Burning Hearts, Not Burning Sticks

I love the Bible. I love it primarily because I have come to realize what it really is.. I love it because it is God's self-disclosure of Himself to the world. I love it because it is visible display of His character. This morning, I am reminded of that as I continue my study through Jeremiah. I see the heart of our great God and King on display and I am stirred to depths of joy & adoration.

"For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the way I command you, that it may be well with you'." Jeremiah 7:22-23

This is God, the Creator of the universe, the One who holds all things together by His very word (Heb. 1:3). This is His heart. He is explicitly speaking to His people, reminding them that it is not sacrifice that He is interested in. Sacrifices of incense and burnt offerings are not accepted, primarily because they can be offered without a heart connection to the one whom they are offered to. In David's heart-wrenching confession and repentance session in Psalm 51, he gives us beautiful insight into what the Lord delights in as far as sacrifice:

"For You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." Psalm 51:16-17

From creation until now, the God of the universe has wanted nothing more than the hearts of His people. He is not tyrranical. He is not an oppressor. His character is one of love, justice, and mercy. He created His people in such a way that He alone would satisfy the longings of their heart and be the fulfillment they would find. The Lord our God does not need bulls or calves, or burning sticks of incense, He is not in need of anything made with human hands. He desires the hearts of His people. He longs for creation to know Him, to love Him, to worship Him. He is jealous, indeed, for His jealousy is pure love. He knows what satisfies, and will fight to destroy anything that will keep us from Himself.

The Lord wants burning hearts, not burning sticks of incense. I am praying to this end this morning for the church. That we would capture a glimpse of His heart. That we might see, maybe for the first time, that our "sacrifices" before Him are empty and meaningless unless they are tied to a burning heart, a fiery, passionate love for Him. Burn, O Church, burn.

Delusion

I started reading through the book of Jeremiah this week, and this morning spent time in chapters 2-3. To be honest, Jeremiah is a heavy book, primarily about God's wrath towards His unfaithful people. The language used is rough, calling Israel a whore in numerous places. But in the midst of all of this judgment and wrath and condemnation, we see traces of the gospel shining through beautifully. In chapter 3, verse 19, the Lord offers an unbelievable plea to Israel, He highlights His love towards them and what He wants to do for them. "I said, How I would set you among My sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations." (3:19) Yet, Israel is likened to a "treacherous wife" leaving her husband, and forsakes the Lord. This has been the problem throughout Israel's history, being an unfaithful people. "You have played the whore with many lovers and would you return to Me" (3:1); "Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see! Where have you not been ravished?" (3:2); "You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom" (3:2).

But then, out of the darkness, verse 21 arises. "A voice on the bare heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel's sons because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the Lord their God." Forgiveness and mercy are always marked by repentance, and worship always follows mercy. What happens next in the text moved me to the point of tears, because this dialogue recorded between the Lord and His people is one that I am all too familiar with.

"Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness."

"Behold, we come to You, for You are the Lord our God." (3:22)

Wow. The grace and mercy of God is powerful and violent in destroying the pride and the shame mankind carries in his heart. I love the fact that God does not tell them to have faith, or to learn how to be more faithful.. No, he says, "Return to ME, I will heal your faithlessness". No amount of "doing" produces the kind of repentance that God accepts. It is a gift, freely given to all who will come.

The beauty of this continues as the Israelites confess the hollowness of their idols. "Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel." (3:23) The "hills" symbolize the places of idol worship and the "orgies" the services where idols were worshipped. They confess the vanity of pursuing lovers that never satisfy, that lead them to despair and dark places. I too, have seen the vanity of chasing after idols just to realize that I am chasing the wind. Pursuing air.

This text is an exclusive look into the heart of our God, the very expression of His character. It is also an explicit look into the heart of man, the extent to which his depravity reaches. The good news is that the character of God showed up powerfully in the midst of the character of man, in the man Jesus Christ. I pray that these verses stir you up to remembering the Lord's grace towards you in your own salvation, and that it would empower you to once again, by the Spirit, turn your attention and affections away from the vain idols and towards the Lord who is "merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love."

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols".

(1 John 5:21)

Come, All Ye Fence-Riders

Before I vent, I want to apologize informally, because it seems that I always use this space to express my complaints. I do not intend for this to be the reality, but I also believe that the Lord absolutely honors our efforts when we see inconsistency and call for change. So, that is what this is about today. This post is one of grieving. This post is one of frustration. This post is one of reform. But more than anything, this post is one of hope. That hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the rock upon which any of us stands, and the only reconciling truth to all of our cultural and sociological woes. So, to Him, who is eternally worthy of our affections and our worship, be the glory.

I should preface this all by saying that I am a member of a wonderful, imperfect, Christ-exalting local church. I love the Village Church. I love the community of faith that the Lord has faithfully given me to walk with and sink roots into. I also am a member of a global church, that is Christ's body, with brothers and sisters from nations and tribes that I have never met, yet feel the weight of my connectivity to them. Having the privilege to spend time in East Africa over the past two summers has completely destroyed any notion that Christianity is a "western religion", and praise Christ for that. I have been awakened to the global reality of Jesus' church. So, I am grateful to the Lord for His church, am emboldened by her members, convicted by her members, encouraged and strengthened by her members.. With all of this said, I am also frightened by some of the patterns I see in the church, primarily in our culture. I am not naive enough to pretend that these trends are not universal in their influence, but for this post I will be focusing my attention on our culture.

I recently started reading John Pipers new book, 'Bloodlines', (which is fantastic, and I highly recommend it) and as I was reading the third chapter, I stumbled across some statistics and the Holy Spirit began to spin the wheels of my heart and mind. The statistics were pointing out how Europe and all of its' beautiful embodiment of Christ and His church throughout time had slowly deteriorated and over time began to become unchurched. Unchurched? Not DEchurched, UNchurched! How is this possible? We think of the Reformation and all that it accomplished in shaping the way we read the Bible even to this day. Unchurched. Now, this is not even the point of my grief. It is only the lenses by which I see current trends in religious practice, and a launching point for my call to repentance and reform.

As I have said in almost every blog post since day one, this starts with me. If I see inconsistencies and flaws in the church universal, I MUST first examine my own heart and seek repentance for MY inconsistencies and flaws and how they play into the problem. All revival begins at an individual heart level, it must. I can assure you that I have weighed my heart against the scriptures, and tested all of my obedience and "religiosity" against the ACTUAL call on my life as a follower of the Crucified King. So, my main question is what are you so afraid of, what are you so ashamed of, dear brother and sister? I see a generation of hungry and thirsty folks, longing for fulfillment and something greater than what we see in department stores and on television. Yet, I see them eating bread crumbs in mud slums, when truth is, the Lord calls us SONS and DAUGHTERS, "heirs through Him who loved us". Royalty?

Our pastor said a couple weeks ago that Jesus doesn't need a makeover, and oh, how I pleaded with the Lord for the folks sitting in that room to really hear that, to internalize that. Our culture is so fixated on relative truth and subjectivism, that I understand the difficulty to proclaim speak truth into that environment. But that does not excuse or exclude you or I from unashamedly loving Jesus and intentionally building into others' lives this truth. Why do we constantly have to dumb down our theology? Why do we feel we have to minimize or hide our worshipful expression?

And most importantly, why do we feel we must model ourselves as disciples of Christ after the image of our culture, rather than the image of our Savior?

I see so much in the church that is marketed as discipleship that is simply worldliness in Jesus' clothes. WHO CARES ABOUT HIS CLOTHING! I WANT HIS HEART! I want the Lord to fulfill what He promised in me, to mold me and form me into the image of Jesus. I think there are two distinct reasons among many others that lead us to this place as followers of Christ:

1) We are temporal-minded, worldly "religious" people trying our hardest to make Jesus trendy so that we can maintain our cultural identity, and not lose our hipness. We regard lightly the world to come, because we are so fixated on the world we see here and now. News Flash: This world is fading quickly, and its' vain promises are not fulfilled. Solomon screams at the church today from the ancient halls of Ecclesiastes, "..and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity!" (Ecc. 12:7-8) Pursue excellence in your education. Pursue excellence in your career. Pursue health and vitality for your body. Pursue and cherish a good family life. But question is, to what end? None of these things are eternal, but all of them carry eternal weight in them. None of these things are an end in and of themselves, but all of them point to an eternal end: God's eternal glory, our eternal joy.

2) We are lazy, whining folks who do not want to put the effort into pursuing holiness and God's glory being extended throughout the nations. News Flash: Jesus never said it would be easy to follow Him. He used an instrument of torture to describe the life you would be called to endure. "Take up your cross and follow." "Leave everything behind and follow me." The commands of Jesus to His early disciples were weighty, and demanded their full allegiance. I see little traces of this in our modern understanding of what it means to follow Christ. We have decieved ourselves into believing that the Lord will honor our 50% of devotion and allegiance to Him and His kingdom. Looking around the evangelical situation, His kingdom looks a hell of a lot like this earthly one. Weird.

The common reality that flows freely between these two things is our lack of allegiance. We want Jesus, we want His glory, we want His grace.. But we want it on our terms, and want it to line up with how WE see the world, rather than how He has designed and created the world. LET GO! Quit forsaking a life of obedience and love for Jesus Christ because it is the uncool thing to do. We are riding the fence in terms of our devotion and allegiance to the Kingdom of God. The Lord did not willingly submit himself to death on our behalf so that we would be Republican. Or so that we would meet moral standards. The Lord Jesus died to set us free from living a life of conformity to the patterns of this world that lead us to death, despair, depression. He died so that we would be FREE to pursue Him, to know Him, to love Him, to worship Him, all of which are impossible without His gracious and merciful intervention into the hopeless situation we found ourselves in.

Oh, that we would repent, church! Oh, that we would see the beauty and value of the cross of Christ, and that we wouldn't use it as a crutch for our own rebellion! License is the opposite of grace. Oh, that we would be unashamed of our allegiance to Jesus Christ! Oh, that we would catch a vision of God's glory that we convince us that half-hearted "religious devotion" is vanity, and that if we adopt it, we are choosing death over life! Oh, that this vision, much like Isaiah would transform us and consume us!

Lord, help us. Forgive us, O gracious Savior, for our half-hearted, one-foot in the door devotion to You. You possess eternal wealth, You are eternally worthy. You demand and deserve the fullness of our affections. You alone can change us, no programs, no amount of self-modification will do, we must receive more of You. Holy Spirit, lead us to repentance, restore us to the joy of Your salvation. Be gracious to meet us where we are, and to give us teachable hearts. Enflame our hearts and minds with lofty thoughts of Your glory and grace, to the end of Your name being magnified and Your grace being extended. It is to this end, that I pray, for Your glory and our good. Amen.

Patterns

I was told as a young boy growing up in a small town Baptist church that if I wanted to be a Christian, I had to follow a certain set of rules and regulations. To be fair, there were a few legitimate, biblical statutes that were established by the Lord, but the majority of them were typically man-made and put in place to "make bad kids good kids". I think it was Tullian Tchividian that said, "The Gospel doesn't make bad people good, it makes dead people alive." I never heard this truth, I just felt the pressure to "do better". Again, to be fair the Lord has certainly redeemed a lot of the legalism I was bathed in and used it to discipline me for holiness later in my life. With this as a preface, I would like to discuss something I have observed as I have led my home group and a group of "band dudes" over the last couple years, and how it has the potential to transform the way you disciple and steward leadership roles that you are given.

First, let us be honest and clear to say that we are all wicked at our cores. I know we are not big fans of admitting it, but the Bible simply will not allow us to escape this reality. John Calvin said admittedly, "Our hearts are idol-making factories". We tend to take things, whether good or bad, and make them ultimates, elevate them to the level where only Jesus belongs. So, with our depravity in mind, let us press on to examine what is going on in our hearts. Typically, immoral behavior acted out by followers of Jesus is met with harsh condemnation and rebuke. And to half of that, I say Yes and amen. Godly men and women never sit by and watch brothers and sisters walk in unrepentant sin without accountability for their actions.. BUT, what is the motivation behind that.. And even more, what is the result of your action towards those walking disobediently.. Repentance? "Godly grief that leads to salvation without regret"? (2 Cor. 7:10) As I have opened my Bible and opened my heart and life to the men that I walk with deeply, I have seen a few things worth noting on these grounds.

First, what is usually seen as the "chief sin" in a believers life typically isn't the problem at all, even though at first glance it may seem that it is. Behavior is not the problem, far more often it is the result of the problem, the symptom of the disease. Behavior change is easy, heart change is bloody, and I contend that it requires much more love, patience, and faithfulness. Ya know, the same characteristics the Lord Jesus Himself exemplifies in His chase and pursuit of you and I.

To truly get to the bottom, or the "roots" of the issue, we must look past the behavior of our fellow saints, because again if we were honest with one another we all struggle, it is just worked out in different contexts and in different ways. Trying to find the roots sometimes gets tiring and it seems that you can never make your way to the bottom, I have been there with the men I walk with as well as with myself. Let me propose to you a different approach, by simply setting aside behavior, not neglecting to work towards holiness among one another, to try and read patterns. If you are in leadership and are walking biblically in your various roles, you should know the folks who have been entrusted to you well enough to see patterns arising. Forgive me for the terminology, as I think like a sociologist. In the discipline of Sociology, you are taught to look at everything about a person to figure out how they are constructed, whether that be socially, culturally, even personally. As a follower of Christ, I believe this study can be useful in getting to the roots of sin, to appropriately feel our way through to the bottom and chop down the roots that sever us.

There is obviously times and places where strong, biblical rebuke towards certain behaviors are necessary. But I would like to challenge you, as I have challenged myself to dig deeper into peoples lives. Be bold in calling out patterns, and be courageous enough to walk deeply with brothers and sisters, so that we can be "built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." (Eph. 2:22)

For the record, absolutely none of these things are possible if you are not sharing life and walking deeply with other believers. If you have not proved yourself trustworthy within a community of faith, your rebuke will continue to fall upon deaf ears and unmoved hearts. Patterns of idols and root sins lead to behavioral challenges. Fight the battle from the bottom upward. To Him that can accomplish more than we could possibly imagine, be glory and honor, forever. My prayer is that "By the Spirit, we could put to death the deeds of the flesh" (Rom. 8:13), and that we would live with one another in unity with a ferocious passion for the glory of God and the joy of His church made perfect in Him. May He affect our hearts, and arouse our passions towards the end of His glory and our good.

Blantyre II

I am writing another update again today sitting in the internet cafe here next to our lodging. The last two days have been some of the most beautiful ministry I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. Forgive me for the brevity of these posts, the computers here are super slow so we have to rush our time in the cafe. But yes, the time here in Blantyre has been blessed, and fruitful. Your prayers at home are being answered for our safety but most importantly for fruitful ministry, lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was reflecting on Paul's words this morning, that "my life is hidden in Christ Jesus" and feeling the weight of that truth in my life.

We had the time to do a youth rally at a local school with about 1,000 students from grades 6-12. We shared the gospel with them and everyone raised their hand to accept Christ, but there seemed to be a mistake in translation, so our translator re-phrased it and made it known that if anyone had never heard the gospel before and wanted to accept to raise their hand. At this, about 600 hands went down and I immediately was saddened. But then it hit me, I had seen so much fruit coming this week, that I was expecting numbers, not reflecting on the fact that Jesus brought 400 people out of death into life. Dang.

Well, we have 3 days left here in Malawi, and then will be heading to Watamu. I talked to a friend here who lives in Nairobi and travels to Watamu/Malindi area often and asked him what the spiritual climate was like there and what to expect as for challenges in Watamu. He said that Watamu is predominantly muslim, about 75% or so, and the rest were a mix of animist and christian. He also said there was a large population of witchdoctors and followers of witchcraft. So, it is going to be polar opposite of here in Malawi, where I have seen about 4 muslims the whole trip thus far. So, please continue to pray and pray specifically for Carissa and I and the rest of our team we will be meeting, because it will be a certain shift once we get there.

I love all of you, and thank you deeply for praying fervently. See you soon.

Blantyre

Wow, I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Blantyre, Malawi. It has been agreat joy to not have any internet or phone connection, because I have had no distractions or competition for my attention and devotion while serving here. I did want to write a small bit here, so that all of you could rejoice in the Lord's working here, and know also how to pray effectively for us here.

So, Malawi is said to be 80 percent Christian. Let me just clearly state that it is much the same as America being a "christian nation". We have had a great opportunity to explore the culture here in Malawi, and be able to share the truth and break down some of the fallacies of religiosity here. Yusuph and I are working with two other american girls on a sport initiative team with about 5 or 6 nationals using soccer and volleyball as outlets for evangelism. We have honestly seen God move miraculously in the fruit that is coming out of the meetings thus far, especially in the Secondary Schools here (high schools). Today was by far our best day so far, as we were able to spend over 3 hours at one site with the students there, and while Yusuph played soccer with them, I, being the David Beckham that I am, decided to sit out. Because i certainly didnt want to show them up. Actually, thats not true. I'm a terrible soccer player. But i did get to sit out and hang with some of the high school students as they asked me a billion questions from "Is Lil' Wayne saved?" to "Will the world end on May 21st"? They were so beautiful, such rich examples of God's creativity.

We will be here for another 5 days before Carissa and I travel on to Kenya. As i have said, the destruction of religiosity has by far been our greatest challenge. We have been going all mattchandler on them by asking them why they think they are saved. Anyway, that is my prayer request, is that you would lift us up for wisdom and truth to flow from us as we attempt to bring the Cross and the Cross alone to Malawi.

I miss home. But i do love it here. I wish you were all here with me experiencing this. Keep praying fervently, God is certainly at work and is letting us join in His glory.

The Scandalous Nature of the Cross

So, unless you live underneath a rock or on a deserted island, you are aware of the news of Osama Bin Laden's death on May 1st. Everyone was a witness to the breaking news that America had finally accomplished justice, and our country erupted, average people and journalists alike. I have intentionally chosen to wait a couple days before posting about this, due to two things. First, my natural instinct of cycnicism towards the US and our arrogance. Second, to let the dust settle, so that Bieber and the economy to become headline stories again.

As I have said before, I do tend to have a certain cycnicism for America and the way we handle business. With that said, I would like to add that I am VERY thankful for where God has placed me, in this place, where freedom to worship and serve Christ is given to me. At the same time, through my own observation of the American scene and political climate, I am not a fan to say the least. One of the things that has always disturbed me so deeply that I havent been able to shake it is the blind nationalism that runs most of the homes in the US. From a secular mindset, it makes so much sense, to be proud of a place where anyone can accomplish anything they set their minds to. Yet, for a sinner saved by God's grace, redeemed by the blood of Christ as my propititation, I find it extremely hard to live and die "for country". I know the possible responses to this kind of statement, but I find Jesus teaching me to live for the Kingdom of Heaven and not for the kingdoms of this world, for one day "the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ" (Rev. 11:15).

With that said, it has disturbed me to see the American response to Osama Bin Laden's death, to say the least. I watched videos of college campuses, state capitals, small and great cities, even churches across America rejoicing in the wake of the news of his death. Within a post-modern society, one of the first things to go is the inherent worth and dignity of human beings. The Bible would call this truth the "imago dei", or that "man is made in the image of God" (Gen. 1:26). Regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or social status, ALL are created in the image of God, as vessels of mercy or vessels of wrath. For someone to take on rejoicing in the death of one of God's created beings with a soul is barbaric and reveals to the Christ follower that they have yet to understand the grace of God in Christ.

The Cross of Jesus Christ is scandalous. It was scandalous to the first-century Jew and Gentile alike, and it is still scandalous to this day. Especially in a culture like Rome and like America, where justice is so highly upheld and esteemed. Let me just state this as clearly as possible, if you want fairness or justice, we ALL get hell. We all have deeply offended a Holy God, committed treason against Him, spit on Him, forsaken Him, and misunderstood a proper response to Him. If you know me personally, you know that I am reformed so I do believe in God's elective work, but that does not give me the right to make claims such as, "well, Osama is where he should be, in hell". For the Christian, Osama's death should grieve our hearts deeply as we are reminded of two things: that sin is still sickening our world and that folks are still unresponsive to the Gospel.

I have many Christian responses to Osama's death, and have seen the debate about whether or not we should rejoice that justice has been dealt with, and whether we should rejoice in the death of the wicked. To answer this question, I think it best to not turn to philosphical understandings and assumptions about the nature of wickedness, but rather put a microscope to the heart of God. Ezekiel 18:23 makes it very clear that God takes no delight in death of the wicked, but rather that they would turn from their ways and live. I can almost see the Lord weeping, as He did over Jerusalem, over Osama and his blindness to God's hand of mercy. I think it is best to not and make assumptions of God's heart and let Him be who He is, revealed to us in the scriptures.

The Cross is so scandalous because it reveals our selfish nature to want to esteem our ways of doing things as THE way of doing things, and our tendency to seek to guard our own interests with everything we have. We look at Muslims as a threat to our way of life, we see them as harmful to the American way. But through Gospel lenses, we see that the Cross of Christ, the grace of God is for SINNERS, not just "americans" or "modernized people". The scandalous nature of the Cross is that Christs' work on the Cross is for the worst of the worst, not the upright elites.

A proper Christian response to the death of Osama Bin Laden would be one of sorrow, as we join our Savior in weeping over lost souls, with a passionate heart for bringing the message of reconciliation and redemption to all, terrorist and sunday school teacher. A proper Christian response to the death of Osama Bin Laden would be one of mercy to those of his family and community, mourning over the death of a human being, created in the image of God. A proper Christian response to the death of Osama Bin Laden would be one of letting God be the just Judge that He is, and not taking the stand as a self-proclaimed judge of human hearts and souls. Justice belongs to the Lord God, the one who created all and who is actively involved in re-establishing shalom, or deep internal peace, within the fabrics of all the Earth.

"For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no

mercy; for mercy triumphs over judgment."

James 2:13

"Be merciful just as your Father is merciful."

Luke 6:36 (Red-Letter)