Amazon and B&N

Just wanted to make the announcement that The Discovery is now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Here are the links if you're interested. Blessings.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

"The Discovery" is Here!

Well, it's finally here. My book came out today. I'm pretty jacked up. It's one of those feelings that's almost surreal. As a first-time author, I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but after holding the hard copy in my hands and seeing what a beautiful job Xulon Press did, I'm flying pretty high. I definitely feel like God was honored through the entire process and now I'm just praying that it will reach people with the Gospel and draw others closer to Him beyond what I am capable of doing in my own strength.

Thank You, Lord, for allowing me to see this small dream come to fruition.

I'll let you guys know when it's available on Amazon. But for now, you can purchase it here, if you'd like, straight from Xulon. Or just come see us this summer wherever we may be leading worship and get 'em from us ... cheaper.

Also, a special thanks goes out to so many of you, our supporters, who helped carry the financial load of this project. We love you guys and couldn't do this without you.

Identity Crisis - Final

The Right Conception: Jesus is I AM

The I AM Jesus is perfect love. The I AM Jesus has always been and always will be. The I AM Jesus loves sinners, and judges sin. The I AM Jesus is both a forgiving God, and a just judge. The I AM Jesus spoke the world into existence and breathed the breath of life into every human being. The I AM Jesus bore the sin of the world on His body and bruised the body of His One and Only Son at the same time. The I AM Jesus felt both the rejection of God on the cross and the unbearable turning away of His own face from His Son. The I AM Jesus was prophesied by men of God and created the very breath of the prophets who spoke the words. The I AM Jesus is both transcendent and immanent—He is holy and far removed, yet He is personal and very near to His children. The I AM Jesus revolutionizes the identity of His followers.

The True Follower Identity

The true follower identity says that because Jesus suffered for my sins, I want to live my life for Him simply because I love Him—not from a sense of obligation—not from a sense fear—not because He forces my hand—not because I think I can earn more God-points. No. Only because I love Him. And since He gave His life for me, the least that I can do is live for Him. The true follower identity is totally wrapped up in the identity of Christ, the I AM, the never-changing, always-present Maker of the universe. That’s the identity that I want to be true of my life. I hope you can say the same.

“If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

Now, I’m gonna go rest in I AM, watch Andy Griffith and try to forget that I helped finance terrorism.

Feeding Your Appetite

• How has Jesus proved Himself to You as I AM? In other words, how does your perception of Him as I AM, the always-existing One, move you into greater worship of Him as He moves and works in your life?

• What are some specific ways that You have been guilty of having the homeboy misconception (treating God’s forgiveness lightly) or the tyrant misconception (driven by fear more than love)?

• How does having the right conception of God affect the way you view your own identity in Christ?

• Spend a few moments thanking God, the I AM, for the intimate relationship that He makes available to you through His Son Jesus Christ.

Identity Crisis - Part 3

(make sure you've read parts 1 & 2 before continuing)
Misconception #2: “Jesus is a Tyrant”

The tyrant mentality is the polar opposite. It says this: “Since Jesus hates sin and especially hates when I sin, He is up there in heaven somewhere waiting for me to mess up again so that He can slap another ticket on the windshield of my life.” The tyrant mentality views Jesus as the cop with the chip on His shoulder, like the Jack Bauer of heaven—the rogue agent out for revenge waiting for His next victim to slip up. And here’s the resulting identity.

The Legalism Identity

The believer who lives by this misconception lives in fear. As we talked about in chapter five, legalism shadows Jesus’ real identity. But not only that, it shadows the identity of the follower of Christ. It says that I must live in worry that I haven’t done enough to please God and I’ve done too much to displease God. Having an identity of legalism means that I must live by a list of dos and don’ts. I must cross all my T’s, dot all my I’s, read ten chapters in my Bible everyday, pray three hours, witness to at least thirty people a day, eat my greens, recycle my cans, cover my mouth when I sneeze, don’t kick the cat, bla bla bla. Not that any of those things are wrong. But it’s the attitude that accompanies the actions that make them wrong.

What’s wrong is when I think that what I do earns me points with God, or helps to reduce the demerits I have with God.

What’s wrong is when, out of a sense of duty, I help an old lady carry her groceries while all along envisioning the Jack Bauer God peering overhead. Here’s what John said about living in fear:

“There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment” (1 John 4:18).

Did you catch that? That is the right conception about God. Fear is driven out when God’s love is brought in. So here it is ... (check back tomorrow)

Identity Crisis - Part 2

(If you haven't read part 1, click here and do that now before continuing.)

When Moses asked God what name He should use in defending his authority before pharaoh, God simply said, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). I love Louie Giglio’s explanation of I AM:

It’s an amazing name. In Hebrew the word for I AM is Hayah. Hayah carries with it the idea of the very breath of God. In English the name I AM translates into the verb to be. Or simply be. Therefore God’s name is Be. I AM – I Be. I AM is the present tense, active form of the verb to be. As God’s name, it declares that He is unchanging, constant, unending, always present, always God. (Louie Giglio, I Am Not But I Know I AM, p. 38.)

That’s an amazing title. Think of I AM as one of the top steps in a series of escalating stairs—the lower steps being titles that we’ve already looked at, the Living Water and the Bread of Life. John escalated to a breaking point—I AM. Now there was no doubt to anyone in earshot of Jesus that He was claiming to be God.

I love it. I love that this is the title by which God chose to reveal Himself to Moses—the unchanging God—the always-present God—always there by Moses’ side. The always-existing One knew Moses—in the same way Jesus knew Nathaniel before they ever met (John 1:48)—in the same way Jesus knew the Samaritan woman with all of the baggage of her past (John 4:29)—in the same way Jesus knows you and everything about you—every detail, every mistake, every thought, every action, every intention. Jesus knows. Jesus knows you.
Here’s a fundamental truth that we can’t afford to miss.

Our identity as followers of Christ is totally wrapped up in Christ’s identity.

In other words, Christ is our life (Col. 3:4). So the converse must also be true. Our misconceptions of Jesus misconstrue or blur our identity as followers of Christ. In my experience, there are at least two misconceptions about Christ that most Christ-followers believe at some point in their relationship with Him. So I want to clear these up briefly.

Misconception #1: “Jesus is my Homeboy”

The homeboy mentality says this: Since Jesus is my best friend, He’ll let me do whatever I want, and He’ll always be there to forgive me when I mess up. The homeboy mentality makes Jesus nothing more than a confession box that I spill my guts to once I mess up. It views Jesus as a passive parent, like the mom from Gilmore Girls—the idea that I can mess around with my boyfriend or girlfriend, masturbate, view internet porn and repeatedly push the boundaries of right and wrong simply because I know Jesus will always forgive me. It’s the idea that I have an endless supply of get-out-of-jail-free cards—since Jesus is one of the guys I can sin as much as I want and simply ask for forgiveness because He understands how I really am anyway. But Romans 6:1-2 says just the opposite:

“What should we say then? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

And here’s the resulting identity of the follower of Christ who falls prey to this misconception.

The Cheap Grace Identity

The cheap grace identity laughs in Jesus’ face as the blood flows down from the cross. The cheap grace identity says, “Jesus, thanks for dying for my sin so that I can mess up as many times as I want and not really feel bad about it since you paid for it all anyway!” It says to Jesus, “Jesus, thanks for caring enough for me that You would let massive spikes be driven through your hands into a wooden beam so that I can use my hands to get in my girlfriend’s pants!” The cheap grace identity is nothing more than a cheap imitation for coward Christians.

Identity Crisis - Part 1

I'm excited to say that my first book, The Discovery: Beyond the Jesus of Flapjacks and Grilled Cheese is in the production stage, and should be out in about a month or so. We had a tiny set-back in production, but now things are rolling. It's a 21-day devotional journey through the Gospel of John geared toward students and young adults. I'm pretty psyched about it! I'm praying that God will use it way beyond what I'm capable of doing in my own strength. It will be available on Amazon.com shortly after it's release next month. I'll keep you updated. But for now, here's the first of several posts I'll do using excerpts from the book. Also, in honor of Flashback Friday, this seems appropriate!

Chapter 8 - Identity Crisis

There’s no feeling that leaves you quite as vulnerable and helpless as having your identity stolen. A few weeks ago this happened to me. The sad part is, it wasn’t stolen. I gave it away. Like a bumbling idiot I gift-wrapped my identity and merrily handed it to a zit-faced hacker sitting in his mom’s basement. To my credit, the e-mail looked legitimate—the famous last words of many a victim of ID theft. But it did! It was two days before Christmas and I received one of those mass phishing e-mails that looked identical to other PayPal e-mails that I occasionally receive. I followed through with it, thinking that I was doing my duty as a privileged PayPal customer.

The instant I clicked send on the form I knew I had made a mistake. Call it instinct. Call it Firefox instantaneously popping up a bright red warning box with flashing skulls and slogans like “Death to the passerby” and “You idiot, you just funded a nuclear warhead aimed at a small island!”

“Wonderful,” I thought. “It’ll arrive just in time for Christmas!” I held myself close and rocked in the fetal position in the corner of the room.

I gave the world my identity—everything about me—everything important—all of it. It was out there—every bit of it. Nothing hidden. That’s exactly what John wanted. That’s what he wanted people to know about Jesus—everything. Nothing hidden. No misconceptions. This was his number one goal—that no one misses the real identity of Jesus—the ultimate discovery. This was his number one concern—more than my concern that America never loses its love and admiration for The Andy Griffith Show in the wake of reality TV and the I-bet-you-can’t-out-do-this-one mentality of television programming—more than my concern that brown sugar and cinnamon Pop Tarts never go out of production—more than my concern that my kids understand that running around naked in our house is cool, but not so much out in public, and not so much fifteen years from now—more than my concern that my kids never take up playing in traffic as an extreme sport—and more than my concern that my kids never know or at very least never speak the name of the purple singing monstrosity Barney in our house as long as I live. As passionate as I am about those things, John was even more passionate about communicating Jesus’ true identity.

Over and over he reiterated this one essential truth. Again and again John drove home the point that Jesus is the Christ, the prophesied Messiah. And more than that, that Jesus is God wrapped in human flesh.

John 8:58 is a crucial verse in John’s depiction and increasing awareness of who Jesus is:

“Jesus said to them, ‘I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am.’”

This is one of the clearest arguments for the deity of Jesus in the entire Bible. By using the title I AM, Jesus very clearly claimed to be God. He claimed for Himself the divine title found throughout the Old Testament.