Tag: Christianity

1 John 1:4 | The Joy of Fellowship

4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Verse 4 is the final statement given by John in the opening paragraph of his letter. John speaks of the truth of his witness regarding who Jesus is. He extols the readers to remember that Jesus is the life that they are to seek and he points to the fellowship that is produced as a result of the unifying power of the Gospel.

In these short verses, John has pointed to the undeniable truth that the reason the foundation of our faith is firm and unmoving is because Jesus is the one who holding it all together. It can be easy to forget this. Jesus is the only one capable of sustaining the fragility of our lives and faith. He alone can see into our hearts and into our futures and decisively lead us into the next moment. But, why does any of this matter? John makes an amazing confession. He writes about these things so that “our joy may be complete.”

The second truth that we find here relates to the nature of the joy John says is available to us. John says that our joy may be complete or mature or full. When we come together around the truths of the Gospel we are closer to the kind of life God desires for all his children. Joy is not dependent on the circumstances of life. Many of us have heard this description/definition of joy. What makes this reality so wonderful is that it means that God’s steadfastness is the guarantee for my joy. In other words, that regardless of what happens in life we have the inward assurance that we are secure and safe in God’s arms.

Application

Whenever we find our joy waning let us look to our connection with our local church. John wrote to the church to remind them that it is in community and in fellowship that our joy as God’s people is sustained. We each may have the joy of the Lord within us, but this inward presence is multiplied when we gather together to worship God and are immersed in the gospel of Jesus.

The Journey of Faith

Over the last several months God has been teaching me about my journey of faith. There are many things to consider when we talk about faith. We have to define it. We have to understand what it is and how we use it. To often I have found that when the church people talk about faith we do not really know how to make sense of it for ourselves. What ends up happening is we recycle the phrases and ideas that have been taught to us. In the end, we have not really made any advancement in our own journey. We can end up feeling stuck.

I totally understand this. When we think about faith what exactly are we thinking about? Is it something that can even be understood? Can it be quantified? Too often I feel that we talk about faith in esoteric language because (1) we do not know what we really want to say, but (2) we are afraid if someone gives an answer that is more concrete than we are comfortable with we will have to change the way we live our lives. Now, I may be the only who thinks like this, but I can’t help and think that others have had similar thoughts.

I am not trying to question anyone’s motives, I am just reflecting on my own experience on this journey with God. The clearer we get on what it means to walk by faith the hard it is to live any other way. Any and every time we are confronted with truth and we know it is truth we become accountable to what we now know.

How would you describe your journey of faith to someone else?

1 John 1:3 | The Gospel Produces Fellowship

that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

Fellowship is the center of Christian Relationships

Here at the beginning of the letter John repeats the word fellowship in two distinct contexts. It appears from the general context of the first three verses that the gospel of Jesus Christ has (among other realities) a binding effect among the community of faith and between the individual believer and the Father and Son. Let’s look at this more closely.

John has made an important point by saying that the proclaiming of the Gospel (i.e., “that which we have seen and heard) is a prerequisite fact to what is to follow. This is why he starts with the proclamation in order to get to the “so that”. This short phrase tells us the purpose of the proclamation. So, what is the purpose? It is so John and those who believe the Gospel that is proclaimed might have fellowship. The unity of the body is vitally important to John because it is eternally important to Jesus. Jesus prayed in John 17.

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. (John 17:20-23a NIV)

The Gospel brings believers together because it has brought those same individuals closer to God. When a person hears the Gospel and believes their relationship with God through Jesus has begun. Now that the vertical relationship has been established, the horizontal relationship must be initiated. The reason that believers in Africa can have fellowship with Christians in China and in North America is because of the unifying power of our common faith in Jesus. According to John, his is one of the main reasons we should proclaim the Gospel.

Application

Fellowship is not just what happens during potlucks at church. Fellowship is the family connection that is forged because of our faith in Jesus. As individual believers, we should seek to grow in our fellowship with those who are members of our local congregations, not look for excuses to not show up. The gathering of God’s people is a gift from God for the benefit of His children. Let’s not take it for granted.

Reading as Conversation: Learning to Hear the Voice of God Today (Pt. 2)

In the first part of Reading as Conversation, we talked about the two pivotal events that propelled me into changing the way I read the Bible. I also talked about how the Bible is a game-changer. What that means is if we want to see the Bible do what God intended for it to do in our lives we have to stop “telling” the Bible what it is. We have to allow God’s word to work as God designed it to work in our lives. Too often we come to the Bible with all kinds of preconceptions and then are pleasantly surprised when we find what we were “looking for.”

Let’s take a moment and review the six basic realities we must understand and believe regarding the Bible. There may be more, however, I believe that if we are going to learn to read the Bible better we have to start with some ground rules about what we are dealing with.

  1. The Bible was written by God.
  2. The Bible’s author is not dead.
  3. The Bible is designed to point to who God is and not just tell me what to do.
  4. The Bible reveals God’s character.
  5. The Bible defines what sin is.
  6. The Bible proclaims the good news that Jesus has reconciled sinners to a holy God.

Do you believe these things to be true of God’s word? If you do not, you will have a difficult time hearing from God and discerning what he is trying to do in the world and, more importantly, in your life.

We will now discuss three principles that govern how I read the Bible. These principles are what transform the Bible from a reading exercise or a chore into a pleasure. If we can wrap our minds around these simple ideas, I believe, everyone’s reading of the Bible will be radically changed.

1. Engage as many of the senses as possible as you read

When we read books we generally engage several of our senses in the process. The reason for this is it enhances our reading and actually increases our investment in what we are reading. Books that leave an impression are those books that “get under our skin.” There is something about the characters or the setting; the twists and turns of the plot that causes us to want to keep reading. To get to the end and find out how the puzzle gets solved.

The Bible is no different. There are all kinds of characters, plot twists, settings and more to keep us engrossed. I find that what has happened is that we have characterized the Bible as a manual rather than what it is–God’s story played out through the human drama. I could have said along-side the human drama, but this is not correct. The Bible is the only religious text that reveals the main character through the lives, events, and circumstances of the other minor characters. We see God for who he is because we see how the other players respond and interact with God.

If we are going to maximize the impact of the Bible in our reading we have to do a better job of becoming engrossed in the reading of the Bible. We must allow our imagination to pull us into the stories and characters we encounter. We should be able to feel the dirt or road or grass beneath our feet. To smell the aromas wafting in around us, whether they be intoxicating or revolting. The sensation of a rock in our hands, the sling on our fingertips, the water over our heads. This and so much more must be experienced, not merely known as bits of data.

When you read about Lazarus dying, can you hear the wailing of his sisters and friends? When Peter faltered after walking on the water could you feel the weight of your body sinking into the sea? When Jesus fed the five thousand did you wonder how the fish would taste?

God has given to us the ability to imagine, not so we can conjure up any whim or fancy as we read the Bible. It is not a time to ask the “what if” questions that draw us away from the story rather than draw us in. Our holy imagination should help us to step into the world of the Bible. It should help us to better sense the human element of the story. We have to understand that the human element is what bridges us to the God of the Bible.

We must engage as many of our senses as possible when we read. This will get us closer to understanding what was truly taking place as we flip the pages from one chapter to the next.

2. Conversations last longer than lectures

The second principle for reading the Bible is thinking of the time we spend reading as a conversation with God. Many people have suggested this before, but I do not think we know how to follow through with this idea. So, let me explain what I mean. I get the feeling that we just don’t know how to do it anymore. We have become so inundated with tweets and soundbites that we no longer know how to sustain a conversation for more than a few minutes.

Conversations typically have at least two participants. However, how many times do we read with the idea that there is only one person involved in the process? When we do not enter into the reading event with the idea of God being present as we read, then there is no conversation. We have to change how we think about reading and who we think is present. When I read the Bible God is right there with me. He is there waiting for me to engage Him as I investigate, ponder, and meditate on what I find on each page.

The reality of this idea is that conversations are more stimulating and have longer lasting effects than we give them credit. How many times have we had a conversation with someone and could not stop thinking about the subject? How many times have we found ourselves without a response in the heat of the moment only to come with a comeback we promise ourselves we will use the next time? This is what we want to create when we read the Bible. We want to interact with God’s word as if God were right there speaking to us because He is.

Here is the most shocking realization I had about reading the Bible, the part of the conversation that is missing is my part. God’s part has already been put down on paper. God has already given us His half of the conversation. Our job is to come to the scriptures ready to ask questions, interact with the ideas, and to engage in the challenges that are issued to us. As we do this we will begin to see that what we are looking for will happen with far less effort.

You may be asking yourself, “What are we looking for?” That is the topic of our next principle.

3. Reading the Bible is Not about Information or Transformation

What needs to take place is a shift in our expectations when reading the Bible. What does this mean? Too often we read the Bible and we are looking for a windfall of revelation. We are hoping to find the one truth/idea/concept that will change our lives in an instant. The problem with coming to the Bible with this expectation is that that is not the way the Bible works.

Let me make this simple. When we read the bible for information we miss the author. When we read the Bible for transformation we miss the relationship. But when we read the Bible for conversation we get both.

The easiest way to describe what I am saying is this: spend more time looking for what God is saying to you than what he is said to them (the original hearers). Yes, the Bible needs to be understood within its original context. Yes, we have to know what the Bible meant to the original recipients. I do not deny any of these things. What I would like to encourage you to do is to do these things while consciously and intentionally thinking about what would it mean if I was an original hearer of the words I am reading.

This concept is so important to me I have written a short booklet that will help you read the Bible better. It’s short and is how I teach people to read the Bible as I disciple them.

Changing the way you read changes what you hear

The Bible is vitally important for the faith and life of every follower of Christ. We will not become who God has purposed if we jettison the Bible from our lives. The better we get at engaging with God in Scripture-centered conversation, the better prepared we will be to receive what God expects for us to do in our daily lives.

Start reading the Bible and thinking about the Bible as a way of having a conversation with God. If you don’t know where to start get my book. You will spend more on a cup a coffee but, reading the Bible in a new way will give you a longer-lasting jolt!

(UPDATE: This post has been edited for spelling, grammar, and ease of reading.)

Does the Church truly desire revival?

Came across this thought about the connection between prayer and the church’s alleged desires for revival. Could it be that revival tarries because the church does not really desire what it petitions God for?

“Many a church is praying for a revival that does not really desire a revival. They think they do, for to their minds a revival means an increase of membership, an increase of income, an increase of reputation among the churches; but if they knew what a real revival meant, what a searching of hearts on the part of professed Christians would be involved, what a radical transformation of individual, domestic and social life would be brought about, and many other things that would come to pass if the Spirit of God was poured out in reality and power; if all this were known, the real cry of the church would be: “O God, keep us from having a revival.” (emphasis not in original).

R. A. Torrey, How to Pray (Chicago; New York: Fleming H. Revell company, 1900), 45–46.

I would like to hear your reaction to this notion. I look forward to your thoughts.

Death, Mourning, and Pastoral Care

Today was one of those days when you just don’t know what to do. This morning I received word that a friend’s father had died suddenly. Within an hour of that message, a member of my church also faced the same reality. I shared with my wife that there is never a good time to hear news like this. As the person receiving the news about the news I was reminded again of how fragile, transitory, and temporary our journey upon this orb called Earth really is.

Death is a violation of our Souls

I hate death. It is the greatest enemy of our peace of mind. Those who do not think of death–either their own or that of others–live with a carelessness that is both unhealthy and dangerous. Then there are those who cannot get away from a morbid and fatalistic way of thinking about life. Both of these extremes are not helpful. We have to find a way to find balance when contemplating the finality of life.

I did not always believe what I am about to say. But, my thoughts have been impacted by my own experiences and being a witness to how my time on earth is being marked by the growth of my own children. If we are going to make the most of this life we must live in light of our own mortality. I may not like the idea that I will not live forever, but this should not be a hindrance to evaluating my life and making priorities based on the finitude of the same.

What this means is that we must make honest evaluations of who we are, who we want to be, and what we have to do to reduce the discrepancy between the two. Death is the grand equalizer. It puts all of humanity upon equal footing. There is no escaping death’s grasp or results. One day death will take us. The one question that lingers in my mind on days like today is this: When my time is up will I have lived in a manner meriting thi great gift of life?

We all have to ask ourselves this question. If we do not we risk squandering our lives on things that are vacuous and limited.

The truth of the matters is that death is a violation of our souls. It grips us and threatens to hold us captive. This does not need to be so. The Bible offers us a powerful reminder that God has dealt death a death blow. Death has been defeated. It has been stripped of its power and emptied of its venom. Our hope is not found in our ability, but in Christ’s capability to infuse our lives with his own. A mortal life must be sustained by the eternal life of the Son of God. Without his life in us, there is no life for us.

Mourning is a process

I want to offer a word of advice to those who, like me, are hearers of the news about the news. Please stop saying stupid things to those in mourning. The depth of sorrow felt is, at the very least, in proportion to the love felt for the one who was lost in death. If the one who has experienced the loss loved someone for three decades of life, do not expect them get over it or move on in a month, or a year, or whatever other time frame you think is appropriate.

Please, just shut up! Mourning is a process and the emptiness that is left is not something that can be quantified or timed. Yes, we should be on the look out for signs of prolonged depression and sadness. We should stay close enough to know when the one mourning is struggling to make sense of what has happened. We should offer words of comfort and reminders of our love for them. What we should avoid are assumptions of how long the wound a death makes will take to heal in a person’s life.

We should stop and listen more than trying to think of something to say. There is nothing to say. The death of a loved one cannot be truncated into the trite and religious platitudes so many times offered because we don’t know what else to say.

Pastoral Care is doing more by doing less

In my first official church job, I learned some valuable lessons regarding pastoral care that have helped me in the years since. My job as a pastor is just to be present when everyone else just wants to leave. One of the unspoken truths of ministry is that we will encounter people on the worst days and most difficult moments of their lives.

This is not a call to be a superman. This is a call to humble sacrifice. To mourn with those who mourn. It truly is one of the most difficult aspects of ministry. There will be time to speak the truth about salvation and heaven; hope and joy; peace and God’s promises. There will be time to be the “preacher”. The truth of the matter is that in times of mourning what most people need is just another fellow traveler willing to stop.

——————————

I have been thinking about these things all day. I just wanted to put some of my thoughts down before the feelings dissipated.

How have you learned to deal with death and mourning?

What advise would you give to a pastor about caring for those grieving a loss?

God’s Love Through Paul’s Eyes

First Corinthians 13 has been called the chapter of love. It contains beautiful and poetic language regarding the nature of love. As I have read it this week, I found myself struck by the opening verses of that passage. There is something in the way that Paul instructs the Corinthian church that deeds without proper motive are vacuous and utterly worthless efforts.

At first it is difficult to understand why Paul takes such a hard stance on our need to love in all we do. Sure, it makes sense that we should be kind and generous to others. We should not see to do harm to those who have wronged us. But, there is something else at work in Paul’s examples. He reminds us that we must take care not to get lost in our own spiritual endeavors that we forget our companions on the way.

Paul highlights that the possession and exercise of spiritual gifts does not give us license to do as we wish. The examples Paul uses are spectacular. These are not small or insignificant gifts. She are big, visible, in-your-face gifts, but if it’s about the individual then it is nothing more than a charade. It seems that the temptation to take advantage of spiritual gifts was something that had become common place in that church. The struggle to remain humble had given way to personal gain and influence.

Paul ends the chapter by telling us that of all the gifts that will abide faith, hope, and love will remain forever. These three are given prominence among all of God’s gifts to the saints because they are different from the all the others. All the spiritual gifts discussed in chapter 12 are to be used by the believer for the benefit of those in the church. Faith, hope, and love are not like this. These three are given to the believer as a means of confirming the presence of God within us. The fact that faith, hope, and love will abide forever, is an indication that what God has done was intended to produce these three things from the start.

The question that rolls around in my mind is why love is the greatest. What is it about the nature of love that make it rise above the other two? I think it is greatest because it is a reflection of God’s own character. Love, while it resides within us, must be expressed sacrificially. I can speak in tongues, move mountains, and give everything away and it not really be a burden or a struggle to do so. It makes us feel good to do those thing most of the time. But, when the task required is costly; when it calls for a deeper level of commitment; when there is no inherent benefit to me, love must be present for me to act.

Love is sacrificial. When we love the way God does, it forces us to not consider the ramifications to ourselves. We see the one in need and we are compelled to act. Love is more than just an emotion. A true act of love engages us to the very core of our being.

I think Paul understood this better than most. After all he had done, God loved him and taught him how to love others. As I read this famous chapter, I read it as an acknowledgement by Paul of what he experienced when God loved him and saved him. This is Paul’s description of God’s love toward him, the chief of sinners. A magnificent one at that.

1 John 1:1 | “Heard, Seen, Looked Upon, and Touched”

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life…” 1 John 1:1 ESV

John’s Unique Perspective

John’s perspective is very different from that of the other writers in the New Testament. His relationship with Jesus was far closer than many of us may even begin to understand. The fact that Jesus entrusted his mother, Mary, into John’s care is an indicator of how Jesus felt about John. John even uses the moniker of being the “disciple whom Jesus loved” throughout his gospel five different times. There was a closeness to this their relationship giving John’s insights and words a weightiness unique to him.

cropped-old_bibles-12.jpg

John’s introduction also sets a distinct tone for the letter. John is not merely interested in arguing with his readers. He decides to speak from a more fundamental point of view. For better or for worse, the apostle understood that conviction must be based on more than reason. An experience has the power to affect us far deeper than shear force of will or thought.

Four Steps Toward Faith

In this opening verse we will see John makes four declarations of why he is convinced of Jesus’ work. He will say more in verse 2 (which we will get to next time), but for now he begins to set the stage of his own conviction for faith in the Word of Life. We will look at the four statements John offers to here.

First, that “which we have heard.” John begins with something that, at first appears to be simple, but when we consider what Paul said about faith, a bridge of ideas begins to take shape. Faith comes by…hearing. That Paul told the Romans (10:17). What we hear, many times, is our first introduction to is there to be known, to what we can experience in life. We can hear more initially than we see. That is why we get startled, we hear something we can’t see and therefore, respond in fear and surprise. John is pointing to both of these realities. We hear and are introduced to new things. But, we continue to hear and this causes our minds to wonder about what things caused the sounds. They may not yet exist in front of us, but the sounds provides us with our first evidence that there is something else out there.

Second, that “which we have seen with our eyes.” This second declaration shows how John was not merely talking about something someone else had told him about. John had been a witness of the person and ministry of Jesus. Seeing is the verification we look for when we hear things we struggle to believe. When John saw Jesus and what he was doing, what he had heard was confirmed and affirmed. Our minds are wired to bring together what we hear and what we see. It has to “make sense.” There has to be a correspondence between the sense in order for our minds to remain settled.

Third, that “which we looked upon.” I struggled with this declaration because it is so closely related to the second one. It involves the eyes, but there is something else intended here. The implication appears to be that what John heard and saw had to then be considered. John “looked upon” Jesus. John studied and contemplated all that was taking place in front of him because at the end of the process a decision needed to be made. John knew that if what he saw, heard, and considered was leading down a particular path, he would not be able to escape the decision that was waiting at the end of the road.

Fourth, that which we “have touched with our hands.” The final declaration John offers coincides with, what I believe, was John’s acceptance of what he had heard, seen, and contemplated. John had “touched” Jesus. And while there is a physical reality present in this declaration, John is taking us deeper. When the Bible describes touching, the idea is that of identification. For a Jewish person, touching unclean things made them unclean. So, for John to use this image as his final declaration is a strong indicator of the choice and commitment he made. The apostle was not merely paying lip service to Jesus and his work. John was proclaiming, in as clear and bold a manner as he could that his allegiance was with Jesus.

Application

John’s four declarations can serve as a way of discerning where we are in our own journey of faith. Each of these declarations speaks to a step we must take. Steps that bring us closer to the point of decision and deepening levels of commitment.

Until we are ready to touch Jesus, and then reach out our hands to do so, until then we have not reached the point of complete surrender to Jesus. We must all decide to identify with Jesus for ourselves. It is this commitment that will help us to serve Jesus as he deserves. But, this commitment will also help us to know that we can have confidence in the decision we have made in the Word of Life.

Walking through 1st John

In 2007 I had been a youth pastor for a little less than six months. I was very much out of my element. I had never worked with youth before and I wasn’t sure if I had what it took. I was struggling to find my way. I had been reading all about youth ministry, talking with some of the other youth ministers in town and trying to get a feel for what I was supposed to be doing.

During that time I began to read through John’s first pastoral letter. I don’t know how many times I read it over that month, but I know it was at least two or three dozen times. I don’t even know why I picked 1st John to begin with, but I knew one thing, I was reading that letter as if my life depended on it.

After reading the letter, I was impressed with several important realities that formed into convictions that have influenced and shaped the life and ministry. Over the next several weeks (maybe months) I will be walking through 1 John. I hope you can join me on the journey.

Exit mobile version
%%footer%%