the olympics are killing me...

Last night I told myself things would be different. Yesterday I had three people tell me that I looked tired. I was tired! I had been up until 1:30 watching the olympics. They are like heroin. No matter how hard you try, you just can't tear yourself away. So last night I told myself that I was going to go to bed early... well, 1:00am rolled around and I was still watching gymnastics. Evidently I have little to no self control. Go USA!

D.A. Carson quote

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."

- D. A. Carson

Drifting

I am currently doing a series in our college group called "Postcards from the Edge." The series is on Revelation 2-3 and Jesus' letters to the churches. These letters are just jam packed with relevant encouragement and correction. This week I am teaching on the letter to the church in Pergamum. I think it's one of the most cryptic letters out of the seven, but after some study I feel like I have wrapped my mind around what it's saying.

This whole passage is about compromise. It references the Nicolatians in Rev 2:15. There is a lot of debate about who these people were and what they believed. What I found was that early church tradition held that the Nicolatians were formed by Nicolas who is mentioned in Acts 6 as one of the men chosen to help lead the church at Antioch. Revelation 2:12-17 tells the story of a slow slide. Attrition. Drifting.

It's so easy to do isn't it? Especially in a culture that values busyness and constantly having something going on. I mean, when was the last time that I turned my cell phone OFF? As I studied and read this passage (and looked into the background), I am convinced that God would have something to say to his church through this passage today! It's easy to drift and not know it. Maybe we aren't even drifting yet, but you can see your eyes are starting to wonder.

The other night I was watching the men's 4x100 relay. Awesome. But the things that stood out to me was how France faded in the end and the US finished stronger than they started. I want to keep growing... I don't want to fade.

Good News

Well, I think I have told most people by now, but I am going to be a dad come February. I'm so excited for that change that is coming. I'm not sure if you're ever totally ready, but I feel pretty ready.

I inserted  picture to the right... I think he/she looks like me!

Faith = Seeing?

I have been wrestling with the passage that I am teaching on this weekend. I am teaching out of Hebrews 11:1 and finishing our series on Childlike Faith (called Wide Eyed Wonder). The passage in Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. As I looked at the meaning of the words 'sure' and 'certain' in the Greek, I was even more confused...

The KJV translation of passage is "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (by the way, I don't usually side with the KJV translation, but in this case I think might have gotten it). See, they translated faith as evidence. At first that doesn't make any sense, in fact, it seems like circular reasoning. But then I ran across this C.S. Lewis quote... I think he nailed what this passage means and is getting at. 

Lewis (in The Weight of Glory) wrote, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." In this sense, faith is evidence. It is seeing. It is seeing God's invisible attributes through the things that he has made (Rm 1:20).  Faith doesn't create something in and of itself, it sees what is really there... lying almost eerily just beneath the surface - waiting and wanting to be exposed. 

They Like Jesus 2

As a college staff we are continuing to go through the book, They Like Jesus But Not the Church. As previously posted, I highly recommend the book. This week we read a chapter where Dan Kimball interviews people and asks them what they think about Jesus. Some of the adjectives they used to describe him were: powerful, good teacher, moral, loving, beautiful, etc. I read the comments that most of these people made and I thought that I could easily be listening to someone who was a follower (and a strong follower at that) of Jesus Christ. Yet, non of the people professed to be Christians. 

I have to ask the question... why not? If Jesus is that captivating to people, why aren't they followers? I think that the people Kimball chose to interview represent a pretty accurate view of people's perceptions of Jesus. I hear many of the same responses when out am out on the local campuses. So the question ruminates in me. Honestly, I don't have an answer. I know that Kimball's conclusion is that they are turned off by the church. I'm not sure that I buy that as the sole reason... especially since most of their conclusions about church seem to be drawn from television evangelists. This is a question that I will be thinking about for a while.

One of the reasons that come to mind is that it is easy to look upon someone or something and find it attractive or beautiful, yet not be willing to pay the price to have the thing. I think that people realize the beauty of Jesus, yet they also recognize (maybe more fully) what it demands to follow him. I think its the same thing that happened to the rich young man (Luke 18). He had seen the glory of Jesus, yet he was unwilling to forsake all to follow. 

Whatever the reason, I am once again encouraged that people are far more open to Jesus than I give them credit for.

They Like Jesus...

I am currently reading the book "They Like Jesus, But Not the Church" by Dan Kimball with our college ministry staff. It is a phenomenal book. I highly recommend it to anyone working in Christian ministry or anyone who has been a Christian for a while. It has been so challenging to me, and it has pointed out some areas in my life that I really want to change and grow in. It has forced me to see the way that I have become part of the Christian bubble. I spend most of my time on the church campus, hanging out with Christians, ministering to Christians. This book is really inspiring me look at my schedule and in a very practical way find times that I can intentionally be away from the office.

It has been so encouraging to see the way that people outside the church view Jesus. In fact this is very consistent with what I have seen at CSUSM and Palomar. Every Wednesday I go to palomar and talk to people about fauth, they are very willing to talk about Jesus, they are very interested in who he is and open to those discussions. I am excited to pursue that further next fall!