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I’m sure someone wrote something like this somewhere before.

If so, I haven’t read it.

So, I’m not plagiarizing (if any of this sounds familiar).

But I may be led by the same Spirit that inspired someone else to write the same things.

Our Christ did not plant his church in the world to make nations great (or great again).

The church of Christ does not belong to a human nation, nor does a human nation deserve the allegiance and loyalty of the church of Christ.

Christians are loyal to the kingdom of our Christ. We pledge allegiance to that kingdom alone. We believe that that kingdom is independent and stands apart from the nations of this world.

Therefore, our priority is always the kingdom of our Christ.

A kingdom that lives among all peoples of the Earth.

A kingdom without borders.

This is the kingdom–the only kingdom–for which we...

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These days, a lot of people are talking (or shouting) about “mandates.”

Should the government mandate less or more?

While Christians may be citizens of the United States by birth or naturalization, we choose to be subjects of the kingdom of our Christ.

As subjects of that kingdom, we hold ourselves to its mandates above all.

So when the world fights about the mandates of its governments, Christians can be calm and cool. We just have to focus on living “up” to the mandates of our Christ and our Christ gives us only one simple mandate.

If we obey that one mandate, our Christ promises that all will be well.

What is that single, simple mandate?

When the Pharisees heard [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the...

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If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them–Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel of John 13:17

Blessedness–the happiness and favor of God–is not a reward that we get later when God counts up all of our good deeds in this life.

Here in this verse, Jesus did not say that the blessedness will come to us on “some glad morning when this life is o'er.”

No, the blessedness of which Jesus spoke is present tense: You are blessed if you do “these things.”

The happiness and favor of God–the essence of heaven–is here and now and you can be in it.

How?

If you do “these things.”

What things?

Washing feet.

After [Jesus] had washed [his disciples’] feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord–and you are right, for that is what I am. So, if I, your Lord...

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In part one of this series, I quoted political strategist Christopher Rufo:

We have successfully frozen their brand–‘critical race theory’–into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have de-codified the term and will re-codify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans–Christopher Rufo, from a March 15 Tweet, describing how he is helping politicians and pundits weaponize critical race theory

I ended my first post on critical race theory with this line:

For now, my appeal is this: Love your neighbors. Love them by being careful about what you...

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Awhile back on my Facebook page, I said that I was writing something about critical race theory.

I told the truth, but what started out as one blog post turned into drafts of five posts.

I write to think. So, the more I wrote, the more I thought.

The more I thought, the more I wrote.

Here’s what it was like for me:

I went to college in Searcy, Arkansas. I had a friend, Chris, from California.

Chris asked a girl for a date. Rather than take her to the local coffee shop in Searcy, he planned to drive her two hours away to Memphis.

This was the 1990s. Nobody had GPS or mobile phones. Chris got someone to scribble directions to Memphis on a scrap of paper. He borrowed a car, picked up his date, and hit the road.

But Chris missed a turn. He kept going on the four-lane highway until it turned into a two-lane highway. Then a two-lane...

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“I don’t make a damn! I don’t make a damn!”

Is he singing what I think he’s singing? I thought to myself.

I strained to listen.

“I don’t make a damn! I don’t make a damn!”

Yep, I thought as I girded my loins for the “teachable moment” that was upon me.

My eight-year old, Daniel, and I were walking the dog. Daniel drifted into his own thoughts and fell a few paces behind me. I was lost in my own thoughts until I picked up on what he was singing to himself.

“I don’t make a damn! I don’t make a damn!”

Parents, you can guess what happened next.

Daniel knew he was caught. He tried the old “it’s about a beaver dam,” but he threw it at me like a hail mary pass when the game is already lost.

So, we had one of those talks. I told him (again) how Jesus taught that a person is what comes out of him (Gospel of Matthew 15:11).

“Damnation is nonstop...

The worst thing you can say to someone is: “You shouldn’t feel that way.”

Nothing takes away a person’s personhood faster than someone like a guardian or hero figure or teacher telling them not to feel what they feel.

Human being is human feeling.

I am barely holding back tears as I sit alone in a coffee house. I don’t want the barista to see a grown man “ugly crying” at the table in the back.

And I don’t want to “ugly cry” because I’m afraid I would drown in the feeling. It’s so big that it makes me feel small. Like I’m little again.

As I sat here trying to figure out what to do with all this fear and sadness, these words came to mind: “Man of sorrows.”

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering (sorrows) and acquainted with infirmity; as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account (Book of Isaiah 53:3).

Christians...

This morning, a friend of mine sent along some bad news that inspired me.

It wasn’t bad news on the level of “your cancer is back,” but one of those little things (a child with a fever) that can ruin plans for an entire day.

I thought: One of the surest signs that we’re alive is that we have trouble. As long as kids are getting fevers, speakers are canceling at the last minute, and spouses are angry because of misunderstandings, I must be alive.

The moment these things stop, I’m no longer here. I’m no longer living.

Jesus said it himself: “In this world you will have trouble” (Gospel of John 16:33.

And, if I take Jesus at his word, I know that I will have abundant trouble. After all, he promised abundant life (Gospel of John 10:10). If trouble is a vital sign that we are alive, then abundant trouble may be a sign that we are living life abundantly.

Jesus promised abundant life...

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Have you ever been to a dead or dying church?

I’ve been to a lot of them. A couple of years ago, I took an offer to preach at a congregation in a fast-growing suburb of a Midwestern city.

When I arrived on Sunday morning, I found a big church building that seemed to be less than 30 years old. I passed through the front doors into a lobby the size of a gymnasium, but not one person was in sight.

I found the auditorium. It had four sections of pews that looked like they could seat 400 to 500 people. But as worship began, 20 people (or 30 by “preacher count”) huddled in part of one section.

I could almost hear the ghosts of the hundreds who once sang there.

…

My wife and I joined a dynamic suburban Church of Christ congregation the year we got married (2008). When we first started going to church there, it took three Sunday morning worship...

Much, much harder than I thought.

When I was a kid, I thought that following Jesus was about not doing things that are bad. Somehow, I learned that the baddest of the bad things were cussing, drinking, smoking, and any trace of sexual pleasure.

It’s no wonder I thought that my teen years would be the time when following Jesus would be the hardest. James Dobson told me so.

I did indeed give in to temptation in my teen years. I said a few dirty words (when nobody was listening). I tried a beer or two (and didn’t like it). I smoked a few cigarettes (until I threw up one night and never smoked again). And I fooled around with my girlfriend (but got dumped before “premarital sex” could happen).

All those teen temptations went away when I went away to a Christian college. There, none of my friends cussed, drank, smoked, or even tried to get to first base with their girlfriends.

I...