Sunday Six-Pack (34)

Saturday escaped me, but the Six-Pack is rolling out before this weekend passes me by, all the same!

The best ministry-minded or faith-focused articles I could find this week? Here they are, with some grace space for a bit of who-knows-what.

If six options stuns you, start with my two *Picks of the Week*, and pick up steam from there.

For a steady stream of such links, follow me on Twitter ( @JasonBandura ) to the right of this post.  Sharp quotes and solid articles are tweeted 3-4 times daily.

Today’s edition:

1) Providential Accidents
Edward Fudge was writing about the doctrine of hell long before it became trendy. Here is an interview, with Scot McKnight, on his path and findings.

2) 42 Successful People Share the Best Advice They Ever Received
The Business Insider offers this pile of wisdom, much of which your mother may have shared with you back before you were paying attention.

3) Three Ways to Go Further, Faster (*PICK OF THE WEEK*)
Michael Hyatt offers the single most important move he’s made toward gaining on, and accomplishing, some of his life goals.

4) Why are Some Words More Persuasive than Others?
Lifehacker offers this piece on the psychology of language. Fascinating read for any communicator who cares about getting their point across as effectively or powerfully as possible.

5) The Most Overlooked Key to a Growing Church (*PICK OF THE WEEK*)
In this short piece, Rick Warren reminds of a simple, easy-to-forget characteristic that should never be forgotten.

6) John Wesley’s Secret to Making Disciples
Gary Thompson‘s post shares the list of questions that used to guide Wesley’s “accountability groups” before the term even existed. Could this still work today to mature followers of Jesus?

Blessings on you, my friends.  May the week ahead be filled with God in ways that you can sense. Tune yourself in, and walk on!

YOUR TURN: Add a line below to direct other readers to the best stuff above or to highlight the piece that gave you something worth keeping.

Your input makes this post better!

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Jesus Calls You to Be Selfish

I confess, that title may be slightly misleading.

But only slightly.

All or Nothing

There is a common belief that anything less than absolute altruism somehow clashes with pure religion. While I understand the sentiment, how is anyone less than Mother Teresa expected to take even a step forward if this is true?

Desiring God (Piper)I believe the answer lies in “Christian hedonism“, a provocative phrase coined by John Piper in his 1986 book “Desiring God”.

If one can get past the shock of binding the terms “Christian” and “hedonism”, a wonderfully disorienting teaching awaits.

In one sentence, Piper lays it out like this: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  Jeremy Taylor, a 17th-century Anglican cleric once said that “God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.” The concept has also been linked to Blaise Pascal, C.S. Lewis, and Jonathan Edwards, among others.

Tuck away the historical figures that you may or may not care about. This post’s title suggested that Jesus himself promotes such a teaching. Is that true?

14-biltmoreMusical Chairs

Luke 14 depicts Jesus giving seating advice after observing wedding guests eagerly jockeying for the seats of honour. A surface reading would suggest that Jesus was teaching them how to be more effective in their selfish pursuits, as if to say, “If you really want to sit at the head table, let me show you a trick that you may have missed with your small-scoped view.”

This is where the “purity police” show up. If the driving motive behind an act is a desire to receive reward or get ahead, doesn’t that undercut the act’s honour from the get-go?

I think Jesus would say, “No.”

And here’s why.

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” (Ps 103:13-14)

stock-footage-old-stopwatch-clock-gears-mechanism-with-tick-tick-soundOur Maker knows how we tick.

He is not shocked to learn that we are hardly altruistic. In fact, I will be hard-pressed to have one such moment this week, maybe even today.  Most would agree that a will to survive or succeed appears to be our first nature.

Even more certain is this fact: God wants to lead me. He wants to direct my life and form me into a man more centered upon Him than upon myself. How to do this?

Harnessing our Selfishness

I believe God taps our self-centeredness as a tool toward redemption. It would not be the first time that God has used something lesser for something greater.

If this rubs you wrong, the key truth to remember here is that this hardly makes obedience any easier.  It is not as if God lowers the bar by allowing us to “function selfishly”.

In treating my self-seeking nature as His classroom, God requires a leap of faith so great that most will never draw near to its edge.

Invisible > Visible

I can only pursue unseen treasure if I am willing to release what appears to be already in my grasp. The promise of rewards for goodness–either in an afterlife or in due time–has no power to motivate those who prefer “living for today”. This is delayed gratification to its max. Putting money away for retirement, saving sex until marriage, reading books rather than watching movies–these, and a thousand other examples, highlight the intense struggle humanity has with delayed gratification. To imagine faith as an ignoble pursuit because it contains offers of unseen and untouched reward–this is out of touch with the challenge of the spiritual life.  Such a critic has never tried to live by faith.

Following Christ’s call requires unbelievable guts. Most cannot muster them. It demands a constant loosening of one’s grip and a willingness to settle on rewards that often uncertain and counter-intuitive.

That is the life of faith: Crushingly costly and richly rewarding all at once.

Be Ready

dark_countryside_by_themagilla-d4vkqxm

They are up late.

The countryside was dark hours ago, and the chores are complete. On any other night, they would have headed to bed shortly after sunset, but tonight is no average night.

The master is expected to return.  He has sent word, and they will be ready for him.

This imagery is common to several portions of Jesus’ teachings. Luke 12:40 clarifies the point that lies just beyond the scene imagined above: “You must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

Any combination of “Son of Man” and “coming” quickly turn heads toward the end of time, the final coming.

And rightfully so.

However, it dawned on me recently that there is a message that resonates in another way as well.

Just as Christ’s final return is unknown, so too is every move of God.

  • A season of stripping off layers.
  • A time of trial.
  • A green pasture of rest.
  • A wilderness of discipline.
  • An unimagined opportunity.

Such pages of life are not bookmarked in advance. They arrive unannounced, just like the master to his household.  But when they do arrive, the readied heart can open the door to them, confident that the Creator comes with them, that He is eager to dance the upcoming steps with us, to fill us with His life-giving rhythms to the extent that we take His hand and engage with His movements.

But one must be ready.

It is oh-so-easy to live with eyes blinded to anything beyond the immediate, failing to even consider where the Infinite One is seeking to infiltrate our grocery-getting, rugrat-raising, marriage-managing, schedule-surfing lives.

But that’s the importance of being ready.

To tie readiness to Christ’s final coming is to suggest that there is one day when being ill-prepared would be costly.

Truth be told, there is cost in every moment that we press forward with eyes closed and hearts hard to the Constant Companion.

Today as you lay your plans, top the list with this: Be Ready.

Be ready to listen up.

Be ready to speak up.

Be ready to step up.

Your day will not be a rat-race of randomness. Your Master has mixed up its ingredients, and He reveals His presence and plans on His own schedule.

So be ready.

The Road to Blessing

amen1In the middle of Luke 11, there is an “amen” story.

Preacher Jesus was rocking.

A prayer lesson had just ended, and he had moved on to how demons are defeated. Caught up in provocative power of Jesus’ teachings, a lady listener shouted out.  It wasn’t as “classic” a response as “amen” or even “preach it”. But the sentiment was the same… mostly.

27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Mentions of female anatomy don’t usually accompany the praises of preaching, yet here we have a woman (likely a mother herself) essentially exclaiming, “Your mom is so lucky.”

Said another way: “How fortunate was your mother to birth someone of your substance and quality.”

Or another way: “Hearing your message and seeing your works, it is clear that your mom was pulled into a magnificent life when she conceived and birthed you.”

Yet Jesus sidesteps the remark, countering that the real blessing awaits all who respond obediently to God’s leading and teaching.  In other words, the blessing of God is available to all. It is not pre-portioned and dished out to selected favourites; it is not limited to those in preferential position. Nor is God’s blessing random, as if He were firing blindly into a crowd. Certainly, servants like Mary were approached with unique calls upon them, but the larger point is this: Blessing awaits all who obey.

So to you: Tune your ears today.

Lean in and listen.

The Lord’s word will arrive in some yet unknown tone. It may carry courage or conviction, but it will demand obedience.

And blessing will await all who respond.

A Bloody Mess

Genesis 15 depicts a bloody mess.

And it is a mess with multiple levels:

Abram, told that he is destined to be the father of nations, is beginning to stress that his servant looks like his only heir.  God repeats the promised of countless-as-stars descendants, but it is hard to embrace such words when an infant has never been held.

Abrahamic-Covenant-890x713God responded to Abram’s confirmation-seeking by instructing him to bring some animals. Together, they would enter a covenant ceremony. Abram set the stage by halving the animals (heifer, goat, ram, and birds). The slaughter pushed Abram into scarecrow duty, shooing off the vultures until dusk.

So there is the bloody mess: A man old enough to be a grandfather is beating buzzards off of chopped corpses, awaiting a sign from a God who appears unwilling or unable to deliver on His promises. Abram should have known better than to believe such foolishness. Who would possibly observe him arm-flapping and bird-shooing, and identify him as the father of great nation, innumerably populated as it pumped blessing into the whole world?

And now night was coming. Just great.

Genesis 15:12Scripture describes that a “dreadful and great darkness fell upon him” (Gen 15:12), and then from within the blackness, God delivered yet another shot. These promised descendants–the ones of whom not one yet existed–would travel a 400-year-stretch of slavery before even resembling a nation.

Did Abram envy those who knew not the darkness that came with God’s glorious promises? How much simpler it must have seemed to just live “one’s own life”, untouched by preposterous promises that raised ridiculous hopes!  A “dreadful and great darkness” indeed.

And that is when it happened.

“When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram…” (Gen 15:17-18)

Yahweh went on to declare the specific land that He would provide for Abraham’s descendents. He was not backing down on His promise; in fact, He was firming up the details.

And then, most dramatically, He was binding Himself to Abram. In the vivid imagery of that day’s covenant-cutting, God tweaks just one detail. Just as “blood brothers” might cut themselves and shake hand to display their sealed partnership, the halved animals created a corridor through which two partners would walk. Their shared strides through the butchered beasts spoke a solemn tone of commitment: “I will come through on my part of this agreement, lest such violence befall me.”

God’s revision to the common ceremony?

He walked alone.

firebowlIn the form of a smoking pot and flaming torch, Yahweh covenanted Himself to Abram.

This future of promised descendants with a promised destination–it hung on God alone.  God was deadly serious about delivering on His word. His faithfulness was woven into His very existence–He would fulfill His vow. And it would not hinge on Abram’s faded verility or Sarai’s infertility.

God’s promised reality would hang, every ounce of it, upon His provision and power.

Abram’s role was to trust and obey.

And every believer, one of the stars in Abram’s sky, is today called to a similar dance of faith. We are called into lives of fruitfulness, influence, and blessing vastly beyond our means.

Sometimes, that will feel like a bloody mess.

All times, our role will be like Abram’s–to trust the Flaming One and to walk obediently as He reveals Himself to us.

YOUR TURN: What has God taught you about trusting Him? Are you struggling to trust today? Ever had an experience in which you just “knew” that He would come through? Your input makes this post better!

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