A Perfect Match

Christmas is about opposites. It is one of the holiest times of the year and the most self-indulgent. It is the time of year where we think about giving, yet most of the people that we give to will also give to us. Christmas is the most powerful season of the year, and it centers around a baby - powerless in every way. Christmas is a time of contradictions.

This contradictory time of year is in part because of the high standard Christmas sets. Christmas, personally, is an ideal. Christmas is the day where, for only a moment, life stops and we have the chance to enjoy what God has done for us. I suppose other days should be like this too - every Sunday...easter...wedding days and birthdays. Yet, nothing is like Christmas. Christmas is the time where I think most of what a perfect world should be - celebrations, family and friends, a deep and genuine faith, a life of sharing and receiving as needed.

As I think of it, maybe the contradictions I see in Christmas are exposed in the other days of the year. Christmas, if I were a better person, could be every day. Every day a little Christmas, as Martin Luther envisioned every Sunday a little Easter. The contradictions I see are caused by the person that I am - if I change then what I see changes and what others see in life will change as well.

Maybe my Christmas hope then is to become the person that I see at Christmas, and seek the life I find at Christmas year-round. For actions and beliefs have to make a perfect match, and when that day comes more of God is easy to see. I hope this Christmas is a perfect match.

The Biggest Lie I Have Had to Contend With

It is my favorite line in Blue Like Jazz, maybe one of my favorites of all time. I like it because it is true for me. Ask me about my life and I can tell you that this quote is my story as it is Donald Miller's and others. Here it is: the biggest lie that I have ever had to contend with is that life is a story about me.

Now, I like me. In fact, I like me a lot - but for a long time I thought that life was a story about me, only to get confronted with the Truth.

Truth, real truth, hurts. Real truth cuts away at something that we have held onto, it may be an idea that we believed in or a philosophy, or a person that we love in an unhealthy way. We believe in something that tries to convince us that life is about us only to have capital T Truth hit us, and hit us hard. I cannot remember the day when I decided that life was a story about me, it sort of just crept into my life and grabbed a subtle but solid hold. I needed something to be the center of life - why not me?

As I re-read the quote from Blue Like Jazz, it is more about a lie than the truth. I guess that underneath the quote - and this is why I like it so much because it hints at a truth rather than saying it - is it's power. Here is that: the biggest truth that I have ever had to contend with is that life is a story about Jesus Christ.

He is the Truth.

The more I believe and understand that life is a story about Jesus, the better off I am. I am, really, a story about him. And the more I get to know Jesus the more I realize how much better I am and the world is when it is a story about Jesus. As I go through today, I will ask, 'how can I make this story, my story, about Jesus?'

As I live this out I become new, and at least so far that is no lie.

The Phillipians Project

Be the Bible.

The people in the Bible (most of them) are people who beg to be imitated in some way. In the Loft we are talking about Paul; Paul the scarred, Paul the courageous, Paul the champion for Jesus Christ. As I read Phillipians I think of the constant challenge Paul faced to preach Christ in new towns and encourage others that they could follow Christ as well - and the miraculous event is that they did. After Paul left - churches carried on, and they did so because they commited to not just know Jesus but to be Jesus.

Are you this person who is trapped in the bleachers practicing some version of spectator Christianity. Read Phillipians, and make the decision to be Paul, to be like Christ and then watch with joy as what you know becomes who you are.

Just a talkin' head,
Andy

Why Philippians Matters

At the Loft this week we started a five week walk through Philippians. The letter, although short, it miles long on its impact both through the content of the letter and the setting in which it was written. The content contains gems that Christians have remembered throughout the centuries. "To live is Christ, to die is gain', 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,' and other phrases from the servant hymn in chapter two to the personalized greetings that close the book demonstrate the constant closeness Paul lived in to both Christ and other servants of the church with whom he labored.

The setting of the book only adds spice to the substance of the letter. Paul writes from prison. In jail because of his convictions and perhaps, through using his citizenship in order to make it to Rome, Paul writes in a state of utter dependence upon God and others.

How often do we let circumstances define our outcomes? If an event takes life in a negative direction or if our work produces a less than ideal result, do we hear the voice of the temptor beckoning us to call it quits and resign from our endeavors? Paul is either faithful or deluded - he spendshis life living for He who is everything or nothing. Each of us makes our own decision, ultimately, if Jesus is who he says he is or not and unfortunately for us, there is no middle ground.

Paul offers us the example of the fully devoted follower, living out the decision that Jesus is everything. His decision defined his heart, his relationships, his courage - and we see all of this in his writing. Paul honestly believed 'to live is Christ.' The Christian lives by this standard.