Snow Day Grace

Snow Day Grace

Snow Days have to be the world’s best example of modern day grace. Holidays, Spring Break, summer vacation; they are all on the calendar and we have them coming to us. In some way we earn the right to be out of school or off work on those days. But snow days, that’s an entirely different story. Snow days seem like free passes. They weren’t planned for. We did nothing to merit them. Kids sit eagerly in front of the TV set the night before and wait to see their county scroll across the bottom of the screen. (My daughter-in-law does that too.) When our county shows up, HOORAY, a free day off.

The first 4 verses of Romans are about grace, free passes, stuff we get that we don’t deserve. Romans 8:3 tells exactly how that grace came to be. Paul writes, “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[a] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[b] And so he condemned sin in the flesh.” Now that does bring some questions to mind. Just what was the law powerless to do? What does it mean that sin was condemned? But the big picture is that we get a huge snow day, a pass, a free walk.

To find out what the law was powerless to do we have to see what God did. The last phrase in the verse says He CONDEMNED sin in the flesh. I asked my guys on Thursday what condemned means. Terry said, “It means it no longer usable, like a house condemned.” Bob said, “It is terminal, final, like being condemned to death.” I think they are both right.

Here’s the deal. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden and said “You’ve got one rule. Don’t eat the apple.” We couldn’t even keep that rule. So He said, “Let me break it down for you a little more. Keep these 10 Laws. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Honor the Sabbbath.” And we blew that big time. The Jews tried to make it simpler but turning these 10 Laws into 700 rules and regulations. You see where this is going. The laws just kept getting more and more detailed, more complicated, and we kept breaking them. In fact, we came to understand that it was impossible for us to keep them.

And God knew that all along. He had this whole thing planned. So He says, “This law thing is no longer usable. I’m going to put an end to that way of living.” Now the law is still in place. God still needed “righteousness” from His children. (More on that later.) But God, through Jesus satisfies all of the legal requirements of the law and gives us credit for it. He sends Jesus in the flesh, just like me and you, and then uses Him and His sacrifice to pay the price required by the law.

It’s like a snow day. School is still out there. I still have to go to class and take my tests and do PE. But today, I get a pass. Don’t have to go in. HOORAY again. All I have to do is accept that. Now I could still get up. Put on my clothes. Go sit in the empty classroom and do my duty. But really all I need to do is say, “Snow Day. I’m off the hook.” That is grace.

Oh, there is one big difference. I have to go back to school or back to work tomorrow. But what Jesus did, well, Hebrews 9:28 says it was “once and for all.” Lifetime snow days. Sounds good to me.

We’ll talk about this more next Friday but for today, enjoy yourself. Quit trying to keep every single little law and rule and regulation in order to please God. Haven’t you watched your name scroll across the bottom of the screen? He has condemned that stuff and you get to stay in your PJ’s and watch Matlock re-runs. Grace……

Friday at 8 (posted Monday at 5)

Romans 8:2 “because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”

Last week I had a great idea. Every Friday I’m going to blog about a verse from Romans 8. It was a fun idea, easy to do, full of life. So I started my blog and sent it out 1 week in a row! This past Friday life set in. I am teaching a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a church in Nashville. I had to prepare for that. Friday and Saturday was New Life University and I taught the Christian Psychology course for which I needed to do some writing. As soon as it was over Doris and I hopped in the car for Western Kentucky to visit some great friends and to speak for their church. Got back Sunday night to move furniture at Branches and get set up for the Intensive that begins today.

I’m not complaining, (well, maybe a little bit) but I am saying that the whole time the need to send this blog was eating away at me and making me anxious. Call it writer’s block or call it the “law of sin and death” all of a sudden, what started out as a joy turned into a drudgery. In fact I’m pretty ticked writing right now. (I’m kidding!)

On Thursday I met with two men that I believe in and respect, Robert and Bob. We talked about, can you believe it, Romans 8. I asked them, “What is the law of the Spirit of life?” We came up with some amazing answers, a few vaguely resembled what might be true. But we had a great conversation that moved us all to a deeper level of thinking, I think. Like, what is spiritual life and what is spiritual death? Or, how significant is it that Paul says “through Christ” rather than “by Christ?”

Our conversation went two interesting places that I think are somehow connected. We began to talk about the law as Jesus saw it. Bob reminded me that Jesus summed all of the other laws up into two, love God, and love your neighbor. The other place our talk turned was to those people that are really trying to please God by keeping the law, whatever law they choose to keep. Do they have a chance? Is there a way to make it based on the law?

It seems to me that no matter what else you believe about these two laws, you have to admit that loving God and loving people feels joy based while “all the law and the prophets”, ie, the 10 commandments, the Talmud, the Manual, the Church Discipline, look both ways before you cross the street, ALL THE OTHER LAWS WE TRY TO LIVE LIFE BY, can become a drudgery. They freeze us up, take away our creativity, and sap our joy. So that serving God and making it to heaven becomes this very oppressive duty rather than, well, life.

Can you make it to God by a law based, performance center, duty filled, disciplined, structured life that dots every “i” and crosses every “t”? I guess so but it ain’t easy and you better get EVERYTHING right. To paraphrase Wesley, can you serve God without the Spirit of life? Maybe so. You can also get from England to America without a ship (or a plane) but it’s an awful long swim.
Don’t misunderstand. Paul is not removing any sense of holy living or any requirement of the Gospel, In verse 12 we’ll talk about the “obligation” we have to the Spirit of life. Rather Paul is saying that what Jesus did in reconciling us to God was to take away the drudgery (and death) of trying to fulfill all of the law and replace it with the delight of being immersed in love both for and from God, and showing that love in the way we treat those around us. The God life changes from a duty to a desire. It ceases to be a have to and starts to become a want to. Jesus, by paying the ultimate price to fulfill all of the commandments, made it possible for me and you to do our part to live holy and Godly lives as our natural, loving response to Him and His gift. Because of what He did I don’t have to do anything except love Him and love His children. That’s life.

Now there are some interesting ideas about what that looks like in the rest of Romans 8. We’ll talk about that on the Fridays ahead. Oh My Goodness! Did I just say that? I’m sick already…..

Fridays At 8

Golden Voice

If you’ve been anywhere on the planet the last few days you have seen a story unfold that began with a viral video out of Columbus, Ohio. A television reporter filmed Ted Williams, a man that the headlines labeled “The Homeless Man with the Golden Voice.” As the story caught fire Ted was whisked in just a few days from the streets of Columbus to the TV screens and then the hearts of the nation.
(If you have by chance been away from the planet you can see the story here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6kI_u3ho_c)

We have been delighted to watch the story of Ted unfold with a paying gig at Kraft Foods, a job offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers, national television appearances and a tearful reunion with this 92 year old mother. It seems like a perfect story of redemption as Ted Williams gets a second chance at life. After years of alcohol and drug addiction, a number of criminal offenses, and hitting the bottom, Ted seems to be on his way up. That’s a great story.

It also is a little sad to think about this amazing voice being unused all of these years. This gift from God tucked away and wasted in a broken, bound, body, ashamed to be heard, ashamed to be used. Actually, that’s a pretty familiar story. Most of us, at one time or another, have silenced the voice that God has put in us because of our shame and guilt. We felt like our story did not deserve to be told, like we had blown our chance of being heard, like we did not deserve to speak. Silenced by our shame we stayed too quiet, too long.

I have been reading Romans 8:1 this week. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” I have spent the whole week mediating on this thought that we are truly set free from guilt and shame because of His work in us. And if that doesn’t make you want to use your voice, I don’t know what will.

The “therefore” in 8:1 doesn’t point back to chapter 7 as is often the case with Paul. To see what the “therefore” is there for you have to go all the way back to Romans 5. Verse 1 says, “We have been justified through faith and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:18 says, “The result of one act of righteousness (the sacrificial death of Jesus) was justification that brings life for all men.” The reason that there is no condemnation is not because we are innately good people or that we have finally chalked up enough good deeds. The reason that we are free from condemnation is that we have been JUSTIFIED by the loving death of Christ for each one of us.

When I was a little kid in Sunday School my teacher would explain being justified by saying God changed me so that it is “just as if I’d” never sinned, justified. In other words, I am free from guilt and shame not because God said, “Oh, you’re okay. I’ll just ignore the sin in your life.” No, He completely took the sin away, healed all of the scars, wiped out the spots, and burned the bandages. There is no hint that I was ever wounded. It is just as if…well, you get the picture. So that there is not even a shadow of condemning, finger pointing, or chastising.

Now, if that is true (and it is) then how in the world can I keep silent about that? How can I let the devil (the Bible calls him the accuser,) how can I let him shame me into keeping my mouth shut? I don’t care where you have been or what you have done you have a story and a voice to tell it with and God delights in hearing you praise Him for His great grace.

I have decided that every Friday this year I’m going to use my voice about one verse in Romans 8. I am spending the whole week meditating on one verse and then on Friday speaking out what God has said to me that week. Not because my voice is golden and not because you need to hear it (you don’t even have to listen) but because what He has done for me (and for you) deserves to be spoken. Scripture says if we don’t use our voices even the rocks will cry out. I’m going to call it “Fridays At 8” (get it, Romans 8) and if you want you can follow along. For now though come in out of your guilt and shame and start using that voice that God has given you. He has taken away your sin and you have NOTHING to be condemned about.

And by the way, if the Cleveland Cavaliers call, give them my number…..


(If you want to see this each week when it is posted you can join the blog at www.mikecourtney.blogspot.com. Or you can send that link to your friends. Does that sound self-serving enough? The pictures of Jon-Mical are totally unrelated and you will not be charged extra.)

Regifting

We have a new word that a few years ago did not exist, regifting. It is the act of taking a gift given you and giving it to someone else as if you chose it especially for them. A number of years ago Doris was in a panic on her way out the door to a wedding shower for our friend Kim and her husband-to-be Eric. She had no gift. Another good friend, Sharon, wife to our friend Pete (you know where I’m going with this) reached in the top of her closet and brought down a still wrapped gift from her own wedding shower a few years earlier. “Give them this,” she said. “Pete and I have never even opened it.”
What a great idea! Until Kim opened the gift and found a card on the INSIDE, “Congratulations Sharon and Pete. You are a wonderful couple.”

Regifting is especially pronounced at Christmas time. We get busy. There is yet another party to go to. The budget is stretched so we grab a present from under the tree, rewrap it, CHECK FOR OLD CARDS, and off we go. My mother has more than once actually given the gift back to the person who gave it to her in the first place. Hey, we’re all trying to live green and recycle. This takes it to a whole new level. Maybe we should just establish a finite number of gifts and keep reshuffling them across the world every year. No, that wouldn’t work because when I got Donald Trump’s Rolex, or Warren Buffet’s Mercedes, I stop the regifting cycle.

There is one gift that we get over and over at this time of the year that is very appropriate though, the Gift of the Christ Child. Every year the nativity scenes come out, the Baby Jesus ornaments get hung, and we sing Away In A Manger. We receive again the gift we got last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

This gift, however, is one that was designed in the heart of God to be regifted. Somehow in His wisdom God knew that it would take us about a year to get cynical, distracted, or afraid. Somehow, at the beginning of time God knew that we would need an annual reminder of His endless devotion to us. And so He gave the gift that keeps on giving. (another shameless Christmas cliché that comes attached to the jelly of the month card.)

In this case though, the regifting of the Christ Child not only keeps on giving, its the whole point of the thing. When I am sure that life is meaningless, that there is no hope, and that all of my efforts are futile, I carefully unwrap this precious bundle and remember that this Baby changed the world. I remember that this Baby changed me. I remember that every good and perfect gift was and is compressed into this tiny, wriggling little infant and God really is with us. I open this gift again and again and know that My Savior is not some ethereal, mystical being but He lived and breathed, and walked among us. And I can go on for another year.

We don’t put our nativity set in the front yard or on the mantle to memorialize some event that happened 2000 year ago. We celebrate the Baby in the Manger to accept one more time the gift of joy, and hope, and peace on earth. So…in the middle of your hustle and bustle this last week before Christmas don’t forget to do some regifting. Give the Baby away again. Remind one another that Christ not only did come, He is here, now, with us, in us. And those socks I gave you last year….keep them.

Sacrifice?

This Friday Doris and I will celebrate our 33 wedding anniversary. Most of you who knew us at number 25 probably doubted we would make it this far, What am I talking about, most who knew us at number 3 had those same doubts. To all of who doubters I say these spiritual words, “Nananananaaana!”
Well, actually if you knew us then, you know that God is awesome. He has performed a miracle in our lives and the last 8 years have been so different, so full of Him that we rejoice every day over His grace and mercy to us. I love my wife in a way I never imagined because I have finally realized that God loves ME in a way that I never imagined, and out of that….well, this is getting mushy. You get the picture.
So, every year for the last 8 years we have celebrated our anniversary in a big way. We take 4 days and find a new, exciting place. We go to a place we cannot afford and spend money we do not have to remind ourselves what God has done. We have stayed at a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania, at the old downtown Sheraton in Chattanooga. We’ve gone back to our roots in Ohio and stayed in a beautiful house in Orlando. And we stayed at the Biltmore, a mansion in Asheville, NC for what may have been the best one of all. This year, not so much. This year we are staying home and babysitting our grandson. No trip. No room service. No late night, candlelit dinners. Just toys in the living room, spaghetti-o’s on the couch, and 30 episodes of Thomas the train. AND WE ARE SO EXCITED WE CAN’T WAIT!!!
Somebody might say, “What a sacrifice. That’s too bad what you are giving up.” But we say, “Are you kidding? Where’s the sacrifice? We love him so much that it is a delight. We don’t even consider it giving something up to get to spend a whole weekend with Jon-Mical.” Now in case you think there is no point to my little story, let me make one quick. Your walk with God is not all anniversary cake and strolls on the beach. In fact, the call of God on our lives is to live holy and Godly. To repent. To pick up a cross and follow Him. Brennan Manning says, “The tone of the Christ of God is not always sweet and consoling. The gospel is the Good News of gratuitous salvation, but it does not promise a picnic on a green lawn….It is a summons to personal holiness, on going conversion, and new creation through union with Christ Jesus.” (The Importance of Being Foolish)
We have, most of us, watered the Christian life down to sugary slogans about the love of Jesus and tender, tiny, talks about joy. We sing Kumbayah as our fight song and drop a $20 in the offering plate in response to a challenging message. And any conversation that brings up discipline, piety, and holiness, we dismiss as being legalistic and ignoring grace. And we have missed the point. The point is that our love for Christ, our overwhelming devotion and adoration for Him, based on our recognition of what He has done for us, should compel us to sacrifice and servanthood without so much as a blink of the eye. Paul says, “I consider all these things loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ my Lord. I consider them dung (look it up) that I might gain Christ.” (Phil. 3:8)
Now I’m not being hardnosed or suggesting that everyone should burn their TV’s and where their hair in a bun. We lived through those days and that wasn’t holiness. I have no idea what holy living looks like for you. I’m still trying to figure out what it look like for me. But I think it means that every decision, every desire, every habit, attitude, and pleasure is filtered through my intense love for My Savior who loved me and gave His life for me. And when I do that, there is no sacrifice, there is no giving stuff up. It is all joy because I get to be closer to the one that I love. How good is that? And you know what? Speaking of anniversaries, the longer I live a life fully surrendered to Him and His Kingdom, the better it gets. This “peace that passes all understanding,” and this “joy unspeakable stuff,” it really is there and there is no loss when I gain that.
So don’t feel sorry for Doris and I this weekend. We are spending time with someone who delights us. We are rolling in the floor with the light of our life and the joy of our hearts. Come to think of it, we should be doing that every day with Jesus. If giving stuff up is that easy for us where Jon-Mical is concerned, how much more for the One who makes Jon-Mical and every anniversary possible? And when you run into someone who doesn't understand, say to them with all the love you can muster, “Nananananaaana!”

Codependency

I hurt for you in your private pain
And I often sit and wonder how I could take it away;
Though I do not imagine that you think I do,
And I do not imagine that I can.

You and I are all that’s left.
Your pain is your pain and not mine.
My pain is my pain and not yours.
And the taking of mine or yours by the other is more painful.

My pain is a part of my self;
To allow it to be taken from me is to lose a part of myself.
To take yours without permission
Is the worst kind of invasiveness and a diminishing of you.

We are one in some sense, maybe in our common pain,
But we are not the same.
If I forget that, I tear a piece of you away
And I create more hurt.

Your pain like yourself cannot be taken,
Only given.
So I wait, and pray, and hope to be allowed,
And that is painful.

The Fina Art of Arguing

The Fine Art of Arguing

My sister tells a story (probably not true) about my parents getting into a tiff when we were all much younger. My mother was on the way to church in the middle of their argument and she came to my father, turned her back to him and asked him to zip up her dress. He grabbed the zipper in his ire and yanked it up and down a few times saying snottily, “Zip, Zip, Zip!”
A couple of hours later my mother came home and saw our clunker of a car jacked up in the driveway as usual with a pair of legs sticking out from under it. Remembering her encounter with my father earlier she decided to get even. She reached down and grabbed the zipper on his pants and yanked it up and down, “Zip, Zip, Zip!” Then she stormed into the house where to her chagrin she saw my father sitting on the couch watching TV.
She told her story to my father and they ran out together to see our neighbor who had come over to help my dad work on the car, climbing out from under our vehicle with a huge knot on his forehead and a totally bewildered look on his face.

I really don’t think that happened. But I do know that we used to know how to have arguments and disagreements on a number of different levels that allowed us to express our opinions, vent our emotions, find some kind of clarity and understanding, and come away from the fray better off for having had it. No so today. We have forgotten how to argue. Whether it is in the public political arena or the closed boardroom of the church, civility and conscience has gone out the window and been replaced with name calling, vilifying, and mean-spirited bitterness.
Our politicians run “attack ads,” (we even have a name for them) that cleverly disguise truth, distort facts, and usually make no mention of issues. They also seldom offer solutions. Our religious disagreements resort to caricatures of entire populations, emotional characterizations of the other side, and blatant misrepresentations of position and purpose, often in the name of whatever theology we aspire to.
For the sake of proving our point (though I am usually not sure what the point is) we castrate and crucify people that we do not know, have never tried to understand, and certainly failed to listen too. The result is deeper divides, more intense polarity, and battles being fought over “principles” that are merely excuses for hatred on both sides of the equation.

Here’s an example. I am a Christian. There is a battle raging in my community over a proposed mosque. We have chosen sides, thrown down our gauntlets, and run into the war screaming and cursing our enemies. We have decided on our principles, staked out our moral high ground, and let fly the arrows of our discontent. And friends, we are wrong. I don’t have an answer to the issue of the mosque but I am pretty sure of this, not every Muslim is a radical, suicide bombing, jihadists. Nor is every Christian who has concerns about this project a bigoted, fear mongering, hypocrite. I am embarrassed when I hear some of my friends say horrible things about Islam without knowing or seeking to understand. (The Scripture that I love has some stories that I hope I have the opportunity to explain to non-believers before they call my Holy God a baby killer, and a male chauvinist pig.) And I have been just as mortified when people that I care about have condoned witch-hunts, and intimidation, and even participated themselves in attacks upon Godly leaders and wonderful congregations in our community that are the other side of the debate from them.

One thing I know about arguing, these tactics only separate us further and never lead to resolution and reconciliation. If the downward spiral of our own political system has shown us anything it is that “attack ads” in the media or on our Facebook blogs drive us into paralysis and hate. They do not move us toward understanding or peace.
Perhaps it’s not fair of me to walk a middle road and not take a specific side so, okay, here’s my position. I am not an expert on the Koran but I do not believe that the intention of the Muslim community in Rutherford County is to build a terrorist training camp in middle Tennessee. Listen, we have lived with and worked with and even prayed with some of the very people that now we are accusing of outlandish things. To you guys that I love who stand against the mosque, you are wrong in using the name of Christ to justify unfounded characterizations and accusations. You have every right to be against the mosque. Fight against it vigorously on the grounds that they circumvented our building codes, that they are proposing a facility that is far beyond the reasonable expectation of need in our city, or even that we are a Christian community and we stand against any non-Christian enterprise. Fight them there but listen to their hearts while you do battle.
And to my friends who are just as viciously slandering and maligning your Christian brothers because they disagree with you, you are wrong. Let me be blunt, Allen Jackson is a good man, a gifted leader that loves our community, our country and our God. WOC is a lighthouse on our horizon that gives tirelessly and sacrificially back to our county. And until the conflict started many of you who now attack Pastor Jackson and WOC were supporters and admires of these people. If you are against their position in this matter (or your perception of their position) fight them. Take them to task for their misunderstanding of Scripture. Debate them over the theological nuances of love your enemy and turn the other cheek. But when you post invitations to dig up dirt or take quotes out of context you are certainly no better than the cartoon creatures of stupidity that you have created on the other side of the discussion.

This is a crucial and future-changing argument we are having. It has ramifications that reach far beyond the boundaries of this community or even our generation. As a Christ follower I approach it with both fear over the potential harm a wrong decision might do and with confidence that ultimately the battle is the Lord’s. And I am determined that an argument of such magnitude deserves, really demands, to be handled with civility, rationality, and compassion. It is the only possibility we have of successfully navigating this conflict. In the name of Jesus I implore us all to rethink the way we argue and if not, to Zip, Zip, Zip it up.