The Vision

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimal integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Holiness is notoriously hard to define. Some people say it means set apart, or whole, or pure. It is both the core characteristic of God and also a characteristic of his people. We are to strive for holiness, yet we are already holy.

When I read the 600+ times that the word holy is used in the Bible, the first thing I clearly see is that it carries the meaning of “set apart.” There are lots and lots of references to things being “holy to the LORD,” things like the priests’ garments, and the Sabbath, and everything in the Temple, and, most importantly, the people of Israel.

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
(Deuteronomy 7:6)

We are holy. Set apart. And what does it mean to be set apart? It means to be different. To be a blue monkey in a brown monkey’s world.  To keep ourselves free from the patterns of the world. To march to the beat of a different drum.

Why should we be holy?

“For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.”
(Leviticus 11:44)

Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh… HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. This is God’s defining characteristic–not love, as some would think. At the end of time, we will be gathered around the throne of heaven, worshiping him for his holiness.

God is set apart in a huge way. He is completely Other, as different from us as an alien from another universe would be on Earth. He is so, so different from everything he has created. We are made of dust… he was never made of anything. He is I AM. That was the only was he could define his existence to Moses. Just “I AM.”

And we are to be holy as he is holy??

Here’s the thing, though. We have no capacity to be holy in and of ourselves. We have been made holy through Christ’s blood. So we are already holy… but we don’t always live like it.

So what does a lived-out holiness look like? 1 Peter chapter 1 spells it out for us. The first part talks about the living hope and the inheritance we have in Christ. Then:

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy…Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.'”
(1 Peter 1:13-16, 22)

So, as I see it, holiness is about being set apart from the things of this world by keeping our attention on the things of God and living in love and purity.

And yes, it hurts the eyes.

Moses’ face shone when he talked with God. (Exodus 34) Jesus shone in the Transfiguration. (Matthew 17) Whenever the Bible visually represents holiness, it’s a brilliant light. Fierce and blazing. And the darkness hates it.

People get confused and offended by radiant holiness. It defies every selfish, momentary, flesh-driven impulse of this world. People feel exposed in the light, so they squint, put up their hands, reach for their sunglasses. After all, this is not a nice safe little glow. This is an explosion, like a Time Lord regenerating.* Maybe we are constantly regenerating, constantly being made new. And anyone who gets too close may very well be swept up in the blaze.

This is a holiness that is not content to settle for what our culture considers “good enough,” or even “successful.” It is simply not interested in playing the game. It is always pushing to be more like Jesus.

There’s even a “good enough” in church culture. There’s a tendency to compare ourselves to others around us, and there’s a nice comfortable minimum that we have reached by silent consensus. But our calling was never for “good enough.” It was for radical consecration.

I want to be that person who blazes like Moses. I want to be so extremely different from the patterns of this world that people squint when they look at me.  I don’t ever want to settle for “good enough” and I refuse to let anything compromise me.

Better bring your sunglasses, baby.

*Doctor Who reference. Pardon my geekness.

The Vision

They are mobile like the wind.
They belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting, dirty and dying.

This is a generation that understands its global calling. These people do not consider themselves citizens of any particular country, but rather citizens of heaven and as such they are free to touch the entire earth. They are the sojourners and nomads. They’ve figured out that what God’s doing is not confined to a particular city or country or culture. At the same time God is with the suicidal high schooler in Seattle, he is with the HIV-positive single mother of six in Mozambique. And because they want to be with him where he is (John 17:24) and because it seems he has chosen to give an extra dose of himself and a special kind of mercy to those who are hurting, dirty, and dying (Luke 6:20, etc), they will follow him into any and every corner of the planet.

Home isn’t a city or an address. Home is in the following. They have allowed themselves to be broken for the brokenness in the world. They give of themselves freely. They are slaves of all who are in need, because really, they are the slaves of the God whose heart beats desperately for them. And in this they have found a different kind of freedom. (1 Peter 2:16, Romans 6:22)

This freedom isn’t of the American dream “do-whatever-you-please” variety. This freedom means freedom from a small story, freedom from living confined to your own little world. They have prayed the most dangerous prayer of all, “Your will be done,” and are willing and ready to follow the Spirit wherever he leads. Even (and perhaps especially) when he takes them into the darkest places of the world.

God, make me the kind of person who sees you in every hurting and dirty face. Enlarge my vision to see the entire world as my mission field. I want to chase after your heartbeat wherever you lead…because when I am tethered to the wind and holding nothing back, I am free. 

The Vision

And they are free from materialism—
They laugh at nine-to-five little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

Do we even understand what it means to be free from materialism? We live in a privileged society where we are constantly being told what is important. Bigger TVs, smaller computers, smoother skin, better job, louder entertainment… the list goes on. Our world has a system, and this system is built on MORE. We are like rats running through a maze, searching for the cheese that we hope is just around the next bend.

It will take a radical new dream to defeat the system.

God is looking for people who are unimpressed with the best the world has to offer. Sure, we can enjoy it, but we need to be able to equally enjoy life minus all the “good stuff.” We must learn to say with Paul:

“I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
(Philippians 4:11-12)

Contentment. If we can discover the secret of contentment like Paul did, we can go anywhere and do anything, and be able to focus on God and others instead of ourselves.

Go to Thailand, sleep on the ground, not shower for a week, and eat God only knows what? No problem. Hang out with homeless people in LA? Can do. NOT spend money on a new wardrobe/car/computer and instead give the money to a cause that matters? Absolutely. Sell everything we own and move to the Tenderloin, the worst part of San Francisco? Why not? When we cut our dependency on the material things of this world, we become available for God to use us anywhere and however he wants.

And he might use us in the more elite realms. Some of us are called to be performers, athletes, businessmen, and politicians and might end up surrounded by some of the markers of wealth. So what? Increased resources are a blessing, and no more so than when they are used to bless others. We are not of this world and we are not defined by or dependent on our stuff, but instead we hold everything with an open hand and give freely.

Everything we own is just a prop anyway, like cheap plastic jewelry worn on Broadway. What’s the use of holding on to it?

We need to become a generation that rises above the system. This is our Matrix; the world that flashes around us is not the real world. The real world lies beyond the skin of this one, unseen. It is only when we grasp this truth that we can laugh at the nine-to-five cycles and refuse to be rodents running on a wheel or chasing that ever-elusive cheese. We need to catch a higher vision.

Only then can freedom begin.

The Vision

The vision is of an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.

“The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.’”
(Ezekiel 37:1-6)

What do you see when you look at this generation?

Do you see a swarm of young people selling their souls to entertainment, empty relationships, and cheap thrills?

Do you see minds numbed by overstimulation–overconnected and yet isolated?

Do you see an empty chaos of texting, fashion, sports, popularity?

Do you see confused minds swallowing lie after lie about themselves, the world, morality, and God himself?

Do you see a generation that imagines itself more empowered than any other, yet its people are still completely consumed by their own small worlds and bound by apathy about the things that really matter?

Do you see church kids who aren’t really much different?

Do you see bones? I see an ARMY.

Because this is the generation that God has chosen.

He who makes beauty from ashes will raise up and transform this generation into a powerful army. He will capture and refine that aimless passion into a force to be reckoned with.

Beneath the cacophony that floods the school hallways, there is a profound silence. There is a boredom with life as it has become. People are looking for a cause. They want to devote themselves to something bigger than themselves. They know, deep down in a place they can’t even name, that they were created for a love story and a great adventure. They are just waiting to be awakened.

And even as the Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning of the world, and even as he breathed life into a field of bones in ancient Israel, God will resurrect this generation. In fact, he’s starting already. The sleeping giant is rising from her slumber.

Awake.

                   Arise.

Let the wind that first stirred the dust breathe life into you again.

The Vision

The vision is Jesus.

Obsessively,

                               Dangerously,

                                                           Undeniably,

JESUS.

I am completely and unashamedly obsessed. He is what it’s all about. All eternity points to him. All creation groans for him. Every soul was created to long for him. He is my first and my last, my beginning and my end, my waking and my dreaming. He is my magnificent obsession, my beautiful daydream, my inescapable addiction.

Dangerous? Heck yes.

Take up your massive instrument of torture and execution and follow me.  I did not come to bring peace, but to rip families apart. Blessed are you when the world scorns, slanders, persecutes, and hates you because of me. When the world despises you, don’t worry, they despised me first.

When your oppressor forces you to trudge one mile, willingly walk with him two.

Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.

Scared yet? Wanna trip, baby? Because if you jump off this cliff, it will be the ride of your life.

Could I even deny him if I tried? He is my everything, and there’s no use even pretending otherwise. I would rather take a bullet to the chest or curl up in a ball and die than deny the beautiful Man who is my savior. He is the only thing that makes any sense at all. My every breath testifies of his goodness, every cell screams his name. Denying him would be like carving out my own lungs. He and I are inextricably woven together. And what God has joined together, let no man separate.

JESUS.

In these moments, I could run like this forever. In these moments I mean every word. Oh, Jesus, my rescuer, let me never lose this place.