Sometimes I feel as though I’m living among a generation of extremists. No, not religious or political extremists (per se), but extremists in, well, everything else.

“that was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“that was the scariest movie I’ve ever seen!”

“this is the best song ever!”

“He’s the worst actor ever!”

“This is the best burger I’ve ever tasted!”

What happened to the middle ground? When was the last time you heard someone say, “yeah, the movie was pretty good.”? I suspect there’s a good chance you don’t hear that phrase all that often. Is it possible that this generation is so over stimulated with just about everything and nothing all at once that the idea of accurately representing your opinion on a rough 1 to 10 scale is nearly impossible?

I first noticed this back when I was leading a small group. As a vehicle to help along conversations with kids who might otherwise have difficulty speaking up, I would often ask them about their “top five favorite…” you fill in the blank. They had so much trouble pulling it off, I just quit with that technique altogether.

Of course, I’m guilty of this too.

After some reflection on it, it occurred to me that I think this falls somewhat in the same ball-park as Jesus’ commands about sincerity in Matthew 5:37:

“Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil”

Okay, let me be clear. I don’t mean to imply that I think this verse is somehow directly applicable to the topic at hand. And I certainly don’t think our opinionated extremes are necessarily ‘evil’. But I think that part of the point Jesus is making is pretty easily applied.

To let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’ would be to allow your words to mean what they mean. Did I say I would do something? Then I should do it. No ‘oath’ should be required. No personally bloated ‘guarantee’ should be necessary.

So it would be with the way our opinions are laid out for others. I like a movie. Saying, “the movie was great”, should be fully sufficient to communicate that I enjoyed the movie and thought it was worth watching. Blowing it up with, “OMG, that was the best frickin’ movie I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life!” would not only be over-kill, but taxing on the value of our language and the reliability of my opinion.

So, as a generation, lets try an exercise. How about, when a movie/song/tv-show/website/joke/hybrid-farm-animal is just okay, we say something like, I don’t know, “the _______ was okay”. Or when the movie/song/tv-show/website/joke/hybrid-farm-animal was fun, but lacking some important elements, why not say, “I had a good time, but there were some pretty stupid parts.”. This is especially important when talking about hybrid farm-animals.

Perhaps with this experiment we can discover that there are more than two shades in the spectrum between black and white. Who’s with me?

This morning I completed the bible for the fifth or sixth time since beginning the use of the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan. It’s an excellent plan and does a great job helping the reader to develop a discipline in studying the word. It also features a 25 day month which gives you several ‘free days’ each month so that you don’t fall behind.

I know a number of people who have found this plan helpful and therefore, as is my custom, here are some updated (from last year) resources in case you’d like to use this plan.

PDF

I’ve made a printable version of this plan available in PDF format. It can be double sided and folded so that it fits nicely in your bible.

iCal File

Two iCal files which can be imported into Mac’s calendar application. These will be good for 2010 and 2011. If someone feels like porting this to an Outlook compatible file, I’ll be glad to add it here as well.

Public Google Calendar

I’ve made a public Google Calendar with the daily readings through 2011. This can usually be imported to calendar applications, as well as mobile devices like the iPhone and Android phones.

Online

CRCurches.net has also made a web version of this calendar available on their site for browsing, if that’s your particular taste.

On Easter, my girlfriend gave me an Easter basket filled with plastic eggs stuffed with candy. Also stuffed in most of those eggs were little notes, each with a bible verse detailing God’s unwavering affection for his redeemed.

This is rapid-fire encouragement.

Ephesians 3:14-19:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Hebrews 4:16:

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.

John 1:12-14:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Romans 4:21-5:1:

fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians 1:11-14

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Isaiah 43:10,18-18

"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,
   "and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me
   and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
   nor shall there be any after me.

…

"Remember not the former things,
   nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
   now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.

Titus 3:5-7:

he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Romans 8:1-3:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

Ephesians 3:11-12:

This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

Colossians 1:20:

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Revelation 21:5-7:

(one of my first blog posts ever was based on this verse)

And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

Thomas Watson, one of my favorite Puritans, writes this simple yet inspiring thought:

Read the scripture, not only as a history, but as a love-letter sent to you from God.

Some read the word solely as a means to understand and develop theology. Others, as a means to know what they should and shouldn’t do. Others, only to know what has happened in the past, according to Christian and Jewish tradition.

The intention of the Word isn’t less than these, but it is also a great deal more.

We should approach it, as Watson says, like a ‘love letter’. Not necessarily in the literal sense, but in spirit. What we read, was not only an intellectual work to be studied—a textbook. But it was intended for us so that we would be deeply affected and moved in the most sensitive regions of our soul. If we accept it as anything less than it really is, we miss more than we are gaining.

Psalm 115:4-8:

Their idols are silver and gold,
    the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
   eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
   noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
   feet, but do not walk;
   and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
   so do all who trust in them.

There’s a really basic principal here that most of us don’t realize—and the word is completely blind to: you become like what you worship. And we all worship something.

If we worship money, we will become greedy. If we worship fear (in other words, if we surrender ourselves to whatever is necessary to keep fear at bay), then we will live our lives always in fear. But, if we worship the One True God, the God of Life, we will be alive.

When we worship something with no life, we will have no life. When we worship the source of life, we have just that. I think that’s pretty cool.

Puritan writer and thinker Vavasor Powell writes about the act of death:

“Pray that thy last days, and last works may be the best; and that when thou comest to die, thou mayest have nothing else to do but die.”

Being that it is Good Friday, as I read this tonight from my Puritan Golden Treasury, I couldn’t help but think of how Christ was the most perfect example of this principle.

He came to earth to die, but before doing so, to preach the coming kingdom of the Lord and call all to repentance. When his time came on Good Friday to suffer at the hands of the people he longed for and loved, his mission was complete. All that was left for him to do was surrender himself to his Father’s will—suffer and die for his stubborn people.

Christ, not only in this, but in everything, showed us perfectly the way to walk, live and die. After God, for God, and having served God’s will completely.

Just my granule of thought-food for a good Good Friday.

Mark 5: 24:31

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’"

In this story, Jesus is traveling to heal a girl who was sick and would eventually die, then later be brought back to life by Jesus. In transit, Jesus is surrounded by a large crowd who is pressing up against him, attempting to hear what he might say or see what he might do.

In the midst of this crowd was a woman who was suffering from a constant discharge of blood. The physicians of the day only served to drain her finances and leave her health worse off than when she started. Discovering Jesus, she wanted to get close to him. If nothing else, only to touch the fringes of his clothing. She succeeded and was healed. But when this happened, Jesus took notice. Even in the midst of a huge crowd that was obviously pressing up against him at times, he noticed the woman who had been healed.

Do you suppose she was the only one in the crowd afflicted with something? Perhaps she was the only one who was written about. But it could also be that, though there were many other people touching him, she was healed, while their experience was irrelevant.

She, presumably unlike the others, went to touch his garment in faith that she would be healed, while the others perhaps just out of hype or personal curiosity.

For me, this reminds me that simply knowing about Christ, or being in close proximity to the truth (i.e., in church every Sunday) isn’t enough to bring significant change to our lives. We have to press up against him actually believing that something will happen.

This is hard to do. But  remembering is a good step in the right direction.