Viral Faith

See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:19 Recently, I had a spiritual breakthrough.  It was not that I received a new message or gained new information.  It was perspective regarding the nature of authentic faith.  I believe that God is continually doing new things in our lives and communities.  There is no room for complacency or commonplaceness in following Jesus.  So, if God is creating in us a newness of life, equipping us for new challenges, and sending us new journeys, why is the Christian faith so dull, life-sucking (instead of life-giving), and fear-based in so many people who identify themselves as Christian?  Here are four reasons why we may have misdirected faith: 1. We misunderstand the radicalness of the calling to follow Jesus .  In the Bible, Jesus asked his disciples to follow him. To follow, meant to leave lifestyles, vocations, and even relationships behind to fo...

 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3 It has been said that Jesus' sermon on the mount provides the meat of his ethical system.  It is the sermon that articulates and advocates for a lifestyle that is uniquely counter-cultural and joyfully free.  Its an alternative vision for living, that Jesus simply describes as "the kingdom of God" The world blessed can be loosely translated as "happy" or "fortunate".  It means that because we experience the described state or activities, we are made happy and should count ourselves as fortunate. The initial state of being "poor in spirit" suggests a state of poverty of our souls.  A state of poverty means to be deprived of necessary things.  We recognize the effects of social poverty easily, but poverty of the soul is much more sublime and profound. Poverty of the soul is the state of seeing that you bring nothing to God.  It is the unders...

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans I Corinthians 5:1 I have had the privilege for most of the past 17 years, to train young physicians in both Pediatrics and Family Medicine.  One of the foundational aspects of their training is the establishment for what constitutes "normal".  These young physicians must quickly have an appreciation for the wide range of behaviors and presentations, that are all considered normal.  This is why pediatricians with children have such an immense advantage in their training.  Living with a child allows you to see the good, bad, and the ugly.  It is not until the sense of "normal" is understood, that disease detection and prevention can be applied. What a community affirms as "normal" has a huge impact upon its ability to evaluate its own health, and the health of its members.  We see this vividly in our own cultures where some damaging beha...