Dear church,

Freedom is important to us. People in our country are bristling right now under the notion having their freedoms impaired in various ways. By being “free,” we think of being autonomous. That means we don’t answer to anyone. We can do as we please.

But this idea of freedom is not the biblical idea of freedom. When the Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt, they had taskmasters. Those taskmasters gave them rules to obey and jobs to do. Those taskmasters limited the people’s movement and, basically, controlled their lives.

And God granted the Hebrew people their freedom. But that freedom did not mean the people of Israel could just do as they pleased. No, they were made free to be the people of God. They relied on God for everything – for food and clothing and direction and protection. And God blessed the people abundantly as they followed him.

Biblical freedom does not mean being autonomous. It means living for God. The apostle Paul said, “For the death (Jesus) died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

This isn’t a do-as-you-please kind of freedom. This is to do what God would have you do. We exchange our slavery to sin for slavery to God. We become slaves of righteousness and slaves of God.

Think about these things today. In what ways are you a “slave” to God?

Chris

Dear church,

I read about a bear that broke into a house in Aspen. In trying to coax the bear out of the house, the man who was living there was swiped by the bear. The man nearly lost an eye.

One interesting thing about that episode is it never really was clear why the bear entered the house. There wasn’t any food sitting out for the bear to pursue. Another interesting thing about that episode is the bear showed the ability to open doors. It turned a number of door handles as it moved around the house. It was like the bear had been there before.

It made me wonder what I would do if I got up in the middle of the night – like that man in Aspen – and found a bear in the living room. I know what some of you would do! Suffice it to say, that bear wasn’t where it belonged.

The word “sin” means to “miss the mark.” But there was another way Paul described sin in Romans 5 that is instructive. He called it “transgression” – as in the “transgression of Adam.”

The word “transgression” brings to mind the idea of crossing a boundary of some kind – of going past some limit that ought not to be crossed. We can transgress when we speak words or do something that doesn’t match the social moment. We can transgress when we physically go somewhere we ought not to be – like a bear in the living room.

Transgression is one way to describe sin. Adam transgressed when he ate from the tree that God said was off-limits. Adam crossed a boundary.

We can transgress the Law of God in an untold number of ways. A person can tell a lie about another person. A child can disrespect his or her parents.

A person can harbor anger against a brother or sister. Much more, a person can turn that anger into bitterness that lasts years. A person can actually keep a long list of grievances, dating back decades, against someone else and refuse to let go of that grudge – refuse to forgive.

A person can have lustful thoughts about a man or a woman. Much more, a person can act on those thoughts and have an illicit affair with another person, breaking one’s vows to a spouse and to God.

A person can cheat the system for financial gain. A person can cheat a business partner. Much more, a person can cheat his or her neighbors by cheating the tax code, stealing  one’s owed taxes from the people of the land.

A person can become so angry at another person that her or she physically harms that person. Much more, a person can become so angry that he or she actually murders someone else. Much more, on a national or global scale, some people can attain to such power that they can commit genocide – wiping out entire tribes or races of people from their lands.

Of course, none of this is new to us. This is sin. This is transgression. And we see this kind of thing happening all around us. We can read about this kind of thing in news stories published daily. Some of us have engaged in some of these very things in our lives. Much more, some of us may be engaged in some of these activities even now.

Romans 5 paints a picture of sin and transgression spreading through humanity like a virus. Sin came into the world through one man and spread to all of us. It is in our very nature to sin. It’s what we do. And we know that sin – or we will know tomorrow (Romans 6:23) – has an ultimate consequence: death. The Aspen bear discovered that. We will, too.

But as you know by now, there’s a “much more” to this. The free gift is not like the trespass. It is “much more” than even the “much more” of every sin or transgression we can imagine. Listen to Paul’s words:

“For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”

“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

“More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

The free gift of God’s grace is FOR sinners. We need to realize this or we will not understand Christianity at all. Christ died FOR sinners. That was the whole point. The “much more” of our sins and transgressions against God cannot compare to the “much more” of the free gift of grace through Jesus Christ.

Paul would want us to know here that it doesn’t matter how wretched we have been in our lives. It doesn’t matter how many places and spaces we’ve entered where we did not belong, how many offenses we’ve made against God and humanity.

There is “much more” grace than that when we come to Jesus Christ in faith.

Chris

Dear church,

Sometimes our church gatherings can be a little stale. You know what a stale worship service can be like. The music is a little slow. The prayer requests take too long. The prayers are long-winded. The sanctuary is too warm. The sermon drones on too long.

Yes, it can feel a little stale. We might even wonder why we are there. Surely, there might be other things we can do on a Sunday morning.

It is in those moments we must remember what the church is – and who it is who is with us as we worship. The church is a community that witnesses to the good news of Jesus Christ, to his death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb. We tell the story – like Paul in Romans 4 – that we don’t earn our salvation. It is given to us by grace through faith.

And when we live in faith, things can get a little stale. This is true – because faith involves waiting. Some will say a life of faith (in the Spirit) is one exciting adventure or encounter after another. But that’s not the case. Becoming a Christian is not like entering an amusement park. Our own excitement and spiritual “highs” are not the point.

No, sometimes we just have to wait. Like our forefather Abraham. He’s the forefather of the Jews, and he’s the forefather of the Christians – both the circumcised and the uncircumcised. We walk in his footsteps.

And Abraham was a man who had to wait. His body grew weak with age. He was as good as dead. His wife was no better off. But God had made them a promise. And Abraham – our forefather – waited. And waited. And waited. And nothing seemed to happen.

But he was “fully convinced,” Paul said. Abraham was convinced God was going to do what he promised. He was convinced God could take a man who was as good as dead and bring life from him. He was convinced God could take a womb that was barren and empty and fill it full with new life.

No one likes to wait. I’m sure Abraham didn’t like to wait. We want to see God fulfill his promises to us.

The Christian life, though, is marked by waiting – by marking time. Sunday after Sunday we gather together as a church. And there are some who are young – newborns even. And there are some who are in midlife (right here!). And there are some who are our “senior” saints.

And we all gather together, generations of people who are waiting. What are we waiting for? We are waiting for the promise. We are waiting, fully convinced, “that God (is) able to do what he had promised.”

The promise is the return of Jesus. The promise is a new heaven and earth. The promise is the wiping away of every tear from every eye and no more grief, pain, or death.

Is it harder to wait as we get older in the faith? I don’t think so – if we wait the faithfully. Abraham, according to Paul, “grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.” Abraham worshipped, too, just like us. And as he worshipped year after year, growing older and weaker as he went, his faith grew strong. His body was fading, but his faith was growing.

If we were to look around the room when we gather as a church, we might wonder what others are thinking. What are our senior saints thinking? They’ve been waiting a long time, some of them. They’ve been doing this – Sunday after Sunday – for many years more than we have. Does it get stale for them, too? Surely. But ask them about their hope. You might learn something. “In hope he believed against hope.”

And so we ought to remember that during those moments when our worship feels stale, or when our Bible reading and prayer times seem monotonous. Keep giving God the glory.

Chris

Dear church,

I officiated a funeral once where the family insisted we play Frank Sinatra’s famous song, “My Way.” It was fitting they said. The song matched the life of the deceased man. He lived life “his way.”

And so the song played over the sound system. Frank Sinatra crooned: “Regrets – I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do, saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.”

It’s an unapologetic song. It’s an American song. It sums up the mentality of those who insist upon their own individuality and their own way of doing things. Even if their “way” of doing things creates a mess, which Sinatra seemed to concede, it still was OK because they at least were making a mess in a way that was unique to them – and not to anyone else.

But this line of thinking is awfully arrogant, and it can lead to disaster.

I recently had to remove part of the propane line at our house. I had a choice to make at the very beginning of the project. Before I grabbed a tool or picked up the phone, I had to make a decision: Was I going to do this “my way,” or was I doing to call in an expert? It was an important decision because if I did it my way, there was a possibility of blowing up my house. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought I could probably figure it out, but I’d never tinkered with gas lines before. And I don’t think I would have been satisfied, standing at a distance and looking over the burnt-out rubble of my home saying, well, “At least I did it my way!”

The apostle Paul, in Romans 3, writes about sin. We’d rather skip to the second half of the chapter when he begins discussing grace through faith. But Paul leans in on sin early in the chapter, and we ought not to skip over it. If we don’t get this, we don’t get the gospel and we won’t get Christianity.

People who sin – that’s all of us – have a problem. Actually, they have many problems. But one of their problems is, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” To fear God means to recognize his presence and respect his power. It means to recognize and respect him to the point that we obey him. To fear God means it matters to us what he says – and we do what he says.

To have no fear of God means we don’t give God a second thought. We just do what we want to do. We do things “our way.”

The problem with this is that God is our Creator. He made us. You might say he owns us. Our lives are in his hands. He brought us into the world, and he can take us out. We owe something to God. We owe him recognition, respect, and obedience.

But to live “our way” means we have decided to take God off his throne and put ourselves there instead. Remember, we don’t fear God, so we don’t hesitate to shove him around – even though he created us and has ultimate authority in our lives. Sinners live as if God isn’t there. They deny him – his authority and even his very existence.

Needless to say, it’s a problem. It’s a problem for all of us. “For all have sinned,” Paul wrote. We are doing things “our way.”

And sin brings judgment. What is God supposed to do? After all, justice is one of his main attributes – it’s one of the chief things God cares about. We all care about justice. (We’re made in the image of God, after all.) Think of all the social justice causes that are flying through our culture right now. Regardless of what we think about the methods of some of the people who are pushing these agendas, we all can agree no one should be treated poorly because of the color of that person’s skin. That is unjust, and it bothers us when we see it happening. We want justice to be done to those who mistreat others.

It would be unjust for God to let us off the hook when it comes to our own sins. Our sins ultimately are against God – removing him from his throne, robbing him of his glory, telling him he’s not in control. And so we’ve got a problem.

The rest of Romans 3 is there for us to read. Please read it. But think also about sin – what it is and where it is in your life? How are you doing life “your way” – instead of God’s?

Chris

Dear church,

We see other Christians, and we shake our heads. How could they be so blind, so dull? Can you believe some Christians still find dancing objectionable? Can you believe some still are teetotalers, thinking alcohol is of the devil? Can you believe some require the men to wear suit coats to church and the women to wear dresses?

How blind, how dull! Thank goodness we have the pure gospel. These other Christians, well, may God help them! We can sit back and chuckle quietly at their missteps. Or perhaps we might feel sorry for them. They are so … backward.

If only they would listen to us. We would show them the right way to be a Christian.

The right way to be a Christian, of course, is to love one another. This means that we do not judge others. We don’t judge those who choose to dance, and we don’t judge those who choose to have a glass of wine. This means we can wear whatever we want to church. “Vacation dress” is permitted here!

Yes, we don’t judge anyone. Instead, we love one another – especially people outside the church. And if we are to love those outside the church, we must – we MUST – make sure nonbelievers see we aren’t judgmental, we are welcoming, we are reasonable. It really, really matters they see we aren’t backward and we aren’t blind or dull or stuck in some stuffy old doctrine.

Actually, “doctrine” isn’t a word we want to use. We try to keep that one off the table. The Christians who don’t like dancing or drinking use that word way too much. No, we try to use other words – words that are gentler, less legalistic-sounding, and easier on the ears of outsiders.

Our first loyalty, we understand, is to them – to those outside the church. We don’t want to be insular or inward-thinking. We don’t want to have a fortress mentality. First and foremost, we must be a good witness to outsiders. We want them to like us.

And so we don’t understand those who would come up with these awkward, old-fashioned rules – about dancing and drinking and dress. Those Christians are just wrong-headed. No, there are other rules that must be followed. 1) Don’t judge others. 2) Don’t appear too stuffy or dull. 3) Always look good to outsiders.

I hope you understand I am being a little ornery in my writing here – because I found this to be important in Romans 2: “For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”

The apostle Paul wrote that. In Romans 2, he was preparing his argument for salvation by grace alone, not by works or ethnicity. And tucked into this chapter was a warning against hypocrisy. Those who claimed they had God’s Law and were preserved by it weren’t actually following it.

We should pay attention.

Hypocrisy is when one claims something is wrong while practicing the very thing he or she is claiming to be wrong – like Christians who criticize legalism while at the same time creating their own list of rules one must follow in order to be a good Christian.

We must be careful here. Hypocrisy and judgmentalism can creep into our lives undetected.

Paul criticized those who claimed to be part of the people of God – and who looked down on others who weren’t part of that people. Paul was critical because there really was no difference in the lifestyle of either. The people of God were just as sinful as the Gentiles. They were doing some of the same things they were condemning.

And the people of Israel had come to find themselves in the same boat as the Gentiles. It was even possible those who didn’t have God’s Law as part of their heritage – Gentile Christians – actually could have something that members of the Jewish nation did not: an inward circumcision of the heart and divine favor with God.

And a little thread here in Paul’s writing was about hypocrisy and the passing of judgment. God works in mysterious ways. But sometimes we think we have Him all figured out, and we pass judgment on his children while not bothering to look first at ourselves. Could it be they have something to teach us just as we may have something to share with them?

For me, this chapter was about pausing and taking account of myself – just as Paul was calling upon the Jews in his audience to take account of themselves. How am I living with God?

Chris

Dear church,

It’s July, so I was thinking today about skiing. I’m not sure skiing should be on my mind on a warm day in the middle of summer, but my reading of Romans 1 brought me to it.

I was thinking about how my kids learned to ski after we moved to Colorado. We didn’t put them in lessons. We just had them ski down to the lift, and we held our breath. It probably wasn’t the best strategy, but it seemed to work.

What I remember about those early hours of skiing was all of the falling down. It was wise for me to remain behind my kids during their first fledgling moments on skis – so that if one of them fell down and lost skis and poles, I could come along and help. It’s not necessarily easy to get everything put back together when your loose skis keep wanting to slide away from you down the mountain.

But occasionally, I found myself below the kids, and one of them would take a spill above me. And I would have to call up instructions to them – pointing out where their lost skis and poles had fallen and how best to position themselves to get their skis back on.

And I would call out instructions, and they would listen to me. And they wouldn’t be that great at doing everything I told them to do, but they would try. They were willing, and that was enough. They would listen to me because I was trying to help them. And I would stand there as long as needed until they were ready to go again. I might even trudge back up the hill to help them do what they couldn’t do themselves. (I might do that … maybe …)

Paul wrote his letter to what likely was a mixed church in Rome, made up of both Gentile and Jewish Christians. Paul was writing probably in the late 50s, just as he was preparing for an ill-fated trip to Jerusalem. Of course, Paul was prepared for that eventuality. It was always a goal of his to go to Rome and visit the church there, and then to leave to spread the gospel to Spain.

And Paul jumped right into his message in the first few lines of his letter to the Roman church. In describing himself, he said he was a “servant” and “apostle” of Christ who was “set apart” for the gospel. Paul knew who he was and what he was called to do.

And Paul described the gospel as something that was promised to the Jewish nation in its Scriptures and was centered around the Son of God who took on flesh and rose from the dead. And Paul said he and the other apostles had received their mission through Christ – and that mission was “to bring about the obedience of faith” among all the nations.

So at the very start of Paul’s letter – a very significant letter – Paul said his mission was to bring as many Gentiles as possible into the “obedience of faith.” I don’t know what you think about when the concept of “obedience” comes to mind, but I think about listening to my superiors and doing what they tell me to do.

As Americans in our Enlightened society, we don’t care very much for the idea of obedience – not really. We don’t like to think about ourselves as being subservient to anyone. And I think about church life, calling a wayward Christian back to obedience to the commands of Christ. You can imagine how well that usually goes over.

But Paul was calling people to the obedience of faith. The two concepts – obedience and faith – are linked together. We obey because we believe. It’s like one of my kids listening to my instructions from down the hill. They obey my words because they believe I’m helping them. They obey as they are being rescued from their predicament – rescued by a person they trust.

And we obey our Savior.

Paul began and ended his letter to the Romans with this same idea. That’s one reason we know this is very important. In Romans 1:5, Paul wrote he was working “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.” At the end of the book, Romans 16:26, he wrote the command of God was “to bring about the obedience of faith.”

I don’t know about you, but every now and then I need to consider my own life, whether I am obedient to God in my faith. And if not, why not?

Chris

Dear church,

Today is our last day looking at the Book of Acts, and on this last day, we finally see Paul reaching Rome. Paul had been on a journey to Rome for some time, and he had just suffered through a shipwreck in order to get there – in chains. Tomorrow, when we start the Book of Romans, we’ll read where Paul told the Roman Christians “I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented)” (Romans 1:13). We will see Paul had longed to go to Rome for many years.

And here, in Acts 28, he finally made it. “And so we came to Rome.”

At the start of the Book of Acts, Jesus told his disciples they would receive the Holy Spirit in power, and they would be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). We saw that playing out in the narrative of Acts.

Things started in Jerusalem at Pentecost. Persecution broke out there, and the gospel moved to Judea and Samaria (see Acts 8 specifically). And then with the apostle Paul’s ministry, the gospel began to move out farther, toward the “end of the earth.”

Rome, at that time, was the capital of western civilization. The Roman Empire was one of the most powerful empires the world had ever seen. And the caesar – the emperor – was viewed by many as a god. And that’s who Paul was going to see – to stand before the most powerful man on earth who thought he was a god in order to tell him about a man from a nowhere town in Judea who actually was God.

Paul had his heart and mind set on going to Rome (Acts 23:11). It reminds me how Jesus, “when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).

Jesus took his good news into the capital city of God’s people, to fulfill the prophecies made to them. Now Paul was taking the good news of Jesus to the end of the earth, to fulfill new prophecies made by Christ (Mark 13:10). 

The way of Jesus and the way of his servant Paul were of mission. They were unrelenting in their purpose. Paul said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Their purpose was that many would be saved for eternal life.

Not all of us are evangelists or preachers and teachers (in the formal sense). And not all of us are traveling missionaries, taking the gospel to unreached peoples. But surely there is a way to pursue the mission even as we live in the here and now, in seemingly ordinary lives. We get up. We go to work. We go to the grocery store. We put food on the table. We pay the bills. We work on projects around the house. Sometimes we go out and play.

Can the mission of Christ and of Paul fit into a life like that? We know that it can. It takes some creative thinking. And it takes boldness and persistence and hearts unafraid of failure or rejection. I am thinking about this today.

Let’s all think about this as we begin our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Chris

Dear church,

The ladies would put sunflowers out in the church sanctuary in the summertime.

It was part of the annual rotation of decorations at the church. I’ve forgotten some of the color themes from the year. But I knew there would be oranges and browns in the fall and red, white, and blue in the early summer. And then came the sunflowers. They weren’t real sunflowers. Their fabric petals would need to be dusted off each year when they came out of the storage room.

I used to chuckle to see the sunflowers every year. Sunflowers are a symbol of my home state. So I liked them. For a time, though, I thought this rotation of decorations was somewhat silly. Year after year, it was the same stuff. And was all of this necessary?

But I’m learning new things. Our actions have meaning. Even our little actions can have meaning. There was something to walking into the church building and seeing the change in the decor – sensing the changing of God’s seasons outside and seeing the change within.

Perhaps this isn’t for every church, but it worked well for that one. It was a subtle action. It had joyful meaning, perhaps especially for the ladies of the church, to see the bright yellow as the season brightened up. It had meaning – intended for us all – that this church was not dead. It continued to change, year after year, and it continued to stay the same, year after year.

Paul encouraged the people on the boat to eat. “You have continued in suspense without food,” he told them. It had been two weeks, and the boat had been battered by the wind and the waves. They didn’t know where they were. It was possible at any moment they could strike rocks, and the boat would be broken up and they all would drown.

And Paul urged them to eat, to take something to strengthen them. “Not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you,” Paul said. Perhaps they didn’t believe him. I imagine most of them didn’t believe him.

And then Paul did something interesting. It was a small action with great meaning. He took break, gave thanks, and broke it. We can think of the Last Supper here, I suppose. And then Paul ate. I prefer not to read too much sacramental meaning into this moment. Paul simply ate. I bet he was hungry. And he knew he would need his energy. So he ate.

This was a hopeful action. That might be the primary meaning in it, after all. Paul was giving the people hope. Even in a very hopeless-seeming moment, Paul began to do something that looked forward – beyond the boat and the wind and the waves and the never-ending sea. He was looking forward to the moment they would be on land. He would need his strength.

This was an action of hope.

And “they all were encouraged and ate some food themselves.” I think in that moment Paul gave the people hope. He simply lived as if this wasn’t the last moment, as if there were more moments to come. And the people saw that, and they began to hope. 

We don’t come into a church building primarily to see the flowers. But in some way, they do remind us of the deep meaning of the church. There are people here who care. This community of the faithful is one where people share with one another and look after one another – and who like to brighten days and warm hearts when possible. It’s a church body that is ever changing, too – like the seasons. It grows and shrinks, it moves fast and then slow, it enters turbulent waters and then calm ones. There’s joy and sorrow. Things don’t remain the same.

And so I think the changing of the flowers is OK! This is a small act, and it carries meaning with it.

As Christians we are people of hope, and our actions mark out the hope we have. Like Paul, we’re looking beyond the broken here and now. We gather, hoping for the day when we will gather face-to-face with each other and with Jesus. We sing as a profession of our hope in a future that goes beyond our own earthly deaths and whatever tragedies may befall us on this earth. We pray to the God who promises to listen to our prayers and who promises to be “with us” in every moment. We read the words of that promise. And, yes, we break bread and share the cup – to remember and to hope.

As people of hope, it would do us well to look around our small worlds and see what small action we can take today to bring a little hope to those around us, and to ourselves.

Chris

Dear church,

We learn several things about evangelism in this chapter. Paul gives us an example, and it’s worthwhile to follow his lead.

Paul spoke about his conversion to King Agrippa in three sections – before, during, and after. Before becoming a Christian, Paul was a staunch Pharisee. In fact, he persecuted Christians. “I punished them often in all the synagogues,” he said. That is, the earliest Christians stuck to their Jewish roots and attended synagogue meetings on the Sabbath. That’s where Paul found them. And that’s where he persecuted them.

And then Paul, as we have come to say, “saw the light.” This is the “during” part of his conversion testimony. Jesus told him, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” That is, it’s hard to push back against the church, which cannot be stopped. Jesus worked pretty much single-handedly in the conversion of the apostle Paul. But Jesus also gave Paul a mission. Jesus would work through Paul to turn people “from darkness to light.”

And then came the “after” part of Paul’s conversion testimony. Paul “was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” He began to tell Jews and Gentiles they should repent of their sins and turn to God. Paul testified to God’s sustaining presence in his life – “I have had the help that comes from God,” he said.

You might have noticed how the “before” and “after” of Paul’s conversion testimony had common link. Paul was a zealous Pharisee. Pharisee were believers in the resurrection of the dead. They also were strict students of the Old Testament prophets and careful protectors of the Law.

After Paul was converted to Christianity, he continued to teach about the Law and the Prophets – but by then he was teaching about how Jesus was spoken about in the Old Testament. The prophets pointed to Jesus. And, of course, Paul testified to Jesus’ rising from the dead.

As we think about our own testimony, we might want to think about things the way Paul thought about things. What is it that ties the “before” and “after” together? What was I like before I came to faith in Christ, and what am I like after? A better question may be, what question was I trying to answer before I met Jesus, and how did he answer it for me – or change the question?

If I were to give you my own testimony today, I might say I “always” have been a Christian. My “before” was fairly brief. I grew up in a Christian home and was baptized at age 11. I never did drugs, and I barely drank. I didn’t really swim in the deep end of the pool. I wasn’t from the sect of the Pharisees, but I was a so-called good Christian kid.

Except I wasn’t. I didn’t care much for the church while growing up. For me, I was committed to the idea of rugged individualism in my life. I wanted to be self-sufficient – to be on my own. And I was like this for years after my baptism. I didn’t want to need anyone else in my life – not my parents, certainly not a wife, and definitely not anyone else.

And then I found my way to a church. Actually, Mary dragged me to a church. And once there, we were swept into the arms of some loving mentors – Christians a generation older than us – who showed me how wrong I was. Self-sufficiency and rugged individualism will take a man a certain distance. But we weren’t mean to walk through this life on our own. We need a family.

And that’s what the church is. I’m still learning more about this concept today – 20 years after I committed myself fully to Christ and more than 30 years after my baptism. The question I tried to answer was how can I live a full life on my own? The answer Jesus provided to me was: “You can’t. You need me, and you need my church. Now join it.”

Ever since then, I’ve found myself with a restless longing for Christ and his church. I’ve seen my needs met by the body of Christ. I’ve seen great joys and, yes, sorrow – but I’ve never been alone. I’ve always had brothers and sisters next to me. Some of them I’ve liked. Some of them I’ve had difference of opinions with. But I would have been at a loss without them. And I’m slowly being drawn toward the fullness of the church that will exist in heaven – eternity in communion with Christ and my brothers and sisters in Him.

So that’s my conversion testimony – or a taste of it. It only takes a few minutes. There’s a “before, during, and after” if you care to look at it that way.

So what’s yours? What question were you trying to ask before you were baptized or before you made your firm commitment to Christ?

For Paul, he was trying to answer the question of shoring up the way of the Pharisees, of protecting the Jewish nation from impurity. Jesus answered that question by showing himself to be the fulfillment of the words of the prophets. There was no need to protect Israel. Jesus was bringing Israel to completion. For me, I was seeking self-actualization. Jesus answered that question by showing I can only be full in Him.

Some people may be asking other questions – how to find meaning in life, how to find truth, how to feel loved, how to find satisfaction. What question was driving you? Or, if you have not yet accepted Christ as your Savior, what is driving you?

A prayer for your day: Spend some time praying over this. What has Christ brought to completion in your life? How has he answered your driving life question?

Chris

Dear church,

Politicians sometimes get stereotyped as being corrupt – as only being in their profession for fame, fortune, or power. It’s an unfair stereotype, I’m sure. Some politicians mean well. They truly desire to effect positive change in our government and society.

These are days when we wonder about the motives of politicians. We are in an election year, after all. And so everything is suspect. Everything can become a political football, from the COVID-19 pandemic to protests about racial justice. And our tendency might be to assume politicians aren’t being honest with us – that they are seeking their own advancement over the good of our government and society.

The earliest Christian missionaries were the beneficiaries of the work of some politicians who seemed to do their job well, who seemed to care about justice and the maintenance of law. In Corinth, the proconsul Gallio shut down wrongful allegations against Paul (Acts 18:12-17). In Ephesus, an unnamed town clerk quelled a riot that was brought against Paul’s traveling companions (Acts 19:35-41).

We can point to these leaders and say the government really is here for our good – to protect us and to support our well-being. We can read Romans 13:1-7 and see these men, in their own way, fulfilling their roles as “ministers of God.” Perhaps, we might say, the public health officials really are here for our good!

And then we come to a passage like Acts 24-25. Three times in the span of a few verses does Luke (the writer of Acts) note favors were offered to one person or interest group or another (Acts 24:27; 25:3, 9). Felix left Paul in prison as “a favor” for the Jews. The Jews asked “a favor” of Festus – so they could attempt to kill Paul. And then Festus sought to provide “a favor” to the Jews by bringing Paul up to Jerusalem for a trial.

If this doesn’t make us think twice about the nobility of those in government, then nothing will! Favors are offered to score political points, to gain what’s sometimes called “political capital.” A politician does favors to certain interest groups in order to get favors in return from those interest groups. All of this can quickly smell corrupt. Some of those favors can ignore justice, and people and ideas can become pawns of those in power.

Paul, the apostle who was blinded by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and who was given a mission to share the good news with the Gentiles, had become a political pawn. He was caught up in the world’s machinations. His future was not in his hands. It was in the hands of people with more worldly power than him – of people who held his life in their not-so-well-meaning hands.

And yet Paul seemed to understand what was going on. He understood the ways of politics. He understood the ways of people. We all can tend toward corruption if we are not careful.

And Paul, even more than this, never lost sight of his mission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Remember, he’d received a vision from Jesus while in Roman custody – “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome” (Acts 23:11).

And so Paul asked to have his case heard by Caesar. To Rome he would go. Paul would soon be out of the hands of these favor-seeking politicians. And he would become a witness among the most powerful people on earth to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

I think the takeaway may be that we should not lose sight of our mission. Even Festus, who was new to the scene and who didn’t understand this debate among the Jewish leaders, could see the heart of Paul’s message was the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 25:19). Paul’s mission was never lost. And he accepted the reality of this give and take among public officials in order to achieve his mission.

I suppose this can apply to any negative circumstance in which we find ourselves, not just to the works of government. We ought not to let the negativity move us off our mission. Instead, we look for ways to continue to move toward our mission even through those negative circumstances.

What is your mission today, and what are your circumstances?

Chris