Moral Absolutes

I like to read articles every once in a while on people and positions that I don’t necessarily agree with.  For instance, I was just fumbling around the internet one day and came across an article on Friedrich Nietzsche on Wikipedia. On other occasions I will read articles that I completely agree with, as was the case with an article on Ravi Zaccharius’ website entitled “Is believing in God a crutch?” or something to that affect by Amy Orr-Ewing. 

Something struck a cord with me in both of these articles which I felt compelled to put out to the public.  The world has a great misconception of the Christian Faith which in part or in whole is propagated by Christians themselves.  That misconception is clearly stated in the article on Nietzsche, where speaking on Nietzsche’s work “The Gay Science” and the concept of eternal occurrence as the idea that one’s life is the sole consideration when evaluating how one should act, the writer makes the statement, “This contrasts the Christian view which emphasizes later reward at the cost of one’s immediate happiness. (Italics mine)

Orr-Ewing then makes the statement in her article, writing on skeptical views and moral absolutes, “The religious believer views the evolution of morality within human societies as moral absolutes revealed and upheld by God.  This belief in absolutes then provides an unreal but comforting refuge in a dark world, so that the individual can feel safe in his or her own status before God and secure in the knowledge that evil doers will be punished.”

Now I am not sure if Orr-Ewing was writing in reference to her own world view of the Christian’s moral absolutes or from another, and quite honestly I am too lazy to go back and reread it to decide.  It really doesn’t matter, because I know enough Christian people who actually do have this exact view within their reality.  They long for and look to the day that God “brings the hammer down” on all the evil doers of this world.  Condemn them and throw them in HELL because that is exactly what “they” deserve. And here in lies my problem.

Are we not experiencing a form of asceticism or esotericism in which we have mentally, emotionally and or spiritually abandoned this life and focus solely on the next?  Does this not nullify Christ very descension to human form for us to say that we long for the day that others will be punished for their sins, while we are forgiven, redeemed and released from our own?  How arrogant and rude Christians have become!  It is no wonder that so much of the world sees no good in religion or Christianity in particular.  What happened to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?”  Where is the compassion and sympathy with which Christ compelled his disciples to take fish and loaves and feed tens of thousands?  Where is the forgiveness he showed so many, including the thief on the cross and those who stood around him as he died?  Can we be so bold as to condemn anyone when we ourselves have been plucked from fire? 

Our duty as Christians is not see the evil doer punished.  Our moral absolute is to see the same saved, to see them come under conviction not condemnation.  Christ died once for all, not a few.  His death was for all humanity.  His forgiveness and mercy goes beyond the capability of our imaginations.  His Grace under girds the faith on which we stand.  There but for grace go each of us.  But that grace is not solely for us to hoard and amass.  It is for us to share, lest it grow cold in our hearts and we are no longer sublime in our efforts to reach the lost at any cost.

American culture now turns to the welfare system for assistance, because the church is so busy telling them how terrible they are.  The poor and the needy seek government assistance and housing in order to feed their children because the church has turned its back on them.  Sure some inner city churches have food banks and clothes pantries.  So does DFCS.  Some churches help pay utilities.  Others wont even help their own members of twenty years because they have fallen behind on their tithe.  There was a time when Christian Charity was the mainstay for all Christian believers.  Now it is a tax write-off.  And while we see what our church can do for us, there are thousands and thousands within walking distance of our church buildings who do not feel welcome in our doors because of the persona we the church have expressed.  We, the church, have alienated the very populous Christ himself walked with and taught.  We, the church, have become the Pharisees of the our day.  We go to work and quote scripture.  We talk about how good the Lord is to us and how powerful the service was on Sunday Morning.  Then we walk right passed the child without a coat, and condemn their mother for letting them leave the house like that.  We eat our meals at our fancy restaurants, put our leftovers in a carryout plate and leave it in the refrigerator until it goes bad.  And everyday we come into contact with some one who will go without a meal that very day because they cannot afford it.  Is the love of Christ really in our hearts?  Why are we not willing to promote Christ rather than ourselves in everything we do?  Will we not take the hand of the leper or the aids victim as Christ did?  Sure it may have been sin that cause their pain.  But what did Jesus say about the blind man when asked by the disciples who’s sin caused his blindness?  Jesus said that neither the man nor his parents’ sinned, but that God may be glorified, he was born blind.  Don’t you see church that it was for the glory of God that you encounter the down and out.  It is for the glory of God that you see the hurting, the lost, and the downtrodden.  It is for the glory of God to be revealed when YOU step forward and provide them a meal.  It is for the glory of God to be experienced when you befriend the outcast and despised.  It is for the glory of God that you forgive those who have hurt you, wronged you, abused you, crucified you in whatever way.  It is for his glory that lives in you that you take on the sufferings of Christ.  What were the sufferings of Christ?  His sufferings were not the physical pains he endured.  His sufferings were taking on the sufferings of others so they wouldn’t have to.  His sufferings were and are seeing his children hurting and in need.  God has entrusted in us the church the greatest responsibility anyone could have, caring for and sharing in the ministry of Christ, the sufferings of Christ, to feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the lonely, clothe the naked, provide shelter to the poor.  How are you promoting the true Christ view of the world?

 

Which to Choose

Our small group has been trudging through the book of Romans.  I believe it was originally meant to be a focus on witnessing and evangelism, which I love by the way and use Romans quite a bit when engaging in both.  However, I found as we began delving into and weeding through the chapters that a deeper more urgent theme seems to arise from our discussions.  Who are we really in Christ?  Not as a church, but as individuals.

            The deeper I go in my faith, the more I experience a massive dichotomy between the world and the reality of God.  God’s ways are in fact a complete reversal of everything that we image or place as valuable, powerful, or encouraging.  Humanity places value in our individual accomplishments, achieving our own goals and prosperity.  Humanity exhibits power through force and fear.  Humanity finds encouragement in comparisons which make us “better” than someone else; i.e. the hierarchies of prejudice, racism, anti-culturalism, and hyper-exclusionism.  I would even be so bold as to say patriotism can expose our need to devalue another in order to lift up ourselves.

            But God sees things a little bit different.  God glories in our diversity, but unites us in our faith.  God holds the divine/human relationship as the most valuable thing in the whole world, even more so than His own earthly life.  God sees power as the ability to serve another and laying down one’s life for a friend.  God encourages us in that no matter the palace or the prison, rather a pit or a pedestal, where ever we find ourselves, he is there with us offering a relationship based on unconditional love. 

            In Isaiah 55: 8-9, “The Lord says, ‘My thoughts and my ways are not like yours.  Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, my thoughts and my ways are high than yours.’” Clearly, a line of distinction has been drawn in the sand.  The question is “where do we stand?”  Perhaps for many of us, we find ourselves traveling back and forth across that line, longing for that intimacy of relationship that brings peace and joy, yet seduced by the pleasures and addictions of the world that burden us with heartache and loneliness.  This is the trap of sin and the deceit to which humanity has fallen.  We cannot achieve our own salvation as the world has taught us.  We cannot obtain the thoughts of God as Satan would long for us to believe. (Look at the story of the fall in Genesis 3.) We, as individuals and as a species can do nothing more than struggle within our selves to reach a plateau that is beyond our comprehension, much less our reach.

            Yet, God in his mercy has made a way for us.  And Paul so vividly describes that way for us in Romans and urges us to see from a different perspective when he begins chapter 5.  “For by faith, we have been made acceptable to God.  And now because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God.  Christ has also introduced us to God’s undeserved kindness (Grace) on which we take our stand.”  All of us, rich or poor, free or slave, humble or proud, sinner or saint, have all been made capable of being welcomed by God into an eternal relationship with him.  And because of the gracious acts of Christ, we can live in peace and harmony in the midst of the turbulent seas of life. 

            Ultimately, we are called to a higher existence, one not of intelligence or distinguished morality, but one of simplicity based on love.  The dichotomy between this world and God’s world is simply about who is at the center.  Am I or is God? Who we are in every thought, word and deed should express not ourselves, but the One in whom we find our peace.  And the church cannot change the world when the individuals of the church are so staunchly against one another, Baptist vs. Catholic, Methodist vs. Pentecostal, Episcopal vs. Episcopal.  What we need to find out about ourselves as individuals is that we are one with every other Christian around the world and that we stand together for the common good of all humanity, that all might come to know how great, how wide, and how deep God’s love is for them.

 

Flesh Eating Zombies

“28 Days Later,” a man wakes up from a coma to discover that the entire world has been overrun with a deadly virus that turns everyone into flesh eating zombies.  A scientist in New York City frantically fights off a group of dark seekers who eat the flesh of their victims, having been morphed into colorless, violent humanoids in “I Am Legend.”  As the movie credits role, I turn to Christine and say, “well, there goes an hour and a half of my life I will never get back.”  She then stays up an additional hour or so watching mind-numbing shows on television to get the visuals out of her head.

What is our fascination with these pointless movies about people rising from the dead to engage in cannibalism?  “Dawn of the Dead,” “Night of the Living Dead,” and even to a great extent the Vampire films of our generation all “feed” on the same learned fears of the dead rising from the grave in a last ditch effort to retain what they have lost.  And the only way for them to retain this life is to take the life of those around them.

Now don’t’ get me wrong.  I like a good horror movie from time to time.  Notice I said a good one.  But these films have struck a cord in me that goes deeper than what I believe the “artists” making the film are truly examining.

Some would argue that these films are a cry against the modern establishment and the manner in which we as a society feed off of one another’s misfortunes, i.e. the ambulance chasing lawyer, the proverbial slum-lord who refuses to make proper repairs, the greedy politicians who pass laws and broker deals that put money in the pockets of the lobbyists, the fortune 500 companies, and themselves, not to mention western society as a whole that rapes the land, amasses immeasurable wealth at the expense of the rest of the world, and lays waste enough food to feed the famine ridden societies all over the globe. Hungry for power, wealth and prestige the west goes about devouring all that is in our path.

But I have to wonder if deeper still we may be being befuddled by a lie even more grievous than that which our politicians and Wall Street lobbyists could broker.  The lie is that death is a horrible, fearful experience in which we turn into uncontrollable animals.  There is a loss of self and rationality.  If immortality is achievable, then it is not something to be desired because we inevitably become the slaves to our lust for life itself.  Thus vampires drink the blood of the living in order to live.  Zombies or the undead must eat the flesh of living humans.  Death is something to be feared and the afterlife is not something to look forward to.

Yet the scriptures give us an entirely different perspective.  Scripture shows us a place where all the fears of the world are wiped away.  There is no more pain or sorrow.  All things, both earth and heaven, are made new.  The old has passed away.  We will sit with God, who will be our light and source of warmth and comfort.  We shall dwell together in peace with one another and there will be no fear, no regret, no anguish or torment for those who have put their trust and faith in God.  The Bible even goes so far as to say that the death of one of God’s saints is precious to the Lord and that there is rejoicing in heaven when one of the lost returns home.  I believe both through salvation in accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and when we make that final journey across the great divide to be with God in heaven there is a great homecoming celebration.

We as Christians need to respond to this great disturbance of what the after life will be like.  We need to pose the true picture of the hope that is to come for those who believe and have put their trust in Christ.  We don’t need to scare the hell out of people in order to get them into heaven.  We need to share the love and joy of heaven with them in order to help them to not choose hell.  We, the believers, the faithful, need to present the Gospel of peace, the good news that what we as humans have feared most has been over come, “Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”

 

A short word on the Lakeland revival/ outpouring/healing whatever

As a born and bred, mainline denominationally raised Christian, I have often found myself hyper-critical of any and all those super saints who claimed to have the power to heal in their finger tips.  I remember making fun of evangelists like Ernest Angley, slapping other kids in the head and telling them to be healed in Jesus’ name.  I was making a mockery and I knew it.

As I grew in my faith and struggled with my understanding of what the Bible says about the early church, its people and the miracles that they performed, I really began struggling with what is reality in the church, what does power mean, what is walking in the Spirit.  These things are part of what drove me out of the main-line denomination of which I was a part to seek something different.  So now I find myself doing Children’s ministry in a semi-charismatic, contemporary congregation that is not affiliated with main-line denominationalism which in and of itself is creating a whole new spectrum of questions and theological inquiries.

I was just getting used to all this strangeness when Lakeland happened.  Now I live about five hours way from the epicenter of this event, just far enough away that it wasn’t in my back door, but close enough that people in my church and community were flocking to it.  Immediately questions began coming at me that were not sufficiently answered.  Questions like:

        What exactly is the point in Gold Teeth? Why would God put a gold tooth in someone’s mouth and where is the Biblical evidence or support for such action?

        Why would a God of Love want someone to punch, kick, body slam, or otherwise abuse a person who has been hurting physically, spiritually or emotionally?

        Is this all real or is it fanfare and entertainment based enthusiasm?

        Are these true resurrection stories or simply everyday medical resuscitations?

So I pondered these events and the accounts of healings and conversions that were supposedly taking place throughout the world by the power of television and this outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Friends attended and came back enthralled with new zeal for the kingdom of God.  But was all this hype due to the actual encounter with the Holy Spirit or simply a great pep talk like my football coach used to give right before we would take the field for a playoff game?

Then the unspeakable happened.  Todd Bentley is having an affair, goes on stage inebriated, and falls from grace.  A whole lot of people were calling him the devil.  Some really believed it, even calling the outpouring at Lakeland a cult, a movement of Satan himself and satanic worship.  Come on people.  Jesus himself said told the Pharisees that “If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?” (Matt. 12:26) The fact of the matter is that a lot of people were greatly touched and empowered in their relationship with God in and through this revival.  Had it been a move of Satan, then this would not have been the case.  People would not have come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  Evangelism would not have occurred in and on the streets of Lakeland Florida, because the Name of Jesus cannot be proclaimed as Lord without the Spirit of God being in the person proclaiming such. (I Cor. 12:3)
So what did occur in Lakeland, Florida over the past several months?  I don’t know if I can say for certain.  God has always and will continue to seek those who worship him in truth.  He also continues to seek and save the lost through the ministry of the saints.  My speculation is that God began a great move in Lakeland, Florida and that move has touched and will continue to touch the lives of people around the world.  But in the midst of that move the flesh of man was revealed by Satan, which is his best defense against such movements of God.  In this case, the weak flesh of Todd Bentley has been revealed as the scriptures say all things will be brought into the light.  His indiscretion has unfortunately tainted the work that had begun.  Do we now discount all that was done previously in the Name of Jesus Christ?  Mind you that I watched those revival services on television and I heard them clap and cheer for Todd Bentley.  But I also listened as he opened the scriptures and expounded upon the power of Christ in the lives of those who believe.  I watched as countless numbers went forth and gave their lives to Christ for the first time.  And believe or not, numerous people were reported healed of infirmities and delivered from oppression through this ministry. 

Unfortunately, our society has come to a point where piety and holiness have lost their biblical meanings.  In a February 2008 blog, J. Lee Grady made the statement “Spirit-filled believers spend more time chasing “financial breakthroughs” than lost souls. We have rejected sacrifice and compassion and embraced a counterfeit gospel that produces bored, selfish spectators.”  While he himself has blasted the Lakeland revival, I believe we may want to consider his words in evaluating the movement itself.  I saw in the Lakeland revival people actually putting aside their lives for a season in order to seek the presence of God and search for lost souls.  The accounts of people ministering in stores, restaurants, housing projects and apartments in and around Lakeland, the changes in the lives of the people I know that went to Lakeland express to me that for a season we learned that it is possible to put life on hold in the sense of what it has become in our mundane lives and people can live for Jesus.  People can move away from their self-centered, self-focused, “financial breakthrough” seeking spectatorship and into life-giving, compassionate and loving ministry to strangers.  This is what I have experienced from the Lakeland revival/ outpouring/ healing whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going through the Water

Okay, I will admit it.  I am an acrophobia.  It is somewhat strange, though.  I can stand on the edge of a cliff in the mountains and look over a valley.  I can sit on a rock and dangle my feet over a 500 foot waterfall.  But I can’t go into a downtown high-rise hotel that is open without feeling vertigo.  I can’t be in a glass elevator either outside or in curling into a fetal position and fighting the urge to suck my thumb.  Seriously, I have a problem with these man-made heights.

One of the most amazing stories of the bible for me is God parting the Red Sea to save the Israelites.  Rather you are a skeptic who believes the argument that it refers to the Reed Sea or a fundamentalist who believes in the English translation of the Red Sea doesn’t matter to me.  The fact is that God saved the Israelites.

One of the things that always amazed me about that story is that after the path was made for them, they had a decision to make, go into the tunnel or face the armies of Egypt.  I wonder how many of us today would have chosen the latter.  Would we really have enough faith to take those initial steps between those walls of water? Would we become dizzy and faint at the immensity around us? Could we find the strength to put one foot in front of the other?

You know the walk through those towers of water is not much different than our walk of faith when you really think about it.  The water is shallow around us when we begin.  The deeper we go with God, the more scary things seem.  Yet when, you consider the path and ignore the height of the walls, you realize that the path and the steps are just as easy at the bottom of the gorge as they were when you walked across the beach sand to the water.   

I’ve only been to New York City once.  But I remember walking down the street and being over taken by the heights of the buildings around me.  It was almost like I was worried the whole time that something was about to fall on my head.  Periodically I would find myself stumbling around and bumping into people because my gaze was no longer on the sidewalk in front of me, but on the immensity of the buildings.  It’s a wonder I didn’t fall into the street and get run over by a taxi.

My point is simple.  No matter what level you are in your walk with God, you can be over taken by the place that God has put you and begin to miss the direction he is taking you.  You can begin to stumble and loose your balance.  You forget your destination.

You also forget that you are being taken through this gorge to save you.  There is an enemy on your tail and if you don’t get yourself to your destination, to the other side of the Sea, then your enemy can still over take you. 

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.”  Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen–the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. Exodus 14:26-31

 

vbs was awesome

Okay, so it is now finally over! Thank God! We had an awesome week of vbs.  We saw over 50 kids give their lives to Christ.  Some kids were rejuvenated and testimonies were flooding in from kids and parents alike about how this was a great vbs.  And it was.

Something happened last night that I needed to talk about though and I guess this is the journaling part of this blog for me.  In the midst of our unity service and celebration of vbs, I was trying to mc the best I could.  But quite frankly I was tired.  I was beat like a egg white for a lemon meringue pie. Everything seemed to be bothering me and I hope that I was able to put on a face and not allow everyone to see.  Anything that people said to me from disagreements with schedule to people telling me how things must be done made me feel less and less confident in myself and what I was doing.  It even got to the point where, as I sat listening to a testimony that was being given, that I thought I should just get up after they were done and as politely as possible give the microphone over to my senior pastor and let him run the show.  I felt inadequate and unprepared.  I began to question again my place in the kingdom.  Am I really called to be a pastor, a teacher, or a preacher?  Do I really belong on a platform with these wonderful men of God who proclaim the message every Sunday?  Or am I just seeking my own fortune and fame like so many other people seek theirs through business, entertainment or sports? 

I have a master’s degree in theology.  Yet I feel like an imbecile compared to other pastors with lesser education and former training. I search and seek and yearn for clarity and depth in my understanding of the ways of God.  And when I hear someone speak or expond through true reason, I often times find myself encapsulated with thoughts of “I know this, but I didn’t think about it.” or “why can I not reason as they do.”  I never hear a verse of scripture quoted without remembering it.  Yet, in living my life, I seem to fail on a day to day basis.  I constantly fall short and never seem to reach the pinnacle of either success or esteem that I long for in life.  I fear that I am in some way like the magician Simon in Acts 8, whom Peter rebuked by saying, “I can see you a jealous man, and filled with evil ways.”

Yet in my soul and in my spirit, I yearn and plead that God’s power and might would be used in my life, not for my glory or my fame, but for His.  All I really want, all I need is for God to be pleased with me.  And while I am torn between being the “front man” and being behind the scenes, I ultimately feel that I must take the opportunities God gives me to and make the most of every situation to bring glory and honor to his name above all else, submitting myself to authority and leading when necessary.

The service went marvelously though, by God’s grace, and I thoroughly do want to publically thank Carmen and Josh Barber, Aaron Highsmith and Casey Underwood, as well as all the other workers who gave of their time and efforts to the outcome.  Thank you Brian Varnadore for a wonderful tech crew that held everything together.  But most importantly, thank you Christine, my wonderful and beautiful wife, because if it hadn’t been for you all your behind the scenes work and organization, this vbs would have never been the success it was.  I love you!