Thursday, March 28, 2024

Addicted to Lesser Things

 

In 2018, Francis Chan published a book titled Letters to the Church. In 2024, I borrowed that book from the library and started reading it. In just the second chapter, I began to feel excited, and perhaps a little chastised, by what I was reading.

Letters to the Church - Francis Chan

Having explained, in Chapter One, why he left the megachurch he helped establish, Chan bursts out of the starting gate of Chapter Two with a Scriptural examination of just how amazing and sacred the church is meant to be...and how all the modern emphasis on church growth and bringing in people with professionally-produced worship services is missing the mark.

"Through the cross, people of every nation and tongue become members of one body? Amazing! God Himself is joining His creation and allowing them to be a part of His body? Unbelievable!"

Chan talks about how "the modern church" has failed to see itself as the sacred organism it is and has sunken to using business models and entertainment models instead of the Spirit's guidance.

"I can't help but see our own lameness in failing to see the beauty in God's design for the Church. Heavenly beings are shocked by God's Church, while many on earth yawn. The early church didn't need the energetic music, great videos, attractive leaders, or elaborate lighting to be excited about being a part of God's body. The pure gospel was enough to put them in a place of awe.

Aren't you at least a little embarrassed that you have needed the extra stuff? It's not all your fault. For decades church leaders like myself have lost sight of the powerful mystery inherent in the Church and have instead run to other methods to keep people interested. In all honesty, we have trained you to become addicted to lesser things. We have cheapened something sacred, and we must repent."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...There's nothing inherently wrong with being a megachurch. But filling huge auditoriums is not a guaranteed sign that the Spirit is moving within. The WWF and the NFL can fill thousands of seats as people observe their events. And if a congregation is attracting people to a great show instead of a great savior...is it really a church?


Thursday, March 21, 2024

Everybody's Got the Blues Sometimes

 

Have you ever felt like, even though you want to think of yourself as a unique individual with a special set of abilities and experiences, there's nothing about you that really stands out?

John Koenig, in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, has a term for that:

the standard blues  -  n. the dispiriting awareness that the twists and turns of your life feel new and profound but are not unique - marked by the same coming-of-age struggles as millions of others, the same career setbacks, the same family strife, the same learning curve of parenting - which makes even your toughest challenges feel harmless and predictable, just another remake of the same old story. [A riff on blues standards, the catalog of the most popular songs in the blues genre, which is itself famous for chord progressions that cycle through variations on a theme.]

Playing the blues in a dark alley

Paul put it this way in 1st Corinthians 10:13 (CSB): "No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity." But then he adds this bit of encouragement: "But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...This reminds me of the words of Jesus in John 16:33 (NIV): "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world"


Thursday, March 14, 2024

Just When You Start Thinking You're Sooooo Important

 

Serving as an excellent bad example yet again, Bill Waterson's Calvin seems to think he has complete control over a small group of flowers.


Then, just as he really gets wound up with his self-importance, God steps in.



Truth is...By the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one. (Romans 12:3 CSV)


Thursday, March 7, 2024

I Need a Good Lawyer

 

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father  -  Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
I John 2:1


Here's the picture John draws: It's the courtroom at the end of all time; the final judgment. Lucifer serves as the prosecuting attorney. His table is piled high with affidavits and depositions and enough physical evidence to fill a storage unit.

On the opposite side is the space reserved for the defendant. That would be me...or you, if you're inclined to put yourself in the scenario. The counsel for the defense is Yeshua Barjoseph; commonly called Jesus Christ. The table where we sit is empty. No notes. No file folders. Not even a briefcase.

Behind the judge's bench, gavel in hand, is the lord of all creation, El Shaddai, Yahweh, the Almighty.

Even with this foreboding setup, I'm pretty sure it will be the shortest trial in the history of litigation.

LUCIFER: Your honor, you must find him guilty!

JESUS: Ah, but Father, look at the defendant. He is clothed in my righteousness.

YAHWEH: Not guilty! Well done, good and faithful servant! Come and share your master's happiness.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...Maybe there actually will be a guilty verdict, but it will be found that the sentence for my crimes has already been served. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." II Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)


Thursday, February 29, 2024

Listening for Yahweh's Voice

 

I recently read Why I Am Still Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere. Because I was raised in a church tradition that operated under the assumption that all direct communication from God ceased once the original apostles died off, I couldn't help but be a little wary of the book's testimonies of "how God speaks today through prophecies, dreams, and visions."

And yet, the humility with which Deere wrote and the Scriptures he pointed out and the personal testimony of my own son have all worked together to leave me open to the possibility of hearing and being led by God's "still, small voice."


And then, in today's reading from THE IMITATION OF CHRIST: Classic Devotions in Today's Language, by Thomas à Kempis (Compiled and Edited by James N. Watkins), I was directed to consider the words of Jesus in John 16:13-14...

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard...He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.


...and also the words of Thomas à Kempis...


Truly blessed are the ears that listen -- not to the sounds surrounding them -- but to the voice of Truth inside. Blessed are the eyes that are closed to outward things, but are focused on things within. Blessed are they who search inward things and study to prepare themselves by daily exercises for the receiving of heavenly mysteries. Blessed are they who long to have time for God and free themselves from every time-waster in the world. Think on these things, O my soul. Shut the doors of your selfish and sinful desires so you may hear what the Lord God will say within you.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...I am practically a slave to time-wasters and cultural noise, but I believe the lord of the universe is able to deliver me from evil and bring his kingdom to life within me here and now...on earth as it is in heaven.


Thursday, February 22, 2024

Parable of the Rotten Timbers

 

The following quote about the mighty warships of the 1700s (from The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann) set my mind to thinking.


“Most of the wood was hard oak, but it was still susceptible to the pulverizing elements of storm and sea. Teredo navalis--a reddish shipworm, which can grow longer than a foot--ate through hulls. (Columbus lost two ships to these creatures during his fourth voyage to the West Indies.) Termites also bored through decks and masts and cabin doors, as did deathwatch beetles. A species of fungus further devoured the ship's wooden core. In 1684, Samuel Pepys, a secretary to the Admiralty, was stunned to discover that many new warships under construction were already so rotten they were ‘in danger of sinking at their very moorings.’

“The average man-of-war was estimated by a leading shipwright to last only fourteen years. And to survive that long, a ship had to be virtually remade after each extensive voyage, with new masts and sheathing and rigging. Otherwise, it risked disaster. In 1782, while the 180-foot Royal George--for a time the largest warship in the world--was anchored near Portsmouth, with a full crew onboard, water began flooding its hull. It sank. The cause has been disputed, but an investigation blamed the ‘general state of decay of her timbers.’ An estimated nine hundred people drowned.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...I am reminded of the words of Jesus about building our houses on sand or rock (Matthew 7:24-27) and Paul's words about reaping what we sow (Galatians 6:7). Whatever a person entrusts their physical or spiritual well-being to had better be trustworthy. And guard yourself against what you think are just little things...but could eat away at your integrity until you're sunk.


Thursday, February 15, 2024

Land of My Sojourn

 

A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band ends the way it began...with Rich Mullins contemplating his earthly existence, God's sovereignty over it, and mankind's need for redemption.

Land of My Sojourn

And the coal trucks come a-runnin'
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin'
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin'
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
and I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you'll come to love it
And how you'll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I'll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city's best answer

And the countryside was pocked
With all of those Mail Pouch© posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

1993 - Edward Grant, Inc.
1993 - Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is..."I call you my country and I'll be lonely for my home and I wish that I could take you there with me" applies not just to living in America but to occupying Planet Earth. As Paul says in the New Living Translation of Romans 8:22 and 23, "We know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us."