more than we can imagine

Jesus has the power to do the impossible; it is whether we have the faith to believe it. We miscount or undervalue its power to the degree that we limit what we would ask of him. 

Ephesians 3:20 (ISV) says:

Now to the one who can do infinitely more than all we can ask or imagine according to the power that is working among us.

Suppose you have a powerful steed or horse, but only use it to provide circus pony rides for children in a small compound, when it has the ability and strength to go much faster and further. You would be grossly under-utilizing the horse. Like the horse, the Word of God can do much more than what we dare ask or imagine. We have a big God but His people only ask for small things. The problem does not lie with the steed, but with the rider who chooses to keep it within a small compound because he think that is all the horse can handle. If we could just break free from this limiting belief, imagine what we can ask and believe God for in this generation!

Presence-Driven Donkeys (2013), Jeff Yuen

father and child

When you realize that you're a child of the most High God, then everything you do for Him becomes a family business (ministry). Hence, your actions and your performance stems from knowing who you are as a child of God and that the Holy Spirit lives in you.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

If you relate to God as the master, you will have a slave mentality. If you relate to God as a boss, you will have a work relationship. If you relate to God as a friend, then you will have friendship and intimacy. If you relate to God as the Father, not only will you have intimacy in greater measure, but also you will start to see ministry as a family business. Your performance is affected by how you see your identity in relation to God.

Will our heavenly Father not provide if he instructs a son to go to China and preach the gospel? Will He not provide if He directs you to set up a drug rehabilitation centre? Yes. He will most absolutely provide, because when you discover sonship, whatever he asks you to do is family business and He will take care of you.

In the Body of Christ, there are slaves who have to wait for the servant of God to tell them what they don't hear from God themselves. There are servants who only approach the master only when told to. There are friends who spend time with God and know something of his heart. And then, there are children who are living and moving in the fullness of their inheritance. Which one are you? If your ministry is all about servanthood, then let me tell you that sonship is better because sonship means the Father will fend for you even as you serve Him. 

…

John 10:11-13 says:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 

Presence-Driven Donkeys (2013), Jeff Yuen 

a theology of enough

People go to extremes with money and possessions. Some preach a gospel of prosperity, based on the idea that the good life is about using money and possessions for our own happiness, which God will provide when we do the right things (for example, give to a certain ministry or say a special prayer for thirty days). On the other hand, some preach a gospel of poverty, teaching that the way to be truly spiritual is to be poor. Both extremes are dangerous. The prosperity gospel is simply greed covered in the veneer of religion. The poverty gospel is also dangerous. There is nothing spiritual about poverty, and no one is actually better for having become poor. Dallas Willard notes:

The idealization of poverty is one of the most dangerous illusions of Christians in the contemporary world. Stewardship - which requires possessions and includes giving - is the true spiritual discipline in relation to wealth... 

[I]n general, being poor is one of the poorest ways to help the poor.

Prosperity and poverty are not the only choices we have. Author and practitioner Shane Claiborne offers a third option: "We need a third way, neither the prosperity gospel nor the poverty gospel, but the Gospel of abundance rooted in a theology of enough."

A gospel of abundance is found only in the kingdom of God, where somehow we have what we need when we need it. The kingdom of God is not like an ATM where we can get an endless supply of resources to spend however we like. It is a dispenser of resources offered to those who understand the ways of the kingdom. When there is a need and a person who can meet that need, the supply will never run out.

One of the greatest dangers in America, however, is complacency. We live in an affluent society whose values are skewed. A great question is, Where is the Spirit leading me as an individual and us as a community? This requires individual and corporate discernment. Most Western Christians are not pursuing either the gospel of poverty or the gospel of prosperity. The majority of Western Christians must wrestle with what a "theology of enough" means in a culture of excess. How will we discern what is enough? Who will make that decision? 

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community (2010)

let's get the uniting going

Let me state the obvious and awful truth: the church of Jesus Christ has been split into many different factions who refuse to have fellowship with one another. For a people who claim one Lord, one faith and one baptism, we are not one church but exist in isolation, judgment, suspicion and condemnation. This is a sad and terrible situation that undoubtedly grieves the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Race, class, denomination and doctrine separate the people of God. Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week. There are over thirty thousand recognized Protestant denominations, and many of them reject every other denomination but their own.

Why? Because we have adopted a false narrative that gives us permission to separate from those who are different from us in appearance or status or belief. It goes something like this: "If you do not look like us, act like us, worship like us or think like us, we are not obligated to have fellowship with you."

Anglos worship with Anglos; Hispanics worship with Hispanics. Wealthy people attend church with wealthy people; poor people attend church with poor people. People who believe the Bible is inerrant fellowship only with those believe the same; people who believe homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle fellowship only with those who affirm same-sex relationships...

Do you speak in tongues? Do you sing hymns or praise music? Do you believe women can be pastors? Do you allow instruments in your sanctuary? These are questions we use to find out what people believe and practice, and the answers determine whether we can worship together. Some even question the salvation of those who answer differently. The sad fact is this: our divisions simply cannot be the way Jesus intended it to be. The false narrative... - if we disagree, then we must divide - allows this to happen and keeps it happening...

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community (2010)

---

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?"

1 Corinthians 3:1-4

"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."

Ephesians 2:14

and wept

"I think you will agree, once in a while God tries to break into our normal lives and tell us something important. He brings a matter to our attention that tears at our hearts, maybe even brings us to our knees. But then, sadly, so often that is all that happens. Although it consumes us for a little while and we can't stop thinking about it, eventually we start to explore something else and forget.

Because we see and hear so much nowadays, soon our hearts stop hurting. We get used to things as they are.

But that is not the way of Jesus.

Christ was the One who saw the multitudes and wept."

K.P. Yohannan

enjoying God's presence

Letting go of the need to perform for God sets our hearts on things above and turns our backs on self-importance. Instead of trying to have an accomplishment-driven relationship with God, enjoying God's presence points us toward:

• resting instead of productivity,
• being silent instead of talking,
• listening instead of giving advice,
• empowering others instead of preaching to them,
• asking questions instead of knowing answers,
• giving instead of consuming,
• striving for brokenness instead of upward mobility, and
• gearing down to simplicity instead of gearing up to empire building.

"a broken and contrite heart You do not despise"

STRENGTH FROM WEAKNESS

In these distressing moments, we lay our brokenness before God. This advances us toward the goal of knowing Him because a broken spirit dissolves the wall of self-sufficiency that separates us from God. If we're to develop a familiar friendship with God, we cannot separate ourselves from Him during pain and temptation. The lifetime process of transformation involves God purging us of our tendency to push Him away and His wooing us into union with Him and His loving will for the world.

In the New Testament, it was the broken who came to know Jesus. Think of the woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years, desperate, having spent all her money but finding no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she quietly felt the edge of His cloak (Mark 5:25-34). Like her, we can use our brokenness to finally accept that our bag of tricks for living life is not nifty enough. No amount of self-help books will rescue us. No more "looking good kid" facades - we freely admit our pain and temptation to God. Our failures strip us of self-protection, making us vulnerable to God, just as the cured woman fell at Jesus' feet, trembled with fear, and told Him the "whole truth" before the crowd of people (Mark 5:33).

Perhaps you can accept that we can find closeness with God in times of irritation and anguish, but you wonder what they hav to do with enjoying God's presence. Enjoyment comes from receiving pleasure, but it also comes from appreciating the benefits of deepening our intimacy. When we confess our shortcomings to God, we can enjoy His presence because we know that God's love envelops us in spite of our flaws. No one else so completely understands, loves, and challenges us. This familiar friendship doesn't take away the pain or temptation, but it gives us the strength to stand firm.

finding God in everyday and irritating moments

Praying for whatever is in front of you includes praying while reading the newspaper or watching the news. Wars around the world aren't just news, they're calls to pray for God's will to be done, for justice to prevail. When reading political cartoonists and outstanding editorial writers, we can pray that they'll become instruments of truth and peace - whether or not they're aware of it.

Practicing God's presence this way, then, is not an escape from the world but an engagement of the world. We process the tragedy and viciousness through our awareness that God is active in every situation. In so doing, we find one more way of fulfilling the commission Christ gave us to interact with a world that cries out for redemption in the midst of chaos.

---

Some of us are afraid to tell God about the anger and frustration that He already knows we feel. Or we deny feeling anger because we assume that God and anger cannot coexist. Instead, we put on a "looking good, kid" image with God - we look good, we feel good, we are good. Anger and frustration are regarded as obstacles to be overcome and replaced with worthy feelings - before we talk to God.

To abide in God's presence means that we don't have to dress up our feelings. If we believe God is grand enough to love our flawed self, we can speak the truth to him about what we feel - anger at others, disappointment with ourselves, resentment towards Him, the Creator. God's presence can be a safe place to reveal our laziness, our grouchiness, and our self-congratulatory ways. God invites transparent confessions about how we pretend to be better than we are, how we avoid serving when it's inconvenient, how we care for our friends best when they make us feel good, and how we focus our energy and efforts on acquiring things - just the right belt, the right stereo, the right computer chip. Confession is important not because God needs this information but because we need to be willing to give it. In this way, our conversation with God becomes open, honest, and personal.

...

To ask questions is not the same as to disobey. Refusing to obey means walking away from God's will, as Jonah did (Jonah 1:3). Sometimes we, like Jonah, don't ask a question or say a word, but quietly refuse to do what God asks. It's wiser to offer God our passionate questions so He can help us obey. Then we're engaging and seeking God even though we're confused, scared, or angry. Our searching nurtures the passion that keeps us looking at God, talking with God, and listening to God.

But won't God get angry? God's anger did burn against Moses when he finally pleaded, "Please send someone else" (Exodus 4:13), but even then God did not act in anger. He acted in great love, designating Aaron as a companion to Moses. To what does God respond in anger? The most consistent example is His punishment of Israel. God punished them when they rebelled against Him by idolizing their life in Egypt (Numbers 16) and by worshiping idols. God's wrath is against disobedience and unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Offering God our irritations is not unrighteousness, but a way to keep ourselves from unrighteousness. It helps us avoid outward rage and prolonged bitterness as we attempt, day by day, to turn over unruly feelings and inappropriate desires to God.

...

In order to abide in Christ and enjoy God's presence, we must learn not to pretend to be okay. Withholding our true feelings blocks the development of an intimate relationship with God. Notice how Mary and Martha did not shrink from speaking their minds to Jesus: "If you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21,32). Only Martha, not Mary, added the hopeful statement, "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask" (John 11:22). Mary and Martha were rigorously honest about their feelings. Did their honesty irritate Jesus? The text doesn't say, so we don't know. But He didn't reject them or try to "whip them into shape" with a sermon. After comforting them with words of truth about the resurrection, Jesus went to the tomb and wept publicly, revealing His feelings of grief.

In the shelter of such a friendship, we can tell God what we really think. We don't have to hide from Him when we're angry. 

working out the Golden Rule

As the full congregation rose to sing the last hymn, Taylor looked around. Pew upon pew of prosperous, bearded merchants, shopkeepers, visitors; demure wives in bonnets and crinolines, scrubbed children trained to hide their impatience; the atmosphere of smug piety sickened him. He seized his hat and left. 'Unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security, while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony.'

...

'Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man's death - because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?" ... What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing "waft, waft ye winds, the story." The winds will never waft the story. But they may waft us...'

...

'If you all feel burdened, as the Chairman says, then that is one of the strongest reasons against a collection. I do not want your burden to be relieved by making a contribution here and now under present emotions. Go home burdened with the deep need of China. Ask God what He would have you do. If to give money, give it to any missionary society with agents in China, or you can post it to our London office! But in many cases God may want, not money, but yourself, or giving up a son or daughter to His service, or prayer. A collection often leaves the impression that the object of the meeting has been obtained. But no amount of money can convert a single soul.'

"it is not convenient"

He told them about a newly married young Chinese who had fallen overboard from a coastal junk into shallow water and deep mud. Taylor had rushed on deck at the splash and cry, found the crew looking helplessly at the spot where the man had disappeared. 'I leapt overboard and waded about in the hope of finding him. Unsuccessful, I looked around in agonizing suspense, and saw close to me a fishing boat with a peculiar drag-net furnished with hooks, which I knew would bring him up.

"Come and drag over this spot directly; a man is drowning just here!"

"It is not convenient."

"Don't talk of convenience! A man is drowning, I tell you!"

"We are busy fishing, and cannot come."

"Never mind your fishing," I said, "I will give you more money than many a day's fishing will bring; only come - come at once!"

"How much money will you give us?"

"We cannot stay to discuss that now! Come, or it will be too late. I will give you five dollars" (then worth about thirty shillings in English money).

"We won't do it for that," replied the men. "Give us twenty dollars, and we will drag."

"I do not possess so much; do come quickly, and I will give you all I have!"

"How much may that be?"

"I don't know exactly, about fourteen dollars."

'At last, but even then slowly enough, the boat was paddled over and the net let down. Less than a minute sufficed to bring up the body of the missing man. The fishermen were clamorous and indignant because their exorbitant demand was delayed while efforts at resuscitation were being made. But all was made in vain. Life was extinct.'

Taylor paused. He could sense hot indignation sweep the Scots at such callous indifference. Quietly he continued, 'Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man's death - because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?"

He dilated on the value of a soul, spoke of 'a million a month...' and swiftly arrayed the mass of facts at his finger tips, to murmurs of amazement at this stark unfolding. The beliefs of his audience on heaven and hell, on the uniqueness of Christ as Saviour, on the awfulness of separation from God in this world and in eternity, were his. They knew the terms, the Biblical allusions, accepted the speaker's premises; were genuine in piety but unaware that 'spiritual sanctification' springs from unselfish action.

Taylor passed to the story of an ex-Buddhist merchant, an educated man, who had been baptized after attending the little church in Ningpo. 'He asked me soon afterwards, "How long have you known this Good News in your own country?"

"Hundreds of years."

"Hundreds of years! And yet never came to tell us! My father sought the truth, sought it long, and died without finding it. Oh, why did you not come sooner?"

Taylor began his conclusion. 'Shall we say that the way was not open? At any rate it is open now. Before the next Perth Conference twelve millions more, in China, will have passed forever beyond our reach. What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing "waft, waft ye winds, the story." The winds will never waft the story. But they may waft us...'

Hudson Taylor & Maria: A Match Made in Heaven (1962)

John Pollock

the struggle for justice

"The poorest people in our world suffer from a lot of familiar problems. They suffer from hunger, homelessness, illiteracy and sickness. And in response, all over the world, people of goodwill bring to bear familiar forms of assistance: we bring food and shelter and education and medicine.

But at the root of much of this suffering is actually a different problem - a less familiar problem - namely, violence. Many times the widow's children are hungry because bullies have stolen her land and she can no longer grow her own food. The street child is homeless because sexual abuse in the home has forced her onto the streets. The young boy is illiterate because he is held as a slave in a brick factory and can't go to school. The teenage girl has AIDS because she has been forcibly infected with the disease while held captive in a brothel.

In such cases we can't meet the root cause of suffering with the familiar remedies of food, shelter, schools or medicine. It simply doesn't meet the need. In fact, we can give all manner of goods and services to the poor, but if we do not restrain the hands of the bullies from taking it away, we will be disappointed in the long-term outcome of our efforts. As the rock-star activist Bono has learned from his work with the poor in Africa, caring for the poor is "not a matter of charity; it's a matter of justice."

This then is one of the things that makes IJM's calling to the church so different. We are calling Christians to address the distinctive problem of violence that lies beneath so much of the suffering of the poor - the suffering that tenaciously keeps so many of the poor in poverty.

To be clear, among the global poor, hunger, homelessness, education and medical care are massive needs worthy of our urgent attention. But the traditional remedies for these problems simply don't address the underlying problems of aggressive violence.

Violence is different. Violence is intentional. Violence is scary. And violence causes deep scars. Accordingly, to deal with violence, Christians must be different."

---

"This then is the ultimate paradox of our despair over injustice. It masquerades in the robes of hard thinking, realistic analysis and modesty, and dismisses hope as illusory, naive and even arrogant. But truth be told, it is despair that has the facts wrong. In the long run, it is always the tyrants and the bullies who end up on the ash heap of history. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe is long indeed. Sometimes unbearably long. But on both small and epic scales, it does bend toward justice. And miraculously, God has given into human hands the power to bend it more quickly to its ultimate destination. This is what the facts of history tell us. Indeed, God intends that our hope in the work of justice be built not simply on bare theological assertions about the character of God but also on the hard factual evidence about the track record of God.

Hope is not simply wishful thinking; it is a fruit of the Spirit born of the spiritual discipline of remembering."

Just Courage: God's Great Expedition for the Restless Christian (2008)

Gary A. Haugen

prophecy for women

In thirty years Christians will have baptized their picture of Christ. He won't be a nice, banal, meek, and bearded man with softly permed hair. Instead, he will fill our imaginations more solidly, more invasively, more unexpectedly. Christ will become That Man who changes people, someone who jumps off of bumper stickers and mediocre praise songs and into lives, a presence much more like Gandalf the Grey than Mr. Rogers. 

... 

When this change comes and we see Christ differently, others will notice.

... 

Christian women will no longer be known as the quiet, meek, and somewhat pathetic group who doesn't experience twenty-first-century freedom. Instead, we will be of something of an admired anomaly, sought after as the most informed believers in the value of femininity. We will define womanhood beyond gentle and quiet submission, curves, baby production, and high heels. We will understand and cogently explain how women are both body and soul and valuable for more than sex appeal. We will be known as "those women" who are not afraid of old age and its mark on our bodies. Our self-possession will make us a challenging group for marketers to target. We will be less concerned with proving our equality with men and more intent on building our souls for the Kingdom of God. 

... 

In thirty years our souls will be bigger.  

Jonalyn Fincher 

In David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian (2007)

judgmentalism

Our research with Christians confirms that often we miss the point of reflecting Jesus to outsiders because we are too busy catering to the expectations of other believers. One church leader explained how a few vocal members of his church prevented him from partnering with another local congregation because the potential partner was "too seeker sensitive." Another believer explained how her efforts to engage people affected by HIV/AIDS have been routinely vilified by some Christians because of the perception that she is being manipulated by homosexual activists. A young Christian leader who developed an inner-city ministry told me how one of his board members questioned whether there were "too many black kids" attending. One influential Christian leader was roundly criticized for engaging in a respectful dialogue with advocates of a different faith. 

unChristian (2007)

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons 

I have forgotten many but here are pieces of advice Christians have offered to me that has stuck around in my head.

"Don't go to Little India. There are many foreign workers there."

"Why go to poor countries? You've nowhere better to spend your money?"

"Be careful of the poor people. They have headlice."

"Stop thinking about Muslims. You'll get into trouble."

In my heart, I was rolling my eyes at these comments, and I felt they were not insulting me, but the Jesus whom they profess to follow...the same Jesus who hung out with traitors, thieves, prostitutes, the demonized, the sick and dying - those who were considered the 'sinners' and filthy people of his society.

Reading this, I was like, "Yes, totally! If only these people would read what David Kinnaman is saying."  Especially when one of them continues to be the self-appointed Gestapo of his/her church and rather vocal commentator on Facebook about sensational local news. Interacting with him/her can sometimes be frustrating.

But I know that I have my own share of prejudice and judgmentalism, often in order to shield myself from being vulnerable to people who may (again) exploit my willingness to show my flaws. Or just a plain unwillingness to show people that I don't have it all together - who does anyway? For fear that what I believe to be true may be unduly and unsoundly refuted. This isn't like Jesus, isn't it? I'm not trusting that he vindicates and heals me. It's not supposed to be me acting on my own efforts and suspicion of others. 

You may be saying, "What terrible people you have been talking about!" But you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you do these very same things...Don't you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don't you care? Can't you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin?

Romans 2: 1,4

And now it's time for me to make an overdue apology to someone.



International Justice Mission: celebrating justice

‎

...punishment of perpetrators, however lawful, is never meant to be our final action in their lives. We show godly love toward a perpetrator by restraining him or her from harming others, but also by praying for their reconciliation with their Maker. Perpetrators of even the most violent, dark crimes still bear the image of God and are so loved by him that God sent his Son to die for them as well.  

Gary Haugen

I've never seen a video on social justice that shows the legal conviction of people who exact harm and injustice on people's lives - and celebrates that! Perhaps my idea of social justice has been romantic. 

Sure, I grieve for people who suffer unjustly and I'm angry at people who exact such harm on others (and themselves). I dream of the oppressed being free, but I have not really thought about the need to also free the oppressors...from the destruction they are bringing.

not much longer to go

Parents rarely let go of children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003) 
Mitch Albom

A few friends who read my posts said they did not understand what I meant when I first wrote about us willfully severing ourselves from our parents' lives two years ago.

And now Mitch Albom reminds me of the same thing again. My parents are in their late 50s and early 60s. There's not much longer of life now to go, unless they would return to Jesus...and rest.

what ordinary people can do

The first question we may ask is, Why do massacres and other atrocities...occur? On one level this is the easiest question to answer.

I don't mean to be glib in stating this so simply, but I believe the reason these offenses occur is because people choose to indulge their selfish and brutal urges to dominate the defenseless. They have chosen to live in rebellion against the God of love and goodness who made them, and now they are left with nothing but their own sinful nature, or whatever you want to call it - the unrestrained will to power, the unmediated libido, the nausea of existence, misogynistic male aggression. Scripture graphically describes such people:

Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit...
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.
There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:13-18)

If people have no respect for God, no love for their Maker, I would ask the question another way: Why not pillage, rape, persecute and murder? If it feels good, and they can get away with it, why not? If God is dead or does not exist, as these people believe, why aren't all things permitted? Why should they restrain themselves? Because it's just wrong? Because it's not the way civilized people behave? Because what goes around comes around? Because they'll end up feeling terrible inside?

Within tidy circles of properly socialized and reasonable people, such appeals can seem like they actually have the power to restrain people from doing what they otherwise feel like doing. But in the real world outside the philosophy seminar room, oppressors frankly don't care that you think it's just wrong. Who are you, they ask, to foist your random moral intuition on them? Who are you to tell them or the lords of the Third Reich what civilized people should and should not do? If what goes around tends to come around, then there's no moral problem, only a practical problem of making sure it doesn't come around to you. They think, Fine, if being brutal makes you feel terrible inside, then don't do it. But it makes me feel powerful, alive, exhilarated and masterful, so quit whining - unless you want to try to stop me.

This description of a dark Nietzschean world of self-will - a vacuum devoid of moral authority or spiritual resources for good - used to seem excessively melodramatic to me. But then I got out more. The world is truly full of brutal oppression because humans have rejected their Maker, the source of all goodness, mercy, compassion, truth, justice and love.

Personally, I do not have a difficult time understanding that without God I am as lost as the oppressor. When I don't depend on the Holy Spirit moment by moment every day, I see the ugliness in me come out: selfishness, pride, insensitivity, anger, gossip, ingratitude, self-righteousness, self-deception, jealousy and covetousness, to name a few.

For most of us these latent forces of great sin are kept in check by various social and cultural restraints, but we should be under no illusions about what exists at the human core. Perfectly ordinary human beings are actually capable of being mass murderers. In Rwanda...When all restraints are released, farmers, clerks, school principals, mothers, doctors, mayors and carpenters pick up machetes and hack to death defenseless women and children. And this happened in a nation where 80 percent of the citizens identified themselves as Christian...the person without God (or perhaps worse, the person without God but claiming "God", "Jesus", "Muhammad", whatever) is a very scary creature.

Good News About Injustice (1999)
Gary Haugen

real courage

King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego, 6th c. BC

  

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. 

Puddleglum to the White Witch, Narnia: The Silver Chair

I would call such zeal a farce if it were misdirected and insisted on something like "I believe shoes are living organisms". I would also not quote from a random piece of fiction except that C.S. Lewis intended Narnia to be an allegory of Christ, people and the Kingdom of God. But I am convinced that God exists and has reached down to us. I want to be able to bank everything on him - him or nothing...to have a faith in him that is courageous and big enough to trust in his infinitely bigger being. And to live my short time here according to what I know he wants me to do.

 

walking so far below

If I seem a little unedged, it's because I am. 

Because a big price was paid for this grace! and we're walking so far below it... 

'Cause I think about what my Lord did, when I think about him having those nails driven into his hands - completely innocent - my Creator, he didn't deserve to die, but yet he chose to do it so that he could give me his nature. 

And we have reduced his grace! Down to fire insurance and a ticket to heaven it so angers me. Because the devil's having a party and he's going, "We've kept it from them. let them have all the church buildings they want, let them have all the Bibles they want. They're powerless, they're not hurting our kingdom." 

When in reality such a price was paid, that's why I seem a little bit unedged.

 Relentless Curriculum (2011)
John Bevere

In our work together with God, then, we beg you who have received God's grace not to let it be wasted.

2 Corinthians 6:1

Aslan

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring
                                                         again.

 Mr. Beaver reciting an old rhyme
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Yes, Lion of Judah! When this decaying order of our world is replaced, when you wipe the tears from every eye, when there will be no more crying, mourning, or pain again (Revelations 21:4).

God and academia

As Christians, we of course want our worldview to be fundamentally derived from God's Word, not the climate of opinion that happens to prevail in the world in which we live. Still, since "all truth is God's truth," as Augustine taught us, we should assume that whatever is true about the views of our culture, including the views of science, will be consistent with God's Word (assuming we are interpreting it correctly). 

Locating this element of truth in the culture and aligning it with our theology based on the Word can be advantageous to communicating credibly the truth of the Word to our culture. It can also help us more effectively think through and apply our theology for our culture and for ourselves. This is why our theology should be developed in dialogue with every other branch of learning. Whatever truth is to be found in physics, biology, anthropology, and so on is God's truth and can only help us credibly proclaim the truth of God's Word to the world.

God of the Possible (2008)
Greg Boyd