Category Archives: Life

Church, Life, Psycolog, Ramblings

Church Attendance Pt2

There are segments of our Western culture that are flourishing.  Technology seems to ingrained into every part of what we call life today.  The world seems to be saying it can provide you everything you need.  “I can provide all things at a click of a mouse or a tap on the screen.”  It is a beautiful place that we have made.  You don’t have to go to the Grand Canyon to feel the awe, you can get virtual glasses and the latest program.  You can buy all that is needed to lead a full and exciting life.  If you are lonely just log on to Facebook,  if you are hungry call up UBER to deliver a gourmet meal in less than an hour.  A world of products are just a click away.  Special industries have popped up to provide vacations, amazing experiences, and gastronomic delights.  Entertainment can provide an endless supply of music, music, live sports and the latest shoot-em-up gaming experience.  There seems to be a constant hum in the air.  But it is so much driven by individualism.

It is about my experience, my location, my food, my dog, my witticism, and my life.  Happiness and stimulation without commitment.  It may not be George Orwell’s new world, but the outcome is the same.  Dull automatons marching to the glare of a screen plastered to your face.

This new found freedom is at the expense of something else.  One writer called it the vanishing of institutions.  If we can be ourselves, if we can life our lives in constant self gratification and self forfillment, what do we need with institutions?  What do we need with the Church?

The Church is our beliefs and ethics in the flesh. The Church is a bringing down from heaven the life of God to become a operating on earth.  There is a shared set of beliefs that the whole agrees and defines itself.  The Church exists to pass along our beliefs.  The Church exists as a place to turn our beliefs into action, in real behaviors, to educate.  It is more than a broadcast message hoping some would friend it.  It is not about information it is about values.

Values, including love, forgiveness, self sacrifice, the greater good, hope, acceptance and service, must be passed on.  And the passing from one generation to the next is one of the reasons the Church exists and will continue to exist.  When the Church stops passing on values and changes to a broadcast mode of information, then it fails.  Broadcasting of information without values becomes part of the hum and will die with all pet rock and the VCR.

Yes I go to Church.  It is an act of faithfulness to a value system.  Oh I love the old hymns and a well crafted sermon is a delight to my ears. Never-the-less, when you get down to it, it is more about legacy, it is more about passing something along.  It is about endurance of life.  It is about community.  It is about being a part of something that is more than elections across a screen.

What do you think?  Leave me a comment.

Bible, Life

Simple and easy

Luke 5 presents a unique insight into what it is to be open to guidance.  Guidance even from someone that is not an expert.

The air was permeated with the smells of old fish and rope.  The little ship had been out all night with Peter and his crew but with nothing to show for their efforts; not even a single straggler. They were bone tired and were washing and stretching their nets out on the beach to dry.   They were looking forward to a time of relaxation in the cool morning breeze with the gentile sun on their face.  These men were tired and just wanted to go home.  But here comes a crowd heading right for Peter and his freshly laundered nets.  There is no record of Jesus asking to use the boat but he needed a pulpit.  At risk of losing both his nets and boat Peter and his crew sat in the boat behind Jesus trying to stay awake as Jesus taught the crowd.

“When He finished teaching, He said to Simon, ‘push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch’”. (Luke 5:4).  It is with a little hint of sarcasm that Peter responds; “Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow.”

Here was this itinerant teacher, without a synagogue in which to teach, telling me a full time journeyman master fisher how to fish.  The nets now well trampled had to be washed again. It did not look like Jesus was any hurry to get out of the boat. He continued to sit in the bow with a look of expectation and a smile that Peter would come to look for before any great lesson to be learned or miracle to be had.  With a rough hand over his brow to shadow his eyes from the early sun and knowing full well there were no fish to be had this time of day, Peter agreed.  He had the crowd move off the nets and placed them again in the boat and set off tired and  probably a little more than frustrated.  The instructions from Jesus were simple and not very creative.  “Go out to deeper water and throw out your net.”  It was a waste of time for the master fisherman. It went against all the experience and intuition accumulated over his career.

I don’t know where the fish were all night but everyone within a mile took a detour that morning and found the net.  Peter tried with all his strength and skill to bring the net it but it would not come because of all the fish.

Jesus did not explain it was a great miracle to show Peter some well needed lesson.  No new teaching for the fisherman.

Sometimes following Jesus is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.  Remember the one telling you to fish is also the one who created the fish.

 

Life, Personal, Preaching, Theology, Uncategorized

Holy and the day to day

For some reason, when it comes to our relationship with God, there are a lot of Christians who have taken the position that since God extends His grace to me when I sin, I ought to keep on sinning so that I can get more of God’s grace my life. On more than one occasion I have witnessed those who claim to be disciples of Jesus intentionally choose to do something they know to be sin and comment that it’s OK because they know that God will forgive them.

There seems to be an inner desire that wants to presume, to do something based upon unknown or future consequence.  To do something without proof.  Christians frequently presumes to act, teach, and promote beyond what the Lord has written. We frequently see the following rationale offered to justify man’s action, soothe his own conscience, and silence the inner plea to submit to God’s Word:

  • God is our Heavenly Father. He loves me! Does He not want me to be happy? I know my Father wants me to have this, because it will make me happy!
  • God may have been strict in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament we are under a system of grace. Therefore, we are not in bondage to worry about keeping every law perfectly. We do not have to worry about tedious, detailed observances of any kind.
  • Do you really think God would send me to hell just for doing this?
  • Will God really condemn me for this one sin?
  • What’s so bad about doing this?
  • Who will be hurt by doing that?
  • No one will ever know about what I do.

True, God is our heavenly Father, and He dearly loves us; however, He seeks our best interest, which is not always what we want, what satisfies for the moment, or what makes us happy in this instant.

But we pull out the Big Bible and quote from Matthew 7:9-11

Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

The assumption here is that we know more about what is good for us than God.  We are assuming that we have judgment, clarity, foresight, knowledge, and wisdom paramount to God!

Since what we want and what God wants for us are often two distinct paths, only presumption would ignore God’s revealed will for us in exchange for satisfying our palpitating desires.

So then how should we live?

Let’s start with the fact that while It’s simple, It’s not easy.

I have discovered that losing weight is simple, but it’s not easy. All you have to do to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than your body needs. That’s simple. You figure out how many calories your body needs each day to maintain your present weight and then you eat less than that.  But restriction of the day to day snacks, and occasional cans of soda is not so easy.

The day to day life in Jesus is simple but it is not easy.

It’s Something I Have to Do

Nobody else can do it for you and you can’t do it for anyone else.  You are the only one that can die to sin in your life. Your wife can’t do it for you.  Not your Pastor or even your neighbor. It is my decision for me.   My deciding to live a holy life, that is a life that is in the center of God’s will and obedient to God’s will.

 God can’t or won’t do it for you, in the sense that he won’t take away your free will and force you to live a holy life, He’s willing to help in the form of the Holy Spirit. With God’s help you can do it. Do you believe that? But you have to want to. And it is a partnership.

Comments?

Church, Life, Sermon Illustration

What is a Saint?

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What are little boys made of:
They are made of frogs and snails and puppy dog tails,
What are little girls made of:
They are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.

But what makes a saint?
They are made of very real stuff; costly stuff, the stuff of conflict and struggle. They are made of failure and defeat. They are made of repentance and renewal. I once asked a Junior High Class in Sunday School what made a saint. After quite a bit of time in silence and seemingly looks of question, one particularly quarrelsome young man exclaimed, “A saint is a dead Christian.”
God’s saints are men and women seasoned by many of life’s deepest and most tragic human experiences. Saintliness comes from hard times. Saintliness comes from fires of life. When you around one of these special people you can almost smell the smoke on their clothes. They most often focus not on doing things right, but more on doing the right thing.
They have within them a fire that burns as much as a candle burns and puts out a special glowing fire. The brightness of thier lives determine the length of the candle. Their real character is not determined by reputation. Their real character is not determined by their professions. A saint’s character is determined by the Spirit of Christ that dwells and shines through them.
I have met a few saints and none of them would like the title.

Bible Study, Life, Personal

The primacy of destination

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My wife and I are diametrically opposed in our concept of traveling.  I prefer to set of in a general direction of a destination and am quite happy to just see what is to been seen.  I like to read the signposts, billboards, and advertisements as I go and let them provide hints where the next turn will be.  I get excited in finding new roads and even trails that I haven’t been on before.  If I have to sleep in the back of the Jeep, that’s just fine. Sometimes I would like just to go, take the nearest road and just explore.  It is a discovery, a grand adventure.  Never-the-less, my sweet wife would rather know in advance what the road is going to be like.  She needs to know what hotel we are going to be in.  She has to know what are the places we are going to visit.  Every restaurant must be checked out prior to even leaving the front step or turning on the car.

Most readers may also be divided into two types.  Some skip the introduction and by looking at the table of contents, jump to what has the most interest.  I was taught in sixth grade in a class on speed reading, to go to the last chapter and read it first just to see where it goes.  Others will start from the first word and dissect the introduction to ending.  Making sure nothing is missed.
Likewise, we go to church and some will just listen to the sermon expecting to learn something.  Others take notes and analyze it with all due diligence.

Both of these methods or mindsets are  nothing more than a preference of style.  In some areas one style may well be better than the other.  The issue is when the holders of preference do not allow for the preference of the other.  I teach a class on the Book of Romans.   We have been working through, making sure we do not miss something that God would have for the class.  We have had sixteen sessions so far and we have just entered the fifth chapter. This preferential methodology of study may not be for everyone.  I realize that some would rather have the notes and let it go at that.

For me it is the difference between hearing and understanding, between reading and study, between milk and meat.  The church needs deep things.  Every Christian needs to dig deeply into the Word of God.  The Bible is more than a tool for defining how we should live.  I does have great maxims of living a godly life, but if we are looking and reading just to find these guidelines, ruled, laws, suggestions, and even forbiddings, then we are missing the mark.  The Bible is for finding God.  The Bible is for feeding the soul.  The Bible is a revelation of a loving God.  As A.W. Tozer once said, “Our spiritual need is not the rock-lined pit for which a traveler longs, but the sweet, cool water that flows up from it. It is not intellectual knowledge about God that quenches man’s ancient hear-thirst, but the very Person and Presence of God Himself.”

Doesn’t really matter your method of traveling, it is about the destination, the direction and the why of the trip.

Life, Personal, Theology

Quote of the day

It will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages, while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress. But it will pay in the long run and the true Christian is not much interested in anything short of that. (A.W. Tozer)

Life, Personal, Ramblings

War and peace

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I have owned at least twenty lawn mowers in my war on grass.  I had a push mower that never seemed to cut well because it was not sharp and I really did not know how to sharpen one.  I had a mower left in the garage of a house I bought in Colorado that refused to start unless I sprayed the carburetor with very flammable spray from a pressurized can.  There was one mower that would only run on denatured alcohol.  Some of my war tools had pull starters, some had electric starters.  One was self-propelled.  I have permanently loaned two of my latest weapons of grass destruction to my son.  I had one that smoked so badly that the EPA could well classify it as a gross polluter.

Each one, to a machine, was designed to cut the overgrowth of grass down to a perfect two and one-half inches.  Very few buy a mower just for its aesthetic value My goal with each and all of these spinning contraptions was to create the perfect lawn. You have seen those lawns.  Not a blade of grass out of place.  The uniformity of the turf could well be described as a carpet of luxury.  Never-the-less, the next day, no matter how good the mower was and no matter how contentiously the lawn was edged, there would be little blades out of place.  Perfection lost.

The typical keeper of the lawn has a number of choices: Let it grow until the city comes by and leaves you a nice compliance note, stop watering and let it all die all in the name of water conservation, or hire someone to do it for you.  Since I have loaned my last mower to someone that needed it more than I, the local landscaper comes by every two weeks and cuts my lawn.  No more fighting the battle of the lawn.  It still looks a little ragged by the second week but I have learned that there is a peace in letting someone else take responsibility for my lawn.  I can simply give up and give it to someone else.

There is a parable in this missive.  Sometimes, if not all the time, we need to just give up and let God do what he does best.  God doing the lawn work of my life.  If a little blade seems to be out of place, then my responsibility is to let God show to me how to take care of it.  His response may well be to instruct me to do something about the errant grass, His response may well to let him handle it, or He may provide a new tool to do the work.  But I have given my personal life to God. But the most important and most gratifying of giving my life to God (including my lawn) is that He gives peace.

Peace is a gift from God.  We do not make peace with God.  We receive peace as a boon when we come to a penitent trust in Him.  He is my peace.

Life, Theology

Thought about Justification

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Confessing Christ with one’s mouth is not something that a person does to be justified; it is something a justified person does.  Those who are justified are ashamed of their sin and proud of their Savior!   Just as it is natural for a newborn baby to open its mouth and cry, so it is only natural for a sinner saved by grace to open his mouth and give full credit to Christ.  “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!” (Psalm 107:2).  “Saying so” is not something that a person does to be redeemed; it is something a redeemed person does!”

Life, Personal

Still my favorite Poem

Robert Frost

“The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

Thank you for indulging me, it is my birthday.
Life, Personal, Sermon Illustration

A little piece of heaven in the middle of hell

We go through our days and there are few opportunities to make big choices.  I believe we are creatures of free choice. Never-the-less most of choices we make are small and make little difference.  Paper or plastic bags at the local market, English muffin or toast for breakfast, brown pants or blue for church, and thousands of other small seemingly small and unsubstantial decisions.  And in the same old, same old life we live, the big hard things that really will make a difference to ourselves or even the world around us rarely come up.  So we go ahead and live our lives making as few decisions as possible; mostly because we feel that each little aggravating decision really doesn’t matter.  We even get a little frustrated when the the waitress has at least five options to complete your order of eggs and bacon.

In Sunday School we studied the story of the S.M.A boys.  You know Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  They were faced with one of those few and far between decision points in their lives.  It didn’t start out as a turning point type of decision.  They simply remained standing when they were expected to follow the crowd.  They were given the choice to bend their heads and kneel when the orchestra played to a 19 foot statue or keep standing.  Oh there were consequences.  But the first decision was not to go along with the crowd.  I don’t really know if these three thought very long or even realized the importance of their doing nothing while everyone else was doing something.

Nebuchadnezzar escalated the offense and made it about a competition between his grand statue and the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I have related this because some may need to know the reasons behind the what the title of this is all about.

The King bound the three up and cast them into the furnace which had been prepared for any one not following orders.  But for the SMA boys it was made expectantly hot.

Now here is the part that struck me.  The king looked in and saw the three unharmed and walking around with someone that seemed to the king as godly.  Think about it.  There is the picture.  There is the smile.  There is the sweetness of God’s care.  In the middle of Hell was a little piece of Heaven.

Instead of terrible pain and obliteration it was party time.  The heat was on but they were in the very presence of God.  Walking around and I can almost see these four with the biggest smiles.  Their little choice led to a big choice and that choice was to allow God to be their deliverer.  Their choice was not to go into the furnace; that was the King’s decision.  Their small, “toast or English muffin decision was to simply stand when the music played.

What do you think?  Leave a comment.