Religion | WithoutWax.tv by Pete Wilson
Archive - Religion RSS Feed

Cookie Cutter Souls

September 23, 2009 in God, Leadership, Religion with 55 Comments

For far too long the church has had an unhealthy and unrealistic expectation that all people should be at the same place at the same time.

I love this quote from “When The Heart Waits” by Sue Monk Kidd,

“If all souls developed in cookie-cutter fashion, we would have spirituality by duplication rather than by waiting and transformation.”

In so many different ways we often communicate…

Everyone should be happy. (But at times even Jesus was sad.)

Everyone should be balanced. (But doesn’t God speak to us in our seasons of imbalance.)

Everyone should be serving. (But didn’t Jesus commend the woman who just sat at his feet.)

Everyone should relate to God in the same way. (But isn’t Scripture full of examples of different people relating to God in different ways.)

These expectations have done immense damage to the body of Christ.

We need to help people begin to understand that God can and will meet them in the midst of whatever season they may find themselves.

We need to help people begin to understand that God can and will work differently in your life than He has worked in my life.

I don’t have all the answers, I just know souls don’t develop in cookie-cutter fashion and churches were never intended to become factories which cranked out people who would be at the same place at the same time.

The List

September 21, 2009 in Cross Point Church, Religion with 41 Comments

We’re in a series entitled “Religion Lies” right now at Cross Point. Yesterday we looked at the following parable from Jesus in Luke 18….

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10″Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee (religious Leader) and the other a tax collector (scum of the earth). 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

This is a classic look at religion which is all about comparing and condemning.

Everyone creates a list just like this religious leader did. It’s a list of the sins you think are most appalling to God. And do you know what sins you think are most appalling to God? The ones you don’t struggle with, right?

This is what religious institutions have done for centuries. A bunch of power hungry religious leaders get in a room and figure out which group of sins they are least likely to struggle with and then they declare that “list” as the posterboard sins their denomination is going to boycott, picket and vote against.

Anne Lamott says, …

“You can tell you have made God in your image when it turns out He hates all the same people you do.”

Ever struggle with this “list”?

A Failure To Be Receptive And Grateful

September 10, 2009 in God, Religion with 49 Comments

I read something last night before bed that kept me up longer than I wanted to be up. I’m rereading parts of “The Shattered Lantern” by Ronald Rolheiser. He said…

The original sin of Adam and Eve, the prototype of all sin, is presented as a failure to be receptive and grateful.

Just think about it for a second. God creates Adam and Eve and places them in the garden where they are surrounded by unmistakable beauty and all the goodness of life. They are experiencing the fullness of life, the way it was intended to be and are promised it will continue…under one condition. Just don’t eat the fruit of a certain tree.

However, we all know they would eventually fail to receive life as a gift and instead try to seize it as if it were owed to them.

When I think of my own life and the sin that often creeps in, it usually begins with my failure to see life as a gift.

My lust.
My pride.
My anger.
My lack of forgiveness.

It’s all the overflow of a heart which begins to believe that something is “owed” to me.

I’m wondering how different today would be for each one of us if we seek to go through this day today viewing our life, our circumstances, our relationships and yes, even our hardships and challenges as gifts. As opportunities to be the men or women God has created us to be.

Today I seek to be receptive and grateful.

Measuring Spiritual Formation

August 17, 2009 in God, Leadership, Religion with 41 Comments

We’ve found a lot of different ways to measure spiritual formation over the years.

-church attendance
-clean language
-dressing the part
-paying for indulgences
-memorizing Scripture
-serving in the church

There is obviously nothing inherently wrong with any of these things in and of themselves. A matter of fact some of them may be foundational for spiritual formation, but not the way in which we should measure it. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing one can somehow measure their spiritual maturity by checking off how many of the “do’s” have been performed and how many of the “don’ts” have been avoided. However, real spiritual formation isn’t evaluated by how well we perform a list of tasks on a check-off list. Jesus said…

John 13:35 35 “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Matthew 22: 36″Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

In other words Jesus said, spiritual maturity is measured in the context of relationships.  Are you interested in how you’re doing at having Christ formed in your life?  Then take at look at how you’re loving God and loving people.

Fighting For Control

August 12, 2009 in Relationships, Religion, Uncategorized with 42 Comments

Every day millions of people are fighting for it. Their quest causes…

marriages to explode

jobs to be lost

reputations to be damaged

relationships to drift

kids to be pushed a way

And for what? All for the achievement of one of the greatest and most addictive illusions of our life: control

I love the way my friend Chad Jarnagan said it yesterday, “Control is never achieved when sought after directly. It is the surprising outcome of letting go.”

What is it you’re trying to control and manipulate that you should be giving back to God?

Have I Ever Wanted Anything Else?

July 28, 2009 in God, Religion with 52 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about heaven lately. I don’t know why. No big life changes, it’s just been on my mind.

To be honest most of my life I’ve loved the idea of heaven, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been ready to go. As the amazing theologian Kenny Chesney says, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody want to go right now.”

I think the problem is our imagination is broken. What if I were to ask you…

Would you like to wake up and never feel guilt again in your life?

Would you like to wake up and never have to deal with any physical or mental shortcomings and love absolutely everything about yourself?

Would you like to wake up  and  be in the presence of the one person who loves you more than anyone in all of creation and who will love you more each day?

Would you love to wake up and see the unstained creation of a glorious God which makes anything you’ve ever seen pale in comparison?

Would you love to wake up and be free from the doubt,  questions, longings and pain which cause you to know inside that there has to be something more?

Would you love to wake up and feel complete joy, purpose and acceptance minus such feelings as lack of self esteem, anger, disappointment, stress, worry, and bitterness?

The answer to any and all of these questions would be yes right?

I think C.S. Lewis summed it up well when he said…

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever wanted anything else.

Any Thoughts?

Show Me The Money

June 25, 2009 in Religion with 48 Comments

I had the incredible opportunity of speaking to the Lampo Group yesterday. I was absolutely blown away by the graciousness of Dave Ramsey and his entire staff.

As part of my preparation I did a little research on their organization and was extremely impressed.

-Over 750,000 families have now went through Financial Peace University.
-3.5 million listeners tune into the “Dave Ramsey Show” each week.
- In April over 1 million people participated in the “Town Hall For Hope” a live broadcast heard on the radio, seen on the Fox Business Network, and delivered to over 6,000 webcast locations across the country making it the largest syndicated webcast to date.

Clearly God is using Dave and this entire organization to do amazing things for His Kingdom. Beyond the amazing numbers you’ll find a passionate leader who cares deeply about his staff (Dave is currently using flash cards at his desk to memorize all 300 of his employees names). What other organization do you know that take an hour out of their work day to open God’s Word together?

About a year ago God prompted me to the importance of how we use our money. Brandi and I have had several recent conversations about how we could better use our money to impact more people.

My wheels got turning about a year ago when I read the total income of American churchgoers is $5.2 trillion. That’s a lot of stinking money.  It would also just take a little over 1 % of the income of American Christians to lift the poorest one billion people in the world out of extreme poverty. Furthermore while American Christians make up only 5 percent of the church worldwide, we still control about half of the global Christian wealth.

I was convicted that I would sometimes stay up late trying to figure out how I could afford this or afford that, but rarely was I compelled to spend hours strategizing about how I could more effectively fund Kingdom ventures. Getting my financial world in order is not just about me getting rich… it’s about me making an impact in this world. Money certainly doesn’t solve all of our world’s problems, but it sure can make a difference when it’s managed well.

Dave Ramsey and others like him are on a crusade to help people find a hope and freedom that could have a huge impact on the American church and the advancement of God’s love around the world.

I know money is a really, really, really personal thing, but I would love to know how you guys are doing in this area.

Have any sound financial advice that could benefit our community here?

Page 2 of 34«12345»102030...Last »