Still speaking

Dad date

3 ways to live

One of the more helpful insights into the Christian life is realizing that there is not just two ways to live, but three.  Most people (myself included) want to break reality down into religious and irreligious.  However, as the following quote illustrates, from a book that does an amazing job of conveying this truth, both the religious and irreligious are lost.  What is needed is the third way...the way of the Gospel.  You should really buy this book.  It is quite helpful.

Jesus does not divide the world into the moral “good guys” and immoral “bad guys.” He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways. 

This means that Jesus’ message, which is “the gospel,” is a completely different spirituality. The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism. Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles--it is something else altogether.

The gospel...in its view, everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and change.

--Tim Keller, The Prodigal God

Date night

Good to go out with my bride tonight. Was a beautiful night to be out.

Something to think about on election day...

Heather and I had a cool discussion this morning on a passage she ran across in her Bible study...

Acts 1:6-8

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Interesting to note, particularly on an election day, that the disciples question centers on whether or not Jesus was going to be the political hero they hoped for.  Would he restore the kingdom to Israel? They still think the answer is found in politics and some sort of governmental change.  Look what Jesus does...he basically ignores their question and then commissions them to be sent out on his redemptive mission.  They are to bring the healing and hope to the nations, through the power of the Gospel.  They are to be part of the solution.  They are to be the answer.  They are to turn the world upside-down through the gift of the Holy Spirit and Jesus' counter-cultural kingdom.  

So in an election that certainly has our country divided, and where Christians on both sides desperately think their guy has to win, let's remember that Jesus wants His Church to bring the only Kingdom that ultimately matters.  His is the only kingdom that will last.  This does not mean we overly spiritualize everything and ignore our opportunity and responsibility to vote.  Pray for our leaders.  Vote your convictions.  Ask God to use even flawed government leaders to bring about His redemptive purposes.  Be thankful that we have freedoms and the privilege to vote and speak our mind.  But know that Jesus is still on the throne, regardless of who is in the White House. 

So perhaps Jesus would commission all of His followers, in the days ahead, to be mavericks for Him to bring the change we need.  Sorry, couldn't help it.   Cheesy political humor is so much fun.  

Bigger playground = less yard to mow