Today marks a one year anniversary that will haunt certain folks in our county for years to come.  It marks the day that a string of tornadoes struck portions of central North Carolina, leaving destroyed homes and devastated families in their wake.  One such twister struck the north end of our county, leaving many homes ravaged and torn apart.  For Bob and Cheryl Torrence, a couple in our church, that day filled their lives with horror and loss.  Upon hearing the freight train sound that always seems to accompany the reality of an approaching tornado, they rushed to a spare bed room in the basement of their house and barricaded themselves under a mattress as the chaos ensued.  When the peace returned, they emerged free from injury but finding their home in pieces. 

Now, how would you handle that?  It would be a great test to our faith to find out, I'm sure.  Bob and Cheryl have often spoken about how this event not only did not cause them to turn away from their faith, but instead has greatly strengthened it.  Never once did they find themselves questioning God or growing in anger toward him for their plight.  But, what is it that causes this strange reaction...especially when God has allowed something to occur in our life that makes absolutely no sense and has brought us pain?

In John's gospel, he includes the story of Jesus making a very strange statement.  At least this was the case for those who heard him make it.  Just after he had miraculously fed the thousands by multiplying only a small portion of fish and bread, Jesus turns to the crowd and says something that seems absolutely outlandish and ridiculous.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him."  (John 6:53-56)

Now, of course most of the crowd turned and walked away after hearing this.  They were wanting a show, or some more free miraculous food!  But this guy has just left the reservation!  "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it (v. 60)," they said to each other.  Soon Jesus was left standing with much fewer followers.  He turns to the 12 disciples, and without further explanation of his crazy statement, simply asks them why they didn't also leave.  Peter speaks up for the group, and his answer is most profound.

"Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." (v. 68-69, emphasis mine)

So, what was the difference?  Simple.  These 12 have left everything to follow Jesus.  He is all they have in this life.  Not only that, but they have hung on every word Jesus has said and every deed he has done.  They have watched as Jesus has confirmed his identity as the "Holy One of God" time and time again.  Through watching him, they have not only believed, but have grown in their faith...as they have walked with him.  They weren't following Jesus for the show he might provide; rather, they were following him.

This is so important to understand.  The disciples did NOT stay because they understood what Jesus was saying unlike those who left.  The disciples actions during the future events of Jesus' arrest, crucifixion and resurrection prove this.  They have NO idea what Jesus is saying here.  They didn't remain with him because they had full understanding of the circumstances.  They stayed with him because he was the Lord and he alone had the 'words of life.'  Despite their own confusion of the events that have just unfolded, they were not confused as to who Jesus was.  Even in the midst of confusion and a lack of understanding, nothing would cause them to leave Jesus.

What an incredible statement of faith.

This is why it is impossible to 'try Jesus' in this life.  There is no trying him.  The crowds were trying him, and even though they had seen incredible miraculous things with their own eyes, they turned away from him so easily when they lost understanding of the present circumstances.

This is why Bob and Cheryl's faith has only grown stronger since the tornado plundered their lives a year ago.  Would this event, along with a lack of understanding probably to this day, cause them to grow angry toward God?  Would it cause them to consider turning away from him?  No, because they understand after following him and walking with him for years that he alone has the 'words of life.'  They have (truly) believed, and have come to know that God is good.  And no matter what circumstances may bring devestation and loss, he is unchanging and worthy of worship and devotion because he alone is sovereign God.

• First, discretion and balance is a must.  We do not need to feel like we need to interact with all of culture in order to speak into and shape culture.  If a movie will lead us into sin or do us spiritual harm, we must stay away.  Plain and simple.  Also, we do not need to demonize others for having slightly differing standards or feelings about certain movies.  But, we must also be willing to include good accountability with brothers and sisters who are willing to speak into our lives if/when we begin to consume material that is questionable.
• Second, and VERY importantly, we must keep our emotions in check.  Hollywood does an incredible job of promoting its own worldview by tugging on our emotions.  Before we know it, we are actually rooting for sin, whether it be someone committing adultery, someone getting killed, someone stealing, someone lying, someone gossiping or slandering, someone seeking revenge, etc...We must control our emotions, not allow Hollywood to do so.  I think this is one practical way to be "sober-minded" as Peter calls us to be (1 Peter 4:7; 5:8).  
• Finally, we must avoid BOTH worldly and Christian gluttony.  We cannot just receded into a Christian subculture bubble and hope to be able to effectively speak into and shape culture.  But also, we cannot just saturate ourselves with the world and spend very little time in God's Word and meditation on his truth.

All in all, I think these are great guidelines to use when approaching how we as believers watch movies.  What do you think?

Christmas has most definitely been hijacked.  We hear that a lot every year about this time.  And with that declaration we begin to hear how Christians are 'fighting back.'  We hear of boycotts and extra emphasis on saying "Merry Christmas" to everyone that dares to utter the words "Happy Holidays" first.  We hear about court battles over songs in school Christmas programs and nativity displays on government property.  It seems like with every passing year some other seemingly innocent form of religious liberty is trampled upon and the blogs and facebook go crazy!

Well, I've been thinking a lot about this hijacking and wanted to just get some thoughts down.  My response to this tired and overplayed drama between the scrooges and the 'religious right' can be summed up in two such thoughts.

First, we as believers have simply made the hijacking of Christmas very easy for those who prefer a secular form of winter holiday.  Christians began secularizing the holiday long before its opponents even began the onslaught that we see today.  No, this is NOT a rant on the evils of Santa or Christmas Trees!  It's much more about a Christian subculture that routinely accumulates massive debt in showering each other with gifts while opportunities to give toward entities such as Lottie Moon routinely experience a widening shortfall to pursue its mission.  And that is just one example, as I will explain in a moment.  Simply put, gift-giving has long since replaced Jesus as the source of 'joy' at Christmas time.  The incredible graced displayed in the coming of Jesus as the rescuer of humanity from sin has been replaced with the selfishness that stems from the incredibly ignorant thought that we are deserving of belonging on the 'nice' list.

If at all, Jesus and his coming have become peripheral items at best.  We find more joy in giving and receiving presents than we do in the greatest gift ever given or even in the pursuit of proclaiming the gospel to the world so that all nations might experience that same joy.  What we fail to realize is that with this trade, believers have fed the very machine that seeks to strip Christmas of everything Christ.  We have allowed Christmas to become mired with entitlement and selfishness and we wonder how we have gotten to present state of our world.  So we fight.  We fight like those who have had our rights infringed and our feelings hurt.  We fight out of ignorance, not comprehending the fact that we have done our fair share of hijacking.

That brings me to my second thought.  I do recognize that Christmas has been hijacked.  I do not believe that believers should be content with letting it happen.  I just take exception with how Christians chose to fight back.  Instead of lawyering up, using sarcasm to correct people's language and greetings, or just placing more gaudy decorations in people's faces with the idea of "what are you gonna do about it!?", we need to return to a correct understanding of incarnation.

The incarnation is Christmas.  One of my favorite lines in all of Scripture comes from John as he announces in the prologue of his Gospel that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).  Incarnation means that Jesus, who is fully God, became a man.  That is mind-boggling when we think about the transcendence of God!  He is completely outside his creation, yet he somehow stepped into creation, taking on flesh and becoming 100% human while remaining 100% God.  This was not a humanitarian aid mission or a love campaign for Jesus; instead he came to be our rescuer.  Because we all fall desperately short of God's standard of perfection and have failed to keep God's holy law, Jesus' coming fulfills a couple things for us.  He lived the perfect life that we have failed to live...for us.  This starts in the understanding of his virgin birth.  He was not born into sin as you and I were, and he lived his 33-year life without ever once falling short of perfection in his morality.  He then willingly, obediently, and sufficiently walked to the cross where God's wrath for our sins was poured out on him...for us.  In that way he became our substitute and our atonement.  Because he stood in our place and paid our penalty for sin, we can now be reconciled to God and no longer bear the weight of his wrath upon us.  He died on the cross and then rose from the grave 3 days later sealing righteousness and justification...for us.  He now sits at the right hand of the Father, victorious over sin and death, and making intercession...for us.  And now for those who respond to what he has done in faith by repenting of their sins and placing exclusive trust in him as Lord and Savior, the reality of forgiveness and eternal life through righteousness in Christ provides hope and joy as we anticipate his coming again to restore all things with a new heavens and earth.

In order to fight this hijacking of Christmas, we too need to embrace what it means to be incarnational!  This should be the time of the year where believers make incredible efforts through the power of the Spirit to be the hands and feet of Christ.  Instead of going broke purchasing gifts for people who already have everything they could ever need, we should be sacrificially giving to meet the real needs of the "least of these."  Our joy should be found squarely in the reality that "God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ [came and] died for us" (Romans 5:8)!  And this joy should should compel us not toward selfish entitlement and stress, but to humble recognition of grace and to urgent and intentional evangelism.  The world should take notice of the love, grace and mercy through those that follow Jesus as they mirror him to the world leading up to every December 25th.  The world should take notice that while it goes into debt and falls into selfishness, the church somehow has the courage and faith to sacrificially provide incredible means for the mission of the Great Commission.  "This Jesus must really mean something and be worth so much to them," they should exclaim.  Hungry mouths should be fed, brokenness ministered to, orphans adopted, the neglected shown love, etc...to the point that no one in their right mind would ever even consider removing Christ from Christmas!

At the present time, what really would change at all?  That's my point.  The way we currently celebrate Christmas would largely continue unchanged if Christ were removed altogether.  That's sad.  But what if that all changed?  What if the church began to be incarnational to its local community?  What if believers truly sought after the joy that can only be found in the rescue mission this holy baby came to complete?  The truth is, we as believers can still offer a nice Christmas filled with giving gifts and having fun with classical traditions and still become more incarnational.  I'm definitely not advocating doing away with everything 'secular'.  But even in the gift-giving I want my kids to learn grace.  Even in the celebration I want to teach them that true joy only comes in a right relationship with God through Christ.  As is the case in every area of life, Jesus is the focus and hero.  This should definitely be the case at Christmas!

Let's fight the hijacking of Christmas by restoring its meaning in our own lives instead of trying to make non-believers act like they love Jesus.  It must start in our own lives.  Let's stop being so politically minded and quick to get our feelings hurt by people who simply do not have any reason to celebrate Jesus during this season.  Let's show them instead why they need Him.  Let's make Jesus so evident to our world during this season that even non-believers would think it to be insane to remove him.

O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

You ever hear something so simplistic and obvious, yet it just resonates with you as some new revelation? Well, it happens to me all the time, it seems.

The other day in class my Theology professor shared how one famous preacher provided application to every one of his sermons. This has proven helpful for me as both a preacher, myself, and as a hearer of sermons. If you seek application in this way every week you hear the Word preached, it will surely result in change as you apply the Word. All in all, this is a great way to heed the call of James 1:22-25.

This preacher advanced the idea that every believer is called to 4 specific locations in his/her life by the providence of God. These 4 areas include the following:

1. My family
2. My church
3. My workplace
4. My community

After hearing the preaching of the Word each week, simply ask yourself how the truth of the Word applies to you in all of those areas. How does it affect your family life and how you conduct yourself in your home? How does it affect the way you view your church family, serve them, and glorify God in that setting? How does it affect the way you conduct your business or pursue success in your job? How does it affect your job performance, or even why you strive to do your best? How does it affect the way you treat your boss and your co-workers/employees? Finally, what does it mean for the way your family lives your lives every day within your own neighborhood/community? What is your role and responsibility among those you live closest to?

You can glorify God by being an active listener. This simply provides a framework through which you can do just that. Don't stop there, though. Begin to explore God's expectations on your life in each of those areas and begin to try to understand your mission as you pursue the Great Commission in every area to which you are called!

We must seek to understand the gospel before we can properly understand or pursue Christian living. So often we get this backward. We are satisfied with having only a surface understanding of the gospel and seeking to understand how to live daily as a Christian becomes a more important and practical endeavor. The problem is, though, that if we do not fully understand the gospel (or at least continue to grow in our understanding of it), the pursuit of proper Christian living will ultimately result in two very ugly manifestations.

First, without properly understanding grace, we stand the chance of becoming frustrated and stop pursuing Christian living altogether. Grace reminds us that there is absolutely nothing that I can do today to earn the favor of God. It reminds us that the only righteousness we have and can ever hope for is the righteousness of Christ that is wrapped around us that he earned through his sinless and perfect life (1 Co 5:21). We are reminded that the reality of sin remains because of the Fall, yet the Holy Spirit drives us to confession and that Jesus is continually faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jo 1:9). Only through his work can we be restored to the light as he is in the light and continue to have fellowship with God and each other (1 Jo 1:5, 7). We will sin today; yet, because of Christ, our adoption as sons and daughters of God is secure. Even though our sin brings consequences and discipline, even then we are reminded that God is changing us through his grace and the power of his Spirit he has placed within us (Heb 12:5-11). Without understanding this, we will become more and more defeated as we fail the test of morality over and over again. We were not saved through works; therefore, we can not expect to gain God's approval through our morality now. We are justified not by our works but exclusively through our faith in Christ, the one who earn God's favor for me (Gal 2:16-21). We must preach this message to ourselves every day and allow it to both humble us and exalt us because of standing before God because of what Jesus has done!

Second, without properly understanding grace, we stand the chance of becoming a legalistic pharisee. We will become slaves to our own morality. We will begin to gauge our own performance based on everyone around us, instead of in light of the holiness of God. We will become puffed up as we find reasons to believe that we are better and more morally exceptional to them and forget that Christ has earned everything for us. Demonizing others will be become the status quo as we begin to judge their religion as inferior to our own. We will become, as Jesus called the Pharisees of his day, "whitewashed tombs" (Matt 23:27-28) continually polishing our own morality instead of exalting the glory and holiness of Christ. Our own glory will be displayed at the expense of his. Others will become obstacles and objects of our elitist scorn. And even as we continue to gaze into the mirror of God's glory in his Word, we become like the man who leaves the mirror, forgetting what he looks like and failing to be a doer of the Word (Js 1:22-25). Simply put, we become the reality of what has become the majority view of the church from outsiders today: we become hypocrites.

So, how do we avoid this? We must radically pursue the gospel and seek to grasp every ounce of its truth. We must not shy away from understand the radical nature of grace. We must seek to truly understand our standing before God--that our justification has absolutely nothing to do with us and absolutely everything to do with Jesus and what he has done for me. We must determine to proclaim the excellency of Christ (1 Pe 2:9-10) by proclaiming his worth in our lives and our desperate need for him as our Rescuer. And as we come to understand this radical gospel more and more each day, we must continually preach this gospel to ourselves every day.

May we be captivated by this grace at the beginning of each new day, and may the world around us be captivated by a Savior who is worthy of everything I am and have. May the world around us be clearly shown a Christ who has completely and gloriously redeemed even a sinner such as I and a Christ who has accomplished everything necessary to save even them.

His grace still amazes me!