Patrick O'Connell

Passing It Along

    What did I learn yesterday that might help someone today? This is what God has been challenging me to do every morning. What is that one lesson, insight, or "a-ha" that I had the day before which I can in turn pass along to someone else today?  I am not talking about facts or gossip. Rather, I hope it's insight. It's telling you what I am learning during my journey that might help you on yours.

    Some of these "a-ha" insights I write in my journal and pass along privately. Others I am recording here.

    I think it's one way Jesus wants us to help each other.

    What about you? What did you learn yesterday that you can pass along to us today?

Jesus is Lord!

I've been praying/thinking about this statement quite a bit these past couple of days. I am asking myself, have I truly submitted all of my life to this truth?

The answer, if I am honest, is that I haven't. But I am working on it.

What about you?

Vintage Jesus

I just finished reading Mark Driscoll's new book, Vintage Jesus, and learning a ton. Well I am not learning anything new--it's a book about Jesus after all--but because of Mr. Driscoll's lively writing style, I am re-thiniking things I already know about Jesus.

What makes this book about Jesus just a little different is Driscoll's unspoken challenges to the reader. He essentially says: here's Jesus, here's the theology around it--now deal with it. Driscoll doesn't try to sell Jesus or try to make him look like something he never claimed to be. He is God and he walked this world as a sinless man and then he died an excruciating death on the cross to pay for our sins.

Vintage Jesus is a book I needed to read. I needed the reminder of who Jesus was and what he means to me. I needed to be reminded of his sacrifice on the cross for our sins. I needed to be reminded of why I joined this church plant. I love Jesus and wish to serve him for the remainder of my days.

There is much good teaching in this book. If I have time I will try to get back to it and summarize some of it for you.

If I Had One Chance to Tell You About Jesus

Imagine this: You are reunited with a friend after many years apart. She invites you to lunch and after catching up you explain that in the years between your last meeting you have found Jesus and are now following Him.

Your friend is surprised. She smiles and kind of nods her head. "So tell me about this Jesus of yours."

So...what do you tell her? 

Faith and Struggle

Yesterday I had a spiritual conversation with someone I love.

She believes in Jesus and attends church on a regular basis. But she continues to struggle with all of it. As a result, and by her own admittance, she has yet to fully give herself to Jesus. She has some key reservations about the authenticity of the gospels as well as how the love of God works on all people but yet only those who profess faith in Christ are saved.

I tried to answer her questions but mostly I told her my story. I learned from her as she recounted all of her struggles. Our conversation was raw. I thought we covered some really hard issues.

After she went home I spent the evening reading articles about faith. I've decided to try and write something up about it. I envision a primer of sorts for people who are interested enough in Jesus to at least ask questions about him. I am sure there are a zillion books like this already but I suspect that the process of writing this up will help me in with my own struggles.

Here's a definition I read in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought:

To Christian theology it (faith) is the fundamental response of the believer to the God who reveals himself and his plan of salvation pre-eminently in his son, Jesus Christ.

Hmm, faith is a response to God...I mean I know this, but there's a lot there to ponder. Faith isn't about us doing something, rather it's about God doing something and us responding. This is a good start.

I'd appreciate any input you have on the topic.

What Are You Teaching Your Children?

I have been thinking much about what we are teaching our children about the world and their place in it.

If you're a Jesus follower, it's quite straight-forward. We want them to know Christ and his sacrifice on their behalf. We want them to understand that their purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him. You know, the basic kind of stuff.

Don't worry, we don't push them too hard. We don't make them memorize scripture or recite the Our Father in Greek. But we do bring them to church. We advocate that they serve the Jesus mission. We urge them to pray without ceasing. We also try to explain why the world is in the mess it is (sin) and why we all need Jesus (because he redeemed us) and how God created us to live lives of purpose. We try to show them God's love by being good, responsible, engaging parents.

Remember, if you follow Jesus, then chances are you accept the Bible as truth. The Bible has everything we need to know about life and that goes for our children as well.

All of this got me to thinking about what I was teaching my kids before following Jesus. (I am speaking primarily of myself here as my wife Nancy has been a believer most of her life.) Even Nancy will admit that we weren't teaching them much before I came to the faith. I mean it was some esoteric stuff about right and wrong and that they should be good people, etc. But not truth. What we did teach them was not absolute. Rather it was a hodge-podge of relativistic mumbo-jumbo.I couldn't explain the world (and why it's such a mess) to my daughter any better than I could the colors of sunrise. So I made it up. And these were lies when you get right down to it.

But Jesus changed all of that. Now I have access to absolute truth in my life and it makes it so much easier than trying to make it up as I go.

I just thought I'd point this out. I know I am stating the obvious. But I wanted to praise God and remind you that the truth is in Christ, available to all who seek Him, including parents.

If you are a believer, I urge you to 'teach' them about Jesus. This takes time (we seem to have precious little but nothing is more important than Jesus) and you must be intentional about it (you need to spend time as a family reading scripture, praying, talking about the faith).

Of course, I am a work in progress. I struggle finding the time and I am not always intentional. But I am trying.

Jesus is Everything

I was going through some of my old journals the other day and came across this. I wrote it very soon after I found everything:

One day I am going to write about how I went from believing in NOTHING to believing in everything.

I was once an atheist. I believed in nothing and was of course a terrible sinner. And then it all changed and now I want to spend the rest of my life glorifying Him. How did this happen?

I think I would begin by admitting that my salvation is a gift from God. He gave me everything.

So I plan to write a book about this in the future. Well not just about this because that would boring. So maybe I'll just write a chapter about it in a spiritual autobiography? (Not sure that would be any more exciting actually.) My point: I want to try and understand all of this in an effort to help others. I suspect there are many like me.

For me, Christ is everything. I pray that you come to know that Christ wants to be everything for you no matter where you are in life.

Restore and Restoration

I read this in John Piper's new book, What Jesus Demands of the World. Piper writes in Demand #9 (pg.75), Love God With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength:

Jesus came to RESTORE human beings to the kind of relationship with God and each other that we were created for. The most important thing he has to say about that RESTORED relationship with God is that we were meant to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.

This whole concept of RESTORE and RESTORATION is one that I've been praying about the last couple of days. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you why soon.

Piper quotes the following scripture:

...answered Jesus, "is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:29-30 (NIV)

"Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rye and all other kind of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone." Luke 11:42 (NIV)

"I know you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him." John 5:42 (NIV)

Piper's point: Jesus demands that we love God above all else. God will reciprocate and restore us to a right relationship with Him.

The book is vintage Piper and therefore I am learning a ton.

Christ Is Risen!

It's common in the Orthodox tradition for Christians to greet each other on Easter as follows:

First Person: Christ is Risen!

Second Person: Christ is Risen Indeed!

Try them out today. Meditate on what they really mean for your life.

It's Resurrection Day. Celebrate!

Trying to Follow

Ariah Fine attempts to explain the title of his blog, Trying to Follow, in this post. His reflection on trying to follow Jesus is rather timely for me as we are facing several 'big' decisions in the coming weeks.

Once we start trying to follow Jesus, our priorities for our life change. I couldn't agree more.