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)

The Toxic Substance Known as Fear

To those who read my blog,

I have not talked to you for quite sometime and in fact, I have not been talking to a lot of people for a long time. Namely I have not been talking to one person who has been wanting to have a sit down with me for quite some time, but I have been avoiding Him like the plague for a while. Before I get into that, I want to share with you something I learned a while ago and had ingrained within me but for some reason have personally ignored it completely while proclaiming the truth of it for all to hear, because apparently I like being a lousy jerk of a hypocrite.

God hates fear. What God provides is love and that is the opposite of love. If you want to make any true impact for God in Jesus’ name, then get fear out of you and know His true love. Fear is only going to hold you back. If Jesus is calling you to more, then you must sacrifice anything that resembles fear because it does not belong in you and it’s going to make it hard for God to use you in what He wants you to do.

To illustrate, I want to quote something out of the book of Daniel found in the Old Testament. The story should be familiar to anyone who grew up going to Sunday School, but here it is. I stop at a certain place and if you don’t know the story, then please don’t read any more right now but wait until you’ve read the last of this blog entry before looking it up on biblegateway.com or your fancy non-electronic version of the Bible you might have (you lucky person, you). If you do know the story, pretend that you don’t when you go through this. It will help illustrate my point a bit better.

Daniel 3:8-18

^“8 At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. ⁹ They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, "O king, live forever! ¹⁰ You have issued a decree, O king, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, ¹¹ and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace. ¹² But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, O king. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up."

¹³ Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, ¹⁴ and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? ¹⁵ Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?"

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." ”

Did you notice how the story is not over yet? If you stop reading here, you don’t know if Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego make it out alive or not and I am not going to tell you whether or not they do.

That’s not the point. The point is their attitude towards the whole thing. They know that they are going to be walking into a furnace, but they do not know if they are going to be walking out again.

I mean, read verses 16-18 again. The three guys basically say, “Our God will probably save us from this mess, but even if He doesn’t, the furnace is a lot better than serving something false.

The king tried to put fear into the hearts of these guys by threatening them with a painful death. They responded in loving obedience to God by not even entertaining that fear for a second but trusting that their God loves them too much to want them to devote any attention to a god that is not the true God of Israel.

So now here it comes. “How is Joshua T. Aitkenhead a hypocrite?” you might be asking. Well I’ll tell you. Although I have been pretty harsh to some people (one person in particular) for entertaining fears instead of trusting God (when they may have been trusting God the whole time anyways and I’ve only been thinking that they were not) I have not been living a life without fear. My fears are different. I fear God, but not in a good and respectable ‘Old Testament, fear the LORD almighty” sort of way. No, I have been fearing that He will not provide (which is utter bull crap). I also have been fearing myself. I fear that even if He does provide, I will just end up messing up His provisions so much that they will be utterly useless. Because I think I have screwed up everything He has given me.

Here’s just one example of a billion illustrations from my life where I feel I have screwed everything up beyond redemption:

A few weeks ago, I treated a person like utter trash because of a rumor about his friends that wasn’t even true. I had no reason to treat this excellent human being like any less than what they are, but I did and not even because he did anything to me, but because of rumors of what his friends apparently did to me (but they really didn’t). Lucky for me, God is forgiving and so is this man, but I look at experiences like that and I feel as if I just messed things up beyond the point of redemption.

And so I have not been talking to Jesus. Because I fear He will not provide, and I fear that even if He does provide, I’ll just throw it out the window or mess it up in some way.

In the middle of writing this blog, I took a break to stop and talk with Him. Things are about to get a lot more intense for me if I listen to what He had to say to me tonight. I just hope I can ditch these useless fears in order to walk in what He wants from me.

Much love from a place of great pain and confusion,

Joshua

Do You Remember That Time We Were Supposed to be Love to the World?

To those who read my blog,

It’s been a while, but something has come up that I needed to address: Love and our lack of it.

As many of you (if not all) should know, Japan had suffered a major natural disaster of an 8.9 level earthquake in Northern Japan which also resulted in a powerful tsunami. I may have been one of the first Canadians to hear about it as my roommate is a missionary kid from Japan and his family is there right now. I was beside him when he was online late at night getting the news.

The next day all the facebook statuses changed. Here in Canada they changed to things like, “praying for our brothers and sisters in Japan♥”, “God please help Japan...”, and “…is joining in prayer for Japan”.

That last one attracted the attention of an atheist who asked what would prayer do which then had Christians responding in a way to defend their faith, which then turned to insulting the atheist in question.

The important matter of Japan needing prayer and other forms of help was put to the side so people could defend their faith by insulting a fellow human being. Let that sink in for a moment. We completely ditched the Jesus inspired action of looking out for a fellow human beings in order to tear into a fellow human being. That is terrible.

What’s worse are the facebook statuses I only presume came from  South of the Border. For those interested, here they are! The most disturbing comment came from one ‘Mike Sellitto’ in which he says, “Hell yeah that’s right japan 3-1 you may have had pearl harbor but we got Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and, since God is on our side, we have this. SCOOOREEEBOOOAARRDD” (emphasis added).

Really Mike? God is on our side? You just reminded us that we dropped bombs on Japan causing not just the deaths of not just people guilty of allying with the Germans in the war, but also the people in Japan who did not support the war (and if you tell me there was not a single Japanese person who was against a massive war who was also living in Hiroshima, then I will kindly tell you that you are full of it and if you ask me what “it” is, you will hear a slew of profanities not right for public speech). Not only them, but the generations who followed had a string of bad luck in getting leukemia (because of the after effects of a nuclear bomb being dropped).

Most of the people in that picture called it Karma. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and so 70 years later a tsunami hit. One guy even went as far as to say the war started because of Pearl Harbor (which is a stupid thing to me as I know very little about history and even I know that the war started before that in Europe and America did nothing about the cruelty put on the people getting hurt in that war until a few years later when Pearl Harbor got hit). What did the Americans do in response to Pearl Harbor? Well first off they made sure all the Japanese in their country were neutralized by taking people out of their homes and putting them in camps (basically imprisoning people because of their ethnic background… kind of like that guy Hitler was doing but not to the same extent). If you’d like to learn a bit about this without research, check out this song by Fort Minor called Kenji:

 

Here’s another history lesson: In 1945 The Americans ordered a surrender on July 26th and on August 6th the bomb was dropped. No warning shots, nothing. The worst type of bomb ever made dropped on a country because of a miscommunication (seriously, read this article on what happened when Japan was asked to surrender). The war was not started by a conflict between Japan and and America, but it sure as hell ended because of one!

I have a question. Where in all of this is Jesus? When a status is posted proclaiming that we should be praying for Japan and some goes on a rant about there being no god… is it our place to argue with them and forget about the bigger picture? Or do you think Jesus wants us to ignore those comments and maybe even delete those comments so that our eyes can be on the prize (the prize being coming to the aid of a nation who needs us?)

Ok so let’s do a little test. A comparison test. Here is an article that basically tells of how South Koreans are helping Japan. The test is to see which Christian culture did the best job of representing Jesus.

Pearl Harbor:

Pearl Harbor sucked. I would not know personally, but I bet it sucked a lot for americans. But do you know what else sucks? Because of Pearl Harbor, innocent Japanese people got placed in internment camps and their homeland gets bombed at a questionable time in the war (right near the end and only after around 11 days of negotiations).

A few years later a bad thing happens to Japan and a lot of people start saying the same thing in a different way: we will NEVER forgive you for Pearl Harbor!”

Major Oppression Lasting Years:

From 1592-1598 Japan invaded Korea. Between 1910-1945, Japan controled the nation of Korea. I’ve heard that one thing that Japanese would do is cut down all the trees in Korea because Koreans held trees to be quite special. This was a travesty and mean-spirited. I think a similar act would be if I went to the USA after it was taken over and started hunting the bald eagle to extinction.

A few years later a bad thing happens to Japan and how does Korea act? Well here's another thing you should look at to know how Korea acted. Basically, Korea showed that they had forgiven the Japanese for what they have done and even now offer support to people that were tormentors.

One of my profs once said, WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) is not the right thing to be asking. The right thing to be asking is WIJD (What is Jesus doing). Well, what is He doing? Is He busy getting into arguments with atheists to the point of insulting them thereby taking the stance that Japan is not worth talking about? Is He joining the whole karma kraze that seems to have swept into the minds of a few Americans?

Or is He doing something wonderful, like forgiving Japan for Pearl Harbor and a conquering of a people? Is he mending the hearts of entire countries who were at odds for so very long?

The first “Christian nation” North America (yes we’re lumped into this as well) has said, “We will never forget what’s happened and we will continue to hold you to your sins because of all that you have done to us”. They said it through their actions of being outraged with their governments support of Japan, and the fact that some people are keeping a score board.

Another Christian country took a stand and said, “though we will not forget our past, we will not let it dictate our futures. We will forgive Japan and show them love”. they said this through their actions of coming to the aid of Japan.

Where is Jesus in this? You tell me. Look at the story of the Good Samaritan…. a guy who got mugged and was ignored because of whatever reasons, but was picked up by someone whose ethnicity is at war with the ethnicity of the person he is now protecting and providing for. Tell me, what did Jesus mean when He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”?

I will end this blog off with a video. I think it sums up for me how I feel about all of this craziness.

 

What will I do? I don’t quite know the specifics yet, but prayer is going to be there. Possibly my bank account will take another hit. Japan deserves our love not because they have earned it, but because Jesus wants them to have it. I want to get on board with what Jesus is doing and I think He is gathering people to help Japan and remind them that there is a God who loves them.

Please pass this blog around to friends so they can see this as well.

With Love,

Joshua

PS

Any sources I got were from Wikipedia (which I know is not the most reliable) unless it was a direct link in which case you can see where it comes from.

PPS

This blog has been edited on April 16th, 2010

A Week of Devotion to God!

To those who read my blog,

This past week has been a week devoted to getting to know God. I would say this started with the Spiritual Retreat on Saturday and carried on through the Spiritual Emphasis Days (or if you're a woman, then it ended with Female Frenzy which I hear was a blast). I'd like to take you through this week as well as I can so you can get a picture of how Ambrose University College is reaching out to our Father.

Spiritual Retreat:

As V.P. of Spiritual Life at Ambrose, it is my job to put on Spiritual Retreat. The theme I picked out for student council spiritual stuff is "Struggling with God". This came out in a few ways throughout the retreat. First we did a prayer walk. On this walk we stopped off at a stair case that was sandwiched in between two areas with amazing houses. I told the people to look out over the houses and see the beauty of them. I wanted them to see how big theses houses are because there are a lot of people who don't get to live in houses as nice as the ones we saw. Basically I wanted the people to struggle with the fact that we have so much, and others have so little.

After the prayer walk, we went back to my house and shared fellowship over food. We got to know one another a little better and then we got to know most of the members of Team Peniel (the spiritual formation team at Ambrose) a little better through testimony. The only one who did not share their testimony was me. But everyone else on the team did! Their lives showed a lot of struggle and trust for God. It was such a blessing to see.

Beggar's Feast:

I was happy to see Corey Garnett (our Beggar's Feast co-ordinator) lead Beggar's this time round. He did a great job. He chose a very specific theme (as all leaders of Beggar's Feast will have to do) and that theme was 'Jesus is Lord of all'. I was blessed to be allowed to read scripture at this event. I chose Joshua 24:22 which reads, "Then Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve Him." And they said, "We are witnesses". I did this very intentionally so that I (a different Joshua) could charge the people in the same manner. I wanted them to say (at least to themselves, if not out loud) that they would be witnesses to the Almighty and therefore make Him to be the Lord of their lives!

I had two favourite parts to Beggar's, though. The first was being able to pray with and for a good friend of mine, and the second was how Corey ended the feast. A lot of worship leaders leave people on a happy note with an upbeat song, but Corey did not. He left the people with a song that was much more introspective. He left the people thinking about their relationship with God (or at least that's how I felt). It is so easy to do what everyone else does, but Corey went against the grain and did what he needed to do to get Jesus' love across!

Spiritual Emphasis Days:

You know those Billy Graham type guys who get up on stage and just preach it? Well we had the privilege, nay, the amazing honour, to be in the presence of a guy like that. Dr. Barry Moore (Dr. Tim Moore's father) came all the way from the beautiful lad of Ontario to bring the heat like nothing else! Now don't get me wrong, there were some things that I did not like in what Dr. Moore had to say. I did not like how Dr. Moore separated the social work of the Church completely from evangelism. Actually, it was kind of funny. There were break-out sessions. I was able to go to 3/5 of them. The first one I went to was about a Church on the Fringe. This Church meets in a bar to reach out to the broken. One of the things they mentioned was how they just lived their lives in a way that was separated from what the world does and they don't even mention Jesus all the time.

Dr. Moore talked about only mentioning Jesus and these people talked about avoiding talking about Jesus. I fall in the middle. I personally think we need to earn the right to tell people about our Saviour and God. I don't believe that with every person we come across, we have to share the entirety of the Gospel (although God does open the doors for that sometimes) but we do have to share the gospel with people who we have earned the right to speak to. A lot of people have been hurt by well-meaning Christians and so Church becomes a tough conversation. If we don't know where they are coming from, then we won't know how to tell them about Jesus.

I think this idea is backed by scripture as well seeing as Jesus did a lot of healing and feeding, and loving. I can think of one exception off the top of my head where Jesus pressed for salvation first and that was when a paralytic was lowered into a house where Jesus was because the crowd was too thick for his friends to get him in. Jesus took away the man's sins first AND THEN he took away his illness. I think this story demonstrates where God places the topic of salvation. Jesus considers salvation of more value than health and well being. So even though I say, "we need to earn the right" I still believe that we also need to give people the message of salvation as it is the most important message someone can hear! I may one day take a bullet for someone and therefore save their life, but I did nothing for that person if they don't know Jesus. Maybe it would make it easier for them to know Jesus, but it is still nothing if they do not form a relationship with Jesus.

All in all, I was impressed with the Spiritual Emphasis Days. Dor. Moore brought what we needed to the campus: an urgency for the gospel. Dr. Moore's heart was and is to see as many people come to know Jesus as possible. For him, there is not greater calling! Jesus is who he wants you to know and that is why he pushed so hard for us to evangelize.

Summary:

Between struggling, Lordship, and evangelism, this week has been phenomenal! I learned so much about what it means to have a deep relationship with Christ and I am happier for it. I want to encourage you all, oh readers of my blog, that if you don't know Jesus, get to know Him as Lord, struggle with Him on issues you don't quite understand, and then share Him with the people around you because at the end of the day, He is what truly matters!

Sincerely,

Joshua

Struggling With God

To those who read my blog,

Here is what I preached at Chapel when it was the Student Council Chapel. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed preaching it!


Genesis 32:22-32 [NASB]

The theme for Chapel this year has already been repeated many times, but I will say it one more time: The light is everywhere. Jesus is the light. Jesus is everywhere. Light is a funny thing, though. It can be great for growth, but only because when we enter the light, we end up seeing the things that don’t sit quite right. We may see things that are holding us back from other people, or from doing our best, or most importantly from Jesus who we need to have remain at our center. And so we come to this passage in Genesis about a man who seems to actually wrestle with the One true God.
As people of the word, we probably all know the story of Jacob and Esau, but to give this verse a bit of context, let me remind you what is happening. Jacob is about to meet with his older brother Esau and he’s not feeling too sure of himself, and with good reason too!
Jacob was a jerk. His older brother, Esau, wanted some food, and Jacob made Esau give him his birthright for it. A birthright is the right of the older son. Instead of being a gracious brother, Jacob takes this right away from Esau. This means that Jacob, the younger son, will receive double the inheritance that his brother deserved to have.
Jacob also did another devious thing to his older brother and also to his father. Jacob stole the blessing from his father which was meant for his brother. He did this by disguising himself as his brother.
He is so scared of coming in contact with his brother that he prepares a huge gift that included 220 goats and a bunch of other animals. Jacob is seriously hoping to hopefully buy his brother out of seeking revenge.
So you’re in the wilderness and are about to face someone you have wronged so badly, what do you do? Well why not fight some random person? That seems pretty logical, right? It’s what Jacob does. When the man can’t prevail over Jacob, he strikes Jacob on the hip but Jacob would not let him go until the man blessed him. Perhaps Jacob thought, “If I can just get this one blessing, everything will be alright”.
The man responds and asks for Jacob’s name, but then renames him Israel which means, struggles with God.
If what this man was saying was true, it means that Jacob actually fought with God. Not only did Jacob fight with God, but Jacob walked out of his fight with God seeing His face. And so Jacob called the place Peniel because Peniel means face of God and that was what Jacob saw, and he lived.
Student Council this year has one central theme. Every time we make a decision in student council, we ask, “is this enriching the lives of students?” and if the answer is no, we decide to scrap it. So when it came to spirituality, the question Ryan had to ask when I brought this secondary theme to him was, “will struggling with God enrich the lives of students” and him and I agree that yes, struggling with God is good, but it is hard.
There are two ways I want you to struggle with God this year. The first is theologically. Here is what I mean. When I came to Ambrose five years ago, I was a seven day creationist. I was so much a seven day creationist that I even considered people who did not believe in a seven day creation were not real Christians. I pretty much had God figured out and I just needed to go to Bible college to polish things off. When I got to Ambrose, I encountered a certain teacher. A professor who is so amazing that he even got a floor named after him not just while he was still alive, but also while he was still a teacher. This man’s name is Gerry Hall (pause) and even people who once lived on that long abandoned floor are willing to yell out his name as you can tell.
The course that Gerry taught was called Bible and the Reader and it was eventually split up into two courses: Old Testament and New Testament. It is no exaggeration that I loved this class. It was an amazing experience. Well one day Gerry brought up the seven day creation account, and when he talked about it actually sounded as if he did not believe that the seven day account was accurate! But that makes no sense. Gerry Hall is an amazing person! He was passionate about the Bible and it showed in his teaching. How could he NOT believe in something so obviously true?
I did not know what to do, so I bugged him about this. Not just in class, either. I visited him at his office and even snagged him when he was walking back from Chapel one day. This man was more than willing to talk to me and he even was willing to listen to my views even though my views were that of a freshman who only knew what his home church taught him.
So I did my research paper on Genesis 1:1-2:4a and I got an A-. I put in a few solid nights into that paper and was close to not finishing it on time. I have never worked so hard on a paper as I did that one. I needed to know what I believed and I walked away from that paper with a good grade, but more importantly, I came away with an understanding of what it means to be willing to change your views when you are confronted with something different than you expected. I wrestled with God, and I came away seeing His face. And because I saw His face I understood that I knew very little about God and I also understood I would not just need a little polishing off, but I would need to be broken down over and over, and then built back up over and over.
Why do we fight so hard to try and be right all the time? We sometimes enter into debates and instead of trying to understand the other person, we end up just trying to be right. I am sometimes very guilty of this myself. I know the temptation to be right all the time. But it is not me I should be promoting, but Jesus and there are other people who know Jesus and a lot of them know Jesus a lot better than I do. When we wrestle with others over points of theology to be right, we are not wrestling with the right person, and we end up only seeing our own face. Our face is not who we are supposed to see.
This school is composed primarily on two denominations: The Christian and Missionary Alliance and the Church of the Nazarene. Right now I am in a class called Alliance History and Thought which I believe everyone at this school should take because it’s hard to leave that class without feeling inspired towards the things of God. Something interesting I found out about the Alliance was that it was formed around people who would have disagreed with each other in major ways. To give you an example: there was an Anglican who would have been quite familiar with the worshipful experience known as communion and also someone from the Salvation Army Church which does not celebrate communion. These people may have disagreed with each other, but they gathered around the most important person: Jesus Christ. It was out of love for Jesus that they formed that organization that would become a denomination.
So sometimes we struggle with God theologically, but there are times when we struggle with God in a much harder way. Instead of asking God, “do you do things this way?” we ask God, “why is this happening to me?” and it’s when we are asking God this, that our faith becomes so much more real and we find out what it means to follow God. Let me tell you about the end of my summer and the beginning of my school year.
I have a team to help me out with Ambrose spirituality. In a month I went from having four willing people on this team to two: myself and the Beggar’s Feast co-ordinator, Corey Garnett. At the end of the summer, I found out I would not really have enough money to take more than a couple courses, but I was also too poor to pay back student loans so I had to take at least 3 courses. Then there was an issue with how one ministry was going to be run, and then there was this huge problem between me and my best friends, and then in the first week of school I realized that my program was extremely messed up, and then my land-lord sent me an email saying that the rent cheques I sent were not signed and then I found out that the rent cheques I sent to my land lord which were signed were returned to me for no apparent reason, and then I found out that I was the victim of bank fraud, and finally, I stuck my foot in my mouth and offended one of my sisters in a huge way! During the leadership retreat a seminary student told our team that if our theme for the school year was struggling with God then we better be ready for struggle. I did not realize how right this guy would be.
I don’t know what God was trying to teach me through those struggles. Maybe patience, maybe more of a reliance in Him... I am not sure. But whatever it was, it needed to be taught and I needed to be ready and willing to struggle through this. I will walked out seeing the face of God and because I saw His face, and He was there. I just had to go along with God on this one and rely on His Spirit!
I recently fell in love with the band known as Metric. They have a song called Twilight Galaxy and in this the singer says, “go higher than high, go lower than deep, keep doing it wrong, keep singing along”. I like to insert some words there. I like to pretend she means, “If you go higher than high or if you go lower than deep, even if you keep doing it wrong, keep singing along.” Sometimes we just need to keep singing along even when the world is just beating the crap out of us!
Jacob wrestled with God, and then he had the guts to even ask for a blessing. When life is kicking you when you’re down, do you have what it takes to ask God for a blessing? I’ll be honest, sometimes I do have the guts but this past time I did not! Here’s the thing, though, Jesus always blesses. His blessing may not be something we understand, but it is always there for you. It does not matter how much life is giving you, Jesus will always be willing to bless if you are willing to go through the struggle with Him and even if you’re not! I used to think that God helps those who help themselves, but I heard Ray Aldred say something a bit different once: God helps us because we can’t help ourselves! He may not deliver us completely out of the time of trial, but He will always be there with us so that He can pick us back up once we have fallen down. He is always there when we are struggling!
Jacob wrestled with God and saw God’s face; are you willing to do the same? And so we come to the table, because that is where the brokenness of fallen humanity meets with the glory of the divine. We come to the table where Jesus is already sitting. He’s there and He’s willing to talk to you. He’s willing to go through this struggle with you because He loves you and wants you to know Him and understand Him better! At this table, God is waiting to wrestle with you. He’s waiting and He’s saying, “This is My body, it is broken for you. This is My blood, poured out for you. Come. Eat. Drink. Be with Me!” So if you’re ready, please come forward and receive communion. If you need it, there are two people here who would live to pray with you and I am here as well for the duration of communion. Come and partake! Jesus is waiting for you!

Fun Realization

To those who read my blog,

A funny thing happened yesterday and I thought it would be a good thing to share.

I got on the bus to head out to meet a dear friend for coffee. I was not in the best state of mind.

I get to the bus stop which is right outside my house and I find one of the freshmen standing there. We strike up a conversation and talk about a lot of different things. I suppose because I was in a weird place at the time I was more prone to whining and when she asked about a few past ministries I have been involved with which ended up being places where more people were hurt than cared for, I speaking negatively about them. I was putting these places down because they were not the greatest examples of Christian love that I have seen. Places that turn away people because of religious belief and cared more about the numbers they could get rather than the love they could share with the people coming in.

The girl I was talking with stopped me and said something along the lines of, "Wow Joshua, you seem to have had a lot of negative experience with Christian organizations and yet you're still a Christian yourself".

I then had one of those very rare moments where I displayed utter brilliance. I said to her something like, "I love the people, it was just the way they were going about things that I hated. Also they helped inspire me to do good. Also we are all fallen people. Even now someone could have heard something I said in Chapel and said to themselves 'that Joshua guy seems a bit off-base in what he's saying, I don't know if I agree with that at all'". I think essentially I was saying two things:

1) I was saying that it doesn't matter what people do or how they treat you in a given circumstance, they are still lovable (something I am grateful for because it means I am still lovable).

2) Just because I have Christ in my life it does not mean I will be perfect in conduct or in speech. I will mess up, my theology at times will be a bit wonky, and I will need to be forgiven. However, even though all those things are true, my fallen nature can still serve in inspiring others to do good. I guess that's a complicated way of saying that the Father can work all things to His good... even the terrible ones.

When this girl mentioned that I had bad experiences with Christian organizations I realized I have not fully forgiven these places for what I went through because I was speaking bitterly about them. Forgiveness is essential for anyone to live a free life. Bitterness is a poison that you yourself drink, but you expect the other person to get sick.

So here is where this kind of comes to a head and become really cool. After my coffee date I went off to Swing as it was a Friday and I was itching to do some dancing. At the dance I re-met a girl who I accidentally hurt a couple months back. Her feelings were damaged even though it was not my intent to hurt her whatsoever. However we are fallen people and fallen people are hurt people and hurt people will hurt people. She was not over this hurt and I could very much tell in the way she was talking with me. She kept bringing up the hurt and would not let me forget. It was within a Christian context that I had hurt her. She may go away from that and never forget it, but thankfully we both serve a God who works all things to His good. The Spirit can guide her within her hurt and might use that experience to help others not get hurt in that way. At least that's what my prayer for her is. I would rather her not forget this hurt but use it to spread love.

It was kind of cool to see this come full circle. Anyways... that was my fun realization. I hope you enjoyed.

-Joshua