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Redemptive Doubt

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Anyone who believes anything also doubts. Doubt is just a part of the package in this human experience. In terms of spiritual health, doubt plays a rather important part in helping growth and maturity happen. That’s what I want to kick around with you this time.

Doubt in your life had a genesis, a starting point…so where would you say it began? As we grow into pre-adolescence, our adolescent years, our young adulthood, and then into our older adult selves, doubt comes along for the ride.

The developmental process of the brain invariably impacts spiritual processing. It can’t not. As we learn and as our synnapses make stronger connections and forge new paths in our brain, we wrestle and struggle with things that we perhaps once held as absolute truth. Expressions like “What if…”, “I wonder…” and “Maybe not…” are peppered into our once-confirmed ideas of truth and reality.

What I’d like to do is to lay out a few of the places where we see doubt play a part in the Gospel story. And believe me, it definitely does. Let me take you first to the Mount of Olives where Jesus met with his disciples for the very last time before ascending into the clouds.

Read that again. Notice verse 17. We’re told, “They worshiped Him; but some doubted.” Hold up. This is the now risen Jesus. This is the man they have watched for three years, day in and day out. This is the man who they all saw walk on water. They watched Him raise people from the dead. They carried the baskets of leftovers from the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 men (and then another 4,000 soon after). This is the man they heard night and day teaching with “power and authority”. This is their Rabbi that they heard predict His own death on a cross, watched (and ran away from) His arrest, and saw Him being nailed to a Roman cross of crucifixion. This is the man they’ve spend forty or so days with post-resurrection. What do you mean “but some doubted”?!?

But that’s not even the most interesting part. What is astounding to me is that Jesus went full speed ahead on commissioning this group of disciples to carry out what we now refer to as “The Great Commission” found in Matt. 28:19-20. What I’m pointing out is that Jesus handed over the carrying on of His Kingdom on earth to a mixed-bag group of believers AND doubters. He could have (and maybe should have) said, “I’m not going anywhere until you can all prove to me that this Gospel is deeply rooted in your heart; that there’s not one shred of doubt within any of you, because the mission–MY MISSION–is far too important to just leave to a bunch of people who are still wondering if I’m the Son of God or not.”

So if you’re struggling with doubt, or ever have, you’re in the best company. The very disciples who Jesus spoke with face-to-face also wrestled with their own doubts. And yet, here we are. Anyone who claims to follow Jesus today can trace their spiritual lineage to one of those disciples on that mountain, staring up into the clouds while the man some of them doubted was God literally ascended into the sky.

Let’s look at another example of doubt in the Gospels and what we can learn…

I won’t launch into a deep-dive exegesis of this passage as I have done in the past. I’ll just point you to this particular verse that comes at the end of the account where we’re told about Jesus’ very first public miracle–one that he was actually completely reluctant to perform. But alas, Mary gave us the very first historical record we have of a Mom pulling the “Mom Card”. We find verse 11 at the tail end of this passage about this wedding in Cana. Notice what it says: “And his disciples believed in Him.”

What were they doing before the water-to-wine miracle? Can we rightly infer that there was less than “belief” in Jesus before that first miracle? It seems they were still kind of “kicking the tires” of this alleged Messiah before that point. Seems like perhaps some of them were not completely sold out in terms of their faith in Jesus.

Okay, one more…

I think Thomas gets way too much heat for this statement. Let’s be real. Dude was only saying what everyone else was thinking. You probably have a friend like that. And what you like about that friend is that you never have to guess where they stand on stuff. Thomas was adamant about his faith. He wasn’t just gonna roll over and put faith where facts go. Nah man, nah. Not Thomas.

But look at where “Doubting Thomas” ended up. Some 3,000 miles away from that mountain where Jesus left him, we find Thomas carrying the Gospel message to the people of India and Turkey, and eventually we find Thomas meeting the end of a spear as a martyr for the Gospel message and the very Jesus that he insisted on seeing for himself. Thomas grew into full faith because he was willing to be real about his doubts.

So even if you’ve got doubt in your story, you’ve got usefulness in God’s story.

Doubts play a redemptive role in our faith. Doubts give us the opportunity to have our convictions tested and proven. Doubts indicate places where we can dig in, ask questions, and find that Jesus really is who He said He was all along. Don’t downplay doubts. Doubts aren’t the enemy of faith, but they can be the paralyzer of growth if left unexplored. Let your doubts show you where to dig next.

M25 Conference Recap

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The glory and beauty of the Gospel is its simplicity.

Likewise, the most beautifully lived life is a life lived as a reflection and conduit of the Gospel.

I attended the M25 Conference, held in Kansas City, Missouri (just one day after the Chiefs groaningly lost their quest to be “three-peat” Super Bowl champions), and I want to take a few minutes to help myself by recounting some of what I experienced there. If you’re a jerrythinks regular, you know that I use this platform to help process my thoughts, as well as cement some things that are still a little wispy in my mind. In other words, this type of blog post helps me grab things from the air and nail them to the floor, proverbially speaking.

This is the first “M” conference I’ve ever been to. They happen on a 4-year cycle. I’ve been serving in the Church of the Nazarene for over twenty years, so I’m not sure how I’ve missed this good gathering of Nazarenes. At any rate, I’m glad I’ve now participated in what I heard years ago as “what the Church of the Nazarene does best.” That’s high praise for a conference, so I had relatively high expectations heading into this Monday-Wednesday experience.

Do you know someone who’s well connected? Someone who is good at making connections with people, networking, and fostering relationships that are interconnected across a nation? I would say that it seemed that nearly every person (thousands of them) at the M25 gathering was a well-connected pastor/leader/missionary/laity, with the exception of yours truly. I know that’s not entirely accurate, but that’s how I felt for much of the conference.

In contexts such as conferences with thousands of people present, I typically find that it takes extra effort on my part to meet, to mingle, to interact, and to seek out meaningful connections. And I’m happy to do it for the sake of more opportunities to serve more people through encouragement, through mutual support, and through the building up of the Church. All that to say that in a room full of people, while my default setting is to find a corner and wait it out, I decided instead to wade in and look for the connections God had for me. And I did. I found some.

I’m thankful for David and Yhoshua, and for Dale. I had never met these men before but was thankful to meet them and to connect together, gathering around the shared purpose of making disciples.

I enjoyed meeting Lonnie, a dude who doesn’t merely have one of the best heads of hair I’ve ever coveted, but a hero who has re-entered the pastoral ministry scene for the express purpose of ministering specifically to young adults. We share that passion in common, even if we are polar opposites on the hair spectrum.

As for the up-front speakers, I was entirely blessed by every single preacher who shared God’s Word with us carefully and powerfully. Stan Reeder, the Regional Director of the Church of the Nazarene in USA & Canada, Carla Sunberg, who serves as one of our General Superintendents, Lamorris Crawford, a former NFL chaplain, Kevin Jack who pastors Church for the One in Lakeland, Florida, and finally John C. Maxwell, global leadership guru. Every one of them brought God’s Word in the power of God’s Spirit. And without exception, as soon as they concluded their respective messages, I wanted them to run it back so I could hear it again. Thankful for the videos that’ll soon be uploaded. I guarantee that I’ll be listening to every one of those messages multiple times.

The thread that carried throughout the conference was the need for the Church to love all people everywhere, caring not merely about accomplishing a nebulous mission, but bringing the heart of Jesus Himself into every thought, every word we speak, every decision we make, and every interaction we have with every person we see; and doing so with humility, with compassion, with the very eyes of God that sees every person as preciously loved by God. When we do that, we dignify each person, and we engage the Gospel.

The conference, for me, served powerfully as a recalibration on our mission. The work of the Kingdom of God is to seek out the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son and daughter. Jesus Himself said that He came to “seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

A social media post I made at the end of M25. @jerryvarner

While the word “evangelism” was peppered throughout the conversations and messages I heard, I did not bristle at it as I have in the past. This might surprise you, but not every person who claims to know God buys into the idea that those who claim to know Him are called to love people with His kind of love (agape), AND called to–as His Spirit leads and enables–speak His name and share the message of the Gospel with others. But this reality is precisely what has brought the Church in America to her knees. We are ineffective, impotent, ambivalent, withering, and anemic.

So the call going out to those in attendance at the M25 conference is not to “do better”. No, no, no. The call is rather to, if I may put it in my own terms, to “give up.”

In order for the Gospel to advance, we must give up the security of a sheep pen that holds 99 out of 100 sheep. There is ALWAYS a “one” in each of our lives that must be found.

We must give up our church culture that placates and pacifies religious church-goers rather than lives radically among our neighbors so that Jesus alone is seen and by loving well, we are afforded any opportunity to bring the peace, grace, and hope of Jesus to our world.

We must give up the notion that anything at all is worth more than Jesus Himself in our hearts. As well-known atheist Penn Jillette once famously said of Christians…

“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”

Let’s say you had a friend who got diagnosed with a condition you have had. Let’s say you were given the antidote to that condition and that medicine had cured you. Let’s say that everyone who’s taken this antidote has been healed of that condition. What would keep you from sharing that medicine with that person who’s just learned they have this condition?

Again, that’s a simplistic view of the Gospel, but I’ll say again that the beauty of the Gospel is its simplicity. And I believe that despite the sickening state of the Church in America today, that beauty and that simplicity are still very much intact. The glory and power of the Gospel to change lives is as potent as it ever has been. If we will simply give our whole selves to the work of loving people in the name of Jesus and the work of His Spirit in ours and in their lives, and boldly uphold the message of the cross, I truly believe that even America can be saved.

Fresh Start(s)

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We all have situations, relationships, or even seasons of time of our lives that we’d go back and do differently, if we could. Think about what situation or season that might be for you.

What is it about that situation that you look back on critically that would cause you to question how you handled it? Was it the outcome? Was it your attitude throughout? Is it that you now know things that you didn’t know then and therefore couldn’t act on? Was it something else altogether?

As a follower of Jesus and a pastor to boot, I am pretty consistently haunted (that word sounds ghoulish or negative, but stick with me while I hash it out) by the question: Is what/who the Church is today consistent with the desire of God’s heart for those who represent Him on earth?

I can almost hear you from here. I believe that we would collectively release a resounding “No.” as the Church universal. We all know that who we are and what we’re doing and the silly ways we can get sidetracked, making some non-essentials into the hill(s) we die on–well, it’s embarrassing.

So here at this moment in the history of the Church, we desire to and will, with God’s guidance and power, usher in a new start. And this new start will leave no thing untouched and unaffected, except for the Gospel itself. We step forward with no grip on what was in terms of tradition, preconceptions, personal preferences, or rhythms that at one point started with fervor yet have deteriorated into rote and nearly meaningless religion or even religious monotony.

The prophet Isaiah spoke these words that I fear apply to far too many church-goers: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (29:13)

For those who don’t know, just this month I have officially started a new pastoral role at the local church I have served at for over twenty years. Along with being Pastor to Young Adults, I am now also Director of Discipleship. You better believe that the question “Are we even making disciples at all?” is at the top of the long list of questions that I’m asking in this new role.

Lest you think that question is too dire or drips with doubt, let me assure you that the question is exactly as it should be: teetering on the edge of being an indictment. Unless we ask this question as the Church, we are in full danger of neglecting and failing at literally the ONE THING Jesus told us to be about before He ascended into heaven where He, like us, awaits His return.

Just as this question must be asked on a wide-spread level, it must also be asked on the personal level. There will be no greater anguish than for us to reach the end of our time and realize that we completely missed the point. Regardless of the pain involved, we must face the question. I’m doing that in my local ministry context as a pastor, and I’m also doing it in my own heart as a person.

Here’s the rub: Have you ever played “the floor is lava”? It’s a childhood game (there’s actually a television game show for adults based on the same premise) wherein as long as you’re up off the floor, you’re safe. But let one little pinky toe touch the ground, and you’re burned up and out of the game.

In a way, we are all playing this game spiritually. We’re locked in and fearful of moving freely because we have grown so accustomed to what has been that what could be seems more terrifying than exhilarating.

But what would a fresh start in your spiritual walk with Jesus look like? What would cracking open and discarding the shell of religious activity look like? What would introducing zeal and fervor look like? What would a life set ablaze with the power of the Holy Spirit look like? What does a neglect of all silly and shallow distractions in favor of a full-bodied, full-life surrender and pursuit of Kingdom purposes look like? What does a day-to-day existence that embraces and insists on making disciples look like? What does it look like to consider your vocation and career not the point of it all, but the fuel and context in which God is calling you to make more disciples?

God helping me as a person and as a pastor, and God helping us as a local church and as the Church universal, there is a fresh start emerging. We are putting away those stale traditions that have eased us into ambivalence toward the Mission, and we are welcoming God’s refining gaze to guide us into the new approach to disciple-making that our world today calls for.

A Kingdom of Questions

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Read the gospels. Jesus asked far more questions than He provided answers. The critical role questions play in our faith development and in the discipleship and disciple-making path, cannot be overstated.

I’ve been a pastor to teenagers and young people for over three decades. I have always (and will always) seek to cultivate an environment where questions are celebrated rather than suppressed. The cancer that eats away at young faith in a young person’s life is not doubt, but the absence of any genuine place to process those doubts. Church, shame on us if we do not allow, invite, and encourage the hard questions being asked.

It is a distinctly American thing for us to uphold a facade that would portray us as well-answered, put-together people; even followers of Jesus do this. Perhaps unwittingly, this desire to be seen as stable in faith causes the erosion of an atmosphere where questions are explored.

In essence, we’ve hung a “Closed” sign on the laboratory door.

How now do we reverse this reality?

First, we confess what should be obvious. That not one of us–from pauper to Pope–has every answer to every question of faith, God, spirituality, the Bible, or how to live the gospel effectively and redemptively.

And that confession should cultivate humility. Even while there are those with understandings and experiences that afford them the role of sherpa in others’ lives, there still remains a deep humility that drives every person to the posture of a student. This mindset reflects the expression we get from theologian Gerhardus Vos: that we do live in an “already and not yet” reality of God’s Kingdom.

Next step, we articulate the gut-level questions we have. Yours will be different than mine. And when we do that, we reject pithy, theoretical responses that try to put a bandaid over a gaping hole. “What kind of a God would watch a 22-month-old toddler get out a backdoor of their caretaker’s home unnoticed, make their way across several neighbors’ yards, and then watch them fall into a small decorative yard pond and drown?” That’s just ONE of my questions.

Write down every question about pain, faith, God’s character, scripture, heaven, hell, doubt–anything your heart is holding onto.

Lastly, utilize that list of questions (as ever-expanding as it may be) into your personal map toward growth. Seek. Explore. Ask. Wonder. Take the next hill. Cultivate a heart that embraces “I don’t know” just as readily as it embraces “I am convinced.”

Early in Jesus’ public ministry He began to call disciples to follow Him. This caught the attention of a couple of John’s disciples who would-be followers of Jesus. But first a couple questions needed to be exchanged…

Jesus (seeing them following): “What do you want?”

Two disciples (one of them was Andrew): “Where are you staying?”

If you’ll notice, every relationship begins with questions. The fallacy is that healthy relationships don’t have or need questions. That somehow we no longer have need for wonder or exploration once we know someone. I’d submit to you that the opposite is actually true. The more you know someone, the more we should: 1) rest in confidence of knowing and being known and 2) seek to know more because that confidence creates a safe place where more questions are welcomed.

In its correct form, the Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of questions. Taking a posture of a student hungry to learn, grow, and change more into the image of their first love and Master will also transform our view on worship, including how we gather together. Can you even imagine what it would look like this coming Sunday morning if everyone who was present was a true explorer, an excited participant in their own faith journey, and truly reveling in the wonder of a God who can be known now and yet not fully known?

I have used this analogy before, so forgive me if it’s a repeat for you long-time readers. I view myself as standing on a beach, my feet in the water as the waves lap up on the shore. I’ve got a ladle in my hand, and I’m sipping from it. I understand and am fully okay with the fact that all my life, I will never drink that whole ladle. And I’m at peace knowing there is an ocean of water in front of me that won’t ever be touched by that ladle.

This is how I view my questions and my doubts. I will continue to sip, seek, ask, wonder, and explore. Yet I know that I can’t know the expanse of all of who God is. One of my favorite verses in terms of this peaceful pursuit is Romans 11:33:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how unfathomable his ways!” (New English Translation)

Why Church, why have we allowed ourselves to become tidy, buttoned-up, satisfied recipients of the only life-altering truth and yet stopped there? Why have we turned into guardians of truth and not champions of exploration? A young generation is under the impression that there is little to no place for questions in a life of faith. Let’s reverse this as soon as possible.

After all, the words “question” and “quest” share the same Latin root: quaerere. Both mean “to ask/seek.” In other words, every question invites us on a quest. So take those questions, grab the map they create, and move forward in a faith that celebrates question marks as much as exclamation points!

No, Follow ME.

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By the time I was a teenager, I had learned that my human tendency is steeply inclined toward selfishness. Any given decision that was being made was generally decided by asking a simple question: “What’s best for me in this situation?”

Living by this criterion of what was best for me turned out to be–and I don’t say this lightly–the very worst way to live a life. A subsequent truth I’ve learned is that my two shoulders were never meant to bear the load of my own life, my own desires, my own priorities, or my own prerogatives. In other words, I was never meant to be the center of my own life. And neither were you. It’s not surprising, however, that so many people try and make that kind of life work. We try and establish ourselves as the centerpiece, then seek to orient all other details, assets, career decisions, and relationships in a tidy orbit around us. It’s so very common, but just as commonly ill-fated.

I got off-center in June of 1991 at the age of 17. After a disastrously tumultuous season of making absolutely terrible decisions and proving without question that when I’m in charge things go very badly, I was found by Jesus in a field in Altoona, PA. I was shattered and broken in every way when Jesus laid his hand on my shoulder and invited me to be made new and to begin to walk with Him. Essentially His simple invitation was an echo of the invitation He gave to so many people 2,000 or so years ago and has given to millions upon millions since: “Follow me.” And I did. I stood up in that field, and took my first steps of true faith, going for a walk that I’m still on today.

For the past 35 years, I’ve been on a walk with Jesus. That’s probably the best way to describe my life. But I want to tell you about a pitfall that I’ve discovered on this walk I’ve been on. It’s actually something I’d be embarrassed to confess this to you if I had any pride left. But I’ve already told you enough about myself to easily shake off that nonsense. I won’t let pride stop me from sharing something with you that might be helpful, even if it makes me look foolish.

There have been times when I have taken the “Follow me” invitation of Jesus and turned it on Him. There have been times when I’ve allowed my distracted heart or what amounted to a relapse into self-centeredness to actually cause me to turn to Jesus and say, “No, YOU follow ME.”

It happens subtly. In fact, it can happen most easily when I don’t intentionally and aggressively recognize Jesus’ Lordship in my life. When Jesus’ Lordship goes unrecognized, it goes unlived. And guess who is the only other possible throne dweller? Me. So when I don’t actively and daily respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him, then I, almost by default, am inviting Him to follow me.

I’m not a numbers guy, but I do think it’s interesting that in the recorded gospels, Jesus uttered the words “Follow me” 21 times. And if you know anything about human habits, you’ve likely heard that it is around the 21-day mark that a behavior starts to become a habit. So let me make a suggestion that might seem silly. For the next 21 days, make a statement out loud (as in actually speak it) to Jesus that “I’m following YOU today.” Or feel free to tweak or modify that statement; anything that allows your heart to acknowledge who’s leading and who’s following.

As you go through those 21 days, reach out to me and let me know what you notice about yourself, about Jesus, and about your daily life of following Him.

———————————————————————————————–

BONUS:

On January 5, 2025, the good folks at Southside Church are receiving a 21-day devotional book I’ve written called “Rock Solid Living.” I’d love for you to join in with us, and if you don’t have a church home, I’d love to meet you there each week. I’ve never tried to connect my personal blog to any local church, let alone the one I happen to serve at, but today’s blog post seems like a good opportunity to extend that invitation.

BONUS BONUS:

This audio recording is a time machine of sorts. This is the actual recording of the message I heard in that field in Altoona, PA in 1991. It was at the end of this message that I responded and truly accepted Jesus’ invitation to “Follow me.”

By the numbers….when Creation Festival came to a close in 2023…

115,000 people chose to follow Christ as their Savior. 

 16,000+ people have been water baptized at the festival. 

 2.1 million have attended and worshiped our Creator together. 

 43,000 people have served the festival, many for a decade or more. 

 43,000+ children have been rescued from poverty through Compassion International and other child sponsorship programs.

Snowing Sideways

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I was sitting in the passenger seat while my wife took a turn driving on our trek to Ohio just a few days ago. We were headed there to celebrate with our son-in-law as he graduated from firefighter academy. As we drove, I looked out my passenger door window at the beautiful snow that was falling. It was the perfect kind of snow at this moment; it was falling steadily but making no difference to the condition of the roads. All it was doing was blanketing the surrounding world in white.

But traveling at highway speeds, the snow was falling sideways. When you’re moving 70 to 80 miles an hour in a vehicle while the snow falls, that snow doesn’t fall straight down. It falls sideways.

Or so it seems.

As I, with a little effort, looked and could see past the nearest snowfall, I could see the snow in the distance. I could see the snow that was far enough away from our car that it was actually simply falling. Not sideways. Just beautifully straight down, as snow does.

Then a thought occurred to me. Let me tell you about it.

As we flew down that highway, I could’ve sworn the snow was falling sideways. But it wasn’t. It’s that our speed made it seem that way. When I could get my eyes past what seemed to be my immediate reality and onto the true reality, I could see that I had a choice to make. Hang on, this is where it gets practical… I hope.

You and I often cannot control the speed at which life happens. But this doesn’t mean we can’t control anything. I don’t believe in victims. That’s not to say that I don’t think people are victimized by others, I just mean that I don’t believe that anyone is truly a complete victim to that person or situation. We all always have power that must be spoken to the speed at which our lives are moving.

In simpler terms, we cannot control life’s speed, but we can control our perspective and our focus, even as life seems to whiz by. And we must.

I’ve heard many people over the years lament about how chaotically frenzied their lives had become. And while I don’t doubt for a second that life really can feel like it’s spinning out of control, I do doubt that we can ever claim total innocence in that. Typically, you have a hand–a strong hand–at just how fast the snow seems to be falling sideways in your life.

Because there does exist a snowfall that is far more peaceful. You may not have the choice right now to stand in it practically, but you most certainly can stand in it mentally and by engaging a different perspective than the hurried world around you.

So the next time you’re driving, and snow is falling, and you’re tempted to pretend you’re Han Solo piloting the Millenium Falcon through warp speed (iykyk), remember that while it might appear that the speed of life is uncontrollable, the speed of your heart and mind most assuredly are. The focus of your priorities is fully yours to control. The degree to which you fret over life’s details is firmly within your grasp alone. Just look beyond the immediate sideways snow and realize that just in the near distance, inviting you there, is a snowfall that is quiet, tranquil, and available.

P.S. Just a quick shoutout to all first responders out there. We had a wonderful time celebrating our son-in-law’s graduation. Just yesterday, he completed his first shift as a professional firefighter. We couldn’t be more proud of him, and we’re so grateful to all who serve our communities with selflessness.

Why I’m Choosing Love

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If you know me, you know I’m a man in love. Deeply. In. Love.

My wife is, quite simply, the perfect human being for me. I’m convinced that God custom-made this woman to fill in and complement every one of my shortcomings–and there are many. I’m completely and forever in love with her. If you know her, you see clearly that we are a matched set.

Lest you think I’m about to droll on and on, dripping with sap about how much I love my wife, I promise you I am not. I actually want to turn my attention to Jesus, and Him alone. And I invite you to hear the expressions of my thoughts and heart for the man I call my best friend, my Savior, my heart’s affection, and the One I choose to follow/walk with. But before I do, I believe the greatest quality my wife has is that she would absolutely want me to tell you that it’s Jesus who makes our marriage work. He’s it.

But first a quick diversion. My life revolves around ministering with young people. Ever since I was a young person myself, I have known that my life would be aimed at the young generation, and loving them well, showing them Jesus, and being available for them for…well…whatever.

Living rooms, hospital rooms, waiting rooms, courtrooms, backs of squad cars, funerals, jail cells…I’ve been everywhere seeking to love young people well.

In all honesty, I have nothing to offer any young person but Jesus. He is it. I don’t have life hacks, deep wisdom, tricks to help smooth out life’s road, or anything else. I only have and I only offer Jesus.

So you can perhaps imagine my surprise and concern when I recently found that some young people I interact with struggled to articulate much at all about who Jesus is and why they, too, love Him.

Seems like for someone who is in the context of a thriving spiritual community, such a thing should flow naturally. But it seems there’s work to do in this area. Yet, I cannot expect anything from them that I am not able and willing to do myself. So, this blog is about exercising the discipline of articulation. I’m going to articulate to you why I choose to love and more specifically, who I know Jesus to be and why I am now and–God helping me–will for all my days fix my gaze on Jesus.

If anyone from my high school days ever reads these words, I must apologize to you. I did not live as I should have lived in those days. I did not express my faith well; it was there, but it was not on display as it should have been. I hope you’ll forgive me for that. I should have been clearer. This isn’t about my upbringing as a “PK” (pastor’s kid), it isn’t about church attendance, and it isn’t about “religion.” I put no stock in any of those things.

This is about the person of Jesus: who He has been from the beginning, who He revealed Himself to be in the gospel accounts we all have access to, and who He is to me personally right now on a daily basis.

I want to do my best to paint a picture for you. I trust that then you’ll clearly see why I choose to love Him.

You can read other blog posts of mine that go into the granular details of my upbringing and my faith story. There are lots of details you can find in other writings I’ve already posted. So I won’t repeat myself in that regard.

Jesus is the fullness of God, who chose to be constrained to a human frame. God chose to become flesh in order to communicate the greatest love for humanity (that’s all of us) that He possibly could. Jesus came to us because we could never get to Him. The mission of Jesus from the very start has been to come and get us. To rescue us. To redeem us. To adopt us. To draw us back to Him, as He has desired all along.

The person of Jesus is the image of a God who would stop at nothing to have us in a loving relationship with Himself. I love Jesus because He is God, but also because He is a walking, talking, sharing, healing, and reviving God. I live and breathe at this moment because of the presence of God. This is not a poetic or romantic statement, though it is that as well. It is a statement of fact. My conviction is that I am alive because God has desired it. I am breathing and functioning because of His good grace. My whole self is wrapped up in Jesus because Jesus has shown Himself to be the author and sustainer of all I am and all I have.

Going deeper, this God has come to me personally. In the depths of my sin, He came to me in this relentless pursuit that was fueled by His love for me. Though I disregarded His love and chose to live selfishly, still He came for me and came after Me. He found me in my self-inflicted mess and invited me to be whole, to be healed, and to be changed day by day as I walk with Him. I have found no other solid ground to stand on because every other thought and belief system would be based on what I can do, and I confess that I can do nothing good on my own. If you are reading these words and you believe you are fine on your own and do not need Him, then know that while He loves you with an everlasting love, His love also gives each person their own decision to embrace Him or go on without Him. But as for me, I choose Jesus. He looked for me, He found me, He healed me (still is), He transformed me (still is), He adopted me, and He is patient with me.

I talk with Jesus. In this talking, our relationship grows stronger. That’s how relationships work. If you want to grow closer to someone, you talk to them, and you listen to them. I have become convinced that it is this ongoing conversation that gives me a healthy perspective on all other aspects of my life. Likewise, when our conversation wanes, all other aspects of my life begin to become misprioritized and mishandled. Simply put, my conversation with Jesus sets all other things in their proper place.

I choose to love Jesus not because I was given some insider information by virtue of being brought up in a Christian (let alone as a pastor’s) home. It’s not because I went to enough bible studies and learned enough information. It’s not because of some unfair advantage life handed me. No. None of that. I choose to love Jesus because He first loved me. He proved that love by painfully accepting the death that my own sin demanded. He took on my death in my place. What greater love exists than that?

I know Jesus as a friend because He continually shows me more of who He is. I enjoy a familiarity with Jesus because we have walked together for so long, but along with that comfort, there is equal part wonder and curiosity that is built into our friendship. I know that I’ll never know the depths of who Jesus is, and I revel in that mystery. I love Jesus because there is no end to what I can know of Him.

Jesus is the very embodiment of the love of God. I am drawn to belief in Him, to friendship with Him, and to journeying life’s road following Him. I honestly believe that apart from Jesus I could do and would be nothing. Again, if you are living a fine life apart from Him and believe that you are able to continue that, by all means go ahead. As for me, I’m a broken and helpless sinner in desperate need of a Savior. He is the Savior of my world. I know that for me, I am prone to decisions that are selfish and destructive. I need someone greater and higher to be Lord of my life. He is my Lord and He has given me wisdom, peace, and direction. He has saved me from devastating decisions time and again. Left to myself, I’d drive this life into a ditch or off a cliff. With Jesus in control, I have nothing to fear. With Jesus my Lord guiding me, I am free from all anxiety. That’s why I trust Him. That’s why I love Him.

What I want for you is that you would know Him, too. In fact, I’d love nothing more than for you to know Him even more than I do. Whether you or anyone else (and I know millions do) choose to love Him, I simply cannot turn away from Him. I’m far too convinced of His presence, His goodness, His faithfulness, and His grace. This is who Jesus is to me and this is why I choose to love Him.