Block change

Rap artist Lecrae has a song called 'Send Me'. Amoungst the gritty real life lyrics there are these few pointed lines:

hey! After, 1,000 years in the west and the churches
get'n bigger daily without understand'n worship. (say what?)
Some regenerate but a lot ain't saved.
You walk outside and be surprised cuz the block ain't changed.

I met a guy named Eddy a few weeks ago. Eddy stands in front of the local grocery store from time to time and asks people for food or cash donations to help feed hungry families. Eddy is an employed individual who volunteers his time to change his 'block'.

I am reading a book called "Community: Taking your small group off life support" by Brad House. This morning I came across this:

"Jesus rebukes religious people who see the culture's needs and do nothing to meet them. Too often, the people of God justify ignoring the needs of others. We offer our sympathy and prayers, but don't actually pray nor do we try to help. We assume it is someone else's responsibility. Others just pretend the problems don't exist. We hide behind ignorance. We don't know what the needs are in our community because we don't want to know."

Next time you attend church take a second to stand in the parking lot and take a look at (1) your church building/grounds and then (2) the greater area around your church. Has the group of people known as the 'Church' done anything to change the 'block'? Does the group of people who claim to follow Christ (known as the Church) have any awareness of the needs of the community? Or do things like personal safety, boundaries, race, religion, political affiliation, pet theologies, education (too much or not enough), religious practice, time, etc. serve as feeble barriers to carrying out the Great Commission?

Survey the 'blocks' in your life: work, church, neighborhood. church. Now, through the work of the Holy Spirit, how can you help change those blocks?

Grace & Justice

We thirst for justice... if you doubt me just look at the number of shows on tv dedicated to solving & prosecuting crime.

What if you heard a story of a witch doctor in another country who was in the business of selling body parts. Disgusting huh? Now, what if you knew this witch doctor had literally, physically emasculated a young boy and sold what he had cut off? What goes through your mind? I can tell you what goes through mine: Justice in the form of give-me-12-seconds-and-a-Louisville-Slugger-and-this-dude-woudn't-have-the-mental-or-physical-capability-to-cut-anything-off-again----every kind of justice.

Of course that is humanity talking. It is not my job to avenge - "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Romans 12:19. In fact the next verse goes on to talk about blessing your enemy. "To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Okay, so the story isn't over. The young boy who was the victim in the story was adopted by a man from outside his country who loved Jesus. (I don't use the term Christian because that term has become so overused & watered down) The witch doctor had also been legally prosecuted for his actions and was actually imprisoned for his disgusting crimes. So this young boy's adopted dad went and found this witch doctor in prison.... and he didn't take a baseball bat with him, but shared the love of Christ with the man..... and the witch doctor gave his life to Christ.
This is where the death of Christ on the cross covered the sins of that witch doctor. This is grace. This is what's hard for our finite minds to understand. Jesus took his & our place and paid the price for our sins.... so we can be free when we don't deserve it!
This doesn't mean the (former) witch doctor is given a get-out-of-jail-free card. I am sure he still served his time (although that part of the story was not specified).

One more cool part to this story. The young boy was able to receive medical attention and through some surgical procedure(s) the physical damage done by the (former) witch doctor was repaired.

Praise God for His justice and grace!

 

Religious Towers & Sniper Rifles

I try to stay away from the tower now. Over the years I spent much time in that tower with my religious spotting scopes & binoculars peering at leaders of ministries or politicians... just waiting for them to slip up and say something dumb, theologically incorrect, or just plain mean. Then I would send up my religious flares pointing out the indiscretion screeching wide eyed as if expecting the judgement of God to crush them in front of my eyes.

What a waste of time.

This tower has cob webs now. My religious rifles are no longer polished, locked & loaded. While I can love on people, I cannot change them. I am not the Holy Spirit. I still get all worked up from time to time, but instead of flying to into some sort of religous frenzy I feel burdened... in the end so greatful that God is sovereign.

Currently flares are going up all over the place... Driscoll said something again. I have to laugh. If more time was spent loving on the people in my life (neighborhood, work, church, gas station, etc) and less time writing letters to church elder boards about what their pastor said.... well, you finish the sentence....

 

Clarifications:

-I do not appreciate everything Driscoll says, but I am neither his accountability partner nor savior.

-I do feel there is a time/place for the 'flares' to be set off. But I believe it should be saved for a serious situation, not every little "Enquirer" tid bit of news that comes along.

 

 

 

 

One of those moments...

We all have them from time to time. I had one yesterday. We moved from Idaho to California yesterday and I had just turned south on highway 95 past Burn's Junction... I was listening to Rhapsody in Blue performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

I was driving the moving truck, and the kids had chosen to ride with my wife and her mom. Taking advantage of being alone I had the ol' 1-70 air conditioning cranked! (one window down doing 70mph). Snow covered mountains to my right, sun bathed high dessert rolling hills to my left... and I had just crested a hill as the crescendo of the song hit. Wow! I literally yelled...

God, thank You for beautiful creation: sunshine, mountains, music, and so much more!

To or from

In my line of work I am in many different vehicles. A few weeks ago I drove a Ranger with two giant white bumper stickers on the tailgate talking of salvation and Jesus' death on the cross. As I got in the pick-up I noticed a Bible on the passenger seat as well as about a dozen Bible tracts in the driver's door.

I don't find any fault with these things, but I wonder sometimes if we, as Chritians, are trying to save people from hell..... or to God. I see it as two totally different things with a single common thread.

I believe Hell to be a real place and I find the idea of it to be terrifying. However, in our efforts to get people 'saved' are we just trying to squeeze one more soul onto the salvation lifeboat, or do we want to actually introduce people to a real, relational God who can be their saviour?

 

Guilty by denomination

    “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world..."

    “...Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels..."

Matthew 25:31-34, 41

Chilling scene. This is more than enough to make me hit my knees and thank God for His grace... for saving me. It also creates in me an angst for those not (yet) 'washed' in the blood of Christ.

(side note: How do you suppose Rob Bell interprets v41? Honest question...)

So I think we can agree that Jesus is to take priority... as is our neighbor. Mark 12 finds Jesus aswering the religious leaders of the day:

"...And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Now, I am not a scholar of the Greek language, but I don't think Jesus said anything about being Baptist there. Nor was there anything about adopting a young earth creationist mentality. Oh, and I'm pretty sure He didn't mention anything about anti-war activism.

Love God. Love people. Simple.... until we, in our humanism, start dragging in all the rules, regulations, committees, conferences, & petitions into the mix. God saved me! I am not a Christian because I DO or DON'T DO certain things. I am not the Holy Spirit, and despite my intentions I cannot expect to bring a non-Christian to faith in Christ by forcing them through some denominational equation and then hand them a 46lb binder with 6 appendixes full of christianese. It is God's kindness that is meant to bring us/them to repentance (Romans 2:4).

Now, I know the rules & regs people are experiencing panic attack because this mentality has had a strangle hold on the American church for decades. There are 'do's & don'ts' in Scripture, but I do (or don't do) these things BECAUSE I love God, NOT to earn salvation or gain His favor and/or recognition. When we stumble (and we will stumble) this is where we experience God's grace,mercy, forgiveness, and love.

    "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
        his mercies never come to an end;
    they are new every morning;
        great is your faithfulness.
    “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
        “therefore I will hope in him.”
Lamentations 3:22-24

So here is what I need to remember. Its great to be passionate about certain things, but people will not see Jesus through me just because:

-I vote a certain way

-don't drink wine with dinner

-believe the earth is thousands of years old as opposed to millions

-I protest any sort of war

-etc

What people will take notice of is how I love God and how I love those around me. Time to take inventory...

 

 

 

 

Untitled

From a statistical perspective I have been a Christian for 30 years. As that number has gotten larger over the years, it used to be something I was proud of. How dumb is that? God saves me by His grace, and I'm stuck on a number...anyway in an effort to make my way out of this religious forrest I have to take out one tree at a time.

The following verses deal with women and ministry:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
(1 Timothy 2:8-15 ESV)

From there, chapter 3 goes on to talk about qualifications of an overseer/pastor/elder, and it's obvious that this position is supposed to be filled by a male.

I recently heard a sermon from a Nampa pastor that really made me think. Statistically, women outnumber men 11 to 1 on the foreign mission field. So if there is a woman in south American village doing God's work, and people are getting saved can she 'pastor' that local church or should she stall until a man steps up to fill that role?

Is this a major issue, or a minor one?