Here is an insight worth talking about over coffee and maybe even grappling a bit with in the process of spiritual formation. It is from Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.

“I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them. If I am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are still taking shape.”

May I pass along this wonderful prayer of A. W. Tozer

Lord, I would trust You completely; I would be altogether Yours; I would exalt You above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of You. I want constantly to be aware of Your overshadowing Presence and to hear Your speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to You and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore, I pray in the words of Your great servant of old, ‘I invite You to cleanse the intent of my heart with the unspeakable gift of Your grace, that I may perfectly love You and worthily praise You.’ And all this I confidently believe You will grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Your Son. Amen.

The Gospel is about the life of Jesus in the life of His new creation. In Christ the Church lives and moves and has its being. In Christ, the Church is formed and shaped by the cross, and in that cross the Church finds the meaning and depth of her existence.

We Christians don't live for ourselves or for our own personal agendas. God's agenda is the most important thing in all the world to those of us who seek to carry Jesus' cross with Him, and we live for God regardless of what it might or might not personally mean to us in our private lives.

Jesus calls us to a faithfulness that lives in response to God and to what God is doing in the world. Our question is not, "what's in it for me?" but rather, "What does it mean for us to lose our lives for the sake of the One who both created and redeems us?" What's in it for God? What's in it for the kingdom? What's in it for the Church?

Like queen Esther of old, we come to each day released to the fact that we may perish but even if we do we know that God is present and at work, at that His will, shall be accomplished. This puts everything in perspective and releases us to let go of any and all distractions, and to live in the "good, acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2).

Take up the cross and follow Jesus into that which is good, acceptable and perfect.

In his book, With God in The Crucible, Peter Storey who pastored for years in south Africa and who is now Professor Emeritus at Duke University has a wonderful message entitled, Let God Be God! In this message Storey writes,

…the Church must be the Church. Jesus brought into being an entirely new, radically different community, offering people a citizenship transcending the frontiers of nations and contrasting powerfully with the norms around it. The Church is not not simply another institution in society, nor is it an extension of the traditions of any one nation….
The Church must be different from, and often over against and in contradiction to, the ways of all nations. That alternative identity must be cherished and guarded as the most important characteristic of the Church. The richest gift the Church can give the world is to be different from it. It must be a constant irritant that the world doesn’t want, but cannot do without.” (Abington Press: Nashville, 2002)

Storey then shares a personal word of experiences in South Africa. He writes,

When we were cast out of the corridors of power and disowned and vilified by the sate, at first we saw it as a loss of influence. But in that loss we found our souls and rediscovered our identity. We were set free from the false patriotism that worships the nation’s idols. We found instead a higher patriotism that determined to hold the nation accountable to the Kingdom of God and God’s justice before everything else.

I embrace what Storey says, and I believe that he is on to something rooted and grounded in Scripture, and offers us a way of being the salt and light of Jesus in the world, in a way that is uniquely of Jesus.

Compassion filled His heart as Jesus looked over a crowd and realized how much the people needed God (see Matt. 9:35-38). He then turned to His disciples and challenged them to pray that God would "send out workers into His harvest field."

Because of the extreme need at hand what kind of "workers" do you believe Jesus was calling into His harvest field? I think that not just anybody should show up for God in a world desperately in need of God. Those who dare be "workers" for God need to be a special breed. What breed exactly? In Matthew 10:8 Jesus gives us a hint. There He says, "Freely you have received, freely give."

Workers for God need to realize how much God has given to them, then take that generosity and turn it around on others. There is no room for tightwads in the harvest field that belongs to God. Great grace received become great grace given.

FREELY. What a great word. What a great way to live. What a great way to make God look good. What a great way to be to others what God is to us.

Am wondering if there are some folks out there who would pass along to me the name of the candidate they plan on voting for in the November presidential election? And, would you be willing to pass along 4 or 5 reasons you are supporting your candidate? Thank you! Any input will be helpful for a project I am working on.
God bless.

In a message entitled, Becoming What God Intended You to Be, Dr. Anthony Campolo shares what is really an important story as well as a crucial evaluation. He writes

At Eastern University, where I taught for so many years, I would constantly encounter students who would ask a simple question: How can I know what God wants me to do with my life? What a question! But I could never answer the question because I'm not sure that Jesus wants us to look that far ahead. I'm convinced that what Jesus calls us to do is to solve this problem: What should I be doing today? He says quite pointedly, "do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:31, 34).

After quoting Jesus Campolo then asks, "Are you going to do what God wants you to do today? That's the ultimate question. Everyday you should get up and say, "This is the day that the Lord has made."

The point in all this? Focus on today. Do what faith calls you to do today. In time the days will become a story, a history, and you will discover that Jesus has led you all the way.

The fact of the matter is that Christians are a sent people. The church isn’t present to be a nice fixture for cultures or to offer a pleasant contribution to an enjoyable conversation being held by nice people. The Church is present because Jesus called her to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Church is sent.

It seems Jesus was intent on bringing into the world a people who would forever proclaim that His life “was the light of men” (John 1:4). His life was good for people who lived in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7). His story is to be told, His life is to be shared, and His glory is to be revealed in all the world. This is what the Church is to be about in her service to “go and make disciples.”

So, how is the Church doing? How faithful are we to proclaim that Jesus is the light of men? Are we passionate about telling His story, sharing His life, and revealing His glory?

In short, how are we doing when it comes to being faithful to the Christ who saved us and who fills us with His Spirit? For two thousand years somebody somewhere was faithful, so much so that in time the message reached us. What shall they say about us in the times to come?

On one remarkable day the Holy Spirit filled the waiting disciples with His very own presence and the world has not been the same since. On that day the Church was born, and a movement was let loose in history that would boldly go to the remotest parts of the earth in the name of Jesus, proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world. It was quite a day.

The twenty-eight chapters of the Book of Acts gives us stories of the first efforts at fulfilling the Great Commission, an effort that is still under way, twenty centuries later. The book closes somewhere around the late 60s or early 70s. Since then, some have suggested, the Church has been writing the twenty-ninth chapter of Acts.

Here in the opening years of the twenty-first century the Church finds itself at a time when the message of Jesus is desperately needed. To live that message the Church is still dependent upon the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The Church was birthed in supernatural power, carried out it's first mission efforts in supernatural power, and will be fruitful today to degree that it yields it's life to the supernatural possibilities of God in the world. Not magic, mind you, but supernatural, God-explained, power. A much quoted but perhaps most under-used Scripture still holds true: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the Lord Almighty" (Zech. 4:6). It was true for ancient Zerubbabel and it is true for us, too.

Get connected to God, and stay connected. Let God be God in your life and in the life of the Church. May all that we do and may all that we are be defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit. He is our POWER.

The word of Jesus to His disciples as He ascended back to the Father was, "wait" (Acts. 1:4). He called them to wait in Jerusalem until God gave to them a gift they would desperately need. They had been aware of a baptism with water but God was going to baptize them "with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5).

The Spirit baptism was going to be unique in that when He came upon them they would "receive power" (Acts 1:8). The power would enable them to be faithful to God, so faithful that they would live as witnesses of Christ as the Church spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Two thousand years later the Church lives in this same promise and in the same power. At least, the Church is invited to do so.

Whether or not the Church lives in the power of the Spirit today is under debate. The truth is, however, we are never the Church when we live by a power that is not of God. God's power is what makes us who we are.

Our abilities, our talents, our savvy, our skills, our gifts are wonderful, and thank God for them. But, these are not what make us the Church. It is the power of the Holy Spirit in a people that makes them the Church. In Him we live and move and have our being. It is the power of the Spirit who brings to us the very life of God that makes us the Church

Don't try to be the Church in your own capacities, but do let the Holy Spirit baptize you with power. Then, you will find that God is at work in your life, and that you are a vital part of something wonderful for and from God ~~ the Church of Jesus Christ.

Religion is an interesting animal. It can bring life and it can bring death. It can instill hate or it can inspire peace. It can unite or it can divide. Truthfully, it has been known to do all of these things through out human history. This is why religion makes me nervous. In fact, religion terrifies me because religion is too private and too subjective It acts out of the context of its own created foundations, and assigns the reason for the action, be they good, bad, or ugly, to God. So, religion is very human, very self-promoting, and very dangerous. It manipulates God to be what the religionist needs for God to be.

This is one of the reason I follow Jesus. I do not believe He is present to start religions. He is present, rather, to draw us to the living God. He expresses God’s desire for His creation to “seek him and perhaps reach out for him, and find him” (Acts 17:27).

Jesus shows us that it is God who created us and loves and that it is “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God has spoken into human history in the person of Jesus, and when He raised Jesus from the dead He manifested the fact that people can turn around and live differently than they once lived. Renewal is possible in this world.

The life of God can come into dead and barren places and breathe the breath of true life into them. Evil does not have to win. In Christ we see that God has spoken “with justice” (Acts 17:31), and has new things to do in us and in history.

It is when people let God be God in their lives we see the dramatic new reality God has in store. We don’t worship a principle or a theology or a doctrine. Rather, by grace we are drawn to a person, Jesus. In Him we see who God really is. We see God not as the unknown so much as the one who in Jesus makes Himself known, so known that renewal is always at hand.

What is it we Christians are saying to the world, something that nobody else is saying, that one thing that makes us Christian, that one thing that forms us into who we are?

In the ancient city of Thessalonica the apostle Paul helps us find our answer. Along with his ministry partner, Silas, he went to the synagogue, and to the people there “he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead” (Acts 17:2-3).

In his explaining and proving the Paul said an incredible thing. He told the people, “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ” (Acts. 17:3). Of his remarkable claim Luke says, “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women” (Acts 17:4)

What makes us who we are as Christians? Jesus who is the Christ. What continually shapes and forms our lives? Jesus, who is the Christ. What drives the Church to be faithful in all things to God? Jesus, who is the Christ.

So the question isn't really what. The question is Who. Who makes us Christian, who shapes and forms our lives, who drives the Church to be faithful? Jesus. It is in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

On the road to Damascus Saul of Tarsus didn't meet a doctrine or a position or a discourse. He met a person. He met Jesus and Jesus changed his life forever. So, in his evangelistic outreach Paul didn't particularly tell people what to believe. Instead, he gave them a whom; He gave them Jesus and called them to believe in Him.

And what did Paul want the people to know about Jesus? He wanted them to know that He suffered, died, and was raised from the dead. He wanted his world to know that in his resurrection Jesus was confirmed to be the Christ.

We live in an information drenched, rapidly changing, violent, and unpredictable world. We live there as Christians, proclaiming that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and is here today as both Lord and Christ to bring the very life of God into the human experience.

The message of Jesus is more up-to-date than is the last update of your computer’s news information and is laser sharp in penetrating the “thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Remarkably, even though Jesus knows the true thoughts and attitudes of the human heart, He is not present so as to trip us up concerning the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts (He doesn’t play gotcha games), but He is present to save us from ourselves so that we may experience the glory of being fully alive in the life that is God. We call it grace. In fact, we call it, “Amazing Grace.”

Living in Amazing Grace the church finds itself in this remarkable time in human history as the voice of hope. Jesus is present to enter into the storyline of every person, and to be in that story as both Lord and Christ. This is why the Bible brings to us teachings such as, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want” (Psalm 23:1) and, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

What a great time it is to live. What a great time it is to be Christian. What a great time it is to live within the embrace of “Amazing Grace.” What a great time it is to share the story of Jesus. What a great time it is fulfill our vows to God (Psalm 116: 14, 18) knowing that God is with us day-by-day, each step of the way, and that God is with us as the One whose presence is so real and so meaningful that we must conclude, “I shall not be in want.”

Regardless of what your future may or may not be, enter into it under the anointing of the One who is your God. Come to it in the power of God’s faithfulness.

On the day of Pentecost and in response to Peter’s appeal for people to “save yourselves from this corrupt generation,” 3000 people joined up and entered into a new way of life, the Jesus way of life. At the end of the day they realized that a new creation had emerged and that the world, from then on, would never be absent the church Jesus is building.

And what a church is was. There was awe. There were wonders and miraculous signs. There was sacrifice. There was generosity. There was fellowship. There was worship. There was witnessing. They prayed together and gathered together to hear important teaching from their leaders. There was a sense of unity that so bonded the people that they “ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God” (Acts. 2:42-47). God was on the move in the early church, and in many remarkable ways the world has not been the same since the activities recorded in Acts chapter two.

In short, the early church was a people under the influence of the Holy Spirit. They were accused of being under the influence of alcohol but Peter corrected that error in His dynamic sermon, and he let the listeners know that what was happening wasn’t of alcohol. This was a God thing.

I wonder if what is happening in our culture through the church a God thing. I often wonder, “what ever happened to the wonder?” Have we become too familiar with God things so that we’ve lost the wonder? Is “awe” too unscientific for the day in which we live? In our church, and in my life, what can be explained only because of the presence of God?

My prayer is simple: “O God, please connect us to the Vine so that the very life blood of the resurrected Jesus pulsates through our being. Pour out Your Holy Spirit, take over, and have Your way.”

Easter is that day when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Actually we do this every Sunday but on this one day, we stop on purpose and with deep intention to remember and to celebrate the event itself; the one event that forms and shapes all it means for Christians to be Christian. That Jesus was raised from the dead brings a new way of being in the world, a resurrection way of being in the world.

So it is that on another significant day in history a, when God kept His word and poured out His Spirit on His people, the apostle Peter preached a message that was rooted and grounded in the fact that God had raised Jesus to life again (Acts. 2: 32). Pentecost was the day Jesus baptized His Church with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matt. 3:11) and what did Peter preach about? The resurrection of Jesus.

In the power of the Holy Spirit Peter confirmed the fact that "it was impossible for death to keep its hold on" Jesus (Acts. 2:24). He confirmed that the ancient king, David, "was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants of his throne" (Acts. 2:30). Peter confirmed that what king David did was to look to what was ahead and that there he saw, "the resurrection of the Christ" (Acts. 2:31). And, to it all Peter bears his own witness and says, "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact" (Acts 2:32).

Today we are called to a Spirit-baptized witness to the living Christ. Jesus isn't on the cross today and He isn't in a tomb. He lives, and like those of our past we, too, are Faith-witnesses that death itself is defeated and that only Jesus Christ is Lord.

It reads so casually we might miss it, yet it brings to us the incredible mystery of our Faith The apostle Peter said of Jesus in Acts 10:39, “They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him for the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.”

Excuse me? They what? And God what on the third day? They killed him but God raised him. Okay. If you say so. It reads like, “Please pass the butter They killed Jesus you know (can I have the salt, too) but God raised him from the dead.”

Of course it wasn’t quite that nonchalant but I am struck how such a radical and almost unbelievable event could be spoken of without a band playing in the background and without lights blinking and without some kind of incredible Hollywoodish-like fanfare. I mean, isn’t this huge? This isn’t huge. This is mammoth.

At the heart of our story is the remarkable truth, "they killed him but God raised him." And why did God raise him? Peter said it was so that everyone who would believe in Jesus would receive "forgiveness of sins through his name" (Acts. 10:43). Whatever we do for Jesus must make known the offer of His forgiveness. It is why He was raised from the dead. It is what the Father wants. It is what people of every race, creed and color need.

The apostle Peter tells us that wherever Jesus went, "he went…doing good and healing" (Acts 10:38). As His followers this is what we do, too. We don't just preach the Gospel of Jesus; we do good in the name of the Gospel of Jesus. We teach, we empower, we feed, we clothe, we lift human beings up to their full potential, a potential defined by that one day in history when the Father "raised him from the dead."

Go. You are forgiven. Now, do good in Jesus' name. Live the forgiven life and bring grace into your world.

It is the paradox of Messiah’s earth bound reality. Jesus enters Jerusalem with royal praise and approval, seated humbly on the back of a donkey. And make no mistake about it; the donkey was a strategic part of the story. It was a symbol of peace, not war.

He came in peace but by the end of the week they would make war against Him and He would be brutally assaulted and crucified. At the end of this horrific week they would place a placard on the cross proclaiming Jesus to be the King He really is. And what kind of king is He? He is a King who rules by self-giving and who wins by losing.

Palm Sunday reminds us that things are not always the way they seem. Death can masquerade as life. Evil can impersonate good. Hate can rest just beneath the surface of praise, and the accolades of Hosanna can quickly turn to “Crucify Him.”

But then we ought not to be surprised at the Holy Week’s turn of events. Jesus said it was a must that He go to “Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and… be killed” (Matt. 16:21). Now we find ourselves at the beginning of the week Jesus said would happen.

Of course, Jesus also said something else. He said that after the suffering and dying He would, “on the third day be raised to life” (Matt. 16:21). That changes things a bit, doesn’t it? Indeed, suffering is not the last word and neither is death. After every word that can be spoken in this world one marvelous, wonderful and awesome word remains ~~ Resurrection.

Have you ever been in the "depths?" One time David prayed, "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold" (Ps. 69:1-2). David wasn't really in literal waters, but it was like he was drowning in the overwhelming issues crashing down around him. Depth captures the emotion of terror, fear, pain, grief, questions, and conflict that can hold the human heart captive.

In Psalm 130, a song the people sang on their way to worship, there is a prayer the people prayed, "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord" (vs. 1). So, they knew about depths, too. Let me ask again, have you ever been in the depths? Are you in the depths now?

You're probably thinking, "What silly questions! When am I ever not in the depths of something crashing in around me?" Good point. Life is hard and complicated, with pressures bearing down on us some from within and self-inflicted, and others from without and beyond our control.

The ancient worshipers had it right in that they brought their very lives into the reality of God and they put their hope in the Lord whose love was unfailing (vs. 7). Unashamedly they prayed, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope" (vs. 5). They took God seriously and made God the focus of their existence. You can feel their passion in their words, "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning" (vs. 6).

And, Israel had it right. The real problem at the root of all problems is the resulting effect of sin. They knew they didn't just need help; they needed God in their story. After all, they said, "with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins" (vs. 8).

It's a good idea to let God into our stories.

Have you ever been in the "depths?" One time David prayed, "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold" (Ps. 69:1-2). David wasn't really in literal waters, but it was like he was drowning in the overwhelming issues crashing down around him. Depth captures the emotion of terror, fear, pain, grief, questions, and conflict that can hold the human heart captive.

In Psalm 130, a song the people sang on their way to worship, there is a prayer the people prayed, "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord" (vs. 1). So, they knew about depths, too. Let me ask again, have you ever been in the depths? Are you in the depths now?

You're probably thinking, "What silly questions! When am I ever not in the depths of something crashing in around me?" Good point. Life is hard and complicated, with pressures bearing down on us some from within and self-inflicted, and others from without and beyond our control.

The ancient worshipers had it right in that they brought their very lives into the reality of God and they put their hope in the Lord whose love was unfailing (vs. 7). Unashamedly they prayed, "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope" (vs. 5). They took God seriously and made God the focus of their existence. You can feel their passion in their words, "My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning" (vs. 6).

And, Israel had it right. The real problem at the root of all problems is the resulting effect of sin. They knew they didn't just need help; they needed God in their story. After all, they said, "with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins" (vs. 8).

It's a good idea to let God into our stories.

Having grown up as a shepherd boy in the hills around Bethlehem, king David knew all about sheep and he knew all about shepherds. One day when he reflected upon the greatness of his God he spoke of God as his shepherd.

David’s faith expression prompts some questions. How do people in what is being called a postmodern age, what some are calling a post-Christian age, see God? Is God a shepherd? Does God care? Is there a tender side to God? Is God a strict taskmaster, seeking his pound of flesh? Is there a God, and if there is how personal is God?

David thought God was very personal. To Him God was like a shepherd, drawing near his sheep to do whatever it takes to watch over them. He is a God who protects, who leads, who guides, even when the enemy surrounds His people.

The Shepherd won’t let his people live in denial, either. The world is filled with enemies of the Christian soul, and David isn’t hesitant to use the title “enemy.” Factors are at work in the world that can easily lead to paralyzing fear, but those factors are overpowered by the reality of the presence of the Living Shepherd-God.

For David life in God is life at it’s greatest possible meaning. The sheep are blessed because God is present. The enemy may still be there, mind you, but so is God. The cause of fear may still be there, but so is God. The valley of the shadow of death may still be there, but so is God.

So, the people of God journey with God leading them forward under His anointing and following them by His goodness and love (Ps. 23:5-6). This means we have divine grace for today and divine hope for tomorrow.

Can you say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want” (Ps. 23:1)?

They had a nickname for the place; they called it Massah-Meribah, the place of strife and testing. It was the place where the people of God decided they had been betrayed by God and His spokesman, Moses. It was the place where the people decided they knew more than God. It was the place where God said, “Enough.”

It would take a while for the “enough” to run it’s course, but a seed of rebellion was revealed at Massah-Meribah that would haunt the people until they had all died (except for Joshua and Caleb, but that’s a story for another time). This rebelling generation didn’t make it to the promise land, but died in the desert where they told God over and over that He wasn’t very good at His job, and that they could do it much better (See Exodus 17:1-7 for the riveting details).

In Psalm 95 a passionate appeal is made that people of God not be like those folks of Massah-Meribah but that they be a people who bow down in worship before the Lord their Maker (6). In worship the people proclaimed, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation” (2). In worship they said, “Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song” (3).

No rebellion here; no fussing at God because He’s not Johnny-on-the-spot. Rather a proclamation that “The Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods” (3). In the ebb and flow of life the people knew and confessed, “He is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care” (7).

God provided water at Massah-Meribah because that is the kind of God He is. Today He is with us. “Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (6).

Wondering if anyone might respond to the following statement:

"A social justice that does not call forth repentance in persons is not the social justice revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ."

Any feedback (pro or con) will be appreciated, as I am in an ongoing discussion with several people who wonder about the way the church is choosing to address issues that come under the umbrella of Social Justice. This quote came up the other day, and I really would like some feedback.

Thanks,
Rick

What is hope? How would you define hope? Is it a sense that some how, some way, things will work out for the better? Is it a feeling that no matter how bad things get there will still be a future? Is hope an intellectual activity by which we assess a given situation and conclude, "It's not as bad as it could be"?

An ancient psalm defines hope as a relationship a people has with God. Hope, it seems, is bound to the significant connection people have with the one who is God. It's not about strength or wishing or even dreaming about how things might be better.

Hope is about the integrity of God never to be less that He promised He would be. Hope is about settling down in God's "unfailing love" (Psalm 33:18), with a sure and certain conviction that come what may, God "is our help and our shield" (Ps. 33:20). Hope is coming within the embrace of God, whose arms are open wide, and relaxing our lives in His life, knowing "we can trust in his holy name" (Ps. 33:21).

So, maybe the question is not, "What is hope." Maybe the question is, "In whom do you trust." From the psalmist's perspective the one in whom we trust is no one less than Sovereign God. From His sovereign perspective God looks into the human situation and sees the ways and means of mankind. He is not unaware. In fact, He is sovereignly aware and compassionately present to draw near to all who fear him and who recognize that He is, in fact, at work in the world.

Hope comes from trust, and trust comes from integrity. We do not hope in those we cannot trust. God's name can be trusted, however, and whatever lies ahead we know that we come to it within the embrace of the One whose sovereign love is unfailing. That is hope.

February 10, 2008

Honest introspection and truthful self-awareness I fear, are far from the thinking of many people. These instruments of insight are far too painful and require far too much discipline for the unserious. Ours is a day of self-exaltation, not self-inspection. We want what we want when we want it and the thought of possibly laying aside the dreams we have dreamed for ourselves is simply unthinkable. We have money to make and homes to build and boats to buy, not to mention credit cards to maintain and sights to see.

All this being said we come to king David of ancient Israel. He had it made. He had wealth and a temple and servants. You name it and David had it. He also had lust in his heart, a lust that caught him totally off guard one day. The next thing you know this man who had it all found himself in bed with another man's wife, got her pregnant, and arranged for her husband to come back from war in hopes he would sleep with his wife and that everyone would then conclude the husband was the father. Then everything would be hunky-dory. The plan didn't work so David sent the husband to the front lines in hopes that he would die in battle. This would free the wife to remarry. Then everything would be hunky-dory. This plan worked and the deceit was underway, with everyone but God.

Sometimes God can be so inconvenient, always calling for truthfulness the way He does. This time God sends a prophet into the David's presence and the prophet reveals the sin in David's heart, daring to speak the truth to him.

Here a remarkable thing happens. David receives the truth, chooses not to run from it, and enters into a time of honest and truthful self-inspection. He pleads for forgiveness and even asks that God would cleanse his life.

Suddenly we see a different David. The truth has found him out, and he owns it, prayerfully asking God, "Create in me a pure heart… Restore to me the joy of your salvation" (Ps. 51:10, 12).

May God help us not to run away from truth but to run to it. We, too, are broken and flawed but, like David, we can choose for God. By His grace, we can choose for God. We are under no obligation to choose against God. Let us hear the truth, and be what truth enables us to be.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in over my head in this thing called, following Jesus. I can’t tell you the number of times I think I’ve finally got some things figured out when life throws a mind-blowing curve at me, and I find myself realizing that I’m just a kindergartener finger painting his way through grad school. It’s not a pretty sight.

These feelings come rushing in on me when I see two longings on the part of the apostle Paul that are in such stark contrast to each other that I am left thinking surely he didn’t mean what it looks like he meant. One of them I get because I’m an American. The other one I don’t get because I’m an American.

The one I get is the one where Paul says he longs to know Christ and to share in the power of his resurrection. I get that. Who wouldn’t? To share in the power that is nothing short of resurrection, that’s huge. That puts one on the winning team. That puts one ahead of the pack, dancing in the end zone having made the defense look silly. I get that.

The one I don’t get is the one where Paul says he longs to know “the fellowship of sharing in the sufferings of Christ, becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10). Now wait a minute. Dancing in the end zone because you just blew the defense away is one thing; longing to be creamed by the defense on your way to the end zone, that’s something else. (Please forgive my football fascination but the Super Bowl is coming up).

Resurrection is about power. Suffering is about weakness. And, most of us don’t want much to do with weakness. We’re Americans, my goodness.” We ain’t taken nothing from nobody (pardon my English). Yet Paul says he longs to participate in a fellowship of sharing the sufferings and death of Jesus.

Is it not refreshing to discover a life that is not rooted in self-help and in the need to always win but is rooted in the life of the One who comes into our very real human lives and works the works of God there? Could it be that in the midst of a relationship born of a suffering and a death that we are enabled to face our demons and find the life for which we so desperately seek?

Could it be that our suffering alongside Jesus enables us to better hear the cries of those around us, and causes us to break free from the heresy of always having to win and, instead, find it is grace we need and not just power.

Some things just aren’t worth fighting over or loosing sleep over. One thing is certain and it is that God’s will is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Rom. 12:2 NIV), Place this Biblical truth alongside the fact life is short and eternity is forever, and we see that what we really ought to do is to embrace what really matters; to embrace what we believe really matters to God.

The apostle Paul told the Corinthian Christians that they were majoring on minors and fussing over things that didn’t need to be fussed over. They were all hot and bothered about who had been baptized by whom. Can you believe that? So-in-So baptized me. Oh yeah, well, Whatcha McCallit baptized me. That’s nothing, I was baptized by Old-What’s-His-Name. And, Paul said, “Stop it. Will you just stop it?

Some things just don’t matter. Some things do, mind you. Things like “to preach the gospel” (I Cor. 1:17). Now, that matters. To proclaim the gospel so that the cross of Christ is exalted and filled with the power of Almighty God, now that matters.

Now a question. How can we, as believers in a local church, live in such away that the cross of Christ is not emptied of its power but is revealed to be the very power of God (I Cor. 1:18)? Whatever the answer is I am quite sure that majoring on minors is not a part of it.

How can we major on what really matters, on things that matter for all time and eternity? What does a majoring-on majors congregation look like?

Paul calls the church to live in a spirit of unity, a spirit of Christlikeness where we are so caught up in the life of Jesus that everything falls under His authority. Now, that’s a major.

Jesus did not come into history out of a vacuum. If He had come this way, we wouldn’t have a clue as to how to understand Him. Instead, however, Jesus comes from within the context of a people. He has a family tree, a heritage that shaped and formed Him in His earthly life, a foundation out of which He shares the glory of God. In the New Testament book of Romans the apostle Paul spoke of “the gospel of God which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son…Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 1:1-4). So it is that we see Jesus in the Old Testament.

Of this, John Wesley wrote in His commentary on Isaiah, “As the name of David is sometimes given to his successors, so here the name of Israel may not unfitly be given to Christ, not only because he descended from his loins; but also because he was the true and the great Israel, who, in a more eminent manner, prevailed with God, as that name signifies, of whom Jacob, who was first called Israel, was but a type.” So, what we see in the Old Testament prophet prepares us for how the true Israel, Jesus Himself, was to be among us in this world of ours.

In Isaiah chapter 49 the prophet speaks of God’s Servant and of how His Servant would be “a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:6). The one true Servant, Jesus, is on a mission to bring the salvation of God to the end of the earth. He is a light shining in the dark places of life. He shines not simply to help us but to save us. Truthfully, we are in over our heads, and we need God. We need Him badly; desperately, if you would. And, He has come to us in Jesus. In Jesus we see the glory of God (Is. 49:3), and life can’t get much better than that.

The world is changing so fast in so many ways that the message of change promised throughout the Old Testament might be overlooked. Familiarity breeds the possibility of over-familiarity, and over-familiarity can breed many things, including neglect.

Yet, in Isaiah 42:9 the prophet looked forward to a time when God’s people will be impacted by “new things” God promises to do. The “former things” were wonderful, but they are former. God was going to do a new thing.

God had a servant who would bring forth justice to the nations. He would be powerful and authoritative but He would also be humble and gentle. His mission was not to crush but to heal and to bring the spirit of justice into the human situation. He would live in justice but He would conduct Himself in such away that it is said of him, “A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish” (Is. 42:3).

As Christians we believe it is Jesus in whom God has ultimately spoken to the human situation. Through Jesus, God’s new thing breaks into history, and He is present to speak to the deepest needs of the human experience. In His life the very life of God comes among us. The God who “created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it” (Is. 42:5) has come up-close-and-personal.

Through His Servant God fulfills a promise. He draws near in intimacy and communion to “hold you by the hand and watch over you’ (Is. 42:6). He is a living “covenant to the people” (Is. 42:6), and a constant reminder that God is not off at a distant but present in His world, and present here to be God.

God is up to something wonderful.

Like many people, I love a good mystery. Plot twists and surprise turns in a good story hold me spellbound. Sometimes the twists and turns of a story are so unexpected for me that I find myself stunned as I try to process it all. I love a good mystery.

In Jesus a mystery has been resolved and a new storyline breaks into history. What was once uniquely Jewish now becomes a worldwide phenomenon. Of God one of the ancient psalms says, "May the whole earth be filled with His glory" (Ps. 72:19). In Jesus it happens and "the unfathomable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8) are extended to everyone of every race, creed, color and background. In Jesus we come to see that "the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Eph. 3:6).

Jesus is the Messiah of every human being on the earth. He is God's response to the human situation. In Jesus God draws near and brings grace, mercy, forgiveness and hope into the story of every person. He is bigger than culture, bigger than race, bigger than religion. He is bigger than philosophy, bigger than ideology, bigger than perspective, outlook and point of view.

What Paul calls, "The unfathomable riches of Christ" are available to you, your family, your friends and your neighbors. The apostle John said that in Jesus "was life and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). There is no one outside the reach of God's grace and there is no one who. if they called on Christ, will be turned away. He is the Messiah for all.

Let's be authentic and aggressive as we continue to tell the story of Jesus and His unfathomable riches. If not us, who? If not now, when?

First Sunday After Christmas, 2007

In the dark night of her soul, homeless Judah receives a word of promise and hope. Her captivity has ended, a new day has dawned and a new name is given to her. She will no longer be referred to as "Forsaken" and "Desolate." Now she will go by the name, "My delight is in her." Her Land will be called, "Married." Once again God will rejoice over her (Isaiah 62:4-5). So great will be the turn-around that God's people will now be referred to as a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of…God (Is. 62:3).

What a transformation. What a God. From disconnection and disenfranchisement to the place of community and home and future, all because of the grace of God. To this Isaiah simply says one thing, "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not keep quiet" (Is. 62:1). It was too powerful, too wonderful, too dramatic, and too awesome to remain quiet. It had to be shared.

We still share it today. What happened in the life of Judah is available for every person. God has spoken and the future can be different than the past. Old can be replaced with new. Deadness can be replaced by life. What once defined our lives no longer has to be that which defines our lives. "Desolate" and "forsaken" no longer must be our names. God is present to be in our lives so meaningfully that we become a crown of beauty and a royal diadem.

The new life was to be so wonderful for Judah that Isaiah said, "God will rejoice over you" (Is. 62:5). What an image, God rejoicing over His people. In a way, though, it makes sense. Being shaped and formed in the image of the God of all grace brings a people to that place where God is free to do what He longs to do in the lives of His creation; Bless them with honest and authentic blessing.

Live in God and have a grace-covered rest of your life.

Fourth Sunday of Advent

In Matthew’s Gospel the birth of the Son of God into human history isn’t told. The closest we come to a telling of the story is Joseph’s dream about what was happening to Mary, and that only takes eight verses, or about 200 words. The genealogy of Jesus’ family tree at least gets 17 verses, and you’ve got to really know your history to appreciate those 17 verses. My goodness, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address took 278 words, and historians tell us it was far too short a speech for the importance of the occasion.

I’m not sure what all this means but I do find it intriguing that an event so important to the human situation is more referred to than told. Apparently, we don’t need the details of the birth of Jesus. What we need is what those details reveal. And, what they reveal is that this baby is no one less than “Immanuel, which translated means, “’God with us’” (Matt. 1:23). This fact takes a few more verses and a whole lot of words to explain its meaning. It fact it takes four Gospels, a historical telling of the story of the first church, several letters and a prophetic revelation to give us understanding about what it means for God to be with us.

I am thinking that what we really do need to absorb into our lives in Advent is the meaning of the birth of Christ event and not the event itself. After all, if God really is with us this is huge. I mean, this is really huge.

I remember the day of my children’s birth. It is burned into my memory. However, time moves on and kids grow up and life unfolds. You can’t spend too much time on the birth experience because there is a whole lot of living to do after that event.

The day of Jesus’ birth means something to us only because of the years following His birth where He really did reveal that, in deed, God is with us. Now, that is a cause for outrageous celebration.

Third Sunday of Advent 2007

Sometimes I feel like getting my self on a mountaintop and proclaiming to the top of my voice, "Behold the wonder that is God." Mountaintop or not, however, we followers of the Christ ought to find ways in our living and in our being to proclaim the wonders of God.

Think about it. God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, comes up close and personal so much so that to capture it all Isaiah the prophet turned to metaphor and hyperbole to speak of what it means when God is present. In his telling of the story he uses phrases like, "the wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the desert will rejoice and blossom (Isaiah 35:1). He speaks this way to describe the difference God will make even in dry and barren places of life. There will be rejoicing and glory and streams of fresh flowing water in the desert. It will be a time when everything is stamped with grace and the glory of God will be seen and experienced everywhere.

In those days people will see "the majesty of our God," (Is. 35:2), and the good word to "the exhausted, the feeble and the anxious" will be, "Take courage, fear not" (Is. 35:3-4). The healing power of God will be present and the influence of God's love will spring up like pools of fresh water in the blistering heat of the desert.

A highway of the holiness of God will makes its way through the barren places and those who say YES to God will be invited to walk on that highway, and the blessings on that journey will be so great that Isaiah says the people, "will come with joyful shouting to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads" (Is. 35:10). People who walk on that highway, Isaiah says, "will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away" (Is. 35:10).

God has invited us to join up and be with Him. He is the difference out there in the heat of the day. It is His presence that makes all things new. The desert is still the desert but the desert is not God. God is God, and He is present to touch our lives and to draw us to Himself that in Him we might live.

Come to God, Isaiah says, "and "He will save you" (Is. 35:4). He will save you from anything that keeps you from hearing and receiving His take-courage-and-fear-not word.

Second Sunday of Advent 2007

We live in a violent world. It’s hard to ignore the daily news of man’s inhumanity to man that seems rooted in every culture, every neighborhood, every city and every nook and cranny. Where there is a way evil will raise its ugly head and somebody, many times the innocent, will suffer the consequences. There is no safe place anymore, but there ought to be.

The one safe place ought to be in the community of those who have come within the embrace of God. The Church is that people who have come to God’s holy mountain in order to be shaped and formed by His life. Therefore, the Church is that people who are led by God’s Messiah, and they are led in paths of peace. People of God’s Church live and move and have their being in Jesus, and in Jesus the remarkable and unfathomable occurs.

To illustrate just how remarkable and unfathomable the prophet Isaiah turned to story and imagery. He speaks utter nonsense when he speaks of the wolf and the lamb dwelling together and of the leopard and young goat lying down together and of the calf and young lion being together and the cow and the bear grazing together (Isaiah 11:6-7). What Isaiah is saying is that the incompatible are at peace with one another.

The Church must be that place where the incompatible find a home. It must be that place where swords are hammered into plowshares and where spears are hammered into pruning hooks (Is. 2:4). It must be that place and that people where war is studied no more and where peace reigns. It must be that place where nations and peoples no longer lift up swords against each other.

Impossible? Sure sounds like it. Yet, in Christ all things are possible. So, we proclaim God’s “little boy” (Is. 11:6). We bow our lives to Him and we submit to His Lordship, and those who have really done these things stand amazed at what God can do.

First Sunday of Advent 2007

Would-be presidents are roaming the country these days, with the cameras rolling of course, telling us how they will resolve world conflict. Forgive me if I don’t get too excited about it all. I’ve just been through too many presidential campaigns to take anybody too seriously.

I do take the son of Amoz seriously, however, partially because of his brutal honesty and partially because of his forthright passion to let the truth fall where it falls. Isaiah had very little tolerance for teeing up and spin doctoring ideas. When he came on the scene he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth because he felt truth was more essential than loyalty to his nation. Actually, he felt that truth telling was essential to being loyal to his nation.

Through Isaiah God lays out His peace plan. It is a simple plan but in its simplicity it gets complicated. Why? Because God Himself is the peace plan, and lots of folks just don’t want to have much to do with the God of the Bible. Still the peace for which our planet longs, most of the planet any way, comes to us not in declarations and treaties and promises of governments but in the very life of God Himself.

He invites us to go up to His mountain and there learn His ways so that we may walk in His paths (Isaiah 2:3). He says that if we will do so there will be no need for nation to lift up sword against nation and that, in fact, “never again will they learn war” (Is. 2:4).

I would sure love to live to see that day. However, until that day the invitation is extended, “Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Is. 2:5).

This is what the Church should be doing, walking in the light of the Lord and modeling the peace that comes in that walk.” I’m not sure how well we do it, but the peace for which we long should begin at the altar of God and at the table of Jesus.

The Book of Common Prayer’s Gospel reading for November 25, 2007 is Luke 23:35-43. It’s a great text but, for me, it just doesn’t seem to fit for this Sunday, does it? Last Sunday maybe, but not today, Christ the King Sunday. On this day don’t you think we should be focusing on king stuff and not cross stuff. Yet, there we find the King, in all His capitol K glory, hanging on a cross being killed by His own creation.

Jesus is a different kind of king, however, so maybe He would be pleased for this text to be the text of the day. He was so absent of arrogance and so filled with humility and so loving and forgiving, maybe that is what we most need to see about Him on this last Sunday of Christian year.

Besides that, wouldn’t you know it, even in His dying moments He isn’t isolated but is so present as to bring the grace of God into the life of a man dying beside Him. In a few moments He will die saying, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit” (Luke 23:46). Before this, however, He prays “Father, into your hands I commit the spirit of this man beside me. His actions and decisions over the years have brought Him to this cross, Father, but today I’ve told him that he will be with me in Paradise. So, I give him to you, Father. Take him home.”

In the midst of all the sneering and mocking and abuse Jesus finds it in His heart to touch one more human being before He goes back to heaven. You know what? I think this unnamed criminal made it to paradise that day, not because of who he was but because of who Jesus is.

What a great story. What a wonderful moment in time. What a momentous act of forgiveness. More than these, though, what a Savior. What a KING.

It used to bother me that I didn’t have a better awareness of prophecies about the future. I just never could get the time frames down and the flow charts together or an exact understanding of what all those weird looking creatures in Biblical visions and dreams were all about. I felt like a failure that I couldn’t, with a sense of confident assurance, tell people exactly and precisely what was barreling down the pike toward them. Then one day I started reading the Bible a bit more closely.

Did you know Jesus Himself didn’t even know when He was coming back for His Church? In Mark 13:32 He said, “Of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” As if that isn’t enough, just prior to His giving the gift of the Holy Spirit to His Church He said, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts. 1:7). Sounds like dates and timetables and charts weren’t on His agenda.

What was on Jesus’ agenda was the fact that He was coming back, that the world was moving toward a day of judgment, and that as those days approached His people were to know that those days would “lead to an opportunity for your testimony” (Luke 21:13). In that light Jesus said two important things: (1) “See to it that you are not misled” (Luke 21:8), and (2) “By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19).

Instead of His people being preoccupied with “times and epochs” Jesus called them to know that they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit” had come upon them, and that in that remarkable power they would be His witnesses ”to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).

Spirit-filled power. Now that’s something worth sinking your teeth into.

W.C. Fields was not known for having a heart for the Bible, but one day he was caught reading the Bible, and he was asked why. His response was, “I’m looking for loopholes.”

Mr. Fields seems to have many friends all around the world who are doing the same thing-- looking for loopholes. One’s worldview drives this kind of looking-for-loopholds thinking. Some folk’s philosophy of life is so settled for them that anything not embraced by their belief system is challenged. Particularly, when it comes to Jesus it seems that some people will do just about whatever they need to do to trip Him up or trap Him so that they can win the “Gotcha” game.

In Luke chapter 20 we are told that the Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection so, of course, they had issues with Jesus who profoundly believed in resurrection. In order to stump Him and make Him look bad, I suppose, they came up with an outrageous story about a woman whose husbands kept dying. In that culture it was the responsibility of a brother to take care of a widow when her husband died. This woman started going through husbands like you wouldn’t believe -- seven of them; and the Sadducees wanted to know whose wife of the seven brothers she would be in heaven.

Jesus said they had missed the whole point. In heaven it’s not about marrying. It’s about being in the presence of God who changes an old order of things for a brand new sinless order. Besides that, Jesus said, God isn’t the God of the dead. That’s a “gotcha” question. God is the God of the living. This sounds like there may be a lot of stuff you and I need to work out long before we see who's marrying who in heaven, or what it means to be like an angel.

We really do need to stick with the real questions; questions that matter for all eternity. Do you believe in resurrection? If you do it wouldn’t be a bad idea to prepare for it. What we believe about resurrection is a pretty serious deal. Playing “Gotcha” games with God probably isn’t the best use of our time.

Long ago there was a hated Jewish tax collector by the name of Zaccheus, who was small in stature but still had a way about him that enabled him to do his job so well that he was rich. He worked for Rome and made his money off the backs of his fellow Jews who very much disliked him. In fact, his job, a long with every tax collector working for Rome had gained him the title, "Sinner." Needless to say, in a very real way he was a man without a country.

I suppose we all have our stories don’t' we? Through choices we've made, attitudes we've held, poor decisions that have disconnected us from family and friends, we find ourselves making it, but not really. We're okay but not really. Everything's fine, but not really.

Then Jesus came to town one day and Zaccheus wanted a look at the show. The only problem is that Jesus isn't much into show and before he knew what hit him, Jesus had invited himself to Zaccheus' house.

Exactly what happened over the next few moments is unclear. We just know that something profound and life changing took place in this tax collector. Suddenly he was making great promises and incredibly generous statements about how he was going to change his ways. He was going to give up to half his possessions to the poor and to those he had defrauded he was going to return to them four times as much as he had taken from them.

Apparently his response wasn't just words and empty promises. At least Jesus believed him and said, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham" (Luke 19:9).

This one man who was lost found God and it changed his life. I wonder if there are others like him around us. We really need to bring Jesus to them because Jesus said that He came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

He found you one day and me, too. I wonder if there’s anybody else in our town like us who also needs to be found by God?

Jesus had some words to say to people whose religion had gone to their heads but not their hearts. Head religion is a dangerous enemy to those who long to know God. It builds false security and creates illusions of holiness, when holiness is, in fact, far, far away.

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells the story of a man whose Head was filled with religion but whose heart didn't know God. In this condition the man lived out his self-righteous charade, so full of himself that he actually "viewed others with contempt." So arrogant in his religious charade was he that he actually thanked God he wasn't like those other low-life people; you know the kind, "swindlers, unjust, adulterers, and tax-collectors." Apparently he was so busy fasting and tithing and self-exalting that "other people" were a nuisance to him, folks he didn't much want to be around.

As the man prayed at the altar of God one day, a certain tax collector, also wanting to pray but not feeling worthy enough to come inside the temple, just stood "some distance away" and said, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner" (Luke 18:13).

Of the two men who prayed that day only one was heard by God and it wasn't the one who thought of himself as being so very holy. Of the man who stood at a distance Jesus said he went home justified. Of the other man Jesus said (and may I have some literary license?) "Go home. You're wasting my time and yours."

Then Jesus said, "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:14). I think that's another way of saying, "Get real. Never forget from whence you come. Don't be religious. Instead, fall in love with God and live a life of love and forgiveness. Receive others the way God has received you."

Southern California fires

Hello, everybody,

A member of our church shared with me that her daughter and grandchildren have been evacuated from their home in San Diego County, along with thousands of others. I've watched the NEWS along with you and can't even begin to get my mind around all the devastation and suffering that is happening this week here in Southern California. In this matter, I am calling our church to prayer.

Some of you have friends who are impacted by the some 13 fires burning in Southern California today. It has been a devastating week, and for thousands of people this week is just the beginning of a long journey of recovery. I want to ask you to be available to help -- in prayer, in moral support, in financial assistance, in whatever way you can.

When the fires go out, and they will, the road to rebuilding and recovery will go on for months and months, if not years.

This is a time for persistent, tenacious, and ongoing prayer, and for persistent, tenacious and ongoing availability to serve others in whatever way we are able to do so.

Thanks for being there.

Pastor Rick Savage

It is a perplexing world in which we live – uncertain and bewildering. Life motivated one driver to put on his automobile bumper a sticker announcing to everyone behind it, ‘Life is hard and then you die.” Prophets of doom and gloom are everywhere.

Jesus, on the other hand, gathered His people around Him one day and told them a story. He told them this story “to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart” (Luke 18:1-8). Consequently we will not be putting on the church marquee the words of the bumper sticker theologian. Instead we invite everybody to gather around Jesus, listen to his story, and not become bitter, hard and cynical.

Life is hard, by the way, but Jesus calls us not to lose heart. Jesus calls us to the Father before whom we are invited to pour out our woes, or stories, and our lives. We are invited to the Father where Jesus says we will be heard and received.

Life is hard. Some things are just about unbearably hard. Some things rip at the heart and devastate the emotions. There are some things over which we simply must come before God and “cry to Him day and night.” And, the word of Jesus in these matters is that to those who do cry out to God day and night, He will bring about justice.

God does have a question, however. Jesus says, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:8)? Can we keep looking unto God when life keeps barreling down on us? When the times are hard and the temptation to cynicism is great what will we conclude, that Life is hard and then you die, or that life is hard but God is still God? Shall we give up or shall we give everything up to God? Jesus says, pray and don’t lose heart.

I’m with Him on this. Shall we pray together?

In a short, concise, and to the point story Luke tells us about Jesus and ten leprous men (Luke 17:11-19). The men had cried out to Jesus for mercy and it was mercy He gave them, mercy in the form of physical healing. Then He sent them off to church so that the priests could see that they were healed. If the priests were satisfied then a process could be started that would allow these ostracized men to enter again into the community and get their lives back.

One of the men put his trip to the priests on hold, turned around and came back to Jesus to thank Him for the act of mercy that had been extended to him. Luke says the man was “glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at [Jesus] feet, giving thanks to Him” (vs. 15-16). Jesus had asked none of the ten to do this and none of the ten did, except this one man who had two issues going against him – he was a leper and he was a Samaritan.

Jewish folks and Samaritan folks didn’t get along too well and I’m not sure that just any priest would have received this Samaritan. We’ll leave that to the speculators. What we do know is that this Samaritan man came back to this Jewish man, fell on his face before Him and gave thanks.

Jesus was impressed. He knew this man was a “foreigner” (vs. 18), and He knew this man’s issues. Maybe that’s why He was impressed, that instead of an act of narcissism, this one lone Samaritan-foreigner forgot about himself for a moment and fell on his face before this One who had made such a profound impact on his life.

Putting the future on hold just to give thanks. That’s the kind of guy I would like to know. That’s the kind of guy I want to be.

“Mustard seed” talk from the lips of Jesus is intriguing to me (see Luke 17:5-10). He seems to be obsessed with the littleness of the mustard seed and yet also moved with the possibilities of power and potential within that small seed. What Jesus has to say about faith he says in the context of this very small seed, a seed so small that one might be deceived into thinking that nothing large or great could come of it. But they would be wrong.

“Faith like a mustard seed” (vs. 6) has power in it no one can fully explain. We think if we had more faith or greater faith things would be different and we could do great things for God. Jesus says that (and please forgive me for being some what simplistic) little faith operating within the reality of God so changes the dynamics of any given situation, or people, that what has been thought of as impossible is now seen in a different light so much so that it is like speaking to a great “mulberry tree” and commanding it to “be uprooted and be planted in the sea” (vs. vs. 6).

Now, I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble but I need to tell you that you probably ought not to go out commanding mulberry trees to uproot and go into the sea. First of all they wouldn’t budge and secondly, most of them are fine right where they are, thank you very much. So, what in the world is Jesus driving at?

Maybe Jesus is telling His people to quit acting like God is dead and start living like He is very much alive. Maybe Jesus is telling us that life in the kingdom is not defined by life in this world but that life in the kingdom is defined by the life of God. In God maybe little is much. Maybe small is enough. Maybe my life in the hands of God is a life that has God-size potential and possibility.

May God is God after all. Maybe after everything is said and done there is still God. Maybe we can be what God has called us to be. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?

Of all the things it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ it seems that receiving persons as persons is very high on the list. We live in a much divided world, an us-verses-them world. We have the rich and the poor, my tribe and your tribe, my color and your color, my ways and your ways – and never the twain shall meet. And, Jesus says NO to all this.

Jesus tells us the story of a very rich man whose wealth allowed him to do just about whatever he wanted to do, and He tells the story of a very poor man, a man so poor that he didn’t have health care, and lived out his days “covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s tables” (Luke 16:20).

The rich man had no place for God in his life and the poor man had much room in his heart for God. Then they both died, and Jesus tells us the rich man was totally unprepared for the day of this death and was greatly tormented, but that the poor man was taken up to be with God and found great comfort in the presence of God (Luke 17:25).

I’m not sure at all that this story is about wealth and poverty. I think it is about living truly human lives, living in the mind and spirit of the One who created us. I believe it is about living without walls and in a community where everybody is somebody simply because they are God’s creation, and not because of what they can or can’t bring to the community.

After it was too late the wealthy man had a spiritual epiphany. Too bad he didn’t have it when out of his abundance he could have made a difference in the life of another human being. Maybe that’s why Jesus told the story, to remind us that we still have time -- We still have time to bring the grace of God into our world.

September 21, 2007

I can’t get away from something Phineas F. Bresee said almost a hundred years ago: “Our church is a missionary church that knows no difference between home and foreign fields--- in these days all fields are near.”[1]

“These days” for us is the beginning of the third millennium after Christ and we are, indeed, in the midst of a mission field. Bill Sullivan once said, “We have seen America go from over 200 years of a basically Christian culture to a non-Christian culture that rejects the foundational principles of Christianity.”[2] Add to that, if you would, the words of Kennon Callahan: “The day of the churched culture is gone, the day of the mission field has come; the day of the institutional church is past, the day of the mission outpost has arrived; the day of the professional minister is over, the day of the missional pastor is here.”[3]

Suddenly we are confronted with realities that, in the human outlook, are overwhelming, and we are brought face to face with the fact that the work of Jesus in this world is of a spiritual nature that cannot be accomplished separate from Him.

Our greatest need is leaders, who, living in the power of the Holy Spirit and under the anointing of God, will look at our mission field through the eyes of Missionary passion, enter into the arena, pray until God is freely shaping and forming their lives, and then seek to seize the day for Christ.

If not now, when? If not us, who? [4]
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[1] Robert Scott, Next Door and Down the Freeway (Beacon Hill: Kansas City, 2001), 94
[2] Ibid., 11
[3] Ibid., 11 – 12
[4] Taken out of context, from President Ronald Reagan's Second inaugural address, Jan. 21, 1985

Can you love someone so fully and passionately that every other relationship pales in comparison to the one whose love has captivated your life? This is what Jesus asks of us. He calls us to love Him so fully that love for those who mean the most to us in this world (father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, even our own lives) pales in comparison.

So it is Jesus warns us to “calculate the cost” of what it means to follow Him, to be His disciple (Luke 14:28). In fact, he says, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27). As if that isn’t enough He continues, “None of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33).

No warm fuzzy feelings here. We’re talking about commitment. We’re talking about laying down our lives. We’re talking about climbing up on the altar and giving Jesus everything thing we have -- our time, our talents, and our treasures. We’re talking about not holding back but about giving everything to God. We’re talking about being sold out to God, hook, line and sinker. Total commitment.

Still want to follow Jesus? Think about it. “Calculate the cost” because, make no mistake about it, it will cost you. Do you love your father? Love Jesus more. Do you love your mother? Love Jesus more? Do you love your wife, your husband? Love Jesus more. Do you love your brothers and sisters? Love Jesus more. Do you love yourself? Love Jesus more.

Ready to sign on the dotted line? Good! Sign it in blood, then take up your cross and follow Jesus into the greatest life you could ever possibly image.

Jesus does it all backwards, doesn't He? In the natural order of things people seek appreciation, honor, respect. We want thank yous and well dones, and atta boys. Recognition is important and acknowledgment means everything.

Then Jesus comes along and throws everything into disarray, challenging just about every system that has ever been important to people. He turns self-exaltation on its ear and exalts humility over pride. He calls us to take our place at the back of the line and to find fellowship with "the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind" (Luke 14:13).

Somebody once said that all the ground is level at the foot of the cross. It's true. In a way that boggles the imagination God receives us all. There are no haves or have-nots in the kingdom of God, just folks who needed and received the grace of God. No pushing and shoving allowed. Not one-up-man-ship accepted. Better-than-thou thinking has no place, and everybody is somebody because Jesus is Lord.

The community of Jesus should be that one place where true equality is practiced and where persons as persons are received and treated with the dignity that being created in the image of God demands. In this community we must not push and shove on each other as we make our way to the top. Instead, we ought to be navigating our way to the back of the line, knowing that there we will meet Jesus.

It is not in the place of honor we find Christ. It is in the place of service, the place where Jesus puts us, that we are able most meaningfully to fellowship with the One who died that we may live. If they want us up front, they will call us. And, don't wait around the phone waiting for the call. Just, show up for Jesus today, and let your light shine. He will take care of everything else.

On the way to Jerusalem to suffer and die Jesus fielded a question. An onlooker asked Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved” (Luke 13:22)? Typical of Jesus He didn’t give a direct answer. Instead, He answered the larger question at hand, and challenged his listeners to look inward and find out where they stood in relation to “being saved.”

The issue is not how many or how few are “being saved,” but where does each of us stand in relation to the One who saves. How many or how few is beyond the scope of our authority. Only God can save. Therefore, Jesus poignantly speaks to the human heart when He says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:25).

His call to strive catches us off guard a bit, doesn’t it? After all isn’t grace free? Isn’t mercy free? What does strive have to do with what is free? It is an intriguing thought isn’t it but, perhaps, Jesus is calling us not to be so overly preoccupied with what is or isn’t happening in the lives of others and, instead, is calling us to “work out…our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).

Maybe it is when we are so mesmerized by the Lord God ourselves and so enthralled by His life that the head count doesn’t really matter, that we are most in tune with the One who saves. The issue before us is to truly live before God, not in vocabulary and religious expression, but really, truly, live in the very life of God.

We might be surprised when we get to heaven to see who is there and who is not. After all, Jesus said, “Some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30). I’m not sure what this means but it takes me back to His call to strive. This Christian life is serious business.

Jesus comes to us as the Prince of peace but He comes to us knowing His ways are not embraced by everyone. So, this One who is of peace also has a way about Him of bringing division (Luke 12:51). There is something about Jesus that leads people either to love Him or hate Him. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground. To some He is "foolishness" and "a stumbling block," and to some He is "the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. 1:18, 23-24).

This seems troubling on the surface -- the One of Peace bringing division. I suppose Truth has a way of dividing people. Particularly when one brings into the world the very life of God, it can get very dangerous. Holiness does not abide well with unholiness. Holiness and unholiness are worlds in conflict so much so that when the perfect one came among us the only thing we knew to do with Him was to crucify Him. That's how unholiness handles holiness. Kill it.

What must not be seen in this is a false understanding that Jesus legitimizes violence in the name of God. He simply does not. He is calling people into the very life of God, a life of Christlikeness. True, discipleship to a view other than the dominant view may invoke violence on the part of the one who is not comfortable with what Jesus is doing. However, the division must never come from within the heart of the follower of Jesus.

If the life of Jesus in His followers is, indeed, repulsive to those who don't believe in Jesus, so be it. However, in the end, His followers are still spokespersons for the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is about mercy, forgiveness and love. We simply do not have time for violence because violence does not accomplish the will of God.

The Bible says, "the kingdom of God is…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). As Jesus-indwelled people this is who we are, this is how we live. Let violence come from somewhere else.

“Treasure” is an interesting word. According to whom you read it could mean anything from money to wealth to affluence to assets to capital, or to possessions,” to list just a few definitions. I think words like values and priorities should be on the list, too.” Whatever the most correct definition might be, however, Jesus says our heart will be where our treasure is.

He says this in the context of passionately calling us to make God the one treasure before whom all other treasures bow. He asks us to truly believe that because the Father has been pleased to give us the kingdom (Luke 12:32) we, in turn, choose to live and move and have our being in the things of the Father. He is calling us to build our lives on the eternal, with the promise that do so is to build our lives on that which cannot be taken from us.

If our hearts will be where our treasure is then it really matters, doesn’t it, where our treasure is? What do we value? Our hearts will be there, and where our hearts are our lives will follow. For what or whom do we live? Each of us has an answer, and the answer is profoundly important to us.

As disciples of Jesus Christ may each of us set apart Christ as Lord of our lives (I Pet. 3:15). There are too many moths and too much rust, and too many thieves in the world to stake our lives on fortunes that have value only in terms of this-world value systems. There is more to life than meets the eye, and Jesus enables us to see that which is more.

Let us take what have been given to us and place it under the authority of the One who is the Giver of “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:16). Let’s give God our time, our talents and our treasures and then trust His faithfulness for both this world and the world to come.

August 5, 2007

Talk about a low blow. A certain man had finally made it to the top. He had more money than you could believe, and he was on top of the world. Then, wouldn't you know it, he up and died. Wealthy beyond belief and dead as a door nail. Bummer.

Jesus tells us this story in the context of a request made of Him that He felt was a question coming from greed. To the request He said, "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed," He said; "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15). And, once again, in telling a story Jesus gets us to thinking.

The man in Jesus story was engaged in three conversations, though he only knew about two of them. He was engaged in a conversation with his wealth that led him to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. He was engaged in a conversation with himself in which he concluded that he truly was fortunate to be so wealthy, so fortunate that it was time for him to "take life easy; eat, drink and be merry" (vs.19). Then he was engaged in a conversation with God, a conversation that had been put on hold in the midst of coming to the place in life where he could eat, drink and be merry. In the end the only conversation that really mattered was the one that had been put on hold.

Jesus' story leads us to see that when things of this life trump eternal things, we enter into very dangerous territory. When things of this life interfere with our conversation with God and distract us from living examined lives, we are on a collision course with outcomes for which we are totally unprepared, outcomes like dying and death.

Jesus says we are fools if we don't work into our self-talk and our plans the fact that we are going to die. We don't need to be overly preoccupied with it but we need to face it, and plan for it. Our stuff is temporary; our lives are forever.

Prayer is an intriguing gift of God to His people. It’s intriguing because as finite and imperfect beings we never know exactly and precisely how to pray. We are limited in knowledge and insight so all we can do is pray as we best know how, leaving the answering of prayer to God.

At the same time, Jesus does give us insight into how to pray. Better yet, He gives us insight into the God to whom we pray. Jesus tells us to come to Him as Father (Luke 11:2). We pour out our hearts to our Father whose name is “hallowed” and, we say to Him, “Your kingdom come.” (vs. 2).

What better way to pray than to ask the One who loves us and the One whom we love, for His kingdom to come and to be realized in this world. We may not be insightful enough to fully grasp a correct way to pray but the Father whose name is hallowed in our midst and whose will is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2) can be trusted fully and without hesitation.

Jesus calls us to trust the Father. Trust Him for each day’s provision (vs. 3). Trust Him to embrace us in forgiveness as we embrace others in forgiveness (4). Trust Him never to lead us into temptation (4). He is the Father. He can be trusted.

When you are in need or represent someone who is, pray, and don’t stop. Ask the Father. Seek for the Father’s intervention. Knock at the Father’s door in the sense of desperation. The Father will draw near, and bring to pass His “good, pleasing, and perfect” will.

Don’t trust your instincts or what you think the answer to your prayers ought to look like. Instead, trust the Father whose heart is compassionately open to His people.

It was in the heat of the day and the nomad, Abraham, was setting at the entrance to his tent, probably trying to beat the heat. For unannounced reasons he looked up and saw three men standing nearby. The Bible says to us the Lord was in those three men, and Abraham knew it. How he knew it, we don't know, but he knew he was in the midst of a divine appointment of some kind. Extending great hospitality to the strangers, and making sure their needs were met, Abraham listened.

The men asked him where his wife was. Abraham told them and then heard a message that would change his life. In the personhood of these three men, "the Lord said, 'I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son'" (Genesis 18:10).

Sarah overheard the conversation and laughed out loud when she heard about the year she was to have. Abraham was old and Sarah was well past childbearing age. Some things just evoke laughter when you hear them, I suppose.

We know the story. Some nine months later Sarah gave birth to the promised son. Isaac took his place in the unfolding plan of God, and the stage was set for God's remarkable grace.

Don't try to explain it scientifically; you'll come up short. Just receive it as an act of God who speaks creatively into history, and works in ways that leave the human intellect awed and amazed. The question is asked by the Lord to Abraham, "Is anything too hard for the Lord" (Vs. 14). The birth of Isaac gives us the answer.

As the people of God in Christ it wouldn't be a bad devotional action to ask our selves once in a while, "Is anything too hard for God?" The answer will always be NO. Still, there is a lot of Sarah in us, isn't there. And, sometimes it's hard to believe that with God all things are possible.

Believe it, though, because God is in the midst.

Jesus asked an expert in Jewish law how he read the law concerning how to “inherit eternal life” (Luke 10: 25). The answer given was pleasing to Jesus: “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself self” (Luke 10:27).

The expert wasn’t satisfied with Jesus approval, however, and, “wanting to justify himself,” (whatever that means), (vs.29), asked Jesus to explain to him exactly who qualifies as being a neighbor. Here Jesus gives what has come to be the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan.

A man is robbed, severely injured, and abandoned along a roadside. A priest and a Levite happen by and upon seeing the suffering man choose to move to the other side of the road and not make him a part of their life. Then a Samaritan, (an unappreciated and hated fellow from the other side of the tracks) happens by. And, wouldn’t you know it, he stops, extends mercy, tends to the suffering man’s needs, takes him to a motel, cleans him up, and pays the manager of the motel enough money to cover a couple of days expenses, with the promise that upon his return he would also pay for any other expenses incurred by the victim.

Then the parable takes a twist. Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers” (vs. 36)? His point wasn’t that the victim was the neighbor in need of help. The victim simply gave opportunity to reveal what a good neighbor is like. The neighbor is the Samaritan “who had mercy” on the victim. To this Jesus said, “Go and do likewise” (vs. 37).

What do followers of Jesus look like? Jesus says they look like this Samaritan fellow who when he could have moved to the other side of the road, also, chose, instead, to extend mercy. “Go,” Jesus said, “and do likewise.”

Apparently Pope Benedict disagrees with Vatican II and doesn’t view Protestants as “separated brethren.” His reasons may be many but the new announced one is that we do not recognize the primacy of the Pope. In fact, the rift from the Roman side takes it further and finds it very difficult even to acknowledge non-Roman Catholics as being the Church. The wording from the Vatican says something to this effect, "Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them.”

In reality, and with a certain degree of respect for the bishop of Rome, the sitting pope’s opinions haven’t really affected me one way or the other. He is entitled to disregard the heritage out which I come and summarily dismiss the Faith of Christ to which I hold; that’s his issues, not mind. I certainly don’t feel “wounded,” as the document says, and even though he thinks my little church is not a full church of Jesus Christ, the God we meet each week in worship begs to disagree.

The pope believes that Roman “Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.” Already many Roman Catholics are seeking to defuse this errant thinking. As Rev. Vincent Cushing, president of Washington Theological Union from 1975- 1999 says, "From a careful reading of the documents of Vatican II, it is clear that the Roman Catholic Church wished to affirm the ecclesial reality of the Protestant churches.”

The Pope believes that Protestants churches (I suppose we need to find a word other than church; maybe the bishop of Rome can speak for God on this matter, also) are “merely ecclesial communities” and that we don’t have “the means of salvation” within the Faith of Christ to which we hold.

As a Protestant minister I really thought Rome was bigger than this. I guess I was wrong. At any rate, I’m told the bishop is headed out for vacation this week. That’s a good thing, I think.

It is a wonderful life to live for God, especially when one lives it in God’s way. We live in a world where “the harvest is plentiful,” open and ripe for meaning and hope. And, in that world we live by faith. We live for God in the faith of Jesus and leave results to God. Some people will receive the Good News and some won’t. That decision is not ours to make. Ours is to live and move and have our being in the God who has saved us and made us whole. Ours is to live faithfully for the God of Good News.

The promise of Jesus is that He will use His Church to “overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). As His Church lives faithfully Satan “will fall like lightning” (Luke 10:18). Nothing will hold back the Gospel and Jesus will build His Church.

As powerful as this reality is, Jesus says it is not the reality in which we should rejoice. It is wonderful to be used of God; it is marvelous to be used of God. Yet Jesus says, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).

What a remarkable thought to think, that God has embraced us into His forever family and that our lives are covered by an amazing grace that brings to us the gift of Abundant and eternal life.

As we live graced by the Life of God we live with purpose and focus. We live with meaning and hope. We are not lost in a sea of doubt. We live in the certainty of Jesus. We live in love, acceptance and forgiveness. We live in the reality of Good News.

What a great way to live.

Disciples James and John, angry when a certain Samaritan village denied Jesus access, sought His permission to “call fire down from heaven to destroy them” (Luke 9:54). Jesus rebuked them for their thoughts and moved on “to another village” (vs. 55).

Sadly, James and John represent too many Christians who can’t seem to bring themselves to love their enemies and who seek, instead, to call fire down from heaven to destroy them. When are we going to learn to let God be God and knock off the nonsense of treating like dirt those who don’t think the way we think or believe the way we believe? This is a serious question and one to which we do well to pay attention.

When will we learn that our business here is to live Christ-formed lives, extending to others the very life of God? Ours isn’t to disenfranchise those who want nothing to do with Jesus; ours is to love them. Fred Pratt Green has this line in his hymn, When the Church of Jesus: “May our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware that the world we banish is our Christian care.” In another verse he writes, “Lord, reprove, inspire us by the way you give; teach us risen Savior, how true Christians live.”

Sure, there might be villages that don’t “welcome” Jesus and when it happens maybe we’ll have to move on “to another village.” Calling down fire on the place, however, seems a little extreme don’t you think? In fact, isn’t this one of our complaints about so called radial Muslims who maim, destroy and kill in the name of their understanding of God?

Before we call down fire from heaven maybe we ought to call down the Holy Spirit to baptize our own hearts with fire. Now, that would be a sight to behold.