Honesty IS the best policy (part 1)

To those who read my blog,

Today I am going to start with a question: When someone asks you how you are doing, what is your response?

For me, my response depends on who I am talking to. Last Saturday night I got very little sleep because of a depression related illness. So on Sunday morning, my responses varied from good to tired to terrible (but with an explanation as to why). When I answered ‘terrible’ I would add in, “but God is good”. In fact, when my pastor and I talked about it, I mentioned why I thought God was good despite my illness.

However, one of my responses was still a lie. I answered “good”. Why would I answer “good” when I know for a fact I was not “good”?

This is not something new in life lived out here in Canada. “How are you doing?” says one person.

“Oh, I’m fine” says the second in response while thinking about how they just got dumped, or they are having family issues, or they feel incredibly lonely, or whatever. The point is, we lie to people all the time about how we feel. But why?

Some may argue that it’s to not draw attention to an issue or to keep private what needs to be private. First off, you can do that without lying. I told you that one of my responses was, “tired”. That was true! Staying up until 5am meant that I was going to be tired the next day. I can answered “tired” and then remark how it was a long night without lying OR without going into details about why it was a long night. If someone were to ask for more details, I could easily respond by telling asking them to pray for me, but I shouldn’t give more details.

Second, what’s with the secrecy? Does this person hate you? If so, why does it matter if they know you’re not well? I think the worst it could do is give them some sort of satisfaction in your pain, but honestly? That’s just a terrible problem on their part and they really should look into getting some therapy. The best it can do is show that the two of you have common ground which could be the bridge that needed to be built in order for the person to overcome their hatred of you.

However, if they love you (which, by the way, I was at church so I am sure that these people do in fact love me) then don’t they deserve to know you are in pain? One of the reasons we love others is so that we can share in their pain. That may sound odd, but in reality that is one of the reasons we should be loving one another.

As I always do, I look to the example of Jesus. He surrounded Himself with friends. Yeah, sometimes He wanted to be alone, but even in those times of loneliness, He had friends nearby. In Luke 22:39 and 40, we read that Jesus went up to the Mount of Olives to pray. Now this was the time when Jesus was about to be taken in to the authorities and eventually be killed. In fact, a few verses later (Luke 22:42) Jesus asks that what is about to happen be taken away from Him.

The interesting thing about this passage is that when Jesus was praying, it says in verse 41 that He was a “stone’s throw beyond them”. My ESV study Bible tells me that the distance Jesus probably traveled was enough for Him to be alone, but close enough for Him to be overheard by His disciples. He knew that He needed to be alone, but I suspect that He also wanted His friends close by to shoulder His burden a bit. Sure, He was about to do all the heavy lifting, but perhaps having His friends close by at the time was one of the things that gave Jesus the courage to go through with what He knew He had to do. Remember, Jesus was asking His Father to take this next event away from Him. Jesus did not want it, but He was going to go through with it.

Now that last part is full of assumptions and I know that when you make assumptions… well you know the rest! However, it does show how we do need people by our side in order to go forward in this life, ESPECIALLY if we have chosen the harder road of being Christians.

I can see, though, that some people may be uncomfortable with me using those assumptions about Jesus, so I will use another example. When Saul (or Paul as he was called later on) got converted, he tried to join the disciples but they were on edge due to Saul being a former Christian killer. I don’t blame the disciples one bit for being suspicious. However, In Acts 9:27 a guy named Barnabas looked into the situation and came to the defense of Saul. If Barnabas was wrong about Saul and Saul had not in fact changed, then Barnabas was not only probably going to be killed, but so were all the other disciples. But Barnabas took the risk because he probably knew that helping people out with their problems is the right thing to do.

Not convinced? What if there was an example of a prince doing something very similar to what Barnabas did for Paul? In 1st Samuel 19:1-3, it talks about how there was an order to kill David (the same David from the story of David and Goliath) given out by the king of Israel at the time (another Saul… what’s with these guys and murders?). King Saul not only ordered his attendants, but also his own son whose name is Jonathan. Instead, Jonathan told David about the plot, had him go into hiding, and then hatched a plan to inform David about Saul’s reasons to kill David. This plan had at its core risk for both David and Jonathan. I highly doubt that Jonathan would be allowed to live if his father knew what he did for David.

The point of these three stories is this: we need to be willing to let people shoulder some of our pain. If we don’t let them shoulder our pain, we will end up not having the courage to face what we need to face, or not being able to be trusted by new associates, or maybe not even be able to live another day because of plots against us. That last one may not happen often here in Canada, but it is still worth our attention!

Here’s an example from my life: I had a professor at Bible College who had no problem being blunt and honest with me. If he saw something I was doing as sin, he would call me out on it immediately. He pushed me into situations that I found uncomfortable, and called bull crap on me whenever I have a “holier than thou” attitude about sin.

I ended up going to this professor more often than anyone else for advice on how to act righteously. In my mind, I almost had no choice. This guy was not willing to let me do things the easy way just because I had it rough and because of that, I have probably disappointed him multiple times. But he took the risk and he was honest with me, which in turn pushed me to be honest with a lot of people around me. I once told him that I was successful at one of my churches, then he turned to me and said, “Oh yeah? Then why haven’t you asked the elders there for healing prayer for your depression?” He was right! I didn’t take that risk with my elders! In fact, I only took that risk with the pastor. I knew from that point on that I would need to be honest with my pastors, elders, and friends within a given church even at the worst of times! If you turn to James 5 and read it, you’ll see that one of the conditions for healing prayer is a confession of sins. Confessing sins is an embarrassing thing, especially sexual-related ones as there is a lot of shame and guilt attached to sexual sin. However, I am now able to confess a lot of those sins (and a lot of everything else) to my elders because this professor shouldered some of my burden and was brutally honest with me!

So here is the take-away. Be honest with people. If they love you, they will help you when things aren’t good. If they don’t love you, the worst of it is that they’ll think less of you and maybe pass that information along to other people. It doesn’t matter, though, because you’ll never be able to grow if someone doesn’t know what’s going on with you because they may be able to help you in ways that you can never imagine!

This is only the first part. There’s more to this story than just what I have written. In fact, there’s a guy we’ve all been lying to that deserves the truth a lot more and I’ll be talking about that, next time!

In the meantime, may the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost bless and keep you this week, and I hope what I have said helps you out ^_^

-Joshua

Ourselves… Others… How do we Love?

To those who read my blog,

I found that I was avoiding the writing of this particular subject for a while because I didn’t know quite how to approach it and the truth is, I still don’t. But as I write this, it is Wednesday and I try to write these blogs on the weekend so that I can have them edited and out to you by now.

First, some background info.

I was walking to the turf I was going to be fundraising at with a new coworker. She had mentioned how she wanted to live out the rest of her life just living for herself. At that point I vomited out what may be something that is at the root of who I am. I said, “I would kill myself if I only lived for myself”. I used the word ‘vomit’ both because I wanted to let you know how quickly those words left my lips, but also to emphasize to you how much I despise the act of living for yourself.

The girl responded to me by telling me that I should look into Buddhism because with Buddhism I could learn to love myself.

Learn to love myself? I thought I did love myself. Being someone who has struggled with depression (and continues to do so) I have had to go through a lot of personal growth to know for sure if I actually did love myself. It is something I have to be sure of in order to combat some of the scariest thoughts imaginable.

But maybe I was wrong… maybe I don’t truly love myself. Or perhaps I do and something dire would be missing from my life if I didn’t help people. After all, I did say that helping people was at the core of who I am. I love people and I love helping them.

Another thought that occurred to me is that maybe loving people should not be at the core of who someone is. But if that’s the case, why are we commanded to love everyone including our enemies (Matthew 5:43-45)? This also brings up another thing: if loving people is a commandment, then is it just another task? And if so, what is the definition of love?

Wow. So there is a lot of ground to cover here. This is why I have been having trouble with this post. There’s too much wrapped up in it for it to just be a simple pondering.

First thing’s first: What is love? (baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more (sorry but I could not resist)).

First, let’s head to the most referenced Bible passage about love. Starting in verse 4 of 1st Corinthians 13, Paul describes love saying this:

^“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

So here we have a list of what love is. It’s patient, so it will wait. It is kind, so I imagine it to be gentle. It doesn’t boast and it’s humble… wait… verse 5. It is not self seeking. Hm… So is it possible (according to scripture) to love yourself if love is supposed to not be self-seeking?

Well, why not go to the source? What does Jesus have to say about love? When questioned about the commandments, Jesus answers that the two most important commandments are first to love God fully and completely and second to love one another as you would yourself. You can find this answer in Mark 12 and Matthew 22, but my favorite comes from Luke 10:25-37.

However, before we go into Luke, let’s examine what Jesus thinks. In Luke 10, Jesus agrees that the second greatest commandment is “‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (emphasis added)”.

Jesus basis for loving others is the same basis He uses to love Himself. So really, loving yourself is important as it means you have an idea on how to treat other people.

This sounds a lot like what a lot of people call “the Golden Rule” which basically says, “treat others how you would want to be treated”. I believe Jesus is saying something a bit different here. He is saying that you should love people in the same way that you would love yourself. The difference is one is based on desires, and the other is based on an already established way of treating yourself. I can treat people how I want to be treated and give them a whole bunch of gifts because I may want them to give me a gift in return. OR I could treat people to dinner every once in a while because I myself treat myself to dinner here and there.

You see, I think loving yourself is mostly about recognizing the truth about yourself. After all, being humble is all about being honest with who you are and the verse I quoted from 1st Corinthians clearly says that love “rejoices in truth”.

So how do I show love to myself? Well, I take care of myself (for the most part… after all, I should be cutting back on the junk food) I purchase gifts for myself from time-to-time, I spend time with friends, and I go places that are good for me (church, dancing, outside in general… places like that). So I guess if I am going to love others like I love myself, I should take care of others (perhaps buy some people some healthy food, and participate in exorcising with them, purchase gifts for other people, and take others to places that are good for them).

So really, loving others should be wrapped up in how I love myself. Perhaps Christians are most effective at loving themselves when they love others and vice versa. Maybe loving others is a good reminder of how we should take care of ourselves, and maybe if that’s the case, I would die if I didn’t love others because I would forget how to love myself. Maybe it wouldn’t be a physical death, but a spiritual one. Perhaps that’s the truth of the situation!

Here’s something that we need to keep in mind, however. The greatest act of love is that of Jesus dying for our sins. He denied taking care of Himself so that we could have freedom in His name which should speak rather loudly to what value He sees in us. So shouldn’t we, as His followers, be willing to deny ourselves to the point of death? Does that mean we don’t love ourselves? Hardly. Although suicide is never something to aspire to, being a martyr for God is a great thing for a lot of reasons but a big reason is that you will get to see the Father sooner. Don’t kill yourself to see Him sooner, but if the opportunity arises to sacrifice yourself for another, I say go for it!

Though I may not know all of you, I love you all and I hope this entry really speaks to you. Know that as much as I love you, Jesus loves you much, much more and He has taken the fall to raise you back to where you should be. With that in mind, here are a few of questions for you: Are you worth enough to be sacrificed for? If not, why do you think that the Father sent His Son to die on the cross for your sins? If so, then shouldn’t you be willing every single day to sacrifice as much as you got (even your life) for the sake of God and other people?

Sincerely,

Joshua

A Poem as Recompense

To those who read my blog,

I am so very sorry. The topic I chose for last week is a hard one to cover. I find myself knowing what it is I want to convey, but I lack the words to explain it. That and my editor (who usually has my blog edited the next day) has not even responded to my last blog entry meaning a) he’s too busy (he is a missionary and a father of four, after all) or b) he may not understand at all what it is that I am trying to say.

As way of apology, I offer this poem that I wrote as a teenager. It is definitely different than any of my blog entries but I am a firm believer that a piece of art (whether it is drama, paintings, sculptors, or even poetry) has a way of reaching us in ways prose cannot. So without any further stalling, I give you this poem. Enjoy!

Light

By Joshua T. Aitkenhead

He comes at dawn, to reveal a way

One that was hidden before it was day.

Growing ever stronger as day’s middle busts,

Growing ever stranger as day meets dusk.

In Him, truth is seen but casts a shadow

The darkness of an object, his greatest foe.

Yet still He comes, as I have said,

Revealing truth, what most people dread.

___

There you have it. It’s a little obvious and not much of a discussion topic, but I enjoy it, but I enjoy it and I hope you do as well!

Sincerely,

Joshua

PS

For those who have been following my blog for a while, you may have recognized this poem, however when going back and tidying up the entries (i.e. deleting things that really don’t apply to what I want to say) I found this poem with a very terrible spelling error that made two of the lines kind of redundant. It is truly amazing how much mischief one letter can cause! I hope I have your forgiveness for rehashing old material.

The Comfort Zone is the Danger Zone

To those who read my blog,

Since starting this blog up again, I have had to face down some ugly parts of my garden. The weeds of unforgiveness and the thistles of past hurts have been cropping up. I’m reminded of times people have wronged me as I strive to find stories to help relate what I am talking about to something relevant that I myself have been through. After all, I want people to connect with this on a deeper level and if it is some abstract concept instead of personal testimony, it is harder to connect.

By the way, this is one of the reasons Jesus came and became a human. Fully human, by the way. We often forget that part and attribute His ability to remain perfect to the fact that He is fully God. No, He remained perfect so we have an example of someone doing it right. He came from His high position and He dwelt with us so that He could be there in the most uncomfortable positions. That’s where I want to take this post, today; into the uncomfortable.

Here’s a question I struggle with; why did Jesus go from up on high, where He was at the right hand of God to us, where He had to deal with weakness, pain, humiliation, and finally the worst kind of death? I know the answer. I struggle with the answer, but I know it. If you are a Christian, you probably know the answer as well. In fact, if we have been doing our job right, secular people should know why as well.

Love. It was love that brought Jesus to earth. It was love that drove Him to live among us. In fact, one of the most famous stories of Jesus dealing with the pain of life came at a time when Jesus was showing just how loving He is.

John 11 talks about a time when Jesus visited a friend who was sick and dying. In fact, the friend was in Judea. There were also spiritual leaders there who wanted to kill Jesus in Judea. Jesus had to make a choice. He could either stay away from people who were trying to kill Him, or He could go to His sick friend and be there for this friend in the most dire of circumstances.

Who, among those reading this, can say they would risk their life just to see a dying friend? There’s a huge lie in North America. The lie is that we have the right to comfort. We don’t. We don’t get to live lives of comfort just because we were born into a comfortable place. Especially because of where our comfort comes from.

For example, I own an ipod. It broke down a few weeks ago when I stupidly left it in a sweater that went through the wash.I want to buy another one soon so I can conveniently listen to music on the train (while ignoring the people around me like the rest of us do, but that’s another blog post for another day). Not only do I want to buy another ipod, but I also want a Wii-U and, when it comes out, a Playstation 4, which are all made in the same terrible factories that treat their employees like trash.

You see, videogames make my life not just more enjoyable, but more comfortable and so I am willing to pay a pretty penny for a good videogame system despite the treatment of other people. In essence, by my purchases, I am claiming that human beings are not worth much. As long as I can make that fat Italian man jump, I don’t care about the impoverished worker who made me playing possible.

I told you all how this blog was forcing me to confront the horrible parts of my garden, and here is one of them. An ugly and horrid bush with thorns made of hypocrisy and brambles made of self-righteousness.

My point is this: often times, our comfort comes at the expense of another person’s well being. That is never right. No, not even once. Earthly kings may ascend the throne by climbing on the backs of others, but the one true King walked away from His throne in order to show us that we worth being saved from damnation!

Comfort is not something we should be striving for! No, instead we should be striving for a life of hardship. We should give up as much as possible in order for God’s name to be lifted up.

Here’s an example. I lived in Ontario for the first nineteen years of my life. In fact, I lived in the same city for all of that time, and for eighteen out of nineteen of those years, I even lived in the same house. But when I was nineteen, I left that place to go to Calgary Alberta. I left my place of comfort in order to go somewhere where I didn’t know many people (I knew two people who were out here and one of them I did not get along with). My comfort was not my first concern. My first concern was what God wanted me to be. I felt the Spirit’s leading into ministry and I followed it.

Kind of a funny thing happened when I did. Even though my life is not the most comfortable, I have built up a life of love and sacrifice. I live with one of my best friends, I have an awesome job, and, probably most important, I go to an amazing church.

Now my mom is sick and she needs my help. I miss Ontario, but it is hard for me to imagine living there apart from the people I have grown to love so much. At one point I was in tears over the revelation that I was giving up my spiritual family for my same-genes family. I’m not saying that I don’t love and cherish my same-genes family. No, what I am saying is that moving back to Ontario scares me and if it I wasn’t so sure that it was the right thing to do, I wouldn’t be doing it. I’d stay a few more years and make more of a life here in Calgary.

But my Father in heaven has not set me up for a comfortable life. As a Christian, He has called me to forego my comfort in exchange for His provision and I will obey because I know He wants the best for me. What is amazing about leaving behind comfort is that I will get the chance to build something new for Jesus. I will get to see new blessings and new adventures!

When Jesus came and made His life among us, He may have given up the ultimate comfort, but He gained much as well. By being Human, He gained far more insight into who we are so that He can stand by us in the worst of times. He also gained us as through His humanity He built the bridge that has allowed us access to God.

Jesus gained a lot from leaving His comfort zone. I also gained when I left Ontario and I will gain again when I move back. What will you gain by embracing danger and leaving comfort?

Sincerely,

Joshua

Brain Hurdles

To those who read my blog,

Last week I talked about how it is important to accept people no matter what. This week, I am going to talk a bit about biases but the conversation will for sure go back to the idea of acceptance. For those who do not regularly follow my blog I’ll sum up what I said last time.

Acceptance is one of the most important things we can do as Christians. Jesus commanded us to reach out to everyone. It doesn’t matter if the person is steeped in sin, or if they aren’t the most socially acceptable (whether that be because of  looks, attitudes, or awkwardness) or if the person holds to a theology you don’t agree with. If the person walks through the church doors, you accept them. In fact, if they walk into your life, then accept them. In fact, if you hear about them, accept them.

One of the things that keeps us from accepting people is holding onto biases. When I first started attending Asian churches I grew suspicious of any white guy in the congregation thinking he was only there to get an “exotic” date so it was hard for me to accept white guys. And then I would look in the mirror and realize that, hey, I’m a white guy who is genuinely there to worship our amazing triune God! You should know that I don’t hold that bias anymore.

Biases have a way of creeping up on us and it’s hard to acknowledge them, let alone deal with them. Sure, these biases keep us from reaching out to people, but they do something else as well. They hurt us and help us while reading the Bible. For this reason, we need to do deeper study of the word of God, but first let’s look at how biases play out in our worship experience.

There are a lot of people out there who, when asked why they like their church, will answer, “well, the preacher just preaches the Bible”. That’s kind of a weird statement to make. Even the worst church I have ever attended used the Bible for preaching. It’s not an unusual thing. In fact, an unusual thing is for a church NOT to use the Bible. So what do these people actually mean? Well one thing they could mean (and I’ve run into this time and time again) is that their church is non-denominational which means it doesn’t have any rules imposed on it except for the rules imposed by the Bible. They only follow the Bible because that’s all they got.

Except, that’s not all they got, is it? Here is where I may get a little controversial. You see, I would not go to a non-denominational church. Not because there is no non-denominational church that is good (I bet a lot of them are good) but because if you don’t have something in writing telling people what you believe, then how will anyone know what you believe?

You might say, “but Joshua, the whole point of this is that they DO have something in writing… the Bible!”

Awesome. But the thing is, the Bible is FULL of grey area! Besides that, people get passionate about different ideas. Here is my denomination’s statement of faith:

“1 - God

There is one God,¹ who is infinitely perfect,² existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.³

2 - Jesus

Jesus Christ is true God and true man.⁴ He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.⁵ He died upon the cross, the Just for the unjust, as a substitutionary sacrifice, and all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood. He arose from the dead according to the Scriptures.⁶ He is now at the right hand of the Majesty on high as our great High Priest.⁷ He will come again to establish His kingdom of righteousness and peace.⁸

3 - Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is a divine Person, sent to indwell,⁹ guide, teach and empower the believer, and to convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.¹⁰

4 - Bible

The Old and New Testaments, inerrant as originally given, were verbally inspired by God and are a complete revelation of His will for the salvation of people. They constitute the divine and only rule of Christian faith and practice.¹¹

5 - Sin

Humankind, originally created in the image and likeness of God,¹² fell through disobedience, incurring thereby both physical and spiritual death. All people are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God, and can be saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.¹³ The destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment, but that of the believer is everlasting joy and bliss.¹⁴

6 - Freedom from Sin

Salvation has been provided only through Jesus Christ. Those who repent and believe in Him are united with Christ through the Holy Spirit and are thereby regenerated (born again), justified, sanctified and granted the gift of eternal life as adopted children of God.¹⁵

7 - Christian Living

It is the will of God that in union with Christ each believer should be sanctified thoroughly¹⁶ thereby being separated from sin and the world and fully dedicated to God, receiving power for holy living and sacrificial and effective service toward the completion of Christ's commission.¹⁷

This is accomplished through being filled with the Holy Spirit which is both a distinct event and progressive experience in the life of the believer.¹⁸

8 - Healing

Provision is made in the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ for the healing of the mortal body. Prayer for the sick and anointing with oil as taught in the Scriptures are privileges for the Church in this present age.¹⁹

9 - Church

The universal Church, of which Christ is the Head, consists of all those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, are redeemed through His blood, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and commissioned by Christ to go into all the world as a witness, preaching the Gospel to all nations.²⁰

The local church, the visible expression of the universal Church, is a body of believers in Christ who are joined together to worship God, to observe the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, to pray, to be edified through the Word of God, to fellowship, and to testify in word and deed to the good news of salvation both locally and globally. The local church enters into relationships with other like-minded churches for accountability, encouragement and mission.²¹

10 - Life after death

There shall be a bodily resurrection of the just and of the unjust; for the former, a resurrection unto life;²² for the latter, a resurrection unto judgment.²³

11 - Second Coming of Christ

The second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is imminent and will be personal and visible.²⁴ As the believer’s blessed hope, this vital truth is an incentive for holy living and sacrificial service toward the completion of Christ's commission.^25”

You can find that on my denomination's website (www.cmac.org) or by just clicking this sentence which will take you to the page in question. If you notice, there are a bunch of endnotes posted in the quote. If you go to the website, you can see that they are using the endnotes for Bible verses. Everything from their statement of faith is supported by the Bible.

Now, to make my point about grey area, look at point 8 which reads, “Provision is made in the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ for the healing of the mortal body. Prayer for the sick and anointing with oil as taught in the Scriptures are privileges for the Church in this present age.”. Did you know there are some people who do not believe in healing that happens today? In fact, some of you reading this may even be asking yourself, “healing? That doesn’t happen!”. However, there may be some of you who read this and say, “Yup. I agree. It totally happens”.

I believe in healing because of two events. First, when I first began my walk with Jesus in the garden, my dad had a cancer scare. I prayed for my dad one night and as soon as I said ‘amen’, there was a lightning flash. Yes, yes. I know. That could be a coincidence but when that lightning happened, for some reason, I knew my prayer was answered. Sure enough, a week later I went to the doctor’s office with my dad and though there was cancer, it had not spread and the doctors got rid of all of it when they took a sample for their testing.

The second event happened a few years ago. I headed up prayer at my college’s youth event and I was praying over someone who had other responsibilities but couldn’t do them due to sickness. I prayed for her with a group of people and she became better. No lightning this time. No big event, either. She just got better.

I like both those stories in tandem because they illustrate how God works in the big (healing my dad of cancer is big in my opinion) and He also works in the small (a “mild” healing of someone so they could do their job). It also shows that God speaks in a loud voice (through lightning and thunder) and in a whisper (just letting someone get better)

However, I like these stories for another reason. I witnessed these things happen. I was with my dad when he got the news. I was there at the event when this worker got better. I prayed, God worked, healing happened. I like these stories because they influence my opinion of healing.

Some people never see God heal. I think that is a crying shame. However, they may not bother even asking God to heal anymore because, why would they? They asked and there was no miracle, so why would they assume that God heals?

So when I come to a passage in the Bible that talks about healing, I nod my head and say, “my God is so very great and He heals today!”. When someone who has not had an experience with healing comes to those passages, they may think, “My God is so great, He healed people to demonstrate His power when the Church was young”.

Both are valid statements that are shaped by experience. I would be more than willing to share my experiences with the person who does not believe in healing, but he could think that I am making it up, or it was just a coincidence, or any number of things. I wouldn’t mind either way. The person knows Jesus which is awesome. They don’t need my experiences to push them further into His love. I would want them to believe in healing and I believe it would only enhance their experience of God, but I would not push my belief on them.

You see, biases shape what we think and how we operate. A pastor who never had experience with healing may not believe it happens today and therefore would not put a time of healing into the worship service, whereas I, who do believe in healing, would definitely want it to be part of worship.

This is why I would not go to a non-denominational church. I don’t know what they believe and their biases could very well shape a completely different picture of God and may even shape a picture of God that I do not agree with at all! I want that statement which says, “Alright, this is what we believe. Every time we hire a pastor, they will be asked if they agree with this. If they don’t, we won’t hire them.”

Here’s another example: I once foolishly thought that AIDS was a judgment by God on people who are sexually promiscuous. You see, I never have left Canada and so I don’t know anything about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. A fellow youth worker was kind enough to tell me how it wasn’t just the sexually promiscuous who were getting the disease. It was also children who were born into it and also rape victims. People who should never have gotten such a fate were forced into having the disease because of circumstance and unwanted sexual activity.

In fact, there are probably a lot of people here in North America who were never sexually promiscuous but maybe had sex one time, or maybe sex was forced on them and then boom, they had it! My narrow thinking led me to deny people who were in tremendous pain.

I mentioned earlier that biases hurt and help. My bias toward healing was formed out of experience. If I did not have the first experience with my dad’s healing, I may not have been willing to pray for the second experience. My bias helped shape my idea of how the trinity works to bring about health.

However, my biases when talking about AIDS hurt my view of people. If I were to have volunteered at a hospital with AIDS victims at that time, I could seriously have hurt those people by being rude to them. Not because I believe being rude is a good thing but because I was letting my biases form an unjust opinion.

Accepting a Treasure

To those who read my blog,

It’s been a while since I cared enough about my life to actually do something like this so I am trying to get back into it. I’ve asked a lot of people I respect about which topics they wish to see and today I am going to be addressing a topic given to me by a spiritual friend who has had trouble with the Church lately. I make mention of this because, well, if we are all honest then I think we can say that we have all had trouble with the Church in the past (and possibly presently as well).

The issue she asked me to talk about was acceptance and unconditional love. This is a topic I know well. I was not accepted in my first youth group. I was an outsider that people never really seemed to want around. I was also not accepted by a lot of my peers at the Bible College I went to. There was an “in crowd” that treated me and a lot of others as if we were beneath them. In a way, I’m glad it happened to me. You see, when I became a Christian, it wasn’t because my family members were Christians (although they were) and it wasn’t because I saw how amazing Christian fellowship was, but it was because I had a real encounter with Jesus Christ that I could not ignore. So when I became a Christian, I didn’t need to base my faith on anything except Jesus Christ. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t struggle with my faith when people around me were being jerks in the name of Jesus, it just means it was a bit easier for me to deal with because, well, Jesus, man!

Not everyone is that lucky. In fact, most people are not. Most people base their opinion of Jesus on how His followers act. I’m going to come out and say that that is an acceptable thing to base your opinion of a belief system on. If the people who follow the belief system are good people, then it follows that it is a good belief system.

Here’s an example: I’m a brony. That is to say, I am someone who genuinely loves the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Not only do I love that show, the lessons it teaches are lessons I carry with me from day to day and they help me live a good and honest life. One day I was sitting in a café playing chess with someone, and because I was being silly, I boldly proclaimed that the “knight piece” I had was now called “Fluttershy” after my favorite pony from the show. A girl who I did not know turned to me and offered her fist in a friendly “bro hoof” which is basically just a fist bump. She and I talked for a few minutes and then I went back to my game of chess. As me and the person I was with got up to leave, this young woman offered me a picture of Fluttershy if Fluttershy was a human. She had drawn it in the time between finding out that I was a fan of the show and when I got up to leave. She didn’t expect money for it and we never met beforehand. She was generous and kind. I have never encountered that when people found out I was a fan of any other show around. This was unique to me being a brony.

Based on the evidence I gathered from that encounter, I can make an assumption the belief system of My Little Pony promotes kindness and generosity to strangers. If I wanted to make an assumption about Christianity based on my experiences as a teenager and at school, I can safely say that Christians are clique oriented and if you are different or awkward, then no, you do not belong.

That’s a funny spot to arrive at given that Jesus was notorious for hanging out with social outcasts, sinful messes, and the extremely poor. Story after story in the Gospels paint Jesus as the most open man who has ever lived which begs the question, how can we justify not accepting people?

The short answer is that we can’t. It just cannot be done. I now go to a church that doesn’t exclude people. I know because I go there and I wasn’t excluded. If you show the smallest bit of interest at that church, people will come around you and you will have what one of my friends called, a “friendsplosion”. People gather around you and make you feel at home. When I first started going, I didn’t trust anyone there because my experience with Christians for the most part was negative. How could I trust this group of people when no one was genuine with me before? Now I don’t even think about it. Now I know better. These people I spend most of my weekend with are genuinely accepting people. This makes me want to bring people to my church and a few months ago, I actually invited someone from my work. To be honest, I never really felt comfortable inviting people to my church at the last two churches I went to and they were more accepting than my first youth group and my school.

So here is my question: how did the Canadian part of the Church become so exclusive? How did we turn our back on one of the most basic lessons the Bible teaches us? Well, I will attempt to answer this question using examples from my own life. I will also come up with clever names for each category because, why not?

#1 – Silly sinner, friends are for the righteous!

A former professor of mine likes to challenge his students by asking them if they are sinners saved by grace, or saints who sometimes sin. The point of this question is to get you to start re-evaluating who you think you are. When you start out from a place like the sinner, maybe you’ll never get any better because, well, you’re a sinner. But if you start out from a place like the saint, then maybe you can leave the sins behind because you’re a saint!

Regardless of the position, the problem is sin and sin is something that members of the Church should want to get rid of. But how do you do that? A former friend of mine had a simple solution for combating this problem. He would simply stop spending time with you if your life is heading in a bad direction. A year ago, that was me. I was in a bad relationship that I did not want to get out of because it was just easier than being single. I made some attempts to hang out with this guy but he blew me off each time. I called him on it once and he seemed to have a legit excuse, but he kept with the same attitude and I got the hint that something was up. Eventually, I got frustrated and called him on it.

I found out that he was avoiding me because I was in this relationship with this woman and he felt we were growing apart. My life had sin in it and he didn’t want to get dragged into it. So, rather than helping me with my problem, he avoided me. He also told me that he did the same thing with a friend he knew from home who had left the church. That struck me as odd. Here I was, someone who was a close friend to him, and he was avoiding me because it was easier than helping me out of my foolishness. Also, to make matters worse, I was not the first person he did that to.

What I gathered from this was that when trouble arises, it’s better to just walk away than deal with it. Jesus doesn’t operate like that. Peter, on the night Jesus was arrested, cut off a guard’s ear (contrary to Jesus’ peaceful demeanor) and then later Peter lied about even knowing Jesus. Did Jesus leave Peter after that, or did Jesus, when He was resurrected, go to Peter and encourage him? If you don’t know the answer, then you may have a skewed portrait of who Jesus is. Jesus was there for Peter. Jesus loved Peter and wanted the best for him. If someone is going through a tough time, don’t just give up on them. Be there for them. There may come a time when someone refuses help and nothing you do or say will convince them otherwise, but that time comes when you make an effort in the first place.

#2 – The Ugly Duckling

When I say ugly, I don’t just mean outward, although that happens too much in this world. No, I also mean ugly behavior. Whether you’re awkward, violent, or not too bright, if your actions seem different then forget about going to a local church.

In grade 8 I met a kid that I will call Doug. Doug did not know how to act around other people and it was obvious. I went to a school with a lot of social outcasts (it was a school for people who had… “trouble” with their regular school) and he was made an outcast by even them and, I am ashamed to say, even me. Now I was not a Christian at the time, but it does not excuse how monstrous I was to Doug.

I made fun of Doug. If he said something weird, I pointed it out. If he wrote a story, I would criticize it (even if I didn’t read it). If he drew a picture, I would point out every flaw. I was an absolute terrible person to Doug and if I could, I would apologize to him today. I would sit down and buy him coffee and beg for his forgiveness. If he didn’t give me his forgiveness, I would completely understand. There is no amount of gold I could give to that man to make up for how terrible I was to him.

The bigger problem that surrounded this was that I was also awkward. Now, I did not know it at the time, but still, I was (and still am to a degree) an awkward person. How could I, as an awkward person, tear down someone who was also awkward? What kind of person gets pardoned for his bad behavior, but then shows that bad behavior to another? In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a parable about a servant who owes his master some money. The master is begged by the servant to have more time. The master agrees. The first servant then happens upon another servant who owes less money to the first servant. The first servant demands payment from the other servant and will not listen to the cries of the second servant. When the master found out, he was furious and had the first servant jailed for being a huge hypocrite. That was me, by the way. I mean, that story wasn’t literally about me, but it may as well have been. At this school for the socially awkward, I was given a new lease on life to develop into a better person free from people constantly tearing me down. Instead, I chose to tear down someone else.

We have this standard of human being. Advertisements are notorious for this. They’ll show an ad of a tall, skinny, big breasted woman because obviously that is the only type of woman around. Anything less is unacceptable. The Church should not operate like an advertisement. If someone does not exactly fit the bill, then they should be welcomed as much as the person who supposedly does fit the bill.

This is not fake acceptance, either. This is not, “well, we have to accept him so let’s just accept him to his face and talk crap behind his back”. No, this is true, honest to God acceptance, where you love this person despite of (or maybe even because of) their flaw. One of the reasons I may fit in so well at my church is because I’ve heard it said that we’re all a little awkward. Perhaps my awkwardness is endearing to them because they know they are off as well. The good news is, everyone is a bit off. Only one human started off perfect, and He has been keeping it up since!

The ugly duckling from the story ended up being a swan which is much more beautiful than any duck. Shouldn’t we just treat people according to what they could be rather than what they are? Shouldn’t we just love them where they are at, rather than demanding more of them?

#3 - Mr. Wrong

Oh boy, here we go. Mr. Wrong is an interesting fellow. He walks into the church, sits in a seat, listens to the sermon, goes out for lunch with the others and he opens his mouth aaaaaand… crazy-limited-viewpoint! The thing about Mr. Wrong is that normally you will not meet him at a church unless everyone else at that church shares his viewpoint! No, you’ll meet Mr. Wrong on the street or the bus, or while waiting in line for something. It’s not even that he’s wrong about the topic he’s talking about, it’s that he forces his opinion down everyone’s throat and the opinion he has is more of a grey area in the bible than an absolute truth.

Here’s my example. Before going away to college, I attended a men’s retreat. The retreat featured a group of people who believed in a literal seven day creation which means they believe that the earth is only around six thousand years old. Here’s where things got dicey. They also believed that if you didn’t believe in a literal seven days, then you didn’t truly believe the bible. The extension of that argument is that you aren’t a Christian if you don’t believe in a literal seven days.

I was hooked. I bought that load so fast, it could make your head spin! Then I went to college and one of the first views that challenged me was the seven day creation. I was so adamant about proving my view that I did a research paper on it. Let me tell you something. If you ever want to keep believing what you believe in its entirety without the view changing at all, then NEVER do research! Research will be your worst enemy. I emerged from that paper and left the idea of being a seven day creationist behind.

Since then I have been called a non-Christian on several occasions by children, fellow students, and random church people. All because I said that I do not believe in a literal seven day creation. This is weird, because I’m pretty sure Romans 10:9 says that, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Did I read that correctly? Is there an addition that says, “oh, also if you don’t believe in a literal seven day creation, you’re going straight to the fiery pits of hell”? For those who have never read that verse before I will tell you that no, there is no addition to it. If you want a relationship with Jesus, it is as easy as accepting Him as your lord and believing what He did for you was true!

Does this mean that when someone comes into a local church, we should accept whatever they say? Nope. First off, no one’s theology is perfect. Theology is the study of God. Studies come from man. For the most part, man is not perfect so therefore theology is not perfect. I believe all my theology is right, but that’s because I believe it. If someone were to call me on something, I would have to listen to them and consider their advice because I may be wrong on something. If someone were to walk into the church and tell me that Jesus is one god, the Father is another, and the Spirit is another still (rather than the wonderful one God in three persons that actually are). I would be more than willing to sit down with that person and explain to them the beauty of the Holy Trinity and why that is something that cannot be changed. Does that mean that person should not be accepted by the Church? They should for sure be accepted! Jesus loves them, so why shouldn’t I? Just because someone is wrong about something, it doesn’t mean they are not welcomed by Jesus or Christians and it also doesn’t mean they can’t be a Christian because they totally can be a Christian! God works on hearts all the time and beyond that, opinions change. The person who thinks abortion is awesome one day, may really be sickened by it the next.

#4 – Rejection of the Rejecter!

For this one, I don’t have a story but it was imperative that I talk about it. If you come across someone who isn’t accepting people, you cannot use that as an excuse to not accept them. Jesus accepted everyone. You may run across one of the first three people on this list and they may be doing terrible things, but it is not your place to reject them. Instead, refer to Matthew 18:15 and 16.

I personally have trouble doing this and I need to work hard in order for this completely inappropriate behavior to be eradicated from my life. It may be hard, but it is truly necessary. Everyone deserves to be accepted… even those who do not accept others. If they will not listen to you about their sin, then there is not a lot you can do, but you can at least try.

____

I am sure there are other ways people get rejected by the Church, but I hope you get my point by now. Jesus did not come to save us just so we could pick and choose who else could be saved. Instead of hurting people by not accepting them, let’s reach out to everyone using unconditional love. That means it doesn’t matter what their biases are. You love them because that’s what you do if you’re a Christian. And if you don’t love loving them, then find out what is wrong with you instead of finding ways to avoid them.

I titled this blog entry “Accepting a Treasure” because that is what every person is. They are a treasure. It doesn’t matter how much sin they have committed, or how awkward they are, or how different their viewpoint is. They are a treasure and deserve love no matter what. I’m going to work hard to accept people. You should as well!

-Joshua

The New You

To those who read my blog,

Today I was walking with a good friend (one who I hope to spend a lot of time with this summer). He mentioned recently reading a verse he was in lately. It was Romans 6:1-4. I owe this man a debt of gratitude because he helped me work out a bit more of what I believe with what the Father does to us when we have the Son and the Spirit is sent to bring us back to where the triune God intended us to be. I am hoping I am not too off-base with this, but it really did strike me. So here’s the verse:

¹ What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

A danger we have to face as Christians is that when we start thinking about grace, we see it as being this free gift. We distance ourselves from the ‘saved by works’ train of thought so much that we end up using this free gift as much as we want.

Let me make something clear: I do not for one second believe we are saved by works. I may feel that way sometimes in my heart, but in my mind I know that we are saved by grace and grace is a free gift.

But when we start focusing too much on the ‘free gift’ we sometimes throw morality out the window. We justify things in our minds even though in our hearts, we may know what we are doing is extremely wrong. We forget about morality.

And when that happens, we become something dangerous. We speak about a loving God who wants to bring peace into this world and redeem every man, woman, and child but we live in such a way that promotes violence and anti-Christ behavior.

I have experienced people who work in Churches who look down on people as if they are above certain people. I known of women who have been on worship teams but who have also cheated on their husbands. I have heard terrible stories of regular attendees to a local Church who have raped their little girl; their own daughter! I know of people who wear crosses or will have Jesus’ name tattooed on their body and they will do terrible things to another person or to people in general.

These people continue sinning so that grace may increase and in doing so, they damage themselves and the people Jesus also died for. They take down the Church with their actions because for them, morality can take a dive. They have grace to fall back on.

I am also one of these people. There have been times when I have spoken of God’s greatness or have gone to Church and sung my heart out, or have listened to a sermon with a friend and then I have gone completely against God’s design for my life and did a stupid thing that hurt someone who I should loves deeply and who God already loves much more than anything I can muster.

But that isn’t me. Or rather, it isn’t me anymore. Sure, it’s a mask that I often visit, but it’s not me. It’s not who I am. I still own the sin. It is still mine, but what makes this so tragic is that I am now a saint and should not have anything to do with sin and yet I sin nonetheless.

I am a saint. I became a saint and ditched the identity of sinner when I asked Jesus to enter me, to guide me. To form me. You see, what I realized today as I walked and talked with my good friend is that when Jesus came into my life, he brought me over to a new reality and I stood face-to-face with a man I have never seen before. Jesus introduced me into who I was supposed to be before I welcomed sinfulness as my identity.

Why would I for one second even think about continuing in sin when I have met someone who is me and is closer to who I was always supposed to be than I am right now? In verse 4 Paul says, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

A new life. The old me is dead, why would I ever go back to death when I have this brand spanking new life to live?

I’ll tell you why I go back. It’s because I look at this new guy (let’s call him Joshua) and I get scared.

Joshua Proper is good with his money. Joshua works hard on all of his assignments and gets the grades he deserves even if they are only worth a ‘c’. Joshua  thinks before he talks. Joshua talks to people as soon as he has issue with them and apologizes for even a moment of bitterness. Joshua  stands up to the people who mistreat him without being sinful in what he says or does.

In short, Joshua  is a really great guy and I don’t have the balls to be him when it’s so much easier to just be Josh. By the way, for those who wondered about this; you know how I go by Joshua and not by Josh? That was not an accident or a preference drilled into me by my parents. It was a choice. Josh was someone who lived only for himself whereas Joshua is a man who tries to live for Christ even when he spends a lot of time in failure which is why I actually do hate it when people call me Josh. That’s not who I am anymore despite all my sin.

I want to live as Joshua and not as Josh because God designed me as Joshua and not as Josh. I want to do it, but I’m scared and sometimes just plain stupid. I know the benefits of being a morally upright person in all ways and I know that is what Jesus had planned for me. I know that leaving sin behind will mean I will be showing more love to my fellow man and woman. I know that not sinning will help me enjoy life a lot more because even though there is a lot more hardship in what we do when we avoid the easy way, there is a lot more joy in knowing that we are acting in God’s plans and His plans speak love into creation. I know these things and I want these things but Joshua is a hard man to be and maybe I’m just lazy.

Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? Not a chance! Jesus has so much more for us. He has made us new! We do not need to return to death at all! All we need to do is live the life Jesus wants us to live. That may be scary, it will require sacrifice, it may not be easier or even happier, but it will bring joy into your world, and that joy will spill out into the world of those around you.

-Joshua (not Josh)