no one tells you?” And all these reasons can be true, but we still hate it…and we don’t even know why. So New York has some of the worst drivers in the world, and yet no one thinks they’re bad drivers. How is that? I think the reason is that we’re really, deep down, performance centered. We don’t like to fail or admit we do things wrong when we do them. Sure we’ll admit “I’m not perfect” in THEORY, but we don’t like picking at real life examples of this. Anyway – the reason I’m bringing this up is – how then can we accept the idea that we’re sinners…saved by grace? To be a sinner means admitting failure…
Okay maybe not every day. And maybe not necessarily this blog. But maybe…! One small key (key’s are usually small, but important) to community is a quick daily check-in. So if you see someone every day, and talk for just a few minutes, what you’ll find after a couple of weeks is that you are in community with them. You feel like you’re in the same boat. You feel like they’re in your life and you’re in theirs. If you don’t believe me, try it. Often times with close friends who are roommates or family members living together, the thing that gives that sense of “we’re involved in each others lives” takes just a few minutes every day… Only every now and then do people get to go out and have some quality time – most of the day-to-day happens just a few minutes at a time. I’d like you to think about what that means for you and God, and CF! Continue Reading »
In an interview for a documentary, Tony Campolo mentioned a quote from Augustine. Augustine had said, “the church is a hoar, but she is my mother.” So on the one hand the church has been atrociously unfaithful to God, often getting into bed with politics, race, the crusades, and all sorts of things it should have stayed away from. One can’t understand church history without delving deeply into its sins and flaws. To try to cover over them or rationalize them is almost worse than the sins themselves, the way trying to rationalize evil and greed and bigotry is actually worse than having done these things and repenting of them… Continue Reading »
Another reason why some of us don’t know our spiritual gifts is because everything we do normally is for ourselves. We only spend money on ourselves. We only use our time for ourselves. Sometimes… But the spiritual gifts are “for the common good,” they benefit others first, and only indirectly benefit us. So if you only think of yourself (which is easy to do if you’re anything like me…sinful), your gifts don’t get called to action. So if you had a teaching gift/leadership gift/service gift/a gift of mentoring – none of those things would ever come out while you’re just looking to please yourself…they only come out as you start to love others as yourself. Continue Reading »
Spiritual gifts are often similar to natural “gifts” and abilities… So someone could have a natural speaking/teaching ability, and someone else could have a speaking/teaching ability as a Spiritual Gift. But the difference is the spiritual gift comes about as a person grows and changes because of God. As God does the work of renovation, these new gifts seem to pop up out of nowhere. Often times they’ve always been there, only in a locked room hidden in the basement…and they come to light as God sets us free. This is what we’ve been talking about Sundays – now if you’re thinking, “okay okay, so how can I start unlocking some of these gifts?” If you’ve started to do some searching and are really interested in finding some of your new gifts then read on… Continue Reading »
I offer this video as something to get you thinking about what would make you feel like a success… Alain de Botton also has some great one liners:
“A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are…”
“The next time you see someone driving a Ferrari, don’t think of them as someone who’s greedy – but think of them as someone who’s incredibly vulnerable and in need of love.”
Here’s the question I’m pondering… How would we define success if we really believed we were sinners saved by grace?
Beware of people who try to change you. No one has the right to change you into someone other than you are… Of course everyone who tries always has the “best” of intentions. But they’re just overstepping their bounds. You, on the other hand have every right to change yourself: especially if you’re a sinner saved by grace – someone who sees the sinfulness of sin… Instead of being embarrassed by how you thought/behaved, and just trying to forget or not-acknowledge your flaws, the sensible thing to do is to change them, don’t you think? Continue Reading »
If you’re like me, your inner geek hyperventilated when Disney decided to do a sequel to the campy 80′s movie TRON. I think it was the first movie to use CG so extensively (the light cycle scenes), and it was the first movie to teach my ten year old mind about some basic theology. The story takes place within a computer…where programs lived happily until the evil MCP (master control program) threw the world into despair. Meanwhile a former programmer for ENCOM breaks into the system by digitizing himself into the system and becoming a living program. His hope is to destroy the MCP with the help of a missing super program named TRON. Continue Reading »
There’s nothing wrong with doing things the easy way – but in our easy going society we’re in danger of losing the joy in doing something hard. No one climbs a mountain because it’s easy. Or sails around the world. Or trains for the Olympics. These things are cool because they are NOT easy. Sometimes, when we do something hard, it’s the difficulty that gives it value. Now I love the way companies like Kiva make it “easy” to do a little bit of good. I hope there are more and more companies that can make good-doing as simple and easy… But when it comes to the really meaningful things we do for God, I don’t think they’re supposed to be easy. Whether it’s getting over a besetting sin, or offering a service in God’s name, or being involved in the Jesus-life – part of the value is in the fact that offering these things is not easy. If it were easy, what kind of an offering would it be? So here’s the question: What is God asking you to do that’s hard?
Ever notice that we HATE being corrected? The person doing the correcting or giving advice will often say something like “I’m just trying to help” “don’t you want to do it right?” “how will you ever learn if no one tells you?” And all these reasons can be true, but we still hate it…and we don’t even know why. So New York has some of the worst drivers in the world, and yet no one thinks they’re bad drivers. How is that? I think the reason is that we’re really, deep down, performance centered. We don’t like to fail or admit we do things wrong when we do them. Sure we’ll admit “I’m not perfect” in THEORY, but we don’t like picking at real life examples of this. Anyway – the reason I’m bringing this up is – how then can we accept the idea that we’re sinners…saved by grace? To be a sinner means admitting failure…
Okay maybe not every day. And maybe not necessarily this blog. But maybe…! One small key (key’s are usually small, but important) to community is a quick daily check-in. So if you see someone every day, and talk for just a few minutes, what you’ll find after a couple of weeks is that you are in community with them. You feel like you’re in the same boat. You feel like they’re in your life and you’re in theirs. If you don’t believe me, try it. Often times with close friends who are roommates or family members living together, the thing that gives that sense of “we’re involved in each others lives” takes just a few minutes every day… Only every now and then do people get to go out and have some quality time – most of the day-to-day happens just a few minutes at a time. I’d like you to think about what that means for you and God, and CF! 
In an interview for a documentary, Tony Campolo mentioned a quote from Augustine. Augustine had said, “the church is a hoar, but she is my mother.” So on the one hand the church has been atrociously unfaithful to God, often getting into bed with politics, race, the crusades, and all sorts of things it should have stayed away from. One can’t understand church history without delving deeply into its sins and flaws. To try to cover over them or rationalize them is almost worse than the sins themselves, the way trying to rationalize evil and greed and bigotry is actually worse than having done these things and repenting of them… 
