i am feeling like a failure lately

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  (Romans 3:23-24)

I am feeling like a failure lately. I wasn’t here very long. I just got to a  point that if I had to suffer one more fool gladly, I would shoot them.

So the failure weighs heavily on me. I am that kind of person, anyway, the kind that over-analyzes everything he does so that he squeezes all of the juice out of any good work he might do.

It is not that I want to do that, it is that I just do. The way I am made, I guess.

But – and here is the thing: there is always a bug in the Bible – but God knew that from the beginning. He didn’t call me and then slap his forehead in exasperation when I got tired after almost four decades of  ministry.

He knew how I am made. In fact, he made me that way. So it comes to no surprise.

Now I am not condoning sin. But on the other hand, God knows how I am. And he knows that I am discouraged and burned out.

I am not sure what he will do with me. I know that He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. (Psalm 23:3). His word says that he will Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).

But all those things are somewhat academic when you feel like I feel. I want him to do them, yet I am afraid that he will not.

That is not a lack of faith. It is just human nature.

But I know this. It is not me that makes me good. It is him. He declares that we are righteous. He says that I am good. He doesn’t wait for me to become good, he just pronounces me good anyway. After all, there is no way I can become good by myself. Faith comes from him and even the desire to be with him comes from him.

So I wait. The failure lies heavily upon me, the burned out feeling, the feeling that I have been abandoned by the church, the feeling that I am alone, the sense that I have disappointed so many, including my wife, the desire I have to go ahead and disappear into drugs and alcohol that have plagued me all my life.

I just have to remember that it is he who saves, not me. It is his grace, not my ability that saves me.

And I praise him.

daily java

Daily Java: 

    My heart pounds in my chest.
      The terror of death assaults me.
    Fear and trembling overwhelm me,
      and I can’t stop shaking.
    Oh, that I had wings like a dove;
      then I would fly away and rest!
    I would fly far away
     to the quiet of the wilderness. (Psalm 55:4-7)

I remember the first time I ever heard this. It was in the old King James and it was record with Alexander Scourby reading it. He was one of the old Bible readers whose voice just crackled with biblical reality. He could read a corn flakes box and it would sound full of portent.

But it resonated in me at the time and it still does.

There are times when we wish we could just run away, go somewhere else, be small enough we could just scurry out of the sight of the world and hide, far away, in some wonderful place of quiet.

We would sit there in the shade of a tree and be small and quiet and let the problems we have just kind of go away.

There are times when I long for somewhere like that to go. Unfortunately, Nebraska is not known for its scenic hiding places. Almost everything has smaller trees and looks out over the same kind of landscape – plains.

Me, I would like to run away to a grove of trees on the side of a pretty little river in an isolated place, maybe on a hillside overlooking some mountains. There may be a cave or at least a rock outcropping that hasn’t been used by anyone for several years, like the ones the Louis L’Amour characters are always finding to recuperate from bullet wounds in.

I would just sit and look, star off into the distance, try my best to empty my mind of all my problems and failures and sadnesses.

It wouldn’t work, of course, but it sound great. Like someone once said, wherever you go, there you are. So whatever problems and difficulties I had would still be there. Just because I went to a scenic location wouldn’t really change anything.

I have, although, always thought it interesting in the terminology here. He says that I had wings like a dove. In Isaiah 40:31, the writer says: But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength They will soar high on wings like eagles.

If we are small and pathetic and wish we could run away, we will flutter away like a little dove. Small wings, rapid fluttering, oh dear! I must run away, scurrying.

If we are in Jesus and moving in his will, we soar like an eagle. Big wings, minimal flapping, high altitude, looking down on all the little doves fluttering around, above the fray.

Interesting difference in wingspans between the fearful and the faithful.

But today, I wish I were small and could go to that cave, take along a big thermos of coffee, a jug of water, some sandwiches, a pillow and covers, a couple of books and just sit and look at the expanse while I was quiet.

My poor wife, having to put up with this goofiness.

Flutter.

daily java

Daily Java:

Well then, if you teach others, why don’t you teach yourself? You tell others not to steal, but do you steal? You say it is wrong to commit adultery, but do you commit adultery? (Romans 2:21-22)

The guy walks into the new gym class to lead calisthenics. He is smoking a cigarette, is at least 60 pounds overweight, sounds like a freight train when he walks up the stairs and is coming in to show you how to get in shape.

He is kind of like the girl who was describing the various coffees in a coffee shop one time. I asked her which one she liked. Oh, she said, I don’t like coffee, I drink tea. But, she assured me, she had tasted all of them.

It would be like me working in a butcher shop where I had to help people buy liver. I hate it so I don’t want to sell it.

The preacher preaching morality who is an adulterer, the butcher selling meat who is a vegetarian, the beer truck driver selling alcohol who is a tee-totaler, the Republican party chairman who is a Democrat – all people doing something with no credibility.

If I go to get in shape, I want someone who is in shape to guide me, not some guy like me.

I went to a weight loss clinic once out of curiosity, the slim girl behind the desk assured me that is was a good company. Have you lost any weight yourself, I asked? Oh, yes, sir, she replied. I have lost seven pounds. No. I want some woman who had lost 110 pounds to show me how it worked.

That is why Jesus said in Matthew 23 not to seek those titles, primarily that of Teacher, because it opens you up for so much criticism, especially if people see that you are not living your life like you tell others to live.

Any time you condemn some one else, you need to look at your own life first. You need to jettison the stuff that is keeping you back.

We must strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up (Hebrews 12:1). If we don’t, we have got a lot of trouble convincing others to do the same.

The father who steals office supplies from work, the mother who tells her children to tell the guy on the phone she is not here, the teenaged girls who lies about why she can’t go to the party and then shows up with someone else, the boss who tells you what a financial strait the company is in and then gives himself a raise. One who preaches sacrifice but lives large themselves.

You cannot divorce a teacher from what he or she teaches. You are your message. Be the right message.

when you look at someone you love and have known for a long time, you see them in layers

Are your eyes like those of a human? Do you see things only as people see them? (Job 10:4)

We ate lunch at our favorite Chinese buffet today. It has a Mongolian barbeque that Ella particularly loves. You put all of the raw meat, vegetables and whatever into one or two or seventeen, I guess, bowls and give it one of the guys behind the counter. They put it on a large circular grill and cook the daylights out of it.

It is suppose to go back to the Mongols cooking their dinners on shields using their swords. I do know that if done right, it is noisy and somewhat production oriented.

But anyway, I was at the table eating the stuff I had gotten off the steam tables and Ella was standing at the counter where I could see her, waiting with a fair amount of anticipation. She loves her food done that way.

As I looked at her, it dawned on me that when you look at someone you love and have known for a long time, you see them in layers.

I have told you ad nauseum, probably, that I love her. I have waxed the elephant on that subject enough for all of us. But still, the layer thing is true.

She is going to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of her 39th birthday in just a couple of weeks. But when I look at her, I do not necessarily see a 39+ person. I see Ella. And looking at her, I see her at almost every part of her life.

I can see her when we were going together in 1969, when we got married in 1971, when I graduated from seminary in 1976, when we were in Spokane in the late ‘70’s, early 80’s. I can see her when I got my second degree in 1985. I can see her as we had our two children. I can see her when she went through her physical fitness period in the ‘90’s. I can see her as she got increasingly sick with her MS. I can see her debilitated with the pain and almost paralyzed at times.

I see her. I do not see the 39+ woman, I see Ella.

This came to mind when I got back in contact with some of my old high school friends at our 40th reunion. I have only really got to talk to one of them, but I talk to the others on Facebook and I look at their pictures. For the most part, when I look at their pictures, I can see them as they were in addition to as they are. Some of them, you have to really look, but they are there.

Now new friends will never be like that. We have made friends that I will never know what they looked like when they were young. They have shown me no pictures and I cannot begin to guess. When I see them, they will always be static, one age.

But with Ella, she is dynamic – many ages, multi-aged, eternal.

It is that inner being that I see when I look at her that I will se when I get to heaven. That inner being is her, not the outside body that is wearing out. She is what is inside, not outside.

Someone once said, a long time ago, that he could not figure out how a man could make love to the same woman for decades. To him it was weird. But to me, it is totally natural. Ella is Ella, not her body.

Now when she gained a lot of weight after a doctor gave her a lot of prednisone for her pain, I have to admit, I had a little trouble recognizing her in the store. But after a while, I did. And when she finally lost the weight, it was like she came back home. Another layer.

It is a shame that people who meet her now only see the 39+ woman and not the eternal woman I have had the privilege of knowing. I love that one. I have enjoyed being with all the manifestations over the 40+ years we have been married. And I will like it for the next however long the Lord gives me in her presence.

daily java

Daily Java:

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”  (Romans 1:16-17)

You are sitting at a table of people that are beginning to deride Christianity. One of them is a person who hates to be told to do anything and he sees Christianity as nothing more than a list of rules and regulations. So off he goes.

He is a popular guy, so there is one more who does the same because he sees the popular guy doing it. Now there are two.

A third chimes in because it seems the whole table is going that way and he is the one that is afraid to take any contrary stance anyway. He isn’t going to buck the majority.

Pretty soon the entire table is ragging on Christianity. And now it comes down to you.

You haven’t mentioned anything or agreed with anybody so far. Someone says to you, well, what do you say? You’re not one of those Christians, are you?

What is your answer? It is easy to imagine the world coming to a stop to hear what you have to say. You can almost imagine a spotlight on you. It is a tense moment.

Everybody has expressed negative thoughts on Christianity. Now you can make it unanimous and everybody can be “happy.”

That is a very real problem. You have two choices to make. Well, maybe three. You could fake a heart attack and have to leave. But mainly there are two.

You can 1. Join the crowd and take the burden off your shoulders to be the sole apologist of Christianity in the room, or 2. you can say “I am one of those Christians.”

It depends on how strong you are. Kids have a problem there. Young people are terrified of looking outside the norm and will do pretty much whatever they need to do to fit in.

But older people sometimes get caught up in this, too.

I read an article in which a man went to a seminar at which the other attenders were ten women. They sat in a semi-circle. The woman giving the seminar was an old-fashioned school teacher. When it came time for the break, she said that there were donuts on the table and that everybody could go one at a time and get one. she started on the end opposite the man.

The first woman declined, not wanting to be the first one up there. The second declined since the first had too and she didn’t want to be the first. The third one went with the trend until all ten of the women had declined to go get donuts. They were all afraid of looking foolish in front of the others.

When she came to the man, he said, yes I think I will and got up and got the first donut of the morning. The women were almost shocked that someone had bucked the trend. After a moment or two, one of the women said, I think I will too. She did, sat down, another got up and soon all ten women had a donut.

It was the power of bucking a trend. Everybody is doing something and you are afraid to be different.

The apostle Paul said, in essence, no matter how many people are against Jesus, I am for him. No matter how many turn away, I will turn toward. No matter how many people are shamed, I will be proud of him and boast in him.

Contrary to what the first guy at the table said, Jesus did not come to tell us what we could and couldn’t do. He came to set us free. This “Good News” tells us how God makes us right in his sight. He came to make us right, not make us be right.

There is a lot of difference there, the difference between freedom and a new different kind of bondage. Jesus came to bring freedom. And all he really requires of us is faith.

The next person at the table is you. What do you say? Are you ashamed of him or will you boldly acknowledge him even though nobody else did?

death of a dream

May the words of my mouth
      and the meditation of my heart
   be pleasing to you,
      O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

I was writing the other day about the death of a dream. I have had a couple of dreams die in my life and it is a very unpleasant and heart-breaking thing.

One was when I had to close the church plant I had begun. It became infected when a man I had invested a lot of time and trust in turned out to be a liar.

The other is now.

I have always wanted to be the kind of pastor God would have me be, to serve him and his church, and to love them. My hope has always been that they would love me the way I loved them. I fed them, both spiritually and physically.

As it turned out, they wanted neither of what I had to offer: spiritual food or physical food. Nothing I cooked was what they wanted to eat and nothing much I said pleased them either.

I guess the dream was too much to hope for. In the denomination I started in – the Churches of Christ, Non-Instrumental – I knew a lot of ministers who quit. For one thing, the denomination devalued its ministers, considering them to be hired hands. And the ministers, for the most part, bought into that foolishness.

So when they quit, when they got burned out or used up, they quit preaching completely. They would sell insurance, or cars, or real estate. Something out of ministry completely.

The church viewed no sense of call or divine mandate on the part of the minister. He was just employed by the church and at the church’s discretion. A group of men told him what to do and his job was to both do what they said and to keep them happy in their roles as lay leaders.

They removed from their ministers all of the divine joy a pastor can get. And the ministers suffered.

When I left that denomination, one reason was that I had begun to realize that God had called me, not a church. I was called by God. That was a severe removal from what they believed. Not only had I removed myself from believing in the corporate theology – musical instruments in worship being wrong, baptism being the point of salvation – I had removed myself from their very ecclesiastical structure.

But I guess I never really fit in anywhere else. I have pastored large churches and tiny ones. I have done well financially and have gone broke. Right now I am broke. My service to this church and Pentecostalism in general has busted me financially and I doubt I will ever recover from that financial hit. I don’t have enough years left to recover from it.

I have been like Paul when he said in Philippians 4:12: I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. We have been pretty well-off (not rich but with more than enough) and we have been poor (right now). My little wife has had to put up with it all.

Of course, he adds in verse 13: For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

There is the key to being happy wherever you are.

But at the same time, we have not been happy here. We have never felt the call to come to Lincoln, we just came because it was open. And we have suffered for that.

Ella told me today that she was so full of anxiety the day we moved here. She said that she hated it. But she didn’t tell me. I really should never have come. There has been little more than pain here.

And one thing that has come of it – the major and heart-breaking thing – is the death of my dream. I think I am through with ministry. It is early for me to retire, especially since I have no retirement, but I think I will.

I will pursue other things, but the job market for a 62 year old has-been preacher is rather limited.

It keeps me awake at night and makes me come in late to write. I suppose that the writing is the only thing that has come out of this that I like.

I will probably never had another dream to pursue.

i read an article today on modesty

I read an article today on modesty and had some thoughts:

1. The first porn picture I ever saw. I was still in my single digits, I think, but it was Brigitte Bardot wearing an open blue jean jacket with a pair of jeans. I told my wife the other day that the look is one sometimes you can see at the mall now. The stuff at Victoria's Secret is more graphic than the Playboys of the 60's.

2. As to women having power, you do not see male nightgowns. Men’s stuff is usually humorous, while women’s is seductive. Women looking at men is a relatively new thing and brought about rather artificially by the Women’s Liberation Movement.

3. People letting go of modesty is kind of like a Christian holding evolution ideas – giving in to what you see as overwhelming and unstoppable. I saw an example of this in an AG church in Arkansas a couple of years ago. It was an old-fashioned, conservative church where the women wore skirts. A group came to perform and were told of their “custom” so the drummer – who was an attractive young woman – wore a skirt instead of her usual pants. Unfortunately, she wore a very short skirt with a slit. Technically, she was fine, but somebody needed to tell her what was good and no one had.

4. As to trying to be your child’s friend, our children do not need more friends, they need parents. And if we do not tell them, no one will.

5. When it comes to modesty, I believe it is inherent. Children learn otherwise from society. As Crosby, Stills and Nash said, you have to teach your children well. They have to learn to be unclothed. And they do it well with size 4T string bikinis and thong panties.

6. Of course, each generation has to deal with the changing of their own moral codes. I knew an old man back when I was a young man in the early 70’s (the first miniskirt years). He mentioned that when they were young, they would go to Chicago where the wind blows and watch the wind blow up the girls’ skirts, so you could see their ankles. It startled me, but I realized that we become somewhat callused and I fear it is not to be turned aside unless something major happens to our culture.

7. Men have begun to go shirtless in the past few years I read that Clark Gable, in one of his movies, took off his shirt and didn’t have on an undershirt. It was two things: one, it was scandalous and two: it, almost overnight, killed the undershirt industry. The same thing happened to hats when JFK didn’t wear a hat. Personally I wear a shirt at all times because I do not want to scare the children and small animals.

8. And last, women do not follow because men do not lead. Men have become convinced that it doesn’t matter. I think the Foursquare Church has a problem with that in its egalitarian approach. Men are the natural leaders in God’s world.

Modesty will not change until people find God. Otherwise, there is no reason to change. The world likes itself the way it is and wants to be more like it is, not less.

(hat-tip to Dr Terry Stair in Georgia)

daily java

Daily Java:

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself. Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:1-8 NLT)

Two things:

1. It is always interesting how  you can hurt someone’s feelings without intending to.
2. Things are always clearer in retrospect.

Mary, Martha and Lazarus were fairly well-off. The Bible never really says so, but you get that feeling. And for some reason, it seems they never get married. I suppose that they could have been married and just all lived in a family compound, but you never hear of husbands or a wife.

In many of the movies about Jesus, of course, they are dressed like nuns, a kind of proto-order of devotees to the life and work of Jesus. Chances are they just all lived in the same house. Maybe Lazarus’ wife had died and maybe Martha’s husband and Mary moved in to be with them.

We don’t know. But whatever the circumstance, these were obviously very good friends of Jesus’.

Now they are having dinner. They are quite happy with the way things have gone. Lazarus had died and Jesus had brought him back to life. That would make anyone happy. Except I have always wondered how Lazarus felt being dragged kicking and screaming back to this world from heaven.

But they are having dinner for Jesus and in his honor.

Mary wants to honor him. She gets a jar of perfume made from nard. Wikipedia says about nard: Spikenard is a flowering plant of the Valerian family that grows in the Himalayas of China, also found growing in the northern region of India and Nepal. Spikenard rhizomes (underground stems) can be crushed and distilled into an intensely aromatic amber-colored essential oil, which is very thick in consistency. Nard oil is used as a perfume, an incense, a sedative, and an herbal medicine said to fight insomnia, birth difficulties, and other minor ailments. It also says that lavender is a from of nard.

Whatever it was, it was expensive. Mary had been keeping this for a long time. Maybe it was a gift when she was born, or for her wedding night or something else. But she chose now to break the alabaster jar it was in and pour it on Jesus’ feet.

But someone had to gripe. There is always someone in any group that has to spoil an occasion to gripe. Judas complained that they could have sold the perfume for a year’s wages and helped poor people. Here we are going on all the time about poor people and we waste a perfectly good opportunity to help them by pouring expensive stuff on somebody’s feet. Sure, Jesus is important and all, but still, that is a waste.

John, the writer, records in retrospect, that of course Judas didn’t give a fig for the poor. He just wanted the money in his sack. He was the treasurer, after all. And John says he was a thief.

I think it hurt Jesus’ feelings. It ruined the moment. What could have been so good was messed up by some whiny guy. Jesus was not some holy guy who sat around waiting for teaching opportunities. He was one who appreciated things done for him.

He told Judas that poor people were always going to be there. If you ordered your life around poor people, you would never get anything done. You would be running in place.

And besides, God did not send Jesus to feed poor people. He sent him to seek and save the lost. Feed people all day long and two things happen. One is that they die anyway sooner or later, and the second is you get a group of people who are used to trooping daily to a place where they will be fed. A welfare mentality.

So Jesus told him that this was for his burial. Of course, that stopped everybody dead in their tracks. What do you say then? That was a great way of making Judas look like an idiot, of nothing else.

And in retrospect, he was right. It was just about a week until he was killed. Mary didn’t know that, of course, but she was anointing his body for burial.

I would imagine she thought of that a lot later and was so glad she had done it. She didn’t get to when he died.

And Judas may have intended to hurt Jesus’ feelings. Discontents in a church get to the point to where they do not care whose feelings they hurt. They want what they want and everything else is beside the point. Complaining becomes a way of life.

Probably by this time, Judas had gotten to this point, and the others were probably wondering why. When he came out of the night and kissed Jesus on the cheek in the garden, they were probably not really that surprised. Hurt, yes. Shocked, maybe, especially at the way he did it. But surprised? Really? Probably not all that much.

And, of course, we still have poor people. But Jesus says that you cannot order your whole life around them. You order it around him.

the Bible was never meant as a complete record of everything Jesus said

Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

I was reading a book the other day in which one of the characters mentioned that Indians weren’t in the Bible. This was to justify his killing them. One of the other characters said that the English weren’t either.

A lot of things are not mentioned in the Bible. Church buildings, communion ware, song books, a lot of things we take for granted as Christians are not even mentioned.

So what is the point? The point is that the Bible was intended to be a general guideline and not an exhaustive list of everything a Christian can do or participate in.

Someone once wrote a list of all the things Jesus said. In his mind, it was an exhaustive list, because it listed all of the things that are recorded. Yet, John says that he said a lot of other stuff that isn’t mentioned.

It would be good to know a lot of the things Jesus said that are not recorded, if nothing else for reference. There is only one reference to something Jesus said that is not in the gospels. That is in Acts 20:35:  

And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

Jesus went around all over Israel talking to people. In his three years of ministry he gave countless sermons and discussions. He talked in the temple countless times. He said a lot of stuff.

You go around behind someone for three years and record every word he says, you are going to have a lot of words written down.

The thing is the Bible was never meant as a complete record of everything Jesus said. It was just meant to be a representative record.

The things that are recorded are those things that God meant for us to have. They are all that are needed. We do not need to know any more.

That kills us sometimes. We want to know more.

But it is too bad. What is there is good enough for us.

daily java

Daily Java:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1).

There is a picture that I love. It is Jesus himself holding the door open to a room. A man has arrived and Jesus is inviting him into the room which is filled with people of all races and times, dressed every way imaginable. They are all sitting at a huge table and eating and drinking and in general having a good time. The door is death, the table is the eternal feast of the saints in the rest of God, the people are those who have gone before.

It is one of my favorite paintings. In it I see dinner with those who have come before, sharing, laughing, eating together, praising.

That is the thing with Christianity. You are not alone. You are not a member of a small church somewhere in Nebraska. You are not part of a denomination. You are a child of God and, as such, are part of the largest family in existence.

A lot of people have come before us and a lot will follow us. We see those who were great people of God years, centuries, millennia before us. Those who come after us will see us and our faith.

We see examples and we are examples. And those examples give us the chance and ability and opportunity and encouragement to do what is right in our lives.

Hebrews 11 gives a list of some of those who have come before. And its main point is that faith is visible and produces action. By faith these people did things. And by faith they received the grace and salvation of God.

Romans 15:4 says: Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

Those who came before us encourage us. They do so both by their lives and the simple fact that they did what they were supposed to do.

They were like us in so many ways. Sure, they were different, they were  sometimes thousands of years before us, they dressed funny and spoke in comprehensible languages. But they share a common bond with us: they were children of God.

We see them and we are encouraged. And we react to them. We see their spiritual journey and we continue on ours. We see them struggle against adversity and we continue in our struggle. We see them sin and pick themselves up and go on. We see God forgive them. We see them fight against almost insurmountable odds yet keeping on.

Sometimes we see them die in pursuit of God’s will and we hear God say in Revelation 14:13: Write this down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!

And we know he loves us as much as he loved them.

Let us be examples of godliness others can see. Don’t let those down who went before or who come after.

trying real hard

May the words of my mouth
      and the meditation of my heart
   be pleasing to you,
      O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

I have always tried to do what is right, to make my life a praise offering to God. I have not always done well, and have made some bad mistakes.

Even in my failures, I have always tried.

But I was thinking about the end of my pastoring. It is in many ways, the death of a dream.

Back in seminary, Gene, a classmate and a friend, told me that the best thing about all this (preparing for the ministry) was that we got to do what so many people wanted to do, but didn’t have time. It, to him, was almost like working your hobby as a job.

We were excited. We would preach and teach people. We always made promises that we would never give half-hearted sermons, stuff we had taken from other people.

And for the most part I have kept that promise. Occasionally I will get a sermon idea from someone else, but I always try to make it mine from my perspective. I can no more imagine preaching someone else’s sermons than wearing someone else’s underwear.

I always preached from a minimal outline if an outline at all. Some preachers preach fully written out sermons, basically reading back to the audience what they have written in long from. Some use long outlines, some short. I have learned to preach using no outline. I always liked it and made it more extemporaneous.

But  I have noticed in the past couple of years, my sermons are becoming less alive. As I have gotten older I have gone more to a teaching style anyway rather than a bombastic one.

And I have gotten tired. That saps the juice out of what you say.

One of the people who left the church came by the house to tell me in detail why he didn’t like me and why the Lord didn’t like me. He was pretty explicit, even to my moving of some church furniture to places he didn’t like. He also mentioned my “sermonettes.”

I suppose that in his mind a sermon should be long and full of bluster, what one called a “God shouter” sermon. Mine are typically 30-35 minutes long. He was mad because I didn’t use enough scripture, even though my sermons are usually filled with scripture. The difference, I suppose, is that I do not read the scripture with my Bible open and hammer on the Bible while I do.

Anyone who knows me and listens to what I have to say knows that I tend to quote a lot of scripture with some reference, like Jesus and the apostle Paul did. But he didn’t like that.

Another woman, who was a friend of the man’s, also told me that the Foursquare Church was wrong in ordaining me because I had no anointing. I was just no good. She did this over Facebook which I thought was truly holy.

But even so, it has come to me that maybe they are right. Maybe I have lost what I had and need to stop.

So I am stopping what I have done all my life. And it hurts. I write this and will probably write more to try to figure out how to deal with the pain of the death of the dream.

The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:11-14:  

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.

So I guess here I stand with a house made of straw. I stand before God with not a whole lot, but I know he will save the builder: me. He built his church (Matthew 16:18) and I build on his foundation.

Maybe not very well, but it is too late to worry about it now.

daily java

Daily Java:

Why am I discouraged?
      Why is my heart so sad?
   I will put my hope in God!
      I will praise him again—
      my Savior and my God! (Psalm 43:5)

The past few years have been hard on us and a lot of soul-searching has been done. After we have been here for almost a year and a half, it has come to my mind that the Lord is through with me as a pastor. The church here has not  done well and neither have we.

Problems came in the church right away, and they were the same problems that caused the young man who was pastor before to leave after only a year.

We dealt with these problems but, unfortunately, it gutted the church. And along with that, it gutted the church’s finances. We have gone broke here trying to make it work.

I finally decided and the district concurs, that I am finished here. I have decided that I am finished period.

I have been a pastor for almost 40 years. I have two degrees in it and have always tried my best. But, my best here lately has not been good enough. I have always promised the Lord that I would not take  his money if I felt like I didn’t deserve it. And it has come to my mind here that I am not doing well. So, I resigned.

It is one of those things that hurts you deeply. It is my whole identity. I have no identity other than that of a pastor. Yes, I am a father and husband and I have worked hundred part-time jobs to help at times, but all I have ever wanted to be was a pastor. All I ever wanted was the Lord saying, Well done good and faithful servant.

I am not sure I will hear that now. Yes, I believe he will let me into his rest, but probably with no commendation. In fact, I have trouble looking back over the almost forty years and seeing any real good done. I am sure there is, but I cannot see it.

I know why I am discouraged and why my heart is sad. Yet I put my hope in God and I praise him every chance I get. He is my Savior and God and there is nowhere else but to him that I go.

I will not turn away from him or his grace. They are too valuable to me.

But on the other hand, I am in a position in his kingdom that I have never been before. Now I am one of the members. In the past when I was going through the ordination process, I was a pastor looking toward a church.

Now I am not.

I am not saying I will never do anything in the kingdom. I still like to teach and I think I have a lot to give. I am still a good average rhythm guitarist with my 12 string to play in a praise band. I will still do other things.

But I am not longer a pastor.

daily java

Daily Java:

I teach nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen — that the Messiah would suffer and be the first to rise from the dead, and in this way announce God’s light to Jews and Gentiles alike.” Suddenly, Festus shouted, “Paul, you are insane. Too much study has made you crazy!” But Paul replied, “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus. What I am saying is the sober truth. And King Agrippa knows about these things. I speak boldly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner! King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do—” Agrippa interrupted him. “Do you think you can persuade me to become a Christian so quickly?” Paul replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains.” (Acts 26:22-29)

The apostle Paul is speaking to the new governor of Judea, Festus, and the King of Galilee, King Agrippa. He tells them of his conversion on the road to Damascus and how he saw the very Lord he had been persecuting.

When he comes to the point of Jesus dying and raising from the dead to bring the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles, both men have strange reactions.

Festus stops him and tells him that he has been driven crazy by his advanced learning. Something in that message got to him and he felt the need to stop it immediately and, not only that, but also to make fun of the speaker a little.

Paul tells him that no, it is the sober truth. And not only that, Paul says, but Agrippa knows all this since he is a Jew. Then he asks Agrippa to agree with him.

Agrippa stops him with the statement, Do you really think I am that easy to convert? Do you think you can do it that quickly?

Of course, much more intelligent people than Agrippa have accepted Jesus the moment they heard of him. His message is a drawing message, a message of completion. When we hear it, we know it to be real because it connects with our hearts in the way that God intended it to do when he made us.

He made us to love him, and when that love comes into our hearts for us to see, we recognize it.

That is, unless we do not want to. And even then, it is a conscious decision on our part to deny that which is the most basic need in our lives: the need for God.

i love my wife, part 974

Drink water from your own well—share your love only with your wife. (Proverbs 5:15)

It is the time of week that I eulogize my wife.

I have always wondered what this failed man did to deserve a woman who loves him more unequivocally that she does me.

It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, she still loves me.

I could ask for little more in life that a woman who loves me the way she loves me.

I am so glad she is my wife. She is so beautiful. And so loving. And so simple in her desire to make me happy.

I count it honor to take care of her as she progresses in her MS.

daily java

Daily Java: 

Paul denied the charges. “I am not guilty of any crime against the Jewish laws or the Temple or the Roman government,” he said. Then Festus, wanting to please the Jews, asked him, “Are you willing to go to Jerusalem and stand trial before me there?” But Paul replied, “No! This is the official Roman court, so I ought to be tried right here. You know very well I am not guilty of harming the Jews. If I have done something worthy of death, I don’t refuse to die. But if I am innocent, no one has a right to turn me over to these men to kill me. I appeal to Caesar!” Festus conferred with his advisers and then replied, “Very well! You have appealed to Caesar, and to Caesar you will go!” (Acts 25:8-12)

Paul had gone all over the world. and everywhere he went, there was the same faction of people opposing him and harassing him and beating him, sometimes almost to death. They were like rabid dogs. They would not leave him alone.

His crime? He dared to tell them things were changing and that they were no longer in charge.

Paul preached the Kingdom of God and his grace. He said that the law was over and now there was a new system of love and grace. They said, No! There is stuff we have to do and we are the arbiters of that stuff.

Even though he had been all over the world, he found himself in jail for over two years about fifty miles from Jerusalem, where he had begun. For two years, he sat in this jail while the man in charge, the Roman governor, waited for someone to give him graft money for Paul’s release.

Finally a new guy comes and the first thing that happens is that all of the old people come up with all of the old charges in all of the old ways. The new governor, Festus, is surprised that it is just what seems to him to be a minor doctrinal dispute. He asks if Paul would go back to Jerusalem to stand trial for all this?

Paul is finally at the end of his patience. He is through with all this trash. He says, no. he is a Roman citizen, and with that citizenship there are privileges. He appeals to Caesar. That stops everything short.

No more screaming Jews, no more trumped up charges that were false. He evoked his rights of citizenship. He is finished with them.

There is nothing wrong with using your citizenship to do what needs to be done.

We have a right to pray in America, but today it seems we have to go to the law to be able to do so. We have a right to buy property to have a church but it seems all too often we have to go to the law to be able to exercise that right.

We have a right to be open and above board Christians in everything we do. Yet we have to appeal to Caesar entirely too many times. Even though our Supreme Court has ruled that Christians have the right to pray publicly and all, still we have to fight.

Paul had to fight and we will. And that is alright.

Romans 13:4 says: The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. The law is there for good people as well as bad. use it if you need to.

tomorrow is my first Sunday without a church

As you know, everyone from the province of Asia has deserted me—even Phygelus and Hermogenes. (2 Timothy 1:15)

Tomorrow is my first Sunday without a church. It is also my first Sunday without a denomination. If I was leaving one, I was going into another. Now I am not.

And I am feeling cast adrift. I am not sure what I am going to do.

I have been deserted by my church. It is not the first time, but it will probably be the last.

When we get back to Missouri, we will probably go to the Firm Foundation church, a Foursquare church, but I will just be a member.

When last I went, I was moving toward ordination in the Foursquare group. Now I am not. I will never be tied into a denomination or a church like I have been in the past. I will be, from now on, independent.

It is a strange thing to be cast adrift. I still belong to God, and he loves me. That I know, for, as the song says, the Bible tells me so. And I have not known the Bible to lie.

I have not known God to lie either, although life in him has not always been pleasant. There have been many times Ella and I have had real troubles and he has not stepped in to address them.

However, he is still my King.

There was a scene in the movie Robin and Marian that always stuck with me. the old Robin had found the old Marian, who was living in a convent. As they were talking about their lives in the years since they had seen each other, he mentioned being with King Richard. He talked about many of the atrocities he had seen the king commit and things he had done in the king’s name that had been unpleasant.

Marian asked him, Why did you stay with him. Robin looked baffled at the question. Because he is my king. Where else would I go?

That is how I feel. A lot of bad things have happened to us in the name of God and in our service to him. Yet we stay. And the reason is, he is my King. To whom would I possibly go?

I know he is in control. A world in which God was not in control is too horrible to imagine. He has to be.

Yet I know that simply because he is control, bad things happen. And they have happened to us.

I suppose that the problem is that the sense of failure is so great. It weighs on me. there are things I could have done that would have made me a more effective minister, but the depression of failure has weighed me down to where at times I can barely function.

Yet I still remain in his service. To whom would I go? He is my King. He is my Lord.

I do not like all he does, but I still worship him.

Job felt the same way. His predicament in life was nothing more than the result of a bet between God and the devil. And not only that, but he couldn’t tell Job, because that would ruin the bet. Job had to go through it by himself.

And so do I. And so does my sweet and lovely wife, who has been nothing more than a sweet, innocent and simple worshiper of God.

She suffers too.

That makes me mad, quite frankly. But it is too bad. And it changes nothing.

I am feeling deserted, by all but my wife. She stands by me. unfortunately, there is no one to stand by her except me, and I am so damaged.

Come, Lord Jesus and let us be through with it all.

daily java

Daily Java:

A few days later Felix came back with his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish. Sending for Paul, they listened as he told them about faith in Christ Jesus. As he reasoned with them about righteousness and self-control and the coming day of judgment, Felix became frightened. “Go away for now,” he replied. “When it is more convenient, I’ll call for you again.” (Acts 24:24-25)

The reaction of one who realizes the enormity of the Christians message yet is not ready to accept it is amazing. They know what God is saying, they know their need, they know you are right, yet they do not want to give up their control over their lives.

And they recognize the need, do not want to do it and they are afraid.

The gospel never leaves anyone untouched. To those who accept it, it brings life and joy. To those who refuse it, it brings a knowledge of what they missed.

They will go the rest of their lives and try their level best to pretend nothing happened, that they are fine. “I am happy,” they will proclaim, but you know and they know they are not.

They suffer the consequences of turning down the one connection that they were made to make, the connection of accepting God into their lives.

Felix was an important man. He had not gotten to where he was politically by being a dunce. But when he heard the apostle Paul speak about righteousness and self-control and the coming day of judgment, it scared him. Like all who hear of the gospel message and refuse it, he was impacted. When he heard of the state of those outside of Jesus and about final judgment, he became frightened.

His response: Go away. I am busy right now and have a lot on my plate, a lot of irons in the fire, I am a busy man, etc. when it is more convenient and I get my life straightened out, then I will think about accepting Jesus.

The problem is: there will never be a more convenient day. And besides, there is no requirement that you get everything in order before you accept Jesus and his grace. It is he who will put things in order. If you could have done it, you would have already and you wouldn’t be in the life situation in which you are now.

You need him, he does not need you. 2 Corinthians 6:2 says: At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you. Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation. The more convenient time is now.

You accept him now or you could lose him. The more you put him off, the easier he is to put off until one day you find it is too late.

And then the convenient day is gone, just like it was for Festus.

What a shame – in the truest, more honest sense of the word – to miss the opportunity to give your heart to God.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:15-16).

They were all sitting around the campfire. Jesus and the apostles are talking about the events of the day, what happened, who said what.

Jesus asks, Who do people say I am?

People had all kinds of ideas who Jesus was. Some were pretty good, some were hare-brained. But Jesus wanted his disciples to consider them all.

So they start listing them. Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.

Jesus was the subject of a lot of speculation among the Jews. It had been 400 years since the last prophet had been sent to Israel. And whether they liked him or not, or accepted his message or not, it was hard to deny that there was something of God in Jesus.

It hadn’t been long since John the Baptizer had been around. He wasn’t there but for a few short months, but he made a tremendous impact on people with his preaching and in general, just his appearance.

He looked like a prophet ought to look. Rough clothing, acetic lifestyle, confrontational style of preaching, he looked a lot like what they figured Elijah would look like.

Malachi, the last book and the last couple of verses of the Bible, had even said that Elijah would come. Well, he came and then died pretty quickly.

Then Jesus came. Was he Elijah like Malachi said? Or was he someone else? Maybe he was John the Baptizer come back again. Or maybe the Spirit of John had come into Jesus.

Or maybe Jeremiah or another prophet. Maybe he was the prophet they had been waiting for. It had been 400 years since the last prophet. Could Jesus be one of those?

They talk about it for a while, discussing who people are saying he is, what people are saying about him. Jesus attracted a lot of publicity and speculation, that was for sure. Nobody ignored him.

But he stops the discussion. He asks, who do you say I am? Enough of other people. What about you? What do you think?

The apostles sit for a moment thinking. Peter blurts out: You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. The other apostles are thinking, yeah, I wish I had said that.

But when Peter said it, he realized and confessed what all of us have to realize and confess for Jesus to be able to work in our lives.

People can tell you all day long about Jesus and who he is. But it is only after you admit it in your heart, after you confess the fact that he is Lord and Savior, that it will do any good. For his grace to work, you have to be believe in him yourself.

And when you believe – really believe in your heart – he can work and he will work in you. Then he becomes your motivation.

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

assassinating character

Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools,
      or you will become as foolish as they are.
Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools,
      or they will become wise in their own estimation. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

Actually, the old expression is: damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

There are some things you cannot win. And trying to answer foolishness is one of them.

Someone comes to you with a litany of complaints as to what you have done wrong in your ministry. What do you do? Do you defend and say, Oh, no. I have done this and that? Do you get irritated? What do you do?

There is nothing you can do. The idiot stands there and tells you all the stuff you are doing wrong – and you know he has to be an idiot because no one can do that much wrong in that short a time – and there is little you can say.

All you can do is listen.

When Jesus was on trial, they brought up everything in the world, even to the allegation that he was going to tear down the temple in Jerusalem. Now nobody can physically accomplish that, no matter how strong they are.

All he did was listen to them. He didn’t really try to defend himself. He knew they were going to do what they were going to do no matter what he said.

Even if the voice of God came down and angels appeared with flaming swords, they still would have done what they were going to do.

But what they had to say was handy for what they had in mind: character assassination.

Character assassination doesn’t need anything in particular that is true. It just needs to be loudly said. Sooner or later, someone will respond with, Well, where’s there smoke, there’s fire.

And the answer is no. That is not true. Sometimes where there is smoke, it is just a smoke bomb thrown to divert attention from something else.

But of course, it usually accomplishes its purpose. It assassinates a character.

And those around who allow it to be so are equally guilty.

Many a minister has left the ministry because of some disgruntled person who has tried his or her best to assassinate character. The world has many former pastors who have left out of frustration or sadness because someone has done his or her best to hurt them and their families.

It is a shame. And there is nothing to be done by it. Those who do such think they have the superiority of holiness around them when actually they have the stink of hell.

They have, at the risk of over-dramatization, assassinated the character of God’s anointed. And they will never prosper, they will never be happy, they will never be the kind of people God would have them be until they repent of their sin and turn from their wicked ways.

And asking forgiveness wouldn’t hurt either.

Just a thought.

slowing down

 I wrote an article and submitted it to MSFocus magazine. I though I would reproduce it here.

 

SLOWING DOWN

I used to walk around four miles an hour. I drove fast, did everything fast. People even said I came in a room like a freight train.

But then Ella, my wife of twenty years at the time, contracted Multiple Sclerosis.

It was small at first. She sprained her ankle and wrapped it with an Ace bandage. When she took it off, she still felt the bandage. That was her first indication of something wrong.

From there it got worse. She never had the Relapsing and Remitting MS. Hers was Primary Progressive.

Little by little she got worse. And as she got worse, she got slower. And as she got slower, so did I.

She had more and more trouble walking and she began to have trouble knowing where her feet were.

It first became evident to me in the middle ‘90’s when we were walking through a furniture store in Kansas City. It was one of those weird stores that sold hyper modern furniture – couches shaped like lips, hat racks that looked like the Blues Brothers. It was also carpeted in a soft dove gray all over.

As we walked on the second floor, we came to a step hidden by the sameness of the carpet. She tripped and fell and sprained her ankle. I started to help her up and she leaped up, looked at me and giggled – just like she had done when she was 17.

I realized that the Tramadol she was taking had really affected her. but I also realized that she was fast becoming incapable of normal walking.

She began walking slower and more deliberately.

We have always held hands as we walked, but I noticed that our hand-holding had changed. It became more of a hand-clutching than a hand-holding. She was holding on to me for support.

I had gotten her a cane but I was handier.

As we went on, she became slower and slower.

After a couple of years, we got a wheelchair and I was the designated pusher. I found out that I had to go slower than usual again because I broke one pushing it quickly along a pot-holey street.

Occasionally I had to break loose and walk. I would leave her somewhere while I went to get something for her and would walk fast.

But little by little, we began slowing down. It became evident that she had trouble walking.

At first she just looked unsteady. Sooner or later came the lurch, what I called her zombie walk. We would laugh about it because the alternative was too unpleasant.

But soon it became apparent she was too unsteady to walk very far, even a few feet.

She got her disability in May of 2004 and her first scooter a week later.

The mobility of the scooter was pleasant to her. She could go places and have a good time without me having to push her.

The only problem was that the scooter weighed 150 pounds and, although designed to break down for storage, would have something happen to it each time we did.

So it came to me to be the designated lifter. Fortunately, I am a big guy and have always been pretty strong. I had already gotten a lot of practice lifting her off the ground in her frequent falls. And helping her when she sprained her ankle, as she did an awful lot. Either that or breaking bones, which she did a lot, too.

As I got older, though, I did find out the power of leverage. Rather than breaking the scooter down, I would lift the front end, put it in our minivan, then pick up the back end and scoot it in. I became, not only the human cane, the wheel chair pusher, the errand boy, but also the scooter scooter.

For the first twenty years of our marriage, she waited on me, cooked for me, did about everything she could do as a homemaker. For the next twenty, I have been her caregiver.

It started small but has grown to the point that she is in constant pain. Of course, since nothing has worked to stymie the pain (including a virtually worthless neuro-stimulator and a semi-tractor trailer load of drugs), she spends a lot of time in her recliner.

I have become the go-getter. Johnny, would you go get… And I do.

I mean, what else would I do? I love her. I have read so much about men who leave their wives when they contract a debilitating illness. I have even known a couple of women in that situation. I really don’t know if I could live with myself if I did that.

Now we are down the line with the second scooter (fortunately much lighter but unfortunately not nearly as good as the first – it is slower). We have had several wheelchairs and three mini-vans, a number of what she calls cripple-stickers (the handicap tags), and life is considerably slower. I even drive slower now.

So it means picking up a few heavy things. So it means getting up from a comfortable chair and going to get her meds or a glass of tea or wine. So it means being inconvenienced a little.

It is far better than being without her.

And besides, I have slowed down so much that it would be hard to start with somebody else. Don’t tell her I said that.

daily java

Daily Java:

I have chosen to be faithful; I have determined to live by your regulations.

(Psalm 119:30) There is a choice on the part of the believer that has to be made. Unless we make that choice, we cannot see God.

Back in the ‘80’s, there was a big campaign by Nancy Reagan called “Just Say No to Drugs.” It was based on personal choice and personal responsibility.

The liberals did nothing but make fun of it. Their idea was that we cannot choose to be good or bad. we need government committees and councils and programs to show us the way to go.

Somehow the idea of individual initiative has gone by the wayside in modern day America. The rugged self-reliance is slowly being replaced by government handouts.

It is the same in Christianity. It is God who draws us and we cannot come to him of our own volition. But it is not done against our wills. We have to say yes to God and accept him. We have to choose his way and turn our backs on the way of evil. We have to choose the Lord. We are not alone in the choice, but it must be ours.

Titus 2:11-13 says For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.

The New International Version says in verse 12, It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions.

There is a choice we make in serving God. He will not drag us kicking and screaming into heaven. It must be our choice.

But we recognize that the choice is two sided. We cannot go to see him under our own power, but it must be done with him.

It is his power that we choose.

As Joshua said in Joshua 24:15: But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.
The liberals who came against Nancy Reagans’ program of personal choice and responsibility were both wrong and fools. We can say no without the government helping us. And we can choose God in our lives.

Just say yes to God and choose him.

daily java

Daily Java:

The one thing I ask of the Lord—
      the thing I seek most—
   is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
      delighting in the Lord’s perfections
      and meditating in his Temple.
    For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
      he will hide me in his sanctuary.
      He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
    Then I will hold my head high
      above my enemies who surround me.
   At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
      singing and praising the Lord with music. (Psalm 27:4-6)

There are things that look so appealing to me. One is the idea of being a monk, spending my time in a quiet atmosphere, writing, reading, maybe even a vow of silence, of poverty.

Of course, I would like to stay married. I do not want to give  up my wife. For one thing, I love her and like being with her.

But even so, I have considered the idea of some kind of vacation like this. If I could find the right setting where I could do it for a week.

There would be no internet service, no phone service. A typewriter would do, or a small computer hooked up with nothing but a word processing program. No Free Cell, no Solitaire, no games of any kind. No TV or movies. No books of any kind except for my Bible. No distractions.

Just me and God, living in an attitude of meditation.

In fact, I have told Ella that if she died, I may become a monk of sorts. I would get rid of everything else and maybe just wear a robe. I would have to have good sandals as my feet are bad, but still, just nothing but me and God.

Life would look for me and not find me. It would be good.

I even set up a schedule for a week long time of fasting, prayer and writing, with periods of exercise.

6AM           Wake
6:15-7:00    Morning prayer and meditation
7-8              Exercise and walking
8-9              Reading
9-12            Writing
12-1            Prayer and meditation
1-2              Exercise and walking
2-3              Reading
3-5              Writing
5-6              Exercise and walking with meditation
7- 8             Prayer and meditation
8-9              Final writing
9PM            Bed

Whether it would work or not, I do not know. It just sounds idyllic. I would probably be bored after a couple of days.

But the idea of not worrying about anything, to just stand and let my mind go in directions I want it to without distractions.

Could I do it? Maybe not. But maybe so. I would like to try.

daily java

Daily Java:

The next day Paul went with us to meet with James, and all the elders of the Jerusalem church were present. After greeting them, Paul gave a detailed account of the things God had accomplished among the Gentiles through his ministry. After hearing this, they praised God. And then they said, “You know, dear brother, how many thousands of Jews have also believed, and they all follow the law of Moses very seriously. But the Jewish believers here in Jerusalem have been told that you are teaching all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn their backs on the laws of Moses. They’ve heard that you teach them not to circumcise their children or follow other Jewish customs. What should we do? They will certainly hear that you have come. (Acts 21:18-22)

There is always someone who is willing and ready to minimize what you have done.

There had been a massive paradigm shift in the kingdom of God. No longer was one group of people important and the others second class. Now all were equal in Christ Jesus. No longer would the Jews be the sole people of God. He had turned from them. In fact, he hadn’t even spoken to them for over 400 years.

Now, in order to be his people, they had to come to him and accept his grace on an equal footing with the Gentiles.

They could not stand this. Of course, you can understand why. The entire Old Testament revelation was either given to them or given to others with them in a primary position. They had been big.

When Paul came up and told them what good was being done, they agreed. Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But, you know, there are lots of Jews being converted and one thing is for sure. They do not want to change. They will accept Jesus, but they do not want to change their lifestyles.

What is more, they are afraid Paul was teaching other Jews that they didn’t have to keep the law of Moses, something they loved and felt was their right and due.

And he was. His message was that the old order was gone. There was now a new order: a law of love and grace, not of laws and commandments.

By the end of this chapter, they were trying to beat him to death and he had to be carried by a bunch of soldiers on their shoulders to keep him from being killed.

In their defense, the church in Jerusalem was treading a fine line. The Jews were as rabid about keeping their laws and customs as the Muslims are today. The only real difference between the two was that they did not insist on converting the rest of the world at the point of a sword.

They would, however, kill you if you told them that their way of doing things was not valid anymore. And the church was both afraid for their own survival in a hostile situation and themselves basically unwilling to change their lifestyles. They had always been Jews and could not imagine worshiping God any other way.

So they reminded Paul of the letter they had sent with him telling everybody what they had to do. Paul, of course, had disregarded this letter as another attempt of the old guard to force their wishes on the new guard. The things it contained, They should abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality (Acts 21:25), were for the most part true.

Their real problem was that God had shown Peter a vision saying what he had created not to consider unclean. In other words, eat everything and shut up about it. So everything in the letter except for immorality was not valid any longer, and Jesus had already talked about immorality anyway. There was no reason for an official letter.

When it came down to it, no one in the church has the right to tell anybody else what they can or cannot do. Our relationship in this new order is based on our relationship with God, not with somebody “in authority.”

The customs you follow in life do not matter. What matters is when you begin to mandate them. Then they become wrong.

And there are those who will not care what good you are doing. They will only care about how you can make them feel better.

That is a shame, but it is true.

But we continue anyway. And may God be praised and we be placed in second place.

daily java

Daily Java:

Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear. (Matthew 24:35)

We look for permanence in the midst of a disposable society.

It is amazing how many things we throw away. You don’t see shoe repairs anymore, even though shoes are pretty expensive. We throw them away when they wear. Clothing tears and it is in the trash. Our electronics are incapable of being repaired so if something happens, out in the trash. It is even easier to get divorced than to work on our marriage relationship.

But in the midst of all this temporariness, we are looking for permanence. We are looking for something that lasts, something that has some substance.

God is a permanent God. He is not a fad. He will always be with us and his words will always be able to guide us. The old Indian saying that the only thing that lasts is the earth and the sky is not true. One day they will be gone. The only thing of any real permanence, any real substance is God and his words.

When you follow God, you get that in your life which will not change, which will not die. It will not change according to fashion or fad, it will not become less when people don’t like it. It will stay forever.

Even in death it stays. When his friend Lazarus had died, Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, hinted to Jesus that if he had wanted, he could have stopped it. Jesus’ reply: I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha? Is this permanence in your life, Martha?

No one is disposable in God’s sight. He may not use you as an example of his power as he did Lazarus, raising you from the dead. But his love and his power is permanent in your life.

He will always be there, even if  you cannot necessarily feel him. Everything else will go, but what he said is permanent.

acts 1 – it all has to start somewhere

Acts 1 – It All has To Start Somewhere

The old saying is that the longest journey begins with a single footstep. Everything has to start somewhere. Some of the greatest and largest and most successful companies in the world started with one man or one woman having a good idea. From there it grew into something great.

The church was the same way. It began with death and then life. It began with failure which turned into success. It began with sadness which became joy. It began with one man and ended up being the largest faith in the world.

The church started one day with a couple of hundred people standing around trying to figure out what was going to happen. They were in the temple like they had been for the ten days since Jesus went back to heaven in their sight. They were praying, talking, discussing, teaching, arguing, expostulating – all the things they knew how to do.

They just couldn’t do the most important thing: figure out just exactly what it was they were supposed to do.

Jesus had left them with a single idea: just wait in Jerusalem, for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about (Acts 1:4). He said they would be baptized again, but this time, it was going to be different. This time, he said, in 1:5,  you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

So they waited. They had nothing, after all. They had given it all up when they began to follow Jesus. So it wasn’t as if they had lost a lot in waiting. But wait they did.

And they waited. And they waited. When will it begin? They even asked him, in 1:6, before he left, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Tell us when it will start. Give us some clue.

Jesus’ reply: it will start when the Father decides it will start. You just wait until then.

So they waited.

They even did a little busywork and appointed another apostle to replace Judas Iscariot, who had killed himself after betraying Jesus. Of course, that wasn’t necessary. God had his own plans for the apostolate. You never hear from Matthias again.

And they waited. And prayed. A lot of prayer was prayed, along with all of the disciples, and Jesus’ mother, Mary. Even she didn’t know yet what to do.

Something was going to happen, and when it did, it was going to start something big. They knew that. They just didn’t know what yet.

So they waited. And prayed. And watched. And taught and discussed and talked and argued.

Come, Lord Jesus. It all has to start somewhere. Let it start with us.

daily java

Daily Java:

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
      Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
   Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
      Don’t let them control me.
   Then I will be free of guilt
      and innocent of great sin. (Psalm 19:12-13)

It is amazing what we are capable of, things we end up doing that we never dreamed we would.

I read an article a few years ago by a young man who had participated in a gang rape in a bar. He said he was repulsed by the whole idea, yet the mob mentality was so strong that he found himself engaged in the very act that appalled him. He said it was as if he had no will of his own and was deeply ashamed.

A friend of mine was a policeman in Houston involved in undercover narcotics work. There was rumors of a riot planned in one part of Houston and the police sent in my friend along with several other undercover policemen to see if they could diffuse the riot from inside before it got going.

He told me that the mob moved and began to chant and throw rocks through business windows. He threw a rock and thought, Wait. I am the police. Again, it was as if he had no volition of his own. He became part of the mob without wanting to.

You find some money and keep it, even though you have an idea of where it came from. You say something to hurt someone and wonder afterwards why you would ever do that. You engage in an affair with a woman, even though you love your wife and you cannot figure out how it was you even got started.

You do stuff that is stupid and you think, Wait. I am a child of God! Why am I doing this?

Sin lurks in our hearts. That sounds melodramatic, but it is absolutely true. It is just sitting there waiting for the opportunity to jump out. It is no wonder that the Bible speaks of the devil as a prowling and roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour.

Romans 3:23 says: All sin and fall short of the glory of God. That is for the world, for non-Christians and everybody for that matter. Everybody sins and messes up. It is the way we are made. God made us able to make choices, and the problem is, when the choice is too hard, we make the wrong one. It is human nature.

Even Christians have the problem of sin. 1 John 1:8 says: If we say we have no sin, we are lying and the truth is not in us. That is for Christians.

In other words, everybody sins. Some are saved sinners and some unsaved sinners, but we are all sinners needing the grace of God.

And the bad thing is – if the others are not bad enough – we don’t even know all we do in our hearts, all we are even capable of.

We do both deliberate and hidden stuff all day, both Christian and non-Christian. So if we all sin like this, who then can be saved?

We are not lost by the sins we commit, we are lost by the fact that we have not accepted Jesus and his grace. We are not saved by the sins we do not commit, we are saved by the grace of Jesus.

The Lamb’s Book of Life does not have the things we have done listed in it, it has our names listed. If we are his, our names are there. If not, they are not.

He knew and knows that we sin. It is our nature. But when we take him into our hearts, it changes the nature of our lives. We are no longer ruled by sin. We are ruled by him and his grace.

That doesn’t mean we do not still make mistakes. But what it does mean is that we stand before him clean and pure by his power, not ours. We are free and innocent by his strength. He makes us that way.

Praise his name!

irritated about everything

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, 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. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)

Frustration is the key word of our society. We are irritated about everything.

One of the presidential candidates mentioned that she was a Lutheran and got blasted for not liking the Pope. A pop singer sang a song in a wheelchair and got blasted by a disabilities organization. One of our former presidents said he didn’t like broccoli and got blasted by the broccoli association.

No matter where you turn, you end up “hurting somebody’s feelings.”

Of course, many times, that “hurt” is nothing more than a political ploy or a guilt trip to get you to do what that person wants. But even so, it makes for a frustrated society.

And a frustrated society is not a peaceful one. It can’t be, because the waters are always being churned up by someone with an agenda.

The Christ-follower should have no agenda other than that of Jesus. Romans 13:8 says: Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

In other words, just do what Jesus wants and the other stuff will take care of itself. Quit trying to get people to do what you want and be at peace.

Rejoice, even when things are not going well. Be gentle in this mean-spirited world. Don’t worry. After all, what can worry accomplish?

Let God know what you need and trust in him to provide it.

And then, fill your hearts and your minds with decent stuff. The more you watch garbage, the more full of garbage you will be. Do things that are helpful, think about things that are good. Read good books. Listen to good music. Talk to good people.

Follow the example of those who love you and want the best for you. Choose to be peaceful. It is a choice you can make if God is truly in your heart.

And choose not to be irritated by what people do. They don’t do what you want? Big deal. They could probably say the same about you.

Then the God of peace will be with you. God bless you.

daily java

Daily Java:

I will bless the Lord who guides me;
      even at night my heart instructs me.
I know the Lord is always with me.
     I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. (Psalm 16:7-8)

My wife and I have been married for over forty years. In that time, we have built a good relationship.

That relationship has been built on our being together. She has been beside me for all those years, supporting what I do, encouraging me, loving me, teaching me, learning from me, just being with me.

We are together much of the day, due to the nature of my work, and we are together every night. We eat together and sleep together, we play together and laugh together, we celebrate together and mourn together.

She is my companion and I love her.

But as much as I love her, I have been with the Lord longer.

I accepted Jesus as my Savior on December 13, 1959, at the age of ten. I have not always done a good job, but I have tried to serve him ever since.

He guides me and instructs me and is always with me.

There are times when Ella cannot be with me for one reason or another, but God is always there. And one day, she will die, but he will still be there.

This knowledge gives me a confidence that is not found even in my relationship with Ella. One day she will be gone, but he will never be gone.

He will always be with me.

a quality of a Christian that is evident

Psalm 15

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?
Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
Those who refuse to gossip
or harm their neighbors
or speak evil of their friends.
Those who despise flagrant sinners,
and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,
and keep their promises even when it hurts.
Those who lend money without charging interest,
and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.
Such people will stand firm forever.

There is a quality of a Christian that is evident. He or she is one who worships, who strives for godliness even in the midst of failure, who tries to do what is right even when it seems impossible and everyone else opposes it, who honors what is right even in a world of wrong, who stands firm.

One who stands firm is never popular. We live in a world that is constantly vacillating, constantly seeking the path of least resistance.

It is hard to do what is right in this kind of world. Yet the Christian tries, against all odds, to do what is right.

It is hard to worship the Almighty God and serve him. In the midst of a world that is corrupt, the worship of the Almighty God is never welcomed. But the Christian does even in a hostile situation.

The Christian will not speak evil of his or her neighbor, no matter the reason, even in private.

The Christian will not take up with those who compromise the Word, who compromise the worship of the Almighty God. It doesn’t matter what others think, the Christian will remain faithful even to the point of ostracism.

The Christian will be generous, even to the point of being taken advantage of. The bottom line is not his concern. The love of Jesus is his concern.

The Christian stands firm.

Those are the ones who worship in his sanctuary, who enter his presence in his holy hill.

They are not the ones who win the popularity contest. They are not the ones who are elected to office, who are loved and honored.

But they are the ones who are faithful to the Lord.

They are the ones who are faithful.

daily java

Daily Java:

Psalm 13

For the choir director: A psalm of David.
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me.

Someone once said that we get to being depressed not because bad things happen, but because good things do not. After a while, it seems there is no balance in our lives.

And you wonder why God allows this in a Christian’s life. Why is it that one who is to be seen by the world as joyous, full of the grace and Spirit of God can have his life go on and on in such a dismaying fashion.

And there is no real answer to that. Those who are hurting the child of God think they have won. He has been stopped from doing what we do not want him to do, so we win.

And in some respects they have. When we begin to feel deserted by the One we worship, they are winning.

We ask how long will you keep on allowing us to be punished? How long will you forget me? Because, after all, when the Lord pays no attention to you, it feels as if he has forgotten you.

It is easy to say, well God is still there and is still in control. It is easy to say, if you can’t see his hand, trust his heart.

And while true to a point, at the same time, these are cloying aphorisms that mean nothing except that the sayer is not very smart or very inventive.

When the sparkle is gone, you need the one who created the eyes to hear. And sometimes he doesn’t. Not only does he not hear, he sometimes will not hear for years.

I trust in the love of God and I sing to him. But I need him to hear me and see me.

God is good and I praise his name. But I need to hear him.

daily java

Daily Java:

A group of Jews was traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits. They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in their incantation, saying, “I command you in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. But one time when they tried it, the evil spirit replied, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and battered. The story of what happened spread quickly all through Ephesus, to Jews and Greeks alike. A solemn fear descended on the city, and the name of the Lord Jesus was greatly honored . (Acts 19:13-17)

This is a funny passage and made me laugh out loud again. Seven men who thought they were something else came up against the powers of darkness without the help of God and got their clocks cleaned.

They decided that casting out demons wasn’t as hard as all that, and since the apostles, men they probably considered their intellectual inferiors could do it, so could they.

So they tried. The evil spirit looks at them and says, whoa re you anyway? And attacks them. They were indeed fortunate to get out alive. They are standing out on the street beat to pieces and everybody is looking at them and realizing their total lack of power.

I am reminded of the story in 1 Samuel 28 when King Saul was trying desperately to get some advice. God had turned from him for his arrogance, and Samuel was dead, having not spoken to Saul for several years before he died.

Saul found a witch at the city of Endor and went to her in disguise. It was, after all, against the law to be a witch. When she did her conjurings, Samuel popped up. The minute he did, she knew she was in a real situation. And she was scared. All of her other stuff had been fake. Just like the seven men in the story in Acts 19.

In the movie, Leap of Faith, Steve Martin plays a fake evangelist who holds a revival in a small town. He claims to be able to heal and to prophesy, but it is a sham, accomplished by a good ability to guess and a radio transmitter in his ear to hear advice from his staff that they have found out. He then “miraculously” delivers this information during the course of his “ministry.”

At one point a crippled boy comes forward and is really and truly healed. The real thing in the midst of all his fakery scares the preacher so badly that he quits and runs away. The fake was normal, the real was frightening.

Occasionally we come into contact with something that is real and honest and it can scare us. Someone who is really good, or pure, or holy. We try to be these things, but when someone comes up who really is, we don’t know what to do. It can be frightening.

At one point in the gospels, Luke 5, Jesus points out a large load of fish for the apostles to catch. When they pull them in, it is one of the biggest catches they have ever seen. The apostles realize that it is because of the power of Jesus that they caught it.

Peter is overwhelmed. In front of him is real power. He was big and strong and considered himself to be good at what he was, but here was the real thing. He fell to his knees and said: Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you (Luke 5:8).

The real thing is frightening.

My wife has a look of love and trust in me that at times is almost too much to see. I am afraid I am not worthy of it. The way your children look at you when they are little. You are the most powerful being in the universe to them.

When these seven men thought they would just do some stuff and people would really appreciate them, they were wrong. The powers of the devil, without the help of God in your life, are overwhelming and there is no way you can stand up to them. You will only get hurt if you try.

People say things like “one of these days, I will get my life straightened up and I will come to church.” It will never happen. You cannot straighten up your life. Only God can. His is the real power.

He is the real thing.