my one thousandth post

But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

This is my 1000th blog post. I have been posting on this blog since January 28th of last year. I have written over 500,000 words since then.

The funny things is I am not real sure anyone even reads this blog. I write and have gone through a lot in the past two years, but the forum has given me a chance to – pour out my heart, I guess you could say.

I think I may take a short hiatus from it. We are moving tomorrow to an apartment and I may be a bit busy anyway.

A thousand posts. When I started I never dreamed I had that many words in me. But I did. And here they all are. Some were angry, some were sad, some were happy, some were just there. Some had an agenda, some didn’t and were just for fun.

But all were from my heart and, at least most of them were with the aid of coffee.

And with the aid of the Spirit of the Lord, who guides me in all I do. I praise his name.

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Daily Java:

I hate those with divided loyalties, but I love your instructions. (Psalm 119:113)

In the movie the Outlaw Josie Wales, there was a ferry operator that had to remain neutral between the two sides of  the Civil War. He made mention of the fact that he had to be able to sing Dixie and battle Hymn both with equal fervor. It just depended upon who was around him at the time: Rebels or Yankees.

People live their lives like that all the time. They try so hard to keep God in the center, yet also surround themselves with things that are against him. Their loyalties are divided.

In the Old Testament, the children of Israel, the chosen people of God, were like that. They worshipped God, but they also hedged their best by worshipping other gods too. They even made the Lord the head god, made him special and gave him preeminence over all the others.

But the Lord said that he was the only God. There were to be no others with him. With God, it was all or nothing.

Divided loyalties hurt. There is no room for compromise in service to God because he demands your all. He doesn’t want most, or your most important. He wants all.

Because of the divided loyalties, the Israelites were destroyed as a people.

We will be too, unless we give him our all.

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Daily Java:

As for me, I look to the Lord for help. I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me. (Micah 7:7)

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Hope. Hope is a centerpiece of our lives and without it, our lives become meaningless. The hope that God sent us was manifested in that little baby born on Christmas.

He is hope.

Someone once said that it is not the number of bad things that happen to you that make you depressed, but the lack of good things to counterbalance it.

That lack of good things brings a lack of hope. And one who has a lack of hope has nothing to look forward to.

That is, of course, why you work your entire life, hoping and saving for retirement. When that hope is taken away, or shattered in some way, it makes your life less.

We get married as a hope for our future happiness and companionship. We have children as a hope for someone to love us and for the future of humanity. We do a lot as a hope for something yet to come.

The same with our relationship with God. We do not come to him only as a hope to not be punished, but as a hope for a future happiness.

Our hope is in him. And it is what keeps us going.

Hope keeps you going when times are hard, when it seems there are no real answers, when you life is in shambles. It is your hope in God.

And he will never let you down. We hope toward the end we have in him. We hope in his promises. As Psalm 33:20 says: We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield.

That hope doesn’t necessarily mean that he will never allow anything to happen. In the book of Hebrews, it says that even though bad things happened, they placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. They knew this was not all there was.

Hebrews 11:1 says that Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. That is hope: confidence in what we do not see.

We do not see God. We do not see his grace. We do not see his end plan for us. We do not see him at all. Not really. Not with our eyes. Yet we believe.

That is hope, believing on what we do not see. Believing in retirement from a job you have worked for years, believing your money is in the bank, believing in your husband or wife: those are all hope.

And they may fail. But God never will. It is that hope in him that saves.

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Daily Java:

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. (James 3:17-18)

Real wisdom is evident. And you can always tell the source of wisdom.

What the world calls wisdom is more of an arrogant survival or knowledge. It is the kind of thing that makes the speaker look good, that advances an agenda in some way. It is more talk than anything else and tends to be gibberish after you look at it for a few minutes.

Real wisdom heals. It brings peace. It accomplishes something. It doesn’t just sit there in pithy phrases and make the one who advances it sound good. Sometimes, it can even be against the speaker.

Real wisdom always advances peace, even if it doesn’t seem like it. It was after all, Jesus who said he came to bring difficulty. In Matthew 10:34, he said: Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

It was the wisdom of God that brought Jesus to this earth (1 Corinthians 1). Yet the experience of Jesus is not always good. There is one third of the world today railing against him, killing people who believe in him.. there is no outward peace there. And there are those who say that the very bringing of Jesus into the culture is harmful and should be avoided at all costs.

Yet Jesus said anyway to go and preach the gospel to all creation, to everybody. The wisdom of God was to preach. To deny that is foolishness.

Real wisdom yields. It doesn’t set up little kingdoms based on men’s thoughts and charisma. It points to God. It is merciful and has good things coming from it.

Real wisdom is noticeable the moment it is seen. And because the world does not want to see God, it is rejected the moment it is seen and heard. The world does not want to see the wisdom of God because it points away from what it wants to do.

It brings us into his presence and into his love. And it causes good things to happen.

Real wisdom is beautiful.

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Daily Java:

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Dragged my over-stuffed body to the mall today to watch the crowds. It really was a great experience. Since my wife is handicapped, we park next to the door. So we got to walk to the front door quickly. Of course, then there is the whole mall to walk, but at least we didn’t have to go far to go to the car.

Of course, before the mall, we threw in Macy's, Marshall's and Pier One to boot. So we had walked a ways before we got to the mall itself.

The really interesting thing is that in several hours of walking around commercial establishments, all we bought was wrapping paper at Target for $2.50. Nothing else. Went through the entire mall and bought naught, nothing, nada, nix, nicht. We are the only people we know that can go to the mall and not buy a thing.

We treat it as sort of a museum to commercialism. We look and check out stuff, but rarely buy anything. Quite frankly, there is little we need, so going to the mall is more of a sight-seeing venture for us.

But, oh, the infinite variety of people that I got to see. It is amazing at God's human diversity.

Being Black Friday, there a  million people there. And they were of all ages and all races. And they were all God’s children, created in the image of God himself.

I sat outside Bath and Body Works (I hate that store) while waiting for Ella and our daughter Abby and just watched. Tall, short, well-off looking, poor-looking, thin fat, older, younger – they were all there. And they were fascinating to see.

There was one couple in which the man was a good foot shorter than the woman (you could tell the little boy was his), there were interracial couples, there were older couples and a few young couples. Some looked no more than mid teen, embarrassed to be holding hands but liking it so much.

Gangs of guys would come by, then a gathering of girls. The occasional single person would be seen, but for the most part, people were paired off.

And it was great. I loved it. It is one of the favorite things I do. And Black Friday was a gold mine.

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Daily Java:

They sang, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:12)

Today is Thanksgiving Day. It is a day in which we typically get together and try our level best to eat each other under the table.

But, of course, and we all know this – as we sit belching – there is more to it than that.

The first Thanksgiving followed a brutal winter in the new world. More people died than lived among the colonists from England during that first winter. But at the end of the harvest, the settlers gave thanks. Different legends are around, but it seems they invited their Indian friends who had helped them learn to plant corn, a native North American dish.

Above all else, they were grateful. And their leadership led them in a number of Thanksgiving prayers. They were grateful that they had made it through that first winter and wanted the Lord to know it.

The point was not the food, the point was the thanks.

That is why the designation Turkey Day is so grating. It denigrates the whole point of Thanksgiving in the first place.

We give thanks. We thank God who is the Source of all that is good and holy.

And if we don’t, all we become are gluttons.

And I do thank my God. Above all, I thank him for my wife, Ella, who has been with me though so much. I love her and cannot imagine life without her.

I thank God for my children. I know they love me and I love them and their families.

I thank God for my church. Life as a pastor in the past few years has been tumultuous at best, but the church we attend right now has accepted us and loved us. I thank God for them.

I thank God that I live in America with our freedoms of belief and life in general.

And above all else, I thank God for his Son, Jesus, who gave me life and joy and peace.

If I did not eat another thing, I would still thank him.

Thank you, Lord.

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Daily Java:

Rich people may think they are wise, but a poor person with discernment can see right through them. (Proverbs 28:11)

When I read this verse, it thought back to the other day. I was listening to a movie star blathering about something they knew nothing about. And the only reason they were talking was because they were a popular movie star and thought that gave them extra wisdom.

However, it was not hard to see that they knew absolutely nothing. They were good at what they did, which was pretending to be somebody else. But they knew nothing about their subject. And it soon became apparent to all but themselves.

Being good in your profession gives you a certain amount of credibility when dealing with your profession. But it doesn’t necessarily make you an expert anywhere else. And the problem comes when you are famous and someone asks your opinion on something. Suddenly you begin to feel that, since you are top of your field, you know a lot about everything else.

And you begin to feel that everyone wants to know. It is a good way to ruin a career. I have heard a lot of people complain that they went to hear someone sing and got blasted with a diatribe against something that they held dear.. the singer or the actor that has to mention how stupid he thinks Republicans are, or how dumb Christians are.

And they mention this at a  function that you have aid to go to. You have paid to hear yourself put down.

The problem is, the richer you are, the more you think you know. And, true, you have to know a lot of get rich. However, it doesn’t impart wisdom in all points like you think.

Rich people begin to think of themselves as self-sufficient. They have gotten what they need by their own ability or whatever. And sooner or later, they begin to see themselves as greater than everyone else, even greater than God.

And when that happens, they have lost all that was good. It doesn’t take riches or talent or anything else to see that persona s being foolish.

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Daily Java:

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. (James 4:1-3)

The Occupy Wall Street thing is going on full swing. Several cities have been “occupied” and people have made known their dissatisfaction with the way things are going financially.

But it seems that the main point of all of these “occupations” has been: We want more and we do not want to have to work for it.

There is a basic desire in the hearts of all humanity to have more. We want better homes and better living conditions, a better car, nicer clothing, better food – everything we have, we would like to upgrade to something better.

This is a natural desire. And there is nothing wrong with it in and of itself.

It is when the greed comes in that it becomes wrong. It is when it begins to possess you – your possessions begin to own you – that it becomes bad.

Wealth and better stuff as such is not bad. it is the love of the stuff that is bad.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:10: For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

It is not money, or for that matter stuff, that is the problem. It is the love of money, the love of stuff. You fight for it and grasp for it and devote your whole life to the acquisition of stuff and yet you still do not have enough.

James, in this passage, even says that you don’t have it because you do not ask for it, and when you ask for it, you are only asking out of greed.

I am not sure how that plays out in a life of people who are devoted to God and yet still do not have what they need. But in general, it is true.

Any time you spend your life trying to get things, you never have enough.

The end result of the Occupy Wall Street philosophy? 2 Timothy 3:2: For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. The problem is, the more you have the more you want. The more you are given, the more you want. The richer you become through greed, the richer you want to become.

Hebrews 13:5 says: Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. That is kind of hard, especially in our modern society where all the things you do not have are paraded daily on TV and billboards and in the stores. You are constantly reminded that your furniture is tired, your car is broken, your clothing is out of style, that you are dissatisfied.

And the fighting begins. Not over noble things like freedom, but over income distribution and thinly disguised greed.

Anything that comes from that will hurt you far more than bless you.

And have you noticed, that these kind of things always end with people looting and stealing. Nothing that ends this way can possibly be blessed by God.

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Daily Java: 

Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. (Psalm 100:4)

And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. (Colossians 3:17)

This week is Thanksgiving. It is hard to believe that it can already be here. And you can tell. A sure sign is that the Halloween stuff is gone and the Christmas stuff is up at the stores.

And it is a shame, because Thanksgiving is a holiday that should be imperative for people to celebrate. I guess the main problem is that there isn’t a Thanksgiving tree with Thanksgiving presents that we give to each other which are, handily enough, sold at the stores.

That is the problem. It just isn’t commercial enough. So it tends to be ignored.

And we ignore it at our peril. It is a stone fact that no one appreciates an ungrateful person. There is nothing worse than a kid that just takes things without any attitude of being grateful.

Someone called it the attitude of gratitude. And as trite as that sounds, it is absolutely true.

And you can imagine God as he views us in our ingratitude in life. We take all he gives to us and ignore the Source.

The word says to be thankful for everything. Of course, that is a little hard for the bad things, but I suppose you are grateful for them that they make you stronger. Sure, that’s it.

I used to ask my mother things, and she was a master at the quick answer. Once I asked her why God made mosquitoes. Her answer: so we will be grateful when they’re gone. Although it was a goofy answer, there is a lot of truth in that.

We should be known as a grateful people. I suppose that it is a mark of a lot of the demonstrations going on today in the US that those demonstrating are mad that they do not have more. They live in a country that is unbelievably blessed with a standard of living that is in the extreme top tier in the world and they are mad because it is not higher.

Yes, things are not as they should be, and I for one know that. But even so, we, as Christians (or representatives of the Lord Jesus as Paul called us), should be thankful.

And I try to be, even when things come short. I refuse to fall into the pattern of griping about what I do not have. I would like a motorcycle, but still I am grateful. Yes, I would be more grateful with a motorcycle and a new Martin guitar.

But I am grateful for what I have. I praise him and I praise his name. Thank you, Lord for your blessings and for Jesus. Make me grateful. Amen.

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Daily Java:

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. (James 3:13-16).

I never could figure out why a person will tear a church up to get what they want. But I have seen it over and over. It is ultimately what drove me from the ministry.

We are dealing with things eternal, things holy, the will and work of God; and yet someone decides that his or her opinions on things are so vital and so powerful that they are willing to kill a church rather than give up their opinions.

And it happens a lot.

It may be the way we worship, or who is in charge of a certain program, or what slant on a  doctrine is preached, or what translation of the Bible is used, or even whether or not a certain program is used. I have even seen someone quit coming because someone drank coffee in the sanctuary.

The pettiness of the complaint makes no difference. It seems, in fact, that the more petty the complaint, the larger the ruckus.

The person says, in essence, this complaint of mine, this desire of mine is so great that it supercedes the will of God for this church. It is so vital, it is greater than the gospel message.

How the message is preached is greater than the message itself. How the praise is sung is greater than the praise itself. How the lost are reached is greater than reaching the lost.

And sooner or later, that which is holy cannot stand before that which is divisive. It is a fact that no matter who holy God was, his power for goodness was eliminated by the fact that Israel insisted on following their own wishes.

A church cannot stand up under this kind of satanic opposition. Sooner or later, people begin to leave. Those who want the control know that, if the church is to survive, it will have to give in to them, or it will die.

So on one level the church survives, but the Spirit of God leaves it. As Jesus said in Revelation 2:5, if this continues, Jesus will remove that church’s lampstand. It may still be alive on one level, but on that vital level – in the sight of God – it will be dead.

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Daily Java:

The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?” “O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.” (Ezekiel 37:1-3)

I have been reading Ezekiel in my daily Bible reading. For the most part, Ezekiel has been pronouncements of doom on all of the nations around Israel in the fifth century BC. And it gets kind of boring, as does much of the Old Testament when it deals with specifics. I mean, there are things you can bring out of it, but in general it was for them and not for us.

But then something comes through that really hits you. You can tell that what came through was meant for you. Today something came through that was aimed right directly at me from over 1400 years ago.

Bad stuff happens to you in your life. I know that for a fact. We have had a lot of bad stuff happen to us lately. So much so that I had decided to be completely through with the ministry.

The only problem is that is was God that called me into that ministry and not me. it really is not my decision.

And until I wrote that statement down I didn’t really realize that it was true.

So what do I do? I am not sure. But this one thing I know – well, I know a lot of good things – but this one comes to mind right now: if it is from God, he will rebuild it.

My ministry is lying like bones. It seems dead. Yet, I am doing things with the church where we are going. I am involved in the prayer ministry, in filing things for the church, I play in the praise band, I teach the Sunday night class for the church. So what is happening with my ministry?

I don’t know. I really don’t. I am sick of the church and in dealing with them. They have hurt my family for the last time. Or so I thought.

But the bones of my ministry are lying there. And God asks, are they going to be real again? And I say, I don’t know. They are your bones. You alone know the answer to that.

What’s he going to do? I will have to admit, that without the ministry, there isn’t much to me and my life.

the ruination of Christmas

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

I love Christmas. But something has happened, something bad.

Christmas was special when I was a kid. I know that it was a shopping thing, too, but without quite the desperate frenzy today.

Thanksgiving came, all the stores were closed. The day after Thanksgiving, the stores all opened with decorations galore. People had come in on Thanksgiving, or that night, and had transformed the stores into a Christmas wonderland.

Christmas carols began to be played. Santa came maybe that Saturday, maybe the next.

I was in WalMart this afternoon, and the Christmas stuff is in full force, complete with Christmas carols being sung loudly over the PA system. In fact, you began seeing Christmas stuff before the end of Halloween.

We were in the mall Wednesday and Santa will be there this weekend. The mall is decorated to the teeth. Even the Salvation Army bell-ringers are out already.

What used to be a great thing has become desperate. The Christmas carols over the sound system sound desperate. The decorations say please come buy things. Keep us afloat another year. We care nothing about Christmas and the reason behind it. All we care about is the corporate bottom line.

The personnel in one of the stores (a grocery store, of all places – a place where no one goes to shop for Christmas) remarked that she was already tired of Christmas carols and it is just the middle of November.

So what do we do? I truly do not know. One thing I think is to make our displeasure known when Christmas decorations start going up in October. Maybe that will do something if done over the course of a few years. Complain about it to those who have some control over it, not the store workers.

Let corporate know how you feel.

But above all, keep the real meaning of Christmas alive in spite of the commercial barrage.

I really believe that part of the devil’s work is to water down stuff that is holy. The more he can water down Christmas, the more he can begin to make us dread it, the more he can remove the emphasis of Jesus from it.

Refuse to be moved from the whole point of Christmas. It is not buying things, it is the incarnation of the Word of God made manifest in the flesh. All the rest is periphery.

Christmas is not for children. It is to remember.

And what a shame that such a beautiful time has been almost ruined by the commercial world.

No answers here. I am not sure if there are any. But it makes me sad.

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Daily Java: 

 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

The Lord told the prophet Ezekiel that there would come a day when the Lord himself would clean his people, to make them adequate to his service.

Under the old system, they were never adequate. There were laws for every part of life and they were very hard to keep from breaking. It wasn’t that God was cruel, he was just trying to show his people that there was no way they could come to him on their own power.

The Bible is full of those who realized this and moved past the sacrifices to the heart of God. They recognized that the sacrifices were nothing more than an outward sacrifice showing the reality of a loving heart.

He told Ezekiel that when that day of cleansing came, his people would have a new heart, a new Spirit, a new awareness of what God wants of us and how we may be pleasing to him.

This new cleansing was Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross. The new hart was God changing our inner man, our whole way of looking at him. The new Spirit was his Holy Spirit that would empower us and fill us, move us and change us.

We would no longer be a people of laws, but of Spirit. We would obey God from our very natures, not from a book of rules. The things we do will outward shows of inward holiness, not saving in and of themselves, but saved because we love God.

The people of God would no longer be a natural people, but a spiritual people. They would come from everywhere, not just Israel. The new people of God would include everyone, not just natural born Israelites.

But above all, we would worship God by nature, not by law.

That day is now, and that people is us. And you can be part of it.

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Daily Java:

Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but a person is tested by being praised. (Proverbs 27:21)

Praise can hurt you more than criticism.

There are several movie stars who have fallen on hard times. They are still well known names but they have not had a hit movie in a long time. In fact, all of the movies they star in are, quite frankly, stupid ones.

When talking about one of these people, a columnist made the comment that his problem was that he surrounded himself with “yes men”. He said that there was no one on this actor’s staff who would say no. no one would tell the actor that what hew as doing was a bad idea. All they did was sit around, agree with the actor and get paid.

So, as a consequence, he does foolish things and is falling in popularity

In the Old Testament, people would come in as kings, but would listen to the wrong people and soon be removed by God. They only listened to people who told them what they wanted to hear and they lost their crowns.

The problem with being popular is that you get so many people telling you how great you are and sooner or later you begin to believe your own press. You don’t have any check or balance to help you know what is right.

Pastors have this problem sometimes, as do politicians, or anybody in a position that is one of any degree of power. As long as people tell you that you are great, and there is no one to tell you otherwise, or you don’t listen to those who have constructive criticism, you will have problems.

A lot of praise can kill you.

That is much of the problem with our children today. At school, they are told that everything they do is great, that they are special little snowflakes (none alike). Then when they get out into the world with its job demands and all, they do not know what to do.

Criticism builds character. Yes, constant criticism is harmful and degrades the spirit. But constant praise makes you think you are invulnerable and causes you to overlook building opportunities in your life.

I prefer praise to criticism, that is for sure. But it is criticism that caused me to grow and change.

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Daily Java:

Our God is a devouring fire. (Hebrews 12:30)

When we come to God, he consumes us. If we are not consumed by God, we are not really in God.

People see a relationship with God as one in which he figures prominently. He is important to us and we make time to do stuff for him. Six days a week, we are in the world, we give him a large part of the seventh. We call ourselves Christians and most of the time look like it.

But that is not what God wants. He wants to devour us.

In the Old Testament, one of the things God told his people that they had done wrong was embracing other gods along with him. They would worship the other gods that the pagan cultures around them had, but they would also worship God. They even went so far as to make God chief god.

God said that in many ways, that – lumping him into a group of equals – was worse than denying him.

If he is truly God, he has no equals. He alone is God. And if he is truly God, there can be no equals in our lives.

Jesus said, in Matthew 12:30-31: Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me. So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.

He said that if you are not helping, you are hurting. If you are not devoured by the power and word of God, you are only half-eaten.

And it is that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit – the refusal to give God your life – that will condemn you. It is that dying without God that will cause you to be lost.

The church in Laodicea in the book of Revelation had this problem. They thought that by just hanging around in the church building a few times a week would make them holy. But instead Jesus said, But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! (Revelation 3:16)

It would be like your wife deciding that she needed more husbands. You could be the chief husband and she would still love you, but there needed to be more variety. You told her in the wedding vows that it was he and no one else. She consumes your life.

The same with God. In fact, it is no wonder that he uses the marriage idea so much, the idea of loyalty and commitment to each other.

What would happen in your life if you were consumed by God. If everything you did or thought was captive to him, that he was all you were and thought about?

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Daily Java:

But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. (Hebrews 11:35-40)

And we whine when someone makes fun Christians on TV.

The people of God have always suffered for being so. In America, we are coming to a point where it might be our turn. We are still a Christian nation, with 85% of Americans proclaiming faith in God. But there is a strong undercurrent trying desperately to turn that.

If it does, and we join the list of nations who were Christian but are now not, and if when that happens, we become persecuted God will still love us.

Our living in religious ease is not a sign of the favor of God. His grace is that sign.

These people went through a lot of pain and suffering serving God anyway.

But they knew that there was something better for them. This world was not the end, it was not the greatest thing. All this world amounts to is a proving round, a preparation time, getting us ready for heaven. It is not and can never be heaven itself.

When we suffer for God, we join the ranks of the greatest people who ever lived, people who showed that they were real God-followers by their lives and by their faith.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then this message came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, sing a funeral song for Tyre, that mighty gateway to the sea, the trading center of the world. Give Tyre this message from the Sovereign Lord: (Ezekiel 27:1-2)

In my daily Bible reading, I read a little Old Testament, a little New Testament, a little Psalms and a Proverb or two. So as I read along, I get the entire message of the Bible a smidgen at a time.

But for the past week or so I have been reading Ezekiel and he has been writing about the destruction of various countries around Israel in the fourth or fifth century before Jesus.

In other words, he is talking about a lot of people who are dead and I never cared about anyway.

Really, when it comes down to it, what do I care about Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenician cities? Or Moab or anywhere else then. They have absolutely no relevance to my life and I just kind of skim over them.

It is the same with the genealogies in the book of Numbers and other places. They are dead and buried and their bones have gone back to dust by now. If it were not for the Bible mentioning them, I would have absolutely no reason to know about them or how bad the nations around it treated Israel.

And really, that is the reason God is punishing many of them: they treated God’s people wrong.

So I am reading, and except for the fact that I am a history minded guy, I am thinking, “Big fat deal.”

But there is a point, I think. Romans 15:4 said that all these things – the Old Testament and Bible stories and laws and stuff – all these were for our learning that by them we might have encouragement and hope.

In other words, even though they can get tedious and I read them quite frankly because they are in the Bible and no other real reason, they have a point.

The point is: treat God’s people bad and you are toast.

Phoenicia, Moab, Edom, Babylon – all these cities are gone now. Even though they were massive civilizations, they are gone. God said they would be gone and they are. In fact, where they were is desert and bare.

No matter how powerful they are now, anyone who mistreats God’s people will be gone sooner or later.

There is the old story (probably just a legend) of the French philosopher Voltaire back in the 1700’s saying that in fifty years Christianity would be wiped out. The story goes that his office, after his death, was used to print Bibles. I don’t know if that is true, but one thing for sure: God is still here, his people are the single biggest faith in the world and they are not going anywhere.

On the other hand, all of the people who “prophesied” the death of Christianity are gone.

And they are as dead as the people in Tyre. God’s people, however, are alive and moving. And until God gets ready to take us out of this world, they will not be stopped.

daily java

Daily Java:

And I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be speechless. (Ezekiel 3:26)

I am late with this post today because I really didn’t have anything to say.

The morning started with a friend and me practicing for a special in church tomorrow. I wanted to do Jesus is Just Alright with Me so bad. But it did not come together. I was extremely disappointed. Instead, we will do a song he wrote. Part of the problem is that he is a cowboy singer that sings soft and slow cowboy songs, not Doobie Brothers stuff.

This afternoon we went to a funeral and I read the obituary and a poem. I didn’t know the man, but I knew his wife and some of his kids. He had been on hospice care for a while and was going to die anyway no matter what was done, so it was good that it happened.

I guess.

I don’t know if he was a believer or not. No one said otherwise, but the eulogy (given by the pastor who is also father-in-law of one of his daughters) seemed rather general.

Maybe I read too much into stuff. In fact, I know I read too much into stuff. I over analyze everything.

But still, there was a lot of sadness.

At the dinner afterwards, however, it was good. People laughed and goofed around. I got to know a guy named Chuck better. He is engaged to be married to one of the new deaconesses, Julie.

There was a relish tray someone had bought that had celery and broccoli, the general stuff with ranch dressing. But it also had what appeared to be habanero peppers – large ones – in one compartment. Everyone was looking at them suspiciously, until I looked at the other relish tray at those peppers. I realized that they were misshapen Santa Fe peppers, a pretty pepper that has a great taste and is not hot at all.

I took one and took a bite with about ten people watching. I promptly did not die and told them what they were. Julie tried one, pronounced it good and gave a bite to Chuck, who hesitantly ate it. They were good. Unfortunately, there were only six or so of them.

It kind of tinged the day, starting with the failure of my song, then going to a funeral. Even though the dinner afterwards was good, still it was not good.

I think I have lost my mojo. There was a time when it seemed that everything I did was good, flourished, people were anxious to know me. One Halloween, three people came to our party as me. I had a lot of charisma.

Now I don’t. I am a tired older man, broke, living in my daughter’s spare room.

To not have had much to say today, I seemed to written a lot.

daily java

Daily Java:

But I will give repeated thanks to the Lord,
      praising him to everyone.
For he stands beside the needy,
      ready to save them from those who condemn them. (Psalm 109:30-31)

I still remember the first night I was in the army. All day long, people had hollered at us. We had flown to El Paso from Houston and gotten off the plane to what seemed like never-ending abuse. No suggestions, no comments – all orders, screamed it seemed at the top of well-exercised lungs.

One of the first orders of business was to get out heads shaved. The guys all were standing around with what was probably the most interesting assortment of tans I had ever seen. There were indications of sideburns and longer hair, mustaches, whatever. If it was hair on the head, it was gone.

Then we got uniforms, olive green cotton sateen shirts and pants, along with black boots, belts, caps, etc. also our dress greens, the dress up suit we wore for special stuff.

We went to our barracks and were assigned bunks.

As we were sitting, a guy came by that some of our group knew. He was wearing a full leg cast, having evidently broken his leg. He was proud. They were going to let him out. They figured that his recovery time would be so long, he would never get a chance to do anything so they discharged him.

In my fear, I suddenly saw an opening. If I could break my leg, I could get out of the horror. Because horror it was. I had never experienced anything remotely like this. It was as if we were prisoners and were treated abominably.

That night, I lie on my top bunk thinking now if I could just fall off, land on my knee, break it, I could go home.

Finally, in disgust for myself, I turned over and went to sleep.

Two years later, I got out.

When it comes down to it, we can do what we need to do. I needed to be a soldier, so I became one. I never was that good at it, since I do not meld into the group mind that well. But I did it. And I came out alright.

I could run, fast, and could do situps and pushups and walk with my hands hanging from something. I could shoot. In fact, I found out I was an expert marksman. I could crawl fast, I could go long periods of time without water (our basic was in the desert outside of El Paso). I could function fine.

And most of all, I could listen to idiots scream at me and take it, even though I knew they were inferior human beings. I could obey inane orders given by a guy who got stone drunk every night.

Once, an assistant drill instructor made me stand on my knees so I would know what it was like to be short. In my mind, however, I knew I wasn’t short. Rather I was standing on my knees in front of one who would never know what it was like to be tall in any way, who would hide behind assumed authority all his life and would probably never amount to anything.

It was a good experienced over all. Every young man needs to know, at some point in his life, that he is not the center of the universe. It makes him better as a person to know that he can subsume his personality into something else without dying.

I am glad I did it.

every veteran’s day, i remember that I am a veteran

”What should we do?” asked some soldiers. John replied, “Don’t extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay.” (Luke 3:14)

I was drafted into the US Army. I didn’t go necessarily willingly, yet I went.

In 1969, any young man who was not in college or employed in some sensitive occupation, something that was government related, was drafted. It wasn’t personal, it was just a fact of life.

A lot of times, guys would join another service to get out of their army service, but that just made them serve four years instead of two. I didn’t want to go any longer than I had to so I was drafted.

After I had gotten the dreaded draft notice, I began the process of giving everything away. My father suggested that, on the off chance that I lived through my service, that I should keep a couple of things. So I kept my car. I did, however, spend all the rest of my money on my girlfriend, who I hoped would become my wife. (She did.)

But I was afraid. I had already known one young man to die in Vietnam. I didn’t want to. But, at the same time, I didn’t want to run away from my duty.

And it was the duty of every young man to serve in the army, or at least one of the armed services.

Those who didn’t, those who were not drafted for one reason or another, always have a hundred reasons why they didn’t go and feel eternally obligated to explain. Guys who went, went. And that was that.

It was a shared experience. You can always tell a former soldier by the way he walks. He takes shorter strides. We all found out that it was a fat lot easier to walk with shorter strides than longer when we marched places.

A former soldier also had his gig line straight. The gig line is the line that your shirt placket, your belt buckle and your fly make on your clothing. A soldier had to keep it straight, and even years afterwards, you do so. On a guy who was not a soldier, it is all crooked.

I suppose that the gig line thing was lost on modern soldiers with their untucked shirts and all. But for my generation, it was real.

The thing was, I went. I didn’t want to, I would have chosen not to, but I did. And if I had it to do again, I would go again. As I said, it was a shared experience that I would have hated to have missed out on.

I do not feel particularly special to have been a soldier. I look at the pictures of me during that time and almost have trouble remembering it. It was, after all, forty years ago. And I did not go into combat, so there are no memories of that.

But sometimes, I can remember.

I was so afraid when I went in. It was totally out of my area of knowledge. People were screaming at me and making me do things I didn’t want to do.

But, on the other hand, I was in phenomenal shape. 6’3” tall, 185 pounds, straight and tall – I looked like a Louis L’Amour character. I could do 100 pushups and God knows how many situps. My stomach was hard as a rock, my shoulders were broad (when I came home, my sport coat was too small through the shoulders). I could run forever. I was healthy and in shape for the first and last time of my life.

I would give a lot if I could be somewhere near that again. Handsome and straight and true – a United States Army soldier: PFC John Cliver.

I would not trade it for a million dollars and I mean that phrase. It was worth doing. And I wish my son could have gone through it.

Every Veteran’s Day, I remember that I am a veteran. I served. I went unwillingly, yes, I was drafted and would have chosen not to go if given the choice. But I was not given the choice, and I went and I am glad.

daily java

Daily Java:

I will sing of the Lord’s unfailing love forever! Young and old will hear of your faithfulness. (Psalm 89:1)

I feel like a doofus singing most of the songs about loving Jesus.

It is not that I do not love Jesus. I do. I have dedicated my life to serving him and I will do anything he wants and go anywhere he sends. I truly love Jesus. However, most of the love songs to Jesus make me decidedly uncomfortable.

I am a guy. You may have noticed that. And as a guy, I have a lot of trouble singing songs about love to another guy like some of the songs around today. And even though Jesus is the Son of God, he was a man.

I mean, I really like Pastor Mel. He and I have gotten to be friends and I could say I love him. But I am not going to ask him to hold me close to him and never let me go. If he tries, I will have to hit him. And he feels the same way.

Men just feel differently than women when it comes to the praise and love songs.

I went into a church once that had a woman pastor. I forget why we were there, but while my wife was doing something – applying for a job as a secretary, that was it – while she was applying, I walked around and looked. I am and have been for a long time a church junkie. I love to look around churches. They are, after all, my life.

So I go into the auditorium. At the front was a massive picture (by massive I mean probably four feet by eight feet or larger) of “Jesus, The Loving Bridegroom.” And he is coming toward me, arms open, with a smile.

I really felt creepy. While I know I am part of the Bride of Christ, his church, at the same time, I do not want some guy walking toward me like that.

That is a big problem in the church. Most of the praise and worship is made for women, not men. Men sing different stuff, manly stuff. Men do not sing songs that feel, quite frankly, homoerotic to another man. And Jesus was after all, a man.

I follow the man Christ Jesus. And I love the man Christ Jesus. And I guess you could say in one respect that I am in love with him. But my love reaction to Jesus is different than my wife’s.

I want to tell him that I am loyal, that I will follow him, that I appreciate him, that I will fight for him and die for him. That is what, as a man, I want him to know.

And he knows I love him without me slobbering all over the floor like a bad Budweiser beer commercial, the one with the guy saying “I love you, man.”

Oh, if Kathy leads one of these songs, I will play my guitar and try to look cool up front. But I will be uncomfortable. But you know, that’s okay. Church is for everyone, men and women. We sing the manly sings and we sing the others.

And we all will sing his praise. But I have to remember, he made me a man. And he made me to be a man in the way I view things. So by being a man, I praise him with my life.

daily java

Daily Java:

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. (Hebrews 9:24)

As a child, I sang “Tiptoe, tiptoe in God’s house …” I forget the rest, but it meant that we were to b quiet in the church building and not run around. After all, this is the house of God.

Or so I was told.

The book of Hebrews said that God doesn’t live in physical properties. He lives in spiritual ones. He doesn’t live in a church building, he lives in the church. He doesn’t live in a chapel, he lives in the heart.

No place can be a holy place unless there are holy people there. It really doesn’t matter how people may feel about a sanctuary or auditorium or any other part of a church building, it is the people who are holy, not the place.

God lives in us. He lives in our hearts and in our minds.

In the Old Testament, the high priest went into a holy place by himself, once a year, to take sacrifices before God. But when Jesus died, he went into the perfect holy place to take the sacrifice of himself before God.

When he did this, he nullified and negated all physical properties from being holy. The church building, no matter how you may feel about it or love it, is not holy. It is just a building, a structure.

It’s easy when there is so much praise and so much contact with God in a certain place to begin to make it special. But it is really our hearts that are special, not our buildings. It is our lives that are special, our minds, ourselves.

He lives in us and that makes us holy.

daily java

Daily Java:

Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. (Hebrews 5:8)

It is interesting that the Bible in many translations doesn’t have the word cat in it. Psalm 73:7 does mention These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! But other than that metaphor, cats are never mentioned.

But they surely are at our house.

We have a young cat and my daughter has one a little old. They have lived a life, for the most part, of quiet.

Then Sunday, my daughter got a dog, a Jack Russell Rough terrier. Rough means she has a lot of hair. She is seven years old and is a breed that was designed to go hunt small animals: moles, etc.

The only problem is that she has never seen cats and as far as she is concerned, she is fulfilling her destiny in chasing the cats.

And yesterday, it was a battle royale. Cats screaming, dog barking, animals flying. It was a real, honest to goodness dog and cat fight. Which the dog won.

The cats are not brave cats. They have been alone too long and have never had to fight a force like this dog.

By the way, Proxy is her name. This is one of the oddest names I have heard for a dog. It means substitution, like maybe they wanted something else – a zebra? – and couldn’t get it so they got Proxy the Jack Russell.

But Proxy has it in her nature to chase small animals. And chase she does.

But it has fallen my lot to be the disciplinarian. I am the bad guy who has to teach the dog the word No. She absolutely does not respond to it at all otherwise. So I have to teach her.

All of God’s creatures are happier when they have boundaries. Children need them, animals need them, adults need them. A life of anarchy is a fearful one. We need direction and instruction.

Even Jesus needed direction. He was human. And as a human, he needed to learn what was right and what was wrong. The difference between us and Jesus was, I believe, that he was a quick study. He learned. We usually don’t. When he was given correction, it corresponded with his inner nature and he learned.

But without that learning, without that teaching, Jesus would have been worthless as the perfect offering.

Consider this. Out of all the women of the universe that could have been his mother, God chose Mary. She was the one who was able to teach him.

I will be glad when the dog/cat wars are over. They are extremely stressful not only to the cats, but also to me. I seem to be the disciplinarian. But then I am also the one who had to put the old dog, Prissy, out of her misery. No one else could.

And I guess no one else can do this.

daily java

Daily Java:

A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry.  (Proverbs 27:7)

I read a story of some starving children who were rescued. They were fed and taken care of, but they wouldn’t go to sleep that night. They kept coming back into the kitchen. As it turned out, they were afraid that they would wake up in the morning and find it all gone. So they were afraid to go to sleep.

The man who had rescued them gave them each a slice of bread and told them to go back to bed, to not eat the bread, to just hole it in their hands. If they got hungry come back in and they could have something to eat. But just hold the bread.

They slept through the night. They knew that if it all went away, at least  they still had a slice of bread.

I have been on two long fasts in the past few years. One was thirty days and the other was twenty-one days. One thing I noticed during them was levels of hunger.

I would be hungry and Ella would ask what I wanted. What I wanted would be a pizza or a hamburger and fries. I didn’t want something to eat. I was craving something. That is different.

After a while, the craving went away and was replaced with real hunger. Real hunger is different from craving because real hunger just wants to eat. Real hunger looks at a slice of bread and wants it. Real hunger looks at food, not pizza. Real hunger just wants to be fed.

When you are full, things do not taste the same as they do when you are hungry. A full person might turn down something that is quite good. But even sub standard food tastes good to a hungry person.

One who does not feel the need for God and his grace turns down things that are beautiful. One who is starving for the grace of God and knows it, accepts it and is grateful for it.

Those who are full of themselves crave things in church. They crave a certain kind of music, or a certain translation of the Bible, or a certain way of dressing to come to church. They crave small things and think they are hungry. They will think they are hungering for the word when all they are doing is craving junk.

When you are hungry for God, you want him, not stuff. When you are hungry for him, it doesn’t matter what music is used in worship, it doesn’t matter what translation you use or how you dress. What matters is that you come into contact with God himself, that you find him.

Jesus said that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life (John 6:53-56). That means that the only thing that will satisfy you and your spiritual hunger will be him and who he is.

But the problem is, you have to be hungry in order to really appreciate him, to really know what it is that you need.

It is hard to be hungry when you eat junk all day. Sometimes you have to step back and realize the Bread of Life, to realize what it is that you really need.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then this message came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, suppose the people of a country were to sin against me, and I lifted my fist to crush them, cutting off their food supply and sending a famine to destroy both people and animals. Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, their righteousness would save no one but themselves, says the Sovereign Lord.” (Ezekiel 14:12-14)

What if God was looking at our country and says, it doesn’t matter any longer who asks me to save your country. I am through with it?

I had a van that was constantly breaking. I was constantly spending money on it. I got it to where it was running pretty good and something new happened. It sounded serious, and suddenly, I was through with that stupid van. I had a friend that could fix anything so I gave it to him. He figured he would mess with it for a while then get it running when he could.

As it turned out, it was a small part somewhere that had come loose. He put it back on and it ran fine. He asked, are you sure you don’t want it back. It was just a small part.

My answer: no. I am sick of that van constantly breaking.

The nation of Israel was a high maintenance group of people. Not only that, but they were a rebellious bunch. If they had the choice between serving God and being happy and serving something else and being miserable, they would choose the something else, hands down. And they would do it every time.

There were very few righteous blips in the history of the nation of Israel. And they came far between. The Lord tried everything to get them to be the kind of people he wanted, people that he could bless. But they were rebellious from the beginning.

Finally he said, I am tired of them. And I am through with them. Even if people close to my heart, people I love and were faithful to me all their lives, people who moved me with their prayers before – even if they come and ask, I will say no.

What would it take for God to be through with America? There were still righteous people alive in Israel. Ezekiel was one. So you know that there had to be some there. But he had just gotten tired of dealing with them as a whole. Those who were righteous would be saved, but the rest would be gone.

I pray that we do not get to that point, but I fear that we are approaching it quickly.

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Daily Java:

Again a message came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, you live among rebels who have eyes but refuse to see. They have ears but refuse to hear. For they are a rebellious people. (Ezekiel 12:1-2)

You tell your kids something and they stand there glassy-eyed while you do so, but you know and they know that they will not remember it not pay attention to it the moment you stop talking.

It really makes you irritated. And it makes you want to tell them harder, or something, to make it, as Jesus said once, sink into their ears. But it probably won’t.

God told a lot of his prophets that they would be talking to a bunch of people who would probably not only refuse to listen, but would also kill the messenger.

In Isaiah 6, the Lord told Isaiah at his commissioning ceremony that no matter how hard he worked or how long he preached: they will not see with their eyes nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts and turn to me for healing (6:10).

Others he told essentially the same thing. You will go and preach what I have told you to say, but they will not hear you. In fact, they will probably become angry at you for disturbing them and may even kill you. Except for the fact that you have done what I have told you to do, and maybe for the few that hear you, your time will be wasted.

A pastor gets up to speak. He looks over his audience. They sit waiting. Most of them are there because they have always come to church on Sunday morning and now they will sit though a sermon like they have always done, too. Many of them are not interested, in fact have their minds engaged elsewhere. Generally, the majority of the group will not remember a thing when they get up from their seats.

But the pastor preaches anyway. Somebody is going to hear this and respond, he hopes. Someone is going to change from what they are doing to what God wants them to do, he hopes.

After several years and maybe even several decades, he realizes that most of them are not listening. All he is doing, as far as they are concerned, is filling up a space that has always been filled up. He is not really doing any good, just preaching a sermon to people that do not care.

Of course, in both Ezekiel’s and Isaiah’s time, people did hear. And they did turn from what they were doing. But the vast majority didn’t. the vast majority were lost.

That was what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7:13-14: You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

Hearing what God has to say and doing it is hard. Most will not. But some will. And it is the fact that some will that drives preachers and pastors on in doing what they do.

It drove the prophets, it drove the apostles, it even drove Jesus. They knew their success rate would be abysmal. Yet they continued doing what God told them to do.

And God blessed them for it.

hitting jesus in the nose

Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me—a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you. (2 Timothy 1:13-14)

I was probably six or so. It was the Church of Christ in Freeport, Texas. My mother was teaching Bible class and was blessed with my presence.

She was teaching about Jesus and how he is everywhere. As little children, we were trying to figure out several things simultaneously: how he was everywhere, why it mattered to us or anybody else for that matter, when we would be through, when lunch was, what we would have, what the girl across from me was doing.

You know. Vital theological stuff.

But, of course, there was a variable in the equation. Me. I have always had a problem with keeping my mouth closed anyway. So when she said he was everywhere, I said, Is he here in this room. She replied, yes. Is he here near us? Yes. Is he here beside me? Yes.

So I reached over to where Jesus would be if he were there and I hit the imaginary Jesus in the nose, while making a POOF! sound. You know the sound they make in westerns when they hit each other. The other children laughed.

She was so excited for my theological breakthrough. And she rewarded me later with a spanking.

The point? The point is that she was trying her best to teach me what Jesus was and who he was to the best of her knowledge. Now the fact that I was a smart mouth little twerp didn’t deter her. She kept on.

My mother was, and is still, a good woman. She had her flaws and her problems, yes. As do we all. But here she was, a young woman of maybe 24 or 25 trying to teach a bunch of little children something that even learned theologians do not fully understand.

And she did a good job, I think. She instilled within me a love for God that lasted through my stupid years, and keeps me today.

That pattern of sound teaching is one that many do not have. They had to get it themselves or they do without it. But I had a godly mother who tried her best to instill it within me, within my heart, within my soul.

That is a strong pattern. And in that pattern is power, Holy Spirit power, the kind that you cannot find anywhere else: the love of a godly mother for her child.

My wife was that kind of woman and her mother too. I pray that my children can be.

And I thank God for my mother.

Ruby is her name, by the way. Ruby Lorena Cliver. And she lives in Tyler, TX.

daily java

Daily Java:

There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding. (Hebrews 5:11-6:3)

Kids grow at different rates. They mature at different levels. One kid may be very mature and only be ten. Another may be really immature and be nineteen. Everybody is different.

Then occasionally, you have the person who will not grow up. It may be a biological fault, or maybe a mental irregularity. But sometimes it is just a person who is terminally immature. He is like the Toys R Us commercial of a few years back that said, “I don’t want to grow up.” The first category is sad and they are that way through no fault of their own. The second is pathetic and you would like to hit them on the head with a large stick.

It is the same with Christians. There are some Christians who are incapable of maturing in the faith. It is not that they are stupid or anything, it is just that they are not able to grasp strong things. They are sincere and love God as much as anybody, but they are not able to really understand strong Bible meat.

You understand that and deal with them accordingly. They are not the people who you want to get into a deep theological discussion with. It just needlessly confuses them.

Then there are those who almost refuse to grow up. They have been Christians for a long time, and maybe even serve on committees and such, but they were never able to come to a deep knowledge of the Bible simply because they never cared enough to do so.

Many times, the sad fact is that they would have been a great mind in the kingdom. But they couldn’t be bothered to do so. Maybe they had a bias toward things that would not allow them to grow. Maybe they had a strong enough sin in their lives that it took all their thought, took all their focus. Maybe they didn’t care.

Whatever the reason, the writer of Hebrews says that these people are kind of sad. They are like long term babies, always taking, never giving. By now they should be grown and teaching, but still need to be taught.

Whose fault is it? Sometimes it is the fault of the church. They never encouraged people to grow. Some denominations consider themselves to have found the truth so no one feels the need to plumb deeper into the word. What is the point, they will ask.

As one person in a similar situation said, All the buffalo have been killed so why hunt for more? He considered it great to read in his denominational history about how they killed the buffalo (ie, solved the problems of the church), but considered the hunt to be over.

He figured all the theology had been discovered, all the knowledge had been learned. Now he had the task of reading about it over and over and memorizing all the talking points.

Sometimes it is the fault of the preacher. He preaches the same thing over and over, never moving to stronger things. He gives the idea that memorization is the same as knowledge. If you can memorize your key doctrinal verses, you will be mature. Memorization plus the knowledge of all the Bible stories and you are good to go. No depth here.

Sometimes it is the fault of the person himself. He never wanted to be pushed, and he decides that he is fine. He doesn’t need to learn any more. He has the basic stuff down. There is no reason to go further. After all, that Bible stuff is hard. God can’t expect that much from us. This is nothing more than laziness.

Sometimes a person’s mind is made up already and there is no room for new ideas. He doesn’t want to learn anything new.

There are many reasons, but one result. The person who refuses to learn or cannot learn never reaches his potential in the kingdom. And that is sad.

standing in a hurricane

The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. (Ecclesiastes 1:6)

Hurricane Alicia hit Houston, Texas, in September of 1983. It was a category three, if I am not mistaken, but it was a worse hurricane than it might otherwise have been. The winds were strong and by the time it was through, had blown a great part of the ships in the ship channel to the other side of the freeway. There was a lot of damage.

Power was off for six days. Since September in Houston is every bit as hot as July or August further north, it was extremely uncomfortable.

My wife’s sister, Joyce, was there to visit us for a few days in preparation for Ella’s parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Oddly enough, the power at the church was on less than a mile away. But at our house, heat reigned supreme.

The newer houses in Houston were made with small windows at the top of the walls and were designed for air-conditioning, not ventilation. So even with the windows open, it was still hot. Ella and Joyce would sit on the couch and I would turn the ceiling fan for them. It relieved the heat for a bit and was funny to boot.

But when the hurricane was going on, it was interesting to watch through the windows as the world blew past. At one point, a small shed from our neighbor’s yard flew up and landed between our house and the next.

In the midst of it all, I decided to go out into the storm. Winds were running about 100 miles per hour, and it was dangerous, but I wanted to know what it was like.

In spite of Ella trying to dissuade me, I put on my motorcycle helmet, my slicker suit and my galoshes. Out I went into the storm.

At the mall in Lincoln, NE, is a booth to show you what hurricane force winds are like. They register 77 mph in the booth for two minutes for two dollars. As I watched kids standing in there, I could see it was nothing like the real thing.

The winds were blowing hard and it was raining hard. A hurricane blows in a circular fashion with an eye in the center. I came out right after the eye had passed over Houston.

And I stood in the middle of the intersection for a while just feeling. It was hard to stand up with the force of the wind. But sooner or later, the winds began to lessen but the rain continued to pour. A sheriff’s pickup came by and they asked me if I needed something. I said no and they drove off. I don’t know what they were asking, but I was having a good time.

A few years later I was in Corpus Christi at a museum that had an exhibit on Hurricane Carla in 1961. It was a terrible hurricane that caused us to leave Freeport, Texas to go inland. There were several things that were oddities of the storm, caused by the tremendous wind velocity and the like.

One of these was a light bulb impaled by a drinking straw. The force was so great that it left the bulb completely intact with the straw coming out of both sides. It was one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

As I looked at the straw sticking through the light bulb, I thought about what could have happened. My helmet and head were a lot more easily penetrated than that light bulb.

But it was worth it. It was great. Standing out in the midst of nature at its rawest, in the middle of a hurricane, just standing there. The wind blew, fast and in circles, around and around.

And I felt the power of the hurricane.

Why did I do it, especially with it so dangerous? One was I wanted to know what it was like. Two, I didn’t know of anybody else that had done it. Three, it was crazy and I tended to enjoy crazy things. Four, it was fun and exciting. Five, why not?

One thing for sure: it tends to put other things in perspective. I have never looked at a rainstorm the same way since.

daily java

Daily Java:

After seven days the Lord gave me a message. He said, “Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel. Whenever you receive a message from me, warn people immediately. If I warn the wicked, saying, ‘You are under the penalty of death,’ but you fail to deliver the warning, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible for their deaths. If you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on sinning, they will die in their sins. But you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me. (Ezekiel 3:16-19)

In James 3:1, the writer James said: Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.

It is a great thing to teach and to have people look up to you as a leader, to hear what you have to say, to take what you say as definitive. After a while, if you are not careful, you begin to believe that you really do have the answers.

But a teacher has a responsibility that is greater by far that his students. It is the responsibility of telling people and guiding people into the truth. Not just telling, not just guiding, but into the truth.

If you do not live up to that responsibility, you are in danger of sinning.

The Lord told Ezekiel in this passage that his responsibility was greater than just information dispensing. His job was not just to teach, but to guide into what is right. And he would be held accountable as to how he did it.

In 1 Timothy 5:17, the apostle Paul said: Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work hard at both preaching and teaching. A preacher, a pastor, a teacher is not one that just gets to be in front of people, but is one who will be held accountable for what he teaches, what he preaches, how he leads.

There is a responsibility of the highest magnitude given to those who teach and those who lead God’s people. God told Ezekiel that when if he didn’t do it in the right way, his life would be forfeit too.

If he taught and they heard and changed, he would be as God wanted him to be. If they did not change, yet he taught anyway, it would not be his fault. But if he did not tell them, their blood would be on his head.

That is the downside of teaching. It is great to sit up front and tell people stuff and have them write it down and listen to you and even compliment you. It is another to be held accountable by God for what you teach.

The honor part is easy and fun. The responsibility part is scary.

So what does a teacher do? Does he get so afraid he will do something wrong that he refuses to teach? I have known people who were so afraid that they would give the wrong answers, or, even worse, not have an answer that they refused to teach at all.

When a person refuses to do what God wants him to do, that is another story. But God tells us this to let us know that teaching is not a lark. It is dead-serious.

And you have to do it out of love. Who in the world would do something that important and full of responsibility for fun?

daily java

Daily Java:

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. (Hebrews 4:12-13)

It is easy to think of Jesus as having come and then died, rose and gone back to heaven. But the writer of Hebrews says that he is still alive, still active, still dynamic in this world.

In this passage it is Jesus who is alive and powerful. We tend to try to make it the Bible, and it is true the Bible is a very incisive document, able to point out both good and bad in our lives. But this passage is not talking about the Bible. It is talking about Jesus.

He is the Logos, the Word that was eternal with God, the Word made manifest, dwelling among us (John 1). He is the One who will judge us. He is the One who will save us by his grace.

He was not some little guy who came and floated around on earth with a little halo. He was the epitome of creation, the first born, the pinnacle of all that was good and holy while still being human. He is the Holy One, the Righteous One.

When he is in that from of the Word, he is able to see all, know all. Nothing can be hidden from him.

He is the Word of God and is nothing to mess around with. And we praise his Name.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then he added, Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says!’ Do this whether they listen to you or not.’ (Ezekiel 3:10-11))

Let all that I am praise the Lord. (Psalm 104:1)

These two verses were in my Bible reading today and I realized they were talking about the same thing.

When the Lord gave Ezekiel the message he wanted him to give to God’s people, he gave it to him in the form of a scroll and he told him to eat it, in fact, to fill his stomach with it. When Ezekiel did so, he said it was sweet as honey.

Then the Lord said, let all my words sink deep into your own heart. In other words, make what I have to give you not only fill your stomach, but also fill you life. When people see you, they will see me. When people hear you, they will hear me. When you speak, I speak.

And when he gives that message, he will be filled with the absolute power of God. It will be like Psalm 104 says: everything he is will praise the Lord.

That’s hard. It is hard to live your life in such a way that when people see you, they see God. It is hard to live your life with God so in charge that when people hear you speak, they hear God speak.

Ezekiel had a vital message for the people of God. His message was that God wanted them back. And if they came back to him, he would take them back just as he had before.

God’s people were in exile, as a conquered people. They had disobeyed God so much, had turned to idol-worship, to immorality, to everything in fact but God. Now they were a broken people, nobody, no longer a nation as such, just a ragtag bunch of vagabonds living in exile.

And God still loved them. He used Ezekiel to say, Come back home. Come back home to me, to your home with me. You are still welcome. I still love you.

He knew that within them was still his praise, that they were still his people even though they had turned from him.

But before Ezekiel could tell them all this, first he himself had to be filled with God’s message. First he had to be the incarnate praise of God himself, full of the Spirit, full of grace, full of love, full of God.

When he was, and only then, could he really tell them what God had to say. After all, how can you preach what you do not know? How can you tell what you do not understand.

We are his praise when we live our lives for him. And when we tell others about him, we show them that praise.

But first that praise has to sink deep into our own hearts. And then we tell.

The sad footnote, however, is that they will not listen. God knew it and Ezekiel knew it. But he went anyway.

So do we. After all, God loves us. And it is deep in our hearts.