The Deed Has Been Done

One thing I can always find rest in when my mind begins to unravel and betray me is that when you cut all the crap, Christianity at its basis is uniquely distinct and set apart from all other religions in that it preaches what has already been done rather than what we can do.

Why does this comfort me so much? I've only lived 20 years but even an arrogant, pointlessly rebellious 20 year old like myself is not naive enough to think that somehow humanity will somehow "get it" and fix itself. I know that being in my 20s has this ridiculous level of arrogance but I've already gotten glimpses of the severity of my sin before a Holy, righteous God. I may be young and stupid but from what I've seen in my own eyes and learned through scripture and history, there is no inclination in me whatsoever to have hope in human effort. I unapologetically admit that indeed "I have lost hope in humanity." But this is what I love about Christianity ... That at the heart of Christianity is our mighty savior Jesus, whom though had all the authority and "right" to not endure the cross, 100% willingly and obediently laid his life down, afflicted with all the wrath due to the humanity's sin from past to present to future, was bloodied, absolutely destroyed and murdered in our place ... and more than that, rose again! Broken, disgusting soul that I am, I cling to the fact that "He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). That's the God I worship.

When my body betrays me; when my intellect and knowledge betrays me; when I'm left out in the cold, betrayed by the world and all of its comforts and pretenses; when my parents and close friends pass away; when my kid is taken to the emergency room; when my bank account goes empty; when all that I built is destroyed before my eyes, I find full assurance in knowing that "he who began a good work in [me] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). Though my heart and my emotions flail and constantly lie on the fringe, I know with all assurance that Jesus is not letting me go, and not only that, but he's relentlessly, violently attacking and pursuing my heart and restoring it from all the dung that plagues it so.

When I'm gone, may my life have sung this hymn:

"The best obedience of my hands
dares not appear before Thy throne
But faith can answer Thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done
-"I Boast No More," written by Isaac Watts

The deed's already been done. May this be our means of sanctification as much as it is our justification. God help us. Save us from ourselves.

A Moment of Honesty.

If I were to be honest with myself, I think I'd conclude that most of the time I think about advancing my own kingdom rather than His.

God help me.

Pieces

-Eh I wish I could just post the audio but oh well.

I've been listening to some new music (at least to me) recently and I've stumbled upon a band named "Thrice" and a band called "Red." And in all honesty, their musical style clashes with my taste on more than one occasion. I like them musically but I don't necessarily love them the same way that I was obsessed with Linkin Park musically. But there's something in particular music and movies that really stirs my heart for Jesus ... and like I described in my previous post about how movies that portray the true fractured brokenness that is so apparent in humanity, I too love and embrace music that does the same thing. The word I'm looking for here is "angst" or a "crying out" that really stirs my heart and pushes me along towards growth.

For music, I do not much care for all the labels. Of course I have my personal musical tastes (and this song is definitely a song of my taste), but all I'm looking for in movies, in music, in life, is honesty to tell it like it is.
But if we humans were to be honest, I think we'd come to grips with our utter inadequacy to save ourselves from ourselves and cry out for help. Angst, desperation, a broken cry for rescue. This is what humanity screams for. We may try to find this in other people, toys, religion, but there seems to be a ceiling that we always hit that is met with the uneasy, haunting feeling that we were meant to go beyond this. We were made for something more. There is something bigger than us. So I think when all the walls are tore down, all our masks are thrown away, and we as humanity are left exposed for what we really are, there will be a heart cry. There will be tears. There will be loud verbal wailing and audible calls for help. And if we're courageous enough to be honest with ourselves, even in silence, our hearts will always have some kind of ... angst.

There will be a wrestling, a toiling, a striving. But in the end, we can try and try and try and fail. As one of my little brothers in Christ says, "I wake up and fail." No matter how hard we try, no matter how much we try to legislate transformed hearts, no matter how good a program we put on, no matter how good we can do church, we fail and we need help ... in the same way that a 4-month old baby's only hope in survival is to cry for his father and mother in hopes that they'd hear him and give him food, provide for him, take care of him, love him. shelter him. protect him, etc. At humanity's truest state, we've always known and history attests to the fact that we haven't ever and will never be able to attain what our hearts constantly tell us we were meant for. It's the reason why the brokenness in homes ranging from all spheres of life (From the suburban upper class English family to poor communities in a ghetto in NY to people enslaved under heinous situations like those of the "Invisible Children" documentary) all seem to shout out the the message: "Something is wrong!!! Something has gone wrong! We need help! Something has gone terribly wrong!" Any local news station will tell this same story. Every natural disaster, every broken home, etc. will do likewise.

"I tried so hard! So hard! I tried so hard!"
-"Pieces" by Red

By God's grace and no merit of our own, perhaps we'd in complete humiliation, come to our Father as we are, broken, shattered pieces, desperately crying out for help as a baby cries out to his father to sustain him ... For he has no other hope outside of this and neither do we.

This desperate cry for help, this angst, this broken, fractured humanity is the same broken, fractured humanity that chose to rebel against God, thinking that we know better, thus twisting everything God created to further instill an awe of Him ... This is what I'm ultimately looking for in music, movies, and in everyday life. It stirs my heart for Jesus Christ, who by grace ultimately slams, collides, and overcomes our wicked, helpless estate. Sometimes I do find this in "Christian music." Sometimes (perhaps more often), I don't.

"You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole
So you can make me whole"
-"Pieces" by Red

The Step Back and Movies.

I find myself having to take a step back to reevaluate things. Because we're so prone to play games, I havta keep checking myself to see what things I don't want to submit to God with. It's too easy to get wrapped up in programs and doing things because that's how they've always been done. But in general I am more frequently having to step back and see things as they are. I've been seeing the world in a little more raw view lately and it is alike in a lot of ways when Jesus became a reality to me for the first time. I couldn't word it well but it's when all games are exposed and when honesty is brutally and boldly embraced and humanity is exposed to being as wicked as we know we are deep down. How our natural inclination is always in the wrong ... selfishness, false testimony, jealousy, hate, betrayal, pride, always making idols of other man-made gods. The closest I can come to describing it is seeing it in movies ...

I saw it (it being an desperate cry for the fallenness of humanity) in Lakeview Terrace and Gran Torino over the summer and recently for the main character in District 9. The thing I took the most from District 9 was the absolute shunning and abandoning of the main character. Somehow I saw the abandonment of Christ in it ... left alone by all those who followed him after all he'd done through his miracles and preaching and relationships, his 12 disciples (one even betrayed him), the inner 3 ... Peter the "Rock," denies 3 times, etc., yet, one who you'd think would least extol Christ rebukes the other criminal who just mocked Jesus' claim as the Christ by saying "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he pleads "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Luke 23:40-42). It's weird to say this but somehow I saw this in District 9. Of all the characters that could have been the main companion of the protagonist, a freakin alien was chosen! haha. It doesn't all line up but I just saw the humiliation, the shame, the reality of abandonment and alone-ness in some moments of the film that really stirred my heart up ... especially when the main character's only hope, his wife, ended up leaving him too. I just saw the brokenness and fractured humanity in the film. Somehow God's been doing this with movies to me recently.

It's been a tough time being back in Waco these past 1.5 weeks or so. I can only plead for God to show up and strip me of all the crap I'm clinging to. He really showed me how much I want people to like me this summer and stripped of this desire rather brutally. It really hurt but I thank Him for it.

Acts 4:23-31.

I'm confused as to even begin to think how this year will turn out. All I know is that I'm going to need a lot of prayer for boldness and strength to constantly, violently, and jealously war for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be what matters most to us. If we have not this, we have nothing but noise in empty religious gatherings. God, please show up. Have mercy on us. Empower us Holy Spirit. We need You God. Help us.

Thoughts about change, Jesus, and growing up (a little bit).

I'll go back to numbering to better organize my musings.

1) People change, circumstances change, interests change, roles change, youth groups change, churches change, the God of the Bible doesn't. It's been a rough summer in terms of what has changed and what realities are setting in, but the gospel has sustained me. This is the only reason I can walk not in self-pity, but in confidence ... not in myself but by what's been done through Jesus on the cross. I hope his proclamation (known by religious and secular alike) of "It is finished" will violently become more of a reality to me in every gray area of my life that I don't want it to. I keep seeing me in the scriptures ... unfortunately as the scribes and pharisees. I hope and pray my response isn't the same as their's when Christ exposes the games I play to avoid obedience, submission, and acknowledgment that he is Lord of all.

2) My mind has wandered and been confronted with "What exactly does it mean to "become like Christ." The thing that keeps coming back is the reminder that in the end ... Christ died and Christ rose 3 days later. It's easy to know this but hard for my heart to see that professing Christ and becoming like him are not synonymous. It's weird to think that the person of Jesus knew who would deny him, who would reject him, who would accept him, who would bow before him, who would mock him, who would beat him, who would accuse him, who would spear him, wh would insult him, and yet went to the cross anyway. It's hard to let it sink in how Jesus could patiently love and let Judas follow him for 3 years, knowing who his ultimate betrayer would be (and on top of that with an intimate gesture of a kiss). It's kind of hard to think about how Jesus handles it when he's feeding and performing miracles for people, satisfying and curing people left and right, yet how some aren't interested in him at all but only in what he provides. Yet, he endures the cross.
-And just taking a step back and looking on a more macro level, the Jesus of the Bible didn't live the happiest life. He absolutely didn't. Garden of Gethsemane sweating drops of blood, getting betrayed by a close friend, getting constantly bad-mouthed and questioned (by the scribes and Pharisees), getting attacked and pushed up to the brink of a high hill by those he insulted with his preaching (Luke 7:23 makes me think), getting mocked all along the way, getting crucified, leaving his disciples, and followers in despair ... Is this the Jesus we're trying to emulate?
-It's mind-blowing because of the unlimited patience and endurance Christ had ... I mean Jesus comes out saying he's going to die on a cross and 3 days later rise from the dead from the beginning of his ministry around the age of 30 right? Yet his closest friends, the 12, seem to not get what he's saying at all, but instead argue over which of them in the group is the greatest ... What patience our King has. I've been pointed to Philippians 2-3 over and over and over again the past month or two:

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born n the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." - Philippians 2:5-8

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." - Philippians 3:7-11

-The first couple of times I read over it, I got it in my head and it was dandy and easy to read. But it's a different thing when the scriptures actually call you out y'know? I'll be honest. My natural tendency is not to make myself nothing, take the form of a servant, humble myself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Intrinsically, my heart counts everything I could gain from being a morally nice Christian-y nice (wimpy) guy as something of worth. I want that recognition. I want people's attention on me, not the Lord and Creator of the universe. Most of the time I don't much care for knowing him and the power of his resurrection, much less want to share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. I don't naturally war for the things of God. I think most of us absolutely love the idea of Jesus; we love his teachings; and some part of us distantly wishes we could be like him, but I think most of us really don't want to war, sweat, and climb uphill to become like him. There's a difference between going to church and being the church. There's a difference between professing Christ and following Christ. There's a difference between religion and Jesus.

3) As I'm about to spend my last Sunday at CBC and home in general, I must say that this summer has been an interesting one for me. It's easily been the most trying emotionally. In conclusion, I'll say that it's weird growing up a little bit. I have a hard time with the concept of "being grown up" on many levels but it's really hit hard this summer in ways I could not begin word. Oh, what a God we serve. I hope we don't miss out on this. May we not settle on anything less than life to the full.

I don't say it as much, but love ya BASIC ...
...
Man, this post was originally 5 lines. Oops.
-Jon