How Christians are now proclaiming Good News to the World!

So far this week, the news from American Christianity......

Salt and light.

*sigh*

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If you've ever felt like God was far away from you while you were walking through the "valley of the shadow of death," you aren't alone. The book of Job teaches us that what He allows to happen in our lives doesn't have any bearing on His closeness to us, although our hearts and feelings would tell us differently.
Even those we admire for their sacrifice and faithfulness have to walk this path.

An Exercise in Contradictions

Men love systems. We love logic and order. A system where everything fits nicely and it all works perfectly-we men love that sort of thing.
But in reality? Well, occasionally we build stuff and there are parts left over....Christmas toys, furniture that you have to assemble, etc. And then we think...hmmmm-whoops! I wonder where that was supposed to go.....?

Sometimes when we look at scripture, we try to discover systems in order for us to understand God. Sometimes we create systems (hence "Systematic Theology") from bible verses that we think make sense. Do you think we really can build systems to make sense of an almighty infinite God?

But we try.

And we try.

And we ignore things that don't fit our systems.

What do you do with the Old Testment commandment to stone those who commit adultery, but then Jesus comes and says "He who is without sin can throw the first stone." It doesn't fit the system.

What about God telling the Israelites not to marry foreigners who serve other Gods, but yet the book of Esther deals with a Jewish woman who marries a King who doesn't serve her God.

And thats not including the whole "unequally yoked" idea in the New Testament.

Scripture also says that Esther hid her Jewish identity and beliefs from her husband the King. We love the idea that God saved His people through Esther, but we don't like the fact that the King exiles his old queen because she wouldn't come in and dance in front of his friends at a drunken party. And then he has a beauty pageant to find a new queen (Esther). Aren't beauty pageants based on the wrong things?

So God takes a beauty pageant and a man's visual stimulation, a man who had asked his former wife to come dance at a party for his friends (you can guess what kind of dancing, I'm sure), and then divorces her just because. So this guy looks for a new queen and Esther, a woman of God, marries this guy?

How many girls can't wait to marry a guy like that?

Probably very few.

How many girls honestly believe that its God's will for them to go through that?

How many girls should hide their faith from their husbands who are unsaved?

The New Testament principles speak completely against what Esther did in this story to become queen.....but God uses Esther anyways. It doesn't fit the system, but then we begin to realize that God isn't limited by our systems. God functions outside of every system we come up with. Calendars, clocks, theology-doesn't matter.

Maybe it's time to start thinking that we don't have a clue what God's system is, only that we should be faithful with the parts that we clearly understand. There's some verses that we don't hear much at church, but are clear and simple to understand.

Luke 12 has a few that have challenged me this week. Here's one:

15 Then (Jesus) said, "Beware! Don't be greedy for what you don't have. Real life is not measured by how much we own."

I didn't need a system to figure that out. There's not figurative language involved. But does our life and our church reflect that kind of living?

Read Matthew 5 and 6-the sermon on the Mount. Many of the ideas there aren't hidden or veiled. Love your enemies. Go the extra mile with someone in need. Stop taking revenge.

Does our life and our church reflect that kind of living?

These are tough teachings that we like to ignore because they don't fit into our system of Sunday and Wednesday church services, small groups, Christian Radio and books. They contradict what we naturally want to do-which is normally all about us.

But I think God is really, really interested in getting us outside our systems of what we think He's about and what we think church is for. It's not about us or our systems or what we think.

It's about what He thinks. And for us, that sometimes doesn't seem to fit.

When we discover an apparent contradiction, maybe there's an opportunity to look at how God is moving and what He is saying before we try to fit Him into our systems.

He wants us to discover Him and fall in love with Him. He never asked us to figure Him out.

Caller, are you there?

BREAKING NEWS (beep ba beep beep beep doot da doot da doot)

Once again, Friday morning (Friday, August 17) from 7 am until 8:30 am. I'll be the guest on the Reach FM morning show with Lysa. The topic is "Opposite Day." (<:

For those in the Broward area, you can check us out on 94.5 . ReachFM is also in Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm, and many more places now....it's an amazing opportunity! If you are elsewhere in Florida, you can find out your local station by going to: http://www.reachfm.org/where-to-listen/

Or you can stream live online by going to www.reachfm.org and clicking on the "Listen Live!" at the top of the page.

Call in if you get a chance-it always makes me feel really really popular. (Mom, this doesn't necessarily mean you).....

Thanks!
drew

Labels-the first part.

Have you ever reached the point in your life where you are tired of being labeled by something? Where you felt like you were more than that one thing that everyone else saw?

I heard an interesting piece of trivia a few months ago that really stuck with me. I have no idea if it's true, but think with me on this one.....In Britain, it is considered extremely rude to ask someone in conversation what they do for a living. And the reason is this: if someone is sitting at a pub next to someone else, their opinion should be equal to the other, no matter what the pay scale or job title. They should be able to talk politics, religion, or whatever without any labels-while simply just being people. Unfortunately, in America that's one of the first questions we ask each other in conversation. And then we label each other based on that one attribute.

Labels-why do we concern ourselves so much with them? On clothes, cars, zip codes, neighborhoods, watches, jewelry-they dominate our thinking when it comes to spending our money. But what about the labels that we place on each other?

I was at Animal Kingdom a couple weeks ago, and I was taking a walking tour of some exotic animals, and I was standing in front of the Okapi area. I had never seen an Okapi before, and I have to say that it did look pretty wacky. For a picture, check here.

While I was amazed at the creativity of a God who made this animal, and made its DNA unique from anything else, a lady walked up behind me with her husband and after about 5 seconds said this. "Oh, this is just a half-horse, half-giraffe." And then they kept on WALKING!

I couldn't believe it! Here was an animal that has been transplanted from the other side of the world, and this woman labeled it and was immediately disinterested after 5 seconds. She didn't care to know any more about it-she had already put it in a group she thought she already grasped.

And guess what? We do the same thing, but with each other.

We tend to label people in order to categorize them into groups that we think we can easily understand. It keeps us feeling proud that we "know" someone without any depth of relationship. If we can label them with minimal effort, then we can tell ourselves that we already know what and how they think. And therefore, we don't have to spend any time getting to know them. It's horribly unhealthy and is part of the reason we don't have real relationships and community with each other often.

Labels are usually based on traits that we can't change like gender or race or nationality OR they have to do with skill sets (like job, hobby, and talent) and the result of the skill, which is job title and pay scale.

Labels tend to separate and divide. Think of your church-how do they separate groups? Marital status? Age? What happens is that we put people in groups with others who we think are just like them, and that somehow this creates good community. That somehow we can take this one attribute and figure out something about them. Think I'm wrong or weird yet? Try this....

Think of who you respect more: a plumber or a doctor? A nurse or a housewife? A minister or a construction worker? No matter what your answer is, it's based on a preconceived notion of what the label entails. Maybe you don't trust ministers. Maybe you think doctors are better because they went to school longer. Whatever the reason, it immediately separates and stereotypes people unfairly.

The label takes away the uniqueness of the individual. Like every snowflake, we are all different, and even though we are all under the label "human," we have forgotten how each one of us is completely unique from the others. We label each other. But the truth is we all hate to be labeled ourselves. We are very passionate about our own labels-we insist that we are more than just that label, right?

I would argue that Jesus purposed to act in such a way labels were clearly emphasized as wrong. He ate with labeled people, and in doing so, treated them as forgiven and equal. He freed a harlot from demonic oppression, and she became one of his closest followers. His 12 right hand men included tax collectors, fishermen, and construction workers. Blue collar, white collar, it didn't matter.

Jesus absolutely loved to use the people's preconceived ideas and stereotypes based on labels, and flip them around. (A few examples? The Good Samaritan, Lazarus and the rich man, the woman at the well). He took labels and showed people that they couldn't generalize based on any of them. He showed that our own stereotypes only point out our own hypocrisy.

The ideas Jesus proposed were so opposite to the world and the culture He was living in. He never joined the popular revolution and rebelled against Rome. Instead, He took the labels that got the most glory and respect and pointed out the obvious hypocrisies and weaknesses. He actually never spoke against the wickedness of Rome. He spoke against the religious establishment and told parables about their lack of heart. He spoke of their pride and their religiosity regularly, which ultimately led to his execution.

As people who carry the name of Christ, what can we learn from this? As we walk this journey with God to become more like Him, what should happen?

The beauty of the kingdom of God is that labels don't matter anymore. They don't help you or hinder you with God. For example, God truly loves the poor, but he loves the rich just as much. Being one or the other doesn't help or hinder you when it comes to His love. It's the idea that God doesn't look upon our labels. He doesn't need to subgroup us into categories in order to understand us.

Just remember that He loves you very much, and He thinks you are more than your label. Whatever people have thought about you, whatever term they use to describe you-you are more than that one thing. Whether it is black, white, Hispanic, nerdy, athletic, lonely, weird, rich, or whatever-you are loved by Him, and He knows who you are. Not based on outward categories or attributes-He loves you for you, and knows your heart, the real you, and loves you anyways.

Gal. 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Col. 3:11
In this new life, it doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

This Blog is going on the airwaves!

BULLETIN BULLETIN BULLETIN

This blog will be live on the radio and internet Friday morning (Friday, August 3) from 7 am until 8:30 am. I'll be the guest on the Reach FM morning show with Lysa. We'll be talking about the labels that God gives us and the labels that man puts on us, and what scripture says about those concepts.

You can find out your local station by going to: http://www.reachfm.org/where-to-listen/

Or you can stream live online by going to www.reachfm.org and clicking on the "Listen Live!" at the top of the page.

Now you can call in to the show and ask questions live on air. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject too. I'll post a blog summarizing the bible study later this weekend. (<:

Thanks again...

andrew