The King of the Dump

I recently switched from Directv to Spectrum.  I had a very old TV that is not compatible with Spectrum’s HDMI only cable boxes.  So I bought a new TV and took the old one to the dump.  You have to prove that you are a resident with your driver’s license and a copy of a recent water bill from the city to allowed to dump.  I brought my license and June’s water bill, the most recent one I could find. The King of the Dump raised Cain with me because of my ancient water bill.  Like I moved to Arkansas but was just dying to get over on him by dumping my TV in his dump. “Did you look at the date on this water bill before you came”, he asked.  “Do you know what ‘recent’ means?” I said, “Look, if it’s that big of a deal, I will go home and find the most current water bill.”  He then said, “I’ll let you dump today, but be more careful in the future.” I think he expected me to kiss his filthy boots at this display of grace.  

Bruce Springsteen has a line in a song called “Badlands” that goes like this, “Poor man want to be rich. Rich man want to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.” We all want to be king of something. Then when we are king of that, we want to be king of something bigger.  This man was the king of the dump.  It was his prerogative to enforce the rules of the dump strictly, or to give grace.  He clearly enjoyed his kingdom.  I’m sure you all have had similar experiences. 

Why is it that we want a kingdom so badly?  I think it’s because we are so out of control in most areas of our lives that we desperately want to be in control of something.  We try to control our health by exercising and eating right, but we could get a bad diagnosis any day.  We try to control our financial security by investing wisely, but the bottom could fall out of the stock market or real estate market without warning.  We try to control what will happen to our assets after we die, but our kids might squander what we have worked hard to accumulate.  We try to control our relationships by treating people well, but find that we have somehow unwittingly offended someone and we can’t fix it.  We realize that we are not in control of anything. We long for something that we can control with complete and unadulterated authority.  

Jesus dismissed the idea that we are in control of anything. In Luke 12, in the great passage about controlling worry and anxiety said, “And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?”   We are not in control. God is sovereign and everything happens in accordance with His will and with His plans.  I thank God for that.  If we accept that God is good and God is omnipotent, then what do we have to fear? Most times in life, when I try to be king of my life, I get out ahead of God and I don’t learn the lesson that God has for me in the moment.  In doing that I miss the blessing He has for me and I make a dump out of my own life. 

I tell myself that I don’t want to be king of my life.  I tell myself that I want to be a faithful subject of the only true King.  But am I being honest?  The only way to be a faithful subject is to surrender my life to the true King and let him rule my life.   That means allowing Him to use me however He wants.  It means being thankful for suffering because of the lessons I learn from it.  Most of us try so hard to control our own lives, and then something happens that makes us realize that we never had control anyway.  God did not make me king of my life.  The more I try to be king, the more I usurp His authority and get in the way of the work He wants to do through me.  We have to surrender our lives to him daily.  People trying to lose weight start a new diet every morning. People who want to surrender their lives to God have do it every morning too.  I pray that we will all have the strength and wisdom through the power of the Holy Spirit to surrender to Him.  He’s a better King than we will ever be!

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

What Have You Done for Me Lately?

In 1986, Janet Jackson released a song called “What Have You done for Me Lately?” I admit that I never read the lyrics to the song before today, but some of them are pretty funny.  Here’s the second verse: “Used to go to dinner almost every night, dancin' 'til I thought I'd lose my breath, Now it seems your dancing feet are always on my couch, Good thing I cook or else we'd starve to death - Ain't that a shame?  What have you done for me lately?”  It’s not Shakespeare, but you get the point. 

Last Thursday night was opening day of football season. The Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles were home to the Atlanta Falcons.  The first half was very sloppy and at halftime, the Eagles were trailing 6-3.  They serenaded with a chorus of boos from the notoriously fickle Philadelphia fan base on their way to the locker room.  Did I mention that the Eagles were the defending Super Bowl Champions?  What have you done for me lately?

When we think about God, we often ask the same question.  Yes God, you are the Creator of all that is.  Yes God, you sent your Son to die on a cross so that believing I might have eternal life. But, really, “What have you done for me LATELY?”  There’s a scene in Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian” (Don’t act like you’ve never seen it!) where the rebel group of Jews called the People’s Front of Judea complain about the presence of the Romans, saying, “They've taken everything we have and what have they ever done for us?!”  Then one of the rebels mentions the aqueduct that the Romans built, and they all reluctantly agree that the Romans did build them an aqueduct. Another mentions sanitation, and again they agree.  After several more things are mentioned, their leader says, “All right, apart from the aqueduct, sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?!”   What have you done for me lately?

The Life of Brian is a comedy. I don’t mean to equate our relationship to God with Jews living under 1^stCentury Roman oppression, but it’s a funny illustration.  It should make us realize how much we take for granted the things that God HAS provided, while constantly complaining and griping about the things He hasn’t.  What has He provided for us that we take for granted?  He gives us oxygen for our lungs, water for our cells, rain for our crops, and food for our bellies.  Most of us have clothes to wear, roofs over our heads and have never missed a meal.  In addition, He’s given us a way out of the sin predicament that we are in.  We can’t get to heaven because of our sin, but God made a way.  He sent His Son to die on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin. All we have to do is believe in Jesus for our salvation and our sins are forgiven and we spend eternity in heaven. Is that not enough?

Human nature being what it is, the answer is often, no.  We always want more.  We’re always complaining.  We forget to thank God for the prayer He did answer, and continue to worry about the prayer He hasn’t yet answered. We want God to be a cosmic genie in a bottle who grants our every wish.  Jesus said in John 6, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.  What have you done for me lately?  Life’s difficulties draw us closer to Him and that’s right where we need to be.  Ultimately, we want to be closer to Him not for what He can give to us, but because of who He is.  

The Eagles came back last Thursday night and beat the Falcons and thousands of delirious Eagles fans cheered.  What had the Eagles done for their fans lately?  They won the game.  But the players know that the fans will turn on them the next time they play a bad first half.  Let’s not be like that toward God.  I have been praying a very specific prayer for some time now and yet God has not yet deemed the time to be right to answer it.  I’m sure you have too.  Let’s love and worship God for who He is and not what He’s done for us lately.  John Piper has famously said, “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.”  Let’s not ask, “What have you done for me lately?”  Let’s just be satisfied in Him. 

Two New York City Tragedies

I’m sure many of you watched the news coverage remembering 9/11 this morning.  Fox replayed their actual live coverage from that morning.  It brought back the raw emotions of deep sorrow and anguish, along with fierce anger, just as fresh as if it happened yesterday.  I was in Court in Hackensack, NJ, about 10 miles north and west of NYC, representing a client on the morning of 9/11.  It was before the age of smart phone, and so it wasn’t until about 10 am, there I heard rumblings around the courthouse that something had happened at the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan.  When I got out of court and headed for home, I could see the smoke from the WTC and by then had heard the news that both towers had fallen.  Alli was 2 and Brian was 7 months old at the time.  All I wanted to do was to be home with my family.   

I remember as a young boy, my father used to work in downtown Manhattan.  Sometimes over the summer, I would go to work with him.  We would take the subway from Hoboken, NJ under the Hudson River to the WTC stop and then walk the few blocks to his office.  I remember leaning against the buildings and looking up in awe at these buildings that reached literally into the sky.  It would never have entered my mind then or in 2001, that they could be taken down by terrorists.  The memory of the people who died that day; the images of people jumping off the buildings rather than being burned; the sight of those incredible buildings collapsing to the ground will always be ingrained in our minds and hearts.  I still cry thinking about it.  Molly and I and many of our friends from the northeast who will read this post knew several people who died that morning.  We should never, ever forget the evil that occurred that day.

Today, there is another tragedy occurring at Union Theological Seminary on the opposite side of Manhattan.  John MacArthur and other evangelical leaders published a document on September 5, 2018 called “Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel”, which begins, “In view of questionable sociological, psychological and political theories presently permeating our culture and making inroads in Christ’s church, we wish to clarify certain key doctrines and ethical principles prescribed in God’s word.”  The document proceeds to affirm orthodox doctrines of the Christian faith while denying that “political or social activism should be viewed as integral components of the gospel or primary to the mission of the church.  Though believers can and should utilize all lawful means that God has providentially established to have some effect on the laws of a society, we deny that these activities are either evidence of saving faithor constitute a central part of the church’s mission given to her by Jesus Christ, her head. We deny that laws or regulations possess any inherent power to change sinful hearts.” (emphasis mine)

In response to the Statement, Union, which is part of Columbia University in Harlem, issued a rebuttal which begins, “Misguided sociological, psychological and political theories have long fostered biblical misinterpretation.”  The rebuttal then expressly denies the inerrancy of Scripture, denies that “salvation is only found through Christianity, that’s God’s salvific grace is exclusive to any single faith or religion”, and proclaims that “there is no difference in spiritual value or worth between those who are ‘in Christ’ and those who aren’t.  Union affirms that “science and theory’s confirmation that God created humans to live into various sexual orientations and genders-the spectrum of human sexual experience attests to God’s expansive love.  We deny that any love that does no harm should be rejected.”  (emphasis mine) (You can read the full text of the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel and Union’s response on the internet.)

I searched Union’s website for a doctrinal statement without success.  From the above, it seems that Union subscribes to universalist theology that affirms that all people will go to heaven regardless of what they believe, and that the role of religion and of the church is to do good to others.  While we certainly should do good to others, our benevolence does not save us or the person receiving it from the wrath of God.  The only way we can get to heaven is not by belief in anything we have done, but belief that we can’t do anything to merit salvation. That’s why it was necessary that Jesus Christ died on the cross.  He died to pay the penalty that we deserve for our sins, and He rose from the dead.  Believe that and you will go to heaven.  Anything else is belief that your own good works can get you into heaven, something that the Bible unequivocally denies.  To hold to Union’s universalist social gospel, you must discard or de-value the Bible, sin, the wrath of God, the cross, the atonement, the resurrection, the ascension, and the coming day of judgment.  Union calls itself a Christian seminary, yet joins a long list of seminaries and churches that have done just that. 

A total of 2,996 people lost their lives on 9/11.  It was an unequalled tragedy in the history of our nation.  A more subtle tragedy is the number of people who may ultimately lose their souls as a result of the teaching that is coming from Union Seminary and other like-minded seminaries and churches in our country.  As evangelical Christians, we believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, the need for a Savior due to our fallen sinful state, that Jesus Christ came as God in the flesh, born of a virgin, who died on a cross for our sins and was raised from the dead, and the only way to get to heaven is trust in Him alone for our salvation.  That’s an unpopular message today, but it’s the truth.  The only way to prevent the tragedy of people facing God’s wrath and spending eternity in hell is to preach it.   Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”

So let’s love others by preaching the gospel to them, and making disciples.  If people have physical needs, let's meet them where we can, not because that saves us or them, but because they were created in God’s image, God loves them, Christ died for them, and meeting physical needs often provides an opportunity to share the gospel that does save.

The Problem of 'Schadenfreude'

As most of you know, the NFL season is about to begin.  Praise God! Lots of people are excited about the upcoming season as always.  Some familiar teams like New England and Green Bay will be in the mix as favorites to win the Super Bowl.  Some new contenders include the Los Angeles Rams and the Jacksonville Jaguars.  And of course, little is expected from the perennially pathetic Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears and NY Jets.  In Las Vegas you can bet on anything.  The saddest story I read gave odds on the first head football coach to be fired.  The favorite to be the first coach fired is Tampa Bay’s head coach, followed by Cleveland and Denver’s head coach.

As I thought about that, I thought about our apparent fascination in America with watching people fail and fall.  I can’t think of any kind of story that receives more press coverage than the stories of failure, or stories of a fall from grace.  Who can ever forget OJ Simpson in the white Bronco, the Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein scandals, or the very public moral failures of Jim Baker or Jimmy Swaggert?  I don’t know why these stories are so popular.  Maybe it’s what psychologists call “Schadenfreude”, the emotion of taking pleasure in others misfortune.  The explanation is that these stories make us feel better about ourselves.  We look for qualities in that person that caused their failure, evaluate ourselves to be sure we don’t have that same quality, and then sleep contentedly.  I think we have all probably experienced this emotion ourselves once or twice in our lives. 

Of course, if we do this, we are only betraying our own insecurities.  We don’t know OJ Simpson or Matt Lauer or what makes them tick. We only know that we are not murderers, serial cheaters, or sexual abusers.  This makes us feel safe that the same things that happened to them can’t happen to us.  What this emotion ignores is that we are all sinners in one way or another.  James says whoever is guilty of breaking the law at any point is guilty of breaking the whole law.  Jesus said if a man looks lustfully at another woman he has already committed adultery.   We all know that we are lawbreakers and we are thankful that we are not public figures whose failures will be exposed to the whole world on Facebook and Twitter. But God knows our failures even though the world may not.  

Paul warned us in Romans 12 to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment.  If we do that, we will not rejoice in anyone else’s failure.  We will say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  When a brother falls, Galatians 6 tells is to “restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so you will not be tempted.”  We must always be on guard or failure will come quickly.  Jesus said, “Broad is the gate that leads to destruction and many find it.  Narrow is the gate that leads to life and few find it.”   We know that it is only by God’s grace that we stay on the path toward the narrow gate.  

As Christians, we don’t bet on which coach will be fired first and then root against him.  We don’t watch Matt Lauer’s moral failures and rejoice that someone who seemed to have it all crashed and burned. Schadenfreude is not Biblical. It’s the opposite of the compassion that believers are to have for others, even if their bad decisions led to their failures.  Consider these examples:  David committed reprehensible sin with Bathsheba and yet God spared him.  Paul was a murderer who became the greatest evangelist the world has ever known.  John Mark deserted Paul in Perga, but was later was deemed useful in ministry. Peter denied Christ three times and still the Lord restored him.  God was not be done with any of these men. Failure is one of the tools that God uses to draw people to Himself.  I don’t know what the future holds for public figures like OJ Simpson, Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein. OJ Simpson served time, and Harvey Weinstein may as well.  But God still may not be done with them.  When someone in our circle of influence fails, let’s never be part of the problem by rejoicing in it.  Let’s be part of the solution by restoring one where we can Biblically, and helping him walk with Christ again.  

And when we fail, even if no one knows it, know that our story is not yet complete.  God loves us, and the reason that we still have breath in our lungs is that God has a purpose for our lives.  We repent and turn back to Him.  There is grace at the cross for all who will come! 

Be 'Re-Purposed'

When we were shopping for a house in Texas, our realtor frequently used a term that we had never heard before.  The term was “re-purpose”.  She would say things like, “If you don’t like that light fixture in the foyer, you can ‘re-purpose’ it in another room where it will be less conspicuous.”  Re-purposing simply means to use the something in a different place or in a different way than it had previously been used.  The thing doesn’t change, but the way you use it changes.  I must confess that I am more of a ‘chucker’ than a re-purposer.  If I don’t like the light fixture in the hallway, I’m not going to like it in a spare bedroom either, so I’ll chuck it and get a new one.  

I thank God that He’s a re-purposer and not a chucker.  Like many of you, I came to faith as an adult.  I went to church as a kid, and I believed in God, but I didn’t understand the gospel.  As a teenager I left the church, became an atheist, and stopped going to church.  It was a full 20 years before God got my attention again and gave me grace to see that Jesus became a man to live a perfect life and to die for my sins.  God raised Jesus from the dead to show that He has power over death.  I understood that to be raised to eternal life, all I needed to do was to trust in Jesus alone for my salvation.  So I did.  

Every Christian’s story is basically the same. The details differ, but the theme is that God first redeems your life. He shows you the beauty of Jesus and His sacrifice and you believe.  That’s your salvation.  Salvation is not ‘hell insurance’ as a pastor friend of says.  Salvation does save us from the wrath of God and eternity in hell, but it’s so much more than that.  John 5:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  Notice the use of the present tense.  He who believes ‘has’ eternal life now.  Your eternity does not begin at your death.  It’s already begun.  Once you are saved, God invites you to re-purpose your life for better, more productive use.  2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”  We’re the same and yet not the same.  Somehow we are made new, ‘re-purposed’ and called to serve Him in a new way.  

So the question is, how are you spending your eternity today? This life is not a waiting room that we merely occupy before we enter eternity.  This life is our daily opportunity to show our love and appreciation for the salvation that God has freely provided to us by serving Him. God wants you to re-purpose your life to further His kingdom.  What are you good at?  What do you enjoy doing?   Re-purpose yourself so that you use your gifts for the glory of God.  All you have to do is to ask God to show you where He wants to use you.  Notice that you have a choice.  God has made you into something new, but it’s up to you if you will allow Him to use you. 

It’s so easy to let days, months and years pass without ever attempting something great for God.  But if you’re not willing to risk anything for God, you won’t accomplish anything great for Him either.  It’s easy to settle for a comfortable life.  It’s in my nature and yours to seek comfort.  But God didn’t save us to make us comfortable.  He saved us so that we would live re-purposed lives, showing the love of Jesus Christ to whoever we can, however we can.  I need to remind myself of this every day because it is so easy to choose comfort and convenience over serving others.  As Andy Dufresne famously said in The Shawshank Redemption, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin.”  I pray that we would all use choose to use the precious time and resources that God has given us to get busy living as redeemed and re-purposed instruments for His kingdom and His glory.  

Love Does

 I just finished reading a book by Bob Goff called “Love Does.”  The premise of the book is that God calls us to live with whimsical love. The word whimsy means extravagant, fanciful, or playful.  To love whimsically means that sometimes you have to DO things and not worry about the expense, or whether the thing makes a whole lot of sense.  Goff told story after story of what it has looked like to love whimsically in his life, and I have to admit that I was jealous.  He has lived a life of adventure. As we get older, we get more cautious and conservative.  We worry about things a lot more than we did when we were younger. When I was younger, I didn’t worry about anything, and that’s not good either!  But I never want to get to the point where I don’t DO anything for fear of whether I can afford it, or whether I have time or who will feed my dog, or whether the house will be standing when I get home.

When the prodigal son returned home, his father ran after him and embraced him and kissed him.  He dressed him in the finest clothes, put a ring on his finger and killed the fattened calf so they could celebrate his return. That’s whimsical love.  It’s extravagant, expensive, over the top love. It was so much more than the prodigal could ever have hoped for, especially after the way he insulted his father by asking for his share of the inheritance while his father was still alive. I want to love that way.  

This afternoon at about 3:30 we heard that our nephew Luke will be graduating from US Navy Boot Camp on Friday in Chicago.  He has worked so hard to get to this point. About 5 weeks into the 8 week basic training program, they told him that he was not progressing well enough and they added 3 more weeks to his basic training.  He was devastated.  His graduation date was rescheduled to August 3, but the Navy tells all the families to buy flight insurance if they plan to attend graduation, because any trainee can be held back again at the last minute.  

Molly and I had been talking about going up to Chicago for the graduation but as the days passed with no assurance that Luke would graduate, we gave up on the idea.  But reading “Love Does” has changed my thinking. There’s no reason why we can’t go to Chicago on a moment’s notice to be at his graduation.  Well, actually there are a bunch of reasons why we can’t go, but whimsical love doesn’t worry about the reasons why we can’t go.  Instead, it figures out a way that we can go.  

So here’s the plan. Molly and I will drive through the night tonight to get to Chicago tomorrow morning.  It’s about a 12-13 hour drive.  We are going to go to the Chicago White Sox game at 1 pm.  I’ve never been to the new stadium so I can check another stadium off my list. (I swear that’s not the reason we are going!) Then we will meet up with Luke’s family, that’s Molly’s brother Paul, his wife Lois, and their kids who many of you have met.  They can only get 4 tickets to the graduation, so Molly and I won’t actually get to see the graduation, but we will see Luke after for a while.  I think it will mean a lot to him that we made the effort.  Then we will drive back on Saturday.  

Does that seem crazy? When I was young, I would have done it in a heartbeat.  Now that I am older, I hemmed and hawed.  But love does.  So we are doing it.  We are so proud of Luke and we want to be there to share his moment with him.  When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that was not convenient.  It was painful, humiliating, shameful and worst of all, He was separated from His Father while He bore His Father’s wrath for the sin of the world.  If He had not done it, none of us could be in heaven with Him someday.  He had to pay the penalty for our sins.  Love Does. That’s how Jesus showed His love for us. In comparison to that, what’s a drive to Chicago and back to show our love for our nephew?  

My New Dining Room

Molly went away on a mission trip last week and left me home.  Whenever that happens I usually take on some home improvement project to surprise her with when she gets home.  I’m sure she is afraid every time she leaves because I’m not the most handy guy in the world and could easily get in over my head.  This week I took on our dining room.  It started out innocently enough, just paint.  After the painting was done, I looked at the disgusting 18 year-old builder’s grade carpet that my dog has used for things I don’t even want to mention here and thought, “It’s time for this to go.”  I peeled it back from the corner and thought hard about whether I could handle carpet removal and installation of a vinyl floor.  I decided to go for it.  It took me a couple of days, and cost me a little more than I had hoped, but the finished product is really nice.  I’m kind of proud of my work.  

That got me to thinking about the lengths that we will go to cover up things we don’t like not only in our houses but in ourselves.  We wear clothes that will best hide our flaws.  Women (and some men!) wear makeup to cover flaws.  When dating, we try to hide the things about ourselves that might make our date run from us.  When we interview for jobs, we never say the things about ourselves that we know will scare our employers off.  We are careful about the things we post on social media.  (Some of us should perhaps be more careful!)   We go to great lengths to hide our real selves.  We can get away with this to a certain extent because the people were are concealing our true selves from are not omniscient.  They don’t know what we are thinking.  They don’t know everything we’ve ever done.  They don’t know every wicked thought we've ever had.

Incredibly, our God knows all of these things and loves us anyway.  Psalm 139 talks about God’s omniscience and His love for us.  Verse 1: “O Lord you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar.”  Verse 4: “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold Lord, you know it all.”  Verse 16: Your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them.”  This psalm instructs us about the dignity of human life from conception to death, but that is not my focus today.  I am focusing on how God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, can love us anyway. Billy Joel sang, “I said I love you and that’s forever, and this I promise from the heart. I couldn’t love you any better. I love you just the way you are.”  How can God love us just the way we are?

I listened to a sermon today by a great friend of mine.  He said something profound.  He was talking about how God has poured all of His love into His Son Jesus.  We can only experience God’s eternal love when we choose to trust Jesus for our salvation.  This was God's idea and His plan.  John 5:21-22 says, “21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. 22 For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”  God does not judge.  Jesus judges. Jesus gives life to whom He wishes.  The only way to pass His muster is to receive Him as your Savior.  The only way to receive the eternal love of God is to love the Son.  I know that’s hard.  I’m not saying that God does not love everyone.  He does.  That’s why He sent His Son to die for the sin of everyone in the world.  What I am saying is that only those who accept Jesus as Savior will experience the eternal love of God because the only way to love and honor God is to love Jesus who He sent.  

When I looked at my ugly dining room, I saw it exactly as it was.  When God looks at us, He sees us exactly as we are. No flaw is hidden from His sight.  But when we choose to believe in His Son for the salvation of our souls God chooses to see His perfect Son and not our flawed and sinful selves. What a great God we serve!

PS: Check out my new dining room!

The Armadillo's World and Mine

The other morning I was walking on the golf course like I do most mornings.  As I turned around a little bend, there was an armadillo about 20 yards ahead of me, eating and not noticing me at all.  As I came closer, he heard me.  He turned and looked at me and tried to decide if I was friend or foe. He must have decided not to take any chances.  He slinked closer to the woods and then darted into them.  I wanted to follow him, but they were dense and with my history of bug bites followed by emergency room visits, I decided to leave him alone. 

My world is out in the open, on the golf course that people made, and where people can generally be found. His world is in the woods hidden away from people and other creatures that mean him harm.  When he was out in the open, he was in my world and uncomfortable there.  His sanctuary is the protection of the woods.  Had I crossed the threshold into the woods, I would have left my own sanctuary and entered the world where bugs and snakes bite, and unseen danger lurks all around.  Which got me to thinking…

Why is it so hard for us as Christians to live in our world?  It’s because this world is filled with sin, and opportunity for sin abounds.  Like the armadillo out in the open, or me in the woods, it’s uncomfortable and unnatural for Christians to live in a world that does not fit Christ’s desire for our holiness.  That’s why 1 Peter 2 says that we are “strangers and aliens in this world”, and encourages us to “abstain from fleshly lusts that wage war against our souls.”  Is it hard to do abstain from fleshly lusts?  Of course it is.  Sin is fun for a time.  Fleshly lusts are enticing.  They are not just sexual in nature.  They can be anything that exalt ourselves or give us pleasure at the expense of God’s standard of holiness.  It’s hard to live in this world as Christians because we are bombarded by the opportunity to gratify ourselves with fleshly lusts. 

That’s why Hebrews 13:14 says, “This world is not our permanent home, we are looking for a home yet to come.”  Why is it that though we live here, we feel the tug in our hearts that this world is not all there is, that there is a better place that awaits us?  It’s because somewhere in the depths of our souls, we Christians know that this world is not our ultimate home. We know that Jesus is preparing a place for us so that where He is, we will be also (John 14:2-3). One day, we will inhabit that dwelling place that the Lord has prepared for us.  As Paul said in Phil 3:20, ^“Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

As we live in this world, we will be tempted every day to accept what it offers.  Not a day will pass that we will not have the opportunity to indulge in every manner of sin.  As this world falls further and further into moral decay, we must “walk in a manner worthy of our calling.” (Eph. 4:1), and “not to go on presenting the members of our body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but as instruments of righteousness to God.”  (Rom. 6:12-13).  We CAN do this with the Lord’s help by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9-12). We CAN resist the temptation to sin (1 Cor. 10:13).  We CAN live in this world and not become part of it. (1 John 2:15-16)

That armadillo could visit my world for a short time.  And I may have been able to follow him into his world for a minute or two.  But we can’t live in each other’s world.  Sooner or later, we’ll get hurt if we try to live in the other’s world.  The same is true of disciples of Christ trying to live in a sinful world.  True disciples of Christ have to avoid the world of sin that tempts us and means to do us harm.  For now, this is Satan’s world, and he means to destroy us with the temptations of this world.  Be careful to avoid his snares.  There’s nothing but trouble ahead when you allow yourself to enter his world.  

Life Without My Mac

In the middle of June, the keys on the right side of the keyboard on my Mac stopped working.  I had to take it in to the Apple Store for service. They said that the problem was that the battery located beneath the keys on the right side of the keyboard had swollen and needed to be replaced.  I was without the computer for a week while they did the repair.  When I got it back, they had replaced the battery and the keyboard but still the keys did not work.  I brought it back.  They replaced the battery and the keyboard again and returned the computer to me 10 days later, but still the keys didn’t work.  I was beyond frustrated. I NEED my computer!  I called Apple support to complain and to get assistance.  They told me that it must be a software problem. After a combined 5 hours on the phone with them, they finally diagnosed the problem and fixed it.  After 3 weeks without my computer, I am now back in business. 

Here are some things that I learned:

1. I need to learn to be more dependent on the Lord than I am on my computer.  Jesus is everything I need.  Psalm 42 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul thirsts for you my God.” While without my computer, my soul was thirsting for it more than it was thirsting for God.  I rely on my computer every hour, every day.  It’s physical, tangible, and helps me get my work done.  I almost can’t function without it.  How I need to learn that the same is true of Jesus.  I need Him every day, every hour.  He is my life, my breath, and I can’t function without Him. 

2. My problems are “first world” problems.  There are millions of people in the world who don't have clean water to drink or food to eat, and I was whining like a petulant child because my Mac was in the shop and I had to use a PC.  The horror!! Really?!  Such is the state of most of us.  We are so materially wealthy that sometimes we invent things to complain about. I’m not saying that some of us don’t have real problems, but most of the things we complain about would be laughable to much of the rest of the world.  Complaining about invented problems is nothing new.  In Numbers 11, after God rescued the people from 400 years of bondage in Egypt, they complained about having to eat manna.  I took time today to ask forgiveness for my own selfishness and ignorance of the real problems in the world, and I thanked God that He has provided for my every need.

3. I need to work on my patience.  This is not a new revelation to me.  God keeps giving me opportunities and I can imagine Him smiling and shaking His head at me when I fail yet again.  I am not so eagerly awaiting my next test!  All things are under His control and happen according to His perfect timing. Psalm 33:20 says, “We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.”  I know it and still have a hard time with waiting on the Lord. I’m not just talking about computers, but every prayer I am waiting for the Lord to answer.  Can you relate?  

I hope that you had a little chuckle at my little problem, but I also hope you can see a bit of yourself in it.  Jesus is our Lord and Savior.  By His wounds we have been saved.  When we value anything more than Him,  when we complain that He has not provided, when we are not willing to trust His timing, we do Him a disservice.  May we let God be God and be content with His provision!

What a bug bite can teach us about sin

I was out fishing yesterday with friends when I felt something bite me on the wrist.  I looked down and saw an ant there and flicked it off, but it immediately started itching, and I knew I was in trouble.  I’ve told you before that I am allergic to bees.  I found out today that I’m allergic to other kinds of bug bites too.  I know the routine.  Slowly the area around the bite started to swell.  Then the swelling began to creep up my arm.  Within a couple of hours, my hand looked like the Pillsbury dough boy’s.  With a bug bite, it’s easy to diagnose the problem.   The problem was the bug’s venom got into me.  I felt the bite and I saw the progress of the swelling.  The antidote is a steroid shot, a relatively simple solution to the problem. This morning the swelling had receded some and my hand looks more like mine than an advertiser’s cartoon mascot.  All of this got me to thinking about sin and salvation. Let me explain:

Sin gets into us like that bug’s venom got into me.  Sin is at the root of every problem we have in our lives.  Our own sin causes us problems.  We have health problems because we over-eat, or smoke or drink.  We have financial problems because we spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need.  We have relational problems because we are proud and won’t admit when we are wrong. We are addicted to video games, pornography, drugs, or gambling. Sometimes, it’s the sin of others that makes our lives difficult.  The boss is an ego-maniac.  Our children have walked away from the faith.  The mechanic is ripping us off.  Other times, our problems are caused by the fact that we live in a fallen world, which is the result of sin.  When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, sin and death entered the world.  Natural disasters, evil, bug bites, and the tendency of things to decay and deteriorate are the result.  

Unlike a bug bite, sin can be hard to diagnose, especially our own sin.  It creeps into our lives like the swelling crept up my arm, slowly but surely, and if we don’t get the antidote, our sin will kill us and keep us from heaven.  Satan entices us to sin, and he blinds our eyes so that we continue in it, so that we never make the connection between our sin and the hardship we create for ourselves by it. The problem is sin.

The antidote to sin is Jesus Christ.  When Jesus died on the cross, He said, “It is finished.”  That means that the work of paying for our sin is complete.  The debt that we owe for sinning against Holy God is “paid in full.” We will never pay the penalty for our sin if we believe in Jesus for our salvation because God doesn’t demand double payment of the debt.  Jesus already paid it for you once and for all.  That’s wonderful news of course, but how does that help in our battle against sin?  Romans 8:9 says, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  As believers, we have the Holy Spirit to help us defeat sin.  Romans 8:5-8 says, “⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

Believers in Jesus Christ have the power to defeat sin because we have the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, living inside of us.  If we want to defeat the sin in our lives, we have to have our minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The will of God is not hard to discern.  He wants us to live holy lives, lives of integrity and high character.  He wants us not to worry and to trust Him for our needs.  He wants us to share the love of Jesus with others.  As we fill ourselves with the desires of the Spirit, the sin in our lives will decrease correspondingly.  If you have kids, you want them to be busy because you know that busyness keeps them out of trouble.  God wants us to be busy about His work in this world.  We can’t be sinning and doing His work at the same time.  If I had killed that bug or flicked it off of me before it had bitten me, I could have stopped that venom from getting into me.  If we kill sin before it gets into us, we will be spared of so much suffering and hardship that we bring on ourselves. 

Let’s be filled with the Holy Spirit; let get about doing God’s work.  We will still have the problems that come from living in a fallen world, and we will still face persecution for being Christians.  But hopefully, we will have far fewer problems that are caused by our own sin.

The Baker who wouldn't bake

If you are like me, you have been eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. This is the case of Jack Phillips, the Christian baker and owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who refused to bake a wedding cake for two gay men on the grounds that doing so would violate his religious beliefs.    

After Phillips refused to bake the cake, the gay couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights commission alleging that Phillips violated a Colorado anti-discrimination law that prohibits business open to the public from discriminating against their customers on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation. Phillips argued that his cakes were an artistic expression and subject to free speech protection under the first amendment, and that requiring him to bake cakes for gay couples violated his right to free speech and free exercise of religion.  There is much procedural history that can be summarized by saying that Phillips lost at trial and on appeal. The courts ruled that the making of a cake was the expected conduct of Phillips business, and not an expression of free speech or an exercise of religion, and therefore his refusal to bake the cake violated the anti-discrimination law.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips yesterday.  This is wonderful news for Phillips and for those who believe that business owners should not be forced to violate their consciences and beliefs by being required to use their creativity to endorse same sex marriage.  But we should look at what the Supreme Court actually said and didn’t say.  The Court ruled in favor of Phillips because it said that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated its obligation to apply “religious neutrality” to its hearings and therefore overturned the ruling by the Commission.  The Supreme Court found that the Commission was unduly biased against Phillips and had shown open hostility toward his religious beliefs.  In other words, Phillips didn’t get a fair hearing before the Commission because the Commission was hostile to Phillips religious beliefs and overturned the ruling on those grounds.  What the Supreme Court did not say was that Phillips or anyone else in a similar situation has a right to deny providing goods or services to a gay couple. The court basically kicked the can down the road, choosing to decide the case on a very narrow issue, rather than dealing with the big issues in the case.

So, even though Phillips won the case, he did not hit a home run.  He won on a much narrower issue than what he was hoping, i.e., that the Court would declare that his rights to freedom of speech and freedom of exercise religion trump the anti-discrimination law. This case establishes no legal precedent and will be of no use to the next Christian business owner accused of violating anti-discrimination laws by refusing to sell goods and services to same sex couples. That issue is not resolved and I doubt it will be very long before another case makes its way up to the Supreme Court. 

In the meantime, let’s not be part of the problem.  God loves people who are practicing homosexuality, although the Bible is clear that homosexuality is an abomination to God.  We need to love them too, yet not be afraid to speak Biblical truth to them IN LOVE.  I emphasize IN LOVE because this issue has been so clouded by hate.  We ALL have sin in our lives.  God hates ALL sin.  Jesus died for ALL sin.  Let’s show practicing homosexuals the same grace, mercy and love in their sin that we want for ourselves and our own sin. Let’s find the proper balance between loving the sinner and not endorsing the sin.  Let’s point them to Christ.  That’s where forgiveness for ALL sin is found.

The Weatherman and the Bible

Most mornings I wake up pretty early and go for a long walk around the golf course near my neighborhood.  The weatherman was calling for a high chance of rain this morning, but I have learned not to trust weathermen in Texas.  The weather is always the same in the summer, and I think that they want to report that there is a chance of rain just to break the monotony of their weather forecasts from June to September.  Typical weather forecast in Texas: Hot and sunny, with a continued chance of hot and sunny for a solid 3 months.  Well, this morning the weatherman guessed right.  As I reached the furthest point from my house, the lightning started and the deluge began.  I was dodging lightning bolts and was thoroughly drenched by the time I got home. 

This got me to thinking about the reliability and trustworthiness of the weatherman and the Bible.  The weatherman is often wrong so I have learned not to trust him.  I don’t live my life around weather forecasts. The Bible is never wrong and so I do live my life according to what the Bible says.  I trust it completely.

As we live our lives trying to witness to people about Jesus Christ, our evidence is the Bible.  The difficult thing about witnessing is not that people don’t know their Bibles, it’s that people don’t believe what the Bible says.  They think it’s just a human book, written by human authors, is not inerrant, infallible or authoritative, and has no bearing on their lives.  How do we cope with that reality?  Here are a few suggestions: 

1. Know what the Bible says about itself:

·     2 Tim. 3:16-17: ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of Godmay be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

·     1 Peter 1:20-21:²⁰ Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. ²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

·     Psalm 12:6:“And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times” 

·     Psalm 19:7:“The law of the Lord is perfect”.

·     Proverbs 30:5:“Every word of God is pure”.

Those are just a few of many verses that speak about the Bible’s inerrancy.  But is that enough?  People will say that you can’t use the Bible to argue that the Bible is true.  OK, what if everything else the Bible says is also true?

2. Know some of the many prophesies of the Bible that have already been fulfilled:

Think about all of the prophecies of the Bible that have already come true.  To name but a few: 

·     Isaiah’s prophecy about the death of the Messiah (Is. 53)

·     Isaiah’s prophecy that Messiah would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14)

·     Jesus’s birthplace (Micah 5:2)

·     Zechariah’s prophecy that they would look on him who they pierced (Zech. 12:10)

·     Not one of Jesus’ bones would be broken (Ps. 34:20)

·     Jesus’ prophecy that He would be killed and rise again (Mark 10:32-34) 

There are so many more that could be cited. What about the secrets that lie in the sands of the Middle East?

3. Know that Archaeology has not disproven anything in the Bible, rather the opposite is true: 

·     The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C.) shows Jehu, king of Israel, bowing before the Assyrian king, and he is mentioned by name. This is the only known picture of an Israelite king.  It confirms Jehu’s existence.

·     Tablets from the time of Tiglath-Pileser (744-727 B.C.) state that he received tribute from Jehoahaz of Judah. This is the full name of Ahaz (2 Kings 16:7).

·     A detailed limestone relief from Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh shows the siege of Lachish. (2 Chron. 32)

·     The cylinder of Nabonidus (555-539 B.C.). He was the last ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This stele proves that his son Belshazzar was co-regent with him (Daniel 5; 7:1; 8:1). Belshazzar promised Daniel that he would be third in the kingdom rather than second, because there were two kings!

There are many, many more findings that could be cited.  

I want us all to understand that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative and true!  We can depend on it for our salvation.  If the weatherman tells me it’s going to rain tomorrow, I’ll probably go out for my walk again anyway.  His predictions are right about half the time.  The Bible says Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose from the dead so that I can have eternal life.  The Bible promises that He will come again.  The Bible has proven itself to be the Word of God over and over again. It is true 100% of the time and I believe its promises!  

Black hole living

I have always been interested in astronomy.  I dabbled briefly with majoring in astronomy in college until I realized the amount of calculus and physics that was required.  Hello, political science!  An incredibly interesting feature of our universe is the existence of black holes.  A black hole is defined by Wikipedia as “a region of space-time exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—including particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it.  The boundary of the region from which no escape is possible is called the event horizon.”  Black holes are incredibly bright because of the light features known as accretion disks, which are made up of gas and dust that heat up and give off light as they swirl into the black holes, like water swirls around the sink before going down. Astronomers suspect that quasars, the brightest objects in the universe, contain supermassive black holes that release extraordinarily large amounts of light as they rip apart stars.  Can you imagine gravity so powerful that it can rip apart stars?  

The largest black hole ever found is 12.8 billion light years from earth, is 12 billion times more massive than our sun, and is 429 trillion times brighter than our sun due to the quantity of stars and other galactic matter that it is tearing apart and swallowing.  Our brains can’t even comprehend that kind of distance, mass and brightness.  A black hole has an insatiable appetite.  It can never be filled.  It will never stop swallowing anything that it draws into its gravity. Its hunger is never satisfied. 

As I thought about this, I thought about myself, and you, and Solomon. Solomon was the wealthiest and wisest man who ever lived.   He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.  Ecclesiastes is about the meaninglessness of everything “under the sun”, apart from God.  We work to acquire stuff and we pass it on to people who may squander it when we die. We search for human wisdom, but Solomon says that with wisdom comes grief.  We search for pleasure, but it lasts only a moment, and leaves us empty and craving more.  Solomon testified that he denied himself no pleasure.  He indulged in women, wine, work projects and everything else his vast wealth could purchase, but he found it all to be meaningless.  Poor or rich, death and judgment await everyone just the same.

Solomon lived the kind of life none of us will ever live.  It was a life of excess, materialism, abundance and decadence.  Everything he wanted he had.  He lived a black hole life, acquiring and consuming everything that he could pull into his gravity, hoping that it would bring him happiness and satisfaction.  At the end of his life, Solomon finally learned the secret to a satisfied life.  It is not found in wealth, women, wine, work, or wishing for more.  Happiness is found in knowing God and appreciating and accepting whatever God provides each day, and being satisfied with it, so that a man may enjoy his labors under the sun. 

At various times in each of our lives, we have all probably lived black hole lives.  We wanted to enjoy every imaginable pleasure.  We have wanted to acquire more and more stuff.  We wanted to have more than the next guy so we could feel better about ourselves, believing that “the one who dies with the most toys wins.”  I pray that we have all reached the stage of life that we recognize that black hole living is meaningless. In the end, you will become more empty as a result of the things you acquired than you were before you had them.  You will become more depressed as you realize that a black hole life is never satisfied. A black hole life never has enough. It always wants more.  At the height of his wealth and power John D. Rockefeller was asked “How much is enough?” He answered, “One more dollar.”  That’s so sad, but that’s insatiable black hole living.  

Whatever material thing we think might bring us happiness, Solomon had it, and much more. If these things did not bring Solomon happiness, they won’t bring us happiness either.  True and lasting happiness is not found in the amount of stuff that you have.  True and lasting happiness is found in knowing that you are loved by God, that Jesus died on the cross so your sins could be forgiven, and that eternity with Him awaits you.  Do you know that today?  The only arena where we should continue to be black holes is in our appetite to know and love Him and His Word better.  Solomon would say to you, “Enjoy your family.  Eat a cheeseburger.  Love God and learn to laugh at yourself.” Everything else truly is meaningless.