Jason Locke's Blog

"The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet'; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" The things God wants from us don't comprise a lengthy list of rules and regulations. What God wants is simple to say but hard to do. You can sum up everything God wants from you with one word: Love. It says it all. Love God. Love people. End of story. Of course the logical question that follows unearths the difficulty of obeying this simply-spoken command: What does it mean to love? This is why we need the Bible—not to burden us with lengthy lists of rules but to demonstrate what love looks like. In the Bible we see how God patiently waits for, disciplines and blesses people. In the Bible we learn how Jesus demonstrates love by laying down his life. In the Bible we discover the consequences of making loving choices versus those of making selfish ch...

What is God doing in your life right now? If you could see what God was up to, would it give you confidence to move forward? Having eyes to see God at work gives us hope and perseverance today. Knowing AND believing that you are beloved is perhaps the first step toward seeing God’s work in your life. Once you know how much God loves you, then you begin to understand that God wants the best for you. Then you can move boldly into the plans God has for you. But when you doubt God’s love and question God’s presence, then you cower in fear and live in the shadows of doubt, disillusionment and self-destruction. I pray that “the eyes of your heart [may be] enlightened, [so that] you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power” (Eph 1:18-19).

This was my latest post for Charis . It's an online resource produced by the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry at Abilene Christian University. http://char.is/blog/2016/09/29/five-keys-to-reviving-a-dying-church/ Click, read & share. Thanks!

Given all the trouble with police shootings and subsequent protests & counter-protests, I put together a few quick thoughts on the country's current situation (in no particular order): 1. Every gun death (or other violent death) is a tragedy and ought to be viewed that way. 2. We have WAY too many tragedies in our country. 3. Most folks jump to conclusions about what happened & why way too quickly. 4. Folks in law enforcement are typically outstanding people who have a tough job to do. 5. Being uncivil and rude to your fellow humans is rarely if ever helpful. 6. While protests might seem distasteful to many of us, the reality is that most hard changes would never have occurred without protest. 7. There are major, systemic problems in many of our African-American communities that don't run parallel to problems in other ethnic/racial groups. 8. The question to ask is not "Do these problems exist?" but rather "Why do these problems ...

According to the Four Noble Truths, the goal of Buddhism is to reach enlightenment by emptying yourself of the things that cause desire and that thereby lead to suffering. In other words, you must detach or empty yourself in order to reach Nirvana. And what is Nirvana? It is emptiness, "nothingness" or ceasing to exist. That is the goal of Buddhism—to totally empty oneself out into the universe. Perhaps that sounds attractive to you. In all honesty, there are days when emptying yourself out into nothingness might be a nice alternative to the feelings of stress, exhaustion & pessimism that you might go through. For folks who feel constant pain and who sense the pain of others, there’s likely to be a recurring desire to shake free from these feelings. The Christian faith also teaches the importance of emptying. But there are significant differences in this regard between Christianity and Buddhism. Emptying oneself is not the goal of being a Christian. The objecti...

How we view forgiveness shapes our understanding of everything in the Christian faith. To be more specific, our view of God's forgiveness impacts the way we forgive. For a long time, many folks believed that God only forgave sin if he could punish before offering his act of forgiveness. This is a punitive or transactional view of forgiveness. The standard storyline went something like this: God can't stand sin. Even though God loves you, God can't stand to be with you if you sin. God wants to forgive you but has to take out his disgust with sin by punishing you somehow until you get it right. Since we're all sinners & repeat offenders, this creates quite a problem. According to the traditional story, Jesus came along and lived without ever sinning. Finally, here was someone God didn't have to punish. But in order to forgive you of your sins, God punished Jesus instead of you. This standard version of the story of forgiveness is mostly rubbish ...

Do you practice transactional forgiveness or just plain forgiveness ? Here's the difference: Transactional forgiveness says, "I forgive you, but you have to grovel and be in the doghouse for a long time." Plain forgiveness says, "I forgive you." Transactional forgiveness says, "I forgive you, but I'm going to hold this over your head as long as I like." Forgiveness says, "I forgive you." Transactional forgiveness says, "I forgive you, but from now on you'll never be equal to me." Forgiveness says, "I forgive you." Transactional forgiveness says, "I'll forgive you if you somehow do enough to prove to me that you've earned it." Plain forgiveness says, "I forgive you." Transactional forgiveness flows out of fury & rage. Forgiveness flows out of love. Transactional forgiveness comes from a heart filled with the fear of deprivation. Forgive...