1 John 2:15-16

Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world.

Over the past few days, these verses have been brought to mind – not directly, save perhaps on one occasion. Things I have heard made me remember them, or things I was thinking about led me back to them.

Those are good Christian verses, aren’t they?! Hate the world! It’s only bad!! A real Christian doesn’t like anything about the world. And from reading those verses, I would have to agree. That is what is says.

But my paradox meter was red-lighting again.

PARADOX!!! PARADOX!!! WARNING!!! DOESN’T MATCH PREVIOUS INFORMATION!!! PARADOX!!!!

One of the phrases from Jesus’ lips that I have most latched on to in life is “I came to give them life, and life to the full.” (John 10:10 – NIV, I believe) I love that Jesus wants us to live here and now to the fullest. He made it. He called it good. Life here is meant to be enjoyed, and God is meant to be worshipped through it and in it. Not apart from it.

So I do. I love life. I am a very optimistic person. Life is full of joy! Let me show you…

I love to cook!

I love to eat!

I love to play video games with my boys!

I love board games!

I love movies!

I love books!

I love to make web pages!

I love Apple Computers!!! (but, who doesn’t?) 🙂

I love going for walks in Palmyra.

I love Palmyra!

I love our house!

I love driving for long times! (Really… I do!)

I love Star Trek!

I am currently a fan of Quantum Leap, The Incredible Hulk, and the old Fat Albert cartoons.

I love DVDs!!! Special Features!!! Need I say more???

I love pizza, ice cream, candy, and other stuff that’s bad for me.

I love fresh fruit and veggies and salads and cheese and other good stuff for me.

I love playing basketball with my friends.

I love making lists of things I love!

Obviously, I could keep going. Is that bad? Am I wrong? Do I love the world, and so the love of the Father is not in me? I hope not.

So, we come to my paradox. There are moments when I see my love of “this world” stealing time from me and my Father. And I know that stuff can definitely get in the way. And there are other times that I think he made this world to be enjoyed. Does that mean anything that we have ever made is bad? Only the stuff he made is good? (Like, walks through the woods, eating great food, etc…) Not sure yet.

When we use the word lust, it immediately conjures up bad stuff in our minds, right? Usually associated with sexual perversion in some way. But here John uses it in a few different ways. The “lust for physical pleasure” perhaps meaning sexual, and even more – like good food, even working out for your “physical pleasure”? The “lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions.” Seems to me to refer to materialism. Loving our stuff. He then says, “These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world.” ALL of them? Which ones? Everything?

I completely understand that our joy in life – the life to the full – has absolutely nothing to do with our possessions. We can still have a completely full life without our stuff. Jesus said, “Don’t treasure your stuff here… treasure the things of heaven… eternal things” But does that really mean we are to find no joy in our stuff? It’s only evil?

Paul says, “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.” I believe, as with everything in life, there is somehow a balance to be struck. Where that is, I am uncertain. But I do not think that God wants us to run and hide from TV shows. Nor does he wants us to never play a video game again. Perhaps he does for you, but that sort of blanket rule-making has led to some pretty nasty legalistic fights. “Don’t play cards! Don’t dance! Don’t wear make-up! Don’t wear shorts!”

(Sidenote 2: Did you know that when my wife first matriculated at our Bible college, she was not allowed to wear shorts. Shorts were not allowed. Really. Seriously.)

We make up rules, so we can avoid the evils of “this world”. All rooted in verses like the ones from 1 John. But perhaps the truth is in the balance. Jesus was accused of loving the world too much – being a drunk and a glutton. But he also said (as the Word of God through John) that we should not love this world.

Please show me Father how I can know you more through this paradox. Let me see your beauty, your greatness, in this apparent dichotomy. Let me live more fully as I understand you more.

OK, so… the other day while I was driving home I turned on the radio and LIVE on the local AM radio station was the play-by-play from various points on the globe of the last moments of the Pope’s life. Really! I am not kidding.

I know you have seen it too. On TV, everywhere, we are literally watching moment by moment as this man loses his consciousness here with us.

Isn’t that kinda weird??? Should we really be sending out news crews to be “on location” for the final announcement? Is there something particularly special here? He is a man, and men die. He never claimed he wouldn’t, did he? Do we do that with other people? Even the most famous among us? Not usually. At least there is some peace from the press in the final moments.

I think the modern press gets bored. They have too much time to air too little information. So… a live play-by-play.

“Well, the latest report is that his breathing is getting more shallow, and his kidneys have begun to fail. Back to you, Bob.”

“The Pontiff continues to worsen with each passing moment. He remains lucid, recognizing people in the room, continuing to bless them.”

(Sidenote: This man is a blessing machine!! He is well on his way out and he’s still doling out his blessings!)

It just struck me as odd, and in a strange sort of way devaluing his life. In their attempt to honor, I think some lines of respect for privacy and decency may have been crossed.

But, that’s just my opinion.

It’s over now. He died.

Our son Alex is just plain fun. This photo came up on my rotating desktop photos this morning, and it just made me smile big. You can’t see the rest of the photo, but he’s on a tiny little swing ride (that’s what those chains are…) where he was spun around for maybe 2 minutes at best. AND HE LOVED IT! Look at that face! Sheer joy. Unadulterated pleasure.

The joy of life. Most everything is FUN to Alex. (Except those foods Dad makes him eat…) You can see it in his face, hear it in his voice, and it’s just contagious to be around. I am smiling a big happy smile as I type these words.

I hope he keeps it. I hope his Father has placed in him an insatiable joy for living the life he was created to live. Everything will not always be fun for him, people will fail him, and put him down. He will fail.

But I pray that smile remains. The joy from deep within. Loving life to its fullest, rooted in the love his father, and his Father have for him.

And many others will know the same joy through him.

They couldn’t get it right when he was walking in sandals right next to them, and we still struggle today.

I read a newsletter today that included the following sentence.

“It’s amazing to see how the Lord is using [this college]’s alumni to build His kingdom.”

Somehow that just opened my eyes to something I don’t think a lot of us see. This “kingdom” that is being referred to there is a visible, tangible, measurable kingdom. One of numbers, and results. One that you can point to and say, “Look at God building His Kingdom!” But what we’re really talking about is, “Look at how many people have made this decision, or changed this in their lives. Or, even better, look at our super-cool new facilities and our amazing staff who have a tremendous strategy for mobilizing our church for growth and outreach into our community!

Is that really God’s Kingdom? Do we really build his Kingdom? Really???

My mind says no. I am writing this after a brief search of scripture, but there are no New Testament verses containing both the words “build” and “kingdom”. The OT references were to the temple, “build” God’s house and establish Solomon’s “kingdom”. (2 Samuel 7:13) There are obvious connections to Jesus in this verse as well… a foreshadowing of what God really wanted to do in Jesus, but again, there’s no building of THAT kingdom either. It will be established forever.

The disciples and all of the followers of that day wanted to help Jesus “build” his “kingdom”, too. They envisioned a strong leader who would vanquish their powerful Roman suppressors and establish his kingdom forever (much like that 2 Samuel reference from above). He evaded their attempts to make him king, as they understood it, on several occasions. He spoke of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven many times, and never once was their a reference to building this Kingdom.

Because… it already exists. There is no building to do. His Kingdom is forever, and just is. It is not a kingdom of territories and boundaries and walls. Not a kingdom with social heirarchies where lords rule over vassals and servants submit their lives to the King. The Kingdom simply is. It can not be defined by us. Jesus mostly attempted to reveal it through his parables. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

And, in my opinion, the kingdom is not what we perceive it to be today, either. We see our successes in getting people to attend our programs, and even bigger victories when they not only regularly attend, but begin serving in those programs to assist in bringing others to attend. That’s not the Kingdom. That’s the same as what all the people around Jesus wanted. A visible, measurable “kingdom”.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) God’s Kingdom is not being built with every victory we claim. It’s not something measurable. It’s the reality of Him. It’s Him. Jesus often claimed, “The Kingdom of God is near.” There is a sense of something yet to come, but I think he also meant it’s nearby… like, RIGHT THERE. Attainable, knowable, but not shaped by borders as they might have thought. It is a knowledge of the world as it was designed to be, by its Creator… by its King.

Let’s not follow paths already trod. When Jesus was here, they tried to make him King, as they understood it. We now proceed with our plans to “build his kingdom”, and they appear much like the plans of old. In fact, the truth is, WE do not build his kingdom at all. His kingdom has been established. Our joy is to live in it and not watch his kingdom grow, or attempt to help it grow, but to enjoy the freedom of life in Jesus, cultivating our relationship with HIM and loving the people he puts around us.

That is his Kingdom.

They did it!!! They’re in the FINAL FOUR!!! Last night’s game was incredible!! It was back-and-forth the whole night, until the Spartans had an 8-pt lead with only minutes left in the game. UK scored a few 3-pointers and were back within one point I believe. Then with 4 seconds left, and the Spartans up by three, the Cats got off 3 shots, the last one at the buzzer – off-balance, with a man in his face, and with his toe RIGHT on the line, not over it… as close as you can be to it, though… – THEN the shot bounced FOUR TIMES on the rim, on every side it seemed… for about 5 MINUTES… and fell through, sending the game to OT!!! AHHHH!!!!! 🙂 Well, same thing after the 1st OT… UK had the ball last but failed to get the shot off. That was good. On to double overtime. In double OT, MSU made ONE field goal!!!! That’s not so good, but they won by 6 pts I believe by making 11 of 12 free throws. That is good. Whew!! 🙂 Quite a game! Looking forward to the next one. We are singing on Saturday night (Check Out Where) from 7 till 8pm… the game starts at 8:47…. so, it’ll be tight, but we can probably see most of it! 🙂 🙂 For some photos from the game, and more MSU fun, click here GO STATE!!!

I had a moment this morning. Thought I would share it.

It’s not new. I imagine countless other people have shared it over the past 2170 years or so…

I had to get up around 6:00am this morning to get ready for the day, and was surprised to see the sun had woken up just a bit before me. It wasn’t full-on bright, but the light was beginning to illuminate our formerly dark house.

In the quiet, dimly lit morning, I just had a flash of a thought… “This is when it happened.” The coolest moment in history. Well, perhaps the second coolest, as Jesus said “It is finished” on the cross, but there isn’t much space between 1st and 2nd place there, in my mind!

God’s plan had come to fruition. Everything went as planned, and now the curtain had been torn in two. The door was now wide open, no… it was gone between the Creator and his creations. No more rituals, no more sacrifices, no more separation… just wide open and free friendship.

In the quietness, I imagined the exhiliration he must have felt. As he once again breathed the air He created through his resurrected nostrils. As his eyes beheld the beauty of a morning sunrise, and his ears took in the busy sounds of the little fuzzy critters put there by his own hands. Amazing.

And it all happened today.

We can’t wait to hunt the easter eggs with the boys, and see what the Easter Bunny left in our baskets. That is a fun part of Easter! (My favorite part is of course, the chocolate…) 🙂 But Ian is wearing his “Jesus is ALIVE! That Rocks!” shirt. The true joy of the day is not the momentary fun of egg hunting, or present getting (or giving). It is the simple yet confounding truth of The Resurrection. The firstborn of a redeemed race. The ultimate picture of new life.

I had a moment this morning. A shadow of the original, but still a moment. One day I will experience a similar moment, and take my first breath in my new skin.

That will be quite a moment as well. 🙂

JAMIE FEICK! Whoohoo!! I remembered! 🙂

(WITH the help of the internet, of course!)

Other fun blast from the past names at this page:

Michigan State Basketball Alumni

Victory for MSU!!!

Some of you may know, I attended Michigan State University as a freshman WAYYYYY back in 1992. Back in the days of Shawn Respert and Eric Snow. And… I don’t remember who else… There was a guy from near Mansfield, OH, because a friend of ours is from there, and I remember him telling me to watch for him.

Well, these 13 years later, I am still a fan!

If you have been keeping up with the NCAA tourney… you know they are now in the elite 8… taking on Univ of Kentucky tomorrow. Should be a great game.

So far, they beat a fiesty Old Dominon team, had a fairly easy time with Vermont and last night they clobbered Duke!! The #1 Team!!! Nice!!! 🙂

So… I’m having fun. And my two boys are enjoying singing the fight song and wearing their MSU gear!

Tune in Sunday to see them thrash the Wildcats!!!

Go State!!!

Hey… I figure since Joe is the one who got me started on this blog thing (see credit above…) I can give him a little air time here! 🙂

Click the photo to see Joe’s commercial on Americal Idol!

I touched on this in my other post this morning, but after some of my reading last night, and then reading the blogs of a couple friends (Laura and Steph, and also Chris) I thought I would expand on what I was thinking there…

God made us to relate. Relating is sharing life with other people. Sharing your successes, partying with the good newses of life. Sharing a meal, a game night (we like those!), a movie night, a day in the park, or any sort of fun thing. Sharing the good things God is doing in you. Even sharing your possessions. That builds a foundation for sharing in the hard times. When a child dies. When a spouse cheats, or leaves. When a job is suddenly lost. We share those things too.

Now somehow over the past 2000 years, the church has made that essence of who we are, relational beings, into a system. We have come up with all kinds of structures to create opportunities to relate, we have classes to learn how to relate (to believers, and especially to the lost), and pastors are paid to relate. And it’s their job to make sure others are relating well also. It’s a business. The product, healthy people relating well with each other and with God. And we’re pretty OK at turning out that product, without much deviance from the norm in each one.

We call that ministering. When you give it that spiritual sounding title, it makes it seem more important. Attaches “kingdom” value to it. We talk of “ministering” to someone who’s hurting, or someone who is outside the lines we ourselves have drawn. It is an effort to accomplish some sort of visible result in someone’s life. Or even just our own. The accomplishment is a feeling of satisfaction at allowing God to minister through us.

I myself am a perpetrator of such thinking. I have been in “paid” ministry for a long time. Granted, I have done it most unconventionally, but still, I get paid to love people and “minister” to them. Which on some levels is super cool. But mostly it makes me sick. I just want to love people because I do. No strings. No obligations. No attachments. No requirements. I don’t think that I have those, but I know that we have created sets of expectations of our paid ministry people. It’s their job to “minister”. Do you know what that does to them??? To their hearts???

People. This is not a job. We should not get paid to “minister”. It is not a command from God. He leads by example. We love because we have first been loved. He loves me, so I love you.

I really don’t think I have a problem with this, personally. (That sounded arrogant… it’s not meant to be…) I think somewhere along the line God showed me this truth, and I got this one. I do love people, not because I have to, but as an overflow from how much my Father loves me. My struggle remains in my being a “professional christian”. I am moving slowly away from that, but not sure how to use some of the gifts God has given me, and completely leave the system of organized relating. That is certainly a work in progress, and ever shall be perhaps.

There is no magic in loving someone. No special way to do it. It doesn’t count more with the loved or with God if we call it “ministering”. That word, that idea, frustrates me so much.

Really, the problem is in our view of two worlds. The sacred and the secular. I really think Jesus lived in what we would call the “secular”… but didn’t think of it that way. He did not have the boundaries we do. He hung out at the synagogue, at the temple, with the religious dudes (whom we blast, but would be today’s pastors, ministers, elders and other church leaders)… and he also hung out with the drunks and the whores and the other “dregs”. Jesus knew one world – the Kingdom of God. It’s all his. All of it. Perhaps I will develop this more at a later date.

We don’t need special words. We don’t put on our cape and fly around “ministering” to people. If we do, we’re robbing them and ourselves of the deeper joy of living in God’s love and grace and sharing that with them. Listen to your Father, and love whom he wants you to, when he wants you to… and just get to know him. Do your job, whatever occupies your 9-to-5 life, always aware of how He is working in and around you there… and then love the people he places in your path everywhere else.

There is no grand strategy needed. Just obedience and attention to his lead. His specific lead for you.