Truth is Truth

Human Happiness and the Humble Heart

2011-03-09T14:34:00.000-07:00

We error incredibly as Christians when we assume happiness and joy are synonymous. No doubt you have heard sermons on the subject and perhaps you can even make some verbal distinctions between the two. But if I were to ask you for a clear pathway to joy as opposed to happiness could you give a concise biblical teaching on the subject? Further could you objectively put your own life to the self tests prescribed by the apostle John and be pleased with the results?

Have you ever considered the rollercoaster ride of highs and lows found in every person’s life? The deviant theology of the Word of Faith movement has taken advantage of these emotional fluctuations and created a powerful following, who long for that “Jesus high” that does not fail. Yet, inevitably the formulas of words prescribed disappoint. In those moments of despair the chant from these Word of Faith teachers has become predictable: “the Faith did not fail you, only your personal faith failed.”

The people that have been sold the Word of Faith bill of goods are often disillusioned, more often hurt and more often than not look for relief in all the wrong places. As a result depression is easy and the seeds of bitterness, anger and defeat are commonly the unsought fruit.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, the British novelist said:

“No man chooses evil because it is evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, which is the good he seeks.”

I believe for the most part she is correct. Other than those suffering with certain kinds of mental disorders and those that have allowed themselves to be subject to demonic works, the desire of most people is not to pursue evil for evil’s sake. While I do not believe in the natural goodness of the human heart (“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…” Jer. 17:9), neither do I believe that most people have evil as their stated goal and purpose in life. Evil is much more deceptive than that. People often find themselves doing evil things as a result of 1) pursuing a good end at any cost, or 2) pursuing happiness and finding evil the shortest distance between where they are and the feelings they long for. In this effort they either conveniently ignore the evil or justify it in their minds as a “necessary evil”.

One can even set out in the work of Christian ministry teaching the truths of God’s word with accuracy but find his own actions and personal words defy the very teachings he professes. 1^st John calls this person a “liar”. This is perhaps the saddest and most hurtful of all evil. False teachers can eventually be exposed and left to defend themselves in the emptiness of perverse relativism. But, the one who teaches with accuracy and then allows his life to defy his own teachings, finds only cleaver sophistry his ally in defending his divergence. His words eventually ware then, and in their wake we find hurt and destruction. Sadly those hurt often hurt others… and the beat goes on, all in the name of Jesus.

Believers seeking the easiest way to defeat evil were likely the plague that, somewhere between Paul’s commendation of them, and John’s condemnation of them in Revelation 2, caused the Church at Ephesus to fall far short of God’s approval. They stood up against false teacher and did so with persistence and patience. In pursuit of good works, like the Ephesians, we can find it easy to accept the adage that the ends justify the means. We often forget that the results are the Holy Spirit’s work, and that the means we chose are the reflection of our true submission to God’s Word and His Holy Spirit in our lives. Often our efforts to defeat evil are really nothing more than a pursuit of happiness and the means we choose become secondary, if considered at all. In the end, like the church at Ephesus, if we are not attentive we will find that in our good work we have lost our first love.

Where the humble heart finds joy, the hardened heart mistakes evil for the good he seeks. As we work our way through 1^st John, we will find those that walk in this darkness (whether false teachers or teachers of truth whose lives defy their words), consistently end in places of evil. Finding themselves there unexpectedly, they will either repent (turn and go the other way) or in a knee jerk reaction, dig in for the fight. Those walking in the light may be hurt by their own actions and embarrassed but are repentant. Those walking in darkness, cover their sins in the cloak of night and find it easier and easier to justify who they are and what they are doing… usually in the name of Jesus.

1^st John teaches us to test our own lives against true north. It provides us an acid test of the genuine Christian Faith. It may not be easy to subject ourselves to this standard, but it will result in joy that is lasting where all pursuits to find human happiness fail.

Can I Really Forgive?

2011-03-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Perhaps as much as any sermon series I have ever preached, this subject of Forgiveness has generated questions. The title of this article is the question that seems to be hiding beneath most of the others. The question is actually a good one. We have been conditioned to believe that forgiving and forgetting go hand-in-hand and if we continue to remember anything concerning the offense we have somehow failed at the attempt to forgive. Here, in a nutshell, is the key for us to think about: it is not that we won’t remember; it is rather that we won’t remember it againstthem. Of course you will remember the event. God does not forget our sins in that sense either. He simply does not remember them against us.

These kinds of basic misunderstandings concerning biblical forgiveness reinforce the reality that we have a ton of work to do just to get to a place we are ready (emotionally, mentally, spiritually and psychologically) to begin the process of forgiveness with any real anticipation of living in a forgiving spirit. This will not be a short or painless journey, should you choose to take the challenge.

You will note that forgiveness was just referred to as a “process.” For the most part, the people I have spoken with about this subject over the years have viewed forgiveness as an event in time… something we do and then move on. They see it as a time when they said to someone (or thought to themselves): “I forgive you.” The first question to address here should be; is this confession (speaking good words) sufficient to getting the job done? And how do I know when the job is really accomplished?

Some have suggested by their questions recently, that in positing this “first question,” I have actually gotten ahead of myself. They ask questions like: “Is it not true that only God can forgive sins?” and “What about the imprecatory Psalms (those Psalms where King David and others are praying for the destruction of their enemies)… is this type of prayer no longer appropriate on this side of the cross?” Or “Can I pleasestill pray these kinds of prayers without guilt?” What about correcting (or even punishing) our children, if we forgive them, does this not presume they will avoid punishment? So, perhaps as we lay the foundations for this study we will attack these kinds of subjects earlier than I had planned. We won’t get to all the answers in this article as space will not allow for even all the questions heard so far, but we will attempt to plant a few of the seeds of answers in the rich soil of the scriptures. As we attempt to surround these difficult issues with practical suggestions (if not exacting answers), it is my prayer that you will have the courage to make this personal. Not just personal as you ruminate on all those that have offended or sinned against you, but even more personal than that. So personal that you determine to both seek forgiveness and seek in your heart and mind to forgive others their most egregious sins against you.

Be reminded that there are only two places to live in this journey, they are: bitternessor forgiveness. One of the most profound realities I have faced on this journey is how trivial some of the offenses are that have resulted in the most exaggerated forms of bitterness. But whether these offenses are trivial in my eyes or not is irrelevant. The nature of unforgiveness and the bitterness (dirt) required to grow unforgiveness is the first reality that must be faced in the process itself. To partially answer one of the questions above: God commands us to forgive and we cannot do this living in bitterness. Some people think they can compartmentalize their bitterness and only experience it when they choose to think about a particular person or event; and all the rest of the time live in peace and joy with God and their fellow man. God’s word seems to strongly indicate that this deception only keeps us burdened, blind & emboldened in our bitterness. Some of us have even come to think of that bitterness as a “Right” to be clung to. These poor souls actually enjoy the process of belittling, berating, and brutalizing the offender (in their minds and hearts, if not by their words and deeds). One of the questions asked recently was: “If it is not right to be bitter, why do I find it so therapeutic?” Isn’t this the way of the world and the way the enemy works? More often than not the excuse that it feels good only leads to more abusive thoughts and actions. To rewrite a popular song from the past, we often get to the place practically (if not theologically) that reasons: “If destroying you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” When we arrive at this demonic “X” on this worldly treasure map, we love using anything (in or out of context) that justifies our actions and if we cannot find those, it really does not matter. Our justification then becomes; “but what they did is just not right” or “it is not fair.” From there it is only a short trip to pronouncing judgment based on nothing more than opinions or a twisted interpretation of words or events. Some have even come to see this particularly heinous form of bitterness as their “ministry.” When bitterness has grown to this point it, is easy for the offended to judge, by presumption, the motives of the offender. After all, if we can just judge the motive of the offender evil enough, nothing we can do to them seems too bad. It should be pointed out that this journey into bitterness is easy. It is all downhill. It is also interesting that bitterness creates quite an adrenaline rush, endorphins are set off and in a very physical way a chemical high is created that most of us can easily come to embrace and enjoy. Some sociological professionals recently have even suggested that it is addictive to both individuals and cultural environments. Thus, it can be rightly said that bitterness within the framework of fallenness is not only addictive, but also contagious.

It needs to be stated here that psychologically, biblically and scientifically, it has been determined that bitterness is notcaused by the offense or the offender. Before you go any further in this article please read that very bold statement again. It is a shocking, and, for some, a disturbing truth. So, if neither the offender nor the offense causes bitterness, what does? Gary DeLashmutt says that bitterness is “prolonged retributive anger toward another person because of an offense committed.” While that seems to contradict what was just stated consider this truth: There is only one part of any relationship that you currently have that you can control. Guess what part that is. Of course it is your actions or (in this case) your reactions. It is not the offense or the offender that has “caused” your bitterness; it is your reaction to the offense or offender.

“But I just can’t help it, that guy just ticks me off.” Well if that is the case we, as Christians, serve a disturbingly abusive God, because He commandsthat we forgive exactly that person. Sometimes it is precisely God’s commands that are set-aside in His Name, in order to more comfortably do Hisministry. Setting this command aside is destructive to His work: so forgiveness becomes the precursor to any genuine work that is His.

We should set high standards in dealing with God or talking about God or doing ministry, but our personal lofty and admirable objectives, imposed on others, can result in us living as angry participants in never ending religious wars that bring no glory to God. The destructive nature of these major wars hosted on the battlefields of minor issues, kills more than it ever heals. When will we heed the call of Augustine? “In the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, love.”

Recently it was my privilege to be one of the 150 or so original signers of the Manhattan Declaration. Most would be shocked at the amount of email I received from around the world from “Christians” calling me a heretic, or worse! While some of those emails were civil and reasoned, a healthy number were breathing strong hints of retaliation. I will not repeat some of the language used in that correspondence but suffice it to say that it would not take anyone who was reading them long to understand the unquestionable bitterness that was being manifested simply because Roman Catholics and Evangelicals came together around common causes. These people have made their anger at the Roman Church not only an “essential” but thepredominate focus of their work.

Some bitterness, like that just described, is easy to see. Some, however (probably the most dangerous kind), are those bitters steeped in the cup of “what just seems right,”or that are hidden behind holy causes, or are bred in the high standards of men for excellent purposes. How do we recognize this kind in others and ourselves and what do we do about it if we begin to glimpse it?

Here are a few symptoms of bitterness. Remember as you look at this relatively short list, that all of us are susceptible to bitterness and that bitterness is a clear indicator of unforgiveness. Symptoms seem to fall into two basic categories:

.Justifying your retributive anger: Ruminating and/or exaggerating the offense; thinking about the negative effects of the offense; finding others to join you in what has been made a sport.

.Expressing retributive anger: Finding pleasure in any misfortune of the offenders (most particularly, any misfortune to which the embittered one has contributed). This pleasure is only slightly behind that of withdrawing from any relationships with the offender while helpingothers to do the same. Rehearsing to one’s self what it would be like to say or do this or that to the offender. The person rooted in bitterness additionally finds themselves in disproportionate anger over unrelated issues: plotting and/or even taking revenge (either overtly or covertly), gossiping and/or slandering the offender.

Angerand Bitternessare empowering emotions. They feel good short-term, can become self-perpetuating, but don’t ware well long term. They will exact their revenge on the one that embraces them and in the end become inevitably draining to one’s emotional reserves, thus setting up an emotional free fall. The adrenaline and endorphins do their job in the chosen hatred of the moment, but like alcohol or drug addiction there is a very dark reality on the other side of the high. Somehow after a time, a bitterness fix is needed just to feel the day is normal. Long-term bitterness poisons one’s personality with negativity (self-pity; cynicism; tone of voice; facial expressions) that has the effect of repulsing people – which of course gives the embittered person that many more people to be bitter toward. Psychologists now tell us that often the end resultof a prolonged spiral downward, deeper and deeper into this kind of bitter state is either: a particular type of psychosis or paranoia.

Spiritually, the consequences are most devastating. Practicing this kind of disobedience moves us away from any healthy relationship with God. While it is true that nothing (including bitterness) can take the Christian out of God’s ultimate care. Eph 4:30 warns us to “. . . grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Here are the instructions to avoid this divisive nature becoming part of yours: v. 31 & 32 “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

In the months ahead, in the series on Forgiveness, we will answer many of the questions posed at the first of this article. Some of us will choose to do the right and the difficult thing rather than the humanly natural thing. Consequently, the road will be a bit more difficult as we learn to respond in the nature and by the grace of our heavenly Father. I pray you will join me in the journey.

Applied Apologetics / Pre-Evangelism & Discipleship

2009-09-22T13:21:00.001-07:00

Often in Christian apologetics we realize that definitions and the re-defining of words are the cause of great misunderstanding and even the cause of heresies. We have even referred to this reality as an abuse of our theological language. We can point to this error as part of the problem of re-writing history and the cause of much of the problem within many of the cults. Let’s face it, when language is manipulated – doctrine suffers, perspective is twisted and doctrines of the faith are left to be taken out of their true context or they are so perverted as to become abusive of our faith and to people (saved and unsaved).

As a pastor, this has long been a concern of mine as I experienced real people living in real circumstances face extreme difficulties because of having suffered the re-writing of doctrine via the re-defining of both common language and theological terms. It is with this care and concern that I now turn my focus toward modern day apologetics and the apologists we are producing, some of which I pray will go into pulpits.

Some of the greatest modern Christian apologists have called Christian apologetics: “pre-evangelism”. I would go a bit further and add to that definition: that proper Christian apologetics …should also be part and parcel of good discipleship. Christian apologetics should bring believers closer to God and thus add to healthy ongoing discipleship. For too long apologists have been rightly criticized as clinicians that practiced an exercise whose ends were found within the technical pursuits of the exercise itself. That is to say, if we as Christian apologists find our desires and propensities fulfilled at simply correcting someone’s questions (to make them appropriate or structured correctly) or answering the questions without helping the individual make application toward real life change toward Jehovah God, then at best we practice hollow discipleship and at worse, we are displaying our arrogance in an attempt to show off our knowledge. As Hank Hanegraaff stated in a luncheon of pastors (Sept. 22, 2009): “Apologetics was never intended to satisfy the soul by intellectual accent, but for the purpose of reaching people for Christ.”

I have long held that almost any platform can be used to evangelize and/ or disciple people, but that some of those platforms more often than not fall flat because neither evangelism nor discipleship is ever done. Churches and other religious organizations, for example, often send out teams to do clean up after a flood, tornado or hurricane; but if the work done ends with those good works then I contend that we could have done more good by giving the money spent on those works to Habitat for Humanity or other such organizations and let them do what they do best! In the same light if we as Christians do apologetics (whether in conferences or debates or classes) and the only result is a good show and knowledge built for the sake of knowledge, or for the sake of the display of that knowledge; then we can find ourselves in the company of others that are nothing more than clanging bells or ringing cymbals. My question is: “what happens when the sound ends”? In other words: have we really done pre-evangelism or discipleship at all?

If you have been in Sunday morning services lately at CFC, some of these themes may be familiar to you. I am concerned that as trained apologists we often find ourselves satisfied at the point that we have either corrected the question or given an answer that is technically masterful, yet spiritually unfulfilling to the questioner.

When we miss connecting to both the head and the heart of the one asking the questions or challenging our beliefs, then we can win the battle (by our own definitions of victory), yet loose the soul. I fear that far too often I have been so caught up in the theological jousting and the technical manipulating of rooting out fallacies, that in my personal satisfaction, I have left others spiritually cold. When in our efforts to dazzle (because we are so focused on self), we leave other folks dazed in our dust, and all that is accomplished in the eyes of God is the puffing up of an arrogant heart; our own.

I have personally been blessed to have the tools of the studied Christian apologist in the work of reaching those deceived by some of the most perverse cults in this country and others. I genuinely appreciate those tools but have come to appreciate even more how those tools are applied in the most difficult of situations. I have seen the heart ache, the pain and the physical & emotional anguish caused in families torn apart. Perhaps because our ministry has been grass roots, dealing directly with those caught up in the deceit, we know how hollow that simply knocking down arguments can be to the one on the receiving end. Far too often, I have found myself so impressed with the technical precision of my answers only to find the one spoken too, intellectually stunned and emotionally devastated. Take it from me, stunned & devastated people don’t often think clearly and often experience only the consequences of their own knee jerk reaction to the apologetic offered. It is then the relativistic world’s pleasure to assure them of the legitimacy of that reaction, thus rooting the questioner’s false beliefs even deeper than they were prior to the interaction.

In his truly impressive book: “Spiritual Depression” D. Martyn Lloyd Jones gives credence to these thoughts in this way:

“I regard it as a great part of my calling in ministry to emphasize the priority of the mind and intellect in connection with the faith; but though I maintain that, I am equally ready to assert that the feelings, the emotions, the sensibilities …are vitally important. We have been made in such a way that these play a dominant part in our make-up. Indeed, I suppose that one of the greatest problems in our life in this world not only for Christians, but for all people, is the right handling of our feelings and emotions. Oh, the havoc that is wrought and the tragedy, the misery and the wretchedness that are to be found in the world simply because people do not know how to handle their own feelings.”

I am impressed that Jones here not only strikes the head of one of the largest problems in applying apologetics outside the class room or the extended class room which we call: debate, but also one of the most unaddressed problems in the history of the church. We are often bred (educated in such a way) as apologists, to be so busy fighting over the non-essentials and seeking acknowledgement for our perceived victories in those battles, that we are missing the opportunity of connecting with real people harboring emotional pain which is buried deep in the masquerade of intellectual questions.

In the days when I was in seminary I remember the jousting and attempts to score points with the other students and when possible the faculty. I remember a time in an apologetics class, when asking a heartfelt question I was so abused by the professor, who I can only guess thought I was challenging him personally, that in getting an accurate but angry answer, I found myself belittle and left bruised and battered. To be honest, a decade later I cannot remember the question or the answer (they were lost in the emotion of the moment), but I am left with a horrid remembrance of the event, the embarrassment I had before my classmates and the hesitancy I had in asking important questions of that professor from that time forward.

The question for us is: “…of what purpose is apologetics”? I contend that Hank Hanegraaff is correct: it is to reach real people and not just to impress the academic or publishing communities. If that is Paul’s contention (and I believe it is) then rather than the selfish ambitions of a jouster, perhaps we need to be more aware of our propensities, adjust our own minds and hearts, and then focus on our answers being made useful to those on the receiving end. This often requires us knowing their propensities & the purpose of their question; and thus asking them questions & listening to their answers before giving our apologetic. Paul in essence does this on Mars Hill when he answers the un-verbalized (but memorialized) question of the “unknown god”.

Ravi Z., in my opinion, has made an art of this objective over the last several years. His ability to connect with people has thus been elevated to the level of seeing real change in lives as a result of their having encountered him and those he has trained up through his ministry. I highly recommend, if you want to witness this craft perfected, that you listen again and again to his Q&A sessions on college campuses around the world. I would also commend to you the masterful work Ravi did as the first evangelical to take the pulpit at the Mormon Tabernacle since D.L. Moody. I believe that recording is still available through his RZIM web site. We should not only admire the beauty of this masterful work but seek to weave it into our own encounters with all “those who ask”. His work is both peaceable and un-compromising, and genuinely beautiful to witness in its accuracy and artistry.

Recently I began a Sunday morning message by asking the congregation their definition of “failure”. I got all kinds of answers, but the one I stole from Pastor James Merritt (Atlanta, Ga.) I still think is best. He says that “failure is succeeding at the wrong thing.” While I tend to point the finger of failure (as defined here) at many strict Calvinists (my propensity), I think in some cases all those fingers pointed back at apologists might be legit as well. I suspect and fear that it is. Let’s get better at what we do about reaching the lost, equipping the saints, developing disciples, and not just better at winning the jousting matches among the academics in the spotlight, all the while, missing those in the dark that apologetics was intended to lead into deeper relationships with Christ.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-04T08:02:00.002-07:00

Pastor Dave and His mother one year ago. Mrs. Seaford is still doing well and living in Weddington Park.

BUT THEN, there are times when it is just as important what mothers don't do. Check out the next video.

Can a Christian do that?

2009-04-30T14:49:00.020-07:00

How can we be in the world but not of the world? It seems perplexing at times that we, as Christians, seem to have embraced such strange kinds of liberalism and legalism in Postmodern America. It appears we prefer to attach ourselves to the more comfortable polar positions, rather than deal with the very central and transcendent nature of a holy God. I just want to challenge you today to begin to ask yourself where the line is drawn between being legalistic in our practice of a form of christological snobbery and genuine Christianity? What is the difference between cultural relevance and pagan ritualism? Is the God of the Bible not transcendent and piercingly relevant in every culture and within every scripturally neutral cultural practice, music, and language?

Billy Graham has said that he would be exceedingly happy if at the end of his life 5% of the people that came forward in his great evangelistic crusades were actually saved as a result. As I watch people function within the church today, I believe that his comments, which match up with the Barna research, are very accurate. It seems a very high probability to me that there are very low percentages indeed that sit in our churches that actually have a relationship with Jesus Christ. The fruit, the power and the patience found in most of those lives just is not reflective of the Christ which supposedly lives within.

Look at the humorous first video (at the beginning of this article) and then the not so funny second video (posted at the end of this rant). When you finish; ask yourself: "Where is the line between holier than thou churchianity and the real deal? What is the difference between a faith that lives, breaths and has found a reality in Christ transcending the walls human nature; and that which has purposed to built walls around their more customized religious practices? Lastly, do our religious practices have more to do with culture and preference than the worship of the transcendent God of the Bible?

It is mind boggling that a person that would argue “irreducible complexity” with regard to creation could find such comfort in a god that is so culturally reducible and culturally narrow. I should be clear here that I am not arguing that anything goes… or that all roads lead to an eternal life with God in heaven. To the contrary, I am quite simply saying that where God is not excluded by practices He has specifically forbidden, He can be enjoyed and even worshiped. It is our cultural and preferential walls that cause us to reject this worship and to be so determined by those walls as to eliminate our efforts to reach certain people for God. Strangely enough it is those same people that we seek to convert first to our preferences and cultural practices before we will accept them enough to offer our personal god. Further I am arguing that we do have a God that is personal, but when we personalize that god, he ceases to be God.

Enough from me…. Please take the time to watch the videos, think for yourself these issues through. If you are a student of the Bible, consider the God that took in the gentiles (dogs that we were) and then ask yourself what cultural or even bloodline barriers you are building that precludes some from finding this transcendent God.

Interesting; is it not?

Now ask yourself; if we are not careful in this cause for godly relevance which penetrates every cultural and preferential barrier, how long will it be till the slippery slope takes us to the kinds of reason we find in this next video? Neither an "easy believism" nor a cultural phariseeism is reflective of the Christ of the Bible. Where do you stand?

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Great Audio Interview

2009-04-14T09:11:00.003-07:00

Brandon House Interview Ex-Marxist (audio)

Crisis and Priorities

2008-02-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

It is interesting what crisis in life does to us. With all the tornado devastation we have seen over the last couple of weeks, it has become easier for many of us to focus in on what is really important. That meeting we judged as “critical” for our future, the appointment with a business associate, or the purchase of that new luxury item suddenly and with little warning was outranked by the one and only picture of Grandpa that we pray made it through the destructive winds and was some how miraculously preserved somewhere beneath the rubble that use to be our home.

In moments like these we learn that while time does not heal all wounds, that clear thinking and moral priorities are brought into focus and that genuine love is clearly more precious than gold. These moments of focus are often God’s prescriptive lenses designed to help us re-prioritize our lives and by so doing bring real purpose and meaning to the lives we lead.

This is really all about what we value and how we E-valuate success and failure with regard to our living daily. It has been through a series of destructive winds in my life that my value system has been formed and my relationship with God has been transformed (see Romans 12:1 & 2). We are all a product of our genetics and our environment. When God steps into our environment and either directly causes or allows destructive winds of any kind (not always actual physical wind), He has a purpose that without exception is for our ultimate good and His ultimate glory. I can tell you both as a student of theology and a product myself of many disasters, that there are no exceptions to this rule. Further it needs to be said that when I have not been able to see either the good or the glory, that it has been because I have been focused on what I value and not on what God has designed for my good and His glory, which is of the ultimate value.

In God’s value system things and homes and cars and even our comfort is of infinitely less value than our relationship with Him and others He has placed in our lives. When our focus becomes diverted and our purpose in living becomes acquisition, preservation and pride, we often find God’s hand directed at getting our attention and bringing us back to these primal issues of importance.

In the Beatitudes Christ gives a clear set of values that stretch our mental abilities to the extremes because of their paradoxical nature. In Matt. 5:4 He says: “blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” The context of the message is on the one element that separates us from God and that removes us from relationship with God. That element is sin. The mourning He is speaking of here is a deep mourning over sin, first in our own lives and then over sin in others lives. This specifically shows us that God so highly values relationship with us that the pathway to genuine joy can only be found on the road of mourning that which is sinful to the point of our repentance. God Himself so mourned that which is sinful that He willingly gave His Son to die so that we can have relationship with Him now and forever.

The question that must be ask is: “if God who is Sovereign and Holy so values this relationship above all else, including the life of His Son, should we not place that value above all else?

So why would a good and loving God allow such devastation as some of us have experienced this past couple of weeks? …because His focus was never fogged by the bright shinny things that so easily captured our attentions, taking us away from what is genuinely of value.

It should be noted that not everyone will learn from these lessons. Some will even become more callous and rebellious from the experience. God knows this and has even given you the free will to make that decision for yourself. But some of us have seen and smelled and tasted enough in the weeks just past to experience His presence and to enjoy once again His priorities. I have seen some relationships restored and some who have gone out of their way to avoid God’s placement of them and God’s work to get their attention. Both kinds of people are experiencing exactly what they have chosen even in the midst of God’s clear work.

Has God gotten our attention? Are we listening? …as importantly, are we changing to adapt to His value system? My Grandfather use to say: “Boy, you can learn the hard way or the easy way, its your choice.” Smart man! …by the way, his picture is back in a prominent place in my office this week.

The Church is NOT a Social Club

2007-10-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Let me begin this article with the Biblical premise that the Church is the base from which people are trained up and sent out to DO ministry AND in the midst of doing genuine ministry that God ministers both to, and through His children. Now that may not sound very profound, but let me tell you this is NOT the view of the church even by most of the people sitting in those steepled buildings on most Sunday mornings.

Matthew 28:18 – 19, Ephesians 4:1 – 5:2 and from an abundance of other scriptures we find that we are primarily to be the servants and not the served. Yet today I hear both people in the church and people visiting our churches speak of the church as if it were a social club where one pays his dues and therefore has certain expectations and rights. Visitors often say to me openly that they are “shopping for a church”, or “looking for a church that can best serve them” or “seeking a church with the best programs for their needs”. All of these are excellent measurements for a Social Club or for evaluating a Community Center perhaps, but this in NO WAY is the Biblical measure of any church.

Go to the back of your Bible to the book of Revelation and see how God judges the churches in Revelation 2:29 – chapter 3. Certainly this is the word of God concerning how God will judge His churches in the end times, but these are also God’s standards of HOW He is judging His churches today!

The church is the place where you come to be equipped for ministry (Eph. 4:12) and where you come to do ministry (Matt. 28:19). Most of the complaints I hear from church members is because they have this very basic Biblical construct of the church turned upside down. They come to be served and with their eyes focused not on what their family can give and how their family can best serve, but immaturely in a way that gets puffed up when someone in their family is not stroked just right or pampered in a way that is totally and completely focused on themselves and without regard for what this may mean to others. When this happens 100% of the time it is because the person has registered the church in their mind as a social organization established for the purpose of meeting their particular needs. This is further exaggerated by the fact that additionally they see their tithe, not as belonging to God already but as dues which issue them certain rights as “members” of the assembly. …and when they give more than their tithe, they often expect Platinum Club status with even greater privileges. God’s word to us is this concerning those that look for special acknowledgment and accolades: “they have received their reward already” (Matt. 6:2).

The truth is that most of us ministers are highly at fault for this misconception as well as the ungodly attitude that it brings into our churches. With the whole “Church Growth” movement and the high emphasis being placed on how many people any given church can get in the door, we (church leadership) have turned to how we can best “market” our particular church to the community instead of how we can best genuinely prepare ourselves to reach people for Christ in that community.

I can not tell you how many times I have heard the words: “but my situation is different,” or “my child is different and has special needs”. I’ve got news for you, everyone’s situation is different and everyone’s child has special needs. If you are a Christ follower who actually reads and studies the scriptures you will realize quickly that the way to find healing for you and your children is for you and your children to find a place of service where in the process of REALLY ministering to others God begins to show you your place and bring actual healing into your life. This requires a person to come with a humble and hungry spirit ready to learn and to grow under the leadership and mentorship of another and thus become better and better prepared to serve. When one comes with an attitude of superiority or a human spirit that needs to be fed “ego bites”, then this is just another “give me”, self centered social club agenda and God’s work is very rarely done by that person or in the environment that they create.

Leadership is not a right of chronological age, personality, financial prowess, or political favor as a result of last name, athletic ability or popularity. Christian leadership is a gift of God that is developed and honed under the tutelage of Godly leaders who also must keep what is best for the flock as their primary focus. Sometimes that means those whose needs are worldly who are trying to fulfill those needs in a church environment will have to be removed for the greater good of the entire flock (see the detailed instruction in Matthew 18 for more on this or pick up a copy of the Belview Baptist Church July 22nd Morning message on dvd which is free for the asking).

No, the church is not a social club, not a recreation center and not a place that caters to ANY one person at the sacrifice or even the harm of others. Even the story of the lost sheep in its context of history and tradition understands that what the shepherd did for the one lost sheep was never done at the risk of the entire flock (also see MacArthur commentary on Matthew and the dvd of the Belview Baptist Church August 5th Morning message). There were typically multiple shepherds in any given flock which were normally the property of the community NOT a single individual or even a single family.

Today the problems are many in the church, but the hurt and harm caused by individuals getting upset because their particular way was not established or maintained is more often than not in the center of most unholy debates and the root of passions out of control. These kinds of attitudes and actions never bring God glory.

If we would just remember that it is ALL about Jesus.

Position Statement on Biblical Baptism

2007-10-02T06:48:00.001-07:00

9/27/07

To Whom It May Concern:

By the grace of God and for His glory alone is the following position statement which is made necessary by rumor and innuendo that brings division rather than the unity commanded by our Lord. As a pastor and leader, called of God to edify His body, not to ever quench the Spirit and to glorify Him, I offer up His word as guidance for us all.

Because culture and the traditions of men so form religious activity, some of which throughout history has taken man further from God rather than closer, it is critical that every Christian look to God’s word alone as His guide for daily living. Leaders in the Church need to be doubly careful to surrender to this premise otherwise we are no better than the Hindu or Muslim leader that leads and teaches due to where and how he was raised and what he blindly and freely received as truth without question. God’s word is our source of truth in a world that claims there is no truth. If we believe this then all culture and tradition that challenges the efficacy of God’s word even slightly must be set aside by genuine God called leaders in favor of this truth.

It is expected that some would say that it is a matter of interpretation of God’s word as to what truth really is. To that I would agree. If one’s interpretation is through the eyes of tradition rather than the literal, historical and grammatical method (Jesus’ consistent teaching and interpretive method) of coming to know God’s truth, we will be constantly deceived and blinded from that truth.

Baptism and church membership are no where biblically linked in the “causal” sense. In other words, baptism biblically is not a method of ushering someone into church membership. Baptism, which means to be taken beneath the water, is however commanded (literally a Greek imperative) by Jesus in the great commission (Matthew 28:18-19), and therefore should be one requirement for the privilege of church membership. This can be shown to be true by the later part of the Great Commission which is clearly about teaching “them to obey all that I have commanded you” (v. 19). Obedience to Christ and following Christ and identification in Christ and the testimony of Christ in a life is the nature and solemn and holy essence of baptism. It is about the death burial and resurrection of Christ. It is about Jesus and what He has done for us. This is, and should be the focus of every baptism service – Jesus. To identify baptism as the causal agent of church membership or of receiving people into church membership, rather than just one requirement for church membership, it seems to me diminishes the fact that in every way baptism is about Jesus, not our local body and not what we have done to acquire church membership. Show me just one place in the Bible where baptism was the method of receiving a person into the Ekklesia, rather than just one requirement for church membership and I will change my position. Yet herein I will point to several specific cases where we have Biblical example of baptism where no local church even existed. As I said, the Bible is our source of truth and our only guide to what is important. Further the Bible should be our only light on the methods and ways of God which we accept into the church.

I believe in baptism by immersion and that this was the method of John the Baptist as he baptized our Lord AND further that it was the way that Jesus baptized His followers. I believe, as is shown in the Great Commission that God is not going to force us to be baptized but rather it is a call on every Christian to obedience. Thus baptism is a choice of every Christian and while not salvific (note the thief on the cross next to Jesus – “this day you will be with me in paradise”), it is an indication of one that desires to follow Jesus. Thus the historical words that have echoed through the churches throughout the centuries: “this one has chosen to follow our Lord in baptism”. Note that when Peter preached that great sermon at Pentecost that the call and command was to Christ and the instruction to those whose “hearts were pricked” was to repent and be baptized (Acts 2:36 – 38). Here God’s word says that that day there was added about three thousand SOULS. No where is the local church even mentioned here. When Phillip taught and then at the Eunuch’s request baptized him in the wilderness of those barren plains we see no evidence of any local church whose purpose it was to usher one into membership. It was about Jesus and His love and sacrifice for us. It was about obedience and a genuine desire to follow the imperatives of the Lord (Acts 8:27 – 39). It was about that nourishment of the soul that comes ONLY as we follow our Master willingly becoming His servant. Again, to diminish all of this by making it about indoctrination into membership of a specific local church is to rob a person of the blessing of knowing the true meaning and purpose of the event.

Recently a mother of a local church member went through a series of surgeries, came close to death several times and as she came and went out of consciousness in the hospital with a tube taped in her mouth so that she could not speak, it was obvious there were things she wanted to talk to me about, but could not. Weeks of hospitalization resulted in much time for her to contemplate eternity. I had already ask her several times the year before if she knew the Lord and her reply was always the same; that she was “alright with Him”. But now when the tube was removed, she requested to have me come back to the hospital and after several questions and some heart felt confessions in which she concluded that she needed Jesus in her life. I ask her if she would like to ask Him into her heart, to which she very quickly answered; “yes”. Later than month she indicated that she desired to be baptized and to “follow Jesus” in this way, but that she could not get down into water and certainly could not get safely into the baptistery. Her surgery and illness had left her on a walker and with still open surgical wounds that would be compromised by her being submerged or man handled in any way that might be required to get her in a position to be baptized by submersion. Yet, as she said, I want to “follow Jesus.” This is the obedience called for in the Scriptures. So, after several other baptisms by submersion one Sunday morning at which time (as is my habit) I spoke of the importance of the picture of the death, burial and resurrection, I came down from behind the baptistery, sat Doris in front of the church and with a bowl and pitcher; and with her head tilted back and her looking upward, we “took her beneath the water” by pouring it over her head and face baptizing her in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Her obedience to follow Jesus with ALL that she physically could do was a great testimony to many in the church that simply will not come for baptism because they are afraid of what someone will think or because their Church of Christ families might shun them or simply because they do not want to. Perhaps the greatest testimony in baptism since I have been at Belview was seen that day in this person who in spite of her great infirmities chose to obey and follow Christ.

Yes, I am an ordained Southern Baptist preacher, I am also a Doctor of Theology and understand the importance of Baptism by immersion. But above all else I am a Christian first who is sold out to what God says is important and critical within His word. Our walk of faith is about a relationship with Christ that demands by definition our obedience to Him where traditions and methods never stand in the way of relationship and heart felt obedience. Christ’s teaching and actions always defied the legalistic acts that were expected of Him. AND Yes, I would do this all again under similar circumstances. May He be honored and praised!

Lastly with regard to the subject of baptism I would like to address “believer’s baptism” as a matter of definition and as a matter of Biblical example. It has come to my attention that because of doctrines found in some Missionary Baptist Churches as well as most Church of Christ groups that the term “believer’s baptism” has somehow become associated with their doctrines of these exclusivists in the minds of some. It seems to me there is a confusion of terms and on the part of some, even a re-defining of what historically has been called “believer’s baptism”. From the time of Josephus we find “believer’s baptism” used to describe those who chose to follow Christ in baptism AFTER making a decision to accept Christ as Lord. It was simply a term which was (and should be today) used to point to the fact that baptism was about “following”, an act of “obedience”, and of willing “identification” of the believer with Christ. This of course precludes infant baptism because the infant can not with understanding willingly choose to obey, but in no way should this term be restricted to those who baptize “into the church” which is the act of every exclusivist group and is one which normally indicates that the church believes that there is something unique about their baptism and specific church. Sometimes belief of uniqueness is to the extreme of believing that they are the only ones going to heaven. This is one of the five clear indicators of a cult as established by Dr. Ron Rhoads, and which is nearly universally accepted by evangelical scholars around the world.

To accept someone’s previous baptism therefore, I would suggest a simple but essential set of standards which are also readily accepted by most evangelical churches. It has nothing to do with whether they are coming from a Southern Baptist Church or other church of “like faith.” It rather has to do with the believers spiritual position at the time of their baptism. The only question is: Did they believe and had they accepted the Jesus of the Bible, prior to their baptism. I don’t personally accept anyone’s transfer of letter or statement of faith (Southern Baptist or not) without having a conversation with them to make sure they know the Jesus of the Bible and that they knew Him at the time of their baptism. IF, because of their teaching and upbringing, they were taught about and they accepted a Jesus other than the biblical Jesus and on that basis they were baptized, then they MUST be baptized with an acceptance of the one true Jesus having been made prior to that baptism. AND this is NOT then a re-baptism. It is their only baptism. Baptism then is a one time event under these clear but simple standards. From Matthew 3 to Matthew 20 to Mark 1 to Mark 10 to Mark 16 to Luke 3 to Luke 7 to John 3 to John 4 to John 10 to Acts 1 & 2; to Acts 8,9,10 & 11; to Acts 16, 18, 19 and 22; to Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 1, 10, 12 & 15; and all the way to Galatians 3: 27 which says: “for as many of you that have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,” we see a consistent picture and theme. That picture and theme is one baptism perhaps most clearly stated in Ephesians 4:5 which says specifically there is “one baptism” Certainly the picture and ordinance we present in water baptism should be no different than the reality of the one baptism that is “into Christ”. In every single biblical case we find the tense, voice and mood of the Greek verb form of baptism exclusively points to a one time event, and as if that were not enough Ephesians 4:5 clearly and specifically says it: “one baptism”.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, we do not believe that the water of baptism sanctifies us. BUT we do believe that this is an important act of obedience that testifies of our identification with His death, burial and resurrection which is that which sanctifies every believer “once and for all” (Hebrews 10:10). Unlike the exclusivists and cults we must not demand that baptism is about our local church but we must constantly reinforce to every believer that it is about our obedience before our Lord.

Most Sincerely In Christ,

David T. Seaford

Did you beat the odds?

2007-01-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what it is today, but May 18th use to be the day that the average person worked through each year just to earn enough to pay their taxes. This year I read an article that said that the average person would only keep their New Years resolution till the 16th of January. This was based on actual 2005 statistic data collected in a very large sampling throughout the United States. So, did you beat the odds?

It is ironic that we will work 5 times longer to break even financially than we will work to be better people. That is assuming that the purpose of your New Years resolution was to in some way be a better person. Given that I am a student of both human nature and how that nature both engages the Christian faith AND how those of us that are Christian engage those around us (Christian and non-Christian), it is interesting to me that most of us seem to approach the things of the Faith the same way. That is to say, on a 16 day trial basis. When we don’t perceive that it is working for us (i.e. that we are not free of every worry) and we are too embarrassed to admit it, we just go on pretending that it is all great, that our faith is in tact and that we can be Christian without being “too Christian.” After all, those “too Christian” freaks are just a little bit obnoxious. We come up with sayings that make us feel better like: “those guys are too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” And somehow that is encouraging to us in our pretend Christian world. It is as if we have convinced ourselves that we can be A Christian without being Christian. That is akin to believing that you can be A human without being human. Or that you can be A male without being male. No, we can ACT male without being male and we can dress up a dog and make him look human without him being human. But a female is still a female and the dog is still a dog.

The chronic condition of the church today (at least in America where persecution is still relatively light) is that there are some pretenders that are struggling in their own power to keep there heads above the liturgy acceptance level on Sunday morning and that work hard at hiding out the rest of the week. While not quite wolves in sheep’s clothing, they may be approaching a lesser deception of being A goat in sheep’s attire.

I always felt funny, (ok I’ll admit it, “really stupid”) dressing up in a tuxedo. No matter how good it fit, it really did not fit me. It was stiff, awkward, clumsy, and I was frankly always just sure that I was going to mess it up. I fear that many people sitting in the pews of our churches are approaching their faith like I do a tuxedo. They put it on, on Sunday morning, carefully remove it just after the service and store it away safely in a zippered “clean bag” till the next Sunday they choose to go to church. Church is a special event for them rather than a natural extension of a genuine Christian life.

The reason most people fail at keeping there New Year’s resolutions is that they approach it like an event that once completed will solve that particular perceived problem from that day forward. The truth is that nothing in life works that way. If you loose 15 pounds, it does not assure that you will forever keep the weight off. If you quit smoking, it does not keep the stress of everyday life from pushing you back toward your favorite smoke, no matter what the commercials say to the contrary. And, the habit of church (as an event in your week) does not make you a Christian nor provide sufficient power within itself to keep you on the path of the Christian life.

The Christian, who calls Jesus Lord, is the person who lives like a Christian because of who he is in Christ, not because he is working toward that goal in his own power. His life is a by product of who he is, not a contrived method of who he is TRYING to be. As a result the Christian becomes more and more like Christ throughout his life and that is a mater of his new nature which he purposes to nurture (2 Cor. 5:17).

The end result is that you don’t become a Christian either by proclamation nor resolution. It is the free gift of God, lest any man should boast (Eph. 2:8 – 9). That free gift must be received, and because we live in a fallen world, must be nurtured. This is one of the great purposes of Church. We can there worship Him for that free gift and at the same time nurture that new nature by the washing of the water by the word (Eph. 5:26). That is to say that we can mature in the Lord by the study and submission to His word.

No, my diet resolution did not go very well. I am just now getting the refrigerator cleared out of all the cakes and candies that so many of you brought me for Christmas. My desire for coconut cake has not changed, but maybe now that the temptation is gone I can loose enough to get back in that cummerbund! Anyway, aren’t you glad that Christianity was never designed of God to be like that? When we are genuinely changed what was once tasty sin, become repulsive and ugly.

For more information on the reality of Christian living go to: www.mybelview.org. There you will find information on the upcoming “improving communication in your marriage” conference. That will be a wonderful first step in nurturing that relationship that God has given you and learning what it is to have a powerful, exciting and godly marriage. It is a lot more effective and fun than trying to fix it yourself, AND, when done God’s way, much longer lasting than the 16 day resolution.

What Child is This?

2006-12-13T11:41:00.001-07:00

One popular Christmas carol we sing asks the question,
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"What child is this,
who, laid to rest,
On Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?"

And the chorus answers,

"This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the son of Mary."

The question that was no doubt whispered by outcast shepherds two millennium ago now booms forth as the greatest echoing question of our day. “What child is this”? Innumerable people have died and been tortured over the cause of His name and because of His message, and yet His message was a message of peace, love and eternal life.

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People who stand in purposed and direct opposition to this “feed trough child” stand just as firm and seem even more willing to die for nothing but the opportunity to try to kill a few of us that have followed the star to the manger.
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How could this child of a poor Jewish family generate so much passion and hatred in those that say they believe in the person of Jesus and even believe that He performed miracles that confirmed Him to be a prophet of God? The believers in Islam will even point out that the Koran clearly states that Muhammad could not do a single miracle to confirm his status as a prophet, yet they say he came to “correct” the “corrupted” message of our Lord. And they gladly die defending the message of the sword which they believe will conquer the world and cleanse it of all thing not Islamic. It is difficult, if not impossible for those of us in the West to understand a religion that teaches death and hatred as a theological answer to that which they oppose: “Peace on earth, good will to men.” After all we Westerners reason, what religion could survive such teachings of mass euthanasia? It seems sociologically illogical and theologically unpalatable. Yet there is something in the fallenness of men when left unattached to this manger born Jesus that actually prefers death to life and hatred over peace.
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If what has just been said here in the last sentence is true, then even a very brief objective analysis of world news, the world religions and its belief systems will reveal a desperate world wide need for this child born in a stinkin’ stable. For this child is a savior whose weapon is Love and whose mission is life eternal.
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Hebrews 1:2 says: “…but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” What Child is this? Now there is a beginning in the past: “He created the world” (John 1) and yet He has not any beginning Himself, and thus his birth into the flesh that we now celebrate, by itself proves life beyond this earthly body. The scripture also says that He is “the heir of all things.” This statement points to an end. Some folks occasionally ask me: “where is all of this going to end? Do you think that we are in the last days? Could this be the time that God is going to bring everything crashing down to a sudden end?” The question may seem unanswerable, but it is not. The answer is “maybe”! We can not say definitively “no” because it could happen before you finish reading this article. BUT we do know that an end is coming, because everything that has a beginning also has an ending, and even the most avid atheistic scientists today concede that all the universe had a “bang” of a beginning. The Bible confirms in its 2000 year old declaration what these scientists today are just now discovering (Matt. 24 Luke 21 and Mark 13). It all will end when the Son of Man returns in His glory and establishes His kingdom upon the earth. There he will be the Lion the Jewish people are looking for and there He will rule and reign because He is the “heir of all things.”
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What Child is this? He is the one that “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). This passage of Scripture reveals an incredible truth in the present tense. It says that He is the One who is sustaining life and holding all the universe together in this very moment. The alternative is that He let go and that all of life would indeed come crashing to an end. In other words this baby in a manger both created and now sustains all of life and all of creation.
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Scientists concur that this is true. Stanford University has a two mile long atom smasher that is discovering wonderful complexity in the universe that all point to something (or someone) that is holding everything together mysteriously. They call that something the “cosmic glue.” I think that it is amazing that right in our own Scriptures we find the same kind of language used to define the power that Jesus is now asserting. “All things are held together by him,” (Col. 1:17b).
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What Child is this? He is the one that is said to have “…made purification for sins, (and then) …sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3b). The writer here takes us beyond the physical and external matters and into the very depths of the human dilemma, in defining the “What” of this child.
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In light of all that is happening in the world today, the terrorist attacks, the wicked beheadings, the daily killings and tortures, the kidnappings, the molestations of our children, the wholesale disregard of human life, which was created in the very image of God, what can this child do? It was said that this child grew up to be “made the purification for (all these) sins.” We find here in the scriptural answer the very nature of the problem. The very nature of the problem is sin (or as Ray Stedman has said “human selfishness") and the answer to the problem is the reason for the incarnation of Christ AND the reason He now sits “at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” He sits there to make intercession for our human selfishness before the Father and to continue to hold all things together until He comes again.
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What Child is this? I don’t know why He does not just come back now and put an end to the debauchery, but in His sovereignty He has already determined the time and place. In spite of the fact that I don’t understand the delay, He has a perfect purpose and to Him it is no delay at all. The poet James Russell Lowell puts it this way:
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Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ‘tis truth alone ‘tis strong:
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadows,
Keeping watch above his own.
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May God richly bless you with His presence this Christmas! Emmanuel. God is with us!

So Here We Go Again…?

2006-11-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

No doubt, by now most of you have heard the rumblings out of Colorado Springs that were emitted by the largest evangelical earthquake since those back in the 1980’s. Once again Christians in general have been equated with the moral and spiritual failures of a man who had come to be recognized as THE Christian Evangelical leader in America. My fear when these sorts of things happen is that some people in the church and many, if not most, outside the church will see this as a vindication of their private doubts and not so private criticisms of the Christian faith. Of course this would be like holding the land and all the people of Iraq in the same contempt as Saddam Husain and assuming every person in the Country to have the same diabolical evil nature as their once powerful leader.
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Ted Haggard was president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an organization that my mentor and beloved teacher Dr. Norman Geisler founded some years ago. Sadly Dr. Geisler and others of us several years ago felt it necessary to resign our memberships. We held that the NAE was no longer genuinely evangelical and that they had lost the very essence of their name. Heretical doctrines had come to be accepted by those brought to power in the NAE over the past several years. It seems that they thought it politically pragmatic to accept those beliefs, as this theologically broad road built membership and influence. As is always the case when the politics in organizations of faith are elevated above what is strictly Biblical, we inevitably end up in some very sad situations and with very embarrassing public problems to try to explain. Those who do not follow the intricacies of such things and have come to think that the latest Christian leader’s hypocritical failure is a proper reflection of the Church, find themselves without any reason to receive the testimony of those of us who know better, and thus also find themselves significantly further from the one who is the Truth, Christ Himself. In all of the failures of Christian leaders of the last three decades, this alienation of the hurting and lost is the most devastating consequence. The most hurtful reality, which has caused the previously mentioned consequence, is that Christ’s Name has been blackened to most on the fringes and in the wings.
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I am genuinely saddened by the failure of any Christian leader and I pray for the fallen as well as those that allow themselves to be deterred from the Truth by the failure of a few very visible fallible men. Ted Haggard’s gross sin is inexcusable for any Christian leader and he has certainly disqualified himself as a pastor of any size church, but I would remind all of us that even what he did is not unforgivable by Christ with regard to his salvation. That is the good news for those that think that the deceit, drug use and sexual sin which Haggard engaged in somehow outweighed the price that Christ paid for him on the cross. It also should be good news to those that might be dealing with the same sins and thinking that, if this man of God could not break free that they have no hope. There is hope and it comes in the One who has no sin and knows all too well the frailties of the flesh, because He walked among us, suffered, wept, and was tempted like all of us, in every way.

To be perfectly clear, I am in no way trying to diminish the perverted and gross nature of Ted Haggard’s sin. Nor am I excusing his huge breach of moral leadership and ethical responsibilities demanded by his positions. Nor am I suggesting that he can ever be a Christian pastor again. I am personally sickened by the vile and nasty nature of what he has done, the harm he has caused, the hurt he has propagated and the venom he has sued into the veins of those fragile souls on the fringes of the faith who never heard of him before this month.
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Again, we must all keep our heads clear. What Haggard did was not Christian and can not be tolerated in any Christian leader. His sin does however show the problem and fallen nature of every human being and the immense need that EVERY man has for a Savior. Further it shows the very poignant problem of deviant doctrine which carries people away from the pure teachings of the faith and either brings about doctrinal legalism or liberalism. Christ is not found and the Bible does not teach either of these polar extremes. They are the works and inventions of men who pride themselves in either pharisaical, stoic or epicurean teachings, which may help men “feel” better, but bring no one closer to Christ.
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Ted Haggard is just one man raised to power by circumstance and good politics, and I believe that God has specifically allowed, if not directly brought the revelations to light that caused his fall. I pray that there will be a bleeding off of some of the impurities that have crept into and come to be accepted as “standards” of the Christian faith. I pray that we as Christians will wake up and begin to examine what we believe and why we believe it. This is the reason I feel so strongly about Christian apologetics. I pray that we will not have to be driven by another event like this one to go back to our roots, look at where we have gone so wrong and where we have come to let men of evil intent “tickle our ears” selling us what we want to hear while rejecting what we need to hear. In many cases the purity of the faith has been sacrificed on the alter of marketability and at other times on the alter of social tolerance. In either case it is a “sell out” and in no way reflects the teachings of Christ nor the purity of the faith.
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Lastly, the thing that Haggard and others yielding to such perversion seem to have lost sight of is that Christianity is not a rule book of religiosity which covers up a multitude of sin. Christianity is rather a relationship with the only One whose blood covers a multitude of sin… and bled willingly for us. I fear that we evangelicals have lost the full meaning of “relationship,” and what it means to have that with the person of Jesus Christ. We teach the concept, we preach it often, it sounds so good from the pulpit and has become a “mantra” of our evangelicalism, but is it real? In true relationship we are not a duality of personalities leading double lives but are genuinely “new creatures in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17) who’s sinful nature is overwhelmed by the love and graciousness of the one true Savior, Creator of the universe, and Sacrifice for our sins. When that relationship is real and not just a manufactured facade, there is nothing better in life or death. When that same relationship is a fake, I can personally testify, you know it and are more miserable than any creature on earth. This Christian leadership responsibility is not a “fake it till you make it” calling. Without this awesome relationship, which is nothing less than a Divine romance, one need not step up to the plate of leadership. If you do, look to be exposed.
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I believe God is clearing the decks, cleansing His house, turning over the tables of the money changers once again and making ready His return. I believe that He wants the choice for the people of the world to be clearer than it seems to be today. The beliefs of the Church are blurred and the lines between the world and the church seem nearly non-existence. If I am correct those lines will become more distinct in the years to come and the choices more definitive. The cults who today profess to be Christian, will eventually emerge to the public as distinctly non-Christian and the genuine faith will be even more publicly persecuted than it is today, as things wax worse and worse. But the Christian life will be more confident, joyful and powerful because of that day to day relationship that transcends the temporal fog that continues to hold captive both the world and the Christian pretenders. I believe it is time to make a REAL choice.

Radical Islam vs. Radical Christianity

2006-10-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

Over the last several years the word “radical” has taken on a harsh and sometimes profoundly negative connotation. The word itself comes from a Latin word which most literally means: “the root of”. So to say that something is “radical Islam” is to say that it is purely rooted in genuine Islamic beliefs. To say that something is “radically Christian” is to say that it is purely rooted in genuine Christian beliefs. So our use of the term “radical” may or may not be negative but should be considered carefully before applying its real meaning to any group.

I have heard commentators and pundits over the last 5 years (the time since 9-11 and the world trade center disaster) say that the root of the problem that “caused” 9-11 is “radical Islam,” and if “good Muslims” or those rooted in “real Islam” would just rise up and put these people in their place everything would be all right. On the other side I heard a report this past week quoting Rosie O’Donnell saying that “Radical Christianity is just as dangerous as Radical Islam.” I know, you are probably hearing me snicker between the lines. Forgive me for not putting a lot of weight in Rosie’s theology, but her comments about “radical Christianity” should be taken about a seriously as any comments I might make on lady’s fashions in Paris this year.

It seems that Rosie, like millions of others know the humanist talking points and are quite comfortable spouting them off, but the veracity of the verbiage and the notoriety of the speaker does not always equate to the accuracy of the message. Such is the case here with Ms. O’Donnell.

For years secular humanists and other critics have equated “radical Christianity” with the Crusades and the dominate rule of Constantine. Since this has become accepted thought both in our culture and with many others around the world, these events have been successfully packaged as “radical Christianity.” This being the case “radical Christianity” has been easily accepted as inappropriate, evil and now “dangerous.”

Allow me to say up front that the Crusades were wrong. That said, it should also be emphasized here that the Crusades and what happened during the Crusades, in no way represents Christianity, nor any form of orthodox Christian teaching. Because something is done in the “name” of something, does not make it necessarily representative of that something. The Crusades were very clearly anti-Christian. Herein lies the fallacy concerning the premise set forth by Ms. O’Donnell and so many other media elites, that seem to have messages of tolerance for everyone except Christians. I am convinced that this trend will continue and that Christians who are not “rooted” deeply in their faith will find it difficult to accept and live with the persecution that may well be coming as we experience more and more of these attacks. So far in this country most of the attacks have been verbal, but there is no promise that these restrictions will be maintained in the years to come. Many will find that statement difficult to digest here in the perceived safety of the good old USA, but many others of us having traveled around the world, well outside of this safety net, can attest to the very thin line that separates “us” from “them”.

We have now begun to indoctrinate our government workers with much of the tolerance propaganda. We are training our teachers, prison workers and many others in the area of religious tolerance that “only seems to flow one way,” which is never, it seems, in favor of the Christian faith. Following is a short article by Rick Mathes, a well know prison ministry servant of God. As you read it be prepared for the “rest of the story.”

Allah or Jesus?
by Rick Mathes
Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance.
During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their beliefs.
I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say.
The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers.
When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked:"Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world. And, that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims, they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?"
There was no disagreement with my statements and without hesitation, he replied,
"Non-believers!"
I responded, "So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can go to Heaven. Is that correct?"
The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
He sheepishly replied, "Yes."
I then stated, "Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering Protestants to do the same in order to go to Heaven!"
The Imam was speechless.
I continued, "I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me. Let me ask you a question. Would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in order to go to Heaven or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to Heaven and He wants you to be with me?"
You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head. Chuck Colson once told me something that has sustained me these 20 years of prison ministry. He said to me, "Rick, remember that the truth will prevail."
And it will!

Now you may be asking yourself if Rick’s statements are correct concerning what “real Islam” teaches. He is correct. The Koran in Sura 9 specifically calls on all Muslims to kill Christians and Jews everywhere. Please understand that this is a tenant of their faith. This is what Muhammad said was the way to assure heaven and to cleans the world of infidels. As Ergun Caner, ex Muslim, has said: “this is what ‘good Muslims’ do”! If they profess to believe and live according to the Koran, this theology of death is a cornerstone of their faith.

So let’s compare: Good Christians love their enemies (The Bible - Matt. 5:44, Luke 6:27) and good Muslims kill those who are not “believers” in Islam (The Koran - Sura 9). Thus radical Christianity teaches love and radical Islam teaches murder. Hey Rosie, which is more dangerous?

It should be clear that with regard to Muslims, we can tolerate ourselves to death. The truth is that love will prevail, and will prevail sooner if we do not try to equate love with a tolerance of genocide theologies. Whether it is Nazism or terrorism, whether it is a cleansing of inferior races or perceived inferior religions, hatred and murder are not acceptable as methods to cleanse the world of all that are not like any particular group. Christianity or Islam, there is a “radical” difference.

If a Frog had Wings...!

2006-06-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

There is a new commercial on television. Perhaps you have seen it. It begins with “IF” and then proceeds to promise you everything you might desire on the other side of every “IF”. But “if”, in its two letter status, is very possibly one of the biggest words in all of the English language. When my daughter was about 5 or 6 years old she began just about every sentence with “But, IF…” You could tell her anything and she would respond “But, if,” and then proceed to tell you why everything you had just attempted to teach her was wrong. But she would begin her immature correction of those instructing her most every time with an “if”, which of course made everything she had to say totally irrelevant, because the “if” was almost always an impossibility!

My grandfather use to say that “if a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his butt.” As a little tyke I use to wonder what that meant and often told my grandfather that I personally didn’t care if the frog did bump his butt. Given the fun loving spirit (some would say “devilish nature”) of my grandfather, my response was probably why he made this statement to me so often in front of his cronies. He (like about every grandparent) liked to show me off and I am sure that based on my rather salty come backs, he thought I was going to be a chip off the old “grand” block. Little did he know that I would end up being a preacher.

My grandfather’s statement, regardless of its intent, did stick in my mind. At one time in our culture the very nature of the word “if” was understood and almost everyone was pretty aware that this giant of a word might relate some truth, but that the presence of “if” always negated the reality of the actual existence of that truth in its present place and time. In other words it was pretty well accepted by both farmers and politicians that any statement with “if” in it was contingent on something else that had to happen before the subject of the “if” actually became real. Farmers could not pick corn IF it were not planted and politicians could not get an office in the State House IF they did not get the votes.

Now all of that may sound a little self evident, and to those of us that have survived the genetic mutations that have robbed our culture of all common sense, we still are clinging to this truth of “if”. But in this relativistic world we should all be aware that our common sense has labeled us as just plain “common” to the elitists and those endowed with a “Da Vinci Code” style esoteric knowledge.

With all that we have done at Belview in getting you information about the Da Vinci Code, it might surprise you to know that I am really less concerned with the book and movie itself, than I am the inevitable results of the continuing bombardment of it and similar attacks on our basic common sense. Not only now are these elitists telling us that all truth is relative (maybe is, maybe isn’t) but they now want us to believe and accept that the word “if” really implies no contingency at all. At this point you may be asking “so what”?

I heard a politician say this week that he heard General Casey (the US general in Iraq) say that IF (some series of events happened) THEN he expected that the US would begin troop reductions by sometime in 2007. So this politician said, “since President Bush, said that troop reductions would be up to General Casey, that congress should pass a law mandating those troop reductions at that specific time in 2007 no matter what." Well, I hope you can see the “if” fallacy in this brilliant “no matter what”, statement. I think that some politicians think that if they just talk long enough and with enough passion that they will confuse enough people to both sound impressive and get re-elected.

But worse yet, I also heard a “preacher” actually say that “if Satan had NOT come up against God, that he would today be the most powerful angel and fighter for good in all of heaven,” but then he went on to say why this “truth” should cause us to extol and uplift Satan and that Rasputin was right when he said that if God was most glorified in forgiving us our sins (as it clearly states in the book of Romans) that we should all not strive for good at all nor even just to be ordinary sinners. He concluded that if we are to bring extraordinary glory to God that we must be extraordinary sinners. This preacher further concluded that Satan was more glory to God, by these very standards of God, than was Jesus and that the historic church had (and has) it all wrong.

As you read this, I am sure that most of you will say with me that this is just non-sense and just plain silly, but somewhere in the scholastic thought of this renegade preacher your mind might have gotten lost and in truth not be able to articulate where Rasputin and this preacher went wrong in their reasoning. This falls under the umbrella of common sense (you may not be able to say why something is wrong, but you just know it is). But now that there is an all out attack on common sense and the humanists and revisionists are succeeding at the dumbing down of our family, focus and faith; what keeps these weavers of sophistry from convincing large segments of our population (which could include your children and grandchildren) from believing these common sense absurdities?

Today we are taught that there is no absolute truth, that the word “if” has no contingent meaning and that if you believe in an absolute that you are both narrow minded and intolerant. This leads to a world with no foundations, no definite definitions and nothing on which to base anything. Now when Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me,” it can mean anything you want it to mean OR nothing at all. If all truth is relative then Jesus statement may or may not be true, or even mean anything at all. Of course if the word “if” has no contingent meaning, then neither the previous sentence nor this one has any real meaning, and neither the Gospel nor any newspaper or television news program has any value or purpose.

The good news is that there are a few of us left with both a fair degree of intelligence and some basic common sense. If for no other reason than spiritual and mental health, I believe it is incumbent upon the church to preserve both of these qualities in our society. The educational system has not done it, to the contrary. Higher education has been a “Dewey Downhill Spiral.” Start on the right track by taking your family to a God fearing, Bible believing church that teaches the absolute truth of God’s word from a Christian worldview, which is timeless and changeless and uses the Biblical word “if” in laying out our instructions for living. Check it out: “If you abide in me and I in you…” (John 15). It is an astounding contingent promise of God, you don’t want to miss it IF…!

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

Fact or Fiction?

The Bible clearly portrays the fact that the truth will set you free. So this year with all the controversy concerning the Da Vinci Code and the statements by some of the press and national media that this movie (and book) are going to “challenge historical Christian belief and theology,” I thought it time to set the record straight.

First of all this media event should be viewed by the Christian community as an outstanding opportunity for absurdity to be unveiled in the face of truth. A wise old Native American (I use to do ministry on Indian Reservations) once said to me that if you want to know how crooked a stick is “all you have to do is lay a straight one next to it.” In this case the historical facts as revealed by secular historians are abundant and the “stories” concerning the mysteries of the Gnostic secrets are rare and rooted in mythical tales not history. So as this movie gets ready to “challenge our faith,” remember the wise words of one of my professors years ago, when he said: “when challenged, you can always retreat to the facts”

So what is this Da Vinci Code book and movie all about? First of all it should be clearly stated that the book in the first pages declares openly and for all to see in black and white and in no uncertain terms, that it is FICTION. The problem with this statement is that in the next several pages the author also says that the organizations, historical facts, archeology, art work and architectural facts are all carefully researched and that they are all true. This mixture of fiction and information stated as fact is a cleaver technique, makes for dramatic writing, but also provides the opportunity for deception of the worst kind. Here is what happens. Mr. Brown first tells you something that sounds familiar and that you can relate to in a way that may cause you to think, or even say, “yea I’ve heard of that.” But then he goes on to weave a fable, fiction, or an outright lie into the fabric which you have taken as truth and thus you end up believing the deception just because it is tied to that “truth” you are pretty sure you have heard of and understand as fact. Interesting – yes. Powerful technique – absolutely. Skillful and even enchanting – of course. Enticing – without a doubt. But TRUE – of course not!

Here are a few examples: The book suggests that the Vatican (Catholic Church but not the Orthodox Christian Church) did not want the release of the Dead Sea Scrolls and that they fought to “suppress” these documents which they viewed as containing damaging information about the faith. Now is this true? History records that clearly that the Dead Sea Scrolls did not contain any “gospels” or anything else mentioning Jesus – they were all pre – New Testament. Most are copies of Old Testament books and other documents from the Qumran community. The fact is that there is nothing in the Dead Sea Scrolls that promotes traditional or even deviant Christianity. In fact the texts provide us with verification that the Old Testament was well preserved throughout the centuries.

So Mr Brown mentions the Dead Sea Scrolls. You say yea, I know about that, but then he goes on to “inform” you of things you did not know about them (that in fact has no basis of fact) as if to be issuing you the latest information concerning these archeological findings. This is masterful but certainly not historical.

Other controversies pervade the book. In it, it is suggested that the early Christians knew that the Gospels were not true, that Jesus may have existed but was not the Son of God and Divine, that Jesus got married and had children which became French Royalty, and that Leonardo Da Vinci was a member of a secret society that knew all of this and that he painted these secrets into his paintings in an effort to communicate these secrets throughout all history.

The plain and clear historical facts as recorded by those both inside and outside the church, show these "stories" of Dan Brown to be exactly what he says in the book that they are: fiction. But beyond this his "recording" of the issues he says are factual, are in error as well, but we don't have time to go into all those error here. I would recommend for your reading "The Da Vinci Deception, by Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer. It address each of the major issues in a very percise and documented way and is an easy read.

Hey Man, Do you have the Time?

2006-03-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

We live, for good or bad, in an “Instant Society.” We have come to believe that if we can’t get it “on demand,” at a fast food window, at one hour dry cleaning or 30 min. photo processing that it is simply not practical for our busy lives. But, the reality is (as my very wise, 3rd grade educated) grand daddy use to say: “Some things just take time, boy”!

It turns out that he was right and I have been in the road to re-discovering this bit of wisdom most of my life. For some reason, it just seems that I never really learn it permanently. Maybe it’s just that I continue to get sucked into the vortex of my “instant grits” lifestyle on such a regular basis that I forget. Or, maybe it’s the impatience of this type “A” personality that drags me around at lighting speed. What ever the reason, it seems that when I do finally stop long enough to address the very real issues that “just take time…” I re-discover both the solution to the very basic problems in my life AND simultaneously, the “real joy of living”!

The fact is that as a pastor it is difficult for me to admit that many times the root of many of my friends business and marital failures come from the fact that I either have not communicated the Biblical solutions that take time to teach and to learn, OR in spite of the fact that I have communicated them – people just have not learned. Either way it feels like a failure of the church and more specifically, a failure of mine!

I use to have a seminary professor that said: “If THEY have not learned, YOU have not taught.” I have never got past that statement, and therefore take the ministry very seriously. So here I am trying one more time to communicate this most blessed lesson of “Biblical Proportions” to anyone that will be wise enough to (not listen to MY words, but rather to) listen to the wisdom of my third grade educated grandfather, who whether he knew it or not, had picked up the “wisdom of the ages” from his “kin folk” by way of THE wisdom of the ages, God’s Holy Word.

The wisdom of Solomon (and my grand daddy) is this: “a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment, Because for every matter there is a time and judgment.” What Solomon is saying here is that a wise man takes the time necessary to get any and all information, consider other’s feelings and interests, think things through, consider what is right and make sound judgments, because if he does not the time will come in every situation where a judgment will be made for him, AND that judgment may be neither wise nor without major consequences.

Time. Have you ever noticed that there is never a good time to take time for certain things? Usually those “things” are the elements of our lives that we have begun to take for granted, assume to be permanent and thus delay addressing. Whether those things are business relationships or family relationships, the “institution” effected will be devastated when “time” is not taken to address these MOST important and MOST taken for granted “things” in our lives.

I don’t have time to go with you this weekend, you go by yourself.

Marriage Enrichment Retreat? What’s that got to do with us, our marriage is fine!

Father and Son day at the park? Son, it will have to be another time, I have to prepare for a meeting Monday.

The elements in our lives that take time are usually the backbone of our existence and yet our human nature entices us to put off those whom we can most easily put off “…And the Cat’s in the Cradle, and a silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon, when you comin’ home son, I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then dad, I know we’ll have a good time then….”

Those haunting words from a 1970’s song still disturb some of us from that generation that did not heed the warning. But then Solomon saw it coming long before that. Maybe that is why it seemed so old fashioned when I was lectured by my mother’s dad so many years ago. Some “things” never change and the necessity to take the “time” to talk, work through issues, share in the things of life that make it all worthwhile, is one of those things that neither technology nor shortened attention spans can erase.

I was recently in a hotel lobby where breakfast was part of the hotel accommodation features. In that lobby was a waffle iron and several small cups of batter. As I began to make myself a waffle I noticed this small boy watching me intently. When the buzzer went off and I began to pull the golden brown delicacy out of the appliance, the little boy began to laugh almost uncontrollably. Turns out he thought all waffles came straight out of the freezer and into the toaster. This generation is going to need to be indoctrinated slowly, carefully, and patiently if they are ever to understand and then learn that “some things just take time boy"!

The Question?

2006-01-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to me that when it comes to the things of faith, there are several questions that come up consistently time and time again. In interviews with “the great men of every religion,” Larry King has, over a period of 40 years ask each and every one of them the same question. It has not mattered if it was the Dali Lama of Tibet, or if it was an Islamic Mullah, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of transcendental meditation fame, or Billy Graham, it seems that Mr. King is infatuated, indeed even consumed with one question. That question is: “has there ever been a time in your life when you lost your faith”? It is a question I believe, having met Mr. King years ago, that comes from the person, and not just the reporter. Like many other people it seems that he is just looking for something that is real, something that has a solid foundation that he can count on, something that will not let him down when times get tough.

It is easy to have faith when everything is going well, the cows are fed and the mortgage is paid off. But what about those times when it is easy to loose faith and when it seems that everything has just gone to hell? What about those times? If you have ever lost a child to death, or found your spouse dying slowly before you every day, or found yourself without the money or the credit to buy the food for your next meal, or bigger yet, the next meal for your small child; perhaps only then do we understand what it is to have a real crisis of faith. In light of these kinds of issues (which we often can not control), other things we call problems seem rather small, and just very small speed humps in this journey we call “life.”

When these crisis occur as they do in every life, the question is not only “how we handle them emotionally” but what substance is there beneath the emotion? I suppose that if I had little or no mental capacity that many of the things that tend to bother me would have little or no effect on me. But short of prescribing lobotomies for the majority of the population one must ask, what it is that is built into the nature of man, that provides protection from complete mental breakdowns amongst our masses? I would suggest that it is the same thing that Larry King is searching for when he asks that most predictable of questions to those he sees as “religious.” In short, “is there something, not only based on some truth, but that IS truth, that I can count on in this life AND that assures me of something MORE than this life”? Put even more succinctly, “is there anything worth having faith in”?

You may remember the story of Job, in the bible. There came a point in time when his wife lost all faith and her suggestion to her husband Job was, “curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). For most of us that might seem melodramatic and beyond extreme, but for some of us, we have been there, found ourselves in this kind of crisis of faith and had to reach down to what ever our foundations were just to get through. It is at times like these that we can not afford quick sand foundations nor find jell-o in our veins. These are the times, where there is no time to start to build those foundations and this is definitely not the time to try to prop up some quivering “reason” for hope.

When it comes to the things of faith, like many other things in life, it is just better to build those foundations in the good times than in the bad. It also is important upon “what” foundation your hope is placed. If that foundation is only something that looks or sounds good, but really has no substance, the fall at times of crisis is a very hard one. All of this is to say, that it pays to ask questions, make sure that what is being proclaimed (or sold) is true (not just associated with some truth), and that your faith is not just a “good times” kind of faith, that evaporates with some of those that called themselves friends but disappeared when times get tough.

In Luke 15 the prodigal son found that all the people that so easily attached themselves to him, when he had plenty of money, were not to be found when the money was gone. The shallowness of those kinds of relationships is a model of what happens to people that count on some “reality” that is nothing more than an elaborate painting, crafted by a skilled artist, but with only a one dimensional appearance of something of substance. I have found that the “appearance” of a large balance in my checking account does not support much if the reality is that the bank shows that I actually have a negative balance. Further, and more importantly, when the things that really mater come crashing in a true spiritual foundation is not only important but essential.

The truth is that ALL of us will face crisis of faith in our lives. None of us are immune from the realities of this fallen world. The real question is, what do you have beneath you when it all caves in and it is beyond your capability to “fix it”?

As a guy that has searched all the major (and some of the minor) religions of the world, I too was looking for something real, something with substance and something that I could count on, no mater what circumstances happened. Like you, I needed to know that I was not simply buying into something that sounded good to me because of my (or my parent’s) preferences, but something that was true, even if it meant that my preferences did not take priority. Every human being needs a solid foundation that he knows will be there and that he knows is real both in the good times and in the bad.

There is no avoiding crisis and there is no escaping pain, and any promise to the contrary is just pie in the sky that will leave you high and dry. The question is: “will you have a leg to stand on when the pain comes and when the crisis hits? In light of the fact that we can not address all the issues here and that we don’t have the space to examine the worlds religions, I would like to recommend a book to you that I am sure can be ordered on line, or through your local Christian book store. That book is “Why I am a Christian” by Norman Geisler and Paul K. Hoffman. It is a great read, will answer many of the questions you may have and who knows – it may even lead you to finding that solid rock truth that will stay with you for eternity.

New Year's Resolutions

2005-12-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

Every New Years I get the question: “Have you made any New Years resolutions”? A few years ago I began to wonder what causes so many people to seek new beginnings by the breaking of old habits. It seems like every year I hear someone say: ‘I am going to quit smoking, quit drinking, quit being so mean, quit using drugs…. It seems that we are always trying in our own energy and power to “quit” doing something that we don’t particularly like about ourselves but have justified to ourselves and others. There is this dichotomy in human beings that allows us to think that we can mentally, socially (and maybe by our new found virtual reality) even physically, insulate the particular human from the particular habit. Its called compartmentalization. Once we have successfully isolated (compartmentalized) ourselves from the evil that we do, it becomes much easier to dilute the “judgment of evil” that some have placed upon the bad act. If we are really good at this diluting of our conscience, we can even rationalize (tell ourselves rational-lies) to the point of the bad act becoming palatable, even an acceptable part of our personality and therefore reasonably expected by those around us. Psychology in the last 100 years has sought to de-fault sin beginning with moderately bad habits. We can see this de-fault psychology in much of the advertising today. The commercials generally begin by excusing our lustful habits this way: “Its not your fault that you are (fill in the blank).” The “blank” might be “overweight,” “a smoker,” etc. It could be anything. The point is, that we are being excused and nothing is our own fault. You are just a victim.. If we are rude, it is because we had poor upbringing. If we are drunkards, we were “predisposed.” If we are sexual addicts, even if we can’t remember, we must have been molested as children. If we are lazy, it just requires “genetic tolerance” from those around us. Flip Wilson made a pretty good living back in the 80’s blaming everything on the devil. Not so ironically it was also back in the 80’s that a man literally got away with murder with “the Twinkie Defense.” The gist of the case was that the man who committed murder could not control his own actions because of so much sugar in his system from eating an excessive amount of Twinkies. Even our legal system has fallen into the social clutches of a humanistic, politically motivated de-fault (no fault) system. Even some churches have taken on this easily digestible psychology and made it their own marketable theology. The faulty idea is that if people don’t experience guilt, they will at least feel better. And maybe then they will act better? I actually had a person several years ago tell me they heard that someone was leaving our church because they thought that coming to church should always make you “feel good” and sometimes they left the church where I was then preaching under conviction for their sins. The inference was that this feeling of conviction should never happen in a place associated with Christianity. This lack in very basic Biblical understanding has led to massive heresies in our society and major social ills. Somewhere along the line these no-fault churches have become popular and in the eyes of the world been measured for success by the popularity and feel good sermonettes. The answer to this of course is “read your Bible.” Read the history of Jesus preaching. Look at the hatred the religious leaders had for Christ, for Paul, for Nehemiah and for anyone willing to take a stand on the whole truth of God’s word. Popularity and feeling good was never a measure of the Christian’s success. Christians have got to learn to stand on God’s Word, not on what is acceptable to the world, not on what feels good to the person, and not on what they resolve to do to fix their own sin. This year resolve to give your whole life to Christ. He changes everything from the inside out and it won’t turn you wrong side out in the process.

Happy New Year!

When Other People’s Crisis Bleed into Your Life

2005-11-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that your own mess does not bother you nearly as bad as trying to deal with other people’s mess? There are a number of reasons for this and if we are going to deal with these stressors brought on by others effectively, we will need to understand both the nature of, and our response to these crisis situations.

The fact is that the very thing we treasure so highly is the very cause of all of the stress in our lives. What is that precious treasure? It is man’s free will, our freedom to make choices in our lives. Now it is not so bad when the hardship that we are dealing with is brought on by a choice that we can correct and thus head off further destruction, but when that course seems to either be too long lived to do anything about, or in the hands of others that really have no desire to change, or just don’t care that you are going through what you are, it can seem devastating.

Probably some of the most destructive forms of this callousness is seen in alcoholics, drug users and even more blatantly those that would be so uncaring as to spread STD’s in their passion for power. In some sense all of the people involved in these kinds of activities are blind and/or numb to the dominos that they have put in motion. The pain and suffering they cause to all that are around them is real. But the pain and suffering of others does not seem to bother the “escapist,” the “devastated” or the “power hungry”. These are the three categories of people that cause the most destruction in their own, and other people’s lives.

The escapist is the person that just wants to “escape” reality at any cost. These are people that revert to alcohol, chemical and substance abuse. Somehow these folks are just unable to deal with living and they feel their only recourse is to attempt to escape.

The next group is the “devastated.” These folks having been devastated, receive that as an example for living and feel they have to give as much hurt as they receive, just to relieve the tension and the stress from their own life. These people sense the need to get rid of the pressure but just don’t understand healthy ways to work through the harm that was perpetrated on them. While we don’t have space here to go into detail, the very best way to heal the hurt in ones self is to help heal the hurt in others.

Lastly the “power hungry” are folks that have prioritized the acquisition of power over any acquiescence to people. In other words this person hungers for power and it does not matter that he may hurt people in the process. Its just all in a days work. The root of this issue is a self love that overshadows any form of genuine love for others.

Having been raised by an alcoholic and prescription drug addict, I have the credentials to speak to the subject with some authority. Further, as a pastor, I have personally witnessed many lives destroyed and many others left seriously wounded by those only focused on the next “escape” or the next “power fix”. Sometimes these situations are dangerous and people have to respond quickly and appropriately to protect themselves and others. Other times however people in typical knee jerk form move in nothing more than a “reaction” to resolve their immediate problem, without consideration of what the long term results may be. It is important to step back, breath deep and in an effort to remove yourself from that emotion, try to ask yourself how you would advise someone else going through this same circumstance. My advice is always the same: “go to the word of God.”

Most of us have in our possession, the great “Answer Book” and yet we will strike at the wind and do many other equally ridiculous things in an effort to both justify ourselves and get back at the one that has hurt us so deeply. As a result we add to the destruction and compound the problems in ways that we could not have imagined, when we recklessly CHOSE to respond the way that we did.

So here is the bottom line. Some things we can not control and those we must choose to deal with Biblically if we are to avoid the most common pitfalls of man. Others we can control and this is true 100% of the time with regard to how we respond to crisis. If we have brought it on ourselves, we can seek as best we can to set things right. The problem with this is that the longer the event goes on unaddressed, the harder emotionally it is to go back. But when it comes to the question of your pride or your relationships, it really should not even be a question. Sadly, the reality is that pride often wins out!

From the Christian perspective where are we to begin? First understand that Christ is with you always. Now if you really think about that, it is a daunting thought. But it is also a very reassuring reality if you have put your trust in Him for today. We live in an age where self assurance is honored, dependency is dishonored and where a genuine trust of Christ for the next move can result in guys with white coats and nets pursuing us.

Oh, it is true that if you are trusting Christ in the good time that others will applaud your great faith. But when crisis hits and all seems out of control the world will belittle and chide that faith as a failure if your health fails, your money gives out or your friends desert you. But hang on. Matthew 5:11 says “Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven…”. Keep the faith. Know that God can deliver you if that is what is genuinely best for you, and that He will keep you in and through all things in the palm of His most powerful hand.

Truth, Justice and the Islamic Way

2005-11-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

With all the talk between Prince Charles of England and President Bush concerning our response to Muslims, Christians need to once again survey the facts and not get caught up in the politics of the issue. Since 911 Christians have been indicted by our politically correct sense of “fairness and Christian ethic” concerning any bias or prejudice that we are perceived to have against Muslims. We are told that the Christian response to Muslims should be one of tolerance and acceptance of their beliefs and the traditions of their religion. The problem with this position is that it is neither Christian nor properly tolerant and further it in no way reflects the agape love that we as Christians are commanded to manifest as part of our lives and commission (Matt. 28:18 & 19) – assuming that we really believe what we say we believe.

The unwritten bible on political correctness, it seems has taken precedence over the Word of God and even our common sense. While the dumbing down of the Christian faith and our own ignorance of Islam are further complications in our understanding of the real issues, there is still no excuse of our allowing ourselves to be guilted into the passivity of sterility.

The Koran in Sura 9 (and a host of other places) calls on all Muslims to kill Christians and Jews. This is not a veiled or secret message buried in the text, but a direct instruction to all Muslims with regard to how they are to respond to all Christians and all Jews (those they see as the enemy of Islam). It seems self evident that the “acceptance” and “tolerance” of this doctrine by Christians is both absurd and suicidal. It should also be noted that this is a doctrine of the holy book of Islam and that as such it is not the radical Muslims that are involved in this practice, but rather the faithful, orthodox, and true believers in Islam. It is thus those that practice something other than these murdering acts, that are “bad” Muslims – though they may be genuinely good people.

While President Bush, who I often find myself in agreement with, says that those who killed us in the 911 attacks were not practicing the tenants of true Islam, that statement may be politically expedient, but it does not correspond to what Mohammad actually wrote and taught. The fact is that those that planned and executed the horrible acts perpetrated on us in New York City were carrying out the purest modern form of the teachings of the Koran.

Salvation in Islam can in fact only be sure IF the person seeking salvation dies in the act of killing Christians and/or Jews. Contrast this with the Christian faith that points to the historical and sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for all, that we may LIVE eternally. One is a religion of hate and death, and the other a relationship with the one that concurred death for ALL who would choose Him, and offers Himself as “the Life”.

Since Islam does not hold to the resurrection of Jesus and in fact teaches that He was only a lesser prophet to Mohammad, we must ask if we even worship the same God. How could a consistent, holy, righteous god give us conflicting exclusive truth claims concerning something as crucial as the path to eternal life. Jesus said that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no one comes to the Father except by Him. This exclusivity specifically eliminates any possibility of the God of the Bible being the God of Islam. It, in fact presents gods of opposite nature, characters and intents for all mankind. Because we share a common heritage in Abraham, does not necessarily equate to the worship of the same God.

There is however a truth professed by Muslims that we as Christians must face which, if we are honest, can right our understanding of tolerance and our ministry to Muslims who we are commanded to love and reach with the love of Christ. That truth is that we have allowed ourselves in many cases to be as deceived as we claim they are. We have been deceived into believing that our mission as Christians is to passively allow the truth to go unspoken even when it means these we are commanded to love, are destroying themselves in the vain hope that their destruction and the destruction of others will gain their entry to heaven. If this deception is not revealed and righted with truth, many more Muslims, Christians and Jews will die in the vain hope of one’s salvation by destruction.

Christians must “speak the truth in love,” love those that have chosen to be their enemies, and share the truth of that love in the face of those seeking to destroy them. Culture is not the issue. Skin color is not the issue and oil is not the issue. Truth is the issue. Truth, when spoken in love, does in the long run defeat hatred and in this case is the only answer to the destructive deceptions of orthodox Islam, which led to 911, 311 and the ongoing attacks around the world. There simply are no shortcuts. Anything less than the truth is perceived to be a weakness to be capitalized on. Speaking with political correctness at a time like this may be popular, but it is not ultimately productive in a way that in the end will provide a platform for genuine healing. Bandaids don’t deter bombs. We must love the people, and heal ALL the deceptions on both sides by addressing the real issues, and that only happens in the blatant light of the truth.

Integrity, Relevance & Change

2005-10-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

Excuse me sir. Do you have any change?

Change is inevitable. Even dead things rot, and return to dust. So the question for all of us is: are we changing for the better or for the worse? Do we have change in the form of decomposition or in the form of delightful anticipation (what the Bible calls “hope”)?

To be clear, it is important to note that I am not here talking about human motivation techniques or “self help” pump you up books, tapes and seminars. What I am talking about is a legitimate reason to have confidence because of something much more powerful that is in control than you or I can ever be alone, and something far greater than the humanistic human potential movement, or the empty hopes of Scientology, which essentially believe that all of life is an illusion and that actual pain does not really exist.

The Greek word “elpizo” is most often translated “hope.” Certainly this word in the English is terribly inadequate to drive home the greatness and fullness of the meaning found in the original language. Elpizo is a confident anticipation of the goodness, greatness and perfection of God’s plan for our lives. Christian hope is an “assurance” that Romans 8:28 is eternally correct: “all things work together for good, to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

The rather strange thing about human life is that when things are going well we fear that they will change, and when things are not going so well we are fearful that they will never change. In reality, they will change regardless of where you are, and in either case can change for the better or the worse from the human vantage point. Where ever we find ourselves we must maintain our integrity in the midst of change.

The great confidence in knowing Christ is the assurance that He is in control and that He does ALWAYS have our very best interest at heart, even in those situations where OUR finite site and thought prohibit our knowledge of what genuinely is best. Yielding to His control will assure integrity in through the process of change.

Today, I visited with two friends, one in his home and the other in my office. Each of these men has been in nearly unbearable and constant pain for many years. There is something not quite completely definable about the character and spirit of these men. Each in his own way fascinates me, humbles me and confirms within me the truth that darkness never can over power the light and can only exist where we purposely restrict light. There is a light within each of these men that penetrates the darkness, overcomes discouragement and radiates confidence. That confidence is not in self, but in a powerful relationship that each has with the Lord. Neither of these men are satisfied with the status quo and each find the constant change of growing in Christ both rewarding and an essential part of their very special lives.

What ever else that God is doing in each of these men, it is evident that He is chiseling out examples of integrity and character that shine no matter how dark the circumstances. I am blessed each and every time I have the privilege to be in their presence and I am grown in my faith each time they share their very special wisdom with me. I thank God for their evident testimonies and for their glorious joy in the deepest valleys.

With all of that said, a short exposition of Romans 8:28 shows that God never said that all things work for the good. What He did say is that all things work TOGETHER for good, TO ALL THOSE that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose (emphasis mine). Here is the confounding reality of this promise. We can have a series of events in our lives, none of which seem in our human experience to be “good,” and yet in the end all those events work “together” for good. When we see this happen, we can be confident that only the God of the Bible could take a series of genuine devastations which the enemy meant for evil and “make” them good (see the entire book of Job). He is truly an awesome God!

Why God?

2005-09-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

Why 911 and Why Katrina?

Martyn Lloyd Jones suggests that the only way that we can make sense of such evil on the part of man and nature is to take the “long view.” What he means by this is that it is difficult for man to have anything other than an “on the scene” perspective of reality. But that in order to reason to an all good, all powerful and all loving God, when faced with such events, we must observe the reality that “on the scene” is not all that exists.

There is in reality two other dimensions that we must in someway understand, even if we can not see into them directly at any given point in time. These dimensions are the “behind the scene” perspective AND the “beyond the scene” perspective.

A good way for finite man to get a handle on these omniscient realities is to read straight through the book of Job. The first several chapters are a clear look “behind the scene” of Job’s life. This is the spiritual reality that was taking place before and during all of Job’s very real problems “on the scene.” Here we see the influence of Satan and his demons on the lives of good and noble people. We see a conversation between God and Satan concerning Job and we also see clearly that Satan had no access to touch this great man of God, before God gave him limited access to Job’s life.

In the middle section of Job we see the “on the scene” view and in the later chapters we find the result. That result is the “beyond the scene” view.

One of the interesting things about the conversation “behind the scene” is that Job has no idea that it is taking place. His life has been blessed by God and lived for God and now is about to be challenged and tested for the Glory of God. While many American Christians would say that this just does not seem like God was fair in allowing Satan this access to Job. We forget that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The purpose of this admittedly terrible trial in the life of Job seems to be exactly that – the glorification of God!

In addition to those things finite man can not see going on behind the scene, we must also realize as Christians that there are things that we can not see “beyond the scene.” This “scene” in essence is the scene that is to come. It is our future that one day will be our present. It is the reality of tomorrow that is predicated and built on the reality of today. Many times the omniscient God, seeing tomorrow as clearly as we see today, will ALLOW Satan to intervene in our lives, through other men and in nature, in order to set events in place that while now devastating in the “on the scene” perceptions of man, WILL ultimately end in our good and His glory.

But what about all the suffering we see in Job and in today’s world. Would a good and loving and all powerful God allow such destruction of lives? The very direct answer is that many times God will allow such things in our lives because He prioritizes our long term good above our present comfort and our present pleasures. He prioritizes His glory over our preferences and further He prioritizes our spiritual growth over our increased balance sheet. In short He has a very much larger perspective of “good” than we do and many times, as a result of the fall of man, a very different definition of “good” than man does. We need to remember that this is how Eve got into trouble in the garden. She determined for herself what was “good” and she set the priorities concerning her own godliness when tempted by Satan.

Today, we have no less trouble than Job did determining reality beyond the “on the scene” view. What we must do as Christians is realize that there is also a “behind the scene” AND a “beyond the scene” view that God has already seen and already provided for considering the greater good. He alone has this perspective and while that may not help us comprehend it all at any given moment in time, it should help us apprehend the truth that God is sovereign, and still has His glory and your good clearly in His control.

Crippling Christian - and other fun

2005-08-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up there was something sacred about the Church and the Christian faith. Pastors were held in high esteem and their work was considered of great importance. A generation or two before that the Puritan thought still remained and the gentlemanly hobby of most people, whether a farmer or a professor, was the serious study of God’s Word, theology and righteous living. It was a time when faith dictated our culture, instead of the culture dictating our faith. …a time when technology brought about more thinking rather than less, and the passions of our faith were not compartmentalized for Sunday morning worship. It was a time that was so clear cut, that when you used the word “truth” everyone knew what you meant and there was no room for two or more truths that stood in diametric opposition to one another. It was a time when my grandfather, who only had a third grade education, knew the difference between a truth and a lie, and one definitive statement could not be sold by the best salesman, as both true for me and untrue for you. In fact, even the thought of such a thing would have just been considered silly and contrary to common sense and natural science.

Today, our culture, specifically guided by our educational system, has bought into the idea that a person’s preferences dictate their truth. It is with great sadness that I report to you that this philosophical quicksand has been successfully implanted in many of our churches as a form of progressive theology and cultural sensitivity. But no mater how you sell it, this gentler, more palatable form of social (if not socialized) religion, can in no way be found to resemble anything in the historical teachings or actions of Jesus Christ.

It has become a blood sport to cripple the best of Christians and to kill the wounded. …and this sport has not been restricted to being “played” outside the walls of our churches. Twisting truth to cripple the best of God’s children is not only politically correct in the world, but has become the warped work of preference inside the local church walls. Ripping scripture from its context is used to justify these local crucifixions as if to say that the price our Lord paid was not sufficient and that these that don’t meet up with the preferences of some, are not just to be admonished, but are to be nailed to their own crosses. Indeed we are killing the wounded and wounding first, in order to justify our killing.

In the end the love of Christ is lost in the preferential lust of the bloody flesh and needed sense of personal success on the religious battlefield. This has driven our Christian ministries inward as we seek to isolate and save the weak before the devastating and proven deadly blows of the “good church goer,” who would sacrifice all that is genuine ministry on the alter of his own self preservation (or the preservation of denominational traditions).

I would that I could insight every Christian to righteous living dictated by the Truth, who is Jesus Christ. His foundations are never found in the shifting sands of relativism, rationalism nor religion based on feeling good about ones self. It is time that we return to the One who changes human hearts, rather than seeking to change His word’s meaning to meet our likes or to protect our own reputations. Man’s attempts to change God, is nothing more than man’s attempts to be God. But herein lies the difference in today’s religion and yesterday’s faith – we have imported into the church, the new age, humanistic idea of our worthiness to be our own god. In the process we have found the truth cumbersome and ineffective at supporting our godliness. Certainly, the physiologist’s tell us, the healthiest thing to do is “diversify” the truth, thus invoking the psychological tactic of protecting our own self image at any cost.

The Bible plainly warns us of this time: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3 – 4).

Judging the Dog Show

2005-08-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

To judge or not to judge that is the judgment we each must make.

Perhaps one of the most often quoted Scriptures in all the Bible is used by very different contingencies in order to “prove” totally opposite points. It is used (or should I say abused) by those seeking to justify a totally tolerant position, and at the same time equally abused by the legalists seeking to make Christianity about rules and regulations, and thus pharisaical. Of course the Scripture I am speaking of is from Matthew 7 and part of the greatest sermon ever preached known as the Sermon on the Mount.

“Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge you will be judged…. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Do not give what is holy to dogs nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matt. 7:1 – 6).

Without a doubt the key to bringing correct interpretation to this passage of Jesus message is the word “judge” itself. The problem that we have in this country in understanding this passage is that we only have one meaning in mind when we read the word. In the Greek language in which it was originally written however there were at least a dozen different shades of meaning to the word that depended completely on the context of the message.

In the first part of this message Jesus is speaking of using human standards and preferences to bring judgment on others. The obvious result of this too often used tactic on the part of humanity is that we tear down others in the futile effort to lift ourselves and we do it at the expense of judging other people’s motives. The less understood result of that act is blasphemy! Blasphemy takes place in a number of ways. In this case it happens when men, usurping the authority of God, judge (what only God can and has the authority to judge), the “heart and motives” of a man. In essence when we do this we are playing God and assuming His exclusive right and place.

The next section Jesus charges hypocrisy and asks, “…why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye”? The word “look” here literally means to inspect and point out and bring to other’s attention with magnification. Note that this is NEVER the responsibility of any Christian (except with regard to heresy). But the continuation of Jesus question is what genuinely brings perspective to the issue. “… but (you) do not consider the plank in your own eye”? The Greek word “consider” is a word for self examination that must by definition be both intense and continual AND is required in order to even see properly the speck in the brother’s eye. Interestingly though, simply bringing attention to the speck is NOT the proper duty of any Christian toward any brother! Rather the Scripture says that the purpose is to help “remove” the speck. Here again a proper understanding of the language is critical. To “remove” in this case is the picture of one person cooperating with another and allowing that person to pour water in the eye, washing out any impurities that were causing irritation and impairment. This is NEVER the forceful act of one person over another but rather the result of the power of the Holy Spirit over each together.

Lastly the Scripture says, “do not give what is holy to dogs…”. Suddenly the scripture seems to require that you and I make judgments of who are “dogs” and “swine,” two of the most reviled animals to Jewish thought at the time! But here the standard is not the self righteousness of man, but rather the standard of God via His Word. In other words it is God’s righteousness and His standard that brings to bare, NOT our judgment on others, but rather simply whether we “receive” into our lives and “give” of our lives to a particular cause or person. The purpose is NEVER destruction (by human effort) and condemnation (by human standards) but rather whether we allow ourselves to be a part of something else. Unfortunately, in today’s society Christians seem to prefer the former to the later in spite of the command of Jesus’ message here to the contrary.

Lastly, it is interesting to me how often Christians seem to want to justify these humanly destructive actions by quoting Scripture ripped out of its context and contorted to a reversal of meaning. Again allow me to remind us all that this is blasphemy of the worst kind. It is only He that is holy and to abuse His Word for any reason is heinous. Note too what immediately follows in verse 12 is the golden rule with absolutely no attempt to hide its context!

Prodigals and Pharisees…

2005-06-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

It seems that 21st Century America would rather forget, or at least dismiss, stories like the prodigal son (Luke 15), and we have long since removed any possibility in our minds of ourselves ever being Pharisaical. But that is also the story of the modern men of 2000 years ago. In the time of Jesus the personal nature of people (technologically deprived as they were), were just not that much different than the sinful nature of man today. If anything, the technology has only severed to make us more efficient at our self induced perversions and denials. While mirrors have improved throughout the ages, man has never been less able to see the truth about his own issues, bitterness and anger, than he is today. Perhaps this is because the prodigal is said to eventually “come to himself” when he finally reached bottom, and today our societal system has demanded that no one ever be allowed to reach such a state of despair. The phrase “came to himself” is actually the combination of two Greek words which literally say that this prodigal “fell into himself.” The suggestion is that he had to reach this lowest of lows before the reality and necessity of humbling solutions, long obvious to others, hits him in the face. It is given that not everyone has to reach this “lowest” place before the alternative of “humility” becomes an option. But the powerful and stark truth is that in our community and nation today we have become so proud and self deceived that the only admission of anyone ever needing to turn and go the other way concerns others.

We have been convinced by the Freudian psychologist that to think of ourselves in this “correcting” way would be unhealthy and even self defeating. The Bible however, speaks plainly and openly of this humbling brokenness as the first essential step in the solution to all sin and its self centered effects on our lives. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, preached “repentance” (Matt. 3:8). When Jesus’ ministry began, His very first message was one of repentance (Matt. 4:17). Here we find the immensely unpopular message that says that in order to find the healing road upward that we must begin by finding the brokenness that exclusively leads to that highest of roads. What a contradiction we find in this “one and only way” to genuine peace & confidence, spiritual & mental health, and joy beyond pre-repentant hopes.

In the economy of God anything that we strive to do in and of ourselves to advance our self worth is just us faking it again for the millionth time. This includes but is not limited to tearing down others in the futile attempt to elevate ourselves. So why do we continue to make this same mistake so consistently? Why is it that we believe that the devaluation of another human being can ever do anything to bring us higher in the eyes of other people or for that matter, in the eyes of God? This is a human mystery that while not making sense in any logical thought, remains one of the primary defenses of the human “sin-drome.” You need look no further than the older son in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15).

While the older son has been given NO first hand knowledge in the parable concerning his younger brother’s spending his own advanced inheritance on harlots, this is exactly his accusation against the brother that the father is so happy to see repent and return home.

The father’s response to the older brother is to tell him that “it is right that we make marry” given that the brother was “lost but now is found.” But the older brother, who the father reminds “has always been with him,” will have none of this celebration for the lost one who is now saved. He criticizes, condemns and complains that the father was not paying him the attention that he thinks he deserves.

How like today’s church is this picture? How many times has this event been replayed in church history? How many older Christians in your church are so busy finding fault or bringing accusations against new Christians simply because they are given the attention the Father says is “right”? How many older Christians not only don’t find cause to celebrate the repentance and salvation of others, but indeed (like the older brother) only find fault with those they are given the commission to under gird and disciple?

Come older Christian, celebrate, it is right that we make marry!

A Time to Live and a Time to Die

2005-06-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Bible says there is a time for every purpose under heaven. Sometimes in life we can do the right thing at the wrong time and at other times we seem to do the wrong thing at the right time. And if you are like most people these times often clearly outweigh the times when everything just seems to come together and work as it should. A great deal of the mistakes we make in life are not actually mistakes at all but rather the transitional process that God has allowed you to work through to better prepare you for the next great work that He has for you.

As we come through these times which are often difficult, we need to remember that these are not just “transitions” to be gone through, but important times that God desires we use to bring glory to Him and to grow us up. I have found most people when they get in tight situations, they get defensive and belligerent. The interesting thing is that when we take this position we neither glorify God nor do we grow up in ways that we are better for the experience. When we take defensive stances we hurt ourselves, our families, our friends and most of all ourselves through breaking relationship with God (Prov. 22 & 29).

These actions may make us feel better and actually make us less. Have you ever noticed that there are times in life that you think are the very worst, and that later you look back on those times and realize that the stress brought on by transition was actually preparing you for something better and perhaps the very best times of your life.

I had to be dumped by an old girlfriend before I would meet and eventually marry my wife. I had to get fired from a job before I would find a business of my own that prospered. I had to total my old car before God blessed me with a newer one with better gas mileage. Sometimes I find that people by clinging to the people and ways of the past because they are comfortable, actually rob themselves of the blessings and joys that God had planned for them if they would just let go, forgive, seek God and move on (Ecclesiastes 3).

The sovereignty of God is an awesome thing. When we are in a relationship with Christ we can know the assurance of God in these tense, frustrating, and difficult times. We learn through His word, time with Him in prayer and the experiences of life that we can trust Him and that when it looks like everything is coming apart, He is still solidly in control.

Our duty is to be obedient so that God’s will and best is being allowed to be the reality of our lives. Many of our problems lie in not wanting, or refusing to be submissive to His word. We refuse instruction, blame the messenger and crucify his character in order to justify our continued disobedience.

Proverbs 29:17 - 20 says:
Correct your son and he will give you rest,
Yes, he will give delight to your soul

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint;
But happy is he who keeps the law.

A servant will not be corrected by mere words;
For though he understands, he will not respond.

Do you see a man hasty in his words?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.

I have also observed that sometimes when we think we are winning we have actually brought destruction on ourselves and our families. And the converse is also true. Sometimes when we think we are at the very bottom and there is no lower that we can go, that we are actually winning and that God is right their seeing us through.

His word is powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. Trust it. Love it. Pray the word and your circumstances back to God. He is listening. He is all powerful. And He cares!

The Cats in the Cradle

2005-04-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

There was a popular song a few years ago called “The Cat’s in the Cradle.” It was about a busy father with a son who was just so busy making a living that he never figured out how to make a life. The sad thing in the song, that resembles so many of us today, was that his son grew up just like him. This is true for families both inside and outside of the church. In fact the statistics for such things don’t seem to change much if you go to church or not. My question today is: why is this so? Should not being a Christian really make a difference in our lives?

I submit to you that not only should it, but that it does. Ah, but how can anyone take that position if the statistics of church goers is not significantly different than those that have different beliefs or no belief in any deity? The answer lies in the difference between simple church goers and Christians who are genuinely walking with Christ.

Today the difference between those within the church is a matter of priority. Just like with the father, who’s priority was making a living and financially providing for his family, we have forgotten the priorities of Christ for our lives and His priorities for ministry in our churches. We have become more concerned with the business of the church than the ministry of Christ. We are more concerned with the politics of community than the priorities of Christ. And we are more concerned with successful programs than successful ministries. How is it that we have gotten so far away from the mandates of Scripture and the call on every Christian to reach out and minister to others?

It is interesting to me that the further the church and family creep away from the laws of God the more the statistics of family and church unity leap away from anything anyone would ultimately desire. The issue is not that statistics contradict God’s Word but that they so consistently prove the sovereignty of God and His Word BOTH inside and outside the church.

The church and people that go to church are not immune from the laws and mandates of God, to the contrary, we are to be the light that shines forth that beacon of hope and Christ-likeness, His very fulfillment of the law and His awesome grace. Yet the church stands divided over these very priorities and thus statistics show little if any difference in the daily lives of those calling themselves Christians and those that do not. Many more churches are dragged down by this plague within than the enemies without.

John 9 has a wonderful account of Jesus healing the blind man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were more concerned about Jesus breaking the rules of the Sabbath than the fact of what He was doing, proving Him the Messiah. It was not that the Pharisees did not know the prophecies. They knew that the messiah was coming and that he was to appear in this very time and place, yet the rules and societal pressures created by men had taken priority over the ultimate gift of God to man. Certainly this historical account should bring our attention to the healing of the blind man, both physically and spiritually. But the warning to all of us that others see as “religious types,” is the warning of Pharisaical (religious) Living without substance. That is meeting every letter of religiosity without ever allowing Christ’s priority of living to be lived out through us. In many churches the standards of men have taken priority over the standards of God’s Word for His church.

When will we ever understand that man’s priorities can never fulfill the nurturing and nourishing of the Body of Christ. Those self centered priorities never really change anyone. They may change the activities of a man for awhile, but they never change the man. It is only when we take time with the Son, and yield to His calling that men change and that the statistics will change.

2005-03-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Clayton King

Faith Bible brings Clayton King Back to Cortez

2005-03-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

One of the truly great events in Cortez in the last decade was a visit to our area by the one and only King of Teens, Clayton King. Clayton is probably known better back East than he is here but believe me, if once you ever experienced Clayton, you will just never quite be the same. When I asked some of the teens last year what they thought about Clayton and his ministry to Cortez they said things like: “He’s a nut.” “That guy is crazy.” And my personal favorite: “Who was that unmasked man”?

It is true that when God made Clayton, He threw the mold away. It may also be true, as someone else said that the world just could not take more than one Clayton King! For what ever the reason, God has uniquely gifted Clayton to reach youth in a powerful and impacting way.

The first time I ever heard Clayton speak, I think he was about 18 years old. When I saw him walk on the stage with his baby face and about a 1000 very tough teenagers standing in anticipation, I thought to myself, “this kids in trouble.” But that night Clayton showed something of what God was going to do with his life. Many teens stood in disbelief and some in tears as Clayton laid it all out and many of those tough teens made life changing decisions.

If you know a teenager that just needs to hear it straight or that needs someone just to get in their face, Clayton King may be a genuine God send. Come this Tuesday Evening, March 22nd and bring your entire family for FREE Pizza at 6pm and at 7pm the Teen Rally will kick off with music and a great time. The event will be held at the old Iron Body Gym location at 2310 E. Empire, next to the Cortez Christian Church. The event has been endorsed by the Montezuma Ministerial Alliance and sponsored and underwritten by many of its member churches.

I can promise you, it will not be an evening you will soon forget!

Born in 1972, Clayton was adopted at 3 weeks old and raised in a Christian home in Fountain Inn, SC. God saved him when he was 14 years old, and the same night he was saved he felt God call him into the ministry. He surrendered to that call and since age 14 has preached to almost 2 million people in 22 countries and 45 states.

Clayton graduated from of Gardner-Webb University in 1995 with a degree in Religious Studies as the Graduate of the Year and a Presidential Scholar. He is currently enrolled in seminary with a concentration in Missions. He, his wife Charie,and his son Jacob live in Boiling Springs NC along with their dog Taylor.
Clayton speaks to over 200,000 people annually on college campuses for FCA, InterVarsity, BSU, and Campus Crusade for Christ. He also speaks at numerous national youth conferences, camps, and retreats, as well as dozens of youth rallies and churches of different denominations. Audiences of all ages respond to his honest and clear style of sharing the Gospel as well as his down-home personality and quick sense of humor. He speaks on various topics depending on his audience, including marriage, missions, music, dating, motivational talks for non-religious events, and discipleship. But above all, he is called to preach the gospel and call people to salvation in Christ.

Clayton is the Founder and President of Crossroads Worldwide. This non-profit, interdenominational ministry began in 1995 and now includes Crossroads Summer Camps, Winter Conferences, Ministry Summits, Ministry Forums, and Mission trips. He is the author of 3 books and the founder of two bands; Monogamous Fish (1995-1997) and Adam's Housecoat (1997-present). The bands have recorded a total of 8 records; 3 of all original songs and 5 praise and worship albums. Their sound has been compared to Third Day, Train, and Vertical Horizon. Clayton's "The 'Rassling Song" was heard regularly for 3 years on the Johnboy and Billy Big Show (but Clayton has since quit watching wrestling for obvious reasons).

He loves to read theology, apologetics, and adventure. His favorite authors are C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack London, Watchman Nee, Ravi Zacharias, G.K Chesterton, John Piper and Mark Twain. His favorite bands are U2, Third Day, Mike Knott, The Lost Dogs, Allison Kraus, Vigilantes of Love, Over the Rhine, King's X, and Johnny Cash.

Clayton loves the outdoors, tomato sandwiches, Jeeps, dirt bikes, good movies, backpacking, bass fishing, dogs, cold weather, the Grand Canyon, the Smoky mountains, the Dukes of Hazzard, and most of all his lovely and talented wife, Charie. He collects action figures and belt buckles and would rather work on a tractor than just about anything in the whole wide world. He is obsessed with his little boy Jacob and they plan to build a really big fort in the woods soon.

You need to meet and hear this man!

The Evidences of our Convictions

2005-02-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that people that proclaim the loudest that truth does not matter or does not even exist, seem to complain the most profusely when someone lies to them, or tell others that they have lied. If these relativists had the confidence of their convictions, they would have to equally proclaim, with the truth, that there is no truth, and that this necessarily comes with the inevitable reality (truth) that there is no lie (untruth). Can you believe that the post-modernists believe this is true and that this is the essence of much that is taught to our children in schools today?

But what about us as Christian absolutists, do we have the confidence of our convictions? Here we have the greatest complaint of those looking from outside the camp into our churches, and into our “Christian” lives. Question: Are we Christians truly living the convictions that we so boldly tout as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6)? Are we really trusting God, seeing where He is at work and then molding our lives, culture and churches to Him, rather than expecting Him to mold His sovereignty to our instability? Here seems to be an indisputable but inexplicable problem. The relativist seems to want to stand firm on his relativity, where as many of us Christians seems to demand relativistic personal exemption from the absolutism of our beliefs.

It seems oxymoronic to me that we people of the absolute truth can not seem to sit down with those absolutes and work through our issues. Why can not yes be yes and no be no (Matt. 5:37). Why do Christians base relationships on feelings rather than the objective truths of God’s word? Why do so many complaints come from those Christians with no answers and no real biblical objections? If one did not know otherwise, they would have to come to the conclusion that these Christians are relativists. Here is an interesting question: If there is such a thing as a Christian relativist, does he believe the Bible is true?

Here is where many of us find the church today. We see churches governed by the subjective and often conflicting emotions of individuals rather than the absolute truths of God’s word. This mind set has been taught to us in the schools, legislated to us by the courts, and propagated into us by our progressive parents (who just didn’t feel like putting up with our relativistic attitudes).

While relativism may seem like a good deal when we are making the rules, it suddenly does not seem like a good idea at all when others are ruling with an equal lack of any standards and their feelings dictate the relationship. “Relativistic relationships,” now there is another oxymoron!

Is it any wonder that our children are confused about what is right and what is wrong? Is it any wonder that we ourselves are confused by most issues in life? We have come to believe that what is “fair” (in our mind) is more important than what is “true” and “right” by God’s fixed and righteous standards. Liberal scholars and even some not so liberal preachers have come to believe that if the truth is divisive, that it is unfair, and that fairness trumps truth. Somehow they try to get to unity through the “fairness doctrine” rather than through the “truth doctrine” and in this they find “unity” shallow and fleeting and “fairness” strangely a matter of opinion. In short genuine unity can only be achieved through truth being addressed with opinions set in full view of that truth’s light.

If you would like more information on the subject of relativism and the gradualism that got us into this mess, that American history can be found in; The Death of Truth, by Dennis McCallum, Bethany House Publishers. If you have specific questions or thoughts, you can address them to d_seaford@msn.com. I will respond to all inquires and be glad to debate any and all of these issues. I think that it is time that we get to the truth of the matter!

Does an Atheist have Faith?

2005-02-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

Two good friends of mine, excellent scholars and powerful Christian brothers have written a book with the title I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, (Goodnews Publishers, Wheaton, Ill., available through ABE, CBD and in better book stores everywhere). It is the kind of book that as you read it, you are constantly thinking about all the people you want to present with a copy. By the time that you are finished reading it you just want to walk down the street and give a copy to everyone that you see. This may well be the most easily read and practical defense of the faith ever written.

Dr. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek have done the world an incredible favor with this book and will no doubt capture the attention of many agnostics, atheists, and members of cults who are looking for an objectively written, highly cogent and practically presented argument for the orthodox Christian faith. If you are a nominal Christian or fall into any of the categories above, I dare you to read this book! Until you do you will likely not have enough information to make realistic arguments for your belief system. It is that good!

I am a voracious reader and in a typical week will read two or three books. I am also a trained Christian apologist who has spent many hours thinking about these things. So I am not easily impressed by, nor drawn into thought processes that are illogical or not well developed. This book is a must read for everyone genuinely looking for truth.

Dr. Phillip Johnson says “atheism requires gobs of blind faith, while the path to logic and reason leads straight to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Geisler and Turek show why.” Josh McDowell says that if you are still an atheist after reading this book, “then I suspect that you are in denial.” Cal Thomas says “this book should disturb anyone claiming to be an atheist.” I would add to this by saying that it should disturb anyone not enthusiastically claiming the tenants, and living out the orthodox Christian faith.

The logically and objectively presented thesis of this book is that it takes far more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian, given the evidences for each position. Genuine evidences must be rooted in, and reveal truth.

In order to lay the foundations for their arguments, Geisler and Turek give several truths about truth in their book that steal the relativist’s thunder and leaves him bankrupt when attempting relativistic faith in every claim of truth by every religion (postmodernism). Some of those truths are as follows:
Truth is discovered, not invented. It exists independent of anyone’s knowledge of it. (Gravity existed prior to Newton).
Truth is transcultural; if it true, it is true for all people, in all places, at all times; (2+2=4 for all people, in all places, at all times).
Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about truth do change; (when we began to believe that the world was round instead of flat, the truth about the earth did not change, only our belief about the earth changed).
Beliefs can not change facts, no matter how genuinely they are held; (someone can genuinely believe the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely mistaken).
Truth is not affected by the attitude of the one professing it. (An arrogant person does not make the truth he professes false. A humble person does not make the error he professes true).
All truths are absolute truths. Even truths that appear to be relative are absolute. (For example, ‘I, Frank Turek, feel warm on November 20, 2003 may appear to be a relative truth, it is actually absolutely true for everyone, everywhere that Frank Turek had a sensation of warmth on that day).

In short, contrary beliefs are possible but contrary truths are not possible.

You can not reasonably hold that what is true for me is not true for you!

2005-01-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

Dr. Dave Seaford

2005-01-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle…!

If you remember the song by this title you probably also remember the words that followed were: “the first thing that I’d like to do.” All of us from time to time would like to recapture some moment in time that we would do differently IF we could just do it all over again. At moments like that, we come to appreciate the importance of words and the magnitude of small actions that may have seemed to be inconsequential when we chose to do them.

Because all of us have sinned, the only person that truly has no remorse for anything in their life, is the person with no conscience. These people are called sociopaths. But most of us have a conscience and most of us want to enjoy and be enjoyed by those around us. While it does not amaze me that unsaved people in the world hurt each other so deeply and with such consistency, it does baffle me when I see Christians with battle scars reach out with the intent of bringing another Christian down, or some how seeking to otherwise harm them. Sometimes remorse is genuinely expressed over such events BUT as odd as it may seem, reconciliation is rare in most families and most churches.

I have come to believe over the years that these “irreconcilable” impasses could be fully reconciled IF either of the warring parties had any trust for the other. It seems we people of faith have very little faith in one another, and if you think about it, this makes little sense, in that the one thing both of us claim to have in common is the Christ that lives within us, who we claim as “Lord.” Reason dictates that those with a common Lord would have common goals and common joys, but many a Christian defies that very reasoning.

This truth has come home to roost several times in my life lately as those reading letters I had written them saw much more than was written, reading between the lines what was never said. This is a very basic lack of trust. This presumption seeks to find out what one is really saying, when in truth they never intended more than what was said. Lack of trust is rooted in questioning the other person’s motives and here in lies the sin that cripples and devastates Christian lives and multitudes of churches.

The Bible says that we are to “judge” the fruit in a person’s life by “righteous judgment” (John 7:24), but ONLY God is to judge the motives of a man (Romans 2:16). The plain fact is that when we perceive of ourselves so highly as to judge a man’s motives we have placed ourselves on a level with God. This is akin to Eve’s original sin in the garden (being convinced that she knew God’s motives for restricting her from the fruit). And it continues to be the great sin of mankind in presuming to know another persons motives and judging them accordingly. God says we are to inspect the fruit in a person’s life, not to judge the motives of the person producing fruit. Unfortunately a high percentage of Christians have come to see their role not only as judge, but as judge, jury and executioner (note: Romans 14:13). In spiritual arrogance many Christians have come to believe that their calling in the church is judging other’s motives. But true unity of the body is never found in such judgmental condemnation (Heb. 10:30).

Take a moment to turn to 1 Cor. 11:31 and realize that the only person any Christian has the right to judge is himself. In fact we are told in this scripture that this judgment by man brings a blessing. The promise of God is that IF we judge ourselves we will not be judged, and that when we fail at this and are judged we will be “chastened by God” so that we will not be “condemned by the world.” Oh what a God we serve!

PC Exposed / JC Revealed

2004-12-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed how the tides of life change and the political pendulum can swing from one extreme to another? Our preferred emotional and moral living quarters it appears can so easily move from tidal pools to cesspools. The morale of the country often is connected to the morals of the country and when morals are low it seems excuses are high.

The political correctness (PC) of the Clinton years brought both tolerance and adultery to the oval office and both were applauded by a nation that for the most part found their comfort and consolation in cesspools. A decade before Regan would not even remove his coat while in the oval office. He had no problem defining the word “is” and the nation both believed in, and were striving toward, the “shinning city on a hill.”

Since the last election there seems to be a movement of the tide that I don’t know is quite definable yet. Morals have come back at least as a talking point on the nightly news and only time will tell if there is more to it than that. While I would like to think that it really means something and that the pendulum would swing way past morals to Christ centeredness and stay there, the revolving door of human history is an indicator that the pendulum will eventually swing back the other direction as fickled feelings dominate the mood, and the firm foundations of truth go ignored.

The Scriptures talk about people that, like a stick in the ocean, allow themselves to be swept away by every wind and every pulsating tide (Eph. 4:14). This Scripture lists the cause as the “sleight of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” Regan’s city may have been as much a deception as Clinton’s wholesome smile, I don’t know, but one thing is for sure – the deceptive feeling of human goodness can not compensate, nor long stand as an adequate substitute for the fact of Christ’s righteousness. It is true that moods, feelings and attitudes can either uplift or devastate a nation and even its churches, but that genuine righteousness never changes and always uplifts. As long as we allow ourselves to be rooted in the muck and mire of feelings our attitudes and morals will eventually again get bogged down.

But behold, there is hope, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. The subject of these great words from Luke 2, is indeed the hope of the world. If there is a hope for an immanent change in the life of our country after this past election, it is not because of who was elected but because of who is now being brought to light as a result of the outcome of the election. Jesus has been talked about more on “News” programs lately than at any time I can remember in my life time. Rather than just a mood or just a feeling based on our perception of things, the person of Jesus Christ has become the subject of much thought and public conversation.

So now we stand at a crossroads. We stand at this crossroads at the celebration of the dear Savior’s birth. Will we move past merchandising to intimately embrace the Messiah? Will we reject feelings and receive faith? As we approach the blood soaked straw in the manger could an entire nation once again become intolerant of sin and come to place a high value on sin’s forgiveness resulting from Christ’s atoning and bloody work on the cross? Could we, not politically but spiritually, once again become “one nation under God”? Can we this time move past the fads of WWJD bracelets and bumper stickers and develop genuine personal relationships with Christ?

Many of us stand with great anticipation knowing that whether or not this is the time Christ is born into the heart of a nation, it can be the time He is born in your heart!

Spiritual Gifts and Grand Blessings

2004-11-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

For the next eight weeks I will be teaching a series of classes on Spiritual Gifts at 9:30 each Sunday morning in the sanctuary of Faith Bible Church. Anyone is welcome to attend.

For two thousand years Christians have been aware of the Holy Spirit giving one or more spiritual gifts to every Christian at salvation (Eph. 4, Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12). About a decade ago it became somewhat of a fad in the Church to give spiritual gift surveys in order for a believer to discover their spiritual gift. The problem was that (as with many church programs) that this is where it ended.

In my mind it seemed that many of these survey programs had the potential to create pride in the life of some Christians, while it left others frustrated for knowing their gift and never seeming to have a place to apply it. It would appear that we have become very good in the church at teaching the “what” without every showing the way to the “how.” I don’t know if this is a matter of pastoral fear, congregational rigor mortis, or just plain apathy, but in many cases programs have become an end in themselves.

The truth is that the appropriate application of spiritual gifts in the context of the body of Christ is healing, fulfilling and unifying. But today it is a very rare church indeed that both teaches them and then assimilates believers into those gift areas by actually helping each individual into ministries where those gifts are used effectively and grown joyfully. So why do we fail so miserably?

For one thing it is easier to do programs than to do ministry. We have become so enamored doing things well ourselves that we have forgotten the great commission. Church growth clinics have replaced spiritual growth discipleship. Finally the office holders and power brokers in our churches have clung so tightly to what they have so generously given to, that they have failed to recognize the real reason others are on the sideline. In this turmoil of tradition we find a paradox. Those clinging typically are also complaining that they have to do all the work. Those that are doing nothing on the other hand are fasting from their gifting because there seems to be no place or help for them in finding their Godly service. It seems we have drug the 80/20 rule into the churches, written it into our policies, and then stamped it onto our communion tables right under “this do in remembrance of me.”

I confess, that as a pastor I have had a problem at times letting go of the things that I thought I could do better than others. But in so doing, I have been denying those that God has gifted and called, and will grow joyfully and mightily into those roles I have despised. The truth is that the things that drain me, due to my lack of calling and gifting, will invigorate the one God has called and gifted for that purpose. Church unity grows out of each part doing their God given part (Eph 4), and then jointly watching the ministry of the unified bride of Christ.

Recently I took a little time off. I read, rested and prayed a lot. The things I just shared with you became convictions in my life. When I came back, I challenged the people in our church to only do what God called and gifted them to do, and resign from everything else. Within 24 hours I had almost no teachers, church officers, multimedia operators, or praise team singers. While all those positions were held by just three or four people, NOW there are some 18 people (some very new Christians) that God has called into those positions. They are so excited and I for one am so relieved.

One fellow pastor called my move “courageous” another called it “foolish.” What ever it was, I think it was of God and that sometimes God uses the foolish to astound the wise.

On the Verge of Vengeance?

2004-10-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

Vengeance and its anthropology in anger and pride has roots back to the beginning of recorded history. The ancients recording the first murder in human history, list the cause as anger (Gen. 4:6). You may remember the history, that Cain murdered Abel. But what were the actions that caused such intense anger that lead to one brother murdering the other, when just moments before they were seemingly together (vv 3 & 4) worshiping and bringing offerings to the Lord? These two with no deeply rooted gene pool to blame nor differing environmental conditions to suggest their polar differences, yet found themselves an eternity apart, in their feelings, actions and motives. While this begs the question for some syndrome to blame or legal maneuvering to legislate and legitimate a “cause,” it should focus our attention to the non politically correct answer (ie the truth). Scientific testing methods tell us that if we can remove the possibility of some outside source causing a particular reaction, that we can begin to isolate a legitimate (ie truthful) cause. Using this same scientific method, if one could totally eliminate all known causes but one, he could reasonably assign “cause” to a given reaction. Given the virtual lack of recessive genes and that both boys grew up knowing and communing with God Himself, neither heredity nor environment seem plausible causes for Abel’s actions being “respected by God,” and Cain’s actions resulting in murder.

Some liberal theologians suggest that this is all God’s fault. They assign the blame on God because He did not accept the offering of Cain, thus “making him” angry enough to murder. This adamic blame game does not become theologians, who’s purpose by definition, is the study of a sovereign, holy and righteous God. Does the finite dare place blame on the infinite? It would seem so.

Some actually find comfort in blaming God, because it removes the only other possible source of their anger and brutal acts…, themselves. Sir Julian Huxley one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto once said that the reason for his atheism was not intellectual nor even scientific, but was rather that if he acknowledged God, he would be forced to do something about his sexual promiscuity. Such candor not only reveals the heart of the atheist, but may I be so bold as to say, the professing Christian who is a “practical atheist.” That is an hypocrite, who speaking one thing lives quite another. What I am not talking about here is simple momentary weakness resulting in isolated sin, but rather one who premeditatedly prescribes sin into his own lifestyle and enjoys wallowing there. Public or private, purposed sin always ends in most either blaming God or denying Him.

Note that the Bible says when Cain became angry, that his countenance fell. The word for countenance in the Greek is “panyim.” This word is use over 2100 times in the Bible, nearly always gives a confidence in something bigger than one’s self, and this passage says that this quality fell (or failed) in Cain. Clearly here Cain’s self centeredness was bred in anger and conceived in pride. By its nature pride, refused to look outside self (and his own resources) for the answer, even when God was clearly giving Cain the answer, well before his murdering, self preserving and predaceous act (v. 6). Cain’s failed actions, I believe, had more to do with his heart than his later reasoning. But clearly, the passage also suggests that a right heart yields right actions and that correct actions motivated by a true desire to honor God and live His Word, always yields God’s “acceptance” (v. 6).

Today we can either blame God or deny Him. Of course there is a third alternative. It is the alternative God gave Cain and humanists deny; “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Gen. 4:7).

Put on His “countenance.” Walk worthy!

A Lesson in Criticle Thought

2004-09-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

We Christians are often guilty of a general lack of care in our critical thought. Since this often leads to specific distain of Christians by the scholarly and shouting matches with the ignorant, I thought this article prudent. First, if you disagree with someone, there should always be a sound basis of “authority” when stating your objection. That “basis” can not legitimately be solely one’s opinions or feelings. Those might be relevant to ones anger, but they are insufficient basis to argue the legitimacy and truthfulness of any position. The Word of God secured in its context, is the source of all incontrovertible truth and is the purest authority (2 Tim. 3:16).

I am occasionally criticized for articles appearing in this paper. Sadly, it is rare that any of these critics offer any basis of “authority” for their view unless one considers the self expression of cleverly worded but grossly unarmed “opinions” and “feelings.” Opinions presented as truth reveal the critic’s view that multiple truths exist and that there can be as many “truths” concerning any one matter as there are opinions. This is the result of Post Modernism succeeding to convince our culture that there is no absolute truth therefore no definitive and pesky moral laws and that intolerance is the real enemy.

The “authority” of legitimate debate must be clearly rooted in some absolute, otherwise the debate is hopeless. Those who hold Scripture as that absolute can expect to be chastised by those who’s opinions have been offended. Those with wounded opinions often preach tolerance for everyone, except it seems, anyone who believes the Word of God is absolute truth. Here is the rub. Once anyone begins proclaiming the views of another are intolerant and therefore can’t be tolerated, have themselves defeated their own argument by becoming the very one who’s opinions are themselves the source of intolerance.

Secondly, note another illegitimate tactic often found in this kind of attack. In logic it is called an ad homina attack. This is normally done when the attacker finds no solid basis (truth) against an argument on the substance, and thus attacks the person taking, what to them is an objectionable position. People responding to that which they object by attacking the character of the person frequently do not know if the venom they are spewing is true or not. The fact is that for the point that I will endeavor to make here, the truthfulness of their attack on the person is not relevant. One could be all the things that their attacker suggests and it would not take away from the illegitimacy of this wrongly aimed argument. It is a fact that a person with all the “dis-qualities” that can be thrown at them, can still make “absolutely true” statements of fact. So, attacking the person is NEVER a legitimate argument against any stated position.

It should also be said that when one seeks to defeat another’s premise, they must take care to never misquote nor take the premise out of its context in order to make their opponent’s point appear weaker than it is. A partial truth is often easily presented as either bias or an outright lie. Either way, if the attacker begins by building a “straw man” he does so only to make its tearing down appear easy and leave the opponent’s position looking weak. IF one is to argue a point with any integrity, they need to present the whole argument from the other person’s perspective and then defeat it soundly based on authoritative and incontrovertible truth. Opinions and feelings are simply insufficient.

Today we live in a world that is constantly using these tactics in order to put down those that stand on the Word of God. Tolerance is usually the tool of choice initializing emotional attacks, which are followed quickly by personal attacks which attempt only to legitimize inherently weak positions. While this tactic may be an effective persuasion to the uninitiated, the discerning will recognize the tactics of completely empty arguments and pity their purveyor.

And a Man Shall Leave His Father and Mother...

2004-08-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the extreme pleasure of being both the officiating pastor and the father of the bride in the most Christ centered wedding that I have ever performed. It was an emotional time that on several occasions left even me speechless – not just because it was my daughter that was the bride, but because as never before I saw with spiritual eyes the full and beautiful reality played out before me of Christ (the bride groom) and His bride (the church).

Three times this summer I received calls from people I did not know wanting to be married in a church, but really did not care who married them nor the Biblical meaning of marriage. Each time I asked them if they were Christians and each time I was greeted by a long pause that told me beforehand what the answer would be. Each time they heard the Gospel message and each time it fell on deaf ears.

God instituted and created the marriage of two people brought together by Himself. The Scriptures clearly indicate that marriage is a Holy institution, ordained of God and is to be the representation to the world of Christ and His church. A non-Christian marriage is by definition a union without Christ, and thus not a marriage at all but a legal contract that provides nothing more than a civil union. … close enough for government work (maybe), but certainly not Holy and certainly not God’s plan for the people of His creation.

Therefore, I will not marry two people who are not both Christians and who are not walking with the Lord daily.

Marriage is not a bi-phonic relationship. That is to say that it is not simply a mater of teaching two people to sing harmony. It is rather a tri-une relationship where God is the initiator and center of all that the marriage is in each moment of every day. Whether it is running the children to soccer practice for the third time this week or going to the store for a loaf of bread – in all things Christ is yielded to as He “directs” our path (Proverbs 3:6). Christ is the magnificent in the very center of the mundane. He is the answer to all of life’s most perplexing and most petty questions.

The contract of a civil union is haunted by if / then contingencies and amendments. But a Holy union is not simply a contract. Marriage is a covenant which has no contingencies nor amendments and says, in effect; that no mater what happens in our lives we will be there for one another with Christ as our focal point. It is not complicated by the legalese and escape hatches created by man for his own comfort and self interests. True Christian marriage allows for no pre-nuptial agreement. Marriage is not a union preemptable by what might after time, become more convenient or easy. Marriage in other words, is an eternal agape love built on sacrifice, paid for in blood and lived by faith in the One that called for and sealed the marriage.

In our fast food, no fault divorce culture, we find people that are hurting because they have either been sold the bill of goods that they can never be forgiven for divorce; or because they have no understanding of what marriage is and thus roll conveniently from one civil union to another with all the heart break and devastation that inevitably follows. Allow me to assure any that may be on either side of this heart break, that neither is divorce unforgivable NOR is marriage to be taken lightly or entered into without genuine Biblical understanding. As much as God hates divorce, He loves the divorcee and longs for a truly Holy relationship in that person’s life.

Yes, marriage has been sanctified by God and made Holy in the physical and spiritual union that takes place between those that love the Lord and have been called according to His purpose

Fathers Day and the Christian

2004-07-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Christian Church over the years has taken this opportunity at Father’s Day to glorify fathers, berate fathers and motivate fathers, but without judging all those intentions today I will seek only to elevate the “call” of fatherhood. In this attempt the third Beatitude (blessed are the Meek), acts as our Godly standard of the Christian “Abba” (daddy).

Meekness is not the manliest quality, by our society’s standards. We have come to equate the thought of meekness with weakness, ineptness, and all manner of a Casper Milquetoast personality. But, true Biblical Meekness is far from any of these “Industrialized” ideas. The true meaning (and thus our call) is “power under perfect control.” Biblical meekness exudes strength, authority, power, thoughtfulness, and prayerfulness - All of which bring the defined ‘power’ in meekness under the total control of God in the man of God. This man is controlled by the undeniable understanding that his strength, authority and power all come from God and are intended for the use of God and His ultimate glory through us and our families. This is the picture of God’s man of ‘steel and velvet,’ God’s man of decisiveness, perfect peace and grand leadership. This is Biblical meekness.

I was struck recently at the eulogies given for President Ronald Regan. One of his sons said that the greatest lesson that his dad had taught him was that “strength was never more admirable than when it is applied with restraint.” President Bush said that Regan was instinctively “angered by injustice and afraid of nothing.” These are each magnificent descriptions of true Biblical meekness. This is power focused on injustice, afraid of nothing, and applied with restraint. Regan may have done our country many favors, but the exhibition of this great character trait of meekness may be the greatest lesson of manhood for our country that any president has ever lived out in front of us as a nation. Quietly, with the cock of the head and radiant smile he assured us in the most fatherly manner that everything was under control and that it is God who is ultimately blessing our Nation and His children.

This kind of quiet confidence is the manifestation of true Biblical meekness. Quiet passivism does not reach the standard and neither does boisterous antagonism. Meekness is neither of these nor anything in between. Meekness is something altogether different. It is not a homogenization of the things of man, but a unique result of God’s righteousness in a Spirit filled life. Meekness demands an authentic anger at injustice, a gentle touch in dealing with the helpless, and a genuine lack of fear in the face of the most dangerous adversary. Meekness realizes that power must be so specifically applied as to respect all human life while surgically dealing with the evils of the world by God’s principles and standards. This man of meekness understands that right is right, wrong is wrong and that the standards of God are truth.

None of us as fathers have secured perfection, but when we turn to God’s Word for our standards of fatherhood, hone our skills, admit our wrongs and allow the Spirit of God to work meekness through us, we find that God can even do this miracle in us. This is the attitude of meekness. It required a “poor spirit” and a genuine “mourning” of our own sins (Matt. 5). The very moment meekness (like humility) is proclaimed as secured in ones life, it is in fact lost. The irony is that we only see the trait truly exhibited in those that would deny being anywhere close to having achieved it.

The other interesting thing about meekness is that the moment one attempts to pursue only the ‘traits’ of meekness without its Biblical root, he dooms himself to failure. Meek traits are the manifestation of something much deeper and more profound than what is seen. It is the result, not of the pursuit of meekness but of the pursuit of a personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

Happy Father’s Day!

Is Telling the Truth Always Right?

2004-06-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

While this may seem like a ridiculous question for a Christian pastor to pose, in this Postmodern American Church Society, it is a question that will raise eyebrows as well as tempers among good church going folk. To the detriment of all people, even “church folk” have come to believe that all truth is relative. Given this “relativism” it is interesting that anyone would fight over ANY hard and fast position, but they do so seeking to justify their own “relatively” white lies and outright deceptions.

A humanist is not a humanist because it is the most reasoned position. Any child can see that on its face the position is one made in a moral vacuum by blindfolded intellectuals seeking to justify their own immorality. Some, including the most influential signers of the Humanist Manifestos (1&2), have openly acknowledged this in formal interviews. A Postmodern Christian justifies lying, or any other immorality, for the same reason. Self-justification.

Whenever we have to stoop to moral lows for a high cause, we are in sin and the cause is either not nearly has high as we might perceive it, or it did not really need our deception for achievement. In attempting to manipulate people and events to obtain some specified end, Christ is not fully glorified and God’s very Sovereignty is being manifestly questioned by the very one seeking this “high purpose.” Sometimes these purposes are not high at all, but are selfish and full of ambition, lust, or guilt. In other words the high calling expressed does not match up with the actions and are genuinely rooted in self service.

Rahab’s lie was not made right by the end result (Joshua 2 and Joshua 6) . It was not made right by the spies being saved and God’s plan going forward. She was not rewarded for her lie. However acknowledged she was for her actions (James 2:25), here is the bottom line. God did not need her lie to save the spies NOR to have His plan implemented and made successful! God’s grace saved Rahab and the spies, not her works. The ends do not EVER justify the means. Perfect “means” always yield God’s perfect ends. Even when in our limited view of reality, we can not see that perfection.

Right is always right and wrong is always wrong. Most intellectuals in this postmodern world see this statement as morally territorial and highly intolerant. In this case I would agree with them! The difference is that they would say that it is I who is intolerant. Christians should clearly see however, that God’s Word contains these absolutes and it is He that has established within every person what we know instinctively is right (see: “conscience” – Romans 2). Thus it is not MY morals, but God’s standards and truths that I profess and seek to live, that humanist’s find impossible to deal with. Secular Humanists kill all gods (but man) for precisely this reason. If there is no God but man, then there are not set standards and thus no “real” sin and (halleluiah) no guilt and consequently no God! When Rahab compromised truth for the cause of the safety of God’s children, she compromised God, spoke to His limited power and, at the very least, her lie questioned His sovereignty concerning what they had already been promised would be the end results (Joshua 6:17). Note: God’s promise was not thwarted by Rahab’s lie.

Were the results of Rahab’s lie “good”? Certainly the spies received the result desired. BUT that result had already been promised by God. What might God have done if Rahab had just “spoken the truth in love” OR just refused to speak? How many more lives might have been changed that day?

I fear that we live in a time when, embracing cultures and tolerance over truth, we will soon find ourselves with dictionaries absent even the idea of morality. I fear that there will come a time when no one remains that sees the absurdity of absolute and definitive statements defending moral relativism.

Peter Pan Theology

2004-05-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

What can we learn from Peter Pan?

Peter Pan is a fictional character who is known as being the boy that never wanted to grow up. The adult characters surrounding Peter Pan, seem to me to all be extreme in one way or another and certainly in every way buffoons and in many ways more childlike in their character than Peter Pan and the children associated with him. These children all agreed that growing up was not an exciting or appetizing thought to them.

The Church and the individuals that make up its body could learn a lot from this fictional account that points us to some of the most powerful and deadly realities facing Christian homes and the children in them.

Last month we experienced what I pray is the beginning of a great revival among the Youth of Cortez. Faith Bible Church hosted Clayton King Ministries from North Carolina. Many churches in Cortez promoted and reaped a harvest from the events surrounding this outreach. God moved powerfully while they were here and 92 young people made decisions. 86 of these youth professed that they were making first time decisions to make Jesus Christ Lord and Savior of their lives! Others recommitted their lives to Christ and at least one made a decision to give his life to full time Christian service.

As I talked personally with many of these young people, they relayed to me a sort of reflection of the quandary facing the children in the Peter Pan story. Many that were from Christian homes had till then seen nothing in their churches that they desired to grow up to be. The message could not be missed. These youth longed to see their parents and the adults in the churches truly SOLD OUT to Jesus Christ. They wanted it to be “real.”

I have to be honest, this was NOT what I wanted to hear as a pastor, hoping to be an honest example of one that has a relationship to Christ. The youth of this community are shouting to us that many sitting in the pews of our churches are touting a Peter Pan Theology. A theology that has never been weaned, never grown up, and in truth may not be “real” at all.

Hebrews 5:13-14 points to what many have viewed as baby Christians that just never grew up. The passage is written to many sitting in the church that the author calls “babes.” This word is “nepios” in the Greek. It is a two part word. “ne” which is a negation and means “without,” and “epios” which simply means “word,” in short “without the word.” Certainly this was used to designate infants not yet speaking, but I believe that the author is pointing clearly to much more than the obvious here. He may well be saying that many sitting in our churches are “without the incarnate Word.” In forming this play on words the author is not playing around! He is hitting the Hebrews (and us) where we live.

He (and our children) may well be saying that for many our faith simply is not “REAL.” Maybe we are more transparent than we know. It appears that we have shown our youth little more than a Peter Pan or Santa Clause faith. I have heard first hand the complaints of our youth and I fear, that for many, these are very legitimate expressions of desperation. The apostle Paul encourages us to “examine ourselves to see if we truly are of the Faith” (2 Cor. 13:5). After the events of the last several weeks, I personally have reexamined my life and I pray that each father and mother, each pastor, deacon, elder, and indeed every Christian in Cortez will do the same.

Here is the punch line. There is no such thing as a “Peter Pan Theology.” If we don’t have “The Word” alive and “Real” in your lives, we’re not Christians at all. It is time that we examine ourselves, come alive, really make Christ Lord and grow up.

Speaking to the Storm

2004-04-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

Recently I have noticed a whole new slant by some in the Church (universal) who attempt to use current subjective postmodern worldly values to deal with objective facts and definitive Biblical mandates. Before I go further, allow me to briefly define “postmodern.” Postmodernism in short is the murky stand that all truth is subjective and is determined by each individual independently and thus truth changes from person to person. My question to the postmodernist is “is this statement true for everyone”? The postmodernist principle statement takes a strong “stand” that their indeed is nothing to “stand” on!

John Dewey and others quietly ushered into the public schools this thought process years ago under the teaching philosophy and principles known as situation ethics. This self-centered philosophy teaches that “right” and “wrong” are determined by an individual’s perception of the situation, instead of a firm set of morals. Children in my generation were asked in school to complete the following sentence: “It might be ok to murder if_____________.” We were asked to make judgments about which one of six people to throw out of a five-person life raft based on their education level and potential contributions in the future to society. These potential situations posed to children went on and on. In the end the teacher would tell us that there was no right answer and that the (subjective) rationalization that determined our answer was the important thing. Given these kinds of fluid parameters we do not even have to agree to disagree. We can just all be “right.”

Most evangelical believers have not gone that far in how they deal with issues, but there is a Trojan Horse in the midst of the Church today that must be recognized and dealt with objectively. This hidden enemy could be called: “how I feel about the facts.” In other words we don’t outright deny truth. We just act and react based on our feelings (or thoughts) about the truth. These believers see nothing wrong with saying; “I know what God’s word says and its true, BUT in this particular situation I feel the most Christian way to handle this is….” In this particular case the person’s ‘feelings’ (rather than God’s Word) determined what is ‘the most Christian’ thing to do. It seems that the postmodern Christian has come to let the world define Christianity and that definition has largely determined what we feel is right. All the time that we claim to be dealing with the facts, we are really only agreeing to disagree about how we each feel about the facts.

Now if all this makes you a bit dizzy, you are not alone. Part of the appeal of this drunken high is that it allows everyone his or her own personal righteousness. The mystery of truth simply dissolves into our own personal self-interests and perceptions. The church that has taken on this persona is easily recognizable. Their primary concern is what we ‘think,’ or ‘how we feel’ about God’s Word, instead of what God’s Word actually says. These churches attempt to be all things to all people and at the same time stand for everything and stand for nothing. Their battle cry echoes: “Can’t we all just get along. Can’t we all just agree to disagree in the name of tolerance and peace”? Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?

Jesus’ definitive answer to that question is NO! It is not the Christian thing to do. This might be the world’s definition of a Christian, a spineless, wishy-washy, tolerant bowl of Jell-O. But, this is certainly not the picture of Christ or the first century church we find in history.

The path to genuine peace is not found in the avoidance of truth, but rather in embracing it. Truth avoided only finds a temporary pause in the otherwise unaffected storm. But
Truth embraced speaks to the wind and causes the storm to actually cease. Christ said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me” (John 14:6). And that’s the truth!

Who is This Jesus?

2004-03-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

With the recent excitement over the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” many people, from atheist to Buddhist, Jew to Catholic and every culture around the world have been made to face the most important question any person will ever answer. Who is this Jesus?

We may be rich or poor, educated or not, sophisticated or crude, powerful or helpless, basically happy or unhappy, healthy or ill, live in a mansion with a mud room or simply in a mud hut and what ever our situation or where ever we may be in the world still the most important personal need any human has is some understanding of the truth concerning his or her own life, present and eternal. Jesus claimed to not only have the answers to truth and life but actually to be truth and life and at the same time be the only way (John 14:6).

C.S. Lewis once said this question of Jesus is really unavoidable. By ignoring Him, we have actually answered the question of His offer of salvation. Lewis brings the unavoidable question into focus when he says that this man Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or He is Lord. These are really the only alternatives and every human being on earth needs to investigate to the best of their abilities, and with all available resources the truth of history. Check out the forensic evidence, the testimonies of the eye witnesses which were given in many cases with their lives threatened should they declare their trust in Him as Lord. To paraphrase Josh McDowell, the evidence demands a personal verdict from each of us. Literally, each of our lives depends on what our answer is.

As we approach Good Friday and the time of the historical passion of the Christ, we each need to ask ourselves; was this man a lunatic that suffered willingly the most painful and excruciating death any man could face, and do it all for no cause and to no effect? Certainly a mere liar would not do this.

Considering then that Jesus was either a lunatic or Lord is their a way to determine which is true? Can Jesus’ true identity be determined from the evidence from both Biblical and secular history? Dr. Phillip Johnson, Dr. Josh McDowell, Dr. Michael Behe, and a host of other brilliant men throughout history have set out to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Jesus was not and is not the Son of God and that there is no Creator, only to come to the “inescapable conclusion” that the laws of nature and science (cause and effect) demand that the Creation (an effect) have a Creator (a cause) and that Jesus (lunatic or Lord) exhibited none of the traits of a crazy man and indeed showed masterful control of nature and science in healing the un-healable and in concurring death in His well documented, highly witnessed, and humanly impossible resurrection.

The miracle of the creation and the miracle of the resurrection seem to exhibit common traits attributable to a unique power and a unique personality exhibited in this world throughout all of recorded history in only one man, the man that claimed to be the son of God, that claimed to forgive the sin that separates man and God, that said, “I Am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.” That is the man Jesus.

His ways are declared and shown to not be our ways. His ways are shown higher (more God like) than our ways. His ways are never lower (more lunatic like) than our ways.

So if this man Jesus is not a liar and is not a lunatic, who is He?

Good Friday brings the cross and the passion of the Christ for us clearly into focus. Easter Sunday morning reveals an empty grave and shouts of Jesus victory over death. His resurrection promise is that we need not live our lives fearing death and that He is with us always. (Matt. 28: 18-19).

Lord?

Afriad?

2004-02-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Over the last several months I have had many times that by all logic and all rights I should have been afraid. Yet things were coming so fast and with such extreme drama, that I did not stop long enough to take it all in. Even though I was personally dealing with life and death physically and spiritually, it was coming so fast that I could hardly get a breath. Sleep was something that I only had a very fond memory of and taking a day to just get away from it all seem impractical, if not impossible. The emotions were overwhelming. Sights and sounds and smells that pulled me back to the most difficult moments of the recent past just would not go away. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing and a mammoth sense of responsibility laying heavy on my chest. The events were most personal. Ministry is not done in a vacuum or at a distance. It is always “in your face” and the emotions of any one moment can defeat anyone focused only on the moment. I deliver these thoughts to you understanding that most of you are not pastors, but understanding fully that every Christian is in ministry and if you carry the Name of Christ and you take your ministry seriously, you will at times find yourself in this same hollow place. Remember that God has entrusted you with it and He is your strength.

It is at times like these that other Christians seem to throw Romans 8:28 in your face. It is also in these times most of us on the other end of the equation least want to hear it and can see no practical application of it.

“All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” It seems like a simple statement, full of encouragement and promise, but in the midst of real pain, it can seem like a particularly callus statement by one who is obviously far removed from the fray.

As one currently in the middle of that fray, where all things seem just devastating, let me assure you who are hurting: “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

The reason that I can say that to you with such confidence is that I have been on this side of impossible before!

If you, like me, are in the center of the storm, and you have been a Christian for awhile, you can look back at your personal history with God to find the principle of His faithfulness, made real in your life. If you are a new Christian, be assured that in your perseverance you too will one day have these benchmarks to look back on.

But the promise is not to everyone! Specifically it is not for those who love Him less than anything in life. Note too, that Romans does not say that all things are good in the Christian’s life. It rather says that all things ‘work together’ for good.

Recently I got up after a totally sleepless night, took a serious look at my life and its circumstances, the hurts and pain that the ministry seemed to require, and read that Scripture again and had to ask myself: ‘do you really love the Lord’? After some hours of introspection and prayer, I once again was assured in my own spirit (Romans 8:16) that this ministry really is His and that my love for Him is genuinely my motivation. I can honestly say this without the slightest pride, because I have, at times in my life reached the opposite conclusion – that I was doing it for me and that my pain had no promise of ‘good’ in it.

Do you really love the Lord? If so, be comforted in His promise. He loves you, and in His sovereignty has the very best for you! …whether we recognize it or not.

New Years (a time for fresh beginnings)

2004-01-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

Every New Years I get the question: “Have you made any New Years resolutions”? A few years ago I began to wonder what causes so many people to seek new beginnings by the breaking of old habits. It seems like every year I hear someone say: ‘I am going to quit smoking, quit drinking, quit being so mean, quit using drugs…. It seems that we are always trying in our own energy and power to “quit” doing something that we don’t particularly like about ourselves but have justified to ourselves and others. There is this dichotomy in human beings that allows us to think that we can mentally, socially (and maybe by our new found virtual reality) even physically, insulate the particular human from the particular habit. Its called compartmentalization.

Once we have successfully isolated (compartmentalized) ourselves from the evil that we do, it becomes much easier to dilute the “judgment of evil” that some have placed upon the bad act. If we are really good at this diluting of our conscience, we can even rationalize (tell ourselves rational-lies) to the point of the bad act becoming palatable, even an acceptable part of our personality and therefore reasonably expected by those around us.

Psychology in the last 100 years has sought to de-fault sin beginning with moderately bad habits. We can see this de-fault psychology in much of the advertising today. The commercials generally begin by excusing our lustful habits this way: “Its not your fault that you are (fill in the blank).” The “blank” might be “overweight,” “a smoker,” etc. It could be anything. The point is, that we are being excused and nothing is our own fault. You are just a victim.. If we are rude, it is because we had poor upbringing. If we are drunkards, we were “predisposed.” If we are sexual addicts, even if we can’t remember, we must have been molested as children. If we are lazy, it just requires “genetic tolerance” from those around us. Flip Wilson made a pretty good living back in the 80’s blaming everything on the devil. Not so ironically it was also back in the 80’s that a man literally got away with murder with “the Twinkie Defense.” The gist of the case was that the man who committed murder could not control his own actions because of so much sugar in his system from eating an excessive amount of Twinkies. Even our legal system has fallen into the social clutches of a humanistic, politically motivated de-fault (no fault) system.

Even some churches have taken on this easily digestible psychology and made it their own marketable theology. The faulty idea is that if people don’t experience guilt, they will at least feel better. And maybe then they will act better? I actually had a person recently tell me they were leaving their church because they thought that coming to church should always make you “feel good” and sometimes they left their church under conviction for their sins. The inference was that this feeling of conviction should never happen in a place associated with Christianity. This lack in very basic Biblical understanding has led to massive heresies in our society and major social ills.

Somewhere along the line these no-fault churches have become popular and in the eyes of the world been measured for success by the popularity and feel good sermonettes. The answer to this of course is “read your Bible.” Read the history of Jesus preaching. Look at the hatred the religious leaders had for Christ, for Paul, for Nehemiah and for anyone willing to take a stand on the whole truth of God’s word. Popularity and feeling good was never a measure of the Christian’s success.

Christians have got to learn to stand on God’s Word, not on what is acceptable, not on what feels good and not on what they resolve to do to fix their own sin. This year resolve to give your whole life to Christ. He changes everything from the inside out and it won’t turn you wrong side out in the process.

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