No Matter What Happens . . .

No matter what happens in the elections tomorrow, our basis of hope doesn't change. If the candidate you want to win in fact wins, you have no more hope than you did before. If the candidate you want to win loses, you have no less hope then you did before. Not if your hope is in God.

I was blessed to attend a meeting last Saturday with others who are looking at how abortion might be abolished. One video that was shown was from a lawyer in Texas and some of the things he shared were stunning, eye opening, and took me to a place of remembering the Israelites wanting a king like other nations. (Please know that in what I am about to share I am not attacking a political party, but giving Christians some much needed clarity on where our hope really lies.)

In the video (and according to web pages I researched since seeing it) this man showed how in the last 48 years the Supreme Court has, for over half of those years, been filled with a majority of Republican appointed justices. In both major decisions that have "legalized" (then upheld) the abortion holocaust in our nation (Roe v. Wade in 1973, then Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992) there were a majority Republican appointed justices—in Roe v. Wade there were seven Republican appointed and two Democrat appointed. Only two justices voted against it, and one of those two was a Democrat! Then, in PP v. Casey, a chance to undermine Roe v. Wade, eight of the nine justices were Republican appointed! And, of the five who voted basically in favor of keeping Roe v. Wade, all were Republican appointees. In fact, in many (if not most, I would guess) of the chances to "legally" undercut abortion that have reached the Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade, the majority of the court in each time that didn't grab that moment were Republican appointees. And, I would guess (without researching) that in many of the other "values" issues decisions that Christians abhor, the majority on the court has been Republican appointed as well . . . and we've seen that even during a Republican controlled Congress our nation has only shifted farther and farther from the values we believe are God-honoring.

Please believe me when I say that I share this not to bash the Republican Party. For the most part I believe the Democratic Party is far worse on the values issues Christians should value, though in my heart I don't think either truly honors God. The Democrats as a party (not talking about individuals in either party) might be stronger advocates for the needy, etc., but that depends, I guess, on how you feel the needy are best helped. More on that in a moment.

My point in this is that our hope doesn't lie in any man, woman, or party. It is in God alone. As Christians we have prostituted ourselves out to anyone who'd "pay" us with some lines and promises we want to hear, then used and discarded us once our vote is secure. Many of those justices were appointed by the "heroes" of the Republican Presidents list. Many from people who promised us to overthrow Roe v. Wade. We, the army of the living God, are pandered to, paid, used, and cast aside . . . and we are so desperate for some earthly hope we keep running back for more, letting ourselves be used and soiled and sold into false hope over and over.

We keep looking for our earthly "king" who will lead us, be it a man or a party. Israel did the same thing, they wanted an earthly king that they could put their hope in—and God gave them what they wanted and said, in so doing, they had rejected Him as their king.

We can chant all the right verses, and sing all the songs, and be so theologically correct as we say this earth is not our home, etc., etc., but then we put our hope in this earth. I am not saying we shouldn't vote, but I am saying that our hope is not in man, or in a court, or in a party. It is in God alone, and God alone can save our nation. And it won't happen through any election, but when the people of this land repent, confess their sin, and cry out to God.

And we, the church, are lying in the soiled bed we have made, and we have ourselves to blame.

1. Don't like abortion? Great. Are we willing to take in the pregnant young woman we are telling abortion is wrong to and let her, and then her and her baby, live in our home for a year or two? 
2. Don't like the welfare system? Great. Are we feeding the poor, reaching out to the homeless? 
3. Don't like New Age movement? Great. Are we showing people the power of God that our spiritual DNA knows is real so people don't have to look elsewhere for it? Are we healing the sick, confronting demons and seeing them flee? Are the gates of Hell collapsing against the onslaught of the church as Jesus promised they would? 
4. Don't like the direction our youth are going? Great. Are we mentoring into the lives of the fatherless, the teens on the street, taking them in, giving them rides, hanging out with them and all their ways that are so "offensive" to us?
5. Don't like the condition of marriage, etc., in our nation? Great. What example are we showing them when our divorce rates match theirs?
6. Don't like their disrespect for God's written word? Great. What do we expect when we have compromised on it, said it isn't true, selectively picked the verses we believe in, etc.?
7. Don't like how people are constantly on their cell phones, etc.? Great. What have we shown them in our homes about family meals, keeping the TV off and just being a family, etc.?

Who is it God says is the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the ones who are to serve others, take care of the least, feed the poor, clothe the naked, reach out to the rejected, protect the defenseless, etc.? The church! And if we aren't then we have nobody to blame but ourselves when the government steps into that void we were created to fill. Is that kind of ministry messy, costly, sacrificial, inconvenient? Yes. But if we simply read one of the Gospels we will rapidly see God hasn't called us to walk in any path He didn't walk in Himself . . . and if we are truly following Him, then our life will look the same.

It is time for the church to decide, are we the army of the Living God, or the prostitute of politicians? If the first, we need to start living and hoping like it. If the second, then it is no wonder the nation uses us like a prostitute. But it doesn't start with Washington, it starts with us. And praise God that His mercies are new every morning because no matter what we've been (or not been) before, God draws close to the broken and humble and promises His cooperating presence and power to those that are following Him.

19 Years Ago & A Contrast of "Churches"

19 Years Ago

Isn't she beautiful!

I posted this picture on Facebook today with the comments: Nineteen years ago today was one of the best years of my life! Thanks, Lord, for bringing me an amazing wife! I love her more every day! If you had told me, 19 years ago today, that 19 years later we'd have 2 daughters, 2 cows, 5 chickens, be living on 40 acres, pastoring a church, and a volunteer fire fighter I'd have said you were crazy! God has such better plans for us than any we could make for ourselves! Multiple of you subscribed to this blog by email were there, that day, standing up front with us. Thanks for all of your love and support!


A Contrast of "Churches"
Yesterday we took some relatives from Germany to the building our fellowship meets at. It might have been the highlight of their visit, and it was a real eye opener for me. They were blown away that we had a kitchen in the building, a bathroom, and activities for the youth, as well as some rooms where we have special decorations and things for the smaller kids where they are taught special lessons geared toward their ages. Our relatives said that for them going to church was going into a building (with no bathrooms), sitting still for an hour, all ages together, and leaving. I found it such a contrast—where "church" is a building and a service. We strive so hard here to make the building and service second and to be the church, or body of Christ, a family. It was a reminder to me of how blessed we are to be family and to fellowship, and how grateful I am that the men I serve with and the body we are surrounded by don't want simply a building and a service, but to be Christ's body at work. It isn't always easy—we all have a lot of warts and bumps and imperfections, and we don't always get along or act in a way that would honor God—but the effort is so worth it. When "church" is simply a building or service it is not "church" the way God intends it. But when the body is the body, one member, together in love and united in Him with Him as the head, that is the church being the church the way God intended, and it will draw people to it and ultimately to Him.

Community

I have been teaching a lot lately on the body of Christ and how beautiful it is when the body is the body, and not isolated members. I truly believe Christ is only fully reflected and expressed when His whole body is living and working together, each contributing their unique gifts and callings, each loving and forgiving. Otherwise, the world doesn't need more of what it already has—lone rangers focused on themselves, dysfunction, hypocrisy, etc. It doesn't mean the body is perfect (there's a lot of hurt, pain, irritation, etc. in it at times), but how we deal with that will either reflect Him, or the flesh. At any rate, this post isn't intended to get deeply into that, but I wanted to share a blog post a lady in our fellowship sent me about this topic. I don't know enough about the author or site to endorse her or it, but I can say that this post, especially the 15 reasons at the end, really spoke to my heart and I think is well worth a read. With all the different "ideas" of what church, etc., is out there, I am sure anyone could whittle or pick apart or get theologically dissecting of parts of it if they really wanted to miss the whole concept it is expressing—but I think that would be missing the beautiful picture it paints of what Christ intended, I believe, His body to be like. Here it is:

http://www.incourage.me/2012/04/why-you-need-to-find-community-even-when-youre-really-hurting.html

God bless you all. Thanks for sharing in my life.   —Erick

Another's Job

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, "No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."   1 Sam 8:19-20

In my reading through 1 Samuel I recently went through the time when the people of Israel cried out for a king that he might judge them and fight their battles for them. God gave them what they wanted, though it meant they were rejecting Him as their king and, it seems to me, trusting in man to do for them what God would have done for and through them.

I wonder how many times we seek another to do what we should be doing? I think that this is a real danger in Christian circles—especially organized "church." That may sound funny coming from a pastor, but I think that one of the greatest dangers of organized "church" is that it can, if not handled well, encourage the body of Christ (the true church) to pass its responsibilities on to a few instead of being the body of Christ in fullness.

I do not go so far as to reject organized religion—I believe that Acts and the epistles makes it clear the early church met both in large groups, and regularly from house to house. I believe that it is clear they joined their resources to meet local needs within the body, and to support needs out of their area within the body. I believe it is clear God appointed some within the local parts of the body to be elders and teachers and pastors within it. But . . . if leaders aren't careful they can consolidate things around themselves out of ignorance, or insecurity, or love of power, or ???

Ephesians makes it clear that leaders are given to equip the body for the work of ministry—to equip all the believers to do the work of God, not to do the work of God for them. Granted, if they are paid and full time, they have more time to do some things that someone working at another full time job might not have, but it is far too easy for the body to just say, regarding visiting others, or praying for others, or doing the stuff that holds a body together, "Well, that's the pastor's job. That's what he's paid for," or other similar things regarding church staff, or the organized church itself. But, the New Testament makes it clear, the body is only fully functioning when each person does its part and uses their unique gifts to knit the body together.

One change I have made recently in our services is that I've stopped asking who has a prayer request and started asking who wants to be prayed for (there's often a big difference). In the past I've found that we might get 10–15 prayer requests, and very few would be writing them down. Then I, as the pastor, would pray and we'd move on. I am sure some got prayed for during the week, but I don't know how many.

Now I am asking, "Who wants to be prayed for?" The Bible says the gates of hell won't prevail against the church, and we are all, as believers, the church, so we are starting to bang on the gates of hell on behalf of one another. I must admit, since I started this we are getting a lot fewer prayer requests, but I feel we are probably a lot closer to what we are supposed to be doing.

After people who want to be prayed for express their need, or the need of someone they want to be prayed for, we go in to a time of prayer, usually about five minutes. I re-read the requests and then ask that each person desiring to be prayed for has at least a couple people join with them—maybe someone who the Spirit nudged toward them, or someone who has faced a similar issue. Everyone is free to get up and join someone or stay in their seats, or come up to the cross, it is all up to them. Then, start praying in small groups, with and for the person or persons asking for it. When I feel it is time I'll go and close that, but not without saying, "If you are still in a group and you feel you need to keep praying keep doing so, even if it means you are praying through all of the worship time and through my teaching."

This is just one small step, but it seems to be a good one from my eyes. I, as the pastor, don't have any more access to God than another believer does. The body must be the body, each part doing its part, each part realizing that church leaders are simply their brothers and sisters, called to different positions and parts in the body, but not any more special, any more loved by God, or with any more access to God than them. We have to be so careful to equip ourselves and to not ask others to do what God has asked us to do. Only when the body is fully functioning as the body will the world truly see Jesus expressed through us.

God bless you all. As always, I'd love your thoughts.   —Erick

Museum, or Workshop?

The fellowship I pastor is far from perfect. Beginning with me, we are all works in progress in our Christian life. While eternally completely forgiven, bearing Christ’s righteousness, and sealed in the adoption of the Holy Spirit, in the daily realm of life we all have struggles and victories, strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad days. We have days we (and I) love and bless one another, and days we (and I) let each other down and even wound one another. I would venture to say that any honest pastor would say the same thing about themselves and their fellowship.

The question is, I think, are we OK with that? I don’t mean that we are happy about those things in our life and passive about trying to grow closer to His image—I mean, are we OK realizing that we aren’t there yet, and nor are those around us? I think the minute that we aren’t we start being condemning, unforgiving, judgmental, and divisive, and a poison creeps into the body that is supposed to be united in love as one. (This isn’t about not being the iron that sharpens iron in another’s life, or not humbly holding one another accountable—it is about the attitude we carry in that.)

I have told our fellowship many times that we are a workshop, and not a museum. If they want perfect people, and people that always live up to their expectations, then they are in the wrong place. We are a collection of many people, from many different backgrounds and church experiences (or no church experience at all). Each has their own expectations and hopes and needs . . . and baggage. Isn’t that logical?

I think that if Christians aren’t careful we can become the older brother in the prodigal story, or the Jews struggling to receive Gentiles. We can start to look at how long we’ve walked with Jesus, and how “mature” we’ve become, or how “proper” we act in church, or how much “we” serve, or how “clean” our mouth is, or . . . and then we can look at another, who maybe isn’t as “polished,” and find judgement (or a condescending spirit) enter our heart.

We have to be so careful to love one another, to guard our hearts, to forgive quickly, to serve gratefully, to examine our log more than we focus on their speck, and to recognize that the person we are elevating ourself above may have come to Christ from a far more broken place then we did, and have actually traveled much farther in their Christian journey toward maturity then we have!

How many times churches are divided (literally, or in spirit though they remain “together”) by bitter roots of judgment, unforgiveness, self-focus, self-seeking, etc. Even when there are legitimate offenses to us—how many times have we offended or wounded others (or God) and been so grateful for grace and mercy!

In Acts 10:15 the Lord said to Peter, in this case about Gentiles, "What God has made clean, do not call common." When we speak ill of one of God’s children, or we judge them, or we fail to forgive them, or we hold something against them, or we withhold what He would have us give them, or we seek our own over them, we are doing it unto His own, and we are saying that they, who are good enough for God and loved by God and declared acceptable and clean by God, are not good enough, or clean enough, for us to love and forgive and serve . . . and that is a scary place to find your heart!

We shouldn’t wonder if the world rejects Jesus if they see in those who claim to bear His image nothing different from the world they live in. Workshop, or museum? It is a question to ask. What are we truly OK with?

Doing Wrong, and Not Doing Right . . .

Note: The following thoughts are observations and reflections from my life, my study, my talking to other pastors, my reading the Word, and my observing the church in America through conversation, reading, news, etc. They are not aimed at any one person. All, some, or none of it may apply to you. Take what, if any, does, and discard the rest—receive it as an invitation, not a condemnation . . .

I observed recently a person who was aware of someone near them that was frustrated and having a hard time emotionally. While the person who was aware of it was not actually doing anything unkind to the person having the hard time—they also weren’t seeking initiative to bless that someone else, or ways to show love to that someone else (and they were in a position to do so with a little cost and effort to themselves). In fact, they weren’t doing anything at all. That led me down the following road of thought . . .

If I were to say about someone, “that person is not doing what is right,” I think that many people would automatically assume the person I was talking about was actively doing something wrong. I don’t think, however, that this is the issue with many Christians. I think the issue is often that while we may not be doing “wrong” things, we are also not doing the right things. We are sort of existing, maybe even self-focused. Christian victory often seems to be seen as avoiding bad things and surviving through the day, week, year, and life instead of actively advancing the Kingdom and doing the works of Jesus (in love, service, witness, power, etc.).

James 4:17 says: So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. Avoiding bad things is not enough. We are to be doing good things. This is not legalistic earning of salvation or love—it is the fruit of a repentant, redeemed life born again of the Spirit, in surrender to the Lordship of Jesus, and committed to following Him in the truest, most simple sense of the word “follow” (to “follow” means to do what they are doing and to go where they are going—at least that’s what it seems to me).

For example—it is not enough to simply not be mean to someone. Jesus says we are to love them, and that is an active word. We are to be the ones to seek reconciliation. We are to be the ones to reach out. We are to be the ones to initiate love, and the first to forgive. We are to be the hands and feet of Jesus—His fragrance in their life.

Jesus said in Matt 25:41-45, "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' “ There is nothing in there chastising and warning them about doing bad things . . . it is all about not doing the good things!

Jesus told us that we, as believers, would do greater works than He, and that the signs that would follow us as we fulfill His commission to us would include healing the sick and casting out demons. While I recognize that all of our situations are different, and that we can’t minister to every need around us, and that we need to follow the Spirit’s leading and work where God is at work—the reality is that the New Testament is as much, if not more, filled with what we ought to be doing as born again believers as it is about what we shouldn’t be doing.

I am in the middle of a personal study on the Kingdom of God that I believe will transition in the near future to possibly the most important series I have ever taught. I have to come realize that if we were to ask most western Christians what the Gospel is, a large number of them would probably reply with an answer limited to sin, the cross, repentance and forgiveness, ending in salvation and heaven. This, however, is not the Gospel that John the Baptist declared, Jesus taught, or the Apostles carried forth with. Their’s was the Gospel of the Kingdom—the cross and salvation was the entry point to it. They taught a message of the Kingdom of Heaven (or of God) coming down and forcibly advancing—of the King’s dominion/rule (kingdom) coming over those previously under Satan’s dominion (the prince of this world). Jesus would tell His disciples to heal the sick and cast out demons and to tell the people the Kingdom of Heaven was there. He would say that if He cast a demon out of a person by the Spirit (or finger in other translations) of God that the Kingdom of God had come upon that person.

I can’t even begin to capture the Kingdom message in this short post, but I will put up links to the audio teachings when I start it. Suffice to say that the Kingdom message is a message of a forcibly advancing Kingdom warring against a demonic kingdom that holds the world in its sway. That is what was taught, and what we are told to preach. The Kingdom is what Jesus declared and taught during His ministry, it is what He taught in the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension to start the book of Acts (1:3), and it is the last thing we find recorded Paul teaching on from under guard in Rome at the end of Acts (28:30–31).

I believe that the problem with the Gospel as we have watered it down to is that there is no concept for Lordship outside of Kingdom. We seem to have watered it down to saying the right prayer and getting saved so we can go to heaven. When that is the high mark of the message it leaves us “getting saved” (having achieved the high point) and then waiting around for the rapture or heaven, doing some Christian “stuff,” and hoping we don’t mess up too bad between now and then. But in the Kingdom message we find Lordship—submission to a King, and serving that King in a war with another kingdom. Christians should be the army of a forcibly advancing Kingdom in war, but too often we seem to be defensive, passively accepting demonic attacks with maybe a prayer thrown their way, or just trying to hold on to ground we have rather than seeking to expand the ground. We defend instead of taking the offensive, and the hosts of hell love it when we take up the castle mentality.

Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church. Gates do not attack—they are attacked! This is not a verse about hell’s gates marching around and not being able to destroy or take the church—this is a verse about hell not being able to withstand the church’s attack! If we are to bear the image of Jesus in this world, and to this world, we need to be a people advancing—a people initiating—the people who are first and strongest in love, service, power, initiating, forgiving, looking for ways to bless others (including our enemies), etc.

The only way a person can sit still and truthfully say they are “following” someone is if the person they are following is also sitting still . . . and I can guarantee that Jesus is not sitting still in this time in history, with billions who don’t know the reality of hell and the awesome message of salvation, the Father’s love, and the advancing Kingdom of God. Jesus is on the offensive, and if we are following Him we will be to. Yes, of course we need quiet time—time to grow intimate with our Father and learn His voice—Jesus modeled that for us also. But, the bulk of His recorded ministry time is ministering and advancing from a place of intimacy with His Father—doing what He saw the Father doing, and saying what He heard the Father saying. These are all verbs . . . and, in His Words, if we are worthy of Him, we are to take up our cross daily, deny ourselves, and follow Him.