Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

Christians and criticism.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Here's another Sunday School lesson.

Sunday School Lesson - Criticism - Upload a doc

Labels: bible, bible studies, christianity, teaching

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The question isn't the point.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Something about the question, "How much of the Bible can a person not believe and still be okay?", tells me the person asking it may be fairly far down a path that would negate any need for any belief in the Bible.

Let's try a few different "translations" of that question:

How much can I get away with not believing in the Bible yet still get the benefits the Bible claims to offer?
How little do I have to hold on to in order to still be in God's good graces?
What's the least amount of faith I have to have in order to still be considered saved?
How easy can I make it and still be on the narrow path?
Can I just pick and choose what feels comfortable to my human reason and still be okay?

Now, I suppose there could be argument about what belief in the Bible means, which could quickly, in the case of say, creation, evolve (sorry for the pun) into a debate not on whether a person believed in the Biblical account but on how they interpreted it.

Regardless, I don't want to make a habit of trying to find the least amount required. Because, in the case of following Christ, the concept of requirement and doing as little as possible means you've missed the boat entirely and, unless you happen to believe that Jesus actually walked on water, missing the boat means you're pretty much stuck on dry land.

Labels: bible, christianity, creation, links

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Taking up the cross.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

In an email to a friend, in which I identified with his current struggles and sadness, I talked about how I seem to repeatedly give my worries and troubles to God but refuse to let Him keep them:

[It's that] daily struggle of picking up Christ's cross daily and not also picking up the junk of our own that he wants us to let him hold. We can't carry both. We can't pick up the cross and carry it if our hands and our shoulders are already full of worries and concerns over things that we can't control anyway.

Luke 9:23 tells us we need to deny ourselves, take up the cross daily, and follow Christ. The larger passage of Luke 9:23-27 has always been difficult and puzzling to me* on many levels (verse 27, for example), but the section on picking up the cross I've began to understand differently.

23 And He was saying to them all, If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. ²⁴For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. ²⁵ For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷ But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

I've heard verse 23 preached as if the concept of deny was solely about shedding comforts, wants, control, or the things we hold onto that are based in love of self. That seems to be the easy and obvious meaning, and the more useful one to preach to keep us all on task from being selfish and lazy. But as I've come to think about what it means to pick up the cross daily, some questions came to mind.

What is the cross? Is it the same as Jesus' yoke, which is light? Why did Jesus have to remind us to take it up every day? What is it about us that would cause us to say we follow Christ but need to be reminded to make the decision to do it each day? What does that tell me about the nature of being a follower of Christ? And why do I have to deny myself in order to pick up the cross each day?

For some people, sadness, depression, and even self-hatred are like huge boulders weighing down upon the heart and soul all the time, daily. The burden is tremendous, even though it is selfish in its own way, since focus on self leads to a view of problems seeming larger than they are, a skewed perspective on life. It is both unwanted but difficult to let go of. The weight of that burden makes it impossible to carry anything or anyone else. It is all encompassing and bottomless and dark and the thought of picking up the cross seems unbearable, even too much to ask, even if the cross is the method by which we are helped to release that onerous weight and be free.

How can I carry the cross when I am carrying all the destructive things God wants to take from me?

In this way, I must deny myself the easy darkness I slip into, that uncomfortable comfort of sadness, in order to pick up the cross.

I closed out my email with this:

I'll keep praying for you. You do the same for me. It helps to pray for others, I've found, because I stop focusing on my problems as I lift another up in prayer and then I find that while I did that, Christ lifts me up.

Deny your SELF. Pick up the cross daily.

Lift up others and be lifted up.

* I'm sure theologically educated brothers and sisters in Christ can tell me the proper context, the original meanings of the original languages, and use their knowledge to wipe away these questions, but frankly, I'm not interested. I believe all that education is well and good, but that if the Bible truly is inspired and God reveals it to us as we read it, such knowledge is not a requirement. And, that sometimes, such knowledge is a stumbling block for those who grow comfortable in it.

Labels: bible, christianity, personal

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Refreshed.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

A friend sent an ecard to me yesterday that had Proverbs 11:25 in it.

"He who refreshes other will himself be refreshed."

He was thanking me for helping him, but I found that verse, which I've read many times before* yet never paid attention to, very...refreshing.

I don't know that I "feel" refreshed, but just hearing that certainly did some of the work. It's a good promise.

*Proverbs is a book with enough chapters to make it perfect to read a chapter a day for a month, each month.

Labels: bible

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Action and planning.

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::We've been using K.P. Yohannan's book Reflecting His Image in our Sunday School class. Here is the lesson for tomorrow that I've been working on today. I'm using both chapters nine ("Starting from Zero") and ten ("Giving up the good") to make up this lesson.::

Action or Distraction?

"Active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often [a man] feels without acting, the less he will ever be able to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."

-- C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

I. "Doing" or "Being" Good

Is good something we "do" or that we "are"?
Think of all the conferences, programs, materials -- all the time and energy we spend talking and thinking and deciding and debating as Christians...are we "doing" good or "being" good or talking about it?
Do all those activities, which are good, indeed, stopping us from what our focus should be?
"Eventually we become overly familiar with the things of God." -- K. P. Yohannan
What does Yohannan mean? What danger is there in "becoming overly familiar" with something?
In all our doing, do we miss the point?
Jesus did many things. He is our example for many good actions (social justice, etc.). However what was His main purpose? (Luke 19:10)
How does Mark 10:18 apply to this discussion? Are we sometimes deluded into thinking we can do good with our actions and easily lose focus on God by focusing on our concept of "good"?

II. Regaining Focus from All That Good

It is easy to list things we need to get rid of in our lives that are harmful, but what about those things that seem good in nature, and do good things?
What are some of the "good" things in our lives/ministries/churches that have become a distraction from the focus on winning the lost for Christ?
Last week we talked about when God's glory leaves, and why we shouldn't hang onto the shadows. Does this apply here, too?
Thinking about C. S. Lewis' quote and what we are told about faith and works in James 2:20, how do we find the necessary balance of doing without losing focus? What is the key?

Planning, In the Flesh

I. Room for planning?

In Christ's call to us, is there time to sit, think, and plan? Does that sound like a good and wise thing for us to do?
Thinking is not the same as praying. Thinking is our human mind attempting to use our logic and reasoning abilities to come to terms we can accept in our life. These are generally not God's terms.
What do you think of the following statement by Yohannan: "We want to plan and control our lives while we walk with the Lord."

II. What faith requires

In thinking about Yohannan's statement, is it even possible to walk with the Lord and remain in control in any measure?
Is it possible for God to be our king if we only allow him to do it as long as He tells us his plan ahead of time?
If we had the knowledge we want (to know what was going to happen, to have things logically explained, for God to lay out his plan before or as it happens, etc.), would we really be a follower?
Is there any room for faith in this kind of equation? (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Following and trusting God means we are "blind" in a sense, for we do not walk by sight. What do you think of this analogy?
How, then, do we truly walk with the Lord? (According to Yohannon, we must remove everything that we have looked at in ourselves in which we have been putting our faith and trust in, such as acceptance, approval, security, importance, abilities, rights, etc.)
Do you think we tend to focus on what we see inside of ourselves because we can see it, whereas the Lord asks us to follow and trust blindly at times?
How do we remove the focus on self and focus on the Lord?

III. Not in the flesh

The story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac (Genesis 21) is a great example of God having a plan and putting in in action in a way that is undeniably Him and not the machinations of humans.
Yohannan points out that throughout the Bible, God regularly waited for people to see their own inability or get to a point of human desperation so that it was unquestionably His work.
Does God ever accept a "product of the flesh", as Yohannan puts it in his book? Does He bless the things we do in the flesh?
Do things done in the flesh still seem to succeed or seem to have results for good? Why or why not?
If things done in the flesh seem to do good for God's kingdom, is it really "good"?
How many of you have felt the frustration in your life as you try to do something -- accomplish a personal or professional goal, further a program or some other effort you thought you were supposed to do for God, etc. -- that ends up being effort in the flesh?
Why does it seem, sometimes, that non-Christians often succeed by the works of their own efforts? Or, better yet, why wouldn't they succeed -- shouldn't it make sense that they would?
"Our plans, our strength and our works, based on anything we find in ourselves, will all burn up." -- K. P. Yohannan
What does Jeremiah 17:5-8 tell us?

Summary

So what about action and planning, then? What place does it have in your life, as a Christian? Which comes first? How do we maintain balance?
On some level, I find all of this a huge relief. I know who I am inside, and my weaknesses and failings, my very severe blindness, and I am relieved that it is not up to me, that I am being led by a God who already knows. That all my clever efforts are worthless in the end, unless God is directing them. I am relieved to be free from the fruitlessness of the "schemes of man", which are doomed to fail in the long run, and pass away.
We are all blind. Some are led by the Light, and some are following more darkness.

Links of interest related to topics raised here:

Labels: bible, bible studies, christianity, teaching

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When the glory leaves.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

::We've been using K.P. Yohannan's book Reflecting His Image in our Sunday School class. Here is the lesson from last Sunday that I taught, using chapter one ("Clinging to the Shadows").::

Passage of scripture: 1 Samuel 4:1-10

Q. What happened here? Why were the Israelites not victorious, like they had been in similar battles in the past?

The Israelites assumed past experience and victories meant that God was still with them

Q. Were their actions or the method of how they took the Ark into battle wrong? i.e. Didn't they do it like they always had in the past, or was their failure due to something they forgot to do?

Their actions were the same as they'd always done it. Or, as Yohannan put it, they had "genuine actions" that were tied to "past shadows."

I. God's Glory Leaves?

God's glory had left Israel, and they did not even know it.
We are like the Israelites; sometimes we find ourselves clinging to the shadows of the past victories when God's glory was still around.
God's glory can leave a fellowship, an organization, a ministry, a church...our lives.
When God's glory leaves, say, an organization, does this mean that they no longer do good or valuable work? (No, we may still value what they are doing.)
Often, a ministry or organization started as genuine before God, and He blessed it, but it became rehearsed and mechanized and started operating in the flesh and on the power of man.
There is no room for God's glory if the glory is going to man. God will remove his glory and let us have the personal glory we are seeking.
What causes God's glory to leave? (Self-centeredness, a desire to protect or preserve the organization above all else, a loss of God being the absolute focus and purpose and reason for being, when self-preservation and our own goals take center, etc.)

II. Keeping God's Glory

How do we keep God's glory from leaving? We lay aside our plans, wishes, and ambitions.
What does this do? It forces us to focus on Him daily, since we aren't substituting these other things as our lifeline.
It is a daily effort! It needs to happen each day, this setting aside and refocusing, and it takes effort.
Daily we need to: humble myself (James 4:10); seek things of God above (Col. 3:1); repent (a humbling act); turn from what causes our hearts to wander.
What causes our hearts to wander? (Materialism, personal glory, seeking comfort and ease, seeking other's approval, spiritual pride, lack of concern for suffering and needy, seeking honor from others, pretense, etc.)

Final thoughts:

Do I daily stop and see if I'm clinging to shadows, spiritual experiences and victories from the past as a substitute for God in the present?
What kind of spiritual fruit do I exhibit? What kind of spiritual fruit might a person who God's glory no longer inhabits exhibit?
What happens to my spiritual life if God begins to remove His glory? (Rehearsed spiritual "performance", emptiness, distance from God, feelings of being abandoned by God, etc.)

Labels: bible, bible studies, christianity, teaching

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Sunsets.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I was thinking of the book The Sun Also Rises and how I'm sometimes more glad about the fact that the sun also sets.

One of my favorite phrases from the Bible is "and it came to pass."

There is great relief in knowing that some things come to an end, that they will pass, that I will get through to that point where it is behind and over.

And it came to pass.

The time came when it was over.

There's hope in that.

Labels: bible

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Banking on God.

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Dan Edelen has been running polls regarding Christians and money on his blog for a short while, and he now has posts up with the results. Check them out:

I'll keep adding links to Dan's posts on this series. It should be interesting.

Labels: christianity, church, finances, links

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Negative positive affirmation.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

::This post is the background for "Poster Myths" over on the Lone Prairie Blog.::

Instead of typing in my notes and scribbles, I thought I'd let you get a peek at one of the ways I work through (and sometimes I never make it "through" to a conclusion) a concept that I'm writing about. Ideas that appear and theories that change, a concept that never fully develops, or something left hanging that I can't seem to quite understand -- that's all there.

You can read all seven (yeah, seven...I'm long-winded even in long hand) pages as a PDF by clicking here.

Labels: christianity, idea generation, post background

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Sacrifice doesn't sell.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

A post at JollyBlogger caught my attention. Entitled "Branding Jesus", the post contains links more on the topic of the commercialization and merchandising of Christianity.

This past Sunday, during Sunday School, I somehow found myself saying that the reason we don't see commercials and ad campaigns selling the cost of discipleship is because sacrifice doesn't sell. People don't buy into being told to pick up their cross daily and forsake all else.

Now, Jesus-themed T-shirts and bracelets, they sell. For the sacrifice of a few bucks, you can be branded and join a group.

Those things have little to do with Christianity and more with capitalism, though, don't they?

Labels: christianity, culture, links

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Christians and criticism.

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The question isn't the point.

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Taking up the cross.

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Refreshed.

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Action and planning.

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When the glory leaves.

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Sunsets.

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Banking on God.

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Negative positive affirmation.

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Sacrifice doesn't sell.

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