Sports director calls the God play

I read a lot of different articles staying abreast of what's happening in the world and always have my eye peeled for something that might be a good topic to discuss the way a God focused life would change or impact the outcome. (My goal here is to make this a practical discussion of a spiritual relationship with God impacts or should impact the physical life that we lead.) I saw what I thought would be an article to discuss on Christianity.com. It was called, "Reviewing the video might be key to ending spiritual slumps..." I'll be honest my first thought was OK this David Burchett is a sports director. Given the title I thought he was going to talk about how we look back at our lives to see how to do better. I had my thoughts churning out a reply as I started to read the article. This was going to be an easy reply. Contrast David asking us to look at our own lives with the real answer which is to look at Jesus...And then as I got half way through the article I realized that I had just run across a brother who was living a God focused life in the real world. His article is great!!! Go read it (the title above is a link to it). His main point is that the good times in our lives are when we are living our lives looking to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. The article is well written and short and well worth the read. So go. Go now and I will be back with more tomorrow.

Why a common news story is an indictment of Christianity

On FoxNews there is a story called, "Should the West Ban the Burqa?" Article's like this point out the freedom of religion we enjoy in this country should allow women to dress in this manner. While I agree with the principle, the bigger issue for me is the failure of Christianity to be a relevant source of informed thinking. God has gotten pushed out of the public square. I think most Christians struggle with how we go about bringing a Christian World view to bear on issues in a relevant way. More often than not the Christian response is seen as a political one. This has been an utter failure. God's kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). Jesus said in the previous John passage that if His kingdom were of this world His servants would have been fighting. So if we are Jesus servants and His kingdom is not of this world, why are we fighting? About 4 years ago we did a survey in our local town and with about 90 responses we discovered that roughly 40% of the people we got to fill out surveys did not know why Jesus come to earth. They have heard Jesus talked about because He is very politicized. They just don't know why He came to earth. This problem of lack of information has one source. A failure of the church to train for and encourage outreach. We do not know how to bring a Christian world view to bear on the issues before us today because we have failed to teach people how to live God focused lives. We must help people to move from head knowledge to loving and pursuing Him with all of our hearts. It is only in loving God in the midst of life as it happens that we will begin to once again bring the word of God to bear in a relevant and meaningful way. Should the west ban the burqa? I don't know, but what I can tell you is that this might not even be a question we would be entertaining if the church had not failed to pass along the good news of the gospel to the next generation in a way that is relevant and meaningful to life and living.

Making the gospel relevant?

As I reflected on yesterday's post it seems to me that there are two engines that drive the vehicle of relevancy. The first engine is a misrepresentation of what the gospel is. Often the gospel message is presented in a context that is far from Biblical. (What I mean by Biblical is that it is not the way that Jesus or the apostles presented it.) It is often presented to people as if they are part of a group that needs some help getting to heaven and the cross gets us there. While the description is true in its essence there is never any need for the individuals that we share this with to feel sorry for offending a Holy God. There is no strong call to repent because there is no discussion of sin outside of the context of being part of a group of sinners. This rarely produces repentance and thus does not produce a personal need for a Savior. The second confusing way the gospel is presented is that God has a wonderful plan for your life. God does have a wonderful plan for the life of anyone who repents of his or her sin and follows Jesus as their Lord. The problem is that the idea of repentance and taking Jesus as Lord is usually not mentioned at all. It ends up being about asking Jesus into your heart. No repentance, no following required and usually none is committed to outside of a canned prayer. The gospel is all about recognizing that we are sinners and hopelessly lost without God's intervention in the person and work of Jesus Christ. If this were the gospel message that was presented there would be no need to make it relevant. The second engine that drives the vehicle of relevancy is the engine of unbelief. People simply do not believe that the work of the Holy Spirit combined with a clear Biblical gospel message is sufficient. This is simply a tragic misunderstanding of the power, purpose and work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus acted as if the message of repenting of sin and following Him was all that was needed. Take for example His interaction with the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-22. The best way I know to combat both of these problems is to focus primarily on our Lord as we engage with Him in His word.

Extreme fighting for Jesus???

A headline caught my eye today that I just could not resist weighing in on. The video report was titled Jesus was the ultimate fighter. I looked up the guy's web site http://xtremeministries.com/ and was struck by the main thrust of the rationalization. Are you ready? The goal is to make the gospel relevant or attractive to a certain segment of people. What amazes me about this approach is that you could use the relevancy card for anything. Let's start gangsters for the gospel, because even gangsters need Jesus. How about prostitutes for pentecost. They use their business to bring guys in and then when they are finished they give them the gospel. Come on when we go down this road we essentially are saying that the gospel is not relevant enough by itself. Apparently the Holy Spirit cannot change a heart without us hanging something relevant around the gospel. It is so completely ridiculous that I find it amazing. First of all you and I do not change people's hearts. The Holy Spirit does the work. I don't have a problem with someone being a Christian and playing at a sport like extreme fighting. The problem comes into play when we change it into something that goes beyond a Christian that plays a sport. Somehow now it needs to be a Christianized sport? I don't get it. People can be Christians. Sports cannot be Christian. They are a thing and have no soul. We don't need a sport or a certain style of music or a network marketing business or a political platform to carry the gospel. We need people to get their eyes off of all of these temporal things and fix them on Jesus. The creator of the universe came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the most magnificent being that has ever existed. He offers to rebels that are completely corrupt, the potential of reconciliation to God through repentance of sin and commitment to Him. I don't know how you can make that more relevant. Really anything that would be added by us only distracts from that message. We must keep our eyes on the Savior. Our only hope is found in Him.