Change:

Something To Think About God-directed Change:

I’m finishing up a semester of teaching God’s word to some sharp young people in another part of the world.  You can syllabize, student-learning-outcome-ate, give out grades and award college credit, but that isn’t really what it is about.  The word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than the two-edged sword the Roman legions used to conquer the world.  It gets down inside us.  You can’t hide from it.  (Hebrews 4:12)  God’s word will not fail to accomplish what He desires.  It will “succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11, ESV).  Though I believe God wants my students to pass, that is not the bottom-line.  God intends His word to change us.  It is His desire for this word to penetrate the defenses that we put up.  We ought to yield to it.  God intends that His word change us.  If I go to the Word of God and come away the same, God’s word has not failed; I have failed to yield, obey, or submit to the discipline of the word. The Book of 1 Thessalonians is biographical sketch of a group of people changed by the truth of the Bible.  They “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven” (1 Th 1:9–10).  The Apostle Paul’s time in Thessalonica was brief, but he was convinced it wasn’t in vain (2:1).  The Thessalonian believers received the word Paul and his companions shared as it truly was, the Word of God (2:13).  The progress they had made gave the Apostle hope that they would continue to build upon what they had already begun (3:12, 4:2, 4:10, & 2 Thess 1:3).  Paul’s series of one-liners with which he finished the book are clearly the words of a teacher who fully expected his students to apply what they were learning, resulting in changed lives. As I finish this semester, I can identify with the Apostle Paul.  Thanks students, for realizing this is more than a class about a 1900 year old book.  We are studying the Word of God. What about you?  Have you allowed the Word of God to change you?  It’s STTA.

Trying Audaciously

Something To Think About Trying:

“There are some things that are worth failing at.” I shared this piece of wisdom—at least I hope it is wise—with a friend who is one of the least likely to fail guys that I know.  I shared it with him because he is involved in a task that has many ways it can fail.  My friend is dependent on others for resources, both fiscal and personnel, yet he is in a position where he has very little if any authority to command those resources.  Others around him, often through ignorance, perhaps on occasion out of some malice, oppose him.  There is no clear manual for doing what my friend is doing.  He is taking knowledge and wisdom from other situations that are “kinda-sorta” the same and cobbling together a plan as he goes.  If he stops to work out a clear plan first, it is quite likely that the opportunity will vanish.   Why does my friend keep on?  Why do I encourage him to hang in there? Because what he is doing is that important.  Yes, he might fail, but then again, by God’s grace he might succeed. Jonathan was the Prince of Israel.  His people were vastly outnumbered and totally dispirited by their enemies the Philistines.  Oh, and other than the ones the King and his son carried, they had no weapons.  With that in mind, listen to this unpromising conversation between Jonathan and his armor bearer. “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.” “Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.” (1 Samuel 14:6-7) Talk about a plan that appeared to be doomed to failure.  There were only two of them, and the rest of the army didn’t even know where they were.  They had a cliff to climb, and the first step of their audacious plan was, “to let them see us.”  So much for the advantage of surprise.  Jonathan surveyed the desperate plight of his people and concluded that this was a mission worth failing at. Too many of us will go to our graves swaddled in well-thought-out safety, never having tried anything great.  Only a few, like Jonathan and like my friend, will survey the field before them and say, “Here is a great task, ‘perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf.’”  Those who fail at such tasks are not to be looked down on or pitied.  Save that for those who never try. It’s STTA.

Choose Life

Something To Think About Choosing Life:

Genesis one declares that God made people in His own image.  Just what does that mean?  Jesus told the Samaritan woman that God is a Spirit, so the image of God is not visual.   Genesis 3, the story of the Fall gives us an important clue.  After Eve and Adam disobeyed their creator, we read that God came looking for them. “When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.  Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  (Genesis 3:8-9) It appears that God not only created the first couple and placed them in Eden, but that He regularly came by to be with them.  Now that sin had come between them and their God, He called out to them, not because He didn’t know where they were, but so they would realize what they had done.  When we come to the other end of the Bible we hear John declare about the New Jerusalem, “I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. . . . The throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him.  And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads.”  (Revelation 21:3 & 22:3-4) In between we see the God seeking out a people who will be His very own.  So often we misread God’s motives.  Adam and Eve’s rebellion caused them to be cast out of the beauty of the Garden Eden into a world of thorns and weeds and pain and death.  The alternative to that home in heaven that we read about in Revelation is the one place in the universe where all of the blessings God gives to those who yield to Him are absent.  Why, between these two poles of God declaring His desire to be with His creation and bless them, do we think that we are better off without our Lord?  The enemy of our souls continues to convince women and men that they are better off as rebels. Get quiet and listen.  Can you hear the voice calling, “Where are you?”  He wants you to answer so you will know.  Are you living in the realm of His blessing, or are you continuing to follow the voice of the tempter? The Apostle Paul tells the story of some who made the right choice. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.  All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much,  that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)  For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.  So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.   (Ephesians 2:1-10) It’s STTA.

Dying, Wherever I am:

Something To Think About Dying:

I was discussing death with some folk from another culture.  I jokingly said that I don’t know how to die in their culture.  As we discussed our traditional death practices, we found that there are some practices that are very different, others are quite similar.  For instance in the USA it is common for friends and relatives to prepare meals and bring food to the bereaved.  The practice among my friends’ people is for the grieving family to prepare a feast for those who come to pay their respects.  Both cultures seek to honor the one who has died. After we discussed differences and similarities we identified the one element that is incontrovertibly the same; no matter where we are from or what our traditions are—everyone of is going to die.  “It is appointed for men to die once and after thiscomes judgment.”  (Hebrews 9:27) It turns out I do know how to die, anywhere.  Just keep on living.  It'll happen.  It is an obvious, undeniable reality, yet all over the world people seek to ignore it.  We do so at our peril, deadly peril It’s STTA. Read here to find out how to prepare for death, and be ready to live..

Sleeping on the Job

Something To Think About Sleeping on the Job:

A very common image for the church--it applies to both churches and The Church—is the Body.  1 Corinthians 12 is one of the most extensive treatments.  One point that is abundantly clear is that every part needs to do its part. A crisis, or maybe it was a “pre-crisis,” developed in the early church.     "As the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food."  Acts 6:1 (NLT)   I’m looking back at my time as a pastor, and at the record of pastors I know.  My (our) tendency would be to put on an apron and make sure the soup distribution was equal.  The Apostles were too wise for that. So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said,    “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program.  And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility.  Acts 6:2–3 (NLT)   There are times when I have gotten up from a chair to find that my foot had “gone to sleep.”  I suppose I could have just crawled to where I needed to go, letting my knees fill in for my slumbering foot.  The wiser course of action though is to massage the foot, or even gently stomp it on the ground to get the circulation going again.   Getting the foot back in the game is good not only for the rest of the body, but for the foot itself. What in the body should be doing? What might be being neglected because you are not on the job? It’s STTA.

Lost & Found:

Something To Think About Lost Things:

Many people, when they first hear the story from Luke 15, about the lost coin, wonder, “What’s the big deal?  The crevices in my couch and the floorboards of my car are full of coins.”  “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? “When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10) This coin, though, wasn’t just pocket change.  A drachma represented a day’s wages for a common worker, and a day’s worth of supplies for this woman’s household.  The ten coins very likely made up her entire estate. I recently had an experience that gave me a much greater appreciation for the woman’s pain when her coin was lost and joy when it was found.  A friend gave us her camera card so we could copy some pictures that she had taken.  I sat down in a chair and began to open my computer so I could copy the picture files.  I put the little blue chip on the chair arm.  My computer’s battery was dead, so I got up to get my power supply.  When I sat back down the card was gone.  I looked under the chair, around the chair on and under the table where my power supply had been.  I moved the chair, and looked everywhere I could think of.  My wife came in and asked me, “Is it here?”  “Could it be there?”  I got a flashlight and crawled around in the floor.  I started looking places where I knew the postage-stamp sized storage device couldn’t be, because I had looked everywhere that it could be.  I searched my pockets at least ten times, and searched the pockets of the pants and shirt I had had on before the whole thing began, even though I was sure that I had already hung those clothes up before I got the chip from Kathy.  I searched for an hour, then Kathy and I both searched for another two.  Like the woman in the story, we swept the place repeatedly. Finally Kathy found it. When I plugged the charger in I had apparently put it down on a book near the receptacle.  Kathy was straightening up before company arrived, and put the book on a shelf.  In desperation she took the books off the shelf.  She really had no hope she would find it, but there it was in all its blue and gold glory. I could buy a new camera card for a few dollars, but I couldn’t buy that one, the one with my friend’s pictures on it.  For at least half the time that I was searching I was mentally composing an apology to my friend.  We didn’t throw a party when we found it, but we did feel like.  We did stop and offer thanks to God.  In addition to writing mea culpas, I had prayed that the Lord would help us find the treasure.  I’m thankful even as I write this. What I find most amazing about this Bible story is that is me, a sinner who repented and came to faith in the Lord that was (is) the cause of such joy in heaven.  As we searched for the camera card, it just sat there on the shelf, totally passive.  The Lord reaches out to us and desires that we would turn to Him.  He is seeking.  It is not that God doesn’t know where you are, but He is desirous that you turn to Him.  Find out more here. It’s STTA.

What I Want/Need

Something To Think About What I Want/Need:

How often do I find myself asking myself, “What can that person do for me?” or, “What have they done for me lately?”  The seemingly endless political campaign that just keeps on going in the USA reeks of those kinds of questions.  It seems like kids learn to ask those questions, and manipulate others based on the answers, about the same time they learn their first word, “NO!” There is a whole branch of Christianity that is basically all about applying those questions to the God of the universe.  It is variously called Prosperity Theology, Name-it-and-Claim-it, or as a friend labels it, “Blab it and Grab it.”  Shaping one’s Theology around consumerism, and/or viewing people as means to an end—MY end—is clearly contrary to the teaching of the Bible.  To quote a Theological lesson I learned when I was just a little guy,   “Jesus and others and you, what a wonderful way to spell joy.”   Not only is looking at the Universe as my amusement park wrong, in an intellectual sense, from a pragmatic viewpoint it doesn’t work.  People who get everything they want, especially if it is just given to them, don’t turn out very well.   “A child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.”  (Proverbs 29:15) Quite often what we most need is what we want the least. Hebrews 12 points out that as our loving Father, God disciplines us.  The language is quite severe.  Self-discipline, not self-indulgence, leads to improvement. But since that might not be what you wanted to read, you might have already quit.   It’s STTA. Read here to find out about what we really need.

Water

Something To Think About Water:

This evening I did something that I’ve never done before.  I stood in line to get water.  I can remember, visiting some of my old relatives when I was a child, where we had to draw water from the well.  There have been a few times, either when I was working on the plumbing or when there was a brief interruption to our utility service, when nothing came out when I turned the spigot.  But this is a different matter.  The El Nino weather pattern has brought drought conditions to Micronesia that combined with the increase in tourism to the tiny nation of Palau has created a real shortage.  Our water goes on and off by a schedule passed down from the government.  We are fortunate, some of our friends have basically no water.  Their water come “on,” but by the time the limited pressure brings water to their faucet it is already turned off.  Most people in this region either filter their water, or buy it.  That’s why I was lined up tonight, at one of the only places you can go to get your jug refilled. It has already caused me to think differently about H2O.  From taken for granted to precious in one leap. Water was—still is—precious in Israel, the land of the Bible.  Perhaps that is why the Bible often uses water as a picture for the blessings that God gives.  In just a quick count I spotted something like fifteen times in the book of Psalms that water is symbol of blessing.  Here is one example. “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.” (Psalm 63:1–4, NASB95) In the New Testament the image continues.  Jesus gives this marvelous invitation. “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”  (John 7:38, NASB95) Standing in line with my empty jugs, I was thinking about that.  I hope you have plenty of water.  I encourage you to join me in praying for the islands of Micronesia.  Most of all, I encourage you to consider the offer of an endless supply of living water from our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s STTA. Find information about Living Water here.