Faith is: growing in the certainty of God’s love by the proof of Him sending His Son to die and rise for you, knowing that He wants to spend the rest of eternity with you.
When you believe this, then four things are certainly true —
Continue reading “No Matter What You’ve Heard: You Are Loved”
hayleylepugh asked a question:
What do you mean by skeptical Christian in your description? Don’t you have strong faith? (I’m not asking this in a rude way, I’m just genuinely curious.)
Hey my dear friend, I was an atheist for longer than I’ve been a Christian, so my natural default mode is to doubt, a lot. There are days I think this whole faith thing is crazy and I want to throw the Bible in the trash. I’m sorry if that’s too candid or honest. But it’s one of those things in the church we just don’t talk about, and I’m learning I’m not alone. It’s the entire point of this blog.
When Moses parted the Red Sea, I’m sure there were Israelites saying “In your face you Egyptians!” — but then another group was screaming the entire way through. Yet they all made it by grace. I’m one of the screamers.
I’m not endorsing a halfway lukewarm faith. I believe God wants us to have a robust, vibrant, thriving relationship with Him. But at least for me, I’ll be limping to the finish-line. I’m more Peter than Paul. I’m more Martha than Mary. I’m more David than Daniel.
Continue reading “The Skeptical Christian Limping to the Finish Line”
mythoughtfulmind asked a question:
Hi! Within the last 6 months or so, I’ve thought a lot more about relationships than I ever have before. I’ve never been in one & it gets tough to see so many around me sometimes. With the secular world telling me to get out there, and the Christian views saying I just need to wait & “don’t worry, relationships are hard & being single is good!” sometimes I don’t know what I’m even “allowed” to feel among my Christian peers about this adventure of dating. Advice for a girl not sure what to think?
Hey my friend, first please allow me the grace to point you to my book on dating. It actually talks about the very issues you’re talking about. I’m sorry for the shameless plug, but it’s less than nine bucks and I think it’ll at least jumpstart your own thought process on relationships.
The truth is that you’re going to hear about a billion different opinions on dating. In the book I discuss how we’re all living within the reactionary backlash of someone else’s thoughts, so each opinion on dating (or life or faith or politics) is just a response to another response. That’s why we have the bizarre subculture of Christian dating versus the cool casual hipster pastors who shrug at purity.
My humble opinion is:
deliveredfish asked a question:
Hello. I understand that my own works could never get me into Heaven, and it’s pointless to weigh myself down with rules and moral obligations. Nevertheless I do believe that genuine faith results in a changed lifestyle, and that good works are a byproduct of faith. This causes me to question the sincerity of my own faith, as I notice that my natural inclination is to sin/my nature is still corrupt/I don’t display much fruit of the spirit. I miss feeling secure in my salvation. Any advice?
Hey my dear friend, I absolutely believe that a follower of Christ is going to have evidence of change in his or her life. But please consider a few things before you go too hard on yourself.
Continue reading “I Believe But I’m Not Changing: Where’s The Fruit?”
The Christian life can’t just be about running away from sin: but is ultimately about running to Him. That means finding His mission, His purpose, and His heart for you. It means asking for His wisdom in how to discipline yourself, to be shaped by His truth, to be restructured in His image. It means bonding with other like-minded individuals to live out your God-given calling. It’s so fully experiencing the love of God that you are shaken down to your very core, melted and tenderized by His grace to never go back, but only pursue Him forward.
— J.S. from The Christianese Dating Culture
What I’ve learned about Sundays is that everyone mentally agrees with the pastor and has no problem with values like love, peace, joy, and forgiveness. But on the way home, back into the world on our phones and Facebook, that three-point sermon doesn’t work in the heat of the moment. We can amen a sermon on loving others, but rush hour traffic turns us all into demon-possessed pagans. Because we’re human. That’s why every Sunday has to point to the Savior, who didn’t just save us once, but is also the daily grace we need to make it a day at a time. He’s our hope in traffic, in our jobs, with our spouses, with raising children, and choosing better when we most want to explode and give up. He gives us humanity when we least want it.
rosemarychungphotography asked a question:
How do you deal with church burn out (exhausted from serving, attending church, etc.) and the pain associated with it?
Hey my dear friend, thank you so much for your honesty.
Four quick thoughts on church burn-out:
1) Please be absolutely honest about what’s going on.
Please talk with your pastor, your leaders, your team. I don’t mean that we can go around saying “This church is burning me out.” But sometimes simply talking it out can both release your clenched burden and also help navigate your feelings. While complaining can be toxic, keeping it in is even more unhealthy. Have a time with your pastor when you can say every single thing that’s on your mind, no matter how small you may feel it is.
The next time you walk into a room full of people, I want you to see how they talk and interact and exchange and tell stories and make jokes. Simply watch, listen, soak it in.
Soon you’ll see there’s a hidden anxiety underneath all their language, a deeper sort of quest for each person to validate their individual existence. You’ll see this web of tug-of-war where everyone is pulling, clawing, scratching, grasping for this weight.
It’s like there’s a secret limited stash of golden currency in the air, and everyone’s fighting for it by telling the better story, bragging about their bank account, trying to be the funny guy, showing off their intelligence, dropping famous names, wearing a name, holding up false bravado, pretending to be a mystery, masking their voice in tight controlled expressions of eloquence.
You know what this is: insecurity. Everyone’s fighting for glory to cover the emptiness, that vacuum fracture. And even when they get the glory from that room, it will never be enough: because we weren’t made for the temporary glory of this earth. Our true glory is beyond the room, outside one another, from on high.
If you’re a Christian, whether you like it or not, you’re preaching with your blog. This is a big deal. Of course, we all have an insecurity that we don’t deserve the platforms we have. Most of us are conveying a hologram of the person we-would-like-to-be.
I think it’s okay to be honest about that — to say, “I’m not there yet.” We’re all still learning here, most especially me.
The harsh truth is, I see too many Christian bloggers who are trying to preach much further than they really are and always talking from a condescending high ground of pseudo-idealism. Include me in there: I’m always tempted to act tougher than I really am. We seem to care less about loving actual people and more about tweeting our moral epiphanies. It’s a lot of full-time blogging from part-time Christians only saying things they’d like to do, like a half-competent coach who pushes his students so he can live vicariously through their success. If that sounds mean, it’s because it hurts my heart to see so much passion with no momentum.
I wish we were more transparent about how hard it really is: not in a way that enables or pampers, but actually relies on the God we claim to love. I wish we could stop chest-bumping the hardness of our right theology and stop shaming other Christians with coercive manipulative one-liners.
It’s easy to be a basement blogger and to post photos of the mission trip; it’s harder to roll up our sleeves everyday and get into the grit of real hurting lives.
Blogging naturally necessitates that you put your life on hold to write about your experiences — but if you go immediately from the moment to blogging, you’re not really letting the experience take hold of your heart. Soon you’re only doing the bare minimum to write for likes and reblogs, which is not transformative but showcasing. We can all see through it.
If you keep taking shortcuts from living to blogging by skating on the surface of faith, you’ll short-circuit intimacy with the glorious, face-melting, galaxy-sculpting Creator — and He’s the only one who can pierce our hearts deep enough to genuinely sacrifice for each other.
It’s cool if you have the Instagram with the ocean wallpaper and the pick-me-up verses in fancy fonts. I just think God would rather you be you and not some shrill version of you, to be honest about your unique challenges in this journey with Him.
If I Hear “Wrecked” One More Time
I saw a blog post the other day about “The Future of The Church” written by a guy who was about twenty years old, with all kinds of bold declarations about the decline of ministry. I think it was supposed to “wreck” me. I like him and he’s a good person, but I sort of cringed at the whole thing. Not because he was wrong, but because he cared too much about being right.
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain 