jesus > sex

Tomorrow I’m getting married. And, like a typical dude, I’ve got something on my mind: SEX. I’m not denying it. But perhaps, atypically, I am not as wrapped up into thoughts of having sex so much as I am completely bewildered with thoughts of why, as American Christians, we are so obsessed with sex, and why we are steeping teenagers in a sex-Gospel like ticking sex-time-bombs.

Maybe you and I heard the same sex-gospel growing up: “SEX IS AWESOME, FANTASTIC, MIND-BLOWING, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH… BUT you can’t have it till you’re married...” Somewhere between the over-glorification of sex and the under-glorification of Christ we walked away thinking that married sex was better than knowing Jesus. And more than once I've whimpered to Him, Jesus, just don’t come back before I get to have sex, pretty please. The Sex-Gospel was the "good news" of guilt-free sex. And, comparatively, that's really just OKAY news... 

But the message I never heard was that knowing Jesus today is better than having sex. It’s better than sex with your girlfriend. It’s better than sex with a stranger. It’s even better than hot, steamy, monogamous sex with your spouse - And you don’t need to wait until you’re married to experience the deepest satisfaction that life can afford because you can experience the ocean of satisfaction that is closeness with Christ right-flipping-now! 

Not to degrade the fact that it is a life-long struggle to exclusively enthrone Christ at the center of our hearts, because it absolutely is; but the truth is that you and I can experience the most ravishing and uncompromising dimensions of “satisfaction” without ever having sex. Jesus said the way was narrow, not impossible. He promised "find" if we resolve to "seek." Our souls were not made for sex and sex alone they were made to find and experience closeness with God the Father.  The sex-side-dish is a measly morsel compared to our main course in Christ.

But if Jesus is not all satisfying then God forbid you ever live in anything smaller than a mansion. God forbid you ever experience hunger. God forbid you drive a beater. And God forbid you remain single for another minute. If Christ is not all satisfying then by all means, have lots of sex and have it now!

To say to a teenager that "sex in a monogamous marriage is the best thing ever" is to tie a proverbial carrot-on-a-stick to his back and have him run around, maddening himself with the lust that comes from staring at it. Until one day, when the carrot has become an idol, he rips off the stick and devours it. And that’s all. The carrot is not savored nor is he thankful for it, and instead he begins an often-vain search for something better than the carrot.

Neither has threatening people with AIDS or herpes resulting from loose orgies stopped anyone from having pre-marital sex; it will simply make them wear a condom. I’ve never met a virgin who on their wedding day said, “I only made it here because STDs scared me.” But give them something truly satisfying... give them Jesus... and the search for satisfaction rolls over and dies. 

To give this generation the gift of closeness with Christ is to give them a satisfaction that will never fail them, a satisfaction that lasts longer than a night of fooling around, a satisfaction that cries out to the deep of their heart and delights the senses of their soul with whispers of the Most High.

So I’m a virgin. And I haven’t missed out on anything. Because somewhere in the last twenty-four years my soul began relishing itself deeply in the deep of God’s heart. Tasting and seeing that He is good. And while it threatens and beats it’s chest, neither sex inside or outside of marriage can compete with the satisfaction I have found in Christ.

From the guy whose successor experienced every fleeting pleasure end-to-end and came back empty :

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is FULLNESS OF JOY; at your right hand are PLEASURES FOREVERMORE.
- Psalm 16:11

dismantling my claymation christmas mentality.

When we take away the festal racket of the Advent Story, put down our eggnog, set down our sugar cookies, and peel back the pine-scented veneer of one “holy infant so tender and mild,” we are faced with a very different nativity. A nativity without hand soap or a space heater. Medicate with enough gingerbread or peppermint truffles and you may forget the ugly truth altogether. Thousands of years of expectation trudged its way “South along the flatlands of the Jordan River, and then West over the hills surrounding Jerusalem.” After tramping 80 miles a very tired, dirty, and pregnant teenage couple found themselves marginalized from society, delivering their firstborn child in some dimly lit shed. No doctor, no pain medication, no epidural. The night our King entered the world was bloody and tear-filled. Mary’s shrill cries pierced a quiet Bethlehemian night. Welcomed in with tidings of infanticide, the Prince of Peace was the newest member of a refugee family. It was not a silent night. Not in David’s town.

I think it’s a good year for throwing my classic-Claymation-nativity-mindset back on the potter’s wheel of history... a good year for allowing scripture to flavor my advent-routine. If it means taking smaller doses of holiday cheer in order to savor the mystery of Jesus' birth, then I think I’m okay with that. God forbid Santa load me up with a little more coal this year.

This. Is. Advent... 

That God gave His Son to become subjected, dejected, and rejected as a human for the sins of humanity. His heart groaned with bittersweet paradox as the Treasure of Heaven met the Tragedy of Earth. It was tenacious and resolute. It was wild and lion-like. It was simple and profound love for humanity that compelled Jesus Christ off His throne and into a manger.

In leaving all the divine laurels of Godhood in Heaven, He managed in one fell swoop to drag His Kingdom to Earth. The manger-lain, cloth-wrapped, carpenter-raised refugee began walking the streets proclaiming, “The Kingdom of God is here!”

As I think of the adversity into which Jesus Christ entered that night, I think of the little boys and girls that have come into the care of Children Of The Nations. They identify with the birth of Christ in a way that most of us will probably never know. Marginalized. Impoverished. Refugees. Targets of genocide. Subjected to every misery of the Fall. But as children adopted out of the wreckage of human depravity how much more can they identify with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in a way few can fathom! They have experienced the full spectrum of the capacity of the human soul. On the one hand a capacity for the fear and loneliness that comes from belonging to no one, yet on the other a capacity for the most immense joy that comes from belonging both to a family and to God.

Into the depravity of mankind’s darkness God unleashed the Light of Heaven. He released His Son and therein His Kingdom. A Kingdom in which Creation belongs to Creator. A Kingdom in which the misery of the Fall has become subjected to the glory of Jesus Christ.

He spent His life reversing the Curse of sin and the misery of the Fall, and He bids you and I to join Him in entering the brokenness of humanity to declare with joy the liberating fact that “The Kingdom of God has come!” You are an agent of His Kingdom – so enter into humanity’s brokenness, help reverse the mess, and intertwine your life with those who have not yet heard of the proclamation that rang out that night in David’s Town, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy…”

Let me show you what this whole thing looks like…

Rebecca was orphaned as a baby in the country of Malawi. She remembers the day that Children Of The Nations gave her a family. Today she has graduated from High School and is looking towards College. “God has consumed my life,” she said. “And so I hope to transform Malawi. That is what God has given me to do.” The person who filmed this short video recently asked Rebecca to share her favorite Bible Verse… who knew she’d bust out an entire chapter? 

stalking god.

a response to: sexy “christianity”

A few weeks ago the corpse of sexy “christianity” was exhumed from its digital grave. What was little more than a dormant diary-entry reawakened and some of my most profuse heart-leakage started seeping into the cracks of facebook. And while its meanderings seem to have struck a nerve, I have a dirty secret to admit:
 

I am book-reading-and-blogging boy.

I wrote sexy “christianity” plaid-clad with a side of skinny jeans and coffee in a local java shop. My tactless and messy pen strokes were an attempt at confessing my own martyr-complex, pharisaic tendencies, and shallow faith with resolve to move back to the epicenter of a simple overflowing love for my Murdered Savior.

It takes one to know one in a culture where one of the most ostentatious and perhaps trendy things a Christian can do is write a blog about spirituality. Often we share our messiness with the world hoping to feel a little less messy. But really, we end up smearing our mess into a mess that’s more nice-looking but no less messy. The blogosphere is an inch deep and a mile wide.

But then, life’s not about a blog… or a style… The depth of your deep-V is not a measuring unit for the depth of your spirituality. Torn up shoes can’t prove how far you’ve walked with Jesus. And a longer beard doesn’t particularly make you more Christ-like (sorry, white-Russian-bearded-baby-faced Jesus!).

You can look like you know God… you can know all about God… but that has no bearing on whether or not you actually know Him. 

When you know all about someone but don’t actually know them, that just makes you a stalker.

GOD DOESN'T NEED STALKERS, HE WANTS FOLLOWERS... 

Temptation lurks in the murky and shallow waters of trending Christianity. It would demand every Christian forget Christ but continue looking as if they knew Him. This is what the temptation of early trending Christian culture demanded of Ananias and Sapphira. When selling land for the Jesus’ sake became the trend, the couple sought to be trendy. They sold their land with hearts bent on looking the part and hoping to receive Peter’s praise. That heart condition cost them absolutely everything.
 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven… I will declare to them, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you...’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Whether you truly know God is between you and Him, but my resolve is to peel back the spiritual-looking behavior (regardless of whether it’s dressed in suits, sackcloth, or skinny jeans) and take a look behind the curtain, into the mechanism of my faith. My intention is not to take any one flavor of Christianity to the woodshed… My intention is to make war. To raid whitewashed tombs by releasing clarion calls to the Church – that each one of us would check our own hearts with a sense of ruthlessness towards any corrupted motives we may find there. Join me, I dare you to.

For Ananias and his wife there was this pervasive thing called “self” that weaseled its slimy little way into something beautiful and made it sickening to the heart of God. God will be the judge of acts that are truly righteous and acts that just look righteous. Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7)… That said, the Consuming Fire that is our God has an incredibly direct way of burning through the dross of our showy spirituality and dragging our true intentions kicking and screaming to the surface.
 

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:3)

“Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
 Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings - meetings, meetings, meetings - I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening...” (Isaiah 1:13-15 MSG)

 

...HE DOESN’T WANT A SHOW. HE WANTS OUR HEARTS. 

Want to be a radical Christian? Don’t look to trending Christian culture as a manual. You can’t pin radical Christianity like your favorite recipe or DIY. Look to Jesus Christ – the Author and Perfecter of your faith (Heb. 12:2).

Only the revelation of the glory of the Risen King Jesus will do if being consumed with passion is the end we seek. Only un-tinted, soul-altering, paradigm-shifting, idol-breaking, slit-side and nail-pierced-hands-feeling experience with Jesus will do. And to the one who has truly placed his hands in Christ’s side, and to the one who has truly put his fingers in the holes of Christ’s hands belongs a revelation that will not fail Him… yet it will destroy him, stripping him of all he owns. For that one, the one to whom Christ has revealed Himself, the only response that person will manage to muster is “here am I, send me!” For the one who has met Jesus face-to-face, worldly pleasures will be forsaken at the drop of a hat for the pleasure of Christ’s presence.

You can have works and not know God… But when you DO know Him – what a seriously blessed thought – works will inevitably, naturally, organically, flood out of you. A friend of mine recently put it this way: “When it comes to following Christ, good things are good only in so much as they are oriented by what is best, that is, a love for God.”

Hearts that are consumed by an encounter with the Risen Jesus Christ are hearts that will inevitably find their mission irreversibly intertwined with that of God’s. What breaks Him will break you. He breaks for bare feet and dirty water. He breaks for Africa and Skid Row. He breaks for impoverished coffee farmers and sweatshop laborers.

So in the midst of our social-justice-driven generation let the church bells resound with the thud of the question: “where’s your heart?” Wear your TOMS, drink your coffee fair-trade, and blog on your MacBook pro… but wear, drink, and blog because you’ve had an undeniable encounter with the grace of King Jesus. Not because you want people to think you did. Or because you want to think you did.

Take all that you are and offer it to all that He is. Steadily, faithfully, lavishly. With dogged resolve in valleys and green pastures. The life of radical abandon is one that has walked so steadily so long with Jesus that on a dime it would do anything Jesus asks. To ask the veteran Jesus follower to sell, give, or lose all is to ask little, for He has the supreme treasure of Christ. If he loses anything he has lost nothing.

God doesn’t want cookie-cutter lovers with no heart and soul. He wants you. Every piece of you - every flaw. So run to him. Take your cultural relevance with you, because you’ll need it… God will you use in any condition. All you have to do is run. – Jayson Schmidt