“words words words words words. NOW DON’T DO THE FOLLOWING. words words words. DO THIS. words words words…”

As I’ve spent a lot of time lately listening to what I’d call “gospel-centered preaching” (i.e. Tim Keller), I’ve heard a very different thing. This preaching would describe how Christ has already done everything for me. He took on the condemnation and judgment I deserve, and now God accepts me. When I listen to this, I find myself left in a place of awe, humility, and desiring to worship Jesus for being both my King AND my Savior. I find myself wanting to honor Him.

But I found myself still reading the Bible the same way. I could only think of 2 problems:

1. This form of preaching is reading too much gospel into the Bible, skipping over the rule-based parts that are so apparent to me.
2. When I’ve been reading the Bible, I’ve been missing the gospel.

The Experiment
After hearing a particularly non-gospel-centered sermon, I decided I needed to read through the Epistles with the sole purpose of looking for the Gospel in it; trying to have patience while combing through chapters of do’s and don’ts so I can catch small snippets of the gospel in there.

The Results
I realized the problem isn’t the Bible, the problem is me. There are two things that cause the problem:

1. I am SO immune to the gospel that when I start reading about what Jesus has done for us, I tune out… “Jesus died for us. I know that. Tell me what I need to be doing.” It’s amazing how natural this is.
2. I read the gospel texts with a theology lens (sterile and matter-of-fact like a textbook) and the rest as application. But that’s not how/why it’s written.

So what about the do’s and don’ts?

If you can relate…

There are 2 reasons to do what Francis Chan encourages in the above video:

1. Obligation- It’s the right thing to do.

2. It is worth it.

Obligation is rarely a strong enough motivator in my life. But as a testimony that following the call to make disciples is worth it, I wanted to share an email I wrote recently to some dear friends of ours. They moved their entire family to Seattle for 3 months (and have returned to visit many times) with the sole purpose of maturing our faith in and relationship with Jesus. Here were some observations I wanted to share with them in light of their decision…

Hey Jeremy and April,

I was struck with the following this morning…

Thanks in large part to you guys coming out to Seattle 4 years ago:

• I have repented of finding security and self-righteousness in knowing the right things; more than ever before, I simply want to know and be known by God. Similarly, I am no longer content to let a pastor “go up the mountain” to know God for me. Instead, I want to intimately know God myself.
• I am no longer content to leave the great commission to the paid experts, but joyfully get my hands dirty in the pursuit of being made into and making radical disciples of Christ.
• Grace and I were heaped in guilt and shame, hiding our true identities from everyone, including each other. Now, we can boast in our weakness and our marriage is growing closer than I ever imagined it could.
• Grace and I have come from a place of disjointed missions; now we desire to work together as a team to accomplish the same family mission.
• The purpose of family has changed from something that served the individual to a thriving, nurturing team that serves a larger purpose. Even the practical wisdom and input we have received (or simply observed) from you guys has had an invaluable impact on the growing Jones clan.

Simply put, much of the purpose and hope that we now have is a direct result of what you started out here 4 years ago.

Thank you so much.

For those interested in my opinion of the film, I posted my thoughts on the film  here.

One thing that I’ve been meditating on this last week, among positive reviews, negative reviews, interviews, and radio appearances is this: Whether positive or negative, it doesn’t matter what others think of me. God loves and accepts me, and that’s what I must find my identity in. 

If you haven’t seen the film, I think it’s basically available everywhere (except not yet on Netflix). If you want a physical copy for your time capsule, you can buy the DVD at the Holy Rollers website or off our card counting website.

Gal 5:14-15 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.

I have been among the many Christian who have hated on non-Christians and hated on fellow Christians for various reasons. I wanted to share 3 things God has been teaching Grace and I about this epidemic.

Note: What I am discussing is what goes on in our hearts towards others. I strongly believe we are called to stand up for truth. But I believe standing against injustice, wickedness, or lies should be done out of love for our neighbor, not hatred in our hearts.

1. When I find myself judging/condemning someone, I need to consider ways I can relate. More often than not, I find myself condemning someone for something that I have done or do myself. Someone did something selfish. Welp, I do selfish things all the time. Someone was unloving. Am I any different if I respond to their unloving actions by hating them in my heart?

We are all a lot more alike than we think; we all have selfish, wicked hearts. When I condemn someone in my heart, it is often because I believe I am essentially different. Do you ever say things like, “I can’t believe they did ____” or “I can’t stand people who _____”? If I step back a little bit, I should be able to understand them, because they are just like me: Fallen and Loved by God. This should produce compassion towards my neighbors; like me, they are broken and need help.

2. Condemning people won’t help them. When I condemn others, I am subjecting them to the Law. I’m saying, “Look how you fail to do the right thing!” But being subjected to the law won’t fix anyone. (It will either make us hate those condemning us, or it will crush us with the weight of our failures.) The only thing that changes me is the insane love and grace that Christ has shown me. Why would I then subject others to anything less?*

Galatians 2:16 “And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”

3. Forgiveness is the only thing that brings me freedom. Ungrace produces a cycle that doesn’t end.  For years, I thought it was okay to judge judgmental people; slander the slanderers; snub those who have snubbed me; hate the hateful people. Not only is this ineffective in helping my neighbor, it makes me a slave to ungrace. The only way out is the solution Jesus brought: Grace. To forgive others in my heart, even if they remain in their wrongdoing, frees me from the poisonous effects of hatred and ungrace. Jesus saved us from the deep pit of condemnation and hatred we were in by forgiving us while we were yet sinners. Because of Him, I am free to do the same to others.

When someone once asked the theologian Karl Barth what he would say to Adolf hitler given the chance to meet him, he replied, “I would tell him ‘Jesus died for your sins’.” My prayer is that we would treat those who have hurt us with the same compassion and forgiveness that Christ has poured over us to both our Christian and non-Christian neighbors.

*This will only work if I want what’s best for them. I’ve found myself, many times, simply wanting to be right, or wanting to feel proud of myself that I’m not like them. Wanting what is best for my neighbor will radically alter the course of action.

**For those who like reference pages and footnotes: I owe most of these ideas to Philip Yancey, Ben Crawford, and Tim Keller.

Instead I got: “Yeah, you didn’t choose an easy life.”

I tend to see challenges as adversity to grit my teeth through.  I’ve secretly got an agenda that involves a simple, enjoyable, comfortable life.   When that is challenged, I get frustrated, overwhelmed, full of self-pity, and start believing that God doesn’t want what’s best for me.

But what if He does? What if these aren’t heavy burdens to be weighed down by, but opportunities. Or better yet, blessings?

I desperately want to see my 4 year old son mature in wisdom, leadership, and Godliness. But right now, I can hardly trust him to pick up his toys. When I ask him to clean something up or share a toy with someone, it’s not because I want to crush him with challenges. It’s the exact opposite: I want to see him thrive, and task or challenge is an opportunity for him to grow in maturity, discipline, and selflessness. My heart’s desire is to see him become at what he was created to be, and a huge part of that involves an ability to take on responsibility.

Matthew 25:

The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’

“The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

“Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man…I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’

“Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.

Here’s a list of the thoughts and feelings I experienced when I received these “excessive gifts”:

• (with the ipad) “That was way too much. Great. Now we need to buy them a car or something next time we stay at their house for a week.”
•  Guilt: this is way beyond what seems “appropriate” for service we performed (to be honest, we would have gladly paid to have them stay at our house).
• I must find a way to pay it back.
• Is it even okay to just accept the gift?
• Frustration: “What are they thinking? We don’t need or deserve this.”
• (with the anonymous gift) My mind raced to figure out who gave it to us so I could know what they were thinking and how to make it right.
• “Since I can’t pay it back, I need to  make sure to act in a way worthy of this gift.”

2004: We start trying to get pregnant

2006: We are seeing a fertility doctor, using meds, and eventually artificial insemination, and find out we’re pregnant by the end of the year. Super excited!

2007: We have our first kid!

2008: 3 months after Elias is born, apparently those fertility issues resolved themselves, and we find out Grace is unexpectedly expecting! Kinda scared, but hey, we wanted kids anyway, so what the heck.

2009: 6 months after Gabriella is born, and despite the use of contraceptives, we find out we are pregnant again. 3 kids in less than 2.5. It was almost like someone told us we were being sent to a Siberian prison for the next 20 years. We were pretty depressed about it for a long, long time.

2010: We have Lieve (you can read about how I unexpectedly had to got to deliver her myself). We prepare for a tough year of 3 kids in diapers, but we thought we’d probably survive it. Then we would take 3 to ∞ years off from having kids.

2011: We learn that the effective use of contraceptives is one of the many things that we are not good at… we’re pregnant with #4. But something weird happened this time. You might expect that we would be the most devastated yet, but we weren’t. Ever since we found out we were pregnant with Lieve (in an effort to ward off violent depression), Grace and I meditated on this passage from Psalm 127:

³ Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.

If 3 kids in 2.5 years felt like self-inflicted torture, then 4 kids in 4.5 years should have felt worse. However, even we were hoping to take a sabbatical from pregnancy, childbirth, and diapers, something funny started to happen: we started to BELIEVE this passage. So when we found out we were pregnant, both Grace and I thought, “wow. God is really blessing us.”

2 questions I’ve had to ask myself over the past 2 years:

1. How does God view family, and am I aligned with His view?

2. How does God view children, and am I aligned with His view?

I don’t know if this means we’ll have 30 kids and become like the Duggars. Maybe God’s teaching me that I should get a vasectomy. Maybe He’s showing us that we should have more kids. At this moment, I don’t know. But I do know that I embrace God’s decision to bless us with 4 kids. Because if He says, “blessed is the man whose quiver is full of children born in one’s youth”, maybe I should view children the same way.

*Oh yeah. And it helps when all the kids are totally awesome, hilarious, fun, and entertaining.

“I thought the way to have eternal life was to say the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’… no one said anything about ‘knowing God.’ I don’t like the sound of that. Just tell me what to do, not Who to start having a relationship with.” – Me 4 years ago

“I am starting to experience a small sliver of eternal life as I get to know God.” – Me today

I look forward to an eternity of knowing “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one he sent to earth.”

We are entering into our 3rd summer of renting out our house as a Vacation Rental on VRBO.com. Yep. Other people pay us to stay at our house, while we vacation (typically at Grace’s parents’ place on Hood Canal, though we’ve vacationed to Los Angeles, Whidbey Island, Las Vegas, and Cincinnati courtesy of this gig).

With the struggling economy, people are looking for more economical ways of travelling. So a 4 bedroom house for $300/night, where you can cook your own meals and fit 4-10 people, sure beats staying in multiple hotel rooms. Plus, we have a 60″ TV with cable and DVD player, a kids’ playground in the backyard, and fully stocked kitchen. So it’s a lot more comfortable and enjoyable to hang out in than a hotel room. And it’s perfect for us, because I can work remotely, and it’s covered 50-100% of our mortgage the last 2 years.

Here’s how it works:

• We rent it to people coming to the area for weddings, vacations, family reunions, etc. They pay ~$2,000/week for the house + refundable security deposit
• We clean up our house and leave it comfortable for the rentors. This has basically become Grace’s job, and she does an amazing job of leaving the house clean and inviting. She’ll leave fresh flowers and sparkling cider or things like that as a finishing touch, and people seem to love that stuff.
• We go somewhere else during their stay. (Note, if you stay with friends or family you can keep costs low, but make sure to do something nice for them to let them know how much you appreciate their hospitality… take them out to a nice meal or buy them a nice bottle of wine)

Reasons to not do this:

• You don’t own a home
• Your house is your castle, and you want to keep it that way. Or you can’t stomach the idea of other people sleeping in your bed
• You work a 9-5 with little or no vacation time, so there is little to no flexibility
• You are so tied into your community that leaving for a week or 2 at a time would be counterproductive
• You rent out part of your house to someone who wouldn’t be able to be flexibly (I actually think about this a lot, because we’d like to have someone move in with us, but we make enough from VRBO, that we would need a roommate who can be flexible in the summers)
• You’re afraid someone might break your stuff (Solution: Don’t keep nice stuff out in the open… we lock the garage off, and keep valuables in a safe deposit box at the bank. But to be honest, we have had very little trouble with broken stuff. People want their deposit back, so they tend to take care of your home)

Reasons to do this:

• Work towards your home becoming less of a Liability and more of an Asset
• If you just did this 2 weeks a summer, and planned your family vacation around it, you could easily pay for your entire vacation and still put away a couple thousand dollars. And even if you don’t go somewhere fancy, when you know that you’re making money on the proposition, you can feel free to eat out a little more or enjoy something fun to reward yourself for the hard work of getting your house ready for VRBO guests.
• Challenge your own faith that THIS is not your home (it’s God’s home, and Heaven is your true home)

Why I’m telling you this:

We heard about this from a friend about 4 or 5 years ago. They vacation the entire summer, renting their small house out on VRBO, and cover their entire year’s worth of mortgage payments! At first I thought, that’s cool, but I could never do that. But then Grace and I decided to give it a try, and now we’re hooked. And I’m not the only one… I have preached the gospel of VRBO to several dozen people and now I know at least 8 people who have tried this in 5 different cities, all with success stories. Some people stay with family, others rent out just 1 floor of their house, others travel around the country in their RV, and others use it a way to pay for glamorous vacations they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. So I thought I’d throw it out there to other people who might be looking for creative ways to get some extra income out of their house.

And if moving out several times in the summer does not sound like you, I will be writing a blogpost in the near future about why I want someone to move in with us in the near future.

This is a family photo taken by a friend and great guy, Jonathan Willis. It was taken spring of 2009 (or 2 kids ago, in Jones lingo).