Be Good at What You Do

Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it;

Unless the LORD guards the city the watchman stays awake in vain.

Psalm 127:1

If He should set His heart on it, if He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, 

All flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

Job 34:14-15

I woke this morning at 04:11 with Psalm 127:1 on my conscience - forefront in my conscious mind and almost tangibly pressing into my being.  As I often do when I awake in that manner I ask the Lord what it's about.  This morning the answer was: "In your joy you run the risk of pridefully making this about you.  When anything is about you, it comes laden with anxiety and ultimately failure... with Me there is peace and genuine joy that is everlasting, a foundation that can't be shaken.  If this thing is to succeed it must be with the constant mindfulness that I have brought it about not only for your blessing, but the blessing of others."  With that it became a clear revelation that it wasn't just me that He was talking about.  As I worked through all that Holy Spirit revealed to me regarding the blessing that is my new employment position and the key individuals who have come together to make this mergered company work, He revealed as well that timeless caution that all of us run this risk on a daily basis.  Making it about you.

To be certain all of us have a set of skills, giftings if you will.  You are just good at something and you know it, others know it - and to be fair there is a righteous pride that should reside with that knowledge, because it glorifies God when we do well at what we do.  Some of us get to build a professional life around that, if we were wise enough to always make it possible we would all do so and the world would be changed as we lived out of the fullness of who God created us to be.  In my case I'm the Gas Man.  I run gas line and plumbing - a pipe fitter.  The whole thing is like the combination of a Sudoku and Tetris puzzle to me and I thrive under the challenges involved.  I enjoy it, although the conditions I'm forced into aren't always the most comfortable.  I'm willing to put up with the environment for the end results.  The things I do make people's life better.  I like that.  

And I am overwhelmed with joy that I have been blessed to bring my experiences and skills into concert with some others who are equally blessed and skilled and gifted and who also have myriad experiences in the things we do.  None of us by ourselves, as good as we are, have the opportunity to be what we can be together.  And only God could have brought this group together, whatever we might like to think to the contrary.

But this reminder not to make "it" about us is even more crucial as we walk into this season, Advent.  The coming of Christ the Messiah, the redeemer of humanity.  The fullness of God in helpless babe.  It slams home the depth of meaning behind everything we do in our daily walk, because "it" isn't about us, "it" is about the blessing that we can be to others through the gifts that God gives us.  When you get right down to it the breath in our nostrils is His, everything that follows should rightly glorify Him.  We are merely the stewards of what He has freely given.  So be you, be good at what you do - and understand that as you are mindful and intentional about these things you are glorifying God and blessing others whether they recognize it or not.

Let's go... be good at what you do, and watch as the Lord builds the house through your hands.  Trust Him to guard it as well. ;-)
 

I'd Like to be "Nice", but I Hate People

"Be angry, and do not sin..."

Psalm 4:4

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven."

Ecclesiastes 3:1

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth... grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

John 1:14, 17

"Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation... Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God."

2Corinthians5:18, 20

"till we all come... to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speak the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head - Christ..."

Ephesians 4:13-15

"If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men."
Romans 12:18

I have a friend, Corey Johnson,  who helped me resolve something in my life a while back.  I have a little saying I utter during my harder moments in daily life.  "I HATE PEOPLE..." (sometimes entire explanatory rants get tied onto the opening phrase, other times the phrase itself is enough).  Now anyone who knows me personally knows that me hating people is not true, you can't spend a day with me without seeing contrary evidence.  Corey knows me fairly well after working with me daily for about nine months as I mentored him in fabricating gas line systems for our employer.  We also share the Christian faith and the more important portion of my mentorship with my young brother was showing Corey how I live out Colossians 3:23-24 daily.  Few of us ever get this depth of opportunity to either "show the goods" or be "exposed as a fraud."  Well with me, what you see is pretty much what you get 24/7/365.  So I was wrestling with my own statement "I hate people."  How can I "hate" people when Jesus died for us when we didn't deserve it... that was love... and John 3:16... so on and so forth the internal dialogue would start up like a spinning top that wouldn't gutter out and wind down.

So when I posted on Facebook, quite a while back now, that I was having a string of "I hate people" kind of days it was Corey who called me on it publicly "Blaze you don't hate people, you actually love them and they don't know what to do with that."  That was the key to unlocking my door of confusion.  See, what gets me fired up is watching people live in dysfunction and brokenness instead of righteousness and reconciliation.  That's what I hate, brokenness.  In whole this fallen world and the myriad effects that sin has twisted our lives into becoming.  I got sick and tired of my ways and turned my life over to Jesus a long time ago - I live striving to cooperate with Him now and allowing Holy Spirit to transform me, renew me, and to love others through that lens instead.  But broken dysfunction confronts us everyday doesn't it?  It confronts us on a hundred fronts from blatant to subtle.  The evidence of my life contradicts the statement itself, which means whatever truth is in that statement has to be buried deeper.  What Corey helped me see is that me saying "I hate people..." is actually my way of sorting things out, acknowledging my fleshly reaction and then inventorying it to bring it into a healthy place. I learn from the interaction and noodle on how to bring that situation or relationship into reconciliation with what God intends it to be.  And this, quite frankly is love in action, disguised as cantankerousness.  I'm a grumpy old man, at least on the surface.

This is one side of the coin that I've been looking at today.

The other side of the coin is being "NICE" which was brought up by another brother in Christ, Jody Midgley, via Facebook this morning.  This man has an artistic eye with photography and a heart turned toward God that brings comfort and inspiration to thousands of people.  He is an example of living faith and a person who I could never imagine uttering "I HATE PEOPLE..."  Jody posted the following:

Recently I heard someone say they are, “tired of being nice”. This really got my thinking. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean they are going to be unpleasant? Unkind? Mean? Retaliatory? Bitter? Angry? Vindictive? Hard hearted?

By definitions, the word nice means: pleasing; agreeable; delightful. amiably pleasant; kind. Amiable - 1. having or showing pleasant, good-natured personal qualities; affable: an amiable disposition. 2. friendly; sociable: an amiable greeting; an amiable gathering.
3. agreeable; willing to accept the wishes, decisions, or suggestions of another or others.
4. Obsolete . lovable or lovely.

It is true that in many cases, people say this and it is temporary. They have a quick change of heart and realize that is not where they desire to head. But in other cases, words like that have a way of creating long lasting bitterness leading to a cold heart. I am certain that at one time in my life I have likely uttered words like that. Whether temporary or lengthy, those are words to repent of and rebuke out of my life.

Christ was nice. In fact, here, the purest form of nice was displayed by the Son of the Most High God. That form of nice I believe is called compassion! It loves, forgives, speaks the truth even if it may sting a little. The niceness of the risen Savior is our example! In His great compassion, He kept it to the point of death on a tree. But instead of that compassion staying dead, the Son rose to life by the power of God, defeating the enemy, defeating death, defeating sin, defeating ANYTHING that is opposed to the God of Creation!

All it takes is one person that we decide to not be nice to and we have sinned. Period. Oh, that we would be constantly reminded of this. The enemy of our souls will sneak that in. I have seen it work devastation in peoples lives. But we CAN OVERCOME! Those in CHRIST OVERCOME! We must remember that we are to be like the Son, expressing that compassion. Things may be tough but we can still be nice. Let us life up a prayer for others struggling with this. Let us show genuine compassion for souls!

Thought for the moment.

And while there are some points of agreement between us to be certain, here was my response:
 

Bear with me a minute here - this conversation has some linguistic nuances that can cause key misunderstandings 

One key thing would be that "niceness" is in the eye of the beholder.  To a thief it would be "nice" of me to leave my valuables unlocked, unguarded, openly displayed if possible - perhaps the key in my ignition so he/she could catch a ride.  To me his desire to steal my stuff is a multi-layered moral boundary violation that is anything but "nice."  To the men going into the strip club with the guys after work, it would be "nice" if you would keep it to yourself that you saw them and clearly recognized each other as you were driving by.   Revealing the truth would not be "nice" from their perspective, while not revealing the truth may be torture for you.  The alcoholic or drug addict thinks it would be "nice" of me to continue paying their bills so they and/or their family can avoid the harsh consequences of their wicked behavior - matter of fact if they got some Church in 'em they'll be happy to demonstrate soundly how it's my Christian duty to be "nice" and help them with their burdens.  You can see my point here. 

Today I'm living my life on a different plane, which is what Jesus did. I'm less worried about being "nice" than I am the eternal disposition of peoples souls and the temporal consequences of their actions.  Not being nice is part of what got Jesus crucified.  His glorious light reveals the darkness of my (our) souls and without historically having been there, it was our petty hurts and bitternesses, our apathetic ignorances of, and angers at God that flogged him for a standard we couldn't live up to, it was our mocking attitudes that formed the crown of thorns and pushed it down with cruelty so that it wouldn't fall off, it was our voices which called out "release Barabbas and crucify Him", and it was our hands that held Him down and drove the nails, and then stood the whole assembly up and dropped it cruelly into the hole and wedged it in so that we could display His punishment.  It was me that crucified my Lord and Savior, and yet He went willingly declaring that I was worth the price.  And that grace brings me to my knees weeping... and prostrate at the foot of the Cross when I'm wracked with exhaustion and can weep no more.  IMHO that's the confusion we face here today - confusing grace for niceness.  Grace desires a final reconciliation with God, niceness desires peace at any cost.

Jesus was full of grace and truth (John 1:14,17) - not "niceness".  When Jesus showed up preaching "REPENT" He wasn't being "nice" (IMHO) He was saying: "your ways are wrong and you know it and you live in the middle of the one nation God Himself singled out to be His heralds.  You were meant to draw ALL nations to walking in the full knowledge of the Living God.  Straighten your act up or you are going to face righteous judgment and hellfire."  When Jesus faced down the religiously serious folks he called them things like "brood of vipers; children of their father the devil; blind leaders of the blind..."  'Them's fightin' words' as the most country among us would say.  And that was Jesus's point, we are fighting an active spiritual battle, something the apostles belabored throughout the epistles, because they learned it with clarity from the Master.

Now yes, Jesus was known as a friend of sinners, did some pretty legalistically and ritualistically unacceptable things that enamored him to the downtrodden.  He could have healed a leper with a word, and yet He reached out and touched him - showing that when grace and truth are in full force that righteousness becomes contagious, rather than unrighteousness defiling Him.  Leaving us an example and a constant mystery of how we can possibly touch the lepers in our lives.  

What the modern church seems to do is fall into one of two categories: either so grace leaning that we essentially abdicate our stewardship of truth, or so truth leaning that we cannot give grace which leads to reconciliation.  Grace leaners are almost always "super nice".  Truth leaners are almost always legalistic and harsh.  Someone full of grace and truth can call a "spade a spade" and yet maintain a relationship with the person they just called out for unacceptable behavior.  Which brings us around to where you started my friend.

The person you heard saying they were "tired of being nice" most likely finally realized that someone in their life had repeatedly violated their reasonable moral boundary.  For the sake of clarity in these next sentences I'm going to give the "tired of being nice" person the name MEANY and their opponent the name JERK.  MEANY is striving for a healthy way to enforce a healthy boundary and thereby force JERK to take personal responsibility for themselves and their actions while simultaneously protecting innocent victims, not the least of which is MEANY themselves.  When MEANY achieves that illusive balance in their relationship with JERK there can be the opportunity for reconciliation, until then JERK may experience some gnashing of their teeth because the doormat isn't there to walk on any more.

In theological terminology MEANY (whether they realize it or not) is attempting to be a minister of reconciliation.  JERK needs to repent, confess with their mouth that they have sinned against MEANY, and ask forgiveness.  MEANY is then safely released to extend grace and reconcile that relationship - which should naturally lead to sharing the Gospel with JERK and reconciling JERK's eternity with God.  And with more of these grace and truth filled interactions in daily lives we would end up surrounded by a "nicer" world as the "peace" we were striving for in our efforts to be "nice" shows up in the only way it truly can - as a fruit of the Spirit working through a soul eternally reconciled to God.

Beloved, let's grow up into Christ and realize that we can't always be "nice," but we can always love others - and that quite frankly it's a battle that will necessitate drawn swords to defend the lives of the widows and orphans and innocents.  Let me close with some observations on "Just War" from a theological scholar of greater qualifications than myself:

...the Biblical authors were realistic, not idealistic, about the nature of man.  As you read the record of man's inhumanity to man described in the pages of Scripture, you must come to the conclusion that man is sinful, violent, and selfish.  Nothing will ever change this fact until Christ returns.  Until then, there will be rape, murder, theft, and war.  Until then, nations will fight nations over real estate, wealth, and energy resources.  Governments will have to use force in order to keep violent criminals in place.  Moral persuasion will not work as long as evil men walk on the earth.

...let us be thankful that God does not sit idly by while Satan violently destroys the innocent.  God's angelic armies do not use the techniques of nonresistance in their fight against Satan.  Instead, God's army will forcefully cast them out of heaven at the final battle.  If pacifism does not work in heaven, neither will it work on earth.

Robert A. Morey - "When is it Right to Fight?"  (c)1985

The coin I've been looking at today is RECONCILIATION.  We are called to be ministers of reconciliation, all of us who accept Christ as our Lord and Savior have that calling.  That may mean we can't be "nice" but must instead meet the enemy on their chosen battlefield where we begin by speaking the truth in love and realize that we are only responsible for our part, that reconciliation and peace may not be possible because of decisions the other person makes.

They're NOT Prodigals, Just Leaving

 I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing...  By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be My disciples.  John 15:5 & 8

 

I read an article this morning posted by Christianity Today regarding the Barna group research which shows the 'Millenials' leaving the formal Church.  First of all the article was titled as 'Prodigals...' which is wrong.  Prodigal means wastefully extravagant or profligately generous, not 'leaving or lost'.  The title tweaked me, because the subject matter is something I've been focusing on for well over a decade, before the Millenials were even given their pigeon hole niche title of categorization.  And the problem isn't just one generation, we've been leaking sincere believers and turning away hungry seekers for a long time.

Here's my response to the post itself:   Young people aren't seeing the fruit and power that Scripture promises will resullt from living a faith life, they see fire insurance Salvation making ourselves comfortable and withdrawing from the culture - which isn't snatching people from the flames. If traditionalists can't refute the accusation with an evidence filled life then they'll keep watching as they leave.

Here's a  lengthier response of some of the stuff stirred in my heart:

You want to know why they’re leaving?  Here’s a nutshell review IMHO:

They are leaving because they are not seeing the fruit and power filled life that Jesus says would be demonstrated in His followers lives as they abide in Him. 

Some of us who have stayed have been excoriated, verbally flayed by those we’ve attempted to witness to because of the business practices of those who sit in the pew with us on Sunday morning.  The “Christian” businessman tells me “that’s Church, but this is business.”  Hogwash.  You have one life without dichotomy, you either believe, abide and show fruit, or you were not purchased with the price of Christ’s blood on the Cross of Calvary.

They are seeing fire insurance Salvation that is making itself comfortable here and now while withdrawing from the culture.  Jesus was the epitome of “God is love” and yet found Himself crucified, while we ask WWJD and think that always looks like “being nice.”

They are reading and hearing sermons about “Truth” and then watching as we live our lives as if “that’s your truth, but mine is different” – or hearing us say: “yes, but…”  Whatever follows the word ‘but’ is what you truly believe.

They need to see the powerful impact of a sacrificial life that costs believers something – rather than a culturally successful life that has added Church culture afterward, almost as a second thought or an add-on.

They aren’t seeing men that repent and apologize and strive to make righteous relationships and sacrificial submission to their family; or women with joy who thrive so fully it would take a minute to realize they live their lives in submission to Christ and their husband.  Wait… what?

They need to see the overcoming power of a believer walking on the stormy waters of life to reach the boat that holds the people we were meant to impact most profoundly – rather than seeing them blithely wave from the shore and cite the myriad sad reasons it’ll never work.  Or worse, the man who runs to the other end of the country after wreaking havoc on his home field, given by God into that man’s stewardship.  The grass isn’t greener on the other side and it still has to be watered and mowed… and you left a behind a yard that will now be overcome by weeds even if it turns out to a parched ground of hateful blistering heat, weeds still grow even in drought conditions.

They need to see believers who are truly content to walk where Jesus has opened the doors for them, content to serve in everything they do, confident to speak the truth in love and to right daily injustices where they are – which may be somewhere that others never expected to find you.  It likely won’t fit the approved 5 and 10 year plans that success minded mentors drilled you to fulfill.

In the model that A.B. Simpson recognized as the foundational premise of what became the Christian and Missionary Alliance, he spent his life preaching “The Fourfold Gospel” which revealed God’s eternal plan of reconciliation to be expounded fully in Jesus Christ as our Savior, our Sanctifier, our Healer, and our Coming King.  The reason there is a mass exodus from the Church isn’t because it’s not true, but because people are tired of seeing people get ‘saved’ and then sit around and wait for their ‘Coming King.’  If we believe, then the dash that is our life here and now is lived in that Sanctification and Healing nature of Christ.  They are leaving because we aren’t living it, and those of us who are living it are an irritant in many cases because we show up dusty and messy and worn out with stories to tell that leave people shaking their heads that we could see God in that event we just related.

We are going to see a revival, and it’s going to be disappointingly powerful to most of the Church when it comes.  It won’t come with man’s denominational rules, with theologically advanced training and quibbling about the doctrines of man, but in Power and Might that rocks the world and blows away the chaff to feed clean grain to a starving world.  Most of what we call the Church today is just that, chaff.

The Pottery We Make

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Genesis 1:27

No one has ever seen God.  But the unique One, who is Himself God, is near to to the Father's heart, He has revealed God to us.  John 1:18 (NLT)

...God spoke many times and in many ways...and now in the final days, He has spoken to us through His Son...  The Son expresses the very character of God...  Hebrews 1:1-3 (NLT)

...His Son... the express image of His person... Hebrews 1:2-3

I'm walking through C.S. Lewis's Problem of Pain .  I made this choice recently for several reasons, but perhaps none more powerful than the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon.  There are more powerful personal reasons, greater motivations or concerns for me now that I have begun this reading, but the genesis for the choice lay in the Boston Marathon Bombings and the subsequent fall out in several forums where trolling atheists openly blamed God or 'proved, once again' that He doesn't care if He does exist.

I actually entered the dialogue, which I rarely do.  Most of the antagonistic responses to my contributions weren't worthy of my further response - though my heart broke for the people behind the words.  One response directly to one of my posts intrigued me, and so after receiving notices of the responses to my contributions I scrolled through the commentary and followed the revealed character of the persons antagonizing myself and others.  One troll revealed a character worthy, perhaps ready and capable to receive a reasoned response.  His/Her dialogue with another Christian actually made the decision for me, and I responded.  The dialogue ended with my statement that their inability to reconcile an omnipotent (all powerful) God with the free will choices of humanity was poorly framed on their part - because if they would reason it through from a different direction they would force themselves to see that all the answers to all the questions they claimed to have in this life were actually answered by the conundrum of Free Will.

I have no misconceptions about who is responsible for the tragedies which occurred, I in no way blame God for the evil actions of willfully, evilly deceived humans.  Likewise I don't blame Islam or Socialists or any other defined or vague belief system.  Nor is my focus today to explain the tangents (which I actually understand) they went down and the assumptions they made in choosing their actions.  I don't blame God, nor do I blithely release the responsible parties by blaming the Devil who actively encouraged them and nurtured the hatreds which lead them to their step by step choices.  My response to the worthy troll that day was in regards to the misconceptions an angry world holds in regards to Free Will, which, like it or not, leads us directly into the problem of pain in this world.

I can only touch on one small piece of this issue here today, much as I would like to write my own book.

Fathers.  We the created, unfortunately mold God into their image.

Read that again: We the created, unfortunately mold God into the image of earthly human fathers.

C.S. Lewis touches on this as he tries to walk us through defining Divine Goodness as compared to our conceptions of Good and Evil:

A father half apologetic for having brought his son into the world, afraid to restrain him lest he should interfere with his independence of mind, is a most misleading symbol of the Divine Fatherhood. 

Unfortunately that quote defines far too many modern parents today.  And those of us who don't always fit that easy going "they're just kids" mold are looked at with confusions that are never given words.  Parenting which can NEVER exhale and say "they're just kids" are an extreme of the pendulum swing to avoid as well.

Another point Lewis makes in these regards is likewise a prevalent misconception of who God is:

By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right.  And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness - the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy.  What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'what does it matter so long as they are contented?'  We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in Heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves', and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all'.  Not many people would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds.

If we could speak to each other today I would say: "actually Mr. Lewis even though you wrote this sometime around 1940, many of us today HAVE precisely formulated our theology of God in those terms.  We conceive and accept only a God that wants everyone happy (as we or they define happiness)."

Insert United States Constitution and the Rule of Law debate here, or legalized abortion debate here, or Occupy movement, or marriage equality debate, or NAMBLA's normalization of pedophilia debate here.  If there's some controversial subject wrapped around the heart of Social Justice that really lights your fires, insert it here, because the sides of the debate are the same in all of them: God's definition of happiness versus humanity's definition.  We define happiness differently than God.  And so we make ourselves God.  We buy wholly the lie in Genesis 3:5 that we "will be like God."  At some level in every debate we find a side looking wholly into the face of God, or wholly into the face of humanity (who can at their very best be reflections of God's goodness) as the solutions.  God alone is the definition of right, and just, and good, and peace, and happiness.  But to point this out and hold to it often puts friends who agree there is a problem at loggerheads.  I experienced that unfortunate discovery in the Occupy discussions when I held that only God could bring the justice they sought, while they were petitioning man.

Back to my point here.

Our own angers and distorted misconceptions about God far too often come from our own fathers and their interactions with us.  We, with unspoken reasoning, reveal by our actions our unchallenged assumption that If our earthly father abused or abandoned us, will not God do the same?  It becomes an unfortunate idolatry where we place God on the potter's wheel and make Him in man's image.  I would say all of us are guilty of this to some extent, even with good fathers.

Edith Schaeffer, in her book A Way of Seeing says:

It is all backwards when a torn pattern - a spoiled pattern - is followed and handed down year after year, and people forget what the original pattern was like.

John Sheasby, a South African evangelist and teacher of the Christian faith engages this in his book The Birthright with:

When you think of your earthly father's presence, do the words "fullness of joy" come to mind?  How about when you think of your heavenly Father?  If they don't, you have a distorted picture of Him - 'a torn pattern,' to use Edith Schaeffer's words.  One of the reasons Jesus came to this earth was to restore that torn photograph to its original condition...  Everywhere Jesus went He left behind pictures of the Father.  Pictures of His goodness.  Pictures of His compassion.  Pictures of His joy.

And so I hear the author of Hebrews reminding us:

...we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. 2:1

And Paul telling Timothy and the rest of us that drifting away leads to shipwreck (1Tim1:19)

When Jerry Springer Leaves the Building

"Elvis has left the building..."  a phrase used repeatedly by emcees to calm the fanaticism surrounding the charismatic celebrity of famous popular musician Elvis Presley.  He's gone, out the back door surrounded by guards or police - you aren't going to get another encore, no approaching him for autographs or anything else - he's gone.

My wife Shonda and I just finished a long walk together with the dog in tow, or towing us on occasion, anchoring us on others.  Husband and wife time conversing about life together.  One of the things we revisited is her reactions to my reactions.

They happen, reactions that is.  Based on your personality type and numerous other developmental factors; as well as environmental considerations - you and I are wired to react to life events in certain ways.  My immediate reactions when I'm in the safety and shelter of my own home, or secure among life long friends who have seen me through all my hypocrisy and still choose to love me, are less restricted than say, if I'm standing in front of my boss or a customer or in the middle of a public place surrounded by strangers.  Well my boss probably falls in the less restrictive category actually, I've been known to use our relationship as a safe harbor more often than not.

Reactions happen like a plate hitting the floor if you let go, but extroverts and introverts display different outward signs and have somewhat different internal dialogues about the events.  We process them differently.  The results of whether the plate shatters or survives might be part of that analogy as well, I shatter china plates and reach for the gravy urn next, my wife tends to drop Corelle plates which 'thud' and wobble and almost never break against the linoleum.  An extroverted highly reactive personality such as mine is described by those who study these things as a "reactor" personality - a volcano which erupts and then subsides when the pressure is vented.  I'd tell you what the more introverted side of that personality scale is if I could recall - but I can't recall it - and I find that very revealing about myself.  I'm so fascinated and convicted with my own lava flow I never internalized the other side of the matrix during the philosophy classes where we went through these things.  Matter of fact I don't recall the rest of the matrix factors either, remembering the relief at a glimpse of understanding myself, and the immediate conviction of what lava does to those in its path - I vaguely remember zoning out for a significant portion of that class time the day we had that discussion.  I'm likely to end up out in the garage tonight pulling my Asbury College binder for Philosophy 101 just to put to death this nagging failure of selfishness.  Then again... that's an awful lot like work.

All of that to say this: my wife often cringes at my initial reactions to things, and does things that only introverts do with their reactions.  I'd give some analogy but it would be internalized with negative connotations most likely and then I'd be on the couch not sleeping well... after she says I need to be more analogy driven in my explanations.  I'm not falling for that this time...

So in our conversation today I pointed out that often she stays metaphorically cramped up in a cringing position waiting for a blow that never comes.  I react (or coworkers, peers, subordinates, friends, bosses react) about a situation (not even AT her or ABOUT her), just AT a situation while she's nearby and she reacts in her own way with its own results. 

I can't speak to everyone else's actions, but I react, I process, I act constructively, and then I abide.  But the abiding isn't dramatic, and therefore much less noticeable.  Being irritable and disgruntled the morning I pay bills is what sticks in her mind, abiding in the peace of knowing all our needs have been met and that we have enough doesn't even cross her radar.  The pruning I experience in not being able to provide all our wants - that flies completely below the coverage level of radar.  None of this is really about her or me or the way we process, it's about the work God is quietly trying to do in our lives and in the spheres of this life with which we intersect.

Jesus said in John 15 that we should "abide" in Him as the true vine.  No drama.  But fruitful.  Matter of fact, He says it's the only way to bear fruit.  He says that part of that process is likely going to involve pruning to clear out the dead branches and enable the vine to support fruitful production.  Abiding.  So do I need to react less and abide more, probably.  Is this conversation while we walk the dog today part of God's pruning process, probably.  Without condemnation toward my wife or myself I am able to say with Paul:

...by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain...
1Corinthians15:10

So while our culture sets the television programming in the emergency department waiting room to Jerry Springer, we're called to abide.  But it's just not as entertaining or noticeable, so regardless of our personality type we are likely to hang around in disbelief or a stubborn refusal to leave, even after the janitor walks by and turns off the television and makes it clear that Jerry Springer has left the building.

Fire From Heaven

While he was still speaking, another also came 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!"
Job 1:16

I am at the point in my Bible reading cycle where I'm entering Job again.  In what seems a series of divine Godincidences the topics of deception and fighting the literal devil revealed in Scripture has come up in numerous conversations lately.  Just recently a Facebook friend and brother in Christ, Jody Midgley, specifically posted part of a 40 day series wherein he discussed battling the fiend.  My comment on that post was that the biggest trouble I have when I'm walking people through how to recognize the devil's schemes is that we are deceived into expecting him to appear in a red cat suit with a tail and pitch fork when Scripture warns us that he appears as an 'angel of light' (2Cor11:14).

I thought of that brief commentary and similar conversations I've had this morning when I read Job chapter 1.  We know from the verses earlier in the chapter that the devil has been given permission to attack Job, short of his personal body.  The characters experiencing the events do not.  Thus, a servant comes running from one of the calamitous events described and proclaims "The fire of God..."

But was it?  In all appearances it seemed to be just that.  But it wasn't.  Except it looked like it, right?  I mean how are the characters experiencing the event to know - they weren't standing around the Throne Room listening in on the conversation when it happened.  So give the credit (go ahead and finish the thought of where this really goes in our hearts, the BLAME) to God right?  Well in this case we know that's wrong.  God didn't do it, even though He allowed it.  That's a very important distinction.  When tragedy strikes it is no longer a question of whether it was ALLOWED to happen, that's now a moot point, an established fact - the vulgar term is SHIT HAPPENS.  One of my more mature (behaviorally, not chronologically) ministerial associates, Joe White, wrote recently "Manure Occureth".

My sound faith in God recognizes that although my life is in His hands, my steps are ordered by His Word, my path is set out under His direction, that calamity strikes.  In those moments I have reflexively retrained my natural reaction to be withdrawal from emotion - to take a step back and force myself into objectivity.  The smell of burning wool and charred flesh is still in my nose, I'm breathless from the sprint away from ground zero, shaking from the adrenaline, wondering why I survived, why me... and those signs serve to suddenly clarify my potential danger of running headlong into another self inflicted disaster after having been at the scene of a life shaking event.

Step back.  Breathe.  Evaluate.  What just happened?  Destruction.  Of what? An idol I'd established in my life?  No - then what?  Innocents and valuable livestock.  People doing their job, they clocked in this morning to tend the flock which was faring well this season.  Were they evil?  No more than any of us really, Bubba (I know it's not a Biblical name) was the best sort of people you'd ever want to know, give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.  So now we've seen rampant supernatural destruction it is next to impossible to fully wrap our mind around, and our heart is caught up in a maelstrom of potential devastation and bitter reaction that will drown us in life destroying hatred of God.  C.S. Lewis called it "The Problem of Pain."

In my evaluation I've eliminated God as the culprit and simultaneously pinned the tail on the Devil because I know that it is the Thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  God gave us original life, and has willingly walked with us to give us new life, life more abundant (John 10:10).  Now, am I suddenly enlightened as to the purpose of my pain?  Rarely.  Hardly ever in fact.  Frequently I'm able to look back and see how He redeemed that destruction.  Occasionally I get to see some reasoning unfold in days rather than years.  Most often however, I'm just left in a calmer place knowing that I don't know what just happened or why, but that like Job, I can trust God.

And he said:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there.  The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."
In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.
Job 1:21-22

One of my points in this today is best summed up by a statement made by Pastor Steve Elliott: "A disaster of Biblical proportions does not make it Biblical in character."

Just because it looks like the "Fire of God" doesn't make it so.  We do better to ascertain the character reflected in the events before we jump to an unwarranted conclusion.  Often what people want to blame God for is nothing more than the inherent consequences of sin that never needs the active judgment of God.

To illuminate this struggle of acceptance and sorting through events we often face in our daily life I want to share something I read recently in Jonathan Cahn's book The Harbinger:

[we're stepping into a conversation between the two main characters, the Prophet and Nouriel regarding 9/11/2001, Nouriel struggling to wrap his mind around the implications]

Nouriel: Was God behind it?

Prophet: Man was behind it, he answered.  Evil men were behind it.  Up to that point they had been restrained...

Nouriel: It's hard to receive...but it's a hard... For what follows?  I don't know.  But even to say, 'God allowed it to happen'...

 Prophet: It happened, Nouriel.  Therefore it had to have been allowed to happen.  That's not the question.  Rather the only question is whether it was allowed to happen for no reason or whether there was, within it, a redemptive purpose.

Nouriel:  On 9/11 people were asking, 'Where was God?'

Prophet: 'Where was God?' he said, as if surprised by the question.  We drove Him out of our schools, out of our government, out of our media, out of our culture, out of our public square.  We drove Him out of our national life, and then we ask, 'Where is God?'

Nouriel:  Then He wasn't there?

Prophet:  Still, He was there.  He was there with those who lost their loved ones and is still there to heal the broken and comfort those who mourn.  He was there with those who gave their lives so others could live, shadows of Him.  And He was there, as well, with all the countless others who would have perished that day if not for the countless turns of details and events that saved them.  And for those who perished... those who were with God in life are now with Him in eternity.  For these, it was not a day of national calamity but of release.  He was with them and is with them.

Hard words that bear thinking about.

In what is an echo of an Andy Andrews book entitled How Do You Kill 11 Million People? with the poignant subtitle Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think I want to close sharing an article I just read this morning which finishes out the tap on the shoulder I received this morning to write this (emphases of paragraph and final line mine):

March 21, 2013

The Devil in Disguise

By Earl Tilford

3/21/2013

After Sunday’s airing of Home Box Office’s series “The Bible,” controversy erupted over the depiction of Satan. Series producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey denied any purposeful resemblance to President Barack Obama noting Moroccan actor Mehdi Ouazaani often plays dark figures. Silver screen satanic characters have taken many forms, from horned monsters to the slick New York lawyer played by Al Pacino in “The Devil’s Advocate.” In Genesis, Satan appeared to Eve as a crafty serpent. It wasn’t until after Satan took serpentine form that God took away the creature’s legs, condemning all snakes, from innocent garter snakes to deadly rattlers, to life on their bellies.

Arguably, the satanic character in the HBO series only superficially resembles our president. The depiction also is Biblically and theologically inaccurate because evil usually comes to us disguised as good. Satan sold Eve on the virtues of nibbling the forbidden fruit, insisting God would never punish her. The innocent Eve couldn’t have recognized evil since she had not yet broken the one commandment God gave her and Adam. Had Satan been honest with Eve, it would have taken a “blonde moment” of apocalyptic dimensions to buy into the pains of childbirth, loss of a son to sibling murder, tooth decay, a likely painful death followed by a return to dust. The serpent promised a deeper understanding of life’s mysteries, theretofore known only to God, Satan and other angelic creatures.

Evil exists. Pure, unadulterated evil recently visited a nearby Tuscaloosa neighborhood where an unknown assailant butchered a 73-year old female friend of mine. Heartbroken, I listened at her memorial service while the pastor dwelt on the Psalmist’s poetic assurance that we need not fear evil while in the valley of death because a loving God will be there with us. Some years ago, in the midst of that valley, I asked “God, where were you when my child died?” The response I received, “The same place I was when my son died,” brought serenity and hope without fully satisfying the “why?” Presumably a complete answer awaits me in eternity.

Most of the time, evil isn’t as clearly apparent as my friend’s ax wielding killer must have been during her terrifying last moments. The most recognizable modern personification of evil is Adolf Hitler. Third Reich propaganda films like “Triumph of the Will” clearly show millions of Germans adoring the Fuhrer whose seductive message blamed their sufferings on the Versailles Treaty, evil intent of Bolsheviks, and insidious machinations of Jews at home and abroad. In 1933, had Hitler promised, “Follow me and within 12 years your cities will be rubble, 19,000,000 of you will be dead, our nation divided and occupied by foreign armies, your national honor trashed, and my name along with this regime will become synonymous with evil,” I doubt the people who gave us Beethoven, Bach, Einstein and Goethe would have yelled, “Sieg Heil! Sign me up!”

The essence of Biblical evil is man usurping God’s providence. God didn’t create us evil. He did, however, allow free will and then, when humanity turned away to pursue its own ideas of what is good, just and righteous, God let us be who and what we are with deadly results. Words matter.

On January 20, 1942, 15 German officials, met at the Berlin resort of Wannsee where, over brunch, they decided to exterminate and incinerate Europe’s 12,000,000 Jews. If all went according to plan, the fully developed process would take less than a year. Indeed, from January 1942 to April 1945, the German work camp system killed 12,000,000 people, half of them Jews. Nazis used euphemisms like “evacuation” for “extermination” and “medical re-socialization” for “sterilization.” Their final solution was mass murder.

The Wannsee attendees didn’t resemble monsters. Conference chair, SS Lt. Gen. Reinhardt Heydrich, who would soon earn the title “Butcher of Prague,” also was a concert violinist and Olympic gold medal fencer. Most of the attendees—secondary officials and bureaucrats—were lawyers…family men. Their evil was not in their monstrosity but in their banality. Worse, they were convinced history would vindicate and honor their actions.

Like the Satan in the Garden, evil deceives with words. A current TV ad depicts a brother conceding his gay sibling’s right to be as happy in same-sex marriage as he is with his wife. Many liberal Christians advocate a plethora of “social justice” issues from pro-choice and gay marriage, to open immigration. Ironically, in Biblical Greek—the language of the New Testament—the words “righteousness” and “justice” are identical. God’s justice flows from inexorable righteousness while social justice reflects human values. Therein lies the rub. Evil is not how we play Satan, but how Satan plays us.

Taking What You Like... Leaving the Rest

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Hebrews 12:12-13 (emphases mine)

In my conversations with people something of my faith always comes out in some fashion.  I credit the skill in my work to God - it is clearly evident to me that He put me in some very key places to learn some things that few others in my field (even many who have decades more experience) have been exposed to.  I credit my work ethic to Him because I frequently remind myself of Colossians 3:23-24 and that it is actually Jesus Christ whom I work for and answer to.  That encourages some, offends others.  It builds a rapport with some, sets others to thinking they might be able to take advantage of what they see as my naivete (this second crowd always end up sorely disabused, but it's sadly humorous to watch them try).  I just really strive to do the right thing for all the parties involved.  I fail sometimes to be certain, and that motivates me to do better when faced with the same situation again.

The place where I'm most blessed in my relations with others is to share bits and pieces of healing.  I genuinely want holistic wellness for people, and because I've worked to obtain that for myself over the last 23 years especially, I know of whence I speak when I choose to speak.  Some people have watched from a distance and eventually approached me in their hard times asking what they know will come with true empathy, but possibly hard answers.  That empathy earns me the right to the conversation, but often what I find is that the hard answers often turn the suffering person away - not from me, but from their solution.  They are far too often the victim of their own circumstances, reaping what they've sown - and the answers I share from my experience just don't fit their bill.  Some try for a minute, and taste and see that the Lord is good, and then with the least bit of relief they resume their former ways of destruction thinking that the storm has passed and therefore they can step out from under the Rock.

The main point of this blog this morning is this: If you want the HEALING for some area of your life, you have got to divorce your thinking from doing the same things you've always done and expecting different results.  Notice I wrote THINKING.  It starts there and leads to actions.

Notice in the two verses I opened with that there is a different order of events.

1. We have suffered some injury - there is a part of our life not working, it's lame
2. So we strengthen that member - that part that is injured needs strengthening
3. We do this by making straight paths - paths clear and separated from the clutter that lead to the injury in the first place
4. We experience healing.

Far too often we want #4 without any more than acknowledging #1.

Without #2 and #3 however there can be no #4.

Without #2 and #3 what's going to happen instead?  We're going to permanently dislocate that injured member of our body.  We are going to push our ways of doing things to the point that we destroy everything that that member could have done for us for years to come.

This is the negative corollary to "taking what you like and leaving the rest."  We say we want the healing, but not the work of obtaining it.  We want the blessing of God without the work of walking with God in transparency.  We want the paycheck without the work.  We want the fruit without planting a tree.  We want the blessings without the blessor.  The author of Hebrews had a couple things to say in this same chapter about that leading right in to the verses I opened with:

"It is for discipline that you have to endure."
"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
Hebrews 12:7a & 11 (ESV) (emphasis mine)

Something I've found over the years is that some Christians who know no better have some kind of predisposition against 12 Step programs or 'Self Help' approaches to facing horrible issues of brokenness or victimization - partly because they are ignorant of the origins of AA and Al-Anon and all the subsequent programs that grew out of those experiences.  They fearfully hear "a God of your understanding" and walk out of what must be a new age gathering.  They frequently also walk out on their healing.  They are unwilling to admit that they themselves will never fully 'understand God' until they are with Him and see Him as He is.  They are facing something sordid in their life such as an addiction, or a loved one with an addiction, or the memories of horrible abuse and rather than being able to sit in a room with others walking through those same experiences they return to a congregation who can't help them, or won't help them, or worse - judge them without any shred of understanding or empathy.  So they walk through the rest of their "blessed" Christian walk with a dislocated member that the Church should have helped them heal but couldn't and wouldn't.

We rarely do well with the healing stream of counseling in the Church, mainly, in my disgruntled opinion, because we have mostly failed to truly face our own personal sins and realize how extravagant and costly is the grace of God which healeth thee.  We mainly judge wrongly in relation to the less respectable victims of sin because we have frequently obtained fire insurance salvation without a clarion experience of repentance, therefore we have no real counseling to give from our personal experience because we were 'good people' before we got saved - just not quite 'good enough' so we needed Jesus.  Hogwash and fudderbuddle.  Scripture tells a different story about every one of us - there is only one who is good and that is God, He is the very definition of good and the measure to which we cannot attain.  In His grace and mercy He made a way in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.  The sinless suffered for the sinful, and by His stripes we are healed.  But we're unlikely to need that remedy so long as we've excused and justified ourselves in our own eyes - by making ourselves out to be victims without recourse.  We may very well have been victimized at points in our life, but there is a healing recourse to live as overcoming survivors.

So I've known far more people who have a vibrant Christian walk because they have been driven to their knees in humble submission to life circumstances, admitted that they can't do it on their own, turned their lives over to the care of God, and then face their demons down and make straight paths for their feet.  When they've been somewhat strengthened and are walking in healing, they extend hands to other victims along their path and sometimes those hands are grasped, sometimes smacked away.

There are a couple things I've seen in reaction to people who obtain healing outside of the Church, a bitter judgmental jealousy of those within the Church who have failed to attain anything resembling healing leading to the "abundant joyful life".  And a hardening of the healed person's heart in relation to the Church, because part of keeping their paths clean is to stay away from toxic people who have God in a box and can lay it all out with every answer to every question.  It is a failure on the part of the Church to understand that God makes His rain to fall on the evil and the good, the just and the unjust, the Jew and the Gentile.  He will pour out His Spirit where He wills, and healing will follow that stream wherever it flows (Ezekiel 47:9).  And nothing makes a good religious person madder than a healed person Jesus brought through the back door - because they don't want it to be about Him, they want it to be about them, their knowledge, their understanding, their works, their rule keeping, their reasoning.  They don't want anything to do with Ecclesiastes 11:5:

As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything

(emphasis mine)

And the healed person needs to understand that we are in the walk together whether we like it or not, that if you've reached a true experience and understanding of who God has revealed Himself to be, you must walk with others in that Light and that ultimately it's not just about healing from an addiction or abusive life experiences at the hands of some addicted relative, it's about God's glory revealed in you.  It's about making God's name famous as some translations have it.  It's about bringing the 'good' people in the pew next to you along for the true experience of repentance and walking in newness of life - because maybe God will use your humble story of healing to convict that good religious person and sound the clarion call of repentance in their life.  But not if you aren't sitting in the pew for whatever excuse you've justified in your mind.

In closing I will say that one thing is true of every vibrantly healed life I've ever known in the Church or in a 12 step recovery program: although they took one thing they liked at a time, they understood that they would not be able to leave the rest forever.  And as the opportunity presented itself they didn't just take the small tastes of peaceful healing for granted, but picked up the other tools God generously gave them and learned where the disciplined application of those principles would continue making straight paths so that they could be healed.

"You'll Never Amount to Anything"

How's that for a picker upper?  Not much for winning friends and influencing people as Dale Carnegie would say.  Sounds something more along the lines of kicking you when you're already down.  A friend put off by the Church and their unreasoning attitude in some areas recently told me :

I don't need anyone beating me up about my struggles, I do well enough on my own. What I'm looking for is a gentle church where we go and praise God, and the pastor is honest about his own transgressions

I also don't want to hear about what's wrong over and over again. Tell me what's right. I have been pretty good at finding wrong

We've all heard these messages spoken and unspoken about how horrible we are and worthless.

Daily, minute by minute we hear messages from those around us, or from our own negative self talk, explicitly and implicitly.  We take far too many of them to heart in spiritual agreement with the enemy of our souls.  We are told these hurtful lies like the title of this blog by a typically angry world of people whose main goal is to drag you down to wallow in the mire with them.  Misery loves company as the saying goes.

I picked this thread up a couple days ago in reaction to a Charles Stanley devotional reading.  The title of the reading is Valued by God from February 5 of his "God's Way Day by Day" devotional reader.  Yeah I'm a few days behind, so what?  It's still good stuff.

The reading opens with Ephesians 2:10:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I'm good so far.

Then Charles goes on to write the following:

I have met a number of people through the years who have been told from their childhood, "You'll never amount to anything."  What a terrible message regarding a person's worthiness or value.

The truth of God is what that person needs to hear!  God says you do amount to something.  You are so valuable that God desires to live with you forever.  He desires to transform your sin nature into the very nature of Jesus Christ.  He has a plan and purpose for your life, and He desires to help you fulfill that plan and purpose by giving you the Holy Spirit.

That's when I look back at the verse and wonder whether we can truly make that context apply to everyone for the sake of their self esteem.  My initial thoughts are running along the lines of:  Paul is writing this letter to the Ephesians and verse 10 follows 8 and 9 which are among the best known and most memorized verses about Salvation - so has Dr. Stanley stepped out a touch further than he should have here?

It took me a few days to make searching the context happen.  I mean don't get me wrong, I love everything I've read by Charles Stanley over the years, but alarm bells ring in my mind when anyone touches on self esteem issues.  Because so often self esteem is about SELF.  Exalting humanity to a throne that is not in submission to a power greater than themselves.  Telling someone that they're okay, even if they aren't.  Telling them that whatever they want to do is all right, even when it's not.  Telling them that all roads lead to God, which they don't.  Yes, sincere seekers will always find the right road, but no, all roads do not lead to eternal bliss or reconciliation with our eternal Creator.  So no one gets a pass with me on a statement about self esteem issues, no one.  The lies are so subtle and they sound soooo good that we're inclined to swallow them hook, line, and sinker.  Only to find that we've been caught and reeled in to our death on the enemy of our soul's table.  I'm not into death these days, not for anyone.  Even my pro-gun, pro - 2nd Amendment stance is about life (the defense of innocent life), which is another conversation for another time.

So here's where I landed this morning after starting in Ephesians 1 and reading carefully through 2:13.  Charles Stanley is right, even in regards to non-believers.  We were knit together in our mother's womb.  We breathe the very breath of life breathed into our nostrils from the Creator of all life.  We're created in His image, for all that that means when we say it; and for more than we understand when we say it.

We can't say we truly believe these other things about God and then say someone is worthless.  Now the honest objective evaluation of their life course and decisions may lead us right up to that conclusion, but calling them 'worthless' is not the "right judgment" that Jesus instructs us to make.  Read that last phrase again.  Yes Jesus tells us to "judge not lest ye be judged" but He also tells us to "make a righteous judgment" (work through Matthew 7:1 and John 7:24 for yourselves and you'll come out with a different perspective on the whole judgment thing - throw in Proverbs 20:11 for good measure).  So we're left instead with the conclusion that they do have worth and value, and that they've chosen not to walk in fullness of life.  How do we help them, or at least encourage them to walk in abundance, in fullness of who they were created to be?  There are as many answers to that as there are people on the earth - and not all of the answers look like intuitively kind answers because they involve discipline and consequences.  But understanding that people are worth it, that they have an inherent worth whether we like them or not - that's the good stuff.

That's a perspective changer for how we deal with others in sincere love.  Their value is rooted in their creation by a loving Creator and we can't possibly say we love Him if we can't find it in ourselves to love them.

Famous Question, Legendary Confusion

There's a famous question in the first of today's Psalms: "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (11:3).  I never read that but that I think of key erosions of governance throughout the world, and in our nation.  It always makes me shake my head and throw up a defeated type of hail Mary prayer for God to intervene somehow above our understanding.

I read that again this morning, began to shake my head at United States Senators and Representatives and Presidents who obviously have no understanding (or what might be worse - they have complete understanding) of the Constitution they swore oaths to defend - and then I STOPPED before I even got my head from left to right with one shake.  My eyes lit up and my eyebrows raised and I heard in my mind "wait a minute, something's wrong here."  What was David thinking when he penned that?

Paul wrote in 1Cor3:11 "no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

Now granted, David didn't have that letter at the time, but he did have knowledge of God's eternal nature.  There are other places within the Psalms attributed to him where he wrote that God was everlasting.  In Genesis alone there must be about five references to God making an everlasting covenant - only an everlasting God can make an everlasting covenant.

So some commentators actually point out the fact that David was in a disappointing moment where he may very well have been seeing some erosions that he knew were key to the governmental structure of Israel's theocracy but felt powerless to address.  Others openly ask the same question I asked "what could he have been thinking?"

My point in this, what might be the briefest of my blog posts ever, is that God is eternal, He is the foundation, when what we know as the universe was formless and void - He was there.  His words alone brought all that we know as tangible into being.  The foundation cannot be destroyed by that which He alone created.  That ought to lend important perspective to your views on Creation by the way.

Good stuff can happen to bad people, sure enough.  And bad stuff can happen to good people, 'tis true.  But:

The earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.
Ps 24:1

 So conservative thinkers and patriots who are well versed in what the founding fathers of this country believed and put forth as our governing structure need not fear.  If God was the eternal foundation upon which this country was founded (and we believe that to be true), then that foundation cannot be destroyed.  What that will look like, I don't know.  What will come to pass in attempting to destroy the indestructible, I don't know.

I do know that even momentary victories on the part of the enemy will not stand forever.  They can't.  Not if the foundation was righteous.

I've played with kids and had fun with the PlayDoh toys.  If we see this country as clay in the Father's hand, if we see that He is the eternal Potter  then we have to acknowledge that this clump of PlayDoh can be twisted to look like whatever mangled mess the enemy may want, it can be crammed into the spaghetti strainer tool and squirted out in weakened strings that are easy to divide and manipulate and twisted in with strands of other colors likewise manipulated - but it can't be destroyed by anyone other than the Potter.

The Foundation itself cannot be destroyed.  Look up beloved with fervent expectation, because your redemption draws nigh!

Rulekeepers and Hot Women

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

The Apostle Paul lived at a time in history when physical prowess was exalted, in soldiery, in the original Olympic games, and in idolatry.  Not that much has truly changed if you ask me.  Historians and early Church fathers allude to the fact that Saul of Tarsus, renamed Apostle Paul, wasn't the most physically gifted man in stature or appearance and yet something about the achievement of the sports arena of his day caught his attention, gained his admiration, and fueled his metaphors and analogies.  He routinely encouraged us to beat our bodies into submission, take our thoughts captive to obedience, run the race with discipline, etc.  1Cor9:24-27 comes to mind.  The author of Hebrews likewise gives us this picture in the first verses of chapter 12, reminding us that we run in the public witness of spectators fans and rivals, as well as experienced witnesses listed throughout chapter 11 who have walked the road before us and are standing all around us with eternal patience to see what we do in our time with what we are given.

I was awoke about 90 minutes before my alarm this morning to talk about passing the baton.  To talk about our receipt of the Abrahamic covenant, specifically the summation of Genesis 12:1-3 in the phrase "blessed to be a blessing."  This covenant, perhaps more importantly than any other, weaves it's way through the whole of Scripture from the first book to the last.  I once set out to catalog all the numerous allusions or rewordings of this principle and stopped shortly thereafter, realizing that even when the words aren't explicitly written, the Holy Spirit bears them out through the story line written for our admonition.  These rewordings and allusions to this covenant make it quite clear: "IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT YOU."  Two of my favorite reiterations of the Abrahamic covenant are these:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2Corinthians1:3-4

For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from some other place, but you and your father's house will perish.  Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
Esther 4:14

The book of Esther mentions only the religious practices of prayer and fasting, not even specifically tying them to Judaism except for Mordecai and his cousin Hadassah, whom we know as Esther, being  noted as Jewish captives carried to Babylon.  The book of Esther was a contentious inclusion in the Canon of Scripture because it completely lacks exposition of even one of the names of God.  And yet, His hand is seen throughout.

Mordecai wouldn't have seen the events of being exiled from Jerusalem and carried away captive as a blessing.  Maybe that happened before his birth and he grew up in Shushan.  Maybe he and his relatives were deported later, after all it didn't just happen in one mass captivity exodus, there were several waves.  Mordecai wouldn't have seen the events that took Haddasah/Esther's parents lives away as a blessing.  Esther's father was Mordecai's uncle, do you think he ever missed his uncle?  His aunt?  Would he have considered their deaths a blessing?  Did them passing leave Esther as his only familial tie in this foreign culture?  These are questions and thoughts and considerations that might lend perspective and depth to the "stories" you read in the pages of Scripture.  The Bible does not stand with the primary purpose of relating history, though it is historically accurate.  The Bible is many things actually, but the thing I want to drive home this morning is this: it's the real story of people just like you and me, faced with extraordinary every day life and working out how best to show God to a watching world - to spectators, fans, rivals, haters, and co-laborers who realize that there is a bigger story of which they are a part.

Mordecai was a cultural rule keeper, and his refusal to bow to a king's official precipitated an edict that nearly killed his whole race.  The back story between Mordecai and Haman goes back centuries.  Mordecai's cousin Esther turns out to be the hottest woman in the kingdom, and she almost missed her destiny caught up in the trappings of what her beauty afforded her.  Kind of like Sarah in Abraham's time.

Both Mordecai and Esther were blessed to be a blessing and ended up passing on the batons of faithfulness that they had been handed.  My wife and I were talking on the way home from a Church business meeting the other night.  We don't do well with passing on the baton in today's Church.  I was talking about this just yesterday with a Church planter whom I am supporting and probably going to go with here in the near future.  And the problem isn't always that we don't do well with passing on the baton, Lord knows many of us are running breathlessly in the exchange zone ready to slap it down into the waiting hand of a co-laborer, BUT THAT CO-LABORER ISN'T READY.  They are stunned from their exchange jog to stand there with their mouth gaping when they realize you've been pushing and training them all along to receive the baton and run their leg.  Or they're still looking around at their activities thinking that's good enough not hearing the charged breathing and rapid foot falls approaching behind them with an arm extended to hand off the charge.

Then there's the Church body that doesn't even frame their efforts around building up the priesthood of all believers.  There are some legitimate reasons and concerns intertwined with this one, which I won't delve into here today.  And I won't allow those legitimate concerns to obscure the point I'm making either, that the Church is not the building or the denomination, it is the people who have heard the clarion call of Jesus Christ to repent of their futile broken ways and submit the the loving, gracious, cleansing Spirit of God moving them beyond their brokenness and into the Kingdom which has come among us and is now breaking in and trying to usher in complete newness of life where the enemy of our soul seeks to deal in death and brokenness and defeat.  We must pass the baton.

Our pastor is preaching his way through the Gospel of John to start our year.  Two weeks ago we peeked in on the "Conversation of a Lifetime" between Nicodemus and Jesus in chapter three.  This Sunday we watched the potentially scandalous conversation of Jewish Jesus with a Samaritan woman of checkered past at a well which historically brought them to common ground through Jacob.  The conversation was strange in both chapters.  Jesus was speaking in metaphor more real than the 'reality' that Nicodemus and the woman were living in.  Nicodemus lived in the reality of a knowledge filled religious life not truly centered on the Spiritual aspect of God, while the woman was struggling with making water easier to fetch so she didn't have to suffer the withering heat of the sun or the condemning hostility of other women.  They were both looking for tools to make their day go smoother, while Jesus was offering a cooling breeze to blow through and freshen our stale world and an eternal spring that would well up within them and effortlessly spill out to water a thirsty world struggling to survive.

You have the professional religious leader holding a clandestine night time meeting with the controversial Jesus in chapter 3.  You have the beautiful woman who was always being used and discarded, and had set herself up for failure once again in chapter 4.  You have the clean cut, educated, successful man of respectable stature in Nicodemus; and the racially despised, tawdry woman of bad reputation.  Pastor Steve likened them to a business class traveler who noticed the church bulletin sticking out of your purse on a 4 hour flight and wanted to talk about Jesus, and the inappropriately dressed woman showing too much evidence of all the wrong things plopping down next to you on the public bus and wanting to talk about Jesus because she too noticed the church bulletin sticking out of your purse.  How do you handle those two totally different conversations?  How do you be all things to all people as Paul alluded to in 1Corinthians 9:22?

Both Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman gave their hearts to Jesus.  We don't see the immediate evidence with Nicodemus, not really until he shows up to help Joseph of Arimathea with the body of Jesus after the crucifixion.  He spent some serious time counting the cost - can you truly blame him?  We see the rapid evidence of the Samaritan woman's conversion though.  How ironic is that?  Maybe long term Nicodemus planted solid trees that grew into fruition and brought more than the woman's entire village to faith, maybe.

My wife and I reached a conclusion in our conversation about the comparisons that were drawn: "the professionally minded Church would hire Nicodemus in a heartbeat - but never allow the Samaritan to teach Sunday School even after years of showing a changed, faithful life."  We're full up with Samaritans that have no roots refusing to sit under the leadership of a Pharisee who has given his heart to Jesus, and full up with Pharisees who won't ever bring themselves to trust the Holy Spirit to have changed the Samaritan that's been hanging around for years.  Oy vey.

We won't willingly pass that baton.  We demand it be wrested from us.  We fulfill the prophetic nature of the Kingdom being taken hold of by violence in that sense.

Some of us are jogging along with our hand held out behind us awaiting that exchange, only to find that the one who was meant to run a relay has instead turned their leg into an independent marathon.  You ask Paul to tutor you as Timothy and he doesn't have the time for Samaritans. 

Some of us run breathlessly to the exchange point willing to release it, only to find the person we've mentored to be distracted from what they were being prepared for and confused that you really intended to have them run anywhere with anything.  You ask Timothy to take seriously that the time is short and you as Paul will not be with him forever, and he balks under the chafing constraints of Nicodemus.

Nicodemus needed to repent of his religious ways and realize as Paul did, that he came to the Kingdom at such a time as this in order to dig around the budding trees of faith and nurture them with his deep knowledge and religious experience rightly transformed through the knowledge of Christ.  The Samaritan woman needed to reposition herself to have influence with someone other than men, by repentance and a changed life that showed the fullness of what Jesus did for her that day, realizing how much she truly has to learn from that Jew down the road.

What do you need to do?  How have you been blessed to be a blessing?  What horrible circumstances would God redeem in your life if you would stop your private marathon and pass the baton of brokenness into the waiting hand of Jesus?  What amazing opportunities and experiences could you capitalize on investing in others if you realized they weren't given you simply for your trophy shelf and prideful pleasure, but as batons you must pass on?  If God will use Mordecai and Esther's personal tragedies and professional successes to save the Jews, He'll use yours to rescue those who are perishing.

You aren't alone, that's a lie the enemy of your soul would love for you to believe, but the Truth is otherwise.  You stand surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and many of them have experienced a piece of your story in their own life, and your faith in Jesus, your testimony in how He has redeemed (or is in the process of redeeming) that circumstance might be the very thing that causes them to run down to their village and bring everyone else back.  Do you remember what they said after the hottest woman in the village brought them to hear Jesus?

...Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
John 4:42

The baton shouldn't have to be jerked from our hand, nor should we think there is just one leg in one relay race.

We need to remember with Paul:

...you are not your own...For you were bought at a price...
1Corinthians6:19-20

We are all, each of us individually and all of us corporately, blessed to be a blessing.  And if you want to have God's promises fulfilled in your life, you're going to have to teach others in the family to do the same thing Jesus said of Abraham:

...I have chosen him so that he will command his children and his house after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just.  This is how the LORD will fulfill to Abraham what He has promised him.Genesis 18:19 (HCSB)

He has chosen you.  Will you choose someone to pass that blessing to?

I just passed on to you four and half hours of my life that I will never get back.  Don't let it be in vain.  Jesus hung on the Cross for hours, despising the shame, don't let it be in vain.

In Search of Justice

One of my brothers (in Christ) recently posted on Facebook that he highly recommended reading this book called The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn.  I felt a nudge in my spirit to take him up on his suggestion.  After all, I need another book to read along with about the other ten or so I'm piece mealing my way through (did you hear the sarcasm there?).  Feel free to insert an A.D.D. joke here if it helps you laugh at the stacks of books you'll find littering horizontal surfaces throughout my home near my roosting spots.  I have a desk, because it has a wide and deep horizontal surface which is perfect for said stacks.  I'm told that if the top surface were cleared of stacks I could sit at that desk and read one or two of those books with a note pad or something.  I'm not sure I believe them when they say things like that.

But that Harbinger book has started something I'm going to have to pursue, and publicly as the case may be, because the answer is important.  What is Justice?  The story line hasn't specifically brought up that question in the first nine chapters, but it's drawing a long series of parallels from the Old Testament Prophets that speak directly to that as one of the key failures for which Israel was judged by God. 

I think the answer is directly related to all the political harangues we've been on so bitterly for the last 4-5 years.  The root issues underlying the bitter exchanges are important mind you, but the problem I have is I find no redemption in them, because the conversations are all surface.  I mean we can't get down to the brass tacks of simple root applications, we keep it heated and we keep it emotional and we try to force our well reasoned approach down our opponents throat BECAUSE WE'RE RIGHT BY GOD AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE YOU'RE LIKELY GOING TO HELL FOR BEING A ...  You get where all this stuff has gone.  We can't truly agree or put words to what we think are the solutions.  I recently blogged about a conversation wherein I just told the other person we can't agree on the foundation of the Constitution as a rule of law so there is no conversation to be had, we're talking at and around each other...

That's pretty common in political conversations.  So, we've stayed surface, or tried to slap band aids on the issue by pressing the latest cause "put prayer back in schools" or "sign this petition to give all female teachers bra holsters and .22 automatics".  First of all my girls already pray in their public school, because they've been taught at home to talk to God about everything.  Second of all... the caption read "this is a properly dressed teacher" and I'm not sure that anything less than a C or D cup would have concealed the outline of the smallest gun hanging between her cups, not with the tight t-shirt she was wearing, let alone whether she'd ever be able to pull a child in for that impromptu hug that seems to be the signature of a child comfortable with their teacher.  But even if we think both of these things should be done (and I'm not saying they should or should not, not here in this forum) the question remains why?  What have we gained, have we restored a foundation?  Does it raise too many implementation questions?  My point is that until we can get the answer simplified and into a practical application I'm not signing anything.  Because methinks the problem is more basic than those things.  I think it's about something brought up first in the history of Abraham recorded in the Bible.

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. 
Genesis 18:19 (ESV)

The way of the LORD can be kept by DOING righteousness and justice.  Got it.

Well sort of... on second thought... part of it but not really the other.

If we accept that a good working definition of righteousness is "right relatedness to God and others", you know love your neighbor, do unto others... speak the truth, IN LOVE as we're told in Ephesians 4:15 (rather than WITH A CLUB - as it so often turns out).  I get that part mostly.  I can work it out.

But justice?  doing?  What... I mean how... I don't get it really.  And I hear that prophet guy saying:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8 (ESV)

Do justice?

And I hear time and again these other prophets saying that Israel and other nations are under the wrath of God for failure to be just and righteous and defend the defenseless, and live righteously with one another.  Don't change the rules, don't move the boundary markers, don't have double standards.  Do have love for God and one another.  Do have faith in God to reward your right behavior.

So if Abraham can be chosen to teach his family how to DO justice and righteousness, that must mean it's doable - right?  This isn't a situation of 'with God all things are possible.'  Or 'Is anything to hard for God?'  This is a situation of Abraham knows how to get this done, he's fully capable of doing it.  Therefore we can all DO justice.

How?

Well, I suspect like I heard somewhere a few hundred times or so "let it begin with me" is most definitely where the prescription starts.  But the how is still important, I can work out righteousness - I get it mostly.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Don't make condemning judgments that bludgeon the other person with condemnation and allow no room for redemption.  Instead make right judgments that incorporate understanding where the situation unraveled, what God intended the situation to be, and work with each other to get there by His grace.  Or simply accept the fact the other person doesn't want to get there and you aren't going to take them there kicking and screaming and force them to repent.  You might drag them to the altar and get a confession, but not repentance.  So I can accept my friend as they are, love them where they are, while I pray for them to get more in line with what God reveals to be His best intentions for our best life now and throughout eternity.  I can even wrap my brain around the fact that the best righteousness I can do will still fall short of God's truest glory and that ultimately I have to rely on this $50 theological term 'imputed' righteousness, the righteousness of God revealed in Jesus Christ and 'imputed' to me by faith in Him. 

But how do I work out justice?  I mean are we talking laws, rules at least?  Or is it something else, something more than rules, or less than rules as the case may be? 

Abraham was before the Law, the Ten Commandments and the bazillion others... so it can't be as complicated as we want to make it.  Yet God says we're supposed to DO this justice thing.  What's worse is we've got all these references to Him being mad when this justice thing doesn't get done.  He rolls up nations like we fold up game boards, He smooshes together all the Risk armies into one little geographic territory and starts rolling the dice to conquer the un-Just(ice) opponents that he warned beforehand.  I mean there's these little Roman numerals and horses and cannons all piled up and spilling in like some crazy plastic barbarian horde changing the whole color scheme of the map and collecting cards every round... so I'm guessing He takes it pretty freakin' serious.  I should probably get this one right...

And yet I can't specifically tell you what it would mean to DO justice.  Seriously.  I wish this tired soldier were joking.  I can't specifically tell you.

Can you tell me what it would mean?  Have you ever thought about it?  Do you think we ought to know what gets God so fired up? 

Not "Truth, Justice, and The American way."  I mean surely you understand we here in the United States of America have mostly forsaken Truth and exchanged The American Way for something our founders routinely warned against.  Justice surely didn't survive loosing the book ends of that patriotic phrase.  Truth in this country fell by the wayside at the last just before the turn of the 20th century with the systematic change of American and world history to reflect the motivational pattern of "follow the money."  We redefined what motivated people.  Once we were successful in stripping our motivation for historical actions from Moral law that conformed to, or diverged from,  the revealed nature of God - we were able to slowly and systematically begin redefining everything to suit our needs and whims.  And then shortly thereafter we abdicated our personal moral and financial responsibilities to this nebulous entity "The Federal Reserve" - an entity neither Federal nor having actual gold and precious metals in Reserve.  And though no one reading this today was alive in 1913 and actually made that choice personally, we have inherited the futile thinking of our forefathers who revealed by their actions that the true God we worship is money, or success defined in dollar signs...  history records that several protests were lodged and yet they had that 'injustice' foisted upon them, and we inherited it, and the consequences.  Which brings up a converse approach to finding 'justice.' 

We can probably rattle off several examples of what 'injustice' looks like, so can we work backwards and put our finger on 'justice'?  Or do we have to start from a known point and move forward?

Do you think it's important?  I do.  And I'll tell you why.  It's captured in the last phrase of the verse from Genesis 18:19:

...This is how the LORD will fulfill to Abraham what He promised him. (HCSB)

If doing what is right and just is the litmus test for whether I'm the new creation Scripture claims I'm supposed to be in Christ, and whether or not I'm truly a child of Abraham by faith, then I need to know how to DO JUSTICE.  I'm not talking works salvation here.  I'm not talking legalism or a return to Judaism.  Abraham as I pointed out was before The Law.  And justice was still doable.  So we're going to find a different marker post here.  Or at least I'm going to tell you what I find Scripture to reveal, whether you agree or not will be your choice.

See you next time, with something more than questions.