Reading Time: 5 minutes

Before I really get started, can I just make a few disclaimers? I grew up in the churched South, but even though the majority of my life has been in the South, I wasn’t born and bred in the South, and since my mom’s family was from the North, I’m not sure whether or not I was actually raised Southern, even though I was raised in the South.

I grew up eating Cream of Wheat instead of grits, and if you cut me, I won’t bleed sweet tea.  But I love the South and the way of life here. I believe the ACC and the SEC are the best conferences around and I can’t imagine life anywhere else than where I am. In fact, there isn’t much that I’d want to change about the South other than getting a whole lot more snow in the winter.

As for the churched part, I was practically born in church. Over the years, I’ve grown to love the heritage that my parents gave me, but I’ve also come to see that a lot of what happens in the Bible Belt reveals that the belt is firmly around Satan’s waist, and that’s one reason why the people who need the message of the church the most are the ones who reject it the loudest. The worst part of that reality is that the church in America has earned it.

[Tweet “A lot of what happens in the Bible Belt reveals that the belt is firmly around Satan’s waist.”]

All that to say that when it comes to the culture wars between the church and the world around her, I sometimes feel a bit out of place, and nothing has made me feel as torn as the flag issues of the last week, both Confederate and Rainbow.

I’ve got friends on both sides of these issues, and sometimes I feel like a man caught in the middle.  I’ve got family with deep Southern roots and family who think the South is nothing more than rednecks, fast cars and card-carrying lunatics. I’ve got friends who are to the moon and back about the ruling by the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage a constitutional right and I’ve got friends who are genuinely heart-broken for a nation that seems to be losing its way. Throw Jesus in the mix and things can get even more complicated, because I know people on all these sides who love Jesus as passionately and genuinely as I do.

As I said to The B99 earlier, the world is changing in real-time right in front of our very eyes, and while I understand the angst that many in the church feel right now, I can’t think of a better time to be a follower of Jesus, and I believe this is the time for the true banner of the church to fly higher than it ever has before.

One “rebel” flag falls while another “rebel” flag rises, but the only flag that matters to rebels everywhere is the one Jesus raised at the cross, and I believe this is an amazing time to carry it. Let me tell you why.

[Tweet “The only flag that matters to rebels is the one Jesus raised at the cross, and we get to carry it.”]

Our country is divided, maybe now more than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The fact that a major ruling was passed with just over 50% approval by the highest court in the land proves that. Any post on any social media today about either of these issues will get you celebrated and vilified simultaneously, often by groups of people you’d never have expected it from.

One says heritage, another says hate. One says equality, another says abomination.

But everybody is missing the point. If these flags have become the rallying cry, then all of us have missed the message that God raised at the cross: all have sinned and fallen short of his glory. In fact, the message of the cross is a message of equality: it highlights our sin and God’s sacrifice equally!

[Tweet “The message of the cross is equality: it highlights our sin and God’s sacrifice equally.”]

I read recently a quote attributed to a famous preacher that went something like this: “The essence of the gospel is acceptance.”

But it isn’t. The essence of the gospel is reconciliation. If the essence of the gospel was acceptance, there would have been no need for the cross because the very God behind the gospel would have simply accepted us and our sin.

But he didn’t. Instead, he paid for it, and he did that so that the gaps between us and him and us and each other could be closed. I love how the apostle Paul wrote it in Ephesians:

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (2:15-18)

Understand that those words were written to followers of Jesus living in the 4th most powerful city in the world at the time they read it.  A city full of more division and sin than anything America has experienced to this point. Paul didn’t point to the flags of opposing camps at war with one another. Instead, he pointed to the cross and reminded everyone that no matter where they were in relation to one another, none of them were where they needed to be in relation to God.

And this is the message the church has the opportunity to carry now more than ever.  Not a message of rights, but a message of reconciliation, because that is the one message that sets followers of Jesus apart from everyone else.

We can talk all day long about rights, but if we live under the banner of the cross, we’re reminded daily that what we consider right is probably just varying shades of wrong before a holy God who paid a high price to make us righteous.

To my friends from the South: I’m with you on the heritage thing, and I totally understand that much of what is said about the Confederate Flag is the result of others misunderstanding the history behind it.  But when my heritage reminds others of their nightmare, it’s probably time for me to wake up.

[Tweet “When my heritage reminds others of their nightmare, it’s probably time for me to wake up.”]

And to all the people on opposing sides of an issue that has forever changed the way many people will see rainbows: God is clear on the issue of sin, and no matter which side you and I may stand on, we both stand on the same side of the cross – the side that pours grace out on sinners.

[Tweet “All of us stand on the same side of the cross: the side that pours grace out on sinners.”]

So, how do followers of Jesus follow him now?  We declare his reconciliation more than we demand our rights. We speak up for the victims of racism and prejudice and point them with a humble hand toward a God whose truth condemned all of us and yet whose mercy took our place so that we could find forgiveness and reconciliation at the cross.

And in an act of total surrender, we lower our flags in order to raise his.

 

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This week there have been a boatload of articles and blogs about the release of the Vanity Fair issue with Bruce “Call me Caitlyn” Jenner on the cover, and I haven’t read a single one.  They’re probably all good, and chances are pretty likely that a good number of them are better than the one you’re reading now.

I guess I just got too turned off by all the grandstanding and soapboxing that was going on among Christians that I couldn’t take any more of it. I got sick of seeing people post the low-blow status updates about “him, her, or it” on Monday after they had just posted about how great church was on Sunday.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the bigger identity crisis in culture today may not be the one Bruce Jenner has made so public.

It may be the one going on right now in the church.

Back when Jesus was walking the planet, people noticed that there was something different about him. It wasn’t so much the way he dressed (although his dress sure would stand out today) or the food he ate. And in what may come as a total shock to many today, it wasn’t even the things he said.  What made Jesus stand out in his day was the way he said the things he said.

The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. (Mark 1:22)

Jesus had this amazing knack for telling people the truth about themselves and about God in a way that made those around him want to press in to hear more.  He had an authority that the other teachers didn’t have, a confidence in what he was saying that pulled most people in.  I say “most” because, as it turned out, some didn’t want to listen to him because some people were pretty sure they didn’t need anything Jesus was saying.  Those people were called Pharisees, and most of the people back in Jesus’ day felt about them the way a lot of us are feeling about Christians who are talking smack all over social media about the other Christians who they think are wrong about the cover of a magazine.

[Tweet “The Pharisees wanted to be better than others, but Jesus wanted to make others better.”]

See, the difference between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day wasn’t standards; Jesus had higher ones than they did (see Matthew 5:17-20, especially the mind-blowing statement Jesus made in verse 20!). The difference was motive. The Pharisees wanted to be better than others, but Jesus wanted to make others better, and there’s a really big difference between the two.  This takes me back to the way Jesus taught and how different it must have sounded to the ones listening in his day.  Somehow, Jesus was able to make judgement calls without sounding judgemental, and I think there’s a real need for the church to learn how to do that again.

We need to be careful not to confuse STANDARDS with JUDGEMENT, and even more careful not to use JUDGEMENT to enforce STANDARDS.

[Tweet “Don’t confuse STANDARDS with JUDGEMENT, and don’t use JUDGEMENT to enforce STANDARDS.”]

This is the critical disconnect that has led to a major identity crisis in the church. We aren’t really sure who we are, what we’re supposed to do or how we’re supposed to do it. As a result, we end up fighting each other when we should be loving each other, and since we can’t seem to do the second one, the world writes off everything we have to say, even when we’re saying the right things.

There was a woman who got exposed in all her unholy glory by a bunch of cold-hearted standard bearers who caught her red-handed and brought her to Jesus. Actually, they threw her at the feet of Jesus (which is very different from leading people to Jesus) and demanded that Jesus judge her.

Isn’t that where we are today?  Culture is changing rapidly all around us, and in an attempt to make sense of it all, the temptation is to draw lines in the sand and demand a ruling, but what inevitably happens in these culture wars is that Christians war against each other while culture just walks away.

Do I believe that the choices Bruce Jenner is making will break God’s heart and lead him further from the identity God has planned for him? Absolutely, but no more than the myriad of sinful choices I make on a host of issues not controversial enough to warrant a sit-down with Diane Sawyer.  Can we please admit what when believers are pointing at each other in anger instead of pointing to Jesus in love, we have a far greater crisis than whether or not Jenner’s first name is Bruce or Caitlyn.

The woman thrown at Jesus’ feet was exposed, and in many ways, the Bruce Jenner controversy is exposing the church and forcing her to answer the question, “Will we lead people to Jesus to be loved or throw people at his feet to be judged?”

[Tweet “Will we lead people to Jesus to be loved or throw people at his feet to be judged?”]

What’s interesting is that Jesus did both. He recognized that she was sinning and then sent her away without condemning her so that she could sin no more. One side wants to make the world conform to it, the other side tries to conform to the world, and both sides miss the truth that Jesus came to transform us all into his image.

Like kids who have forgotten that we’re in the same family, a divided body draws lines, but Jesus drew something else in the sand, and while no one can know for sure what it was, we do know that it resulted in stones being dropped and lives being challenged to follow him.

Ultimately, that’s the reason he came, because it is in the following that all of us – no matter which side of the line we feel we’re on – can find our true identity.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Tonight, my daughter and I are going to a dance.  She’ll look beautiful in the dress that she’s been picking out for most of the week, and I’ll look clumsy as my feet try to find some kind of rhythm on the dance floor. And when it’s over, we’ll drive home smiling, not because we were the best dancers or even because they’ll serve the best punch. We’ll smile because we were together, and dances are all about dancing with the right partner.

Today is also the highly anticipated release of the movie based on the best-selling book, “50 Shades of Grey,”  and the numbers behind the book that is porn without pictures are staggering:

• Over 100 million copies have been sold (more than The Hobbit or even the C.S. Lewis classic, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe)
• It is expected to gross close to $90 million at the box office over the first 3 days (almost identical to American Sniper)
• The author, EL James, made 95 MILLION DOLLARS from sales in 2012 and still, almost 3 years later, is raking in $150,000 PER DAY

My takeaway from these numbers? In droves, people are picking the wrong dance partner.  Many have done so because they have no idea what real love looks like. But for the church, for those who follow Jesus, who have seen the best example of what real love is, and who have danced with the best Father, all I keep thinking is…

What the heck are we doing?

When did so many believers allow a man like Mr. Grey to cut in on a dance with Jesus? When did the church trade real love for a counterfeit lust? When did people who may not even love Jesus start making the judgement calls about this stuff that we’re too scared to make because we don’t want to sound judgemental?

Can I gracefully remind the bride of Christ that we can’t afford to trade real love for a counterfeit lust.  Love is just too valuable, and the love of God through us to the world is too powerful to risk losing it for the cheap thrill of “50 Shades.”  Look at the difference between the love that God designed for us and the lust that man has used to blind us to it.

Lust takes; love gives.  Lust uses; love serves.

What’s so bizarre about Christian women reading and watching this story is the fact that Mr. Grey is not the man that they would ever want to marry.  He’s selfish, and only uses Miss Steele to serve HIS desires and HIS pleasures.

[Tweet “We’ve bought the lie that love looks more like The Bachelor than the cross.”]

We’ve bought the lie that love looks more like The Bachelor than the cross.  Love refuses to use another in order to serve its own desires, because love looks like God, and when God loves, He gives.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, emphasis is mine)

In real life, women would kick a man like Mr. Grey to the curb because they refuse to be used up by a selfish man.  Don’t be deceived just because they cast a handsome man as Mr. Grey.  Cast that character with someone a lot less “hot” and a lot more “lukewarm,” and suddenly he’s a creep and a perv and you’re running for the hills.

Run anyway.

Lust sees sex as a physical act; love sees sex as a spiritual act.

I’m not gonna lie: sex is mind-blowingly fantastic and is, without a doubt, the best wedding gift God could ever give a married couple.  But it isn’t great if it’s just a one-dimensional physical act.

[Tweet “If sex was just a physical act, prostitution would be the world’s most popular job.”]

If sex was just a physical act, prostitution would be the world’s most popular job. But it’s not. Prostitutes are broken physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually because sex is multi-dimensional.  Movies like “50 Shades of Grey” romanticize the physical act, but they miss out on the best part of sex: the spiritual intimacy and emotional security that can only come when a husband and a wife have abandoned themselves fully to one another in all the other areas of their lives that aren’t limited to a bedroom.

That’s the true love that God offers and that Mr. Grey cheapens, and the people who will be biting their lips as they fantasize about being in a book or a movie with a man like him will eventually find themselves clawing at the chains that were intended to place them in bondage all along.

Proverbs 6:27 says a man cannot put fire in his lap and not be burned, and that’s because sin entices until sin traps, and when we find ourselves enslaved by the very lusts that we thought would free us from our inhibitions, we’ll realize how much greater grace is than Grey. In fact, grace is in the gray, and in a bizarre twist of love that only God is capable of, grace is given in the gray to people who went too far and feel that they have ended up too damaged.

[Tweet “Grace allows itself to be trampled, and then extends itself to the very ones who trampled it.”]

Grace allows itself to be trampled, and then extends itself to the very ones who trampled it. While we may never understand a grace like that, it is exactly that kind of grace that will draw a church racked with porn and lust back to the only shade that matters…

…the crimson blood of Jesus poured out on the cross to redeem us from countless shades of gray.