I'm down with this

My very first week (or possibly my very second week...kinda can't remember) at Imago featured a speaker named Shane Claiborne. As he lived in Philadelphia -- my original hometown, even if I more readily identify with Boston -- I talked to him after the service, asked where he was trying to make a difference, etc.

I've seen Shane's name pop up here and there over the past two and a half years and just yesterday found him on cnn.com endorsing Jesus for President. Czech it out here. My favorite excerpt:

"This is not about going left or right, this is about going deeper and trying to understand together. Rather than endorse candidates, we ask them to endorse what is at the heart of Jesus and that is the poor or the peacemakers and when we see that then we'll get behind them."

Claiborne says the movement of younger evangelicals is growing and looking at the Bible in more holistic terms. He is quick to say the call of Christ has more to do with how people live their lives on November 3 and 5 than how they vote on November 4.

Visual of the week

Step one: Picture Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin.
Here's some help if you're having trouble doing so:


Step two: Recall that God is rich not in terms of money, but in terms of mercy

Step three: Instead of picturing Scrooge swimming in his money...


...picture yourself swimming in God's mercy

Are you CCing God on your emails?

Sometimes I CC my boss on emails. Usually it’s because I want to make sure she sees certain information. Sometimes it’s because I need to use her authority to elicit a response from the person I’m emailing. Other times I CC her simply on emails showing what a good job I’m doing.

I was thinking about this in regards to how we treat the Lord. Am I CCing God on an email to the world? Am I CCing Him on an email just to show how great I am? Where do my motives lie?

Much of Scripture relates back to this idea of motive, to this idea of what’s in your heart. Matthew 5:8 tells us that “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Proverbs 4:23 tells us to “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

Here’s to hoping He is the intended recipient of my emails, with the rest of the world CC’d. I’m meant to live as a vessel for him, to live as a living sacrifice. So my prayer today is for my heart to be guarded against pride, and for God to be the subject of my life, not just another audience member.

On Heaven

Was talking to my friend Sarah about this recently --

You know how the classic argument for going to Heaven says you'll make it there if you're a "good person"? And it has nothing to do with serving the Lord, believing in Christ as the savior, etc? Let's just say for a minute that such a view is accurate...what would those "good people" do in Heaven? Like, literally, what would their activities be? Continue with self-motivated activities? What would they do?

I knew this was going to happen

In December I wrote this post detailing both my pseudo-obsession with Jennifer Nettles and my hope that nothing happens to her. I love her without actually meeting her but I'm scared she's going to wander down the dark road of fame and fortune. In short, I said, "we're only about six months away from google searches where half the results for her name bring back sites called "Jennifer Nettles is hottttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It appears that particular prediction was, unfortunately, right on the money. Sugarland's "All I Want to Do" is the top music video on iTunes, ahead of slightly more famous acts like Michael Jackson, Mariah, Carrie Underwood and others.

Why is it so popular, you ask? Well, the whole thing starts with JN surfing in a bikini, then dancing in bikini, then...you get the picture.

So this is how it's going to be. Jennifer Nettles the hot girl. Sigh. Lord, please don't let anything happen to her.

Or, more accurately, please let her seek you when it all comes crumbling down.

Less people, more Bible part iii

As "luck" would have it, I was just directed to Matthew 12:36. I'd say it's fairly relevant to the two posts below:

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

Let's make sure we know what the heck we're talking about, okay?

Less people, more Bible part ii

There’s a great line in The Usual Suspects that says something like “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”

Let's take that a step further:
Sometimes I think the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us we know what the heck we’re talking about. We’d be a lot better served echoing The Word than our own words.