T. David Beck: The Simple Way of Jesus

It's Monday, and it's a good day to get monastic... "Pray without ceasing." Paul wrote about it (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I keep trying it and failing. Yet it is the goal I am chasing right now. The idea is pretty simple, really. You just see how many times in a given hour you can connect with God in some way or another. But pulling it off? I have rarely met someone who is doing it. Why try then? Because Paul says to. And Jesus modeled it. Furthermore, I have found that the more I connect with God throughout the day, the more he opens up dimensions of who he is and how he is present in the world. It's a mysterious phenomenon, which means it's hard to explain. You just have to go there and find out for yourself. (If you do, tell me about it!) Failure is part of the exercise. I'm not sure there has ever been a person who one day decided to connect with God multiple times an hour and suddenly did so without encountering so much failure that he/she wanted to...

I'm back from my hiatus from blogging with a scary story for a Halloween day... A couple of days ago I had a conversation with Mike, my favorite Sacramento barista, about what I do as a pastor. He's not a Christian, and I don't think he has a lot of church background. He asks great questions. As he was making a mocha for another customer, he inquired, "So do you... you know... preach?" It was like being asked if I pull kittens' tails and throw rocks at children. I said, "I do preach, but at the same time I'm not sure how I feel about the word 'preach.' It carries a lot of baggage." He said, "Yeah, like all that fire and brimstone. That's not good. Well, what do you do if you don't call it preaching?" Quickly fumbling for a way to reinterpret preaching on the spot, I replied, "I help people imagine what it is to live a constantly improving life." As he put the finishing touches on the mocha, he smiled...

I am taking a couple weeks off from blogging as I finish revisions on a book manuscript for IVP. The book is about the movement from living  for Jesus to living  with Jesus.  There is a vast difference between living for Jesus by knowing and doing religious things, and living with Jesus by walking each day in his presence. More to come on that! See you in mid-October.

I have a couple of friends who are interviewing for jobs, and it is something most of us do every once in a while. If you are a Jesus-follower, you stand a better chance of being a great interviewer. Thorin Klosowski at Lifehacker posted today , commenting on an article in the Wall Street Journal, " The Receptionist is Watching You ." Klosowski begins, When heading into a job interview you might think that you need to start your performance with the person interviewing you. However, as the Wall Street Journal points out, everyone ranging from the security guard to the receptionist is watching you. Here are some excerpts from Leslie Kwoh's WSJ article: Want that job? Better be nice to the receptionist... assistants are not only close to the boss, they’re generally sharp observers who can instantly sense whether someone will fit in with company culture, says Karlena Rannals... It’s just one way companies are filtering candidates in a tight labor market where more ...

I knew we had gone to Disneyland too many times when our kids started complaining about having to go on this ride or eat in that restaurant. They had become jaded, even to the Happiest Place on Earth. Susan and I have become like the kids in the family -- we are the ones most likely to get geeked about Disneyland. Being jaded about Disneyland is inconsequential. Being jaded about spiritual things is life-threatening. Jadedness frustrated Jesus. Thanks to www.pray-as-you-go.org, this afternoon I meditated on Luke 7:31-35. 31 Jesus went on to say, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: “‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’ Get the picture? A group of kids is trying to get a rise out of another group of kids. First they play happy songs. No response. Then they try a funeral dirge. Still no res...

There are various reasons people fast – to lose weight, protest injustice, and so on. To go on a spiritual fast is to abstain from something for the purpose of drawing close to God. That something could be necessities like food or drink, or sources of comfort like chocolate or television. The standard biblical practice is to abstain from food and/or drink.  There are many ways to fast. I’ll suggest one. When I was in Haiti after the earthquake, Haitian political leaders called a three-day fast so people would pray for the ravaged country. With thousands of buildings down and 230,000 people suddenly dead or dying, the country had literally been brought to its knees. The Haitian practice of fasting, at least where we were, was to set aside the hours of 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM to abstain from food and/or drink as much as possible, and devote oneself to prayer. Part of the day was given to time together, worshiping and praying in groups, and part was for time to continue praying and...

In his letter to Philemon, Paul asks his friend Philemon to do something extraordinary and costly. A man named Onesimus is with Paul. Onesimus is a slave who has run away from Philemon's house. He is a fugitive from the law who has found his way into Paul's sphere of influence and become a Christian. Paul is legally liable if he harbors Onesimus, but he doesn't want Onesimus to be executed. What will he do? He sends Onesimus back to Philemon with a personal letter requesting that Philemon not execute or even punish his slave. What is more, Paul wants Philemon to make Onesimus a free man so he can spend his time serving the gospel. We might notice that in his letter, Paul shows great confidence in Philemon. Paul doesn't play the pessimist, saying, "I know my request is probably too extreme. I would be shocked if you followed through." Rather, he stands as an optimist and prays that as Philemon follows through , he would experience God's blessings (v. ...