Caleb Camp's Blog, page 2

The Citizenship Paradigm

Five years ago my family moved to another country.  Before we left, I took pride in my political views and would eagerly and happily argue with anybody who would listen.  In some ways, I thought it was my duty to challenge people with an opposing view because not only was it the right thing to do, but I was justified because my religious beliefs were what informed my politics and my patriotism.  Many times I wrongly judged others because of their political views.  How could they call themselves Christians and vote for certain candidates or represent certain parties?  In my mind, being a Republican was the Christian thing to do.

I was not ready for the impact that moving to another country would have on me.  There had been moments on short-term trips overseas where I would see the American Embassy with the flag waving and pride would swell up in my heart.  Those were special moments where I began to understand the power and far reaching influence of our country.  But what God began to do in me the first couple of years overseas surprised me.

Now lest you think what I’m about to say is un-American or un-patriotic, you should understand some of the other things I have come to understand too.  You see, my young-adult years weren’t the greatest.  I struggled with drugs and alcohol for quite sometime.  I was addicted to intravenous methamphetamine and eventually wound up in prison (all of this before becoming a Christian of course).  Today, after living internationally and knowing what I know about the world, I know that had those years unfolded in any other country but the US, I would not have enjoyed the success that I have in my adult life.  In other words, I’m extremely grateful that I’m an American because otherwise I might still be in prison, or dead and I recognize that God had a plan for me in being born here.

So what did the Lord do that was so surprising?  Well, he began to challenge my politics and my patriotism!  He began to show me that both of these things had prevented me from sharing the Good News with folks in the US, and that they would continue to be a road block to Him until I dealt with it.  I had to come to a realization that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to establish a political movement, or legislate morals, or even to establish a religion!  He never meant for Republican and Christian to become synonymous!  He died to set people free!

The Lord was calling me to strip away some things that were impacting my identity in a way that He never intended them to.  How did He go about doing that?  Well, I can say that it wasn’t painless!  But, He began to speak to me about my true identity and my true citizenship.

20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, – Philippians 3:20 NLT

When somebody from another country would say something about America, I found myself wanting to defend America and in the process setting up roadblocks to the Gospel.  Then I heard His still small voice say, “I didn’t call you to defend America, I called you to make disciples for another kingdom!”  That’s where it all started.

“Do you want to be a sold out patriot to My kingdom?”  “Are you a citizen of heaven?”  “How do citizens of heaven act?”  “What do citizens of heaven do?”  “When your politics and patriotism keep you from loving people in My name, something is wrong!”

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. – Hebrews 11:13-16 NLT

No groups should be marginalized and placed outside the scope of the Gospel in the name of politics and patriotism blended with the guise of religion.  We are called to love and the simple question I have started asking myself when I get riled up about something political is, “Am I offended as an American, or as a citizen of Heaven?”  This often keeps me from tripping people as they journey toward an encounter with the Father.

Still lots to process here, but living as a citizen of Heaven trumps a lot of the things that my flesh thinks I deserve as a citizen of America.  I am appreciative of the founding fathers of this country, but I must never let them trump The Founding Father of everything.  If I’m willing to fight, argue and even die for this country, how much more should that be true for my Heavenly citizenship?

Here are some of the goals I am working on as a citizen of Heaven:

To love my enemy
To love my neighbor as I love myself, even if I completely disagree with their politics, behavior, lifestyle, etc.
To bless those who curse me
To consider others better than myself
To outdo others in honoring them, even if I completely disagree with their politics, behavior, lifestyle, etc.
To base all of my actions and decisions, even voting, on the question asked in prayer, “Father, what is most beneficial to the kingdom?”
To understand that praying for leaders, including presidents and other politicians, means that I actually pray for them to be blessed and to know and hear from God rather than praying against them

And the list could go on!

I would love to hear from you about how God might have already been challenging you in this way, or how my story might have challenged you, or some other examples of how citizens of heaven live.

Grace and Peace

Confession

It’s been a long time since I’ve given an online confession, but after reading a powerful article this morning, I believe it’s time for another.

First, I am a Christian. Almost 19 years ago Jesus plucked me out of the darkness and transformed my life. Many of you have seen the difference in my life, and I can tell you for certain that I GET ZERO CREDIT FOR THE CHANGE. Some people thought it would be a phase I would pass through quickly, but I’m still in the phase. God has been so good to me and so gracious to me and without an encounter with Him, I’m certain I’d be pushing up the daisies.

I started with my faith, because what I want to say now is directly related. I confess that after becoming a Christian, after having been saved and transformed, I AM NOT PERFECT OR SINLESS. I have failed in some pretty miserable ways since that time, but God has been gracious. I have NO RIGHT to look at anybody else’s sin and pass judgment. Being a Christian does not make me better than anybody else. It does not change my class above those who are not Christians. However, I have often had this attitude and mentally; I learned it in the culture of Christianity.

I confess that at times I have failed to give respect and honor to non-Christians in my actions and attitudes towards them. I confess that I have cast judgment on various groups and individuals. I confess that this falls completely outside the scope of my Christian life and is sin. I confess that some of my sin as a Christian has been worse than those not in the church. I repent from these wrong attitudes and behaviors and I ask for God to give me strength to not only live in His grace, but to freely extend it to others.

I am a Christian, AND I still need the transforming work of Jesus in my daily life, I still need his grace. I am no better than anybody else.

Fellow Christians, I would encourage you to be real and transparent about who you are. It is in this that people will get a real glimpse of who He is. Sometimes I think we’re scared that if we show the world that we’ve failed, that somehow means that God has failed. We have no right to judge those outside of the church. We (I) need to be serving them and each other to the glory of God.

Love is ….

First, let me start this post by saying that I need to confess that much of my initial response to this subject has been carried out in an unloving manner.  I confess that I lacked patience and kindness in many of my responses as I reacted out of emotion rather than responding in love.  If you happened to be part of a conversation where my tone was offensive, I’m sorry and I ask your forgiveness as I turn and try to be more loving.

Recently there have been many online conversations about love.  These conversations have been taking place between Christians because a very influential American teacher recently wrote a book and held a conference where he made sweeping remarks about a large group of people whose practice of the Christian faith is different than his.  This has spurned international debate and conversation on many social media outlets.  I know because I’ve been a part of several of them now.

Now if you read the book, listen to the conference, or participate in these conversations, you would be hard pressed to actually say that they are about love.  What you might first think is, “This isn’t about love, it’s about theology.”  I would heartily agree.  The main focus of the conversation is about true doctrine, theology, heretical practice and the church.  In this argument, the Bible is held up as the standard of our faith and the prescriber of our faith practice (and rightly so).  Love doesn’t actually come into the conversation until people either start attacking the premise of the material, or defending it.  One group says, “You aren’t being loving.” The other group says, “To love is to tell the truth.”

In fact, the attitude many are taking in defense of this man’s statements is that truth is the most important thing at any cost.  If you feel unloved because I’m telling you the truth, that is because truth divides, and love tells the truth.  While I agree that love does tell the truth and that truth CAN divide, I am also keenly aware of Ephesians 4:15-16 (ESV) “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”  I don’t believe that speaking the truth in love is meant to be divisive.  According to Ephesians, it is meant to make us more like Christ and to join the body together and build us up in love.

There are other passages about love that we must consider when we are defining what love looks like:

John 13:34-35 (ESV) “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Jesus gives this commandment after he humbly washes their feet.  Jesus, the Son of God, our Savior, stoops down and washes their feet.  His teaching point was love, his teaching aid was service.  By his actions, he says that we are to humbly love each other by serving one another.  He says that the outside world will know that we are his disciples because of our love for each other; because of our humble service toward one another.  He doesn’t say they will know we are his disciples by our victorious theological defeat of our brothers.  He says quite the opposite.  Telling somebody they are wrong, and striving to prove it with theological knowledge and oneupsmanship is not the love Jesus said would distinguish us as his disciples.

1 Corinthians 13 (ESV) “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogantor rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  This passage of Scripture is probably spoken in 90% of Christians weddings, as a good example of what love is.  However, the context of this passage is in relationship to Paul’s instructing the church on spiritual gifts.  Even back then it was bringing about disunity in the church, and I think he uses several chapters in 1 Corinthians to rebuke people in both camps.  But for now, let’s look at what he says about love.  1) Without love, no matter what we do, WE ARE NOTHING. 2) If we want to know whether or not we are being loving, we can look at the list and see quite easily.  In our context a few things stand out to me.  It is patient and kind; it is not arrogant or rude; and it does not insist on its own way.  Not only that, it bears, believes and hopes all things.  I fail to see evidence of this from this man’s teaching from many who are proclaiming it.  When I say, “I love you so I’m going to tell the truth, and it’s going to divide us, and I don’t care because that is the nature of truth, which I’m telling you because I love you.”  I’m not being patient and kind, I’m likely being arrogant and rude, and I’m probably insisting on my own way.  I’m probably not bearing with you, believing you, or hoping that the Father is working in you.  This man also made the following statements, “We’re not trying to divide the body of Christ with this conference. We’re trying to identify the body of Christ.” and he stated that in his opinion the charismatic movement is made up mostly of unbelievers.  How is it loving to cast judgment on people he has no relationship with?  He says he’s not trying to be divisive, but yet he’s making clear statements that people who are charismatic aren’t part of the church.  His message is essentially that if you aren’t a cessationist then you aren’t a Christian, or at least not a very good one.

Please, let’s try harder at this “love one another” thing.  How about we don’t judge each other and we humbly stoop together in service to show the world what true love is?

Neighborly Love

When I was younger (yes, with the occurrence of my 20 year HS reunion this summer, I am old enough to say that now) Bud Light had these great commercials.  There was always an instance of one guy telling another that he loved him.  Sweet right?  Well, he always had an ulterior motive and the commercial always ended with the sentence, “You’re not getting my beer!”  Here is a great example with Charlton Heston.

What does this have to do with anything?  Well, I have been thinking about the Great Commandment from the Bible.  Many people know about the Great Commission, Jesus’ call to go tell the whole world about him, but many times the Great Commandment gets overlooked.  I would venture to say you can’t really take part in the Great Commission if you haven’t gotten the Great Commandment down.

In an attempt to trap an apparently non-religious Jesus, the Extra-Super-Holy-People asked him a question:

Matthew 22:35-40 “One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? ”  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Part 1 to his response doesn’t really beg for any follow-up questions.  I suppose we could argue that his answer shows that we are made of three parts: heart, soul and mind.  We could argue what each of those parts means or represents. But I think it’s just best to wrap it up by saying it means that we are to love God with everything we have and are.

Part 2 however begs at least two questions in my mind.  The first being, “who is my neighbor?”  Thankfully the law expert asked this follow-up question and Jesus removes the ambiguity of us trying to figure it out by telling the story of the “Good Samaritan”.  Jesus tells this man to go have “mercy” on all people, but especially those to whom he would never want to give it.  In the story a Samaritan, a people group that the Jews wouldn’t even associate with, was more willing to help the injured Jew than his own religious people were.  In essence, Jesus is saying the way to fulfill this part of the commandment is to think of those people who you would never be caught dead spending time with, and show them mercy. Not only that, but we are to love this category of people the way that we love ourselves!  This is where my second question arises.  How does the “as yourself” qualify my love?  Well I feed myself; buy myself things that I want; save money for myself; make effort to achieve my dreams; make effort to provide and protect myself and my family (though God is ultimately responsible for this); and the list could go on and on.  Jesus is saying, “Hey Jack (thanks uncle Si), you know how often you think of yourself and go to great effort to take care of yourself and give yourself the things you want?  Mercifully do the same for your neighbors.  Cast that neighbor net as far as you can, cause my definition is BIGGER than you think!”

So as we love God with everything we have and are, He empowers us through his Holy Spirit to love our neighbor as our ourselves.

May your week be so saturated with God’s presence because you have loved him with everything you have and are, that you find yourself loving your homeless; annoying; fat; gay; rich; republican; democrat; president; children’s teacher; loud; rude; different; mean; ugly; etc. neighbor the same way that you love yourself.