faith, works, and action

"God helps those who help themselves."

I've faced this statement before and immediately dismissed it as advocating a works-based salvation. But recently, God's been opening my eyes of the importance of faith in action.

"So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2:17)

I know why it rubs me the wrong way. I see the situation, I know I cannot overcome it by my own strength, and I cannot possibly bear to think that God would demand something of me that was impossible of my own means. So I turn away, rebel, reject God, and make the excuse that salvation is not about works.

As a causative statement, "God helps those who help themselves" is heretical. We would be saying, "If I help myself, God will help me." It is not because we help ourselves that God helps us. We did not take the initiative. God took the initiative and sent His Son Jesus to die for us. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6).

But as a descriptive statement, I do believe that it is true that when God is helping someone, they have the strength to get on their feet and run with faith. Perhaps more like, "When God is helping someone, they find the strength to help themselves." The Biblical definition of faith is below:

"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)

Something that amazed me this past week was the part of this verse that says "he rewards those who seek him." I realized that faith requires an earnest seeking, an effort on our part to be true. No one who refuses to move can be called a man of faith.

The people who sit and do nothing are almost as bad as the people who try to do everything on their own. They do not believe God can change their situation, so they say, "What's the use? God's in control anyway, and things aren't gonna change." A failure to believe God will reward those who earnestly seek Him, that He is good. They are paralyzed. I have been paralyzed for so much of my life.

As for those who try to do it all on their own, reality just hasn't hit yet. Reality that with man all things are impossible, but with God all things are possible. When I think this, I can only pray that God humbles me.

This truth amazes me and yet makes me tremble in fear. Because I realize that to live a life of faith is to live a life of the impossible, and I know I am not capable of it. I cannot guarantee the future but only hope that God is near and that He leads me through. It's exciting.

make do

I had a great dinner conversation with someone last night. He shared about his time being away from church people and how it has been teaching him about reality. People nag him about coming back to church - his family, his church friends, everyone - and at times, the pressure seems to drive him further away.

He fumbled for words a bit before describing what he's been facing in his time away. In his words:

"I hate saying this because it's cheesy, but there's no better word to describe what I've been seeing in the world than 'brokenness.'... But I realized that when you're genuinely vulnerable with people, you start to understand their point of view."

That amazed me. It dawned on me that he's probably been learning more about Jesus in these past few months than he had been attending church regularly for 20 years. He's learning about the reality of Christ breaking into broken lives, the reality of a Jesus who's vulnerable so that he can sympathize with our weaknesses; he's encountering a Jesus that's bigger than church events.

I unabashedly love the Church and I love my church. I remember how lonely I was in high school and how grateful I am to have people around me who will help me follow Christ and who I can love and be loved by. I'm so thankful to have people to fight this fight and run this race for the gospel with. But my friend doesn't see that. He doesn't understand why people in the church didn't see reality the way he'd been seeing it in his unbelieving friends. In its messiness and brokenness.

But I've seen that brokenness and messiness in church people just the same. The flesh that lives in us is genuinely terrifying to face at times. The I-wish-you-to-hell moments we have with people we're supposed to love, the I-will-crush-you-to-get-my-due zeal that overshadows the love of Christ. I know I have it.

I see why there's reason to be frustrated at church people, but there's reason for hope. I don't think the church holds together because the people in it are less broken or more religious or have it easier in any way.

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Colossians 1:17-18)

I invited him to come to church again, but not because the people will be better. It's because despite the junk, somehow, we have to work with who we've got, not who we'd like to have. The truth in all of it is that God will make do. He'll make something beautiful out of us. I give it all to You, God
Trusting that You'll make something beautiful out of me

beauty

Photo Shows Muslims Protecting Church in Egypt as Congregants Attend Mass

There was a time when I would read an article like this and wonder to myself, "What exactly does it mean to be Christians, if people who follow insert religion here can be better people?"

But the beautiful thing about following Christ and not just religion is that that is exactly the point. My life aim isn't to be better than the pious Muslim or Buddhist. If I tried, I might be able to accomplish it; but even if I did, it would add nothing to my life:

"For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die... " (Romans 5:7)

Perhaps for a good person one would dare to die, but Jesus did the unthinkable by dying for not only the righteous but even sinners:

"... but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

And that's how God finds me. Not as a "good Christian" or a good human being but as a sinner. This is where my hope is built. And that hope won't change no matter how much better of a person I may become (which does happen, mind you...).

So I read the article and I see Jesus' beauty reflected in the actions of Muslim leaders. Jesus stood up for the oppressed, and he defended a sinful woman being stoned. He loved the unlovable. I rejoice that this is the Savior I worship; exactly the kind of saving I need; the kind of love that is reflected in this act.

May we all come to see the beauty of Jesus everyday.

the big story

acing life

Middle School Student Aces SATs

One of my co-workers shared this article this morning. For me, Varun's story invokes neither awe nor admiration - I mostly feel pity. Not because his accomplishments aren't impressive - they are pretty amazing things for a middle-schooler to have achieved. But perhaps I feel for this boy whose identity, whether he likes it or not, has already become wrapped around being a great athlete and musician and student.

It reminds me of how I felt growing up. I wanted deeper friendships, but couldn't seem to find any. In response, I tried to ace my classes, trained myself to be athletic, learned how to play the guitar, and attempted to be an all-around nice guy.

But a sad secret of life is that being admired does not make you a better candidate to be someone's friend. It makes you a good candidate to be someone's god; it makes you a good candidate to be a trinket in someone's trophy room. The effort I made and the success I achieved contributed to the distance I felt from others.

Before I run off to fail at life intentionally, I know there's a danger in overcompensating in the other direction. Downplaying every little gift I've been given because I'm afraid that people will see me differently. It is like the valedictorian that says, "I'm not that smart," or the star athlete who says, "There are people better than me." This may all be true, but it does not make anyone feel any better to hear that the smartest person they know is pretty dumb.

One great miracle of Jesus is that He somehow levels the playing field. It is written that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. He enables the best abilities in me to glorify God by allowing me to say, "If I am so great, how much greater must Jesus be?" And it enables the most wretched weakness in me to scream, "How perfect was Jesus compared to this sinful man? How loving was God to send His only Son for someone like me?"

Kings are only a foreshadowing of the greater King of Kings, and the sinner is the negative space in which God's glory shines. How could there ever be a circumstance where Jesus cannot be praised? And so I praise him both when I ace life and when I fail at it. I don't want to frustrate the world with my false humility or a bloated ego.

"You make everything glorious, and I am yours, what does that make me"

I am rich

The past month seemed an eternity - a day's worth of work felt like a week; days dragged on and time slowed to a crawl. When I have my periodic minor existential crises, I feel like it's God saying, "Slow down; to me a day is a thousand years." And therefore, a day became a thousand years.

I was whining. I was thinking about all I didn't have, I was thinking about why I should love or serve others when I am lacking so much. Then I tunnel-visioned myself into demanding a single thing from God - I wanted people to treat me exactly one way and one way alone and any other way just wouldn't do.

Then came the blame game. It's the world's fault, it's the fault of generations past that I felt neglected in the ways that I did. It's everyone else's spiritual poverty that's causing this to happen. I needed a scapegoat. Friends, family, leaders, bosses, teachers just weren't living up to my expectations. I needed more.

The poor man's mentality. It was mentioned in our sermon at church this past Sunday.

So the mantra goes: I have little so I have nothing to give.

And that's how I was operating. I felt like I had something to prove with my life; that I had to be better so that people would treat me better. Either that, or other people had to be better. Someone had to change. But one distinct reminder came in the form of a song - that Christ is enough. He made us rich:

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)

I was looking for a scapegoat and I found one. A rich man who gave it all so that we might have eternal riches. And as long as I remember the riches I have found in Christ - the joy of knowing God's presence, the humility of being God's child, the encouragement of having a purpose - I cannot complain, I cannot expect any more. Christ is enough.

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Philippians 3:8)

This past week, I watched the Blue Like Jazz movie, which... despite having backed on Kickstarter in production, I never got around to watching until now, a year after it was released because I thought I was done with all the "emergent" Christianity stuff. But I discovered I could watch it for free with my roommate's Amazon Prime account so I figured... why not?

Spoiler alert. The closing scene is where the main character, who was so ashamed of his Christianity in a liberal culture, chooses to apologize on behalf of other Christians, of other people, and what they had done to cause pain in another student's life. And in it, I saw the gospel - it is as if we came to God to apologize for our sin, to repent, and He stopped us mid-sentence, came right back at us and apologized for what we did and took the blame. And in doing so, gave us free life; freed us from all guilt and shame. It was grace we didn't deserve from the only one who needn't apologize for anything. And so I was reminded of this - that when Jesus gave up his riches for a spoiled brat like myself who demanded more, he fixed my brokenness.

Whatever I feel I didn't get, I got a million times over from God in Christ. Pick a thing I lack - familial love, friendships, money, fame, fortune, reputation. I have been given a counterpart that will fill and replace each one of these things to overflowing.

repentance

From Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart by J.D. Greear (p. 59):

We must be particularly careful to clarify confession and repentance, because confession can feel purifying. Many people are looking for exoneration, be that from a friend, a spouse, a counselor, a pastor, or Jesus. They just want someone to tell them they're "OK." Biblical repentance, however, is not merely a request for exoneration; it is a change of heart about our sin. Even confession of our sin to Jesus, soaked with tears, but apart from a change of attitude toward our sin, will not bring about eternal life. Confession is part of the repentance process, but not the sum total of it.

discounts

It's crummy being a restaurant owner. You're the victim, that manipulated guy that all your friends walk in expecting a 30% discount and appetizers on the house. My heart goes out to them. Feel free to join me in my annual April 23rd moment of silence for all restaurant owners with friends.

Never do I walk into a friend's workplace and expect to give, but I do feel entitled to receive a whole lot. After all, we're friends right? *nudge nudge*

A radical idea crossed my mind... What if I went into a friend's restaurant and expected to pay more? What if I tipped 40% because they were my friend and I wanted to honor them? What if I expected to give instead of get? And that got me going...

It says a lot about how much we respect and love our favorite musical artists when we pirate their music, how much we love our church by demanding they meet our needs, how much we love our roommates when we count the number of times we clean the house without their help, and how much we care about our friends who own restaurants when we expect to be treated like kings.

"Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 25:17)

To love God and to love your neighbor is altogether something radically different.

quite poignant

I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I’m coming to believe it’s in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.
Most of the time, I eat like someone’s about to steal my plate, like I can’t be bothered to chew or taste or feel, but I’m coming to see that the table is about food, and it’s also about time. It’s about showing up in person, a whole and present person, instead of a fragmented, frantic person, phone in one hand and to-do list in the other. Put them down, both of them, twin symbols of the modern age, and pick up a knife and a fork. The table is where time stops. It’s where we look people in the eye, where we tell the truth about how hard it is, where we make space to listen to the whole story, not the textable sound bite.
We don’t come to the table to fight or to defend. We don’t come to prove or to conquer, to draw lines in the sand or to stir up trouble. We come to the table because our hunger brings us there. We come with a need, with fragility, with an admission of our humanity. The table is the great equalizer, the level playing field many of us have been looking everywhere for. The table is the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children. We allow someone else to meet our need. In a world that prides people on not having needs, on going longer and faster, on going without, on powering through, the table is a place of safety and rest and humanity, where we are allowed to be as fragile as we feel. If the home is a body, the table is the heart, the beating center, the sustainer of life and health. Come to the table.

- from A New Approach to the Table by Shauna Niequist

control

I have responsibilities. I have clear work I need to do, and some things are certain - if I choose not to do the dishes, my kitchen will be dirty. Sometimes I'd like to say, God, why don't you find me a maid or something. But there's no point blaming God for responsibilities I have, because I'm fully aware.

But often when I've taken care of everything I need to, I stress out that people don't act the way I want them to, my heart doesn't go the way I want it to, and that the stars don't align so I can live out my Disney fairytale life.

This past week I had to face being emotionally distraught over something someone said. They meant no harm, but it hit a sore spot I barely knew I had. Then I wonder whether I should be doing more to toughen up to make sure I don't get hurt. I wonder what walls need to be built up to protect myself. I hated the fact that I wasn't in control of my own emotions.

I scheduled my entire Monday out only to find that for various reasons, everyone who I was slated to meet with canceled on me. My natural inclination was to get frustrated at how others were being inconsiderate and/or irresponsible.

But it's really not a dog-eat-dog world, it's a God-is-God world. God asks a few things of us, and we can do it faithfully. Then we trust Him for the rest.

Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Phil. 3:16, ESV)

holy

For the Love of God - April 8, 2013
At its core, holy is almost an adjective corresponding to the noun God.

Whoa. What a sweet definition of a loaded term.

proverbs

Just in reading today, I found Proverbs 18 crazy because I've encountered these truths at some point this past year:

issues

'Severing Love From Diapers': The Other Case Against Gay Marriage

Thought this was a fascinating read. Not that I particularly agree with it or disagree with it one way or another. It almost seems like the debate of the generation has become a debate about gay marriage. I don't remember the last time someone's talked about creation and evolution with me though that seemed to be a hot-button thing in years past. I'm sure somewhere out there an argument is still raging.

I think an interesting point that was made was that our definition of marriage has devolved into a simple extension of romantic love. I somewhat think that's true. When the romance fades, the divorce comes. In addition, gay couples are eyeing the financial and social benefits of being recognized in a partnership. I'm sure some heterosexual couples are in it for that, too.

Still simmering...

Honduras

I'm heading over to Honduras in a couple weeks and I wrote out a testimony that I shared with our church during our missions presentation a few weeks ago. I'm inspired to put it on my blog because one of my fellow brothers who shared alongside me put it up on his blog so I figured I would, and plus some people have been requesting it so here it is....

Since this past August, God has been showing me that His heart is for the world. Last summer, I took a trip to Colorado to visit my sister and brother-in-law and had a moment to take a tour of my brother-in-law's workplace at Compassion International.

It was a simple 15 minute tour with an elderly volunteer lady who was kind enough to take us around. My sister was trailing behind me with her daughter in the stroller, but it was her fiftieth time going through it with out-of-town guests, so it basically ended up as a one-on-one tour. (This made it a little difficult when I had to hold back tears halfway through the tour because it wasn't like she had anyone else to redirect her attention to.)

A couple things struck me during this tour. One was how Compassion began - a man saw orphans abandoned from the Korean War and couldn't turn away without doing something. That could have very well been my parents or any one of my friends' parents. The second was the magnitude of what it means when it Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me." As I left the facility, I bought a book called Fast Living (more on that here) and read it on the plane ride back. The book focused on the meaning of true fasting, especially through Isaiah 58.

Isaiah 58 talks about God's heart for injustice, for the oppressed, for the poor, the naked, and the hungry. As I read through the book, it clicked that for something God cares so deeply about, I was simply apathetic. I was learning in this time that how I felt shouldn't dictate the decisions I made, because I was an indifferent mess. The dissonance I felt in me led to a yearning for God to work on my heart because it didn't line up with his.

When our church threw up possible opportunities to serve and commit to God's work during our annual Missions Week, I wanted to take the first opportunity I could get to see God's heart for the world firsthand, and I ended up applying for the Honduras trip.

As we prepare to leave in a couple weeks, I'm a little afraid of safety - how it will be there and what could happen. God is continually working on my relationship with my parents through this situation. They're worried about me and I'm worried about them being worried and even where they stand in their relationship with God. A fear I've had is the thought: if something happened to me, would they blame it on God and turn away from Him?

But God's been addressing those fears and making clear to me - even through the two week fast our church went through recently - that He is sovereign and He has perfect plans. Those thoughts are summed up in this quote from Betsie ten Boom to her sister Corrie:

There are no "if's" in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - O Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!

There's no safer place for myself or for my family to be than in the center of His will. I'm excited to see what God's gonna do.

chilling

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-truth-about-abortion-will-set-you-free

Some photos that sent chills down my spine.

truth

How to Increase Happiness and Meaning in Life

I'm not particularly into pop psychology, but this article rings true for me. When we are part of something bigger; when we are in awe of things, our life finds meaning. Not only this, but that stories help us to remember what is meaningful in life.

What's sad is that sometimes we only see all the side effects of what really matters.

If we're looking for happiness and meaning, we can look to Him who will provide them; or we can try to scrape off some crumbs and go for the "happiness" and the "awe" without wondering who's behind it all. Stories are beautiful because there is a great Author. Awe is necessary because there is one who is Awesome.

responsibility

Involved for Life Pregnancy Center

This article inspires me, because instead of condemning and hating those involved in abortion, they still take a stand but actually care about the people involved in it and do something about it. There's a difference between being a religious nutcase and loving people in Jesus' name.

Sometimes the most powerful kind of love is when you demonstrate grace to those you disagree with. Love is messy.

minority

ACLU Seeks Removal of Ohio School's Jesus Portrait

Sometimes I wonder if we're actually coming to a point where the gospel can be more free in America. Where it is not religion that is imposed but secularism; where religious people become the minority. One of my co-workers aptly pointed out that it's a lot easier to share your life and your faith when you are the minority, because you don't have any leverage or any power to impose your will on anyone. Your faith seems all the more genuine because people see you maintain it in the fire.

stay on your toes

This past Sunday, my LIFE group went up to Pierpont to share some homemade wings and Victors Pizza and watch the Superbowl. While chilling, we ran into a guy whose name is Ahmed and who attends a mosque in northern Ann Arbor.

on the mount

Matthew 5