Okay I might as well jump on the hype about Tim Tebow.

I was only a peripheral observer of his career in college — (I watched him and his team beat Ohio State twice in the national championship game) — and since I can’t bring myself to care about the NFL, I just saw headlines that he was a Bronco and that (I guess) he isn’t a good pro-style quarterback.

But he is generating a lot of attention. The hype seems one-part, “I can’t believe someone actually believes Christianity is true and not just someone to point to after a touchdown.” One part, “Can you believe how bad he is for 3 quarters and then finds a way to win?” And one part, “Finally a quarterback to talk about that is not Brett Favre.”

And typical with controversy is the division of reactions. On one side you have the haters: the ones who are foaming at the mouth to see Tebow fail, either morally or professionally. On the other side are the true believers that moved Tebow to the top of the prayer list so people see that righteousness can be rewarded. But that is not the story — that’s not the spark that caused this blaze.

The fire was started because the world took notice of someone who is not trivial, in a world of trivialities. Just as light dispels darkness, weighty things always displace light things. Amazing talent and hard work is common in the NFL. But not goodness. And Tebow demonstrates that accomplishment is trivial, but goodness is glorious.

Of course, Tebow’s accomplishments are his megaphone, but his goodness, informed by his faith, is the content that screams that we were all made for another world: the ignored world where faith and goodness (righteousness) matter, not salary, biceps, or how fast you run 40 yards.

The Weight

Most people simply know me as a wife and a mother.  But what most people don’t know about me is that I am also a skilled weight carrier. You might see me shopping for this week’s groceries, Starbuck’s in one hand and a stack of coupons in the other, while pushing an over-flowing cart containing a crumb-covered baby (seriously, whoever invented the free bakery cookie must have been a mom), a five year-old boy using a loaf of french bread as a light saber, and more frozen pizzas than my family should be eating .  And while I might make it look effortless, I am, in fact, balancing a 900lb weight on my shoulders, as well.

What is this burden that is weighing me down and making it even more difficult to push a “do you need help out to your car?” shopping cart?  It is the weight of being a good mom.

It’s Always There

It’s like the sports scores that run across the bottom of the screen while my husband is watching Sports Center, or the school closings that scroll below the morning talk show that I don’t have time to watch.   It’s that constant. Did my daughter take her homework to school, when did the baby have her last diaper change, who took the end of the toilet paper roll and left it empty, why is there a Polly Pocket in my shoe, will I ever get a chance to vacuum the cobwebs out of the corner of the laundry room, and do I have anything to make for dinner tonight besides frozen pizza?

And that’s just the day-to-day upkeep of life.  What about the deeper responsibilities of motherhood: Have I made the right decision for my kids about schooling?  Did I handle that tantrum in the best way?  Are my kids gaining an understanding of God’s love and grace for them?  Am I listening to them enough?  Have I taught them enough?  Am I showing them love enough?

Lifting Weights

I’ve tried schedules, calendars, organizers, lists and charts to try to lift the weight.  But even on my most organized, successful days – the ones when I wouldn’t care who showed up at my door because I somehow managed to get three kids and myself cleaned, dressed, fed, as well as, make my house look like the cover of Martha Stewart Living – the weight is still there.

The truth is that desiring to be a good mother is not really the weight.  The weight is the fear and worry that come alongside the desire to be a good mother.  And when fear and worry about a good desire start to dominate life and control my thoughts I need to call it what it is: idolatry, plain and simple.  It’s a good thing elevated to a God thing.

What Good Mothers Remember

If I’ve learned anything over the last seven years of mothering, it’s that the only thing that lifts the weight from my shoulders is remembering that Jesus died for good mothers.

The weight of perfectly remembering every detail for each of my kids, as well as, purposefully pouring life into their little souls is more than I can bear.  But there is sweet relief when I confess my own idolatry and rest in Jesus’ promise that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  No matter how I work at it, I won’t get it all right all the time.  But God gives just as much grace when I stand before my kids as he does when I kneel at the foot of the cross.

My desire to be a good mother will never go away and I will always continue to work hard at it, but the weight to do it perfectly and completely will only be eased as I look to my own perfect Father and trust the Gospel of his grace for me and my family.  And some days that might just mean that we’re having frozen pizza for dinner again.

People only really clap when someone famous is on the screen. And this all struck the author as something dead serious. They were not clapping for the person who died, they were clapping for their fame.

I can’t help but think of all this at the out-pouring of grief over Steve Jobs. Our memorializing is not real grief or care for Jobs and his family. But our grief is a tribute to what we all worship: the ability to change the world. We don’t care about Jobs. (how could we, unless we knew him?). We love what he accomplished. He was deemed worthy of the secular calling to change the world and was rewarded with power, fame, and riches.

He is iConic now. Not just because he made great products, built a great business, or had people hanging on his every product launch. He is the patron saint of those who want to change the world and be recognized for doing so. All this reveals a great vacuousness of the human spirit. And I just wish a little bit of the outpouring of grief for Jobs would turn back to ourselves.

Our spirit will not really soar on the heights of world impact, although we are deceived into thinking so. Our soul will only thrive when we connect to the Reality that has true glory — One who will really make the world better, because He has reversed the curse of the bitten apple. And His offer of a new world doesn’t come with contracts. His new Earth is given without cost — given to those who lay I down.

Is it possible to hate Jesus and love Christianity?

First, how could this even be possible? When we confess that we have surrendered to Jesus, we believe that we have salvation. And if we really came to Jesus, then we really are saved from our sins. But, after time, we find that maybe we didn’t surrender to Jesus at all, but came under a SYSTEM with the name of Jesus attached to it.

A system is simply a set of repeatable actions, when correctly applied, leading to a specific result. Systems are wonderful because they give us expected results as long as each action is correctly identified and executed. (One of the systems in our body is the circulatory system. It is a whole process of repeatable actions that pumps blood and nutrients throughout our body — as long as everything is doing its job.)

But a relationship doesn’t act like a system. A good relationship demands attention; relationships can’t “run in the background.” They need to be at the forefront of our time and attention if they are to be dynamic and life-giving. The give and take of good interaction is the life-blood of relationship. IN relationship there is love and joy, but not predictable results.

Relationship is messier, harder to understand, and unquantifiable. That is what our relationship with our Heavenly Father is like. But we don’t like this, so we run to works with it’s understandable processes and predictable results. As we run to a system, we are running from Jesus.

The three main systems that are in competition to genuine faith in Jesus in the church are doctrinalism, moralism, and pentecostalism. Correct belief, holiness, and receiving gifts of the Spirit are important parts of a walk with Jesus, but when they are embraced as THE way of relating to Jesus and others, then we surely have left Jesus and ventured into a system of works.

So how can correct belief, obedience, and living a supernatural life go wrong and make us miss Jesus?

That is the subject of my next post.

The Problem of Attraction

Many of us are familiar with the Christian sexual ethic: sex is for and with your spouse. But the problem is we are sexually attracted to other people besides our spouse. This is obvious if you are single because you don’t yet have a spouse. But this holds true as well for married individuals. Whether the person is in close proximity or on a screen, sexual attraction to others besides our spouses is almost a daily occurrence.

The Old Way

The old way of looking at this, through the lens of the 7th commandment, was, “as long as I don’t commit physical adultery on my spouse, then I am a good person.” But we all know that a great deal of sexual impropriety can happen and still not have the act of physical adultery.

Jesus makes this connection when he says, “if even a person looks at another with lust, they are guilty of adultery.” Lust says, “You for me.” In lust, we are treating people as objects to be used for our own gratification — and God takes offense. Imagine being a father to a child and a person consistently fantasized about using your child for their own ends. You would be outraged. Of course, this is how God feels about the people He has created.

The Way of Love

So how can we respect others even when we feel sexually attracted to them? Jesus tells us to radically inconvenience YOURSELF in order that you do not sin. Using hyperbole, he tells us to gouge out our eye and cut off our hand instead of lusting or committing fornication. This is radical inconvenience and incredibly loving and respectful to a non-spouse. The Apostle Paul echoes the same sentiment when he exorts us to “avoid sexual immorality.”

So with your screens (t.v., phone, tablet, computer) you will set up blocks and accountability to make sure you aren’t disrespecting God and His creation. X3 Watch, Covenant Eyes, and OpenDNS are great tools for your computer and internet connection. In real life you train yourself, and your community, to look at the opposite sex as you look at the sun. One look is natural, but to continue to stare will only cause pain.

The Greatest Love

But the most powerful act of love was the faithfulness of Jesus to his adulterous creation. Even though we cheated on him with other gods, he loved us. He didn’t say to us, “you for me.” But he said, “me for you,” and went to the cross to die so that he might wash us clean and marry us again to be with us forever. Whose heart could not melt in light of that love and grace?

So how does a disciple actually try to do the things written about in this sermon with a sense of sanity and joy? First, we must clear the obstacles to obedience. And the biggest obstacle is religion. When I say religion, I mean relating to God formulaicly; thinking that God is pleased by keeping his rules and his ceremonies. Jesus’ whole sermon explains the futility of relating to God this way. Religion keeps God and sacrificial love at an arms length.

Towards the close of the sermon, Jesus contrasts two ways to live: the wide and the narrow. Clearly, He is not talking about people who live for God and those who don’t. He is talking about the two ways to live for God. One is religion — the wide way that leads to destruction. The other is the way of faith and love of Jesus — the narrow road that leads to life. Religion can only create a false perception of ourselves, one that needs to constantly be propped up by the praise and recognition of men.

But the way of Jesus is the secret way, the way of love. Faith in his love and provision is the freedom from getting our way, providing for ourselves, and making sure others give us our due. Once we clear away religion we will then see the clear path to be the people who obey these commands.

To be continued…

Jesus concludes the sermon by telling us that everything he taught is meant to be put into practice. The person who merely hears his words and does not do them is the life that comes crashing down. But the one who puts Jesus’ exhortations into practice is the wise person, whose life will be able to withstand anything.

Tragically, though, Jesus’ sermon remains the most HEARD sermon among his followers, without the INTENTION of actually doing the things Jesus says to do. Some of the blame can be placed at the door of people like me — pastors and teachers. We teach the SOM in the same grid as the Mosaic law: rules, given by God, to be done perfectly if we are to receive God’s favor. But we can’t do this, so we must run to grace for the forgiveness of our sins, and rely on the justifying work of Christ on the cross.

This is very precious truth — but expertly misapplied to the SOM. These are not actions that drive us toward belief, but belief that drive us towards action. As C.S. Lewis said decades ago: “The command ‘Be ye perfect’ is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command.” For Jesus is talking about disciples becoming like God from the inside out: inner transformation begetting the love of God.

To be continued…

Jesus makes this statement when he is defending his relationship to God’s law. Jesus had quite the reputation as a law-breaker, which was mostly guilt by association. He blessed “wrong” people, welcoming them into his community of learners. This made him look like he didn’t care about God’s rules — that blessing could be bestowed without following the law.

Jesus counters this criticism by saying that he hasn’t come to abolish the law. And he goes further: anyone who relaxes a commandment or teaches other to do the same will be the least in the kingdom. But to understand Jesus’ relationship to the law (and, hence, our own) we need to understand one word. Fulfill.

Jesus doesn’t want us to forget the law. But he doesn’t want us to follow it either. He wants us to fulfill it. He wants us to go beyond the conformity to a rule to a inner quality of life where love flows out to God and others.

Jesus fulfilled the law by doing what was best for others even at personal cost. His life was a life of love. His commands, then, are not new rules to make feel even more sinful. They are new precisely because they bring to completion what the law always pointed to: sacrificial love. By extension, in God’s kingdom we can safely love others, even when it doesn’t directly benefit us, because God is taking personal responsibility to take care of us.

To fulfill the law is to move past the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, where conformity is replaced with freedom, fear with love.

We live in the information age. We have access to more knowledge than any other human civilization. And this might mean that we will be the most arrogant.

How does knowledge inflate our sense of importance? It transfers power away from action to the mind. Power is really the ability to act, not so much the ability to think or remember. Of course all action flows from thought — but the accumulation of knowledge without action is spiritual slight-of-hand: it gives the sense of importance, while action disappears.

Haven’t we all played this trick on ourselves? We think of ourselves as brave people because we have read about cowards. We consider ourselves savvy because we know of the failures of others. Our judgment is centered on someone or something else, but not ourselves.

That is why people of action possess much more value than people who “know.” People who just know are really just bigots in tolerant clothing, cowards dressed up as men of valor. That is why is the man with the MBA struggles with the millionaire high school dropout business owner. Or the English Major who hates the stay-at-home mom who wrote a best-seller.

Theologically this is absolutely vital. Pleasing God is belief producing fruit, or as Paul says it, “faith expressing itself in love.” We engage our intellect on the character and promises of God which produces action. Only this can keep the information age from becoming the arrogant age.

When John the Baptist and Jesus came on the Galilean scene their message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Certainly repentance meant the Israelites turning from their attitudes and behaviors. But the purpose of the repentance was to “make a way for the Lord.” The imagery from the prophet Isaiah, “every valley raised up and every mountain laid low,” gives the vivid description of the person ready to know the Lord — to recognize Him when He comes.

So a great purpose of repentance is recognition — the ability to recognize God in our midst. Sin and ignorance darken our understanding to the closeness of God, but repentance takes away the veil from our eyes that we might see Jesus in action.

For John and Jesus, turning gave ability; ability to recognize Jesus for who He really was. This is still true today. Repentance lays low self-absorbtion and raises up our spirits to know our Creator and Redeemer. Also, continual repentance clears the path for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Before repenting, we were formerly unable to recognize the wind, not because it wasn’t blowing, but because we had our backs to it. But when we turn we feel Him full in our face.

So next time we are brought to repentance (which will be sometime today, if you’re healthy) we can rejoice — a happiness that comes not from just re-aligning our allegiance, but having the ability to recognize God in our midst.