Decapitation Equals Death

I have heard it said many times over: "well I love Jesus, but I just don't like the church. They're a bunch of hypocrites and I don't want to be associated with them."

Fair enough. You've been hurt. And being hurt hurts.

But after studying 1 Corinthians I don't believe belonging to the church is optional. Whether or not you throw money into a bucket or occupy a seat on the pew on a designated day of the weekend, if Christ is your head-if Jesus is your Lord, then you are apart of the Church.

I must say I do like the word "body" a lot better. What an excellent metaphor Paul employs to describe this marvelous, mysterious being called the bride of Christ. A head cannot be separated from a body, and still live. Everyone knows that. Likewise Christ is the head of the body, and the body belongs to Christ. And therefore the body belongs to each other.

This is a gift, a privilege, a sacred belonging to and believing in. Believing in Christ, belonging to him, belonging to one another. "Let all things be done for building up" (1 Cor 14:26). "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). I've said yes to Jesus. Therefore I've said yes to the body. It is no longer about me, I have died to myself and come alive to Christ. It is now about others. About building them up, about loving them.

Currently Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World By Henri J. M. Nouwen see related

“Our longing to know who we really are will never be satisfied until we embrace solitude…where we discover that we are totally loved by God. No one can communicate that but the Abba who totally loves us. Oh, other people can say it, but God alone communicates how our true-self identity rests in his relentless tenderness. And he does that in private, after the music stops and the crowd goes home.”

-Posers, Fakers & Wannabes

I think I used this quote in my last entry. But it all of a sudden gave me a great sense of relief. I am teaching in 3 days, and I am totally excited, but also a little overwhelmed at the responsibility of communicating the amazing message of the book of Ephesians. God has been putting a love for them in my heart, and I really really want them to grasp this, and I want to do a killer job communicating it. However...there is only so much I can do. I so often feel like all I can do is put salt on everyone's tongues...to make them thirsty to go seek out Living Water (AKA Jesus). I can't actually impart this understanding to them. I can explain it, but I believe it is essential that they seek it out through solitude with their Savior. I can give them some head knowledge, but he alone can bring the heart knowledge...the deep, deep down understanding of who he is and what he has done, and the implications that has on who they are.

I have experienced this to be true in myself as well. I have sat through more sermons and teachings than I can count, and yet the most profound epiphanies have happened for me when I'm alone with God, and he tells me a bit about who he is, or about how he loves me. It's usually while I'm jogging and listening and usually when I'm desperate to hear something. And he comes and brings clarity to my confused heart and mind, and he comes and speaks truth and assurance to me...which gives me so much peace and confidence. I have found it to be the best way for me to process the things inside of me-because he is such a great listener, and he only speaks truth to me.

I am grateful for the people that have given me space to have those times with God. I admit that I am guilty of not always allowing others that space, and not always pointing people to aloneness with God...but rather I try to speak all of my opinion and "wisdom" (kind of like Job's friends). I want to be OK with answering "I don't know" and not always having answers, or not always having something to say. If he gives me something to say, by all means I will say it...but I know sometimes I grasp for something to say that's simply not there. I want my first response to always be to point people to God. Because I can say things, but he alone can communicate them.

Currently Posers, Fakers, and Wannabes: Unmasking the Real You (TH1NK) By Brennan Manning, Jim Hancock see related

I have been reading Posers, Fakers and Wannabes (quoted in this entry) and while reading I was challenged by some stuff the author was saying about taking time to just be alone. Not to be lonely, but to be in solitude. Big difference. Anway, today I decided to be in solitude. It is 9:43 PM and I am still in my pajamas and I have not talked to anyone (besides the poodles I am house-sitting for) nor listened to any music all day. And I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it! There was a point around 4:30 this afternoon when I was starting to get sick of it, but overall it was wonderful. I studied and read and studied and read and thought and sang and studied and read.

"Our longing to know who we really are will never be satisfied until we embrace solitude...where we discover that we are totally loved by God. No one can communicate that but the Abba who totally loves us. Oh, other people can say it, but God alone communicates how our true-self identity rests in his relentless tenderness. And he does that in private, after the music stops and the crowds go home."

So this is what I learned during my solitude today...
I am going to elaborate on last entry's thoughts on the relationship of belief and behavior, particularly focusing on the belief part. What I believe about myself is obviously extremely important because that belief overflows to affect everything-how I behave, how I relate to others, etc. And when I ask myself "who am I?" is "Loved by God" the first answer that pops in my mind? Sadly enough, it is not.
"Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. God's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life."
This is something I know to be true, up in my brain. Yet sometimes it seems to get stuck up there, and becomes merely something I say and teach, rather than something I know really deeply down in the core of me. Because I have a tendency to let other things and people influence me, and I begin to believe lies about myself. One that I've always struggled with is that God is OK with me, but kind of removed from my life and sometimes he likes me (when I'm good) and sometimes he doesn't like me (when I'm bad). Yet in his tenderness and patience and mercy he's been breaking into that belief of mine and melting it with his love...at times when I least expect it. At times when I feel so ugly and so undone and so undesirable, he comes and he wants me. He comes and he affirms me and asks me to confide in him and share with him the things that are in my heart and mind-wrong and embarassing as they may be.
And something really beautiful and amazing happens when I finally let him into the areas of my life that I have worked so long and so hard to keep him out of. I begin to relax, and I begin to laugh more and I begin to really stop taking myself so seriously. I begin to find it easier to be vulnerable and honest with others, easier to turn to him and ask for help when I am weak, and easier to trust him. And that is how I would define intimacy. Being OK with being undone and vulnerable before him, and letting him love me all the time, not just when I feel like I've earned it.
As I've tasted some of this, it makes me so hungry for more. I am quite curious about God's love and his friendship, and I want to experience the "length, height, breadth and depth of his love that surpasses knowledge." Let me have it Lord! I want "Loved by God" to be the first thing that comes to mind when I am asked who I am.

Currently the word on the street By Rob Lacey see related

I am currently studying and preparing to teach the book of Ephesians on January 31...and so as part of my preparation, I decided to resurrect my dusty xanga page and use this as my processing platform.

Here goes....

So the biggest thing that I've been noticing/realizing so far as I've been reading and studying is something that Eugene Peterson articulated really well in the Message:
"What we know about God and what we do for God have a way of getting broken apart in our lives. The moment the organic unity of belief and behavior is damaged in any way, we are incapable of living out the full humanity for which we were created.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians joins together what has been torn apart in our sin-wrecked world. He begins with an exuberant exploration of what Christains believe about God, and then, like a surgeon skillfully setting a compound fracture, 'sets' this belief in God into our behavior before God so that the bones - belief and behavior - knit together and heal.
Once our attention is called to it, we notice these fractures all over the place. There is hardly a bone in our bodies that has escaped injury, hardly a relationship in city or job, school or church, family or country, that isn't out of joint or limping in pain. There is much work to be done." (from the Message, Intro to Ephesians)

I love the way he puts that-because with that perspective...it really does make me realize that the separation of belief and behavior is such a bizarre, silly thing. The two HAVE to connect. I am beginning to believe that I can't really believe something and then not act on it. Either I really believe it and it affects the way I live my life, or else I just flat out don't believe it, or else I acknowledge that I believe part of it...but that I don't want to deal with actually changing and letting that impact my lifestyle...which I would ultimately call denial. Denial is believing something part way ...yet not enough to really do anything about it. It's like the level before real conviction...because at the point of conviction something changes.

And Paul gets that. He really understands all of these things, and that is why he begins his letter to the Ephesians with three chapters-worth of some of the most beautiful description of God's love and feelings towards humanity. Because he knows that without a solid foundation of that understanding (belief), there is no way he can expect his readers to actually change their ways (behavior). And it must be in that order. We love because he first loved us. I can't love him until He loves me first! I think that really sums up "Godly living." It is simply a realization, a deep down conviction, a belief of and in the mercies, goodness, love and grace of Jesus Christ, a realization that he does in fact want me...and once I finally really really let myself believe those things-not just on a surface or cerebral level, but deep in my core and in my heart-then that belief sets off a chain reaction. One of worship, of love, of tenderness and humility, of compassion, of desire for him.

And if that order ever gets messed up, I believe it all becomes religion. It becomes my own attempts and efforts at "being good," and it becomes shallow and hollow. It becomes a system where I measure my good against my bad, evaulate myself, and then either reward or punish myself. And then...I guess I am trying to play God, rather than letting him be God and simply letting him love me.

"I'm asking that you'll plug into the Liberator's love and be able to get your head (and heart) round its dimensions: the size, scale, depth, density, scope, range and texture of this love are beyond quantum physics; they can't be squeezed into some formula-they're impossible to measure. But by trying, you'll expand your capacity and will have more space for God to fill - his love supplies won't run short!"
(Ephesians 4:18-19 from Word on the Street)

DAY SEVEN

I know its nothing new; everytime I or someone else goes on a trip to a third world country the poverty starts to get to us. I was re-challenged before leaving to let myself feel, and to let it bother me. Because it is scary how easy it is to just turn a blind eye and shoo away the hungry kids asking for handouts. So I have deliberately let myself feel, and now I don't fully know what to do with those feelings.
My first reaction is always to want to just SAVE everyone. My savior complex kicks in and I start to brainstorm ways and ideas that I could help all of these people, and I could feed these kids and help this country. But as I'm realizing more and more, the problems run much deeper than hungry kids on the side of the road...and the solutions run much deeper than my little brainstorming sessions can imagine.
I just finished teaching a 3 day Bible overview/Bible study seminar to 13 tribal pastors, from the mountains that surround Davao. And talk about dirt poor, these guys have nothing! Once again, this stirs up feelings of frustration in me, and wanting to do something to help. Yet God showed me the other day while I was teaching them, that really I was filling their pockets with gold. I couldn't give them any pesos, but I was able to give them tools to study the Bible, hopefully leaving them with skills that they can use to unlock the Bible on their own. And that is invaluable! That is a different sort of wealth, and in my opinion a better wealth.
And there totally are different sorts of poverty. There is blaring physical poverty, and then there is emotional and spiritual poverty. And I have met plenty of people that don't have a dime in their pocket, but they are so so rich. Rich with the wealth of family and love and the Lord. And that is the kind of wealth I want to give people. I keep thinking of that story in Acts when Peter and John encounter the lame man outside the temple and Peter says that he doesn't have any money, but he has the living God inside of him, and as he asks, God comes in his miraculous healing power and the man stands up and leaps and walks! I want faith like that...it is way easier to hand a kid some money...I want to have the faith to ask for healing and salvation.

So on a lighter note....
things have been going really well! I have been in Davao (southern Philippines) since Saturday night. The Bible seminar ran Sunday-Tuesday, and it was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life!! I taught tribal pastors the inductive method, and they were the most amazing students....they had such a pure, authentic hunger for the word of God and for improving as pastors. (I am at some ghetto internet cafe so I can't post pictures :(, hopefully I will add them later.)
The people here are wonderful, and I feel like I've been here for a lot longer than 4 days. Tomorrow we head out early morning for Bislig...which is I think a 5 hour bus ride.

Another thing I've been thinking about.....the Filipinos are the exact opposite of us when it comes to getting a tan! We go to tanning booths and bake ourselves outside, and they carry around umbrellas and use whitening lotion. I had no idea!!! And they all want to be white like me...HA!!! Never in my life has my white skin been envied...hahahhaa...its kind of nice for ONCE. But thats not the point....the point is, we always want what we can't have! It's completely a matter of culture and perspective too. Dark people want to be light, light people want to be dark. I went to the beach today and they had all of these huge awnings over the sand, so much so that there was no place to lay out on the sand. So I ended up just sitting in the water ! Me and my Filipina friends have been joking about this a lot lately, and I am amazed at how I think they are absolutely ridiculous....I honestly think its so stupid that they carry around umbrellas and swim in the clothes and wear jeans in 100 degree weather. But HELLO! They totally think Im stupid for baking out in the sun and using tanning lotion and whatever else I've tried to get darker skin. And I realized on the way home today how incredibly stupid all of it is. Who cares ??! I have GOT to start appreciating myself for what I am. I've started standing up straighter and just appreciating the fact that I am tall....(even though it is incredibly awkward and I am at least a foot taller than everyone else here) and appreciating the fact that my hair is straight, my feet are big, and my skin is white....things I have so wanted to change in the past, and now I want to just start working with them. I want to be more content...and stop always wanting what I can't have.
By the way, about the feet being big....they are literally too big for the Philippines. I have tried at store after store after store to find shoes, and NONE of them fit me. Because they are so stinking small here! Their biggest size cramps my feet. Crazy, huh?

[pictures are coming soon.....thanks for reading! keep praying!!]