Sunday, March 28, 2010

Generous Joe and "Greedy Rich"

OK, I haven't blogged on Raw and Relevant about anything political in a few weeks. So here it goes...

Lately I have heard a lot of rhetoric from the far left about how these "greedy rich" people who make over $200K/year should shut up and accept that they owe their fellow countrymen universal health care - courtesy of a boatload of increased taxes. Incidentally, the President has recently mentioned that his campaign promise to only raise taxes on those earning $200K or more will likely drop to incomes MUCH less than that...but I digress.

Anyway, my compassionate heart could almost be swayed by an emotional argument like that if it weren't for a few stubborn things called facts. According to USA Today, a "study of wealthy households in 2005 found average yearly donations of $40,746 from people with incomes from $200,000 per year to $500,000 per year."
(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-12-biden-financial_N.htm)

The 2008 report also goes on to reveal that Vice President Joe Biden - according to his 1999-2008 tax returns - gave an average of $369 per year to charity over that decade. Stop for a moment to re-read that sentence...

Does anyone else find it even slightly hypocritical that the VP would be lecturing hard-working Americans about their duty to pay higher taxes when they already give thousands of percent more of their income to the less fortunate than does Biden? What's wrong with this picture?

Don't get me wrong. I could care less what Biden gives. That is between him, his conscience and God. What I do admit is that I find it a tad irritating when Biden and his supporters attempt to demonize successful small business owners and investors as "greedy" folks who don't care about those who can't afford to go to the doctor.

Mr. Biden, I know that you'll never run across a little blog written by a nobody like me, but if I could fantasize for a moment that you might somehow stumble across Raw and Relevant, allow me to say this. According to your own tax records, my wife and I donate more to charity......every two weeks......than you do in a year. I do not say this to boast, Mr. Vice President - but to illustrate the following point:

Like many of my friends, I work long weeks in a vocation devoted to serving the needs of others. I am privileged and thankful for the middle-class income God provides for us. I live in a modest 31-year-old home that will need a new roof in a few years. The latest-model automobile we own is a 1999 Honda Minivan with a salvaged title we bought off Craigslist. Material crap just doesn't compare to the joy of a loving marriage and healthy children. Our aim is not to be rich - but to be generous with what we have, which is more than I can say for you. Mr. Vice President, how about LOWERING the tax burden on those who actually create jobs and wealth for others?

JEREMY!!! WAKE UP!!! THIS ISN'T A REAL CONVERSATION!!! Ahhh...but if it were - would you agree or disagree with me? Feel free to chime in with respectful dialogue no matter your opinion...

Friday, March 26, 2010

Is the Gospel worth Cussing About?

So I've been preaching for a few weeks now in an Easter series called "Signed in Blood - The Radical Gospel of Jesus." I have been receiving more feedback on this series than any I have previously preached - including on topics as controversial as sex and the return of Jesus. Why so much feedback? I believe it to be a reflection of the fact that so many in the Body of Christ are starving for grace.

Whenever I write or blog or preach or converse one-on-one with people about the Gospel of grace - usually I get feedback from multiple angles. One of those angles is the notion that by confronting modern-day legalists, I am somehow not being "gracious" myself.

Let me be the first to say that heated, passionate debate can and should remain as respectful as possible. It is never my intention to personally attack an individual. However, when attacking ideas one believes to be false, this is often interpreted by those who hold the ideas as a personal attack on them. I understand this fully, because I am no different. I can easily get defensive and feel persecuted when someone challenges an idea that I believe in. It's part of human nature, and that is why I agree that we must seek to be respectful even in debate.

That being said, is it not the mandate of every generation of believers to defend and clarify the Gospel of grace with the utmost passion? The Apostle Paul, when exposing his former legalistic way of life, said that he now considered all of that past false confidence to be "rubbish". The old King James Version more accurately translates this word as "dung". If we were going to be really honest and unafraid to offend the over-sensitive, the modern equivalent would literally be "S#@%". That's how expressive Paul was in exposing legalism (i.e. front-loading or back-loading the free offer of grace with human works). And that description is included in the INSPIRED Scripture.

Paul also said that he wished perverters of the Gospel would be "accursed" and he called the Judaizers "mutilators of the flesh" because of their insistence that believers had to be circumcised. Does this sound like a guy who was willing to tolerate false teaching about the Gospel? As I've written elsewhere - defending grace rises to a different level in the sphere of theological debate. We can debate such issues as spiritual gifts, the return of Jesus, the age of the earth and a host of other matters of secondary importance all day long. But the Gospel of grace is different. It is in a league of its own. If we get this wrong - nothing else matters.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not implying that I hold the same level of spiritual clout which belonged to the Apostle Paul. Nor am I suggesting that we should not strive to be gracious in tone - a goal which I routinely fall short of. What I AM saying is that grace is worth defending. It's worth fighting for. It's worth dying for. It is the only thing that distinguishes the core of Christianity from mere man-made religion. That's my opinion...what do you think?

Saturday, March 20, 2010

GRACE - The Best Way to Live

In this life, our plans seldom quite end up like we imagine. Today I was at a stoplight with my boys on the way to spend the day at Six Flags. "BANG" was the noise I heard simultaneous to my vehicle being thrust a few feet out into the intersection. In what felt like a millisecond, I asked my boys if everyone was OK and then watched in my rear view mirror as an embarrassed woman followed me through the intersection to the side of the road up ahead.

I don't know who felt worse as each of us stepped out of our vehicles to survey the damage to the back end of our Honda Odyssey. She was obviously upset with herself, apologizing numerous times and beginning to tear up as she noticed I had several children in the car. The reason I felt bad is because I've been on the offending side of a fender-bender, and I know that ugly feeling in your gut when you gather your thoughts enough to admit to yourself "That JUST happened!"

As I gathered insurance information from the woman, I tried to assure her by my demeanor that she had nothing to worry about - that I was not the kind of guy who was going to fake an injury and make her life miserable. And of course I had a selfish motive behind the grace and friendliness - namely, that I wanted to treat her exactly the way I would hope a man would treat my wife in the same situation. After reassuring her that the insurance companies would handle everything just fine, we went our separate ways.

Not exactly the kickoff I had envisioned for a father & sons day at the local theme park! As I reflected on the incident later, the blessing in disguise was that I had been able to show some grace and reassurance to a woman who was angry at herself for something any of us could easily do on any given day.

That's basically true about most everyday mistakes in life. Why do we get so irritated when people do something to "offend" us when on any given day we are just as liable? Why do we complain when our spouse or our children or our neighbor fails to live up to our expectations when on any given day we also fail? What gives us the right to hold a grudge against a person when we have been so freely forgiven by God through Christ?

I can think of times I've flown off the handle toward my kids or my wife or my friends about things MUCH less significant than a car accident! Today was just a reminder that GRACE is the best way to live. In fact - come to think of it, this day turned out pretty swell after all...

Monday, March 1, 2010

Ruffling Feathers with the Grace of God

Want to know a great way to make religious people indignant? Esteem the grace of God as the freely bestowed, unconditionally secure and flamboyantly generous Divine welfare program that it is! For years, I have been on a journey of seeking to mine the depths of God's grace in pursuit of the reality that it is - and more and more I find that it is GRACE pursuing ME in the Person of Jesus.

Religious people across the spectrum get downright uneasy when grace is lifted high. Cultists will front-load the Gospel by insisting that there are requisites to receiving the grace of God - that one must do as much as they are able and then Jesus will "make up the rest". Hard-core Arminians and Hyper-Calvinists on the other end of the spectrum will rip James 2 out of context to defend the idea that the Gospel of grace must be back-loaded by "results" - or "proof" - that a person is genuinely in the grace of God.

These ideas go beyond what Scripture abundantly teaches. Any time our assurance of salvation is placed upon our performance rather than on Christ's promises, we are in for a dark religious experience. Few and far between are the clarion voices of those like Brennan Manning, Zane Hodges, Steve McVey or Andrew Farley - who dare to esteem the grace of God so high that persecution nearly ensues against them. Why is it that when we mention the utter gratuitous nature of God's grace, we are met by well-meaning voices that immediately want to "balance" the discussion with talk of Christ's Lordship or point us to Paul's words in Romans 6 about not using grace as a license to sin?

Paul said "Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5). And YES, he cautioned us against using grace as a license to sin. Sin is hurtful to ourselves and to others and to the Kingdom of God in its current earthly manifestation. But the caution to flee from sin in no way NEGATES what Paul had previously established in Romans 5. If Christianity is the least bit unique from other religious claims, this uniqueness rises and falls on grace.

Either the Gospel was and is a free, no-strings-attached offer of pardon and freedom based on faith alone - or it is a bait-and-switch religious scheme promising unconditional favor which it cannot actually deliver. As someone whose conscience is naturally legalistic enough to condemn a small nation, I don't need to be reminded NOT to use God's grace as a license to sin. DUH! I need to be reminded to surrender to an expression of God's kindness that in Christ is so freely offered I have no other response than to lose myself in it. Then and only then will I escape the performance treadmill to which my inner Pharisee wants to enslave me - and instead allow Jesus to live through me.

This "try hard, fail, feel guilty, confess and try again" form of Christianity is not the Gospel Jesus and the Apostles came to proclaim. Jesus' command to "DIE" was given to His audience prior to the cross while still living under the Old Covenant. Under the New Covenant, Paul says we are to "reckon" ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. This means that no matter how we "feel" at any given moment - we are to accept this reality by faith. When the unconditionality of this identity in Christ becomes our sole source of hope, we begin to rest - and godly transformation is finally possible...

I will close by saying that if I were to post the words "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more..." on Facebook, I guarantee that my posting would be met by several "Likes" and a few "Amens" and also several "Yeh, but don't forget about Romans 6 or James 2" comments. Why is this? Why can't we stop for even 30 seconds and lose ourselves in the reality of grace untainted by our desire to "balance" it out? By definition, grace IMBALANCES the equation in our favor. If grace were not open to the possibility of abuse, it would at that very moment cease to be grace...