We Have To Change

My grandmother’s friend Alice was a sour, cantankerous woman who complained about everything. One fateful Sunday after church, as Alice was complaining about the preaching, the music, the government, and the old-age pension plan, my uncle Harry got fed up. Harry slammed his hands down on the table and shouted at Alice, saying, “Lady, you complain so much, if you died and went to heaven, you’d wreck it for the Lord. You’d ruin heaven just by being there.”

It’s one of my favorite stories. It illustrates an important spiritual principle.

We have to change.

Harry accused Alice of being a threat to heaven, but the truth is, if I go to heaven right now, the way I am now, I’d likely wreck it just as much as Alice would. The Christian life requires transformation.

I understand if, at first, this seems counterintuitive to the good news of the gospel, but the truth is that even though God loves us as we are, he loves us too much to let us stay as we are. God loves us enough to want us to become better people and enjoy the experience of life lived in closer proximity with his spirit.

In Revelation 2, Jesus warned the church of Pergamum that despite their faith in him, their lives did not yet reflect life the way he designed it. They had compromised. They had succumbed to the pressures of their culture. They had capitulated to the demands of their pagan surroundings. They had no hatred for sin. They gave themselves permission to be disobedient.

I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

–Revelation 2.14-16

The problem, though, is that you cannot transform yourself. We do not have the power to change or change much simply through strength of will. 

Yet we try anyway.

Recommended Reading on Revelation: Reversed Thunder

If you’re looking for something to help make Revelation a little more personal, Reversed Thunder by Eugene Peterson is a great place to start. 

Peterson digs through Revelation from beginning to end, keeping a meditative tone throughout. While he doesn’t get into the more difficult parts of the book, Peterson’s insights are well worth the read. As a devotional guide to Revelation, Reversed Thunder is an excellent choice. Of the book, Peterson says, “I have submitted my pastoral imagination to St. John’s theological poetry, meditated on what I have heard and seen, and written it down in what I think of as a kind of pastoral midrash.” 

 

Available here.

"Being Christian"

Revelation 3.14-22

I think the chief enemy of Christian spirituality in America is that we are a “Christian” country. There. Finished. What more is there? We’re already “Christian,” so what’s the big deal about church? The Bible? Jesus? His teaching? His divinity? We know all that already, and we’d rather just get back to politics, Nascar, and hating Arabs, thank you very much.

 We have no sense of the magnitude either of [a] our God, or [b] His requirements upon us to be His people. We’re oblivious.

Blind even.

And because it is so easy to be an American Christian—you don’t have to give anything up, in fact there are tax benefits for us to make it easier to give up our money to God—we never have to really stand for anything good or against anything really bad. Sure, we’ve got our single-issue political stances pretty well lined up, but that ‘love your enemies’ nonsense can wait until later. And the bit about ‘taking the plank out of your own eye’…well, we’ll leave that for the same day we take seriously Paul’s warnings against gluttony. I mean, those things are important, but there’s no need for us to be radical.

No need to be consumed by religion. We just want to be “good” Christian neighbors, citizens.

Lukewarm.

I could go on, but you get the point. The Laodicean Christians, unlike most of their peers, were rich. Consequently, they didn’t face any of the pressures to conform to the surrounding culture that the Ephesians (for example) did. They already fit into their culture. In many ways, it seems like they had a controlling interest in their culture. They had power. Money. Influence. They had all the things that Christian people have always wanted.

And it ruined them.

Just like it’s ruining us.

Look—if you love Jesus, give him everything. If “being Christian” is simply something that you think of as part of being a good person, then you’d better smarten up. Christ would rather have you be Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais, or Richard Dawkins—all famed atheists and adversaries to Christian spirituality—than a patriot in religious drag.

There Are Different Kinds of True

Revelation 3.7-13

Jesus says he is the True One. That’s right—in Christian thought, Truth is a person, not a proposition.

But that’s another riff for a different day. I’m more interested in the two Greek words for truth. One means the kind of truth that is distinct from a false statement.

2 + 2 = 4, is true. 2 + 2 = 2.3 is false.

The other truth distinguishes between that which is real and that which is imaginary, fantastical, or illusionary.

Bicycles are true. Talking rutabagas are false.

This is the kind of True that Jesus is. He’s the “Real” True.

When we’re afraid of worst possible scenarios, doomsday prophecies, and have concerns that every good thing in this life is merely a dream…look to Christ. He shows us what’s real. And the Truth is that—even if the world did end tomorrow (it is 2012 after all)—we will only be faced with a sweeter, better reality than this one.

The Truth is that you don’t have to be afraid.

The Truth is that you’re not alone.

The Truth is that you don’t have to be the best, nor are you the worst.

The Truth is found in He Who Makes All Things Real.

Pleasantly Numb

Revelation 3.1-6

No one at the church in Sardis ever made anybody mad. They were the perfect picture of inoffensive Christianity. By all accounts, they were well-organized, doctrinally sound, and perfectly suited to their cultural circumstances.

Which means they were useless.

They were sleepy, lazy, and dead—the zombie church, the pleasantly numb church, the church of fake plastic trees and homemade “proud to be a Sardisian” wall-hangings. I’ve been in plenty of churches like them. They’ve established a cozy equilibrium by catering to the lowest common denominator in order to keep folks happy. They’re the cute little church on the picturesque street with the nice garden and the wealthy old people. They’re the country chapel focused on the harvest and the high-school football team. They’re the television ministry with the big hair and teeth. They love their country and they’re never impolite to your face.

What’s the message to this church?

Wake up and smell the coffee!
Put your back into it—you leave a lot to be desired!
Get off your ass and dance!

I pastor a church full of life—full of some pretty broken folks too (including those of us that work here), and full of some pretty filthy sin (God—give us grace for those folks before we kill ‘em), and full of some pretty half-cocked ideas by a couple of smarty-pants power players who don’t know any better…but it’s better to be alive and wrong than dead and perfect.

Better to train a puppy than raise a corpse.

Love Service, Patient Faith

Revelation 2.18-29

That’s the connection that Scottish theologian William Barclay makes here, based on the words in 2.19: “I know your love, your faith, your service and your patience.” Barclay—who was the early 20th century version of Tom Wright—connects these two pairs. And, for what it’s worth, I think N.T. Wright would too.

There’s only two reasons why I do anything: either because I want to (or I really don’t want to face the consequences of NOT doing it), or because I love someone who wants me to. In either case, I’m serving someone. It’s my love that leads me to serve. The more I love Christ, the more I serve Christ. The more I love myself, the more I only do those things that serve me.

To be honest, I find this part easy. I love him A LOT, and it’s natural for me to connect the dots between loving him and helping others, loving others, serving others, befriending others, crying with others, etc. But I find the other bit absolutely excruciating!

It’s not that I’m impatient per se, it’s just that the instamatic coffee maker takes way too long.

I’m not in a hurry, but school zones are just suggested speeds, right? And those extra-large shoulders on I-94 are supposed to be for passing during rush hour.

Right?

I jest. The real reason I’m impatient in these areas isn’t because of a lack of faith. It’s because I’m a jerk. In other areas, however, the absence of faith is easy to perceive in my lack of patience. For example, I’m impatient with myself and my own personal development. I want to be a better leader NOW, a better teacher NOW, a better friend NOW. I want to conquer my anger TODAY, and curb my disappointments and melancholies THIS INSTANT.

But God isn’t into microwave maturity. He wants to slow boil me into a new man, to put me in the crockpot of Christ and get me done well through the middle. That’s hard for me to want, but I want to want to.

Right now.

Recommended Reading: Revelation For Everyone

N.T. Wright is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading biblical scholars. Revelation for Everyone is the last in his series of guides to the books of the New Testament, which aim to make the texts accessible and understandable for those who may not have a high-level degree in theology or other church-y subjects. 

“We owe it to ourselves to get our heads and our hearts around John’s glorious pictures as we attempt to be faithful witnesses to God’s love in a world of violence, hatred and suspicion,” Wright says in the book’s introduction. Using stories and recognizable examples from everyday life, Wright helps make sense of the confusing language and heady imagery in the book of Revelation.

This book is available at Soundwords (in the church lobby) for $13 (includes a special gift), or you can purchase it from Amazon here.

But Wait. There's More.

Revelation 2.12-17

Can we please acknowledge right away that the promises made to Pergamum are the coolest of all the seven churches?

Heavenly manna? A white stone with a secret name? Without explaining anything else, those base points are enough to excite my imagination.

But wait. There’s more.
(I’ve always wanted to say that.)

There’s an old Jewish legend that started just after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in the 6th C BCE. The legend claims that the prophet Jeremiah hid some of the manna from within the Ark of the Covenant in the ruins of the Temple, and some in a secret chamber at the base of Mount Sinai. The Messiah was destined to come to those places and reclaim the manna, giving it out during God’s new age to all those who had remained faithful during persecution.

Manna was dessert in heaven.

And the white stone?

Law courts delivered their verdicts in black stones (for guilt) and white ones (for innocence). Winners at the Olympic games were given white stones. Priests sold white stones to their parishioners, believing that the engraving upon the stones gave them special access to heaven. Honored gladiators were given a white stone when they retired, with the inscription “this man’s valor has been proved beyond measure.”

The white stone was the mark of victory, blessing, and vindication. And the fact that Christ engraves our name on our own stone—a new name, no less, like Paul’s new name (instead of Saul), or Peter’s new name (instead of Simon), or Abraham’s new name (instead of Abram), or Israel’s new name (instead of Jacob)—just makes it that much sweeter.

To think, one day I’ll be sitting in heaven eating dessert with Christ and he’ll give me a medal that says…

Home-wrecking Atheists?

Revelation 2.8-11

This church has done nothing wrong. Besides the church in Philadelphia, Smyrna is the only church not to get their comeuppance from Christ. That’s saying something. Perhaps more than anything else, it tells me that it’s a good thing I wasn’t part of it. I would’ve ruined their perfect track record.

The story goes that the devout Jewish citizens of Smyrna were getting sick and tired of their Christian counterparts [1] growing so rapidly, and [2] riding on their Jewish, Imperial coattails (btw, special thanks to N.T. Wright for this little gem: “that the conflict between the early Christians and practicing Jews was essentially a conflict within Judaism…and not an early precedent for anti-Semitism”). So the Jewish congregants did their best to divorce their Christian cousins. With this separation came incredible amounts of trouble for the Christians; who, by the way, were already in incredible amounts of trouble. Christians had a horrible reputation in the Roman Empire. They were accused of cannibalism (because they “ate the flesh and drank the blood of Christ” during communion), having orgies (because their practice of loving one another <'agape-ing' & 'commun-ing' at Love Feasts> sounded suspiciously sexual to the Romans), destroying families (because families often disowned Christian converts), atheism (because they refused to worship Caesar), sedition (because they refused to say ‘Caesar is Lord’), and arson (because Christians [1] claimed God was a consuming fire, and [2] that the world would one day be purified by God).

In short, they saw us as cannibal, porn-star, home-wrecking atheists who hated the president and wanted the world to burn.

Nice.

Well, at least Jesus didn’t find anything wrong with them.

Which is kind of the point.

We may suffer. We may be hated. We may be slandered. We may lose friends. We may be poor. We may go to prison. But that’s the test of life. And the church in Smyrna passed.

I hope I do, too.

The Old Manhattan

Revelation 2.1-7

You can’t help but compare Ephesus to Manhattan—cultural center, sporting hub, beautiful architecture, crowded markets (in both senses of the word)…it was the most cosmopolitan city in Rome, the gateway to the Empire. The church in Ephesus was equally spectacular—founded by Paul, pastored by (first) Timothy (til he was murdered by the Romans), then John (the beloved disciple), home church to Jesus’ mother Mary, Priscilla, and Aquila, and the headquarters for Apollos (the first famed apologeticist).

I wish I lived there.

Then.

These days Ephesus looks like a big, crappy ditch. Everything is mucked up and trudged over, broken and indistinct. I guess that proves Christ was telling the truth, “if you don’t repent, I will remove your lampstand.” Well—as Tom Wright pointed out, there’s neither a lampstand (church) or pretty much of anything left standing.

Lesson learned.

Or was it?

What really was the lesson about losing your ‘first love?’

Lots and lots and lots and lots of biblical commentators suggest that the loss of first love was closely connected to the Ephesian commendation. The church was commended for their ability to discern truth from falsehood. They were heresy-hunters, BS-sniffer-out-ers, the officers of orthodoxy. By all accounts, it was their love for being right doctrinally that caused them to be so very wrong socially.

They hurt The Truth in their quest for truth.

Good thing no one does that anymore.

Thank God we’ve learned from their mistakes.

Mind - Consider Thyself Blown

Revelation 1.9-20

Three things blow me away about these few verses.

First, that John was “on Patmos” but still “in the Spirit,” a solid reminder that our present circumstances—however dire—ought not to deter us from experiencing the presence of God. “On Patmos” John was a political exile, a prisoner forced to work in chains in the local quarries under the mean whips of his masters. But that didn’t stop him from being “in the Spirit,” which is to say that he allowed the invisible world to penetrate the visible one, and him in the process as well.

Secondly, I find it fascinating that there is apparently some cooperation between suffering, the kingdom, and patient endurance. But how can this be? How can we suffer and yet experience the kingdom simultaneously? Did Christ promise us a kingdom of suffering? (Because, if so, I think I’d like to reevaluate the terms of my contract.) The truth is that the the only way to achieve victory is through suffering well. I’ll expand on this as our blog posts continue, but I think it’s one of the most often-missed themes in the Revelation: victory is achieved through suffering, not through strength of arms. Jesus suffered and died, and he intends that we win our victory in much the same way.

Third, and related to the second, it seems to me that the only way you can move from ‘suffering’ to ‘kingdom’ is through patient endurance. That word “patient” is probably better translated “persistent” or, even better, “conquering.” Meaning, if you want to win…don’t quit.

Don’t quit when you’re on Patmos.

Don’t quit when you’re suffering.

Don’t quit when the kingdom is still only a promise, a down payment, and seems a long way off in the future.

Prophecy | Apocalypse | Letter

Revelation 1.1-8

The Revelation was a prophecy, an apocalypse, and a letter. We have no idea what these things mean. Rather, I should say, what we typically think they mean is not what they meant to John and his readers. Prophecy, for example, does not mean “prediction”, not in the biblical vocabulary anyway. Oh, for sure, predicting the future is one aspect of prophecy, but it’s not the whole. Even “false” prophets accurately predicted the future. But in the Bible, a true prophet was one whose words lead people to faithfully follow God, and those ‘words’ were usually more about correcting the present than dictating what happened next . Prophecy was less about foretelling than it was about criticism, a sharp critique of the present rather than a horoscope for tomorrow’s events.

An apocalypse, likewise, was not a doomsday prediction about the end of the world. It was a literary genre with a relatively short life-span (c. 100BC-c. 200 AD). It was a kind of writing that utilized symbols to communicate truth. The closest approximations we have today are political cartoons and science-fiction novels. And, granted, sometimes apocalyptic literature did talk about the end of the world, but not always and certain not exclusively.

But what about a letter? Surely we know what that is, right?

Nope. Not really. These ‘letters’ weren’t like our emails or the little white envelopes our mother’s send us on holidays. These kind of letters were circular, meaning John wrote one letter that got passed around to several different churches in order to be read out loud. It’s the ‘reading out loud part’ that’s important here. Think of this “letter” as something like a decree, or a proclamation. At the end of this 6-week series on Revelation, we’re going to get together at the Winds and read Revelation out loud, have communion, and sing. June 24. Mark it on your calendar, ’cause I think that evening—probably more than anything else I say or teach—will help you understand the book. Which is the point, right? Understanding. Because, as we’ve just discovered, our understanding is somewhat lacking. We used to think we were reading a play-by- play breakdown concerning the end of the world written to a couple of pastors; but now, we realize we’re reading something different. This is a critique of the circumstances of the ancient world, using colorful language and metaphor to help shock hearers into embracing passionate truth. And it wasn’t just a message for a few yokels. It was meant to be broadcast to the world.

Gathering Up Praises

The story of the Bible, according to biblical scholar N.T. Wright, is the plotline in which “obedient humans following the Obedient Human act as stewards over creation, bringing new creation to bear, and gathering up the praises of that creation to present them to its maker.”

Jesus was the one Obedient Human, and through the gift of his spirit, we experience restoration, becoming new people, stewards of the world. As stewards, we gather up praises for God in heaps.

These “praises” are experiences, emotions, vignettes, from everyday life that we authenticate as spirit-sponsored manifestations. For example, when a Christian person is moved charitably to feed a homeless man, we acknowledge that it is the spirit of God working in them, motivating them to be generous. And we say to God, “Thank you for the movement of your spirit in this person, and thank you for letting me witness this moment.”

This is praise.

We praise God for what he’s doing in others, and we praise God for his willingness to let us be a part of it. We gather these praises and give them to the father as evidence of new creation. As a result, God gets glory. When we do the things God wants us to do and live the way God designed us to live, not only do we give him glory, but his glory spills over onto us. There is a residual benefit for obedience, stewardship, and creativity. We experience abundance and prosperity as life’s conditions, relationships, and holism are improved.

In Hebrew the word that describes this good life is shalom. In Greek, it’s makarios. These words both mean “blessing.” They don’t mean happiness, per say, but happiness is included in the idea. Blessing is more comprehensive than happiness, less constrained by circumstances. Blessing is something we receive from God and cannot create for ourselves. It’s what occurs when God is at work both in and through our lives. As we experience blessing, God gets even more glory by virtue of our praise.

When I give my son a Lego set, it is a blessing. As he enjoys the gift, I enjoy his enjoyment, and I too, am blessed. When we build the Lego together, our blessing is deepened by our shared love and relationship.

Additionally, when Jacob goes off and imagines some new feat of Danish plastic engineering and returns to show it off, I am blessed by the application of his creativity, and he is blessed by my enthusiasm.

This is how blessing works.

This is how glory works.

I bless my son with a gift, and he blesses me by enjoying the gift and thanking me for it. God blesses me with the gift of my son, and is blessed by our acknowledgement that every good thing we have comes from him. He gets glory in even the simplest things, like Lego. The more we praise him for that which is simple, the more our lives overflow with blessing.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

–Ephesians 1.3

The Telos Is Glory

The Christian life is fundamentally shaped by the future. It’s a forward-looking faith, even while simultaneously being an historical faith, looking back to the time of the apostles and prophets. We need to continue along the trajectory, first begun in the garden, carried on through the prophets, locked in by Jesus, honed by the apostles, and carried forward by the Holy Spirit in us in anticipation of the new Creation. This new Creation started with Jesus. Death, the chief enemy of God, was undone and no longer holds any power to keep people locked down (Romans 6.9-11). Once Jesus returned from the dead, the fear of death was erased for those who follow him. What God did with Jesus he promises ultimately to do with us (Romans 8.23; 2 Corinthians 5.1-10).

This victory over death was never an abstract concept in the earliest churches. They believed that God was going to resurrect them from death into new physical bodies, just as he would “resurrect” the earth into new creation. They had the right idea. God works through us to heal the world. He uses us to bring new creation to bear.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.’

And the one sitting on the throne said, ‘Look, I am making everything new!’ And then he said to me, ‘Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.’ And he also said, ‘It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.’ Revelation 21.1-7

This section of scripture describes the goal, the telos—where God wants everything to end up. The Greek word telos is defined as “the end to which all things relate, the aim, or purpose.” 1 Corinthians 10.31 gives us a clear picture of God’s telos for the world. “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

The telos is glory.

Telos can be conceptualized in two ways. One way is filling a coffee cup all the way to the brim so it spills over. The other is the Old Testament idea of raising up a bull from infancy to adulthood so it’s mature enough to be a sacrifice.

The goal of the Christian life is to be filled to overflowing with the glory of God and to be mature enough to live sacrificially in favor of what God wants and not what we want for ourselves. In either case, we fulfill our vocation as imago dei, cooperating with God to heal the world.

Somehow, over the centuries, we have misidentified the goal. Sometimes we mistakenly think the goal is going to heaven when we die. But the Christian vision of the future isn’t about us leaving earth to go to heaven; it’s about heaven interpenetrating earth in the new Creation.

Additionally, sometimes we think the goal is to be good people. But goodness is a means to an end. The end isn’t “being good.”

The end is giving God glory.

When Jesus says in Matthew 5.48 to “be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect,” he’s using a variation of telos, the word teleios. He’s saying we need to be goal-minded, to be consumed with the telos, just as our heavenly father is consumed with the telos.

Figure out where you’re going, and then work backwards to determine how you’re going to get there.

The goal for Christian people is new creation—a world in which everything comes from God and exists by his power and is intended for his glory (Romans 11.36).

Imago Dei

In Genesis 1.26-28, God says he will make man in his own image (imago dei). We’re like him, and we’re meant to do the things he does.

That’s absolutely central to biblical anthropology—the Christian understanding of personhood.

And what is God like?

He is a Creator creating creators to perpetuate Creation. Which means we are meant to cooperate with him and make the future present. We see this clearly represented in the long story of scripture, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. In the Beginning, God creates a garden. By the time we get to the End, that garden has flourished into a city.

Somehow, whether it takes a billion years or another fifty, God’s design for earth is to matriculate from botany to polis, from paradise (literally “garden”) to garden-city. That’s the trajectory of the biblical story, the goal (telos) of human cooperation in Creation.

Despite our noble conscription, we deviated from our calling. We abandoned our post. Instead of remaining obedient to God and cultivating his garden, Adam and Eve stepped outside of their divine responsibility and invited sin into the world through their disobedience. As a result, the image of God in us has cracked, becoming marred and ruined.

To help us recover that image, God appointed certain people certain tasks at certain moments in time.

He called Abraham to be the father of a new people (Genesis 12.1-3).

He called Moses to lead those same people out of slavery (Exodus 3).

He called Joshua to lead those people into a land of promise (Joshua 1.1-9).

These ancient heroes of faith demonstrated what it means to be godly human beings, cooperating with their Creator in the ways he first intended.

But they all failed. Their momentary successes were invariably overshadowed by their inability to restore the earth to paradise.

Abraham did father a new people, but those people were part of the problem.

Moses did lead them out of Egypt, but subsequently they enslaved themselves to pagan deities.

Joshua brought them into the promised land, but it was still polluted by their sin.

Time and time again, God hammered his people back into a right relationship with him. But God’s people were never as committed to righteousness as he was. In the end, God had to fix the problem more directly. God sent Jesus to fulfill the task of his ancient people. Jesus, on his own and through his death, did what Abraham, Moses, and Joshua could not (Romans 8.3).

He won the victory over sin and death.

As a result, Creation has been freed from bondage to decay, and death has lost its power (Romans 8.2). The people of God are no longer under condemnation (Romans 8.1), but look forward to the future, to the new heaven, to the new earth, to the new Jerusalem (2 Peter 3.13).

We long for a time when God’s Lego project is finished.

Playing Lego

My eight-year-old son Jacob loves to play Lego. Whenever we buy him a new set, he always builds that set precisely to the specifications. However, I would rather have him make something from scratch. I would rather have him take the new Lego set, incorporate it with all the other sets he has, and be perpetually creating.

It’s not that I object to him following directions; it’s that I object to him only following directions. I want him to expand on what he’s been given. I want him to extrapolate, intensify, and cooperate with the directions to craft something more robust, more complex, more representative of all he loves and all he can do.

That’s what God wants from us. God wants us to participate with him in his ongoing project of creation, much like I want my son to consider each new Lego set part of his ongoing process of creation.

The Project of Revelation

revelation.westwinds.org

I've always wanted to teach on the Revelation, but been scared. Not scare that I didn't know enough, but scared that I wouldn't be competent enough to teach the book and avoid making crazy people crazier. But since NT Wright published his "Revelation for Everyone" commentary, I feel like I've got a fail-safe. That little book is the single-best resource on the Revelation I've ever come across.

And I've come across a lot.

I've read over 100 scholarly commentaries, easily 6+ dozen scholarly works pertaining to the 7 churches and the Roman Imperial cult, and hundreds and hundreds of articles and papers on related topics. But--dollar for dollar--Tom Wright's little gem is tough to beat.

So this Sunday I'll start a 6-week series, giving an overview of the Revelation. And--perhaps more interestingly--this past weeks some friends and I began a special blog-project on Revelation at revelation.westwinds.org . Each day for 46 days-in-a-row, we're blogging our thoughts on 1 of the sections Tom Wright has written on in his "Revelation for Everyone." We're not trying to be scholarly, just to give our devotional thoughts on his academic ones. It's been fun so far, and I think has the potential to be fantastically rewarding for anyone who makes this journey with us.

So feel free to use it as your daily devotional resource, over your morning coffee.

This may be your one chance to un-crazy the book of Revelation, to get your Bible back from 65 to 66 books, and to take all the fear out of the end of the world.

D

What then?

It must be said that there are time when we actually win—when our desires match up with God's desires, and we get what we want and so does he. Sometimes Christian victory and worldly victory are indistinguishable from the outside, and we get a brief respite from the persistent struggles of life.

What then?

What are we supposed to do when we win?

Easy:

Celebrate! Give thanks—to God, and to others. But don't be fooled into thinking everything will be okay afterwards, that you won't have to fight for something else.
Because—remember—the victory you've just experienced isn't ultimate victory. It's only a momentary victory in the present.

So enjoy it. But don't let it go to your head. Let it, instead, take root in your spirit and become a marker in your spiritual journey—a piton—a position of contentment and godliness from which you never slide back.

He Scores, You Win

In football, you block for the runner. He scores. You win.

In racing, you box and trap for the lead car. He crosses the finish line first. You win.

In baseball, you fly and the runner crosses home. He scores. You win.

In spirituality, the principle is much the same: you have to get out of the way so Christ can win in you. You have to sacrifice your earthly desires in order for God's desires to manifest in your life (see Romans 8). In order for you to have victory, you must decrease and let him increase (John 3.30). You must become less, so he can become more (see Galatians 5.16-26).

But, in real life, this is often hard to do. It's hard to figure out precisely how to get out of the way or let go and let God. For example, despite the fact that I want God to rule over my desires, it's still tricky to remember to ask, "God, what do you want me to do in this situation?" every time my daughter smears crayon on the carpet. My parenting instincts take over (which God gave me, by the way), and my frustration takes over (which isn't necessarily sinful, by the way), and I tend to react quickly with a reprimand and an appropriate punishment.

And yet, those few times I've been able to slow my reaction long enough to breathe a quick prayer or find a short moment of respite from life's relentless pace, I'm consistently surprised to find God speaks to me and instructs me to do something other than follow my instincts or act like I usually do. Again, it's not that I'm always acting badly; it's simply that he wants me to act better. I don't know how to be better than I am all alone, so he sends his Spirit to teach and guide me. All I have to do is listen and obey.

Attentiveness to the Spirit and obedience to the Father are crucial components for living a victorious Christian life. They don't come easily, or even naturally. They must be learned. We must discipline ourselves to hear from God, to ask God for wisdom, and to discern the will of God in everyday circumstances, before we merely blunder on as we always have.

"Wait a minute," some might say right about now. "Are you suggesting we check with God about absolutely everything? How could there even possibly be time?"

Yes. That's exactly what I'm recommending. And yes, you're right. There's isn't time. But that's precisely the point. We're all so out of practice, it takes a long time and a remarkable amount of discipline to hear from God on anything.

Which is why we need to attend to him that much more.

We have to prioritize him in everything, so that in everything we have the victory in Jesus' name. It might cost some time, but (all things being equal) time is a pretty small sacrifice. If we’re ever going to live in victory, we’ll have to make some sacrifices and take some risks.

What risks are we willing to take to ensure he wins in us? Will we block sin by spending extra time in prayer or studying the Bible? Will we decide now to avoid temptation by not visiting the places and the people that facilitate our worst vices?
Ask God for answers to these questions. And for anything else.

He'll give them, and you'll benefit in turn.

He grows. We win.

You Win Even When You Lose

Our church is artistic. It comes out in the decor, in the aesthetics, in the choices we make about music and presentation and style. Everyone who walks in the door knows it immediately. But for non-artists, our preoccupation with aesthetics can be confusing. Especially since we tend to stay away from things that are too thematic.

For example, if we were talking about money, we would never use a financially-themed design scheme (dollar signs on the screens or bills on the wall, etc.). Themes are too one-dimensional. And, when people come to church, we're trying to give the Spirit all kinds of avenues to speak to them. If they're really concerned with money right then, the dollar sign motif wouldn't hurt a bit. But if money doesn’t concern them at the moment, everything about a dollar-sign-laden aesthetic subtly communicates "this isn't for you…this doesn't matter…you don't really care."

To be fair, I'm overstating for effect.

But the point remains. We try for abstract aesthetics so people can look around and say, "Gee … I wonder what that means?"

Not too long ago a woman came up and introduced herself after the Cue. She was recently divorced and left in shambles after the termination of her marriage. A friend had suggested she visit our church, claiming "whenever God shuts a door, he opens a window."

I'm not entirely sure what that was supposed to mean in those circumstances, but this woman took that message to heart and began to pray earnestly, "Oh God, please give me a window. All I need is a window. Please … a window."

When she arrived at our church that Sunday she was driven to her knees and flooded with tears. Care to guess why?

We have windows hanging from our rafters in the auditorium. Just windows, going nowhere, showing nothing. Just hanging. Why? We hung them because we thought it looked cool. But really, God had something else in mind. He foreordained that aesthetic, and that woman, in that moment, so he could remind her that our past failures should never be considered in isolation. The past is not the finale. It's just the past. And even after we've failed, there's still hope.

There are open windows.

The great truth of the Christian gospel is that you can win even when you lose; you can have victory even when you're defeated. Because it's not just about the outcome of each circumstance but also about the work of God in you. This woman now understands that, even though her marriage has ended, God has not given up on her. She experienced a small victory in church that day—a victory of hope over despair, of promise over shame, of love over rejection, of family over isolation.

That's a pretty good scorecard for failure, as long as we remember our past is a window into God's better future.

Nobody's Compatible

Last month I had a couple come to me at the church for marriage counseling. Though I'm not a professional counselor, I do meet with couples from time to time to try to assist them in the spiritual components of their relationship. Of course, in my mind it's all spiritual, but they don't usually agree until after we've met.

I digress.

After describing their many problems, the couple informed me that they thought their only option was divorce. They did have problems, and many of those problems had become severe, but to me nothing they described sounded insurmountable. I told them as much, but they were unwavering. They felt like they had to get a divorce because, in the end, they simply weren't compatible.

I hear that idea often: incompatibility. It seems to be one of our favorite excuses for losing in life and avoiding victory like the plague.

We can't work together because our management styles are incompatible.

We can't attend the same church any longer because our worship preferences aren't compatible.

We can't stay married because we're sexually incompatible.

The truth is no two people on earth are compatible. You might get along with some folks better than others, more effortlessly than others, for longer than others, but your differences will always swell to an eventual incompatibility.

Nobody gets along for long unless they’re willing to renew their minds. If you're going to experience victory in your relationships with other people, you must be willing to die to your own desires, your own preferences, and your own ego. You've got to put the sinful nature to death and invite the Spirit to change the way you think and the way you live.

This couple wasn't compatible, but they could have been. If, by renewing the mind, the husband learns to love his wife in such a way that she feels valued, secure, and esteemed, and the wife learns to love her husband without trying to boss him around or nag him about the house, then the marriage will start working.

What you have to understand is that—whether in business, or marriage, or friendship—there is no victory without Christ.

You will always sabotage yourself. You will always, at the root, be “incompatible” with others. You will always defeat yourself. Because you need him to win.

God's Wants

Our culture simply cannot see the sense in following God:

Let's not wait for a solid relationship to grow. Let's have sex now!

Why get married? Let's just live together. It'll be easier.

Solving problems is too hard. Let's just get divorced.

Proper diet and exercise take too long. I need a pill.

Saving money is hard work. I need another credit card.

Children are too much responsibility. I'm having an abortion.

In all these situations and many more besides, our culture thinks of God's prohibitions as restrictive (at best) or (at worst) intolerant, controlling, and merciless.

But those who cry out against God's instruction have forgotten one very important fact: God wants what he wants because it's best.

It's best for us. It's best for others. It's best for the world.

Think about it. If you built something you loved, you'd do everything in your power to protect it and preserve it and enjoy it. I once built my own drum set. It wasn't the best or the fanciest, but it was mine. I still have it, nearly three decades later, and hope to give it to my daughter once she can reach the pedals. I'm terribly proud of it, and any rules I have concerning it are to [a] protect my drums, so I can [b] give them to my daughter.

Rules are for protection, in one direction or another.

God loves the world and so he sets us in charge of looking after it. God loves us and so he gives us rationality and instruction to help us enjoy the best life possible. God gives us freedom to enjoy the world and to enjoy one another and to enjoy him. Any restrictions he places on our freedom are in service to our health and well-being.

Thou shalt not kill isn't really such a bad idea, is it? How about thou shalt not steal? Well, that's not so bad either. I certainly don't want anyone taking my stuff, so it stands to reason that I shouldn't take theirs. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Not with my wife, you won't!

You get the point.

God knows how to live because he invented life. God wants what he wants because it's best—for us, for others, for the world. Though it may not feel best now, it will ultimately be proven best.

You might think about it this way: What God wants from us results in what he wants for us.

What does God want from us? Obedience.

What does God want for us? Life. Happiness. Peace. Love. Relationship. Fulfillment. Meaning. Satisfaction. Laughter.

There is a word that sums up everything God wants for his people. That word is blessing.

What God wants from us (obedience) results in what he wants for us (blessing).
Concerning marriage, God wants (fidelity, honesty, self-sacrifice, responsibility, love, passion, romance) which results in (longevity, intimacy, knowledge, unity, family, security).

Concerning children, God wants (instruction, admonition, encouragement, care) which results in (closeness, admiration, responsiveness, friendship, love).

Concerning business, God wants (skill, management, integrity) which results in (good reputation, increased revenue, skilled employees).

When I'm obedient, the natural result is blessing. Sometimes, of course, other things get in the way of that blessing. Someone else's disobedience, for example, can compromise the natural result of my obedience. The thief prevents the honest, hardworking, responsible man from enjoying his fortune. We cannot totally escape these extenuating circumstances, not in this life.

But don't let that overshadow the basic biblical truth that, by and large, when we live life the way God intends, we get to enjoy the life God intended.

Kinds of Victory

In the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, we are introduced to Jewish father Guido Orefice and his son Giosue. They have been separated from Dora, Guido's wife and Giosue's mother, in a concentration camp during the Second World War, and the movie tells the story of how Guido helps Giosue cope with the tragedy, pain, and loss of Nazi persecution.

They play a game.

Unwilling to give up on his son's innocence or to turn his back on laughter, Guido convinces his boy that the entire camp is a live-action role-playing game. The guards are the opposition, the prisoners are the heroes, and the grand prize for winning is a tank.

**Spoiler alert**

Guido dies during the internment, but Giosue survives and is reunited with his mother. She sees him, at the end of the film, riding in the middle of a parade of American soldiers.

On a tank.

Here is a redemptive work of art that layers (military) victory on top of (family) victory on top of (paternal) victory on top of (ideological) victory on top of (circumstantial) victory.

The Allies win and the Axis loses.

The mother is reunited with her son.

The father protects his boy.

Laughter and hope persist in the face of cruelty and war.

The future is born out of past ashes, and what once was fantasy has now become the present reality.

If you were to have asked someone at the beginning of World War Two what victory would look like, most would have responded with something about their side winning. A few would have spoken about peace. A few more, likely, would have spoken about preserving their souls, or their goodness, in the midst of the ugliness of bloodshed.

But no one would have guessed at a game for a boy with a tank for a prize.

And this is my point: there are an inexhaustible number of ways to win. Victory is defined by who you are in the midst of the struggle and what you choose to create with what you have in front of you.

Don't quit. But don't just try to survive either. Don't forget about the things that make victory worth having: laughter, family, hope, ideals. Because keeping those is victory all on its own.