[video]
For many, many years I spent time “in the trenches” reaching out to at-risk youth. At first I was the stereotypical naive idealist. ”All they need is love and a chance,” I thought. Working in mentoring programs, I spent untold hours playing catch, going to little league games, going to parks, and just hanging out with at-risk kids as part of a variety of programs. Seeing ragged clothes, I’d buy new clothes. Hearing that a mother couldn’t pay the light bill, I’d kick in and help. I spent night after night sleeping in homeless shelters, cooking dinners in the evening, pancake breakfasts in the morning, and fixing snack lunches for hard days on the streets.
I can’t remember when I first realized that I was accomplishing nothing of substance. A few car break-ins taught me that some guys saw me as an easy mark. A few pot purchases with the “gas bill money” taught me that others saw me as an ATM. Admonitions to “stay in school” had little appeal compared to drug-fueled orgies for kids as young as fifteen years old. I tried. God knows I tried. But it was all for naught.
Only one thing really worked. The Cross. There are kids today that Nancy and I worked with who are doing well, who are happily married, and who are pillars of their community. What made the difference for them? The Cross. It wasn’t about my words. It wasn’t about my effort. (After all, I tried just as hard or harder with other kids — who are now in prison or “baby-daddies” or both.) The kids who made it heard the Gospel, repented of sin, and were transformed through the renewing work of the Holy Spirit.
It’s trendy now for churches to put less emphasis on the Gospel and more emphasis on service. I’ve even heard Christians almost brag that their outreach efforts don’t include any proselytizing at all. This is tragic. Billions of dollars of “service” won’t change hearts and lives. We know that now. In fact, those very billions may very well numb the human heart to the gravity of its sin.
So, yes, let’s do “more,” but let’s make sure that “more” is aimed at the real source of American poverty — our depravity.
You can read the whole thing here.
“It is quite true that if we took Christ’s advice we should soon be living in a happier world. You need not even go as far as Christ. If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do. And so what? We never have followed the advice of the great teachers. Why are we likely to begin now? Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others? Because He is the best moral teacher? But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow Him. If we cannot take the elementary lessons, is it likely we are going to take the most advanced one? If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. There has been no lack of good advice for the last four thousand years. A bit more makes no difference.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in a personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without be relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.” —
Henri J. M. Nouwen In The Name Of Jesus
via sds: thecommoncup
(via ajamison)
“People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, “If you keep a lot of rules, I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.” I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heaven creature of into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal lonliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Chrisitanity (via The Joyful Christian)
“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
—
Here we have record of a remarkable incident, where some people come to Jesus wanting to know the reason for two local tragedies; a massacre at the temple by the Roman governor, and the collapse of a tower. The people come to Jesus and they ask “Why? Why did God allow this?”
“Why do bad things happen to good people? Were they actually bad people, and God was punishing them?”
Jesus’ response is very telling. He doesn’t say “These things happen”. He doesn’t try to defend God for allowing evil in the world. What does he say? Jesus says “Unless you repent, you will likewise perish.”
In effect, “You wonder if they deserved to die that way; they did. But you assume that you don’t deserve to die that way, but you do.” We all have sin and rebellion in our hearts, and we deserved to be erased from the universe in whatever way our Holy God sees fit. Repentance, and clinging to Jesus, is the only way to escape ultimate death.
This can be a difficult truth. It keeps people from Christianity. It even makes Christians uneasy. But the raw truth is that we all deserve the bad things that happen to us. In fact, we deserve worse. It is the common grace of God that any of us are still here, and the particular grace of Christ that anyone who believes can escape destruction.
Christ has experienced this destruction that we deserve, on our behalf. Repentance and faith connects us to this life-saving gift.
When we see towers fall in the world, we shouldn’t spend so much time asking God “Why?!”, but rather being grateful that it has not yet happened to us, and remember that such an end is what we deserve and will experience unless we cling to Christ.
[video]
“There are many pastors today who, for fear of being branded “legalists,” give their congregation no ethical teaching. How far we have strayed from the apostles! “Legalism” is the misguided attempt to earn our salvation by obedience to the law. “Pharisaism” is a preoccupation with the externals and minutiae of religious duty. To teach the standards of moral conduct which adorn the gospel is neither legalism nor pharisaism but plain apostolic Christianity.” — John Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 158