Philippians 4:11

2008-04-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

Where Does the Power of The Blood Of Christ Come From?

Something is influencing you! What is it that you are allowing to influence you? Is it the Truth? Do you even know what is true anymore? It's very easy to become confused in this time we live and it will become more and more confusing as time passes. So watch out dear friends!! Do you remember who Pontious Pilate was? He was the Roman Governor who asked Jesus, "What is Truth?" Here's what happened in context:

Jesus before Pilate

Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, "What accusation do you bring against this Man?"They answered and said to him, "If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you." So Pilate said to them, "Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law." The Jews said to him, "We are not permitted to put anyone to death," to fulfill the word of Jesus which He spoke, signifying by what kind of death He was about to die. Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?" Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, "I find no guilt in Him. "But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release for you the King of the Jews?" So they cried out again, saying, "Not this Man, but Barabbas." Now Barabbas was a robber.

Are you a Pontious Pilate? Is Truth stairing you in the face and you can't see it anymore. My dear friend if so, SNAP OUT OF IT! I say this with all the compassion and love that is running through me right now. In Proverbs it says "Better the rebuke from a friend then kisses from your enemy." I am your friend. And I am not afraid to rebuke you because there is so much at stake. I am at risk of being deceived if I will not deal with what is naturally inside of me that wants to run away from the truth. I am a man as you and we have the same problem...namely pride. If we don't deal with our pride it will deal with us. So much of what I am trying to convey can only be understood if that stiff necked attitude is dealt with. My sincere question to you is, Do you have a stiff -neck, or an angry spirit, or a rebellious heart toward the One who is trying to show you the one way to live that will make you truly fulfilled and complete. I hope the following excerpt will help you see that living in the Truth will truly set you free!

The Way of The Cross:

"Let us look at the book of Revelation. in this book the blood of Christ is described as the "blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:14). These words give us part of the answer to our question: Where does the Power of the Blood of Jesus Christ Come From? It was not the blood of the Lion or the Fighter, but the blood of the Lamb. The power of the blood comes from the lamb-like nature of the One who shed it. That is why it is so powerful with God for men. It was in His death that the Lord Jesus showed most completely His lamb-like nature.

Why is the Lord Jesus described as the Lamb? First of all, it is a description of His work. He came to be the Sacrifice for our sin. What did an Israelite do when he knew he had sinned and needed to get right with God? He would bring a lamb (or goat) as a sacrifice. The animal would be killed and it's blood sprinkled on the altar. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, was the One who showed the true meaning of all the lambs which man had sacrificed. "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." (John 1:29)

But the name " the Lamb" has a deeper meaning as well. It shows us His nature. Like a lamb, He is gentle and humble in spirit (Matthew 11:29) He did not take revenge. He Himself said, " I have come down from heaven to do the will of Him who sent me, NOT MY OWN WILL" (John 6:38). He came so that men might be blessed and saved. If his nature had not been that of the Lamb, He would have had hard thoughts when men treated Him badly. But "He was humble and walked the path of obedience even to death--His death on the cross." (Philippians 2:8) He loved His Father and He loved us, and so endured it all to save us. Men did what they wished to Him. For our sakes He gave Himself into their hands. " When He was insulted, He did not answer back with an insult; when He suffered, he did not threaten." ( 1 peter 2:23) He did not claim His rights. He did not hit back. He had no hard thoughts. He did not complain. He was very different from what we are! When He knew it was God's plan that wicked men should put Him on the cross, He bowed His head to death. He was put to death like a lamb. Isaiah prophesied about Jesus as the Lamb: "He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He stood silent before the ones condemning Him" (Isaiah 53:7) men flogged Him with a whip. They laughed at Him. They spit on Him. They pulled the hair from His beard. They laid the cross on His back and made Him carry it to Calvary. There they nailed Him to the cross. he was lifted up to die. After he died a soldier pierced His side with a spear, and His blood flowed out. All these things happened because the Lord Jesus was the Lamb. He did all this to pay the price of my sin. It is true that He was the Lamb because He died on the cross, but it is also true that He died on the cross because He was the Lamb.

Let us always remember this fact about the blood. Jesus' blood shows us the humbleness and self-sacrifice of the Lamb. This is what gives the blood its wonderful power with God. Look at Hebrews 9:14. There the writer links together the blood of Christ and His offering Himself as a sacrifice to God. "How much more is accomplished by the blood of Christ! Through the eternal spirit He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to God." This is why the blood has such power with God. God the Father places great value on that which is offered to Him. He wants to see in men the nature of the Lamb. He want men who will humbly obey Him. He wants men who will give up their will to do His will. That was why God made man in the first place. Man sinned when he refused to walk in the path of obedience to God. This has been the real heart of sin ever since. The Lord Jesus came to earth as a Man to live in obedience to God. When the Father saw His Son always obeying Him He said, "This is my dear Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17) In obedience to the will of the Father, Jesus shed His blood on the cross. This is why His blood is so precious to God. This is why His blood can wash away all the sins in our hearts." p84-p87

I pray you can understand this, and I pray you will want to get to know Jesus by reading the Bible. More than that I pray that you would ask Jesus Christ to save you from yourself and your sin nature. What a wonderful act of love he performed for you!!! He proved His love for you by going to the cross even while you were sinning against Him. He knew that if He did not die for you that you would not have a chance to choose Him and His forgiveness. The Lord Jesus is not willing that anyone should perish, but that all might have eternal life in Him. I have written about Hell, a most unpopular subject, because it is becoming the eternal reality for all those whose sins have not been covered by the blood of Jesus. It is real place and people are falling into Hell right now. One by one souls are falling into this aweful place forever. It is beyond words and not one of us could withstand the sorrow that God feels for these souls especially when He has provided a way of escape. The alternative is true as well. Right now souls are entering into the presence of God because they have received His free gift of eternal life found in His Son Jesus. They will be in paradise forever.

Trade

2008-01-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

I just read the email from Ryan regarding our martyred brothers' trial in Turkey. In case you have not read it, many aspects of the trial are covered up, hiding key evidence and indentities of those responsible for the murder of these brothers. And, perhaps, the motive behind the murder, which was their faith in Jesus the Christ.

Sometimes it is so foreign a thought to me that life is extremely difficult for people in other countries, under other governments and cultures. I comprehend it, but I do not know it. Likewise I comprehend other's struggles, yet I do not know exactly what they go through, experience or feel. Sometimes I try to let my heart imagine another's perspective and feelings, but it seems I still easily get in the way. And, if I am not careful, I speak in ways that do not communicate compassion for any who seek forgiveness, even those willing to confess and repent of arrogant pride, condemning words or abusiveness.

Recently I viewed the movie "Trade" which came out late in 2007. Trade is a movie made to expose human trafficking, also known as modern-day slavery, where mostly boys, girls and women are forced or deceived into enslavement and sold to provide some form of service whether manual labor or sexual. Jan 11th 2008 was the first annual Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the US. My heart was wrenched and empassioned as my wife and I watched the story unfold.

One response I have to the experiences represented in Trade is this poem - a feeble attempt at expressing my heart both to Trade and to the One who traded Himself for us.

Victim's Compensation
we give, you break
you lie, we take
our kiss, you snake

thrusting ebb, ruptured thread
dripping red, daggers said
hue wanes, paling wake

lifeless beat, rancid feet
yearn to cheat, mortal defeat
hope to scar, cease visitation

stifled Lamb, fraud's entraption
revived I AM, life's inception
Love's participation, agony's compensation

"My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased."

2008-01-13T18:55:00.000-08:00

Jesus began His earthly ministry by being baptized. He did not need to do this from the standpoint that John was baptizing people who were repenting of their sins. Jesus had no sin to repent. But He was baptized anyway, “to fufill all righteousness.” He was beginning His ministry in the same way that He finished it at the cross, by submitting His will to His Father’s.

His Father, who loved Him, affirmed Jesus by sending the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and openly declaring His pleasure in His Son. This is the love that was to sustain Jesus in the next 40 days as He fasted in the wilderness. This is the love that enabled Jesus to suffer and die for our sin…so that we might know the same love.

The Father loves all of His adopted children with the same love that He does His only begotten Son! It the power of His wonderful love that changes us, that draws us into Him and satisfies our souls. He created us to be loved by Him. In return, we are compelled to love Him back and live our lives in holiness. All we have to do is follow Jesus’ example of submitting our will to the Father’s. The first time we do this we receive the forgiveness of our sin and life eternal. After that, daily submission as we journey in this amazing relationship experiencing the love of God.

“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” 1 John 4:15-16 (ESV)

2007-10-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

ARE YOU AWAKE?

I read a devotional recently titled: The Test of His Coming. To sum it up would be to say that when Jesus arrived on the scene the first time not many people were in the right heart and mind to recognize who he really was. After reading this devotional my mind went directly to the few who were waiving palms around Jesus as he was riding into Jerusalem on the donkey. Can you see this picture! To understand the picture is important. On that day of arrival, very few people recognized that Jesus was indeed the Messiah that all the prophecies were pointing to in the major prophet’s writings. It’s obvious that these people were reading their bibles and were waiting and watching for the prophecy to unfold. I imagine that these people were familiar with the heart beat of the word of God. How else could they be at the gate worshipping and praising Jesus as King already, especially if he was on a donkey? Yes, they recognized Jesus by all the miracles he had done for the 36 months prior, but because they were in the word watching and studying and putting the signs together they were at that very special place; the place where Jesus rode into Jerusalem. I often ask myself and I ask you also: Would we have been one of those at the gate welcoming Jesus as the Messiah, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as the Long Expected One? Or would we be at church, eating dinner at home, at the local bar, or living in sin? Whatever the case I hope we would be quickened to be AWAKE so we could see where we really needed to be which is at the gate with a palm and a voice proclaiming his praise! Something inside me says we can answer that question now and it’s dependant upon how we are preparing and expecting for his second coming. You see we are now in the same scenario awaiting Jesus’ second coming as the people were in Jesus’ time awaiting his first coming! And now our minds should flash to the story of the Ten Bridesmaids in the gospels. If you don’t know this parable please work to understand it, because it reveals the heart and mind we must be working for in these last days before Jesus returns.

Matthew 25

Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids

1 "Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids* who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.3 The five who were foolish didn't take enough olive oil for their lamps,4 but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil.5 When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6 "At midnight they were roused by the shout, `Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!' 7 "All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps.8 Then the five foolish ones asked the others, `Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.' 9 "But the others replied, `We don't have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.' 10 "But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked.11 Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, `Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!' 12 "But he called back, `Believe me, I don't know you!' 13 "So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.

Are you AWAKE? Is your Lampstand trimmed with OIL? If you are not careful and proactive to study the scripture and know its heart beat in context the world we live in today will speak in your ears loudly, flash in your eyes brightly, and will fill your other senses completely drowning out the urgent call to prepare yourself for your Bridegroom. The time is nearly hear when Jesus will ride into this world again. Let’s be AWAKE and TRIMMED with OIL for the Long Awaited One. Do not let your heart be moved or shaken when the things Jesus warned of begin to shake this world. Only let your heart be moved by Jesus Christ through the Holy Bible and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus the Rabbi

2007-10-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

Listening to the Rabbi’s heartbeat is immediately a Trinitarian experience. The moment you press your ear against His heart, you instantly hear Abba’s footsteps in the distance. I do not know how this happens. It just does. It is a simple movement from intellectual cognition to experiential awareness that Jesus and the Father are one in the Holy Spirit, the bond of infinite tenderness between them.

Second, we realize that we are not alone on the Yellow Brick Road. Traffic is heavy. Fellow travelers are everywhere. It isn’t just me and Jesus anymore. The road is dotted with the moral and the immoral, the beautiful and the grungy…and the Rabbi’s word, of course, is to love each person along the way.

Third, when we recline at the table of Jesus we will learn that the recovery of passion is intimately connected with the discovery of the passion of Jesus. The vulnerability of God in permitting Himself to be affected by our response and the heartbreak of Jesus as He wept over Jerusalem for not receiving Him are utterly astounding. When God comes streaming into our lives in the power of His Word, all He asks is that we be stunned and surprised, let our mouths hang open, and begin to breathe deeply.

Fourth, the awareness dawns that God is totally Other. We are in the magisterial presence of God. Faith stirs and our fear and trembling find their voice once more. In worship we move into the tremendous poverty that is the adoration of God. Let the Great Rabbi hold you silently against His heart. In learning who He is, you will find out who you are: Abba’s child in Christ our Lord.
-excerpt from The Rabbi's Heartbeat by Brennan Manning

Preparing our Hearts

2007-10-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

Who Can discern his lapses and errors?
Clean me from hidden and unconscious faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptious sins;
let them not have dominion over me! -Psalm 19: 12-13

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my anxious thougths.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting -Psalm 139: 23-24

It appears to me that David understood the importance and necessity of setting aside time to allow God to search us and reveal to us the conditon of our heart, mind, and soul. A Mentor once related our need for God to bring His calm and peace to our souls that our often 'bleeding' from the ways that this culture bombards us with messages and images that embody the darkness of this world. He painted the picture of a shallow pond that is unsettled by multiple rocks that are thrown into it and once they hit the bottom cause the muck,and mire to rise up to the surface bringing debris and cloudiness. For the water to once again become clear and settled takes time. This is true for the condition of our souls and we need to learn to dwell in the healing and calming silence of God and endure through the cloudiness and confusion of our inner world, to receive the gift of peace and purity that God brigns forth in us.

2007-10-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

PSALM 128

The way for me to get out of a bout with discouragement or to break a bad habit or to eliminate unbelief in my life is to open up the bible and start reading it and to start talking to God about my problem. That's because God's word is like water and it has never failed me. But even when I know this I continue to neglect it more than I would like to admit. The truth is I'll never know how much the words of the bible will FULLY cleanse me until I dive into it. I mean like dive head long into it without any string attached without anything competeing against it in my heart! I desperately need to start reading the bible like I read my favorite magazines, or like I watch my next blockbuster movie, or search the internet for the latest current events around this tumultuous world. How passionate are you towards your media entertainment compared to God's word? What's the quantity and quality of time that you spend in the bible vs your media or shopping? If you're like me your quantity and quality time is spent away from God's words doing other things. This is called idolatry and it is a serious problem. Idolatry is a serious problem because it removes God's rightful place in our lives, and the result of this is disastrous. So even though I have been convicted about this in my walk with God I haven't done too much about it. God has allowed me to do this media thing and at the same time he is allowing me to experience the disastrous consequences of it. Which could be described as a very subtle and slow chipping away of all that is good. It's like nicotine or caffeine quick addiction but slow health decline. As a Christian, I hate that I have something inside of me still that won't prioritize my time with God and give him complete Lordship of my life. This is something God is still working out of me. So I finally decided to shut my door and start reading and praying to God to help me come out of this media thing and back to him in a right relationship. And God in his faithfulness sang a song to me in Psalm 128. I have to say that all along this journey of putting things before God that he, in his caring faithfullness, has shown me exactly what is at risk of being eroded away. All of which are the most important things to me: My relationship with Christ emotionally, spiritually and physically, My relationship with my wife and children and their health and quality of life, my work, the bride of Christ, Jerusalem. These are truly the things in my personal life and heart that matter most. And so this song God sang to me was Psalm 128 and it is a song that consists of everything that is crucial to me but in its right condition. The word of God has started cleansing me because it brings hope. Everything he told me I was slowly losing by putting this media thing before him will be restored IF I do my part. My part is the first verse of Psalm 128. It says it all and it is where I am going to plant my heart. Please pray for me if you are one who can identify with this struggle. I don't want anything to be before God's rightful place in my life.

1 How joyful are those who fear the LORD— all who follow his ways!2 You will enjoy the fruit of your labor. How joyful and prosperous you will be!3 Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.4 That is the LORD's blessing for those who fear him.5 May the LORD continually bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.6 May you live to enjoy your grandchildren. May Israel have peace!

"Will worship"

2007-09-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 57:20 says, “The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.” The sea does not need to do anything special to produce mire and dirt, that is the result of natural motions. This is also true of us when we are under the condition of sin. The natural motions of our lives produce mire and dirt. Sin is part of the internal structure of our lives. No special effort is needed to produce it. No wonder we feel trapped.

We want to make it clear that we cannot free and purify our own heart by exerting our own ‘will.’”

In Colossians Paul lists some of the outward forms that people use to control sin: “touch not, taste not, handle not.” He then adds that these things, “have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship” “Will worship”—what a telling phrase, and how descriptive of so much of our lives! The moment we feel we can succeed and attain victory over sin by the strength of the will alone is the moment we are worshipping the will.

“Will worship” may produce an outward show of success for a time, but in the cracks and crevices of our lives our deep inner condition will eventually be revealed. Jesus describes this condition when he speaks of the external righteousness of the Pharisees. “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks…I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter”(Matt. 12:34-36), You see we can make a good show for a while, but the unguarded moment will come when the “careless word” will slip out to reveal the true condition of the heart. If we are full of compassion, it will be revealed; if we are full of bitterness, that also will be revealed.
-excerpt from Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline

Mother Theresa, King David, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2007-09-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

I was recently discussing with a friend the topic of Mother Theresa. Apparently, throughout her many years of ministry she struggled with the nearness of God and other common battles. This is known by the reading of correspondence she had with a priest. These letters, she asked to be destroyed, after her death, but the Catholic Church chose instead to preserve and analyze them. I do not think I will end up reading the article in Time because I want to honor her desire for these private thoughts and prayers to remain between God and her priest-friend.

I do find it interesting that there is the tendency by some to try to discount her work because of these new insights. I find her all the more real and recognize in her as with the many other “followers of Jesus and lovers of God” the challenge of trusting the Unseen in a world full of visible images and messages contrary to faith and life in the kingdom.

King David’s prayers are full of raw wrestling with questions, fears, and misunderstandings but He always came back to faith in the One who is Strong and Trustworthy. This conversation brought to mind a modern psalm-like prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote this while in prison before he was executed.

Who am I?
Am I really what others say about me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, and sick, like a bird in its cage,
struggling for the breath of life,
as though someone were choking my throat;
hungering for colors, for flowers, for the songs of birds,
thirsting for kind words and human closeness,
shaking with anger at capricious tyranny and the pettiest slurs,
bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great events that might never occur,
fearfully powerless and worried for friends far away,
weary and empty in prayer, in thinking, in doing,
weak, and ready to take leave of it all.

Who am I? This man or that other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
but to me little more than a whining, despicable weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, you know me, O God, You know I am yours."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer (written from Prison)

Friendship with God and with others

2007-08-31T07:45:00.001-07:00

 If one falls down, his friend can help him up—Ecclesiastes 4:10

 A friend loves at all times—Proverbs 17:17

 I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you—John 15:15

 You are my friends if you do what I command—John 15:14

 Is there any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a fire?—C.S. Lewis

We can know true friendship only as we link hands with others in a common interest and in love of something outside ourselves. Friendship with God, as with our brothers and sisters entails this oneness, we are interested and compelled by that which God has planned, that which He has in mind. We carry forward the kingdom in His name. When Jesus calls us friends because we obey what He commands, it is because like Him our passion and purpose is, “to do everything we see our Father doing.”

Friendship with others,to me is very important, but also very difficult. I realize that those whom I want to share an ongoing friendship with, doesn’t always happen. Why is this? Maybe it is because we have lost those common interests outside of ourselves, mainly Jesus and His kingdom. Maybe it is because friendship like the other gifts of God have seasons, maybe both. I do know that the richest times of experiencing friendship have been with those with whom I am serving with and intentionally desiring to know and follow Jesus with.

Maybe learning to be a friend of Jesus is the place to begin and as I grow in this friendship I will become a better friend to others?

What do you think?

The walls seek to tighten, the Light must shine out still!

2007-08-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

Ravi does a great job of reminding us how, in the middle of being engaged in a lovequest for those the Lord wishes to add to His family, we are very much at the same time entrenched in a battle with Satan himself (and the world of his inbredded soul), wielding pitfalls, preclusions, attempts at disarmaments, declarations of ridicule, defamations of Heaven and heavenly wisdom, etc. It is wise to always assess the environment and learn how best to approach it.

08/30/07Defining Secularization--Ravi Zacharias

One of the symptoms of modern and postmodern change is the large stock of new words, or certainly the new use of old words--terms such as "user-friendly," "downsizing," "multiculturalism," "politically-correct," "homophobic," "postmodern," "poststructuralism," and "deconstruction." If the cartographers of our time are working away furiously to draw up new maps as empires get further subdivided each day, our neologists (those who invent new words) are living at a boom time for their preoccupations. One such word that we are all now accustomed to hearing repeatedly is "secular," or "secularization." I would venture to suggest that we might find ourselves stumbling when asked to define what this word really means. The word itself has a broad sweep, and in differing contexts brings a different spin to the central idea. For our purposes we will concentrate on the term in its social implications, because it is the process of secularization that is one of the most powerful conditioning influences in cultural formation today. Virtually every major decision that is made, and that affects our mind-molding institutions--even in the highest offices of the land--is made on the basis of a secularized worldview. What does secularization really mean? A secular worldview is admittedly and designedly the underlying impetus that presently propels western culture. The central feature of that outlook assumes that this world--the material world--is all that we have by which and for which to live. How all this came about is a historian's challenge and a sociologist's occupation. The reality that secularism is the philosophy of choice is inescapable. Any view of a spiritual essence or of otherworldliness is by definition considered irrelevant or irrational. Secularism, or "saeculum," is implicitly "this worldly." Peter Berger, the renowned sociologist and Director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston University, defines secularization as "the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols."(1) The choice of words Berger makes is very interesting indeed, and the broad sweep that his words encompass is of enormous importance. Secularism is "the evacuation of the church...the emancipation of education." The former speaks of a fleeing body, the latter of a liberation of the enshackled mind. Simply stated, this definition of secularization asserts that public life is to be governed by laws that are not influenced by religion, or any transcendent sacred notion. Stated with the forcefulness by which the secular will is often carried out, religious ideas have been rendered senseless in the social arena by the gladiators of the intellect. The contention being made here--that this is not a mild-mannered drawing of the lines but, more accurately, a hostile take-over--is not even slightly overstated. No one with any real knowledge of our moral struggles today will deny this philosophical attack upon the moorings of contemporary society. The effect of secularization in rendering religious convictions inadmissible in the public arena is touted in vengeful terms. As a test of this thesis, imagine a scenario featured on a prime time television program. If a volatile moral issue that divides the nation was being discussed by a panel of experts--an educator, a philosopher, a civil libertarian, a politician, a lawyer, a journalist, and a minister--who would be considered by the listening audience to be the most "biased" or "irrelevant" on the subject, and therefore, the least credible? Without a doubt, it would be the minister. As much as one would seek to be irenic and conciliatory on this sad prejudice, it is fatuous to deny that in academia, and even more so in the media, the person in ministry today is often portrayed with ridicule or bias. At the same time, it is implied that it is only the religious who are bigoted and prejudiced, who seek to put culture's head under their tyrannical heels. This is a radical inversion, is it not? For at one time the educated were the churchmen, and the halls of learning were founded by those in religious leadership. It is important then to understand how this state of affairs came to be, to be able to see the evolution of secularism from being merely a voice among many vying for allegiance to becoming the reigning mind-set, having the power to grant or ban admissibility of all other views. It is equally important to examine where secularization leads in its logical outworking. To be fair and accurate, both aspects are significant if one is to counter the situation with intelligence. The causes and the results are with us today. Not only are they both important for understanding, but also for appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of a secular perspective. Furthermore, if a secularized worldview becomes sovereign in matters of moral direction, we must come to grips with that result. It will not do to cling to the cause and wish the result away. Reality does not play mind games. What is more, to anesthetize the mind in order to abort what comes to birth when wrong ideas are conceived and borne in the womb of culture, will only kill the very life-giving force of the nation that nurtures the idea. We must learn, in the words of one cultural commenter, to live as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. (1) Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 107.

Change of view

2007-08-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

"...prayer, evangelism and actions of love are the most powerful weapons this planet have ever seen." -from previous posting

"If we judge someone, we have no time to love them"
-Mother Theresa

The other day I was driving to work. Upon entering the driveway I noticed a person sitting in the shade alongside the road (there were actually two people)...she looked thirsty, so I gave water to both people I found there. Talking with them, the man's face visibly confirmed his story of being beaten up and robbed...they were hurting people needing help with the basics of life. My small attempts at loving them were noticed by some others I associate with.

These associates are helpful and give their time and energy to services helping the poor and less fortunate. They even talk with some knowledge for the plight of the homeless or addicted. These are well-intentioned folks. Yet, some comments I heard revealed their fear for my safety and implied put-downs of "those people."

What is more just a week ago I heard a story about the university I attended located at 35th Ave and Camelback Rd in Phoenix. (This university has ministry programs where students and some faculty go door to door helping the families with food, handiwork or other needs. Also, they have a kids program on Saturday mornings.) A security guard was near the fence surrounding the school and noticed a homeless man attempting to enter the premesis. Simultaneously, a group of young men some may call 'thugs,' a 'gang' or at best 'dangerous' (such names are merely judgements of "those people") shouted out to the homeless man, "Hey man, don't mess with them, they love our kids."

My first reflection is that the fear of hurt, of harm or of pain often keeps us from loving "those people."
- May we live from not from a spirit of fear, but from our Spirit of power, love and discipline. Perhaps, if we expect a little hurt to come from loving, our expectations will be more realistic.

Second, fear can move us to avoid engaging "those people" (homeless, poor, minority, "national enemy", alien, homosexual, atheist, etc...) on a personal level. Maybe we give money or time in a controlled environment, which is good and needed, but lacks personally communicating love to an individual.
-May we be live out of our Spirit of power, love and a sound mind. May we pray for each other's boldness in love.

Third, if "those people" are merely living a life from their hurt, then how do they find healing? It seems to me that the Healer would extend it to them. God heals them...OK, maybe more specifically through Jesus, since by His wounds we are healed...but where does the Spirit of Jesus now reside? In the body of Jesus - the Church.
-May those who have been given the Spirit of Jesus allow Him to hone our sights from American culture, Protestant culture or Catholic Culture to the culture of God's Kingdom, where 'Truth and Love' is the currency and everyone is both wealthy and in debt.

Fourth: The students of the university were protected from whatever intentions the homeless person had. I was protected from what my associates feared....when given, love protects the giver. Love is powerful.

God gives life to all people and creatures. If after death an individual's judgement comes (Heb 9:27), then life reveals God's intent for who is to recieve His love. "How will they heal without Love?"

I am in awe that the most powerful Being is mysteriously "Love."

2007-08-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Having a friendly conversation with my room-mates about the U.S. war currently being waged in Iraq, someone made a phone call and patched another bright young, polit-cal man on the speaker phone to talk with us about his more unique philosophical viewpoints on things. I was very excited to bring him into the conversation because he seemed very informed and thought out on matters and I was curious about how we could come to such different conclusions. His main points were: that U.S. presidents have been operating military aggressiveness outside of constitutional allowanced for sometime, that America is intervening in too may stewed hornet's nests, that a war on terror is too ill-defined to hold anybody to account for success and restraint, that Israel can take care of themselves, that the U.S. is dealing now with "rogue powers" that earlier propped up and supported. I actually can't now remember all of his arguments, but that's okay because they aren't what I want to focus on.

My points to this younger man on the speaker phone was to talk about refraining from potential subversion, disunity, character mallignment regarding our current admistration--especially during war time, reminding of the warning of a "house divided" (which the U.S. very much is). I spoke of the right to defend one's self from a man who has shown himself to be a mortal threat, even to the point of shooting him before he pickes up the weapon he appears to go after accross the room. I mentioned the real dangers associated with radical Islam, the real need to attempt to finish what we start, fix what we must break, maintain strength in the eyes of many enemies. But when the dust all settled the discussion was brought back to the Christ-follower's hope, attitude, primary weapons and objective. These are what I thought worth pointing out.

Ben, the young man who turned out to only still be a teenager on the other line, helped remind that prayer, evangelism and actions of love are the most powerful weapons this planet have ever seen. He even youthfully felt it appropriate to bring these weapons up as the weapons of choice for the Christian even in the face of real war. It was an amazing challenge. It unmasked the fact that I have my world divided up into sectors: Politics, War, Romance, Literature, Entertainment, Theology, Philosophy, Travel . . . etc. But Ben was reminding me that the Christian does not do well to assunder his life that way. He was bold enough to believe that proving Jesus through the sacraments of prayer, self-sacrifice, gentle living, surrendered fear, etc . . . were much stronger attacks and deeds to bear upon a Satan-filled world where chaos is reigning and those who have once felt and seemed half-omnipotent are being shown bearing the same vulnerabilities that Rome and Greece once faced.

But more than all that I guess I was reminded that it is truly hard to separate my senses of identity: American, Male, Single, Christian, Western, Democratic, Republican. I think the Christian must always rise above the Western and the American and the Republican. But it is easy to believe that each thing is a category unto itself that must be tackled separately. Ben reminded me that our knowledge of Christ's submissiveness to the core mission and to the Father's will never allows for this robe to be set down for any of the others. What a hard to challenge. Still trying to figure out how I'll proceed.

My Fathers embrace

2007-08-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve gone so far from my home, seen the world and I have known so many secrets I wish now I did not know. Cause they have crept into my heart. They have left it cold and dark and bleeding. Bleeding and falling apart

Surrender don’t come natural to me I’d rather fight you for something I don’t really want than to take what you give that I need and I’ve beat my head against so many walls. I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees

These lyrics from two seperate Rich Mullin songs and this Rembrandt painting communicates where I am at today. After a difficult week where the stress, personal failure and the battles of daily life in this fallen world beat me up real good I now kneel before my Father and receive His loving embrace.

2007-08-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

A church member and former college mate of my co-workers just drown in a canoeing accident last week here in Kansas. As I understand it, a few brothers in the Lord had been working on building friendships with some men they had worked with at a side job they all held at a local steak house. While rafting and canoeing through some common waters where they crossed a spillway, the night had come too soon upon them and the canoe went over an unforeseen (by them) waterfall which capsized the boat. Some of the men were found downstream and physically saved. Two others, Christian men, had gone missing for around a day. Later they were found, but without oxygen or life in their bodies.

Not knowing them msyelf, only seeing the seriousness and concern on the faces of the friends around me who did, I tried to feel the right feelings for what the remaining family/ies must be going through. When all returned from the funeral I was ready to still remain somber, until I learned of this amazing story:

The wife of one of the men retrieved the palm pilot he was wearing on the day of the accident. On it, she found the daily reading devotional from Charles Spurgeon, through our modern day friend, Alistair Begg. I will end on that reading, and leave it to you to be in tender awe of how our Lord may prepare us for those things we might most dread.

Psalm 33:21 Blessed is the fact that Christians can rejoice even in the deepest distress; although trouble may surround them, they still sing; and like many birds, they sing best in their cages. The waves may roll over them, but their souls soon rise to the surface and see the light of God's countenance; they have a buoyancy about them that keeps their head always above the water and helps them to sing amid the tempest, "God is with me still." To whom shall the glory be given? Oh, to Jesus-it is all by Jesus. Trouble does not necessarily bring consolation with it to the believer, but the presence of the Son of God with him in the fiery furnace fills his heart with joy. He is sick and suffering, but Jesus visits him and makes his bed for him. He is dying, and the cold, chilly waters of Jordan are gathering about him up to the neck, but Jesus puts His arms around him and cries, "fear not, beloved; to die is to be blessed; the waters of death have their fountainhead in heaven; they are not bitter-they are sweet as honey, for they flow from the throne of God." As the departing saint wades through the stream, and the billows gather around him, and heart and flesh fail him, the same voice sounds in his ears: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God." As he nears the borders of the infinite unknown and is almost frightened to enter the realm of shades, Jesus says, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Thus strengthened and consoled, the believer is not afraid to die; no, he is even willing to depart, for since he has seen Jesus as the morning star, he longs to gaze upon Him as the sun in his strength. Truly the presence of Jesus is all the heaven we desire. He is at once The glory of our brightest days; The comfort of our nights.

The Gospel Coalition

2007-08-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

The church is on my mind. I've been reading a lot and having challenging discussions with friends regarding the church. What is the church? How does the church fulfill its role as the Body of Christ on earth? Small questions like that! While I have always wrestled with this questions, they are especially at the forefront of my mind now.

The obvious reason for that is that I am preparing to launch a new church in downtown Phoenix called St. George's Anglican Community. If the Lord allows, we will start Sunday worship in March of 2008 (Easter Sunday).

Going into downtown and seeking to minister to the city also has led me to look into what Timothy Keller has done with Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City and what Mark Driscoll has done with Mars Hill in Seattle. These men planted and are now pastoring vibrant churches in the city while remaining firmly commited to the Bible and the Gospel message. They, with others, have started a Gospel Coalition with a vision to united like-minded evangelical churches to carry out the mission of the church in our post-modern America.

This is the conclusion of their vision statement. I find myself resonating with it:

The ministry we have outlined is relatively rare. There are many seeker-driven churches that help many people find Christ. There are many churches seeking to engage the culture through political activism. There is a fast-growing charismatic movement with emphasis on glorious, passionate, corporate worship. There are many congregations with strong concern for doctrinal rigor and purity and who work very hard to keep themselves separate from the world. There are many churches with a radical commitment to the poor and marginalized.

We do not, however, see enough individual churches that embody the full, integrative gospel balance we have outlined here. And while, in God’s grace, there is an encouraging number of bright spots in the church, we see no broad movement yet of this gospel-centered ministry. We believe such a balance will produce churches with winsome and theologically substantial preaching, dynamic evangelism and apologetics, and church growth and church planting. They will emphasize repentance, personal renewal, and holiness of life. At the same time, and in the same congregations, there will be engagement with the social structures of ordinary people, and cultural engagement with art, business, scholarship, and government. There will be calls for radical Christian community in which all members share wealth and resources and make room for the poor and the marginalized. These priorities will all be combined and will mutually strengthen one another in each local church.

What could lead to a growing movement of gospel-centered churches? The ultimate answer is that God must, for his own glory, send revival in response to the fervent, extraordinary, prevailing prayer of his people. But we believe there are also penultimate steps to take. There is great hope if we can unite on the nature of truth, how best to read the Bible, on our relationship to culture, on the content of the gospel, and on the nature of gospel-centered ministry. We believe that such commitments will drive us afresh toward Scripture, toward the Christ of Scripture, toward the gospel of Christ, and we will begin to grow in our ability, by God’s grace, as churches, to “act in line with the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:14). We are ashamed of our sins and failures, grateful beyond measure for forgiveness, and eager to see afresh the glory of God and embody conformity to his Son.
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/vision.php

Meetings for Debate and Times for Prayer

2007-08-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

I had the occasion to catch up with a number of old friends. The forum was late-nite fellowship over beers at an Eastern Orthodox book store. I knew I would be surrounded with friends who would want to rally me to their views from the Eastern Christianity. I knew I could easily be lured into debate that might likely turn argumentative and not profitable. But I care for my friends, and face-time is highly valuable. Plus, there was always the chance to learn and transmit real edifying knowledge. So I went home first, to sort of check with God and see if it was right or okay to go to this forum. What I found happening instead was something I hadn't done in a long time . . .

The moment my day ended and I walked through the door, instead of hitting the fridge, turning on the radio, cracking open a book, or calling a friend on the phone. I went in my exhaustion and in my semi-happiness over a hard-worked day, and I kneeled before my bed just to talk to God about the feelings in my heart--mostly feelings of pleasant weariness--but weariness all the same. But what I found myself asking was "Lord, can you really again be the vibrance, the refreshing, the companion that I want for in this moment? Can you really guide and feed me? Can you give me answers and equipping?"

I really did enjoy that time. I mean enjoyed it. I say that only because I don't always enjoy it. I think I so often give God "sloppy seconds", instead of spotless first fruits.

I did go to that meeting. There was plenty of discussion, plumbing the depths of Calvinism, Armenianism, the back story of Satan and his willful fall, God's energies versus his essence. It was all brilliant, a little bit heated, but mostly enjoyable and community building. I really think men in the room were seeking the community of men. I think they were striving to show what they knew, to add to their knowledge, to be affirmed in their stretchings to think, to be allowed to speak, to ask, to dream, to imagine, to dwell on their God. To work out their anxieties.

I hope God allows for these things. I think He must sometimes delight in them. I know he has set boundaries to what we can know: Mystery!

But the healthiness of the event was for me the prayer that went on before it. And the prayer I offered each one as I exited. I had the opportunity to close our debates and our deepest questions in a prayer for each man. And that community of blessing each other and loving each other covered over in an instant all of the ways in which we had priorly been extra-challenging each other. It's spectacular what God sometimes does in our full days. Especially when he is really invited into them.

2007-08-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

Compelled by His Kindness...

It is an impossible thing to fully express how kind God is to adopt a person as his child when they come to believe in His Son Jesus. But those who do confess Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life have come to know a little bit of His awesome kindness because of the unending grace and mercy they receive in their new life with Christ. Their new life is rougher not smoother then before because the love they have for themselves is still there fighting against the new way they are to live...which is to love and choose Christ in ALL things. Their new life is rough because it is to be lived strictly through God the Holy Spirit's strength but their natural strength keeps rising up. It is rough because it is not easy or popular to live for Jesus Christ...the One who said, " I Am the Truth."

And so the one who is experiencing this spiritual battle is the one working out their salvation with fear and trembling. They wake up, live life and go to sleep working to beat down their old flesh through the Spirit of God. In this daily battle the reality brings both victory through obedience and at times set backs by choosing sin, but it is at those places of victory and defeat that the child of God still sees the awesomeness of His lovingkindness. They see that the ultimate battle of life and death has already been won through Jesus' death on the cross and Jesus' life through the resurrection, and by this they know without a doubt that they have been forgiven of all their past, present and future sin. They know they are dying with Jesus daily and that they will be raised with him in a moment. They know they already have victory through Christ's works and not their own. They come to learn that God is truly Kind.

It is this kindness of God expressed through His Son Jesus Christ that compells a person to turn away from their self pleasing life to a life that is God pleasing. It is God's kindness expressed through His Son Jesus Christ that fuels the heart to hate sin and to sincerely turn away from it. The one who loves God will not turn away from Jesus Christ. The one who believes in Jesus Christ loves Him and will not keep on sinning. The reason to keep trudging ahead is because of his kindness towards us!

The following quotes are by Francois Fenelon in the book The Royal Way of the Cross. Fenelon's books are mostly an archive of personal letters that were written by him to his friends during the late 17 century. I have been blessed reading Fenelon because he cuts to the chase in regards to how we naturally love ourselves more than Jesus himself. He helps the mind bring its spinning wheels down to the ground so there's more potential for faith seen in action.

“Do you want the consolation God can give, or do you want God Himself?”

“What right do we have to complain? We suffer from an excessive attachment to the creature-above all to self. God orders a series of events which detach us gradually from the creature first, and finally from self also. The operation is painful, but our corruption makes it needful, and therefore it is we who suffer so keenly.”

“That is false humility which believes itself unworthy of God’s goodness and dares not look to it with trust. True humility lies in seeing our own unworthiness and giving ourselves up to God, never doubting that He can work out the greatest results for and in us.”

“You wait to be familiar till God shows a smiling face; but I tell you that if you will open up your heart thoroughly to Him you will cease to trouble about the aspect of His face. Let Him turn a severe and displeased countenance upon you as much as He will, He never loves you more than when He threatens, for He threatens only to prove, to humble, to detach souls.”

“Leave it all to God; it is not your business to judge how He should deal with you, because He knows far better than you what is good for you. You deserve a certain amount of trial and dryness. Bear it patiently! God does His part when he repulses you. Try to do yours too, and that is to love Him without waiting for Him to assure you of His love for you. Your love is a guarantee of His; your confidence in Him alone will disarm Him, and turn all His severity into tenderness. Even if He were not to grow tender, you ought to give yourself up to His just dealings, and accept His intention of nailing you to the cross in union with His beloved Son, Jesus.”

2007-08-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

What is Jesus showing me lately? I think that was the question. I think a deep lack of humility is a major hammerpoint that the Lord has brought again and again to my attention. How much do I compare myself to others? How weary I become of loving people, because the reward for this sacrifice does not quickly come to me. Absolutely amazing how I can so rapidly move from a place of thinking the Lord owes me nothing at all; the Lord is so good to me; His mercy is unreasonably abundant, and then so quickly (within a day or two even) become demanding and judgmental of heaven and how it has not nicely matched its gifts and pleasantries to a soul like me that has been such a devoted servant. How in the world can just a day or two separate my assessments of myself as wide an ocean of disparities as to see myself as the wretch of all wretches and then be able to count myself a worthy servant deserving more than what heaven has yet provided. Surely the voice of Satan rings too often in my ears!

Another idea I have thought a lot about, thanks in large part to Charles Williams, Leanne Payne, Fyodor Dostoevsky, is that I am a creature on fast-track towards hellishness--if not hell itself--whenever I am steering my own ship towards the desires and fantasies and lustings and cravings of my own inappeasable soul (inappeasable unless God becomes the sole provider). Everyone should read a Dostoyevski book to see how dark the soul can get. Of course our own personal lives may already have painted this portrait for us. The conclusion of many is that selfishness, taken to its raving, ravaging, logical conclusion, is hell itself. Not that this is any attempt at all to water down hell (something we would all likely try to do), but that it is a very real part of what hell is--no less horrible than a lake of fire, as real as that may be.

That's it for now. I have to get back to work

Flabby with Small Passions

2007-08-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

Flabby with Small Passions
07/21/2007
[And so Screwtape reveals the Enemy’s ploy—first make humans flabby, with small passions and desires, then offer a sop to those diminished passions so that their experience is one of contentment. They know nothing of great joy or great sorrow. They are merely nice.

Christianity has come to the point where we believe that there is no higher aspiration for the human soul than to be nice. We are producing a generation of men and women whose greatest virtue is that they don’t offend anyone. Then we wonder why there is not more passion for Christ. How can we hunger and thirst after righteousness if we have ceased hungering and thirsting altogether? As

C. S. Lewis said, “We castrate the gelding and bid him be fruitful.”

The greatest enemy of holiness is not passion; it is apathy. Look at Jesus. He was no milksop. His life was charged with passion. After he drove the crooks from the temple, “his disciples remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:17). This isn’t quite the pictures we have in Sunday school, Jesus with a lamb and a child or two, looking for all the world like Mr. Rogers with a beard. The world’s nicest guy. He was something far more powerful. He was holy.]

This is an excerpt from one of John Eldredge's books called "Journey of Desire". This is what I've been battling with the last few months. My conviction to not be flabby with small passions is battled by my culture that I live in and other christian friends who feel I am getting a little weird with my convictions. What was it really like to live among Jesus or Paul? Who would they offend if they lived in this generation? What would christians say about their convictions? Would I be the one calling them weird or fanatical? Jesus was speaking very directly in Matt. 7:21-23 when He's talking about who will enter the kingdom of heaven. v.21 "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but ONLY he who does the WILL OF MY FATHER who is in heaven." This leads me to the inevitable question I ask myself everyday, all day, "Is what I 'm doing right now, the will of God?" So many years I've lived not ever taking that verse to heart. Oh how I've missed many blessings the Lord has had in store for me. I'm so humbled by my sin over the years, over the neglect I've had of God's word, over my selfishness of not wanting God's word to penetrate my heart because I'm fearful of having to change the way I live. Oh Father, thank you for your mercy! If what I know in my heart, and what I say with my mouth does not translate into what I do outwardly, then is what I have even real. James says, "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do." James 4:18. Waiting on the Lord is an awesome thing, but when we get comfortable at that place and at saying, "I'm waiting on the Lord right now", then maybe we've missed where Jesus wants us. He desires movement in the body of Christ. Stagnant water eventually is full of deadly bacteria. How much more is our stagnant and flabby walk with Christ full of deadly bacteria, to us and those around us! Oh Lord, have garce on me that I may "Learn of You, for You were meek and lowly of heart." You were always about "Your Father's business." You always "Spoke the truth no matter what!" You did not "Make yourself of any reputation among men." "You made Yourself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, You humbled Yourself and became obedient to death." Father help me grasp the depth of that humility so that I may be about Your will in the same way as Jesus was! Keep me from being flabby with small passions.

Excerpt from Good News About Injustice , by Gary Haugen President of International Justice Mission

2007-08-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

...We have learned how to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and shelter the homeless. But there is one thing we haven't leanred to do, even though God's Word repeatedly calls us to the task. We haven't learned how to rescue the oppressed. for the child held in forced prostitution, for the prisoner illegally detained and tortured, fo rthe widow robbed of her land, for the child sold into slavery, we have almost no vision of how God could use us to bring tangible rescue. we don't know how to get the twelve-year-old girl out of the brothel, how to have the prisoner set free, how to have the widow's land restored to her or how to get the child slave released and the opressors brougth to justice.

It is perhaps more accurate to say that as people committed to the historic faith of Christianity, we have forgotten how to be such a witness of Christ’s love, power, and justice in the world. In generations past the great leaders of Christian revival in North America and Britain were consumed by a passion to declare the gospel and to manifest Christ’s compassion and justice. But somewhere during the 20th century some of us have simply stopped believing that God actually can use us to answer the prayers of children, women and families who suffer under the hand of abusive power or authority in their communities. We sit in the same paralysis of despair as those who don’t even claim to know a Savior—and in some cases, we manifest even less hope.

In response this book has one simple message: it need not be this way. We can recover a witness of Christian courage in a world of injustice. We can rediscover our Maker’s passions for the world and for justice—passions that may have grown unfamiliar to us. We can come to know the compassion of Jesus like never before as we go with him to look into the eyes of those who are in need of rescue. Moreover, we can be restored to the conviction that God is prepared to use us to “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow (Isaiah 1:17)

…how little I knew about a holy God who spent his days weeping beside children in brothels, prisoners in pain or orphans in trauma—a God whose core hatred of injustice was rivaled only by his hatred of idolatry.

Introduction (Part 2) Eugene Peterson's The Jesus Way

2007-08-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

The American Way

Here is a text, words spoken by Jesus, that keeps this in clear focus: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The Jesus way wedded to the truth brings about the Jesus life. We can’t proclaim the Jesus truth but then do it any old way we like. Nor can we follow the Jesus way without speaking the Jesus truth.

But Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years in as a North American pastor. In the text that Jesus sets before us so clearly and definitively, way comes first. We cannot skip the way of Jesus in our hurry to get the truth of Jesus as he is worshipped and proclaimed. The way of Jesus is the way that we practice and come to understand the truth of Jesus, living Jesus in our homes and workplaces, with our friends and family.

A Christian congregation, the church in your neighborhood, has always been the primary location for getting this way and truth and life of Jesus believed and embodied in the places and among the people with whom we most have to do day in and day out. There is more to the church than this local congregation. There is the church continuous through the centuries, our fathers and mothers who continue to influence and teach us. There is the church spread out throughout the world, communities that we are in touch with through prayer and suffering and mission. There is the church invisible, dimensions and instances of the Spirit’s work that we know nothing about. There is the church triumphant, the “great cloud of witnesses” who continue to surround us (Heb. 12:1). But the local congregation is the place where we get all of this integrated and practiced in the immediate circumstances and among the men, women, and children we live with. This is where it becomes local and personal.

The local congregation is the place and community for listening to and obeying Christ’s commands, for inviting people to consider and respond to Jesus’ invitation, “follow me,” a place and community for worshipping God. It is the place and community where we are baptized into a Trinitarian identity and go on to mature “to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), where we can be taught the Scriptures and learn to discern the ways that we follow Jesus, the Way.

The local congregation is the primary place for dealing with the particulars and people we live with. As created and sustained by the Holy Spirit, it is insistently local and personal. Unfortunately, the more popular American church strategies in respect to congregation are not friendly to the local and the personal. The American way with its penchant for catchy slogans and stirring visions denigrates the local, and its programmatic way of dealing with people erode the personal, replacing intimacies with functions. The North American church at present is conspicuous for replacing the Jesus way with the American way. For Christians who are serious about following Jesus by understanding and pursuing the ways that Jesus is the Way, this deconstruction of the Christian congregation is particularly distressing and a looming distraction from the way of Jesus.

A Christian congregation is a company of praying men and women who gather, usually on Sundays, for worship, who then go into the world as salt and light. God’s Holy Spirit calls and forms this people. God means to do something with us, and he means to do it all in community. We are in on what God is doing, and we are in on it together.

And here is how we are in on it: we become present to what God intends to do with and for us through worship, become present to the God who is present to us. The operating biblical metaphor regarding worship is sacrifice—we bring ourselves to the altar and let God do with us what he will. We bring ourselves to the Eucharistic table and enter into that grand fourfold shape of the liturgy that shapes us: taking, blessing, breaking, and giving—the life of Jesus taken and blessed broken and distributed. That Eucharistic life now shapes our lives as we give ourselves, Christ in us, to be taken, blessed, broken, and distributed in lives of witness and service, justice and healing.

But that is not the American way. The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. We Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting more, requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn’t even know we had. We are insatiable.

It didn’t take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them, satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel in consumer terms: entertainment, satisfaction, excitement, adventure, problem solving, whatever. This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world’s champion consumers, so why shouldn’t we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?

Given the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: This is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus’ salvation. This is not the way in which we become less and Jesus becomes more. This is not the way in which our sacrificed lives become available to other in justice and service. The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, “deny yourself” congregation. A consumer church is an antichrist church.

We can’t gather a God-fearing, God-worshipping congregation by cultivating a consumer-pleasing, commodity-oriented congregation. When we do, the wheels start falling off the wagon. And they are falling off the wagon. We cant suppress the Jesus way in order to sell the Jesus truth. The Jesus way and the Jesus truth must be congruent. Only when the Jesus way is organically joined with the Jesus truth do we get the Jesus life.

Introduction (Part 1) from Eugene Peterson's The Jesus Way

2007-08-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

Introduction

The Purification of Means

This is a conversation on the spirituality of the ways we go about following Jesus, the Way. The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular, local.

The ways employed in our N.A culture are conspicuously impersonal: programs, organizations, techniques, general guidelines, information detached from place. In matters of ways and means, the vocabulary of numbers is preferred over names, ideologies crowd out ideas, the gray fog of abstraction absorbs the sharp particularities of the recognizable face and the familiar street.

My concern is provoked by the observations that so many who understand themselves to be followers of Jesus, without hesitation, and apparently without thinking, embrace the ways and means of the culture as they go about their daily living “in Jesus’ name.” but the ways that have dominate our culture have been developed either in ignorance or in defiance of the ways that Jesus uses to lead us as we walk the streets and alleys, hike the trails, and drive the roads in this God-created, God-saved, God-blessed, God-ruled world in which we find ourselves. They seem to suppose that “getting on in the world” means getting on in the world on the world’s terms, and that the ways of Jesus are useful only in a compartmentalized area of life labeled “religious.”

This is wrong thinking, and wrong living. Jesus is an alternative to the dominant ways of the world, not a supplement to them. We cannot use impersonal means to do or say a personal thing—and the gospel is personal or it is nothing.

If any of the means we use to follow Jesus are extraneous to who we are in Jesus—detached “things” or role “models”—they detract from the end of following Jesus. Do our ways derive from “the world, the flesh, and the devil” of which we have been well warned for such a long time? Or do they serve life in the kingdom of God and the following of Jesus in which we have been given, historically and liturgically, a long apprenticeship?

The prevailing ways and means curricula in which we are all immersed in North America are designed to help us get ahead in whatever field of work we find ourselves: sales and marketing, politics, business, church, school and university, construction, manufacturing, etc. The courses first instruct us in skills and principles that we are told are foundational and then motivate us to use these skills so that we can get what we want out of this shrunken, dessicated “world, flesh, and devil” field. And of course it works wonderfully as long as we are working in the particular field, the field in which getting things done is the “end.”

When it comes to persons, these ways of the world are terribly destructive. They are highly effective in getting ahead in a God-indifferent world, but not in the community of Jesus, not in the kingdom of God. When we uncritically accept these curricula as our primary orientation in how to get on in the world, we naively embrace the very temptations of the devil that Jesus so definitively vetoed and rebuked.

Warnings are frequently and prominently posted by our sages and prophets to let us know that these purely pragmatic ways and means of the world weaken and enervate the community of the baptized. The whole N.A ways and means culture, from assumptions to tactics, is counter to the rich and textured narrative laid out for us in our Scriptures regarding waling in the way of righteousness, running in the way of the commandments, following Jesus. In matters of ways and means, the world gives scant attention to what it means to live, to really live, to live eternal life in ordinary time: God is not worshiped. Jesus is not followed, the Spirit is not given a voice.

To take a person trained in ways and means that are custom-formulated to fit into the world’s ways and then place that person in the worshipping, evangelizing, witnessing, reconciling, peace-making, justice-advocating people of God is equivalent to putting an adolescent whose sole qualifications consist of a fascination with speed, the ability to step on the accelerator, and expertise in operating the radio, behind the wheel of a brand-new Porsche.

Jacques Maritain, one of our more prescient and incisive prophetic voices from the twentieth century continues to call on all of us who have taken up membership in Christian community to be vigilant and active in what he called “the Purification of Means.” He saw this as urgent work, about which we should not procrastinate if we are follow Jesus in the freedom where he leads us, and if we are not to end up as slaves of a de-souled culture.