What Do I Really Want?

I always find it difficult compiling a list of suggested presents for my birthday or Christmas.  Not because I can't think of things, but because I can think of too many things and I feel the need to narrow the list down, so as not to look too greedy.

 

It is easy to make a long list of all sorts of frivolous things that I would like. Things which would feel like a treat, because I don't really need them but they're pretty. Or things which I do need, but can't really afford.

 

I find myself asking What do I really want?  

 

Jesus asks us the same thing.

 

John recounts how John the Baptist's followers saw Jesus one day and started following him.

 

"Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, 'What do you want?'”

[John 1:38 NIV]

 

And He asks us the same thing.  What do you want?

To know He exists?  To know He cares?  To know forgiveness?  To be able to forgive?  To feel loved?  To have a new job, or a new car, or a new house?  To have more money?  To move beyond just surviving?

 

Often, we don't know what we really want.  Or we don't want to admit what we really want.  Especially as Christians - sometimes our 'wants' can seem not 'Christian' enough. 

But Jesus sees into the heart of things and He wants us to share our dreams and our desires with Him, regardless of how 'Christian' they might seem.

 

Paul urges us to share our whole hearts with God:

 

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done."

[Philippians 4:6 NLT]

 

So, what do you really want?

 

 

 

Do I Really Want To Be A Christian?

Whenever I say the words, "I'm a Christian," in my mind, I can't help silently adding "... Get me out of here!"

 

I blame ITV and the popular programme "I'm a Celebrity".

 

I am a Christian (Get me out of here!), but I don't know that I like the label 'Christian'.  Not because I want to hide what I believe or disguise it somehow, but because over time the word has become corrupted.

 

I think the meaning of 'Christian' is stuck in the 70s: long, untamed hair; rainbow guitar straps; rainbow/tie-dyed t-shirts; the iconic socks-and-sandals combo; people who are overly polite and yet hypocritical; incredibly judgmental and narrow-minded; and yet something of a pushover at the same time.

 

Think the ever-chipper, "Hi-diddly-doodly neighbours!" Ned Flanders in The Simpsons.

 

 

Someone detached from reality and a laughing-stock to most who know him.

 

And I find myself asking Do I really want to be a Christian?

 

If that is what being a Christian looks like, I'm out.

 

And what's more, this image of Christianity - of being a Christian - bears no resemblance whatsoever to Christ - the reason for our faith.

 

I love Jesus because He wasn't a Christian and He wasn't anything like the stereotype we have come to associate with the word "Christian" either.

 

He wasn't polite: He cared more about sharing life-giving truth with people than upsetting their feelings.  He wasn't hypocritical: He literally practised what He preached and loved people as He taught us to.  He wasn't judgmental and narrow-minded: in fact, He was accused of being too liberal by the religious leaders of His time.  He ate with prostitutes and let them wash His feet; He invited a scheming, friendless tax-collector for tea; He crossed social and religious and geographical boundaries when He chatted to a promiscuous, unmarried woman from Samaria.  He healed people who were sick or dying, regardless of whether it was the day of rest.

 

He valued people. 

 

Above all else, He loved and valued and cared for the people He came into contact with. 

 

He wasn't confined by rules or guidelines or rituals.  He was governed and motivated by love.

 

He wasn't controlled by religion.  He was moved by relationship.

 

That's what I want my life to look like, too.  Not the bad-hair, 70's style, stereotypical "Christian", but a life modelled on Christ.  A life which, like His, is motivated by relationship and governed by love.

 

"This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.  This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.  My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.  No one has seen God, ever.  But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!"

 

[1 John 4:8-12 MSG] 

 

 

Blackberries

I love Autumn. 

 

I love the crisp chill in the air.  I love going for walks in the countryside in my wellies.  And most of all, I love blackberrying.

 

I love that, for those who have a few hours to spare, there is an abundance of delicious blackberries waiting in the hedgerows to be picked and enjoyed.  For free.

 

Yesterday, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon doing just that.

 

There are so many parables I could draw from the experience [and perhaps I will in another post], such as looking in the right places and taking a different perspective on things, and having to fight the thorns for the fruit. 

 

But what really struck me yesterday was the shape of the blackberries.  When I was little, I used to enjoy trying to pull off each of the drupelets [apparently the technical term for each of the little bobbles] to eat them individually.  It is a fiddly and messy business but, if achieved, can be quite satisfying.

 

All of the tiny seed-bearing bobbles joined together around the soft core made me think about what the church should be like. 

 

We are all unique individuals with our own roles to play.  We each have a 'seed' within us which will grow and develop and produce a flourishing plant.  But we are all joined together around the 'core' - the central person of Jesus.

 

Paul explains how we are all joined together through Christ -

 

"You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body.  It’s exactly the same with Christ.  By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives.  We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything."

 

[1 Corinthians 12:12-13 MSG] 

And he continues to explain how we are all linked together and affected by each other -

 

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t.  If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.  If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance."

[1 Corinthians 12:25-26 MSG]

 

The church isn't a club for religious people to hang out at on Sundays.  The church isn't the building.  The church isn't the pastors, or the vicar, or the worship leaders. 

 

The church is you and me joining together through our shared faith in Jesus and sharing our lives together - the hurting and the healing, the joy and the weeping.

 

 

 

False Advertising

How many advertising slogans can you recall without having to call upon the help of Google?

Nearly 20 years later, I can still sing (word for word and in perfect tune), the radio jingle for "Corsham Building Plastics".  I'm not sure if the company still exists, but the jingle will forever be imprinted on my mind.

Adverts bombard us: from the television, from the radio, from bilboards, from magazines and newspapers, from emails, from internet searches.  So much so that I would venture to say it is nearly impossible to avoid some form of advertising over the course of a day.

And adverts no longer just sell a product, they sell a lifestyle.  And if we are dissatisfied with the lifestyle being offered, we can easily shop around for a better, cheaper deal.  We live in a world where consumerism is God and the market place is our Temple. We worship in the supermarkets and shops and (more recently), on internet shopping sites. 
As Mike Erre says in 'Death by Church',

"Advertising now promises to give us what religion used to deliver: meaning, purpose, significance, and identity."

But whilst advertising appears to promise a better lifestyle, in reality, it simply creates a hunger in us that it is incapable of satisfying.  It shows us a perfect and ideal lifestyle which seems to be attainable.  If I change supermarkets and change my clothes and change my hair and get a better car and a better phone and a better computer I will be satisfied.  Content.  Happy.  Successful.

False advertising.

But there is someone who promised a bigger, better, fuller life.  And He delivers on His promise:

"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

[John 10:10, NIV, emphasis mine]

And all we have to do is ask.



All together now ...

811 663
Corsham Building Plastics
Conservatories, doors and windows too
We'll get your place fixed up like new.
Just one call
We do it all
And the prices are fantastic!
Just call 811 663
Corsham Building Plastics.

Too Much Salt

If you have ever been a student, you are probably familiar with "Student Housing".  And if you are familiar with "Student Housing", you are probably familiar with one of life's slimier problems: the slug.  And if you are familiar with the slug problem, you are probably also familiar with the slug solution: Salt.  And lots of it.

I recently saw a picture of a complex salt maze someone had made from their back door, which any brave slug would have to overcome in order to 'enter' the house.  The maze had many tight corners and dead ends - virtually impossible to master if you are a slug ...  I wish I had thought of that as a student.

And it's not just slugs who can't stand too much salt.  When I was little I thought salt and pepper were opposites.  I once had an unfortunate accident with a loose-lidded salt shaker and covered what would have been a lovely plate of chips in white stuff.  Thinking the pepper would cancel out the salt, I applied that liberally to the plate too.  You can imagine the result.

The point is that too much salt is unpleasant, sometimes harmful and potentially lethal, if you are a slug. We all know the dangers of a diet high in salt and the potential problems this can lead to.   So whilst yesterday I said we need to be salt in the world and let people 'taste' our saltiness, to pique their interest in God, we also need to make sure we don't overdo the salt.

Sometimes I think as Christians we can become so focused on being 'salty' that we forget that salt isn't ever meant to be eaten by itself.  It is meant to be added to food to enhance it and draw out the different flavours that are already there.  Similarly, we are meant to be salt in the world, salt mingling and mixing with the other flavours of the world, not overpowering them and overwhelming them.  We are meant to meet people where they are and engage with them and draw them to God, not offer up an unappetising plate of salt.

Which leads us to ask: what does it look like to be salt?  Salt with my friends, salt with my family, salt with my neighbours, salt with my colleagues, salt at work, salt at the pub, salt at the party?  Do people taste a difference?  

Salt isn't a meal in itself. 

"You must have the qualities of salt among yourselves and live in peace with each other."

[Mark 9:50, NLT. Emphasis added]

If you need help with a salt maze for your own slug, try this: http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/06/13/1226393/924840-snail-maze.jpg

Sugar and Salt

I have a clear glass jar filled with white granules on the bench in my kitchen, next to my oils and pestle and mortar.  Several people have helped themselves to its contents whilst making themselves a cup of tea or coffee.  They sprinkle it liberally into their drink and stir it vigorously thinking it is sugar.

It is not sugar.

But they don't know it's not sugar until they take that first mouthful and the saltiness stings their mouth and catches in their throats and makes their eyes water.

Sugar and salt.

They look the same.  So much so that they are easily mistaken for each other.  But they are not the same.  And it's only when you taste them that you can tell the difference.  And by then it's too late.

Jesus didn't call us to be sugar.  He didn't call us to a sweet and easy life, with a pallatable message to share.  His Gospel isn't the 'icing [sugar] on the cake' - an easy and tasty addition to our lives.  He called us to be salt.  To stand out, to share a message that is hard to swallow, because it calls for the complete transformation of our lives.  It calls for us to stop living for ourselves and to start living for Him.  And sometimes that sticks in the throat.

But it is the only way to live.  It is what we were made for - to find freedom when we hand our lives over to God and stop trying to be our own saviours.  And we are called to share this messgae of freedom with others.

You can only tell if it's salt or sugar when you taste it. 

What use is salt if it stays in the jar?  Some of us spend so long becoming the saltiest salt we can: going to church and reading our Bible and reading "Christian books", that we forget that there is a purpose to our saltiness.  Jesus didn't call us to be salt as an end in itself, to enhance the 'flavours' of the church.  He called us to be salt in the world, to stand out, to 'taste' different, to do life differently.  He called us to pique people's interest and to draw them close to Him.  Like the cleverly placed, overly-salted nuts you find at a bar, Jesus calls us to be salt to create a thirst in people.  A thirst for Him.

"Let me tell you why you are here.  You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth."

[Matthew 5:13, MSG]

[And if you make a drink at my flat and you're looking for the sugar, it's the top cupboard, left of the oven.]

The "Christian" Post

Yesterday, I read a post about worship music and why we call it "Christian music", which has got me thinking a lot today...

In his post, "Erasing the Line Between the Secular and the Sacred" 
(http://benjamindunn.tumblr.com/post/25517102516/erasing-the-line-between-the-secular-the-sacred), Benjamin Dunn says,

Christian Music? What an extremely weird concept. To think that a song, band or genre of music can be dubbed “Christian” is an anomaly to me. Can other things in this world be “Christian” as well? (i.e. My, dogs, my socks, my dirty tour sweater)?

His article procedes to discuss the meaning of "worship music" and the sacred nature of music, which isn't my intention here (although it makes for interesting reading).  However, it got me thinking about our attitude to separating and segragating the different aspects of our lives.

How often do we prefix areas of our life with the word "Christian"?   "Christian radio", "Christian TV", "Christian film", "Christian book", "Christian song", "Christian art", "Christian conversation", "Christian place", "Christian job", "Christian blog"...

And what do we mean by it?  Does shoving the word "Christian" before another noun somehow alter it and sanctify it?  Is my "Christian job" more important than your (presumably) "non Christian job"?  Is a "Christian film" somehow better for me?

And how do we define it?  Do we have to prove it has been written or painted or designed by someone who professes to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour?  And how do we go about proving that?  And if I am a Christian musician, am I capable of writing an "ordinary" song?  Or are all of my songs "Christian" because I am?  And does it really matter?

Isn't labelling things as "Christian" more about confining God and putting restrictions on Him?  And isn't that more about us being in control and making us 'God'?  If we put God in a box and only expect to experience or hear from Him when we are listening to "Christian radio" or watching a "Christian film" then we probably will. 

But if we open up our eyes and our ears and our minds and if we erase the lines and break down the walls, perhaps we will see God in the ordinary as well.

After all, Jesus wasn't born in a Temple, He was born in a stable.  He didn't just work for a religious organisation, He trained as a carpenter.  He didn't just teach in the synagogues, He taught on the hills and in boats.  He didn't just have Jewish friends, He befriended the lonely and broken and poor and outcast and sinful.

Jesus came to earth to show us that God isn't distant and unreachable and only interested in the "Christian" aspects of our lives.  He is personal and intimate and bigger than any human fences we erect, and He longs to speak into every area of our lives:

"Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.  We didn't fence you in.  The smallness you feel comes from within you.  Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way.  I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection.  Open up your lives.  Live openly and expansively!"

[2 Corinthians 6:11, MSG]