Vexed; Not Beaten.

Some years ago I was asked about a passing comment I'd made in reference to the Tower of Babel; the inquisitor wanted me to expand on the comment.

I've always attempted to find "dynamic equivalents" in the culture around me to help people understand a deeper principle from the Scriptures. The Tower of course was the penultimate expression of hubris on the part of humankind; our effort to shake a collective fist at God and say "See, you aren't so transcendent after all." Foolish pride led to an inflated opinion of who we were; God breathed, language changed and chaos ensued. We discovered we were no match for the transcendent God.

Fast forward to modern culture: God, in his grace, has allowed mankind to apply his intellect and ingenuity, these also graciously granted by God, to "discover" thousands of things that insulate us from the ill-effects of the fall: drugs, asphalt, steel, plastic, roads, air conditioning, engines, automation--the list is endless. We in turn, tainted by sin and swelled with pride, believeing ourselves to be wise "shake our fists" at God and say, "You see, the Scriptures are myth; there was a big-bang and then there was 'protoplasm' and look at how we have evolved...we have the power to give and take life. We don't need myths to prop us up anymore. We ARE god." 

In reality, everything we touch we corrupt. Look at what we call our "system of Justice." We condition the air at the same time we poison it with hydro-carbons. We pollute the planet, poison our bodies, can't beat cancer or aids and when/if we do, something else always emerges. Regardless of how effective we are at blunting the effect of sin on life and the planet, sin always trumps our best efforts...and God allows it, to point us to our need for a Savior and His gracious provision for our redemption.

The farther evolved civilization becomes the further it devolves into moral and spiritual chaos--abortion, failed economies, addiction, violence, corrupt governments, greed, broken relationships, idolotry, shaminism, social injustice. Think about it, in 1965 LBJ gave us the Great Society. These unfunded mandates have done nothing to enlighten culture and end poverty--but they have driven us to edge of bankruptcy and destroyed families while perpetrating genocide on the poorest of the poor. The smarter we get, the dumber we are. We can run from God, but we can't hide.

So then, civilization as we have fashioned it, has become mankind's' most recent Tower of Babel; the work of "our hands" which demonstrates our independence, our ability to "get it done without God." We set out to be like God, and in a final irony, we create the very modality that could be the end of life as we know it. We can destroy it, but we can't fix it..."and all the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't put humpty-dumpty back together again."  The lie that deceived Eve, continues to vex us; but we aren't beaten. 

This Truth has set us free..."When we were utterly helpless...God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5.6a,8

Hallelujah, what a Savior!



Life is fast.Live it well...M6.8 bN

Grace. Amazing!

"...while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."  Romans 5.6

The reality of redemption, Jesus died in my place, gifted me with the will to say "yes" and choose godliness.

My choices shape my character. 

Godly character will empower me to be the kind of person He (God)  uses to make hard lives easier.  

Making hard lives easier is a legacy that will transform my world, one needy, undeserving person at a time.   This is the miraculous power of amazing grace.

Say "yes" to God's gift, new life in Jesus Messiah. 


Life is fast.
Live it well...M6.8 bN

Be Still.

The word "listen" contains the same 

letters as the word "silent." 

Silence conducts the still, small, voice of God; 

it is a discipline that pays big dividends... 

Be still

and know

that I am God.

Psalm 46.10

Live It well...M6.8 bN

Politics & Personal Power

Father in  heaven...

Politics has become a growth industry in America, this is a problem; too much ambition and too little service.  It didn't start this way.  The noble has become ignoble.

Regardless of party affiliation, the pursuit of power, wealth, celebrity too, has become the focus of many elected to serve "the people" in Washington.  Congress has been sullied by gridlock, the love of money, sexual scandal, graft and abuse of privilege.

I pray You will raise up leaders from every segment of political vision, willing to make tough decisions, without regard for how those decisions poll: that, will be patriotism.

...Deliver us from evil.

Life is fast.
Live it well...M6.8 bN

Will-Power

I am reminded throughout the Scriptures about "the sacrifice of praise." 

When I will myself to offer Him my sacrifice of praise; refusing to allow life circumstance, my mental-state, environment, personalities, music style or selection to distract me, without exception, I experience a breakthrough to worship, where a dynamic exchange takes place: Kingdom authority for authentic Worship.

I am persuaded this is why we see so much conflict around worship in the church today. Failure to worship prevents Believers from experiencing His empowering flow: from the throne of God, to the people of God. As a consequence we underachieve; we never fully appropriate "His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." Ephesians 3.20

When I bend my will, God empowers me for victorious living.  Will-Power.  


Life is fast.
Live it well...M6.8 bN

Unplugged.

The Church in America is unplugged, it's powerless.  By power I mean spiritual gravitas which is the result of a clear anointing from God.  Most of the country perceives the confessing church to be the most conservative wing of the Republican Party.  I grew up hearing my mom say, "if the shoe fits wear it!"  Unfortunately, we've been tagged with this perception the old fashioned way, we've earned it.  We've chosen to contend for the soul of America using the political process--a grave error.  The shoe fits. 

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power."  2 Tim 3.1-4 

We routinely come to cultural "waypointes--places on a journey where the traveler can stop and change course."  It's past time for the confessing church to change our trajectory and become THE church. The fact is we've settled for sloppy seconds; too many of us worship in places that are driven by forms rather than power.  We've allowed popular culture to shape our vision of what Christ's church should be, what it should look like; we have embraced the wrong set of outcomes.

Today we measure the quality and effectiveness of our ministries based on the Big 3: People, Buildings, Revenue.  In fact, it's not difficult to erect buildings and fill them with people that generate million-dollar budgets.  False religions, cults and sects do it all around the world.  Jim Jones did in San Francisco and finally in Guyana.  Jimmy Swaggart did it, then did it AGAIN in Louisiana.  

People, buildings and money aren't wrong, they simply aren't the unique signature of Christ's Church. These, alone, won't produce transformational-redemptive power, nor are they the indicators of the anointing of God.  Powerless religion, form-driven religion has a micro focus: it sees "the church" as the end.  Forms--the way we "do church," the things we do or don't do that identify us as "christians," are paramount.  This is the kind of context Jesus came into in Judea; the context the Religious power brokers endorsed and protected.

Form-driven religion becomes a template that blinds us to the brokenness which surrounds us.  Form-driven religion makes us think in "wrong-headed ways" about what the world deserves v. what God desires--Us v. Them.  Form-driven religion becomes a tyranny which chokes our vibrancy and shrivels our generosity.

Power-driven godliness sees loving, reaching and changing the world as the end.  Power-driven godliness acts without conditions.  Power-driven godliness seeks to make hard lives easier.  Power-driven godliness understands that wealth, leadership, talent and spiritual gifts are resources graciously given by God for His redemptive endeavor.  Power-driven godliness doesn't seek relavance; it is relevant.

Outcomes are critical.  Matthew 9..."35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.  36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.  37 Then He said to His disciples, 'the harvest in plentiful, but workers are few.'" 

We've come to a waypointe.

Life is fast.

Live it well...M6.8 bN

Less. More.

Control the "Controllables"

Time.
Activity.
Stress.
Distress.

Why don't we say "no?"  Our fear of loosing an edge is ravaging relationships, creating monster expectations, ruining our health and creating distance between us and God.

The fact is we really do live in a "less-is-more" world.  White-space is what makes good Art so fetching, great landscape design so dramatic and relationships work.  It gives us permission to breath, to be creative, to recharge and recreate.  

Who "moved the cheese" and convinced Americans that the contemplative life is empty and worth-less?  We did.  

Stop.
Breath.
Listen.
Smile.


Life is fast.
Live it well...M6.8 bN

What Joy!

Flowing water, silk across rock.
Concert of joy resounds.

Linger, listen.

It comes, it goes.

Course of life it forms.

Reflect, rejoice.

Linger, listen

Reflect, rejoice.

New mercies, every morning.

Life is fast.

Live it well...bN M6.8

We will Rise.

Several years ago I received a note from a good friend..."my dad's cancer is progressing. His time here is probably down to days..." When I read those words I was transported back to the last time I was with his dad. I was saddened by this news, concerned for the grief this final act of life would introduce to my friend and his family...and not.

My friend's father did lose his life; but not once was he in danger of losing his hope: the certain promise that he, as a believer in Jesus Christ, would finally be transported into the presence of His Lord and Savior, there to enjoy life as HE designed it to be.

Life is hard, then we die. We will all lose our lives, but we need not lose our hope.

Praise God for the hope we have in Christ, and the healing death brings for those who have embraced Christ through effective saving faith. For these, death is not something to be feared; it is a gracious provision that carries us back into a face-to-face real-time relationship with God. Without death, we become eternal beings, like Lucifer and the legion of angels which were cast out of heaven because of their rebellion.  Without death we would be chained to a relationship of enmity with God, no reverse, no repair--NO hope.

Death became the modality that God uses to foil Satan's attempt to co-opt God's crowning creative act, the human race. So then, death is the definitive check-mate and demonstrates God's mastery; always steps ahead of evil and the chaos of sin. Genesis 3 describes the event that initiated the rebellion of Adam and Eve to sin and it's necessary result, death; it's also here that we learn that death is part of God's bigger plan for hope and the redemption of human-kind.

The rest, is history, 1 John 4.9,10...

"God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.  This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."

We know that love is a four letter word, spelled H-O-P-E; more importantly, we know that death simply marks the first day of the rest of our lives; Paul give us very specific instruction in his second letter to the church at Corinth...

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet
inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary
troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,
since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4.16-18

We will rise, thanks be to God! It's a GRACE day.


Life is fast.
Live it well...bN M6.8

The Great Debate

Politics is part of our DNA.  It's why we don't choke up when we hear our cousins from across the pond singing "God Save the Queen."  That said, let's work to keep the Debate civil and respectful.

Let me be clear here; civil doesn't mean we can't passionately disagree with each other.  It doesn't mean we can't say what we think and apply with dazzling skill (or not), the amazing resources at our fingertips to back up our opinions.  It's ironic that we have come to believe that it's politically correct to be neutral--or at least give the appearance of neutrality.  The term "political" has no application apart from the idea of people engaged in advancing a specific set of ideas to govern the way we do things--in our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, communities and government!

The freedom to speak is part of the foundation of our nation; our nation, that survives today because citizen-soldiers have taken up arms against those who would seek to subjugate us and our way of life--without regard for wether they agreed with all the politics.  We owe those who gave so selflessly a debt of great responsibility with regard to our deportment as a free-people.

That said...let's engage in the debate. 

• Let's speak out with boldness.  
• Let's refuse to be thin-skinned.
• Let's choose kindness.
• Let's refuse to brand "not like me" as hate speech.
• Let's make it passionate, but not personal.
• Let's give each other the space to be stubborn and blind. Not everyone is as smart as we are...that's a good thing (wink, wink).
• Let's believe the best about those who think differently.
• Let's ask questions to clarify.
• Let's exercise grace and tolerance for those who seem, from our perspective, so intolerant.
• Let's be willing to grow and change.
• Let's not be ugly.
• Let's remind those who may embrace what we believe, but do so in ugly ways, that "ugliness isn't funny, helpful or appropriate--ever."
• Let's work to control hyperbole...which is rhetorically useful and appropriate but must be done with balance.
• Let's allow for another rhetorically useful tool: sarcasm...but those who use it unwisely do so at their own peril.  Less is more.
• Let's be willing to own our errors humbly and with grace.
• Let's be willing to forgive.

Remember, we have a new-direction "fork in the road" every two years.  It's the "governor" on the system and virtually assures that the more things change, the more they stay the same; therein lies the genius of the Founders.

Politics, it's part of our DNA.  Forget the Queen; God bless America!

Life is fast.
Live it well...bN M6.8