Life From Death

As usual, we enjoyed a great discussion in my life group tonight.  We have been going through the book of Acts since September.  One of the things that has amazed us is how much the church grew in times of heavy persecution.  Large numbers of people came to Christ even as the people preaching the Gospel suffered hardships many of us here can't even imagine for sharing their faith.  The suffering wasn't a deterrent.  These people wanted Christ.

Should this surprise us, though?  After all, our faith is built on the horrific death of Christ and the hope that comes from Christ defeating death.  The apostles had seen the risen Christ.  They knew death had no power over them.  As the enemy came after their lives, the church only grew.

A similar situation is currently being seen where unimaginable persecution is taking place.  I've read stories about how fleeing from ISIS has allowed Christians to reach people that had previously been unable to reach.  In Niger, the Gospel is spreading after attacks on the Church. The pastors are filled with joy believing that this will lead God's Kingdom to grow.

All of this has shown me that there are two different ways to look at the situation.  One is to look at it as the enemy defeating the church.  The other is to look at it as as God defeating the enemy. The latter is counterintuitive, but Biblical.  I am choosing to believe the latter and think that it will be proven to be true.  Our God is a God who brings life from death. Death is equated to a seed being planted in order that new life and more of it may be brought forth.  I think that is what will happen here.  I think there will be a large harvest that will come from this time when Christian persecution is at a high.

I think we also have roles to play here.  WE are the Church.  WE are being attacked.  Let's be in constant prayer for our brothers and sisters that face persecution.  Some of us might be able to help financially.  There are groups trying to provide for ISIS victims.  There are groups trying to help Christians who may have lost everything in Niger rebuild. The world is more connected than ever.  I think the most amazing thing that could come out of this would be for the Church to stand together in unity in whatever ways possible in the power of Christ.  I think that would make Satan tremble.  Let's do it!

Making The Abstract Practical

One of my philosophy professors hates the word freedom.  He says he doesn't know what it means.  He only knows that people talk about it a lot and are willing to die for it.

Sometimes I feel the same way about words that get thrown around the Christian community like freedom and love.  We like to talk about how God has set us free.  Free from what?  What does this freedom look like?  How does it affect our everyday lives?  Is Christ setting us free a one time event or a process?  We throw around the word free and people feel good because they're free in Christ and freedom is something to be valued.  But if we never or rarely expand on what the Bible means by that, how many people will actually experience that freedom and not just a warm fuzzy feeling.

We talk about God loving us and us loving Him and others.  What is love?  Baby don' hurt me, no more.  Seriously, though, everyone comes into a sermon, article, eye. with their own concept of what love means and unless they learn otherwise, that is the definition of love they will apply.  How can we expect people to better comprehend God's love for them and to love God and others the way He commands us too if we don't also teach people the Biblical portrayal of love?  It manifests itself in visible, practical ways.  It's patient.  It's kind.  You can find a longer list in 1 Corinthians 13.  We may need to expand on some of these things from time to time, too.  

I think that if we want to see people's lives really being changed the way Gid meant for them to be, we need to move from the abstract to the practical.  I'm a philosophy major and LOVE thinking about the abstract.  But I also think there's equal value in learning how the abstract can be practical.  The freedom and love and other things God wantsto give to us are not just great ideas.  They are realities that are meant to be realized here and now in tangible ways bearing fruit.

Lamentations

I bet you can't guess which book of the Bible is my favorite!  It's not one people will often list as one of their favorites.  Actually, if you read the title of this post, you may have guessed it by now.  Yep.  My favorite book of the Bible is Lamentations.  There's just something about it that I'm drawn to.  In Jeremiah's mourning over the way that sin has devastated the once glorious Israel I see glimpses of what Christ must have felt as our sin devastated His body.  As He's watched the effects of sin on His people since the fall of man.  It's not uncommon to hear sin brushed off as not a big deal in our culture.  Lamentations is a brutal reminder that sin is devastating and that the effects truly are something to mourn over.


I was pleased to see this article on Relevant Magazine's Facebook feed today: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/are-we-missing-something-important-about-prayer.  It is about lamenting in our prayers and how lamenting is something that is too often left out.  I think the way we view lamenting can deeply affect our theology.


In John 10:10, Jesus says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  We have an enemy that uses sin for no other purpose than to steal, kill, and destroy.  Sin is supposed to hurt us, as are the other aspects of a living in a world broken by sin such as disease, natural, disaster, etc.  Things are not as they were meant to be.  They are broken.  And the enemy is cruel.  In 1 Peter 5:8, Peter tells us, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."


I think that failing to acknowledge this fact may cause us to miss out on a few things.  The first is the importance of repentance.  God calls us to repent because sin is a big deal.  Such a big deal, in fact, that He sent His one and only Son to die on a cross to free us from it.  Mourning over our sins leads us to repentance.  But first we have to realize that they are a big enough deal to mourn over.


Second, I think it forces us to be dishonest with ourselves, others, and God.  No one is happy all the time.  Life can be incredibly painful.  God never promises that it won't be; only that He will be with us and that someday He will make all things new.  In the meantime, we are guaranteed to have a spiritual enemy that will come after us.  He can't snatch us away from God, but He can wreak a lot of havoc in our lives.  Pain and suffering are realities.  And it can be beneficial to acknowledge the difficulties we face rather than pretending they don't exist or that we're fine.  Acknowledging them to ourselves allows us to work through them.  Acknowledging them to other people that we trust allows others to stand by us and support us.  Acknowledging them to God can bring us into a more intimate relationship with Him.  He already knows what's going on in our hearts, so why not be honest with Him?  He cares and wants us to come to Him with our hurts and struggles.  The Bible is full of people crying out to God in pain and anger.  Job even got a reply.


Last and I think most important, it causes us to miss an important aspect of God's character and what Christ came to accomplish.  God mourns over the devastation that sin causes.  He mourns for us when tragedy strikes.  He mourns for us in the smaller stuff, too.  John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible.  "Jesus wept."  Jesus wept over a dead man whom He was about to raise back to life.  He knew that everything would work out, but that didn't keep Him from mourning.  The promise that God will work all things together for the good of those who love Him doesn't mean that we don't get to mourn and that there isn't a place for it.  I believe that Jesus still weeps.  The cross was part of the process of removing the sin that gives us reason to mourn.  If Jesus mourns over brokeness of this world, then part of being like Jesus is mourning over the brokeness of this world.

Renewal Of The Mind

Along with Chinese philosophy, I am taking philosophy of mind this semester.  We get to focus on the mind/body problem and argue about whether or not physical happenings in the brain can adequately account for our thoughts and emotions and such.  If there the mind is a separate, nonphysical entity from the brain, how do the two work together?  Fun stuff, right?  Well, at least some of it is anyways.


Some of the stuff that I actually think is fun is learning about the psychological stuff we get to learn about.  A video about neuron communication that we were required to watch this weekend got me thinking about Romans 12:2 where Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  I think most of us would think of the mind as it's used here in terms of the non-physical stuff such as thoughts and emotions, and I think that's what Paul meant, too.


The video got me thinking, though.  It discussed that communication patterns are formed both by nature and nurture.  The synapses, the parts in between the neurons that carry the chemical messages from neuron to neuron, can actually change because of learned behaviors.  The example that was given was of a mouse being afraid of a cat.  By nature, the synapses will relay a message that produces fear.  However, when a mouse encounters cats and learns to associate certain stimuli with the approaching of a cat, the synapses change in a way that allows for those stimuli to produce the same fear message and allow the mouse to react sooner.


Could it be that there is also a physical renewal of our minds when our minds as in our thoughts and emotions are renewed?  It seems plausible.  Perhaps as we focus on all that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy and as we obey God with the help of the Holy Spirit our minds are also physically being restored as our synapses and neuron communication structures are being transformed.  We do know that various factors can alter brain pathways.  And God does care about our bodies.  How cool would it be if it does mean both?

Indeed...So Now, Go

"One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. " (Exodus 2:11)


Moses had grown up in Pharoah's palace, removed from the suffering of his own people.  This tells us of the moment that Moses saw that suffering with his own eyes.  We know he was angered by what he saw because the next verse says that he killed the Egyptian.  This is the incident that led him to flee from Egypt into Midian where God would later speak to him.


Cue the burning bush.


"The Lord said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.  And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.  So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.'" (Exodus 3:7-10)


This may be one of my favorite passages in the Bible.  The first thing that catches my intention is God's use of the word "indeed".  "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt."  It gives me the feeling that Moses had passionately questioned God about whether he had any idea about what was happening to His people in Egypt.  Moses had seen it.  Had God?  Did He care?  Why wasn't He doing anything about it.  I think these questions burned in Moses' heart the whole time he had been in Midian.  They were probably questions all of the Israelites in Egypt had asked at some point in their lives.  And here's God's answer:  I have indeed seen.  I have indeed heard. AND I AM CONCERNED!


Now here's the kicker!  God tells Moses that He has come down to rescue the Israelites from Egypt and bring them to a good land.  And then He tells him, "Ok, now go, 'cause I'm sending you to go do all this."  With His help, of course.


Perhaps before Moses asked God if He saw, if he heard, if he cared, God was asking Moses the same questions when he allowed him to see the suffering of his people.  Perhaps when we learn of some injusticeand it burns in our hearts and we ask God those questions He is asking them of us.  Perhaps He is revealing His heart to us and preparing us for a time when He plans to do something about it through us.  But He needs us to go into it with a heart like His.


Have you ever had that feeling?  Do you have it now?  Are you open to joining with God in doing something about it in whatever way He leads you?

The Veil Of Ignorance

Philosopher John Rwls proposed that justice is determined by asking what kind of society we would create from behind a hypothetical veil of ignorance.  This hypothetical veil of ignorance would prevent us from knowing anything about what our position in society would be, for example, whether or not we would be male or female, what our skin color would be, how much money we would have, etc.  Knowing nothing about our position in life other than having the possibility of ending up in the worst position would cause us to strive to create a society that would benefit even the people in the worst off situations.  This, according to Rawls, would lead to a just society.


Would it really, though?  Or is there something about knowing injustice through experiencing it either directly or indirectly that gives us  stronger reason to fight for justice?  Even though the veil of ignorance isn't a real possibility, I'd like to give a little thought to theses questions.


While I had been praying for Christians being persecuted in other countries and have acknowledged the persecution as horrific, there was still some disconnect emotionally.  That is, until Nigerien Christians got attacked and friends I had made there were filling my Facebook feed with prayer requests for loved ones, knowing that there are people that I care about serving over there, and seeing familiar sights in the pictures of burnt and looted churches.  That is, until I think of Burma and the others like the refugees I've helped while they've tried to adjust here in the States.


While I was in Niger, my mentor and I went through Kelly Minter's Nehemiah Bible study as Beth Moore went through it on her blog.  In one part of the study, Kelly invites the participants to get to know names and faces and emphasizes the importance of that.  I think what I am realizing is the impact of knowing names and faces.  There are many types of suffering in the world and by the grace of God not one us will experience all of them.  But there will be someone who will.  Numbers are overwhelming.  Mere descriptions in an article or some other form of media are impersonal and we may forget them with much of the other information we take in everyday.  It's a lot more difficult to forget a face, or a name, a story of suffering shared face to face.  The more you know and care about the people involved, the harder it pulls at your heartstrings and makes you want to do something about an injustice that has been done or try to alleviate suffering from natural causes.  This is why people tend to fight for causes that have personally affected them or some close to them.  Knowledge, as in intimate knowledge, combined with love packs a much bigger punch than ignorance about one's possible position in society.  It's difficult to imagine what it would like to be in any given position until we have lived it or known people that have, listened to their stories, and cared about them.


Jesus' ministry here on Earth was one of stepping into our stuffering and dwelling among us.  It was highly relational.  He didn't preach about what suffering was like and ask His disciples to imagine themselves in the worst possible position they could be in and go from there.  Not even close!  He commanded them to go out and misister to those who were suffering injustice.  This involved some kind of personal contact.  It involved names and faces and testimonies.  It involved experiencing other people's suffering to some degree.  Bearing other people's burdens.  It meant fighting injustice not merely because you could have been in the same position, but because there are people that God loves and died for that are in that position and loving them because He loves them and because He loves you.  It seems to me like this is a more accurate description of how justice prevails.

Broken

One of the most powerful communion experiences I've ever had was one Sunday morning during the months before my trip to Niger in 2012.  A song about following Jesus had been song either before or during communion.  Fancy that, a song about following Jesus being sung at church.  Who would have thought?  Anyways, something struck me that morning that going on this trip would mean that I would need to be willing to possibly follow Jesus in having my body broken for the sake of the Gospel.  Not necessarily to the point of death, but nonetheless, this trip would mean subjecting my body to a vaccine that had the potential to be fatal and subjecting it to the possibility of diseases such as malaria.  This moment happened shortly before I received the yellow fever vaccine, the one that can potentially be fatal, and at the very least, typically causes a lot of pain.  It was a moment of surrender.  Of mentally offering my body as a living sacrifice before I was asked to physically do so.  A moment of counting the costs and accepting them.  A moment of choosing to follow Jesus even when it meant my body might be broken, all the while remembering the way that His was broken for me so that I might believe and be saved.  Was I willing to offer mine to whatever might happen on this trip in the hopes that others might believe and be saved because Christ had done the same for me?  I was.  Communion that day felt like my acceptance of that.


I ended up not even experiencing any pain from the yellow fever vaccine.  I was spared from all of the ill effects that came with that.  However, I was not spared from malaria, though I only suffered a minor case thanks to the fact that God had a plan in place that was better than any human plan could have ever been and I was able to start treatment within 7 hours of the symptoms starting.  As afraid as I had been of malaria, I didn't feel any of that fear when I actually had it.  All I felt was a peace that surpassed understanding.  I knew it was a risk, but because I entered that risk knowing that I was following God, I felt Him very near to me when the symptoms hit.  I wouldn't trade the moments I had with God at that time for anything; they are some of the most precious I've ever experienced.


Fast forward to communion on Ash Wednesday 2015.  A time to remember God's body being broken for us.  The communion I just mentioned flashed through my memory.  But this time, so did the image of 21 bodies that were recently broken for the sake of the Gospel- the 21 Christians that were recently killed by ISIS.  Thoughts of all the bodies broken for the sake of the Gospel in the middle east and in other countries such as Burma, China, and North Korea just to name a few.  I've read that Christian persecution is at an all time high.


During worship, Romans 12:1 was shown on the screen.  "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship."  Although we may not all be called to literally offer our bodies as a sacrifice to be broken perhaps unto death, but Paul certainly meant for us to be willing to go that far.  He was.  Many brothers and sisters today all over the world are doing so. 


The question that remains in my mind is  is, what am I going to do with a faith so precious that the body of the One and Only Most High was broken for it?  That countless others have given their bodies to be broken for?


This is how I want to respond: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1-3)


Ours is a faith that's worth giving everything for, because our God already gave everything for us.  We are promised that he who loses His life shall find it.  We are told that the death of God's saints is precious in His sight.  We are given the hope that not only was Christ's body broken, but it was raised back to life and can no longer be broken and that the same will someday be true for us.  There is a battle being fought that will leave us broken, but as Easter reminds us, Christ took on our brokeness in order to make us whole.  It is this hope that allows us to endure temporary brokeness and perservere while we wait to be made whole with Him.

Li

This semester, I am taking Chinese philosopohy.  What's a a Chinese philosophy class without a study of Confucianism?  In Confucianism, two of the most important concepts are the concepts of ren and li.  Ren is translated roughly into human kindness or compassion and it is that which essentially makes humans human rather than animals.  For anyone that knows much about Aristotle, reason played a similar role in setting us apart in his philosophy.  Li is the expression and practice of ren.  Faith without actions being dead would capture the concept of ren without li.  There must be some practical expression of ren.  Furthermore, li develops ren; it helps it to grow.  It is like practicing an instrument.  Ren is very much seen as a skill and li as seen as the methods by which it is developed.  These methods are considered rituals.  They might be more formal ritual such as weddings or funerals or even less formal, common rituals such as appropriate behavior in given settings.


Confucian values don't seem to mesh very well with American values, especially when it comes to the concept of li.  I wonder if we couldn't learn a few things from Confucius.  Even if our culture refused to look at some of the values found in Confucian philosophy, I wonder if it might benefit the church to look into some of these values and consider the benefits of them, specifically li.  What do I mean by this?


In American culture, breaking away from traditions tends to be valued.  Recently in the church, formalized religion has increasingly grown devalued and is something people are growing suspicious of.  In fact, many Christians are choosing to not use the word religion at all; it seems to have a negative connotation anymore.  Now it's all about the relationship with Jesus- Christianity isn't a religion; it's a relationship.  I was caught up on that bandwago for awhile, too.  Then I did Beth Moore's James Bible study.  In one of the video sessions, she explored the term religion and pointed out that religion merely means devotion to God.  This is a good thing and something we should have!  Somewhere along the line, expression of our faith through ritual received a negative connotation, and I think that it may have something to do with our culture devaluing ritual and tradition. 


So, what reasons are there to suggest that we should value ritualized expressions of faith?  One of the biggest reasons I can find is that God seems to.  In the Old Testament, we see God establish various festivals that the Israelites to remember.  This was to be engrained in their culture and was one of the ways they were to be set apart- not that they had festivals, but what the festivals entailed.  The festivals were a way of remembering God and what He had done for them.  The Israelites had a tendency to forget that and things didn't go well for them when that happened.  Even in the New Testament Jesus commands us to eat the bread and drink of the wine that remind us of His body and blood as often as we will in rememberance of Him.  It's a ritual that allows us to express our faith and serves as a reminder of Christ's sacrifice.


This has been on my heart the last few days as Ash Wednesday has approached.  With my schedule, it would have been difficult to make it to an Ash Wednesday service on time if I went to school.  I have a limited number of classes I can miss, so I wanted to try to go to school and take my chances with making it to an Ash Wednesday service.  However, I also knew there was a chance the train might be running late, I would be tired, and might just end up going home instead.  I didn't grow up going to Ash Wednesday services and part of me thought that it's not about the ritual stuff like services anyways and God will understand.  But the other part of me wondered if I was missing something.  If maybe the ritual stuff meant more than I had realized.  If maybe it was important.


 The fact is, it served the purpose of preparing my heart for Easter.  In our culture, we tend to think of ritual as going through the motions.  But it was a much needed time of reflection.  It was a break from the everyday craziness to refocus on Christ and what's important.  It was purposeful.  It was a break from the motions of everyday life.  It was a deliberate attempt to grow my faith and to express my faith.  In a world that doesn't stop, it caused me to choose to blend in or to be set apart by saying that a church service is more important than anything going on at school that day because what Christ did on the cross is the most important thing in all of life ever.  It re-enforced what I've been studying every week in Acts in my life group- that once a week ritual of studying the Bible with other Christians my age.  As my pastor put ashes on my forehead and said, "From dust you came, to dust you will return.  Repent and believe the Gospel," I was reminded that that was essentially what the first Christians preached.  So simple and so beautiful!  And so much more so after studying it week after week!


Ash Wednesday also ushers in Lent and the ritual of giving something up in order to be reminded of Christ's death and reseurrection.  It's a ritual that has changed my life when I've been faithful to it.  I'm a little nervous about that ritual this year.  I believe God has given me a gift when it comes to writing and that has been affirmed by people in the church.  However, I am my worst critic and it often prevents me from doing a lot of writing.  This year for Lent, I am doing a combination of giving something up/adding something in.  I am giving up my fear of not writing well and adding in a blog post every day (except Sundays, since I get those off!).  So, if you've made it this far, pray for me in completing that goal and pray that it changes me.  I think Confucius may have been on to something, but I don't think he was the only one who had it figured out.


End Note:  None of this is to say that it should end at the ritual stuff.  The Bible is very clear on that and I think making it all about the ritual is part of what has left a bad taste in peoples' mouths about the ritual aspect.  It's merely meant to make a case in favor of the ritual, as I think the baby got thrown out with the bath water.