Rah Rah Sis Boom Blah

Rah-Rah Sis Boom Blah!

        Don’t let the title fool you. I am neither anti-cheerleading nor anti-errrr…..daughter? Yesterday I had to pick my oldest daughter up from, you guessed it, cheerleading practice. The daughter who is introverted, shy and very (at least I thought) anti-cheer anything!  But being that it is her senior year in high school, I think she is seeing adulthood coming quickly so she wants to slow the process I am assuming. So on the car ride home from practice; I listened in shock as my 17 year old told me all about her first day of practice. I will admit, though I did hear all of the conversation, most of my time was spent thinking to myself that I never imagined in a million years that I would ever have this conversation with her. Again, I know her. Don’t get me wrong, I am VERY proud of her, and will always encourage her to follow her heart and live life to the fullest. It was just weird for me, I suppose, to hear someone talk about something so passionately that you never expected them to have passion about. I guess her adulthood journey is coming quicker for me then it is for her. To see her making her own decisions and living her life the way she wants to live it is a bit of a shock to my parental system. On top of the fact that every day I check the mailbox and she now gets more mail then the rest of the family does. *by the way….Liberty Bible College…how much money do you spend on advertising? She gets like 17 mailers a day from that place.* Well, it was bound to happen. I always say that “time does not wait for anybody”, and now one of my favorite sayings is biting me in the butt. It seems time has passed me by and she will have a career and family of her own someday. Until that time comes though, I will continue to appreciate the time we have with our kids and I will constantly remind them of another one of my favorite says; “There are two types of people, those who are cheerleaders, and those who are leaders of cheer.” I just hope all of our girls will end up being “leaders of cheer.”

Joy!

Recently some friends of ours took us to a concert at a church in Archbold, Ohio for a tour titled “United We Stand.” Although I do love concerts, it didn’t sound appealing to me because I was nursing a sore back and “United We Stand” didn’t sound too appetizing at that point. United we sit, now there is a tour I could have really gotten behind! Dealing with the pain in my back my wife and I decided to join them anyway and make the most of this “date night.” Now, I am sure you are wondering why I would consider this a date night. Well, our usual “date nights” these days consist of getting out of the house without the kids and making a grocery run to our local one stop shopping center. So this concert was a treat none the less! The show was amazing. It consisted of five or so bands performing various kinds of Christian music, spanning all realms of music genre, but mainly rap and loud rock! But the treat for me actually came at the end of the show, not even the show, in the parking lot on the way to our car. A friend of ours had taken their two young daughters, one is probably 7 and one is probably 9 or 10. (If you are reading this and I was way off on ages…I’m sorry. I am not good with ages, I still think my kids aren’t teenagers!) So on the way out, the 7 year old was walking along side me and had commented on how loud the show was, and how she didn’t think people were allowed to be that noisy in church. Now if you know anything about me, I am far from legalistic when it comes to my faith. As a matter of fact, I am the complete opposite of legalistic and it has gotten me in trouble a few times amongst the Christian community. So as you can imagine, this comment from this 7 year old girl really made me smile. But on the other hand, it really bothered me. Not because I thought this girl was legalistic, or that her parents were, because I know her parents. It bothered me because I wondered where this little, innocent girl got such an ancient, and in my opinion, boring idea! Now please understand, I do understand the need for respect and piousness inside the sanctuary of the Lord. However, I do not think that Heaven is going to be some drab and boring get together of believers. After all, Jesus was a man of parties and get-togethers. So I can hardly believe that Heaven will lack loud music, dancing, and joy. But it brings me back to my original thought or question. Where do we get this boring opinion of church? Is it sewn into our DNA? Is it taught to us by our elders? Or maybe it is the way we pick up on how drab and sad many believers are that fill our churches today. When I look around churches I often do not see any joy or hope. This is supposed to be a place to get lifted up and encouraged, but instead you leave feeling like the life has been sucked out of you. Now I know, this is MY opinion and mine only I’m sure. But if this opinion is not correct or true, then explain to me the reason why most people that I encounter during the week that attend Sunday morning services are the same boring and joyless people on Wednesday as they are on Sunday? Again, this opinion is sure to ruffle feathers, but all you have to do is be honest with yourself and look around. And I am not insinuating that we all have to walk around looking like Bozo the Clown with a painted smile on our faces; life gets us down, I get it. But goodness folks, we supposedly have been given the greatest gift through Jesus that mankind could ever dream of and we walk around acting like our baby kitten was just hit by an airplane! No wonder why people don’t want what we have. If I judged my faith off of the way other people of faith acted, I would run from it; and I would run fast! So I beg of people to remember the sacrifice that was made for YOUR life. “Be joyful ALWAYS,” (emphasis mine) the author of Thessalonians tells us. Be: an action word. To be; a way of life. Joyful: the opposite of stoic and boring. Always: never stop!

A Veterans Day thank you!

A Veterans Day thank you.

        I know it is fairly cliché for me to be writing a post and adding some scripture to it, but I found this interesting. And though it isn’t used in the Bible in the same context I am going to use it today, I think it speaks to the unthankfullness and selfishness that our society has towards heroes sometimes. So in my reading this morning I came across this verse in Philippians, and again, the context is wrong but you will see the point. (I hope!)

        “Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.”             Philippians 2:29-30

        Now I do understand that some people of faith will look at this verse used in context of thanking veterans as blasphemy combining the “work of Christ” and thanking veterans for war service. However, the disciples in biblical days were very much fighting for freedom of the Way, as much as we are fighting for freedom today. War has always had some sort of religious undertone to it. I have heard many of atheist or nonbelievers say, “Religion has spilled more blood than any other idea.” There is some truth to this, but sometimes fighting is required to defend the Truth. Paul in this verse is speaking to the church in Philippi concerning sending a man by the name of Epaphroditus. (I am glad my parents didn’t name me that!) This man had apparently endured many of battles for the sake of the gospel, and almost lost his life apparently. Paul also states that he was “risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.” (Emphasis mine) So many times there are those who are very “anti war,” and I will not indulge that argument here, but those same people who are forming picket lines around the state capital, are the same people who have those freedoms because somebody other than yourself fought for them. We seem to forget that a majority of us would not be here if not for soldiers and warriors. I am a man who believes that the pen is mightier than the sword; however, I never go without thanking those who held the sword and held it courageously for MY freedom. Understand, this is not about me tooting my own horn, but anytime I am out in the public and I see a man or woman wearing military gear I always try to stop them and thank them for their service to our country. And I think a few more of us would be doing a great service to those who did serve for our freedom by thanking them and welcoming them “in the Lord with GREAT joy.” George Washington once said. “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” I shudder to say, but preparation for war is almost a necessity in today’s society with so many people trying to take away these freedoms which so many young men and women have fought for to protect. So if you haven’t served or will never serve in the military, serve those that have with hospitality and kindness. And if you have served or plan on serving in the military, let me be the first to thank you for your service and for the freedoms I enjoy, even if it means I am able to be a man of the pen and write this post to you. God bless and thank you veterans!

Thoughts of Hymn

You know when you are sitting in church (well standing in this story because Christians have some weird thing about standing during worship?) Anyway….you know when you are standing in church on Sunday morning and you are giving it your best to even seem like you are in a full on worship? Then from the other side of the room, usually in the back, you hear this beautiful voice singing to glorious God. Again, for sake of story, I am going to pretend that this voice is male, could be female though! He is singing with so much passion it almost sounds like angels serenading you. In the gospel of Matthew the story is told of the Lords supper. We all know the scene, some men gathered around a table full of bread and wine, probably doesn’t smell very good. I am actually going to go on record and assume that the upper room in which Jesus and the disciples had the Lords supper in was probably the first ever man cave. Think about it, big wooded table, food, alcohol, probably had some Sunday night football on and some southern gospel blaring in the background. Anyway, back on course, they go around the table and Jesus, the Christ, presents them with some bread and a chalice. He utters the words, “This is my body, and this is my blood.” Then verse 30 hits us, “When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” What hymn did they sing? Does it matter what hymn they sang? Obviously not because the author left it out, but I can guarantee this, the voice that our Lord and Savior sings with is one of pure masterpiece indeed. As I sit here on my couch at three in the morning, my radio is tuned into 90.8 fm. For those of you that don’t go that low on the radio dial, it is National Public Radio. I love classical music masterpieces. On this evening I go over to the bookshelf and pull off a hymnal that I have collected along the way, an old 1972 hymnal from an old Methodist church. In it some of the finest songs composed by man, yet some are from the very Psalms that my Lord and Savior breathed into life. My Savior, Jesus, is an artist. He is a musician. He is the voice in the back of the sanctuary singing to His own Father in complete and utter awe. Ephesians 5:19 tells us, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Don’t forget to give God your all this Sunday morning…you never know who is listening. 

Social Reform

I have been reading a book off and on titled The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ. This morning I opened up to a section titled Jesus and the Social Questions. Surprisingly enough, Jesus did not concern Himself with social questions at all, yet, was the world’s greatest social reformer. Jesus’ preoccupation was of course the soul, and then the community. The book led me to the Gospel of Luke, which is full of parables and sayings of Jesus. What I found interesting was that the series of parables opens with a very personal story of the “sower.” Jesus puts ourselves in the hot seat and asks in a sense, “What kind of soil are you cultivating, and how well are you at planting seeds?” Now I find it no coincidence that Jesus begins the first of His parables with one completely directed at self. He goes on to tell more and more parables, but what I find interesting is that most of them deal with subjects from a community standpoint. In chapter 10 we have the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which I’m sure all of us could read and reread five or six times a day. Then comes the Parable of the Rich Fool, which tells a tale of a man who has too much goods and not the heart enough to share. We can go on and on through the parables and read story after story of Jesus teaching and preaching about community and fellowship. But it comes down to one word, action. Jesus just didn’t sit around preaching and teaching, Jesus travelled, Jesus met with communities, Jesus went in and out of temples and towns spreading love and the good news. I think too many times we get caught up in the latest thing or the newest gossip, or we find ourselves sitting around for numerous hours on Facebook dwelling into other peoples lives, when we could be out and about loving and sharing the good news with others. 

The Kingdom of Heaven

The Kingdom of Heaven March 8, 2012

³ "Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3

Imagine with me, if you will, a group of us sitting around in a semi-circle. Maybe resting our backs on some rocks or maybe on a cloth bag full of sheep’s wool that we have just bought in Jerusalem from a merchant. (that was a bean bag chair reference for all my youth pastors!) So imagine sitting around in a semi circle taking in all of the aromas of the spring air. The sun beams down upon you and warms you to the core of your being. You feel the wind sweep across your face and in that very moment, you hear the voice of Christ, the One and Only. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I began my study on this verse by going to the first word that caught my eye. “Poor,” strikes up all kinds of thoughts when I use the word “poor.” So I looked to the Greek dictionary for help on what exactly Jesus meant by “poor.” Ptõchos in Greek means, “To crouch or cower like a beggar,” and then it offers this amazing stark contrast in wordage. “The Greek word “penès” may be poor but he earns his bread by daily labor. The ptõchos is so poor that he can only obtain his living by begging. The penès has nothing superfluous, while the ptõchos has nothing at all.” So with that explanation we can now understand how “poor” Jesus wanted us to be.

Perhaps few people today know why the face of Lincoln is engraved on the American penny rather than on one of the larger coins. The reason for this goes back to the boyhood days of David Brenner, who had known nothing of liberty and much of hunger and want in Russia. After coming to America, where he found both liberty and opportunity awaiting him, Brenner became a famous sculptor, and was the man responsible for placing the face of the man who had said, "The Lord must love the common people, He has made so many of them," on the most lowly coin of the United States. Brenner's idea was that there would be more pennies minted than any other one coin, and consequently there would be more of them in the pockets of the common people.

The next word I come to is “spirit.” Lower case ‘s’ so Christ is obviously speaking of our own personal spirit. Interestingly enough, only because it gave me chills sitting here reading it, the Greek word for ‘spirit’ is pneuma. Now, the thing that gave me chills is that pneuma means “to breathe, as of the mouth and nostrils.” One of my favorite verses in the gospel of John comes after the disciples find the empty tomb. Jesus appears to His disciples in chapter 20, and He offers them peace and sends them away, the next sentence says, “And with that He breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I love to think of how close you would have to be to feel Christ breathe on you. Now obviously, this is not a literal text, He was not getting the sides of their faces all wet and sweaty by breathing on them, however I do think that He wants us to understand how close we need to be to Him. My wife is reading this as I am writing and she says “well how do you know Jesus didn’t physically breathe on them?” So I take her back to the scriptures, to God’s word. It’s His words that He breathed out into a man, and that man took them and wrote them down. He breathed into that man. It is our duty and our passion and it should be our desire that we feel Christ breathe on us DAILY! There is only one way to Heaven and that is by receiving Christ as Lord, now we can argue that all day, but until you have had Jesus, the King of the world, breathe on you… you’re not going to heaven. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Blessed are those indeed who take in the air of Christ. Blessed are those indeed who inhale all that the Holy Spirit has to offer. Blessed are those indeed who walk daily with the Lord, side by side, holding hands. Strolling down the sandy walkway towards life…

Supreme Blessedness

Supreme Blessedness February 28, 2012

The Beatitudes

¹ Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them, saying:
Matthew 5:1, 2

The beatitudes or supreme blessedness as defined by Webster’s Dictionary. In the Gospel of Matthew the order in which this amazing sermon comes forth is patterned like this. Chapter 1, we get the family tree of Jesus and then begins the story of His birth. Chapter 2 we finish up the story of His birth. Chapter 3 gives us the introduction of John the Baptist and finishes with the baptism of Jesus Christ. Chapter 4, right after His baptism, Jesus is tempted by the devil. After the devil’s failed temptation of Jesus, He begins His ministry in Nazareth. Once His ministry begins, we are told that Jesus selects His first set of disciples in verses 18-22 of chapter 4. Chapter 4 ends with Jesus performing His first set of miracles by healing the sick. Chapter 5 picks up with Jesus’ first of many amazing sermons, yet this one comes as instruction to His disciples. In Luke’s account of the beatitudes, the instruction comes right after the selection of the twelve disciples. For this reason, a great scholar once called the beatitudes, “The Ordination Address to the Twelve.” So if I understand this correctly, Jesus is doing His first “lesson” to His students. If this is the case, how much more important is this Sermon on the Mount to us who call ourselves servants of the Lord? Maybe this isn’t just a basic sermon to all believers. This is instruction to those who call themselves servants or shepherds for the Lord. For this reason the Sermon on the Mount has also been called, “The Compendium of Christ’s Doctrine,” “The Magna Charta of the Kingdom,” “The Manifesto of the King.”

It is also understood by many scholars that the Sermon on the Mount is not just one single sermon as originally thought. Rather, it is thought that it is an epitome of all the sermons that Jesus ever preached. William Barclay gives reasons for this thought in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. He says this about the idea that the Sermon on the Mount is a selection of sermons.

1. “Anyone who heard it in its present form would be exhausted long before the end. There is far too much in it for one hearing. It is one thing to sit and read it, and to pause and linger as we read; it would be entirely another thing to listen to it for the first time in spoken words.”

2. “There are certain sections of the Sermon on the Mount which emerge, as it were, without warning; they have no connection with what goes before and no connection with what comes after. For instance, Matthew 5: 31, 32 and Matthew 7: 7-11 are quite detached from their context.”

3. “The most important point is this. Both Matthew and Luke give us a version of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew’s version there are 107 verses. Of these 107 verses 29 are found all together in Luke 6: 20-49; 47 have no parallel in Luke’s version and 34 are found scattered all over Luke’s gospel in different contexts. It has been suggested that, after Jesus definitely chose the Twelve, He may have taken them away into a quiet place for a week or even a longer period of time, and that, during that space, He taught them all the time and the Sermon on the Mount is the summary of that teaching.”

Scholars thought that this series of “sermons” were delivered during the first year of Christ public career. John Peter Lange calls the Sermon on the Mount the “central-point of Christ’s ministry in Galilee.” There is also a couple important points to be aware of in the first two verses where Jesus shows His proof to be a Rabbi. Number one is that it says “When Jesus saw the crowds… He sat down.” This was important because sitting was the accepted posture of synagogue or school teachers. (Luke 4:20, Matthew 13:2, 23:2, 24:3.) Another important point is the use of wording in verse 2, “and He began to teach them.” The usages of the word teach in the Greek is didaskõ meaning to teach or to instruct. The other word used in the Greek is to preach which is used in Matthew 4:17, “From that time on Jesus began to preach.” This Greek word is keryssõ which means to preach, herald, or proclaim.

William Barclay says in his commentary that “The Sermon on the Mount is greater even than we think. Matthew in his introduction wishes us to see that it is the official teaching of Jesus; that it is the opening of Jesus’ whole mind to His disciples; that is the summary of the teaching which Jesus habitually gave to His inner circle. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing less than the concentrated memory of many hours of heart to heart communion between the disciples and their Master.” It is amazing to think that the select few people that Jesus invited to walk along with Him throughout His years of ministry were also invited to sit with Him while He gave some of His greatest of teachings. Teaching someone is so much more personal and intimate than preaching to someone. In the Sermon on the Mount, it said that Jesus taught them. One on one so to say, and to think that even today we are blessed to be taught one on one by Jesus Christ Himself. Are you taking advantage of this blessing daily? Are you sitting and learning, sitting and listening? We have the very words that Christ spoke in a book and we are able to hear Him vividly through prayer and meditation, so I ask you, are you learning?