Come & Go…

Ecclesiastes 9:3
This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Our generation is really no different than any other. We have out aches and pains and struggles. We like to think we are different because we have technology that previous generations did not have. We like to think we have bigger dangers than previous generations had. Perhaps most of all we like to think simply that we have it 'harder' than previous generations because it gives us license to fail, and an excuse for the cause. I say phooie!

We might have a fear of weapons of mass destruction and the fact that unstable people have them at their disposal. But evil men have tormented the earth before with their armies of evil doers and death. Attila the Hun may not have had mega-tons at his control, but he had a mega army of ruthless soldiers that literally tore men apart by tying their arms and legs to horses and tearing them off. I'm certain that this struck equal fear. They also tortured, raped and enslaved all they could capture. We might fear disease we cannot cure like AIDS and Ebola, but incurable disease has always been with mankind. In biblical times those people with leapers were heralded with the phrase, "UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!" because people knew that a touch could entrap them in a lifetime of pain and suffering as your body simply rotted away. Epilepsy was synonymous with demon possession and don't you think for a moment that these things struck fear into the hearts of men like we have today.

As the plague rolled through Europe and then the world in the mid 1300's millions died. And when we look at the number of deaths as a percentage of the word population, it was a death rate higher than we can almost imagine estimated at 35-50% in Europe and as high as 60% or more in China and the East. Not surprisingly, the plague returned in variations in almost every generation since then until the late 1700's.

We all live with fear. Fear is a mechanism that God built into us in order to give us alarm. Some fears are certainly justifiable. If we lived in Israel as an example, the fear of dying in a nuclear holocaust is not unwarranted. If you travel the world much, the fear of contracting an air-borne illness is real. If you are required to have a blood transfusion in a third world country, it may save your life, but only to find out that you are now HIV positive.

My point: We do not have to live IN fear. Nothing is new under the sun. AND, nothing is new under the SON. The hearts of men are evil, as the book of Genesis tells us, only evil continually. This is what we live in fear of. What will evil bring upon us next? Whatever it is, it's basis is not new, and thankfully, by the grace of God, our protection from that evil is not new either.

As Christians we are called to live in peace, joy and satisfaction that Jesus rules our lives. That being the case, He has conquered all. He has conquered fear, and disease, as well as death itself. If we stop to ponder what the most wise man to ever live stated above, there is nothing new. There is nothing that will surprise Jesus and cause Him to say, "Jeesh, what do I do now?" Knowing that, and allowing that the live in our hearts, and live out in our lives will not only bring comfort to ourselves, but will live to serve as a witness to others that Christ is in control; not just of us, but of everything!

The One

And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America , having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person
known as "The One".

He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. For I shall save you with Hope and Change.

Go yee, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who precedeth me is evil, that he has defiled thy nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed."

And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised that it was to be good; and they believed.

And "The One" said "We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!"

Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats."
And the people said "Sock it to them!"
And "The One" continued and speaketh, "And redistribute their wealth."
And the people said, "Show us the money!"
And then He said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody"

And the people responded, "AMEN! AMEN!"

And Joe the plumber asked, "Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats?" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted poor Joe, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized, and he was systematically discredited in front of thine people.

One lone reporter asketh, "Isn't that Marxist policy?"
And she was banished from the kingdom forever, to be separated from thine wealth of redistribution, and forced to report for ever more on Joe the Plumber!

Then a peasant asked, "With thou having no foreign relations experience and thou having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?"
And "The One" responded by saying, "Simple. I shall sit with thine enemies and talk with thine enemies and show them how nice we really are; they shall then forget that they ever wanted to kill us all! And they shalt forget that thine enemy has deemed you the Infidel and that because thou aren't Muslim, thy must be slaughtered by the sword"
And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"

Then "The One" said, "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes."
And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes."
So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Show us the money!"
Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!"
And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed.
And He said, "I shalt mandate employer- funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to thine free clinics."

And the people said, "Gimme me some 'a dat!"

Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas."
And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"

Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!"
And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates."

So "The One" said, "Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with ACORN as many times as you like, and your troubles are over!" Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security,
free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..."

And the people said, "Hallelujah!!" And they made him King!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then "The One" said, "I am the "The One" - The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!"
But our foreign trading partners said unto Him, "Wait a minute man! Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more..."

And the people said, "Wait a minute man! That is unfair!!"

And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"

And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?"
But yea verily, it was too late. The people laid hands upon "The One" and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was like dung in the mouth of all people.

And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was likened unto a poison in thine mouth that hath destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.

And the people beat their chests, tore thine cloths, and wrapped themselves in sackcloth and ashes in despair and cried out in anguish, "Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!"

But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

More Powerful than a Superhero!

Romans 1:16

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek."

You may have heard the saying that goes something like this: "With great power, comes great responsibility". If you are a comic book fan, or a fan of the movies that have come out over the past few years featuring comic book heroes, you may recognize this phrase. Surprisingly, I found this quote attributed to one Stanley Martin Lieber, also known as Stan Lee, creator of most Marvel Comic superheroes like, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic 4, Iron Man, and Spiderman in whose comic book those words were uttered.

So how does Spiderman bring about biblical wisdom? Well, he probably doesn't really, but we can correlate what was said in that comic book into a lesson or biblical thought. Here's that thought.

Doctor and gospel author Luke tells us in Luke 12:48 this: "But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." This plays well in helping to support this theme.

We have been approved by God, and entrusted with the gospel message of Jesus Christ (I Thess. 2:4). That gospel message has the power to give eternal life. I used to be a fairly avid comic book reader. The aforementioned superheroes from the first paragraph are the ones I read most, but I read many. All of the superheroes had some sort of super 'power'. Iron Man had his inelegance, funding, and his iron suit that made him virtually invincible. The Fantastic Four had a plethora of things going on their; rubber-band type body, invisibility, a body as hard as a rock and as strong as a mountain, and of course we have the human torch. Spiderman, well, we all know what happens to a person when he is bitten by a radioactive spider. While all of these superheroes had a collection of powers that seems almost awesome and unstoppable, as a Christian, you have an even greater power.

In all those comic book superheroes, I do not remember a ONE of them, and there are hundreds, that could give eternal life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the work done by the perfect sinless life, and sacrificial death of Jesus our Christ, YOU have the power to offer eternal life. You can make Spiderman look like a powerless little jumping spider. You can make the incredible Hulk look like a weakling getting sand kicked in his face. You can be more powerful, and offer REAL, not comic book make-believe power to people who are in desperate need of it.

However, with great power, comes great responsibility. MUCH has been given to us. God TRUSTS YOU with His message of salvation. Much like the servant who buried his talants in the ground, you will have done no one any good at all if you do not put this investment that God made into you… to work for Him. Much IS expected of us. Time is short, and it is high-time that we start living up to those expectations. Rather than 'bring a child to work day', we need to have 'bring a friend to Christ day', and that needs to be every day.

Phase 4: Desire & Understand My Grace

God has taken me through several phases in my ministry. Initially, it was 'Make yourself available'. Through that phase, I was guided to participate in mission trips, teach classes I would not otherwise have taught, to just generally do whatever was asked of me, and volunteer for everything that after providing for and making sure my family had all the quality time they needed. Phase 2 if you will was, "Honor your spiritual chain of command", in which I had to learn to die to myself, and follow the directions of those that the Lord had placed over me. This was not hard, but I learned a very necessary lesson along the way. Until lately, I have been in Phase 3: "Be diligent in what I have given you". I have been in that phase since the Lord called me to Bonney Lake to start a bible Study there and eventually plant what is now the small but healthy CCBL.

I feel now that while the Lord is not done with me in Phase 3 (I doubt He ever will be…), that He has added a Phase 4. This phase is turning out to be, "Desire and Share My Grace".

This phase of learning is a difficult one for me. I know that sounds terrible. "My pastor has a hard time offering grace!", would be an awful thing to have to say. And I hope that those who know me well enough know that this is not true. What I am having a hard time with is God's stretching of me in my understanding of what grace is, and how far reaching it needs to be applied. These are the areas where God's stretching is opening old scabs. But the more He teaches me, and the more circumstances He allows me to go through,. The more I do understand His grace, and the more I see how He and the Holy Spirit have been working in my life to orchestrate some awesome revelations and healings.

Understanding grace, by biblical definition is simple. Grace is typically and acceptably defined as simply unmerited favor. That understanding comes easy. It is the far-reaching application of the depth of this understanding that requires work. Why? Because to do so, we must first understand who WE are in Christ (as my good friend and mentor Justin Alfred has often said, 'we are nothing more than the wart on the backside of a hog.' I have found, by God's grace mind you, that I am the infected pimple on that wart. As awful as that sounds, this is how we must see ourselves if we are to fully understand the far-reaching effects of God's unlimited grace.

Once we have allowed ourselves to see who we are in Christ, a humbling experience in itself, then the real growth comes. With this new understanding in mind, we then have to allow ourselves to be stretched by God beyond anything we have ever experienced before. God will undoubtedly show you that our allowances of grace, and our application of it to others has been woefully, dare I say, sinfully inadequate. He will show us that we do not apply grace where we should. That we have not applied grace often enough. He may even bring you to an understanding that maybe, just maybe (as He has done in me), that sometimes we need to apply grace even when there has been an offense against God! Wow, unbelievable.

When we see someone who has either taken advantage of their freedom in one of life's many gray areas to the point where boundaries have been crossed in our minds, and even to the point where we feel sin may be, or may have been the result, we must control our thoughts, taking them all captive unto Christ, go to that person in love and GRACE, expressing your thoughts on the matter, but ALWAYS allowing God to deal with the offense. We must also consider grace through prayer. Perhaps God simply wants us to keep our big yappers shut, and go to Him in the strength of payer and fellowship, lifting up this person in our hearts.

Now understand this: What I am not saying is that we do not hold our brothers and sisters accountable. We have a responsibility, even a duty to protect fellow believers from the influences of the world. We look out for each other, we are the body (singular) of Christ. But what I am saying is that we need to hold them accountable to the Lord, not to US. If we go to someone because we see bad fruit, and we do so because there is an offense in our heart that has caused us bitterness or anger, do not go. Only go when you can, through God's grace, show that person unmerited favor, with a clean heart, with no malice in mind, and simply point them to Jesus. That's grace. And that's hard.

Grace may cause you to see things, and do things that do not 'feel' right. It may cause us to love someone that, at least at that moment we do not want to love. But considering who you are in Christ, aren't you glad He did the same for you?!

Healing Revisited

As the members of CCBL know, I had planned to do a 4-6 week study of dealing with hurt in the church. How to prevent being wounded, what to do when you are wounded, and how not to wound others. It turned out to be a totally God lead study through the book of 2 Corinthians. In hind sight, it may have been a God thing just to prepare me for upcoming events in my life as it was unfolding before me.

I wrote the other day on my blog, and in my devotional, about a healing process that I had gone through (see Mother-in-Lew Reintroduced below), and an initial comment made by my friend Brian. Well, since then comments have kept coming in, not just from family and friends, but others who read my blog and receive the devotional that have no connection to my family, or any knowledge whatsoever of the interworking of our family to even have any idea what may have been going on. Yet, many people have been blessed by that story of healing. No one more than I.

The healing power of God is complete, and it is awesome. His work on the cross has allowed for our healing, and our ability to use the grace that He has imparted on us to offer grace, rather than being offended or hurt in the first place. As was stated yesterday and bears repeating today, who are we to take that offense back? But what He has truly amazed me with, is the power of God to work in our lives outside of time. These events have given me a new understanding and appreciation of God’s mercy, and a greater understanding of God Himself.

What I had not realized until that day was that God had already healed me. The healing had already been done, in my past, but I did not realize that until I was faced with dealing with that hurt. I had prayed many hours and many times about God bringing healing in my life and the lives of others who had been offended. And although I had not known it, realized, or perhaps better said, accepted it, God has already answered those prayers.

Someone commented this way, “He literally showed me forgiveness is possible as I felt at the moment… He has wiped the slate clean” Wow! What great words. There is a time for weeping and mourning. But the time for healing is always. Psalm 41:4 says, “I said, “LORD, be merciful to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”

Perhaps our greatest sins are the times when we do not trust God that He has already granted our requests, and we simply refuse to see it? Have mercy on us God for our unbelief.

Mother-in-Law: Reintroduced

Sounds bad huh? This event, or the mere mention of it may send shivers of the spines of some married men. Well, to be perfectly honey, I shared such a sentiment for a time.

After first being married my relationship with my mother-in-law was fine. We got along swimmingly, and she lived two doors down! My wife and I, and Terri (my mother-in-law) and her husband went through much together. Our birth of three children, her hip replacement, work on the house, dealing with neighbors, and the death of her husband to lung cancer. Then, after 10 years of marriage there was a family incident that brought some separation. It was tragic, tragically misunderstood by many, and relations became strained.

It's been 5 years since I have spoken to my mother-in-law, and last week, completely unexpectedly she walked (literally) back into our lives.

We were at church, I in the back of the room, my wife sitting with the congregants. As I normally do, I waited for stragglers to come in (there are typically many), and hand out bulletins and greeting, and shake hands with regulars, and greet the newcomers (typically there are few). Without any foreknowledge whatsoever, in walks this woman who looks just like Terri. Couldn't be her, she's in Colorado. I was wrong, and it took a couple of seconds to sink in, but it was her. She smiled, I smiled, and I hugged with gusto and sincerity. My only words at the moment were, "It is so good to see you." And I meant it.

God is so good in His healing. My wife tells a much better story of her experience to this event, and what the surprise was like, but more importantly how the Lord had prepared her for her mother's arrival. When Terri walked in, there was no time to think. Only time to react. Therefore, I had to react from my heart, and not from my head; from my spirit, and not from my intellect or flesh. I reacted from my heart, and I was glad I did. Much has happened and much time has passed, but God's power to heal is above any wrong or hurt that anyone might have. We hear often that, "God is bigger than…", and you can put anything you want in there because God IS bigger than it, no matter what 'it' is. But God truly is bigger than our hurts and concerns that draw us away from Him.

I have preached often that with regards to being hurt, we have a choice. Whether that hurt comes from someone or some 'thing' in the secular world, or even worse, from another believer, when an offense is made, we have a choice to be offended, or give it to God and move on. Not having thought about this situation for some time, I did not really know it until Terri showed up at church, but god had already allowed me to move on. What a blessing it is.

I thank the Lord for His goodness and mercy. That He allows us the ability to just forgive and move on. His grace upon us was a gift. And the fact that He has shown such grace means that we must, by Christian design, allow that grace to work in our life, so that we might pass it on to others and give them that same gift. I'm happy to do so.

Thank You, Burt Brady

This video was forwarded to me by my good friend George Fennel. I just had to share it with you all.

I can not express my thanks to all these people who are at the airpot to meet our returning troops. When I came back from Desert Storm in 1991, we had a reception, but it was on post, and was all family and friends. While that was certainly a welcomed sight, along with the free McDonalds McRib sandwiches, it was not the general public. This is certainly different.

I think most soldiers will agree that they are not looking for the 'wow' of the public, or a welcome home as all sorts of hero. But what encourages a soldier the most is to know that the people back home, the general public, love and support them, and are glad that they are doing their job to protect America.

You see a soldiers job is bigger than himself. The phrase that gets thrown around as a cliche is that when the soldier is in battle, that is not fighting for his mission, or for his country, or for any cause. What they are fighting for is the soldier to his left and right, who is in turn are fighting for him. Now don;t get me wrong, a good soldier knows that missions comes first above all else. But the cliche is no cliche. That's exactly what the soldier fights for, the soldiers to their left and right, that without whom, his life is lost, and the mission fails.

So to Burt Brady, and all those who come out to help him greet the soldiers returning from war, Thank you for all that you do. YOU all are the real American hero.

Whether you agree or disagree with what the soldiers are doing over seas, they are following orders that are being made by the administration that has been voted into power. Like it or not. Soldiers deserve our support, not our protest.