Last week, while my wife, Jana, and I enjoyed breakfast under the shade of a tree on an unusually cool Honduran morning she commented on how pretty a nearby flower looked. I turned and there was a beautiful orchid growing on a nearby tree. It was lovely.
As we finished our tortillas, black beans and fried platanos, I thought back to a few weeks earlier when we were in an exclusive area of Dallas attending the funeral of a longtime friend and ministry partner. If we had seen the same scene there, we likely would have viewed it differently.
Lambs among wolves? Really Jesus? That’s crazy! We’re gonna get creamed! The kingdom of God is upside-down (at least from the world’s point of view.)
It’s “crazy” to think:
If you have a need, give … and it shall be given unto you.
If you want to save your life … lose it.
If you exalt yourself you’ll be humbled. Humble yourself to be exalted.
If you want to be great .. be a servant of all.
Not just a servant to the influential but a servant even to other servants.
In this time of world chaos it’s easy to respond like the world: anxiety, insecurity, complaining and hoarding because we don’t know what’s coming. That’s a natural response but …
God has called us to live supernaturally (above the natural). That means more than “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls that do.”
It’s easy to condemn the bad ACTIONS of the world while we have the same bad ATTITUDES of the world.
If our attitudes and actions are just like the world we can expect to reap the same harvest the world reaps – anxiety, worry and hopelessness. But how can we live counter-culturally, counter-intuitively, upside-down from the world’s perspective? Continue reading →
It’s hard to trust God to take care of you on a daily basis because He is just so unpredictable. If I get into trouble, will he rescue me like He did for some or will he let me suffer like He did for others – even some of his favorites.
Think about Joseph. He was one of God’s special ones but he ended up in prison on false charges. He did nothing wrong yet nothing went right for him. Of course, I guess, in the end it turned out OK for him – he ended up ruling with Pharoah.
But what about Paul, another one God should have taken care of. He was shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned and ended up beheaded. How can you trust a God who takes care of you like that? Of course, I guess I have to remember that his story didn’t end when he was beheaded. He then went to heaven to receive the reward he said he had been running a race to receive. So, I guess, in the end it turned out OK for him, too. Continue reading →
I woke up at 4:00 am this morning with a splitting headache. (I’ve got to get a different pillow.) I took an ibuprofen but could not get back to sleep so decided to make the most of it by spending some time with the Lord. As I stumbled out of the bedroom into a chair where I usually go to pray my head was pounding. “Lord”, I thought, “I need you to take care of this headache if I am going to pray. I won’t be able to focus with my head throbbing like this.”
Suddenly I thought of this story in Acts 16:23-25:
“When they had struck them (Paul and Silas) with many blows, they threw them into prison, … the jailer … fastened their feet in the stocks. But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; …”
Then I was reminded of the many martyrs who were burned, stoned, subjected to unimaginable tortures yet died praising God. But I can’t pray because I have a headache? What is wrong with me? Continue reading →
Over forty years ago a long haired, scruffy, slightly smelly Jesus freak gave a piece of advice to a long haired Jesus freak wanna-be – me. Not sure whatever happened to that guy but his simple advice has pulled me through some rough times in my walk with the Lord. With deep sincerity, he looked me right in the eyes, “Don’t ever forget what Paul said,’Don’t be removed from the simplicity of the gospel'”.
Years later, when I discovered a wonderful thing called a Concordance I went in search of that Scripture. It is not there. I can only assume it was Paul his Bible study leader or Paul his barber who told him that. In any case, the wisdom of the warning has helped me many times over the years.
In these forty years of following Jesus I have hammered out my soteriology, my eschatology, my ecclesiology. I am still open to learning but I have a fairly good grasp on homiletics, hermeneutics and am just a dissertation away from earning my PhD in Pastoral Ministry. I am grateful for all I have learned but when the unanswerable storms of life come and I feel overwhelmed, disappointed with God, frustrated with His people or ready to give up on myself it isn’t all that information that carries me through. Instead, I think back to those days and that piece of advice given so sincerely, “Don’t be removed from the simplicity of the gospel”. Continue reading →
When Jesus came to be baptized John naturally resisted. John was baptizing people for repentance. John knew Jesus was sinless and did not need to repent of anything. John also acknowledged that he was a sinner like us, “I need to be baptized by you.” But Jesus insisted that john baptize Him. Why?
The 100% right answer is exactly what Jesus told John, “Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented.” (Matthew 3:15)
But what does “to fulfill all righteousness” mean? How did Jesus being baptized “fulfill all righteousness”? Here are at least a few reasons. Continue reading →
Something about the book of Job always troubled me. God allowed all Job’s children to be killed. At the end of the book it says the Lord gave him 7 sons and 3 daughters – like that would make it all right.
“Lord,” I thought, “I can’t believe that fixed everything. If You gave me 10 more kids that wouldn’t make up for the loss of even one of mine.”
In my heart I heard the Lord say, “I never said it made it right. I just told you what I did for Job so he did not grow old alone. Do you think he has any complaints about how I treated Him?”
Duh! I felt pretty foolish. Of course Job has no complaints about God’s treatment of him. For thousands of years he has been happily reunited with his whole family – those children before and after his trial. He wouldn’t complain about a few years of pain compared to the indescribable joy he has experienced for these thousands of years – and will continue to experience throughout eternity.
Life can be brutal. Why do some sink while others soar? I thought of a fellow who whined to me for two hours about how he was tossing out his faith in God because of a relatively minor problem he was having. Then I thought of a heroic friend who daily battles pain due to lupus but declares the goodness of God in the midst of it and even ministers to others every day she is physically able to.
Why are some of us like straw men that any tiny puff of adversity scatters to the wind and others like eagles that the storms lift to new heights of glory?
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
I love knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection – walking in victory, always smiling, sitting on top of the world. In fact, some would tell us that is what the Christian life is all about: God wants you happy. God wants you victorious. God wants you to be more than a conqueror. And guess what, they are right. God wants us to know Him in the power of His resurrection.
But God also wants us sad (mourn with those who mourn). God also wants us to experience defeat (many saints in the Bible did and grew through it). God also wants us to face living with a “thorn in the flesh” so we learn His grace is sufficient. If we are “to know Christ” in His full orbed glory, suffering is a part of who He is (Isaiah 53:3). Continue reading →
Judges 3:4
(These hostile enemies of Israel) were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses.
_____________________
We know the Lord could easily erase every struggle and make our lives smooth sailing into glory. But He allows it to “rain on the just and the unjust”. Christians get sick, have money problems, relational stresses, auto accidents, are victims in tragedies, on and on. In fact, as one first century accuser said, “You Christians have more problems than the average person. How can you believe a God who takes such poor care of you in this life is able to take care of you in the life to come?” Continue reading →
Luke 22:31-32
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
____________
Put yourself in Peter’s place. Jesus tells you that Satan has asked to “sift you” – translation, “beat the snot out of you”. That is worse than hearing the school bully is waiting for you in the parking lot. But surely God said “no” to Satan’s request, right? Wrong.
Jesus tells you He has prayed for you. Whew! That’s a relief. Jesus prayed so now the bully won’t be able to touch you or maybe you’ll even beat him up, right? Wrong again.
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Last week, while my wife, Jana, and I enjoyed breakfast under the shade of a tree on an unusually cool Honduran morning she commented on how pretty a nearby flower looked. I turned and there was a beautiful orchid growing on a nearby tree. It was lovely.
