| How to Pursue Life after Loss [Excerpt] Posted: 21 May 2012 09:55 AM PDT The ever-honest Jerry Sittser reflects on the pain of losing a loved one, and how we can free ourselves from destructive feelings such as regret, hatred, bitterness, and despair. If you feel crushed under the weight of regret, I hope Jerry’s gentle but honest wisdom is a blessing to you. [Excerpt from A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss (eBook).] -Adam Forrest, Zondervan If I want transformation, I must let go of my regrets over what could have been and pursue what can be. But what I cannot have is the best of both worlds: the growth that has transformed my life as a result of the tragedy and the people whose death engendered that growth. There is a bitter irony here that cannot be avoided, however much we grow through loss. The people whose death enabled me to change for the better are the very people with whom I would most like to share these changes. Their death has forced me to grow; I wish now that they could benefit from the growth that has resulted from their death.
Our choice to make Many people are destroyed by loss because, learning what they could have been but failed to be, they choose to wallow in guilt and regret, to become bitter in spirit, or to fall into despair. While nothing they can do will reverse the loss, it is not true that there is nothing they can do to change.  | We cannot change the situation, but we can allow the situation to change us. | The difference between despair and hope, bitterness and forgiveness, hatred and love, and stagnation and vitality lies in the decisions we make about what to do in the face of regrets over an unchangeable and painful past. We cannot change the situation, but we can allow the situation to change us. We exacerbate our suffering needlessly when we allow one loss to lead to another. That causes gradual destruction of the soul… It is natural, of course, for those who suffer catastrophic loss to feel destructive emotions like hatred, bitterness, despair, and cynicism. These emotions may threaten to dominate anyone who suffers tragedy and lives with regret. We may have to struggle against them for a long time, and that will not be easy. Few people who suffer loss are spared the temptation of taking revenge, wallowing in self-pity, or scoffing at life. But after a period of struggle, which sometimes leads to catharsis and release, it may become apparent to us that we are becoming prisoners to these emotions and captive to their power over our lives. At that point we must decide whether or not to allow these destructive emotions to conquer us… Our feelings don’t own us | [Our feelings are] not the center of reality. God is the center of reality. | This struggle will show us that emotions like anger or self-pity, however natural and legitimate, do not define reality. Our feelings do not determine what is real, though the feelings themselves are real. We cannot ignore these feelings, but neither should we indulge them. Instead, we should acknowledge them without treating them as if they were ultimate truth. The feeling self is not the center of reality. God is the center of reality. To surrender to God, however contrary to our emotions, will lead to liberation from self and will open us to a world that is much bigger and grander than we are. - Jerry Sittser Learn more about A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss. Suggested Posts Regret and Other Opportunities via Jerry Sittser
A Soul Like a Balloon via Jerry Sittser
Winter of the Soul via Mark Buchanan (Some styling above is a web-exclusive feature not included in the text of A Grace Disguised. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| Unity: The Christian’s Calling Card [Excerpt] Posted: 18 May 2012 06:17 AM PDT Potent stuff today from author/pastor Mark Buchanan: Why “oneness” is superior to “equality;” the benefits of pursuing church unity; and what’s at stake if we don’t. Excerpt from Mark Buchanan’s book Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. A brief open letter to Mark: “Dear Pastor Buchanan, your writing on unity convicts my introverted soul. For your next book, please write “Your Life Is Too Safe: The Introvert’s Field Guide to Joining Community.” -Adam Forrest, Zondervan Equality vs. oneness The Bible is little interested in equality. It aims much higher than that. From Genesis to Revelation, it calls us to this deeper, greater, tougher, sweeter thing: oneness. Oneness in our relationship with God. Oneness in our relationship with our spouse. Oneness with our relationships with other Christ-followers. Oneness in the church. Oneness beats equality every time, because equality demands sameness. To be equal to you, I have to be as smart and strong and kind and generous as you. But oneness presumes difference. To be one with you, I have to accept your gift of otherness. I can be weak where you’re strong, and vice versa. Oneness requires my life to complement yours. It calls us to complete one another.
In marriage, for example, who wants equality? “We’re even” is hardly a motto for lifelong affection. Whereas oneness is intrinsically cooperative, equality is inherently competitive, a recipe for endless one-upmanship. Or worse: a recipe for disaster. Equality was the false dream of Marx and Lenin, an ideology so unworkable in real life that its architects created one of the deadliest and darkest social nightmares in history. On a more personal level, equality is what people strive for in a divorce: half the assets, half the money, half the time with the kids. The scales must be exactly even then. But in a thriving marriage, the husband can be good at cooking and the wife at house repairs, each serving the other, and the resulting oneness means they both eat well in a house well kept. Oneness, dwelling together in unity, is a good and pleasant thing in itself, much better than equality, and much, much better than animosity. God’s call to oneness | A church unified is … a pageantry of the kingdom played out before a broken world to convince those who are far away to come near. | So God calls the church to oneness. He does that so that we can enjoy the goodness and pleasantness of it. God is a giver, and “every good and perfect gift” is from above [James 1:17]. But he has another reason for calling us to unity: nothing rehearses the kingdom of God better than our oneness. A church unified is an ensign and a showcase of the kingdom. It’s a pageantry of the kingdom played out before a broken world to convince those who are far away to come near… | We join a church not because it’s already whole, pure, and mature but to help it become so. | Church unity, Paul says, is a gift of the Spirit held together by the presence of Christ (“the bond of peace”) rooted in the character of God (“there is one God”) [Ephesians 4:1-17]. Yet even with all this — the gift, the glue, the root — unity still requires our every effort to keep, something that anyone who’s been part of a church community for more than, say, three weeks knows is true. We join a church not because it’s already whole, pure, and mature but to help it become so… What’s at stake? If we can’t live reconciled lives with one another, how will God make his appeal through us? We will be sweet water and salt water coming from the same spigot. We will be walking, talking contradictions. If we lack oneness with those already in the church, how will we possibly convince anyone outside it that this is God’s main business, reconciling the world to himself in Christ? They’ll see right through our little facade. | Unity … is our diplomatic calling card. | Unity within the church is the heart of our appeal. Living reconciled lives with other believers validates our message to a fragmented, isolated, divided world. Unity among us vouchsafes our ambassadorial authority. It is our diplomatic calling card. Without it, the emperor — or ambassador — has no clothes. - Mark Buchanan Learn more about Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. Suggested Posts How Can We Share God’s Peace? via Mark Buchanan
What Peter and the Church Have in Common via Samuel Wells (Some styling above is a web-exclusive feature not included in the text of Your Church Is Too Safe. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| A Heavenly Party [Excerpt] Posted: 17 May 2012 07:19 AM PDT Joni Eareckson Tada’s vision of heaven vibrates with joy, and C.S. Lewis asks what we really want, in this devotion from the NIV Voices of Faith Devotional Bible: Voices from the Past and Present. My favorite part about Joni’s view is seeing the saints come together from across time: “There’s Moses toasting Martin Luther.” What Christians from history would you most like to meet, and what would you ask them?
-Adam Forrest, Zondervan Joni Eareckson Tada Before we realize it … we shall find ourselves in the embrace of our Savior at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Heaven will have arrived. The Lord’s overcoming of the world will be a lifting of the curtain of our five senses… Now, enjoy an unseen divine reality. Rev up your heart and picture yourself taking a seat at the Wedding Supper. As you pull up a chair to the banquet table, take a look at what’s on the menu from Isaiah 25:6: “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine — the best of meats and the finest of wines” … I get a charge just thinking about it! I wonder who will sit next to me, or across from me. I glance down the table and there's my friend, Verna Estes, mother of seven, swapping baby stories with Susanna Wesley, mother of seventeen. There’s Moses toasting Martin Luther. St. Augustine giving a bear hug to that jungle missionary …
Then I’ll look up, and walking toward me will be Dad. And Mother. Before you know it, we’ll break up into uncontrollable laughter. We will laugh and cry with a kind of tears that never flowed on earth. We will wipe our eyes and try to stop, then break up again, crying and laughing and pointing at everybody. “We’re here! They are here! I knew it was true, but not this true!” Christ will open our eyes to the great fountain of love in His heart for us, beyond all that we ever saw before. It will hit us that we, the church, are His bride. Not just individually, but together. United. One with each other, and one with Him. Suddenly, our joy is multiplied a millionfold. Most poignantly, when we’re finally able to stop laughing and crying, the Lord Jesus will really wipe away all our tears. And then, we join hands around the banquet table, and “in that day [we] will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation’” (Isaiah 25:9). And the party is just beginning! C. S. Lewis {AD 1898 – 1963} There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. Learn more about the NIV Voices of Faith Devotional Bible Further Reading 2 Eyewitness To Heavenly Worship via Rory Noland
2 Views on Trust and Idolatry via the NIV Voices of Faith Devotional Bible
(Images & some styling above are web-exclusive features not included in the text of NIV Voices of Faith Devotional Bible. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| Seek and ye shall be surprised [Excerpt] Posted: 16 May 2012 08:05 AM PDT Yesterday Mark Batterson shared his experience with trying to Force a Miracle. Here’s the story’s unexpected conclusion — a real-life example of “seek and ye shall find,” and how the finding will often surprise … ye! I love how this story hints that God is directing the scene, but Mark and his unnamed friends have their roles to play. That is exciting, because it’s true in our stories too! This story is from Mark Batterson’s book The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears. -Adam Forrest, Zondervan
The strange meeting I almost said no to a miracle. A couple who had just started attending National Community Church requested a meeting, and I almost denied the request because they said they wanted to talk about church government. I love talking about the mission and vision of the church. Church government? Not as much! Plus, I was fighting a book deadline, so I didn’t have much margin in my schedule. So I almost said no, and if I had, I would have missed out on a miracle. As we sat in my office above Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse, they peppered me with questions about bylaws, financial checks and balances, and decision-making protocols. And while I felt a little defensive at the time, I realize now that they were simply doing their due diligence… After answering nearly ninety minutes worth of questions, they ended by asking me about our vision. I had so much pent-up passion after talking about policies and protocols that I just let it rip. I shared our vision of starting a Dream Center in Ward 8, the poorest part of our city and the primary reason the nation’s capital is always in the running for murder capital of the country. I talked about turning our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill into a chain of coffeehouses, with all the net profits reinvested in missions. I talked about launching our first international campus in Berlin, Germany. And I shared our vision of launching multi-site campuses in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the greater Washington area. Then the meeting came to a rather abrupt and awkward ending. They said they wanted to invest in National Community Church, but they didn’t say how or how much. They left, and I was left scratching my head. A surprising phone call I wasn’t sure anything would come of that meeting, but a few weeks later, they asked my assistant for a phone appointment. On an otherwise uneventful Wednesday afternoon … I received one of the most unforgettable phone calls of my life. “Pastor Mark, we wanted to follow up on our meeting and let you know that we want to give a gift to National Community Church.” My mind immediately started racing… “We want to give a gift, and there are no strings attached. But before I tell you how much we’re going to give, I want you to know why we’re giving it. We’re giving this gift because you have vision beyond your resources.” I’ll never forget that phrase: “vision beyond your resources.” | If the vision is from God, it will most definitely be beyond your means. | The rationale behind the gift was just as meaningful as the gift itself. And that rationale has inspired us to keep dreaming irrational dreams. Those four words, vision beyond your resources, have become a mantra for the ministry of National Community Church. We refuse to let our budget determine our vision. That left-brained approach is a wrong-brained approach because it’s based on our limited resources rather than on God’s unlimited provision. Faith is allowing your God-given vision to determine your budget. That certainly does not mean you practice poor financial stewardship, spend beyond your means, and accumulate a huge debt load. It does mean that you take a step of faith when God gives you a vision because you trust that the One who gave you the vision is going to make provision. And for the record, if the vision is from God, it will most definitely be beyond your means. Having vision beyond your resources is synonymous with dreaming big. And it may feel like you’re setting yourself up for failure, but you’re actually setting God up for a miracle. How God performs the miracle is His job. Your job is drawing a circle around the God-given dream. And if you do your job, you might just find yourself standing waist-deep in three feet of quail. “We want to give the church $3 million dollars.” I was speechless. And I’m a preacher. It was one of those holy moments when time stands still. I heard it, but I could hardly believe it. I was blindsided by the blessing… God’s provision came out of nowhere… It’s not our man-made plans that move the Almighty; the Almighty is moved by big dreams and bold prayers. In the awkward silence of my speechlessness, I heard the still small voice of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit hit the rewind button and reminded me of a prayer circle that I had drawn four years before… [Mark tells that story in the post "Lessons Learned from Trying to Force a Miracle."] Do you want God to surprise you? Over the past year, I’ve been repeating one prayer with great frequency: “Lord, do something unpredictable and uncontrollable.” | If you want God to surprise you, you have to give up control. | That is a scary prayer, especially for a control freak like me, but it doesn’t scare me nearly as much as a life void of holy surprises. And you can’t have it both ways. If you want God to surprise you, you have to give up control. You will lose a measure of predictability, but you will begin to see God move in uncontrollable ways! Anything could happen. Anyplace. Anytime. - Mark Batterson (@markbatterson) Want to receive our encouraging and informative blog posts by email or RSS? Subscribe to Zondervan Blog. Learn more about The Circle Maker
Watch session one of The Circle Maker DVD Group Study Further Reading Lessons Learned from Trying to Force a Miracle via Mark Batterson
When the Answer to Prayer Is Bigger Than Our Brain via Mark Batterson (Some styling above is a web-exclusive feature not included in the text of The Circle Maker. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| Lessons Learned from Trying to Force a Miracle [Excerpt] Posted: 15 May 2012 07:42 AM PDT Have you ever ever prayed for something that would advance God’s kingdom, but your plan didn’t work out? This can be disconcerting, to say the least. “This could be God saying ‘Not yet’ instead of ‘No,’” a friend says. But a delay is mysterious when we see a clear need for God’s intervention. “Why would God wait?” I’ve thought. “Doesn’t he know the timeframe I’m working with? I only get about three score and ten years to make a difference!” These concerns come out dramatically in this true story from pastor and author Mark Batterson. This story is from his book The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears, and I hope you find it as encouraging as I did. -Adam Forrest, Zondervan
The $2 Million Dollar Miracle One day, I was praying for God’s provision when I felt a prompting to pray for a $2 million miracle. The first thing I had to do was decipher whether this prompting was just my own desire [for my non-profit] to be debt free or whether it was the Holy Spirit who dropped that promise into my heart. It’s tough to discern between natural desires and holy desires, but I was about 90 percent sure it was the Holy Spirit who put that promise in my heart. I had no idea how God would do it, but I knew I needed to circle that promise in prayer. I got what I thought was a $2 million idea for an online company called GodiPod. com. Lora and I invested the capital to get the business off the ground, but that $2 million idea turned out to be a $15,000 personal loss. In retrospect, I think I was trying to manufacture the miracle for God.
| If we repent, God always recycles our mistakes. | This is what we often try to do, isn’t it? When God doesn’t answer our prayer right away, we try to answer it for Him. Like the day Moses took matters into his own hands and killed an Egyptian taskmaster, we get ahead of God. But when we try to do God’s job for Him, it always backfires. Trying to get ahead of God cost Moses forty years. Of course, even then, God redeemed the forty years Moses spent as a fugitive tending sheep by prepping him to tend His sheep, the people of Israel. If we repent, God always recycles our mistakes. The one upside to our failed business is that I did learn some valuable lessons about unanswered prayers that are worth far more than the $15,000 hit we took on GodiPod.com.
| If God answered [our] selfish prayers, they would actually short-circuit the purposes of God in our lives. | First of all, I came to the humble conclusion that our prayers are often misguided simply because we’re not omniscient. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve drawn some prayer circles around the wrong things for the wrong reasons, and God didn’t answer those prayers the way I wanted Him to! If we were absolutely honest, we would have to admit that most of our prayers have as their main objective personal comfort rather than God’s glory. If God answered those selfish prayers, they would actually short-circuit the purposes of God in our lives. We would fail to learn the lessons God is trying to teach us or cultivate the character God is trying to shape in us. A second lesson learned is that no doesn’t always mean no; sometimes no means not yet. We’re too quick to give up on God when He doesn’t answer our prayers when we want or how we want. Maybe your deadline doesn’t fit God’s timeline. Maybe no simply means not yet. Maybe it’s a divine delay.
| I learned that we shouldn’t seek answers as much as we should seek God. | Finally, I learned that we shouldn’t seek answers as much as we should seek God. We get overanxious. We try to microwave our own answers instead of trusting God’s timing. But here’s an important reminder: If you seek answers you won’t find them, but if you seek God, the answers will find you. There comes a point after you have prayed through that you need to let go and let God. How? By resisting the temptation to manufacture your own answer to your own prayer. It would have been easy to cash out on the $2 million promise after GodiPod.com failed, but I keep circling that promise. I still believed God was going to answer that prayer somehow, someway, sometime. I would have never guessed that the payoff would happen in a meeting about church government, but I stopped trying to manufacture my own answer and simply trusted that God would give an answer when I was ready for it. Then one afternoon, right around three o’clock, God came out of nowhere and delivered on His promise with a holy surprise… God has surprised me so many times that I’m no longer surprised by His surprises. That doesn’t mean I love them any less. I’m in awe of the strange and mysterious ways in which God works, but I have come to expect the unexpected because God is predictably unpredictable. God always has a holy surprise up His sovereign sleeve! The only thing I can predict with absolute certainty is this: the more you pray the more holy surprises will happen… - Mark Batterson (@markbatterson) Watch for the rest of this story on Zondervanblog.com tomorrow! To receive more encouraging and informative blog posts by email or RSS, subscribe to Zondervan Blog. Learn more about The Circle Maker
Watch session one of The Circle Maker DVD Group Study Further Reading When the Answer to Prayer Is Bigger Than Our Brain via Mark Batterson
Closed Door Stories by the Zondervan Team (Some styling above are web-exclusive features not included in the text of The Circle Maker… This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| It’s Like Watching Jesus Drive a Shuttle Bus (AKA, Flourishing in Action – Excerpt) Posted: 14 May 2012 07:10 AM PDT Does God want his people to flourish? What does flourishing even look like? John Ortberg gives us a picture in this excerpt from The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You. Not long ago I boarded an airport shuttle bus to get to the rental car lot. Driving a shuttle bus is usually a thankless job, for the driver is often regarded as the low man on the totem pole. People on the bus are often grumpy from travel and in a hurry to get to their car. No one says much except the name of their rental car company. But not on this bus. The man who drove the bus was an absolute delight. He was scanning the curbside, looking for anybody who needed a ride. “You know,” he told us, “I’m always looking because sometimes people are running late. You can tell it in their eyes. I’m always looking because I never want to miss one. Hey, here’s another one! …” The driver pulled over to pick up a latecomer, and he was so excited about what he was doing that we got excited. We were actually cheering him on when he was picking people up. It was like watching Jesus drive a shuttle bus. The man would grab people’s luggage before they could lift it, then he would jump back on the bus and say, “Well we’re off. I know you’re all eager to get there as quickly as possible, so I’m going to get you there as soon as I can.”
Jaded commuters put down their papers. He created such a little community of joy on that bus that people wanted to ride around in the terminal a second time just to hang out with the guy. We would say to people who got on after us, “Watch this guy!” He wasn’t just our shuttle bus driver — he was our leader; he was our friend. And for a few moments, community flourished. On a shuttle bus for a rental car company — and one person moved toward the best version of himself. 
“Flourishing means moving toward God's best version of you.” -John Ortberg
What happened to that shuttle bus driver can happen in you. Sometimes it does. Every once in a while you do something that surprises you and catch a glimpse of the person you were made to be. You say something inspirational at a meeting. You help a homeless man no one else notices. You are patient with a rambunctious three-year-old. You lose yourself in a piece of music. You fall in love. You express compassion. You stand up to a bully. You freely make a sacrificial gift. You fix an engine. You forgive an old hurt. You say something you would normally never say, or you keep from saying something you would normally blurt out. | [God] is guiding you toward that best version of yourself all the time. | As you do, you glimpse for a moment why God made you. Only God knows your full potential, and he is guiding you toward that best version of yourself all the time. He has many tools and is never in a hurry. That can be frustrating for us, but even in our frustration, God is at work to produce patience in us. He never gets discouraged by how long it takes, and he delights every time you grow. Only God can see the “best version of you,” and he is more concerned with you reaching your full potential than you are. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. [Ephesians 2:10] | Your life is not your project. | You are not your handiwork; your life is not your project. Your life is God’s project. God thought you up, and he knows what you were intended to be. He has many good works for you to do, but they are not the kind of “to do” lists we give spouses or employees. They are signposts to your true self. Your “spiritual life” is not limited to certain devotional activities that you engage in. It is receiving power from the Spirit of God to become the person God had in mind when he created you — his handiwork. -John Ortberg A Friendly Dare: Today, try one thing that will help you and others flourish. -Adam Forrest, Zondervan Learn more about John Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be.
Follow John Ortberg on Twitter: @johnortberg. Suggested Posts Why Does Jesus Give “Life to the Full?” via John Ortberg
What Helps YOU Grow? via John Ortberg (Some styling above is a web-exclusive feature not included in the text of The Me I Want to Be. Image attribution: from The Me I Want to Be. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) A Friendly Dare:Today, find one way you can contribute you human flourishing today – yours and the people around you. -Adam Forrest, Zondervan
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| How Can We Share God’s Peace? [Excerpt] Posted: 11 May 2012 07:35 AM PDT What is the church’s role in extending God’s peace to the world? Mark Buchanan gives perspective in this excerpt from Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. The primary gift God gives to those who trust in him is reconciliation with him. But the primary gift the people of God give to those who are reconciled to God is a community of reconciled people. We give them the gift of our own wholeness and oneness. We give the gift of community. We invite them to be part of a people where everyone makes “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” [Ephesians 4:3]. God calls us out of darkness and into marvelous light [1 Peter 2:9]. But his intent is that “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” [1 John 1:7]. So God prepares us to be a people who draw and who welcome every tribe and tongue and nation into the light by first making us light. And he does that, in part, by bringing those who are far away near. He does that by making the community of the converted also the community of the reconciled… One sign that God has returned to dwell in the center of our lives and of our churches is that we become a living testimony of what we promise. We promise that in Christ all become new creations, no longer seeing others according to the flesh. We promise that in Christ we have the peace of God and the God of peace. We promise that we through Christ receive God’s love and forgiveness, and then extend it — with authority — to the whole world. We promise all this, but then claim exemption for ourselves in some petty matter or another.
When God steps into the center, those who once were part of us, and now are not, come home. They come back. God’s personal faithfulness to them and righteousness for them become their daily portion. What before was rumor becomes reality. We become living testimony of the new life we promise to others. May our churches be the gathering places for this reconciled community. - Mark Buchanan Learn more about Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. Suggested Posts The Weight of Your Past via Mark Buchanan (Image and some styling above are web-exclusive features not included in the text of Your Church Is Too Safe. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| The Weight of Your Past (and What Jesus Thinks about It – Excerpt) Posted: 10 May 2012 07:58 AM PDT We begin our scene at Jacob’s well, as two people discuss what God desires. One of those people is the Son of God. This story is told by Mark Buchanan in his book Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. -Adam Forrest, Zondervan “Will you give me a drink?” Jesus asks. The voice, the question, the man: they startle her. They startle her out of her silence and avoidance. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” [See John 4:1-42] And then unfolds a remarkable encounter, a life-turning exchange. But not at first. At first, her speech is as cagey as her silence, a series of diversions and evasions. Jesus offers her living water, “the gift of God.” She’s puzzled and intrigued, but when Jesus exposes her condition, she scurries down a rabbit trail. She wants to talk about worship. That might be a good thing, but as so often happens with talk of worship, it bogs down quickly into hairsplitting and argument baiting. Is this style better than that style? Is old better than new? Is tradition better than innovation? | When Jesus exposes her condition, she scurries down a rabbit trail. | Jesus cuts through all that with a clear word about the heart of worship: it’s about the heart in worship. It’s about a heart that longs for God and seeks him wherever he might be found. It’s about a heart that wants truth in the inmost parts, and opens itself wide as a bird’s mouth to receive it, and steeps in it until it works its way to the outermost parts. Worship is not about a style or a form or a place. That’s not what God’s seeking. He’s seeking not a kind of music or liturgy or architecture but a kind of person: humble, hungry, wide awake, who comes in spirit and truth, bold and beseeching both, ready to live toward God out of their depths.
Which is all fine and well. But the woman, either overwhelmed or underwhelmed, tries her last dodge: “I know that the Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” And then Jesus pulls out his showstopper (with a kind of Yoda syntax): “I who speak to you am he.” That changes everything. She runs back to town, “leaving her water jar” (a lovely and revealing detail: she’s distracted in all the right ways now), and does something that, in the telling, flies by so swiftly we could easily miss the revolution at hand: she goes back to her town and says to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” And they heed her. She “said to the people.” That’s the revolutionary detail. That’s the shock wave of the story. [The Story's Shock Wave: "She said to the people"] We have little background to this encounter. We know, from the text at hand as well as from other places, biblical and historical, about the mutual hostility and suspicion between Jews and Samaritans. We know — John tells us straight up — that Jews don’t talk with Samaritans, and at the story’s close he tells us again, less directly, that her gender is a cultural problem as well. | [We know] women in the ancient Near East never went tot he well [at] high noon. [And they] never went to the well alone. | [We] can also, with a bit of sleuthing, shade in a few more details about this particular story. We know that in general women in the ancient Near East never went to the well at “the sixth hour” — high noon. It’s too hot. And we know in general that women in this culture never went to the well alone. The trip to the well was done in the cool of the day and in the company of others. There must always have been exceptions to these customs. But the fact that this woman has lost at love so often — five ex-husbands — and has become so cynical about or damaged by that that she’s given up on matrimony altogether — the man she’s with now is not her husband — is a significant clue about why she’s at the well by herself at noon… She’s ashamed. She’s estranged. She’s probably outcast — scorned by her community, distrusted by the women especially. Villages have names for women like this. Tramp is one of the nicer ones, and it just gets worse from there… She “said to the people.” … “They came out of the town.” The encounter with Christ has healed the rift. Whatever’s kept her apart from the rest of the town, Christ has mended. Whatever authority she’s lacked, Christ has restored. Whatever shame’s kept in the shadows, Christ has removed. | That she describes this as ‘everything I ever did’ says a lot about how these things weigh on her, how completely they define her. | “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” All we know for sure that Jesus told her is that she’s had five husbands and she’s shacking up with her current guy. That she describes this as “everything I ever did” says a lot about how these things weigh on her, how completely they define her. But it also says a lot about Jesus. It tells us the tone with which he spoke. There couldn’t have been a single note of condemnation in it. There couldn’t have been even a shadow of scolding or shaming. She heard the voice of love. She heard the voice of acceptance. She does the math: the Messiah reveals himself to me, teaches me about God’s heart for worship, and offers to me the gift of God — and he does it knowing full well everything I’ve ever done. My past doesn’t disqualify me. My past has not forfeited my future. He doesn’t hold my past against me. - Mark Buchanan Learn more about Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Down. Suggested Posts Winter of the Soul via Mark Buchanan
Two Eyewitness of Heavenly Worship via Rory Noland
(Image and some styling above are web-exclusive features not included in the text of Your Church Is Too Safe. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| All God Wants [Excerpt] Posted: 09 May 2012 07:24 AM PDT Scot McKnight reflects on “the greatest commandment” in this excerpt from One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow (eBook). From 613 Commandments … To 2 [A religious expert] came to Jesus, because he wanted to trap Jesus in a theological debate. (Or, in our terms, because he wanted Jesus to tell the crowd which denomination he was in or whose side he was on in a political or religious debate.) [The religious expert asks,] “Of all the commandments [the 613], which is the most important?” If Jesus picks one, he could be guilty of picking and choosing the wrong one. If he doesn’t pick one, he looks lame. Jesus was ready … and he offers to his listeners [what] I call the Jesus Creed: “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29–31 …
[What Does God Really Want?] What God really wants is for you and me to love God and to love others, and if we do that everything else will fall in line. Jesus’ words are mind-blowing and they initiate us into his grand vision of the kingdom of God. The 613 aren’t understood until you understand that every commandment is either a “love God” or a “love your neighbor” command. To turn these two into 613 is to minimize the centrality of love. To see the 613 as expressions of either loving God or loving others is to set the 613 free to be what God wants them to be. The remaining 611 are merely instances of what it looks like to love God and to love others. Jesus turned the number 613 into two. There are only two commandments: Love God. Love others. If you love God and love others, you do all God wants of you. -Scot McKnight Learn more about Scot’s One.Life eBook. Scot McKnight’s book The King Jesus Gospel is on sale 38% off, today only! (Wednesday, May 9, 2012) Learn More Suggested Posts Interview with a Christian Vampire – An Experimental Review of Scot McKnight’s The King Jesus Gospel (Some styling above is a web-exclusive feature not included in the text of One.Life. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
| A Little Bit of Bad Stuff [Excerpt] Posted: 08 May 2012 07:12 AM PDT What we choose to swallow matters, as made mighty clear in this story from Craig Groeschel’s book Soul Detox: Clean Living in a Contaminated World. (Did you guess how this story ends?) When it comes to anything we consume, a little bit of poison goes a long way… Here’s the best illustration that I know of this timeless truth. A loving mother demonstrated this principle to her son, Cade. When his friends invited him over to watch a movie, one just released on DVD and rated PG-13, Cade begged his mom to let him see it. His mom asked him her usual questions, “Buddy, is it a good movie? One that won’t hurt your Christian walk?” Knowing it had some less than appropriate scenes, Cade shuffled from one foot to the other and searched for the right words. Not wanting to lie to his mom, he tried to walk on the edge of the truth. “Well, it’s not as bad as a lot of movies,” he said enthusiastically. “And all my friends have seen it. There’s only a little bit of bad stuff in it.” He held his breath, awaiting his mom’s final verdict on his moviegoing fate.
His mom smiled and said, “Well, of course, honey. As long as there’s only ‘a little bit of bad stuff in it.’” Cade was stunned! Before she changed her mind, the grateful teen bolted for his room, texted his friends the good news, then lost himself in his favorite iPad game. | She scooped up something that their dog Ginger had recently left behind… | Now if you’re a parent, you probably already know that Cade’s mom had something up her sleeve. She headed to the kitchen and started implementing her plan. Selecting her son’s favorite brownie mix from the pantry, she added the requisite water, eggs, and oil, stirring the mixture together in a big white bowl. While the oven preheated, Cade’s crafty mom strolled into the back yard for her secret ingredient. Searching carefully in the grass, she scooped up something that their dog Ginger had recently left behind. She returned to the kitchen, stirred in a teaspoon of Ginger’s secret ingredient, poured the thick, chocolate batter into a nonstick pan, and set the oven timer for twenty minutes. Just as she pulled the brownies from the oven, Cade bounced down the stairs right on cue. “Do I smell my favorite brownies?” he asked with excitement. “You bet!” his mom said, smiling. After letting them cool for a few moments, Cade’s mom cut into the warm brownies and plopped a large one on his plate. Just as his fork hit the plate, she stopped him, and mentioned casually, “Just so you know, I added a special ingredient this time.” She paused without cracking a smile. “I put a teaspoon of Ginger’s poop in your brownies.” “What?!” Cade shouted, immediately disgusted. “Mom, are you crazy? Why’d you do that?” he choked while pushing his plate away. Cade’s mom went to the fridge and poured her son his usual glass of milk. “Don’t worry, buddy. I didn’t put a lot of poop in the brownies. There’s just a little bit of bad stuff.” He rolled his eyes, but she’d made her point and served it up home-style. Cade realized he wouldn’t be seeing the movie. The moral of this story? A little bit of poop goes a long way… I like the way Eugene Peterson renders Romans 12:2 in The Message: “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” It’s so easy to become a cultural chameleon and blend in, conform, and become like the culture around you. And as your discernment becomes camouflaged by cultural standards, your spiritual priorities will disappear. If you don’t want to disappear into the worldly culture, then you must be willing to stand out… | If we’re not any different [from the world], maybe it’s because we … aren’t living out the commitment we made to know [Christ]. | Don’t be fooled by what’s popular and considered acceptable by most… As believers in Christ, we are called to live a holy life. We’re instructed to “be holy” because God is holy (1 Peter 1:16). The Greek word translated as “holy” is hagios, which means “to be set apart” or “to be different.” It carries an inherent contrast and can be translated “to be like the Lord and different from the world.” If we’re not any different, maybe it’s because we don’t know Christ or we aren’t living out the commitment we made to know him… - Craig Groeschel Learn more about Soul Detox: Clean Living in a Contaminated World, which released May 1, 2012. Suggested Posts “Lukewarm Christians” and other Oxymorons via Craig Groeschel
Am I a Christian Atheist? via Craig Groeschel & Zondervan Blog (Some styling above is web-exclusive and not included in the text of Soul Detox.This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer’s personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) |
