I Don’t Want to Be Offended (Re: Love Wins)

There’s a lot of controversy in evangelical circles right now over Rob Bell's new book Love Wins.  I’m going to admit right up front that I’ve never read the book.  I read his book Velvet Elvis and watched some of his Nooma videos back in the day, but nothing of his since then.

That said, I can’t really discuss Love Wins in any detail.  I don’t think Bell is saying what people think he is saying.  He comes right out and says what he believes in.  Watch the video and see for yourself:

All that said, the controversy that the book spawned is a little more concerning than the book itself.

I’m going to layout what I believe before getting too deep into this.  I believe what the Bible says, “it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).  That judgment leads to eternal life or eternal hell.  Eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3).  Jesus made it possible to know the Father by removing our sins at Calvary, and if you choose to accept this gift, it’s yours.  You’ll be transformed, and you’ll stop doing those things that separate you from God.  If you choose to reject it, you’re damned already.  Damnation means hell for eternity.

To sum up: Hell is real. Everyone does not get a trophy for participation.

Now, let me add some more controversy to the controversy about Rob Bell and whether this salvation can occur post-mortem:

We tend to get riled up at the thought of someone who did not accept Christ in this life getting into heaven anyway.  But let me ask you this: if He chose to extend mercy to someone after death during judgment, would you really be that person who says to God, “It’s not fair.  I spent years on earth serving You, and this person is getting the same thing I am” like the bitter workers in Matthew 20:12? Would it not be better to rejoice in such a case that your brother or sister who was lost is found?

Again I want to be clear that I think in order to be saved in the next life, you need to be saved in this one.  But it’s one of those things that I wouldn’t be upset about if I were wrong.  Jesus was very clear that many who think they’re saved will not be, and many who we might not think ought to be saved will be.  He’s the One who sorts the wheat and chaff, not us.  Let us rejoice with Him in the salvation of any sinner whenever it may happen, and grieve with Him in the destruction of any sinner whenever it may happen.  And rather than worrying about who's going where all the time, let's spend more time pointing everyone to Jesus, most importantly ourselves since He's the only one who can change our destination plans anyway.

Solo Deo Gloria

Like Children

In a few days, I’m having a birthday.  I’ll be 33 years old.  Yep, if I live to one hundred, my life will be one third of the way over.  Thirty-three is also the age that scholars believe Jesus was when He died.  From my current perspective, I can’t help but look back and notice how short of a life that would have been, though He accomplished a lot in that short time. 

That said, the other night, I asked God to show me something new.  And He did, and it was a whopper, related to age.   It honestly shifted my perspective about everything I ever thought I knew about life, the universe, and everything. 

Let’s start with some explanation.  God created man to live forever.   When sin entered the world, death followed, and so Adam died after he lived 930 years.  His son lived 912 years, and so on and so on, until Noah, when God saw that 1,000 years just brought man to a point where every thought he had was evil, so God cut back the lifespan of human beings to 120 years, which is our current threshold.  But, Isaiah 65:20 says that there is a day coming when,

No longer will there be an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed.

What is 33 years compared to eternity?  For that matter what is 33 years compared to 1,000 years?  It’s nothing.  Isaiah says a youth will live to be 100 years old.  By those standards a 33 year old is just a child. 

And when that thought hit me, my perspective on a lot of verses in the Bible suddenly shifted. 

Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” (Mark 10:15)

"Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4)

Jesus isn’t talking about shifting our thinking to somehow make ourselves think like toddlers or little kids; He is saying we need to shift our thinking to realize we are just toddlers and little kids.  We die in our youth because of the curse of sin.  No matter how much we think we know, even the smartest and wisest among us is just a baby that might have learned to walk earlier than the rest. 

But then I began to question, “what about the whole, ‘ I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things’ deal Paul talks about.  Doesn’t that mean we grow up in this lifetime?  Hasn’t every pastor and teacher I’ve heard use that verse when talking about spiritual and physical maturity? 

So, I turned to 1 Corinthians 13 to read it again.  This is what it says in context:

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)

That verse is set in the context of entering eternity.  Yes we will grow up, but not until we see Jesus face-to-face in eternity.  Until then, we have to recognize that in this life we are and will never be anything but children.  This is a humbling thought, just as Jesus said it is.  That’s what it means to be a “child” of God.  That’s what it means to have an eternal perspective, to really understand that this life is just the beginning.

And then I thought about Jesus’ life on Earth.  He was given as a sacrifice at 33 years old, and He is called the “lamb of God,” not the ram of God, but the “lamb”.  This isn’t just semantics to fulfill the atonement of the old covenant.  He was a baby when he died.  And at this point when He returns to Earth, He will be a grown up.  We don’t even have a concept of what a grown up human being looks like.

I’ll leave off with this verse, as I’m still coming to grips with this whole idea myself:

Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. (1 John 2:28)

What if the Landing Gear Doesn't Drop?

God has done some amazing things in my life, and I've learned alot of lessons about relying on Him for everything, not putting value on Earthly possesions, giving everything to Him, being a steward of His stuff, the list goes on and on. The lesson He taught me this weekend extends far beyond anything I could have imagined having to learn, yet it was by far the easiest.

Brandon and I went to Detroit for a Computers and Writing conference this weekend, which went fairly well. We got to sit in a giant conference room in over-stuffed chairs and talk about all the nonsensical rhetorical theory that supports the technical writing we're building our careers and education around. It was a pretty laid back experience, and the down-time we had in our dorm rooms gave me a lot of opportunity to spend in prayer and devotion. I actually received some direct answers to some questions in my life I had been asking and was feeling pretty peaceful about everything in general.

We had ended up booking a roundtrip flight from Chicago to Detroit in order to save some driving time. After the conference, which ended two hours earlier than we expected, we got a ride back to the airport. We gathered our meager belongings and headed toward the terminal expecting to wait four hours for our flight. We were walking into the airport, and Brandon turns to me and says, "you should ask if we can get on an earlier flight." I responded, "I can ask, but it may cost extra." We arrived at the counter and the ticket guy takes one look at our agenda and says, "do you guys want an earlier flight?" We looked at each other, then back at him, and nodded.

Now, usually when strange coincidences like this start to occur, I get really excited because I've come to recognize the handiwork of God when I see it, but this time, I let my guard down and just thought, "Well, that was convenient." We got on the plane immediately and found that the nice ticket agent had given us the emergency exit seats, which for two 6 foot + guys is amazing because of all the extra leg room, and really the only price you have to pay is helping people exit the plane if you crash. Very convenient, yet again.

We took off, and everything went fine, until we reached Chicago. The captain announced that we were beginning our descent, the stewardesses all rushed to their foldout chairs, and a loud crunching noise issued from the floor below us. Brandon and I looked at each other and both said, "that didn't sound good", and the plane that had been dropping rapidly toward the runway, sped up and rose back into the sky.

The pilot made the following announcement: "Sorry, ladies and gentleman, our panel indicates that one of the landing gear doors didn't lock back into place correctly, so we decided to review the emergency regulations for that situation, and it doesn't look like it should be a problem, so we're just going to circle Chicago, and we'll go ahead and land in about ten minutes."

We heard some more grinding below us and wondered why the pilot was retracting a malfunctioning landing gear back into the plane. We circled Chicago and came back around for another landing attempt. This time the crunching was proceeded by a high pitch whine, and Brandon said, "The landing gear didn't go down at all this time." Sure enough, we rose back into the sky, and the pilot announced an affirmation.

I thought the thing that probably crossed everyone's mind at this point, "we're going to crash". I've watched the news enough to know that landing a plane without the landing gears usually results in great big rolling balls of fire.

The woman sitting behind us leaned forward and asked if we understood how to operate the emergency exits.

We assured her we did.

She laughed nervously and pointed to her two-year old grandson who was sitting peacefully next to her daughter-in-law, a miracle in-and-of-itself. "That's my grandson; he'll need you two to be his heroes."

We smiled and nodded encouragingly.

To make a long story short, the pilots managed to lower the gear automatically, and we landed amidst an armada of emergency vehicles and federal agents. We were towed into the gates, and our fellow passengers broke out into audible rejoicing.

The point of the story isn't God's hand in delivering us safely to the ground--I have no doubt he intended that the whole time--the point of the story is that for the first time in my Christian walk I understood what Fanny Crosby was singing about in 1873 when she wrote, "Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine! / O what a foretaste of glory divine! / Heir of salvation, purchase of God, / Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood" or what John was writing about in 1 John 5:11-14: "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may KNOW that you have eternal life" (emphasis mine). In my BC days, I had a few brushes with death, and there was always a knawing fear, but this time as my life hung precariously in the balance of a malfunctioning airplane's questionable landing, I had no fear whatsoever. I knew that no matter what, the situation was in God's hands. If this was the moment He choose to call me home, Hallelujah! If He intended me to live and carry on with the work He's called me to, Hallelujah! If He intended me to crash and burn and live a life maimed, broken, and scarred, Hallelujah! I was so content with whatever outcome He had in mind, that I very nearly dozed off during the crisis.

As I look back on the experience, I can't help but thank God that He gave me the opportunity to build my faith in this way and share it. It really isn't about living in His protection, though that's amazing and important; it's about living in assurance that I'm never out of His will as long as I don't choose to be. If my focus is Him, then everything that happens to me will glorify Him, and that's the only position to be in that will make every event, even death or physical harm, peaceful and joyous.

To God be the praise and the glory forever,
Amen