Dikaiosune

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." Phil. 3:7-9

I used to think that the only way this scripture applied to my life was for the things that I did before I came to Christ, or the values I had before I came to Christ. Generally when I think of this verse, I think of Paul and how he did some gnarly things to Christians before coming to Christ. Also, Paul, as a Roman Jewish citizen had all of the status anyone would want during that time, but he called all of that rubbish, dung, or any other fecal matter, compared to the true life of faith in Christ. When I would hear preaching on this, it was generally about surrendering your life to Christ. Surrendering all that you valued before coming to Christ (money, power, sex, you dreams just to name a few), which is really, really hard, so that God could use you to your full potential. There's even a song or songs about this verse.

Even though all of this applies and still applies for me today, I can't help but think about how even in our Christians communities, we need to be surrendering to each other. We live in an incredibly competitive society and culture. For the wealthy, we have to have the most expensive toys, cars, houses, and bling, so that people will somehow respect us more. I believe God can redeem us from all of that. But it also seems that as Christians, we have also bought into this competitive mindset. At least for me, there seems to be a "new law" or unspoken code about what it looks like to be a Christian. That if somehow we follow that code well enough we will be respected, or at the very least not be questioned about our faith. There is a bare minimum that we need to do or be perceived to be accepted. But on top of that there is this tendency, ironically as we grow in our faith, for us to want to be "better" than the next guy. To one up each other so that we would be perceived as more mature, more spiritual, and in the case of Paul, more righteous. We want to have all the information and at the same time do it all solo. Though we probably would never admit to it, I know I find myself in this position all the time. I want to feel like I'm different from everyone else. Donald Miller calls it the "lifeboat theory". We don't want to be thrown off the lifeboat with other people vying for our spot and so somehow we want to seem more valuable than the other people, with something to offer or bring to the table. I want to know the right answer, or offer something different worth listening to and in doing this, I'm creating a righteousness of my own. I think that somehow God will say, "wow, that was really impressive Wes! I never heard anything like that before. Could you repeat that one more time?" Even in writing this I realize that I'm fighting the very temptation I'm writing about. But this is old news.

Dikaiosune (Dee-kai-o-su-nay) is Greek for righteousness. For me, I don't want this righteousness to be from something I did or from what I can offer, but completely from what Jesus Christ did on the cross. And like Paul, I want to be able to live out this righteousness in humility, that everything I do or can do is poo compared to knowing God and knowing Jesus.

Money, God, and Masters

"Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!'" - Luke 18:24

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26

A few years ago I gave sort of a talk on the subject of basically "who's your master?" I was really fired up about it, delivered it with all that I had telling them that God has to be your master, I fully believed in (or at least wanted to believe in) everything I was saying. When I look back at that time I could honestly say that I was fired up for God; I was on fire for God. It was also around that time I felt God calling me to seminary. Biology just wasn't doing it for me anymore. I was afraid of what my might life might turn out like if I didn't take God's call on my life seriously. Granted I was still young in my faith, but I was ready and willing to do drastic, drastic things to follow the God of the universe the best I could.

Then life happened. I was part of a promising church plant that didn't work out, relationships questioned, unhealthy relationships formed, things that just really tore me down spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. And I take the blame for most of it; had I made better decisions maybe some of it wouldn't have happened. Hindsight is obviously 20/20.

But as I look at my life and where I've been spiritually lately, I just ask myself the question, "what happened?" When did it start to be about me? Where is the fire? The passion.
Obviously the consequences of everything that happened had something to do with it. But when I look at Christians as a whole I feel the exact same way. Where is our passion? Where is our desire to live lives that match up to the Bible's teaching, for reals. It seems like being a Christian now is about blending in with the Christian crowd so that no one would question your "Christian-ness". The point now is to avoid being pointed out as a fraud. Just doing enough so that we can wear our Christian name proudly. Hearing a few sermons about generosity and giving started to get me thinking about this more. And I agree with other people on this that one, that one of the biggest hinderances in being passionate about God especially in the America is money.

Jesus says that it's hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. So that puts us already at a bad position spiritually because we are rich. I have nothing new to say about it, but just think about it. We're rich. But yet we (I) feel like we need more. I should be making this much money, and have this much saved up for my retirement and this much invested. I'm hungry, I'll go buy a pizza. I'm bored, I'll go watch a movie. But the thing is, the more money we have, the less we feel needy and find security in that rather than in God. You know I think about the beatitudes where Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn and the meek. These were the lowest of the lows, the poorest of the poor, but yet Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. These are the people ready to hear the message of Jesus, because they are poor and they know it.

To be fair though money isn't evil. It's when we put it above God that we start to get into trouble. I'll admit even for myself though, I fall into this mindset. But I think the reason why I fall into this is because I don't have an accurate picture of God. I think if I truly had an accurate view of who God was and how huge and real He is, I'd be shaking in my boots. I'd be on my face every night praying rather than praying myself to sleep. If I really knew who God was, I mean really knew and really believed it, I would be living totally differently. I'd take every prayer seriously because I'm talking to the God of the Universe. I'd see that all of MY money, was really His and that nothing is mine and the only thing that matters in this life, is that He's glorified.

And so that brings me to the masters question. Who is my master? Is it God, or is it money? Is it God, or is it family? Jesus says "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." I want to be able to love God so much and be so devoted to Him that the love I give to anyone else seems like hate. I want to be because I'm not there. Not even close. And I as I think about how I was before, I want to be willing to do drastic, drastic things so that God would be first in my life. To take the risks He's called me to take. The chip of ice on top of the tip of the iceberg was Taiwan for me. I'm tired of being lukewarm. I wanna burn. Don't you?

Some People Say I look like Ashley Olsen

This thing is bogus, but funny.