Coffee Break

I like my coffee strong and black. Sometimes I like it with a little Irish Cream just to mix things up. But do you know what I wish my coffee lacked? That mandatory ruler that seems to come with every cup to measure my manhood.

I grew up where the way you drink your coffee defines how much of a 'man' you are. Growing up in the Calvary Chapel scene (thank you Lord for delivering me from evil) drinking coffee was a manly art. It was a marker of just how much of a man you were. The blacker and the stronger you were able to drink your coffee, the more of a man (a good man) you were. Which, in hindsight, makes perfect sense since the Calvary Chapel I attended in Hanford, California, didn't really have any other way to truly mark out a man. (Yes we had 'be a man' Men's Conferences, but faith and practice were truly two different things).

I have also worked in environments where drinking coffee strong -and bad- enough to put hair on your chest, or kill you, is considered a sign of a man who can be trusted and counted on. I cannot begin to tell you the number of stories I have heard from grizzled old angry men who recount drinking coffee so strong and so bad that it would have eaten a hole in the side of a U.S. Navy war vessel. It is as if somehow this strange ability to drink crap has made them good men.

I can drink strong black coffee with the rest of the pack. I grew up with bad coffee, and it has grown on me. Yet I am not quite certain if I am ready to allow that to be any kind of indicator of how much of a man, a good man, I am.

I have made some serious mistakes in my life. Big ones. Awful ones. I have hurt people whom I loved dearly; both intentionally and (more often than not) unintentionally. I have shipwrecked myself and my relationships with others on more occasions than I'd like to confess in this place. I have made people angry, I have made people cry, and I have made people hurt. I, despite my ability to drink swill, am not a good man.

However, I have owned up to the things I have done in my life. I have offered apologies, attempted to make amends, asked for forgiveness, and have worked -despite the initial reactions of some whom I have hurt- to restore what I have broken. I know what it is to have a repentant and contrite heart, and I would argue that it is these very things that, if anything could, would define me as a good man.

Still, I am not a good man. Not as far as we could define good. I am, however, a redeemed and forgiven man. And I am so not because of anything I have done, but rather because of what Christ has done. In laying down His life for my sin, and rising for my Salvation, He atoned for my sin and redeemed me for Himself.

The good I have done in my life has been because of what Christ has done, and is doing, for me. It has nothing to do with the coffee I drink. Coffee that is strong enough to strip paint from walls will never be strong enough to strip my sin from me.

If you want to define me as a good man, do so because I have owned up to what I have needed to own up to. Do so because I have done something about those things I have owned. But do so knowing that I do these things because of what Christ has done for me ( i.e., regeneration, faith, redemption, sanctification, and one day glorification), not because of what is in my coffee cup.

Now, excuse me as I add a little Irish Cream to my mug.

Observations

"The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word." -A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I see this becoming a reality every day. My own spending so much time and effort on being right; arguing over (virtually) every minor technical detail. I have seen, and likewise have been guilty of, so much wasted energy correcting everything that we see wrong. Throwing out our sarcastic comments and bullying those with whom we disagree. Many of us -too many of us- are unable to see the forest for the trees.

Certainly truth must be had and defended, but sometimes I wonder if we are coming to a place where we are merely straining gnats and swallowing whole camels. I am greatly troubled by what I have seen over the past few years. I am discouraged by all the noise of we proud men boasting in our rightness; as if we desire more to scream, "in your face," than to know God fully.

It is laughable when we speak so haughtily of how God has rescued we low and humble men, and yet we act neither lowly nor humbly. We are proud and self-assured, and this "self-assuredness" should cause us all a great amount of concern. Certainly, in one form or another, it has caused us a great amount of grief.

Though we strive for what is right, there is a right and wrong way of going about that goal. The ends never justify the means.

"...though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you..." Philemon 1:8-9

"...And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh..." Jude v.22-23

Being a jerk for Jesus is a lot of fun -believe me I know-, but there is a time and a place for it. We have to learn when to turn it off. We have to learn when we need to climb down from our pedestal of theological understanding, and graft our rugged and sharp passion for truth with compassion and mercy and grace. This is not to say that we water down what is true, but that as we strive for truth, we strive for it in a correct and godly manner; seeking always first to see Christ.

We are not all commanders firing cannons at every waterless rain cloud blowing our way high atop the grand ivory tower, many of us are mere grunts on the ground facing hand-to-hand spiritual combat. Ours is not a human war meant for destruction and proud boasting, but one of humble confession and witness to a message of Reconciliation in and through our Savior, Christ Jesus.

We have nothing in which to be self-assured. Our assuredness should be in Christ alone. And it is in His image in which we should be conformed as we come to know Him through His Word, through prayer, through study, and through our fellowship with one another.

Unfortunately, I see too many of us growing proud and boastful in the knowledge we have of Scripture, while growing less interested in knowing God. And truly I see men who "...are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word."

I feel greatly troubled.

Dirty

Before Christ my life was dirty.
I couldn't do anything to be clean
Of all the awful things that would cling to me.
Through the Cross
That filth was at a loss,
For when Christ died and rose for me,
By Grace through Faith,
I was set free
And made perfectly...
Clean.

"The Reality of the Resurrection" by Odd Thomas