Doorbuster

Hey, Cobblestone,

    Some years back, I moaned over the trend of more stores being open on Thanksgiving Day. My sister-in-law, Chris, had to work a full day at Wal-Mart that Thanksgiving. Had the Black Friday competition become so fierce that retailers wouldn’t risk people spending their money
somewhere else on Thursday? Well… yeah, it had. Most other workers got Thursday off – if
there wasn’t something more useful planned than going to Wal-Mart, why wouldn’t they? And
why wouldn’t retailers try to cash in on the lack of a better plan? On the strength of those two
rhetorical questions, the trend got its start.

    Continuing in our “Three R’s” series, it’s time to redeem thankfulness. Step One is to be grateful for what’s already underway. The trend is turning: some of the retailers who’ve made a big deal about being open on Thanksgiving the past several years are now making a big deal about not. One big-box place says it’s a “pandemic measure” – but hey, whatever works, right? This is our break, our one-day shot at considering gratitude over consumption – trusting the Lord that, if we don’t bust down a door somewhere tomorrow morning, we really will be OK.
So, the next question, utterly non-rhetorical, is: What will you be doing tomorrow that’s more
useful than going to Wal-Mart?

    In our Bible reading plan a few days ago, Psalm 126 was on the menu. Number 126 is one in a group of psalms called the “Songs of Ascent.” Israelites would sing these on their way to
Jerusalem for the set times of worship and feasting – think “Over the River and Through the
Woods” on steroids. They would start with a spark of gratitude, put it to music, and let it build.
Check this out:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
    and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us;
    we are glad.
Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
    like streams in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
    shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    bringing his sheaves with him (Psalm 126).

Laughter and joy… thanksgiving. There was weeping, then there was harvest… thanksgiving.
And I hope you didn’t miss it: it happened more than once. The singers tell of how God has
restored, then they implore the Lord to restore again, and have full confidence that the one
who has shown shall reap… over and over. It’s a cycle, guaranteeing a steady supply of chances to express gratitude. And if you’re a saved person, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, you have an eternal spark of gratitude – the Lord has done great things for you, indeed!

    “I will not fuss over what I can’t buy tomorrow. I will not fuss over what I can’t buy tomorrow.”
Say it to yourself as many times as necessary. And answer the question: What will I do
tomorrow that’s more useful than going to Wal-Mart?

    Hot Tip: Kay and I have discovered the drop-dead best time to go to Wal-Mart. If you’re into
avoiding the crowds and the discombobulated shelves, go during the Super Bowl. Yeah, while
the game is being played. The only trouble we have is finding an employee to take our money.
One year I thought about skipping it – handing over money for the merchandise, that is. I
figured it was the perfect time to load up a second cart and simply walk out. Thankfully,
according to his promise in 1Corinthians 10:13, the Lord did not allow me to be tempted
beyond what I could bear, and he provided a way of escape:

“Don’t do that.”

“Right, Lord, I hear you.”

    Chris won’t have to go to work tomorrow, and she’s glad (so am I). She does, however, have to be there at 4am on Black Friday, which is another flavor of insanity altogether. But, as Jesus
said, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:34, King James Version). We’ll let it
slide for a while, maybe a whole year. Meanwhile, whaddya say about redeeming thankfulness,
contentment, and gratitude?

What’s your plan?

Grace and Peace (and a mouth filled with laughter),

John

Reason to Believe

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Feelings are faster than reason. Let’s agree on this much right out of the gate. If you’re betting on a two-horse race in which one is named “Emotions Run High” and the other “Wait – Let Me Think,” go all-in on the first pony. If speed is the only consideration, feelings can’t be beat. But is speed the only consideration all the time? Well, we won’t know for sure unless we think it through. Welcome to reason. Pull up a chair; we’ll be here for the next several minutes.

     Our mission this week in the “Three R’s Series” is to begin redeeming reason. First, then, let’s put it to the standard test – Receive, Reject, or Redeem – but not in that order. You’ve seen my unwavering commitment to redemption, so there’s no use pretending I’m not going there again – it’s only a matter of a couple paragraphs. The other two can be treated as a package, equally wrong for opposite reasons, meaning this: Decisions made on reason alone, to the exclusion of feeling, are cold and heartless – feeling-less decisions are often made on the pretense of pursuing excellence. Conversely, decisions made on feelings alone, to the exclusion of reason, show a disdain for reality – reason-less decisions are often made on the pretense of being purer. In this present Age of Extremes, “total” is the guiding word. Pick your total and don’t budge. Budging is losing. Have you stopped lately to consider poor reason – how lonely it must be?

     God made us to be creatures who reason. If I were confined to one single word of Scripture to offer as proof, the one I would choose is from our Bible reading plan last week: Because (Psalm 116:1). We are creatures of because – something happened first, and other stuff has happened since; there’s a body of evidence, somewhere, and we are called to draw on it. Since I’m not actually confined to a single word, here are the first two full verses of Psalm 116:

I love the Lord, because he has heard
    my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
    therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

    Two because’s and a therefore – evidence and the response thereto. Why do I love the Lord? Because. Why will I call on him as long as I live? Because. Do I feel love for the Lord? Absolutely, except when I don’t. Do I feel his love for me? Absolutely, except when I don’t.

     The redemption of reason involves setting reason and feelings in proper relation. Before we lose track of the Three R’s paradigm, the redemption of reason does not involve vaulting reason to a place of totality; neither does it involve kicking feelings down the basement stairs. For reason to do what it’s built to do, feelings have to be understood for what they are: an invitation to begin reasoning, the starter’s pistol for the powers of deliberation. Reason asks, “Where is the body of evidence, and what does it consist of?” Feelings shout, “Go find it! And get a move on, will ya!” Feelings exist for a reason. Get it?

     If you had asked me thirty years ago which of the opposite errors pertaining to reason were being made more often, I would’ve chosen Receive – reason was being vaulted to a place of totality. In more recent times, I would say there’s been a change, though not a complete turnaround. Best I can tell, to the extent that it affects the acquisition of large amounts of power or money or influence over people, reason is cited as the single criterion in decision-making. Excellence, even the pretense of it, is hard to argue against. At the same time, at ground level, feelings – if for nothing other than their sheer speed – are being given a green light, often without thought. “I just feel like” is the sentence-starter most likely to shut down reason. If you asked me now which error is causing the most harm, I would say the second one, simply because most of life happens at ground level. Decisions made on feelings alone go bad in a big hurry. Is there, then, a way to set feelings and reason in proper relation?

     I try to make a habit of not arguing with CS Lewis, so maybe what I’m going to say next can be viewed as an extension of one of his thoughts – maybe what Lewis would’ve written if he had lived another week or two beyond my third birthday. In Mere Christianity, he describes a battle between faith and reason on one side, emotion and imagination on the other: “…unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off,’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.” True, that. But as God created us in his image, emotions were part of the package. They must have a proper use. What happens if feelings are plugged into their intended role?

     Back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s, I was quite the Indy 500 fan. For fifteen straight years I went to the Speedway (Capital S, mind you) for the first day of qualifying for the big race. During that period, I saw a changing of the guard: the superstars of the Sixties and Seventies were gradually being replaced by their juniors. “Gradually” was the weird part; with the huge amounts of energy and publicity (and money) being poured into the younger drivers, there should have been a total switchover in the space of two or three racing seasons. But the old guys – Johnny and AJ and Big Al and Gordie and Emmo – just kept putting cars on the grid for the big show… and winning. In a conversation between racing commentators, I heard a younger one express his puzzlement over the phenomenon. By way of explanation, an older commentator described how the older drivers had what he called “conditioned reflexes.” Sure, the youngsters had quicker reaction times, but having made the wrong move enough times to know how much it hurts, the old guys now tended to make the right move first. To investigate your feelings, rather than green-light them without further thought, is to work them into becoming those conditioned reflexes. CS Lewis would have said it much better, and not resorted to racing analogies. But I hope you get the idea.

     Nowhere in Scripture have I seen God telling us, his people, to abandon reason. Neither does the Holy Spirit guide us into a headlong, uninformed faith. Jesus tells us to consider (Matthew 6:27) the Father’s faithfulness in provision. And here’s one of my favorites, the startling invitation in Isaiah 1:18 – “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD…”  We are reasoning creatures reasoning with our Creator – surely too grand an invitation to pass up!

     Feelings have their place. Reason has its place as well, in every conceivable scenario. To deny either of them its place is to be stuck in immaturity. In my reasoned estimation, reason is the one in greater need of redemption. The maturing believer will employ them both in an orchestrated approach to walking out the life of faith, to doing well and doing good, here in the land of the living.

 

 Grace and Peace (and great heaps of because’s),

 

John       

Nature of Redemption

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Kay and I have been to Las Vegas exactly once. It was a short trip, a few days in early May of 2003, the payoff for grinding through a time-share presentation. We had some uneasiness about the city – they say anyone who visits there should have return flights purchased before leaving home. Still, we couldn’t let the rumors go without investigation, so we put together a plan that included forays into the bright lights and clanging bells that give rise to the rumors.

     Access to gambling was everywhere, of course – even the fast-food joints and gas stations had slot machines. And we weren’t surprised by the drive-through wedding chapels, although the one with two lanes did stretch our understanding a bit. The replicas of worldwide landmarks are well publicized in the brochures, so we weren’t startled by walking from New York to Paris to Egypt in a matter of minutes. No, what rattled us was a collection of storefronts around the corner and less than a block off the famous Las Vegas Strip. Six businesses occupied separate but conjoined spaces, each the size of, say, Dunkin’ Donuts here in Oxford – and every one of them was a pawn shop.

     How could that business plan work? Surely there couldn’t be enough clients to keep six pawn shops going, so tightly clustered as they were. To the uninitiated, here’s a thumbnail version of how a pawn shop works. Somebody who needs cash fast takes an item of value to the broker, who assesses the item and advances a loan for that amount to the pawner… plus interest, of course. If the item is redeemed by the pawner within a certain amount of time, the transaction is over, and only the interest has changed hands. As you might imagine, the interest isn’t where the big money is for the broker – unredeemed items are sold to somebody else.

     In Las Vegas, the idea is for the pawner – let’s call him Jack – to parlay his newly acquired magic beans into a beanstalk by which he raids the giant’s castle. Alas, in Vegas, the fairy tales favor the giants. Hence, with a high concentration of Jacks and giants on hand, six pawn shops peacefully and prosperously coexist, each sharing a wall or two with shops that are doing the same thing at the same time.

     I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while, Church, about the nature of redemption. We have some large topics coming up in the Three R’s series, and now is a good time to remember how, from among the three choices – Receive, Reject, Redeem – the third one keeps proving to be the best option. Receive and Reject are too easy and tend to cause more division, especially in this zone we’ve been studying where culture and Christian faith intersect. Redemption takes work, which is why it’s so appealing, since we know that no good thing comes without thoughtfulness and cost. Today’s touchup is to ensure we see redemption the same way our Redeemer does.  

     Not many realize it, but the second most merciful thing God has done in human history is block the way to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 3:22-24). Rather than let the human race live forever in sin and shame and separation, he chose to initiate a long arc of redemption. The arc reaches its zenith where God does the single most merciful thing in human history, namely, sending his Son into the world to atone for all our sins. Jesus’ work on the cross – and busting out of the tomb! – has established the landing point of the arc, at which all the factors that brought about a need for redemption will be done away with. But what do you suppose caused God to work those earliest acts of redemption, and causes him still to guide the arc and draw more of humanity into its path? It could only be love for the redeemed.

     In our work as little-r redeemers, is there any reason to put redemptive effort into someone or something we don’t have a great deal of love for? Well, maybe. Not saying they’re good reasons, but I’ve caught myself trying to succeed at redemption where someone else failed, so I’d look like the better redeemer. I’ve also been known to throw redemptive effort into situations I didn’t yet have God-given wisdom for – you can easily imagine how those have turned out. At times, rather than waiting on the Lord, I’ve tried to start redemption for no better reason than nobody else had yet. Nope, not good reasons at all. Thankfully, those are in the minority – I bring them up for two reasons. First, to point out that deciding to Redeem will bring about enough work all on its own, without us looking for more than what’s assigned to each of us. And mostly, I bring them up to say that without having precisely the same motivation God has, even our best efforts at redemption will be at least slightly off the arc he has established. It can only be love for the redeemed.

     In Psalm 111, which is in our Bible reading plan this week, verse 9 says…

    He has sent redemption to his people;

   he has commanded his covenant forever.

   Holy and awesome is his name!

     Does anything strike you as unusual about the verse? Given that the psalm couldn’t have been written any less than 400 years before the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, doesn’t the past-tense “sent” sound odd? Isn’t the best of redemption still in the psalmist’s future?

     This verse is one of many fine Bible examples of future-perfect speech in the story of God and redemption – what he did before determines what happens now and guarantees what will happen later. It calls attention to three inseparable elements of reality: God has brought, God is bringing, and God will continue to bring redemption to his people until the full measure of redemption is accomplished.

     We live in the is… cooperating as much we’re able.

     In the power of the Holy Spirit, Christian, ask the Lord to lock you onto the objects of redemption assigned to you. Ask him to help you sort through the many and varied and worthwhile possibilities by giving you a can’t-turn-it-off love for those he’s chosen for you. Look for other Christians whose targets of love are something like yours. Redemption runs on love. Always has.

     Within the symbiotic relationship of gambling and pawn brokering, redemption is neither here nor there. Indeed, casinos can only stay in business as long as word doesn’t get out that gambling isn’t for the benefit of the gambler. And the broker makes out far better if redemption doesn’t happen at all. It’s a recipe for anything but.             

     Nothing personal toward the City of Las Vegas in general or pawn brokers in particular, but if you had mapped our travels for those three days in May of ’03, you would’ve found Kay and me more often in the desert, or up Mount Charleston, or over at Hoover Dam. In the city was a scouting mission, mainly, and when it was done we were glad for the experience – even more glad to get back among those who are the objects of our love and redemptive effort, and among whom we are the recipients of theirs.

  

Grace and Peace (holding fast to the arc of redemption),

 

John

Whose Report

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Kay and I are back from some travels that took us to the Carolinas. As you might imagine, I put together a portable library, and yes, it outweighed any other single container we packed. In the Periodicals section were several newspapers I hadn’t read at home. (The carrier and I have a tacit arrangement: he brings the paper late; I read it even later; it seems to be the best we can do.) Those papers had a particular job. For years I’ve hoped to find a newsfeed without a heavy bias toward one extreme or another. No luck so far. I’ve asked some of the newsiest people I know, and they’ve made some earnest suggestions, but every source I’ve checked has been – sure enough – large on commentary and small on reporting. Maybe it’s the cynical streak in me, but I can smell an editorial slant from a mile off. Those five or six editions of the Journal-News I had packed were part of an experiment, the hypothesis of which could be stated like so: The Lord has a better purpose for news reporting than I’ve imagined up to this point.

     Though I’ve been away I haven’t stopped thinking about the Three R’s series, and our mission as little-r redeemers, cooperating with the capital-R Redeemer who redeemed us, to reconcile creation and humanity to himself. As Christians – being conformed to the image of (God’s) Son (Romans 8:29) – our heartiest efforts will be at the points where culture and faith intersect. Since news pervades the lives of Christian and non-Christian alike, it would qualify as one of those points. Running news through the grid of the Three R’s – Receive as all good, Reject as all bad, or Redeem something inherently good from whatever not-good purposes it may have been put to – what do we find?

     In the Information Age, differing viewpoints can be had by the millions in a split second. It’s not wise, or even possible, to Receive them all as good and true. And if you picked one, or a small handful, someone would be along (in a split second) to say you’re an idiot for doing so. Now the challenge is to figure out whether you’re an idiot, and viewpoints on that topic can also be had by the millions. Let’s give Receive a tender pat on the head and set it aside as not an option.

     How about Reject? Well, I tried it. For several straight months, I went news-less. During March, April, and the first half of May 2020, I had checked the news several times a day. After about six weeks I could have written the copy for the reporters – from the previous day’s copy and the day before that. So I checked out; surely there would be something better to do with the same amount of time. Right away I started missing news items I needed to know about. It got to where I could hardly contribute to a relevant conversation. In the current reality, where connectedness is a very real expectation, I doubt any of us could afford to Reject news altogether.

     Maybe the Lord could use that stack of newspapers to point me toward Redeeming the reporting efforts that had gone into them. I started with a prayer: “Father, please show me a better purpose for the news than I’ve seen so far.”

     Right away I read about the Christian missionaries who had been taken hostage in Haiti. My first thought was, “Obviously, this is a job for Special Ops.” But that thought was unproductive. Why? Because I’m not the one who decides whether Special Ops will do this job. Well then, is there a prayer to be prayed? Yes: “Father, let today be the day you deliver the hostages in Haiti.” Bingo. I thought I’d been reading a report on an international incident with potentially dire consequences, and it was indeed that. But at the core, I was looking at a prayer-starter.

     Were there any more prayers to offer up? Definitely. Gathering more reports, I learned that all over Haiti people were being snatched up, many of them children, by any gang members who thought they could collect any amount of ransom at all. “O, Lord, deliver the people of Haiti from gang violence, especially this scourge of kidnapping.” And how about the gang members? “Jesus, redeem the gang members – deliver them from their past and establish a future with God as their Father.” Turns out there have been dozens of different but related prayers to pray into this situation. And yes, I’ve prayed for the people who do have to decide whether Special Ops will be involved.

     In our Bible reading plan, yesterday was a day to read a whole Bible book: Obadiah (good thing it’s only one chapter!). From the middle of the first verse, catch this singular phrase:

 We have heard a report from the LORD…

     Yes, indeed we have – and we keep on hearing reports from the Lord, in Scripture and by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Question is, will we recognize them as such? Sure, many news reports won’t concern us, and there’s no need burdening our consciousness with those. But I would suggest that the great majority of items we come in contact with are prayer-starters.

     Looking closely, we can identify at least three things that “praying into the news” can accomplish. First and best, it can move the heart of God to rectify unjust situations. Next, by praying Spirit-led prayers we can sort truth from untruth, since, according to Jesus’ promise in John 16:13, the Holy Spirit is guiding believers into all the truth. And as it relates to our own hearts, praying into the news can relieve the frustration that mere fussing would only have aggravated. Looks like redemption to me.

     You won’t be able to escape the news for very long. I tried, and it didn’t turn out well. Better to engage the mind of Christ, Christian – let it have the lead – and ask: “Whose report will I believe?”

 

 Grace and Peace (and a prayer-nose for news),

 

John

 P.S. For updates on the hostage missionaries in Haiti, see https://christianaidministries.org/updates/haiti-staff-abduction/          

Redeeming Buts

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     I think you’ll agree: there are some buts around here in serious need of redemption.

     The second-most important thing you need to do with this week’s letter is NOT add a “t” to “but” – we’re discussing the conjunction here, which does just fine with only one. The first-most important thing you need to do with this letter is remember who you are in Christ, which is the one thing that qualifies you as a legitimate but-redeemer.

     In our Bible reading plan, today marks the end of Daniel. Maybe you’re reeling from the wild visions and dreams. Me too. If it helps at all, try to imagine the angel Gabriel saying, as he said to Daniel, “Understand, O man, that the vision is for the time of the end” (Daniel 8:17). Meanwhile, there are plenty of buts to consider. Pull out your Three R’s grid. Sifting buts through it, where do they land – Receive as all good, Reject as all bad, or Redeem good ones from whatever not-good purposes they may have been put to?

     We all know: some buts are good and others not so much. “I tripped on the rug, but caught myself before plunging out the window” – good but. Conversely, “I towed the boat all the way home from the lake, but forgot to put a trailer under it” – bad but… really bad. Right away, we see Receive is not an option. Now let’s imagine our language without buts: “I thought the plane would crash, and sure enough, it did!” Buts save lives, and we ought not to Reject them entirely.

     As Daniel and his fellow exiled Jews lived out the history we just read in Scripture, the buts could’ve gone either way. Their days went just like ours – sunrise/sunset/repeat on a 24-hour basis – and they encountered them a moment at a time, same as we do. Since it is the nature of buts to get ugly without redemptive effort, Daniel and his friends had to maintain a predisposition toward the good. Here’s what might have happened if they hadn’t:

     Daniel takes credit for interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, gets it wrong, and is executed along with the Babylonian magicians. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego bow down to the golden image, and Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t get to see the fourth man in the furnace, the Ruler of the everlasting kingdom to come. Daniel stops praying to the God of his fathers, according to Darius’s decree, and skips offering up those great pleas for mercy on behalf of his people. Those, Church, are some ugly buts.

     Here’s another batch: “I’ve heard what God has said I should do with my relationships, but it’s just too much work.” “I’ve heard what God has said I should do with my money, but I don’t have the faith to pull it off.” “I’ve heard what God has said I should do with my body, but I want alternatives.” “I know God is worthy of all worship, but there are so many other enticements to my praise and affection.” I hope you can see the potential for redemptive work.

     When Daniel and his friends were ripped out of Jerusalem, they were taken away from everything they had ever known. They were from the nobility of the Jews (Daniel 1:3), and were youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace (verse 4). Thankfully, their deepest attachment wasn’t to their status, appearance, or skill. Their deepest attachment was to the Lord himself. The Babylonian culture offered much of what they had known in Jerusalem, and on a far grander scale: they were noted for their appearance and advanced according to their knowledge and skill. But advancement in Babylon came as a trade: they would have to turn away from the Lord to embrace the treasures of the surrounding culture. No deal: when their bond to the one true God was tested, it held firm.

     Clinging to our identity in Christ, here’s what a redeemed but looks like: “The world says I have a right to be angry with my brothers and sisters, but Jesus says that’s a dangerous place to be, and he offers a path to peace” (see Matthew 5:22; 18:15). “The world says I have a right to be selfish, but Jesus says I can be generous without being fearful” (see Matthew 6:3). “The world says I can do anything I want with my body, but Scripture says my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and to glorify God in it” (see 1Corinthians 6:19, 20). “The world around me offers any number of enticements to my worship, but Jesus says, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33), and that’s what I’m going to do.” Redemption wins.

     I was talking with an old friend the other day, and the topic of our conversation turned to current events, prompting him to ask, “What is this world coming to?” My response: “I’m not of this world, buddy, so I guess it’s not at the top of my thinking list.” As I noted in last week’s letter, Daniel and his friends were able to hold onto their identity as people of God, people of his presence, chosen as his inheritance… who happened to be exiled in Babylon. And even there, they were able to do redemptive work. So also we, who are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19), can turn the conjunctions away from ugliness – so long as we hold to our true citizenship, so long as we remember who we are.

     Maybe we’ll talk more about Daniel’s visions when we get to the Revelation at the end of next year. For now, let’s simply consider the last three buts to be found in the Bible book that bears his name. Daniel didn’t understand what he was hearing from the man clothed in linen (12:5), and asked, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” (verse 8). And the man in linen said…

    “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand… But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days” (verses 9-10, 13).  

    But those who are wise shall understand – redeeming buts now, on the way to a time when all buts are thoroughly redeemed. How’s that for a very appealing vision?

Grace and Peace (and hindsight for the days ahead),

 

John

Convinced

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

 

    As it applies to your identity, “Christian” is not an adjective. I just wanted to get that straight from the beginning.

     Back to middle school Language Arts class: an adjective describes a characteristic of the thing named; it is not the thing itself. “A red ________” – a red what? A red bell pepper or a red Corvette? It’s important to know because you don’t want a Corvette to show up in the tossed salad. Do you see why nouns have to be given priority? And did you notice that “adjective,” as it’s used in this paragraph, is a noun itself? Without the noun there wouldn’t even be a chance of having words to describe other nouns. 

     The good writing coaches will recommend you find a better noun, not a bunch of adjectives to paste onto a weak one. “Rock,” you may say or write, while “granite” does ten times the describing with the same word count. You convey color and texture, maybe even the idea of costliness: granite is often used for monuments; sandstone not so much. The right noun is unbeatable.

     As it applies to your identity, “Christian” is the noun, the word we have for what IS, the word that puts language to reality. When “Christian” gets demoted to adjective, reality slips away.

    “I’m a Christian student”; “I’m a Christian mom”; “I’m a Christian firefighter.” All could be true, but the plainer reality is you’re a Christian who is a student, mom, and/or firefighter. It would be terribly awkward to say, but reality would be even better served if you said, “I’m a firefighting Christian,” or “I’m a mom-ing Christian.” I hope you can see the difference: you’re not who you are because of what you do; you do what you do because of who you are.

     Last week I wrote to encourage us all to brush up on our testimonies – those stories of how Jesus got a-hold of us – primarily to glorify God, but also to help convince others that they, too, can have new life in Christ. This week I’m writing to the hardest of all to convince: you and me.

     Salvation is forever, a fact inscribed in heaven. Jesus came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), and he doesn’t un-save us. With salvation comes a brand new identity: child of God (John 1:12), the righteousness of God (2Corinthians 5:21), citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20), friend of Christ (John 15:15), saint (Ephesians 1:1). In short, you are in Christ (Romans 6:11, plus about 47 other New Testament places). You’d think, with such a preponderance of evidence, we’d have a firm handle on our identity in Christ. For the few who do, I’m glad. For all the rest of us… well, read on.

     We’ve started the Bible book of Daniel in our reading plan, and with Ezekiel and Jeremiah already under our belts, the Babylonian captivity of the Jews is becoming familiar. Those who were carried off from Jerusalem could be known by a couple terms: Jewish exiles or exiled Jews. The same, you say? Not at all. There’s a night-and-day difference, determined by which word gets to be the adjective and which one gets to be the noun. There were exiles who happened to be Jews, and they acted just as anyone else who is marginalized and oppressed. Conversely, Daniel and his young companions, as exiled Jews, acted as people chosen by God for his own inheritance – who happened to be exiled in Babylon. By understanding their identity, Daniel was able to refuse the king’s unclean food and wine (Chapter 1) and interpret the king’s dream (Chapter 2), and his friends were able to withstand the king’s fury (Chapter 3). 

     The concept of identity is in desperate need of redemption in our time. Adjectives have been given far too much authority. The common practice is to take a weak, generic noun and hang adjectives on it like ornaments, with a handful of adverbs to modify the weaker adjectives. Shortly, nobody remembers the noun, including the one whose identity was being described. I’ve seen Christians fall for it; I’ve fallen for it myself. For the Christian, redeeming the concept of identity begins with setting “Christian” in its proper place as a noun – the language for the thing itself.

     The toughest audience for your testimony sits in the space between your ears. Same for me. For some reason, identity in Christ is hard to keep a grip on – as if it’s too good to be true. But God, when he saved us, crafted an identity for each and all of us that is Christ-like right now, and the only way in which the identity changes is that it becomes ever more conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). What might you do, what peace and confidence might you know, if that truth lived steadily in the space between your ears, silencing every heckler?

     Get a grip on your identity – the real and lasting one – and hold fast. Talk to the Father about it; he’s the one who crafted it. Talk to Jesus about it; he’s the one whose image you’re being conformed to. And one last thing: at some point, if it’s at all possible, go and thank your middle school Language Arts teacher.

 

 

Grace and Peace (to convince you of your own testimony),

 

John  

Testimony

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

 

    On the advice of a dear friend, here’s our next object of redemption: your testimony. “Testimony” isn’t a word that rolls off your tongue very often? I wouldn’t be surprised. It doesn’t roll off mine very often either, and given my line of work, that could be a problem! If so, maybe the first logical step toward a solution is to explain what I mean by testimony. In the context of today’s letter, it’s the story of how Jesus got a-hold of you. Every Christian has a testimony. Every story is different, yet closely related – Jesus is the central figure; his sacrifice on the cross was totally sufficient; his lordship is evident in the life of the believer; his resurrection guarantees every Christian’s resurrection. But testimonies tend to wander off course, into a place where the believer is the central figure – it happens even to the most devoted among us, so don’t beat yourself up too badly, please. I’m simply offering a suitable point for entering into the redemption of testimony.

     By way of reminder, the central question in this “Three R’s” series is, “At the intersection of faith and culture, what should we do with a given cultural element – Receive it as all good, Reject it as all bad, or Redeem it from whatever bad (or sideways) purposes it may have been put to?” Given that we are, every one of us, plunked down into a particular culture, testimony becomes a cultural element because we are part of the culture into which we’ve been plunked. How, Christian, will your testimony affect those around you – believer as well as unbeliever?

     Receive and Reject have consistently been the easiest options to turn into non-options; let’s see if the pattern holds. Some of our testimonies have shifted into a story of self-improvement. Sure, Jesus is the one who empowers the improvement, but he doesn’t get top billing. Any story that casts Jesus as an accessory can’t be Received as all good. And how about Reject – should testimony be avoided altogether? The most direct answer I know of is found in Psalm 107, verse 2… Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story – those he redeemed from the hand of the foe. Satan was destroying you, but the Lord redeemed you, and now you have a story to tell. Once again, Redeem is the one option remaining. Whether your testimony needs a tune-up or an overhaul, there’s a path to redeeming it.

     I’d be hard pressed to decide on a favorite testimony from Scripture – there are so many – but for our chat today, I’ll pick two front-runners: Psalm 73, partly because it’s in our Bible reading plan this week; and Acts 26, because it gives a simple and repeatable pattern for testimony.

     In Acts 26, the apostle Paul has been arrested for preaching Jesus, and he’s making his defense before no less than King Agrippa. Also present were his accusers, and as I read the story, I like to imagine Paul taking a few pokes at them even as he persuades the king. But in essence he’s simply telling his salvation story, which divides cleanly into three parts: 1)“I was __________”; 2) “But God ___________”; 3) “and now ___________.” In verses 9-11 he describes what he did “in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth”. In verses 12-18 he tells of how Jesus found him on the road to Damascus, “to appoint (him) as a servant and a witness”. In verses 19-23 he declares, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision…” and “to this day I have had the help that comes from God”.

     It wouldn’t be difficult to feel very small in light of such a large testimony. But largeness and smallness are neither one the point. The point is Jesus. By sheer verse count, I hope you noticed there’s more about Jesus than anything else. The pattern is totally repeatable:

I was __________.

But God ____________________________________.

And now ______________.

The blanks are yours to fill in.

     Likewise, Psalm 73 constitutes what you might call a believer’s ongoing testimony, the story of God’s moment-by-moment help in navigating life here below, where the devil has come down to you in great wrath (Revelation 12:12). The pattern of Acts 26 is recognizable:

…my feet had almost stumbled,

      my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant

     when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…

I was brutish and ignorant;

     I was like a beast toward you (verses 2-3, 22).

In other words: “I was _________.”

 

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

     you hold my right hand.

You guide me by your counsel,

     and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

     And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

     but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (verses 23-27).

There’s the hard pivot I mentioned last week: “But God _______________.”

 

But for me it is good to be near God;

     I have made the Lord God my refuge,

     that I may tell of all your works (the 28^th and final verse).

“And now _______________.”

 

    Best I can tell, a Christian’s testimony typically suffers from one of two maladies, opposite yet equally troublesome. One is the nagging suspicion that the blood of Jesus wasn’t sufficient for the forgiveness of all the believer’s sins; some were (or will be) too horrible. The other is the nagging suspicion that the believer hasn’t (or won’t) commit any sins so horrible as to require the blood of Jesus. If there’s a third malady, maybe it has to do with simply not feeling equipped. But I would still contend that the third has its roots in one of the first two, and some honest digging will expose them. Probably the best news about giving a testimony is that, as much as it has to do with you, it’s not about you – it’s about Jesus: you were bought with a price (1Corinthians 6:20). I’m hoping that takes most of the pressure off.

     My friend was worried about her testimony not being effective in the lives of others. As we talked, I had some of the same worries about my own, and could remember times when it seemed especially weak. We’re taking the conversation as a nudge from the Holy Spirit – to make our own testimonies more Jesus-centric and God-honoring, and urge other Christians to do the same. Pointing to the “large” example of Paul, there’s no evidence in Acts 26 that King Agrippa became a Christian, even with Paul’s persuasion. One thing odd about giving testimony is that we don’t get to hear – this side of heaven anyway – the rest of all the stories.

     But based on God’s faithfulness, one thing we can be sure of: the more we give it the more redemptive it becomes.

  

Grace and Peace (and re-acquaintance with your Jesus-got-me story),

 

John