Fellowship Bible Church of Siloam Springs

Inspiration

2012-01-19T17:07:00.001-08:00

The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple (Isaiah 50:4).

Sadly, but probably characteristically to all people who are in positions involved in large doses of outward-going communication, personal inspiration is often in short supply. Preachers and teachers and coaches and mentors and authors, after all, are typically those who inspire and catalyze and maximize and launch and equip others into larger and grander and deeper and richer and more cultivated spheres of life. To ask those who are normally the dispensers of inspiration how and when and where and why and from whom they seek personal inspiration is rather alien. I know it is for me. I am rarely inspired, which is odd because I seek to inspire others nearly constantly in line with the admonition in Hebrews 10:24—“Let us consider how to stimulate others to love and good deeds.”

Nevertheless, I have been inspired this New Year. But let me be clear, this inspiration did not come as a result of “turning over a new leaf” or a resolution. I have been uncooperatively inspired by providential barrage and sheer repetition. From three different angles in as many weeks this New Year the Lord has seen fit to press certain preacher/teacher/author in front of my face. I caved and found, by default, personal inspiration.

To illustrate the degree to which I was reluctant, but am now enthusiastic, about this unsought-after soul-nourishment consider when and where I am typing madly away at my keyboard. I am blogging this article before I have totally finished sweating from my jog, on one of my few coveted weekday evenings without a meeting. Having given that preface, I have just listened to perhaps the best sermon I have heard in years—on Jacob and Leah called "The Struggle for Love" (Genesis 29)—and “sermon” is my primary language these days. That’s funny because I gave a similar endorsement of another sermon by the same bloke just a few days ago. And that’s funny because I had a similar conversation where this preacher came up with glowing accolades just a few days before that. I hesitate to mention his name outright because I really don’t think it is so much that this man is the most remarkable factor in my recent “dry season” regarding personal inspiration—although he is a true pro (Dr. Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City)—because I am convinced that the Lord Himself has “awaken[ed] my ear to listen as a disciple” (Isaiah 50:4) more than the man.

I balk at the pattern in which I have been skulking (perhaps for a couple of years?!?), attempting in ministry to “sustain the weary one with a word,” yet without maintaining a posture of a learner; without a reservoir of personal inspiration.

As is always the case, Jesus is better. Our Lord is simultaneously the supremely better teacher and the supremely better disciple, held in powerful balance. By application, being a disciple not only is the beginning of effective disciple making, it is a resultant by-product as well. It is a “morning by morning” process of giving out and receiving in … and it sounds like ministry health.

Check out these free sermons (mp3 format) at www.sermons.redeemer.com or on iTunes under Timothy Keller Podcasts:

“The Struggle for Love,” Genesis 29:15-35, November 11, 2001 #RS 141-3

“The Prodigal Sons,” Luke 15:1-2, 11-32, September 11, 2005 #RS 187-01

“The Wounded Spirit,” Proverbs 12:25 and various others, December 5, 2005, #RS 178-13

“The Cosmic King,” Revelation 1:9-18, May 23, 1993, #RS 41-02

Away in a Manger

2011-12-21T18:49:00.000-08:00

THE CATTLE ARE LOWING, the Baby awakes. But little Lord Jesus no crying He makes. Wait a second! That line in the second verse of the beloved carol, “Away in a Manger,” has irked me for years. Of course, it has not been enough to stop me from singing it at Christmas Eve services or at times of caroling around the piano or even at bedtimes with the children (during, potentially, any month of the year, not just December!). But the pebble of irritation about the manger scene has proven to be just enough to re-open the Christmas narrative and see if such a detail is explicitly mentioned or implicitly inferred anywhere. Did little Lord Jesus, really, no crying make?

Verdict—Mary’s first delivery was a normal, healthy delivery in every way, which leads me to conclude that there must have been plenty of crying to go around! Jesus, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and eventually the wise men—pass the Kleenex® box around. Can angels cry? Well, if they can they too might have joyfully blubbered with the rest of them! “I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10).

Not in 2011 … nor, for the record, in 2012(!) … but Shellie and I have made our rounds through the obstetrics ward at the hospital five wonderful times in the last 14¾ years. We have concurred that it would not be in the least bit serene, or happy, or joyful to have a baby who was not crying in the first moments of life. There is nothing in the Christmas account in Scripture that even remotely suggests that Mary’s delivery was any different than any other woman’s delivery or that Jesus’ birth was anything different than any other baby’s birth. Certainly, Mary and Jesus were unique in ways that beg for more study and more dialogue, but the events of that night were entirely … and dare I say … blessedly ordinary.

I am not trying to spar with poetic license written into “Away in a Manger.” Actually and tangentially, I found something else noteworthy in the relatively few verses allotted to Jesus’ birth in the Bible; something that I might have missed if it were not for my borderline compulsive urge to fact-check traditional Christmas carols. This year I noticed an amazing absence of anything out of the ordinary with Jesus’ actual birthday. His birth infused blessing into uneventfulness.

Perhaps you are like us in this regard, too often we give thanks for the brushes with the supernatural; those macro- or micro-deliverances that could only be explained after-the-fact by a providentially attentive Almighty God who graciously scrutinizes our paths. But I don’t know if I have ever before thought of the blessing of the ordinary. Granted, on that first Christmas there are many elements of sheer drama and utter terror, where the so-called experts were tongue-tied and the so-called bumpkins were silver-tongued. We would be the last to remove, even remotely, the supernatural from the Incarnation. But on that night, with that couple, in that stall, with that feeding trough nothing extraordinary happened. On the nearby hillside where the shepherds were guarding their flocks at night, there were supernatural fireworks going off. In the far-away sand where the Magi were studying the night-sky, there were miraculous “dots” being connected. But in the stable behind the inn which had no room for the King-in-disguise there was the blessing of uneventfulness.

Mary, for sure, had unanesthetized labor-pains throughout her delivery. Joseph, for sure, wished there was someone else present who had actually delivered a baby before; or at least someone who could advise him about basic female anatomy since he and Mary had not seen each other in that way yet. Not to belabor the point (pun intended!), but there was blood and fluid and after-birth and the ubiquitous clumsiness of figuring out how to feed a baby as a first-time mom. And, in my imagination, crying must have been generously exercised—before, during, and after the birth.

For Mary and Joseph all the miracles—and there were many—happened before and then after this very ordinary birth. The conception, of course, was perhaps the greatest miracle of all. The marriage that was not severed when Joseph discovered the news of Mary’s pregnancy without his (or any male’s) participation—this was a miracle that must not slip past our careful attention. Mary’s miraculous welcome received from her relative, Elizabeth, who was also miraculously pregnant. Jesus’ fantastic in utero greeting from his in utero cousin, John (the Baptist), was also miraculous. Time prevents a full treatment of the miracles that light up the narrative: the shepherds, the angels, the Christmas Star that apparently moved as needed to guide the wise men to Jesus, the escape from the massacre at Bethlehem, the dreams given to Joseph several times along the way, the name selected for the Savior, the city where the birth took place, even the timing of the tax requirement issued by Quirinius the Roman governor of Palestine at the time.

But that night, away in a manger, God steeped sublime dignity into the ordinary by allowing His Son to be birthed in exactly the same way all humans are birthed. God infused supernatural guidance and perseverance—incognito—into the otherwise uneventfulness of Christmas. This is the Christmas meditation that I stumbled across while looking for another thing altogether—what so often feels like God’s distance when it takes our every ounce of energy just to keep “treading water” in the ordinary, just trying to make it, just waiting for the time to punch out for the weekend … what often seems like God’s disinterest or even disapproval in our achingly long stretches of silence and uneventfulness … might actually be the times when God is nearest of all. God is not always found in the euphoria of the phenomenal, or in the serenity of the mystical. Sometimes—and arguably most times—God is found in the ordinary manger straw that is intentionally hidden in the alley behind the neon “no vacancy” sign, underneath the pain, awash with salty tears on the clumsy side of life when we think no one is paying any attention at all. Pass the Kleenex® box—for what seems to be the most ordinary may be, in fact, our front row seat for the most extraordinary thing of all: God came near.

Uganda 2011

2011-12-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

Webele Yesu (WAY-buh-lay YAY-soo)—thank You, Jesus—for a very good, very deep, very rich 11 days to Uganda and back again.

Dr. David Livingstone—Scottish missionary to and explorer of the African interior during the mid-1800s—wrote many books and journals that our eyes have never skimmed. Conceivably his mind has forgotten more information than our minds have ever learned. Certainly his feet have gone places our feet have never dared to go—that is until last week. For an unforgettable week Shellie and I were in places nestled between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert in the Rwenzori Mountains of western Uganda; places that might very well have hosted Dr. Livingstone we presume(!) as he hunted for the sources of the Nile … places that help us to understand a fraction more of what Livingstone once said, “If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

Last week we saw where the “good road” quite abruptly ends and where, beyond the asphalt, rose the “smoke of a thousand villages” as Dr. Robert Moffat said to young Livingstone, thus propelling him deeper into the African interior than any missionary before him (William Garden Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone, 1880). Last week we tasted the other-worldly lure of contributing to the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations through the agency of the local church. Last week we thanked the Lord for the honor to travel several hours beyond the spot where the “good road” ends for the purpose of speaking the promises of grace in at least one of those “thousand villages”—Nyahuka village in Bundibugyo district, Uganda, just a few kilometers from the Congo border.

It was a week of “firsts”: our first trip to Africa, to Uganda, to the Equator where the water doesn’t swirl when flushed (when there was water!). This week brought the first glimpses of banana, mango, and cocoa trees; the first fields of coffee bushes and tea plants. We trekked into the rainforest to see a community of chimpanzees, drove on the left-hand side of the road through mud as deep as the 4x4 tires were tall—these were all “firsts” for us. Never before had we forded a swiftly running river in a vehicle or eaten the parts of a chicken we normally toss to the dogs. Never before had we gotten sunburned in November. These were our first tastes of goat, posho, millet, and matooke. We have never before been awakened at 5:30am by Arabic-speaking Muslims over the loud speaker indiscriminately calling would-be converts in the village to wake up and stop being lazy (or so the translation was reported to us since we do not, nor does anyone in the village, speak Arabic) and come to prayer mandatory for their salvation. Subsequently, we have never before distinctly thanked God for His grace in that particular setting, as the loud speakers crackled in the pre-dawn darkness—thanking Him particularly that it is not what we do that saves us (like pray five times a day) but what Christ did—serenely rolling over to sleep for another hour in our freedom in Christ before the sun blazed through the screened window. It was a week of “firsts”; even spelling them out makes me think of more “firsts” to round out our journey story.

We have seen grasshoppers before, of course, but never had we seen crowds gather where men turned on bright lights at dusk in order to attract the insects, catch them in nets, and sell them wriggling in the bag for future feasting. We have experienced cold showers before, of course, but never because there were no hot water heaters at all and certainly not during a typhoid outbreak in the local water sources. I have keynoted at conferences before, but never before had I taught 21 pastors across 3 denominations for 8 consecutive hours about disciple-making through the gospel of Matthew…and never before had I taught a second time in one week with 12 missionaries from 3 countries about the “glory” of Christ. Shellie had visited medical clinics before, but never before when latex gloves were luxury items and never before when malnourishment was so rampant (even in a place where everything seems to grow; but too little protein).

We have participated in prayer services before, thousands of them probably, but never before had we prayed for and with people who were dying of HIV/AIDS. We have joined in praise services before, but never before to our ears had the songs been offered to Jesus in the beautiful Lubwisi language; never before had the instrumentation been solely homemade drums and voices woven together in distinctly non-Western harmonies. We have gone on pastoral visitation before, no doubt, but never before has it been on foot down trails far too narrow for vehicles through clusters of banana trees, mud houses, and very thin children practicing their one memorized English greeting, “How are you?” We must have replied, “Fine, how are you?” a thousand times. [How did they know we spoke English; two of probably six mzungu (foreigners) residents in their whole district all of whom form the World Harvest Mission Team of missionaries and who are consistently, visibly sunburned—almost glowing—whether they are seen at the village market or in the health clinic or at the water project or around the church?]

Webele Yesu—thank You, Jesus—for such a deeply moving, textured, and soul-altering week with the Babwisi people. May they be well-represented when all the tribes and tongues and peoples sing Your praise at that great Ingathering of worshipers when You return to earth as King of the nations.

Webele Yesu—for our friends, new and old, serving with World Harvest Mission in Bundibugyo, Uganda, East Africa for the sake of Your name. May they be sustained and empowered on all levels and in all ways by the Spirit, especially in those non-glamorous parts and storylines that never make it into the prayer letters or the mission conferences.

Webele Yesu—for allowing Shellie and I to make this trip together, for allowing our children to be well-loved and “super-cared-for” by Grandma and Grandpa, for allowing our church in Siloam Springs, Arkansas to be ultra-supportive and generous to “lease us out” to minister to the larger Body of Christ (which is not often the case!).

Webele Yesu—for each of you; some who prayed, some who gave money, some who donated supplies, some who filled the pulpit, some who administered the communion, some of you who did a combination of all of these gifts. This trip was simply impossible without your participation.

Webele Yesu—for the gospel of Your grace that changed our hearts from merely focusing upon ourselves to focusing upon the nations, even if only for 11 days at a time.

Webele Yesu—for the upcoming opportunity, July 4-24, 2012, to return to Uganda with a team from our local church (a team which this time includes our son, Seth, who will be 15-years old and excited to join the “adult” ranks in missions!) to serve and assist Your servant-missionaries who are living among and ministering to the most vulnerable in eastern Uganda. May Your name be glorified now and then and beyond then.

For the sake of the Name (3 John 7),

Kevin & Shellie Rees

2 December 2011

“God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.” — David Livingstone

Who Doesn't Love October?

2011-10-02T04:13:00.000-07:00

October. I’m glad it is October. Aren’t you? I mean, who doesn’t love October? Crisp nights, warm days, apple harvests, bugs in the backyard die in the frost, and sports—sigh … I’m glad it’s October, especially because it’s playoff time in baseball. During the summer I’m lucky to get one baseball game a week, but in October I’m, at times, feasting on two and three games a day. Who doesn’t love October?

Oh wait. Maybe not everyone loves October this year. Other years perhaps everyone does, but this October maybe the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves are not feasting on baseball like they thought they would be. They had October-playoffs in their grasp, but lost it … and have no one to blame but themselves.

The last week of September marked the dismal, October-erasing, historic collapse of the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves. On September 4, the Red Sox had a 9-game lead in the American League Wild Card Race over the Tampa Bay Rays, but after a stellar August they had a tragic September (7-19) and watched their lead vanish. On the last game of the regular season in the last week of September, the Red Sox lost a must-win game—a game in which they held the lead into the ninth inning; a game in which they were playing the worst team in the division; the Baltimore Orioles. But a ninth inning rally for the O’s denied the Red Sox of the privilege of baseball in October. (I love the fact that it was the Orioles that did this, by the way!)

The Atlanta Braves did not perform any better. They had an 8.5-game lead in the National League Wild Card Race at the beginning of September. They, too, limped along all month while the St. Louis Cardinals made strides. In the last game of their regular season, in the last inning of the last game, the Braves also surrendered a sure lead and lost the privilege of baseball in October.

I’ve seen it so many times; in every sport, every level, and every sort of field. A team has a solid game-plan and the lead. And then something happens; something that defies logic. It’s like black magic. Something happens at half-time or between the fourth and fifth sets or at the beginning of September; some bewitchment that spooks them into switching from winning the game to not-losing the game.

Do you know what I mean? Red Sox: the way you started is the way you continue. Braves: the way you started is the way you continue. Your game-plan was successful—why switch in the middle from winning to “not losing”?

The leap from the baseball world into the church world is not at all difficult. Church, the way we started in Christ is the same way we continue—by faith, not works. We, like the 2011 Red Sox and Braves, are often at the brink of a historic collapse when we think of switching from faith as the way to please God to human works as the way to keep God pleased. Whether it is because of panic or neglect or miscalculation, we are often tempted—in some strange September enchantment—to conclude that “faith alone” cannot carry the day anymore and therefore exit from God’s game-plan.

But why would we ever even consider changing God’s game-plan of faith? The way we started in Christ—by faith, not works—is exactly the way we continue in Christ. By faith, not works. It is so simple, so genius, so inspired that Paul scratches his head in Galatians 3:1-14 and wonders out loud if there is some bewitching going on; some logic-eroding, memory-erasing black magic, evil-eye spell-casting that is diverting the church’s eyes from fixing upon Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ to the one of the thousands of counterfeit saviors.

“O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you … having begun in the Spirit are you now being perfected in the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1,3)

Yet before we shake our heads at the ancient Galatians or cluck our tongue at their tendency to revert to a system of human rules to please God (and men), let us own the fact that this is our dismal track record as well. We, too, forget how the Lord got us started in the new life—by faith, not works—and quickly devolve into a game-plan to grow in the new life on our own merits and rule keeping. We often chuck the game-plan out at the break, despite its success in setting us free from the endless bondage of “trying harder” and “doing more,” morphing into a squad that shifts from faith back into the same systems that enslaved us before faith arrived. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Supernatural Amplification of Glory

2011-09-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is a physical law. Unless God interrupts this natural conservation of energy--observable throughout the visible universe--it continues just the way God designed it to continue. One domino falls into another domino that falls into another domino ... and even when those fallen dominoes lay down flat on the table under gravity's pull, the table still reacts equally and oppositely to hold up the dominoes. (It is about this time that I wish I had paid more attention in Dr. Stachan's 11th grade physics class.)

But some of that energy in any physical action is converted into an unusable form; it is still there, but "trapped" in a place that cannot be retrieved (by us). So there is always a small subtraction. The pendulum swings but not quite as far as the last time. The ball bounces but not quite as high as the last time. The energy is still there--equally and oppositely reacting--but some is lost to friction or whatever else until that pendulum and that ball eventually "subtract" down to zero movement held still in the pull of gravity. (It is about this time that true physicists will want to sit me down and teach me all that I am missing about this in the fascinating world of physics).

Ah yes, but here is the majestic leap from the physical world into the supernatural realm of worship. Worship of the living God actually amplifies when we give it away. For every act of God revealing His glory to humans, there is a greater and amplified response (not merely a reaction!) of glorifying the God of glory in worship. Okay, I admit that the language isn't as precise as Newtonian physics, but the principle is certainly in the Scripture.

I see this supernatural amplification of glory in several places. To Abraham in Genesis 12 and 15 and 22, God reveals His glory to a singular individual--He blesses Abraham, which starts a chain response (not a mere chain reaction!) that amplifies the blessing to every nation. God reveals His glory to one. That one shares the glory revealed by God to him to others. And over time all the nations will glorify the God who first revealed His glory to the individual Abraham. Over time the pendulum and the bouncing ball return to a state of rest. Over time the glory of God will amplify and expand and will result in all the nations of the world giving glory to God in worship.

This principle of amplification shows up exceptionally well in Psalm 96. "Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples" (vs. 3). God reveals His glory to some (namely Israel) who are then commissioned to declare that glory revealed to them by God to the nations (which is functionally the Great Commission of the Old Testament, compare Matthew 28:19-20!). The result is not less glory, but more! "Ascribe to the LORD, oh families of the peoples; ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory of His name; bring an offering and come into His courts. Worship the LORD in holy attire. Tremble before Him all the earth" (Psalm 96:7-9).

The principle of amplification screams from John 17 as well. Jesus in prayer says, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You" (vs. 1). Glory given away is not glory lost; it is glory that takes root, so to speak, and produces a crop of a hundredfold. And Jesus inside the same prayer says, "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them (the disciples), that they may be one, just as We are one .... Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see the glory which You have given Me (vv. 22,24). God the Father gives glory to Jesus who gives it back to the Father amplified; increased. But while that inner-Trinitarian worship cycles, Jesus also shares that glory given to Him with the disciples (and their disciples and their disciples, etc.) for the expressed purpose of sharing in the glory of Jesus amplified in number; increased in worship over time.

We are blessed in order that we might bless God back in worship and bless others so that more and more blessing might return to the Lord who blesses. God reveals glory to us in order that we might glorify God back in worship and declare that glory to others so that more and more glorification might return to the Lord of glory. Jesus asks for more glory in order that He might glorify the Father all the more, and share that glory with His followers so that in the end of time every nation will join in the glorification of God with exponential amplification.

May the cycle of amplification of God's glory not be interrupted with me; with us. May the amplification increase and expand in and through us to the glory of the One who alone is worthy.

The Silence of God

2011-08-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

We all know the shame and the pain of a broken conscience when we fail to speak up, to defend, to intercede, to counteract, and to testify. But there are times when the loudest, most compelling, most courageous form of testimony is conscientious silence; times when the shape of our faith and the sound of our confession is silent trust in “Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). How, when, why, and where we actively step into silence, however, is by-and-large uncharted territory, but “there is a time to be silent and a time to speak” all the same (Ecclesiastes 3:7).

Our silence as human witnesses is one thing, but the silence of the Savior is another. When our Savior was on trial, the conflicting testimony of false witnesses in a kangaroo court filled the room with its noise. But even more remarkable than their cacophony was the striking silence of Jesus before His accusers. The incarnate Word of God silent before His slaughterers—how can it be? “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

Jesus’ silence was not a cowardly or inactive sort of silence with eyes on the floor and shoulders drooped, but the bold and courageous sort of silence with eyes ablaze and teeth gritted—fully engaged, fully intentional, fully powerful. Of all the power that Jesus exhibited in His time on earth the power of restraint that He demonstrated that morning during those illegal and sacrilegious trials was unparalleled.

The enemies seemed to gain the “upper hand” over Jesus. But something graver, more somber was happening. They were not just attempting to win a fight over Jesus who had trumped and stumped them in public for over three years. They were crossing the point of no return, so to speak. They rejected Word so completely that Word ceased—how can it be? Virtually the only testimony they got from then on from Jesus was silence … the silence of God.

Silence can break the back, melt the heart, and shake a man’s timbers … but this was not the perceived silence of God that we often get when we struggle with the trials. This silence, at that dark hour of history, was the actual silence of God. They stepped beyond Word and seemed to enjoy themselves in the moment, still unaware of the awful predicament into which they crossed. This is the silent treatment no one can endure.

"Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).

You don’t want the silence of the Savior. You want Him to speak up for you. You need Him to speak up for you. He was silent for you in His trial in order that He might speak up for you in your trial before the true Judge. Those who have rejected Jesus in life will find Jesus silent in their defense in the afterlife. Those who have accepted Jesus in life will find Jesus willing and able to speak up in their defense in the afterlife. There is a correlation: how we respond to Word matters. It matters immensely. Reject and even hate Word now and it will cease both in this life and in the one to come. Receive and even love Word now and it will flow all the more in this life and in the one to come.

Sauerkraut and Jesus

2011-05-19T13:05:00.001-07:00

Can vitamin C really be that important? (I have a $2 bottle of it in my cupboard.) Yes, in fact, it is that important!

Consider the lack of it a couple of generations ago, for instance, during the Seven Years War (1756-1763). During those seven years in which His Majesty’s Royal Navy conscripted 185,000 sailors into service, 133,000 lost … not in battle, but lost to poor nutrition; largely to scurvy (Wikipedia) which is chronic vitamin C deficiency. Now, if Wikipedia is right(!), that is 72.3% of British sailors in seven years of wartime died because of undernourishment!

By contrast, about the same time, British Navy Captain James Cook (1769-1771) circumnavigated the globe three times (1769-1779) without losing a single man on his ship to scurvy. “How?” you may ask. (Did he, like I, have a $2 bottle of vitamin C in his cupboard? Hardly.) Captain Cook learned, from trial and error, that a diet that included sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) and wort (the liquid extract of barley generated in the first step of brewing beer) warded off scurvy. It would take science 150 years to directly link scurvy to vitamin C deficiency (1932) but Captain Cook found life in sauerkraut: “the only vegetable food that retained a reasonable amount of ascorbic acid in a pickled state” (Wikipedia). Can you imagine the smell aboard the HM Endeavor?!?

Why mention this? It is a straightforward reason: our diet significantly affects our health, and our health significantly affects our journey. Whether we proceed in ignorance or stubbornness, it is fair to say that what we consume, or fail to consume, can quickly become a life or death affair—physically and spiritually. We could have the best strategies, the best maps, the best ships with the best rigging, but if we have a chronically poor or chronically foolish diet then it may be our ship that loses 72.3% of its crew with dozens of burials at sea before the tour is concluded.

But here is the beauty of the gospel. Unlike Captain Cook who stumbled upon the minimum requirements for staving off death aboard a ship, our Captain Jesus gives us, not the bare minimum requirements for life, but the maximum. He gives us Himself as our true sustenance; our spiritual food. He is the Bread of Life filling not our bellies, but our souls. He is the Water of Life gushing out unto eternal life. He Himself gives us not only minimum requirements for life, but an abundance of eternal life that starts now, that truly fills and overflows our small containers. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Despising the Shame

2011-04-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).

The gospel has once again come alive through the Scriptures, particularly in that middle phrase, "despising the shame." "Despising"—kataphroneo—to conclude against, literally to think little of or dismiss as insignificant after evaluation. "The shame"—aischuges—humiliation, embarrassment.

It is not that Jesus ignored the shame; not at all. He fully bore the shame, evaluated it, and set it aside as powerless over Him.

Why is this important? The cross was invented and perfected as a torturous humiliation. We have cleaned up the cross because of the supreme goodness of the Christ who embraced the awful cross and broke its power. Just a few minutes ago I saw someone selling beautifully decorated crosses for Good Friday—aside from the fact that this gets too close to using religion to make a buck—a cross would never have been thought of as beautiful in the ancient world. The cross was designed to embarrass cruelly and sadistically all who hung upon it—naked, brutal, public, strung out, cursed. But Jesus despised the shame that His enemies attempted to hurl upon Him by using this excruciating humiliation.

Consider the theology of that single aspect of the Lord’s redeeming work on the cross. The lectionary readings for this past Wednesday of Holy Week help demonstrate most helpfully in this part how Jesus took our sin but did not become sinful Himself in the process. He bore our sin but did not Himself become a sinner. It is a very important point; one that I cannot remember ever meditating upon before this week because of Hebrews 12:2.

Isaiah 50:5-7—"I was not disobedient, nor did I turn my back. I gave my back to those who strike Me, and my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting. For the Lord GOD helps me, therefore I am not disgraced; therefore I have set My face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed."

Psalm 70:2-3—Let those he ashamed and humiliated who seek my life; let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt. Let those be turned back because of the their shame, who say, 'Aha! Aha!'"

Jesus bore our sin to such a degree that He became sin on our behalf, but He despised the shame (the intended effect) of the cross. He became our sin, but He did not become a sinner. Huge! He was shamed by others, but He Himself was not ashamed of what He was doing (Isaiah 50:7). In fact, He ricocheted back upon His torturers the shame that they attempted to fling upon Him (Psalm 70:2-3).

The cross was ugly; but its ugliness, even though it rained completely and without dilution upon the Son of Man, did not make the Son of Man ugly in His identity. He evaluated the intended effect that they wanted to use to shame Him, but He set it aside as insignificant. He bore our sin but did not become a sinner. He was shamed from the outside; He was not ashamed, though, on the inside. He drew the line on the power of sin and broke it at the cross.

Psychologists observe a similar distinction, but the base idea is primarily a scriptural one—guilt deals with what I did; shame deals with who I am. Guilt is the fault of doing; shame is fault of being. Guilt says, “I did wrong”; shame says, “I am wrong.” Guilt hides from others; shame covers self.

We can see this dynamic in the narrative of the original sin in the original Garden in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they hid among the trees, and they covered themselves with the fig leaves—two aspects of rebellion. They sinned and immediately sensed their guilt before God, so they hid among the very trees they were entrusted to cultivate, which God had created. And they also died spiritual immediately and sensed their shame internally, so they sewed fig leaves together (a far more complicated task!) to cover their nakedness, which before was not a humiliation (naked and unashamed, Genesis 2:25) at all but an intimacy they had with each other, with God, and with the universe.

The power of sin and death is shame and guilt; I am a sinner and I commit sin. Ok, here is the beauty of the Lord’s redemption. He took upon Himself our sin—both the guilt from our activity of sin and the shame from our identity of sin—to the cross. All of it on His individual back at one point in history.

I can almost hear in my imagination the demonic accusation hurled at Jesus as He hung there on the cross—“You are contaminated, you are infected, you are diseased, you are stained. No one can take all of man’s sin without becoming defiled.” But no! Jesus bore our sin, but did not become a sinner. He endured the cross despising the shame. Sin can go this far--to the cross--and no farther. Jesus swallowed our sin, but sin did not swallow Jesus in His core identity. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Ok, now the application. Back to Hebrews 12. How can we endure agony? By fixing our eyes upon Jesus’ perfect, purposeful, and pure perseverance--our faithful looking to Christ alone actually empowers us to persevere in our struggle. See how Jesus’ perseverance through the cross "set before Him" unlocks the corresponding phrase in verse 1, “let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."

How do we lay these aside? In the same way Jesus "despised the shame." He knew the truth of who He was and the limits of sin and the power of the cross. He said to the shame, "I have evaluated you and set you aside. You rose up to the cross and no farther. I dismiss you as defeated." Therefore, we can and must in Christ say to our sin identity and our sinful actions, our shame and our guilt, even though darkness flings upon us accusation and hellish discouragement, "No!" "I set you aside—guilt and shame—in the power of Christ. You have no hold on me anymore. Shame and guilt used to identify me, but Jesus broke your power at the cross. I evaluate your boundaries in light of Christ's cross and dismiss you as little. I have sinned, and even continue to sin, but the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has transformed me from a child of wrath into child of God."

I do not have to hide anymore from God or others. I do not have to cover myself. I can drop off these encumbrances and sins and run with endurance the race set before me. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

The Restrained Pulpit

2011-02-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

Preacher-illustrations, granted, appeal to a very narrow sliver of the population. Very narrow. We preachers often forget that our constituents are not immediately fluent in preacher-humor, preacher-anecdotes, and preacher-heroes. That being said, there is a pulpit-driven observation that may actually "land" with the rest of the population for a change; one that has been slow cooking for quite a while. The restrained pulpit, yet not repressed, is a mark of maturity.

Let me back up to explain. Based on cultural observation alone, it seems that ranting should be in the Bill of Rights somewhere. It's not. Freedom of speech is, but the freedom to express every opinion that bubbles to the surface at any given moment of time is not. So it figures that if the forefathers didn't write "ranting" into our code of inalienable rights, maybe God should have. He didn't. Yet just spending an hour or so in media-land it seems that should not only be a "right" to rant, but that it may even be unhealthy NOT to rant when the urge hits.

Get ticked off--tell every one on your friend list. Feel strongly--find a bumper sticker that captures the angst in sarcasm for everyone to read on I-40 who happens to be nearby. Disagree with a public official--don't send a letter to his office, but call in to any one of the the talk radio shows and let it rip behind the shield of quasi-anonymity.

The pulpit, however, is not a license to rant. It is not a soapbox or megaphone for the human preacher. It is Christ's. And for His unexplained reasons preaching remains His arguably old-fashioned, but clearly intentional, method of conveying the mind of God to the people. It may be concluded by the world as foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18), but human opinions must (and one day will) acquiesce to God's revelation--"for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord" (2 Corinthians 4:5).

When I take the pulpit, under Christ, I must restrain my opinions so that the revelation of Christ may be proclaimed undiluted. Are there times when I would like to sling mud? You bet! Are there times when I would like to rally the people around my personal preferences? There have been those temptations, yes. But the simplicity of the gospel is the power. The restrained pulpit--restrained from human-based opinion-making (i.e. the Sunday morning version of ranting)--is wisdom. Paul, perhaps, said it best:

"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

So, please forgive me if I rant! (No really ... please forgive me if this comes across as a rant of any sort!)

Runner

2011-01-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

Two minutes. One-hundred and twenty seconds. I decided to show mercy for our dog who is now on a chain all the time because she will not stay in the yard. She was loose for just two minutes and then she sprinted--faster than I've ever seen her sprint--to the wide open spaces. I hollered at the top of my voice. She didn't even look back. Was I a fool to show mercy (again)?

Did I mention it was somewhere close to 18-degrees that morning? So what! Did I mention that there was a 4-foot tall fence that surrounds the backyard? No problem! Did I mention that I had installed a "Stubborn Dog Invisible Fence" with the corresponding "Stubborn Dog Collars" which produce noise, vibrations and shocks at 10, 5 and then 2 feet around the perimeter of the boundary? Not even a hesitation! Did I mention the constant provision of food, water, shelter, company, pillows to sleep on, children to play with, another dog to pal around with, toys to chew, moles to dig up, squirrels to chase, flowers to sit upon, and a 30-something human who dutifully goes around with a shovel and ... well, let's just leave that to the imagination--what more could a 3-year old golden retriever want in life? Honestly. I am seriously asking this question. What more could she want? Apparently more than our family has to offer.

Is there a cure for a runner? Is there some incentive I can add to her life that will erase her need to escape? If dogs can be fools; Misty is a fool. But I cannot communicate to her doggie-heart the insanity of her running. There are cars out there on those roads and you, Misty, don't have a lick of street smarts. There are neighbors out there with rifles and you, Misty, look like a deer at full speed. There are people with the number for Animal Control already programmed into their mobile phones. There are not bowls of beef-flavored kibbles that magically appear every morning next to a bucket of fresh water. Why run? Why leave behind all that this family is freely offering you, Misty, for danger, starvation, and possible euthanasia out there in the "great beyond"?

But then I remember what a wise man once said on a previous episode of canine-escapism. Kevin, God must have given that dog to you for a reason. You must have a lesson to learn from that dog who runs.

Alas, it is true. Misty is a mirror. I am a runner, too. But God did find a way to communicate to my running-heart. He sent Jesus to "put on skin" so to speak, to live in the neighborhood, to speak our very dialect, in order to explain to us the Father (John 1:18). While I hollered at the top of my voice for Misty to come back to no avail, Jesus spoke in such a way that set the captives free, brought the dead to life, and still--in the most intense hours--opened not his mouth as a sheep led to the slaughter. While I have to tie up Misty now, Jesus holds us in without chains--He holds us in by grace. Grace that changes the heart. Jesus, cure my runner-heart with your transforming grace. "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it. Seal it for Thine courts above."

Long Winter's Nap

2010-12-14T12:06:00.001-08:00

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse / The stockings were hung by the chimney with care / In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there / The children were nestled all snug in their beds / While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads / And mamma in her ‘kerchief and I in my cap / Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap …

These famous American verses were originally published in 1823 anonymously as “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore—friend of Washington Irving—also attributed by some to Henry Livingston, Jr.). The poem, now culturally known as “The Night Before Christmas,” is arguably the most well-known American verse of all. But my eyes … my brain … my shoulders … my back … my feet … my entire material and immaterial being gets to lines 7 & 8 and then stops! Mamma and I settling down “for a long winter’s nap.”

Oh yes, the December rush is fully upon us all and it is only the second weekend in the month. Egad! All I want for Christmas is that “long winter’s nap”; a nap which “that lively old elf” actually interrupted in the poem … thanks for nothing, you imp! J I distinctly remember hearing these lines as a child and somehow connecting a long winter’s nap with hibernation somewhat like a bear’s—wow, that’s a long sleep, I used to think. Three decades later I don’t think that “hibernation” seems long in the slightest. It sounds just about right for December.

Astride the profound fatigue that finds the children all “nestled all snug in the beds” in the other room while “mamma in her ‘kerchief and I in my cap” still shuffling around long after bedtime there is a genuine aching for the material and immaterial rest we have in Christ. While “visions of sugar-plums dance” in the children’s dreams, my vision scans the horizon for the Christ who said, “It is finished!”

How can it be finished when there is still so much left to do? Ah yes, that is the creaturely way of looking at it—but the rest of Christ remains accessible through faith all the while. It is an active rest; a mobile rest even a sweaty rest in the middle of laboring with Christ. It is a rest that believes all the work left to be done is being done by God who now moves through His spiritually enabled people—the church. It is already all done and somehow not yet all “tied off.” And so December finds us still cemented to time and space and linear chronology, but the rest of Christ is real and it is here and it is exactly what this “decembered” papa in his night-cap needs to remember.

Resurrection

2010-11-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Falling, falling falling; the leaves are dropping now like rain, like snow covering the grass and my pick-up and the driveway. The branches and boughs must be content somehow to release the weight, responsibility, burden of all of their hundreds of thousands of broad leaves in light of the upcoming “long winter’s nap.” I can almost hear the exhale of relief after 8 months of labor of photosynthesis and hydration and evaporation and oxygenization as the November wind blows more of these gray-brown leaves to their mulch-heaps. But it is not a fatalism that November brings; it is a hope of April … a hope of the resurrection. The trees are just making space for the resurgence of life—new leaves can’t bud unless the old leaves are gone. “That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:36). The trees are banking on resuscitation. They are keeping no leaves in reserve just in case springtime doesn’t show up [old leaves which wouldn’t work anyway in the flipside]. Their “today” is impacted by their tomorrow. Tomorrow’s resurrection directly touches today’s decisions, morality, priorities and endurance.

After a long, exquisite, reasonable and detailed lesson on the necessity of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul adds this encouragement to his readers: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (15:58). Steadfastness, immovability, endurance—these are a direct result of the firm belief in the resurrection in the Lord. Today’s toil is not what we have to muddle through just killing time until the resurrection. No! We toil today “knowing that [our] toil is not in vain in the Lord” … the same Lord who told Martha earlier in a similar context where the resurrection of the dead was kind of relegated to the hereafter and erroneously divorced from the toil and worry and pain of today. “Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26). Present tense—I am the resurrection and the life. Present tense—Martha, do you believe this, right now in mourning, right here in the graveyard? Tomorrow’s resurrection is arguably the most concrete and reliable piece of our today. The fact of Christ’s resurrection—foretold, accomplished, witnessed, recorded, passed on through preaching (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)—trumps all other “facts” that fill our days. And every day we have the question placed to us: “Do you believe this?”

Do we believe the resurrection in the hospital room, in the courtroom, in the living room, in the bedroom? Do we believe the resurrection in the quiet, in the noise, in the soft, in the hard? Do we believe the resurrection when all human hope is gone, when all bets are lost, when all dreams have become nightmares, when all delights have turned to ash in our experience? Today—especially a “today” that is painful—is exactly the moment where resurrection needs to be remembered. After all, resurrection is the signature miracle of our great God and Savior—bringing life out of death. Are we making space by faith for the resurgence of life?

To See or Be Seen

2010-10-12T04:42:00.000-07:00

On a rare "date night" my wife and I headed toward the city to increase our restaurant options. We had a babysitter for the kids, a gift card for the meal, a couple of hours for each other, and about 100,000 motorcyclists with whom we shared the road. It was the annual "Bikes, Blues & BBQ" rally; the interstate was literally clogged to a stand-still. It is apparently one of the largest bike rallies in the country.

We saw Harleys and Hondas, trikes and choppers, ape-hangers and air-brushed flames, campers pulling trailers loaded with bikes and bikes pulling trailers loaded with camping gear. We even saw a couple of 14-year old boys pulling onto Highway 412 squeezing every ounce of power out of their 49cc engines achieving, maybe, 40 mph. Whether it was the various expressions of chrome and leather, red, white and blue wind-resistant accessories, Kevlar bodysuits and suede fringe, rebel and POW-MIA flags or the music exhibitions, the food presentations, the bike demonstrations, and the Miss BB&B beauty competition -- this rally was apparently the place to see and be seen on the first day of October.

It is no surprise that we promptly turned north while the line of traffic crawled southward. We had our hearts set on ... not on seeing and being seen by 100,000+ bikers and bike-admirers, but set on ... knowing and being known by each other after at least a month since our last time together without the children.

Seeing and being seen might entertain us for one weekend a year (but not for us; not this year!), but as humans we were designed by God to know and be known. We are relational beings. Knowing each other and God and being known by others and by God is exactly where the good and eternal life begins.

"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).

Glorify

2010-09-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

My father sent me a note and a verse along with a prayer. I was fresh out of the hospital and still involuntarily “bent over” from my recent abdominal surgery.

“And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness." And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God” (Luke 13:11-13).

Everything was a chore while “bent over”—from laying back to sitting up to walking the steps. I guess I expected those, but I didn’t expect to have trouble sneezing and coughing, too. I can’t imagine carrying water or making supper or any of the slightest routines of life in the ancient world with which this real woman must have struggled for eighteen years. I was scantly bothered by eighteen days (and counting).

But my father in his note encouraged me to focus on the end result—“she was made erect again and began glorifying God” (vs. 13). No longer “bent over”—or at least 99% restored (my wife wonders if I have shrunk in stature!)—I am faced with the privilege of glorifying God. I am honored with putting my voice into the chorus of testimonies that calls the world to ascribe the weighty importance due God to God. This is glory. It is all God’s.

So whether it is eighteen years and then healed by one word from Jesus or eighteen (and counting) days and healed by Jesus slowly using doctors, antibiotics, pain medicine, the recuperative qualities of the human body and time—it is my turn and my distinct pleasure to glorify the mysterious God we serve.

I say “mysterious” because our God is also glorified a little later in the gospels by letting His friend Lazarus die in his sickness and begin rotting in the family crypt (John 11:4). And equally bizarre, our “mysterious” God tells Peter a small piece of “the kind of death [by which he] would glorify God” (John 21:19). Glory to God is not always obvious and it is not always unto life. Glory to God is often complex and invisible and impossible to comprehend without faith. Glory to God is deep and wide and even the culmination of our greatest fears and our slenderest prayers all converging in a single moment. Yet whatever the concoction of blood, sweat, tears giving glory to God is the whole-person bowing before the sovereignty of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who not only is in control, but who is thoroughly good—saying along with Job, “Though He slay me, I trust in Him” (13:15).

I guess the real question as I stand more and more “upright” with each passing day, would I have given glory to God without the pain? Only God knows. All I know is that glory is His and I will not hesitate to ascribe to Him the glory due His name.

Goooooool

2010-06-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Goooooool. There is no other word necessary to understand this June. In some unexplained cosmic anomaly, American television won’t show 90% of the World Cup Soccer matches on any of its free stations. Ah, but hope is not completely gone because the all-Spanish-speaking programming of “Univision” has saved the month. The particulars of language become less important than the passion of the “beautiful game.” (For all non-soccer fans, I am sure that the American football season will start soon enough … hang in there!)

So here is the run-down: spanishspanishspanishspanish … ¡Sì! … spanishspanishspanish … ¡No! … spanishspanishspanish … ¡Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool! The encore “highlights” replayed on the Internet or the 10-second spot on the nightly news simply do not capture the magic of a “real time” goal scored in international play during the world’s most popular, most watched, most fanatical sports tournament on the planet. “¡Goooooool!” is the only word we need to know this summer.

How many hours do these players spend on the pitch (a.k.a. the soccer field) training, conditioning, strategizing, dreaming about making or defending against even one of these goals? How many dollars (or pounds or yen or euros or rubles) are spent in coaches, buses, airfare, or marketing—not to mention some of the highest paid athletes in the world?

Yet, when it really matters … far outside a sports tournament and deep inside the issues of humanity and eternity and spirit and truth … do we even a goal for life? Do we invest hours and dollars into an honest-to-God goal for godliness? Or do we merely burn them—hours and dollars both—without a serious thought toward the goal? What do hope to celebrate in those “rocking chair” years (Lord willing)? I can guarantee that if we aim at nothing, we are sure to hit it every time.

“So whether we are at home or away, we make it our ‘¡goooooool!’ to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience” (2Co 5:9-11).

The Elusive Side of Happiness

2010-05-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if happiness is a form of denial. Now that I have your attention(!) let me explain that for a moment.

Since preaching on Psalm 1—“how blessed/happy is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers” (vs. 1)—I have been meditating on the part of happiness that seems particularly elusive, if not as downright slippery as a greased pig at the county fair. Sometimes I actually wonder if happiness is the coward’s way out; of chalking up the difficulties of life and the grievousness of sin by medicating myself into a false reality that “don’t worry; be happy” actually works. Biblical happiness is not this way, but I have caught myself thinking that happiness in [you fill in the blank] situation is inappropriate.

Happiness (wrongly) seems trite, like putting a Band-Aid® on the still-hemorrhaging tragedies of our experience. For instance, if I am happy now—just after I blew my top with [you fill in the blank] or just after [you fill the in the blank] really hurt me or just after watching footage of horrible carnage in the [you fill in the blank] part of the world—then I would be out of touch with reality, or treat sin lightly, or settle for far less than holiness in me and in others. Or to put it another way, it seems that somehow I do not deserve to be happy right now because, for instance, my [you fill in the blank] doesn’t want a relationship with me anymore or my dream of [you fill in the blank] must now be buried in the backyard next to last year’s pet gerbils. Happiness seems wrong because if I am happy now when [you fill in the blank] is still raging in the background, then I resign to this horrible heartbreak, capitulate and somehow convey that heartbreak doesn’t matter all that much.

But this is wrong reasoning, because God doesn’t endorse sin with His happiness. Even with the fatal sin of humans and the marring of humanity on a global scale God is still content in Himself; He is blessed/happy/fortunate. God is perfectly happy and His happiness is not a state of denial. He continues to be happy even when things are horribly wrong (humanly speaking). He continues to be happy even when the ones He created for relationship with Him and each other are twisted and mangled and neglected and abused.

While preaching Psalm 1 I wondered out loud and extemporaneously if there were any biblical references to the happiness of God—not thinking there were any. It turns out that there are at least two explicit references to the happiness of God. In the very sentence amid several examples of wrecked lives (1 Timothy 1:9-10) Paul praises God as “the blessed/happy God” (1:11). Again in chapter 6, God is given—as His very name—“the blessed/happy and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen” (1 Timothy 6:15-16).

So, being happy does not endorse, minimize, or excuse tragedy—it is a derivative of having a relationship with the God whose perfect, self-sufficient bliss is generously shared with us.

The Heart of the Matter

2010-04-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

John 21:15-17—Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Tend My lambs." He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Shepherd My sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Tend My sheep.”

Do you love Me? That is the question. It is not, “Are you skilled? Are you dynamic, magnetic, energetic, influential, successful?” Praise God the question is not, “Are you sure that you won’t fail Me again?” Hallelujah the question is not: “Do you have any leads on climbing out of recession? Are you quick at making decisions and thinking on your feet? Do others trust you? Are your kids well-behaved? Do you have 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year goals? Can you invent a better mousetrap?”

In a nutshell, qualification for service in the stead of Christ and success in serving in the name of Christ is a matter of love not performance. We seem hardwired to operate out of performance. But love is the litmus paper for Christ. But love is sloppy, vague, elusive and vulnerable. Maybe we are better off if we leave our hearts out of it.

Lord, I will give you my sweat, my tears, my calluses, even my money (or lack thereof)—but don’t ask for my heart. I have no competency in the inner world—my heart is such a mixed bag. After all, love for God doesn’t pay the bills. Love for God doesn’t impress the neighbors. Love for God is often misunderstood, pressed down, despised and in some cases … murdered.

Nevertheless, as You wish, Lord. My heart is Yours—whether or not I linger between mere friendliness for You and genuine love for You. You know my heart entirely already—even when I don’t have a clue. You ask for my love not my results. Though I may be confused, a little scared, or downright terrified, “Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it … seal it for Thy courts above.”

Trust vs. Entrust

2010-03-16T12:01:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago … at “the cabin” at oh-dark-hundred hour on Thursday mornings … one of the men in our rotation of leading discussions asked a simple question, “Is there a difference between trusting and entrusting?” It was a great question; one that I thought I could answer right away. However, sixty minutes later, after a vibrant discussion among the men while we sat around the glowing woodstove sipping on hot coffee I was not so sure that I knew the answer anymore. “Is there a difference between trusting and entrusting?” The launching point was John 2:24-25: “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”

Here is Jesus—the embodiment of trust/fidelity—in a moment of great popularity mixed with the seeds of great opposition in the religious leaders in Jerusalem making a decision NOT to entrust Himself to “them.” Who comprises the group called, “them”? From the paragraph, “them” is a varied assortment of those who saw Jesus overturn the moneychangers’ tables (vs. 15), those who heard the religious leaders ask for a “sign…as [a token of the] authority for doing these things” (vs. 18), those who heard Jesus reply, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (vs. 19), those who heard the religious leaders balk at the audacity of Jesus to challenge them in public (vs. 20), and those who “believed in His name” (vs. 23). But Jesus decides not to entrust His full identity as the Messiah to “them” at this time. He trusts the Father in all things and in all ways, but He does not “entrust Himself to them” (vs. 24). So the question remains—is there a difference between trusting and entrusting?

I thought that it would be a matter of vocabulary—perhaps Jesus is just using a different word. Nope. Upon further study I noticed that there is nothing unique about the word—pisteuo: “to believe, to trust, to have faith.” If it was a separate word altogether then the difference between trusting and entrusting would have been easier to differentiate, I suppose. Rats! So, I dug a little deeper … but digging took me unavoidably to grammar. Rrrrats!

Deep in the recesses of my [repressed] memories of grammar lessons I remember that there are such things as transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs convey an action upon someone or something else (a.k.a. direct object … answers “who/what”?). For instance, “He threw the ball,” or “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition” (Monty Python). Intransitive verbs convey an action (often, but not always, internal to the subject’s thought or feelings or intentions) but cannot rightly take a direct object. For instance, “The butter melted,” or “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight” (The Tokens ©1952). And, just for the sake of confusion, there are some verbs that can be transitive OR intransitive depending on the way they are used in the sentence. Yes, you guessed it—trust is one of those pesky words that can go either way! For instance, “He trusts” works well alone; but the verb trust also works with a direct object, “He trusts them.”

Need a break? Can you withstand one more grammatical twist? Sometimes there is a second object of the action in the same sentence (a.k.a. the indirect object … answers the question “to whom/to what?”). Consider the verse at hand. “He was not entrusting (transitive verb) Himself (direct object) to them (functioning as indirect object in this sentence … technically it is a prepositional phrase, but let’s not go down another rabbit trail!).”

So, where are we in our “simple” question? Is there a difference between trusting and entrusting? Yes. Internally, Jesus is—and we should be—trusting. It is a characteristic of the Savior. Externally, Jesus is—and we should be—wise. It is a life-skill of the Savior to have a practical wisdom. There are times when He entrusts precious things or ideas to others based on the knowledge He has of His audience … but there are times when He decides not to entrust precious things or ideas because he “knew what was in man” (vs. 25) (compare “do not throw your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). This has led some commentators to speculate that Jesus was unsure about His Messianic identity—but what is really going on is that He is careful in telling His identity to others. He seems to prefer to let them work it out without His direct revelation—“blessed are you Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal [My identity] to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:18). Finally then, can we draw an application from dry grammar? You bet! We trust God and, when wise, we trust others. But there are times to keep precious things away from unsafe recipients. And further still, we “entrust our very souls to our faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19). With God we can and should trust and entrust everything.

Our Inescapable Need

2010-02-09T08:39:00.000-08:00

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (1 Corinthians 15:3-5). We have—“delivered to [us] as of first importance”—the gospel. We possess the glorious good news of the one and only Christ who died for our sins…who was buried…who was raised…who appeared to many. We possess this grand treasure—unique to all religions that God assumed the burden of reconciliation Himself at great price yet offers it freely to all who will believe it exclusively—but does it possess us? We share it with those who still need to hear it; those who still need to hear it, yet again. We rally around it, sloganize it, write songs about it, preach sermons about it, protect its orthodoxy in a current of heterodoxy. We march to its cadence, throw money to its furthering, dissect its nuances and debate its veracity. We have the gospel but have we forgotten that we still need the gospel we have?

I am unavoidably aware of the inescapable need I have for the very gospel I teach and preach. I admit that there are pockets when I wrongly think the gospel is more for those who haven’t yet received its healing. But the fact of the matter is that I never stop needing the gospel of grace. And neither do you.

O LORD,

I am a shell full of dust, but animated with an invisible rational soul and made new by an unseen power of grace. Yet I am no rare object of valuable price, but one that has nothing and is nothing, although chosen of thee from eternity, given to Christ, and born again; I am deeply convinced of evil and misery of a sinful state, of vanity of creatures, but also of the sufficiency of Christ.

When thou wouldst guide me I control myself. When thou wouldst be sovereign I rule myself. When thou wouldst take care of me I suffice myself. When I should submit to thy providence I follow my will. When I should study, love, honour, trust thee, I serve myself. I fault and correct thy laws to suit myself. Instead of thee I look to a man’s approbation, and am by nature an idolater.

Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to thee. Convince me that I cannot be my own God, or make myself happy, nor my own Christ to restore my joy, nor my own Spirit to teach, guide, rule me. Help me to see that grace does this by providential affliction, for when my credit it good thou dost cast me lower, when riches are my idol thou dost wing them away, when pleasure is my all thou dost turn it into bitterness.

Take away my roving eye, curious ear, greedy appetite, lustful heart; show me that none of these things can heal a wounded conscience, or support a tottering frame or uphold a departing spirit. Then take me to the cross and leave me there.

“Man A Nothing” pp. 166-67, The Valley of Vision

Twentieth Anniversary

2010-01-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

There is an ancient Roman god whose namesake carries the first month of our year. He is called Janus. Perhaps you have seen his depiction before? Janus was the double-faced (sometimes quadruple-faced) “deity” locked in a gaze perpetually and simultaneously looking backward and forward. He was the gatekeeper, the guardian of beginnings and endings, seer of the past and the future. His image was set in doors, portals and archways all over the Roman world, none of which was more prominent than the doors of his temple in the Roman Forum ritually opened in times of war and closed in (rare) times of peace. Janus was thought to govern during times of transition such as at marriage, birth, and death. But there was a nasty side to Janus as well; to be called Janus-faced was to be accused of duplicity and double-dealing as Shakespeare alluded, “Now, by two-headed Janus / Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time” (Merchant of Venice, Act i, Sc.1.)

I always felt “pity” for Janus, in a historical sense—if pity is the right word. He was a slave to his own dominion—locked in a double-existence—unable to relax his stare enough to focus upon or enjoy the present. He was in a prison of discontent looking out though the door’s peep-hole, yet never “being” in the room in which he found himself.

By glorious contrast to the invented deities of man’s religions stands the Lord Jesus Christ—the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is Lord over time, not subject to time, but amazingly He stepped into time in order to make Himself known to us in a way that we could understand. He is sovereign over happenings, not subject to them or merely gazing at them from a marbly, mute and catatonic state. Jesus is not a gatekeeper merely; He is the Gate, the Door. He is not bound merely to the past and future; He brings the past and the future into the knowable present—full of color and sensation and relationship.

The reason this mute demon called Janus comes to mind this January is fully connected to our beginnings and endings as a church family this January 2010 marked by our 20th anniversary as a local church. Unhesitatingly, it is not the “two-headed Janus” who “frames” our space or time governing over our beginnings and endings here in the 2010th year of our Lord or presiding over our 20th anniversary as Fellowship Bible Church of Siloam Springs. Nor is it some cold doctrine of Fate that steers the flow of time or space. Nor it is we ourselves who guard the threshold of this new year or guide our own transitions. It is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who frames, governs, presides, steers, guards, and guides us—not in marble, but in glory—the true and living Head of the church. “Thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Sam 7:12). Hallelujah!

Christ Before the Manger

2009-12-07T11:14:00.001-08:00

The story of Christmas does not begin in Bethlehem. I have seen it even in our recent journey through the key relationships in the book of Genesis. Perhaps retracing our steps through the “Book of Generations” will add a depth to the wonder of the Christmas story this December.

Jesus is the promised deliverer, “the Seed of the woman,” who will crush the head of the tempter (3:15).

Jesus is the descendent of Seth, the Chosen One (5:3).

Jesus is likened to the Ark of salvation into which Noah and his family entered for rescue from judgment (6:18-19).

Jesus is the Blessing of Shem into whose tents we can go (9:26).

Jesus is the Son of Abraham through whom “all the families of the earth will be blessed” (12:3).

Jesus is One to whom Abraham paid homage, named “Melchizedek, the King of Salem, priest of the Most High God” (14:18).

Jesus is the Angel of the LORD who saw, heard and delivered Hagar in the wilderness; twice (16:9; 21:17).

Jesus is the God-Man who rained judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah (18:32).

Jesus is the truly the “Son, the only Son, whom [the Father] loves” actually offered in place of Isaac as the “Sacrifice on Mount Moriah”; the provision that “God Himself will see to” and execute completely (22:2,8).

Jesus is the Blessed-Wrestler who limps Jacob and renames him Israel (32:24-25).

Jesus is the innocent One likened unto Joseph who is betrayed by his brothers, thrown into the pit and into jail and left for dead, falsely accused by strangers, forgotten by friends; who arises to supremacy and forgives his enemies (chs. 37-45). Jesus, like Joseph, is the deliverance of Israel who comes up out of Egypt—“out of Egypt I have called My Son” (cf Matthew 2:15).

Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah; “the scepter will not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from beneath his feet until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (49:9-10).

This casts a different light on the Babe, born in a manger—majesty wrapped in fragility. He is great, but only recognized by the margin of society. He is the only Savior of the world, but the world esteemed Him as unworthy. He is in plain sight to all, but hidden from all outside of faith. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

Thanksgiving Providence

2009-11-09T18:52:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving—eucharisteo: 1. to be grateful, feel thankful 2. to give thanks

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting And His faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 100:4-5).

On Christmas Day, 1620, the first work party left the Mayflower harbored in Plymouth Bay to begin building houses and laying out their settlement in the “New World.” The winter of 1620-21 was dreadful for Governor William Bradford and Plymouth Colony as they watched half of their family and friends die. All through the winter the pilgrims only saw a few indigenous Americans from a distance. But on March 16, 1621 a solitary native named Samoset walked into Plymouthtown and greeted the half-starved colonists in broken English! (Can you imagine?) Samoset returned the next day with another remarkable native-American named Tisquantum (Squanto) who spoke the king’s English fluently. (Well, blimey!) With the particular help of Squanto, the colonists learned how to grow crops, gather fish, hunt game and prepare for the looming winter months ahead of time—allowing for a tremendously bountiful harvest the next autumn.

But it is the story of Squanto that inspires (and comforts) me this November. You see, Squanto’s story before he greeted the English colonists in fluent English is absolutely remarkable. About ten years before the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Bay young Squanto with others from his Wampanoag tribe went out to greet and trade with other English explorers under the leadership of Captain Hunt, with whom they apparently had friendly dealings. But Captain Hunt double-crossed them and kidnapped them to sell in the slave market of Europe. A well-meaning Spanish monk bought Squanto, treated him well, and taught him the Christian faith, as well as a number of European languages. Squanto eventually arrived in England in the care of one, John Slaney, who sympathized and determined to send Squanto back to America. The chance to return to America in 1619 brought Squanto to the devastating news that his entire tribe was wiped out by an epidemic. He was alone in the world.

About a year later Squanto met the pilgrims who had settled the same land his tribe had previously inhabited. He befriended them—knowing full well the risks involved. And the rest is Thanksgiving history. According to the diary of Pilgrim Governor William Bradford, Squanto “became a special instrument sent of God for [our] good…. He showed [us] how to plant [our] corn, where to take fish and to procure other commodities…and was also [our] pilot to bring [us] to unknown places for [our] profit, and never left [us] till he died.”

Have you had a year full of unknowns (like the pilgrims) only to find “God-sent” helpers along the way greeting you in your mother-tongue? Have you had a year full of disappointments and unfairness (like Squanto) when all of a sudden you realize that your hardships actually qualify you to help someone else in need? There is no God-forsaken place!

Fright vs. Fear

2009-10-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

How easily distracted we are from engaging the things that scare us. Well, that is, normally. This week, however, we will engage, coax, entice, imitate, and set aside time specifically for “fright.” Halloween is a debate all by itself within the Christian sub-culture, but the very fact that it is firmly embedded inside and oddly endearing to our cultural psyche betrays our love/hate relationship with “fright.”

Lucy, in the Peanuts classic, “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown,” has this wonderfully wry comment as she dresses in her ghastly witch’s costume that the rationale in selecting a Halloween costume is to pick one that is exactly opposite your normal personality. She, the witchiest of all the Peanuts gang, really thinks she is the saintliest!

But all the same, whether we dress up like witches or denounce participating in the pagan revelries of Halloween at all, we like to dabble in fright. It sends surges of adrenaline (which fuels the flight impulse) or noradrenalin (which fuels the fight impulse) through our moderately passive bloodstream all the other 364 other nights of the year. We like to tease the brain—which God made to expertly respond to potentially harmful stimuli with an amazingly complex cooperation of nervous, circulatory, endocrine, respiratory, and muscular systems of confront a dangerous world—without actually having to be in danger. Why else do we rent the suspense thrillers? Why else do we skydive? Why else do we caffeinate every morning? We like the rush of energy without exactly inviting the danger to come too close. Sometimes, ironically, we have even come to depend on the chemicals associated with fighting or fleeing fright in order to feel “alive.”

But fear, on the other hand, exists outside the material world; beneath the layer of "fright." What Lucy does not touch on and what Halloween cannot unfold is that we have deep fear even without the physical stimulus of fright. We automate fear in our minds and souls, quite separately from our brains and hearts. What do we do with this kind of fear—the fear of a spiritual kind? These are the fears that send us into panic, that cause us to lose sleep (or lose the desire to stop sleeping). These are the fears that color our perception of reality, feeding themselves and providing false validation that danger really exists, even when it does not—a filter through which we interpret all our experience. This kind of fear is debilitating; and it is inseparable from the human condition on this, the “dark side” of Eden.

A blog’s thimbleful of discussion on this ocean of fear is hardly worthy of the time to write or read. But may it be at least a post-sign hammered into the earth next to our journey’s pathway. We live in, with, beside fear—what will we do with it?

Gary Smalley in his book, The DNA of Relationships, provides a great starting point for this entire subject—especially when two fearful people interact with their fears and with each other in close and prolonged proximity. Fear is where we live, but will we obey it as our master? We can react to fear, which almost always takes the shape of self-protection or self-exaltation, which leads to lashing out against or withdrawing from those people who have wittingly or unwittingly triggered our hurts, which uncovers a unmet want/need, which aggravates more fear, which triggers the other person’s hurts, unmet wants/needs, fears, etc. It is a “dance”; it is a vicious cycle, and it is a graceless relationship. Sometimes, it seems like we react to our fear in precisely the way that causes the greatest fear in our “dance partner” to shout out.

But there is another way; the vicious cycle of reacting to fear can be broken. We can in faith respond to fear (with God’s power!), taking personal responsibility for our “pieces” of the situation, giving God our wants/needs, choosing to forgive and ask for forgiveness quickly and frequently, redefining what it means to “win” so that both parties can feel honored and cared for, and keep our own “batteries charged” so that fear (which never really goes away) can trigger us to greater faith (instead of flesh) during the next cycle around this "dance floor."

So, take your frights out this Saturday night, but leave your fears at the foot of the cross. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear” (Psalm 46:1-2).

October 25, 2009 -- A Mighty Fortress (Psalm 46)

October 18, 2009 -- Abraham & Isaac (Genesis 22)

I Can't Believe I Missed Grace

2009-10-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I missed grace. Having spent my normal, week-long meditation upon, study of, and writing out the sermon on Genesis 12:10-20--and my 30 minutes actually preaching it from the pulpit--I still missed it. It was only after the sermon, after the closing song, after meeting and greeting the people as they filed out of the auditorium that Don mentioned, "Isn't that amazing about grace." "Was grace in the passage this morning?" I thought.

Hmmm. Yes, there it is. In the middle of the details and the narrative of this ancient passage is the presence and extension of grace. I can't believe I missed grace.

Even though Abram blew it royally (hiding behind Sarai as a human shield, literally) he was still given great wealth: "and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys..." (vs. 16). Even though he, humanly speaking, threatened the "seed" aspect of the covenant by putting Sarai into danger--she was absconded into the harem of Pharaoh because Abram did not believe that God would indeed protect him like he said He would--"I will bless you...and the one who curses you I will curse" (vs. 3). Even though he proceeded forward with his dastardly premeditated "Plan B" to protect his interests (even above his wife's welfare)...God still allowed Abram to receive great wealth through the agency of Pharaoh!

That's a picture of grace if ever there were one! God actively shows His favor toward the ones who are actively disfavorable in identity and activity.

You know what, I can believe I missed grace--I've missed it so many times. But even to this actively disfavorable one--who misses grace despite a complete work-week spent hovering around this passage--God actively shows His favor for His own glory.

Here's the link to the audio file, but don't miss grace like I did:
www.fellowshipsiloam.org/audio/2009_10_04_ABE&SARAH

Image of God

2009-09-11T12:44:00.001-07:00

Image is not left entirely to the imagination. While there is great speculation about what the “image of God” stamped into each and every human might include—reason, communication, conscience, intellect, love, freedom, compassion, trichotomy of body, soul, spirit, immortality of the spirit, creativity, capacity to receive the word of God—there are some definite pieces we can know for certain.

Sprite® ads suggest that “image is everything.” Life coaches might suggest that image is anything you can think it to be. But God communicates that image—His image, which He has woven into us as integral to our being as DNA is to our body—conveys dignity, ownership, responsibility, and a unified plurality that is above gender, above ability, above productivity, above culture, and above time.

Whatever it might be—and many speculations are probably part of the recipe, no doubt—the “image of God” at a bare minimum carries these characteristics (my working definition):

· The image of God makes humans unique to all of creation in essence, long before human behavioral traits were even in operation.
· The image of God is bestowed upon males and females together.
· The image of God privileges all humans with such inherent dignity that if a human life is taken, the human life of the aggressor is forfeited (Gen 9).
· The image of God makes humans more like God (in a non-physical sense) than the rest of creation; yet without making humans mini-gods in any sense.
· The image of God transfers the unified plurality of the Godhead to the unified plurality of humans in some sense, particularly in the marriage bond.
· The image of God makes relationship with the Trinity possible, desirable, and enjoyable in a way that no other created thing understands or participates; not even the angels. And likewise, somehow the image of God makes relationship with spouses possible, desirable, and enjoyable in a way that is unparalleled in any other corner of creation.
· The image of God is also functionally connected to the role given to man and woman to rule and subdue the earth—in other words, humans were specifically designed to be God’s vice-regents on earth, uniquely connected to the earth yet specially inbreathed by the breath of God and imprinted with the image of God.

The person on your left, on your right, speaking into the microphone that is relayed through your radio, teaching your children, washing your car, sharing your name, getting mail at your mailbox, looking back at you in the bathroom mirror—each one bears the “image of God.” The question then is this—how are you bearing that Image? How are you relating that Image in your spider-web of relationships? How are you fleshing out that Image at work, at play, at home, at church, at large? We were imaged for a reason.

Breaking Inertia

2009-08-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

The hardest part is just getting started. Today was back to school day. The kids are all extra tired, overwhelmed, convinced that their subjects are too hard and their days are too long, at least one of their teachers is too strict, and sure that something like a 5-paragraph essay looms in the near future. "Yes, that may be true" begins the Dad reply, "but you have just done the hardest part--you have broken inertia." [Disregard the "what's inertia?" whine.]

Supertechnically, there must be more inertia in late August facing a return to *school* than there is keeping the space shuttle on its launch pad. Gravity must have greater influence in the matters of transitioning a child's orientation from Summer to Fall. But the hardest part is over. To fully break free from the gravitational pull of summer will take a full month, true. But the hardest part of the hardest part is over.

So it is with all of us, whether we return to school or to the post-summertime routine. Ah, yes, but the hardest part is almost over now that we have crossed through that eventless/eventful "first day" threshold. Perhaps there will be a groove we can all find. Perhaps there will be an updraft we can all navigate. Perhaps there will be a little more confidence, a little more determination, a little more delight in "day two." Perhaps we will find that grace is already in place. Well ... you know ... the hardest part of the hardest part is just getting started. Lord, help us.

Can't Be Polite About This

2009-08-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

To tell you the truth, I am so completely fed up … sick and tired … downright spitting angry at my pesky, tricky, uninvited, unrelenting tendency toward sin (e.g. my “flesh”). Grrr. No matter if I fill my mind with the higher virtues of grace and mercy, practice love and generosity, or meditate on patience and contentment—my “flesh” is there the whole time, as able to poison the work of God in me after a breakthrough in spiritual development as it is able to calcify the work of God in me after a breakdown in spiritual discipline. Double Grrr.

In our Christian subculture we often talk in such ways to suggest that one of our core values is politeness; that impoliteness is a chief sin. But I can't be polite about this—I hate sin. More specifically and because I have a front row seat, I hate my sin. I hate my expertise in sinning. I hate my self-justification before, during, and after sinning. I hate that my sins are thematic; that they are often the same core issues reemerging over and over again. I hate that my sin never remains just my sin; it eeks out to harm those whom I love dearly, whether directly or indirectly (there are no victimless sins). I hate, Hate, HATE this.

Sure, the Lord has caused me to be faithful with regard to those sins that are culturally unacceptable: stealing, murdering, speaking against University of Arkansas sports teams. But I hate my sin with regard to those culturally acceptable vices: self-righteousness, self-ambition, self-exaltation. True, these so-called “minor” sins rarely see the “light of day,” but they run like mice in the walls of my heart. “Don’t appear weak.” “Make sure he knows it was you who did that kind deed.” “Don’t be the first one to apologize.” “If you can’t win, don’t play at all.” “Keep some leverage for the future.” Triple Grrr.

But the piece that infuriates me most; I can’t overcome my “flesh” with my “flesh.” In other words, I am powerless to correct, not to mention cure, my internal bend toward self, which operates in league with the world system and the enemy (1 John 2:15-18). I cannot strengthen my resolve to stand against my pride, for instance, or else my resolve becomes self-righteousness because it does not spring from faith in Christ. I cannot strengthen my humility enough to undo my tendency to put my wants/needs ahead of those wants/needs of others or else my humility becomes a dead work. I cannot successfully tell myself, “Don’t think of revenge, don’t think of revenge, don’t think of revenge” without … you guessed it … thinking of revenge more than ever. In the end I am doubly wrong—for the sin and for the attempt at self-redemption to fix myself. I cannot overcome my “flesh” with my “flesh.” Hallelujah, we are forgiven for even these sins through the perfect propitiation of Christ’s sacrifice—nevertheless, I hate that I am powerless in my own strength to escape sin’s gravitation pull on me.

But there is hope. Although we cannot overcome our “flesh” with our “flesh,” we were never meant to be our own messiah. The one Messiah is Messiah enough for the universe and for all time. Stop trying to overcome and start trusting that Christ has already overcome the world, the devil, and yes … even the principle of sin housed in what we call “the flesh.” This is the life of faith—“put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Romans 13:14). Grrreat is our God!

A Better Country

2009-07-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

John Adams on the thrilling occasion of the successful vote to make a formal Declaration of Independence wrote to his wife Abigail back at the farm in Massachusetts, “I am apt to believe that [this day] will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty” (David McCullough, John Adams, 2001, p. 130).

Language was drafted. A document was written. And on July 4, the Declaration of Independence was ratified, authenticated, and printed thus formally and publicly severing America’s allegiance with Great Britain. All of this, of course, was high treason; punishable by death—but the chance to create a better country from scratch was worth it.

It is a great page out of the history books; one that fills me with pride and gratitude. I wave the red, white, and blue with my chest out and my chin up. For many Americans this event is so sacred an event that even to suggest that it is eclipsed by a greater, a better, a higher idea sounds like betrayal.

Yet, there is something that eclipses even this euphoric nostalgia and reverie; as great and as proper as it is. Adams alluded to it himself in a letter written on the eve of the historic vote, “there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of equal importance to mankind” (p. 126). America pales in comparison to the New Jerusalem.

Ours is a great history; but there is a better Story. Ours is a marvelous citizenship; but it is secondary at best to our true citizenship to the kingdom of Christ—just as real and true as our precious republic, and even more so, though it is temporarily invisible. Our ideal civil government with its genius balance of power, “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is gloriously eclipsed by “the Son given to us upon whose shoulders the government will be, whose name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Ours is a good country; but there is an even better country still…infinitely so. Come, Lord Jesus.

“All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them” (Hebrews 11:13-16).

Soul Addition

2009-06-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Soul addition, what a concept. I am sure that I am not alone in my ability to mindlessly rattle off several of the usual culprits and conditions that famously subtract from the soul. [Deleted is my quick list that offers nothing constructive--ugh!] But to list ingredients that actually add to the soul ... now that is tough. And if I have difficulty in thinking of soul-health-additives, then how precarious is my soul at the edge of malnutrition.

With the season of summer, the *sigh* in the middle of the year, and the blessing of vacation, I want to be about soul addition. Brainstorm with me--what adds to the soul? And more specifically, what adds to your soul? My list is just an impetus. Add your own edits.

*Silence adds to my soul (in limited doses)

*Natural beauty and grand, non-industrialized landscapes add to my soul

*Laughter, music, coffee, and art add to my soul

*Tears for someone other than myself (admittedly rare) add to my soul

*Companionship can add to my soul, but not to the exclusion of solitude

*Realizing my incredible smallness in comparison to the current in which I swim surprisingly adds to my soul

*Fresh-fruit smoothies and the Sunday comics must make this list of soul addition

*A sharp pencil with a good eraser and a blank sheet of paper adds to my soul

*Deliberate "pausing"--being intentionally unproductive--adds to my soul (but I cringe each time)

*Exercise adds to my soul, especially hiking on new-to-me trails

*Fireflies at dusk and dragonflies at noon add to my soul (not mosquitoes, however)

*Experiencing the bliss of my wife and children when they are finding soul addition adds to my soul

*Crumbling up this and all lists adds to my soul...

Birthday Contemplation

2009-05-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

"Happy Birthday, Daddy!" the kids told me this morning as if they didn't remember accusing, umm I mean wrongly concluding, that I turn 45 instead of 35 today. After all, what is one digit in the tens column? It is just a number, right? It is just being born in 1964 instead of 1974. It is just a decade. [On the subject of feeling 45 years old instead of the 35 years that I actually am, I will not comment here (smirk!)]

As is common, my birthday used to be the most important day of the year for me--or at least tied with Christmas, which was a "me" day all the same. Birthdays are not such a big deal anymore. By comparison, my anniversary is far more significant a milestone each year. For that matter, my wife's birthday is a far more brilliant day in the cosmic scene of things. And for that matter, my kids' birthdays are more highly decorated than my birthday as well. My birthday might rank somewhere near Groundhog Day (February 2) or Flag Day (June 14)!

"What do you want for your birthday?" went the conversation this birthday-eve. Sure, I want a pair of channel-lock pliers large enough to fix that PVC pipe fitting on the garden pond waterfall. Sure, I want a steak and potato on the grill. Sure, I want a camera that can actually do a decent job with depth-of-field aperture shots. But I would far rather save up any blessing that might come to me on "my" day and pass it along to my wife and kids. I can honestly say that I don't need anything more or want anything different for my brithday--I already have it in spades.

Anyway, such is my birthday contemplation. But, as it seems in my head as I write these sentiments, any contemplation about important days during my humble trips around the sun must esteem one day above the others; my death and re-birth day, when by faith I died with the Lord Jesus and in faith rose again in His resurrection ... the day God caused me to connect all these dots, confessing with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in my heart that God raised Him from the dead resulting in salvation (Romans 10:9-10) ... the first Sunday in January 1991.

Pesky Patterns

2009-05-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Why does it have to be this way? Act I. In order to clean up the bedroom--I mean really clean it--we first have to make it messier. Out come the boxes and clutter from under the bed. The dust bunnies have to be herded into open before the vacuum can pull them into the corral. The winter clothes have to relinquish their hangers before the spring clothes have a spot in the closet. Two hours into the project, the bedroom is most definitely messier than it started. Granted two more hours later the bedroom looked and smelled great! But the pattern is a kick in the ribs--messier before cleaner.

Why does it cost money to save money? Act II. As a family, we decided to trim back on our utilities bill. The home phone is hardly used as our cell phones are always on, so off with that feature. The extra cable stations show nothing but infomercials, Texas Hold 'Em games (is that even a sport?!), and reruns of Hannah Montana, so off with that feature. The high-speed broadband Internet signal ... well ... two out of three is a good start, let's just leave that feature alone. [Anyway, the chances for family mutiny greatly increase with threats to tamper with the Internet connection.] But in chopping off those two features, we no longer qualify to get the "bundle" rate on Internet and basic cable so the savings per month were not nearly as deep as we hoped. And, on top of that, we also had to return the equipment the cable company was "loaning" us as a perk with the larger service package. So in the end, we had to pay $50 to save $60. The pesky pattern holds.

Why does spiritual growth require pain? Act III. We all want to grow in our spiritual maturity, but there is always destruction before there is construction. It is never just starting afresh and anew; there must be excavation of the heart and the mind, plumbing the depths of personal motives, confessing sin, and initiating conversations that have been long avoided. Two steps into the process and we are far more broken than we bargained. Faith says two steps more before we see any progress, but the pattern is easily disheartening; disheartening, that is, unless we doggedly keep the end result in sight.

Lord, answer me, demanded Job. But God's answer was too much for Job to stomach. Lord, show me Your glory, Moses prayed. But the glimpse unglued him. Lord, allow that my sons, James and John, sit at Your right and Your left. But the request was far too bitter for them to endure. Lord, please take this thorn in my flesh away, pleaded Paul in triplicate. But the removal of this pain would unravel so much that the Lord had already cultivated in Paul's heart and mind.

Were it not for the promise of the Lord's presence, none of us could bear this pesky pattern--brokenness yielding restoration, mourning yielding dancing, weeping yielding rejoicing. But we have a High Priest who not only knows this pattern theoretically from a distance. Our High Priest knows this pesky pattern experientially and so empathizes with all who follow Him through pain to paradise. Lord, please take this cup from Me ... not My will, but Yours be done.

Working Your Part

2009-05-01T13:16:00.000-07:00

Good job, good job … in a close game an R.B.I. is just as good as a hit—applauded my daughter’s softball coach. Her teammates cheered in agreement, “Yeay, Emma!” Though narrowly thrown out at first base, she drove in a lead-changing runner from third base. It was marked down as a fielder’s choice in the box score, but Emma showed a question mark on her face. “Dad, what’s an R.B.I.?” she asked me through the chain link fence as I sat in the drizzle in a faded blue fold-out chair. This was her first at-bat in her first game in her first season of softball. “An R.B.I. is a run-batted-in … you forced the other team to make a throw to first base to get you out so that your teammate could score. In a close game, an R.B.I. is as good as a hit. You worked your part so the team could succeed.” “Oh.” The significance still hadn’t dawned on the rookie.

“Oh!” Working your part so the team could succeed—the significance still hasn’t fully dawned on the veteran either. The month of May brings many things—flowers, pollen, end-of-the-year testing, graduation, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day—but it also brings analogies for life from the ball field. Though most of us do not wear team jerseys anymore, we are still players on many teams: family, work, community, church, etc. Yet, do we often realize that our individual contribution plays a larger role in the team’s success? Our participation sets into motion, creates the space, offers the time, holds back the opposition so that success, growth, advancement, progress, unity can mark a run scored in the cosmic box score. It is never just a random at-bat that leaves no mark in the overall team experience—it is one of relatively few at-bats that causes the other team to expend the energy to pitch and catch, that elevates the pitch count, that weakens the pitcher’s arm for later innings, that could allow her fastball to lose some steam, that could allow another player make contact with a pitch she could not turn on in earlier innings, that requires the shortstop to have to run deep into the gap to field the groundball, that leaves her off balance so that her throw to first base is off-target, that allows the game winning runner to reach third, so that when a rookie approaches the plate for the first time her humble contribution scores the lead-changing run. There is great significance in working your part so the team can succeed.

Paul said it this way, “the whole body [think: ‘team!’], being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16). “Oh.”

What is your part? What is your role? What is your contribution? What is your piece? Yours is not a random at-bat; it is one of relatively few that counts within the entire flow of the team and the conclusion of the game. Work your part so that the team can succeed. Individual stats are meaningless when compared to the end result of the team. “Wow!” May the significance fully dawn on all of us.

Kevin Rees, May 1, 2009

Cannot Spend Our Way Out of Recession

2009-04-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

Money is on my mind ... not only because of our church's participation with the free, live event via streaming video with Dave Ramsey's "Town Hall for Hope" (this Thursday at 7p CST, www.townhallforhope.com/), but also because money is on nearly every news show, in very many conversations over backyard fences, and because the bills keep showing up in my mailbox. It is even on the international scene. At the request of a friend who intelligently keeps his finger on the pulse of "all things current," I watched a video from the UK parliament about ... you guessed it, money. But the conclusion ... well ... hit the money. "Prime Minister," one Daniel Hannan said, "you cannot spend your way out of recession; you cannot borrow your way out of debt" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs). Wow, that is different from what I am hearing about money on those news shows. I am ready to get even more serious about standing in the freedom of frugality and even more resilient to the worldview that shouts, "Spend more money now." [I hope you can attend a "Town Hall for Hope" event at our church or one of the many other venues nationwide.] We must not give in to fear. "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ... but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:31,33-34).

Proximity Does Not Equal Nearness

2009-04-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

Devotion involves motion. Sometimes abrupt, sometimes steady, sometimes slight—but devotion involves motion. But even that statement—devotion involves motion—seems like a shallow echo of its deeper punch. Devotion demands motion! However, motion is not necessarily a physical characteristic. Devotion demands motion at our spiritual core. At times devotion compels and propels us to “go out, not knowing where we are going” (Hebrew 11:8). But devotion-motion might also cycle at full-tilt internally while our feet remain at home. Devotion demands spiritual motion … and all spiritual motion intersects Calvary.

I am awed at the microcosm at Calvary. Around the crossof Christ, during the day of His crucifixion, even at the precise moment of his death at 3pm when “He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46)—a full representation of humanity orbits. Many are in physical motion that dark day; but not all motion is devotion-motion. The “centurion” (Luke 23:47) is on shift duty; initially there because he has to be there. The “crowd” (Luke 23:48) is present because, frankly, they want to be there in a disturbing circus-kind of darkness. The apostles, reduced to anonymous “acquaintances” (Luke 23:49a) are there, but not really … close enough to see, but far enough to elude identification with Christ and risk their own arrest. The “women” are there, as close as their appropriate fragility will allow, but the pain is sharp. They will be the first witnesses of the resurrection.

Within these four groups everyone is represented and every response to Calvary is demonstrated: a volitionally thoughtful response, the frenzied and cursory response, the painfully passive response, and the acutely emotional response. But proximity to Calvary does not equate nearness to Christ. The crowd is closer than the women, but the women understood the deeper punch of Calvary. The women seemed to be shoulder-to-shoulder with the apostle/acquaintances, but the apostles were elsewhere internally. The soldier ought to have been so desensitized to Roman crucifixions by this point in his career, but he kept rapt attention to all that was happening with “this Man” (Luke 23:46). All of humanity orbits Calvary, voluntarily or involuntarily, but not all land on the Mount of Crucifixion. Many hover around the vicinity of Christ, but few cling to the cross of Christ.

Devotion demands motion … motion of the spiritual nature. It is the motion that breaks the inertia of sedentary spirituality. It is the motion that moves us from onlookers to witnesses wherever our feet happen to be physically. Let me suggest taking two steps. The first step: step into the narrative … which role do you fill? The second step: wherever your starting point happens to be, step toward Christ by faith. May these two steps be the first of many as the Lord moves you from onlooker to witness. “Almost” is never close enough to the nearness of God in Christ Jesus.

Kevin Rees, April 3, 2009

The Clash of Confidences

2009-03-25T09:47:00.001-07:00

Though I am reluctant to remember, I have been known to watch Saturday morning professional wrestling matches. In my pre-teen era, the "actors" in the canvas ring included such names as Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, and Randy "Macho-Man" Savage. The clashes were legendary ... staged, yes ... hyped up, certainly ... but legendary. Look out, your adversary might grab that metal folding chair when you're not looking or disoriented from the pile-driver or the suplex from the top rope. "One, two, three, that's a match, folks."

But the clash of confidences lives on, interestingly enough, in the ring of spirituality. And this challenge dwarfs any of the professional wrestling matches in any era. In the blue corner, religion. In the red corner, relationship with Jesus Christ. There could be no more diametrically opposed adversaries than these--religion and relationship. Allow me to run down a list of synonyms that sheds light on what I mean.

Religion is man-made; attempting to please God with the things we can do and generate. Relationship is God-given; standing upon the fact that Jesus pleased God for us, doing everything perfectly on our behalf.

In the blue corner is trying. In the red corner is trusting. In the blue corner is striving. In the red corner is resting. So the contrast continues: flesh vs. Spirit, law vs. grace, works vs. faith, duty vs. love, have-to vs. want-to, complying vs. obeying, never-ending vs. once-and-for-all, death vs. life, the curse of Adam vs. the blessing of Christ, slavery vs. freedom, external vs. internal, image conscious vs. heart conscious, renovation vs. regeneration, Pharisees and the Sadducees vs. Christ and the apostles, oral tradition of men vs. the written Word of God, Old Covenant vs. New Covenant, the blood of bulls and goats vs. the blood of the perfect Lamb of God.

Christ has exposed the hollowness of man-made religion, challenged its confidence, and extended His hand of grace to rebuild a relationship severed since the Garden. "One, two, three, that's a match folks!" Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Up to Easter 2009

2009-03-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

Join us this season at Fellowship Bible Church as we march toward the center of our worship calendar—Resurrection Sunday, April 12. Even without the chocolate bunnies and the bright spring colors that Easter invariably and delightfully brings, this is a joyful and deliberate season of pilgrimage. We are marching to the cadence of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—with so many other born-again worshipers all over the world. It is a spiritual journey we all must personally take in faith—trekking up to the city of God to glimpse (for the first time or for the next time) upon the great love of Christ against the dark backdrop of our sin. But even with the personal nature of faith, our faith is never meant to be isolated from or insulated against those who walk these same, well-trodden paths up to Easter. We really are meant to sojourn together. Join us as we march, together fixing our eyes on Him.

Cheating Death

2009-03-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

There was frantic barking in the backyard. What was it this time? Did the dogs corral another mole? Is the meter-reader attempting a brave shortcut through our backyard? Is that frisky Border-collie taunting from the fence-less beyond? I gave it no second thought. But apparently Shellie did not so easily disregard chaos. She brought the report a few minutes later; her voice slightly frantic—“It’s a stray kitten. The dogs have a kitten and are tossing it around like a chew toy.”

It turned out that the kitten was not supper; not even bloody, just terribly slobbered upon. Shellie was somehow able to get the dogs into the garage, coaxing the kitten out from a corner, setting it free on the dog-less side of the fence. It sprinted off, but did not sprint away. Into the night the kitten meowed, taking residence in our van’s warm, dry, and safe engine compartment. Safe, that is, until we cranked the engine … which we mercifully didn’t do the next morning.

After extending to this rather foolish kitten water, food, and solitude over half the next day, we decided to double our efforts of scatting this cat. We turned on the van’s radio, misted the engine area with water from a spray bottle, rolled the van backward (without the engine), doused the cat with the garden hose, called Animal Control, and (with the officer’s help) finally started the engine. Surely that would scare it off. No.

This traumatized, wet, disoriented, sticky from dog slobber, stray kitten was decidedly not going to come out without a physical removal. With much effort the officer finally snagged the little … (ahem!) feline … but it wriggled free. And where did it run? IT RAN BACK TO OUR BACKYARD WHERE THE DOGS WERE WAITING. We darted to get the dogs in. The officer darted to pluck the kitten from the jaws of “round two.” How many lives this kitten has left is only a guess.

But the analogy of the story is its punch. Here we were attempting with great effort to show mercy and grace to this kitten; being even more cognizant of the danger than it was. Yet for all of our trying, the kitten was convinced that we were the enemy—sadistically heating up the environment, causing all kinds of racket, slinging water around on a cold and windy afternoon. And after a forceful deliverance, at first opportunity, the kitten attempted to dart straight back into the “lion’s den” where this whole escapade started. We are that kitten! In the jaws of our own sin and death—there was literally no escape. Mercy and grace stepped in, in the person of Jesus Christ, to rescue us. Yet in our frenzy, largely oblivious to the depths that rescue effort cost Him and meant to us, we run straight back to the danger from which we were plucked because we misinterpret His forceful rescue as malicious toying. Nevertheless, He will not let us wriggle away—even when that is all we want to do at times.

“I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30).

Kevin Rees, March 4, 2009

Sense of Wonder

2009-02-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

I THINK I UNDERSTAND a little bit -- a tiny bit -- of what Louis Pasteur once said, "The more I study creation, the more I see the Creator." Quite removed from freshman biology class, I am nevertheless amazed all over again at the level of complexity and interconnectivity in the created world. Whether I look into the most powerful electron microscope or the most powerful full-spectrum telescope, God is fully present. I would have to agree with David's rhetorical question, "Where can I flee from Your presence?" (Psalm 139:7). Not only is God everywhere; God is everywhere undiluted. It is not like somehow God is too little butter spread over too much bread (to butcher a line from J.R.R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring). With that in mind, there really is no "God-forsaken place;" that is except for the dark moments when Christ hung on Calvary's cross for our sins, crying out, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" The contrast between all time and that time is infinite. The comparison between all places and that place is unfathomable. "How precious are Your thoughts toward me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:17).

Reasons to Celebrate

2009-02-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

ORGANIZATIONALLY SPEAKING, there are some reasons to celebrate with regard to our three stated and church-wide goals for 2009 (and beyond!)—knowing Christ deeply, loving God and others authentically, and serving the world sacrificially.

Know. We celebrate a successful launch of the “Truth Project.” Each Sunday evening there are 46 participants assembling around living rooms for a DVD-based lecture and discussion series probing into the foundational and transformational dynamics of having and living a Christian worldview. If you missed out on this cycle, we hope to launch another 12-week cycle this summer. See Randy Blackwell for more information.

Love. We celebrate family; not only the idea of family, but also the determination to strengthen real families in real ways. Think and plan ahead toward participating in this year’s Weekend to Remember® with Family Life. In mid-May, this highly acclaimed marriage enrichment conference is coming to Rogers, AR. If enough couples sign up from FBC, we can qualify for a discounted group rate. See Nick DeYoung for more information.

Serve. We celebrate the amplification of our children’s ministry. Two new classes, a new curriculum, and several new volunteers have been added to better help our children to know Christ, love God & others, and serve the world. This has created multiple opportunities for the FBC body to use their gifts and resources to serve the world, starting right here at home … for only God knows to where in the world these children will zoom with the message of Christ. See Shellie Rees for more information.

Warmth from an Ice Storm

2009-02-14T17:25:00.000-08:00

AS THE FICKLE WINTER seems unable (or unwilling!) to make up its mind about the weather, I am genuinely warmed on this cold February morning by several instances of healthy “body life” within our church family here at Fellowship Bible Church. In fact, I am so moved by these instances that I am still thinking about them several days after the fact. I hope by the mere exercise of spelling them out in this newsletter that you too will be warmed regardless of winter’s general inhospitality.

On the day after the ice storm, while “professional minister” I was preoccupied with the temperature in my own living room several of our people were preheating their vehicles to go and check on the situation of others in the body. No prodding. No cajoling. No applause-seeking. They just quietly navigated the tree-strewn streets across town, pulled out some tools, spread some salt, fired up once or twice a chain saw and became my teachers. My guess is that these were not merely the first strong acts of quiet fellowship; but were midpoints in a long string of ministry.

That would have been enough to thaw out a dozen Februarys, but I was soon amazed at the number of FBCers who showed up to help clear the Blackwells’ property from heavy tree loss. That too would have been enough to remind me that love given in Christ’s name has long been part of the very fabric of FBC (long before I was called!), but I was floored at the willingness for TJ to preach last Sunday with literally no warning as I weakly waved the white flag of surrender to all of my microscopic “killjoys” having a party at my expense. That too would have been enough to melt my cynicism about the spiritual state of the modern church, but I realize that these examples of authentic community all happened in less than two weeks’ time. If an ice storm can bring out this kind of warmth, I wonder what spiritual crop a gentle spring might conjure.

Kevin Rees, February 2009