What is God up to in the world? Why is God redeeming and rescuing people, communities and the whole earth?
Written by Alice Shirey on 01 September 2014 .
This is a beautiful image - the human soul desiring God and seeking after him with all that is within us. And God, we are promised, wants to be found, and even promises to be found. A strong motivating force.
"So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way around - He is looking for us."
When I find myself feeling far from God, when I am not a very good seeker, when the "far country" I often live in feels too far, I rest in this heart-stopping truth - the God who is called "the hound of heaven" never, ever stops seeking after me.
He never, ever stops seeking after you.
Written by Alice Shirey on 02 September 2014 .
In the Old Testament, a trio of people are often cited as deserving special protections from God and God’s people … The fatherless, the widow, the orphan. Often, the foreigner is added to this list.
God knew these people were at risk in the society of the Old Testament … at risk to be marginalized, neglected, oppressed, victimized, even killed.
And so God commanded his people to take special care of these particular people in their midst. He gave special commandments, even made special rules that protected them, gave them chances to enter mainstream society again, helped them escape the noose of generational poverty, protected them from oppression and violence.
Who are the marginalized among us today?
Might they not fit into this same descriptive trio (or quartet)? The fatherless, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner.
It matters not your political persuasion, if you are a follower of God, you are to live in such a way that you protect the marginalized, speak up for them, watch out for them, care for them, serve them, give to them, pray for them.
Often, when confronted with the marginalized in our midst, we hope for someone else to help them.
Written by Alice Shirey on 23 September 2014 .
To be honest, I was really disappointed by the answers.
They were almost all kind of individualistic in nature.
Many of them were violent and kind of “end-times” oriented … the idea that all God cared about was getting a bunch of individuals into heaven before he blew the rest of the world to bits.
There were no answers that seemed big enough to be God’s, you know?
My heart and soul were uninspired.
And so I went searching, both in the Bible and from great thinkers: Where could I find a richer, deeper, truer understanding about what God’s mission is in this messed up world?
I went back to one of the modern day classics, NT Wright’s book, Simply Christian, which many compare to CS Lewis’ classic, Mere Christianity.
“Christianity is about the belief that the Living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this – the finding, saving, the giving of new life – in Jesus. He has done it.
With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. It’s the door to the prison where we’ve been keep chained up.
We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God’s rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we now have access.
In particular, we are all invited – summoned, actually – to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty, and that we are not only to enjoy it as such but to work at bringing it to birth on earth as in heaven.
Now that … that motivates me!
Written by Alice Shirey on 05 November 2014 .
Tonight our A Way of Life class is discussing the chapter from the first manual on worship.
I am going to share some of his thoughts over the next few days.
Expect to be disturbed, but in a good way.
Labberton is the new President at Fuller Seminary and I have loved everything I have seen from him. He has a huge heart for Jesus, for the church, and for the radical demands of the Gospel.
“When worship is our response to the One who alone is worthy of it – Jesus – then our lives are on their way to being turned inside out. Every dimension of self-centered living becomes endangered as we come to share God’s self-giving heart.
Worship exposes our cultural and even spiritual complacency toward a world of suffering and injustice.
In Jesus Christ, we are called into a new kind of living. Through the grace of worship, God applies the necessary antidote to what we assume is merely human – our selfishness.
Worship sets us free from ourselves to be free for God and God’s purposes in the world.
Well now … Do you think his definition of worship might be just a tad bigger than ours?
Written by Alice Shirey on 03 December 2014 .
Two years ago we went to South Africa to visit my daughter who was studying at the University of Cape Town.
The natural beauty was jaw-dropping.
The culture was rich and fascinating.
But the spirit of the place was something I had never felt before.
There was a vague sense of dread in the air. Everything felt a tad unsafe. Unsettled. Unmoored. Festering.
The bed and breakfast at which we stayed had multiple locked, gated entries.
We had to buzz in to a really nice restaurant … the neighborhood was too dangerous to have an unlocked entrance.
My daughter’s home had a security guard. If she was at the library late at night, she always called a car to drive her home.
On a wine tour just outside a township, we got stuck in a traffic jam and armed guards showed up on the edges of the highway, protecting us from possible car-jacking.
This was South Africa 20 years after the horror of apartheid.
“The sins of the fathers …” is what I kept thinking of.
To see black and brown people living in shanty towns that spread as far as the eye could see, while white people lived in relative luxury … well, it was just shocking.
But it should be no more shocking to me than living here. I guess sometimes you have to travel to begin to see your own situation with new eyes.
It was Christians who brought apartheid to South Africa. They thought God condoned it; even mandated it.
As a Christian in America today, I wonder what role I might be playing in the pain and suffering of my neighbors.
Of all the questions I might ask myself these days, this might be one of the most important.
Written by Alice Shirey on 29 December 2014 .
I taught yesterday at one of our satellite venues.
I stated that the way the incarnation happened demonstrates (as does almost all of Jesus’ life) that God's heart, as Philip Yancey writes, tilts toward the underdog.
After the service, a woman approached me quite vigorously as I tried to sneak out to get home to my family and my warm and comfortable home.
If God is for the poor, like you said he is, why am I still poor?
Why doesn’t my car start?
Why does my heat get shut off and no one seems to care?
Cheezy smile … hoping this answer will appease.
“Well, that is no help to me,” she said.
When I got home I told Chuck that Jesus had confronted me about how smoothly words about God’s concern for the poor had dribbled out of my middle-class mouth from the pulpit.
Written by Alice Shirey on 05 January 2015 .
I have been wanting to teach an entire series on the Pharisees for some time.
Perhaps the time is now.
Written by Alice Shirey on 06 January 2015 .
“It is unearned love – the love that goes before, that greets us on the way.
It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you.
Is your life at its core filled with grace or un-grace?
Written by Alice Shirey on 21 January 2015 .
Grace, my friends … grace!
one sip of which could convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly.
Oh, isn’t that good news, my friends?
Will you live in that truth today?
It is not up to you or to me … thank you, Jesus!
Written by Alice Shirey on 24 January 2015 .
Whenever I need to be reminded of the unconditional, unearned grace of God, I read Brennan Manning.
A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five.
This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion.
Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something it cannot cover.
May you live this weekend fully drenched in the grac e of God!
Written by Alice Shirey on 27 January 2015 .
What really separates us from God?
Is it sin, or something else?
I have been pondering this question lately.
"Our misdeeds are not the real root of the problem. They are just what the tradition called actual sins.
There is a much more serious problem, what the tradition called original sin.
It is much more subtle and inevitably hidden from us.
The relationship is broken by the presumption of our ethical behavior, our morality, our good deeds, our insistence on doing it ourselves.
The Almighty God desires simply to be known as the giver of the gift of absolute grace.
To this we say "No."
Then the relationship is destroyed just as surely as it was by our immorality."
Have you ever pondered the thought that it is your own self-created "goodness" that keeps you from God?
Written by Alice Shirey on 13 February 2015 .
So often, we are told to think of the Bible as some kind of instruction manual.
I believe that is a description that belittles the majesty of Scripture. It also belittles the difficulty most of us have when reading the Bible.
Don't get me wrong: there are commands in there.
"Finally, I think it is possible to say that in spite of all its extraordinary variety, the Bible is held together by having a single plot.
God creates the world, the world gets lost; God seeks to restore the world to the glory for which he created it.
so you might say that what holds it together more than anything else is us.
it is the one that more than any other - and in more sense than one - also holds us together."
God creates the world, the world gets lost; God seeks the restore the world (all of it) to the glory for which he created it.
Sounds much more exciting, fascinating, complicated and compelling than reading an instruction manual.
Written by Alice Shirey on 17 March 2015 .
Doing some great reading on GRACE for my Easter teaching... and stumbled upon this beautiful statement.
"The gospel liberates us to be okay with not being okay. We know we're not - though we try very hard to convince other people we are. But the gospel tells us, "Relax, it is finished"
Because of the gospel, we have nothing to prove or protect.
The gospel frees us from trying to impress people, to prove ourselves to people, to make people think we're something that we're not.
The gospel frees us from what one writer calls "the law of capability" - the law, he says, "that judges us wanting if we are not capable, if we cannot handle it all, if we are not competent to balance our diverse commitments without a slip."
The gospel grants us the strength to admit we're weak and needy and restless - knowing that Christ's finished work has proven to be all the strength and fulfillment and peace we could ever want, and more.
The gospel frees us from the urge to self-gain, to push ourselves forward for our own purposes and agenda and self-esteem.
When you understand that your significance and identity and purpose and direction are all anchored in Christ, you don't have to win - you're free to lose.
And nothing in this broken world can beat a person who isn't afraid to lose!
You'll be free to say crazy, risky, counterintuitive stuff like, "To live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21)! That's pure, unadulterated freedom.
Since Jesus is our strength, our weaknesses don't threaten our sense of worth and value.
Now we're free to admit our wrongs and weaknesses without feeling as if our flesh is being ripped off our bones."
Now, take a deep breath... and live your day free and forgiven! It is finished. It is not up to you. Thank God!
Written by Alice Shirey on 16 April 2015 .
Written by Alice Shirey on 24 April 2015 .
Which is what Jesus often did.
And, remember who he offended most?
Those who thought they were "in."
Those who thought they knew who were "out."
See what you think. It is a catchy little song.
Written by Alice Shirey on 03 May 2015 .
"How did the word evangelical become the antithesis of grace?"
Written by Alice Shirey on 14 May 2015 .
If you seek God alone, then that which is from God in others will come alive, whether or not you can see it.
Jesus sees what is of God in others, even if it is still hidden as a tiny seed.
This is the gospel you must proclaim.
Jesus values each person; he sees their dignity as God created them.
He came to rid every person of shame and self-contempt, of the feeling that they are nothing and can do nothing, the feeling that they have ruined everything and nothing can change that, the feeling that all is hopeless.
Written by Alice Shirey on 17 May 2015 .
'Give them something to eat.'"
Written by Alice Shirey on 20 June 2015 .
I am so shocked and saddened by the death of 9 saints from a South Carolina church.
Such a waste of beautiful human life.
I listened to the relatives of these victims speak at the bond hearing for the young murderer.
And I stood at attention in my kitchen as I heard their agonized voices whisper words of forgiveness to this young man who was so filled with hate and ignorance... And who shot old ladies, and a state senator and pastor, at a simple Bible study.
"Their minister (who was one of the men killed) did an amazing job pastoring these folks. These people responded to hatred in the name and the power and in the way of Jesus, the great forgiver and reconciler."
I smiled, even in the midst of my tears.
I continued to stand in attention (and reverence) in my kitchen for quite some time... just pondering these responses in my heart.
Oh, that I would have this kind of response in the face of earth-shattering hatred.
Written by Alice Shirey on 22 June 2015 .
Were devoted to one another?
Regarded one another as more important than oneself?
Did not speak against one another?
Did not judge one another?
Showed tolerance for one another?
Were kind to one another?
Spoke truth to one another?
Urged one another on to love and good deeds?
What if that is all we did?
How different might the church look in today's world if we just focused on those things?
What is God up to in the world? Why is God redeeming and rescuing people, communities and the whole earth? What is his end game? How can I participate with him?