I was up late last night thinking about what it really means for me to follow Jesus and why it even matters. I was processing what the point of it all even is and how I could articulate this to someone who doesn't quite get the point of following Jesus. And though I feel like it's kind of weird for me to share this simplified story on a blog post, but I think it is important to be able to have a version of your own story that you have processed and then condensed so you can genuinely talk about it anywhere.

This is my story...in a very, very small nutshell:

I was 3 years old when I became a follower of Jesus. So my life before Jesus consisted of learning to walk, run, and ski. However, I distinctly remember the exact time and place when and where I put my trust in Jesus. I was in the hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen. I was there on the ground talking with my dad about Jesus and salvation and I decided right then that this was a life I wanted.

Even though, I was young when I became a follower in Jesus, that simple decision has had a profound impact on my life. I can’t claim that I was messed up before Jesus began to rule my life and then I changed because I didn’t have a ton of will power before 3 years old, and because I have been messed up pretty much my entire life - even after becoming a follower of Jesus. 

But the thing that has profoundly impacted my life is the reality of grace in every space of my life. I can never outrun the grace of God and I can never out-sin the grace of God, no matter how many times I think I have. Knowing that there is a God with a love so vast and inclusive as to love me to the point of death has captured my fascination and continually draws me to Jesus. 

Even though it is taking me a long time and the process is very messy, I am slowly becoming more like Jesus and I wouldn’t trade this life for an easier one. I can be real with a God who will never give up on me. I can have the hope of glory. And I can walk in confidence, knowing that my massive list of imperfections has already been forgiven and forgotten. And now I can know the God of the entire Universe...on a personal level! And this makes it worth it all.

The verses that have left the biggest mark on my life are Romans 5:8...

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!"

... and 2 Corinthians 3:5...

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God!"

What's your story?

Freedom.

We all want freedom. We want to be unchained, unbound, and unharnessed.

But freedom isn't what we often think it is. And it doesn't come from where we often think it comes from.

This is the definition of a paradox:

A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

Often the concept of freedom can be a paradox. We think it seems obvious to understand, but the lived reality is actually the opposite of what we first thought. It is counter-intuitive.

Here are 3 paradoxes of freedom:

Paradox #1 - Freedom does not mean doing whatever you want. The thing we usually hear in our culture is that freedom means doing whatever you want to do. It means living it up without any restrictions. It means not listening to anybody tell you what to do. It means creating your own destiny. But this couldn't be further from the truth.

Imagine a sleek, new train moving down the tracks at top speed. It is exhilarating to watch. But if that train got it in its train mind (it that were possible) that it wanted to be like the tractors in the nearby field, and jumped the tracks to turn up the sod in the field, what would happen? It would get stuck. Is that train free, even though it did exactly what it wanted to do? No. Why? It wasn't made to go on the land. It was made to move down the tracks at top speeds.

Freedom does not mean doing whatever you want to do; it means doing what you were made to do. You will never find freedom from a wild, limitless pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. You will only end up dissatisfied, empty, and still wanting more. You will only ever find freedom when you begin to live your God-defined calling and when you find satisfaction from a personal relationship with Jesus. That is what you were made to do; that is what will give you true freedom.

Paradox #2 - You can be a slave to your misconception of freedom. The pursuit of greater and never-ending pleasure is capable of sucking you in and enslaving you. As stated above, you cannot find freedom from a wild, limitless pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. Why? It leaves you dissatisfied, empty, and still wanting more. Why? Because pleasure wasn't created to fill the God-sized void in your heart. It was merely meant to point you to an all-loving and good Creator.

Only Jesus can fill that void in your heart. And the more you run in circles, trying to find that perfect experience to set you free and the more you throw the shackles off and try to find your freedom on your own, the more you will become caught up in the pursuit of pleasure. When you look back, you will realize that you were sucked in and that you were indeed, enslaved. How can I be so confident? I have been there. I was a slave to my pursuit of the ever-elusive experience of freedom...until I got to know Jesus.

Paradox #3 - Our freedom isn't free. Much like the freedom enjoyed in the USA was not just handed over to us but earned through great sacrifice, our personal freedom was not free and isn't held onto easily. Jesus gave up everything to purchase our freedom for us (cf. Gal. 3:13, Col 1:14, 1 Tim. 2:6).

I think we often take this concept of freedom very lightly. After all, you shouldn't have to worry about anything when you're free, right? Not really... There is an enemy who hates us and wants to screw us over as much as he possibly can while he still exists. And there is no end to which he won't go to try to ruin this relationship we have with the Creator. It was bought with a great price, and sometimes it requires a great effort on our part to stay close to our Creator.

"Keep on working to complete your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God working in you to help you to want to do - and to be able to do - what pleases him." Philippians 2:12-13

I was recently reading in John 1 about the Word that became flesh (Jesus). And John said something in beginning of the chapter that I haven't been able to get out of my head since. He said in John 1:17,

"For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."

A slave only knows the Law. He only hears the voice of the Law - telling him he either succeeded or failed. He only feels the affirmation of the Law - what the Law keepers defined to be good or bad. It is slavery to be defined by the Law and the Law keepers - even if you are doing a good job!

But the free person knows something greater than the Law. The free person, knows Grace and Truth. The free person lives in Grace and Truth. The free person finds his affirmation in the unchanging Truth and lives with an unreasonable Grace. The free person might know the Law, but chooses to be defined by a reality that is far superior - a relationship with Jesus - the personification of Grace and Truth.

This sets him free.

Jesus sets him free.

For those of you struggling to be free, realize that your freedom comes from Jesus. You can't just fight the darkness around you. It doesn't work that way. You need to turn the light on. You need to turn to Jesus.

And in your journey of freedom, I would love to be an encouragement to you as much as I can! So drop me an email, or leave a comment below. I would love to get to know you and hear your story. Until then, God bless!

Recently, in our youth ministry, we went through a short series about knowing who we are and how God sees us called Identity Crisis. And even though it seems like such an obvious thing - knowing who we are - we often lose sight of our true identities in the plethora of images of everything our culture expects of us. We are called to love God and change the world, but everything in our culture says we should make our lives comfortable - all about ourselves. And the moment we begin pursuing what culture gives us instead of pursuing what God has called us to, we have settled for something far less than greatness.

But the enemy wants anything for us than to attain to what God has for us. He wants mediocrity for us. Because of this, he has waged war on us. And his target is our identity in Christ. If we can be knocked away from a healthy self-identity, then he can tempt us to do just about anything that will steal glory away from our God with relative ease. And the crazy thing is that we need to know who we are in Christ to fight against this. In order to remain close to God, we need to be confident in Him.

See, we will always fight FROM our identity. The way we perceive ourselves in this world will greatly affect how we pursue changing this world. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we are always in a fight. The question is just what we are fighting for. Are we fighting for things that matter or things that don’t? We will always avoid the fights that matter until we are confident of the One who fights for us. And the way that we perceive God is really important because it changes how we see ourselves.

Big God --> Strong, Confident Me.

Puny God --> Weak, Scared Me.

We see this truth illustrated very beautifully in 1 Samuel 17. When David walked onto the battlefield to fight with Goliath, do you think he was worrying about how weak he was? No. He was confident in how strong his God is. And that made him realize that he was invincible! Did you catch that? The way that he perceived his God was the difference between slavery to Goliath and victory for Israel.

The way that we perceive our God, and how He lives and works in us is the difference between agitated losing and abundant living. Agitated losing. Abundant living. This is what hangs in the balance.

So we must know how God sees us. For those of us who follow Jesus, this is how God sees us:

John 1:12 - We are children of God!
Ephesians 1:5 - We are adopted children who bring him pleasure!
Romans 15:7 - We are accepted by Jesus!
Colossians 2:9-10 - We have the fulness of Christ!
1 Corinthians 6:17 - We are one with the Lord in Spirit!
Romans 6:6 - We are no longer slaves to sin!
Genesis 1:27 - We have been created in God’s image!
1 Corinthians 12:27 - We are a part of the body of Christ - the Church!
1 Peter 2:9 - We are a chosen people! We are a royal priesthood! We are a holy nation! We belong to God! We are no longer in darkness!
Galatians 3:27-28 - We are no longer identified in the way everyone else identifies us!
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - We are a temple of the Holy Spirit! We have been purchased at the highest price!
Colossians 3:1-3 - Our identities are hidden with Jesus so much so that God sees us the same way he sees Jesus...as a perfect child whom he adores!

The way we perceive ourselves in this world will greatly affect how we pursue changing this world. And in order to change our world, we need continually fight to protect our identity in Christ.

My prayer for you is that you know Jesus, you know who you are, and that FROM your identity, you will be able to change your world for God's glory!

Recently, I was asked to share some of my thoughts on the book-based movie that was released on Valentine's Day, Fifty Shades of Grey. I was hesitant at first because I didn't have any thoughts... I didn't know much about it, not having read the book or watched the movie. This led me into some uncomfortable research about the characters, the message, and the implications of this twisted story. What I came to in the end was the horrifying realization that, more than ever before, our culture loves

to define its own morality based on its desires, and then celebrate that form of pseudo-morality as its greatest form of consciousness. Consequently, those who dare stand up to this twisted morality are automatically labeled as haters because they happen to believe that morality comes from Someone besides the self or this messed up society.

Therefore, I believe it more imperative than ever for Christians to have a proper framework for thinking through sexual and moral issues and to come to rock-solid convictions that won't be tossed about by mere desire. It is with this kind of daring candor that I offer up some of my thoughts on the cultural phenomenon that is Fifty Shades of Grey.

If someone dares to orient their sexuality around God's design, they must understand a few things...

Truth #1: Your Most Powerful Sexual Organ is Your Brain*

“So really it happens that the more sexual a person is, the more inventive he can be. The more sexual a person is, the more intelligent. With less sex energy, less intelligence exists; with more sexual energy, more intelligence, because sex is a deep search to uncover, not only bodies, not only the opposite sex body, but everything that is hidden.” — Osho

It’s my hope that I can accurately think about not only Fifty Shades of Grey (FSOG) but also about BDSM, because if there’s one thing that the phenomenon known as FSOG has proven, it’s that sexual fantasy never has and never will be just a man’s world.

I actually just skimmed a piece last night featuring actress and documentary director Rashida Jones, who has a film that talks about the amateur porn industry coming out soon entitled Hot Girls Wanted. Basically it addresses how more and more 18-19 year-olds are getting into the field and how it affects them. According to Rashida “It’s performative, women aren’t feeling joy from it…This would be a whole different conversation if women were like ‘we were having sex, we love it so much. We want more of it. We feel so good about our bodies and ourselves…’ It’s fulfilling a male fantasy.”

Based on the millions of women who ate up FSOG like it was a hot fudge sundae, I’m not so sure I can 100% agree with Rashida. Even if I wanted to.

Does that mean that I think porn is a beautiful, special and holistically fulfilling experience for everyone involved?

Absolutely not.
It’s not even close.

But every day, there are women who watch porn. And a large majority of them got their start by reading erotica. And many of them don’t want to stop.

So there goes another theory. Apparently sex is not about “men being visual” and “women being emotional” when it comes to their needs and how to meet them. It would appear that the book (well, the trilogy) was not enough for the ladies. There had to be some kind of visual to feed into the fantasy. It would seem that the book could only “scratch the itch” but so far. (Which is why I see erotica more as a “gateway drug to porn” more than anything else.)

And yet, as I was reading one of the interviews from the actors about the film, I found something that Jamie Dornan, the guy who is portraying Christian Grey, said to be fascinating. When talking about shooting scenes in the sex dungeon with his co-star Dakota Johnson (who portrays Anastasia Steele), he said this:

“Some of the Red Room stuff was uncomfortable,” Dornan admitted. “There were times when Dakota was not wearing much, and I had to do stuff to her that I’d never choose to do to a woman.”

Things in the room made him uncomfortable. Some of the things that he had to do, “the real him” would never do to a woman. Hmph. Doctors, scientists, and therapists alike will agree on two facts:

1. Sex can be a complex topic.
2. The most powerful sexual organ is not our genitalia, but our minds.

Therefore, I have to ask. What is going on with so many of us that our minds are stimulated by what the BDSM world brings? Whether we choose to actually participate or simply watch Christian and Anastasia do it, why do so many of us find that it drives our senses rather than disgusts us?

Married people trying something new is one thing. But whether married or single, when we are stimulated by the thought or sight of people totally overpowering another (sometimes to the point of complete humiliation) or physically harming each other, then what does that say about us? About our views of sex? Deeper yet, about our views of the purpose of sex?

The Osho quote at the beginning of this post says that more sex can make a person more intelligent. Some may agree and some may not. I’ll say this: even Scripture says that husbands and wives need to engage one another regularly (I Corinthians 7:5) and being that God came up with sex. I get that it, within his boundaries, should only make a person better.

And I guess that’s my bottom line point...

Since the mind is the greatest sex organ and sex, in its original design, was created to make us better people, even mentally.

How is 50 Shades doing that exactly?

Truth #2: Sex is a Spiritual Experience

“Sex is the closest that many people will ever come to a spiritual experience. Indeed, it is because it is a spiritual experience of sorts that so many chase after it with a repetitive, desperate kind of abandon. Often, whether they know it or not, they are searching for God.”—M. Scott Peck

A Scripture that I love is 1 Corinthians 6:16-20, in the Message paraphrase:

“There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, ‘The two become one.’ Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never ‘become one.’ There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for ‘becoming one’ with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.”

Sex is not just about two (or more) bodies getting a sexual release from/with one another. (See above discussion.) Sex brings about spiritual mysteries as well as physical facts. And when sex avoids commitment and intimacy, it tends to leave us lonely. It keeps us from fully knowing what “becoming one” is really all about.

That’s not what the world says. Of course not. That is what the Bible says, though.

Maybe I missed it in the middle of skimming articles about FSOG, but I don’t recall a Bible being inside of Christian Grey’s Red Room (or outside of it, for that matter). However, there’s no way I can address this topic without talking about the spiritual side of it. Or the lack thereof.

I find it quite poetic that the leading male character’s name is “Christian Grey” and that one of the quotes used in the trailer is “Love is not black and white.”

Um, yes it is. Biblically speaking, anyway.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8, the great love chapter of the Bible, tells us exact what and how love is. Kind is the second adjective. Some definitions of kind are gentle, considerate and tender. How many people are able to say that their relationship is filled to the brim with kindness—both in and out of the bedroom.

1 John 1:5 tells us exactly how God is as well: “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

He’s crystal clear. There’s no darkness, no “shadiness.”

And yet, aren’t a lot of us like Christian Grey? One way or another? Christians, yet “grey” on so many issues that we shouldn’t be?

There are going to be a lot (and I mean, a lot) of people who will be flocking to see FSOG. Personally, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll be looking for on the screen. You can just peep the trailer and know that Mr. Grey has some, let’s just say “deep issues.” And as I talked about above, I find it pretty tragic that Anastasia gives him her virginity. More than anything because of what the Bible says about the purpose of sex (celebrating the love between a husband and wife) and how we are to see our bodies (sacred).

I get that many individuals will simply say, “Brant, what’s the big deal? It’s just a movie.” But I don’t know... Is it? Consider the fact that we are not only physical beings, but spiritual ones too, and look at the word “spirit” from the angle of being our “life,” our “essence,” and our “nature.”

For the married people who may get down like that, am I saying it’s wrong?

Umm... Life has taught me that you can get to the bottom line of a lot of things in life if you’re honest about your motives (Proverbs 17:20, Proverbs 21:2, Proverbs 21:8 - The Message). Only you know what those are.

But what I am saying is that John 4:24 tells us that “God is Spirit” and so there’s no way that he was going to invent something like sex and want it to be void of spirituality. Therefore whatever we decide to do with our mates – our lives and their lives, our essence and their essence, our nature and their nature – should ever remain on the forefront of our minds.

Based on what I’ve read and researched about FSOG, spirituality in the story is an afterthought at best.

In the meantime, you know, I really like M. Scott Peck’s quote on sex above. That in his mind, sex is the epitome of a spiritual experience while at the same time, a lot of people do not realize that chasing after sex is really about longing to be in a closer relationship with the Creator of it.

Based on the numbers that FSOG is projected to have its opening weekend, perhaps that’s the silver lining to all of this. It shows those of us who have found satisfaction in the love and tenderness of the Savior are actually on to something. It shows that millions and millions of people need to be reminded of the fact that they don’t have to chase after erotica or porn or sexual fetishes to make themselves feel complete.

They just need to put the Spirit and their spirit first; everything else will work itself out. For their good. The good of their mind, body and spirit.

Yes, in and out of the bedroom.

That kind of truth really is black and white.

No grey.

*A lot of my thoughts have been influenced by www.xxxchurch.com. Go check them out! They are awesome people who love Jesus and who love all kinds of sinners.

A candle lit in darkness,

The glowing light of One,

Pushing through the shadows -

The Prince of Light had come.

His glory is among us.

The evil rule is done.

The darkness is retreating;

Our Prince of Light has come.

His presence is inviting;

Around Him is no fear.

There is no need for hiding;

My Prince of Light is here!