Under Cover Christians

I’m not going to lie. I LOVE reality TV shows. I love “Survivor” and I LOVE LOVE “Deadliest Catch”. One of my new favorites is UNDERCOVER BOSS. The show is about these CEO’s of major corporations like 7-11, Hooters, and Waste Management Company that go under cover in their organizations that they run from the top. They spend a week on the front lines, going entry-level jobs, meeting people and finding out what they think of the company and how things are ran. The boss then listens to them, sees what the perception of the company is and then meets with all of the people that he “worked” for that week and tells them who he is. He then says what they are doing well and usually does something for them and then confronts those who are not doing what they should be doing.

It is a great show. Really eye opening for these big time CEO’s to really see how things are run from the lower level. A lot of the things that they experience usually change the ways the run some aspects of the company and it usually changes the way themselves look and run the company.

Sometimes I think that Christians need to some “Undercover Boss” work. Christians can get some bad wraps. Based on David Kinnaman’s book “UnChristian” (honestly, everyone need to read this book. Click HERE to check it out.) He basically takes a poll of non-Christians and asks them what they think of Christians. I do have to say, its not good. Majority of non-Christians that were polled think that Christians are hypocritical, only worried about converting people, anithomsexual, sheltered, we are too political and too judgmental.

Just to throw out some of the numbers in the book, 47% of the people polled believed that Christians were saying one thing and going another. Saying we are preaching one thing and doing something completely different. That we were hypocrites. 38% of the people think that the only thing that maters is converting people. Not the relationships, the friendships don’t matter, as long as we get the convert. An overwhelmingly amount of people, 67% think that we hate homosexuals and we look at them as an abomination. Ouch. I don’t know about you but I don’t think that. I don’t think any of those things that non-Christians think about us in general.

Those are just a few things that I listed. The book goes into detail about what do non believers believe about us, why it has come to that, and there are some things listed in which we can start to change the stereotypes that have been placed on us.

I know for me, I try to act in a way that is like Jesus. I fail…a lot. I think if we were to really look at what Jesus says, on what He did, and literally act the way that He acted and interacted with people, there would not be this problem. Nowhere in Scripture is Jesus standing outside a funeral with a sign demeaning a soldier’s life. Never did Jesus stand on a corner holding a sign and a bullhorn screaming God Hates Fags. Jesus wasn’t only about getting people to follow Him. It was relationships. We ate with the people that no one wanted to eat with. He talked to the people you were “not supposed to talk to”. If we were to literally live and interact with people like Jesus did, if we were to talk the Red Letters seriously, then there wouldn’t be this perception of Christians.

Is it tough to live like that? Yup. But we are called to do it. We have to do this in order to change things. I once heard of a church in San Francisco go out during the Gay Pride Parade and set up confession booths. There was interest so many people stepped inside and were shocked to find out that Christians were in there confessing their sins and apologizing for how they have mistreated the gay community in the past. I thought that was amazing. We need to do more like this.

I think we need to do some “Undercover Boss” work in our communities and find out what people really think about Christians. If the church that you are at right now were to lock up its doors right now, would the community that its in know that you left? Would that be “Hey, where is _____________ Church? They did so much for us! We miss them, we need them.” if we are out in the community, let Jesus was out and about talking to people, helping them, showing them light in the darkness, there is only one way to point when asked “why are you doing these things?” That is to God.

If we cant answer the question of, “Are you a Christian?” and we cant confidently say, “Tell me what you see” and not be afraid of that answer, then we are doing it wrong.

Hear It and Do It

I’m sitting here getting ready and waiting for my family to come over for our annual Christmas Eve get together. We have been doing this since I was born, my grandparents would have us all over at their place in their huge living room and we would all have German food and just hang out and open presents. It honestly is one of my favorite moments that I have. Now they are have passed, it has moved to my parent’s house. Its great, but I still do miss the feeling of walking up and seeing my grandparents smiling faces because they are so stoked that we are over. I miss them. Regardless, i am super excited that everyone is coming over tonight and I am in need of some great family time. It fills me up in every way.

I have been reading this devotional book called “Devotional Classics” (click HERE to get it) and it’s absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it to everyone.

The section I read today from Scripture is Genesis 22:1-12, about Abraham and how he obeyed God always in the moment. What ever God told him to do then, he did it, and obeyed.

I read a section from Jean-Pierre De Caussade (if you couldn’t tell, this guy is French). He says “All we need to know is how to recognize God’s will in the present moment.” For me, I sometimes have a hard time determining what God wants me to do in a present moment. I know for me, I am a slow processor. When something happens, I need a few days to think about it, process it, and then I will tell you what I think about it. I’m like a 4 year old trying to understand Algebra kind of slow in certain situations. And when it comes to obeying God in the moment, I think I fail in a lot of it. There has been many times where I have felt this certain tug to talk to someone or act on something, but I miss out on the opportunity because I think about it too long instead of obey right away.

Its like when you are thirsty, thinking about being thirsty will not help quench your thirst. Doing something about it and going and getting a drink will be the only thing that will help your thirst. Same thing with acting on what God is telling you to do in the present. If we think about it too long, it is not going to help anyone, and you will be disobedient in that moment. We just need to act, and it will be taken care of because of our obedience to God.

I think something that I happen to do, and its unfortunate, is that as much as routines are great (reading the Bible, praying etc.) they can negate the fact of what God is willing you to do. If you feel at a certain time that you need to read, or to pray, then do so. But if we feel something else, but we have this routine of reading at a certain time or praying at a certain time, and don’t do that certain thing at that moment, then even if we are reading Scripture, at that time it is not what God is calling us to do. We are being defiant. Its crazy to think about but its true.

Let's say I am visiting my parents and my mom asks me to help her by taking out the trash, but instead I clean the bathroom because that’s what I always did when I lived there and would help her clean, I would be disobeying her. Even though I think I am doing the right thing, its something that she didn’t ask me to do. Same thing goes with God. We need to be ready to act in obedience like Abraham in the present. We feel that tug on our heart to talk to someone or do something; we need to act because at the moment we HAVE to be obedient to God.

I know for me, I am praying that I get better at this. Obey in the present, in the moment, at that time.

Is this hard for you? Can you determine when a command is in the present and you needed to act on something right then and there? What did you do?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

What I Love About Christmas

Man oh man this is a busy time of the year. What is the best thing? Peppermint mocha from Starbucks in a red Christmas cup… hmmmmmmmmmmm!

What I want to do right now is come up with a list of things that I love about this Christmas time. So I hope you enjoy and don’t judge me:

· Like I said above, peppermint mocha from Starbucks. It’s Christmas in a cup. I know you can get it all year around though but it always tastes better around this time.

· I love the movie “Christmas Vacation” with Chevy Chase and the Griswolds.

· I love the rain. The fact that its been raining for what seems like the past 127 days is amazing.

· I love seeing older dudes who look like Santa but are not Santa because that’s how they look all year around.

· I like being able to tell when the 1,000,000 Santas we see during this time of year are actually really skinny and they don’t do a great job stuffing their stomach.

· I love to go into Toys’R’Us and just finding a place to sit and watch as all the kids throw a tempter tantrum and see how the parents react.

· I love that when I go home, my parent’s house smells like Christmas cause of my mom’s many, many candles.

· I love that Christmas morning is my cat’s favorite day of the year because she loves to hide and make dens out of the mountains of wrapping paper.

· I love the German food at our Christmas Eve dinner with my entire family.

· I LOVE online Christmas Shopping…. seriously, why would anyone go into a freaking store with a billion other people when you can sit on the couch in your PJ’s and looks at things online, go on facebook, watch TV and drink coffee, all while having all of the presents send to your door step. The…best…. thing…ever.

· I love that my roommate and friend Jeremiah Mullins is dressed up like an Elf for the JOY Christmas services at CCV.

· During the JOY services, I am back stage, and I LOVE LOVE the kids faces when they are on the stage and it snows on them. It’s adorable.

· Love that every year, without fail, my mom gets my brother and I a package of underwear to unwrap Christmas morning.

· I like seeing little cars (like a Prius) take a huge, huge tree on top of their car to the point where it looks like the car its just going to say, “I quit.”

· I love that the movie ELF is ALWAYS on…ITS SANTAAAAA!!!!! HE’S COMING!!!!!!! Get me every time.

· I love that I get to wear pants, a jacket, and beanie everyday and not because I am just lazy and didn’t want to do my hair.

· Candy canes!

· Love that one of my other roommates sleeps in a onezie when it’s cold in our house.

· Waking up to the rain.

· Going to sleep to the rain.

· I hate/love that my dad, every Christmas, will wake everyone up in the house at 5:30 am Christmas morning.

· I hate/love that when we don’t get up he will FULLY BLAST Christmas music through the speakers until everyone is up and down stairs reading to open presents.

· Love that Christmas day I do absolutely nothing.

These are just a few things I love. What are some of yours?

1 Cookie vs. A Basket of Treats

I don’t know about you, but I can be selfish. Shocking huh? I think we all are naturally, it’s who we are, its what we do, and everyone is at one time in his or her life. For instance, I can have no motivation to do anything but then someone will offer me $20 and I would be more than happy to do it.

Why? Because I get something better for doing it. I had to be enticed, lured in if you will.

If a toddler who has 1 cookie, and then you offer them 2 brownies, the toddler will leave the 1 cookie simply because 2 brownies simply because 2 is more than 1. Get it?

God has a clever strategy. Like I said, we are all selfish, and this selfishness that lives inside us is so contrary to God that God uses this to induce us to go towards His will.

This is His clever plan….

He promises us greater things than the world can give us, even in this life, and promising to give us something so great that the world doesn’t even know. We are attracted to this because God is so, so good, and He does this because He knows that we are attracted to pleasure. We obviously are attracted to attractive things… like how I am attracted to Buffalo Chicken Pizza from BJ’s. It’s just good.

He knows that we are the kind of people that will not leave our 1 little toy unless we are offered 4 toys!

God promises us so much more than this world offers us. God shows us this by offering up His own Son. God has all of this to offer, things greater than anything we know, and it looks amazing. But when we follow, are our motives pure?

In Genesis 22 God promises Abraham and makes a covenant with Him. He promises great and mighty things, things that would blow Abraham’s mind. But god, to test our motives, will put us through tests to make sure our heart is right so that we are not following Him just because he want the reward. Abraham was put thought the ultimate test by going to sacrifice his son because God commanded him to. Because he went through the trial, and was faithful, God blessed Him beyond this world can understand.

God offers us the same. We have 1 cookie, but God offers us an entire basket. We are the non-motivated teen-ager who wants to be given $20 for doing nothing, when in order to get the reward we need to do chores to get the allowance.

God has our reward. He is waiting to give it to us. We need to work for it and be faithful in the troubling times. We need to be like Abraham.

God plays off our selfishness to get us to understand that He offers way more than the world we live in now. In that, we take our first step into noticing that God REALLY does have more to offer, and that when we follow Him, that selfishness turns into true faith and a wanting to follow Him, and because of that we are then rewarded in heaven by our Father.

Leave your 1 cookie, do the chores, and leave with a relationship with the Creator and receive your basket of goods.

my Apology for My Last Blog

just wanted to take the time to apologize for my last post on language.

I think it's an important and over looked topic... and I'm passionate about it. but in my own language in writing the post, the way it came off to some was not in the way I had intended it to.

if you know anything about me, if there was any hint of ungodly talk please know those where my intentions. I simply wanted to bring up a topic on how language is a barrier sometimes.

so again, I apologize if i offended and maybe brought up the idea of using foul language and an evangelistic tool, please know that is not what I was intending and is not what I truly believe.

after talking with some people, I realized that it came off that way and was not how I intended when I was writing.

so again. please know my heart. and I apologize if I came off the wrong way.

don't judge me. pray for me that i can communicate in a better way with blogs to come.

You Have No Idea....

Luke 9:57-62

The Cost of Following Jesus

⁵⁷ As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

⁵⁸ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

⁵⁹ He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

⁶⁰ Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

⁶¹ Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

⁶² Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Powerful....just powerful. Now i got this idea from Bonhoeffer, i cant put him down. His story is unbelievable. it has everything i love. it has theology, history, i love anything to do with WWII and the Nazi's (i find it very interesting). Bonhoeffer has all of it. but this passage is something that i always looked over, never truly got the full grasp of it.

the first man/potential disciple offers to follow Jesus without waiting to be called to be his disciple. Jesus warns the man that he has no idea what he is about to be involved in and he is in know way of knowing. Jesus is on his way to the cross, the whole purpose of Him is "suffering" and this man wants to follow without being called. "No man can choose such a life for himself. No man can call himself to such a destiny, says Jesus, and his word stays unanswered. THE GULF BETWEEN A VOLUNTARY OFFER TO FOLLOW AND GENUINE DISCIPLESHIP IS CLEAR."

the second man/would be disciple is called by Jesus to follow, but he says he needs to go bury his father first, because it was by law he needed to bury him by a certain time. he knows what he wants to do and he knows what he needs to do. he is held from following Jesus by the law. there is a legal obligation standing as a blockade between him and Jesus. "at this critical moment nothing on earth, however sacred, must be allowed to become between Jesus and the man he has called- not even the law itself." His would be disciple cannot go against the grain, cannot go opposite of what the Lord is calling him to do because THIS CALL, THIS GRACE, IS IRRESISTIBLE.

the third man/potential disciple is willing to follow Christ, is willing to give everything up for him, but he immediately puts up a huge barrier between him and Christ. He says "Suffer me first, let me go back and say bye to family, then ill come follow you." he wants to follow but only as long as he sets the terms first. discipleship is a possibility but only as long as certain conditions have been filled. by him offering up his own terms, he alters the whole position, "discipleship can tolerate no conditions which might come between Jesus and our obedience to Him." He wants what he wants and what Jesus wants, and Jesus' answered him "⁶² Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” he cannot look back at what he want if we follow Jesus, because like his disciples, they left everything behind to follow and never looked back.

Where would Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John be if they looked back at what they had while following Jesus. the discipleship would have been tainted.

Which one are we? which one are you? which one am i? just something to think about.

Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace

"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock."

The passage above is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (pp. 35-47)

Its from his book called "The Cost of Discipleship". i literally just started it, 2 weeks ago and i have only gone through 1 chapter. i have just been dumb-founded by it. its so much to take in.

i have been thinking a lot about this idea of grace. i have read that, and this last Wednesday we had at Shift Students Mike Foster from People of the Second Chance (check them out here) speak about grace. so lets just say its been around me a lot.

this whole cheap grace thing is something....something that i feel i take advantage of. cheap grace is believing in the idea of God's grace when you know you are about to do something wrong and you do it anyways because you have the idea that God is going to forgive you anyways for doing it. it is a preemptive sin, you know its a sin and you do it cause God is going to forgive you and give you grace. ill admit, i have done this before.

Eph. 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God"

how dare we take advantage of this gift? and how often do we do this? daily? weekly? God is offering this amazing, amazing gift and we constantly take advantage of it. just because we know we are going to be forgiven because that's what God does, doesn't mean we go out and sin.

Grace is at a cost. costly grace is what we need to seek after. Bonhoeffer says this grace is "It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him."

Costly grace is the idea that we will give up everything we have to follow who God is because that's how much we love him, and when we mess up, and we will mess up, because we have given up everything for God, is when he presents us with the best present anyone could ever receive, Grace. Grace is costly because it demands everything of us, all of us. and its out of that love we receive Grace in which we would gladly give everything up for Christ.

i just don't like the fact that i have taken advantage of this. its like what Jeff Vines (senior pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley) says, grace is this huge safety net. the purpose of the safety net is to catch us when we are fully devoted to Christ and we are all gun-hoe for Christ and the net is there for when we sin and fall to catch us in God's grace. we would be miss using the safety net if we didn't even try to follow and just jump straight into the net.

cheap grace vs. costly grace.

which one are you receiving?