Mind = Blown

I gave my wife this plaque a couple of weeks ago.

There's a very familiar Scripture verse in Philippians about peace. Here it is:

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:7

The verse is referring to a kind of peace that God provides when we bring our requests to Him in prayer. Recently I was reading this verse and got curious about the word "understanding," so I looked up the Greek word. Do you know what it means? It means "mind"! See for yourself. It gave me a giggle... God's peace will blow your mind!

Then I got to looking up other words. Moving backwards, I looked up the Greek word translated "surpasses" (or "passes", depending on the translation you're reading.) It actually means to stand out above something, to be superior to it or to have more authority. So you could read it as saying that God's peace actually holds more authority than whatever's in your mind. Nice!

I noticed that there is actually a word that is translated into the English word "mind", so I got curious what shades of meaning it might hold. I looked it up, and it actually means your thoughts, the stuff that goes on in your mind. Then to be complete, I looked up "heart", and guess what it means? It means "heart". You know, the thing that pumps the blood through your body. So the peace applies to both what goes on in your mind, and what goes on in your body. Have you ever been stressed out? It affects your mind, doesn't it, but it also has physical repercussions. It makes your heart beat faster, for one thing. If you bring your requests before God in prayer, this verse seems to promise that those sorts of symptoms will be a thing of the past.

So, based on those simplistic, shallow-end-of-the-pool word studies, you might restate the principles in that verse this way: "God's peace is far superior to and more authoritative than any solution you could figure out on your own. Let it do its work, and it will calm your thoughts and de-stress your body."

How's THAT for something you can use on a Monday morning?

Sins of a Nation

Most of my friends don't care for Barack Obama.

Let me rephrase that: most of my friends strongly disagree with many of President Obama's policy decisions. Sometimes this turns into outright dislike for the man himself (even though they haven't actually met him), and occasionally it causes some of them to teeter over into the zone where people believe that he is not a legitimate President because of where they think he was born, or that he is a militant Muslim of some kind trying to overthrow freedom of religion, or some other difficult-to-prove but inflammatory viewpoint. Most of my friends seem to be quite indignant at any suggestion that gun control is a good idea. They are angry when they perceive the President and members of Congress using tragedies as a way to promote what could be seen as a reduction in freedoms. They are incensed if someone says "...one nation..." and does not follow it up with "...under God...". They dislike Obama's foreign policies and his domestic policies. They were quite disappointed when he was elected again, although as I mentioned right after the election, I was quite proud of their response afterward.

I don't mean to distance myself from their viewpoints... as is often the case among friends, I share some of their concerns. What I am trying to do is paint a quick picture of the mindset of the Christian who is also politically right-leaning. Based on things I see on Facebook, comments posted on YouTube videos of political nature, responses to online news articles, and that sort of thing, there seem to be a lot of Christians who think that sin is dragging this country to its grave. And they are pointing their fingers at the "sinners" (Congressmen, abortionists, gun-control activists, Obama supporters, etc.) who they believe are the cause of it.

Last night I was reading the book of Daniel, and I came to a place where Daniel began to pray. Daniel was in forced exile from his country of Israel, but he knew that the reason for his exile was the sin of the Jewish nation, and Daniel began to pray for his country. I invite you to take a look at his prayer in Daniel 9:3-19 to see what he said.

Do you know what I noticed last night as I read it? Although Daniel was one of the most righteous among his people (remember, he was the guy who wound up getting thrown to the lions because he refused to betray God and pray to the king), Daniel did not pray to confess the sins of others. He confessed and asked for forgiveness of the sins of his country, including himself. He did not differentiate between idolaters back home dancing around on the hilltops making sacrifices to Baal, and himself, stuck in Babylon but praying three times a day facing Jerusalem. "We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land," he prayed, despite the fact that his prayer was in response to his own reverent reading of the writings of the prophet Jeremiah. He included himself among the ranks of those who "...have rebelled against [God] and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets," despite the fact that Daniel was so careful to follow God's Law that years earlier when he was brought to Babylon in captivity, Daniel had "...resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank," risking his life in the process. Although Daniel appears to have been quite a meticulous follower of God, certainly not someone we would look on as a "transgressor", he prayed as though he were. Because he knew that he was a member of God's people, and a member of his country, and he knew that they would live or die as a unit.

"United we stand, divided we fall." That's a good motto. If we point at someone else as the one who is messing everything up, we divide ourselves from others around us... we become a divided country. That sort of thing is what caused the awful "Civil War" that nearly destroyed us once. The United States of America is not quite like Israel... a nation primarily of one ethnicity and chosen specifically by God to be His people. I don't think the United States is chosen to be God's nation; I think the Church (meaning all Christians across the world) is now ultimately God's nation, His "Kingdom." But I do think that Christians should take a play out of Daniel's playbook and call out to God for forgiveness of the sins we have committed as an earthly nation, humbling ourselves as though we are among the transgressors. Because really, we are. Every time an official or governing body we have elected to represent us makes an ungodly decision, we have made that decision by proxy. And "I didn't vote for him" is no excuse. United we stand; divided we fall.

I personally don't think that we (the United States) will ever be able to right every wrong that we have committed or will commit as a country; I'm not sure that is even possible for any country. But if we seek God's face as His people and pray for the cleansing of our country, I think God will honor our prayers and we will see change for the better. And if we take the attitude that we are all Americans and dispose of the "us vs. them" mentality which has plagued us for the past few decades, it's possible that maybe some of "them" might come to Jesus and become "us". Or, we may find that although we may disagree on some of the details of politics, some of "them" actually turn out to be some of "us" already. But whether we all come to a consensus on political, ideological, or religious ideas (fat chance!) or not, we are all "us". We are all America. The UNITED States. If we become divided because we disagree, we risk failure. If we remain united, we as a nation can remain strong.

Happy Epiphany 2013!

Last year I did something for my family that I hope to carry on for many years to come as a special tradition. You can read about it here, in last year's post, but the gist is that I wanted my family to remember that Jesus truly is the most important thing about the Christmas season, and I wanted to do it in a way that doesn't make me seem like a Santa-hating, killjoy Bible Grinch. I love all of the fun and gifts and music and excitement of Christmas - this year we must have watched fifteen Rankin-Bass Christmas shows! But I also I wanted to find a way to quietly spend some serious time including Jesus in the holiday season.

Epiphany (January 6) is the traditional day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men (or the Magi, depending on who you're talking to about it) in Bethlehem. This year I learned another pretty exotic-sounding name for it: "Dreikönigsfest"! Well, last year I decided that this day, whether it happens to be Epiphany or Dreikönigsfest, would be a time that I found a small gift to give each family member that I thought would benefit them in their walk with Christ for the following year.

This year I started out with my little 5-year-old daughter. Months ago, probably last April or May, I discovered the book Heaven Is for Real and read it, and enjoyed it so much that I picked up the children's picture book version, Heaven Is for Real for Kids, from the library to share with her. She liked the picture book so much that ever since then she's been asking about getting the book from the library again! Today she got her own copy, and I wrote the following inside the cover: "The Bible says if we think about Heaven, it will give us courage! I Thessalonians 4:16-18". Of course, she's too little to know how to look up the Scripture verse yet... she can't even read the inscription (or the book) for herself yet. But one day she'll be able to, and then I hope it will mean something special to her.

For my son I got the brand new book, just released within the past month or two, from an author that he and I have both enjoyed in the past: Matt Mikalatos. If you read this blog often, you may have seen my review of one of his other books, Night of the Living Dead Christian, which is a total scream and which my son, who was eleven years old at the time, read multiple times (despite the fact that it is written for an adult audience, not elementary schoolers). Matt's new book, The Sword of Six Worlds, is a fantasy story Matt wrote for his own kids, and it is targeted at middle school/junior high readers. I wrote inside the front cover: "Know your sword. Use it with compassion. Hebrews 4:12". I actually haven't had a chance yet to read the entire book for myself... I came up with that based on some stuff I read about it online. I hope it's appropriate! Coming up with an actual physical copy of the book turned out to be kind of a challenge - I had to order it from Amazon and then wait until they had copies to ship me. I believe it's by the grace of God that Amazon got some copies in and shipped it just in time to get to me for this weekend. And I know it will be worth the trouble! My son grabbed it and immediately started reading. It even trumped the handheld video game console he got for Christmas! If that isn't a high recommendation for an author, I don't know what is!

My wife was a little bit tougher. There were some things this past year that were hard on her, particularly some things that were going on in the news and in politics, and I wanted her to remember that Jesus' desire was for her to live in peace. Specifically, I wanted to bring John 14:27 to her mind; in that verse Jesus characterizes his peace as a gift He gave to us, and I wanted my gift to her to reflect that gift to her from Jesus. Surprisingly, it was a little difficult to find a gift with that verse on it, but I finally found this glass plaque, which when we got it out was more beautiful (and even a bit larger!) than I expected. She seemed to really like it; she put it in a prominent place in our apartment so she (and all of us, as a matter of fact) will see it often.

You know what? I feel a little self-conscious about this blog post. I don't want it to seem like I'm tooting my own horn. In fact, if I wanted to do some horn tooting, I probably would have spent more money than I did and tried to make myself look like a big shot... if you click the links, you can see that each item, before shipping, cost me less than ten dollars. But what I did want to do is share something with you, friends who read these posts: I felt God telling me to do this very small thing to love my family, to be like a priest to them, to maybe give them a gentle nudge toward the light of Jesus. Maybe to give them an "epiphany" of some kind. The gift I wanted to share with you was the inspiration to maybe do something similar with your family. Hijack my Epiphany gift idea next year (or even this year... delayed a day or two!) if you like. A small gift, inexpensive but inspired by the Holy Spirit, can make an impact that will last all year.

Family Time

I've been thinking about Christmas today.

"What??" I know you are saying. (Because I can read your mind... it's a talent we bloggers have.) "What??" your mind says again, then, "But Michael, you nitwit, today is New Year's Eve! Not Christmas!"

Well, to be honest, I actually started thinking about Christmas yesterday. Better?

[readers sit in stunned silence]

I suppose I should explain. When people think of Christmas, what do they think of? Gifts, obviously. Santa, Rudolph, Christmas trees, shopping. "The Little Drummer Boy" or "Jingle Bells". It's A Wonderful Life and Miracle On 34th Street. And as Christians, we might also add things like putting up manger scenes and hearing Linus reciting from Luke chapter 2 to that list.

There's another thing that people think of when they think of an ideal Christmas, though. Consider the Cratchits from A Christmas Carol. They had next to nothing, but they had one thing that Scrooge did not. Scrooge's nephew Fred was more well-off than the Cratchits, but he also had this thing that Scrooge lacked. The thing I'm talking about is family. When people think of their idealized Christmas, they think of spending quality time with family.

I realize that in a lot of families, time with family is less than pleasant. Not everybody gets along with all of their family members, and in some cases, spending time with family can be a very negative experience. But if you eliminate those blips from your Christmas experience, the chance to spend time with people you are genuinely close to is one of the best parts of Christmas.

So, yesterday was Sunday, and like most Sundays, I spent a few hours in the morning at my church. At our church we treat "shake hands with someone around you" as a pretty important part of the service; I'm very introverted by nature and awkward in social situations, but I make the effort to come out of my shell and shake some hands, smile at people, and say some good mornings at those times. Why do I do that? Because it's important. Because church is not a concert followed by a lecture. Church is spending time with other sons and daughters of the Most High God.

Church is family.

Do you see where I'm going with this? By no means am I implying that we should neglect our biological families in favor of our church families, but I think that church family is family in a very special way.

Want to experience the joyfulness of Christmas every week? Show up at a church full of people who treat each other like family. Like family that they enjoy, I mean. Shake someone's hand, give them a smile and maybe a hug if you are so inclined. Celebrate the gift of Christ with them. And if Weird Uncle Mel shows up, well, shake his hand too.

Because family time is the most Christmassey time of all!

Club Awesome 2012 - Oklahoma City

I just posted something about the concert we were at last night on my music blog... Club Awesome in Oklahoma City. The most fun I've EVER had at a concert? Maybe! Take a look at the journal entry here!

Election Results and the Christian: Part 3

Many of my Christian friends were sorely disappointed by the results of the election. Some are downright nervous about what might come of a second term from a President they didn't care much for the first time around. The first impulse in that kind of situation is to sort of freak out, become very fearful, maybe lash out verbally on your social networks. I was surprised and impressed that my friends did not do that... many of them instead took time to seek God, look to Him in prayer, and discover hope in His Word. Now, it's very easy to use the Bible as a weapon against people - find some scriptures that beat people up or make them look bad. That's not what the Bible is for; it's a weapon, but it's a weapon against spiritual forces, not against human beings that God loves. But my friends didn't misuse the Scriptures. Here are some of the things that I found in my Facebook stream after the election (I won't quote the commentary that was with the verses quoted; I'll let the Scripture stand on its own).

No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you.
-Psalm 33:16-22 NIV

It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in princes.
-Psalm 118:9 KJV

Do not trust in princes, In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
-Psalm 146:3 KJV

...the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.
-Daniel 4:32b NKJV

We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.
-2 Corinthians 10:4 NLT

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour...
-1 Timothy 2:1-3 KJV

Do not fret because of evildoers, be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger and forsake wrath; do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; and you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.
-Psalms 37:1-11 NASB

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace... For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
-Jeremiah 29:4-7, 10-13 NKJV

...if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.
-2 Chronicles 7:14-15 NKJV

What does the Holy Spirit seem to be saying to His people? Seems like He's saying something like: Calm down... you're going to be all right. Live your life in peace and confidence, praying for your leaders, knowing that no man is worth your confidence anyway, and neither is any man worth your fear. Even the most evil of people can't destroy what I protect. I'm here, and I'm listening to your prayers.

I'm so proud of my friends for seeking answers from the Word of God instead of giving in to fear and panic. I'm actually humbled by the breadth of the wisdom they've culled from the Scriptures on this. Whether their political opinion that a second Obama Presidency is a Really Bad Thing is correct or not, they have found that God's answer is peace. That's always a really good answer to any situation!

Here's the original post, and here's Part 2 of this impromptu series!

Election Results and the Christian: Part 2

In yesterday's post I talked about a Christian response to the election results from this week. Many of my Christian friends were sorely disappointed by those results, because their political leanings are conservative (as mine are). My point yesterday was that even under the regimes of the most pagan and downright stupid rulers in the Bible, God's people were able to prosper, so even if you think that Barack Obama is evil and stupid (I don't happen to think he is either, but some people appear to) there is still hope for the people of God. But I started to be concerned that one statement that I made might be misunderstood. I wanted to keep focused yesterday on the topic at hand so I didn't clarify then, but I do want to make sure today that it's clear what I didn't mean by it. Here's the statement in question:

In the end, the only thing in the Bible that ever caused God's people to ultimately not prosper is not their leadership: it is their own unrighteousness. God's people failed to prosper not when their leaders were bad, but when they chose not to maintain their own relationship with God.

What I was absolutely not saying by that was that if we are all good boys and girls and keep our noses clean, that God will be nice to us. Looking back at it, it could be read that way, but that's a half-truth that I want to clear up.

The stories I was discussing in that blog post (Joseph, Daniel, and Esther) had one thing in common: they occurred under the Old Covenant. I was telling stories from the Old Testament, and referring to the experiences of the Jewish people before Jesus came to Earth. In those days, the primary means of having a relationship with God was by following the Law. You would do what the Torah said, offer the proper sacrifices at the proper times and when you sinned, and that was the way that people related to God and maintained righteousness. If you read through the books of Kings and Chronicles, the times when the people had rough water as a nation were the times that they abandoned the Law and decided that worshiping idols instead of the one true God was a great idea. When they began to look to idols or to alliances with other nations instead of looking to God, they began to have problems - the problems that ultimately resulted in the exile of Daniel and the other young Hebrew men to Babylon. The means that God had provided for them to stay right with him were the rules they called the Law. Follow the rules and you're OK. That's what I had in mind when I wrote those two sentences yesterday.

However, we're in a different situation now. When Jesus died on the Cross, He took all of our broken rules with Him. We call them "sins," but basically they are broken rules, transgressions of God's Law. God knew that ultimately nobody but Jesus would ever be able to flawlessly follow the Law - that's why He gave the Jews of the Old Testament sacrifices to pay the price for their rulebreaking, and that's why God gave us Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice to pay the price for all of them at once. Breaking the rules is not what separates us from God now; refusing to accept the cleansing that Jesus offers by the blood He shed on the cross is the only thing that gets between us and God. The "unrighteousness" that Israel of the Old Testament never could really quite break free from is the unrighteousness that Jesus has unchained from those who accept Him as their savior. So where "unrighteousness" from an Old Testament perspective meant "breaking the Law" or not following the rules, to New Testament Christians, "unrighteousness" is not a failure to follow rules as much as it is a failure to seek that connection to God that Jesus has provided. I don't think the sin-to-consequences link is the same now as it was then.

So to bring it back around: if you got the idea from my post that I think we should all be good, go to church on Sunday and not kick the dog on Monday, don't smoke or chew or run with girls that do, don't lie or cheat or steal or break the Ten Commandments, and then God will smile on us and protect us from the infernal Democratic Party - that's not what I wanted to convey. Be nice, absolutely. But don't try to be a good person in order to curry God's favor. You already have God's favor if you've accepted Him as your savior. Because you have God's favor, you are free to naturally live a life that lines up nicely with His Will and His Word. And because you have God's favor by the blood of Jesus, you aer under God's protection from whatever might try to harm you. There is no legislation, no five-point plan, no majority in Congress that can separate you from the love and protection and favor of God. We actually have coined a special word for that concept: the word is "Gospel." The Gospel is this: God has made a way for human beings to live in His favor. The guy who sits in the Oval Office has no effect on that.

Here's the original post - and here's Part 3 of this impromptu series!