So You Wanna Follow Christ?

  I was in Sunday School this week like every good Christian boy should be when the gravity of Jesus' teaching about loving your enemies slapped me harder than .44 slug. I had heard that phrase from Luke 6 so many times, I had become calloused. Love your enemies? That sounds like it would be easy to do right? Just tell yourself that you love them and rock on. But I have not loved my enemies.
  As we established before, love is a verb. When you love someone you are doing something. Just a recap; some of the things love does and doesn't do are found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

  Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  (NKJV)

   So we're expected to do and be these things for our ENEMIES. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time being these things to people I like, let alone my enemies, the people that are against me!
  You are probably nodding along with me, saying, "Yeah, Jesus said that." Do you realize what Jesus is saying?! If some punk stole your iPod, what would you do? Would you press charges? Would you just get it back and tell him he's lucky you're not pressing charges? Would you get it, tell him Jesus loves him, and send him off, telling him you're praying for him? That's better than I could do! In this situation, Jesus would want you to either let him keep the iPod, or buy him a new one! Isn't that radical?! This is the Christian lifestyle my friend. This is what you and I are supposed to do.
  Jesus tells us to give our money away. He tells us to give it to people when they want to borrow it. I have brothers and sisters, and they sometimes (ok, barely ever) ask to borrow $20 or something. How awesome would it be to just give it to them? Wouldn't that show love in a really tangible way?
  And let me ask you a personal question. Do you need all the money you have? Do you really need to set aside money to go to movies, or to go out to eat? Now I'm totally not against fun, but is your fun more important to you than what could be the difference between someones eternal damnation or salvation? Now of course I believe God gives joy to his people who obey him. Who says giving money away can't be fun? You can do it in some crazy, awesome way, like buying ribs for the guys at Harley Davidson if they let you share the gospel with them in exchange. Be creative for Jesus, Man! God will bless you for it! If not here on earth, it'll be in heaven.
  Now on the topic of turning the other cheek, that can be applied against human nature a lot of ways. From the physical, to the spiritual and intellectual, cheek-turning is outrageous. Who of you has ever had the urge to be quiet when someone insults you? Raise your hand if you pray for someone out of instinct when they're a first-class jerk to you. If you have urges and instincts like that, I have a psychiatrist friend I can refer you to. Jesus tells us to go against human instinct by turning the other cheek and praying for those who persecute you. These are not the ways of this world! This is earth shaking!
  I haven't even begun to master this yet. But I'm gonna give it my best shot. How 'bout you?

God's Love

What is Love? If you look up the word in a dictionary you'll get some skewed results. The Bible says that God is love, but which definition of love is that? Are we talking about romantic love, family love, the "like" love? I could say "I love Owl City" and people wouldn't blink an eye. I could also say I loved a girl (we won't go in to names here) and people would probably say "awwww...." (depending on the girl). I could say I love my mom, and people would say how sweet our family is. But I get the feeling God's love is a little different than any of the types that come to mind when you or I say it.

     You could look at what God commanded the Israelites to do in the Old Testament and say "How is God love? He just ordered this king to annihilate a whole nation, not sparing women, children or livestock!" This is because of people's misconception of what God's love is. God's love is holy and jealous, and when a country is devoid of holy men, God will take action. And also understand this, before the Jews rejected Jesus, God's love was reserved first and foremost for the Jews. (However, they forfeited this exclusivity when they would not accept Jesus as the Messiah.) His love for the Israelites is what drove him to rid the surrounding land of any trace of heathens. And the killing of the livestock shows this; when a king killed livestock, he's not in it for the spoils, he's in it because God said he better be. 

    Look at it this way. If you had a staph infection on your arm, you obviously wouldn't want it to spread, and possibly take a limb, or kill you. And you wouldn't be concerned about just keeping it localized. You'd want to kill it with antibiotics immediately. You would most definitely be concerned with the little bacteria that were just formed, they're just as harmful. As harsh as it sounds I believe this is how God treated the heathen that surrounded Israel.

    

Now for God's love after Christ, here's our guide:

Love never gives up. 

Love cares more for others than for self. 

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. 

Love doesn't strut, 

Doesn't have a swelled head, 

Doesn't force itself on others, 

Isn't always "me first," 

Doesn't fly off the handle, 

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, 

Doesn't revel when others grovel, 

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, 

Puts up with anything, 

Trusts God always, 

Always looks for the best, 

Never looks back, 

But keeps going to the end. (1 Corinthians 13, The Message)

Now that's a long list, and if you're like me, you probably didn't read it all. I forgive you. Even looking at the top 5 I can see that there are very few people I love according to these standards.
   This is pretty interesting; you can use syllogisms and universal affirmatives to find out things about God. Check this out:

All of God's Attributes are Perfect.  (Major Premise)
One of God's Attributes is Love.     (Minor Premise)

Therefore, Love is Perfect.              (Conclusion)

God's love is perfect. Men are not perfect, we're sinners. We cannot love perfectly. Only God can. So does that mean we should despair and give up on loving people? Heck no! Some person wiser than I said it like this: "God's standards are set unattainably high so that we have no excuse to become complacent." 

Authenticity

Authenticity in one's spiritual life is becoming an increasingly sparse trait. Revelation 3:15-16 says this:

"I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You're not cold, you're not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, 'I'm rich, I've got it made, I need nothing from anyone,' oblivious that in fact you're a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless." (The Message)

On a scale of "cold" to "hot", with "cold" being "never heard of Jesus" and "hot" being "on fire for Jesus", the people He's talking about are on the middle ground. A dangerous place to be. These people worship religion. Being raised in the church, I find the practice of "worshipping worship" frighteningly easy to slip into. It's like those big chocolate easter bunnies. It looks good and pretty on the outside, but it's hollow on the inside. From experience, you can live this way unquestioned and unchallenged!
      I know a handful people who are authentic in their faith, and they are the best role models I have. My dad is the first and foremost. He has taught me to love Christ with a different kind of love than usual. As the group DC Talk once sang "Luv is a Verb". See, dad doesn't go to church on sunday morning. He goes to jail. He's gone to there to preach every Sunday morning, unless out of town, for 42 years straight. He doesn't train other people to do it, he doesn't take in cameras, and he'll never talk about it unless asked. He isn't recognized by our church, or by the jail, as a chaplain. But he doesn't want recognition, he wants action. Every sunday he goes in there he leads scores of people to faith in the Saviour. That's all he needs to know. He has no interest in reward from anyone but Christ Himself. This is truly authenticity.
  Another authentic Christian that I hold in high regard is a man named James. James may be best described as a wanderer. He reminds me of the 70 that Jesus sent out to do his work with nothing but the shoes on their feet and the clothes on their back. James lives with the destitute, and shares Jesus' love with them. He has no real base, but goes where he feels the Lord wants him to. This attitude is so radical! A man who values the souls of homeless dirty people more than he does his own comforts? This surely is not politically correct, but how politically correct are we supposed to be? We are called to be like Christ and as I recall, Christ called the leaders of the ruling class of Jerusalem a "den of snakes" and "of your father the devil". Are we supposed to be content as practicing church-goers, or are we supposed to mirror the life of Christ as closely as possible? Not all are called to the wandering lifestyle, but I would wager that there are many people who are called to, that brush off the urge because they're scared of doing something so different from the norm. However, as my pal Dave Ramsey says, "Normal is broke."
   So are we called to be complacent? Obviously, no. But when you give it some thought, you might realize how complacent you've become, how manual your time with God is, how little you think about furthering the church, and how little you pray. I Challenge you to strive for an old fashioned, honest to goodness, relationship with Christ. This will make you happier than any church service can.

Lifestyle Missionaries

Take a look at the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit - Matthew 28:19 (ESV)

Many times when Christians read this passage, they see "all nations" and think "Oh, that means foreign nations!" Yes, it does include foreign nations, but you don't have to live somewhere exotic to be a missionary. In fact the word "Christian" should be synonymous with "missionary".
Have you ever met someone who has gone on a missions trip, say to Mexico, and they say things like "Oh, the poverty there is just atrocious, the people there have never heard the gospel plan, it's just horrible! I'm definitely thinking about going into full time missions."
I've heard things like that before when our college students or youth come back from a mission trip. But I wonder if the students have ever gone to the bad part of town and done missionary work there, where the poverty is atrocious, and the people have never heard the true gospel plan? Have they ever gone to where the homeless people spend the night and given them blankets and socks and jackets and said "You're important to God"? Do Churches regularly go into the slums to share the gospel with the smelly old crazy lady, or the drug addict, or the vet who is scarred so deep it's impossible for him to sleep without nightmares? Do youth groups go on summer mission trips to the southeast part of town, where the kids run around in gangs and carry guns?
I've never heard of that. I think one of the reasons that isn't done widely is that Christians have a tendency to think that we're "clean" and we don't like to see dirty things. We'd much rather go on a mission trip to Chicago, where we can see the Sears Tower, and watch the White Sox play.
Matthew 9:10-12 says:

Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew's house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus' followers. "What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?" Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders. (The Message)"

If we truly want to be like Jesus we need to get out of the suburbs and into the slums. If we don't we're doomed to be Christ's lazy servants.

Christ's Righteousness As My Own

I'm a pretty nasty person in my eyes, and in most other peoples eyes. I continue to sin, and have pretty much given up on being perfect. I feel like Paul when he says "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate!"

I am always doing something wrong, something that I do out of impulse, like speaking wrongly to my Mom, acting disrespectfully with my Dad, saying something I know I shouldn't, being a rear to my sister, etc., etc. It's emotionally draining! It's hard to talk to God when you've done soooo many things that you know He's displeased with. Think about that.

Here's a glimpse into the brilliant wandering mind of Joshua Privette:

Let's say your Dad gives you a list of rules to follow and says "Son, if you can keep all these rules and live accordingly, I will lavish good things upon you and you will be so happy." and you say "Okay Dad! I'll do it!" and so for the next two days you follow all of the rules.

BUT... one of the rules is: Do not covet. Uh-oh. As you're hanging out with your friend, you start talking about a girl. She's a girl you both know, and She's shown some interest in you. You adore her. And you plan to ask her out tomorrow. You haven't told your friend (let's call him "Jared" for fun) that you're going to. So you're talking to Jared and He says "Hot Dog! I asked this girl (let's call her Rachel) out today and She said yes. My Goodness, She is fine!" You think "What a dirty rotten friend Jared is! I can't believe he asked Rachel out! Doesn't he know I like her?! I've liked her since I was like, 10!! Boy, if I can't have her, I don't want him to either." So you start Plotting ways (in the left lobe of your brain) to break them up. An alarm goes off in your Dad's office that is conveniently labeled "Joshua is breaking our agreement" And you know it. So you say "$#!% I can't believe I broke the agreement!" And then you think "GAH! I just broke it again! (one of the rules was no cuss words) Do you really want to rush in and have a "chat" with your Dad just then? I wouldn't. I would be kind of scared. But did you know that your Dad (let's call him God) would say "Joshua, I'm gonna whip your rear, and don't ever do that again, but I know you're human and have human tendencies, so let's get over it and move on. I still love you and will still lavish great things upon you, just because you're my son."

See!? When God looks at you after you sin, he doesn't see your sin! He sees Jesus' righteousness! Instead of being tremulous after we sin we should go RUNNING back to him as fast as we can praying for forgiveness. It only prolongs our own misery to wait and be afraid of what God will say. I just found that out. I couldn't wait to tell.

Haul Booty Back to God