No More

The above image is from The Joyful Heart Foundation's No More Campaign.  No More means more than just no more domestic violence and sexual assault.  It means No More behaviors that enable it to happen, such as No More Silence, No More Blaming The Victim, etc.  It's No More Fill In The Blank as pictured below:

I'm hoping to add my voice to the No More campaign by doing a No More series on this blog.  God has given me a passion to fight the injustice of abuse.  I've heard several testimonies from suvivors of abuse that the church has not been much of a help in fighting abuse, and in some cases, it has even made things worse.  This is not always the case, but it is heartbreaking to hear how often it is the case.  In this No More series, I will address some common behaviors and attitudes that are found within the church that have a tendency to enable abuse, look at why they do so, and what might be able to be changed to help fight abuse.

A big inspiration for this blog series has been the "A Cry For Justice" blog.  This is a Christian-led blog that exists solely to address the issue of abuse and the church.  I believe it is a valuable resource for Christians that seek to understand the dynamics of abuse and who are looking for a Biblical understanding of how to deal with abuse when it occur within the church.  Here is the link: http://cryingoutforjustice.com/.

The Hope On Which Our Faith Rests

Happy Easter, everyone!  He is risen!  The grave is empty.  Death has been defeated.  The curse that led to death has been broken by the new Adam who brings life to all who believe in Him.  This is the hope on which all of our faith rests.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14, "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."  If Christ had not been raised, our faith would be completely useless.  But because He has been raised, we can have a true hope in redemption that will be worked out in this life and ultimately when we see Him face to face.


The fear of death no longer has power over us.  This is how the world was transformed.  Christians were willing to die instead of rejecting Christ because they trusted that He had been raised and trusted His promise that He was only the first of many who had put their faith in Him.  It's kinda hard to stop someone who whole-heartedly believes that.


Christ died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.  Simple words and so easy to take for granted.  Yet they are the deep foundations of our faith.  God Himself came down as a man, died, was raised to life in the same body that was crucified, and will return.  Simple words, yet altogether life altering when we realize just what they mean and choose to believe them.

The Day In Between

Holy Saturday.  It's the day in between death and life.  The day when the harsh, unbelievable realities of the day before began to sink in.  The day when there seemed to be little hope for the future.  A day of confusion and pain.  A day that reminds us just how hopeless we'd be if Jesus had only been crucified and not raised from the dead.  His death is crucial to our salvation and His resurrection is equally as crucial.  There is no hope in death if the promise of new life is not fulfilled.  The time in between is important too.

Throughout our lives, sin will cause many deaths and God will bring about new life. But we will also have to face the time in between.  How we deal with the time in between is crucial to the direction our faith will go.  Will we believe all is hopeless, get angry at God, and lose faith?  Or will we rely on what He has taught us thus far and dare to keep believing against all hope?  There is a reward for this who dare to trust Him even when all seems hopeless- restoration.  The time in between May be the most difficult because it forces us to come to terms with a death brought about by sin.  It's painful.  We often feel powerless. Hope seems to have died.  But His mercies are new each morning.  His plans are to prosper us, not to harm is.  To give us a hope and a future.  He will do something we wouldn't have believed even if we had been told if we will watch and pray.  This is the time that are faith is tested and stretched.  This is where drastic growth can take place.  But all 3 days are crucial to this process.

The Problem Of Evil

The Good Friday service at my church tonight was especially powerful.  The message was about taking responsibility for our individual sins that put Jesus on the cross and how doing so is a crucial part of accepting the forgiveness that Christ extends to us.  During communion, we had the option of dipping our hands into red paint and then placing them on the cross to acknowledge our guilt.  We then were invited to take communion and then go to another station to wash our hands as a symbol of the cleansing provided by Jesus' death on the cross.  The bowl of water quickly became red, making the stains difficult to wash off, similar to how there was only one way that our stains could be washed off and it was not easy.  

As powerful as those reminders were, there was one part of communion that really got to me.  I had the privilege of serving communion tonight.  I got the grape juice.  As anyone who has served communion at my church knows, this can be a bit of a messy job as some of the grape juice inevitably ends drips off of the bread.  Tonight was especially powerful as I felt the grape juice stream down my hands at times and saw spots of it spattered on the floor, all while telling person after person, "The blood of Christ spilled for you."  It was almost like feeling that blood spilled out over me.  My hands were shaking by about half way through.

Today is a day of mourning.  A day of mourning Jesus' death.  But it is not sufficient to only mourn His death.  True repentance comes in mourning the reason for His death.  So often we focus on the fact that Jesus died because He loves us.  While this is true and fully supported by John 3:16, it is not the whole truth.  Because of our sin, we were separated from God.  A perfect sacrifice had to be given in order for us to be reconciled to Him.  Our sins had to be placed on that sacrifice.  The cross is not about God overlooking our sins; it is about God placing them on His one and only Son and punishing Him so that we may live by putting our faith in Him.

Jesus didn't just die on the cross because He loves us.  He died on a cross because our sins grieve Him and He wants to remove them.  That was the only way.  I don't think it is possible to  show proper appreciation for the sacrifice Christ made without grieving our sins that put Him there and realizing just how awful those sins are.  At some point in our lives, we have all chosen to yell, "Crucify Him," spit in His face, and mocked Him.

One of the major philosophical issues, especially in regards to religion, is the problem of evil.  How could a God who is all good, all knowing, and all powerful allow evil to happen.  Christ's willing death on the cross is never mentioned.the thing is, why would a God who doesn't absolutely detest evil take on flesh, allow Himself to be handed over to His enemies, and willingly die one of the most brutal and humiliating deaths in all of history in order to rid people of their sins- and not just so they can go to Heaven, but that this redemption would take place here and now?  I look at Jesus and see a God who cares far more about the problem of evil than any of us do.  And He conquered it on that cross.

When I realize just how much was given in order to pay for my sins, I hate my sins.  I hate my sins that put the God I love on that cross.  The cross is where my desire to turn from my sins is strongest.  I'm repulsed by the way they marred my beloved Savior.  And in this I find my desire to take up my cross and follow Him- to die to myself and to find a new and better life in Him.

Control

Control.  It's something we all need yet something that can cause major problems if misunderstood or used in the wrong way.  There are many times where we think we have more control than we actually do and many times  that we think we have less.  Not being realistic about how much control we have and what we rightly have control over can be extremely destructive to ourselves and others.


Sometimes we try to control God by bargaining with Him.  If He gives us what we want then we will give Him what He wants.  But this mistakes several things about God's character.  First, it assumes that the same God who was willing to give His only Son as a sacrifice doesn't care about our needs and desires when He in fact cares about them more than we do.  However, He sees the whole picture and knows what is best.  But sometimes it is hard to trust that.  Second, it assumes that obedience is a way to get God to give us things, but in reality, God already has good things planned for us, but obedience is to His will is the only way that those things are capable of being received by us.


Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we are powerless in certain circumstances and can do know more than leave the situation in God's hands to deal with.  This doesn't mean that we're powerless; it just means that our power is found in prayer and trusting God to work in the situation.  I've found that some of my best moments with God have been some of the most difficult in my life when I acknowledged how powerless I was and submitted to a God who I trusted was for me and would see me through.


Sometimes we try to control our circumstances by controlling other people instead of ourselves.  This is wrong and if it is habitual it is usually deemed as abuse.  Sometimes we fail to acknowledge that we have as much control as we do.  This is wrong also and can lead to victimization.  Boundaries is an excellent book that I have found very helpful in helping me realize what things I am responsible for and to and what things I am not.  It offers help for both side of the equation.  Often the two go hand-in-hand in relationships and the cycle requires at least one person in the relationship to have a clear picture of responsibility and control and make change based on that understanding in order to be broken.


I think a lot could be changed in our relationships with God and others if we learned what our responsibilities to God and others are and what we have control over and used that control appropriately.  Perhaps that is a crucial part of what it means to love God and love others.  It involves taking responsibility for the way we choose to exercise the gift of free will.  I think that one of the core things of love is using our free will for the benefit of another, and not to harm them.  It's a choice not a feeling.  And sometimes it's a very difficult choice.  Jesus talked a lot about submision, probably because it is required in fulfilling the top two commandments, which all the other commandments happen to fall under.  His whole life was about submission to the will of God, even death on a cross to reconcile us to God.  I think Paul says it well in Phillipians 2:

"2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father."

I think that submission to the will of God is the key to true and healthy control.

When The Old Can't Hold The New

Sometimes being broken isn't a bad thing.  Sometimes it just means that the old can't hold the new.  It hurts all the same, but sometimes God allows us to break in order to make room for the new and allow it to grow.  It may still be caused by sin on some level in these cases, and likely that sin is what would have hindered our growth if things would have remained as they were.


The strange thing is, that the more we've encountered Christ and His love and the more ready we are to grow, the less it hurts.  When I've experienced all that Christ has to offer and how much better it is than what anyone or anything else has to over, the more I am willing to embrace that brokeness if it leads me closer to Christ.  I become more ready to throw off everything that hinders me in my walk with Him and to keep my focus on Him.  He is my prize.  Even if I lost all else, He would still remain.  And He is greater than all else.  He satisfies even the deepest longings of the heart.  If He's leading me out of something, I can trust that it's for my good and that He's leading me into an even better place to bear fruit.  And there's a strange sense of peace that accompanies this brokeness, a peace that helps me let go and move on.

Unmet Expectations

I'm one of those increasingly common people in their mid-twenties who is single, still living at home, and still trying to finish school.  I don't live up to society's expectations, or at least not American society's expectations.  In Taiwan it is normal for a single person to live at home until they get married.  I haven't lived up to my expectations for myself either.  This is definitely not what my high school self saw my life looking like.


However, there are good things my high school self didn't foresee either.  She didn't see mission trips to Taiwan, Niger, and France.  She didn't foresee helping plant a church and helping build that church's youth ministry, kids ministry, and drama team or serving a two year term on the leadership council or leading a mission trip to France through that church.  She never envisioned getting to participate in making a decision to purchase property for the church.  She never envisioned getting to love on foster kids for a week every summer or helping kids from abusive situations at the Justice Center.  She never thought she could break free form her insecurity and other issues.  She never envisioned helping Burmese refugees.  She never imagined the ways she would come to trust God and take risks for Him.  Yet all things and more have happened.


By society's standards, it doesn't appear that I am super successful.  But I think God is proud of me.  I think He is there saying,"Well done, good and faithful servant; keep going!!!"  After all, his own Son failed to meet a lot of expectations, as well.


Many of the Jews of Jesus' time expected the Messiah to be a military leader who would free them from Roman rule.  Instead He came to free them from sin.  He didn't fight Roman rule and even told them to give to Caesar what was Caesar's.


He didn't meet His family's expectations for Him either.  There were times they were embarrassed by His behavior and thought He was crazy.


The religious leaders expected someone who followed their strict rules.  Jesus broke some of the rules when keeping the rule would have made the rule lose it's purpose.


Peter expected Jesus not to die.  He got majorly rebuked for it.


The Jews expected a great king.  They got a man who died a humiliating criminal's death on a cross after being crowned with thorns.  "King of the Jews" was meant to be an insult.  Those that had followed Him with high hopes for the future were left confused and disappointed.


They expected Him to stay dead, but on the third day He rose from the grave!


Peter was probably expected to spend his life as a fisher of fish and not a fisher of men.  Paul could have been a high up Jewish religious leader, but instead he gave his life to preaching the Gospel, even when that meant being followed and nearly stoned to death by mobs of angry Jews and imprisoned.  The name "Christian" began as an insult.  Yet these are the people who turned the world upside down because they put Christ above everything else.


Here's the thing: some of the things that the world considers success are good things.  But Christ is better, and sometimes following Him requires us to sacrifice some of those things.  Maybe temporarily, maybe permanently.  Many of us are familiar with the story of Jesus and the rish man in Mark 10:17-31:


"
¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’^[a]”
²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
²³ Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
²⁴ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is^[b] to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
²⁶ The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
²⁸ Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
²⁹ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel ³⁰ will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹ But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”


And about the costs Jesus said are associated with following Him in Matthew 8:18-22:


"¹⁸ When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. ¹⁹ Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
²⁰ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
²¹ Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
²² But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”"


When Jesus began His time of ministry, He gave up His home and job.  He dedicated His time to minsistry and had followers that offered material support.  Not all of us will be called to this, but some of us will.  We will all be called to sacrifice something to follow Jesus.  Let's be willing to make those sacrifices.  Let's also support our brothers and sisters that are making those sacrifices and celebrate with them as they hit God's milestones, even if they don't always hit society's.