Ouch!

Courtesy of my roommate.

I finished reading Colossians this morning and found this little passage.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
Colossians 4:2-6 (ESV)

I can immediately see a lot of areas where I want to grow closer to what Paul lays out in this passage. It’s really interesting that the first thing Paul mentions is to pray (or continue praying in the case of the Colossian church). Then, he says to be watchful and be in thanksgiving. I think what he is describing is that we need to be continually in prayer so that our will is conformed to God’s and that when our requests and desires are met (which are becoming closer and closer to God’s) we should thank Him–the source of our salvation, joy, and life.

It’s interesting how many times Paul refers to the ‘mystery of Christ.’ In Ephesians 3, this ‘mystery’ is laid out:

This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 3:6 (NIV)

It’s on this account–that Paul is living out his calling as the apostle to the Gentiles–that he is imprisoned. It’s challenging enough to see the words that Paul can formulate and the clarity with which he examines and teaches doctrine (clearly an emphasis of his, considering his rigorous, Jewish upbringing). But put into the context of his circumstances, it is simply astounding how reliant and dependent he was on the grace of God. How perfectly he allowed Christ to sustain him in the midst of stoning, imprisonment, ridicule, and persecution. And yet what he asks for are more oppurtunities and for clarity of speech–the very things which imprisoned him on Christ’s behalf in the first place. Clearly this man had no fear of man, but a fear and love for God. This is something I’d like to have.

How Can I Argue?

I’m humbled by how great God is. He made that exceedingly clear today. He knows exactly how to push and pull us. How to bend us. How to break us. And exactly how to break us and keep us dependent on Him. Then, when we are humbled before Him, reliant on His glory and power to see us through, He builds us up through how great He is. Without fail. We will suffer, but we must suffer with purpose–realizing that ultimately God is greater than all of it and that Jesus has felt every pain I experience previously.

I need to suffer with purpose.

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?”
Jeremiah 32:27 (NIV)

Congratulations to the Phillies on winning the World Series tonight. It’s great to see a team with lots of young, franchise-level talent putting it together after a long, long period of futility.

This Little Light of Mine, Pt. 2

I’m a problem-leads-to-solution kind of guy. I guess that comes from being an engineer—or it’s what led to me being an engineer. I like to focus first on the problem; determine what’s wrong. From there, I like to try to derive the root causes. Then from there I work backwards or forwards (depending on how you look at it) to arrive at the solution to the problem.

The problem is pretty obvious here. We don’t talk to others about Christ as much as we probably should—that I don’t talk to others about Christ as much as I probably should. Why? I think there are a variety of factors. Most come from a warped, extremist view on our faith in the context of the world. Think politics for a second: we have extreme right and extreme left, but no middle? I think in evangelism it’s similar in that there are two warped extremes that individuals fall into. And sometimes it’s a little bit of both. But these extremities are generally opposites. And they lead to ineffective laborers for Christ and His kingdom.

1. We either think our opinion in irrelevant, or that we have it all figured out and everyone else doesn’t have a clue. We think others don’t want to hear about what we have to say, or that we have the perfect thing to say, not Christ.
2. We think God loves us and that he wants to be our buddy, or that God is going to destroy us and we must live in fear of Him.
3. We fear losing friendships over the subject of the gospel, or we don’t build genuine relationships with people in the first place.
4. We water down the gospel, or we make it harder than it has to be.
5. We think the gospel is all about us, or all about them.
6. We fear that we will misrepresent the gospel or Christ, or we think and act like we know everything about Christ.
7. We focus completely on conversions or number without raising up disciples, or we focus on the journey without first establishing the idea of the grace of God and our faith in Christ.

I’m not going to go through and individually refute each of these fears. Chances are, each of us identifies with one (or most) of these. For me personally numbers 2, 4, and 7 are areas where I struggle. I think all of these can be boiled down into a single root cause: disbelief. However cliché it may seem so blame it on that, isn’t there an ounce of truth in there? If I really believe in this—that I am a sinner (Romans 3:23), that God is holy (Isaiah 43:10-13), that He sent Christ to die for my sins (1 Peter 2:24), and that He rose again and that we have the Holy Spirit as a vehicle through which God works in and through us—and I’m doing my best in my life to ‘smoke what I sell’ then wouldn’t I want to sell what I’m smoking? If I really believe it’s working for me, why do I think it won’t work for others?

Why am I so afraid to tell other people about something that I know and believe and trust and live my life for?

Or is the problem in a lack of belief on my part? Wouldn’t I want to sell what I am proverbially smoking?

As I try to rationalize this I’m convicted in the hypocrisy of my life. It’s almost as if I’m declaring that Jesus is for me. But just me. As that one verse of that song says, I’m not supposed to hide it under a bushel. I’m gonna let it shine.

And if I really believe in the gospel, and that it’s about what God did and not what I did, then why do I fear misrepresentation? God is ultimately doing the work. All I need to do is make myself available for the purposes of His kingdom. I need to build relationships, intentionally. I need to have conversations, intentionally. I need to act, intentionally. In short, I need to live, intentionally.

Some of this stuff is no fun to wrestle with. I think this might be what Paul was talking about what he talked about working out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13).

This Little Light of Mine

A heavy issue with many is the idea of evangelism. Many cringe at the idea. Some people shy away from it. People say it is the job of the church–for the record, what’s the difference between an “evangelical” Christian and a regular, anyway? Some decry its evils and how insensitive it is. But with this many opinions it doesn’t seem like there is clearly one camp that has it all right. It’s also something I’ve been convicted on lately.

Clearly our need to do this should be two-fold. Jesus has commanded us to do this in the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

Jesus also talks about the urgency involved in the sharing of our faith. He encourages it, commands it, and at times necessitates it:

Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:32-33 (NIV)

I bring that verse up not to say that sharing our faith is a condition for salvation. It is not. We are saved by our belief in Christ (John 5:24) in who He said He was (John 14:6) through God’s infinite grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). But why is it that sharing our faith–what we believe and dedicate our lives to, ideally–has become to disconnected from our growth towards Christ. If we are to become more like Him, we will want to tell others about Him just as He did, right? Not in a ‘hell and brimstone’ way but in a way that emphasizes our depravity, God’s goodness, and His grace to us through His Son.

I want to explore what this means to me, what this looks like as I make it a part of my life. We are called to go and make disciples. Not just followers. Disciples are those who follow and take what they have learned and lead. I want to find out what it means to make followers–to see how God can use me there–and how to invest in others in a way that glorifies God and not self while pushing them towards Christ with everything in me. This is gonna be tough.

Pressing Onward

As I pursue Christ more and more and seek His will for my own roadblocks inevitably come up. Challenges and things that seem to be contradictions. Or sometimes simply facets of God that are tough to rationalize, understand, or ever just accept. I think times like these are among the times when God most reveals himself to us.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Philippians 2:12-13

I talked about this with a friend recently. It’s odd that Paul tells the church in Philippi to “work out their salvation.” It’s even more interesting knowing that this church was considered one of the strongest–if not the strongest–New Testament church. Why would Paul tell us to work our our salvation? Aren’t we already saved?

I think it come down to working through those roadblocks and things that come up in life. For me, trusting God is tough. I need to do as much as I can to work through that while trusting that God will change me from the inside out. I need to do this with fear and trembling so that I am humble and conscious of how much greater God is than me while this process is taking place, knowing that ultimately it is God’s will, not mine. It is God acting, not me. And in the end it is His purpose that will prevail.