One Toke Over The Line

In 1988, “pen pals” were all the rage. In an effort to find a pen pal, my third grade teacher came up with a clever project for us. We were each given a stamped postcard, addressed to our school. On the back side, it had a section for us to fill in our name, grade, the current date and a short plea for the cards finder persuading them to write in their name, address and information on where they had found the card. Now to scatter these cards, we each filled a balloon with helium, tied our cards to the string and sent them off into the Littleton air. The eight-year-old me was filled with anticipation and anxiety, clinging to the hope that someone would find my card and drop it in the mail.  A week later, my card came back! My balloon had traveled all the way Wisconsin and had landed in the back yard of a fifth grader named Valerie. Boom, I had a pen pal! 

If you’re a helium-filled balloon, a gust of wind can take you far. It still amazes me that my little blue balloon traveled the 856 mile distance from Littleton, Colorado to Madison, Wisconsin. Alas, after conquering nature, my balloon met its doom and it popped. Although helium and wind had helped it conquer so much, it was now rendered useless. 

In the same way, I have experienced and have witnessed wind-chasing, helium-filled balloon faith in today’s church. As a balloon, we approach our faith like it’s a hit of helium we hope will carry us through to next Sunday.  The strength of our faith is tied to our emotional response to our religious experience. If it makes us feel good, if it makes others like us, if it causes us gain, we devote ourselves to it whole-heartedly. However, if it involves sacrifice, persecution or a surrender of comfort, we quickly depart as we confess that suddenly, something has come up.  We love the music, so long as it fits our style. We applaud the preaching, so long as it supports our ideals and preferred lifestyle. Somewhere in the midst of “Have it your way” and “Indulge yourself” we’ve missed the invitation to forsake ourselves in order to gain life and love from the One who will never leave or forsake us. 

The true pitfall to this emotionally based faith is devastating as we live one sharp encounter from total destruction. When life gets us down, when cancer overtakes someone we love, when our parents split up, when we lose our job, our house, when our balloon is punctured; we find ourselves in a situation in which another hit of helium simply cannot fix. Suddenly, we find ourselves helpless against the pull of gravity as we fall into a downward spiral of depression and hopelessness. 

The reality is that if our faith is rooted in dying to self, taking up our cross daily and following Him, we realize that it’s not about us. It’s time to say “enough!” to this floating about, aimlessly relying on our emotion to save us, define us and give us worth. We need to look to Jesus the revolutionary and surrender to the Savior. A faith based on Truth will not be shaken (or punctured). In the midst of our search for that spiritual high, we’ve missed the offering of love, joy and abundant life. We’ve settled for the convenient and the comfortable and it’s left us empty, lonely and restless. All the while, Jesus invites us to simply come to Him. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message).     

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – Jesus (John 10:10) 

Anorexic

I heard an alarming statistic recently; according to a recent Gallup poll, only 16% of all Christians read the Bible regularly. The Center for Bible Engagement’s website states, “it’s time we faced up to the fact that we Christians are blatantly biblically illiterate…We are so biblically ignorant we don’t even know that we’ve adopted beliefs that are much closer to Eastern mysticism than Christian orthodoxy. As a result, even though we are proudly part of the ‘born again’ segment of Christianity, we hold a worldview that is no more biblical than our non-churched neighbor.” Ouch! That means that only 16% of Christians “eat” their daily bread. The remaining 84% are anorexic.

As I was leaving San Angelo today, I pressed the Home button on my GPS. Now I know how to get home from San Angelo, but I love that my GPS will count down the mileage for me. As I did this, I began to think about how our culture, known for its Microwave comparison (we want everything as fast as possible), is also very much a GPS culture. There was a time where we would get out a map and plan our course. We would research the best routes to take and compare the mileage of alternates. Now, we push a button and the course is marked for us. Rarely is the provided route the most ideal, but hey, it’ll get you there and it takes little to no planning or thought. In my observation, this translates to our discipline in reading God’s Word. There was a time when Christians would study it and delve into it as they made their way through a life of faith in Christ. It seems; however, that pushing a button and letting someone else do the thinking for us has become the norm.

My challenge is that we would commit to getting the maps back out and dusting them off, to taking a “next step” in our time in God’s Word. If you’re currently reading the Bible once a week, commit to three times; if you’re at three, bump it up to five. Not in an effort to check things off of a to-do list, but to draw nearer to heart of God and to listen in on the route that He has mapped out for you. I know that this may sound like a chore, so I encourage you to pray for a hunger for His Word. We have an incredible journey ahead and pray that it would be a journey founded on and directed by the Word of God, for man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

for·give·ness [fer-giv-nis]:

How we define a word is often how we express its meaning in our lives. If I define love as a verb, as something completely selfless, devoting to serving and loving another, then I will love this way. However, if I use a softer definition, I might be inclined to say something like, "I love Dr Pepper." Now that is not so say that I selflessly devote myself to and serve Dr Pepper, but it's all in how I define the word. The same is true with another big word, big in meaning that is, and that's forgiveness. To grasp society's definition of the word, I looked up the definition on urbandictionary.com. It's an online dictionary for slang words with today's definitions provided by its users. Urban Dictionary has 6 definitions for Forgiveness one of which caught me by surprise at first...

"Allowing someone to think they are off the hook so you can toss their sins in their face over and over again later on."

...But then I realized, that is how we exercise forgiveness most of time, so I guess the definition isn't that far fetched. The good news is that we have another source for a definition of forgiveness. Matthew 18: 21-35 depicts a true definition of forgiveness. In this parable there are two slaves who both owe a debt. One debt is large and impossible to pay back. The master of this slave could have chosen to have the debtor thrown in prison, or his family could have been sold into slavery to help pay off the debt. It was hoped in those times that the debtor, while in prison, would sell off his land and possessions or that his relatives would pay the debt. If not, the debtor could remain in prison for life. But the master of this slave chooses to completely release the slave of his debt and to forgive him. Now in the Matthew 18 account, this same slave has a fellow slave who owes him a small debt, equal to about $100 dollars. Having received forgiveness of his debt, you would expect that he would in turn forgive his fellow man of his debt, right? Well, that's not how this story ends. This slave chooses to have his fellow man imprisoned and tortured for the small debt that he owed.

So let's bring this home. We are the first slave in this parable. We had a debt to God that we were not capable of paying back. God chose to release us of this debt and to forgive us through the death and resurrection of His son, Jesus Christ. So we, as the first slave, having received this immeasurable forgiveness have a choice in how we dispense it, in how we define it and ultimately, how we live it out in our daily lives. We all have those who have wronged us and in that, a debt has been created. Remember, it's not about how we feel, forgiveness is not about emotion. If we are to look at the greatest example of forgiveness, Jesus with his arms stretched out, taking his last breaths, choosing to die so that we might be forgiven, then we can't expect forgiveness to be a nonchalant word that we flippantly throw around. It's a choice, and sometimes it's painful. It doesn't say that the wrong that was done is okay, on the contrary, forgiveness says, "What you did was wrong, but I'm not going to hold it against you." Will we choose to imprison and torture others or will we look to the example of forgiveness in our own lives and choose to release others of their debts as well?

Just some food for thought, I've been chewing on it all week.

Convenience Store Christianity

How many of us love that we can walk into a convenience store anytime we want to and satisfy almost any craving we might have? We call it a convenience store for a reason, it’s just that, it’s convenient and the reality is that many of us are guilty of approaching the Christian life with this same mentality. It’s this idea of looking to God for what we want when we want it. We’ve made it all about us and we’ve made it convenient. We’ve replaced the one true God with our own created, weak, Santa Claus, meaningless god. We’ve stripped Him of almost all He is and all for the sake of convenience. I’m not sure where we lost the die to ourselves, pick up our cross daily and follow him. I don’t see this on very many shelves in our faith. It’s not very “convenient.” “Lord enlarge my territory, but don’t make me talk to that person.” “Lord, I want to live my life for you, but I’m not giving that up.” “You can’t really want me to sacrifice my reputation, my popularity, my status…” "I can be a 'Christian' and dine in the world’s kingdom too." So we grab onto 50% of the life God is offering through His son Jesus Christ, and we think we can grab onto 50% of the life this world has to offer and we try to straddle this fence. We live in mediocrity and tolerance. We’ve convinced ourselves that all God wants for us is fame, fortune and freedom from pain. We pick and choose what parts of the Bible we “agree” with and choose which characteristics we like about God and we create our own god. He’s weak, He’s powerless and He’s definitely not in control. He’s needy, he’s limited and He’s not real. We put before ourselves an idol that we worship, a god we’ve created. Meanwhile the lover of our souls is asking us to open our hands and let go of the parts of this world we’re holding on to and to really fall in love, to surrender it all for the sake of knowing Christ and the power of the resurrected life, knowing that the reward is so much greater than the price and recognizing that this Jesus is so much more than a shot to inoculate us against hell. He’s a heart healer, a fear taker, a soul soother, a father to the fatherless, a source of strength, a redeemer, His love is unconditional, His joy is inexpressible, His creation is unrivaled, His mercy is unfathomable, His grace is unmerited…and knowing Him is a lifestyle…and the reality is that He’s certainly not like anything we might find on the shelves of any faith convenience store.

- Michal Crozier
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”He's the King of the Jews. He's the King of the Gentiles. He's the King of righteousness. He's the King of the ages. He's the King of heaven. He's the King of glory. He's the King of kings. He's the Lord of lords. That's my King. Well, I wonder, do you know him?

The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmaments show His handiwork. My king is a sovereign King. No means of measure can define His limitless love. No far-seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of His shoreless supply. No barrier can hinder Him pouring out His blessings.

He's enduringly strong. He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful. He's infinitely powerful. He's impartially merciful. Do you know Him?

He's the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of the world. He's God's Son. He's the sinner's Savior. He's the centerpiece of civilization. He stands in the solitude of Himself. He's honest and He's unique. He's unparallel. He's unprecedented.

He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality in philosophy. He us the supreme problem in higher criticism. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology. He's the core, the necessity for spiritual religion. He's the miracle of the ages. Yes, He is. He's superlative of everything good that you choose to call Him. He's the one qualified to be our all-sufficiency. I wonder if you know Him today.

He supplies strength for the weak. He's available for the tempted and tried. He's sympathizes and He saves. He strengthens and sustains. He guards and He guides. He heals the sick. He cleanses the leper. he forgives the sinner. He discharges debtors. He delivers the captives. He defends the feeble. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the aged. He rewards the diligent. And He beautifies the meek. I wonder if you know Him.

Well, this is my King. He's the key of knowledge. He's the wellspring of wisdom. He's the doorway of deliverance. He's the pathway of peace. He's the roadway of righteousness. He's the highway of holiness. He's the gateway of glory. Do you know Him?

His office is manifold. His promise is sure. His life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. I wish I could describe him to you.

He's indescribable. He's incomprehensible. He's invincible. He's irresistible. Well, you can't get Him out of your mind. You can't get Him off of your hand. You can't outlive him and you can't live without Him. The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found they couldn't stop Him. Pilate couldn't find any fault in Him. Herod couldn't kill Him. Death couldn't handle Him and the grave couldn't hold Him. That's my King.

And Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever and ever! How long is that? And ever and ever! And when you are through with all the forevers, then amen! God Almighty! AMEN!”

- Dr. Shadrach Meshach Lockridge

Fifty-six one pic

"My small group last year: Fifty-six One, you know"