Where is our hope?

Two weeks off from school is never really easy for me. It's not that I so enjoy spending hours reading and doing homework and these two weeks cramp my style, but more that I don't know what to do with myself with all this free time. On past breaks, I've spent endless hours watching movies, but our DVD player recently tanked and that option has gone out the window. So now I find myself sitting in front of our TV watching bad daytime shows and wondering what to do with myself.

Like today. After sleeping till almost 9, I got up, showered and shaved and got ready for another day of sitting around until work this afternoon. At 11 I turned on the Bonnie Hunt Show, not so much because I really like it but more because it's something to watch that's not a Soap. While it was on I began reading and didn't realize that Bonnie was over and Martha Stewart had started. When I lifted my eyes, I saw Martha talking with Tom Brokaw, and I was intrigued by the conversation. Not that I should have been surprised, but they were discussing the "wonderful" events of the recent presidential election. During this conversation, Brokaw stated that Obama exemplifies the hope of our country, both personally and ideologically. I couldn't help but be bothered by this comment for a number of reasons.

First, that is a lot of pressure to place on a single human being. Sure, he ran on a platform promising hope for America, but now that he has been elected, the whole country is counting on him to make positive changes for us and future generations. The problem is that, being merely human, he is going to let us down at some point in some way. Probably more often than not. Yet so many in America, and across the world, are placing all their hope in this one man. And that, to me, is frightening.

And horribly sad.

No single individual can meet the all the expectations we put on them, especially if we are placing our hope on them to better our future. And not just our temporal future. There is an eternal future that must be of greater concern to us, and there is only one source of hope for this future - Jesus Christ. God has promised that all who trust in His Son for the forgiveness of sins will live with Him in eternity, but those who do not trust in His Son will be forever separated from Him, living for eternity in the torment of being separated from love and good.

Now, there are some who do not believe in eternity after this life. They view death as an annihilation of our being, and therefore there is no reason to look to anything beyond this life. They argue that we must therefore make the best of this life and enjoy it while we can, because once we're dead, we're dead. Yet this view has no hope, and living without hope is not living at all. Though I agree that we only have one life as we know it, the life that comes from Christ is one that will never end, and it is one that is spent in the eternal beauty and love of the Father who made us and loves us dearly.

And that is a life worth hoping in.

So as we look to our newly-elected president as the hope for the future of our country, may this not be the end of our hope. Let us join together with the hymn writer in declaring that "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness."





And I'm so sorry if this entry doesn't make sense. My mind was moving faster than my hands...

The Church and the Ice Cream Cone

"The bigger a church gets, the more prone it is to becoming a self-licking ice cream cone"

My "Theology of Missions" professor made this comment during class this past week, and the entire class – all twelve of us – laughed pretty heartily before we considered the gravity of what was said. Although it doesn't necessarily summarize my first week of my last semester of Seminary, it does provide a good topic for consideration. I'll start with a little bit of the context in which the comment was made.

Our class discussion for this particular session was on the nature and extent of sin. It's a topic that pretty much all of my professors have addressed at some point, but most of them do it using the theological language of the seminary classroom. This professor insisted that we not use any seminary language, but talk as though we were explaining sin to a ten-year-old. As we continued in the discussion, we began to consider how our perspective on sin will affect those to whom we are ministering. If we have a lax view of sin – portraying sin as a simple error that can be fixed and forgotten – we will never show it for what it really is – a constant rejection of the dominion of the Divine. As sin continues in our lives, it shows those to whom we minister that it is okay to reject God's authority. It's like leading them directly into the ground without them even realizing it. Dr. Bradley used the illustration of performance fighter plane fliers who followed each other so closely in formation that when the leader performed a loop too close to the ground, all the others followed suit and all of the men ended up crashing into the ground. Likewise, a view of sin that is too light will not only lead us into further rebellion, but it will also lead all those who follow us.

And that's when the quote came out. We got onto the topic of how some churches avoid teaching about the truth of sin, preferring instead to emphasize God's love. I'm not going to name any names, but some of the largest churches in the country avoid talking honestly about sin so that the members can feel good about themselves. The message they hear appeals to them, but it doesn't convict them. These churches begin to grow without addressing the real issue at hand. And, as these churches continue to grow, the avoidance of the sin issue is reinforced because the numbers are increasing, and, according to the Western mentality, the more members a church has, the more successful it must be. They truly become a self-licking ice cream cone.

Sin is not always an easy issue to talk about. Most people don't like to hear how bad we are. Yet we must be willing to address this issue if we are going to be honest about God's Truth. Just remember, we will never fully appreciate what God has done for us if we do not rightly understand what God has saved us from. Sin is utterly, absolutely hideous every time it occurs, and we should never sugar coat this truth. But we can add hope to this message as we remember the hope we have in Christ.