J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian
From Devout Atheist to Skeptical Pastor: A Blog For Busted-Up, Beat-Down People (Like Me)
God’s decision to forgive Peter required the death of his Son; Peter’s decision to forgive those who had offended him would cost him little more than his pride. The same is true for us.
In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another. Forgiveness is the gift that ensures my freedom from a prison of bitterness and resentment.
— Andy Stanley
Selfishness kills joy because it has unreasonable demands that change instantly. God-centeredness brings joy because He is the unchanging anchor of true goodness and glory.
Very often people are afraid to forgive because they assume that if they forgive, injustice will triumph. Yet the counterintuitive wisdom of Christ reveals that the very opposite is true. It is forgiveness alone that has the capacity to break the chains of injustice and give us the possibility of a new future — a future unchained from the past and free of bitterness.
— Brian Zahnd
I fear that far too many followers of Christ have been sucked into the angry political polarization that characterizes our culture — a culture that has come to venerate the enraged rant as an art form. And when we do this, the name Christian is diminished to an adjective for modifying certain political positions rather than a noun for a person who is deliberately attempting to imitate Jesus Christ. This absolutely must change. We can hold all the convictions we want, as long as we can hold them in love.
— Brian Zahnd
“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
— C.S. Lewis
I know this whole “Holy Spirit lives in you” can be weird, mysterious, New-Age-ish, and more difficult to fathom than O-Chem II.
But if you believe the Gospel — that Jesus the Son of God dropped down into human history as a perfect, sinless, healing savior born of a virgin, absorbed the wrath you deserve for your sins on a dirty Roman cross, jumped out the grave like Shark Week, and flew up to Heaven with a promise to come back with 100 million angels — then you have God’s Spirit living in you. That’s no small thing.
So what does He do? What does this change?
Well — everything.
Was driving today in a panic to take care of a million things, looking up at the spotty Florida sky that looked like God had painted with a clogged spray paint can. Tired, frustrated, irritated, jealous of everyone else who wasn’t me.
Suddenly imagined Jesus with his one-hundred million angels, separating the spray painted clouds and his trumpets blasting and the entire earth lit up by his lightning-and-thunder presence. If one angel has a twelve foot wing span, then that’s 11 miles of wings per one mile of sky. Imagine the sound.
It was a rush. To think at any moment the show could be over, the whole lid ripped off history and the director yelling cut. Justice finally unrolling itself in completion. Jesus here, in full glory, no more charades — his head on fire, a sword sticking out his face, stars in his hand, riding a war horse. How awesome.
Hurry, Lord. Can’t wait for the day. Until then: we fight.
God loves you and He’s in control. Otherwise we’re not talking about God. If God loved you but couldn’t control anything, then we should be worried. If God was in control but didn’t love you, then we should still be worried. But if God’s got this and He’s got you, there’s nothing to worry about.
“God’s decision to forgive Peter required the death of his Son; Peter’s decision to forgive those who had offended him would cost him little more than his pride. The same is true for us.
In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another. Forgiveness is the gift that ensures my freedom from a prison of bitterness and resentment.”
— Andy Stanley
“Justice must be about much more than balancing out the wrongs of the world. It must be about making things right, about the kind of restoration that does not reverse the pain, but moves beyond it toward something new.”
— Rachel Tulloch
The rising star in your church could just as quickly be a crashing fireball that burns out in seconds.
But at some point you need to quit punching yourself in the jaw and pick up your teeth from the tile.
Unless you held a gun at their head, it’s not your fault.
I know you’re mad at them, just as much as you’re mad at yourself. They were the ones who attended everything, who served every time, who called you at midnight when they were in trouble. You texted and emailed and Facebook chatted every day. You prayed over them on your knees at night, hoping God would lead them in incredible ways. You spent more time and money and energy on them than even your own family.
All for what? For them to cut you off like you never existed.
You could’ve done more, probably. There’s guilt about how you lashed out, how you could’ve made the church more cool, how you could’ve called more, wrote more, spent more.
But he’s gone. She left. You can leave the ninety-nine to get the one, but after all: there’s still ninety-nine.
Continue reading “It Doesn’t Always Stick: Quit Blaming Yourself Over The Prodigal”
yinayun asked:
“I don’t believe in Christianity because I believe it’s a selfish religion” what are your thoughts on such a statement? I have so much that I could say about it myself but I would love to hear your thoughts.
As a famous speaker once said, I feel like a mosquito at a nudist beach: Where do I start?
1) First off: Today’s church can be selfish —
But people confuse the modern messed up church with the real power of Jesus Christ. I’m certainly dissatisfied with the hoarding American church and its isolated philosophy of Prayer-Praise-Scripture at the expense of Going-Making-Giving. When $10 million megachurches are built while 26,000 children die of starvation everyday, something is wrong.
The preacher says, “And only if he had walked out of that room, it all would’ve been different.”
The church nods, of course. Everyone agrees that getting your eyes gouged out by uncircumcised Philistines is pretty much an undesirable thing.
He adds, “He totally missed out on God’s Perfect Plan. All those blessings, gone.”
It’s a good way to increase offering. Keep the people scared, guilty, guessing, confused. You thought you would never see people fighting for the offering plate.
I remember first attending church those years ago, seeking for truth, hearing the preacher fire arrows at the drunks, the addicts, the divorced, the criminals, the perverts — and I kept thinking, But I’m that guy. I’m the guy he keeps talking about. That loser is me.
Sometimes the preacher reams on the consequences: but many of us are still living through them.
Might as well be yelling, Yeah, screw those guys! Those wicked, baby-hating, Wizard-of-Oz-loving, liberal-commie, vegan-environmentalist pagans! Am I right? Huh? The church keeps nodding.
But where is the grace for them? Does God love them less somehow? How does God feel when we fall off His Will?
Continue reading “Hey Preacher: That Loser You’re Talking About Is Me”
“Is God only good when we get good news? Is He then ‘bad’ when we get a speeding ticket or cancer? How about, ‘I got a speeding ticket — but God is good because He’s still God.’ Or, ‘The cancer is back — but God never left.’”
Many people feel that they have played a game-winning hand when they level the hypocrite charge against Christians, and yet Christians who do not understand their identity in Christ do not understand their hypocrisy. … Hypocrisy for Christians occurs when we sin. Out true identity is as children of God, and it is evidenced when we act like Christ or obey the Scriptures. … It is in moments of self-centered living, idolatrous priorities, and bondage to habitual sin that we are acting hypocritical. Yet because these moments feel so natural or are so often our experience, they seem more like our identity, and transformations seems like the act of hypocrisy.
— Bill Clem
God, the creator of everything, loves you. Anything else is bonus.
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian 