Hello, My name is Bobby, and I am a Christianós

In a sermon a couple of weeks ago, our pastor talked about the origin of the word “Christian.” In the Bible the word shows up for the first time in the book of Acts where outsiders dubbed the early disciples of Christ as “Christians”. After some research on the word itself, we see that it comes from the Greek word Christianós, which was formed from the word Christós, meaning anointed or Christ, and the suffix –ianós, meaning a slave of the one whose name with which it was compounded. So quite literally Christianós meant “slave of Christ”. It seems as though the name was given to be a derogatory or negative label, but Paul considered it a great honor to be considered a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, possibly giving the word a more positive association for early disciples. The first time we see early believers being called Christianós is in Acts 11:26, “…and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (ESV).

Outsiders would have given early Christians that name due to the fact that they saw the works and love of the early Christians and had no other way to describe what they saw other than Christianós, or Christian. They saw the way the disciples of Christ tried to live their life in the manner in which Christ himself instructed them to before he left this Earth. Contemporaries of the disciples would have seen Jesus and heard about his teachings, and in seeing the disciples live these teachings out naturally would draw the conclusion that they must be slaves if they are obeying Jesus as a master, even in his absence. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to think that Paul would have heard this name given to the disciples, this term they were using to describe this group of people in a negative light, and decided to redeem it by talking about it being an honor to be considered a servant of Christ repeatedly in his New Testament writings. He boldly proclaims he is trying to please God, not man, and goes on to say that he would not continue to be a servant of Christ if his end goal was not to please God (Galatians 1:10).

In the early Church, there was no mistaking someone for a Christianós who really wasn’t. They lived out the teachings daily. Today, on the other hand, it is easy to claim to be a Christian without actually living it out. We have given ourselves this label, and not been required to live up to it socially, and in turn our society has seen how we labeled ourselves and compared it to our actions and decided that they do not want any part of it. In large part this is due to a significant percentage of those who claim to be Christians not acting in a manner exemplifying the name. Instead of society seeing those actions and making the conclusion that they must be slaves of Christ and dubbing them Christianós, the label is self-imposed and the actions are assumed to line up with the label even if they do not. Our pastor sums it up this way: “the problem isn’t that Christians aren’t different, it’s that they aren’t different enough.” Christians have a bad habit of being different by name only, and sometimes by association with the local church body.

Brennan Manning said, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Blaise Pascal said, “God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment.” Many professed Christians twist the image of God into something that fits their agenda and makes them feel more comfortable about how they are living life rather than allowing God to mold their life into the agenda he had when he created them. We want God to be what we want him to be, and in turn create a limited God in our minds. It is hard to comprehend how God can be God and do the things that the Bible says God can do because men and women have confined him to look like what they think he looks like instead of deriving a concept of God based on the scriptures he has given us. These two statements work as a reminder to me that I do not want to be a contributor to atheism by crafting a god that I can imagine, but I want to contribute to the Kingdom of God and draw those around me to it.

In light of all of this, I almost want to un-label myself as a Christian. I am almost to the point where I do not want to call myself a Christian because of the world’s concept of what I would be saying that I am. I want to drop the preconceived notions of what Christian is societally and live out my life in a way that the world around me would give me the label. Not because of my decision to give myself a title, but because the society has given me that title in response to what is overflowing from my life. I want them to have no other way to label me but with the original Greek meaning of Christian, Christianós: a slave of Jesus, the Christ.

Pockets

Pockets are handy, but pockets can be trouble as well. Pockets, for men anyway, are made for more than decoration on our pants. Women are always asking us to hold chapstick, lipstick, cell phones, and other semi-small objects that they don’t have a place for when they don’t want to carry their purses around with them. So, being the “perfect gentlemen” we are, we put a purse-worth of women’s stuff in our tiny, hand-sized pockets. So much, sometimes, that we have trouble fitting our keys, much less our cold hands, in our pockets because they’re occupied with stuff that doesn’t belong there. There have been times when I have had so much stuff crammed in my pockets that it felt like my pants didn’t fit. I used these little compartments for things that they weren’t designed to hold. Digital cameras are hard to fit in jean pockets or khaki pockets. Why? Because men’s pants pockets were designed to hold things like loose change, keys, and cell phones, not make-up, cameras, or bulky women’s wallets. Now, stay with me here, I’m not complaining about doing this, because we could always say no, but it bear with me a little and entertain this thought for a minute.

It’s uncomfortable to put more stuff in those little fabric pouches attached to our pants than they were designed to hold because usually we put stuff with hard or sharp corners in there that presses up against jagged keys and makes everything in the pockets dig into our legs when we sit down at the movie theater, restaurant, or where ever we are that we carry extra stuff in our pockets.

Our hearts have little pockets that are designed to hold things also. Little compartments where we hold things that are meaningful. A comment that a loved one makes, a special Christmas memory with family or friends, a day when someone close to you accepts Christ as their savior: special little memories, little pieces of life that belong in special compartments designed to hold these things in our hearts. Sometimes we try to fit large or bulky things in these pockets much like we try to do with our pants pockets. Sometimes these objects we put in our heart pockets are jagged, have sharp corners, or are too heavy for these compartments to hold. Sometimes these things we try to force in these pockets are too big to fit because the pockets weren’t meant to contain such a grand thing. The weight of overfilling our heart pockets weigh down our heart’s “pants” (if you will) and we wrestle with the painful burden of putting these things where they don’t belong, sometimes we even go to the point of trying to fold up God himself like he’s a special token written on a piece of paper in our hearts, and our heart pockets weren’t designed to contain the Creator of the Universe.

When Gabriel came to visit Mary, the mother of Jesus, he told here she would supernaturally conceive and the bible says in Luke 2:19 after the birth of Jesus, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (ESV) She was placing all these events into little compartments all over her heart that were meant to hold such memories and treasures. She didn’t try to put Jesus there, just these ponderings.

Our pockets in our hearts cannot contain the Maker of the Universe. That’s why it’s so uncomfortable when we try to do so, because it’s like trying to fit a car into your front jeans pocket. It won’t fold up, it won’t condense, and you can’t just take the parts of it that will fit and expect that car to do for you what you need it to when you take those parts out of your pocket. We can, however, take a car key in our pockets. We can take the part that will allow us to tap into the utility and power of that car, but we cannot possibly fit an entire car into our pockets.

In the same way, we cannot expect to fit the entirety of God into our heart pockets. Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I may not sin against you” (ESV). What do you do with the things that you store? You put it in compartments, boxes, drawers that are a part of a larger piece of furniture, zipper storage bags, you store things in compartments designed to store those things. God is not an object to be stored. There is no compartment or pouch designed to contain God because he cannot be contained. The ocean does not fit in a thimble because neither has a purpose for the other. We are supposed to store the Word of God, the keys to relationship with God and knowledge of him, in the pockets of our hearts. Why? Because that’s what those compartments are there for, that’s the intended purpose. God doesn’t fit those pockets, so why are we trying to stuff him in there? What if we quit trying to stuff God in little compartments and started packing those pockets as full as we can with God’s Word? You say, “but wait, my heart pockets can only hold so much! What do I do when my ‘pockets’ get full?” I say, I dare you to try to fill them, and let’s assume they can fill to overflowing, the Word will fall out into a friend’s heart pocket and you begin to overflow what you’re filling your heart with, and it spills over into whatever container that someone extends into the flow to catch what is falling.

The Bible says that we should fill those pockets that I might not sin against God, and I see it as looking like we try to be so filled that there is no room to fit anything else, and we continue to put more of the Word in there, and it creates a fountain of Life that flows into the lives of people around us. I challenge you to try and fill those pockets to capacity, and see how when you move, follow Christ’s way, stuff spills out, and you begin to see your life change and lives changed around you.

Tear the Veil

When you touch my life

I’ve been born again

The curtain’s been torn again

Yeah, you touch my life

                        -Touch, Delirious?

The compartmentalization of the actual presence of God was destroyed when Christ died on the cross and the veil was torn, but yet when we relegate our “Christian” (meaning ‘little Christ’; Christ-like) lives to a Sunday morning service at church, if that often, it is as though we attempt to place God back in that point in history when only the high priest could enter his actual presence behind the temple curtain, and we enclose Him yet again in that place, that compartment, that we don’t attempt to come near outside of church services. The Delirious? song reminds us that when we are born again, when God reaches out and touches our lives, the curtain is torn…again. That little word “again” weighed heavily on me as I listened to this song for the first time in a few years. Why would they write this into a song? Why would they reference a huge event in the history of Christianity as happening more than the one time when Jesus was crucified? I believe it is because it is the habit of the present day church of treating its “faith” as though the Holy of Holies is where God’s presence still dwells. We live a life that is seemingly “too busy” during the week to take God out of the “Holy of Holies” of our hearts and allow him to invade other areas of our lives like our businesses, offices, cars, friendships, daily routines, or even our minds. We think, probably in large part due to society and mass media that God need be relegated to a day or two during the week, but not our daily lives. It is as though we have been brainwashed by the world to think God’s place is in a box, or room, in church and is offensive to others if He is removed from there. The truth be known, the Gospel is offensive, it is the word of a perfect God giving beautifully perfect teaching to a flawed and extremely imperfect people. It is offensive to be told that what the flesh craves is contrary to God’s desires for our lives…but only at first.

It is a strange thing that happens when we allow God to touch our lives, to tear the curtain we’ve confined Him to and make the practice of faithful service a common thing in our lives. The offensive nature of Biblical teaching diminishes proportionately to the amount of our lives we fully surrender to service in the Body of Christ. As we allow Him entrance to previously hidden areas and allow Him to shape those areas, they become more Christ-like, and the part of the Gospel dealing with that area of our lives is no longer offensive.

You see, when we quit repairing or replacing the curtain, we no longer need the curtain “torn again.” We no longer force God to break out of our preconceived notions of who He is and where he belongs, we can move forward and not have these experiences that are nearly as evident as the first time we believed or were “born again.” Delirious? seems to liken being touched by God as a whole new experience not unlike being born again.

One might argue that each new day should be a death-to-self-born-in-Christ experience, and that message is presented in the song as well, but I think there is a deeper message conveyed in lyrics like: “please deliver me from walking beyond the truth that called me here, I’m not ashamed today.” To me this is a confession, a plea, a cry for help to God to remove a habit of leaving the original teachings of Christ that called us to him in the first place and replace it with a passionate pursuit of staying in the presence of God, unashamed to confess ones own failure and ask God to make strong the weaknesses.

So, with that said, let us run after God’s presence, let us allow him to, one final time, tear the curtain down we have replaced or repaired, and let us allow God out of the tight quarters of a Sunday morning church service and into all the areas of our lives that the “curtains” previously restricted. God, touch our lives, remind us of when we were born again, and tear the curtain one last time again, we’re not ashamed today!

LOVE

written in 2006

“There is a direct correlation between the accuracy of our memory and the effectiveness of our mission. If we are not teaching people how to be saved, it is perhaps because we have forgotten the tragedy of being lost…and if we’re not preaching the cross, it could be that we’ve subconsciously decided that – God forbid – somehow we don’t need it” (Six Hours One Friday, Max Lucado).

Perhaps the reason we as Christians are so lazy and ineffective is the fact that we’ve forgotten where we came from and how we got to where we are today. To deny what has happened in our lives is to live as though nothing has changed. I have lived this ineffective lie for too long now. I’ve waited for perfect opportunities to serve God, but the “perfect” time never comes. He asks us to serve him, and most importantly, to love, to love the people He created. And through this genuine, selfless love that doesn’t love due to a command, but loves out of love’s sake and devotion to pleasing God, comes true happiness and joy, and as a result, people will come to know the Christ who has shown you how to love in this manner. Love, true love, is what we seek, but we won’t find true love until we learn to give it and to accept it ourselves. How pompous it is for us to expect others to accept our love if we refuse it from them. Why should they accept our gift if we refuse to accept the one God would have them give us? Love, true Christ-like love, is what I wish to give. It is they only thing that will make this man happy, and it’s the only thing that makes perfect sense. I love you all, not because God wants me to, but because it brings me joy to imitate my Christ. “A man is never the same after he simultaneously sees his utter despair and Christ’s unbending grace” (Six Hours One Friday, Max Lucado). To stay the same, to not give love unselfishly, is to deny that what Jesus did matters, or for that matter, even happened. If you continue unchanged, have you truly understood the full magnitude of Jesus choosing to stay nailed to the cross? Have you truly understood where this narrow path leads? Examine it, think about it, and devote yourself to figuring out how to love, not because God commands it or because I remind you to, but because you love out of love’s sake, because you want to. This life we choose isn’t easy, neither is selfless love, but work at it, and you’ll be surprised at just how easy it gets and how effective it really is to…simply love.

There's more to the story than "ready or not"

If life is not a series of “dos and don’ts” why do we reduce it into that so often? We as Christians always justify our choosing faith because it frees us, but yet we strap ourselves into situations where we are either ready for something or not, we are either pursuing right things or wrong things. If our faith isn’t a list of “rights and wrongs” “dos and don’ts” we shouldn’t try to make sure we are prepared for what is coming next. If life were meant to be lived prepared for every situation that God sends or allows, then he would have let us study before we existed here on earth. Our lives are more than calculated risks we take each day, week, month, or year. Our lives are meant to be lived each day, one day at a time, preparing enough to get through the current day, not worrying about tomorrow, for tomorrow has enough worries of its own. But we still worry, we still prepare for every situation that might happen, we still try to convince ourselves that we shouldn’t try something because “we’re not ready to be in that situation.” But were we ready to live life? Were we asked before we were born if we were prepared enough to breathe? Were we asked before we were born if we were ready to try to grow, to learn to talk, and move, and make decisions? Or were we put into this life to live it, and to live it in the “Will of God”? We are called not to ready ourselves for life, but to live life where we are in it. So many times we share our faith with people and we try to convince them that “you don’t have to get ready to accept Christ, you don’t have to clean yourself up, he’ll meet you where you are”, but yet after we’re on the other side, we must always “be ready for the next step in life, we must be ready to buy a house, we must be ready to find a spouse, we must be ready to do the “next big thing” that comes depending on the stage of life we are in. But my question is, when we “prepare” for the next big thing, are we really living on faith that God is in control? Do we lose sight of living on faith in our lives these days because we have such a control complex about ourselves and our lives and the people that we come in contact with, do we feel such a need to be prepared for the next part of our life that we miss out on blessings from trusting God? Do we render God “unnecessary” for daily living and provision by “preparing ourselves” for what’s to come?

I do not think preparation in and of itself is an evil thing. If I am told by a professor in school that I am having a test in a week and do not prepare, I cannot expect to make a good grade, these situations are not what I am talking about. The Psalms tell us that we should hide the Word in our hearts so that we will not sin, but that we will have the strength and power of God’s Word to help us stand up against temptation. That kind of preparation is crucial for a real and effective walk with Christ, but what the Word does not say is wait for situations that we think are the “right situations”. I do not think that our lives should be dominated by waiting for what we’re ready for. I believe that so many of us miss out on so much by only approaching what we’re prepared to do. I am not saying that if you have to address an audience that you “fly by the seat of your pants”, but what I am saying is that if you wait for the situation that you’re ready for to happen, you’re going to spend your life waiting, and preparing, and waiting, when God wants us to live, and to react, and to live, to live together in a community with others, others that we can’t be prepared to meet, that we can’t be prepared to interact with, that we can’t be prepared to even know why they are in our lives, but we know that we strive to fulfill the “Will of God” in our lives by living for God in all things. I do not think that God’s will is a list of things that each of us has to do in our lives in a particular order, and if we miss one, then we are out of God’s will and must go back to that part and complete it, or we are wrong. I think if we are chasing, whole heartedly running, after the glorious presence of God, he will bless us in what we do, because what we do is then for His glory and honor rather than to please ourselves. It becomes less a question of is A correct or is B correct, but a matter of “is my life pleasing to God because I’m living it for Him?” When we strip away all the “fluff” from our lives, when we take it to the bare core of our being, what is there? What are we living for? I’m reminded of the song “Heart of Worship”, and I feel that we sometimes miss the deepest point of that song by equating it to the singing section of a church service. But the song says:

“I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you desire. You search much deeper within, through the way things appear, you’re looking into my heart. I’m coming back to the heart of worship, because its all about you, it’s all about you, Jesus. I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it, cause it’s all about you, all about you, Jesus.”

We think that song just means when we remove the flashy music from church, and we look at the hearts of the people worshipping through song, what’s there? But the what I believe Matt Redman meant by writing these words was more than just songs, more than just a “worship service” examination, but more of a life of worship examination. Where is your heart? What are you allowing to guide your life? Are you allowing your life to be restricted only to situations that you’re prepared for? If so, break free from that prison, live the full life, the life God intended, the life of faith, the life that acts on the faith that we proclaim we have. The life that lives as though we believe it’s more than a list of “do this and don’t do this”, because we’re quick to proclaim it when we share Christ, but we’re also quick to revert back to this way of thinking after we become believers. We convince people that this is a life full of freedom, but then allow ourselves to become enslaved to preparedness. Break away from that, break into a life of faith; real, true, strong, enduring FAITH!

Give of what you've got, not of what is routine

I find it ironic that I have never felt like I needed a lesson on generosity, especially at Christmastime, but today as I was reading through the book of Acts, I came across some old familiar verses that are a part of a familiar story, and they came to me in a different light than when I heard them in the past. Growing up in church, I have become very familiar with the story of Peter healing the crippled beggar in chapter three of Acts, but what stands out today that I haven't really paid attention to before is this in verse six: "...silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you..." This is where my story ends here today.

My story begins a few years ago when I stopped carrying cash in my wallet. I did this because we used to go line dancing in downtown Nashville several nights each week. If you've been to downtown Nashville, you know that you can't walk twenty feet without someone begging for money, cigarettes, booze, food, or something. I grew weary of being asked for money, etc. after the first week and decided that rather than lie and say I don't have any money on me, I would just be sure I didn't carry any cash anymore and be able to tell the truth when I said that I don't have cash. It was uncomfortable at first telling people obviously in need that I didn't have the means to help them, but as my heart grew more callous, it was easy to transition to saying something like, "I'm sorry, but I don't have any cash on me, I wish I could help you!" I actually would say things like that so I sounded like I would have helped had I brought cash with me! My desire to manipulate the situation to prevent lying had progressed to, you guessed it, lying yet again. Through this I realized it wasn't the lying I wanted to prevent in the first place, but it was my lack of desire to give that I wanted to conceal. Therein lies the problem: I thought I didn't have anything to give because I didn't have the money to give, but did that mean I didn't have anything to give? Do I have a voice? Well, yes. Do I have time in a day? Yes, well, not those nights though...right? I had the need to line dance...wasn't that more important? Not so much...but wait, aren't those people there just scamming people or wanting money to buy alcohol or drugs? The real question is: does that matter? No and yes. No, because I'm called to give and the recipient is responsible for what the gift is used for. And yes as well, because some of them actually do scam people to get money for alcohol...so, what then do I give? I give the same thing Peter gave in verse six: whatever I have. Which brings us back to where my story ended. What do I have? Well, for starters (as of recently) I have a desire to give. I also have some money set aside to be used to help people who need help, but I should use that money wisely, so with that money I have time and a voice for conversation. So this is what I challenge myself with for starters: take time and spend it with someone in need, use the money to take care of what they need, what they are asking me for when I walk down the street, a meal, a cup of coffee, or something, and just spend time with that person. That takes care of a need without giving money away and not knowing what it is being used for. I'm giving what I have, the biggest of which is my time. I don't necessarily have to heal a crippled man to make a difference (although that would be pretty  much awesome to be a part of), I just have to offer myself to serve those who can't serve themselves. So not just because it is Christmastime, but because it is the right thing to do. Serve someone a big helping of whatever you have. If it is money, praise God! If it is not, praise God as well! Make a difference in this world, and whatever you have to give, give it, even if it is unconventional! Bless someone with your life, not just this season, but any chance you get!

You can't wait for Heaven?....well, I can.

I know, I know, the title itself lends this post to skeptic speculation about irreverence or a self-fulfilling lifestyle, but read a little further, I promise it's not what you think...or maybe it is?

Lots of people "cannot wait" to get to Heaven, to live there forever with our Lord, face to face with our Savior, Jesus Christ, and while on the surface it sounds all well and good, and it's something to say at the end of a great worship service at church, I on the other hand can, in fact, wait to get to Heaven. Now, before you start lighting torches and getting your pitchforks ready to come get me, hear me out. It's nothing selfish or irreverent, but there is so little time to do what we are called to do here on Earth, and there is an eternity to enjoy our reward for living our calling. We oftentimes focus too much on getting there and not enough on what we are needing to do here now. By focusing on the eternity ahead rather than the here-and-now, what are we missing, more importantly, who are we missing out on serving? How much energy are we putting into wondering about, thinking, dreaming, or speculating, even debating about what Heaven is like, and how the world may end? How much are we focusing on what we truly do not know much (if anything for certain) about, other than the fact that if we are believers we will be there one day? Don't get me wrong, I am not saying do not think or talk about what's to come, because it is awesome to imagine and anticipate, but what if we took our focus off so much of what, when, and how it all takes place, and look more toward what we can do while we are here to ensure we are serving others as we are called to through Christ? Imagine if we took all the time and energy we spend "not being able to wait for Heaven," and put even half of it toward sharing our lives with the people who need it most, the people that all of us see almost every day. If we were all, as believers, to focus on being the servants to the world that Jesus came and showed us how to be, how different would the world look now? Don't misunderstand me, I'm excited about getting to Heaven at some point and worshipping in the actual physical presence of God for eternity, but I have an eternity to focus on that when I get there. I only have this brief moment of life to live out what I'm called to, and if I keep my focus on the important things, when I step into eternity I can look forward to meeting Jesus and hearing him say "well done my good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your salvation!"