Where to start? It's all so... BIG... and perfect

I kinda forgot about this whole blog thing. I was kinda outta touch all summer anyway, which lends itself to the problem. But there's been a lot going on in my head since then. Here's what I puked outta my brain a couple weeks ago.

Oh man, where to start... God' blowing my mind open.
Thinking back... I think I can trace the first inklings of this thought process to a certain conversation I had with my "mentor" at the time. I was telling him about how I could really see God through creation and I loved creation and it made me come alive and feel loved and so on and so forth. He sat there and let me go on for a bit, and then all he said in reply was, "You know, people are God's creation too." It made me think a lot. I think it got me thinking about salvation at that point. I realized that salvation wasn't just about me. In fact it was just merely about people as well. I realized that salvation is about God restoring ALL of creation back to him. All of creation is in bondage from our sin and God is in the process of rebuilding that.
It was neat to think about, but what do I do with that?
About year later I had a new thought. I was spending time struggling with dying to myself. I realized that who I am, my true human nature is so far from good. When I thought about it, that part of me was selfish and prideful and it disgusted me. I could think to my gut reaction in almost any given situation and realize that my first priority was myself. Blech! That was tough to admit. No matter how highly I thought of myself, I really wasn't good. Compounded on that, I read about how Jesus shot back when he was called good, "Only God is good" WHOA! After some tough times and thoughts and prayers I realized that in Jesus, it doesn't matter that we are gross. Jesus doesn't see us that way. WOOHOO!
But then I was looking at creation and when God makes Adam... he calls him "good." That's pretty big for God to declare Adam good. Adam was made in God's image and in so was bearing God's image to the created earth. Adam shared in God's glory!
Then Satan came along and here's what’s ironic: Satan talked Adam into trying to make himself like God, but Adam was already like God, apparently he didn't realize it. Solely by God's grace, Adam had shared in God's glory. Adam rejected God's grace and glory and thus, the fall.
At that point, it seems to me that humanity has obsessed itself with trying to regain that original glory that we were created with. And worse, with all of our apparent success at doing so, our pride grows and draws even further from God and that original glory we are striving for. Could it be that all my selfishness and pride comes from an innate quest for glory, something that I instinctively know I was intended to have but for rejection of grace, I don't?
So Adam, and us, had given up the charge to show God's image to the world. God then is not fully in the world anymore. Not one to give up though, while still fully God, he becomes fully human, able to enter into the broken world and once again bear his image to the earth. But it's different. Jesus doesn't glow with the full majesty and glory of God as described in creation, but rather comes with an image of humility, sacrifice, service and love.
But that's absolutely perfect. We are still promised to share in God's glory, but know for us to slay our pride, our own attempts, we must follow image of God revealed to us through Jesus. We must humble ourselves, sacrifice our human nature, and learn to love to even stand to get anywhere near that glory of God.
So through Jesus, and those who choose him, God is again revealing himself, the image God, to all the earth. To all of creation he is working himself back in.
Maybe that's what this talk of bringing the kingdom of heaven is all about. God and his followers are bringing heaven, are bringing the image of God, back to the world and the people who once shut it out. The kingdom of heaven is God's image in us?...
That got me thinking more about Jesus. Something that hit me hard a week or so ago is something I've read and heard for a loooooong time, but I don't think I've fully understood and processed it all until now. John talks about how in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God... For some reason I had kind of thought of Jesus as a God's contingency plan. That Jesus didn't come along until later in the story. But that's totally not true. John says, Jesus has always been, because Jesus is God. Of course!!!
With that in mind, I also, in the back of my mind, separated the old and new testament God and hard and soft, kinda bad cop good cop. But Jesus was the same God in the beginning as he was when he came to earth. The love, grace and mercy of Jesus has ALWAYS been a part of God. So why do the two testaments seem different? We know God doesn't change, so perhaps it's our understanding of God that has changed...?
Furthermore, if Jesus has always been God and was always with God, what better way to get to know him than through Jesus, someone who is much easier for is to relate to. It blows my mind because even though it may be easier for us to relate to Jesus, we still are relating directly to God, because he is! Whoa!
Furthermore, as kind of an afterthought, I was reading Jesus’ sermon on the mount. As Jesus talked, he kept building up this impossible picture that we are called to live up to. To essentially be perfect. This dread was overtaking me. Then a thought occurred. The reason Jesus was here in the first place is because we can’t be what he’s telling us to be in that sermon. So what’s going on? What Jesus was describing was what we were meant to be like, and he was also describing God. Jesus was showing us who our God is. The old testament very clearly portrays God’s power, wrath, majesty, and glory, but Jesus is showing us here God’s service, sacrifice and love… cool.

Holy Shint Batman!!

I wish someone would have just given it to me straight. Maybe someone has, but it just hasn't sunk in until now. I've felt like such a disappointment lately, mostly because I keep screwing up. I hear all the time:"Nobody's Perfect," "Broken World," "Spiritual Battle." Then on top of that I hear "Christ frees you from sin," "No longer a slave to sin," "Jesus gives you victory in sin." But it seems to me that if any of this stuff is brought up in a sermon, it should be followed by: "But shit happens." Or maybe more appropriately "Sin happens." Actually both happen... "shint" happens, a lot of times they're the same thing.

I've read in the word, and people tell me that Jesus promised trials, but that's not as encouraging as they mean it to be. It's only half the story. I think what would be better to hear (at least for me) is "Drew, Jesus promised trials and I'm telling you that a lot of the time, you will FAIL. You will fall flat on your face!" That's the kind of straight shooting I would rather hear.

For the last several months I've had this idea in my head that sin in a christian's life is moot. I know now that that idea is a virus, it makes me sick. I know now where this came from, and it's something equally as viral. When the body of christ masks its pains and struggles from each other, then sin becomes to each member a personal defect rather than a product of our world.

I used to think that because I belonged to christ and was "no longer a slave to sin," it meant that I wouldn't sin anymore. That was pretty stupid of me to think so while every day of my life was still filled with it. For whatever reason, it's taken this long for the real meaning to hit me, and it hit like a friggin freight train to the face.

In essence, I think Martin Luther reworded that with a bit more kick: "Sin boldly, but believe in Christ more boldly still." Shint is gonna happen and when it does, ya gotta own it. Not being a slave to sin is not so much about not doing it, but rather when it comes, own it, give it to God and say "I may be a screw up, but I'm a screw up in the death grip of God's unconditional love and neverending grace." Apologeticist Peter Kreeft says that there is no opposite of sinners in our world, just saved sinners and not saved sinners. Being free of sin is not letting your enemy's immediate victory blind you from our God's ultimate win.

The times I've felt free from sin were the times when I could sit with my fellow believers and without fear of judgement pour out my pain and struggles and to have them reply "me too, thank God for grace." I want more of that in church.

Driven

I've been working at a ski resort the past few months on their race crew. I've never really had anything to do with ski racing... ever, but it hasn't been to bad of a job. As much politics as I have to put up with, I least I get to work outside all day on my skis. There's only three of us that make up this race department, and as such I've been spending a lot of time with these two guys that I work with. I'm very different from both of these guys, most notably in my morals and ethics. While it's hard for me to be around them, it's been good for me as well. When I'm able to step back and look at my time with them, it enables me to see how intricately God has woven himself into the fabric of reality in this world. He's not just in "christian" circles, but low and behold, even within the lives of these "worldly" men that I work beside, God makes himself evident to me daily.
One of the guys I work with is by nature, a VERY passionate person. Super high energy and fully throws himself into whatever may be feeding him at the time. The other guy is much more laid back, more my speed, but equally as immersed in the things he loves. While I listen to these two talk (most of the time about subjects I wouldn't care to listen to them talk about) I realized the other day that we have something in common. We're driven by hope.
Here are these two guys against whom I've counted myself radically different, only to realize God's made us with the same operating system. Even better though, is that through these two men, far removed from my comfortable "christian" lifestyle, I feel like I've gained a more realistic understanding of hope than ever before.
It's not an emotion, or a sentiment, it's our friggin engines. When I look at my life, what keeps me going is the hope of heaven, the hope of God's glory.
So the difference between me and these guys now is where our hope placed. Proverbs says "Hope deferred makes the heart sick..." and when I hear the pain and shallow emotion the people around me, when I hear of their sick hearts, I feel like now I know why. All around me here, people put their hope in temprorary solutions, quick fixes that ultimately seizes their drive. God tells us time and again in his word that he alone can fulfill our hope, fulfill our longing.
Letting Christ's glory drive me doesn't free me from hurt, but allows me to faithfully plow through it. And ultimately that's what faith is, "being sure of what we hope for."
These two men have so much passion, but it is so fleeting and often followed by a sorrow that's just as consuming. Up and down, I see it every week. And it's rad to think that we're ALL created with a hope stash to do with what we please. Our differences don't stem necessarily from morals or lifestyles, but ultimately from where our hope lies.

I'm not too up to date, but...

Recently I've been hearing a lot about this movie coming out called "The Golden Compass". I don't have a tv or get the newspaper and don't really listen the radio so newswise I'm relatively far behind the curve. In light of that I've been hearing about this mostly through the conservative christians in the church I've been going to as well as facebook groups bearing the titles liks "Boycott the Golden Compass", "DON'T support the Golden Compass" or "Boycott the Golden Compass: An attack on Christianity" asking for my support.
I never really agreed with this sentiment towards the movie, but I think I finally pinned down the core of the issue for me. A lot of people that I've talked to or heard from who are upset about this act almost as if this movie is a surprise. As if it is a shock that someone would oppose Christ and his message. And it seems to me that as a follower of Christ, we should be the least surprised. Jesus promised this kind of stuff, Peter and Paul both went through it and promised it as well.
It's not the feeling of surprise that gets me, but it seems like a lot of believers are feeling threatened by this movie (and that's all it is a is a movie). I don't know if they've read the bible or not, but satan himself can't destroy God's kingdom, let alone an atheist children's author. And if you're not able to take a step back from your faith and wrestle with it, then I think you've got bigger problems than an anti-God movie.
One of the big beefs I've been hearing about this is how it's marketed and aimed at kids. Sure, this may not be something you want to sit your kid down in front of and leave it at that. But I think it's a great way start dialogue with your kid (especially if your kid already know Jesus) and start letting the kid grow their own faith. People put the Narnia stories up on their pedastol because they are "christian", but really the Narnia stories are in the same boat as this compass deal, they're all just stories. Narnia can't and should not replace the Gospel. We worship Jesus, not Aslan.
As christians, we have the advantage: we know we will be challenged, and we know who wins in the end. With those out of the way, perhaps retaliating isn't the answer. My two cents: don't worry about the movie, or it's message. It's nothing new. Use it as a discussion point with your neighbour. Use it help your own faith grow. Anti groups and boycotts put walls up between us and the people we are to minister to. That's what satan wants, walls, not movies, but walls between people and Jesus' love.

Picture Perfect

So I was talking with a table of junior high boys in sunday school this morning and after a certain point in conversation, the whole scene struck me as perfect. You know how you get those feelings at certain moments in your life where everything seems as it should be? A glimpse of heaven sort of, where it seems like God has completely saturated every aspect of that moment. They are you usually pretty fleeting, but often leave lasting impressions.
I'm confident that I socialize better with kids than I do with adults. Especially kids who aren't at the stage where they are too cool be a kid. Maybe it's because something inside of me misses that part of childhood... I don't know. For instance, last week I went to this movie that was showing a bar in town. I was this super retro, from the 60's, movie about Choinard (the guy who started Patagonia company) and some buddies climbing in Patagonia. I walked in and the place was packed. I generally don't go to bars, I don't do the whole bar talk thing very well. I have a hard time standing around BS-ing with people that you're yelling at to hear over the din and loud music. So walked in and I looked out back and there's a bunch of little kids having a snowball fight. I'd rather join them than try to play the bar scene. And I did. It was fun.
Like I said I was talking to table of junior high kids this morning about Jesus. And partly why it seemed all perfect was because they were being so... them. In response to a question or whatever subject was at hand, often they would blurt out something seemingly unrelated. They weren't doing it to be annoying or disruptive, but that's what was going through their heads. Even now, in my day to day conversation, someone will say something that inside my head triggers some story, or factoid that's totally unrelated to the converstaion and my mind goes off on this tangent until I realize that I missed the last half of whatever that person said cause I was busy chasing this rabbit in my head. Naturally I pretend that it never happened and that I am totally following what my counterpart is saying to avoid looking like a fool. How rad is it that these kids were verbally processing their thoughts with me, no matter how off topic it might be.
The overarching lesson of the day was "who is Jesus?" and somewhere along the line, one of these kids' mental spinoffs prompted him to ask the rest of the group if we had ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He proceeded to recount the scene in the grail room with all the grails encrusted in gold and jewels and the true grail being simple and wooden. At that point it hit me just how perfect our story is. Our relationship with God has been called "the greatest story ever told" and I never really think about it, but it is so amazingly perfect. Every aspect of life in this story fits together perfectly down to the tiniest detail.
The idea of God coming to earth to save his creation in itself is genius. But the raw power, wrath and love og God entering a baby born to a poverty stricken couple in backwoods podunk town. In a place where all the distractions, wealth, power, everything was absent and it was just God slipping in the back door to save humanity. The whole story is so unimagineable and at the same time so perfect it has to be real. You can't make that stuff up.
Those times when all is as it should be, I think are flickers of God's kingdom here on earth. A small snippit of how it will be when his kingdom comes for good. And the more I understand each year of God's ridiculous plot to save the world, the more each year I get stoked for Christmas, to celebrate the turning point in the story.

izzle's

So I walked into this coffee shop the other day and the gal behind this counter was wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of Jesus' face on it and it said "fo' shizzle, Jesus is fo' rizzle" Along the same lines I've seen shirts and bumper stickers with things like "Jesus is my homeboy" or "Jesus saves after every level" (with a little nintendo controller. Jesus bobbleheads on dashboards anyone? I believe God has a sense of humor and these type of things have their place in showing Jesus to the world. Fo' shizzle, God is relationalizzle and personalizzle with each individual and you better believe that's an important message. And of course someone being as personal with me as God is, I would expect it to be someone I can laugh (as well as cry) with.
But at the same time, stuff like this only paints half of a picture. Yeah God will laugh with you and as a follower of Christ I know I need to be careful that I don't neglect the other half of who God is. God is holy folks. Which is really nice to know when I step back and think about it. I'm not so sure I want my eternal life in the care of a clown. God is full of power and wrath. There's a song that cuts me open each time I hear it (it's best at loud volumes) and the chorus says "The earth shakes, trembles and quakes and the mountains shook out of fear, He made darkness His covering, the bursting rain clouds of the sky, and from the brightness of His radiant face, hailstones and bolts of light, the Lord thunders, the Lord thunders."
We trust Him because He loves and stoops down to us, but we worship Him because He is powerful and holy. They go hand in hand in a perfect balance that we can only marvel at and give praise to God for being who He is.

Beyond Gratefulness

Holy Stinking Cool Batman!! So I've always heard in church and books and even in the bible something to the effect of "forgive other people because Jesus forgave you" or "love other people because Jesus loved you first" and that's totally true and I agree but God showed me it's so much deeper than that!!! There's more to this than simply "Jesus did it for me so I should do it for others."
While that is all good, it's makes me feel better to know that the purpose for this stuff is so much deeper than gratefulness. You see, Christ was rejected and suffered immensely and his disciples shared in the fruits of his passion. As disciples of Jesus, we are called to share in his sufferings. That doesn't so appealing at face value.
Christ bore the sins of all and it is clear that the only atonement is through the blood of JESUS only. But since he bore the sins of the entire world, as disciples we are called to share in bearing those sins, in experiencing the rejection that Jesus experienced and it's pretty safe to assume that any man would break down under such pressure unless he had the unfailing support of the one who took the wrap for humanity (that would be Jesus).
Paul writes in Galations "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Bonhoeffer says "The passion of Christ strengthens [the disciple] to overcome the sins of others by forgiving them." True, we are to help deal with their outward situations and gifts or lack thereof, but also their literal sin. Mad rad!!!
Hells yeah by following Jesus we are forgiven; we are free to bear the sins of others by the power of Christ (not by our own power mind you). As a true disciple of Jesus, we are free to be real with people, to draw alongside of them and bear the weight of their burden with them (WHETHER THEY KNOW JESUS OR NOT). What an amazing weapon against the world's sorrow we've been given! We don't forgive or love merely because Jesus did so to us first. We do so because Jesus has freed us and empowered his with His power to help lift the weak out of the pit in his name. We are his warriors, by serving Jesus we are serving to the fight the evils that plague our world. And how amazing is it that we can come alongside those who don't know Him in their time of need and in His power and name we can bear their weight. And if we can do so with God's children who choose not to acknowledge God, how much more so can we pull alongside a fellow disciple who may have lost his way as we all tend to do.
What a sicka rad job to have!!! Jesus's command to his disciples was to love others... but not just by sending them flowers or buying them dinner. We have the power to love by descending to their depths alongside them, and we are able to do so because we have Christ's power... we are his ambassadors to the broken. SO SWEEEEEET!