Turns out I’m just making people sad and frustrated. My pride continues to get in the way of friendships and relationships. My pride needs to be killed. It needs to go away and hide in a dark hole and I need to understand what deferring means, I need to approach others in humility and remember one very important truth that seems to reign above so many others right now:

I’m wrong…A LOT.

Who knows how it was really stated, but I recently heard someone use some form of this phrase. It was immediate conviction for me. One of the things that I think we all struggle with at one point or another is looking towards the “greener grass” that is “over there,” and we miss the beauty in the journey of cultivating our own lives right where we are, but this seems especially true of my life.

Before Kristen and I moved to Auburn, we always seemed to be going somewhere. I’m pretty sure that we can attribute this to my issue of always changing our context when I wanted to see something new or got uncomfortable or the situation we were in was getting messy or if I just got lazy. Now there’s nothing wrong with adventure, but when you’re using it as an excuse to not invest right where you are, then I think we’re missing something deeper about the process and people God uses to shape us over the longer journey.

When we arrived in Auburn, I told a friend of mine that had been discipling me for some years, “This time, when I get ready for change, I’m going to change me in this context as opposed to changing my context.” The past four years have been nothing but me changing, growing and adjusting in one context and it has done so much more in me as we’ve developed deeper relationships with people than the previous three to five years did in much shallower relationships.

With Cash now in our family, this idea has been more and more living in my heart as I look at Kristen and my son and understand that I’m being pressed more into investing in this moment into these two and into our local body of believers. God is calling me to stop running away and start/continue running deeper into, to stop thinking the grass is greener and start cultivating growth in my own life.

As I sat there feeling him move all over the place, I began to understand what all these people are saying when they say, “Your perspective is about to change.”

It matters not how much I “know” that God is not going to love me more for how much time I spend studying his word or how much time I spend doing things in his name, or how much I talk about him, I still try and try and try to earn his favor. I know this is not just me. This is a human problem. Since the fall, we’ve all at some level, or at some point in our life,  sought to do our part in gaining God’s favor to no avail. We can’t do anything to earn that love. It’s just there for us.

Last night I got a little glimpse at a different angle that dramatically changed my perspective of what I’ve known to be true but have failed to completely grasp, namely: God just loves me, he just wants me in relationship with him, he just wants to hold me, I bring him great joy just because I’m his son.

I don’t want anything from Cash (except for him to just be here), I don’t need anything from Cash, he’s can’t really do anything for me, he can’t earn any more of my love because he has it all. He’s my son. Perspective changed.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been studying Ephesians and really trying to immerse myself in the book. In the past, I’ve always been in a race with myself to read as much as possible in the Scripture, but then I realized I was not retaining much or seeing much fruit from that. So my new strategy is read a lot and spend time immersing myself in one book. Ephesians came up first. Not coincidentally, I’m sure, as our college pastor, Lee Cadden, began teaching through the book at the same time I began studying it. You can see his series here.

So, I’ve read this phrase in chapter one, literally, at least a hundred times over the past month to month and half:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better.

As I passed over it this morning, the verse finally clicked into place for me. Immediately I heard the Spirit say to me, “This is the prayer you need to be praying for yourself, for your wife, for your family, for your church, for your city, for the world.”

There is nothing massively spectacular about my moment this morning, or even the verse. It is a simple truth of, “Just pray this so that you may know him better.” We’ll never fully grasp him, but pray this, so that you may know him better. And when you begin to know him better, keep praying it, so that you may know him better.

I have a great sense of expectation as we head in to this week with our friends at Buloba Community Church and the exciting part is that I really don’t have much of an idea about what we’ll be doing other than playing with little kids and playing soccer…err, football.

I’m thankful that God has opened this door for us to be in a partnership with Buloba and for the eight other guys who have committed to make this journey. We believe that he has great things in store.

until tomorrow…

Overall, I was quite challenged by many of the speakers. However, Friday morning made the week as we were afforded the opportunity to hear Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Texas speak. I’ve enjoyed following Chandler for a few years now. He is an excellent communicator of the gospel and challenges me frequently. I would encourage you to follow his podcast.

He said many great things, but one thing he said has been working my spirit over since Friday morning. I’m not exactly sure of the entire quote, but of the the many things he said on Friday, this stuck out to me the most (paraphrase, though the last question is word for word):

It’s not about how famous you are. It’s not about how important you are. It’s not about how big or successful your church plant is. The question is, ‘Are you godly?’

Don’t know why it hit so hard, but it did. I’ve evaluated almost everything I’ve done the past few days based on that question. I’ve begun to purge my life of those things that are entangling me that I’ve chosen to ignore for a while now that I know do not characterize godliness. I prayed this morning: “Father, let that question continue to haunt my spirit!”

The question will continue to be, are you godly.

‘the Lord is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’

The music builds. A storm is coming.

‘therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains fall in to the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.’

The orchestra is at full song. The storm is upon us.

‘the nations rage, the kingdoms totter, he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Come behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns chariots with fire.’

The orchestra falls out. Back to the violin. The comforting voice rings out and quiets the storm, the raging.

‘be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth! The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress.’

Psalm 46. Comfort in the midst of any storm. Praying for the broken and hopeless who lost homes and family members in the storms last night, that the God of all creation, the creator of all things will be their refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. And praying he will use us, his people to respond the best way to bring hope.

¹¹ For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters,^[a] if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

According to most scholars, John wrote this book when he was very old. He had a lifetime of pondering and recalling all that Jesus said and working out the day to day life of “loving your brother” as he is calling us to in this passage. I can imagine John thinking about the first time he ever heard Jesus say, “I am the good shepherd and I lay my life down for my sheep,” as John writes “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

We are hearing these words of instruction from the mouth of a dearly loved brother of Jesus, one who had witnessed the suffering of Christ and one who had witnessed and celebrated the glorious resurrection that we celebrated only days ago. But John does not make this heady for us or too highly theological. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m often the first to take the words of Scripture to these places. John is making this “commandment” very practical, however. He says, “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” That’s about as straightforward as it gets.

I journaled this today:

I have so much to learn about walking in you. Mostly, it revolves around loving people when I think it’s all about the heady stuff of doctrine or theology. I get caught up on words like, propitiation, sanctification, predestination, justification, etc. when I should be more concerned with how I am doing just loving people…

Recently, while finishing up the book “And,” this quote jumped out at me:

In any size church, the key is to help them find enough darkness that their collective light must come together. If the vision of the church is not scary, if it doesn’t require everyone to pitch in, if faith is not needed, then folks will stay at home and watch the football game.

Boom. Truth.

Except…I wish the quote had been phrased just a little differently. Something more like:

Whoever you are, if you are a believer, you need to be looking for darkness, don’t wait on the ‘professional’ to show you where it is. You know where the darkness is, you know it’s scary for the people that are stuck in it, because you’ve been there. It’s going to require some faith as you go for it, and it’s probably going to take the collective light of those other believers around you. Football is amazing, but not nearly as amazing as seeing the light of the Kingdom breaking in like the dawn and chasing away the darkness.

(But if you’re responsible for setting vision, go back and read that top part because that’s our job as well.)

What I want to do is be very frustrated with the book because of issues like:

• Reductionism (trying to explain the gospel in a very simplistic form that robs it of its glory and depth).
• Inclusivism (presenting the argument that one day everyone who has ever lived will end up in heaven, which I do not believe Scripture actually allows us to arrive at, [I've seen people argue that the book is not about this but about God's love and a new perspective on him, but Bell leads you to this conclusion whatever else they want to believe he is doing in the book]).
• The pulling out of context of a ridiculous number of passages (example: Bell says we have to be extremely careful in making lasting judgments about people’s destinies because Jesus came not to judge the world but to save the world citing John 12, but in the same passage, literally right after he says that, Jesus says that God will condemn those that reject Jesus’ word).
• Inconsistency in his argument (on page ten we are chastised for using the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” because it’s “found nowhere in the bible, but on page 178, Bell says, “Jesus invites us into ‘that’ relationship,” which by default indicates something personal [*side note, there are other terms we use like "trinity" which are not found in the Bible either]).
• Unnecessary/Unhelpful Comments that can add to confusion (Bell, very confidently, writes things like, “The woman who wrote Hebrews…” I am fully aware that it may have been a woman that wrote Hebrews. Furthermore, I’m fully okay with that being true. But that’s not fact or proven and many people have probably never heard that presented, much less that there seems to be a final authority on the subject somewhere that Bell is citing [except that nothing is cited]. The point here is that it would have been just as easy to say, “The Author of Hebrews…” since in fact we don’t have final proof who wrote Hebrews. But, Bell chooses to throw some random comment that left me having to reread a portion of the text because I was caught off guard by the comment. Unnecessary and unhelpful).

I suppose I could go on, but these seemed to be the most blatant to me. It’s going to take another book to put all the verses he used back in to context.

But the reason for this post goes back to the comment above of “the problem with Love Wins.” To me, the problem lies not in the silliness of the above, but in this egregious error that I believe Tim Tennent writes so clearly about, “Bell’s solution takes humanity out of the dock and puts God in the dock.  After reading Bell’s book one gets the feeling that Bell has put God on trial.  It is God who now has to justify why he would be so cruel…” As I read Bell’s book, I thought or literally wrote this several times. “Looks like God is on trail here.”

Rob seems mad that God doesn’t fit his mold, that surely Scripture couldn’t point to anything other than a love that makes the most sense in his mind. The problem with love wins is that it drops in line with a long line of ‘redefining’ God, whether it be in our minds or on paper, to fit what we want Him to be.

God is not the one on trial. We are. And the verdict is out. We don’t get to decide who or what God will be. He defines himself. And when we move away from reducing the gospel to a simple form, denying it depth and mystery and when we keep Scripture within the context of itself (which I’ve heard Rob argue for in other places) as opposed to eisegetical gymnastics, I believe that we will arrive at a different conclusion than Bell.

Love will indeed win. But not our definition of love. The love of the one who is called by that name.

For much better reviews on this book that are much more in depth:

Kevin DeYoung

Al Mohler