1/22/1973 Redux

Not that anybody outside the Christian community remembers or really cares, but yesterday, January 22, was the 27th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Today is what is known in some Christian circles as "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday."


This is the day we should remember the tragedy unleashed as the left-leaning Supreme court legislated from the bench instead of getting Congress to make new law as they should. Hey Democrats (and other liberals), here's one for you....you could have had almost half a million new taxpayers so King Hussein the First would have even more money to waste. The less cynical view is to say that those same murdered American citizens could have been paying their share of Social Security and other taxes. If nothing else It sure would have helped with the current fiscal mess we're facing.

Dear Lord, let us always remember that You are the Creator and giver of life and all good things. Help us to be bold and resolute about upholding your desire that none should perish. We know that You will take even these evils of human will and turn them to good for the little ones who were forced to leave too soon. You hold them in Your loving hands for eternity Father.

Help us to fight the evil of abortion in all its forms and revere life as You do. Please help us find a way to overturn the travesty of January 22, 1973.

Amen

A Brief Hiatus If You Please

Of late, I have been focused on moving and all the necessary craziness that goes with it.

With that in mind......I'm intentionally going to avoid writing any posts....even less than I usually do.....like.....zero.....until further notice.

So.....ta ta for now.

Leave my founding documents alone!

The first amendment, when read literally and understood properly says, among other things, that the government shall not establish a state religion. It says nothing about all the other so-called "rights" that 'The Supremes' and other federal judges have managed to magically discern from what is a very simple document. The "Bill of Rights" is a simple document. It is meant to be taken literally. What's so bloody hard about that? What need then of "interpretation"?

The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly called The Bill of Rights comprise our founding documents. All three of them are NOT organic, alive, nor do they possess any other human qualities we care to attribute to them. They are very profound and well-considered words on paper. It is the job of RESPONSIBLE, GOD-FEARING men and women to prayerfully ask for guidance in trying to determine the best action to be taken when being guided by those pieces of parchment over two-hundred years old which we have deemed relevant to our modern age, or not. The men who wrote them were guided by faith in the living God and the Holy Trinity of conventional Christianity.

Even those men in that group who were not true believers, who may have been deists or agnostics....whatever, allowed for the existence of God and the Trinity. Furthermore, they were willing to subvert their own prejudices about religion in the interest of forging the best principles possible for our fledgling country. In short, those who didn't believe in the Trinity, made sure that the preparation of these documents was allowed to be be a God-driven process for the good of the nation. If they failed to codify our freedoms and "rights" in any way it was from an assumption that the people in our time would be as devout and God-driven as they were when they wrote these magnificent documents.

Those documents are as relevant today as they were 200 years ago. What is different is our post-modern society where everything is open to interpretation and there are no moral absolutes. Consequently, our poor Constitution has undergone some of the most severe and skewed interpretation in the past 30-40 years that the founding fathers never could have anticipated. In other words, they wrote the documents for people as people used to be, never dreaming that God-fearing people would end up in the minority, leaving the inmates to run the asylum. God help us in a Godless society.

We who do believe and have the guts to stand up for our faith have a responsibility not only to spread the Gospel message as much as we can through responsible evangelism, we must also speak out whenever and wherever we see lies, hypocrisy, deceit, greed, and all manner of social ills being perpetrated, especially when it comes from our governing "leaders", both in the secular arena or even worse, in the church body itself.

We elected our current crop of government leaders out of ignorance. We can no longer afford to remain ignorant. We must study, be informed, then get out there and vote for the right people, the ones we need to lead us out of the socialistic mess our self-exalted king, Mr. Hussein, is trying to lead us into.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." —2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV)

Preachers, heal yourselves.

It's not how long you preach, it's how you present the gospel to people who need to hear it. Observe what Billy Graham accomplished in 15 minutes, if that, at each of his crusades......and all he did was simply preach the message that God loves you and Jesus died to redeem you.

He used no church programs, no building funds, no long-winded explanations of Bible books dragging on for months as a "teaching series". There was and is nothing special in those crusades except some good music to set the mood and the gospel of Jesus Christ presented in all its simplicity. People came forward by the hundreds after being convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit of God.

Pastors, preachers and church leaders, please take note.

A bed of thorns?

Recently, something in my pastor's sermon suddenly made a thought flash in my mind. As I toyed with it and tried to make it more clear, give it shape and color, I came to the conclusion that I had just managed to come up with one of those "Thorny Theological Problems". Now to try to unravel it.


Now, I don't profess to be a Biblical scholar, but I do believe I know far more about scripture than the average person. I knew it well enough to teach Sunday school for two years. I had a special interest in what we call the "Old Testament" which is really, mostly, the original Hebrew scriptures. You could call it my area of specialty, but I love and study the New Testament as well.


The thorny issue is this:

• Given: Jesus was wholly Human, and was and is wholly God. He was as human as any other human, but possessed, and evinced on earth, in totality, the full, pure Spirit of His Father, God.
• Given: God appears to have one limitation, He is not capable of looking at sin. If sin comes near to His being He must turn His face away. But this is not a limitation; God simply does not possess in His being the capacity for sin to be presented directly before or to Him.
• Given: Jesus allowed His physical body to be abused and tortured, and ultimately nailed to a cross to become the redeeming sacrifice for everyones' sins—past, present, and future. His death would provide the payment to satisfy God's requirements for us to be allowed to be His children again.
• Given: Jesus' great suffering in the garden of Gethsemane was not about facing the physical agony of the crucifixion, but of knowing that for the only time in eternity would He and the Father be separated in their Spirit.
• The Question: At that moment when Jesus cried "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", the moment when Jesus literally became sin, the moment when His Father turned His face away from His spotless, unblemished Son who was now the epitome of all sin in the world for all eternity, where was the Holy Spirit?
• If the Holy Spirit is God's spirit and God cannot look at sin, then it follows that the Spirit must have left Jesus, even if only momentarily. He couldn't have "become sin" if the Spirit of God was in Him.
• Conclusion: I believe that at the critical moment when Jesus was at the brink of being made sin, God withdrew His Spirit from Jesus so that the unbelievable burden of all humanity's sins could be allowed to infest Him. In that moment God's wrath was poured out on Christ and then the Spirit was restored to Him. It was at that time when Jesus could say "tetelestai", voluntarily surrender His human life, and die.

"Tetelestai" is the Greek word that means "it is finished". What was finished? By accepting God's full measure of wrath that rightfully belonged to the human race, Jesus "conquered sin and death" forever. Do people still die? Of course, but that's physical death and comes to all people. But those who refuse to accept Christ's completed work on the cross will also choose the certainty of spiritual "death", which is eternal separation from God and the chance to live in Hell for eternity. Those who accept Christ will enter into life and the chance to spend eternity with God and Jesus, sharing with them, forever, in the complete filling of the Holy Spirit.

I chose eternal life. How about you?

“Nice to see ya!” Now what?

It has been said that the “Christian army” is the only such group that shoots its wounded. Ain’t it the truth?

All too often we see people who come to church with a true desire to be followers of Christ. They come because they’re searching, because of conviction, to be part of an extended family, to worship God, for comfort of familiar associations; they come because they love God and want to grow closer to Him and serve. They come to the local church and someone says “Hi! Nice to see you, glad you're here!”, shakes a hand and returns to business as usual leaving the would-be disciple standing on the sidelines. Now what?

In my own experience, it is the ordinary church people who take time to greet and talk to these people who have the greatest effect on newcomers. That’s not to say that greeters aren’t necessary or effective. They should be there and should be trained to assist with whatever a person might need, whether it be guidance to a Bible study (Sunday school) class, directions to the rest rooms, finding a seat, assisting people with special needs, etc. But in the typical Sunday rush at many churches, there simply are too many people and not enough time or greeters to engage individuals in any meaningful way.

What happens next? The newcomers and/or new believers often are left to flounder. Many become disillusioned at the seeming aloofness or even hostility of the congregation and don’t come back. Some may attend services for a short time but soon realize that they’re simply “putting in time” and not really finding the fulfillment of Christian fellowship, growth or service. Their sense of emptiness in the church grows and nags at them. This often results in many disillusioned people who move on to another church or even worse, eventually forsake church involvement altogether.

Then there are far too many church people who have only heard the blessed, good-time part of the story and don’t realize that salvation comes with a hefty price tag of trials and persecution. These unfortunate souls have wandered into the wrong kind of church. Jesus said: if the world hates me they’re going to hate you too. The first time the going gets rough these folks bail out because nobody told them “it won’t be easy”. We won’t deal with those folks here this time around.

The problem of exclusion or sidelining is greatly compounded by the current “Megachurch Mania” sweeping through many Christian communities. In such a statistic-obsessed environment the pastoral staff is often isolated from the congregants while they, the staff, are busy “doing church”. Pastors and other staff members are so busy with administrative, legal, facility and other chores they have little or no time remaining for the primary pastoral duty of “shepherding the flock”. Such a church often is just too big and the recidivism rates among new converts bears this out. The last reliable statistic obtainable stated that within one year, over 82% of all those brought into God’s family had dropped-out, and this was just within the largest Protestant denomination in America (You can figure out which one). If the statistics were compiled for other Christian denominations I think the data would probably be similar and just as upsetting.

What is the fundamental mission of the church? A healthy church body that is fulfilling Christ's "Great Commission" will be a church out on the street helping the Holy Spirit to win souls for the Lord, God. A church that is focused on its mission will have support structures to deal with new arrivals and new Christians. These need not be elaborate nor even formal “ministries”. A church focused on ministering to its members, newbies and the community at the practical level will have no problem sustaining or achieving good growth numbers at a reasonable rate according to God’s timetable. He’s still in charge, after all.

Here are some ideas:

1. Small Groups- The “small group” ministry is a good tool where believers may get to know other believers and build a nucleus of their church family. Small Groups give believers, both new and those more mature in their faith, opportunities to extend their family on more intimate terms than what may be possible in the church at large. While small groups are definitely a good aspect of church life, they still don’t always answer the needs of the new Christian or the people looking for a new church home in a new town. Such people still need direct interaction with other people, not necessarily a group, until they feel comfortable enough to join in a group or other church activities. This assumes that they find the church meets their needs in the first place (whatever they are) and decide to stay. The process of choosing a new church family is totally subjective and totally between them and God. The two major pitfalls of the small group are mainly:

• a. A lot of people can’t or don’t want to get involved. Some people just don’t do well in group situations. I personally prefer to make friends the old fashioned way and let relationships develop as God directs; this includes group involvement.
• b. The group can be, and very often is, a ready-made clique. Members may never get out of their security zone and get involved with others in the church.

2. Greeters- Most necessary. In the smaller churches I find that greeting comes naturally to a lot of folks. This is great—there is a very special and wonderful feeling about having ordinary folk, heck, strangers even, coming up and genuinely extending a hand of welcome. But in larger churches there exists a need for the aforementioned people who actually are given instruction in how to perform their roles. Greeters are needed and so are interim mentors who can “adopt” newcomers and act as guides. More about that at a later date.
3. Lay Pastors- This is a concept woefully under-utilized by the Christian community.That’s sad because there are people present in your church right now who are itching to start a ministry effort and whom God could use effectively if given the chance. Lay pastors can fill the growing gap between a busy pastoral staff and the congregation. Just make sure they have the authority to back up their responsibility. Their effectiveness can be severely undermined if they repeatedly have to go running back to the senior (read: ordained) staff for approvals or to resolve other issues. There are solutions.....if you care to take up the challenge of seeking them.

New Voices, New traditions.

I'm sure I missed the memo again, the one that told how all secular people are now to ignore 2 millenia of acceptable grammar.

Now it is becoming acceptable, even if not "proper", to speak the letters A.D. (Anno Domini) after  the year in question. It doesn't take a lot of savvy to know that Anno Domini means "in the year of our Lord" and should be, and always was, used as a precedent to a year designation. We were supposed to say "A.D. 70" or "A.D. 325" but now that is being tossed out along with Sunday being the first day of the week on our day-planning calendars. Of course, saying "the first (or third or twentieth) century A.D." is still and always has been the acceptable form for referring to centuries.

As usual, this trend is spreading to the church—which should know better. It's another one of those small things that illustrates how badly our society wants to eliminate anything Christian, however subtle. Monday the first day of the week? A.D. being used by pastors as a suffix? No, I don't like it and someone has got to get the church to wake up and fight these trends, not buy into them. PLEASE.....put A.D. back where it belongs, at least in church sermons if nothing else. If we the church can't get it right, who will ever take us seriously?

And the Angels rejoice......

This past Monday I had the honor of being the one that God used to bring the soul of a dear, long-time friend to salvation. There is not much else to say about that. Because of knowing me, another soul is now saved from the fires of Hell. Hard to believe that I could be that used by God...but that is just another form of pride....let's just say I was there at the right time when the Holy Spirit had his heart prepared and God used the attitude of his heart to bring him the healing he needed. Amen and hallelujah!

What makes it so interesting is that everything took place via email! I don't think this is a first ever, but it certainly ranks as a personal first! I want more of these moments in my life....moments when I know another soul has found salvation and I actually had something to do with it......wow....just wow......