Fear, Identity, Prayer, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Exchanging Intrusive Thoughts for God-talk

Intrusive thoughts are unwelcome and hard to control. I can remember having intrusive thoughts from the time I was a child. When we drove, I often felt the compulsion to press one foot down on the floor between the telephone poles (and yes, I also hopped over the cracks in the sidewalk). At other times, when walking alone, I remember the persistent thought, “He’s watching you.” I would search the bushes and trees for the one my mind told me was watching me.

Exchanging Intrusive Thoughts for God-talk
Biblical Studies, History, Religion
John Beeson
The Pillaging of Hezekiah

The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).

The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).

The Pillaging of Hezekiah
Church, Culture, Book Reviews
John Beeson
The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture ...

“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.

The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion
Christian Living, Prayer
John Beeson
The Air Raid Siren

Jerusalem, Israel

3:15 am, April 13

 

I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.

 Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

The Air Raid Siren
Christian Living, Nature
John Beeson
The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.

For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.

The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

Paul

,

Are Your Resolutions Slipping?

,
Are Your Resolutions Slipping?

Did you set any New Year’s resolutions for yourself this year? Perhaps you committed to a diet, to a workout plan, or to regular devotional times.

 

Are you as devoted as much now to your resolution as you were four weeks ago?

 

Perhaps you’ve dropped the ball and become frustrated with yourself. Or you decided not to even make resolutions this year because you have failed to keep them in past years. So why not just give up on making resolutions forever? Because a good and wholesome character is the outcome of consistently and healthfully formed habits. Author James Clear encourages us, “Every action you take is a vote for the kind of person you wish to become.” Educational expert Sean Covey doubles down, “We become what we repeatedly do.”

, , , , ,

You Don't Trust Me. What Now?

, , , , ,
You Don't Trust Me. What Now?

The world doesn’t trust me. It doesn’t trust you either. But don’t lose heart. Christ has overcome the world. And he calls us into the world with the assurance of his presence and his power. May we live in a manner that reflects his light to this dark world. Daniel promises that, “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” May we shine for his glory, entrusting our reputation to God and God alone.

, ,

How to Get Married

, ,
How to Get Married

The Knot recently did a study and found that over the past seven years, weddings in churches have dropped from 41% to 26%.[i] Wow. Only a quarter of weddings now take place in a church.

This fact itself isn’t catastrophic. I don’t believe that one has to get married in the church for it to be a “real” wedding. But it does speak to a secularizing trend that has been pretty apparent. More disconcerting for me is the fact that 43% of weddings are now officiated by a friend, up from 29% seven years ago.[ii] The Bible doesn’t say you need a pastor to officiate your wedding, but choosing a (non-pastor) friend to officiate your wedding makes a statement.

You’re saying that your wedding is about celebrating your relationship with friends. That’s a wonderful part of what a wedding should be, but it shouldn’t be what your wedding is primarily about.

If you are considering marriage at some point in the future, let me urge you to consider making your marriage about something bigger and then doing some practical things to make sure your wedding points to that bigger truth.

, , , ,

The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: Show them God!

, , , ,
The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: Show them God!

Why do we give? The first hit when you Google “why should I be generous?” is this article which lays out four reasons:

1) Giving frees you from the “burden of materialism”

2) Giving helps you “to feel better about yourself”

3) Giving makes you less self-centered

4) Giving helps make people like you.

Do you find those reasons compelling? Two of them (1 &3) have echoes of biblical truth in them. But 2 & 4 are shockingly empty reasons.

Paul also has four reasons for giving: none of which overlap with this list. Here is Paul’s list:

1) Give because giving is a grace

2) Give because it proves your love of Jesus

3) Give because Jesus first gave

4) Give because you will be blessed.

Give Because Jesus Gave

Today we arrive at the third reason on that list: give because Jesus first gave.

, , ,

The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: to Prove

, , ,
The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: to Prove

No one argues that miserliness is an admirable character trait. The national convention of Ebeneezer Scrooge urging Americans to be less generous doesn’t exist.

Many perceive one of America’s strongest virtues to be generosity. There is some evidence for this. News reports gushed that over $471 billion was given to charity in 2020, the highest recorded number on record in U.S. history. That’s a huge amount of money. But that number represents a mere 2% of the US’s GDP, which stood at $20.94 trillion in 2020.

2% hardly seems a number to hang on our wall. What about Christians? Unfortunately, we do little better, giving approximately 3% of our income to charity. And fewer than 5% of Christians tithe.[ii] Generosity isn’t graded on a curve.

Most disappointingly is the self-deception of Christians. 17% of Christians report tithing despite the actual number of 5%. Worse still, 10% of those who claimed they tithe actually gave less than $200 to charity.[iii]

The Second Reason to Give

Paul would have something to say about this. In this series, we are exploring the reasons Paul says that we should be generous. The first reason was that giving is a grace; it is a gift offered to us by God.

Paul’s second reason is found in 2 Corinthians 8:8, Paul urges, “I say this [that you ought to participate in the grace of giving] not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.”

Paul’s second reason for giving is that our giving proves that we love Jesus.

, , ,

The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: Giving is a Grace

, , ,
The Bible's Strange Reasons for Generosity: Giving is a Grace

Our doorbell rang – an odd occasion –I got up from the dinner table and walked toward the door. My step hitched halfway to the door as I realized it was likely a child selling something… too late. I opened the door and a high schooler stood in front of me, fundraising for his baseball team.

Being asked for money makes me uncomfortable.

There is something reasonable about being uncomfortable when we’re asked for money. The pang might speak to whether we are giving thoughtfully. But the reality is that far too often that twinge of discomfort points not to the worth of the cause, but the grip our hearts have on our money.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us that God doesn’t wasn’t uncomfortable givers, he wants cheerful givers. The way to cheerfulness isn’t by willing ourselves there, it’s by reshaping our affections. In this series we’re going to unpack four transformative reasons about generosity and then unpack Paul’s instructions for how we ought to give.

, ,

How to Make your Spiritual Life Purposeful, part I

, ,
How to Make your Spiritual Life Purposeful, part I

What plan do you have for your spiritual life? Where do you want to go spiritually? And how are you going to get there?

My hunch is that most of us don’t have a plan for our spiritual life. Most of us live hoping that we’ll drift into a better spiritual life. But that is a faulty assumption. Have you drifted into losing weight? Or becoming a better father? Or into your Master’s degree?

For some reason, we think that even though we make plans for improvement and we set goals in other areas, it's not necessary or spiritual for us to set out these kinds of plans for our spiritual walk.

Jesus himself lived an incredibly purposeful life. If you pick up the gospel of John, you see that Jesus is very sensitive to discerning and following God’s purpose for his life. His purpose was not about self-fulfillment but self-giving at the cross. In John 17:1, Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.”

How do we live a spiritual life with such purpose and awareness?

,

The Odd Concept of Church Shopping

,
The Odd Concept of Church Shopping

Church shopping is weird. It seems normal today. But it’s a very strange idea, when you think about it.

The notion of “church shopping” first became a possibility in 20th century America. Consider just how odd this concept would be in any other era of the church. The early church, spread out across the Mediterranean, met in homes. Individuals and families who came to believe that Jesus was Messiah and Lord would naturally go to the house church of their neighbors who told them the good news. And because of the church’s small size, there were very few homes in any given geographic region that met. The only hint of any competition we see in the New Testament is Paul addressing the Corinthian Church:

“For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”[i]

Notice how different this is from our circumstance, though. Even while claiming the authority of different teachers (Paul, Apollos, Cephas (Peter), or Jesus), these groups were still meeting and worshiping together! Even so, Paul demolishes such divisions: there can be none but Christ who is the authority. But they were at least meeting under the same roof.

Today, doctrinal distinctions are only the beginning of our differences within the church (I am Reformed; I am charismatic; I follow Bethel; I am a Furtick guy).

, , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , ,
This Week's Recommendations

1. Jesus Wasn’t Born in a Stable—and That Makes All the Difference: Ian Paul explains how we misunderstand the inn, stable, and manger in the Christmas story. He suggests the importance is found here, “Instead, if Jesus comes to us, rather than us coming to him, if he visits in our very homes and comes as a surprising, disruptive, but ultimately welcome presence, one who will turn our world upside-down and change it forever, then that makes all the difference.”

2. Are Masks a Conscience Issue? Erik Raymond frames this delicate issue, “Is it accurate to say that wearing a mask is a conscience issue? By now, you realize the importance of the answer. If “yes,” then churches requiring church members to violate their conscience is a serious concern. If the answer is “no,” then Christians should stop using conscience as a reason for refusing to wear a mask.”

3. Nobody Like Him: Darryl Dash asks the question: what is it about Timothy that makes Paul say, “I have no one like him.”

4. Temptation is No Simple Enemy: Marshall Segal considers simplicity through the lens of Samson. He begins, “We expect temptation will march through the front door, dressed like a wolf, announcing itself loudly as it comes. But temptation often prefers the back door, and the bedroom window, and that crack between the floorboards.”

5. A Visiting Dawn: My friend Chris Thomas considers what it means to live in the dawn. “This is the dawn that gave birth to every dawn since. This is the dawn from on high, the eternal light that shines in our truest home. The dawn that banishes any need of lamp or torch to light our way. This dawn will know no end, nor will it reach the Zenith of existence to fall and fade away. This is the dawn that visits us in that first Advent, and the one that dwells with us ever since.”

6. How Does that Annoying Fly Dodge Your Swatter? Wow. God’s creation is amazing.

Sign up to get The Bee Hive delivered to your inbox and receive a free 50 Books That Changed My Life (and Might Change Yours, Too) download!