Christian responses to election results

Whether you voted for Barack Obama or not,  the reality is that God is sovereign and in His wisdom has placed Obama in office for another term.  As a Christian, we are commanded to pray for those who hold the highest offices, not to demonize them.  I pray that Christians will respond with grace and humility, whether they voted for Obama or not.  We can continue to fight for issues of human life and religious liberty while at the same time respecting the differences of elected officials. Here are four insightful posts to help you process through moving forward from the election results:

How to respond to the election results

Christians, Let's honor the President

Dear angry evangelical, have you prayed for your President today?

The people have spoken--what should Christians do now?

What about you?  As a believer, how do you respond to the election results?

Tullian Tchividjian quotes - Glorious Ruin Tour

It's no secret that I am a big fan of Tullian Tchividjian.  More than just being Billy Graham's grandson, Tullian is deeply committed to the core of the gospel: that Jesus became what we are so that we might become what He is.  I have read two previous books which had a profound impact on my thinking about the gospel.  I wrote about those books here and here.  

Last night I had the opportunity to hear Tullian speak live on his new book, Glorious Ruin: how suffering sets you free.  He is passionate and honest as a communicator.  He even shared that he was going through a difficult time with his teenage son.  He is an example of a powerful truth about communicating: if the audience believes that you as the speaker really believe what you're saying, they will be impacted all the more.  I was definitely impacted by reading a few of Tullian's books and hearing him live last night.  Here are some of the quotes from his session:

"I am dreaming about an increasingly honest Church."

"What we need are more Christian realists."

"When you become increasingly aware of how small you are, you become aware of the size of God."

"When saving face becomes the goal, we miss out on saving grace."

"Jesus is not the man at the top of the ladder shouting down 'climb.'  He's at the bottom saying 'It is finished.'"

"Law says, 'good people get good stuff, bad people get bad stuff."

"Might as well face it, you're addicted to law."

"Under that question is the assumption that information can heal." (on asking "why?" in suffering)

"Information cannot mend a broken heart."

"No one likes being around a fixer."

"The good news of the gospel is that the bad get the best, the worst inherit the wealth, and the slave becomes a son."

"Disobedience and lawlessness happen not because we got too much grace, but too little."

"How is my present grief/discouragement/disappointment a window to what captures my heart?"

"Suffering exposes what you're building your life on."

"Explanations are a substitute for trust."

Family Group - Suwanee

So in June about 6 of my friends and I started meeting at a house in Suwanee for what we would eventually call "Family Night."  This began as a time where we gathered each Monday night for worship, teaching, communion, and a shared meal.  Our first few weeks were great because we already were good friends and definitely enjoyed being around one another.  A few more joined the group and we were regularly having 8-10 people each week.  We did a couple of social events, i.e. a cookout/swim and a dinner at Mellow Mushroom where a few more were added to the mix.  The last few weeks we've had 14 people with a few "regulars" absent.  What started as maybe a summer thing has grown consistently and the group is beginning to feel a sense of mission.

Next week our friend Amanda Brown will be with us to share about her trip to Uganda in 2013.  Our "Family Group" will bless Amanda with an initial gift and then support her monthly next year.  She will become our first missionary:)  I am excited about the group and where God is leading it.  My only goal is to follow the promptings of God and step through open doors.  I'm having a blast right now.

I did a wedding in Madison, GA last weekend and met a couple who lives in Lawrenceville right down the street from where we meet.  They're also looking for a church.  I got the guy's number and will connect with him this week.  Crazy who God will put in your life to come alongside you in the process.  Along those lines, our group is needing a new location as we are pushing capacity at the current house.  My sister connected with the owner of a popcorn store of all places.  He has a really nice setup though and offered for us to meet there for free. So we'll see how that goes.  I'm learning that there is great value in partnering with people who agree with the mission.

So, why do I share this?  To ask you to pray.  Pray that our group would be bold in mission for God.  Pray that God would connect us to people who need Jesus.  Pray that we would not grow content.  Pray that God would continue to open doors.

And if you know someone in the area who might come alongside us, send me an email here.

Expectant Faith

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.  A large crowd followed and pressed around him.  And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,  because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”  “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”  But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.  Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”  Mark 5:21-34 (NIV)

This is another reminder that the faithfulness of God is not measured by our circumstance.  For 12 years this woman had seen dead end after dead end.  I can’t imagine the pain and disappointment.  Maybe she had been to countless people for help, to no avail.  In my short time on this earth I have not experienced suffering for anywhere near this length.  Sure, there have been pockets of difficult times, but nothing of this magnitude.  Can you imagine yourself getting no answer for 12 years?  The disappointment, depression that can set in.  If, after a while you begin to see yourself in terms of your condition.....

“Well, Ive been like this for a while, so this is just how it is.”

“I’ve been struggling with _____________ for years, and it’s just something I’ll have to deal with.”

Yes, suffering brings great growth.  Yes, we need to ask questions during the suffering, such as what God is trying to reveal to us.  But this is in the midst of our pursuit of Jesus, not aside from it.  I would like to imagine that the feelings of lowliness and disappointment were still somewhat present with this woman as she approached Jesus.  She was basically “unclean”, and if people knew her condition she possibly could’ve have been prevented from even approaching Jesus.  She lived her life watching others have the freedom to live as they wished.

What strikes me is she approached Jesus with an expectancy that is rarely seen.  No question to him, just a resolve to be near Him.  “If I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  She was convinced that Jesus could bring what she desperately longed for.  She approached him with expectancy.  What would happen to our faith if we had expectancy?  In our prayers?  In our conversations?  In our dreams for what God will do through us?

God delivers a miracle to affirm a faith that was already there.  Don’t you remember Jesus’ words, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Nothing.  Not removing years of pain.  Not removing shame from sin.  Not doing something unbelievable in your midst.  I wonder, is the reason we don’t see great things of God in our lives because we’re not really expecting them?  There’s a difference between a wishful hope and a resolute expectation.  

And now look at Jesus’ response.  34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

Wait.  “Your faith.”  We might look at this and think Jesus is instead referring to His power.  Isn’t that what is really at work here?  But what we’re seeing is the continual work of Jesus: to display God’s power THRU people.  All the power is from God.  The channel that it flows through is humans.  Jesus puts the weight of the woman’s faith front and center.  The power of God meets her faith at a powerful intersection.  And so it is with us.  

Are we challenged in our faith by this woman?  
What is it that we seek from Jesus?
Are we coming close to Him to tell Him? To ask?  

“Give us, gracious Lord, the faith to come right up to you, to touch you in the crowd, to say what it is we need and want you to do for us.”  N.T. Wright

The favor of God

"The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered,..." 
Genesis 39:2

Everything Joseph touched turned to gold.  Whatever he did was successful.  So Potiphar wants in on the secret.  He was seeing the blessings, so he made Joseph the man in charge.  Joseph pretty much handled everything except feeding Potiphar dinner.  The favor of God was in full force, and everyone around Joseph was reaping the benefits...until Potiphar's wife showed up.   

Joseph is caught in a no-win situation.  He does his part by literally running away from her, but to no avail.  Joseph is thrown into prison, in large part because of a piece of his robe that as ripped off as supposed evidence.  No more blessings, we might think.  No more favor, perhaps. 

But the story tells us something about the favor of God - 

it's not restricted by time or circumstance.

Joseph quickly becomes BMOC in the prison, impressing the warden to the point that he's put in charge of the other prisoners.  Pharaoh then decides that he likes tossing people in jail, so in come the cupbearer and bread maker. They too encounter the favor of God in Joseph, who interprets their dreams. If you know the story, it's possible that the bread maker wished he hadn't asked for the meaning.  

Joseph asks the cupbearer to mention him to Pharaoh when he gets out of the slammer, in hopes that Pharaoh will show kindness and release Joseph.  Good plan, except for the part where the cupbearer forgets...

"The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him."

Two full years pass.  Has God's favor left?  Are Joseph's best days behind him?  Should he just settle for his role as prison small group leader?

We don't know what Joseph did for those few years, but it had to be tough. We might mistakenly conclude that God's favor had left him during this time.  But there's another truth about the favor of God that we see in this story.  Joseph eventually gets out of prison, interprets Pharaoh's dreams, and is put in charge of all of Egypt.  Pharaoh's decision to place Joseph as second in command comes as a result of his realization that the favor of God is upon him.

“Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?”

There we have it.  
The favor of God comes to those who have the spirit of God.

So it is for those who love God.  No matter where you are, or what circumstance you find yourself in, the favor of God is upon you. We know this because of Jesus Christ, who secured for us eternal favor: life with God.

Faith & Circumstance

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”  Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.  A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”  They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”  Mark 4:35-41

Our tendency is to focus on the here and now; the immediate.  We are mostly consumed with the present reality.  And that's not a bad thing.  It's part of being human.  The disciples were ordinary men like us.  Here they are, in the middle of a legitimate storm.  I don't normally use the word "squall" in my vocabulary, so here's the definition:

A sudden, sharp increase in wind speed which is usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow.

This storm was no joke.  The fact that it was sudden would certainly freak me out.  I hate pretty much anything that is sudden or unexpected.  Their reaction is natural: "don't you care?"  We judge by what we see, and what they saw was Jesus sleeping with his head on a bag of sand in the back of the boat.  

It's what they didn't see that has real power: Jesus has power over a life and death circumstance.  "Even the wind and waves obey", they responded. They had been with Jesus all day, watching him heal on the shore of the lake.  Still they weren't quite sure of who he was.  Right up until his death in fact.  But we're like them in a lot of ways: wanting to know when, where, how, etc.

One thing that comes from this not so small episode on the lake: 

Don't judge the care and compassion of God by your present reality.  God's seeming absence or lack of concern is not determined by what we see in front of us.  In reality, His care for us often comes unbeknownst to us.  His work goes on while we sleep (Ps. 17:3).

God is always at work, whether you see it or not.

Decisions, Decisions

One of the frequent questions I get asked as a pastor or I hear people discussing is, "How do I know the will of God?"  It may be phrased differently by some, such as "does God want me to do ________?"  However its phrased, the question is born out of a desire to align our lives with God.  This desire is created by God.  When God said, "let us make man in our image", He created in us the ability to worship.  For many of us, the grind of daily decisions can be pressing at times.  Most of the stress we endure in decision making comes out of a false pretense I believe.  The fear is, we might make a decision that God did not have in the plan.  For example, "does God want me to take this job or that job?"  "Does God want me to move to this city?"  These are really important decisions, no doubt.  But I think we get it wrong when we are afraid to make a decision because we might mess up God's plan.  Let me relieve you of some stress:

Nothing gets in the way of God's plan.

There.  Did that feel better?  I hope so.  The reality is that God guides our every step while we're in step with Him.  If you're walking with God, in relationship with Him, submitting yourself to His ways, then the right decision is the one you make.  Let me say it another way.  The right decision, honored by God, may just be for you to DO SOMETHING.  Too often we miss out on the joys God has for us by sitting idle and waiting for "clarity", which sometimes is another way of saying, "I'm too afraid to take a risk."

Here are some questions to ask yourself in decision making:

1.  Do I have integrity in this situation?  Proverbs 11:3 says, "The integrity of the upright guides them,..." (italics mine).  If integrity is a priority over achievement and fulfillment, then you can rest more comfortably in making decisions.

2.  Have I asked for perspective from those I trust?  Verse 14 says"...but in an abundance of counselors there is safety."  One of the great pieces of leadership advice I have received is from Jason Young, who told me to build a table of influence; people I surround myself with who can speak into my life in various ways.  In fact, Jason is writing a book called "Table of Influence" and I can't wait to read it.

3.  Have I learned from past experience?

A helpful passage from the prayer book SacredSpace:

Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises were designed in the first place as a way of making good decisions.  The first thing he would say about our decision-making is that we have to learn from experience, and  not commit the same errors over again.  Secondly, we should reflect on our experience and see what its elements are, analyse what happened, why one thing worked while another thing did not, and so on. p. 262