"Erase Your Mind by Gabriela Camerotti

There are times when I look at myself that I see someone who is hard to love. I see a 23-year-old young man, who, despite his best intentions (and sometimes because of them) repeatedly falls flat on his face. He comes crawling back, only to collapse under the weight of his own issues and griefs. I see a desperate overachiever who is constantly setting higher and higher goals for himself, trying to pack more and more things into a day in order to feel qualified to be studying theology at graduate school and constantly failing to meet his own goals.

When I look at that, I don’t love that person. In fact, I’m repulsed by him; I find him pathetic. And since God practices my kind of love, God must not love that person either.

Maybe I’m the only person who thinks God is like me. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks there’s no way God could love me on my darkest days, because I certainly don’t love myself. Maybe I’m the only one who limits on God’s love based on how I feel about myself. But I suspect I’m not alone in this.

And into our brokenness, and our struggle, and our limiting God, he speaks. He speaks words that continue to blow my mind, years after I’ve first heard them. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

At first, these words aren’t soothing; they are painful. They are confronting words, ripping out my ideas about God, and pointing to the cross, the greatest demonstration of love the world has seen. This, the gospel, confronts me and tells me I’m wrong and it hurts. The effort to tear my eyes off myself and look at the cross is difficult, yet Christ pushes and confronts, whispering those precious words of love.

In reality, God is not like me. He does not limit his love. He is the father who welcomes the prodigal back over and over. He is the shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep and brings him back. He is the woman who throws a party over finding her lost coin. He is the one who would willingly endure the tortures of hell on the cross to show me he loves me.

This week, may we be reminded that God doesn’t love with a limited love. He doesn’t love with my kind or your kind of love that turns away from our own darkness. Instead he sees it, and sends his Son to take care of it, loving us all the way to the cross.

I think all that I have left to say is wow. May we be wowed by the love of God this week.

"The Church in Winter" - Trey Ratcliff

The common Evangelical pronouncement, “I have a relationship, not a religion,” misses out on the great significance of religion. Of course, by religion, I do not mean works-righteousness hypocrisy. But the use of the word to indicate a set of beliefs and practices that multiple people ascribe to in common is incredibly valuable. Particularly, we must preserve the use of the concept and word “religion” as Evangelicals because it protects us from several of our key blind spots in the following ways.

“Religion” preserves community. I’ve written about this before. The claim that Christianity is solely about a personal relationship with Christ can drive us towards an individualistic mindset. While the individual is a vital component of the Christian faith, emphasizing it to the detriment of other aspects of following Jesus is dangerous. Religion, on the other hand, is always a community experience. You cannot just have religion by yourself, in your room. Religion is a communal practice as it points to a commonality that a group of people share. Safeguarding the use of religion reminds us of this communal nature, giving a healthy balance (not overriding) our emphasis on the individual.

“Religion” recognizes the importance of tradition. The community of religious believers extends beyond those whom we regularly meet with in a local setting. It also extends beyond the 21st century. I’m convinced that this is one of the greatest blind spots we have as Evangelicals. We forget that there have been Christians prior to us who wrote and thought and have shared their wealth with us in their writings. Being part of a religion, reminds us that we have a history that is greater than just the hear and now; a history that we ought to pay closer attention to (credit to Richie for bringing this point up).

“Religion” forces us to confront the realities of sin. Often dismissing “religion” also allows us to dismiss the wars of religion or the bad things that have been done in the name of religion. Since they were done by “religious” people, and we are not “religious”, we dismiss them by denying any continuity between them and us. However, this is too easy of an escape. Many who have been involved in such atrocities as the Crusades were sincere believers. Indeed, Bernard of Clairvaux who spoke in support of the Crusades also has much to say to us today about the nature of love in an overly sexualized culture. Was he right to support the Crusades? By no means. But should we just throw him out, and deny that he was an earnest Christian because he made that mistake? Our answer has to be more nuanced than a simple “yes”. To relegate such tragedies to religion, fails to recognize the pervasiveness of sin, something we have to wrestle with. Recognizing that we are a part of the broader religion forces us to reconcile with our history.

There are definitely other reasons to use the word religion to describe Christianity. I am all for recognizing the things that sets Christianity apart from other religions (of which there are many) but the value of remembering that Christianity is a religion, a set of practices and beliefs held by a community, is too high to deny we have one. May we reclaim “religion” and show the world what it can be – a group of believers sharing beliefs and practices to glorify God because of the Son, through the Spirit.

Photo by Richard Lemarchand

That was my Friday night, and, as the birthday girl pointed out, surely there is a blog post in there somewhere. Initially I thought about how Just Dance is a game that brings people together, both through performing and laughing at the performers. Spiritual disciplines have a similar effect with us and God – creating a space for greater intimacy.

And so, I had planned on making an analogy between Just Dance and spiritual disciplines, as strange as that might seem. But, then, laying on my bed yesterday, a thought struck me – we can’t play Just Dance all the time, so does that mean we cannot enjoy and delight in one another all the time? By analogy, we don’t practice the spiritual disciplines all the time, so does that mean we can’t experience God’s presence all the time?

At the end of that night, I left the gathering, no Wiimote in hand, the dancing over. That point of connection had ended. My mentality is so similar when it comes to God. I spend devotional time with him, that’s his time. I go to church on Sunday morning, that’s his time. I try to offer up various prayers throughout the day, that’s his time. But what about the time in between “his time”?

When I’m not doing something to bring myself closer to God, I often feel distant from God. Yet this is entirely backwards. It demonstrates my sinful bent to always want to do and my refusal to rest in his presence. Perhaps its because as long as I’m doing, I have some semblance of control, but when I’m not doing, it’s entirely up to him. In the times that I don’t dedicate to him, he gets to do entirely what he wants.

We live in a control culture. We want greater control over our lives, our weight, our money – just see the number of self-help books in a bookstore. And this bleeds into our Christianity; we feel that if we can put together a long enough string of consecutive days with quiet times, then God will have to respond. If we can offer up enough prayers to God in a day, we can force him to move.

But God isn’t a genie in a bottle, or a force manipulated by some magic formula. He is God, and  all time, regardless of whether we allot it to him or not, is his time. As we realize we live in God’s time, and not he in ours, things change. This is the great hope of the Christian story – to be caught up into God’s time completely, as we will fully be in eternity.

So can I still be connected to my friends even when we aren’t experiencing the bonds brought about by laughing and playing the Wii? Absolutely. Is God present even in the times that I’m not consciously praying or reading my Bible or fasting? Absolutely.

May we realize this year that we live in God’s time, not the other way around, and respond in worship to that reality.

Regardless of whether you are the majority, the grouch, or the hopeless, today revolves around resolutions. Resolutions are great as they gives us direction, providing the vision to move towards goals. Personally, I have several resolutions that I am looking forward to putting into practice (continuing this blog being one of them).

Yet resolutions can become problematic, particularly when they become efforts to save ourselves. Resolving to exercise in order to stay in shape is a good thing. But putting our hope in fitness and our body image is a mistake. Resolving to read more books and study harder is a good thing. But finding our salvation in knowledge is never going to succeed. Resolving to spend more time with one’s family is a good thing. But seeking answers purely in human relationships will always be insufficient.

When our resolutions become expressions of where our hopes lie, something has gone seriously awry. Into this muddle of hopes/expectations/resolutions, Jesus’s words speak powerfully:

“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” – Mark 8:35

New Year’s Day is often the day that we fall into this trap. It’s the day that we lay out all the ways that we plan to save our lives, to turn things around for the following year. Yet such a path only leads to loss. As we seek to save our lives, we eventually come face to face with our own failures. Perhaps that is the explicit failure to keep a resolution. Or perhaps our initial successes create a wedge of pride that separates us from Christ.

The key, as Jesus expresses it, is not seeking to save our lives but to lose them. However, it is not a meaningless loss. It is not the man who seeks martyrdom for its own sake. This loss of life is surrender, a giving up of the will and the desire for self-preservation to follow Jesus into the depths of life, complete with its joys and its current evils. If we do not get this surrender right, Jesus reminds us that all our efforts will be meaningless.

Resolutions are not bad. By all means, I think we should make them and especially enjoy the fresh start of a new year (I know that I am grateful to leave certain aspects of 2011 behind). But we ought to take care to not make our resolutions our end, nor our salvation. It is only in the act of losing our lives to Christ, submitting our will to his, that we are saved. May we resolve this year to surrender ourselves to Christ that we may be confronted by him and conformed to him.

How do you think we can practically balance surrender to Christ with our New Year’s resolutions? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments…and, if you want, share your resolutions with us while you’re at it!

A couple of weeks ago, a question that was asked that has kept my attention since. The question was this: “How can we be preparing ourselves for marriage now, as single people?” The question provoked good discussion, yet as we discussed I reflected on the reality that at least some of us in that room wouldn’t end up getting married, or through tragedies of death or divorce, may end up living most of our lives single.

This simple question got me wondering about how the church ministers to people, when those people represent an incredible diversity of experience. For many, hearing sermons about marriage and loving one’s spouse are painful because all they have been praying for is a spouse, someone to love.  For some couples, hearing about how to discipline their children is painful, because all they have been praying for is a baby. The issues extend beyond marriage and the family, but those are often the ones that hit deeply.

How does the church minister to such diversity? Often, simply offering a disclaimer that recognizes the people who cannot identify with what’s being talked about feels cheap. But neither should we stop offering Biblical counsel about all areas of life. So what’s the answer?

I believe that ministering to diversity requires a return constantly and consistently to the gospel. Not only does the gospel transcend ethnic boundaries, but it speaks to each of us in our desires and our brokenness. It reminds us that Jesus knows our struggle, regardless of the situation. He is no stranger to our pain and sorrow. Only when the gospel is central, can a diverse church be unified. Only when the single people and the married couples are both turning to Christ’s atoning death and resurrection life, can we expect the Church to be united.

This means that we minister to the church by sharing Christ and the good news of God’s reaching out to us in him. Of course, this post is not just for the pastor on Sunday morning, the call to minister extends to all of us. It means that in our small groups we recognize the difference of experience and preach the gospel to each other. It means in our individual relationships, over coffee, we find unity in the gospel, even as we share radically different experiences.

I know I need more of him, and I need others to preach him to me because he alone understands all my sorrows, all my struggles and can give me hope everlasting. And I know you need more of him too, because we are all in desperate need.

May we always come back to Jesus.

I love the Christmas season. With a birthday the day after Christmas, it is a season of celebration. There’s also lots of anticipation. I often begin listening off and on (not consistently) to Christmas music as early as August, partly to spite those who have the “post-Thanksgiving only” ban, and partly because there are few songs better than Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

But this season has felt a little different. In part it’s because I’ve been busy, but it’s also because I, and other dear friends, have been walking through pain both individually and together. This is a time for us that isn’t just about pure joy, but is bittersweet as we reflect on some painful losses or are in the midst of them. And I suspect that this is the case for many of us. Yet doesn’t such an attitude feel out of place, as we look at the happy store windows with beautiful displays, and see beautiful Christmas lights? It certainly seems to be, until I reflect on the first advent.

At Christmas, we always talk about the first Christmas, but not so much the first Advent. It’s because the first Advent is hard to wrap our minds around. It wasn’t just a four week period, it was a centuries-long yearning. The Jewish people had been captured by Babylon in the sixth century BC and despite a brief independence under the Maccabees, had been under someone else’s rule ever since. Even the golden time under the Maccabees had fizzled out as yet another conqueror, the Romans, had moved in and taken over.

In such an environment, we can imagine the people yearning for someone to save them, for the Messiah. It wasn’t a time of great joy, peace, and smiles. It was a time of oppression, fear and struggle. All of this for centuries.

As I think of that first Advent, I think of my own experience of this season. My pain, my bittersweet emotions, don’t seem so unfitting. In fact, they seem to fit right into the season. But they need not last forever, because the Messiah did come, although in a form the Jews were not expecting but which they (like us) needed so desperately – not just the Savior of a people, but the Savior of the world.

So what do we do with pain this season? How do we process the “holiday blues”? I think we should let it have the same effect it had on the Jews – fill us with desperation. We are desperate for a Savior, and he has come, and will come. Our prayer, in the midst of pain, is that he, by the presence of the Spirit, would come into our lives this Advent season.

The first Advent season was difficult. Perhaps yours is difficult this year too. May we let that difficulty drive us to cry out “Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.”

Dear friends,
I deeply appreciate the five minutes you took to read this post. I spend a lot of time reflecting about writing and blogging and know that there are a millions of other pages you could be viewing on the internet.

I have noticed that many of you find your way to this corner of the internet from Facebook. If you’d like to get consistent updates on new posts, regardless of whether you see my link on Facebook, may I suggest clicking “Sign me up!” in the right hand column. It’s quick, easy, painless and will guarantee you don’t miss a post here at Confronted by Christ.

Again, I appreciate your reading, your input, and the fact that we get to travel this incredible road of faith together.

Grace and peace,
Matt

Most of us live in a highly task-oriented world. And those tasks are supposed to produce results. Success or failure is based upon whether or not our boss accepts the project that results from our tasks. If they don’t, then everything we’ve worked on for the past week, month, year doesn’t count; we have to go back to the drawing board and start over. The academic world is like this too; fail to produce assignments that are sufficiently up to the professor’s standards and you face taking the class over.

It’s little wonder that we quickly realize that some things count, and some don’t. “Good” projects count; they help us towards our goals, they allow us to pass the class. “Bad” projects don’t; they force us back to the beginning and make us do things over.

Many of us, myself among them, import this into our spiritual life. We believe that when it comes to pursuing God, there are things that count, and things that don’t. Maybe there are even “good” spiritual practices such as silence and solitude and “bad” ones such as sneaking in a worship song on the commute to work. We tend to count the “good” practices as more significant than the “bad” ones.

Yet to do this shows we deeply misunderstand what it means to live under Christ’s lordship. To proclaim that Christ is Lord is to recognize that every aspect of our lives exists in submission to him. He doesn’t just delight in the “good” practices, he delights in them all. As we submit everything to him, he delights both in our times of silence and solitude, and when we are working hard on a paper, or putting together a beautiful presentation for our next meeting.

The Incarnation marked the sacred invading the mundane, God becoming man. The Resurrection marked the mundane becoming sacred, man becoming like God. We live Resurrection lives in which those things that are mundane, those things that we scoff at as having no spiritual relevance, have become sacred.

We cannot afford to think that “some things count, and some don’t” because it cripples us. It becomes a competition to stack up more things that count than things that don’t, so that we can be satisfied with our spiritual lives. The reality is that since we live under Christ’s complete reign, and since he has provided the way for the mundane to become sacred, everything counts. It’s not about striving to have more “good” than “bad” practices, it’s about a way of life that seeks after him in every activity, whether caring for children, eating a meal with a friend, writing papers, or sending an inter-office memo.

It all counts because it’s all an opportunity to submit our lives to Christ and follow after him more closely.

*To listen to this episode, click here.

But sometimes it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes my hope ends up hurting me. Like when I hope that a relationship will work out that ends up not. Or when I’m hoping for the financial resources I need and they don’t come through. In these moments, it certainly feels like it would have been easier to have skipped the hope thing altogether because hope hurts.

The Christian story is a similar one. The hope that the Christian has is more than just optimism. It is rooted in revelation and the promise of Christ’s resurrected body. The Christian looks forward to the day of the universe’s restoration to God’s desire, and our place in it. It’s a grand, dazzling, beautiful hope that we have. And it’s a sure one.

Yet, there are times when we struggle and question God why he doesn’t just restore the world now. When we watch children die from cancer; when we see marriages dissolve and hearts broken; when we see the pain and destruction that suicide brings, we ask “why not now?”

And most of the time, we don’t get a response. We are called to trust God and often these are moments of faith, not understanding. And so hope hurts. Knowing that this reality could and is going to be different leaves us in deep pain. Knowing that sin and its effects, that evil and its works will have no place in the future Kingdom makes the pain of these moments all the deeper. Hope hurts.

In such times, we may feel isolated, alone, even hopeless. But the pain that hope leaves us grappling with, that dull ache in our breast is not just pain, it’s an invitation. It is the voice of the shepherd, saying “yes, I know your pain; and now you know that of others.” It is a moment of realization that not only do I ache, but the whole world aches, leans into, and looks forward to being restored. And in these moments of realization, Jesus invites us to partake in his work – to bring the Kingdom of God into the world. He invites us to help begin to turn tears into laughter, and sorrows into joy. He invites us to heal wounds alongside him, to witness to the least of these of the love of an incredible God.

Hope hurts. I’ve felt it personally. I feel it when I read about sex trafficking and little children being abused. I feel it when I think of those who lose fathers and mothers. I feel it when I see the news report of still more bloodshed and violence around the world. But God doesn’t leave me to sit in that hurt, he invites me into his work – to bring the Kingdom now. The Christian hope, even when painful, is always an active one; through it, Jesus draws us, pushes us and sometimes drags us into a Kingdom reality.

And the best part is, we’re invited to help do some of that dragging and pushing and drawing. How are you dragging this world into the Kingdom?

We all experience heartbreak, heartache, hurt, and pain. In these times, we often feel lost at sea, desperately searching for something to hold onto. And often, because of his gracious love, Christ confronts us, not in the loud voice of the prophet, but in the gentle whisper of the shepherd, knowing what we need, offering us something to hold onto. I want to share these images as flotsam in the sea of life that I have held onto in the midst of heartache in the hope that they may also be of benefit to you.

 The Boat.

Recently, a dear brother of mine, Kyle (who also is a great photographer), wrote me a letter in which he reflected on Christ’s calming the storm. He wrote, “now you are going ‘to the other side’ to be in the right place – the place where God wants you and has called you. The beautiful thing is that you do not go alone. Jesus is in the boat with you.” Jesus is in the boat with you. It’s a wonderful image. An overcast day, the seas are choppy and water sloshes over the sides of the boat wetting my feet, making me uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a stormy day and I am fearful. Yet I do not row alone; Jesus is there, in the boat, gently encouraging. There is no such thing as loneliness in his presence, there is no danger. As my heart breaks, as I am forced to leave a shore where I wanted to stay to go to the other side, to the right place, I never go alone; Jesus is in the boat with me.

The Clay Pot.

I also recently received an email from my dad, speaking truth in light of recent pain. He wrote “Henri Nouwen, and others, would say that our brokenness is the fuel for grace. It allows us to both receive and impart more grace than we ever could in our wholeness.” The image this brought to mind was of a clay pot submerged in a thick syrup. As fractured lines begin to show in the clay pot, the syrup begins to seep into the cracks; when the pot fragments, the syrup rushes in, filling the interior and holding the shards together. So it is with grace. As my heart begins to show signs of breaking, grace fills them. When my heart breaks, grace rushes in, filling me and I am left with pieces, held together by grace, that precious, sweet grace of Christ.

The Hazelnut.

In one of my classes we discussed Julian of Norwich, a late medieval mystic. Julian recorded a series of visions that she received from God when she experienced a sickness that left her near death. In one of the visions, she is shown a thing the size of a hazelnut in the palm of her hand. She wonders what it is and is told “it is everything which is made.” It is a tiny thing, the entire cosmos, held in her hand. It seems likely that it will just pass into non-existence. Yet, “it lasts and always will, because God loves it…” I am a part of that hazelnut, so close to simply passing away but for the love of God. As I think on the hazelnut I am reminded of God’s size, and his goodness held so closely together, pictured so perfectly in Jesus. I am reminded that the hand holding the hazelnut is not my own, nor Julian’s but God’s gently keeping my very heart beating out of love, deep love.

I don’t know if these images touch your heart like they do mine but they remind me that I have been born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3) and, in the words of Julian, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in times of joy but even more so in times of heartbreak.

Theology is a practice not just for the theologians, but for every Christian. While we don’t all necessarily have to know the word theodicy and be able to break down the attributes of God into his communicable and incommunicable attributes, the call to study theology is at the heart of Christianity.

Here’s some reasons why:

1. Theology helps us test what we believe. Any system of beliefs is only really worth investing our time in if it corresponds to reality and is internally coherent. A lot of us have a bunch of different beliefs about things that are completely disconnected and ultimately don’t fit with other things we believe. While certainly, Christianity is full of paradoxes that cannot be logically solved, there is a place for exploring the theological story of Christianity and seeing how all the parts fit together. Theology is a key part to understanding the Christian story’s coherence.

2. Theology keeps us humble. Theology is one of the great gifts from God in that, when studied properly, it humbles us. While perhaps we can work out or puzzle through other disciplines, theology is constantly done in light of the fact that our minds are bumping up against a mystery that we really can’t unravel. The study of the Triune God is not something to pass over, but neither is it something that we should think we completely grasp.

3. Theology teaches us how to read the Bible. While Scripture is certainly ultimately authoritative (as my Protestant nature demands I confess), theology does allow us to understand it more clearly. Understanding what Christians have held to be “orthodox” provides us with a lens to understand when our own interpretation of Scripture is accurate or when we might be vying off course.

4. Theology brings us to know God better. Augustine, in his treatise about the Trinity, repeatedly points to his motivation for explicating this difficult doctrine as the call of Psalm 105:4 – “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.” Theology is about seeking God’s face. It is the call of God on our lives to know him and is a vital and indispensable part of that knowledge. It extends beyond cultivating an emotional relationship but recognizes that our whole being, mind, body and soul are called to know God, and to seek his face.

5. “Theology is for doxology.” Every class session that I have with JI Packer begins with us singing the doxology because, as he reminds us, “theology is for doxology (worship).” As Christians, we are called to worship God, and theology calls us into worship. It is impossible for a Christian, I believe, to contemplate the Trinity, or justification, or the dual natures of Christ and not be drawn to our knees in praise and adoration.

Those of course, are just a few reasons; I’m convinced there are many more. Theology is for every individual who is called to test what we believe, live humbly, read Scripture, know God and worship him; that is, studying theology is for every Christian. We are called to follow Jesus, we are called to know him, and that includes the study of theology.

Would love to hear if you have any more reasons in the comments.