Off With Their Heads! Or Maybe Just Slaves…Which is Worse?

If the giants came out of the camp and drew the battle lines yesterday, they crossed the line and brought their army to fight alongside them today.  People say “it’s gonna get worse before it gets better…” and that phrase drives me crazy; probably because it often proves to be true.  And so it seems that James, the brother of Jesus, one of the first of the twelve to be martyred, decided to address this issue – “count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  I’ve heard many think that just when they couldn’t take anymore-BAM!!!   Something else knocks them flat on their rear.  I personally pray for a couple that I wonder sometimes how they continue on….

Still, I wrestle with this idea of having joy in suffering, joy because of suffering, joy with suffering or anything else that combines the word joy and suffering.  Today I was reading a story in 2 Chronicles 12, where Rehoboam, the son of Solomon chose against serving the Lord and gave his service to other gods and other kingdoms.  As judgement, God sent Shishak, king of Egypt, against  Rehoboam with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen.  God sends the prophet Shemaiah to Rehoboam in mercy with the message: “you abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.”  Rehoboam repents, as he should, and God says with amazing mercy and grace, “they have humbled themselves, so I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some measure of deliverance, and My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by means of Shishak, they will instead become his slaves so that they may learn the difference between my service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.”  So…in mercy, after repentence, after they see the error of their ways before God, punishment is still coming….how would I feel if I were Rehoboam and the people of Jerusalem?

We fail to recognize how great a mercy that God showed us when he sent us Jesus Christ, and how now he considers us heirs with Him when we repent of our sins.

How would I feel?  At first, I would probably feel, “that’s not fair.”  And I would be right, God would have every right to destroy me, humble repentence or not – I sinned, and that’s justice.  Second thoughts?  Rehoboam was having a BAD day – A REALLY BAD DAY!  Nevertheless, God was merciful to him and his people.  In the end, God was setting out to work in Rehoboam’s life, he wanted Rehoboam to learn something, that there is a difference between serving God and serving others, and he will learn the joy between the two.   Rehoboam was eventually going to learn joy through suffering and God would be glorified through destruction of people or slaves of people, justice would be served or mercy would be given.

So when I look at my life, the giants that have risen about me, the problems that never seem to stop and there seems very little rest; have I considered if God has been glorified someway through it?  Has my attitude been humble towards Him?  Glory belongs to the Lord – whether I’ve had a bad day or a good day – problems or not.  I love the Lord, and I want Him to be glorified in my life…even with the suffering.

The Human Condition of “Undeservedness”

“YOU DON’T DESERVE SPIT! — Unless you can pay for it.”  Dave Ramsey says in one of his teaching sessions of Financial Peace University.  This quote would have came right at a time when any one of us may say, “I deserve a newer model car.”  Or “I’ve lived in a mobile home all my life, I deserve a custom built house.”  Or maybe even, ”I deserve to feed the kids happy meals because they won’t shut up, and I don’t have an ounce of strength to open a can of spaghetti-Os or make a PB&J.  The premise is, if you can’t pay for it, you don’t deserve it, no matter how bad a day or life you’ve had.

I’ve been dealing with this idea the past couple of weeks…swallowing it is more like it.  In today’s cause and effect societry we assume God is that way too. 

It’s how we grew up isn’t it?  The parents tell us to be quiet and behave and we do, so we don’t get yelled at or punished.  Well, how many of us work and get paid?  We are so used to “deserving” the things that we get, good or bad, most of the time we absolutely will not be denied.  Yet over the past couple of weeks I’m reminded that God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. 

Karen and I have been looking for a rent house, deciding we may be able to save more money living closer to my place of employment than paying for gas driving back and forth.  Yet our search has turned up empty, and my frustrations have been made manifest a couple of times because I’m ready to leave the place we’re in.  Honestly, all the places for rent we wouldn’t be able to come close to renting on a month to month basis without sacrificing some major “debt snowball.”  I’ll admit I’ve prayed (or whined), wondering why the Lord doesn’t just lead us straight to the house right away so we can start saving MORE money immediately.  But you’d be surprised at the thoughts I’ve had, ”Lord, my family and I love you, we try to worship you in all we do, don’t we deserve more than what we have?  When will you bless, Lord?  Won’t you please help?”  It wasn’t until later that I thought of Dave Ramsey and realized that none of us “deserve” anything unless we can pay for it do we?  

The bible clearly states the ”wages of sin” is death.  That’s what we all deserve when it comes right down to it – death and Hell.  But we would never be promised a chance at a loving relationship with God had it not been for Jesus Christ who ”paid for” our sins.  Only does belief in Him, His sacrifice, and His ressurection and repentence of our sin allow us to be redeemed to God.  Blood bought and “paid for.”  It’s something we can never buy ourselves, but it’s a gift, all salvation requires is our belief. 

This redemption is not automatic though, just as I don’t “deserve” an affordable rent house just because I’m sucking wind-we don’t automatically deserve Heaven just because we repeat a little prayer after Jesus Christ died.  There must be a recognition of what we, being human and sinful, deserve (Hell); and repenting of what got us there, our willful sin!  This is a truth that is left out of so many churches today.  Too often we see Jesus Christ death on the cross for us as something we have earned just because we’re alive and breathing and God would never send us to Hell.  Unfortunately most of us think more of ourselves and what we think we deserve never allows us to come to this point.  In the end, we are undeserving of God’s grace, but He gives it anyway.  Praise God he gives us the choice to be paid for, without giving what we truly deserve.

Having Financial Peace, the Flu, Termites, and a New Outlook on Prayer

I thought I was going to sail through the flu season this year with no problems.  Be one of those lucky (or blessed) few who in the middle of March start bragging that I didn’t catch “the bug,” as though I had something to do with it.  About half the people I come in contact with on a daily basis has had this stuff at one time or another over the past month and I was feeling pretty good, until it hit me 2 nights ago.  Now it’s all I can do to stay out of the bathroom today, though the chills have finally left me.  Hopefully my body is just flushing out the sick from my body.  Despite my sickness, I’m happy to announce Karen and I have met one of our financial goals in paying off the first bill of our “debt snowball.”  A doctor bill that I incurred at the emergency room 4 or 5 months ago, next is the student loan, which has been hanging around so long it’s like a pet.  If the government isn’t lying to us about the “stimulus package” check that we should be getting around the end of May, that nasty thing will be paid off as well; freeing up enough money to hopefully have our truck paid off two years early.  Once all this happens, we will finally be able to start saving up for a real house, while repairing this one at the same time.  Speaking of, we’ve started painting!  Those of you have been here know that’s a huge step for us.  With all the repairs we’re doing, we have had to call a couple of exterminators, lest the termites eat away all our new work, who have quoted us anywhere from $1500 to $1700.  They’ve offered to finance us but we have promised ourselves never to borrow money again unless it’s for a house, so I guess a new envelope will have to be made called “Death to Termites.”  It may take another year to save up enough money, but we will not be saddled with another monthly payment right now.  Orchin Man thought I was nuts, maybe I am. I’ve been studying a lot on prayer lately.  I realize I am missing a lot when I’ve prayed before.  Using God’s name as “Lord” about 50 times in one prayer, but not really praying to anybody.  I’m almost convinced that teenagers pray better than adults every time they bow their head.  For some reason, once we reach adult hood, a lot of us, especially men, stop being personal.  We start putting on the tough guy facade, and pray in the same way.  We are very vague when we pray, “bless this, and bless that,” “bless preacher and his family, bless our church family,” “take care of the sick,” “bless those that are faithful,” and don’t forget the magic phrase we use just to remind God He has to answer our prayers we say, “in Jesus name, Amen.”  I’m convinced that prayer is more than that, and have been learning that as well.  I’m hoping to teach what I learn in our church to a group of men, but am nervous about it.  I’m so much younger than the men who I think would take this seriously.  Nevertheless, today in my devotions I read Jeremiah chapter 1 as this “fear of man” was on my mind.  In it Jeremiah quotes God as saying,    ” Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’       For you shall go to all to whom I send you,       And whatever I command you, you shall speak.        Do not be afraid of their faces,       For I am with you to deliver you,” says the LORD. So, I am going to teach, humbly, but also enthusiastically I hope, enough that God inspires and we start praying and leading our church and community and even more into revival.

A Most Embarrassing Moment With My Spouse

Tonight a memory came to me that I haven’t thought of in a long time.  I’m not one to rehash the past, but it fell right in line with the thoughts I had after church tonight.  This, coincidently, just happened to be the same Sunday as the Super Bowl.

 

This memory starts on a Sunday morning.  I’m tired because I’m sure I stayed up too late the night before.  My wife Karen, who loves me and my children dearly, is also tired because I’m sure I stayed up too late the night before.  It’s approximately 8:00 am, I really should be getting up, church will be starting soon and I really should be there.  But my stomach hurts, I think (I always have a stomach ache when I don’t have enough sleep), and I think God will understand me calling in sick once.  Only, I’m not really sick, not really, I just want to stay in bed a little longer.  I roll over and put my arm around my wife, who IS getting up, and I’m not going to be able to convince her to stay with me.  I tell her I don’t feel well (a little white lie) and I’m not planning to go to church this morning.  She looks disappointed and says “okay” as she’s getting dressed in a hurry.  In a flash she’s gone to dress the children.  That kind of surprises me because I figured if she was in as big of a hurry as she seems to be she’ll leave the kids.  The kids are tired too, but they also are dressed and look pretty good as they head out the door as Karen gathers up the last of what she needs for the morning.  I’m still laying there in bed when she comes in one last time to barely give me a cold peck on my cheek.  “Ya know,” she said, “our boys need to be in church.  I’m going to take them, and I wish you were going too, since you are their father and my husband.”  Then she left.

 

I knew what she meant with that last statement.  I was the man of this home.  I’m supposed to be the spiritual leader; I should be waking her up and dragging her out the door.  I should be showing the children how important it is to assemble with our friends and family in Christ Jesus and worshiping him in spirit and in truth.  But here I was, lying in bed, my spouse charging out of the home, running to Jesus, tearfully that her husband refuses to join her.  I was mad at first; she made me look like a fool.  I usually go to church, don’t I deserve a break?  Then I thought back and realized my church attendance lately was hit and miss at the very best.  But how dare she talk to me like that!  I am the man of the house, aren’t I?  But my conscience told me if I were, I’d be in that car, taking my family to church.  I was mortified.  That morning my lack of enthusiasm to take my rightful place as man of the home and meet Jesus, where so many others would gather together in His name, embarrassed me.  Knowing that Christ was the reason to be there, I was ashamed.  My spouse had shown me up because she obeyed the Lord.

 

As the church, we are the bride of Christ, the bible teaches this truth in more than one passage.  Yet as Christ’s spouse, are we still lying in bed, making excuses as to why not to go and see Him?  Take this illustration metaphorically or literally, neither way is good.  When in the world did it become okay NOT to go meet Jesus with our faithful brothers and sisters in Christ?  We are His bride, and yet use His grace and goodness as a constant excuse to lie in bed and complain that we are so tired, or we are so sick, or we are so sick and tired.  Of what, can I ask, sick and tired of what?  Think about it, doesn’t Christ tell us to come to Him, we who are weak and heavy laden?  What exactly are we so tired of or sick of that we can’t come to Christ, our husband to see Him and be with Him, as He’s promised He is there with us?

 

Recently I’ve heard two people comment that it is rather normal, in these days, for a church to have a high attendance on Sunday mornings and yet have extremely low attendance in comparison on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights.  One of these folks, mercifully, said that Sunday nights may be the only time church members have to relax after a stressful week of work, not to mention a stressful Saturday of running kids back and forth to different sports games and events.  I’m trying to picture it, me standing before Christ, explaining that after a week of trying to get money to pay for more stuff that will probably take my attention away from Him…eh, maybe not.

 

Why does His bride, His church, the one people on the earth that claim to love Him the most, avoid Him like the plague after one gathering?  If we love Him as much as we claim to shouldn’t we be breaking our necks to get into His presence?  Shouldn’t we be lining up to be in His service?  Why do we constantly make excuses as to why we shouldn’t be there and mistake his mercy for winking at our complacency?  Christ said He vomited us out because we are not cold nor hot!  It’s time for some kind of revival; it’s time for repentance, in our church and in our nation.

Psalm 139: The Effective, Loving, Ever-present God

Psalm 139: The Effective, Loving, Everpresent God

Recently a friend of mine asked if I had ever meditated on Psalm 139.  I’ve read a portion of it, but have never sincerely looked at it extensively…until today. Before I really go into my thoughts on just a few of what I feel are the main verses of the passage, I would like to say I believe in the sovereignty of God; He can do what He wants…period.  I know I will never understand all He wishes to do in my life despite the kind of person I am, but He does.  That’s one thing I’ve learned from this passage. Secondly, we know that God has endowed his creation man with a free will, and God is glorified when, despite of all we’ve done, we accept Him as He is, Holy, Sovereign and all. “O Lord, you have searched me, and known me.”This to me is the heart of Psalm 139.  God knows me, He understands me, and understands my thoughts far off or near.  He knows them as I think them; He knows them years down the road.  The Lord knows me so well that there is no word on my tongue or lips that God doesn’t know before I say it.  He is also behind me and in front of me.  He “comprehends” where I go, and when I just lie down…he understands my motivations for getting up in the morning and going from place to place and my motivations for going to bed - whether I’m tired or lazy.  If he knows that, He surely also knows why I stay in bed, and whether or not I believe I have any reason for getting up. God knows me; I heard it once said, “God is above me looking down, below me looking up, to my right side looking left and left side looking right, he is within me looking out.”  He knows my outside, every dimple, every pimple, every pucker, and every imperfection.  He knows my inside, every hair, every blood cell, every blood clot, every fat cell…He knows me.  He knows my heart, sinful motivations, sinful feelings and sinful flesh.  I’m a sinner, and he knows that…saved by grace, by Jesus Christ, but a sinner just the same…and with all that information that God knows about my person…verse 5 says He has “laid His hand upon me.” I cannot “flee from God’s spirit,” even if I wanted to.  This doesn’t mean I can’t go out from His grace and sin, it just means God is everywhere and ever present, no matter where I go, He is there.  God will orchestrate life to bring me back as a child of God, and as a sinner, orchestrate life to bring sinners to Him.  But even when I want to hide, when I say “surely the darkness shall fall on me,” even then God shall light the darkness so nothing may hide in the darkness.  He is there, and nothing will hide from Him, no secret sins.  He knows them, even the dark secrets of our past, it doesn’t surprise Him, He makes night to day and darkness and day are one to Him, because it is ALL light. “Oh that you should slay the wicked, O God!”  This passage seemed strangely out of place to me, until I thought that maybe the wickedness would be within me.  It makes sense.  After all that trying to hide my sin, hide in the darkness, and I now see how I am before a Holy, righteous God because of His light, would it not make sense to ask Him to slay the wickedness within? Can this sin within be  my enemy?  Who else might say that I am “my own worst enemy?”  Couldn’t all of us?  I think I’m on the right track in this line of thinking as the next section of verses say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart…see if there is any wicked way within me.” My friend asked after reading this Psalm 139, “How can God forgive me if He knows I’m going to screw up again anyway?”  Because He knows you, and mercy is in His disposition, He’s sovereign and He can, and He also knows He gave you a free will.  He has faith in Himself and His Word, and He knows His light will eventually lead your free will to saying “Search me, O God!  Try me!”  God is God, and He made a Way, and Jesus is sufficient for us, even when we doubt ourselves.  I see this passage as joyful.  If God knows me this well, how can I lose when I trust Him and Him alone?  Not trust Him and myself, but just Him.  And guess what?  We don’t have to understand it all….just trust Him, He does…He’s God.  Even the Psalmist said, “such knowledge is too wonderful for me: It is high, I cannot attain it.”  God is God, He is love, He puts His hand on me, He lights up the shadows and sin I’ve hidden (that’s a good thing), and He looks for us to cry out to Him because He is God, and he loves us, whether we understand it or not.

Banjara For Christ 2007-2008 (Day 4)

It’s 6 AM and I’ve been awake off and on for at least 3 hours.  I have a head ache too.  I’m thinking my sinuses are starting to clog up.  I prayed about it and it seems to be a little better.

Something about my attitude this year.  I find I’m missing home more and sooner than I did the last time around.  I know I don’t care for it much – my attitude that is.  So I’m trying to change it.  I’m trying not to complain out loud, in fact, I’ve been pretty quiet just to keep from it.  It might be that we just need to get back into the swing of things.

Pastor Steve has been telling about his dreams lately.  He’s had several; most are comical but last night was a little disturbing he said.  He doesn’t have any premise for dreaming the things he has. 

He spoke about walking down to our open air dining area and being beaten by and Indian man there.  After that he dreamed about a beast, a serpent like demon with a chainsaw who he had no choice but to fight with for exactly one hour.  Otherwise the demon would cut him up with his chainsaw and eat both he and his friends.  The first action Pastor took was to pick up a card table but found that was no good against a demon with a working chainsaw.  So he took a different approach and began singing praise and worship songs.  There were other Banjara pastors and friends who encircled the fight and he encouraged them to sing as well.  Upon hearing the songs, the beast was defeated and he was unable to fight.

Pastor thought that maybe the Lord was trying to warn him about spiritual warfare sometime this week.  I usually don’t put much stock into dreams.  But in this country, I would expect God to do anything.  This entire process this time around – from getting money to being here today, battling this headache - seems like a never ending battle; so I don’t know what to expect this week.

Lisa and I are on the road now.  We just stopped for a drink of water.  Well…they did anyway.  We can’t drink this water.  The villages we went to so far are the most remote I have seen both this year and last year.  The gospel message we’ve preached has been pretty much the same approach as last year, teach creation to the ressurection, giving a simple plan of salvation as “all of sinned” and showing them they are separated from God willfully and belieing in Christ is that bridge to everlasting life because He is the son of God.  Lisa has been giving a short testimony and helping play a few games with the kids.  That is one thing I’ve noticed here, you embrace the people’s children and they embrace you and your words.  Several Banjara men and women have come forward wanting to be believers; that and be prayed for about their health issues and finances.

Lisa fell ill on the way back to the hostel tonight, she was sick to her stomach.  Her neck was sunburned pretty bad, so she may have just got too much sun.  Might have been the car ride.  I don’t blame her, I had to take a motion sickness pill too.

All in all the trip is going well.  There was one instance today that I thought we might have a fight on our hands.  A man did not want us preaching Jesus in HIS village.  The man is apparrantly a big time idol worshiper and he’s the elder who gets all the cash and sacrifices offered to the temple from his village.  One of the pastors in our group has preached there 3 times before and a man there converted to Christ and quit offering money and sacrifices to the idols as he’s taking a stand for Jesus.  The elder of the village was furious because he told the pastor not to come back.  Now, he shows up with white people from America preaching Jesus.  I thought fists were going to fly, but was able to talk them into leaving as Christ told us to ”shake the dust from our feet” and move on.  

The pastor who had been there before said when they go around and sing praises in Christ’s name in the villages, it drives out evil spirits. The demons of idol worship are defeated and powerless when the songs are sung so the Holy Spirit then has room to work and people will quit worshipping idols and quit drinking.  Sounds a lot like Steve’s dream doesn’t it?

I fell asleep after we got back from visiting the thandas.  Sush woke us up to come visit and share our experiences in the villages.  I made it through but my head was pounding.  I don’t know if my head has ever hurt that bad.  I was dizzy and started feeling sick to my stomach because of the pain.  I couldn’t eat anything or even write like I wanted too.  Sush offered for me to call Karen and the boys as everyone else had called their family.  I got the answering machine.  I asked her to pray for me because of the headache that I was dealing with.  I went to bed just sick.  Whatever happened, the headache was better by morning.  Maybe God allows things like that to happen because He wants us to know the love and support of our family through prayers.  I have no doubt Karen was praying the moment she heard the message on the machine.  I will covet her prayers specifically from now on. 

Why ask “Why”?

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

2 Corinthians 13:5

“Why ask why?”  Because it could be the most important question you ask in life.  As I’ve tried to share in my testimony, I grew up in church.  There was always so much “do and do not” I very rarely asked why I was doing and not doing.  Before too long, I got the right “dos” and I got approval.  I loved it!  Approval from parents, family and friends.  I loved being a good kid, so I continued doing the right thing.  My intentions were not to be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but somehow, life just turned out that way.  About two years ago, I started getting convicted everytime I heard or read (later I just ended up dwelling on) the scripture Matthew 7:21-23.  By that scripture I realized that you can be in Heaven and still be rejected by the Lord and be SURPRIZED about it!  I began to wonder if I was one of those who the Lord would reject, saying He never knew me.  I imagined myself, standing there, saying, “I’ve done so much for you Lord.”  And the Lord saying, “depart from me, I never knew you.”  I had to examine myself, my heart, my motives, and I realized that none of what I had ever done (no matter who thought what I did was good) was ever for the Lord, it was for me.  I made myself the “hub” of the Christian wheel.  I realized, quite suddenly that the “why” I was doing things was so much more important than WHAT I was doing and how I was doing things.  Doing the right thing just because it was the right thing was no longer right.  I was a pharisee, a hypocrite, and I would have died and went to hell had I had an accident that night.  At that moment, driving home from work, I asked the Lord to please save me, please forgive my empty, petty, motives for “doing right” in life and to please help me from that point on, and to finally, once and for all, be my Lord.  Wherever He leads, I’ll follow.

I ask these questions because I went through them in life myself:  Did someone tell you, “all you have to do is say this prayer and you’ll go to Heaven?”  Did you get saved at a church camp maybe or at a church alter when you went to the front and said a prayer because your friends or family were around and they wanted you to “accept Jesus into your heart”?  Did you make some kind of emotional decision?  Maybe you should examine yourself too?  I did, and I have no doubts who my Lord is, and I think if more Christians would see Jesus as Lord and “examine themselves” they’d finally start seeing themselves as God wants them too.  Truthfully, honestly, in need of Him. 

Confessions: Sinful Pride Unveiled

I’ve been doing a lot of self evaluation these days.  I’ve been reading through and praying through a book called “Returning to Holiness: A Personal and Churchwide Journey to Revival.”  I never knew the threat of “hidden” sin.  In the past few days I’ve found that it can hinder my walk with God nearly to a standstill.  I have found one of my unconfessed sins to be crushing to me, and the more I think of it, the more sense it makes that it would.  My sin is pride.  If anyone has talked to me the past few days-they know this.  I have been irritable and not at all easy to get along with.  I’ve been confrontational and defensive on issues that shouldn’t be issues at all.  I started this ”journey” because I knew some things weren’t setting right with me in my life.  I’ve held grudges inwardly and embarrass easily.  It didn’t take but about a week into the book when the Holy Spirit began convicting of the major problem.

The book began asking questions like:  “Do you often criticize and judge others?”  “Do you think yourself quite spiritual?”  “Are you frequently trying to set others straight?” or “Do you have a “holier than thou attitude?”  

The stone of God’s conviction hit me straight between the eyes.   Do I criticize others?  I wouldn’t have admitted a couple of weeks ago, but yes, inwardly, in my mind…I do.  Do I think myself quite spiritual?  Yes…I do.  I’ve often compared myself to others, maybe not outwardly, but I have thought myself quite spiritual.  Now that I think of it, so did the pharisees, and Jesus Christ didn’t approve them at all.  Do I have a “holier than thou” attitude?  Let me ask you what you think?  If you know me, do I come off that way?  For those that do feel that way, I’m so sorry, you are absolutely right and if I’ve ever made you feel bad because I was staring down my pharisitical nose at you, I hope you’ll forgive me.  My heart is never to hurt, but I’ve realized that I may have, because I thought myself “quite spiritual.”  It is not Christ’s way to have his children be “holier than thou” it is Christ’s will that his children be Holy.  That’s what I’m attempting to do, and I hope that anyone reading will pray with me on this issue.  Pride, I’ve realized, is a very subtle sin; and I often do not realize when I’m being prideful.  I pray that my attitude will quickly change as I’ve repented of it.