Rant of the Exiles

Photo by  Annie Spratt  on  Unsplash Revelation 2:4-5 [God speaking to the angel of the church in Ephesus] But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent , and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent . [emphasis mine] Luke 24:46-47 [newly resurrected Jesus addressing two disciples] And said to them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that r epentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. [emphasis mine] In early February, I met up in-person to explore a friend of a friend's interest in Quicksilver Church. I’ll call him Eli.  Eli shared his observation that so many churches have ignored Jesus’ teaching about repentance and instead focus solely on preaching mercy, grace...

Back in 2000, I was a rising star at IBM Storage Systems Division. I was three years out of college, garnered top performance reviews, aggressive in hitting deadlines, and known as a go-getter throughout the IT office. I worked as an SAP analyst supporting orders and returns. During this time period, IBM desktop hard disk drives failed at an unusually high rate and subsequently, had a correspondingly high rate of returns. Our reverse supply chain was inundated with return requests and we had many problems keeping up with the volume. Not surprisingly, customer satisfaction plummeted.  After a grueling two-day cross-functional workshop to brainstorm solutions, I was selected as one of the leads to coordinate follow-up on all the workshop action items across departments. I set up a meeting with all the relevant parties from each group. I had a carefully planned agenda and...

You know the drill. The worship leader opens his set with a catalog of petty sins he's committed in the past week. He talks about how we're all sinners, how we're unworthy of God's grace, but now we're forgiven. After that brief but necessary bath in self-pity and self-flagellation, we have the appropriate sense of guilt to begin singing songs. I frequently hear Christians describe themselves as sinners. It's being humble and authentic and I respect that. After all, everyone is broken and messed up in some significant way. When a follower of Jesus says he is a sinner, he is coming to terms with his fallibility. He is aware of his weakness and he has the courage and humility to acknowledge that. That's a good thing. I don't want to detract from that. And yet I wonder if sin is the core identity of a follower of Jesus. Some might argue we're both sinners and saints and we must get used to the tension. Thus the fundamental question is this: O...

John 16:8-11 ESV*   And when [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Feeling convicted about the convicting of the Holy Spirit:  Within evangelicalism, there's a popular notion the Holy Spirit convicts the believer of sin. The verb "convict" is used in the sense of making one aware of a sinful thought or behavior. Feelings of remorse and regret will often accompany sin awareness**. Whether the Holy Spirit convicts the believer is an important question because it gives the sense the Holy Spirit is dissatisfied with us. As a friend puts it, because the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, we often perceive Him walking through the rooms of our heart and remarking in disgust - Wow. What a mess. How do you live l...