During that time one of the things that began to stand out to me was the power of God and the fear that he commanded. When I became a Christian in high school I could not comprehend the idea of fearing God. It made absolutely no sense to me. Love, that made sense. I hadn’t yet learned the important correlation between the two- Fear and Love. But as I was reading I was forced to revisit this idea of fearing the Lord. I remember in all of the gospels, whenever an angel would come it would be met with a strong reaction of fear. Every time. I began to think, if the sight of an angel commanded this much fear, what must it mean for the presence of God to strike fear in us.

I am continuing to learn how intimately fear and love and interconnected. In doing so God is allowing me to see more and more of who he is. The negative aspects that I first associated with God being deserving of fear have begun to dissipate. As I learn about his other characteristics, His justice, mercy and grace, that too helps me understand what a righteous fear of God is meant to look like.

Recently I have begun to think about this again. It started a few weeks ago. A short film series called NOOMA, previously working with Rob Bell, is now working on a new series with pastor/speaker Francis Chan. The first film of this series is entitled, “Fear God.” For a buck and fifteen minutes of your time you can watch it here: http://store.flannel.org/fear-god.html

A passage that Chan quotes from Psalm 111:10 stood out to me.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”

Hmmm.

Today I was reading through Acts. I was again struck by this idea of fear, but this time not just on an individual level but on a community level. In Acts 9, after Saul is confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus and then subsequently baptized and sent out, he goes to Jerusalem. While in Jerusalem he connects with the disciples and then goes out into the city “preaching boldly in the name of Jesus.” Then, in Acts 9:31 it says:

“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”

So I wonder, have we lost an understanding of what it looks like to fear God? Are our churches built and growing upon a healthy fear of God? Not a hellfire and brimstone version, scaring people toward the cross. Rather a grounded in scripture, full view of God, humbling fear.

Probably a good question for us to ask.

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I don’t have a lot of time for an update, but am sitting at the same internet “cafe” as I did last year while in the Eastern Province. It is powered by satellite and I am currently hoping this e-mail (being typed ofline) will make it online, this will happen if my Rwandan friend can find me an extra ethernet cable. This could end up being a nice note to myself.

Under the usumption that this will infact get posted. Here is a quick update!

We arrived in Rwanda on Saturday. Sunday was spent in the capital of Kigali. We stayed at a catholic guest house and spent the morning at a local church. It was a beautiful service and I’m always appreciative of the ability of other cultures to let loose and just worship God. We got a good bite to eat for lunch and had a fairly relaxed evening preparing for our departure to the east the following morning. We arrived in the eastern district of Nyagatare Monday afternoon.  Our time has been packed since!

We have been following up on the multiple initiatives of the project including health care, education, business and pastoral training (see video in my previous post for more).

I haven’t had the time to reflect on much of what has happened yet, but plan to do so and post more details. But here are three things that are worthy of mention thus far:

1. There have been a lot of people I have seen from last time. Very encouraging. Also, some which are not here for various reasons. It has been encouraging seeing progress and growth in our absence.

2. I am working on a video for Phoenix Seminary and the various churches involved in this project. It will be used to communicate the project here in Rwanda. It’s my first time doing film on my Canon 7d so it’s been a bit hit and miss. That said I’m pretty happy with the results and eager to give you all a look at what I see here.

3. When John and I were leading a couple hour sesion with secondary school students we opened it up for the boys to ask us any questions they wanted covering litterally any topic. We got a lot of the normal goofy questions, and lots of questions about american culture. Then one of the boys asked us to comment on the 1994 genocide. It was an abrupt dose of weight to the otherwise light hearted conversation. We initially didn’t fully answer the question but about 20 minutes later God had put it on my heart to talk to the 50 or so men about the topic. My fear was that our lack of acknowledgement of the quesiton would feed into the hurt for many Rwandans which feel there has been a lack of acknowledgement of the Genocide by the rest of the world. I spoke to them first asking a simple quesiton. What do you do when someone wrongs you? The conversation lead to the topic of forgiveness at which point I was able to highlight the fact that forgiveness never comes without a cost. I talked about the true reality of what it means to be a man and that the temptation is always to meet wrong doing with wrong doing. God lead me to close the time by bringing it back to the cross. Teaching that the sin driven genocide in Rwanda was evil and horrible, it was genocide and it was not okay. And yet sin also presents itself in the smaller examples we had discussed when talking about forgivness. I told them that there was a price to pay for all of this, and that was the price Christ paid on the cross.

It went longer than I expected but it was the most intimate time I have felt with God or with anyone here. It was a blessing to be used by God to speak into such a sensitive topic. I would ask that each of you would take a moment to pray for these young men an the watering of seeds such as this. That God may build in them strength as a generation desperately trying to move past such a tragic history.

Time is up here! Hope to post more soon. Thanks for all the prayers, its been a huge blessing! Praise God!

“The Prodigal God,” by Timothy Keller, is an analysis and reflection upon the parable Jesus presents in chapter 15 in the gospel of Luke.

Length:

139 pages

Summary:

This is the second Keller book that I’ve read, the first being “The Reason for God.” In many ways he reminds me of a modern day C.S. Lewis. His writings are very well grounded in a spirit of humility while still speaking boldly and without reservation. He seems to be theologically sound but not so intellectual that he loses the tangible application of the passage. “The Prodigal God” is an in depth look at the parable that Jesus tells when speaking to the Pharisees (religious leaders) and tax collectors (outright sinners as represented in the story) in the fifteenth chapter of the gospel of Luke (Luke 15:1-3, Luke 15:11-32). Many people who have spent time in church or reading through scripture are familiar with this parable about a young man who takes his inheritance from his father, leaves home in favor of a life of rebellion and fruitless pursuits, and then returns to his father who greets him with open arms. The story has long been told as a description of God’s heart of forgiveness for us, a people who leave for a life to sin, but when we return, find God waiting with arms wide open. While this is an applicable and powerful truth in the parable, it is pointed out by Keller that to not see beyond this is to not fully grasp the entirety of the parable.

Keller teaches that this isn’t just the story of the younger brother but of both brothers, and how they interact with God (the father in the story). One thing I enjoyed about this book was Keller’s ability to ground the story in relevant cultural context of the time. Starting with who the audience of this parable was. Jesus was speaking to both the Pharisees (older brother) and the tax collectors (younger brother). Keller goes so far as to say that “…the real audience for this story is the Pharisees, the elder brothers. Jesus is pleading with his enemies to respond to his message.” (pg. 28) It is important to understand the tension that was in Jesus’ presenting this story. It’s worth noting that the younger son in the story repents after his aimless wandering, returning to the father and an ensuing celebration, but the older brother refuses to enter the celebration, standing on his sense of entitlement before the father. Jesus was challenging the way the Pharisees were living, perceiving their motives and asking them to check their hearts.

Keller describes why both brothers are spiritually lost, “Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life.” (p.43). He goes on to explain that both brothers are in the wrong and apart from God. The younger brother chooses outright rebellion, seeking happiness through a path of self-discovery, while the older brother sought to put God in his debt through a meticulous and legalistic religious regiment seeking the same happiness through moral conformity. And it is perhaps in the latter path that we as Christians face the most danger. Just as the Pharisees did, the older brother loses the message of the gospel. For him faith becomes less of a heart issue and more of a matter of meeting cultural religious expectations. This outlook can foster an underlying pride that becomes dangerous and destructive. As Jesus says in Luke 18:14 as paraphrased by Keller, “the humble are in and the proud are out.” And thus is the danger of the older brother. This mentality can trap us in a place of thinking our good works have entitled us into a place of deserving God’s grace. A direct contradiction to the gospel which teaches that we are saved by faith through grace alone. It is here that Keller also points out that unfortunately, many people who have turned away from the church have done so not necessarily turning away from Christ, but how he is represented through this ‘older brother’ persona in many of the people within the church. An unfortunate yet seemingly true observation.

He then also looks at the role of God in the parable, the father. He makes the observation that the word prodigal, defined as recklessly extravegant; or having spent everything; not only is relevant in the description of the younger son but is perhaps more relevant in the description of God. In the story the younger son asks the father for his share of the inheritance while the father is still alive. A huge insult to his father as he is essentially saying he values that wealth more than the very life of his father. After the son squanders everything and finds himself living in the lowest of standards he decides to return to his father, who is culturally justified in shunning the son as an outcast from the family, and begging to work for him living essentially as a slave to his father. But upon the sons return he is shocked at the fathers response. At the very sight of his son the father comes running towards him, that in and of it self is a significant cultural response as the patriarch of a house wouldn’t normally be seen running. He doesn’t even allow the son to beg for forgiveness but immediately welcomes him back into the family. He orders a servant to quickly, “Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” With these actions he is essentially reinstating the son as part of the family, returning to him his rightful inheritance as a son of the father. It is here that Keller makes a key distinction:

“Over the years many readers have drawn the superficial conclusion that the restoration of the younger brother involved no atonement, no cost. They point out that the younger son wanted to make restitution but the father wouldn’t let him–his acceptance back into the family was simply free. This, they say, shows that forgiveness and love should always be free and unconditional.
That is an oversimplification. If someone breaks your lamp, you could demand that she pay for it. The alternative is that you could forgive her and pay for it yourself (or go about bumping into furniture in the dark). Imagine a more grave situation, namely that someone has seriously damaged your reputation. Again, you have two options. You could make him pay for this by going to others, criticizing and ruining his good name as a way to restore your own. Or you could forgive him, taking on the more difficult task of setting the record straight without vilifying him. The forgiveness is free and unconditional to the perpetrator, but it is costly to you.
Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn’t mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting the forgiveness” (pg. 83)

The father sacrificed to restore the place of the son, just as God did through Jesus to provide a way for us to be reconciled to him. This is so important to understand and something that I think becomes a stumbling block to nonbelievers who wonder why Jesus had to die for us to be reconciled to God.

The parable ends without us knowing how the older son finally responds to the call of the father, seemingly a direct call to those listening as Jesus asks how they will choose to respond. The book ends with a look at the feast that the father throws for the son, and connects it to the celebration God has prepared for us. It leaves us (hopefully) looking internally and asking ourselves the same question. How are we responding to this call from the father, to his grace which has already been extended. Are our tendencies that of the younger brother who seeks fulfillment through an outright rebellion of the father, or do we personify the older brother through our attempts to religiously earn our way into God’s grace? The older brother who is offended by the grace given to the younger brother because he doesn’t recognize his own need for that same grace! The parable is both an intimate call of Jesus to his listeners, and a commentary on the story that we find ourselves in today and how we will respond to ultimate act of mercy and grace.

Relevance:

For me this book was a valuable read. It was both short, and easily digestible, while very relevant and challenging. It calls us to examine our faith and the roots or heart of our actions. I am literally an older brother and I find that my tendencies can so easily fall back to that of the older brother. I so often judge my life by the results of my actions completely missing the motivation of my heart. It is a good reminder that my actions are little more than a nice thought outside of an internal gospel driven change. As much as anything else this has challenged me to evaluate my interactions with God. In prayer do I come to him just when things are tough, or only when asking for something? Or do I come to him like a son who understands his disparity, who understands his poverty, and who understands his only hope lays in the continuous grace and mercy of the father. Pride is always there, the tendency to want to claim the good things in my life. I must recognize that this is a dangerous thing, that this pride can lead to the very refusal of God’s call to step into what he has prepared for me. I must learn that my claim is not in what I have done, but what I have been given because of what God has done for me. And that I need the same grace from God that he has extended to both the righteous and the sinners, works to not bring me any closer to achieving that to even the the nth degree.

Standout Quote:

“In fact, many elder brothers, for all their religiosity, do not have much of a private prayer life at all unless things are not going well in their lives. Then they may devote themselves to a great deal of it, until things get better again. This reveals that their main goal in prayer is to control their environment rather than to delve into an intimate relationship with a God who lives them.” (pg. 65)

Qoute of a Qoute:

“We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith that remains alone.” (Timothy Keller quoting Martin Luther, pg. 123)

“He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God.  He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable that the little ones loved to play with him and nestle in his arms.  His presence at the innocent gayety of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine.  No one was half so kind or compassionate to sinners, yet no one spoke such red-hot scorching words about sin.  A bruised reed he would not break, his own life was love, yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they ever expected to escape the damnation of hell.  He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism he has all of our self-styled realists soundly beaten.  He was the servant of all, washing the disciples’ feet, yet masterfully he strode into the temple and the hucksters and money-changers fell over one another in their mad rush to get away from the fire they saw blazing in his eyes.  In the end he saved others, but at last himself he did not save.  There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts that confronts us in the Gospels.  The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.” -James Stuart

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and then perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” James 1:22-25

I have recently found myself back in the book of James. Of all of the various books of the bible this seems to be the one God brings me to again and again when he is trying to work something out of/in to me. Maybe it is because it is a short book packed with deep wisdom; or perhaps it is James no nonsense approach as he speaks bluntly and in mind of the oppositions view, regardless of the reason…I find myself here again.

God has been revealing to me the ways in which I am not fully living out what it means to be a man. Specifically in how I choose, respond to, and manage what I give my time to. He has used several different mediums to raise my awareness to this, one being a blog I posted about recently, and another being the book of James. But that isn’t what I’m posting about today, I mention it only as an introduction to how I again found myself reading through James.

Today, I sat down to re-read the book. One of my favorite parts of James is James 1:2-18, it is such a real piece of scripture in it’s rawness and ability to look at the difficulties of life, it also brings comfort and encouragement not letting us forget why we find ourselves in trials and who our God is. But today I decided not to start there, instead I jumped to James 1:19. I read through verse 25 then stopped, went back to verse 22 and re-read it again up until verse 25. Again, here it is.

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and then perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” James 1:22-25

I don’t know how many times I’ve read this before, 50…100? Who knows. But today it struck me in a new way. I think in the past as I read this passage I had mentally checked out after the first sentence, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Sure, that makes sense, don’t be a hypocrite. It is at this point that I would breeze through the next few sentences. But today something new struck me in the description of the man who looks in the mirror. Something that is more than not being a hypocrite, something that is wound into the entirety of the gospel and of what it means to be a Christian.

In this passage there seems to be two different paths of engagement /application for us as believers; internal and external. First, this text calls us to external examination. What is it that we do? James makes it clear that our faith is made apparent by our actions. We are ‘saved’ by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-10), but, in the existence of our faith we will see actions that reflect this internal change:

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:14-17)

It is in this lack of alignment between what we profess to believe and what we actually do that Christians have obtained such an unwanted reputation for hypocrisy. Part of the beauty of the gospel is that we don’t claim to be perfect, but that we acknowledge our imperfections and have been forgiven of them through Christs death and resurrection. But what This passage in James calls us to is an external examination of the fruits of our faith. As we identify the parts in our lives (look in the mirror) that don’t align with God’s clear will, are we acting on those revelations. Are we going through the process of sanctification, allowing God through trials, revelation, and his Spirit to purge from us the sins that cause separation. If we aren’t we must return to James’ initial question, “What good is it my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?”

The second part of the call to action in the passage from James 1:22-25 seems to be a call to internal examination. There is an implication in the passage that when the man looked into the mirror he saw something. This passage isn’t addressing those who have not yet walked with Christ, or those who don’t know His will. This passage is talking to those who claim to know Him. It is speaking directly to those who have seen the truth. James goes on in to say in James 1:26 that the man who looks into the mirror and sees, but then walks away forgetting what he sees has a religion that is “worthless.” It is here in the eternal examination that I think our true faith begins. It is here that we either allow God to engage us (all of us) or that we keep God out and proceed into hollow rituals of religion.It is here that we either “deceive ourselves,” or that we allow God to engage us in our messiness and transform us into a being that, by Him,  produces fruit in the kingdom.

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and then perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” James 1:22-25

Like I said early, I think this passage is rooted in the depth of the gospel. We are imperfect, broken people corrupted by sin. As we come to a realization of this and find salvation in the love of God we thus begin the process of God renewing us. It is in this life long process of renewal that we are changed most not by the results of our our decisions but rather by the process of making those decisions. This is the quest* of all Christians. This is the call of Christ, that we would learn to die to ourselves and become alive in Him (Matthew 16:25). It starts with God engaging us, revealing truth in our lives, showing us the true reflection of who we are in the mirror; once that happens the next step is ours. The depth and character of who we are as people and Christians is defined in that moment, as we look in the mirror and examine the internal/external repercussions of truth and how we choose to respond.

*A friend of mine recently pointed out the distinction between an adventure and a quest. An adventure has us returning to the starting point, a quest is a one way journey, where in the end we are not only a different person, but in an entirely new place as well. Such is the Christian journey.

Photo taken from www.jessietorresblog.com

“This week has been difficult due to the pain and thought of losing Ivan, but right now my heart just aches and I feel sick with pain. These are boys that will be forgotten, that few knew even their names. These are boys that each had a piece of my heart and will forever have that piece.”

A close friend of mine, Jessie Torres, wrote the above words in her most recent blog post. Jessie went over to Uganda a few months back to work with an organization focusing specifically on loving and walking beside children living on the streets. These are children living on their own, in the realness and raw pain that comes from exposure to poverty and all the darkness that it carries, most with no family or caretakers outside of people like Jessie. She originally went out to work with the children for about a month, but quickly realized God had other plans for her. She has now been gone for close to two months and will be staying until the end of the year, continuing to serve the kids she’s grown to love.

Recently, several children that were part of the program Jessie facilitates were stolen during the night.

Taken.

The pain that is felt here is quickly ascribed to the death and pain that is birthed by sin, but we may be missing the complete sadness of the situation, the brokenness and depravity of the lives of so many. How perverted a man’s heart must be to find himself kidnapping children off the street, how lost and dark a soul. Scripture says “For God so loved the world…” not some, but all. It says that each and every one of us was created in his image. Prayer here should be given for both William, Nicolas, and Mukenya (the boys taken), (as well as the countless children which are represented by this sad and heinous act); and, for the men who have taken them.

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil…
be constant in prayer…
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality…
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep…
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all…
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Excerpts from Romans 12:9-21 … such is the life we are called to live as Christians.

I can only speculate on the pain of being so close to this. But Jessie is there, she is living it. I would encourage you to take some time to visit her blog at www.jessietorresblog.com to read more, and also and more importantly, to pray for these three boys, the kids like them, and the men that have taken them. Respond to how God has called you to respond. If this instance is one in which he is pushing on your heart to act further, then I’d encourage you to do so, contacting Jessie through her blog is a great starting point. In the meantime please join the many who are already on their knees in prayer.