The CLC Family Likes Giving

Blog »    The CLC Family Likes Giving
Monday, June 30, 2014

"And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.  In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.  For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,  they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us."                                      2 Corinthians 8:1-5 (NIV2011)

 

This is a really cool passage.   The apostle Paul bursts into praise over the personal generosity of the Macedonian churches.   They didn’t have much but their joy in having found (having been found by) the Lord caused them to want to give and giving made them happy.  They had given themselves “first to the Lord” and then to others.

Last weekend was amazing to me.  One of you was on a weeklong mission to the handicapped.  Another was commissioned to Romania.   Five others were in Panama.  Many others raised money for the Tamani orphanage in Kenya on Saturday morning.  Many others raised money for the Lighthouse in Oxford that Saturday afternoon.   Still others commissioned the ministry teams for Urban Promise on that Sunday evening.    Amazing!  

But that’s not all.   I met several people, new to CLC, who told me how warmly they were welcomed, not only welcomed but included.   One newer family told me how those who sit around them in worship rallied around them when severe sickness had arrived.   Those “neighbors in the pews” have been their pastors, their generous care givers.    There are scores of stories like these.

It’s all because you are church that likes giving!  I couldn’t be more proud of you or feel more humbled to be with you every week!!!

“Lord, thank you for the example of godly generosity which is right in front of me every single day as a member of the CLC family.   Incredible.  Please help me to more like them.   Amen”

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Raw and Brutal Emotions

Blog »     Raw and Brutal Emotions
Friday, June 27, 2014

 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
 There on the poplars we hung our harps,
 for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy;

 they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 

 How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?
 If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you,

 if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy. 

Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
                                             Psalm 137:1-9 (NIV2011)

 

Like all the Psalms this is a prayer, a song, a poem.   It is not doctrine from which our left brains gather information about theological propositions.   Instead it is a poem of and for a grieving people who ache, are angry, hurting, alienated, suppressed, defeated.   Israel has been leveled by Babylon and Israel’s best and brightest have been deported to Babylon where worship of God has been turned to grieving. 

Have you ever felt this way?   The bad guys seem to be winning, life is patently unfair and you have no hope for you future.   I have often been reminded how easy it is for suburbanites like me to be critical of the Psalm’s last line, when I and others like me have not suffered at the hands of Babylon or Stalin or Hitler or Mao or the rapist who has taken the life of a daughter.   Anger and bitterness are not only understandable but also demanded in the aftermath of wanton evil.   Jesus taught us to return good for evil, but prior to that decision are the emotions. 

Perhaps absence of anger is a more alarming symptom of falling away than desire for revenge.   At least we know that evil is evil and that for good to flourish, the bad inflection must be gotten rid of.    It must be killed.  The tooth must come out.   Revenge is a sin and to pursue it puts us in league with the perpetrators.   Yet the emotion that leads to the desire for revenge, rightly directed, is a sign of health.

“Lord, deliver me from the evil of revenge, but deliver me also from the temptation to accept evil as if it is simply inevitable, ordinary and easily forgivable without the terrible judgment and justice accomplished on the cross. Amen” 

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Why Does God Tell Us to Praise Him?

Blog »      Why Does God Tell Us to Praise Him?
Thursday, June 26, 2014

 

Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; 
And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.  

Not very many of us like the person who demands to be constantly honored, revered, admired, and assured of how wonderful he or she is.     Do you like that kind of person?   Furthermore do you like the kind of people who do that for that kind of person, the kind of person whose flattery keeps them in the loop of the one whom he is praising.

Why then would God want to be viewed as the kind of Being who demands praise and why would God want us to be like subservient “flatterers” out to appease our superior for self-serving reasons?

Perhaps the answer lies in the nature of praise.   Praise is not praise if it is demanded.  Nor do we feel someone is worthy of praise if that person demands it.   Yet we all know when we see something worthy of praise, not because a lot people deem the thing praiseworthy, but because it is praiseworthy in and of itself.   It has intrinsic not just conferred value.   Most of us have a seen a sunset or work of art or waterfall or another spectacular of nature and have been moved to praise because it was a spontaneous expression of wonder.    I watched the NBA finals and was moved to praise at the intrinsic beauty of a team coming together and playing “beyond themselves” because of their humility and enhancement of one another’s play.  

Furthermore is it not true that all praise spontaneously overflows into praise?   As CS Lewis puts it, “the world rings with praise, lovers praising their beloved, hikers praising nature”.    Healthy people praise.   Unhealthy people don’t.   Cynicism brings death.  Delight, praise, and, yes, worship of that for which the ultimate praise is due brings life.  

One other thing is true.   Is it possible to fully enjoy something without telling someone, without the exclamation, “how wonderful!   Did you see what I saw?"   Is not all delight incomplete until it is expressed?  

“Lord, before all beauty, before all wonder, before all delight there is You.   Every good and perfect gift is from You and is a reflection of You.  Therefore I praise You, not for what You do for me, but for who You are, yet, in doing so, my praising You itself brings life.  Amen”

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Hate Evil People?

Blog »      Hate Evil People?
Wednesday, June 25, 2014



I do not spend time with liars,
nor do I make friends with those who hide their sin.
 I hate the company of evil people,
and I won’t sit with the wicked.
Psalm 26:4-5 (NCV)  

It’s obvious to Christ followers that Jesus changed the Old Testament idea that believers should stay clear of sinners and even hate them.  Jesus was constantly getting himself in trouble because he would hang out with “sinners”.  How then can a Christian find value in the passage above and others like it?

There are several problems involved.   We all know that it’s smart to choose your friends wisely.   The apostle Paul reminds us that bad company corrupts.   A second question arises.   How is a believer supposed to behave in the presence of very bad people?  In particular how are we to behave in the presence of very bad people who are rich and powerful and from whom we can benefit if we simply make the most of our relationship with them?

It seems to me that it would require an extremely high and strong character to be able to hold onto one’s faith in the presence of, for example, a powerful, wealthy , but corrupt boss who can pay handsomely for loyalty to him.   Many there are who sell out, even in little ways, rationalizing compromises, looking the other way, tacitly participating in his corruption.  

Maybe the psalmist has wisdom that we need to hear.   No we are not to hate evil people, but it can be a really good idea to avoid them, not because we are ‘too good' for them, as CS Lewis has written, but “because we are not good enough.  We are not good enough to cope with the temptations”   We are tempted to connive, laugh at the wrong jokes, and 'consent' when the opposite would be required of a believer.     There is no easy answer to this because the salt of the world must not stay in the saltshaker, yet it must remain salty.     
                          

“Lord, I do want to be among those who choose to be among your enemies.  Help me to love them in such a way that You rub off on them at the same time that my 'saltiness’ remains salty.     Amen”  

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What Do the Psalms Tell Us About Death?

Blog »    What Do the Psalms Tell Us About Death?
Tuesday, June 24, 2014

 Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from
 everlasting to everlasting you are God.
 You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
 A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in
 the night.
 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of
 the morning:
 In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.
 We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.
 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
 All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.
 Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best
 of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
 If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is
 your due.
 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.   
                                      Psalm 90:1-12 (NIV2011)

                                                                                          

It seems quite clear from reading the Old Testament that the writers had little or no belief in a future life beyond the grave.   The word translated as soul simply means life and the word sometimes translated as “hell” in the Old Testament simply means “land of the dead” which is where all people, good and bad, ended up.  The Hebrew word is sheol.  The New Testament word for sheol is the Greek word Hades.   It is neither heaven nor hell, it is more like a shadowy world of decay.

Yet Jesus certainly speaks of life beyond the grave.   Even Psalm 23 indicates that the writer somehow thinks God is present with him even in sheol.     Why then would God not reveal the idea of eternal life to the ancient Hebrews as He has for followers of Jesus and even for many in other religions as well?   Could it be that God was protecting his people from being preoccupied with a future life after death?    Is it possible for human beings to become too much concerned with their eternal destiny?    I think so.

I have sometimes thought that the promise of life after death as an incentive to become a Christ follower is a kind  of like a bribe.   It’s a self-serving reason to believe.  It keeps me in the center, not God.  He  is important only insofar as He provides me with what I want.   But what Christianity demands is that we want God for God’s sake not for ours.  We need to develop an appetite for God.   Perhaps the Old Testament is the record of God training a people to desire God more than themselves and in order to develop that appetite God has seen fit to delay the information about being rewarded with eternal life.  In fact the desire to go to heaven, if it ceases to mean union with God, is an desire that can work against our salvation to the degree that it keeps us focused on self and personal rewards instead of on God.

“Lord, lead me to count the number of my days and thereby gain wisdom of heart, not because our days are limited with you, but because I want to experience all of you that I can right now and forever.  Amen”

 

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Live to Give

Blog »    Live to Give
Monday, June 23, 2014

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together
and running over,  will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use,
it will be measured to you.” 
Luke 6:38 (NIV2011)

                                                              I Like $5 Bills

We attend North Church and today heard a very inspiring story and a challenge for us all to listen and obey to those God generosity nudges. Later in the day, me and my older two sons decided to do some Christmas shopping. Before we left, I said a quick and silent prayer for God to give us a nudge.  I then told the boys . . . "Be prepared to get one of those generosity nudges.”

Of course our adventures had to start with a swing by the local Sonic for a tasty vanilla coke . . . after all it was happy hour (half price drinks).

I pushed the button, gave the attendant our order and started to grab my debit card like always. You see, it is common for people to tip the carhops but I typically do not. Instead, my mind struggles with the idea of tipping on a $1.00 item. If I use my debit card . . . . it’s easy . . . . no tip. But in that very instant, I felt compelled to leave the debit card and grab one of the three $5.00 bills that I knew I had in my wallet. Before I pulled it out completely, I turned and told the boys . . . .  “Why don’t we tip this time? I will give the carhop a $5.00 since it is Christmas time.” The boys responded with a profound . . . .  “sure.”

I pulled it out of my wallet and sat it in my lap. A few moments later I picked it back up and turned it over. On the back of the $5.00 bill, someone had circled the words “In God We Trust.” Below that, they wrote with a pink marker . . .  ‘God Loves You.”

That was it . . . . I just knew it. That was the generosity nudge. I said to the boys . . . . “Look!” They both responded in their pre-teen way. One of the boys responded with a “Cool!” and the other one said “That is so weird.”

The boys talked about whether or not the carhop would even notice. She handed us our drinks and we all sat and watched as she walked away. Yes! She did notice. She read the bill and a tiny little grin showed as she walked away.

No, it wasn’t a huge tip . . . . only $1.37 but it was a true blessing for me to experience a very real God moment with my boys.

“Lord, lead me to be a giver not only for Your Sake, the sake of others and the sake of growing my own heart for others, but also for the sake of those who are watching me.   Amen”

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Jesus Anticipated in the Old Testament

Blog »    Jesus Anticipated in the Old Testament
Friday, June 20, 2014

        

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?     My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.   Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises.
Psalm 22:1-3  

All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. Psalm 22:7  

Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.
Psalm 22:16  

They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.
Psalm 22:18    

I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you.
You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; 
he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
Psalm 22:22-24  

Psalm 22 is famous because Jesus quotes from it on the cross when he says the words that open the psalm: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”   Each of the first four passages cited from Psalm 22 are referenced in the Gospel accounts of Jesus crucifixion.   However, it is generally accepted that that Jews knew their Bibles so well that they could quote one line or two from something and imply the whole.  Therefore, because this psalm ends on the note of praise, many have suggested that when Jesus said those words he implied the ending, so the words of Jesus were not despairing but an experience of grief buckled to the knowledge of God’s deliverance.

The experience of the psalmist is one of abandonment, or at least perceived abandonment. It is important here to think through what this says: this does not say so much that God abandons but that God’s non-answer to the psalmist’s particular request, because that request was not answered as hoped, means God has “abandoned.” So, abandonment doesn’t mean God has somehow become distant or even non-omni-present, but that God has not answered the prayer as the psalmist wanted it.

Many of us experience this at times: What we hoped God would do, what we wanted God would do, what we trusted God to do, God did not do.  This psalm, therefore, is for those who experience such abandonment.   Jesus felt abandonment, yet knew His Father was there and would deliver him.   (the above comments stem from those of Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed)

One again, the Psalms teach us to enter God’s world eve as we live in ours.

“Lord, thank you for allowing me to cry out to you, even to question your faithfulness to me and your presence with me when I feel abandoned.   Yet thank you that perception is not always reality.   You have said that you will never leave me nor forsake me.  When I am “hanging on” to You I will remember that the reality is that You are hanging on to me.   Amen”

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The Old Testament's Most Important Verse?

Blog »    The Old Testament's Most Important Verse?
Thursday, June 19, 2014

        

The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.” 
Psalm 110:1 (NIV 2011)

 

Psalm 110, attributed to King David c. 1,000 BC, begins with David “seeing” a conversation between God and God’s Messiah, who was to be David’s Lord.   Jesus quoted verse 1 himself and the verse is referenced almost twenty times in the New Testament.   “Footstool” is a metaphor meaning “in charge”.   It comes from the ancient image of a victorious military commander standing with his foot on the neck of his vanquished foe.   Perhaps David wrote this Psalm toward the end of his life when he had begun to realize that he was not the anointed one, but there would be such a one to come.   

Ascension, celebrated in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches worldwide, is the day when Jesus ascended to the “right hand” (another metaphor for position of authority) of God, assuming the position of ruler of the Cosmos until He returns, renews heaven and earth and hands over the renewed world to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:20-28).  

Once again, the question for a Christian really is this one;   do you believe that Jesus is reigning over the world and do you live as if He is?   If you do, what does that look like?   How do/would you explain that to someone else?  

“Lord, I do not understand many things, but since the core of the Good News of the Gospel is that You are alive, You have defeated evil,  and You are now in charge of all that is, then I choose to trust that.  Better said, I trust You.   Amen”

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The Ascension of Jesus

  Blog »    The Ascension of Jesus  

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

       

Until recently I do not think that I really understood, nor did I appreciate the importance of the ascension (Acts 1:9), Jesus finally ascending to the Father after 40 days of post resurrection appearances.  It is the ascension that formed the earliest creed of the Christian Church, “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9 and elsewhere).   This meant that Jesus was Lord over, in charge of, the earth and everything and everyone in it.  They early Christians had come to believe that neither Caesar, nor disease, nor any enemy, nor any circumstance, nor any sort of evil, nor death itself had any power over them except insofar as Jesus would allow them to have power.   This knowledge gave them courage.  It made them fearless.   It changed them.   

In what way does knowing that Jesus is ruler of this world alter your life?  

Psalm 47 hints at Jesus’ Ascension and Lordship.   It also provides a door through which we can enter and taste the kind of approach to life a person can have who believes that Jesus is ruler of all.  

Come, everyone! Clap your hands!
    Shout to God with joyful praise!
 For the LORD Most High is awesome.
    He is the great King of all the earth.
 He subdues the nations before us,
    putting our enemies beneath our feet.
 He chose the Promised Land as our inheritance,
    the proud possession of Jacob’s descendants, whom he
    loves.    
                                                                                 Interlude 
 God has ascended with a mighty shout.
     The LORD has ascended with trumpets blaring.
 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
    sing praises to our King, sing praises!
 For God is the King over all the earth.
    Praise him with a psalm!
 God reigns above the nations,
    sitting on his holy throne.
 The rulers of the world have gathered together
    with the people of the God of Abraham.
For all the kings of the earth belong to God.
    He is highly honored everywhere.     Psalm 47:1-9 (NLT)  

“Jesus, You are Lord!   Though believing leaves me with a thousand questions I cannot answer as a frail and often fearful person living in a lethal and painful world,  I nevertheless proclaim it to You just as your first followers did millennia ago,  You, Jesus are Lord of all.  Amen”

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It's More Like God's Search for Man than Man's Search for God

Blog »    IT'S MORE LIKE GOD'S SEARCH FOR MAN
THAN MAN'S SEARCH FOR GOD

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do?
Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for
the one that is lost until he finds it?
And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders.
When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’"   Luke 15:4-6 (NLT)

In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis describes how God pursued and surrounded him with Christian friends, inspiring literature, tough logic, and eventually offered him a choice. Lewis writes,   

“The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. In a sense. I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armor, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armor or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corslet meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desires or fears. In a sense I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the rein. I say "I chose," yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. On the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, "I am what I do." Then came the repercussion on the imaginative level. I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt. The melting was starting in my back - drip-drip and presently trickle-trickle. I rather disliked the feeling.

The fox had been dislodged from Hegelian Wood and was now running in the open, "with all the wo in the world," bedraggled and weary, hounds barely a field behind. And nearly everyone was now (one way or another) in the pack; Plato, Dante, MacDonald, Herbert, Barfield, Tolkien, Dyson, Joy itself . . . .

Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side. . . . It became patently absurd to go on thinking of "Spirit" as either ignorant of, or passive to, my approaches.

Even if my own philosophy were true, how could the initiative lie on my side? My own analogy, as I now first perceived, suggested the opposite: if Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare's doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing . . . . My Adversary waived the point. It sank into utter unimportance. He would not argue about it. He only said, "I am the Lord"; "I am that I am"; "I am."

People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat.  

“Lord, so it’s been you all along, You, the “Hound of Heaven” causing me to seek you only to discover that it was a search not to find but to discovered I’ve been found.   Thank you, Lord,  Amen”

 

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