So Much More…idea behind the song

by Seth on January 11, 2012

The story of the prodigal son is a beautiful parable Jesus tells
to a group of religious teachers and an on-looking crowd. It is found in Luke
15:11-32. Basically, a son asks his father for his share of the inheritance
which the father gives him. He leaves his father and older brother at home and
runs off. He spends all his wealth in wild living and then becomes so poor that
he is forced to care for pigs and eat the food he is giving them in order to
survive. He comes to his senses and returns home hoping, at most, that his
father will allow him to work for him as a slave. Instead, he finds his father
running out to him, hugging him, and crying over him. His father forgives him, wishes him good
luck, and then sends him on this way to make it on his own penniless but
forgiven.

THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED!!! But how often do we act like that is
our reality as Christians. The whole focus of our Christian life becomes not
sinning and then repenting from sin when we do mess up. We are constantly
crawling back to God hoping that he will accept us, at most, as a slave. But I
believe that God has more for us than that. His plans for us are so generous
that they blow our minds. He wants sons and daughters not slaves. The real end
of the story goes like this. After running out to is son with hugs and tears
the father not only forgives him but he reinstates him as a son, gives him the
signet ring of authority, gives him sandals and a robe, kills the fattened calf
and throws him a party.

His older brother hears about this and gets angry. He refuses to
join the party. His father comes out to him and asks him to come in. But he
refuses saying, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never
disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could
celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your
property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ The
father replies, “‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is
yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was
dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

The older brother refuses to go in to the party because he sees
himself as “slaving” for the father but not being rewarded. He resents sharing
his inheritance with the rebellious younger brother. The younger brother could
have stayed away because of guilt, thinking he only deserved to be a slave.

In “So Much More” I try to walk through the story of
redemption pointing especially to the end God has in mind for us. Christ is our
true older brother. He is not upset with the father. Rather, he has joined the party
and is ready to share his inheritance with us. The question is, are we going to
join the party and experience the riches God has for us? Do we believe God says to us like the father in the story, “everything I have is yours?” Here are some scriptures that inspired the song.

Ephesians 2:4-7

4 But because of his great love for
us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with
Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been
saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated
us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7
in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his
grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Rom 8:14-17

14 For those who are led by the Spirit
of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you
received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the
Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we
are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then
we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his
sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Hebrews 2:11

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are
of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

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Kar_ma Crash

by sethirby on October 18, 2010

random pic of car crash from the internet.
Flying back from California this weekend, I ended up sitting beside a lady with lots of interesting thoughts and questions about religion in general and Christianity in particular. Why did Christ have to die for our sins anyway? Is the Bible reliable? Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene and was there some huge Knight’s Templar cover up (a-la Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code)? She was also a great listener. Sharing with her about how I see God got me excited all over again about His great love for us. At one point she mentioned she believed that it all could be summed up with the idea of Karma… “What you do come’s back to you. You do good and good comes back to you.”

I’ve heard this before and as far as every other religion is concerned, even parts of what is called Christianity, I think this is an accurate description of how things are seen to work. But it hit me in a new way this time and made me think how absolutely, COMPLETELY different true Christianity is from Karma.

First of all, the whole point of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we DON’T get what we deserve. We make mistakes and we sin against God but instead of punishing us for the bad we do God offers to forgive us, make us part of His family, and give us eternal life through his son. And none of this is because of anything we have done to deserve it, it is a free gift.

But what struck me on the plane and what we ended up talking about comes at it from another angle. What happens to people who are completely committed to God? What happened to Jesus, the only man to live an absolutely perfect life? If you look at the many people in the bible who trust God and follow him you don’t find Karma at work; you actually find the opposite. What’s going on here, why do the people who walk most closely with God seem to suffer so much?

In 1 Peter 2:19 Paul condones suffering, “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.”

In Colossians 1:24 he says about himself, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”

What we have in Christianity that is so different is a God who loves us so deeply that He willing chose to suffer by giving up His Son to correct the wrongs in the world so that He could punish sin to the fullest extent and still have a relationship with us. We have Jesus who willing chose to suffer by leaving His eternal place beside His Father to becoming a human and suffer though a regular guy’s life. He submitted Himself to being misjudged, humiliated, and wronged by people (people that He created) to the point of death on a cross. And we have the Holy Spirit who willingly serves the Father and Son and comes to live in us when we ask Jesus to come into our lives.

So do you see it now…The people who walk most closely with God become more and more like Him. And the kind of God we have chooses to willing suffer to right the wrongs of this world. If you are looking for Karma in Christianity it is simply not there. If you are looking to do a few good things and then live a simple undisturbed life you won’t find that option in Christianity.

The heart of a Christian beats with the pulse of God’s heart to restore this world for His glory. The mature disciple of Christ begins to desire to join the team of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in sacrificing and graciously putting our lives and comforts on the line for the sake of the Kingdom of God. After all that is what our Daddy-God has done for us.

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Welcome

March 1, 2010

We were trying to put this page together in a way that made sense and we realized there was no simple way to do it. There are so many things I am passionate about that even when I was trying to neatly package and box in myself I had a hard time doing it. It [...]

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