This past Friday I had most of the day to myself since my wife was working and my kids were in school. For a few weeks now, I’ve been wanting to go to the River and take a walk. The James River isn’t the prettiest river I’ve ever seen, but I do enjoy the sound of the water and the overall vibe of being in nature, albeit juxtaposed against the none-too-lovely backdrop of the city of Richmond.

And when I arrived I suppose I was most surprised by the sheer amount of people that were there. Runners, walkers, bikers, sitters, eaters–you name it, they were at the river it seemed. And thankfully I took my trusty camera with me and snapped a few shots, trying not to look TOO touristy (clicking each will enlarge it):

This one was over the canal, on a small footbridge.

Look under the bridge, and you can see the footbridge I was headed for.

I was talking with Steve the other day (like I do everyday, actually) and he had mentioned that at the Mixx on Sunday (he was at Courthouse campus), he had asked if anyone knew “The Great Commandment”. He broke the whole place into groups to discuss it. After a few minutes he asked everyone if anyone knew it.

One person did.
One person.
Just one.

Now, Steve had just been talking about the “Great Commission” which is found in Matt. 28:19. You can read that here if you don’t know it. Lots of people knew that one.

But sometimes what we don’t realize is that the “Great Commission” is best lived out through the “Great Commandment”. If you want to read the Great Commandment for yourself, then click here.

Jesus came to save the world. Not judge it, not condemn it, and not even fix it. He came to love and save every person. And ever since His ascension back to heaven, He has given His followers–you and I–the greatest responsibility and privilege: to be Him. We are His love poured out on the world, we are His mind, we are His hands, we are His feet, we are His words, we are His arms, we are His compassion, we are His grace; in that we carry all these things to every person we see. That’s our great commandment. Fulfilling this will fulfill the Great Commission.

It’s not the easiest life to live. It’s not the most popular. It’s not the most lucritive. It’s not the most comfortable. But you know what I’ve found? It’s often those who are most uncomfortable who do the most good.

In what ways does your faith make you uncomfortable in this world? Use the comment section to answer.

For no discernable reason whatsoever, the last few days have started in a peculiar way. I’ve been awakened with an alert sense of God’s presence.

Maybe its the skylight directly over my bed; I wake up everyday looking into the sky.
Maybe it was something I ate.

Now, I don’t mean to say that I am usually without that knowledge of His presence. On the contrary: I know well that God will never ever leave me and I am always as close to Him as I want to be. But as a pastor, you might suspect that it is a daily occurrence that I awaken with praise on my lips, a song in my heart, and a prayer effortlessly cascading from my spirit heavenward.

Usually, I just want coffee.

But in the last couple of days, my first thought when I wake up is “Lord, I love you. And I want to be exactly where and what you want me to be today.” It’s as if God is bedside, nudging me while I sleep, trying to wake me up so that He and I can get the day going. And when my eyes do finally open, I have a keen awareness that He’s raring to go.

My guess is that some who read this might blow it off as a little too…..something. I don’t know–freaky-deaky, Kum-Ba-Yah, a little too “out there”. I mean consider it: God rousing you awake and allowing you the tranquility of having your first thought be on Him and all He is. Weird, right? I thought so.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “The prayer of the morning determines the day.” And Bonhoeffer was one who would know exactly what living a life dedicated to God was all about. You might dismiss his socio-political involvement as radical, but he lived a life with his eyes on God and eternity. This knowledge of the Divine presence of God in his life caused him to live everyday as if it were his last. And when his last day did come when he was hanged at age 39, he is reported to have said on his way to the gallows “This is the end–but for me, the beginning of life.”

A mind fixed on God is a mind that is all-at-once at peaceful rest and restless passion. It is an unlikely combination of being content in the suffiiciency of God and yet being discontent with my own shortcomings in dedication to Him. It is a keen awareness that with God, all is in Hand, and yet I am His hand. It’s strange, and yet the most glorious place to be and to live.

This is one of those blogs that don’t have a conclusion.

But just for fun, here’s a guy playing Kum Ba Yah on a tuba. Enjoy.

For the last day of my “staycation”, my kids were back in school and my wife and I had the day to do whatever. We decided to spend at least part of the rainy day at an outdoor mall–go figure. We headed up to Short Pump Town Center and actually most of the walkways were covered from the rain. Because of the weather we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

That is until we got to the Apple store–the one that sells the iPods, the iPhones, the iMacs, the iBooks and the iHaventShoweredLately. Honestly (and I’m not trying to slam anyone here), its as if you have to fit (or have) some mold to work there. And that’s not a problem with me at all. It’s Apple’s right (or at least the manager of that store) to pick and choose whatever type of person he/she deems will push the product the best. And while the vast majority of the mall was a veritable ghost town, the iStore was hopping. They were even calling numbers like some kind of cybergeek deli. It was crazy. And best of all, entertaining.

So, like the dutiful American male that I am, I sauntered through whilst my bride was in a store next door looking at things that don’t plug in. I wandered the isles of white-encased electric wonder with eyes-wide-open and just a hint of drool. After all, Macs are quite incredible.

And the minds behind the Macs are quite intellegent, too. Among other things, they have convinced the public at large that there’s an “app” for anything. That is, they have the answer for any problem you can come up with. Their mantra: “There’s an app for that.”

Now, I’m not trying to drag Jesus into everything. I’m pretty sure He’s already there. I just like it when I see Him in unexpected places, like the Apple store.

The life that Jesus lived on earth and how He exists today in heaven is thoroughly practical, if nothing else. As He moved about on this earth, even at a young age He was constantly making a difference. And to those who were of sincere heart and searching faith, He was the “App” they’d been looking for. He was the solution to the problem. He was the answer to the questions. He was the conclusion to the wandering.

This life of “application” that Jesus lived was found clearly in His various “I am” statements. Read the Gospels and you’ll find Jesus saying of Himself, “I am light”, “I am bread”, “I am living water”, and even the proposterous “I am The Way”. It seemed that no matter what the need, Jesus was the “app”.

So, while it may be a stroke of marketing genius for Mac to declare, “There’s an app for that”, it was Jesus who first lived that message. And upon His ascension, has given His followers the glorious privilege of living of life that truly makes a difference, answers the questions, and presents the solution. No matter the past, no matter the trial, no matter the confusion, no matter the hurt, no matter the unspeakable pain, no matter the failures, no matter the need, no matter the sin….”there’s an app for that.”

I had just finished posting the previous post and went into the kitchen to put some dishes away. This song was the first one coming from my ipod. I was reminded just how much I love this song. It’s probably my favorite song. Hope you enjoy it.

I was reminded this morning while watching the news that religion has yet to do any good thing in the world. It has perhaps created nice and polite people, civilized toward one another; and perhaps has also contributed the concept of charity, but it has also created murderers and monsters who commit the most heinous of crimes in the name of their God and their religion.

Religion is not often spoken about in the Bible, and rightfully so. It is used as a moral guide, a path on which to conduct the daily activity of one’s life. Take a look at Asa, King of Judah in 2 Chronicles 14:

2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. 4 He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands. 5 He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. 6 He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the LORD gave him rest.

Religion tells us what to do, how to act, and even how to think. But let me suggest that belief precludes all of those things. And not only precludes but supercedes.

Watching the news this morning, I learned about a woman, a “Sunday School teacher” as the news reporter pointed out, who was being accused of murdering an 8 year old girl. As a follower of Christ, I was on one hand sorrowed by the death of anyone, let alone a defenseless little girl. But there was also a part of me that was momentarily bothered by the fact that they seemed to repeat the “Sunday School teacher” in describing the accused woman. It was as if the woman was now the posterchild for all Sunday School teachers everywhere. I thought, “Now, why did they have to throw that in?” Would it have been reported the same way if that woman were Buddhist, or Jewish, or Muslim?

And I was reminded that religion isn’t what our nation needs. Religion is only and can ever only be a guide; a set of boundaries by which to live one’s life. But without belief in and the indwelling power of God in one’s life, religion is only a set of rules and will not only save no one, but will likely do much more harm than good, as history has taught us.

Am I speaking against religion? I hope it doesn’t sound that way. In fact, James who wrote one of the books in the New Testament wrote:

“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.”

So, religion does have its place. But religion must start with relationship. Invite a non-Christian to church or even broach the subject of spiritual matters with them and you’re likely to hear (as I have countless times) something like, “Oh, I’m not a religious person.” My response? “Neither am I, and neither was Jesus.”

If followers of Christ are not careful to keep passion alive in their relationship with Him, the progression goes something like this….

We have a relationship,
which often has rituals,
which can lead to routine,
which starts to feel like a rut,
until we sense spiritual rigor mortis,
and we’re left with hollow religion.

And religion is not compelling to those seeking help, and hope, and peace, and forgiveness. And if religion is even the clothes that our relationship with Jesus wears, then that relationship seems far-fetched as well.

This past weekend I watched a movie called “The Last Sin Eater”. If you’ve never seen it, don’t bother. Unless you have a couple hours to kill and absolutely (and I mean absolutlely) nothing else to do. I picked it up from the library. It was a strange story based on a Welch community living in a wooded cove. From their native land of Wales, they brought a ritual called “The Sin Eater”. Basically, whenever anyone in this small community died, they rang the “passing bell” and someone known as the Sin Eater (who was chosen from among them by way of a lottery system) would come, stand next to the body of the person who had died, take their sins upon himself, and disappear back into the woods. The story unfolds as a young girl “Cadi” listens to and believes the story of Jesus, the original “sin eater”. Through that story, she is set free from the guilt of having caused her younger daughter’s death years before, and also spreads the truth of Jesus throughout the community until finally the community’s “Sin Eater” himself is set free from his sacrifical role.

The one thing I liked about the movie was the stark reminder that rituals based on routines are woefully insufficient to make any lasting difference in anyone’s life. It is only a relationship with God through Christ that anyone is truly set free to live.

Perhaps this might be the reason why Easter (for me) this year was not an extravaganza blowout of monumental proportions. It wasn’t “the same ‘ol song and dance” as they say. It was a quiet and holy reminder in my spirit that Jesus is the only man who is God and the only One who can make any difference for eternity and for now in my life.

The Trinity is a tricky thing that is really hard to understand for most people.

More on that later.

I started blogging a couple years ago. And ever since I started, I have also enjoyed following online “rabbit trails” that lead me to others’ blogs. I enjoy reading what other people are writing on their blogs. I like that little window into the thoughts and events of other people’s lives.

I stumbled upon one such blog this morning. Nevermind who it was or where it is; I simply found an immediate connection to this particular blog. The reason? The only comment in the comment section was a comment made from the blog author’s own Dad.

As a Dad myself, I constantly tell my kids that I’m their #1 fan. No one loves them with a father’s love but me and God. And no one can understand a father’s love but a father. And just like that blog I read today with the comment from the author’s Dad, touting and praising his son’s writing, I can say that I think I too have a fan in my own Dad.

Often, its my Dad who is commenting most or is most complimentary to something I’ve written. He’s biased, as all Dads are, but that’s okay with me, because I have that same bias toward my own kids.

The life of Christ was a life centered on His Father. The chief goal of Jesus’ earthly birth, life, death, and resurrection was to bring glory to the Father. That’s it. Oh sure, He came out of love for you and me, but Jesus was commissioned by God the Father to reconcile His children back to Him. The manger, the miracles, the teachings, the arrest, the trial, the cross, and the tomb were all components of the ultimate plan to reconnect the relationship between the Father and His children. And that was the entirety of Jesus’ life mission.

John 14 is an incredible place to see just how Jesus views His relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In essence, Jesus was telling his disciples (and you and I) that His whole life is about bringing glory to the Father. Read the Gospels and you’ll see Jesus intent and passionate about that one thing: the Father’s glory. Additionally, we’re told that while I’m typing and you’re reading, the Son is in conversation with the Father in heaven, interceding for you and for me, all for purpose of bringing glory to God.

All of my life, and even to this day I can tell you that nothing quite gives me the satisfaction of knowing that my own Dad notices something that I’ve done. I sense his pride and revel in knowing that he approves of things I do, say, and write. I know this isn’t exclusive to sons, but I have to guess that there really is a special bond between father and son, just as there is between mother and son, and father and daughter.

My dad is one of wisest men I know. He is strong, he is caring, and he loves the Lord and the Lord’s people. I know I can always call him with any question and he seems to always be ready and willing to help me however he can. He knows the Word of God like no one else I know and even seems to enjoy the interchanges he and I have together in the Word. He is a “churchman” and by far one of my favorite “preachers”. What makes him such a powerful preacher is (I think) that in his chest is the heart of a teacher. He is not satisfied that you hear what he knows, but that you know what he knows. And if you’ve ever sat in a church service in your life, then you know the difference between those two things.

I hope that all of my children will always be blessed by my relationship with them, just as I am blessed by my relationship with my own Dad.