Charisa Stories

Month: August 2011

  • My Generation

    (From theFish.com)

    A classic rock anthem from my youth was part of the iPod rotation today. “My Generation” was our defiant statement that we wanted nothing to do with the older folks who we believed to be clueless. The song reminded me of an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal detailing how the younger generation places less value on the advice of their elders. That cultural trend has carried over into business, politics and the church. Serves us baby boomers right since we were the generation of don’t trust anyone over thirty. We rocked with The Who and sang these lyrics about how stupid my parent’s generation had been.

    Things they do look awful cold (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
    I hope I die before I get old (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)

    Sadly, like every generation since the Garden we did, in fact, get old. Writer Jeffrey Zaslow believes the advice gap between current generations is even wider today.

    Older people have always offered advice to younger people, with words of wisdom culled from their memories of youth. And, of course, in every era, young people have found advice from elders to be outdated and ineffectual. These days, however, given how fast the world is changing, there’s been a clear widening of the advice gap.

    It’s rooted in a devaluation of accumulated wisdom, a leveling of the relationships between old and young. On many fronts, people from Generation Y—now ages 16 to 32—assume their peers know best. They doubt those of us who are older can truly understand their needs and concerns.

    Zaslow reminds us geezers and geezerettes not to get our feelings hurt.

    “As for those of us who are older, we should resist feeling offended if young people shrug off our advice.”

    I am not offended at all if you youngins think advice from my generation is outdated and ineffectual. We were right there with you just a few decades back.

    Why don’t you all fade away (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
    And don’t try to dig what we all say (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)

    I’m not trying to cause a big sensation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
    I’m just talkin’ ’bout my generation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)

    I have read Ecclesiastes so I know there really is nothing new under the sun. Technology and culture change but human nature remains sadly consistent. So I don’t care if you don’t seek my advice on clothes, cars and jobs. In fact, I encourage you not to. No worries if you could care less what I believe about politics or investments. Paul had some words to Titus about how we older folks could and actually should influence younger men and women. By living grace filled lives dependent on Christ.

    Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don’t want anyone looking down on God’s Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.

    But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching, your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around. (Titus 2, The Message)

    So if we follow Paul’s advice the onus falls on us (and me) to demonstrate and model the truths of God’s Word. If we demonstrate dignity, wisdom, healthy faith, love and endurance then the young men and women might be inclined to listen now and then.

    And if they happen to ask my advice would be pretty simple.

    • Your identity is not your job. Your job is the way you pay bills. Your identity is in Christ. You are a saint because you have been declared righteous as a gift of grace. Remind yourself of that every day.
    • Living out of faith pleases God. Your actions don’t gain any favor with Him apart from faith.
    • Love your spouse. There is no better testimony in this culture.
    • Love your family and show it by making time for them. I have to confess that this advice comes out of some regret.
    • Treasure your friends. They are the ones who provide community to live out this journey and that is how God designed it to work.
    • Live in the moment. Satan loves to have us regretting the past or fearing the future. God desires to be with us in the moment.
    • Model grace and truth. That balance will gain an audience with all ages.

    So I am resigned to not being the guru for Generation Y. My advice may not be in great demand. But if my teaching is incorruptible and my words solid and sane (tall order) then God can use even an old fossil like me. I am trusting Him for the strength and grace to live out these truths knowing that God will do the rest. I am confident that living out these truths in grace is never outdated and never ineffectual.

  • Don’t Know Much About….

    Some of the theologians I encountered did not seem like anyone I would actually want to be around on purpose. I made the crack that some theologians were to joy in Christ what nutritionists were to enjoying cheesecake. They both took something full of delight and made you feel mostly bad about it.

    Yet something is changing in my life. I am really seeing the need for a solid theological basis for what I believe.

    All of this came to mind when Sam Cooke’s classic Wonderful World popped up on the iPod. You know the one where Sam builds a strong case for academic slacking actually being a strength.

    Don’t know much about history
    Don’t know much biology
    Don’t know much about a science book
    Don’t know much about the french I took

    But I do know that I love you
    And I know that if you love me too
    What a wonderful world this would be

    I wrote an ode (cross off “Bucket List” Item Number 87 –  Write Ode) using that classic tune to describe our lack of theological depth. This classic appears in the new version of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People.

    For the music director. A psalm of parody sung to Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World. All rise.

    Don’t know much about theology,
    Don’t know much Christology.
    Don’t know much about Leviticus,
    Don’t know why they had the Exodus.
    But I do know that God loves you,
    And I’m trying hard to be good too.
    What a wonderful faith this would be.

    Well, I don’t claim to be a good Christian,
    But I’m trying to be.
    For maybe by bein’ a good person, brother,
    I can gain eternity.

    (Everyone now…)

    Don’t know much about the Pharisees,
    Can’t explain the Trinity.
    Don’t know much ecclesiology
    Don’t know what a good tithe should be.
    But I think that God forgives my quirks,
    And I figure if I do good works,
    What a wonderful faith this would be.

    Humorous? I hope so. But the problem is not so funny. What do we believe? And why? I think one of the fundamental problems in many churches is that we do not effectively connect the theological dots. That is why the book Truefaced and the Truefaced Romans CD series has had such a profound impact in my life. The authors (and speakers) connect the dots of justification, imputed righteousness, propitiation, identity in Christ, sanctification and other assorted church words. Remember the connect the dots books you had as a kid? When you connect the theological dots the picture revealed is Jesus.

    Now I find myself neck deep in theology. Trying to learn more to be able to make a defense of the Gospel of Jesus. I want to understand church history and doctrine. I want to understand grace and more importantly I want to live it. I have a long, long, long way to go but someday I hope that the scouting report on me will reflect the summary of Jesus written in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus was beautifully described as being “full of grace and truth”. That would be a dramatic shift from what I have been described as being full of at other points in my journey.  I am excited about continuing to refine my theological base but I want to always be mindful that truth preached without grace is not received nearly as well as the reverse approach. Connect the dots. The picture is beautiful.

  • Amazing!

    Those who are honest about this journey know that you are in trouble anytime you announce that you are determined to be more: (choose from the following partial list – patient, loving, obedient, forgiving, prayerful, serving). God smiles and arranges a test. I hate the spiritual pop quizzes as much as I did the academic ones. But they are just as revealing about how I am doing. A recent pop quiz consisted of some personal situations that frustrated me and other people conspiring (I thought) to divert my focus and steal my joy. How did I do? I failed the test miserably. I was grumpy. I was discouraged. My joy meter barely moved. I bombed the test.

    Later I regrouped and had a personal conference with the Teacher (He is really good about that). That is when I remembered again what grace means to me. Yes, I failed miserably. Yes, I was disappointed in myself. Yes, I was a little embarrassed that I have written and spoken so boldly and flopped so easily. But here is what poured over my soul from the Holy Spirit.

    You are my child.
    I love you.

    Grace always takes me by surprise. I am not conditioned by this world to expect love and acceptance when I have failed. I am conditioned to expect condemnation, shame, and rejection. But there was the Father God patiently and lovingly dealing with me. Mark McMinn, a professor at Wheaton College,  wrote these words in an article in Christianity Today.

    “Seeing our sin occurs over a lifetime of pursuing God. Our vision is seldom restored in a single burst of light but with countless rays streaming into our darkened eyes over many years—and always in the midst of amazing grace.”

    That is the power of grace in my life. In His infinite mercy God does not reveal the ugliness of my heart in one gigantic and loveless revelation that would destroy me. He chooses instead to gently chip away at the rough edges of pride, selfishness, and disobedience. The famous artist Michelangelo would often select a block of marble that others thought unsalvageable and then go to work on that ugly hunk of rock.  He once remarked, “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.” That is what God’s grace means to me. He sees the beauty in the piece of rock that is me. And He sees the beauty that no one else sees. He lovingly and gently carves away the ugliness until a little beauty begins to come through. But He never gets angry and gives up if another strata of ugly crops up.

    That is what grace means to me. Even on the days that I fail miserably I know that I am loved. I am accepted. There  is nothing that I can do to make God love me more and nothing I can do to make Him love me less. This is one place where the spiritual hall monitors are apt to jump in and complain about “cheap grace” in the church. Cheap grace means one thing. You don’t understand grace. Because grace understood would never translate to making such an amazing act of unmerited mercy trivial or unappreciated.

    Paul and Barnabas proclaimed to the assembly that,  “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved.” A common acronym for grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Recently I have experienced a new acronym for grace.

    God’s
    Radical
    And
    Complete
    Embrace

    Most of us know the story of slave trader John Newton who repented of his sin and wrote a popular little tune called Amazing Grace. When he said wretch he knew what he was talking about. At the end of his life Newton said to his friends, “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.”

    He is indeed.

    Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound. That saves and oh so patiently perfects a wretch like me. Amazing.

  • Remind Me Who I Am

    Remind Me Who I Am

    (From this week’s iPod Devotional at theFish.com)

    When I fired up the iPod today the first song I heard made me chuckle. Not because of the content but because of the appropriateness of the song for this week. The artist is Jason Gray and his song is called “Remind Me Who I Am”.

    Last weekend I had the privilege of speaking to the wonderful community of believers at Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. Jason Gray’s song IS my message from last Sunday except it is more succinct and has a much better beat. Jason Gray could have rolled in, done his song and I could have let the crowd go to IHOP. Here are some of the lyrics.

    When I lose my way
    When I forget my name

    Remind me who I am

    In the mirror all I see
    is who I don’t wanna be

    Remind me who I am

    That was main takeaway point of my Sunday message is that to be effective in this journey you have to remember who you are in Christ.

    My text was from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul had spent a little over two years teaching and discipling the new believers in Ephesus. Just a few short years after he left Paul received reports that those new hearts had reverted to old habits. Things were a bit of a mess and the word came back that the old behaviors of rage, immorality, lying, stealing and gossip were resurfacing. Paul wrote a letter to address this sad turn of events. Yet the amazing thing to me is that the first three chapters never address their sin. Paul even calls them as saints for crying out loud! If I was writing that letter it would have had an entirely different tone. Something more along these lines. “What are you thinking? I am so disappointed in you. What is wrong with you? Do you know how much I sacrificed for you?” But Paul doesn’t do that. Rather, in the first three chapters, he talks about identity. He reminds them who they are. That is what Jason Gray is asking God to do in his song.

    In the loneliest places
    When I can’t remember what grace is

    Tell me once again who I am to You
    Who I am to You
    Tell me
    Lest I forget who I am to You
    I belong to You

    I had a really difficult time trusting my identity. But your actions tend to reflect who you believe you are. You default to your identity. I had read this verse from Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth dozens of times:

    “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

    Because of Christ I have a new identity. I am righteous because of Him and not because of trying to do more right “stuff.” I am a saint and there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. It is a liberating and joyous message. But there is a problem. Satan hates that message of hope and change. And so he goes about trying to “steal’ my identity in Christ. I spend money and time and put lots of effort into protecting my financial and personal identity. And that is important. But I would suggest that our spiritual identity is far more important and I am afraid we make it all too easy for the enemy to steal away from us.

    Remind me who I am
    When I can’t receive Your love
    Afraid I’ll never be enough
    Remind me who I am

    If I’m Your beloved
    Can You help me believe it

    We find it difficult to believe that we are changed because many times when we fail the old tapes are instantly cue up and start playing loudly:

    You will never change.
    You always do that.
    I can’t believe you did that again.
    What is wrong with you?

    All of those accusations that Satan (and others who are quite happy to help) hurls your way are no longer true about you. All of the guilt and shame and sin that used to define you are no longer true. That old life is gone. You are a new creation. New life has begun.

    Even though the Ephesians had messed up royally in how they were living out their faith Paul did not condemn them as he began his letter. He had to be heartbroken. But he showed his love by not lecturing but by reminding them who they were….adopted, redeemed, and sealed. Saints. He NEVER wrote a word about changing their behavior until chapter four!

    I have spent too many years being an Ephesians 4 to 6 Christian. I looked at behavior and judged that…often sinfully. I am becoming an Ephesians 1 to 3 Christian. Remembering and reminding myself and others who we are. Out of those truths behavior changes.

    Jason Gray sings in the chorus to “Tell me once again who I am to You”. When you are a follower of Christ here a just things that are true of you.

    Adopted. Redeemed. Sealed. Loved. A saint. Righteous. Accepted. Forgiven. A new creation. A child of God.

    No matter what difficulty or trial you might encounter this week I pray that you will take a moment and remember who you are. A saint. Adopted. Redeemed. Sealed. And live out of those amazing truths. Consider yourself reminded.