Jesus, the Gospel, The Kingdom, Life, and so on...

Clarification on my talk on Repentance yesterday

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:01:21 -0700

Last night I said some pretty strong things in regards to the central theme of repentance that we see in Jonah 3 and the rest of the Bible. I thought I would offer some clarifying thoughts that will hopefully be helpful to our movement.

First though, I couldn’t recommend more this article from Tim Keller on repentance and the very same things I talked about last night. He says it all in such a better way than I could, so please read it: http://bit.ly/CABWh.

But to offer some of my own clarifications, I thought it would help to give some categories of where you might be personally in regards to true and false repentance, and your ability to tell where you currently lie. I said last night that if you only know how to do false repentance than you may not be a Christian at all. While it is helpful to test yourself to see if you are truly a believer (see 2 Corinthians 13:5-6), I also don’t want to cause widespread panic in our movement of people thinking they aren’t Christians when most of us probably do truly know Jesus and love him.

So let me offer some categories for you in regards to True/False Repentance. I think there are 3 types of people (and the third one will probably be the most helpful):

1) Only False Repenters: There are those of us, who, as I said last night, have only been taught to repent in regards to damage it will do to us, to others, or only to avoid negative consequences. For them, their repentance or desire for change has never had anything to do with Jesus, nor do they want to repent because they want to obey him and follow him, but only because of the the negative things that happen to them when they do wrong. These are those of us that don’t know Jesus, because they don’t ever consider him in their desire to change. These people need to repent and trust Jesus for real for the first time.

1) True Repenters: These are people who have learned over time in their relationship to Jesus to see their sin ultimately not as just hurting themselves or other people, but ultimately as rebellion to God and to Jesus who has done so much for them. They did not get their over night, but are in a on-going process of daily repentance of their sin against Jesus.

1) The rest of us that struggle between False & True Repentance: Ok, so in all honesty, I don’t think there are many (or anyone) who is perfectly in the 2nd category, and reality is that most of us who claim to be Christians DO really love Jesus and desire to follow and obey him, but we slip into the natural mode of False Repentance and need to be shaken and reminded to repent for Jesus’ sake. This is where I place myself. Jesus was teaching me through Jonah 3 this week and last night’s talk, that my repentance of sin against others, my wife, and all other areas is first and foremost a rebellion against Jesus and all his goodness to me. Therefore I need to repent of my repentance. But because I am in that process doesn’t mean I don’t know Jesus. It is the same for most of you. Many of us have been taught False Repentance in churches and movements. We need to start the process of learning how to do True Repentance.

Lastly, I want to make the point that really ALL of this battle lies within your own heart, and will probably not be able to be seen on the outside. It is a struggle that you have to fight inside. It is more a of vertical (you & God) thing than a horizontal (you & others) thing. For example, if you sin against a friend and are cruel to them in your words, you need to go to that person, confess your sin, and ask for their forgiveness. But THE battle that you need to get to in your heart, for true repentance to happen, is to realize that you first and foremost rebelled against Jesus in your cruelty to you friend, because he calls to love and seek the best of those around us as he loved us and sought our best, even when we didn’t deserve it.

See the difference? If you only do the horizontal, but never the vertical in your heart, you will only be doing false repentance. But you SHOULD do the horizontal, Jesus commands it, but you HAVE to learn to do the vertical in your heart for it to be true repentance. And the more you do the vertical the more you will become someone truly repents and sins less.

Hope that helps you all. Feel free to write comments on here or questions, and I will try and do my best to answer them.

Blessed to serve you and do ministry with you,

DJ

This brought me to tears today...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:51:09 -0700

Speaking on Revelation 7:9-17

“And so they (those who love Jesus in heaven) rise in crescendo of worship and celebration saying, ‘You did it! You did it! You did what we could not do for ourselves. You broke our bondage to sin and restored us to be the willing worshipers you created us to be.’ The most important thing happening in your life right now is not that new house or new job. It is not your professional success or the love of a friend. The one thing worth celebrating for all eternity is your redemption. By God’s grace, you are being progressively delivered from the one thing that can completely destroy you: sin. But God not only delivers you, he restores you. He is making you a partaker of his diving nature.

There will be a day when you stand before God’s throne. You won’t be anxious with shame or fearful with guilt. As you stand before him, you will be like him because his grace made you a participant in his divine nature. In that moment, you will not be celebrating the physical gifts of earth-bound life. Your heart will overflow with the realization that God has been victorious. The battles of change and growth are forever past. The final destination is his presence and throne room. Together, dressed in white robes of righteousness and crowned with glory, we will celebrate the one thing worth living for: the Lamb and his salvation. This is where God is taking you.”

-Timothy Lane & Paul David Tripp, “How People Change”

Pondering Joy and Results in Ministry

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:04:15 -0700

I blog because it is somewhat therapeutic for me. It helps me get out and process through thoughts rolling around in my head. And then I make it public in hopes that it my silly little thoughts will bless someone somehow.

Recently I have been pondering results in ministry and rejoicing in them in relation to Luke 10:20. With the beginning of our Cru ministry year, we spend a ton of time praying and dreaming and planning big things for the year. We asked our core student leaders to pray and dream what we want to see God do in the long-term in our ministry, things like seeing “x” number of people come to know Jesus and “x” number of people involved in our ministry. These dreams and visions are always grand, as I believe they should be, since they are in light of our sovereign God.

But this summer at our National CCC Staff Conference Tim Keller spoke to us about Luke 10. He made many points, but his final one on verse 20 is what hit me the hardest. Verse 20 says this:

“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

The verse from Jesus comes after the 72 disciples have come back after being sent out and they have seen all sorts of miraculous things. They are ecstatic and tell Jesus all the amazing things that happened through them.

But the stunning thing that Keller pointed out is that Jesus corrects their rejoicing. It is actually a mild rebuke. The disciples are rejoicing in their personal power through Jesus, that the “spirits are subject to them.” They are rejoicing in the results that they have seen. Jesus at first seems to identify with their joy and affirms them of the authority over the spiritual realm that he has given them, but then the correction comes. Jesus is telling them, “Your joy is in the wrong place.”

So where does Jesus direct their joy? Keller points out that he directs them to the gospel. The gospel is that all infinite joy and pleasure in existence are to be found in Jesus and what he has accomplished for us, and that all love and acceptance is found in him through the cross. So Jesus says to them, “Don’t rejoice in the good results that came to you, in the power that I displayed through you, but rejoice that I have saved you, and your place is secure in heaven because of me.” Keller concluded by saying that if our joy is found in our ministry results or personal power, it will fail us, because we will become proud if the results continue to be good, thinking we have accomplished it, or if the results stop, we will despair because there must be something wrong with us. Only if our joy is in the gospel and who we are in Jesus will our joy be unshakable.

So this is where the crossroads of our ministry prep before the year and our dreams for what Jesus can do intersect with Luke 10:20 for me.

Last year we had some of the same “grand dreams” and prayers for what the Lord might do. We had a full staff team, over 20 aligned leaders, and great plans and strategies. But our grand dreams didn’t happen. We didn’t see many freshmen get involved, we didn’t have great growth, and half-way through the year we had significant struggles and problems arise, and we actually shrunk. No minister wants their ministry to shrink, that is never in the strategic plan!

And how did I react? I got pretty depressed for much of the year. When students questioned me, I got angry (often). I despaired off and on. In a sense, I was not looking to the gospel, but at the results. I think the Lord has been saying to me Luke 10:20, but in a negative sense:

“Nevertheless, do not despair in this, that your ministry has shrunk, that your dreams haven’t been accomplished, and things have been terribly hard, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

I think the Lord has been teaching me that just as we need correction of where to place our joy when things go well (as in Luke 10:20), so we need correction where to place our joy when things are hard (like last year in many ways).

Often times I put up a Cru ministry like Cal Poly SLO, which is around 1000 students, and say, “THAT is the goal!” I am beginning to think that is NOT the goal, but the goal should be to have a movement where there are staff and students who “rejoice that our names are written in heaven” regardless of the results, whether good or bad.

But what do you think? Do we tend to focus too much on the desire for good results in CCC, at the expense of targeting Luke 10:20? Do we make movement size the goal over hearts grasping the gospel? And how do we properly mourn when there is sin, rebellion, and when people are not coming to trust in Jesus without it consuming us so that we cannot rejoice that our names are written in heaven?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

The Gay Marriage Debate: Arguing the Wrong Thing

Tue, 26 May 2009 11:52:54 -0700

Well yesterday’s California Supreme Court ruling on Prop 8 and Miss California’s recent confession at the Miss USA pageant have again brought the gay/same-sex marriage debate to the forefront. It is stunning to look at the trends on Twitter that involve Prop 8 and read how enraged and passionate people are about this issue, on both sides. I have also watched enough TV news shows that I have seen arguments made from both sides; some good arguments and some with some terrible fallacies.

But I have noticed one thing as I have tried to think over this issue as the Christian I am, and as someone who wants the best for the country I live in, including wanting equality in all areas as much as the next American. The one thing I have noticed is that both sides seem to be arguing the wrong thing. Let me explain.

The Left- Pro Same-Sex Marriage
The left has the most emotionally strong argument. It goes something like this: In America we value freedom and complete equality for everyone. This hasn’t always been the way things have been (see slavery, pre-Civil Rights era) but that is what we have strived for over our history. Just like African-American’s were denied full and equal rights before the Civil Rights Act, so LGBT Americans are being denied their full rights, including the right to marry whomever they want. So it is a civil rights issue, and inevitably we will progress to the place where gay and lesbian Americans
have the same full rights as straight Americans.

The Right- Pro Traditional-only Marriage
The right argues that marriage for thousands of years and across various cultures has been defined as between one man and one woman, and as such is a bedrock foundation for society as a whole. They also argue that if you don’t define marriage as between one man and one woman, then you open marriage up for polygamy, or a person marrying their pet, or whatever else. They argue there must be some restrictions on marriage somewhere, and that what is most profitable for society is that the restrictions are between one man and one woman.

The Fighting
Now, what ends up happening when both of these sides talk to each other, because they are coming at it from these two perspectives, they end up missing each other.

The Left says that because this is a civil rights issue, it is BIGOTRY to oppose same-sex marriage. You are intolerant and akin to those who opposed african-american full rights during the Civil Rights Movement.

The Right says that this is a democracy issue, and that the majority of the country still supports traditional marriage. Take left-leaning California, or President Obama, both who oppose same-sex marriage though they are politically on the left. Therefore, you want to take away people’s right to vote for what they want, and impede democracy. What is wrong with voting and holding your opinion? The Right throws out arguments that the Left is hindering their free speech.

The Problem
Here is the problem: they are not seeing the point they need to be discussing/arguing over.

If it IS a straight-up civil rights issue, and being LGBT is the exact same thing as being born black or white or brown, then I agree we cannot discriminate based on that and it really IS bigotry.

But the Right doesn’t see it that way. They see the LGBT lifestyle as just that, a chosen lifestyle, not the same as being black or white or hispanic. That is why they argue about people’s voices being heard and allowing the electorate to decide.

Not hearing each other
Let me illustrate this:

The Right would NOT support a law that didn’t allow african-americans to marry because they are black. It doesn’t matter how many people in America support it, the right would argue it is just WRONG to discriminate based on race. Or take the slavery issue. The Right would not say, “Hey look, the majority of the people in America support slavery, so let’s not silence those voices.” This is why the democracy argument from the right will never make any ground with the Left. The Left sees it completely the same as a racial discrimination.

In the same way, the Left wouldn’t support a law that didn’t uphold democracy. Maybe I am naive, but I believe most on the Left would say they support people’s right to voice their opinions and freedom of speech, and the right to voice their convictions. The problem is they see this like voicing opinions of racism, so the argument is closed once that belief is there.

The Left wastes their time beating the “Civil Rights” drum because the Right doesn’t see it that way, and the Right wastes their time beating the “freedom of opinion” drum because the Left doesn’t see it that way.

So, what SHOULD the argument be over?
Therefore, THIS is what the argument/discussion should be over: IS BEING LGBT EQUAL TO BEING A CERTAIN RACE (ie: black, latino, white, native american)?

This is where it needs to be. People on both sides need to have an intelligent discussion around whether being LGBT is a lifestyle/behavioral choice to be lived out, or if it is something that cannot be chosen at all or lived out, like being black, white, or latino.

I say “lived out” because I know most LGBT people I know firmly believe they were born gay, and that they didn’t chose it. I feel like “lived out” better gets across the point. No one “lives out” being black, they simply ARE. It is like being male or female. You don’t chose to live out being biologically male or female, you simply ARE.

So this is what needs to be discussed about being gay. Is it simply who are you, or is it more of a lifestyle choice to be lived out?

If you simply ARE, then I believe the Left will win the argument, rightly so.

If it is a lifestyle choice to live out, then the Right has a better argument.

---------------------------------------

Perhaps as a follow-up to this I will do another blog-post with my position. My hope however is that people will lovingly and intelligently not demonize the other side, and discuss the CORRECT thing that they are arguing about.

Say hello to my daughter

Sun, 24 May 2009 09:17:30 -0700

Well, I am now a father. That is pretty crazy to think about. But it is so excited to see our beautiful baby girl. I don’t want to rewrite other stuff, so I will just link you to other places we have told the story. Enjoy!

1) The Story of Piper Arriving

1) Update on Piper and Mom

And here are some pictures:

Video: “No Mr. President”

Wed, 13 May 2009 09:01:41 -0700

You simply must watch this video and pass it on as much as possible.

Can’t recommend this enough...

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:50:19 -0700

Can you get enough of Tim Keller? Probably not. He would say yes, I’m sure.

But after I heard this talk from the recent Gospel Coalition Conference, I just had to share it. It is personally convicting, and also incredibly important for anyone in vocational ministry to understand the idols of the community we are hoping to bring the gospel to. Go watch it! (click on the link below)

Tim Keller- The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel & Idolatry

Had to share this: “Jesus wants the rose!”

Wed, 8 Apr 2009 08:10:50 -0700

Money:

Another Money Quote from Wells

Tue, 7 Apr 2009 15:21:37 -0700

Another zinger from David Well’s book Above All Earthly Pow’rs that gets me thinking:

“It is very easy to build churches in which seekers congregate; it is very hard to build churches in which biblical faith is maturing into genuine discipleship. It is the difficulty of this task which has been lost in many seeker churches, which are meeting places for those who are searching spiritually but are not looking for that kind of faith which is spiritually tough and countercultural in a biblical way.”

Thoughts?

Quote of the Day: David Wells

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 09:50:26 -0700

Read this quote today from David Well’s book Above All Earthly Pow’rs and thought I had to share it:

“Some of the more conservative Christian groups continue to speak of America as a Christian country, or at least that it should be a Christian country, or at the very least that in its origins it once was a Christian country. The reality, however, is that America is the world’s most religiously diverse nation now and from a Christian point of view it is as fully a mission field as any to which churches now are sending their missionaries.”

Thoughts? Is it time to move from thinking of America as a launching ground to other places to a place that we should send to?

Saint Patrick was a stud

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:46:37 -0700

I will be the first one to admit to you that I am not into Saint Patrick’s Day. I kinda despise having to wear green or someone will pinch me. (On a side note, I kinda dig the tradition of raising a brew in celebration of a cool guy!)

But I read this piece from the Resurgence Blog and Mark Driscoll. Turns out, I didn’t know how rad Saint Patrick was. Truly, he was a man who loved Jesus and was an awesome missionary to the Irish. Check out all he did yourself:

The Resurgence- Vintage Saints: Saint Patrick

The Ins & Outs of Twitter, part II (finally)

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:01:49 -0700

So I am finally getting around to the second part of my Twitter evangelism posts. Last time I told you the basics of “what in the world is it,” and now I hope to give the details of how you really use it. Ironically, since I wrote my last post I feel like I have been seeing a ton of things on TV about Twitter! Maybe you have seen some stuff too.

Understanding the “@” and how to converse
I already explained to you in the last post how to update your Twitter feed simply by typing in what you are doing (or perhaps some witty comment you wish to make). But once you start following people you care about and seeing what they are doing, you have the opportunity to have conversations with them, or just comment on what they say. To do this, Twitter uses the “@” symbol, which you will see a lot on anyone’s Twitter page.

Here you can see an example from my Twitter feed. My friend from church “kitonga” just wrote me back a comment on the previous post I made. He did that by using “@djjenkins” which is my Twitter name. He wrote this on his own Twitter page, and since it has the @djjenkins it shows up in my feed directly to me.

Another example would be if I want to write something to my wife Alisha. Her Twitter name is “alishadawn33.” So if I want to comment to her I would start a message with “@alishadawn33” and then write the comment. Does that make sense? Also, you can comment to multiple people. If I wanted to say something to both kitonga and Alisha, I would start the Twitter message “@alishadawn33 @kitonga” and then the message. And you can go back and forth as much as you want, almost like an instant message. It is that simple!

Now, when you use the @ symbol to comment to someone it will be a public reply/message. That means, anyone that sees your feed will also see the public message. So if I write:

“@alishadawn33 I love you sweetie”

then anyone who follows me or Alisha will see it. But what if you want to send a private message?

Direct Messaging and the “d”
If you want to send a private message (called a direct message in Twiiter), then you don’t use the @ symbol. Instead, you use the letter “d”, but you put a space between the name and the “d”. So, if I want to send a private message to Alisha, I would write this:

“d alishadawn33 I love you sweetie!”

If I did that, Alisha would receive a message saying “I love you sweetie” but only she would be able to see it. This is very nice when you want to carry on a conversation but you don’t want everyone to see it.

Unfortunately, you cannot (to my knowledge) to direct messages to multiple people like you can the public @ messages.

Using @ Symbols for the names of people
Now something else you will notice in the Twitter world is that people use the @ symbol and other people’s Twitter names to substitute for the actually name of the person, so that they can see you are writing about them.

Take this Twitter for instance:

“Right now @alishadawn33 and I are watching The Office and resting at home”

So instead of saying “Right now Alisha and I...” I wrote her Twitter name, so that she gets a message in her feed that I mentioned her. This is very common for people using Twitter, so much so that people will say “My Twitter name is @djjenkins.” And in fact, on your Twitter page you can click on a name like @alishadawn33 and it will take you to that person’s page. This is a way you keep linked in with people, and is really just a way for social networking. And on this blog if you click on one of those names it will take you to our Twitter page. Try it out with mine @djjenkins.

Next time...
So now you know how to converse and communicate on Twitter. In the next and last blog post I will take you to the advanced stages of Twitter, which puts it all together!

Son of Hamas Leader Rejects Islam & Loves Jesus

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:22:00 -0700

I saw this story and thought I would share it with you in its entirety. Pretty amazing. I included a short video on the story as well.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary story. He was born the son of one of the most influential leaders of the militant Hamas organization in the West Bank and grew up in a strict Islamic family.
Now, at 30 years old, he attends an evangelical Christian church, Barabbas Road in San Diego, Calif. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and is seeking asylum in the United States.
The story of how his life unfolded is truly amazing, whether you agree or disagree with his views. Below is a transcript on an exclusive FOX News interview with Hassan as he tells firsthand how a West Bank Muslim became a West Coast Christian.
JONATHAN HUNT: Why, after 25 years, did you change?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I believe that all those walls that Islam built for the last 1,400 years are not existing (sic) anymore. They don't recognize this. They built those walls and made people ignorant because they're afraid. They didn't want people to discuss anything about the reality of Islam, about the big questions of Islam and they asked their followers, the Muslims, 'Don't ask about those certain questions.'
But now, people have media. If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she's going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it's very, very available for everybody to study about Islam, about other religions. Not from the Islam point of view, but from other points of view.
So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Muslim and the Arab world.
JONATHAN HUNT: You speak from a unique perspective, a man who grew up not just in an Islamic family but as part of an organization seen by many people around the world as an extreme force in Islam: Hamas. What is the reality of Islam? You say people don't see the reality; What is the reality of Islam?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There are two facts that Muslims don't understand ... I'd say about more than 95 percent of Muslims don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion.
Second, they don't understand anything about other religions. Christian communities live between Muslims and they're minority and they (would) rather not to go speak out and tell people about Jesus because it's dangerous for them.
So, all their ideas about other religions on earth are from Islamic perspectives. So those two realities, most people don't understand.
If people, if Muslims, start to understand their religion — first of all, their religion — and see how awful stuff is in there, they'll start to figure out, this can't (be) ... because most religious people focus on certain points of Islam. They have many points that they are very embarrassed to talk about.
JONATHAN HUNT: Such as?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Such as Muhammad's wives. You will never go to a mosque and hear about anyone talking about Muhammad's wives, which is like more than 50 wives — and nobody knows (this), by the way. If you ask the majority of Muslims, they will not know this fact.
So they're embarrassed to talk about this, but they talk about the glory of Islam, they talk about the victory, the victories that Muhammad made. So, when people just like look at themselves and see they're defeated, they have ignorance, they're not educated, they're not leading the world as they're expected to do. They’re think they want to get back to that victory by doing the same, what Muhammad did, but disregarding (sic) the timing. They forget that this happened 1,400 years ago and it's not going to happen again.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do they want to destroy Christianity?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Islam destroyed Christianity from the beginning and Muslims don't recognize that they stabbed Christianity (in) its heart when they said that Jesus wasn't killed on the cross. They think that they honor him in this way.
Basically, any Christians understand that this way, (but Muslims) tell Jesus, okay, we don't care, you didn't die for us. Someone sacrificed his life for you, (but) you tell him, okay, you didn't do it!
This is what Muslims are doing basically. But they don't understand that this is the most important part of Christianity: the cross!
So, they are ignorant, they don't know what they are doing and it explains what an evil idea it is behind this Islam.
JONATHAN HUNT: What specific event or events began to change your mind about Islam?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Since I was a child I started to ask very difficult questions, even my family was telling me all the time, 'You're a very difficult person and we were having trouble answering your questions. Why are you asking so many questions?' This was from the beginning, to be honest with you.
But I felt that everybody — and my father was a good example for me because he was a very honest, humble person, very nice to my mother, to us, and raised us on the principle of forgiveness, okay? I thought that everybody in Islam was like this.
When I was 18 years old, and I was arrested by the Israelis and was in an Israeli jail under the Israeli administration, Hamas had control of its members inside the jail and I saw their torture; (they were) torturing people in a very, very bad way.
JONATHAN HUNT: Hamas members torturing other Hamas members?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Hamas leaders! Hamas leaders that we see on TV now, and big leaders, responsible for torturing their own members. They didn't torture me, but that was a shock for me, to see them torturing people: putting needles under their nails, burning their bodies. And they killed lots of them.
JONATHAN HUNT: Why were they torturing people?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Because they suspected that they had relations with the Israelis and (were) co-operating with the Israeli occupation against Hamas ... So hundreds of people were victims for this, and I was a witness for about a year for this torture. So that was a huge change in my life. I started to open my (eyes), but, the point (is) that I got that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. Good Muslims, such as my father, and bad Muslims, like those Hamas members in the jail torturing people.
So that was the beginning of opening my eyes wide.
JONATHAN HUNT: You talk about the good Muslims, like your father, yet you still now renounce the faith of your father. Could you have not been a good Muslim?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Now, here's the reality: after I studied Christianity — which I had a big misunderstanding about, because I studied about Christianity from Islam, which is, there is nothing true about Christianity when you study it from Islam, and that was the only source.
When I studied the Bible carefully verse by verse, I made sure that that was the book of God, the word of God for sure, so I started to see things in a different way, which was difficult for me, to say Islam is wrong.
Islam is my father. I grew up for (one) father — 22 years for that father — and another father came to me and told me, 'I'm sorry, I'm your father.' And I was like, 'What are you talking about? Like, I have my own father, and it's Islam!' And the father of Christianity told me, 'No, I'm your father. I was in jail, and this (Islam) is not your father.'
So basically this is what happened. It's not easy to believe this (Islam) is not your father anymore. So I had to study Islam again from a different point of view to figure out all the mistakes, the huge mistakes and its effects, not only on Muslims — (of) which I hated the values ... I didn't like all those traditions that make people's lives more difficult — but its effects also on humanity. On humanity! People killing each other (in) the name of God.
So definitely I started to figure out the problem is Islam, not the Muslims and those people — I can't hate them because God loved them from the beginning. And God doesn't create junk. God created good people that he loved, but they're sick, they have the wrong idea. I don't hate those people anymore but I feel very sorry for them and the only way for them to be changed (is) by knowing the word of God and the real way to him.
JONATHAN HUNT: Does it worry you that in saying these things — and given your background and your words carrying extra weight — there is a danger that you will increase the difficulties, the hatred between Christians and Muslims in the world right now?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: This could happen if a Christian person will go talk to them about the reality of Islam. They put Christians on the enemy list anyway, before you talk to them about Islam. So if you go to them and tell them, as a Christian, they will be offended immediately and they will hate you and this will definitely increase the vacuum between both religions — but what made someone like me change?
Years ago, years ago, when I was there, God opened my eyes, my mind also, and I became a completely different person. So now, I can do this duty, while you as Christians can help me do it, but maybe you wouldn't be able to. (Muslims) have no excuse now.
JONATHAN HUNT: How difficult a process has this been for you to effectively walk away from your family, leave your home behind? How difficult is that?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Taking your skin off your bones, that's what happened. I love my family, they love me. And my little brothers, they’re like my sons. I raised them. Basically, it was the biggest decision in my life.
I left everything behind me, not only family. When you decide to convert to Christianity or any other religion from Islam, it's not (enough) to just say goodbye and leave, you know? It's not like that. You're saying goodbye to culture, civilization, traditions, society, family, religion, God — what you thought was God for so many years! So it's not easy. It's very complicated. People think it's that easy, like it doesn't matter. Now I'm here in the U.S. and I got my freedom and it's great, but at the same time, nothing is like family, you know. To lose your family —
JONATHAN HUNT: Have you lost your family?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My family is educated and it was very difficult for them. They asked me many times, especially for the first two days, to keep my faith to myself and not go to the media and announce it.
But for me it was a duty from God to announce his name and praise him (around) the world because my reward is going to be that he's going to do the same for me. So I did it, basically, as a duty. I (wonder) how many people can do what I can do today? I didn't find any.
So, I had to be strong about that. That was very challenging. That was the most difficult decision in my life and I didn't do it for fun. I didn't do it for anything from this world. I did it only for one reason: I believed in it. People are suffering every day because of wrong ideas. I can help them get out of this endless circle ... the track the devil (laid) for them.
JONATHAN HUNT: Have you spoken to your father recently?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance to communicate with my father because he's in jail now and there is (sic) no phones in the jail to communicate with him.
JONATHAN HUNT: Have other members of your family told you how he's reacted?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They've visited him from time to time. Till this moment, I don't know his reaction exactly but I'm sure he's very sad (over) a decision like this. But at the same time, he's going to understand, because he knows me and he knows that I don't make any decisions without (believing strongly in them).
JONATHAN HUNT: Is it making his life more difficult among fellow Hamas members?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. My family, including my father, had to carry this cross with me. It wasn't their choice. It was my choice, but they had to carry this cross with me and I ask God — I pray for (my father), all my brothers and my sisters here in this church, praying all the time for them — 'God, open their eyes, their minds, to come to Christ. And bless them because they had to carry this cross with me.'
JONATHAN HUNT: Tell me about Hamas and the way it works. Is Hamas a purely Islamic religious organization as you see it, and that's where, in your eyes, its faults lie, or are there other parts of it which are a problem for you? Or is Hamas a good organization? What is Hamas to you?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: If we talk about people, there are good people everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, good people that God created.
Do they do their own things? Yes, they do their own things. I know people who support Hamas but they never got involved in terrorist attacks, for example ... They follow Hamas because they love God and they think that Hamas represents God. They don’t have knowledge, they don't know the real God and they never studied Christianity. But Hamas, as representative for Islam, it's a big problem.
The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea, as an idea. And about Hamas as an organization, of course, the Hamas leadership, including my father, they're responsible; they're responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization. I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against Israel, (for) which there was the killing of many civilians.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe Israel blameless in the conflict?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Occupation is bad. I can't say Israel — I'm not against any nation. We can't say Israelis, we can't say Palestinians, we're talking about ideas. Israel has the right to defend itself, nobody can (argue) against this. But sometimes they use (too much) aggression against civilians. Sometimes many civilians were killed because those soldiers weren't responsible enough, how they treat people at the checkpoints.
My message even to the Israeli soldiers: at least treat people in a good way at the checkpoints. You don't have to look really bad and it's not about nations, it's about just wrong ideas on both sides and the only way for two nations really to get out of the endless circle is to know the principles that Jesus brought to this earth: grace, love, forgiveness. Without this, they will never be able to move on, or break this endless circle.
JONATHAN HUNT: You've seen your father jailed, you've been in prison yourself. You've seen Hamas carry out acts of terror against Israelis, and yet you say everybody needs to rise above that?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. This is the only choice. Nobody has magic power to do something for the Middle East. No one. You can ask any politician here in the U.S., you can ask any Palestinian politician or Arab politician, Israeli leaders; no one, no one can do anything. Even if they believe in peace now: they're part of the game.
They're part of the trick. They can't, even if you find a brave person, like Rabin, who was called by an Israeli to make peace with the Palestinians and give them a state, no one, even if you find a strong leader, they can't do this. You can't force an independent country to give another country independence. (Especially when) the other country wants to destroy it.
Everybody is hurt. Israeli soldiers, they lost their friends. Palestinians, they lost their children, their fathers. (There are) many people in prison still, and many people were killed. Thousands. So everybody will never forget this. If they want to keep looking to the past, they will never get out of this circle. The only way to start (is just by) moving on. They were born under the occupation as Palestinians.
The last two generations, it's not their choice. The new generations from Israel — if we say disregarding the existence of Israel is right or wrong, what's the guilt of those people who were born in Israel and they have no other country to go to? It's their country now, that's how they see it. And they are going to keep their resistance and defense against whomever. (They will) say, 'Get out of this land!' So the only way is for both nations to start to understand the grace, love and forgiveness of God, to be able to get out of this.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe that Israel can ever strike a peace deal with Hamas?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance. Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water? There is no chance. Hamas can play politics for 10 years, 15 years; but ask any one of Hamas' leaders, 'Okay, what's going to happen after that? Are you just going to live and co-exist with Israel forever?' The answer is going to be no ... unless they want to do something against the Koran. But it's their ideology and they can't just say 'We're not going to do it.' So there is no chance. It's not about Israel, it's not about Hamas: it's about both ideologies. There is no chance.
JONATHAN HUNT: Aren't you terrified that somebody is going to try to kill you for saying these things — which would be approved of according to parts of the Koran?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They got to kill my ideas first, (and) that's it, they're already out. So how are they going to kill my idea? How are they going to kill the opinions that I have? ... They can kill my body, but they can't kill my soul.
JONATHAN HUNT: You're not afraid?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: As a human, you know, I can be very brave now, I'm not thinking about it at this moment and I feel that God is on my side. But if this will be the challenge, I ask God to give me enough strength.
JONATHAN HUNT: Have you been threatened?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: No, not really. Honestly, most Muslims and Muslim leaders here in the U.S. community, European communities, they are trying to get ahold of me. They are calling my famiily, my mother, and asking for my contacts. They are telling her, 'We want to help him.'
JONATHAN HUNT: They think you need help?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Yeah, they think that Christians took advantage of me, and this is completely wrong. I've been a Christian for a long time before they knew, or anyone knew. I love Jesus, I followed him for many years now. It wasn't a secret for most of the time, and this time I just did it to glorify the name of God and praise him.
They're not dealing with a regular Muslim. They know that I'm educated, they know that I studied, they know that I studied Islam and Christianity. When I made my decision, I didn't make it because someone did magic on me or convinced me. It was completely my decision.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you miss Ramallah?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. You've been there and you know how a wonderful country (it is). Very, very beautiful. It's a very small spot and it has everything — this is why people are fighting for that piece of land. I definitely miss Ramallah. Jereusalem. The Old City.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe you will ever be able to go back?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I think I belong to that land, and sooner or later I'm going to go back, no matter what. If they want to kill me, they (will) do whatever they want to do. I have a family there, they love me, they completely support me now with my decisions. Maybe they don't want me to talk to the media but they believe that I made a decision that I completely believe in. So they support me, so I love my family. I'm going to go back there again one day. I love my town.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you think you'll ever go back to a Middle East living in peace?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There will be a 100-person peace when Jesus comes back, when he judges everybody. His kingdom's going to be 1,000 years and it's going to be completely peaceful and it's going to be the kingdom of God.
JONATHAN HUNT: What is your basic message to any Muslim listening to this right now?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My message to them is, first of all, to open their minds. They were born to Muslim families — this is how they got Islam and this is just like ... any other religion, like growing up (in) a Christian family, or growing up (in) a Jewish family.
So my point is that I want those people to open their eyes, their minds, to start to understand and imagine that they weren't born for a Muslim famiily. And use their minds.
Why did God give them minds? Open their hearts. Read the Bible. Study their religion. I want to open the gate for them, I want them to be free. They will find a good life on earth just by following God — and they're also going to guarantee the other life.

Matt Chandler: How to preach, and not preach, about the recession

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:14:12 -0700

This guy is a stud, and takes Christ-centeredness seriously (with some good jokes mixed in):

The Ins & Outs of Twitter, part I

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:35:41 -0700

So Twitter is starting to blow-up, or perhaps it has already blown-up, and tons of people/businesses/orgs are hopping on board. As a member of the Twitter community since August 2008, I have grown to love it and have become somewhat of a Twitter evangelist.

But I find that as I try to explain what Twitter is I end up confusing people, or hear something like, “Why would I want to do that?” Also, many of my friends have joined up on Twitter, but don’t understand all the ways it works, and all the potential it has. So I thought I would try to give you the basic, helpful rundown.

What is it?
Twitter is technically a social network, in a similar genre of Facebook/MySpace. Most people know what those are now, and most know that they have “status update” features where you can let all your Facebook/MySpace friends see what you are currently doing. Others use the status update feature to make some sort of exclamation about their life or other things.

Twitter is like a whole network just for your status updates. And it operates on the principle that “less is more.” Whereas with Facebook/MySpace you can put up almost unlimited amounts of info about yourself, Twitter limits you to only 140 characters for each “post” of your status. This forces you to get to the point and keeps Twitter being a great, simple way to see what people are doing. Check out the video to the above right to get more of an explanation.

What Does it Look Like?
Here is what the main Twitter site looks like. This is my public Twitter page. At the top you see my latest post, and below that are all my posts before that. Don’t stress about the “@” symbols you see, I will get to that. But this is what every person’s Twitter page looks like, mainly a list of all their updates.

On the top right you see info about me, and that I am following 67 people. That means I see updates of 67 different people, and only those 67 I have chosen. These are the people I care most about; the people that I want to know most what is going on in their regular lives. This is what’s great about Twitter, I can keep up to date on what is going on with the people I care about.

You can also see there that 82 people following me. That means 82 people can see what I update, and only those 82 people. You can chose to lock down who can follow you, or let it be free for anyone who wants. It’s up to you.

Lastly you see that I have updated my status 5,808 times in the months I have been on Twitter. I guess now you can tell I do a lot on Twitter!

How do I update?
Ok, so how do you do a status update on Twitter? Well you go to your homepage after you log in, which looks very much like your public page picture I have above. But this is the page you use to update Twitter. Notice it says, “What are you doing?” at the top. You could go right there and enter what you are doing, and then Twitter would update, all those following you would get the update, and it would appear on this page.

But you can see other people on this page besides me, like my wife Alisha (@alishadawn33 is her Twitter name) and a friend from our church above her. They were having a conversation and updating, so because I follow both of them I see their conversation updates. If I wanted to, I could enter their conversation and make a comment too, which I will explain how to do later.

More to come in part II...
That’s enough for now, more to come in a few days, including what all the “@” signs mean, how to have conversations, how to privately message, and how to really make Twitter worth your time.

Talking Sex & Jesus: Driscoll on CNN

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:33:35 -0700

Mark Driscoll was on CNN the other night. Enjoy:

One of the best things I have ever seen on TV...

Mon, 9 Feb 2009 14:33:56 -0700

If you didn’t see it last night, you have to see it. Alisha and I were literally in tears over the 40 minute story on “60 Minutes” of Chesley Sullenberger safely landing his plane in the Hudson River, essentially saving the lives of 155 people on-board. The providence behind the story is stunning, but you should watch it all yourself. Below is the entire episode of the show with this story being in the first 2/3 of the show:

Note: If you have an ad-blocker on your browser you will need to disable it to watch the video

Statement on President Obama @National Prayer Breakfast

Sat, 7 Feb 2009 10:02:04 -0700

What do you think about this comment on a quote from President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast (in its entirety here):

The President said: "There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know."

Doug Wilson:
This is chutzpah on stilts and steroids. . . . If anyone were to attempt to call him on this, that person and not Obama would be called down by just about everyone for being a troublemaker and small-minded garroter of words. Obama is not about to be challenged for his deft exclusion from this question all those millions of innocent lives that don't count anymore. He is saying, by implication, that "there is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being, except for those millions of lives we have found convenient to take on the threshold of life, and those lives we find it too expensive to not take among our most senior seniors. This much we know." To speak this way is tantamount to saying, and far more simply, "there is no god."

Re-posted via Between Two Worlds blog.

Amazingly Convicting Stuff

Fri, 6 Feb 2009 13:16:51 -0700

This week at our Cru Weekly Meeting, I talked about three sins which will kill our movement if we do not see them and repent of them: Pride, Gossip, & Slander. They are sins, I argued, that we see in our greater US culture, our specific UofA culture, and in our movement (not to mention my/our own heart). Much of the content came from the book Humility by CJ Mahaney, which is worth EVERYONE’S time to read.

But there is an article I also was very convicted by on called “Should You Pass on Bad Reports?” by Tim Keller & David Powlison. It is simply pure godly-gold. So click on the document below to read it yourself. And be sure to write some comments if anything really speaks to you and you want to share it

Thoughts on Mission & Calling

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:58:24 -0700

There are some things that I have been thinking through for awhile in regards to calling and mission. These things are on my heart as being a dude in “full-time ministry” and calling the students that we lead to the mission of Jesus. And I feel like I have been through my own journey of struggling to talk about it biblically and find the true balance between the urgency of the lost with people living out their gifts in various majors. It is a very hard topic to think through, and I have now come to see many errors in my previous thinking. Some of those I will discuss below.

So here is my first point of three in how we think about the biblical call to the mission and how we should decipher what vocation God is calling us to:

1) ALL we do (including every vocation) is to be done to the glory of God-

1 Corinthians 10:31- “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Sometimes the impression can be given that if you go into “full-time ministry” you are by default doing a job that is more glorifying to the Lord than if you do a “secular” job. IE, in our context, if you go on staff with Crusade you are bringing God more glory by default than if you become an engineer, doctor, teacher, etc. (Again, this was not stated from up front, but I do believe people like our students get this impression all the time).

My first problem with this is that biblically there is no category for “full-time ministry.” If we take 1 Cor 10:31 seriously, then every part of life is “spiritual” and everything has potential to bring God glory. ALL of life then is ministry, not just when we are doing something expressly “spiritual.” I believe we should speak of every Christian always being in full-time ministry, whether you are a pastor, a CCC staff member, an engineer, or a student.

Now, before you get all crazy on me, I DO believe there is a biblical calling for such a thing as full-time vocational ministry, like Paul as an apostle and other pastoral workers. It is clear Paul was supported by churches so that he could “full-time” be able to plant churches and preach the gospel. This is clear in scripture, and we should not diminish that. But again, 1 Cor 10:31 shows us that everything I do is to bring God glory and proclaim Jesus Christ, from when I am sharing Jesus with a student to when I am playing Guitar Hero with my extended family.

Also, my vocational ministry job can be done in a way that dishonors God and is sinful and thus I can be doing great damage to people coming to Jesus. Say I am leading my movement with a huge heart of pride, or because I am trying to find my worth in my ministry. Or say I am teaching a bunch of heresy up front. I am then doing horribly sinful work even though I am in full-time vocation ministry. So to assume by default that a vocational ministry job is bringing more glory to God than a “secular” job I think is wrong. And in light of this “all of life is ministry” I think we shouldn’t call jobs “secular”, again based on 1 Cor 10:31. All the ways I work hard or don’t work hard, work with good ethics or work with lies and greed, and treat my co-workers come from my beliefs about life and people and God and eternity. “Secular” jobs really then aren’t devoid of my heart before God.

Ok, that is the first part of three. Let me know your thoughts!