WoodenNickels

A Way In A Manger

2011-12-21T13:48:00.005-06:00

I love the Christmas season. It's my favorite time of the year. I love the food, the festivities & the family time. The warmth and the spirit that envelopes everyone this time of the year.

I also really enjoy Christmas movies. The Christmas Story, The Santa Clause series, A Charlie Brown Christmas and I even like Elf.

One of the classic Christmas films is Frank Capra's, Itʼs a wonderful life.

You know the story. George Bailey owns the savings & loan in sleepy Bedford Falls and it's getting ready to go under due to a mistake his uncle made. Heʼs going to lose everything, his house is rickety and needs

repair, he has a wife & several children to provide for and no where to turn. All he has is a few dollars in his pocket and a life insurance policy. He arrives at the conclusion that he is worth more dead than alive. As he's standing on the bridge preparing to end it all Clarence the angel intervenes and, in a night he'll never forget, shows George Bailey what Bedford Falls would look like if he had never been born.

It's not only a great Christmas movie but one of the greatest films of all time because we all sometimes wonder, what if…

What would the world look like without you or me? How different would our friends and family be if we had never been born? What difference have I ever made?

Then I read John 15:22 where Jesus is talking to the disciples. He is speaking to them about the way the world will reject them and ultimately Himself. He tells them that the world hates Him because He shines light in their darkness, and theyʼd rather have darkness. During this discourse He makes a simple point by saying, “if I had not come…”

It had not occurred to me before. What would the world look like if Jesus had never been born? So much of our present world is informed and influenced by His life and death.

What would it look like if we could scroll back through history to 30 BC and from that year forward begin to pull out from the root, like a weed from a garden, every result and reference to Christ.

There would be no manger, no wise men, no shepherds. No story of God coming to earth, no peace on earth, goodwill to men. There would be no Peter, no walking on the water. No John, no Paul, no Revelation of Heaven. No triumph in the catcombs, no Mars Hill, no Constantinople, no Byzantine architecture.

Forget about the renaissance, the paintings & the frescos. What would Bellini, Michaelango & DaVinci muse over? If Jesus had not been born there would be no St. Peterʼs Basilica, no Sistine Chapel, no fresco on the ceiling, no Notre Dame, no national cathedral. Donʼt forget the music. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart composed what they did to be played in churches.

There would likely be no Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Dartmouth or Princeton. All began as Christian seminaries.

What about the hospitals? It is not the pagans building hospitals but the followers of Jesus Christ. Hospitals, as an institution of healing and care for the sick and wounded, are first found in Rome around 100 BC. The First Council of Nicea, in 325 AD provided for a hospital to be built in every city where a Cathedral was built. Similarly, Itʼs been Christians to build orphanages, shelters & rescue missions.

Think of all the people, believers, whoʼs decisions and lives were informed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. MLK, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington were all influenced and guided by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus there would've been no Puritans and Pilgrims to leave England for religious freedom, no Mother Teresa, no William Booth and his Salvation Army, and no CS Lewis.

Then there's the believers The nameless thousands who minister daily to the poor, the sick, the hurting. Who help others and endeavor to follow peace with all men as the Bible instructs. What would our world look like if there were no people as an aggregate who believed in something bigger than themselves and in a savior who saw every soul as something worth giving and dying for.

Our world would be indelibly different if it had not been for Jesus Christ.

The world He came into was not much different than ours. Athens & Rome were in decline. The gods of Greece and Rome no longer could command the blind allegiance of the masses. Their world was as advanced or more than our own. Pound for pound they were probably more advanced than us in every way.

Rome gave us engineering, acquaducts, coliseums & hippodromes. The senate, governmental structures & law. Greece gave us philosophy, art & athletics.

Art, literature, poetry, music, architecture, and the greatest military machine the world had ever known, all of it taken together could not provide meaning to life, or point the way to lasting

forgiveness, or offer any answer to three questions we all must answer: Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?

Again, it is a simple historical fact that the condition of the heathen world was deplorable. Even the Roman poets said as much. They saw the problem but were powerless to do anything about it. They had no power to effect lasting change. The result was gross superstition,

debased immorality, widespread corruption, evil run amok, and rank injustice.

This is the world into which Christ came. It is the world Paul describes so graphically in Romans 1, a world that knew the truth but suppressed it, ignored the true God, and turned to idolatry. It was a world that was given over to paganism, sexual immorality, homosexuality, murder, perversion, dishonesty, and brutality. A world of broken promises, broken dreams, broken homes, and broken hearts.

Education, power, philosophy and great art created desires they could not fill. In the end the verdict was clear. Athens could produce Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides, and Aristophanes. Rome produced Seneca, Cicero, Juvenal, Tacitus, and Julius Caesar. But 2,000 years later here we are celebrating a baby born in a tiny village of an obscure nation, in the corner of the great Roman kingdom, and laid in a manger. Into the darkness of their world, and into ours, God shined a light that will never be put out. He gave us Himself, Jesus our Lord and Savior.

The earth needed peace but we had no way.

We needed salvation but we couldnʼt do it ourselves.

We needed joy but had no way to acquire it.

We needed a promise and hope of eternal life but we had no way.

So God made a way in a manger and invited everyone to take that way.

It was Charles Spurgeon who said, "Come now to the babe in Bethlehem’s manger. Little children should come for he was once a little child himself. Young women should come for Mary was a young woman who was God’s instrument for bringing Christ into the world. Young men should come for Joseph was a young man who had great faith in God. Old women should come for Anna was an old woman who looked for the coming of the Lord. Old men should come for aged Simeon waited for the consolation of Israel. The working men and women should come to Christ because the shepherds represent all those who work with their hands for a living—and they too came to Bethlehem. Finally, the highly-educated of the world should come for the Wise Men came bearing gifts. They too bowed and worshiped the King."

Jesus made a way in a manger for all to find peace & to celebrate glad tidings of great joy. It was something Rome could never do, a vacuum Athens could not fill. Itʼs something Capitol Hill and Washington DC canʼt give you. Something youʼll never find in a shopping center.

We need Jesus and He made a way for us to get to God, and that way was first seen in the manger. It sounds banal but Jesus really is the reason for the season.

Heʼs the reason for everything.

The Fine Line

2011-05-02T21:04:00.020-05:00

Christians are asked, in many matters, to walk a fine line.

The Christian is asked to walk the fine line of rejecting sin but receiving sinners. He's taught to honor God above all yet rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The believer is to both do justly and love mercy (Micah 6:8), a very fine line. Followers of Jesus Christ walk in the paradox that they are in the world but not of the world (John 17:11-16). The Christian must find balance in the principle that all things are lawful but not all things are expedient (1 Cor. 10:23).

Living for Christ is to walk a fine line.

This week offered Christians an opportunity to walk one of those fine lines. President Obama announced late Sunday evening that a covert team of Navy Seals had killed Osama Bin Laden. After almost 10 years of evasion the mastermind behind the attacks of 9/11 was brought to justice.

As an American I find his death a relief. My hope is that the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks can find some manner of closure and rest in his capture and death. I am proud of our troops and honor their service. In my opinion, the United States as well as the entire world, is better off without his evil influence.

That's my opinion of the matter as an American. My opinion of the matter as a Christian is a little different.

As a Christian, I believe justice was served. Scripture teaches that those in power do not carry a sword in vain but they are the ministers of God to execute wrath of those who do evil (Romans 13:4). In other words the Navy Seals don't carry an M4 Carbine for show. They'll use it if you cross the line. However, I also believe that hell is real and that when an evil man dies his soul will go there.

The line the Believer is asked to walk is to celebrate justice and yet acknowledge the sobering reality of hell.

I was shocked as I read some comments made by Christians on Facebook and Twitter. Many of them celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden with comments like, "He's sharing a room in hell with Hitler now." and "I bet he was disappointed when he found out hell doesn't have virgins."

I'm afraid that many Christians, at times, allow their patriotism to override their faith. Some even equate being an American with being a Christian. They are not the same. Christians must, not extinguish, but moderate their celebration of justice with a sober belief in a real hell. To promote one over the other is unbalanced.

I am happy for America but there is a greater truth that animates my life. That truth includes a belief in a literal hell that is nothing to celebrate.

To celebrate in the death and eternal judgment, even of an enemy, simply doesn't balance with the New Testament Christian ethic. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‎"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

Singer Bruce Cockburn said, "Everybody wants to see justice done, to someone else."

Our faith must temper everything in our lives, including our patriotism. It will not always be easy, but it is the calling of all Christians to walk the fine line.

A Church In Decline

2011-04-23T23:10:00.020-05:00

I very much dislike having to qualify an opinion. It seems to me rather obvious that an opinion is, by definition, not necessarily universally agreed upon logic and fact but rather based upon personal rationalizations, anecdote and experience.

That being said, my family and I have travelled the midwest and some of the south for over 7 years as a full-time evangelist. What follows are not the findings of a university trained statistician but rather the gleanings of 10 years in active ministry. Whatever that's worth.

Furthermore, I feel it is important for anyone endeavoring to do anything worthwhile, personally or corporately, to stop on occasion and evaluate your progress and effectiveness. That is my disclaimer.

I was speaking to a friend today, who is also an evangelist, about a church we had been at for 3 weeks. It is an amazing place with honest, sincere people passionately trying to follow Jesus Christ. In discussing this church we commented on how refreshing it was to find a place where it felt like a genuine move of God was present. We both found it so refreshing because all too often we find ourselves ministering in churches that are in decline. There's no definitive way to diagnosis this but the symptoms are easy to feel.

1. Apathetic Worship

In my experience one of the first symptoms a church might be in decline is apathetic worship. There should be something about the worship experience of a church that draws the focus and enthusiasm of those in attendance. It should be full of passion and expression of the worshippers heart to God and Gods work in our lives. When people find themselves unable to prevent their mind from wandering and can be unfocused and unexpressive, to me, that's a sign that something is in decline in that church body. If the Spirit of God is present and working in a church in a real way, it will affect the way people in that church respond to His Word and His people.

2. Internal Focus
It seems one of the easiest causes of decline to develop, as well as the most easily overlooked sign of church decline, is that of focus. Without being intentional it is natural for any organization, group or church to internalize, stagnate and fade. It can be even easier to overlook. We're meeting our needs. We feel blessed and happy with where we are and what we have and see no need to challenge our comfort level. When the dominant conversations and concerns around a church are the felt needs of those in the establishment, how the building and budgets can meet their preferences, you might be witnessing a church in decline.

3. Leadership vs. Discipleship
I've seen many churches where the Pastor is, intentionally or unintentionally, disconnected from the people. Some are simply so unconcerned with their task of making disciples that they disconnect. Others feel they must remain aloof in order to retain their Pastoral aura. That kind of leadership simply will not sustain a healthy church. Many Pastors feel if they're friends with a person in their church they can't speak as the "voice of God" in their life. Not true. People trust those they know. You can talk all day and it will not affect the way I live unless you have influence to disciple me. The only way to gain that kind of influence in my life is to be my friend.

4. Closed Culture
This is one of those symptoms that "you know it when you see it". There's a lack of interest in the ministries of the church. No one wants to volunteer for fear of what so-and-so will say of their performance. Usually there's a small handful of people who control things and in order to fit into the culture of the church you must be welcomed or approved of by some if not all of that elite group. This is the kind of church that spends more effort defending the extra-biblical minutiae that define their cultural identity than preaching the teachings of Jesus. What Bible version we use, what kind of songs we sing, how we dress for service and when we have service become our top priorities (often whether we realize it or not).

5. Prayerlessness
When a church makes prayer a low priority they make God a low priority and that never works.

I believe these are all symptoms that can be turned around. With prayer, a willingness to examine our motives, purpose and even a willingness to repent of attitudes that have driven our actions. I wonder what would happen if more churches were willing to pray and ask God to show them what they were doing wrong and how to serve in a way that more fully pleases Him.

By the way, if you have a problem with the premise that your church might be doing something wrong, you might be in a church in decline.

Sin, It Ruins Everything (Part 3)

2011-04-11T11:52:00.001-05:00

“for the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23, KJV)

The Jews have a word they greet one another with, Shalom. We’ve all heard that Shalom means “peace” but it means even more than that. According to Strong’s Concordance Shalom means “peace, completeness, wholeness, health, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord.” Sin challenges shalom.

I find it comforting to know that the prophet Isaiah called Jesus, “Sar Shalom”. The prince of peace. Jesus is the only one that can clean out the toxin of sin and set us free from it’s control.

The Bible describes two types of people. The carnal man and the spiritual man. Another way to understand it is the man who has not yet been filled with the Spirit of God and the man who has been filled with His Spirit. The carnal man is dead and the spiritual man is alive. The carnal man serves sin and the spiritual man serves Christ.

Paul explains that the carnal man is only finally freed from sin when he dies. So the carnal man continues to sin, he needs to sin, so that sin can work its horror in his life, ruining everything, destroying the beauty and corrupting the sacred, until it finally brings death, freeing him from sin.

The spiritual man however, the Spirit filled believer, is dead in Christ. So he has been freed from sin while he yet lives. He can live free from the bondage of sin in this life! The Apostle Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”.

When Jesus died on the cross God accepted it as payment for the sins of every man. So now anyone who puts their faith in Jesus can be freed from sin. The Bible teaches that if we will repent of our sins and be baptized in Jesus name that He will fill us with His Spirit and we can be free from the power of sin in our lives.

The truth is we don’t have to be controlled by sin. If we will begin to believe in Jesus and live the life He teaches we can be free from sin. It doesn’t have to ruin anymore. We can be free form the law of sin and death and live in the liberty of a spiritual life.

Many people have offered solutions to sin throughout the ages. Some have said sin is not a real thing and if we just ignore it soon it will fade from societies consciousness. That hasn’t worked. Some have said that if you’re a good person that you can live a relatively happy life. That’s no comfort. I want to be free from sin. Some have said you can believe in God, or any other faith for that matter, they all lead to heaven, and you’ll be ok. That doesn’t make sense. Not all faiths agree. Some of them radically disagree. So how could they all be right?

The truth of the matter is that Jesus is the only way to be free from sin. There is no alternative to faith in Jesus Christ. His death on the cross provided the way for all our sins to be forgiven in the eyes of God and for His Spirit to live inside us, which gives us power over sin. Sin ruins everything, but the believer has, in the blood of Jesus Christ, an agent that can clean it out once and for all. Jesus is the solution for sin.

In chemistry there is a simple principle that like dissolves like. It refers to polar and non-polar compounds or solutions. If the structures are similar than one will dissolve the other. For instance, water is polar and oil is non-polar. So water does not dissolve oil. However, salt is polar so water dissolves salt. Like dissolves like. If you want to clean a mirror that’s crusted with hairspray, spray more hairspray on it. Like dissolves like.

Jesus had to become like us so that His blood could cleanse us. His sinless human blood dissolves the sin in our blood. He is the only way. His blood is the only solution for sin.

He has been vaccinated against the disease of sin. When you’re given a vaccine you receive a non-threatening dose of the disease itself which allows your bodies natural defenses to prepare to fight the real disease. When Jesus died on the cross He took on all the sin of the world and it did not defeat Him. So now His blood is the only blood with the power to fight sin.

Sin is real and it separates us from God. When we’re distanced from God sin denies us the blessings and goodness that flow naturally from following God’s heart. Sin ruins everything, but Jesus death made a way to defeat the effect of sin.

Jesus, and only Jesus, is the solution to sin!

Sin, It Ruins Everything (Part 2)

2011-04-11T11:41:00.004-05:00

Sin ruins everything. Everything. Everything sin touches it either ruins, cheapens, destroys, injures or corrupts. It is toxic. It’s a poison. It ruins everything. Unfortunately, we love it.

There’s something about sinful behavior that comes easy to us. It has been the inclination of man since Adam and Eve to challenge God’s law and God’s order. It’s our nature to sin. The Bible teaches that we inherited that sin nature from Adam and Eve. It’s as natural for a man to sin as it is to breathe. We sin with ease and with regularity. We sin without even thinking about it. We sin every day. We are slaves to sin.

The Apostle Paul helps us understand this nature to sin when he explains, in his letter to the believers in Rome, that we are slaves to sin. We work for sin and it’s wages is death. If sin is in our lives, even a little, we are not in control, sin is. When it is finished, it will not only ruin everything but it will bring death.

If you really want to develop some serious mental issues think about this. One of the most important elements for sustaining life on this planet is oxygen. Everything needs it. Trees need oxygen, animals need oxygen, the atmosphere contains oxygen, and of course, humans need oxygen. Water is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen is vital for all life to continue. Yet the process by which everything on this planet decays is oxidation; exposure to oxygen.

The rust that destroys metal is oxidation. The brown spots that form on leaves as they die are the result of oxidation. When you bite that apple, breaking its protective skin, and let the oxygen in the air begin to react with it, it turns brown, mushy and decays as a result of oxidation. And then there’s us. We breathe it every day and our skin cells decay and fall off and replenish themselves in constant cycle because of the process of oxidation. Yet we cannot get enough of this precious oxygen. We need it, and it’s killing us and everything it touches!

How can we escape? That’s the same question Paul asks in Romans 7:24. I serve sin, yet I know it’s killing me and it’s ruining everything. We’re not sinners because we sin. We sin because we’re sinners.

The big problem with sin is that it’s hard to clean out once it begins to grow. The Bible often compares sin to yeast. Once a little bit gets in it becomes nearly impossible to ever clean it all out. Furthermore, it spreads and influences every aspect of your life. Sin ruins everything.

Not only is it hard to clean out, it’s hard to cover up. It has a way of leaking out of whatever you try to contain it in and exposing its presence to the world. It’s an acid. You can’t clean sins container and think it’s gone. The Pharisee’s tried. They washed the outside clean and white but inside they were still full of sin. Jesus said they were like a tomb that had been painted white. It looks nice on the outside but inside is dead men’s bones.

The problem is that sin doesn’t come from what’s on the outside but from what’s on the inside. The sin problem we have comes from within. Sin starts within our hearts.

Jesus told a story about a son that left home in search of his own life. He took his inheritance from his father and went into “a far country”. While in this far country the son spent his money on what Jesus called “riotous living”. Soon the day came when the money ran out and his friends were gone. He had nothing left and no one to give him anything. He was ruined.

The son, now broke, friendless and desperate, joined himself to a citizen in that far country. That man sent him into the fields to feed the swine. It was an insult for an observant Jew to be standing in the mud and filth of pigs. As he stood there, amongst the filth and the swine, Jesus said he almost ate the slop that the pigs were eating. He didn’t eat it, but he came so close.

That’s what sin does. It brings us to places we never thought we would go. It joins us to people we never wanted to walk with. It causes us to touch things we never thought we would handle. Sin will bring you closer to losing everything than you ever thought you would be. Sin ruins everything.

Sin is the cause of death, sorrow, pain and fear. We don’t have a drug problem in our cities, we have a sin problem. We don’t have an epidemic of divorce and broken families. We have an epidemic of sin.

Sin is the cause of violence, death and brokenness. Sin is what entices people to do stupid things in dangerous places with people they shouldn’t trust. Sin is the reason we’re easily addicted to chemicals that destroy our minds and our bodies. Sin is the reason people’s futures and ambitions are destroyed. Sin is what corrupts talent and potential. Sin cheapens love and ruins relationships.

Our problem is sin and sin ruins everything.

Sin, It Ruins Everything (Part 1)

2011-04-11T11:16:00.009-05:00

I know some big words. Words like existentialism and modalistic monarchianism. I can both define the word empirical and use it in a sentence. I can even spell mayonnaise without using spellcheck (most of the time). So I was surprised as I was scrolling through an edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary and came across some words I had never heard before.

Words like monomachy, mensal, lambrequin, fuligin, and cataphract. Words so ancient and arcane that no one even knows what they mean anymore. Many of these words are so obscure that they have been phased out of modern editions of dictionaries.

There is another word that is quickly becoming lost in modern languages. It is a word with ancient roots and rich in meaning. Unfortunately, it is rarely used by the modern speakers and writers and it is in danger of becoming undefinable by many. This word in danger of being lost is, sin.

Ask someone on the street today, “What is sin?” and you are likely to get a variety of answers. Some would say sin is anything that hurts someone else. Sin might be doing something that is illegal. Some suggest that there is no such thing as sin. Sin is simply an ideological relic of our religious past.

The truth is that sin is a real word with real meaning. We will never fully understand what it means to say, “Jesus died for your sin” unless we understand what sin really is.

Sin is called many things in the Bible. We’re given an array of words throughout scripture that give us an understanding of the nature of sin. It’s called rebellion, folly, madness, idolatry, foolishness, blindness, deafness, and death. Sin is a law at work in the hearts of men and women that challenges the law of God. The Bible is clear that sin is “the transgression of the law” (1John 3:4). Sin is, to put it simply, the act of violating God’s laws and God’s order.

Some sins are things we do, sins of commission, sins we commit. Other sins are things we don’t do and those are called sins of omission. If we lie to someone that is a sin because it violates God’s law of truth. It is a sin of commission. If we fail to protect or come to the rescue of someone who needs us that is sin. That is a sin of omission, something we neglected to do.

Either way, if it’s something we did or something we failed to do, sin is that which violates God. Sin doesn’t just violate God’s law and His order. God’s order and His laws issue from His nature, from what He is. Sin violates the nature of God Himself. It is a rebellion against all that God is.

Sin is the word we use to describe anything that opposes the nature and order of God. That’s why God and sin cannot be in the same place. James reveals the truth that salt water and fresh water don’t come from the same source. “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.” (James 3:11-12). Sin is at odds with the nature of God and the two will never blend. God brings righteousness, peace and joy. Sin corrupts, decays and destroys.

Sin ruins everything.

The ultimate problem that sin presents is that it separates us from God. It is our separation from God, caused by sin, that brings the trouble into our lives. Sin is what denies the blessings and promises that a righteous life brings to those who honor God and His order. Sin separated God from Adam and Eve in the garden and God has been seeking to rid us of sin ever since. He wants to restore that relationship we had with Him before sin started ruining everything.

He Is With Us

2011-03-22T12:53:00.004-05:00

I had trouble sleeping this weekend. I was preaching at a church a few hours from home and had to go alone. My wife and three children were at home together and I was in a hotel 2 hours away.

I will admit, part of me enjoyed the peace and quiet, all too rare with three toddlers in the house. I was able to read as much of a book as I wanted uninterrupted. The car ride was peaceful and the radio stayed on the station I wanted to listen to. I didn't have to take anyone to the potty and I didn't have to change a single diaper all weekend. It was nice.

But then I tried to fall asleep. I didn't realize how accustomed I had become to having someone else in the bed with me. I tossed and turned all night and laid awake for hours. I discovered I don't really like sleeping alone. I like to know someone is with me.

I don't think I'm alone. I think most people like to know someone is with us.

I was reminded of my sleepless night while reading the drama of Joseph's life. Joseph rode a roller coaster of favor and famine. From his father's favored son to his brother's pit. Then from the pit and slavery to Potiphar's house. From Potiphar's house to prison then from prison to the throne.

I was particularly taken by a verse about Joseph's time in prison. The Bible says that, "God was with Joseph and showed him stedfast love and gave him favor" (Gen. 39:20-23, ESV). In prison.

Most of us think we've been abandoned by God when we're in the pit. God showed Joseph "stedfast love" and was with him. It's often difficult, when you're living in the graybar motel, to feel as if you've been shown stedfast love and favor. And yet, He is with us.

We often don't even know it but He's with us. We must not judge the two disciples on the road to Emmaus too harshly because we've all walked in their shoes. Distraught, confused and completely unaware that while we deliberate the dilemma we're in He is walking with us.

The most common promise in scripture is not that He will heal us, though He will. It is not that He will deliver us, though He is a deliverer. It is not that He will provide for us, though He does bless His children.

The most common promise in scripture is, "I will be with you." Even the promised name the angels declared was "Emmanuel" which being interpreted is "God with us" (Matt. 1:23).

So, as a friend once advised me, if you come to a fork in the road, take it. Because no matter where you go, He is with us.

Reputation

2011-01-27T22:55:00.003-06:00

"I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man."
George Washington

"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better be alone than in bad company."
George Washington

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
John Wooden

"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
Abraham Lincoln

"If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me."
Dwight L. Moody

"Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving."
William Shakespeare

"Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us."
Thomas Paine

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:5-11, KJV)

I fear I am not alone in my concern for my reputation. Often, in ministry, your reputation is all you have. If you don't protect it no one else will. My fear, however, is that I and many others are protecting our reputations at the expense of the Kingdom. We fear the effects the tongues of men will have on our reputations if we should dare to follow the raw challenge and call of God we've heard.

That being said, I am haunted by Philippians 2.

Christ was willing to make Himself of "no reputation" in order to fulfill His divine commission. Yet we hesitate and pass on opportunities to further the Gospel and the kingdom, to minister to souls we have every right to minister to in a way that is acceptable to God because we fear the effect that ministry will have on our reputation. We guard our reputation with more ferocity than we fulfill our call. That is idolatry. Nothing more, nothing less.

When I read the Old and New Testament record I find men and women who lost their reputation in search of a greater treasure than the approval and praise of men. When I read the modern story of the revelation that came at Azusa and after I read of men and women who lost the status they held in their networks, lost friendships and reputations, in pursuit of truth and the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Joseph lost his reputation and maintained his character while following the plan of God for his life. Moses lost his reputation pursuing God's purpose in his life. David lost his reputation and was excoriated by his brethren yet he kept his spirit right with God.

A good name is better to be chosen than riches. Truth. I am not advocating reckless behavior which sacrifices both character and reputation willfully. Maintain your reputation as best you can by maintaining your character. Yet the reality is that your character can be clean and your reputation be soiled by the slander and the libel of wicked men. Men will malign your motives and curse your name for every good intention. When they do, care not for your reputation and continue to do good.

Sometimes following the call of God in our lives might mean we face the reality of men mischaracterizing our motives and misunderstanding our intentions. We could be subject to unjust criticism and rebuke. When we face that fork in the road and must decide between our reputation and God's call, even if we are "despised and rejected of men", I pray we have the courage and the faith to pursue God's purpose in faithfulness and integrity.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ...

I Am Not A Christian

2010-12-16T08:23:00.005-06:00

I’m not a Christian. Not in any meaningful sense of the word.

Sure, I believe in Jesus Christ. I attend a church service or two every week and occasionally read my Bible. But sitting on a pew does not make me a Christian any more than standing in a bank makes me wealthy. My relative location to Christian things and spaces does not transfer to me Christ like character. I may go to church, but I am not a Christian.

I pray when I need something and worship only when it’s convenient. I give, yet often grudgingly and sparingly. I forgive, but only when it might benefit me. I serve, but only when called upon to do so and offered acknowledgement and reward. I love, but only when love is offered in return. I bless, but only those who have blessed me. I care, but often only for those who I feel are deserving of care. I sacrifice, but only after I have been shamed, rewarded, or pressured to do so. The more I read the BIble, and then examine my life in light of how Christ lived, the more I am convinced, I am not a Christian.

He ate with sinners and politicians without one reservation as to how the company he kept would effect His reputation. He touched people He should have never even talked to. He healed people that His culture didn’t even demand He recognize as persons. He went out of His way, and often, to minister a small thing to one individual in a meaningful way. He showed kindness and grace to everyone, except for those who felt they deserved it. It was with the religious that Jesus argued, the hypocrites he rebuked, and it was the self-righteous which He humbled. The people I’m most comfortable with, church people, were the ones Jesus felt most at odds with. The people He invested in were those with failures and sin, the same people I avoid.

He sacrificed all and asked nothing in return. He was a man of “sorrows and acquainted with grief” knowing that millions throughout history would reject His love. He was giving, loving, gracious, virtuous, kind, merciful, long-suffering, faithful and true. I find in myself that I am selfish, ungrateful, hard hearted, impatient, demanding, dishonest, intemperate, corrupt, deceptive and unfaithful. I am not a Christian.

It was John Piper who, when asked what if anything might cause him to disbelieve in God, said, “If anything might cause me to disbelieve in God it would be how painfully slow and inefficient the sanctification process has been in me.” I take comfort in the fact that Paul wrestled with the same assessment of himself. He called himself the “chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) and confessed that he felt as though he had not yet attained Christ-likeness, but he was still trying (Phil. 3). He wrestled with his nature and called himself carnal and sinful (Rom. 7:14-25) acknowledging that “the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do”.

If being a Christian is defined in generic terms as anything associated with the teachings of Jesus Christ then I suppose I could call myself a Christian. However, if being a Christian means possessing the character and virtue of Christ, then I am not a Christian.

What I am is a believer, a follower of Christ, who all too often falls short of being like my Lord. However, I am still a disciple of His. I am redeemed, justified and still trying. I believe if I remain subject to the Holy Spirit Christ will continue to be formed in me and someday I will be like Him for I will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). The truth, right now, is that I am not a Christian. Not yet.

No

2010-11-27T23:52:00.004-06:00

I think the nerves of a parent get worn down over the course of the day. There's something about the constant questions and yelling and action that surrounds children that can be exhausting.

They can't reach something, they can't find something, they're fighting with each other, someone's thirsty, someone's peed their pants. It's demanding and we end up saying, "No".

I found myself saying "No" the other day. My daughter asked for a cup of chocolate milk in her naturally energetic manner. I told her No. A few minutes later, "Can we go outside?" Again I said No.

Daughter: "Can you find my crayons?"

Me: "No, you can find them."

"No, you've had enough. Not yet. In a minute. You'll have to wait. Not right now. Put that down. Get down from there. Sit down. Quit that. No, No, No."

After a few hours of this it dawned on me that all I had said to her that day was "No". And that didn't bother me so much as that I didn't know why. I was just saying No because it was my first reaction and it was easy to do. It kept me from interrupting my plans to do what she had asked. Even though they were simple requests I just said, "No".

I wonder how often I've unnecessarily said No to others. I like when people say Yes to me. I like when people cooperate with me. Yet I find it easier to dismiss their requests than to say Yes to them. So I say No. "I can't. So sorry, that won't work. I wish I could, but No."

A few years ago Jim Carrey starred in a movie called "Yes Man". He found his life isolated and uneventful and decided to change all of that. For one year he said "yes" to every one and every thing that came his way. As is expected from Jim Carrey, hilarity ensues. The underlying message of the film was to learn to balance the yes and no's of life. To say "yes" as often as possible and to say "no" only when necessary.

I don't find myself isolated and my life is certainly not uneventful. Yet I still feel the challenge to say "no" less and "yes" more. I wonder what I might be missing by rejecting opportunities. I wonder what friendships and experiences I'm missing by saying no instead of yes.

I wonder how often I've said No to God. I wonder how often He's asked me to do something and, just because it was easier, I said no. Maybe I said No because it was my first reaction and it was easy to do. It kept me from interrupting my plans to do what He had asked. They might have even been simple requests, yet I just said, "No".

It makes me wonder what I've missed out on. What experiences and rewards. What opportunities to minister to someone, to share the love of Jesus Christ. What blessings and what change in myself has been delayed because I've said no to something I should have said yes.

No. I don't want to say no as much anymore. Not to chocolate milk, not to my wife. Certainly not to the voice of God.

I will continue to say No to socks with sandals.

Everything else, I'll start with yes.

Off The Grid

2010-11-10T14:50:00.007-06:00

We do a lot of driving. A lot. When you put as many miles on a vehicle as we do you get to see many interesting things.

Recently we were driving through Northern Illinois, down an endless stretch of Interstate 39 (motto: "If you're not asleep yet, you will be."), when we saw something interesting. It was several miles worth of wind turbines. The further we traveled the more we saw.

We drove into Iowa and we saw more. In Iowa City we saw a factory where the blades were being assembled and distributed just off the interstate. In Bloomington, Il. we saw miles of them along the highways. Near Interstate 55 in McLean, Il. There's another couple hundred acres that has several dozen wind turbines on them.

I got curious. I got on Google.

Apparently this is one of the clean energy sources that our nation is investing in to supply the power demands typically filled by fossil fuels. According to a NY Times article on October 12th, 2010, Google and a unnamed New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic coast between New Jersey and Delaware*.

Wind farms are big business and are indicative of a growing trend in America. There is a movement of people going "off the grid". The way things have been done for the decades since electricity became commercially available are under scrutiny and many are choosing to reject the "grid".

There is a family that lives outside of the town where we live who has a wind turbine on his property. It is smaller than the kind you would see off the interstate because it must only power his home. His home is connected to the grid but it does not draw any power from the grid. His wind turbine produces all the energy required to power his home and any excess energy is stored in a battery shed also located on his property. On some months his turbine produces so much energy and stores it in the battery shed that the power company will draw reserve amounts from him for use on the mainstream grid. Thus, some months, not only does he not get a bill in the mail, he gets a check!

A public utility begins to serve a region with electricity. Poles are raised and wires are strung. When a contractor builds a home he ties that home into the electric grid and that home has access to power. For decades this has been a business or home owners only choice for power. However, with new technology and the availability of clean energy being of great concern to many the grid is no longer a consumers only

choice. As a result many now are choosing to go off the grid.

I feel a movement of the same degree is advancing through American spirituality. Many are tired of the high cost and the inefficiency of what the grid has to offer.

We're born and then sent to school before we even know what's going on. We go to school, get good grades and hopefully graduate. We go to college, get drunk, sleep around and hopefully graduate. We find a job, get married, raise a family, take a couple vacations, volunteer somewhere and hope at the end of it all we don't have to go to a nursing home and someone cries at our funeral. We live and die and there's nothing more to life.

And that's all the grid has to offer.

I, along with millions of other Americans, reject that notion. I join them in going off the grid!

We reject that life is meaningless and random but we believe there is more to life than death and taxes. There is freedom, peace, and real joy to be found. In our travels we've found scores of youth groups and churches that have unplugged and gone "off the grid". They've decided that they want their lives to be fueled by the power of the wind. They're not plugging into this world and paying the highest of costs to draw the sorrow and heartache that the grid has to offer.

They've decided that they don't have to be promiscuous, they don't have to intoxicate themselves with drink and substance, and they don't have to chase the dollar and status at the expense of their family and peace. They can plug into the power that a life lived in Jesus Christ has to offer. A power Jesus compared to the wind when He said, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3:7-8,KJV).

If I live a little bit different than most it's not because I'm crazy. It's because I've found there is more to life.

I'm going off the grid.

*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/earth/12wind.html

Simplicity

2010-10-04T19:58:00.006-05:00

I tried recently to set up a new laptop and wireless network for a PC user, who will remain unnamed. I was quickly reminded why I have the enthusiasm I do for my mac. In a word, simplicity.

After three failed attempts to setup the network the PC suggested I call customer service. I did so and their automated system disconnected me, not once, not twice, but three times. I was finally successful at getting everything the way we wanted it, but not without great frustration and a bitten lip.

I readily admit, I don't understand PC's. Frankly, I don't think anyone does. I know the tech guys at Staples act like they do, with their fancy words and their complicated Microsoft jargon. But they don't really know. No one does. How else do you explain Vista?

I walked away quickly, joyfully, thankfully, from that Acer laptop ever so grateful to return to the waiting trackpad of my friendly, efficient Macbook. They're just so...there's no words, it's just better.

It's just better with a Mac. They're simple, clean and efficient. I think it's the simplicity that draws me into the fellowship of other mac lovers. All I've ever used, since I was 14 years old, is an Apple product. I once backslid for about a year in an ill advised fling with a cheap Compaq laptop that proved itself as dependable as a leaky rowboat. My conversion is complete. Yes, I even have the apple sticker on the back of my foreign car. As much as is within my power, I'll always use a mac.

Life is complicated enough. I don't need my computer to join the fray.

I feel myself being drawn, in nearly every aspect of my life, to those things that offer the most simplicity. I don't think I am alone. Trend watchers will tell you that there is a paradigm shift occurring in our culture from the complicated and complex to the simple and the organic.

From business models to education plans, cell phones to computers, there is a rebellion occurring and complexity is being thrown out of office. Complexity has two ugly children; reduced efficiency and higher costs. Complicated, demanding systems are often pretentious, affected and incredibly inefficient. They tend to marginalize participants and, when they're "fleshed out", end up serving the system rather than the purpose for which the system exists. I realize these are grand generalizations but as I talk with friends I find this sentiment echoed with increasing frequency.

The office superstore Staples struck a chord with their "easy button" marketing campaign. People are exhausted with complex, convoluted, difficult systems. We want things to be simple again.

Complexity is being replaced with simplicity. There's something very appealing about simple things. Simple chords, simple words, simple acts, simple machines. Simple lives. Life is so complex it overwhelms most of us. Tax codes and instructions, manuals, procedures, red tape, bureaucracy, policy and applications. Why? Why can't things just be simple?

I think they can. I think they are. Things are changing and the world is beginning to arc towards simplicity. A wonder amongst it all is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It has been beautifully simple since Jesus first came.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

I love that. He said, "I'm easy". There is nothing simpler or more compelling than what Jesus Christ offers.

Enough is Enough

2010-09-28T05:32:00.008-05:00

After an evening of watching television commercials one might easily be convinced that the American dream is to be in debt.

"That's a little dramatic don't you think?" Think again.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston there are 156 Million credit card holders in the United States and 576.4 Million open credit cards. That is 3.5 credit cards per person with an average balance of $3,000 per card. As of March 2010 the total U.S. revolving debt, 98% of which is made up of credit cards was $852.6 Billion dollars and total U.S. consumer debt was $2.42 trillion. That's just the credit cards. That leaves unstated mortgages and vehicle loans.

When is enough enough?

The average American has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 cars and 1 big problem. We want, we buy, we charge, we consume. We end up in debt, stressed out, working more overtime, sacrificing our families because we have bills to pay. We miss watching our kids grow up and lose precious time with them to make sure we have the shiniest metal in the driveway and the most square feet in the best of neighborhoods and we call it all living the dream. We don't know when enough is enough.

Famed Chicago architect Mies Van Der Rohe made famous the dictum "Less is more." That may be true of the skyscrapers downtown but as far as the suburbs are concerned, more is better.

There must be a place in our lives where the contentment of enough takes over. A moment where we can step back and realize we have been blessed. Enough is enough.

I was particularly stressed some time ago over an amount of money that I needed to spend, did not want to spend and did not have to spend. I spent a day or two worrying about it and being generally irritable. Then I started to look around and realized just how blessed we were.

My wife and I have everything we need. I could have never dreamed of all the ways we've been blessed and had our needs met. We have a simple and comfortable home, two dependable vehicles and 2 beautiful children. We have friends whose company we enjoy and loved ones we are blessed to live near. For us, it's enough.

Would we like more? Sure. If someone gave us a Cadillac Escalade, we'd take it!

Contentment is not synonymous with stagnation. Just because we are content does not mean I would not like a newer car, a more spacious home or more money in the bank. It does not mean we've given up trying or have decided to be proud of our poverty.

Our contentment means I will not sacrifice what really matters for those things that are just things. We will try to acquire what we need and what we would like as we are able. Until then, we can be satisfied and content in the blessings we enjoy all around us.

We have enough, and enough is enough.

*source for credit statistics: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-industry-facts-personal-debt-statistics-1276.php

Tomorrow

2010-02-14T01:39:00.007-06:00

If you believe the theory that the most popular of entertainment is an indicator of a people's disposition then it is abundantly clear that we, as a culture, are not hopeful of our future.

The music, art, literature and movies that garner the greatest notoriety and acclaim are the ones that present the future as being a dystopia. We feel ourselves being disconnected despite our constant contact to others. We feel alone when surrounded by people. Our world, through the technology we've developed, is becoming increasingly small and that has done something to our sense of hope and promise in tomorrow.

The printing press, and the subsequent mass production of books, was the highest and most revolutionary technology the world had ever seen. The first book to roll off a press was the Holy Bible. It didn't take long however, for books like Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, Marx's Manifesto or the Third Reich's Mein Kampf to follow. It radically transformed the way both knowledge and ideas were spread. For better or for worse.

The computer, and more directly the internet, has done to our modern way of life what Gutenberg's winepress turned printing press did to medieval life. It has been inexorably transformed into something of an entirely new design. Our age is thoroughly digital. What's more this transformation took place in just a matter of years. In a short span of arguably 10 years (from 1994 to 2004) the digital age took hold, the computer and internet became ubiquitous and, somewhere along the way, we lost hope.

We're awash in social networking among the influential web presence of Facebook, MySpace, & twitter. We e-mail, network and "connect". Yet amidst it all our culture seems yet to maintain a very disillusioned and dystopic vision for the future. We don't feel as if we've improved anything but the frequency and efficiency wherewith we avoid each other and the difficult things about living life as a human being.

The current President of the United States ran his campaign on the slogan "Hope & Change". He was elected, one might argue, largely due, not to the American people's approval of his policies, but the offering he extended to them. Hope. Change.

Amidst all this I am comforted to believe that hope and change do not come from Washington D.C. Hope and change for tomorrow has only one source. The source throughout history, from the era of the American Revolutionaries to the Underground Railroad, that has given people hope for better days and the courage to exact change has been a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. It is my conviction that as I maintain my connection to that source I maintain my ability to boldly and purposefully encounter tomorrow.

The writers and singers may be right. The world isn't all that great right now. I cannot however, ascribe to John Mayer's philosophy and just wait for the world to change. I believe the world changes a little at a time, like the turning of a large ocean vessel, as each day another soul finds freedom from self and deliverance from sin through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I believe that today and I believe that for tomorrow.

I Hit A Bird

2010-01-04T12:14:00.006-06:00

I wish I could say my recent trip to Wal-Mart was without incident but, as most trips to Wal-Mart go, it wasn’t. I hit a bird.

Let me qualify that statement by saying I didn’t hit the bird as much as the bird hit me. I must say that I fared much better in this little incident than the bird did. He flew into the path of my minivan which was traveling at an unfortunately high rate of speed. We mourned as a family for a few moments and then we continued on to the great American pastime of Wal-Mart night.

In our brief and artificial moment of silence I wondered to myself what God thought. I wondered if God took a moment to recognize the little bird that had the unfortunate collision with a Chevy minivan. I was reminded of Jesus’ words that Gods attention is on every sparrow that falls to the ground (Matthew 10:29-31). I believe He was aware and did, in fact, acknowledge from His place in eternity the passing of a humble sparrow.

I do not believe the passage champions animal rights. While I believe God is aware of all that occurs in His creation I do not believe He enjoins a moral obligation for man to subordinate himself to the yellow crested, long haired, white tailed, bottle nosed, lop eared anything. In fact the scripture goes on to say, “ye are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:31). The truth is clear, God considers mankind the greatest of His creations.

If God saw that little bird fall to the ground, is there anything He cannot see? David was convinced there was nowhere he could go that God would not see him. He was so full of this truth he declared, “If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me” (Psalm 139:11).

My mind raced as I began to consider that while God saw the bird fall He saw me keep driving. He saw me sleep and wake up in the morning. He watches me every hour of every day. He has numbered, according to scripture, the hairs on my head. More amazing than that, He values me more than those sparrows. He sees them, but He loves me!

If all this be true we have no reason to fear anything in this life. Luke recorded the words of Jesus, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.“ (Luke 12:6-7 ESV).

A simple truth we often forget. He values His people more than anything else in His creation. More than the sparrows whose activities He monitors, He’s watching His children. He saw that bird die, but He died for me.

The Deserts Only Tree

2008-04-05T18:29:00.003-05:00

Trees, I’ve heard, have rather low self-esteem.

They do so because it is very difficult to tell one from another. If you’ve ever tried it you would know it is very difficult to stand out and be unique as a tree in a forest full of other trees.

As with most things, however, there are a few exceptions.

There’s Boston’s Liberty Tree, Methuselah, a 4,800 year old bristlecone pine, General Sherman, a 1,450 cubic meter giant sequoia and Hyperion, northern California’s Redwood that towers at 155 meters.

There is another tree however, that we should take note of.

It is called the Tree of Tenere (seen here) .

The Tree of Tenere is an acacia tree that grows in the Tenere region of the Sahara Desert. It is the only tree, and only plant life, for 250 kilometers in any direction. It is estimated to be over 30 years old.

In 1938 a French military team, curious concerning this truly remarkable tree, found the trees source of life. Its roots weaved their way 35 meters through the dry desert crust to a heretofore unknown underground aquaphor.

This incredible tree had survived the baking climate of one of the world’s harshest deserts by having the courage and patience to throw down roots until it found a source of water.

The French Team built a well on the site and the tree became a landmark and major stopping point as travelers journeyed through the desert. So much so that it is the only tree on large scale maps at a scale of 1 to 1,000.

Then in 1973 a Libyan truck driver was traveling through the Tenere region at night. He was intoxicated and, as only a drunk could do, the front fender of his truck found the only tree, the only thing standing for that matter, in 250 kilometers any direction. He hit the tree.

The tree snapped from its trunk and its long and beautiful tenure as the lighthouse of the Sahara was ended by a careless, inebriated man.

If only someone had cared enough, unsightly as it may have been, to have erected a fence around the tree, it might still be preserved yet today for us to appreciate. Instead in its place stands a crude memorial, fashioned from old metal and truck parts, honoring the place where a tree once grew in a desert, and found thirsty travelers a source of hope.

The account of that remarkable tree, and its tragic and unnecessary death, serves as a warning and a reminder to the necessity of a fence.

Fences are ugly. Fences are restricting. Fences require maintenance. Fences don’t have a good reputation. We must recognize however, that fences don’t just serve to keep things in, they also serve to keep things out.

If we really care for something, and wish to protect it from the careless and inebriated elements of this world that would destroy, we must be willing, unsightly as it may appear, to build a fence around those things we cherish and safeguard the hope we find therein.

Wouldn’t you build a fence if you found the deserts only tree?

2008-03-25T20:57:00.002-05:00

I am not a country boy.

I was raised off the Dan Ryan Expressway on Chicago’s south side. I am much more comfortable on a toll way than a tractor.

For the last eight years I have lived in the county seat of the smallest county in the state of Illinois. Living among cornfields and the corn fed I’ve been exposed to many things that have served to enrich and enlighten.

There is a family in our church that grows various fruits and vegetables on their land. They raise tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and the most delicious blackberry’s found anywhere.

They have a small area were they grow sweet corn for themselves. They purchased hybrid seed to plant sweet corn and the next spring, preparing to plant sweet corn once again, they planted seed from last years harvest. As the stalks began to break the ground they found the corn small and irregular. The ears weren’t developing and the stalks were subject to rot.

There was a problem.

Today, hybrid seed is predominant in agriculture and is one of the main contributing factors to the dramatic rise in agricultural output during the last half of the 20th century. Hybrid seed is produced by artificially cross-pollinating plants. Hybrids are bred to improve the characteristics of the resulting plants, resulting in better yield, greater uniformity, improved color/appearance and disease resistance.

There is however an inviolable rule concerning this seed. Hybrid seed cannot be saved, as the seed from the first generation of hybrid plants does not reliably produce true copies, therefore, new seed must be purchased for each planting.

Their crop failed because they tried to use second generation seed and second generation seed will not produce a first generation harvest.

Those who have inherited the experience and truth of the day of Pentecost are the harvest of a first generation seed. If we are to continue to experience the yield, uniformity and disease resistance that defined the first generation harvest the seed we sow must be first generation seed.

Our children need a first generation experience because Mom and Dad’s faith will not suffice.

Our cities need a first generation church preaching first generation truth.

Our faith must remain first generation in doctrine, experience and worship if we are to reap the harvest that God has promised to us.

Hand-me-down Pentecost will not reach the world. If we want to reap a first generation harvest we must invest first generation seed in each soul we raise and reach.

A personal and Apostolic experience is our sole satisfaction.

I Feel Good

2007-06-15T14:06:00.000-05:00

It seems as if every generation has a book that decidedly marks their time; for the better or for the worse[1].

Rick Warren’s book "Purpose Driven Life" has arguably reached such grand proportions. It has spent 174 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list[2] promising people a purposeful life if they’ll become a follower of Jesus Christ.

His message is not new. His mentor, The Reverend Robert Schuller, gave us "Way To The Good Life", "Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking", "Self-Love", "You Can Be The Person You Want To Be", and "Self-Esteem: The New Reformation"[3].

Schuler’s mentor, Norman Vincent Peale, gave us "The Power of Positive Thinking".

Joel Osteen’s bestseller "Your Best Life Now"[4] is proof text that mainstream Christianity has embraced the gospel of self-esteem that Robert Schuler advocated from his Crystal Cathedral over 25 years ago.

Their message declares the gospel to be the answer to those unfulfilled and frustrated with life. Listeners are encouraged to respond to the gospel because of its ability to bring meaning to life. Their hearers are promised that they will live better than before if they will pursue an experience with God.

It is a promise of fulfilling the self rather than dealing with sin.

While the gospel of Jesus Christ results in bringing change and fulfillment to a soul that is not its purpose in the life of a believer. When the Gospel is preached as a source of self-fulfillment or life-enhancement it loses its effectiveness to accomplish the goal to which it was ultimately sent. The purpose of the Cross is not to enhance the life we already have. To the contrary its function is to cause the death of our carnal nature and empower us to be resurrected “a new creature” in Christ Jesus[5].

The cross is not about self-esteem. It’s about sin.

If all we offer is a gospel of self-fulfillment and personal meaning we have nothing to offer of eternal consequence. Paul said he would preach nothing but, “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”[6].

If believers are to develop a lasting faith the matter of our fulfillment in life cannot be our motivation for responding to the gospel. The sinner must respond to the gospel regardless of their satisfaction with the condition of their life. An individual’s motivation for responding to the gospel must always be the quickening of the Holy Ghost awakening the soul to its congenital sin problem.

As Oscar Vouga stated, “This is the most vital part of our “Gospel Message”; that God would
wash every sinner in the blood of Calvary…”[7].

Norman Vincent Peale’s lasting contribution to modern Christianity is premised on truth. The gospel indeed results in meaning, confidence and purpose. Paul affirmed, “we are complete in Him”[8].

The problem is not that their premise is in error. Rather the injustice lies in promoting what is ancillary and missing the primary purpose of the Cross.

The gospel is not our hope because it brings meaning or self-esteem. The Cross deals with our sin nature, arresting that which separates our soul from God, making it the hope of the world and the believer’s victory over sin.

The Cross dealt with sin once and for all[9] and that is something to feel good about.

[1] For the better think Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe whom Abraham Lincoln called “the little woman who started this great war”. For the worse think Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Karl Marx’s Manifesto.
[2] As of May 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purpose_Driven_Life)
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/robert_schuler
[4] http://www.publishersweekly.com/bestsellerslist/20.html?channel=bestsellers
[5] 1Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
[6] 1Corinthians 2:1-2
[7] Oscar Vouga, Our Gospel Message (Hazelwood, Missouri: WAP, 1967) pg. 13.
[8] Colossians 2:10
[9] Hebrews 10:10

The Little Rocks

2007-05-31T23:19:00.000-05:00

My father in law and I have something in common beside my wife and child.

We’re both fascinated with the bizarre.

We were in my backyard the other day looking at a rather large and unsightly pile of rocks that we are soon to be removing.

We were talking about how it seems that the big rocks in a pile always work their way to the top.

It doesn’t matter how you pile the rocks it seems as if the big ones always end up on top.

My father in law said he watched a documentary where a group of researchers studied the way rocks move and they arrived at a conclusion concerning the seeming ascent the big rocks make.

The conclusion they arrived at was that the big rocks do not move at all.

That’s right, the big rocks say right where they are.

Apparently it’s the little rocks that eventually shuffle their way to the bottom.

"Wash Your Hands"

2007-04-14T14:59:00.000-05:00

The year was 1818 and Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women.

The most magnificent hospitals of the day were losing one out of every six young mothers to a mysterious scourge commonly referred to as “childbed fever”. The chance of infection and possibly death, to both mother and child, was an understood and even accepted hazard of medically assisted childbirth.

The average hospital was losing anywhere from 10% to 35% of mothers to what was known as puerperal fever.

In 1844, at twenty-six years of age, the now Dr. Semmelweis, decided that there was a connection between the mothers’ deaths and the practice of physicians.

It was at the Vienna General Hospital that Semmelweis began investigating the causes of puerperal fever, against the resistance of his superiors who believed it to be non-preventable. Semmelweis became the house officer of the First Obstetrical Clinic in July 1846, which had a maternal mortality rate due to puerperal fever of 13.10%. This was well known at the time and many women preferred to give birth to their children on the street rather than being brought there.

The Second Obstetrical Clinic had a mortality rate due to puerperal fever of only 2.03%, however; both were located in the same hospital and used the same techniques, with the only difference being the people who worked there.

The first was the teaching service for medical students, while the second had been selected in 1839 for the instruction of midwives.

The breakthrough for Ignaz Semmelweis occurred in 1847 with the death of his friend Jakob Kolletschka from an infection contracted after his finger was accidentally punctured with a knife while performing a postmortem examination.

Kolletschka's own autopsy showed a pathological situation similar to that of the women who were dying from puerperal fever. Semmelweis immediately proposed a connection between cadaveric contamination and puerperal fever and made a detailed study of the mortality statistics of both obstetrical clinics.

He concluded that he and the students carried the infecting particles on their hands from the autopsy room to the patients they examined in the First Obstetrical Clinic.

The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed at the time. Thus, Semmelweis concluded that some unknown "cadaveric material" caused childbed fever.

Semmelweis instituted a policy of using a solution of chlorinated lime for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of patients. Following the institution of this guidleine the mortality rate dropped from its then-current level of 12.24% to 2.38%, comparable to the Second Clinic's.

After eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers–about one in fifty.

The “savior of mothers” argued, “Puerperal fever (childbed fever) is caused by decomposed material, conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proved all that I have said. But while we talk, talk, talk, gentlemen, woman are dying. I am not asking anything world shaking. I am merely asking you only to wash. . . For God’s sake, wash your hands.”

Something so simple as the washing of hands indefinitely changed the face of the medical community.

We now know how right Semmelweis was. At the time, however, he was met with strong resistance from the educated and tenured physicians of his day. It was seen as a mark of skill and ability for a doctor to have blood on his hands.

It was that simple pride in a perceived presentation that cost thousands of women their lives.

All they had to do to save the lives of the women and children they delivered was wash their hands.

How important it is that the church have clean hands.

We can easily be tempted in the reckless, carefree world we live in to see carnal pleasures and worldliness as a sign of our prowess and strength as ministers.

Brothers and Sisters it is simple yet crucial that we have clean hands.

In the words of Semmelweis himself, no one is asking anything world shaking. We are only asking that you wash your hands.

The Waterline

2007-04-13T20:55:00.000-05:00

It weighed 1,961 tons.

It was 269 feet long and could travel at a top speed of 19 knots.

It was the SS Eastland, one of the finest cruise ships in the City of Chicago, and on July 24th, 1915 it sank in the Chicago River still moored to the wharf.

The Eastland and two other cruise ships, the Theodore Roosevelt and the Petoskey, were hired to take employees from Chicago's Western Electric Company to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana.

Passengers began boarding around 6:30 AM.

By 7:10, the ship had reached its capacity of 2,500 passengers. It had also developed a list to the port, which the crew attempted to stabilize by admitting water to the ballast tanks.

By 7:28, the Eastland began to roll over. In just 5 minutes, with several hundred people watching from the dock, the great cruise ship came to rest on its side. It was laying in 20 feet of water only 18 feet from the wharf, on the south bank of the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets.

841 passengers and 3 crew members were killed.

After the river was cleared of the bodies and the great boat investigators came to a consensus as to the fate of the Eastland.

It seems as if the already top heavy Eastland was put further out of balance by the addition of life boats after the Titanic accident.

The added life boats placed more weight above the water line than was below, and the Eastland rolled.

What was viewed as a measure of safety became the catalyst for the great ships demise.

One of the most imporant maritime principles is that there must be more weight below the waterline than above. The Eastland violated this principle and 844 souls were lost in 20 feet of water, 18 feet from the shore.

It is vital that we apply this principle to our souls.

It matters not what is seen on the surface. What really matters, and will insure our safety, is what weight we have beneath the waterline.

Is our house in order? Or, to put it more succintly, is our soul right?

Many mistakenly believe that their external appearance, all that people see of them in the natural world, is all that really matters. The reality is that it is the unseen condition of the soul that will decide if we “sink or swim”.

While the other boats on that fateful day, the Theodore Roosevelt and the Petosky, may not have been as admired or applauded as the Eastland, in their humble appearance they remained afloat because they mastered a simple maritime principle.

The principle of the waterline.

My Day In Court

2007-04-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

I didn’t do it. Honest.

This time I really didn’t do it. Every other time I have been pulled over by a police officer it has been my own fault.

I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt. I was speeding. I was changing lanes in an intersection without signaling while running a red light and speeding.

Something like that.

This time however, I was innocent.

The speed limit was 55. My cruise was set at 55 because I had just got a ticket two days earlier and I didn’t want the obligatory lecture from my better half about my habit of driving at a speed normally reserved for test tracks on the slat flats. I even showed my wife that the cruise was set at 55.

And then it happened. In my rear view mirror appeared those all too familiar blueberries and cherries. I was being pulled over!

The officer asked if I knew why I was being pulled over. Actually, No, I didn’t know why he had pulled me over. I knew it wasn’t for speeding because my cruise was set at 55. He said, “Actually, I clocked you going 72.”

It was at this point that things began to go down hill.

Someone challenged the others honesty, a few car doors were slammed, questions were asked, demands were made, some words were exchanged. At one point someone was told to “Shut up and get back in the car”.

Anyway, I digress.

After the scene was over I took my ticket and drove on home.

After the 30 days passed I phoned the county courthouse and requested a trial by judge. I did not want to pay a ticket I knew I didn’t deserve. So I cast my lot with the judge.

The day of my trial, as I drove to the county courthouse, a realization struck me. I might not win this.

The judge might not be a fair man. I might say the wrong thing. He could charge me anything he wants if he finds me guilty. He could make me, if he would so choose, to spend a night in jail. The officer might be his brother/dad/uncle/neighbor and I’m going to owe the county hundreds of dollars. Maybe spend a night in jail if I couldn’t pay the fine he chooses to levy against me.

It struck me that casting my lot with the judge might not have been such a good idea.

It was then that I began to pray!

I arrived early hoping that promptness would carry some virtue with “your honor”.

As I sat in the empty courtroom a side door opened and in walked the prosecutor for the county.

She asked if I was there for a trial. “Yes Maam”.

She then asked me what my name was and I told her. She then informed me that they didn’t have a current phone number for me and they had been trying to contact me. It seems as though the officer who wrote the ticket decided to drop the charges. My license would be returned to me and no fine exacted.

How do you spell relief? N-o-t-g-u-i-l-t-y!

The judge walked into the courtroom and called my name. The bailiff escorted me to the front of the courtroom and instructed me to stand before the judge. He asked me my name.

Adam.

“Your charges have been dropped. Do you accept this?”

“Yes, your honor”.

My license was handed back to me, I signed a document and I was free to go.

The birds sang, the flowers bloomed and the breese was blowing slightly from the east that day. Things couldn’t have been better!

I felt great. It wasn’t just “not guilty”. It was “the charges are dropped”.

I wasn’t given my license back because I was found innocent. I was given my license back because they had nothing to charge me with.

I left that day with a greater appreciation for what Jesus did for me on Calvary.

Today is Easter Sunday and I have a greater appreciation for what Easter means after having faced the judge and having heard him tell me I’m free to go. There are no charges against you.

That’s what Calvary and an empty grave means to the soul today.

We’re not just found innocent. The blood wipes our record so that there’s not even any charges to be heard.

Thank God for the Blood!

Happy Easter!

Potential

2007-03-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

We went in Menards this past weekend.

Menards is one of my favorite stores. It is full of so many interesting things.

There’s lights and decorative fixtures on display. Near the entrance a bank of ceiling fans spin near a rack of radios and flashlights. There’s showers and toilets, sinks and windows all on display.

Tools. There are aisles and aisles of tools. You can find saws, drills, drivers and hammers of every kind.

You want flooring? There’s carpet (indoor and outdoor), laminate, tile, linoleum (rolls and peel & stick squares) and hardwood.

There’s the section with the windows and doors all on functioning display. You can open a door to another door to another door. You can lift a brand new window for a great view of the appliance section.

The appliance section!

Counter top ranges, double stacked wall ovens, side-by-side refrigerators, freezer on bottom refrigerators, dishwashers, front loading washing machines and dryers all on display for the eager consumer.

Don’t get me started on the paint section.

Thousands of swatches producing seemingly endless color possibilities.

There is a touch screen in the paint section that could entertain for hours. You choose a photograph from several in their archives of a room in a house. You can then touch the screen on a color palette and the computer will “repaint” the room in the color of your choice to give you an idea of what the pain would look like on a wall.

Menards is a wonderful way to spend an evening.

One thing that has always amazed me, every time I go to Menards, is the potential that is sitting on their shelves.

Inside that simple home improvement superstore are entire homes just waiting to be built. Every nail and two by four, every inch of carpet and tile, every piece of drywall and every shingle necessary to build a dream house is actually under their roof and on their shelves.

All the material you would need, and all the tools to build it, are in the store. Not just in theory. It’s not as if it can be ordered and you could pick it up there. It’s all actually there! Every time you walk through Menards sliding glass doors every ounce of paint and pound of screws is in the store.

Furthermore, once the house was built, they carry the furnishings, appliances and decorations to finish it off with practicality and style.

It’s all there just waiting for someone to purchase it and someone to build it.

A visit to Menards is an encounter with amazing potential.

I can think of a few other encounters that carry potential.

Every time I am privileged enough to stand in front of a group of young people I get the same feeling I get when I walk in Menards. I see raw potential.

When I walk into church I feel the same way. There is raw potential.

Everything is there. Anything is possible.

Not just in theory. It’s actually there.

Every ounce of peace and pound of joy is waiting for someone to get it and take it home.

Potential.

Heroes

2007-03-22T00:34:00.000-05:00

My father in law told me a terrific story from his teenage years.

He and his brother decided one evening to steal a police car.

The police car was in an auto repair garage over night. They broke into the garage and took off on a joyride in the squad car.

They were outside of town when they happened upon, of all things, a terrible car wreck. This was in the 60’s, long before cell phones. The people involved in the wreck saw a police car coming down the road and started waving at them to stop and help.

My father in law and his brother stopped but had to quickly admit they were neither one a police officer and could offer them little to no assistance. They drove them to a nearby farm house, called the real police and then swiftly returned the car to the garage where they found it.

They were never caught.

Can you imagine the disappointment of the people involved in the wreck when their heroes turned out to be two teenaged boys out for a joy ride in a stolen squad car?

They were rescued! It’s the cops!

Not Quite.

The police have a primary function of enforcing the law and protecting law-abiding citizens. Yet they have a perceived secondary function that is equally important.

The public expects police officers to be more than enforcers of the law. We expect them to be heroes.

They, as was vividly displayed on September 11th, 2001, are expected to run in when everyone else is running out. They are expected to be heroes.

It must have been a terrible disappointment to those in the accident for their rescuers to be nothing but frauds. They were teenaged boys who appeared to be one thing but were in fact nothing of the sort.

They had the form but not the function to follow.

The outcome of my father in law’s story was amusing.

If the world finds the church to be less than the heroes we ought to be it would be tragic. If my children find me to be less than the hero I ought to be it would be tragic.

The next time the cops come down the road I hope it’s the real ones!

When You Lay Down With Dogs...

2007-03-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, March 13, 2007 a Siberian tiger at a private zoo in Montenegro bit off an arm of a woman who tried to feed the animal.

Slavka Sekulovic, 58, had put her arm into the cage with two Siberian tigers when one of them grabbed it and bit it off, said doctor Zoran Srzentic who admitted the woman at a nearby hospital.
Srzentic said that Sekulovic's life is not in danger, though she remained in shock after losing a lot of blood.

"The tiger just wouldn't let it go," he added.

The owner, Stojan Sekulovic, has claimed the tigers were a present for his private zoo (Fox News).

What!

Who sticks their arm in a tiger’s cage? Doesn’t common sense tell a person that if you put a part of your body near the hungry mouth of a vicious animal he’ll most likely bite it off?

While I can feel some sympathy for the certain pain and trauma this woman endured I also feel bewildered at why she would stick her arm in harm’s way.

It’s easy for us to point out and mock her obvious malfunctioning logic yet how often do we do things that, when given thought, will place us in similar peril.

How often do we make decisions that affect our family, faith or finances in ways we never considered would come to pass. We find ourselves in situations and wonder “how did this happen” when the answer is obvious.

You stuck your arm near the tiger’s mouth!

There’s an old saying that says, “When you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.”

What it means is that you’re going to get exactly what you put yourself in position to receive.

Spend all your money and you’ll be broke. Eat whatever you want and you’ll be unhealthy. Say whatever you want to say and you’ll have fewer friends. Put your arm in a tigers cage and your hand gets bit off!

The reason is simple.

When you lay down with dogs…

The Man And The Machine

2007-03-10T21:28:00.000-06:00

I have a confession to make.

I wash the dishes.

I wash the dishes but I don’t trust myself. I find it difficult to eat using tableware that has been handwashed. I just don’t think it gets clean enough.

We use the same water and the same washcloth to wash a dozen different dishes and silverware. How clean can stuff really get?

I find it a whole lot easier to trust a dishwasher. The machine can’t feel or see where the grime is yet I trust it to clean my dishes better and with more efficiency than I ever could.

I don’t know why I trust the machine over myself. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the eighties and nineties where machines were believed to be the future of everything and quickly replaced people in various functions.

Nevertheless, I find it easier to trust a machine that cannot think, see or feel to do something that logically I could do just as well, if not with more efficiency. In fact it seems almost discerning and enlightened to trust a cold, lifeless system than a warm blooded person.

Afterall, that’s what the machine was built for. That’s what it does. Surely the machine can out clean me any day.

Or can it?

Could it be that I trust the machine because it is easy and fashionable to do so?

Could it be that my old-fashioned effort to clean a saucer is actually more efficient and better at getting that saucer clean than a dishwasher could ever hope to be?

Could it be that we trust science over faith because it seems to be discerning and insightful when actually the life of faith better serves a soul than science could ever hope to do?

We trust everything in this world. We trust what we read in the news. We trust our computer and the internet. We trust our bank and our mechanic. We trust our doctor and our pharmacist. We trust science, math and the numbers.

Yet we have such a difficult time trusting God.

Why do we trust the machine and not the man?

Neglecting The Familiar

2007-03-03T22:41:00.000-06:00

I won. I’ve finally won something on e-bay.

I won a cd for $1.49.

The cd was released in 1991. It was around the time that cd players became more affordable and more artists released their music on cd’s.

Digital audio was still a relatively new technology and so production companies often printed instructions for how to care for the cd on the cd case insert.

I was amazed at the instructions that were given.

Always hold the cd by the edges. When not in the cd payer always return the cd to its case. If a fingerprint should get on the underside of the disc only wipe it off with a soft, dust/lint free cloth and always wipe in a straight line away from the center of the disc.

The instructions for care were followed by the promise, “If you care for your compact disc in this manner it should provide you with a lifetime of listening pleasure.”

As I read those instructions I mentally balanced them with the way an average person actually handles a cd.

I’ve got about three just laying loose in the floor of my car right now!

When we’re not using them for a coaster we throw them around, pile them on top of each other (not in their cases) and wipe the pizza sauce off the underside with the back of our shirt (well, at least I do).

As our familiarity grows our care lessens.

This seems to be true of most things.

Consider the first year of marriage versus the 10th. If she gets a cold in the 1st year you’re rushing to the emergency room. If she gets a cold in the 10th year you’re buying a box of Kleenex so she doesn’t get anything in the casserole.

When I bought my first new car I babied it. No fast food. Wipe your feet. Routine maintenance, wash and wax. No driving fast or hitting bumps. Park at the back of the parking lot so some junker won’t scratch the paint.

After about 3 months that all starts to fade.

Before 1 year is up there’s fries under the floormats, pop stains in the cup holder and cd’s lodged in the seats.

When I first got my laptop I kept a lint free cloth between the keyboard and screen whenever I closed it. I always set it on a laptop fan base to keep the internal hardware cool and prevent damage.

Not anymore.

As our familiarity grows our care and attention lessens.

We become so familiar with things that we cease to genuinely care for them and appreciate their value. We take them for granted and neglect the care they properly deserve.

I sure hope this hasn’t also become true of my walk with God.

Conscience

2007-02-26T23:19:00.000-06:00

Conscience.

Everyone has one. How they use it is a different story.

I met a woman today who, by all accounts, is evil.

She is a caretaker in the DCFS foster care system. Her home is the temporary residence for any number of children in the custody of the State of Illinois. She recieves a check for a generous amount every month by the taxpayers of Illinois to care for these vulnerable and needy children whose lives are in various stages of abuse or disruption.

When she gets a new child to care for she takes them to the doctor, has them examined and suggests the doctor write this “undisciplined” child a prescription for Ritalin, Concerta, Valium or some other drug used to sedate the minds of children and adults.

Most of them are on two or three different sedatives or anti-anxiety medications such as Valium of Xanax. This makes the children easier to control while they are in her custody.

Evil.

Suburban St. Louis man Michael Devlin is arrested for kidnapping and viciously abusing two young boys.

Evil. Nothing more than evil.

The individuals who have done such evil things have had to make some sort of equity with their conscience in regards to their actions. They have weighed the pros and cons against what they can acquire and have made a choice to follow their desires.

Pinocchio wasn’t alone. Everyone wrestles with their conscience to some degree. It speaks to all of us.

No one makes decisions for us. We must sleep at night with the decisions we have made and their result on our conscience.

The Bible speaks often of a man’s conscience.

Paul addresses the issue of conscience when he tells Timothy that in the last days men and women would have a conscience that has become seared as if by a hot iron (1Timothy 4:2).

How true the prophetic words of the Apostle have become.

In other places the Word encourages us to have a right conscience and a clean conscience before God (Hebrews 13:18).

It is probably the least recognized and most under-appreciated part of a person’s being but the improtance of our conscience remains great!

We must keep our conscience clean.

Cheaters

2007-02-17T17:13:00.000-06:00

The unthinkable has finally occurred. Jeff Gordon was penalized for cheating on Thursday at the Daytona 500.

Gordon’s car was found to be sitting too low to the ground. Even though Gordon won the qualifying race he will begin the Daytona 500 in the 42nd slot. Gordon's was the sixth team in three days to be caught with technical violations, and the season hasn't even begun.

Michael Waltrip, whose Toyota Camry failed inspection after an illegal substance was found in the gas line, committed the most serious of the violations.

His crew chief and team director were suspended indefinitely and kicked out of the Daytona International Speedway. Waltrip was docked 100 driver and car owner points.

Also in violation on Thursday were the teams of Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs, whose crew chiefs were all fined and suspended. All drivers also lost points reported Fox News .

Most sports have volumes of pages specifying and defining every rule and activity possible within the sport. Not so with NASCAR.

At 184 pages, the 2007 edition of the NASCAR Nextel Cup rulebook is nearly twice as long as it was two years ago (96 pages), but it's still not much wider or longer than a checkbook. The fact that every roll bar, rear view mirror, and rocker arm is covered within such a small amount of type means there is a lot of room for "interpretation".

Cheaters.

They’re everywhere. Trying to bend the rules without breaking.

Cheaters operate in the belief that somehow they will be able to achieve legitimate victories through illegitimate means. The problem is that it simply is not possible. Cheaters convince themselves that avoiding approved avenues of action will somehow bring them a success with value but it won’t.

I would rather genuinely earn second place than cheat my way into first place. There’s no value in a dishonest effort, even if it wins. This is the reason why no one celebrates Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire. Their efforts and great achievements are wounded from the dishonest means that achieved them.

Being genuine is always better than being dishonest.

It is better to admit or suffer a genuine failure than to celebrate a fraudulent success.

It’s a pity that talented, driven and often clearly creative people resort to cheating; the lazy man’s method of success. They spend energy, that could be harnessed to achieve legitimate success, to mire their reputation and their efforts in the gray areas of deception and half-truths.

It never ceases to amaze me the dichotomy that exists in public opinion regarding cheaters.

There are those who say, “Everyone does it. It’s no big deal to cheat.” Yet watch as Tyco or Arthur Anderson flushes stock down the tube and they get sued and sent to court.

"Do what you must to get ahead in life" but when Martha Stewart lies about stock trades she gets 6 months in the cooler.

When we cheat our boss or our family we say, “No Harm, No Foul” but when Ken Lay destroys Enron employees retirement suddenly we cry “Foul!”

We’ll cheat a little here and a little there but when Sammy Sosa corks a bat it causes everyone to acknowledge that there is a difference between right and wrong. Suddenly moral relativism doesn’t make much sense.

The bottom line is that there is a real and understood line between right and wrong. We can avoid it and pretend it doesn’t apply to us, or our situation but, that doesn’t erase the line. Right is still right and wrong is still wrong.

Grandma said it best. Cheaters never win and winners never cheat.

Symbols Of Love

2007-02-14T22:37:00.000-06:00

It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

Built in 1648, some twenty thousand workers spent twenty-two years constructing the glistening white edifice in Agra, India. The Taj Mahal stands 213 feet and is made entirely of white marble.

It was built by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal at a cost of 32 million rupees ($750,000 in 1648!). It is quite possibly the world’s greatest physical symbol of love.

Symbols of love are big industry.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion Valentines Day cards are sent each year worldwide, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. When you consider that a card costs somewhere between $1 and $3 each that’s a $3 Billion dollar industry every February!

When we want to say, “I Love You” we give the cheap card, the box of gamble chocolates and a stale rose from the freezer in Wal-Mart. Our traditions pale in comparison to expressions of love that were common in days before Hershey’s Pot Of Gold.

It was the work of a Parisian painter named Marcel De Leclure. In 1875 he wrote a love letter to the object of his affection, Magdalene de Villalore. This love letter contained the phrase “I love you” written out 1,875,000 times; 1,000 times the calendar year.

Marcel De Leclure did not pen this letter with his own hand; he hired a scribe. He was so entranced with the sound of “I love you,” that he dictated it word for word and then had the hired man read it back to him word for word.

All-in-all, the phrase was uttered a total of 5,625,000 times before it reached its destination.

When I first read that I thought, “What a waste!” What a waste of time, money, energy and resources. Then I was forced to acknowledge that since the letter wasn’t written by me or to me I could not properly judge its worth.

Many have difficulty seeing the value in remembering or valuing the cross of Jesus Christ. It has become the symbol of a faith and representative of an individuals life. The cross was nothing if it was not a symbol of God’s love. It was a costly, extravagant expression of divine affection for mortal man.

Expressions of love have always been extravagant.

We write silly poems and promise the moon. We sing songs about swimming rivers and climbing mountains. We’ll spend money, lose sleep and work hard all for the expression of love because symbols of love don’t come cheap.

They never have.

The Poisoning Effect Of Water

2007-02-08T22:11:00.000-06:00

A woman from Sacramento, California who competed in a radio station’s contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner’s office said Saturday.

Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.

“She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad,” said Laura Rios, one of Strange’s co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento. “She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her.”

It was not immediately know how much water Strange consumed.

A preliminary investigation found evidence “consistent with a water intoxication death,” said assistant Coroner Ed Smith.

John Geary, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Sacramento, the station’s owner, said station personnel were stunned when they heard of Strange’s death.

“We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred,” he said.
Initially, contestants were handed eight-ounce bottles of water to drink every 15 minutes.

“They were small little half-pint bottles, so we thought it was going to be easy,” said fellow contestant James Ybarra of Woodland. “They told us if you don’t feel like you can do this, don’t put your health at risk.”

Ybarra said he quit after drinking five bottles. “My bladder couldn’t handle it anymore,” he added. After he quit, he said, the remaining contestants, including Strange, were given even bigger bottles to drink.

“I was talking to her and she was a nice lady,” Ybarra said. “She was telling me about her family and her three kids and how she was doing it for kids.” The story was reported on Fox News Website on January 13th of 2007.

Water intoxication (also known as hyperhydration or water poisoning) is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain function that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits by a very rapid intake of water.

It is the imbalance in intake and evacuation that causes normally beneficial, even necessary, water to have a poisoning effect.

How true the scriptures are when they remind us of the importance of keeping our lives in balance. Job prayed, “Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.” (Job 31:6 ).

Some things that might normally be beneficial, even necessary for us, can quickly become detrimental if they are pushed out of balance.

James 1:8 warns us that, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” (James I:8 ).

If we were to examine our lives I believe we would find (at least I would) that often when undesirable circumstances present themselves they are the result not of fate or of chance but rather of an imbalance somewhere in the decision making process.

Working is not a damaging thing unless our concern for work causes our attention to our family to suffer.

Taking your ease is not a bad thing and can be quite therapuetic to a person and a body. Everyone needs rest. Yet if we’re too concerned with ease, and disconcerned with effort, our family will suffer of poverty.

Making and saving money is a wise activity to engage in yet if we place too much importance on money will it cause our character to suffer?

Being successful in your endeavors is a worthy goal. How many people, however, placed too much importance on success and lost their integrity in the process.

The greatest question we must ask ourselves is, “Have we placed too little concern on eternity and will our soul suffer?”

It is vital that we stirve, not for perfection or impeccability, but rather for balance in every facet of our life so that we can avoid being poisoned by water.

Reckless

2007-02-02T20:49:00.000-06:00

Even at the age of two, Tim insisted he was a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

So when puberty began to approach at the age of 12, he convinced his parents that something had to be done.

With their agreement, he became the youngest sex-change patient in the world, receiving hormone injections which arrested his male development.

Now, at 14, Tim has become Kim – a blue-eyed blonde with a growing bust line who is allowed to wear make-up on the weekends. She has no boyfriends at present but her parents say she is interested in what, now, is the opposite sex.

Her treatment, which has cost £18,000 ($40,000) so far, is being funded by the German taxpayer.

Psychiatrists treating her say she was an “exceptional case – a person clearly in the wrong body”, even though the decision to grant her wishes when she was so young is still the subject of intense debate.

Her identity and medical insurance cards have been changed to her new name and sex but she has not been placed at a different school in case of taunting from children who knew her as him in days gone by. According to her parents, “her friends fully accept her as she is”.

The family’s full identity has not been made public but Kim’s father, known as Lutz P, told Stern that as a child, Tim liked to play with Barbie dolls, enjoyed wearing dresses and, from the age of two, insisted that he was a girl.

Dr. Bern Meyenburg, the head of a clinic for children and adolescents with identity disturbances at Frankfurt University, concluded that the child was serious.

He wrote in his diagnosis: “Kim is a mentally well-developed child who appears happy and balanced. There is no doubt of the determined wish, which was already detectable since early childhood. It would have been very wrong to let Kim grow up to be a man.”

The sex change will not become complete for another four years because while German law does not forbid hormone treatment for minors, they must be 18 before gender-transforming surgery can be carried out.

Dr. Achim Wuesthof, who is treating Kim at a clinic in Hamburg, said, “To the best of my knowledge, Kim is the youngest sex-change patient in the world.” (The Daily Mail UK)

Incredible. Absolutely Incredible.

I wonder if “Kim’s” parents would be quite so accommodating if she wanted to play in traffic? Would they allow her to skip bathing for weeks on end because she didn’t want to? Would they let her refuse to eat, drink or sleep? Do they feel obeying the law is important? Should she be able to drink, smoke and engage in sexual activity simply because she wants to?

It wasn’t that long ago they were picking out his clothes, tying his shoes and feeding him themselves yet they believe that at 12 years old he is old enough and, more importantly, mature enough to make a decision as vast as his gender!?

When he was 2, according to his father, he already knew he was a girl.

I have a 2 year old daughter. She thinks she’s Dora The Explorer.

Children do not need accommodating, compliant adults raising them. They need parents.

Parents are to provide, guide and care for the needs of their children. Children need the maturity and experience of their parents to direct them into wise and safe decisions.

A spineless, obliging parent is nothing but a detriment to the healthy development and well being of a child.

The parents of this child are not noble for the actions they have taken; they are reckless.

Everyone Wins A Ring

2007-01-31T22:40:00.000-06:00

After 21 years the Chicago Bears are back in the Super Bowl!

The team that brought us “the Fridge”, “Sweetness” and the “Super Bowl Shuffle” will be meeting Tony Dungy, Payton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, the 4th of February, for Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Florida.

This will be the first Super Bowl with a team coached by an African-American head coach.

On Sunday, January 21st, Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears became the first black head coach to play in the Super Bowl. Just a few hours later Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts, Lovie Smith's mentor and friend, became the second.

For Midwesterners Super Bowl XLI will be a great contest since the competing teams are both from the Midwest, specifically Chicago and Indianapolis.

I, for one, cannot wait to witness the severe beating the Bears are going to inflict upon Tony Dungy’s Colts.

The Super Bowl is one of the most popular and anticipated events of the year. According to the Neilsen ratings some 90 million Americans will watch the Super Bowl.

Due to the high visibility of the game advertising during the Super Bowl comes at a premium price. In 2006 the cost for a 30 second commercial was $2.5 million! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl )

The Super Bowl is a great American contest.

The Chicago Bears quarterback is Rex Grossman. The Indianapolis Colts quarterback is the great Peyton Manning.

Joseph Addai, Marvin Harrison and Adam Vinatieri are just a few of the Colts great players.

The Chicago Bears have a much longer list of outstanding athletes.

Brian Urlacher, Cedric Benson, Desmond Clark, Lance Briggs, Brenden Ayanbadejo, Muhsin Muhammad, Thomas Jones, “Tank” Johnson, Rashied Davis, Bernard Berrian, Tommie Harris, Charles Tillman and the great record-setting rookies Devin Hester and Robbie Gould.

These are the 15 or 16 players that will be remembered for making the great plays and winning the Super Bowl. However, the Chicago Bears employ 61 athletes to play football.

Should the Bears do what they’re expected to do they will win the Super Bowl. When they do, everyone will get a ring. Therein lies the beauty of being a part of the winning team.

When the Chicago Bears defeated the New Orleans Saints to win the NFC Championship Rex Grossman declared himself to be “one game away from wearing a ring the rest of my life.” However, It won’t be Rex Grossman’s victory alone.

Chicago Bears second string quarterback Brian Griese, who has not started a single game this season and only took 6 snaps in actual play, will also wear a ring. So will third string quarterback Kyle Orton.

The entire team will wear a Super Bowl ring for the rest of their lives, not just the players in the headlines. It’s the greatest thing about being on the winning team. All 61 players, whether they break a sweat or not, will go home with a ring because their team won Super Bowl XLI.

It’s not just the playmakers and the sensational athletes but every second and third string player on the team will have a ring and a memory the rest of their lives.

That’s also the beauty of being apart of the winning side in eternity. Everyone wins a crown.

Not just the preachers, singers and evangelists. Not just the ones we revere and respect but every Christian who was a part of the “team” will win the victors crown!

By the way, “Go Bears!”

One Mean Fish

2007-01-30T22:34:00.000-06:00

It is the most feared creature in the Amazon. More feared than the vicious Piranha or the cruel Anaconda.

It is a tiny catfish called the Candiru.

The Candiru is a freshwater fish in the catfish family found in the Amazon River. The species has been known to grow to a size as large as 6 inches in length.

The Candiru is eel shaped and translucent, making it almost impossible to see in the water.

The candiru is a parasite. It senses a host nearby by detecting urea and ammonia expelled from the gills.

It swims into the gill cavities of another fish, erects a spiney barb to hold itself in place, and feeds on the blood in the gills, earning it a nickname of the "vampire fish of Brazil".

This vicious little fish will attach to a host fish, fill itself with a blood meal and then dislodge to return to its darkness, leaving a fatal wound on its victim.

This mean little fish has even been known to attack humans in a manner too horrifying to discuss.

What this fish does to its host is reminiscent of the effect bitterness has upon a soul.

I know a family that is absolutely eaten up with bitterness. It attached itself to them, fed itself on that which was alive in them, and then left them with a wound that would never heal and eventually be fatal to their soul.

The amazing thing is that their bitterness stemmed from a supposed desire to forward the work of the Kingdom of God.

It’s no wonder the vicious Candiru is feared even above the Anaconda or the Piranha. You can see and defend against the attacks of this diabolical duo of the Amazon.

The Candiru is more dangerous because it is not easily seen. It is translucent, meaning light radiates through its flesh rather than bouncing off it.

Bitterness has the same effect. It is difficult to guard against because it usually covers itself in supposed light. How many a person has become bitter over what they fully esteemed to be a righteous cause.

Furthermore, the Candiru does no immediate harm to its host. It simply draws its blood meal until it is satisfied and then when it finishes it is the dislodging that creates the non-healing and quite fatal wound.

Bitterness has its effect only after the fireworks are over and the damage has been done. It leaves a weakened soul to slowly die of a wound that it will not allow to heal.

So then how do you avoid the Candiru? How can we stay away from this most bitter of fish? We must remember that the Candiru is a catfish. It lives in the cold, dark shallows of the river.

To avoid the Candiru one must stay out of the shallows and avoid the darkness.

To avoid bitterness, one must stay out of the shallows and avoid the darkness.

The Man Without A Name

2007-01-27T16:46:00.000-06:00

Joe Bieger walked out his front door with his two dogs one morning last fall a beloved husband, father, grandfather and assistant high-school athletic director. Minutes later, all of that — indeed, his very identity — would seemingly be wiped from his brain’s hard drive.

For 25 days, he wandered the streets of Dallas and its environs a lost soul, unable to remember his name, what he did for a living or where he lived, until, finally, a contractor who was building a new house for Bieger and his wife happened to recognize him.

By that point, Bieger had somehow made his way to a suburb about 20 miles from his Dallas home, holes worn in the rubber soles of his canvas shoes. He had lost 25 pounds, and a full white beard covered the normally clean-shaven educator’s face.

Bieger, 59, says he was diagnosed afterward as suffering from psychogenic fugue, an extremely rare form of amnesia. Now reunited with his family and back at work, Bieger agreed to tell his story to The Associated Press.

Bieger says he has regained all his memories up to the point he wandered away, and is amazed at the outpouring of support he received from friends, co-workers and the hundreds of volunteers who helped search for him on the streets, at hospitals and in homeless shelters and soup kitchens.

“Everyone believes that God brought me back for a reason, otherwise this might have ended differently,” he says. “God wants me here to work with these students.”

Bieger is under the care of a doctor who specializes in such cases. And his cell phone now includes a GPS tracking device.

But more than three months after the episode, he says he has only vague memories of those days on the streets of Dallas, one of America’s most crime-ridden cities.

He recalls being stopped and frisked by police officers, who were looking for a suspect in a holdup at a pizzeria. There was also a smoky bowling alley. He remembers waking up cold on a playground, wearing shorts and a T-shirt with fall temperatures dropping into the 50s. Another time, he says, he awoke under a construction trailer.

He says he cannot recall what he ate to survive. But when he was found, he had jelly packets from a fast-food restaurant in his pockets and half a stale bagel. The complete AP story is dated January 26th, 2007 from DALLAS.

What incredible value there is in having a name.

On the surface we ought to be grateful we know our name! Here is a man who wandered the streets of the Dallas metroplex with absolutely no recognition of his name, the location of his home, his family or how to find them.

What a blessing it is to come home to a family at the end of the day. There are stresses and bills and disagreements but at least I know where they are and I know they’re mine. The bills mean I have a home. The pain means my body is healing. The arguments mean I have friends. The disagreements mean I have family. The fatigue means I have a job.

However, beyond the surface interest in this story there is spiritual insight.

When James and John suggested that fire be called down from heaven, and a city destroyed, Jesus rebuked them saying, “ye know not what spirit ye are of” (http://bible.cc/luke/9-55.htm ).

They had a spiritual amnesia. Not knowing who they were or what they were called to do.

I wonder how many people are wandering the streets, sitting on church pews and occupying homes today, stricken with a spiritual amnesia; An identity crisis with eternal consequences.

We get up and go about our business with no thought for who or what we really are at our core. We have no room, it seems, in our culture for self-evaluation and discovery. We assume everything’s okay because we eat, sleep and pay the bills but I would contend that there is more to life than mere existence or survival.

There is a spiritual and purposeful level that each soul can reach in our brief time on earth that can benefit the now as well as prepare for the hereafter.

It is heartwarming that Joe Bieger has been reunited with his memories as well as his family and it gives us a picture of what can happen to all of us spiritually.

We don’t have to wander without a name.

Five Minutes To Midnight

2007-01-20T16:23:00.000-06:00

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clockface maintained since 1947 by the Board of Directors of a magazine for physicists, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago.

It uses the analogy of the human race being at a time that is "minutes to midnight" where midnight represents destruction by nuclear war.

Since its introduction, the clock has appeared on the cover of each issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The number of minutes before midnight, a measure of the degree of nuclear threat, is updated periodically. The clock is currently set to five minutes to midnight (the 1st time ever set to 5 minutes), having been advanced by two minutes on January 17, 2007.

The furthest the clock has been is 11:43, 17 minutes to midnight, in 1991 when the USA and Russian signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty. The closest the clock has been set to midnight was in 1953. The USA and USSR both tested nuclear arms within weeks of each other. The clock was set to 11:58, two minutes to midnight.

The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War in 1947, and has subsequently been advanced or rewound at intervals, depending on the state of the world and the prospects for nuclear war. Its setting is relatively arbitrary, set by the Board of Directors at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in response to global affairs.

The setting of the clock has not always been fast enough to cope with the speed of global events, either; one of the closest periods to nuclear war, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, reached its head and resolution in a number of weeks, and the clock either could not be changed or was not changed to reflect any of this at the time. Nevertheless, the changing of the clock usually does provoke attention.

The clock's hands have been moved 18 times in response to international events since its initial start at seven minutes to midnight in 1947.

Neil Steinberg at the Chicago Sun-Times declares the Doomsday clock to be one of the most successful PR endeavors a magazine has ever developed. By simply illustrating how near they believe the world is to global nuclear destruction a relatively obscure magazine has gained enormous political significance and newsworthy importance (http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/217470,CST-NWS-stein19.article ).

That there is awe and respect given to the University of Chicago’s Doomesday Clock is not surprising. Alarmist tactics have always been able to generate respect and serious consideration as long as they have not come from Christians.

When a physicist, a scientist or Al Gore say that the world is in trouble and a state of decay people declare them to be insightfull, discerning and courageous. When a Christian believes that sin has damaged God’s creation and the only hope of rescue is Jesus Christ we’re denegrated as unreasonable, nonsensical wackos.

When a scientist says it's five minutes to midnight it makes headline news.

When a preacher says that Jesus is coming back soon it makes people mad.

Jesus had the same complaint concerning the people of his day.

They would look to the weather, the sun, the stars and moon and draw conclusions based upon what they saw. “And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?” ( Luke 12:54-57 ).

He declared them to be hypocrites because they could discern the face of the sky but they could not discern the signs of the times ( http://bible.cc/matthew/16-3.htm ).

Is there really a clock that is measuring the time remaining for the earth? Yes.

Is it located in the physics department of the University of Chicago? No.

It is located in the mind of God and is entirely under the direction of the hand of God. God’s timetable is the only timetable I want to be concerned with.

A Week Without

2007-01-18T21:33:00.000-06:00

This past week (1/8/07 – 1/12/07), "Good Morning America" did a series concerning how Americans live when the things many people rely on such as makeup, cell phones, debit cards and coffee are taken away for one week.

They found people who relied on the item in question and then followed them for one week as they tried to live without it.

They conducted an online poll asking the question: Which of the following could you not live without, even for a week?

Of 6,249 responses 2,171 said coffee, 1,876 said debit/credit cards, 1,199 said their cell phone and 1,003 said makeup.

I know two individuals in particular who could not function without a pot of coffee in each of them!

I know a gentleman, as well, who could not make it through the day with at least one cell phone on his waist at all times. Why do I say "at least one"? Because He owns 4 cell phones and has three phone lines in his home! His wife has often said when they bury him they're going to have the casket retrofitted with a phone jack and an antenna!

It started me thinking about the things we depend on to bring ease into our daily routine. Nearly everyone has something that they rely on every day to alleviate the stress of their daily chores.

While I am probably among those who rely on their cell phone the truth of the matter is that I rely on my wife more than anything. More specifically, my wife’s purse!

Everything I own lives in my wife’s purse! My wallet, the cell phone, my pen, carmex, the keys and anything else I need to have handy during the day. I know I depend on her (and her purse) because when she is not around I often find myself discombobulated.

I hate carrying stuff in my pockets and I don't know what to do with stuff when my wife isn't around with her purse. I don't want my wallet in my back pocket and a pen in my shirt pocket and keys in my pants pocket. It's too much stuff on me. I just need my wife's purse!

The GMA series was interesting to me because it allowed the reader a moment to pause for much needed self-evaluation.

I don’t think we (“we” meaning Americans and Christians) spend enough time engaging in self-evaluation. I know I don’t.

I think it is healthy to spend some time every once in a while, either with a loved one or a journal, evaluating our priorities and examining the trends we’ve been developing in our families and lives.

I know one thing for certain, our family genuinely depends upon God. We have found Him to be faithfull in every situation.

Every night I pray over my family and I not only believe He will keep and protect us, I know He has been the One who has brought us this far.

I honestly don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have the Lord to depend on.

When my daughter or my wife is sick I pray with confidence that He will heal them. When the funds are low and the debts are high I pray with assurance that God will provide for our needs and He has done just that time and time again.

It is no cliché when we say we could not make it without Jesus!

I was glad that I was asked to evaluate what makes me and my family “tick”. It caused me to realize and appreciate, now more than I had in the past, how much of what we have is the direct result of the hand of the Lord on and in our lives.

So my advice is to slow down, step back and take it all in. Don't miss what's really going on. Get an understanding of the "big picture" in your life and family.

Sometimes a step back to take in the big picture, as well as some critical evaluation, can cast new light on things we’ve been simply accepting or taking for granted. Sometimes we’ve been missing the forest for the trees.

I now know what I couldn’t go a week without,…my wife’s purse!

Hard To Stop

2007-01-14T23:31:00.000-06:00

I’ve been reading a biography of President Teddy Roosevelt and I’ve found him to be a fascinating man. He did more in his lifetime than others might dream ever about. In fact, the things he did with regularity might be the one dreamed of accomplishment on other men’s list.

In March 1909 Roosevelt left New York for a safari in Africa. The trip was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society and received worldwide media attention.

His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian, killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, of which 262 were consumed by the expedition. This included six white rhinos.

All of this was done after he had served two terms as President of the United States!

While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an assassination attempt on Roosevelt.

Schrank shot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after hitting both his steel eyeglass case and a copy of his speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt declined suggestions that he go to the hospital, and delivered his scheduled speech.

He spoke vigorously for ninety minutes and his opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt ).

Roosevelt was simply hard to stop.

I like that attitude. I want to adopt that attitude in my life.

One of my favorite poems is entitled, “Don’t Quit”.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill

When the funds are low and the debts are high

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh

When care is pressing you down a bit

Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns

As every one of us sometimes learns

And many a fellow turns about

When he might have won, had he stuck it out.

Don't give up though the pace seems slow

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up

When he might have captured the victor's cup;

And he learned too late when the night came down

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt

And you never can tell how close you are

It may be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit

It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

(Author Unknown)

The attitude of that poem is one that will carry an individual through the toughest of circumstances.

No one denies the presence of negative influences. No one disavows that wrongs are committed. No one dismisses that actual injuries have been inflicted upon our spirits. No one will refute that some have been handed a raw deal in life.

What we will do, however, is refuse to allow those things to claim authority over the course we will travel in life. We will refuse them the ability to dictate our present response and future results. We will say, “It is well” even when it is not well.

There was a woman in the Bible simply identified as a Shunammite woman. One day her son, who was a child promised of God to her, fell sick and died. She ran to the man of God and his servant asked her, “Is it well with thee? Is it well with they husband? Is it well with the child?’

Now, the truth is, things did not look well.

She was in great distress and fearful, her husband didn’t care enough to help their son, even so much as questioning her intentions in running to the man of God, and her son was dead.

Things did not appear to be well. In fact, I am not sure I would not have answered the old prophet differently. However, her answer is indicative of her faith and complete reliance on her God. She answered the man by saying, “It is well!” (http://bible.cc/2_kings/4-26.htm ).

It is well. Three little words that make a big difference.

I want that to be my new motto of faith for my life. It is well.

Things will get better. God is aware of my circumstances. I will make it through. Not around, not over or under, but I will make it through!

It is well.

After all, it takes a lot more than a bullet to the chest to stop a bull moose and it takes a lot more than a little adversity to stop a child of God!

Doing A Bradbury

2007-01-10T23:55:00.000-06:00

There’s a new phrase in Australian vernacular.

When someone has been steady and consistent at their particular endeavor and unexpectedly won a victory, despite odds against him, it’s now known as “Doing a Bradbury”.

Stephen Bradbury competed in events in three Olympic games. He was a consistent failure; and then he won the gold.

It happened during the men's short track 1000 metres event at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

In the quarterfinals, Bradbury finished third but when another racer was disqualified it allowed Bradbury to advance to the semifinals.

In the semifinals Bradbury was in last place but when three of the other skaters crashed into each other he finished in second place, allowing him to advanced to the final race.

In the final race Bradbury was in dead last in the final turn. Amazingly, four of Bradbury's competitors (Apolo Ohno, Ahn Hyun-Soo, Li Jiajun and Mathieu Turcotte) fell into one another in the final turn allowing a slow and steady Bradbury to skate into the history books with his first Olympic gold medal. Bradbury returned to Brisbane with a gold medal, the first for Australia or any Southern Hemisphere country in an Olympic Winter Games event.

In an interview after winning his gold, he said: “I don't think I'll take the medal as the minute and half of the race I actually won. I'll take it as the last decade of the hard slog I put in.”

Bradbury said in another interview, “Obviously I wasn't the fastest skater. I didn’t have to be. All I had to do was stay on my skates.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Bradbury )

There’s something to be said for staying on your skates. There is value in faithfulness.

Faithfulness is a long ago forgotten word that, despite its reputation, still holds meaning today.

Sadly we often simply give up when things get uncomfortable or inconvenient when we would have found incredible value had we been faithful and endured. There is accrued equity, not only in financial matters but also in life, from faithfulness to an endeavor.

I want to be faithful. I want to “stick it out” even when things get tough. I refuse to give up easy. Things may not be spectacular right now in this current 5.5 yard run but it will become valuable through my faithfulness! It may not seem impressive right now but those years of faithfulness will add up into something incredible!

One of the most well known and well liked Chicagoans was the late great Walter Payton. Walter Payton is arguably, one of the greatest football players of all time (if you want to have that argument, by the way, just head to Ditka’s Restaurant on 100 East Chestnut Street downtown Chicago).

Walter Payton was the running back for the Chicago Bears from 1975 to 1987. He held the NFL record for rushing touchdowns, with 110, and the record for career rushing yards in the NFL, with 16,726 yards.

What makes these statistics amazing however, is that his average carry was 5.5 yards.

He didn’t set records with impressive 25, 30 or 50 yard carries. No, with consistency and determination he rushed 16,726 yards, 5.5 yards at a time.

I think that’s what God expects of His children. Not personality perfection or flawless Christianity. Not impressive achievements and grandiose religious endeavors but steady, consistent, faithful attention to “running the race” (http://bible.cc/hebrews/12-1.htm ).

I want to be faithful to God because He’s been faithful to me.

The old cliché says, “Slow and Steady wins the race.” Maybe that’s what the Preacher was talking about when he said that the race goes “not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong” (http://bible.cc/ecclesiastes/9-11.htm ).

Jesus summed it up best by saying, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” (http://bible.cc/matthew/10-22.htm ).

I don’t know about you but I feel like running on!

What Are You Looking At?

2007-01-08T22:26:00.000-06:00

I did my first wedding a few weeks ago. My cousin married a fine young man she met in St. Louis while attending Gateway College of Evangelism and they asked if I would officiate at their wedding. It was a wonderful day.

I shared the task of the wedding with the grooms grandfather, also a minister.

We spoke after the wedding of a unique event that occurs during a traditional ceremony.

The moment the entire congregation and the wedding party awaits is the opening of the doors for the entrance of the bride. Everyone stands, turns and watches the beautiful bride make her way through the sanctuary.

The ushers watch the bride. The groom’s side of the church watches the bride. The bride’s side of the church watches the bride. The wedding party watches the bride. The ministers watch the bride. The groom watches the bride. Quite simply everyone in attendance watches the bride.

Except for the bride. The bride watches only one person; the groom.

What a thought.

Especially when you consider that the scriptures liken the Church unto the bride of Christ (http://bible.cc/2_corinthians/11-2.htm ).

This world is watching the bride. How important that the church care for itself and its appearance and make our “calling and election sure” to be the bride the world is waiting, yea needs, to see.

Furthermore, The Groom is watching the bride. If no one else I want to be prepared to see the groom. I want make myself ready for the groom I love and the groom that will be watching me walk through the sanctuary. I want to be without “spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but … holy and without blemish”. A loving bride simply wants to be ready to meet her groom

The bride, however, who has made herself ready, will be watching no one but the groom. Maybe that’s what Paul was talking about when he encouraged us to be “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”. Why? Because it is “unto them that look for him will he appear the second time without sin unto salvation”.

It is very difficult, with all the possibilities that surround us, to keep our eyes focused only on Jesus Christ. We’ve got tv, radio, the internet, shopping centers, movies, iPod’s and more to entertain us and keep our minds on everything but Him “with whom we have to do”.

I remember the day I married my beautiful wife. She was a gorgeous sight. Every eye in that church was on her. It thrilled me that when she walked through the rear of the sanctuary, as beautiful as she was, she was watching me.

I wonder if that’s how the Lord feels when His people are watching and worshipping Him? I wonder if that's how He feels when we enter His sanctuary with our focus and hearts on Him and Him alone.

It makes me understand and echo the words of John on the Isle of Patmos when he said, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come!” (http://bible.cc/revelation/22-17.htm ).

"Because He First ..."

2007-01-06T21:44:00.000-06:00

We were on the road when it happened.

I was preaching for a Pastor that has become a very good friend. He was out of town and asked that we come and take care of his services. He opened up his home to us and was very kind to let us stay in their guest room.

The Pastor’s wife takes great pride in her garden and the many flowers and foliage that decorate their lawn. I noticed that, since they had been out of town, no one had been watering the flowers. As I was walking outside I found the watering can sitting next to the hose and went to work.

About 20 minutes into the chore I realized I was doing something I had no interest in at all.

I have no green thumb. I’m not a gardener. I don’t particularly like plants enough to make the effort to grow and care for them.

Yet here I was, trotting back and forth from the spout to the lawn, spending my time and energy watering someone else’s flora.

Why was I doing it?

My motivation behind caring for those plants was not my concern for the plants but my concern for the one who owned and loved the plants. I wanted her to return home and find her lovelies bright, healthy and vibrant.

It was if a light went on.

I don’t necessarily care for the church because I love them in particular. Sometimes my brothers and sisters are easy to love. However, sometimes it can be quite a chore to show the “brotherly love” I should.

No, I don’t make caring for the church a priority because I love the church in particular. I love the church because He loves the church and purchased it to be His own.

It is because I love the One who owns the church that I care and labor. I want Him to return and find His lovelies bright, healthy and vibrant.

I believe this to be a stronger and more lasting motivation than loving people.

If I serve only because I love people, when people become difficult to love, and challenge my affections, I might have justification to cease caring. However, if I am serving because I love Him, I will never find reason to cease caring. I’ll love what He loves and care because He cares. I’ll serve the church because I love the One who owns and cares for the church.

That is a minister.

In fact, Paul used the same argument when he instructed the ministers in Ephesus to feed and care for the flock of God because He had purchased the church “with his own blood” (http://bible.cc/acts/20-28.htm ).

We care because they’re His. Bottom line. My service is to God. That is how I will endure even when people become unlovely.

What an amazing revelation. His love of me is so great that it becomes the foundation of my love for others.

The old, but never outdated Sunday School song says it best. “Oh, how I love Jesus, Because He first loved me.”

In The Arena

2007-01-04T21:50:00.000-06:00

I took apart the Christmas tree tonight. It is so much easier to take down than it is to put up. I didn’t even have to think about it. I just pulled everything off the tree and dropped it in a box.

It was a different story going up. I wasn’t even allowed to touch the thing going up.

My wife carefully and methodically placed every snowflake and icicle on the branch where it belonged. The garland was strung carefully between the lights and the ornament bulbs. Each strand of lights delicately laid to rest on a particular branch to make sure there were no “bare spots”.

Yes, when the tree was put up and decorated it was a careful and deliberate process. When it was torn down it was a careless and inattentive procedure.

That seems true of most things. It is easier to tear down than to build. Furthermore, it is infinitely easier to destroy what another has built than to build something of value ourselves.

Most of what passes for news and entertainment in our popular culture is nothing more than mockery and criticism. The talking heads build nothing of value themselves yet they make millions of dollars criticizing those who are attempting great things and carry great responsibility.

I may not agree with everything that a leader does (i.e. boss, president, pastor, etc...) but that does not license me to personally attack that person and destory their effectiveness within their area of labor. So many feel that they can freely destory anothers reputation and ability to discharge their duties because of personal or ideological differences. I simply do not believe that I have the right to destory another person; even if they deserve it.

No one deserved what was coming to them more than Saul. He had David on the run and was intent on killing David if he could. Yet when David stepped into a pristine opportunity to destory Saul he would not take advantage of it (http://bible.cc/1_samuel/24-4.htm ). Twice David had the opportunity to kill Saul and twice he would not do it. Lord help me to be like David.

If I have anything resembling a new year’s resolution it would be this: To be cautious in my criticism of others. It seems many, too easily I might add, are able to make hasty decisions as to an individuals motives and intents without considering the deeper causes or nuances at work in their life. We want many to leave room for error when we are being scrutinized yet we leave no room for humanness when we study the lives of others.

Furthermore, the people who most gain our respect and are fondly remembered are those who were quick to offer us an encouraging word and to lift our spirits. It’s the encouragers, not the critics, who make the difference in the lives of those who make a difference.

If I like to be around the people who are positive and encouraging maybe I should become an individual who is positive and encouraging.

I like what our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, said.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” (http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trmaninthearena.html ).

The Threat From Within

2007-01-02T21:20:00.000-06:00

Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Editor of the US News & World Report (www.usnews.com) wrote in his Sunday, December 10, 2006 article about the new threat in the war on terror. It caught my attention because he sheds light on the fact that America is vulnerable, not only from enemies without our borders, but from enemies within.

Mr. Zuckerman states: “Today all eyes are on Iraq. It's called the center of the war on terrorism, but it must not monopolize our attention. We need a third eye because we are now less likely to be attacked by international terrorists than by homegrown American citizens, self-radicalized individuals who are members of groups inspired by al Qaeda propaganda.”

He goes on to note that, “… there are many more British Muslims who back the terrorists. MI-5 has stopped five plots to date. We know of the one to blow up 10 planes over the Atlantic, but MI-5 is monitoring 1,600 other suspects, mostly homegrown Islamic terrorists who get their training in murder and mayhem on the Internet.”

The threat, indeed, is from within. Homegrown terrorists who are inspired to destroy the cradle that granted them the freedom to do so.

“Interviews with the heads of counterterrorism and local police officials in the United States yield similar assessments. The threat is from second- and third-generation children of immigrants, fluent in English and accustomed to American society but using the legal rights of U.S. citizenship to rebel from within. They have learned the Koran on the Internet; they lead small clusters of 20 to 25 mostly young men who share feelings of alienation, a longing for self-importance, a need to be a part of some larger group or cause. They have developed what is called "adversarial assimilation."

“The Internet has replaced Afghanistan as a training ground. It is effectively the university of jihadist studies, where hundreds of Muslims from all corners of the world can study the rules of jihad, while they live in it anonymously.”

His article strikes at so many chords it is difficult to focus on just one.

I find it interesting that it is 20-25 year old young men who are “longing for self-importance” and needing “to be a part of some larger group or cause”. To me that is indicative of the importance the effectiveness of the church has on our world at large. Are we as ministers doing our best to connect with young people in our culture in a contemporary way to give them a sense of belonging and importance in a larger cause; namely the church of the living God.

Zuckerman goes on to say that, “If we are to avert mass casualties from the enemies within, it is imperative to fashion a new approach to find these people. Our criminal justice model has been to look for the criminal after the crime. This won't do any longer. How do you punish a suicide bomber? We must disrupt plots before they are carried out. Gathering this intelligence will impinge on traditional civil liberties, but we simply don't have much choice. As the well-known journalist, Harold Evans, told the Hudson Institute recently, "I'd rather be photographed by a hidden surveillance camera than travel on a train with men carrying bombs in their backpack. I'd regard being blown to bits on the street as more of an intrusion of privacy than having an identity card."

He sums up his thoughts by saying, “… the greatest threat to civil liberties today is not preventive measures, but failing to take them.”

I find all this interesting not only on a secular level but on a spiritual level.

Andy Stanley has a book entitled, “It came from within”. The Bible declares the heart of man to be deceitful, desperately wicked, who can know it? (http://bible.cc/jeremiah/17-9.htm ) Any honest man must acknowledge that we don’t fully know what lives in our hearts. We don’t know exactly what we would do in a given situation. We’d like to think we have some principles to guide us but it is amazing how being present in the moment affects rational and intentional thought. The bottom line is I must protect myself from what may or may not be growing “within”. Preventative measures are prudent for the sincere Christian.

When I consider my ways I must acknowledge that it is true. The majority of the terror that sin has caused my soul has been the result of a lack of prevention. The measures necessary to defend my soul against the sin nature lurking within were accessible, known, but not acted on.

Prevention is the word. Instead of focusing on catching and cleaning up after the crime, we must be focused, in Mr. Zuckerman’s advice, on preventing the crime from ever occurring. Good advice for my soul as well. I am responsible for guarding myself from what is within. Indeed, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Furthermore, this preventative approach, both secularly and spiritually, requires the relegation of personal freedoms. How did Paul say it? “All things are lawful but not all things expedient” (http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/10-23.htm ).

This war on sin might mean giving up some things I’d rather not give up but if it will protect me and my family from what might be growing within then so be it.

I heard recently of a respected Pastor that confessed to his congregation that he had been involved in an ongoing extra-marital affair. People hear of his story and they say, “That’s terrible. How could this happen?” The threat from within was not prevented from carrying out an act of terrorism on the soul.

We are the only ones capable, and responsible, to defend our soul from the threat within. This is a war we cannot lose.

Choose Your Own Adventure

2006-12-28T10:38:00.000-06:00

I love to read. I think I always have.

When I was in grade school I was that dorky, chubby kid that looked forward to going to the library for reading time. There was a series of books called the “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure) that I was always drawn to.

In the CYOA books when the main character of the story had a decision to make the reader made the decision for him by turning to a certain page. “If you think Spiderman should join forces with Batman to fight crime turn to page 12. If you think Spiderman should fight crime alone turn to page 15.” I enjoyed these books because it was as if you were writing the story as you read. It was a fun experience for a 10 year old.

As I was reminded of these books I thought about how DVD’s have brought the same concept to film. Now, some DVD’s come with a bonus feature that allows the viewer to choose an alternate ending to the movie. A September 12th, 2005 USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2005-09-12-dvd-alternate-endings_x.htm) article declared it to be one of the most popular features on DVD’s.

I seems as if people like to have choices. In fact liberty, the freedom of personal choice, is the most fought for commodity in all of history.

There is an interesting custom that we entertain around the first of a new year. We make New Year Resolutions. It seems at New Years people realize that the ending year, and the balance of our lives for that matter, are made up of the choices we make.

What a profound realization.

While we are bound to the ebb and flow of tragedy and triumph that enter a life, how we choose to deal with those defeats and victories often will determine the balance of our experience on this earth and thereafter.

A family member was recently accused of being the reason the children of another member of her church weren’t living for God. “It’s because of you they’re not living for God” she was told. The child himself told her, “Because of you I’ve got a one-way ticket to hell.”

I beg to differ.

If a man goes to hell, he goes there because of choices he made. No one has the luxury of blaming another for the loss or ruin of their soul. If an individual’s spirit falls into ruin it can often be traced to choices that were made, full of free will and void of thought.

Disclaimer: Am I saying that people with good lives always make good choices and people with bad lives always make bad decisions? No. I believe there is a God-element at work in our lives as well. Some people make bad decisions, but if their lives are touched by the grace of God all things can “work together for good” (Rom. 8:28 http://bible.cc/romans/8-28.htm). Many times things can happen that are out of our control and we must simply “play the hand that’s dealt us”. These are unfortunate times. However, the majority of things we encounter in our life do not fall into this category.

The overwhelming majority of events we wrestle with are the direct result of choices we have made.

Facing a New Year is a refreshing feeling. It carries the implication of a new start. A chance at change. An opportunity to be better.

What a great time to take advantage of an opportunity and begin a habit of making better, Godly choices. Have a Happy New Year as you choose your own adventure!

Christmas Eve

2006-12-24T17:50:00.000-06:00

23. If I had a favorite number that would be it. It was Ryne Sandberg’s uniform number as well as Michael Jordan’s number. However, this year, 23 is not so good of a number.

That’s because 23 is the number of Christmas cards we’ve received this year and we’re depressed. Usually we get about 30 or 40 Christmas cards in the mail. My wife has an un-official contest with her sister to see who can accumulate the most Christmas cards. Her sister is winning this year.

It’s been eating at us for the past week that we only have 23 cards. It’s all we’ve talked about. We keep hoping the next day will bring a Christmas miracle and there will be 20 cards in our post office box. But, alas, no such miracle.

As I was thinking of these things I began to feel somewhat ashamed that my greatest disappointment at Christmas time is my lack of greeting cards.

When I consider that half the world, nearly 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day, I am ashamed.

When I consider the number of homeless in the USA, though difficult to pinpoint (Some 13.5 million in the USA have experienced "literal homelessness" at least once in their lives - forced to live with friends, sleep in cars, stay in tents at state or national parks, or take the occasional room at a flophouse. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/spotlighthealth/2002-12-18-spotlight-health_x.htm), is somewhere between 2.3 million and 3.5 million people during an average year, I am ashamed.

We have so much.

We have a roof over our heads. We have clothes on our back. We have food on our table. We have a warm place to sleep at night and a few dollars in the bank. We have people who care about us and a family with which to spend Christmas. We are blessed.

It seems amazing that we want more and feel bad that we don’t have as much as the person next door when really, we have so much.

On Friday I dropped a young man from our church off at the Greyhound station. The church bought him a ticket to go see his sister for Christmas.

His father kicked him out of the house several years ago. He hopped buses and relied on the generosity of strangers to bring him to Chicago. In Chicago he was homeless, living on the streets, eating and sleeping in shelters and missions and night. He took a train from Chicago and ended up in Toledo earlier this year. The church in Toledo has taken him in with open arms. He has a one bedroom home of his own, a job and some friends. He has a church family.

As I took him to the Greyhound station I was struck with the sheer greatness of God’s goodness in our lives. He has given us so much. While we may not have all the material possessions we want the things that really matter are what God has given us in abundance.

He was going to see a half-sister that he hasn’t seen in years and spend Christmas with her family. However, all he could talk about was getting back to go to a friends house for a Christmas meal. The church has become his real family.

James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (http://bible.cc/james/1-17.htm ).

On Christmas Eve I realize, now more than ever, I have every good gift I could ever want. I have a wonderful, faithful wife. I have a beautiful daughter, a family and a church that loves us all.

Merry Christmas!

WANTED: Parents

2006-12-23T16:57:00.000-06:00

I’m upset. I’m upset with selfish people. People who value their own wants and pleasures over anothers.

I’m mad at Britney Spears for thinking that it’s more important for her to party with Paris Hilton than to be at home with her children, recently divorced from their father.

I’m upset with Mary Cheney, daughter of Vice-President Dick Cheney, and her lesbian partner Heather Poe, who have recently began preparing for the arrival of a child. A baby that was artificially inseminated in the womb of Mary Cheney.

The news was welcomed by the president of the largest national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign.

"Mary and Heather's decision to have a child is an example that families in America come in all different shapes and sizes," he said. "The bottom line is that a family is made up of love and commitment." (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/06/cheney.daughters.ap/)

I picked up a book at a used book store a few months ago called “The Role of the Father in Child Development” (http://www.amazon.com/Role-Father-Child-Development/dp/0471117714/ref=ed_oe_h/102-3419377-9900911 ). It was full of psychological research as well as cultural and sociological anthropology all related to the impact a father makes in the development of a child. Their startling conclusion the researchers came to was no less than that a father is, equal to a mother, profoundly vital to the developmental health of a child in all cultures and all civilizations.

Sorry Joe, A family is made up of a mother and a father.

Every child deserves a mother and a father. It is unfortunate and very sad that many children are raised without their father present in their life. However, just because it is possible for a child, by God’s great grace, to grow healthy and happy without a father does not legitimize intentionally depriving a child of a father. I find it selfish for people to bring children into the world without being able to provide that child the things that child deserves and needs.

My wife and I have a friend who is raising a child alone. Her boyfriend was interested in nothing more than an evening of pleasure. Now her son, produced from that selfish encounter, will have to grow into a man without the guidance of a father. My heart breaks for the boy every time I see him. My fist balls up every time I see his father; unconcerned and totally disconnected from his son. She will have to do her best to both provide for and raise the boy alone.

Is it possible? Yes. God’s grace has smiled on many single mothers and allowed them to raise their children in the fear and admonition of God. Through the strength of a community of faith and a vibrant relationship with God many mothers have produced warm, loving and caring homes, raising healthy, happy children.

I know. I am one of those children. It is because of that I pray no child has to grow up without a father or a mother. I believe it is the task of the church to care for these weakest of souls. The government shouldn’t have to step in. The church should be leading the charge in the care for children.

Let’s hear the conclusion of the matter from the Word of God. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27 KJV) http://bible.cc/james/1-27.htm .

Your children need their father Britney. Mary Cheney, your child will need a father. When you chose to have a child you gave up your right to put your own happiness first. That child became your first priority.

Amen.

Moral Authority And Christmas

2006-12-21T20:26:00.000-06:00

The phrase “Moral Authority” has been invoked with passion in recent months. Moral Authority is having the capital of experience to support your worldview. Someone asked me a few days ago, “If a liar tells you, ‘Lying is wrong.’ should you trust them ?” In one sense, Yes. They’re right, even if they don’t practice what they preach. However, they have not earned the trust needed to possess the moral authority to say what they said.

There is more to being a person of influence than just ability. Relational experience is a vital component. You must have, more than just the right message, the moral capital to preach said message. There is a great inequity in being instructed in an arena by someone who has never competed in that arena. They may be right but they’re hard to listen to. There is something found in common experiences that binds the teacher and listener. When you’ve “been there and spent the night” it gives you the moral authority to address a particular issue.

When I would teach or preach on parent/child issues before I had a child I was always met with some resistance. “You don’t understand…you don’t have children.” However, after I had a child my opinions and insights were met with interest and acceptance. What made the difference? I joined the Daddy club.

After having endured some great disappointments in the past few months I have learned a lesson in compassion. The most comforting of counselors are those who have shared experiences and shared defeats.

It seems as if the ministers that are greatly used to bring healing and peace to those in turmoil, men of great anointing, are those who themselves have experienced great trouble in their lives. The anointing oil, after all, was produced by the crushing of spices. The crushing released the fragrance sealed inside of the cinnamon, the cassia and the olive. It seems as if adversity really can produce greatness in a life.

On the surface it seems incredibly unfair to limit the degree of importance a persons opinion is given based on their experience. Or does it?

Think of all the clichés that follow the same logic: Walk a mile in a man’s shoes, Birds of a feather flock together, Misery loves company, Blood is thicker than water and It takes one to know one. In other words, no one likes a cowboy who is “all hat and no cattle”.

Even Jesus has the testimony that “He was in all points tempted like we are…” (Heb. 4:15) http://bible.cc/hebrews/4-15.htm . There is great value in shared experiences.

Jesus possesses the moral authority to address the issues of the heart and soul of mankind. He’s been there and “spent the night”. If anyone can help, He can. It seems that is a great comfort of His incarnation.

That is what Christmas is about. God walked a mile in our shoes.

2006-12-19T16:07:00.000-06:00

Found this stuff on the web. I thought it better explained what the phrase "Don't take any wooden nickels!" means:

First recorded in about 1915, this expression was originally a warning from friends and relatives to rubes leaving the sticks in the great migration from rural areas to the big cities at the turn of the century. It was a humorous adjuration meaning beware of those city slickers, for no real wooden nickels were ever counterfeited - they would have cost more to make than they'd have been worth. Ironically, country boys were the ones who possibly did succeed in passing off wooden objects as the real thing. Yankee peddlers as early as 1825 allegedly sold wooden nutmegs, which cost manufacturers a quarter of a cent apiece mixed in with lots of real nutmegs worth four cents each." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

: : A second source says, the expression means: "Don't let yourself be cheated or ripped off. Originated in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Money that has no real value is sometimes called 'wooden'.Probably stories about wooden nutmegs, wooden hams, and wooden pumpkin seeds contributed to the later use of the phrase 'wooden nickels' in American or even to the use of 'wooden rubles' in Russia." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).

: : Another source adds: "The United States minted five-cent pieces from the earliest days of the Union, but they were not known as nickels until 1866, because in that year the first five-cent coins containing nickel were minted. The practice of making commemorative tokens out of wood as centennial souvenirs developed and we assume that wooden nickels actually were made during the nineteenth century for this purpose. Frequently such coins are accepted as legal tender while the celebration is in progress, but of course they cease to have value when the show is over. So the expression 'Don't take any wooden nickels' became the popular equivalent of 'Don't be a sucker.'." From "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988).

First Wooden Nickel

2006-12-19T15:10:00.000-06:00

On December 5, 1931, the Citizen's Bank of Tenino, Washington (pronounced 10-9-OH) failed and created a shortage of money. This left the merchants of the area unable to get change without traveling about 30 miles over mountainous roads in automobiles ill suited to that purpose, on roads that were built for horses and mules to traverse. The average round trip was about four hours. Much too long for merchants to be gone from their stores. A meeting of the Chamber of Commerce resulted in the local newspaper printing up the first issue of wooden money in the United States.

In 1933, Blaine, Washington issued round wooden coins when their bank failed. These were the first issues of wooden money in the U.S. Several other places, mostly in the Pacific North-West, issued wooden money after that. Some followed the flat format of Tenino and others used round pieces.

The Century of Progress in Chicago in 1933 was the first place to use wooden money pieces as souvenirs. Several issues were made - all round. Some are the size of a silver dollar and others are about three inches in diameter. In 1934 a new use for wooden nickels was found-a combination of advertising for civic celebrations and providing souvenirs of the celebration. Binghamton NY was one of first places to embrace this concept. Wood continued to be used to enhance civic celebrations such as centennials through the mid 1930’s and really started to be cranked out in 1938 when the J. R. Rogers Company of Fostoria, Ohio obtained a copyright on their design for wooden money. While the Rogers Company had competition and the competition also issued wooden money, woods produced for Rogers continue to be the most readily found.

Just when the adage "Don’t take any Wooden Nickels!" was added to the American language is unclear, but the reasons are easy to understand. First of all, each wood had an expiration date and generally even a specific final redemption time. If you were in a possession of a handful of wooden nickels that expired at noon today and your best customer came through the door at five minutes to noon, it would be difficult to get to centennial headquarters to cash them in. Many Wooden Nickels also said they had to be unbroken, and the rectangular "Flats" were pretty fragile.

So, a wooden nickel was something that didn't amount to much and had little practical value outside of the owners own sentimentality. My father in law is fond of saying, "Don't take any wooden nickels!"

I offer here my thoughts and limited insights; wooden nickels if you will. You can take one if you want!

*History of wooden nickel found at www.wooden-nickel.net/history