Carpe Diem Coram Deo

The Joy of Becoming

carpediemcoramdeo — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:51:01 +0000

Have you ever set yourself a goal and once you reached it, the happiness of attaining the goal was short lived? It seemed that the anticipation of the goal and the progress toward it was more satisfying than actually reaching it. As Spock said in the Star Trek episode Amok Time, “you may find that ‘having’ is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as ‘wanting.’ It is not logical, but it is often true.” I have often experienced this in my life and seen it in others. This phenomena is actually independent of the goal that is set. It can be a good goal or a bad goal, sinful or saintly, destructive or constructive.

If we set a particular goal up on a pedestal and see achieving it as the key to our fulfillment or happiness, then it will always fall short. We never seem to fully “arrive” at the place that brings us contentment, at least not for very long. We see this in our society over and over again. Consumerism, hero worship, vanity, etc. These are destructive pursuits whose goals are selfish. It is easy as Christians to look down our noses at people who are consumed by these things, even though we often fall prey ourselves. That is vanity, which is in reality hypocrisy.

What about the pursuit of a noble goal such as doing community service or giving more money to a worthy cause? Surely meeting these goals is a good thing. Yes they are, but even a good goal, once met, fades into the past and is forgotten. The contentment fades and we find that once again we yearn for something we do not have. We are in the same place as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes when he says “All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

Some people say that the journey is the thing and I believe that is getting closer to the truth concerning real contentment. The goals I have mentioned are all relatively short lived. We either reach them and start looking for another one, or we fail to reach them and look for another one. As Christians we have been given the ultimate goal. Paul tells us in Romans 8:29 that God wants us “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” We are to be like Jesus. Wow, no pressure there!

We will never achieve this goal, but instead of this being a frustration, it can be a liberating realization. I say we will never reach this goal, but what I mean is that we cannot reach it on our own power. It is God who will bring us to this goal if we allow Him to. This is the journey we are on, the journey of becoming like Jesus. If we obediently follow our guide on this journey, the Holy Spirit, we will be able to experience peace and contentment regardless of the conditions we experience along the way. We will be able to say along with Paul in Philippians 4:12 and 13 “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

My journey is different from yours, and your journey is different from your neighbor’s. It makes “keeping up with the Jones” irrelevant since we are not to compare ourselves to anyone else anyway (Galatians 6:4). We should all run the race marked out for us and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1,2). We can find joy in becoming what God desires us to be. For me, it is encouraging to know that God is more interested in who I am becoming than in specifically what I have accomplished.

Steve Jernigan

The Yoke of Christ

carpediemcoramdeo — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 20:42:10 +0000

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” This is really good news. We all feel weary and burdened at times, sometimes severely, and we yearn for rest. Jesus promises us rest for our souls, a peace within ourselves that can only come by being reconciled with God, forgiven, through our faith in Christ because of what He accomplished for us on the cross. However, to get this “soul rest”, we must take on His yoke. What does that mean?

A yoke can be many things, but in Jesus’ day, it would have been immediately recognized as the device used to join a pair of oxen consisting of a wooden cross piece and two bow-shaped pieces which the animal’s heads would pass through. This device would submit the oxen to pull the burden that the owner of the yoke imposed on them. With this in mind, a yoke was a symbol of submission and hardship for the Jews. In the Old Testament, we read of the Lord freeing His people from the “yoke of the Egyptians” (Exodus 6:6-7) and the yoke of the Assyrians (Isaiah 14:25), likewise in 1 Kings 12:4, the people of Israel asked king Rehoboam to lighten the “heavy yoke” that his father Solomon imposed on the people through the forced labor he instituted.

Another heavy yoke that was familiar to the Jews was the yoke of the law. This was the heavy requirements placed on the people by the Pharisees. Instead of the yoke of the Pharisees with its heavy burden of hundreds of laws that were imposed on the people, Jesus was offering a yoke of grace that was easy and light. We must not think that Jesus does not expect anything from His followers. Actually, His demands are far more radical than those of the Pharisees, just read the Sermon on the Mount. What makes Jesus’ yoke easy is not that the work itself is easy, it is not, but that following Him puts us in harmony with the Creator of the universe and we have all the power we could ever need to fulfill His demands because He provides it to us, as long as we do not fight against His yoke.

Jesus’ yoke is a symbol of our voluntary discipleship to Him as Lord and Savior in contrast to other yokes that people wish to force on us or that we mistakenly feel we must bear. If we willingly submit ourselves to Him in humility and obedience, as He did to the Father for us on His way to the cross, we will be given the rest he promises us, in this life and the next.

Concerning the symbolism of the yoke, this is about as far as exegesis will take us, but we can biblically extend the illustration. The most common extension pictures us as yoked together with Jesus. In this regard, He is the dominate one of our pair and serves to teach us the way to go and shoulder the burden for us because of our weakness. Another way of looking at these verses is a contrast of yokes. We have noted that in the Old Testament, the Egyptians and Assyrians imposed yokes of slavery and hardship on Israel. They were not yoked with the Jews, but were the ones imposing the yoke on them and forcing them to bear the burden it represented. In contrast, Jesus offers us a yoke that is easy, also translated well-fitting, that He has fashioned for us. If we voluntarily take on His yoke, we are given the rest He promises. In this illustration, Jesus is the one who fashions the yoke, like a carpenter, and the one who provides it, like the farmer who owns the oxen.

Either illustration mentioned above is valid and each expresses Biblical truths, however we must not miss the point that following Jesus, accepting His yoke, is the only way to receive true peace and rest, both in this life and the next. Any other yoke will chafe and frustrate us as we are compelled to pull burdens we are not meant to pull.

So, how’s your yoke fitting these days?

Steve Jernigan

Empathy and Sympathy

carpediemcoramdeo — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:00:34 +0000

Do you know the difference between empathy and sympathy? Empathy is the ability to understand, relate to, and perceive another’s feelings and needs. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone in their circumstances and wishing their good. Both empathy and sympathy can result in actions to benefit the other person but, at least from my experience, I would rather be on the receiving end of empathy when I’m hurting.

It is not possible for us to always have empathy for others when they are in need. Empathy comes from having walked in the hurting person’s shoes. In other words, empathy comes from having experienced the same pain and trouble. For us, it is not possible to know what it is like to walk in everyone’s shoes, but for that reason it makes it all the more important for us to extend empathy to people when we can. However, when we have not experienced another’s pain or difficulty, we can still extend our sympathy. As Paul tells us in Romans 12:15 “mourn with those who mourn.”

We all desire empathy from others when we are in pain, but often it is hard to come by. However, there is One who has perfect empathy for us in our pain and temptation, because as the writer of Hebrews tells us “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Heb 2:17-18 NIV) Yet in all this, He “was without sin.” (Heb 4:15)

Empathy was a huge part of the Incarnation. Jesus voluntarily became a man. He became one of us and in doing so directly shared in the pain, suffering, and temptations that we all experience. He voluntarily walked in our shoes because He loves us and by living a life perfectly submitted to God, even to an undeserved death on the cross, He made possible our salvation, our forgiveness, our spiritual healing, and our reconciliation to God.

Jesus understands our pain and our troubles. He does more than just offer us pity, He extends to us His perfect empathy. As followers of Christ, we should do the same for each other. All of us have walked in other people’s shoes more than we sometimes admit. We often dull our empathy because we feel it is too costly to share another’s pain and relive something from our past. If we are to be like Jesus, we must remember what He has done for us and what it cost Him, because in comparison, the cost we are asked to pay is quite small.

Steve Jernigan

Prayer

carpediemcoramdeo — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:05:21 +0000

I’m reading a book by Philip Yancey called Prayer. I seem to have found a kindred spirit in Yancey because he admits to some of the same difficulties I have had, and still do, experience with prayer. Do I do it enough? Am I doing it right? If God already knows everything, why bother? These are just some of the questions Yancey poses in his book. There are some even more disturbingly personal questions he asks, but I’ll let you read the book for yourself. Be warned, if you are looking for easy answers or a 3 step process to achieve a perfect prayer life, you will not find it here. What you will find is a very honest examination of the human experience of prayer and what scripture shows us concerning it.

We have all found ourselves in situations that are full of unknowns, full of sadness and even a sense of futility. We pray, but we are not sure what to say. We pray, but we don’t see any immediate help coming our way. We want things to be OK, but they are not. Yancey says we are not alone. Jesus experienced the same thing while He was here on earth. He constantly prayed for His rag-tag group of disciples and he was often disappointed and eventually betrayed by one of the very men He chose. Eleven of his chosen made it through to become key players in the early church, but one did not.

In the long run, it appears that Jesus’ prayers for His disciples mostly worked out except for Judas. Of course, we do not know what specific prayers Jesus lifted up concerning Judas, but regardless, even Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was used by God through the cross to provide salvation for the world.

You’ve probably heard that we should approach our prayer life knowing that God sees the “Big Picture” and we do not. This is a true statement, but it can leave us a bit cold when we are in the middle of a dark valley and can’t even see the way out. Trying to think with the eternal long-view during those times is tough. What about right now? How do I make peace with my situation, myself, and God right now?

Yancey quotes Ray Anderson who said “Prayer is not a means for removing the unknown and unpredictable elements in life, but rather a way of including the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of the grace of God in our lives.” If this is true, and I believe it is, then it means that God is with me all the time working with the unpredictable and often ugly fabric of my life to show me His grace. Prayer is a way I have to cooperate with God in this process. By spending time with God in prayer and opening myself up to Him in complete honesty, I will see His grace in my life, even in the valleys.

We read in the gospels that Jesus prayed constantly while he was on this earth. I still struggle with prayer sometimes, but if Jesus thinks it is so important, I think I’ll stick with it.

Steve Jernigan

Things My Parents Said

carpediemcoramdeo — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:24:05 +0000

Did your parents have a saying that you swore you would never repeat when you became a parent? You know, one of those phrases that always seemed to come up at the most irritating time. My mother had a few of them. The one in particular that irritated me the most was “patience is a virtue.” I guess it really bothered me because patience was something that I was totally lacking when I was a teenager. I made a promise to myself that I would never say that to my kids once I became a parent.

As I got older, I began to understand the wisdom in my mother’s words and that I was still in great need of this virtue that she had tried to instill in me. As my walk with the Lord has strengthen over time, I have found greater degrees of patience as God has transformed me to be more like Jesus. I sure can’t take any of the credit because when I find myself going my own way instead of God’s way, my patience evaporates!

When I became a parent, I knew that I had to find a way to relate this wisdom to my kids, but I could not bring myself to use my mother’s exact words. I guess that’s a little bit of teenage rebellion that hasn’t quite left me yet. So, how was I to do this? I decided to come up with my own saying to irritate my kids. Oops, I mean to instruct them. My kids will always remember the phrase “It builds character.”

As a teenager, I never consciously, fully caught on to what my mother was really trying to tell me. What was the purpose of being patient other than staying out of trouble? What she really meant was to persevere through the situation and not sin while you are doing it so that the experience makes you a better person. That’s the gist of what I mean when I tell my kids “It builds character.”

The Apostle Paul said this very thing in verses 3 and 4 of chapter 5 in his letter to the Romans: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” James elaborates on this in verses 2 through 4 of the first chapter of his book: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

My kids will be happy to know that my mother’s words still echo in my head when I find myself in a frustrating situation. My own words to them even come back to me at those times so I have two catchy phrases to be convicted by. Both phrases remind us of a good Biblical lesson we should learn through the tough times of life, but maybe my kids will just stick with the phrase “It builds character” with their children. That way, they’ll only have one annoying (but needed) phrase to deal with.

Steve Jernigan

Spiritual DNA

carpediemcoramdeo — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:46:50 +0000

If you have read any books on church leadership/vision/transformation lately, you have probably encountered the phrase “the DNA of a church.” Remember DNA from high school biology? It’s the stuff in your chromosomes and genes that allow parents to pass physical traits down to their children and provides the blueprint for who you are physically. (For those of you who understand this better, please forgive this oversimplification.) When they talk about the DNA of the church, they mean the underlying drive of a church, that is, a church’s focus, passion, and actions as they join God in His mission to reach the lost (Matthew 28:18-20). In other words, how a church is wired. For the sake of this short discussion, I’ll call this spiritual DNA.

One large difference between physical DNA and spiritual DNA is how it is propagated from generation to generation. Physical DNA automatically transfers the physical traits of the parents and their ancestors to their children. For instance, my daughter has my wife’s hair color and my father’s (or mother-in-law’s) eye color. She is physically marked as one of the family as is my son. This took no real effort on our part. It was automatic.

Spiritual DNA does not automatically transfer the traits of one generation to the next. The blueprint for who we are spiritually as individuals and as a church is composed of acquired traits. This means that if we want to pass on our spiritual traits to our children or to the next generation within a church, we must work at it. It is not automatic. As we are told in Deuteronomy 6:7 about the commands of God, “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” If we wish our children to share our spiritual DNA, we must work to help them acquire these traits we hold dear. The same is true in a church. If we wish the next generation of believers in our church to share the focus, passion, and actions for God’s mission that we posses, we must work to help them acquire these traits.

Some of you are probably thinking that I’m advocating spiritual cloning or uniformity. Nothing is further from the truth. Even though my son and daughter are physically marked as one of the family, they are unique. The physical DNA that they posses is a unique mix from all their ancestors. They are both, one of a kind. The same is true of spiritual DNA but even more so. My spiritual DNA has been shaped by more than my physical family. It has been shaped by my parents, but also by all the teachers, pastors, mentors, authors, and fellow believers I have had the privilege to learn from. The same is true of the spiritual DNA of my children and the believers in a church.

New believers bring fresh life into the family of God just like marriage brings new blood (and DNA) into a family. Both change the families to a degree, but in a complimentary way that maintains the identity of the family while preventing a stagnant gene pool. By diligently working with God to pass on the spiritual DNA we posses to the next generation of believers, we will help insure that our focus and passion for God’s mission continues in our children and our churches and that they both have the ability to uniquely adapt as God directs them.

Steve Jernigan

What I want…

carpediemcoramdeo — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:50:34 +0000

Time for a little confession. You know what I want? I want to know what is expected from me by the people I interact with. I want to know that my kids are going to have a good life. I want to know that my church is going to be faithful to Jesus in what it does. I want to know that my country will be governed in the right way. The list goes on, but you get the idea. When circumstances indicate these things are not on what I consider the right course, I sometimes become worried. If it doesn’t get any better, I sometimes become angry and insecure. Maybe this is just me, but I figure a few of you might be able to relate to what I’m saying.

These are all things that affect me directly, but that I have a limited amount of influence over. Sure I try to communicate effectively with those I interact with, I do my best to raise my kids in a manner that God approves of, I work within my church to help it remain faithful to its calling, and I cast my vote in the manner I believe is best for my country, but for some reason this does not always give me peace. I become anxious and worry even though God’s word says I shouldn’t.

Paul tells us in Philippians 4:12-13 that he has figured out how to deal with this problem. He says “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

Obviously, I haven’t fully arrived at this place yet, but I am on the way. I love the Lord and I do trust Him, but sometimes I fail in my trust. I allow disturbing circumstances to overshadow my faith, that is, my trust, in Him. He doesn’t promise that any of these things will work out in a way that will make me happy, but He does promise to be with me through it all. I need to trust Him in that. When I do, I’m not anxious or insecure and I don’t get angry. I have peace. I have actually experienced this so why is this lesson so hard to learn?

It seems that sometimes what I want is not really what I need the most. Imagine that…

Steve Jernigan

In Praise of Simplicity

carpediemcoramdeo — Sat, 22 May 2010 01:19:24 +0000

Here is a phrase I am a big fan of; “Simple is beautiful.” I am a software developer by trade and when this phrase is applied to the user interface of some software or to a well constructed bit of code, this is high praise, if the software does its job of course. Simplicity means it is easy. This does not mean that it doesn’t accomplish a very important or complicated task. It just means that accomplishing the task is made simple.

Take for instance a GPS. The first time I used one, I had to navigate from one side of Pittsburgh to the other. I had never been to Pittsburgh, did not have a paper map or directions and I had never used a GPS before. The trip was made easy by the GPS. I felt like I was a native of Pittsburgh navigating the traffic across town. Simple is beautiful.

I have most often thought about this in relationship to things. Recently, I have come to really appreciate the simplicity of my relationship with my wife. The way we relate to each other and to the world together is one of the simplest things that I do each day. This did not happen overnight. It took a lot of work for a lot of years from both of us and a healthy dose of God’s grace. Every day we have to do important and sometimes complicated things together, but being on the same page makes this pretty simple. This is one of the greater blessings from God’s promise that the two shall become one.

If you think about it, the closer we get to being on the same page as Jesus, the simpler our relationship is with Him. This also will not happen overnight and will take a lot of work. The good news is that in our relationship with Jesus, only one party has to change. Guess who…

My love for my wife is second only to my love for Jesus and I’m working on making both of these relationships as simple as possible. Simple is beautiful!

Steve Jernigan

Magnetic Morality?

carpediemcoramdeo — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:59:32 +0000

Usually, I don’t listen to talk radio of either the conservative or liberal bent, but recently, I tuned in to NPR. I heard a story about some scientific research that showed a person’s moral judgments could be affected by the application of a magnetic field to a particular portion of their brain. While this is interesting, it is really not any more surprising than saying a chemical imbalance in the brain or a brain injury can alter a person’s judgment.

The story really caught my attention at the very end. One of the people being interviewed was Joshua Greene, a psychologist at Harvard University. Greene is quoted as saying if something as complex as morality has a mechanical explanation, it will be hard to argue that people have, or need, a soul.[1] I don’t agree.

We as human beings have a physical and a spiritual component, but these components are not fully independent of each other. To be complete as God created us, these components act together to express what it means to be human. Obviously, there are many nuances not covered by this simple statement such as what about people with disabilities (no, they are not less human). My point is that human beings were created by God to have an interrelated physical and spiritual existence. Our physical component and our spiritual component are not mutually exclusive. What affects one, affects the other in some way.

It is not the research or the findings of this research that are disturbing. Empirical data is what it is. What is disturbing is the apparent goal of people like Joshua Greene. There are many people who would like to reduce all humanity down to purely mechanical, chemical, and electrical beings that accidentally came into existence by random chance. The existence of something outside their ability to reason is threatening. To them, spirituality, especially the Christian version, is nothing but superstition that must be proven out of existence. For some reason they feel the world would be a better place without God.

Even people like Joshua Greene are created in the image of God. It is my prayer that he and people like him will see the wonder and majesty of God in the creation they so diligently study and somehow be brought to saving faith in the One who most perfectly showed us the complementary nature of the physical and the spiritual in His incarnation, Jesus Christ.

Grace and peace to you this Easter…

Steve Jernigan

[1] From the transcript of NPR article “Study Narrows Gap between Mind and Brain” Heard on All Things Considered on March 29, 2010. NOAH ADAMS, host.

The Best of All Possible Worlds – Part 2

carpediemcoramdeo — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:04:28 +0000

Is this the best of all possible worlds? From our perspective, the answer is no because it is easy to see that people’s choices so often make things worse than they could have been otherwise. What is worse, we ourselves are guilty of sinful choices that add to the misery we all experience. Each of us, in part, are responsible for this world not being the best of all possible worlds. However, from God’s big picture, creator of the tapestry perspective, this world could be the best of all possible worlds since God’s perfect purpose will be achieved through it.

If there are two perspectives, which one is right? Is this world the best of all possible worlds as John Piper or Leibniz suggest or is it not as Plantinga would lead us to believe? Great philosophers and theologians have debated this for a long time and there are advocates for both sides. Not a big surprise is it?

Maybe a better question is why does it matter? What effect on my life, or more importantly, on my faith does the answer to this question have? If it is important, who cares what some highly educated philosopher thinks, what does the Bible say?

There are many issues that are argued in the court of public opinion and in politically motivated philosophies which the Bible is very clear on. I regret to say that this is not one of them. Both sides can support their stance using scripture and depending on your particular theological leanings, either one or the other will be more persuasive.

For me personally, the goal of asking this sort of question is not to get a definitive “right” answer or to prove a point or to be able to say someone else is wrong. If people who have studied this question far deeper and longer than I have cannot agree, why should I think I will find a definitive answer? Even though I feel compelled to explore questions such as this one, I am content to leave the final answer a mystery. As God has told us in Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” In every respect, God is so much greater than I can imagine and so are His ways. I can live with this, in fact, it gives me great comfort.

However, the journey is far from being in vain. I believe that both perspectives contain important truths for us as believers.

From our perspective, we see that in many respects we are responsible for the state of this world. Our choices matter. We can either be obedient to God’s will as Jesus commands us to be or we can choose to rebel. No amount of philosophical argument and reasoning can relieve us of the reality of the impact of our choices. If I choose to sin, God is not pleased, other people are affected, and the world is worse off because of my sinful choice. I am responsible; not God, or the devil, or my environment, or the way I was raised.

From God’s perspective, we learn humility by realizing that God is so far beyond us. We learn to be comforted through the knowledge that He is all powerful, all knowing, and in complete control of everything and at the same time loves us personally. Jesus shows us this.

Again, is this the best of all possible worlds? I guess it depends on your perspective.

Steve Jernigan