We have some exciting news!

Beginning Sunday, July 1, 2012, our Westside site is moving – but only about 10 blocks away, to Santa Monica High School.

Why is this good news for our community, our mission, our ministry?

Several months ago the school district informed us that we would HAVE to leave John Adams Middle School due to campus maintenance this summer. We were concerned. Space has been a problem as it is. Where would we go?

We knew that Barnum Hall, located about 10 blocks away on the campus of Santa Monica High, was one of the nicest auditoriums in all of West Los Angeles, but the school district had never rented it out to a church. And we had been told on many occasions, “not possible.” So we prayed. And we asked. All things are possible with God.

And the district said yes! God has provided this amazing new space for ministry. The Lord provided beyond what we could imagine.

• The new site expands our ability to do evangelism. The auditorium is spacious, allowing more room to invite friends, co-workers, people who have not heard of Jesus or heard why Jesus is good news. The site has much easier access off the 10, and is closer to bus lines, foot traffic, and city life nearby.
• The new site enhances our capacity to gather, grow, and send out strong disciples of Jesus. The auditorium is built for adults, not junior high students, and has plenty of parking right next door. The site’s more convenient classroom access will facilitate smaller gatherings and ministries.

In no way will this move slow or detract from our vision of starting “neighborhood parishes” of local churches with local leadership in neighborhoods around Los Angeles. Under the Session’s direction, we are preparing and articulating such a plan right now. As we face growth, we desire not only to welcome the people God brings to us (especially non-believers), but to continually be growing disciples and sending them out. This is why our community groups and discipleship groups are so critical as intentional smaller communities where deep spiritual friendships and gospel transformation take place. We hope that, in the future, these groups also become the building blocks of our neighborhood parishes around the city.

I know you will have many questions that we plan to address in full over the coming weeks before the move. For more information, check out the Move page on our website (click here). If you have further questions, feel free to ask us at move@pacificcrossroads.org.

Pacific Crossroads Church is a people who, not a place where. So, while our Westside worship services will be held in a new place on Sunday mornings, we want to always be a people on the move. God’s people are always His pilgrim people, people called out by God to be sent out for God as men and women who have received and rest upon Christ alone as He is offered in the gospel.

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

Psalm 73:25-26 Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Selected by Chris Weldon, Director of Worship. His thoughts:
“When I think of how much I cherish my own children and wife, this seems impossibly difficult for me to believe. But I also know that if I don’t start believing it, I’ll never fully be able to love them.”

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

I am frequently asked questions similar to this one that Nietzsche (1844-1900) posed:

“A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions—could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth?”

No one has been more eloquent in addressing this question than Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).

God is certainly capable of revealing Himself unmistakably. Why doesn’t God make it easier?

Here is Pascal’s response:

“God’s will has been to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek it, but men have shown themselves so unworthy that it is right for God to refuse some, for their hardness of heart, what He grants to others by a mercy they have not earned.” If humans here and now do not actually want to know and serve God, why should He clearly reveal Himself in the present?

“If [God] had wished to overcome the obstinacy of the most hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself to them so plainly that they could not doubt the truth of His essence, as He will appear on the last day with such thunder and lightening and such convulsion of nature that the head will rise up and the blindest will see Him. This is not the way He wished to appear when He came in mildness, because so many men had shown themselves unworthy of His clemency, that He wished to deprive them of the good they did not desire.

“It was therefore not right that He should appear in a manner manifestly divine and absolutely capable of convincing all men, but neither was it right that His coming should be so hidden that He could not be recognized by those who sincerely sought Him. He wished to make Himself perfectly recognizable to them. Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart, and hidden from those who shun Him with all their heart, He has qualified our knowledge of Him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek Him and not by those who do not.

“There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.”

Why doesn’t God create great bold letters in the sky every evening at 8:00 pm spelling out “I am who I am”?

God wants to give us time to repent.

God wants a true relationship with us, not one merely of intellectual belief but of personal faith, hope, love, and trust. God wants to move the heart, mind, and will.

God is both love and justice; if He manifests Himself truly it cannot be without love or without justice. His love led Him to save all who will have Him, and His justice led Him to harden those who will not have Him. He deprives the lost only of the good that they themselves do not desire.

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Selected by Marshall Brown, Pastor. His thoughts:
“I need to hear again and again the hope and assurance that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and that reality changes everything.”

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

I recently read an article that suggests a tension I hope we can speak to as a church.

I love Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), have benefited from it, and have heard several similar wishes before: “Why can’t church be more like an AA meeting?”

There is something decidedly right and fair about that question. We need to be more honest, transparent, real, SOBER. Grace should give us the freedom to be so and do so, and when we aren’t, it exposes our self-righteous lack of faith. Amen.

We are the needy community. And when a call to duty bypasses that foundational conviction, you end up with “Sunday School.” Yuck.

Honesty with one another, however, is not the highest value or virtue. Need is not an end in itself, nor is the raw expression of that need – commendable though it may be – what should be most celebrated.

Instead, we gather to worship the One who has already delivered us, who meets our needs, who saves us. And who now calls us into a new life (duty if you like), a better life. Not to become His followers. Not to be saved, not to be loved, but because we are saved.

Or, as John Newton put it:

Let hearts and tongues unite,
And loud thanksgivings raise:
‘Tis duty, mingled with delight,
To sing the Saviour’s praise.

AA gathers in a circle with no one in the center but ourselves. We too should gather as equals, just as sober, but with celebration.

Pacific Crossroads Church offers a biblically based, Christ-centered 12 steps program called Celebrate Recovery. Click here to learn more.

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

Romans 5:3-5 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Selected by Taylor Bowis, Community Life Administrator. Her thoughts:
“Jesus said that learned obedience through suffering is made perfect through suffering. Our circumstances are temporary but a person’s character lasts forever; and I believe everyday we make choices that dictate the formation of our individual character. Growing up, I remember in our house there was a huge framed quote from the Redskins coach Vincent Lombardi, which said: ‘The test of this century will be whether man mistakes the growth of wealth and power with the growth of spirit and character. Or like some infant playing with dangerous toys, he destroys the very house he may have inherited.’”

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

On May 5 we will be having 10 parties in different neighborhood parks* around Los Angeles. I think it is fitting, then, to give you 10 reasons to go to one.

1. It’s a party. When have you ever needed more reason than that? Oh, and by the way, God loves parties as much as we do. You ever think about that? Jesus’ ministry began at a party (John 2), He was known as someone who celebrated with food and drink (Luke 7:34), and we know that the whole world is heading toward a great party, a great feast (Isaiah 25:6; Revelation 19:6-9).
2. It’s close to you. You won’t have to drive across town. And the local thing is not just for your convenience. It is driven by theology. John begins His story of Jesus with, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” Jesus was a particular man in a particular place at a particular time. The gospel is not about universal truths – it is about a universal God who enters into particular, individual, geographically bound lives. God went local.
3. It’s Easter. We’ve been celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Resurrection is the affirmation of life as good. Jesus came to bring life into the world. And this truth, this reality, shapes everything we do. It means life beats death; hope beats despair; community beats loneliness. These parties are one way of living out resurrection lives.
4. You’ll meet people who live close to you. In a place like LA, sometimes your own neighborhood can be the place you feel the most alone. Here’s a chance to get to know people in your area, so that you can start bumping into each other at the grocery store. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, at very least it seems He means to love, well, your neighbor. Get to know yours.
5. Learn to love where you live. We know God is on a mission to restore the world. But the world seems so big, so we talk about the renewal of the city, loving the city, hope for Los Angeles. But even that is a bit abstract. What about your corner of LA? Who lives there? What is God doing in your neighborhood? How can you be a part?
6. Make Crossroads small. Sometimes Sundays can be overwhelming. Who are these people? Who can I get to know? How do I feel like this is my church home? These parties are smaller gatherings of people from our church. It is a great way to not only connect on Saturday but to begin to connect better on Sundays.
7. There’s food. Lots of food. And we love food. We’re supposed to. God made us with physical bodies, that need to eat and that love to eat. Enjoy!
8. It’s spring. Get outside! All the parties are at local parks. Enjoy God’s good creation. And get your tan back. (In my case, my sunburn back)
9. Bring friends. It’s low cost, low key time together. Bring a friend. Bring your family. Don’t have family in town? Cool. We’ll have one there for you.
10. Did I mention: It’s a party! This is not rocket science. Come. Hope to see you there!

* Editor’s Note: We lied. There is one party at someone’s home.

You can find out more information and RSVP for your neighborhood party here.

Explaining the Divide: The truth about singleness and marriage

The danger in talking about singleness, dating and marriage is that it can unintentionally exalt marriage as the perfect state, and being single as being somehow less… perfect, less human.

It can sometimes make it seem that being single is like being in Peoria. It’s where you are, and you make the best of it, but you are certainly looking for ways – any way – to leave. And the longer you are there, the more desperate you become…

Editor’s Note: Pacific Crossroads Church does not endorse this depiction of Peoria, Illinois. We love Peoria. We are looking to start a Hope for Peoria soon.

That’s why I love the way the Bible talks about marriage. God tells us that He loves marriage – He designed it, He created it, He made it for us. (Genesis 2:18-24) Marriage is a good thing. But all good things in our world can be twisted, can be distorted, can draw us away from God. So Paul, in a letter to his friends in Corinth, talks candidly about marriage (1 Corinthians 7). He points out that often times your marriage will distract you from God – that your interests will be divided. The married person now has a priority, a call on their attention and their time that the unmarried person does not have. Paul actually promotes being single as the way he has chosen to devote his life to God.

Is it better to be married or single? Yes. Let’s be as honest and nuanced about reality as the Bible is.

Bridging the Divide: Why married people and single people need each other

While I have the floor, let me take this opportunity to say: STOP!!

Married people: stop spending time only with other couples or families.
Single people: stop spending time only with other single people.

Let me give a theological reason, and then a practical one.

The theological reason: any time we allow a distinction to divide us, to keep us from connecting our lives to other people in our community, we are missing the whole point of the gospel.

Paul, in Ephesians 1, sums up God’s plan like this:

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His love which He lavished on us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:7-10)

We are one community, one people; with one God, one Lord, one faith, one name, one eternal inheritance in Christ.

It is not enough to acknowledge this with our lips and yet to live our lives disconnected from each other.

Stop dividing.

Married people, invite singles over to your messy house, to play with your rowdy kids. Single people, go over. It’s a chance to eat real food, for goodness’ sake. And then invite married people to go out on the town. Of course they will not be able to join you all the time. But keep inviting them.

Editor’s Note: The above paragraph is rife with vague generalizations and caricatures. Pacific Crossroads Church does not believe that all families have unkempt houses. We do not believe that all children are so unmannered. We do not endorse the view that single people don’t eat real food.

The promise and the picture of the gospel is that people who have nothing else in common, nothing else to unite them, are now brought together in the closest of unions. We are a family. Let’s live like one.

Here’s the practical reason: Single people need married people in their lives. When I was in seminary, I lived in an apartment building with 11 families and 1 singles apartment (mine). It was wonderful. I ate better. I never had to sit in my apartment alone if I didn’t want to. But most helpful for me was getting to see real marriages played out in front of me. I saw couples that fought fairly. Couples that stayed together through tough situations. That loved their kids even though they weren’t perfect. I began to believe that marriage is actually a good thing, something I had questioned for a very long time.

Conversely, married people need single people in their lives. Like Paul articulates in 1 Corinthians 7, husbands and wives can get caught up in each other and in their family. They forget what their marriage is really there for: to demonstrate God’s love between the spouses AND His love out into the lives of other people. Marriage, like everything in the Christian life, is toward mission. Interacting with and caring for single friends reminds married couples that there is a world outside their front door; that there is a purpose to their lives beyond themselves and each other.

Single people need married people. Married people need single people. Without each other in our lives we will miss out; our community and our lives will be diminished.

Crossing the Divide: Reflections on dating and the single life

Due to the graciousness of God’s timing, the surprising acceptance of a wonderful woman, and a touch of sheer blind luck, I find myself on the verge of leaving the single life. There is fear – just a little; there is excitement – a whole lot; and there is hope. Hope that I myself can live by what I write, and live out what God has called me to.

But I wanted to take this opportunity to put into words what I’ve learned through the process.

Editor’s note: Pacific Crossroads Church takes no responsibility for the views that follow. We make no claims that following this advice will lead to marriage and/or bliss. Check with your doctor and your pastor before beginning any dating regimen.

1: There is no blueprint. Every story of marriage, like the people who live in it, is different. You know this. Well, you say you do. But then you, like me, eagerly listen to other people’s stories, hoping to grasp something, anything, that would help decipher the indecipherable; something to explain why things work out, and why they don’t. Save yourself the angst. Enjoy others’ stories, and realize that yours, whatever it may be, will be different.

2: Dating is at best a mixed bag. But it’s the only bag we have. Unless you live in a different culture, or you really trust your parents, you have to go on a date or two if you want to be married. I promise. It’s the only way. So men, ask women out. It’s the single most effective way to get a date. Empirically proven. Women, say yes. It’s a date, not a wedding ceremony. You don’t have to say yes to every guy. But say yes. We cannot let what we do not know about the future, and our fear of it, keep us from living.

3: Stop trying to manage risk. Life is risky. Love is risky. We can be so fearful, and let that fear shape us, and sabotage our relationships. What does fear played out in relationships look like?

It can be small and kind of ridiculous, like asking a girl out over text message because rejection hurts less in 100 characters or less.

Or it can look like two people spending a lot of time together, who to outsiders are obviously interested, yet they are hesitant. They are so intent on making sure the other person is interested, so they spend hours, with friends or by themselves, in relentless analysis of the other’s words, and inflection, and actions, when it could all be answered with an honest and risky question.

Or it can be one person so trapped by their fear of the unknown future, and so desirous of certainty, that they want to know for sure that it is meant to be – that it will work out. As a result the relationship gets stuck in a paralyzed state. They are too scared to move forward, come too far to move backwards, and are too connected to break it apart.

When we move toward marriage we are not making a prophecy: “I am sure this is right. I know beyond doubt it will work out.” Rather, we are making a promise: “I am in this. Come what may, we will work it out.”

Do not be afraid. Jesus, who died, lives again. What do we ever have to fear?

4: Embrace your finiteness. You don’t know everything. You don’t even know everything you want. You certainly don’t know everything you need. So that list you have, the one with the characteristics of your perfect mate? Yeah, that one. Throw it out. Stop sizing up people you meet based on it. It is a flawed list made by an imperfect person who is still growing and maturing. It does not merit the force of law. So stop giving it that. Be ready to be surprised by how different your expectations will be from the reality.

5: Men, be courageously honest. You can save yourself a lot of questions, and the women you date a lot of angst, if you care for them well. The simplest way is to be honest. If you are interested, tell her you are interested. Stop trying to decipher the signals that she isn’t sending. Just tell her you are interested, ask her out, and let her respond.

You can give her the gift of never having to wonder where you are in the process; give her the freedom to respond to what is real and true, not what she thinks you might possibly be thinking.

It is risky. It is putting yourself out there, on the line for her. But if you can’t do that now when the stakes are low, what makes you think you’ll be ready to put yourself on the line for her when the stakes are so much higher? God calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25), to give up their lives for them. You don’t get to that kind of love by accident; it is a series of small, self-sacrificial choices. Start early.

6: Give up on marriage. Give up on marriage being the thing that finally makes you feel loved and accepted. Give up on your future spouse being the person who will finally fulfill your deepest longings. Give up on marriage being the goal of your life. Because those expectations will cripple you as you pursue marriage; and they will destroy the person who chooses to marry you. Your future spouse will not be enough. Marriage isn’t enough. Marriage is not the goal. It is a means. God’s goal is the restoration and renewal of all things. God’s goal for you is transforming you from one degree of glory into another. God is remaking you into the image of Christ. And marriage is one way He does that. It is not the only way. It is not even a sufficient way.

The sooner we release our marriage and our spouse from the burden of those expectations, the sooner our marriage will be and do what it was meant to be and do: be a picture of what happens when God enters life, a picture of people living together with self-sacrificing and self-effacing love, and that marriage relationship becoming a fountain of life that pours out into every life it touches.

And the sooner we give up on marriage as our ultimate hope, we can embrace the one who is our ultimate hope. We can be certain, whether we end up married or not, that the God who is making all things new is at work even now in the middle of our lives, shaping for us and in us an eternal weight of glory that defies all comparison.

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

John 17:22-23 The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me.

Selected by Raquel White, Communications Director. Her thoughts:
“I still often struggle with the truth that God loves me. When I begin to doubt that gospel truth – when circumstances bear down on me and I feel alone – I often go to Jesus’ prayer to the Father in John 17. In that chapter Christ Himself prays specifically for us, those who believe in Him and His Word (v. 20). What I love and find so unique about v. 22-23 is how integral the unity of Christ’s church is to experiencing His love fully. Jesus personally prays that we – His Bride – can experience the intimacy, oneness, and extravagant love that He experiences in relationship with the Father. That is mind-blowing, and I pray that I am able to grasp this more fully each day.”

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

We decided to re-post this encouraging article on resurrection as a follow-up to Rankin’s message on Easter (click here to listen). Now that we realize the significance of resurrection, what does that mean for us personally today – on a Wednesday afternoon at 4 pm?

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Resurrection. In this one word we find all the incredulity of Christianity’s claims, and yet all of its power. It is the one historical event which, if it is true, topples every other claim, and if it is not makes Christianity not just another religion, but absolutely worthless.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead… and we will be raised with Him.

Resurrection changes everything. I wish I had time and space enough to explore this in full, but here is a cliff notes version.

Resurrection changes how we see death. If resurrection is true, it means that death was never an intended part of creation. We weren’t made to die – we were meant to live forever. It means that death really is wrong, an invader, an unwelcome and intrusive guest. Death is not part of life; it is the exact opposite. It means that when we weep at death, it is the right and proper response.

Resurrection changes how we see life. It tells us life is a good thing. Which seems almost too simple to mention, until you find yourself overwhelmed by despair and life seems hopeless and meaningless. Resurrection is the promise that life really is good – no matter how tinged with death it has become. And it is the promise that our end is life; life forever. Death is no longer the last thing – it is the second to last thing.

Resurrection changes how we see ourselves. Resurrection is different than our souls living on after we die. Christianity does not teach the immortality of the soul apart from the body. It teaches about a resurrected Savior with a new and whole body. It teaches that we too will be resurrected with bodies – bodies that are whole, pain free, and don’t decay. And if that is true, it tells us something shocking: our bodies are good. Physicality is good. As C.S. Lewis writes: “It is no good trying to be more spiritual than God… God likes matter. He created it.” It means that we should take care of our bodies, in every way. It means we are built to enjoy our senses. It means the invigoration we feel after a run, the bliss we feel tasting a great meal… all of these are good and right.

Resurrection changes how we see other people. If life is good, if bodies are good, then we must care for people’s physical needs. It is no good trying to save someone’s soul apart from their body – God doesn’t work that way, and neither should we. Resurrection is the theological imperative behind our work in our city and across the world.

Resurrection changes how we see the world. God created the world and He said it was good. God is green. Sunsets are supposed to make us catch our breath. The night sky is meant to make us feel small and yet significant. This world, even though now it is tinged with death, is still stunningly beautiful. And one day it will be fully restored, just as we will. Resurrection is a defense of beauty as much as it is a proclamation of life.

Resurrection changes how we see our responsibilities. The great chapter on resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, ends with this appeal: “Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast… knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” What is the ‘therefore’ there for? Since resurrection is true, our work here – on this world, at this time – is never fruitless. At the same time, resurrection denies any attempt to place the ultimate responsibility of restoration in human hands. Resurrection is God’s work; it is transformation beyond our ability.

Resurrection changes how we see our past. If God can bring life out of death, then there is nothing and no one that cannot be redeemed. God doesn’t throw away what He has made – He fixes it, He restores it. That’s what resurrection means: bringing life out of death; faith out of doubt; courage out of fear. And that is our hope. No matter where we have been, no matter where we are right now. We are not so far down that Jesus is not willing to come to us; not so lost that Jesus will not find us; not so broken that Jesus will not restore us; not so sick that Jesus cannot heal us; not so dirty that Jesus cannot clean us.

Resurrection changes how we see our future. Often the picture of life after death is one of disembodied souls floating on clouds, playing harps. No wonder no one is in a hurry to get there. This leads many people to repeat this oft-heard phrase: “I want Jesus to return, but I want to ________ first.” Resurrection is the denial of all such qualifications; it is the affirmation that just as God will make our bodies glorious, so too will He make life itself too marvelous for words.

Finally, resurrection changes the way we see God. What is God’s mission? What is He about? Resurrection! From Genesis 3 onward, God has been working to restore life to the world, to fix what is broken, to reform and renew the shattered pieces of His world and His people whom He loves. Jesus’ resurrection is the firstfruits. Paul says, Jesus is the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. What does that mean?

There will be more.

Resurrection. It is the first stone in an avalanche of life. It is the turning of the tide in the sea of death. It is the torch that sets the world on fire. It is our one hope, our one assurance, our one destination, and the driving force that sends us out.

Jesus who died lives again, and we will be raised with Him.

Resurrection. It changes everything.

“The gospel is the announcement that in one person’s history death is no longer the [last thing], but was only the second to last thing. It has now become past history. Death lies behind Jesus, qualifying him to lead the procession from death unto new life…

“It means that the salvation we enjoy now is like borrowing from the future, living now as though our future could already be practiced in the present, because of our union with the risen Christ through faith and hope.”

Carl Braaten, On the Uniqueness and Universality of Jesus Christ.

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

“For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Paul, Letter to the Saints at Corinth (1)

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

Selected by Gloria Kim, Special Projects Coordinator, Hope for LA. Her thoughts:
“Injustice is something that I’m passionate about – a fire in me given by God, I believe. This passage reminds me that God also cares passionately about injustice and that I’m supposed to help right it. Taking care of those that the world does not care for or even abuses is what God wants us to do. When Jeremy preached on Isaiah 1 recently, he said of this passage: God’s people were doing the ‘right’ religious things at church but outside of church, they extended injustice in their lives by what they did or did not do. The poor were uncared for and trampled on. God thinks this is a charade.”

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

People often ask me, “What are you reading these days?” OR “Do you have any book recommendations?” Here’s one.

Written almost 40 years ago, Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death remains as penetrating and fresh today, startling even, as it must have been to its first readers.

This has been a book I’ve always wanted to read, as it is quoted still today, widely and frequently (you can’t say that for too many books written in 1973), but I had no idea how often I would be writing in the margins, “beautiful” “exactly” “interesting” “need to think about this more.” Nor did I realize how familiar some of Becker’s central ideas already were in my thinking, via Walker Percy, via Soren Kierkegaard, whom Becker quotes at length and compares and contrasts with Freud as the two towering figures of modern psychology in his opinion.

Becker’s book centers around what he calls “the essential paradox,” that man is aware of his mortality. But this grim knowledge of reality is too much for man to bear. So he constructs the “vital lie” – man’s refusal to accept his own mortality, and refusal to be honest with himself about this refusal. This need to control his basic anxiety and to deny the terror of death is, Becker claims, the basic motivation for human behavior. “This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression – and with all this, yet to die.” This fear of death is the province of every person. In this sense “all persons are neurotic,” it is a difference of degree not kind.

Because the terror of death is so overwhelming, we conspire to keep it repressed and we learn this from the earliest ages. Becker’s favorite word for the strategies we use to overcome our mortality is heroism. We are each on heroic quests for immortality, to stave off the inevitable truth of our own demise, to justify our fleeting lives. Cultures conspire in this by creating a hero system that allows us to believe we are participating in something of lasting worth, and we give ourselves to this cause – starting a business, writing a book, establishing a family, accumulating a fortune, or simply being famous. Becker goes into great length about two of the most common illusions in modern society – the “Romantic Solution,” the search for redemption through a romantic love relationship and its inevitable failure and the “Artistic Solution,” the quest to stave off our mortality by creating something of lasting recognition.

Every culture has its salvation narratives. After all, this is the main task of human life – to become heroic and transcend death, to justify our lives, to save ourselves. In this sense, Becker argues every culture is overtly or covertly religious and that ideological conflicts between cultures or within cultures (like science and faith today) are essentially religious battles, competing immortality projects.

One of Becker’s triumphs is his synthesis of psychology and religion, science and theology. Though he makes clear that he is not a religious believer, yet he takes great pains, as a professional psychoanalyst, to uncover the limits of science, even the pretenses of psychoanalysis. “Psychology narrows the cause for personal unhappiness down to the person himself, and then he is stuck with himself…. All the analysis in the world doesn’t allow the person to find out who he is and why he is here on earth, why he has to die, and how he can make his life a triumph. It is when psychology pretends to do this that it becomes a fraud…. Thus, the plight of modern man: a sinner with no word for it.”

The book is filled with gems like that one and should be required reading still today for all those interesting in counseling, therapy, and the intersection of faith and secular psychology. Further, artists and creative types will benefit from Becker’s analysis of the benefits and limits of artistic creation. And any reader will be glad to have been introduced to the work of Otto Rank, whom Becker quotes more than anyone, and of whom Becker says that his own book will have been worthwhile if it introduces people to the staggering genius of Rank’s work.

In an off-hand phrase, Becker admits that of all possible illusions, Christianity is the most promising.

“Religion takes one’s very creatureliness, one’s insignificance, and makes it a condition of hope…. What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality…. As an ideal, Christianity, on all the things we have listed, stands high, perhaps even highest in some vital ways, as people like Kierkegaard, Chesterton, the Niebuhrs, and so many others have compellingly argued.”

Yet, for Becker, Christianity was still an illusion.

We give thanks this Easter Week that in Christ we have both the consolations of faith without having to compromise truth or the search for truth, that He is the hero who makes our insignificant lives significant.

In light of Sunday’s teaching on Kingdom and Mission, the following is a reflection on what it means to be witnesses to His Kingdom.

There is an inherent and inevitable centrifugal movement to the gospel. Roland Allen, a 20^th century missionary to China, refers to this quality as a “certain natural instinct”:

“This instinct is admirably expressed in a saying of Archytas of Tarentum quoted by Cicero: If a man ascended to Heaven and saw the beautiful nature of the world and of the stars, his feeling of wonder, in itself most delightful, would lose its sweetness if he had not someone to whom he could tell it. This is the instinctive force which drives men even at the risk of life itself to impart to others a new-found joy…”¹

The “sweetness” and “wonder” of the gospel make it eminently shareable, far beyond simple duty or obligation, leaving us to ask: is the gospel sweet enough to us to share?

For many of us, evangelism conjures up images of soapboxes and street corners. The context for evangelism, however, is actually much more pedestrian: “The network of relationships within which we live is the primary place where evangelism is to take place. This is where every Christian is a witness.”²

This pattern of evangelism has been referred to as oikos evangelism. Oikos, the Greek term for “household,” represents the fundamental units of society that consist of all those within one’s sphere of influence: friends, neighbors, associates and relatives. Thomas Wolf points out that “the early church spread through oikos evangelism – evangelizing family members who saw the old sinner become the new saint; sharing with the neighbor who questioned how such a difference had come over his old friend, and reaching the guys in the local trade union or the oikos that played tennis together.”³

It’s not difficult to see the logic of oikos evangelism. It is not manipulative or dehumanizing because we don’t see people as simply targets for evangelism. Rather, it honors the person and the relationship. It listens, loves and empathizes through one’s struggle, and even resistance, to believe. It has been said that conversion is not reducible to a single decision, but is rather a culmination of a thousand smaller decisions. When we evangelize within the context of our networks of relationships, we don’t demand that a decision be made on the spot; we simply walk side-by-side our oikos through each of those smaller decisions.

Although there is something organic, attractive and certainly less anxiety provoking about oikos evangelism when compared with other modes, it is actually much more personally demanding:

“…it is easier to approach a total stranger, develop a conversation in which a “testimony” is given, and then present the gospel. It is far more difficult to live with one’s “neighbors” daily and to put words on one’s convictions, explaining who one is and why one lives a certain way, called Christian. It is, of course, more “natural” to say the witness in such a way that the gospel surfaces out of the interactions of daily life. Through his relationships, the Christian explains and shares himself.”⁴

Darrell Guder explains rightly that oikos evangelism is more challenging, not less, because it demands congruence between your life and your message. You don’t pass along a tract; you are the tract. In a very real way, your life is under observation. Your decisions, priorities, words and actions explain to those around you what it means to follow Christ. And therein lies, for them, evidence for the faith. You are the apologetic, as a changed and changing life.

To go about our lives, in our network of relationships, does not however absolve us of the responsibility to verbally articulate “the reason for the hope” that is in us (1 Peter 3:15). Our manner of life still needs to be explicated. Guder continues: “this observable difference in the very nature of Christians’ lives and behavior calls for an explanation. To live without fear in a fearful world is not ‘normal’ and demands a reason. To be able to forgive and really have it make a difference in one’s relationships is revolutionary behavior. To make one’s decisions and judgments on the basis of criteria other than self interest is so threatening a difference that the world must know how this can be.”⁵

Our daily interactions with others do not equal evangelism; they simply provide the context and make the sharing credible, because as we have implied, we don’t just educate someone into following Christ. The gospel however does consist of historical events and propositional truths. And while those truths are enfleshed and made tangible to them through relationships, the truths must still be shared: that we are created by God to worship Him (creation); that instead we sought to enthrone ourselves in disobedience (sin) and thus deserve God’s just punishment (judgment); that despite our sin, God extended His love and mercy in Jesus Christ (grace), bearing God’s judgment on our behalf through His death on a cross (atonement); that Jesus rose from the grave (resurrection) to give sinners new life, so we can begin to live by His Spirit as God had purposed from the beginning under the loving authority of Christ (discipleship), if only we would believe that that is true (repentance and faith).

In closing, let me share an insight, or rather, indictment from Penn Jillette, an avowed atheist and half of the famous comic-illusionist act Penn and Teller. He had this to say upon reflecting on an encounter he had with a polite man who shared his faith with him:

“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward…. How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe it, and that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that….”⁶

Penn Jillette gets it and so must we. In the final analysis, evangelism is an act of love. So why don’t we share the gospel more boldly and more actively than we do? This is not a simple question and one that requires honest self-examination and humble repentance.

¹ Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, 12.
² Darrell Guder, Be My Witnesses, 147.
³ Thomas A. Wolf, “Oikos Evangelism: The Biblical Pattern.”
⁴ Darrell Guder, Be My Witnesses, 147.
⁵ Darrell Guder, Be My Witnesses, 160.
⁶ Quoted in Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine, 53.

This post has been adapted from Gospel Foundations, Book One in our FOUNDATIONS Series – curriculum we have developed for our life-on-life discipleship groups. If you would like to learn more about discipleship at Crossroads, click here or email discipleship@pacificcrossroads.org.

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

Review Week: Take some time today to review the scripture passages for this month: Acts 4:31 and Isaiah 55:6-7.

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

James Proctor wrote a hymn entitled “It is Finished” that speaks to our incessant tendency to live based on our performance rather than by the grace of God, as if our “doing” secures our “being” accepted and acceptable. The gospel teaches us that our being forgiven and accepted and loved comes before any “doing” on our part.

We are justified, declared righteous, not because of any work we have done or do. We do nothing. No thing. Jesus does every thing necessary for our salvation and alone secures our status as dearly loved children. When we forget this glorious, liberating truth of justification by faith, our doing becomes deadly.

Lay your deadly doing down
Down at Jesus’ feet
And stand in Him, in Him alone,
Wondrously complete.

Martin Luther called this our “alien” or “passive” righteousness. But sooner or later in the midst of living the Christian life, you begin to ask a question: Does that then make us totally passive?

If righteousness is a gracious gift from God, as the Bible clearly tells us, must we simply wait for God to come and transform us? For the truth of the gospel to shine, to be set on fire in our hearts, is there anything we can do? In a word: Is it up to God or is it up to me?

And the Bible’s answer to that question is YES.

Work out your salvation, Paul says in Philippians 2:12. Work out your salvation in fear and trembling, awe and wonder. Notice Paul doesn’t say, “Work for your salvation,” but “Work out.” You only work out what you already have within. In other words, take the grace you have been freely given, and work the gospel out into every nook and cranny of your lives. But how do we do that?

For almost 2,000 years, our wisest spiritual guides have told us that there is a way to grow – a path that has been called the spiritual disciplines. Let’s briefly define what spiritual disciplines are and then we will focus on one: meditation.

Author Richard Foster defines spiritual disciplines this way:

God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving His grace.
The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us.

The Bible gives you a picture of this in Galatians 6:8 –

He who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption,
But He who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

The analogy is revealing. A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the spiritual disciplines; they are a way of sowing to the Spirit.

The disciplines are God’s way of getting us into the ground. They put us in the place where God can work within us and transform us. By themselves, spiritual disciplines (like reading or prayer or meditation) do nothing. They only get us to the place where something can be done.

Meditation: What is it?

Meditation is neither simply reading scripture, nor is it simply prayer. It is a combination of both, which is neither. To explain, Eugene Peterson says that anyone who has seen a dog with a bone can understand meditation.

He tells the story of his little dog who had a fondness for large bones. All dog owners know the routine. The little dog would prance and gambol with the prize, wagging his tail. “What a good dog you are!” But then he’d drag the bone off to a private place and go to work. He’d gnaw on it, turn it over, lick it, growl.

One day, while reading the prophet Isaiah, Peterson came across this phrase: “as a lion growls over his prey” (Isaiah 31:4). He thought of his little dog and this word “growl” caught his attention. He said, “What my dog does over his precious bone, Isaiah’s lion did to his prey.”

But the real nugget of delight was when Peterson noticed that the Hebrew word translated “growl” was the same Hebrew word translated “meditate” in Psalm 1:

Blessed is the man whose delight is in the Word of God on which He dog-with-a-bone meditates day and night!

This is the primary difference between Eastern meditation and biblical meditation. Meditation is not what you do quietly on a mat in the lotus pose. Eastern says, “Empty your mind. Purge it.” The Bible says, “Yes, purge your mind of lies. But fill it with TRUTH.” Put it in your mouth, chew on it, take it in, digest it.

That’s what it means to meditate – you metabolize it! Until it empowers you.

This helps explain why the most striking metaphor in the Bible for this type of reading is eating. “Eat this book,” the Angel tells St. John in Revelation 10, “and it will be sweet as honey in your mouth.”

That’s meditation: not read your Bible, but eat the book.

It means beginning to see the Bible as a living conversation between persons. God initiates. He speaks His Word. Eugene Peterson puts it this way, “Meditation moves from looking at the words of the text to entering the world of the text. And recognizing the world of the text is far larger and more real than our minds and experience.”

This means every time you read the Bible, listen with this expectation: “God has something to say to me.” And then we get to respond, which is prayer.

That’s why I said meditation is neither reading nor praying; it is a combination of both that is neither. Meditation is how the Bible becomes a burning bush out of which God speaks.

How do I do this?

It’s important to note this “speaking” doesn’t happen automatically. The Bible doesn’t say, “Blessed is the one who meditates; he is like a microwave.” No, he is like a tree planted by streams of water. The analogy is instructive. How is fruit produced in the tree?

The tree is not a pipe. In a pipe, you put water in one end of the pipe and what comes out the other end? Water. The tree takes water in, but in time out comes fruit. That’s a picture of meditation. You take the word in, the truth. You start rooting your daily life in these words until the truth begins to blossom.

For example, with Ephesians 3, you take it in – the breadth and width and length and depth of God’s love for me – and you chew on it. If I lived in this, what would my life look like?

Throughout history, people have done it different ways. You can methodically chew on each word: You being rooted and grounded in love. (Ephesians 3:17)

Ignatius of Loyola, author of The Spiritual Exercises, stresses the priority of the imagination in spiritual formation, particularly when it comes to meditation. He counseled his students to meditate by entering the world of the text and imagining themselves in the biblical scene. That is, you imaginatively enter the story in the place of different characters or even as a silent observer. (Amazing, considering Ignatius was writing in the 16th century, because this is essentially what any filmmaker does today.)

For example, you read the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.

I’m the religious person who passes by those in need…
Or occasionally I stop and help a stranger…
Or I was the one in the ditch – when a stranger came along, a stranger named Jesus, and at great cost to Himself, He healed me.

Those are two suggestions. But one of the most popular and enduring meditation methods was given by Martin Luther. His barber, Peter Beskendorf, asked him how to meditate. Luther responded with a 40-page letter that began with these words:

“A good, clever barber must have his thoughts, mind and eyes concentrated upon the razor and the beard and not forget where he is in his stroke and shave. If he keeps talking or looking around or thinking of something else, he is likely to cut a man’s mouth or nose – or even his throat. So anything that is to be done well ought to occupy the whole man with all his faculties and members. As the saying goes: He who thinks of many things thinks of nothing and accomplishes no good. How much more must prayer possess the heart exclusively and completely if it is to be a good prayer!”

Luther was always practical in his advice:

“It is a good thing to let [meditation] be the first business in the morning and the last in the evening. Guard yourself against such false and deceitful thoughts that keep whispering: ‘Wait a while. In an hour or so I will [meditate]. I must first finish this or that.’… We have to watch out so that we may not get weaned from [meditation] by fooling ourselves that a certain job is more urgent, which it really isn’t – and finally we get sluggish, lazy, cold and weary. But the devil is neither sluggish nor lazy around us…. Kneel down or stand up…. Speak or think as briefly as you can.”

Notice, meditation can be begun any number of ways. Luther would always start by praying the 10 Commandments. Not that he just sounds them off mindlessly one by one – a practice that he would have dismissed as empty phrases or babbling (in his own words, zerklappern, or rattling something into pieces). Instead he proposes that only one Commandment at a time be reflected and prayed upon in order that his mind becomes as uncluttered as possible for prayer.

After preparing himself, Luther shares his personal method of reflection. “Out of each commandment I make a garland of four twisted strands. That is, I take each commandment:

First as a teaching,
Secondly, a reason for adoration and thanksgiving
Thirdly, a confession
Fourthly, a prayer petition.”

Luther was of course nice enough to provide examples for every Commandment! Here’s one from the 7th Commandment, “You shall not steal”:

First I learn here that I shall not take my neighbor’s property nor possess it against his will, neither secretly nor openly; that I shall not be unfaithful or false in my bargaining, my service and work lest what I gain should belong to me only as a thief; but I shall earn my food with the sweat of my brow and shall eat my own bread with all those who are faithful. At the same time I shall help my neighbor so that his property is not taken away from him through such actions as mentioned above.

Secondly, I thank God for His faithfulness and goodness in that He has given me and all the world such a good teaching and through it protection and shelter. For unless He protects us, not one penny nor one bite of bread would remain in the house.

Thirdly, I confess my sin and ungratefulness, there where I have wronged someone and cheated him or where during my life, I was unfaithful in keeping my word.

Fourthly, I ask that God may give grace so that I and all the world might learn His commandment and think about it and improve. I pray that there may be less stealing, robbing, exploiting, embezzling and injustice. I also pray that such evils may soon end when the day of judgment comes.

Luther suggests the same method for reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer after one’s reflection on the Commandments and even the Apostle’s Creed when one has “the time and leisure.” He, however, is realistic about the demands on our time:

“It often happens that my thoughts go for a walk in one petition of the Lord’s Prayer and then I let all other six petitions go. When such rich good thoughts come, one should let the other prayers go and give room to these thoughts, listen to them in silence and by no means suppress them. For here the Holy Spirit Himself is preaching and one word of His sermon is better than thousands of our own prayers. Therefore I have often learned more in one prayer than I could have obtained from much reading and thinking.”

Luther finally warns his barber:

“Don’t take too much upon yourself lest the spirit should get tired…. It is sufficient to grasp one part of a Bible verse or even half a part from which you can strike a spark in your heart…. For the soul, if it is directed towards one single thing, may it be bad or good, and if it is really serious about it, can think more in one moment than the tongue can speak in ten hours and the pen can write in ten days. Such a dexterous, exquisite and mighty instrument is the soul or spirit.”

To summarize:

The Warm Up
The intentional focusing of one’s thoughts and intention to encountering God in prayer

Reflection: Teaching
Start by reflecting on a passage of Scripture, or one of the Commandments, or one of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, etc.

Thanksgiving: Adoration
What do I have to be thankful about?

Confession
What do I regret, whether it is something I have said, thought, or done, or perhaps left unsaid, unthought and undone?

Petition
What should I ask God for, both for myself and for others?

Action
How can I put what I have learned or experienced from my prayer into action to make a difference in my own life and in the life of others?

This isn’t for religious professionals, and this isn’t for people with a lot of time on their hands. This is for YOU. It just takes what I know each of us has – a little time for conversation, except with the One who loves us most and best. Start small, but start somewhere.

Why should I? Of what benefit is meditation?

Let’s look again at the phrase in Ephesians 3:17 – “That you, being rooted and grounded in love.” Another translation says, “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.” It’s an image of depth as opposed to superficiality, groundedness as opposed to being tossed to and fro, that your life is stable and not stressed.

Blessed is the one who meditates, Psalm 1 says,

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

That’s a promise. You will become a person of stability. Rather than being blown about by your circumstances, you will be rooted. Like a tree.

But notice, not just like a tree in one sense because trees normally need rain. If you were just “like a tree,” you would need rain and without rain you would die. But the Bible says you will be “like a tree planted by streams of water.” If you are planted by streams of water, then it doesn’t matter what the outer weather is like. Which is to say, circumstances don’t matter. You have access to something that makes you utterly stable no matter what is happening outside you and around you.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be times of barrenness in your life – fruitless, barren seasons. You may be in one of those right now: out of work, low on hope. That’s why Psalm 1 says:

You are like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season…

No tree bears fruit all the time. Trees only bear fruit in season. Every tree has winters, seasons of barrenness, and there will be times you don’t feel useful. You’ll feel sluggish, unproductive, like you’re not going anywhere or accomplishing anything. Take heart: you’re like a tree planted by streams of living water. If you’re rooted and grounded in Him, it’s just winter! And in winter, roots grow deeper, so that more fruit – bigger, better fruit – can come. And it will.

That’s not only a benefit of meditation – stability – but I’m also illustrating how you meditate on Ephesians 3:17, “rooted and grounded in love.” When you are tempted to cynicism, you take in the truth:

I’m planted in the soil of God’s marvelous love!
I may not feel stable right now, but rooted in Him, I am.
I may not be experiencing His love in this season, but His love is not seasonal.
I may not delight in Him right now, but He never stops delighting in me!
I might feel thirsty and dry, but I know that I know that I know that I have access to living water.
Because I am rooted in the One who when He was thirsty, had nothing to drink. Who on the cross said, “I thirst.” Whose life, Psalm 22 says, was poured out like water to bring me to God.

Let your roots go down in that soil. Like a dog with a bone, gnaw on that. Chew on it. Swallow it. And it will gradually change your life.

Download a Helpful Tool

Click here to view and print a bookmark with helpful questions for studying and meditation.

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

Selected by Dave Masoner, Pastor. His thoughts:
“This Scripture has always been an encouragement to me. As I seek Him, I know that He is always near and I can in Christ turn from my sin and be sure of His mercy and forgiveness. It gives me a freedom to live with a joy that is not available in the world.”

Click here to learn more about our scripture memory challenge.

We’ve been talking about what my friend Ben Milner once called his “idol clusters.” Those patterns that tend to steal our energy, capture our emotions, catapult us into fear. The patterns we feel ourselves sliding into when we feel ourselves sliding. What Skip Ryan called his DARFS (see Part 1 and Part 2 of this series of posts).

Last time we talked about habits and disciplines that we can – we must – inculcate to “put off” and “put on” our new life in Christ. And I suggested the pattern of Prepare, Repair and Care.

PREPARE for the day. Reflectively meditate on a portion of scripture, engaging in “prayerful reading,” listening to the text – not just reading it – and asking the same Spirit who inspired the text to speak through the text, by His Spirit to His Spirit within you. “Spirit to spirit as one of my heroes,” James Loder used to put it.
REPAIR. Take ten minutes either right before or right after lunch to pray through your day, reflecting on where you’ve been and where you’re headed.
CARE. At the end of the day before bed, reflect back on the day, where you sensed God’s presence and love. This is what Ignatius called “The Examen.”

Whenever I mention habits or practices like these, usually a few people in the audience get nervous that this sounds “legalistic” or “works-based” or “Catholic.” “Wasn’t Ignatius a Catholic?” This aversion has had widespread and destructive influence on the spiritual health of the Protestant Church. That’s not an overstatement.

Yes, it’s true. God will not love you any less IF you skip your “quiet time” today or every day. We’ve heard that sermon. God will not love you more IF you are more faithful in prayer and devotion. This habit will not make God love you more. But it will probably convince you, experientially, that He does love you more.

In an editorial in the New York Times last week, there was a book review in praise of habits and how our character is shaped by our habits. This is an observation as old as Aristotle, but even older. In the Old Testament, all the practices – the worship life of Israel, the Lord’s exacting standards, the feasts and the festivals, the calendar, the Psalter and its use in public worship – were designed to be habit forming. Perpetual reminders, if you will.

In the New Testament, when the Apostle Paul writes about the value of spiritual training (1 Timothy 4:7), he was referring to repeated disciplines and habits, similar to physical training today. Some days you don’t feel like it. Some days you wonder why you do it. But you keep doing it, day after day, believing in its value and long-term impact on your health.

In a familiar analogy, these spiritual disciplines don’t transform you. There is no inherent power in them. Only Christ, the Spirit of Christ, transforms us from one degree of glory into another. But these disciplines – like the one of prayer and meditation I’ve proposed (Prepare, Repair, Care) – can be the means, the channels, for the grace of Christ to flow over into our workaday lives.

But someone asked a very good question. “Ok, that makes sense as a daily practice, but what happens at 3 am when I get a panic attack? Or what happens in the middle of the day when I just start to feel overwhelmed and don’t have the time to sit down and go through this type of in-depth reflection. What do I do then?”

I have a friend of a friend who is an NFL placekicker. He says that right before he kicks, he goes through – in his mind – his “cue words” as he calls them. There are a thousand different things happening when you kick a football, but he just tries to focus on his cue words: CORE, TURN, FOLLOW THROUGH. He’s only thinking those three words: CORE, TURN, FOLLOW THROUGH. He knows that if he does that he will make a good and true kick.

In the same way, in the middle of the day or at 3 am, if you begin to feel undone, have your own “cue words.” Know what they are. Work on them. Work on coming up with what they might be for you: the words that keep your spirit focused on what is good and true.

Here are my cue words that I tell myself at 3 am when I wake up panicked:

God is in control
God loves me
God is with me

All three are important to me, and one without the other two are not as helpful. It is good to be reminded that God is sovereign over all the details of our lives (“God is in control”), but God’s sovereignty by itself is not all that comforting. “Yes, God has His plans, but maybe I’m a casualty of those plans.”

In the same way, it is good to be told “God loves me.” However care by itself – care devoid of the power to do anything about my situation – is not all that uplifting either.

What is best to hear is all three: God is in control AND God loves me AND this is not just theoretical, it is personal for me. “God is with me.”

Of course I don’t go through these machinations at 3 am just as the placekicker isn’t reasoning why “core” is so integral to a solid kick. He has just habitually trained his body and mind to know how these words affect him.

Those are my words. Yours might be different. For one of my good friends, his words are Grace, Thanksgiving and Joy – “in that very important order,” he says.

Grace - everything good in my life is all of grace, so I can choose to give
Thanksgiving - which makes the vague phrase “trust God” concrete, and issues in
Joy - in all circumstances.

His words were inspired by One Thousand Gifts, a wonderful book on cultivating the habit (there’s that word again) of daily gratitude.

So, know your cue words. The promises of God that help you in the moment, that particular moment.

Then, in the cool light of the day (not the manic 3 am) you can ask yourself these three helpful questions:

1. Immediate: What was happening in that moment to cause my discontent? What was the immediate cause, the precipitating event?
2. Instrumental: What was the pattern this fits into that I’ve seen before in my life? And why do I find myself slipping into this again and again? What sort of “pay-off” am I deceiving myself into thinking I’m getting from this? Where did this start?
3. Intentional: What was I about to do that was harmful or destructive as a result of this “inner disposition” that I want to see weeded out of my life?

Looking at these three questions will go a long way toward helping you know where exactly you need to repent. Instead of just saying, “I shouldn’t feel this way; stop feeling this way,” you’ll know more precisely what “way” you need to repent of. You descend (confession) and you ascend (thanksgiving) at the cross of Jesus.

“LORD, here it is again. I come before the cross. Where I find GRACE. You died for this. For this attitude. I died to this attitude with you. I therefore repent. And ask your life to join in union with my life – and it IS – that I might walk in newness of life.”

Scripture Memory for This Wednesday

Acts 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Selected by Rankin Wilbourne. His thoughts:
“This is a call to prayer and the confidence that God hears our prayers. The Spirit descended upon them in a way they experienced and could sense. Here are men and women who already had the Spirit (they were already Christians and some had been present at Pentecost) but who are filled again and more, indicating that we too can be, and should be, and need to desire to seek to be, filled with the Holy Spirit over and over, again and again. This filling did not happen automatically but in answer to their expectant prayer.”

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