If I were the devil, my first aim would be to stop folks from digging into the Bible.

J.I. Packer

Holier than Thou

Ray Ortlund's blog post this week is so good. He writes:
I was asked recently, "How come a stereotype of the church today is one of a 'holier than thou' mentality?"

Great question. It's a real problem. Three thoughts.

One, the problem is not sin in the church. The problem is concealed sin in the church. That problem is intensified by Christian aloofness: "You people over there have cooties. We Christians are better." Are we?

Two, when church people put others down, there are two possibilities. One, their faith isn't in Jesus' superiority. Their faith is in their own superiority. There is no awe, gratitude, humility, because they aren't really Christians. Two, they're new Christians, they're coming in with some baggage, and they're learning. And can any of us say, "I'd never do that"?

Three, if you accuse Christians of being judgmental, are you being judgmental? Do you feel that Christians are beneath you? Why are you so comfortable with your non-Christian friends? Does their company help you feel safe from Jesus? Is that what really bugs you about Christians -- you feel another Presence, and he scares you?

I know this. We Christians will see more repentance in our city when our city sees more repentance in us. And we can be honest about our failings, because it isn't our performance that makes us okay. It's Christ's performance for us. That's the gospel. It's so freeing.

The Judge and the judges

I'm preaching Sunday on Jesus' encounter with the Pharisees, teachers of the Law and the woman caught in adultery; it's the opener of a short series on "God's Scandal". This one is called "The Judges Meet the Judge".

I remembered my first taste of judging! I was probably only 8 or 9 when a family moved into our little town in Southwest Kansas. They weren’t much different from the rest of us; they were just poorer. They moved into an old ramshackle house -- really a shack -- and little by little, to us kids in school, they became the "untouchables." Their kids wore old, maybe dirty clothes; maybe they wore the same ones over and over (like me!). But they were slow in school.... and held back... and we judged and condemned them. We treated them like they were unclean! You couldn’t sit by one of them on the bus; you couldn’t touch their desk or their books; you couldn't even be near them in class. I shudder to think of the awful things we said and did in those early years of our lives. And I cannot imagine what it must have done to their hearts. We judged them and we condemned them as "unworthy".

John Fisher writes, "few activities in life rival the thrill of passing judgment on another human being. I don’t believe I can go a day on God’s green earth without in some way indulging in this forbidden art. It is the particular pastime of the self-righteous to hold court, and I have been long at the bar. For many, judgment and condemnation have become a way of life. The act of mental sentencing is the mind-set most readily available to those who have been neither willing nor prepared to bring their own actions, thoughts and motivations into the light." (Emphasis mine) From: 12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (like me).

Pride: the antithesis of Grace

"Grace humbles a man without degrading him and exalts him
without inflating him." Charles Hodge

God give us some national leaders…

…who will first be people of character -- then people willing to lead.
…who will attack problems with tenacity, creativity and perseverance, instead of wasting time attacking opponents.
…who will recognize that real evil exists in the world and it isn’t embodied in the opposing political party.
…who will be more concerned about people than their own image and ongoing power.
...who will appeal broadly to peoples, organizations and companies to take on common issues instead of pitting one against the other for stupid political advantage.
…who will be servant leaders, glad to serve and solve problems, then return to ordinary life after a few years.

Faithful??

I've been looking at the word "faithful" every morning, praying it will be what characterizes my relationship to Christ and to the individuals He places in my life.

I was challenged this morning by words I read from David Olford in Find Us Faithful: Leadership That Leaves a Legacy: "Rather, there is a more basic issue related to this issue of faithfulness which confronts all of us. It is the giving of our attention to priority concerns and matters while we have the God-given opportunity to do so. We never know how much time we have in any given relationship, responsibility, ministry or situation. And because of the awareness of the potential brevity of any season, we need to determine what really matters, what really counts and what really must be done. We must be occupied faithfully with what God wants us to be and do in any given relationship or situation before we have to say, 'Good-bye.'"

How far can Christ reach?

The film "Amazing Grace" (2007) chronicled the life and cause of William Wilberforce. He fought for most of his life to end the British transatlantic slave trade of the 19th century.

Wilberforce had made an earlier visit to his old pastor and friend John Newton. Newton was captain of a slave ship prior to his conversion to Christ. Wilberforce had earlier hoped that Newton would write an account of his slave ship days -- but he refused -- because the experience and the "20,000 ghosts" haunted him too greatly.

Near the end of the struggle to end slave trade, Wilberforce visited Newton and discovered, that the one who had written "Amazing Grace" had now written his full account. His eyesight now gone, Newton tells Wilberforce, "You must publish it. Names, records, ship records, ports, people—everything I remember is in here. Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly: I'm a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior."

The World on Our Doorstep

My wonderful wife and I are going to volunteer again with a group serving international students. At the training of the local ministry, we learned the statistic we'd heard years ago has slightly improved. It used to be 80% of international students come to the U.S. and leave (1-6 years later) never having seen the inside of an American home. It's still 70% of the 700,000 students who are here.

What an opportunity to establish friendship, and love and serve individuals from all over God's world -- and also to then answer their questions -- about family, work, and what we believe about Christ. Many students come assuming all Americans are "Christians". No wonder they so often leave our country deeply disappointed at reactions they've received to their presence here.

....go and make disciples of all nations [all people groups].... (Matthew 28:19)

God is no one's Fool

We spent yesterday evening with some grieving friends. No, they didn't lose someone, not in the classic sense anyway. But someone near and dear to them -- a Christian -- steadily, surely is walking away from Christ -- moving step by step to immorality and will not listen to anyone's warning or admonition.

Then I opened my Bible this morning and read two passages: one, Ezra 8:21-9:15. That one is the account of Ezra's mourning, fasting and prayer over how his people so gladly welcomed God releasing them from the slavery of captivity, then so blatantly snubbed Him, ignoring His warning not to intermarry with the pagan people in the land around them. The second passage was 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. It's Paul record of how dumbfounded he was that the church in Corinth just "overlooked" (and even seemed glad about) the gross sin of one of their members. Both passages hold dire warnings that God -- as much as we think He will -- won't play our fool and overlook what we know is in essence a disregard of Him when we actively choose sin.

Then I was reading in "God: As He Longs for You to See Him" (Chip Ingram) in the chapter on "The Holiness of God." Writing about Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) Chip says, "They chose to make a mockery of other believers, God's holiness and the privilege of giving. They treated God as someone they could fool. God, everyone discovered, will not be mocked....."

"If you are hard-headed like me, the experience can be tough because the vice often gets very tight before I even start paying attention. God often uses our finances, our circumstances and our relationships. He will do whatever it takes to get as much of our attention as he needs to say, 'Be holy, for I am holy.'"

Wrong Number?

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ
so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

I was reminded last week of a sweet little elderly lady we knew in Kansas City. She came to mind, because -- I had a note to call the cell phone number of a man who had called a few weeks earlier, asking what small groups we would offer this Fall. We've got our list together -- and it's a good one! -- so I called. But, I was one digit off (the older I get the more dyslexic!). When another name was on the voice mail, I knew what I'd done. I didn't leave a message, but hung up and redialed correctly. A couple of hours later, the "wrong number" called me back -- in a hesitating voice, (having called a "church" -- and we know how much fear there is in that!) he said, "someone called my number....?". I explained I'd dialed incorrectly -- and he -- again with almost sounding sad, said, "okay" -- and that's when the little lady from Kansas City came to mind. She got more telemarketers and "wrong number" callers calling her than anyone in the Midwest! And regularly, sitting in her room in a nursing home, unable to get out much, she shared Jesus Christ with nearly all those callers! And in the prayer time, she'd share, often, how another one had come to faith, because of calling the wrong number!

Christians used to term those "chance" meetings divine appointments-- God arranged meetings! I wonder why we don't think like that anymore!

Pray for yourself, II

A great idea, from Chip Ingram in Good to Great in God's Eyes -- the last book the elders and I read together: in his chapter on "Dream Great Dreams" he says, write out your God-given dreams, and then pray over them regularly. Here's one illustration from my stack of 3 x 5's, now in my One-Year Bible:

Finish Well
I long to be faithful to Christ, and to the people He has and will place around me, until the day I die.

Pray for yourself

<sup>One of my "summer plan for growth" goals was to read through, print, then pray every day, one of the prayers of Paul for the Ephesians and Colossians. (Remember, those are the parts we usually skip over quickly to get to the rest of the letters!)

It's been an amazing exercise. Along with time in the Word, and now praying some additional things for myself, my mind and heart have gotten re-focused, and for the most part, the days are filled with more awareness of what God wants to do in my life and I'm more willing to be available to let Him do it. Try it out for 90 days! Here's one of several:

9</sup> For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. ¹⁰ And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:9-14

What am I out to prove?

There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself ...there have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. C.S. Lewis

Today Matters

I'm working this week on what I thought would be the most straightforward of the messages on "Satan's plan for your life" -- this one is "he wants you in a spiritual coma" from 2 Corinthians 11:1-3 (And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.); so far it's not so straightforward! But I was encouraged and challenged by a good and strong word from C.S. Lewis; he wrote,

"Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Grace at the Table

Jesus shared the Last Supper with Judas. He offered it to Judas, even knowing He'd already determined to betray Him. Jesus invites me to the table too. He knows all about me, as much as about Judas, but He still loves me and invites me there. I like the story of the Scottish girl who came in from the Highlands to the city of Edinburgh, started hanging with the wrong friends, and soon was living an immoral life. It was against all she'd learned as a kid in Sunday School and Church; one Sunday she slipped into a church covered with shame and need. They were celebrating communion that day, and when a sweet old deacon came by with the plate, she shook her head sadly and said: "I can't take it. I'm too unclean." The old deacon, well versed in the Gospel, whispered: "All the more reason to take it lassie. It's not meant for saints. It's for sinners. Not worthiness but willingness, that's the issue."