Truth Trumps Temptations

For the past year or so, my quiet times have consisted mostly of journaling, listening to worship music, and the occasional Bible reading. I discovered last year that by forcing myself to read my Bible every morning I was actually distancing myself from Daddy, because I was doing it to appease Him, to force Him to bless me and grow me. So last year I gave up Bible reading for my quiet times and I saw an incredible growth in my relationship with Him. Growth didn’t come from setting down my Bible; it came from setting down my religious idea that told me reading my Bible was required for relationship.

                

Through that, God has begun stirring up a desire to dive into my Bible on occasion, where I will sit down and read the story of Joseph, or read through Galatians. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I find it is incredibly refreshing. In the past week God has been challenging me to renew my mind by filling it with His words. So this morning, not out of obligation, but out of desire I dove into Matthew.  I wanted to see how Jesus lived from His relationship with Dad. I didn’t make it very far before God started bringing revelation. I came to the temptations of Jesus and couldn’t move past without processing, thus this note I’m writing.

                

I’ve heard several teachings on the temptations of Jesus recently, but the one thing that really stands out is how immediately after Jesus is baptized He is taken into the wilderness to be tempted. As Jesus comes out of the water, Daddy affirms His identity:

“After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in who I am well-pleased.’” – Matthew 3:16-17                

Jesus’ sonship was affirmed by His Daddy. This is the place God wants to bring us all to before sending us out. Many of us try to dive into our ministry before knowing our place as sons. I’m not saying God won’t work in ministry before you know your place as royalty in the Kingdom, but I do think you miss out on a lot of the life and freedom God has for you to walk in. As soon as Jesus’ identity was affirmed, it was attacked and tested. Don’t think satan doesn’t want to steal from you the affirmation that you receive from God. But also don’t think that God won’t use satan’s attacks to assure you even more of your place as a Son of the King.

                

Satan attacks Jesus at three places: His focus, His identity as Lord, and His loyalty to the Father. Satan attacks Jesus at His very basic needs first, testing if He truly knows that the physical realm is a sub-plot to the spiritual realm. Jesus responds by saying:

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

Jesus confirms that He knows His physical needs are not ultimate. Satan attacks there first because it is our most vulnerable point. It is so easy for us to get caught up in the physical and I believe that is also why God affirms that first.

                  

The next attack comes at His identity. Satan comes at Him saying:

"If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down…” –Matthew 4:6

Do you know your identity? How sure are you of being God’s son? I think after God moves us from the physical to the spiritual; He takes us into our place as sons, our royalty.  Many Christians never move past physical temptation because they never realize the truth that the physical realm is a shadow of the spiritual realm. When we do begin to gain power over physical temptations and turn our focus to the spiritual, our identity takes center stage. God begins affirming who we are in Him, as sons and royalty in His kingdom. Satan also begins attacking at that place, reminding you of your past, trying to get you to identify with your sin rather than with your Savior. I think this is the place that so many Christians get burnt out. We move out of the physical into the spiritual only to find the battle intensified and the wounds deeper. The wounds of identity run deepest because they pull us back from the heart of the Father. When you identify with your sins rather than your Savior, you pull back from the Father because you find yourself dirty and worthless. You will never rest in the Father’s arms as long as you see yourself being unworthy of His love. This is why God affirmed His identity as a Son before sending Him into the desert.

                  

The final attack came on Jesus’ loyalty to the Father:

“All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” – Matthew 4:9              

Notice that the attack on loyalty comes after the attack on identity. Royalty bestows loyalty. I find that I have lived most of my life trying to be loyal to a God that I haven’t known as Father. The amount of loyalty you have to God the Father is dependent on the amount of revelation of identity you’ve experienced in your life. I don’t see God calling Jesus to obedience before He solidifies Jesus’ identity as a Son.  Obedience without identity brings burn-out and a twisted view of the Father. I think too many times we rush into ministry because the world needs us without first finding out who we are. That is the place where we have ministry focused on performance rather than on love. We are trying to earn our place in the Kingdom rather than living and loving from the place we already have.

“Then the devil left Him...” – Matthew 4:11                  

I see satan running away here, not in frustration but in fear. Satan knows He is beaten, because Jesus was secure in His focus, His identity, and His loyalty. I believe this is the place that we start our ministry from. This is the place where we go on the offensive. Jesus moves into ministry immediately out of this place as satan tucks tail and runs to get away from this Son of the King.

                  

Satan doesn’t know what to do with someone who the physical has lost power over, who knows their sonship, and who is loyal to the King of Kings.

Grace

Grace has earned a pretty broad definition and use throughout the years of Christianity. For me grace entails anything that we’ve been given that we haven’t earned, which when I look at my life covers just about everything. The shortage of grace in the church has never been about the amount of grace extended, but rather the amount of grace received.

For centuries, satan has been trying to take away our ability to freely receive grace. He can’t stop God from offering His grace, but he has done a pretty good job of stopping us from receiving it. As a result of this, we live in societies where nothing is free and where everything must be earned.

As I experience a Thai culture that is inseparable from Thai religion, I see the effects of a Karma driven society. There is no undeserved gift and no unmerited calamity. Promotion at work… karma. Earthquake… karma. Six year old girl in prostitution… karma. What you deserve is what you get. And as foreign as the idea of karma is to us westerners, I wonder how much it has invaded our culture. In Christianity, we so often read our Bible or go to church to earn brownie points with God. We would never say that’s why we do it, but I would challenge you to re-evaluate why you do what you do. Do you read your Bible for God? Or do you read your Bible with God? Do you feed the homeless for God? Or do you feed the homeless with God? It may seem like a simple change of wording, but I think it signifies a change of mindset. One is based in performance; one is based in grace-filled relationship.

In a performance (or Karma) based mindset, I don’t sin because I don’t want to deal with the consequences. I find a lot of times I try not to sin to avoid the guilt that comes with it. That is a very performance-based approach to sin. I won’t let God take away my guilt, because my guilt is my motivation not to sin and if I let go of that, what will keep me from sinning. Grace transforms how we approach sin because grace totally eradicates sin.

When we begin to truly accept the grace that God extends to us, we begin to focus a lot less on what we are or aren’t doing and a lot more on the face of Jesus. At the cross, God took away your Karma scale. He didn’t just take everything off of the scale and promise to help you build up your good Karma, he completely destroyed Karma. Grace trumps Karma. Life trumps death. Jesus trumps satan.

Don’t ever settle for your understanding of grace, because you will never know the fullness of what God did at the cross. So when you think you get grace, ask God to show you more. Scientists thought they understood the universe until the telescope. I just see God chuckling as He hands over the telescope to the human race. May God smile on you as He hands you the telescope to look into His grace.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” -God

Going to Thailand!

Dear Friends and Family,

As I wrap up my first year of college, I’m excited to share about an opportunity God has opened up for this summer. Over the past couple of years God has been putting Thailand on my heart, specifically the orphans in Thailand. I’ve wondered why God would break my heart for a country I’ve never been to. This summer God opened a door for me to pursue that question.

I stumbled upon an orphanage that really caught my eye. The Family Connection Foundation is an outreach arm of the Chiangmai Christian Fellowship church. After seeing a glimpse of their passion for the orphans they work with and their heart for the Thai people, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had a Skype interview with one of the head guys and everything he shared got me more and more fired up for the opportunity to serve with them.

The way they run the orphanage is different than the typical setup. As a church, they support host families that bring kids into their home long-term. As I serve with them I am going to spend time simply loving on the kids, learning about the Thai culture, and serving the workers any way I can. They also expressed the need for good photography to share with others what is going on in Thailand, so I will be documenting my time through that avenue. One of the most exciting opportunities I have is to go on a four day trip with the director to one of the poorest cities in Thailand. Because of the poverty it serves as a hub for the sex trade in Thailand. This is another big area that God has broken my heart for and I’m excited to be able to love on some of the orphans there and learn what is needed there to break the sex trafficking cycle. As I prepare both physically and spiritually, I am sensing that God has some really big things for me coming up and I can’t begin to express my excitement.

I will be leaving for Thailand on July 6th and returning home on August 18th. Until I leave, I will be shooting senior portraits and a wedding which should cover my airfare there and back. The money I have left to raise is going to be around $3000. This includes all accommodations, on-site transportation, materials, and fees. This needs to be paid in full by June 21st.

This time is going to be an amazing opportunity for growth in my relationship with Christ, direction in my future, and a chance to love on the Thai people. Please pray for protection and a chance to pour Jesus out to these kids. I also ask that you pray about financially supporting me. If you feel led to donate, you can make tax-deductible donations to their US-based funds processing agency:

Circuit 'Riter Ministries Intl.
Attn: Ryan Dunnewold
P.O. Box 635
Kittredge, CO 80457

While I am over there, I will try to keep up my blog with both stories and photos on here.

Thank you for your prayers and support,
Ryan Dunnewold

Good Works

For years, I’ve struggled with the idea of “good works.” What are they? How do we do them? From an early age my parents have taught me that we aren’t saved by good works but rather because of God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. That has never been an issue for me. Post-salvation good works are where I struggle. I’ve heard sermon after sermon where the word grace is used but good works is preached.

Why are we so stuck on good works? I think the reason good works is our goal so often is because we are stuck in a law-abiding, rule following, right and wrong mentality that we were born into. The first problem with this is that the law awakens our sinful desires (Romans 7:5), and the second problem is that we are no longer called to live under the law:

“But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6)

Am I saying good works are bad? Certainly not. Paul says quite clearly that good works are part of our design:

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

For years, I’ve looked at this from the perspective of the law, which says that the sole reason I was created is for good works. Time after time in the last several weeks God has taken me back to the garden where He continues to show me that His design for us as a human race was and is relationship, not good works. Good works have never been ultimate; they have never been our purpose. The ultimate (our purpose) has always been to know Him, to walk in relationship with Him.

The other day, God showed me a powerful parallel for the role of good works in a Christian’s life. Just as sex is not the purpose of a relationship, neither are good works. If we live our lives with sex being the end goal (our purpose) we will go down any path that takes us there. Even if we end up going through the God-ordained path of marriage, our focus won’t be on that relationship but rather on sex. Just as so many times our focus is on the good works rather than the relationship.

When good works is our end goal, we will go down all the wrong paths to get there. It may be selfishness, pride, or some failing attempt at salvation. Regardless of what it looks like, it takes the place of relationship in our lives. This lie, this false focus is so engrained in our lives that even when we hear the truth that God wants relationship, we assume that it is only a way for Him to get good works from us.

Because of this, even when we go down the “proper path” of relationship, often times it is motivated by the end goal of good works. Just as someone who has been used in a relationship assumes that the next time someone is interested in them it is solely for sex. Relationship becomes just a means to an end.

God is calling us to make relationship the means and the end. Just as sex is a natural and wonderful expression of a marriage, good works becomes a natural and wonderful expression of our relationship with Christ when we lay it down as the end goal. God’s purpose in your life is not good works. His purpose in your life is you.

Inadequacy

For most of my life I remember praying, even begging, for God to fix me. I just knew that if God would take away my pride or my selfishness, if God would take away my junk I would be free. I even convinced myself that I wanted it so that I could “serve Him better.”

The past several weeks has been filled with God bringing a lot of my issues to the surface. I’ve been seeing more and more of the junk that comes with being human. I’ve been more aware than ever of my pride, my selfishness, my judgmental thoughts, etc… Through all of this I’ve been pleading with God to fix it. Take it away from me God.

Yet through all of this I heard God say, “Ryan, stop asking for adequacy, and ask for dependence.”

That is big for me. That goes against my years and years of striving to be good enough. As Christians we are offered and we offer steps: “14 Steps to a Better Marriage”, “11 Steps to Humility”, “26 Ways to Love Your Neighbors”, but in all of this we tend to neglect what Jesus truly called us to.

In John 5:19 Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Jesus got it. He knew that his power was in the Father. He knew that his life was in the Father. Here we are running around trying to do life on our own, and Jesus is walking in relationship, in restful intimacy with the Father. When I take time to look at my motives for asking God to rid me of my pride it becomes pretty clear to me that I was striving for adequacy, to be able to do it on my own.

Living a life of dependence on God is a lot harder than living by steps, rules, and regulations. As humans, we gravitate to formulas and cookie cutter rules. Sure it’s easy, but there is no life in it. There is no relationship in it.

One of my favorite quotes is in “Wild at Heart” by John Eldridge:

“The problem with modern Christianity’s obsession with principles is that it removes any real conversation with God. Find a principle, apply the principle—what do we need God for?”

God never intended us to live by right and wrong. He intended us to live dependent on Himself as Jesus did in intimate relationship. In a world where independence is freedom, God is calling us to new levels of freedom in utter dependence on Him.

I Need You More

In the past several weeks, God has been revealing that He is the ONLY source of joy and life. So many times I find myself making other things my source of joy. Whether it is my friends or my achievements, I seem to try and make my own joy. I don’t always enjoy God’s methods of teaching because it often involves stripping me of things that I rely on. Lately, it has been Him showing me that my friends won’t satisfy or fulfill my needs. As hard as that can be, it’s incredible because along with it He has been showing me that He does meet my needs, that He does satisfy.

About a week ago, I was listening to Kim Walker sing “I Need You More.” One section really caught my attention:

“I need You more, more than yesterday I need You Lord.
More than words can say I need You more.
Than ever before I need You Lord, I need You Lord.”

I need you more than yesterday. That’s so backwards from how I live. So many times the Christian life is a process of becoming more self-sustaining. We know how to sin less, we know how to teach our children, we know how to relate to our family, we serve more, we love better, and we are good Christians. If we’re honest with ourselves, isn’t that what we strive for? We strive for independence. We need God for salvation and then to teach us how to live, but it is a dwindling dependence on Him as He shows us more. We treat God like the parent raising His kids, gradually giving His kids more independence until they are ready to fly on their own.

That is so far from God’s heart. God’s desire is for us to become more and more dependent on Him because regardless of how many books we read, how many self-help classes we take, how often we read our Bible, we CANNOT live independent of Him. There is no life or love apart from Him. In our world, independence is freedom, but in God’s Kingdom there is true freedom in dependence.

God’s moving us away from independence towards dependence. Our society fights it, our flesh fights it, our mind fights it, but deep down our heart longs for it, our heart NEEDS it.

Life in the Garden

Several months ago I came upon a book that threatened to challenge my view of Christianity. I actually look for the books that challenge my beliefs about God, because often times that is where He brings growth in my relationship with Him. For example, The Shack has been very influential in shaping my view of God. For years and years I've heard about a God that loves me, but I hadn't ever seen a picture that applied it to me in a real way like The Shack did. It opened my mind and my heart to the possibility and reality that God is personable and that His heart for me is deeper and softer than I had ever imagined. The God I had viewed for so long as a gatekeeper deciding on people's eternity based on what their lives looked like became a God that wants to spend time with me where I'm at, in the midst of my junk, in the center of my disbelief, because He simply wants me.

All that to say, God speaks very powerfully to me through books. So when I stumbled upon another book that would likely bring a challenge to my views, I was pretty excited about it. I started on it as soon as I could get a hold of it and was quite impressed by a lot of what I was reading. Several chapters into the book I came upon a quote that challenged the very core of who I believed God was and what He wanted from me.

I read it several times through, looking for some sort of loophole to change what it actually said, but to no avail. In paraphrase it said: “The core of Christianity is not simply that God loves us, but that God loves us so that His glory, His name, and His gospel will be spread to all people.” There is something about that that appeals to me. It helps me to explain why God sent His son to save me. He wanted everyone to see how amazing He was. That makes more sense to me. That is something I can take hold of. So on the surface it appeals to me, it catches my eye and confirms a belief I've had about God, that He wants to use me and that is why He sent Jesus.

HOWEVER, that is not where the issue stopped. Deeper down, something didn't feel right. There was something about it that challenged a deep core belief that I had. It challenged the belief that God did everything simply because of love. The belief that I didn't owe Him anything. As I wrestled with this idea, God took me back to the garden, back to His heart for creation.

When God created Adam and Eve it was for relationship. God walked with them, talked with them, and had perfect relationship with Him. That was it. There was nothing else that God made them for. He didn't make them to name the animals, He could have done that. He didn't create them to take care of the earth, He could have done that. He didn't create them to spread His glory, His name, and His gospel to the nations. They were all people and they KNEW Him in a perfect relationship. His purpose for creating them was simply relationship. There weren't any strings attached, His love was everything. They didn't even know the difference between good and evil, they didn't need to because they walked in perfect intimacy with Him. As soon as they decided to step out of that perfect intimacy and “become like god” they broke that perfect relationship. Their sin changed the course of history and affected everyone that has lived since, it had that power. But sin has never had the power to change who God is.

The God who created Adam and Eve for relationship is the same one that we talk about and write about today. Somehow we've accepted a God that needs us to pay Him back for what He's done for us, and ignored the God that just wants to walk in relationship.

One of the hardest things to fathom is that God would just send Jesus because He wants relationship with us. There has to be some catch, some ulterior motive for God's love. In a society where “FREE” means you have to read the fine print, it's hard to fathom life in the garden. But that is where God is calling us back to. He wants to take us back to His heart, back to relationship.