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Engaging the Kingdom — Overcoming Evil
“Our willingness to yield up everything when we are bidden to do so is our willingness to have enough in Jesus Christ alone, to desire to follow him alone. Our voluntary renunciation of counterviolence confirms and proclaims our unconditional allegiance to Jesus as his follower, our freedom, our detachment from our own egos. And it is only in the exclusivity…
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Where is the God of Elijah?
Elisha asks this question as he comes back to the Jordan after witnessing Elijah being taken to heaven. He has the mantle of Elijah and he has asked for the firstborn’s inheritance: a double portion. He cries out, “Where is the God of Elijah?” and strikes the water. The Jordan parts again. As I read this passage and look through…
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Hype
I will say on this on a blog. This will then automatically connect to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. So, what I’m about to say goes against how I am going to communicate it. That’s the hypocrisy of this exercise. This is about hype. It’s about how in the western Church we are all about what is “epic” or the…
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Engaging the Kingdom — Treasure
“They have their treasure well hidden, they have it at the cross.” (Bonhoeffer, Discipleship) The pursuit of the Kingdom of God produces vast spiritual wealth. The treasure of the Kingdom is pursued, but it is pursued like no other treasure. The pursuit always goes through the cross of Christ. The road of abundance in the Kingdom has a narrow entrance: about…
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Engaging the Kingdom — The Two Builders
Matthew 7:24-27 What determines the true follower of Christ? Right knowledge? Right answers? Some insight on who is “in” and who is “out?” Jesus is fairly plain about this. Storms. Storms determine the quality of the workmanship. If you heard and obeyed what Jesus taught and entered into kingdom life, the storms can’t bring down the house. If you spent…
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Engaging the Kingdom — Ask, Seek, Knock
Matt. 7:7-11 Jesus seems to lay down the impossible before us when it comes to being in the Kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount can be read as incredibly demanding and grueling. The King doesn’t ask his disciples to do the impossible. He lays out the means to climb to what seems impossible. It lies in those very simple words:…
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Elijah and Prayer
It irritates me that James 5:17,18 reminds us that Elijah was human just like us. Then, James goes on to tell us that Elijah prayed for rain to cease and it did. Then, he prayed for it to rain and it did. That stuff isn’t human. Right? But it is. Very human. And Elijah was human just like us. My prayers are far too…
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Man of Steel — Observations
For the first time in a long time I ventured out to a movie theater with my youngest son, and figured out why I don’t go very often. It’s too expensive! We did see Man of Steel, and I thought it was a fun movie. Some quick observations. 1. Superman is a Royals fan. That may ultimately doom the planet,…
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Sniveling, Spoiled, Rich Ruler
For all the admiration I have for Elijah in the story of 1 Kings, the one guy who drives me nuts is Ahab. He does nothing for his people, lives only for himself, and has a wife whose name represents evil personified in some Christian circles. (“She’s such a Jezebel.” Or, “This place has a Jezebel spirit.” Something like that.)…
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Burn the Plows
There are those moments. Times when something stirs in your heart. Windows of time when you know there is a decision to be made. But the question is too stark. It’s not a gradual question. It’s a hard question. “Are you all in, or not?” Something like that. Those moments come. They come when God is ready, and he honestly knows we are ready. But we…
