Radical Transformation

I read a sign that said that Jesus could fill the void in your life. The sentiment of that sign is alright but it does not go far enough. It implies that a person is OK but lacks something in their life. As if Jesus is the final piece of the puzzle that is your life. Everything about your life is good; you need Jesus to complete your life. This is not right at all. This idea puts humans higher than they should be. As if men are really close to being holy, they just need the final piece to get there. Humans are sinful to the core; they are not merely incomplete. Jesus does not complete a person, he transforms them. Paul describes this transformation in Ephesians 2:4-5- But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved. This is the transformation that takes place: dead to alive. Humans do not have voids to be filled; they are dead and need to brought to life. The ideas of life and death seem to be avoided when churches try to advertise themselves. Churches and members want to see people saved and come to their churches (rightly so), but seem to be afraid, unwilling or unable to present the harsh, mean, ugly truth of how sinful people are and how dramatic salvation must be. Sin is deadly and should be presented that way. It should never be watered down or downplayed. The stakes are too high to alter the message. Jesus said- I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10:10) Jesus came to give life, not to fill holes in lives or cap off an otherwise good life. He came to allow dead sinners to be brought to life. This is the message that churches and Christians should be presenting to the world.

Inalienable Rights

The role of government has come into question due to recent economic events. The recent flap over the AIG bonuses has shown the pitfalls of government intervention in business. What is the government's purpose for existing? I go back to the Declaration of Independence for the answer. It says that all men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and that governments are instituted to "secure these rights". The role of government is to protect these rights for all men. Is giving billions of dollars to companies like AIG protecting these inalienable rights? Absolutely not.
The first thing to look at is where these rights come from. They come from God, the creator, not from men. God gives people the right to live, have liberty and property. The writers of the Declaration of Independence were influenced by John Locke for the inalienable rights. He used pursuit of property instead of pursuit of happiness, I replace happiness with property when I think of inalienable rights. All of these rights come from God and are confirmed in his law. People have the right to live, God forbids murder. People have the right to liberty, God forbids kidnapping and enslaving someone indefinitely. People have the right to property, God forbids stealing. Government's job is to protect these rights that everyone has equally been given from God. Government should not decide who has these rights and who does not. However, over the course of history the United States' government has taken God's place and handed out these rights as it saw fit. When the government hands out rights it will also begin to take them back as well.
The government began to take God's place as the granter of rights because of the errors the founders of the United States made. They did not include all men when they created this nation. The rights of African slaves and Native Americans were not protected. They were enslaved and murdered by the citizens of the United States and it was done without interference from the government set up to protect inalienable rights. Over time people saw the injustice and sought to change give African slaves and Native Americans the same rights enjoyed by other Americans. Through the passing of laws and amending the Constitution the inalienable rights of all men were closer to being protected. The problem is that these people already had those rights. The government failed them at first and then came in to fix the problem. The pattern became that those who felt their rights were not protected came to the government and instead of protecting rights the government passed laws granting rights to people. The government we have now has replaced God as the granter of rights and now bestows these rights as it pleases.
The fact that the government has replaced God as granter of rights is a major problem. That is not the problem that I plan to address. The problem is that government is not doing its original job of protecting the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of property. Not every individual's life is protected. The lives of unborn fetuses are not protected. The right to life of these unborn individuals has been given to their mothers by the government. Their mothers get to decide if they live or not. Everyone who pays income taxes has their right to liberty infringed upon. The income tax is a sly form of slavery. It is not as severe as the slavery in the South before the Civil War but it is slavery none the less. Many slaves in the south were given Sundays off to grow their own food. So they worked for their owners six days a week. Now a person who pays 20% of their income in taxes to the federal government is a slave to the federal government 20% of the time. This is not as severe and complete as slavery in the American south, but it is not acceptable from the institution set up to protect the right to liberty. The bailouts given by government recently demonstrate the failure to protect pursuit of property. The rights of companies receiving bailouts are not infringed upon, but the rights of their competitors are. If I were a competitor of AIG and they were about to go out of business, this is good for me. I now have one less competitor and should see my business increase. This is the way business should work the more efficient and effective businesses survive and the less efficient and effective businesses fail. But now the government decides that certain businesses are too important to fail and give them money to stay in business. This is one example of the government taking God's place. They believe they have enough knowledge to determine what is best for everyone involved even if they have no idea what will happen if certain businesses fail. If I am AIG's competitor my right to pursue property has been impeded by a government bailout. Also, since I am a taxpayer the federal government has taken my tax dollars and given them to my competitor to keep them in business. This shows the irrational behavior of our government. Businesses that succeed will have their profits taken from them and given to their competitors to keep them in business.
The thing to learn from this is that the government has overstepped it bounds and is not doing its job. People have allowed this to happen by electing officials who keep doing these kinds of things. Americans need to acknowledge that their rights come from God alone and make the government protect those rights.

Discovering God’s Will

God’s children want to know what his will is for their lives, but invariably believers ask the question “How do I know what God’s will is for my life?” Church bodies ask similar questions about God’s will for them as a local body of believers. Being able to answer these questions can mean the difference between a life of meaning and purpose and a life of confusion and frustration.

The first thing to consider is that God’s will and a person’s will can be different. God’s will is not that every person on earth should be as happy as they can be and doing whatever they want. We must realize that what we want to happen or receive from God might not be right or best for us. We must admit that God’s will is found outside of us. We need some way of testing our desires and wants against what God wants for us. There is something that accomplishes that for us. The scriptures do reveal God’s will to us. We have a collection of commands and stories of God’s will in the lives of his people. When we want to know God’s will we should go to the Bible to discover it.

God’s will, as revealed in his word, can be summed up as obeying his commandments. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment he answered with “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40) Jesus summed up God’s commandments as love God and love your neighbor. There are many people who want to focus on the second these commandments. They want to say that God wants everyone to be treated equally and that we show that we love God by how we treat the “least of these”. That is true, but we cannot neglect the first command to love God and truly love our neighbors. God’s will is that we love him first and foremost above all else.

What does it mean to love God with our heart, soul and mind? This means that we must love God with every part of ourselves and every part of our lives. Everything that we do should show our love for God. From the moment we wake up in the morning and the moment we go to sleep at night and in between, we should loving God in all that we do. This means that the way we work at our jobs should show that we love God. The way we behave with our friends and family should demonstrate our love for God. Every detail of our lives down to what we eat, drink or wear should be based on our love for God. If this seems extreme look at the laws given to the Israelites, they were told what they could and could not eat and drink, and where to live. They were given very specific commands from God that showed that they were his people. When faced with a choice to make we should choose the option that shows love for God. This means that we might choose something that alienates us from other people or even causes hostility from other people. If we are going to be living God’s then we will look to please him more than ourselves or others.

As we look to please God with our lives and read his word we will grow in the knowledge of what pleases God. But as we do that we will see the many ways that do not please God and do not show our love for him in our lives. At this point we must be reminded that we cannot love God on our own. We must repent of sin and have faith in Christ before we can ever love God or please him. Even long-time Christians must be reminded of their own sin and repent and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work of sanctification in their lives.

Another part of doing God’s will is that we should enjoy it. Christians should not seek to please God out of a sense of duty. Loving God should not be something that we are forced to do. We should love God because he deserves it more than anything else and out of gratitude for our salvation. God commands that we should “love kindness” (Micah 6:8) It is not enough to practice kindness, we are to love it. This applies to every aspect of God’s will. Sharing the Gospel or church attendance should be things we enjoy. As we love God these are things that we cannot help but do. If you know of things that God has commanded and you do not do them, you do not love God as you should.

We find God’s will for us in the Bible through reading and praying about what we have read. In his word we will find that God’s will is for us to love him with all that we have. We must allow our love for God to come out in every part of our lives and always be ready to commit more to him. This is not an easy task, because we are by our nature opposed to God’s will. We must continually be repenting of sin and growing through the Holy Spirit’s work. As this happens we should find that pleasing God is all that we want to do. We should get our pleasure from our love for God and doing his will.

Snow on the Just and Unjust

Why are blessings and disasters shared by everyone? In City of God Augustine gives his reasons for this in Book I chapter 8. He writes that is the mercy of the one who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45) I would add that snow could be included. I look out the window and see that snow has covered everything outside. Regardless of who you are, if you live around me you have around 4 inches of snow. School children and teachers see snow as a wonderful treat and people who must go to work regardless of the weather see snow as a burden and great inconvenience. Depending upon who you are this snow is either very good or very bad. This is the point that Augustine made about blessings and disasters. What mattered was the person not the action. He made some wonderful illustrations about this. He wrote that "the fire which makes gold shine makes chaff smoke." Suffering in the life of a believer can strengthen their relationship with Christ and leave them better than they were before the suffering. In the life of an unbeliever suffering can sometimes show them their helplessness and lead them to Christ. Likewise, suffering can reveal that a person has no relationship with Christ when they search for relief in the wrong places. Augustine ended the chapter with another illustration writing that "Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical." This can point out the stark difference between believers and unbelievers. You can be a cesspit or a perfume. Since the difference is in the people, not the action suffering or blessing can cause the same thing. In unbelievers' lives (cesspits) both suffering and blessing can deepen sin and heap condemnation upon themselves. In believers' lives (perfume) both suffering and blessing can deepen the relationship with Christ and reveal God's grace and mercy more clearly. I think that the question we need to answer is not why things happen a certain way but am I a cesspit or a perfume. What is great is that God is continuing to change cesspits into perfume. Another lesson I should learn is that when stuff happens to me I should make sure that what comes from me does not appear to come from a cesspit.

Great Events of 2008

2008 is almost over today and it was quite a year. Something that many people did not believe could happen and many others thought would never happen in their lifetime happened in 2008. Of course I am referring to Notre Dame winning a bowl game, which they did on Christmas Eve against Hawaii. They were some other important events of 2008, maybe not quite as profound as Notre Dame's victory in the Hawaii Bowl.
Barack Hussein Obama was elected to be the next president. His victory reminded me of elections in high school for student body president. The person who wins is the person who everyone thinks is cool whether they know why he is cool or not. The student body president promises to get a new parking lot built and more coke machines in the cafeteria, even though he will have no power to get those things done. No one cares if he promises things that are not within his power to accomplish. President elect Obama promises to lower taxes, provide jobs and health care, end war and give everyone a canned ham. But I should not be so skeptical, because no politician has ever promised more than he could deliver.
Another I learned this year is that "Office of the President Elect" is a real position. I think that this is very cool and I hope to be elected to some office someday so I can be in the "Office of the ______ Elect" This sounds to me like a made up office, similar to Assistant to the Regional Manager. Maybe I could be "Assistant to the Office of the President Elect."
The financial crisis this year teaches us that is a bad idea to loan money to people who cannot pay it back. It is also a bad idea to buy an over-priced house with money you do not have and will not ever have. This situation shows me that I am not very smart because I did not think that it needed to be said out loud that you should not spend money you do not have. This probably also why I would not be able to work in Congress.
In the great state of Illinois we are preparing to send another governor to prison. In part I admire Governor Blagojevich. I think that you should go all out at whatever you do. If you are going to be a corrupt governor be the most corrupt governor you can be. Another interesting thing about my governor is that I have never heard anyone say anything good about him let alone admit to voting for him. Despite this he was elected, by a comfortable margin, twice. Someone out there must have voted for him at least once. If history has taught us anything about Chicago politics there are likely people who voted for governor Blagojevich many times in both elections.
In 2008 I learned many interesting things and I am sure that 2009 will bring many other memorable events to learn from. The early part of 2009 will bring momentous change when all over the air TV broadcasts go digital. We will also have a new president by then and that might be somewhat of a big deal.

The Unmerciful Servant

The parable of the unmerciful servant(Matthew 18:21-35) teaches a clear lesson of mercy and forgiveness. Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive always(seventy times seven) and must forgive no matter how large the transgression. The lesson of this parable is simple to see, but hard to carry out. Someone might ask does this mean that Christians are called to be pushovers and let people walk over them. When I asked this question to the Sunday School class someone pointed out that often we treat God as a pushover who will forgive no matter what and we take advantage of that mercy. I think that God will forgive sin no matter how large the sin. I also think that people take advantage of that grace. We are not only like the unmerciful servant who does not forgive as he was forgiven, we also continue to run up an immeasurable debt. So if God continues to forgive and allow such evil people to go on living is he a pushover? Of course he is not a pushover as the person who stated this to begin said "God is fearsome." We should never forget how fearsome and just that God is. Sin will not go unpunished and will be punished exactly as it should be. God's wrath will either be poured out upon the sinner himself or it is poured out on Christ. There is no third option to this situation. If this is kept in mind Christians can handle times they are wronged much better. If someone sins against me I know that God will punish that sin. I should want that person to repent and have faith in Christ and escape God's wrath for their sin. If the person does not repent then God will avenge the wrong committed. Paul addresses this in Romans 12 when he quotes the Old Testament verses concerning how to handle evil. He quotes Proverbs in Romans 12:20 "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head". This seems like a strange way to treat people, if they are bad to you then you should be good to them. This is how God treats the world, the world rebels against God and yet he continues to sustain life and bless the people of this world. So I must remember that no matter what someone has done to me, it is not as offensive as what the world does to God and I should be humble enough to be kind to people that offend me. I can also satisfy my desire for revenge with the thought of "burning coals on his head".

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is one that shows the need for humility before God. While discussing the importance of humility in Sunday School class someone commented that complete humility is necessary before God. I agree with this completely. John Piper describes humility in Don't Waste Your Life, by writing that people do not go to the Grand Canyon and talk about how great they are. They go to the Grand Canyon and are humbled. This is how people must come to God. They must come knowing that their greatness does not compare with the holiness and majesty of God. The pharisee came to thank God for how great he, the pharisee was, not how great God is. The tax collector came to God with great humility and acknowledged his place before God, a sinner. Humility is necessary in every aspect of salvation. I must be humble enough to admit that I was not good enough to come to God on my own. Jesus explains this in John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him". It takes humility to admit that even my best deeds were not enough- Isaiah 64:6 "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags". I must be humble to admit that even after being drawn to Jesus and repenting, I am still reliant upon him for my salvation. My security is not from myself but from "he who began a good work" in me. I know that I do not keep my salvation on my own, but is in God's hands and I am promised in Philippians 1:6 that it will be completed. Someone might say that anyone who believes that their salvation cannot be lost is not humble but arrogant. I would say that someone who thinks that they can keep their salvation by not sinning is being arrogant. I will readily admit that if my salvation depended on my ability to not sin, then I am in big trouble. I want to thank God that my salvation is not dependent on my righteousness but on Christ's. So when I think about humility and how someone must come before God the tax collector's prayer sums up what we all must say "'God, have mercy on me, a sinner."