Author: Jeff

I drove home on what turned out to be the shortest day of the year. As I woke up this morning at 7 to drive to a Christmas celebration, I was amazed at how dark it was. Surely it can’t be 7:00! A quick check of my cell phone and my computer showed that it was, in fact, time for me to get up.

There are places in the world where this phenomena is carried to extremes. Places in Alaska are sometimes called the “Land of the Midnight Sun” because six months of the year they are bathed in constant sunlight (though not warm, from what I hear), and six months if the year they are in complete darkness. Apocryphally, people say suicide rates are higher during the prolonged darkness than they are at other times of the year.

Sometimes we hardly notice the changing of daylight, except in huge increments, but every now and then we notice – if only for a moment – that the night is just a bit darker than it used to be.

It’s interesting that in this season of darkness, we are greeted with the arrival of the light of the world. John, speaking of Jesus, writes that, “The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. … The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world.”

We now wait with anticipation the Birth of Christ into this dark night. The Savior of the world is coming into the world, bringing hope and light where we have only darkness.

at the AFC blog…

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine

and puts them into practice

is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

The rain came down,
the streams rose,
and the winds blew and beat against that house;

yet it did not fall,

because it had its foundation on the rock.”

Isn’t it easy to hear the words
and put them into practice

when the storms seem a long way away?

When the beach is sunny and warm
we pitch our umbrellas upon the shores of life.

Our umbrellas become shacks
our shacks houses
our houses mansions
our mansions estates

and before we know it

we’ve built our entire lives on a foundation

of sand.

But the storms are brewing.

The rain is coming.
The streams will rise
and the winds will blow.

And at that time it will not matter
how lavish a mansion we have created
how many treasures we have stored.

All that will matter

will be that left standing.

And all that will be standing

will have its foundation on the rock.

Another warning of misplaced hope. Through our lives, we build many things. We’re often proud of our accomplishments. Whether it be our belief systems, our wealth, our relationships, our social networks, our intelligence, or any other of the thousand things we build in our lives, we each have large luxurious mansions with treasures stored up. The question for us is whether we have built on the foundation of Christ.

The beach is a wonderfully attractive place. We’re lured often by the view and the serene beauty.

The only promise we have in life is that storms are coming. No matter who you are, whether you believe in God or not, your life will be pounded by storms. The issue for each of us is that by the time they hit, it will be too late to make changes to our foundation. The time to seek God is not when the storms arrive, but long before they are on the horizon.

Joy is a funny thing.

People sometimes think that it’s being happy,
but I know people who are joyous even in a melancholy mood.

People sometimes think it comes from outside of us, that the things that happen to us determine whether or not we have that joy,
but I have seen the greatest joy in people who have no earthly reason to be joyous.

People sometimes think it comes from within us, that somehow we can act our way into having joy, or if we can focus hard enough, we’ll find it,
but I know people who are great actors and can focus very well, but have no joy.

People sometimes think it’s hard to find, that we must search in many obscure places to glean even a small bit of it,
but I know people who seem to find it everywhere they go.

If joy is not from outside of us,
If it is not from within us,
then where does it come from?

I look at people who have the most joy and I am struck with one universal truth:
their joy comes from God.

And when their joy comes from God
It’s not just being happy,
and it’s not hard to find,

for God is everywhere
and in Him is all joy.

Joy is constant. Often, I think, we confuse joy for happiness. Especially in a culture that tells us in so many ways to not be content with what we have, we are prone to think of joy and happiness together in a fleeting sense – we never have enough of what we want.

Nehemiah says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” I hope my strength is not fleeing. I hope it’s something that I can depend on.

The question, really, is where we find our joy. We store treasure in so many places. We place and mis-place hope daily. Any time we place our hope and trust in something other than the Lord, we are certain to be disappointed. Whether a person, an idea or an object, the only source of true joy and peace is the Lord.

One time I tried to teach children to speak English. Their native tongue made it very hard for them, and they constantly struggled.

I would explain instructions slowly, in simple words.

They didn’t understand.

I would ask them to repeat the instructions.

They didn’t understand.

I would tell them again, in simpler, slower words. I felt sure they’d get it. I felt sure my point was made.
They didn’t understand.

No matter what I tried, there was still that barrier,
an absolute mountain that stood in the way
of passing what I knew onto them.

I was so frustrated. I was at a loss. All I wanted to do was to take these kids, to tell them that I loved them, and to teach them everything I knew.

And then it hit me.

In life I sit in a class, and at the blackboard stands God,
the All-Mighty God of the universe,
who is speaking to me in a wonderful and complex language of Love.

And I don’t understand.

And I hope that when I finally get something, that when a light finally turns on up in my head,

God smiles,

and feels a joy beyond compare.

I think that everyone should be forced to teach English as a second language. The lessons learned from watching people struggle with something you natively understand and not being able to communicate with them I think provides an interesting perspective on how God must see us at times.

The two summers I spent in that classroom were eye-opening in so many ways. As a teacher, I desire to pass knowledge on to my students – ultimately for my understanding of the subject to be given to them. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, there were those who simply couldn’t get it.

But I think one of the funniest things was that it wasn’t the success of the students who never had a problem that gave me the most joy. It was when one of the slow ones – the ones who never got anything – when it clicked for one of those students, every minute of frustration was worth it.

I still wonder what God thinks as he looks at my life. I don’t know where I fit in the scheme of “fast” or “slow” learners – from my perspective it’s “slow” far too often. But I have a feeling that God feels somewhat like I did. I have a feeling that when we get something, when the light finally clicks for us, God smiles.

What is it that saves you?

Is it some checklist?
Some recipe in an eternal cookbook, that if followed to the letter, exactly to the letter,
guarantees salvation to anyone?

Does your biblical knowledge,
your theoretical understanding of God gleaned from years of research, listening and reading,
hold the key to heaven’s gates?

Can you rest your eternal security
completely and totally on your faith in the grace of God that you can say nothing else matters,
nothing at all?

For I know many people who can follow instructions
to the letter
who make lousy cooks.

And I have brilliant friends who know more than I ever will
and understand so much
who don’t know the first thing about applying their knowledge.

And I have seen many who believe strongly
and do nothing
and in the end that’s exactly what they have.

So what is it that saves you?

Paul says
“I now consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus. . . I want to know Christ . . . to become like Him in His death.”

To Paul
nothing
absolutely nothing
was more important than knowing Jesus and seeking a deep relationship with him.

I think that Paul would say
I am saved because
“I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus,
took hold of me.”

Another early foray into a more post-modern way of thinking. As I sat and pondered, I came to the conclusion that there had to be something more to it than everyone was telling me. Is salvation baptism? Is it the sinner’s prayer? Is it how much I know, or how well I follow the instructions?

Ultimately all of these answers felt hollow and empty to me. They didn’t fully answer the question that was being asked – “How do I make myself right with God?”

What Paul says here was later put to me in an extremely cogent fashion by my mentor – “Relationships are more important than rules.” All too often we get caught up in the rules about what it means to be a person of faith and what we have to follow. Ultimately we have to follow Christ, and the relationship we have with him is more important than the rules.

Far more important.

“Relationships are more important than rules.” – Good words to live by.

“Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.”

What is purity?

Is it something that
requires stiff and rigid living?

Is it something that
only a few,
very special people obtain?

Is it something that
we strive for, and seek after,
but always seem to end up short?

I believe our hearts are like a glass,
and we look through that glass to see God.

We have a choice
to fill our hearts
with the water of Christ,
or the dirt of the world.

And when we place dirt in our hearts,
even if only a bit,
our vision of God becomes
that much more blurry,
that much less defined,
that much less complete.

Could it be
that being pure in heart
simply means choosing Jesus?

Filling our lives
so totally and completely full of Him
that there is no room for anything else?

“Create in me a pure heart, O God.”

For quite some time there was (and still is, to a certain extent) a “purity movement” in afC… a movement that basically said that purity was about what you didn’t do. Before going further, I must say that I love dearly the people who feel this way, and I respect their committment to God and to a righteous and holy lifestyle. They are good people who love God tremendously, and I respect them completely.

In re-reading this, I think it can be interpreted to the benefit of either side of the debate, but my intent was certainly not to say that we should employ a strict moral code in the service of sectarianism. Rather, the idea that purity *does not* require strict and rigid living was the theme.

In the reflection of subsequent years, it strikes me that we often talk about purity in the wrong way. Often, we talk about religious purity in terms of a righteous lifestyle. Purity, on the other hand, in a worldly sense is used in terms of consistency. Pure gold is 24 karat – it is *just* gold – there is nothing else inside of it. Something can, of course, be pure lead, or pure dirt, or pure manure. Similarly, our lives could be purely evil and be “pure”.

I think we confuse the term “purity” with the term “holiness”. Most certainly we want to be pure – we are called to have a heart that is consistently seeking God. Holiness is the term that refers to the the character and the “rightness” of our actions, where as purity is the term that, in my mind, refers to the consistency. Certainly we are called to be both holy and pure.

None the less, we cannot and should not use either of these terms in the pursuit of rampant sectarianism, seeking to disengage ourselves from anything that might make us “worse people”. To engage evil is not to embrace evil. We are called to be “in the world, but not of the world” – a challenge to be sure, and one that requires us to make difficult moral choices every day, but ultimately the only way we will be able to fulfill the mission and ministry of Jesus.