May 9
2019
Art Creed
"The practice of reading the Apostle’s Creed, or stating what we believe in the church, is a good practice. It is a practice that turns our hearts to remember and relive the Gospel. But stating our beliefs is greater than just a mnemonic trick for our brains. It is a shaping tool to help us live into the fully revealed mystery, not something that is evolving and slowly given to us in tidbits of understanding, like the history of Art. When we state our beliefs, we step into the freedom found in the constraints of love."
"We are narrative animals, and I hope the Gospel of Abraham causes the story of the Gospel to reenacted in us, in City Pres and in our city." 
So here I sit, wrestling through this reality, all the while examining areas of my life where my worship is misplaced. How have I been duped? 
I may feel exhausted or discouraged or wounded by events in my life, but do I recognize the underlying battle? 
Turns out, I may be pretty good at structuring a prayer, and asking for spiritual-sounding things, but this weekend God reminded me that I’ve also been pretty good at missing the point of prayer.
I don’t have to deny or hide my weakness because the beauty of them is they point to a God who promises to make me new.
When I realized a few months ago that Easter fell on April 1 this year, I initially saw it as incongruous - the high point of the Church calendar juxtaposed with the a day of playful trickery. 
Despite the fact that Jesus literally states in the verse that he will be with us “always, to the end of the age,” I often feel alone when confronted with the idea of trying to share the Gospel. 
Living under the new covenant of Jesus’ blood, we also get to see the beautiful picture of Jesus drawing people from every nation, tribe, and tongue to Himself.
Adam and Eve based their hope on Cain, as a result of an incomplete and flawed understanding of God’s promised redemption.
We look forward and say there is a better day coming because of Jesus. And not only do we look forward, but we hasten it by living today as a renewed people in the midst of that broken world. 
Entering into moments of vulnerability consciously and intentionally is risky, but it stops shame in it’s tracks.
We were made for this interdependent community. We were made to share those extreme differences in order to produce extreme growth. We were made to be with one another in order to remove the possibility of the bad: loneliness. 
The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents the fall of men and the tree of life reflects the way God designed us to exist. Between these two trees, there stands the tree that Jesus died on to pay the price of the fall and reconcile us to God. 
It’s not that God was any less present to them or working any fewer miracles of deliverance and preservation among them over those years; it’s just that they stopped seeing Him. They stopped recognizing His faithfulness to them. And I do the same thing.
God addresses the chaos of humanity through the living Word, the incarnate Jesus. Do you believe that? God has intervened. God is still intervening.
Sometimes, hard things happen, and they’re just hard, and no ah-ha moment comes later when you realize how every painful piece of the puzzle was indeed working together for your good. 
How often do I “rest” by binging on show after show? Or fritter my time away on silly articles on Twitter or Reddit? Or squander my Saturday on a unimportant book?
"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul" -Mark Twain
This Sunday, as we unpacked hospitality, and love was intertwined in every part. Fear creates exclusive community, but love gives way to inclusive hospitality.
If I truly understand that God loves me, not just in some generic sense but intensely and personally, it changes everything. Love like that isn’t something that can be met with indifference, any more than I could respond to a marriage proposal with a shrug.
Developing a regular practice of exercise is beneficial, but establishing godly practices builds spiritual muscles with benefits that extend way beyond the physical body. We get a glimpse of these benefits in Daniel chapter 6.
When we are faced with “the writing on the wall”, when God’s Holy presence in our lives unsettles and awakens us to reality- where do we run?
You see, I’m not that different from Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted to build a legacy for himself, and he did. Just like him, I’m trying to build a legacy… And I’m anxious when I think that I might not accomplish these goals or, even worse, that having accomplished them I might see them taken away from me. 
How silly to think that large statutes and grand works will last beyond a lifetime! And yet, as Pastor Justin reminds us, we must see ourselves in Nebuchadnezzar’s quest for transcendence, for meaning, for a legacy. 
"There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
When my head and my heart forget what is true, I find myself sacrificing my life to the myriad gods of health, wealth, work, marriage and home...So how, in the face of both external and internal pressures toward alternate values and identities, can I maintain my identity in Christ? 
I wonder how the priests felt every day when they went into the temple and saw the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple. Did they look at it with dread? Or curiosity? Or maybe they longed to be in God's presence just for a moment even if it killed them...