one mile more

Egocentrism for life?

2009-04-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

Ego- the “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.

My friend Carlos and were kicking this rhyme back and forth last week. After the second reading or so the verse started to have real significance for me. It stopped being just some random poetry or disassociated thoughts. It gained cohesion and became a tool for me to use in examining my ambition, my motiviation. It may not do that for anyone else, but I thought to share it in the chance that it might benefit you.

and my conscious go,
why throw everything away over ego
and strip my soul,
of all but what makes my fame grow,
and my shame show

For me in my life, my drive for self preservation, and self fulfillment, or what may be referred to as self actualization, left unchecked becomes a destructive force. It binds me to an arrogant mindset concerned chiefly with ME. Ultimately it separates me from my God (Jesus), my wife, my friends, and my true destiny. To clarify, my destiny is to serve others, to become less and less and less.

My name is...................

2009-04-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

I tend to believe that God is more satisfied with me when I perform in accordance with His will. It is a trap of works that ensnares and confounds me. The more I struggle within its imprisoning grasp the more I imagine Gods great displeasure and disappointment. I imagine my account of righteousness becoming more and more unbalanced toward the side of judgement because of my poor performance and less and less imputed to me by His grace. In other words I see myself as being in good standing with God, similarly to my good standing with my banker. Money in the bank and its all good times in paradise, insufficient funds and its, bring on the tears in debtors prison. Thankfully Gods economy operates differently. Though I can never pay my debt by performing well enough, He forgives the debt through the gift of His son and calls me righteous son.

Me righteous? That is an assured impossibility. Don’t you know my name?

Unfortunately that is the way I often see myself. I see myself as the unrenewed, untransformed, unreborn, undesirable, unholy, disreputable, bankrupt bastard of a judgmental God of wrath. It is a mirror of the way that I judge myself. That is the great evil inherent in this supposed reality. I exalt myself to the throne of God most high and then declare myself to be unworthy of forgiveness and inclusion. Of course I don’t do this consciously but that is the result of this pattern of thought. It is arrogant in the extreme.
It reminds me of a song whose lyrics go:
Hi! My name is.. (what?) My name is.. (who?)My name is.. [scratches] Slim ShadyHi! My name is.. (huh?) My name is.. (what?)My name is.. [scratches] Slim Shady
(for those who know the song, you know how bad it gets when you see yourself as a Slim Shady)

Since He has known me since before I was born then maybe I should let Him name me and define me.

So I love the Easter season because it reminds me. I don’t have to be perfect just in love with the one who is. I don’t have to have it all together just be in love with the one who does. I don’t have to earn His love, He gives it to me. He doesn’t love me in the way that I love myself.

The Heart of Mission

2009-03-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

If individuals were at the heart of God's purposes, then it would be quite natural to put the individual at the heart of mission, and many people do just that. But at the heart of Gods plan for salvation are a family and a nation. And so the church should be at the heart of mission.
- from "Total Church a radical reshaping around gospel and community" by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.

This past Sunday a couple in our church shared a testimony of what God is doing in their family. It was encouraging and energizing stuff. Something that they said has stayed with me. After relating the story of what they came through and the miracle of biblical principles in action, they said. This is not a direct quote so if I am not 100% accurate I believe that I will capture the essence. Feel free to correct me if I have captured it wrongly. They said, "It is so important to be involved in a church and to attend regularly. The messages, and prophetic instruction that are received on Sundays enlighten us with Gods vision of our future."
This is sooooo true in my life. Also it harmonizes so perfectly with all that I have been learning about being a mission minded disciple of Christ. Think of the multitudes of people who are darkened in their understanding. Think of the miracle of church involvement that they are missing out on. Think of the unity and fellowship with Christ, that they are bankrupt of. It is heartbreaking.
I really need to be an active missionary in the culture where I am planted. The lost are so very needy. They are the preeminent orphans. They are my calling.

MONERGISM vs. SYNERGISM

2009-03-24T15:44:00.001-07:00

MONERGISM: Theology. the doctrine that the Holy Ghost acts independently of the human will in the work of regeneration.

SYNERGISM: Theology. the doctrine that the human will cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the work of regeneration.

Today I was contemplating the implications surrounding the theology of monergism. In response to my message post on facebook, my friend Derek replied that he leaned towards the doctrine of synergism. I thought it might be interesting to ask others what they thought. If you would like to voice an opinion feel free to post a comment. I am curious what you think.

Unity with Diversity in Community with the TRINITY

2009-03-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a broadcast of "Let my People Think" by Ravi Zacharias this afternoon and something he said really struck me. It resonated deep down inside me as it concisely summarized what I have been pondering for many months now. He said, and this is a paraphrase, in the body of Christ we have unity with diversity in community with the trinity.
That is so right on! In the church, the body of Christ, we are unique individuals. Left to conform to our own systems of community we would remain forever fragmented. Like choosing like, loners existing in isolation, the strong ruling over the weak.
In Christ however we are all called to operate in unison according to the gifts and talents that we have been given. We don't strive to be cookie cutter images of each other, we learn to use our abilities to compliment each other. We don't train ourselves to all perform the same tasks or to all serve the body in the same way. In Christ our uniqueness is empowered. It takes the whole church working together to accomplish the mission.
This is great news. I am under no obligation to be anything other than what God made me to be. I can serve right here right now. We all can. It's a perfect plan.

Check out what Paul has to say about it. Eph 4:1-16

The Call

2009-03-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

A call to missions is ringing out in the western church. I am hearing the call across diverse segments of the church in the west. From proponents of liberal theology to those of more fundamentalist theological views the call is coming forth. From the emerging evangelicals, the emerging reformed, and from emergent village adherents, a common voice is rising. Christian social activists and Christian college leaders find themselves unified in the call. Leaders who are Charistmatic, Pentecostal, non-denominational , and mainline denominational all agree. Look around for yourself if you don’t want to believe me. The message is coming out from multiple sources. Books, magazines, sermons, websites, podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, music, movies, the cry is loud and clear. We the church of Jesus Christ in the west are being called to a greater focus on missions within the culture in which we live.

To answer the call we need to learn to be missionaries. We need to learn to put aside our own interests and desires to serve this lost generation. We the remnant who are being preserved and set aside need to heed the word of the Lord in this present age and move out into the greater society to bring the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If not us then who?

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether you have recognized this call.

1) Have you suffered discomfort in the last year to go out of your way to befriend someone who did not call themselves a Christian?
2) Have you given direct assistance to someone in need with no concern for what it cost you or what benefits there may be in it for you in the last 3 months?
3) Have you prayed for lost people in the secret place of your conversation with God?
4) Does the condition of humanity regularly fill you with sadness?

There are many other questions we could ask. There are many more ways in which we could improve our response to the call.

Community Emphasis

2009-02-26T05:14:00.000-08:00

The importance of community is something about which many misconceptions exist in the western churches of Christianity. By this I mean that in many instances the role of community in discipleship is de-emphasized, not acknowledged or wrongly or insufficiently applied. As we grow in the Christian faith and understanding of kingdom truths, much of our growth comes through common conversations.

As Jesus walked and talked with His disciples understanding of the kingdom was imparted to them. He taught them what it meant to walk in His ways. His teaching was very organic. He taught through the ongoing conversation that was taking place in the day to day work he was doing. He did, He explained and then He checked for understanding.

For example in the 12th chapter of Matthew we can read where Jesus is walking with his disciples. (vs 1) It is the Sabbath. The disciples are hungry and they are picking grains from the stalks growing in the field they are traveling through. Some Pharisees see this and begin to lecture Jesus about allowing his disciples to do what is forbidden on the Sabbath, namely working by harvesting grain. Jesus takes the opportunity presented to teach on the difference between earning Gods approval and realizing that it is granted as a gift due to no accomplishment of the receiver.

Then He goes to the synagogue where he heals a man who has a “withered hand”. This also is viewed as work on the Sabbath and the Pharisees again chastise him, asking “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Jesus again teaches, pointing out that to God the man is valuable beyond the keeping of rules. First He articulates proper motivation. Then he demonstrates proper practice. He establishes that in his kingdom it is not the rules that dictate appropriate behavior but the spirit of love.

The chapter continues in this vein. At the end of the chapter the Pharisees having witnessed Jesus heal a man and then cast a demon out and heal another, say to him. “Teacher we wish to see a sign from you.” Jesus in perfect form tells them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah”. What he is telling them is that the sign he will give them is his death and subsequent resurrection. This will be the sign that he is God and that his way is the way that all who seek righteousness will follow.

Imagine the disciples. They are watching and absorbing all that is taking place. They are learning first hand the way the kingdom operates. They are in community with Jesus and it is in the closeness of this association that they are instructed.

In the next chapter, chapter 13, is where Jesus teaches the kingdom parables from a boat in the sea. This is such a rich portion of scripture. The parables are such an excellent example of teaching. Completely relevant to the audience, however the truths are couched in the imagery of the story, and only those who have the kingdom spirit will understand. It is not given to humans to understand the kingdom unless a new spirit is first born in them.

In the midst of this the disciples come with a question. “They ask why He uses Parables to teach the people?” Jesus explains that it is only those whose stone hearts have been replaced with hearts of flesh, only those who are reborn, who can understand. It is best summarized in Matt 13:18-23 and I can certainly not improve on the words of the Christ. Understand as you read these verses that the root Jesus speaks of as being paramount to understanding is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit also makes the soil good.

After all the parable teaching, Jesus does an interesting thing. He asks the disciples, “Have you understood these things?” They reply yes. Then, and here is the clincher. In verse 52 Jesus says, “Therefore (because the parables have been understood) every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

To really understand the gravity of what he is saying we need to understand some thing that has been lost to us in our culture but that was absolutely known to the disciples. The term scribe in their culture didn’t just mean someone who takes dictation or someone who documents things. In the Hebraic culture the scribe was one of the most highly respected and important positions in the Sanhedrin, the keepers of the Torah. What a scribe did was to interpret law and decide how to apply the interpretation. They basically dictated the laws which governed society.

So what Jesus is telling the disciples is amazing. He is saying if you want to interpret the kingdom and then accurately apply the interpretation, you need to allow new understanding to be enlightened by old and vice versa. So what does that mean? It means far more than I understand. One thing it means is that as we in this culture read scripture and interpret and apply kingdom revelation we need to submit our new ideas to established truths. Also we need to take established truth and look at how it fits into what we are learning now. Not that we allow what we are learning now to make obsolete the old, but that we require the new to retain and be informed by the old.

So what does any of this have to do with what I originally started out talking about? How does this relate to the way in which importance of community has been marginalized, de-centralized? It has everything to do with it.

Often in our churches our whole experience with hearing the word of God and learning to apply it comes through monologues from a pastor or study leader or some other teacher. This is not bad. However it is only one part of discipleship and it is insufficient to do the whole work. Additionally we need to have shared experiences applying the word. Finally we need to have thorough conversations to bring clarity and unity.

It is important as we look at ways to more fully disciple each other within our communities, that we maintain consistent adherence to sound biblical interpretation. It will not help for us to get the community aspect accurately adjusted if in the process we throw out the old. It’s the baby and the bath water analogy. The bath water needs to be tossed and replaced, however the baby is precious and sacred.

Who among us if we were washing our baby, the goal being a clean and healthy baby, would wash the baby in sewage? Or which of us would make a nice bath of mineral salts and perfumed water just the right temperature and then open up the window and chuck the baby out into the street? The baby is Jesus. If we want the image of Jesus to be purely manifested in our lives and the lives of those we are in community with, we have to cleanly understand who he is and what he does. Only consistent teaching, open communication, and accurate demonstration can accomplish this. Anything else is muddying the baby.

Concurrently if we have a great approach to hearing, asking, and demonstrating, we can’t then pervert the message. We can’t maintain our program but disseminate inaccurate information. We will just be tossing the baby out. We absolutely have to have the baby.

In closing when we do church this way it works the way it should. Jesus gives us the truth we need. People combined with total methods of teaching Jesus make disciples. Disciples form kingdom communities. The communities bring heaven to the earth in a larger scale than we as individuals can.

Permeat, Repudiate, Educate, Transubstantiate

2009-02-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Jesus is great, mighty, loving and perfect. He is fully God, and completely man. As such He is the most fully equipped missionary that has ever been or will ever be. To follow Him is to walk in the footsteps of divine intervention.

When I was lost and dead in my sin, it was Christ who came and rescued me. He interposed at the perfect intersection of Gods judgement and my dysfunction. He saved me.

In hindsight I look back on my introduction to Christ’s divine mercy and I am in awe at the grace revealed. Here is the God of the universe, the creator of all things, who by His words brought life and every form of matter into existence. Out of the essence of His being He brought it forth. Here is Jesus the suffering servant who takes upon himself the depravity of the corrupt creation and makes all things new. Here is me dead, Christ alive, and then a cosmic transference of condition. I take His life He takes my death. Here is the new birth.

I will pause to give Him praise before the stones give voice.

American culture exudes death. The culture of the city I live in is so counter to the culture of Gods kingdom that reformation requires divine intervention. To further bedevil the quandary the culture is fragmented. It is a macro-culture composed of numerous micro-cultures. Each subculture exists largely in isolation. It holds to its own customs, values and interests. It takes care of its own and preserves its integrity. The work of the intentional missionary is to integrate with the target culture. The biblical principal is that change comes from within. (Ezek36:25-27)

Permeate/Repudiate/Educate/Transubstantiate

These are fancy words, but let’s look at the underlying thought.

Permeate- The idea here is that in order to engage the sub-culture the missionary needs to intricately, sincerely, lovingly, intermingle with the inhabitants. Often we are already positioned within a subculture by virtue of our having been raised in it. We are to make authentic friendships within the subculture. Important here is that we are to be in the subculture, becoming familiar with and conversant in praxis. However we are not to become adapted, or conformed to the pattern of the subculture. (John 17:14-19, James 1:27, Rom 12:2, Phil 2:15, Rom 10:15 )

Repudiate- Here what we are talking about is pointing out the presence of sin. Sin corrupts and leads to death. The reason we are sent is because the world is dead in its sin. Unless they hear the Gospel they are doomed. We repudiate the immorality, perversion and depravity of the cultural praxis. It is the ministry of condemnation that we are practicing here. We are the voice of God delivering the law. Important in this is that while we are bringing the law which convicts the hearer of sin, we are not ourselves condemning them. We are messengers and we must walk in humility and love. We are friends first and heralds second. If this is done apart from a loving relationship that has been created in the permeation stage it will lead to hardened hearts and closed minds. Compassion is the key. Sin kills but we were once dead too. (Rom 12:9-10, 2 Cor 2:17, Col 3:12, Is 49:15)

Educate- Here we are teaching about the love of Christ. We are sharing our testimonies. This is the easiest stage because for us who are saved talking about the grace that God has shown us simply comes out of worship. Christ is merciful and sacrificial. Once we arrive at knowledge of self, and understand our depraved, spiritually bankrupt condition we need to hear of Christ’s atonement. Important here is to just keep it simple. Theology is a great tool for us to use in contemplating the nature of God and how He relates to us. In this capacity Theology is like the nails we use to hold together our understanding of God. Theology is not necessarily helpful as a tool to introduce grace. It is more like a hammer than a nail in this application. There will be time for discipleship later. This stage is about teaching grace. Due to sin we are dead but Christ has given us new life. (John 3:17, Ps 78:38, Rom 3:23-25, 2Cor 5:19, Zech 12:10, 2Chron 30:9)

Transubstantiate- Transubstantiate is a big word that I am using here to describe the process of rebirth. Once we are convicted of sin and convinced of Gods grace through Jesus we are changed. Our dead spirit is awakened. I am not going to talk much about what happens next. Our job as a cultural missionary is done. The work of the ministry now passes on to a process of discipleship. We change jobs now. We don’t abandon the new believer, we walk along side them. We train them and assist them. (John 3:1-7, Titus 3:4-6, Rev 21:4-6, Job 14:14-15)

In summary, this is the way I am beginning to see things. It comes first from a deep desire to see people become lovers of Christ and citizens of the Kingdom of God. It is the result of a lot of prayerful contemplation, study of the bible, reading books and listening to the Holy Spirit and those who serve Him. It is at the most basic stage of conception. I welcome you to come along on this journey with me. Add to the conversation. Think intentionally and intently about how God wants to use you as a missionary to this culture we live in. It is no longer enough to simply sit by and have influence in a limited way. We are being called to step beyond what we have always done and what we are already doing. The circle of our influence is being expanded. We can stay inside a small circle within the larger or we can be explorers. I'm for getting a walking stick and a spiritual compass and heading out into new territory myself.

It is easy for us to sit back and declare death over the culture. It is simply a matter of stating the obvious. It is much harder to engage the culture by sacrificing our comfort and putting ourselves in harms way to reach out. It is a risk but what is it really going to cost. Jesus tells us we should count the cost before we choose to follow Him. Part of the cost we pay is in living amongst those members of society we would rather avoid. It is uncomfortable but unavoidable so we may as well marry intention to our existence and approach it with purpose in our hearts and minds.

The kingdom has come. It has come in the form of Jesus who made Himself a slave and died so that we can be free. Now it is our turn to, like Him, take up our cross and serve a dying world. One thing it wont cost us is our lives. Even if we should die in the service of our Lord we are citizens of a greater reality. Nothing can change that and it is this truth that should drive us to want to see more and more come into their inheritance along side us.

The church has allowed itself to become just another subculture within the larger culture. We have chosen lives of seclusion within our buildings and worship services, while outside in the day to day the masses die. While Rome burns Nero fiddles. Lets not be like Nero and only rise to the challenge of the crisis after the fire has already consumed the majority of our friends, neighbors, and the otherwise lost individuals of our culture.

I don’t want to leave you today with the impression that I am all caught up in doom and gloom. The exact opposite is true. I see what God is doing to redeem the world. I see that He is calling us to participate, to be His body on the earth. I am excited and filled with joyful anticipation. I am learning to practice what He is teaching me. Everyday I wake up and I cant wait to get up and get after it. I want to scream from the mountains Christ is king and He is redeeming this planet. Patience Tip the Lord says walk and then run. I am dancing on the inside and intentionally controlling my external activities according to the call of God.

I fail I struggle I sin
I complain I grumble I fall down again
I weep I repent I stand
I smile I laugh I am born again

I encourage you. God is calling us to re-imagine the way we look at our call to cultural missions. This is exciting news because it indicates harvest time. Jesus is our jubilee. God draws men to come and receive the forgiveness of their debts, to take possession of the lands they have lost. You and I? We get to deliver the message.

Add to the conversation. Post your thoughts below. The conversation needs your input, take a second and take a chance. We all have something to contribute. (1Cor 12:4-13)

Experiential Religion

2009-02-16T07:33:00.001-08:00

Last week I wrote about the collision of two communication satellites. I compared the collision and resulting debris to wreckage resulting when poorly conceived and executed evangelism efforts crash into the hearts and minds of those we would seek to evangelize. The analogy has really given me a lot to think about over the last several days, imagine my surprise when I saw this report on a local TV station.

It now appears that there may have been no relationship between the debris that fell over central Texas on Sunday and the satellite collision. Even still it has driven a point home to me. The fallout from poor evangelism hits very close to home. It falls on our neighbor’s homes and even on our own.

I am reading an excellent book right now. In unChristian, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons look at the beliefs “outsiders”, the term they use to identify people who are not currently active in the Christian faith, have regarding Christians and the body of Christ in general. The book is very revealing. For anyone who has a heart to see people become lovers of Christ it will be very enlightening. For anyone who wants to take a good hard look at what our walk of faith looks like in the eyes of others it cuts deep. Finally for anyone who finds it challenging to look beyond the imperfections of others to the blight within, the book will convict and encourage repentance.

I could write at least a volume of material based on my own thoughts, observations and ideas regarding our missions outreach to the American people group of which we as parts are uniquely qualified. Today however I just want to briefly discuss what I see as a common misconception among adherents to charismatic theology. It is my belief that prevalent in this group, of which I count myself, is a great misunderstanding.

I am speaking of the idea that evidence of Gods divine power is compelling as a persuasive argument to repent of sin and turn to Jesus. Simply stated I see a common perception among charismatics, especially charismaniacs that a demonstration of signs and wonders will bring people to a convicting knowledge of God. Short of conviction of sin and the desperate realization that we need Jesus if we are to truly meet God, any experience of His sovereign power is simply another high on the chart of experiential economy.

What I mean is this. One aspect of the spirit of this age is that people value experiences as the pearl of great price. This is the driving energy behind such fads as extreme sports, raves, and sexual experimentation. The pursuit of the next life changing experience has taken its place on the mountain top of idolatry, the latest golden calf in a long history of impotent totem gods.

A second misconception among charismatics compounds the problem. We tend to see the unchurched, unconverted, unreformed, unrepentant, unreachable, unbelievers, un-whatevers as unspiritual. We think of them as people who don’t believe in God. This is completely untrue. The age of the atheist gave way to the age of the agnostic and that has fallen to the age of the seeker. People today are very convinced that God exists. They pray, they believe and they seek to apprehend God. As missions minded followers of Christ we should be extremely excited to be called to serve in such and age.

When evangelism is done by a demonstration of Gods power manifested through healing, words of knowledge, evidence of speaking in tongues, or the like, this may impress as an experience of Gods sovereign ability, but it will often just be carved into the idol of the experiential totem god. The experience is remembered and noted as another divine moment, another instance where the sacred has intersected with the normative, but it often does nothing to draw witnesses or those otherwise affected into knowledge of the one true God. It is an experience on par with the last great one night stand, or the last drug induced nirvana in the mind of the experience worshipper. Life is to be fully lived and God in his love is blessing us with so many phenomenal experiences, they infer, and move on to the next blessed event.

Now I am not here to say that signs and wonders are somehow to be avoided in performing the work of missions. What I am saying is that they can be tools we use to reach those who are perishing in their sin. However without a resulting acknowledgement of the depraved condition we as sinners are in, according to Gods economy, they are just another experience on the road to hell.

Consider Simon in this portion of scripture.
Acts 8:5-24 (English Standard Version)
5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. 6 And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. 7For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. 8So there was much joy in that city.
Simon the Magician Believes
9But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. 10They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, "This man is the power of God that is called Great." 11And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.
14Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, 15who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 18Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, 19saying, "Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." 20But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." 24And Simon answered, "Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me."

Simon worshipped at the altar of experience. He believed that if he could provide an amazing enough experience for the people by learning to perform miracles his status in life would somehow be improved. There is a great lesson there for us.

My heart is broken for this lost generation. There is a call on my life to shepherd those whom Christ appoints me. I would see them prayerfully and carefully led down the narrow path that leads to Jesus. I would hate to be held to an accounting before God at the end of my days on this earth and find that I had led myself my wife and my flock down the wide road of experiential religion that leads straight to hell.

At this point I am in training for the day when my calling is realized in the congregation of Gods people. Until then I will follow the advice a wise man gave. I will practice, prepare, pray and participate in the church where I am planted.

Give to me a new Heart

2009-02-12T06:58:00.001-08:00

Ezekiel 36:25-27 (English Standard Version)
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

I was reading this morning where two communications satellites crashed into each other. The concern now is that the debris field resulting from the collision poses a threat to other satellites and especially the Hubble Space Telescope. Furthermore the greatest navigational concern to ongoing space shuttle missions is the space trash that increasingly circles our planet. As I was reading this I was mindful of the corollary between the relationship of space detritus to future space missions and the wreckage of ill conceived evangelistic efforts to future Christ missions.

I am a missionary. I didn’t ask to be one. I didn’t wake up one morning with a burning call on my life to become a missionary. I didn’t even purpose in the depths of my heart to be one. I am a missionary just the same. I love Jesus, more and more each second, and as a result I am a missionary. This is what it means to be a disciple of Christ. As a disciple I am learning to be like Jesus and to do what He does. Christ is the consummate missionary. In fact in the beginning God had a plan to redeem me, to redeem us, to redeem this fallen world. The plan sent Christ on a mission. Christ is on a mission from God. In the words of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi I am on a mission from God. If you love Jesus you to are on mission from God. Go ahead and get you some dark glasses a fedora and a black suit and tie. You are sent.

It’s funny really. My mission is to point the world to Christ and His redeeming grace, instead often I point at the world and minister condemnation and rigid law. It’s like I am surprised that people get caught up in the mess. They become so mired in messiness that it becomes hard to tell where the mess stops and people start. Are they the mess or is it the mess making them appear that way? Maybe its both, the worlds a mess, people are a mess and the combination is some kind of mess-a-ganza. When I point at the world I am not only hating but participating. Maybe there is another way?

Church is more than a word

2009-02-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

The dynamism of the body of Christ amazes me. In community individualism withers under the eminence of the spirit of unity that comes forth. I am me becomes we are WE! The rising crescendo of the voice of the church suffocates the persistent call of the spirit of independence. In this, self consideration dies and becomes the seed for a new life focused outwardly. It is a great mystery the way the spirit of Christ joins us together in service to one another while at the same time serving to rid us of our own conceit through use of the same joining. Christ as our creator uses the drive for community that He placed in us to free us from the bonds of self concern. As I become more in tune with the us of our group consciousness the me of my cocoon existence withers and fades away.

Even still God leaves me my individuality. He enjoys it. He is moved by my unique response to His good creation. He inhabits my personification right along with me. This relationship is special to Him. It is unlike any other relationship that He has. He is in me and I am in Him and we are in the Father. Even my personal distinction has a communal nature. Community while abolishing the drive for self actualization renews and improves me as a discretely separate being. I find myself to be more authentically myself when I discover my actuality in the kingdom of God.

Much time has been spent pontificating and many pages written on the nature, composition and purpose of the church of our savior. It has been dissected, deconstructed, and disassembled in the investigation of its incomprehensible phenomenon. It defies human efforts to define and apprehend it. It is an enigma to human thought. Even our studies of the morphology and etymology of the word church thwart us. The problem begins with the original Greek word ekklesia. Ekklesia was a word used to designate a group of people that were called out. Usually this was a group that was called to a public place, by a herald, to hear the latest decree. This works great when we are talking about the congregation of Gods people who are called by His name, called out of the old life. However the word ekklesia was only used in this context. So it does not describe this people in any other setting. If these same people who were called to hear the decree have now left and are out putting the decree in to practice or milking cows or whatever. They are no longer referred to as ekklesia. Even if they come together on their own in groups of indeterminate size later to discuss the given decree they are still not ekklesia. They must be called together a second time to be referred to as ekklesia. So in this regard the word does not work very well to describe the body of Christ. Just writing this I can think of three or four ways to logically attempt to apply the word. My purpose here is not to draw conclusions however but to point out that even in just the word that is used to convey the mystery that is the church of Christ we are stymied. It speaks to a deep truth. The reality of the body of Christ defeats our ability to quantify it, label it or determine it. It is alive. Try and define say, I’ll pick an easy one, an ameba. You will find that no matter how you define it there will be things you miss and still more things to add to the definition. Living things are defined by God and the church is no different.

That is why I find myself amazed. We are part of a great living organism, and I don’t mean some nasty water buffalo or something. I mean we are part of life itself. Not in some new age find your bliss kind of way, but in a very real and fundamental way. Through Christ all things have life, I don’t know how it works, but it does. We have been given a place of great honor (like my pastor Ron Rhea says, “if you want to be filled with reverence, do a study on the use of the word honor within the scriptures”). We get to be a part of the miracle that is life. We get to sit at the right hand of the Creator and participate in the dissemination of life giving power. No wonder our spirit thrills when we join in community. It knows what the ultimate communal experience is and it longs for it. To lose ourselves in the gift of His church is to be born again into the life that gives life.

So what ever it is that God has called you to do. Do it within the context of the church that He has called you to. You will be twice blessed. Blessed in your ability to serve others and blessed in the freedom and blessings you receive.

Mining Faith to dig out Hope!

2009-01-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

In this place right here I am digging a hole. The shovel rings as it glances off of a stone hidden beneath the rich soil. The shock vibrates up my arms and tingles in my hands. I shake it off. I am determined to find treasure in the dirt of this ground.
I have a map. It is an ancient piece of parchment stained with the grime of many hands. The sweats of brows furrowed in longing concentration have left dried rivulets across it. I imagine the seekers who came before me holding it reverently. Their eyes sparkling with the potential of dreams long held. I sense the same look in my eyes now as I lift shovel full after shovel of dirt from the deepening hole.
The excavated soil is forming up into a great mound. It has the heady smell of mystery unveiled as it comes moist from the earth, the odor of things long buried and forgotten. In my mind I beseech the earth to give up its secret and lay at my feet the priceless relic which lies within its silent grasp.
I am mining faith to dig out hope but I am wondering if its depth is sufficient to enclose the breadth of hope that I require.

It seems that even when I know that God has orchestrated events in such a way that I find myself in a certain place at a certain time I still question the wisdom of remaining where I am. Why is it that my faith seems so inadequate to sustain the hope within me that would make the waiting so much easier? Maybe that is the point. There are greater needs for patient enduring on the horizon and in the insufficiency of my faith now it is stretching and growing but never to the point of failing.
God is simply amazing. He knows what crucible is needed to refine me. How hot to make the fire. How long to leave me there. He also knows that in order for me to survive the experience in a way that makes me stronger rather than leaving me damaged, I need a lot of tender care. He supplies that as well.

So I am digging a hole but God has provided the site, complete with soil, just enough rocks, and a shovel to dig with. A breeze is blowing and it carries a song of encouragement. The son is shining and joy fills my soul. I sense God enjoying this communion. I laugh. The work is light and it goes quickly.

The Present Hope for Morality in the Common Age

2009-01-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

I hear so much talk these days about the moral bankruptcy of humanity as it exists on the earth today. Echoing in the halls of academia, written in the pages of the purveyors of current events and spoken from the grand tribunes of institutional religions I hear the same belief pronounced. Morality in people is failing.

It seems that we are shocked and surprised by this absence of moral purity. Is it so hard to understand that we are a morally depraved and ethically challenged species? Does it accost our righteous view of ourselves as highly evolved and supremely intellectual beings?

Morality in people is not failing. Morality as an inherent condition of human actuality is a myth. We are not of ourselves moral beings. In fact the opposite is true. Humans are decidedly amoral in their nature. We are indeed as God declared through Moses and Jesus later confirmed “a perverse generation and an unfaithful people.”

What is surprising to me is not an absence of morality in humanity. What I find amazing is that humanity largely conforms to a communal set of moral standards. There is an accepted and widely adhered to set of socio-ethical guidelines. It is a counterfeit set of standards but it is in place and practiced virtually world wide. For example it is wrong to kill someone. It is also viewed as wrong behavior to sexually molest a child. It is wrong to steal, though this is relative depending on your view of what constitutes theft.

What interests me about the existence of communally practiced moral standards is that it points to the existence of “a way” to establish such standards. There is “a way” that this basis for moral behavior came to be. We can argue all day about what the way that this happened was. We could maintain that it came about as a result of tradition or base instinct or that it is derived from divine interaction, or a thousand other ideas. The significance of “the way” is what intrigues me. If there is a way that it came to be then there is a way that it can be born again.

Herein lies hope.

IN FAITH HOPE IS FOUND

2009-01-14T09:50:00.001-08:00

On August 28, 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King JR. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and articulated his dream. The dream that he related with great passion and clarity stood in stark contrast to the reality he lived with daily. In truth details of his dream have yet to be realized today. The dream however is alive as evidenced by the election this past year of a black man as President of the United States of America. We live in a time where hope is evidently realized. Dr. King’s hope is no longer simply words spoken, his hope has matured. The words no longer just imbued with life but alive. Hope has become reality.

President elect Obama believes in the ability of hope to transcend reality until it itself becomes more real than the womb in which it was conceived. His book the “Audacity of Hope” speaks of this phenomenon. It testifies that hope has life in it and when nurtured and cared for it matures and becomes alive. If you find yourself looking at the world around you and seeing the pessimism that is all too readily apparent, I encourage you to read this book and let his vision reawaken hope in you. Hope is audacious to those who are lost in the darkness of discouragement but to the spirit of God, hope is the means whereby His children move in time. The future is more real than the present if hope is the light at our feet.

I have been learning a lot about Faith over the last few months, about my own lack of it and my great need for it. I have been learning that God shows me He loves me in countless ways each and every second of the day. Sometimes He even shows me He loves me in ways that, to me, don’t seem very loving. I have been learning how this love creates faith in me. Recently I have begun to learn how the Faith that is born in me through Gods love introduces me to hope.

Let me relate to you a way that I have begun to look at this which has really helped me. God created us so that He would have people who were made in His likeness to share Himself with. God is love so in essence we were made to be loved. As it turns out we are fickle lovers and so we begin to look for love in all the wrong places. Namely in self love, self love is a great trap for us. In its jaws we become convinced that we have all we need within the context of our being. We can get to a place where we are so in love with ourselves that we have no need of Gods love and then the trap becomes an inescapable prison.
To set us free from this prison God sent His son Jesus. Here is a question. How can Jesus set us free from a prison of our own creation that exists largely within our own minds?
Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge that I know there are other prisons in this world. There are prisons of neglect, abuse, illness, poverty, abandonment, war and a multitude of others. I am not trivializing any of these at all. These are very real places of pain and torture. People regularly find themselves in these prisons through no choosing of their own and Jesus came to set them free from these as well. It’s a horrific hell that you find yourself in indeed when your freedom is predicated on Jesus setting another imprisoned human free from what binds them. These are the lowly of the low and the reason in which we need to embrace our freedom so readily is so we can work diligently to find these folks and aid them in whatever way we can. This is what it means to be agents of love.
However for most of us, especially we spoiled citizens of the U. S., our prisons are normally the self created self love alcatrazes of vanity. It’s our pride that ensnares us and causes us to waste our lives on vain pursuits. So to reiterate the question, how can Jesus set us free from these ethereal confines? He needs our cooperation. He could slap the shit out of us, lay down the law and set us straight for sure. He has the ability to do that. But in that He would simply be setting us free to place us in a prison of His design. He is not like that; He really wants us to be free so that we can experience the beauty of intimacy with Him. The other would be rape and He don’t play that. So then how does He break us out of our prison of delusion? He does for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. He comes and takes our way upon himself and then follows it unto death thus fulfilling our destiny. Then He secures our deliverance by our own act of faith. When we choose to believe that He has set us free we find that indeed He has. Not only that but in walking out the destiny of death in which we were imprisoned he frees us from that as well, leaving us with a destiny of life.
But now here comes the really miraculous part. God/ Jesus knows that because of the great longing we have in us we will soon be wooed away to another fatalistic marriage of delusion. We are such suckers for a tempting ballad. Maybe as a society we could keep our daughters in their prom dresses if we could keep ourselves in the wedding ring of Christ, (just a thought). Due to our tendency to promiscuous adultery Christ provides us with the ultimate marriage counselor. You may know Him as the Holy Ghost. I have come to know Him as the harbinger of hope. Without Him there is no hope that I will remain faithful, none at all. My Christ seems so dissatisfying sometimes. What with the long beard and the nasty locks. I’m just not feeling His love today. This is where the Holy Spirit steps in and says, “he’s not like that at all”. It’s my perception of Him that is jacked. He is perfect for me and the Holy Ghost is here to make sure I at least hear that message loud and clear. He brings me hope that my marriage to Christ is alive and well.
So based on this, these days I see it simply like this. In God I find love. In Christ I have faith. In the Holy Spirit comes hope. Love, Faith, Hope, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. What else do I need?

Beyond Belief to Faith

2008-12-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

Galatians 5 (The Message)
The Life of Freedom
1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
2-3I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. 4-6I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

As Christ’s birthday comes closer the great weight of His love rests on me. It resonates within me and my spirit responds. I am filled with sincere gratitude and peace. The freedom I have found in Christ is so tangible to me. The understanding that this liberty has been freely given, awakens an even greater sense of thankfulness in my soul. Incongruously however, underneath it all I am aware of a deep sorrow. I wonder at its presence there. A cold blast in a warm house filled with Christmas cheer.
The source of the sorrow I believe is the realization that there are so many of Gods children out in the snow on Christmas so to speak. This sorrow is not strictly sorrow that is based on this reality. That is with me always. This sorrow derives from my own ineffectiveness at communicating the value of this Christ bought freedom to these snowbound souls. The sorrow is in me due to my own great failure to move beyond belief into faith that is expressed in love. I will attempt to clarify what I mean.

Faith, like love, is a word that is loaded with meaning. For a great examination of the word faith I recommend Marcus J. Borg’s book “The Heart of Christianity”, though you should be aware going into it that Professor Borg is a proponent of what is commonly referred to as Progressive Christianity. If you choose to read his book you are choosing to be offended. He is a great thinker regardless of his paradigm and his treatment on the idea of faith is well worth some offense. Much of what I will share about faith has come out of my thinking through and considering what he has to say in this book.

Faith the word can have various meanings. Much of what we would call our “Faith” is rooted in a nearly subconscious and often semi-errant understanding of what “Faith” is. Speaking strictly for myself I can attest to this. Often what I think of as my faith is more accurately a summation of what I believe. For example I may say I have faith that the stock market will rebound and the thousands of dollars I have lost over the last few months will be recuperated. Really what I am saying is that based on market trends, past historical data, and the advice of knowledgeable people I choose to believe that my money will be recouped. I don’t actually have faith in this, because really I have no idea if this will truly happen. I just believe that it will based on my understanding of all the variables in the situation. Faith is something much deeper. In this situation faith is what tells me that no matter what happens in the market with the money that I have invested, God has got my back. He will take care of me even if the market crashes; I lose my job, and am diagnosed with cancer. The only way that Faith fails is if Gods love for me fails.

Put in other words beliefs are often functions of our brains. While faith is more a function of, for lack of a better word, our hearts. Another way to see this is our beliefs are determined by our decision making processes while faith is based on a deep knowledge of and intimate relationship with God our father. It’s easy for me to have faith in God because it flows out of love, it is impossible for me to have faith in the stock market because it flows out of something else (greed, need, desire, fear, etc) but something specifically not love. Love is one key ingredient to an authentic faith experience (the other is hope, but we will talk about that some other time.) Consider the word faithfulness. If you like doing that sort of thing and have the time look into it. It is berry berry interestink. Or something.

So by now you are saying to yourself. Okay this is pretty boring and what does it have to do with Christmas anyway Tip? Well let me tell you, if I can.

Jesus came an as act faith, through love, by God. The Creator had faith that sending Jesus would break the bonds of, self worship, religion, empire (the world system), Satan, and so on to set His children free. Aren’t you glad that He didn’t simply believe that it would happen but He had great faith in His plan? Our only obligation to receive this gift of freedom is to believe in it. I find it very interesting that the word that is used here is believe and not the word faith. It implies that to receive eternal freedom we don’t even have to have a deep relationship with God. We simply need to believe that this relationship is possible. Faith is a result of the love that becomes real to us through a relationship. In this respect faith is belief that has matured through the application of love. Belief is the seed, faith is the fruit. Love is what nurtures and empowers growth.

So to get back to my sorrow, here it is. Often I carry so many beliefs around with me that my faith gets lost under the burden of belief. I attempt to share my faith with others but what I actually share are my beliefs. My beliefs have not been purified in the crucible of love. They are based on things other than love, often my own thoughts and opinions. My beliefs don’t draw others closer to God. In fact they do the opposite. They bind people up in the process of dealing with them. When I share belief instead of faith what happens is this. It burdens people with the task of having to reconcile their beliefs with mine if they are going to be drawn to God through them. If they fail in that or are unwilling to attempt it they remain unmoved, or worse they are repelled. This is what happens every time I (as a Christian) say something to someone that is based on what I believe, regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of the specific belief. People don’t want more crap to believe in, they have too much of that already. What they want is love. Ultimately what they want is faith. They sense it down in the deep recesses of their humanity but they can’t quite connect with it. They are too bound up. They need love to come and set them free.

So that is why I am sad this Christmas. I am sad because I am so happy but I am also burdened with need to share faith and too often I share belief. I really want to go beyond belief to faith. To answer my question from a couple of blogs ago this is what I have found that my dad wants for Christmas. He wants me to spread love to allow Him to sow the seed of belief so that faith can be born into the world.

So if you are like me, and you want to see your beliefs get the heck out of loves way so faith can grow. I encourage you today. It is actually really simple, serve others and it will happen. We want it to be complicated so that we don’t have to submit to the simple way. The truth however is found in humble pursuit. I will work at if you will. Identify the small things that you can do that will assist someone. Do them. Stand back and get ready to be amazed. Have fun and Merry Christmas.

1 Corinthians 13
The Excellence of Love
2 and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

In the Beginning.........Faith!

2008-12-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

"Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love."
- Erich Fromm

The principle of Faith is foundational. It underlies humanities relationship to creation. It provides context for experience and firmament for purpose. If love is the fuel that powers the machinery of human interaction, then Faith is the engine. Fuel with no engine is just so much toxic liquid poured out on the ground. The thirsty earth soaks it right up however all that is accomplished is to contaminate the water supply.

This is the sixth Christmas season since the love of Christ penetrated down into the bleak despair of my cold dead heart and resurrected eternal hope. It is the sixth Christmas season to come since faith was birthed in me. Faith has stretched and grown in me as it has stretched and grown me. In this the love of Christ has not only endured but strengthened. It has become so intertwined in the fabric of my construction that I cannot accurately remember the former composition of my person. I am so sure that God has me in His hands and is lovingly sheltering me that it is hard to remember what it was like to exist with the absence of this faith.

I know that I had rudimentary faith before Christ. It is impossible to function in the world and not have some measure of faith. Devoid of all faith a person would be left to sit terrified in uncertainty unable to move. Faith is built into us, like the Hypothalamus. We are largely unaware of it. It exists and functions down beneath our conscious processes. Just like when we are going to lift something we don’t often consciously go through the process of telling our muscles to contract etc. When we make decisions we rarely purpose to engage our faith. When we lift weights to build our muscles we at times may concentrate to make them work. So it is when we exercise our faith. Both will grow when increasing pressure is applied to them.

I guess the key here is what do we have faith in? I may have faith that I can climb the Empire State building in my boxers while singing the Star Spangled Banner but watching me try would be really entertaining, or disgusting depending on your perspective. To bring it back into relevant context. Hitler may have truly had faith that exterminating the Jews was Gods will. He exercised the principle of faith in attempting to carry out his task based on his faith. However he neglected to apply a primary governing foundational principle, namely an accurately interpreted and correctly applied principle of love.

Another interesting thing to consider when thinking about faith is this; we know that we love God because He first loved us. I wonder if we have faith in God because He first had faith in us. I mean it’s obvious that He has faith in us. He gave us the world.

This brings up another point. It amazes me to think that while I was lost God was busy exercising His faith through love by drawing me back to Him. My salvation was an act of His faith accomplished by the application of His love. In fact all of creation is an act of faith for God.

So at the beginning of all this is God, who in faith, formulates a plan so charged with supernatural purpose that to us humans it appears stark raving, insanely, stupidly inadequate. God however has such great faith that He takes on the low form of a man. Then wrapped up in such an insufficient package,(I mean look at you), he proceeds to restore history to its intended course, defeating the evil of the world at the same time. If that weren’t inconceivable enough He chooses other insufficient meat bags like us to carry the task forward. And what does He give us as a tool? Love! Now if you didn’t see the need for faith in your life before you read this I sure hope that your eyes are open now. You need great faith to believe that the love that is inside of you can come outside and produce cosmic change. But it can, it has and it always will.

So let me encourage you today as the celebration of the anniversary of the day that Faith was birthed anew into the world approaches. You have access to everything you need to perform the Herculean tasks that God has given you. I mean look what He did with some dirt and his spirit. You may not be much to look at but you are a miracle just the same. You can do more than you realize with the love He has given you. The love is like the dirt. It takes faith to believe that it has potential. But with faith to move it forward God can come and imbue it with life and then the miraculous is only a breath away.
No matter your outlook and in spite of your IN-look, everything you require has already been bestowed. You are a walking, breathing, miracle of creation and the same power that made you is in you. So in the language of the age, in which we live, get crackalackan. Give your faith a good workout, God is on your side.

The Birth of Faith

2008-12-10T12:18:00.000-08:00

“Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is the prize fighter with the tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”
-Mark Driscoll, Relevant magazine (January-February 2007)

There is great confusion in the world regarding how to interpret applied love. Often in our society if a person seeks the way of Christ by becoming the least that person is then viewed as weak. In reality it takes great strength to practice love. It takes the kind of strength that costs a person everything but leaves them fabulously wealthy in the end.

Mother Teresa was/is in my opinion one of the greatest Christians the world has ever known. Often when dignitaries and respected persons would ask her to come and speak at various conferences, seminars and media events, she would sneak away during breaks to eat or spend time with the homeless or otherwise marginalized people who inhabited the fringes of these gatherings. It appears that in her position of prominence what she most valued was seeking to include the ostracized. In a world filled with influential and “powerful” individuals whom she had, by the grace of God, been granted access to, she made sure not to lose sight of the true mission.
Surely she used the opportunities that God gave her to advance the cause of feeding the poor and caring for the sick, and in so doing rubbed elbows with members of the elite. In her spiritual heart though beat the pulse of the Christ. It was His blood that infused her parts. It was the clarion call of Christ the victor, the King Jesus that moved her. In her desire to show love to those that would not have been welcome inside the arena of the actual “event” the spirit of God broke through. Just as Jesus spent His time with the nobodies and wasted Himself on those of dubious social standing, Mother Teresa likewise pursued His example.
I wonder if she ever had people around her telling her that she could accomplish far more if she would more diligently pursue the influential. I wonder if Christ ever heard similar things from those who sought to advise Him. I wonder if I have been convinced of something like this. I wonder who would attempt to do the convincing. I wonder why my Jesus said that He came to bring a SWORD. It is important always to remember what this sword looks like.

Consider this statement.
“In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us of how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out the Temple brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.”
- Adolf Hitler
What voice of love must the man have been listening to? In what shape was the sword the he envisioned?

Love it seems is elusive. I can find counterfeit versions of it everywhere, brilliant lights on crumbling hills, and tempting tastes of putrid ills. Love though, that great balm that heals and restores, woos and wins, unifies and sets apart; love requires a diligent pursuit of a very unique nature. It requires me to chase that which kills me, and to value that which places me in harms way. Love cost my Lord His life, though in dying for love the war itself was won.
What kind of strength is required for a man to lay down his very life to conform to a principle that remains half theory even in its most basic application? I guess the application of love must be dependent on other independent principles. A principle that states that love will do what it sets out to do when it is accurately applied would help quite a lot I think.

What shall we call this principle? Let’s call it FAITH. I wonder how the physical personification of Faith can be birthed into a world so in need of Love? Oh well I have Christmas presents to go buy so I guess I will close for now. I wonder what I should get my Dad for Christmas this year anyway.

The Cure for Selfishness

2008-12-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
- Oscar Wilde

It is amazing to me how seemingly random events and indiscriminant moments can come together to teach me such specific lessons. I find the more I recognize my great need for education the more frequently such alignments of time and occurrence take place. It is as if someone much smarter and everywhere and everywhen at once were powering the universe to teach me. It’s simply amazing and at the same time wholly disturbing. Under the weighty evidence of such obviously supernatural intervention I am revealed to be a poor center for my own existence. In fact with me in the middle the whole thing becomes some kind of farcical joke.
The spirit of God is moving all of creation forward through time on a song. Concurrently the Father our creator conducts His creation outside of the timeline of history but interwoven intimately within. He makes all things new and births purpose into a cosmic void of chaos but somehow still empowers choice. It is a mystical dance of the divine will and the free spirit of man orchestrated in concert to make the music of destiny. The great and terrifying miracle of the composition is that we are instruments and the music we make is part of the song of creation. We play our parts in tempo but the beat is preordained. We can count on that. The beat goes on!
Have you ever wondered at the rhythmic nature of the universe? Such as the way ocean waves spill onto the beach with mesmerizing consistency. Like a moist metronome. Or consider the cyclical predictability of the seasons. Both the natural seasons of the earth’s rotation and the more subtle but still relevant seasons of birth, death, and rebirth are ageless in their regularity. It seems there is an undercurrent beneath the stream of consciousness, a law of motion beneath the commotion if you will. I wonder why it’s there, and further I wonder if we can trust it?

To me we are living in a time of great promise and opportunity. I am sure that every generation has people in it that believe this about the world in which they reside. It is part of what makes the free spirit work, the great irrational human tendency towards optimism. It is that belief within us that says yes I can trust the rhythm that is driving creation forward.
I am excited with the anticipation of what the future holds both the immediate future and the long term. However there is a part of me that looks at creation with distrust. This part looks at the frailty of the free spirit of humanity. It gets caught up in the fear that the knowledge of the evil nature of mans heart promotes. It gives too much credit to the anti-rhythm that opposes the spirit of God. It wonders what happens if the beat just suddenly does stop?
I label this part selfishness, because it looks inwardly. It places its own preservation and outlook at the center of creation. It strives to control the uncontrollable wildness that is Elohim. It makes its self God and makes God= god, a dying whisper on the wind.

There is law underneath creation. God himself wrote it, or more accurately, it is, because He is. Where He exists the law exists because it flows out of who He is. Man can’t control it change it or enforce it. We all try, but all of humanity has this thing in common, we all fail. The law is as unchanging as the God it flows out of. Jesus Himself proclaimed the sanctity of this law. Matthew 5:17-18 (New American Standard Bible) 17"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
We spend so much of our time attempting to rewrite Gods law, whether this is done accurately or not is not my point here, my point is this. Fulfillment of Gods law can only come one way, through Christ. Often we expect the world at large to obey Gods law. What a waste of time this is. The world simply can’t obey. It is no more complicated than that. We find it hard enough to be obedient as we learn to walk in the faith. Without faith it is absolutely impossible.
Let me interject here that I am not proposing that we do away with laws. Neither am I promoting a world view grounded in anarchy. We must have laws that govern our human interactions. We may disagree on what these laws should be but I believe we can agree that we have to have rules. These human laws, which should be decided on as a society are totally different than the divine laws that flow through creation. We may decide to break a societal accord and we often do. Many times our breaking one of these laws makes that rule null and void for us. The old it’s not illegal if I don’t get caught thing is true in the most basic sense, no punishment equals no illegality. Try that with Gods law and you will find that it is always in full effect and full enforcement.
Instead of expecting the _______(pick your word here; government, president, principal, teacher, child, husband etc. etc.) to adhere to divine law we need to expect it of ourselves. We need, I need, to let the law, fulfilled through Christ’s work in me flow out of me. I can only do this if I am fundamentally changed. I need a foundation built on the rhythm of creation. A foundation built on principles of the kingdom.
I can start by practicing love, which serves and keeps no record of wrongs. Love means that though I may fundamentally disagree with another person’s choice, and am perfectly free to do so, at the end of the day it is their choice to make and the law states that I am to serve them and hold nothing against them. Now we can argue about the nuances of how this should be applied etc. I hope we don’t get caught up in that however. We can even argue with the governing principal if we so choose though we are choosing a road of frustration because it is unchanging.
I really like what Paul has to say on the subject myself. Galatians 5:17-18 (The Message) 16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
Anyway to close, learning to love for the sake of love is greatly challenging me. It is making me come to terms with my prejudices and predispositions. It is making me ask hard questions, and it is making me fall in love with my savior more and more as I struggle to submit to it in principal. He was able to accomplish this and He did it so that I would be afforded the opportunity to follow after Him.

So my friends, I pray that today is a day that sees you firmly planted in the pursuit of the foundational principal of love. I pray that you hear the beat down beneath the ground you walk on, and that it calls to you, “Sing my child. Sing a new song”. I pray that the song you sing would create joy and peace in the world around you. I pray that in this atmosphere the law would come in love to bring a miracle of freedom to those in need.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.”
- Mother Teresa

The Lubricant of the Human Differential

2008-11-25T05:29:00.000-08:00

First let it be established that I am no mechanic. Neither am I educated in the slightest in the area of mechanics or mechanical engineering. If I get a flat tire I can fix that. If something basic and readily apparent goes wrong with my car I am not afraid to get out a wrench or preferably a hammer and give it a go. However anything more than a busted hose or worn belt and I am calling an actual mechanic. Someone like my brother Roy who has an understanding of what is really going on underneath the obviously visible. With this said I will try not to overstep my knowledge with the mechanical analogy I will use later.
Additionally I am relatively young in my faith and still searching for rudimentary balance. I never intend to present myself as an expert or some great thinker etc. I am just very hungry to learn, and what I write is based on my own appetite for illumination on the mysteries of our creator and the shape of His creation.

I am reading a really great book right now by Richard Dahlstrom. The book, entitled O2 subtitled Breathing New Life into Faith, is full of insightful material based on the authors real life pursuit of a life of faith in Christ. This book has helped me immensely. I have learned a great deal from it, so much so that this is the 3rd time I have read it in past 5 months.
In the introduction of the book Mr. Dahlstrom discusses a disconnect that exists in the church today. He presents the idea that Gods church is tragically divided between two groups. He terms them the inhalers and the exhalers. The inhalers are those who emphasize the importance of time spent seeking an intimate relationship with God. “Inhalers” are typified by their devotion to scripture, meditation and prayer. The exhalers on the other hand are those who assert the preeminence of living a life of service dedicated to expressing God outwardly. “Exhalers” are the people who get things done for Christ to the benefit of others.
Once Mr. Dahlstrom has established that there are these two differing views in the church surrounding how we are to live a life of faith, he then goes on to bring the two sides together. He attempts, very effectively in my opinion, to do this by establishing that these two differing views are not mutually exclusive. In fact he points out in order to exhale you must first inhale to have air in your lungs to expel.
I have found this so helpful because there is a tremendous battle within me to find a balance between the two extremes. Such is the case with me in all things and fighting the great pendulum swings inherent in the pursuit of an ideal is a great challenge in my journey of faith. Equally challenging for me is finding the patience and mercy to avoid judgment towards people who are on the opposite swing. To these ends I have been greatly aided by Mr. Dahlstrom’s book.

At the risk of losing continuity in this writing through excessive jumping around, I am going to approach my point from several angles. Then I will attempt to pull all of these together in the end to build cohesion. I ask that you bear with me and I hope that finally your patience will be rewarded with something beneficial that you can take from this.

Yesterday in church Pastor Ron Rhea delivered a message that rearranged my mind. It was certainly time for some spring cleaning. It may be fall in the world outside but for me I sense a great renewal and will call it spring in my spirit. So the message yesterday provided a brush for me to use to get into the hard to reach corners where the cobwebs had become thickest and coated with poisonous dust.
There is not time here for me to talk about all that was cleaned out or to elaborate on the new placement of the old furniture to make space for the new. Nor have all the changes settled in so that I can clearly articulate the new wineskin. What I can do is discuss one micro change within the macro change that is taking place.
I had these two distinctly separate ideas in my mind. The details of them are not important. What is relevant is that in my mind these two ideas were divergent to a point that I could not find a way for them to exist in my mind harmoniously. Either one of them sought to force the other out. In the midst of their struggle for dominance I was aware subconsciously or spiritually or somehow that neither of them could stand alone. I just knew deep down that they needed each other before either of them could become cognitive enough for me to proceed with a plan of action grounded in the perception. In the service yesterday as I sat and listened to my pastor this harmony was accomplished. These two thoughts became joined and are now one larger idea. The larger idea is one that I can pursue. In fact I can plainly see a way laid out before me. I love that, because for me exhaling is a very natural process however inhaling requires me to really concentrate and take my time. I am getting ready to breathe out now and that is what I long to do.

Don’t you just love confirmation? However it comes, confirmation that I am hearing what I think I am hearing and seeing what my eyes say I am seeing, is welcomed with exuberant expectation. So I got a little of that yesterday after church. Just in case the day hadn’t already been filled with enough of Gods radiant glory.

Maria and I had lunch with some families after church. We love to go to lunch with these particular folks because they aren’t just lunches where we eat nourishing food of a physical nature they are lunches where the spiritual food is every bit as abundant as whatever we happen to be putting in our bodies. So I am sitting there chewing and listening to a couple of these guys talking. They are discussing some weighty things about how God is establishing His kingdom through our church. They were both very passionate, but it became clear while listening that they were coming at the idea from different perspectives. One was focused on the need for inhalation while the other was adamantly trying to make the point that while inhaling was needed, the key was to be found in exhalation.
It was one of those moments. Everything just seemed to slow down for me. I have heard athletes talk about that happening during great feats of precise execution, and this was like that. It was like I could almost hear what they were going to say before they even said it and then in the middle of what was a very enlightening and productive conversation in its own right, I got this little nudge from the Holy Spirit. I was reminded of something that pastor said in the service. He said, and I know this isn’t word for word so I will do the best I can, “Love is the lubrication of human interaction. It prevents the parts from overheating with friction as they rub against each other.”
That was exactly what I was seeing at play. These two guys were saying nearly the same thing but from diametrical polar positions. It was obvious that the passion of the exchange was boiling with friction beneath the communication. Also to further intensify the situation. As I stated, what they were discussing was heavily loaded with purpose and divine revelation on both sides. More flawed men of less righteous character would have been shouting loud enough to disrupt the whole place, but these guys were composed. They demonstrated that foundationally their interaction was ruled by the principal of love.

That pretty well sealed the deal for me. I went home yesterday knowing that I had just had an experience that would forever change me. I am closer to understanding how love works today than I was yesterday. I still have miles to go, but the way is filled with beautiful moments and I look forward to the trip.

So to summarize, this is what I have learned. I hope the picture I am trying to paint in your mind is clear. I have collected bristles for the brush I am using from many sources. I don’t want to poorly reflect on them. So if my work is nebulous blame the artist and not the muse.

The word differential is loaded with meaning. It is used to constitute a difference. For example a differential exists between God and man. He is, we aren’t but try to be, put simply.
An automobile has a differential gear. In lay terms the purpose of this gear is to allow the power to be transferred from the engine to the wheels to move the car forward. It is called a differential gear because it allows two different axles to function cooperatively but also independently. Without it a car could go straight ahead with a great deal of success but would be very limited in its ability to make turns. Try getting somewhere like that.
Inside this gear a lot of friction builds up as the two separate axles spin. To absorb the heat created the housing for the gear is filled with axle grease. The grease dissipates the heat and preserves the integrity of the differential gear so that it can continue to function.
The church has many axles trying to move it forward. You probably didn’t think this would happen to you in an email talking about church composition etc. but I am calling you an AXLE. If you are part of a church you are an AXLE within that body. All the things that go into making you who you are drive you forward. You are the church, when you move forward, by definition the church moves forward.
It would sure be boring and seriously ineffective if we all were moved forward by the same motivations to the same exact places, not to mention noisy and crowded and sweaty and……………………. So we aren’t. We are all driven independently, hopefully by the spirit of God for the most part, but independently for sure. This makes it hard for us to respond as a unified group to curves in the way. It requires us to have a differential gear. We need something to allow us to operate independently but cooperatively. This is one function of what we commonly refer to as “The Church”. It provides commonality or community for our individuality.
When you get a lot of separate AXLES coming together to drive a community it creates a lot of friction. Corporately we need something so that the heat generated doesn’t burn us up. We want to build a place where God can come and be a consuming fire but we definitely don’t want to build a place that is itself consumed in the fire of public dissension.

What we need is LOVE. We need it in abundance. We can have it for a song, In fact if you quiet yourself you may just be able to hear God singing that song over you right where you are. It’s the song of creation, and love is one voice within the trio. His name is Jesus and He is the great gift we have been given. Let’s practice giving to others what He gave to us, the great gift of love. What better way to tell him thank you?

WHOSE LOVE IS THIS

2008-11-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

If I persist until I fully comprehend I may be contemplating “love” for a very long time. A stanza from Led Zeppelin’s song “Thank You” says ,
If the sun refused to shineI would still be loving youWhen mountains crumble to the seaThere will still be you and me
not only is this a great way for the author to express the depth of feeling and commitment that is in his heart, (if you put the word Christ in place of the word you in the song it is transformed) but it is also a great estimate of how long it may take me to come to terms with the foundational principal of LOVE. I am convinced that the sun will stop shining and the mountains erode to nubs before my small mind has grasped this somewhat larger concept. Still I will press on until…………well, I will press on.

I was thinking about how my wife knows I love her this morning. Maybe a more correct statement would be. I was considering whether I am doing an effective job of letting Maria know I love her or not. That I do love her is a known, I believe. I mean she knows that I value her and place high esteem on her. She is fully conscious of my commitment to her. Understands how that little twinkle she gets in her eye takes my breath away. She is aware of the way her sense of humor reduces me to near tears. But does she know that her tears create in me a sense of hopelessness? Does she understand that I would give up everything to be with her? Have I truly adequately expressed to her the great admiration I have for her? Does she realize that,
If the sun refused to shineI would still be loving MARIAWhen mountains crumble to the seaThere will still be MARIA and me
I wonder?

This contemplation led me to a silly little thought, but it is one that I found useful. Let’s suppose that I wanted to let Maria know just how much I love her through a gift. Let’s say through a ring. Let’s further imagine that, and this won’t be much of a stretch here, that I can’t (I will underline the word can’t here since it’s a relative term) afford to get her the ring that I may want to. Or more importantly that I know will please her and copiously fulfill my intention of conveying the depth of my love for her. So I choose to settle for a nice ring that I can afford. I wonder in this scenario if she would receive the ring considering and weighing out all of the variables. And then come up with a well thought out and logical acceptance of it as being an adequate summation of my love for her given all these variables. Or would she look at and be immediately overwhelmed with disappointment. Would the rings lack of bling, in her eyes since they are the important ones, fail to transmit my intent?

Now I know Maria somewhat, I want to know her more, and I can say that the disappointment would far outweigh the flawed gifts ability to channel my love to her. In fact it would do more harm than good because she would be left with the idea that the measure of my love was this crappy little ring. Further it would raise a question in her. If my love could be represented by such an inferior piece of jewelry then what must that say about her? Maybe she is really just not worth much she may be tempted to think. The gift could become a door. The door could open on a path. The path may lead to a dark place, in which love inhabits only the forgotten corners. The truth is that while the Devil may laugh and enjoy the trip it won’t be him driving at all. It will be me and the responsibility for the short trip to darksville will be mine.

It comes down to this. When I want to show love to someone, when I want to speak love to them, I have to speak in a way that they can understand me. I have to use a language that they know. I can’t just speak love in my own language and expect them to translate it. If I were hungry in a foreign land you can bet I would figure out how to ask for something to eat in a language that made my need understood. The world around us is hungry for love and we take on a servant’s role by learning to adapt our way of speaking love to the dialect of those ravenous to receive sustenance.

A much wiser and more established man than I am can do a far better job of teaching this than I can. For that I recommend Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages” (http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/).

So for me the question becomes, Whose Love is This? Is it my love to go around spewing all over the place haphazardly, as I see fit? Maybe some will be received. I can even justify this approach by saying things like. “Love covers a multitude of sins, (1 Peter 4:8 Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.) so if I am motivated by love that trumps any harm that may come from it.”

Maybe love belongs to the needy. This isn’t really workable either when you think about it. If we go back to the scenario of the ring, to her credit Maria has great taste. Any ring that would sufficiently satisfy the requirement of demonstrating my love for her would need to be on the magnitude of the Hope diamond. It would not be great for our budget if I went out and purchased that to give to her. It might take me one or two days to pay that off, provided no need for re-planning came up. Once a significant enough amount of time went by with me telling my lovely bride things like. No we can’t go out to eat or no you can’t get that new dress, and no I didn’t pay the electric bill. That ring is going to start looking less and less attractive on her finger. Pretty soon she is going to quit wearing it and then maybe even offer to sell it. What started out as looking like a great way to say I love you is now saying more and more, my husband is a blithering idiot. I doubt she can silence it even when she lies down to go to sleep. Once again short trip to perpetual midnight and once again my fault.

I don’t think this love belongs to the needy either. I mean try giving your kids everything they want that will show them that you love them and see how that works out for you. Don’t call me with your complaints if you are actually wise enough to try this.

So Whose Love is This?

May the Lord your God who is infinitely wise and thankfully all sufficient, meet you where you are and teach you to speak love in the language of the needy. May he grant you wisdom and forbearance to speak love appropriately in good timing. I pray we learn from Christ, the true expression of His great love. I pray that a world that needs love would find it in you and me.

Love in the Meantime

2008-11-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

1 Corinthians 13
Love Is the Greatest
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

This is a very popular portion of scripture in Christian circles. It is commonly used in weddings, I know it was used in our wedding, and I have heard it referenced in countless teachings in the five years I have been pursuing Christ. It is bloated with the truth it contains, each verse pregnant with the potential to give life.

As I have continued to think about the vital role that love plays in the foundation that God has constructed the universe on, so many questions have risen within me. Questions that I do not have the answers to and the answers I do have lead to new questions. The integral root to elucidation lies in establishing a definition for love. So casting conventional wisdom aside, to put too fine a point on it, what is love? What does it do, and how do I know it when I encounter it at work? Like all pursuit of kingdom knowledge it is to our glory to search out the truth.

Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/love) has 28 definition entries for the word love. The definitions range from a feeling or desire for to a need or requirement of. So if I love something I have a strong feeling for it or I strongly desire it. However I may also have a genuine requirement of the source of my love. It also says that love may be the act of sexual intercourse or the sexual passion that fills us during intercourse. Or casually love may just be a strong like for something, The Texas Longhorns for example. Of course in tennis the word love is used to denote a score of zero so maybe love is really just nothing at all. Possibly love is like oxygen (like “The Sweet” said it was in the 70’s), invisible and hardly ever noticed, except when you don’t have access to it that is.

What I am coming up with here is that our English language makes it pretty hard or impossible actually to clearly define love. I have many more questions about what it is based on this research than I have legitimate answers. This is starting to make me think that this love thing must be a pretty big deal because God has done a great job of concealing the truth behind it. It appears that we as humans are simply running around acting on a rudimentary definition of a vital foundational principal. Is it any wonder that the kingdom we are building is crumbly? Dust everywhere and large potholes with bottomless natures abound.

On a side note: For a really great investigation into the word love, Rob Bell has a NOOMA on the subject titled “Flame” to say I recommend it would be like saying I recommend lungs.

So here is where I am. I am on a journey to lay a foundation for my life that is rooted in Christ, who is the physical manifestation of divine truth/ kingdom creating principal. I am searching out and acquiring the essential elements that are required. On this journey I have been given a map and told that love is the first location to which I must travel to directly follow a narrow road. Love it seems is elusive and hides itself under a mountain of human attempts to apprehend it. So I guess that is where I will look. Underneath the humanity that provides the topography of my map to love.

When you get right down to it that is what the referenced scripture says isn’t it? Love exists down under the humanity of this present darkness. It keeps no record of our shortcomings, it is patient with us, it has no expectations of its own, it promotes an atmosphere in which faith grows and is fertile with hope. It endures all things wasting no time crying injustice but rejoicing in the truth. When the time comes that our understanding of it becomes more complete and accurate then our partial understanding of it loses its influence. Best of all it will be with us always, and given its importance that is a terrific promise on which we can build.

So today right where you are, think of those others…, you know the ones. Think of the way in which love has blessed them and the way in which inaccurate and misdirected attempts at love have wounded them. Think of the profound healing power that love has to restore them. Think of our Christ who came in love to be love and the way in which He is the cornerstone of the Kingdom. You are loved and you are so important to God that He calls you His own and sends you out to be love to others. I don’t know if that helps with our definition but I do know that it helps me to define who I am and will be. For that I am grateful.

IT'S A LOVE THANG!!!

2008-10-28T07:30:00.001-07:00

I am skilled at conceiving a detailed plan. I have been gifted with an ability to see the broad scope of a task or goal, while at the same time I am able to recognize the small intricacies that are fundamental to the success of the overall vision. This is not to say that I am perfect in this function but rather to say that my gifting tends to be focused on the vision and the details that must be accounted for to accomplish the goals the vision encompasses.

What I am not good at is accounting for the humanity of the individuals on whose shoulders the performance of the tasks necessary to the carry out said vision rest. I am marvelously patient to perform tedious chores to further the cause, but sadly impatient with the human nature of the people with whom I endeavor towards vision fulfillment. In essence I have patience with those things that I can control but a decided lack of forbearance with the intimacies of human make up, such as emotion, fatigue, unwillingness, disparaging points of view, lack of faith, strength of conviction, and so on and so forth. To control our nature is the great struggle of our days, and only one man has fully overcome himself. I find this to be unworkable.

In science a theorist will conduct an experiment to evaluate a hypothesis. The scientist will set up a control group where all the variables of the research are regulated. In the control group the outcome is predetermined. Based on the scientist’s knowledge, foresight and execution the result is known. Synchronously the scientist will run the same experiment but with a specific variable left to nature. In this second sample the outcome is unknown. The hypothesis will be challenged by the results of the second analysis. I am a big fan of the control group. I like the order in it and the way it shines when the light touches it. To me the control group is a fabulous work of art, the other more chaotic experiment; not so much.

We my friends are not the control group. I know this probably comes as a great shock to you but we do unpredictable and random things. We respond to the strangest stimuli. For example why is it that even though I know its bad for me and my mind screams no, no, no I will eat ice cream until I vomit. Or how is it that I am so attracted to the treasures of this temporary life but it requires great discipline for me to pursue the truly priceless abundance that is available.

This really bothers me, and I suspect it bothers God quite a lot too. In fact He has sent countless prophets to His people to combat this human tendency. The fact of the matter is though that if we were all robots we would have run out of oil long ago, plus the flood would have been even more detrimental than it actually was, just think about it.

So what is it that holds this whole reckless, largely out of control existence that we call life together? What is it that helps me to relax and patiently put away my frustration when the emotion of the moment overrides the common sense of me or the one I am engaged with? What is the driving force that makes God continue to send out the prophets, to continue to talk us down off the ledges we make for ourselves and then precariously balance upon, miles off the foundation of the governing principals He has provided for us?

John 3:16 (The Message)
16-17"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

Foundation principal number one, it takes love to move the Kingdom of God forward. Yes it is basic and we all know it. It is not some startling new revelation that God is just now gifting us with. Love is foundational.

I recently read a book by Phillip K. Dick. It is a sci-fi work titled “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”, one of the most thought provoking pieces of literature I have read in a long while. In the book Mr. Dick raises the idea that we are all confined or made free by the way in which we view God. This is not a direct quote but rather a summary of some of his discussion. He then goes on to examine the supposition that not only is God the creator of the universe and the governing principals of it but He is also subject to the principals that He put in place to govern His creation. Upon further thought and consideration I would put it another way. It is not simply that God is subject to the principals that are in place governing creation but rather that these principals flow out of who He is.

So when we practice love in what we do, we are practicing God in a sense. When we allow love to guide our actions and decisions we allow God to guide us. If we are to build a foundation on Christ and He came as an act of love then it follows that we build on the Rock when we build on love.

I pray that God would be practiced more and more in our lives. I pray that you experience God through the love of those around you, both in your families and in the strangers that you meet today. May God find a willing conduit for love in you and may the ways in which you express Him have a profoundly deep impact on those who receive. Lord we ask that you deliver us from any attitudes, beliefs and habits, that we have that are not rooted in the founding principal of love. Have your way in us so your way comes to others through us. In the name of the Christ you gave in love we ask it.

2008-10-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

FOUNDATION- The beginning of fruitfulness.

My wife Maria and I are blessed to have couples, and individuals in our life who have taken up the call of Christ to serve us with their gifts, love and friendship. Their instruction, companionship, encouragement, love and dedication have awakened destiny in us. We are extremely grateful to God for them, may He bless them in every area of their lives and continue to use them for the benefit of those he appoints to them.
Over the past several months a couple whose mentorship and wisdom Maria and I value and whose friendship we cherish has been teaching us about the necessity and import of having a strong foundation. A well laid and firm foundation consisting of the key elements of Gods kingdom is mandatory if we as heirs to this kingdom are to walk in the “way” of Christ. In other words to effectively function as God ordains we must have a strong foundation built on the principles that cause the Kingdom of God to have the power to establish His righteous reign on earth. We may have the heart to serve Him, the strength to endure, a clear vision based on a divine calling, and all the material requirements to carry it out, but without the foundation of His word, without the foundation His revealed truth provides we are a clanging cymbal, sufficient to praise Him but just so much noise in regards to speaking the Kingdom into being. The Kingdom of Heaven is built on a foundation of Holy principles and divine truths, if we want to have a part in establishing it we must be built on this same foundation.
Over the next few weeks I am going to be examining the components of a solid foundation built on truth as laid down by God at the “founding” of the universe. I will be sharing my thoughts and “findings”. I am by no means presenting myself as an expert on the subject. I am a neophyte in the study of foundational principals. My aim in these writings is to stimulate thought in others as well as myself and to encourage discussion. I hope you find them thought provoking and encouraging. As always I welcome your thoughts, concerns and revelations.
May the Lord God almighty who put into effect the governing principals that are in force in the cosmos bless you and quicken in you a desire to see His truths established in your life. May these truths be added to the strong footing on which you already stand and may your hunger for Him and His firmament become the cry of your heart.

Ezra 3 (New King James Version)

10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the ordinance of David king of Israel. 11 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: “For He is good, For His mercy endures forever toward Israel.”
Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.