FCC SoBo

GOOD GRIEF is a good book

2012-01-11T11:41:00.002-05:00

It was February 10, 1976, very late in the day and Dad was overdue for dinner again. It was nothing new. His rather flexible notions of time management often made him late for dinner. Combining that trait with a bright blue sky, a seventy-five degree day and a friend that wanted to go flying with him made a missed dinner almost inevitable. Mom would keep his plate warm in the oven and we would eat without him.

That’s when the phone rang and we learned that we would from that day on always eat without Dad. His plane had spun out of an aerobatic maneuver into the ground and he was never coming home.

Life for the Skeltons would never be the same. Nothing could prepare us for it. But there is something that could have helped us deal with the aftermath better as the years went by. It is Granger E. Westberg’s excellent little book GOOD GRIEF. I read it while on vacation and want to recommend it to you.

Westberg was a pastor, a scholar, and a chaplain who served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Medical Center as well as the Divinity School in the 1950s and 60s. In that capacity he had great exposure to the causes and results of grief and summed up with deep wisdom and skill his findings in the short, thirty-two page book that has now sold over three million copies. He dealt not only with grief through death but also with the grief generated by all kinds of losses: divorce, being fired, moving, difficulties with children, the death of dreams and many other things.

As one of Westberg’s students, Dr. Timothy Johnson, M.D., says in his foreword to the fiftieth anniversary edition, Westberg wrote “with the heart of a pastor, the insight of a psychologist, the humanity of a father and husband, and the hope of someone who has seen so many survive the process of grieving. It is simple but not simplistic. It is profound but not professorial…it describes the pathway through grieving that can only be found through honesty.”

I hope to explore some of what Westberg explains in this column over the next few months. But the best thing I can recommend, if you have suffered a loss of any kind, is to buy it and read it. GOOD GRIEF is a good book.

RECOMMENDING THE SEA

2012-01-04T16:26:00.001-05:00

Turmoil. Strife. Grief. Anxiety. Are you acquainted with any of these? Ah well, if you live on planet earth you will know them from time to time. How do you soothe them? Where do you find solace? Allow me to recommend the sea.

Few things soothe a soul like the sea. A trip to the coast is an opportunity to engage with God through the majesty of his creation on a level that is difficult to achieve in a neighborhood crowded with houses or even from a tree stand in quiet woods waiting for a big buck. The sea speaks with a voice unequaled by any other element except possibly the sky – but that is an article for another day.

Standing on the shore, facing out to sea feet planted inches from the breaking waves with the world of men behind and nothing but sun, sky and water before the disordered parts of your soul begin to settle down.

I think I know why. See if you agree.

The sea is expansive. It speaks of the omnipresence of God. It is massive, huge, immense, all encompassing, filling the field of view until it disappears over the horizon. The largest ships look like tiny toys across the distant waves.

The sea tells us nothing is too big for God. Nothing happens that is outside of his perception. Nothing happens in our life that is beyond his field of view.

The sea is constant, or more accurately, constantly in motion, ever moving yet never moved. It speaks of the unchanging God. The shore is never silent. Even on dead calm days the quiet lapping of water on sand or rock is present. It is unchallengeable, indisputable, unchanging. On stormy days it reminds us of our storm tossed lives. But even then it does not change. The waves gather and curl and crash into each other and finally spill themselves onto the sand to instantly disappear, their fury spent their conflict gone. So too our lives but the sea, the life upon which all other life depends, lives on.

God is constant. God does not change. Our lives toss about, curling and crashing into one another, spending our energies in furious conflict. And then they are gone, the fury spent, the conflict finished. But God remains. He is constant.

The sea is powerful. Its purposes are never thwarted. You can feel it standing there at the top of the tide. Your visceral senses tell you, “this thing can go where ever it wants and take you along with it.” When sun and sea, pressure and temperature meet in perfect hurricane pitch nothing can stand in its way. Only God is more powerful. He marks the boundaries of the sea. It travels not one inch further than he chooses. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. (Ps 33:7 NIV)

The sea is majestically powerful. It speaks of the omnipotent God. Nothing he has called us to is too hard for him to help us with. Nothing can reach past the boundaries he places around our lives without his permission.

The seas have lifted up, O LORD, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea-- the LORD on high is mighty. (Ps. 93:3-4 NIV)
Turmoil, grief, strife, anxiety make the list longer if you want. I recommend the sea. Nothing is too big for God. Nothing changes God. Nothing is too powerful for God.

YOUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE

2011-12-07T14:38:00.000-05:00

Col 1:16-17 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1: 16-17 NIV)

Have you ever considered your place in the universe?

Everyone that takes the time to reflect: to stand on the seashore and feel his own insignificance, to walk in the forest and be overwhelmed by the complexity and beauty of the natural world, to stand ant-like amidst the majesty of Yosemite Valley or the Grand Tetons knows the longing for transcendence. These places whisper to us: there is something more.

Why should we alone be the ones able to appreciate the grandeur? And why are we alone able to feel that longing and wonder where it comes from?

It’s because we are made “in the image” of the Logos, the great creative mind who brings order out of chaos, beauty from simplicity, and splendor out of rocks, trees, sky and sea.

Through him all things were made. And then he became what he made. What does that tell us about who we really are?

We are not the random combination of genetic material accidentally deposited on some airless planet without a dust mite’s chance of survival. We are the brilliant creations of a fantastically powerful and singularly purposeful God who wants to know us and be known by us.

You are not junk. No one is junk. You and everyone else you will ever meet are beings of incredible value. You long for transcendence when you visit the grand cathedrals of nature because you were composed by the transcendent One, made for a relationship with him, made to dwell in harmony with him in the world that he created for us to enjoy.

That relationship, the intimacy with transcendence that we all long for, was lost in the Garden of Eden, when our first parents rebelled. The way back to that it, the door to the grandest cathedral of them all, was reopened when the babe was born in Bethlehem.

What is our place in the universe? Our place is at the cradle. Our place is at the Cross, where the door to the throne room of God was reopened and his rebellious children were welcomed home.

HAVE A COSMIC CHRISTMAS

2011-11-30T11:45:00.003-05:00

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4 NIV)

Scientists face what Charles W. Petit calls a ‘fine-tuning' problem as they analyze the heavens. "The universe appears marvelously constructed to produce stars, planets, and life. Scientists have calculated that if the force binding atomic nuclei were just 0.5 percent different, the processes that forge atoms inside stars would have failed to produce either carbon or oxygen—key ingredients to life. If gravity were only slightly stronger or weaker, stars like our sun could not have formed. Yet physicists see no reason why the constants of nature are set just so. (Charles W. Petit, "The gods must be crazy," U.S. News & World Report (9-8-03)

Contemporary astronomer Allan Sandage, Edwin Hubble's successor at Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar observatories... told the New York Times, "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God, to me, … is the explanation of the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing." On another occasion, Sandage said, "If God did not exist, science would have to invent Him to explain what it is discovering at its core." (Breakpoint with Chuck Colson, 7/14/2003)

The truth is that our ability to exist on this planet is due to the fact that the universe is balanced on a razor’s edge in order to facilitate life.

The earth-shaking thing that the apostle John tells us in the first few verses of his gospel is that the cosmos (ho kosmos in Greek, the orderly universe that we observe) was made through THE WORD (ho Logos in Greek, the organizing principle or force of life). In other words, Jesus Christ balances the universe in his hand.

John is clearly stating that the ‘Logos’ – the ultimate spiritual force behind the universe – is responsible for all that is visible. The mud you squish between your toes, the cold morning air rushing at you as you go out to crank the car, the water running through your hair as you shower all were made by Him. The fact that you and I exist in an incredibly complex yet orderly universe designed to sustain life is because this same Logos – who existed before the universe began – made it so.

The point is that the Logos created everything we can see and everything that we cannot see. He created it, he sustains it, he owns it, he rules it, nothing happens in it apart from his knowledge, and nothing can change in it apart from his permission.

And then he became material himself, a human being, an infant, totally dependent, completely identified with his creation, circling the star that he had balanced in space. That is what we call the incarnation. And that is cause for celebration.

So don’t just hand out gifts this Christmas. Go outside. Look up at the stars. Contemplate all that you see. And have a Cosmic Christmas.

BEWARE BLACK FRIDAY

2011-11-23T11:39:00.001-05:00

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Jesus (Luke 12:15)

One of FCC’s regular attendees, who works in a well-known department store, mentioned something last Sunday that made me gasp. “I have to be at work at 2:00 AM next Friday morning.”

Then this morning, at the teen ministry I co-sponsor at the local middle school, one of the kids said, “I can’t believe it. My mom is waking me up at 1:00 AM Friday to go shopping!”

I confess that I am not a serious shopper. I know that it is sensible to try to save money by taking advantage of sales. But let’s be honest about this: Black Friday is a Greed Fest, a singularly American celebration of buying and selling that rivals any other holiday on the calendar. (Note: Holiday is a word derived from Holy Day – a special day for celebration of the deity). Our dedication to getting THE DEAL on the latest trendy toy or 4G gadget is so fanatical that we will stand in line in sub-freezing temperatures at two in the morning and then literally run over each other for the limited supply of DOOR BUSTING BARGAINS! (Lucky for you southerners this year, the temps will be mild).

Let’s not kid ourselves: this is worship. Worship includes sacrifice, adoration and celebration. Fanatical dedication to Black Friday shopping has all the ingredients. There is sacrifice: Can you remember the last time you got up at two in the morning to pray or give or serve or go to a worship service? There is adoration: “Wow! I’ve always wanted one of these!” And there is celebration: “Can you believe it? What a DEAL I got!” We don’t like to admit it but this kind of activity is what worship is made of. It is the great American sin that we never condemn. But the apostle Paul puts it right up there with the sins we do condemn.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these…( Col 3:5-8 NIV)

One day in the department store is no different from any other. Shopping on Friday is not a sin. Looking for bargains is not transgression. And if you are going shopping on Friday I hope you find what you’re looking for. But beware the ethos of Black Friday – the culture that celebrates the abundance of possessions as life’s highest good. There is much, much MORE to life than finding Friday’s best bargains.

HERMAN, JOE AND THE REST OF US

2011-11-16T11:27:00.001-05:00

Deut 19:15 One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (NIV)

I’m a news junkie. I read two newspapers, two news magazines, and multiple news websites daily. So even though I would like to I can’t avoid seeing at least the headlines of some pretty scurrilous stuff. If it is shallow and salacious (read: Michael Jackson and Kim Kardashian) it gets skipped. But if it is serious it gets analyzed.

The allegations against Herman Cain are pretty serious stuff. Do we want a man like that, if he is like that, in the highest office in the land? And what about Penn State Coach Joe Paterno? Is he the icon of integrity that he has preached and promoted? Or is he a bum who sold out helpless kids in order to protect his football program?

Or is the truth about both men, both situations, something none of us really knows? I believe it is.

I had a taste, just a tiny taste once, of Washington Politics, and I saw the viciousness of those whose summum bonum is power. It would not surprise me to find that the charges against Cain are fabricated.

And I once had a good friend, a colleague in the church choir, who to my utter shock and surprise showed up on NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” clearly caught in the act of preying on teenage girls. I learned then the deceptive power of sexual predators. It would not surprise me to learn that Joe Pa was deeply deceived by his former apprentice.

That is why I wish, I wish very deeply, that the rest of us would take these kinds of situations – where careers, character, honor, and justice are concerned – as seriously as God takes them. Over and over again, the Spirit-inspired writers of scripture quote the command stated above: “Every matter must be established by two or three witnesses.” (Nu. 35:30; Dt. 17:6-7; Matt. 18:16; 1 Tim. 5:19). And that not in the media “mob”, which cares more about eyeball counts than impartiality, but in an orderly court of law. If we did that, if we took them as seriously as God takes them, we would grieve over the possibility that men could be guilty of such evil, we would pray more often to be delivered from it, and we would wait for truth to be established before we take up stones to throw.

DID DAVID AND JONATHON HAVE A HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP?

2011-11-09T14:22:00.000-05:00

DID DAVID AND JONATHON HAVE A HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP?

By Dane Skelton

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.

"How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!" (2 Sam 1:26-27 NIV)

Some people in the homosexual community have found in this passage (and others in 1 Samuel, see below) support for their lifestyle: that David and Jonathon had a homosexual relationship. It says something about the desperate need for validation in “gay” society that it would go to such lengths as to ascribe homosexual behavior to two of the most revered characters in scripture.

But the people who take that position are doing something that is called isogesis: Reading into a passage of scripture something that comes from your culture or point of view. I suppose all of us are guilty of that from time to time. But isogesis is always wrong and usually destructive to sound doctrine and healthy living. What we want to do instead is known as exogesis: Reading out of scripture what is actually there. Accurate exogesis, and therefore interpretation, takes into account the historical and cultural setting of the people in the story as well as its original readership, the vocabulary and grammar in use at the time, as well as the type of literature and its context. The goal is to understand what the writer actually said, what it meant to the first readers, and how that meaning translates to our time.

Here then is a brief exposition of 2 Samuel 1:26 with the earlier passages taken into account.

Vocabulary and Grammar - 2 Samuel 1:26 “Your love for me was wonderful…” – The standard Old Testament verb for sexual activity is ya-da (Note: I cannot reproduce the proper Hebrew punctuation marks). It is never used to describe the relationship between Jonathon and David. However, the Hebrew noun for love (ahaba, derived from the verb ahab) used in this sentence (and in 1 Samuel 18:3) is used about 55 times in the OT with a variety of meanings. It can mean the sexual love between a husband and wife. But it can also mean the love between a father and a son (as with Abraham and Isaac Gen. 22:2); the loyal love of a servant for his master when the servant refuses his freedom (Ex. 21:5); the love between two friends as with David and Jonathon etc. Ahab is also used in Leviticus 19:18 when God commands: “…love thy neighbor as thyself.” Finally, Dr. Bill T. Arnold, director of Hebrew studies and professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Asbury Theological Seminary explains the word “has important political and diplomatic connotations. Since David and Jonathon’s relationship has already been marked as a covenant sealed by their love (same word), this part of the poem is referring to the depth of that relationship.

Context – “…more wonderful than that of women.” ? How could David say that and not be referring to sex? Context is king in interpretation. The most significant thing to recognize about the context of this statement is David’s relationship to Saul’s daughter Michal. Whoever killed the giant Goliath was promised the king’s daughter in marriage (1 Samuel 17:5). That was a huge deal in that culture. (Imagine being engaged to Bill Gate’s daughter and you will get the idea). It meant wealth, power and security as part of the king’s family. But that deal didn’t work out very well for David. David did marry Michal. But Saul then gave her to another man when he became jealous of David and drove him out. Jonathon, on the other hand, made a covenant with David that he never broke, even at the risk of alienating his father the king. Little wonder then that David would refer to this noble trait in his friend on hearing of his death. Jonathon’s love was more wonderful than Michal’s.

Historical & Cultural setting – The homosexual culture, and our culture generally, tends to sexualize every relationship. Thus when we read 2 Samuel 1:26 or 1 Samuel 20:41 (…then they kissed each other and wept together) we think it was the affection of lovers instead of friends, Eros love versus Philos. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kissing between male friends and relatives was and remains a normal mode of Middle Eastern expression. On the other hand homosexual acts were universally condemned in Jewish law and culture. The laziest reading of 1 & 2 Samuel clearly reveals a writer (or writers) determined to portray David as the greatest hero Israel ever saw after Moses. It is inconceivable and totally out of sync with his purposes to depict his hero in a homosexual relationship.

Perhaps the saddest thing about this is that the relationship between David and Jonathon displays the noblest ideas of friendship, loyalty, mutual protection, mentoring and brotherly love. When it (along with other scriptures on this topic) is misinterpreted, as it has been in the homosexual community, it supplies a rationale for the exploitation of the innocent: young men, looking for affirmation and friendship, find themselves seduced into a world they never sought and robbed of the reasoned, Biblical arguments they need to escape.

I pray that this article will become a useful tool for you and for them.

CLARITY

2011-10-26T11:46:00.000-04:00

Have you ever said something to someone and, having listened to their response, realized that they didn’t grasp the tenth part of what you were saying? Or felt like they weren’t listening?

Perhaps this is only common to preachers. After all, preaching, as they say, “is just talking in someone else’s sleep.” But I have a feeling that you know what I’m talking about, that you’ve experienced communication frustration. Where does it come from? Why is communication, especially communication about spiritual things, so difficult? Well before you take a mega phone to the next person that doesn’t listen consider a few things.

A friend who is an engineer for a large utility company tells me that when he had to hire some new engineers he required applicants to hand write sample repair instructions to a mechanic. Something like two out of ten could do it with any competence. Our education system is not what it used to be. More and more people are graduating from high school and even from college without the ability to communicate.

We are also in a much denser communication environment than ever before. Television segements and commercials are shorter and faster, cell phone calls and text messages come at us fast and furious, ipods, emails, pop-ups, dual screens – all of these technologies force feed us with hundreds more messages than earlier generations had to process, causing us to erect thicker message filters than we did forty or fifty years ago. We humans can only absorb so much information at a time. As a result, attention spans have shrunk. We are also becoming more reliant on pictures and music and less on words. We are a nation of receivers tuned to the elemental frequencies of image and melody. Language is becoming harder to digest.

But there is a third reason that people often cannot hear what we’re trying to say, especially if our message concerns the kingdom of God. Spiritual forces are at work. Consider Jesus and Paul’s comments on the matter:

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. (Jesus in Mark 4:15 NIV)

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (Paul in 2 Cor 4:3-4 NIV)

The ability to communicate clearly and powerfully is a skill that can be learned. But in the end only God can penetrate the darkness, the spiritual veil that covers the heart of men and women. So no matter whom you’re talking to or when, before you begin to speak, pray for the Lord of light to open the eyes and ears of the soul in your listeners. He alone has the power to make his light “shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6).

Dad Is a Powerful Word

2011-10-26T11:45:00.000-04:00

Dad is a powerful word, because Fathers are molders of young lives.

I once asked a violent friend what he remembered about his father, who had died when my friend was only twelve. He said, “I remember a loud, angry spanking machine.”

In Ramsey Count, Minnesota, ninth and tenth graders were interviewed about their dads. They were asked this question: "What comes to mind when you think of the word 'dad'?" Answers came from both ends of the spectrum. One end of the spectrum said, "I think of the word jerk." Others thought of the words angry, mad, and absent.

On the other hand, some of the young people said, "I think of wholeness, kindness, security, safety." Dad is an immensely powerful word.

Isa 64:8 says: O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. (NIV).

Dad we are the potters in our children’s lives. So we need to be careful how we shape that clay. One of the ways to do that is to catch them doing something right.

Do you ever catch your teen doing something right? Or do you only call out the infractions?

One teen was always in trouble at school, so when his parents received one more call to come in and meet with his teacher and the principal, they knew what was coming. Or so they thought.

The teacher sat down with the boy's father and said, "Thanks for coming. I wanted you to hear what I have to say."

The father crossed his arms and waited, thinking, “What can I say this time?” The teacher proceeded to go down a list of ten things—ten positive affirmations of the junior high "troublemaker." When she finished, the father said, "What else? Let's hear the bad stuff."

"That's all I wanted to say," she said.

That night when the father got home, he told his son what he had heard. And not surprisingly, almost overnight, the troublemaker's attitude and behavior changed dramatically. All because a teacher looked past the negatives.^{^[1]}

Colossians 3:21 says “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; that they may not lose heart.” Sometimes that means, catch them doing something right.

[1] Citation: Bonne Steffen, editor of Christian Reader; true story from a Florida Christian school; source: Peter Lord, former pastor of Park Avenue Baptist Church, Titusville, Florida

A Pilot Paul from Papua story

2011-09-28T13:57:00.002-04:00

How ironic that the day after I posted an article on a man with fifty mishap-free years as a professional pilot my equally professional pilot friend Paul Westlund, who had over 11,000 hours of experience flying in the most difficult aviation environment in the world, would lose his life along with his two passengers in a crash in the mountains of Papua, Indonesia. He was on what amounted to a “milk run.” A full investigation into the cause is underway.

Paul was laid to rest yesterday and all of Papua mourned. He was beloved by the people he served. He and I were nearing completion of a book on his adventures as a mission aviator. In honor of my friend I post here today one of his first stories. Please take the time to read it and contemplate the life of this great servant of God. DTS.

LOSING MY PROFESSIONAL PILOT FACE
By Paul Westlund, with Dane Skelton
Papua, Indonesia. Spring 1987

The apostle Paul once wrote to his protégé Timothy, “Keep your head in all situations…” That is good advice for anyone but especially for bush pilots. Our “situations” often run from the super serious to super comical in a single day, as my first flight with a translator revealed.

The path from student pilot to mission aviator is a long and difficult one. Mine had taken ten years of hard work from the first flights with Moody Aviation School all the way through eighteen hundred hours of flying experience to the Airline Transport Pilot rating.

All of that work, all of that training and expense and struggle to make it out to the field was, and still is to me, due to the importance of Bible Translation. When animistic people enslaved by fears of the spirit world are finally able to read and understand the message of Jesus in their own language it gives them hope beyond their wildest dreams.

So the main thing is to make sure that translator can get there in one piece. If something bad happens to a translator all of the work on a new translation can be lost. I had worked hard to be the best pilot that I could be so that would never happen. Now I was taking my first translator to his assignment in the field and I was so happy I was almost giddy.

The beauty of the blue morning sky, the deep emerald forests, the silvery rivers and majestic Papuan mountains outside my window were overwhelming. I thought: I get paid to do this? I kept looking away from the translator so he wouldn’t see the silly grin that my professional pilot face couldn’t mask.

But soon I saw something that rapidly wiped the grin from my face. We were over the village, making a high altitude pass to inspect the airfield. There was a wadded up white and green blur just off one side of the runway. What’s that? I thought. I turned and made another pass. O Lord! That’s an airplane! That’s what’s left of one of those aircraft called an Islander. That sobered me up quick. This is serious business. Bad things can happen out here kid. You better get your game on. You better be paying attention. I focused in hard on the task at hand, to get the airplane on the ground and parked as best and professionally as I possibly could.

And then, I stepped out of the airplane, and lost my professional pilot face for the second time that day. I had never been in a Papuan mountain village before. It was National Geographic in living color right in front of me! The men were wearing their only clothing, tall, thin, conical shaped gourds fitted over their genitals, tied just below the waste and pointing straight up. And the women were in grass skirts. Only they weren’t skirts, more like flat, dried, twelve inch blades of grass stacked atop one another and folded in half and tied over a string that circled the waist. And that was it. Nothing else.

It was more than this modest mid-western preacher’s boy could take! I joke with my friends that where I come from we take showers in our clothes! I could feel my face going full red. I turned around and stuck my head in the cockpit and studied my map. I wrote in my log book. I inspected the airplane! Anything I could do to keep my eyes off of the people. I couldn’t eat the rest of the day. I was just toast! This is a whole nother world, I thought. Have I landed on Mars or something? It took a long time for me to regain my composure.

The Papuan people are like anybody else on the planet. When they see an improvement on life they want it. Today, with better transportation and the availability of baled used clothing for pennies on the pound more Papuan people groups are wearing clothes. They really like wearing them because the mountains get cold. But they weren’t wearing them on that day and I was embarrassed.

Now, after twenty-five years on the field, the Papuan people are very dear to me. I no longer notice what they are wearing but what is in their hearts. And I keep my professional pilot face in place…most of the time.

OF AIRPLANES AND ECONOMICS

2011-09-21T11:33:00.001-04:00

By Dane Skelton

Two themes seem to dominate the news of late: Airplanes and economics. Specifically, some horrendous crashes - the Reno Air Race crash, the Russian hockey team crash – have grabbed the headlines along with the Greek debt crisis, America’s persistent nine percent unemployment rate and the ongoing foreclosure crisis (not to mention the national debt!).

Bad news always gets the headlines. That’s what made me want to share some good news, and some good economic advice, that came from an unlikely place. An article in AOPA Flight Training Magazine caught my attention this morning. It was by a pilot who was retiring after fifty mishap free years in the air as an airline pilot and Flight Instructor. We never hear about these guys do we?

Now, I know you must be thinking: “Dane, what on earth does this have to do with economics, with paying my bills and achieving financial security?” Bear with me. The pilot boiled all fifty years of his accident free experience down to one simple principle: Always fly with the idea that if anything can go wrong it will and work hard to prepare for it. For example, you wouldn’t believe how many airplanes crash each year simply because they run out of gas. The veteran’s advice? Never assume the gages are correct. Unless you have personally drained dry the gas tanks on the airplane you are flying and refilled them so that you know exactly how much they hold and exactly how many gallons per hour that ship burns land and refuel when you think you have one hour of flying time remaining. Simple right? Self impose a one hour fuel margin and NEVER break it.

Now to the economic side of the story. We live in a world of economic hazards. Any thing can go wrong and usually will at the worst possible moment. We need to prepare for it. A hurricane can blow your house down or flood it; a trip to the emergency room can hammer your wallet; the car can break down and you will miss work. Yet few of us – including national political leadership - operate with any self imposed financial safety limits. We fly along on credit, with little to no reserve, blowing right past any kind of sensible margin assuming that all will be well. Until the bottom drops out, the sky closes in, and our personal economic engines start to sputter. Safe landings are hard to come by in those situations.

But the biblical principle (see the Proverb below) is quite simple: Work hard, spend less than you earn, set aside funds for future contingencies, and do it consistently, year after year. Then that tsunami called Poverty won’t be able to outrun you nor the bandit Scarcity overpower you.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:6-11 NIV)

There is no such thing as security apart from God. Even the best prepared person can be overcome by an economic hurricane. But as I have seen time and time again, God provides for his people through his church. When we follow the biblical principles of economic discipline we will know the peace of financial security and the blessing of being able to help others when the crisis comes.

CHANGING IDENTITIES

2011-09-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

By Dane Skelton

What are you known by among your friends? In other words, what are the identifying characteristics that make you, you? As adults most of us are known by our professions, or former jobs. I’m “the preacher” who used to be “a car guy” (and still is most of the time). What sets you apart or makes you unique among your peers? It might be a talent, or a theology you’re attached to. He’s a Calvinist, she’s a singer. Or social / political views: He’s a vegetarian, she’s a conservative. Most of us find some comfort, some level of personal worth by identifying ourselves that way. It helps us know who we are.

Now what if God was to suddenly call you out of that comfortable identity and open a door into a whole new world that you had never considered before? Would you walk through it? That’s what happened to the Apostle Peter in Acts chapter ten. It’s the story of how the gospel was first introduced to a gentile audience. A Roman centurion, a gentile who feared God named Cornelius, is visited by an angel. The angel tells him to send for Peter. At the same time Peter, an observant Jew who ate only kosher food and never entered a gentile home for fear of defilement, has a vision of all kinds of hitherto “unclean,” as defined by Old Testament dietary laws, animals. In the vision the voice of the Lord says, “Rise Peter, kill and eat.” Peter struggles with that command until God says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

The point of the story is that Peter is no longer to consider the gentiles “out of bounds” for the gospel. When Cornelius’ servants call for him Peter welcomes them, travels with them to Cornelius and wonder of wonder for a Jew, enters his home to preach. It’s a great story of the spread of the good news.

But the thing that brought me up short was how quickly God expected Peter to exchange his old identity for a new one. The Old Testament dietary laws are key identifying marks of a Jew. They are one of the things that make a Jew a Jew. How hard it must have been for Peter to discard them! You can see it in his response to the vision: “Surely not Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” (Acts 10:14). Yet God clearly calls Peter to walk through that door into a new identity. He is no longer simply Peter the Jewish follower of Jesus. He is Peter, the Jew who makes friends with gentiles and even eats and sleeps in their homes.

How can that be? How can God just UNDO two thousand years of Jewish theology and spiritual identity in a single story in the book of Acts? Well, he didn’t undo anything. He fulfilled all of the requirements for holiness and righteousness and purity, things which the dietary and other exclusivity laws were made to illustrate, in the person of his son Jesus Christ. He fulfilled them perfectly and brought them to a conclusion at the cross. Now the holiness, and righteousness, the spiritual purity and identity that mark his people out in the world come not from how they dress or what they eat or where they go or don’t go or who they hang out with. Now it all comes from Christ. (See Colossians 1:19-23).

Peter embraced this radical change because of his identity in Christ. So what is your identity? What have you called unclean that God says is no longer unclean? What door is God calling you to walk through that would have been unimaginable before Christ gave you a new identity?

REMEMBER THE WARRIORS

2011-09-14T09:29:00.000-04:00

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus

The peace and security that you and I have enjoyed for the past ten years is easy to take for granted. There have been terrorist attacks and attempted attacks. The Fort Hood massacre stands out in memory along with the wanna be martyr shoe bomber and the underwear bomber and Times Square bomber attempts at mass murder. Many other smaller, one man operations perpetrated by Muslims against people of various faiths and no faith at all have been carried out since 9-11. But no plot with the coordination and scale of 9-11 has succeeded. Thus most of us live without fear. We complain and make jokes about airport security, wonder if our rights are being abused by the phone companies, yawn lazily and go to bed not worrying if the world will still be the same tomorrow.

That is due in large part to the dedicated professionalism of the men and women of America’s Special Forces, the CIA and other clandestine services. They are invisible to most of us, avoiding the limelight by necessity as well as by preference. We hear about them occasionally, most notably Seal Team 6’s successful mission against Osama bin Laden. But then the headlines fade and we forget.

I’m writing this today to ask you not to forget these brave men and women. Their task is Biblical: “He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the evil doer.” (Romans 13:4). Theirs is a dirty job that requires a lifetime of dedication to personal discipline and the honing of warrior skills that are unknown to the rest of us. The training itself is often as dangerous as the missions and goes on unseen and unheralded for years, sometimes decades, before the moment arrives and a chief executive finds – as the President did with the bin Laden mission - that he has the tools to defend us.

I’m afraid I’m not doing this subject justice so let me encourage you to learn on your own about these brave men and women who lay down their lives for us every day. The two books I’ve read are: Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces by Linda Robinson and The Night Stalkers: Top Secret Missions of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Aviation Regiment. There are others. After you’ve read them you won’t forget to pray for the warriors who protect us from the terrors.

EULOGY FOR JOHN STOTT

2011-09-07T10:10:00.001-04:00

February 15, 1993, the sanctuary of Atlanta’s Church of the Apostles, is recorded forever in my personal Bible. It’s recorded there because I knew I would never want to lose the lecture notes I would take that day. They came from the same man who authored at least eight of the most important books in my personal library including his magnum opus THE CROSS OF CHRIST and over fifty others that will influence Christian leaders for generations to come. His name was John R. W. Stott. His clarity was legendary, his accuracy impeccable, his thoroughness indisputable. As Tim Stafford wrote in his Christianity Today Magazine eulogy, “He always turned to the Bible for understanding, and his unforgettable gift was to penetrate and explain the Scriptures. As editor Kenneth Kantzer wrote in CT's pages in 1981, "When I hear him expound a text, invariably I exclaim to myself, 'That's exactly what it means! Why didn't I see it before?'"

John R. W. Stott passed from this earth at age ninety on July 27, 2011. Stott was the Rector of the Church of All Souls in London from 1950 to 1975 whereupon he became Rector Emeritus so that he could continue to spend more time on his worldwide ministries. I want very much for you to know and appreciate him but I can’t begin to cover, in the few paragraphs here, the impact he has made. Instead I will share my notes from that day and encourage you to read the Wikipedia page about him on your own.

“Never take the attitude that you couldn’t be clearer, more accurate or more practical, no matter what kind of compliments you may receive.”

“Some of the Bible is hard to understand. Therefore, never be so arrogant as to think you don’t need a teacher.” (2 Peter 3:16).

“Never take your modern ideas and transplant them into the meaning of the Biblical writer. Take the meaning of the writer and say it, speak it into modernity.”

“Our ultimate goal and our constant motivation are and should ever be the supreme glory and honor of Jesus Christ.”

“The good news is just this: God’s righteousness – God’s way of putting us right without putting himself into the wrong.”

“In exegesis (Biblical interpretation) I feel the need to think myself prayerfully into the text until I am under it, not over it. It is meditation really, over and over, reflecting on the text prayerfully, until I think that I understand its message. It takes time. It begins with time.”

I hope you will visit Wikipedia and Christianity Today to read more about Stott. However, if you find that you do not have time remember this much: If there is some part of the faith that you do not understand, some place where you want to go deeper but do not know how, or some collision between the world as you know it and the gospel as you understand it – consult John R. W. Stott. You will be glad that you did.

3 STEPS TO DISCERNING GOD'S DIRECTION

2011-08-10T12:05:00.000-04:00

3 Steps to Discerning God’s Direction Today
By Dane Skelton

How do you make important decisions? Do you know how to listen for the leadership of God, how to discern his direction for your life? Now I’m not talking about those puzzling grocery store conundrums like, “Which should it be, dark chocolate mint chips or classic Klondike bars?” I’m talking about expensive, long term, even life changing decisions like: where to go to college, what to major in, which house to buy, which job to take, which person to marry. These and many more decisions affect us for the long term, contributing either to personal happiness and effectiveness in life or to dissatisfaction, distress and even misery.

Jesus promised us that God loved us and was listening to our requests, that “if we asked him for a piece of bread he would not give us a stone.” He encouraged us to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking and the answers we need would be given to us. So what does that process look like? How are followers of Jesus Christ to discern his directions?

There are at least three steps to discerning God’s direction today. And like a three-legged stool, or finding your position using three points on a map, each one is important. The three legs are:

1. The Word of God speaking to our minds, teaching us many, many things that give us clear directions in areas like money, work, marriage, authority, charity, mercy, and managing conflict.
2. The Gifts to the Church - We also have, according to Paul’s list in Ephesians, gifts to the Church - “Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-13 NIV). Every member of the Church is gifted or experienced in some area of knowledge. We make our best decisions when we seek the wisdom of other members of the body of Christ.
3. We also have the Spirit of God. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.(John 14: 16-17 NIV). As we develop the discipline of quietness before God we learn to perceive the direction of the Spirit much as we would a gentle breeze blowing on our face.
Are you faced with a serious, life changing decision? Consult the Word. It will teach you to think Biblically about your values and priorities. Consult the Body of Christ, your gifted brothers and sisters for their wisdom. And ask the Spirit of God to show you which path to take.

God’s Love and Hell

2011-06-15T10:41:00.002-04:00

By Dane Skelton

A recent book by a well known evangelical casts doubt on some things Jesus said about hell and judgment. The basic question is: If God is love why does he send people to hell?

First, there is a problem with the question: It assumes that we understand human nature and hell as they are presented in the Bible. We don’t.

We have a childish notion of human nature. We believe we are better than we are. We also have a mixed up view of God, we like to blame him for our choices. Therefore God’s holiness is beyond our comprehension and so is his wrath.

Second, we mistake God’s wrath for human rage. Tim Keller has a good definition of God’s wrath: “It is not an out of control temper. Wrath is the settled opposition and hatred of that which is destroying what we love.” We humans are capable of much evil, much selfishness, much that is perverse and opposed to that which God holds dear. We destroy the bodies he gave us with all kinds of toxins. We destroy the souls he gave us with things like greed, gossip, lying, self-righteousness and self-pity. And we destroy others with cutting words, with economic oppression, and with things like relentless criticism and betrayal.

Third, we assume that Jesus was too kind to mention hell. But Jesus had more to say about hell than anyone else in the New Testament. He sees hell as self-chosen; He said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:18-19 NIV)

C. S. Lewis said it like this: Unless someone wants God and God alone he would be utterly miserable in heaven. It would be a crime to send him there for heaven is all about God.

God wishes to save us from hell. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That’s God’s love at work, doing what is best for us, making it possible for us to know him now and join him in eternity. Jesus said, “He who receives me receives the one who sent me.” He also said, “He who seeks to save his life will lose it. But he who gives up his life for my sake will save it.”

So the question is not, "Why does God send people to hell?" but rather, "What do I really want? Do I want Jesus Christ and the God who sent him? Or do I want my own life, my own way?" Either way, the choice is ours.

On Asking and Receiving the Power of God

2011-05-25T14:20:00.001-04:00

Last night my daughter asked for lunch money for school for the week. Without a thought I opened my wallet, plucked out ten dollars, and handed it to her.

Now I want you to understand that my youngest child is a wonderful person. But she isn’t perfect. In fact, right after I arrived home from a recent trip to Canada she reported on her progress on certain tasks I had assigned her for the week: “I got this done and that done but I didn’t clean out mom’s car yet like I promised.”

It didn’t matter. I gave her the ten bucks anyway. You can tell where this is going right?

Now think back to the last time you felt like you failed God in some way. You failed to give your offering at the worship service, or you missed the service altogether. You skipped your devotions but somehow had plenty of time for your favorite TV show. You got exhausted and cranky and hurled invective at some one else who failed. You’re nodding your head aren’t you? We’ve all “been there done that.”

Jesus told a parable on prayer for people like you and me. It’s about a man who receives a late night visitor but has nothing to offer his guest. So he goes next door and asks his friend for bread. It’s recorded in Luke 11:5-13. The most well known verses are 9-10: Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks the door will be opened.

But the lesser known verse, the one with the message we often miss, is verse 8: I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. (Emphasis mine).

Jesus concludes: Which of you fathers, if you son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Here’s the bottom line on answered prayer: You don’t have to be perfect to receive the power of the Holy Spirit necessary to live the Christian life. You just need the boldness to believe that God is a better parent than you are. God does not answer our prayers for his power because we’ve been regular in our devotions; or because we are faithful tithers; or because we’ve faithfully taught, or sung, or served in some other way for so many years. He answers them because he is good.

So be bold, ASK, even when you feel like you don’t deserve God’s power. He gives it because he is good.

TORNADO OF LOVE

2011-05-04T13:00:00.003-04:00

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life… (John 9:1-3 NIV)
…Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. (John 9:6-7NIV)

“How can a good God who loves us allow tragedies like the Tuscaloosa tornado happen?” It’s one of the most challenging questions posed when we talk about a loving, personal God who cares for his creatures enough to send his Son to pay for our sins. The technical term for the answers that theologians offer to such questions is theodicy, from theo – meaning God and the Greek dike – meaning justice.

Theodicy is an important part of the work of the apologist. But the truth is that John 9:1-7 is about as close as Jesus ever came to answering it. “…this happened that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” And from that day to this, whenever natural disaster, sickness, war or any other kind of tragedy comes into human life the followers of Jesus have stepped in to relieve suffering.

That’s what happened last week as a tornado struck FCC member’s Eric and Desiree Shaffer’s farm. The photos here don’t do justice to the damage nor to the recovery effort. But here are just a few brief facts: Sharon Stratton, Desiree’s Mom, was spared when two massive trees fell on her house; Eric, Desiree’ and the children were spared the destruction of their home and only escaped injury by mere seconds as all the windows on the back of the house were blown out and every tree in the immediate vicinity came crashing down. Eric’s father and step-mom Ed and Rose Shaffer were uninjured as the roof was lifted off their new home. That was the first tornado.

The second tornado was the tornado of love that poured out of the hearts of FCC’rs and others who spent the next four days supplying food, water, shelter, cars, trucks, tractors, chain saws and lots of heavy duty work to help them crawl out from under the wreckage and begin to rebuild. The work was so complete and so rapid that even though the Shaffers were grateful when the Red Cross showed up the legendary service organization didn’t have much to do. As Eric said, “I’ve learned a lot of things this week. But the greatest thing is that my worst nightmare has turned into the greatest blessing of my life.”

WHO ARE YOU?

2011-05-02T12:29:00.002-04:00

WHO ARE YOU?

When you stand and look in the mirror what kind of person do you see? Who are you?

Some of us see people we are really disappointed in. Some of us see people who “haven’t lived up to expectations.” Some of us see failures. Some of us see the unlovely and unloved. But that is not what God sees. Consider the following scripture passages, what they say about you and what God thinks of you when you become a believer.

· Col. 2:13 - You have been “made alive with Christ” and are no longer “dead in trespasses and sins.”

· Col. 3:1 – You have been “raised with Christ” and your life is now “hidden with Christ in God.”

· Heb. 10: 10 – You have been “made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Christ once for all.”

· Rom. 5:1 – You have been justified – completely forgiven and made righteous in the sight of God. (See also 5:19)

· Rom. 8:1 – You are free forever from condemnation.

· 1 Cor. 1:30 – You have been placed into Christ by God’s doing.

· 1 Cor. 2:12 – You have received the Spirit of God into your life that you might know the things freely given to you by God.

· 1 Cor. 2:16 – You have been given the mind of Christ.

· 1 Cor. 6: 19-20 – You have been bought with a price; You are not your own; You belong to God.

· 1 Thess. 1:4 & Jude 1:1 – You are loved by God, chosen by him and called by him.

You are a righteous, complete, accepted, beloved and chosen person. This is what God says is true of you and every believer. This is what Easter accomplished for you and me. We have been forever changed, our status before God forever altered by the work of Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection. But some of us have a hard time accepting that. We see ourselves as something less than God sees us, something inferior. And that has a negative effect on what we can become because: What we believe about ourselves determines who we will become.

What You Believe Determines Who You Will Become –
Proverbs says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” That’s wisdom.

Tom Friends of The New York Times asked Coach Jimmy Johnson what he told his players before leading the Dallas Cowboys onto the field for the 1993 Super Bowl.

"I told them that if I laid a two-by-four across the floor, everybody there would walk across it and not fall, because our focus would be on walking the length of that board. But if I put that same board 10 stories high between two buildings, only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling."

Johnson told his players not to focus on the crowd, the media, or the possibility of falling, but to focus on each play of the game as if it were a good practice session. The Cowboys won the game 52-7.[1]

So if a Christian sees himself – focuses on himself - as unholy, unlovable, unworthy and incompetent, what kind of man or woman is he/she going to be?

Depressed, insecure, resentful and angry. Why? Because life for a defeated Christian feels like a game you can’t win, a role where you can never remember all the lines, a set of expectations that are impossible to meet. It feels like a two-by-four you have to cross that’s ten stories high. Jesus didn’t rise from the dead to leave us feeling like that!

Depressed people don’t dream dreams. Insecure people won’t take risks. Angry people can’t build lasting friendships.

But what happens to a man or woman who begins to believe in his worth, his value, his competence, and his goodness? That man or woman becomes a world changer. That person will invest himself in life, in dreams that change things and make life better for everybody.

So let me ask it this way: What does God think of you? Is he proud of you? Does he love you? Who are you?

Musings on the Resurrection

2011-04-20T12:24:00.001-04:00

The last scene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is nothing if not brief. It lasts all of about two minutes. But those one hundred and twenty seconds, coming as they do on the heels of the betrayal and violence of Jesus’ last few hours on earth, are heavy with meaning.

Sunlight streams into the tomb, cascading down its walls as the stone, just off camera, rolls quietly out of the way. The light lands finally on the linens slowly collapsing on the ledge, no body in place now to fill them out. The camera pauses there and then slowly zooms out to the foot of the ledge, taking in the profile of seated Jesus, eyes closed, face to the light. His eyes open, looking up into the brightness, reflecting recognition, vulnerability. They close again, quiet, composed. Then they reopen, slightly narrowed, focused, horizontal, purposeful. He rises. The camera catches one last fleeting glimpse, the top of a nail scarred hand. Then in one stride he is gone, out of the tomb and into history. The scene is brief but the message is unmistakable. Nothing on earth, not even brutal death, is as it seems.

I spent some time musing on that this week. I hope that you will too. Here is what came to mind. I’d appreciate it if you would share what comes to yours.

The world as we know it, with all of its chaos and confusion, greed and brutality, disaster and tragedy, is not all there is. There is more, so much more goodness and peace, order and kindness, prosperity and joy that in the Apostle Paul’s words, we cannot even begin to imagine it.

The tiny glimpses of Jesus, the moments of spiritual clarity that have come during times of worship and prayer and meditation; the consciousness of the Presence, transcendent power manifesting itself in ultimate stillness as if one were sitting at the foot of the Red Sea watching the fish swim as Moses and the Israelites walked through on dry ground, feeling the weight of the wall of water yet not fearing it; that all of these things have been but the briefest shadow of the magnificent Power that watches over us flitting across the soul. The reality waits on the other side.

The Word of God, with all of its predictions, all of its promises, all of its wisdom and all of its judgments will ultimately be fulfilled to the wonder and awe of all the earth.

I will see Mike again, and Steve and Joseph and Dad.

And we – all of us - will see Jesus no longer, “through a glass, darkly” but face to face, and that will be enough.

THE PROSTITUTE AND THE PHARISEE

2011-04-17T18:49:00.000-04:00

It’s a simple story told in Luke’s characteristically lucid style. Jesus is dining with a Pharisee named Simon. A woman who has obviously heard Jesus’ preaching steps into the room. Her name is not given but it is not needed. Everyone knows her, the town prostitute. But she is not composed, not there to impress or seduce. She is weeping with gratitude, on her knees over the feet of the reclining rabbi from Nazareth, pouring out years of pent-up guilt, little rivers of happiness, down upon his ankles and between his toes. She bends further now and wipes the watery dirt away with her hair. Then she withdraws an alabaster jar of expensive perfume and empties it on his feet, rubbing it in with her hands as the sweet aroma fills the room.

Simon is aghast. The Pharisees were known for their righteousness, their religious purity and high moral character. They were the successful middle class evangelicals of their day. They didn’t hang out with sinful people and didn’t approve of those who did. Scenes like this were too much for such men. “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is…” he groused within.

Jesus heard Simon’s thoughts. He knew exactly what she was, a broken woman who had experienced forgiveness and freedom through her faith. But Jesus also knew something else: exactly what kind of man Simon was, a successful man in need of humility, a man every bit as lost in his pride as the prostitute had been in her immorality. The only difference between the two was that the woman knew her sin and knew she needed a savior. Simon’s success blinded him to both things in his life.

Jesus tells Simon a story of two forgiven debtors, one who owed eighteen months wages and one who owed about two months. “Now which of them will love the forgiving moneylender more?”

Simon can’t help but answer, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

Then Jesus said the most important thing in the whole story, the thing that reveals who he really is. “Correct!” He looked at the woman. “See this woman? I came to your house yet you have not offered to me the least of common courtesies. But she has not ceased, since the moment I walked in, to show me the greatest love and devotion. Therefore I tell you, her sins which are many have been forgiven, for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

In other words, “Simon, in the grand scheme of things I’m the lender, I’m the one that everyone is indebted to. I’m God. Your achievements in life and religion matter very little. Your relationship to me is all important.”

And as if to put an exclamation point on it he said to the woman something only God has the authority to say, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

It isn’t what we’ve done or not done in life that determines our salvation. It isn’t how religious we’ve been or how irreligious. The only thing that matters is our ability to acknowledge our sin to the one who “holds the note” on it and trust him to forgive it. Then every room we enter will be filled with the aroma of our love for him.

THE BIBLE, THE KORAN, AND THE KING HEARINGS

2011-03-16T13:30:00.002-04:00

Congressman Peter King (R) New York is the chair of the Homeland Security Committee who’s recent hearings —"The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response"— stirred great controversy. One of the reasons that they were controversial is that America is a pluralistic country. We accept all faiths. And most Americans would like to think that there isn’t much difference between one religion and another. But there are significant differences and the confusion over the differences is more widespread than you would think.

This came home to me forcefully one day when I was sitting in our local radio station office, explaining the differences between Christianity & Islam to the station manager and a friend. One statement that stuck with me was, “Hey, one religion is as good as another. The Bible and the Koran are essentially the same kind of book.”

The truth is very different. Christianity and Islam are entirely different religions and the Bible and the Koran are completely different books. But imagine that you are sitting in the office or shop of a friend and that topic comes up. Would you be able to say anything in reply? Would you be able to offer, in simple language that anyone could understand, what distinguishes these two books that are the basis of two of the world’s great religions?

I’d like to make one observation about authorship quickly and then spend more time on the impact of the two books because of its relevance to Mr. King’s hearings.

The Authorship is Different
The Koran was dictated by an illiterate man over the course of twenty-three years who claimed that he was hearing the voice of an angel. The Bible was written by dozens of men over more than a thousand years who claimed to be moved by the Spirit of God to write. Some were scholars, some poets, some Kings, some shepherds, some were priests, and some were prophets. Yet all had a uniform message: That God would save his people from their sins. The Bible is thus connected to thousands of years of human history. The Koran is connected to three decades in the 7th Century. Muhammad believed that he was reciting a book that already existed in heaven. It is like an assortment of instructions and advice not specifically tied to any historical event. The Bible, through all of its authors, tells one story of God’s work over time through actual historical events, most of which have been validated by research.

But most importantly for the King hearings, the impact of the two books is different.

The Impact is Different
In 2006 England arrested 24 suspects in a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound passenger jets with liquid explosives. In 2007 German authorities broke up a “massive” bombing plot against American interests in Germany. And of course, no one will forget the Fort Hood murderer or the would-be Times Square bomber. All of these actions were perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam.

Not everyone who reads the Koran ends up being a terrorist. But that’s not the issue. Why would anyone - why do so many who read it - end up believing that God authorizes terrorism and murder?

I’m a conservative, evangelical Bible teacher. That means I believe the Bible is God’s word and that it is my authority for faith and practice. It also means that I’m very careful about interpreting it. I use the historical, grammatical, critical method of interpretation. I’m looking for historical context – who was the author? When did he write? To whom was he writing? What did he actually say (vocabulary, grammar)? What did it mean then? How does that meaning apply to our cultural context?

Because of what the Bible teaches people from our church and many others participate in: Habitat for Humanity, Samaritan’s Purse, The Good Samaritan, Hurricane recovery, Crisis Pregnancy centers and countless other acts of love and service.

That’s the impact of the Bible – properly interpreted and taught - in our culture. Why does the Koran not have the same affect? I’ll let my friend Samer, a former Sunni radical and now a Christian missionary to the Islamic world, conclude.

"As Christians we must be very emphatic that Christians have and continue to do many shameful things in the name of Christ, BUT the issue is this: Christians who use violence in the name of God to destroy their enemies have no justification for their actions from Jesus Christ, his life and teachings as found in the New Testament. Whereas, Muslims who are engaged in violence and destruction of anyone who opposes Islam, have ample justification for their actions from the Qur'an (using the same Historical /Grammatical /Critical approach to interpretation that I would use were I interpreting the Koran D.S.) and the life and sayings of prophet Muhammad…it is beyond doubt that the prophet of Islam did encourage the killing and intimidation of his enemies, not just in self defense as it is commonly reported by Muslims, but in the promotion of the cause of God and the spread of Islam. Needless to say, the actions of the prophet were in direct contradiction to the teachings and actions of Jesus Christ and his disciples. So the point is not that Christians have never resorted to violence and other horrible atrocities. They have indeed committed many horrible acts, but when they have done this, they have betrayed the very person that they claim to follow. But when Muslims commit such acts, they can in fact claim that they are following the example of their prophet and thus fulfilling the will of God and promoting His cause. That, certainly, is a big difference!"

So hurray for Mr. King, I’m glad that he had the courage to investigate. I hope the rest of us will be as thorough in our thinking about Christianity and Islam.

Where Is God When Disaster Strikes?

2011-03-14T10:42:00.002-04:00

Recent stories in the news bring to light how unexpectedly, how quickly disaster can strike. I listened with sadness last week as the morning news reported the beating death of a 28-year-old pastor in Texas and worse, the loss of seven children from one family in a house fire in Pennsylvania. Then Friday I watched in horror as the tsunami swept over northern Japan, carrying all away before it. As Phillip Yancey poignantly asked: Where is God when it Hurts? (That book is worth your while by the way).

The Bible is clear about the ultimate source of suffering – (See Genesis 3:17-19; and Romans 8:18, 22-25). Briefly, it teaches that we live in cursed bodies, with cursed psyches (souls) and cursed spirits, on a cursed planet under a cursed system in a cursed time. Men will commit crimes against one another. Accidents will burn houses down. Even the earth will oppose us and challenge us at every turn until we return to dust.

The Bible is clear about all of that. We should therefore adjust our expectations accordingly. We may not like the answer. But the question is not whether we like it. Rather, does it make sense of reality, as we know it? I believe that it does.
But all of that is abstract. Suffering is very personal stuff. I want to spend the rest of this article being personal.

God’s ultimate answer to suffering is the Cross of Christ.

Nine years ago last month I accompanied my friend Phil Ramsey to the spot where his 18-year-old son Joseph had just died in a totally inexplicable car wreck. My heart wrenched as I watched my friend implode in grief. I spent the next three months so angry with God that I could not speak to him except on a professional basis. How could he let that happen?! Two years later I buried one of my best friends, Steve Kotter, victim of a car hitting his bicycle. Two years after that I answered the phone late one night to the wails of a grieving friend. I then buried her twenty-year old son, a drowning victim. Last August I buried my brother, dead of a sudden heart attack. There was no explanation for any of these losses that made any sense to me. I grieved to the bottom of my soul, just as you do in your losses.

What is God’s answer to that? Where is God when that kind of stuff happens to us? Philosophers offer two basic answers: Either there is no all powerful all loving God. Or there is an all powerful God but he just doesn’t care.

But the Bible offers a third alternative. We can hear it in one of the most important, yet overlooked things Jesus ever said, one of the last things he said before he died. Theologians call it “the cry of dereliction,” something Jesus wailed aloud from the cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!?” (Matthew 27:46).

This is God’s answer to our suffering. He is not ‘up there’, distant, aloof, impassive while we suffer. He is ‘down here’ suffering with us. He has taken every single pain, every ounce of tragedy, every shred of injustice, each moment of mindless terror, ‘rolled it into a ball and eaten it, tasted it, fully digested it, eternally.’ (Peter Kreeft, quoted in ‘The Case for Faith’ by Lee Strobel, pg. 63). God is in Christ, suffering with and reconciling the world to him self. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

Where is God when we suffer? Suffering with us.

The Cross is the most stunning proof that God cares about our pain. It is the universal image of Christianity. The problem is that we are so familiar with it that we forget how violent, how brutal it was. But the Cross is one of the vilest tormenting and barbaric forms of cruelty and death the world has ever known. Our word ‘excruciating’ comes from the Latin for crucifixion. Yet we wear it around the neck like a trophy. Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’ met with much criticism because it portrayed the Cross in all its X-Rated gore. “Modern day executions are quick and sterile things. This one stretched on for hours in front of a jeering crowd.” (Yancey, Phillip. ‘Where is God When it Hurts?’ p. 231) In his death Jesus, God in the flesh, fully identified with our suffering. He didn’t have to do that. He chose it. He chose full identification with suffering humanity.

When tragedy strikes the promises of God often seem empty. Words on a page, or even from a friend, can’t fill the breach in our souls. Surely the words of Jesus to his friends must have seemed like empty promises as he hung there and died. They hung back in the crowd and slowly dispersed. It was after all, an empty hope they had clung to.

But that was Friday. Easter Sunday was yet to come. When it did come, the world, suffering, life and death itself was turned on its head. The Cross tells us that God fully identifies with all the suffering of the world. The resurrection tells us that one day he will turn it on its head.

This has had a profound effect on me. It reawakened within me a truth I once knew, a knowledge I once held dear. God, my God, my heavenly father, is not holding me at arm’s length. He is not a careless cosmic thug. He is embracing me. He is beside me holding me up. He is weeping with me. He knows the emptiness of my grief the hollowness of my soul. He knows these things and shares these things with the whole world of suffering. On the cross he absorbed it and through us he absorbs it still.

This knowledge restored my hope in God. It did something else too. It renewed my understanding of the uniqueness of Christianity. If you take the Cross out of the center of Christianity you remove that which makes it peerless among religions. It becomes just another system of morals and principles. But if you embrace the Cross you find a God there who is unlike any other, a God who will go to unimaginable lengths to commune with his creatures. He will commune with us to the death on Friday so that we can conquer death with him on Sunday.

THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF LOVE part 2

2011-02-23T12:03:00.002-05:00

We all want love. The problem is that some of us don’t realize the things we’re doing that quench it. As the DC Talk song says, “We all wanna be loved.” But some of us don’t know how.

The Apostle Paul articulated the do’s and don’ts of love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. Last week I wrote on the “do’s.” In this post we’ll look at the “don’ts.”

1 Cor 13:4-5: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (NIV)

You would think that the opposite of love would be hate. But you would be mistaken. The opposite of love, the thing that undermines and weakens and ultimately destroys it is not hate, it is self-centeredness. Self-centeredness is the destroyer of loving relationships. The “don’ts” of love are self-centered attitudes and behaviors, things guaranteed to destroy love. Here they are.

LOVE IS NOT JEALOUS Vs.4 –Love feels no loss at another’s gain. Love does not see the world as a zero sum game the way I see pecan pie in the fridge. Something comes over me. It is MY PIE. I know that for my kids to get more means that I get less. Instead, love rejoices in the goodness of God to a brother or sister. Love knows God’s goodness is limitless. Love doesn’t compare. It doesn’t measure itself against others. Love shares the pie without the envy.

LOVE IS NOT ARROGANT - “Does not boast, is not proud.” – “Boast” means ‘Trash talk’. Think WWF or the kind of stuff that goes on before a NFL championship game. Love doesn’t blow its own horn. It doesn’t need to.

The self-centered person is arrogant because she believes one of two things.

Number one: She really believes that she is better than everyone else. A young woman went to her pastor and said, "Pastor, I have a besetting sin, and I want your help. I come to church on Sunday and can't help thinking I'm the prettiest girl in the congregation. I know I ought not think that, but I can't help it. I want you to help me with it."

The pastor replied, "Mary, don't worry about it. In your case it's not a sin. It's just a horrible mistake."

Number two: The self-centered person is arrogant because he believes he’s less than everyone else. More often than not arrogance is as much a sign of insecurity as it is over-confidence. The blow fish only puffs itself up when it’s in danger – when it feels insecure – and wants to scare off intruders. Rude, selfish and hot-tempered people are usually very insecure. They just don’t want you to know and sometimes can’t even see it themselves.

See those next three words in vs. 5? Rude means literally ‘bad form’, intentionally discourteous. Self-seeking is literally ‘grasping’, trying to be first in everyone’s eyes. Easily angered is ‘hot-tempered’, short-fused, no patience. All these are the elements of arrogance.

These are pretty good diagnostic tools for your relationships. In other words, if you find yourself being rude, grasping and hot-tempered it’s probably a mistake to tell yourself, “well I need to practice courtesy and generosity and patience.” It’s better to think of these as symptoms of self-centeredness and start looking for the source of it.

LOVE IS NOT RESENTFUL - Keeps no record of wrongs.
The self-centered person keeps a record because the scales must always be balanced in his favor. It is really idolatry. It ignores the Cross of Christ (forgive and you will be forgiven. Matt. 6:14-15). The resentful man believes that it is his job to bring about justice. He takes God out of the picture. He is unconscious of the mercy he has received therefore he cannot extend it to anyone else.

Resentment does to relationships what battery acid does to blue jeans. I took a battery out of a car and carried it to the garage. It touched my jeans in a few places. In just a few weeks the jeans had holes every where the battery touched. You can’t see resentment. You didn’t notice when the battery touched the blue jeans of your marriage. But it eats away at the fabric of a friendship until one day it can no longer hold the weight of everyday wear and tear. The relationship falls apart.

If you feel resentful, if you’ve been hurt, take your grievances to the Cross first. Contemplate the justice that was done there for your sins. Live free of resentment.

LOVE DOESN’T DELIGHT IN EVIL – literally ‘takes no joy in what is against or contrary to righteousness.’

Apologist, author, and speaker Josh McDowell writes:

Tolerance says, "You must approve of what I do." Love responds, "I must do something harder: I will love you, even when your behavior offends me."

Tolerance says, "You must agree with me." Love responds, "I must do something harder: I will tell you the truth, because I am convinced 'the truth will set you free.'"

Tolerance says, "You must allow me to have my way." Love responds, "I must do something harder: I will plead with you to follow the right way, because I believe you are worth the risk."

Tolerance seeks to be inoffensive; love takes risks. Tolerance glorifies division; love seeks unity. Tolerance costs nothing; love costs everything.

The love that we are to have for others is not empty headed, devoid of truth and blind. It is not tolerance of anything in the name of love. It is boundless in its understanding but not clueless in its compassion. It knows the difference between loving a sinner and hating what sin does. It is a love that honors goodness and seeks what is best for the beloved.

That’s a love that refuses to rejoice in evil.

Relationships are like gardens. You reap what you sow. Sow unselfishness, sow truth, sow humility, and you will sow love.

THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF LOVE

2011-02-23T11:59:00.002-05:00

Did you know that lonely people live shorter lives than people with healthy relationships? Scientists have learned that people with poor relationship skills are more likely to develop disease, less likely to achieve financial success and much more likely to be fired from their jobs. One study showed that even in technology fields, 15% of financial success is related to technical ability. 85% is determined by people skills. Building healthy relationships is one of the most important things we do in life.

The best way to build healthy relationships is to practice the do’s and don’ts of love found in 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails… (1 Cor 13:4-8a NIV)

First Corinthians 13 is showing us how to “Do Love.” In this post we'll look at the "do's" of love. In the next we'll examine the "don'ts."

LOVE IS PATIENT – Patience means long suffering. The Greek word translated “patient” here is Macro-Thumos meaning long tempered as opposed to short- fused. Patience is the acquired ability to suffer physical or emotional pain without complaining or striking back.

When you’re sick you’re “patient”:
• With your body while you feel bad.
• With the doctor when his treatments feel worse.
• With the insurance company, when they tell you how much they aren’t going to pay.

Patience comes when I recognize that I am not in control. I cannot guarantee the outcome by effort or will power. I may have an influence, but I do not have the ability to force a result. Patience is bearing with the painful things you can’t change.

The second “DO” in the “do’s and don’ts is:

LOVE IS KIND – The great theologian and sometime country singer Clint Black said this:
Love is certain love is kind
Love is yours and love is mine
But it isn’t something that we find
It’s something that we do

We often think of love and kindness as feelings of compassion and tenderness. But love is more than feelings. Love, according to the Bible, is kind and kindness is something that we do. One of the best definitions of kindness is: Make one self useful.

The third ‘Do’ in the ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ of Love is:

DELIGHTS IN TRUTH - TRUTH is “the reality lying at the basis of an appearance; the manifested, veritable essence of a matter."

Truth is what is real as opposed to what is not real. It’s the genuine article as opposed to the fake. It’s sincerity as opposed to hypocrisy. It’s honesty as opposed to deceit.

We often become pretenders in our relationships because we fear what transparency might do. But delighting in the truth is taking the risk to share the real you.

Love is not something that we feel. It is some things that we do. It’s patience. It’s kindness, it’s taking a risk and sharing the real you. It’s’ the best Valentine gift that you can give any day of the week and any month of the year.

What is Your Perception of God?

2011-02-23T11:57:00.001-05:00

Think of some of your favorite people, the people you most want to be with, the people you will go out of your way to meet, rearrange your schedule to spend time with. What is it about them that make them so desirable to you? I’ll bet that they share some of these characteristics.

1. He makes you feel welcome. He’s the kind of friend that waits out in the driveway for you to arrive and greets you with a handshake or a hug.
2. He makes you feel intelligent. He’s the guy that appreciates your take on the situation. He makes you feel like what you have to say is worth hearing.
3. He’s powerful. He is self sustaining. He isn’t needy, she isn’t clingy.
4. He’s good company. He understands you. He has those two qualities so necessary to a real friend: He takes your concerns seriously but he knows when not to take you too seriously. He knows the difference between the real you and the cartoon you – taking the first one soberly and the second like Bugs Bunny doing the Barber of Seville.

How many of us would have a problem with prayer if we felt as comfortable and attracted to God as we do to our best friends? There is certainly much more to a relationship with God than that, more than what we would ever have with a good friend. But it’s never less than that. And we lose out - we miss all that is there for us in prayer because we are convinced that it is less, that God is more to be feared than to be loved.

Jesus went a long way to dispel that rumor, to show it up for a lie. He did it by teaching us about God as Father. Look at the emphasis he puts on understanding God as our Father.

Matt 6:6-9 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,…(NIV)

Matt 6:14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.(NIV)

Matt 6:17-18 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (NIV)

Seven times in seven sentences, four short paragraphs, Jesus repeats this phrase “your Father”. Do you think he’s trying to tell us something?

"If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all." J. I. Packer

It is the special privilege of believers in Jesus Christ to address God, to know God, as Father. As a king’s son has access to the throne that is unknown by others so Jesus makes it clear that we have an open door to the presence of God and a right to familiarity with him that is unknown to people outside of the kingdom. So spend some time today in prayer. Your Father in heaven is waiting to hear from you.

SPEAK UP FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SPEAK

2011-01-25T10:34:00.001-05:00

SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE SUNDAY:
Speak Up For Those Who Cannot Speak
Proverbs 31:8-9 FCC January 23, 2011

Two news stories caught my attention this week. Both were about multiple murders. One, the Tucson Massacre, was on the home page of every website and led the evening news of every broadcaster in the country and is still being covered twenty-four seven. A nut with a gun killed six people and wounded thirteen others including a congresswoman. A heinous, reprehensible crime for which there is no excuse.

The other one you might have missed. Officially, eight people died, but in truth it was many more than that. But because most of them were anonymous babies murdered by a “doctor” with a pair of scissors – and I use that term ‘doctor’ only because he had a medical license –the news media didn’t deem it worthy of round the clock reporting. After all, that happens every day in this country through a procedure known as partial birth abortion. The only difference is that these babies were fully delivered.

The only reason this one is getting any attention is because an adult woman finally died because of the man’s negligence and an investigation was mounted.

Foxnews.com reports:
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, (mostly on minorities and immigrants) prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to visit or inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them, District Attorney Seth Williams said…

According to the district attorney's office, Gosnell is facing murder in the third degree for the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar. The patient died Nov. 20, 2009, when she was overdosed with anesthetics prescribed by Gosnell, according to the station.

Williams said during a press conference Wednesday that Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord."

The juxtaposition of these two stories and how quickly the one about the abortion doctor went away illustrates where our country is on this issue today. The truth is that with the housing and economic crisis, the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, the concern about Islamic Terrorism in general and the debate on health care the national attention and more to the point the attention of the Church has turned away from the issue of abortion. It has taken a place on the political and spiritual back-burner.

We cannot allow that situation to stand. We must not grow weary in this fight. The reasons from Scripture are quite clear.

Proverbs 31:8-9 says, "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." (NIV)

In Scripture, a “first order task” for ancient kings, princes and judges was to protect the powerless against all who would exploit or oppress them. That’s why we see things like Jeremiah pronouncing this judgment on Jehoiakim, king of Judah.

"Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. 16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD. (Jer 22:15-16 NIV)

Did you catch that? “Is that not what it means to know me?”

People who walk with God take it as a matter of the regular course of life to defend the defenseless, to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. God has made us a “royal priesthood.” (1Peter 2:9). It is the normal course of life for a Christian to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.

STATISTICS ON ABORTION IN AMERICA
The following statistics are from a new report released by the Guttmacher Institute (formerly a special research affiliate of Planned Parenthood – one of the largest pro-abortion organizations in the country). The report is titled "Abortion Incidence and Access to Services in the United States, 2008,"

 100,000 + Children are aborted each month in America (3 x Halifax population). For perspective, about 40,000 Americans per year die in car wrecks. Our country spends billions of dollars each year figuring out how to make cars and roadways safer. We need to spend some money figuring out how to make infants in the womb safer.

 199,000 +/- (16%/year) of these abortions were chemical abortions via prescriptions for RU 486 or Methotrexate. Women pay about $490 for this drug. It costs the clinics less to administer this drug so they add another $97.5 million in revenue to an industry already raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. The drug has caused hundreds of women to resort to emergency rooms when something goes wrong.
 There are over 1793 abortion “providers” in the US. Of these 23% offer abortions after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. 11% offer abortions after 24 weeks. (The number of weeks is important. We’ll come back to that in a moment). Roughly 350 clinics nationwide offer abortions after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Clearly, abortion is big business in the United States and the abortion industry is constantly working to expand its reach.

Who will speak up for defenseless children in the womb if not us? Who will fund the work of organizations like Little Life if not followers of the God who said, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves?”

The measure of a just society is the willingness of those who do not have an immediate stake in an issue to speak up on behalf of those who do.

WHAT SCIENCE TELLS US ABOUT LIFE IN THE WOMB: When Does Life Begin?

The Software Was All There – Scientific advances enable us to know, to actually see, when a baby’s heart begins to beat in its mother’s womb. All of the genetic information that you are made of existed at the moment of conception. Your personality, body size, eye color, hair color, basic intellect, etc. was already fixed. In other words, the software that makes you who you are was all there from the beginning as the hardware began growing around it.

Brain Waves Begin – Modern science reveals that the baby’s brain begins functioning enough to produce measurable brain waves at 40 days. The baby’s face begins to move, forming what look like smiles and frowns as early as 12 weeks.

You might be thinking, “Well, OK, that’s 40 – 90 days. Nothing much that could be called human is happening before that. ” If you are thinking that then let me remind you that you started out the same way. You weren’t thinking anything before you were 40 days old but your personality was fixed, your size was fixed, your intelligence quotient was fixed. Would you have wanted someone to stop your development at that point?

Both sides of the political debate agree that science has revealed much more about the beginning of life than we knew when the infamous Roe v. Wade decision was handed down in 1973. But science is not the last word. It cannot tell us everything we need to know about life.

THE BIBLE AND THE SANCTITY OF LIFE

Scripture Reveals What Science Reports – The truth about the beginnings of human life were revealed in Scripture long before science had the tools to report on them. God the Great Creator tells us when personhood begins as well as what it means.

Made In God’s Image – Unlike any of the rest of earth’s creatures, men and women are reflections of the personhood of God.

Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (NIV)

By giving man dominion over the animals God revealed that humanity is in a totally different class from the animals. We are the only beings on the planet that can interact with God on the level of personality. Every creature depends on God. We are the only creatures that can know Him. That gives each man, woman and child incredible dignity and worth.

Crafted by God’s Hand – There are over 70 references to “the womb” in the Scriptures. One of these is Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

Isa 44:24 "This is what the LORD says-- your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,…(NIV)

I am married to an artist. My beautiful wife makes beautiful things out of stuff that I would normally label trash. On a recent trip to Florida she combed the beach picking up sea shells. She then took them home and carefully cleaned them and let them dry. Early in our marriage I would have been complaining about taking so much trash home and tried to throw it out. But I learned that a real craftswoman can make beautiful things out of what we would call useless. Soon her seashell creations, a little sea shell tree, a seashell wreathe and other pretty things began to adorn our home. It’s like that when you’re married to a creative person. Can you imagine what I would miss if I had taken those seashells to the trash? Can you imagine how my wife would react?

You and I, like every other baby in every mother’s womb, are hand crafted by the One who made all things, who stretched out the heavens and spread out the earth “by myself,…” he says. He does this work. He alone is the author of life. When we commit the act of abortion we are taking the seashells out of the Creator’s hands and smashing them. Imagine how He must feel about that.

Given Life in the Blood – God equates the presence of blood with the presence of life. Genesis 9:4 reads, “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” Leviticus 17:11 states, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”

Do remember the 20 weeks? Scientists have observed that at 22 days or 3 weeks of development, a baby’s heart begins beating and pumping the baby’s own blood through his or her own circulatory system. At 5 weeks brain waves are measurable. At 12 weeks the baby has a face.

There are over 350 abortion providers in this country that provide abortions after 20 weeks. Abortion truly stops a beating heart. Abortion takes a human life.

A Child in the Womb is a Conscious Soul – Science reports that the baby begins to move at 7 weeks. This movement can be felt by the mother at 16 weeks. The gospel of Luke (1:44) reports that when Elizabeth, who was miraculously pregnant in her old age, met her cousin Mary, who was carrying the Lord Jesus that the child who was to become John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. The implication is obvious: God gave the infant John knowledge of his cousin’s presence while both were still in the womb. The further implication is also obvious: John, like every other babe in the womb, had a soul before he was born.

Every child in the womb is a living, soul, capable of human interaction and some early form of understanding the presence of blessing or threat. They are conscious, but they have no voice. Many of their mothers, who are told over and over again that it’s just a choice, really feel as if they have no choice at all. Their parents, their boyfriends, their society and their fears sound the bell so loudly for abortion that many, many women feel it is the only option.

There is so much more information out there on this topic but hopefully this is enough to equip you and inspire you to speak up for those who cannot speak.

Let me conclude with a few recommendations on who to speak to and how.
Concluding Application

First, talk to the Women You Know – Four out of ten women in America have had an abortion. It is a personal trauma that is often stuffed very deep inside of her soul. Most women aren’t given the time and information that they need to fully understand what they’re being urged to do or have done. She has never had permission to talk about it. She needs permission and she needs you to be very sensitive.

If she is open about it and wrestles with it suggest a Bible Study at a place like Little Life. I’ve seen the healing that can come in a woman’s life through those studies.

If she is not open about struggling with it recognize that whether she can acknowledge it or not she is hurting. She may be belligerent about it. Hurting people hurt people. She is carrying a deep wound. Pray for her.

Second, talk to Adolescents – Probably the most important group you can talk to because they are the ones who can change the trend. Give them the information that I just gave you. They have a strong sense of justice. They will speak up when adults might remain silent.

Third, talk to Legislators – They need to hear from you every year. Significantly, The Patient Provider Affordable Care Act provides many streams of funding and authority that open the door to tax payer funded abortions in the US. That alone is reason enough to rewrite or repeal it.

Fourth, talk to Friends – Share this information with them. Let them know about Little Life Pregnancy Medical Center in Danville, Virginia, which FCC supports. They need the opportunity to support Little Life and to give hope to young women in crisis.

Fifth, Sign the Manhattan Declaration – Find it at www.manhattandeclaration.org.

Conclusion
Eric Metaxas’ excellent biography of Bonhoeffer offers a good closing perspective for all of us.

Few people would compare America of the early 21st Century with Germany of the early 1930’s. The social and political forces at work are vastly different.

One thing we do have in common however is this: No one then living in that most technologically developed, intellectually sophisticated and artistically sensitive country in the western world - a Christian nation that was the birthplace of the protestant reformation – would have believed how quickly it would all slide into the barbarism that was National Socialism.

Martin Niemoeller was one of those men. A decorated U Boat captain of the First World War, he became a pastor that early on was supportive of Hitler because of his opposition to Communism. But when the NAZIS passed a law making all Jews second class citizens Niemoeller finally woke up. By then it was too late. He, along with over 800 other pastors in the anti-Nazi Confessing Church were arrested and imprisoned shortly after the 1936 Olympics. Bonhoeffer was hanged. Niemoeller, after stints in Dachau and other concentration camps, barely escaped with his life.

I leave you with the quote for which he is best known.

First They came... - Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists ,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

SPEAK UP FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

(I am indebted to Tony Perkins and the National Right to Life website for some of the information in this message).

JESUS IS LORD! REALLY?

2011-01-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

JESUS IS LORD? REALLY?
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 7:21 NIV)

A recent article in a national Christian magazine asked the question: Were Jesus and Paul in conflict? Did Jesus teach one thing and the Apostle Paul another? A shallow reading of the New Testament might leave that impression, especially concerning salvation. One might think, from the quotation in Matthew above, that according to Jesus it takes more than calling him Lord to be saved. But then we read Paul’s statement in Rom 10:9 and wonder, “What’s up with that?”

Here’s Paul’s statement: “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (NIV)

I love to quote Romans 10:9 to people who are in doubt or wondering how to be saved. But most 21st century Americans don’t understand what it means. It needs a little explaining.

When some folks say, “Jesus is Lord,” they are repeating a culturally acceptable religious slogan. Its like, “Of course I believe Jesus is Lord, just like I believe in Santa Clause at Christmas and Baseball in June and Hotdogs and Apple Pie and Chevrolet.”

Jesus is Lord is part of Southern culture in the same way that “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet” is in other cultures. He is Lord in the sense that he is the chosen deity of our civil religion, in the same way that Jupiter was Lord if you were an early Roman or Zeus if you were Greek. He’s the guy symbolized in the stained glass windows, and the crosses in the graveyards. But it isn’t personal. There is no personal significance to the statement. You don’t necessarily have to sacrifice any personal autonomy to say it.

To people who use the phrase like that Jesus will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” The person never entered into a faith relationship of loyal obedience to Jesus. Jesus is a name we tag on to the end of a prayer but he is not a person we know or a Lord to whom we swear unwavering allegiance.

But to say, “Jesus is Lord,” in the Romans 9 sense is at one and the same time a highly personal as well as totally public swearing of allegiance. Calling someone, anyone, Lord, in that culture was to recognize and accept their authority over you as master. And, at the time Paul wrote that sentence Roman citizens were being required to say “Caesar is Lord” to maintain citizenship. They had to swear allegiance to Caesar just like a Nazi swearing allegiance to Hitler. Death waited anyone who refused.

So the true believer, back then and today, is someone who swears allegiance to Jesus Christ and never turns back from a lifetime of obedient faith. He is “one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.” In Elisabeth Elliott’s words, it is a long obedience in the same direction. It doesn’t mean that we do it perfectly all the time. But the overall pattern of life is one of faithfulness to Christ, no matter what the cost.

Just saying “Jesus is Lord” doesn’t give us entry into eternity, nor does the obedience itself save us. But it is the evidence of a person that truly belongs to Jesus. To that person Jesus promises, “If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my father who is in heaven.”

THE BLESSINGS OF BIOGRAPHY

2011-01-19T09:50:00.000-05:00

Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. (Proverbs 4:7-8 NIV)

There is an old story about wisdom that goes something like this: A young entrepreneur interviewed a prosperous older business man and asked him the secret of his success.

“Wisdom,” he said.

“How do I get it?” asked the younger man.

“By making good decisions.”

“And how do I learn to make good decisions?”

“By making bad ones.”

Wisdom, in the biblical sense, is the practical application of knowledge and truth to every day life. It is life-skill, the understanding of the ways knowledge and information can be brought to bear in the solving of life’s challenges, the exploitation of its opportunities and the avoidance of its many pitfalls. One of the greatest sources of it is the Book of Proverbs (found just after the Psalms in your Bible).

But there is another source and that is biography, the stories of the lives of interesting people. Through skillfully written biography we see wisdom and godliness, or the lack thereof, at work in the lives of others. It is a wonderful tool for reflection upon one’s own life, developing a better understanding of others who are different from you, and gaining vicarious experience. We can learn to make good decisions by seeing the results of their bad ones.

Wondering where to start? Here’s a list I’ve benefitted from in the last twelve months or so. West With the Night, by Beryl Markham; John Adams, by David McCullough; Bonheoffer, by Eric Metaxas; Decision Points, by George W. Bush; Courage and Consequence, by Karl Rove; A Journey, by Tony Blair.

So pick up a biography this year and get wisdom. And when you find a good one let me in on it! I look forward to hearing what you’ve learned.

DOING WITHOUT DO OVERS

2010-12-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

“What is behind-a me is not-a before me!” shouted the Italian racer as he ripped the rear view mirror off the windshield, and put the pedal to the metal in one of those silly seventies rally movies. We used to quote it when heading out on family road trips, exaggerating the dialect for effect.

Most of us would like to live that way, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead…” as the Apostle Paul would say. But the truth is, many of us do look back, are held back emotionally and spiritually, by mistakes we’ve made in the past, things we wish we could “do over.” We don’t necessarily call them sins. We’re still uncomfortable with that verdict. But if we were honest we’d admit that most of them were. We were raging, or deceitful, or covetous, gossipy, greedy, or gluttonous. We indulged our sinful nature and it cost us. In our guilt we look for “do-overs,” ways to fix what we did wrong, or indulge melancholia in an attempt to appease God.

Trust me: God doesn’t need your melancholy. If you’re living with some left over guilt from 2010 allow me to share some encouragement for 2011. It comes from Hebrews chapter ten.

Under the old covenant, The Law of Moses, “every priest stood daily ministering and offering, time after time the same sacrifices, which could never take away sins.” (Vs. 11 paraphrased). That didn’t help much because the sacrifice of an animal was never enough to cover all sins. In fact, verse three explains, “…in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.”

All the Law could do was to remind us of our inadequacies and encourage an eternal longing for “do overs.” But Jesus Christ, “having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD…” Sitting down is a symbol for finished work. Jesus was one and done. He made one sacrifice, himself, and it was enough. Hebrews explains that the whole Old Testament temple system was a model, a type, a shadow of the real thing in heaven. When Jesus made his sacrifice it wasn’t offered on earth alone, it was offered in the real temple, the heavenly temple. It was once for all, eternal, infinite in its ability to wipe out the sins of all who believe. In other words, the sacrifice of Christ enables all of us to do without the do overs.

So no more do overs. Grab that mirror, rip it off the windshield, and say it with me as we head off into 2011: WHAT IS BEHIND-A ME IS NOT-A BEFORE ME!

THE CHRISTMAS QUESTION

2010-12-08T12:16:00.000-05:00

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27 NIV)

Every year the world’s largest automakers come together in Detroit Michigan for a stellar event. First string entertainers man multiple stages, high-tech extravaganzas of light and sound and video and graphics fill the conference hall, multiple 5 star banquets are laid on in the adjoining ball rooms for the VIP guests and millions of dollars are spent producing the Detroit Auto Show. Oh and don’t forget the press. The automotive media and every other media service is there in great numbers and wined and dined like royalty because after all, they are the town criers of the electronic age, the royal heralds and chroniclers of the 21st Century.

And what is all this for? What is all that moving and grooving, singing and schmoozing and million dollar light show all about? Well, Ford and GM and Chrysler and all the other big names just want to make an announcement. They have some new models coming out and they want to be sure that everybody hears about them.

2010 years ago God did something totally new, something completely different from anything that had ever been done before. But compared to the Detroit Auto Show and most other new things we hear about, he barely made a peep about it. God never announces things like we do. Most of the time, when God makes an announcement about something he’s going to do he does it in an out of the way place, to an unsuspecting person at an inopportune time and lets the rest of the world catch up very slowly.

That’s what he did on the first. God sent a supernatural messenger to the teenage fiancé of a Jewish carpenter in a tiny backwater Judean town to tell her that an unplanned pregnancy would precede her marriage. I can’t think of a more inconspicuous and, from Mary’s point of view inconvenient way to usher in the arrival of the Savior of the World. Mary’s life was going to be turned upside down. Yet that’s the way God works. The Christmas question for Mary was: would she cooperate with God? Would she receive this blessing mixed with such difficulty?

Incarnation is always difficult, always inconvenient from a human point of view. When Jesus wants to make his presence known in your life, to work in you and through you to bless the world, it will most likely happen at a time and in a situation that is problematic for you, awkward, just plain hard. The Christmas question for you is: will you let him be Lord in that moment?

The Savior does not need and will not use a big, loud, splashy forum to do his work. He comes in quiet ways to humble people who are willing to cooperate, even when his timing is inconvenient. How will you answer the Christmas question?

RANDOM ACTS OF CULTURE

2010-11-10T13:09:00.002-05:00

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor 3:17 NIV)

On the day after the Al Qaeda attack on a Catholic Mass in Iraq I had a rather extraordinary experience in contrasts. I took a break from studying to prepare for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church and opened an email from an old friend. It took me to a Youtube video of a self-described Random Act of Culture. The Youtube caption explains:

On Saturday, October 30, 2010, the Opera Company of Philadelphia brought together over 650 choristers from 28 participating organizations to perform one of the Knight Foundation's "Random Acts of Culture" at Macy's in Center City Philadelphia. Accompanied by the Wanamaker Organ - the world's largest pipe organ - the OCP Chorus and throngs of singers from the community infiltrated the store as shoppers, and burst into a pop-up rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah" at 12 noon, to the delight of surprised shoppers. (See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU or search Opera Company of Philadelphia Hallelujah.)

I watched the video with tears in my eyes, remembering the thrill of singing that song with a chorus of hundreds in years past. Then I sent my friend the link to the Resurrection Sunday Dance in Budapest, Hungary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dSIL358NM ). Both videos elicit deep emotions of joy for our freedom in Jesus Christ along with longing for the day he returns.

That’s when the extraordinary contrast hit me. Just before viewing the Hallelujah Chorus video I had watched painful, first-hand accounts of persecution from fellow believers in Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Egypt, and Iraq. The brothers and sisters were under extreme pressure and spoke with great feeling and urgency asking us to pray and to speak up for religious freedom in their countries. I groaned within as they told their stories. And their oppressors? Fundamentalist Muslims and Islamic governments.

I sat back in my chair and took a deep breath and reflected. What are the Random Acts of Christian Culture? Glorious music performed in public celebrations with complete freedom, joyous dancing by thousands of young people in ancient city squares where atheistic communism once ruled. And the Random Acts of Muslim Culture? Well orchestrated and Sharia-law legalized oppression of human rights, annihilation of entire Christian congregations, brain-washed boys and girls with bombs in their clothing, premeditated ambushes on defenseless fellow soldiers, airliners crashing into sky-scrapers.

What to do in the face of such things? Keep singing. Keep dancing. Keep praying and advocating for the persecuted. And keep telling the world that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is true freedom.

FOR WHOM WOULD JESUS VOTE?

2010-10-27T15:42:00.001-04:00

Someone asked Jesus that question once. He famously replied, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”. In other words, “Get your allegiances right and your obligations will become clear.” The Christian’s role on planet earth is as an Ambassador of God. Our ultimate loyalties are to God’s values, God’s purposes, and God’s mission.

If our ultimate loyalties are to God what exactly are our obligations? In a democratic republic we the people are Caesar. We owe it to ‘Caesar’ to vote. We owe it to God to understand what he says about the political issues of the day and vote accordingly. Here are a few examples:

The War in Afghanistan – Scripture teaches that government is God’s servant, “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrong doer.” (See Romans 13). Scripture also teaches us to love neighbor as we love self. War for the purpose of conquest, revenge or greed is unjust. War for the purpose of protecting the weak and innocent before they can be harmed or coerced by a nut with a bomb is just and loving. Christians should vote for the person they believe will do the best job of protecting the weak and innocent here and abroad from Islamists.

Abortion – Back in 2004 I watched a presidential debate with a friend. A question arose about the partial birth abortion ban. My friend didn’t understand the phrase – a euphemism for a gruesome death delivered to a child in the final stages of birth. When I described it he was horrified. He should be.

God is the creator of life. Children in the womb are the weakest of the weak, the most defenseless. Isaiah 1:17 says, Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Christians should vote for the people who will support the partial birth abortion ban and defend the unborn.

Homosexual Marriage – God created marriage to be between a man and a woman. God established the moral order for the world that he created. If we observe it and abide by it, things go well. If we abandon it we can expect trouble. (See 1 Timothy 1:8-10). Christians should vote for the people who will honor God by protecting the traditional definition of marriage.

Religious Freedom & Freedom of Speech – Jesus instructed us to ‘go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ Religious freedom and freedom of speech are two of the founding principles of America. Activist judges who wish to silence Christians in the marketplace of ideas are challenging those freedoms. Thoughtless lawmakers and leaders who make room for the growth of Sharia (Islamic) law in America undermine Religious freedom and freedom of speech in the name of protecting them. Christians should vote for the candidates most likely to protect us from Sharia law and from legalized oppression of Christians in the work-place and academia.

Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. Get your allegiances right and your obligations in the voting booth will become clear.

YOU ONLY SAW HER HANDS and not her face on TV

2010-10-13T11:20:00.000-04:00

YOU ONLY SAW HER HANDS (and not her face on TV)

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Col 3:23-24 NIV)

"I'm a good ole boy and my Momma loves me, but she can't understand why they keep showin' my hands and not my face on TV." Waylon Jennings was so well known on the Country Music scene that by the time he played that song for the redneck sitcom The Dukes of Hazard in 1979 everyone who heard the verse above knew who was singing it. The good ole boys (myself included) of the old South immediately grasped the message in the verse. Waylon’s face never appeared, only his jeans, cowboy shirt and leather vest framing his fingers picking his signature white and black electric guitar. It was an inside joke. But we understood. Waylon was already famous in the South as an “outlaw” country singer. We didn’t need to see his face. We could recognize that guitar and that coal mine deep baritone anywhere.

At about the same time that Waylon and the Duke Brothers were hitting their stride the hands of another musician of a totally different stripe began appearing regularly on television. In Touch, the ministry of televangelist Charles Stanley was airing nationwide in the early eighties. In those days part of the signature opening sequence for the program was a shot of a pair of skilled hands caressing the ivory white keys of a black grand piano. The viewer never saw the musician’s face and very few people ever knew her name but those of us who were members of First Baptist Church of Atlanta back then didn’t need to see her on TV. We recognized the hands and knew the signature sound of one of the most dedicated servants to ever play a hymn. Her name is Alice Marie “Bee” Wolter. We used to sing her that verse of Waylon’s song just to kid her. For twenty-two years she pounded the keys for countless rehearsals, worship services, weddings, funerals, church theatrical productions and traveling choirs as part of the ministry of First Baptist Church of Atlanta. But that period doesn’t make up half of her time in service to the King at the keyboard. Bee began playing for the church when she was ten years old. As of last Sunday, when she played the entire service at FCC, she has been at her post in some church or ministry, almost every Sunday and many nights in between, for seventy years. She has “worked at it with all her heart, as for the Lord, not for men…serving Christ” and the rest of us who love to sing his praises.

So if you ever get discouraged or tired in your service to the Kingdom, and wonder if anyone will ever appreciate it take a little perseverance lesson from my mother-in-law Bee. Very few people on earth will ever know her name. And no one is likely to see her face on TV. But her inheritance is waiting in the presence of the King.

Time Traveling from the Latest to the Greatest Generation

2010-09-22T15:38:00.001-04:00

On that day tell your son, 'I do this because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.' (Exod 13:8 NIV)

I had one of those time travel moments recently that form part of life as a pastor. No, Scotty didn’t beam me up for a ride on the Enterprise and I haven’t passed through any time portals, at least not lately. But I did cover the distance from the Greatest Generation to the Latest Generation (1942-2010) in less than twenty-four hours. And I came away with a sense of how difficult and how important it is to transmit the virtues of the one to the other. I guess I should explain.

I spent an hour or so one afternoon with Rich Crum who, at 93, is our church’s oldest member. Rich was born in Kansas in 1917. He went to war in 1942 as part of the US Strategic Bomber Service, serving in Europe till war’s end. Listening to Rich talk about that era brought all of the danger and sacrifice, the courage and faith of that generation back to vivid life. The men and women of his time not only won that war, they built the America that you and I know today. They understand sacrifice and service and the cost of freedom better than most people now living in the USA.

Flash forward to 7:30 AM the following morning. I stood with about forty-five students and adults around the flag pole in front of the Middle School for the annual See You At The Pole ceremony. We joined with millions of students across America who met that day to pray for their schools and their country. My job was to offer a 9-11 remembrance. Middle Schoolers are 6th thru 8th grade students, 11 to 13 years of age. None of them were older than four years of age when the towers fell on 9-11. Rich's war is ancient history to them. That’s when the time warp hit me. How can we, who live in the present, possibly transmit to these kids the gravity of the moment, the enormity of the evil we faced on that fateful day and give them the virtues they will need to face the enemies of freedom in their own generation?

Scripture gives us the answer. After God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt he gave them - through Moses - a number of instructions on how to keep the memory of those great events alive. He gave them the Passover, and other colorful ceremonies of remembrance. He gave them the law. And he gave them the tabernacle, with all of its forms of worship. Essentially, the Israelites were to model the great truths of their faith and history; mentor their children in its virtues; and memorialize the extraordinary events of the past. In this way each new generation would have a vital link, a time portal through which the ancients could travel forward in imagination and pass on the virtues that strengthen the foundations of freedom.

Let’s you and I commit to keep the portal open. The next generation is going to need it.

IN MEMORY OF BIG MIKE

2010-09-13T09:25:00.002-04:00

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Heb 12:1 NIV)

Nitrogen fumes from the Shell premium gas Mike burned in his Honda CBR 1100 XX motorcycle drifted back to us, threading their way into our helmets along with the mountain aromas of cool granite, green laurel and fresh-cut grass. Family friend Jessica McGill and I kept pace with Mike and my daughter Mikeala on a borrowed BMW, railing the tight curves and slowing to a walk on the one hundred and eighty degree switchbacks of Georgia SR 180 as we wound our way up Brasstown Bald, the highest point in the State. It would be our last motorcycle ride together before he died on August 5th and one of the best, climaxing as it did with a view of the world from 4,784 feet above sea level. He had already covered 200 of the 350 miles he would ride that day and wasn’t even tired. It stands as a metaphor to me of an even greater climb that the big guy made.
My older brother Mike, Uncle Fuzzball to my girls, suffered from a chemical imbalance in his brain diagnosed as a-typical bi-polar disorder. In the mid nineties I watched this disease grab him like the imaginary monsters of childhood, shake him like a ragdoll and fling him to the ground.
Big Mike, his nickname in the neighborhood where I was born, stood over six feet tall from the time he was twelve years old. He was always bigger and stronger than me and most of my friends. He was also a spiritual rock for me when I needed him most. Watching him break into a thousand mental pieces was almost more than I could bear. But watching him climb up out of that psychological black hole, a place from which few men return, was one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever witnessed. We talked about writing a book on it. I’m writing this today to encourage you and anyone else that you know who suffers from a mental disorder.
Mike’s ascent up the mountain of mental health was marked by three things. The first was humility. He was a proud man, a strong man that submitted himself to hospitalization under the care of competent, Christian professionals who prescribed medication and psychotherapy. Once out of the hospital Mike took responsibility for him self and worked the program. It took years and, like many bi-polar patients, along the way he decided he no longer needed the meds. This led to a relapse and another hospital stay. But the second time was the charm. He humbled himself by taking his medicine every day and visiting a counselor every week for years. Even when he no longer needed the counselor he stayed on the medicine and visited a therapist now and then just to keep a check on himself. He knew the monster all too well and as strong as he was knew he couldn’t handle it alone.
The second thing was his faith. In all the years of his suffering Mike never turned his back on his Savior. I never heard him blame God or use his illness and disappointment as an excuse to quit worshipping or neglect his devotions or stop fellowshipping with other believers. He wanted to be well and he knew that in the end, only walking with Jesus would give him the strength to get there.
The third thing that characterized his recovery was perseverance. Sadly, in twenty years of ministry I’ve known a lot of people who gave up, wallowing in the slough of self-pity, and let their illness define them for the rest of their days. Mike never gave up even after two years of fruitless searching for a regular job, something that spins many men down into depression. He was as healthy on that day at the top of the world as I have ever known him, enjoying the good gifts God gave and discussing plans for his new business. He was working in his home shop on the day his heart stopped.
So if you know someone who is struggling with a mental disorder tell them about my brother. Tell them there’s a guy in that great cloud of witnesses, cheering them on.

WHY AN AMERICAN MUSLIM OPPOSES THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE

2010-08-26T15:45:00.000-04:00

A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. Solomon, King of Israel. Proverbs 22:3 NIV

A scan of national and international media reveals that non-Muslim support for the proposed Mosque near Ground Zero (GZM) seems just as strong as opposition to it. Evidence, I’m afraid, of a far too simple reading of a dangerous situation. Most supporters of the GZM cite the US Constitution’s protections of religious freedom. But they are failing to take into account critical facts about the GZM, its backers, and the nature of the global Islamist movement.

Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., is not so simple minded. Jasser is a devout Muslim and the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (aifdemocracy.org). He is a former U.S. Navy Commander, one of the first Muslim Americans to speak out against the violence of 9-11, Fort Hood and other atrocities, and has been a consistent voice of opposition to what he calls the global Islamist movement defined as those who promote the Islamic State and governmental sharia law. Jasser is also the host and narrator of the award winning documentary The Third Jihad, which was screened at Faith Community Church last March.

One of the things missing from most American’s analysis of this issue is the theological underpinning and societal longing of the global Muslim community for prosperity, prestige and power. That theology and longing coalesced in the 1950s along two lines. First is Secular Nationalist Islam, as seen in Egypt, Libya, and Iraq under Mubarak, Qadafi and Saddam Hussein respectively. Second is militant, theocratic Islamism as illustrated by the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Ayatollahs in Iran and the multiple tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood running through al-Qaeda and many other violent as well as non-violent organizations in the U.S.

In an interview with Aaron Elias on PajamasMedia.com Jasser outlines three major reasons to oppose the GZM. First, it is an insult to the millions of Americans who experienced the horror of 9-11. Second, the mosque is clearly being funded by people connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and other supporters of the Islamic State and governmental sharia. That funding creates an open door in what would be the greatest Mosque on American soil for the same jihadist philosophy to spread in the heart of Manhattan. And third, it will send a message of weakness to millions of Muslims world wide. A message that validates and affirms everything the Bin Ladens and Zaraqawis and other Islamists have been telling them about America all along.

“It will be used by Islamist leadership around the world to say, ‘despite the violence that al-Qaeda perpetrated on the American population, political Islam will always be victorious and from its ashes has risen the largest religious Muslim structure in the United States,’” Jasser warns. “As the administration continues to move backwards, [outlawing] the use of any specific religious Islamic terms like jihad, Islamsim, and salafism, the Islamists continue to make unopposed headway in the contest of ideas. We are losing the war of ideas.”
For the full length interview with Dr. Jasser see: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-patriotic-muslims-warning-on-ground-zero-mosque

Religious freedom is a fundamental value in America. No one should oppose the kinds of mosques that Dr. Jasser and his fellow non-Islamist Muslims would build. But neither should anyone be so simple as to assume that the GZM is such a mosque.

DID JESUS EVER DISCUSS HOMOSEXUALITY OR GAY MARRIAGE?

2010-08-19T11:11:00.002-04:00

The recent ruling by US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker striking down Proposition 8 in California has put the debate about homosexual marriage on the front pages again. One feature of the discussion about this issue in religious circles is the oft heard sound byte: “Jesus never said anything about homosexuals or gay marriage.” This can be confusing because at first glance it would seem to be correct. Enter the word “homosexual” into your Bible software concordance and limit the search to the four gospels and you won’t find Jesus using the word.

But people who are more familiar with their Bibles know that the argument is false. Jesus did address homosexuality and marriage and his stance on the issues is quite clear. I hope the following verses and brief explanations will equip you to clarify Jesus’ position on the matter should it ever come up in conversation.

First, Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi speaking to a first century Jewish audience. When he spoke in Matthew 15:18-19 of the heart as the source of sins he used the broadest term possible - the Greek word is porneia - to describe sexual sin. His comments aren’t limited to adultery, or rape, or incest etc. Porneia included the whole sweep of sexual sin. Any sexual intercourse outside of the marriage of a man and a woman was considered porneia. Dr. Don Fowler, professor of Biblical studies at Liberty University, adds: homosexuality was not overt in a Jewish world but when Paul took the gospel to the gentiles, homosexuality (especially among the Greeks) was notoriously common. In other words, Paul's strong emphasis was necessary whereas in Jesus' world it was much less so. Jesus didn't discuss pedophilia either because it wasn't a common issue in their world but the use of young boys for sexual purposes was common in Greek wealthier classes.

Second, Jesus said marriage is between male and female. In Matthew 19:4-6 Jesus explained what marriage is by going back to the original design of God. The union between male and female is the order of creation. It is God’s design for men and women. Homosexual marriage had no place in Jesus thinking.

Third, Jesus condemned homosexual practice in his condemnation of Sodom & Gomorrah. – In Matthew 10:15 Jesus explains to his disciples that in the judgment to come the towns that refused their message would suffer a greater judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah. Again in Matthew 11 Jesus denounces Capernaum telling the people, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” Some people will say that Sodom was only judged for its brutality to strangers but you have to ignore the clear meaning of multiple Old and New Testament texts to arrive at that conclusion. Sodom and Gomorrah are bywords throughout the Bible for sexual perversion, especially homosexuality. Jesus, though he had many opportunities to do so, did not upend the teaching on Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament. He supported it and quoted from it.

Finally, other New Testament writings condemn homosexuality – The Apostle Paul’s writings against homosexual behavior are well known (See Romans 1:21-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:8-11). I do not have space here to elaborate on them but suffice it to say that they are in accord with the teachings of Jesus. Also, the Apostle Paul is Jesus’ personal envoy to the Gentiles (that’s us, see Acts 22:21). If we ignore Paul’s teaching on this subject we are ignoring Jesus as well.

Many people are being led astray by the idea that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. I hope this article helps you correct that mistake.

The Keys' to Success in High Stress part 2

2010-07-28T14:56:00.000-04:00

I recently “retired” after six years as a board member with Tri River Habitat for Humanity. In the time that I served on the board Tri River completed three homes in partnership with needy families in the community. Our goal was to complete one home per year but as the following story illustrates, Christians define success differently from the rest of the world.

In 1940, Clarence Jordan founded Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia, as a haven for racial unity and cooperation. In 1954, the Ku Klux Klan burned every building on the farm except Jordan's home.

In the midst of the raid, Jordan recognized the voice of a local newspaper reporter. The next day, the reporter showed up for a story about the arson while the rubble was still smoldering. He found Jordan in a field, planting seeds. He said to Jordan, "I heard the awful news of your tragedy last night, and I came out to do a story on the closing of your farm."

Jordan just kept planting and hoeing. The reporter continued his prodding, with no response from Jordan. Finally, the reporter said, "You've got two Ph.D.'s, you've put 14 years into this farm, and now there's nothing left. Just how successful do you think you've been?"

With that statement, Jordan stopped hoeing. He said to the reporter, "You just don't get it, do you? You don't understand us Christians. What we are about is not success, but faithfulness."

Here’s the cool thing about that story. Tri River Habitat’s last home, its 11th in Halifax County, was finished last year. Most of the volunteers were white. The partner family was black. The executive director of Tri River recently informed me that the Banister River Association of Baptist Churches, a traditionally black association in our county, will soon be a major source of volunteers with the ministry. Koinonia Farm is the place where the vision of Habitat for Humanity was hatched. Who succeeded and who failed?

THE KEYS TO SUCCESS IN HIGH STRESS part 1

2010-07-21T15:38:00.000-04:00

Are you feeling stressed? Pressured? Overloaded?
Many of you are returning to school soon, some to totally new environments, some to increasing responsibility as you near the end of your educational career and the beginning of your working career. That’s stressful.

Some of you are under tremendous pressure at work. One guy described his day as “walking into a buzz saw.” Here’s a little research on the subject:

A survey of 1,313 managers on four continents found that "one-third of managers suffer from ill health as a direct consequence of stress associated with information overload. This figure increases to 43 percent among senior managers."

The sheer volume of information you have to screen, absorb and respond to can make you sick. Then there are those other “little” stressors that any body with a lot of responsibility and a little authority can relate to.

 Dealing with spin – Information comes to us like a Tom Glavine curve ball. It looks like the straight stuff until it gets to the plate. The truth gets lost in the rumor mill or shady ethics.
 Office Politics – Strained relationships between others in your organization make your job more difficult.
 Political Correctness – Rears its head but you have to say things no one wants to hear.
 Administrative Hassles – Can you just go ahead and hire the person best qualified or do you have to jump through a bunch of hoops first to keep the watchdogs happy?
 Communication Breakdown – I thought you said it would be here Friday! No, I said it would be there Monday!

If you can connect with any of that you can connect with Pastor Tim of the first Church of Ephesus. He was dealing with all of it only it was dressed in Church clothes instead of business.
 Spin – Tim was confronting spin in the form of legalism, Gnosticism and superstitious mysticism. (See chapters 1, 4,5,6).
 Politics – Strained relationships between church members put him in the middle. (See chapter 2:8)
 Political Correctness – What would the role of women be? How would he address it? (See chapter 2:9)
 Administrative Issues – Who would serve as Elder? Deacon? How would they be qualified? (See chapter 3:1).
 Communication – He had to set the example of clear communication and following through on commitments. (See chapter 4:11-16).

Let me go back to my original question. Are you feeling overloaded? Pressured? Stressed to the max? If so you might be feeling like Pastor Tim. And maybe you’re feeling his instinctive response: RUN BABY RUN!

But his mentor the Apostle Paul had another idea. It’s recorded in
1 Tim 1:3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer. (NIV)

That was not what Tim was hoping to hear. But it’s one of the keys to success in high stress. Paul was saying to his son in the faith,
“Tim your desire is to come back under my wing. But God has you there for a purpose. Be content to stay there.”

The message: If God has you in a tough situation stay in it. Don’t bail out just because your palms are getting sweaty. If you’re sure God’s in it – you stay in it. Problems are just opportunities dressed in scary costumes. God has something to teach you in it and something to accomplish through you in it. If you bail out you may never learn what you can be and you may never see what God can do.

Jesus Money & Posessions Part 4 The Treasury of the Heart

2010-06-25T14:09:00.001-04:00

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also…
Jesus (Matthew 6:21)

The treasury of the heart is the ordering principle of life. Everything revolves around it. It is like the sun to the earth, the earth to the moon and the moon to the seasons. And if that ordering principle is dark, then all of life is darkness.

Suze Orman tells a story in her book, Nine Steps to Financial Freedom that vividly illustrates that point.

When I was 13, my dad owned his own business—a tiny shack where he sold chicken, ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries. One day the oil that the chicken was fried in caught fire. In a few minutes the whole place exploded in flames. My dad bolted from the store before the flames could engulf him.

Then my mom and I arrived on the scene, and we all stood outside watching the fire burn away my dad's business. All of a sudden, my dad realized he had left his money in the metal cash register inside the building, and I watched in disbelief as he ran back into the inferno before anyone could stop him.

He tried to open the metal register, but the intense heat had already sealed the drawer shut. Knowing that every penny he had was locked in front of him about to go up into flames, he picked up the scalding metal box and carried it outside. When he threw the register on the ground, the skin on his arms and chest came with it. He had escaped the fire safely once, untouched. Then he voluntarily risked his life and was severely injured. The money was that important.

That was when I learned that money is obviously more important than life itself. From that point on, earning money—lots of money—not only became what drove me professionally, but also became my emotional priority.

I don’t know where Suze Orman is on that issue today, but I do know that when money becomes our emotional priority, when cash is all that fills the treasury of our hearts, then we are truly in darkness.

JESUS MONEY AND POSSESSIONS Part 3: Treasures in Heaven

2010-06-16T16:56:00.001-04:00

GOD WANTS US TO HAVE WEALTH. WE MUST BE CAREFUL NOT TO SETTLE FOR MONEY. Max Anders

One of the myths that came out of the great Wall Street crash of 1929 is that some investors, distraught by their losses, committed suicide by jumping out of the windows of Wall Street high rises. Thankfully, that is not true. But sadly, some men did take their own lives. They just didn’t take their last leap on Wall Street.

As far as I can tell the most recent financial crisis has not sparked a rise in suicide. But it has caused some serious soul searching. And that’s a good thing considering the fact that Jesus had more to say about money than just about any other topic.

One of his more notable quotes is recorded in Matthew 6:19-20 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for your selves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (NIV) He might have said “where bear markets and housing bubbles destroy.”

The question is: what exactly did he mean by that? What exactly does treasure in heaven look like? Some other passages of scripture help us understand.

Matthew 19:21, among others, stress giving to the poor, giving to meet the legitimate needs of those who cannot meet their own. When we give to ministries like The Good Samaritan, Prison Fellowship, Feed the Children, Samaritan’s Purse etc. we are “Laying up treasures in heaven.”

1Timothy 6:18-19 Indicates that we can lay up more treasure by being rich in good deeds. The greatest benefit of financial security is not being able to insulate ourselves from the world but rather the freedom from the need to make a living so that we can serve others.

When my children were small we had the good fortune to find an excellent pediatrician in Atlanta named Dr. Bill Warren. Warren is one of the heirs to the Coca-Cola fortune. He didn’t need the money that his private practice generated. So he closed his private practice to open a non-profit clinic in Atlanta. As far as I know it is still there. When your own financial security makes it possible to forgo making a living so that you can help others live, that’s laying up treasure in heaven.

Philippians 4:15-17 indicates that giving to support the spread of the message and ministry of Jesus “credits our account” in heaven. When we partner with organizations like Wycliffe Bible Translators and others that take the message of Jesus to places that we cannot personally go we are “laying up treasure in heaven.”

So what kind of treasure are you storing up? Is it the kind that bear markets and housing bubbles can destroy? Or will it last for eternity? As my friend Max Anders says, “God wants us to have wealth. We must be careful not to settle for money.”

Jesus Money and Possessions Part 2

2010-06-02T16:52:00.000-04:00

GUARDING AGAINST DEBT STRESS

A recent survey by the Associated Press and GFK found that 46% of Americans are stressed out by debt. The AP article went on to say that the average amount owed on credit cards alone was $3900. That’s down from $5600 last fall but still high. And it doesn’t include car loans or mortgages.

Why are we so stressed? Why are we carrying too much debt? Well perhaps it is because we failed to heed one of Jesus’ little known warnings. Then he (Jesus) said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15 NIV)

Later on in the Bible, in his letter to the Colossian Church, the Apostle Paul warned that greed is equal to idolatry: putting our desire for money and possessions above our desire for God. Clearly our greed is costing us more than simple cash. It’s costing us our souls.

Obviously, our attitudes toward money and possessions are critical to our spiritual health. But we live in a spiritually caustic economic culture. Much of our economy is designed around stimulating or creating in us a sense of need for things that aren’t necessities, generating covetousness and greed and idolatry.

One of the courses we took in business school was marketing. In the early days companies created and advertised products that met needs. Now we create needs where none existed before. You don’t have to work very hard to sell a hammer to a carpenter. But you have to be very creative to sell him hair spray and a blow dryer. You have to make him think that he needs it.

How do advertisers do that? They know what makes us tick. They know what scares us, what moves us, what our unspoken longings and insecurities are. And they use it to make us think we need the stuff.

One of those ads caught me a few years back. It was an advertisement for a boat. I like boats. But I never thought that I needed one until they showed a dad fishing from his boat with his daughter. The caption said it all: “Because my wedding will be sooner than you think.” I have daughters. I want to stay connected to them. Ergo: I needed a boat! I couldn’t believe how that simple advertisement tugged on my heart!

Madison Avenue has learned to tap the oil fields of the human soul. Only the derricks are in our hip pockets. They know I don’t need a new boat to go fishing. They’re telling me I need a boat to be a father who never loses touch with his daughters! I have nothing against boats. But I know they won’t last. They won’t give me what I need the most.

It’s like the great theologian and sometime actress Jamie Lee Curtis said in an interview, “The biggest lesson is that nothing on the exterior will make me feel better. It may seem that way for a short time, but those feelings of inadequacy will surface as soon as that new purse (jeep, boat, or whatever) is no longer new.”

What do we need the most? We need a relationship with God the Father, a relationship that can only be found through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, who died for our sins so that our greatest debt – the debt of sin that we could never pay – would be wiped out. Now that’s what I call real stress free living.

The Treasury of the Heart Part 1

2010-05-26T16:15:00.002-04:00

In these days of runaway public and private debt, rampant unemployment and foreclosures it seems appropriate to consider what Jesus teaches about money and possessions.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Jesus, Matthew 6:19-21NIV)

What Jesus Isn’t Saying
If all we do is look at this on the surface we could come away with the wrong idea. Is Jesus saying, “Forfeit all your Social Security, turn over your 401k to the church, get rid of all your retirement investments, sell your cars and stop eating at restaurants?” No.

That reading of this text is a good example of why regular Bible reading is important. It keeps us from reading Scripture like a child.

One Sunday the teacher at the Durham [Kansas] Baptist Church asked the children to raise their hands if they wanted to go to heaven. Every child raised a hand except one. "You don't want to go to heaven?" asked the surprised teacher.
"No," came the almost tearful reply. "I want to stay here in Durham."

The way to avoid misinterpreting Scripture is to read one text on a given topic with all the other teachings on that same topic in mind. Let Scripture interpret Scripture.

Here is what the broad scope of Scripture teaches about possessions –
It requires a man to provide for his relatives (1Tim 5:8).
It encourages us to enjoy the good things the Creator has given us (1Tim 4:3-4; 6:17).
It encourages work and provision for the future (Prov 6:6-8).

Since Jesus is the ultimate author of Scripture we can say without hesitation that He is not against money, possessions or saving for the future. I think John Wesley had it right when he said the following about the production of wealth. “Work as hard as you can, to make all the money that you can and spend as little as you can in order to give away all that you can.”

What Jesus Is Speaking Against
Jesus is not against money, he’s against greed. Jesus is not against possessions, he’s against covetousness. Jesus is not against the enjoyment of good things, he’s against the worship of things. Jesus is warning us not about the earning of money for good purposes. He’s warning us about “laying up treasure for ourselves.” He’s warning us about putting all of our hopes and dreams in our money and possessions. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

Jesus' Un-American Dream

2010-05-20T09:13:00.002-04:00

The owner of the Chicago Bulls defined the American Dream when Michael Jordan retired (the first time). “He’s living the American Dream,” said Jerry Reinsdorf. “The American Dream is to reach a point in your life where you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do and can do everything that you do want to do.”

I do this. So do you. We set up our lives so that we don’t have to get involved with the world if we don’t want to. We can’t do it on the scale of a wealthy person. But we do it. And when we do we leave Jesus’ decidedly Un-American dream for us out of the equation. His Un-American dream? “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a lamp and place it under a bushel, but on the lamp stand; and so it gives light to all who are in the house.”

The Anglican cleric John R.W. Stott makes a pertinent observation on this point.

"You know what your own country is like. I'm a visitor, and I wouldn't presume to speak about America. But I know what Great Britain is like. I know something about the growing dishonesty, corruption, immorality, violence, pornography, the diminishing respect for human life, and the increase in abortion.
Whose fault is it? Let me put it like this: if the house is dark at night, there is no sense in blaming the house. That's what happens when the sun goes down. The question to ask is, "Where is the light?"
If meat goes bad, there is no sense in blaming the meat. That is what happens when the bacteria are allowed to breed unchecked. The question to ask is, "Where is the salt?"
If society becomes corrupt like a dark night or stinking fish, there's no sense in blaming society. That's what happens when fallen human society is left to itself and human evil is unrestrained and unchecked. The question to ask is "Where is the church?"

When Jesus said “You are the salt...You are the light...” The “you” was in the emphatic. It’s like when we say “YOU DA’ MAN!” He’s saying, “God has a job for you. You – the members of my kingdom - are the only ones who can do it. You will be the ones who prevent decay and show the way, the salt and light of the whole world.”

God leaves his people – us – here for a reason. He could have said, “Come out, be separate, start a holy commune, create your own economy, your own schools, your own record companies, your own TV shows. Keep your churches so rule bound that no sinner would dare show up in the place. Hide out in the holy ghetto until I come and get you!”

But that isn’t what he said. He said, “Stay there! Stay in the world! Keep it from rotting. Guide it toward that which is good!” You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Shelley Lubben Tells the Hard Core Truth

2010-05-12T12:02:00.000-04:00

Pornography has always been a soul destroying scourge. And it has never been easier to access than it is now in our wireless world, where the latest titillation can be downloaded to your phone. It isn’t unusual to hear preachers like me speak against it either. But it is unusual to hear porn “stars” tell the real story behind the industry.

Shelley Lubben has done just that. She is a former prostitute and porn actress that has been completely restored by Jesus Christ. She tells her compelling story on a website for the foundation that she created to reach out to people caught in the porn industry. The website is www.thepinkcross.org. It is a powerful story for anyone to see, but especially for those who use porn or who work in the industry. More about Shelley’s personal biography can be found on her personal website www.shelleylubben.com.

Here are some sobering stats from her site:
 66% of porn stars have Herpes, a non-curable disease.
 Chlamydia and Gonorrhea among performers is 10x greater than that of LA County 20-24 year olds.
 70% of sexually transmitted infections in the porn industry occur in females.
 25 HIV cases among porn performers since 2004 reported by Adult Industry Medical Healthcare. (Shelley advises that this number is purposefully underreported.)

Shelley’s story is full of hope. But it is also convicting to those of us Christians who have never known the shame and degradation of a life like hers. It takes a relentless kind of unconditional love to reach a person like Shelley and let her know that she is as valuable to God as any one of us that sings songs to Jesus on Sunday Morning. Most of us, I’m afraid, would rather “pass by on the other side of the road” than offer the hope and forgiveness that she was offered at her church in California. God bless those guys, whoever they are.

Go to www.thepinkcross.org, click on the video link to the right titled: SHELLEY LUBBEN TELLS THE HARD CORE TRUTH. Watch the whole thing. And ask God to help us become a Church where the Shelley Lubbens of the world can meet Jesus and be restored. And if you know someone struggling with a porn addiction, give them the link and urge them to watch. They will never see porn the same way again.

THE SPIRITUAL SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

2010-05-05T09:52:00.001-04:00

Physics recognizes the second law of thermodynamics. Everything is winding down. Everything atrophies. Everything decays unless it’s maintained.
Do you have a car? The clutch will need to be replaced or the seals in the automatic transmission. Own a home? The siding will rot. The mortar in the bricks will need touching up. The porch will sag. The plumbing will stop up. Have a computer? Its brain will get corrupted unless you protect it.
What most of us don’t think about is that there is a spiritual version of that law. It’s called “the law (or doctrine) of total depravity”. It means that the whole person is affected by something that destroys us, something that causes problems in our relationships and our communities. The mind, the will, the emotions and the body of every human being is infected with a condition known as sin. It doesn’t mean that everyone is as bad as he can possibly be. It means that left to ourselves, without something to keep us in line, we will tend toward selfish, greedy and destructive behavior.
The second law of thermodynamics means we have to work at maintaining physical things. The law of total depravity means that we have to work at maintaining spiritual things. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its saltiness it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a lamp and put it on under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and so it gives light to all who are in the house.” (Matthew 5:13-16).
How to pull that off? How can we be salt and light? Well, it can be quite costly. Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary illustrates the cost with a story.
Some years ago, I was walking the streets in San Mateo, California. I met an attorney I knew from a local evangelical church. I said to him, "What are you doing?"
He said, "I'm looking for a job."
I said, "You've got to be kidding."
He said, "No, last week I walked out the front door of that corporation and told them, 'You can hang it on your beak. I'm no longer going to write contracts that you and I both know are illegal and illegitimate.'"
That man is regarded as one of the top five corporate lawyers in America, and he's unwilling to sell his value system for a mess of pottage. We need a larger core of lawyers like that.
I can hear you thinking, “Yeah, we need more lawyers like that.” But to be honest we need more mechanics, more doctors, more contractors and more everybody to be like that. That’s what it means to be salt.
Without something to preserve it, the world will decay morally and ethically. Without something to light the way, the world will recede into darkness. God put his church into the world to be that something. God put you and me here to do something for the world that the world cannot do for itself. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

2010-04-21T10:43:00.000-04:00

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” It sounds good but peacemaking is costly work. A story from Japan illustrates the point.

Most westerners are unaware of it but Asian cultures suffer as much from racism as any conflict between blacks and whites or Jews and Arabs. For fifty years the Japanese and the Koreans hated each other. Japanese atrocities during World War II are still vivid in the Korean conscience. And the Japanese had nothing but disdain for Koreans.

On January 26, 2001 a plasterer working in a Tokyo subway station, fell into the path of an oncoming train. A Korean College student leaped down on the tracks to save him. But he was too late. The train killed both him and the craftsman.

The emotional response to the student’s sacrifice was unprecedented in Japan. The Prime Minister openly confessed his regret for racial bigotry against Koreans. The late radio commentator Paul Harvey said, “In seven seconds that one act of sacrificial love broke down more barriers than 50 years of negotiations.”

Which brings us to the real difficulty in peacemaking: Words are rarely enough, deeds make the difference. It is acts of kindness and love that take time, effort and sacrifice that are the most powerful peacemakers.

Are there some old barriers between you and people of another race that need to come down? Or what about you and members of your own Church? It won’t cost you your life. But it may cost you your pride. That’s a small price to pay. For “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Blessed Are the Pure In Heart

2010-04-14T11:56:00.002-04:00

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” But what exactly does it mean to have a pure heart? And how will they see God?

In the Bible the heart is the center of one’s being. It is the intersection of mind, will and emotion, the place where life’s most important decisions are made and carried out. No wonder wise Solomon warns us to “Keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flow all the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23). His warning also tells us that the heart is prone to wantonness. We have to actively engage in managing the heart, taming it and training it to right habits of thought and action lest it run us headlong into hedonism or deceive us into slavery.

Thus, to be pure in heart is to have an attitude of complete sincerity. It is to be the same in the dark as we are in the light, without hypocrisy, free from all deceit. To have a pure heart is also to care more about God and the things of God than we care for this world.

The model for this of course is Jesus, of whom the Bible says “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” (1Pet. 2:22.) He was the same in the dark as he was in the light.

Yet you and I know people who, as John Stott says, “weave round themselves such a tissue of lies that they can no longer tell which part of them is real and which is make-believe.” You see, sometimes we are so afraid of the truth about ourselves that we pretend to be something other than what we really are. It is a great shame to live like that. We fear the opinion of others more than we fear God. Worse, we expect that if we were to be honest with God he would treat us with the same disdain that the world would treat us with. What a tragic deception!

Jesus is doing more than making a pithy saying about spirituality. He is making a promise: “Get real with God and He will get real with you. He will reveal himself to you in ways you cannot imagine.”

If you have been afraid of letting God see the real you take courage from Isaiah’s prophecy: For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isa 57:15 NIV). When that happens, when contrition comes, we go from impurity to purity in a brief moment. Then the promise of Jesus comes true.
Proverbs 3:32 says God “takes the upright into his confidence.” He shares his thoughts with the pure. So blessed are the pure. God talks to them. And they can hear.

Ten Secrets of...

2010-04-09T14:41:00.004-04:00

What if I told you that you could sharpen your mind, deepen your peace, strengthen your confidence in all things spiritual and enhance your prayers with one simple secret? You’d probably think I was trying to sell you a new herbal supplement! I’m not. No herb can do for you what I’m recommending. In fact, you can’t buy what I’m selling. It will cost you some time and effort. But it is one of the best investments you will ever make.

I’m talking about Scripture memory. I’ve been in a project since February to memorize Matthew chapters five through seven, the three chapters that make up Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. It has done all of what I mentioned above and more (about which I will blog on later).

Memorizing large segments of anything can be difficult. But many years ago I was playing the roll of Luke in a musical called THE APOSTLE produced by our college group at First Baptist Church of Atlanta. The musical was based on the book of Acts, which Luke wrote, so as the narrator I had a lot to memorize. I developed a system for doing it.

Here are my secrets for memorizing large portions of scripture:
1. A Good Translation - Use a readable translation—NIV will work for most, but use the one you are most familiar with.

2. Quiet Space—Make sure you will not be interrupted. Turn off the TV, Radio, Computer, etc.

3. A Fresh Mind - Set aside time—Morning is best, when your mind is fresh, or take a nap before you start so your mind will be sharp. Plan on spending at least fifteen minutes but no more than thirty.

4. Read it Out Loud—the whole chapter, two or three times, like you were reading it to a group of children to get the feel of what the writer emphasized and the flow of his thoughts.

5. Memorize Whole Thoughts - Read the paragraph you plan to memorize—again out loud. Don’t try to remember the verse numbers. They aren’t inspired anyway. The more you say it the better it will stick. Don't try to do one verse at a time. You want the whole thought, the whole paragraph.

6. Use Your Imagination - Focus on the scene. Pick a spot on the wall or close your eyes and see yourself in the scene. Imagine that you are the speaker or writer. You are Jesus on the hillside or Paul at his desk. See what they saw and feel what they felt and their words become yours.

7. Repeat The Last Paragraph Before You Start the Next — This is the real key: Repeat what you memorized last time before you start the next paragraph. That’s how you get your cues from one topic to the next and how you build up a long passage.

8. Listen for Patterns— Jesus and the authors of the New Testament used literary forms and patterns. “You have heard that it was said...But I tell you” repeats six times in the Sermon on the Mount. Watch for them. They save time in the process.

9. Meditate on the Text - Integrate your memory work with your devotions. Talk to God about what you see in the text. As you repeat the thoughts new thoughts come to mind, links with other scriptures emerge, deeper understanding of spiritual things develops. Now you are really cooking!

10. Incentivize — All of us need motivational help. Set a goal and give yourself a reward when you achieve it!

Congratulations! You are now on the way to thinking God's thoughts like never before.

What Are You Hungry For?

2010-03-31T12:00:00.002-04:00

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The late Malcolm Muggeridge, a successful writer, had a good grasp of what that meant. Here’s his take on it.

"I may, I suppose, regard myself or pass for being a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets—that's fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue—that's success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions—that's pleasure."

"It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time--that's fulfillment. Yet, I say to you--and I beg you to believe me--multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing--less than nothing, a positive impediment--measured against one draft of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are."

So what are you hungry for? Wealth? Fame? Fulfillment? Love? Respect? Whatever it is, if you happen to find it, I can promise you that it will not satisfy. You will still be hungry. But if you hunger and thirst for righteousness you will be filled. For when you find righteousness, you will have found Christ. This is how the Apostle Paul said it.

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Phil 3:8-9 NIV)

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK?

2010-03-24T10:48:00.001-04:00

Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” But what exactly is meekness? Does meekness mean I become the world’s doormat? Does it mean I’m to give in to the demands of obnoxious people? No.

Meekness is a humble and gentle attitude toward others. Meekness is strength under control. A well-trained horse is a good example. A horse is a powerful animal. But its power is wasted – even destructive - if it won’t submit to harness and bridle. To submit to control of the rider or farmer is meekness in a horse. To submit to the control of God is meekness in a man.

President Theodore Roosevelt adopted as his pet proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." By that he meant that if the U.S. had a strong military, it could work its will among the nations of the world. In 1901, Roosevelt elaborated on his philosophy: "If a man continually blusters,… a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power."

When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," he was not speaking of armies and foreign policy, but some principles are the same for people and nations. The meek Christian does not need to bluster, as if his or her personal self-confidence could win the day. Whether we're contesting a point, responding to criticism, or speaking of the hope within, we can do so in meekness, with quiet confidence. For in "back of the softness," within us, lies the strength and power of God.

Meekness does not mean giving in to every demand made by unreasonable people. Meekness has to do with how we say no to unreasonable people.

Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with. -- Peter Marshall

BLESSED MOURNING

2010-03-17T13:56:00.000-04:00

By Dane Skelton
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Doesn’t that sound strange?

In other words, Happy are the Unhappy. This is not the mourning that comes with the loss of a loved one. It is the mourning that comes with the loss of innocence, righteousness, self –respect. It is the sorrow of repentance.

Author and Pastor John Stott writes: “The Christian life, according to Jesus, is not all joy and laughter. Some Christians seem to imagine that, especially if they are filled with the Spirit, they must wear a perpetual grin on their face and be continuously boisterous and bubbly. How unbiblical can we become? The truth is that there are such things as Christian tears, and too few of us ever weep them.”

Mourning is something we do when we suffer a great loss. It’s natural and right. When a loved one dies, we mourn. When we lose a job we mourn. When we lose our dreams, we mourn.

God has so wired the soul that we need to mourn when we have lost something. When we sin, we lose something. We lose touch with God. We lose the dignity and nobility that comes from being made in His image. We need to grieve over those things because they hurt us and grieve God. Until that happens, something will be left undone in our souls. Until we have mourned the losses that come from sin they are still with us.

If your soul is disturbed within you and you do not know why, ask the Lord to expose you to the tragedy of sin – what you have lost and what he has lost in you. And do not be afraid to grieve. For when you do, God himself will comfort you.

Mastering Unexpected Change Part 3

2010-02-24T12:41:00.000-05:00

Americans are taught, almost from birth, that we can accomplish anything we set our minds to. That kind of grit and determination is a good thing. It’s one of the things that make America the greatest country on earth. But it doesn’t prepare us very well for the vagaries of human existence – the things that are completely out of our control. One of the keys to mastering unexpected change is coming to grips with our limitations as human beings and completely trusting ourselves to the will of God.

J. R. Love of Ruston Louisiana reflects on how he learned that when reading some old magazines.

On a vacation in October 2001, I was thumbing through a pile of dated magazines, and in Time magazine I stopped to read the column called Winners & Losers.

In the "Loser" category in an August 2001 issue was Rudy Giuliani, lame duck New York City mayor, suffering from crumbling health, a crumbling marriage, and a crumbling political career. What a loser, Time suggested. Who would want to be this guy?

In the "Winner" category a month earlier was Ted Olson, rising star as Solicitor General of the United States. What a winner, Time proclaimed. Who wouldn't envy this guy?

How things change. Within a matter of weeks of these two issues, Time would refer to Giuliani as the "Mayor of the World" and a "tower of strength" for his leadership in the aftermath of September 11, and a few months later the magazine would name him "2001 Person of the Year."

By contrast, we ached with Ted Olson as we watched him bury his wife, Barbara, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. No one envied him at that moment.

James 4:13-15 says, 13) Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14) Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15) Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." (NIV)

The great temptation for many of us is the temptation to control. We want to do A and get B and we expect God to cooperate with our plan. We want our kids to be perfect, our colleagues to follow through and our partners to please us – all the time. Funny when you think about it, that “a mist and a vapor” should have such pretensions. But we do and it’s a lousy way to deal with change. Better, much better, to embrace the humility that says, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Mastering Unexpected Change Part 2

2010-02-22T14:28:00.000-05:00

MASTERING UNEXPECTED CHANGE Part 2
By Dane Skelton
In 2003, my daughters had a funny lesson on the inevitability of change. Their uncle Mike had given them a gift, a whole box of VHS tapes containing 144 episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation. The videos dated back into the 1980’s so watching them was like being in a time machine for commercials. But what really tickled the funny bone was seeing an ad for a brand new 1989 Chevy truck on Tuesday night, and then standing at the bus stop Wednesday morning, watching that same truck with fourteen years and 175,000 miles on it go by. “It’s a heap!” They cried. Talk about a lesson on the inevitability of change!

Change is inevitable. It’s how we meet it that matters. The one luxury we cannot afford is to assume it will not touch us and refuse to prepare for it. And that’s a hard one. We work hard at creating stability and predictability so that we can enjoy life with the least amount of hassle. We are control oriented. Unexpected change upsets the apple cart, reveals our lack of control and makes us feel naked in the cosmos.

The Bible is full of examples of God’s people meeting unexpected change. One of those is Joshua. Consider the changes that Joshua had witnessed or been part of: Deliverance from slavery in Egypt; A miraculous escape across the Red Sea; The Ten Commandments and finally the wandering in the wilderness.

All these changes across forty years Joshua had witnessed but they paled in comparison to what he was about to do. He was about to lead the people of God into the Promised Land itself, he was facing the walls of Jericho and he was doing it without his mentor and friend, Moses.

God had two specific commands for Joshua as he took up the challenge of this change. You can see them in Joshua 1:7-8.

7) Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8) Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (NIV)

God’s instructions for Joshua work for us as well: The first lesson for facing unexpected change is: ‘be strong and courageous.’ The world is a difficult place, our challenges are great, and sometimes we have to meet them without the people we have come to depend on. We need strength and courage for the battle.

The second lesson is: stick to your core principles (Vs. 8). When the walls in front of you are thick and the danger is high – when the change you are faced with seems unmanageable - it’s tempting to forget your core commitments and do something expedient. God warns us: “Don’t fall for it.” Strength and courage in the service of those principles enable us to adjust our approach to meet the need at hand. Trust God and obey what you know. He will manage the rest.

 Change is inevitable. We can prepare for it or be overwhelmed by it.
 Those manage change best whose principles are changeless.
 Those manage change best who trust that God is still at work in unwanted change.
 Those manage change best who meet it with a positive attitude.

Mastering Unexpected Change

2010-02-10T12:01:00.002-05:00

MASTERING UNEXPECTED CHANGE Part 1
By Dane Skelton
The world is changing more rapidly than it ever has before. Just take a look at some recent statistics.

Population – It took until 1850 for world population to reach 1 billion. By 1930 it was at 2 billion. By 1960 it was 3 billion. Today it is somewhere close to 7 billion.

Books – There were almost no books until 1500 and Gutenberg’s press came along. By 1900 there were 35,000. Today, in England, America, China and Russia alone there are over 600,000 published every year.

Top Speed – Until 1800 the top speed for a human being was around 20 mph. Trains reached 100 mph in the nineteenth century. Now we routinely travel at 400 mph. Supersonic jets are three times faster.

Pick any field and a few minutes on the internet will yield data on the hyper pace of change in every one, medicine, robotics, chemistry, physics, you name it.

Change is picking up speed and for some folks that’s unsettling.
It’s much easier to adapt to change over time. But sudden change rocks us. And it doesn’t matter who you are. Unexpected change comes upon everyone. The good news is that scripture gives us timeless principles for mastering the winds of change.

The first principle is to expect the unexpected. Hear what Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said about change.

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11NIV).

The pros and the CEOs, the prima donnas and the politicians, each one, not to mention the rest of us will experience change. Change is inevitable. We can expect it, prepare for it, or be overwhelmed by it.

The good news is that Christians need not fear unexpected change. As the people of God we belong to the One who knows the end from the beginning. He isn’t caught off guard by change. As people of God’s Book we have reliable charts and a sturdy vessel for sailing through the winds of change.

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at these principles in depth but for now a summary might be helpful to you:
 Change is inevitable. We can prepare for it or be overwhelmed by it.
 Those manage change best whose principles are changeless.
 Those manage change best who trust that God is still at work in unwanted change.
 Those manage change best who meet it with a positive attitude.

The Snow Sabbath

2010-02-09T09:21:00.000-05:00

The Snow Sabbath
By Dane Skelton
The recent weather reminded me of an article I wrote ten years ago, when a blizzard stopped our world for a while. I hope it encourages you as we see more bad weather on the way.

Monday morning January 24th of 2000 dawned bright and clear. But school was still out. The cold and light snow we had experienced the previous week and weekend had closed the roads and deposited a number of the neighborhood kids on our doorstep, in our den, in the basement and in our bedrooms. They were everywhere! Eating the groceries, needing their mittens and boots dried and going through art supplies like snow in a frying pan. A few of them (including my two youngest) are home-schooled but most attend C.H. Friend down the street.

When Marynn (my oldest) asked, “Are we going to school tomorrow?” Krista and I both said, “Yes! You, your sisters, the neighbors and all the home-schooled kids in the neighborhood!” Little did we know, the blizzard of 2000 was almost upon us.

But it had a different effect than might be expected. Unlike the previous week’s weather that kept only the schools closed, the blizzard brought the adult world to a standstill too. Fifteen inches of snow in 8 hours forced everyone to “be still and know that I am God”. It created a “Snow Sabbath”.

Sabbath, at its most basic level, means to cease from work. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man.” It is an opportunity for the soul to re-establish the balance and equilibrium it loses by striving in the work place. We work in a world cursed by sin. That makes work difficult and draining. It taxes us spiritually, emotionally and physically. Sabbath compensates us for the energy we spend dealing with our own sins and the challenges of working life. We need Sabbath time. It restores us.

And if you’re one of those folks that “feels guilty when I relax” then Sabbath can re-orient your perspective. I had “things to do, people to see and places to go” the next morning. I’m sure you did too. But the Snow Sabbath forced me to realize once again that, “God can run the world quite nicely without my help thank you very much.” That single thought, a Sabbath thought, will do more to relieve your stress than any other thing I know. God has worked and is working to provide for us. He wants us to know what it means to rest in him, to be humble enough to know that we can’t accomplish anything at all without him. So we can trust him enough to relax, let the world go by, and enjoy the peace of a quiet day, or even the occasional blizzard.

HOW TOUGH IS YOUR SOUL?

2010-01-27T14:35:00.000-05:00

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love. (1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NIV)

In my first year at FCC I met a wonderful woman named Violet Farrar. I was just getting to know her when one day I got a call that she was in the hospital. I went to visit and she said, “I just got dizzy and weak one day. The next day they told me my heart was bad and here I am, on my way to Duke for bypass surgery.” Less than a week later, we were burying Violet.

Life is tough. And it only gets tougher. I’m discovering as I get older, and I know you are too, that “life is good, no worries” is at best a temporary arrangement. “Life’s a witch” is usually waiting just around the corner. The tough things in life are one heartbeat, one doctor’s report, one emergency phone call, one company meeting away.

And lest we think “that’s only for the older folks” I remember how suddenly I lost my friends Joseph Ramsey, a high school senior, and Steve Kotter, aged 49, who died in car accidents in 2002 and 2004. I also remember how quickly Halifax County lost over four thousand jobs in the first few years we lived here.

Life is tough and it gets tougher. In fact, life can get down right crazy. And the temptation is to spend all of our time as a church in the “emergency room” of soul work – helping wounded people heal – instead of in the gym or on the practice field, training believers for strength and endurance and skill to face the battles.

Healing is necessary. But healing is a temporary state, or it’s supposed to be. (No one I know wants to spend one day longer in the hospital than necessary.) Growing up into full maturity, coming back into the game after an injury or illness, and playing ‘all out’ to the end is what following Christ is all about.
God wants us to be strong people, active people, resourceful people and balanced people as we face the challenges of life. I’m going to spend the next few weeks E-Update columns talking about how to get there. Until then, …be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. (Eph 6:10-11 NIV).