-Money Blog Part 1: Currency vs. Character-

Even if you don't believe anything else the Bible says one thing that is hard to argue with is 1st Timothy 6:10 which tells us, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil..." Take it from someone who worked in bank branches in Orange County, CA (a region where you can find one of the most concentrated groupings of wealth on the planet), for almost a decade. Loving money can cause problems. I once listened to a brother and sister argue in front of me for 20 minutes about who should get the extra 1 CENT from their recently deceased mother's savings account because it wouldn't split evenly into 2 parts. There's something wrong there. Something terribly, terribly wrong.

I think one of the biggest problems happens when we assign value to money. If you're thinking, "What are you talking about John? Money already has a value. We don't assign it one," that's not at all what I mean. What I mean is the value we allow our money to give us. I'll explain. Often times in our culture, we equate someone's value as a person with their affluence. The car they drive, the area of town their house is in, the places they eat, the clothing they wear. These are all ways in which we gage someone's wealth and, in turn, gage their value. That is a problem in it's own right but it leads to an even bigger problem. Comparison.

We begin to compare what we have with what others have. Is my car as nice as theirs? My clothes? My home? But comparisons like these are actually a double-edged sword. We can't win. If someone else's "stuff" is better than ours then we feel inferior. It their "stuff" isn't seemingly as nice we feel superior to them. either way we are basing not only their value as a human on their money, but also OUR value. Then it becomes about being "as good as" someone else. So rather than basing our value on what we ARE, we base it on what we HAVE. When this happens, money becomes more than just currency, it becomes our character.

We, as individuals, must make conscious decisions to end this mentality. We must stop confusing our self-worth with our net-worth. Until we do, we won't have our money, it will have us. We must remember that money and "stuff" is not the goal itself but simply a tool we can use to help us achieve our goals. Because when our goals in life revolve around the accumulation of cash and "stuff" then in the end, we have done nothing with significance. We have simply hoarded and taken and allowed our currency to be more important that our character.

-Jesus Blog Part 4: A Life of Significance-

One of things I hate the most is when Christians have a "transaction mentality" of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. What I mean by this is when they see their faith as a transaction with God. They say, "Okay God, I'll believe in you and accept Your Son and in return, when I die, You'll let me into heaven." Of course this isn't usually a conscious thought. Usually it's just totally normal because that's how faith seems to work in Western Christianity, (western word not west coast). We put in our time at church and try to play by the rules and in the end we avoid hell. Yay for us. And what makes it even more difficult is that this is really the only kind of faith people know. So, well meaning people who really do love God simply live their lives the way they're told they're supposed to.

But providing us an opportunity to go to heaven when we die is not what Jesus lived, died, and resurrected for. It is simply a fruit of what he actually came to do. Jesus' life was about the restoration of all things. He came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10) and by save he didn't mean simply saving us from hell. He meant saving us from ourselves. Saving us from our own attitudes and our own perceptions of how life should be lived. He talked a great deal about loving the unloved and caring for those who couldn't care for themselves. He discussed at great length the idea that forgiveness and reconciliation are much better than living with grudges and bitterness. He talked about loving God, loving others and, yes, even insinuated that you should love yourself. He got frustrated when those closest to Him stopped believing in themselves because He believed in them.

You see, Jesus also said that He came to give us " a rich and satisfying life," (John 10:10). I think we like to quote this verse but then we forget it. Jesus gives me a better life NOW. Not just when I die. And he didn't mean a life of wealth. He meant a life of significance. A life that has an impact on the world around it. A life that He doesn't just pour into, but a life he also pours out of. This is the life that Jesus came to give. Here. Now. At this time. In this place.

So yes, Jesus came to give an opportunity to go to heaven. But He came for so much more. And when we fail to recognize and respond to that we rob the gospel of all it actually offers us. We lose a great deal of value in our lives when we think of it as an "after-death" arrangement. And we tear away a significant amount of Jesus' sacrifice when we don't let it infiltrate our whole life.

A life of significance. That is what Jesus offers. Not just a ticket to heaven. And until each of decides to grab hold of the life Jesus extends to us, we will continue to rob the gospel of all of it's weight and meaning. And unless we begin exploring the life of significance Jesus offers, we will redeem our ticket to heaven only to find that when we get there, it's not as full as it would have been had we taken Jesus up on his offer. A life of significance. Jesus had one. Jesus came to give you one. Will you accept it?

-Jesus Blog Part 3: Love & Insecurity-

I'm a people-pleaser. Like most pastors, I am wildly insecure, (though few will admit how deep their insecurity runs). So I work and work and work and try to make sure that people love and accept me. I try to be funny and entertaining and supportive and empathetic and charismatic and talented and I'm really good at making it appear as if I have my crap together. Because I want people to like me. To accept me. To trust me. To love me. Is that so bad?

As I look at Jesus and read about His life I discover that he wanted those things too. Jesus wanted to be liked, and accepted and trusted and loved and He still does today. In fact the entire premise of the Gospel hinges on the idea that we love, accept and trust Jesus. So I have to conclude that my longing for that same love and acceptance is okay. It's okay that I want, desperately, for people to admire and love me for who I am. It's also okay that you want that. Now, before you get all agitated with me for making assumptions about YOUR insecurity and need to be loved lets just be honest here. You are human and therefore I CAN make that assumption.

You see, I believe we were created by God. I don't presume to know His methods or understand how it all happened or worked but I believe with everything in me that God, in some way, created the universe and then us. I also believe that when God created us, He created us in His image. This means we were instilled with the same thoughts and feelings as Him. It means that we have been wired to share some of the attributed of our Creator. It's like He signed us as a painter would his masterpiece. And so when I look and see that our Creator has a need and longing to be loved and accepted then it is easy for me to see why we, His masterpiece that bears His signature, also have those same needs. The difference between God and us however, is how we handle or desire for love.

I look at the life of Jesus and see it as God's way of literally stepping into our shoes. In Jesus, God takes away our ability say, "But You don't know how it feels." because He DOES know. And in reality, He always has known but we needed the extra evidence of Him actually becoming human. But as I examine Jesus' life and I see that He had the same need for love and acceptance as me, I also find that HIS need for those things manifested in much different ways. Jesus responds to the human condition not by hoarding love but by giving it out generously.

It's as if Jesus is showing us that we are misunderstanding our own need for love. That we have tainted our original design. That our need for love isn't that we receive it as much as it is that we give it away. And that through the acts of giving our love and acceptance to others, it will somehow find it's way back to us. Jesus was NOT like me. He was NOT a people-pleaser. His energies weren't spent so much on being loved and accepted but rather, on loving and accepting others recklessly. I wonder what it would be like if I did this. How much good could I do in this world if I took all the time and energy I put into being loved and accepted and, instead, put it into loving and accepting others? This is what Jesus SHOWS me I can do. This is why Jesus died willingly rather than fighting it. To show us that real love will go the whole way. Real love isn't the kind you long to receive, but the kind you long to give. And I want to start loving like that.

-Jesus Blog Part 2: Jesus Ate Kosher-

I think that movies mess us up when it comes to our perception of Jesus. In most movies I've seen that portray Him, Jesus has long hair (sometimes blond), a beard, blue eyes, and is in pretty good shape. He wears Birkenstocks, and a white "dress" with either or red or blue sash around it. Seriously, we portray Jesus as a 1st Century metro-sexual. In some of the movies He's even wearing guy-liner.

But that's not really how Jesus would have looked. I mean, He would have had a beard, sure, but that's where most of the similarities end. The idea that He had long hair is highly debatable, I promise his hair was dark and there is no way He had blue eyes. (The only way we can argue that point is by alluding to the fact that maybe "his Dad has blue eyes." But that's a scary discussion in of itself.) His clothing would have typical for the day too. So, not likely white and no "sash" around him; just a tunic. Oh and He wasn't white. Caucasian Jesus is a myth. This comparison may freak some people out, but Jesus probably looked more like Osama bin Laden than he does our own mental depictions of him. Because what we often forget here in the west is that Jesus wasn't a Christian, He was a Jew.

Now, the idea of a Jewish Jesus really doesn't surprise anyone. We "know" He was Jewish. But do we really? Do we even know what that means? As a 1st Century Jew, Jesus' life and upbringing would have revolved around the Torah, (1st 5 Books of the Old Testament). We see Him at 12 years old going to Jerusalem for the Passover, the New Testament talks about Pentecost (the Jewish feast, not the "christian" version of it), and even what we call "The Last Supper" takes place in the context of a Jewish Passover meal. Jesus was a Jew. He lived in a Jewish region of a Jewish country, was raised by Jewish parents, celebrated Jewish holidays, learned Jewish tradition, spoke Hebrew as well as Aramaic, and ate Kosher.

The reason this is important is because as Western Christians, I feel like we have lost some of the richness of Jesus' words and life because we view them OUTSIDE of His cultural lens. As a church, Christianity has stepped away from our parent faith, Judaism. We've become like the 18-20 year old who just moved out of his parents house and is trying to be independent. But in declaring our independence we are only robbing OURSELVES of our full and rich family history. WE are the ones missing out. But in our arrogance we fail to recognize it. We miss the truth that if i really, truly want to learn about Jesus and the things He said, then I must also be a student of Judaism. I must try to see the Torah the way he did. I must try to understand the importance of those Jewish feasts. If I want Jesus to invade my world fully, I must also be willing to invade His world.

I'm not saying we should all put on a yamaka and start spinning a dradle. I'm not saying we all need to convert to Judaism or start saying, "Oy Vey!" I am simply saying that if we want to know Jesus the way we say we do, we need to learn about the faith and religion that He practiced. Otherwise, we're not really getting to know the real Him. I think my own life, (and quite possibly yours), is proof of this. It would be impossible to really know me if you tried to understand me OUTSIDE of my faith and religion. Because every single part of my life is penetrated and influenced by my spiritual beliefs and faith. So if you removed all the "Christian undertones" from my life, you wouldn't be left with much to get to know. Jesus is the same. By trying to know Him OUTSIDE of His Jewishness, we are left with only a shell of who and what He really is. So, hey, lets get together for some good kosher and learn more about what Jesus was like.