Category Archives: Motivation

Church, Motivation

The Church is not the center of Christian life

For a great number of Christians, the obligatory weekly service is the sum total or center of their Christian life.  We are good at gathering together to backslap each other and if we really in the spirit to give someone a hug.  But as they drive away from the congregation, there is no sense of mission.

Our mission is not found within the hallowed halls of some great or small building, it is on the outside.  The mission of the real church, the body of Christ, is in the marketplace.  From the preaching and life of Jesus, as he taught the twelve, and lived his teaching, look closely and you will find them in the marketplace.  It is the central location of want.  It was where the neediest were found.  The marketplace, the place where needs are most felt, is the place for the church.

It is not enough for the organization we call the church to hang a pretty sign upon its facade and call it done.  The world will not come to us.  We dare not wait for the grand influx of bodies to join us in our holy alcove. When we rub shoulders day after day with those who are lost we become the church to them.  People in need of the power and grace to get through the day, need Jesus.  When we go out and be one of them, but not of them we are answering the prayer of Jesus in John 17. We are the living and breathing answer to God.

 

Motivation, Personal

Birthdays

2 Comments

My birthday was yesterday.  I am feeling old.  My bones hurt.  Oh, for the days of jumping from rock to rock in a rushing stream to find an elusive trout.  It is the wear and tear of the daily living that seems to have ripped the desire to pursue my dreams and to shadow my hopes.

With repeated attempts, I find myself unable to reach my greatest intentions. I am not giving up, but I seem to be losing my grip on the things that seemed to matter to me so much over the years.  My greatest fear is getting to a place where I simply say, “what is the use.”  What is the use to continue my quest to help where I can?  What is the use to feed the next generation with my learned lessons of life, if they seem oblivious to the insight? When life was young there was an inner zest, or maybe a simple twitch toward the moral battle rightly engaged.  There was a foe to slay, a flock to shepherd and protect, but now, what am I to do?

All sorts of compromises have been made as practical adjustments to the world in which we live. Legitimate hopes and dreams have been lost in the fog.  Griefs settle upon me as I see myself more like Don Quixote battling windmills than King Arthur fighting the good fight. The struggle seems to have dulled my sword and now has become difficult to hold it up.

My bed beckons me each evening but I can’t sleep because of all the little naps taken to get through the day.  The question, “what is the use” seems more and more close.

This does not mean that I will cease battling.  I will continue to fight the good fight, I will finish my race.  Just because I can not run 100 yards does not mean I am giving up to self-indulgence and retire to the companionship of my easy chair.  I will, and I am doing my part to make a difference.  I have not lost the zest of the moral struggle.  I may hang on grimly to the end, but with the inner fire not quite as bright as it was back in the day, I will keep on keeping on.

The fire is still burning within me and even if no one comes by to warm themselves by it, I will keep it lit.

Your comments are requested.

Bible Study, Culture, Motivation, Worship

Bubbles

“If I do this.”

If I drive an electric car, I will be making a difference to the polar bears.

If I live a good life, I will have good karma.

If I drive defensively, I will not get run over.

If I go to church once and while I will be accepted.

There was an invalid who every day would be found by a special place.  It had five great colonnades or walkways with alcoves on both sides.  They surrounded a great pool of water.  He had come there every day for thirty-eight years.  The common understanding was when the pool was disturbed by a visiting angel, the waters would start to bubble.  “If I am the first in the pool, I will be saved.

Year after year trying to be as close as possible so when the bubbles began he would roll into the healing water. Like himself, hundreds of sick, lame, blind, disadvantaged all depended upon the bubbles.  They put their trust in the bubbles.  They had faith in the bubbles.  The bubbles made all the difference.  The water no matter how cooling or inviting was not good enough; it had to have bubbles to be effective.

Every day was spent staring intently at the surface of the pool.  It was a danger just to blink and miss the first bubble as it disturbed the surface.  In our lives, we too wait anxiously for the next bubble in lives.  That next stirring will make the difference.

The malady of the day is the dependence upon the bubbles and not on the source of healing.  There have been great revivals, great outpourings of God’s Spirit on men.  These great stirrings have made a great difference. The great Reformation drew millions to a new faith-based belief.  The concept of evangelism crusades as espoused by Rev. Billy Graham gave place to millions of lives changed.  But these great stirrings were not little bubbles upon the pool.  They were great upheavals.  They were not choices of what is contemporary one moment and outdated the next.

Faith in bubbles is the problem.  If sing the right song in an easy key and repeat the verse repeatedly, I will be moved.  If we make the church more relevant, you will hear, “Here it is.  Here is the agitation that will turn people to God.  A well-orchestrated worship experience will save the church.”  “The bubble will be our cure.”

We tend to be polarized in our experiences.  When things are going well we have great things to praise God for.  When things are going poorly we have things to pray to God for.  They are both just disturbances in our lives.  And like the poor man at the pool, we are not saved by it.

It is all showman’s tricks.  It is all smoke and mirrors.  It is all bubbles.  It is trading a true faith in God to a faith in bubbles.  The man at the pool was saved not by the bubbling disturbance of the waters beneath the colonnade.  It was no external disturbance that would heal the wretched man.  What healed that invalid by the pool was a person. It is the advent of Jesus into the middle of our lives that provides the healing of spirit and of mind. By faith, we are saved.  Faith in the commander who said, “Pick up your mat and walk.”

The Kingdom of heaven does not come with the observation of the bubbles.

What do you think?

Life, Motivation, Psycolog, Uncategorized

Let there be ORDER.

A clean desk simply means messy drawers.

Organization has never been my strongest attribute of character.  Once in a while I stop and try to get some semblance to order to my chaos. Today was the day I was to organize all my written sermons, ideas, thought starters, taxes, vehicle registrations, vacation plans, research, church notes, books, notebooks, music CDs, books, coats, hats, computer stuff, and the list goes on.  At least that was the goal.  I find myself stopping and reading it all. It is tough for me to throw away a magazine that is over a year old; I read it through one more time.  Another hour gone in my quest for the grand scheme of order.

Once organized, I tell myself, I will be able to find anything I want.  No more searching, no more quests for something that I know exists in my ethereal universe.

Then in the middle of it all, I ask myself, “Larry, what is the why of the effort?”  Order is the internal desire for organization, cleanliness, and routine.   It brings an inner feeling of stability.  It is a need for control of the uncontrollable.

My father was changed drastically by the second world war.  His life for three years was always in jeopardy.  He was regular Navy stationed on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic in constant fear of an unseen enemy in a submarine.  He brought that disorder of his very existence by controlling his personal space.  He often said to me when he came into my room as a child, “everything has a place, and everything should be in that space.”  Order for the moment created a space of control and with that little space was a sense of peace.

The desire for organization is there to find order amid my chaos. My desire, my inner urge is to overcome the lack of control that is exhibited in my office.  So here I sit writing when I should be sorting.  I wrote last month of the inner desire of curiosity.  The inner urge to know more.  But the negative side of curiosity is all the clutter it makes.  I must buy more computer memory and hard drive space to hold all my thoughts.  My curiosity is being squashed by my need to have order in my life.  If I don’t keep a handle on my chaotic disorganization, all the stuff I have accumulated in my curiosity will be a loss.

Desires are the reasons for doing.  They are the motives for my actions.  They are the reasons for my behavior. All ends are the result of my desire.  The very nature of my inner desires sets my path.  My path may not be your path.  My path is mine.  I may share the road with you once and while but look out and don’t trip over some of the things I not quite organized yet.

Comments?

Motivation, Psycolog, Ramblings

Star Trek and Idealism

1 Comment

‘What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god!'”

Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Hide and Q”

There is within man a spark of idealism. A spark that will not be extinguished. It is a universal urge to do more than what is expected.  That urge is what drives me to help in a local food bank which distributes over 20,000 pounds of food to the “food insecure” every month. Why do I do that?  What characteristic or deep-seated urge seems to send me to volunteer.  Is there an inner desire, or core belief within us all to be altruistic and social-minded?  I believe so.  It is an internal urge to have compassion with no expectation of reward. There is an inner voice that wants me to move to action to correct what appears to be unjust.  I give time, talent and treasure to meet perceived needs.  It moves me. It makes me overlook the smells and sometimes bad attitudes of the recipients.

But there is a multiplicity of competing voices.  For some being around the unwashed and uncouth is just too much.  For that matter, some even feel uncomfortable when they hear what I do.  They are uncomfortable because their inner voice has been muffled for so long that they can look a homeless person on the street corner and act as though they did not exist.

Everyone has that inner desire to right wrongs.  Everyone wants to do right when the opportunity is presented to their sensibilities. This week the nation is morning a senseless school shooting, but we seem to turn a deaf ear to the thousands dying in Chicago and other large cities.  The problem is we can’t do everything.  There must be a hierarchy of our altruism and idealism. Sure, I care for the poor and hungry in my city, I do my part, but I am also aware there always be someone I can not help.  I know without a doubt that hunger will never be stamped out of my community.  Never-the-less, I can help with some and those I do help are sufficient. It quiets my still small voice crying in the darkness of my soul to do more.

My inner voice that cries for idealism and altruism causes my actions.  And those actions are what I will be measured.

Your comments?

Culture, Motivation, Psycolog, Ramblings

Honor

Over the last couple of months, I have tried to grasp the characteristics or inner needs that drive our actions.  Again, actions are the results or responses we decide to make as we live out our core.  Our core is part and parcel of who we are.  We do not choose to be wanted and accepted, it is a part of our core or center characteristic.  Actions based upon this core have moral consequences.  Actions are never done in isolation.  Actions are what we do in response to our innermost.  These actions require an act of the will.  An example: I have an inner desire for consumption of food, but it is an act of the will to consume good food or not so good food.  Decisions carry with it consequences.  If someone would step on my toe in a crowded elevator, I would feel pain; no decision on my part it is a part of being alive.  But if I lashed out at the perpetrator of the pain and punched him in the nose, that is a decision and has consequences. Pain is part of being how I am. Purposely inflicting pain on someone else’s nose is a decision-making process.

So far in my list of inner wants or core needs I have covered acceptance, curiosity, consumption, and family. The next on the list is probably the most problematic.  Problematic in that our society seems to display the actions that would not express this characteristic.  That characteristic is honor.

Honor as defined in the Bible as kabod in the Old Testament meaning heavy or weighty.  To honor someone is to give weight or give respect and even authority over your life, and timao in the New Testament.  It is characterized as granting honor because of respect, courtesy, and reverence.  Both words speak of acts of honor. Never-the-less, I believe there is an inner desire to acknowledge others with honor.

An example of this characteristic is when I worked for Intel Corporation.  I was asked to go on a sales call with a large customer to be a technical advisor to the discussion.  I felt that I should give the honor to the customer to dress well and be on my best behavior.  I put on a fresh shirt and a moderate tie under my suit coat and went to the meeting.  At the meeting table prior to introductions the prospective buyers constantly asked me questions and almost ignoring the sales manager to which I was there to support.  The sales manager was not wearing a tie or for that matter acted disinterested in the goings-on of the meeting.  The company staff was referring to me because of my clothes and demeanor.  To the chagrin of my sales manager, he was being ignored and I was being honored.

For the most part, most do not act rudely.  Most take care not to offend.  Most react to the honor urge in positive ways.  It is an internal attitude of that should be nurtured.  It is only when we respect, and honor others will others do the same. While the reception of honor is a positive experience, it is not to be sought ( Luke 14:7-8 ). When honor comes from others by reason of position or status, it is not to be taken for granted. The recipients should seek to merit honor through godly character.

The granting of honor to others is an essential experience in the believer’s life. Christians are to bestow honor on those for whom honor is due. The believer is to honor God, for he is the sovereign head of the universe and his character is unsurpassed. The believer is to honor those in positions of earthly authority, such as governing authorities ( Rom 13:1-7 ), masters ( 1 Tim 6:1 ), and parents ( Exod 20:12 ). As a participant in the church, the believer is also called to honor Jesus Christ, the head of the church ( John 5:23 ), fellow believers ( Rom 12:10 ), and widows ( 1 Tim 5:3 ).

Honor, now that is deep!

Comments welcomed.

Church History, Motivation, Worship

Lent

1 Comment

This Sunday, Pastor reminded us that both Valentine’s day and the beginning of Lent was on Wednesday.

“What did you give up for Lent?” was asked of me several years ago and it really did not register what that meant.  I figured it was like a second chance at a New Year’s Resolution for those who had already abandoned theirs.

In Jesus’ day, the people gamely tried to obey the written law to win God’s favor. The scribes and Pharisees scrupulously taught the law to people looking for freedom from the Romans, adding many human safeguards so there would be no chance that someone might transgress a commandment by accident.

So why do we observe Lent in the Christian life today?  What are the reasons behind the tradition?  I really don’t find anywhere in the Scripture that admonishes us to observe a specific time and or season of fasting and personal supplication outside of admonishment to a continued and constant part of the Christians life.

Around the church, Lent and the Easter tradition has become an opportunity to bring us closer to God.  The Pastor is preaching on the great “I ams” of Jesus.  But in reality, it will be one more lost opportunity to be called of God to a higher place with Him. That’s surprising, especially since Lent is one of the oldest observations on the Christian calendar. Like all Christian holy days and holidays, it has changed over the years, but its purpose has always been the same: self-examination and penitence, demonstrated by self-denial, in preparation for Easter. Early church father Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130-c.200) wrote of such a season in the earliest days of the church, but back then it lasted only two or three days, not the 40 observed today.

In 325, the Council of Nicea discussed a 40-day Lenten season of fasting, but it’s unclear whether its original intent was just for new Christians preparing for Baptism, but it soon encompassed the whole Church. How exactly the churches counted those 40 days varied depending on location. In the East, one only fasted on weekdays. The western church’s Lent was one week shorter but included Saturdays. But in both places, the observance was both strict and serious. Only one meal was taken a day, near the evening. There was to be no meat, fish, or animal products eaten.

There has been many changes and interpretations to the length and scope of this season.  Never-the-less, Lent is still devoutly observed in some mainline Protestant denominations (most notably for Anglicans and Episcopalians), others hardly mention it at all. However, there seems to be potential for evangelicals to embrace the season again as a promoting fasting as a forerunner to revival. For many evangelicals who see the early church as a model for how the church should be today, a revival of Lent may be the next logical step.

Life, Motivation, Personal, Psycolog

Transmission fluid and hamburgers.

3 Comments

The only being that is completely self-sufficient is God, all others must and are driven to consume.  If you don’t, you die.  Whether it is good for you vegetables, or not so good for you half-pound hamburger covered with cheese and accompanied by greasy fried potatoes, you will consume.  Again, this is a motive or a decision point that you must come to order for you to live.  The desire to incorporate something outside of yourself is neither right or wrong, it is part of being God’s creation.  We come into the realm of good and bad is when we start making the decision as to how to satiate that desire.

I just pulled the bottom pan from a Dodge Dakota pickup transmission.  I was careful not to spill the slightly blackened, red fluid all over myself and the concrete behind my house.  It is my decision whether I pour it down the storm drain, or to pour it into the properly sealed container and take it down to the recycle center. It is my choice to do the responsible thing or the other way.  But it all boils down to what is my Christian responsibility.  What would God ask me to do with four quarts of used oil?

Sunday’s sermon, which did not include anything about used oil, helps me make the decision.  The preacher said, “I like the Savior part of Jesus, I have problems with the Lord part.”  I am saved by grace.  The Lord loves me, and I can’t stop Him from doing that act of love.  But, with my conversion, I have a responsibility to make decisions as He would have me make.  It is about who is in control.  It is about who is leading.  It is about who knows the correct path.  So what does this have to do with used petroleum products?  Two things:  Stewardship, and responsibility.

Adam and Eve’s first test before God, even before the forbidden fruit, was to take responsibility for the earth. It wasn’t an add-in later, it was not a sideline to be figured out when they had the time or the inclination.  It was a foundational understanding and requirement given to these two humans.  They were to be caretakers or stewards. Sometimes God limits Himself by letting his work become the responsibility of people. “I made this garden for you, it is perfect, it is filled with all kinds of animals, it has all that you need to consume, but it is your responsibility to keep it in order.” Or as the Message says, “God blessed them; Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!  Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

The sovereign ruler of the universe and all human affairs gave Adam and Eve the job of a steward.  But more than that He gave them responsibility for the outcome. That responsibility for keeping a watchful eye over and active participation in the guarding and nurture of the world that they lived in.  We are, as Christians, directly responsible for the current state of our environment.

The earth and all life in it and on it are gifts from God.  They are to be shared and developed.  They are not there to be exploited.  Our actions have moral consequences.  The goods of the earth and the beauty of the world around us are to be enjoyed and even celebrated as well as being consumed. We have a responsibility, as much as lays within us, to be good stewards and take direct responsibility for the outcomes.  We must consider the generations to come when we make our decisions on consumption.

I will dispose of my used automatic transmission oil responsibility, not because I owe allegiance to a mother earth society, but because it is demanded of me by my Lord.

Comments.  Suggestions.  Rebuttal?