Have you caught a glimpse of the new Jesus film, "Passion"? Directed by Mel Gibson, the trailer alone makes whatever brutality you endured in Braveheart seem like a hangnail by comparison. So begins the inevitable debate within the sphere of the Kingdom, namely, should this be done? Is it right to expose people to this level of reality? In all honesty I believe we do a greater injustice when we do it wrong. That is to say, do it right or don't do it. The barely bleeding piety we've seen in the past does a great disservice to the entire message of the Gospel for it doesn't touch the fact that our sin was the cause of that punishment. If the punishment were going to fit the crime then most crucifixion scenes would suggest that my sin wasn't all that bad. The sacrifice must be carried out in such a way that the sin of the entire world for all time, and all of the evil that goes with it, could be heaved into the sea of forgetfulness on a single set of shoulders. A few squirts of fake blood are not as brutal as the sin of a single teenager much less the whole of humanity. So if you're going to show it, show it right, so all the world will know the extent of the evil that Christ endured to bring salvation. On the other hand, (because there are always two you know), there is a strange, Babylonian, Romanesque, sense to the world at the moment. For the depravity has hit lows hardly seen by previous generations. We always point to Sodom and Gomorrah as the benchmark but Sodom didn't have the Scriptures, churches on every corner, Christian TV, Christian radio, Christian bookstores, or even a dozen believers within it's walls. To whom much is given much is required. When Billy Graham got on worldwide TV and proclaimed the timeless message of Jesus Christ something happened. Ignorance was no longer an excuse. When this film comes out and people are finally exposed to the closest reality they have experienced yet regarding the message of the cross what will they do? What are we to do with the immense knowledge, understanding, teaching, revelation, and outpouring of grace given to us? Sodom did nothing with nothing and their judgment was total destruction. I fear that if we, as the church, do nothing with something, our judgment will make Sodom's look like a hangnail.

In Acts 12 you find the familiar story of Peter in prison chained between a couple of guards when an angel smacks him (no really) and tells him to get his sandals on and head out the door, which he does. Smart guy. When Peter finally gets outside of the prison and comes to himself he exclaims that God has delivered him from the clutches of Herod and from the expectations of the Jews. The first one isn’t too hard to figure out. Herod represented the invading enemy. But that second one… He’s talking about his people here. It’s odd how Peter was so burdened by the expectations of those around him. We know he gave in to low life peer pressure round the campfire before the crucifixion. But after the resurrection he was a different guy. Or at least that’s what it seemed like. He seemed strong, bold, unshakable, unaffected by the expectations and influence of others. But in Acts 12 he reveals that he was in desperate need of deliverance, not only from the bondage of the enemy but from the bondage of his own people. Expectations make pretty stout chains and those within the household of faith can forge some expectations for you that seem challenging at first but may prove to be the very thing that challenges your freedom and liberty in Christ. If it does, don’t be afraid. An angel may smack you awake one night when you least expect it. Personally, I’m keeping my sandals on.

Went to an old style revival recently and I've got to say that the song service was about as current as the hoop skirt. But you know, there's something rich there. Not about hoop skirts, but about the 'old paths'. At one point during the singin, a guy that was a couple of steps from a long nap in a deep ditch took up the mic and kept the Parkinson's shimmy away long enough to bellow through three verses of 'Blessed Assurance'. I wept. I smelled the aged vinyl of mom's old purse and felt it under my head as I lay on the floor of the Nazarene church in Deland, Fla. I was three years old all over again.
At the time I didn't know or care much about the song, but now, to hear it sung by a seasoned pair of passionate lungs is worth more than gold. I watched, however, as an elderly man sang it as if his life depended on it. I guess it does, and he knows it. Truth is, that we tend to let things age to the point that they offer nothing to us anymore except for dead memories from a rusty recollection. But truth worth knowing is worth remembering. The truth in the lines like, 'Blessed Assurance Jesus is mine, oh what a foretaste of Glory Divine, Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood' or 'filled with His goodness, lost in His love' these make me realize that the truth that took so long to realize was right in front of me all this time. Divine revelation ages far better than temporal things. All that is Holy wears well as if the suppressive power of time has no authority to diminish the gleaming beauty of that foretaste of Glory Divine. All that is temporal simply succumbs to the forces arrayed against it and, unlike truth, turns to dust. That reminds me. I guess it's time to get mom a new purse.

If you ever decide to spend a night sitting awake in a car (or in my case, a truck) pick a night when the sky is clear and the moon is full. The church is getting a skillfully applied coat of Texas limestone this week and since we have had some trouble with rock hounds moving pieces of ma earth from one place to another it has become necessary to have someone guarding it during the down time. It was surreal to say the least. Sitting on the hillside with the room temp evening breeze blowing just enough to make your hair slowly lean. The glow of the moon made the dusty ground turn an illuminating blue gray and the building seemed to loom up toward the sky as a part of the natural landscape. The dark outline of movement could be seen on the hillside across the road. The deer grazed in the twilight, unafraid and unaware while the occasional set of oncoming headlights blended into the tranquility like a pair of fireflies in a drag race. In the silence, nature's choir was in full chorus as crickets joined in what seemed like a sonic festival of distorted harmony. God's creation is certainly a marvel. You know that stuff about God never sleeping? It's very true. It was a great place to pray.

I'm growin out the do. The hairdo that is. People can't seem to figure this out. "Why are you doing that? What's the purpose? What's he trying to say? What statement is he making? Is he doing the Jesus thing? Since he turned 30 he's getting that Messianic look there. Or is he trying to reach the lost?" As if the lost all have the same haircut. That's how we can tell who's lost. "Or maybe he's trying to regain his fading youth. It's an early-mid life crisis. He'll grow out of it. Maybe he's trying to cover up the fact that it's falling out. I have noticed his forehead gaining altitude. Oh he's really a hippie at heart. It's just his personality." Sigh... I have no profound explanation except to say that I walked into a haircut joint a few months ago and saw the prices and haven't been interested in dropping 18 bucks to get a trim. When I throw down 18 bucks (or even ten) I want to give em something to do. I likely would have gotten a snip awhile back but watching people philosophize about what I'm trying to 'communicate' is really amusing. Maybe I am trying to say something... Ahh, the mystery continues.

I grew up on the road in a less-than-one room house. My world, however, was not the 26' fiberglass 1974 GMC motor home with lime green interior and an 8 track. My world was whatever greeted my eyes from the other side of the windshield. I have in my mental filing cabinet a host of sights, sounds, and smells that conjure up images and stories that are, for me, an attic full of treasures. Having no attic to store collected 'stuff' in I only have my mind and have found that to be sufficient. When I would wake up and feel the chigger bites on my legs (the only bug unhindered by the screen) and taste salt on my lips, I knew we were in Florida. When I smell 'OFF' I am suddenly back a t Strawberry Lake in the woods of northern Minnesota. When the smell of sweating cattle hits me, I recall the dairy farms of Wisconsin, The past is more fond to me now than it was when it was the present. The future is an untraveled road that always looks like a long but exciting climb. But the present is where I live or at least where I eat and sleep. There's a line that every parent of an elder teen knows. "You just eat and sleep here." A kid gets restless with the present and fights its confines and truth be told we never grow out of that.

As a teenager, I viewed the Scriptures as an account of what we must do to attain God’s favor. Close examination reveals that the Scriptures are an account of what God has already done and we are simply acting in response to it. This provides a much more difficult task than paying one’s dues to receive a ‘ticket to paradise’. In this case the tickets have been offered freely. How then do we pay for what we cannot purchase?
Man has been led to believe that value lies in what a thing cost to attain it. What a thing costs, though, depends upon the demand. Could it then be that people are so burdened in life that they can’t imagine being free? So burdened that they don’t wish for life to continue? Could it be that our apathetical response to the grace of God is due to the fact that eternal life has little value for us? Our ignorance of what's to come is much like our ignorance of a foreign country. Our imagination rarely matches the reality so we may view eternity with a negative eye. Like receiving tickets to a place nobody wants to go. Have we so entangled ourselves in the pursuit of pleasure only to find that we really have moved from a previous freedom and dependence of childhood, to the bondage of independence that wearies us to the point that eternal life (as we know it) holds no attraction? No wonder men don’t offer everything they own to gain eternal life anymore.

I love fireworks. Have ever since I was a kid. There's something about explosives. The smell of the imported cardboard and gunpowder. The crude graphics and the wild adjectives used to describe them in titles that were obviously slapped on with tongue in cheek sarcasm. Pyro Power, Wild Weasel, Inferno Explosion, Twitter Glitter, Monsters, Mini Monsters, Mega Monsters, Massive Monsters, you get the idea... The thing is that you could get these things for pennies when I was little and now I watch with strange fascination as people shell out 2, 4, or 6 hundred bucks for this stuff. I make a lousy salesman because I want to grab them by both ears, make forced eye contact, and say, "Are you SURE you want to spend five hundred bucks on a box of twitter glitters and wild weasels???" But they do. So I give em what they want. I watched as a buyer crossed the four-lane road in front of the stand to shoot his 'stuff' off in the parking lot of an adjacent apartment complex. His money became my show. I watched, enjoyed, and smiled wide eyed toward the sky at the show. All for free. But I really didn't care. It wasn't my desire to possess the product or participate in its ignition and display. I watched with indifference. But he was passionate and pleased with the process that he was into, no matter what it cost. There was joy in that. Here's where I'm going with this. Desire is a gift.
Someone once said that the two greatest tragedies in life are not getting what you want and getting what you want. One is desire without relief and the other is lethargic indifference, which is the price of the relief of desire. There's a powerful motivation in desire that either produces life improving passion or destructive criminal behavior. It all depends on the outlet. Men fantasize about the woman they can never possess. They might wake up and realize that their own wife is worth loving far beyond what they can see, or they may become cold to their spouse. In extreme cases they may act out an act of criminal passion. Women dream about the product they can't afford. They may learn to appreciate what they do have or may become angry at the perceived inferiority of what they do have and give it away hoping to justify their upcoming purchase. In extreme cases they get caught on hidden cameras stuffing Hermes scarves into oversized purses. Children imagine lands and wonders they can't see with their eyes. They simply use cardboard boxes, couch cushions, and towels to transform their room into what they dream. We want everything to be better than it is because our desires are an appetite that can never be satisfied. But desire is not an enemy to be killed. It cannot die. It can only move and when it does it moves you too. Desire is a gift to be guided in the right direction. The Psalm says, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." This is not that he takes away your ability to want. He uses it to move you. Thank God for the gift of desire. I will learn to see it as a force that can move me to where I want to be. Closer to the heart of God.

Ok here's something worthwhile, unlike my writing from yesterday which was about as desperate as a Michael Bolton impersonator looking for work. The following started the tear ducts working after a long dry spell the first time I heard it (about 7 years ago). I was really beginning to lose faith in the power of words to communicate creatively. Oddly enough I was working in a Christian bookstore at the time.
Poetry by a guy named Bill Malonee. A portion of a piece called 'Parting Shot'.

There's a question forming out here in the dark and a heavy air all around my heart
Now laden with consequence, chain link fence, and shot though with all manner of lies
I've been trapped in and caught
And the world like a tempist in your ears doth roar
And the flesh wants to dress up and play the whore
And the devil wants to cast all manner of doubt on the real lover with the key dying to let you out
Of the bars that you fashioned with your stolen clout
When the great divorce happens hide me in your song
Though I don't deserve it and I don't belong
Well I may be confused but I'll play my hunch,
Did it feel like a kiss or a counterpunch?

I've been neglecting the site for the past few days to devote time to the annual church fireworks stand. Most of the time the company makes the time pass with brevity and levity. Yesterday, though, was about 105 degrees in the shade which made working the stand as fun as being a proctologist in a leper colony. Don't take me too seriously here today. My brain has been scrambled into a cream cornball of insanity by the heat, dust, and gunpowder. Right up there with climbing Everest, running with the bulls in Pamplona, swimming the English Channel, and tipping cows, is working a fireworks stand in Texas in July with 'Sweet Home Alabama' playin in the background. Add to that a fine game of dominos with a buddy who happens to be a card carrying member of the NRA, and you've got an experience that is worth writing about on a weblog that nobody reads. I just looked in the mirror and sure enough, part of my neck is turning red. Bright red.

(A rare moment here. I actually allow another page out of one of my personal journals to leak into cyberspace. Read at your own risk)
For the first time in a great while, I'm bored with life. I've turned 30 and I've become boring. I'm boring myself, for cryin out loud. My quick wit has grown dull and my scathing humor has eroded into chronic irritability. I have no earthly idea why. I still soak in the Scriptures and, by God's Holy Spirit, profound truth occasionally raises it's fearsome head. This is a condition that I have to deal with. I'm not so interested how I went wrong as much as how to get right. Perhaps therin lies the problem. Unless I take a couple of mental steps backwards I may blaze a trail to a greater darkness. When you come to a cliff, only the hopeless or stupid step forward. Optimistic progression steps back to get a clear perspective from a safe vantage point - with the understanding that while the goal still lies ahead there is a way to attain it without plunging to your death. In addition if one dismisses the risk and therefore forfeits the goal, then another death of sorts has occured. This death is far less forgiving because it's a death you have to live. No wonder zombies are so angry. Like other believers I press toward the goal of 'Christlikeness'. People's response to Jesus was to cheer him on one day and kill him the next. Is that what I really want? I want to serve and for that service I would prefer their positive response over the negative. I guess I have to resolve that in fickle people just like me, one is married to the other. So I've come to the cliff. I think I will choose to..."

Spiritual Hypocrites and Jars of Clay

What happens when you admire the teaching of a teacher but the actions of their personal life don't seem to mesh with it? Plainly put, how do you deal with a spiritual hypocrite?
If truth's reality depended upon the character of the messenger we would all be very confused. There is tremendous comfort in knowing that the cure for the sickness of sin retains its potency regardless of the filthy hands that deliver it to me. Their decision to (or not to) reflect what they teach has no effect upon my acceptance of that truth unless my eyes are focused on man rather than God. If I look to man's character to validate the truth he proclaims I set myself to err. For men of character can also proclaim a lie. With sincerity and passion, they can deliver a deception. So truth that is of God must be spiritually discerned. Ultimately since we have this treasure in earthen vessels, dig out the truth and the treasure and let God deal with the vessel. That's spiritual discernment. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.

I often leave a conversation wondering if my silence would have ministered more than my words. Consider the following observation from a true story.
Torn By Grief by Joseph Bayly
"I was sitting, torn by grief. A Christian came and talked of God's dealings, of why things happen, and hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly of things my heart knew were true. I was unmoved except to wish he would go away. He finally did.
I was sitting, torn by grief. A Christian came and sat beside me for an hour or more. He listened when I finally spoke, briefly answered, humbly prayed, and left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go."

The legend is that St. Francis was praying in the field one day when a pilgrim came to be edified by his words. The pilgrim sat waiting for quite some time when finally a fellow disciple walked to Francis and said, “Please say something to our brother that he may be edified.” Francis replied, “If he is not edified by my silence, he will not be edified by my speech.”
Look around at the ‘wordiness’ of our world. Signs everywhere begging you to “taste me, touch me, buy me, smell me, drink me, etc”. The ‘word’ has become worthless for we are drowning in them. The result is that the function of the word is no longer realized. The word no longer communicates, no longer fosters communion, no longer creates community, and therefore no longer gives life.
Often it seems that we find ourselves entangled in such a complex series of discussions, debates, and arguments about God or ‘God Issues’ that a simple conversation with God or simply enjoying the presence of God has become nearly impossible.
Silence is the home of the word. Meditation gives strength and fruitfulness to the word. Words are meant to disclose the mystery of the silence from which they come. Human silence is often born out of embarrassment, shame, or guilt. In divine silence, love rests secure.
Unfortunately for us, silence has become a fearful thing. For most people it creates an itchy nervousness. Most people experience silence not as full and rich but as empty and hollow. We have all experienced times when someone has said in church, “Let’s be silent for a few moments.” People become restless like one waits for a fuse to burn down to the powder. I have shunned silence in some services because of the anxiety it provokes. But God is not a God of fear but of divine love. He also is silent more often than He speaks. Allow this time of silence to store up the heat and passion for His presence within you. Convert an empty silence into a full silence. Don’t be disappointed if He doesn’t “speak to you” as you think He ought to. Be content to enjoy a shared moment of silence with the Creator of the universe.

Perspective effects our behavior or reaction to everything. As a child everyone of us has walked with arms outstretched along a curb pretending that we were hundreds of feet from the ground. With a cocky confidence we skip and dance our way from one step to the other thrilling ourselves with our false sense of courage. When suddenly a misstep causes us to tumble into our imaginary abyss but the illusion of danger is shattered by the concrete that beneath our feet. God began gut checking me recently about my own perspective of facts and truth. What's the difference? The facts are something that we see happening in the physical which while feeling very real now happens to be a lie. There are areas of your life that are out of control and things happening that are motions of sin that seem to negate the truth. Plainly put the fact is that we all have problems and issues. The knowledge of that fact won’t set you free for facts are not a solution. Truth on the other hand, has far greater power. The Scripture says You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Freedom rarely results from facts. We've often identified a problem by saying, "The fact remains..." But God has sent the 'Truth' to demonstrate that what appears to be fact doesn't have to remain.

It's Monday. The day that preachers shouldn't do anything that requires a mental pushup. For some reason I can teach school all day for five days a week but one single service on Sunday morning drains you like an 800 lb mosquito. Everyone seems to have issues on Monday though. I'm sure we could eliminate preacher scandals if right after every service they threw a straightjacket on him and put em in a rubber room for about 24 hours. I say him because when was the last time you heard of female preacher scandals? The likelyhood of that is as probable as getting a Jehovah Witness to say, “Look we really gotta be going." Nothing against female preachers but some of them have a strut like they went to the Janet Reno school of runway modeling. Speaking of Janet Reno, I just heard she was having prostate trouble. Or was that John Madden? I get them mixed up. Getting the brain to work on Monday is more challenging than organizing a round of twister at the nursing home. To all you intellectual friends, foes, and female preachers who grace my blog, no offense intended. In light of the rest of posts on this site this one is as out of place as a boom box in an Amish colony. I just thought of something else I probably shouldn't do on Monday. Type.

The law of cause and effect is in play all around us. If we throw a ball or fire off a round the result of our action will be felt far from us and this result though caused by us and in spite of our finest aim and best intentions, is out of our control. So it is with spiritual truth. God has placed into the world around us certain spiritual decisions that all have cause and effect. When we act based upon a cause that is unwise won't the ensuing result be negative spiritually? Conversely our positive decisions must have a positive effect spiritually since the world that is seen is directly connected to the world that is unseen. So I determine today to study the spiritual effects of my actions (as much as that is possible) and understand the cause for which they were put into play. Not for the purpose of explaining the ways of God which are beyond our capacity to search, and not for the purpose of attaining any grace, favor, or gain for myself, but instead for the purpose of building a deeper faith in the faithfulness of the Father of lights in whom is no shadow of turning.

Does it ever seem that your view of God leaves you saying, "I wish God loved me as much now as He did when I was lost." You might think then that one must become as prodigal as possible to experience the fullness of grace or become as bound as possible to fully appreciate the gift of freedom or become as wounded as possible to adequately know the value of healing. This tragedy exists until the fact is realized that no matter how much darkness I attempt to add to my soul, I cannot make myself any more lost than I already am. Neither can I obey enough to gain more mercy and favor than you. Ultimately then, whether I'm born to a gangster or a preacher, my responsiblity is to spend my life in thanks and praise to my Savior who has flooded my darkness with His light.

Memorial Day. To memorize. To never forget. To remember. To put back together that which has been dismembered. To reconstruct. To always retain the ability to recall how things were. Somehow the way things were is often far better than the way things are. For one reason or another we will also look back on today as better than it seems at the moment because the past is whatever you want it to be. Most of us want it to be worth remembering so it's construction is often selective of the material that was best and that material (when separated from the bad and embellished) will build a structure more attractive than the one we live in today. I guess it would be of much benefit for us to be able to identify the best in this moment and build life to be just as attractive as we will one day remember. Memorial day is time to not only remember (reconstruct) the past but prepare this day as one that will one day be remembered as well.

Ever wonder what's going on in the lives of those whom you come in contact with every day? Of all of the traits I need to cultivate I believe empathy is the toughest. So today I aspire toward the virtue of empathy. Tasting tears other than my own.