A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

When Paul wrote his marvelous letter called Ephesians, he was under arrest in Rome. During that same time he wrote Philippians, Philemon and Colossians, and these four are sometimes called “the prison epistles” or “the captivity epistles” because of that. Did Paul’s captivity help expand his understanding? Maybe it did, in but he doesn’t recommend suffering as a path to understanding, he recommends prayer.

One of the primary elements of Ephesians is Paul’s prayer for the church, and it is a prayer which asks that God grant the church an understanding heart, a heart that was illuminated (filled with light) so that it could see with clarity the hope, the riches and the power that were available to it through Christ.

Paul’s prayer extends to us, and I for one am encouraged to know that Paul prayed that we (for we are the church) would have understanding. And prayer is how we get it. No amount of study, no amount of schooling, no amount of reading, no amount of thinking can give us the understanding God can give.

Do we understand that? I pray (and hope) that we do, and as Paul prayed for the churches in Asia Minor, so I pray for us…

I never stop thanking God for you. I always remember you in my
prayers. I pray that the glorious Father, the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come
to know Christ better. Then we will have deeper insight. We will
know the confidence that he calls us to have and the glorious wealth
that God’s people will inherit.

Every blessing,

Lewis

Did Jesus ever go on a diet? Ever need to go on a diet?

That’s NOT where I am heading with this post.

The Belew family just had an addition - 5lb 11oz Mia Mei joined us this past Sunday at 2:58pm. Great details, eh? From the father (not grandfather) no less.

The little peanut is no bigger than a peanut. I got more kid for my money with my boys, 30-40% bigger than their little sister when they were born.

My boys, knowing I like peanut M & Ms, once bought me a stuffed peanut M & M that is bigger than our new little girl. We have stuffed animals in her room that she will be looking up to for at least a year, maybe longer.

Tiny, fragile, utterly dependent on her parents, totally incapable of caring for herself, at the mercy of those around her…

(more…)

By now most of you know that I’m a fan of C. S. Lewis and his writings. He was an excellent thinker, an excellent writer, and an excellent story teller. The Chronicles of Narnia bears witness to all that.

But even many fans of “Jack” (as his friends called him) have not read his work widely, and one of the books that often gets missed is The Weight of Glory. That title phrase comes from 2 Corinthians 4.17, which we read yesterday with its surrounding verses. In that passage Paul calls his hardships, which were many and often life threatening, “momentary light affliction” compared to the “eternal weight of glory.”

Do you see all three parallel descriptions in those phrases? One is affliction, the other is glory; affliction is momentary, glory is eternal; affliction is light, glory is a weight. Beyond that we also learn here that affliction is relative while glory is beyond all comparison. (See Romans 8.18.) But perhaps the most marvelous fact is that the first (momentary light affliction), results in the second (eternal weight of glory)!

How do we gain riches in heaven? By giving ourselves to God. That will cause in our lives on this earth, as it did in Paul’s life, momentary light affliction. But rest assured that in God’s hands even that affliction is working for our benefit, and producing for us an eternal weight of glory. How incredible! And how rich we are.

Every blessing,

Lewis

Almost everyone has an appreciation day.

First one listed in a web search is System Administrator Appreciation Day in July (is this a high tech society or what?). Of course there’s Teacher’s Day in May, and Secretary’s Day in April (oops — now it’s Administrative Professionals Day). And today, January 28, is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

But is there a God Appreciation Day?

I suppose Sunday (the Lord’s Day) could be considered God Appreciation Day. But, do we really appreciate God?

Most of us appreciate God in the sense of this definition (from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language on Dictionary.com):

To be thankful or show gratitude for

In the ACTS model for prayer (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), thanksgiving and supplication are the easy parts. Most of us are very good at thanking God for all He does for us, and turning right around and asking for more. But God is a whole lot bigger than that. (more…)

I can’t be bothered to wear any perfume myself, but I enjoy the scents worn (in moderation) on other people. Florals, spices, fruits, and musks are all aromatically delicious to me. I’m not picky, although I confess to having gotten rather tired of the ubiquitous lavender water worn by Brazilian girls in the 1970s.

In his brilliant 1985 novel, Perfume, Patrick Süskind evokes the smelly atmosphere of 18th century France. Out of this unlikely setting is born a savant, one with such a keen sense of smell that he focuses obsessively on making a particular perfume. However, because Grenouille is so morally twisted and socially eccentric, he and his gift are unappreciated, until one day.

Director/screenwriter Tom Tykwer says, “It’s the story of someone who longs for recognition, puts on a fake aesthetic surface, and makes people, for a moment, completely fall for him, only to realize that that’s not what he wanted, and that’s not what he was looking for” (featurette “The Story of Perfume” on Perfume DVD, 2006, rated R).

So what about us? Do we long for recognition, to be truly known and understood? Or do we prefer to protect what lies within by shaping our looks, words, and actions in order to appease, seduce, or fend off others?

While it seems easier to wear a mask, it can get awfully heavy. And when I look at Jesus and people like him who can’t be bothered to wear one, they seem lighter on their feet to me. Their direct speech, disregard for social convention, willingness to question, and responsiveness allows them to be nimble in their dealings with others, to focus on what matters the most: relationship, truth, justice, forgiveness, responsibility.

What “fake aesthetic surfaces” do you see getting in the way?
What solutions have you found for becoming more genuine, honest, transparent?

Hope is defined as desire coupled with the expected fulfillment of the thing desired, and I think of that when I tell my wife, “I hope to be home by 6.” By definition that means I want to be home by 6 and I think I actually will be home by 6. And although I rarely get home by 6 (or whatever time I hoped to get there), my hope is genuine.

In that example I have some control (or at least I think I have some control) over the outcome. But what about the times that I hope for something and have seemingly no control over the outcome? Can we “put our hope” in someone else, and can we give someone else hope?

Believe it or not, there are people within easy walking distance of our church door who are living without hope and looking for it. Some of those hope to find hope, and some now consider their situation completely hopeless.

Our hope, like Paul’s, is in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 1.10), and we can bring that same hope to those around us. We will be doing that as we mail out cards about real life, real people, real love and real God. Of course we hope people will respond to those cards and come and visit us, and we hope that many of those who visit will decide to stay and make this their church home.

But my hope for this Sunday is the same as Paul’s hope for the churches in southwestern Asia — that God would open our minds and hearts to the magnificent hope of his calling.

I hope you’ll be here on Sunday.

Every blessing,

Lewis

I am not an activist.

I don’t do picket lines, marches, or sign petitions outside Trader Joe’s.

The Roe-vs-Wade decision was remembered a couple of days ago.

The anniversary of ML King’s birthday was celebrated earlier this week.

There’s a war going on Iraq.

Business as usual for me.

So, what gets me riled up? When do I feel compelled to act, speak out, join in, carry a sign?

I’m thinking hard about this, but can’t come up with an answer.

(more…)

In last Sunday’s message we ended with verse 18 from Ephesians 1, which says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened….” There is a well known praise chorus that says, “Open the eyes of my heart” and I’ve written a song called Hearts That Hear which includes the lines, “Blessed is every heart that sees, Blessed the hearts that hear his voice.” My song, at least, and I think Paul Baloche’s song, too, are a reference to Jesus quoting Isaiah (see Matthew 13.15).

But in all these places there is one thing you should know, and that is that the heart was not just the seat of emotion for these Jews (either in Isaiah’s time or in Jesus’ time), but it was also the seat of knowledge and understanding.

Too often modern day American Christians have not known this and have therefore claimed that Paul was hoping the Ephesians would have some kind of feeling about God. And we should love him with our entire being, but here Paul is praying that the church would understand with their corporate mind something that is impossible to understand without God’s help.

What is that something? That’s what we’ll be talking about this coming Sunday.

Every blessing!

Lewis

In yesterday’s message we learned that Paul both thanked God for the churches in and around Ephesus and that he prayed for them. Specifically we see that he prayed that they might be given “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him [God].”

Note that he did not pray that they might learn to be wise or that they might somehow attain wisdom through their own efforts, but that God would give the church a spirit of wisdom and revelation. So we can see that God is not only the source of wisdom, he is the dispenser of wisdom as well.

In Isaiah we read these marvelous words: “And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” You may recognize that as a prophecy about Jesus, and you will know from your study of Jesus that he did indeed possess a spirit of wisdom and understanding. You will also notice the similarities in Isaiah’s prophecy and in Paul’s prayer.

But there is an aspect to wisdom that we often forget, and it is phrased beautifully by C. S. Lewis in his book The Pilgrim’s Regress. The lines go like this:

“And what is this valley called?”

“We call it now simply Wisdom’s Valley: but the oldest maps mark it as the Valley of Humiliation.”

Every blessing,

Lewis

I provide the content for four blogs. Part of my routine is to check my traffic daily. There are lots of reasons I do this but they are beyond the scope of this post.

The combined traffic for my blogs is also way down. Again, beyond the scope of this post.

Well, then what is the scope of this post?

Yesterday, I received 666 page views at one of my blogs.

Lots and lots of people are afraid of the number 666. Christians, too. It shows up in the book of Revelation as representing the devil.

Not long ago I started writing a series - Lessons from the Good Book at one of my blogs. And, don’t you know it, not long after I began writing that series, the bottom suddenly dropped out of the daily page views on all my blogs. This morning I mentioned that (more…)