Knowing the God We've Forgotten

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers ... that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe." (Ephesians 1:16-19, emphasis added)

In today's society, the church is being increasingly compartmentalized into two groups: believers who "feel God" and ones who "know about God."  Sadly, as the dichotomy widens, both factions are pushed further and further apart to the point that both are extremes that often stray far from the Truth of Christianity.  In order to truly know God, however, it is crucial for us to find the truth in each of these viewpoints without swaying from scripture and so jeopardize a close walk with Christ.

The first view, "feeling" God, is mostly characterized by Evangelicals.  It began during the first Great Awakening, when dynamic preachers starkly contrasted the dull churches of the day.  These men gripped the emotions, but Christianity became consistently characterized by individual feeling and experience rather than true belief.  Doctrine was kicked to the curb as "spiritual experiences" took precedence.

Alternatively, as the Evangelical movement swept the country, some resisted by holding tighter to church organization, ordinance, and tradition.  While they preserved many sacred aspects of the faith and taught proper theology, they, much like the pharisees of Jesus's day, began to lose the fervor and zeal for the God they served.

And so it has continued to this day.  It is not difficult to notice that the Church of today has almost entirely embraced the Evangelical extreme.  As the philosophy of naturalism becomes much more common, belief in the Maker of the universe seems like fantasy.  Christianity has become therapeutic; "love," "faith," and emotional experience are the primary ideals of the Church, giving it a mystical feeling with little to no foundation in reality.

So what does this mean?  How does all of this help us to know God?  It's simple, really: we must regain the right perspective.  We can't develop a Christian worldview simply by having a "God experience."  Today, knowledge about God is second-priority - even shunned, but God wants us to know about Him!

But even more so, the Lord desires that we know Him.  This means that we not only feel His presence, but we diligently seek to understand who He is.  And yes, that requires studying His word.  It requires prayer.  It requires talking about Him with fellow believers.  It requires things that our "Just me and Jesus" society ignores.

I could really go on and on about this.  I invite you to continue the conversation in the comment section!  In the mean time, though, remember that merely knowing about God or feeling God is not enough.  We have to know God!

I am Dead

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."  Colossians 3:2-3

I am dead.

There's no way to sugar-coat that.  It's not mystical.  It's not figurative.  It's real.

I am dead.

In Galatians 2:20, Paul says that we have been crucified with Christ.  Romans 6:6 states it similarly.  The message is spread throughout the Bible, in both the New Testament and the Old, yet we take it so lightly.  Simply by looking at the language of scripture, it's plain to see that this fact is far more than just an idea.  It's a reality.

To be crucified is not a light thing.  We are each told to pick up our cross (Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23), but in the days of the Roman empire, this action meant the end.  When a man picked up his cross, his friends and family would never see him again.  There was no chance of return.  His fate was sealed.

I am dead.

I have been crucified with Christ.  Nathan Tasker no longer exists; he died at the age of fourteen.  My friends and family will never see me again.  There is no chance of return.  My fate is sealed.

But that's not all.  I died, but I was replaced with a new man (Colossians 3:9-10).  This new man is not Nathan Tasker, however.  My identity is found in Christ (Galatians 2:20).  So if I have truly died, how can I continue in my old ways (Romans 6:1-2)?  How can I use Nathan Tasker - that man who lived from 1996 to 2010, who is now just a part of history - as a pattern to follow?  That's not me.  Christ is who I am, completely.

There is no partial crucifixion.  There is no partial surrender.  There is no partial death.  If you have truly been crucified with Christ, there is no turning back.  It's over.  Everything earthly about you must be put to death - murdered (Colossians 3:5).  You are of Christ, and now the life that you live - every moment, every situation - has to be lived for Christ.

I am dead.

And I die every day.  I am nowhere close to matching the perfect holiness of my Creator; I may never be.  Every day is an opportunity to crucify everything earthly about me: my old habits, my old desires, my old thoughts.  If I want to call myself a follower of Christ, I have no choice but to follow Him in crucifixion.  There is no middle ground.

I am dead.  Are you?

This is the Day

"This is the day that the Lord has made;

    let us rejoice and be glad in it."  (Psalm 118:24)

Have you ever taken a moment to think about this verse - I mean, really think about it?  Most of us think we know exactly what this verse means.  We should rejoice, because God allowed us to live!  It's a new day!

This passage certainly is pretty straightforward.  Even so, many of us still fail to realize what "This is the day that the Lord has made" really means in its entirety.  What does it mean for God to make a day?  It's definitely not merely a "You made my day" kind of thing.  It's much more.

When God created the earth, He said it was good (Genesis 1:31).  He created everything for a reason.  And even since the Fall, God still creates things with a purpose.  So when we say that this is the day that the Lord has made, it means that He planned it.  He orchestrated it.

Because we live in the here-and-now, we tend to think that some days don't have much of a purpose.  Well, here's another day at work.  Another day of school.  Another day of life.  But God is eternal.  He's the beginning, the end, and everything in between.  He doesn't make anything meaningless.  So if God made this day, then He has something very special in mind for it.  That's not just poetic; it's literal.

God didn't create a day that is meaningless.  He made this day - this hour - this moment - to change something in your life.  Sometimes, though, we can diminish the plan God has for a day.  We can choose not to live in the Spirit, and so completely miss out on what God was going to do in and through us that day.  What God does in and through us is greatly dependent on how closely we walk with Him.

Maybe God wants to inspire a person through something you do or say.  Perhaps He desires to use this day to bring someone into a relationship with Him by using you.  He could yearn to use today to reveal to you a profound aspect of His character that you hadn't experienced.  Or, He might use this day to prepare you for something even greater tomorrow.  But this will never become a reality if you don't align your life to His will day by day.

This is the day that the Lord has made.  Rejoice and be glad in it.

Leaving a Legacy

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.  (Hebrews 11:5)

To leave a legacy is an incredible thing.  It takes one simple, corruptible, finite life and uses it to affect generation upon generation afterward.  Just about everyone will leave some kind of legacy, whether good or bad, even if it's just to their children or a small group closest to them.  It's the legacy of those who have impacted humanity for centuries that is truly great.

Enoch was of the seventh line from Adam.  Not much is said about him, actually.  His entire life if summed up in about four verses (Genesis 5:21-24).  Yet much of his legacy is found in verse 24: "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him."  He's one of the only two individuals in scripture to not die (the other being Elijah; see 2 Kings 2:9-12).

But it wasn't the fact that "God took him" that gave him a legacy.  It was what he did: "Enoch walked with God."  What does it mean to walk with God?  To walk with God is to keep His commands.  It's to love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  It's to stay in constant communication with Him.

But that's not very big, is it?  I mean, Noah built an ark, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, Elijah stopped the rain.  What made Enoch's stroll with the Lord so special?  You see, leaving a legacy doesn't mean doing something incredibly huge to be a spectacle to all.  Sometimes the greatest legacy requires simply faithfully walking with our Heavenly Father day after day.  But I'll tell you what: that can be one of the hardest things you could ever do.

Andrew was a disciple of Jesus whose primary focus was to bring other people to meet the Messiah.  He brought his brother Simon, who became Peter.  He brought the boy with five loaves and two fish.  He wasn't in the limelight, but he did what God wanted him to do.  Both Andrew and Enoch built a legacy, but it wasn't through being in the forefront.  It was through humble service.

What will be your legacy?  Will you do something big for God?  Will you build a life worth remembering, or will you waste it on what doesn't matter?  The greatness of your legacy depends on the faithfulness of your walk with God.

I am a Hypocrite

Have you ever felt like a hypocrite? like those around you seem to hold you in such high esteem, yet you feel as if you're really just a let-down?  I certainly feel that at times.  I may teach a Bible class, I may author this blog; but when I look at my life, sometimes I think Wow, I still am so far from where I should be.  I've gotten so many things wrong.  I'm a hypocrite.

Jesus talked a lot about hypocrites, actually.  In Matthew chapter 23, He addresses them with "Woe to you," "Woe to you," "Woe to you" (Matthew 23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29).  Six times He uses this phrase.  Jesus definitely isn't happy with hypocrites.  

So what does it mean to be a hypocrite?  A definition of a hypocrite is "a person who claims to have moral standards or beliefs to which his own behavior does not conform."  Ouch.  According to this definition, I suppose we're all hypocrites.

Or are we?  Although Christianity is not merely a moral standard, the Bible does lay out quite the formidable standard: perfection, basically.  To be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16).  So why didn't Jesus just say "Woe to everyone," since none of us are perfect?

Quite fortunately, our moral perfection (or lack thereof) is not what gets us to heaven.  The perfection of Christ, who took our place, is what allows us to enter into the glory of the Father.  The miracle of the gospel is that we don't have to be perfect in and of ourselves in order to be saved, nor do we claim to be perfect.  

You see, that was the problem of the Scribes and Pharisees, whom Jesus regularly called hypocrites.  They claimed to follow the law, to be perfect, essentially, but their behavior was far from it.  For us as Christians, however, perfection is our goal, not our requirement.  We claim to continually submit to Christ, and so we should do.  We claim to allow Him to change us each day, and so we should do.

We are not hypocrites.  I am not a hypocrite.  You are not a hypocrite.  We may make mistakes, but we can take them to Christ (1 John 1:9, 2:1).  However, this is far from an excuse to keep on sinning (Romans 6:1).  Don't let your failures leave you depressed, feeling like a hypocrite.  Use them as a reminder of your perpetual need for the grace of Jesus Christ, and find joy as He continually removes those things so that you and I can become the instruments He has created us to be.

When the Nation Crumbled

In the book of 1 Kings, during the course of chapters 11 and 12, we find a very didactic - yet not-so-often-told - account of a pinnacle point in the history of the nation of Israel.

The story takes place just after the death of one of the most famous kings: Solomon, who was not only the wisest king, but the wealthiest as well.  However, even this did not secure his dedication to the Lord.  Sadly, Solomon turned his back on the very One who had lifted him up to greatness (1 Kings 11:1-10).  But I digress.

When Solomon died, his son, Rehoboam, began to reign (1 Kings 11:43).  Soon thereafter, Jeroboam (who was a servant of Solomon) and many others came to Rehoboam, asking him to lighten their workload (1 Kings 12:1-4).  And as any newbie to the throne might do, Rehoboam decided to consult some people for advice.

This is where things begin to escalate.  King Rehoboam consulted two different groups: the older men, who had been with his father Solomon, and the younger men, Rehoboam's peers.  The older men advised Rehoboam to lighten the workload (an advantageous political move), but his friends told him to show his might by increasing the workload (1 Kings 12:6-11).

We, nearly 3,000 years later, can find ourselves in a surprisingly parallel predicament.  With each passing generation in our culture, the separation and tension between the older and younger Christians of the Church increases formidably.  Each side pushes at the other, further widening the dichotomy.

While there are many aspects of this cultural divide and many ways in which the Church can and does fight against it, the story of Rehoboam gives us an amazingly beneficial lesson.  You see, Rehoboam chose to listen to his peers.  As a result, God's chosen ones underwent a painful split that separated the people into Israel and Judah, severing the nation.

As young adults in the Family and Body of our Lord and Savior, was must realize what is at stake.  We have to bridge the generational gap by earnestly seeking to learn from those who have been blessed with experiences and wisdom that we do not have (Titus 2:1-8, Proverbs 19:20).  Don't shy away from tuning your ear to the counsel of the wise.

A Story Worth Telling: Two Years of Not Just a Teen

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work withing us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.  Amen."  (Ephesians 3:20-21)

As of today, Not Just a Teen has existed for two years!  These past years have been an incredible journey for me as I have grown closer to my Heavenly Father.  In looking back over Not Just a Teen's history, I can't help but to see a story of God's overwhelming grace.  If you care to join me, I'll share that story with you.

In a way, I suppose, you could say that Not Just a Teen began more than just two years ago.  It has, in reality, been a story nearly four years in the making, and it began when I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

Growing up, I had always thought myself to be a Christian.  I believed in Jesus.  I was the "spiritual giant" of my church's youth - or so I was called.  I did more than most Christian youth ever do.  But I had never done one thing: ask Christ into my heart.  It took a year-long period of sinful struggle that brought me crashing to my knees before I realized that I still lacked His salvation, and that I could amount to nothing without His redeeming power.

But this story is more than just my personal testimony, so we'll move on.  About a year and a half after being saved, I was beginning to feel a strong burden for my generation of teens, especially for those in the Church who weren't growing in their faith - or who hadn't even been born again at all.

On top of this, a number of questions probed my mind: What if I died tomorrow?  Who would know my heart's cry for my culture?  Would anyone even know I gave it a thought?  What evidence would there be of this faith that I hold?  What would my legacy be?  Would I just be remembered by my peers for my sense of humor or my knowledge?  It was out of these questions that Not Just a Teen was born.

Ever since I wrote the first post, I have seen God work in amazing ways.  I have been blessed to write over 40 posts, spanning from topics of purity,the church, and motivational quotes to colorful allegories and metaphors pertaining to scripture.  Some have been entertaining, some have been written with a heavy heart, but all have been written out of lessons that the Lord, by His grace, has taught me personally.

One of the most notable posts was "Those Who Were Different: A Lesson from Hershey Park," a story from my own life pointing out the need for guys to appreciate girls who dress modestly.  This post was unique, though.  I had submitted it to one of my favorite blogs, The Rebelution, for them to post on their site.  I explicitly remember kneeling, trembling, praying that God would use the post to touch at least one - just one - life.

The response was not what I had anticipated, to say the least.  When the story was posted on The Rebelution, it was immediately met with dozens upon dozens of people reviling me personally, and even Christians in general, for being legalistic, hateful, judgmental, and even sexually-obsessed.  The post was woefully misinterpreted, even by some of those in support of it.

Although many people responded harshly, there were also many who were encouraged.  And while the "slander" was small in comparison to the trials of many faithful believers, God was able to use it to open my eyes in compassion to the fact that many people - even Christians - have been deeply hurt by false views of Christian beliefs, modesty simply being one of them.

This was just one example of God's work through Not Just a Teen.  There have been many other posts that have challenged, uplifted, and instructed youth and adults alike.  I am inexplicably grateful for this, and I am hopeful for what the Lord is yet to do.

As I look back over the posts I have written, I am utterly humbled by what Jehovah has done.  Even to this day, the recurring themes of Not Just a Teen - sacrificing our all, aligning our lives to His Word, letting Christ flow through us and express Himself through our actions - still resonate in the posts.

I don't know what God has in store for me and this blog in the future, but I do know that He has shown His power to do mighty things.  So now, I shall walk with Him each day in obedience and love, knowing that it is only in The Almighty that we can have any hope to bring a lost and dying world to its Wonderful, Merciful, Compassionate, and Benevolent Creator.