“Depart from Me….I never knew you.” –Matthew 7:23

Have you ever felt out of place?  I remember a few times in life when I was in a place where I felt entirely out of my element.  Maybe I was underdressed, uninformed, or in some other way not in the right place at the right time.  While I made the best of the awkward situation, I most definitely was feeling like that old Sesame Street song I remember from childhood: “One of these things does not belong here…”

At the end of time, when Jesus wraps up all of history and begins His reign, the Bible tells us that there will be people that He won’t know.  When it’s all said and done, Scripture leads us to believe that not only IS there a hell, but hell will actually be more densely populated than heaven.  We’re told that comparatively speaking, only a few get in to heaven.  (Matthew 7:13-14)

And while this might be a point of contention for Christians and non-Christians alike because of the seeming harshness of Jesus’ words in that final day, it is no less part of the gospel message that must be shared.  It’s the “bad news” that leads us to the “good news”.  The gospel is offensive before it is redemptive.  It is the slap in the face before the embrace of grace.  In order to receive the good news of Jesus Christ, we must first face our own sinful depravity.  We must confess our need of a healer, of a Messiah, of a Savior.  It is those willing to make this confession that Jesus came for.

(This flies in the face of most people’s view of how entry into heaven is gained.  Most people are relying on their good works outweighing their bad works.  Sounds fair, right?  Too bad God isn’t as interested in fairness as He is in repentance and obedience.)

Now, at the risk of sounding self-contradictory, I want to also state that I believe that Jesus died for all people.  (1 John 2:2)  I absolutely believe in the “whosoever will may come” aspect of Jesus invitation to relationship with Him.  (Luke 14:16-24)  A wonderful hymn of the faith puts it beautifully, “The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives!”

Sadly, it is this exclusivity of the Gospel message that so many can’t choke down.  For a wide variety of reasons, its difficult to think of God as being that narrow, that cruel, that mean, that unfair, that prejudiced–that He would only welcome those who welcome Him, and to the rest of humanity give an icy cold, “I never knew you.”

There’s a 3-year-old inside every one of us that screams, “But that’s not fair!!!”

But do you see that the exclusivity of Jesus is the great equalizer?  Jesus completely takes the effort out of our hands and places it on Himself.  All that was needed to secure your salvation was accomplished on the cross.  Throw out the scales. Forget the past. There’s no such thing as worthiness when it comes to us and an eternity with God!  “There are none that are righteous, not even one!”  (Romans 3:10)  So, in grace–beyond all notions of us trying to reach Him, beyond all thoughts of us being good enough, beyond all laborious and futile expressions of us closing the gap between our sickness and His holiness–God levels the field and says, “Anyone of you is eligible.” when the Scriptures declare, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!” (Romans 10:13)

So, its not that Jesus is exclusive insomuch as He only takes some and not others based on effort or goodness; it is that He is exclusive in that He only receives those who willing to make their confession of lostness apart from Him.

The other day my oldest daughter asked me if I’d written a new blog post yet. In order to be truthful, I had to answer “No. I haven’t.” I had told her the day before that I had planned on writing a new blog post and I’m pretty sure she has become one of my most faithful readers. And I love that.

So, I’m going to dedicate this particular entry to her. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to share some advice; just a few things (definitely not all) I sincerely hope she has learned/is learning/will learn from watching my life and hearing my stories.

Be in love with Jesus. Your love relationship with Him will shape, guide, and enrich every other relationship you will ever have. Everyday, remember that its Jesus who took our place in death so that we can have life to the fullest possible measure; life now, life later, and life eternally. Life that overflows with joy, peace, hope, grace, laughter, and rock-solid faith that no matter what comes your way, Jesus holds it all together.

Be crazy about Jesus before falling in love with any other guy. Never let a guy take Jesus’ place of first love in your life. My marriage works for lots of reasons. Among them are: your Mom’s patience with me, the grace of God, and the fact that both of us love Jesus most. Its no disrespect to my wife–quite the opposite actually.

Never let comfort dictate anything. So many people are driven by and bound to what’s comfortable. Embrace discomfort as a way of life. Be willing to set aside your own ideas of what’s safe and good to instead take up God’s idea of adventure and obedience. Most everybody plays it safe and as a result gets to the end of their life and looks back with regret for chances not taken. Don’t live like that.

Be the You God created. He only made one. Don’t look around at others and wish you were them. Don’t chase what other people say you should be. You’re You for a reason. God only made one. Be the You God made.

Do what the Bible says. Don’t make excuses. Read it, love it, live it. Plenty of people disagree with that (always have, always will). But it’s really that simple. I’m sure there’ll be lots more to add to this, but this is just what’s on my heart at the moment.

And never forget that I love you.

*I already know that I’m going to get a phone call from my Mom on this one.

I recently started mountain biking with a group of friends.  Each Saturday we trek deep through the woods of Pocahantas State Park–dodging trees, forging streams, making laborious climbs up rock and root covered hills.  All in the name of fun, togetherness, and exercise.

When I first began, a good friend and fellow rider (we’ll call him “Todd”) immediately noticed that I didn’t have a helmet.  Concerned for my safety, he would lend me an extra helmet he had.  Nice guy, that Todd.

But this past Saturday the group was a bit bigger than normal.  One person bigger than the number of helmets, in fact.  And guess which one?  Yep, there I was standing at one of the trail openings with my group of helmeted friends, ready to embark on a new (more technical) trail — helmetless.

I shrugged it off, playing the “tough guy” card.  (Anyone who knows me knows that’s a laughable card for me to play.)  I assured my fellow bikers, with the deepest voice I could muster: “I’ll be fine.  Don’t worry about me……..Let’s do this.”   And off we went.

The trail was actually my favorite trail I’ve biked so far.  It had plenty of tight turns, downhill grades, uphill challenges, and even a couple log jumps thrown in for good measure.  But make no mistake about it: there were a couple very specific moments on that trail yesterday that I was especially mindful that my head was unprotected; a sharp turn in the trail where water/mud had collected, which was right next to a large tree.  As I rode cautiously past, I fully realized and appreciated the very real potential of my head becoming one with the tree.  As I went safely by, I would quietly thank God that I was safe and even having a blast.

A common Christian prayer is “Lord, protect me from (fill in the blank).”  Before a long road trip, before going to work, before getting on a plane and in all kinds of places, God’s protection over our lives seems to be fairly important to us.  And just like me on that trail yesterday, we’re ever mindful of when it seems to be missing.  Thankfully those times are rare since we seem to take for granted that God will protect us.  Our thinking goes something like this:

God loves me.

Since God loves me, God wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to me.

God will show His love for me by not letting anything bad happen to me.

But what if God’s first desire for you isn’t to be protected?  What if God’s first desire for you is to be faithful?  Let me take you back to a time in Jesus’ earthly ministry when one of His disciples asked about that.  Look at John 21:21-22:

“When Peter saw him [referring to John], he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 

When it comes to God’s desire for you, everything else is second place to faithfulness.  It would seem that Peter was asking a legitimate question in response to Jesus’ 3 charges to Peter: “Tend my lambs.”, “Shepherd my sheep.” and “Tend my sheep.” (NASB)  It reminds me of when I tell my youngest daughter that she needs to clean up her room and her first response starts off with the words “But what about…???” as she points to her older sister who is seated comfortably on the couch.

In our desire for equity, justice, and fairness we lose sight of the fact that Jesus calls YOU and Jesus calls ME.  While Jesus certainly calls US corporately, I don’t see any US in Scripture that will stand before God in judgement as an US.  YOU will stand before Him and I will stand before Him.

What then should be our first desire?  Is it coincidence that 11 of the Apostles were martyred and the twelfth was left for dead on an island by himself?  That doesn’t sound like God’s first priority for them was their protection.  But because they were faithful–faithful to share the Good News with someone, who in turn shared it with someone, who shared it with someone else, who shared it with me–I am sitting here forgiven of all I have done and ever will do, with the deepest desire of my heart to simply be faithful to the One who has protected me.

I love buffets.  The idea that I can pay one price and stay for the day is euphorically mind-boggling.  I was at a popular pizza buffet recently and said jokingly to the person across the table, “The pizza isn’t that great, but at least there’s a lot of it!”  My wife and I have made it our standing policy not to go to any restaurant that doesn’t give free refills on drinks.  (I’m looking at you, Cafe’ Catura!)  The portion sizes in most establishments are many times over the recommended size for the average human being.  My wife and I had our weekly lunch date at Chipotle yesterday and all around us were people struggling to unhinge their jaw in order to fit a burrito into their mouth.

In spite of all our downsizing in recent years, this American truth remains:  “More is more.”

When I was a little kid, I used to visit my Grandpop at his shoe store.  A special treat would be when he’d let me have a glass bottle Coke and sit in the stockroom on a tall stool at his workbench.  I remember a sign on the wall in that dimly lit stockroom that said, “Rule #1: The customer is always right.  Rule #2: If you think the customer is wrong, see rule #1.”  Yep, Grandpop prided himself on his customer service.  Not only did it make for a pleasant shopping experience for his patrons, but it also made for repeat customers; known as “retention”.

Here’s what I see: its awfully tempting for me as a pastor to look at those I love and serve as “customers”.  Its tempting to fall into the trap of asking questions like “How many are we running?” and “How many are we keeping?”  Let me be quick to say that I do believe those questions have their place in effective ministry, but all too often they can become THE indicator that we use to assess health more than anything else.

I recently got an email from a parent complaining about something in regards to the student ministry I help lead.  And I wouldn’t have minded it really at all if this was an involved family who was faithful to be in the flow of disciple-making, prayer, giving, and even activities of our local church.  They’re not.  In fact, they’ve been here once in the past six months.  And it was when I learned that statistic that my mind switched over to “customer care”.  I began to assess the situation in a completely unspiritual way.  I began to look at them as a dot on a spreadsheet rather than a precious, prized soul that Jesus died to redeem.  And that’s when I’m guilty of “customer care” rather than “soul care”.

As a Bible & youth ministry major in college, I was taught well how to get things done.  I was also taught how to make sure my own soul stays nourished so that I don’t “burn out”.  But as I recall, less emphasis was put on how to care for people as we all keep our eye on Kingdom work: loving the lost, feeding the hungry, attending to the sick, making disciples, equipping the saints, and things like that.  So what I’ve allowed to happen is that ministry often gets boiled down to “keep the customers happy.”

God, help me to drop that like the bad idea that it is.

A pastor’s desire to keep people engaged (a wonderful desire) can be so easily confused with and switched out for the desire to keep people (not-as-good a desire).  Let me pound this out, kind of shooting from the hip here.  If I as a pastor give more attention to keeping people than feeding people, than the emphasis becomes the dog-and-pony show of entertaining the crowd rather than the Biblically-mandated call to mobilize the troops to impact their world with their grace gun, locked and loaded.  Can what we do have a sense of fun, a sense of appeal, a sense of humor?  Absolutely!  And I’m a firm believer in the “whistle while you work” philosophy.  But when we focus more on the whistle than the work…well…maybe I shouldn’t be surprised when people complain because the ministry I help lead doesn’t make them happy.  Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised to get an email that basically tells me that the church I’m on staff at might not be a good church because the writer of the email was spiritually challenged instead of socially coddled.

I love ministry.  I love that God has called me to be a student ministry pastor.  I literally can’t imagine what else He would do with me if it weren’t this.  But I also love when God lets me clearly see the pitfalls of wasted effort and wrong paradigms.

Fat. Ugly. Retarded. Stupid. Gay. Jerk.  

And then there are the ones I can’t (or shouldn’t) even type.

We’re an evil-tongued people.  We swear, we lie, we curse, we gossip, and we put others down.  James had it right when he said, that “the tongue is a fire…the very world of iniquity… and is itself set on fire by hell.”  (James 3:6)

But welcome to 2011 (2 days til 2012).  We have set ourselves completely free to say whatever we want to say because we think it and we think it should be said, and we desire to say it.  Freedom of speech gone a muck.  That’s America for you.

As cowardly as a put-down is, it reaches a new level of cowardice when say from behind a keyboard, through a text, or even worse: posted online for all to see, prop up, and revel in.  Under the banner of “just saying”, we’ve allowed ourselves free reign to bypass the filter between our brains and our mouths.

As you may know, I’ve been working with middle and high school students for nearly 17 years.  And there isn’t ever a shortage of put-downs floating around.  But as I’ve listened to them and corrected them (or attempted to), I’ve seen some common threads.  Whether you’re a teen or not, you can likely resonate with these:

1. Put-downs come from those who have been put down.

It’s the old saying “hurt people hurt people”.  While the sin nature in all of us is surely the leading factor, its also true that when you see someone being destructive with their words (at work, at the grocery store, on the playground, in the home), know that you’ve found someone who has been shown how to hurt others.  This does not condone or defend the behavior, but I constantly have to remind myself that those who are the most painful to be around are often people in the most pain.

#2: Put-downs give a false sense of victory.

Have you ever “stuck it” to someone?  You got entangled in an argument, things got heated,  and that perfect “zinger” came to mind at just the right time?  You likely had a sense of “take that”, but if we’re honest with ourselves those fleeting moments of victory get swallowed up in guilt and an even greater sense of defeat when we choose to employ dirty tactics to gain an upper hand in a verbal combat.

Put-downs are also used in elementary, middle, and high schools to establish who’s who.  Oh yeah, and they’re also used in traffic, in workplaces, offices, factories, homes, and nursing homes.  Heck, I’ve even seen them used at funerals!  All in an effort to establish a footing on a higher pedestal than others.

#3: Put-downs should be corrected…immediately.

Now, some might disagree with me on this one; especially the ultra-tolerant “live and let live” types.  But I’m a firm believer in speaking the truth in love.  Not in pride, or in piety, or in self-righteousness….in love.  When you hear someone say something hurtful, be bold enough to model for them a better way of communicating.  Sure you might get blasted yourself, but hey, take comfort in the fact that you did the right thing. Throwing someone a lifeline is your job.  Whether they take it or not is up to them.

If the atmosphere is too tense then just wait a while, but not too long.  Use a “Remember what you said a little while ago? I wanted to talk with you about that because I’m really struggling with it.”

We possess such power within the small muscle inside our mouths.  Did you know that the tongue is the only muscle not attached on both ends?  That means that you’ve always got a loose end to watch out for!  If you need help then there’s good news.  The God who made it knows how best to help you handle it.  Ask Him.   James was right when he said, “No man can tame the tongue.”  (3:8)  But we know Who can!