A Pilgrim's Thoughts on Home

I guess it's that time of year in the Hobbs of Corona residence. That time that has now come up for the fourth time in our two years of marriage. You guessed it, moving time!!

We almost talked ourselves into staying at 603 West 11th Street for a second year, but we found out in the meantime that the casida behind us was available and much cheaper.

We Hobbses may not be the best with money, but sometimes we make a good decision, especially when there's a bun in the oven.

At any rate, as I think about the past year that we've spent in our house, my attention turns more and more to the concept of home.

I guess this kind of thinking dates back about four or so years for me, when my brother took off and went to seminary in Birmingham. Up until then, even though we were in Southern California and our parents were up where we grew up, in Greenwood (beyond Cool), Casey and I always had each other, and we even had Dusty to hang out with during our first year of college at CBU.

So, when Casey left for school, I think that was the first time I ever really experienced a real loss of "home". It really was the first time I felt out of place in regard to where I was living.

But it's not like home left forever and didn't ever come back. In the following couple of years, I experienced real community--"home"--among with good friends and roommates. Along the way, I met Janelle, and our experience of home together began two years ago on an evening in June.

Together we have a great home, even though we feel like a couple of tent-dwellers when our lease comes to a close. Regardless of where we live, there's real community in our home. We fight together, laugh together, and pursue our God and His kingdom together. I dig our home.

And I especially dug our home over the past few months, when our good friends, the Warfields, lived with us throughout the end of Hannah's pregnancy and the first month or so of little Judah Warfield's life.

That's why it felt so strange coming home to an empty house a couple of nights ago. Janelle and I had grown so accustomed to sharing life with Hannah and Garrett (and of course, Judah), that when they finally moved out of 603 West 11th Street, they took with them a good piece of what "home" had become.

I don't want to sound overly emotional (too late for that, I'm sure), but I really miss my brothers. I miss hanging out with Garrett and talking about the Gospel over a World Cup game, and I miss hanging out with Casey and talking Bonhoeffer in between pitches of a wiffle ball game.

But maybe it's more than me just being emotional. Maybe what I'm feeling has more to do with who God is and who he's called his people to be. We are wanderers, way-faring strangers, pilgrims, strangers in a strange land. We, like our father Abraham, are looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

And as long as we redeemed ones are apart from our God bodily, I think we're going to feel like this from time to time.

We'll feel like we're missing part of home, even when we are at home, because the truth is that we're still waiting to arrive at that place that Jesus said he's preparing for us. We won't be whole and fully at rest until we are able to see him as he is.

We'll be at home when we enter into the Celestial City, when our pilgrimage has come to an end.

Think about what Jesus had to give up to guarantee us entrance into this land--this city whose designer and builder is God:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped
but made himself nothing, 
taking on the form of a servant, 
being born in the likeness of men.


And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross.


Or, if you're like me and want to read a hymn about it, here's one to help:

He left his father's throne above,
so free, so infinite his grace.
Emptied himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.


'Tis mercy all, immense and free
for O my God, it found out me.


Amazing love, how can it be
that thou, my God shouldst die for me?

We're Pregnant!

Due date: 12/16/2010 :)

Beware the Mountaintop

Well, it's June again, and that means but one thing in the life of Student Ministries--Summer Camp!

Nothing like the combination of camp-dirt and milk-chug, along with the nightly camp fire and daily time of sitting under the Word in both individual and community-wide meetings.

But this blog is written as a warning to would-be campers, especially those at our beloved Northpoint Church, nestled in the heart of that center of the universe known as Corona.

The warning is this: Beware the Mountaintop.

Maybe it's a dated expression by now, but I remember like it was yesterday my old pastor, Jim Holmes, talking about a phenomenon he called a "Mountaintop Experience." Now, Pastor Holmes was about 80 years old when I knew him, and he's since gone home to be with the Lord, but his expression has stuck with me ever since I was a little boy.

When Pastor Holmes talked about the Mountaintop Experience, he meant that 'spiritual' high that has always been so common among believers when we've been surrounded by God's Word and God's People for a weekend.

The problem with the Mountaintop is that it's all-too-often an illusion because it's all-too-often based on emotion, not on Truth.

There's a great story about my favorite musician of all time, Rich Mullins. He had a great line for people who would come up to him after his concerts to share about how the Holy Spirit had moved in their hearts during one of his songs. Rich would look at them and say, "No, that's actually when the kick drum and the bass came in. It's easy to mistake energy and emotion for worship."

When you go up to Summer Camp at the end of this week, dear Northpoint Student, pray to the Lord that you would not mistake emotion for worship, experience for obedience.

How do you know when you're really worshipping? It's when you're obeying difficult commands of Jesus, like loving your enemy. Or, more to the point, it's when you come down off the mountain and obey your parents with a genuine heart.

Another way to tell whether or not you've actually encountered the Living God up at camp is to ask yourself this question: "Do I want to be part of the community of believers (at Northpoint) week-in and week-out?"

You see, emotional experiences destroy real community, because they hold community to an unrealistic standard. We believers are at the same time fallen sinners and beloved saints, so real community means that we'll bump into each other's sin and interact with each other even on our off-days.

The Mountaintop Experience expects my brother to be on his game all the time, and so when I see him struggling with pride and selfishness, I reject him because he's getting in the way of me and Jesus. I shout at my brother from my lofty Mountaintop perch, along with the Rolling Stones, "Hey, you, get offa my cloud!"

Friends, let's come down off the mountain after this summer camp and love each other more deeply with the type of love that "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things". After all, that is the kind of Son-sending love that God has shown us.

"Nothing is easier than to stimulate the glow of fellowship in a few days of life together, but nothing is more fatal to the sound, sober brotherly fellowship of everyday life ... It is not the experience of Christian brotherhood, but solid and certain faith in brotherhood that holds us together." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together)

Gospel Vaccination is a Bad Thing

"When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:4)

There's certain times when I notice a sort of Gospel vaccination in myself. It's like I've got just enough Gospel truth on my mind and in my heart to render the Gospel ineffective to change me.

Then a text like this bowls me over with the unsearchable depths of God's love for sinners.

The text says that we who have made Christ our life by faith will one day appear with Him in glory. That is incredible news, and it's much better than the watered-down version of the Gospel that I settle for so often.

It would be good enough news that the God of the Universe, for whom and by whom we have been made, takes pity on those who have rebelled against his kingdom and taken the life of His Only Begotten Son, but that's not the extent of God's love.

God's love consists of much more than pity, it's more like God inviting us to inherit all that is His by the blood of Christ.

Far from an isolated text throwing out a tentative truth, this text functions as one thread in broad biblical tapestry. Consider a few more passages that draw out God's inviting us to glory:

"Fear not, little flock, for it is my Father's good pleasure that you should inherit the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)


"The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ..." (Romans 8:16-17)


"The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one..." (John 17:22)


If this is too much for you to handle in one sitting (which it sure is for me), then think about this: Jesus is not ashamed to be called our brother. My brother, Jesus.

Our perfect High Priest and holder-together of all things visible and invisible delights to share His throne with us, His brothers and sisters.

God save us from that false humility that robs us of the joy of anticipating that Day when we will appear with Jesus in glory.

The Awkward Dance, a.k.a. Corporate Prayer

You can picture the scene.

The young bucks cluster on one end of an empty dance floor and dare each other to go ask one of the pretty maids in row to dance. Meanwhile, the pretty maids--unbeknownst to the aforementioned bucks--secretly conclude that the reluctance of the bucks has everything to do with their own perceived unattractiveness.

"Dancing is for sissies anyways," declares a severely intimidated buck, but if he's like any of the others, he knows good and well the only reason that he hasn't broken the dance-floor-sized gender barrier.

He doesn't go because he's fearful. He doesn't go because he's anticipating (or recalling) a toe-curling turn-down at the other end of the floor. So, he resorts to comfort in the form of shooting spit-wads or kicking out his fellow bucks' legs out from from under them.

Who will be the one to cross the floor and extend his hand to an awaiting maid? I'll tell you who, it's the buck who knows (or is confident enough to assume) the response ahead of time.

Once the confident buck goes ahead and asks his pretty maid to dance, the party begins. Air is put back into the room and once-petrified stags take to the dance floor.

Praying together is a lot like the awkward dance.

We Christians know that we ought to pray together, and we even may agree that there's joy in praying together. We may even be comfortable complaining and moaning that we don't pray together enough, but when it comes time to take to the dance floor of prayer together, we wimp out.

Prayer is nothing less than communicating our hearts and lifting up our concerns to the God of the Universe, who created everything with the Word of His mouth and currently sustains everything by the Word Become Flesh.

Not only that, but when we pray, we have a great Mediator, a Great High Priest, who is interceding for us with the Father. Jesus himself is at the Father's right hand, pleading our case by His blood whenever we pray, and that give us confidence.

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

This is the kind of confidence it takes for the first buck to cross the dance floor and ask that pretty maid to dance. We know our God, and we know that His Son stands and pleads our case before Him. We know His response will be loving acceptance, as if Jesus Himself were coming to Him in prayer--which He is!

So why should we feel awkward to pray together? I may not know how you're going to react if I ask you to pray with me, but I do know how God will react. I'll be able to conquer the initial awkwardness of prayer only when I remember that you and I are approaching the Living God together, and He is on our side.

Cross the dance floor of corporate prayer, young buck. You first.

Jeremiah: Not for All Audiences

Last week, I told Janelle that I want to launch an intra-marriage campaign to name one of our future sons “Jeremiah,” after the weeping prophet himself.

In preparation to launch an all-out offensive, I went through and re-read Jeremiah and Lamentations this week, and let me tell you, the campaign is on.

Don’t get me wrong, though, Jeremiah’s life and the events that took place in Jerusalem at that time have to encapsulate one of the ugliest stories ever told.

Put it this way, Hollywood is never going to make a movie out of it, and if they ever did, I’d be the last to see it.

I really wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

Fast-forward all the way to Lamentations, which basically functioned in the same way that a presidential visit to declare a state of emergency does today.

Here’s Jeremiah, surveying the damage that he’s spent his whole ministry predicting, and borne constant persecution to that end.

The word “Lamentations”, of course, means weeping or wailing, and that’s what Jeremiah does plenty of as he sees what has become of God’s chosen people.

All along, he’s been speaking the Word of the Lord that instead of fighting against Babylon, the people need to surrender and go along with the program, and all along, they’ve resisted the Word of God and listened to false prophets declaring “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. (Jer. 6:14).

It’s a simple Word that he’s declared all along. Two options

A. Surrender to Babylon and keep your life as a price of war
B. Resist Babylon/flee to Egypt, and die of sword, pestilence or famine

Israel goes with Option B—kinda like we Sons of Adam are always going with option B—and God has carried out his promise for disaster, and as we come up to Lamentations, it’s just at the time when Jerusalem is surrounded by Babylon and basically starved to death until they surrender.

That’s why you see absolutely tear-jerking, gut-wrenching literal statements like these in Lamentations:

“Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt this? Should women eat the fruit of their womb,  the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?” (Lam. 2:20)

“Even the jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness. The tong of the nursing infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives to them.” (Lam. 4:3-4)       

“The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they have become their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.” (Lam. 4:10)

How in the wide world is Jeremiah going to handle this?

No wonder he’s the weeping prophet.

"For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for my comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.” (Lam. 1:16)       

“My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.” (Lam. 2:11)        

“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees; my eye causes me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.” (Lam. 3:49-51)

Is there any hope for God’s people?

Will the comforter from Lam. 1:16 ever come?

Will the Lord from heaven look down and see from Lam. 3:49?

Oh yes, there is hope. And the hope of Jeremiah is eternally tethered to both the steadfast love and the sovereignty of God.

It’s not enough if all we know about God is that he has a love that is steadfast. There’s no comfort for Jeremiah or the daughter of his people in a handcuffed lover.

On the other side of the coin, there’s no hope in a sovereign King who’s out to get you. In fact, there’s no more hopeless situation than to be God’s opponent—which we all are without Christ.

Just at the height of Jeremiah’s weeping comes some of the most staggering worship we could ever imagine or experience:

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.” (Lam. 3:21-24)

Is there hope? Oh yes, there is hope. God’s steadfast love is absolutely unconquerable.

It’s unconquerable enough to sustain Jeremiah in a situation that defies the imagination or even description.

But God’s love is shown to be even more unconquerable than that at the Cross.

For Israel, there was judgment:

“We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.” (Lam. 3:42)

God was not about to let the idolatry of his people—the adultery of his wife—slide past the scales of justice. That’s why Jerusalem was besieged.

But at the Cross, Jesus endured the entirety of God’s wrath for his people. That’s why he says, “It is finished.” What is finished? God’s forgiveness of his people’s transgressions.

And what about hope? For Jeremiah, there was God’s never-ending love shown all down through Israel’s history, but on this side of the Cross, it’s the resurrection that secures our hope in his promise.

In the resurrection, God showed that he’s not only powerful, but that he’s for us.

To the believer in Jesus, God’s not a handcuffed lover, and he’s not a “bear lying in wait for me.”

The Good News is that the sovereign King is for me.

To Know You is to Love You

As always, the King is right.

B.B. King, that is.

In one of his signature songs, B.B. unwittingly makes a radically Gospel-centered connection: "To know you is to love you."

I say radically Gospel-centered because I'm starting to detect in my own heart that I artificially disconnect the concept of knowing a person from that of loving a person.

What has pointed out the artificial disconnect in my heart is a statement in Jeremiah 9:24.

Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, the one charged to deliver horribly sad news of the up-coming capture and slaughter of a people who will utterly reject his prophecy and persecute him all the way until the point when its gates are overrun by its foretold oppressors.

In the midst of this wave of bad news, there comes an incredible "Thus says the Lord."

Thus says the Lord, "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me..."

Knowing a person in the Old Testament was an inseparable concept from that of loving a person.

Three times in Genesis 4 alone, the expression for knowing is used as a figure of speech for sexual intimacy, and when God hears the outcry of his people in Exodus 2, the text says, "God saw the people of Israel--and God knew."

God knew. That is, God cared. We know that he cared because then he acted.

The more I've thought and mulled over the text in Jeremiah, the more I've started to realize how true it is that we can only really love people that we really know.

With respect to our relationship with the Lord, there's no loving Him without knowing Him. Not just knowing things about Him, either, but actually knowing--and caring about--what makes Him tic.

That's why the text in Jeremiah continues like it does:

"but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord."

What makes the Lord tic? In what things does He delight? Well, steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth.

Once we know that He really delights in these things, it becomes a litmus test for us on whether or not we actually love Him. Do we love the things that He loves? Because if not, then we don't love Him.

It takes a miracle of God's grace--God coming down and rescuing us by the death of His Son--to make us care about the things that delight Him. Sheer will-power won't get it done and self-improvement won't go far enough.

That's what I mean by radically Gospel-centered.

And what about this idea of knowing-loving as it relates to our love for others?

Jesus said that the world is going to know who his disciples are because of their love for each other, and we only really love the people who we really know.

That's shocking, I know, but bear with me.

Of course, there's a general love that we can have for everybody in the world--the kind that makes us want to join hands with everyone around the world and sing Kumbaya, but surely that's not what Jesus is calling us to as His disciples.

It's really not a radical call at all to invite you to want to generally love everyone everywhere.

Where the call gets radical is where it relates to people that we actually interact with and don't neccesarily--how should I say this?--like to be around.

A couple of guys that I interact with on a regular basis fit into this category. I feel like, instead of wanting to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with them, I'm constantly holding myself back from decking them (either physically or verbally).

So, what's the call for me, as Jesus' disciple?

It's first, to remember the Gospel. Remember that God knows me, He sees me, and in Christ He approves of me and loves me with a love that defys expression or overstatement.

Then, I'm called to actually care about the dude who I'm trying not to knock out. By actually caring, I mean trying to know him well enough to know what makes him tic.

• Why is he constantly chattering about nothing in particular?
• Why does he return my attempt at a conversation into an opportunity to slam others?
• Why does he go out of his way to be a general bonehead?

As a follower of Jesus, I want to be easily identified by my love. I want to actually care about people. I want to be willing to get uncomfortable and love others with the same type of love that God has shown me in the Cross.

God, give me the stregnth to pursue a knowledge of You that will cause me to delight in what you delight in. Give me the patience to love others with a Gospel-centered love.