We couldn't be more thrilled.
“Boys are found everywhere -- on top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on, swinging from, running around or jumping to. Mothers love them, little girls hate them, older sisters and brothers tolerate them, adults ignore them and Heaven protects them. A boy is Truth with dirt on its face, Beauty with a cut on its finger, Wisdom with bubble gum in its hair and the Hope of the future with a frog in its pocket.” - Alan Marshall Beck
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Little Christ
For Lent, I decided to read through the biblical Gospels. I’m always amazed at what I discover and re-discover as I sort though the four accounts of the life of Jesus. Every two or three years, I re-read the Gospels and they truly never cease to inspire and reform my belief systems.
Naturally, as I read, there comes conviction. The very words of Jesus are hard and often filled with the impossible, but even more than convicted, I find myself wondering if I really know Jesus in the way I thikn I know Him. Contrary to the popular belief that Jesus was a politically correct, constantly passive, sweet and timid man, He was, in fact, virtually the polar opposite. The Gospels are filled with His hard sayings, His confrontational agenda and His ever-so-blatant disdain for hypocrisy and injustice. Jesus was a radical. And while Jesus was full of love and compassion, He was also powerfully and wonderfully filled with confrontational truth that came to divide communities and conquer hearts of sin, changing them into the hearts of the saved.
The Jesus I sometimes try to make into a hippy is, in truth, a Mighty Warrior.
The Gospels, to me, confront passive Christianity. What I mean by passive Christianity is this sort of idea that holding a standard for yourself and other Believers is somehow mean-spirited and anti-Jesus. Accountability to moral standards, ethical business practices and a commitment to truth is what Jesus lived and died modeling and preaching. If we want to be like Him, we must realize that it’s not JUST about loving people and being “nice.” It’s about the hard sayings –the hard truths, the hard conversations, the tough love that sacrifices popularity and promotions and painlessness in order to live the way of the Cross.
It might be cliché, but I want to do the hard thing in life. I want to live like Jesus. It's impossible to do perfectly and painlessly, but the effort, we are told, far outweighs the temporary comforts of this world.
Naturally, as I read, there comes conviction. The very words of Jesus are hard and often filled with the impossible, but even more than convicted, I find myself wondering if I really know Jesus in the way I thikn I know Him. Contrary to the popular belief that Jesus was a politically correct, constantly passive, sweet and timid man, He was, in fact, virtually the polar opposite. The Gospels are filled with His hard sayings, His confrontational agenda and His ever-so-blatant disdain for hypocrisy and injustice. Jesus was a radical. And while Jesus was full of love and compassion, He was also powerfully and wonderfully filled with confrontational truth that came to divide communities and conquer hearts of sin, changing them into the hearts of the saved.
The Jesus I sometimes try to make into a hippy is, in truth, a Mighty Warrior.
The Gospels, to me, confront passive Christianity. What I mean by passive Christianity is this sort of idea that holding a standard for yourself and other Believers is somehow mean-spirited and anti-Jesus. Accountability to moral standards, ethical business practices and a commitment to truth is what Jesus lived and died modeling and preaching. If we want to be like Him, we must realize that it’s not JUST about loving people and being “nice.” It’s about the hard sayings –the hard truths, the hard conversations, the tough love that sacrifices popularity and promotions and painlessness in order to live the way of the Cross.
It might be cliché, but I want to do the hard thing in life. I want to live like Jesus. It's impossible to do perfectly and painlessly, but the effort, we are told, far outweighs the temporary comforts of this world.
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