Blog – Page 23 – Joel Bidderman

I was here..

It's interesting how my story keeps revolving around a continual thought/truth. While there's more than one (I'd like to think), one is a thread in the tapestry of this simple art work - called my life. Simple, that is, to God...and maybe to me on good day. A day when it all makes sense, when the labors of prayers, hope, and dreams part the clouds of monotony to say: "Oh, so that's what He was doing all along." Well, the thing/thought/truth is: "remember." Remember what? Remember the little things - that is, remember all the little ways that the supernatural broke through the un-supernatural and opened your eyes. A sunset when I was hopeless, that while [...]

2014-08-29T14:15:53+00:00By Joel|Featured|

It’s time

Tonight, John 14 is giving me strength. A part of the chapter hit me tonight, that has not done so before. Sure, there is "Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me...in My Father's house...I'll come back for you (paraphrased)" (v. 1-4), the huge, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (v. 6). There's the revealing the Father, answering prayers, the Holy Spirit, love, and the giving of peculiar peace. However, the thing that sticks out tonight, is the last statement of the chapter. Jesus said, "I am going away so that the world may know that I love the [...]

2014-08-29T14:36:16+00:00By Joel|Jesus Shaped Community, The Dangerous Kind|

Being Dangerous

Too long have followers of Jesus settled for religious compliance and inoffensive comportment. Too long have rank and file Christians delegated the dangerous life of following Jesus to the professionals, believing them best suited for the radical engagement with the world that Jesus models. Too long have we believed that the highest goal of Christianity is conforming people to good behavior, getting folks to follow the rules, making people nice. Now is the time to raise our danger quotient. Now is the time for us to move from bland church drones into followers of the living Christ who are potent for the purposes of God and a mortal threat to the enemy of our souls (Sellers, [...]

2014-08-29T14:37:06+00:00By Joel|Abandonment, Christianity, discipleship, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, Jesus Shaped Community, The Dangerous Kind|

Good Friday

Jesus didn’t go to the cross so we wouldn’t have to. He went to the cross so we could join him there. - Dallas WillardLast night we had some friends over to sit, have wine, have bread and talk about Jesus. Very informal. We had the movie The Gospel of John playing in the background, and during that time we talked about our favorite Jesus account. One thing turned to another in the conversation and somehow we ended up talking about suffering. It got me thinking, because as we talked I found that a distinction needs to be made in the way we think about suffering.On one hand there is the distortion of sanctification through suffering, that it [...]

2014-08-18T22:34:43+00:00By Joel|Abandonment, Christianity, Jesus Christ, The Dangerous Kind|