A real wise guy or really wise?

It isn't a compliment to be labeled a 'wise guy.' It means to be arrogant, flippant, and a bit too sure of one's self. 'Wise guys' aren't wise at all. Truthfully, they are usually very much like the adolescent boys in 6th or 7th grade who think they know so much about life, yet who know so little. Their ignorance is apparent to all except their peers. The boasts, bravado, and banter cover up deep insecurities and uncertainties about their identities in this world. It makes me laugh to remember what a little wise guy I was at age 13! God delayed my growth, so I was the little guy in my group. Lacking physical strength, I compensated by developing verbal skills that I used as my 'armor.' I thought I was so witty, so clever... really, I was just obnoxious, a real 'wise guy.'

Hopefully the experience of the passing years has caused me to become less a 'wise guy' and a man possessing true wisdom. Wisdom is a beautiful thing, a grace that creates confidence, that blesses both the one who possesses it and those with whom she walks in life. How I love spending time with a person who is wise, whose words impart life and health. When I am with someone in whom I perceive wisdom, I love to listen and learn.

The Bible lauds wisdom saying:
"Learn to be wise, and develop good judgment. Don’t forget or turn away from my words. Don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you. Love her, and she will guard you.
Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do! And whatever else you do, get good judgment.

If you prize wisdom, she will exalt you. Embrace her and she will honor you. She will place a lovely wreath on your head; she will present you with a beautiful crown.” (Proverbs 4:5-9, NLT)

How do we get wisdom?

First, we submit ourselves to the Wisdom of the Ages! There is a worldly wisdom, a knowledge of the ways of the systems that we work with each day, that may help us 'get ahead' of the pack, gain wealth, hold onto position, and exert our influence. But all that cleverness is built on a foundation of sand and will collapse. "Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense?... to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one." (1 Corinthians 1:20, 24, The Message) The true wisdom of God is not temporary, nor is it set aside by the changing times.

Second, we ask for the Spirit to give us wisdom! "If you need wisdom—if you want to know what God wants you to do—ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking." (James 1:5, NLT) If you pray for wisdom, prepare for class! That's right. God seldom just opens up our head and pours in His wisdom. Instead, He sends us to school. With trials and tests, He shows us our limits and teaches us to rely on Him. Job entered God's Wisdom University. He professed -"when he has tested me like gold in a fire, he will pronounce me innocent. “For I have stayed in God’s paths; I have followed his ways and not turned aside. I have not departed from his commands but have treasured his word in my heart." (Job 23:10-12, NLT)

Third, we learn from the Word! "Your commands give me an edge on my enemies; they never become obsolete. I’ve even become smarter than my teachers since I’ve pondered and absorbed your counsel." (Psalm 119:98-99, The Message) As we learn the Scripture, we are privileged to attend classes taught by Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Luke, and Paul. What professors they are. The wisdom they give to us is not simply their own; they speak the inspired Truth of God.

Wisdom gives us the ability to discern. We have insight and can separate truth from error, mere image from reality. We know what is true food for our soul and what is just mental junk food.

Want to live well? Then, learn to live wisely! Let God take you from being a 'wise guy' to real wisdom. It will make your life a thing of beauty!

"If you want to live well, make sure you understand all of this. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll learn this inside and out. God’s paths get you where you want to go. Right-living people walk them easily; wrong-living people are always tripping and stumbling. " (Hosea 14:9-12, The Message)

Spirit-led does not preclude using your head

Many years ago, one Summer afternoon, I picked up a copy of Time magazine and read an article about a town in Wyoming that was growing, booming. A sleepy cow town had sprouted overnight to become home to thousands of young workers in the coal mines of that region. As I read the article, I felt an inner compelling - "Jerry, take your wife and baby son to Gillette!" It didn't go away and days later I approached my wife with the idea of tearing ourselves away from family, friends, and job to go to do ministry in that town. Late August, 1977, found us transversing these United States in an old school bus that was packed with our possessions. We had no job waiting, very little money to sustain, and a big dream pulling westward! Our trip was an exercise in hilarity, something I'll write about some other time. The year that followed our decision to to to Wyoming was full of experiences we have never forgotten, lessons that shaped us, and people who influenced us to this very day. What many labeled a fool's errand was God's way of helping us to become more useful in His kingdom. I believe we were led there by the Spirit, but not for the purpose which I thought - establishing a ministry in Gillette, WY- but rather so He could mature us, preparing us for His work!

Part of the lexicon with which I am very familiar includes the line, "I feel led..." People use it to explain their choice to seek out a new church, to justify their purchase of a new car, to explain all kinds of important life choices. Most Believers who claim to 'feel led' by the Lord are quite sincere in their intent and motive. There are plenty of examples in the book of Acts to demonstrate that the Spirit-filled Christian can and should be led by the Spirit. Indeed, Paul says that "those who are led by the Spirit are children of God." (Gal. 6.14) I am not taking issue with that concept. What I am speaking to today is the erroneous idea that being led by the Spirit is just a feeling, a hunch, an intuition!

Rick Nanez writes - "Waves of romanticism, relativism, individualism, and New Age teachings have unleashed a rising emphasis on feelings over thinking, emotions over doctrine, and experience over intellect. Wherever these find an inroad, it comes at the expense of casting away our rational rudders. In turn, this steers many Believers into the currents of waywardness - into the vast sea of subjectivity, where the drizzling clouds of mysticism dictate their spiritual journey. ... the turbulent winds of half-truth blow these helpless castaways into the vicious crags of confusion and mindless spirituality." - Full Gospel, Fractured Minds? Zondervan, 2005

Mature, stable, and effective Believers understand that they are whole people given both mind and heart and that God's Spirit operates through both equally to bring about His purposes and will. The Bible invites us to “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. Isaiah 1:18 (NIV) The word, 'reason' is a word meaning, "argue your case, talk it over, work it out!" God does not expect His Spirit-led people to live with a blind faith. Paul encourages us to "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Romans 12:1 (NKJV) Note the word, "reasonable." In the original language of the Bible it is the word, logikos, from which we get our word, logical. As we serve God, we do so with reason intact.

Are you objecting, wondering -"Jerry, what of faith? Are we to be locked into rationalism, living only by what can be proven or tested by natural means?" No, friend, a hundred times no. Pure rationalism eliminates the possibility of revelation. We, as individual Believers and as the Church of Jesus Christ must be led by the Spirit, open to truth that is revealed by Him to us, in ways outside of the usual channels of discovery and learning. I fully recognize that claiming to hear from God, to know His voice, is regarded by many as loony, or as some sort of self-deception based in our psychological need to have a god. But, I am convinced - both by my experience and the testimony of the Scripture- that God speaks to His people, individually and collectively. There will be moments when His leading defies our natural reasoning powers, when what we believe God is asking of us flies in the face of the facts that surround us.

We do not offend God in those moments when we take time to evaluate what we believe He is saying to us. Asking God to give us discerning minds, to keep us from impulse or gullibility is not the same as refusing to follow His lead. It is a humble recognition that we are imperfect, that we can get it wrong. John tells us - "do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world." 1 John 4:1 (NLT) The passage goes on to say that the primary test to determine who is a genuine 'prophet' - that is one who is claiming to hear from God and speak for God- is the way he conducts himself day to day. His life must be marked by overt evidence of submission to Jesus Christ as Lord. There is no one so dangerous to your spiritual health as the person who is a rebellious rogue, who submits to no authority but himself, who claims - "God speaks to me and I speak for Him."

Let's be people of the Spirit, led by Him into works of faith, using the wonderful powers of reason that He has given to us. By this God will be glorified and His kingdom built strong.
________________

Lavish love, abundant beauty,
gracious gifts for heart and hand,
Life that fills the soul and senses -
all burst forth at Your command.

Lord, our Lord, eternal Father,
Great Creator, God and Friend,
Boundless power gave full expression,
to Your love which knows no end.

I am Yours, eternal Father,
All my body, mind, and heart.
Take and use me to Your glory,
Form Yourself in every part.

Lord, Your love brings joy and gladness,
flowing from within my soul.
May my very breath and being,
rise to You, their source and goal.
Amen.

- Peter Ellis

Don't ignore your mind!

It was an entirely sincere statement, offered up by a devout Believer in Christ - "I don't really need to know church history or the origins of theology. I just know Jesus Christ, living in me." The speaker was referring to a recent series of sermons that I am preaching in response to the questions that the best-seller, The DaVinci Code, has raised in the minds of many Americans. What can a person gain by having a grasp on how the New Testament came into existence, by understanding the why's and wherefore's of the councils held many centuries ago to forge the creeds that shape our faith? Is it all really important? Or can a Believer sustain a vital faith with a personal experience of Jesus' Presence centered in the now?

It is not really a choice an either/or choice. If our Christianity is all about history and theology, about just knowing a set of facts and memorizing a creed, it will quickly become a dead thing, incapable of sustaining us in the present troubles and trials of life. However, if our faith is entirely a subjective experience fueled by fervent worship and personal piety, we will be unable to successfully engage in dialogue with those who claim their own religious experiences apart from Christ Jesus.

I am a Pentecostal by training and experience. The strength of my tradition is the immediacy of it, the warmth of heart that comes with expecting the Holy Spirit to be personally close, leading and guiding, healing, saving, and keeping me. I wouldn't trade that for anything. What a wonderfully powerful experience it is to go to prayer and to have the privilege of praying in the Spirit, beyond the formation of words. The intimacy of such moments is a treasured gift for me in my Christian life. The weakness of my tradition is that, too! Pentecostals are big on 'the heart,' on inspiration that leads to launching out in faith into some endeavor or another. There is a tendency to ignore 'the head,' to treat reason and understanding with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Jesus urges us to love God with 'all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.' It has befallen me many times to find myself in a revival meeting where the speaker urges people to set aside their minds to just 'go with the flow of the Spirit.' Because I am steeped the language and tradition of Pentecost, I understand that he doesn't really intend for the crowd to go into a trance. But, I have seen some strange, silly things happen because of such rhetoric. For some, that exhortation becomes an excuse to set aside common courtesy and even common sense to engage in emotional excesses that have little or nothing to do with a genuine experience of the Spirit's power or Presence.

True worship, whether private and personal, or corporate and public, involves both the mind and the heart, the cognitive functions of reason and the emotive responses that come from deep inside of us. A recent phenomenon in Christianity is something called 'the emergent church.' I still evaluating it, reading the books published by the leaders of the movement, but I am starting to conclude that the movement is a reaction to both 'heart-less' Christianity and 'mind-less' Christianity. The leaders are attempting to be thoughtful, without becoming dogmatic; warmly inspired, without becoming silly in emotional excess. But I'm also concluding that they are, perhaps, too ready to sacrifice the hard sayings of the Scripture in an effort to be 'relevant' to our culture.

Don't ignore your mind, and don't 'worship' your heart! Take Paul's advice to the Corinthian church. Think on this word from the Word today:

So what’s the solution? The answer is simple enough.
Do both. I should be spiritually free and expressive as I pray, but I should also be thoughtful and mindful as I pray. I should sing with my spirit, and sing with my mind.

If you give a blessing using your private prayer language, which no one else understands, how can some outsider who has just shown up and has no idea what’s going on know when to say “Amen”? Your blessing might be beautiful, but you have very effectively cut that person out of it. I’m grateful to God for the gift of praying in tongues that he gives us for praising him, which leads to wonderful intimacies we enjoy with him. I enter into this as much or more than any of you. But when I’m in a church assembled for worship, I’d rather say five words that everyone can understand and learn from than say ten thousand that sound to others like gibberish.

To be perfectly frank, I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking.
How long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head? It’s all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that’s needed there. But there’s far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility. - 1 Corinthians 14:15-20 (The Message)

Accommodation, Adaptation, Apathy?

While we sat at my Mom's hospital bedside yesterday, my Dad and I talked. Both of us have given our lives to church leadership so naturally we discussed church life and trends. Since he relocated to Pennsylvania this Spring, he has been visiting churches seeking a spiritual home for his family. What he has found has not, by and large, made him thrilled with the state of the church! Much of what he labels as evidence of 'worldliness' and compromise in abundance, I see as expressions of generational differences over what is good and/or acceptable Christian practice. He sees compromise; I see adaptation.

I serve as part of a committee that guides a ministry. It's a good assignment with people who are earnest about their responsibilities. Recently they made a decision that I think weakened the core mission of the ministry, but which the rest of the group believed to be a necessary accommodation of the demands of the ministry at this time. I keep asking myself, "Jerry, are just attached to a tradition? Does your discomfort come from that tradition being violated or does your disagreement arise out of a necessary defense of principle?" Time will tell, as the Spirit leads.

How do we honor God, living as holy people who are distinct from the world of which we are a part, yet continue to be effective in reaching out to those who do not know Him? Ah, that is the question, isn't it? The gray choices of life are the hardest, aren't they? And the older I get in this world, the less black and white I see!

So many choices I make everyday involves many shades of gray and thus, I must lean hard on the guidance of the Spirit, who has promised to create the mind of Christ in me. The safest choice, and often the most comfortable, is to preserve the status quo. But, just doing what we've always done, just because we've always done it that way, will lead to increasing isolation and ineffectiveness. The world continues to spin, change continues, the march of time never slows. The other side of that argument is that constant innovation that is not solidly grounded in truth will lead to disastrous consequences.

So, again, I circle around to ask, how do we choose?

Humility must be a part of the process that guides us. If we really want to know God's leading, we need to have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. He speaks to us through the Scripture, through the traditions of the church, and through dialogue with our brothers and sisters that can be intense. It's that last part that I find most difficult! But in Proverbs I am reminded, "As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend." (Proverbs 27:17, NLT) Wrestling with the truth helps us not only to discover it, but to own it. I am learning that a decision that does not allow for honest, open dialogue is usually not the best, nor wisest, one.

Prayerfulness, too, must always be part of a decision-making process. "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." (Galatians 5:25, NIV) It is the Holy Spirit that gives us true wisdom. We find life when we find His way. We find His way by remaining in a place of intimate communion with Him. When prods our conscience, quickly we respond, "yes, Lord!" When He lifts His peace from us, we stop and wait and listen. When we grieve Him with willfulness, we repent quickly. This walk with the Spirit allows Him to 'guide us into all truth.' (John 16.13)

Don't become apathetic. The response to the complexity of life cannot be - "Oh, whatever." The path of least resistance is always downward!

Got a challenge today?
Not sure what is the right course?

God promises to lead. Let Him. Listen to counsel. Meditate on the Scripture.
Pray! "If you need wisdom—if you want to know what God wants you to do—ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord." (James 1:5-7, NLT)

My really mean Mom

I'm writing this while watching my Mom sleep in a hospital bed. Occasionally she sort of rouses to recognize that I'm here, but mostly the morphine has her in a haze of semi-consciousness. It's my privilege to sit here by her bed, but it's oh, so hard to see her in such pain. She was on a stepladder on Saturday evening changing a light bulb or something like that, fell off and broke her shoulder and hip! Mom doesn't like to acknowledge that she's days shy of 70 years of age, hence being on a ladder when she might have been more cautious. I'd scold her, but I'll probably be just like her 20 years from now - resisting every limitation of age with kicking and screaming.

It's Mother's Day and while I was leading the worship service at church this morning, I was thinking about my Mom; worrying really. In between worries, I remembered - Somehow thinking back to the way she was when I was 10 or 12, made thinking about the 'now' less frightening. I hated that she was a no-nonsense Mom then, but sure appreciate it now. She believed in making her kids self-reliant, disciplined, and capable of understanding life's choices have consequences. I hated making my bed to her specifications, (lines on the bedspread straight, corners tight!) and I despised that I had to keep my room picked up neatly (no dirty socks on the floor, all clothes on hangars, thank you!) - but from those little daily chores, I learned that IF a person tends to the simple stuff, the harder stuff in life tends to fall into place, too. She didn't let me think of letting school work go. It aggravated me that other kids could blow off assignments and that their Mom would cover for them with written excuses. Mine said, "you deal with it" and let me take the detention or whatever was coming my way for my irresponsibility. It taught me that deadlines mean something and to get my work done, on time!

She modeled the same diligence she expected of me. I can't remember when she didn't have dinner ready, when the laundry was piled up, or when the house was a mess! I didn't her complain too often either. She showed us that life was about doing what needed to be done. Yep, there's a lot of Mom in me.

So, sitting her watching her face, a lot more lined than the face that I remember when I close my eyes, I believe she'll be OK, because she's one tough lady and because she trusts God. I oughta know, cause she raised me to be tough and to trust Him too!

An anonymous author penned this in tribute to his Mom -- "Because of my mother, I missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. I've never been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other’s property, or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault. I didn't get drunk, didn't take up smoking, wasn't allowed to stayed out all night, or a million other things that other kids did. Sundays were reserved for church, and I didn't miss ever, that I can remember unless I was deathly ill. And, I knew better than to ask to spend the night with a friend on Saturdays. Now I'm a God-fearing, educated, honest adult. I am doing my best to be a mean parent just like Mom was. I think that’s what is wrong with the world today. It just doesn’t have enough mean moms anymore."

Forgive me for this little reverie... I'm only thinking about my Mom today!

• "Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!” Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised. Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise." (Proverbs 31:28-31, NLT)
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I pray that your week is blessed. If you're a Mom, I hope you had a good Mother's Day.
And, please pray for my Mom. She's going to have surgery tomorrow to repair her broken bones. Ask the Lord to bless her with peace and healing. I thank you for that on her behalf!