Hope for the dying (which is everyone)--mercy times 490

"Jesus, how often shall I forgive? 70 times 7."

Proclaiming forgiveness for those who killed Him: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

In Paul Zahl's latest book, "PZ's Panopticon," Zahl says that the primary word from God is mercy--and not just mercy to some--but mercy to all.  Zahl writes his book from the view of a person who is having a "near death" experience.  The thesis is: what do different religions have to say to a person who is near death?  With Christianity, the message is one word--mercy.

Zahl seeks to unearth this message from the 2000 years of subjugation, minimalization, obfuscation, and bastardization that this message has received from the Church and others  (These are my words, not Zahl's).  Zahl, as always, says it in a more compelling fashion than anyone else:

"Christianity seems almost 'tailor made' to be a help in time of need for people like our main character, near dead and spelling out a message of invincible pain.  But Christianity is often understood as the opposite of that.  In fact, so different has Christianity become in presentation from what it is in essence, that the contrast could almost make you believe in the existence of Satan. What?

To our near-dead victim of life, it is not likely that he has known Christianity to be anything other than the Grouch-Religion of the world.  He has probably been so shaped by the invisible force-field of attitudes and assumptions that surrounds him, that he has barely been able to give a hearing to Christianity in its core form, which is a religion of mercy and forgiveness.

I said "Satan" above--and I mean by that, something malicious, a dog in the manger, a "horse with no name (America)--because it becomes malice when a genuine possibility of help is actively prevented from getting to where it is needed.  It is like blocking the road to a fire so that the fire-engines can't get through...

The mercy intrinsic to the teachings of Christ is something that is there from the beginning to the end.  It is the crowning feature of what turned into the world's most populous religion.

For quite a few people, there is something upsetting about the 100%-with-no-exceptions forgiveness that Jesus talked about.  It is a feature that upsets conservatives.  But it also upsets liberals.  There is something in it to offend everybody.  Except the person who needs it at the time."

This is Ellis again--to all of my friends and, indeed, anyone reading this--May you know the 100% with-no-exceptions forgiveness that God has proclaimed through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of His only-begotten Son.

Fear: King Ahaz's and Our Unholy Alliances, and God's Peculiar Response

I have new-found respect for Barbara Walters.  She acknowledged, much to the chagrin of many of her friends, that she and others had thought that Obama would be the "messiah."  That's right, she used the word "messiah" to denote a political leader.  But it's not only liberals who think that the right political leader will lead his or her people into a new land of prosperity and/or equality.  The Republicans felt the same way about Ronald Reagan.  Many would exhume Reagan from the grave if life could be breathed back into him.

In looking to a political leader as the "messiah," what is motivating people?  Chiefly fear.  We want a political leader to protect us from things we fear: poverty, terrorism, inequality, threats and injustice of all manner.  But fear motivates us not only in our choice of political leaders, but in all aspects of life.

Due to fear, we work too many hours--placing our work above relationship with our families.

Due to fear, we "helicopter" parent our children--leading to self-focused, incompetent teenagers and adults.

Due to fear, we make unholy alliances supporting splinter groups in the Middle East who now turn our weapons upon us.

Due to fear, we seek human remedies, not divine ones.

Our shallow, faithless reactions to fear have plagued man since the Garden of Eden.  Remember the apple--it reflected man's desire to be his own savior.

In Isaiah 7, we learn that King Ahaz, king of the southern kingdom (Judah) was fearing an attack from the northern kingdom--Israel.  In order to protect his country, Ahaz made an alliance with Assyria--a pagan nation.

As PZ often preaches:  This really happened.  In fact, there is an obelisk in the British Museum which shows envoys from Judah bringing riches to the Assyrians to obtain their protection--protection against their own people--the Jews of the northern kingdom.  The Assyrians were a strong nation and greatly feared.  They also believed in child sacrifice.  So, Ahaz basically cut a deal with the devil to protect himself and his people.

At this point, Isaiah is given a word from the Lord to speak to Ahaz.  We would expect Isaiah to chastise Ahaz for his unholy alliance and to proclaim that God will fight Ahaz's battle if Ahaz will turn to God.  But this isn't what Isaiah says.  Isaiah instead proclaims the Gospel--the word of man's rescue by a Divine Being which we have heard since Genesis 3.

Isaiah proclaims to Ahaz and to the people of Judah:  "A virgin shall bear a child and his name shall be Emmanuel."  What a peculiar proclamation.  What a seemingly non-responsive, unhelpful word from God--a virgin birth of a child called Emmanuel.  How will a child protect the citizens of Judah from their neighbors to the north?

How would Ahaz have interpreted this?  Ahaz likely believed that Isaiah was proclaiming that a man would be borne who would solve Judah's problems from a worldly standpoint.  This was part of the Jewish messianic tradition.  This was Ahaz's concern (and not an improper one)--resolving the current problems of Judah.  He believed, like we all tend to believe, that the right man can save us--whether it be King David, King Solomon, Reagan, Obama, or Hillary.  This, thankfully, is not the word that we receive from God.

Instead of proclaiming a savior riding a white charger and leading God's army, Isaiah proclaims the birth of a child--from a virgin no less.  A birth which is from a virgin and, therefore, divine in origin.  God's entry into our world.  What's more, the name of the child would be Emmanuel--"God with us."  Isaiah was proclaiming that God would enter the world through a miraculous birth and would live amongst us.  No god had ever deigned to live amongst men.  No wonder Ahaz didn't understand the proclamation. We are fortunate that we have Jesus' birth and life.  We can see the true meaning through the rearview mirror of time.

Ahaz's salvation, and that of his people, would not come from a warrior king, but instead from a child king.  How could a child king save anyone?  He couldn't from a worldly standpoint.  But given his descent from the realm of the divine, he could save man from his greater problem--the fact that our presence in the worldly realm is very short-lived.  By joining us in this world, the child king can guide us into the next.  He can deliver us from the fears we experience in this life and the fear of what is to come.

Let the Dead Bury the Dead--Death at Thanksgiving and Good News

One of my partners, Ed Ashton, has sent me back to the Gospels.  I've been thru many phases in my search for God.  Growing up I wanted God to bring me worldly success, so I read the Bible as a self-help book.  Then, I met Paul Zahl who introduced me to a God who was more interested in my failures, than my successes.  He was a great friend of Luther, so I began reading Luther day and nite.  Luther presented a picture of God as omnipotent but merciful--declaring that God's grace wasn't only necessary for salvation, but also sanctification.  Luther said that, until we die, we will be part saint but also part sinner.  Then, thru a Bible study with Alan Ross, I became enamored with the grace found in the OT.  It began to seem that God's character was merciful and changeless.  Now, because of Ed, I'm going back to the Gospels.

Ed said that the Jesus of the Gospels is not someone that you can always cozy up to.  Yes, Jesus proclaimed that the meek would inherit the earth, that the poor would find joy.  But other statements by Jesus seem uncaring and hateful:  "If you do not hate your family, you do not love me."  "Let the dead bury the dead."  

What are we to make of these enigmatic sayings of Jesus?  Do we throw them out, because they seem incongruous with His other teachings? No, because they are off-putting, they are that much more likely to have been accurately recorded.  (If people are creating a religion, they wouldn't list Jesus' enigmatic sayings, just as they wouldn't reflect the disputes between Paul and Peter as the leaders of the new religion.)  Many of Jesus' pronouncements were similar to those of the prophets, but these two were not.  So, how do we read these two?  Are they Good News?

Last year, on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving, we lost Butch Smith, my children's godmother and probably my wife's best friend.  This year, on the night before Thanksgiving, we lost Debbie's dad.  If you take Jesus' sayings literally, then Debbie shouldn't love her family--"hate your mother and father."  If we take Jesus' sayings literally, then Debbie should let others tend to burying her father.  Obviously, these sayings are not to be taken literally.  If we don't take these sayings literally, how do we read them?  We read them in the context of Jesus' reason for coming to earth and living amongst us.

Jesus came to proclaim the everlasting Kingdom of God.  So that we would know what type of kingdom God ruled, Jesus came to reveal God's attributes.  We tend to believe that God is not approachable--how could mere man approach his creator, indeed the creator of the universe?  Jesus came to demonstrate that God is approachable.  Jesus was born a baby in a manger, not a palace.  Who can't approach a baby born in humble circumstances?  Jesus began his life in a backwoods town--Nazareth--the son of a carpenter.  Again, not someone who is unapproachable.  Jesus' last years were lived as a homeless, itinerant preacher--approachable.  Finally, Jesus was subjugated to the desires and whims of the political and religious rulers of His day and hung upon a cross.  Again, approachable.

Jesus wasn't just approachable however.  He lived a life filled with mercy.  He showed mercy upon women, prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, Gentiles, Samaritans--virtually every group that was on the "outs" in Roman--occupied Israel.  Jesus broke through social, political, and economic boundaries.  He was the "friend of the sinner."  He was acquainted with our griefs and sorrows.  So, how do we read his sayings which appear to reflect that He is unconcerned with our sorrows? It all goes back to His purpose--declaring the advent of the Kingdom of God and the character of the Kingdom.

In the Kingdom of God, familial relationships will pale in comparison to the love flowing from Jesus to us and then to all mankind.  Indeed, at Thanksgiving, we recognize that familial relationships are often based upon past hurts, rejection, bitterness, jealousy, and other life-sapping emotions.  So, if familial relationships are as good as it gets, then maybe we should look for another Kingdom, for another God.  But the Good News is that Jesus tells us that relationships in the Kingdom will make worldly familial relationships pale, absolutely pale, in comparison.  We can rejoice in the expectation, and the enjoyment, of such relationships.  My very best friends are those that also believe that God's character is always to have mercy.  (Denominational issues do not occlude our relationships).  Yet, friendships don't end there.  In the Kingdom, we can actually love our enemies.  In doing so, we often find that they are not truly our enemies or, often times, they become friends.  So, it's not that we are to  "hate our mothers and fathers," it's that a relationship with Jesus, and Kingdom relationships, are just that much better.

What about letting the "dead bury the dead?"  Jesus spoke these words as he was calling one of His disciples to join Him in His work of proclaiming the advent of the Kingdom.  Jesus' words connote, not that He was uncaring about a dead father, but that the news about the Kingdom is so wonderful that time should not be wasted in proclaiming it.  Indeed, the news about the Kingdom is a balm, indeed the only true balm, to those who have lost loved ones.  For the Kingdom is ruled by a merciful eternal King--one who is acquainted with our sorrows and is "making all things new"--even unto and after worldly death.

One-way Love (grace) reverses the "Kramer"--A brief tribute to PZ

Christian terms--such as grace, mercy, atonement, justification--often fall upon deaf ears.  This deafness could be due to the person listening, or the deafness could be because of the message delivered.  Paul Zahl realizes this, and he is constantly using new terms to describe Christian principles--this allows me and others to hear Christianity afresh.  This allows the Good News to work upon my egotistical, Pharisaical heart.  So, what is the "Kramer?" (I presume that Kramer is PZ's take on Karma.)

The "Kramer" in PZ's parlance is the "generational curse."  You can see the sins of the parents visited upon the children.  Parents who commit suicide have children who commit suicide.  Parents who are controlling have children who are controlling--and turn the control back against the parents when the parents age.  Parents who go to prison have children who go to prison.  The list goes on and on.  My view of God dictates that it is not God who visits the curse upon the future generations, but rather the parents.  This is also my experience.  This is also the road that I was headed down--visiting my sins upon my children.

PZ says that our purpose in life is to reverse the Kramer!  He says that this can be done by expressing to others the grace that God has expressed to us.  This often takes the form of courageous action in the face of long-standing, psycho-genetic patterns which reap destruction in families.

Thanks to the message of One-Way Love (PZ's term) that I heard from PZ commencing in January, 1998, and continuing through mid-2004, in his Thursday morning Bible study, the Kramer has been reversed, and is being reversed, in my family--not just with our children but also with a prior, and within the same, generation.  I'm cautious about saying this, because I think we are foolish to claim temporal victory over the wages of sin.  As Luther said (paraphrasing): "We will be sinners until we die, but we are at the same time justified."  The victory doesn't mean that my children are going to turn out perfect--they won't.  I'm not perfect, and they won't be perfect.  It doesn't even mean that they won't have significant issues in life--that is part of living down here.  But they seem to understand One-Way Love--they seem to understand the Good News--they seem to love others in a way that I never did at their age.

This breaking of generational curses doesn't happen without a spouse that is on the same page.  PZ says that his wife, Mary, has been a huge influence on their sons.  He attributes their goodness to Mary.  Notably, each of their sons is in full-time Christian ministry.  More importantly, each of their children proclaims the radical grace of God in the face of man's innate sinfulness--that is the true message of Christianity.

Debbie has been my stalwart help-mate in beating back the Kramer.  (In calling her my help-mate, I am exalting her, not subjugating her role to mine.  The term used for help-mate in Genesis (ezer) is the same term that Abraham used in describing his relationship with God.  God was Abraham's help-mate.)  Debbie shocks me sometimes with the degree to which she gets grace.  It is so helpful to each of us to view a situation or relationship with two sets of eyes that are looking through grace-colored glasses.

In our family, grace has not only impacted our children but also our siblings and parents.  Grace has a way of going places and rectifying relationships that seem intractably broken.  Grace has a way of going places where it's not even wanted.  I am so thankful to God for exposing me to the message of One-Way Love that PZ has steadfastly proclaimed in the face of opposition, criticism, and worldly failure.  This message has revolutionized our relationships with our parents, siblings, friends, and co-workers.  This message has now been taken up by Paul and Mary's sons in immensely powerful ways.  This message is now making inroads into institutional Christianity.  This message is the only hope for the world.

Soccer Washout--Black Bottom Pie--and Grace

My favorite dessert growing up was "black bottom pie."  It took two days to make, and my mother typically made it for Christmas.  She got the recipe from Weidman's restaurant in Meridian.  (It was unique--ginger snap crust, thin dark chocolate layer, custard layer flavored with bourbon, fresh whipped cream, and chocolate sprinkles.) As the woman at the restaurant said: "If there is pie in heaven, it's black bottom pie.

Meridian was about 40 miles from Butler, which was 15 miles from Nanafalia, where my mother lived for many years.   Since our firm has an office in Jackson now, I have driven through Meridian a couple of times in the past year.  Each time, I thought about stopping to buy one of the pies, but each time I was headed back to Bham at a late hour, so no pie.

Friday, I drove James to NOLA for a soccer tournament.  Due to torrential rains, it was cancelled Saturday morning.  James was disappointed, his teammates were disappointed (they won the tournament last year), and several parents were mad--the tournament organizers had known all week that heavy rains were coming, but didn't cancel until we all drove to NOLA.  Personally, I think the soccer organizers were in a tough spot.  Several hotels were banking their entire weekends on the soccer tournament, and you never know how the weather may change.  In any event, about 45 minutes out of NOLA, I thought of "black bottom pie."

James checked the Internet, and found the phone number for Weidman's.  It was founded in 1870, apparently was closed for some time, but recently reopened.   The lady at Weidman's told me that they still made the pie, and I could get one to go.  So, I did.

It turned out that they had changed the recipe slightly, not so many ginger snaps, thicker chocolate layer, and no bourbon flavor--but it still tasted wonderful.  We obviously took a piece to my mother.  Since they had changed the recipe, and since my mother taught foods and nutrition, and since she is a perfectionist, we weren't certain how she would receive the pie.  Would it be as good as the one that she used to make?  I didn't think so--it had lost some of the unique flavors.  But my mother loved it!  She was able to enjoy it without being critical or disappointed.  This reflects a huge breakthrough for my mother.  She and I are much alike.  We want things done with excellence, and we hate to see things change.  What a joy it was to see her enjoy it without having to judge it!

Things only got better when I visited with her last nite.  For some time, I have wanted to ask her about how she had persevered given the loss of so many loved ones in her family.  Finally, we were able to talk about that--it started with the "black bottom pie."  She told me about Sam Dozier vowing to eat two pieces of the pie when they drove to Meridian one night.  She told me how Weidman's was the only restaurant in the vicinity with fresh fish from the Gulf.  Her father always got broiled flounder, and so did she because he did (she so loved her father).

I then asked her how Sam Dozier was related to Creagh Dozier.  Creagh was my aunt's second husband.  She had been married to my mother's oldest brother, Jack, who was killed during WWII at age 21.  My mother told me that Sam was Creagh's brother and that allowed me to ask about Jack.  My mother told me that she was 18 when Jack died.  She said that it was quite a shock.  They sent everyone off to the war with fanfare, and wrote so many letters, and said so many prayers--it was hard to believe that he wasn't coming back.  She said that it was surreal.  Then, she began telling herself that he might not be dead.  The War Dept had been known to make mistakes, but he never came back.

I then began talking to my mother about when her other family members died.  So, Jack died in 1942 (he was 21--my mother was 18).  Then, her mother died of breast cancer in 1947 or 1948 (she was around 50--my mother was 23 or 24).  Then, her father died eight years later.  Then, her sister Violet died in 1968 (she was 40 and my mother was 44).  So, between 18 and 44, my mother lost four close family members.  Yet, she persevered.  She invested so much time in raising my sister and me.  She even had a slight stroke at age 45 or so, but she persevered.  Most importantly, she persevered in her faith.

I have told many people that my friend Danny is a person of great faith.  He lost his brother when he was 13, then his mother when he was in graduate school.  Yet, Danny believes that God is good.  Now, my mother is 89, and I finally know the whole story.  Like Danny, she believes that God is good.  My mother is one of my heroes.  She has maintained her faith through devastating losses;  she has persevered for the good of those around her; and she will receive her due reward (not due to anything she has done) because of God's inestimable mercy.  God is for us, not against us.  God died so that we might live eternally and in the here and now.  God died to save us--not from his wrath--but from our unwillingness to accept His providence and forgiveness.  My mother accepts God's providence, and she knows that He is good!

So, thank you God for your providence in the rained-out soccer tournament, which allowed me time to buy the black bottom pie, and have a memorable, life-giving conversation with my mother!

Self-extrication from porn--NOT

When I woke this morning and checked Facebook, I saw an earnest prayer from a pastor affirming that only Jesus can deliver our culture from the effects of porn.  It irritated me.  Then I saw a post where the British PM is working to prevent Internet Providers from streaming porn into everyone's house.  It gave me hope.  Then, I saw a post about striving against lust--that Jesus tells us to strive against lust or we will love our salvation.  I got pissed again.

Porn is the natural (sinful but natural) outgrowth of a God-given desire.  Does anyone ever acknowledge this?  But for God having instilled a remarkably strong attraction in men for women, the human race would have become extinct before it ever got started.  The human race would have been a mere blip in time but for the God-given instinct to procreate.  Yet, instead of recognizing this instinct as God-given, we cover it up.  We call it lust, and we try to shame people out of lust.

How is this working for you?  Are you ashamed enough yet to not watch porn?  No, probably not.  Shame never delivers us from a problem, but instead drives us deeper into that problem.  Shame is the impact of the teaching of the Law without the commensurate teaching of Grace.  Luther said (paraphrasing) that the Law (while being the most salutary doctrine of God) cannot lead us to righteousness but instead leads us into unrighteousness.  So, pointing out that porn is a problem (and it is a huge one) is not going to deliver anyone.  In fact, it only drives the problem further underground in men's lives.

Is there a way to obtain deliverance from porn?   How did Jesus deal with people with sexual sin?  Did Jesus shame the prostitute?  Jesus had every opportunity to.  Jesus could have even allowed her to die--the Pharisees were getting ready to stone her.  Instead, Jesus saved her from stoning:  "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."  When Jesus wrote in the sand, it was like God writing on the wall in the Book of Daniel.  God was pronouncing judgment, but not on the prostitute, rather on the self-righteous.

The prostitute knew that her way of life was wrong.  Men know that porn is wrong.  The Law and shame will never lead one to deliverance.  But, if we turn from ourselves, we find some help in overcoming porn.  Plus, it is helpful to find the grace in sexual desire, rather than condemning ourselves for it.  This is something of a Law/Grace analysis.

Porn is not only harmful to men individually, it is harmful to our culture in general, and it is most harmful to those engaged in making the porn.  Some years ago, I saw an interview in USA today with a young porn star.  She grew up in a strict, religious home and left for the bright lights (and supposed freedom) of Hollywood.  There, she made it into movies, but the wrong kind.  Her life was the most bleak that I have ever heard described.  She had a boyfriend who was a porn actor.  He had recently broken up with her, and she wanted him to take her back.  She wanted him to take her back even though it would mean living with him and his three other girlfriends.  Plus, she described that the more dangerous the sex act, the more money she was paid.  So, the movie producers paid one thing for protected sex, but then paid more if she was willing to risk contracting a disease!!! This is heartbreaking--it is the ultimate fulfillment of the devolution of our culture.

Looking at the impact of porn on others can help give us the courage to set it aside.  Additionally, speaking a word of grace about sexual desire can be liberating.  Pastor Tullian tells the story of a parishoner who had struggled with porn for years.  So long as he tried to shame himself into turning from porn ("God is watching you while you download porn"so you better stop--as one idiotic preacher said), he had no freedom.  It only made matters worse.  Yet, when he began to realize that God loved him even as he watched porn, he began to get some freedom from it.

If the Bible is correct, we are never completely freed from sin.  This is also liberating, because if we think we will obtain complete victory over sin, we simply return to shame when we fail.

So, here are some truths that may be helpful in coming to grips with porn:

1)God gave a very strong procreative desire to men to keep the human race going;

2)this God-given desire for sex is not something to be ashamed of, but to be thankful for;

3)we will never find freedom from porn by shaming ourselves, but it is helpful to consider the impact that it is having on our families, our culture, and those persons who participate in the making of porn;

4)God isn't shaking his head in disgust at the people who look at porn or the people who engage in the making of porn;

5)God isn't readying to loose His lightning bolts upon you for watching porn;

6)instead, God is loving you right where you are--if you don't learn this from the NT teachings about Jesus, then your reading of the Scriptures has become too churchy.  (I know churchy isn't a word, but it should be);  and, finally,

7)as with all sin, don't expect or plan upon complete liberation.  Instead, realize that, when you return to porn, God will once again give you the freedom to turn from it.

My third marriage--God's plan for marriage

I heard a preacher espouse the benefits of second and third marriages. He said that he has a rabble-rouser in his Bible study who said that everyone needed to be married a second time. The pastor ruminated on this idea, and he realized that we are all married multiple times--that is if we stay with the same spouse. If we stay with the same spouse, our marriages must change fundamentally in order to stay alive. Conversely, often (but not always) when we change spouses, we deprive ourselves and/or spouses of having a really good marriage. Pretty radical idea, but Debbie and I decided that it was true.

Debbie and I have decided that we are on our third marriage. Our first marriage began in 1987. As God points out in Genesis, we are extremely self-focused beings, and men focus their ultimate energy on their jobs and women focus their ultimate energy on their children. We did not like this about each other. We tried to change each other for the first 12 to 13 years of our marriage. Debbie had reached the point that she believed that divorce was her only out. She told me this then. Thankfully, we were both in truly Christian Bible studies, and we immediately prayed together. Things then began to change. We stopped trying to change one another--but it was solely by the grace of God. 

So, our second marriage began around 2000-2001. It lasted for about 10 years. It was fine. I didn't think it could get any better. Debbie and I treated each other lovingly and with grace, but probably we did it more because we were so thankful to still be together than out of appreciation for who the other person was. Then, about three years ago, Debbie said, out of the blue (at least to me): "Let's go see Gil." Gil is a wonderful counsellor who truly understands the human condition and God's grace. My obtuse response: "We have a wonderful marriage, why would we go and see Gil? You can go if you want to." So, she did.

Our third marriage arose out of Gil's counseling. By seeing Gil, Debbie was able to love some difficult people in her life in a radical new way. Seeing this, I was eager to go to see Gil with Debbie. One day leaving Gil's, Debbie said: "Gil says that we are to treat each other with grace." Being a person that is euphemistically called "Mr. Grace" at church (positively by some and negatively by others), I couldn't believe that she was just now hearing this idea of grace. But often we can't hear things from our spouse. For years, I couldn't hear Debbie's counsel about how destructive my anger was. I learned it from my children. So, sometimes it takes a third person.

Gill taught me how to listen. I began to listen to every word that Debbie spoke. We are so different, and rather than being a curse (which it was in the early years of our marriage), it is a blessing. Debbie is strong where I am weak, and vice a versa. She has wisdom where I don't and vice a versa. Our third marriage is a partnership, or really a tri-party relationship involving the Holy Spirit. Had Debbie not courageously hung in there but instead had acted on her desire for a divorce, we wouldn't be on our third marriage. I will be eternally thankful to her for this.

One last thing. As we were discussing this topic, Debbie told me that, years ago, when she was contemplating divorce, she thought: Well even if I can't do it in this life, at least God will let me divorce Ellis in heaven. Well, I couldn't stop laughing and crying. It's humorous, but also deeply sad. That was the state of our first marriage. As PZ says, change is not done incrementally, but it requires death and resurrection. 

Thanks be to God for PZ, Kathy Girardeau, Gil Kracke, and so many others who have ceaselessly proclaimed the pure unadulterated Gospel of grace into our lives. Debbie and I, our children, and so many others have been the beneficiaries of those who courageously espouse grace with no "buts," no "ands," and no conditions.

Is God for us or against us?--Part 2

George Herbert: "Ah my dear angry Lord since they dost love, but strike; cast down, yet help afford;"

Auden says that poetry is the "clear expression of mixed feelings."

Chris Wiman: "This is why poetry of some sort is essential to any unified religious life, and why the bastardizations of the Bible which erase poetry for the sake of clarity are so wrongheaded and dreary."

In order to apprehend whether God is for us or against us, we have to access our emotions and deal with them. PZ says that we must all have a religious psychologist with whom we regularly discourse. Our emotions are a mixed bag--is God for us or against us?

Yesterday, praise be to God, Debbie and I were each other's religious psychologists. I'm sharing this in hopes that others can receive the same blessing from their spouse, significant other, best friend, etc. It went something like this:

Debbie: Are you grieving over something? Are we okay?

Ellis: We are great. Do you perceive that there is something wrong?

Debbie: You seem detached. You were short with me when you got home.

Ellis (we had earlier been talking about church and whether to join): I don't feel like I belong. I felt like I belonged at First Baptist but the church leadership committed hairi kairi. I never felt like I fit in at our last church, nor do I at the current church. I love to teach, but I haven't taught in some years. I really miss it.

Debbie: You do have a gift for teaching. Maybe God has something else for you.

Ellis: For me, teaching is a mixed bag. I love to express the wonders of Christ, but I also like people's respect. The first is healthy, the second not so much.

Debbie: You are respected in your home.

Ellis (I am emotional as I write this): i never thought that I would have this amount of respect in my home. Had God not taken away the teaching and respect at church, I would have continued seeking it there when God wanted to give it to me where it matter most--with my wife and children.

So, Debbie's a wonderful religious psychologist. When we access our emotions, we can come to grips with our pain, which then reveals God's love.

Is God for us or against us?--Part 1

Bombarded by the same idea from different sources--confluence. This morning, the confluence of sources (a book, a sermon, a dear suffering friend, and milk for the cat) deals with whether God is for us or against us--the emotional challenge of this most important of all questions.

Last nite, I was getting into bed and Debbie had put a plate of cat food in the pathway to the bed. This morning, in the kitchen, although I had put a saucer with milk for Sunny in a safe place last nite when feeding Sunny, Debbie did not put milk in that saucer, but put out a new saucer only two feet away which was directly in my path. I know this sounds inane, but she has done it for years. She knows how it irritates me--I clumsily wind up kicking cat food and/or spilling milk, then having to clean it up. I couldn't help but think--she must be against me. She knows this irritates me, but yet put out a new saucer rather than using the one only two feet away. Or, if she's not consciously against me, she must subconsciously be "getting back at me" for being a difficult husband for all of those years. If such small things make me question my wife's love for me, then how much more must people question God (or even His existence) when they are struck by cancer, divorce, etc.

I have two dear friends in deep pain--one dealing with cancer, the other dealing with divorce. The first friend (understandably) wonders why God has beset her with a life that has been fraught with so many difficulties. The second friend is berating himself--thinking that the divorce has resulted from his not following God closely enough. I so feel for both of my friends. I try to speak words of truth and grace, but God, through Tullian, does a much better job.

Tullian is preaching on Job, and he describes God's answer to both of these questions. First, suffering is part of this broken world--we may never know why particular things happen. However, God is sovereign--He feeds the sparrows, He created a universe of infinite proportions made up of sub-atomic particles, He has kept the world from nuclear annihilation on several occasions (at least twice--once under Kennedy and once under Reagan), and He dialogues with His creatures. Yet, He doesn't give Job an explanation for the suffering. You see, when we seek explanations, we want to fix things so that the suffering won't come again. Instead, God points us to Himself, and He does this most significantly on the Cross. God is with us in the suffering of this world, but we are assured that, at the end of the day, He will set all things right.

Second, we certainly can bring pain and suffering into our lives through bad choices, but this doesn't answer the questions of suicide, murder, cancer, etc. When we focus too much on how we may have strayed from God's desires for our lives, we have no hope (a false hope in ourselves). We may believe that we can change, and we try, but ultimately we fail. However, we have one chance--AA gets this. We have to recognize our inability to change and cast ourselves upon the mercy of God. God's mercy is the only change agent. It is the only response to suffering. It is our only chance for "getting out of this life alive."

P.S. After reading this post, Debbie assures me that she's not out to get me. Well, I've got almost 26 years invested in her, so I'm not going to let cat food get in the way.

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Church and Community while important are—ultimately—unavailing

As usual,, listening to a PZ podcast leads to mediation and reflection.  In PZ’s most recent, he talks about William Inge’s novel, Good Luck Miss Wyckoff.  Miss Wyckoff is a spinsterly woman who has no one in her life--no one.  Given her desperate need, she winds up in an abusive relationship and then becomes a social pariah. At the end of the book, she still has no one, and the prospects of having someone are virtually non-existent given her infamous notoriety.  Yet, PZ finds this hopeful.  PZ says that religion has been unavailing for her—that community has been unavailing for her.  Yet, PZ finds hope in this.  Is PZ right or wrong?

Once, in a sermon, PZ said that we are islands when we die, directly contradicting that famous poem.  Yet, Miss Wyckoff will not only be an island when she dies, she is an island now.  Zahl says that this leaves her open to the possibility of Oneness.  What is he talking about?

As Jesus said, and Stephen King demonstrated in his wonderful novel: “There is only one needful thing.”  There is only one thing that will satisfy the deepest longing of our hearts for relationship.  With that one thing, we can face life.  Without that one thing, no matter how good our church is or how loyal our friends are, we are to be pitied.  Without that one thing, we are hopeless.  Without that one thing, our lives are ultimately meaningless.

That one thing is the Friend of Sinners.  That one thing is the god/man who came to set the world right, is doing so now, and ultimately will in all respects.

With that one thing in our corner, we have our expectations for our lives satisfied.  We have our expectations for our relationships satisfied.  We can then turn to our lives and to our relationships in a non-needful fashion.  Once our needs are met in The One, we can live our lives with peace, joy, and happiness.  Once our needs are met in The One, we can love others in an availing fashion.

Recently, I offended a pastor when I wrote that some, if not many, churches point people towards the wrong god.  They point people towards a god who places us under the burden of having to earn His pleasure.  They are even underhanded (although usually not intentionally) about it—“you are saved by grace, but if you are saved, this is what you will be doing.” This has the exact same psychological impact as telling people that they have to earn their salvation.  The result is that we then place those around us under these same burdens.  This leads to broken marriages, broken families, and suicide—yes suicide.  Accordingly, I suggested that attending those churches could have negative consequences for one’s life.

The truth is that no church, even good ones, can give us what we need in Christ.  Church is important, but our relationships at church, (home, work, or the neighborhood) while important, are ultimately unavailing.  There is only One relationship that is ultimately availing.  There is only One relationship which frees us from the bondage of “doing.”  Once freed from this bondage, we are free, not required, to love others.  This generates acts of beneficence, kindness, and grace—acts not based upon the “ought to do” but upon the “want to do.”

At the end of the novel, Miss Wyckoff is poised to find this—she is poised to find this relatively early in her life, long before she faces death.  So, Miss Wyckoff has the possibility of living a life with The One, a far greater chance than most of us.

Church--Is it good or bad?

Bonhoeffer has a wonderful book entitled "Life in Community" which importantly proclaims that Christianity is not an individual pursuit but is living life with other Christians. This concept is so important. Without living in community, I don't come to grips with my sinfulness, and I don't learn to truly express grace to others.

But, there is a problem--the Church. A few nuggets from Tullian:

"All too often, the church is appealing to the kinds of people who ran away from Jesus and appalling to the kinds of people who ran to Jesus."

"I meet so many people who have left the church, not because they have given up on Jesus, but because the church has given up on Jesus."

"If churches, and our church in particular, aren't attracting the kinds of people that Jesus attracted, then people aren't hearing us proclaim the same message that Jesus proclaimed."

These snippets come from a sermon that Tullian preached on May 12--"No Strings Attached." It is one of the most courageous sermons because he speaks the truth about the local church.

Going back five years, when I met a person that had quit attending church but still claimed to be a Christian, I wondered whether they were truly a Christian. In fact, I thought they were probably not. Now, when I meet such a person, I most often find that they have more of the hallmarks of a true Christian than those who attend church.

So, what to do:

1)run to a church where the pastor admits specific sins in his life, not merely that he is a sinner;

2)run from a church where the pastor is placed on a pedestal;

3)run to a church where the message is pure unadulterated grace--that God loves you even when you are sinning;

4)run from a church where the message is "Yes grace, but now you need to live a holy life" or "Yes grace, but live to glorify God;"

5)run to a church where the pastor preaches the Gospel every Sunday;

6)run from a church where the pastor gives you five steps to love your wife better.

If you can't find a church that does these things, it's okay not to attend. Instead, have "church" with your friends who know that they are egocentric sinners in need of grace. Go to lunch with these friends. Have dinner with these friends. Share your hopes, dreams, sins, troubles, and travails with them--all the time doing so in light of the miraculous grace of God.

Hell--Serling's "A Nice Place to Visit"

I have been struggling with this idea of Hell as eternal punishment (the wrath of God) for those who don't profess Christ as their Lord and Savior.  For years, I didn't struggle with it.  For years, I just accepted it as true.  Then, as my life with Jesus evolved and matured, Jesus' grace became so heart-arresting and all-consuming that I couldn't imagine Jesus sending anyone to Hell.  But I have experienced Hell in the "here and now."

Hell is trying to make it your own way.  Hell is trying to make it on your own with a few prayers thrown in when the going gets too tough.  Hell is living in isolation.  I lived in isolation even though I was married and had friends, because I didn't share my innermost cares, concerns, or fears with them.  I didn't think anyone could help me make it through this life--not my wife, not my friends--well maybe God could but I didn't see Him doing it.

On the outside, I looked like I had it all together--beautiful wife and kids, successful law career, but on the inside it was a constant struggle to make sure that my family looked like a "good Christian family" and that my law career succeeded.  This wasn't freedom in Christ, but slavery to the law of my and other's expectations.  So, my life may have looked good (a nice place to visit), but it was killing me to live there.

Living in Hell was a present tense reality for me for a number of years.  This view that Hell is in the "here and now" is consistent with the views of Jesus and Paul.  Jesus spoke repeatedly about the "here and now."  Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was breaking through into this world.  This world, without the intervening grace of God, is Hell.

Paul said that God's judgment isn't so much that God is inflicting his wrath upon us through His direct actions, but rather that God is abandoning us to our own desires.  When our desires are to run our own lives--to order our world the way that we see fit--we live lives of desperation.  We are desperate to make our lives good, but the burden is entirely upon us.  This leads to wrecked marriages, broken  families, and suicide.

So, living life without accepting the love of God (the logos--the truth behind the universe) is to live in opposition to life.  Living in opposition to life is to live in Hell.  As Paul Zahl once said:  "Hell begins now.  Hell now is Highway 280 during rush hour, but with Starbucks thrown in.  Hell eternally is Highway 280 without Starbucks."

The Bible speaks a lot about the hell of living without accepting God's love, and the Bible is very graphic in this regard.  When I think back to my years when I thought I was a Christian, but before I truly knew and accepted God's love, the horrific descriptions in the Bible are apt and true.  I'm still not sure about the eternal nature of Hell, but it clearly exists in the "here and now" when we live outside of a loving relationship with God.

For a terrific explanation of Hell, see Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 28--"A Nice Place to Visit."  Serling was a student of the human condition, and his explanations are peerless.

The American Visible Church is Sick Unto Death

Three acquaintances of mine have been victims of the American church--two of them realize it now, and the third hopefully will as he shipwrecks on the shores of American evangelicalism.  The first rightly quit seminary when he figured out what was going on.  He would have made an amazing preacher, but it is so difficult to get a job if you actually believe in Grace--whether you are in a liberal or conservative denomination.  The second is a young family who came back from the mission field, because they lacked support.  The third is a dear young friend who has asked for thousands of dollars of support for a short-term mission trip.  If the thousands for the short-term mission trip could go to the family that was living in a foreign land as missionaries, they might not have had to come home.  Why are things so screwed up?  

It's our wrong theology which underlies these problems.  In the American church, we are constantly exhorted to do things for God, to pursue holiness, and to be good Christian examples.  This leads to guilt-driven pursuit of God--which ruins lives.  (I have written before about how guilt-induced pursuit of God almost ruined my life, and I won't repeat since you're probably tired of hearing about it.)  So, why do preachers and other church leaders do this?  They are self-righteous and/or fearful--two things which Christ preached against. 

Both self-righteousness and fear cause people to pursue God not only for the wrong reasons, but also cause people to pursue the wrong God!  We cannot make God love us any more or any less by becoming a preacher, by becoming a missionary, or by going on short-term mission trips.  Yet, this is what we are exhorted to do in the visible American church.

A George Barna poll revealed that more than 80% of the people attending seminary are doing so to earn favor with God--more than 80%.  This is why there are so many preachers and missionaries who are not following God, but following their desire or need to please God.  This is why so many preachers and missionaries are in the wrong jobs.

How do we know that they are in the wrong jobs?  Just look at the state of the American church.  Look at what is taught every Sunday.  Every $!#&*** Sunday, preachers have the gall to stand in the pulpit and preach application of the Scripture and exhort us to good works.  THIS IS NOT CHRISTIANITY.  THIS IS ONE REASON WHY JESUS HAD TO COME.

The Bible is not a $%&##@@@ instruction manual designed to help us live better lives.  It is a book which pierces the hearts of men with its profound look at our deep, deep sin problem.  It is a book which says that our good deeds are usually much more of a sin issue than our bad deeds.  It is a book which, after revealing our haughtiness and fearfulness, then proclaims God's unbelievable response--one way love--grace--mercy--unmerited favor.

I will leave you with the thoughts of two preachers who actually comprehend and have the courage to proclaim the Gospel.

First, Tullian preached recently (paraphrasing):  "If American preachers would for one year proclaim the goodness of Jesus with no exhortations or applications, who knows what might happen?  Certainly the church can't be any worse off than it is now."

Second, and I will leave this preacher nameless since he may not want to be associated with this rant:  "I came home from work the other night and I just wanted to watch March Madness.  But my daughters wanted me to read to them.  Reading to them is not as sexy as going on a short-term mission trip, but it is what I was supposed to do."  

The point is that if preachers would preach grace, if seminary preachers would teach grace, if we Christians would proclaim grace, then persons who become preachers and missionaries would do so out of the correct motivation, not from self-righteousness or fear.  Just as importantly, the congregations of such preachers would actually hear Christianity proclaimed every Sunday--the only solution for sinful people living in a fallen world.

Have you gotten it together yet? HOPEFULLY NOT.

I haven't posted in a few days, because I've been struggling with the god of the Old Testament.  For years, I didn't really worry that I didn't understand the god of the OT--I simply had "faith."  Now, like Bono, as I try to understand the god of the OT, Jesus is beautiful, but the god of the OT is frightening and incomprehensible.  That is --until today.  What if the authors of the OT(or at least most of them) misunderstood God?  What if God didn't send Jesus only to set the universe right, but also to reflect His true character?  What if God sent Jesus to set straight any misunderstanding that some of the OT authors had about God?

As a preface to what I'm about to say, there are many compelling views of God in the OT as a god of "grace."  The Book of Genesis contains account, after account, of God's grace towards man.  Yet, the OT also contains accounts that seem incompatible with a God of "grace."  (By the way, God's grace is only truly revealed when we understand that His standard is perfection.  God is perfect, so in order to come into His presence, we must be perfect.  That is where Christ's work on the Cross comes in.)  What about God telling Abraham to kill Isaac?  Or telling the Jews to take the Promised Land by genocide?

If we believe that we have to "get it together" to come to God, then we might believe that God would ask us to sacrifice our son.  Then, when we believe that we have gotten it together, we think that God will kill our enemies just as the Jews believed.  When we have it together, then we are better than others--we are "chosen" in the wrong sense of election.  In the past, I believed both of these things.  I believed that I needed to make sacrifices (to get it together) to come to God.  Because of this belief, I abandoned God for many years.  Then, when I had gotten married and had a good job, I thought I had gotten it together.

Yet, in having it together, I thought that God wanted me to bring my wife and family in line with my view on almost everything--just as the Jews wanted their enemies to join up with them or be killed.  [Some Christians even think that God wanted the Jews to eradicate their enemies, so there would be no intermarriage.  If you really believe in original sin (that we are all fallen), this seems unlikely.  However, maybe it was God's divine judgment.  I just don't think this would be consistent with Jesus' teachings.]  Trying to "have it together" and/or thinking that I "had it together" was simply profoundly incorrect thinking.  This thinking stemmed from a profoundly incorrect view of God.  Then, I learned the true character of Jesus.

Jesus was a friend of sinners.  He was a friend to those who did not "have it together."  As I began to understand this, it became okay for me not to have it together.  As I became less conscious of "taking care of business" (as Elvis would say), I was able to focus more on what Jesus had done for me, than what I was doing for Jesus.  Now, I think it is patently absurd to think that God would tell Abraham to kill Isaac or to tell the Jews to kill their enemies.  The Abraham/Isaac story is, however, an amazing reflection of God if read to show that God, unlike the gods of neighboring tribes, did not desire sacrifice, particularly human sacrifice.  God was showing His true character to Abraham.  Insofar as genocide, the Jews thought it was okay to kill others to achieve their goals.  This is why so much of what America is doing in the Middle East is wrong.  To the extent that we are murdering people to preserve our access to oil, we are placing our interests above those of other people.
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At the end of the day, take comfort in the fact that we don't have to "get it together."  PZ tells the story of a pastor friend--Keith Miller--who, after preaching that we are saved solely by grace, was approached by a woman who said the following:  "Pastor, what you say about Jesus is compelling.  However, I am having an affair with a married man.  I meet him each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, and I can't give it up."  Keith then asked himself whether he truly believed what he had preached.  Then, he said: "That's okay.  Let's not deal with that today.  Just come to Jesus.  Everything else will take care of itself."  What a Savior!  Praise God!

Did and does Jesus love the church? Part 2.

If you read Part 1, you will know that the "church people" of Jesus' day rejected Him and had Him killed.  They turned Him over to the Roman authorities.  They chose to free a criminal, rather than Jesus.  They asked Pilate to kill Jesus.  They had Jesus killed, because He pointed out their self-righteousness.  They had Jesus killed, because Jesus pointed out God's grace towards pagans.  They had Jesus killed, because He challenged their idea that God loved "good people."  They had Jesus killed, because He loved the unlovely.

So, if the "church people" during Jesus' day were so bad, are they any different today?  And, let me preface what I'm going to say with: "I was and am a church person."  No, "church people" are no different today.  They still tend towards self-righteousness.  They still want to bring others into their idea of what church is, rather than allowing others to experience God in the way that God desires to reach others.  They still think they have the truth for living "good lives," and "experiencing God's blessing."  They are still offended by others who don't think like them.  Most churches seem to either be inhabited by Republicans or Democrats, but not a mixture of both.  Many who don't believe in God say: "How can I believe in Christ when his so-called followers don't live what they preach?'  So, what is God's view of "church people"?

Jesus said:  "I came for the sick.  The well have no need of a physician."  Jesus wasn't saying that some people are well.  He obviously wasn't saying that the "church people" were well given the number of rebukes that He had for the "church people."  Instead, Jesus was pointing out that only the sick can receive Him.  The "well" have no need of Jesus.  That is why Jesus spoke so harshly to the "church people."   He loved them and wanted them to know that they had need of a physician.  He wanted them to understand their sinful self-righteousness.  He wanted them to understand their need for God.  Because, then and only then, could they experience the amazing love of God. 

For while we were yet sinners--whether our sins be of licentiousness or self-righteousness, Jesus died for us.  Jesus let the "church people" kill Him--both to reveal the depth of their sin (the coldness of their hearts) and to reveal the immeasurable expanse of His love.  As Jesus died, He got in one last shot at we "church people," He told God to forgive the Romans--the persons most despised by the "church people" of Jesus' day.

So, may God continue to reveal my self-righteousness.  May God turn my heart towards sinners.  May God have mercy on me--a "church person."

Did and does Jesus love the church? Part 1.

A friend's wife mentioned that they had attended a marriage conference and that she wanted to love her husband as "Christ loved the church."  This really offended me.  I shared with my wife, and she thought I was crazy--she thought it was a beautiful sentiment.  I'm sure that it was meant to be a beautiful sentiment.  I have ruminated over it, and I finally realized why it struck me so badly.  It implies that Christ loved the church, and not others.  It implies that, if we attend church, Christ will love us.  The problem with this idea is that it marginalizes the love of Christ; it homogenizes Jesus;  it discounts the radicality of Christ's love.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and fully embraced the Southern Baptist world of "righteous living."  When we had Youth Sunday, I was the Pastor for the day.  I sometimes taught in adult Sunday School classes.   I had learned that Jesus loved those who were good.  While the Bible made much of faith, it was good people that had faith.  I was a good person.  I had a relationship with God.  I could teach others about Jesus.  Only an idiot would not respond to Jesus' call to become a follower of His. I believed that God loved the church.

Then, I came to realize that I didn't understood who God was at all.  I realized that I had made God in my image--loving good church people.  I learned that God's love was much more radical, that God's love for man was incomprehensible.  I found out that I wasn't a good person--I was a self-righteous church person, and Jesus spoke harshly to the church people of his day.

So, does Jesus love the church?  Jesus addressed the "church people" as a "brood of vipers."  He told them that they didn't care for the widows and orphans.  He told them that God had come to the pagans, and not the Israelites.  In response, they tried to throw him off a cliff and kill him.  So, did Jesus love the church?

Who did Jesus express love towards?  Prostitutes, tax collectors, pagans, Roman soldiers, his own murderers.  From the Cross, Jesus asked His father to "forgive them for they know not what they do."  Jesus asked His father to forgive the people that were killing His son!!!  Jesus told us to love our enemies and to forgive 70 times 7.  Jesus' love was radical and incomprehensible to us.  So, did Jesus love the church?

If Jesus asked his Father to forgive those who killed Him, would God not do so?  If God forgave those who murdered His son, who else would He forgive?  Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, serial killers?  Maybe even the church people that Jesus rebuked.  Maybe even the church people that told Pilate to hang Jesus on the Cross.  Maybe even you and me.

Courage to speak frankly--Tullian, PZ, and Steve Brown

We are all so concerned about what others think of us that we rarely speak frankly.  Some may guard their mouths because they don't want to hurt others.  For me, my frank talk used to come out under pressure.  I would forbear and forbear and then forbear some more, then my frank talk would come exploding out.  When it occurred this way, it was not only injurious to others, but people thought I was crazy.  Well, I am a little crazy, maybe a lot, but over time I've come to speak frankly more often on the "front end," rather than letting it come out only when I'm frustrated.

There are three preachers who speak frankly every time that I hear them speak.  They speak frankly even though their words cause many to criticize and even ostracize them.  They speak courageously on the most important subject facing mankind--our relationship to God.  Each of these three has faced criticism from the institutional church.  But each speaks life-giving truth--truth that liberates and frees us to love.

Why does their preaching require courage?  Because they proclaim two things without fail.  First, each proclaims the perfection of the Law.  Jesus didn't say, "be a good person;" "live a righteous life;" "strive for piety;" or even "treat others as you want to be treated."  These axioms all belittle the law.  Each of these sayings makes it appear that we can keep the law.  (By the law, I mean any standard for being good.)  Each of these sayings leads us to trust in ourselves.  This is devastating.  For persons tending to self-righteousness like me, I begin to think that I am keeping the law better than others.  For persons tending to despair, like my wife, they begin to think that that are not keeping the law as well as others.   Neither of these ideas leads to joy and peace, but rather to bondage.

Jesus' instruction about the law was that it was incapable of being kept.  Jesus told us not to merely love our friends, but to "love our enemies."  Jesus told us to "be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect."  Jesus set a standard that no one can keep.  This prevents people like me from being self-righteous.  This prevents people like my wife from experiencing despair.  It levels the playing field, which is liberating.

The second thing that each of these men proclaim is "one way love," as Zahl says, or grace.  Grace is the most radical relational concept.  Grace says that "we get what we don't deserve."  Since we all fail under the standard of legal perfection, grace is the only answer.  Grace says that God loves sinners.  Jesus lived this out.  He loved the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers--those ostracized by the "church people" of his day.  This is an infuriating concept to those, like me, who think they are "good people."  It is maddening to think that going to church, teaching Sunday School, being kind to others, and "living a good life" have no merit before God.  But it is also liberating--it is our only hope.  For it is only when we know that the standard has already been satisfied, that we are freed from expectations.  Expectations crush relationships.

What does the preaching of this law/grace dichotomy produce?  Perhaps a simple  question is the best illustration.  How do you want to be loved?  Do you want your parent's, or your spouse's, love for you to be conditioned upon your good conduct--upon what you can do for them?  Of course not.  We all long for "unconditional love."  We want to be loved when we screw up, not just when we get things right.  Think about those few relationships in life where you experience unconditional love.  Does your heart not swoon before this type of love?  This is the love of our Father/Creator--that while we were yet sinners, He died for us.  This is the story told time, and time, again in the Holy Scriptures.  This is the story of the Old Testament and the New Testament.  This is the story of mankind's only hope.

Does God love you while you are watching porn?

Porn (particularly cyber-porn) is a problem of epic proportion in mainstream culture as well as in the church.  I won't bore you with statistics, but church people (even church staff) view porn almost as frequently as the culture in general.  We all feel guilty about porn.  Can there be liberation from porn?  Yes, a correct view of God can give you freedom from porn.   Let's take it from the beginning.

Why is porn so addictive for men?  We've all heard that the problem is that men are more visual than women.  This may be true, but the problem is much deeper than that.  What's more,
 the genesis of the problem is the way in which God made man.  For you see, God made man to be attracted to woman.  God did this to ensure that the human race did not die out.  In fact, one of my favorite theologians, C.I. Scofield, says that sexual relations between a man and a woman is akin to the "shekinah" glory of God.  This is radical and even offensive.  But it's true.

The real problem with porn is that it detracts from this "shekinah" glory.  Rather than reveling in sexual relations with our wives, we want other women.  We want other women who are more sexually adventurous.  We want other women with larger breasts and smaller waists.  Porn robs our marital relationships of the beauty and glory that God desires for us.  I should know.  For many years, my married sex life was not very satisfying.  I wanted other women.  Then something happened--1)I came to realize how devastating fantasies about other women can be;  and 2)I came to realize that God's love for me was no different whether I looked at porn or or fantasized about other women or not.

Porn is devastating, because you begin making love with the images of other women in your head.  Of course, you can also have images of other women without porn.  But porn tends to make it worse.  I was tired of having other women in my mind.  I wanted to be totally focused on my wife, and nothing else.

For years, I had tried to stop looking at porn out of guilt.  I would tell myself how wrong it was.  I would dwell on my guilt.  I would pray endlessly for deliverance.  I would tell myself that God's blessings would be withheld from my family if I continued looking at porn.  In some sense this is true, but not really.  I was harming my family, but God wasn't.  I was withholding blessings, but God wasn't.

Guilt never works.  A Reformed pastor in Seattle wears a t-shirt that says: "God sees you when you are looking at porn."  Is this helpful?  Have you ever had long term liberation from a particular sin based upon guilt?  Needless to say, I never have.  Needless to say, grace is the only change agent for sin, not guilt or the law.

So, what changed for me?  I came to have a radically different view of God.  Instead of believing that God was disappointed in me every time that I looked at porn or thought about other women, I came to realize that God's love for me did not change.  How can this be true?  It's true, because God views us in light of Jesus' salvific work on the Cross.  When God looks at us, he sees us as "completely perfect and beautiful as Jesus."  (quoting Jamal Jivanjee).  As this truth became more and more real to me, God became more and more beautiful.  God's grace became radical!  I wasn't loved because I was a "good person"--being a Deacon and Sunday School teacher.  Also, and importantly, I wasn't unloved because I fantasized about other women.

God doesn't love us for what we have or have not done, or what we will or won't do, He loves us in spite of all of the done and undone things in our lives.  He loves us even knowing that we will continue to sin.  He loves us in a supernatural way that no human is capable of loving us.  As this realization came to grip my heart, my desire for other women began to wane.  Over the years, my desire for my wife has grown and grown.  She is absolutely beautiful and precious to me.  Scofield's comment about the "shekinah" glory has proven true.  All praise to God--the beginning and ending of our faith and our lives.

Charles Barkley and Jesus--"Call no man Father"

Alert:  This post contains profanity.

How many of us will go to church today where the preacher, in all sincerity and belief that he is doing what is right, will try to "shepherd" us?  Virtually every preacher in this country in some sense will try to "shepherd" us today.  He or she will tell us what we need to do to be good Christians.  He or she will tell us what we need to do to draw closer to God.  They believe that it is their job to instruct us, to help us along our spiritual journey.

What did Jesus have to say about this?  "Call no man Father."  Only God is our Father.

Charles Barkley gets this.  Now Barkley may have said: "I'm not a role model," because he didn't want to be overly scrutinized.  But I'm not sure that's it.  Barkley has always been up front about his partying and gambling.  That's what we need a from a preacher--genuine acknowledgement of their fallenness and the proclamation of God's forgiveness of that fallenness.

To all preachers:

"Be up front about your sin.  Acknowledge your fallenness.  Don't let your congregation put you on a pedestal.  Don't instruct your congregation.  Actually, for once in your lives, point to Jesus--solely to Jesus.  This is the greatest gift that you can give to your congregants--pointing to the unconditional love of Christ for fallen man--for those sins that we can't seem to shake, for those sins that continue to beset us."

For you see, the only way that we can ever achieve any sort of freedom from sin is when we know that God loves us even if we continue sinning.  That's right, God loves husbands and wives when they shout at each other in front of their children.  God loves children when they are disobedient to their parents.  God loves men when they watch porn, and women when they read Harlequin novels (female porn, according to my wife.)  God loves us when we put ourselves first over God and over our neighbors.  We know that all of these things are wrong.  We don't need a preacher to tell us to love God and our neighbors.

That's it--that's the pure unadulterated Gospel.  When this is proclaimed from the pulpit, our hearts begin to change.  Out of the gratitude for a love that exceeds belief, our hearts begin to change.  We don't have to be right.  We don't have to put on a pious front.

We become people who can apologize to our wives for not caring about what is important to them.  We become people who can apologize to our children for screaming at an Alabama basketball game:  "God damn it ref, make the fucking call."  (In the past, I wouldn't have apologized to my children--"it was a terrible call so I should be free to express my frustration.")  Now, I can apologize to my children.  It may be that I shouldn't attend Alabama basketball games any more.  :)

But, to all preachers out there, listen to Jesus and Charles Barkley.  The American church might, just might, turn around if you do.

May God bless and keep all of the men and women who will step into pulpits today around the world.  May God give them the courage to express the rarest idea in human history--the pure, unadulterated Gospel.  May God remove the burdens of self-righteousness and piety from their shoulders.  May God remove their congregants' expectations that they will be role models.   May God remove their congregants' expectations that they will instruct them.  May the Gospel be proclaimed today to the suffering.

The Fragility of Life and Jesus

As I walked this morning, I listened to PZ's podcast entitled "The Infinite Frost," in which he recounts the untimely death of his college roommate.  His roommate drowned while sailing on the river behind his house over Christmas break.  Paul says that he didn't take in the grief at the time.  A short time later, while in Grand Central Station, he saw Archie and ran trying to catch up to him.  At that point, the grief hit him.

For me, I never truly grieved over the death of my father until I read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy--some twelve years after my father died.  When my father died, I was busy with a job, two young children, and a five-day old baby.  McCarthy's idea in "The Road" that the father had died "carrying the light" and that he was going on to make a way for his son made me stop what I was doing and sit down and weep.  McCarthy writes about this again at the end of "No Country for Old Men."  It is a powerful image.

The idea that my father went on to prepare a way is a wonderful sentiment, but it has no efficacy.  My father's death in no way prepares a way for me.  My father's death has no real meaning in the grand scheme of the world.  He won't be remembered after I die, and I won't be remembered after my children die.  But there was one man whose death did prepare a way--whose death has continuing efficacy for me, for all of us, today.

About ten years ago, a friend came to me and asked me how I had changed my ways.  He told me that I had been one of the most lustful men that he knew, and that somehow I had changed in a remarkable fashion--almost overnite.  I knew that I had changed, but I didn't realize that others had noticed--mainly because I didn't think my lustful tendencies were that pronounced.  Obviously, they were!

I told my friend that I had learned about Christianity really for the first time from a Bible study taught by PZ.  I had been brought up in the church, even considered being a preacher, taught Sunday School, and was a Deacon, but I had never, ever heard the true message of Christianity until I went to PZ's Bible study.  I firmly believe that I wasn't a Christian until I went to PZ's Bible study.  What's more, I didn't understand what PZ was saying until God brought me to my knees.

In 2001, God attacked my job, my marriage, and my health.  Debbie told me that she was waiting for the kids to graduate from high school so that she could leave me.  She told me that she was "plotting her escape."  I had significant issues with one of my best clients, and I learned that I had a liver disease.  For the first time in my life, I realized that I wasn't in control.  I realized that I couldn't get by with my efforts and a little help from Jesus (what I had always heard in church--"God helps those who help themselves.")  I realized that I brought nothing to the table and that it was only by the grace of God that I lived and had anything.  Through God's gracious attacks upon me and through hearing the Gospel from PZ, I was remarkably transformed.  My wife decided to hang in there with me.  Now, twelve years later, we have a wonderful marriage.

So, what about my friend?  I gave him some cassette tapes with PZ's sermons.  About a month later, he came back to me and said:  "Is this really true?"  Shortly, there after he changed jobs.  He began handling death penalty appeals, because, if Jesus was a lawyer, that's what Jesus would do.  He became the outreach leader at a church.  Then he was killed.  He was driving home after visiting a hospital patient, and a car came across the median and killed him.  But Jesus had gone on before my friend.  Jesus had made a way for my friend.  My friend was welcomed home by his true father.  The fragility of life is overcome by the death and resurrection of Jesus.