Hey Christian: Is the Whole World Bad?

Posted on by sirbunch

Andy Bunch

We need to decide if we believe the world is basically bad or basically good. As Christians we have a ton of bible verses, especially in the Old Testament that would indicate that the world is most assuredly evil. 

I’ve heard Christians say things like, the world belongs to the devil. I certainly can’t defend all the wrong doing, greed, and selfishness we encounter on a daily basis, but I think this is a really important point and we Christians get ourselves into a lot of trouble when we sort of skim through the instructions on topics like this. It hides prejudices we apply to others which they use as an excuse to hate us and the God we represent. 

But Andy, if the Bible says the world is evil then it is, right?

Well, yes, but is that all it says? 

1st where do we get the idea the world is evil. We know the world is fallen. We know the world is one of three things we Chrisians battle in spiritual warfare, but the other two are Satan and our own flesh. We don’t have a problem saying our own flesh is a little nuanced. Satan is clearly evil and in my opinion, beyond redemption, but my flesh is something to be circumcised from the new me in Christ. So is the world something to be redeemed or something beyond redemption? 

We need to answer this question because it determines who we are fighting. We’re told that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with spirits and principalities (Eph. 6:12-13).

Where do we get the idea that the world is beyond redemption? 

Frankly it serves organized religion, past and present, to keep people focused on Salvation as a get out of jail free card. One day we’ll go to heaven and our suffering will end forever, right? Yes, except we don’t spend eternity in heaven. Jesus brings us back to a new Earth. I won’t take time to proof text poker that one out, but it’s one of the top bad three bad theologies believed by most Christians that’s crippling our transformation and our ability to take up our purpose. (Two others are the rapture and believing that humans are only body and soul, ignoring the Spirit.)

The truth is that all of nature groans in eager expectation for the Sons and Daughters of God to be revealed. Not so we can tell them how wicked they are, but so we can lead them to the feet of God as an act of worship. 

They don’t follow you if you aren’t blessing them. How do you bless something you think is unredeemable? 

How you see people:

I think seeing the world as fallen and without any good has more to do with ourselves than biblical teaching. 

Most people either believe others are better than them, worse than them or about the same. We do this with God too, by the way. I think the modern Christian willingness to write off everyone who doesn’t philosophically align with them comes from a similar life lens, so baked in as to be an unconscious bias. 

Not since Calvin came up with predestination (which can’t be disproven BTW) have humans been so eager to embrace a superiority complex. Let me tell you my story and this will make more sense. 

How I started pondering this:

I woke up a few weeks ago hearing God say, “everyone who knows me is your brother or sister and everyone who doesn’t know me is your friend.” 

I had to ponder this and it led me on an awesome wild goose chase. 

I remember when I reconnected to God after my father died. I’d been raised a Christian but I didn’t get serious until my father died and my pain was so great I couldn’t do anything until I asked God to be my father.  When I asked that and God affirmed that he would, he showed me all the times in my life he’d pursued me. Like a movie, my life flashed before my eyes and he pointed out all the times when I was living in depravity and he’d sent me encouragement or guidance. 

If God was pursuing me when I was out of relationship with him, does God pursue everyone, even those he knows won’t ever choose him? 

I believe so. Its in God’s nature to love. He is love. He created Adam and Eve knowing they’d fall and his son would have to pay the price. 

We know Jesus endured the cross for the glory set before him (Heb. 12:2) and that he died for us when we were not his friends (Romans 5:8). 

We also know we are saved by Grace (Ephesians 2:8). So can God apply Grace to someone who hasn’t accepted it? There are Christians who will say yes. I’m not sure I’m going that far, but there is more going on here than the religion I was raised in represents and I’m determined to look at the details with God’s help before coming to a conclusion. 

Many people have wrestled with questions about the salvation of babies that aren’t born, or remote tribes that never heard the Gospel. I don’t have answers that can be proven, only my own beliefs based in part on who I know God to be. 

But regardless of how God applies grace in those circumstances, the question at hand is more about how we treat people now, not where they’ll end up. 

Ask yourself the question this way:

We don’t have a problem with the idea that God is love and unchanging before the Earth fell, and we don’t have a problem with any of that after the world is restored at the end of time. But isn’t there a ton of confusion about it all in this time of paradox. 

Adam and Eve sinned, and died for it, but not right away. Even in that moment of failure and judgment, there was restraint. God made a way. He knows the end from the beginning and exists outside time. Christ was crucified while God was forming the first couple out of earth and giving them dominion over it. 

1 John 4:7-12 says…

 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

That’s a lot to digest. I notice it doesn’t say our love is contingent on their salvation. We don’t know whether or not they are saved. God does. Does that mean God doesn’t love the ones that aren’t saved? This is a tough thing to ponder.

Grace

Graham Cooke says,”Grace is the power to work in the opposite of the natural.” 

What if it’s not about their status in Christ, but ours. If we are saved by the blood of Christ, then we need to apply to them the fullness of Grace, not from our own strength, but as a conduit of God’s ability to love them.

I know some of you think I’m conflating “the world” and “the yet-unsaved people of this world.”

Am I though? 

We Christians give ourselves a lot of false grace when we say, “I’m just a sinner saved by Grace.” 

This is more than just “hate the sin and love the sinner.” The worldly institutions that we see clearly in the unsaved are also at work in us. It’s hard to see the people and not the worldly ideology driving them. When the world looks at us they recognize it in us. They think we’re just uppity sinners. Sometimes it’s true. 

When I drive by two demonstrations, one in front of an abortion clinic and another in front of a prolife clinic I do see a lot more peace in the first. I see a level of transformed soul. But I can’t fault someone for saying, “I see two groups of angry people trying to force their will on others.” 

No cats were harmed in the writing of this blog…

Is this a cosmic version of Schrodinger’s cat? If you’re not familiar the scientist/philosopher proposed that if you put a cat in a box with no way out and poison, you didn’t know if the cat was alive or dead until you open the box. This meant that both possibilities existed in that moment. The cat was alive and dead in a manor of speaking. 

He didn’t do the experiment, by the way, it was a thought experiment. 

If we say that everyone on Earth is under God’s mercy and anyone who chooses to be is under God’s grace, I assume we’re all okay with that statement. 

Of course there are distinctions between our trust level with people we philosophically align with versus people who are perpendicular to our own values and worldview. There is a difference between a brother and a friend, but we can’t automatically say one is more reliable than the other.

For me, I come away from all this pondering valuing the idea that we’re all under God’s mercy and some of us are also under grace. I repent of seeing us and them. It’s all us, functionally. 

Feel free to disagree with me. Let me know. Use the contact me form or reply to this post. 

Until next time…

Journey Plan: True-Up/Sharp Ax

Posted on by sirbunch

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(Note: This Journey Plan addresses this Seasons plan to clean up loose ends and gain effectiveness. )

Welcome…

Not unlike the HouseFix Journey, this will list a lot of things I need to do. I’m also hoping that by explaining my reasoning you might get insight into my organizing system, which will be a subject of a journey and ebook in 2019. Sharp Ax/True-Up might seem a strange name for a journey, but it’s one of those cool combined action efforts, like the Eve & AM Journey. It’s actually short for four concepts that fit together so interconnectedly that it’s easier to track them together.

Sub-Categories:

  1. Sharp Ax – things I do to automate or improve efficiency
  2. LEARN – seeking out more understanding, more skills, better ways
  3. True-Up – Leftover or undone items needed to finish a project
  4. Finish Strong – The other 1/5th of the project that’s hard to do

What it is:

We can’t just do things to improve our lives, we need to also improve our methods of improving ourselves. Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying something like, “if I had three hours to chop down a tree I’d spend the first two hours sharpening my ax.” That’s what inspired the name of that sub-category. If you take a course on speed reading, for example, you’d save time on everything you do every day, especially the process of learning. (I intend to take a course by Ben Levi on Udemy called, Become a Super Learner very soon.)

LEARN is actually one of my strengths and also a lifelong addiction of mine. I simply don’t feel right if I’m not ingesting new information.

The Big Difference between True-Up and Strong Finish…is nuanced. True-up is something God has put on my heart this season. I tend to get frustrated with a lack of progress and complain to God that I’m not making progress. God asks if I’m really out of actions I can take. It’s humbling to realize that I’m begging God for step 5 and 6, actually throwing a tantrum and refusing to take steps 1 thru 4 until He shows me the whole plan. Well, this category is for things the steps I can take.

Strong Finish relates to a core concept/desire I have for the Cleric Path. It’s something Mike Q. Pink calls spontaneous wealth. Most creative types get what I’m about to say, but I’ll try to explain. When you get a flash of brilliance that transcends what you could do in your own power. Most of us live our lives in a way that is too busy to even record those epiphanies much less take action on them. I call them Blessons, (Blessings + lessons) and I’m determined to take advantage of them.

What I’ve learned in trying to set aside time for these Blessons is that I tend to capture and use about 80% (4/5ths) of it before life rends me away. Finish strong is about being faithful to complete the remaining 1/5th in order to really receive what God is handing out.

 

The List So Far:

Sharp Ax – things I do to automate or improve efficiency

Laptop Clean up (renew virus protection, clean up junk files, esp pics in DBox etc)

Mobile office: incorporate my tablet so office/writing functions are more portable

LEARN – seeking out more understanding, more skills, better ways

Udemy class on balancing the endocrine system – current (link for more info)

 

True-Up – Leftover or undone items needed to finish a project

Laptop Clean up, delete old desktop notes & add new–(mission/vision/values/battle/message, etc. )

Finish Strong – The other 1/5th of the project that’s hard to do

Pea Gravel project in the backyard

Water heater run off

Make Daughter’s tablet kid-friendly

 

More to come…

 

Edited this far

Steps I’ll take and What I’m hoping God will do

While watching a kids show with my daughter, I heard a character mention mechanical advantage as connected to incremental efforts. It hit me like a rhino at full speed. Part of the reason change is difficult for us is that we need to know we’re working on grand things, but we’re seldom able to do more than just crawl to the next line. We’ve lost sight, well, I’ve lost sight, of the nobility inherent to surviving against all odds.

It’s not just the knight in shining armor who makes victory in a battle. It’s usually the human cockroach who knows how to keep himself and his friends alive through impossible odds that end up doing all the fighting on the front line.

My point here is that most of my victories didn’t result from my excellence as much as my obstinance. Most of the finish lines I’ve crossed in life weren’t danced across, they were crawled across or stumbled over.

I want that leverage that comes from focusing on the next step. I believe that one thing that will help is celebrating the ugly wins. Getting excited over the tiny victories. The same God who can give me peace in a storm can give me joy over the underwhelming successes.

 

Any resources I’m leaning on God to help with

God’s got to come through with joy.

Specific places I predict challenge (prayer requests)

I’ve got to remember that there is no negativity in God and no matter how busy I am, nothing is more important than fighting the battle over my attitude.

Estimated Start Date: Underway.

About ‘This Season’ Planning

Posted on by sirbunch

Spring

This is the first “This Season Plan” I’ve posted on online. It’s the first I’ve done since moving most of my thought processing onto the website. (Putting this online is experimental, and I’m not sure I’ll continue after this one.) I’ve done quite a few since inventing the process about 10 years ago. So let me start with a brief explanation.

Metadata & Marginalia

I’ve alluded to this document before. It’s one of my “Master Docs.”

Have you ever gotten stuck in your own head while trying to sort your thoughts? I get it all the time. Back in the day before programs like Scrivener began to include associated metadata, we writers had to create documents with information about the information we were trying to create.

That’s the best way to explain. We knew things about characters that hadn’t been written yet. We needed to track location descriptions because places change over time. We needed sometimes to keep track of where items are at certain points or bits of information that the reader knows but some characters don’t. We had other documents for research, and still others to track changes made on the fly. For example, I could decide to eliminate a character entirely from the rest of the book and have to leave myself a note to scrub him out of previously drafted chapters on the first revision.

Collating this support material is a going concern, but nothing is worse than trying to keep it all in your head while trying to draft a book. Once I figured out what worked for my writing, I started applying similar techniques to my efforts to build character and become a better human being. I’m writing the novel of my life every day, and it requires metadata and marginalia.

Types of Master Documents:

Most Master Docs are “living docs,” meaning I’ll continue to revise them to keep them up to date. Sometimes I call these Policy Docs because the goal is to record my vision for something and to provide continuity.

Some Master Docs, like “this season” are serial by nature. They speak to a period of time and I expect to replace them a few times a year.

About This Season Planning:

I used to include a lot of specific marching orders in my season plans, but that stuff now tends to land in my current journeys list. The main goal of This Season Doc is to ask God what he’s trying to accomplish in me this season. In looking over some of my older docs I realized how deeply personal this can be, which is why I’m not sure I’ll continue to post these online, but…

  • I need at least one example so that those following along can know what I refer to periodically.
  • I think this season can be shared without getting too awkward.
  • Since I’m posting my Journey list and Journey Plans it will really help to see the stage of processing I use to settle on those.

Note: Don’t get mislead when I include the word “Spring” in the name. I tend to create two to three of these a year and they don’t line up with the physical seasons perfectly. (I always think there should be four but it doesn’t happen). So I name them after the part of the year that I start realizing that I’m transitioning into a new season.

The Reason New Seasons is Crucial to Growth & Breakthrough

Because God is a father. He is loving and kind and nurturing too, but He longs to Father us. How many times did Jesus complain about the disciples not getting it? Comments like, you haven’t gotten off the spiritual milk to the spiritual meat yet. The Father initiates His children. He’s about growth and breakthrough. We’re told He won’t give us what we can’t handle, but I firmly believe that’s a misquote. I think it says, He won’t give us what HE can’t handle.

I recognize a new season coming because I become aware of thoughts and behaviors in me that indicate I’m outside His stream of abundance.

  • Am I making decisions out of fear, anger, or revenge?
  • Am I avoiding something I think will be unpleasant even though I believe it’s important?
  • Am I disconnecting from God so I don’t have to hear Him tell me what I don’t want to hear?
  • Am I overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed or stuck in a rut?

These are classic signs of double-mindedness, a classic double bind situation, and disconnection from God.

Here’s what the hampster wheel looks like–I want a changed circumstance, so I ask God for it. I’m not actually able to receive what I want because of an unhealed wound in my heart, so God asks to heal my wound. When God draws attention to my wound I feel inadequate and ashamed. I get frustrated that I haven’t accomplished it in my own strength. I hear the enemy use that wound to accuse me of being the product of it. I make an agreement that a God who loves me wouldn’t agitate that wound. I perceive God as bad because I believe pain and risk are inherently bad.

All this stems from my lack of understanding the process of being fathered. I have to trust in God’s goodness (the Primacy of God) if I’m to let him make me someone able to receive what I deeply desire. So my lack of trust leads to hiding from God. I make myself busy. If He gives me a vision of my life with that desire fulfilled I try to make it happen myself. I’m like a shattered mug in search of coffee, empty and exhausted.

All our negative circumstances are symptoms of unhealed places in our hearts.

 

New Season Plan Template:

New Season Spring 2018

May 2018

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”— Isaiah 43:16, 18-19 (NIV)

Current Situation:

A brief outline of what I’m sensing, or how I’m feeling. What am I frustrated with?

Seasons Recap:

I usually cut/paste the results from the previous season. A quick review of it can be very helpful.

Bringing it all Together:

What would I do if fear weren’t a factor? What is God saying about my circumstances? What am I procrastinating about instead of doing? Is there an unrealistic obligation I’m holding myself responsible for? Should I trash it, do it, or renegotiate it to a better time?

Daily Battle:

  1. Choose the light side of the paradox. (Declare God is Good and actively showing me His favor.)
  2. Declare who God says I am. (New you in Christ)
  3. List 3 – 5 things I can do, even if I can’t see how they’ll fix things.

Who is God being for me this season? I’m built in his image, what part of His Glory is He restoring in me this season? If I reimagine my circumstances as part of a redemptive plan, what’s God trying to accomplish with them? Is there a theme to it all? What gift or superpower would result from me being healed?

The New Season:

A) Looking at the crossroads of my answers above, what do I feel God is saying right now about this season?

B) What outliers did I think of during this process? What things did God speak to that I wanted to ignore because I couldn’t see where they fit in?

Note: In my experience, the way forward either comes from group A or group B. Don’t be afraid if its group B. God might be addressing things in a roundabout way. It’ll be more effective to follow the wild goose than to force this to fit your expectations.

 

The Question of God’s Goodness

Posted on by sirbunch

The Question of God’s Goodness

You may have noticed that I don’t differentiate between God’s power and His goodness. I have a whole section on God’s goodness coming up, but, for the left-brained among us, here’s a quick paragraph.

sunset-2754909_1920Good and bad are generally relative terms. What’s good for me is good and what’s bad for me is bad. I’m not personally a big fan of any kind of moral relativism, but in this case, it’s true. If you’re all powerful then what you say is good/bad becomes the standard for anyone else who isn’t all powerful, which is everyone. If you are all-knowing then you know what is Good/Evil and can choose to abide by it or not. Therefore, if you are both you need only decide if you’re selfish or selfless. Will you act in your own self-interest or will you uphold a universal right/wrong even if it causes you harm? If you are all powerful then you can accomplish your desires despite any constraints, so why would you violate the right/wrong standard?

This dips a little bit into those unanswerable questions like, can God make a rock so big that He can’t lift it? Except, that in this case, we have an example that gives us an answer. Sin. So many people are angry at God because of the wages of sin when in fact the fall of mankind proves that God doesn’t force anyone to behave. The fact that He created humans knowing we’d fall speaks to His character also.

He’s willing to sacrifice himself, heroically, to restore things to what he intended. He doesn’t have to avoid making humans, because he has a solution. All knowing combined with all-powerful equals always accomplishing goals. Therefore, God has no motive to be anything but good because abiding by any laws doesn’t prevent him from doing or having anything. It does, however, cause him pain. He suffered to restore us because He loves us, and therefore He’s selfless. Therefore He is good.

Grace and the Wild Goose

Posted on by sirbunch

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The State of Grace

When I first came back to a relationship with God through Christ. I was told that mercy was NOT getting what you deserve, and grace was getting what you don’t deserve. That definition worked for me for a time.

Ultimately, two different mentors of mine pointed out that Grace can’t be undeserved favor because Jesus deserved it. Christ’s death in substitution for us means that we inherit all that was coming to him. We can boldly go before the throne. God is relentless in his pursuit of us and in us God is well pleased. It can be a hard pill to swallow

I now see Grace as a state of being, in which we are free to try things and fail at them. Since its a given that I’m falling short of God’s glory, the only thing that matters is that I’m connected to God as a source of everything good. The process of being connected both obliterates my shortfall but also provides the vehicle for improvement. (2 Cor. 3:18).

Graham Cooke points out that God doesn’t see what’s wrong with us since we are in Christ, he sees what’s missing. He’s seeing awesome journeys that we’re going to take with him.

The Wild Goose

The Celtic Christians are known to have called the Holy Spirit a wild goose. It makes a wild goose chase takes on a different meaning, eh? In fact, even though our concept of a wild goose chase has a negative connotation, I firmly believe that we’re supposed to take them. Often!

In his amazing book, “The Rainforest Strategy,” Mike Q. Pink speaks of spontaneous wealth. He means that some of the best ideas we’re going to have will come in a flash of brilliance. I’ve had dozens of transcendent thoughts that I didn’t have time to do anything with. Worry, fear or just plain being busy have stolen countless brilliance from me that might have transformed my life. (Matt. 18:2-4)

How many times have I gone to God and said, “why don’t you just give me an answer to problem X?” I truth, he probably gave me the answer a week before but I wasn’t in a place to pay attention.

That’s why I Started Blogging

The real reason for doing more with this blog is to shorten the cycle of blessing. I want to have a direct path of good things from God to others. I want to receive all the abundance God wants to give me and do something with it. In the process, I will be transformed.

What I’ve learned is that God is truly generous in his outpouring and relentless in his pursuits. If you feel like you lack the resources to do something or you desperately want a different circumstance the answer is deceptively simple.

Everything good comes from God and nothing good exists that didn’t come from God. (James 1:17)

2 Corinthians 3:18 paints a pretty good picture of life when you’ve come out from under the law. What if it’s not just the religious law that sin is death. What if it’s everything we consider to be a rational truth?

What if ‘last place’ is really ‘first place’? What if you have to give away your life to find it? What if stillness (rest) is the way to accomplish more than running faster or working harder?

What if hitting every red light is the best way to drive to work today?

What if the lawn mower broke because you don’t need to mow?

What if the best thing you did today is the genuine smile you gave your barista?

What if the person who annoys you most thinks you’re their best friend?

What if we aren’t qualified to know what we ought to be working on today? What if all the urgent things you must do today aren’t worth you’re time at all? What if the best use of your time today is a wild goose chase?