Michael Kelley's Blog, page 45

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. 3 Simple Ways to Flatten Your Neighbor

It’s easy these days to try and force people into categories – flatten them – without really knowing them.

2. You Don’t Need to Discover God’s Will

We need to walk in God’s revealed will and entrust the unknown to Him.

3. 3 Things God Will Never Do With Your Sin

Because He has dealt with our sin, we can trust that God will not deal with us according to our sin, repay us according to our iniquities, or count iniquities against us.

4. How Hard is Olympic Curling?

I know you think you can do it. So do I. But could we really?

3 Reasons Wandering from the Faith Begins with Wandering from the Church

Sometimes when you read the Bible, you get caught on a single verse. Sometimes a single word. You read it, and you’re hung up – you can’t move on. Maybe it’s because that word strikes an emotional chord. Maybe that word stirs up and stokes your affections. Maybe you just sense that this small section requires further reflection.

That’s an okay thing. Scripture is not meant to be rushed through, but instead to be thought deeply upon. Savored. Cherished.

And yet, it’s helpful even in those moments to zoom out after a time and remember a few other details. It’s important to remember, for example, who wrote the book to begin with. And who the audience was originally intended for. And this – it’s important to remember the overall purpose or main idea of that particular book of the Bible. Here are a couple of examples (all up for debate I’m sure):

Genesis is about who God is, and who we are in light of who He is.Luke is about a Savior who came to seek and to save the lost.Acts is about the Spirit-empowered church fulfilling its mission.

One more example, for the purpose of this article, is the book of Hebrews. So what is Hebrews mainly about? Well, it’s about faith – we see the “Faith Hall of Fame” in Hebrews 11. And it’s about the power and primacy of God’s Word as seen in Hebrews 4. But what is it mainly about? I think you could summarize it like this:

Hebrews is about continuing in the faith because Jesus is better. Hebrews tells us that Jesus is better than Moses. He’s better than the angels. He’s better than Melchizedek. And because He is, we should continue in the faith. We should persevere, no matter how difficult. When you come to understand this main idea, it helps to see how the individual commands and exhortations fit.

Under that banner of perseverance in light of the greatness of Jesus, you find a very simple command, and yet one that is being abandoned rapidly today:

“And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:24-25).

Contemporary translation? Don’t stop going to church. And how does that fit with the main idea of Hebrews? Like this:

Wandering from the church leads to wandering from the faith.

Sounds kind of extreme, doesn’t it? After all, we’ve all got busy schedules. We’ve all got competing priorities. We have travel ball, dance recitals, lake trips, and all the rest. Surely it doesn’t mean that I’m wandering from the faith just because my church attendance has started to wane, does it? Perhaps it does. And perhaps it means we should be careful, if indeed it’s true that wandering from the faith often begins with wandering from the church. Here are three reasons to consider to support such a claim:

1. When we leave the church, we stop being reminded.

Over and over again in Scripture, you find God telling His people to “remember.” Remember the Sabbath. Remember how you provoked God in the wilderness. Remember, I am with you always. These are commands – not suggestions – and they come because we are by nature forgetful people.

But God is kind to us, and He knows even better than we do how forgetful we are of who He is and what He has done. CS Lewis knew this and once remarked, “People need to be reminded more than instructed.” More times than not when we come to Scripture or gather together with the saints, we aren’t there to learn; we are there to remember. There is, after all, nothing new under the sun, but just because it’s not new doesn’t mean it’s at the top of our minds.

When we start to neglect going to church, we are also stopping the regular rhythm of being reminded of who God is, what He has told us to do, and who we are in light of Him.

2. When we leave the church, we embrace self-reliance.

Part of the reason we go to church is because we need to. We need to because we know we are weak. We know we need other people. And we know that other people need us. This is at least part of the reason behind the biblical metaphor of the body Paul used to describe the church. To keep with that metaphor, can you imagine the pride of a leg thinking (if a leg could do that) that it could just go off and have a sustainable experience without the rest of the body?

In a sense, that’s exactly what we are doing when we stop going to church. We are saying, “I don’t need this. I don’t need you. I only need me.” And there we find ourselves on the slippery slope of pride, which inevitably leads us not only to neglect the church, but to neglect the authority of God. When there is only me, then I’m the only one I have to obey.

3. When we leave the church, we create a gap.

God made us to live in community. It’s in our DNA. This is at least part of what it means to be created in the image of God – that just as God exists in perfect community with Himself, so also are we created to live in relationships with other people. When we cut ourselves off from the community of faith, we create a gap, and that gap is going to be filled somehow. With someone. Or something.

This is a dangerous place to be – to leave ourselves open to whatever influence tickles our emotions and fancy at the moment, and to simply embrace that thing or person because there’s no one else there. The gap is going to be filled, one way or another, with something that helps us follow Jesus or something that doesn’t.

We must not, if we want to persevere in the faith, abandon the church. We must keep going… to keep going. The church is God’s gift to us – each one of us – not so that we have a perfect experience there, but because we are weak, and we really do need the help.

3 Things You Might Be Mistaking for Love

I love my children. I love my wife. But then again, I also love hot dogs and a good steak. I love to go to the movies, and I love to read fiction when it’s raining. When you stop and think about it, it’s pretty astounding the number of contexts and amount of times we use the word “love.” Think about it yourself – how many times have you said that 4-letter word today alone?

I’m not arguing that we need to discontinue using the word. I am arguing, however, that the context in which we use it might show us what we really believe love is. And to go further, it’s likely, given our prolific use of the word, that we might have at best a misunderstanding and at worst a dilution of what “love” actually means.

What if we did that? What if we started to trace back the times and the objects of the word itself, and then based on that tracing alone, tried to compose a definition of love? What would we find? My guess is that we would find at least three things that we regularly mistake for love:

1. Entertainment.

We are in the habit of saying we “love” the things that entertain us. That make us laugh, or make us cry, or just capture our attention for a little while. In other words, we “love” that which inspires a feeling in us.

That’s not all bad, because loving does involve genuine affection for another. But a larger part of love is not based on temporal feelings, but rather on decisions made over and over again to seek the good of another over and above your own. If we only love based on the feeling we get from a person or thing, then that love is really only a sappy sense of sentimentality.

God, though, loves us not because we are entertaining to Him, and not merely because we stir up some sense of emotion in us. His love for us is based in and of Himself, for He is love. If we are His children, then we must make the choice to love those who do not entertain, inspire, or create good temporal feelings in us at all.

2. Utility.

We might also regularly mistake love for utility. That is, we “love” that which serves us or meets some need in us. We “love” a person who makes us feel good, or “love” a person who brings us physical pleasure, or “love” a person who raises our own reputation because we are around them. There is love represented here, but in the end, it’s really love of ourselves.

When we mistake love for utility, we assign value to other image-bearers of God based on what they can bring to us. We want people around us who can increase our pleasure, increase our power, increase our money, or any other number of things. The question at the heart of this mistaken view of “love” is this: What can relating to this person get me? And so we objectify others, all for the sake of our own personal gain.

God, though, does not love us for our utility, for He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything. God loves us despite the fact that we were rebels to His goodness and kingdom; He loves us even in our efforts to rob Him of all that is due His name. In fact, real love is about self-sacrifice rather than self-actualization.

3. Affirmation. 

Finally, we might be mistaking love for affirmation. In this view, we think loving someone means always agreeing with them. So we love the people who always affirm all our life choices, and we put ourselves in the kind of relationships where we never confront or disagree with someone else.

Oh sure – we tell ourselves all kinds of things to justify this behavior – it’s not my place to say, we don’t relate to each other like that, they won’t listen to me – but in the end, it’s simply a refusal to either listen to or speak the truth.

Love is not the same thing as affirmation. Love lives in the sphere of truth, because when we love someone we are committed to seeking their good even if it means saying difficult things to them. This is what God does for us – He tells us the truth about ourselves even when we are unwilling or unable to see that truth on our own.

Love – or at least the word – is all around us. But in many cases, both in us and in the rest of the world, it’s simply affirmation, entertainment, or utility masquerading as true love. If we want the truth about love, the only option for us is to return to the source, for:

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 Jn. 4:11).

3 Ways a Leader Can Take the Temperature of the Environment They’re Leading

My family will tell you that I’m a thermostat control freak. I have a day marked on my calendar when I have arbitrarily determined it’s acceptable to flip on the air conditioning or the heater, depending on the season. And even when those systems come on, they’re never set quite how my family would prefer.

They’d sure like the AC to flip on before it gets to be 76 degrees, and they’d probably enjoy the heater coming on before it gets to 65. Thing is, though, I like it just fine. I actually get quite a bit of satisfaction when I’m sweating in our living room, or when I’m bundled up at the kitchen table. It makes me feel tough; it makes me feel frugal (Notice I said frugal. Not cheap. Can I get an amen from the dads out there?)

But even as I write this, I’m realizing that those under my care don’t have the same sensibilities I do. I have created an environment in the home that I like, appreciate, and enjoy, but those within the environment I’ve created might not be having the same reaction. Sure, I can simply dismiss their feelings and keep the thermostat the way I like it, but as a leader in the home I would do well to “take the temperature” of my family to see how they’re responding to the temperature of our home.

It’s a bit of a silly illustration, but the principle is strong I believe. When you find yourself in a leadership role, whether in an organization, a small group, or a home, there is a certain temperature you have created in that environment. As godly leaders, we are not only responsible for setting the temperature; we are responsible for knowing how the temperature we have set is affecting those who have to live inside of it.

When you take the temperature, you are making sure that you have not done something detrimental to the people living in it. You are humbly acknowledging that the culture you have intentionally created is having its desired effect, which is moving people closer and closer to Jesus. And you are also acknowledging that you are not the ultimate authority, and that like any other human, you might have made a mistake and created an environment that is having unintended consequences.

So how can you take the temperature inside of the environment you lead? I would suggest at least three ways:

1. Listen.

Most of the time, people who sit in your environment are talking. Many times it’s the easiest thing in the world to become so convinced that you’re right, your decisions are valid, that you purposely choose not to listen to those who are speaking. But if you really want to know the temperature of the environment you’ve created, you’ve got to make sure your ears are open.

Of course, when you’re listening to others, you must also be listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. That’s because not every voice you hear will be right or even helpful. So through the wisdom that only God will provide, you and I must learn who and what to listen to, and when is the right moment to take heed.

2. Observe.

Let me go back to the illustration of our home. It’s possible that my sweet wife knows by now that I like the thermostat set at a certain temperature. And though she might not like it that way, she has decided in her godly heart to not press the issue; instead, she has decided to wear a scarf and gloves to the dinner table.

Many times observation is an even more helpful method of taking the temperature than listening. That’s because people always communicate even when they’re not speaking. They communicate through their body language, their gestures, and even the indirect questions they ask. Watch; observe; take note; people will tell you what the temperature is even when they don’t tell you what the temperature is.

3. Ask.

Of these three, this is the most obvious, but it’s also the one I think we do the least. We can actually, verbally, ask the question. Why don’t we do this more?

I would posit it’s because we already know what the answer is, and we don’t want to really hear it. That’s because when we do, we have to react to what we suspect but are unwilling to admit to ourselves. This is a humbling thing; it means we may have to adjust the “perfect plan” we had in place, and it means we have to admit that we, too, make mistakes.

But in those moments, we would do well to ask ourselves whether we would rather live with an illusion or pursue a better future? We can actually find someone we trust, someone we know will tell us the truth, and actually ask the question.

If you find yourself in a leadership role, friends, be it of an organization, church, group, or something else, don’t be afraid to take the temperature of the environment you are stewarding. Don’t be so married to your good intentions that you fail to embrace reality.

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. The Grace of Warning

We find warnings all over the Bible. We should not only pay attention to them; we should see them as an expression of God’s grace and care.

2. The Power of Questions

This is a really good reminder especially for parents, in my opinion. We certainly should “tell” our children, but it’s often more powerful to “ask” our children.

3. Don’t Overlook the First 4 Chapters

The first 4 chapters of the Bible not only introduce everything; in many ways, they explain everything.

4. Historical Pictures of Grocery Stores

This was strangely fascinating to me. Neat look inside how grocery shopping has changed.

4 Truths to Help Battle the Desire for Revenge

Jesus isn’t interested in the minimum. When we have enemies, we might reasonably just try and stay away from them, but Jesus won’t settle for that. He calls us to love them. When we are wondering how many people we reasonably have to love and care for, Jesus won’t settle for that. He calls us to recognize every person in our pathway as a neighbor. When we are wondering just how many of the commands in Scripture reasonably apply to us, Jesus won’t settle for that. He calls us to take up our cross daily and follow Him.

No, Jesus isn’t interested in the minimum of anything. In so many ways, Jesus calls us to the unexpected. Unexpected love, unexpected sacrifice, unexpected loyalty. So it is when we come to the subject of revenge. Here’s how He put it:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matt. 5:38-42).

We might reasonably assume that we can give a little payback here and there to those who have wronged us, but here again Jesus pushes us well beyond the minimum. According to Him, not only should we not pay others back for what they’ve done, but we should so forego our need for revenge that we move into generosity. And boy, that’s a hard thing, because we feel that desire down deep in our souls.

We have been treated unfairly, maligned unjustly, and pushed down unkindly, and someone ought to pay for it. How do we deal with that deep down desire for revenge? We fight it with truth – specifically, with truth about who God is. Here are four such truths to snuff out that flickering flame of vengeance in our hearts:

1. God is active.

Saul had been wreaking havoc on the early church. There was a literal trail of bodies in his wake, and he was just getting wound up. But that all changed with a dramatic encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road and the great enemy of the church became her most ardent advocate.

I’m reminded of how, in those first days after his conversion, the early Christians did not know whether to trust him or not. Who could blame them? The man God called to aid Saul, Ananias, could very easily have exacted some kind of revenge. Instead, he greeted the former persecutor like this: “Brother Saul…” (Acts 9:17).

Ananias chose to believe in the truth of God’s activity – that the Lord of heaven and earth is active in the hearts of sinful humans and might well be turning those hearts to him. We can beat back the need for revenge by remembering that perhaps that person who has so wronged us is on the verge of an encounter with the living and active Jesus.

2. God is just.

“Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19).

According to Paul, we should not take matters into our own hands. It’s not that there’s not justice to be served; there very well might be. But it’s not for you or I to administer it because we aren’t capable of doing so in a true and good and noble way. This belongs to the Lord. When we execute our own sense of vengeance, whether big or small, we are expressing our lack of faith that God can and will do it on His own. We are communicating instead that our way is better. But God is just. Justice will be served, and it will be served in a far better and more appropriate way that we could ever deliver it.

3. God is merciful.

Luke 7 gives us the account of Jesus eating in the home of a Pharisee when an uninvited guest shows up. This woman with a checkered past shows up at the dinner and, in what must have been somewhat of an awkward scene, anointed Jesus with perfume and was weeping enough in His presence to wash His feet with her tears.

Jesus used the scene as a teaching opportunity, acknowledging to the other guests that the woman did indeed have much to be forgiven for. But that was precisely the reason why she was so expressive in her love – it’s because she of all people had a firm grasp on what and how much she had been forgiven.

When we are ready to execute our own revenge on those we think have wronged us, it shows that we have fallen out of touch with just how much we have been forgiven. For what someone has done to us pales in comparison to what we have done against God. Reminding ourselves of God’s mercy, especially as it has been applied to us, dulls that sharp desire for vengeance.

4. God is our advocate.

The older I get the most acutely I feel the compulsion for self-protection in my own heart. I feel the need to protect my stuff, my position, my power, and I am ever more tempted to sacrifice anyone and anything that gets in the way of that. Our desire for revenge exposes this need in our hearts.

When we seek revenge, we show that we do not trust that we have an advocate better than ourselves. We are showing that we must look out for our own interests, our own well-being, because if we don’t protect ourselves then no one will. Conversely, when we release this desire to even the stakes, we are expressing our faith in a God who is not only with us, but for us:

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:31-32).

Friends, if you’re like me, then the desire for revenge is lurking in your heart. Take a moment and confess it to the Lord. But don’t stop there – remind yourself of the activity, justice, mercy, and advocacy of God.

3 Glorious Ways God Exceeds Our Expectations

Under-promise, then over-deliver.

It’s not a bad way to live. You might even argue it’s a wise way to live. If you make it a habit of underpromising and then overdelivering, you build in reasonable expectations for yourself. And you also add a measure of protection for yourself in that rare occasion when you actually can’t overdeliver.

So at work, that’s why you pad the deadline. Or as a parent, you use phrases like “we’ll see.” You are hedging, knowing you can probably do even more than what is asked of you, but you don’t want to be held accountable to that higher standard.

Hmmm… put that way, maybe it’s not such a good way to live. But it’s certainly better than the alternative:

Over-promise, then under-deliver.

That’s far worse. That’s when you really get in trouble. That’s when you develop a reputation as someone who doesn’t keep their word or has unreal expectations of their own abilities and capacity. So that’s not very good either.

Probably best, then, is to just promise and deliver. To have a realistic estimation of what you can do and then always follow through on what you said you would achieve. This is, after all, what we find in God. We don’t find a God who needs to hedge his bets just in case He can’t come through, nor do we find a God who is so weak that He can’t keep His word. We find a God who promises, and then delivers.

And yet – we also find a God that exceeds our expectations:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Eph. 3:20-21).

But how can that be? If God tells us what He’s going to do, and then does what He says, how can He exceed our expectations? The reason, of course, does not lie in God’s ability to make promises or deliver on those promises; the reason our expectations are exceeded is because of us. It’s because we can’t grasp the immensity of these promises, or we misunderstand the nature of these promises, or because we simply can’t believe these promises are real. So even though God tells us the truth, we are still surprised when it actually happens. Here are three specific example:

1. We are more than forgiven.

As Christians we believe that Jesus has taken our punishment on Himself. That in Christ, we have “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Eph. 1:7). That though we deserved eternal punishment, Jesus took our place. But God goes beyond forgiveness. We are not only forgiven; we are adopted:

In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will… (Eph. 1:5).

Not only are we forgiven, but we are brought into God’s family. We are given a seat at His table as co-heirs with Jesus.

2. We have more than peace.

When we hear the word “peace,” we tend to think about it in terms of the negative. That is, that peace means a lack of conflict. And that is true:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ… (Rom. 5:1).

Apart from Christ, we are in conflict with God because of our sin. We are rebels to His kingdom and His righteousness, but in Christ, that conflict is removed. But we have much more than a lack of conflict.

In Old Testament terms, we live in shalom. While that’s the word translated to English as “peace,” it’s so much more than that. Shalom is not just a lack of conflict; it’s wholeness. Completeness. A state in which there is no lack for anything. This is what God brings us into – He doesn’t just remove the conflict; He makes us complete in every way.

3. We have more than provision.

As Christians, we believe God will provide for us. Of course He will. As Jesus told us, if God provides for the birds in the air and the flowers of the field, how will He also not provide for us? We should not worry about tomorrow in light of this provision.

But God provides for us in a way that exceeds our expectations. Not in the sense that He will provide more money, a bigger house, and more lavish possessions though. He provides every single thing we need for something more precious and lasting than earthly wealth and prosperity:

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:3-4).

God provides everything we need to follow Him in godliness. Every single thing. We have the Word. We have the Spirit. We have the church. We have everything He has to offer to help us navigate the perils of this world and come safely into the next one.

This is the goodness and grace and generosity of God. This is our God who exceeds all our expectations.

Don’t Confuse Your Opinion for Your Hope

Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens should be in the Hall of Fame. The California roll is the best sushi roll. In-N-Out is a pretty good burger but nothing to go out of your way for. Ben Affleck is a really good actor. Audio books are the best thing to listen to while exercising or driving.

These are some of my opinions, and I have a lot more of them. I’m happy to share them with you if you’d like, as I’m sure you would with me. We know what we think about food, culture, sports, and host of other things, and most likely the things I think and feel aren’t the same thing that you think and feel. We might even have a vigorous debate on some of these things, but in the end, it’s okay if we think differently.

Because these are opinions.

Once upon a time, we didn’t know what each other thought and felt about everything. In fact, finding out about the opinions of others was one of the main ways we got to know each other. It was only through an actual conversation that we discovered whether you thought coffee was essential or gross, whether the Dodgers were a terrible franchise, or whether you preferred mid-century modern or colonial home styles. But now now.

Now opinions are broadcasted. And once they are, we get to see how popular or unpopular that opinion is based on how many electronic affirmations it receives. Perhaps that proliferation of opinions we now have trouble distinguishing opinions from other things. Like truths.

This is an important distinction to make, perhaps especially for the Christian. An opinion is a matter of taste; it is generated inside of ourselves. From our feelings. Our thoughts. Our tastes. But a truth not based in ourselves; it’s based in an outside source of truth – the Word of God. An opinion answers the question, “What do you think?” while a truth answers the question, “What does the Bible say?”

When we fail to recognize that difference, all kinds of destruction follows. Relationships are destroyed as we berate the intelligence or morality of someone who doesn’t share our opinion which is presented as truth. Credibility is ruined as we further someone else’s opinion presented as truth. And, in the end, hope is corrupted because we end up hoping for the fulfillment of someone’s opinion of what should happen rather than hoping in truth.

This is the real world scenario we are living in right now.

The last two years have revealed many things, but among them is the fervency with which we hold our opinions. We all have opinions about school, about mandates, about church – and we are willing to fight tooth and nail to defend them. In the middle of all that fighting, surely it would profit us to step back and ask ourselves the simple question:

Am I hoping in the fulfillment of my opinion, or am I hoping in something better?

Thing is, when you place your hope in your opinion of how things ought to go out there in the world, disappointment is inevitable. Because when what you think should happen doesn’t happen, you will be crushed. And when what you think should happen actually does happen, you will find that the result is not nearly as satisfying as you thought it might be.

On the other hand, when we recognize our opinions for what they are, then we are free to have our hope unencumbered by lesser things. So what is that hope?

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s lovehas been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Rom. 8:1-5).

Our hope is in the glory of God. The glory of God that come about through all kinds of events, but specifically mentioned here, through the process that actually begins with suffering. Our difficulties and sufferings lead to the rock solid hope in the glory of God because it is through those difficulties that we are stripped of any competing source for hope.

All kinds of things will happen in the world, and both you and I will have our own feelings about them. But let us not confuse our opinions with our hope. Our hope – our real hope – is far better.

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. Discipled by Algorithms

This is very important. Tech is not neutral; it actually alters the way we see the world around us.

2. The Vertical, Horizontal, and Inward Realities of Sin

Sin is never truly isolated, and neither is its damage. Whether we recognize it or not.

3. The Difficult Habit of Quiet

“Quiet” has never been harder to come by. And yet we must seek after it, because this is where God does good work.

4. Arthur is Wrapping Up 25 Years

Wonder what the future holds for the aardvark and his friends that was a favorite in our home? You can find out as the series comes to an end.

Jesus Doesn’t Make Exceptions

Depending on which translation of the book of Matthew you are reading, you will find the word “anyone” appearing in the teachings of Jesus approximately 40 times. The word “everyone” appears an additional 10 times. The word “whoever” shows up around 20 times.

What are we to make of that? At least this:

Jesus doesn’t make exceptions.

Isn’t that interesting? Perhaps especially because we tend to be people who like to think in terms of exceptions. We see that there is a line, but we think there must be a faster way for us. We look and see that there is a process in place, but we think that we can skip a couple of steps here and there. We find there is a checklist to be followed, but we think that we can start in the middle. In short, we are “yeah, but…” kind of people.

We see the rule, or the process, or the procedure, or the system and automatically look for the loophole. As in, “Yeah, this is generally how things work, but not for me.” But based on His extensive use of these all inclusive words, we see that Jesus doesn’t make exceptions.

On the one hand, that can be very troubling. For example:

“Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).

Or…

“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matt. 5:37-42).

“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37-39).There are no loopholes here; no exceptions to be made. This is the word of the Lord for the young and old; the rich and the poor; the powerful and the meek. If we are looking for the “yeah, but” as it applies to us, then we should not look to Jesus, for He does not make exceptions.That might indeed be troubling news for us if we are looking for some kind of opt out clause in following Jesus. But the inclusiveness of Jesus is far more good news than it is bad. Because inasmuch as His “anyone’s” and “whoever’s” apply in this manner, so also do we find them in statements like these:“‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests” (Matt. 22:8-10).We are those “anyone’s” as well – the ones who don’t deserve to be at the banquet. The dirty, the downtrodden, the ones at the end of our ropes. Oh yes, this is the glory of being “anyone,” that “anyone” who knows they should not be invited to that banquet is precisely the “anyone” the master desires to be there.Here again, we see that Jesus doesn’t make exceptions. Thank goodness He doesn’t. And the end of it all is that neither your perceived personal righteousness nor your perverse personal sin is cause for an exception. You may think you are too good to need Jesus, but you are not an exception. And you may think you are too bad to be received by Jesus, and you are not an exception. Jesus plays by the same rules when it comes to each and every one of us. And those rules are these:“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).