Tag: family

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God’s Will and Passover

Times are bad; that’s the word on the street (internet), anyway. There are hundreds of things that are cruel and difficult about our world today that I could list here, but I won’t do that to you today. Instead, I want to share some things that truly fascinate me about the power and also the relational nature of God’s will. For an early example, on several occasions, Moses was able to talk with God and dissuade Him from acting against His character towards the Israelites (eg: Exodus 32:9-14), even after they had done deeply offensive things that dishonored Him. 

God is willing to show great mercy and love in relationship with us. God’s will is that we would glorify Him in our character, work, and worship. God’s will is that we would have no more sorrow or struggle. He wants the best for us, to rest in the enjoyment of life with Him. So, what’s the deal? If God is who He says He is, why does our world seem to be in such bad shape? 

Both God’s will and humans’ decisions determine the state of our world–and life itself.

It isn’t one or the other, God’s will or ours, that makes things the way they are. It’s both, and the only reason we know of is because God wants it that way. For better or for worse, God wants to partner with us in our lives. This particular law of the universe is as influential as gravity; it’s what makes prayer matter. It’s why faith matters. It’s why our decisions matter. God desired so much to be in relationship with us that He set up the entire universe to ensure that we would be able to work alongside Him, partnering with Him in His will. 

Even though God’s original plan and will for humanity was detoured because of the Fall, the original, relational nature of the Universe still stands. Yet, God’s will has final say, and this is important to remember. 

God does not partner with us in the things that are outside of His will. 

God does not go against His will to fulfill ours. In selfish acts that disregard love and the well-being of others, He will not partner with us. But even, and perhaps especially, in those times He will never leave us. We are His beloved children and that does not change. Instead He patiently and diligently teaches us, through our sin, mistakes, and wrong decisions, what His will is. And it all goes back to His original design for us. 

Why be concerned about God’s original design if the whole relational partnership thing didn’t work out between us? Again, God has the final say, and thankfully His will is being brought about even now. Even with all the detours our own selfish wills have led us down. Nothing can stop God’s will, not even all the sin humankind has committed against each other, throughout all of time (can you imagine; just the sins against each other demonstrated in 2020 alone make me want to look away). God’s will is still coming about, and He never stops working but He always leaves the invitation open to us to join with Him by faith in the work He is doing to align with His will. He made the Way for us to do that fully through Jesus, because we cannot conform our wills to His without faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us.  

Death is against God’s will for us; He has taken control over it through Jesus.  

Jesus overcame death after putting the sin of all humankind, including mine and yours, to death with Him as the ultimate atonement sacrifice, the once-for-all Passover lamb. Sin’s penalty is death, because apart from God we wither. Death wasn’t in His original design for us, we were always meant to be in close relationship with Him. Thankfully, God’s will to be in an unhindered relationship with us could not and cannot be stopped! His will is for us all to experience the everlasting life with Him that we were always intended to enjoy. 

Jesus’s atonement for our transgression comes alive (pun intended) in the context of Passover, the holiday celebrated first by the Israelites right before they were set free from slavery in Egypt.

God’s final plague on Egypt was death of the firstborn sons in every family, but any house that had the blood of a sacrificial lamb on their doorposts would be passed over by God. “‘…The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. ‘This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance’” (Exodus 12:13-14).

Passover is the perfect time to remember Jesus, the new covenant of His blood shed for us, and hope of ultimate freedom from death and sin. 

We are now in spring, and Passover is here. Jesus ate His last Passover meal on this earth with His disciples in Jerusalem. He fully understood the significance of that night, the night of his arrest, and what His death would mean for the world. 

The first Passover night in Egypt marked the establishment of the nation of Israel with the escape from slavery to the Pharaoh that very night (Exodus 12:31-34). Israel as a people was established and given freedom, all in one night! Similarly, we all are established into God’s family and given freedom from death in Jesus. 

Passover is the time of establishing identity.

During the Last Supper, Jesus’ last Passover meal on earth, He consecrates the new Israel to the Lord. God’s original covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:12) was to make Israel a great nation, and to bless “all peoples of the earth,” and establishing Israel as a nation was a pivotal step in bringing about God’s will. But God didn’t stop with Israel. 

Jesus knew He was the ultimate Passover Lamb when He ate the Last Supper. In that moment, Jesus establishes God’s people–yes that’s us!–under a new covenant of His blood, “And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24). 

Jesus’ Passover is for all people on earth, not just Israel. 

With His new covenant, He welcomes us all into the family of God. But this wasn’t easy, even for Him. After His last Passover meal and just before His arrest, Jesus got alone in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). This prayer Jesus prayed in anguish and distress tells us something of God’s will. 

Jesus had a human will just like you and me. He didn’t want to have to die. He didn’t want to suffer and bear the biggest burden ever asked of any human before or since. And He was honest with God about that. 

But, Jesus yielded to God’s will, even though it was against His own. 

That’s part of what made Him so uniquely different and able to fulfill a role that none of us could fill. All the rest of us “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), because we have chosen our will over His in our lives.

The point is this, that by relationship, by using the fundamental law of partnership that God laid down in the foundations of the earth, we can partner with Jesus in our own atonement and eternal life by faith in Him and His sacrifice. Because of Jesus and our relationship with Him, we are restored to relationship with the Father God as He originally designed. God does not will for people to die for any reason, period. Jesus came and suffered in death so that people wouldn’t have to die anymore. He made a way for His will, to partner with Him restoring us to everlasting life. Gives a whole new meaning to the old, “where there’s a will there’s a way” phrase, doesn’t it?

It is our own choice whether we lay our own will down to His.

Whether or not we surrender to God’s will is completely our own choice. He will never force His will upon us, because He is a loving, patient God. To surrender our will to God as Jesus did so beautifully at Gethsemane, we must fully trust Him. To trust Him, we must know Him. To know Him, we must seek his character; for more on this check out the Life with the King blog series Characteristics of God). 

Building our relationship with Jesus takes curiosity, intention, and sometimes desperation if and when our own wills lead us into pain and sorrow. God’s will always has more for us than we could ask for or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). God’s will provides true hope that connects back to who we really are and why we’re really here through Jesus. God’s will is what our true identity longs for if we are faithful to dig deeply enough to see it. 

Jesus rules (yeah, I said it)

God always intended for a human to be king, to rule the earth (see Genesis 1-3). Jesus’ coming not only fulfilled God’s will to provide atonement for His beloved people, the sheep to His shepherd, but Jesus also fulfilled the role that Adam, and all men and women after him, could not. Jesus, fully God, fully human, came to rule the earth as King. Only Jesus could do that work. He fulfills this role of King even today, at the right hand of the Father. There, He is interceding for us, even in this very moment (Romans 8:34). Jesus is the ultimate King, reigning with both justice and mercy, both grace and truth. Jesus our rightful ruler and King has not left us to follow His own will as we have but invites us to partner in His reign with Him. Can I hear a Hallelujah!?  

As we walk through the remembrance that Passover brings, and approach Good Friday to remember Jesus’ sacrificial death for you and for me, I encourage you to broaden the picture of Holy Week to consider its rootedness in the story of Passover, God’s covenant relationship with humankind, deepening our understanding of the Gospel stories with a new layer of profundity and a glorious vision of hope.   

May God bless you as we remember the story of our King together. Praise and thanks be to Him, the King of Kings, forever and ever! 

“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21). 

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace. 

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Characteristics of God: Restorer of Wholeness

We might hear the message that we are whole and good enough just as we are. There is of course an important level of truth to that idea. It appeals to the best parts of who we are as uniquely crafted, individually beautiful humans; there are certainly times when it feels true. But we must be careful not deceive ourselves, either.

This is the first post in the new blog series, Characteristics of God, unpacking the questions, Who is God and What is He like?

On the level of our souls, there is a constant need in our brokenness that only Jesus’ work on the cross can fill to wholeness again. Who we are IS good enough, but only in Jesus. Inherited and committed sin leaves us in a state of brokenness which we simply cannot restore without Jesus. We were made for relationship with Him, to walk alongside Him in the Garden (Genesis 3:8-9).     

God never intended us to be broken people in the first place. 

The world has tried to make us forget about the consequences of sin. It distracts us in some surprisingly predictable ways. Worldly glory is not sustainable and does not satisfy. Only what we were made for, right relationship with God, can truly satisfy us. Who we truly are and who we were made to be by God is not understood by the world, which tells us only partial truths about ourselves. Pride and fear become traps that some cannot escape. But the whole truth is available in Christ, who sets us free:  


“the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NIV). 

The Garden of Eden was the ideal place that God carefully created for us to dwell in with Him. He made it perfect and holy. We do not have many details about the Garden in the Bible, but we do know that trees grew there and bore fruit (Genesis 2:9) and two very important ones were placed in the center; there was a river flowing from it (2:10), animals were allowed into it, and it was set up with an East-facing entrance (3:24). I like to imagine that perhaps God particularly enjoyed watching the sunrise.    

When sin entered in, we couldn’t dwell with God’s presence and still live. We were banished from this most holy place. We couldn’t walk next to God anymore, as we had been intended for. We couldn’t talk with Him while watching how His facial expressions or His posture communicated to us as we now do with friends. 

There was a time when God literally walked beside us.

After we were forced to leave the Garden, God’s actual presence (as opposed to a burning bush, a pillar of fire, etc.) was much more scarce, and His face was hidden from us.

But thankfully, we weren’t the only ones unhappy about it. Sin and all, God didn’t intend for us to stay away from Him. For one example, in Exodus, Moses and the Israelite leaders are allowed to eat in God’s presence on Mount Sinai, to celebrate the covenant made between them and God, “Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:10-11).   

God longs to enjoy us and give us a way to enjoy Him, despite the consequences of our sin! 

Since we left the Garden, God has been working on the steps of restoration to bring us back to wholeness, culminating in the Person of Jesus. This celebration of the covenant, the Israelites eating and drinking in the presence of God, was a huge step in that journey of restoring humanity to wholeness. 

Just a few chapters later in Exodus, God gives Moses the details for constructing the tabernacle. The tabernacle, though a movable tent, was precisely described, and it even was made to face the same direction as Eden. Like Eden, it was intended to be a place where God’s presence would be with His people. The tabernacle, designed by God Himself but made with human hands, was symbolic of the completeness and wholeness of the Garden (Ex. 26:6). 

We lack nothing in Him; in Him, we are whole.

Because God’s goodness was enough to make up for our lack, His infinite goodness can even reach beyond all our brokenness and beyond every tear.

Even though we inherited sin through our human family as descendants of of Adam and Eve, through Jesus we are grafted into His family. In the lineage of Jesus, He allows us the Way to take part in His inheritance of life instead. 

Opposite to the world’s system of give and take, in God’s Kingdom it is not about what we can do to get favor from Him, it is what He did for us in adopting us into His eternal family.  

Eternal life is inherited, not earned. 

We are no longer orphans in our brokenness, but instead we are restored to wholeness in our relationship with our loving, good, and gracious Father. There is nothing we could ever do that could earn life. We are fully dependent on God for our life and inheritance in eternal life. 

He is generous to give us more than we could ever deserve, restoring us to wholeness. 

It’s not about what we deserve but about who God is. 

None of us who are in Christ get what we deserve, and that’s a good thing! He is generous to us even though we don’t deserve it because He loves us.

Take heart, friends; there is a special place for those who are desperate for the wholeness found in Him–a place that He put ahead of His own life! He died to make us whole and complete, not lacking anything. Jesus restores us and renews us not just once, but continually, every day, every hour, every moment. He prays to the Father for us, even now (Romans 8:34). 

The symbols of wholeness in the Bible of the Garden and the tabernacle remind me of how Jesus desires us to be unified as one (John 17:11 & 21-32), as He prays to the Father, 

“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).   

As close as Jesus is with the Father, that’s how close God wants to be with us. He wants this for us and our good so much that He was willing to die for it; for you, and for me. 

God went to every last measure to restore us to Him. There was, is, and will be nothing that could separate us from His love (Romans 8:39). May we take great hope in this amazing picture of God’s restoration of our wholeness.

“because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:3-5). 

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The Fear of Death

Death is the last topic I thought I’d be writing about to kick off my blog’s second year. Yet, here we are; the highest highs always seem to bring to my mind the lowest lows right along with them. And perhaps that’s just as it should be. 

I’ve been taking morning walks lately, and one morning this week I walked to a park I haven’t been to for years, just outside of a well-manicured neighborhood. The park is all woodland, with a creek running through it. Once inside under the completely shaded canopy, I saw that the park itself seemed a completely different world from the sunny neighborhood just beyond. Instead of neatly trimmed grass, there was a mess of moss and fungi blanketing rotting logs. Instead of bushes full of blooms, there were downed trees with their roots exposed, brutally ripped up from the earth beneath. Instead of small blue jays or cardinals hopping about, there were two large, hulking black vultures, still and silent, perched in a pile of fallen leaves above the creek. 

These starkly different scenes just yards from each other perfectly illustrate how death and reminders of it are consciously kept out of sight and ignored as much as possible. 

Death is uncomfortable to think about.

Given how prevalent and obvious death is in this world, I’m interested in why this remains so. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do know that we all have an innate sense of the fragility of our lives and our loved ones’ lives. 

Even so, we have to keep surviving, right? No time to think about death when we’re trying to survive. However, there comes a point at which facing death becomes absolutely key to fully embracing our humanity.    

According to the Bible, humans gave up the option to ignore the knowledge of good and evil long ago (Genesis 3:6); we simply don’t have the luxury anymore of being unconscious of it. In a podcast interview, psychologist Jordan Peterson posed the idea that perhaps the remedy now is to be fully or “all the way” conscious of good and evil, since we can’t go back to being “unconscious.” I like this idea, but whether it’s correct or not I think it holds true with the Good News of Christ.

Along with the knowledge of good and evil comes a responsibility to face the good and evil in us.

To face the evil in us could also be described as becoming conscious of our own sin. This is exactly what we must understand before we can sincerely repent; C.S. Lewis talks about this in Mere Christianity. We realize the extent of our sin (evil) and the extent to which we need God’s grace (good) to free us from death’s grip. 

For repentance to come, we need to do something God didn’t design us to do–to stare death in the face. It is when we really see that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)–and that death forces us into something we were not created for–that we can understand all that we’ve been saved from by Jesus and how truly amazing His grace really is. 

Turning from our willful ignorance of death to follow Jesus, the Master of death, means we will stop avoiding it and trust that He’s bigger than death itself, as well as every one of our fears.

If we knew the Master of death better, we wouldn’t be so afraid of our own death. 

Jesus came to master death and set us free. To use the woodland analogy, Jesus came to lay His life down, like a fallen tree in the forest, that we might live like a newly sprouted seed from the soil He provided by His act of love. 

Yet, death is still worthy of being sad about, something to deeply mourn and to grieve. Separation from loved ones, though temporary for believers in Jesus, is still deeply painful and still very much a loss. I want to be very clear that it is okay to grieve, mourn, and be sad when it comes to death, no matter who it is, whether or not they were believers. Grief is not something to be brushed aside or ignored.  

When my Jewish grandfather passed away years ago, I was able to experience a community that faced death together in a beautiful way. The love and support of my grandmother’s friends and family was hugely beneficial, even for me in my own grieving process, as they came to simply be present and literally “sit” with her. Shiva following a Jewish burial typically lasts for seven days, providing not only community support but food for the grieving first-degree relatives. 

There is great value in appreciating the seriousness and weight of death and taking time to acknowledge what our hearts are feeling. 

While our culture has lost the skill of being open about death and understanding of grief, we don’t have to when we stay close to Jesus and understand the truth He brings–that death is not the end. Jesus Himself spoke openly about death. He was not afraid to do so, predicting his own death several times. People who had experienced death also came to him in a state of grief. He didn’t turn them away but even grieved with them (John 11:35). He even chose to raise the sick girl (Matthew 9:25), and His friend Lazarus (John 11:44) back to life. 

While I don’t think it is healthy for death to be excessively avoided as a topic of conversation, I also want to make a point to say that an excessive focus on death is not the answer to any problems either. It is only by understanding how God intended life that we can understand death and see it for what it is, no more, and no less. Romanticization of death glorifies the wrong god. 

Life is a gift from God. 

Examining our feelings about death along with the truth of the Bible can give us a deeper appreciation of life and its meaning. Reading Genesis, we find that death as we know it was never meant to be. We were not built for it! We were created to walk with God and eat from the Tree of Life. Death was not in the original plan. 

It is no wonder that it can be so devastating to us psychologically, physically, and spiritually! Knowing this, it is completely natural to avoid death, and it makes perfect sense that we would brush traces of death aside because innately we know what we were intended for.  

Facing death is so hard because God never intended for us to experience it in the first place. 

Death may never stop being hard to face, but it need not take us by surprise, as it so often does. With Jesus’ wisdom and grace, we can explore our knowledge of good and evil. 

We can let Him help us through to the other side of fear as we examine what He says about life and death. We can begin to safely open ourselves up to facing the realities of death when we trust Jesus and His love for us, for there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18). 

Christ and His love sets us free.

The bigger the debt of sin we have been forgiven from, the more we will love Jesus for canceling it. The story in Luke 7 gets me every time, when Jesus forgave the sinful woman with the alabaster jar of perfume. 

Her display of gratitude for forgiveness led Jesus to tell those in His company, “...Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). When we are conscious and aware of our sins, fully acknowledging our need like this woman, gratitude for our canceled debt leads us to a life full of love and peace. 

As I was headed back from that morning walk in the decaying woodland park, walking once again past neatly spaced out trees and colorful blossoms, these words came to my heart, “All that was lost will be restored to you.” 

That is what God does; He restores what is lost, damaged, sick, even dead, in and for us. 

The very first book of the Bible that was written was Job, which speaks to and confirms this simply, “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored . . .” (Job 22:23).

The last book of the Bible speaks of the restored life that God will bring to His people: “[His servants] will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4). How amazing that the story (which is not ours but God’s) that is unfolding will end in God calling us, servants created to glorify and enjoy Him, by His own name. 

Think of the intimacy of giving someone else your name, or of taking someone else’s. That is the intimacy God intends for us to have with Him. What vulnerability and trust to be called by His name! Death is not the end, but rather this beautiful picture of restored, everlasting life in the family of God.

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). 

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.  

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The Family of God

There was a time when I didn’t understand what the family of God meant, or why it was important. I believed that you could follow God in isolation from other believers. But this was a pride-comes-before-the-fall kind of belief. 

We were never created to live in isolation from our family, from other believers in Jesus. We need each others’ help on our life journey. While solitude with God is a beautiful thing, and some people can enjoy it for years at a time, living in Western culture and in a capitalist society, we need a network of people to keep us accountable, help us when we can’t sustain our own connection with God, and pray for us (Hebrews 10:25). 

Finding a family of believers to belong to is difficult.

It takes some serious consideration, prayer, and discernment. And it often takes quite a long time. It can be a frustrating and discouraging process to find people we can trust to walk alongside us. But we mustn’t give up. God provides for His children. Also, do you find it as amazing as I do that we are called children of God, and called part of God’s family? 

We are counted as offspring (Romans 9:8). 

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11-13). 

When we are new to following Jesus, we don’t always know what to look for. We might be attracted to churches who do a lot of outreach projects, host a lot of events, or offer a lot of resources. But primarily, we must look for people who love God and obey His commandments (1 John 5:2). That also means we must be willing to be and do the same.

No one is perfect at this except Jesus Himself, so we must have grace for ourselves and others in this area. But our hearts must be oriented and surrendered to our love for God. Finding a family like that is worth the wait. 

Is a Church Home Necessary?

We aren’t meant to carry our crosses in isolation. We are meant to be part of the family of God, the body of Christ, to strengthen, encourage, and inspire us as we all strive to obey God’s commands. Our family is a blessing from God, and something to respect. 

Whether you attend church or not, it is important that we have a community to be in dialogue with about God, and what He’s speaking and teaching us. It is also important to support and be supported in order to grow in our walk. If you don’t have one already, I’d encourage you to start a Bible study with others who are just as interested in learning about God as you are. Make it a regular part of your life. Churches can offer and arrange these, but in some seasons of life, it may be more useful to start your own with people you know. Always pray and seek God’s direction with this, the same as everything in your walk. 

Obedience

Jesus chose obedience to God’s will, which meant ultimately surrendering everything for His love of God and us. Obedience is not something to be taken lightly. Obedience brings blessing; it actually unlocks the promises of God in our lives, because in obedience we are actively demonstrating our love for God. 

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14). 

Obedience can be at its most difficult when we are experiencing some type of suffering. As the Israelites in Exodus 5, we can be subjected to more suffering than we ever expected, even when our intentions are good and in service to God. What if, in those times of suffering, God is actually showing patience towards us as He did with the Israelites? What if as in that story He is actually allowing us more time to learn to trust Him with a lasting trust? 

No matter how troubling the circumstances, the identity God has given us as His children does not change. No matter how evil the days, deliverance both has come and is coming! Take heart, our times of suffering teach us and form our character to be able to withstand every doubt to the very end. That is, after all, what we really need.

Remember that God is a good Father who loves us enough to give us what we need! It is exactly in these times that our family of believers becomes vital; we can lean on our family to keep us headed in the right direction when our faith is tested or when our suffering becomes overwhelming. 

What it Means to Take Up Our Cross 

Some days, the only reason we will take up our cross is because we want to obey God. We probably won’t feel like obeying God on most days. But it is a command. Thankfully, taking up our cross means more than just endurance of suffering. It means taking an active role in bringing life itself.

“And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:23-25). 

God commands us to first deny ourselves, then to take up our cross, and finally, to follow Him. It must go in that order. The first step of denying the self, or the ego, is where we often get tripped up. We must die to ourselves. Okay, well that sounds pretty serious, right? Here’s the thing:

We cannot let our ego have its way while also following Jesus. 

Later on in Luke’s gospel, he records Jesus saying it another way which I’ve found helpful regarding the act of denying oneself: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Luke 16:13). 

The motivation for our actions must be to either please God or chase money. In my reading, I also see “money” as power, status, and reputation. We cannot devote ourselves to both, according to Jesus. 

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25). 

Chasing power, or fearing men more than God, comes at the expense of our very selves. It “masters” us. It becomes an idol. And it is something that the “ego self” wants all the time. 

There is a reason why the first commandment addresses idolatry. 

It is a pervasive, hidden in plain sight sin. This is why taking up our cross has to be a daily practice. We are called to resist the temptations of our ego every single day. Jesus is saying in Luke 9:23-25 that we need to let the part of ourselves that wants power for our own gain die and choose to fear God. These are two paths that will always oppose each other.  

Again, it takes effort on our part every day; it’s not just a one-time decision. Taking up our cross is a daily act of obedience that God asks of us. We show love for Him by obeying His command to pick up our cross daily and follow.  

As we humble ourselves daily, we can take great hope in remembering the words of Peter, that “at the proper time he may exalt you . . . because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). 

Taking up our cross daily won’t happen unless we trust that God cares for us. 

God’s care for us spurred Him to make a promise to us. He asks only that we trust that He fulfilled His promise in Jesus Christ. Taking up our cross is trusting God in action: loving God with all that we are, loving our neighbor as ourselves, following the Way of Jesus, and relying on His righteousness as our own. We have reason to rely and trust Him, but it also requires faith. 

Our family of believers can serve as a wonderful reminder of God’s care and concern for us, and also help spur us on in faith. He often works through the compassionate care of our family members who can remind us of His love.  

What’s in a name? 

In the Biblical account, Moses is the first one who asks God what His personal name is. He was known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the Israelites, but Moses asked what he should tell Pharaoh God’s personal name was. Names were important because a name communicated something essential about the character of the god or person. 

I think of the instances in the Bible when God gives people a new name: Abram (meaning exalted father) to Abraham (meaning father of a multitude), Jacob (meaning he takes by the heel or he cheats) to Israel (meaning he strives with God or God strives), Saul (Hebrew) to Paul (Roman). All of these names communicated a core part of each individual’s story in relation to God and their role in His greater story for humanity. 

When asked for His name, God answered Moses:

I AM WHO I AM, in Hebrew, YHWH (Exodus 3:14). 

This can also be translated as I WILL BE. In the context of God’s call to Moses to go to Pharaoh for His people, the name itself assures Moses and the Israelites that God will be with them. God’s presence with us is built into the name itself. 

God IDENTIFIES Himself as related to us. 

What an amazing thing! God truly is all about relationship with you and me, each and every soul He created. His presence with us is part of who He is; He identified this truth as His very essence in His name, YHWH! 

Our family of believers can be a powerful reminder of this truth and many other truths that help us follow Jesus. If you struggle with family, know that it’s normal. You are not alone in feeling awkward about it sometimes, even when you’re happy with where you are. But remember that you are part of the family of God, it needs you just as much as you need it, and it is a great blessing in this life that is worth seeking out. 

Paul wrote that believers are to “keep [our] eyes on those who live as we do” (Philippians 3:17). May we all gather as a family around the goodness and grace of YHWH, His promises, and the hope found in His name.  

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments” (1 John 5:2).

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). 

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

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The Truth about Philosophy and Mental Health

Just for a moment, imagine you are in the process of figuring out your beliefs. You know you will use them and navigate decisions with them, for the rest of your life. Imagine that you look at the world’s beliefs with all their opinions, ideologies, and religions. How do you decide what beliefs are true? 

Any belief that we take on can have serious consequences for our spirit, and in turn, our mental health. 

Beliefs impact our well-being, mentally and emotionally. What we believe internally, meaning our expectations and hopes, carry serious weight and are just as important as our external, circumstantial experience of being. If we treat our beliefs with too little importance, eventually they will catch up with us. According to psychologist Jordan Peterson, when our internal and external worlds don’t align enough or are misaligned for too long, serious psychological pathology can result.  

The passage below from Colossians triggered a turning point in my thinking about what I believe: 

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness” (Colossians 2:6-9). 

When I read it, this passage shockingly spoke directly to my past, in which philosophy was my bible for navigating life. The human ways of knowing that philosophy offered completely charmed me. It seemed comfortingly detached, logical, and rational, something I could stand on as a marker when the tide of my personal feelings made me drift away from reality. In philosophy, everything must be explained, justified, and correct. If an idea stood the test of philosophical debate, I thought it must be right, at least right enough for me to believe in. 

I failed to realize in time that philosophy must be used as a tool and not be made a god. 

People use philosophy as a way to get to the truth of something. That’s why it appealed so much to me; I wanted to get to the truth. The truth about philosophy, however, is that it is only a tool, which has a place. We must not confuse it, however, with the truth itself. 

Many Christians fear learning philosophy, likely with the assumption that it will make them pick apart every belief they have about God with human logic. People do not like their beliefs to be challenged. Of course, enjoying the ego thrill, I dove right into philosophy when I started having questions and doubts about God. What could be so scary about philosophy if the stories about Jesus were true, right?

However, I soon realized that philosophy wasn’t concerned with the truth about Jesus. Instead, it pulled me into a whole other set of concerns altogether, and slowly, I was trained in its way of thought. Much like an ideology or religion. 

Soon I was thinking philosophically about everything, and putting it in that highest place for truth that it simply wasn’t meant for. Philosophy made me feel powerful. It made me feel like I could argue my way past any belief. It made me feel like I was too good for beliefs. 

Sin causes our thoughts and feelings to deceive us about who we are.

Philosophy is one of the fastest ways to an unhealthy pride in oneself that I know of. It made me feel like I didn’t need God. My identity became wrapped up in my philosophical ability. 

Of course, I was naive about approaching philosophy, which is perhaps why it became so dangerous. I am certain many others approach philosophy in a very healthy way and thus have no qualms about using it. Today, I can say that there is no reason to be afraid of philosophy if one can see it as the tool it is. But, if we use it as the standard by which we make decisions and judgments, that is where it can cause damage to mental health. 

Human knowledge does not equal divine wisdom. 

Fast forward a couple of years and my mental health was declining. Jordan Peterson describes it as a sort of “sickness of the spirit.” I suspect there were other factors involved too, but I am sure that at least part of the reason was that my expectations about life did not match up with my hopes. 

Why wasn’t philosophy “working” for me? Why weren’t those feelings of superior knowledge manifesting in a better life? 

In fact, they’d only led me to a place where I was no longer searching for meaning and thus was simply unhappy. Philosophical thinking hadn’t improved my life, instead it seemed to weaken it. At the time, I could not understand why. 

Thankfully, God didn’t let me forget Him. I looked for the people who were happy, desperate for something to help ease my mental suffering. I tried to learn from them. In talking to Jesus-following believers, God challenged me to seek the whole truth found in Him, not just parts of the truth that philosophy grasps for. That’s when I discovered the truest thing I could find in this world; a deep, meaningful relationship that He wants to have with each one of us. 

It wasn’t logic-centered, it wasn’t calculated. It was messy and beautiful and scary and wonderful. The truth was more like relationship and art and less like philosophy and logic than I ever imagined.  

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20).

All my philosophical beliefs crumbled under the authority of God in this one brutal, beautiful verse.  

Indeed, God made all the most advanced, complex brilliance of human knowledge foolish when it comes to understanding His Kingdom. Whereas philosophy locks us into something rigidly, relationship with God frees us. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). 

No one can be happy if they aren’t free. We were created to have free will, and to make our own choices about what we believe. We must take special care when considering any religion, ideology, or theory–it will affect our very souls and our psychological well being. 

The wisdom of the world is opposite to the wisdom of God.

Jesus Himself delighted in the simplicity of the Gospel in Luke 10: “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do . . .’” (Luke 10:21).

He makes it possible to understand who He really is whether you can wield human logic or not. He desires relationship with each precious soul in a profoundly personal way. Who or what others tell you He is shouldn’t matter more than who He has revealed Himself to you to be. God can reach us through any means, including human understanding and logic, but that is certainly not the only way. If that was the case only the smartest people in the world would be able to find Him and know Him. He ensured that little children can know Him too. The pursuit of intellect for its own sake will not bring us closer to Him. The pursuit of Him will always lead us to Him.  

How beautiful and fair and just God is! He gives us all an equal chance to have a relationship with Him. In Him, there is no class or status or ranks. Only love and our choice to love Him as He already first loved and loves and will love us. 

God wants us to know Him. 

Whereas a reliance on philosophy to tell us what’s true will leave our souls wanting, God restores our souls. He gives us life breath. He calls us into our true identity in Jesus Christ. He sends the comforter and friend, the Holy Spirit, to be with us and to fill us so we can stand firm in faith in the face of trials.  

If you’re wrestling with existential questions right now, you are not alone. But take heart that your wrestle shows that you are well on your way to finding the peace of God that transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:7). 

I would invite you to take a moment to reflect on what God might be communicating to you through the question you are asking. What is He is up to in our souls when we have these questions? How can we bring our felt experience into better alignment with the greatest hopes you have, in the fullness of God, in abundant life?  

During this Holy Week, behold His vast complexity, love and beauty. He has given us the capacity to sense deeply when our experience doesn’t match with our hopes or expectations for a reason. It is an invitation to seek God, and He promises that when we do seek Him, we will find Him: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

This Easter weekend, as we remember together that Jesus came, was crucified, and defeated death itself to give us life, let’s remember that He designed our souls to be fulfilled and our minds to be at peace by knowing Him deeply. Yes, even us, the prideful, rebellious, power-seekers that we are. He loves us anyway, just the same. He calls us worth dying for, He calls us His, He calls us family. Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:39). Rely on the love and sacrifice Jesus made for you today. Seek to know Him more every day; it’s worth it. He is life itself, He is beyond every belief, He is everything. 

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8). 

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How Volunteering with Teens Changed My Life

I remember the day my younger sister brought up the idea of volunteering to me. She had been leading a small group of teen girls at her church for months, and one day, out of nowhere, suggested that I try it too. I had only been attending her church’s services for about a month, and only started following Jesus about six months before that. I imagine I quickly developed a skeptical, almost angry look on my face, the one that I’ve seen on my mom’s face a million times when something doesn’t fit her plans. I don’t remember what I said exactly, but I remember feeling completely blindsided. Why would anyone ever want me to work with teens, especially as someone just starting to rediscover faith? And I’m so socially awkward! I never got along with teens, or understood them even when I was one. Honestly, I avoided them as much as possible, especially after high school. 

“Do they know I’m not like you?” I asked my sister. Abby is bubbly, outgoing, friendly, and cheerful. I was anything but. If she was in, I must certainly be out. That’s why her suggestion to be a leader confused me. Who in their right mind would want me to do what she does? If I tried, I would surely be found out as the damaged person I am and I could already see the awkward scene. The youth ministry staff would come up to me after observing my reticism and say, “Sorry Amy, you’re just not what we had in mind for this after all.” Why would I put myself in that position if I already knew the ending? I shared all these fears with Abby. She knows me better than most people, but she didn’t agree. 

All she said was, “Just think about it. You could just try it out.” Her optimism astounded me. It also gave me a tiny bit of hope. If she thought I could do it, knowing all my issues, then maybe I could. But man, was I unqualified. 

I thought about it a lot and prayed, “God, this is so not my thing,” and, “Can you believe this?” The nudge in my spirit to “just try it” never went away. The nudge grew into a knowing that I needed to say yes. A few weeks later, in November 2016, I decided to go. Just to feel it out. Just to observe. Just to try it.

God has something in mind for us. But first, He asks for our yes. 

I was still very new at learning how to know God’s will and tell it apart from my own. To this day, asking me to say yes to youth group is one of the clearest nudges I’ve gotten from God. I did not want to say yes but I knew, strangely without a doubt, that He wanted me to. So, I did. 

The first day was not clear like the nudge had been. It was overwhelming and loud and I don’t think I said more than a few words to any of the teens. However, the small group discussion I shadowed made me appreciate Abby’s role all the more. She led in a relatable way and was able to bring the discussion back around to the sermon topic when it veered off. I watched in awe. How was I ever going to do that? These girls talked to Abby like they were her best friends, but they barely even looked in my direction. The flashbacks to high school were strong. I wrestled with God later that night, “Is this really where you want me?” I wondered if I could be genuine with these strange earthlings called teenagers who just by their presence brought every bit of adolescent insecurity I had stuffed down over the years right back up to the surface. Sharing my experiences with them, or anyone, was a struggle. The nudge didn’t fade. So, I went again the next week. 

God blesses our obedience.

Right around that time, I read Matthew 18:1-7, in which Jesus uses a child as an example for His disciples to follow as a lesson in humility. His words in this passage spoke to me of starting over, becoming simple like a child again, and repenting of my pride. I knew I was making youth group way too complicated and difficult. I would have to lean entirely on God’s strength if I was going to do this. Nothing about volunteering at youth group were strengths of mine: talking to teens, speaking in front of a group and keeping their attention, understanding Scripture enough to teach about it, and giving advice when I barely knew how to say hello. I was being called to an environment where I had no internal strengths to fall back on, and I could only lean on His. 

In our weakness, God is strong.

Now looking back, I believe He wanted me to learn what that feels like. I had been going on my own strength for so long, getting by on my own limited understanding of what I could and couldn’t do. God invited me to take a rest, a real one. Being strong is exhausting, and it isn’t necessary to be strong all the time because He is strong for us. In my journal, after several months of showing up at youth group, slowly getting to know the teens and slowly letting them know me, I wrote, “I want to be generous, but maybe I’m not. I want to be kind, maybe I’m not, I want to be loving, but maybe I’m just not. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe God actually is made perfect in my weakness, and I could only be generous, kind, and loving because of God–and I’d be made fully aware of it.”  

I did not think that teens were wise at all until I listened to their questions in small group. Gen Z is a lot wiser than I originally gave them credit for. They ask incredibly complex questions about life, keeping me and my co-leaders seeking answers in the Bible. 

The teens and the leaders grew and learned together.

As leaders we weren’t only giving to and serving them, but they were giving so much back to us. We admitted that we don’t have all the answers, but promised to seek the Truth from the Bible along with them. We offered to always help them research their questions, but admitted that we wouldn’t always know the answers. 

The teens pushed us to be smarter, to know the Bible better, and to show more grace. They saw things in fresh ways that we didn’t. They challenged us and still loved us after a sometimes-heated discussion was over. Watching and participating in this week after week showed me what the love of the church looks like. Now, I see teens as some of the most accepting, welcoming, and loving people I know. They are truly the ones who welcomed me back into the church family. Given all my teen-related baggage, I’d call that a miracle. 

If teens were my greeters at the front doors of the church, the other youth leaders were my brothers and sisters sitting next to me in the pews. They accepted and loved me as I was from the very beginning, no questions asked. Every week, they wanted to hear how I really was. They listened when I needed to vent. They never preached at me, they prayed for me, and they encouraged me. I never, not even once, felt a hint of judgment from any of them. Their humility and servant hearts astounded me. 

I was nervous when Abby stepped down a few months in that I would have a harder time fitting in with everyone, but they always made me feel like one of them, even though I felt so painfully different. Their faith and love for Jesus and people inspire me and push me forward. Their lack of judgment eventually helped push me enough to volunteer to give a message, after two years of serving alongside them. I stood on the auditorium stage under bright lights in front of hundreds of eyes, quite a long way from that first awkward day where I had no confidence. The very thing I was so scared of, talking to teens and speaking in front of a group–and here I was, willingly doing both! Jesus’ unconditional love reached right through everyone at youth group towards me. His love, the love of the teens, and the love of the leaders changed everything for me. The love I found at youth group gave me hope for the local church. It gave me a new family and the confidence to be vulnerable.  

A farewell

I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity the youth ministry gave me to learn and grow alongside teens. God knew what He was doing, inviting me to lean only on His strength. I couldn’t do anything but let God lead my words and actions and not to force my way ahead without Him, every single time. 

Today is my last day at youth group as a leader. What an amazing journey it has been, I have learned so much! Just shy of three years, my time is now up. God has more lessons and plans for me in this new season. I am very sad that my youth ministry chapter is ending, but I also know it’s the right thing. I am forever grateful to God and to the youth ministry staff for giving me the privilege of serving with them. 

To God be all the glory. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. -Proverbs 3:5-6

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. -Timothy 4:12

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Human Goodness: Why We’re Worth It

If you’ve ever thought that you’re not worth saving, I can relate. 

There was a time not so long ago when I thought 100% that I was doomed to fail. I had examined my patterns of thought and behavior long enough to recognize I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do or even wanted to do all the time, even when I tried. I was selfish, rude, prideful, impulsive, and I couldn’t stop. I thought, 

“The way I’m made, I just naturally do wrong things, and choose ‘bad,’ so what is the point of trying to be so ‘good’ all the time? Why would we need Jesus in the first place if there is nothing about us worth redeeming?”  

Lately I’ve been learning about Christian perspectives of mental health, and I was disturbed to find that some counselors assume that humans are not good. Their perspective would have lined up with this hopeless thought; I’m so glad I didn’t know this back then! It is true that some parts of the Bible seem to teach that humans are not basically good, when read at the surface level and the context is not taken into account. The Bible isn’t shy about admitting that humanity has messed up a lot. But I want to set the record straight. The Truth is that we were made good, meaning we have goodness within us as given by God our Creator. The Bible totally backs this, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…” (Genesis 1:31). We humans have goodness in our very beings.

We are inherently good.

To ignore this is to ignore the very essence of our humanity. Origin stories matter. Especially if you’re a fan of superheroes, we love a good origin story; “all he had made” includes humankind, male and female (Genesis 1:27). God’s intention and original purpose for us still matters today, and should not be written off as an obscure detail or overlooked because of the messes that have followed, but instead remain a powerful source of great hope. 

While we all have sin in our hearts and are not all good, the battle between the flesh and the spirit ever-waging within us, God did not make us bad. To believe that we are all bad—where is the hope in that? This is not what the Word of God teaches. The Truth is, His intention was for us to be fully capable to choose goodness, righteousness, and self-control.  

God’s intentions for all humanity were good. No matter what happened afterward, we must remember that He set humanity up in our place of origin and called us good. How amazing! Today, we are still capable of choosing good. God did not intend for us to be dead in sin, but instead to be raised in life with Jesus (Romans 6:11-12). 

Goodness is part of our origin story. 

If God had truly made us entirely “bad” (not good), He would have set us up to fail, and you would have found me today in a hopeless state still thinking my hopeless thoughts. It would have been our ultimate death sentence of doom and despair. Not only is doing that to His Creation not in His loving nature, but what would ever make us able to choose good, to choose the way of His Spirit within us, if we were inherently bad in the first place? How could anyone choose the goodness of Jesus if nothing in our being recognizes, longs for, and cries out for it?

This mirror image effect brings me to my next point, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). If we were created in God’s image as this verse says, and we know He is good (Psalm 116:12, 2 Peter 1:3), Biblical counselors, Christian psychologists, and the like need to take great care. We cannot say to anyone, especially someone seeking help with their mental health, that humans are not at all good. It’s simply untrue.

We were made in God’s image.

It is important to note here that this does not mean that we can redeem ourselves. We still cannot choose only goodness and holiness if left to our own facilities; that story is also illustrated in Genesis. We all still have sin to wrestle with, for we all have a sinful nature. We need God to overcome what is not good in us. Even so, there is still hope for us because God saw the value in us and made a Way to save us through Jesus. Jesus brings us back to the goodness we lost so that we can be found again in the family of God. Jesus acknowledged that we are worth saving by His work on the cross. Our origins in Genesis 1:31 show that we were intended for good. Our original identity, no matter what you choose thereafter, is in the family of God. 

Jesus makes a Way back to the family of God. 

Particularly for those of us who struggle with mental health, we must remember that God provides hope. The beauty of God’s intention for us and the identity of goodness He gave us need to be recognized in the field of mental health, both from Christian and secular practitioners. We all desperately need hope, particularly those who seek psychological help for disorders that perpetuate unhelpful thoughts about ourselves and our identity. Mental health practitioners cannot afford to overlook the hope found in God’s character and what He’s given each one of us. To do so actually means putting their vulnerable patients at risk.

God created us to have hope and created reason for hope.

How hopeful is it that our Creator created us in His very image of goodness! Evil could not fully erase it from us, for God and His goodness is above all things.   

Finding a source of hope that doesn’t depend on a treatment, medication, or doctor is everything. To have hope you do not have to behave a certain way or think a certain way. You simply are worth saving because God made you so, and He made you good. 

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” -Romans 6:11-12

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