At Least Chan Is Living What He Preaches

This past week, Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, announced that he would be leaving his church to see what God has in store for him elsewhere. You have to admire this guy. He wrote Crazy Love and Forgotten God, and listening to the Spirit talk to you is what he has been preaching. To leave an established, exciting, and growing church-that's definitely faith. May God bless him as he goes to his next assignment, whatever it may be.

Motives & Ambition

Question: How do we go about our lives-glorifying God without drawing the attention to ourselves? How can we do good deeds and motivate ourselves to be something better with pure motives?

This is something I am having a big problem with. I want the people around me to see a man who loves the lord and carries out God's commands, yes, but I don't want it to be because I want to posses that image. I genuinely want to carry out God's will and be a vessel of his love to the world, and when people look at me I want them to see what God's love can accomplish.

I want to shed all forms of pride. I want to help people that think they are unloved. There are millions of people in all countries of the world that have never felt an unconditional love that was based purely on the fact that they're one of God's children created in his image. I would love to reach out to those people. But I feel like anything I do that can be publicly observed would be done because I want people to see how great of a person I am, which is completely wrong.
On the flip side, I do want people to know who I am. I know who I am, I am his and he is mine. People SHOULD see that in my life.

How can I motivate myself to live a publicly Christian lifestyle but keep those motives pure?

—Austin, Wisconsin

Answer: Jesus said, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."-Matthew 10:39 (ESV). The question is, as I understand it, doing ministry without letting yourself getting in the way, right? Or possibly ambition?

Pride is a dangerous thing to be sure, but one cannot be so consumed with potential pride that he/she never does anything for the kingdom.

Ambition for the kingdom is good, provided that our ambition serves us to be the best that we can be with the gifts that we have given. Ambition is a bad thing if we are doing it to be better than someone else or to get glory for ourselves. If we are doing ministry because of how people are going to perceive us, then our ambition is wrong and it's sin. ... See More

What I tell people to do is this: Do the ministry to the best of your ability and leave the results to God. Don't be concerned with your name and how others perceive you. You cannot affect how someone perceives you. Realize you are living life and doing ministry before the audience of one. I think the best remedy is to focus on the Lord and let Him take care of the rest. As soon as we get caught up in thinking about what I have done or what I am doing for the kingdom, then we are getting glory, not the Lord. And that's bad.

Secondly, we abide in Him. John 15 is a profound passage. In John 15 our Lord says, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." When we operate in our own strength, then the results don't last. When we operate in His strength, with His Words abiding in and leading us, then we are abiding in Him and God does much more than we could imagine.

Thirdly, realize God doesn't need you; He chooses to use you. This past year God broke me. He broke me hard. I am a college graduate and am almost finished with my second master’s degree. I have been on staff at four different churches and God has blessed each time. But, I began to think that I was God's gift. I went to the right school, did the right thing, prayed the right prayer, and did it the right way. God was working. There was only one problem: I thought that I had the formula that enabled that enabled God to work. I looked at some pretty prestigious jobs and some good churches, but do you know what happened? Nothing. I didn't get any of them. I couldn't even get a part time job. I have a wife and two kids and I couldn't get a job that paid $9 an hour. And do you know what happened after that? We became homeless. We lived with family and friends. It was terrible, but also a great blessing. God broke me during that time. He reminded me that though I have "Abraham as {my} father" God was able to raise up sons from the stones (Luke 3:8). Meaning, God didn't need me. He didn't need my education; He didn't need my background. He didn't need me at all. He chose to use me. It was a spiritual beat down of sorts that I needed. He put me on the anvil and beat me into the shape where He could use me for His purpose, where He would receive glory.

After I was broken, He lifted me up to where I am now, but the lesson I learned was unforgettable. When I am constantly thinking about myself, then I am not losing myself for His glory. When I am consumed with Him, then I am not cognizant of what I am doing any longer. I am losing my life in order to find it.

So, Austin, focus on Christ, fill yourself up with Him, and then He will flow out of you. Drink of Him deeply and often. Taste of Him and see that He is good. And then from you will come Christ. You will exude Him from the pores of your soul and people will smell Christ in you, for you will carry the fragrance or aroma of Christ everywhere you go.

My friend was raped...

Question: My friend has a question, she asked a pastor and he just couldn’t answer it. She was raped, and is on many meds for a disease she has. Her and her husband always practice safe sex for this reason, but since she was raped, no protection was used, thus resulting in her pregnancy. If she gets an abortion, can she still go to Heaven?

Answer: Now, here are some questions that I have for the woman. While I can't imagine the horror that she endured in the rape, the question is, is the baby at fault? Meaning, is it the baby's fault that she is pregnant? The obvious answer is, "No."

Have you ever heard of the name Pam Stenzel? I heard her speak once at a youth conference about a teenage girl who was 17 and was raped. The rape happened to result in a pregnancy. But she knew it wasn't the baby's fault that she was raped. The baby was innocent in the matter. While the baby was the result of rape, the child shouldn't bear the penalty for her father's terrible decision. So, the 17-year-old mother decided to give the child up for adoption. As Pam was relating this story to the group I was in, she said, "You know I am so glad that she decided to give up that child for adoption, because if she didn't I wouldn't be here today." Get it? Pam was the child. Her mother had been raped, but rather than kill the baby, her mother decided to give her up. And God is using Pam in unimaginable ways. She says, "My mother was a teenage girl and my father was a rapist, but what man meant for evil, God meant for good."

I don't think aborting the child is the answer. Adding murder to rape doesn't remove the rape, it only adds murder to it. It would be best to give the child a chance. There are thousands of couples out there that can't have kids of their own and would jump at the opportunity to take this child. And if you need some referrals, I would be glad to put you into touch with some of them that are looking for children to adopt.

I'm not sure if this helps you or not, but please consider what I have written. God wants this child to live and have a future.

But, you have asked a question and I have hesitated to answer it, simply because the question itself is faulty. Your question: “Can she still go to heaven?” is asked on the premise that she intentionally chooses to kill her child. Meaning, she wants to intentionally sin in the face of God and then ask for forgiveness later, but this is to presume upon God’s grace. While God does forgive all of our sin, we do not choose to presume upon God’s forgiveness by deliberately sinning against Him. Surely, God can and will forgive all who ask for it (1 John 1:9). But, we don’t take forgiveness lightly by choosing to sin and then presume upon His grace. As the apostle Paul wrote, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”—Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)

My advice would be to reconsider your question. Rather than asking, “Will she go to heaven?” How about taking a few steps back and asking the question, “What does God want me to do with this child?” I think that asking that question reveals a degree of spiritual maturity in the face of horrendous injustice. The response is no longer about what sin is allowable or excusable to allow one into heaven, but rather moves the question to the realm of discipleship where the cross is taken up in the face of great tribulation, enabling Christ to be seen as her expiation.

Expiation is when Christ takes away the stain of sin upon our soul. Whether it is through sin that we have done or sins done to us that have hurt us beyond our ability, Christ can take away all of the pains and hurts of sin. As 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”—1 John 1:7 (ESV)

I pray that God would sustain her during this difficult time. And I pray that God may touch your friend in a way that she can see Christ’s atoning sacrifice as not only her own, but for the man that raped her. I also pray that God will take this child and raise him or her up for His glory, a vessel of His immense grace. May God be glorified in this situation. Amen.

At the Intersection of Christ and Culture

How do church and culture intersect? One of the most difficult tasks in being a Christian is answering that question. The question is probably more important now than ever before, as our culture is becoming more globalized and with the continual growth of technology becoming more essential to the make-up and framework of the average man and woman. How does one live out his or her faith?

I must say that this question baffles me. And here’s why. When I first got into the ministry, I was learning. I had learned from professors, other godly and older Christians, and under their tutelage, embarked on a journey using the ministry methods and insights that they had learned from years of successful and fruitful ministry. I was told, though indirectly, “If you journey down this path, you will have success.”

As I journeyed down that path, I noticed a disconnect between myself, my mentors, and the individuals that I was ministering to. The ministry methods of the previous generation were inherited from their mentors. And their methods came from the previous generation before that. Most of the generations have done it the exact same way. There was one key area of commonality between them; their ministry methods were born in a culture where the Judeo-Christian message was well known if not intimately acquainted with. My culture was and is completely different. Theirs was, for lack of a better term, Christian, or at least from a greater cultural perspective, born in a society that was moderately religious, tolerant, and embracing of the Judeo-Christian worldview, because there simply wasn’t much else. In my culture, it was not the majority view, but simply one view, and not a widely held view at all. Pluralism, globalization, and technology have served to bring the world to their doorstep.

Perhaps an analogy will suffice here. If worldviews were ice cream, then the previous generation had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry to choose from. Mine had 31 flavors, plus 100 more. The question then became for me, how do I modify the ministry methods I inherited from the previous generation (if I can modify them at all or do some need to be scrapped altogether)? Or, better yet, how do I put to death the methods that no longer work, embracing a view that allows me to reach the lost without alienating those whom I love so dearly? That is the question that I have wrestled with for the past decade and am still wrestling with. Others of my generation have bid a “sayonara!” to the previous generation’s ministry methods, but in doing so, have not only jettisoned the ministry methods, but the theology upon which it was built. Others have adopted the ministry methods in a spirit of homage and honor to the previous generation, but have filled their churches with the proverbial choir of churchgoers who have plunged their heads in the sand of Christian safety all the while ignoring the greater culture at large. What is one to do?

I believe that there is a new vehicle of ministry on the horizon that is loyal both to the biblical text and to the culture in which we minister. I am not sure what it is yet, but I believe it to be here, or right on the horizon. I just hope and pray that when it comes, I am not to dense to see it.

The Parable of Great Price

Why does selling everything you own to buy one thing like giving it all up for the kingdom of heaven? seems more like an obsession to me...and that the pearl is being put before God...????... I don't know...i just don't get it. I looked up a different version last night and was only more confused.”—Brandi, Illinois

Ahh, yes, the parable of the Pearl of Great Price. Jesus was the Master Teacher and He often spoke in parables. Parables are stories from everyday life used to illustrate God's truth to us. When Jesus speaks of the pearl of great price, He speaks of its value. Pearls in the ancient world were considerably hard to find and worth a fortune. Allow me to quote the parable from Matthew 13 as well as the one before it,

44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

When Jesus calls us to Himself, He calls us to die. We die to ourselves, our wants, our desires, and we die to our former way of life (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:22) . Jesus calls us to follow Him, to pick up His cross daily and follow Him. When He spoke these words to the apostles (the language about picking or carrying their cross), He had not yet died. It was a profound statement, because Jesus was drawing on the image of capital punishment. He was saying, in modern day usage, "Take up your electric chair and follow Me." Why? Because of who He is, what He has done and what this world is. The Bible says that this world is hostile to God (James 4:4). It desires what is contrary to God's Word.

When the man in the parable discovers the treasure in the field (v. 44), he has discovered something worth much more than all that he possesses. The treasure is the kingdom of heaven and all that he has is his former way of life. He gives up everything he has in order to get much more. When we come to Christ we give Him our life in order to have eternity. Allow me to illustrate. There is a story of a young boy who had his hand stuck in a jar. It was a blue jar and one couldn't see inside it. The adults around him tried everything that they could in order to get his hand out of the jar. They used water, butter, etc., but no matter what they did, the boy couldn't pull his hand out of the jar. Finally, one of the adults looked at the boy and said, "Here, do like I do, stretch out your hand like this and slowly slide your hand out." But the boy replied, "No, I can't, I will drop my penny if I do."

The point of the story is, many want to hold onto their former way of life (i.e. sins, desires, their own wants, etc.). But Jesus will have none of it. Jesus is infinitely greater than what this world has to offer. We give up everything in order get everything. Or as Jim Eliott, a martyred missionary of a bygone era once said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose." This world and it's desires are passing away and will pass away. Only what is done for Christ and in Christ is going to last.

So, this merchant that sold everything he had in order to get that pearl, so do we give everything in order to get everything. For we recognize who Christ is and what He has done. He is the Lord of all the universe and salvation is found in no other name except His (Acts 4:12). We give all in order to get all and nothing is worth more value then Him. He is worth more than my comfort, my wealth, my status, my dreams, family, etc. As I tell my wife, "Honey, you are number 2 in my life." And she readily understands and would want it no other way. Jesus Christ is my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, and my God. He is my all in all and when I came to Him as a dirty sinner, I gave Him everything. I gave my brokenness, my sin, my future, my relationships, everything.

Perhaps another illustration may help us here. Imagine for a moment, you and your husband were to purchase a home. What would you do when you moved in and the previous occupant had moved everything out of the house but one room. They kept one bedroom for themselves and put all of their junk and dirty stuff in it. Gross and unacceptable, right? The same is true of us spiritually. Christ has purchased our spiritual home (our very lives) on Calvary. He paid the price for our sins, but we must accept that payment by placing our faith in Him, or as the Scripture says that we, "Must be born again" (John 3:3). And when we do that, we become "new creations" (2 Corinthians 5:17). We give over the entirety of our house over to Him and let Him do with it as He sees fit. We are no longer our own, but His and submit and order our lives accordingly.

Great question, please keep them coming!!

Bitterness & Forgiveness

“I have a friend is really struggling with bitterness. She is extremely faithful, but recently she and her husband have been dealing with a lot of hurtfulness from others and are being pulled through the wringer publicly. She is praying for God to soften her heart and remove the bitterness; to try to find forgiveness and focus on the truth.”—Wendy B.

Bitterness is a killer of souls. Once it takes root in a person’s soul, it consumes them. Christ could have been bitter. He was misaligned and misunderstood. His apostles deserted Him and His family did not believe in Him. He was put into an unjust trial, a kangaroo court on trumped up charges that could not have been proven, but He persevered. As Hebrews 12 says,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”—Hebrews 12:1-3 (ESV)

He considered the joy set before Him. God the Father offered fullness of joy at His right hand for Christ. He knew that His death would reconcile sinners to God.

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”—Ephesians 4:30-32 (ESV)

Or,

“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no 'root of bitterness' springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.”—Hebrews 12:14-16 (ESV)

Bitterness comes from unforgiveness. When others hurt or misalign us, we get angry, then we hold on to that anger, and it becomes bitterness. And in doing so, we are opening ourselves to Satanic influence in our lives.

Ephesians 4:25-27,

“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”—Ephesians 4:25-27 (ESV)

The point here is that anger, or “letting the sun go down on our anger” is not letting it go. Letting it take root in our lives. We do not forgive the person for what they have done to us, we harbor it and nourish it. We feel we are entitled to it. We say, “They did it to me and I am justified in feeling this way.” Yes, one is justified in feeling pain. But, bitterness and unforgiving does nothing to the person who wronged them, it only keeps them in prison. Forgiveness, even in the most dire circumstances (think about what Christ Jesus has forgiven us from), is giving up one’s right at retribution. It is a giving it over to the Lord. “Forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”—Ephesians 4:32 (ESV)

Horoscopes

For years I have had a friend who claims to be a Christian and who has read their horoscope daily, even putting on her Facebook page. Is that wrong to read your horoscope?

First of all, thanks for your question. I can tell that you care for your friend a lot. The short answer is, yes, it is wrong. As Christians, we are not to consult, mediums, spiritists, necromancers (those who attempt to contact the dead), Ouija boards, or anything else, but the Word of God and prayer. Leviticus 19:31 says,

"Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.”—Leviticus 19:31 (ESV)

This passage was directed to the Israelites, but the same truth still applies today. The Bible is pretty clear that behind astrology and Ouija boards are demonic powers beyond our control. For a Christian or anyone else to listen or consult them is to put oneself in a place of demonic influence. We are to go to God and God alone, anything else is sin. Stars cannot give true and real guidance no more than mowed grass, the Word of God is “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”—2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)

God’s Word stands firm forever and will not change like the seasons. God can be trusted to give us the guidance at the moment we need it, not a moment sooner. We can consult pastors, family, members and friends, but no one carries the same amount of weight as the Word of God. Speak the truth in love to your friend by offering to show her the Scriptures about this, I assure you, in the long run she will be thankful you did.