Jon Acuff's Blog, page 53

Draft Scouting Report: Fruit of the Spirit Edition

(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s a great new one from Jeremy Jenson!) 

NFL Draft day is coming so I put together my mock draft.

Round 1

Love

No question about it, Love is the greatest in this year’s draft. He is the complete package and will bond your team together like glue. You can try all the tricks in the book but if you don’t pick up Love in the first round there is no way you are making the playoffs.

Round 2

Faithfulness

One of the most consistent players out there you know he won’t let you down. The only problem is that Faithfulness has already said he wants a five to ten year contract. If he gets injured or doesn’t play up to standard you will have a long term liability.

Round 3

Goodness

Great committed team player. His footwork and technique are solid. I can’t think of anything bad to say about this guy except that he may never be one of the greats.

Round 4

Joy

Joy is a quality player. He adds great enthusiasm to the team and will make the two-a-days fun. The down side is he can be a bit oblivious to the outcome of the game. Like it or not he is just out there to have fun.

Round 5

Patience

If you are looking for a player to help you down the stretch, Patience is your guy. It looks like an injury will keep him out of the first half of the season, but barring a setback he should be 100% come playoff time.

Round 6

Peace

There is something to be said for having a strong bench. I do not consider Peace to be a starter, but if things go wrong during the season you will be glad to have him on your team. You can count on him to fill in at any position when the mid-season injuries start coming.

Round 7

Kindness

Out of all the players in the draft this year he is the nicest guy. Unfortunately he always finishes last.

Round 8

Self-control

I know you are going to want to pick this guy up earlier in the draft. He looks great on paper and was one of the best at the combine, but after some experience with him in college I have my doubts. In my opinion he will leave your team feeling like an outsider when it comes to playoffs and is only worth a late round pick.

Round 9

Humility

Originally I didn’t even have Humility on the board. Who can forget when he dropped the game winning catch in the Senior Bowl earlier this year? A play like that can ruin a guy, but he seems to have learned from his mistake.

That’s nine rounds of Fruit of the Spirit deliciousness. What changes would you make?

(For more awesome stuff from Jeremy, check out his site!)

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The Frozen Jesus Juke.

Whenever I see Jesus Jukes like this, there are only three words I think in my head. They are the same three words you’ve had in your head for six solid months if you have kids who have seen the movie Frozen. I believe you know them. They go something like this, let it go.

 

 

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The comma of grace.

As I’ve written about before, one Easter I got into a bit of a yelling match with a guy in a visor at an Easter egg hunt. The whole thing was exactly how Jesus imagined us honoring that day.

We were at my in-laws country club, which always makes me feel a little weird. We’re certainly rich in a global way, but I kind of think that they can all tell that I’m just a visitor. I feel like the real members can smell middle class on me. (Which kind of smells like sun ripened raspberry and feet by the way.)

So after I pointed to where a golden egg was hidden to my then 5 year old daughter, he yelled at me for cheating. I told him that his white visor made him look like a financial planner who was wearing his “casual uniform.” Whole thing got very out of hand. (I didn’t say that, but I thought it later when we were driving home, which is where most of my comebacks occur.)

This year, we spent Easter in Chapel Hill at my parents church. Standing there waiting for the egg hunt to start I had a flashback to that rugby scrum one from a few years ago. I might always remember that moment at Easter, but there’s a more important one I won’t forget. One I’ve written about before.

I’m talking about the “comma of grace.”

I found it in Luke 22. In that chapter, Jesus is being led away. He is headed to the cross. A million prophecies are coming true and chaos is breaking out a little amongst disciples that up to this point have sworn to serve until death. In the midst of that, he pulls Simon aside because he knows that Simon will soon betray him.

He says to Simon in Luke 22:31-32:

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.”

And then, he drops the 9 words that I can’t write about enough. The 9 words that I often turn to when I’ve failed and messed up again and feel hopelessly undeserving of hope.

Jesus tells Simon:

“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Do you see what Jesus is saying in that first half of the sentence, And when you have turned back? He’s saying:

You are going to fail.

You are going to fall.

You are going to lose it.

You are going to make commitments and break them.

You are not going to always be the man you family needs.

You are going to sin.

But, but, but, you will turn back.

You will come back. You will know redemption. You will know return. You will know a God that not only allows the “comeback” but actually celebrates it.

When I read the phrase “And when you have turned back,” I read a loud, wild picture of what grace really looks like.

And then, if you go too fast, you’ll miss the comma. You’ll miss the gap that sits quietly between the next thought. You’ll miss it because like me, you might misread the second half of that sentence.

Here’s what it says:

“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

But here’s how we write it sometimes:

“And when you have turned back, repent for a long time and stay a long way from me until you are clean enough to return to my presence.”

“And when you have turned back, please stay far away from any ministry opportunities. You are too broken to help other people. How can you minister to others when your own life is so messed up?

“And when you have turned back, here are the 57 things you need to do in order to earn back my good favor.”

But Christ doesn’t do that! He drops a comma like a grenade.

He gives us the gift of the comma and then asks us to strengthen our brothers. Not beat ourselves with emotional whips. Or lay in a hole of shame. Or stay to the shadows of church, afraid to be seen.

He wants you. In his arms. By his side. Surrendered and free in his presence.

Not because you deserve it or have earned it or are perfect.

Because of Easter.

That’s it.

We all get the comma of grace.

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Things you hope Jesus didn’t hear your kid say.

Yesterday, right before the start of an Easter egg hunt at church, one of my kids muttered, “This is going to be World War 3.”

I instantly wanted to earmuff Jesus, hopeful that maybe he missed that comment. I’m pretty positive my child, who I won’t name in this story because then I’d have to give her a dollar for the rights, heard me say that first. Or at the bare minimum I gave her the impression at some point that Easter egg hunts were a competition to be won. That the Acuffs go hard or go home when it comes to Easter eggs.

Just the way Jesus intended Easter to be.

Even worse than that, one of my kids said this recently as we were walking out of church, “You know what the worst part of being a pastor’s kid is?”

Since I am a pastor’s kid I assumed she was going to just say, “Elders.”

Or, “Everyone at the church knowing what you are up to and telling your dad when you got out of line.”

Or, “Feeling jaded because you sometimes see the ugly side of the church.”

Granted, every one of those would have been pretty perceptive for a child to say.

Instead, my daughter said, “The worst part is that you have to go to church every Sunday. Ugh.”

Again, I looked up to heaven in that moment, expecting a child sized lightning bolt to fall out of the sky.

Fortunately no such thing happened. The funny thing is my kid’s aren’t done saying crazy things I hope Jesus doesn’t hear. Neither are yours.

What’s something crazy your kid has said or you said when you were a kid that hopefully Jesus didn’t hear?

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Pretty sure the devil invented allergies.

Recently I tweeted:

“Spring, the time of year I want to punch Adam in the face because I’m pretty sure allergies are a product of the fall.”

I tweeted that because I am on lock down right now thanks to pollen. I can’t go outside or I look like I am crying from reading a really amazing poem about a pony. And there’s no way there were allergies in the Garden of Eden. I bet when God kicked out Adam and Eve he handed them a box of Claritin on the way. (Only one box though because even then, you could only get 15 at a time.)

I had a hard time capturing why I hated pollen so much, please don’t tell me about it’s importance for bees and flowers right now, until my friend sent me the image below. I don’t know who made it. If it’s you, let me know and I will give you credit. But this captures exactly why pollen is so deadly.

Question:

Am I the only one sneezing right now, or do you have seasonal allergies too?

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3 ways to be a better Christian hypocrite.

A few days ago, a friend texted me. Apparently a Christian band had been publically hating on him and he needed some advice.

Now at the bare minimum, that’s not the best use of time for a Christian band, what with all the spreading the joy of Christ they’ve got on their plate.

But the time management problem wasn’t the biggest issue. For me, the real challenge was the band’s twitter profile. You’d think, that given their penchant for hating on people, they’d at least have a twitter bio that reflected that. Alas, that wasn’t the case at all, as each line spoke to their hope to love people and share grace with them.

That might surprise you a little bit, that the way a Christian acts online doesn’t line up with how they describe themselves online, but it shouldn’t.

We now have one of the greatest opportunities to be hypocrites in the history of mankind. Think about the scale of our hypocrisy these days. Thirty years ago, your dad interacted with maybe 200 people in a given month. He knew people at work, in his family, his town and in his church. If he wanted to be a jerk to large groups of complete strangers, it was pretty difficult. I guess he could have printed up a newsletter or called a radio show but even then, that would take a lot of effort.

Now though, in the time you and I occupy, it’s so much easier.

We can proclaim Christ with our (digital) lips and then deny him with our (digital) lifestyle faster than any other previous generation and to more people than our parents would have ever dreamed! (Head nod to Brennan Manning and DC Talk’s What if I stumble.)

If this concerns you at all, it should. The damage we Christians can do with the Internet is unbelievable.

I’d love to think this blog post will radically change the world, but I am making my own images these days and they are just horrible. (A sunset has nothing to do with this post. Just ridiculous.)

Not everyone who reads this will give up their hypocritical ways.

So, if you want to be a hypocrite online, at least do these three things:

1. Strip your Christianity from your profiles.

My friend had an Ichthus magnet on his car. Eventually, he felt bad about his driving habits, as he was prone to speeding and cutting people off. So he took the Jesus fish off his car because it was a bad witness. Could he have instead, driven better? Might that have been the better long-term solution? Definitely. But maybe you’re not ready for that. Just promise me you’ll fire Jesus from your twitter bio and facebook page. Get rid of the following words: “Love, Jesus, God, faith, grace, brokenness, forgiveness, etc.”

2. At least admit you don’t know the person.

A Christian recently emailed me to tell me he was unfollowing me on Facebook because he no longer liked me. His short, rude message caught me off guard, which finally prompted me to respond and ask, “Have we met before? It seems like you really don’t like me and most times if someone is mad at me I’ve done something stupid to them. As a Christian, it’s on me to apologize if I did something that personally attacked you as an individual.” Just so we’re clear, it was certainly possible that I had met him and was a jerk. I am an idiot, often. (It will not be difficult for you to find some way that I have been a hypocrite.) But as it turned out, I hadn’t, which he confirmed when he responded and continued to tell me how lame I am. We hadn’t met. We hadn’t talked on the phone. We hadn’t texted. We hadn’t skyped. But the dirty thrill of the Internet is that it gives you the opportunity to be mean to people you’ve never met. Why? Well, Jimmy Kimmel summed it up nicely. “In person people are nice, because you can punch them in person. Online they’re not nice because you can’t.” If you’re going to write something mean about someone online, at least preface it with, “I have never met this person, talked with them or had any personal engagement with them despite the personal attack I am about to launch.”

3. Just be consistent.

In the first year of writing Stuff Christians Like, I didn’t really understand the difference between mockery and satire. Here’s what I’ve come to 6 years later. The goal of satire is to share humor with a purpose, the goal of mockery is to cause a wound. Mockery always has a victim and sometimes not a point other than pain. Granted, mockery is a fast way to get a laugh. Read some of the old posts on this site, I was definitely writing more from a place of mockery. But what I learned was that mockery is a great shortcut to a laugh now, but it removes your ability to speak in love later. And the love later mattered more to me. (Also, God is pretty clear about his feelings about mockery in the book of Proverbs.) That’s why I try to write about issues, not individuals. When I write about issues, folks show up and have a rich discussion from a lot of different angles. When I write about individuals, sharks show up at the smell of blood in the water. Are you going to make mistakes at this? Sure. But know this, you’ve got a choice. You can attack people or you can love people. Just be consistent.

I hope these tips help if you decide to go deeper into the wondrous world of hypocrisy. Or you can do the opposite and just be kind online. Hopefully, you’ve never even bumped into someone mean online. I know people like that.

I’ll have conversations with friends that go like this:

Me: This guy said something really horrible to me online.

Friend: Just do what I do, ignore it!

Me: You’ve had some haters at some point? On Twitter?

Friend: No, I have about 800 followers and most of them know me personally.

Me: Oh, you have a job that people publically criticize you for? Like being an author, musician, blogger, pastor, etc.?

Friend: No, I’m an accountant.

Me: So then, you’re kind of telling me to do what you do when responding to haters except you don’t have any and haven’t had to ignore a bully since 8th grade?

Friend: Uh, yeah.

The majority of people who try to Frozen me and say, “let it go” with haters never really seem to have any. If you grew up in the desert you wouldn’t tell someone who grew up by the ocean to quit thinking about sharks.

The waters are full these days, I just wish less of them kept telling people they were Jesus fish.

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4 questions everyone should ask.

I recently did a video with Relevant magazine. It’s a quick set of four things everyone needs to review in their lives. (I think the one I’ve had the most reaction to is the last one and it’s a question my dad asked me when I was growing up.)

It’s only 2:32 long but covers everything from social media to relationships.

Enjoy!

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Finally, a church deals with gluttony.

When I saw this typo in a church bulletin I laughed. Mostly because I am not as mature as you. Things like this tickle me.

This isn’t my church. A friend sent this to me and I figured he’d like to remain anonymous. Or not, if he wants to be known I will put his name in here and he can be nonymous. (Pretty sure that’s right.) I also didn’t blank out part of the church’s name because I googled “First Free” and there was 3.7 million responses. If you are able to figure out which church is, congratulations, you are Inspector Gadget.

In my head I immediately thought about what it would mean to have glutton free communion.

It would probably take a special squadron of ushers trained to recognize the classic signs of someone who is about to grab too much communion. The clawed hand like a kid at Halloween scooping out too many treats. The greedy, beady eyes. The nervous laughter and rotating head to make sure no one is watching. The ushers would swoop in and …what? What would they do? My heart tells me “taser” but that seems too violent. And I recently took some heat for writing about violence.

Maybe they’d come in with sanctified squirt guns ablaze, showering that glutton in discount orange drink from youth group. Maybe they’d punish the offenders, sentencing them to church jail or as you might know it “volunteering at VBS.”

Hard to say, how do you imagine a church enforcing glutton free bread?

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Watching HBO and R-rated movies but only if the content is violent.

A few months ago, my friend asked me a question, “How come we Christians get upset about the nudity in the show ‘Game of Thrones,’ but not at the violence? How come I haven’t heard anyone protest the idea that a little kid got thrown out of a window? On purpose.”

Great question and I should have referred him to page 18 in the Stuff Christians Like book. It pretty much explained it.

For Christians, we think it’s completely okay to watch R-Rated movies and HBO programs, but only if they got that rating because of violence. If they’re rated R because someone is getting their head cut off or there’s a wedding battle so gory that blood splashes on the camera lens, don’t worry. God’s cool with that. However, if the movie is rated R because of sexuality … well, I hope you enjoy your fold-out couch bed in hell. It’s gonna be a hot one, my friend. A hot one, indeed.

I’m not sure where this rule came from, but it’s true. Not only do Christians watch violent R-rated movies, we’ll quote them from the pulpit, build sermon series around them and even show clips of them during service. I call it the “Braveheart rule” and my theory is that it’s because of the Old Testament.

Have you read the Old Testament lately? It’s hardcore. Samson smashes people in the head with a donkey jawbone. A priest runs a spear through two people having sex. David carries Goliath’s head around like a bowling ball. It’s violent. I think that some Christians read that and assume, “Cool, God’s down with some wanton violence. R-rated movies, here we come!”

But if there’s any nudity, if a single nipple makes a cameo at any point, forget it. Throw that piece of nonsense in the trash. That is horrible.

That’s what makes Game of Thrones so frustrating for Christians. It’s got gobs of violence. Author George RR Martin kills characters like I kill beats. But, because it’s on HBO there’s also tons of nudity. HBO is the kind of channel that even does background nudity, where even during the main dialogue between two characters there are people in the background of the scene nude, seemingly for no reason whatsoever.

It’s a real pickle.

At the end of the day though, don’t forget this.

You can wait until they show the 37 minute long edited version on TBS.

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Sometimes you only get 4 words.

Sometimes it feels like God is quiet. I want paragraphs of conversation and tweet length thoughts don’t even come through. It’s during these moments that I tend to run into people that tell me God is talking entire phone books of information to them.

Like the guy I’ve mentioned before who played a song at church in Birmingham. I asked him if he wrote it. He said, “No, God did.” Fantastic. That didn’t feel condescending at all. My friend is a musician and sometimes people will tell him, “God gave me this song for you.” The songs are usually horrible and my friend thinks to himself, “God probably gave it to you because he didn’t want it. Angels prefer to sing good songs.”

But there are moments of quietness in our lives and its interesting to see in the Bible that other people had similar moments.

In 1 Samuel 23, David and his men are hiding from Saul when they hear that the Philistines are attacking Keilah. Against the wishes of his men, David leads his army into Keilah to defeat the Philistines. Saul figures that with David and his men tired from their battle and trapped inside the walls of Keilah, now is the perfect time to attack. David learns of Saul’s plans and tells his priest, “Bring the ephod.” He cries out:

“O Lord, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, tell your servant.”

Sometimes I feel guilty about asking God specific questions but David is detailed here. God’s answer to the question will Saul come down?

“He will.”

The verse continues “Again David asked, ‘Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?’”

God’s answer?

“They will.”

Forget for a moment that certain death is marching toward David. Forget that the people he’s just saved are going to turn him over as soon as that certain death arrives.

At this point in the story there are 600 adrenaline drunk, battle beaten men trapped inside the walls of a city that is not their own. The streets were littered with the dead, the doors and windows of every home shut.

David reaches out to God for a message. Surely God has some deep, possibly detailed thoughts about this situation. Surely he has instructions for David.

But all God does to break that silence is give David four words. He will. They will. So often I demand more words than that from God just to motivate myself to get out of bed. David had four. With four words he had to motivate 600 men to flee. Have you ever tried to motivate six people to choose a restaurant for dinner?

Verse 12 ends “And the Lord said, “They will.” Verse 13 begins with “So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and kept moving from place to place.”

Where was the analysis? Between verse 12 and 13, where was the wrestling and triple checking and months of prayer? There wasn’t any. In the space of a verse, David left and in doing so saved the lives of his men and the entire city, for the second time.

Next time I find myself asking God for detailed instructions I should instead ask him for the wisdom to hear the four words he does give me and the courage to act on them.

Question:

We’ve talked about the quietness of God before on this blog, is that something you can relate to?

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