We all love a good story. A good "rags-to-riches" narrative that will bring hope to some challenging obstacle we're faced with. Something like a Ray Lewis hard-hitter that shows an adolescent boy who, seeing his mother in hard times vows to draw cards out of a deck and proceed with push-ups, matching the number on the face of the card with push-ups until he can't do any more. Now a world champion linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, his story has even more significance. But I wonder, what if he failed.
One of our staff members gave birth this past week. In talking to father he commented on one of the sleepless mornings he was holding his son. In the stillness of the moment he thought, "Jesus died, for you." Someone so small and seemingly insignificant. He can't even lift his own head, yet Jesus Christ desended to earth to pay the life-sentance of death that is being held over the head of that child. Grace is not cheap, but it is beautiful.
Every year we have students who walk the halls asking questions similar to those asked in the video above. The incredible beauty of the Christian perspective of the world lies in the simple verses of John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son. That whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." This simple reality is what gives students significance. The fact that Jesus Christ found them worth His life is a clarion statement for the world that they are special.
It is a blessing at Hillcrest to instruct students to understand this reality, and to call them to live a life worthy of the call Christ endured on the cross.
"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away...Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
~Steve Jobs~
The above quotation was taken from a commencement speech former Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave to a graduating class at Stanford University. The most shocking thing isn't the overall morbid assessment and acceptance of death from Apple's co-founder, who died after a battle with cancer. The most awkward reality is the complete utilitarian view of life that is propagated and accepted. It is a dangerous idea that has created inhumane results. These concepts bear the natural result of a world explained without God, which is the type of world most American students are taught to understand in their public education system.
Recently, a number of classes at Hillcrest have addressed the issue of abortion. Students are studying the detrimental effects abortion has on a socialistic and capitalistic government, they've have developed a new understanding of how this issue affects them. They've also talked about the re-ordering of language and their inability to speak-out against abortion, seeing that abortion has become an argument of "productive" and "beneficial" life for the unborn child.
"This is the gospel of a secular age. It has the great virtue of being based only on what we can all perceive—it requires neither revelation nor dogma. And it promises nothing it cannot deliver—since all that is promised is the opportunity to live your own unique life, a hope that is manifestly realizable since it is offered by one who has so spectacularly succeeded by following his own "inner voice, heart and intuition.""
Students are engaging with the Gospel at Hillcrest, providing them with an unconditional hope that is sealed in the blood of Christ. Rather than hoping for life to be significant because of it's outcomes, Hillcrest students are hearing life is significant because of from whom it comes.
Having a comprehensive Biblical worldview directs students back to the hope of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Pray for our students as they're challenged to not only understand this reality, but to communicate it to their friends, family and other image-bearers of Christ in their world.
Practice Patience. A sign posted in the kitchen as a reminder to grandma, who didn't really need reminding of many things, noted in yearly birthday cards and recollection of my favorite athlete and what books I was reading in grade school. But a small play on my grandmother's reminder has greatly changed the outlook I have for practice. Practice patiently?
A 2009 study published by Robert Duke titled It's Not How Much; It's How has created a small crisis regarding my misreading of Grandma's sign. In a Time piece by Anne Murphy Paul, Duke's study is shown to videotape advanced piano students practicing difficult pieces from a Shostakovich concerto. Duke and colleagues ranked the students' performances and found no relationship between the excellence of the performance and the amount of time spent practicing. What separated a good performance from an excellent performance was how the students handled errors during practice.
Duke noted that the best performances were by students who addressed their mistakes immediately in practice sessions. Duke's research insinuates that "perfect practice makes perfect" is most true when mistakes are addressed instantly.
The theme of Duke's findings carry over into the social sphere aswell. When God's people practice Christianity patiently in the pew, hoping for change and reform, their practice is perfected for the sanctuary. However, if God's people actively practice faith in the secular world, addressing mistakes and conflicts immediately, they will be able to greater reflect the Perfect Creator.
This theme is integral to retaining the successes today's culture has enjoyed. The frabric of the modern world has been knit with the thread of Christianity, and in order to retain the social integrity of this culture, the threads of Christianity must be reinforced.
This theme of girding a Biblically-based view of culture can be seen in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter written from jail in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King, an outspoken leader for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's was encouraged not to release the letter for fear of isolating the Civil Rights Movement from some Christian brothers and sisters. King wrote the following exhortation and called-out his fellow believers practice of Christianity:
...My Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice...Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Dr. King's frustration is reinforced in Phillip Cary's Good News for Anxious Christians. Cary identifies the bewildering look of college students in his university classroom. Cary, seeking to encourage young evangelicals writes:
It really is a labyrinth in there, in our hearts. For nearly every good thing we could do, we have mixed motives-some good, some bad, many of them obscure, and lots of them tangled up with each other...You have to give up poking around in the inner labyrinth of your own mixed motives and ask about the realities outside your own heart. You have to be able to tell what's good and bad out there.
Cary identifies a common obstacle for practicing faith in the college Christian. A primary challenge for the maturing believer is a fear that their motives are not correct. This fear of "duty vs. love" has led many young Christians to resort to pew practicing Christianity, avoiding conflicts in the secular world out of "love". Cary writes:
So what really results from trying to do good things out of love, not duty is that you do them out of guilt. Indeed a good many of our efforts at Christian love these days are really forms of guilt assuagement, attempts to convince ourselves that we're going good, loving Christians, the way "we as Christians" are supposed to be. The old-fashioned notion that you should do your duty is much less likely to make you feel guilty, and much more likely to lead you to Christian love. That's why it used to be so central to Christian morality-which, as I said before, has fallen on hard times recently.
Principal Isaac implored students to practice their faith daily at Hillcrest. His recent chapel message called Hillcrest's young men to practice spiritual leadership and defend and protect those they're around. He called the young women to create habits of devotion and live a life reflecting the purity and holiness of Christ.
Mr. Isaac highlighted the reality that students won't always practice this perfectly, however with a heart set on knowing Christ their lives will genuinely make Him known through impatient practice of their faith, addressing faults and failures immediately through repentance and received redemption in Jesus Christ.
Friday, February 8, 2013 at 9:24AM |