Flip the switch!

I am in the middle of an interesting dialogue with a professor friend of mine concerning the presence of evil in the world.  Where does it come from.  Is evil a tangible thing or is it simply what happens in the absence of good.  Like a dark room.  Is it really dark or is there just no light.  Is darkness tangible?

Biblically we’ve got to believe that there is a sin nature in all of us. (Thank you Adam & Eve)

That inward hunger to do the wrong thing when we really desire  to do good.  Paul understood this. 

Romans 7

15 What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. 16 So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. 17 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! 18 I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. 19 I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. 20 My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. 21 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. 22 I truly delight in God’s commands, 23 but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. 24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? 

That is the question.  What’s wrong with us.  There is a war raging inside each of us, because we are dualistic beings.  We’ve got a spirit but also the flesh and they are constantly at war with each other.

When the flesh wins out we are led by our evil desires and sinful nature to do evil deeds.   I am an expert on this because when I let my flesh win I am capable of doing things that would even scare Freddy Krueger. And so are you.

there is a toggle switch in each of us that determines if our flesh or spirit wins.  It’s our mind.  That’s why the Bible says so much about renewing the mind, changing the way we think, not following the patterns of the world or our society but rather filling our minds with God thoughts which reult in God deeds.  When that happens we shine like the morning sun!

So flip the switch and let your light shine!

Click!

 

Abide

I just started the book “I Became A Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt”by Vincent Antonucci.

So far it’s a great read.  Vice said one thing that really got me thinking.  Do you have a relationship with Christ or are you abiding in him.  There is a huge difference.

I have a relationship with a lot of different people.  Some really close ones, but if those relationships became separated by time or miles or any number of things I would still function normally.  I wouldn’t shrivel up and die.  life would go on.

Abiding is so much different. 

In John 15 Jesus describes it this way. 

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I really like the way the Message says it…

“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

What happens to a vine that is disconnected from the branch.  It withers and dies and isn’t good for anything but kindling.

Abiding is such intimate connection that you can’t live without it.  I abide in Him and him in me.  It’s kind of like a baby in the womb.  Abiding is everything.  As a baby my nourishment, my life comes because I am in the protective womb of my mother, not only that she is in me.  I get my nourishment and life blood from her.  Disconnect that and I die.

My prayer is that you and I truly learn what it means to abide.

On my computer screen I have this statement…

We always ask Jesus to answert our prayers…What if WE were the answer to His?

Also a reference to John and abiding in intimate relationship with Christ.  Jesus prayer is that we would be in Him and He in us as He and the Father are one.  And that the oneness and unity that comes from abiding would unite us as His chruch.  The end result is that the world would come to know Him.

So it would seem that the key to living the full life that he calls us to is Abiding, and the key to Unity in His church is ABIDING, and the ultimate key to evangelizing the world is ABIDING.
Did you just feel the baby kick?  ABIDE 

What a weak! (not misspelled)

Interesting how in ministry things seem to run in cycles.  Like this week, we did 3 funerals, two weddings, and preached on Sunday or course.  Plus other odds and ends jobs.  It seems like when it rains it pours doesn’t it. Needless to say so far this week has been emotionally and physically weakening.  But spiritually, it probably gave me a much needed boost.

One of the funerals really stood out in my mind.  It was for a deal old saint of the church named Mary.

Mary was one of the first people that Tammy and I met when we came to Abundant Life in Alton, Illinois.  She was at that time a greater, she obviously loved the Lord and the church.  She was always a lady and always had a smile on her face.  She hasn’t been able to be at the church in quite some time due to age and sickness that seem to go hand in hand.  But all of us Pastors on staff knew that spiritually she was right beside us every step of the way.  She was a prayer warrior.  We need to have people like that in the church to spiritually hold up our hands when we are week.

Whenever I was preparing the sermon for the funeral I called one of Mary’s dear friends and asked if there was a favorite scripture that Mary had that we could share in the service.  She directed me to a passage in Revelation that Mary loved that talked about a door being open that no man can shut.

At first I was a little puzzled about how I could use that passage in a funeral message.  but if you look further into that passage the message is clear.

The verse is found in Revelation 3:18 which says;

I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can

shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have

not denied my name. 

You see, as all of us do, when Mary was at the worse part of her illness there were days when she didn’t understand what God was up too.  she was physically, emotionally and spiritually weak.  Yet even in those times she remained faithful to the word of God and faithful to his name.  (In other words, she didn’t give God a bad name by calling herself a Christian).  She stood strong in her weakness because she wasn’t standing on her own strength, and she believed beyond her own doubts that God knew best.It’s a pretty amazing thing to see such a powerful testimony at work. 

Mary will be missed greatly, but the legacy of a life that was lived in God’s strength will carry on for eternity.
 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Became A Christian And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Today I read an excerpt of a book that I just ordered from Amazon.

The book is called “I Became A Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.”

Interesting title but it poses some really important questions.

Jesus said “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full, (abundantly,extravagantly).

And yet somehow along the way we traded his richness for our routines, His adventure for our apathy, his promises for a lousy t-shirt.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the book. (It’ll take a couple days to get here)

Meanwhile let’s ponder some important quizos…

How has your life changed since becoming a Christian?

Have you experienced real abundant life or have you traded it in for a routine Christian existance?

Are you following Jesus (Abiding in Him) or have you been following a set of moral guidelines? (There is a difference)

Comment back on these questions and maybe together we can rediscover the dangerous, adventurous Christian life that Jesus and His disciples led, and the life that we were called to.

Selah (Hebrew for “Think about it”) and comment back.

Music Styles In Worship

Since the Wesley brothers re-wrote the words to popular bar tunes, and probably way before that, style of music that is appropriate for the church worship setting has been a heated debate.  Should we do only hymns or choruses, southern gospel or rock, what should the decibel levels be. (By the way, most of the church tech blogs that I have read say that you should be between 90-96 decibels on average with peaks at about 100).   Music is a big issue, I feel because it stirs our emotions, and brings us to a place where we are ready to hear from God.  Anything that involves our emotions makes us passionate about it and thus the heated debates.

Tony Morgan, one of the “Simply Strategic Guys” had a great post on his blog about music styles.  He asks questions like; Are we using the right style of music in our worship to reach our culture with the gospel?, Should we target our music toward the specific group we are trying to reach? (I say a resounding YES!) and Should it really matter.  You can read his post here.

So let’s take an informal poll.  What style of music do you listen to on a daily basis?  What style of music do you feel would be best for church?  Do you think that we should better target our music to reach a specific audience? Does it matter?

Think about it and get back to me on this.  I am really curious?

Control Freaks!

Today I spent my entire morning at the Bi-State Preacher’s Conference.  Now I know that doesn’t sound too exciting to most of you out there caught in the web, but this one really was.  Normally something inside of me rejects the idea that I have to go. (Yes have to)  You know it’s kind of an authority issue with me.  I don’t want to be told to do something.  That’s because like most of us, I want control!

This conference was different.  It feature Dr. Gordon Anderson.  He is president of North Central Bible College (maybe that’s University now).  Anyway, what he had to say hit home on so many different levels, that I thought I ould share some of it with you.

He started out by giving a brief history of the Assembly of God movement. (Yawn!)  But it was kind of interesting to see how things have progressed (or maybe digressed) over the years.  He divided it up into four distinct Periods. 

The first one was the “Primitive Period”  from the AG’s inception until about 1942.  This period was very emotionally driven, about revival and spiritual hoopla, apocolyptic preaching that scared the “hell” out of you (literally), Holy Spirit Power, Tongues.  The whole nine yards. (interestingly in this period there were 7000 church plants)

The second period was the Evangelical Period where things got organized, doctrinal statements became more solid, there was more concern and push to be accepted etc.

Then the Charismatic Period, where the focus became the church and worship superceded preaching.  Everything started to become inwardly focused, Brownsville Revival hit the papers (which incidentally didn’t change much of anything on a longterm basis)  The focus was on the church… US!

Then comes the Post-Modern Period.  (That’s where we are now).  This period is all about ME. (and you, but to you, you is “me”. Think about that one for a while.)  And ME wants control!  This is an age of ipods, T’vo, pocket pc’s, text messaging.  We control what we see , hear, respond to, when we respond, who we ignore.  I can control my world.  Program it to suit me.  And that has creeped into religion as well.  There are niche’ churches, designed to suit me.  My music, My style, My message, My choice.

Now that’s not all bad.  I want a church that stands on the Rock, worship with Rock music, has a rockin atmosphere with a cafe’ that serves my favorite coffee, and friends that look like, talk like and act like me.  That can be leveraged for good.  But there is a downside.

Isn’t church supposed to be about WE and not ME.  The whole control issue was what got us into this mess in the first place.  God said don’t eat the fruit, the serpent questioned God’s authority, Eve wanted to decide for herself, and “CHOMP”  the rest is history.  The real issue is that they (Adam and Eve) wanted to be God.  They wanted control, they wanted to call the shots, they wanted to decide for themselves what was good, bad, right, wrong, etc.

And so we come to us.  And we want control, we want to be God of our lives, master of our domain as it were.  WE WANT CONTROL!

But the Christian life is about surrender.  Ironically in the act of surrender to God, our lives become more balanced and we feel more in control.

Face it….we are all control freaks, but wouldn’t it feel good to let God have the remote and just enjoy.

Think about it!

Philippians 3:20-21

 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Helpful Advice (Don’t try this at home)

Kem Meyer from Grainger Community Church posted this list of helpful hints that her mother sent to her.  Go Mom!  I thought it was definitely worth passing on to you.  You might not want to try this at home though.  Could prove painful…

1. IF YOU’RE CHOKING ON AN ICE CUBE, SIMPLY POUR A CUP OF BOILING WATER DOWN YOUR THROAT. PRESTO! THE BLOCKAGE WILL INSTANTLY REMOVE ITSELF.

• AVOID CUTTING YOURSELF WHEN SLICING VEGETABLES BY GETTING SOMEONE ELSE TO HOLD THE VEGETABLES WHILE YOU CHOP.
• (Men) AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH THE FEMALES ABOUT LIFTING THE TOILET SEAT BY USING THE SINK.

• FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE SUFFERERS ~ SIMPLY CUT YOURSELF AND BLEED FOR A FEW MINUTES, THUS REDUCING THE PRESSURE ON YOUR VEINS. REMEMBER TO USE A TIMER.

• A MOUSE TRAP PLACED ON TOP OF YOUR ALARM CLOCK WILL PREVENT YOU FROM ROLLING OVER AND GOING BACK TO SLEEP AFTER YOU HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON.

• IF YOU HAVE A BAD COUGH, TAKE A LARGE DOSE OF LAXATIVES. THEN YOU’LL BE AFRAID TO COUGH.

• YOU ONLY NEED TWO TOOLS IN LIFE – WD-40 AND DUCT TAPE. IF IT DOESN’T MOVE AND SHOULD, USE THE WD-40. IF IT SHOULDN’T MOVE AND DOES, USE THE DUCT TAPE.

• REMEMBER – EVERYONE SEEMS NORMAL UNTIL YOU GET TO KNOW THEM.

• IF YOU CAN’T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU’VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.

 

• IF YOU WANT TO SAVE MONEY ON HAIRCUTS, USE “NAIR” IT IS ABOUT HALF THE COST OF A CUT, AND IT WILL LAST FOR SEVERAL MONTHS.

Fellowship

I heard a long time ago that a good definition of fellowship was “two fellows on a ship”.  The are in a positon where they are headed in the same direction and share each others companionship.  And each one has to row together or the ship will just go in circles.

Well, this weekend Josh and I spent time at the New Life Christian Fellowship International Spring Convention. That’s the organization that we are both credentialed with.  It was a great time.  We got to meet other pastor’s in the fellowship and put faces with names.

Josh and I also got to conduct a workshop together about “Leveraging Technology To Increase Your Ministries Impact”.  It was a great workshop.  Lots of interaction, good discussion and of course what made it best was sharing it with my son.  We made a pretty good tag team if I do say so myself.  You would have been really proud of how Josh handled himself with such confidence in his first speaking experience in front of seasoned ministers. That’s one of the highlights of my life. 

To understand that, you have to know some of the roads we’ve been down together.  Like me, Josh had some rebel in him during his teen years and yes we did butt heads… a lot. (Maybe it’s because we can be so much alike)  Anyway there were times when we were anything but unified and days when I wondered if we were gonna get through it.  But this week was proof of how God has worked in both our lives over the past few years.  Josh is becoming a fine young man (Both of my sons are) and I am finally growing up myself.  Life is good.  God is great!

Psalm 133:1 says…

See, how good and how pleasing it is for brothers to live together as one!

This weekend Josh and I experienced that.  That is true fellowship.  And I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us next!

Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

Did you feel the earth move last night.  Here in Illinois there was an earthquake.  It woke us up around 4:35 this morning.  The house was shaking, windows rattled, pictures went crooked and the whole family was awakened. (One friend who works overnights posted this morning that his co-worker dove under his desk-LOL)  Now if you live in Cali that might not be a big deal, but here in the heartland a 5.2 quake is huge. (The last one of this magnitude was in the late 60’s, I am pretty sure the one closet to that was sometime in the 1800’s)

It’s a wierd feeling when everything around you that you have always known as stable and secure begins to tremble.  It’s kind of scary.  Well OK it is really scary.  What do you hold onto when your whole world is shaking?

(In case you didn’t catch it, that was a metaphor for life)

Sometimes our whole world gets shaken by circumstances.  Financial crisis, sickness, marriages that break up.  It can cause us to feel like we are totally out of control and there is nothing stable to hold onto.  When life feels that way, don’t dive under the desk.  Run to God, and remember this word from Isaiah..

Isaiah 54:10 ”For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My loving kindness will not be removed from you, And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,” Says the LORD who has compassion on you.

Find your sure footing in the knowledge that God loves you, he hasn’t forgotten you, he’ll give you peace and a solid footing in life’s biggest shaking.

Freedom of Religion? Where do we draw the lines?

There is an interesting court case brewing in Texas.  I am sure that you have heard of it even if you havn’t been keeping up with it.  There is a very “traditionalist” Mormon sect in Texas and Utah that pracice polygamy and arranged marriages between underaged girls and older men.  According to reports a 16 year old girl called state authorities to report that she had been abused and raped by her 50 year old husband and that is what started the investigation that brought us where we are today.  More on the story here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbBkVaBiRH0

While the situation sickens me and it angers me greatly that these innocent children had to be put through such things, this case brings up a bigger question.   “Where is the line between freedom of religion and a state’s right to move in and take action?”

The First Ammendment of the Constitution of the United States reads;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This right is one of the most precious and cherished here in America but it is also one of the most challenged.  Note that there is no where in this ammendment where it states that there is a seperation between church and state.  That was an issue that was mentioned in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a group of ladies in a baptist organization who were affraid of the government interfering with religious practice.

In the case in Texas we have a clear example of religion gone amuck.  What is happening there is clearly damaging to these children and something must be done.  But will this case open the door for more discriminatory cases against religious groups who hold close to their doctrine and beliefs?  Suppose the government came in and arrested your pastor for speaking out against such sins as homosexuality? That is happening in some countries already. 

Where should the line be drawn?  I am going to continue watching this case closely and praying that God will intervene and give these children and their families safety, peace and clarity and help the authorities to act righteously.

What’s your opinion?