Letter 2 to Friend in Rehab

Sorry for all the time off -- it's been crazy lately, and I've been going to bed before midnight, cutting down my blogging time. I promise more posts in the weeks to come. Here is an excerpt of my latest letter to my friend in rehab. Please continue to pray for him.

So, what is the gospel? Many people, especially in America, try to dumb down the gospel and make it something like “Jesus died for everyone so we can be forgiven and go to heaven.” Please believe me when I say that this dumb-downed version of the gospel is not a good way to understand things, and there really is a lot missing. For starters, the word gospel means “good news.” That’s simple enough, for it is truly good news. But sometimes, for news to be really as good as it can be, there has to be some bad news associated with it. For example, say your favorite college basketball team won the NCAA tournament. That’s good news. But would it be even better news if they were behind by 15 points with 3 minutes to go and came back and won on a last second three-pointer? Sure it would. Because the bad news had already sunk in that a loss was inevitable barring a miracle, it makes the good news of victory that much sweeter. The good news miracle of the gospel isn’t all that different, so I’ll start with the bad news.

The bad news is that when Adam and Eve let pride get in the way and sinned in the garden, all of creation fell victim to sin and the clutches of evil. Unfortunately, because God is holy (morally perfect and set apart), evil is no laughing matter for him, and neither are “small” little sins. In fact, all sin must be punished because God is perfectly just, and for him, it is right to punish sin; otherwise, he wouldn’t be just and wouldn’t be holy. All of creation “fell” when the first sin was committed…you, me, and everyone else. The Bible says that we all have fallen short of the glory of God. Some may have sinned a lot more than others or in a lot worse of ways, but the bottom line is that we all fall short – regardless of the good or bad things we do.

In the Old Testament, God dealt with the punishment of sins through various sacrifices. Why did God make his people do sacrifices for their sins? Well, to start with, the sin has to be punished, and God’s holy law declares that the punishment for sin is death. But instead of killing off his entire human creation as a just punishment, God chose to have mercy and allowed the sins of man to be passed to an innocent animal. When the animal received the sin of man, it was no longer innocent and was thereby killed. After all, the Bible says in Hebrews that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. This is how God dealt with the sin of man before Christ.

Then the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, came to earth to dwell with his people. Jesus was both fully man (and therefore had fleshly weaknesses and temptations like you and me) and fully God (part of the Holy Trinity). He lived 33 years on earth and did not sin. If Christ would’ve sinned, then the entire religion can be thrown out, for it is no longer of any value. Part of the faith necessary to trust in Christ is believing that he was fully man and fully God and fully sinless. Why was it important for him to be sinless? If you recall from the previous paragraph, the innocent animals were the ones being sacrificed for the sins of man. But this could only satisfy the wrath of God toward the vileness of sin temporarily. A true innocent human sacrifice could only truly remove the just and holy wrath of God toward his sinful creation. And that’s where Jesus comes in the picture. There’s much more involved here than just Jesus dying for our sins. 1.) In dying for our sins, Jesus, a perfect and innocent substitute, was separated from his Father for the first time when wearing the sin of man…and amazing act of love! 2.) Jesus came to establish his kingdom on earth. Remember, all of creation fell at the beginning. Jesus came to restore it by first restoring individuals. When one places faith and trust in Jesus for his sacrificing work, the Holy Spirit dwells within that person, and God begins to change them. And by changing people, God is out to change the world. 3.) Jesus came to set us free. The Christian is truly about freedom, namely the freedom from sin’s grasp. The Bible often talks about mankind as though we were slaves to sin in need of redemption. Our natural selves are stained by the wickedness of sin, and only by the power of Christ are we free to do well, free from sin, and only by the grace of God. This, my dear friend, is the good news, and the news in which we must trust and believe in to be saved. And when doing so, your life will be dramatically changed, and not just for a season, but for the longevity of your life. Jesus calls us all to repent, or to turn away, from our lives of sin, and believe on him as the only source of eternal life. He must be the Lord and only king of our life.

Notice that I haven’t spoken at all about doing good things. One cannot do enough good things to earn a way to heaven because the bottom line is that sin must be paid for by a perfect substitute. Unless a person is sinless, which is impossible, one must put all hope of heaven in the work of Christ alone. Good works are simply the evidence of one being a Christian. Sometimes people can fool you though. But Jesus said that you will know a tree by its fruit. A person truly changed on the inside will look different and act different on the outside.

What’s my story? I’ll give you the short version. Much like you, I grew up going to church on Sundays, maybe even doing a little more than that here and there. I was definitely one of the “good” kids in school, even through high school. I got the good grades, kept my relationships fairly pure (for the most part), led a Bible study, and stayed away from the party crowd. I did, however, have a dirty mouth on me, let a few relationships go a little too far, and above all, I lived for me. I lived for football during football season, basketball during basketball season, and baseball during baseball season, all while ultimately living for me and my glory. On the outside, I was a guy that appeared as a Christian perhaps, and even claimed I was a Christian, but the truth of the matter was that I was a wretched sinner who tried to cover it up by either doing good things or by not doing bad things…basically trying to more good than bad and reading my Bible from time to time. I got to college, and a friend shared with me the things I have shared with you. At first, I let the words go right through me, as I was a smart guy and had heard all of that before. After all, of course I had a relationship with God-- I prayed often enough didn’t I? But the more I thought about things and the more God worked on my heart, the more I saw that I was a wretched sinner who had never truly repented from my rotten ways and trusted in Christ alone as my salvation. I was trusting in my own good works, thinking somehow that by being a good guy and giving lip service to Jesus, I was going to heaven. Finally, God broke me down, and made me realize that I wasn’t a Christian at all and had been living a lie for 18 years. Long story short, that first year of college, I trusted in Christ, turned from my sin, and began the long and difficult journey of being a Christian. It’s not easy at all; in fact, the life of a non-believer is much easier. I struggle often with various things and thoughts, but I hate the sin that is in me now and will never be found rejoicing in it. The Bible tells me I will know that I’m a Christian by examining myself, my fruit, and by enduring to the end. I pray that you someday may have a story of forgiveness and will be able to sing of the grace of God and mean it.

Tame Those Tongues

We're studying and discussing the book of James in our Monday night Bible study. Last week we had a particularly good discussion on taming our tongues. Here's the context:

James 3:1-12 - Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

I decided to make a list of how we misuse the tongue, most of which we talked about on Monday. If any of these (or possibly all of them) are in your life, I urge you to consider taming your tongue. I can admit that I need a lot of work still in this area.

1.) cursing
2.) complaining
3.) big lies
4.) small lies
5.) exaggerations
6.) sarcasm
7.) nonconstructive criticism
8.) gossip
9.) slander
10.) name calling
11.) taking the Lord's name in vain
12.) long-winded prayers
13.) talking about self too much
14.) put downs
15.) verbal judging
16.) boasting
17.) unkind words
18.) inappropriate joking
19.) cursing substitutes
20.) threatening others
21.) useless shouting
22.) prideful arguing
23.) flattery
24.) defensive justifying
25.) making excuses

One might say, well everybody has problems with some of those...it's not that big of deal. Well, to you -- read the passage of James again. You think he thinks it's no big deal? You think God thinks it's no big deal? You think the person you hurt with your words thinks it's no big deal? James says that no human being can tame the tongue, so perhaps we should all ask God for some help.

Letter 1 to Friend in Rehab

So I've begun to write my friend who is currently in drug/alcohol rehab, trying to relay some basic truths of life and Christianity while he is in a 'changing' state of mind. I understand that it's possible my letters could do more harm than good, and if any good comes out them, it is solely because God willed it so. So, as readers of this blog, please pray for my friend -- that God would take out his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh. Anyway, bearing all in front of the world again -- here is my first letter:

I hope that this letter finds you doing well in your rehabilitation assignment. Three months can be a long time to be away from friends and family, hence why I decided to write you letters in the meantime.

My aim in this is twofold: 1.) to give you something to read while you are bored out of your mind and 2.) to communicate to you what Christianity is all about. I’m guessing in your mind you might have Christianity figured out by now and possibly want nothing to do with it. Well, that’s fine, but I ask you to hear me out for a few months, as I have a lot to write about, and I’m hoping by now I’m a guy you can trust to not feed you a bunch of useless junk. You’ve probably heard and seen an extremely wide variation of Christianity from family, friends, college professors, enemies, television, radio, movies, and music. You’ve probably seen enough hypocrites in your short life to turn you away completely. You’ve probably seen enough evil in the world to question to existence of a God at all. You’ve probably heard several conflicting views just from visiting different churches, possibly even in the same denomination. You might even think other religions sound just as good or even better. There is also a chance you might have a distorted view of who Jesus really is based on how he is portrayed in the media.

Well, for a moment, or for the next three months, please hear me out as I attempt to communicate Christianity to one I care for deeply. In my letters, please assume that there is a God, he always does right, and that the Bible is true. For some reason, I don’t fear that you have a huge problem with this. But sometimes it’s common for intellectuals such as yourself to think too much and begin to question things like this. Those are advanced topics and not where I really want to go right now.

My main goal in the first letter is to strip away a very common misconception. This misconception is the notion that for people to become Christians, they have to decide to stop doing things they shouldn’t, start going to church every Sunday, start reading their Bible, and above all, start doing a lot more good than bad before they take the plunge into Christianity. And then they say a little prayer asking God for forgiveness. And that’s it. They’re Christians. They’re going to heaven. All is well. This is not how Christianity works! I cannot stress this enough. This is the life I myself lived for 18 years, and I had no relationship with God, no peace, little joy, and basically no clue what life was really about. A person doesn’t wash himself before taking a shower. This analogy works well. What I’m saying is this: for a person to become a Christian, he does not have to get his life straight beforehand. We all have to come to God with all of our mess; otherwise, we might incorrectly assume that we earn or deserve a place in the kingdom of God. If a person truly becomes a Christian, a couple of things must be true: 1.) the person repents – or turns away – from sin, making a decision to try and do what God desires, 2.) the person trusts solely in the work of Christ (more on that later), trusting that his sacrifice and his righteousness is the only thing that can get someone into heaven, and 3.) God will start to change the person – here is when the change takes place -- after becoming a Christian, the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer for the first time, fighting to make the person more and more like Christ as the days go by.

Anyway, that’s all for now. In the next letter, I’ll touch on what “the gospel” is along with my personal testimony of how I became a Christian. The third letter will be on the person of Christ.

The Real Super Bowl

Ok, you can stop rolling your eyes now -- this is not some sort of soap box post trying to convince people that the Super Bowl, its halftime show, and its commercials are all evil, and we should all be going to a Sunday evening church service instead. For starters, my church doesn't even have a Sunday evening service, and I will be surely semi-wasting 4 hours of my life Sunday eating more than I should, drinking way too much Diet Coke, and watching football in all of its undeserved hype. The Colts and the Bears just happen to be two of my most unloved teams (if this was a sports blog, I would use the word 'hated' instead). Anyway...

The scene -- a place called Mount Carmel, a mountain just along the Mediterranean coast due west of the Sea of Chinneroth almost 3,000 years ago.

1 Kings 18:21 - And Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him." And the people did not answer a word.

And Elijah set the stage for the ultimate Super Bowl -- the showdown between Baal and Jehovah. There probably isn't a need for me to repeat the entire story, so if you are interested, I will refer you to 1 Kings 18:16-40. Basically, to sum things up, the Lord God of Israel smoked the false god Baal in a fire-making contest in front of all of Israel to prove that he was the only true God.

This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible, and in the book on Elijah that I'm reading, Pink takes several chapters to discuss this great event. So how does this apply today, and how in the world does it apply to the Super Bowl? Well, I admit that the Super Bowl comparison is a bit of a stretch, but honestly, for those people on that day, there was nothing more important than finding out who the true God was. And unfortunately, I'm afraid that in America tomorrow, there's hardly anything more important than finding out whether the Bears or the Colts win the Super Bowl. It's such a strange thing how people who don't even watch football during the year gather like flocks of sheep to watch the big game -- simply because it's a big party.

I almost wish that a present day Elijah would stand up and ask us all a similar question -- something like 'How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if the world or money or your job or whatever else is God, follow him. ' Sure, we don't seem to have a big problem today of someone going back and forth from Buddha to Jesus or anything like that, but we all have other gods. They may not be named Baal, but we certainly have idolatry problems today, myself included. This story is certainly relevant for each believer and non-believer alike. The sad thing is that our God is undefeated yet always the underdog. He will never go head to head against one of our false gods and fail. He has won time and time again and yet we still have days where we don't trust him, don't honor him, don't believe his words, etc. Why does God have to prove himself over and over again as the only god out there -- and that he is much more satisfying than anything this world has to offer? Oh well, whatever the case, if you are reading this, consider who or what is fighting against God in your own spiritual Super Bowl. Don't make the same mistake as the prophets of Baal - forsaking the only true God for a lie.