The best laid plans of mice and men…

“If you wanna hear God laugh, then tell Him your plans…” or so we are told by Donnie and Johnny Van Zant.

Too often we orchestrate our own elaborate schemes for a successful and meaningful life, only to be left hurting, wanting, and desolate.

We lay out our own thoughts on how life should pan out, only to find ourselves wrought with disappointment.

Far too infrequently, however,  are we open to the leading and guiding of the Spirit of God inspiring and encouraging us onward for the sake of His kingdom and His glory.

In Acts 13:46, we see Paul and Barnabas declaring their mission shall no longer be to the Jews, but to the Gentiles. The Greek for “turning to the Gentiles,” is strepho, and literally means to turn one’s back on one for the sake of another, to no longer care for one for the sake of another.

Paul and Barnabas make it clear the Gospel was originally intended to be preached to the Jews first, but following the Jewish denial of it, Paul and Barnabas were now going to preach to the Gentiles.

However, look forward four chapters to Acts 17 when Paul arrives in Thessalonica, and in verse 3 we see him turning to the Jews at the synagogue there.

Rather than allowing his earlier decree get in the way (that is, rather than allowing his own thoughts and attempts to plan out his life, mission, and ministry), Paul follows through on the opportunity presented him and goes to minister to the Jews. Verse 4 tells us some were persuaded and joined them.

 

Too often we get an idea in our hearts that this mission or that ministry is to be our sole focus, our sole means of serving in His kingdom. We pigeon-hole ourselves in a strictly defined role, and forget we do not have the right to limit ourselves in that fashion.

We look for that one perfect way in which we can be happy, safe, and satisfied.
But we forget that God’s kingdom is as broad as the sky is vast, and that we will never find one defined role.

The will of God for us in His kingdom is just that: to be in His kingdom.
Matthew 6:33 tells us to simply seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and therein He will provide the means and the opportunity to glorify Him.

This world is not my home

Recently, somewhat by accident, my wife and I bought a house.

It was a bank foreclosure that had gone up for auction, and we put in a bid, not really expecting to win. Well, we did win. And now we have 48 hours to finalize our inspections, loan, finances, and contracts.

Its been a big surprise, its been a bit of a rush, and – more than anything else – its been terrifying:

Signing papers that effectively say, we are buying this house.

We can’t back out, we can’t get away, we can’t change our mind.
We own this house. This is our property. Ours.
Come feast or famine, flood, drought, earthquake, volcano, or an act of God (yes, that phrase “act of God” was actually in the contract), no matter what – we own this house.

And I can’t quite put my finger on what is so unsettling about the whole process.

Yes, the house is ours.
But this house will not make us happy, or fulfill any needs or wants, or make life any easier.
It certainly isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme; quite the opposite actually.

And in our hearts, the house really isn’t ours, but Gods.

¹The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains,
The world, and those who dwell in it.

– Psalm 24:1

It is His to use for His glory.

And we know that this house isn’t a permanent dwelling place, but a temporary abode.

¹Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

– 2 Corinthians 5: 1

So we have just signed over everything we have in this world (which isn’t ours anyways) to buy something that will never truly be ours completely (at least not in the attitudes of our hearts), and that eventually will pass away to dust just like everything else.

But God is good and has a plan and a purpose in this all. We prayed for clarity and direction, and the next morning our offer was accepted. He has set this path before us and we are thankful. We are excited to see Him work, to see Him glorify Himself for many years to come.

The halls of our house are open for His glory, however He may see fit.

May we never succumb to the illusion that this world is temporary, that this is all there is.
God is our provider and our shelter, and His provision now is but a foreshadow of His provision to come.
May we always remember that in all things, we are destined for and pointed towards heaven.

¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
¹⁷For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
¹⁸while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

– 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

Workers for the Lord?

I see an awful trend in ministry today: Too many pastors are so consumed with doings things for the Lord and serving Him in a mighty way, they forget to simply be near to Him and call upon His name.

My intention is never in ministry to do things for God, but to simply exist in relation with Him, and allow His graciousness to flow into and through me.

I have nothing to do with earning God’s love and I never have occasion to do something mighty for God.

God is good, faithful, and has provided for us.

⁵⁷but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

– 1 Corinthians 15:57

But beware, lest laziness and sloth take hold, for this is no excuse to rest back on our laurels.

¹²So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

– Philippians 2: 12-13

Work, and work hard.

But do not think you can cause God to love you any more than He already does, and don’t think your work is invaluable to His kingdom. He is mightier than that.

Never rest content in your relationship with God, but seek Him each morning with desperation, eagerness and desire.

²²The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
²³They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
²⁶It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD.

– Lamentations 3: 22-26

There, in fostering our dependence on God, is where the bulk of our energy must be expended.

Work – do for God – and we surely will become burnt out; empty and vapid shells of our former selves.

But be near to God and depend on Him, and surely His life will flow out of us for all the world to experience.

Only then will all the glory be God’s. For He alone is mighty and most worthy of praise.

Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

– John 1:46

Rob Bell’s Nooma video “Dust” can perhaps provide some helpful background information on this passage:

Nathanael’s opinion was par the course for how everybody viewed Nazareth in Jesus’ day. It was a blue collar town filled with laborers, not scholars or educated men.

Bell mentioned how the best of the best – the brightest – would follow the way of a single rabbi. Usually, these men would not come from Nazareth, it was a town made up of men who were surely a few fries short of a happy meal.

So, when Christ comes along teaching and preaching things that turned the world of Jewish law and custom on its head, everybody reacted the same way as Nathanael: “Nazareth? This guy is from Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding! What good can come from Nazareth?”

Yet Christ taught, and He taught with authority. He challenged popular rabbinic conceptions regarding the Law; in the Sermon on the Mount, every time Christ begins a teaching with, “you have heard it said…” He is taking something from the Law and turning it on its head.

Christ is showing the inability of anybody to live up to the requirements of the Law, and thus their need to trust in His forthcoming death.

Jesus’ teaching on the Law was radical – revolutionary. No one had even dreamed anything even remotely similar to the way Christ interpreters and applied the Law. His teaching truly was original, inspired, and authoritative.

And who taught in this way? A man from simple, lowly Nazareth, the place from which no good could come, from which no man could ever learn intricacies of the Law, let alone the revolutionary understanding Christ understood and taught.

With Philip I say to you, come and see. Come and see Jesus Christ, the Son of God who has come to teach a new way of life by covering your sins with His blood. Come and see Jesus Christ who knew we couldn’t meet the requirements of the Law, so He did for us. Come and see the teacher who didn’t just teach us how to live, but sacrificed Himself on a cross to offer us eternal life and the opportunity to live an abundant life (John 10:10).

Come and see Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)

The Search for God and Guinness

Recently I was afforded the privilege of reviewing The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield through the Thomas Nelson Blogger Book Review Program.

photo courtesy of Thomas Nelson Publishers

Herein, celebrated author Stephen Mansfield traces the lineage of the most prominent beer in the world, Guinness.

From its humble beginnings in the mind of founder Arthur Guinness, Mansfield shows us how each generation passed down business savvy, spiritual depth and devotion, and social awareness to its successors.

Located in the heart of Dublin, Arthur Guinness and his family after him saw to it that the Guinness brewery was socially responsible and took great care to impact the community for the better.

At a time when 33% of Dublin residents lived in one-room dwellings, up to eleven families could be found sharing homes designed for one, and blocks upon blocks shared one public toilet, the Guinness family instituted institutional reform and corporate responsibility the likes of which had never been seen before.

Mansfield cleverly weaves together tales of all three “divisions” within the Guinness family tree: the brewing Guinnesses, the banking Guinnesses, and the Guinnesses for God.

While it is obvious that the Guinness family brews beer, it is perhaps somewhat less well-known that they were a formidable force within the banking and political world of Ireland during the 1800’s, and an even less-known fact still that one of Arthur Guinness’s grandsons was perhaps the most well-known preacher in all of Ireland in his time.

However, despite these traditional demarcations within the family line, Mansfield goes to great lengths to draw heavily from the Reformed tradition which understands one’s duty it to glorify God in all walks of life, irregardless of one’s station.

Mansfield himself says: “So while I identify closely with the line of Guinnesses who were missionaries and ministers, I hesitate to think of them as any more connected to God than the other lines. A banker can be as called and as pleasing to God as Billy Graham may be when he preaches. A brewer can serve as valuable a role in the kingdom of God as a missionary, a priest, or a pope.” (159)

Be it for spiritual inspiration, business acumen, cultural relevance, or social awareness, The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield comes highly recommended to all.

Burdened for this generation

I currently work part-time as a substitute teacher to supplement my time (and income) while I serve my home church as youth pastor and complete seminary.

I cherish this opportunity for the interaction it affords me with youth in the public school system.

I cherish this opportunity on most days.

Thursday was not one of those days.

I was teaching 7th grade communication, and the students were allotted 40 minutes to complete their response to a writing prompt.

The prompt: write a three paragraph essay on a time in your life when you were pleasantly surprised or excited by something that happened.

One young boy asked me repeatedly if he could make something up for his essay. I said no, this was to be a factual account.

I didn’t understand what was happening.

Another teacher motioned me over and explained that some of the kids had never experienced anything pleasant, surprising, or exciting, and often resorted to making up things for these sorts of assignments.

My heart broke a little.

But – sadly – that wasn’t the end of my learning experience for the day.

I was reading through some of the essays turned in by the class – I will summarize the contents of the one that caught my eye:

It was a few days before Valentines day, and I heard Mommy and Daddy fighting in the kitchen…Daddy stormed out of the front door, I never saw him again. Mommy was in the kitchen crying. My brother tucked me into bed early hat night. A few days later, Mommy told me her and Daddy were getting a divorce….Just before Halloween Mommy brought home Fred for us to meet, Fred was going to be our new Daddy. I was excited.

How have we gotten here? How has our culture deteriorated to the place where a little boy has never experienced anything exciting? Where nobody has ever told him he was special? Where nobody has ever loved him? How have we gotten to the place where a sorry excuse for a man can run out on his family, never to return? Where it is normal for a young family to be ripped apart at the seams, only to be piecemealed together mere months later?

Not your average reading

We all know them; they are the famous passages. The passages everybody knows by heart and the passages every preacher uses when he gets preacher’s-block.

“Love the Lord your God…..”
“Be Holy because I am Holy…..”
“Love your neighbor…..”
And – invariably – some variation of, “The Kingdom of God/Heaven is like…..”

We all have passages we turn to first, passages we think embody the Gospel or our response to it, passages we use in counseling on a regular basis, passages we use in preaching and passages we think are foundational to the an understanding of the Kingdom (incidentally, my passage is Matthew 6:33).

Well, amongst these is Matthew 4: 18-22.

¹⁸As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” ²⁰At once they left their nets and followed him. ²¹Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, ²²and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

And more than knowing these (in)famous passages, we all know the standard interpretation of them.

If I had a dime for every time I heard a sermon encouraging us to embrace the reckless faith of the disciples who left their jobs as fishermen to follow Christ, I wouldn’t be paying off my wife’s student loans until the day I died (I’m pretty sure I would have to pay them back even if my wife died….).

So, far be it from me to stray from the pack and suggest an alternative reading; for indeed it is true we all should look to the aforementioned reckless faith of the disciples.

They did leave all they had ever known for the sake of following Christ, counting all things as loss for the sake of Jesus.

But let us not become beleaguered by whimsical or fantastic ideas that the disciples lived some fairytale life. They fished because they had no choice: it was their family business and they couldn’t make it anywhere else. They woke up early, went to bed late, and probably smelled like week-old sushi.

I imagine they were restless and discontent with their lives, and when Christ came along offering a chance at something bigger, they jumped on the bandwagon faster Los Angeles when the Dodgers make the playoffs.

Perhaps they had heard rumors and rumblings of this man baptized by John , perhaps they could connect the dots and thought perhaps this man just actually be the messiah, come to bring in political stability and throw off the heavy-handed Roman government, perhaps they saw how much they had to gain should this man turn out to truly be the messiah.

Me? What do I see in this passage?

I see the Son of God walking along the beach, offering purpose, meaning, and eternal life.

And I see four men – two sets of brothers – sick and tired of their seemingly dead-end lives, sick and tired of the same daily routines, sick and tired of looking for purpose and meaning in life. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but they left all they had and followed Christ.

Where does life find you today? Sick? Tired? Empty, purpose-less, and meaningless?

Look at your life, and you will see the Son of God offering to turn your life upside down.

Trust Him. He wants what is best for you – Himself.

Don’t stop at desiring God halfheartedly.
Leave everything behind, detach your heart from all this world offers, and follow Christ.

He doesn’t promise a better job, a faster car, or a bigger house.

But He does promise Himself, and with Him your life will never be the same again.

A cross marks the buried treasure, not an x

We read these words by Jesus in the 13th chapter of Matthew:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and buried again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

– Matthew 13: 44

I have always loved this passage; the devotion and desire we are to have for the Kingdom of God is of beautiful simplicity.

Whatever the treasure this man may have found in the field, he counted it worthy of his all. His home, his possessions, the fruits of his labor of his entire life.

But what has always stuck out to me is the unwavering allegiance depicted in this passage. It isn’t that the man simply goes out and sells all he has, but he buys something else, something of infinitely more value.

Too often we try and be good people: we give up our addictions and our vices, thinking that will make us better people. But this negative move alone, this giving up of the evils in our life, just isn’t enough.

In emptying our hearts of an attachment to all that is temporal and passing, we must fill our hearts with longings for the eternal and the divine. As we sever the ties that bind us to this world, we must form new ones to the one that awaits us.

Christ paid the  price and bought us free and clear, securing redemption, reconciliation, and regeneration with His death on the cross. As we leave behind all that this world has to offer, we must secure our hope and our rest on He that promises new life.

May our hearts be ever more attached to the grace, love, and truth of Jesus Christ. Not only is He the Savior of our souls, but He is the Lord of our lives.

A burning desire

Late in the Gospel of Luke, after Christ has risen from the grave, He appears on the road to Emmaus and talks with two individuals, explaining the scriptures to them.

After, once He had revealed Himself to them and left their presence, they began to discuss what they had just witnessed. And this is what they said:

“They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”

– Luke 24:32

The word here for burning is kaio and means to set on fire, light, or consume with fire.

How often are our hearts consumed with passion and desire over the truth and power of Jesus Christ?
How often are we a light to the world around us, desperate to make God known and see His name glorified?

I pray that our emotional high’s and spiritual excitement would give way to a consistent, burning passion that consumes us with desire for God’s kingdom.

Weathering the storm

⁶Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

– Philippians 4: 6-7

In the words of the apostle Paul, this is to be our recourse in those dastardly times of turmoil, tumult, and pain. When the storm closes in and threatens to sink our ship, Paul exhorts us to flee anxiety, and bring our most heartfelt needs to God. And he challenges to do so with thanksgiving and praise to God.

God is faithful and will respond, His peace will overwhelm us and comfort us.

How does Paul know this? What gives him the ability to make such great claims? What did Paul ever experience that was so tumultuous?

²⁴Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes.²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.²⁶I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; ²⁷I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

– 2 Corinthians 11: 24-27

Paul lived through it all, and came out the other side praising God for His goodness and His faithfulness. God had purpose in the storm, and His glory is on display for all to see because of it.

Do not fear the rough times in your life, but embrace them.
God has allowed the storm, and God has purpose for you in the storm.
Seek His face and draw nearer to Him, and He will comfort you and reveal Himself to you.
For His glory.