I got this from an email a little while ago.
The Sparrow At Starbucks: The Song That Silenced The Cappuccino Machine
It was chilly in Manhattan but warm inside the Starbucks shop on 51st Street and Broadway, just a skip up from Times Square . Early November weather in New York City holds only the slightest hint of the bitter chill of late December and January, but it's enough to send the masses crowding indoors to vie for available space and warmth.
For a musician, it's the most lucrative Starbucks location in the world, I'm told, and consequently, the tips can be substantial if you play your tunes right. Apparently, we were striking all the right chords that night, because our basket was almost overflowing. It was a fun, low-pressure gig - I was playing keyboard and singing backup for my friend who also added rhythm with an arsenal of percussion instruments. We mostly did pop songs from the '40s to the '90s with a few original tunes thrown in. During our emotional rendition of the classic, "If You Don't Know Me by Now," I noticed a lady sitting in one of the lounge chairs across from me. She was swaying to the beat and singing along.
After the tune was over, she approached me. "I apologize for singing along on that song. Did it bother you?" she asked. "No," I replied. "We love it when the audience joins in. Would you like to sing up front on the next selection?"
To my delight, she accepted my invitation.. "You choose," I said. "What are you in the mood to sing?"
"Well. ... do you know any hymns?"
Hymns? This woman didn't know who she was dealing with. I cut my teeth on hymns. Before I was even born, I was going to church. I gave our guest singer a knowing look. "Name one."
"Oh, I don't know. There are so many good ones. You pick one."
"Okay," I replied. "How about 'His Eye is on the Sparrow'?"
My new friend was silent, her eyes averted. Then she fixed her eyes on mine again and said, "Yeah. Let's do that one." She slowly nodded her head, put down her purse, straightened her jacket and faced the center of the shop. With my two-bar setup, she began to sing.
Why should I be discouraged? Why should the shadows come?
The audience of coffee drinkers was transfixed. Even the gurgling noises of the cappuccino machine ceased as the employees stopped what they were doing to listen. The song rose to its conclusion.
I sing because I'm happy; I sing because I'm free. For His eye is on the sparrow And I know He watches me.
When the last note was sung, the applause crescendoed to a deafening roar that would have rivaled a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. Embarrassed, the woman tried to shout over the din, "Oh, y'all go back to your coffee! I didn't come in here to do a concert! I just came in here to get somethin' to drink, just like you!" But the ovation continued..
I embraced my new friend. "You, my dear, have made my whole year! That was beautiful!"
"Well, it's funny that you picked that particular hymn," she said.
"Why is that?"
"Well . .." she hesitated again, "that was my daughter's favorite song."
"Really!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," she said, and then grabbed my hands. By this time, the applause had subsided and it was business as usual.. "She was 16. She died of a brain tumor last week."
I said the first thing that found its way through my stunned silence. "Are you going to be okay?"
She smiled through tear-filled eyes and squeezed my hands. "I'm gonna be okay. I've just got to keep trusting the Lord and singing his songs, and everything's gonna be just fine." She picked up her bag, gave me her card, and then she was gone.
Was it just a coincidence that we happened to be singing in that particular coffee shop on that particular November night? Coincidence that this wonderful lady just happened to walk into that particular shop? Coincidence that of all the hymns to choose from, I just happened to pick the very hymn that was the favorite of her daughter, who had died just the week before? I refuse to believe it.
God has been arranging encounters in human history since the beginning of time, and it's no stretch for me to imagine that God could reach into a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan and turn an ordinary gig into a revival. It was a great reminder that if we keep trusting God and singing the songs, everything's gonna be okay.
The next time you feel like GOD can't use YOU, just remember...
Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
John the Baptist ate bugs
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer...
AND Lazarus was dead!
No more excuses now!! God can use you to your full potential. Besides you aren't the message, you are just the messenger.
Monday, January 31, 2011
daily java
Daily Java:
Putting up with other people is hard. People do a lot of stupid things to each other and sometimes it is just plain hard to forgive and forget.
Several years back, I worked with ex-inmates. In the church I had planted, I began a ministry called Real Freedom and even for a while had a half-way house of sorts called Grace Place.
The dynamic among ex-inmates is interesting. In general, they feel disenfranchised from society so they do not have many friends that are not like they are. The problem with this is that they are ex-inmates for a reason: they were inmates. And they were inmates because they had done something wrong and had been put in incarceration.
They were friends with each other. But the friendship was tenuous. Every once in a while, frustrations of life would explode and they would have a massive fight. The fight would be from several things: either one had taken advantage of the other and the others took sides, or they had just gotten angry with each other.
Whatever the case, they were no longer friends. For a while. Then one day, they would all decide to let bygones be bygones and they would all be “friends” again.
This was mainly due, not to their powers of forgiveness, but to the fact that they had no other friends. They were kind of stuck in their group.
As the church, we tried out best to break them of these habits and to learn to accept each other on a different level. Sometimes it worked, but mostly – due to inexperience on my part, I think – it didn’t. After a while, it just got too tiring. Add to that the fact that one of the leaders was lying to me and I turned out to be the only one who didn’t know it, and the work was destroyed.
I suppose that was in large part because I did not think like them. I did not have the same mindset.
And quite frankly, although I loved them and sacrificed a lot to help them, I do not want that mindset.
A lot of things have happened to us in the course of our almost 40 year ministry. And a lot of those are bad, unfortunately. It tends to warp your perspective.
But, on the other hand, I have always had a strong Pollyanna side to me. I tend to believe the best of people. I have known pastors and leaders who had gone so far into their ministries with people like this that have lost that side of their personalities. They become bitter after a while and begin to see the whole church in that light.
But the problem is that we are supposed to be a support group, helping each other, bearing with each other in love.
With all of the foolishness that we who consider ourselves holy get into, we have no right to be really put out with others when they make mistakes. We are supposed to be a community of love in the power and glory of Jesus.
That is what people need. A group that loves them in spite of their inadequacies, yet also expects them to get better. The church is a hospital, not a hospice where people come to die in their sins.
Let’s act like one.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2)“'Cause I need you more than I needed before and now where I'll find comfort, God knows. 'Cause you left me just when I needed you most.” the song made popular in the 70’s by Randy van Warmer went. I always thought that this was such a plaintive song, full of the sadness of being left because you made a mistake.
Putting up with other people is hard. People do a lot of stupid things to each other and sometimes it is just plain hard to forgive and forget.
Several years back, I worked with ex-inmates. In the church I had planted, I began a ministry called Real Freedom and even for a while had a half-way house of sorts called Grace Place.
The dynamic among ex-inmates is interesting. In general, they feel disenfranchised from society so they do not have many friends that are not like they are. The problem with this is that they are ex-inmates for a reason: they were inmates. And they were inmates because they had done something wrong and had been put in incarceration.
They were friends with each other. But the friendship was tenuous. Every once in a while, frustrations of life would explode and they would have a massive fight. The fight would be from several things: either one had taken advantage of the other and the others took sides, or they had just gotten angry with each other.
Whatever the case, they were no longer friends. For a while. Then one day, they would all decide to let bygones be bygones and they would all be “friends” again.
This was mainly due, not to their powers of forgiveness, but to the fact that they had no other friends. They were kind of stuck in their group.
As the church, we tried out best to break them of these habits and to learn to accept each other on a different level. Sometimes it worked, but mostly – due to inexperience on my part, I think – it didn’t. After a while, it just got too tiring. Add to that the fact that one of the leaders was lying to me and I turned out to be the only one who didn’t know it, and the work was destroyed.
I suppose that was in large part because I did not think like them. I did not have the same mindset.
And quite frankly, although I loved them and sacrificed a lot to help them, I do not want that mindset.
A lot of things have happened to us in the course of our almost 40 year ministry. And a lot of those are bad, unfortunately. It tends to warp your perspective.
But, on the other hand, I have always had a strong Pollyanna side to me. I tend to believe the best of people. I have known pastors and leaders who had gone so far into their ministries with people like this that have lost that side of their personalities. They become bitter after a while and begin to see the whole church in that light.
But the problem is that we are supposed to be a support group, helping each other, bearing with each other in love.
With all of the foolishness that we who consider ourselves holy get into, we have no right to be really put out with others when they make mistakes. We are supposed to be a community of love in the power and glory of Jesus.
That is what people need. A group that loves them in spite of their inadequacies, yet also expects them to get better. The church is a hospital, not a hospice where people come to die in their sins.
Let’s act like one.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
fasle gods in hidden places
Pay close attention to all my instructions. You must not call on the name of any other gods. Do not even speak their names. (Exodus 23:13)There seems to be a lot of interest in the mythic character cthulhu lately. Cartoons, hats in his representation, even Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series – all in his image. Cthulhu was a mythic god created by HP Lovecraft in his books. There even seem to be people claiming worship in his name.
A girl walked into my office one time dressed for church wearing a t shirt with a picture of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant headed god. I commented that it was a bad idea to wear a shirt with a false god in to worship the real God. The boy with her (my son - a kid great at pointing out my failings) pointed to a statue on my shelf that was of Zeus, the Greek god of thunder. He asked, how is it any different than that?
No answer. But it bothered me. Finally I put the bust in a box. Later I unpacked it and it had broken so that there was only a head left, without the appellation “Zeus” underneath. So I displayed it as a Greek statue held up on a stand.
But there was a good point there that I really hadn’t thought of. The statue of Zeus was in my study at the church. I studied my lessons and made my sermons in sight of a false god.
In Exodus 23, God told Moses that one of the rules for his people was to not call on the name of any other gods or to even speak their names.
In other words, total separation from the idolatrous world.
It is hard to get away from today the world is in love with images of false gods trying its level best to reduce the Lord of Hosts to just another deity. It is one of satan’s best efforts. And it seems to be working.
As far as I know, I do not have any more statues or artwork of false gods, nor will I.
Sometimes drastic measures are called for. In the culture of that time, false gods abounded. There were as many little gods as there were for the American Indians in the past few centuries. Teraphim (household idols) were abundant and people worshipped a god for just about every part of life. They would even carry around small representations of the idols with them for good luck. You can see them today in museums.
But God said, in his Ten Commandments, that there would be no graven images of him, nor would there be any other gods before him. In other words, he was it. And he would be carried in your heart, not your pocket.
Of course, Christians do their best to carry images. Crosses, angel pins, Bible verses, icons – none of which are necessarily bad in an of themselves, but when they become the totem instead of God being the God, they become wrong.
In fact, even your Bible can become a false god if you value it above your relationship with the Lord.
Not being fanatical here, but sometimes you have to be careful. God is the Lord.
Deuteronomy 6:4 Shema Yisraeil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, Israel. The Lord your God, the Lord is one.
daily java
Daily Java:
Which is of course, the point of the Bible reading, to think.
Don’t follow the crowd.
I had a friend who was an undercover narcotics officer in Houston, Texas. Stacey was his name. At one point several years back, he and several others were sent into the midst of a riot in Houston to try to defuse it. They were to supposed to kind of blend in and attempt to stop things from escalating from the inside.
The crowd got bigger and bigger and began to get that surge mobs get. He said he threw a brick through a window and suddenly realized, wait a minute. I am the police.
He told me that he got so caught up in the mob mentality that he just followed the crowd.
There was a gang rape of a young woman several years back. When they asked one of the young men why he had participated, he said that there was nothing else he could do at the time. Everybody else was doing it and so did he. He hated himself for it but he, at the time, seemed powerless to stop.
One of the ways crowds act is to automatically assume the poor person is in the right. A few years ago, there was a rape charge leveled by a young black prostitute against four or five young white men from affluent families. The media, the “civil rights” people, everybody jumped all over it. The university where the young men attended condemned them, the district attorney went out of his way to convict them.
Then it turned out to be false. No real apologies, nothing. The young men were convicted in the court of public opinion because they were well-off and the woman was poor.
Mobs work all kinds of ways. And almost always, when they do, they go in the wrong direction.
After all, the group that shouted for Jesus’ death was a mob. Just a week ago, they wanted to proclaim him as king and threw palm branches in front of him in honor, shouting Hosanna.
Now they were a mob. And in a month or so, they would repent. On the day of Pentecost 3000 repented and were brought into the kingdom of the king they screamed to be killed.
It is hard to be independent when everyone else is going a direction you don’t want to go.
When I was in 7th grade, a science teacher started to talk about evolution. He stopped and said, by the way, is there anyone in here who doesn’t believe in evolution? I, being the good Church of Christ boy that I was, raised my hand. No one else did. I knew full well these people didn’t, but, as seventh graders are wont to do, they were afraid to stand out.
The teacher said, okay, Johnny, explain why. I said never mind and lowered my hand. He pushed. Tell us why you don’t believe in evolution. I stood steadfast in my cowardice. There was no way Jose that I was going to do that in front of a bunch of people.
I remember that to this day. And I remember the teacher and his name. It has haunted me at times.
Of course, I was a child. If I had been 40 and a minister, it would have been different, but a child is afraid of looking different.
An odd thought just occurred to me. What if he had to teach that and wanted someone to refute it. My hand went up quickly because I did not and do not believe in evolution. What if I had said something? Would he have been grateful? Would another child have agreed with my strong polemic defense of creationism? Would the class have turned to God in grateful appreciation? Would unicorns have danced through the room?
I don’t know. Probably not. I may have been laughed at, but that is the worst thing that can happen to a seventh grader.
But I followed the crowd. God forgave me, of course.
I hope I don’t do it again.
You must not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you are called to testify in a dispute, do not be swayed by the crowd to twist justice. And do not slant your testimony in favor of a person just because that person is poor. (Exodus 23:2-3 NLT)I was reading my daily Bible reading this morning and came across this verse. At first glance, it seemed just normal. Then I got to thinking about it.
Which is of course, the point of the Bible reading, to think.
Don’t follow the crowd.
I had a friend who was an undercover narcotics officer in Houston, Texas. Stacey was his name. At one point several years back, he and several others were sent into the midst of a riot in Houston to try to defuse it. They were to supposed to kind of blend in and attempt to stop things from escalating from the inside.
The crowd got bigger and bigger and began to get that surge mobs get. He said he threw a brick through a window and suddenly realized, wait a minute. I am the police.
He told me that he got so caught up in the mob mentality that he just followed the crowd.
There was a gang rape of a young woman several years back. When they asked one of the young men why he had participated, he said that there was nothing else he could do at the time. Everybody else was doing it and so did he. He hated himself for it but he, at the time, seemed powerless to stop.
One of the ways crowds act is to automatically assume the poor person is in the right. A few years ago, there was a rape charge leveled by a young black prostitute against four or five young white men from affluent families. The media, the “civil rights” people, everybody jumped all over it. The university where the young men attended condemned them, the district attorney went out of his way to convict them.
Then it turned out to be false. No real apologies, nothing. The young men were convicted in the court of public opinion because they were well-off and the woman was poor.
Mobs work all kinds of ways. And almost always, when they do, they go in the wrong direction.
After all, the group that shouted for Jesus’ death was a mob. Just a week ago, they wanted to proclaim him as king and threw palm branches in front of him in honor, shouting Hosanna.
Now they were a mob. And in a month or so, they would repent. On the day of Pentecost 3000 repented and were brought into the kingdom of the king they screamed to be killed.
It is hard to be independent when everyone else is going a direction you don’t want to go.
When I was in 7th grade, a science teacher started to talk about evolution. He stopped and said, by the way, is there anyone in here who doesn’t believe in evolution? I, being the good Church of Christ boy that I was, raised my hand. No one else did. I knew full well these people didn’t, but, as seventh graders are wont to do, they were afraid to stand out.
The teacher said, okay, Johnny, explain why. I said never mind and lowered my hand. He pushed. Tell us why you don’t believe in evolution. I stood steadfast in my cowardice. There was no way Jose that I was going to do that in front of a bunch of people.
I remember that to this day. And I remember the teacher and his name. It has haunted me at times.
Of course, I was a child. If I had been 40 and a minister, it would have been different, but a child is afraid of looking different.
An odd thought just occurred to me. What if he had to teach that and wanted someone to refute it. My hand went up quickly because I did not and do not believe in evolution. What if I had said something? Would he have been grateful? Would another child have agreed with my strong polemic defense of creationism? Would the class have turned to God in grateful appreciation? Would unicorns have danced through the room?
I don’t know. Probably not. I may have been laughed at, but that is the worst thing that can happen to a seventh grader.
But I followed the crowd. God forgave me, of course.
I hope I don’t do it again.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
they don't need no stinkin' badges
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward. (Mark 9:38-41)Jesus had just finished telling the apostles that in order to be with him they had to undergo a transformation in spirit. They had to become servants. They had to become like children in their mindsets as to authority.
He also told them that position in the Kingdom did not depend on position in the church. Just because they were leaders or in charge did not mean they were particularly special in God’s sight.
But like humans are, then to now, they came up against someone who did not ask their opinion nor permission to do some stuff.
They had seen something that people have argued about since it was written down. There were some people doing things separate and apart from Jesus’ apostles and the apostles didn’t know about it until then.
Because they were apostles, the hand-picked successors to the Christ and anointed disseminators of his word, they felt umbrage over the mere fact that these people were allowed to work when they were not under their authority. Usurpers. Or at least in their minds.
Jesus told them to back off. Anyone who is doing things for Jesus and in his name cannot be against him.
Quite frankly, I do not understand this. And I do not believe anyone else does fully either. I have read about it, but the people who wrote the books advanced opinions and got a royalty check and do not understand it all that much either.
It seems that there were people who had locked into the knowledge of the power of Jesus and were casting out demons in his name. And evidently doing a good job of it.
Jesus told the apostles that simply because they had not received an official certificate or ordination from the “society” did not mean that they were not used by God.
Apollos was one of these. He was mentioned first in Acts 18 and spoke accurately about Jesus, had a great following and was doing a good job. His problem was he was lacking in knowledge. He didn’t know anything but the second chance baptism of John. He had never heard of the Spirit.
Yet he was winning souls to Jesus.
After he was taught the missing ingredient, he was even better. But the people he brought to Jesus were still firmly in Jesus and his grace.
Just because you do not like the way someone serves God doesn’t mean they do not serve God. Paul said in Romans 13:4, Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One who serves God, serves God. He is not dependent on your liking what he does or doesn’t do.
In other words, I do not have the right to enforce my “orthodoxy” on anyone. As this passage says, the Lord is able to make him stand.
I just do what I can and serve God.
the foursquare church called to participate in 21-day fast
The Foursquare Church Called to Participate in 21-Day Fast
by Glenn Burris, President of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
January 28, 2011 — Before He would preach a sermon or perform His first miracle, Jesus would be led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be confronted by the archenemy of heaven. Satan himself would make a valiant attempt at circumventing the earthly ministry of God’s Son. It would be an epic match of will and conviction. Jesus prevailed. He yielded not one inch to the evil one. That defining moment became the launching pad for three years of public ministry that changed the course of history. There were two things that Luke noted in his narrative. One, that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1) and second, that he was fasting (verse 2).
It has been said that fasting is the most powerful spiritual discipline because it strikes at the core of our flesh. When practiced, it diminishes the natural desires of the flesh and gives way for an acute focus on spiritual things. The target is a redirected hunger toward the things of God! In the Old Testament, God commanded Israel to observe several set times of fasting. For New Testament believers, fasting was neither commanded nor forbidden. While Christians were not required to fast, many practiced prayer and fasting regularly.
In most cases, a spiritual fast involves abstaining from food while focusing on prayer. This can mean refraining from snacks between meals, skipping one or two meals a day, abstaining only from certain foods, or a total fast from all foods for an entire day or longer. Spiritual fasting is not a way to earn God’s favor; rather it is to produce a transformation in us—a clearer, more focused attention and dependence on God. In Matthew 17:21, a reference is given to the place that fasting plays in spiritual deliverance.
We are calling The Foursquare Church to a 21-day fast from February 1-21, 2011. We believe that the season before us is critical. The door of opportunity is before us. The kingdom of darkness has been launching an all-out assault upon the church. Never have we witnessed such demeaning threats and assaults against the global church. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing…” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5, NKJV).
The choice of how you fast is a personal decision, but we are inviting you to join our movement in a collective fast to position ourselves as warriors during this season. We must contend with great courage and not shrink back from the threats of the evil one. This spiritual discipline enables us to engage this fast with divine insight and strength. The world needs us to link arms in a fight for their very souls. Let’s do it, together!
Here is a recommended list of daily prayer points (download available below). May the Lord give us grace for these days, and may we witness breakthrough on multiple fronts!
Daily Prayer Points
* Day 1: Pray for those in authority (global, national and local leaders).
* Day 2: Pray for the harvest (that the Lord of the Harvest will send laborers into the fields as 4 billion people have yet to proclaim Jesus as Savior).
* Day 3: Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the church (that a fresh Pentecost results in the release of an emerging generation).
* Day 4: Pray for strong global partnerships (that the Lord will give us a global strategy to reach the 100 nations that we have yet to penetrate).
* Day 5: Pray for healthy leaders (that the Lord will strengthen our leaders across the globe spiritually, physically and emotionally).
* Day 6: Pray for healthy churches (that the Lord will strengthen our churches with vibrant worship and anointed leadership).
* Day 7: Pray for church planting (that the Lord will revive our church planting nationally with healthy, reproducing churches).
* Day 8: Pray for Connection ‘11 (that the Lord will visit us in a dynamic way in Columbus, Ohio, and that we will leave with a renewed vision for reaching the world).
* Day 9: Pray for Asia (that the Lord will continue to give us breakthrough in this strategic region of the world).
* Day 10: Pray for Africa (that the Lord will give us breakthrough in the Muslim strongholds of North Africa).
* Day 11: Pray for the Middle East (that the Lord will give us kingdom strategies for reaching the lost in this very important region of the world).
* Day 12: Pray for the immigrant population (that the Lord will give us favor and grace concerning immigrants and that we will be moved with great compassion for them).
* Day 13: Pray for the Native Americans (that the Lord will kindle a revival among them and that we will be able to help serve God’s purposes among them).
* Day 14: Pray for Central and South America (that the Lord will continue the revival that He has begun and that it will flow over into the rest of their region and the world).
* Day 15: Pray for Europe (that the Lord will bring a new reformation among these countries that will spread like wildfire across the globe).
* Day 16: Pray for America (that the Lord will bring us back to the roots of our beginning of spiritual hunger and commitment).
* Day 17: Pray for our Bible colleges and institutes (that the Lord will use all of our educational and training centers to equip, encourage and release the next wave of pastors, church planters, worship, youth and children, evangelists, missionaries and other ministers).
* Day 18: Pray for our missionaries (that the Lord will provide all of their needs while strengthening the work of their ministry and giving them great favor and influence).
* Day 19: Pray for the marriages and families of our ministers (that the Lord will protect, heal, strengthen, supply and give hope to those who have answered the ministry call).
* Day 20: Pray for our central office and district staff (that the Lord will continue to strengthen, lead and fill with His Spirit).
* Day 21: Pray for unity and focus of mission for The Foursquare Church (that the Lord will speak to us clearly during these days of His will, purpose and plans).
daily java
Daily Java:
It is easy to try to jockey for position in any organization. That is pretty much normal. People want to be president and vice-president and leaders of all kinds.
The problems come when the desire to help in the organization, the desire to serve, to make a difference, takes a back seat to the desire for prominence.
The need for the badge is often greater than the need for the service.
As a Christian, though, we serve a servant. We are servant servers, assistant servants, if you will. We are, in the long run, far below one who came as a servant.
The context of the passage above is funny.
Then they started arguing. It could be that the other apostles were jealous of Peter, James and John. They would like to have seen it and it could very well be that the three bragged about it or at least hinted that it put them in a stronger spiritual state.
That happens a lot among church leaders. One has some kind of experience and the rest wish they did. Or one is a natural leader and another wishes he could be. Or one is the pastor of a church and another wishes he could be in charge. One is more spiritual and another wishes he cold be recognized as the spiritual one.
After a while, the desire to be in charge is so great that the one who wishes he was in charge will tear up the group rather than accept the leadership of the other.
Jesus turns to the apostles and asks what they were arguing about. They are too embarrassed to say because they realize they were acting like fools. Jesus pulls a child in front of them. They had a lot of people following Jesus besides the apostles. He says that you have to be like a child to be in the kingdom as a leader.
On the last day of his life with the apostles, they are having dinner. Jesus gets up and goes around washing the apostles’ feet, doing what is normally a servant task. When he finishes he tells them that they call him Lord, yet he is the servant.
To follow him, we put aside all desire for prominence and glory in position and we serve.
Position in the kingdom is not determined by position in the church. He is King and Lord and Leader. Before we can do anything of any real importance, we must first recognize that we are servants of a Servant.
He is the One who makes us great.
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35).Jesus came as a servant. Philippians 2 tells us that. And since he came as a servant, he calls on us, his followers to be a servant.
It is easy to try to jockey for position in any organization. That is pretty much normal. People want to be president and vice-president and leaders of all kinds.
The problems come when the desire to help in the organization, the desire to serve, to make a difference, takes a back seat to the desire for prominence.
The need for the badge is often greater than the need for the service.
As a Christian, though, we serve a servant. We are servant servers, assistant servants, if you will. We are, in the long run, far below one who came as a servant.
The context of the passage above is funny.
They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” (9:33-37)It wasn’t very long before this that Jesus had been transfigured before Peter, James and John. They had seen him in his glory appearing with Moses and Elijah. They had heard the voice of God say that Jesus was the one they were to worship. They had seen his power and his glory.
Then they started arguing. It could be that the other apostles were jealous of Peter, James and John. They would like to have seen it and it could very well be that the three bragged about it or at least hinted that it put them in a stronger spiritual state.
That happens a lot among church leaders. One has some kind of experience and the rest wish they did. Or one is a natural leader and another wishes he could be. Or one is the pastor of a church and another wishes he could be in charge. One is more spiritual and another wishes he cold be recognized as the spiritual one.
After a while, the desire to be in charge is so great that the one who wishes he was in charge will tear up the group rather than accept the leadership of the other.
Jesus turns to the apostles and asks what they were arguing about. They are too embarrassed to say because they realize they were acting like fools. Jesus pulls a child in front of them. They had a lot of people following Jesus besides the apostles. He says that you have to be like a child to be in the kingdom as a leader.
On the last day of his life with the apostles, they are having dinner. Jesus gets up and goes around washing the apostles’ feet, doing what is normally a servant task. When he finishes he tells them that they call him Lord, yet he is the servant.
To follow him, we put aside all desire for prominence and glory in position and we serve.
Position in the kingdom is not determined by position in the church. He is King and Lord and Leader. Before we can do anything of any real importance, we must first recognize that we are servants of a Servant.
He is the One who makes us great.
Friday, January 28, 2011
just imagine
Just imagine:
Unlocking doors; church interiors as public spaces in the city; worship installations staying up all the time; the local church building as an open-doored hangout; sofas, visuals, newspapers, books, food, drink; good coffee; ...plenty of places to plug in your laptop; opening hours 10am to midnight; spiritual resources and personal space available at all times; a place to work, rest and pray; the living room only bigger.
Rolling community – like the Cheers bar: as one set of characters leave another set arrive. All are connected by the bar staff [who themselves come and go] or one or two members who exchange groups. Everybody does some connecting in this way. The community is a network, not just a spoked wheel dependent on a few at the center.
said Pollyanna.
We actually had begun on this idea for a while and were even making plans to buy a storefront across the street from ours that had been a pet store. It had a group of apartments above where we would live. the bottom was 2 storefronts wide, one for a bookstore/coffee house (we were running a coffeehouse at the time) and the other as a worship facility. There were rooms at the back for a sound studio and counseling areas. But everything fell through.
It is one of those things that baffles you. Why did God give me the vision then yank it back? I may go to my grave wondering.
Unlocking doors; church interiors as public spaces in the city; worship installations staying up all the time; the local church building as an open-doored hangout; sofas, visuals, newspapers, books, food, drink; good coffee; ...plenty of places to plug in your laptop; opening hours 10am to midnight; spiritual resources and personal space available at all times; a place to work, rest and pray; the living room only bigger.
Rolling community – like the Cheers bar: as one set of characters leave another set arrive. All are connected by the bar staff [who themselves come and go] or one or two members who exchange groups. Everybody does some connecting in this way. The community is a network, not just a spoked wheel dependent on a few at the center.
said Pollyanna.
We actually had begun on this idea for a while and were even making plans to buy a storefront across the street from ours that had been a pet store. It had a group of apartments above where we would live. the bottom was 2 storefronts wide, one for a bookstore/coffee house (we were running a coffeehouse at the time) and the other as a worship facility. There were rooms at the back for a sound studio and counseling areas. But everything fell through.
It is one of those things that baffles you. Why did God give me the vision then yank it back? I may go to my grave wondering.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
daily java
Daily Java:
Politics are interesting, and the older I get, the more they interest me. I read more about them now than I ever have. That may be the influence of the internet, or it just may be a season of my life.
Whatever it is, I have found out one thing. In a hundred years, this will not matter.
In a hundred years, what will matter? Contemporary politics will be nothing more than a classroom study. That is provided the Lord allows the United States to continue. As silly as we are acting, he may not.
What will matter? Quite frankly, my relationship with my wife will matter. We have had children who will have children. And in a hundred years, there will be a lot of people on the earth who would not have been here had I not married Ella. And that matters, at least to me, a lot more than who wins the senate seat from Nebraska.
What will matter? Chief among all of the things that happen will be the ones who we have brought to Jesus and his grace. If I persevere, those I have brought to Christ will bring others and the church will be better for my having been in it. And that matters more than my family.
What will matter? In a hundred years, unless the Lord comes again, the church will still be here. No political pressure or triumph or support in history has ever stopped it nor ever will. That matters the most.
When we fight, we need to make sure that what we fight for is what is important. Yes, politics matter, to a point. But they are not the ends of the earth. Whether or not we get fast trains or use ethanol matters not a whit to those in other countries who are fighting for their very survival. It doesn’t matter to the Christians in Islamic countries who cannot even proclaim aloud their faith.
To them it is a big fat deal.
We love our country and want to make it better. We want to stop bad laws and elect good people. There are things we believe in that we can change through the electoral system.
But, as Christians, we do not fight against stuff. We fight against the devil and the forces of darkness.
That is what we need to remember. And he is neither Republican nor Democrat. He is evil and he wants you to join him in hell. And you need to remain in the grace of God, clothed in the armor of God, armed with a shield of faith, bringing others into the safety and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is what is important.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.(Ephesians 6:12)The political season is upon us and there is a battle royale being waged. The Democrats hate the Republicans and vice versa. And to both of them, the other is the anti-Christ, bent upon the destruction of the human race.
Politics are interesting, and the older I get, the more they interest me. I read more about them now than I ever have. That may be the influence of the internet, or it just may be a season of my life.
Whatever it is, I have found out one thing. In a hundred years, this will not matter.
In a hundred years, what will matter? Contemporary politics will be nothing more than a classroom study. That is provided the Lord allows the United States to continue. As silly as we are acting, he may not.
What will matter? Quite frankly, my relationship with my wife will matter. We have had children who will have children. And in a hundred years, there will be a lot of people on the earth who would not have been here had I not married Ella. And that matters, at least to me, a lot more than who wins the senate seat from Nebraska.
What will matter? Chief among all of the things that happen will be the ones who we have brought to Jesus and his grace. If I persevere, those I have brought to Christ will bring others and the church will be better for my having been in it. And that matters more than my family.
What will matter? In a hundred years, unless the Lord comes again, the church will still be here. No political pressure or triumph or support in history has ever stopped it nor ever will. That matters the most.
When we fight, we need to make sure that what we fight for is what is important. Yes, politics matter, to a point. But they are not the ends of the earth. Whether or not we get fast trains or use ethanol matters not a whit to those in other countries who are fighting for their very survival. It doesn’t matter to the Christians in Islamic countries who cannot even proclaim aloud their faith.
To them it is a big fat deal.
We love our country and want to make it better. We want to stop bad laws and elect good people. There are things we believe in that we can change through the electoral system.
But, as Christians, we do not fight against stuff. We fight against the devil and the forces of darkness.
That is what we need to remember. And he is neither Republican nor Democrat. He is evil and he wants you to join him in hell. And you need to remain in the grace of God, clothed in the armor of God, armed with a shield of faith, bringing others into the safety and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is what is important.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
why heal some but not others
Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his household believed. (John 4:46-53)It was odd to see the way that Jesus reacted to people. This was the holiest man who ever lived, yet he seemed to treat some people so brusquely.
The man, a royal official, asked Jesus for healing for his son. Jesus’ response? All you people want is to see miracles. The man asked again, please come before my child dies. Jesus then replies, your son will live.
Why did Jesus answer him this way? The man was worried sick over his son and how in the world he could get him to get better. He did something that went against every grain of his being. He went to see Jesus and petition a miracle.
Jesus brushed him off as another one of those who were always wanting to see a miracle. Or at least he seemed to.
I have read books that talked about that Jesus wanted to hear his faith, that Jesus was pushing the man to believe stronger. But I think those are all junk.
Why did Jesus talk like this to the man? It reminds you of the Gentile woman in Matthew 15 who went to Jesus to ask him to heal her demon possessed daughter. His response there? It isn’t right to throw the food that belongs to the children and throw it to the dogs. She replied: yes, but even the dogs get to eat the food that drops on the floor.
That touched Jesus. And he granted her request.
I believe that Jesus was not omnipotent. He didn’t know everything. When people came up to him, he didn’t necessarily know their condition. And he always had a million people around him asking for stuff night and day. He probably began brushing people off. After all, he didn’t come to heal, and he certainly was not going to be a sideshow magician. He came to save.
This man came up to Jesus and asked for healing for his son. To Jesus he looked like anyone else with yet another earth-shattering request for a miracle. “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe”
The man asked again and this time Jesus caught the urgent need. Come down before my child dies. I need you, Lord.
At this Jesus says, go. Your son will live.
The man had faith in Jesus already. Now he had strong faith when he found out that it was just as Jesus said. At the hour Jesus said that, his son was healed.
Jesus recognized that this man was the real deal. His request was not for himself or for some kind of gain. It was for his son who was sick.
But how many came up to Jesus to ask the same thing and Jesus didn’t. The last verse in the chapter says This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee. The first was changing the water to wine, the second was healing this man’s son. Yet Jesus had been traveling around by this time a fair amount.
What about all those other people? Did he not care about them?
When we pray, sometimes God answers, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he heals, sometimes he doesn’t.
Why in this instance and not in that? Why here and not there? Does God love him more than me? Am I just inconsequential in his sight?
The answer to these is no. But at the same time God loves us. He just doesn’t answer everybody.
Hard to take but true. But he is still God.
my book i am finally writing
Look over to the right and click on the first installment of my book Adult Bible Stories: the Life of Jesus (Chapter One). See what you think.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
daily java
Daily Java:
You look at what you do all day. You surf the net (a term you don’t hear as much anymore), you listen to music, you read stuff. Is any of it Godly stuff? Does any of the stuff you do glorify God?
If it doesn’t, there is no wonder you can’t keep your mind straight.
I mentioned before recently the old computer expression, GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. That means simply that if you program a computer badly, it will run badly.
In other terms, if you eat nothing but Twinkies and Little Debbie stuff, you will be soft and badly nourished. If you read nothing but porn, you will have problems. All of the work of God is undone by that.
It isn’t that he doesn’t want to help, it is that you have put so much in front of him that is not compatible with him that he cannot get through. He wants to, but there is this great big block of trash in front of him.
So what do you do? I knew a guy a few years ago that said he read nothing but the Bible. He never read newspapers or anything else. He didn’t care about current events or anything. He was an evangelist and he felt this made him more open to the word of God.
It may have, I don’t know. He didn’t seem any more open than anyone else, but at the same time, he may have recognized a failing in himself. He may have been afraid of how he would be if he allowed all the other into his mind.
In Romans 14, the apostle Paul talked about people who were afraid to do certain things.
Some people have a lot of trouble with things and they turn strongly away. Non-smokers have trouble even being in a room with a smoker. They remember the bondage and are afraid of it. Alcoholics that have reformed are afraid to even be around alcohol of any kind. Overeaters feel the same about buffets. Everybody needs to know their weaknesses. It is an admirable person who will realize his or her problem.
Jesus said that sometimes it takes major surgery to get rid of something. In Mark 9, he says:
But what you need to do is to think about things that are good. The more you fill your mind with trash, the more trashy your mind will be.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)You cannot seem to live right. You have all the wrong things in your mind and cannot seem to get any of the right things to stick. You are having a lot of trouble. Why?
You look at what you do all day. You surf the net (a term you don’t hear as much anymore), you listen to music, you read stuff. Is any of it Godly stuff? Does any of the stuff you do glorify God?
If it doesn’t, there is no wonder you can’t keep your mind straight.
I mentioned before recently the old computer expression, GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. That means simply that if you program a computer badly, it will run badly.
In other terms, if you eat nothing but Twinkies and Little Debbie stuff, you will be soft and badly nourished. If you read nothing but porn, you will have problems. All of the work of God is undone by that.
It isn’t that he doesn’t want to help, it is that you have put so much in front of him that is not compatible with him that he cannot get through. He wants to, but there is this great big block of trash in front of him.
So what do you do? I knew a guy a few years ago that said he read nothing but the Bible. He never read newspapers or anything else. He didn’t care about current events or anything. He was an evangelist and he felt this made him more open to the word of God.
It may have, I don’t know. He didn’t seem any more open than anyone else, but at the same time, he may have recognized a failing in himself. He may have been afraid of how he would be if he allowed all the other into his mind.
In Romans 14, the apostle Paul talked about people who were afraid to do certain things.
Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (14:1-4)He says to not argue about it among yourselves. Some can’t do certain things, some can. He says just shut up about it. We stand or fall according to the Lord’s power, anyway.
Some people have a lot of trouble with things and they turn strongly away. Non-smokers have trouble even being in a room with a smoker. They remember the bondage and are afraid of it. Alcoholics that have reformed are afraid to even be around alcohol of any kind. Overeaters feel the same about buffets. Everybody needs to know their weaknesses. It is an admirable person who will realize his or her problem.
Jesus said that sometimes it takes major surgery to get rid of something. In Mark 9, he says:
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell. (9:44-47)Strong medicine, stronger than I could handle, I think.
But what you need to do is to think about things that are good. The more you fill your mind with trash, the more trashy your mind will be.
Monday, January 24, 2011
daily java
Daily Java:
For 400 years, the Israelites had been slaves to the Egyptians. In a little over 400 years, they had gone from honored guests to pariahs and were currently being used to build the monolithic structures the ego-ridden Pharaohs wanted to be buried in.
Of course, Pharaoh was reluctant to lose them. They were, after all, his main source of cheap labor.
Then came Moses and Aaron. And with them, they brought the presence of the God of the Universe, the Great I Am, YHVH himself. And he wanted his people to leave.
At first it was just a request to go out into the desert to sacrifice. Pharaoh refused this. Then it was more and more. Pharaoh refused all of it.
His reaction was really strange. There would be a major plague – boils, locusts, hail, others – and he would say, just stop it and you can go. Then he would change his mind the minute it was stopped. Nine times he did this. And I do not understand why God kept doing it knowing he would refuse.
But he did. Verse 10 says that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Other verses say Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Which was it? Did God cause the problem or allow the problem to be caused.
God could have just sovreignly removed the Israelites from Egypt. But he didn’t. he let all this happen, knowing that Pharaoh would refuse all of it.
It wasn’t until the tenth plague, the big one, the death of the firstborn of all Egyptians, their slaves, and their cattle, that Pharaoh finally, in grief, said go.
Then, of course, he changed his mind again and his entire army was killed in the midst of a great miracle from God – the passage through the Red Sea.
The question is: does God harden hearts or does he just allow it?
He can soften hearts. He softened mine, along with many others I have known. He could have reached down and touched Pharaoh’s heart and made it right. But he didn’t. He allowed things to take their natural course.
Pharaoh was the kind of guy that refused to back down. Maybe he felt it an insult to his manhood, or a sign of weakness to step aside in the presence of a larger and stronger person. I have known people like that, and they regularly get beat up. Unless, of course, they have an army behind them and take over a small South American or African country.
Pharaoh saw his capitulation as weakness and refused. God saw it as it was, as rebellion, and pushed anyway. Of course, God won and the Israelites left Egypt.
Whether Pharaoh would cooperate or not, God was going to do what he was going to do. And that was that.
It was not God who put the thoughts into Pharaoh’s heart. It was Pharaoh. God just let Pharaoh do what he was going to do and let him accept the consequences.
You do not have to be like that.
The LORD had said to Moses, “Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.” Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country. (Exodus 11:9-10)Nine plagues had hit the nation of Egypt and their king, the Pharaoh had refused to let the Israelites go out of the land.
For 400 years, the Israelites had been slaves to the Egyptians. In a little over 400 years, they had gone from honored guests to pariahs and were currently being used to build the monolithic structures the ego-ridden Pharaohs wanted to be buried in.
Of course, Pharaoh was reluctant to lose them. They were, after all, his main source of cheap labor.
Then came Moses and Aaron. And with them, they brought the presence of the God of the Universe, the Great I Am, YHVH himself. And he wanted his people to leave.
At first it was just a request to go out into the desert to sacrifice. Pharaoh refused this. Then it was more and more. Pharaoh refused all of it.
His reaction was really strange. There would be a major plague – boils, locusts, hail, others – and he would say, just stop it and you can go. Then he would change his mind the minute it was stopped. Nine times he did this. And I do not understand why God kept doing it knowing he would refuse.
But he did. Verse 10 says that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Other verses say Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Which was it? Did God cause the problem or allow the problem to be caused.
God could have just sovreignly removed the Israelites from Egypt. But he didn’t. he let all this happen, knowing that Pharaoh would refuse all of it.
It wasn’t until the tenth plague, the big one, the death of the firstborn of all Egyptians, their slaves, and their cattle, that Pharaoh finally, in grief, said go.
Then, of course, he changed his mind again and his entire army was killed in the midst of a great miracle from God – the passage through the Red Sea.
The question is: does God harden hearts or does he just allow it?
He can soften hearts. He softened mine, along with many others I have known. He could have reached down and touched Pharaoh’s heart and made it right. But he didn’t. He allowed things to take their natural course.
Pharaoh was the kind of guy that refused to back down. Maybe he felt it an insult to his manhood, or a sign of weakness to step aside in the presence of a larger and stronger person. I have known people like that, and they regularly get beat up. Unless, of course, they have an army behind them and take over a small South American or African country.
Pharaoh saw his capitulation as weakness and refused. God saw it as it was, as rebellion, and pushed anyway. Of course, God won and the Israelites left Egypt.
Whether Pharaoh would cooperate or not, God was going to do what he was going to do. And that was that.
It was not God who put the thoughts into Pharaoh’s heart. It was Pharaoh. God just let Pharaoh do what he was going to do and let him accept the consequences.
You do not have to be like that.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
daily java
Daily Java (late):
When John the Baptizer saw Jesus and recognized who he was, he did something that was so unselfish and great-spirited: he sent his apostles, those men who were following him, away and told them to transfer their allegiance to Jesus.
John the Baptizer was an acetic, a man who believed in simple, plain living. It was said of him that he wore camel hair garments and ate locusts and wild honey. He did not believe in fancy things.
Jesus took John’s apostles, men who had followed an acetic for several months and took them immediately to a party where he made a lot of wine (John 2). Then he went straight from the party to the temple where he used a whip to drive out the men who were selling sacrifices and such.
On the one hand, he loved being with people and having a good time. On the other hand, he did not put up with trash.
And everywhere he went, those people, the ones who felt it their God-given right to tell everybody else how they were supposed to act, fought him. They picked apart his words, they analyzed his actions, they guessed his motives and they challenged him.
After a while, Jesus just got tired of it. In Matthew 15, he says leave them alone. They are blind and are trying to lead others around. They have not the slightest idea where they are going and what they are doing. People who follow them, he says, will both end up in a ditch.
Sometimes you just get tired of people constantly confronting you. Everything you do is injurious to them or their feelings. That modern word “hurtful”, one of the most wimpy words I have ever heard, is used. And it is used to make you feel bad.
The man of God does not feel bad when confronting foolishness or sin. He does it boldly, as Jesus did. If we really do what Jesus did (WWJD), we too will be bold in our proclamation no matter what others may think.
And we will not let others dictate how we do it.
Jesus surely didn’t. That is why they killed him. He just made them mad.
He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:13-14)There were times when Jesus just got tired of the people who were always coming against him. The religious leaders were constantly challenging Jesus at everything he did. It didn’t matter what he said, they had some objection. And for the most part, their objections were that he did not keep traditions. And, also, they were the ones setting the traditions. So Jesus was not obeying them.
When John the Baptizer saw Jesus and recognized who he was, he did something that was so unselfish and great-spirited: he sent his apostles, those men who were following him, away and told them to transfer their allegiance to Jesus.
John the Baptizer was an acetic, a man who believed in simple, plain living. It was said of him that he wore camel hair garments and ate locusts and wild honey. He did not believe in fancy things.
Jesus took John’s apostles, men who had followed an acetic for several months and took them immediately to a party where he made a lot of wine (John 2). Then he went straight from the party to the temple where he used a whip to drive out the men who were selling sacrifices and such.
On the one hand, he loved being with people and having a good time. On the other hand, he did not put up with trash.
And everywhere he went, those people, the ones who felt it their God-given right to tell everybody else how they were supposed to act, fought him. They picked apart his words, they analyzed his actions, they guessed his motives and they challenged him.
After a while, Jesus just got tired of it. In Matthew 15, he says leave them alone. They are blind and are trying to lead others around. They have not the slightest idea where they are going and what they are doing. People who follow them, he says, will both end up in a ditch.
Sometimes you just get tired of people constantly confronting you. Everything you do is injurious to them or their feelings. That modern word “hurtful”, one of the most wimpy words I have ever heard, is used. And it is used to make you feel bad.
The man of God does not feel bad when confronting foolishness or sin. He does it boldly, as Jesus did. If we really do what Jesus did (WWJD), we too will be bold in our proclamation no matter what others may think.
And we will not let others dictate how we do it.
Jesus surely didn’t. That is why they killed him. He just made them mad.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
jesus embarrasses his apostles by talking to a strange woman
BTW, this is my 500th article on here.
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” (John 4:27)
Jesus was always embarrassing his apostles. If he wasn’t at a party having a good time (John 2), he was whipping people out of the temple (also John 2). He refused at times to talk to the religious leaders, yet he would talk to people no one else liked.
In John 4, Jesus and the apostles are going from Judea in southern Israel back to Galilee in northern Israel. To do so without a lot of hassle, they had to go through Samaria. Most Jews, at least those who considered themselves holy anyway, would either go through Perea to the east across the Jordan or on a boat to the west in the Mediterranean Sea.
Samaria was considered to be the dregs of the Jews left after the Exile in Babylon. They had stayed in the land and intermarried with Canaanites and formed, at least what was to the strict Jewish mind, a mongrel race. The Jews wanted nothing to do with them and would go great lengths out of their way to get away from them.
Jesus, on the other hand, being for the most part a sensible person, saw two things. One was that it was a long ways around and he was ready to get back home. The other was that Jesus never turned from anyone, no matter what other people thought of them.
Witness Matthew, a tax collector, who Jesus took into his inner circle of apostles. Everybody who was normal hated tax collectors, except for Jesus. In fact one of the charges leveled against him was that he was a glutton and a wine-bibber, one who welcomes sinners and eats with them (Luke 15:2). Not a very reputable person.
So Jesus goes through Samaria. They get to Sychar, near Jacob’s well, and Jesus sits down for a while. The apostles are forced by necessity to go into town, a place they do not want to be, to get some food.
As Jesus is sitting at the well, a woman comes up. She is a fringe person, a five time divorcee who is currently living with a man, a woman who is morally unacceptable to most, and is used to being shunned at the well. No doubt that is why she was here in mid-day instead of the morning when most came.
Jesus talks to her though. “May I have something to drink?” he asks her, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She is surprised that he, a Jewish man would talk to her, a Samaritan woman. Male/female conversations among the strictly orthodox were not common and most Jews would eat dirt before talking to a Samaritan.
She is understandably surprised. And more so when he tells her he has living water. Living water that will keep a person from being thirsty. She figures that if she had that, she wouldn’t even have to come to the well.
He asks her to bring her husband. She bats her eyes softly and says I have no husband. Jesus says, you said that right. You have had five and are living with someone you are not married to now.
After this, she figures out that he is a rabbi, so she asks him one of these “great theological” questions people ask preachers to get their attention off them and their problems: where do we worship? Here or in Jerusalem.
Jesus says to her that worship is not in a place, it is in one’s heart.
Then he says something to this woman that he says to few people. She says they are looking for the Messiah, and he says I am he.
She runs back and gets her whole town and brings them and they become believers.
In the meantime, Jesus’ apostles come back and there he is talking to a woman. They are so embarrassed but say nothing. They know it will do no good to say anything.
They offer him something to eat, but his flow is going. He is not hungry. He also says that other things fill him, that he has other food. They look around for someone else who has fed him, but Jesus says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
But Jesus says to them, as the townspeople approach, there is the real job, to harvest them.
Jesus talked to anyone. He brought anyone to the Lord, no matter who they were or their station in society. And it did not matter one whit to him what the people who had already accepted him or considered themselves to be mature thought about it.
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” (John 4:27)
Jesus was always embarrassing his apostles. If he wasn’t at a party having a good time (John 2), he was whipping people out of the temple (also John 2). He refused at times to talk to the religious leaders, yet he would talk to people no one else liked.
In John 4, Jesus and the apostles are going from Judea in southern Israel back to Galilee in northern Israel. To do so without a lot of hassle, they had to go through Samaria. Most Jews, at least those who considered themselves holy anyway, would either go through Perea to the east across the Jordan or on a boat to the west in the Mediterranean Sea.
Samaria was considered to be the dregs of the Jews left after the Exile in Babylon. They had stayed in the land and intermarried with Canaanites and formed, at least what was to the strict Jewish mind, a mongrel race. The Jews wanted nothing to do with them and would go great lengths out of their way to get away from them.
Jesus, on the other hand, being for the most part a sensible person, saw two things. One was that it was a long ways around and he was ready to get back home. The other was that Jesus never turned from anyone, no matter what other people thought of them.
Witness Matthew, a tax collector, who Jesus took into his inner circle of apostles. Everybody who was normal hated tax collectors, except for Jesus. In fact one of the charges leveled against him was that he was a glutton and a wine-bibber, one who welcomes sinners and eats with them (Luke 15:2). Not a very reputable person.
So Jesus goes through Samaria. They get to Sychar, near Jacob’s well, and Jesus sits down for a while. The apostles are forced by necessity to go into town, a place they do not want to be, to get some food.
As Jesus is sitting at the well, a woman comes up. She is a fringe person, a five time divorcee who is currently living with a man, a woman who is morally unacceptable to most, and is used to being shunned at the well. No doubt that is why she was here in mid-day instead of the morning when most came.
Jesus talks to her though. “May I have something to drink?” he asks her, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She is surprised that he, a Jewish man would talk to her, a Samaritan woman. Male/female conversations among the strictly orthodox were not common and most Jews would eat dirt before talking to a Samaritan.
She is understandably surprised. And more so when he tells her he has living water. Living water that will keep a person from being thirsty. She figures that if she had that, she wouldn’t even have to come to the well.
He asks her to bring her husband. She bats her eyes softly and says I have no husband. Jesus says, you said that right. You have had five and are living with someone you are not married to now.
After this, she figures out that he is a rabbi, so she asks him one of these “great theological” questions people ask preachers to get their attention off them and their problems: where do we worship? Here or in Jerusalem.
Jesus says to her that worship is not in a place, it is in one’s heart.
Then he says something to this woman that he says to few people. She says they are looking for the Messiah, and he says I am he.
She runs back and gets her whole town and brings them and they become believers.
In the meantime, Jesus’ apostles come back and there he is talking to a woman. They are so embarrassed but say nothing. They know it will do no good to say anything.
They offer him something to eat, but his flow is going. He is not hungry. He also says that other things fill him, that he has other food. They look around for someone else who has fed him, but Jesus says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
But Jesus says to them, as the townspeople approach, there is the real job, to harvest them.
Jesus talked to anyone. He brought anyone to the Lord, no matter who they were or their station in society. And it did not matter one whit to him what the people who had already accepted him or considered themselves to be mature thought about it.
moses as a leader
Moses returned to the LORD and said, “O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” (Exodus 5:22-23)You feel the Lord has told you to do something and that you have his blessing. Then when you do it, everything falls apart and the people you have gone to to do this “great thing the Lord told you to do” are mad and wish you had never come. “We were fine until you came,” they say.
And you wonder why. Why did the Lord tell you to do this and then it just explodes in your face?
God came to Moses and told him to lead his people out of Egypt where they were currently slaves. Moses didn’t want to in the first place and tried everything he could think of to change God’s mind. Finally Genesis 4 records God becoming angry at Moses for his stalling. Just go and do it, God says.
Moses does and makes things worse for the Israelites by his proclaiming the Lord’s deliverance. Their response to his God-inspired help: “May the LORD look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” (5:21).
It is no wonder why Moses says to God, why? Did you send me here just to cause trouble?
It doesn’t say so in the text, but it appears that Moses and Aaron had been there for a while, maybe even for a couple of years. They could not have caused the unrest they did by just walking into town and getting motel rooms. By now they should have been building a group of people ready to go. But his talking has evidently caused enough unrest that Pharaoh personally intervened.
And Moses looked like a jerk. And he wasn’t happy, his people were not happy and Pharaoh sure wasn’t happy to have his production halted.
Sooner or later it turned out well. Moses spoke to Pharaoh, Pharaoh needed some verification and there were the ten plagues. The Israelites left, Pharaoh changed his mind and his soldiers were killed and the Israelites came to their promised land through a series of major divine interventions.
One of the bad things about all this was no matter how hard Moses worked, his people never really appreciated him. They venerated him, they almost worshiped him, they were scared to death of him; but at every opportunity they complained about the way he was leading them.
As far as they were concerned, he couldn’t do anything right.
We see him, and history sees him as a great and God-inspired leader. He is universally recognized as one who was great. Yet his own people had nothing but complaints about him.
There are things that you feel strongly that God has called you to do, yet they never work out. It seems like there has been all but an angel with a flaming bulletin given you to do something. Yet it ends badly.
And the people to whom you came with such high hopes are angry because you changed their situation.
Not long after Moses began his leadership, he faced a serious leadership opposition effort. God dealt with it by removing the people involved. In this case, by death.
Then Moses was left with the ones who, if not committed to him, were at least resigned to him as their leader.
In many ways, Moses died thinking he hadn’t done some of the right things. Here was the best man who ever lived. Deuteronomy 34:10-12 says, Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
But he had nothing but trouble, he led a congregation for forty years to where God wanted them and for his trouble heard nothing but whining and griping.
Just because you are in the will of the Lord does not mean that it will be a bed or roses. Sometimes, what you get most of is the thorns.
daily java
Daily Java:
How many times did you gripe because you didn’t have something and your parents, maybe, or someone else would say, Well, you never asked for it.
Self-reliance only goes so far we need to let God and to let others know when there is a need.
On the other hand, God is not an order-taker. No matter what some say, he does not stand at a counter just waiting for you to “claim your miracle.” He wants you to have the best and all, but it is not necessarily in his will for you to have a rich lifestyle.
And sometimes it is not in his will for you to have healing, no matter who many times you ask.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul said that he had received a tremendous gift from God. Jesus had appeared to him and taught him things that no one is permitted to tell.
But there was a price to pay. Paul was sick in some way. He said, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (12:7-9)
Paul needed but God did not give. I do not know why, except to think that maybe Paul would have been arrogant to have been so blessed by God if he did not have something to remember that it was God at work in him. The Lord wanted him to know that it was God who had given him this stuff because he needed him for a work. It was not Paul who got it because he was so great.
The Lord gives us the opportunity to tell him our needs and loves us enough to listen. But he does not necessarily give it to us. It depends on what his will is.
That is a paradox. He says on the one hand, if you need something ask. On the other hand he says, when we ask, no.
It is his will that he works and pursues. He loves us and wants to hear what we want or need. But at the same time, he is God and will do what he needs to do.
When he turns you down, remember the love he has for you.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8).Many times we do not have something simply because we have never asked for it.
How many times did you gripe because you didn’t have something and your parents, maybe, or someone else would say, Well, you never asked for it.
Self-reliance only goes so far we need to let God and to let others know when there is a need.
On the other hand, God is not an order-taker. No matter what some say, he does not stand at a counter just waiting for you to “claim your miracle.” He wants you to have the best and all, but it is not necessarily in his will for you to have a rich lifestyle.
And sometimes it is not in his will for you to have healing, no matter who many times you ask.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul said that he had received a tremendous gift from God. Jesus had appeared to him and taught him things that no one is permitted to tell.
But there was a price to pay. Paul was sick in some way. He said, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (12:7-9)
Paul needed but God did not give. I do not know why, except to think that maybe Paul would have been arrogant to have been so blessed by God if he did not have something to remember that it was God at work in him. The Lord wanted him to know that it was God who had given him this stuff because he needed him for a work. It was not Paul who got it because he was so great.
The Lord gives us the opportunity to tell him our needs and loves us enough to listen. But he does not necessarily give it to us. It depends on what his will is.
That is a paradox. He says on the one hand, if you need something ask. On the other hand he says, when we ask, no.
It is his will that he works and pursues. He loves us and wants to hear what we want or need. But at the same time, he is God and will do what he needs to do.
When he turns you down, remember the love he has for you.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
a governor proclaims his christianity
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)I was reading an article in which the governor of Alabama is taken to task for saying that he was a brother only to Christians. And that he wanted people to become his brother and sister.
I first read of this in an article written by a Jewish woman who felt she had to comfort all of her neighbors (she lives in Turkey, a predominately Moslem country) and let them know that all Americans didn’t feel this way. She felt he had done wrong by stating his beliefs so openly in public.
I read it then in another couple of places. The upshot of the complaint was how dare he say what he thinks about religion.
In other words, shut up speaking the truth. You might hurt someone’s feelings.
Of course, if you believe the Bible, and if you believe that God is real and that he sent his Son Jesus to die for our sins – if you believe all this, he is right. If you don’t, then what is the point of claiming any kind of Christianity? Just go ahead and sell your soul to the Moslems or the Buddhists or someone else.
Jesus said, He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters (Matthew 12:30). You are either with him and believe what you are doing is right, or you are not.
That is a hard line approach that many do not feel comfortable with. It is a shame that they do not, but it is no less the truth. The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:16: To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?
To those outside the kingdom, death is seen. The fact that there are limits to our lives, or that the limits are not those we want, or that they are different from others, especially those we fear – that all drives the desire to shut those who believe what they are saying up. They see death in what should be seen as life.
To us, those who believe, it is the fragrance of life. We have life in Jesus. In fact, he says we have abundant life. Jesus said: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10).
He came to make us live. The devil doesn’t want that. It is no wonder that his name is satan (the opposer, the adversary).
He does everything in his power to stop it, including making a world that is so “diverse” that Christianity has a tough time existing. The only people in this “culturally diverse” world who cannot say what they believe are the Christians.
That is because of the simple fact that they are the only ones who really have the truth. As long as the devil can keep everyone worrying about other religions’ feelings, he feels he can water down the truth and by so doing, stamp it out. Under that plan, it will become nothing more than one of many ways to God.
But it isn’t. it is the true way, the only way to God. All the rest are smoke and mirrors.
You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free (John 8:32).
It took a lot of courage for Governor Bentley in Alabama to say that. I hope he doesn’t waffle on it. And, quite frankly, and I do not intend to be mean here, but it does not matter what a Jewish columnist in Turkey thinks about it.
It is still true.
daily java
Daily Java:
The Old Testament patriarch Jacob, who later became Israel, had two wives, Rachel and Leah. He wanted Rachel to begin with but was tricked into marrying Leah, too. He never really loved her and she knew it. She was the one to have children first and when she did she would say, now maybe my husband will love me (Genesis 29:32).
When Rachel finally started having children, they were Jacob’s favorites. But Rachel died in childbirth with Benjamin, her second, and was buried along the road.
When Leah died, they were where they meant to be and she was buried in the ancestral tomb. That was where the old man Jacob wanted to be buried.
The irony of it all is that Leah finally won. When Jacob died, he went to lie beside her for eternity, so to speak. Rachel was buried somewhere with a big pile of rocks. Leah got Jacob in the end all to herself.
Life is strange. And it never goes like you think it should. You plan like a madman for something, then whap! Something else happens. All of your planning is up in smoke.
Then again, you do some little trivial thing and it turns out to be momentous.
Twice in my life I have sent out a boatload of resumes for positions in churches (this was before the Foursquare Church). And twice, a position I wanted came up out of the blue.
I walked into a bowling alley in 1969 and there was my wife. I got a letter from a friend in 1974 encouraging me to apply for a position as youth minister at a small town in West Texas and I realized and accepted the call and went to seminary. I walked into a church building in a moment of despair and made a good friend.
The things I thought were important to begin with, I hardly ever pay attention to.
Leah never dreamed she would end up with Jacob by herself with his full attention, again so to speak. But there she was in the tomb. And Rachel was not there to steal her husband’s heart.
There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. (Genesis 49:31)Things never turn out like you think.
The Old Testament patriarch Jacob, who later became Israel, had two wives, Rachel and Leah. He wanted Rachel to begin with but was tricked into marrying Leah, too. He never really loved her and she knew it. She was the one to have children first and when she did she would say, now maybe my husband will love me (Genesis 29:32).
When Rachel finally started having children, they were Jacob’s favorites. But Rachel died in childbirth with Benjamin, her second, and was buried along the road.
When Leah died, they were where they meant to be and she was buried in the ancestral tomb. That was where the old man Jacob wanted to be buried.
The irony of it all is that Leah finally won. When Jacob died, he went to lie beside her for eternity, so to speak. Rachel was buried somewhere with a big pile of rocks. Leah got Jacob in the end all to herself.
Life is strange. And it never goes like you think it should. You plan like a madman for something, then whap! Something else happens. All of your planning is up in smoke.
Then again, you do some little trivial thing and it turns out to be momentous.
Twice in my life I have sent out a boatload of resumes for positions in churches (this was before the Foursquare Church). And twice, a position I wanted came up out of the blue.
I walked into a bowling alley in 1969 and there was my wife. I got a letter from a friend in 1974 encouraging me to apply for a position as youth minister at a small town in West Texas and I realized and accepted the call and went to seminary. I walked into a church building in a moment of despair and made a good friend.
The things I thought were important to begin with, I hardly ever pay attention to.
Leah never dreamed she would end up with Jacob by herself with his full attention, again so to speak. But there she was in the tomb. And Rachel was not there to steal her husband’s heart.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
daily java
Daily Java:
There is nothing wrong with being recognized for what you do. That is part of the spurring one another on to love and good deeds that Hebrews 10:23 talks about. It is a hard thing to work in something for a long time and have no one appreciate what you do.
But, on the other hand – which is what I considered naming this blog, because there is always an other hand – doing what you do for recognition removes all of the holiness out of it. When you have to be publicly acknowledged as pastor, or elder, or teacher, you are wrong.
Jesus said of the teachers and preachers of his day, They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:6-12).
They lost the point of what they did – teaching the love of God – and kept the position.
In 1 Timothy 6:4-5, the apostle Paul says that someone who is concerned about getting credit and honor are wrong. In fact he says that he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
He goes on to say in the next verse, Godliness with contentment is great gain.
I could never understand how a person can tear a church up when he doesn’t get his own way. Even after leaving, his jihad continues and he tries his best to poison the well.
A true servant of Jesus works for Jesus, not the position. It doesn’t matter that he or she doesn’t have a title. They have a ministry.
I was at a church recently that had a sign on the bulletin board that said that they wanted the people coming there to come looking for a ministry, a service, not a title. If you come looking for glory in recognition, we do not need you. If you come looking for glory in service, that is different.
In 1 Timothy 2, Paul says about leaders, If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. In other words, if you desire to be a leader, you desire something really good.
However, if you are coming to gain a title and an office, you come to the wrong place.
In the church I grew up in, many felt one of the qualifications in the 1 Timothy 3 passage of being an elder was the fact that he desired it. In fact, one man was turned down once because of the simple fact that no one had ever heard him comment that he would like to be an elder.
I have found out through my life that the men and women who talk about leading and who campaign for leader position are the very ones I do not want as leaders. Too many times they are not looking for the service, they are looking for the badge of office and the honor that they feel should go with it.
A leader is one who is already leading. Some of the best leaders I have ever known were men who were almost literally drafted into the job. They took it our of need and desire to serve rather than for the honor.
Jesus gave up Godhood to become a man. He will not put that Godhood on again, according to 1 Corinthians 15, until he comes again and conquers death for all humanity.
That is service. 1 John 3:16 says, This is how we know the love of Christ, that he laid down his life for the brothers. And you ought to lay down your lives, too.
I want to be like Jesus.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)I have known a lot of people who could not function in a church setting unless they had a title. In fact, they have to be in charge or they will split the church over it.
There is nothing wrong with being recognized for what you do. That is part of the spurring one another on to love and good deeds that Hebrews 10:23 talks about. It is a hard thing to work in something for a long time and have no one appreciate what you do.
But, on the other hand – which is what I considered naming this blog, because there is always an other hand – doing what you do for recognition removes all of the holiness out of it. When you have to be publicly acknowledged as pastor, or elder, or teacher, you are wrong.
Jesus said of the teachers and preachers of his day, They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:6-12).
They lost the point of what they did – teaching the love of God – and kept the position.
In 1 Timothy 6:4-5, the apostle Paul says that someone who is concerned about getting credit and honor are wrong. In fact he says that he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
He goes on to say in the next verse, Godliness with contentment is great gain.
I could never understand how a person can tear a church up when he doesn’t get his own way. Even after leaving, his jihad continues and he tries his best to poison the well.
A true servant of Jesus works for Jesus, not the position. It doesn’t matter that he or she doesn’t have a title. They have a ministry.
I was at a church recently that had a sign on the bulletin board that said that they wanted the people coming there to come looking for a ministry, a service, not a title. If you come looking for glory in recognition, we do not need you. If you come looking for glory in service, that is different.
In 1 Timothy 2, Paul says about leaders, If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. In other words, if you desire to be a leader, you desire something really good.
However, if you are coming to gain a title and an office, you come to the wrong place.
In the church I grew up in, many felt one of the qualifications in the 1 Timothy 3 passage of being an elder was the fact that he desired it. In fact, one man was turned down once because of the simple fact that no one had ever heard him comment that he would like to be an elder.
I have found out through my life that the men and women who talk about leading and who campaign for leader position are the very ones I do not want as leaders. Too many times they are not looking for the service, they are looking for the badge of office and the honor that they feel should go with it.
A leader is one who is already leading. Some of the best leaders I have ever known were men who were almost literally drafted into the job. They took it our of need and desire to serve rather than for the honor.
Jesus gave up Godhood to become a man. He will not put that Godhood on again, according to 1 Corinthians 15, until he comes again and conquers death for all humanity.
That is service. 1 John 3:16 says, This is how we know the love of Christ, that he laid down his life for the brothers. And you ought to lay down your lives, too.
I want to be like Jesus.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
bringing us to glory - more thoughts on the book of hebrews
In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Hebrews 2:10-11)
When it really comes down to it, the desire of God to bring us to glory was greater than his love even for his Son.
In order to bring us back to him, he had to give up something. That something was Jesus. He gave Jesus’ ability so that we could have the ability to come before him and be part of him.
Without Jesus’ ability, we have no ability. For us to have power, Jesus had to give us his through his life, and resurrection.
Since we suffer, Jesus had to suffer; since we die, Jesus had to die; since we sweat and are hot and dirty, Jesus had to sweat and be hot and dirty.
Since he is the author of our salvation, he had to tailor the salvation to us, his people. He couldn’t give us a half-way salvation, but had to come all the way to life and finally death, just like everybody else.
Sometimes you want something so hard that you have to give up something you love for it. In education, you have to give up time and money to get what you want.
In marriage, you have to give up your freedom to be alone and a certain degree of personal autonomy. In having children, you give up the ability to do whatever you want for several years. In being a Christian, you give up your control over your life. God gave up Jesus just to get us.
So the one who makes men holy (Jesus through the power of God) and those who are made holy (us) are of the same family: we all lived, sweated, worked and died, both us and Jesus.
It makes it a little easier to know that God knows, through Jesus what we are going through. God is so good, and we are not. We cannot touch him.
However, Jesus came and lived and died sinlessly. We can touch him. And since he was sinless, he can touch God.
He is like a transformer that brings us into contact with the awesome current of God without our being fried by his sheer goodness.
He knows how hard it is. And he loves you anyway.
When it really comes down to it, the desire of God to bring us to glory was greater than his love even for his Son.
In order to bring us back to him, he had to give up something. That something was Jesus. He gave Jesus’ ability so that we could have the ability to come before him and be part of him.
Without Jesus’ ability, we have no ability. For us to have power, Jesus had to give us his through his life, and resurrection.
Since we suffer, Jesus had to suffer; since we die, Jesus had to die; since we sweat and are hot and dirty, Jesus had to sweat and be hot and dirty.
Since he is the author of our salvation, he had to tailor the salvation to us, his people. He couldn’t give us a half-way salvation, but had to come all the way to life and finally death, just like everybody else.
Sometimes you want something so hard that you have to give up something you love for it. In education, you have to give up time and money to get what you want.
In marriage, you have to give up your freedom to be alone and a certain degree of personal autonomy. In having children, you give up the ability to do whatever you want for several years. In being a Christian, you give up your control over your life. God gave up Jesus just to get us.
So the one who makes men holy (Jesus through the power of God) and those who are made holy (us) are of the same family: we all lived, sweated, worked and died, both us and Jesus.
It makes it a little easier to know that God knows, through Jesus what we are going through. God is so good, and we are not. We cannot touch him.
However, Jesus came and lived and died sinlessly. We can touch him. And since he was sinless, he can touch God.
He is like a transformer that brings us into contact with the awesome current of God without our being fried by his sheer goodness.
He knows how hard it is. And he loves you anyway.
living and active - more thoughts on the book of hebrews
It is always interesting when you are preaching and someone in the audience gets mad at something you said. After the sermon, they come to you and say, “I am mad at you! I didn’t appreciate your talking about things in my life publicly.”
You, of course, are taken aback. You may not even know who they are, or if you do, you weren’t talking about them. However, they took what you said to heart.
The scripture you read and the application judged the thoughts and applications of their hearts and they didn’t like it.
That is a problem with preaching. If you are preaching the Word, everything you say fits someone.
People who are aware of God working within their lives know that and they know that occasionally things will be said that will fit them.
I have been to churches where I knew no one knew me, yet the preacher says something that goes right to my soul. You feel like running away, but you don’t. The preacher doesn’t know you or that you are there, but God does; and if one is in God and desires the heart of God, God will move into his or her heart and judge.
Real preaching can be life-changing if people will respond. The problem is that they do not. They figure it is for someone else, or ignore the still small voice of God in their own hearts, or just refuse to change.
When they do time after time, it becomes like the boot I had with a nail in the bottom sticking up into my foot. After a while I didn't notice it. One day I took off my boot and there was a very small, round, perfectly formed callous on the bottom of my foot where that nail had been poking me. I no longer felt it because I had worked to not feel it by forming a callous. The nail was still sharp, but my foot had become dull.
The two sided blade is handy also. You can hack and hack and hack in your fighting of evil, and if the blade gets dull, you turn it over and there is a new blade ready to hack again. Kind of like those old razor blades.
The weapon of our warfare is never dull and is never useless, as long as we keep it sharp within our lives.
Of course, even dull preaching can hit home. I did cut myself one time on a butter knife, but you do kind of have to work at that. It is a shame that so many preachers use such dull equipment, never sharpening or learning their weapons.
I suppose that you can hurt a person in combat by throwing a rifle at them, throwing it just right, hitting them in the head. But what a stupid way to use a rifle.
In the same way, a bad preacher can show someone something good by bad and ill-informed preaching and study, but what better stuff could he do if he had good equipment and good preparation.
you can run but you can't hide - more thoughts from the book of hebrews
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13)
Jonah figured this out early. You can run but you cannot hide. God not only sees where you are and he also sees who you are.
A Christian can pretend he is something good when he isn’t, and the only one he is fooling is himself (maybe).
1 John says that if we say we have no sin we lie and the truth is not in us. Not the truth is not known by God, because it is. He truly sees our hearts.
The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked, who can know it. I the Lord know the heart, I know the mind (Jeremiah 17:9ff - my own translation). God knows us even when we refuse to know ourselves.
The amazing thing in all this is even though he knows us, he loves us with an everlasting love. Just like you will love your children even when they act stupid, God will love us anyway.
My wife is one of those rare creatures who loves her husband with an unqualified love. It would be interesting (from a purely academic viewpoint, of course – not first hand) to see what would make her stop loving me. She would love me if I were in the gutter, she would love me if I were wealthy, she would love me anyway.
And the same goes for me. However, if I had to admit it, my love for her stands short next to her love for me. She is that kind of woman. I know that she loves me.
In the same way, I know that God loves me, even when I am short of his expectations. He knows us, yet he loves us.
Jonah figured this out early. You can run but you cannot hide. God not only sees where you are and he also sees who you are.
A Christian can pretend he is something good when he isn’t, and the only one he is fooling is himself (maybe).
1 John says that if we say we have no sin we lie and the truth is not in us. Not the truth is not known by God, because it is. He truly sees our hearts.
The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked, who can know it. I the Lord know the heart, I know the mind (Jeremiah 17:9ff - my own translation). God knows us even when we refuse to know ourselves.
The amazing thing in all this is even though he knows us, he loves us with an everlasting love. Just like you will love your children even when they act stupid, God will love us anyway.
My wife is one of those rare creatures who loves her husband with an unqualified love. It would be interesting (from a purely academic viewpoint, of course – not first hand) to see what would make her stop loving me. She would love me if I were in the gutter, she would love me if I were wealthy, she would love me anyway.
And the same goes for me. However, if I had to admit it, my love for her stands short next to her love for me. She is that kind of woman. I know that she loves me.
In the same way, I know that God loves me, even when I am short of his expectations. He knows us, yet he loves us.
the son of the president
I was thinking about the season we just finished with.
Jesus was selected by God for the position of Messiah. His selection didn’t come about in the normal way, as one would select applicants for a job, or winners for a prize, or even as you were selected to be an inmate. He was selected from before the foundation of the world and placed in the womb of a woman to be the Messiah.
Philippians says that even though he was God, he allowed himself to be demoted and made human so that he could share in the experience with us.
You remember that show “Hart to Hart” with the incredibly rich couple who did stuff. In the first episode, there was a scene at the dock with stevedores loading a ship. I don’t remember all of the plot, but one of the workers was Jonathan Hart, the owner of the world practically. However, he had something bad going on and he had to become a stevedore in order to find out what it was. When he found out and solved the problem, he went back to his penthouse.
That was Jesus. Mankind had a flaw and Jesus had to share in the flaw, yet not succumb to it. He had to become human in order to do this. Christmas celebrated his birth, the traditional observance of the day that he came out into the world ready to live as a human being. He was a baby with all the problems of a baby, along with the problem of learning to obey his parents and ultimately God.
As the scriptures said, we have a high priest who knows what it is like to be one of us. He was not brought in from outside to rule the company but proved himself on the field. He showed that he can be a leader that people will respect as knowing what is happening and being able to overcome it.
Not only can he overcome it, but he can also give you the ability to overcome it yourself; not of your own ability, but through his ability.
Yet at the same time, he was brought in from outside. He was the son of the president who worked his way up through the company. He was like us, yet he had the mind of God.
Since he is so able, we can “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” God will bless us through him
Jesus was selected by God for the position of Messiah. His selection didn’t come about in the normal way, as one would select applicants for a job, or winners for a prize, or even as you were selected to be an inmate. He was selected from before the foundation of the world and placed in the womb of a woman to be the Messiah.
Philippians says that even though he was God, he allowed himself to be demoted and made human so that he could share in the experience with us.
You remember that show “Hart to Hart” with the incredibly rich couple who did stuff. In the first episode, there was a scene at the dock with stevedores loading a ship. I don’t remember all of the plot, but one of the workers was Jonathan Hart, the owner of the world practically. However, he had something bad going on and he had to become a stevedore in order to find out what it was. When he found out and solved the problem, he went back to his penthouse.
That was Jesus. Mankind had a flaw and Jesus had to share in the flaw, yet not succumb to it. He had to become human in order to do this. Christmas celebrated his birth, the traditional observance of the day that he came out into the world ready to live as a human being. He was a baby with all the problems of a baby, along with the problem of learning to obey his parents and ultimately God.
As the scriptures said, we have a high priest who knows what it is like to be one of us. He was not brought in from outside to rule the company but proved himself on the field. He showed that he can be a leader that people will respect as knowing what is happening and being able to overcome it.
Not only can he overcome it, but he can also give you the ability to overcome it yourself; not of your own ability, but through his ability.
Yet at the same time, he was brought in from outside. He was the son of the president who worked his way up through the company. He was like us, yet he had the mind of God.
Since he is so able, we can “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” God will bless us through him
daily java
Daily Java:
I told her that we were associated with a new group of people now who believed in miracles and healing. We had come out of a group that didn’t really believe in anything you couldn’t see and not much of that.
I suggested that we pray for her healing. I prayed a simple, short, brief prayer that she be healed. She felt a snap inside her head and the headache was gone. She has never had those kinds of headaches again in her life.
That was great. For a while I went around praying for people and they were healed. It was amazing. Of course, not everyone, but a good percentage of them were.
Then it stopped. And I want it to start up again. I want the visible presence of God in my life that was there in the acts of healing. Add to that the fact that Ella has a tremendous disability now and I want her healed. But God has not healed her.
God has spoken to me on several occasions to tell me something. He doesn’t now like he did. I want him to.
I was slain in the Spirit and I want to be again, but I have not. And will not go down for anyone but God.
I want some signs that God is still here and with me. I want them badly.
But – and here is the point of all this – I do not believe in God because of the signs. Yes, the signs are strengthening and quite frankly exciting, but they are not why I believe.
I believe because I know in my heart that he is real, separate and apart from his signs. I do not have to have the signs to know he is real.
It is a weakness to go from “Holy Spirit Revival” to “Holy Spirit Revival” looking for a sign. I do not think it is wrong, but it shows a definite level of immaturity.
It is like the child constantly seeking affirmation from his or her father that he loves them. In that kind of person, it is hard just to accept that he loves them. They have to keep hearing it over and over. It is insecurity.
God loves us and we know he does. We do not have to sit on his lap and be given presents 24/7 just to know that.
In the scripture above, it was not people seeking more verification of their faith. It was a group of people who were trying to trick Jesus into doing something they considered silly or blasphemous. Of course, it didn’t work.
King Herod, at Jesus’ trial, had the same request. His, of course, was different. He was looking at a freak and wanted a show. When Jesus refused him the show, he became angry.
I would imagine that when Jesus turned these guys down and instead gave them a mini-sermon on life and faith, they were also irritated.
Jesus had the ability to irritate people, that is for sure. And used it a lot.
But the point is, the power of God and his Holy Spirit through Jesus is not for our entertainment. Nor is it at our disposal simply because we feel we need it. Philippians 2:13 says, It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
God does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. That is why he is God and we are not.
But you can know, even when you don’t hear from him for a while, he still loves you.
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” (Matthew 12:38-39)Coming into a new relationship with the Spirit was great. Not long after I was baptized in the Spirit, Ella and I were lying in bed. She had been suffering from migraine-like headaches for a few years and that night, they were bad.
I told her that we were associated with a new group of people now who believed in miracles and healing. We had come out of a group that didn’t really believe in anything you couldn’t see and not much of that.
I suggested that we pray for her healing. I prayed a simple, short, brief prayer that she be healed. She felt a snap inside her head and the headache was gone. She has never had those kinds of headaches again in her life.
That was great. For a while I went around praying for people and they were healed. It was amazing. Of course, not everyone, but a good percentage of them were.
Then it stopped. And I want it to start up again. I want the visible presence of God in my life that was there in the acts of healing. Add to that the fact that Ella has a tremendous disability now and I want her healed. But God has not healed her.
God has spoken to me on several occasions to tell me something. He doesn’t now like he did. I want him to.
I was slain in the Spirit and I want to be again, but I have not. And will not go down for anyone but God.
I want some signs that God is still here and with me. I want them badly.
But – and here is the point of all this – I do not believe in God because of the signs. Yes, the signs are strengthening and quite frankly exciting, but they are not why I believe.
I believe because I know in my heart that he is real, separate and apart from his signs. I do not have to have the signs to know he is real.
It is a weakness to go from “Holy Spirit Revival” to “Holy Spirit Revival” looking for a sign. I do not think it is wrong, but it shows a definite level of immaturity.
It is like the child constantly seeking affirmation from his or her father that he loves them. In that kind of person, it is hard just to accept that he loves them. They have to keep hearing it over and over. It is insecurity.
God loves us and we know he does. We do not have to sit on his lap and be given presents 24/7 just to know that.
In the scripture above, it was not people seeking more verification of their faith. It was a group of people who were trying to trick Jesus into doing something they considered silly or blasphemous. Of course, it didn’t work.
King Herod, at Jesus’ trial, had the same request. His, of course, was different. He was looking at a freak and wanted a show. When Jesus refused him the show, he became angry.
I would imagine that when Jesus turned these guys down and instead gave them a mini-sermon on life and faith, they were also irritated.
Jesus had the ability to irritate people, that is for sure. And used it a lot.
But the point is, the power of God and his Holy Spirit through Jesus is not for our entertainment. Nor is it at our disposal simply because we feel we need it. Philippians 2:13 says, It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
God does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. That is why he is God and we are not.
But you can know, even when you don’t hear from him for a while, he still loves you.
Monday, January 17, 2011
condemning heart
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:18-20)I was just reading an article by a guy who said his life was like a tennis match. It went back and forth from I am fine to I am a rank sinner.
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6)
That is how I feel and have felt much of my life.
I was talking to someone the other day who has a very poor self-image. The person has had a lot of problems in life and it just gave them no real way to look at themselves positively.
I am the same way, although no one would know it to look at me. I have always had a very confident demeanor. Some have even called me arrogant, although he they made the attempt to know me they would never have said that.
I suppose I had confidence in what I could do much of the time, but I will have to admit that the confidence could be eliminated easily. In fact, in the past few years, I have come to the point that I feel that confidence ebbing away daily.
Things that I used to do easily, I can either no longer do them or they have been maligned by others to the point that they are in danger of being gone.
Add to that the overall life tiredness I have and it makes for a problem.
I know God loves me and has plans for me. He has told me so. Yet I am in a hard situation after a long life of service to him. On the one hand, my heart condemns me.
“If you were a better person, you would do better.” “If you were a better person, God would love you more.” Stupidity like that.
And it seems that everything I do, I can find reasons for it and reasons to deny that it is any good. The good things become filthy rags, not necessarily because they are in comparison to God and his glory, but because I have decided they are.
I see rejection. I just left a denomination in which I was soundly rejected. I believe that it was far more stylistic rejection than anything else. I did not fit the mold of an Assembly of God preacher and was unwilling to put on that idea.
My own church many times refuses to see my call or work while churches around are supportive of us and can see it. I suppose that is because when they are paying your salary, they expect different things from you.
And then I see acceptance. I look at the way some perceive me and tell me that they can see the call on my life. The Foursquare Church just finished ordaining me. In that ordination ceremony, I was told publicly that the call could be seen on my life. And I believe that I have been called, and also that I have not been released from that call.
But I see myself as a sinful man, and a failure before the throne of God. I look at what I have accomplished in the past and I look at where I am right now and they do not go together. I cannot see the hand of God in it.
And it does not help when someone tells me that the Foursquare Church made a mistake and that I am a fake.
But – again but – I know that the call in my life is real. If God is real, and if he is in control – and I have to believe he is – and if I am trying my best to remain in his will. I am where he wants me to be. I can do nothing else than what I am doing.
Just thinking. I sure am glad 1 John 3:18-20 is in the Bible. My heart is the most self-condemning heart I know of.
the dream
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.Today is Martin Luther King day. It is theoretically in celebration of the life of Dr King, who was a Baptist minister.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
His thought and his dream? A nation where there would be no delineation of character by color. It was a great dream.
Unfortunately, though, it has been co-opted by what one governor called Special Interest Groups, people who are out to score political points.
I truly believe that Dr King would be appalled at the use of his name, his image and his dream today. I also believe that he would be appalled at the nature of the main proponents of his vision today. As a minister, many of these men look like hucksters, people who are out to get something and will do anything to get it.
We have a nation in which the vast majority of the nation overlooked the fact that the president was black when they elected him. It is a visible, obvious realization of his dream.
We have a nation that is rapidly becoming a nation of mixed race people. More and more you see racially blended families, living, in many ways, as Dr King said.
Yet the hassle remains, stoked by profiteers.
I am not black nor are any of my relatives, so it may be that my perspective is skewed. However, I still believe that Dr King would be appalled at the market made of his dream.
I believe in that dream and have nothing but respect for Dr King. But for those who would use him and his ideas for political gain and personal profit, screaming and raging to keep a problem alive after it is just about dead, I have nothing but contempt.
I sure do wish we could separate the two: the dream and the reality manufactured by others.
He was some man, full of courage and compassion.
daily java
Daily Java:
At the mall, listening to people talk, much of what they say is complaint. Much of what I read online is complaint. At church, there is often a culture of gentle griping. Nothing big, no real insurrections, just the tone that nothing is right.
After a bit, it erodes the soul.
I had a fairly decent job back in the early 70’s, selling advertising for an FM radio station. That was back when FM stations were rare and for the most part played easy listening, or Muzak kind of music. Strings, orchestras, Montavoni plays the hits of Frankie Laine – that kind of thing.
In fact there were only 3 FM radio stations in all of Odessa, TX, a city of well over 100,000 people. And one of those was a college station that played oddball rock, different stuff.
The other of the three played modern rock (now classic oldies), but the owner didn’t like it, so his morning show consisted of him griping about what he played. He especially hated Frank Zappa, for some reason.
The sales job I had wasn’t bad, but I did work for a guy of questionable ethics. The other salesman constantly pointed that out and before long, I lost the job. Basically, he griped me out of a job. That was because the more he griped, the more I looked at what he was griping about. Before long, I saw nothing good in the job.
At church, when people complain, it kills the church, just like it kills society. People cannot handle negativity.
The same goes with arguing. I have always hated it when people say that they are going to play the Devil’s Advocate. No, thank you. That never does good. Take the opposite side if you want to, but the one thing I do not want to be identified with is the devil. After all, the name Satan meant obstructer or opposer (Numbers 22:22, 1 Samuel 29:4, Psalms 109:6).
And the apostle Paul said plainly to stay away from foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels (2 Timothy 2:23). He also said, in Titus 3:9: avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.
In other words shut up the complaining and the arguing. There is little that hurts a minister and his work more than that. As Paul says in the verse above, complaining and arguing are not only counterproductive, but it also undoes all the pastor or teacher is trying to do.
I have decided in my life that I will not argue or complain. There are too many other good things to do.
There is an old song that says, Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with you. Let the complaining and arguing stop with you.
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. (Philippians 2:14-16)We have become a complaining society. Everything offends us and nothing seems to be right. In the right circles, complaining can stop progress in its tracks.
At the mall, listening to people talk, much of what they say is complaint. Much of what I read online is complaint. At church, there is often a culture of gentle griping. Nothing big, no real insurrections, just the tone that nothing is right.
After a bit, it erodes the soul.
I had a fairly decent job back in the early 70’s, selling advertising for an FM radio station. That was back when FM stations were rare and for the most part played easy listening, or Muzak kind of music. Strings, orchestras, Montavoni plays the hits of Frankie Laine – that kind of thing.
In fact there were only 3 FM radio stations in all of Odessa, TX, a city of well over 100,000 people. And one of those was a college station that played oddball rock, different stuff.
The other of the three played modern rock (now classic oldies), but the owner didn’t like it, so his morning show consisted of him griping about what he played. He especially hated Frank Zappa, for some reason.
The sales job I had wasn’t bad, but I did work for a guy of questionable ethics. The other salesman constantly pointed that out and before long, I lost the job. Basically, he griped me out of a job. That was because the more he griped, the more I looked at what he was griping about. Before long, I saw nothing good in the job.
At church, when people complain, it kills the church, just like it kills society. People cannot handle negativity.
The same goes with arguing. I have always hated it when people say that they are going to play the Devil’s Advocate. No, thank you. That never does good. Take the opposite side if you want to, but the one thing I do not want to be identified with is the devil. After all, the name Satan meant obstructer or opposer (Numbers 22:22, 1 Samuel 29:4, Psalms 109:6).
And the apostle Paul said plainly to stay away from foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels (2 Timothy 2:23). He also said, in Titus 3:9: avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.
In other words shut up the complaining and the arguing. There is little that hurts a minister and his work more than that. As Paul says in the verse above, complaining and arguing are not only counterproductive, but it also undoes all the pastor or teacher is trying to do.
I have decided in my life that I will not argue or complain. There are too many other good things to do.
There is an old song that says, Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with you. Let the complaining and arguing stop with you.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
i press on
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained. (Philippians 3:14-15)What makes a person mature? Is it just the fact that they have more than 21 years under their belts? Or is there more?
Maturity comes from being able to look at things differently from immature people.
Immature people only look at the surface. They only see what is obvious and cannot see the underlying meanings of the surface things.
One movie star was a beauty queen as a young woman. After she got old, she still dressed provocatively, and tried to keep her image as a beautiful woman, even to the point of hiring young body-builders to be her attendants and propping herself on them as she walked. She lived in the past because she could not accept the fact that she had aged.
Another famous movie star committed suicide on her 39th birthday because she could not bear to think of herself as a 40 year old woman. She also could not accept the fact that she was aging.
At high school reunions there is the guy who wants to talk about his success as a football player. He has done nothing of importance since and cannot stand to do anything but live in the past.
It is hard to accept the fact that your youth is gone and that you are different now. That is maturity. Maturity says that these things are gone and are irretrievable. The mature person accepts it and makes his or her life as good as he or she can now.
You put the old aside and accept the new. That is maturity.
forgetting what is behind, part 2
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)Some people think they have it all together. You may know one of these. They look great. Then one day, their lives come apart. And they themselves fall apart. They have been perfect for so long, they don’t know how to function in hard times.
Their problems is the lack of hardships. Hardships toughen us. Just like exercise makes our muscles stronger, hardships make our faith and our ability to function stronger, if we let them.
There is a lot of difference between a Texas pine and a Maine pine. Both are basically the same kind of pine trees. But the Texas pine is soft. It grows up in a warm climate with only occasional cold spells. A Maine pine is hard. It grows up under brutal conditions with hard winters and heavy winds off the Atlantic.
Both are pines, but they endure different climates. And it is the climates that make them soft or hard.
There was a story of a woman who had a beautiful voice, but no one wanted to hire her as a singer. It just seemed there was something missing. So she quit and got married and had children. Her husband and children were killed in tragic ways, one not long after the other.
After her period of grieving, she decided to try singing again. This time people wanted to hear her. The reason? Her voice showed the hardships she had undergone and it added a dimension to her voice that was lacking before;. What was merely good became beautiful because of the problems she had.
Even though we have problems, we still press on. There is something far greater in front of us than anything we have here. And we will participate in that if we just allow God to work in us through our problems.
forgetting what is behind
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)It is the New Year, when we start making resolutions about how much better we are going to do than we did last year. And they are good resolutions, too. Some of them last all the way to the last of January. Some, of course, barely get off the pen or computer keyboard before they are dead. But they are all well-meaning, of course.
May of our New Year’s resolutions have to do with self-betterment. We want to get back to how we were when we felt better, when we were younger. And of course, again, that is impossible. It’s like a t-shirt I saw one time that said, “The older I get, the better I was.”
One of my favorite crime/suspense writers has a character he has written about for 30 years. The longer he writes about him, the larger the character gets, the more weight he can bench press, the longer he can run and the bigger caliber his gun is. It is almost as if he is trying to rewrite his own history in his character. The only problem is, although his character gets better with the passing of time, he himself only gets older.
We cannot get back to like we used to be, whether as a church or as a person. Everything, everyone grows older. We can be as good as we were, but never as we were. We have to put those things behind and become what God wants us to be right now, at this time, in this situation.
When you make your New Year’s resolutions, forget the past and look to what God wants of you right now, with your family right now, with your job right now, with your life in service to him right now.
Press on to the goal for the prize and be what God wants you to.
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