Random Thoughts on a Cold Winter Day

I’m high-maintenance, I need encouragement living the Christian life. Some folks don’t seem to need that. They say that they get all the encouragement they need from the Bible. I get encouragement there, but I also need people who will tell me from time to time that I made a right choice, I’m doing a good job living the Christian life, etc. The Saintly Mrs. Z is wonderful at most things, but in this matter of encouragement, she just isn’t able due to her upbringing. I accept that. So, I try to encourage myself and I do have a group of guys who encourage me, when they aren’t poking fun at me (which is a whole other issue).
This gets me thinking about a broader issue that I’m seeing in the church today. There isn’t a lot of encouragement out there. Look at the Christian publications that seem to devote every issue to telling us saints that we are woefully missing the mark. The message from many pulpits seems to be a barrage of “we need to be doing this thing that we aren’t doing” rather than encouraging the saints and telling them that they are doing a good job living the Christian life. In no way am I criticizing Crossway Church where I attend. But I am saying that sometimes we need to be hearing that we are doing a good job rather than telling us that we should be doing something. I’ve tried listening to Christian affirmations and reading books that encourage, but none of them are like hearing someone next to you telling you that you are doing a good job.
This is why I believe in discipling and having an accountability partner. I’m still auditioning guys for that role. But there is a problem in that so many Christians view this as a sitting one down for the airing of grievances ala Festivus. Discipleship and accountability should be equal parts of where one falls short and where one should be praised and encouraged. The way that I’ve always understood it is that coming out of a discipling session or an accountability meeting you should feel elated rather than beaten down and feeling like a miserable failure. I think that a session should be like Jesus’ letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 where He lists the good things first and then criticizes them before ending with a note of encouragement.
This, then, is my point: The saints need encouragement as well as correction. We need to hear and to know that we are walking the right path and bringing glory to the Father. We don’t just need “Find your encouragement in the Bible.” We need to hear it from one another. The brother or sister who is feeling beaten down and worthless doesn’t need to hear of message of “Here’s 7 things the church fails at doing”. I don’t understand why so many worship services are instructional and not encouraging. They should be like a coach’s pre-game “fire-up” speech. The instruction should be left to the small groups in order to leave the Sunday service to be a time of energizing the saints for our mission in the outside world.
Let me dovetail this with a bit of criticism that I have about myself. I know folks who just wallow in Christ’s love for them. It just bursts forth from them. It’s almost all that they talk about. Me? I know that Christ loves me, but I just don’t feel it. I can’t get it to migrate from my brain to my heart. I can discuss it, I can read about it, I can debate it and write about it. I just can’t get to the point where I can walk around feeling God’s love for me. It is one of the reasons that I need to hear it from people. My natural state is to be hyper-critical of myself, picking apart everything about me with a micro-scalpel. (As an aside, that is the reason why I don’t take kindly to folks who poke fun at me. I am doing a good enough job all by myself and I don’t need your help!)
So, when folks tell me that I “just need to know how much God loves you” I have no idea what they are talking about. I KNOW how much He loves me. I want to know it in my heart! I want to feel it! I want to be like those folks who can’t seem to shut up about how much God loves them!
But, alas, I guess God made me the way that I am and maybe not having this experiential love relationship with Him is how He wants it. Perhaps He wants me to know His love in a more academic way. And this gets us to my second point in this screed: When people believe there is only ONE way to experience God’s love I get pretty bummed out.
God has created each of us with all sorts of different traits. Not all of us are wired to be the type who just ooze God’s love and wander throughout the day just reveling in it as if he was their boy or girlfriend. Yet, that is the sort of thing that I read about and hear about and I don’t have that same experience. So, my mind switches to the hyper self-critical mode. Why aren’t I like these people? What’s wrong with me? Perhaps I’m not saved. Then these folks double-down. They say that you can’t just have an intellectual relationship with Christ. Why not? What if that is how God wired me? What if God decided that He needed so many wallowers in His love and so many who know His love intellectually? What if each of us have a unique purpose to fulfill in His Kingdom?
This is why it is so critical that on Sunday mornings our churches need be a place of rampant, unabashed encouragement.

 

The Real 4th of July

Here’s a thought for this Independence Day:

As a kid, I always felt that the 4^th of July was equal to Christmas and Thanksgiving.  It was a time of exceptional unity when all my friends would be down at the park for the carnival, everyone in town turned

out for the parade, and my family typically gathered for a cookout. The remembrance of that warm embrace of unity never leaves me and always excites my heart.

 

That feeling of unity was almost palpable as TOGETHER we cheered the flag as it passed by in the parade. TOGETHER we cheered our veterans of WWI and WWII as they passed by.  TOGETHER we rose in respect as the car carrying the Gold Star Mothers rolled past.

 

You see, there was a powerful sense back then that we all shared in this country. I recently saw a picture posted somewhere that showed a slave gang picking cotton in Pre-Civil War times. The poster had captioned it: “How my ancestors celebrated on July 4, 1776”.  I just don’t get that kind of thinking because it implies that Independence Day celebrates a fact. It most certainly doesn’t.

 

To my line of thinking, Independence Day celebrates the ideals put forth in the Declaration of Independence “…that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  I know of illegal immigrants who celebrate on this day—perhaps to avoid notice by the ICE—but also perhaps because they are living in a land that has those ideals as opposed to one where there is a permanent peasant class and tiny ruling class and that the only ideal of the ruling class is keeping it that way.

 

For 241 years we have celebrated the ideals or goals as set out in the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps we will never achieve them. Perhaps until the Day of the Lord’s returning we will look at the Declaration of Independence and think of how close, yet how far away from them we are.

 

But we will always celebrate the birthday of a unique country that is trying very, very hard to live up to them.

 

A Prayer For Orlando

Heavenly Father, We confess that at times like this we wonder where you are. You tell us that you are present always and everywhere. That nothing happens unless you allow it. Yet, a senseless act like this with so many families suffering terrible grief, broken hearts, and sorrow at its deepest, we wonder how it is that you could possibly allow this to happen or even be present in the midst of it. We stand on your promise that you are ever present in the eternal now, that you are unchanging, that you always hear our prayers, that you are with the loved ones of those killed, that you are with the police officers and medical personnel who responded to this terrible tragedy, that you are with those who were wounded both physically and mentally and emotionally. Father, we ask for your hand of comfort to be on the shoulder of all those who are suffering. Remind them that you are faithful and true. Assure those who are crying out for justice that you are the ultimate justice. Forgive us our anger and when we strive to take vengeance ourselves remind us that vengeance is your only and that your justice, unlike ours, is strict and pure. Above all, Father, give us the strength to face another day. Increase our faith. Assure us of the promises of your Word. Father, we have no other place to turn but to you: the ultimate love, the ultimate justice, the ultimate strength. We thank you for your Word. We thank you for salvation through your son Jesus in whose holy me we pray. Amen.

 

Now Is The Time To Talk About Sin

I recently read a Christian blog post regarding the releasing of confidential records from the Ashley Madison marital cheating website.  The writer, a self-avowed Christian, said that, in dealing with the people who were “outed” by the information breach, now is not the time to talk about sin.  I have heard this phrase “now is not the time to talk about sin” used over and over in similar circumstances, particularly when high-profile Christians are caught in indiscretions. My question is: “If we can’t talk about sin now, than when?”

It seems that a large portion of American Christianity is becoming adverse to talking about sin. We are all about telling folks about Christ’s love for them.  We repeat John 3:16 over and over to them and beg them to receive God’s love for them. Sadly, we never tell them why, we never tell them that unless they repented of their sin, their afterlife will be very, very unpleasant, to say the least. I’ve had elders of churches tell me that I shouldn’t talk about sin when unbelievers are around because it might sound judgmental. He wanted us to only talk about how loving God is.  Not even Jesus did that.  When it came to sin Jesus was very confrontational. In fact the first words of His earthly ministry (Mark 1:15) were a call to repentance. Well, before someone repents there must be a discussion of sin and an acknowledgement that one is a sinner. Yet, many American Christians, rather than appear “judgmental” would want the unsaved to “accept Christ’s love for them” and then worry about repenting later on. They ignore the fact that without repenting of sin first the unsaved sinner is still an unsaved sinner.

In the blog post that I mentioned above the author implies, but never actually says, that talk of sin should be avoided until there has been a long time of healing. The author says that the work of the church must be centered on healing the family. But unless there is a sound understanding that what happened was a grievous sin, then how can any reunification of the family occur?  If there is no discussion of the sinful act that divided the family and perhaps even the church, then how can there be any repentance, the only thing that will bring healing?

Yet, our church services are full of preaching about the extravagant love of God.  God the wonderful love bunny, the God who chuckles like a kindly old uncle when we miss the mark. We hear this so often that we think that God’s response to our sin amounts to Him patting us on the head and saying “That’s okay, just try to do better next time.” Nothing could be further from the biblical truth. The reason that we can talk about His grace and love is that God is highly incensed at our sin, indeed is enraged by it, but He restrains His anger by His own choice because we have a mediator in Christ Jesus. Our hearts should break when we consider our daily sins, perhaps even have a momentary shot of fear of facing His unrestrained rage, but we can take joy in the relief of knowing that Christ paid our penalty–He received God’s rage instead of us.

I used to think that the least preached upon subject in the church today was the topic of Heaven.  Indeed, statistics say it is rarely spoken of in any manner in church sermons. But I now believe that the least talked about subject, in the American church at least, is how God feels about sin.  When I bring this up with pastors and elders the usual response is “well, everyone knows that He doesn’t like sin”. I don’t think that they do–and the greater number of them just don’t comprehend the degree of hate and rage that God feels for sin and unrepentant sinners.  When I have people read or hear Jonathan Edwards’ masterful sermon “Sinners in The Hands of An Angry God” they often recoil in horror. But they don’t recoil in horror at their own tenuous state in the hands of God Almighty. Rather, they recoil that anyone would talk about stuff like that in today’s church.  Well, by having that attitude they are demonstrating the reasons why the church in the West, and America in particular, is failing:  1.) we no longer talk about sin, and 2.) we don’t call it out when it occurs.

A friend of mine likes to point out that the church in America is broken and totally out of sync with what God’s church is supposed to be.  He likes to say that the small churches in impoverished Third World countries have it all over us in terms of being “real churches” like what God intended. I disagree with him except on this one point: those impoverished Third World churches don’t hesitate to talk about sin and calling it out in their midst. We do. The evidence can be seen in the fact that in the USA there is little difference in the divorce rate between Christians and non-Christians. Many, many pastors in the USA have a pornography problem. Our kids go off to college and become ex-Christians. That is, in my opinion, the result of our watering down any talk of sin. We water it down to the point that our attitude towards sin is no different from our culture’s attitude. The only difference is that we have “received God’s love for us”, but to no measurable effect. Then we wonder why our leaders and fellow congregants seem so cavalier about sin.

Yet, in spite of all of this, our churches believe that if we looked MORE like the surrounding society we would be more successful in reaching it. Our modern praise and worship music (a lot of it I like as music but find it weak on praise and worship) only rarely mentions our sinfulness and need for repentance. Almost all of it relates to God’s never-ending love for us implying, as it were, that He takes an easy-going view of sin.  I highly doubt that if some songwriter penned a song that talks about God raging at sin and thus worshiping Him for that, that it would ever be heard outside of his own studio.

So, we end up with Christians looking down their noses at churches that preach against sin. We call them “Westboro Christians” after the anti-homosexual protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church. (By the way, it is neither “Baptist” nor a “church”.) We shake our heads thinking that churches that preach about sin and repentance are backwards hicks somehow missing out on preaching the Gospel. I have no way of proving this, but my best guess is that the congregants who sit in those churches know the Gospel far better than the average American Christian.  They also are less likely to commit a sin that divides the family, too. One thing that I do know is that by having a clear understanding of God’s rage at sin, they know far better than most what His grace is and how incredible His love is for us.

 

Jesus Loved Hitler

There’s one question that is often asked of me that really, really bugs me: “Well, whose side would Jesus be on?” You see, I think that the correct answer in any case would be “Both.”

I’m going to go out on a theological limb here and say that as much as Jesus abused the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, he loved them.  He loves both the oppressed and the oppressor. He even loved Adolph Hitler. (Boy, that should get me in trouble!)  You see, unless we believe that, we aren’t able to claim Jesus love for us. (More serious trouble!)  Too often, we think that someone deserves Jesus’ love more than someone else.  I grew up in a liberal church where this was taught. But you cannot define Jesus’ love that way, otherwise you end up restricting his love to only the good people and eventually it devolves into “Jesus loves only those who think like me.”

Now, let me make a few things very, very clear:  The love that we are talking about is not a love that, say, absolves an Islamic terrorist of the sin of murder when he decapitates a Christian.  It is not a love that says that you can get away with the worst that a person could imagine.  Instead, it is a love that pleads with the sinner to repent, to come to the arms of Christ where you can be forgiven.  It is a love that knows what you could be without sin dragging you into the muck and mire of a life seeking false joy.  It is a love that pleads with us to repent and know eternal life rather than eternal death. Maybe it would be better put this way:  We can either choose to accept Jesus’ love for us, or we can reject it. It is a love that all to well knows the consequences of sin and begs you to avoid it.  It is a love that tells us that if we choose to sin, we choose to suffer.

You see, Jesus’ love is expansive and available for everyone. Unless He loves that Islamic terrorist you have no chance at being loved by him when you steal from your boss by cheating on your expense account.  Unless Jesus loves that politician that you hate for cutting funding to a program that helps widows and orphans, you have no claim on his love when you ignore a neighbor in need.

Here’s a takeaway:  You can’t go and thump your chest and bray about how much you are loved by Christ unless you acknowledge that Jesus loves the worst sinner that you can imagine.  Jim, are you saying that all sins are the same?  That murder and gossip are equal in God’s eyes?  I say that, yes, that is very true.  Unless they are the same, you have to believe that God gives a pass on some sins that He wouldn’t on others.  But we never see that in the Bible. Indeed, we see tons of grace being dispensed to tax collectors, thieves, prostitutes, as well as to a criminal on the cross next to Jesus.  By the way, remember how Jesus asked God to forgive those murdering him because they really didn’t know what they were doing? We never see Jesus saying that someone’s sin is unforgivable EXCEPT for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (a fancy term for seeing the miracles of God but calling them the work of the devil).

Yet all too often we feel comfortable believing that some certain sinner or group of sinners are not loved by God.  I used to sit in church and listen to a very liberal pastor tell all of us white males were the cause of every bit of oppression in the world. (It took guts to sit there every single Sunday morning and just take that crap.) Never once did he tell us that Jesus loved us just as much as the he loved the victims of the oppression that we were supposedly guilty of committing.  That is as wrong as rain on race day.  It is kindness and love that leads the sinner to repentance. That’s in the Bible.  Jesus loves us out of our hellish existence of wallowing in our sin.  He loves us WHEN we are still in our sin.  If He waited until we cleansed ourselves of our sins (something that we have no power to do), no one would be saved.

So, we MUST believe that Jesus loved or loves the absolutely worst sinner that you can imagine.  He loves the one that everyone hates, and not just a casual “yeah, I like you” sort of love. No, Jesus loves the worst sinner with a “shout it from the roof tops while swinging his jacket over his head” type of love. Because unless he does, you and I have no hope whatsoever.

So then, “Which side is Jesus on?”  The answer, as trite as it may sound at times, is “the side of love”.

 

What to do About the Kenyan Massacre

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” –Revelation 6:9–10 (ESV)

 

Today my heart grieves as I read about the 147 Christians at a college in Kenya who were brutally murdered by al-Shabaab Islamic terrorists.  I openly admit that my heart was filled with hatred of the terrorists who did this and if given the ability to do so I would readily exact revenge on them. Thank God for His grace that covers the multitude of my sins. You see, revenge and retaliation are not in the Christian’s job description. But I hasten to add that both are written into God’s.  And should the al-Shabaab terrorists never repent and seek salvation by the Name of Jesus Christ, well, they will learn about God’s almighty justice. The book of Isaiah describes a bit of it and theologian Jonathan Edwards preached a very famous sermon about it. To think that the infinite power of an incensed angry God would be brought to bear on one is chilling indeed.

Now, I don’t take comfort that God will have his revenge on these murderers.  I feel great sorrow that anyone would face it. In fact, I try not to think of the subject at all and I think that is how God wants it.  It would be very comforting to me to take delight in the fact that someday those terrorists will know unrelenting pain and violence that won’t end well for them. I can take delight in the anguish and torment that they will experience as the exquisite and ruthless perfection of God’s justice. It would be the ultimate case of “you’ll get yours!” But you know what?  That’s just taking revenge by proxy and that is not right and, in fact, is a sin in God’s eyes.  “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay” says God in Deuteronomy 32:35 and He doesn’t seem inclined to include me or anyone else in that verse. And besides, our sense of justice on this side of the heavenly curtain, is miserable at best, clouded by our sinful minds and propensity toward sin. I’d say that compared to God we are just about the most unjust things around. He judges with perfection that no one he on Earth can even begin to match.

So, as a Christian, what do I do about the Kenyan massacre? As a member of Christ’s body I make myself obedient before Him. Sure, I’ll pray for those family in Kenya and I may even pray for the terrorists to repent. But otherwise I think that God just wants us to go about our lives of service to Him.  He put me here in this little corner of the world and He’s given me the assignment to take care of some folks and show them God’s love and how to get it. It seems that I have all I can do just doing that job.  Why would I want to take on the additional work of extracting justice and vengeance? In fact, God prefers that His blood-bought children focus on the loving and leave the messy work of vengeance and retaliation to Him. The world, but more especially our lives, are much better that way.

And I think that is how He wants it.

 

One Thing the US Church Does Poorly: Fight Poverty in America

These days it is easy to convince ourselves that poverty is something that we only see in Third World countries or our inner cities here stateside.  Not true.

Last Friday while in Nashville, I did what I’d wanted to do for a long time which is to get off the expressway, drive deep into the country, and go see Tennessee via the back roads.  I drove quite a ways into a very rural area and basically stayed on county roads.  Some of the little crossroads towns that I saw were probably cute little towns–in their day. Now you can see the effects of isolated rural poverty. It breaks my heart each time I see it. The rundown houses, the abandoned commercial buildings, cobbled together outbuildings, really brings tears to my eyes.  These are my brother and sister Americans and they are living so far under the radar that we don’t even know that they exist. It shouldn’t be this way!  Driving around those areas I just wanted to stop and sob.

I could feel the heartbreak and frustration of the people living there, especially those who know what it was once like when things there were thriving in their little town. There are no Walmart’s nearby or other big box stores to blame for this. It didn’t happen because the big corporations sucked all the money out the area and then callously left.  It happened for as many reasons as there are stars in the sky. It may be that a well-selling crop failed, or a business that supported the town burned down and was never rebuilt.  Perhaps the railroad could no longer economically justify the spur that kept the town alive. Debating the reason only takes up precious time and resources needed to help these people.

Isolated rural poverty can be found in pretty much every state and it just breaks my heart. (And if you don’t think that we have it in Wisconsin, hop in the car and I’ll take you for a ride.) Ever since I began serving in Appalachia with the Christian Appalachian Project, I’ve become aware of isolated rural poverty in the USA. It is the poverty that is rarely mentioned in public. You don’t see it written about in the news. The big Hollywood stars don’t hold fundraisers to fight it. Despicably, when I mention seeing it in southern states a lot of northern folks make derogatory comments about the people and call up old worthless stereotypes in order to keep the reality of poverty in rural America from bruising fragile, sensitive egos. It’s easy to be that way when most of us never get off the expressway to see it and hardly ever encounter the folks who have given up on the American dream ever happening to them.

Sadly, the church in the USA doesn’t seem to much care. I say that in spite of the fine work being done by the Christian Appalachian Project.  I say this because we need programs such as CAP all over this country in order to combat this rural poverty. (For heaven’s sake, don’t let the government know about this post! The last thing needed is for them to stick their nose in it and thereby make it worse!) The church in America should be the solution; but it seems as if the church in America has only two visions of poverty:  The poverty in the Third World and the poverty in our inner cities. The churches in America spend untold millions of dollars to send people to fight, and raise awareness of, poverty in the Third World. Good for them, and especially so if God has led them to do so.  But things such as health care, home construction, addiction recovery programs, domestic abuse counseling, educational programs, and more are needed in these little corners of America that have been left ignored by so many people.

I wish that I had taken some pictures of what I saw.  But at the time I felt that taking pictures would have seemed like shredding the last vestiges of dignity for these people.  I even thought of looking up one of the local pastors to see if there is some way that I could help.  But then what could I have done then and there except to offer kind words and a prayer of support?

All that I ask of you is this:  Ask your church if they have any missions programs that serve the rural poor in the USA.  (Don’t be surprised if they say “Huh?”) Look hard for a program somewhere that serves the isolated rural poor in your area, or any area of the country for that matter, and get involved.  I assure you that it is just as Christian to serve the poor in some isolated corner of this country as it is to fly halfway around the world to do it.  No, your youth wouldn’t think that it is exotic or exciting to go to, say, rural Missouri or Tennessee and help the folk there.  And they likely as not wouldn’t think that repairing a kitchen floor matches the joy of doing an evangelistic mime act in the town square of a dirt-hut village in the jungle.  But we aren’t being called for ourselves!  We are called to serve! It is just as evangelistic for a person to go in Christ’s name to install new plumbing in a run-down farmhouse as it is to sing songs in the town square. The churches in the USA, in respect to serving in their own corner of God’s creation, do a lousy job of it.

 

 

Why Do We Give Gifts At Christmas?

Why do we give gifts at Christmas?  Indeed, why should we give gifts just because we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ?  It is a deeper question than you might think it is.

First, let’s lay aside the Santa Claus thing.  I’ll tell you why in a moment.  I also want to lay aside the whole argument about whether or not we are given a biblical order to celebrate Christ’s birth.  I’ll stipulate it here and now:  Nothing tells us to celebrate His birth and nothing tells us that we shouldn’t.  Apparently from a biblical standpoint we can either celebrate it or not celebrate it.  I choose to celebrate Christmas.

So, what about giving gifts?  Should we do it or not?  I say give gifts for the right reason and that reason is not because you are compelled to do so.  Let’s look at the greatest gift of all time:  Jesus Christ.  Why did He come to us?  The whole of the Bible answers that:  Because God wanted to give Him and he did so at a time of His own choosing.  To understand this you need to know the term “grace”.  We often think of grace as in, for example, a ballerina who is graceful and flowing.  But the way the Bible talks about grace is from a different standpoint.  Grace is what kings dispense when they do something simply because they can. Consider a king who decides that all of the taxes he once imposed are now repealed is exercising his grace.

Think about Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth.  Under Roman rule but still Jewish.  Along with all of the hassles imposed by the Roman, the Jewish religion was corrupted by obnoxious leadership (You think churches today only want your money? You should have lived back then!) And talk about rules!  The leaders imposed rules for the faith that did nothing to bring folks closer to God but were rather an unjust burden to people. For most people, worship of God was a stagnant, grudging routine that was neither enjoyable nor God-honoring.  Satan had really turned the worship of God into something that took the focus off of God and put it on ourselves, and made it pretty much the sin of ego (think of the Pharisees and Sadduces).  Into this mess God sent Jesus.  So, the gift of God in human form was not given because we had earned it, but rather because we were so far gone that only God could rescue us.  So, He did just that and did it for no other reason than He loves us so much that He wanted to do it.

So, what does this have to do with gift-giving?  Simply put, God gave us a gift that we didn’t earn and surely didn’t deserve.  He came into the world in human form to live a perfect life and then be the once for all time sacrifice for our sins and, thus, have eternal life with God in Heaven.  Note that the gift wasn’t done because we had become good enough. We hadn’t and never would.  It was God giving us a gift out of His incredible love for us, His creation.

That is one heck of a lot better than Santa Claus’ deal of trying to be good enough to earn your Christmas presents. True, the Santa thing is fun but it is not “the reason for the season”, so to speak. In fact, when you take a look at it from the biblical perspective it is the total opposite of what Christmas is all about.  We didn’t deserve or earn the gift that we got from God.  Don’t take this as me saying that you shouldn’t do the Santa thing. Go ahead and do it if you like.  But please leave out the “he’s watching to see if you have been bad or good” thing.

We give gifts at Christmas to remind each other of the greatest gift of all time:  Jesus Christ, God in human form, the Second Person of the Trinity. We don’t give them because someone has earned one; we give it because, as God did, we love that person.  There need be no other reason. Christians in the Christmas season should be gift-giving fanatics. Expressing our love for others by giving them a gift.  We should not withhold gifts due to a grudge with some member of your family or circle of friends.  Instead, we should be ultra-generous gift-givers both to family and friends as well as in our charitable giving. And may I also say that there is really no place for “White Elephant” gift-giving games, or practical joke gifts at Christmas.  Yes, they are fun, but please save them for birthdays or other occasions.  Giving gifts at Christmas reenacts something that God did for us.  It isn’t a game or a practical joke. We should do it as a recognition of what He did for us.

May God bless you richly in this Christmas Season!  And may He open your eyes to see the best blessing of all!!

 

The Loving God Who Hates

So many Christians today have a perverted view of the Lord. I use “perverted” in the secondary definition of “having been corrupted or distorted from its original course, meaning, or state.” Today the focus, it seems, is on this wonderful, warm, fuzzy God who is a gigantic love muffin. Oh yeah, that and He answers prayer and heals and does miracles at our command as well.  Well, that is all kinds of nice until the Christian reads the Old Testament and passages such as the imprecatory Psalms and the first chapter of Nahum.  Where’s your soft fuzzy love muffin there?  Many view God’s anger, wrath, and vengeance in negative, rather than positive terms.

I’ve had folks tell me that the God of the Old Testament is now changed, or something.  He no longer is a God of rage and vengeance.  Or they say that He has now expended His wrath and vengeance, and thus only shows love in any every situation.  That sounds nice but it is theological drivel. Unless you want to worship a God who makes unannounced changes, you have to grasp that God is immutable.  NOTHING about God changes.  See Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8.  I’d also draw one’s attention to Jesus’ directions to His disciples that they should shake the dust off their feet when they leave a town that has rejected them and their message. I’d particularly direct one’s attention to Matthew 10:14-15 where Jesus clearly implies that those who reject the disciples’ message of the Gospel will be treated more harshly than was Sodom and Gomorrah.

To be sure, God is love (1John 4:7-21); so, we somehow must reconcile the God of wrath and vengeance with the God of love.  It is not as hard as some might think.  First, we have to understand that there is no grey area with God.  Something either is or it isn’t and His standard is perfection.  “A good try” is not in God’s vocabulary and that is why Christ is always there interceding for us and assuring us of God’s grace. His grace is dispensed when we repent of our rebellion. Yet, what about those who simply don’t care about God?  What about those who not only outright reject God, but they war against Him and all that He stands for?  Some would say that God loves them anyway and He pleads for them and sheds tears while begging them to reconsider.  That concept finds no support in the Bible, New or Old Testament.  In fact, God is very explicit:  You mock Him at your own peril.  He does not tolerate being mocked or rejected. Yet, for those that accept Him they do find the lovey-dovey, warm and fuzzy God and are protected by His grace. (As an aside, the idea that God pleads with us to love Him strongly implies that He has no power to influence and change us. That is, again, theological drivel.)

But let’s also bring in something that is often not mentioned when discussing this:  God’s wrath and vengeance are a part of His incredible love for us.  It is the protecting God who empowered the destruction of the Amalekites, the Edomites, the Hivites, etc.  Those nations posed an immediate threat to the people who God loved.  God’s wrath and vengeance are an extension of His great love for us, just as a father will give his life to protect his children from imminent harm.  A God who loves but does not respond to threats with anger and vengeance is no more than a useless, powerless idol. Put another way, remember that the Lamb of God is also the Lion of Judah.

Jonathan Edwards delivered the greatest sermon ever given on North American soil when he preached his masterful work “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”.  Since that day in 1741 when he preached it at a church in Enfield, Connecticut many Christians have tried to flee from that sermon and have gone to inextricable lengths of linguistic gymnastics to disavow it.  Why?  All Edwards does is describe God’s reaction to being rejected after one has heard the Gospel. When one reads how He dealt with Israel’s rejection of Him during the exodus, when one reads of how He destroyed other nations, including men, women, and children because they rejected Him (see Bible Study Magazine, July/August 2014 issue), you get the clear idea that an explosion of God’s temper awaits those who having heard of Him and seeing His work continue to reject Him (Rom. 1:18-23). It is clear the given the immutability of God that those who now reject His love face a dreadful consequence.  Further, nations that reject Him will find themselves facing, as Edwards says, “the fierceness of wrath of Almighty God”.

And that is how we reconcile the two personality traits of God, anger and love that we see in the Bible.  The very angry God of the Old Testament is angered at being rejected in spite of His loving works and His creation that he made for all of mankind.  The love muffin God does not conflict with that because He is pouring out His love on those who have accepted Him.  If you need proof, go back to the Old Testament and see how God loves those who love Him. Read how God loved David and his kingdom.  Read how God poured out His love on Solomon and his kingdom (before Solomon began turning his back on God and worshiping other deities).  Read in Kings and in Chronicles how God loved the Hebrew Kings that loved Him and obeyed Him.  Read as well how His anger burned at those kings who rejected Him.  It is one and the same God, folks.

But when we look at God’s personality that allows for incredible love as well as great anger, we need to remember that we don’t love and serve God out of fear of His wrath but rather out of joy for all that He has done for we who are such wretched children.  Further, it is important to remember that we are made in God’s image, and that godly image is one that has a multi-trait personality where there is a strong desire to be accepted and a high degree of umbrage at being rejected by our fellows.

I love all of God completely.  I love that He pours out His love on those who love Him and call upon His Name.  But I also love that He is a God that pours out incredible anger and vengeance on those who reject Him.  I love Him because I know that He will not let His children be wronged and then let the evil doer go unpunished.  I love Him because He has standards and enforces them.  I love an angry God who has told us that he will exact revenge so that we don’t have to. (In reference to that, one might say that God tells us that He will exact revenge because we are incapable of exacting revenge to the degree that could satisfy an all-powerful, holy God’s degree of indignation.)

Yet, some Christians just don’t seem willing to accept that their God has unmeasurable anger as part of His personality. When pressed, some say that they just don’t like the idea of a God of wrath and vengeance.  One Christian of this belief stream told me that the wrath and anger of God was “just too Baptist” for Him. The liberal Protestants will tell you that God does indeed have an angry personality but it is only directed towards rich white people and their corporations. Having grown up in one of those liberal denominations, I have never been able to crack that incomprehensible theological reasoning.

If anything, I’d like to end with this:  As God does have anger and wrath, how does that come into play for the average American Christian today? For one thing, we have to somehow reconcile the crucifixion story with God’s anger at rejection.  Clearly Jesus crucifixion was the ultimate rejection.  Yet, we also must look at the crucifixion in the greater context as being the process of salvation.  Being beaten, whipped, spat upon, ridiculed, and finally crucified was the process of taking upon Himself the punishment for our sins.  Elsewhere in the Gospel we do see Jesus expressing anger at the rejection of His message.  It should also be noted that the wrath of God was poured out on Jerusalem in 70 AD.  As much as some would not like to make the connection, I will say that it fits the pattern of “reject God, pay the price”.

A God without a strong inclination toward anger and wrath at the rejection of Him is a God who simply has no power to shape the events of the world that He created.  If there had never been a serpent in the Garden of Eden and if man had never fallen, perhaps God could indeed never show vengeance and wrath, and could move world events merely by the power of His love and everyone responding accordingly.  Instead we have a God who exacts a price for rejection of Him and His love.  It is His prerogative alone to do so.

 

Stop Promising to Pray For Others

“I’ll pray for you” How many times have we heard this and even said it ourselves?  Christians love this phrase. I’ve even spoken it a bunch of times.  But now I’m wondering why we even say it as it has become just another one of those things that we say without even thinking.  It really is rather innocuous if not disingenuous; sort of like asking someone how they are doing today. I see it in epidemic numbers on social media sites such as Facebook.  Someone posts a concern and immediately friend after friend tells them that they will pray for them. It makes you wonder how many of them actually have an active prayer life.

Lately I’ve taken to challenging folks who say “I’ll pray for you”.  “Will you REALLY pray for me?  Do you REALLY mean it?”  The average response has been a startled look, as if I’m questioning their Christian bona fides. Hopefully it causes them to really pray for me.  I challenge them not so much to get them to remember to pray for my issue; rather I want them to think about what they said.  It is a very serious thing to make a promise before God to pray for someone.  It is especially serious when you say it just to get someone to leave you alone.

A number of years ago I was in a pastor’s fellowship group when one pastor called out the group on this subject.  I had brought a need to the group and after I had lain out my issue one of the group leaders said “We’ll be praying for you.” I clearly remember this other pastor jumping in and saying “Then why don’t we pray for him right now?  Let’s not say it if we aren’t going to do it.” That has always stuck with me.  Instead of saying “I’ll pray for you”, I now try (without perfection, I might add) to say “Let me pray for you right now.”  Really, how long does it take to pray for someone?  Five minutes?  What better comfort can we provide someone than to lay hands on them and pray? It certainly alleviates the concern of that person that you might forget to pray for them; or that your offer to pray for them is just some words that you are saying in vague attempt to either comfort them or mollify them. Instead of telling someone that you will pray for them, offer to pay for them right then and there.  If you can’t do that, then whip out your prayer journal and let them see you write it down.

On social media sites, I have stopped telling people that I will pray for them.  Instead I write out a short prayer right then and there.  If I can’t do that, I try to give them an encouraging word or offer a Bible passage.  I am trying to remove the phrase “I’ll pray for you” from my life.  I really hope that others will do that as well.