The Gospel According to Led Zeppelin

In case you're just tuning in, here's the story so far: my favorite musical entity in the history of time is Led Zeppelin. It is kind of a thing with me.

Led Zeppelin. Just... oh, so good. So very good. My goodness, the goodness of Led Zeppelin. From the first album to the last, including the live shows, the bootlegs, the outtakes, the studio sessions, the rough cuts... everything. If it was Led Zeppelin, I love it. I'll admit that it's kind of an existential quandary whether I love everything Led Zeppelin did because it was Led Zeppelin doing it or if Led Zeppelin just did everything that I love, but either way - I love Led Zeppelin. Quite a bit.

My favorite song is "Over the Hills and Far Away," which is found on Zep's fifth album, Houses of the Holy, which, as it turns out, is my favorite album. Not just my favorite Led song and my favorite Led album, but my favorite song and favorite album.

A buddy of mine once asked me who I'd pick if I could put together the ultimate super-group consisting of my favorite vocalist, guitarist, bassist and drummer. My answer was Led Zeppelin. He said, "No, no, I don't think you're quite getting what I'm asking. I mean, like, if you could take a drummer from one band... and then a guitarist from another band... and, you know, make a whole band like that... who would you pick?"

Yeah, I got it the first time. My answer is still the same. Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page is my favorite guitarist, Robert Plant is my favorite vocalist, John Bonham is my favorite drummer, John Paul Jones is my favorite bassist/organist/horn accompanist/everything-else-he-did-ist. Led Zeppelin is my favorite band.

If you hang out with me in a place where I have any control over the music, ever, there will come a time where Led Zeppelin comes up. It's just how it is. I'm GONNA play some Zeppelin. I don't care who I'm around, where I am, what's going on... If there's music to be heard and I'm at all in a position to choose what is played... Yeah. Zeppelin's gonna happen at some point.

I have been accused before of musical snobbery, and it's not like I can really rebut that accusation with too much truth... Yeah. I'm a music snob. I know what I like, and I'm pretty vehement about it. Is it possible that there is (or will be in the future) a band that I would enjoy more than Led Zeppelin? Well... Yeah... It's possible... But then, it's also possible that the entirety of the British monarchical family is killed in a freak photography accident and I'm crowned the next king of England, resulting in all sorts of zany mishaps with my clumsy attempts at a knighting, applying my own inimitable style to delicate matters of international diplomacy, and dealing with the pressures of being recognized at the Burger King nearest to Buckingham Palace.

Doesn't mean it's very likely.

I could go further, but I figure the point is pretty well made, and I'm definitely aware that most of my posts are long enough as it is. We don't need another 8 pages of me telling you how much I love Led Zeppelin. But what I do need for you to understand - in case you haven't picked up on it yet - is that I am a fan of Led Zeppelin. This point is integral to the case I am presenting in this post.

So now let's talk about God.

As much as I do love Led Zeppelin, God still wins. I know, I know... the previous fanboy rant may have called that into question for some of you, but I don't have a weekly blog dedicated to Zep. God is still my primary focus.

But part of what I've been thinking about a lot lately is the idea of apologetics. I know that's kind of a loaded term for a lot of people, and a confusing one for others. It's always hard to think about "apologetics" and not get to "apology." The two words are related, both rooted in the Greek word απολογία (apologia), which means "speaking in defense." We've come to think of an "apology" meaning simply an admission of guilt and an expression of regret, but the original usage of the word actually meant a formal defense of an idea, and that's all apologetics actually is.

I am specifically interested in the idea of Christian apologetics - a defense of Christianity. Not that I feel that Christianity needs protected, lest it fall apart under the scrutiny of the skeptical world, but a defense based on correcting misconceptions and misunderstandings of the Christian faith (that is - Christianity as I see it, which I would like to think is at least in the ballpark of the way God is showing it to us through Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible).

It is in this same sense that Paul "defends" the gospel in Acts 26:2 and Philippians 1:7, and also in which Peter tells us to "be prepared to give an answer" in I Peter 3:15.

So what, then, are we to do?

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

- Matthew 22:34-40

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

- Matthew 28:19-20

Here's how I see the total sum of the responsibilities of Christianity: Love God, Love others. In Loving God and Loving others, we are tasked with the responsibility of introducing others to God. I briefly touched on this last week, noting that it's important for us to be able to find connections to God in the world outside of "the church" in order to build bridges of communication between ourselves and "the World." But what I want to specifically stress now is that it is every bit as important that we all, each of us, understand (to the fullest extent which we are able) the intellectual reasoning of our Faith.

What I'm saying here is that it's not enough to just say "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." That is an outrageously dangerous theological position to tie oneself to. I'm not saying that it's wrong to have a strong faith in the Word of God - that's very commendable. But to have a singularly directed and blind faith in the Word of God... Yeah, that's pretty dangerous.

It isn't enough that we know the Truth of the Bible and believe wholeheartedly that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. We've also got to know why it is that which it is.

Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

- I Corinthians 14:20

Within the context of that chapter, Paul is specifically addressing the issue of speaking in tongues. In the Corinthian church, there had apparently been a problem of some members expressing the gift of speaking in tongues through the Holy Spirit to just babble on with nobody to interpret what was being said. While thanks were being given to God for the miraculous gifts displayed, the gifts were pointless because nobody was learning anything.

Paul's exhortation then is a reminder that we are to come together in our worship and fellowship not to praise God for blessing us with things that we haven't bothered to examine and understand, but to encourage, enlighten, and educate one another to the deeper truths of Christianity.

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

- Hebrews 5:11-6:3

Notice that the writer says that those in his audience should be teachers by this point, and yet they constantly need reminded of the elementary principles of Christianity. This, to me, pretty plainly says that it is not enough for us to accept the gospel as infallibly true and never open our eyes or ears to anything else ever again.

Let me switch back over to Led Zeppelin for a minute.

As I'm sure you'll recall, Led Zeppelin is my favorite band.

Led Zeppelin is not, however, the only band I've ever heard.

Recently, I've been listening to a whole lot of the original line-up of the Allman Brothers Band. Led Zeppelin is still my favorite. I've been digging around and finding all sorts of live material from the early years of Yes that I'd not heard before. Led Zeppelin is still my favorite. Last week, I wrote about Eric Clapton, and the week before that, I wrote about Perpetual Groove. Led Zeppelin is still my favorite.

I've heard Lady GaGa. Led Zeppelin is definitely still my favorite.

I've got enough music on my computer that if I were to put it all into one big playlist, start at the beginning and let it play all the way through, I could go for some three months non-stop and not hear a song twice. Most radio stations have a library of something like 7,500-10,000 songs. I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000+ songs.

Led Zeppelin isn't my favorite band because they're the only thing I've ever heard, but instead, it's because I've actually heard a ridiculous amount of music that I can therefore say in the face of countless potential challengers, Led Zeppelin still tops my list.

I am not (necessarily) saying here that we can only be good Christians if we go out and research the tenets of other faiths. But I will say that it's very hard to show someone why Christianity makes more sense than other faiths if we don't even know why Christianity makes sense on its own.

Too often I have seen an approach to Christianity that doesn't allow for any questions. It is as though the beliefs of Christianity are so fragile that they can't stand up to even the slightest examination and scrutiny. Don't we believe that this is the Way, the Truth, and the Light? Isn't this supposed to be following after God's own Son, the Word made flesh? Aren't we actually operating under the assumption that our faith is correct anyway?

So what is there to be afraid of?

It doesn't do us a lot of good in spreading the gospel if our only response to an atheist's assertion that there is no God is to run away screaming, or to brand the atheist a heretic, or to quote Bible verses to someone who doesn't believe in the Bible in the first place. We've got to know what we're talking about.

Can you offer any evidence for the existence of God beyond your own beliefs?

Beyond that, can you help others understand why Christianity is the path you've chosen to follow, excluding all of the other thousands of options in the world today?

Or are you still living out a faith that was handed to you? Is your faith your own, or is it your parents'? Or your preacher's? Or your professor's? Or your spouse's?

Do you know why you believe what you believe?

Do you believe that what you believe is able to stand up to the tests of reason and logic? Or do you believe that "faith" is sequestered off in its own little corner of the brain, permanently exiled from rational thought?

What are you going to do when somebody tells you that God cannot possibly exist because evil exists in the world? How are you going to answer that? ("God moves in mysterious ways" is a cheap cop-out, by the way.)

I am really having to fight the temptation to lay out all "the answers" here. It somewhat defeats the purpose of asking if you have any answers of your own if I give you all of mine.

I can (easily) tell you for hours how much I love Led Zeppelin. But if you've never actually heard them, it doesn't make a difference in the world. And if I'm going to be the guy saying Led Zeppelin is so much better than everything else, shouldn't I at least have something to back that up? Shouldn't I at least be able to play a song or two for anybody who asks?

I'll admit here that not everybody likes Led Zeppelin. I can at least acknowledge that fact, even if I don't really get it. I can sit you down and play their entire catalog, from the 1968 Scandinavian tour as the New Yardbirds to the 1982 "leftovers" album, Coda, and you might not enjoy a lick of it. I don't at all see how that could be true, but it is definitely a possibility.

But that doesn't mean that I'm going to stop listening to them, or stop trying to expose every person on the planet to their awesome.

Similarly, I've got to admit that not everybody is going to become a Christian. I could present a defense for the faith on par with Paul in the Areopagus or C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity to every single person on this planet and there would still be plenty of folks who don't see it. There would still be folks who don't believe. That is to be expected. That is Biblically guaranteed.

But it doesn't mean I'm going to stop believing, or stop trying to share my faith with the world over.

There are people in the world - like Brian Flemming, writer/director/narrator of "The God Who Wasn't There" - who will try to tell you that Jesus of Nazareth wasn't even a real person, much less the Son of God.

What are you going to say to that?

Have an answer. Not only does the potential faith of the people you encounter in your life depend on it, but it's very probable that your faith depends on it as well.

Seeing What I Want to See

I don't know about you, but 2010 was awesome for me.

Was every day of the year blue skies and rainbows? Oh, merciful goodness, no. By no means! There was heartache all over. There was impatient anger and indignant fury. There were lies and betrayals. There were lots of disappointments on some seriously fundamental levels. BAD STUFF HAPPENED this past year, make no mistake.

But 2010 is going to go down in my own personal history books as the year I finally let God take full control of my life, and that fact alone has made it by far my best non-1983 year to date.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

- Matthew 7:7-8

I will give thanks to You, LORD, with all my heart;

I will tell of all Your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and rejoice in You;

I will sing the praises of Your name, O Most High.

Those who know Your name trust in You,

for You, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek You.

- Psalm 9:1-2, 10

I will extol the LORD at all times;

His praise will always be on my lips.

I will glory in the LORD;

let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

Glorify the LORD with me;

let us exalt His name together.

I sought the LORD, and He answered me;

He delivered me from all my fears.

Those who look to Him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame.

This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;

He saved him out of all his troubles.

- Psalm 34:1-6

You, God, are my God,

earnestly I seek You;

I thirst for You,

my whole being longs for You,

in a dry and parched land

where there is no water.

I have seen You in the sanctuary

and beheld Your power and Your glory.

Because Your Love is better than life,

my lips will glorify You.

I will praise You as long as I live,

and in Your name I will lift up my hands.

I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;

with singing lips my mouth will praise You.

- Psalm 63:1-5

But if you seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

- Deuteronomy 4:29

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

- Hebrews 11:6

I hope you picked up a theme in all of that. In case you didn't, let me sum it up:

IF YOU LOOK FOR GOD, YOU WILL FIND HIM.

Before I go any further, let me make something perfectly clear: I do not understand atheism.

Yeah, I know what atheism is. I get that.

And yeah, I can see how it came about. That's not a problem.

But what I specifically don't understand is this idea that it's up to God to show us He exists instead of being up to us to find Him - especially when God specifically says, "If you look for Me, you will find Me," as I've already pointed out.

Bertrand Russell - 20th century British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, prolific writer, and renowned atheist - was once asked what he would say to God if, after his death, he found himself standing at the Judgment. How would he explain his staunch atheism?

"I will say: ‘I’m terribly sorry, but you didn’t give us enough evidence.’"

Now... I don't know what would have qualified as "enough evidence" in Russell's mind. Paul makes an appeal in the beginning chapters of Romans that earth itself is enough to point to God, and a similar theme is brought up in the first six verses of Psalm 19.

And I don't have any problem admitting that I'm not entirely up to snuff on the textual criticism of the Bible. I do not personally possess the knowledge sufficient to defend the early dates or the traditionally ascribed authorship of the New Testament. If there are doubts about the historical legitimacy and authenticity of the text, there will be doubts about the veracity of the text. This is an entirely understandable objection.

But let me, in my objection to the atheistic requirement that God provide the evidence for His existence, provide some evidence on His behalf.

I looked for God.

I found Him.

(This happens to be exactly what God said would happen.)

Now, it makes all the sense in the world to me to think that this would be enough to turn even the most stubborn of atheists, but of course, that's not the case, so let me go a little further.

You know those little sausage balls that show up every once in a while at the good church get-togethers and Christmas parties and wedding receptions and all that? The unbelievably delicious little perfect mixture of sausage, cheese, and crispy breading? You wanna know how to make those? Get ready, because here it comes:

3 cups Bisquick

1 lb. sausage

1 lb. cheese

Mix all ingredients. Scoop out mixture into little sausage ball-sized sausage balls.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until sausage balls are a crispy golden brown, like sausage balls ought to be.

You have now made sausage balls. Congratulations, everybody loves you.

Now... if you try that recipe and green bean casserole comes out of your oven, one of two things will be true. Option number one is that I lied to you. Option number two is that you didn't follow the recipe. Which of those two do you believe to be more likely? Would I have any reason to lie to you about how to make sausage balls? Come on. Think about this. I am a fat dude, and there is always the possibility of you sharing with me, so I will do everything within my power to ensure the existence of sausage balls.

It seems to me that the atheist position of asking God to prove Himself (when God has said that if we look for Him we will find Him) is a lot like someone saying that the recipe for sausage balls can't possibly be true because the sausage balls don't make themselves. If you're not willing to follow the recipe, you can't ever know if the recipe is actually right.

The big objection to me tying the theory of the recipe for sausage balls to God is, of course, going to be that we all know sausage balls exist because we've all seen them, smelled them, eaten them, thrown violent temper tantrums when we ran out of them... (Well, maybe not ALL of us have done that.)

But God - whom even the Bible says no man has ever seen (John 1:18, I John 4:12) - cannot be proven in the same way as sausage balls, right?

Well...

God says, "If you look for Me, you will find Me." I looked for God and I found Him. Turns out God was right! Isn't that neat?

Now I know that argument would probably never hold up against a committed atheist, especially an atheist who already knows that there's not even a possibility of a God. The atheist rebuttal to my "finding" God would inevitably boil down to the idea of my living under a delusion, separate from reason, in defiance of evidence to the contrary... After all, if I'm seeing God at work in my life, then I'm only seeing what I want to see, so it can't be true.

This is another one that blows my mind.

Dad and I wanted to see True Grit. So we went to the theater and saw True Grit. We both really enjoyed it.

Did we see what we wanted to see? Yep. Sure did.

So does that mean that we didn't actually see True Grit?

I could go on, but I think you get the picture, so now I can move on to the point I really wanted to make.

I've been framing this whole thing since the wall-o'-scripture in a Christian-versus-atheist light because it allows me to use really broad strokes and get the BIG idea across. But now, I've got to do some detail work and talk Christian to Christian.

If you're a Christian, I know you already believe in God. I know you already believe in Jesus. I know you already trust the Bible to be accurate.

But what I don't know is if you're actually taking it seriously.

Let me stress the "I don't know" part of that last sentence. I'm not saying you're not taking it seriously. I'm just saying that I don't know. You're the only one who can.

Well... You and God.

Ask yourself... Do you actually believe Jesus when He says, in Matthew 6, that if you seek God first, everything else will fall into place?

Do you actually believe Him when He says, in Matthew 7, that if you seek Him, you will find Him?

Do you actually believe what the writer of Hebrews says, in the 11th chapter of the letter, that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him?

Now... If you actually believe these things, do you actually live it out?

Is God really your first priority? Does God win out over your job? Your hobbies? Your family? Your own life?

You're the only person who can answer those questions, and God's the only other one who'll know if you're telling the truth.

If God IS your first priority, I don't doubt at all that you're seeing a lot of the same things I've been blessed enough to see over the past year. I don't doubt that you're seeing the fruits of the Spirit borne in your life. I don't doubt that you're overcoming evil with good. I don't doubt that you're finding yourself stronger and stronger in the face of temptation. I don't doubt that you're finding more and more each day that God is the only thing in your life that really fulfills you. I definitely don't doubt that you're overflowing with joy and can't keep from telling people just how amazing God is.

But if He's NOT... Let me encourage you - as someone who very, very, very recently did not have God anywhere near the center of his life - to seriously consider making 2011 the year that changes your life. Look for God. You will find Him. And when you do... words fail me for expressing the way the Glory of God will manifest itself in your life in a very real, very powerful, very holy way. I wish I could tell you in a way that you could truly understand. I wish I could just GIVE it to you, because it would change everything for you.

I just really wish you could see what I see, because I'm seeing exactly what I wanted to see, and it's better than I could have ever imagined.

As 2010 comes to a close, my prayer for myself is that I will not just hold firm to the faith that has completely redefined my very existence, but that I will continue to go deeper in that faith, deeper into the very heart of God, led by His Spirit, following His Son, and encouraging everyone I come in contact with to do the same. My prayer for you is similar: I pray that each day brings you closer and closer to His Will for your life than you were the day before.

I love you so much.

Happy New Year.

A (potential) Leap of Faith

So tomorrow morning I fly out to Oregon to meet the congregation at the Madras church of Christ.

I'm gonna be up there for 12 days - from the 2nd to the 14th - preaching on the two Sundays in between, as well as teaching the Wednesday night Bible class.

It's a small church (for now!), with an average of about 20 people showing up most Sundays from what I understand. That also seems to be a generous estimate. I'm not sure.

There's a lot of complicated history with the church that I'm not entirely sure I can follow just yet, and they haven't had a preacher for about three years, so maybe their standards have fallen low enough by this point that they're willing to give me a shot. That is in fact the entire purpose of this trip, as I'm sure you've guessed - I'm going up to see if I'm a good fit for this congregation and if they're a good fit for me.

I also just got off the phone with Sallie Mae.

I do not like that woman.

My loans are coming down on me in a way that I just can't do anything about. I have been looking - looking hard - for a job, but things just haven't been happening. And I haven't just been looking for church jobs, I've been looking for a regular job-job, too. Dollar General, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, Burger King, seven different gas stations, Harris Teeter, Whole Foods, Costco, Publix, McDonald's, floor refinishing, delivery jobs... no, no, no, no, no... all no. I have no money, I have no job, and I have a whole lot of debt that is very insistent on ignoring the fact that I have no money and have no job.

It's enough to get a guy kinda discouraged.

OK, fine... Really discouraged.

I'm at a crossroads of the principles of my faith and the principles of the world. On the right, I have God telling me that He has a plan for me, and that things will work out, one way or another, sooner or later. God tells me (and, coincidentally, you) over and over that it's not up to me how things work out (James 4:13-14, Jeremiah 29:11-13, Philippians 4:4-7, Proverbs 3:5, I Peter 5:6-7, Psalm 48:14), and beyond that, Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that we're not supposed to worry about money or stress out about tomorrow, but instead to focus completely on God, trusting that He'll take care of us (Matthew 6:19-34).

And on the other hand there's a few voices in the world telling me to do nothing but completely freak the ever-loving electric cuss-words out about not being able to repay my loans. If I don't pay off my loans, then the rest of my life is completely sunk.

Money, it's a crime

Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie

Money, so they say,

Is the root of all evil today

But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're

giving none away...

- Pink Floyd

A lot of what I'm thinking about right now goes back to what I wrote in "The Safe Bet" a few weeks back. I made the point in that post that if we are going to claim to live as though God is real, then perhaps we ought to live our lives as though we actually believed it. God says He's going to take care of us, He tells us not to worry about money, He tells us to just trust Him, take care of each day as it comes, and live our lives as completely focused on serving Him as we can.

And the thing is... I know all of that...

But man, I don't mind telling you at all that I am still scared senseless.

The pressure from the loans is bad enough, believe me... But it's not like Oregon is just up the street from Tennessee. It's not like I've actually got a lot of experience at being a preacher. It's not like I don't have doubts eating away at me every second of the day, especially as that flight gets closer and closer with every hour.

But you wanna know something really crazy?

I had already made up my mind before we even left for church this past Sunday morning to go forward during the invitation and ask for the congregation's prayers about this whole Oregon trip deal. But when we got to church and the sermon was entirely drawn from Hebrews 11, the "faith chapter" of the Bible... Well... That was kind of exactly what I needed to hear.

Isn't the whole point of faith in the first place that we actually live it out?

Isn't the whole point of faith in Jesus that we face up to the challenges that are going to come our way?

Isn't the whole point of faith in God that we accept that things may not make a lot of sense by the world's standard, but knowing throughout it all God has a plan for us?

I have to admit that I don't know what that plan is. I don't know if it's Oregon. I really don't even know if it's a church job at all, at this point. Like I said - the doubts, they are a-plenty.

But through countless hours of prayer - and not just my own, but also those of the army of people whom God has led into my life who are all supporting me at every turn - and dedicating myself to studying the Bible as best as I know how, this is what I feel like God's asking me to do.

And it's big.

But hey... I serve a Lord who died for me.

I guess the least I can do is fly to Oregon.

I would really appreciate your prayers. Not only for me, but for the Madras church. One way or another, the next 12 days are going to change my life, and hopefully the lives of a few other people. In all things, however, I hope that my words and actions can lead others - and myself - closer and closer to the eternal presence of God.

The Safe Bet

In his unfinished and posthumously published Pensées, 17th century French philosopher, inventor, mathematician, theologian, writer, physicist and all-around smart guy Blaise Pascal wrote out what has since become known as "Pascal's Gambit" or "Pascal's Wager."

Pascal presents the gambit as an argument not for or against the actual existence of God Himself, but towards faith. Pascal argues that reason cannot be trusted to determine the truth of an idea -the existence or non-existence of God - that is within a realm completely separate from reason by its very nature.

"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

So it's down to a coin toss, and we have to make a bet on where the coin will land. Either it's heads and God is real (specifically, the God of the Bible), or tails and He's not. And the thing is, you can't not bet. Like Canadian progressive rock power trio Rush says, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." Pascal points out that we are all each of us already living out our choice on where the coin will fall.

And here's where I think things get particularly awesome.

Pascal says that if the God of the Bible is real and we live our lives like we believe it, then we stand to win an infinite gain - Heaven.

If God is real and we live like He's not, we stand to lose an infinite loss - Hell, the second death, darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, etc...

If God isn't real and we live like it, well, we'll be wrong in the end, but if we're actually living like God is real, then we're living lives dedicated to being people filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control... and what's bad about being that kind of person? Isn't that what we wish everybody else would be like? Aren't those exactly the kinds of words we all want people to use when they're describing us at our funeral? So it's still to your gain to live as though God is real, even if He's not, because in the end, it just makes you a nice and well-loved person.

And then, of course, there's the fourth possibility - God's not real, and you don't live like it anyway. Well, if that's true, you live however you want and then you die. The end. The gain here was that you got to do what you wanted.

But of the four possibilities, the safest bet is to live as though God is real, simply because the amount you stand to lose (your life, sacrificed in service to God) is completely worth the amount you could potentially win (infinite bliss). The only way you can really lose is if God's real and you don't live like it. That's the only option in which there is an actual BAD THING that happens to you in the end. So just from a probabilities standpoint, it makes more sense to live your life as though there is a God, because even if there isn't, things work out pretty well for you anyway.

(What I'm presenting here is a very, very, very simplified version of Pascal's original writings, but it still covers the basic thrust of the idea.)

I used to play a whole lot of poker when I was in college. I don't want to sound arrogant, but truth be told, I was pretty good. I didn't always win, but I won more often than I lost. With the guys I played with, we only played for five bucks each - small enough that you're not really gonna miss it if you lose, but big enough that if you win a game with 6 guys, it's 30 bucks in your pocket.

One of the guys I played with - I'll call him Keith, since that's his name - had this particular betting style that always messed with my head. Once the cards were dealt out and everybody had made their piddling little 25-cent bets and 50-cent raises, Keith would come out swinging with three dollars (out of an initial five!) on top.

It was always, always, always the last thing you expected him to do, even though he'd done it countless times before. It was always, always, always an impossible situation to react to, as well, because you never knew if he was putting on a stone-cold bluff or if he actually had pretty good cards.

I seemed to have the exactly worst possible luck in those hands because I would invariably fold my pocket 10s when Keith was only holding a 4 and a 7, or I'd wind up calling with two pair, Jacks and nines, and then look up to see Keith's full house, Aces over Jacks, and... uhhh... well, there went all of my money.

Now, that bet didn't always work for Keith. In poker, there is nothing that always works. But when it did work... Yeah, it paid off really well for him. Part of the reason that it ever worked out for him was that he was the only guy at the table willing to make such an insane bet in the first place. Some of us (me) were dumb enough to call, and occasionally - seldom is actually a better word here - it would work out, but most of the time, the boldness of the bet itself was enough to scare everybody else out, leaving Keith to rake in the chips.

No matter what you or I choose to believe about God, morality, faith, Heaven, Hell, or anything else, there is risk involved. The risk is that we might be wrong. It doesn't matter what you believe - it might be wrong. Whether you believe God is real or not, you might be wrong. It's definitely a possibility.

But that's where faith comes in, isn't it? It is our faith that assures us that God is real, that the Bible is an accurate relaying of His message to us, and that our sins have been forgiven because of the sacrifice of Jesus. Remember the words of Christ to the apostle Thomas: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29) We who call ourselves Christian are definitely blessed because we are in a relationship with God that is not based on sight, but on faith - on a trust in the existence not seen by human eyes or made with human hands, but above nature, supernatural, divine... something distinctly "other" from everything else in this world.

But are we really doing enough to say that we're living by faith?

Or have we allowed our faith in God to become more like an insurance policy - something that we don't really ever think about, and hope we don't ever have to deal with, but we keep paying the absolute minimum just in case things go wrong?

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you — you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:19-34, emphasis added

Did you notice how Jesus pretty blatantly said we're not supposed to worry about money? Or clothes? Or food? Or tomorrow?

So what if we actually started doing that?

What if we actually started focusing on the things Jesus told us to focus on - His Kingdom and His Righteousness - and actually had the faith that God would provide the rest?

What would that look like? Would it look crazy? Well, Paul says yes.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

I Corinthians 1:18-31

"Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?" Isn't following after what the world says is the right way to live out your life kind of dumb once you believe in God? Isn't the whole point of this God thing that we listen to God instead of... well, anything that isn't God?

What's the point of believing in God if we're not going to live like the God we believe in is actually going to do anything for us?

If we believe in God, wouldn't that mean we believe what He says?

Isn't that the whole point of faith in the first place?

Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”

When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”

They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.

Luke 8:40-56, emphases added

What did Jesus say to the woman? What was it that healed her? Was it God? Was it Jesus Himself? Was it the woman touching His cloak?

Or was it her faith?

(In case you missed it, here it is again - "Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." Luke 8:48, the Bible, the Holy Inspired Word of God, the people-I-promise-I'm-not-making-this-up book.)

And what about Jairus? What was it He told Jairus?

I'm not gonna give you the answer this time, but I'll give you a GREAT BIG HINT: it's on this page already. It's just a few lines up. It's RIGHT AFTER Jesus tells the woman that her faith healed her...

"Just believe and she will be healed." Luke 8:50, once again, the Bible, the Holy Inspired Word of God, etc... (I know I said I wasn't going to tell you, but whatever, I'm trying to make a point here.)

And then there's...

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Matthew 8:5-13, emphasis added

But there's also...

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before Him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 17:14-20, emphasis added

Oh, and let's not forget...

When Jesus had finished these parables, He moved on from there. Coming to His hometown, He began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t His mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at Him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

And He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Matthew 13:53-58, emphasis added

Are you picking up on a trend here? Have you noticed that there's something of a correlation between how much faith someone has in Jesus and how much crazy awesome stuff He does in that person's life?

Do you think that we've been given any reason to believe that things work any differently today?

Did the rules change anytime in the last 1,970-ish years, or is God still in charge?

No matter what you say or think you believe, you are living out your life according to what you actually believe.

So take a look at yourself. Take a goooooood look. Are you living your life as a bet that the coin is gonna come up heads and that God - the God of the Bible, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Universe - is real and that those who actually have the faith in Him to deny themselves and the "wisdom" of this world will have a part in Eternity with Him?

Or are you just making the "safe" bet and hoping everything works out, just in case He's actually there?

It takes a lot of faith to just give up on the world and let an invisible God who revealed Himself to people thousands of years ago take care of everything, and I realize that's a big step. Thing is, God realizes that, too, and that is exactly what He's asking us to do anyway.

God wants to be a part of your life in a huge, crazy, big, amazing, powerful, undeniable, holy, jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, life-changing way.

But it's up to YOU to have the faith to let Him do it.

A Simple Prayer

Dear God, Merciful Father, Heavenly King, Lord and Creator of All...

Forgive us.

Forgive us, God, for messing it up.

I don't know where we went wrong, I don't know when, and I don't know how, but I look around and I see what Christianity has become today and I can't help but think that we're not doing it quite the way You planned.

We've come to a point where You are not the foundation of our lives... You're more like the spackle, filling in the cracks that bother us enough to do something about.

We've come to a point where we've decided that the way we're supposed to Love others is by making sure we tell them they're wrong before anything else.

We've come to a point where we don't ask You what we should do, but instead we ask You to bless what we've decided we're doing anyway.

It's almost like we don't even think You're actually there anymore.

It's almost like we're following You just to be on the safe side.

It's almost like we've let Christianity become an abstract idea to be argued and debated instead of lived out in a very self-sacrificing, very loving, very real way.

It's almost like we've started using You and Your Son as an excuse to be indignant towards The World, trying to force it to conform to our sensibilities and morals so we don't have to struggle with the temptations it provides, instead of us being the ones who show The World what it's like when You are actively involved in the lives of the people who have chosen to follow you.

God... Help us.

Help us see each other as equals in Your sight - all equally sinful on our own, and all equally worthy of Your Love.

Help us see past the divisions that we've set up for ourselves - divisions of denomination, of politics, of economics - and unite in Love.

Help us see the Truth that You laid out for us - that You Love us, and that our one task in this world is to Love You.

Dear God, I look around me and I see the world hurting and I see the church failing in its task to show the world Your presence in Love.

I see cities with more churches than gas stations, but the cities are still overrun with people without homes, without clothes, without food, without hope... and I can't help but think that something is wrong.

I see churches fall apart from the inside out because of power struggles and stubbornness and selfishness... and I can't help but think that something is wrong.

I see people on TV assuring me that if I'll just put my trust in You, You'll make me rich and comfortable in this world... Or, even worse, I see people buy into that idea... and I can't help but think that something is wrong.

We complain about the state of the world and we pray for You to be swift in Your judgment of it... but we're not taking the time out of our day to clean the place up before You get here.

We come together in our churches and huddle together to remind each other of how bad it is out there... and then we go home to watch the game, never thinking that maybe it's gotten so bad out there because we've dropped the ball.

We tell each other to trust in You... but we won't trust You enough to take the small steps outside of our comfort zone to interact with The World that is so desperately in need of Your Love, the Love that is our one single task in this world to show.

God...

I don't know how you do it. I look around and my heart breaks, and I know that I'm every bit as much a part of the problem as anyone else.

I can't even imagine what it's like for You.

I can't even imagine how much it hurts You to see Your children - Your CHURCH - sitting on the sidelines, turning a blind eye to the suffering all around us, ignoring the constant plea for help coming from every street corner on the planet.

I can't even imagine what it would look like if we actually decided to do what You asked us to do by Loving others the same way that You Love us.

God... I still believe in You. I still believe in Your power. I still believe in Your presence. I still believe in Your Word, Your Spirit, and Your Love for me and all of mankind.

Help me show the world what You mean to me.

Help me show the church what You mean to me.

Help me show my friends and family what You mean to me.

Help me be the man that You want me to be.

Help us all be the church that You want us to be.

Help Christianity be what You set out for it to be - Love, changing the world.

Father... On my own, I'm tired, I'm scared, I'm lonely, and I'm weak.

But with You... I can climb the highest mountain, I can face the fiercest lion, I am surrounded by Your presence, and I am filled with Your might.

God, please... Show them. Show them all. Show them Your Face. Show them Your Hand. Show them Your Love.

I need You, God. I need You more than I need air, water, food... even my life. I need You.

I want to be Your instrument in this world. I want to be a herald of Your Kingdom. I want to be a servant at Your table. I want to be Your worker.

Please, Father... Show me how to be the man You made me to be.

Show the church how to be the church You designed it to be.

Show us all how to live our lives centered on the Love that You first showed us, the Love that created us, the Love that spared us, the Love that redeemed us.

And please, God... Please... Forgive us.

In Christ's Holy and Wonderful Name,

Amen

Sympathy for an Apostle

John the Baptist had not yet been dead for a full day.

The crowds wouldn't leave Jesus alone, even in His grief for His cousin, but He felt love for them anyway and healed their sick. As the night grew closer, He fed them all - over five thousand people - with five loaves of bread and two fish.

Once it was dark, though, Jesus told the Twelve to get out into the boat and wait for Him. After He sent the crowds home, He retreated up to the side of the mountain to pray.

The wind on the sea was fierce, and the disciples were already uneasy when they saw the impossible: there was a figure walking towards the boat, right in the middle of the water, miles from the shoreline.

"What IS that? Is that... Is that a person?"

"No way, man... There's just no way. Whatever it is, it's not human. There is no way that's a person. It's gotta be a ghost, man... That is just not possible!"

Jesus shouted out, "Hey, guys! Cool it. It's Me, don't worry."

Peter recognized the Lord's voice and leaned over the bow to get a better glimpse through the wind and the rain and the rocking of the boat. "Jesus? Oh, wow... Jesus, if that's you... If it's you, Lord, tell me to get out to you in the water."

"Well..." replied Jesus. "What are you waiting for? Come on!"

Peter's heart was pounding in his ears as he climbed over the side of the boat and touched down in the water. Tears were streaming down his face, tears of exuberant joy, mixed with the spray of the saltwater and the grime of the day's travels. He was getting closer. He was almost standing right next to the Master! The Teacher! The Lord! He was right there!

And that's when Peter noticed the chill of the wind blowing through his clothes. That's when he noticed the fury of the lightning. That's when he realized just how far he was from the boat.

And then he felt the water splash up over his head as he floundered into the sea. Gasping for air and flailing his arms in a struggle to stay afloat in his heavy wool tunic, Peter managed to choke out a simple cry for help; "Jesus! Please, help me! Save me, Lord, please!"

Jesus, standing as tranquil as He had appeared when the disciples first spotted Him walking out across the deep, dark blue expanse, reached out His arm, clasped Peter's hand, and pulled him up. When Peter had caught his breath and wiped all the water out of his eyes, he cast a sheepish glance at Jesus, who smiled softly.

"Peter... What were you afraid of? You knew it was Me! You asked Me to call you out into the water! You wanted to come out to Me! So what in the world were you afraid of? Did you think I couldn't handle it? Haven't you already seen Me raise the dead, heal the sick, let the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the mute speak? Haven't you seen demons tremble at my coming? Didn't you just see Me feed over five thousand people? Peter... That was TODAY! What on earth were you afraid of?

"Peter... What did you think was going to happen to you? I was right there! You could see me! You were close enough to touch me! What did you think could possibly happen to you? Where was your faith? You trusted Me enough to leave everything you had and follow Me, what's stopping you from trusting Me now? The wind was already up when you got out of the boat. Nothing changed when you got out and came to Me.

"Peter... Don't you know who I Am yet?"

As Peter looked in His eyes and listened, the boat drew near. Jesus helped Peter climb into the boat and then followed him up. On deck, the disciples were gathered around, gazing in wide-eyed wonder and amazement at Peter and the Rabbi.

It was Peter who first fell to his knees and said, "You are, without a doubt, the Son of God."

- Matthew 14:22-33 (AJRV)

I get Peter.

I can really relate to his whole story here. I get where he's coming from, because I've been in the same place.

I've caught that first glimpse of Jesus, way off in the distance, way out where things stop making sense, and I said, "Hey! If you want me, I'll come out there, You just gotta let me know!"

And so He let me know.

So I jumped out of the boat and started running where I did not think I could even stand. I ran with all my heart, focused solely on the One who called me out to Him, and He helped me do the impossible. He brought me out to Him, carried me to where He is, showed me what He sees... And it was wonderful.

But then... but then...

But then I started noticing everything. I started noticing how far out I really was. I started noticing how hard it can be living a life wholly focused on God - hard because the World is dedicated to dragging me down to its level, completely committed to getting me dirty again so I fit in.

And that's when I fell. That's when I lost my footing and went under. That's when my faith was shaken - when I stopped focusing on Him.

And that's when He pulled me up, dusted me off, and said...

"Hey. What were you worried about? What did you possibly think was going to happen to you? Haven't I already brought you through more stuff than you thought you could ever survive in the first place? Haven't I shown you more of Myself in ways you never thought you could ever understand? Haven't I been here with you for every step?

"What were you worried about? You could see Me! You could hear Me! You could touch Me! You were so close to Me, and then you got worried... About what? About money? About time? About the future? About the past? What was it? What was it that could possibly have taken your focus off of Me? What is there worth worrying about?

"Don't you know that I love you? Don't you know that I'm never going to give up on you? Don't you know who I AM?"

I want to trust God, because I sure know that I can't trust myself all that much.

I'm forgetful. He's not.

I'm easily distracted. He's not.

I'm weak and powerless. He, most certainly, is not.

And so I find myself once again standing out in the water, and I'll admit, it's up over my ankles and occasionally splashing up to my knees. I'm scared, I don't know what I'm being called to do, and I'm really not too thrilled about a lot of the challenges that are coming my way no matter what I do.

But I am standing. Not on my own strength, but on His. My faith is completely in Him, as completely as He holds my life.

Come on out here with me. The water's nice.

Is Crazy Really That Bad?

So... I really think it's at least a decent possibility that I might actually have gone completely crazy...

Because... uhh... God talks to me.

Yeah, I know. It's nuts.

But seriously, it's also incredibly awesome.

I don't really know where to go from there. It's not like you can just tell most folks "Oh, hey, my name is Aaron, and God talks to me," and then expect the conversation to really get much more interesting than that.

I know it sounds crazy. Believe it or not, it feels crazy. But really, there's no other way I can possibly describe what's going on other than that God is talking to me.

I don't really know what this is. I think, believe and feel that it's the Holy Spirit working in me in a way that a lot of us aren't really predisposed to believe happens anymore. I've been reading my Bible, I've been sharing what I'm going through with close friends, I've been praying non-stop... I'm really trying to make sure I'm hearing what I'm hearing, because if I'm just making it all up and calling it God on my own, then... well... I guess I'm crazy.

But really, is this kind of crazy so bad?

Everybody thought Noah was crazy.

I'm sure the same can be said of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel... Or what about John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, John the Revelator, Philip, Stephen... or even Jesus Himself?

I don't want to sound like I think I'm on par with any of those guys.

But I do know that we all worship the same God.

So why can't my God work the same miracles today that He worked back then?

More to the point, I guess... Instead of why can't He... Why wouldn't He?

Let me make this super clear here: yes, I am really saying that I really think that God is delivering personal messages directly to me. I don't hear a voice from the clouds, I just know that He's talking to me.

Part of why I know He's talking to me is that I'm not the only person He's talking to, nor am I part of some exclusive group.

I have friends who are on this wavelength - we're seeing the same stuff and it's kinda scary all around. We all want the same thing - to know God as deeply as we can - but there is just so much of today's world that has told us that God retired. There are so many in the world - in Christianity - who feel that God, for some vaguely defined reason, stopped working the same miracles as He once did in the Bible, and as I understand it, that's got something to do with the Bible itself existing. Since we have the Bible, God doesn't pull out the fireworks anymore.

Well... I have a counter-theory.

What if God didn't stop working the miracles at all? What if the only reason we ever stopped seeing God doing awesome stuff - like no-possible-explanation-for-this-except-God stuff - is because we stopped looking?

What if we don't see miracles because we don't think they're out there?

The Bible is pretty consistent in getting out the point that if you are genuinely looking for God, He'll show Himself to you.

So... score another one for the Bible being awesome...

Another part of what lets me know that this - whatever this is - is from God is that it doesn't contradict the Bible. In fact, everything I'm reading in the Bible makes me think that this is exactly what the Bible is talking about.

Is the fruit of the Spirit in your life because you chose to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled?

Or has the Holy Spirit borne that fruit in your life, changing you to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled?

I don't know about you, but I know that - for myself - it's the latter. I am a better person because God came into my life in such an unbelievably huge way. And I think "unbelievably" might be a pretty big word there.

Just how unbelievable is it for you that God talks to me? Just how unbelievable is it for you that God changed me? Just how unbelievable is it for you that He wants to do the same with you?

Just how alive is God for you?

Do you believe that He did all that crazy miracle stuff?

Or do you believe that He does all that crazy miracle stuff?

I don't want to claim anything special or unique here - it's not. The salvation of Jesus Christ is not unique to me. The Bible is not my own little special secret book. This is open for everyone. Every single person on this planet can get here if they choose to do so.

I really hope you will choose to do so, because trust me, it's awesome out here. Yeah, it's... it's weird at times. It's scary sometimes. Above all, it's enough to make a guy really question himself as well as his faith, but so far, the answer to all of the questions has consistently been GOD, in gigantic impossible-to-miss ways.

If God isn't talking to me, whatever it is that is talking to me - my own crazy mind or some other force unknown - is certainly telling me a whole lot about some really awesome stuff going down.

If God isn't talking to me, I have sent those letters and made those phone calls and seen those people and had those conversations that have ultimately ended up in somebody seeing God in a huge, huge, huge way - whether it's me or the people I'm talking to or even all of us... And it doesn't make a lot of sense for anything except God to be doing that.

If God isn't talking to me, then I have somehow found the exact right mental instability, because it has made me nicer, kinder, more patient, more joyous, more loving... It's made me a better man, being this crazy.

If this is crazy, it is an awesome crazy, and I really hope you get it.

I don't know - you might already be here. Maybe we just haven't talked about it. But one thing that I've found is that when you meet somebody else who is here, you know. Pretty much right away. As soon as God comes up - which is very quickly - you just know that you're talking to someone else who is seeing the same thing as you, and it's earth-shattering. It's SO big.

So very big.

And it's everywhere.

And it's all the time.

And it's real.

It's unmistakable. It's unavoidable. It's undeniable.

It's God.

But what if I'm just seeing what I want to see?

Well, since what I want to see is God in the first place... How is that bad?

And didn't Jesus in fact tell us that if we want to see God, that we would?

Isn't that the whole point of the ask-seek-knock deal? Ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll find, knock and the door will be opened to you? Isn't that a promise from Jesus Himself?

But it sounds so crazy. God talks to me? Really? That's what the homeless guy on the sidewalk in front of the Walgreens said, too.

Well... Yeah... But like I said... People thought Noah was crazy. People thought Peter and the other apostles were drunk on Pentecost. In I Corinthians 14, Paul tells the Corinthians that when they're actually displaying their spiritual gifts, non-believers are just going to be confused and think that they're all crazy people.

So again... Is crazy really that bad?

Call me crazy if you must. I'll take it.

But I think God and I are going to some pretty amazing places with the crazy. So I'm definitely along for the ride.

Get on board with me. See where it goes. I promise you'll like it.

If you're already on board... Can't wait to see where we wind up together.

But either way... Let's talk about it.

Rules of Engagement #4 - Eating Meat (and the Eternal Consequences Thereof)

So this "Rules of Engagement" thing... I've been trying to focus on things that I at least know that I personally need to put into better practice when it comes to trying to reach out to the lost and bring them closer to God's vision for their lives.

In the first part, I talked about how it's important to actually stick to the discussion at hand. If someone asks me about my belief in God and the first answer I give them is just that God doesn't like them, then I'm probably not going to be the most effective champion for the cause of Christ.

In the second part, I talked about how it's important that we all understand that my sins, your sins, his sins, her sins, their sins... it's all the same. Once we understand that all of us have committed the exact same infractions against God and are definitely all worthy of the exact same punishment, it's a lot easier to think about everybody getting into the exact same grace and the exact same Love.

In the third part, I talked about how it's important that we all really grasp the idea that it's OK if somebody's Christianity is a little different from ours. For starters, it's not my responsibility to make sure someone else's faith is perfect - that decision is ultimately their own, as is mine when it comes to my own faith. Beyond that, Jesus says in Luke 9:50 that "...whoever is not against you is for you," and I think it'd be a good idea to remember that.

So here in this 4th (and final) part, I want to actually lay down what I've been building towards, built on all three of those things before it. So get your head ready, because I'm actually very scared of what I'm about to say, and I realize that it's a fearful topic for a lot of other people, too.

Let's start off with a story.

Just a hair over 9 years ago now, I threw a shindig at a family friend's house with some friends to celebrate the end of the school year. I was grilling hamburgers and we were all going to watch a movie. The movie we wound up watching was Tombstone. If you've never seen Tombstone... oh, you poor soul. It's a fantastic movie. It's a fairly historically accurate account of the events that led up to and came after the infamous shootout at the OK Corral, with Kurt Russel as Wyatt Earp, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil Earp, and Sam Elliott's Mustache as Executive Producer.

Oh, and it's rated R. That's important here.

It's not porn or anything - it's a cowboy movie. People shoot each other. The bad guys are REALLY bad. Cuss words a'plenty.

And yeah, it's totally one of my favorite movies.

So we're watching Tombstone for this thing, and I told everybody who was coming well in advance that we were watching Tombstone. I hold the friends from my freshman year in college very dear to my heart, but some of them just were not the kinds of folks who'd dig on a cowboy movie, so I wanted to give them all a chance to bow out gracefully if that was going to be a problem for them.

One friend of mine took me up on that offer, except for the gracefully bowing out part. She informed me that she wouldn't watch any movie that's rated R. I told her that Tombstone is, in fact, rated R, so it looked like she wouldn't be watching the movie, then, didn't it?

The night of the cookout rolled around and we'd all enjoyed my - quite frankly - awesome burger skills and sat down to watch the movie. The girl who'd objected to an R-rated movie was still with us at this point, but another friend was not staying for the movie and offered to give her a ride home. She declined, said she'd stay, and we started watching the movie.

Tombstone does not start off gently. Less than 10 minutes into the movie, there's already been a shootout where something like 10 Mexican police officers are killed at a wedding, a priest is killed, and the bride - kicking and screaming - is dragged off-camera by the bad guys. There's not really any question that these are the bad guys for the movie.

But as soon as the shootout started, Monica (not her real name, I just got tired of vague pronoun usage) let out this loud gasp of shocked protest and said, "Are they killing those people?!?"

Wait, what? Yes! Of course they're killing them. They're the bad guys.

"Well, I just can't believe we're watching this."

At this point, Monica's roommate realized she needed to leave and offered Monica a ride back to campus. Monica refused, decided to stay.

A little later in the movie, when we're introduced to Doc, Monica let out her indignant gasp of moral outrage once again and blurted out "SHE'S NAKED!"

Alright, look... The first time I saw Tombstone, I was maybe 13 or 14 years old. I'd already seen it a thousand times by the time I got to college. Believe me, if there was a naked "she" anywhere in that movie, I'd have picked up on it. But right now, I was looking at Val Kilmer, who is most definitely neither a she nor naked. So I asked what on earth Monica was talking about.

"The painting! Behind him! On the wall! She's naked! I can't believe we're watching this movie!"

Wait... WHAT? The painting? You're upset about the painting? It's not like it's erotic in any way whatsoever... It's just a kind of Renaissance-y painting with a naked lady draped out under a fruit tree and chubby little baby angels floating around... whatever. And for all the times I'd seen the movie, I'd actually never noticed it until Monica pointed it out.

So my buddy Matt offered to leave the movie (which was pretty chivalrous of him, considering he loves Tombstone as much as I do) just to give Monica a ride back to her dorm. We were barely 30 minutes into the movie and it only gets more violent from that point. Monica, once again, refused the ride and chose to stay.

We finished the movie in relative silence. Monica didn't say anything else, but she did gasp indignantly and glare at me every time somebody used profanity or got shot. So there was a lot of gasping and glaring, but she didn't say anything else...

But the next day... Oh, goodness. I still look back on the event with a whole lot of incredulity, but in the middle of it, I was just flat out FLOORED with confusion. See, what happened was after we got through with the movie and went on back to campus, apparently, I was painted up to be the villain of the century because I showed Monica this movie.

Now... I'm not looking for absolution, I'm not looking for anybody to take my side, I'm not looking to be proven right... Largely because I already know that wasn't my fault. At all. I did nothing wrong in that... with the possible exception of even inviting Monica in the first place.

One of the other guys that had come to the cookout actually told me, "I can't believe you showed her that movie. She's the weaker Christian, Aaron, and you caused her to stumble."

What? Seriously?

She knew before we even got there that the movie was rated R. She was given a chance to leave before the movie started and two other chances to leave during the movie, yet she stayed parked right there on that couch, shooting daggers at me from her eyes and voicing her disapproval every time somebody pulled a trigger.

And it's my fault?

"Why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience?" - from I Corinthians 10:29

Lest you think this whole post is just to defend my actions at a cookout 9 years ago, here's where I'm going with all this and why it applies to me and you today.

In issues of conscience where the "weaker" Christian is unsettled, offended, whatever'ed by the actions of the "stronger" Christian, it is the responsibility of the "stronger" Christian to be sure that his or her influence does not cause the "weaker" Christian to stumble.

BUT.

It is also the responsibility of the "weaker" Christian to realize that his or her own personal moral code is not applicable to anyone else, Christian or not.

"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God — even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

- I Corinthians 10:23-24, 31-33

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written:

" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,

'every knee will bow before me;

every tongue will confess to God.' " So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food [footnote: nothing] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

- Romans 14, emphases added

There are some things in life that I quite frankly just really enjoy. Man, they're nice. Dig 'em. Some folks, however, are not quite so big on those things. In fact, for some folks, some of the things I enjoy doing might be a sin.

I understand - fully - that it is my responsibility as a Christian who has the maturity and clarity of mind to enjoy those things responsibly (in regards to my responsibility towards God as well as to my brothers and sisters in Christ, strong or weak) to make sure that my influence is not spread in such a way that, through exercising my freedoms to do these things, I cause another to stumble.

But where I think a lot of people kinda glaze over and stop paying attention is the part where it's the responsibility of the "weaker" Christian to realize that he or she is "weak" when it comes to a particular issue and just know to not do it.

Just to get rid of the vague "thing" issue while at the same time keeping the integrity of my example to other Christians intact, let's put an example on this that could not possibly cause anyone to stumble one direction or the other. Let us assume, then, that driving a 1992 red and gray Ford F-150 is a questionable moral issue for some people. (Hey, guess what! That's my truck!)

Now... In knowing that driving my truck causes some people to stumble, I will take precautions to avoid that happening. For instance, if my truck drove people to sin, I wouldn't drive my truck to church. I'd take a different car, I'd hitch a ride, I'd walk... But I wouldn't take my truck.

The thing is, though... It's still my truck. I still really like driving my truck. I know that I can drive my truck and still live my life completely focused on a pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven. Me driving my truck does not get in the way of my walk with God. (In fact, it lets me go further faster.)

So let's say I'm in my truck, just tearing around the back roads by the house. I'm not out where people are going to see me unless they come looking. (Seriously - it's some pretty country out here, and you can go for miles and miles and miles without ever seeing another car, if you go to the right places. I go to these places regularly.)

That's all between me, God, and the gas pump. As far as God is concerned, yeah, driving my truck is A-OK, so long as I do my part to keep someone from stumbling.

But if you come to my house and see my truck sitting in the driveway, it looks kinda bad if you just immediately start smashing up the windows, busting the headlights, cutting my brake lines, pouring sugar in the gas tank...

It's my truck. I'm the one driving it. I'm the one with the keys.

My truck has nothing to do with your spirituality.

If you think that your driving of my truck is a sin, don't ask me for the keys.

Man, I really hope this is still making sense.

The responsibility of the "stronger" Christian is to remove any possible stumbling block in the path of the "weaker" Christian. But it is the responsibility of the "weaker" Christian to grow stronger and understand that there are some things out there that might not actually be sins for everyone, even if it is a sin for me or you.

Jesus turned water into wine. The host of the feast said, "THIS IS REALLY AWESOME WINE!" Grape juice is not really awesome wine. Really awesome wine has alcohol in it. Really awesome wine has the potential to get you drunk if you misuse it. Therefore I have absolutely no qualms about saying that yes, I believe it is possible for a perfectly strong Christian to drink alcohol and still be close to God. Jesus Himself drank enough that the Pharisees used His party-guy demeanor as an accusation against Him and the Apostles more than once (Luke 5, Luke 7, lots of other spots).

If you don't think it's OK for you to drink, hey, that's cool. Don't.

If you don't think it's OK for you to watch R-rated movies, right on. Don't.

If you don't think it's OK for you to drive a 1992 red and gray Ford F-150, that's your thing. Don't.

But even as much as it is the responsibility of the guy who can drink, watch an R-rated movie, and drive a 1992 red and gray Ford F-150 (not all at the same time, of course...) to not put the stumbling block in the path of the one who cannot do those things in clear conscience, every bit of the same burden is laid on the one who cannot do those things to not judge those who can.

When we are trying to bring people in from The World to The Father, we're encountering them as people with a set code of morality that may not actually have anything to do with Biblical foundations whatsoever. And that's OK. God can use that. God can reach those people. God can get into their hearts and their minds and their souls and show them that He really is the point of everything. He can rewire them to be absolutely charged up with the energy of the Holy Spirit and set them on a path that brings them closer to Him, and pulling other people along as they go.

But when He does that, He might not do it the same way He did it with you.

There are going to be things that other Christians, both young and old in their faith, do that you can't, because it would be a violation of your conscience.

That's OK.

Don't do those things, and don't judge them for doing them.

We don't have to try to get to the point where we're strong enough to do those things. It's OK for me to believe that I should not do certain things that cause me to stumble. But there's nothing at all in Scripture that says it is my responsibility to get other people to stop doing things that they can handle with perfect maturity and clarity of mind... just because I am the one who can't handle it.

So go ahead. Do what you want. If you're living a life focused on God, what you want to do will change anyway.

But remember - and this part is actually really scary for a lot of people... It is ultimately your own choice what you do. If you choose to look to me as the "stronger" example, you just may see me doing some things that you don't like, some things that you can't handle. My influence over you is not totalitarian. You still have your own free will independent of my actions, good or bad. Know your conscience. Know the Spirit. Know the Bible. Don't violate any of those and you're good... no matter what you're doing.