Eats with Sinners

Early in my cosmic transformation, the meaning of being a Christian was to accept my illegitimacy and failures and adopt a new covenantal kingdom under the realm of grace. That was noble until legalistic theology plagued my model. The paradigmatic clash between these two Titians has taken place and the result has eradicated my soul. This incessant spirit has led me to collide into a brick wall of my faith and stumble rather unexpectedly onto a new path that is dark and abandoned.

Dogma and opinions has obliterated freedom of thought and language. My obstreperous ways with these Pharisaical ideas has led me to a valley that I did not know existed. I am laced with radicalism. To put God into a nicely gifted box is ambiguous and irrational.

These pernicious legalists had formulated perfect formulas that suited their theories and doctrines. They sated their souls with comfortable creeds. The only thing I pondered was, “is that the only way God knows how to exist”, and if it was, then I do not want any part of it. I grew wearisome and tired. My legs were exhausted from walking in isolation and solitary. I wanted to run free and impishly with strugglers of Jesus Christ.

Distraught and unconvinced of a solution, I staggered to the end of my new trail. Unaware of my environment, I fell facedown. Tears penetrate the very dirt that lies beneath me. Soul aching, I realize I am not alone. My tears have become God’s tears. His heart throbs as well due to the legalistic ways of humanity. Not knowing where to go next, I think I will just sit here while Jesus washes my feet with His tears.

Paid in Full

Early Scriptures preserves the ruins of a different kind of battle, communal and nonviolent, where love and purity were the weapons of choice against foreign power and moral deterioration. A sect, known as Christians, were immensely resisted and persecuted for their radical views they upheld. With Roman domination breathing down their necks and a Jewish religion that illustrated their hatred by their loyalty to Rome and dedication to exonerating the world of these blasphemers, the early Christians chose the weapon of love.

Jesus’ revolutionary ethics revolved around this four-letter word. Love shatters conventional wisdom and runs against the grain of our own intuition. The concept progresses beyond the boundaries of family and behavior. The early followers disarmed the enemy without firing a shot. The practice of love by the early disciples became so abusive and stirred such resentment that various Roman decrees sought to regulate the practice with threats of harsh punishment like flogging, reduced, rations, and pay.

In an age where prophets and preachers stand alike on a street corner screaming hatred remarks to the world, love is desolate. Love has been lost. Christ Jesus states, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jesus’ instruction strikes at the heart of ancient notions of manliness and honor.

The texts say that love started an uprising, but we show the world hate. The world will know us by our judgment, mocking, inconsistent living, and hatred. I finish my thesis by telling a story by Philip Yancey:

A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter – two years old! – to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable – I’m required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.” Where has love gone?

Paid in Full

Due to recent events in my life, I have undertaken a new analysis on the precious Scriptures written by the early apostles and prophets. To believe in the authority, inerrant, and infallible Word of God because some clean cut, well shaven minister in a dry cleaned suit and tie told you so is utterly imprudent. This is not how I encountered the pyrotechnic and beauty of God.

The texts were written to a certain people, place, and time. Nonetheless, they speak to individuals today. The surpassing knowledge and greatness that one alights upon when reading is a treasure few find. Spirituality is not defined by how knowledgeable a person is about the Scriptures. Spirituality is a life in continuous presence with the divine.

The manifestation of God in the sacred pages unfolds a story about His life, desires, and character. The remarkable thing about all of this is we get to be a part of the story that is being written. We are not mere bystanders cheering the people on in the race, rather we are the runners. But too often, runners strive for perfection and goals. Most are left with failure and scars. The Scriptures are not the end, rather the beginning.

No one will ever know the answers to all the profound mysteries the Bible contains, but this is okay. People of God should not contend to know, but contend to be. I am a child of God and I have worth, objectives, and importance. The Almighty has prizes in store for my soul. I believe, not because someone told me so, but because I met the Creator of the Scriptures himself. I have heard his heartbeat. I have felt his presence infiltrate my being. I have experienced what the Bible says, “to be redeemed”.

Paid in Full

This comes from a book I am currently reading by Bruce Feiler, a Jewish historian, archeologist, and author entitled, Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses…

The conservation had the same effortless intimacy I had experienced at so many times, and in so many places, along my trip. It was as if the Bible were its own kind of lingua franca that opened up instant lines of communication among people who had little in common but shared interest in the text. Considering that the international language of travel has changed so frequently in the last 2,500 years – Greek, Latin, French, English, American English – and that the stories of the Bible have not changed at all, one could argue that for much of the Western world, those stories form a collective language. Certainly in the Middle East today, with so much suspicion and hostility, a common interest in the Bible can be an immediate source of kinship, much stronger than nationality, denomination, age, or wealth. This is the power of pilgrimage: a willingness to place the spiritual lessons of the past over the political divisions of the present, a desire to connect to a place not for its food, art, golf courses, or even beauty, but for its meaning.

Paid in Full

Who has been attacked with doubt and pain? Who has waged war with anger and has been conquered by its roguish attacks? Wrestling with unreachable answers have left us wounded and inflicted. The prolific riches found in the Almighty during these battles seem worthless and indifferent.

Nevertheless, the journey through our wilderness and desert has a special gift that the early writers of the Scriptures used often, abundantly, and profusely. For some, this gift is wrapped in eloquent cloth with a ribbon tied around it. For others, they have it in a brown paper sack, like a bottle of whiskey. Then there are those who pack it up in a suitcase when they travel. Even though the world seems heavy, the gift of Doxology has served its purpose.

For a woman who has just found out that she has been consumed by breast cancer, Doxology is there during the radiation and chemo. For a set of young parents who just lost their first unborn child due to a miscarriage, Doxology is there in the waiting room. And for people who have been fluttered down with failure and depression, Doxology is sitting next to them.

Early in the letter of Romans, Paul announces the spiritual state of all those who live out their lives without God, then Paul burst into praise. “Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen”.

Doxology cannot ever be out of place. We cannot keep Doxology locked in our closets, offices, or cars. Without Doxology, we are just a community walking among the dead with no reason to live. Doxology keeps us alive, it maintains us. The spirit of Doxology is greater than any addiction, abuse, or sin. Thanks be to God, our Savior and Lord! Amen.

Paid in Full

I wanted to share this excerpt from my favorite book What’s So Amazing About Grace. Enjoy…

The story of the Prodigal Son, after all, appears in a string of three stories by Jesus – the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son – all of which seem to make the same point. Each underscores the loser’s sense of loss, tells of the thrill of rediscovery, and ends with a scene of jubilation. Jesus says in effect, "Do you want to know what it feels like to be God? When one of those two-legged humans pays attention to me, it feels like I just reclaimed by most valuable possession, which I had given up for lost." To God himself, it feels like the discovery of a lifetime.

Pain in Full

Recently, I have come across some remarkable information on a certain church that will be kept anonymous. Apparently the church is attempting to conjure up a strategy to hire a new senior minister. Some of the qualifications for this novel position are good administering skills, sound preaching, and a spiritually mature person with a proven track record of winning the lost. The latter part of that sentence is taken directly from their profile.

Is it me or does this sound dubious? I have sat and pondered on the line “mature person with a proven track record of winning the lost”. Chewing on this filth has made my mind go crazy and has left me sick to my stomach. This is the most outlandish, ridiculous, and obtuse statement anyone could say to another.

Who has a track record? Do people have a little black book with intricate detail on how and when they saved somebody? Has our minds been diluted with piety? If one does have a “track record”, then it seems like his or her heart is attenuated to be a mere Pharisee. Is there something to boast about when you win someone over? “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are liked whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”

Can someone actually say I have an excellent “track record” of saving people from the damnation of hell? This is preposterous! Only God can save someone and have a track record that is kept in the “book of life”. Any other book is a mockery to the saving power of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only person who is deemed worthy to have a track record of winning the lost.

Paid in Full