Counting it all joy!

September 26, 2009 at 4:34 pm (Uncategorized)

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4, NASB95)

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NASB95)

I recently spoke with a friend over the phone and after it concluded I realized I had shared my present burden and stress (an all too often occurrence) and none of the great things God has been doing.  I sat down and wrote the following and then decided I would just post it instead.

I wanted to write better summary of what God has been doing in our lives.  I feel I have burdened you far too many times with the struggles and far too little allowed you to rejoice with me in what Jesus is so faithfully doing at the same time.

We are now living in an apartment which never would have been my choice, but our apartment happened to be right next to a missionary family on furlough for our first summer.  Their boys and ours bonded like Velcro and the friendship I gained with their dad was a blessing and further evidence of God’s sustaining grace.  We have also made new friendships with a family originally from Ghana, another family (and their extended family) from Sudan, and recently another family from India.  The opportunity to know and witness to families from around the world right here in this little college town is amazing.

I have taken up container gardening which has been educational, therapeutic, and an incredible bridge to meeting new people (a 4×8 garden all in containers and lush like a jungle gets a lot of attention)!

Having come back to Iowa has allowed me to reflect on different chapters of life and celebrate 20 years of walking with Christ (far more a story of His faithfulness than of mine).  Although I long for the family atmosphere we came to love at Royal Palms Baptist Church, the church we are attending has facilitated some of the deepest worship experiences I have had and for that I am thankful.  I also owe so much of my understanding of discipleship and ministry to our lead pastor who was providentially involved in several of my spiritual crossroads.

The significant adversity I faced at work over our first 9 months here, while extremely stressful, served to drive me deeper into God’s Word and ultimately I was able to rejoice when God did bring relief.  He has taught me much in how to more effectively deal with adversarial relationships.

Our plans to sell our house quickly, pay off all of our outstanding debts, and be untethered for an open door to ministry (whenever that might occur) were completed turned upside down.  We could not sell our house and while holding on to the idea it would eventually work out, our debt doubled and our retirement savings dwindled down to about 25% what they had been.  This too, while no small trial of faith, has served both to clarify to me both the prior division of my faith and the need for greater financial stewardship in the future (beyond my blind faith that it will all somehow work out).  I realized that God does not need me to devise my own ‘funding’ to get to a place of ministry (my plans) so much as He desires my complete faith in Him.

Learning to live daily and trust Him with tomorrow’s needs is a valuable lesson we needed to learn.  I believe that we are actually far ahead of the rest of our country.  At the end of the day, I am blessed to know so many far more righteous servants than I, who have never had what I too often worry about losing, and even now am tempted to mourn losing.

The frustration and disappointment accompanying attempts at finding a places of effective ministry have been experienced here the same as I felt in Arizona.  I have learned that I must accept this and trust in God’s sovereignty, even when leaders and denominations fall short of what I believe they could and should be.

At the same time as these trials, our family has been thoroughly blessed relationally and the kids have a sincere desire to read the Bible and learn more about God.  It has been amazing to see the positive answers to their prayers for others facing serious illness.  Truly amazing.  Both from devotional times with the kids and recreational times, I do not think I have ever experienced a better, more blessed summer.

All in all – my faith in and walk with Jesus has never been deeper and for that I can truly rejoice in all of these trials, counting them all joy, that I am gaining a deeper knowledge of my Lord and Savior.  I desire Him more than I desire the opportunity to do great things for Him (though the latter desire is still great enough to be an almost crushing burden at times).  I long for a day when He would open the door for pastoral ministry – but if the day never comes, I trust in Him and the path He is leading us along.  I am thankful for the opportunities of influence, great or small, that He is providing.

Lastly, I am thankful for your friendship and your faithfulness to Christ.

Take care my friend – I pray that you too are daily being pressed deeper into Christ and experiencing all of the joy that accompanies it!

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The Master Gardener

July 17, 2009 at 1:34 pm (Uncategorized)

photo by z

photo by z

Those who know me would readily bear witness that when something catches my focus, I attend to it with great zeal.  Okay, they might say obsession!  This summer three things have captured my attention like never before: family, fishing, and gardening.  This post involves all three.

The kids and I were on our way to go fishing when to my pleasure, James my 6 year old, said he wanted to read the Bible on the way and asked for my pocket New Testament which I gladly provided.  It only got better.  James just opened it up and started reading aloud, struggling over a few words but doing pretty well.  The ‘random’ passage he read:

” “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:1-8, NIV)

I cannot tell you the joy and the excitement when I realized the teaching moment that my 6 year old had initiated.  I paused James to ask him what I did every morning and the first thing I did when I came home from work.  He quickly answered that I watered the garden plants and looked at each one, carefully looking for new and developing fruit.  I explained I also take care to ensure there are no signs of disease or insect pests.  Each day making sure there is the right balance of nutrients, the soil is not too dry nor too wet, etc.  And even pruning back the branches that did not have signs of fruit.

I then had the opportunity to relate that same care to Jesus, the Master Gardener, whose care and attention to detail in our lives makes my own garden care appear like blatant neglect.  All three kids got it.  Yet another day that God has granted me in this life was overfilled with His amazing grace!

Jesus, knows our every need and when we remain in Him, nourishing our souls on His word and drinking deeply of His Holy Spirit, we will bear much fruit.  He will always see that we receive everything we need to bear fruit for His Kingdom and His Glory!  All praises be to our Master Gardener!

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV)

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.” (Hebrews 13:15, NIV)

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Soaking up the Son – and loving life!

June 28, 2009 at 7:46 pm (Uncategorized)

““For you will go out with joy And be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12, NASB95)

photo by shazam791

photo by shazam791

For any who may be wondering – I have not abandoned this blog.  I intend to keep posting, but with summer vacation here and a wonderful peace in my soul that I am truthfully unaccustomed to – I have been more inspired to play with the kids (fishing, biking, swimming, etc.), play with my mobile garden (spicy salsa and chile rellenos in our future), and reading as opportunity provides (in the middle of 3 books now with a growing want to read list).  I can only say that it is very well with my soul.

Last weekend we came through a nasty storm that produced at least two tornado touchdowns on our way home from the farm.  We stopped to watch for funnel clouds (ranks right up there with chasing a black bear in my Game and Fish days) then drove on.  We came through what seemed like a wall of rain and then just as suddenly as the black storm clouds had met us, we were met with clear blue skies – beautiful!  Like the storm had not even occurred.

This is the only way I can describe the contrast between last summer and this summer.  Just as fast and unexpected as last years stormy trials appeared – a peace and rest from God has overtaken me.  God always more than compensates for faith during times when the sun seems blocked.  I intend to soak up every blessed ray of sunshine He is sending down upon me right now!

I pray God’s blessings on each of you who routinely checks this blog and that you too will soak up all God has for you today.

” Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.” (2 Thessalonians 3:16, NIV)

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One True Identity, One True Community

June 6, 2009 at 2:08 pm (Martin Luther King Jr., Racism, ethnocentrism, theology)
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“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26a; 27, NASB95)

Photo by Laurence and Annie

Photo by Laurence and Annie

Within these two very first verses speaking of man’s creation so much applicable insight is found to our one true identity and one true community.  Here we see the Godhead Himself as the plural ‘Us’ and further creating man in ‘Our’ image and Our ‘likeness’.  Without attempting a comprehensive analysis of image and likeness here, it will suffice to point out that there exists a sense of community acting in harmony for a creative purpose within God and that that image and likeness was intended to be reflected in created man (comprising both male and female).

That image of God as community, inherent to man, has been fractured as a result of the fall and has resulted in an alienation and separation (death) that spread throughout all of man’s relationships.  The first relationship fractured is with God and then secondarily with all other members of the human race.  While fractured and distorted, all members of the human race, still bear the image of God.  Although broken, God still loves His creation and though under no obligation to His creation, He continues to rebuild our broken relationships and to rebuild a new community rooted and built up in Christ.

In the final analysis, says the Christian ethic, every man must be respected because God loves him.  The worth of an individual does not lie in the measure of his intellect, his racial origin, or his social position.  Human worth lies in relatedness to God.  Whenever this is recognized, “whitness” and “blackness” pass away as determinants in a relationship and “son” and “brother” are substituted.

- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the defense of a philosophy of integration, 1962

God loves each and every one of us.  We are all members of the one race – the human race.  But the fall makes us prone to identify ourselves first and foremost by whatever we perceive separates us, whether it be color, ethnicity, culture, class, or country, rather than by what unites and unifies us in community.  Rev. Howard Thurman goes further in his reflection on identity and identifying beyond man’s natural distinctions:

To experience oneself as a human being is to know a sense of kinship with one’s total environment and to recognize that it is this structural relationship that makes it possible for one to experience himself as a human being.  Being white or black becomes merely incidental and is of no basic significance….

The impact upon the individual when he experiences himself as a human being is to regard himself as being of infinite worth…

It is total, it is unified and unifying.  It is not the experience of oneself as male or female, as black or white, as American or European.  It is rather the experience of oneself as being.  It is at such a time that one can hear the sound of the genuine in other human beings.  This is to be able to identify with them…

When I identify with a man, I become one with him and in him I see myself…

The religious experience as I have known it seems to swing wide the door, not merely into Life but into lives…Through the years it has driven me more and more to seek to make as a normal part of my relations with men the experiencing of them as human beings.  When this happens love has essential materials with which to work… a man comes into possession of himself more completely when he is free to love another.

- Rev. Howard Thurman, excerpts from The Luminous Darkness (1965) found in A Strange Freedom.

Mark Deymaz in his book “Building Healthy Multi-Ethnic Churchs”, insightfully points out that Christ is exalted when we transcend diversity in our love for one another.  When we transcend the separation and alienation which divides and segregates fallen man and are truly able to come together as one body, one ‘brotherhood’, through the Spirit and love of Jesus Christ, God is glorified.  Deymaz points out that Jesus’ own prayer for the church emphasize this unity as being key for His future witness in the world:

““I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20-23, NASB95)

We must learn the discipline of distinguishing between learned relational culture and true identity.  As one with some cross-cultural experience, I have learned that cultures are like clothing within a wardrobe.  The more exposure to cultures that we experience, the larger our wardrobe becomes.  But in the end, the saying is true, clothing does not make the man.  Culture should not make the identity.

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NASB95)

Through Christ we share One true identity, we share One journey, we share One destination – One true community.  It all begins with a restored relationship with Jesus Christ.  To restore right relationships with other human beings, man must first enter into a restored right relationship with God, His creator.  It is freely available – all one must do is repent of sin, receive forgiveness, and walk in reconciliation (more on that to come).

“For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (Colossians 1:19-20, NASB95)

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Forgiveness – the battle of cutting free

May 1, 2009 at 10:04 pm (Uncategorized)
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photo by trying2

photo by trying2

Why do certain past events or circumstances seem to pull us backwards.  There can be many reasons, but in my experience it means something has been left unresolved, some hurt, some wrong dealt with, or dealt out.  Forgive and forget is the saying – but it seems we often try opting only for the latter.  But to do so is simply allowing a scab to form over an infected wound. As time goes on we may actually tune it out, assuming the problem is in the past.  But covered wounds get bumped and we feel the pain all over again.

Forgiveness can be a prolonged process.  Often we must scrape off the scab and look at an issue again. Difficult because there is still the instinct to leave it in the past, forget about it, man up and move on.  But that is like ignoring cancer.  No, we must dig deeper and apply Christ’s healing balm of forgiveness at the deepest most painful source.

I mentioned that the forgiveness can go both ways – sometimes we must forgive an offender, other times we must seek forgiveness for ourselves.  The first step is confession.carrying

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16, NIV)

While no one apart from Jesus, can truly comprehend and feel our pain, we are not called to walk alone.  Allowing others to come alongside can be an essential healing step.  Often a brother or sister in the faith can provide the added strength to get you to the foot of the cross, where the true healing occurs.  It also allows others to witness God’s grace at work in our lives, even through our failures.

There is an incredible scene in the movie ‘The Mission’ where Rodrigo Montego (Robert De Niro) plays a man overwhelmed with guilt from having killed his own brother.  It is ironic that in the film God uses the indians that Montego had hunted and enslaved for profit – to be his instruments of grace, assisting Montego break free from the burden.

Pennance will not do. It is essential to spend time at the foot of the cross, laying it all out before the One who already paid for the sins, regardless of whose sins.  He will remove the burden from you.

photo by Michael Wray

photo by Michael Wray

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, NIV)

But there is a spiritual insurgent. One who even though disarmed will use every thought and every emotion to convince you that the territory still belongs to him and that true forgiveness cannot be achieved.  But the insurgent is a liar who only seeks to kill, destroy, and to steal (John 10:10) what Christ has freely granted. For this reason we are commanded to take every thought captive and put it in submission to Christ, and Christ alone.

While forgiveness itself is obtained immediately, this battle to align our own thoughts and feelings with that spiritual reality often takes both time and diligence.  But with steadfast dependence upon Christ, the victory is assured.

Only after we have brought our wounds to the light are we able to cut free.  Leaving us finally freed for the journey with the true lover of our souls, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6, NASB95)

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Faithfulness, forgiveness, and freedom

April 29, 2009 at 6:10 pm (Uncategorized)
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” “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’” (Matthew 18:15-16, NIV)

” Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22, NIV)

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me. … I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother.

-Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a letter from a Birmingham Jail

I have still been contemplating the deep words Rev. King wrote and found an interesting intersect with the message Pastor Jeff preached to Cornerstone last weekend on forgiveness.  Rev. King as I have asserted elsewhere was first and foremost a minister and servant of God.  His letter was one prompted by the printed criticism by his peers of his recent actions.

I cannot fathom the daily humiliations he had been subjected to during those dark days of segregation and overt racism in our country.  It is enough to find yourself alone in a jail cell for standing up and doing what your convictions tell you must be done.  But to add insult to injury, other ministers criticism of his actions were being publicized.  I suspect that these blows, delivered not by political opponents, but by brothers in the faith cut much deeper.

Rather than launch an attack, Rev. King modeled the exhortation found in Matthew 18:15.  He wrote a very long letter detailing not only the rationale and biblical justification for his actions, but his painful disappointment in the criticism they had made publicly against him.  Having made his points he concludes with tremendous insight.  If he was wrong and had overstated his case against them – he asked for their forgiveness.  If he had come up short – he asked for God’s forgiveness.  He was simply trying to be an obedient servant, faithful to God’s Word.

Their words of criticism not only hurt him personally, but also undercut the momentum gained by the sacrifices made by him and so many others.  He did not allow that to eclipse his view of them as fellow brothers and followers of Christ. He pointed out their sin against him at the same time demonstrating forgiveness.

Far too often as Pastor Jeff pointed out – we don’t even take the first step of love towards those who offend us.  We go directly to step two but not seeking others to aid in correcting and forgiving a brother or sister, but rather to build a coalition against the offender.  I know I have done this far too often to the detriment of the body.  This must change.  Another’s sins against us never justify our own disobedience to God’s commandments.

photo by Meltwater

photo by Meltwater

If we are to demonstrate true loving correction to the lost of this world, we must first be able to demonstrate the same to those within the family of Christ. As you contemplate these words, Rev. King’s example, and that of Jesus, I urge you to take some time and consider those who have sinned against you.  If you find some hatchet handles sticking out of the ground – it’s time to make amends.  It’s never too late for repentance and healing.  Remember, it has less to do with them as it does with you.  You must be faithful and obedient – and who knows, they may surprise you.  Either way - it’s a burden Jesus never meant for you to carry and forgiveness frees us from our own self-made jail cells.

Of course, we must all start with asking forgiveness of Jesus.  He paid the highest price that can be paid, His life, for our sins.  And He now offers His forgiveness freely, to any and all who will humble themselves enough to ask.

““Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”” (Acts 10:43, NASB95)

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Oh, that you were either hot or cold!

April 19, 2009 at 12:54 pm (Uncategorized)
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More words from a much missed ‘extremist’:

In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church.  But be assured that my tears have been tears of love.  There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.  Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise?  l am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers.  Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ.  But, oh!  How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

photo by leoniewise

photo by leoniewise

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment.  They were too God intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.”  By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary

Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Birmingham jail Photograph courtesy of National Archives and Record Administration, 306-PS-68-1130

Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Birmingham jail Photograph courtesy of National Archives and Record Administration, 306-PS-68-1130

church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound.  So often it is an archdefender of the status quo.  Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before.  If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., excerpt from a letter from a Birmingham jail

Rev. King was exasperated by the silence of the church and it willingness to sit on the sidelines of the major moral battlefield of the day.  He said it was different in that day than in days past.  I would like to think that our today is different than his today.  But, I am not convinced.  The battlefield has changed, and we face new moral challenges, but has the church regained her ‘voice’?   I think there is a willingness to jump into the fray by many authentic followers of Christ.  But sadly, I see a large number, who despite having warmed pews for years, who have yet to develop true biblical convictions, and who are more moved by the winds of political correctness and soundbites than by the winds of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word.

What is especially discouraging is to see high profile ‘evangelical’ leaders give in and replace conviction with compromise.  To Rick Warren – “Has the church regained it’s voice?”  It seems your pulpit is getting a little hoarse.  I’m wondering if exposition and exhortation from Romans 1 will ever be heard again from a Saddleback pulpit.  You have heard the exhortation of 2 Timothy to preach the word in season.  Why is it you seem willing to turn and run when it is ‘out of season’?

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5, NIV)

Is the sanctity of life on ‘your agenda’ still or will you be apologizing for what the Bible has to say about that as well? The Rwanda genocide was horrific – it has ended while another genocide continues unabated, unimpeded right here in America (warning the link may lead to weeping, vomiting, and maybe even ‘extremist’ moral outrage).  If Rev. King is shouting from heaven, as you implied in your inaugural prayer, – I am certain that it would not be shouts of joy but shouts of exhortation and of rebuke.  Is the cost of political correctness and maintaining popularity with the current administration a better bargain than the cost of true discipleship?  I guess being labeled an ‘extremist’ is intimidating.  While I hold Rick Warren up as an recent example of compromise – these really are questions we must ask ourselves. As for me, if standing for the cause of Christ and proclaiming boldly that abortion is an abomination before God’s eyes makes me an ‘extremist’, so be it.  I will bear the label proudly.  Here I stand and I will not turn and run.

The temperature is rising rapidly, and followers of Christ should NOT expect it to slow down or cool off.  Nor should followers of Christ be intimidated by that fact.  You were called for such a time as this! God is still on His throne and His Kingdom is still advancing.  I had the blessed privilege of being witness to 14, yes 14 baptisms this weekend. 14 souls humbled before the cross of Christ, confessing faith in Him, publicly declaring death to themselves and new life in Christ!  No, God is not dead.  No, He is not losing ground.  No, He is not in retreat.  He IS risen,  He IS reigning, and He IS returning! Now is not the time to lose heart, it is the time to declare definitive and unashamed allegiance to Jesus Christ!

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:15-20, NIV)

It is ironic that the verses above that are so popular for personal evangelism are actually words spoken to the church!  “So be earnest, and repent.  Here I am!”  The temperature around us is rising to boiling and overflow! Too many are willing to sit still and cook.  It’s time followers of Christ heat up our own fervor.  Yes, passion and fervor for Jesus Christ, His Kingdom, and the salvation He freely offers to any willing to repent and follow Him.  Pastor Paul reminded Cornerstone this weekend that Hell is a very real and horrific place. We must first and foremost deal radically with sin in our lives.  Jesus suffered on the cross to pay for it – how could we dare to continue to play in it?  We must then be diligent to seek out the perishing.

May we never be found to be lukewarm! May the love of Christ compel us and the cooling living water He has given us continue to overflow to the perishing around us.  May we show the way to the true oasis among so many deadly mirages.

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The cross bids me come and die…and find I may truly live

April 16, 2009 at 7:16 am (Uncategorized)
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photo by Michael Wray

photo by Michael Wray

I would normally add commentary but with a photo this wonderful, this beautiful – only Scripture will do.  So I add these inspired words for your contemplation:

“It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:13-18, NIV)

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I will rise…rise with me

April 8, 2009 at 6:54 am (Uncategorized)

Twenty years ago, Jesus saved my life.  My life is His and I will rise…rise with me.

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Refugees like me…

April 5, 2009 at 6:32 am (Uncategorized)
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photo by mindgutter

photo by mindgutter

” O Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me. O Lord my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands— if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me or without cause have robbed my foe— then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.Selah Arise, O Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice. Let the assembled peoples gather around you. Rule over them from on high; let the Lord judge the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High. O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure. My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day. If he does not relent, he will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows. He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment. He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself; his violence comes down on his own head. I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.” (Psalm 7, NIV, emphases mine)

What a great reminder that when we cry out for judgement – we must seek it for ourselves first. It is not a ‘me against them’ or ‘us against them’ – it is us against the Lord. It is easy for pride to drive us to to respond wrongly (sinfully) both in situations where we are innocent and the more common case where we are also at least partially guilty. I long for the day when my kids will respond rightly to the ’sins’ of their brothers or sister against them – by the time  their cases come before me – there is rarely an innocent party anymore!

This psalm puts it in perspective. When wronged, anger and self-righteousness are the usual byproducts. When another’s sin is so clearly in view, it is easy to forget or minimize our own. It is easy to desire punitive punishment and to be the means of it rather than true justice from the Lord. But we are not the measuring stick or plumb line – the Lord is. For me those cries for justice when combined with honest self-evaluation end up tempered with a desire for mercy. Mercy of course is meaningless without a clear understanding of justice. Lord, help us to do justly, love mercy, and to humbly walk with You.   You are our refuge from wickedness and evil.  Help us to see injustice as opportunity for Your fire to purify us first, as we also remember to make room and opportunity for other refugees – like me.

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