Tag Archive for 'church'

Jesus is Preparing to Go – John 14

Published on 3/6/2010 in Bible Study. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .
““Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.””
(John 14:1-7 NIV)
Just as Jesus is having a hard time knowing that He is about to leave the disciples, they are having a hard time grasping and understanding that He’s about to leave them. Their worst fear would be compounded if not only did He leave them, but also if He didn’t come back for them and if He didn’t fulfill everything He said He would. Jesus is here reassuring them. Don’t be afraid that I’m leaving. There is a place for you in the kingdom, and I’ll come back and take you there, but you can’t come now.
William Barclay said that if you ask someone for directions they can either tell you to go down the street, turn left at the first corner, go two blocks, then turn right, blah blah blah, and you forget how to get there OR they can say, “Let’s go” and they can take you there themselves. As soon as they say “follow me” THEY BECOME THE WAY to where you are going.
Jesus spent His whole life giving directions, knowing full well that our eyes glazed over as soon as He said “love your neighbor as yourself.” Since He wants us to find our way there more than we do, He also said, “Let’s go.”
THE FATHER wants us to be in the Kingdom. He is not predisposed to keep us out, like so many people believe Him to be. He is Unalterably and UNbelievably Holy; no unholiness can be with Him, so He took away our unholiness on the cross. That was the preparation Jesus talked about in John 14:3. We have no place with God as long as we are bearing our sin. “I go and prepare a place for you.” is that place of forgiveness and redemption where we will live for eternity with God.
▼ v.3 “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” Jesus is ALWAYS wanting us to be with Him! The only times He went to be ‘alone’ was to go be WITH the Father! And then even after His death, He still can’t stand to be alone, but comes back to take all of His with Him. It is the source and life and overflow of the Father to constantly share life with those He loves.
When you see the character of God as displayed by Jesus, how can any of these lifestyle choices that Jesus made reflect to a God that predestined people to destruction? 2 Peter 3:9 says that God wishes for no one to perish, but for all to come to repentance & eternal life. Jesus never treated anyone like they were preset to not listen or not be saved. Not just that, but He wanted to be WITH people as He spoke to them. Too often we only want to share life with people in our same social-economic-political-race demographic. THAT is not a picture of the 12. Let us be ready to continue to be WITH the people that we come in contact with, no matter their background. If they come into the Body of Christ, or are already in it, they are family-more than that, they are a part of our body!
The Father loves company. He loves company and Jesus really wants the disciples to trust Him and know that His leaving is all for them. It’s a lot like me leaving for work in the morning. My 2 year old cries when he sees me go, but I leave so that I can work and get paid and feed him Grippo’s. My 9 year old knows that, so he is only bummed that we can’t play, but he knows that I’ll be back in the evening and we’ll be able to chow down and play.

““Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.””

(John 14:1-7 NIV)

Just as Jesus is having a hard time knowing that He is about to leave the disciples, they are having a hard time grasping and understanding that He’s about to leave them. Their worst fear would be compounded if not only did He leave them, but also if He didn’t come back for them and if He didn’t fulfill everything He said He would. Jesus is here reassuring them. Don’t be afraid that I’m leaving. There is a place for you in the kingdom, and I’ll come back and take you there, but you can’t come now.

Grippos-BBQ

William Barclay said that if you ask someone for directions they can either tell you to go down the street, turn left at the first corner, go two blocks, then turn right, blah blah blah, and you forget how to get there OR they can say, “Let’s go” and they can take you there themselves. As soon as they say “follow me” THEY BECOME THE WAY to where you are going.

Jesus spent His whole life giving directions, knowing full well that our eyes glazed over as soon as He said “love your neighbor as yourself.” Since He wants us to find our way there more than we do, He also said, “Let’s go.”

THE FATHER wants us to be in the Kingdom. He is not predisposed to keep us out, like so many people believe Him to be. He is Unalterably and UNbelievably Holy; no unholiness can be with Him, so He took away our unholiness on the cross. That was the preparation Jesus talked about in John 14:3. We have no place with God as long as we are bearing our sin. “I go and prepare a place for you.” is that place of forgiveness and redemption where we will live for eternity with God.

v.3 “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” Jesus is ALWAYS wanting us to be with Him! The only times He went to be ‘alone’ was to go be WITH the Father! And then even after His death, He still can’t stand to be alone, but comes back to take all of His with Him. It is the source and life and overflow of the Father to constantly share life with those He loves.

When you see the character of God as displayed by Jesus, how can any of these lifestyle choices that Jesus made reflect to a God that predestined people to destruction? 2 Peter 3:9 says that God wishes for no one to perish, but for all to come to repentance & eternal life. Jesus never treated anyone like they were preset to not listen or not be saved. Not just that, but He wanted to be WITH people as He spoke to them. Too often we only want to share life with people in our same social-economic-political-race demographic. THAT is not a picture of the 12. Let us be ready to continue to be WITH the people that we come in contact with, no matter their background. If they come into the Body of Christ, or are already in it, they are family-more than that, they are a part of our body!

The Father loves company. He loves company and Jesus really wants the disciples to trust Him and know that His leaving is all for them. It’s a lot like me leaving for work in the morning. My 2 year old cries when he sees me go, but I leave so that I can work and get paid and feed him Grippo’s. My 9 year old knows that, so he is only bummed that we can’t play, but he knows that I’ll be back in the evening and we’ll be able to chow down and play.

When Worship Becomes Profanity

Published on 2/26/2010 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

And no, I’m not talking about saying cuss words in church…

Our best effort is not what the Lord wants,

Exodus 20:25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.

Deuteronomy 12:8 You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit,

1 Samuel 15:22 “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice,and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

So when we read verses like this, why in the world do we try so hard to be good and do good things without striving to hear from God?

We’ve GOT to step out of the Christian Lifestyle formula and live with and in and beside and through GOD. What if, whatever activity you did to worship God, was profane as soon as you tried to make it look good or fit better? That’s what Exodus 20:25 is all about. As soon as your worship of God is something you can be proud of, it is no longer worship of God. Of course, if you are disgusted with it and don’t like it, it’s not about God either.

I remember one time there were a group of us that wanted to sing worship songs. Someone blurted out, “But we can’t, because Eric Youngblood isn’t here.” He was the guitar player. He was the worship leader whenever we were together, and without him, that person thought we couldn’t worship. Thankfully, everyone scoffed at that and we sung and sung and sung for a good long time before he showed up.

Let us cast off our quality-control perfect worship mentality. Let us not strive to attract people with the quality of our show. Let’s live faithful to Christ and let Him do the rest.

John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Never Underesteeming, Always Luring Teachings of Jesus

Published on 1/25/2010 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

John 13:26-28 26 Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.

The more I look at this the more interesting things pop out of it. It seems like Jesus is really obvious about who is going to betray Him, right? “He to whom I will give this morsel to bread when I have dipped it.” and then Jesus hands it over to Judas. So why didn’t they get it? I wonder if they couldn’t believe it. Or if they had pegged somebody else as the one in their heads, and none of them had pegged Judas. I wonder if the news that Judas would betray Jesus fell on their ears like Jesus’ words that He would die fell on Peter’s ears and caused Peter to rebuke Jesus. So foreign, so far out from what they conceived about the Messiah and about Judas, that they couldn’t even understand when it was told to them clearly.

All of this just shows off how merciful and amazing Jesus is. How often do we not say something or tell someone something because we think “They wouldn’t understand.” or “They’re not ready for that.” Jesus told the disciples stuff they weren’t ready for all of the time. He seems like He lived in a constant state of being around people that “didn’t get it” and He never flipped out or belittled them for it. (Once he was angry at the hardness of heart of the Pharisees, but never at His disciples. He was angered at the unwillingness to learn, not the inability to learn.)

Many times, in fact, Jesus told people something that confused them until something significant happened hours, days, or even years later.

Ezekiel, Vision, Bitterness, and Silence

Published on 2/12/2009 in Bible Study. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

Ezekiel 3
 14 The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me. 15 And I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who were dwelling by the Chebar canal, and I sat where they were dwelling. And I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.
16 And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me: 17 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.”

Ezekiel saw this great vision and then went away bitter and sat among the people. He was overwhelmed and didn’t tell anybody about it or share it for 7 days, then God came back and said , “Look, I made you a watchman, you gotta tell people this stuff!”

I found myself in Ezekiel 3, sitting around with a vision but bitter because I’m overwhelmed among the people in exile that didn’t have the vision. God IS telling me to quit being bitter. God IS giving me a chance to share the vision.

Cindy said, “wow, what’s next” and I thought ahead to Ezekiel 4. “I think I get to eat bread cooked over poop.”

“Great!” she said.

Churched by Matthew Paul Turner: Review By Mimicry

Published on 10/14/2008 in Bookstore, Family Life and Short Quotes. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

When I was in second grade, I was of the age, just like everyone else in my second grade class, to have my First Communion. Mental maturity or physical maturity, or personal belief for that matter, didn’t really come into play, but since June of 1981 had come and gone and I lived until September and the start of second grade, I was ready for The Lord’s Supper.
Now before you can do something so Holy and powerful as eat the flesh and blood of Jesus, you have to confess your sins, so a few weeks before you have your First Communion, you have to undergo a much less fun, and less celebrated, First Confession. My 14 classmates and I sat at Holy Spirit School and Mrs. Vote explained to us what would happen.
“Whenever you are ready, but don’t wait too long, go up to Father and say ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.’ and then he will ask you to tell him what you’ve done’.”
I forget the exact script, but that was the jist of it. Then, in order to help us think up some sins that we could confess, she began to make a list on the chalkboard. Lying to our mother, lying to our father, lying to our sister, lying to our brother, lying to our grandma, lying to our grandpa, cheating in class, fighting with our friends… “You want to tell him about three things that were sins that you’ve done”
THREE! I looked at the board. I had lying to my mom down, but I was an only child so that wiped out a lot of my options. All of the fighting I did fit more under the heading of getting beat up, so I couldn’t confess that. I started to think through the 10 commandments. I loved God and didn’t bow down to statues… I said “gosh” instead of “god”…I went to church on Sundays, and Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays and any Holy day in between (benefit of going to Catholic School: on any day religion class could be cancelled and you’d have to go to Mass instead!) I honored my mother and my father (as far as I knew) and I still wasn’t sure about that adultery thing except that it was something that adults did. I was pretty sure I had probably stolen something. I couldn’t think of what, or when, but I was pretty sure I had.
“What if we only have two?” I asked. Mrs. Vote just kind of stared at me for a minute. I think she might have rung up an extra one in that moment while she was still talking and writing on the board, but interrupting your teacher wasn’t on her list.
“If you can only think of two, that’s fine, but try to have three.”
I stuck with my two. My first confession was still 3 days away, so I had time to add on number three.
***
The big day came and I was all dressed up in my school clothes and a tie. Since I wore navy pants and a long sleaved white shirt every day to school, getting dressed up was just putting on a tie or borrowing a suit that was too big. I was glad that for my first confession I just had to add the tie.
Our whole class went in and sat in the front few pews of the church. The priest said some stuff, and our parents looked across the aisle at all of us sitting together, proud as can be of their little confessors.
In a Catholic church, there is a stage area in the front. Not a stage like in a protestant church covered with electrical cables and theatrical lights and subwoofers propped up on Bibles, but a sacred stage. It’s an area of foreboding, and area that is very clean and clear and open and forbidden to civilians. You have to cross yourself whenever you pass the center line, so you learn to make your trips up there all on one side. I was an altar boy, so I had been all over on the sacred stage, except behind the altar. Only the priest went up there.
In front of the altar were two chairs, and after the priest said some things, he went and sat down in one of them, and then stared at all of us. There we were, expected, called, if you will, to come up and sit IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE AND CONFESS OUR SINS! At least there was no microphone, but what about the cool closets on the side of the church?! What about the cool screen that you could go to and the priest wouldn’t know it was you confessing that you lied to your mother! Would he come next Tuesday and talk all about how we shouldn’t lie to our mothers like little Danny Sullivan did!?
One by one all of my friends went up and sat and talked and then came back down and prayed. They all seemed to come away with a big grin on their face, so it didn’t seem like such a bad thing. I went on up, hoping that no one else would go up at the same time and draw a lot of attention to me. It was bad enough having all of my friends sitting there watching, but their parents too! And my MOM! Would she hear? Would Father Foster tell her what I said?!
There was no turning back now, I crossed my self and stepped onto the holy stage. I went up and was greeted warmly and it was all over in about 15 seconds. After I was done, Fr. Foster told me to go say 10 ‘Our Fathers’ and 10 ‘Hail Marys’ and to not do it again. As I stood to walk off, he stopped me and said, “hold on,” was that not enough!? Did he just peer into my soul and notice one that I forgot?!
“Here you go, good job” he said, and handed me a Clark bar.
A Clark bar. Clark Bar
The crunchy peanut butter wrapped in chocolate taste of forgiveness was all mine. “Good job.”
I went smiling back to my seat and stared at my Clark bar for a few seconds before remembering the prayers I had to say.

***

That story was buzzing in my head the whole time I was reading “Churched.” I must say, if Matthew Turner wrote that out, it would be funnier than my version. (his website is www.matthewpaulturner.com )Turner does a very good job of telling stories in a way that you can definitely see what is WRONG about this story, but he doesn’t spoon feed you about what the right way should be.
Since a lot of the story happened when he was in 2nd ish grade, the book made me think a lot about how I’m raising my own sons. Do I mindlessly follow rules that when I really think them through, contradict the teachings of Jesus? Am I living a life-example that is different than the things I want my kids to learn about Jesus? I’m not sure, but Turner’s book has subtly made me consider those things, and consider how I steer my kids down their path towards God.
If you grew up in any church, Catholic or Protestant, this book is going to bring back some funny-only-in-retrospect memories. And if you didn’t grow up this way, you’d better read this book to make sure you aren’t awash in cultural legalism and calling it Christianity rather than living out the life of Jesus that has been resurrected into you.
So here’s the deal: I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up and read it if somebody didn’t ask me to, but I’m really glad that I did read it. I usually read stuff that’s a lot more complicated (on the surface anyway) and makes me angrier, so this was really refreshing. I wish all of my Christian books made my laugh till I had tears in my eyes. So I’m giving away a copy of this book. You can try to win one or go buy one, whichever.
So how should we do the contest? Should we do the comment thing and then I draw out a name? Or do some email thing? Or an in-person contest?
Oooh, wait wait wait! We’ll do an essay contest, yeah, that’s fun.
Write in the comments a short and weird church thing that happened to you growing up. I’ll read them to my wife, without saying your name, and the winner gets the book! That will be fun. No over-shares though, people, this is a public blog!
I’ll even give you a week to do it. You have until October 21 at Midnight.
The runner up will get a Clark bar.
Good job.

(2)

Talking about Money

Published on 9/22/2008 in Bible Study, Bookstore and Short Quotes. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

I did a bad thing by starting off my quiet time reading “The ABC’s of Financial Freedom” this morning. It is a book on Christian Stewardship. It immediately put me into a critical mode when I read a few quotes:

You and I should do some Christ-centered vision casting of our own and start thinking about what we could do if we were totally debt free…

Here are just a few suggestions to help you get started:

[there is a list of 10, but here are the whoppers-ds]

6. You could finally have that “dream” vacation
7. You could fix things up around you house or even get a new one.
8. You could get some new furniture or a new vehicle.
9. You cold surprise people with secret acts of kindness and generosity
10. YOU COULD DO ALMOST ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE. (emphasis mine)

I’m not even going to comment on that. I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

All of that said, my church is about to have a few weeks of messages on “financial stewardship.” When I heard that we were going to be talking about money (it’s ok to say MONEY, it really is) I was interested. In light of the current economic state of the world, we need to really focus on our earning, spending, and buying with the Life of Jesus in us. There are a lot of people that need help unlearning the habits of the world and learning how to use their money for the Kingdom of God. Now more than ever is a time to speak up for the poor and use our overflow to wisely help them instead of blowing it on the new furniture we need or our “dream” vacation.

I think the hardest thing for me during this coming series will be to keep MY focus on Jesus, and not keep harping on all of the stuff I see wrong. But that focus is terribly important, because if I lose that focus, I will have done the same thing as the people that make finances and resources (money) the focus.

I can already tell that this is going to be hard.

“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

Luke 16:13

The Work of God Without Fillers, Hormones, Steroids, or Programs

Published on 9/7/2008 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

John 6:27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
John 6:28 ¶ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
John 6:29 ¶ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

It’s funny how my distractions play right into my Bible study time. I was reading various blogs this morning and some different church planting movements in America right now and got kind of burnt out on the whole “trying to make our church appealing so people will come” idea. Trendy marketing and catchy 5-week sermon series based on the current trendy TV show or dramatic one word sentences (ie. “with.” or “in”) wore me out as I was distracted before getting to my Bible.

Then I read this passage. Just like today, the masses were looking for the formula or list of what to do to get God’s big red checkmark of acceptance. When they asked “what must we do” they were waiting for a list. John doesn’t have a “sermon on the mount” section in his gospel. Rabbis often had a set of teachings that they could recite, and this might be what the people were expecting from Jesus. They would often ask “what is the most important law” which would sort of tell the listeners what rabbinical denomination a teacher was in.

Jesus completely steps out of what they were expecting for an answer. His list contains one item, and that one item encompasses every aspect of life. It is not easy, it is not even CLEAR, and it requires a lot of time-a long span of life, to draw near to it. It can also be done in an instant, and completed in a momentary act, which would then just be continued on for your life.

The other day I was talking to a guy in my neighborhood about missionaries and he got ‘that look’ on his face. That looks that says “those people destroy culture and brainwash people” and is often hard to really talk about to people that don’t know about missionaries. I think the same thing would happen if you looked at too many websites of contemporary mega-churches. They have all kinds of happy faux-hawk young men and happy mothers of 2 doing numerous demographically strategic activities. Small groups, food shelters, and video of the weekly sermon are all things you would want to know about and participate in.

Long ago, when the Jewish people were cast into exile, the leaders believed it was because they were not following the Torah, or God’s way (law). They developed a commentary on that Law, which detailed even more laws that, if followed, would definitely keep everyone far far away from breaking God’s Law. They came up with 1,500 rules to prevent them from breaking God’s single statement, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” And eventually, all of these rules became laws too, equal in severity and punishment to God’s original law. That commentary turned to law is called the Mishna. The Mishna took on equal standing to the Law, and the Pharisees forgot the point of God’s Torah and began to make the Mishna the point of their lives.

Which takes me back to John 6.29. I think the leaders of our day have written their own Mishna that has taken us away from Jesus, the source of all life. Now you can be in a small group, volunteer in outreaches (that consist of simply inviting someone to come and listen to someone else talk about God) and attend worship every week and think you are doing the “works God requires.” It’s almost like someone said, “Jesus said to believe in the one God sent. What does that look like?” and somebody made a list. After making that list, they forgot what the question was, and tacked those answers onto a different question: “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

I would like to reset and unlearn what I have learned. I would like to trash my whole list, even though for a long time I have been a marketer and promoter of such lists. I want to be connected to the original answer and not the commentary on the questions about the answer. I want to see what happens to a life that doesn’t have any additional baggage, but simply believes in the One God sent.

Notes from the day: Church Culture and Jesus’ Teaching Style

Published on 9/3/2008 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Good conversation at the Donut Bank today, talking about how the culture and the church is moving the way of companies and business…away from the powerful CEO that makes all of the decisions and his trickle down approvals. The church is becoming more entrepreneurial, smaller and more agile. Instead of the monstrous IBM church a newer, leaner, Facebook church with smaller staffs and less control is emerging. The church is less like a giant mainframe where everyone has to be plugged in to do anything (like join a group to do outreach or be in a men’s group to talk to men about the bible) and more like handhelds and flash drives, plugging in all over and doing outreach wherever and whenever and talking about the Bible in the midst of ordinary life.

There was also some good conversation about my post yesterday on the tithe. As I spent my tithe on strong drink (dark roast at the Donut Bank) Andy G. brought up giving as an act of submission to authorities and leaders in the church. That is good, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.

At lunch I had more goodies w/ John 6. I talked to Rick about how Jesus asks questions and then shows in His actions what the answer is. He did a lot of teaching that involved showing all of the puzzle pieces and then letting God put them together in a person. He didn’t rebuke Philip for saying it would 8 months wages to feed those people. Philip was thinking like men depending on men think, not like a Man that depends on God. Jesus didn’t rebuke him though, He just sort of said, “Watch and learn, Philip.”

Notes on Crucifixion Videos

Published on 3/25/2008 in Bible Study. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

If your best friend was raped and beaten to death, no matter what good came out of it, would you ever want to see a video of it ever again?

I wrote that down after church the other day. I was there with my 7 and 5 year old sons, that are old enough to be pretty aware of things, and there was a video of Jesus’ beating and crucifixion on the screens. I know that for many it was a time of meditation, and considering, but I couldn’t watch it, and I really didn’t want my boys to, either.

After church my wife and I were talking about it. She said that she was glad that some people were there got to see that, b/c they might not know what all happened, and they wouldn’t take the time to read it. I can see validity in that. I know that I had my share of Good Friday services where people described in great detail all of the things Jesus went through. I saw the passion and wept and wept and wept and still haven’t been the same since. I know that I grew a lot from experiencing those things.

But now, I’m at a point where I just can’t watch that stuff. I can’t watch it b/c it seems a little too much like we’ve given in to the gory entertainment industry where we like to see what we don’t really like to see. It seems a little too much like the law of diminishing returns has happened to us on the horror of what happened to Jesus. We heard about it, and that was horrible, but it wore off. We saw abstract pictures of it, and it was horrible, and we felt horrible, but then it wore off. The next thing we need to see has to be more horrible, or it won’t have the same effect, and so on and so forth until I’m covering my children’s eyes at church and closing my own eyes. I’m listening to the music to make it’s abrupt change from somber and dramatic to happy and loud. (If I did look at the screens, I wouldn’t be able to make a transition so fast anyway)

The other reason why I can’t watch is b/c I know that Jesus went through all of that b/c I deserved it, but now that He did it for me I won’t have to…the flip side of that is that the people that don’t recognize Him and put their faith onto Him will get what they deserve themselves instead of trading with Him. When I see that, I see what is going to happen to my friends that reject Him. I’m not sure which one is more disturbing or heartbreaking-looking back at what happened to my best friend, or looking ahead at what is going to happen to friends I have now that refuse to put their hand on the lamb to transfer their sin. (God’s been talking about it since before Leviticus 4.24)

Do you see why I can’t watch these videos?

Let’s focus on that guy. I know Him and He’s really great. A long time ago, simply eating some bread told everyone that He died and rose again. He’s awesome and great and doesn’t need a lot of drama to reveal Himself.

I’d like to go back to those days. I shouldn’t have to show you a bunch of blood and raw flesh on a whip to try to prove that Jesus suffered, died, was buried, and rose again, just have dinner with me and you’ll see.