A Burning Question

If your AJAX-enabled web application looks and works just fine in IE7 and IE6 as well as FF2 and FF3, but you voluntarily (and happily) stay an extra 20 minutes at work to make sure your final output page validates against an XHTML 1.0 Transitional DTD, does that make you more of a geek or more of a perfectionist?

Christ the Absolute

My heart is full to bursting with Christ's claim to absolute authority over all things. Nothing could be more unpopular. I may be hurting my chances of a future job just by talking about it in such a publicly accessible blog, even if it's not for another five, ten, twenty years. (Employers have taken to performing internet searches using the names of potential employees on the internet, and I am sure that this trend will only grow over the years.) The fact that religious discrimination is illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

But away with it all. I will cast away all fear of future consequences, for He holds my future in His hands; He commands the waves, the winds, the earthquakes and tornadoes, tsunamis and volcanoes. He appoints the suffering of His own people for His sake. He has power over life and death. And He has power to cast into hell. His reign is coming. It is imminent! Let every heart turn back to Him before it is too late. None who believe in Him or put their trust in Him will be turned away, but all who reject Him will be rejected by the Father.

Christ's authority over all things is so central to Christianity that, if you press it hard enough and and preach it long enough, it'll get you killed. Some mistake the exclusive claims of Christianity for religious snobbery, while some certainly do preach Christ in such a way. As for me, I do not consider even my own ashes worthy to spell out the name of Jesus.

My Everything

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." (Rev 1:8)

"...I am the first and the last..." (Rev 1:17)

"...the first and the last..." (Rev 2:8)

"...I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end..." (Rev.21:6)

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Rev 22:13)

"...all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Col 1:16,17)

He is reality itself. He is Christ Jesus.

Let Us Press on to Know Him

Trying to figure out what "church" really is in this day and age is turning out to be a long journey for me. My thoughts change almost daily. Ok, maybe not that often, but I am always wrestling with issues such as structure vs. freedom, having defined roles vs. functioning in those roles organically, maintaining doctrinal purity while acknowledging that few of us will ever all agree, issues such as "women being silent in church," administering sacraments, etc.

These are issues that we can't avoid thinking about entirely. But you know what? Sometimes I just feel plain sick of talking about church. Seriously. It seems like most of my conversations with people these days revolve around the issue of "church." It's just "church, church, church," all the time. Specifically, I find myself constantly criticizing the institutional church, questioning and/or praising the effectiveness of simple church, and then hearing the same from others. And when we get together as a church, we talk about... church.

It seems to me by now that if we took all the effort we invested in thinking about and talking about "church," and instead directed that toward having a clearer vision of who Jesus is and proclaiming the infinite beauty found in Him, we might just find a revival on our hands.

One of the questions I often ask myself is: "How is what we do any different from what any other religion does?" It doesn't take much to sit around and talk about how we meet. Heck, it doesn't even take much to sit around and talk about "what God is doing." Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. all talk about "what God is doing." So, what is different and what is magnificent about our God and what He is doing?

I find, in some ways, that "house church" is starting to become the same thing as the institutional church for me. Here's what I mean: the reason I left the institutional church is because I discovered that the common bond between me and other believers was not Jesus; it was the organization itself. Sure, we both believed in Him (hopefully), but He was not the glue. We were both dedicated to the same non-profit organization, and that was our bond. Unfortunately, I find that this is happening all over again. I've connected with quite a few people this past year over the fact that we both see "church" as something that exists outside the walls of the building that we used to call by that name. But you know what? Big deal. The question I need to know is: do we both believe in the same Jesus? Do we love the same Jesus? Are we desperate to press on to a full knowledge of Him, attaining unity in the faith?

It seems to me that a lot of people think unity is, essentially, "agreeing to disagree because we can't all agree all the time." Sometimes it has to be that way, but overall I think that's a very dangerous view of unity. However, I don't think unity means simply "agreeing" on doctrine, either. We may draw up a 30-point list of doctrines we "agree" on, but what benefit is there in that, if there is no abundant life and no holiness as a result? Unity must be based on a shared hunger that takes us in the same direction: a hunger for righteousness, a hunger for wisdom, a hunger for truth, which means a hunger to corporately examine the hard, controversial doctrines that the Bible often throws at us, and pray with a humble heart that God will reveal Himself truly and assuredly to all of us, and to each of us as the same God. I'm not looking for people who agree with me on doctrine; I'm looking for people who cherish Jesus (or will come to cherish Him) for the same doctrinal reasons I do. BIG difference. Doctrine is involved in both cases, but don't be fooled; the two ideas are worlds apart.

Let us press on to know Him.