Let’s begin a regular, continuing topic, OK? Once a month we’ll explore how much value God has, or doesn’t have, in our lives. Who is he? What’s he like? What does a connection with him look like? How can we craft that? I’m convinced that we need to identify those questions because our view of God, or the lack of it, will shape our lives. So this first post will start the process with two positions that represent the ends of the spiritual spectrum. Several years ago, a woman walked into Haagen-Dazs, and noticed Paul Newman...
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Dancing with the Devil
For too long, I justified myself with the excuse that dancing with the devil was justifiable if I didn’t slow dance. I’d edge as close to overt sin as I could without stepping over the line. Close enough to get some pleasure, but not too close to get trapped, to have guilt overwhelm the good times. In high school days, how much physical contact with girls was acceptable before it became sin? That became more subtle as an adult, how much information could I withhold, without actually lying, to give myself an advantage? Or, while remaining a nice guy, what balance should I strike between serving others and using others to serve myself? These are just a few of all those cases I could list.
That was fast dancing with the devil.
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Habituated
No, this may not qualify as unusual, but my email account got hacked. A friend forwarded an email he had received “from me,” with a link that obviously wasn’t from me. So, I changed the password that I’d kept for a dozen years, with just a few minor, rememberable tweaks, into a longer more exceptional one.
So, for the last two weeks, 90% of the times I sign in to my email...
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Heaven Tickets?
What’s the admission ticket to heaven? Do all get one, or just a select few? How do you obtain one of these, if you so desire? What if you don’t desire heaven as a destination? That issue has thrust itself into the conversation, with books like Rob Bell’s Love Wins, and a recent article on universalism by Ron Corson.
Bell and Corson and others suggest that in the end, all go to heaven. This short page can’t examine that issue in depth, but I do want to explore a foundational issue that we need to grasp before we reach a conclusion. Following Jesus...
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Gold Medals
Exceptionally low self-worth plagued my early years. In elementary school, life lost so much joy I also lost laughter for several months. In high school, primarily only the permanence of suicide kept that from being tried. In college, I learned how to gold medal in competition—with others.
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image by Hubble at forwallpaper.com
God: Mystery or Certainty?
Our perception of God drives our connection with him. View him as legalistic, and rules and fear of failing will consume us. View him as gracious, and we may take advantage and miss obedience. View him as distant, and we never discover intimacy. That principle of perception motivated a search lasting several years, attempting to determine how he can be personal and immediate and simultaneously present in every cubic centimeter of the universe. Was he just a spirit? A force? An expanded body that combined the physical and spiritual?
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image by Iowa State
Why Worship Together?
Last week’s post attracted a lot of interest, but the topic has another level. Then, we explored why we worship—it’s the best antidote to self-centeredness. Some of my most glorious worship occurs in the mountains. Immersed in the beauty of the world that God created, away from the overpowering touch of man, my ego shrinks as I get lost in God’s transcendence. Those magnificent Sierra vistas shout out the grandeur of God.
But worship exceeds that half hour of singing at church, the hour plus of the “worship service.” Worship is life. Yet here is where we can easily miss a key aspect of worship
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photograph by taringa.net
Jesus Freaks for Today?
Surveys repeat the findings: people are intrigued with Jesus, but not so much with either his followers or his church. They view us as judgmental, legalistic, reactionary: that we want to impose our morality on them.
That’s not unlike the 60s, an often inflexible church unwilling to adapt to a changing world. I understand that—the era experienced an explosion of sexual immorality and drug use and overall moral relativism. The church continued medieval hymns as rock and roll took over the culture.
Yet in that milieu, the Jesus Movement erupted...
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