The Inconvenience of the Cross

The bible makes it clear the infinite value of right relationship with Jesus. Faith is work inconveniences small and large and even tribulations.

Often the bible does not seem inconvenient because we do not let the bible speak to us. We pretend the bible is speaking to others and do not hear what it says to us.

To follow Jesus is the greatest calling one can have. We are all called to follow Jesus every day. How we are called to follow Jesus may very greatly, but we are all called to build up the kingdom.

Faith is joyous. Faith is inconvenient. We can embrace the joy and the hardship as we follow Jesus every day.

Christian Maturity

Often we think of Christianity as giving up things.  I suppose it is a viewpoint often promoted by the church either directly or by misunderstanding.

It is true that God asks us to follow Jesus and to leave many old ways behind.  But Christianity is never so much about what we give up as what we gain.

The prize of fellowship with God.  Christianity is not understood until it is understood as joy.

Not simply joy delayed, but present joy.  We have a faith which encourages and promotes true joy.

The world and forces of darkness wish to present to us the false notion that we give up so much and receive so little.  Really we receive so much and give up so little.

A Rhetorical Makeover

At times the theology of today needs a rhetorical makeover.  Often what is said is not wrong, but we live in an age where ideas spread quickly and are taken out of context easily.

Often we need to clarify and speak simply our message as Christian to not be misunderstood.  This is a good thing for the Church because the Church is hindered not so much by simple expressions as it is hindered by those who refuse to clarify their thought.

We need to speak clearly with compassion and truth.  God meets us where we are.

He asks us to follow him and leave where we.  Christianity is a joyous religion.

Christian communication needs to communicate that joy.  The gospel is good news.  Preaching and Christian writing should try to communicate the joy and goodness of Christian faith.

True Joy (poem)

True joy,
Is not found in fame,
Or power,
Or money,
Or even family.
All things fade.
The good in them does not last.
It does not satisfy in the end.
Only the brokenness which exists,
Between us and God,
Only when it is fixed,
Then,
And only then will we find true joy.
Joy in God.
And then all other blessings will find there places,
Once the brokenness is gone.

Christian Love

The bible says that if we have all virtue but lack love then we have nothing. Love is the ultimate Christian ethic.

The faithfulness of our Christian life stands or falls on if we act in love. There are many aspects of living an ethical life, but love is behind all of these elements.

"Love God and do what you please" said St. Augustine.

If we truly live our lives with a desire to please God then we are living our faith to the fullest. Christianity is about fellowship with God.

Christians have the power to change the world when the joy from our fellowship with God overflows in the world.

Hope

A great benefit and blessing for the Christian is hope. It ties in with joy. We have joy in part because we have hope that God's promises are real and will be fulfilled. Hope is believing in what we can't see (Romans 8:24). Hope is a confident expectation.

In everyday speech the word "hope" often takes on a different meaning than the meaning of Christian hope. Many times the word "hope" is used in, "I hope you have a good day." In cases like these "hope" means "wish." Wishes aren't things we know for certain, and that's a major difference between wishes and Christian hope. Words often mean different things in different settings.

When I was a child, I loved hearing the story over and over again of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35). He was waiting for the Messiah. "It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." Each day he was growing older, but he waited in expectation. And he saw Jesus. What he hoped for happened. The Messiah was born.

What a great story. And one that we all can relate to. We have hope that we will see Jesus. We will someday see face to face what we now see in a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12).

We also have hope that he is there interceding for us at the right hand of God, and that he has sent his spirit to be with us every moment.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God" (Psalm 42:5).

True Friendship

Friendship in the deepest sense requires an interest in the well being of the other. It places us in the odd situation of desiring the well being of the other even if it means we will see far less of the friend.

We can find that at times our friends seem resentful of good things which place some distance in our relationship. In a sense these friendships fall far short of ideal. The friendship is placed above the mutual good of those in the friendship.

It is a strange dynamic but the best friendships are those where the friends place the happiness of their friend above the friendship. Many shallow friendships tend to place the friendship over the happiness of each other.

You see the difference is that in the shallow friendships each person is searching for happiness on their own. In a deeper friendship each friend is searching for their own happiness and the happiness of the other in the friendship.

You often see that joy is more complete when we have a bit less desire in finding it for ourselves. We should desire to have joy and happiness, but if we do not desire it for others often our joy and happiness is incomplete.

It is as if an essential element of joy and happiness to be truly full is that we actively seek the joy and happiness of others. It is of course what one would expect from the bible.

The bible describes the law of God as sweet and pleasant. Love for God is a joy presented in the bible and the Christian walk as a easy burden compared to living in sin.

You see we often doubt the bible's correctness on these issues. How can the law of God and worship of God make my life better? We are often tempted to think this way.

We act as if God doesn't know us better than we know ourselves. The other fact is that we place individuality to such a degree that we cannot imagine religion and many of the laws fitting into that mold.

Of course if we tried out the bible we often find that its way is better. But it often takes time. Sin tends to look for good in the moment at the expense of the future. The bible always protects human happiness in the long term against shortsightedness.

When we meet the bible and we feel the bible is wrong it is usually just a matter of time if we keep an open mind before we see the wisdom of the bible.

Convenience and Christianity

In the modern world we seek conveniences constantly. This or that will make our lives convenient. We place conveniences as an absolute good.

We often wonder why the world around us is falling apart. In part it is because dealing with the problems around us is inconvenient until the problems affect us.

The Christian message comes and tells us that what is of real significance and that the significance will be a great inconvenience to our lives. We are called to be like the man who found a pearl of great value in his field and sold everything he had to get the field.

We often find that this or that keeps us from the gospel or this or that good thing. We are always people of excuses. We do not like the truth about ourselves--it is inconvenient. This is the issue; we often make up excuses because that is the easy path.

We are always too busy to do this or that but never too busy to spend three hours playing golf or watching sports every Saturday. Christianity is a religion of joy.

True joy is fellowship with God, but true joy comes with a cost. Sometimes true joy pushes into our lives and displaces some temporal joys which are getting in the way.

You see Christianity in no way suggests that joy, even joy in the world, is wrong. But it calls for priorities and sees the need to at times act even when it is inconvenient.

Real Community

Real community must be joyful for its members. It is easy to try to force community or force friendships. There is a certain hollowness to community which is not based on one's heart.

It is interesting in life that there are often ethical positions which require ethicical decisions to be disinterested. If we do something out of joy the decision loses its ethical value.

The bible is clearly against such an ethic. It is better to do what is right without joy than to do evil, but the highest ethical sense is when our joy aligns with what is right.

Doing good out of love for God and with joy is much preferred to doing good and finding it drudgery. Often Christians pull a certain stoicism into the Christian life which was never meant to be there.

Disinterest has no place in the Christian life. It brings an interesting side question as to the wisdom of required Christian education.

If children are enrolled in a Christian school or are at a Christian college that requires them to attend a chapel or spiritual formation class they do not wish to attend, are they harmed by the requirement? Could forced Christian education be harmful?

My opinion is, yes. A one size fits all approach to Christian education can be harmful. It is of course why pastors do not read sermons from famous pastors when they get into the pulpit. The sermon should be a faithful exposition of God's word to the people in the church.

In my mind things such as required chapel or curriculum in Christian schools may harm those who do not wish to attend. It is a delicate balance between encouraging and fostering faith and hindering faith by making it distasteful.

Becoming Someone

Man is created in the image of God. His greatness is derived from the image of God within him.

The image of God is marred by sin. Sin may seem exciting in the moment, but it deadens man making him worse for the sin.

When a man accepts Jesus and begins to be transformed by sanctification through the work of the Holy Spirit he becomes who he was always meant to be. When we follow God in faith our lives are enriched.

The law of God seems dull and a dreary business to sinful man. The law of course is meant to protect human happiness not hinder it.

God has our best interest in mind. This is evidenced in that God sent his only begotten son into the world to save man.

God's love for man is so great that he loved us while we were his enemies. God is on our side. It is our sin nature which tries to convince us that God does not have our interests in mind.

Of course the interest of man is faith in God. Man can only find true joy when he finds the joy in God.

The call of the bible to worship God may seem dull to sinful man. But it is man's true calling and man will only truly be happy when he finds the joy of his calling.

Heaven

Take a moment and think of the key elements which you see in heaven. What are they and what is the most important element?

Is the most important element God? Is he on the list?

The bible describes many of the joys to be found in heaven. God is of course the chief joy in heaven.

It is always of some concern to meet Christians who speak of heaven in many glowing terms but God is absent from the speech. It is almost as if heaven is a delayed form of prosperity gospel where we are rewarded with material gifts for obedience.

It is true of course the bible presents heaven as a material world filled with material beauty and we have glorified material bodies. But it all pales in comparison to God.

God is our inheritance. We miss the great joy of Christian religion in this life when we forget that Christianity is about joy in relationship with God.

We are co-heirs with Christ and adopted into God's family. Only God can satisfy our deepest needs.

Generosity Affects All of Life

Post By
Michelle Dowell, Contributor

Giving brings joy and happiness to a person who gives with the right heart, but what are the ways and reasons it does?

In some ways it's a mystery--we just feel happy when we know we're helping someone. And in another way, we feel good to be following God's command to us to be generous in different ways. The Bible says that those who follow his commands end up finding his ways are sweet.

Here are some specific other reasons/results. I think that giving really helps our worldview re-align with what God would like us to see and have a better knowledge of.

(1) We may feel the peace to slow down or stop on the race to find ways to earn even more money, because giving is a reminder that the center of life shouldn't be money--it's to be able to help ourselves and others in need to the best of our ability.

(2) A reminder that we need others. Taking part in a system of grace reminders us of how we daily need God's grace and grace from others. It's impossible to get anything done without some help. Often the help comes in exchange from money, but there is still a care that needs to be done in doing that work well that the money is exchanged for.

(3) It's a step that acknowledges God's soverignty over all of life. Words only help us so much. We can talk about a concept as much as we like, but action helps re-enforce that concept to truly help us to know the concept better and more truly. God tells us to give and that he will provide for us.

Beautiful Simplicity

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Contributor

One beautiful aspect of the gospel is its simplicity. Those who are in need of grace (which is everyone—although many people don't consciously acknowledge that about themselves), are told in the Bible to go to Christ, ask him for forgiveness and for him to be a part of their life, and he will stand in your place and make you strong in ways that matter.

What a reason for peace and joy. So much in life can be disappointing—the fact that we are not in total control of everything is hard to bear. But being reminded who really is in control, and his nature, is soothing.

A sermon that digs too deep into all the meanings of words in different languages in biblical texts or too deep into another topic that is true but not a message of hope in who God is, may miss an emphasis on what people really need to hear the most—that simple message of hope. That message is full of grace that's needed for people who know or see the depth of sinful nature.

Both new and old Christians need to hear that. The beauty of the gospel will never grow old, even when we do.

Marriage and Family as Joy

At times you will find those in the church discuss marriage and family as a form of character building. It is as if in an unsaid way marriage and family are a form of suffering which produces character.

This is true to an extent but marriage and family are primarily a source of joy. Often we get what we expect. If we expect suffering we receive it.

Often people experience great difficulty in their marriage and family life because they act one way before marriage and a different way after.

You see we cannot expect a relationship produced and flourish under one set of conditions to be completely unaltered under another set of conditions.

And this is the flaw of many marriages. What made the dating and engagements successful is immediately dropped upon marriage. You see the marriage with difficulty can be fixed by returning to what made it successful in the first place.

Joy, happiness, and honesty

In life we meet many Christians who try to fake happiness. They feel commanded to be happy and so they go around with a smile on their face when they are clearly miserable. It is as if it is a sin to be sad.

You see they miss the fact that joy (which is commanded) and happiness (which is not commanded) are very different. You see joy is at a much deeper level and it is a state of character and faith more than an emotion.

And the issue is greater that we are commanded to morn with those who morn. You see we can be expected and godly to be unhappy! We can have joy and morn. God's commandments are difficult and we always fall short and have a sympathetic high priest in Jesus.

Scripture challenges us always. It defines things as God sees them rather than as we see things. Many things we see as exactly the same God sees differently. Many things we see as completely different God sees as interconnected.

It is always that we are too small and too nearsighted to see all the realities. That is why we need for God to tell us of the realities and later we usually figure out why God was right all along for ourselves.

Humor as a Part of Theology

Laughter in the bible is portrayed equally as positive and negative. The role is based on context.

God is one who laughs at the folly of men. Jesus promises to bring the oppressed laughter.

There is laughter which is linked to unbelief and thus put into a negative context. But you see that laughter in and of it is good.

Its connection to the fall at times has turned it into an ugly thing, but in its nature there is nothing wrong with laughter.

There are those in the church which seem to have lost the idea of a joke as having an appropriate context. The bible does not follow this viewpoint.

Ultimately the Christian life is about joy. It is about real joy though. Not some canned joy that the world provides that is here today and gone tomorrow.

God wants us to be happy, but not some fleeting happiness mixed with misery and pain. The problem often is that as C.S. Lewis says that "we are far too easily satisfied."

Paul counted all things as loss for the surpassing glory to come. Why? Because to see correctly is to see that real joy and real happiness is found in relation to Jesus.

The bible is concerned with the happiness of men. But it is concerned about eternal happiness and not in a quick fix here and now immediate happiness.

Evangelism

Evangelism gets a bad name at times even among members of churches. It is as if we feel we might impose on someone who doesn't know the gospel.

I suppose it is an imposition and sometimes not a welcome one but often it is not as much as we might think. Some people are not as unwilling to listen as we might assume.

Of course others will also wish to speak. So if we share we should be willing to listen. I always find listening to other vantage points interesting.

Sometimes we can learn from those we disagree with. It is not the same as learning ultimate saving knowledge but the perspective of others is always helpful. Sometimes we can see errors in our own thinking when we share with others.

It is sometimes the case that we can only see our thought in conversation. When we share our heart with others we sometimes notice this or that is a bit odd about ourselves. We had everything mostly right but we seem to be missing something.

And then we can go back to the bible and figure out how we were a bit off. Sometimes we don't know an answer at all and now when we go back to the bible we know have a question which the bible has an answer for.

The reality is that evangelism is love. If we believe the message of the bible about the joy of knowing and being known by God sharing that Joy with others is a natural response.

Of course sin and fear often gets in the way. God is always a God of grace. We are saved by grace, live by grace, and never get past grace until we are with God in heaven.

Joy in Marriage

Joy in marriage ideally should be pursued as a good in and of itself. A lot of vagueness in Christian culture suggests that joy in God should be set to a higher level than joy in God.

I suppose it all sounds right in theory. God is first my joy in him should be higher than my joy in my spouse.

You know the bible doesn't speak this way. The reason is that life is tough and faith is tough. If my joy in God and faith in God goes through a rough patch should I reduce my joy in my spouse to compensate?

I know this is a fallacious question but I keep feeling there is a subtle reality going on that the pursuit of joy in God is always before joy in your spouse.

I look at all the Christian marriages around me were I see couples who appear to be struggling in their marriage from what I can tell. It seems they all agree on this proposition.

You see either/or thinking is very logical. It is easy to see how it is mistaken for biblical teaching. The reality is the bible is more complex. It does not fall into such simplicities.

Yes there is an order to things but the bible avoids many statements which are good on paper but not practice. You see playing joy in God before joy in spouse is a man made formulation.

It appears to be a proper formulation of biblical truth but it is flawed. The truth is a both/and pursuit of joy in ones spouse in and of itself is fulfilling he law.

I understand the well meaningless of placing of priorities but you see God is not in need but often our spouse is. And this is the issue.

Our spouse will distract us from placing God before spouse at all many times. And it is Godly to accept this distraction because serving our spouse is serving God.

Jesus came not into the world to serve but to be served. You see service to those in need is serving God.

Ensuring the joy of our spouse is serving God. You cannot place serving God above your joy in your spouse because you have failed to serve God if you marriage had difficulty because you chose God before your spouse.

And spousal joy is pursuing your own joy. Because joy in marriage needs a mutual nature. You cannot simply seek to please the other you must seek to please yourself.

Joy based Ethics

The highest form of ethics is based on joy. Joy in God which overflows into the lives of others.

There are many forms of philosophical, religious, and even Christian ethics which fall short of the highest ethic.

"For the joy set before him he endured..." (Hebrews 12:2)

You see Jesus overflowed with joy in his fellowship with the God head. His ethics flowed from joy.

You see many ethical forms try to teach us to do good because of fear. Fear is one of the lowest ethical forms. It has effect but it is really not an ethic at all but a self preservation.

Other forms try to appeal to our sense of right and justice and how do we feel. The bible does teach that there is validity this form and approves of this form. But you see it is not the highest.

Joy in God and the fruit of joy in God is the highest ethic. You once we have studied the whole bible and it's vast teaching we then can some the whole of the law into the word "love." To obey the law is to love God and man.

Why the bible has to spend so much time on specifics is that man does not understand what love is. He thinks all sorts of things are good which are not in God's eyes.

Man often finds these things are not as good as he thought when he gets burned doing them but he rarely realizes that God was in fact right and if he had listened to what God said love was than his life would be better.

We are saved by grace which came joy. We are at our best when we live day by day in the joy of God.

Faith Belief and Trust

Faith has an element of uncertainty in it. A lot of western theology has had an issue with an uncertainty within faith.

The move often seems to place faith in the category of knowledge. There is some truth in this movement, but the bible always insists that the righteous will live by faith.

You see it makes no sense that the righteous live by faith if there is not an element of trust and need for belief that continues through the Christian life.

If someone in our church said in a prayer to God, "Lord I believe help my unbelief" churches would scoff. You see through the bible in the psalms of David and the great men and women of faith this sense of unbelief mixed with belief.

You see we have gone too far in our understanding of what is possible in the Christian life. To be a Christian is to continue to believe when things to not make sense and the chips seem down.

God is a good who delights in doing things his way. Sometimes he will send 300 men to win a battle when he could have sent 10,000. Sometimes he would prefer to get people where they should be in ways in which they do not like.

You see we always put God in a box and expect him to think as we think as if we think in a way which is good. We are always small and cannot see that we have no idea of how small we are.

Sin is always mixed though the Christian life. We always face unbelief and uncertainty. You see we see "through a glass dimly" as the Apostle Paul wrote.

The word of the Lord often comes in a still small voice. Sometimes the word of the lord is sent by unbelieving and wicked people to us.

But always God speaks and is there and supports our faith. You see he will not show us everything because it is not good for us. But he will always show us what we need to know and when we need to know it.

God has made many promises for his people in his word. These particularly take faith. Really we say has God kept his promises.

Sometimes I will doubt that God has kept his promises. You see life is hard and God has surely broken this promise in his word. But then I will reflect and see that God has not broken his promise at all and much of my hardship has simply been my weak faith.

You see faith often eases suffering because we trust that God has a plan and his provision or lack of provision has a reason. You see we don't trust that God knows what he is doing.

That is one crux of suffering is that unbelief increases suffering. Of course suffering is real the world is fallen and people suffer who have strong faith. But faith makes suffering more bearable as it happens.

Those who beliefs do suffer but the belief places the suffering into the context. The context is eternity and the eternity is eternity with God.

We should maybe thing of eternity like this if we had eternity to sit in the presence of Jesus at a table eating dinner with him would this make us happy?

You see it should because heaven is not about some sort of retirement vacation where we have maxed our 401K into an insane level and have more money than we could ever need.

Is suspect these things are true. The world is good and heaven is the world perfected but you see it is more it is relation with God and seeing God face to face.

It is the end of faith. Faith ends in the last day and is replaced by knowledge where we see God face to face. This knowledge is of course partial and incomplete.

You see we shall never see God fully only see him more and more each day. So the joy of heaven is always increasing as we learn more and more each day of the love of God.