the thing about hate

It’s easy to read the Bible and dismiss certain things because they don’t apply to you. You read a word like ‘hate’ and convince yourself that you don’t actually hate someone. You just really don’t like them and don’t want to have anything to do with them. But, no, you don’t hate them.

Oh, but you do. I mean, you might not like the way it sounds, especially pertaining to certain scriptures, but you can’t dumb down an attitude enough to make it okay. Just so you know where I’m coming from, hate (according to the dictionary) is ‘passionate dislike‘ or ‘a strong aversion‘. It’s pretty clear.

I’m not trying to pick on something for the sake of picking on it. I have a point. Small truths always lead to a larger one, so hang with me.

When you lay it out in plain speech, hate is an everyday occurrence. When you bring scripture into the equation, it’s saying murder is an everyday occurrence. There’s no shrugging that.

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together. -1 John 3:15

So, fellow murderers, what do you do with that?

Consider the person you can’t stand. Why can’t you stand them? Is it some idiosyncrasy you don’t have the patience for? Or did they hurt you somehow?

If you’re ‘murdering’ someone for being annoying, then you have to consider what that says about you. Get your pride in check. Scripture doesn’t say God hates irritating people, but it does say He hates pride.

Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. -Proverbs 8:13

“Do you get it, Mister Pride? I’m your enemy!” -Decree of the Master - Jeremiah 50:31

Are you ‘murdering’ someone because they hurt you? You say you have problems with trust, that you still have issues to work through. Can you work through these things when the only materials you have are what prisoners get? Did you follow that? When you ‘hate’, you are in a prison for murderers, shut off from truth by the cold bars of bitter suspicion.

If you think that only dealing with the ‘trustworthy’ will protect you from further pain, then you don’t have a clue about life. No one is trustworthy. Because of that, you have to rely on God to protect you from things that He doesn’t intend for you to endure. There are no accidents and you are not a victim. If you have suffered, it’s only for your gain. If you have lost, it’s only for what you’ve found. If you hang on to the ashes, then you can’t grab the beauty. You have no vision. You have no faith. If you can’t let go, then you can’t grab on.

The real question never pertains to another person. It doesn’t even have as much to do with you as you might think. It has everything to do with God. The part you play is in your submission. If He would allow you to suffer or go through the pain of loss, then do you still want to serve Him?

If you have a strong aversion to another person, then you have not considered God and how His sovereignty plays into your life. You can’t take anything at face value. Everything that happens is part of a much bigger purpose. You can’t sit around and micro-manage every detail of your life because you could be trying to throw a wrench into a system that has the momentum to throw the wrench right back at you.

If you don’t believe that God (who is good) is sovereign (omnipotent; possessing supreme, undisputed, ultimate, unaffected power) , then this isn’t going to be very comforting to you. Actually, most of the scriptures won’t make sense or be very comforting at all. I feel like I’m talking to the back of your head.

The thing about hate is it’s evidence that you are stumbling in the dark. You scared little rabbit, have you no faith? It gets so tiresome watching you beat your chest in pride or beat your head in defeat. Like a fly repeatedly flying into a window, you hear the truth, but only believe what you can see. You can bang your head against it all day long, but never see it. I’m screaming it, but you can’t hear me. You live in the here and now, but I’m not using that language. The only thing that can make you see is having your ‘here and now’ shattered.

Can you feel that? The only reason your life has been broken in to and your precious things shattered is so that you can glimpse God through the cracks. Don’t try to fix them, that’s the worst thing you could do. Because of what happens through the break, you learn to love the broken places more than the others.

I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice. -Psalm 51:16-17

Protecting yourself is evidence that you don’t trust God. The only reason you would avoid another person is because you are protecting yourself. The problem is, you have to murder another in order to do that. That’s when this next scripture is a bit more clear:

“…whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” -Luke 9:24 ESV

This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. -1 John 3:16

they’re waiting

I’ve watched people get kicked out of church. I’ve heard of police involvement, restraining orders and men posted at the entrances to keep certain people out. I’ve watched the work of these people get dismantled and removed. It doesn’t even feel safe to mention their name. It’s as though they never existed.

Do you ever wonder what happened to these people?

Too many don’t and they don’t care.

There are so many questions. You hear of their sin and see the Gestapo-like response and then…nothing. People don’t have time to connect with the person before they’re kicked out. By the time they’re gone, the questions are mounting and the possible answers are scary. You wonder how long they’ve been lying, how they were able to be so convincing at church and then you get disgusted with such hypocrisy. The assumption is that what you hear must pale in comparison to what you don’t hear. And you don’t want to hear. That’s where anger is born. Bitter resentment at the audacity of irreverence and disrespect.

The anger boils and rises and begins to cloud everything. You’re hurt, disappointed and the thought of them carrying out their sin is so offensive it makes your stomach turn. And it all makes you more angry. The roller coaster of emotions is enough take over and you decide it’s time to do something. You have to let it go.

Here’s what you do: you take the visual you have of the person, the last thing you have in your heads, and you abort their life. Then you focus on the things that make it easier to mourn them. You visit the morgue in your minds with the mangled body under the sheets. You don’t want to see them, not like that, so you focus on who they were. So much potential. Such a promising life. Great voice…great leader. A shame.

If you have to kill someone in your mind in order to move on, then you’re not doing it right.

That’s why you don’t know what to do when you see them in public. It’s like seeing a ghost.

Do you want to know what happened to these people?

I can’t speak for all of them, but I can speak for those who are like me. I was one of them. And there are a lot of us.

When a person’s sin sends an earthquake rippling through their life, it’s always a shock. Sin is selfish. By the very nature, they’re not thinking about how their choices will affect others. So, when they watch the earthquake rip through their lives, they’re in no condition to be able to stand watching what it’s done to yours and the others. It makes them feel helpless against the torrent and the blood on their hands makes them scream in fear. It’s not just their blood, it’s everyone else’s too.

This is a foreign situation for them. You can’t expect someone to behave ‘normal’ when they’re in a situation that is not normal. Erratic behavior should be expected.

When you’re going through your pain, you can lean on God, innocence and each other. They can’t lean on innocence, they’ve lost everyone and they can’t even go to the main place where they used to connect with God. They are lost, alone and terrified. They don’t reach out to you because they’re afraid. They don’t reach out to God because they’re ashamed and the people who have always represented God to them have kicked them out. In essence, they’ve been kicked out in the name of God. Turning to Him takes more faith than they’ve ever had to use in their lives.

The healing process is long, painful and lonely. The only voice of reason is a still small voice in their spirit. They’re undergoing intense training and spiritual therapy by a Presence more real to them now than He ever was before. There are many stages where they are full of hope one minute and full of sorrow the next. A happy trip to the grocery store with the family can end in tears when an old church friend physically bumps them and keeps walking without saying a word.

The graceless behavior of other Christians can send them falling backward for days. It’s throwing rocks at a gaping wound that’s still bleeding.

The sobs are  eventually hushed by an overwhelming Presence of tenderness and love. It’s the feeling of being sang to. Like a child. The Presence of grace becomes stronger in those moments, as if to say, ‘What they’re doing is not me. What you feel now, that’s me.’ He teaches them the difference so, one day, you can’t hurt them anymore. You have left His agenda when you stand against His fallen.

You have to leave the door open.

The wounded need medicine. One of the most wounded is the one who set the fire. They were closest to it when it erupted. When you’re tending to the blistered bystanders, you have to send your best doctors to the one you ‘can’t recognize anymore.’ They don’t believe they can make it, they see their damage and they don’t see the light. You have to show them the light. Not in a way that pounds in their stupid mistakes. The light you carry is like flashlight in the dark, you can only illuminate one thing with your presence. Their sin or His grace. You don’t tell a person how sick they are while you’re trying to tell them they can survive their sickness. What do you want your life pointing to?

Anger is normal. But, if you walk away from someone who fell you’re killing them. If they can’t go to their church, where are they supposed to go?  You’re their family. Whether they die or not is not the point, because you left them for dead. If they can’t start fresh with you, then what does that say about you?

You can’t let sin govern your response. That would be responding to sin, not Jesus. You’ve been through enough training to be able to recite the Truth. Let everything Jesus came to accomplish be put on display when the situation is real. The real world is your exam room, real situations are your tests. You show what you know when the situation gets real.

If you’ve messed this up with someone, then I challenge you to make it right. I promise, they’re waiting.

communal living

I’m intrigued by the idea of communal living. I can’t see myself in that situation because I’m too strong willed and anti-social. I have to sift through thoughts of weird Mormons, Amish farms and suicidal alien abduction hopefuls to get to the idea behind it. Aside from the stigma of being a breeding cow, losing my music or ascending to heaven on the wing of a spaceship, I can actually see how there could be something to it. There are lots of cool people who do it and maybe it’s the gypsy blood that runs through me, but I kind of get it.

I was thinking about this for a few reasons. One of them is the frustration of watching people take scripture out of context. It happens all the time. They make it say something it’s not saying. It’s like running a puppet show where scripture is the puppet and they’re the voice of God.

So, a combination of random conversations and observations have me wondering. I think, in some cases, if you look at scripture as though it’s talking to a group of people who are living under the same roof, it might make more sense.

I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common. -1 Corinthians 1:10

People are able to completely ignore others. You never have to really own up to selfishness or pride, because you can get yourself in a situation where you think you’re right. It never goes away because it’s justified and given a cozy spot to hang out. If you were under one roof, it wouldn’t be so easy. You would be forced to work things out, otherwise it would affect everybody in the house and they wouldn’t be very happy with either of you. There would be a point when they’d say, ‘it really doesn’t matter who was the most wrong, just fix it. For the sake of everybody.’

Get along among yourselves, each of you doing your part. Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other’s nerves you don’t snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out. -1 Thessalonians 5:13-15

For the most part, this scripture has no real life application. It’s not like we’re out working a field with heat stroked old men, mentally challenged teenagers or pregnant women. It would make more sense if we were pioneers on a wagon trail, but how often does the weakness of others actually have any affect on what you’re doing at all? We’re really good at self preservation and have set things up to work independently. If someone falls behind, then we leave them behind with that kind of, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ shrug.

You are not your own… -1 Corinthians 6:19

But you are. Aren’t you? I mean, what part of ‘you are not your own’ actually applies? There are extremes and I’m not talking about them. There are exceptions to everything. I’m talking about that straight line down the middle that most people follow. Everything is yours and you distribute as you see fit, right? Your money is yours and you pay what you choose to pay. Your time is yours and you give as you deem necessary. Your friendship, your skills,…it’s all yours. It’s not communal. As a matter of fact, the more exclusive, the more valuable.

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. -1 Corinthians 14:1

Does it? How? How does your life depend on love? We take care of ourselves. We work hard, enjoy the benefits and congratulate ourselves. We get bored, so we start looking out the windows of our puppet castles and make remarks about the other kingdoms. We keep notes about where someone parks, how late their lights stay on at night, how short their daughters’ shorts are, how much money they spent on their sixteen year olds’ car and how long it takes them to mow their grass. We keep a record of wrongs because their essential to our survival. We give up on people who could potentially slow us down or make us look bad. And does it matter? Really? Not in life as it’s been set up.

That’s my point. We’ve set up our lives wrong. Some people go as far as actually living under the same roof and practicing the instructions for life in the Bible in the most practical way. We don’t have to do that, but if we could make that our perspective, it might help.

Our instructions are for ‘communal’ living. Living a life in common. If you don’t have to follow the instructions, then you’re not in the right ‘kingdom’ headspace. We’re too segregated. If there is an unresolved issue between two people, you can’t move forward in life without it being resolved. We don’t resolve our issues, we ignore them, dismiss them and deny them. You can live within 20 minutes of someone who can’t stand you and never see them, so you never have to deal with it. If you lived under the same roof, you’d have to deal with it. You’d be forced to walk it out and find a way to get along and work together.

When you’re on your own, nobody is relying on you, therefore, you’re not letting anyone down. If you need help, then your loss, really. You don’t want to be a burden, you don’t want to always be the one in need, so you keep yourself at a distance and don’t contribute at all. If you were living under the same roof, you’d be given responsibilities that fit your reach. Your needs would be taken care of, because it’s not a ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘mine’, ‘theirs’ mentality. It’s ‘ours’ and you’re part of ‘us’.

I don’t see myself living under the same roof as a few other families, but I can extract the Biblical perspective from the mentality. Just imagine that you have to resolve conflict and you have to view what’s ‘yours‘ as though it was just given to you to distribute according to the needs of the overall ‘family.’ Compromise, be respectful, fight to get along. Give and take without foreign obligation or guilt. In essence, we actually are supposed to be working a ‘field’, spiritually speaking. In the same way, we are ‘pioneers on a wagon trail.’

If you are in an argument with someone, then force yourselves to spend time together. Work it out. If you see someone in need, then use your reach to bring them up. If someone makes a mistake, that mistake affects everyone. Help them make it right and use grace to make it go away. They need a close friend to keep them steady, not a cold shoulder. View sin as a snake bite, grace is the antidote, crutches and patience are essential.

I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common. -1 Corinthians 1:10

Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived. Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. -Galatians 6:1-4

So, I want to hear your thoughts. How can you get creative with this? How many of you are going to join a commune?

time for the ‘big kid’ class

By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! -Hebrews 5:12

I was taught that my sin put Jesus back on the cross. The guilt of putting Him through that torture again and again was crushing. I fought with everything in me to avoid causing Him more pain. My life was built around avoiding sin and avoiding the cross at all costs. When I failed to uphold the standard, I had to go back to convincing myself that the sacrifice Jesus made could be for ‘this sin’, too.

In order to avoid that guilt, I would find ways to justify my actions in the ‘little’ things. If I could justify them in my own mind, then it eased the guilt I felt. I learned to believe that tight reigns and small boxes were reserved for the most holy. I considered myself able and practiced my Christianity intensely. All the while, I knew I was still a work in progress.

I never realized that guilt dressed up like humility and my ‘humility’ made me proud.

Guilt means that Jesus isn’t finished, humility is what I owned while pride eroded everything I did.

I was depending on my own strength. I was exercising to be stronger. It all depended on me to keep Jesus off the cross.

So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God. -Hebrews 6:1

I never saw the truth until I did something that I couldn’t justify, couldn’t ease with an apology and couldn’t undo. No amount of moral strength could earn my way back to the pedestal I put my character on.

We no longer need to make sacrifices for our sins. Jesus isn’t re-crucified every time someone sins. If that were the case, He’d never get off the cross.

He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. -Hebrews 10:9-10

If you are using a moral code to keep yourself ‘right’, then you do not believe that Jesus was enough. If you are using a set of standards to to keep yourself ‘pure’ then you are your own savior.

He’s more than the giver of the ‘clean slate.’ I see these people walking around with a checklist of failures and going to the ‘Big Eraser’ every Sunday. How can you grow beyond the basics if you can’t get passed the sin? How can you graduate from nursing on the easily digested to the Biblical jerky you have to chew on a while if you’re constantly having to go to square one?

If you have the basics down: understanding baptism, the Holy Spirit, the resurrection and who Jesus is means it’s time to move forward.

God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it! -Hebrews 6:3

It’s time to stop sucking your thumb.

If you believe that you can reach a point where you won’t sin, then you’ll never get passed the ‘preschool fingerprinting exercises’ of faith. If you believe that God cries and Jesus dies every time a person falls, then you’ll never get on the other side of the baby gate.

‘Getting passed the sin’ is done by believing that Jesus died once for all. If you really believe that His one time sacrifice was enough, then the forgiveness is yours for eternity. If you don’t believe that, then you’re not a ‘believer’. You’re not a ‘believer’ because you don’t believe in the one thing that could save you.

If you’re having a hard time believing that you are forgiven and if you can’t trust in God’s grace, then I’m at a loss. There is no simpler way to put it. It’s like pouring water into a bucket with holes. Or using filtered water on a field of weeds. If you’ve heard the Truth and say you believe it, even to the point of being able to recite it, but it still slips away, then you need to pray against the religious teflon you’ve accumulated. You’re like someone who forgets what they look like after they’ve glanced in the mirror (James1:22). If you believed it the first time, you wouldn’t have a problem believing it now. No one can believe the Truth and then have to beg God to give you your eternal life back. He doesn’t rescind His promises if you step off course. If you believe your ability had anything to do with your salvation, then you don’t know the Truth and I’m not sure who you’re begging.

Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they’ve personally experienced the sheer goodness of God’s Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can’t start over as if nothing happened. That’s impossible. Why, they’ve re-crucified Jesus! They’ve repudiated him in public! Parched ground that soaks up the rain and then produces an abundance of carrots and corn for its gardener gets God’s “Well done!” But if it produces weeds and thistles, it’s more likely to get cussed out. Fields like that are burned, not harvested. -Hebrews 6:4-8

A fisherman throws the baby fish back in the water. They’re not ready to be used for food. The water carrier throws the bucket with holes away. The farmer cusses at the field of weeds and burns them up. I don’t think this is to say you’re a waste of time, but just that you’re not ready yet. You’re holes have to be fixed.

If you’re going to a ‘Big Eraser’ every time you fall, then you might want to consider to whom you’re submitting, because it’s not Jesus. Jesus doesn’t keep an eraser. He throws your stinking slate away.

We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us… -Hebrews 6:18-20

dramatic flair

We try to avoid struggles or difficulty and we try to save others from it.

But, if we grow the most in our darkest moments, then what does aversion do? What place does sympathy hold?

If we saw our pain as the pains of growth, would we rebuke it as though we were not meant to struggle? Would we step in and try to take the experience away from another?

Would you say, ‘I never want you to be anything more than you already are, so I’ll never let you hurt.’

I have hurt a lot in my life and I wouldn’t wish any of it away. It’s the road patience, faith and wisdom took to get here.

If you can look at the pain in life like you would look at the pain of a woman in labor, it might help you get through it. Pain helps you let go. A woman in labor can’t control the birth, but she can focus her mind on what is happening. You have to give up control and focus on what is being born in you. Spiritual birth is not without physical pain.

‘If you limit your knowledge of God to the feel good, sunshine moments then you are missing half of the story. He’s not a dancing monkey out trying to get everybody to feel good and fall in love under rainbows. He’s not limited to being the Lamb of God because He’s also the Lion of Judah. His concern is to bring you to a place where you know Him. You must be emptied of yourself and filled up with Him. Don’t underestimate the process in which you are emptied of yourself. They don’t call it death for dramatic flair.’ -Grace Is For Sinners

talk of the town

Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. -1 Peter 4:7

One of the hardest things for a believer to do is remember that there is a perspective other than what we can see and touch and ‘making things right’ has no deadline.

You don’t look at things the way we mortals do. You’re not taken in by appearances, are you? Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out. -Job 10:4-5

We’re spiritual beings. We are connected by the Spirit that lives inside of each of our beautifully created bodies. Maybe knowing the Spirit of Jesus lives within each person who believes in Him, we can understand how what you do to another, you do to Him (Mat25:40&45)

Separated by our arguments and failures, we are giving our ‘flesh and blood’ lives the power. We make decisions based on emotional inclinations. This puts us in an miserable spot. Your ‘flesh and blood’ response to a situation is bound to change over time and you’re setting things in stone that will be irrellevant in the light of day.

We know only a portion of the truth…We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. -1 Corinthians 13:8

We are told that we don’t know enough about what’s really going on to be able to make any decision other than to act according to Love. (1 Cor. 13) Yet we don’t remember what is true in the spirit when we are dealing with what hurts in the flesh. We are told to be quick to forgive, yet we put restrictions on that forgiveness, in effect restricting our freedom along with it. Can’t we, for a second, consider that God may know what He’s talking about and so we should act out of trust that He’s trying to keep us from any futher harm?

What if we run after peace? What if we chase down the loose strings and turn a frayed end into a forceful knot? Spirit to Spirit, forgiving the shortcomings of a flesh that we knew was corrupt before we saw the evidence. “Fool me once, shame on you….fool me twice…” We’re afraid of being hurt, we’re afraid of looking like fools.

But…we have three things to do to lead us…: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. -1 Corinthians 13:13

Forgiveness defuses the bomb. Love covers a multitude. Hands joined together are better than arms crossed against chests. It’s not about staying alert for the inevitable Satan Attack, it’s seeing your role in the attack that is well underway.

If we turn on each other, then he doesn’t have to.

Deny the flesh. Cultivate peace. Make your love the talk of the town. When they ask you why you’re still holding hands, then tell them the Truth.

mirror

Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. –Romans 2:1

We always spill who we are in our depths out on other people. We are asked to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, to treat others as we would want to be treated.

When you refuse to show mercy to another person, it’s because you are harboring your own sins. You accuse people of what you can find inside yourself. You either ‘can’t imagine it‘ or you ‘know it’s possible.‘ Judgment starts with self-examination and ends with accusation. If you can find your darkness in someone else, then you don’t feel so bad about yourself. ‘I’m not the only one.’ You know this is true when you watch someone get in trouble and they start pointing fingers, ‘He does is it, too.‘ or ‘She’s no better.‘

The only reason you would keep a record of another’s sins is because you are hiding something worse. The only reason you won’t restore a relationship is because it makes you feel better about yourself to keep them in the corner.

If you want someone to know how pure your heart feels, then find those places in the heart of another.

Whether you think someone has a good heart, or they’re really good at acting the part: ‘It takes one to know one.‘

the silent strength

There are some who are sorry because they got caught. There are some who are sorry after they see the damage their selfishness caused. My sorry came later.

Nobody ever dreams of becoming a thief. I didn’t ask for this life, I just sort of fell into it. I suppose, if I had the means, I wouldn’t have had to steal, but this is real life and I had needs. I only stole from the rich and haughty and if you ask me, they deserved it. I resented their superior attitude and I never felt bad about the things I did.

I pulled off some great heists. I wasn’t selfish with my loot. I shared with my fellow poverty stricken comrades. I considered myself a Robin Hood of sorts and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I got some sort of standing ovation while I received my Nobel Peace Prize.

When I got caught, it was over something stupid. For someone with my natural skill, the occasion to kick myself for such careless stupidity was consuming. I’m a believer in fate and I knew my time was coming. I had grandiose dreams of how I’d be caught, though, and as I mourned my due spotlight, I bowed to fate and took its apron of service with humility.

My chamber was modest. The ‘Soldiers of Doom’, as I like to call them, were preoccupied with some guy down the corridor. I listened for my name from the crowd outside. I imagined immaculately decorated signs for my honor. There was quite a mass gathered and all I could make out were the one’s gathered for the other guy. This isn’t at all what I imagined. Death for such a mediocre crime was the fashion of the Romans, but it would have been so much easier had my fans turned out like I thought they would.

My confident courage was waining and the time was ticking in audible seconds. I was scheduled to be hung on the same day as another thief, but I didn’t exactly know what the deal was with the other guy. I’ve heard ‘treason’ and ‘blasphemy’, but the way they were tearing him apart, I couldn’t imagine mere words on the part of a lunatic would trump my great feats of stealth and deception. I’m not a bad guy, mind you. I’m merely an opportunist. An opportunist whose grandeur was fading.

The beating that echoed through the halls was amplified by the stone. The thing that stuck out to me most was the fact that I couldn’t hear him fight back. He never begged for mercy, he never proclaimed his innocence. He didn’t say anything. He just took it.

Maybe that’s why they kept hitting him. Maybe they wanted him to break, so they kept torturing him. I hate admitting this, but in my own reduced state, I cried. I sat in my cell and felt the blows that the Silent Strength took. I call him the ‘Silent Strength’ because that’s what he became to me in those minutes (hours?) of hearing them beat him.

I could feel myself changing into…something. I was at a more guttural level of my humanity and I was being transformed into a nothing when all of my ’something’ faded in obscurity.

The guards came to unlock my cell and lead me out to slaughter. I kept looking around for the Silent Strength but couldn’t spot him. I could just hear the crowd in the distance ahead of me and followed his trail of blood as I walked the path he just took. I found a sense of peace as I placed my feet in his footsteps. Not really footsteps, I couldn’t make them out, but in my imagination, I was following the Silent Strength, step by step, with a sobering sense of purpose.

I gleaned from him. Wrong or right, I fed off his courage to walk when I don’t know how a man could walk after what he’d just been through.

When I got to the hill, I saw the other thief spitting and spewing his ugliness as he took his cross. The contrast between he and the Silent Strength was staggering. That man looked at the sky as though he were looking for someone to meet his gaze. I don’t think he ever found it because he cried to the sky, “Why have you forsaken me?”

I waited for him to notice me, my heart caught in my chest with his words and though I was confused, I still felt like I was witnessing something so much greater than anything I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

When the nails were in place and the ropes were tied, the Soldiers of Doom made our cross placement count. We slammed in the ground with a horrific thud and I heard the Silent Strength cry out.

He said something that sent me over the edge. He looked to the sky and cried, ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.’

I couldn’t take it.

I watched them make fun of him. ‘King of the Jews,’ they cried, ’save yourself!’

Women were wailing and he held them up with words. “Don’t cry for me. If they do this when times are good, think of what they’ll do when times are bad.’

I looked at the crowd and found, what I think was, his mother. Her frail frame was supported by a younger man as she cried out his name. Jesus. Then, I heard him separate himself from them.

‘Behold your mother,’ he said. ‘Behold your son.’

They fell into each other as I was losing consciousness.

If only I could sleep until I’m dead, but breathing was nearly impossible in that position. I could feel my life grow weary as I gasped for air. Crucifixion is an effective form of death by slow torture. If they get sick of us holding on to life, they break our ankles so we can’t stand up for air. I could see their mallets in the dirt under me and I wanted to not fight, but my survival instinct was more powerful than my will for death.

I was watching the Silent Strength, Jesus, from the corner of my eye. I heard the other thief join in the mocking. It seemed he was half spitting-half hoping when he said, ‘Are you not the Christ?! Save yourself and us!’

My heart wailed and I screamed words I barely recognized as my own, ‘Have you no fear of God?! We’re getting what we deserve, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong!’

My head was spinning. Somewhere between my ego-centric god complex, I discovered the Truth. I know I deserve my death, but everyone knew that this other man didn’t. They all knew it and still they strung him up like a cursed piece of meat. A sacrifice to the fabricated god of religious politics.

I knew he was fading. I knew my time was short. I felt a sense of desperation when I spoke to him.

‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.’

I was His first. My glory was not in my valiant feats of thievery, though I never would have met Him if I had not done wrong. I’m thankful for my own failures because I never would have heard Him say:

‘Believe me when I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

inspired by the crucifixion as told in Luke 23.

children of light

Sooner or later we’ll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. -2 Corinthians 5:10

How often do you read scripture or hear preaching that makes you think of someone besides yourself? It’s normal to feel a sense of vengeance when you consider that the actions of others, actions you’ve deemed sinful, will be judged by God.

It’s hard not to want the people who have hurt you to pay. You want people to know how they’ve made you doubt, how they’ve made you insecure, how they’ve made you feel like you didn’t exist. You want them to feel bad. Really bad, like the way stern disapproval from God would feel.

Fantasizing about a day of judgment when they can finally see everything the way it is and not the way they think it is.

The problem with this mental trap is when you fail to see how you’ve dumped your own poison to the pot. Sitting in opposition to another is never a clear cut division. If you have sides in an argument, sides as a result of sin fallout, then you know you’re doing something wrong. It’s hard to see how your hard heart toward another is wrong when you feel like you’re right.

‘Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you.” -Oswald Chambers

Stop focusing on what others are doing wrong. When it all comes out, it will be bad enough, don’t make it worse. Your grudges and lists make you look bad, not them. Don’t buy in to the religious fantasy that you understand God and all the dark threads He weaves into your life. You have no idea what He’s doing.

If you’ve ever been misunderstood or misjudged, then you can be assured you have misunderstood and misjudged others. Focus on your own need for Jesus and leave the speck in your friends’ eye to the One who can see it clearly. God doesn’t use a soft light when He’s setting things right. No one can pass muster.

Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day! Why would you want to see God, want him to come? When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news, the worst of times, not the best of times… At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—a black cloud with no silver lining. -Amos 5:18-20

If Jesus is real, then live like it. You represent Him, not your standard for Christian living. Don’t make a list of Christian behaviors to check off during the day.

(Read Bible? Check. Pray? Check. Smile a lot? Check. Witness to sinners? Check. Ask for forgiveness for speeding? Check. Ask for forgiveness for honking at the idiot in front of me? Check. Congratulate myself for not becoming prideful of my ability to submit my sins to Jesus as they happen? check. Speak ‘truth in love’ to the smokers out in the parking lot? Check. Speak ‘truth in love’ to the fellow Christian who didn’t pray over her lunch? Check. Look for opportunities to speak more ‘truth in love’, find more sinners and ask for more forgiveness? Check.)

If you really have a grasp on what Jesus did and what it means, you wouldn’t be so obsessed and uptight about the morality of self and others. If you really ‘walked in the light’ of truth, you would be embracing others, thorns and all. You respond to others the way Jesus responds to you. If you’re not getting scratched and dirty, then you’ve got the wrong Jesus on your dashboard.

‘For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person.’ -Oswald Chambers

But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. -1 John 1:6

“As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You’ll be children of light.” -John 12:36

addressing the mutilated gospel

I was nineteen when I decided to give Jesus a chance. I started going to church, making Christian friends and studying the Bible. I never had a particular awareness of ’sin’, though I knew I was a ’sinner.’ I knew that I was not living a ‘Christian’ lifestyle but I never claimed to be a Christian, so I didn’t care. However, I did see my lifestyle as the root of all of my problems.

When you change your friends, habits and influences, it’s absolutely impossible to not see a significant life change. I was a an acid tripping pot smoker. All of my friends were on drugs and barely getting by. I had given up on dreaming about a future and being somebody. I changed my life because I got pregnant. My childhood was really bad and I wanted to create something better for my own daughter. That’s why I became a ‘Christian.’

It was easy for me to make the changes. Christians love newbies. They love teaching people how to be a good Christian. I was a clean slate. I didn’t care what the life required and I jumped in head first. I was likable and my enthusiasm was charming. I really wanted to be the best Christian I could be. I was extreme and uncompromising. For nine years, I never knew I was missing something.

My life hit a crossroads when my uncompromising stance and desire to be a good Christian weren’t enough to keep me from making bad choices. I was comfortable and confident in what I had created. The idea of me doing anything wrong was ridiculous.

Something has happened since then and I’m consumed by the need to explain it.

I did everything right. I had all the desire in the world. But it wasn’t enough. I knew how to talk and I wasn’t faking it. I knew how to act and I wasn’t forcing it. I was just like everyone else I knew and I counted myself in with the one’s who weren’t struggling. I was beyond that.

I didn’t realize I made Jesus a lifestyle. I didn’t know that I wasn’t ‘alive’ because I felt alive. Doing good feels good. Having a cause to sell out to is an adrenaline rush. ‘Sold out for Jesus.‘

Falling changed everything. I learned something through my own sin that nothing else could have taught me.

I thought I was on the right path, but it was just a religious path. It felt right because it was so much better than where I came from. The affirmation I got from fellow Christians told me it was right. If I was aware of committing a sin, I would beg Jesus to forgive me and start all over. I’d tighten the reigns on myself. I did everything I could to not have to revisit the cross.

I had a conversation with someone over the weekend about Hebrews 6. Particularly this passage:

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. -Hebrews 6:4-6 NIV

This person is feeling the overwhelming guilt of repeating a sin that they have had to ask God to forgive in the past. Their preacher taught on this passage and they looked up other teachings and it confirmed their fear that they are beyond forgiveness.

My spirit groans at the horrible misuse of scripture to condemn the fallen. I know that false teaching is prevalent, but when I actually see it burying people in their mistakes, it makes me want to scream.

This passage is not about repeating sins for which you have been forgiven. It’s about not believing in the power of Jesus sin conquering death in the first place. You can hear it, accept the clean slate, practice morality and still fall. If you’re aware of your sin and someone tells you that you can start over, you’re going to take it. This doesn’t mean that your spirit has been ‘enlightened’, it means that you can try really hard to not do it again.

I talk about the ‘enlightening’ that my own experience has taught me and the continued ‘enlightenment’ that I receive through the Holy Spirit every time I write.

So, I’ll write this to that person I had the conversation with and to the rest of you who feel like you are beyond forgiveness because of your sin. Your sin, because of Jesus, does not have the power to sentence you to death. You will fail in numerous ways for the rest of your life. Those of us who have been ‘enlightened’ never preach about ways to keep yourself from sin, that is preaching ways to keep you from needing Jesus. If you reach that point of awareness, then you are further from Jesus than any moral failure can take you. We preach about Jesus and Him crucified. Period.

The power of believing in who Jesus is and what He did does not give you the power to not need Him. It gives you the assurance that:

The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture. -Romans 8:34-35

Not even the worst sins listed in scripture….

Being ‘enlightened’ is through the power of the Holy Spirit who comes in and assures you that though you will fall, because of your faith in Him, He is sticking up for you in the presence of God.

Sin is not the deal breaker, your lack of faith is.

So many people are walking around in their self-righteousness and preaching the condemnation of Hell to those who are not as ‘good’ as they are. They don’t know what to say to the fallen. They fear for them. Fear is the driving force behind judgment. Fear is the driving force behind affirmation for those who have managed to keep their sins hidden. Rewards for morality is horribly damaging to the spirit of freedom. When you point out the ‘goodness’ of someone you deem good, you are always alienating those who know they are flawed.

So many people are walking around with the weight of their sin because they don’t feel like Jesus will want them anymore.

What have we done to the Gospel?

The same people who preach the unfailing love of God put stipulations on that Truth and put the power back in the hands of the believer. Measure up or get kicked out. We remove the ‘bad influences’ and make examples of the sinners. Salvation by self-control is the message. Prosperity by visualization, self-indulgence and self-satisfaction in moral sweat are what is killing the spirits of those who refuse to fake their ‘arrival’.

Jesus wants your flaws, He wants your brokenness, He wants the displaced, dissatisfied and the disillusioned. He never had time for the self-righteous rants of the religious. If you’re a failure, then He’s your best friend. Jesus had a reputation and that reputation is your best ally at this point.

By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” -Luke 15:1-3