var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-3256698-2’]); _gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]); (function() { var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true; ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); when you infuse grace with life, you start to see it everywhere. it gives breath to humanity, it gives rise to hope.Tumblr (3.0; @mrcrowder)http://mrcrowder.com/<img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l69va7LWaA1qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>False Prophets bring false Hope. </p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/871162182http://mrcrowder.com/post/871162182Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:00:00 -0500Rules do not teach us how to live. They serve a valuable purpose—they define parameters, they...http://mrcrowder.com/post/866337921http://mrcrowder.com/post/866337921Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:17:00 -0500“God, joining together humans and God in the incarnate Word, becomes what we are so that we...http://mrcrowder.com/post/845426550http://mrcrowder.com/post/845426550Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:15:11 -0500<img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5wy7hjf981qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>You cannot serve both God <em>and </em>money.</p> <p>Jesus uses these pointed words after briefly talking about the difference between storing up treasures on earth versus storing up treasures in heaven. </p> <p>Too many times I’ve heard these words shallowly refer to the pursuit of wealth, the middle class rat-race that pushes us to consume and ascend the societal ladder (or at least stake our claim and stay there). </p> <p>But, given the cultural circumstances, there’s absolutely zero chance that this is what Jesus was talking about. Now, I think they are related. But I also think Jesus was getting at something deeper and infinitely more pervasive.</p> <p>After all, greed is just a symptom of a heart issue.</p> <p>Greed is a symptom that we’re slaves to our own productivity.</p> <p>It’s not really “God against money.” It’s “God against us.”</p> <p>When Jesus says that you can’t love God and money, or Mammon (our assets, possessions, capital, etc.), he’s putting God against…</p> <p>not money…</p> <p>but all the things we tend to put our trust in other than God.</p> <p>Things temporal. Things that disappoint. Things that rot & fade. Shallow, superficial things that will need to be replaced before we even enjoy them (if that’s at all possible).</p> <p>Just as he had just challenged the temptation to replace the pursuit of God with the pursuit of religious activities like prayer & fasting, Jesus is now addressing the age old temptation to replace God with… wait for it… ourselves.</p> <p>Because, at the end of the day, isn’t the temptation to define ourselves by the accumulation of our stuff?</p> <p>[photo via <a href="http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=greed&order=9&offset=168#/dhqbzq">deviantART</a>]</p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/840982588http://mrcrowder.com/post/840982588Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:11:40 -0500If you were born a slave and raised a slave, what life would you know other than slavery? Would you...http://mrcrowder.com/post/836769212http://mrcrowder.com/post/836769212Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:49:49 -0500“We must let go of ourselves in such a manner that we can become a dwelling place in which God...http://mrcrowder.com/post/832086600http://mrcrowder.com/post/832086600Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:03:41 -0500<img src="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5lxknCU8i1qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>Broken, destructive, no good, dirty. </p> <p>How did we end up this way?</p> <p>The <em>Prologue </em>in Genesis, roughly the first 11 chapters, sets a sobering reality.</p> <p>As I was coming into my own theologically (meaning I was starting to develop some thoughts of my own), I was fond of calling all sin “selfishness.”</p> <p>I had a professor who called all sin “narcissism.”</p> <p>Lately, in my studying, I’ve been wrestling what it means for sin to be “mistrust.”</p> <p><em>Mis</em>trust.</p> <p>What that serpent in the garden was able to do was convince Adam & Eve that God couldn’t be trusted. That he didn’t really have their best interests in mind. That all they could really trust was…</p> <p>themselves. </p> <p>They decided to do it their way and therefore we decide to do it our way.</p> <p>And now we are broken, dirty, confused, and destructive liars, murders, cheats, thieves, & addicts.</p> <p>[photo via <a href="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs15/f/2007/018/f/7/adam_and_eve_by_d0nnie.jpg">deviantART</a>]</p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/815657667http://mrcrowder.com/post/815657667Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:24:00 -0500I posted it on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, but it’ll stay up a little longer here. In...http://mrcrowder.com/post/811091326http://mrcrowder.com/post/811091326Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:00:00 -0500“Why did the omnipotent and loving One not do something about the tsunami before it struck? I...http://mrcrowder.com/post/806679046http://mrcrowder.com/post/806679046Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:43:44 -0500There’s something powerful about absurdity. Something impossible, unexpected, or unlikely....http://mrcrowder.com/post/802239058http://mrcrowder.com/post/802239058Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:52:20 -0500<img src="http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5705vKKdu1qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>I still have this hanging on my office wall and see it everyday.</p> <p>My Nike+ totals just went over 2200 miles, but I don’t know if any of them will be as important as the first 100. </p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/785444047http://mrcrowder.com/post/785444047Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:00:00 -0500“Prayer does not stop with “amen.” It rises to its feet and walks off, with our...http://mrcrowder.com/post/781320667http://mrcrowder.com/post/781320667Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:00:00 -0500<img src="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l55b99aRr41qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>People pray all over the world. But what good does it really do?</p> <p>“If we are truly praying this prayer to God’s honour, we can never simply pray for food for ourselves. We must pray for the needs of the whole world, where millions go hungry and many starve.”</p> <p>This is part of N.T. Wright’s reflection on the Matthean “Lord’s Prayer.” It is referring, of course, to “give us this day our daily bread.” </p> <p>It’s an odd observation because a cursory reading of the text doesn’t necessarily lead to you think about praying for the needs of the whole world, right?</p> <p>But read it in the overall flow of the passage, just after an admonishment to seek the Kingdom of God (the reality of God’s activity that Jesus is constantly proclaiming) and right before drawing a strong correlation between the way we give and get forgiveness. </p> <p>And when we’re asked to pray ” give us,” who is “us” anyways?</p> <p>I would say that, as we participate in this practice of prayer, we are seeking to align ourselves with God.</p> <p>To align ourselves with the Kingdom of God for the world, to align ourselves with forgiveness for the world, and to align ourselves with bread for the world. </p> <p>Our prayers <em>should </em>be effective. They should be powerful. They should matter.</p> <p>They should matter because prayer is about us yielding ourselves. </p> <p>About getting out of the way. </p> <p>And letting the Kingdom of God burst forth. </p> <p>Prayer should be the heartbeat of our spiritual formation, as we are being restored from broken-to-Jesus. </p> <p>The Kingdom of God is breaking forth where broken-but-hopeful humans, once focused on their own gluttony, are being transformed into the New Humanity—bringing peace, forgiveness, and even food to those without. </p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/777396149http://mrcrowder.com/post/777396149Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:00:42 -0500“For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language...http://mrcrowder.com/post/773018711http://mrcrowder.com/post/773018711Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:00:00 -0500<img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5242nIY6s1qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>Happy 4th, love Emery.</p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/770744216http://mrcrowder.com/post/770744216Sun, 04 Jul 2010 18:32:50 -0500The Birth of Two Kingdoms: A must read for the weekend. http://mrcrowder.com/post/761794971http://mrcrowder.com/post/761794971Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:00:00 -0500Less of sinful humanity, more of the Creator’s generous presence shining in the darkness. In...http://mrcrowder.com/post/757966006http://mrcrowder.com/post/757966006Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:45:21 -0500<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4qzkrb4op1qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>Running away…</p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/747309351http://mrcrowder.com/post/747309351Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:22:05 -0500<img src="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4qddy4iA41qzotf2o1_500.png"/><br/><br/><p>When you read the Biblical narrative and you begin where it begins, you see that we are created in the Image of God. </p> <p>Humanity was intended to bear the image of the God of the Universe.</p> <p>We are little Image-bearers.</p> <p>Our essential sin is narcissism.</p> <p>We <strike>didn’t</strike> don’t trust the Image. We don’t trust the one who’s image we are made in.</p> <p>We think we can do it better.</p> <p>We doubt his goodness and choose a different path.</p> <p>This makes us <em>broken </em>image-bearers.</p> <p>The rest of the Bible, then, is about restoring the Image. </p> <p>Along the way we learn lots of things…</p> <p>that we can’t do it ourselves, because we will continuously choose our image over God’s…</p> <p>that God is relentless in his pursuit of restoring the image…</p> <p>that our distortion culminates in a whole lot of distortion and messiness.</p> <p>In a creation that was intended to reflect the creator, the image-bearers hijacked the plan and now that good Creation is a rather disastrous reflection of the broken image-bearers.</p> <p>Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story.</p> <p>Jesus steps in to show that the God-given image will ultimately triumph.</p> <p>And those of us who seek Jesus seek that triumph. We have agreed that it’s the best possible way to live—to trust Jesus for the restoration of our Image and surrender our control over the broken image we inherited. </p> <p>That’s the story that I hope informs your story. </p> <p>May your life and mine reflect that reality.</p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/745912310http://mrcrowder.com/post/745912310Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:22:46 -0500<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4lbu6rJ7Z1qzotf2o1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>shocked disapproval.</p>http://mrcrowder.com/post/735913905http://mrcrowder.com/post/735913905Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:01:18 -0500