Speaking A Different Language

I used to speak the same language as other Christians, the language of Christianese. I was a master of it, twisting and turning things to where they fit a specific narrative that I believed God wanted me to preach.

Before I was a Christian I listened to “evil” music, I did “evil” things, spoke an “evil” language. I remember when I first became a Christian getting pretty heavy into Christian rock music, I would look at the charts that said “if you used to like such and such band you’ll love…” It was a transition in language. I went from headbanging to songs about heart-shaped boxes and puppet-masters to headbanging to songs seasoned with Jesus but not much else.

My faith was a hollow one, filled with my reading the Bible simply to prove others wrong. I believed in Jesus, I would get weepy eyed when the passion play happened at church, I would listen to Christian music exclusively, I would preach Jesus to others, turn or burn, repent. Then I got a taste of Love, but that Love was tempered through the lens of the Jesus I preached. I would say things like Jesus will love you if, or Jesus will save you when you do…

Holy Spirit would lay things on my heart while saying things like, “What would love do here?” I remember I had just gotten through writing a note on my Facebook account, which was like an old blog system Facebook had, about how even if we had Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on our door that we should invite them in, offer them a drink, let them speak and love them as I loved myself. As soon as I submitted the note a knock came to my door, and it was two Jehovah’s Witnesses. I found it extremely interesting this happened right after I had posted. At first I was irritated they came for a visit, and then Holy Spirit reminded me of what I had just written. I did exactly as I had written and upon them leaving they made a comment that I was the nicest “Christian” they had met, granted I was not supposed to hear that because they said it as they were walking away.

As the years passed, I studied more and more about the Love of God. There were still troubling thoughts that I had, and difficult beliefs that I still believed, I still struggled with things that were not indicative of the Love of God, and would punish myself by turning my back to God for days on end when I had messed up. It was like Adam in the Garden, he messed up and hid. I would mess up and turn my face from God because I felt like I had grieved him or hurt him or worse angered him.

Then I met Jesus for real.

My life changed in an instant when that happened, I realized that my loving God wasn’t necessary, but that I was the subject of His Love. This little change in perspective changed everything. His Love for me drove Him to the Cross, His Love for me had Him sell everything He had to obtain me. Its like scales literally fell from my eyes. To think that God was ever angry with me. I once thought He was my enemy, then I realized that I was never His enemy, I just thought I was in my own head. That caused me to live in a way that was contrary to who I am really.

These last three years my language and beliefs have changed radically. I’ve been called a heretic. I have had Christians say that I should burn at the stake. I have had Christians so offended at my beliefs that they gossiped about me and forced me to step out of a position that I really loved. I have had people turn their backs on me because I have challenged my beliefs about God. I have had people that I thought loved me, laugh at me, call me stupid, shame me.

It isn’t persecution, I am not saying that, I just know that I have undergone a radical transformation about everything. I went from believing that God wanted to use me for something to realizing that God just wants to Love me. I went from thinking that I had to gain all this knowledge about God to understand Him, to realizing that was Adam’s downfall. I went from being comfortable in my knowledge about Jesus and God and all that I knew about Him to this mystical tension that is both joyful and awe inducing.

I know that I speak a different language, I also know without Love I am a resounding gong. So holding everything dear that I believe now I must remember not to overwhelm those who hear me, that may not believe exactly like me. Overwhelming is not the best word for that, I just don’t want to scandalize people so much that they can’t hear God’s Heart in me.

I guess that is just it, what Paul was saying. I could say all of this but without Love you will never hear me.

So with that said, know that I love you enough to not say anything even when you may want me to, but in that love I may also say too much that may scandalize and overwhelm you.

Us Vs. Them, Heavyweight Title of the World Match

One of the things I took solace in early on in my faith was that I knew I was included because I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I remember looking at others that I thought were lost and seeing hollowed out skeletons with a flickering flame deep within the empty sockets of their eyes. I remember being fearful for others, angry that they just wouldn’t accept Jesus. Probably not unlike John Calvin when he came up with his theology of double predestination. I won’t get deep in the weeds with Calvin, because I believe he was a good boy trapped in a wicked theology.

So to establish one of the greatest things that changed for me when I met Jesus in August of 2017, I began to see Jesus even in the most despicable of people. I know this is a radical thought, but I genuinely began seeing Jesus in other people and realizing that Jesus sold everything to obtain them… too.

I began sondering and placing myself into the lives of others, I can see why they made certain moves, why they chose certain things, what was their driving force in decisions. I began to see Jesus on the Cross crying out to Papa, “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” and then hearing Father say, “I did.”

Knowing that we are all doing the absolute best we know to do, and even in that knowledge we still fall short of His everlasting Glory. We fall short in our own understanding and our own actions daily. There are no evil people, just people who do evil. That evil does not define them, Jesus and Him crucified does. Now I know that is a spin on the classic verse that evangelicals like to throw around that none are good, but just like there none that are good there are none that are evil. We exist completely outside of that dualism, but we can choose actions that fall in line with that dualism.

I can choose to do good, or I can choose to do evil, or I can choose to rest and trust in God’s goodness.

Evangelicalism has been a poison to the faith of Christianity, inasmuch as Liberalism is a poison as well. They both teach an us versus them narrative that is hard for us to escape. On one side the evangelicals choose the titles lost and saved. The liberal folks just choose to overlook aspects of the faith they deem uncomfortable and act like it doesn’t exist all while shaming those people who believe the aspects they choose to overlook.

None are lost, at least in the perspective of the cross, because Jesus would leave the 99 to find the 1. I once was the one, and that parable has been a life sustaining word for me. There are a lot of 1’s out there, and Jesus regularly slips away from the crowd to bring them home. Not to the same ideology, although some do fall prey to that line of thinking.

It is interesting that Evangelicals can generally be lumped in with Republicans and the Liberal side of theology can be lumped in with the Progressive side of the political narrative. They both argue that Jesus is “on their side,” but there are no sides with Jesus. He is one with every single member of humanity, whether we realize it or not. Both sides seek to shame the other side, all while Jesus says quietly, “come, there is no shame in me.”

Us versus them seeks to shame the other side by hurling ridiculous claims at the other, it shames people for their choices in political candidate, it shames them for their choices in the people they choose to hang around. This is the battle that has been waged since the beginning of time, who is in and who is out. We pretend to know God’s mind about who or what is acceptable all while behind closed doors we are the same thing we shame.

There is no us versus them, we are one.

We are one with the Father of Jesus in Jesus forever and ever, and we don’t have a choice in the matter. But we do have a choice in how we respond. Do we cautiously let people in not knowing their allegiances, or do we simply look at them knowing we are all on the same team?

These are the kinds of things that knock around in my head, and I am fully aware that my views are certainly in the minority… but what if they weren’t?

Does a Canvas Say to Itself, "I Want To Be A Masterpiece?"

I had a Twitter exchange today that inspired this question, and I thought of this when responding to something someone else said. The whole thing began when I opened Twitter under my @gngerjesus handle for the first time in awhile. A pastor whom I greatly respect, and who incidentally is the same age as myself, by the name of Steven Furtick tweeted, “You are already enough.”

Now I posted this same thing on Facebook a few years ago, and people came out of the woodwork to “educate me” on how wretched and disgusting I am to God. I even had one say that I was worthy of being burned at the stake. Hilariously, it came from a person who claimed to follow the man who said to his followers, “Love others as I love you.”

So when I saw the tweet from Steven, I noticed he just posted it and there weren’t a whole lot of comments so far, but I knew there would be many. So I decided to scroll through the replies that already came in. The first said, “I needed this today, Pastor.” The next was, “Yes! I am enough, thank you for reminding me.”

Then it went downhill from there. All of the reformed folks and people that were raised by Pastors who sucked on lemons for fun decided to comment. “I am wretched and disgusting, save for Jesus, I am not enough.” One response read, others came along talking about how they were, and I quote, “enough to go to Hell.” “People please disregard this statement, apart from Christ’s saving work, we are no where near enough.”

Another one came along that just broke my heart, “No, if I were already enough, then there would be no reason for Jesus to come and die for my sins…”

I replied to several of them, because this was the common theme that they misread Romans 6, and should probably re-read it slowly. Of course there were those that wanted the exact proof-texted part of Romans 6 by asking for the exact verse address. I replied that the whole of Romans 6 addresses how we are dead to sin and not dead in sin. Of course it fell on deaf ears.

Then the tweet that inspired this post. It was a meme of someone pointing to a book in someone else’s hand, it said “As you can see here, That’s not actually in the Bible.” My response was a simple one and read “It actually is. You ARE a masterpiece. Ephesians 2:10”

I would have left it at that until someone responded that I needed to read the two verses before that. Now some background about myself, in these last few years I have lived in Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. The primary reason, is because like Paul I was trained in one particular way of seeing things, then I had an experience that caused me to reevaluate everything I believed. I call that point my awakening, when I saw Jesus in the yard at my mom’s house holding a boombox over his head, while it played “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. I don’t know if it was a dream or if I actually saw him in the yard, all I know it I woke with every belief shattered. The first couple of months was uncomfortable, but fun. As I dug into all that Jesus had for me to see.

One of the first revelations I received in this time frame was that I was a masterpiece, and it was hard for me to hear because I had been through a lot in my life. Up until that point I was addicted to pornography, and it was this season that I was broken free from it. I am going on three years since I have been completely set free. (I know that isn’t the same thing as Paul who was a murderer before his moment of awakening, but for me it had just as much impact for me.)

I had also been through one failed engagement and after her a marriage that left me with nothing because I married a woman who turned out to be a scammer, I won’t go into that. Suffice it to say, I hated myself, I felt gross and disgusting, that no one really loved me. But then my life started changing in 2005, and I married my current wife in 2009. I still believed that I was disgusting, I was conspiratorial, angry. I thought the Republicans could do no wrong and the Democrats were evil, yeah I was one of them. I was addicted to talk radio and to Fox News. I went to church weekly, I was in the worship team, I believed I had been called to be a prophet, one of them angry prophets is what I thought.

So after reading the two verses above the one I was pointed two, it further proved my point. Paul pointed at the fact that we had nothing to do with our creation, nor our status as masterpieces, and I posed the simple question.

Does a canvas say to itself, “I want to be a masterpiece?”

When I shared the idea for this blog with a friend, he simply replied, “of course not, canvases can’t talk.” Which is the point I was trying to make. A canvas does not tell the artist painting strokes upon its fabric that it wishes to be a masterpiece no more than our actions will ever make us such. Our actions have absolutely nothing to do with what Jesus did, who came as us, lived our lives and died as us to show that God could never be separated from the essence of who we are, after all we are created in the image and likeness of Jesus, (by whom all things were created) Jesus did not come in our likeness, we were born in his.

The truth is simply that we are his masterwork, a stroke in beauty and divine hope and joy. He relishes the fact that like him we are creative, that we are powerful like him. The whole world groans for the sons and daughters of God to manifest.

So why don’t we manifest?

Why do we retreat in Platonic Dualism of Good and Evil? Good and evil are on the same tree, Life is the other one. Again, I will expound on this topic later, but for now our focus is entirely on Good or Evil and not Life. Our society devolves into cancel culture because we are so ingrained with this idea of Good or Evil, we don’t care what it does for the Life of another.

There was another Tweet by Steven Furtick after the one I mentioned where he said “The challenge in front of you is an indication of the power within you.”

Of course the reformed folks couldn’t resist, one even said, “God must be glorified and man must be abased.” Like seriously, where is that even in scripture? That is gobbledygook concocted by people who have made God into a monster and man into a pile of literal do-do under his feet. (Yes I misspelled do-do on purpose. Most modern theologies are plagued with the idea that we must do to be, even though they may not say that outright. So it is actual doo-doo.)

So the essence of this entire blog is this, we can no more demand to be made a masterpiece than a canvas can demand it’s painter to make it a masterpiece. We have no more hand in it than a mountain did with its shape, or a happy little tree with the direction its branches may grow. You are a masterpiece because you are, that’s it. He made the moon and stars, the entire cosmos where masterstrokes of his hand, and yet his most beloved creation is you and I.