PASSION'S REFLECTIONS: Church, 24/7

This is, most likely, my final reflection on the Passion Conference of 2012. This reflection is about the community groups of Passion. The 45,000 people who attended Passion were split up into smaller groups, and those groups were split into groups of eight people. These were our family groups; everyone was with people from all over the country (sometimes the world). We didn't have much time to get to know each other, but we all had that spiritual connection that comes with having a relationship with Jesus, "having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose" (Philippians 2:2). It was a very encouraging time.

But the encouragement didn't end there. Since Passion, my family group occasionally sends Bible verses to each other via text messages to encourage each other. This continual encouragement has been so amazing, and I've been realizing that it should be a normal part of being a followers of Jesus. And I've been finding passages in the Bible that support my realization, mostly in Hebrews. Here's Hebrews 3:12-14:

"12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first."

And later on in chapter 10:

"23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

I think this kind of continual encouragement is imperative for believers to "fix our eyes on Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2). Once a week isn't enough, but this is what our Christian culture in America has limited our spiritual encouragement to: A short, sub-hour sermon that's supposed to help us get through the week. Since Passion, I've be noticing the affects of keeping our eyes on Jesus through the encouragement of others. A healthy prayer life and staying in the Word are necessary for us to keep our focus, but church fellowship and encouragement are also necessary. And Hebrews 10:24 tells us we can choose how to encourage each other. It doesn't have to be only through texts or blogs.
We aren't going through this life alone when it comes to Monday through Saturday. The Church is a body of believers, and it should function 24/7.

PASSION'S REFLECTIONS: True Faith, True Christianity

This final reflection from the sessions of Passion comes largely from John Piper's session. I was expecting it to be very hard to follow him, but he was actually very clear in his session and didn't unnecessarily repeat himself (which if you know anything about him he tends to be the opposite of that).

The topic of his session was on faith in Jesus. It was so clear and simple and Biblically sound that it seemed radical for our culture, especially among professing Christians. So this post will have plenty of Bible references so you can look it up for yourself and not just take my word for it.

The seemingly radical point that Piper made was that there is no in-between ground for people in a spiritual sense; there is either dead or alive. But what our culture has done is created a comfortable gray area that people can spiritually reside, an area that says they can choose to be good or bad. He related this to the pendulum of a metronome. We've put ourselves in the middle and told ourselves that we can choose to go towards one side or another (good or evil). But the Bible makes it clear that it's not our choice to make. We all are born on the evil side of the pendulum, because we all have a sinful desire right from the start (Romans 3:23, Ephesians 2:1-3). But even worse than starting on the wrong side of the pendulum is the fact that we can't get ourselves to the other side of the pendulum on our own. We were "without hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). We are in a hopeless estate at the start.

Yes, it's uncomfortable; yes, it goes against our culture's belief that we can better ourselves and be successful on our own, pulling ourselves up from our bootstraps; but yes, it's Biblically sound. Salvation is a gift from God (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8). It's God's sovereign choice (Romans 9:16ff). Here is what God says to His people in Ezekiel 36:25-27:

"25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

Reading this and Ephesians 2 should convince you that God is the one who establishes this relationship with Him, not us. So God puts His Spirit in us, and because the Spirit lives in us, we can live for Him instead of us (Romans 8:9ff). Or, as 2 Corinthians 5:17 puts it:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

This is good news and all (THE Good News, in fact), but is this what we see in America? More often than not, it seems that the majority of people in churches I attend are convinced that they are in that gray area of the pendulum. They say they believe in Jesus and the Good News, and that they are Christians, but they don't have a hunger for Jesus; in fact, they don't look much different from everyone else. So here's some Scripture to help you discern who is really a follower of Jesus and who is just a faker.

First, Jesus makes it clear that people who truly believe in Him seek him for satisfaction. Here's John 6:35:

"Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.'"

You can see that Jesus pairs the words "comes" and "believes" together. So those who believe in Him come to Him for life, and in Him we are truly satisfied. Peter also refers to this in 1 Peter 2:2-3:

"2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."

Once we get a taste of the Lord, we get a craving for more of Him. We desire Him.

Second, a true follower of Jesus still struggles with sin (Romans 7:7ff), but he doesn't remain in his sin (1 John 3:6).  As long as we are in this world, we will battle against sin until, at the end, our bodies are redeemed (Romans 8:19-23). But when we find ourselves in sin, we don't remain in it. The Holy Spirit is what draws us back to Jesus (John 16:8, Ezekiel 36:27). The true followers of Jesus don't remain in sin; they remain in Him (John 15:4ff).

Third, a true follower of Jesus does the will of God. Here is a true but scary verse:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." -Matthew 7:21

And again from 1 John 2:4-6:

"4 The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."

The whole book of 1 John describes this difference very well. People who live in Jesus walk in the light; people who don't live for Jesus continue to walk in the darkness (1 John 1:6-7).  If you don't see any fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) in a person, then the person doesn't have the Spirit living in him and therefore doesn't have a relationship with God. You can tell whether or not a person is a true follower of Jesus by the fruit of their lives (Matthew 7:17-20, 12:33-35). This is not to say that Christians have perfect lives; as I've already mentioned, we still struggle with sin, and in this world, trouble is guaranteed (John 16:33). But a person with a relationship with Jesus should be noticeable.

So the radical part of all this is that if you see someone who talks the Christian talk but denies God by his lifestyle (Titus 1:16), he truly is not a follower of Jesus. And the uncomfortable thing about this is that that someone could be you, if you say you are a Christian. An examination of your life is imperative.

Now, I say all this from experience. I am not exempt from all this. I was once one of the fakers. I looked good on the outside. I could say the right things. I was in that comfortable gray area, thinking I could choose to follow God whenever I wanted to. But it wasn't until my senior year in high school that God opened my eyes to how I had been living. Here's my Jesus Story if you want the longer version of that. But the point is that it was a JESUS story, not a Samuel story of how I overcame my spiritual emptiness. God came into my life, and now I have a relationship with Him. So as raw as this all is, I speak as one who was in that nonexistent "gray area." But now I can relate to 1 Peter 1:3-5:

"3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is read to be revealed in the last time."

This is true faith, and this is true Christianity.

PASSION'S REFLECTIONS: Word!

This reflection largely comes from Francis Chan's session during Passion. Again, the sessions weren't complex at all, just pure truth.

Chan's main point was that we as Christians need to be studying the Word for ourselves and to know it well, because there are many people who question Biblical truth and twist passages from the Bible to justify actions or beliefs that aren't Biblically true. He referenced the first part of 1 Timothy 4 and several stories from the Old Testament that show the importance of knowing and trusting in God and His Word. Here is 1 Timothy 4:3-4:

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."

One of the stories from the Old Testament is of the prophet who was killed because he listened to another prophet who was lying (claiming to have a word from the Lord) instead of trusting what God had already told him. Another story he used is of the one king of Judah who was lied to by 400 prophets but told a true prophecy by one prophet. The 400 prophets were telling the king what he wanted to hear, but it wasn't from God.

1 Timothy 4:3-4 is true today in our culture. If you want to justify something using Scripture, there is most likely a book out there that has already done it. Homosexuality, materialism, the nonexistence of hell, etc. There are books and people that justify things like these; they have turned away from the truth and sound doctrine. In our culture, we need to have sound doctrine, and that comes from reading the Bible for yourself.

Francis Chan also mentioned the story in 1 Samuel 14 of how Jonathan and his armor-bearer trusted God and attacked the Philistines when the entire Israelite army was hiding in fear. Knowing the Bible for yourself will increase your trust in God to provide for you in whatever situation. Reading all the stories of how He's provided for His people and all the encouragements and promises He gives us in the Bible will increase your faith in Him. We need to take the Word for what it is: truth. It will give us sure footing in the midst of a culture ridden with slippery paths.

PASSION'S REFLECTIONS: Simply The Good News

You would expect a conference like Passion to have some great speakers and good sessions. Well, it did, but the thing that really stuck with me is the simplicity and beauty of the Gospel. They stressed the fact that the Passion Conference was, at its core, about Jesus. The Gospel was preached by every speaker, among other things, and they made sure to note that the Good News is not complex.

Louie Giglio was the speaker for the first session, and he talked on Luke 7:11-17. The story is of Jesus going up to a funeral procession and raising a dead man. That passage is an accurate portrayal of the Good News. We all are that dead man, heading toward the grave. We aren't partially alive or kind of dead; we are completely dead and fully heading to the grave because we were born into sin, and our sinful nature leads us there.
But then Jesus shows up. In that day, priests and rabbi wouldn't dare approach a funeral procession because they would be at risk of becoming unclean. But Jesus didn't care about getting unclean by touching us. He loves us so much that it doesn't matter. He comes to us, and He gives us life. And here is the people's response to Jesus' miracle:

They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." (Luke 7:16)

 The Message translates that last part to, "God is back, looking to the needs of his people!" Jesus started his ministry after several hundreds of years of silence from God to his people. No prophets. No words from the Lord. Nothing. But when people see a life touched by God, they can't help giving the glory to God, because there's no other explanation for a fully dead man becoming fully alive.
And that, quite simply, is Good News.

PASSION'S REFLECTIONS: Taste Of Heaven

This past week I attended the 2012 Passion Conference in Atlanta. As I process my experience, I will be posting various reflections.

My first reflection is that the conference felt like a small taste of heaven. There was something about worshiping Jesus with over 45,00 college-aged students. There was something about meeting bothers and sisters in Christ from all over the country and having a spiritual connection with them. There was something about worshiping with people from different countries and in different languages at once. There was something about talking with people about Jesus and processing what we were learning about Him.

It felt global, national, communal, and personal at the same time. You could feel the Spirit's presence. In fact, a worker from one of the buildings being used was led to Christ just from feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit in her chest. It was a powerful week, and I hope to post more about it soon.