Category Archives: Spirituality

When Nature Calls…

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…at an awkward time…

Do you answer? 

Do you put the call on hold? 

But what if nature won’t be placed on hold?

What do you do?  

Nature gave me a call last Sunday during the Sunday morning service a few minutes before it was time for me to step up on the platform and deliver the weekly sermon.  

I tried to ignore the call knowing it would call back later.   But Nature would not wait.  

Didn’t Nature know what time it was and where I was?!

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says there is a time for everything.  Really?  Is this the right time?  

“I think I can make it back,” I whispered to Denise, my wife, sitting beside me, and tried to walk nonchalantly from the front row to the hallway restroom. 

I should have run. I didn’t make it back in time.  I stepped out of the restroom and didn’t hear the video or the special song that was set to play before I taught.  Uh oh.  

Opening the auditorium doors, I saw Dense on the platform trying to cover for me.  

I should have let her have the stage! 

I felt like Doja Cat.   ​​When Doja Cat and SZA won the Grammy in 2022 for Best Pop Duo Performance for “Kiss Me More,” Doja nearly missed it. The star was in the middle of a bathroom visit when her name was called and she barely made it to the stage before it was time to get to the next category. 

When nature calls you, you listen, even if it means missing your very first Grammy win or a sermon.  

The folks that gathered at The Venues Church Sunday totally understood.  

The Venues is a safe place to be human.  To be you.   

It was good for a laugh.  

The lesson?  Maybe when Nature, when God, when Love calls, we listen. 

When creation speaks, we listen. When others speak, we listen.  

Listening.  Father Rohr writes, “Perhaps one of the most precious and powerful gifts we can give another person is to really listen to them, to listen with quiet, fascinated attention, with our whole being, fully present.”

Listen with an open heart.  No judgment.  Just openness.  

Thank-you Venues community for listening and not judging.

Living in the Now While Waiting for the Biopsy

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I found another spot.  On my way to conduct a funeral Friday afternoon, I glanced in the rearview mirror while at a stop light to make sure I didn’t have anything unsightly on my face, nose, mouth before arriving at the funeral home.

That’s when I saw the spot.  A white mark on my upper lip.  It wouldn’t wipe off. “Rats,” I said to no one in particular.  I’ve seen that kind of mark before – on my arm.  

15 years ago. 

Melanoma.  

The light turned green so I drove on.  At the next red light I took a selfie and sent it to my friend and Dermatologist PA and asked, “What do you think?”  She replied within 5 minutes.  “Come in Monday.”

I went in.  I came out with a biopsied, bandaged upper lip.  

I’ve had two previous melanomas and one squamous cell carcinoma (the wound from that surgery is still healing).  

Now, I wait.  What will the biopsy show this spot to be?

I know the principles of living in the now.  But I don’t know how to live those principles all of the time. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don’t.  Right now, for me to live in the now, is a choice. 

It has yet to become an automatic response. 

The “right now” is this:

  • I don’t know the nature of the spot. That’s the fact.  So why worry about something that may not be?  Why let a fear of tomorrow rob me of the fun I can have today?
  • I feel good. At least until the anesthesia wears off!  
  • I have great care from the dermatology team.
  • I have this moment.  Right now.  That’s all I’m guaranteed. So, I will make this present moment, standing here typing and drinking from a straw, looking at Denise across the room, the best moment ever. 

I will live by Calvin’s philosophy when he says to Hobbs, “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” 

 

Yes, We Will All Die.

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I have a funeral today, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 – Ash Wednesday.  This will be the third funeral I’ve conducted this week.  

I face death regularly.  It’s part of the job.  Some humorist has said that the job of the pastor is to “Marry and Bury.” It’s a life of dealing with the “wed and the dead.”

Ash Wednesday is a reminder of death. The ashes used on Ash Wednesday are meant to represent dust.  When receiving ashes on their foreheads, they hear the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).  

Thanks, but no thanks, for the reminder.  We don’t like to be reminded of, to think about, death.  So we say just about anything to avoid saying the d-word:

  • Kicked the bucket
  • Six feet under
  • Bought the farm
  • Pushing up daisies
  • Passed away
  • Restin in peace

I get it.  Death is hard to face.  So to help us face it, we actually wear the reminder on our face. 

And that reminder is a good thing. Knowing that I will die motivates me to live a fuller life.  

After a funeral, I’m typically:

  • more “alive” – more aware of the beauty of all around me and its fragility.
  • more grateful
  • kinder
  • more affectionate
  • more loving
  • more here, now. 

My senses are sharpened.  Living with an awareness of death can make my living more loving. 

We don’t like to face death because we fear the loss brought by death. Yes, there is loss, but there is also gain.  “To die is to gain” (Philippians 1:21), Paul reminds us. It’s a trade. And it’s a trade up. 

So, I’m off to this funeral.  And I will return to a fuller life. 

Love or Truth?

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“What caused you to change your mind….? 

…on theology.

…on sexuality.

…on ______.

It’s a question I’m often asked.

I wish I had a deep, philosophical answer.  I don’t. 

When I was “called to the ministry” at the age of 15, it was basically a “call to preach” – to tell people the Truth.  I had it.  I knew it.  The truth.  At least I thought I did.  

For most of my early years as a pastor, I didn’t do a lot of listening.  I did a lot of talking.  Telling people the truth. 

Then around the year 2000 several members of AA began attending the church I was pastoring. I became friends with some of them. 

Friends listen.  Paul Tillich said, “The first duty of love is to listen.”

I listened to them.  I heard their stories.  As I listened, the boxes into which I had placed them began to open.  

In 2008 I delivered a sermon on “The Hot Potato of Homosexuality.”  Before I “told” my understanding of “truth” on that issue, Denise and I were compelled to “listen” – to listen to dozens of people in the LGBTQ+ community.  

What I heard over drinks shaped what I said that Sunday morning.

What I heard changed what I believed.  The theological and sexual stereotypes exploded.  

“The first duty of love is to listen.”

Listening changed me.  I found myself putting Love above Truth – or at least my version of the truth.  

As a young pastor I wanted to be a great preacher.  A persuasive defender of truth like Billy Graham.  Today, I want to be Mister Rogers.  

It’s like Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “ Let love be your aim” (1 Corinthians 14:1).

As theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar put it, “Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.”  

Did he get that from Carole King’s “Only Love is Real”?  

One more quote and lesson from von Balthasar, “Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them.”  

“What caused me to change?” 

I started listening. 

I’m learning to love.  

Do You Want to Be Right or Kind?

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What is your “one thing”? – with a nod to Curly in the iconic movie, “City Slickers.”

Honestly, my “one thing” often explodes and I end up doing many things, like

*Defending myself.

*Convincing others to believe a certain thing.

I don’t know why I do those things.  It seems that I allow myself to get drawn to those dark places.    

 Yesterday I read the following words from John Lewis quoted by  Father Richard Rohr in his Daily Meditation.  I was deeply moved.

Please read them…

Slowly…Like you are savoring a bite of filet mignon. 

Please read them… 

Contemplatively…allowing them to touch,  to transform you. 

”Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. Know that the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace. Its products are never bitterness and strife. Clothe yourself in the work of love, in the revolutionary work of nonviolent resistance against evil. Anchor the eternity of love in your own soul and embed this planet with goodness. Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don’t be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”

What words, phrases, concepts touch your soul?`

Do you get a “one thing” out of this? 

Here’s mine:  “Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. Know that the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace.”

Love is my one thing…

Love is the universal truth…

Love leads to love and peace.

Maybe it’s right to be kind.

What if the Bible Is Not Our Guide?

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This Book Doesn't Have Any Answers

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth – the B.I.B.L.E.  Have you heard the Bible explained that way?  It’s clever.  But is it accurate?  

I said in my teaching Sunday that I used to think the clever acrostic is accurate.  But not anymore.  Let’s be honest.  The Bible isn’t really a very good instruction manual or guide book.  

I know.  That rubs us the wrong way.  But, as Billy Sunday said, and I paraphrase:  “If something rubs you the wrong way, maybe you need to turn around.” 

I needed to turn around.  Maybe you do too. 

Think with me:  The Bible tells us, for example, to “Be kind to one another,” “Love one another – even our enemies,” “Give generously to the poor.”  All good. 

But next to these good things are some bad things- really bad things:  

Rape (Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Numbers 31:15-18); 

Slavery (1 Peter 2:18; Titus 2:9) 

Genocide (Deuteronomy 7:1-2; Deuteronomy 20:15-17) 

…are all commanded – by God.  At least the writers pass the buck to God for these commands.  Are those instructions ones that we should follow?  I hope you’’ll answer “No”.

One more thing. It doesn’t make much sense to claim that the Bible is an “infallible” guide in what it says if we cannot agree on what it says.  “But we agree on the essentials,” I hear someone saying.  We really don’t.  Go to amazon.com  and type in “four views” in the search bar and get ready to “turn around.”  We’re given page after page of books about various ways of interpreting key Christian doctrines:

Four Views on Hell

Four Views of Atonement

Four Views on Divine Providence

Four Views on Eternal Security

These are not peripheral issues.  These are some “big rocks” of Christianity.  In each book we find opposing views in which each proponent is absolutely certain that their particular interpretation of the Bible is the right one.  

If the Bible spoke clearly on these issues then why isn’t there a “The Only View” series.

So, if we remove the Bible as our guide, what do we put in its place?  Are we just free to do whatever we want – to do what is right in our own eyes (Judges 21:5)? 

I offered, Sunday morning, an option given to me by mother throughout my junior high and high school years.  Here is the question she told me to ask myself when considering the rightness or the wrongness of an action: “When you consider this action, ask yourself, ‘does the life of Jesus well up inside of you?’”  

That’s good.  

Denise and I went to Little Rock after Sunday’s service to see my dad.  Drinking a glass of wine and eating Girl Scout cookies, (what are the rules for pairing wine with Girl Scout Cookies) with dad, my sister and Denise, around dad’s kitchen table, I asked dad about mom’s counsel to me.  He told me mom read that in a book by Watchman Nee, an author that greatly influenced my parents.   

For 52 years I’ve been under the impression that mom came up with that on her own!

So, this morning, I did a quick Google search trying to find the exact quote.  I didn’t find mom’s version of it but I did find the following statements by Watchman Nee.   

Read them with an open mind.  Contemplatively. And get ready  to “turn around.”  

“Brothers and sisters, as we live before God, our actions must not be determined by good and evil, but by the life within.”

Hmm. “Actions determined…by the life within.”  Let’s go on…

“When we have the life within and feel life rising up, we are doing the proper thing.” That sounds a bit like Mom’s version. 

Then there’s this from Nee: “Many problems arise because we only have a standard of right and wrong.  Many mistakes are made because we do not have the standard of life.”

Then Nee, a mystical Christian,  offers this prayer,

“Grace me so that I live by the tree of life, not by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  I want to constantly pay attention to life…”

Mom was telling me, and I’m just now really hearing it: “Don’t live by an external rule book (the Bible), instead, live by an internal life – the life that is “graced” by  the Spirit of Christ.  

Have you been indoctrinated into seeing the Bible as your guide?  

Yes.  We need a guide.  No doubt about that! 

But have we settled for an external law when we have within us an internal life?  

“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives and you will not obey your selfish desires (Paul to the Galatians, found in 5:16).

“And when that one comes, the Spirit will guide you into all truth” (Jesus, to his disciples, recorded by John, in 16:13).  

“Pay attention to life” the Christ-shaped life within (Watchman Nee to Mom; then Mom to me).  

I will live in the awareness of the presence of life in me and I will pay attention to it.

That will be my guide.

A Tree That Feels Like Me

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Charlie Brown Tree 2

 

We have three Christmas trees in our house this year.  I know, weird. 

One is fancy and stands in our living room.

The newest is beside my desk in my study – a sale-tree that I bought on Black Friday.  I couldn’t resist.  It is an aluminum tree with a color wheel.  Yep, I guess they’re being made again for all of us boomers.   Did any of you have one of those at one time?

But my favorite tree is in our Hearth Room – it’s the one you see above – our Charlie Brown tree.

The fact that I have both an aluminum tree and a Charlie Brown tree is a bit ironic since “A Charlie Brown Christmas” special first shown December 9, 1965, was more directly responsible for the death of aluminum Christmas trees than anything else.  “A Charlie Brown Christmas” resonated with 1965 audiences in a way no other children’s programming had before.  

It still resonates with me.  

Charles Schultz’s characters have been a part of my life since I was 9 years old when someone, I don’t remember who, gave me the book, “Good Grief, Charlie Brown!”

I wish I remembered the name of the person who opened up this world to me. I’m thankful for them. 

Everything I like about Charlie Brown is contained in “A Charlie  Brown Christmas” and that little, lonely, pitiful looking tree.  

It is real.  Every other Christmas special has in it some element of fantasy.  

A snowman that comes to life.  

Flying reindeer. 

But not in Charles Schulz’s story.  The story is build on the reality of sadness.  

Charlie Brown is sad.  “I know no likes me,” Charlie Brown says, walking along, “so why do we have to have a holiday to emphasize the fact?”  Charlie is us.   We want to be liked.  Not just loved.  It’s hard to feel loved when we’re not liked.  

Linus recites Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus.  But, even with this spiritual element, God doesn’t swoop in to rescue Charlie Brown. Neither does Santa, or Frosty. There is no Elf to bring back the spirit of Christmas.  There is Charlie Brown dealing with kids who are mean to him.  And why?  He was only trying to do something good.  When he brings his tree to the group, the insults are launched:

“Boy, are you stupid Charlie Brown”
“I told you he’d goof it up.”
“He isn’t the kind you can depend on to do anything right.”
“You’re hopeless, Charlie Brown.”
“You’ve been dumb before, Charlie Brown, but this time, you really did it.”

How many watchers of that special see themselves in Charlie Brown? How many have heard, still hear, those same insults?  Insults and attacks for only trying to do good. 

And no one steps in to defend him.  To advocate for him.  

He’s alone.  Like the tree he picks.  Charlie Brown and the tree are parallel characters.  Each of them is considered by others to be defective, unwanted, worth-less than other trees or other people.

“This little one needs a home,” Charlie Brown said when he saw the tree on the lot.  

Charlie Brown provided that home.

Charlie Brown was the only one who really saw the tree. Who saw the value in the tree. Who loved the tree.  He thought others would see the tree as he saw the tree.  They didn’t. 

The rejected boy took the rejected tree to his home.  When he hangs a single ornament on it’s tallest branch,  the tree droops to the ground.  Charlie Brown cries out, “I’ve killed it.  Oh! Everything I touch gets ruined.”

Have you ever felt like you can’t do anything right?  Then you get Charlie Brown.  

Linus’ Bible story inspired Charlie Brown to decorate the little tree, in spite of what others said, but it doesn’t heal Charlie Brown from the pain he feels.  What heals him is the other members of the Peanuts Gang coming out into the cold to rescue the tree – with love.  As Linus says, “I never thought it was such a bad little tree…Maybe it just needs a little love.” 

And love is what the gang gives the tree.  Show a tree, or a person, some love, and look what happens!

It may be a story from a comic strip, but it’s a story about realness.  

Real sadness.

Real loneliness.

Real rejection.

Real prejudices.

Real comparisons.

Real realization of judgmentalism.

Real love.

Real community. 

Real change. 

And it’s really good.  

Have a really good holiday.

  

Testing Our Traditions

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Shiraz on the Shelf.jpg

“But we always have turkey for Christmas dinner!”

“But we always have pistachio pudding salad (the traditional dish when I was a kid) for Christmas dinner” 

“But we always open one present on Christmas Eve!”  

“But we always go see Christmas lights on Christmas Eve!”

Whenever someone tries to replace, remove, or reform a tradition, the change is probably met with a “But we always…”

What is your “always”?

Do something two years in a row and you’ve got a set-in-concrete tradition. 

Traditions are not just a holiday thing. They are a theology thing. 

Tradition. There’s a whole song devoted to it in Fiddler on the Roof.

Tradition.  It was the context of many of Jesus’ collisions with the Pharisees (Mark 7:1-8).

Tradition.  It has been the context of many of my own church collisions in my early years pastoring:

*Singing songs that weren’t in the Baptist Hymnal.

*Bringing a guitar and drums to the Sunday morning service.

*Replacing the denomination’s Adult Sunday School curriculum with a study of Charles Swindoll’s “Improving Your Serve.”

I could go on…

More recently, and more importantly, I’ve been dealing with traditions of what to think, what to believe, how to see God, how to see others, how to see myself.  

There are traditional ways of doing and there are traditional ways of thinking.  

 Both need to be “examined.”  Hold on to that word – “examine.”

First, let’s examine why we hang so tightly to traditions.  Why does the mantra, “We’ve always done it that way” fit so many so well?  There are two reasons:

 1.  We are copycats.   We tend to follow the crowd in both doing and thinking.  Instead of thinking for ourselves we want to be told what to think.   “Welcome to church.  Leave your brain at the door,” is the culture of many.   We count on pastors to tell us what to believe.  We follow their words in an automatic and robotic way. Pastors count on people to not question what they’re told.  Pastors can have an exalted opinion of themselves.  

Be a free-thinker!  Jesus told his followers that the Holy Spirit is their teacher (John 14:26). You’re walking around with the teacher within!  Listen to the Spirit.  

John writes that “the true light gives light to everyone” (John 1:9).  Did you catch that? “Everyone”  Yes, me.  Yes,  you.  Wake up to the light.  Be aware of the light.  You have in you the light of understanding. 

2.  We are scaredy cats.   Our world can be scary, stressful, uncertain.  Having traditions, when we do the same things over and over – like shampoo, “Rinse and Repeat” – we know what to do, when to do it, how to it, gives us a comforting sense of control and stability.  But is the comfort an illusion? A shadow?  Is there something more solid to which we can hold?  

Let’s examine the traditions themselves – not just the traditions of putting trees in our house or hanging our socks on the fireplace – but the tradition of thinking a certain way, of believing a certain thing. 

Ask questions about, critique what you believe and what you have been taught.

Paul tells us to “examine the preaching” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).  

Does it pass the test?  
Here’s the test:

When it comes to hearing a sermon, Paul says,  “Examine it and hold on to that which is good.” 

Listen carefully.  Listen critically. Give it a test. A beauty test.

The Greek word translated “good” (kalos) means “beautiful.”  

Does the preaching pass the “Is it beautiful?” test.  The test is not, “Is the preacher beautiful?” (I’m glad because there’s not much I can do about that!),  but is the preaching “beautiful?”

Kix Cereal is “kid tested and parent approved.”                                                              Preaching is to be “beauty tested.”

When listening to teaching/preaching, if it’s beautiful, hold on to it. If it’s not beautiful, let it go.

Traditions are about:

  • Priority – what/who is first in my life?
  • Authority – what/who will have authority over my life?
  • Beauty   

Jesus calls us to connect with something bigger than our traditioins.  He calls us to connect with love.  When traditional thinking, traditional views, clashed with love,, Jesus always came down on the side of love. 

Healthy religion always pulls us away from traditions of exclusion to inclusion, from scarcity to abundance, from a God with only enough love for my group to a God for the universe.  

A Wrinkle in the Sheet of Immigration

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Fitted Sheets

Did you know that Ruth, the lady whose story is told in a book in the Hebrew Scriptures that bears her name, was an illegal immigrant?

How does that fact affect your view of the immigration issue that heats up our country?

I talked about Ruth in my teaching last Sunday in our series “What Would Jesus Say About…”. 

The issue about which we tuned our ears to Jesus was immigration.  Christians often agree with the many  “be kind to foreigners” verses in both the Hebrew Scripture and Christian Scripture, but they also often add this caveat: “Yes, but those were legal immigrants.  Since illegal immigrants are lawbreakers they shouldn’t have any rights.”

Then, we read the story of Ruth.  And she throws a wrinkle in our position (Have you tried to fold a fitted sheet?).   People think they have a Biblically wrinkle-free position on immigration until they read the story of Ruth.  

Ruth was an illegal immigrant.  She’s from Moab.  One of those countries.   Check out Israel’s policy toward immigrants from Moab:  

“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever” (Deuteronomy 23:3).

“Forever”  is a long time.  

Still not convinced that Moabites were excluded…that Moabites were to be kept out? 

Look at Deuteronomy 23:6: “You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all their days forever.”  

There’s that word “forever” again.  

The Hebrew of this verse is colorful.  Check out these different translations:

Never pursue their welfare or prosperity – CSB

Never promote their welfare or prosperity – NRSV

Never seek a treaty of friendship with them – NIV

Never seek their peace or their prosperity- NASB

Don’t wish for their peace or success – NCV

Don’t be concerned with their health and well-being – CEB

 Ok.  I get it.  The message is clear.  Don’t give a hand to help the Moabite and Ammonite.  They’re not good people. 

Here’s the wrinkle.  Boaz, the hero of the story, flagrantly disobeyed Moses’ law.  He showed Ruth, and her mother-in-law Naomi, kindness, provided food for them, pursued their welfare, helped them succeed.  And friendship?  

Oh, Boaz went way beyond friendship and got intimate with Ruth.  

Follow that intimacy down the family tree and we arrive at Jesus – Jesus, the Son of David (Matthew 1:1).  Ruth and Boaz were great-grandparents of David.  Jesus was the “Son of David”, and David was the great-grandson of an illegal immigrant mother and a law-breaking father.  

Boaz, like his descendant, Jesus, chose love over law.  Kindness and compassion over keeping the rules.  

What would have happened had Boaz obeyed the law?  

He wouldn’t have been kind to Ruth.  He wouldn’t have provided care for and to them. 

He and Ruth would not have fallen in love.  They would not have had sex and conceived a child, a grandchild…and if you keep going, Jesus would not have been born.  

That was my point in the sermon.  Afterwards, a good, wise friend pointed out to me another way to look at it: If Boaz had kept the law, God could have found another way to bring Jesus to the world.  True. Then my friend said,  “But isn’t it cool that God chose to use an illegal immigrant to bring Jesus to us?”  Cool indeed. Thank you friend!

I get that nations have a responsibility to protect their borders.  I’m not campaigning for illegal immigration.  Here’s what I’m thinking:

* Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world.  As a follower of Christ, I am, foremost, a citizen of that kingdom. For me, that citizenship takes precedence over my U.S. citizenship.  I am to embrace and express the values of His kingdom – values of love and service to the least of these.  How can I live in the  kingdom of the U.S. and live by the principles of the kingdom of Heaven?

*What should be my motivation?  Respect for the law or love of people?  Let’s not forget that it was famine and death that compelled Ruth and Naomi to migrate to the land of Israel.  The same story can be told millions of times today.  Think about the words of an immigrant from Kenya, Warsan Shire,

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”

Maybe I should have more compassion for people in horrible situations?

So, if God broke the Mosaic law, or used a law breaker and an illegal immigrant to bring Jesus to us, lifting love and compassion over law-keeping, what might God think of people today who challenge the law for the cause of love?  Think about it.  

Seeing Through Jesus’ Glasses

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Aniumal glasses

I was raised in a culture that taught us to develop a “Biblical worldview.”  If we break that down, I guess it means to see the world through the lens of the Bible.  Or, to allow the Bible to  inform and influence the way we:

 – see the world.

 – talk about the issues in the world.

 – respond to the issues in the world.

 I appreciate the intent of the instruction. But, I wonder if the instruction falls short? If it is misguided?

You see, The point of the Bible is to guide us to Jesus – at least that’s what Jesus himself says (John 5:39)

So, why settle for a Biblical Worldview when Jesus invites us to a Jesus Worldview?  

Honestly, we don’t really follow the Biblical worldview of stoning disobedient children, sacrificing animals to appease God, slavery, silencing women, and on and on.  So, I really don’t get the “Biblical Worldview” thing.  I can more easily grasp a “Jesus Worldview.” 

Jesus invites us to “Follow me”(Matthew 4:19).  Not a book.  Him.  

“All authority has been given to me,”  Jesus says as an introduction to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).  Did we catch that?  Jesus did not say all authority was given to a book that some guys were going to write.  All authority is given to Him.    

At the close of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenged the hearers not with “The one who hears the words of Moses, or Isaiah and acts on them is like the wise man, but “The one who hears and acts on (does them, practices them) my words is like the wise man” (Matthew 7:24).

I want to wake up each morning with the thought – “Jesus, let me see all things, all people, through your eyes. Give me your worldview.”

I’m teaching a series called “What Would Jesus Say About…”.  We’re diving headfirst into a deep pool.  One thing I’ve noticed is that most of the discussion about these issues from Christians sound similar to the discussions about these issues from people who don’t claim to follow Jesus. We tend to repeat the views and even prejudices of whatever news source we listen to or group we hang out with.  

I’m inviting people to join me in discovering a Jesus perspective of what is going on today. 

I’m asking myself, and encourage others to ask as well:  

“If following Jesus does not influence or transform the way I see and talk about the issues of our day, I wonder what good religion is?”