I can never get ahead…I’m just saying.

How many times have we said something like this?  “Every time I get ahead something breaks and I end up behind again.”  As if we are being kept down rather than being provided for.  The Lord tells us that he will provide for us daily yet how many of us trust him?  I’m already thinking of my excuses…

Exodus 16:4-5 (English Standard Version)
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.  On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”

Just like when Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream (see Genesis 41) and determines that the Lord is going to provide an exceptional harvest for seven years before seven years of famine.  The Lord provided for the hard time to come so they would be ready.  So maybe if we find we have more than we need there is a reason and when we find we are short it is our own fault and not God’s.  And maybe we should give thanks more and complain less…I’m just saying.

That Guy…

We often let our surroundings dictate our state of mind but that is not what the Bible tells us to do.

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Genesis 39:20-23 (English Standard Version)
20 And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. 21 But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. 22 And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. 23 The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed.

Here we see that Joseph, who was wrongfully imprisoned, does not lament this injustice.  Instead he becomes the model prisoner, a trustee of the warden.  This does not change the fact that he is physically in prison but it shows that spiritually he is free despite the injustice of his situation.

Titus 2:9-10 (English Standard Version)
9 Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

Once again in the New Testament we are ordered to “be well-pleasing, not argumentative,” but you may say you are not a slave, in which case it should be even easier to maintain a good state of mind.

Lord, we ask to be made aware of your steadfast love in our lives, so that we may be at peace in all situations and that you help each of us reflect your love to those around us that they may see and believe as well, for Jesus sake we pray.
Amen

Why Not to Drink

The Bible does not say specifically that we should not drink alcohol but it does address the subject in other ways as well as explicitly saying not to be drunk. I don’t believe it is necessarily a bad thing to have a drink with friends when relaxing together but care must be taken. One of the reasons people enjoy the effect of alcohol is it allows us to relax and take our guard down for a while. During a study of Colossians one verse that spoke to me about this subject is, Colossians 4:2 (English Standard Version) “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Now here’s where the problem is; how can we be steadfast and watchful when our guard is down? When looking back on his life, Ozzy Osbourne once said, that every time he did something stupid he had been drinking.

How much easier it is to slip into sin after drinking alcohol, so while having a drink is not a sin in itself, one must be very careful and guarded before we take our guard down.

Lord, please guide us and protect us in our every endeavor. May our desires be in line with your will and may our actions glorify your name, for Jesus sake we pray.
Amen

My Grace is Sufficient

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (English Standard Version)
7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I am troubled by those who think that prayer heals anything and everything. While it’s true that prayer is extremely powerful, when we ask for something that is not in God’s will, the answer will be no. It is clear from the above scripture that even the Apostle Paul struggled with matters of the flesh and was denied. God clearly does not view our physical pains in the same way that we do and will at times allow us to suffer, just as a parent must allow a child to experience disappointment, in order that we might grow in the spirit.

In fact, from God’s perspective even physical death is just a calling home of one of his children (assuming the child is ‘saved’) yet from a human point of view it is a sad loss even when the person has lived a long, full life. I believe the following scripture is often misinterpreted as meaning that Jesus was mourning the death of his friend Lazarus but I believe “Jesus wept “ and was “greatly troubled” because of the lack of faith of his friends and followers. Jesus would not be troubled in the human sense because a saved man had died, knowing that they would soon be together again in Heaven.

John 11:32-35 (English Standard Version)
32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept.

Caution must be exercised here not to confuse human mourning with the spiritual truth, for as humans we will grieve the loss of a friend or family member from our earthly life.  It is a very real loss and as long as we live in this world we will feel grief for those who go on ahead of us. We will even feel sorrow at the loss of friends or times that are no longer at hand as a parent is both excited to see a child grow up and head out on their own, while missing the child’s presence in their own home.

So, we should pray for those who have needs but we should understand that we have no knowledge of God’s plan and he may answer a prayer with “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Did the enemy get him?

I used to think highly of Gordon McDonald until I read this, http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/currenttrendscolumns/leadershipweekly/theshackbykingdavid.html

How he can talk about God the Father in this way “I found myself wanting to sit at her kitchen table and to enjoy her cooking, her conversation, and her maternal affection.”

I find no reference in the Bible to God’s “maternal affection” but I have heard that “…faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  Romans 10:17 (ESV)

That is where we need to start, with the Bible; any book that takes liberties and rewrites what the Bible says is dangerous.

Revelation 22:17-19 (ESV)

 17 The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Heavenly Father,
You are great and merciful and we are weak and needy.  Thank you for giving us your word; please protect us from those who would twist and distort it for intentions other than your will.  We know that all will be shaken so we ask for great strength from you that we may be good witnesses to your glory, for Jesus’ sake we pray.
Amen

Become Like Children

Matthew 18:3 (ESV) and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I don’t believe it would be wise for me to attempt to address woman with regards to this verse as I am unfamiliar with the workings of relationships among the female gender.  Therefore, I will address it based on three stages males go through.  When Jesus refers to children I believe we should look at how an eight year old boy looks up to men and particularly his father.  To a child at that age his father is the ultimate man; he can do no wrong; the child’s greatest desire is to spend time with him; whatever he is doing the child is interested and wants to be involved.  I have been a witness to this from many angles, starting with being an eight year old and looking up to my own father.  Although, I never had kids of my own I had friends who did and I saw that gleam in the child’s eye, even doing things that would bore an adult the child is happy to tag along just to be part of the event.  It is a shame for a boy to go through this age without a father in the house.

By the age of twelve something begins to happen, what good old dad is doing just doesn’t seem important anymore; at fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, somehow dad becomes an idiot.  My step-son was fifteen when I met my wife; I was cool when I was giving him money to go to the game room but other than that we both knew the deal.  Of course, I knew that someday he would grow out of thinking that I’m an idiot, he didn’t know that yet.  These teenage years are time spent wandering in the wilderness, thinking we know everything and not looking up to anyone, except maybe peers who are in the same phase of life.  We would never bring our problems to our father during this phase; we would rather ask our friends because our father just doesn’t know what it’s like to go through whatever it is that’s going on.

Once again a change is coming, at least for most men, right after they move out on their own, running up into their thirties.  They start to notice that they don’t know everything and dad was right about a few things; maybe he wasn’t an idiot after all.  Once they have kids of their own they will really start to see the pattern and may even ask their father how to handle different situations.

So what is Jesus saying to us?  It seems that so many of us are stuck in the teenage phase when it comes to God; we know everything and think in terms of earthly wisdom.  God’s word is nice but not practical in the real world.  Our hearts are hard, we won’t listen to anybody other than our peers and we wouldn’t even think to bring our problems to God.  It is only by the work of the Holy Spirit softening our hearts that we can even consider listening to our Heavenly Father.  And this is the stage that Jesus is addressing, can we go back to when we were eight only this time look up to God as our Heavenly Father, for He is truly the ultimate father.  Can we admit that we don’t really know much at all and that earthly wisdom has done little for our souls.

If we are to see the kingdom of heaven we must start as a child, knowing that God is our father and holds all the cards.  Avoiding the teenage years, which would be filled with spiritual pride, can we make the jump from child to mature Christian; humble, yet able to help others on their pilgrimage.  Even if we stay as children forever and just adore God we will certainly be in better shape than those who refuse to yield their will.

Heavenly Father,
Your wisdom, patience and mercy are beyond human measure and yet we are a proud, impatient people.  Please, help us to be humble and to adore you as a child adores his human father.  Let the lesson be gentle while you teach us that our pride is misplaced and as a boy grows to be a man, let us grow in spirit to glorify you as our Lord.  As Jesus died on the cross we must die to ourselves that our foolish pride can no longer block us from receiving your wisdom.  And just as Jesus was raised from the dead, let us live again for your glory, for it is in His great name that we pray.
Amen

Rant…phone-land

Sometimes you just have to whine…

How many times have you answered somebody when they were actually talking to somebody else on their blue-tooth?  Surely I’m not the only one… And at what point did it become more important to answer your phone than to talk to the person in the room or car with you?  If you comment they act like you are being rude but it is rude to prioritize a phone call over a person who is in your presence.  There are times when I get a call that is important and I will apologize to the person that is with me and either leave the room or ask them to leave so I can take the call but that is rare and we have voice mail for all the trivial calls.

By far the rudest thing is when somebody actually makes a call (or answers one that only rang in their Bluetooth) without even mentioning it.  You could be in the middle of a sentence when you realize they have mentally checked out of your presence and gone to phone-land where they think they are alone and nobody can hear them.  I know its best never to say anything bad about anyone but I have been caught wondering, where I’m not sure if the person I was just talking about is the one now on the other end of the phone and just heard me talking about them.

OK here’s what got me going on this in the first place…

I just saw a then-verses-now style ad showing a boombox verses an iPod and it brought back memories of hanging out with friends while listening to music play on a boombox.  Sure the iPod is great in that it’s not disturbing to others but that fact makes it an antisocial phenomenon and while certain aspects of technology are social, facebook comes to mind, as a culture we are spending less time together.

The Sin of Pride and the Church in hard times

I just read a very powerful post from Tim Challies (http://www.challies.com/archives/christian-living/on-being-weak.php) that really hits home on many levels.  I am guilty of the sin of pride.  As Tim says,

“I would rather suffer silently than humble myself and allow others to extend help to me…I refuse to give other people the opportunity to minister to me. I withhold a blessing from them…It seems to me that I must be as sinful … in refusing to allow them to bless and minister to me when I have need.”

Tim attributes this to his upbringing but I won’t claim the same.  God has given me gifts and I allow them to go my head.  I have often rushed to get a job done while nobody was around because I didn’t want to have to work with others; they might question the way I’m doing things or even make the job harder but by doing this I am depriving them the chance to use the gifts that God has given them.  I have gotten better at asking for help in some areas and here are a couple of examples of how God accomplished that in my life.

The first was in my professional life when I became a department manager and we would get a special request.  In most cases, it was by far faster and easier for me to just take care of it myself and let the staff do the normal day to day work.  However, that was no longer my job, my job as manager was to train the staff, which meant taking the time to show them how to do the special project.  Even though on the inside I was thinking, ‘I could have had this done already,’ I had to learn to be patient and encouraging, no small feat for somebody as prideful as I am.

The second was when our church was formed; we went from being a ministry inside a mega-church to independent and having our own building.  For the two years we were under the big church I had final say (under the pastor) about our stage layout and everything audio.  I would arrive first and have everything setup before the service, not as big of a job as it sounds as the mixing board had total recall so I just had to put the monitors out and plug the mics and instruments into the right places.  For a while, I even tried doing sound and then running up and playing guitar but I quickly learned that was too much and gave up playing until we got somebody who could baby-sit the board.  The test came when we moved into our own building and we suddenly had volunteers to run the AV department.  Even though I knew I could make it sound better (I have years of experience in professional audio) there were now people who were capable of making it work and wanted the job.  It wasn’t easy but I had to let go and let them use the gifts God had given them.  My pride still cries out, especially when they do things I don’t agree with but it is God’s church not mine and it is His glory and my pride has no place within His kingdom.

Part Two

Matthew 14:16 But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” (ESV)

With the current economic situation this is a chance for the church to live out what Jesus told his disciples.  It is all too common for the old song to be true “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”  It doesn’t cost much to make a little extra and share it with your neighbor, maybe we share in the suffering by eating pasta instead of steak so that we can provide a meal to a family that is struggling.   This is said first to myself as I don’t claim to do this nearly as often as I should and it does take planning.  Now, on the flip side…

2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. (ESV)

As I have seen those who are in perpetual need I will mention Tim’s comment (the emphasis is my own), “While it was not generally considered shameful to need or accept charity, it was considered most shameful to request it when it was not absolutely necessary.”  While this is also sin, if in doubt we should give first and let God sort it out in Heaven.

Heavenly Father,
I am grateful for the gifts you have given me but I must confess that I am guilty of pride.  I ask that you help me remember that I have nothing that you haven’t given me and that all these gifts are for your glory alone.  Please help me to share those gifts for your glory with those in need while allowing others to be blessed by using their gifts.  It is in Jesus’ name that I pray.
Amen

Speeding Verses Abstinence

The abortion debate is in full swing again but a root question for me is can legislation cause morality?  I know the answer is no; people do what they want; for example, they violate traffic laws that are created for everyone’s safety by speeding, not coming to a full stop at every stop sign, failing to signal when changing lanes and the worse, hitting the gas when the light turns yellow.  I’m guilty of a few of these in any given week (if not every day) because I make my own judgment calls as to what I think is safe at the moment and I’m pretty sure everybody else does the same thing.  Most of us don’t have any compelling reason or great urge to break these laws but we do so because we’ve weighed the time savings against the risks and think it’s worth the chance.  Every once in a while somebody loses that bet and gets caught or has a wreck.

Adolescent kids have a very strong urge to have sex and don’t yet have a fully developed sense of judgment, so will having laws make a difference?  Also, Christians don’t seem to stay married any better than the rest of society with those who marry young being most likely to divorce (does somebody know if the stats based on age of marriage are the same for Christians verses non-Christians) so having kids get married at the onset of adolescence is not the answer.

So the debate rages on, but, what if we took on spreading the Gospel with the same energy and passion used in the abortion debate? 

Heavenly Father,
We are a sinful people and you are a merciful God.  You show us mercy everyday and still we go on sinning.  Please give us the wisdom to know which battles to fight and the courage to spread the good news about your son, Jesus Christ, that we may bear good fruit in your kingdom.  We live in a fallen world and our salvation comes only from Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, and it is in his great name that we pray.
Amen

Job 1:13-22

Job 1:13-19 (ESV)
13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

A couple of years ago there were wildfires burning all over the island of Crete.  There are many hills there and as the fire was coming toward a village on one of those hills a man packed his family in their car and sent them away to safety while he stayed behind with the other men in the village to try to save their houses.  There was only one road leaving the village and the fire came and killed the man’s family while they were stuck in traffic trying to get to safety.  Can you imagine what this man must have gone through knowing that he sent his family to their death when he was trying to save them.  There is a saying on Crete, to “drink from the cup of sorrow.”  What a large cup it must be and how bitter.  This is essentially what happened to Job, he lost his children, his livestock, his servants, everything except his own house, his wife and the four servants that escaped to tell him.  Surely he would speak bitterly about all this but no.

Job 1:20-22 (ESV)
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

How many of us keep our composure this well when little things go wrong; I have said worse after stubbing my toe yet Job “fell on the ground and worshiped.”  He understood that everything he had was never his and really belonged to God all along.  “The LORD gave…” and there will come a time that the Lord will take everything away.

So, this was Job’s first test and a very harsh test at that.  What can we learn from Job?

Heavenly Father,
You are the creator of the heavens and the earth; and all belongs to you; there is nothing that we can give to you that isn’t already yours.  We are sinful, selfish people who believe that we have earned what we have, yet it is all given to us by you.  In your great mercy you provide the jobs we have and decide if we are to be weak or strong; sick or healthy; live or die.  Let us learn from your word and the example that you give us in Job to worship you in good times and bad.  For nothing on earth really matters, for in your mercy you have offered us life everlsting and our salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ.  And it is in His great name that we pray.
Amen