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Do As You Are Commanded

2010-02-24T20:12:00.005-06:00

Reading my Bible made me angry this week. It doesn't happen often, but some teachings are hard to accept. So here's what I learned, from Luke 17:7-10.

"Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down to eat'?
"But will he not say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink'?
"He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?
"So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'"

Add that to Matthew 5:48 - a commandment to be perfect - and you have some pretty ridiculous stress. Just to get to the baseline, just to live up to God's expectations, I have to be perfect. And for it, I get called an unworthy slave!

Actually, I don't get called an unworthy slave, though God certainly has the right to call me whatever He wants (Job 38). I'm supposed to remember my position in relation to God, and call myself an unworthy slave. God will say to those who do as they are commanded, "Well done, good and faithful slave" (Matthew 25:21). The idea is humility. God doesn't need you or me. He doesn't need anyone. He'll never have cause to thank any of us, either, no matter how much time we spend doing good works and ministry, no matter how perfectly we follow His laws.

And, strangely enough, recognition of our lowly position is somehow liberating. I don't need to skip out on family time with my wife so that I can be involved in every single ministry my church does. I don't need to work myself to death trying to be there for everyone, all the time, no matter what. God can provide for all those ministries, all those people, all those needs, better than I can (incredible, I know). I simply need to find God's will for me - whatever it is that He commands me to do - and do it. Sometimes, it's as simple as sitting at His feet (Luke 10:38-42). Sometimes it's more. But whatever it is, the world doesn't rest on my shoulders. It is in His hands (yes, He's got the whole world in His hands).

I'm not Atlas. I'm just an unworthy slave of the LORD Most High.

Bridles and Fences

2010-02-01T11:37:00.002-06:00

James 1:26 says that if anyone doesn't bridle their tongue, their religion is worthless.

So do you bridle your tongue? Or do you fence it? Or does it roam free?

There are two reasons to build a fence. One is to keep things in; the other is to keep things out. When we're talking about horses, fences keep them in the pasture and out of the dangers of the wild. So if James had written to "fence your tongue," we'd be good if we just never said anything bad - if we kept ourselves from gossip, malice, deceit, and all unrighteousness (Romans 1:29). But he didn't. He wrote that we must bridle our tongues.

When you bridle a horse, it's not to keep it out of the bad places. It's so that you can control and direct it to the good ones. So we must control and direct our tongues to the gospel. We must read scripture, exhort, teach (1 Timothy 4:13) - we must preach Christ glorified. If we aren't active in that endeavor, our tongues aren't bridled. They might be fenced, but that's not enough.

Engels and Gray

2010-01-23T14:49:00.003-06:00

Today at a Saturday morning study with some guys, one of them mentioned the Engels Scale, of which I had never heard. So I looked it up. Basically, it's just a number line applied to a person's receptiveness to the Gospel.

     +5 Stewardship
    +4 Communion with God
   +3 Conceptual and behavioral growth
  +2 Incorporation into Body
 +1 Post-decision evaluation
New birth
 -1 Repentance and faith in Christ
  -2 Decision to act
   -3 Personal problem recognition
    -4 Positive attitude towards Gospel
     -5 Grasp implications of Gospel
      -6 Awareness of fundamentals of Gospel
       -7 Initial awareness of Gospel
        -8 Awareness of supreme being, no knowledge of Gospel

I'm not entirely sure how useful it is, except to inform one's personal ministry, but as a Christian I believe that part of my purpose is to influence others to accept Christ and become disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). If I can understand where a person stands in relation to the Gospel, it makes it easier to know my role in my relationship with them.

There's an "improvement" on the Engels scale, called the Gray Matrix, which divides openness to the Gospel from internalization of its message and places them on two different axes (a Cartesian plane), but the idea is pretty much the same.

Just thought I'd pass on some interesting ideas.

Brit Hume and Christ

2010-01-11T17:12:00.001-06:00

Everyone else has already seen this I'm sure, but I may as well put it here too. Bill O'Reilly, Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, and Christ.

Christianity, the MMORPG

2010-01-06T17:48:00.003-06:00

As I was driving back to work today after a stop at a computer parts shop, I was wondering if the shop owner I'd just spoken to was as much of a nerd as he seemed. Did he play Everquest?

And I had a thought. I sometimes treat Christianity like a role-playing game. Like I might not be a Christian at work. Or I might not be a Christian on Saturday. I'm a only Christian when I'm at Church or at praise band rehearsal. It's like I waited all week to play ChristQuest on Sunday morning with my guild. I don't want to be one of those weird guys who dresses up as their character or really gets into it, you know? Heck, I don't even talk about the game except to other people who play. I'd never mention Christ to a non-Christian - he'd think I was a nerd!

Wrong answer.

Romans 12:2 says do not be conformed. That means be different. While I don't recommend dressing up as a Dark Elf for your next job interview, it's definitely cool to talk to nonbelievers about Christ, and even admit that you follow Him. In fact, it's absolutely essential (Luke 19:40).

So, does your Christian avatar exist only at Church?

2010 Resolutions?

2010-01-03T15:06:00.012-06:00

I've struggled with this post (and it's a couple of days late) because I really don't know what to do for resolutions this year... 2009 was the first year I ever made resolutions, and putting them online turned out to be pretty good motivation, so I wanted to do it again. But I have no idea what to resolve for 2010. I could go the comedy way, but I want to actually accomplish something. So I've searched teh Interwebs and taken whatever I can find.

Squidoo comes up first on a Google search for 2010 resolutions, so I checked their article. 2010Resolutions.org has the same ten resolutions in a different order, so I figure they're pretty good ones. However, I'm a non-smoker with no weight to lose and a healthy, organized, and enjoyable lifestyle, so the only one of their resolutions is worthwhile for me.

Resolution: Get out of debt. My wife and I completed Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University last year, and we've been steadily chipping away at our two $30,000 car loans since we started the program in February. By the end of 2010, we'll be debt free.

CNN.com has 10 travel resolutions. Again, most aren't all that useful to me, as I have a passport and I've spent the last couple of weeks doing almost nothing but relaxing. But there are two items that I'll put on my list.

Resolution: Get a new digital camera (and use it often). CNN's actual resolution is "Take better pictures," but to do that I need to at least have a camera. I'm not talking DSLR here; I just want a camera that will survive my lifestyle. An Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 looks fantastic to me.
Resolution: Travel. Take my wife to Italy. She's wanted to go ever since her high school Latin class trip was canceled due to September 11th. Sounds like a great idea to me! Maybe I'll visit Spain again as well. This resolution may be in direct opposition to getting out of debt (since we'll be pouring money into two pits), but I think we can do it.

On TechRepublic, I found one geek's resolutions. One that sounded good to me was to write more. The author made that resolution because he gets paid for the things he writes. While I don't, there's a lot to be gained for me from simply putting fingers to keyboard.

Resolution: Write an actual, thought-required blog post at least twice a week. Make at least one every week related to my Bible study or quiet time.

PasteMagazine had an article titled "Fifteen Musical New Year's Resolutions for 2010," but they were just the average resolutions (see Squidoo above), but based on pop songs. But a good resolution that I thought of when I saw "Musical Resolutions," was to actually spend some time enjoying my own musical ability.

Resolution: Play cello, outside of group rehearsal, practice, and performance, just for my own enjoyment, for at least an hour a week. Maybe even remember what it's like to hear J.S. Bach's Six Suites for Cello Solo come from my own instrument.

Lastly, I found this post on the Gospel Coalition Blog. It's based on the book The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards, which is based on the seventy "Resolutions" written by Jonathan Edwards. I may review some of the seventy resolutions in a future post (or series), but for now, I'll sum them up: as John Brookes wrote in Manliness (1875), "Openness to the Light and Love of Jesus, and resoluteness to follow them promptly, constitute Christian Manliness."

Resolution: To spend at least an hour each day (maybe not all at once) either reading the Bible, studying the Bible, or praying. In short, I want to take my quiet time to the next level. I want to start putting into practice all the things I learned last year about prayer. I want to learn and follow His ways.

You Cannot Serve God And Money

2009-11-23T17:54:00.004-06:00

But I don't even know what it means to serve money.

No, really, what on earth does that mean (Matthew 6:24)? Apparently I'm not the first to ask the question, and I think that this article gets at least this much right: it's a warning,

against the kind of storing up that is a symptom of greed and acquisitiveness, of the love of money, and a love of the independence from God that it seems to allow.

It means that we should "be content with [our] wages," (Luke 3:14), and not oppress others in our pursuit of worldly gain (Proverbs 14:31).

But it doesn't mean that we completely quit our jobs and take up robbing banks (Ephesians 4:28) or live off charity (II Thessalonians 3:7-8). Certainly if we are called to formal ministry then we are to partake of the earthly fruit of our ministry for sustenance (I Corinthians 9:7), but we are not meant to simply live off the grace of others (II Thessalonians 3:10).

So, we walk an easy balance between making money for the sake of making money (and who cares who we step on), and not making enough money to care for ourselves and our household. But that's not all! It also means that we help out our brothers whenever we can (I John 3:17), and support both formal ministries and the less fortunate (Deuteronomy 14:29). We are stewards of God's money here on earth, so we're supposed to do with it as He wills.

None of that really speaks to what it means to be a servant to money. II Peter 2:19 is the heart of it: if you are overcome by money, you are slave to it... you're serving the wrong thing. So what is it to be overcome by money? When we look to money, and not God, for happiness, that's the wrong answer. When we seek material gain or focus on our careers to the exclusion of daily fellowship with God and our brothers, it's the wrong answer. When our families are well cared for but we let worry about the future convince us to hold back every dime (or even one dime) that might be better spent in good work, it's the wrong answer. It's being overcome - mastered and enslaved - by money.

Colossians 3:23-24 gives us the right idea: work for the Lord. We work to do the best job we can, as a testimony to Christ in us, not as a testimony to convince our bosses we should get promoted. We work to support ourselves for the work of Christ (Philippians 1:21), not to gain one more bauble or one more fifty inch flatscreen. I Timothy 6:8 is the attitude we need - if we have food to eat, clothes to wear, and maybe a roof over our heads and running water, what else do we really need?

There are plenty of frugality blogs out there that will ask you to examine everything you have in order to save money for the purpose of saving money. I think God is asking us to examine everything we have in order to save money for the purpose of serving God.