A World at War

I have been reading a book called "Waking the Dead" by John Eldridge. It is a really good approach to practical living and abundent life. Eldridge takes specific time to remind us of the fact that we live in the midst of a spiritual battle. For anyone looking for a fresh take on day to day Christian living I think that this book is great. It will challenge your preconcieved notions about yourself, your heart, and day to day life. Eldridge talks about begining to see the world differently than we normally do. He says that our hearts (if we are regenerated by faith) are actually good. We still do have to deal with the flesh, but we are no longer have bad hearts but good hearts. As we struggle with sin it is easy to feel like "I'm a bad person" or carry the guilt of our sin even though Jesus has given us a new, pure heart. Eldridge says that guilt and feeling of being a bad person is directly related to spiritual battle. Daily we are bombarded with lies from our enemy telling us that we are bad and should feel guilty. All the while Jesus has forgiven us and presented us with a good, pure heart. Learning to live like we are at war is difficult. Everything that is around us screams that life is not at war it's just hard sometimes. It's not really war...

According to the book of Ephesians chapter 6 we are at war. Why is it so hard to realize that and live and think like we are at war. If I could just remember this fact more often it would bring me much more perspective in my life. As it relates to the daily desire that I have to live the abundent life I know that I live in a world at war. I know that I have an enemy who seeks my life.

Hey here is a picture of my family 

The Matrix and the truth

Recently I spoke for our students at CRU at GMU and my talk focused around the concept of perceived reality vs. Biblical reality. My desire was to challenge them to walk with Jesus this summer when life goes back to "the way it was" before college. My main opening illustration for the talk focused around the scene in the Matrix when Neo first meets Morpheus. Morpheus gives him the choice of the pills etc... First I love the movie. Better than the other two in the trilogy in my humble opinion. Of course the film makers use incredible religious symbolism, but I think that outwardly it is pretty Buddhist. What I find to be interesting is that when you look at the concept of the movie I think that it actually agrees with some of the big pictures of the bible. We live in a world where we are slaves, but we don't even know it. There is the rag-tag band of people who are trying to save the world by bringing freedom to one person at a time. They are waging a war. When Neo finally realizes that what he sees is not necessarily what is true,(at the end of the movie) the agents really can't hurt him. In fact he has more power over them then they have over him. It is all about what he believes.

Isn't this true in the Christian life? Isn't our ability to live the abundant life really directly tied to what we believe about who God is and what he says(in his word). Most Christians really don't have that hard a time assenting to intellectual belief in Jesus and his word. The problem comes when intellectual belief stays, well... just intellectual. If our belief system never really makes it to the core of who we are, our heart, it never really makes that much of a difference in our life. My friend Stephen and I were talking a few months ago and we came to the conclusion that real life change and abundant living takes place when our intellectual beliefs become heart/core beliefs. The real question then is how does that happen? How do we make that move from the head to the heart?
The answer is I'm not totally sure. But I know that it is a supernatural process. No different than any person that believes(in a life invested way) that Jesus is God and that he paid for their imperfections in life. This is not just the free will of a person to choose God. God is directly involved in drawing that person in. I believe that God is the one who gives anyone the ability to believe in Jesus. I also believe that this holds true for any other belief about God and his character. More about this tomorrow.

Courage, Faith, and Sight

This past weekend was Memorial Day. Usually just a time when people picinc and spend time with family. The reason for the holiday is to remember those who gave their lives so that we can be free. I believe that we were created to be free. We were created in order that we would live out of our potential. Throughout history men and women have layed down their lives in order that we as a nation, culture, people would be able to live out of our potential.
I believe that freedom has been God's plan for humanity from the begining. Jesus coming to earth was nothing more than a beechhead formed on the shore of lost humanity. Jesus came to set humanity free. Free from the enslavemnet of sin. Free from not having a choice do good out of pure motives. Free from the blindness of the world that surrounds us. Jesus came and died that we would have the freedom to see the world as it really is. A spiritual world at war.
The problem is that most people live life like we are not at war. Most people live life like there really is no spiritual world. The world screams that what you see is what you get. It tells us that there is nothing beyond what you see. God honors faith above what we see.

The Cost of healthcare...

Is the cost of going to the doctor or getting you medicine out of control in this country or what? A few weeks ago I ran into this interesting article in the paper about drug manufacturers and putting caps on what they can charge for their products. It was quite eye opening. If you are of the mind that the government should step in and limit what drugs cost or make it legal to buy drugs from Canada you should read this article. I have kind of been on the fence about this particular issue until I read this. Indeed we are blessed to live in a free market economy where our government has generally left business free to make a profit and good products. I'm not all free market. I actually believe that the bottom line in a capitalistic economy is greed. That can tend to bite you sometimes. Other times it can actually help you. Reality though is that greed is a sin and will wreak havoc on the people who don't deal with it. It's not wrong to make money just wrong love it above all else. That is one of the biggest problems with capitalism. It loves money above all else and those who fall victim to it's hypnotic call will wreak havoc themselves. Love God above money, Love people above money and capitalism can be a really fantastic thing. Freedom is an amazing thing.

Spiritual Friendship

Well this morning I am heading out to have lunch with my friend Stephen Shields. Stephen is a fantastic guy. He works as a manager for the USA Today. I love getting together with Stephen because he always challenges me intellectually. He also has a great passion to love Jesus and a desire to know him more. Stephen has a website called Faithmaps.
Faithmaps is loaded with a lot of stuff that makes you think. Stephen is very well read and a pretty seasoned writer. It is great to get together with him. He also has a blog called Emergesque.
Plenty of stuff there to get you thinking!
Currently we are in a support raising time when we are spending all of our efforts raising funds. Things are going pretty well. Our biggest problem right now is generating new contacts. Recently we had a dinner with a bunch of our current supporters to appreciate them and let them know what is happening with the ministry. We also asked them to help us with referals. We are praying that this will work out. Anyway I'm looking foward to a good day.

RedDragonRhine?

Ok this was kind of an off the top of my head idea that kind of describes me. I am 1/2 Welsh-English and 1/2 German. If you know the Welsh Flag it has a huge Red Dragon on it with a field of a white and a green stripe. The Rhine is a major river that flows through Germany. I thought it approprate to use the river symbolism as I love that image from the Bible of a river of "life". Thus my sub-title "Life... Real Life... My life"

Connecting with Church

Today I have a great meeting with a local church that just built a brand new building less than 2 miles from George Mason University, where I work with Campus Crusade for Christ. Great time getting to know the senior pastor and worship pastor. The challenge though is how do we get them involved on campus in a significant way that will reach more students for Christ. We do an ok job reaching the on-campus population at Mason, but we really miss the commuters. It seems like we need to do something to get local churches involved in what we do in a significant way. How do we do that? I'm not sure. I know that by ourselves Campus Crusade is not going to reach every student at GMU. We need the larger body of Christ. Ah well, thoughts to ponder on.