Searching for Meaning and Purpose...

 There are a lot of shades of meaning in the word "pride." We talk about needing to "take pride in our work." We talk about "being proud of people." We talk about having "wounded pride" when we make a mistake. We tell people to "swallow their pride" when they won't listen to wisdom. We tell people that "pride comes before a fall." So you've got good, bad, and ugly undertones in reading the word pride. It can be something we ought to do, like God in creation looking at all He had made and calling it good. It can also be a source of our failure in work, sports, etc. because we think far too highly of ourselves and our capacities. But then in Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said,  ...the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.  Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete a

In our youth, most of us live with a sense of invincibility because we cannot really comprehend the idea of death. It is foreign to our thinking and beyond our knowledge. We'll do things that are dangerous without a thought. Like riding a bicycle headlong down a super steep slope to jump another hill and fly through the air like crazy, until things go wrong and you end up with a bike pedal stuck in your leg. Eventually. most of us have a moment where we realize the value, and brevity, of life. Maybe it's a diagnosis or a health issue, maybe it's a close call, maybe it's someone we love dying, something eventually wakes us up to the simple truth that our lives are short. As we read in Genesis, humanity is just the dust of the earth instilled with life via the breath of God. At the beginning of the Lenten season, Ash Wednesday is a moment to remember that dust is all we are and all we return to. It's another momento mori that reminds us of the brevity of life.  Psalm

The phrase "fight song" likely conjures a specific tune to your mind. As a guy who grew up in Norman, OK, there's only one fight song that rises to the top- Boomer Sooner. Every single time that song plays (every time my phone rings!), my physiology literally changes. My heartrate begins to quicken and I am prepared to take on anything that might come my way. Music has power in SO many ways. There's a reason every MMA fighter or batter in the MLB has walk up music- it pumps them up, preparing them for their efforts, and announces who they are. I've said many times the most important part of any worship service in the church is the last song, because people will seldom remember quotes and specifics from the sermon but they'll be singing that song as they go into the week! What is the fight song you need in life? To help carry you through the day. To remind you who you are in the middle of the struggle. To encourage you to be who you know you are (or who you kno

 I like to joke that the reason for the protestant reformation was that Luther translated the dirty words of Scripture too literally and offended the stuffed suits. It's not true, but there are plenty of phrases that would offend the sensibilities of many church folks in Scripture. The reality of the reformation was that the church had lost its way and had detached itself from the tenets of Scripture in favor of human corruption and traditions that were not biblical, much less faithful to the missional calling of the Church. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and other reformers pushed to see a biblically faithful church rise from the broken version of the church that existed. Their chief tenets, sola gratia, sola fide, sola Scriptura, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria define the needed reforms. The church needed to be anchored to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, as defined by Scripture alone, through Christ alone, solely for God's glory. Nothing has changed today, but the tru

As I talked about the needed unity of essential beliefs, it also means I must think about things that are non-essential that become harmful. Are there things beyond the pale outside of that mission? Absolutely. Sin is always sin and sin leads to eternal death, thus we can never soft pedal that. By the same token, God is God and the entirety of Scripture is meant to show us who He is, what He has done, what He is doing, what He has called us to do, and what is yet to come. In other words, in those beliefs that are so far beyond the pale there cannot be room for wiggle because they remove us from the body of Christ. Paul addressed enough controversies through letters to the new testament churches that we ought to know how to deal with things fairly thoroughly! Fighting through the Gnostics and Judaizers, both of whom added things to salvation, Paul sought to keep the central things the central things and defined our place through Christ and Christ alone. Then we see through church histor

Most of the time we can clearly identify what is one side of a line and the other. If you watch any football game, the different colored jerseys easily identify which team someone plays for and the line of scrimmage clearly separates the offense from the defense.  When driving, it's essential we stay on our side of the dashed (or solid!) line to avoid maiming or killing ourselves and others. In politics, the letter we associate with clearly defines who we follow and who we shun. Throughout the ages, the Church has defined orthodoxy with a clear line parsing out what we believe and delineating things outside the pale of those beliefs. The growth in creeds is clear from the Apostle's to the Nicene in the simple opening phrases: I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son our Lord...     becomes We believe in in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lo