Tag Archives: God

Stop Motion Photography of Engine Rebuild

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You are a work in progress. Isn’t comforting to know that God completes what He begins. You won’t be stranded or forgotten. You won’t be given up on or scrapped. God has a plan and is working it out piece by piece. In this video we see in stop motion photography the complete restoration of an engine. Impressive.

As Christians we have a long way to go. No one has arrived. But thankfully God does not stop a project once He has started. Philippians 1:6 says, “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Maybe today you are getting torn down. Maybe you are being cleaned up and reassembled. Wherever you are, aren’t you glad He promises to keep working till the job is done?

Your fellow worker in the field,  Adam

Best Arguments Against Theism?

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This is Greg Koukl. He is the founder of Stand to Reason, an organization committed to a clear articulation and defense of the Christian worldview. He is a crisp thinker and a good communicator.

Here is 5.5 minutes of informative video on what the best argument against theism may be. One great snippet from the video is that atheists don’t ague to much on this point because they “think” it is settled. They believe they are the majority position when in actuality 98% of the WORLD population is theistic. Less than 2% really holds that there is no God. Interesting. Check out the video and learn about defending your faith.

Thanks Greg for being a stand up guy. I’d like to shake your hand someday.

Beauty – A Compass Pointing to Something Bigger

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In this flashmob organized in Sabadell, Spain an unsuspecting courtyard is bombarded with beauty as an orchestra slowly materializes out of thin air with a majestic rendition of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. It is moving and powerful. A crowd develops around the musicians realizing they are beholding something rare and beautiful. Children are dancing, adults are swaying, everyone is captivated by the beauty of the moment. Time stands still.

In the middle of busy schedules why did these people stop to listen? I believe it is rooted in our innate yearning for beauty. John Piper describes this desire that is in every person.

“I do believe that deeply rooted in every human heart is a longing for beauty. Why do we go to the Grand Canyon, the Boundary Waters, art exhibits, gardens? Why do we plant trees and flower beds? Why do we paint our inside walls? Why is it man and not the monkeys who decorated cave walls with pictures? Why is it that in every tribe of humans ever known there has always been some form of art and craftsmanship that goes beyond mere utility? Is it not because we long to behold and be a part of beauty? We crave to be moved by some rare glimpse of greatness. We yearn for a vision of glory.”

We long for something bigger than ourselves. Whether that is in the arts, nature, or daily life, when we catch a glimpse of it we stop in wonder. We realize there is more to this life than what we can see. We seek out beauty because we are created to have a relationship with the Author of beauty. Because of image of God imprinted in us, all humanity has a void in our souls that resonates with true beauty. This resonation of beauty lures us to its source. When we behold beauty it acts like a compass. It points us beyond the momentary glimpse of beauty to the source of all beauty. The compass does not show us our destination, it is just a guide. It keeps us grounded in reality, understanding where we are in this world. The sunset and the orchestra in themselves leave us wanting. They are not the destination. While they are beautiful for a moment, we desire more than these things can offer.

“And we can know that our desires are remnants of this urge for God because everything less than God leaves us unsatisfied. He alone is the All-Satisfying Object of Beauty. Only one vision will be sufficient for our insatiable hearts—the glory of God. For that we have been made. And it is for this we long, whether we know it or not.”    -John Piper: Jesus is Precious because We Yearn for Beauty. (both quotes)

When you and I encounter moments that take our breath away, whether a sunset or a work of Beethoven, let it remind us that, yes, there are amazingly beautiful things in this world, but they are mere shadows of the true beauty that is God Himself. How do we get to know God? Through His Son – Jesus Christ.

Your fellow worker in the field,  Adam

Saturdays with C.S. Lewis – Why you were brought to Narnia

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 “Please Aslan, before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do, make it soon.”
“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”
“Oh, Aslan!!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.
“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”
“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are — are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952; this edition: HarperCollins, 1994) 247.

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What a beautiful picture of God who wants us to know Him. Though Aslan is a fairy tale, the God of the bible is not. He has shown Himself most fully through the person of Jesus Christ and He desires to know you! Do you know Him?

1 Timothy 2:  3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

Your fellow worker in the field, Adam

Saturdays with C.S. Lewis: Where is God when I’m Grieving?

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We all will face struggles in this life. That much is for sure. This week in our series, Saturdays with C.S. Lewis, we get a glimpse of Lewis’ personal struggle with the loss of his wife, Joy Davidman, after 4 years of marriage. Even better than Lewis’s words are the words of scripture. Jesus is able to understand our weaknesses and our doubts in the middle of tragedy. While He is acquainted with the pain, He endured without sin.

Hebrews 4:15-6 says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

C.S. Lewis helps us understand where God is in the middle of loss. He also helps us understand where we are in the middle of loss. Read this excerpt of Lewis grieving the loss of his wife:

How far have I got? Just as far, I think, as a widower of another sort who would stop, leaning on his spade, and say in answer to our inquiry, ‘Thank’ee. Mustn’t grumble. I do miss her something dreadful. But they say these things are sent to try us.’ We have come to the same point; he with his spade, and I, who am not now much good at digging, with my own instrument. But of course one must take ‘sent to try us’ the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial he makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

~C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, 1961 (emphasis added)

 

 

Less “god”, More Jesus

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The Rooted Blog has a whole series on the effects of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism on teenagers in particular and the Church in general. Check it out. As youth workers and leaders, we need to be ready to address the major spiritual issues that impact this generation. Read this insightful article by Andy Cornett which connects with so many teenagers I’ve talked with in my years of ministry. We need to adopt some changes like he did so we can get real with the Gospel for this generation.

Your fellow worker in the field,  Adam

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You know this feeling. You love teenagers, you hang out with them, you’ve studied and prepped for a talk, worked hard on a program, taught about Jesus and following him, and … at the end of the day, you find your beloved teens kind of unable to talk much about what they believe. Everybody wants to be “closer to God.” But when pressed, nobody has much in particular to say. You wonder … what is going on here? Are we that ineffective?

Your teens might be suffering from a case of MTD. According to “Soul Searching,” Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) has become the “de facto dominant religion among teens.” Though it’s without creed or organizers, MTD functions like as a parasite to its host, the church. Its chief tenets are that God wants us to be good (and get along) and go to heaven when we die, God wants us to be happy, and God is there for us if/when we need him.

Why do your teens have it? Turns out, they probably caught it from the adults at your church. In her absolutely devastating and wonderful book “Almost Christian: What the Fatih of our Teenagers is tellin the American Church,” Kenda Creasy Dean takes the argument further into the Christian territory of local church youth ministry. Dean (who was one of the researchers/interviewers on the NSYR that formed the basis of “Soul Searching”) offers both diagnosis and prescription for treatment. (Confession: this book is brilliant. I have read and reread it and have heard her speak; if anything good comes out of what follows, it’s properly her thoughts, not mine). I just want to focus on one tantalizing prescription:

Less “god,” more Jesus.

Dean notes that most of the teenagers in the study seem paralyzed when asked about Jesus himself (yes, of course, some did better than others). But here are a few observations that ought to both comfort and encourage us:

  • MTD banks on a default, ahistoric deistic concept of “G/god;” Jesus is vastly different, particular, personal.
  • MTD has some basic beliefs/practices, but it can’t tell a compelling story or capture your heart; Jesus is the best Story and captures hearts (and thus minds and bodies as well).
  • You can’t love MTD – but you can love a Jesus who has first loved you. (And as Dean says, “you learn best what you love most”).

Since reading the book, here are a few practices I’m learning to adopt in talking with students.

  • Start asking students about their relationship with Jesus – not “God.” In English, God is the default word for a deity, so those three letters become a box in which just park our own conceptions/feelings/thoughts/beliefs on the divine. We could talk about “God” all day and not being talking about the same “god.” As Christians we believe in One God- in the three persons of Father/Son/Spirit, and it’s time for us start using those names and asking students about Jesus. Who is Jesus for you? Do you sense that Jesus is with you? For you? What is one thing Jesus is doing in your life right now? And when you are done, pray with them and for them – to Jesus.
  • Use “Jesus” (and God, and Father/Spirit/Son) as subject, not as object. Talk less “about” God: talk more about what he has done, is doing, and will do. When God is the subject, it’s clear he is doing the action. We all know the red letters in the Bible of what Jesus says – but do you talk about what he does? I haven’t done this, but I want to go through a gospel and list out all the verbs where Jesus is the subject. With God (and particularly Jesus) as the subject of our sentences (past/present/future), we emphasize his ongoing, active presence in our midst.
  • Get personal: talk about your own faith story and what Jesus has done/is doing in your own life.  Let teens see the personal difference that Jesus Christ has made in you. Where possible, be explicit about the links between what you do and why. If you are taking some steps in following Jesus, be clear about his love that motivates you. If you are taking some risks in faith, be clear about your trust in him and his leadership. Model this yourself. Ask your leaders to do this. Ask parents to do this with their own kids (it has a huge impact).

It seems like the more personal God gets, the bigger difference he makes. But wait– isn’t that the whole story revealed to us in the story of Scripture? A Father who graciously sends his only Son and gives his Spirit freely that we might be united to him? Thought so.

Hatfields & McCoys in our Churches

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I just finished watching the Hatfields & the McCoys TV series on the History Channel. It was a great show, but sad. It showed the depths of human depravity and pridefulness. When left unchecked, our sin nature spirals downward and destroys everything that was once good. The spiritual vibes in the series were unavoidable. McCoy started off super spiritual, but through the bloody years looses not only his family, but his faith. Hatfield is the cynical one, yet the final scenes of the series show a repentant man being baptized.

Does the church act like these two feuding families? All to often we do. It is a shame too. We do not glorify God with bickering within the church. Just like these families, it is a loose loose situation. James writes to believers when he addresses this issue.

James 4:1-3  “1What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from the cravings that are at war within you? 2You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your evil desires.”

Identify The source (v. 1)

James’s readers were fighting each other for position and power. So, James called attention to the source of the fight: they were making comparisons between each other, craving what others had, and coveting what they didn’t have. As a result of those cravings, these Christians fought, competing against each other in a brutal war. When we’re driven by sinful cravings, there are no winners; everyone loses.

Deal with the cravings (v. 2)

So, how do we stop such a cycle? James tells us that we must first look within. There is a war inside of each one of us that starts with what we crave and desire. The word crave refers to seeking physical pleasure as an end in itself and pursuing physical desires (lusts) at the expense of other things. The word desire means a focused passion. Craving and desiring are natural consequences of making comparisons and contrasts. We feed those desires and cravings when we focus all of our energies and activities on obtaining what others have and we don’t. This passage teaches us that this is a meaningless pursuit. And even if we do obtain what we lustfully pursue, we have lost what is more valuable.

Find the solution  (v. 3)

To stop those sinful cravings, we must first recognize them in ourselves. Then, we must honestly confess those lustful desires and selfish passions in prayer. By doing so, we’re admitting that we see what we really need and know that only God can provide that. But we must also pray with the right motives. We fail to receive what we pray for when we ask with the wrong motives, primarily fueled by our own selfishness. We must allow Jesus to work within us, so that giving to others becomes our primary passion.

These insights and more are expounded by Mandy Crowe in an article about trying to measure up to other believers.

Saturdays with C.S. Lewis – Aslan, You’re Bigger!

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Lucy and Aslan

“And then—oh joy! For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him. But for the movement of his tail he might have been a stone lion, but Lucy never thought of that. She never stopped to think whether he was a friendly lion or not. She rushed to him. She felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment. And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far round his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane.
“Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan,” sobbed Lucy. “At last.”

The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face. “Welcome, child,” he said.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.” 
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he. 
“Not because you are?” 
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 141.

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It is my prayer that everyday you would be growing deeper in your relationship to the God of the universe. But as we see and understand Him more with each step, we also understand that there is infinitely more to look forward to! He is never changing, but we are always changing. He is unmovable, and we will forever be moving closer to him! One day we will look and see with eyes like Lucy, “Oh, what a huge God we serve”, but all the while knowing the closer we get to Him, the bigger He looks to us. Thank you C.S. for this analogy of understanding an infinitely awesome God!

Your fellow worker in the field,  Adam