We finished the book of Zechariah last week and I don’t know if you remember or not but we started his whole series by looking at the book of Ezra which is about the rebuilding of the temple or the rebuilding of the body of Christ after they had been taken off into captivity because of their covenant breaking and then allowed to return to their land. We left off in chapter 5 of Ezra verse 1 where it said: “When the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them, 2then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them supporting them.
While it is only two verses in the text and it was probably over two months that I’ve been preaching through those books in real time those two verses probably cover a couple of years. To me that is another reminder that God works slowly in time and history. I think that is part of the reason why our culture seems to move at warp speed because we are trying to forget that God is at work. If we can keep occupied with the short term then we don’t have to think about the long term. But faster doesn’t mean better and we must remember that it is in the long term that God is slowly advancing his kingdom and destroying his enemies.
We tend to lose something when it comes to all of these names because we don’t understand Hebrew or aramaic so I want to try to read a few passage using the meanings of the names in When Zechariah says in verse two: 2then the one who was ‘sown in Babylon’ the son of ‘the one who asked of God’ and ‘the one who is saved’ the son of ‘Jehovah is righteous’ arose and began to rebuild the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them supporting them. I want you to understand that you, each and every one of you is Zerubbabel, and Jeshua. You were sown in Babylon which is what Zerubbabel means, you were born in sin and if you believe in Christ Jesus you are saved which is what Jeshua means. You are those things and you are therefore responsible for rebuilding the house of God. You are responsible for your own growth in the Lord. You are responsible for staying on the path of life. You are responsible for you. That is something that we need to pound into our hearts, our children’s hearts and our grand children’s hearts.
We have got to learn to be responsible for ourselves instead of sitting around expecting others to take care of our needs. Yes we are a body but in your body the heart does what the heart is supposed to do and by doing that it lets everything else do what it’s supposed to do. The heart doesn’t try to do what the kidneys are doing. The liver doesn’t ask the tongue to do its job. They work together by doing what they are called to do.
It’s not my job as pastor to grow you up. It’s not my job to do your task for you. I cannot walk the path of life for you. My job as pastor is to support you as you figure out how to grow up and do what you are supposed to do. I can show you where the path of life is. I can warn you of the path of destruction but I can’t make you walk one way or another.
At the same time I don’t want you to think that you are in this all by yourself. The kidneys need the heart. The liver needs the tongue because the liver is not the body. The tongue is not the body. The heart is not the body. The body is the summation of all of the parts working together. That is something that I think we have lost in our day and age. We know how to sit in a room together for a couple of hours a week. We know how to do a toy store together and thanks giving baskets and that may very well be a part of what we are called to be doing together; but I think way too often in our culture the heart is doing what the heart is doing just so it can hear itself beat. Does that make sense?
The different parts don’t have a vision for what the body as a whole should be doing. And here at Immanuel part of that is my fault. I haven’t laid forth a clear vision in part because I’ve been reluctant to do so. That hasn’t always gone so well for me and to be honest my planning usually doesn’t turn out like I think it should anyway. But you deserve a clear unified vision. not one that is focused on getting the congregation to a new number level, but for rebuilding the church to the place where it is no longer a laughing stock in the community.
It is on my heart to begin to do that and in part that is what this whole foundation series has been about even though so far the details have been sketchy. It is my prayer that as we work our way through this whole foundation building series that such a vision will begin to emerge. Like I said I think bits and pieces are there but they need to be put together in to a unified whole: One where progress can be measured as we go along. That’s something that I haven’t seen in the church in my life time unless of course it was centered on a building program.
Back in the text we see that in the midst of being encouraged by the prophets in their pursuit of rebuilding the body of Christ or as Ephesians 4 says: the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16from whom the whole body, 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.
That’s really what this passage is talking about. It was written for our example remember? But in the midst of that there was trouble brewing. The enemies of God do not want the body to grow up, they do not want the temple of God, you and me to be rebuilt. As a result they make trouble. Look at verse 3: At that time ‘Gift’, the governor of the province beyond the River, and ‘Star of Splendor’ and their colleagues came to them and spoke to them thus, "Who issued you a decree to rebuild this temple and to finish this structure?" 4Then we told them accordingly what the names of the men were who were reconstructing this building. 5But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until a report could come to Darius, and then a written reply be returned concerning it. 6This is the copy of the letter which ‘Gift’, the governor of the province beyond the River, and ‘Star of Splendor’ and his colleagues the officials, who were beyond the River, sent to Darius the king. 7They sent a report to him in which it was written thus: "To Darius the king, all peace. 8"Let it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is being built with huge stones, and beams are being laid in the walls; and this work is going on with great care and is succeeding in their hands. 9"Then we asked those elders and said to them thus, 'Who issued you a decree to rebuild this temple and to finish this structure?' 10"We also asked them their names so as to inform you, and that we might write down the names of the men who were at their head. 11"Thus they answered us, saying, 'We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth and are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. 12'But because our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and deported the people to Babylon. 13'However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God. 14'Also the gold and silver utensils of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, and brought them to the temple of Babylon, these King Cyrus took from the temple of Babylon and they were given to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had appointed governor. 15'He said to him, "Take these utensils, go and deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem and let the house of God be rebuilt in its place." 16'Then that Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God in Jerusalem; and from then until now it has been under construction and it is not yet completed.' 17"Now if it pleases the king, let a search be conducted in the king's treasure house, which is there in Babylon, if it be that a decree was issued by King Cyrus to rebuild this house of God at Jerusalem; and let the king send to us his decision concerning this matter."
Now I stumbled upon something that is rather interesting to me and so I want to share it with you. In the books of Ezra and Daniel the word used for God is not yahway or Jehovah but it is the Aramaic word ‘ellah’ which when pronounced sounds very much like the Arabic word allah. It is a generic word for god. Thus the reason it is coupled with other words like the great God, or god of heaven and earth. I just found that interesting and so I passed it along.
Back in the text what we see is that the enemies of the one true God first resort to political pressure to get the work of rebuilding the temple stopped. I think it is easy for us in our day and age to get sidetracked from our purpose which should be advancing the kingdom of God in every area of life. We get sidetracked by all the political maneuvering that is going on around us. In fact, I would say that we have in many cases given up spiritual warfare and seeking God’s ways and have resorted to fighting God’s battle with political power. But that is not how the kingdom is built. That’s why I try my best not to get caught up in this whole liberal, conservative, left and right, socialist, capitalist stuff that fills the air these days because it is a ruse to get our focus off of advancing the kingdom of God.
Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t be concerned about how our country is being led; what I’m saying is that for the most part both sides of the game are playing against God. I don’t care if you are liberal or conservative if you are not advancing the kingdom of God; if your goal is not walking on the path of life then you are walking in opposition to the living God whether you are conservative or liberal, democrat or republican. Our focus should be advancing the rule and reign of the only King that matters Jesus Christ in every area of life. But we must do those things according to the word of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The kingdom of God is advanced by walking on the path of life. If we are accomplishing our goals by walking in destruction then we will find ourselves being destroyed eventually even if it looks good on the outside. Does that make sense?
It is so important that we not concern ourselves with results but with staying on the path of life. Pragmatism or doing whatever it takes to get to the goal, doesn’t work when it comes to the kingdom of God. The scriptures are pretty clear about that. When we get so focused on the results that we don’t care about the path we’re on then we are going to be on thin ice. I think that is a part of what has gone wrong with the evangelistic movement in our day and age. We got so focused on saving souls that we co-opted any type of method that seems to work but in doing so we forgot that our job is not to save anybody, that’s God’s job, our job is to walk on the path of life. If we do that then God promises to draw unbelievers to himself. We have to stay focused on what we are called to do.
The enemy knows this and so he fills our lives with distractions. Why do you think that he gives us so many family and relationship problems? Because they keep us distracted. When my grandson was born I went home for over a week and a half. That is too long for me to be with family. At some level I love my family but we have all of these years of dysfunction that kick into place as soon as we get together that causes me to be distracted. I fall into old ways of being.
This may sound weird to you but the more I grow up and learn to take care of myself the harder it is go back there. It took me a long time to figure it out and I guess the best way to illustrate it would be to say it like this. When I was younger it was like I was drunk all the time and so I didn’t hear as clearly, I didn’t feel as clearly. Most of my childhood (and in fact until I was in my 30’s) I was numb to reality. But over the last thirty years I’ve been getting sober. I’ve been experiencing reality in my family for the first time ever and it is not a pretty sight. It gets on my nerves real bad. And the truth is that for most of the last 20 years I would lose my soberity within a day or two of going back home. Reality was too painful for me.
Now I am a slow learner I will admit that freely. More often than not I have to wait for things to be over before I can figure out what was going on. And the same was true this time. It was a very stressful time for me but somewhere along the line I realized that it was so stressful because I was staying sober. I didn’t fall off the wagon. Well, I shouldn’t say that. What I should say is that I didn’t fall off of the wagon I am usually aware of. You see I have multiple wagons that I use to numb my pain. I have what I would call family idols. These are the idols that I bow down to in order to endure my family. Lust is one of them and that was the one I didn’t fall into but eating is another and about half way through my time there I realized that I had something in my mouth all the time. I would be standing there chewing and thinking I do not need to be eating this at all while I was reaching for something else to put in my mouth. I was attempting to numb my pain. But it didn’t work.
I want you to understand that sometimes you have to get away from the distractions before you can begin to walk on the path of life. I had to physically separate myself from my family before I could begin to take care of myself enough to love my family. If I would have stayed in the same zip code I would have never been able to be set free because there were too many distractions. I would get so caught up in the dance of dysfunction that I couldn’t find the path of life.
You may not like this but it needs to be said: your family is not more important than you walking on the path of life. Your family will not save you. Your family is not to be the purpose of your life. Your purpose is to walk on the path of life. See if your family causes you to be filled with hatred then something is wrong. Don’t point the finger at everybody else in the family that’s not the point. The point is why are you walking on the path of destruction trying to make things better? You see I spent a good portion of my life pointing my finger at my family: they were my problem. If they would act right I would be ok. That is a lie. It is another distraction to keep me off the path of life. The reality is that if I humble myself before the living God I can walk on the path of life regardless of what anybody else does. I can’t blame anybody but me when I bow down to an idol to try to take away my pain. I can’t use my family as my excuse to sin and walk in destruction. Oh I guess I did do that for a long, long time but it wasn’t the truth. The problem isn’t my family, it isn’t my ex wife, the problem is I don’t want to stay on the path of life because I don’t like pain and I don’t like growing up.
It has taken me 50 years to realize that I can’t save my family from themselves. I can’t make life better for my mom or my dad or my ex-wife or even my kids and Judy. I can’t do it because I’m not God and when I try to fix other people I am trying to be their God. I am trying to save them from themselves. I am trying to be their idol. Only God can fix things and when I try to fix things I am saying I can be God. The truth is in my family I’ve been pretending I was God since I was about 5 and that is a heavy burden to bear and so it wasn’t long after that that I began to lose my sobriety. I remember the day when in my little pea brain I hung myself on the cross to save my parent’s marriage. I was five. They were having a huge fight in my childish perception and my dad was storming out the door. I thought he was leaving me and maybe he was but what I didn’t next changed my life forever. I ran through a glass door to bring him back. It worked. He came back and from that point on it became my responsibility to sacrifice myself to keep my family together.
Of course none of that was going through my mind at the time I just felt threatened and thought I had to do something to protect myself. I am the king of make those kinds of bad decisions. I’ve been doing them all my life. I will lay under a moving truck if I think I can save somebody that I think I need. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I am not anyone’s savior and that I can’t save myself by saving others. My hope is not in whether my family stays together. My hope is not in whether my parents are kind to each other or not. My hope is not in whether my children stay married or even if they seek the Lord. My hope is in JESUS Christ ALONE.
Now my reputation in the eyes of everyone I know may be in all of those things. My standing in my community may be there and that may be why I get so nuts around family but in the long run what my family does is not about me it is about them. Unless of course I am tormenting them so badly that they feel the need to pay me back somehow.
Where is your hope? Have your hope of salvation in this world on how your children turn out? Is it in your job? Is it in your success? Is it in you? If so then guess what you have no hope. Jesus Christ is your only hope. It is my prayer that we all learn to accept that and begin to let go of trying to be the savior of our families or of letting our families save us. Salvation is God’s work and not yours and that is something to be very thankful about every day of the year.
May God have mercy on us all and save us from ourselves and our familes.
What does any of this have to do with the passage? Everything. We who are believers have a single task set before us and that is to walk on the path of life. The enemy has a single task and that is to make sure that we get so caught up in the distractions of a dysfunctional world that we forget what our task is and get mired down in the mud of distraction.
Maybe like me your family’s a mess and you spend all your time trying to fix everybody that you know is broken. I’m here to tell you to cut it out. Quit trying to save your family because you are not God. You can’t do it. You can’t even save yourself. Lay all that stuff down and focus on walking on the path of life, focus on being obedient to the commands of God in every relationship and everything you put your hand to.
Jesus in John chapter 10 says: 10"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. The thief has been working overtime trying to distract you to death. I am asking you to day to lay down the burden of being everyone’s god and turn to the only one who can give life more abundant. You playing God is not life more abundant. You walking on the path of life is. Death is never life even if it is done with the best of intentions.
Let’s pray. Dear Father, Be our God and stop us from trying to do your job. Do whatever it takes in our lives and in the lives of our families to keep us on the path of life. Please save us from ourselves. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Hear the word of the Lord from Psalm: 1O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger,Nor chasten me in Your wrath. 2Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am pining away; Heal me, O LORD, for my bones are dismayed. 3And my soul is greatly dismayed; But You, O LORD--how long? 4Return, O LORD, rescue my soul;Save me because of Your loving kindness.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
I thank you
I’ve been thinking of the old Sam and Dave song (or ZZ Top depending on your musical preferences). I think it is appropriate for the Thanksgiving Holy day. It has been a prayer of thanks for me for as long as I can remember: You didn’t have to love me like you did but you did yes you did and I thank you.
I don’t deserve anything I have, even the air that I breathe. In an age of rights and selfishness it is good to be reminded that what we deserve when it comes down to it is death. Of course that is an alien concept to most people these days. You can say that everybody knows their true condition and it is true but applied theology is so much more complicated than theoretical theology. Too often we underrate the ability of people when it comes to suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. We can be really good at it. I know from my own experience that it is possible to suppress the truth of your own life so deeply and thoroughly that events can cease to exist to you on the conscious level. And those are natural everyday sort of things. If you can do that with trauma and the events of the finite world how easy would it be to put aside spiritual things which are invisible to the eye? How difficult would it be to remember them? Impossible apart from the grace of God.
I know this, it is a suppression of truth that can’t be removed by shear logic or reason. It has to be the result of the paradigm shift of faith. You have to be given the eyes to see. That is the essence of grace.
And that is one thing for which I am very thankful. By the grace of God my eyes have been opened so that I can get a clearer glimpse of who I really am without God. That is the most precious gift in all the world to me because I was blind to that for a long, long time. It is that vision that causes me to press forward into repentance and to long for the path of life. I was a walking dead man for a long, long time and I didn’t know it.
I've been reading the Walking Dead series of comics lately and as a result I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a Zombie novel but with a twist. I would be set in a world that is made of Zombies that look like everyday ordinary people. Life goes on in the everyday sort of way but every once in a while someone will begin to see things with new eyes and they will begin to see that they are nothing more than walking dead and they will turn from death to life. And the Zombies will shun them.
Most of us don’t have the eyes to see it but that really is what our world is made of. We are a planet of walking dead – happy, contented, entertained zombies and our only hope is that we be given new eyes; eyes that will see the world the way it really is, eyes that can discern between death and life, and heart that will then begin to yearn for life more than anything in the whole world. That is our only hope.
It is true God didn’t have to love us but he did: While we were yet Zombies Christ died for us.
I thank God on this Holy day that we have a glorious escape route from Zombieland.
May you be given eyes to see the difference between death and life.
Brad
I don’t deserve anything I have, even the air that I breathe. In an age of rights and selfishness it is good to be reminded that what we deserve when it comes down to it is death. Of course that is an alien concept to most people these days. You can say that everybody knows their true condition and it is true but applied theology is so much more complicated than theoretical theology. Too often we underrate the ability of people when it comes to suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. We can be really good at it. I know from my own experience that it is possible to suppress the truth of your own life so deeply and thoroughly that events can cease to exist to you on the conscious level. And those are natural everyday sort of things. If you can do that with trauma and the events of the finite world how easy would it be to put aside spiritual things which are invisible to the eye? How difficult would it be to remember them? Impossible apart from the grace of God.
I know this, it is a suppression of truth that can’t be removed by shear logic or reason. It has to be the result of the paradigm shift of faith. You have to be given the eyes to see. That is the essence of grace.
And that is one thing for which I am very thankful. By the grace of God my eyes have been opened so that I can get a clearer glimpse of who I really am without God. That is the most precious gift in all the world to me because I was blind to that for a long, long time. It is that vision that causes me to press forward into repentance and to long for the path of life. I was a walking dead man for a long, long time and I didn’t know it.
I've been reading the Walking Dead series of comics lately and as a result I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a Zombie novel but with a twist. I would be set in a world that is made of Zombies that look like everyday ordinary people. Life goes on in the everyday sort of way but every once in a while someone will begin to see things with new eyes and they will begin to see that they are nothing more than walking dead and they will turn from death to life. And the Zombies will shun them.
Most of us don’t have the eyes to see it but that really is what our world is made of. We are a planet of walking dead – happy, contented, entertained zombies and our only hope is that we be given new eyes; eyes that will see the world the way it really is, eyes that can discern between death and life, and heart that will then begin to yearn for life more than anything in the whole world. That is our only hope.
It is true God didn’t have to love us but he did: While we were yet Zombies Christ died for us.
I thank God on this Holy day that we have a glorious escape route from Zombieland.
May you be given eyes to see the difference between death and life.
Brad
Sunday, November 21, 2010
foundation series #16
Well, we are going to be finishing up Zechariah today. I will probably take some of you out of your comfort zone today simply because we are going to look at some texts that you are rather familiar with and put them in a context that you are probably not familiar with; So bear with me. We will start with verse one of chapter 14: The day of the Lord is coming when the spoil that you have gathered for yourself will be taken from you while you watch. 2For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.
I’ll stop there for now. Now the easy thing to say is that this is a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And it may be but it may also be a picture of what Jerusalem looked like before John the Baptist came on the scene. That is how bad the situations was when John and Jesus came on the scene. The nations had ravaged Jerusalem by that I mean that they were no longer thinking biblically they were thinking like unbelievers. They were under the dominion of the Romans but not in just a political way. Even if they had been a free nation they were still under bondage to unbelief. They were the church in form only. I think we are too used to thinking like unbelievers in our day like those people were in theirs. We see people prospering and we must think that they are blessed but you can’t always tell from the outside what is blessing and what isn’t. Winning the lottery sounds like a blessing but ask somebody who’s one and then gotten themselves in a lot worse situation because of it. People envy the US because they think it is prosperous but we are not prosperous we are ravaged in our land, absolutely ravaged. We are in bondage, we are not free. We don’t know what freedom is and if we do know what true freedom is we don’t want it because true freedom means to be responsible and we don’t want that.
I want you to remember the context of who this prophecy is begin given to. It is being given to a people who have just come out of captivity to Babylon. It is written almost 600 years before the fall of Jerusalem. It’s important that we understand that God moves slowly. He give his people plenty of time, plenty of rope to either hang themselves on the path of destruction or lift themselves up onto the path of life. We have difficulty thinking long term. We don’t see ourselves as related to the pilgrims who came to this land in the 1620’s but we are and integral part of this single nation that has developed over the course of time. Now if God is consistent with the way he does things then it may be that we are not as near the end of our nation as we think. If we start the clock with the pilgrims in the 1620’s that means we will only be at the 400 year mark in 10 years. So it may be that we still have the opportunity to change the outcome for our nation. Regardless, our call as believers is to press toward righteousness and to disciple the nation that we are a part of to the best of our ability in the time that we have been given. Our responsibility is now; not in the past or in the future but now, today. That is all that we have been given is today and it is always today for us. So we must press on with hope in the day that we have been given because we aren’t promised tomorrow.
Another important point that we need to understand is that about 100 years after Zechariah, Malachi came on the scene to prophecy in the name of the Lord and after him there were no words from the Lord for 400 years. I want you to understand that church continued. People were religious but they had so hardened their hearts that God refused to speak to them again until John the Baptist comes on the scene calling them to repentance.
I think as long as there are men faithfully proclaiming the word to the flock, calling out for repentance that there is hope for repentance. Now I will admit that there are very few in the land but few is not the same as none. If you can remember the last time I spoke I mentioned Elijah and I want to remind you of that again this week. The passage is 1 Kings 19 and I want to read some of that for proper context: Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." 3And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. 4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers." 5He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, "Arise, eat." 6Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. 7The angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you." 8So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. 9Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 10He said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." 11So He said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD " And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14Then he said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." 15The LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram; 16and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. 17"It shall come about, the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. 18"Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."
I think that this is important for us to understand because God has not, I want to repeat that so you can hear it: God HAS NOT Forsaken his people. Now I’m not going to try and say who God’s people are because I can’t see hearts. Like Elijah sometimes I’m ready to say, I can’t do this just take me out of here. But God is not finished working in this land. If he were finished then we would already be fallen. It is important to understand the difference between leaning and falling. If we haven’t fallen there is still hope.
This is what God says to Elijah. Quite moping around. Quite having a pity party for yourself and press on into what I have called you to do: make disciples. The end of the culture is not your concern. I raise up cultures and I bring them down not you. Your job is to do the tasks that you are called to do today. The outcome is in my heads. Be faithful to my word to the best of your understanding and ability and I will do exactly what needs to be done.
The enemies are not your worry. Ahab and Jezebel can’t do anything to you unless I give the word. You have nothing to fear from them and everything to fear from me if you don’t do what I say. I raise giants up and I bring them down. You walk on the path of life. That is all that matters.
As long as we are breathing there is hope. I don’t want you to be without hope in this world. There’s enough of that to go around without the people of God getting sucked into it. I know times are hard; but hard is not the same as hopeless. I want you to be encouraged that God HAS NOT given up on us.
I hope that you are beginning to understand that this thing called the kingdom of God is so much bigger than what we do here on Sunday mornings. I want you to hear this: Worship is not about the music you sing or the order of service. I know that some Sundays we sound pitiful in here but you know what: the songs we sing are a minimal part of worship. They mean next to nothing in the big picture of worship. The word worship means to bow down, to submit yourself to God. We have so dumbed its meaning down that all we think of is music or Sunday morning service. Well, that is just wrong. Worship is what you do 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You either worship God by being obedient to him or you worship yourself by doing what you want to do. None of what we do is for our entertainment or pleasure. We are servants of the living God and doing his will is all that matters and he doesn’t care what kind of songs we sing. He doesn’t care what the format of the service is. He only cares about whether you are walking humbly before him. If you are doing that then you are worshipping God. If not then all the beautiful music in the world will not get you any closer to God.
Back in Zechariah we read: 3Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. What I see here is that God promises to war against everything that is opposed to his way of doing things. Everything that raises it head in contradiction against God and his word, in you, in me, in our families, in our workplaces, in our government. God is at war with all these things. This passage prophecies that there will come a day when God will make a stand. Now we are so used to seeing this in the context of a literal even sometime in the future that I think we may miss what the passage is saying. It says there will come a time when God is going to make a stand and 4In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. 5You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah Then the LORD, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him! 6In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. 7For it will be a unique day which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light.
Again I believe that this is talking about the time right before the coming of Christ. It is a unique time the light has almost gone out. No prophets have been proclaiming the word of the Lord for 400 years. The bride of Christ is basically abandoned her husband though she parades around as if she a sweet innocent thing just waiting for her hubby to return but the truth is underneath the wedding dress she’s a prostititue. This passage say in the evening, just before the light goes out for good there will be a light. I believe that was the time when John the Baptist and then Jesus came on the stage.
Verse 8 tells us that in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.
In the book of John chapter 7: 37Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" 39But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. The living water came after the work of Christ was complete. After Jesus became king of kings his first act in power was to send the living water to his people.
Notice the next verse: And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one. 10All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin's Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's wine presses. 11People will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will dwell in security. 12Now this will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth. 13It will come about in that day that a great panic from the LORD will fall on them; and they will seize one another's hand, and the hand of one will be lifted against the hand of another. 14Judah also will fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered, gold and silver and garments in great abundance. 15So also like this plague will be the plague on the horse, the mule, the camel, the donkey and all the cattle that will be in those camps. 16Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. 17And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. 18If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them; it will be the plague with which the LORD smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. 19This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
I believe what we are seeing here is what is going on in our midst today. Since Christ has been seated on the throne at the right hand of the father ruling and reigning we need to understand that he is blessing and cursing nations according to the new covenant with God. Any nation that refuses to walk in obedience to the king of kings is going to be destroyed in a most unpleasant way.
Part of our problem in seeing this is our short term vision. We think that all of this things are going to happen in the blink of an eye but nowhere in this passage does this say it is going to be quick. It simply says that it is going to happen. Is jesus king now? Is Jesus ruling and reigning now? Is the living water present on the is planet? The answer to all of those things is yes. And so this stuff is going on right here, right now in our midst and it has been going on for 2000 years. God is raising up a people for himself and he is destroying everybody else. That is what is going on in our midst right now.
I want you to understand that your life is not about you. It is not about what you like to do, or eat, or watch on tv. You life is about staying on the path of life. Walking in the commandments. It’s not about you. It’s about God raising you up or casting you down. That is true for us, true for our families, true for our cities and every nation on this planet. If you are not with Christ you are against him even if you happen to reside in the middle east. The king is ruling and reigning now. The question is are you going to submit to him or not. You can call yourself a Christian all day long but if you are not walking on the path of life you are going to be the receipient of covenant curses. Those curses will either destroy you or bring you to repentance. If your life is a mess, your family is a mess maybe you better take a look at what is going on by like the Jews before Jesus came you are just religious but your faith isn’t in God it’s in you. If your faith is in you then you are going to be destroy and it will be as history has shown us over and over again a long slow destruction. Maybe you will be able to fool the outside world but God sees the heart, you may look good while you are being destroyed but you will be destroyed.
I want you to understand that things have changed since the day the work of Christ was completed and he sat at the right hand of the father. He rules and reigns now. He has not stopped. He will not be defeated. He is rulling and reigning now and he will continue to do so until everyone and everything that is his enemy has been defeated and destroyed. He is continually working to that end. There is coming a time on this planed when holiness will reign supreme. The church will once again be full of righteousness, walking on the path of life. We are moving in that direction now though it is hard to see it in this age of rebellion. There will come a day when the majority of people will be walking on the path of life. Verse 20 tells us: In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "HOLY TO THE LORD " And the cooking pots in the LORD'S house will be like the bowls before the altar. 21Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts in that day.
I want you to especially be aware of that last line. There will come a time when there will be no unbelievers in the house of the Lord. The body of Christ will no longer be filled with sheep and goats. The church will be refined and all that are in the church will worship 24 hours a day 7 days a week by walking on the path of life. Self worship will be gone. All that will matter is being obedient to the king of kings and lord of Lords.
All I can say to that is Come Lord Jesus. Let’s do this thing.
Let’s pray.
Oh father have mercy on us. Purge wickedness from our hearts. Put us on the path of life and make us stay there. Change our hearts oh lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
I’ll stop there for now. Now the easy thing to say is that this is a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And it may be but it may also be a picture of what Jerusalem looked like before John the Baptist came on the scene. That is how bad the situations was when John and Jesus came on the scene. The nations had ravaged Jerusalem by that I mean that they were no longer thinking biblically they were thinking like unbelievers. They were under the dominion of the Romans but not in just a political way. Even if they had been a free nation they were still under bondage to unbelief. They were the church in form only. I think we are too used to thinking like unbelievers in our day like those people were in theirs. We see people prospering and we must think that they are blessed but you can’t always tell from the outside what is blessing and what isn’t. Winning the lottery sounds like a blessing but ask somebody who’s one and then gotten themselves in a lot worse situation because of it. People envy the US because they think it is prosperous but we are not prosperous we are ravaged in our land, absolutely ravaged. We are in bondage, we are not free. We don’t know what freedom is and if we do know what true freedom is we don’t want it because true freedom means to be responsible and we don’t want that.
I want you to remember the context of who this prophecy is begin given to. It is being given to a people who have just come out of captivity to Babylon. It is written almost 600 years before the fall of Jerusalem. It’s important that we understand that God moves slowly. He give his people plenty of time, plenty of rope to either hang themselves on the path of destruction or lift themselves up onto the path of life. We have difficulty thinking long term. We don’t see ourselves as related to the pilgrims who came to this land in the 1620’s but we are and integral part of this single nation that has developed over the course of time. Now if God is consistent with the way he does things then it may be that we are not as near the end of our nation as we think. If we start the clock with the pilgrims in the 1620’s that means we will only be at the 400 year mark in 10 years. So it may be that we still have the opportunity to change the outcome for our nation. Regardless, our call as believers is to press toward righteousness and to disciple the nation that we are a part of to the best of our ability in the time that we have been given. Our responsibility is now; not in the past or in the future but now, today. That is all that we have been given is today and it is always today for us. So we must press on with hope in the day that we have been given because we aren’t promised tomorrow.
Another important point that we need to understand is that about 100 years after Zechariah, Malachi came on the scene to prophecy in the name of the Lord and after him there were no words from the Lord for 400 years. I want you to understand that church continued. People were religious but they had so hardened their hearts that God refused to speak to them again until John the Baptist comes on the scene calling them to repentance.
I think as long as there are men faithfully proclaiming the word to the flock, calling out for repentance that there is hope for repentance. Now I will admit that there are very few in the land but few is not the same as none. If you can remember the last time I spoke I mentioned Elijah and I want to remind you of that again this week. The passage is 1 Kings 19 and I want to read some of that for proper context: Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." 3And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. 4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers." 5He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, "Arise, eat." 6Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. 7The angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you." 8So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. 9Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 10He said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." 11So He said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD " And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14Then he said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." 15The LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram; 16and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. 17"It shall come about, the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. 18"Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."
I think that this is important for us to understand because God has not, I want to repeat that so you can hear it: God HAS NOT Forsaken his people. Now I’m not going to try and say who God’s people are because I can’t see hearts. Like Elijah sometimes I’m ready to say, I can’t do this just take me out of here. But God is not finished working in this land. If he were finished then we would already be fallen. It is important to understand the difference between leaning and falling. If we haven’t fallen there is still hope.
This is what God says to Elijah. Quite moping around. Quite having a pity party for yourself and press on into what I have called you to do: make disciples. The end of the culture is not your concern. I raise up cultures and I bring them down not you. Your job is to do the tasks that you are called to do today. The outcome is in my heads. Be faithful to my word to the best of your understanding and ability and I will do exactly what needs to be done.
The enemies are not your worry. Ahab and Jezebel can’t do anything to you unless I give the word. You have nothing to fear from them and everything to fear from me if you don’t do what I say. I raise giants up and I bring them down. You walk on the path of life. That is all that matters.
As long as we are breathing there is hope. I don’t want you to be without hope in this world. There’s enough of that to go around without the people of God getting sucked into it. I know times are hard; but hard is not the same as hopeless. I want you to be encouraged that God HAS NOT given up on us.
I hope that you are beginning to understand that this thing called the kingdom of God is so much bigger than what we do here on Sunday mornings. I want you to hear this: Worship is not about the music you sing or the order of service. I know that some Sundays we sound pitiful in here but you know what: the songs we sing are a minimal part of worship. They mean next to nothing in the big picture of worship. The word worship means to bow down, to submit yourself to God. We have so dumbed its meaning down that all we think of is music or Sunday morning service. Well, that is just wrong. Worship is what you do 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You either worship God by being obedient to him or you worship yourself by doing what you want to do. None of what we do is for our entertainment or pleasure. We are servants of the living God and doing his will is all that matters and he doesn’t care what kind of songs we sing. He doesn’t care what the format of the service is. He only cares about whether you are walking humbly before him. If you are doing that then you are worshipping God. If not then all the beautiful music in the world will not get you any closer to God.
Back in Zechariah we read: 3Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. What I see here is that God promises to war against everything that is opposed to his way of doing things. Everything that raises it head in contradiction against God and his word, in you, in me, in our families, in our workplaces, in our government. God is at war with all these things. This passage prophecies that there will come a day when God will make a stand. Now we are so used to seeing this in the context of a literal even sometime in the future that I think we may miss what the passage is saying. It says there will come a time when God is going to make a stand and 4In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. 5You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah Then the LORD, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him! 6In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. 7For it will be a unique day which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light.
Again I believe that this is talking about the time right before the coming of Christ. It is a unique time the light has almost gone out. No prophets have been proclaiming the word of the Lord for 400 years. The bride of Christ is basically abandoned her husband though she parades around as if she a sweet innocent thing just waiting for her hubby to return but the truth is underneath the wedding dress she’s a prostititue. This passage say in the evening, just before the light goes out for good there will be a light. I believe that was the time when John the Baptist and then Jesus came on the stage.
Verse 8 tells us that in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.
In the book of John chapter 7: 37Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" 39But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. The living water came after the work of Christ was complete. After Jesus became king of kings his first act in power was to send the living water to his people.
Notice the next verse: And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one. 10All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin's Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's wine presses. 11People will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will dwell in security. 12Now this will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth. 13It will come about in that day that a great panic from the LORD will fall on them; and they will seize one another's hand, and the hand of one will be lifted against the hand of another. 14Judah also will fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered, gold and silver and garments in great abundance. 15So also like this plague will be the plague on the horse, the mule, the camel, the donkey and all the cattle that will be in those camps. 16Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. 17And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. 18If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them; it will be the plague with which the LORD smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. 19This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
I believe what we are seeing here is what is going on in our midst today. Since Christ has been seated on the throne at the right hand of the father ruling and reigning we need to understand that he is blessing and cursing nations according to the new covenant with God. Any nation that refuses to walk in obedience to the king of kings is going to be destroyed in a most unpleasant way.
Part of our problem in seeing this is our short term vision. We think that all of this things are going to happen in the blink of an eye but nowhere in this passage does this say it is going to be quick. It simply says that it is going to happen. Is jesus king now? Is Jesus ruling and reigning now? Is the living water present on the is planet? The answer to all of those things is yes. And so this stuff is going on right here, right now in our midst and it has been going on for 2000 years. God is raising up a people for himself and he is destroying everybody else. That is what is going on in our midst right now.
I want you to understand that your life is not about you. It is not about what you like to do, or eat, or watch on tv. You life is about staying on the path of life. Walking in the commandments. It’s not about you. It’s about God raising you up or casting you down. That is true for us, true for our families, true for our cities and every nation on this planet. If you are not with Christ you are against him even if you happen to reside in the middle east. The king is ruling and reigning now. The question is are you going to submit to him or not. You can call yourself a Christian all day long but if you are not walking on the path of life you are going to be the receipient of covenant curses. Those curses will either destroy you or bring you to repentance. If your life is a mess, your family is a mess maybe you better take a look at what is going on by like the Jews before Jesus came you are just religious but your faith isn’t in God it’s in you. If your faith is in you then you are going to be destroy and it will be as history has shown us over and over again a long slow destruction. Maybe you will be able to fool the outside world but God sees the heart, you may look good while you are being destroyed but you will be destroyed.
I want you to understand that things have changed since the day the work of Christ was completed and he sat at the right hand of the father. He rules and reigns now. He has not stopped. He will not be defeated. He is rulling and reigning now and he will continue to do so until everyone and everything that is his enemy has been defeated and destroyed. He is continually working to that end. There is coming a time on this planed when holiness will reign supreme. The church will once again be full of righteousness, walking on the path of life. We are moving in that direction now though it is hard to see it in this age of rebellion. There will come a day when the majority of people will be walking on the path of life. Verse 20 tells us: In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "HOLY TO THE LORD " And the cooking pots in the LORD'S house will be like the bowls before the altar. 21Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts in that day.
I want you to especially be aware of that last line. There will come a time when there will be no unbelievers in the house of the Lord. The body of Christ will no longer be filled with sheep and goats. The church will be refined and all that are in the church will worship 24 hours a day 7 days a week by walking on the path of life. Self worship will be gone. All that will matter is being obedient to the king of kings and lord of Lords.
All I can say to that is Come Lord Jesus. Let’s do this thing.
Let’s pray.
Oh father have mercy on us. Purge wickedness from our hearts. Put us on the path of life and make us stay there. Change our hearts oh lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
I me mine
Hey everyone,
It was two in the morning when I got home from babysitting last night so I’m running a bit slow this morning. I haven’t been up that late in a long time. My daughter and her husband are rather sleep deprived after being up around 36 hours straight during the delivery of their first son – Oren Bradley (only about 12 of those were labor related). Now they are on about a two hour feeding schedule. Sleep is a precious commodity to them at this point.
So last night I took them a pizza and then sent them to bed at about 8pm. I woke them up at 10:30 after a diaper change and in the middle of protestations of near starvation from little Obi. Then I sent them back to bed from 11 to 1:45. I didn’t think I could do an all nighter so I headed back to my mom’s and hit the sack by about 2:10.
There is something bittersweet about all of this to me mostly because family was something that I wanted most in my life and it ended up being something I had the least of. My son in law asked me while they were in the hospital if this child (being flesh of my flesh) felt any different than my other 5 grandchildren who are stuck with me through marriage. Immediately I said yes but mostly because for the week leading up to that question I had built up this event in my head as the cure all for all my problems with family. Much the way I did with marriage some 32 years ago.
But the truth is there’s not much difference. You see I was separated from my oldest daughter when she was 9 or so, my youngest was 5. 700 miles is a huge distance to maintain a relationship. But even greater is the pain of seeing tears stream down your children’s faces and those clinging hugs with the words 'please don’t go daddy' everytime you have to go back home. So the visits got less frequent and the pain began to dissipate and elementary school went by and then middle school became looking at pictures of what I missed and so did highschool. My children became like old friends that you only see when you go back home at the holidays. And a man with the opportunity for two families became a friend on the periphery of two families.
I don’t know if you are aware of this at all but the fall is a mean and horrible thing. I think my new catch phrase is going to be Stay on the Path of Life. Because the mess that is my life is a picture of what happens when you chose the path of destruction instead of the path of life. We have a natural inclination for destruction in our lives both in and out of the church. The truth is more often than not we hate the path of life. We want to be Lewis and Clarks making our own path through life because we know best.
But we don’t know best. When I was first in the grips of the pain of losing my family I spewed forth blame in every direction but my own. But the reality is that though I may have used the name of Jesus more and read the bible like a mad man I was just as much on the path to destruction as was the other participant in that relationship. It took me a long time to be willing to admit that. It took me a long time to embrace the path of life down deep where it really counts. I want you to understand that camouflaging the path to destruction to look like the path of life is not the same as life.
Covenant is so much more all inclusive than ‘coming to Jesus.’ The promises of God are fully expressed in both blessings and cursings. Now if you are under thirty you may have a hard time believing that destruction even exists and even though you probably won’t listen I’m going to say it any way: if you leave the path of life even with the best of intentions you will plant seeds of destruction that will bloom at some point down the road.
Now, if you are in Christ Jesus that destruction will some how work out for the good. Those things will be used as discipline to move you toward the path of life. I can finally start to see that these days. I can see it in baby sitting until two in the morning. I can see it in taking the risk of being vulnerable and open with my adult children. It will never be like it could have been but at the same time given the condition of my old heart might have been is just an illusion
You see my dream so many years ago was to have the benefits of covenant keeping without the hassle of keeping covenant and it was the same dream that got us into this mess called the fall in the first place.
Maybe you only know me from say the age of 45 and you think ‘it’s not so hard to be like him’ but you don’t get to where I am (and I don’t think I’m very far along at all) without a lot of pain, un-numbed, un avoidable pain. That is where the growing up comes from. That is where the covenant blessing begins to flow from – dying to self. You see the path of life is SELF LESS. The old you will not be found there.
We are a culture, I am a man, full of self. I think George Harrison hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
All I can hear I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.Even those tears I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.No-one's frightened of playing itEv'ryone's saying it, Flowing more freely than wine,All thru' Your life, I me mine.I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine,I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine.
I am guilty. And therefore I have no one to blame but myself for the brokenness in my life. I thank God that grace brings healing even if it is a long, long slow process.
I held my grandson in my arms last night and prayed that God would pour out grace upon him. I prayed that God would save him from himself early on, yesterday would be good. I pray that he would get on the path of life long before I did. That is the only hope for his generation, and that of my kids and myself.
May God lead us of the path we have chosen that leads to death and on to the path of life in every area of life.
Death to I Me Mine.
Brad
It was two in the morning when I got home from babysitting last night so I’m running a bit slow this morning. I haven’t been up that late in a long time. My daughter and her husband are rather sleep deprived after being up around 36 hours straight during the delivery of their first son – Oren Bradley (only about 12 of those were labor related). Now they are on about a two hour feeding schedule. Sleep is a precious commodity to them at this point.
So last night I took them a pizza and then sent them to bed at about 8pm. I woke them up at 10:30 after a diaper change and in the middle of protestations of near starvation from little Obi. Then I sent them back to bed from 11 to 1:45. I didn’t think I could do an all nighter so I headed back to my mom’s and hit the sack by about 2:10.
There is something bittersweet about all of this to me mostly because family was something that I wanted most in my life and it ended up being something I had the least of. My son in law asked me while they were in the hospital if this child (being flesh of my flesh) felt any different than my other 5 grandchildren who are stuck with me through marriage. Immediately I said yes but mostly because for the week leading up to that question I had built up this event in my head as the cure all for all my problems with family. Much the way I did with marriage some 32 years ago.
But the truth is there’s not much difference. You see I was separated from my oldest daughter when she was 9 or so, my youngest was 5. 700 miles is a huge distance to maintain a relationship. But even greater is the pain of seeing tears stream down your children’s faces and those clinging hugs with the words 'please don’t go daddy' everytime you have to go back home. So the visits got less frequent and the pain began to dissipate and elementary school went by and then middle school became looking at pictures of what I missed and so did highschool. My children became like old friends that you only see when you go back home at the holidays. And a man with the opportunity for two families became a friend on the periphery of two families.
I don’t know if you are aware of this at all but the fall is a mean and horrible thing. I think my new catch phrase is going to be Stay on the Path of Life. Because the mess that is my life is a picture of what happens when you chose the path of destruction instead of the path of life. We have a natural inclination for destruction in our lives both in and out of the church. The truth is more often than not we hate the path of life. We want to be Lewis and Clarks making our own path through life because we know best.
But we don’t know best. When I was first in the grips of the pain of losing my family I spewed forth blame in every direction but my own. But the reality is that though I may have used the name of Jesus more and read the bible like a mad man I was just as much on the path to destruction as was the other participant in that relationship. It took me a long time to be willing to admit that. It took me a long time to embrace the path of life down deep where it really counts. I want you to understand that camouflaging the path to destruction to look like the path of life is not the same as life.
Covenant is so much more all inclusive than ‘coming to Jesus.’ The promises of God are fully expressed in both blessings and cursings. Now if you are under thirty you may have a hard time believing that destruction even exists and even though you probably won’t listen I’m going to say it any way: if you leave the path of life even with the best of intentions you will plant seeds of destruction that will bloom at some point down the road.
Now, if you are in Christ Jesus that destruction will some how work out for the good. Those things will be used as discipline to move you toward the path of life. I can finally start to see that these days. I can see it in baby sitting until two in the morning. I can see it in taking the risk of being vulnerable and open with my adult children. It will never be like it could have been but at the same time given the condition of my old heart might have been is just an illusion
You see my dream so many years ago was to have the benefits of covenant keeping without the hassle of keeping covenant and it was the same dream that got us into this mess called the fall in the first place.
Maybe you only know me from say the age of 45 and you think ‘it’s not so hard to be like him’ but you don’t get to where I am (and I don’t think I’m very far along at all) without a lot of pain, un-numbed, un avoidable pain. That is where the growing up comes from. That is where the covenant blessing begins to flow from – dying to self. You see the path of life is SELF LESS. The old you will not be found there.
We are a culture, I am a man, full of self. I think George Harrison hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
All I can hear I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.Even those tears I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.No-one's frightened of playing itEv'ryone's saying it, Flowing more freely than wine,All thru' Your life, I me mine.I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine,I-I-me-me mine, I-I-me-me mine.
I am guilty. And therefore I have no one to blame but myself for the brokenness in my life. I thank God that grace brings healing even if it is a long, long slow process.
I held my grandson in my arms last night and prayed that God would pour out grace upon him. I prayed that God would save him from himself early on, yesterday would be good. I pray that he would get on the path of life long before I did. That is the only hope for his generation, and that of my kids and myself.
May God lead us of the path we have chosen that leads to death and on to the path of life in every area of life.
Death to I Me Mine.
Brad
Friday, November 12, 2010
Let it Grow
I wonder what I’ll be like at the end of the road called my life. I have several examples of what not to be but the question is how do I avoid becoming that which I abhor? I see dead people walking around. People that say they love the Lord but hate their brother and sisters, their husbands and wives. I don’t mean just get angry I mean hate. Years of stuffing it down inside so that the outside looks pretty as a picture. But the inside is just festering. I think Jesus said something about both of those things and I pray for mercy in peoples lives.
The church has done a pitiful job of teaching people how to grow up, how to pursue truth in every area of life, how to live in the midst of relationships. The list is endless of the things that we have not been taught to do biblically.
I just hate being on the receiving end of childish behavior from those who are supposed to be grown ups. My children were amazed the other day to find out that their great grandmother was 14 when she got married. She was 14 but compared to the generations that followed her she was probably 45 in grown up years where as I know some older than 45 who act as if they are 14.
The depth of Christianity in the lives that I am entwined in is shallow at best if not bone dry, kind of like the rivers and lakes and ponds that I’ve seen on my journey this week. If something doesn’t change soon we are heading for a drought in the real world. The fields are dry. The ponds are down at least a foot. The rivers are lower than I’ve seen them in a long time. But none of those things come close to the drought of maturity in the church and in the culture. We are parched beyond measure. It sickens me; it really does. It breaks my heart because I see the pabulum that passes for meat (or even a good healthy vegetarian meal) and it’s like people are eating ground up cardboard mixed with sewer water or something.
The reality is that if you are in the Christian faith you should be growing up, no you will be growing up. You will be maturing. You will be producing the fruits of the spirit. If not then some thing is wrong, very wrong.
When I say these things I am not looking at the culture at large. I am simply looking at relationships and families. One of the things that maturity in the faith is to bring forth is unity. I can’t say when that began to disappear in our families in this culture but it was before I was born. Children can’t wait to get away from their parents but the blame is not just on the children there’s not much in the life of the parents that draws the children to them. Money certainly cannot do it. It has to be the fruits of the spirit. The unity of the family is not about flesh and blood. Being flesh of my flesh doesn’t unify anyone. Ask Eve how much the flesh of their first sons kept them together. Blood isn’t anything. Spirit is everything.
I pray that in my latter years that the fruits of the Spirit will be blooming at such a massive volume that it will cause my children to want what I want, to be like I am. I don’t need them to move closer to me I need us to be unified in a single calling, in a single faith, in a single mission of advancing the kingdom of God. That doesn’t come from the words of my mouth. It comes from how I treat my wife and kids, live my life, press on into the kingdom.
I long for unity to be restored starting in my own family with my wife and my kids. I don’t think, at least for me, that there could be a better witness against the darkness than that.
As Eric Clapton once wrote:
Standing at the crossroads, trying to read the signs
To tell me which way I should go to find the answer,
And all the time I know, Plant your love and let it grow.
Let it grow, let it grow,Let it blossom, let it flow.
In the sun, the rain, the snow,Love is lovely, let it grow.
Grace and Peace,
Brad
The church has done a pitiful job of teaching people how to grow up, how to pursue truth in every area of life, how to live in the midst of relationships. The list is endless of the things that we have not been taught to do biblically.
I just hate being on the receiving end of childish behavior from those who are supposed to be grown ups. My children were amazed the other day to find out that their great grandmother was 14 when she got married. She was 14 but compared to the generations that followed her she was probably 45 in grown up years where as I know some older than 45 who act as if they are 14.
The depth of Christianity in the lives that I am entwined in is shallow at best if not bone dry, kind of like the rivers and lakes and ponds that I’ve seen on my journey this week. If something doesn’t change soon we are heading for a drought in the real world. The fields are dry. The ponds are down at least a foot. The rivers are lower than I’ve seen them in a long time. But none of those things come close to the drought of maturity in the church and in the culture. We are parched beyond measure. It sickens me; it really does. It breaks my heart because I see the pabulum that passes for meat (or even a good healthy vegetarian meal) and it’s like people are eating ground up cardboard mixed with sewer water or something.
The reality is that if you are in the Christian faith you should be growing up, no you will be growing up. You will be maturing. You will be producing the fruits of the spirit. If not then some thing is wrong, very wrong.
When I say these things I am not looking at the culture at large. I am simply looking at relationships and families. One of the things that maturity in the faith is to bring forth is unity. I can’t say when that began to disappear in our families in this culture but it was before I was born. Children can’t wait to get away from their parents but the blame is not just on the children there’s not much in the life of the parents that draws the children to them. Money certainly cannot do it. It has to be the fruits of the spirit. The unity of the family is not about flesh and blood. Being flesh of my flesh doesn’t unify anyone. Ask Eve how much the flesh of their first sons kept them together. Blood isn’t anything. Spirit is everything.
I pray that in my latter years that the fruits of the Spirit will be blooming at such a massive volume that it will cause my children to want what I want, to be like I am. I don’t need them to move closer to me I need us to be unified in a single calling, in a single faith, in a single mission of advancing the kingdom of God. That doesn’t come from the words of my mouth. It comes from how I treat my wife and kids, live my life, press on into the kingdom.
I long for unity to be restored starting in my own family with my wife and my kids. I don’t think, at least for me, that there could be a better witness against the darkness than that.
As Eric Clapton once wrote:
Standing at the crossroads, trying to read the signs
To tell me which way I should go to find the answer,
And all the time I know, Plant your love and let it grow.
Let it grow, let it grow,Let it blossom, let it flow.
In the sun, the rain, the snow,Love is lovely, let it grow.
Grace and Peace,
Brad
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Deathly
My wife and I like to play Sudoku, it the puzzle with the box with 9 boxes that each have 9 boxes and a few numbers scattered here and there. The goal of this puzzle is to fill in all the missing numbers. Each row and each column must include the numbers 1 through 9 as well as each of the middle sized boxes. Anyway, we bought a new book of them a while back with over a 1000 puzzles in it. It was a 100% investment in frustration.
My goal, as with just about everything, is to get through the puzzle as quickly as possible. But this book of puzzles was built for comfort not for speed, to steal a phrase from Willie Dixon. I guess we have had this book for about a month. At this point I have started grading my performances. I place a frowny face above the puzzles that I screw up so bad there is not enough white out in the world to repair. I place a smiley face on the once I get correct without help. And I write ‘cheater’s win’ on the ones where I get so frustrated that I have to take a peek in the back of the book to get a number or two.
It wasn’t long after we got to the book that I started the dreaded puzzle 11. I worked through it once and found one missing number that I could put in place. And then progress came to a stand still. On this puzzle for some reason (stubbornness) I decided I was not going to look in the back of the book. But I couldn’t find any numbers that could absolutely go in place. I was sure there weren’t any. I moved on to other puzzles. I came back desperately wanting to master number 11. I went away again with my tail between my legs (repeatedly).
At this point I can’t remember when we bought this book it was either late September or early October. I looked at that puzzle almost every day for over a month. Now maybe you don’t experience the frustration of not being able to do something that you know can be done but you just can’t figure out how to do it. But I do. I can get so frustrated because I know the answer is there. I know it but I can’t see it. I can’t get to it.
I like (most of the time) Sudoku puzzles as opposed to crossword puzzles because you don’t have to know any abstract code like abbreviations, or this means that in the answer. In Sudoku all you have are numbers and you have to find their place in the puzzle. It’s not about vast amounts of NY Times secret knowledge. Sudoku is about perception. It is about being able to see where the numbers go. Well, two days ago after working on number 11 for over a month with only 1 number in place and doing the exact same method of working through rows and columns and boxes the same way I had done in the nearly 100 times I had attempted the puzzle: I saw something that I hadn’t seen before. I saw the same puzzle in a different way and the second number fell into place. There was no guess work. There was no peeking in the back for help. There was only a change in perception. When that clicked into place the rest of the puzzle was done in a day.
That mirrors life for me. I live life just about the same everyday. I know the goal: it is to walk on the path of life: Most of the time I am arrogant enough to think I can do it. But I find myself frustrated beyond measure when the pieces don’t all fall together. I think one of my biggest problems is that I don’t always see that everything in my life fits together perfectly just like a Sudoku puzzle – every number has a specific place where it is supposed to be. I get into trouble when I try to force the numbers to go where they shouldn’t go. I have become a master at doing that in my life over the course of time and therefore the path behind me is strewn with frowny faces and cheater’s wins.
But in the last month or so my perception of things has changed and I saw that I was walking in the path of destruction in one tiny area of life. I was walking there willfully. I was walking there thinking that it was righteousness; that it was wise to be that way and I suddenly realized that it was wrong. I didn’t really want to change but I knew for the first time, yes I think for the first time, that I was wrong in this matter. (I added that so you wouldn’t think I thought I was wrong for the first time ever.) So I put steps in place to change. I took the risk and began to change. I began to see the situation differently.
Now, I want you to understand that I did not have a new attitude about my old behavior. I have come to understand that you don’t have to like walking on the path of life you just have to walk on it. And this may be the first time that I have ever been fully aware that I was walking where I did not want to walk because that was where the path of life was at. That was where the numbers fit together. And I realized that none of the other pieces of life would ever get to where they were supposed to be unless I was willing to humble myself in that one area.
I had to eat my pride, my self sufficiency, my ego and humble myself before God. See sometimes in the midst of the trenches I get stubborn and say I’m not going to change until that person changes. In other words, I use other people’s actions to justify my sin. But being sinned against doesn’t give you the right to sin.
Now, understanding that has taken me full circle. I grew up learning to be a door mat. Being a Christian back then meant letting people walk all over you. I learned that very well and I have the shoe prints on my back to prove it. But then in the middle of my journey I learned that I didn’t have to be a door mat. I could stand up for myself. I didn’t have to take crap from anybody and I didn’t for awhile and there are shoe prints on other people’s backs that will prove it. But on the path of life there is a push pull of knowing when to bow down and when to walk tall. Those things take a lifetime to discern.
In the midst of my repentance I still question whether or not it is the right thing to do. In one sense it feels like I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m not taking care of myself. I’m rolling over and playing dead but I don’t believe that is the case. I believe the numbers are starting to fit in this box now that I have changed the way I perceive the box. My eyes were causing me to be unable to perceive the path of life that has always been in front of me but that I always thought was surely the path to destruction. I have been trying to save myself from destruction by choosing the path of destruction. It probably goes without saying but no wonder I was so frustrated.
Even as I write this I’ve been wondering whether or not to share a piece of the puzzle that greatly encouraged me, mostly because it seems a little juvenile (which of course I still am in many ways) but I guess I will let my guard down a bit more and share it.
I don’t how many of you have been reading these blurbs long enough to have read the one where I was complaining to God one day that he never let me find money on the ground anymore. This has probably been a year or two ago. I don’t even remember what I was praying about when that came out of my mouth but it wasn’t five minutes after I complained that I found three dollars laying on the ground in front of me. I don’t even remember what the point of the blurb was but its connection to where I am today is this:
I remember struggling with the financial risk that my repentance was going to put on me. I was telling God that this didn’t make any sense. That I was supposed to be wise in the use of what he had given me. And I had talked to the air until I was blue in the face when I finally said: OK. OK I’ll do it. I don’t want to do it but I will. I sighed a big sigh and opened the door of my car to let all the hot air out and I started walking across the parking lot and there in front of me was a twenty on the ground.
Sure that could be written off as a fluke but I write it off as God saying: You’re not in charge of your finances. You walk on the path of life and I will provide. Now I want to hedge my bets and say that this is not Tele-evangelist manipulation that says if you send me $100 God will give you a thousand back. No matter how many of those stories I hear and verify I will always be doubtful of those things because God is not about easy money. He is about walking in righteousness. He is about covenant relationship. And the truth of the matter is that I had been living with at least one toe on the path of destruction. Yes, that is better than having both feet on the path of destruction but destruction is not life no matter how you look at it.
The phrase I was blind but now I see comes to mind. That’s really what perception is. Your eyes may be perfectly healthy but if your perception is wrong you will not see reality the way it is. You are technically blind to the situation. You will not be able to find the right number to go in the box. You will be frustrated. You will taste a tiny bit of destruction in everything you put your hand to. The goal in life in time and history is to taste less and less destruction and more and more life.
The twenty is not the only thing that confirms to me that I am seeing the path of life better. Several things seem to be falling into place, things that I had given up on out of frustration. I will keep those to myself for now until they unfold a little more clearly and I can exploit them or bury them out of sight in a future blog.
If I could just see destruction for what it is – death maybe, just maybe I would stay away from it but that’s a long shot. My attitude toward the path of destruction should probably follow that which is revealed in Amiee Mann’s song: Deathly. She writes: Now that I’ve met you would you object to never seeing each other again. ‘Cause I can’t afford to climb aboard you. Know one has that much ego to spend. So don’t work your stuff because I’ve got troubles enough. No don’t pick on me when one act of kindness could be-Deathly.
If I would only remember that no matter how beautiful and wise the path of destruction looks and sounds it leads where it leads: to destruction. Maybe then I would learn to stay on the path of life.
Maybe; that all depends on whether I have eyes to see where the numbers are supposed to go.
Crawling toward the light,
Brad
My goal, as with just about everything, is to get through the puzzle as quickly as possible. But this book of puzzles was built for comfort not for speed, to steal a phrase from Willie Dixon. I guess we have had this book for about a month. At this point I have started grading my performances. I place a frowny face above the puzzles that I screw up so bad there is not enough white out in the world to repair. I place a smiley face on the once I get correct without help. And I write ‘cheater’s win’ on the ones where I get so frustrated that I have to take a peek in the back of the book to get a number or two.
It wasn’t long after we got to the book that I started the dreaded puzzle 11. I worked through it once and found one missing number that I could put in place. And then progress came to a stand still. On this puzzle for some reason (stubbornness) I decided I was not going to look in the back of the book. But I couldn’t find any numbers that could absolutely go in place. I was sure there weren’t any. I moved on to other puzzles. I came back desperately wanting to master number 11. I went away again with my tail between my legs (repeatedly).
At this point I can’t remember when we bought this book it was either late September or early October. I looked at that puzzle almost every day for over a month. Now maybe you don’t experience the frustration of not being able to do something that you know can be done but you just can’t figure out how to do it. But I do. I can get so frustrated because I know the answer is there. I know it but I can’t see it. I can’t get to it.
I like (most of the time) Sudoku puzzles as opposed to crossword puzzles because you don’t have to know any abstract code like abbreviations, or this means that in the answer. In Sudoku all you have are numbers and you have to find their place in the puzzle. It’s not about vast amounts of NY Times secret knowledge. Sudoku is about perception. It is about being able to see where the numbers go. Well, two days ago after working on number 11 for over a month with only 1 number in place and doing the exact same method of working through rows and columns and boxes the same way I had done in the nearly 100 times I had attempted the puzzle: I saw something that I hadn’t seen before. I saw the same puzzle in a different way and the second number fell into place. There was no guess work. There was no peeking in the back for help. There was only a change in perception. When that clicked into place the rest of the puzzle was done in a day.
That mirrors life for me. I live life just about the same everyday. I know the goal: it is to walk on the path of life: Most of the time I am arrogant enough to think I can do it. But I find myself frustrated beyond measure when the pieces don’t all fall together. I think one of my biggest problems is that I don’t always see that everything in my life fits together perfectly just like a Sudoku puzzle – every number has a specific place where it is supposed to be. I get into trouble when I try to force the numbers to go where they shouldn’t go. I have become a master at doing that in my life over the course of time and therefore the path behind me is strewn with frowny faces and cheater’s wins.
But in the last month or so my perception of things has changed and I saw that I was walking in the path of destruction in one tiny area of life. I was walking there willfully. I was walking there thinking that it was righteousness; that it was wise to be that way and I suddenly realized that it was wrong. I didn’t really want to change but I knew for the first time, yes I think for the first time, that I was wrong in this matter. (I added that so you wouldn’t think I thought I was wrong for the first time ever.) So I put steps in place to change. I took the risk and began to change. I began to see the situation differently.
Now, I want you to understand that I did not have a new attitude about my old behavior. I have come to understand that you don’t have to like walking on the path of life you just have to walk on it. And this may be the first time that I have ever been fully aware that I was walking where I did not want to walk because that was where the path of life was at. That was where the numbers fit together. And I realized that none of the other pieces of life would ever get to where they were supposed to be unless I was willing to humble myself in that one area.
I had to eat my pride, my self sufficiency, my ego and humble myself before God. See sometimes in the midst of the trenches I get stubborn and say I’m not going to change until that person changes. In other words, I use other people’s actions to justify my sin. But being sinned against doesn’t give you the right to sin.
Now, understanding that has taken me full circle. I grew up learning to be a door mat. Being a Christian back then meant letting people walk all over you. I learned that very well and I have the shoe prints on my back to prove it. But then in the middle of my journey I learned that I didn’t have to be a door mat. I could stand up for myself. I didn’t have to take crap from anybody and I didn’t for awhile and there are shoe prints on other people’s backs that will prove it. But on the path of life there is a push pull of knowing when to bow down and when to walk tall. Those things take a lifetime to discern.
In the midst of my repentance I still question whether or not it is the right thing to do. In one sense it feels like I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m not taking care of myself. I’m rolling over and playing dead but I don’t believe that is the case. I believe the numbers are starting to fit in this box now that I have changed the way I perceive the box. My eyes were causing me to be unable to perceive the path of life that has always been in front of me but that I always thought was surely the path to destruction. I have been trying to save myself from destruction by choosing the path of destruction. It probably goes without saying but no wonder I was so frustrated.
Even as I write this I’ve been wondering whether or not to share a piece of the puzzle that greatly encouraged me, mostly because it seems a little juvenile (which of course I still am in many ways) but I guess I will let my guard down a bit more and share it.
I don’t how many of you have been reading these blurbs long enough to have read the one where I was complaining to God one day that he never let me find money on the ground anymore. This has probably been a year or two ago. I don’t even remember what I was praying about when that came out of my mouth but it wasn’t five minutes after I complained that I found three dollars laying on the ground in front of me. I don’t even remember what the point of the blurb was but its connection to where I am today is this:
I remember struggling with the financial risk that my repentance was going to put on me. I was telling God that this didn’t make any sense. That I was supposed to be wise in the use of what he had given me. And I had talked to the air until I was blue in the face when I finally said: OK. OK I’ll do it. I don’t want to do it but I will. I sighed a big sigh and opened the door of my car to let all the hot air out and I started walking across the parking lot and there in front of me was a twenty on the ground.
Sure that could be written off as a fluke but I write it off as God saying: You’re not in charge of your finances. You walk on the path of life and I will provide. Now I want to hedge my bets and say that this is not Tele-evangelist manipulation that says if you send me $100 God will give you a thousand back. No matter how many of those stories I hear and verify I will always be doubtful of those things because God is not about easy money. He is about walking in righteousness. He is about covenant relationship. And the truth of the matter is that I had been living with at least one toe on the path of destruction. Yes, that is better than having both feet on the path of destruction but destruction is not life no matter how you look at it.
The phrase I was blind but now I see comes to mind. That’s really what perception is. Your eyes may be perfectly healthy but if your perception is wrong you will not see reality the way it is. You are technically blind to the situation. You will not be able to find the right number to go in the box. You will be frustrated. You will taste a tiny bit of destruction in everything you put your hand to. The goal in life in time and history is to taste less and less destruction and more and more life.
The twenty is not the only thing that confirms to me that I am seeing the path of life better. Several things seem to be falling into place, things that I had given up on out of frustration. I will keep those to myself for now until they unfold a little more clearly and I can exploit them or bury them out of sight in a future blog.
If I could just see destruction for what it is – death maybe, just maybe I would stay away from it but that’s a long shot. My attitude toward the path of destruction should probably follow that which is revealed in Amiee Mann’s song: Deathly. She writes: Now that I’ve met you would you object to never seeing each other again. ‘Cause I can’t afford to climb aboard you. Know one has that much ego to spend. So don’t work your stuff because I’ve got troubles enough. No don’t pick on me when one act of kindness could be-Deathly.
If I would only remember that no matter how beautiful and wise the path of destruction looks and sounds it leads where it leads: to destruction. Maybe then I would learn to stay on the path of life.
Maybe; that all depends on whether I have eyes to see where the numbers are supposed to go.
Crawling toward the light,
Brad
Friday, November 5, 2010
Last Night I had the strangest dream
Last night I had the strangest dream; it was one of those dreams that sticks with you in the morning, that wakes you up and you never quite get back to sleep you just think about it. I was there working for someone, an old friend, at a church it felt like a nursery or a youth department or something, some parts are blurry, and I had another friend working for me. This was a newer friend and not really a close friend just someone I tolerate. The old friend was someone that I aspired, at one time, to be really close to but it never really happened mostly because he was the kind of guy you could never get close to if you were with him 24 7.
Anyway, I guess he was my supervisor in this dream or something, maybe even our pastor. On principle the young guy refused to do something he was asked to do by the head guy and on the same principle I took his side and refused to make him do it. It was as if we went on strike and said “no” we were not going to do whatever it was we were asked to do. To do so would have been wrong. So we had a sit down strike. We didn’t say anything. We just sat there.
The old friend of mine was furious- he lashed out, he was vehemently angry at us and his true colors began to come out. I saw that he was not the kind of man that would stand by you in a jam but rather he would sell you down the river in a heart beat if you crossed his path and messed up his agenda.
In shepherds terms he was one of those wicked shepherds that didn’t really care for the sheep at all but was just in it for him self. And there I was sitting beside a man that I didn’t really like all that much, whose doctrine I don’t really agree with but who on this point was right and I supported him in his position. I stood beside him.
In this dream I was able to see the condition of hearts from the outward actions. Here was a man with good doctrine and a bad heart and a man with so so doctrine, maybe even bad doctrine and a good heart and at the time the choice wasn’t all that hard to make I went with the good heart.
The fact is it is who you are that is important not what you know. It’s what you do that matters not what you say. You can say you love the body of Christ all day long but if you skin the sheep and sell their hides as soon as they no longer fit in your vision for the church then something is wrong deeply wrong.
I woke up before there was a resolution to the situation but seeing the condition of hearts was perhaps all I needed to see. I never thought I would be one of those old men who dream dreams but this one is going to stick with me for awhile.
Anyway, I guess he was my supervisor in this dream or something, maybe even our pastor. On principle the young guy refused to do something he was asked to do by the head guy and on the same principle I took his side and refused to make him do it. It was as if we went on strike and said “no” we were not going to do whatever it was we were asked to do. To do so would have been wrong. So we had a sit down strike. We didn’t say anything. We just sat there.
The old friend of mine was furious- he lashed out, he was vehemently angry at us and his true colors began to come out. I saw that he was not the kind of man that would stand by you in a jam but rather he would sell you down the river in a heart beat if you crossed his path and messed up his agenda.
In shepherds terms he was one of those wicked shepherds that didn’t really care for the sheep at all but was just in it for him self. And there I was sitting beside a man that I didn’t really like all that much, whose doctrine I don’t really agree with but who on this point was right and I supported him in his position. I stood beside him.
In this dream I was able to see the condition of hearts from the outward actions. Here was a man with good doctrine and a bad heart and a man with so so doctrine, maybe even bad doctrine and a good heart and at the time the choice wasn’t all that hard to make I went with the good heart.
The fact is it is who you are that is important not what you know. It’s what you do that matters not what you say. You can say you love the body of Christ all day long but if you skin the sheep and sell their hides as soon as they no longer fit in your vision for the church then something is wrong deeply wrong.
I woke up before there was a resolution to the situation but seeing the condition of hearts was perhaps all I needed to see. I never thought I would be one of those old men who dream dreams but this one is going to stick with me for awhile.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Hurt so Good
Morning,
For those of you who are putting all your eggs in the red basket of last Tuesday I just want you to be aware that the red basket is only a different color than the blue basket. Nothing has changed and I mean nothing. America hasn’t fallen on its knees in repentance. It has not sought to humble itself before the living God. America is still full of Ann Rice like followers of Christ and rejectors of Christianity. It is still a nation that seeks after a Jesus made in its own image.
The fact is that if the red basket brings us economic recovery (which is highly unlikely) more cash in our pockets will only cause to harden our hearts more. Historically, just about the only thing that brings a nation to repentance is pain, suffering, and discomfort. America is the most comfortable nation in the world right now. That ought to make the picture pretty clear.
You see unless the church repents our nation really has no hope of recovery. I don’t know why I said “you see” at the beginning of that last sentence because when it boils down to it we don’t want to see. We want to be blind so we can keep on going the way we’re going only with steadier cash flow and less responsibility for our health. We just want to be taken care of. See even the red basket would take health care if we didn't have to pay for it.
We’ve got the cart before the horse these days thinking that we can restore our nation back to its original glory without the inconvenience of rebuilding the foundation upon which it was built. It’s kind of like an alcoholic who thinks he can drink himself to sobriety. I guess you probably would get sober after you died but you wouldn’t know it now would you?
The problem in our nation isn’t the economy, it isn’t the war in all the various countries in which we are fighting, it isn’t the gays, it isn’t greed, it isn’t murder of babies in the womb. The problem is the church.
The problem is that the church doesn’t believe in God, at least not the whole God; they believe in maybe a quarter of God. The other three quarters they fashion in their own image. But you see, contrary to Ann Rice the bible in its entirety is a revelation of who God is. I know that is unpopular with the new higher criticism, follow Jesus and not the bible crowd or the New Testament but not the Old Testament crowd. But unpopular doesn’t make un-true.
I know that believing such a thing will not get me an honorary doctorate from most seminaries and unfortunately that is part of the problem. We have educated ourselves into idolatry much the same way the Pharisees and Sadducees did 2100 years ago. We have traded God for academic acceptance, cultural acceptance and celebrity status. We want to look good in the eyes of our faculty peers, the media, and the movers and shakers therefore we exchange the truth for a lie and ride it all the way to the bank.
What is it going to take to humble the church this time around? I think the book of Judges is a perfect book for our times. Over and over again we read: And a generation arose that did not know the Lord. If you haven’t figured it out that means that a generation arose in the church, in the religious establishment that did not know the Lord. They were going to church just like they always did, maybe even more than the generation before them, they loved religion but they didn’t know the Lord. To get their attention God would put them in some kind of bondage for 20 or 40 years until they felt the consequences of their idolatry and then when they cried out to the God they didn’t know he would deliver them.
Why should we expect life to be any different? Because we live in a fantasy land where we think only about a quarter of the word of God applies to us. God is a God of love and grace he would never pour out covenant curses on his people. Tell that to Jerusalem in 79 AD. Of Course we are the determiners of what love and grace should look like right. We wrote the bible we can re-write it right? Only in our wildest dreams.
What if biblical love and grace look like a good butt whipping to a child that refuses to grow up and take responsibility for his own life? I’m sorry but I know too many people who refuse to grow up, who refuse to live in the real world. I was one of them for 30 plus years. I worshiped a Jesus made in my own lazy ass image. I wanted the gospel to look like welfare. I wanted to be taken care of. I wanted God to supply all my desires not just my needs. I wanted more tv channels, more video games, more music, less work and an endless supply of cash.
It was only pain that brought me to repentance: Sweet glorious pain. I thank God for it because if he hadn’t destroyed my life I would still be that arrogant little SOB that didn’t want to grow up ever.
So in the slightly altered words of John Cougar Mellencamp my new prayer for our times is: Come on Jesus make it hurt so good. Hurt us til we repent ‘cause we won’t repent until the pain becomes unbearable, or un-numbable, or unstoppable by anything we can conjure up. As long as we can create our own magic like the Egyptian magicians did in Moses' time we will not repent.
To paraphrase an old nursery rhyme: A tisket a tasket forget about the basket. Drop your self down on your knees repent or face the casket.
May our God be the God of the whole testament from Genesis to revelation. It is our only hope. If your religion is getting in the way of you embracing the totality of the revelation of God I pray that like REM you would find yourself losing your religion.
Always the optimist,
Brad
For those of you who are putting all your eggs in the red basket of last Tuesday I just want you to be aware that the red basket is only a different color than the blue basket. Nothing has changed and I mean nothing. America hasn’t fallen on its knees in repentance. It has not sought to humble itself before the living God. America is still full of Ann Rice like followers of Christ and rejectors of Christianity. It is still a nation that seeks after a Jesus made in its own image.
The fact is that if the red basket brings us economic recovery (which is highly unlikely) more cash in our pockets will only cause to harden our hearts more. Historically, just about the only thing that brings a nation to repentance is pain, suffering, and discomfort. America is the most comfortable nation in the world right now. That ought to make the picture pretty clear.
You see unless the church repents our nation really has no hope of recovery. I don’t know why I said “you see” at the beginning of that last sentence because when it boils down to it we don’t want to see. We want to be blind so we can keep on going the way we’re going only with steadier cash flow and less responsibility for our health. We just want to be taken care of. See even the red basket would take health care if we didn't have to pay for it.
We’ve got the cart before the horse these days thinking that we can restore our nation back to its original glory without the inconvenience of rebuilding the foundation upon which it was built. It’s kind of like an alcoholic who thinks he can drink himself to sobriety. I guess you probably would get sober after you died but you wouldn’t know it now would you?
The problem in our nation isn’t the economy, it isn’t the war in all the various countries in which we are fighting, it isn’t the gays, it isn’t greed, it isn’t murder of babies in the womb. The problem is the church.
The problem is that the church doesn’t believe in God, at least not the whole God; they believe in maybe a quarter of God. The other three quarters they fashion in their own image. But you see, contrary to Ann Rice the bible in its entirety is a revelation of who God is. I know that is unpopular with the new higher criticism, follow Jesus and not the bible crowd or the New Testament but not the Old Testament crowd. But unpopular doesn’t make un-true.
I know that believing such a thing will not get me an honorary doctorate from most seminaries and unfortunately that is part of the problem. We have educated ourselves into idolatry much the same way the Pharisees and Sadducees did 2100 years ago. We have traded God for academic acceptance, cultural acceptance and celebrity status. We want to look good in the eyes of our faculty peers, the media, and the movers and shakers therefore we exchange the truth for a lie and ride it all the way to the bank.
What is it going to take to humble the church this time around? I think the book of Judges is a perfect book for our times. Over and over again we read: And a generation arose that did not know the Lord. If you haven’t figured it out that means that a generation arose in the church, in the religious establishment that did not know the Lord. They were going to church just like they always did, maybe even more than the generation before them, they loved religion but they didn’t know the Lord. To get their attention God would put them in some kind of bondage for 20 or 40 years until they felt the consequences of their idolatry and then when they cried out to the God they didn’t know he would deliver them.
Why should we expect life to be any different? Because we live in a fantasy land where we think only about a quarter of the word of God applies to us. God is a God of love and grace he would never pour out covenant curses on his people. Tell that to Jerusalem in 79 AD. Of Course we are the determiners of what love and grace should look like right. We wrote the bible we can re-write it right? Only in our wildest dreams.
What if biblical love and grace look like a good butt whipping to a child that refuses to grow up and take responsibility for his own life? I’m sorry but I know too many people who refuse to grow up, who refuse to live in the real world. I was one of them for 30 plus years. I worshiped a Jesus made in my own lazy ass image. I wanted the gospel to look like welfare. I wanted to be taken care of. I wanted God to supply all my desires not just my needs. I wanted more tv channels, more video games, more music, less work and an endless supply of cash.
It was only pain that brought me to repentance: Sweet glorious pain. I thank God for it because if he hadn’t destroyed my life I would still be that arrogant little SOB that didn’t want to grow up ever.
So in the slightly altered words of John Cougar Mellencamp my new prayer for our times is: Come on Jesus make it hurt so good. Hurt us til we repent ‘cause we won’t repent until the pain becomes unbearable, or un-numbable, or unstoppable by anything we can conjure up. As long as we can create our own magic like the Egyptian magicians did in Moses' time we will not repent.
To paraphrase an old nursery rhyme: A tisket a tasket forget about the basket. Drop your self down on your knees repent or face the casket.
May our God be the God of the whole testament from Genesis to revelation. It is our only hope. If your religion is getting in the way of you embracing the totality of the revelation of God I pray that like REM you would find yourself losing your religion.
Always the optimist,
Brad
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