Quote of the Day

Sorry about the lack of content lately. Until such time…

“. . . Does any man know what the Spirit of God can make of him? I believe the greatest, ablest, most faithful, most holy man of God might have been greater, and abler, and more faithful, and more holy, if he had put himself more completely at the Spirit’s disposal. Wherever God has done great things by a man He has had power to do more had the man been fit for it. We are straitened in ourselves, not in God. O brothers, the church is weak today because the Holy Spirit is not upon her members as we could desire Him to be. You and I are tottering along like feeble babes, whereas, had we more of the Spirit, we might walk without fainting, run without weariness, and even mount up with wings as eagles. Oh, for more of the anointing of the Holy Ghost whom Christ is prepared to give immeasurably unto us if we will but receive Him!” - Charles  Spurgeon on the Work of the Spirit

 

Amen.

No Shortcuts

 I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. There just aren’t any shortcuts in the spiritual  life.

I know, I’ve tried to find them. I want quick growth and maturity. 

——-

I was thinking about Bradford Pears and Silver Maples this morning and how easily they split in winds that don’t bother other trees. These are the two main landscape trees we plant around here when we want a house to look “established” and “settled”. In other words, like it wasn’t built yesterday. Mature looking trees add a feeling of stability to a neighborhood. 

They grow quick, give lots of shade, and, in the case of Bradford Pears, are showy in the spring and fall. 

They are also shallow rooted, brittle and, again in the case of the Bradford Pear, structurally weak. 

Contrast that with most slow growing hardwoods and, long term, it’s no contest. 

——-

I would like to be established, settled, stable and mature. I would also like to look that way quickly. 

I’m pretty sure I can’t have both.

So I’m going to submit to the slow growth methods of prayer, scripture and real community, counting on the Spirit to make me deep rooted in Christ, and producing fruit in season. 

What if….

Is there a more dangerous game in all the world to play than the “What if…” game?

What if…

… I won the lottery?

… I had that house?

… I got that job?

… I could do that?

… I didn’t have to do that?

Or a little deeper and darker.

What if…

… I hadn’t done that?

… I had done this instead?

It plays both ways, it could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing. It can make you dream big. It can make you dissatisfied with what is. It can make you fearful of what could be.

Visions of “what if” sometimes lead to great advancement. Business, nation, and individual have all moved forward by playing the “what if” game. All innovation, all creativity, all invention at base come from someone saying, “What if…?”

There are also visions that make us wake up in cold sweat. What if I lost my job, there were an accident, my marriage falls apart, a bad test result comes back?

Scripture both tells us to take up something like a version of the game, and tries to help us not take it too far.

Luke 14:25-32

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Counting the cost is quite a bit like asking the what if question. “What if…

… I start and can’t finish?”

… I don’t want to die daily?”

… it’s too hard?”

Jesus does it again with the rich young ruler. But he doesn’t let him even play the game, he spells it out for him. He makes him count the cost.

Mark 10:17-22

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Playing the game in this sense isn’t playing at all, but a sober, assessment of what is likely to be required, or in this case what is actually being asked of us.

What I tend to do, however, is change it from a sober assessment to asking “what if” about things that might possibly be required, or asked of me.

I see Abraham asked to sacrifice his son, “What if I…?”. I see Mary’s reputation ruined, “What if that…?”. I see Paul’s multiple stonings, afflictions and persecutions, “What if I were…?.

In short, I see in scripture the lives of the saints upended and changed forever, and try to imagine myself in their situations. “I don’t have that much faith.” “That scares me to death.” I begin to brood about what God might take from me, and how I would react. It’s all fiction, but it makes me fear tomorrow. “What if…?”

God knows I”m prone to this, so here comes the help I need to try and put this stuff in perspective. 

“Don’t fear, little flock, the kingdom is yours.” “Don’t worry about how you’re going to live, your Father knows what you need.” “Don’t worry about tomorrow (”what if”), today (”what is”) is enough.” “Don’t be anxious about anything, but pray, and give thanks, asking your Father, and he’ll supply your need.” “I will never leave you or forsake you.” “You didn’t receive a spirit of fear, but of adoption, and power, and love, and self-control.”

Lord, have mercy.

“Working the Angles”

A good friend of mine recently started reading Eugene Peterson’s, Working the Angles. He couldn’t recommend highly enough. So much so that he thought it ought to be required reading for all elders/deacons/overseers (whatever your Church’s  leadership is called)

I found my copy this morning and re-read the introduction. 

I agree with my friend’s recommendation.

Here’s a couple of quotes to stoke the fire a little:

“The pastors [elders, etc...] of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeepers concerns- how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package goods so that the customers will lay out more money.”

Then this;

“Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading scripture, and spiritual direction…. They do not call attention to themselves and so are often not attended to…. None of these acts is public, which means that no one knows for sure whether or not we are doing any of them.”

And this;

“It doesn’t take many years in this business to realize that we can conduct a fairly respectable pastoral ministry without giving much more than ceremonial attention to God.”

Strong stuff, I need to hear it.

Thinking Differently

 

 

 

 

I don’t care what you think of beer.

That’s not what this is about. 

Go read this and come back and answer this. (HT- Mark Nikirk ) 

How come this looks more Gospel-like than a lot of us?

 

Best Reminder I’ve Read In a Long Time

Dan Edelen over at Cerulean Sanctum posts the best reminder of what it means to others for us to the hands and feet of Jesus. 

Go read it here.

Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Disciplnes (part 6)

 

 

 

My youngest doesn’t like to be alone. Not even when we are in the next room. Sometimes he’ll come wondering in from somewhere else in the house and sit close beside me without saying a word. I’m usually aware enough to know what this means. He was alone and maybe just a little afraid.

 

I can’t say that I blame him. The world is a big, scary place when you’re all alone. Wild things come out when you’re alone. Especially at night, and especially when you’re only eight.

——

Wild things come out when you’re alone as an adult too. That’s part of the problem when we start talking about the discipline of solitude.

Most people think that solitude is simply being by yourself. The Christian discipline of solitude is not quite that simple, or easy. Solitude is being alone with God.

In solitude you are likely to encounter God, and yourself. Both can be pretty scary. Both can be difficult to hear. Our defenses against spending time with either are well established and strong. Your adversary is likely to be there too, pleading with you to leave this barren place and rejoin the security of the crowd.

Before we go any further, let me add that silence is so closely linked to solitude that for me to talk of one means to talk of both. Although they are separate disciplines, silence is usually observed to some degree when solitude is practiced.

One of, if not the, biggest problem we have with solitude is all the noise and activity around us.

Maybe I’m stating the blatantly obvious, but I think we’re addicted to noise and activity. Just look at what happens to most of us when we find ourselves alone and in the quiet. Our knee begins to bounce up and down, we become restless and agitated, an almost uncontrollable urge to get up and do something takes over. We look like junkies needing a fix. And I think that’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve become so used to the noise and bustle of our modern lives that we can’t operate without it. Rehab is a long process, years for most of us, but must be done if we are to learn to listen.

This is exactly the kind of world I’d design if my aim was to keep people from hearing a still small voice. Noise everywhere, words on everything in sight, Tv’s, iPods, computers, radio, newspapers, music in the background everywhere I went. And do it so long that it becomes the water everyone swims in, ceasing to notice it because it’s so “normal”, and “all I’ve ever known”.

Try an experiment sometime today, get alone for ten minutes and try to be still and quiet. Note how your body responds, where your mind wonders off to, what emotions or feelings you experience. See if it’s not true.

Most of the time I get three responses from people when we do this.

1. Restlessness and a desire to get out of there asap. 75% (not addicted, huh?)

2. They fall asleep. 5% (maybe a sign we’re out of balance?)

3. Relief that they can stop running at warp speed. 20%

The purpose of solitude is a multiple choice question that “E) All of the above” answers. The A-D answers are, (in no particular order except the first) to spend time with God, to get the noise of this world to be quiet for a little while, to get the noise/voices inside your head to be quiet too, to learn to listen to the still small voice of the one who loves you more than you love yourself.

You will think this is a waste of time. And in a world like ours running several miles a minute, it will be. But only as far as this world’s ends are concerned. What you are concerned with is an apprenticeship of sorts. We are learning the ways of Jesus. (see Matt. 4, Luke 5:16, Ps 46) Jesus said that he only did what he saw the Father doing, and said only what he heard the Father say. Solitude is the place where you become attentive to the Father.

Start with 5 minutes and work your way up from there. Maybe soon you’ll start to look forward to this holy waste of time.

“I cannot say I did not hear….”

The One Who Stayed

You should have heard the old men cry,
You should have heard the biddies
When that sad stranger raised his flute
And piped away the kiddies.
Katy, Tommy, Meg and Bob
Followed, skipping gaily,
Red-haried Ruth, my brother Rob,
And little crippled Bailey,
John and Nils and Cousin Claire,
Dancin’, spinnin’, turnin’
‘Cross the hills to God knows where –
They never came returnin’.
‘Cross the hills to God knows where
The piper pranced, a leadin’
Each child in Hamlin Town but me,
And I stayed home unheedin’.
My papa says that I was blest
For if that music found me,
I’d be witch-cast like all the rest.
This town grows old around me.
I cannot say I did not hear
That sound so haunting hollow –
I heard, I heard, I heard it clear…
I was afraid to follow.

-Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

“A 20th Century Prophet”

For those who don’t know, I’m an A. W. Tozer fan. Apart from scripture no book has had a bigger influence on my formation than
The Pursuit of God.

If you haven’t read it, stop whatever you’re doing (after reading this post) and go get it. If you need more than my recommendation here’s the preface. If you’ve read it before, read it again and feel that heartache, that longing again.

The Pursuit of God

A. W. Tozer

 

 

Preface

In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct `interpretations’ of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water. This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man’s hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day. But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders.

Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel. [See 1 Kings 18 for the allusions.-ccp] But God be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. They are athirst to taste for themselves the `piercing sweetness’ of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.

There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals oft he faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy. I trust I speak in charity, but the lack in our pulpits is real. Milton’s terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his: `The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.’

It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see God’s children starving while actually seated at the Father’s table. The truth of Wesley’s words is established before our eyes: `Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions,yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is proof of this.’

Thanks to our splendid Bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the Word, there are today many millions of people who hold `right opinions,’ probably more than ever before in the history of the Church.Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the `program.’ This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.

Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience, they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

This book is a modest attempt to aid God’s hungry children so to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.

A. W. Tozer Chicago, Ill. June 16, 1948.

What Are We Afraid Of?

Brant Hansen has a list of the Most Influential People in American Christianity, the ones who have most influenced the way we think and act as Christians. Check it out, and the comments too. Very interesting reading, at least to me.

Jesus came in tenth (tied with one of the Wesley brothers).

His point is that we seem to want to follow someone else rather than Jesus, to hear about Jesus from others, instead of from Jesus himself. While I think we desperately need to hear this in Evangelical America, it’s not a new distortion. Paul knew the same thing with some claiming to follow him, some following Peter, some Apollos. But why is that?

I’m sure there are lots of reasons, but I think mainly we’re afraid.

When I ask God to speak to me I run two risks.

The first risk is that He won’t show up. At all. That the god (little “g”) I’ve been praying to doesn’t exist. It’s likely to be true, at least to some extent, because the god we imagine and the God of the universe are, in fact, different beings. Rousseau hit upon a truth when he said, “God created man in his image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.” The God of the universe doesn’t often act the way I want him to, or show himself just because I want him to. His ways and thoughts are far above and beyond us. “What can be known about God has been made plain”… the rest we try to fill in ourselves. 

The second risk is that he actually will show up. Things (people) are never the same after he shows himself, and that’s pretty scary. The Israelites pleaded with Moses to speak to God and then report back, for fear they would die if He spoke directly to them. Isaiah fell down as though dead when he realized he was in the presence of God. Paul’s life was a little different after his trip to Damascus, and I don’t think Peter went back to being a fisherman after pentecost. 

We’re afraid that he won’t show up, and we’re afraid he will show up. 

—

When Jesus showed up, scripture says that the people were amazed at his teaching because it had authority, unlike the teaching from their leaders. When he said, “I am”, on at least one occasion, people were knocked to the ground.

But it wasn’t just authority and power that got him in trouble, it was what he said that was dangerous. Just try to do what he said to do and see what happens.

Turn the other cheek, go with your oppressor two miles instead of one, and give him your coat as well as your shirt and while you’re at it pray for him. Those are hard enough, but offer forgiveness to the “wrong” person, and you’ve got enemies. Challenge “the way things are” and see how quickly it gets ugly. Be a peacemaker and see who gets chewed up and spit out. 

Kingdom talk gets you killed.

But once you’ve heard it and it takes root, it captivates you, it changes everything. Suddenly you live in a much bigger world, one that centers around a throne where songs of praise are sung day and night, where the One who sits on that throne laughs at the scheming kings of this world, one where you pledge your life to a King who is always faithful to you.  It’s no longer about you and what you want, it’s about the King and what He wants this day, not in the sweet by and by. It means you have to re-think everything. Things (people) can never be the same again. Eugene Peterson, speaking of this truth of the Kingdom says this;

“If Christ is the King, everything, quite literally, every thing and every one, has to be re-imagined, re-configured, re-oriented to a way of life that consists in an obedient following of Jesus…A total renovation of our imagination, our way of looking at things–what Jesus commanded in his no-nonsense imperative, ‘Repent!’–is required.” ~ From The Jesus Way

That’s what scares us most, “an obedient following of Jesus… is required.”