Thought for the day.....

Living in a foreign land

This morning, as I drove to the coffee shop, I heard one of my favorite bible teachers say,

"Christianity is now and always has been countercultural."

Somehow we think that we can reconcile our faith with our culture, but it was never meant to be so. It can't be done. These are two different worlds, two different systems, two different kingdoms with different rules and rulers.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of life and the rule of a good God in and through his people.

Then, all around us, is the kingdom of this world, a kingdom of death and the rule of horrible cruel king, Satan.

Two entirely different systems, two different kingdoms with entirely different goals.

We live in the kingdom ruled by a cruel king, even as we serve and are subject to a different king, a different ruler.

How can we think we can reconcile these two kingdoms and make them compatible?

How could these two systems ever reconcile? They can't!

One, a kingdom of life and the rule of a good king.

The other a kingdom of death and a tyrant as ruler.

How did we ever think that we could make these two worlds co-exist? They won't!

Many still try to create and impose on the culture this idea of a Christian nation. There is no such thing! This quest for a Christian nation has focused our attention on the wrong things. We can never achieve it because we aren't supposed to! We are called to share the good news of Jesus Christ with people, one by one, and as they trust Christ you find a community of people ruled by a different king, part of a different kingdom, but we will never take over the kingdom of this world, not now, not as we envision. It's not our job!

The king who will take over one day will come and rule in his time, but it will not be by our efforts or by our best attempts to take this world system by force. It simply won't happen, it isn't what we were called to do!

So here we are, citizens of a different kingdom trying to live in a foreign land. How do we do it? How do we live with this reality that we, as Christians, are countercultural and always will be?

None of us like not fitting in, but if you are a Christian you simply don't fit in with this world system and aren't supposed to. Being a citizen of a different king makes us foreigners in our country of birth, but it's a reality we must be aware of. If you are a Christ follower you will never fit into the culture around you....unless you abandon the very king you have claimed and surrender to the one who rules here.

It's quite challenging living in a foreign land, isn't it?

Lessons remembered

More than 40 years ago I had an encounter with one of my professors in university that has impacted me more than anything he said in the classroom. It's funny, but I spent hundreds of hours in his classes, loved him as a teacher and believer, but remember only one thing he ever said. Here it is,

"Every morning when I dress I struggle with Jesus' words, "if you have two coats and see someone in need...." I have two coats and am still not sure what to do about it." -Andrew C. Bowling

There it is. A heartfelt struggle with the basics of the Christian faith. He had a PHD and was teaching bible at a Christian school, but still struggled with the nuances of the faith in an honest and real way. I never forgot those words, they have been part of my thinking, a worm weaving through my brain for decades.

Last night I remembered his words when I got a call from a man in our church who asked, "Could I borrow $20.00. I need some food....." And I thought (thanks Dr. Bowling) "I have $20.00 extra." So I went to meet him and gave him $40.00. I'm not saying that to brag, I'm saying that because it's important. If we never wrestle with the real issues of the faith how will anyone ever know we are living out what we believe?

Do you struggle with the words of Jesus? Are you trying to figure out how to live them out? I hope so. I hope, like my old prof, Dr. Bowling, you are looking for ways to live out the faith you claim. People will never forget what you say and what you do as you imitate Christ in the real world.

It's this simple

Alone

There is a strange thing that happens to all of us. It's something we were never meant to feel, an emotion, a feeling that we were never meant to know and yet we all have felt it. We have all had an overwhelming feeling of being alone.

Alone. It's a terrible feeling, a sense of abandonment, rejection, isolation. Alone is a place we all dread and avoid with noise, busy lives and activity, but alone is there. It's the great fear of every man, every woman, the fear that we will be alone.

It was never meant to be this way. God didn't design us to be alone. It was never an experience of Adam until sin came and then a sense of "alone" came. It's part of sin. We were designed to forever be in fellowship with God. We were designed to constantly sense and be in community with him, but when sin came along with it came "alone."

Jesus came to take care of our sin problem, but he came to do so much more. He came to resolve my aloneness, my isolation, my emptiness. He came to provide a way for us to once more be in constant fellowship with the one who made us. Jesus said, as he anticipated his disciples abandonment, "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me."

And now that is our solution as well. Now we, the very ones who dreaded being left alone, can have that ever present Father with us, in us, abiding, living with us every moment. Now, in Christ, one of my fearsome problems, the problem of "alone", is solved by the ever present Lord of heaven living in me, with me, and I will never be alone again.

Thank you, Lord.

Saturday's cartoon

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:4

Training is the most difficult of disciplines. It's often done when no one sees what you are doing. There is pain, struggle, discouragement and the constant thoughts of giving up. It's hard, but the reason we do it is because the prize, the race is worth it. You can't run the race if you're not ready and that's what training is all about. Daily disciplines that no one will see are part of what it takes to run the race that everyone will see. "I press on..." Paul understood the struggle, the temptation to give up, but he set a goal and gave all he had to the race.

Questions for the day: Do you have a mark, a goal in your sites that you are reaching towards? Do you know it will sometimes be hard? Are you committed to doing what no one sees so you will be rewarded when everyone does? How's your training going?

Quote of the day

"The greatest obstacle to my Christian life and an intimate relationship with God is me."

He came

Is there a God?

Does he care?

Is he involved in our world?

Does he even know what we are going through?

Does he understand the pain, the hurt, the suffering we live in here?

These questions are really important because we, as residents of this little planet, all wonder if God is there and if he cares. We want there to be a God. We want him to care about us. We want to know he's more than just the God of creation. We want and need a God of our days, a God of our pains. We want a God who shows us he cares about US.

God's response? He came.

You may ask, "He came? What do you mean God came?" The answer is quite surprising. We might think that the sign of God's care for us would be rain, gold, food, lack of pain or a hundred other things, but the ultimate sign of God's care for us was his coming to our little planet as a man, as one of us. God became a man and lived here, lived with us, saw our pain, felt our pain, cried our tears, understood our struggles and then provided the perfect solution for it all.

Is there a God? Does he care? His answer? YES, he came. And in that coming he changed everything forever. How could one man make such a difference? How could one person living for just a few years change the world? He can if he's God and he is.

How do we know God cares? He came.

Tuesday morning at Starbucks

It's Tuesday. A busy day ahead. I'm sitting at Starbucks for a moment with a cup of coffee and a coffee shop full of people. Some are visiting, others are isolated with headphones and computer telling everyone they are not available. It's a social place. Coffee is the catalyst and a place to sit and visit makes it the local pub of our day. Most of the people here know each other, it's clear they are here often. The baristas are addressing customers by name and everyone is in good spirits. It's a community of moments and soon they will scatter to school, work or back to the house. For a few moments community happens, laughter erupts, the din of voices interacting fills the room. I think it's this sense of community that draws people to this place. A place where anyone can come, get some coffee and be part of something.

As I watch those around me I'm thinking this is exactly what the church is supposed to be. We are called to be a place where anyone can come and be part of the community. Anyone. Somehow we have made it an exclusive club that makes most of the world around us uncomfortable in our churches. Of all places the church should be a place where everyone is welcome, loved and cared for. I wish we could recapture that idea of community rather than what the church at large has become. How do we recapture the love of Christ that reaches out to the hurting, confused and struggling around us and make them feel at home in our church families? How do we become a community that those without a place would be welcome in our midst?

Just a few rambling thoughts at Starbucks on a Tuesday morning.

Encountering God

There is a very interesting report from the Barna organization that caught my attention this morning. In this report the portion that has me thinking are these words,

Experiencing Transformation

The survey also probed the degree to which people say their lives had been changed by attending church. Overall, one-quarter of Americans (26%) who had been to a church before said that their life had been changed or affected “greatly” by attending church. Another one-fourth (25%) described it as “somewhat” influential. Nearly half said their life had not changed at all as a result of churchgoing (46%).

This portion of the study really captivated me. As I read it I realize that there is so much more to this than the content of the message, the style of the music, or the ability of the speaker. There is the heart of the one in the pew! My mind immediately thought of the story of the sower and the seed as Jesus described this phenomenon over 2,000 years ago,

Mark 4:¹⁴ "The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵ Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸ Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

It strikes me that what Barna is seeing is what Jesus saw and described. In the midst of a church full of people are the distractions of the world, the bills, worries about life and what the week ahead holds. In the middle of a church where God is speaking, the word is taught and the Spirit is working more than 1/2 of the crowd will be untouched by the word, Spirit and ability of the grandest speaker. It's a reality of the human heart....we are a pretty tough crowd! "How hard it is for anyone to be saved" Jesus told his disciples. They were amazed, but what Jesus knew that they didn't was how much distracts us, how hard it is for God to get our attention, how adverse we are to God's word and it's impact in our lives.

It makes me keenly aware of how much I must trust God to work in my heart and in the hearts and lives of those I teach. This is a work of God and many will completely miss God's presence as he moves among us. This study by Barna brought this to a new clarity for me and moves me to pray more intently for my own heart and the hearts of those I care for.

Saturday's cartoon

I love this cartoon! It's a brilliant insight into the very heart of choices and results. We live in a world that wants the freedom to do as we wish, but with those choices are always consequences. In the moment it might seem that things are wonderful, but choices always have consequences. Often, as I meet with people in their crisis, I hear these words, "Why did God do this to me?" They are sincere in their question and are clueless to the reality that many times what has happened is the result of their own choices....it's not God, it's them.

Choices and consequences. One you make, the other you don't. You can control your choices, but you can't control your consequences. I wonder, if we knew this as a reality in our lives, if our choices would change.....

Eating the apple

It often surprises me how companies stay in business. Customer Service is poor, products are mediocre and the staff is rude, but I never expected that from Apple. Yes, I've eaten the Apple and have mostly Apple products for my personal computer needs, but when something went wrong today I suddenly realized how bitter this Apple can taste at times.

Here's what happened-

Last fall I bought an Apple laptop. I love the computer, no problems with it at all, but yesterday the power adapter died. The computer is only months old so I called Apple to see what they could do. I talked to a young man (everyone I talked to at Apple is young) who gave me a case number and told me to go to the Apple store and they would replace my power adapter, so off I go for the trek across Dallas to the closest Apple store. Now the fun begins......

When I got to the store I made my way through the drooling masses to one of the young, tattooed Apple reps and told him my situation, showed him my case number and waited while he checked his iPad for choices.

He asked, "Do you have an appointment?"

I replied, "No, the guy on the phone at Apple gave me a case number and told me I could come over and exchange the defective part."

He replied, "I can't help you if you don't have an appointment."

I stood there for a moment in amazement and then asked, "So how do I get an appointment and when can I get some help with this?"

"My next open appointment isn't until tomorrow afternoon," he replied.

Now I'm just standing there thinking about how comical this all was. I am in the store with a case number their company gave me to fix a problem that would take two minutes and he won't help me. What to do? We make our way back through the drooling masses to a restaurant next door for something to drink and time to figure out what to do.

While drinking some tea and eating some amazing Thai noodles I call Apple back. I explain to another young man my situation. He puts me on hold for about 15 minutes and finally comes back with an appointment at the iPhone desk in an hour. We finish our wonderful and unplanned dinner and make our way back to the Apple store.

One more push through the drooling masses to once more engage the young man who said I would have to come back tomorrow. I approach him and tell him I have an appointment at 5:20. He looks up my name and then gives me a frown, realizing that I had beat his best plans to frustrate me. I think he was surprised and irritated that I had figured out a way around his system. He said, "Well, they have you at the iPhone desk, I don't think they can help you, but stand over there." (As he points to the iPhone desk.)

We obediently work our way through the drooling masses to the iPhone desk and wait. While I wait my sweet wife has time to look at everything in the store. Finally a young man with gauged ear rings, messy hair and tattoos comes over to help us. Within five minutes I have my new power adapter and we victoriously push our way out of the store through the drooling masses. Victory!

Frankly I never imagined this would be such an ordeal, a comedy, a frustration, but still I love my computer and if dealing with a system designed to make it difficult is part of the deal I will figure out how to work through it. On the upside we discovered a new restaurant we absolutely loved and a waitress that was the best we have ever had.....even if I couldn't understand her.

So, in spite of the events of the day I'm enjoying my bite of the Apple. I guess, for me, it was love at first bite.....even if it tastes a little bitter at the moment.

Anticipating sunrise

(Photo- © Mike Le)

^{Romans 13: 11} And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. ¹²The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.¹⁴ Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

"The night is nearly over; the day is almost here." As the first lights of day begin to overcome the darkness of night we all anticipate sunrise. Gradually, moment by moment, light comes and darkness fades. Little by little we begin to see what darkness has hidden. This is the picture Paul paints of the coming of the Lord....the anticipation of sunrise.

In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis wrote about this as he describe the scenes in both heaven and hell. In heaven there was the anticipation of a dawning of light and in hell there was the fear that the twilight was the last lights of day and the beginning of night. But what Paul describes for us is the gradual illumination of the world around us and it's clear the sun is coming, morning is about to dawn, the day is near when darkness will be vanquished.

The proper response to the approach of dawn is a lifestyle that will not embarrass you when the light reveals all we have done in the darkness. "Let us behave decently....clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ." Being aware of the times Paul invites, no rather challenges us to live like sons of light. In other passages he describes the "deeds of darkness" but here he speaks of a lifestyle lived in the light, live like sons of light.

All we know is a world cloaked in darkness, all we have experienced is the first lights of day, but day is coming. It will come sooner than we know. Live your life anticipating sunrise....or should I say son rise? Live well, sunrise is near.

One last thought on forgiveness

On Sunday I spoke about forgiveness. I did my best to deal with a difficult subject with the 30 minutes I had to speak, but there is so much to say....so much more to talk about on this topic. The wounds of our hurts from others run so much deeper than most of us know or realize. The wounds of others scar us, change us, make us deformed in a way....deformed from the way God intended us to be. Many of the wounds are still raw, still sore. The pain lingers and when anyone touches our wounds we scream out in pain. I know that and yet I felt led to talk about forgiveness, but what I knew, and know now even more clearly, is that the pain of unforgiven wounds, wounds that have yet to heal, is much more than anyone can know. They are deep wounds, hurtful wounds, painful and we desperately want the pain to end.

In the last week I've heard a number of other pastors teaching on forgiveness on the radio. I know it's something the Spirit of God is moving us all towards. God wants a church white and spotless, ready for his return, and so we must deal with these wounds, heal these scars, ask forgiveness for what we have done, forgive those who have hurt us. It's time to intentionally pursue healing for all of those who claim the name of Christ. The Bible is clear when it calls us to forgive in the same way we were forgiven. The scars may still be raw, the pain still vivid, the hurts still difficult to live with, but the call of God is for his people to forgive just as we are forgiven by him.

Col. 3:¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

A new year

A new year.

A fresh start.

Hope for better things.

Desire for change.

It was just another day. It wasn't anything special in the grand scheme of things, but we have made calendars so for us it was the start of something new. Another year, a new beginning, fresh hopes. Maybe this year.....

A new year is a wonderful opportunity to make a new list of priorities for our lives. It's often the case that as a year moves through its seasons we forget what is most important and find ourselves busy with the small urgencies of life. Let me suggest, let me encourage you to make a short list of what is most important to you this year, no more that 5 things, and make those things the filters through which you use your 365 days of the year ahead.

Here are a few suggestions- Pursue a relationship with God, read a book each month about something that will encourage or inspire you, commit to reading the bible each day this year, take time each day to dream, write a journal, write a book, do something fun each week, develop a new hobby or interest, learn something new, intentionally ask one person each week about their life (this could be a daily activity for many of us), and on the list goes. These are not necessarily resolutions, they are simply priorities. And yes, for some of you exercise is on the list isn't it? But whatever you do with this new year do it intentionally. Don't simply let the year fly by and not use every moment well for the glory of God. Have a great year!