A Little Nervous

I've been a little nervous lately.

I've been reading some books that make me look into the very roots of my faith--and wonder if I really am what I say I am--a Christian.

Now before you avalanche me with messages of God's unconditional love, let me tell you more.

Many Christians know that following Jesus is more than having said a few words at an altar sometime. In fact, the very word "Christian" means, "follower of Jesus Christ."

And here's where the problem is. Jesus, risen from the dead, is now in the kingdom of heaven at the right hand of the Father. So how do we know when we're really following him?

A couple of Christian books have recently become extremely popular.

One is Francis Chan's "Crazy Love."

When I read "Crazy Love," it made me nervous.

Chan quoted Jesus in Revelation 3:16, "So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Chan wrote, "Jesus' call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. The thought of a person calling himself a 'Christian' without being a devoted follower of Christ is absurd."

I agree. Which makes me nervous. How do I know when I actually am a "committed follower?" When I share my faith a lot? Give to the poor? Sell everything I have? Or just do better than others?

Then there is David Platt's new book, "Radical."

I love this book!

And it makes me nervous.

Platt talks about the rich man who walked away from Jesus instead of selling everything he had, giving to the poor and following him (Mark 10:17-31).  Platt talks about how we rationalize Jesus' "hard sayings" so that they don't really apply to us personally.

He says, "We are molding Jesus into our image. He is beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is whom we are most comfortable with. And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves."

See? Nervous.

So our flock group and I, who are reading "Radical" and discussing it together, decided to do something about this. We decided to pray and ask God for more--more of whatever he wants for us. And we decided to accept what he says. That's the nervous part. Because we all know--no matter how much evading we've been doing--that God can ask for anything.

Our house. All our money. Our safety. Anything.

So I began to pray. And God almost immediately gave me an answer.

He said, "Know me."

Relief! Gladness! Joy!

Not because I wasn't asked to sell my house (well, maybe a little)! But because God took me instantly back to my roots.

I learned many years ago that knowing Jesus is everything.

If you know Jesus, you will love him.

And when you love him, you will do anything for him.

I once read of a man who, in prayer, told Jesus he didn't know him enough. This was Jesus' response: "Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts three times and you'll know me as well as your closest relative."

Just for fun, I'm going to do that.

Because I love getting to know Jesus better.

And Jesus fills me up.

Being Real

A good friend of mine recently found he had acquired a kidney stone that was 8 millimeters wide (think HUGE, like an express train).

I happen to think it probably had little golden arches on it, but that's beside the point.

So, because this stone was unlikely to pass out of his body naturally, surgery was scheduled. He was understandably nervous because there is no such thing as minor surgery--not when it's YOU!
This was called "non-invasive surgery", meaning that no incisions were involved. Instead, they "blasted the stone" with a series of powerful sound waves, shattering it inside his body.

Can doctors do the good stuff now, or what?

The reason they put my friend to sleep, the doctor explained, was because that the sound wave impact was like a slap. And since the sound continues, it's like 1,000 slaps in the same place. So they put him out. After the surgery, the doctor told me and the man's lovely wife about the procedure he used to shatter the stone. He said they put the "cross hairs" of the sound machine right where they know the stone is, and blast it with sound.

Always ready for a sprightly comment, I asked the doctor, "When you used sound waves to shatter the stone, did you use the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin?"

Silence.

Sound of crickets chirping outside.

Aching, extended silence.

Finally, the doctor began again and explained in even greater detail how he blasted the stone, so that this poor ignorant preachur could get it.

Some people just don't get humor. It's not their fault. I think that's why it's called "a sense of humor." It is an inward sense that some of us just don't have. A joke is misinterpreted as ignorance. Or insulting. Or just missed.

I'm not saying I have an award-winning sense of humor, but I do love to joke around with people. Most of my jokes could be called immature or silly, but I really don't care. To me and the valiant few who have to listen, they sometimes work.

I think many Christians have stifled their sense of humor. They are grim. Serious. They want to get into heaven and are expending every ounce of their energy to do so. And that tremendous push of energy is pulling every last ounce of joy from their bloodstreams.

When did you last see someone laughing on a treadmill?

Where did we get the idea that we have to work so hard? Didn't Jesus do that for us--on the cross?

Steve Brown, my favorite Christian guru, wrote in his excellent book, "What Was I Thinking?",
"One of the great dangers for Christians and for the world is that we are far, far too religious. We go to religious movies, we read religious books, we associate with religious people, we eat religious cookies, and we wear religious underwear that is far too tight. Our problem is that we spend too much time in church and far too little time in 'the world.'"

In other words, we're stiff.

We need to laugh more, enjoy life more.

I can't count the times people have told me, the obvious preacher, that they don't watch any TV except for the news and the occasional--very occasional, ball game. Or that they really loved this certain movie--not that they watch movies, mind you, but they liked this one certain movie. Or that they only read Christian books. Or only watch Christian movies. Or that they only play Christian music on whatever they're playing.

And I want to say, "Pleeeeese stop!"

And "the world" (that's our Christian term for people who don't know Jesus) looks at us and shakes their heads. "Who wants THAT?" they ask. "I had enough rules already, why would I want more?"
Paul said something interesting in Colossians 2:20-21, "Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all designed to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body,  but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence" (emphasis mine).

If I were to paraphrase what Paul was saying, I'd put it this way: "All our self-righteousness doesn't really protect us from the big temptations. They're still present, waiting to take us down. So why do you stress over the smaller things?

Steve Brown wrote in "A Scandalous Freedom,"  "Before I gave up [trying to be flawless], I spent half of my time trying to do something I couldn't do and the other half of my time trying to convince others that I had done it. It is called hypocrisy, and it is quite human and quite injurious to your sanity...as well as your freedom. That's why I gave it up."

When Christians honestly opens up about their sin or temptation or struggle, we shoot Bible verses at them, expecting them to be instantly "fixed." If Christians have anxiety or fear or depression, we shoot Bible verses at them. Then, if they aren't "fixed," we pretend they don't exist or the problem doesn't exist. If someone is sick, we tell him about their lack of faith, thereby handing him a plate of guilt along with the sickness. "Could I have some sauce with that guilt, please?" If  Christians is burned out, we say they aren't spending enough time with God. Well, I'm often burned out, and I spend plenty of time with God!

We're all expected to love every Christian movie, every Christian book, every church service, every Christian musician's stuff. We need to love spending time at every Christian event, and not want to be anywhere else, ever!

Could I be honest here, just once?

I'm a preacher, and even I don't want to be in church all the time!

Why can't we just be real?

If you liked reading "The Lord of the Rings," just say so. If you watched a good movie and want to recommend it to your friends at church, do it. They know the rating system, they can decide to watch it--or not--themselves. If you like country, or Celtic, or classic rock and roll, or whatever, say so!
It's okay to buy a $3.50 cappuchino, even if Christians gasp in surprise.

But there's a price.

As American war veteran will tell you, freedom isn't free. You'll have to endure the shocked looks, the head shaking, the sad, disappointed eyes, the gentle Bible quoting.

Do it anyway.

Let's set ourselves free in the church, and let people see our joy. Who knows, maybe some "unsaved" people will see we're having fun and actually join us!

Touching Jesus

Often, when I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, I read the covers of celebrity magazines.

I know--not a good idea. But as a lifelong reader, it's not exactly voluntary. I tend to read everything in sight.

And as I look at the people on magazine covers, I wonder why anybody would want to be a celebrity. It seems they spend years waiting to be glorified by everyone, then the rest of their lives trying to get away from them! You'll see them in the photos, looking angry or surprised as they walk out of a restaurant and about half a hundred flashbulbs go off.

Pastors have a little of this going on. Not that we're celebrities by a long shot, but we are well known, and more popular than we deserve.

I'll be at the grocery store and someone who came to a service seven years ago will say, "Hi, Kelly!" Of course they remember me, I was the preacher. But I can't bring back a name. Problem: Do I offend them by asking their name, or do I say very quickly, "Hi how ya doin'?"

 Experience has taught me that the second course is preferable. Very preferable. This is one time honesty doesn't work!

Jesus suffered from his celebrity status. Here was a rabbi who treated common people, even obvious sinners, not only with respect but love. He was healing people instantly from incurable diseases. His teaching went straight to the heart and stayed there. People could remember his sermons!

The result was that he was crowded. The apostle Mark records a time when he and his disciples didn't even have time for a meal because there were so many people in the house (Mark 3:20).

Another time Jesus had to preach a sermon from a boat because the people were crowding him so tightly (Mark 4:1).

And then there was the woman, weak and sick, who took advantage of the crowding to be healed. What happened is told in Luke 8:42-46.

As Jesus accompanied a man named Jarius who begged him to heal his daughter, "...he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.

"Who touched me?" Jesus asked.

Everyone denied it, and Peter said, "Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.'"

I can just see this. Jesus being jostled in all directions as everyone in this huge crowd stands on their toes just to see him, and reaches out to touch him. They could go home that night and say, "I touched Jesus!"

But this frightened woman squirms close enough to give a little touch to the hem of Jesus' robe, and she is healed.

Jesus is still standing. He says, "Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me."

Trembling, the woman comes forward. And Jesus says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace."

Because this was more than a physical touch. This woman believed in Jesus, needed Jesus, reached out desperately to Jesus--and was healed.

What would happen if we did the same?

So many people go to church, plant ourselves in the pew, sing a few songs (if they sing at all), hear a sermon and say, "I touched Jesus!"

But did they, really?

And we wonder why we're not healed.

There is another way. We can go to church preparing our minds to receive from Christ. We can sing directly to Jesus as we worship. We can pray as we put our offering in the plate, thanking God for all he has given, and offering this money for his glory. We can listen expectantly to the sermon, knowing the Holy Spirit will personally speak to us. We can go to midweek services. We can read the Word and pray all week, keeping ourselves in God's will as we seek to know him better and better.

Now that's touching Jesus!

And I've noticed that these are the people whose lives are healed.  

So now comes the question: Are you just going to church? Or are you touching Jesus?

Why I'm Not Angry

It seems like everyone is angry nowadays.

Democrats point their fingers at Republians. "You favor big-business greedheads, and you get us into frivolous wars," they say.

Republicans point their fingers at Democrats. "You're subverting what this country has always stood for, and you spend money we don't have!" they say.

We Christians seem angriest of all.

"The Obama administration is anti-Christian!" we say. "Maybe he's even a Muslim! Vote! Write your congressman! Organize!"

Catholics have put out an inspiring video segment urging people to vote. I watched it. It showed a blacksmith forging words like "Truth" and "Justice" from steel, and resolute Catholics striding forth to vote.

It made me, a voter, feel...LEGENDARY!

It seems that many Christians want to change this nation from the top down.

It all leaves me bewildered, even feeling a bit harassed. Because everybody wants me to take action. They think I have this great influence over minds because I'm a pastor (I wish that were true)! They want me to preach political sermons, join political movements, defend the Constitution.

Can I get a break?

Because that's not what I see Jesus doing.

There was a time when the Jewish people, sick of Roman rule (they didn't get to vote) decided to make Jesus "king by force" (John 6:15).

"This guy's got power," they said. "He gets peole to listen! I bet he could organize some kind of army! And with God's blessing, we could kick the Romans right back to Italy!"

Jesus took action. The Bible says he "...slipped away into the hills by himself."

What a weenie. He could have changed nations!  He could have brought justice! What was he thinking, anyway?

Another time, the Jewish people came to Jesus with shocking news about their leader, Pilate. "Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices" (Luke 13:1).

Now there's a guy to get rid of! How cruel! Not only did Pilate murder these Galileans over some offense, he then had their own blood mixed with the blood of the animals they had intended to sacrifice!

Jesus' response? "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish" (verses 2-3).

Silence.

What an insult!

You just can't get this guy riled!

Actually, you could. When the Pharisees set up a corrupt market for exchanging money and selling sacrifical animals, Jesus made a whip out of cords, overturned the tables, and drove out all the animals. "Get these out of here!" Jesus said. "How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" (John 2:16).

Why? Because "the market of the sons of Annas," as it was derisively called, was the only place in the Temple where Gentiles could pray.

Here's another time Jesus got riled.

Not long before his death, a woman visited the room where Jesus and his disciples were. She came with a hugely expensive jar of imported perfume, broke the seal, and poured it on his head. The disciples were outraged. "What a waste!" they said.

Jesus replied, "Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her" (Mark 13:6-9).

Now there's a woman who made a difference!

You see, Jesus' emphasis was always on individual people. His kingdom is about winning souls into God's love one at a time. Jesus knew that this world would betray and eventually hate us (Matthew 24:9). He knew the real battle was to change the world one soul at a time.

And that's what he commanded us to do. In Mark 16:15 Jesus gave us our primary command: "Go into all the world [that's your world] and preach the good news to all creation."

It would be easy for me to shout about Obama. But do I have the courage to tell my friends that Jesus offers them eternal life?

Do you?

I want to change this nation and the world--one soul at a time!

That's what God called me to do.

Snakes in the crawlspace!

We have a new problem at our house.

 Not the screen door that doesn't quite shut, or the gutter that no longer drains, or the minor leak along the edge of the back roof (those leaks stay minor, right)?

We have snakes in our crawlspace. They found a way into the crawlspace through an old basement cover that wasn't quite as closed as I thought it was.

Julie and Laura discovered them first.

They thought they were cute.

A quote from Julie the other day: "I kept looking around the corner at the snake and he would go back into his hole. Then he would stick his head out and I would peek around the corner again and he'd go back. We were playing hide and seek!"

That is a glimpse into the mind of my wonderful wife. She lives in a beautiful world. It's not the real world, but it's beautiful.

My daughter Laura even took a photo of one of the snakes sunning itself near the now-unclosable crawlspace cover. I shamelessly stole it from her blog. Here it is:

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad my wife and daughter don't panic when they see a snake. But I ask you: Is this the way to eradicate snakes? So I placed a hoe near the offending crawlspace opening and sternly told Julie, "Listen. You have to kill the snakes."

Julie looked up at me lovingly and said, "I will."

Fat chance! She couldn't kill a rabid dog if it was chewing on her leg. She'd say, "Oh, you must have been a poor misunderstood dog. Let me love you back to acceptable social behavior so you can sit on my lap while I watch TV."

Now here is a further problem. I cannot just crawl into the crawlspace with a good light and 12 gauge shotgun and blow them into pieces like Indiana Jones would. This is because the designers of the add-on room only made the crawlspace openings as big as one cement block.

One block.

Even a ten-year-old couldn't squeeze in there.

There is a window into the larger basement, but someone who was, shall we say, lacking foresight  ran the heating duct through it. Yes. Through a small circle cut into something opaque set into the window pane. So, opening the window isn't an option.

After searching the web, Julie had an idea. "We can use mothballs," she said gaily. "They confuse the snakes' senses and they move out!" So I tossed mothballs into their entryway. Immediately after which my family made me take a shower because they said I smelled offensively like mothballs.

So now, the back of the house smells faintly of mothballs.

The basement smells faintly of mothballs.

I smell faintly of mothballs.

However (holding my breath here) it might have worked. The snakes appear to have moved out. Julie says she checks twice a day and has seen no sign of them.

Which brings me to my point. There are some things that you just can't tolerate.

Mice in the kitchen.

A spider--even a tiny baby spider--in our bedroom.

Snakes in the crawlspace.

Sin is like that. As a Christian, you just can't tolerate it. That's because, like snakes in a crawlspace, sin doesn't stay in one place. It grows, has "baby snakes," and eventually takes over your life.

God told the Hebrews, as they were about to enter their promised land, "Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the [Euphrates] River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:14). Apparently they were carrying little "pocket idols" as insurance so they could keep safe. Not good.

Peter wrote to the early church, "Dear friend, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul" (I Peter 2:11).

James wrote, "Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is fully formed, gives birth to death" (James 1:15).

Little snakes grow big. They lay eggs and have baby snakes. Which also grow.

The answer, of course, is Jesus Christ. Not only did he die on a cross to remove our sins, he gave us the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to walk away from sin.

I like to pray this prayer: "Jesus, I want to live a holy life for you. I want to have holy eyes for you, holy thoughts for you." I find that when I pray that, really meaning it, God gets the "snakes" out of my life.

When they slither back, I go back to Jesus and pray it again.

If you want to know more about this horrific snake incident, check out Laura's blog.

Just don't believe anything she writes about me.