The truth, you say?

Anybody else struggling with ‘the truth’ these days? A long time ago I was required to read 1984, George Orwell’s novel about the rise of dystopian society. Seems to me, I’m now living in it? Orwell envisioned a world where truth became whatever those in power declared it to be, where the present was detached from the past. 

America has devolved into a society where image is more powerful than reality, where propaganda is favored over the truth, where an attempted conversation of inquiry is disallowed because certain thoughts are simply unspeakable. Navigating the mine fields exhausts me. How about you?

The Scripture teaches me about Truth, absolute and unchangeable, a solid foundation for life.  It is not truth about political theory or public policies though the Bible certainly can and should inform the way that I think about those things.  The Truth teaches me why I exist, what gives my life purpose, and my destiny.  The cornerstone on which my life rests is Jesus Christ, God come to us, to be Savior, Lord, and Hope. The difficulty starts for me (for you?) when we move beyond that into the less defined areas of thought.  

Early in the journey the questions tempted me to discard faith. But, God was persistent. He revealed Himself to me in the created world, through the love of wonderful Spirit-filled people, by inner the work of the Spirit, and through the Holy Scripture. Desiring Truth did not require me to have an answer for all questions. I learned it was just fine to say, “I do not know.”  I also learned to live with mystery – with the fact that God and Truth were never meant to fit entirely inside of my head. Some things He choose to let me comprehend, some He asks me to discover with careful study, and some remain in the ‘to be continued’ category.

While living through this cultural earthquake, I go – again and again – to my foundation of my life: 
In Christ, I am God’s child.
In Christ, I am secure.
In Christ, I have eternal life.  

That is not just doctrine. The Truth must shape my words, thoughts, and actions. Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32, NIV)  That is not an excuse for laziness. It does not give me or you a reason to retreat into safe places surrounded only by people who think exactly as we do. But, He will keep us from fear, anger, and hatred which grow so easily in troubled times.

When I am at rest in Him, His Spirit gives me the ability to persevere through the tempests raging.  Do I do it perfectly?  No. I repent when I grow angry. I confess when I am driven by fear. I pray for patience, steadiness, and the ability to hear beyond the words. Above all, I renew my commitment to Him, daily.  As His disciple, of paramount importance is love and faithfulness that honors Him.  Paul, speaking to a church torn by conflict, gave this inspired instruction. "You were getting along so well. Who has interfered with you to hold you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. … —not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. … So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict." (Galatians 5:16-17, NLT)  Let us make it our prayer to live in a way that reveals His life in us.

Here’s Truth to live by today. Meditate on it and take the deep assurance offered by the Word with you into a world full of uncertainty.
"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore. …
"Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart." (Psalm 125:1-2, 4, NIV)

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Build My Life

(A great song that points us to real faith in the Builder)

Worthy of ev’ry song we could ever sing

Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring

Worthy of ev’ry breath we could ever breathe

We live for You

Jesus the name above ev’ry other name

Jesus the only one who could ever save

Worthy of ev’ry breath we could ever breathe

We live for You

We live for You

Holy there is no one like You

There is none besides You

Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who You are

And fill me with Your heart

And lead me in Your love to those around me

I will build my life upon Your love

It is a firm foundation

I will put my trust in You alone

And I will not be shaken

Brett Younker | Karl Martin | Kirby Elizabeth Kaple | Matt Redman | Pat Barrett

© 2016 Martin, Karl Andrew (Admin. by Arkyard Music Services Limited)

Kaple Music (Admin. by Bethel Music Publishing)

Bethel Music Publishing

CCLI License # 810055

Aspiring to Mediocrity?

"Good is the enemy of great and that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.” 
- Good to Great, Jim Collins   

In my lifetime, I have known many good Christians and a few really great ones.  The good ones live a moral life, show up for church, and try to be a decent human being.  Perhaps you smile at that as you think  “Jerry, that would be good enough for me.”  God, the Spirit, invites us to more, to be people who love Him deeply, whose devotion defines them in every part of life.

A couple of months ago a lady who was part of the church I pastor for 50 plus years died. She was a great Christian. Marie never wrote a book. She was not a ‘deep thinker’ who influenced thousands with profound thoughts in a blog. She had little money. But, for 5 decades, she served the Lord and others. Her little basement apartment was always occupied by someone trying to get life back on track as she loved them. She went to visit the elderly in the nursing home until that same home became her final residence on earth. She taught little girls to love God and mentored women to live for Christ. She gave out of her resources in spite of not having much. She prayed and worshipped and loved. Was she perfect? No, but she was great!

We are tempted to define ‘great Christian’ using the measures of our success culture. ‘Great’ is gaining fame, creating a wide circle of influence, perhaps even controlling more wealth. We hold up the mega-churches as our standard, follow the preacher with a dozen books to her credit, and adore the musician whose songs fill the playlists of millions. Jesus defines greatness differently. When the disciples were arguing about who was greatest, Jesus reminded them that "whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:26-28, NIV)

Great Christians are not always successful, but they are always faithful. Many do their work without recognition, without trying to validate themselves with the ‘numbers.’ They, like the Good Shepherd, are happy to serve one. Luke 15 pictures the Shepherd “searching for the one lost sheep… joyfully carrying it home on His shoulders.” 

Great Christians are not ‘big moment’ persons. They are process people – giving themselves to discipleship, with patience, effort, in faith, and fueled by godly vision. "We've created a generation of Christians who look for a magic bullet. That's why people travel thousands of miles, from conference to conference, just to 'get a word,' find 'fresh oil,' get 'the glory,' or 'catch the blessing.' ... After WW2, we experienced a time of real miracles in this country. We had amazing prefab houses, miracle drugs, fast food, and space-age appliances - instant satisfaction was everywhere. It changed everything." (Phil Cooke, Charisma) We like solutions, self-help, and results.  There are plenty of preachers who offer miracle seeds, prayer clothes, holy oil, vials of water from Jerusalem, or the secret of success in their latest book. No discipline is involved, just a credit card to place the order.

God’s counsel is much different. The Word teaches us to "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; ... those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. " (Psalm 37:7, 9 NKJV) That work, "patiently," in the Hebrew text of the Psalms is a word includes the idea of a woman in labor, enduring pain while she anticipates the birth of her baby!   Good Christians won’t allow themselves that kind of pain. They sidestep it.  Great Christians allow the Spirit to call them. They are willing to endure the difficulty of living against the culture. They hopefully anticipate the glorious new life produced by the Spirit.  And, they accept that pain is just part of the process.  

You can be a GREAT Christian.  Forget comparisons to others.

The word from the Word counsels this-  "Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish  in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training," (Hebrews 12:2-7, The Message)

America needs some GREAT Christians in 2020, people who desire more than good. Are you aspiring to mediocrity or giving yourself to greatness?

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Shine, Jesus, Shine
(This is the prayer of my heart)

Lord the light of Your love is shining

In the midst of the darkness shining

Jesus Light of the world shine upon us

Set us free by the truth You now bring us

Shine on me shine on me

Shine Jesus shine

Fill this land

With the Father's glory

Blaze Spirit blaze

Set our hearts on fire

Flow river flow

Flood the nations

With grace and mercy

Send forth Your word Lord

And let there be light

Lord I come to Your awesome presence

From the shadows into Your radiance

By the blood I may enter Your brightness

Search me try me consume all my darkness

Shine on me shine on me

As we gaze on Your kingly brightness

So our faces display Your likeness

Ever changing from glory to glory

Mirrored here may our lives tell Your story

Shine on me shine on me

Graham Kendrick

© 1987 Make Way Music (Admin. by Music Services, Inc.)

CCLI License # 810055

How to start to think clearly

Where’s your Bible? Read it seriously recently? We talk about ‘reading the Bible’ but, aside from some favorite verses, many of us do not really engage ourselves with the Word all that much. There are plenty of reasons.

“It is hard work.” Yes, knowing the Scripture requires mental engagement, a certain level of intellectual rigor.

“I don’t understand it.”  Just cracking open to a random passage often does create a ‘what’s that mean?’ moment.

“Only my Pastor really can get it.” That’s just wrong.

“I’m too busy.”  OK, you and I both know that we have time to do the things we really want to do, so … yep, that’s an excuse.

One of the unspoken reasons that Christians do not actually read the Bible is that the God they meet on the pages of the Scripture frightens them!  He not much like the grandfatherly benign Figure that is generally the image we develop from childhood in our churches. He can be angry. He actually judges sin. He has real standards that He expects us to meet. He’s holy, awesomely terrible, and does not always do what we think He ought to do.  So, we read John 3.16 (God so loved the world…) and Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd…) and avoid the rest. 

One of the reasons we are in such a mess in our nation is the basic ignorance of the Scripture and Truth that formed us. Not knowing the whole counsel of God’s Word has given us a small god, a weak deity, a god who somehow manages to get us into Heaven but who asks precious little of us other than some Sunday morning songs and pulpit platitudes that promise us a good and comfortable life. Here are a couple of examples of our lack of understanding. 

Anyone who seriously reads the Bible will discover that God loves justice and demands it of us. He does not allow hatred, not even the subtle kind that is expressed in contempt for others. Try preaching about economic justice and see how that goes over in the average church. Get direct about moving beyond tolerance to actual ‘loving your enemy, doing good to those who hate you,’ as Jesus taught and listen to the reaction from the pew.  Real Christians will care for the poor beyond keeping the food pantry stocked, working to bring about things like equity in pay. Did you realize that both the Old and New Testaments have much to say about that? So few  of us really know the Bible’s truth about such things

The problem of Biblical illiteracy ranges across the spectrum of political convictions. Those on the Right tend to read only the passages that speak to personal responsibility, that govern sexual ethics, and that encourage personal prosperity. (And, those passages are true!)  Those on the Left tend to read passages that speak to justice and equality while totally ignoring the parts about holiness and moral choices.  That is why we have churches that are unafraid to take up the defense of the unborn (which is a solid Biblical truth) while at the same time almost completely failing to wrestle with the importance of working for just legal systems.  On the other side we have churches that will defend the sexual preferences of all (as long as they are loving) a position that is Biblically indefensible, while being spot on about the racial equality God requires. The basic problem is that we have used the Bible to recreate a God of our own liking rather than allowing the Scripture to call us to conformity with the Majestic Lord of Glory. 

Even now, I am amazed to hear sincere Christians who bump up against some part of the Bible that challenges their world view or values arrogantly say, “Well, I just don’t accept that part.” Really?  That is not the way it works. To be sure, study is required and interpretation matters A LOT. But, grasping the Truth begins with two qualities we do not like much at all – humility and fear. We must be humble enough to let the Spirit speak to us, even at great cost to ourselves. We must fear the Lord enough to accept His wisdom when it runs headlong into cultural values.  Neither is easy, nor will such a life win us many friends.

The Gospel, Jesus said, will not make us comfortable nor will it make us easy to be around. A life completely given to God, that is surrendered wholly to Christ, is edgy. Jesus demanded that those who would follow Him must ‘take up their cross.’  Yep that means exactly what you think – get ready to die to Self, to preferences, to cultural pressure. He said that those who seriously follow Him should expect that their love for Him will set them at odds with others. “They hated Me, they’ll hate you. Is the servant greater than the Master?” That does not go down easily, does it?

Here is a word from the Word.
"Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. 

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:8-15, NIV)

So, where’s your Bible? It’s time to get it off the shelf and into your mind for God’s sake.

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