Don't Waste Your Life

“I hear the haunting words of Jesus, ‘Don’t be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things’ (Matthew 6:31-32). In other words, if we look like our lives are devoted to getting and maintaining things, we will look like the world, and that will not make Christ look great. He will look like a religious side-interest that may be useful for escaping hell in the end, but doesn’t make much difference in what we live and love here” [John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2003), 107-108.].

This statement is so challenging, and yet it is so true. So how do I live in light of this? So much of the Christian life is counter-cultural. And I find that ironic in a culture many consider to be “Christian.” Most Christians don’t look much different from the rest of the world. At best, we look like a more moral version of our next door neighbor, and even that statement is debatable. Christians seek after wealth, comfort, a bigger house, a nicer car, vacations and status just as much as anybody. So how is the world supposed to see Christ in people who live no differently? If my neighbors don’t notice anything different in the way I live how can this be glorifying to God?

The Christian life is intended to be lived in such a way that people all around us are confronted by the reality of the existence of Christ. The first Christians were called Christians because they lived differently than everyone else; they lived like Christ, and that is how they got their name. Christians in that day had a reputation. The only reputation we have today is as hypocrites and judges. The world needs to see real Christianity lived out in front of them.

“It is good to work and have. It is better to work and have in order to give. God’s glory shines more brightly when he satisfies us in times of loss than when he provides for us in times of plenty. The health, wealth, and prosperity ‘gospel’ swallows up the beauty of Christ in the beauty of his gifts and turns the gifts into idols. The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain” (2003, p. 72).

Flipping the Corrupt Tables

Below is an excerpt from an article in Sojourners Magazine, written by David Batstone. You can read the full article at http://www.sojo.net/. Enjoy...

I just can't stand it anymore! Why? Because corruption passes for ordinary, acceptable behavior in the highest reaches of government and business.

What sends me into righteous rage (caveat to self: we all think our rage is righteous) is how obvious, bald-faced, and public the corruption is. Yet the perpetrators meet no shame or punishment fitting the crime. They laugh all the way to the bank.

I will offer two prime examples. From the start there was no doubt that Halliburton and its subsidiary, KBR, would bilk American taxpayers for work in Iraq. The bidding procedure for supplying troops and constructing infrastructure, both military and civilian, was patently unfair. Due to the lack of real competition, proposed budgets were bloated.

In an April 2003 column titled "The Buck $tops Here," I warned SojoMail readers that crony economics was guiding the funds targeted for reconstruction in Iraq. Here is what I wrote then:
"Looking ahead, the Bush team has requested $2.4 billion from Congress for humanitarian aid and reconstruction projects in Iraq; requests for billions more will follow once the war ends. Big business is lining up to sign lucrative contracts. The bidders represent some of the country's largest construction companies, all of them major donors to political campaigns. Halliburton shows up on the list of corporations that will benefit from the seizure of Iraq's oil wells. Vice President Dick Cheney, of course, was the chief executive of Halliburton before moving to public office."

In light of this public scrutiny, one would imagine that Halliburton would take extra care to execute efficiently in Iraq. To the contrary, within a year reports began leaking out of Iraq that malfeasance at Halliburton had become standard operating procedure. The Pentagon itself issued audits that confirmed Halliburton's dismal performance, and suggested that funds had been misdirected. Pentagon investigators concluded that Halliburton and KBR in Iraq had created "profound systemic problems," "exorbitant indirect costs," "misleading" and "distorted" cost reports, and an "obstructive" corporate attitude toward oversight.

But wait, the news gets worse. This past April, Pentagon investigators revealed that contractors over which Halliburton/KBR have oversight in Iraq are engaged in human trafficking. Low-skilled workers, mostly from underdeveloped nations, are deceived into traveling to Iraq with the promise of a lucrative job. Once they arrive, their passports are taken away and they are forced to work long hours at the most minimal wages.

So we saw it coming, we watched it unfold, and we witnessed the robbers run from the bank with impunity. I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

I feel ire for ExxonMobil, too, though it feels inadequate for the grievous weight of its transgression. No, I am not referring to the nearly $8.4 billion ExxonMobil pulled in over the last quarter - yep, over three months alone - while the average Jane and Joe are getting raked at the gas pump. As it pumps in the record revenues, ExxonMobile's corporate policy practices contempt for the earth.

Paul Krugman wrote a devastating essay in The New York Times in late April denouncing ExxonMobil as an "enemy of the planet." Guess he can't take it anymore either.

Krugman explains how ExxonMobil has deliberately aimed to sow confusion and doubt about the existence of global warming. When the greenhouse effect rose to public consciousness in the 1980s, we faced a paucity of scientific research validating the extent of its impact. Exxon (which at the time had not merged with Mobil) decided to take an aggressive stance, and joined with other oil industry players to form the Global Climate Coalition. The primary purpose of the coalition was to lobby against all significant emissions regulation. Krugman reports that Shell and BP, among other companies, eventually left the coalition once it became undeniable that global warming was in play. Exxon, however, adopted an ongoing strategy to undermine the science of climate change.

Krugman cites a 2004 article in the journal Science that reviews the state of scientific research around global warming. Of the 928 serious, peer-reviewed articles on climate change published in academic journals, he writes, "none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position." Nevertheless, for the past two decades ExxonMobil has seen fit to throw money at individuals and groups offering "alternative perspectives" of global warming skeptics. The company's attitude toward research recalls the tobacco industry studies that suggested that perhaps cigarette smoke wasn't really that bad for you after all.

Is your blood boiling yet? I sincerely hope so, because we need an army of citizens to rise up and declare that THEY JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. The moneychangers have taken over the temple and they act openly and shamelessly. Their greed knows no limits. It's time to flip the tables.

Global Christian Worldview

The majority in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America work daily for their food. Most don’t have a bed. Most don’t have more than two or three sets of clothes (at the most). Those with humanitarian concern or who are involved in social justice realize the enormous chasm between the lifestyle lived in the West and the lifestyle of the average person anywhere else. But as Christians our concern should go much deeper. The physical wellbeing of others ought to give us concern, but the spiritual depravity of much of the world ought to make us stand up and pay attention. There are more than a billion people who have never even heard the name of Jesus. Never.

In his book “Road to Reality,” K.P. Yohannan says a number of things that have caused me to stop reading and let the gravity of his statement sink in. One of them is this: “How can we be casual about the lost world when God considered it so important that His only solution was Calvary?” Most churches today support missions to one degree or another. Many of the largest ones even have a Pastor of Missions. But let me ask this question: For how many of us is world missions and world evangelization of great concern? To God, the opportunity for ALL to know and experience Him was so important He was willing to die. If it was so important to Him, why is it so low on our list of priorities?

One of the arguments many American Christians and even churches use to explain our lack of concern for world evangelization is the need to reach our own “backyard” before trying to go elsewhere with the Gospel. Certainly reaching the people in our own country and our own neighborhoods is important. No one would argue they need God any less than the person living in the remote jungles of Southeast Asia. But statistically, someone living in America has over 100 opportunities in their lifetime to hear the Gospel or at least a portion of it. When there are people in this world who never have one single opportunity to hear of Jesus, how can that be fair?

Sometimes I think that Christianity has so saturated our society that it has blinded us to many realities. Eighty percent of the world’s people have never owned a bible while Americans have an average of four in every household. There are still 4,000 of the world’s 6,500 languages without a single portion of the bible translated into their language. And yet, 85% of all bibles printed today are in English for the 9% of us who read English. It almost sounds like over-kill. A few people in this world who live in a “Christian” society continue to receive nearly all of the Gospel witness, teaching and resources.

It is true that God has blessed this country. And there is nothing wrong with living in blessing and abundance. But I believe blessing always requires responsibility. And I can’t help but think we have a responsibility to do our part in reaching this world for Christ. This doesn’t mean we all have to go to other parts of the world as missionaries. I would even argue that “our part” has less to do with going as missionaries than ever before. I believe the part God is asking us to play is more of a support role, sending resources and money to those places that need it in order to further the Gospel.

I guess the point I want to make in all of this is that we need to consider the way we live and ask whether it really is a Christ-like lifestyle. God may be asking different things of each of us individually, but we all ought to have a global Christian world-view. World missions and the effort to take the Gospel to people who have never heard ought to affect the way we all live here at home. Reaching the lost is a priority to God and it ought to be a priority to us as well.

Bless those who persecute you

Flip through your AM dial and you will hear liberal-bashing on your conservative shows and bashing of conservatives on your liberal talk shows. Rather than talk about the issues it seems most are more interested in lobbing slander at the other side.

What about Christian-Muslim relations? Heard anyone talk about “blessing” our Muslim neighbors around the world? If the conversation isn’t vindictive then it’s all about “converting” them. And I agree that they need to hear the gospel. But what if our Muslim neighbors were continually blessed by their Christian counterparts? How open would they become to hearing what we have to say after experiencing continual kindness from Christians? And I’m not talking about kindness with ulterior motives. I mean acts of kindness because we are called to bless our “enemies.” My parents and brother just spent a few weeks in a village in Morocco and said most of the widows and single women want to marry a Christian man. Their reason? A local woman experienced severe bleeding while giving birth to her child and the Muslim men of the village, including her husband, decided to let her bleed arguing that if Allah wanted to save her he would. And if he didn’t then she must have done something to anger their god. A Christian missionary in the village found out about this woman’s plight and rushed her to a local hospital where her life was saved. Because of this man’s actions the women of the village want a Christian husband because they believe he will take better care of them.

What about gay rights? Why do we hear so much gay-bashing emerging from the mouths of many Christians? Yes, the lifestyle is wrong; the Bible clearly calls it a sin. But what would the gay community think of Christians if they experienced blessing instead of cursing?

We are all quick to judge anyone on the “other side” of our own values, theology, and culture. It even happens between Christian denominations. Conservative churches denigrate Pentecostal ones and vice versa. I’m not saying we can’t disagree. I’m simply saying my Bible says “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse" (Romans 12:14). It doesn’t say “tolerate those who persecute you.” It says to bless them. What would our world look like if all Christians took this command seriously?

Cup of water, bread of life

It seems there are a lot more people and organizations out there today that really care about issues of social justice. There are also a lot of people and organizations that care a great deal about personal holiness and salvation. How do you balance both? Simply serving the needs of the poor and the hungry does not improve their spiritual health. Likewise you cannot preach salvation and ignore physical needs. To be a Christian means we must care about both. Jesus does. And he demonstrated that when he walked on this earth healing the sick and the blind. But he also preached repentance. My pastor spoke this morning about this and used the "cup of water and bread of life" metaphor as a reminder that our job is to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of our world. It's easy to be oeverwhelmed by the enormous needs of our world but if we each do our own part, no matter how little it may be we can make difference. I think that's what Jesus expects of us.

A self-centered society

We are such a self-centered society. Everything revolves around our own wants and desires and we pay little attention to how our decisions and actions affect others. We have so much and yet much of the world has so little. And yet we think we are entitled to what we have. But we're not. We have a responsibility and an obligation to use what we have been given to be a blessing to others.

According to www.worldhungeryear.org nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than $1 a day and nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Knowing this, how can we justify the expensive homes, new cars, the walk-in closets full of clothes we rarely wear, and the enormous amounts of clutter that fill our homes?

Most of us prefer to be ignorant of how poor most of the world is. Afterall, why should we give away our hard-earned money? Because it isn't ours and it can be taken from us in an instant. Consider those who just one year ago lived in comfort along the Gulf Coast who now have nothing.

When Jesus encountered a rich young man in Matthew 19 he is asked what to do to be saved. Jesus responds by telling the man to sell everything he has and give it to the poor. Elsewhere Jesus says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Does this mean it's wrong to be rich? Of course not. But what we do with our riches is indicative of whether we are yielded to the Lordship of Christ.