"Double D" Had a doctor's appointment this week and he is healing well. He is now able to bend his knee some, although he is still not able to stand or put weight on it. The doctor is still saying that he will be in recovery for another 8 weeks, but "Double D" is praying that God will heal him more quickly and prove the doctor wrong. "Double D" would like to thank all of his brothers and sisters who have visited, helped, and prayed for him during this time, and asks that you continue to pray for his recovery .
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Developing True Community (Part 4)
Part 4
Interacting Like Jesus
In our previous discussion, we talked about how God sees people in general. This is a little different from what God sees when He looks at a believer, or someone who is IN CHRIST, but it is important to start here, as God's mission starts when we are still His enemies (Rom 5:10). Now, God's mission does not end with us simply being no longer His enemies, but rather its goal is the complete restoration of relationship. So as we move deeper into this discussion of community we will need to look at our identity IN CHRIST, but for now, lets look at How Christ demonstrated God's view of people who were not yet in relationship with God.
Nicodemus
So here is this religious leader, someone who was raised knowing the answers to how to get right with God, at least that's what he thought. Obviously, Nicodemus did not have all the answers, because he comes to talk to Jesus at night in secret. Even before Nicodemus has the chance to ask his question, Jesus gets right to the point and Nicodemus has to admit that he really does not understand at all.
We can see from other interactions with the Pharisees that Jesus did not agree with their teaching and here is one of them, a teacher of the law who has led God's chosen people away from relationship instead of towards it. Here is the interesting thing though, Jesus didn't blast Nicodemus for teaching a false way to get right with God; He instead opens up for Nicodemus the true Gospel message. It is as if Jesus is saying "you are a teacher of religion, but you really don't even understand what it is that you are teaching, here let me show you the true heart of God".
The Samaritan Woman
The interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well is probably one of the best glimpses into what God sees when He looks at messed up people. Jesus encounters a second class citizen of second class citizens, a woman whose life reflects one failed relationship after another, and person who has no hope of ever living a fulfilled life.
Now Jesus addresses her life, but not like religious people expect Him to. He doesn't tell this woman to repent of living with a man outside of marriage, or of having been divorced multiple times. Again, Jesus addresses the very core of the issue; He tells her that if she "drinks of His water" she would never thirst again. So what is this about? Think of it like this, Jesus says to her "I see you life, and your thirsty, thirsty for fulfilling relationship, I am offering you the one thing that you most desperately want, true, fulfilling relationship". Jesus does not judge her for trying to fulfill her God given need for relationship; instead He points her to the only true source of fulfillment and reveals once again the true heart of God.
Conclusion
In the interest of brevity, we will not address any of the many other interactions of Jesus with messed up people, but I have chosen these two with good reason. You see Jesus dealing with a religious leader, one who guarded zealously God's own law, and a woman who had spent her life failing to keep God's law. They represent both ends of the spiritual spectrum. The pattern of Jesus interaction though was not very different, in fact, you see the pattern repeated in so many of His interactions with the disciples, the rich young ruler, the woman caught in adultery, Levi, Simon, Mary, Martha, and scores of others.
Jesus chose not to judge or to condemn, even though, as God, He had an absolute right to judge a false teacher or a woman who lived an adulterous life. He chose instead to address the real issue; both the Pharisee and the Adulterer were trying to fill the God shaped hole in their lives with something other than relationship with God. Jesus pointed out the futility of their own attempts at fulfillment and pointed them toward the true source of true fulfillment. This is the very heart of God, the ministry of reconciliation that we are told of in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 being lived out by God's very first Minister of reconciliation. The second part of that passage is that we have also been given that ministry.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Interacting Like Jesus
In our previous discussion, we talked about how God sees people in general. This is a little different from what God sees when He looks at a believer, or someone who is IN CHRIST, but it is important to start here, as God's mission starts when we are still His enemies (Rom 5:10). Now, God's mission does not end with us simply being no longer His enemies, but rather its goal is the complete restoration of relationship. So as we move deeper into this discussion of community we will need to look at our identity IN CHRIST, but for now, lets look at How Christ demonstrated God's view of people who were not yet in relationship with God.
Nicodemus
So here is this religious leader, someone who was raised knowing the answers to how to get right with God, at least that's what he thought. Obviously, Nicodemus did not have all the answers, because he comes to talk to Jesus at night in secret. Even before Nicodemus has the chance to ask his question, Jesus gets right to the point and Nicodemus has to admit that he really does not understand at all.
We can see from other interactions with the Pharisees that Jesus did not agree with their teaching and here is one of them, a teacher of the law who has led God's chosen people away from relationship instead of towards it. Here is the interesting thing though, Jesus didn't blast Nicodemus for teaching a false way to get right with God; He instead opens up for Nicodemus the true Gospel message. It is as if Jesus is saying "you are a teacher of religion, but you really don't even understand what it is that you are teaching, here let me show you the true heart of God".
The Samaritan Woman
The interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well is probably one of the best glimpses into what God sees when He looks at messed up people. Jesus encounters a second class citizen of second class citizens, a woman whose life reflects one failed relationship after another, and person who has no hope of ever living a fulfilled life.
Now Jesus addresses her life, but not like religious people expect Him to. He doesn't tell this woman to repent of living with a man outside of marriage, or of having been divorced multiple times. Again, Jesus addresses the very core of the issue; He tells her that if she "drinks of His water" she would never thirst again. So what is this about? Think of it like this, Jesus says to her "I see you life, and your thirsty, thirsty for fulfilling relationship, I am offering you the one thing that you most desperately want, true, fulfilling relationship". Jesus does not judge her for trying to fulfill her God given need for relationship; instead He points her to the only true source of fulfillment and reveals once again the true heart of God.
Conclusion
In the interest of brevity, we will not address any of the many other interactions of Jesus with messed up people, but I have chosen these two with good reason. You see Jesus dealing with a religious leader, one who guarded zealously God's own law, and a woman who had spent her life failing to keep God's law. They represent both ends of the spiritual spectrum. The pattern of Jesus interaction though was not very different, in fact, you see the pattern repeated in so many of His interactions with the disciples, the rich young ruler, the woman caught in adultery, Levi, Simon, Mary, Martha, and scores of others.
Jesus chose not to judge or to condemn, even though, as God, He had an absolute right to judge a false teacher or a woman who lived an adulterous life. He chose instead to address the real issue; both the Pharisee and the Adulterer were trying to fill the God shaped hole in their lives with something other than relationship with God. Jesus pointed out the futility of their own attempts at fulfillment and pointed them toward the true source of true fulfillment. This is the very heart of God, the ministry of reconciliation that we are told of in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 being lived out by God's very first Minister of reconciliation. The second part of that passage is that we have also been given that ministry.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Developing True Community (Part 3)
Part 3
"God" Colored Goggles
We ended our last discussion with the idea of seeing people the way that God sees them. So what exactly does that mean, well lets go back to our goggle illustration. Just as allowing our lives to be shaped by external or internal expectations tints the rest of our world with those "expectation goggles", when we allow our lives to be shaped by the truth of God's perspective, this perspective begins to affect the way we view others. So in gaining a better understanding of what God sees when he looks at us, we begin to replace the "expectation" tinted lenses with a set of "God" tinted lenses.
So with this principle in mind, lets look at some verses that give us a glimpse of God's perspective.
In Genesis 1:27 we see that man was created to "in God's image". The idea here is a little more than just that of being similar to God in some aspect of our being. Man was created as a unique being, nothing like man had been seen in all creation to this point, and the specific God intended purpose of man's creation was to reveal some parts of His being that had not yet been revealed in all of the rest of the creation. In fact, while all the rest of creation was declared to be "good" by God, only after the creation of man did God look at all that was made and declare it to be "very good". So first of all, when God sees us, he sees His own unique creation and in that creation aspects of His being that are revealed nowhere else in the created universe.
Next, we see that God values us. In Mat 10:21, we hear directly from the mouth of Jesus that we are of more worth than other created beings. David echos this sentiment in Psalm 8, where he mixes the dominion of man over creation, with marvel for God even taking thought of man, and a foreshadowing of mankind ruling over all creation, including the angels, through the man Jesus Christ. God values man because he has a purpose and a plan for man that is singularly unique among all the created beings, even spiritual beings.
When God looks at us, He sees a broken relationship that He would do anything to restore. We see from the very beginning of revelation, in Gen 1:26 a quote from God. "Let US make man in OUR own image". We see a God who exists in eternal perfect relationship within the trinity. Additionally, we see that one of the aspects of God that man was created to reflect was relationship. This was most clearly revealed through the creation of man and woman (Gen 2:24). As a result of the fall, the relationship of man with God and the reflection of God's relational nature was damaged. After all of this, we see that God chose to sacrifice His own Son to save His enemies (Rom 5:10), and why, because His business is fixing that broken relationship (2 Cor 5:18-20).
Now, this is not an exhaustive list of what God sees when He looks at mankind. Nor does this list look at some aspects of what God sees that change when a person believes in Jesus Christ for their eternal destiny. But these are some very key things that we can see from the bible are true of all mankind. I would even argue that they are the very heart of God's being, His purpose for creating mankind, and His current mission of restoring a broken world.
In our next installment, we will explore how our example of living with "God goggles", Jesus Christ, interacted with people.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
"God" Colored Goggles
We ended our last discussion with the idea of seeing people the way that God sees them. So what exactly does that mean, well lets go back to our goggle illustration. Just as allowing our lives to be shaped by external or internal expectations tints the rest of our world with those "expectation goggles", when we allow our lives to be shaped by the truth of God's perspective, this perspective begins to affect the way we view others. So in gaining a better understanding of what God sees when he looks at us, we begin to replace the "expectation" tinted lenses with a set of "God" tinted lenses.
So with this principle in mind, lets look at some verses that give us a glimpse of God's perspective.
In Genesis 1:27 we see that man was created to "in God's image". The idea here is a little more than just that of being similar to God in some aspect of our being. Man was created as a unique being, nothing like man had been seen in all creation to this point, and the specific God intended purpose of man's creation was to reveal some parts of His being that had not yet been revealed in all of the rest of the creation. In fact, while all the rest of creation was declared to be "good" by God, only after the creation of man did God look at all that was made and declare it to be "very good". So first of all, when God sees us, he sees His own unique creation and in that creation aspects of His being that are revealed nowhere else in the created universe.
Next, we see that God values us. In Mat 10:21, we hear directly from the mouth of Jesus that we are of more worth than other created beings. David echos this sentiment in Psalm 8, where he mixes the dominion of man over creation, with marvel for God even taking thought of man, and a foreshadowing of mankind ruling over all creation, including the angels, through the man Jesus Christ. God values man because he has a purpose and a plan for man that is singularly unique among all the created beings, even spiritual beings.
When God looks at us, He sees a broken relationship that He would do anything to restore. We see from the very beginning of revelation, in Gen 1:26 a quote from God. "Let US make man in OUR own image". We see a God who exists in eternal perfect relationship within the trinity. Additionally, we see that one of the aspects of God that man was created to reflect was relationship. This was most clearly revealed through the creation of man and woman (Gen 2:24). As a result of the fall, the relationship of man with God and the reflection of God's relational nature was damaged. After all of this, we see that God chose to sacrifice His own Son to save His enemies (Rom 5:10), and why, because His business is fixing that broken relationship (2 Cor 5:18-20).
Now, this is not an exhaustive list of what God sees when He looks at mankind. Nor does this list look at some aspects of what God sees that change when a person believes in Jesus Christ for their eternal destiny. But these are some very key things that we can see from the bible are true of all mankind. I would even argue that they are the very heart of God's being, His purpose for creating mankind, and His current mission of restoring a broken world.
In our next installment, we will explore how our example of living with "God goggles", Jesus Christ, interacted with people.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Developing True Community (Part 2)
Part 2
Why True Community Starts With Individual Identity
It may seem a little odd to begin a discussion of what life in true community looks like with a discussion of our individual identities. My point here, however, is that without a proper, biblical view of our own identity it is impossible to live in unity with other people. To illustrate this, lets think about a pair of motorcycle goggles. When a person is wearing a pair of goggles with a colored lens, the whole world appears to be colored the same tint. No one would argue that the world is in fact the color of the lenses, but to the person wearing the goggles, the whole world appears in that color.
Just as the motorcycle goggle lens lends its tint to the whole world in the perception of the biker, our own ideas about identity color not only our own life, but also the way that we look at our entire world. This is probably most easily seen on the concept of expectation as we discussed in the previous chapter. As an example, lets say that you have spent your whole life being told that good Christian men do not have long hair. It is not only difficult for you to grow your own hair long, but it is also difficult for you to accept that anyone with long hair could be a good Christian. So you see, these "expectation goggles" not only affect your view of yourself, but also your view of everyone else.
So how does this affect community? Well the problem with these "expectation goggles" is that they by necessity create a barrier to true community. If true community is a place where we are free to be real, in spite of our shortcomings, then expectations are deadly to true community. When we believe that we are expected to be a certain way, and we are not, then we are really only left with two options. We either put up the facade of being OK when in reality we are not, or we can give up the hope of ever measuring up and withdraw from community altogether. Either way, the possibility of growing deeper in meaningful relationship is prevented and we are left with the choice between superficial relationship or no relationship at all.
In our next installment, we will explore how being secure in our identity allows us to remove these "expectation goggles" and begin to see others as Christ views them.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Why True Community Starts With Individual Identity
It may seem a little odd to begin a discussion of what life in true community looks like with a discussion of our individual identities. My point here, however, is that without a proper, biblical view of our own identity it is impossible to live in unity with other people. To illustrate this, lets think about a pair of motorcycle goggles. When a person is wearing a pair of goggles with a colored lens, the whole world appears to be colored the same tint. No one would argue that the world is in fact the color of the lenses, but to the person wearing the goggles, the whole world appears in that color.
Just as the motorcycle goggle lens lends its tint to the whole world in the perception of the biker, our own ideas about identity color not only our own life, but also the way that we look at our entire world. This is probably most easily seen on the concept of expectation as we discussed in the previous chapter. As an example, lets say that you have spent your whole life being told that good Christian men do not have long hair. It is not only difficult for you to grow your own hair long, but it is also difficult for you to accept that anyone with long hair could be a good Christian. So you see, these "expectation goggles" not only affect your view of yourself, but also your view of everyone else.
So how does this affect community? Well the problem with these "expectation goggles" is that they by necessity create a barrier to true community. If true community is a place where we are free to be real, in spite of our shortcomings, then expectations are deadly to true community. When we believe that we are expected to be a certain way, and we are not, then we are really only left with two options. We either put up the facade of being OK when in reality we are not, or we can give up the hope of ever measuring up and withdraw from community altogether. Either way, the possibility of growing deeper in meaningful relationship is prevented and we are left with the choice between superficial relationship or no relationship at all.
In our next installment, we will explore how being secure in our identity allows us to remove these "expectation goggles" and begin to see others as Christ views them.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Developing True Community (Part 1)
My family and I just returned from the Community Class Family Retreat in Sedalia, CO, where we had a wonderful time. My wife and I lead the discussions and study time this weekend and our focus was on developing true community within the church. My intent is to post a mini-series of topics based on some of the discussions from our time at this retreat.
Part 1
Expectation VS Identity
Living up to Expectations:
What does it mean to live our lives based on expectations? The churchy answer is of course that we should not live our lives based on other's expectations, then we give a list of things the bible tells us that we ought to do. But I think this goes deeper. From childhood, we have expectations placed upon us by our family and friends. Our parents want us to get good grades, grow into responsible adults, make a profession of faith, go to college, get a good job; the list could go on. Our friends want us to fit in, to act cool, to spend time with them, and so on. The fact is that we are pretty much conditioned from our birth on to live according to the expectations of others so that we can grow into "Good People".
Our spiritual lives are really no different. From spiritual birth, we have pastors, Sunday school teachers, and other Christians who all give us a list of things that we need to do (their expectations) in order to be "Good Christians". We are told that we need to cut our hair, remove our earrings(for men), dress a certain way, go to church, pray, read our bible, and once again the list is almost infinite. Just as in our physical life we find ourselves making decisions based on what we think will please our parents or friends, in our spiritual lives, we can spend all of our time and effort trying to do things that we are lead to believe please God.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I am not saying that these things are bad. Most of them are in fact taken right out of the pages of the Bible. What I am saying is that we often have the wrong idea about how these things fit into the Christian life.
Living out of Identity
How do we live out of our identity? Before we can discuss living out our identity, we need to look at what that identity is. In John 14 Jesus tells His disciples that they can know the Father, because Jesus is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. In Verse 20 Jesus then states that the disciples are in Him, and He was in them. Jesus is telling His disciples that those who believe in Him are in Him, just as He is in the Father. So what does is mean to be "in Christ", lets look at some verses that discuss this.
Romans 8:1 tells us that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". In 1 Cor 1:30 Paul says "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption". Lastly, we see in 2 Cor 5:17 that "if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation". Notice that all of these verses are talking about the present state of things. There is now no condemnation. Christ became wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. We are a new creation. All of these verses talk of things that have already happened or are already true, not things that will be true in the future.
These things that are already true of the person who has believed Christ for everlasting life, therefore these things comprise our true identity in Christ. In Christ, we are a new creation, one that is without condemnation because Jesus Christ has redeemed and sanctified us, and has imparted to us His wisdom and righteousness. THIS IS WHO WE ARE, right here, right now, and living out of our identity is simply living as though these things are already true, not living as if we can make them true. We will develop this idea further in later verses, but we are talking about community, not individuals. This discussion is simply to give us an idea of what is already true on the individual level in each and every person who has believed in Christ for eternal life.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
Part 1
Expectation VS Identity
Living up to Expectations:
What does it mean to live our lives based on expectations? The churchy answer is of course that we should not live our lives based on other's expectations, then we give a list of things the bible tells us that we ought to do. But I think this goes deeper. From childhood, we have expectations placed upon us by our family and friends. Our parents want us to get good grades, grow into responsible adults, make a profession of faith, go to college, get a good job; the list could go on. Our friends want us to fit in, to act cool, to spend time with them, and so on. The fact is that we are pretty much conditioned from our birth on to live according to the expectations of others so that we can grow into "Good People".
Our spiritual lives are really no different. From spiritual birth, we have pastors, Sunday school teachers, and other Christians who all give us a list of things that we need to do (their expectations) in order to be "Good Christians". We are told that we need to cut our hair, remove our earrings(for men), dress a certain way, go to church, pray, read our bible, and once again the list is almost infinite. Just as in our physical life we find ourselves making decisions based on what we think will please our parents or friends, in our spiritual lives, we can spend all of our time and effort trying to do things that we are lead to believe please God.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I am not saying that these things are bad. Most of them are in fact taken right out of the pages of the Bible. What I am saying is that we often have the wrong idea about how these things fit into the Christian life.
Living out of Identity
How do we live out of our identity? Before we can discuss living out our identity, we need to look at what that identity is. In John 14 Jesus tells His disciples that they can know the Father, because Jesus is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. In Verse 20 Jesus then states that the disciples are in Him, and He was in them. Jesus is telling His disciples that those who believe in Him are in Him, just as He is in the Father. So what does is mean to be "in Christ", lets look at some verses that discuss this.
Romans 8:1 tells us that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". In 1 Cor 1:30 Paul says "But by His doing you are in Christ
These things that are already true of the person who has believed Christ for everlasting life, therefore these things comprise our true identity in Christ. In Christ, we are a new creation, one that is without condemnation because Jesus Christ has redeemed and sanctified us, and has imparted to us His wisdom and righteousness. THIS IS WHO WE ARE, right here, right now, and living out of our identity is simply living as though these things are already true, not living as if we can make them true. We will develop this idea further in later verses, but we are talking about community, not individuals. This discussion is simply to give us an idea of what is already true on the individual level in each and every person who has believed in Christ for eternal life.
FedEx,
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry
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