I had lived in the Glasgow area for most of eight years, and all the memories were flooding through my mind as I thought of the fact that I would soon be leaving this land I had come to call home. I had memories of summer barbecues at which we had to wear waterproof jackets, late nights talking and drinking coffee with friends, fascinating lectures and discussions at college, and long walks in the hills. I also had memories of difficult days and painful hurts. A lot had happened in eight years, and I definitely had a love-hate relationship with Glasgow. Yet, most of all, I remembered how those eight years had changed my life for the better.

In the past, my favorite colours had always been blue, red and black. I had never particularly loved green. However, Scotland had changed my whole perspective on green. Filled with rolling green hills and covered with lush, healthy green grass, it was without a doubt one of the most beautiful places in the world; especially on those rare occasions when the sun shone and brightened the incredible landscape that had been so well-watered by the country’s constant rain.

In George Square, I looked up at the 80-foot column upon which Sir Walter Scott had stood looking over the city since 1837. This square changed character during the different seasons of the year, but the famous author of Ivanhoe and Rob Roy continued to stand guard over the city… rain, shine, and more rain. In the summer, the square was often filled with concerts and other events, including the occasional political event or protest. During the annual Jazz Festival each June, various kinds of jazz could be heard rising from the square as live bands graced the venue with their talents. This was always a favorite time for me in the square. Then it would be converted into a mini-carnival at Christmastime, filled with rides, ice-skating and lights. On Valentine’s Day, a Ferris Wheel would take people high above the city and, every New Year’s Eve, the square would be filled with people for the annual Hogmanay celebration.

This day, however, was just a normal day. There were some people bustling about the square as the first drops of rain began to fall and my mind continued to drift through eight years of memories. My greatest memories, of course, were of the girl I met while in Scotland and married last year in January. Though I was soon to say goodbye, I would always carry a part of Scotland with me in Karen.

I now sit in my room in Rosarito Beach, México. Karen and I have started a new life here, and we are very happy. Great things are happening, and we’ve met a lot of wonderful people.

My memories of Scotland are always present for it was there my life changed forever in so many ways. I am so grateful for the years God gave me there. I am also grateful that I met some of the best friends anyone could ever have while in Scotland. That wonderful land will always be a part of me and, from time to time, I will feel homesick for the green land that stole a piece of my heart.

I feel at home in México now and know without a doubt that this is where God wants Karen and me to be. However, I look forward to visiting Scotland again; hopefully, one day soon. When I go, I will visit wonderful friends, walk through some green hills and most probably also find an opportunity to sit under Walter Scott’s gaze in George Square and let great memories run through the theatre of my mind. Here’s a tribute to you, dear Scotland, and to all that you’ve given me. You’ve given me Karen, good friends, life-lessons and many other things — and you’ve taught me that green is a good colour indeed.

The counterfeiting of money is a criminal endeavor that is practiced all over the world, and when counterfeit notes find their way into circulation they actually have the potential of crippling whole economies. How? If enough counterfeits get into circulation before being discovered, soon people and businesses all over the nation find themselves with money that is useless and cannot be spent once the world is aware of their existence. This has resulted in several cases around the world of real money’s value being decreased and businesses suffering greatly due to not being reimbursed for the fake money they were left with.

This problem in the economic world reminds me of a similar problem in the spiritual world. The problem in that case is the problem of counterfeit spirituality. Some of the greatest damage that has been done to Christian churches is the damage that has been done by people who claim to be followers of Christ but spread poison throughout the church with their un-Christlike attitudes. They know how to “talk the talk” and look like the real thing, but they are not what they seem to be.

One of the most common examples I’ve seen is the example of counterfeit spiritual gifts. I’ve met people who claim to have the gift of prophesy for example, but their character doesn’t match. They prophesy grand things during the church meeting, but during the week they live loveless lives. They treat their neighbors disrespectfully, display dishonesty in their workplaces and judge one another harshly.

For every spiritual gift listed in the Bible, I’ve seen its clever and dangerous counterfeit.

In particular, I have often seen the counterfeit’s clever use of the gift of “discernment.”

Imagine this scene:

A woman comes up to her pastor and says, “I have the gift of discernment.”

The pastor thinks to himself, “Oh no! Here we go…”

Then, for the next hour, he listens as she tells him everything that is wrong with everyone else in the church.

I have talked to so many pastors who have had to deal with this issue! Someone comes into their church who claims to have a spirit of discernment, but their spirit is exposed as one of criticism.

Oswald Chambers was well aware of this counterfeit, which is why he so aptly clarified what the real thing looks like. He said, “Discernment is God’s call to intercession, never to fault-finding.”

Here’s the thing: If you have a spiritual gift, it is there for the building up of the church and never for the tearing down of your brothers. One of the greatest dangers to the Christian church is a judgmental spirit and, sadly, it is often disguised as “spirituality.”

What happens when counterfeit spirituality is allowed to run rampant in the church? It devalues the real thing in the eyes of the world and often leaves churches to suffer once the real thing has been pushed out of the church and only the judgmental spirit remains, feeling itself too good to welcome anybody else into its midst.

I’m really enjoying living in Rosarito and working with Baja Christian Church because I’ve seen so much of the REAL thing here. My only warning is that we not allow ourselves to be lured into the trap of counterfeit spirituality. It’s subtle and can easily find its way into any of our hearts if we do not guard ourselves against it.

The real thing shows itself in character. Galatians 5:22-23 says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” These are things that can’t be successfully counterfeited. Anyone knows when they are really being loved and not just treated like a project, and anyone can tell when people are truly good, faithful and kind.

I would suggest that everyone who claims to be a follower of Christ take a moment to ask God to examine their hearts and to show them if there is a trace of counterfeit spirituality anywhere in them. It’s like a leaven that soon finds its way into the whole loaf if it isn’t stopped or, perhaps even more to the point, a cancer that spreads to the whole body if it’s not cut out.

What are some of the symptoms to look out for in ourselves? Well, one obvious symptom is if you are reading this right now and your first and only thought is, “I sure wish so-and-so could read this so that he could get straightened out!” Judgmentalism and a critical spirit are two of the main symptoms of false spirituality. True spirituality never leads to these things. Rather, it leads to grace.

Oswald Chambers spoke wisely when he said of the gift of discernment that, if its real, it will lead you to pray for the other person rather than to start “fault-finding.” This holds true for all the spiritual gifts that God gives His children. He has gifted us all as unique individuals with special, unique gifts to be used for Him. However, those gifts are never rightly used when used AGAINST other people. They are only rightly used when used to build one another up and to demonstrate God’s love to the world around us.

Karen and I are amazed at the turn our lives have taken lately. We expected to be living in Chapala, near Guadalajara, but we’ve been moved to Rosarito Beach in Baja California instead.

We are now leading a church here called Baja Christian Church. It is a very young church that meets at the Rosarito Beach Hotel, a historic hotel that was first opened in 1925. The hotel used to be a favorite hangout spot for Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, as well as many of the Hollywood favorites. Rita Hayworth and the Shah of Iran rented a whole floor of the hotel during their stay in 1954, and a sign over the entrance says, “Through this door pass the most beautiful women of the world.”

Now the hotel is the base of our operations as we reach out to this growing community. Since the room where we meet is right on the main street, new people come in every week and share their stories with us. The people who come have as rich and varied histories as the hotel itself does. We have people in our church from Australia, Jamaica, Alaska, the Deep South, various parts of México and, now, even Scotland. Some of our people are deportees who spent most of their lives in the US but are currently stuck south of the border against their will, and others are people from America and other countries who are here by choice.

There is a great liveliness amongst the people as this church is already growing and experiencing vibrant new beginnings. Not only have the Sunday services experienced significant growth in our first four months here, we’ve also started Tuesday Bible studies in Spanish, 12-step recovery groups for people dealing with addictions, a food-bank program to help provide food for people who are hungry, and exciting classes for new and growing believers on Sunday mornings and nights. The church’s Wednesday night Bible study has grown so much that it’s already outgrowing the smaller Activity Center where it has been meeting.

Of course, the most exciting thing is not simply the growth in numbers. The most exciting thing is that we are seeing dramatic changes already happening in people’s lives right before our eyes. People who had all but given up on life have found new hope, and we can hardly wait to see what happens next as more and more people are finding that hope in Christ! One woman’s father experienced a dramatic healing in response to the people’s prayers, and his doctors are baffled by his recovery; other people who had spent their lives bound by the mistakes of their pasts are finding new starts; and even the mayor, Hugo Torres, has taken notice and come to speak to the church and express his support and gratitude for what is happening through this group that meets at the Rosarito Beach Hotel.

Karen and I will also still be involved in important work throughout México as we pursue various opportunities for evangelism, church planting, and the training of leaders and evangelists across the country. But, in addition to that, we’ve found a home in Rosarito where the potential for the miraculous is being converted into reality day after day before our eyes.

Thank you to all of you who are supporting this ministry both with your prayers and financial support! There is no doubt that God is blessing the part you are playing in the work here. Please continue to remember us in your prayers as we continue serving the Lord here and across México!

• In the Salon Las Americas at Rosarito Beach Hotel:
  Sunday Service in English — 11am
• In the Baja Christian Church Activity Center, Rosarito Beach Hotel:
  Christianity 201 — Sundays at 9:00am
• Christianity 101 (the basics of the Christian faith) — Sundays at 6:30pm
• 12 Steps Recovery Groups — Tuesdays at 2:00pm & Thursdays at 6:30pm
• Spanish Bible Study — Tuesdays at 6:30pm
• English Bible Study — Wednesdays at 6:30pm

How could Christians be against social justice? Have they been so politicized that they have forgotten that caring for the orphans and widows, looking after the aliens among us, and standing against oppression are biblical ideals that are both encouraged and commanded in the Bible?

Jesus himself said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” — Luke 4:18-19

From a theological perspective, I think the big problem is something called dualism. Ancient Greek philosophers taught that there is a divide between the spiritual and the material. Plato, for example, taught that the soul is the real person and that true freedom means being released from the prison of the material body. Largely as a result of this kind of thinking, a lot of Christians have opted to focus on caring for the “soul” and decided that looking out for the needs of the body are irrelevant.

However, the Bible teaches the salvation of the whole person and the resurrection of the body. Ancient Hebrew thinking, which influenced biblical thought considerably more than Greek thought did, knew of no distinction between body and soul. And when Jesus ministered to people, he fed the hungry whilst also ministering to their eternal needs.

Jesus ministered to the whole person, and anybody who claims to follow Him is obligated to do the same.

Years ago, a number of Christians reacted against a dualistic faith that went to an extreme. Calling itself a “social gospel,” it sought only to minister to outward physical and social needs. Rightly recognizing that they were missing the heart of the Gospel, many Christians reacted by going to the opposite extreme and deciding that they would have nothing to do with social needs and simply minister to the “spiritual” needs of the people.

They were equally in the wrong, though. Either extreme misses the heart of Jesus, who was sent to bring good news to the poor and to release the oppressed — not just in a “spiritual” sense but in tangible, practical ways.

To stand against social justice is to deny the heart and mission of the God of justice, the same God who said these words in Holy Scripture so many years ago:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” — Isaiah 58:6-7

Many Christians in America have fallen into a unique problem with a political Christianity wherein they put the platforms of their political parties above their faith. As a result, depending on which political party they belong to, they tend to gravitate toward one heretical extreme or the other.

Some say that it’s all about personal morality, while others say it’s all about social justice. Both miss the heart of Jesus and condemn their expressions of Christianity to the realm of irrelevance. Those who say it’s all about personal morality present a Christianity that offers a “pie in the sky” but hardens its heart to the needs of hurting, hungry people all around the world. Those who say it’s all about social justice forget that true justice can’t happen in a world where sinful, selfish hearts are not changed.

May God bring Christ-followers together across America and around the world who are willing to let Jesus’ love shine through them in a holistic, realistic way. May we remember to tell people about the personal redemption and eternal life made available through the blood of Jesus Christ, while at the same time demonstrating the heart and compassion of Christ in the ways we respond to a broken world in need.

However, a problem arose with a man I will call Lonny. For a couple of years, I worked very closely with him whenever I visited this country. He was in charge of coordinating the work I did there.

Then he became very ill with a contagious disease. The missionary in charge told me to replace him with another pastor who could serve as the coordinator of the work I would do there in the future.

I chose Alan, a young man I had come to know and really trust over the previous few years. He had worked with us on our evangelistic teams, so I promoted him to the leadership of those teams for our next visit.

It turned out that Lonny didn’t like Alan at all. There were personality conflicts that had long existed below the surface between them, thus Lonny was deeply offended by being replaced with Alan.

Lonny started spreading rumors about me. A good friend of his was the leader of churches in one district, and he turned that man against me. The next year, when I was making plans to work in that district, I was informed I was no longer welcome there.

It didn’t stop God’s work from happening. We just moved our work to another district and saw great success there.

noun: (in Christian theology) the free, undeserved mercy and kindness of God shown to creation; the opposite of sin (Søren Kierkegaard)

However, it really hurt. I had considered Lonny a friend yet, he had not only gotten angry at me for a decision I had made, he had spread stories about me and turned others against me.

I didn’t say anything to Lonny about it at the time, but the betrayal hurt deeply. I prayed about it and, in my heart, I did manage to forgive the man. I just hoped and prayed that God would do something in his heart one day.

A few years later, I spoke at a university where Lonny was doing further study. I shared a sermon about Isaiah Chapter 6 and the things that happen when we genuinely encounter God in our lives — not when we encounter church or religion but when we really encounter God in some genuine way. At the end of the meeting, a lot of people responded to a challenge to get their lives right with God.

To my surprise, Lonny was one of them. I was surprised to see this man, who had turned against me so publicly, humbling himself to the point of responding so vulnerably under my teaching ministry.

After that, Lonny and I were reconciled and continued to have a good friendship throughout the years to come. One time, when I was speaking at an event in Muldanesia just a few years ago, he was attending and kept telling me, “Chris, I have a gift for you. I want to be sure and give it to you before you leave.”

On the last day there, he came to my room with a belt. It was covered in beads and had my name spelled out on it. It had to be one of the ugliest belts I had ever seen! But it was special to me because it showed genuine love and repentance. I kept the belt and was very grateful for the heart that gave it to me.

Not too long after that, Lonny became seriously ill again. One day, I was surprised to hear the news that he had died. He wasn’t old at all, so I really was surprised.

I wore that belt when I preached on Sunday. A couple people made fun of it, but I wore it proudly in memory of my friend. I told his story to the church and explained what the belt meant to me. It represented grace, and it represented God’s power to change a heart.

Lonny was not the only person who ever turned on me like that through the years. I know what it’s like to be gossiped about, betrayed, and rejected. Unfortunately, that’s something I think we all experience in this broken world. We can’t control how other people respond to us. Some may change their attitudes in time, but there will also be those who won’t. All we can do is pray for those who have hurt us, forgive them so that we are not overcome by bitterness, and be willing to love them if and when they return.

In the meantime, I will always remember that belt of grace. I, myself, have betrayed God and rejected Him more times than I care to remember, but He’s always welcomed me back into His arms. It’s a wonderful thing to remember that grace still exists and people still can be changed by it.

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about. [Haitians] were under the heel of the French… and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the Devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” — Pat Robertson

A spokesman for Pat Robertson’s ministry has since issued a statement attempting to backpedal this shocking statement, but the reality is that the statement implied the Haitians went through the recent earthquake because they deserved it. The comment, unfortunately, displays the same spirit that the late Jerry Falwell exhibited in 2001 when he blamed 9/11 on “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way.”

Is there any merit in their statements? First of all, let me say that I understand where they are coming from. I wholeheartedly disagree with them, but I understand where they’re coming from. They’re coming from a particular theological view, based largely upon a specific interpretation of the Old Testament, that sees God as a God who avenges sinful nations. They expect judgment from Him whenever they see people living in ways that they believe to be against the morals of the Bible.

There are a few problems with their logic, however.

1. “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and “the wages of sin is death.” Those words are from the Bible (Romans 3:22-24 and 6:22-23) and what they tell us is that, from God’s perspective, we ALL deserve God’s judgment. Where we get off deciding for God that certain groups of people are more deserving of it than we are, I do not know, but such an attitude is definitely not biblical.



2. “It is not God’s will that any should perish.” This verse from the Bible shows God’s heart for people. In the Old Testament, we see His judgment exerted upon nations that have turned against Him. We can’t deny that. However, even in the Old Testament, we see that God was already working out a plan wherein people could be saved from the judgment they deserved. And that plan was made available to EVERYONE, regardless of what nation they were born in!
3. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Although, according to the Bible, we are ALL deserving of judgment, Jesus took the judgment for our sinfulness in our place. He paid the price for all the junk in our lives, and then He rose again. Now He’s alive, and He says to EVERYONE who will believe in Him that He will forgive them and give them the gift of eternal life. Those who focus more on blame and threats of judgment than upon grace seem to have forgotten that we now live in the age of the New Testament, on the other side of the cross!

Rather than trying to cast blame when bad things happen, we need to realize that we live in a broken world and that we need to demonstrate God’s LOVE in every situation. The best thing we can do as followers of Christ is to pray for Haiti and seek out ways we can demonstrate His love in practical ways by helping the people who are hurting. This is the best thing we can do for ANYONE who is suffering. That’s part of what following Christ is all about.

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

It is said that Henley wrote those words in defiance of fate at the time his leg had to be amputated due to tubercular infection. He battled illness most of his life and later suffered the loss of a daughter, whose untimely death came at the age of 5. Henley died at the age of 53 and was buried in the same churchyard as his daughter.

I truly believe that this poem is a classic work of art. It’s beautiful, and I admire it for its beauty. Yet, it represents an idea that is proven time and again to be a false one. In the midst of trials in his own life, Henley tried to stand up against the forces that seemed to conspire against him and he refused to bow to anything that threatened him. He tried to see himself as invincible — which is what the title that was later given to the poem means — in the midst of life’s challenges. A brave sentiment without a doubt and, of course, he knew it wasn’t true. His poetry was more a beautiful wish than it was a statement of fact. Life was sometimes too cruel for him to avoid the ultimate truth:

However hard we try, none of us will ever be able to master our fate.

There are too many things that are completely out of our control. Henley, himself, learned it time and again and, in the end, he died as all of us do.

The Bible says, in Hebrews 9:27, that everyone is destined to die once and after that to face the judgment.

The unavoidable truth is that, no matter how hard we try to fight the inevitabilities of life and death, there are many things we simply cannot avoid. No matter how much anti-wrinkle cream we employ, age still overcomes us eventually. And, no matter how many funerals we avoid attending, our own funeral is one our bodies are not likely to avoid.

We are not the master of our fate and, if we try to be the captain of our soul, we will eventually find that we are only capable of captaining it into ultimate shipwreck. Our souls are not ultimately unconquerable because even the strongest soul cannot ultimately escape death.

I am thankful, though, that we don’t have to be lords of our own lives. There is ONE who has a plan for our lives and, if we allow HIM to be the true captain of our soul, we have the assurance of eternal life with HIM. That, of course, is the very God who made us. We are not the master of our ultimate fate, but HE is.

Let HIM pilot your soul. Let HIM take HIS rightful place in your life. If you do then, no matter how rough the seas may be along the journey, you CAN rise up in defiance of evil, pain, and even death itself because you can know that these things will NOT have the ultimate victory.

This is what the Apostle Paul said in the Bible:

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. — 1 Corinthians 15:55-57

These words are also poetry but, in my opinion, they are even more beautiful than the words of Henley. Why? Because, unlike the false hope of Invictus, these words are also truth. Even the sting of death itself is gone when once we trust our lives into the hands of God.

The reality is that the words of Henley don’t need to be changed much to be true for the follower of Christ. Whereas his words marked defiance of the inevitable, when once we know the true Captain of our souls we can cry out very similar words in the certain hope of the eternal.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
Christ is the master of my fate:
He is the captain of my soul.

I saw a comment recently from one American church-person saying that we need to get the blueprints for the Berlin Wall and build our own along the Mexican-American border. For him, this idea wasn’t simply born of a desire for better security at the borders but of the thought that all Mexican people should be banned from “his” country. Another church-person, in the same conversation, blamed all of America’s problems on “foreigners” and indicated that the “Christian” cause would best be served by kicking “them” out so that America can return to its “Christian roots.”

I can’t be too blunt in saying that — if we define Christian to mean “like Christ” — these people are not Christian in any way, shape or form when they maintain such attitudes. Now, “Christian” is usually defined as someone who has asked Christ into their hearts to be their Lord and Savior, thus it is true that those who utter racist comments in the name of “Christ” might be “saved,” but there is no way that viewpoint reflects Christ or gives Him glory.

A similar breed of racist religion existed in Jesus’ day. Jews tended to look down on Gentiles as somewhat inferior and, of course, Gentiles were anyone who were not Jews. But Paul made it clear several times in the New Testament that, in Christ, there is no distinction between Jews or Gentiles. He even said this:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:28

In the world of the Jews during Jesus’ time, there was one group in particular that many of the Jewish religious people looked down on. They were called the Samaritans. Many of the Jews hated what they considered to be their false views on religion and they saw them as people who were of no real use to society. They looked down on them and refused to associate with them. As long as they stayed on “their side” of the border, there was no problem, but they did not want them in their midst.

That’s why Jesus told his story about a “good Samaritan,” because his audience found it hard to believe there could be any such thing. In his story about the man who was robbed and left at the side of the road, it was the good “religious” people who ignored him, and it was the member of his people’s hated race who rescued him. The story was specifically and unashamedly a statement against racist religiosity.

Alas, many who hold to a harsher form of Christianity appeal more to the Old Testament and feel they can justify their mindset from there. They are wrong, however, as even the Old Testament Law was very clear about God’s attitude towards people of other races. Here’s what God said to the Israelites:

“The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” — Leviticus 19:34

That’s why I apologize right now on behalf of so many of my Christian brothers and sisters who have placed their patriotism above their faith and treated so many as second-class citizens. They may be true to God in many things, but they do NOT represent Him in their attitudes toward those of various races or backgrounds.

Following Christ is about loving God, and it’s also all about loving the people He loves. And He loves EVERYONE equally. NOBODY is better or closer to God just because they speak English or have a certain color of skin. In God’s sight, we are all equal and unless we can learn to love one another — loving “the alien in our midst” as much as the “native-born” — we cannot begin to claim we are following the ways of Christ.

If you have been hurt by church people who have treated you as somehow inferior because you are of a different race, I know that I cannot make up for the wrong they’ve done you. Yet, I do apologize on behalf of the segments of the Church who are guilty of this sin as best I can and want you to know that I KNOW that race is IRRELEVANT in God’s eyes and must be equally irrelevant in the lives of any true Christ-follower.

On the other hand, if you are a Christian who has held this racist mindset, perhaps because of the influence of your background or teachings you received in your youth, I understand how you got there. You were influenced by others and, in a way, I don’t blame you. We are all products of our environments in many ways. However, I do call your attention to the Word of God and strongly urge you to repent.

We are ALL sinful people in need of forgiveness and grace. God has given us that forgiveness and grace and, just as He has done so for us, He has called us to do for one another. That love for one another is not intended to be only for those who are “like us.” It’s equally intended for those who are different from us. After all, in reality we are all the same. We are sinners in need of grace and, until we accept those who are different from us as equals in our midst, we can never honestly claim to be channels of that grace.

As Karen and I look back at the year behind us, we certainly have plenty to look at. It’s been a very busy year, filled with major life-changes.

A year ago, we were both planning a wedding and living in Scotland. I was pastoring a church in Moodiesburn, Scotland and had a great circle of friends in the area.

Today, we’re looking forward to our first wedding anniversary and I’m getting ready to start pastoring a church in Rosarito, México. I miss my circle of friends in Scotland but am also excited about the endless possibilities that await us on this side of the world.

How did we get from there to here?

JANUARY

We had a lovely wedding in Dinuba, California and a fantastic honeymoon in Cancún, México. Even as we rested on the beach, though, something within us was restless. We already knew in our hearts that God was moving us to México eventually, but now God was stirring our hearts and telling us that we had to begin to make our move immediately.

We decided we would announce my resignation from the church in Moodiesburn upon our return to Scotland and leave at the end of April. It was not an easy decision, but to not do so would have been wrong because we were confident that this was what God was telling us to do.

FEBRUARY

We returned to Scotland and began to tell the church and our friends what was happening. To our surprise, many responded well to the news. One godly man told me that he knew God was getting ready to move us and that he could even see it was the right timing. He said, “You’ve done what you came here to do. You’re a church-planter, and you planted this church.” We knew that the people would miss us and that we would also miss them, but their sensitivity to the Holy Spirit helped them to see that it was God’s will.

MARCH

With less than two months remaining before our departure from Scotland, we took advantage of the opportunity to spend quality time with good friends whom we knew we were going to miss terribly. We also had opportunities to continue to share the Gospel. On the last Sunday of the month, we both forgot that clocks had changed and were an hour late for church! That was embarrassing!

APRIL

Our last month at the church in Scotland was difficult. We came under a lot of spiritual attack and it was hard to say goodbye to so many people we loved. Yet, God was faithful and kept us strong. We also had the opportunity to visit one of Karen’s best friends on the Isle of Jersey, which was a real joy for us both.

MAY

Our move to America was an amazing experience. Whereas we hadn’t even known how we were going to be able to afford plane tickets to the USA, somebody in the States gifted us our passage across on the Queen Mary II. This trip, which we could never have afforded ourselves, was something we took as a sign that we must have been listening rightly to God when He told us it was time for us to move.

One day we had actually wondered if we had heard God rightly because the finances just weren’t there. I said to somebody from the church, half-jokingly, “Pray that God gives us $2000 tomorrow so we can book tickets to America.” The next day, I heard from somebody in America who said they were taking care of our travel expenses. They covered our trip on the ship, which was a real blessing and which — interestingly enough — actually cost less than the plane tickets would have.

When we got to New York, we took a driving trip across the states, stopping at churches all along the way to tell people about our call to México. It was a fantastic experience and God used it to get our fund-raising started for the mission.

We got to California just in time to attend my cousin’s wedding. When we arrived at my parents’ house, family members from all over America were gathered together, so we really enjoyed the chance to meet up with so many family members we don’t often see.

JUNE — JULY

June and July were spent with my family. My dad’s health has gone downhill quite a lot, so we committed to spending most of those two months helping my mom with his care. Staying in my hometown gave us the opportunity to catch up with a lot of my old friends as well as a chance for me to speak at several churches in the area and share about the opportunities God is opening up for us. I also spent quite a bit of time preparing materials for our work in México, including the curriculum for a course I’ll be teaching to train up evangelists for the Church of the Nazarene.

AUGUST

August was a phenomenal month! We went to Africa with an amazing team of people. Some of us didn’t even know each other before arriving, but we all gelled together like family and had a great experience serving God together in Tanzania. 290 adults made decisions to follow Jesus Christ, and many children and youth responded too. We also got to see the fruits of many years’ work continuing both through practical compassionate ministries in the communities and the continuation of vibrant churches that had been started during previous visits.

Karen and I both got really sick while in Tanzania and were out of commission for the last two days of the campaign, but we had such an incredible team that the work continued and people continued to come to Christ. Ernie Bayton, with whom I had previously served in Kirkintilloch, Scotland, took over the preaching for those last two days and did a fantastic job. The rest of the team also stepped up and demonstrated marvelous resolve and unwavering faith in the midst of difficulties.

After the team went home, Karen and I had another test coming our way. We spent a few days in Nairobi, Kenya. One day, we took our laptops into a local coffee house, The Java House, which has long been one of my favorite haunts in that part of Africa. While we were there, somebody managed to take Karen’s rucksack without anybody — even the guard who was on duty — seeing what happened.

Among the items that were stolen were our passports, the adapter for Karen’s computer, our camera, and various other things. What followed was an interesting visit to the police station, which included having to fill out our own police reports and paying to have them signed by a policeman, and then we spent two days journeying back and forth to both the American and British embassies to get our passports replaced.

We did manage to get our passports replaced in time, however, and thankfully our spirits also remained strong throughout the ordeal. We knew God was taking care of us, so we just made the best of the situation and went with the flow. We were especially grateful that we got everything in order in time for our flight as we had yet more important work awaiting us at the next stop.

SEPTEMBER

We spent most of the month of September in Spain. I spoke at a retreat on the coast one week and at “each one win one” conferences for the next two weekends. We really enjoyed spending that time in the region of Catalunya, Spain. The scenery was breath-taking, the people were great, and God did some incredible things in people’s lives. For one of the most interesting stories from that time, see my post from the 6th of October.

OCTOBER

In October, we got some more time with my family in California and I spoke at churches throughout Central California. Then, at the end of the month, I preached at revival meetings in Vancouver, Washington. That was a great week as I got to catch up with several great friends and I got to introduce several of them to Karen for the first time.

NOVEMBER

We started November out by going to Loon Lake, Washington. It’s up in the hills of Eastern Washington and is right by a beautiful lake, surrounded by green trees and lots of deer. We had a wonderful time there. Once again, I caught up with old friends, introducing them to Karen, and God did good things in people’s lives at the revival meetings.

The rest of the month, we spent more time with family and friends, and I also spoke at a couple more churches in California. We had the privilege of spending Thanksgiving with my family before leaving for our new post in México. It was Karen’s first Thanksgiving ever, as it’s an American holiday, so I enjoyed introducing her to the tradition.

DECEMBER

Our new life in México finally began after almost a year of preparation. We arrived safely in Chapala, near Guadalajara, on the 5th of December and I preached the next day. The people are so welcoming and enjoyable to be around that our first day of ministry was a great experience. Two people came to faith in Christ, a father and daughter, and the day ended in the best possible way… with a bunch of us sitting by an outdoor taco stand eating carne asada tacos and enjoying each other’s company.

From the 9th to 16th, we went to Panama for an evangelistic campaign in the capital there. The heat was intense, especially with no air-conditioning, but the people were wonderful and the atmosphere beautiful and charming. 17 people responded to the call to trust Christ as their Lord and Savior during the meetings, and we had an incredible time with everyone there. We also got a chance to see the Panama Canal, which was a fascinating experience in itself.

We’re settled into México for the long-haul, though we’re still not at our main destination. Although we had originally planned to be based out of Chapala, we’ve been asked to relocate to Rosarito, just south of the California border. There’s a church there that needs our help so, in addition to my other duties, I will be pastoring that church as of the 17th of January.

Until then, we are enjoying this part of México. After a lovely Christmas in Chapala, we ended our year helping a mission team from America in Monteón, near Puerta Vallarta. Karen helped in the kitchen, serving meals to the team, and I translated for the English speakers and helped them teach the children.

Now, as I walk down the cobbled streets near the house where we are staying, I hear the sounds of México. Mexican music plays on people’s stereos, a horse is parked in the road, the smell of chiles is in the air. We sat down today at another taco stand and, as I ate my taco and drank my Coke, I couldn’t help but think of the journey God’s brought Karen and me on so far in our first year of marriage. We’ve come a long way and I can’t wait to see where God takes us in the years to come!

“Christianity is the only religion that is allowed to worship a God with shoes on.”

What did he mean by that? Well, basically all he meant was this: Jesus left his throne in the heavens to become one of us.

I remember a popular song back in the mid-nineties that asked, “What if God was one of us?” A lot of Christians were scandalized by the song, but it’s actually a very relevant question.

And here’s the thing. That’s what the message we are encouraged to remember at Christmas is all about. GOD DID BECOME ONE OF US!

John 1:14, referring to Jesus as “the Word,” says:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

He was born as a baby, grew up to become a man, put on a pair of sandals, got his feet dirty, worked in a carpenter shop, and experienced life in this broken world. That’s what the Christmas message is all about. And that’s why its message is an intensely personal one. It means that Jesus Christ is not some distant entity but a very real personal one who has made a way that God in heaven can touch you and me on earth.

Several very practical thoughts come to mind when we consider how the reality of God becoming “one of us” can affect our daily lives. This reality can affect us in very specific ways and I’d like to offer four of the most significant:

1. BECAUSE GOD BECAME ONE OF US, HE UNDERSTAND US.

   There are two basic kinds of knowing.

   The first is the kind that deals with data. We can know all sorts of things about something or someone.

   The second kind of knowing is the kind that comes from experiencing something. We can’t really know what it feels like to do or be something unless we’ve experienced it ourselves.

   God always had the first kind of knowledge because he knows everything, but He didn’t have the second kind of knowing until He became one of us in Christ.

   What would happen if, for some reason, I decided that I wanted to learn everything there is to know about ants? If I devoted my whole life to it, I could learn a lot. I could amass all kinds of knowledge about their behavior and what they’re made up of. In fact, if I were dedicated enough, I could probably learn to know them so well that I could predict their behavior and do lectures around the world about the benefits of the ant population to humankind.

   However, I could never know what it was like to be an ant unless somehow I could lower myself and become one of those tiny little creatures crawling around and disturbing your picnic. Then I could tell you what it feels like to be an ant, and I would finally be able to understand the intricacies of the ant’s personal struggles, needs and concerns.

   Of course, that’s never going to happen for two reasons. First, I don’t love them enough to go that far for them. Second, I don’t have the power to do it even if I wanted to!

   Yet, God loved us enough to do it for us, and He had the power to make it happen.

   Because He came down to the anthill and became one of us, He knows by experience what it’s like to be a human being walking in a broken world. When we’re tempted to say, “God, you can’t possibly understand what I’m going through! You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be rejected, scorned and betrayed by the people I love. You can’t possibly know what it’s like to live in poverty. You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to suffer in the midst of all this world’s demands, assumptions, bigotries and fears. You can’t possibly know what it’s like to suffer loss. You can’t possibly know what it’s like to be me.” He can say, “Yes, I do know. I understand because I’ve been there.”

   

   Because of the Christmas message, we can know that we have a God who understands us in a very personal way.

2. HE BECAME FULLY HUMAN SO THAT WE CAN BECOME FULLY HUMAN.

   How many times have you heard people apologize for their failures and imperfections by saying, “I’m only human?” It’s unfortunate that we have such a view of humanity when God actually has a very high view of humanity indeed!

   Under the influence of Plato, many ancient philosophers believed that human life was separated into two spheres: the material and the spiritual. They believed that the body was part of the physical world, which was imperfect, and the soul was part of the spiritual realm. Salvation, to them, meant being released from the prison of our bodies so that the real us, our “soul,” could be set free to live unencumbered for all eternity.

   Then, when Jesus came in bodily form, He demonstrated forcefully that God does not see things in this way. Whereas many believed that the material world was too dirty for God to touch, Jesus became the very thing they thought was beneath Him. He became flesh and, by doing so, He showed the world that there is nothing wrong with being human.

   The problem was never about being human. The problem was that humanity was broken and Jesus came as a perfect, unbroken human because His purpose was to restore humanity to its original purpose. Far from seeing the body as a mere shell while the soul lives as the real us, Jesus showed that bodily existence is something so holy that even God can choose it for Himself.

   Far from teaching an eventual release from bodily existence, the Bible teaches “the resurrection of the body.” It’s true that our bodies are less than perfect right now. In fact, they can be downright bothersome! God’s goal, however, is not to do away with bodily existence but to restore it to its original intention. The Bible teaches that our bodies will be remade at the resurrection in such a way that all sickness and imperfections will be done away with but, in so doing, we will not stop being wholly and completely us.

   In eternity, you will still be you, but you will be a redeemed and perfected you. Jesus didn’t come to demolish humanity. He came to restore it to its original beauty.

   Ever since the fall of humankind, we have been like broken mirrors. We are still the image of God, but the image is cracked. Rather than throw away the mirror, His plan is to restore it so it will reflect its Maker perfectly again.

   God doesn’t want us to stop being human. He became fully human himself so we too can become fully human.

3. HE WAS BROKEN SO THAT OUR BROKENNESS COULD BE HEALED.

   As I said, the problem is not that we are human. The only problem is that we are broken.

   When God made man and woman, He made them perfect. The first people on this earth lived in a perfect world, and they lived in perfect relationship. In fact, every relationship they were made for was perfect: their relationship with God, their relationship with one another, their relationship with Creation and even their relationship with self. This, after all, was a key part to their being made in the image of God, the fact that they were capable of reflecting God’s love in relationships.

   Yet, when they rebelled against their God, the image became shattered and grotesque. Have you ever looked at yourself in a severely cracked mirror? The result is usually less than pleasing!

   Every relationship they were made for was then broken. Whereas they had walked in the garden with God, now they were separated from Him. Whereas they had lived in perfect relationship with each other, now their own sons were killing each other. Whereas they had named the animals and lived in a world where nature never fought back, now all of Creation seemed to fight back in the form of disease, destructive weather, dangerous wildlife, etc. And, whereas they lived in perfect relationship within themselves with no inward struggles, now they were torn apart on the inside.

   But Jesus came to fix what was broken. He would eventually allow Himself to be broken on the cross. His body would be pierced and He would experience the brokenness of relationship even with His Father as heaven fell silent and He cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

   It was our sin, our selfishness, our rebellion that caused the mirror to break. So he took our sin, our selfishness, our rebellion, every one of our failures and regrets upon Himself and allowed Himself to die in our place so that death could be defeated.

   As a little baby lay in a manger, nobody suspected it yet, but all this was part of the plan. God became a little baby, vulnerable in the arms of his mother, and — the moment he entered into this world — he entered into our brokenness so that one day we could enter into His perfect healing.



4. NOW HE WANTS TO WEAR OUR SHOES.

   The most amazing part of this Christmas message is that, after Jesus died for us and then rose again on the third day, the enfleshment of God didn’t stop there.

   When Jesus walked this earth as a man, God walked in human flesh in one pair of shoes. After He died and rose again, however, He sent His Spirit to live within all who believe in Him. Now God is in us. Now He wants to wear our shoes.

   Have you ever thought about that? If you have trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you carry Him wherever you go. He has chosen to visit our workplaces, our homes, our shopping centers, our movie theaters, our restaurants and streets… and He’s chosen to do it not by sending angels blowing trumpets but by sending us.

   Wherever you go, God goes with you.

   Are you allowing Him to demonstrate His love through you? You do that every time you give to the needy, every time you stand up for justice, every time you reach out in an act of love. In some mysterious way, the Bible teaches us that when we reflect God’s values in our lives and actions, God lives through us.

   Your hands are no longer just your hands. Your mouth is no longer just your mouth. Your feet are no longer just your feet.

   That’s part of the mystery of the Christmas message. We’re the only ones who worship a God with shoes on and, no matter how smelly your Nikes may be today, it’s your shoes He’s wearing.

Long after Christmas, may we remember that the birth of Jesus is not just some abstract idea or nice story. It’s a historical event, and it’s also a deeply personal one.

The One Who became human understands us humans better than anyone else in all of history. He became fully human so that we too can become fully human. He was broken so that our brokenness can be healed. And now He wants to wear our shoes.

In what ways will we let the Jesus who lives within us demonstrate His love to the world around us in the year to come? May the gifts we give, the words we say, the acts of service we offer, and the love we share reflect the life of the One Who lives within us today and forever.

Or, at least it doesn’t feel like what we think of as Christmas.

However, it has me thinking about the fact that what Americans and Europeans think of as Christmas is really just one of many expressions of the holiday. “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” is a funny concept in a country where snow is just an abstract concept and Christmas dinner can easily be enjoyed outside at midnight in the relief of a slight breeze. In some countries, “I’m dreaming of a slight breeze” would be more appropriate.

So what makes Christmas “Christmas”? It’s not snow because millions celebrate it without ever seeing a snowflake. It’s also not mince pies, though I enjoy sharing them with my Scottish family as much as anyone. It’s not even turkey and stuffing.

In fact, Jesus himself is not likely ever to have seen a snowflake in Judea or to have eaten a turkey to celebrate his birthday. And he definitely never met Santa Claus or Father Christmas…

In the “Christian” world, Christmas is a holiday we’ve adopted to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. But it’s not Jesus’ birthday. He was more likely born closer to the end of September, though some would argue for April or October (but that’s another discussion for another time).

What is Christmas then? It’s a holiday that has many faces but which has been adapted as a Christian holiday on the church calendar. A “church calendar” was adopted by many in the Church many years ago, with days throughout the year set apart to remember various aspects of the life of Christ and the Christians. Easter Sunday is one of the days on the church calendar, as are Pentecost Sunday, Trinity Sunday, and a number of others that people in some church traditions have forgotten about in more recent times. On the Church Calendar, the four weeks before Christmas are called Advent, the Christmas season begins on December 25th and it lasts for 12 days.

Of course, none of these things are designed to coincide with the actual dates these events happened, but are used to help Christ-followers remember significant moments in the history of the Christian Church and to take times throughout the year to focus on the different aspects of their faith. So Christ-followers need to remember that Christmas is not actually Jesus’ birthday, but it is a time set aside to remember Jesus’ birth.

Christ wasn’t always a part of this holiday. Christians actually adopted a holiday that already existed in their culture and made the time their own. That’s one reason it’s kind of funny to me when people get upset about non-Christians celebrating the holiday without reference to Christ.

The reality is that we have no reason to be offended when people who don’t believe in Jesus don’t include Jesus in their celebration of the holiday. If they don’t believe in Him, we don’t do ourselves any favors by trying to force Him upon them. When Christians boycott non-Christian businesses for saying “happy holidays,” they do themselves and the cause of Christ a great disservice. They make Christians look insecure and make Christianity out to be some kind of political cause motivated by force rather than a lifestyle motivated by love.

Christmas has many faces but, for those of us who follow Christ, it should be a time to stop and remember God’s love for us. He sent His only Son to the world because He loved us all and, as we celebrate Christmas, we have an opportunity to focus on the greatest gift that anyone has ever given… the gift of Jesus. Instead of condemning people for not recognizing Him, we could use our time and energy a lot better by recognizing Him ourselves and sharing His love with others. Rather than fighting AGAINST others, we should be doing things like giving the gift of love to the poor and needy, exercising grace toward those who don’t know Him yet, and expressing His love in every way we possibly can — in other words, acting the way we should all year long if we are truly followers of Christ.

For non-Christians, the holiday may be more about giving presents and Santa Claus but that’s okay. They don’t know Jesus yet, so it’s really kind of silly for us to demand that they give him lip-service before they know Him. At least they’re taking a moment in their year to think about such things as the giving of gifts and the value of family and love. Maybe if we will stop condemning non-Christians for not thinking like Christians and just love each and every one, some will come to see for themselves that such values have their basis in the One who gave the ultimate Gift… the One who invites us all into His family and loves us with the Ultimate Love.

So what’s Christmas really about? It may seem like I’m just muddying the waters by saying it has many faces but, for those of us who know Christ, it really IS all about Christ. It’s just that being all about Christ should NEVER be about forcing others to do it our way. Being all about Christ should ALWAYS be about loving Him ourselves and then displaying His love by living it out in our relationships with the world around us.

On Sunday afternoon, we sat in a restaurant in Panama where an electronic Santa Claus was dancing in the corner. He was dressed in a big red coat with his well-known white beard flowing down to his chest. In the extreme heat, some of us were wondering why he didn’t change to Bermuda shorts before coming to Panama. I guess it just goes to show that certain symbols have found their way around the world.

What I pray, however, is that God’s love would also find its way around the world through us. Unlike Santa Claus, who sometimes doesn’t think to change his clothes before he dives into the heat, this love may change its clothes and change its expression in different circumstances and cultures. Yet, it always displays the love of Jesus. He left his throne in the heavens to put on our clothes and to live as one of us, and he eventually gave His very life as the Ultimate Gift of love.

May we remember this Christmas season that we, too, are called to give of ourselves for others. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say Christmas is really about for the Christ-follower. It’s a time to to be reminded that Jesus gave himself for us and that we are called by Him to pass the gift on as we give of ourselves to others.

The last part of Christmas, “mas,” is from the Latin-derived old English word for “mass.” The “X” represents the Greek letter Chi, from the first letter of Χριστός, which is “Christ” in Greek. As is seen in the following quote from Wikipedia, the use of “X” as an abbreviation for Christ in English has been accepted for centuries:

The Oxford English Dictionary and OED Supplement have cited usages of “X-” or “Xp-” for “Christ-” in 1485 (“Xpian”), 1598 (“Xpian”), and “Xtian” in 1845, 1915 and 1940. It cites “Xtianity” usage in 1634, 1811 and 1966. “Most of the evidence for these words comes from educated Englishmen who knew their Greek,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, referring to the OED citations.

The reality is that nobody will ever be able to take Christ out of Christmas anyhow. On the contrary, the very continued existence of this holiday is testimony to the reality that His name is not easily forgotten. Well over 2,000 years after His birth, His name is still uttered even by many who do not know Him.

Perhaps we would all do better to concentrate on focusing on Christ Himself rather than constantly trying to defend Him as so many are trying to do. He doesn’t need us to defend Him. He’s been to the cross and back, and He will be around long after those who deny Him are gone.

Through the years, many have tried to disprove the Bible and to deny the existence of Jesus, but the Bible is still the best selling book of all time, and Jesus is still followed by many millions. It’s silly of us to think He needs us to defend Him. He can take care of Himself.

The reality is that we are the ones who struggle to take care of ourselves. Rather than trying to rise up against the world in some kind of “campaign” to stop Christ from being forgotten, I am convinced that our time would be much better spent in responding to Who He Is by offering Him the worship and obedience He asks for from us. He is not a little baby in a manger who needs us to take care of Him. He is the risen Savior who lives so that He may take care of us.

We don’t need to put Christ back in Christmas. He never left. What we need to do is follow Him.

May God bless you as you prepare for the Xmas season!

World AIDS Day is an international effort to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS around the world. Held 1 December every year, it has been an ongoing campaign since 1988. Understanding the facts is that crucial first step to finally fighting the prejudice and continuing to protect ourselves. With more people than ever before living with HIV across the globe, it’s not surprising that Christopher first posted herein on this date last year from a sincere heart and serious concern for the many affected. I encourage you to read that post and allow this issue to become personal for you, if it hasn’t already, for the statistics are not yet getting better:

People living with HIV

• 33.4 million people living with HIV worldwide
• 31.3 million adults
• 15.7 million women
• 2.1 million children under 15

New HIV cases in 2008

• 2.7 million people
• 2.3 million adults
• 430,000 children under 15

HIV-related deaths in 2008

• 2 million total deaths

All figures from UNAIDS.

Person Number One says:

“My mum is green. She has antennae sticking out of her head, and her hair is yellow. She’s as big as a sumo wrestler and has muscles that Mr Universe would be proud of.”

Person Number Two says:

“She’s got very pale white skin and blonde hair. She’s very petite and short.”

Person Number Three says:

“She’s got dark skin and black hair. She’s tall and beautiful.”

Could all three of these people be correct in their descriptions of one person when their descriptions are so contradictory? Of course not. If she is a real human being, she can’t be both a giant green person with antennae and a petite blonde with pale skin at the same time.

You can believe whatever you want about who she is and what she looks like, but she will always be who she is regardless of what you believe about her or how you describe her.

Of course, you probably know that already. You wouldn’t describe your wife as green or purple unless she is (probably), and you would likely be hurt if you heard people describing you as somebody completely different than you really are, especially if they describe you in a way that you would consider to be insulting.

Yet so many of us treat the subject of God in the way the three people above talked about their mother. They say that whatever you believe about God is fine, as long as you’re sincere.

This belief defies logic, though. If we believe God is a myth, then of course we can paint Him however we want. But if God is REAL, as I sincerely believe He is, we need to realize that not everything that is believed about God can be true.

Some believe that Christ-followers are arrogant to suggest that there is only one God, but I don’t believe it is any more arrogant than it would be for me to suggest that I only have one mother. She is who she is, and what others believe about her doesn’t change reality.

I am on a quest to know the God Who Is, not just a god whom I wish existed. If I wanted to create my own religion, I could create any kind of “god” I wanted, but that god wouldn’t be REAL. I want to be careful, as much as possible, not to misrepresent God. That’s why I try to seek Him in the ways He’s revealed Himself and not to create God in my own image.

The problem with many religious people, Christians and non-Christians alike, is that they tend to create their “god” in their own image. If they are of a particular political persuasion, they assume that God is too. If they believe particular things about morality, life, culture, or whatever, they assume that God does too.

But God is Who He Is, not who we make Him.

I think we all have the tendency to project our own ideas or perceptions upon God, so this is something we all have to try to fight if we are going to begin to discover the God Who Is REAL.

Yet I will always continue my quest, not to describe God as I think God should be, but to discover more and more of Who God really Is.

How can I know the God Who Really Is?

God is infinite. That means He has no limits and no boundaries. God is bigger than me. How can I ever truly understand a mind that is infinitely bigger than mine? The fact is that I can’t. The best I can hope to do is to get the tip of the iceberg, to learn to know SOMETHING of Who this God is.

That isn’t cause for despair, however. Why? Because I believe I can know SOMETHING of God. In fact, not only can I know something ABOUT God, I can even KNOW God personally.

How, you may ask?

Well first of all…

1. I can know God through the things He has made.

   Romans 1:20 says:

   For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

   I sincerely believe that any great masterpiece must have the hand of a master behind it. The Mona Lisa didn’t come into existence by accident, and neither did this beautiful and vast universe we live in. We can argue all we want as to HOW God created it, but I believe that no effect can exist without an ultimate Cause. And I believe God is that Cause.

   Furthermore, I believe all that is good and beautiful in this universe points to the Creator. Yes, I know there are a lot of things in this universe that have been messed up by humankind but, before we messed it up, it was all beautiful. I also believe God has a plan in place to make it all beautiful again one day.

   When I look at the masterpiece of a sunset, a snow-capped mountain, or a star-filled night, I believe it points to the Hand of the Creator. However, that alone only points to the idea that there IS a source and that this Source must be beautiful if He can create such beauty.

   How do I know anything more of Who this Source is?

2. I can know God through the Words He’s given us.

   The Bible says:

   All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

   These words from the Bible are claiming that all the Bible comes from God in some way. This may seem like a ludicrous claim, but I sincerely believe it’s true. I believe that this book, which is really a library of 66 ancient books, has been somehow preserved through the centuries in better condition than any other books from the ancient world for a reason. People have tried to disprove it time and again, and yet it still remains the best selling book in the world. Instead of contradicting science, as some have unfortunately tried to claim, it is supported time and again by the discoveries of science and archeology. It is also supported by the reality of the millions of lives its words have changed.

   It tells us about One God, and I truly believe that the God it reveals is the One True God. Its words are often debated and misinterpreted, but I am dedicated to the study of these ancient texts because I believe that the God who inspired it is the God Who is Real, and I’m convinced that the God Who is revealed in its pages is the One Who has the power to rescue lives and restore all of Creation to its intended glory.

3. I can know God through His Son.

   Jesus said, in John 14:9, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” In other words, he says that if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen God.

   Of course, none of us have SEEN Jesus either, but we learn about Him in the Bible. We learn about His plan to rescue us from all the junk in our lives and to give us a life that never ends. We learn about His radical love for every one of us, and if His words are true, we learn that He is God’s way of revealing Himself to the world. The more we learn about Jesus, the more we learn about Who God Really Is. Not some preacher’s idea of God, not the ramblings of some crazy son who talks about his mom being a green sumo-wrestler — but WHO HE IS IN REALITY.

   He also says that we can do more than know ABOUT Him. He teaches us that there is a way that we can know Him personally.

Of course, you don’t have to believe any of what I’m saying. What I suggest, though, is that you investigate the facts for yourself before you come to a conclusion. Don’t just listen to what somebody says ABOUT God, or what you think God is or should be like.

If God is real, then He will be real regardless of what you think about Him; just like my mom is real no matter what you choose to think about her.

But if you don’t investigate the facts for yourself and find out if what I’m saying is true, I fear that you will miss out on the most wonderful experience you could EVER have… the experience of KNOWING the God Who is real.

Won’t you check out the evidence? You might be surprised what you find!

From what I have seen, I agree with the writer, Dallas Willard, who says that religion has to do with pride and fear. The Christ-filled life, on the other hand, is meant to be defined by love.

Let’s first consider this word, “love.”

LOVE IS “WILL TO GOOD”

The word, “love,” is thrown about very casually these days. People say that they love their car, or that they love pizza. And people fall in and out of “love” all the time.

However, the proper meaning of real love is “bene-volence,” which means “will to good.” In other words, it means to want good for the other, to honestly desire the best for them. It is NOT the same thing as desire. We can have evil desires and selfish desires, but those aren’t love.

Dallas Willard writes:

Love is not the same thing as desire, for I may desire something without wishing it well, much less willing its good. I might desire a chocolate ice cream cone, for example. But I do not wish it well; I wish to eat it. This is the difference between lust (mere desire) and love, as between a man and a woman. Desire and love are, of course, compatible when desire is ruled by love, but [many] people today would, unfortunately, not even know the difference between them. — “Renovation of the Heart,” Pp. 130-131

None of us accomplishes this “will to good” toward one another all the time, but when we begin to let Christ form our lives and change us from the inside out, this is the kind of love God wants to form in us.

Man-made religion, on the other hand, tends to be dictated by pride and fear.

PRIDE

St. Augustine taught that the opposite of love is not hate. It’s actually pride.

Why? Because pride is all about getting “my way.” It’s not about willing the best for the other person but for myself. This leads to manipulation, power plays, and all the other things that some unhealthy churches might refer to as “a board meeting.”

Yet love pushes pride away because when we truly begin to be concerned about the other person’s needs and concerns, there’s no room for manipulation techniques and the determination to always be “right.” The determination to prove myself is never about love; it’s always about pride. But when I learn to let God’s love take its rightful place in my heart, proving myself begins to be less important than the more important issues of helping those who are hurting and meeting the needs of those who are hungry, lost or poor.

FEAR

As I said in my last post, fear involves torment. God doesn’t want to be our tormentor; He wants to be our lover, our Father and our friend.

“Religious” Christians become obsessed with “holding on” to the people. They want to fill their churches and so become afraid of doing anything that would push them away. As a result, they start making more and more demands of them in order to get them to conform to their ways and ensure their power over them.

But that has NOTHING to do with Christ’s love.

Fear pushes people away by trying too hard to hold on, while love is rewarded as it willingly ‘lets go.’

When we let God have His way in our hearts, we begin to desire the best for the people who come into our lives. We no longer need to be worried about “holding on to them” or “getting them into our church.” All we have to do is love them, share God’s message of hope with them, and be available.

We don’t have to make them conform to our patterns of life or ways of thinking. Everybody’s different, and God uses us in our diversity. We can point people to God’s Word and let God do His work in their minds and hearts, but we don’t need to expect that He will always speak to them in exactly the same way He spoke to us. He has a unique plan for every life, and it will look different in some people than it will in others.

The funny thing is that, as we start to live our lives in this way, holding loosely to our own agendas and to other people’s lives, often our churches WILL begin to fill up with people and more and more will be attracted to us. This will not be because we are trying to make them come to us, or make them look like us, but because they will begin to see that we really do have their best interests in mind… that we love them as God loves them.

May God deliver us all from religions of fear and pride and fill us with His genuine love for one another.

This concludes a 3-part series that started with
Is Christianity Religion?
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Fair enough. In fact, I would actually agree with that last statement…

In my previous post, I talked about the difference between man-made religion and life with Christ. I don’t believe in the modern understanding of religion, which is basically the creating of a cultural system that uses the idea of God in order to get people to conform. Whenever “church” becomes all about “religion,” the truth is it tends to become an organization that is based on pride and fear.

That is the opposite of what Christianity is meant to be about. The life of the Christ-follower is meant to be about love, which is the opposite of pride and drives out fear. Though there are churches that fall into the trap of religion, a church that is true to Christ must do everything it can to avoid it.

The Bible does talk about having a “fear” of God, but the biblical idea of the fear of God is not about living in torment and terror. The word, in that context, refers more to a holy reverence for God and a respect for Who He Is.

Now don’t get me wrong. There IS a place for a healthy kind of fear, but only in the context of respect.

Here’s an example:

I fear the ocean.

However, I’m not afraid of it.

What’s the difference, you ask? It’s simple.

When I stand at the brink of the sea, I recognize its incredible might and power. I recognize that, if I jump into the sea without knowing how to swim, I could drown. I recognize that, if I don’t pay attention to the laws of nature and go out into the sea on a boat in the middle of a storm, its waves might destroy me.

I’m not afraid of the sea, but I respect it for what it is and treat it accordingly. I went on a cruise once and I wasn’t afraid because I trusted that the ship was well-designed, the crew was well-trained, and the lifeboats were ready in case of emergency. That doesn’t mean I chose to be stupid though; I knew better than to jump in with the sharks!

The fear of God is about respecting God for Who He Is. It doesn’t mean being afraid of Him, but it does mean I’m not going to be stupid. If there is a God who made the heavens and the earth and is more powerful than any ocean or force of nature or man, I’m not going to try to pick a fight with Him! And, of course, when I begin to recognize how powerful, glorious and real He is, you’d better believe I’m going to stand in awe of Him.

The fear of God is about respecting God, standing in awe of our great Creator, and submitting ourselves to His rule just as I would submit myself to the natural laws of gravity and the laws of the sea. I don’t stand in terror of those laws, but I respect them as they deserve to be respected.

So do I fear God? Yes, I do. But am I afraid of Him? Absolutely not.

The Bible says:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. — 1 John 4:18

When we begin to have a healthy understanding of Who God is, He actually chases all fear away. This Bible verse says that “fear has to do with punishment,” and the Bible teaches that God doesn’t want to punish us. In fact, He wants to save us from punishment. He went so far as to take the punishment for us.

And when we trust our lives into His hands, we don’t ever need to fear that He’s going to change His mind about us and inflict terrible punishment upon us. On the contrary, He has promised to love us and take care of us.

“In this world you will have troubles,” Jesus said, “but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33)

I remember a friend years ago who was always afraid of God’s punishment. Whenever something bad happened to her, she would say, “God’s punishing me because I’ve been bad.”

Although Jesus teaches that bad things do happen in this world, and they will continue to happen until He returns to make everything right once and for all, Jesus does NOT teach that those bad things happen to punish us. Life can be messy sometimes, and things happen that we don’t understand. But God’s promise is to take us through even the worst of times and lead us to eventual victory.

When we trust Him, He doesn’t reward our trust by throwing stones at us. He promises to be with us and to be faithful to the very end. He promises to deliver us from eternal death and to give our lives purpose and meaning. We don’t need to be afraid that He’s going to give up on us or punish us, because He has made us His beloved children and will never abandon us.

The life of a true Christ-follower is not about being afraid.
It’s about being delivered from being afraid.

Romans 8:15 says:

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

I’m so glad God is my perfect “Dad” and that, in His arms, I don’t ever need to be afraid.

That was a very good question!

Isn’t Christianity a religion, after all?

The honest answer to that is that it IS a religion. However, it is also NOT religion in the sense many have come to understand religion today.

How can the answer to this question be both YES and NO, you might ask? The answer is that it depends on your definition of “religion.” I will first present the argument that CHRISTIANITY IS A RELIGION, then offer the argument for why I also believe that CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A RELIGION.

A) CHRISTIANITY IS A RELIGION

The earliest published definition of the word, “religion,” is found in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English language, which was published in 1755. He defined it as “a system of faith and worship.”

In this sense, it might be right to say that all Christianity is religion. It is a worldview that shapes how we think and act, and it is based on faith in God. It also includes worship of God. How we choose to worship may vary amongst followers of Christ, but when we are truly devoted to Him we desire to give Him our worship.

The word, “religion,” is actually used in the Bible, so it is hard to say that biblical faith is NOT religion in the face of the Bible itself.

For example, James 1:27 says:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Under this definition, religion does not have to be a man-made set of beliefs or a system of thought directed by or lorded over by man. Though many religions might turn out to be that way, the definition does not require that it be so. In fact, Christianity would have been seen, in Johnson’s day, as a religion that was defined, not by man, but by a relationship with God.

Yet, the modern world has, for the most part, gone far away from Johnson’s definition. That’s why I tend to lean more toward the following statement when asked how I feel about religion.

B) CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A RELIGION

The most commonly understood definition of religion in the current age is one that was introduced in the 20th Century by a man called Clifford Geertz. According to his definition, religion is a “cultural system.” Geertz, an anthropologist, believed that religion was a system of symbols which act to establish certain long-lasting moods and motivations in people. This kind of “religion” is a man-made thing and often results in a long list of taboos; telling people how they should live, act, dress, etc.

Though most people probably don’t know who Geertz was, a large percentage of Westerners would tend to have a similar concept of religion. Religion, when defined in this way, becomes a man-made thing that is imposed upon people and cultures. And, of course, if they are merely cultural systems, then there is no reason to encourage people from other cultures to believe as we believe. One “cultural system” becomes as good as another.

If this were what Christianity was about, I would be against it. In this understanding, Christianity begins to look like a religion gone wrong, a cultural system that keeps trying to impose itself on other cultures and to make others think like they think.

Some expressions of Christianity have become just that. There certainly are churches that focus mainly on man-made taboos about how people should dress, act, think, vote, etc. And there certainly are churches that try to assimilate people into their “church” culture, rather than trying to carry a life-changing truth into the culture where people live.

However, that’s not what biblical belief is about at all. When we truly follow Christ, it’s not about religion in this sense at all. It’s about a relationship with a living God who wants to meet us where we are, to forgive us for where we’ve failed, and to change us from the inside-out into new people.

Religion, according to the more modern definition, tries to change people into the religion’s image from the outside. Jesus, on the other hand, changes us from the inside by filling us with His values of love and grace.

So, as you can see, there is a BIG difference between a true life with Christ and a man-made religion. I’m interested in telling people about Jesus and what His Word has to teach us about His amazing plan for our lives. I believe that He has the power to change ANYONE who believes in Him and to give EVERY life a positive, eternal purpose. But I DO NOT BELIEVE that it is my job to change anyone. It is only to point people to the ONE who can change them, transforming their lives in a vibrant and very REAL way.

That’s why, when asked if I believe in religion, I tend to agree with those who say that following Christ is not about religion, it’s about relationship.

Imagine an electrician who lectures about electricity all the time but never uses it. He refuses to turn on the lights when he’s at home, and he doesn’t even know how to change a light bulb. Such an electrician is only an electrician by name but knows nothing of electricity.

That would be an apt comparison for many “religious” people today. They talk about their religion and may even try to get people to conform to their ideas of what “religious” people should be like, but they’ve never experienced the electricity of God’s power in their lives.

Another definition of religion I have heard is that religion is man’s search for God. No matter how hard we try to search for Him, in our own power, we will always remain in the dark. But life with Christ is about God’s search for humankind. It’s about Him coming to us and seeking a relationship with us.

That’s the difference. Most religious people are still in the dark but, when we truly turn to Jesus in faith, He turns on the light.

He’d had a relative who had Parkinson’s Disease, so he knew well what it does. It’s a degenerative neurological disease that does terrible things to the body. Over the past several years, we’ve watched as it has taken its toll on my dad. Through it all, he’s managed to stay in good spirits and provide us all with a good example of strong faith and resilience in the midst of adversity. In some ways, I think his spirit may be stronger than ever, though his body is weak.

All the same, how many times we’ve all wished and prayed for a cure!

In America alone, more than half a million people are affected with this disease. At least six million around the world have been diagnosed with it. I’m sure they’re all hoping and praying for a cure.

But is a cure possible?

Prominent neurologists believe it is. In the 1980s, a doctor named Bill Langston made a breakthrough that opened up several promising avenues of investigation into the causes of Parkinson’s. Since then, prominent researchers such as Dr. Langston, Dr. Jeffrey Kordower and Duke University researcher, Miquel Nicolelis, have made great strides toward finding better treatments for the disease and towards the possibility of a cure.

Ten years ago, many in the field of neurology believed in the possibility of finding a cure but very little research was being done. This was due to a lack of finances made available for that research. In the mid-1990s, very little research money was directed toward this disease, in spite of the fact the research opportunities were so promising.

However, in 2000, actor Michael J. Fox (who has Parkinson’s Disease) started the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In the past nine years, the foundation has funded more than $149 million in research directly or via partnerships. Through the work of aggressive funding and the raising of awareness around the world, great strides have been made in the improvement of treatment and the quest for a cure. In fact, they believe that a cure could be found within the next decade.

As a follower of Christ, I believe that one way we can live out our faith is by responding to causes such as this one. We are not called just to preach a message of “going to heaven someday,” but to also seek out ways of demonstrating God’s love and the values of His Kingdom through frontal assaults upon issues of injustice, poverty and illness around the world.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation generates funds for research through the generous giving of people around the world who care about the cause. For me, this cause is not some generic concern out there that is competing for our attention. For me, it has a name, and its name is Dad.

It has various names and some who are reading this will know it by one dear to you as well. Maybe it is you, or maybe it’s somebody you love.

If you’d like to join the quest for the cure, you can find out more about it at this link:

About The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

I believe this urgent goal will finally be reached as more and more of us get involved.

“Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur.” — Michael J. Fox

As I sit here typing in a coffeehouse, they’re playing music. It’s good music and I can’t help but notice it has rhythm.

Did you know God made rhythm?

I just looked up a definition of the word online:

Rhythm: n. Movement or variation characterized by the regular recurrence or alternation of different quantities or conditions

Music doesn’t exist without rhythm, and its rhythm is really just a reflection of Creation. Everything God made has a natural rhythm.

For example, there’s the rhythm of the seasons: from summer to autumn, from autumn to winter, and so on…

There’s a rhythm to the day: from daylight to night and night to day…

And God also made the human being for rhythm.

Now, I’m not saying that all of us possess a musical rhythm. That’s disproven at any given concert, where everybody is clapping, by the occasional person who is clapping in between the beats!

But our bodies and souls are made for a natural rhythm and, without that rhythm, we don’t function very well. A song without rhythm is just noise, and a life without rhythm is just chaos. In fact, when we don’t respect the natural rhythms of our body and soul, we fall apart, just as the efforts of a symphony orchestra would fall apart as soon as the rhythm was lost.

I mentioned this briefly in my last post. We have to find the right balance in life — the rhythm we were made for — in order to be healthy, spiritually and physically. Let’s consider some of life’s natural rhythms and consider what happens when we lose the beat:

• The rhythm of sleep

  Part of the natural rhythm of our bodies requires proper sleep. If we don’t sleep enough, our bodies begin to break down. Lack of good sleep can lead initially to moodiness, irritability and disinhibition. Then, if a person doesn’t respond to these initial signs by getting the sleep they need, lack of adequate sleep in one’s life can lead to memory loss, the inability to multi-task and apathy. It reduces a person’s ability to be productive and can also make a person dangerous on the road as a person who doesn’t sleep enough is likely to have “micro-sleeps,” nodding off for 5 to 10 seconds, perhaps without even realizing he’s doing so. (reference: Why sleep is important and what happens when you don’t get enough)

  Some people are very proud that they feel they can “get by” with little sleep. They become so driven in their lives and careers that they sacrifice sleep and refuse to recognize they are destroying themselves in the process, by stepping out of rhythm with their body’s needs.

  When a person’s body is not continually renewed through sufficient sleep, his or her body’s healing process is impaired, and the body’s natural defenses against viruses and other illnesses are also broken down. PhD and diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, Michael J. Breus writes:

  Studies show an increased mortality risk for those reporting less than either six or seven hours per night. One study found that reduced sleep time is a greater mortality risk than smoking, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Sleep disturbance is also one of the leading predictors of institutionalization in the elderly, and severe insomnia triples the mortality risk in elderly men. Remarkably, sleep loss may also be a contributing factor to obesity.

  I believe a lack of sleep can be harmful to our spiritual condition as well. Some people legalistically think that they have to get up really early every morning for prayer in order to be “spiritual” enough, but some people’s bodies simply don’t cope with that kind of schedule. If we are made irritable by a lack of sleep, we can’t claim that as a spiritual victory and, if we aren’t taking care of our bodies properly in the name of “spirituality,” we’re missing the point terribly.

  Here’s something the Bible says about sleep:

  “In vain you rise early
  and stay up late,
  toiling for food to eat—
  for he grants sleep to those he loves.” — Psalm 127:2

  God made us with this natural rhythm for a reason and He wants us to honor that rhythm by finding the balance in life necessary to make sure we get our sleep! A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research study, released February 28, 2008, states that one out of ten Americans are sleep deprived. No matter how driven we may be, this is NOT honoring to God. God made your body with a natural rhythm for a reason, and you need to get your sleep.

  For more information about the body’s need for sleep, as well as a consideration of how to help people who simply CAN’T sleep, take a look at these Helpguide articles:

  Sleeping Well: Understanding Sleep Needs, Cycles and Stages

  Tips for Getting Better Sleep: How to Sleep Well Every Night

• The rhythm of sustenance

  When I’m visiting Africa, I sometimes see children whose bellies are extended; not from overeating, but from malnutrition. Due to their poverty, they haven’t had the option to honor their body’s need for sustenance. They truly know what it means to be HUNGRY, and their bodies suffer as a result.

  Most of us don’t know what true HUNGER is. However, we may know what it’s like not to eat PROPERLY. Our bodies have very real needs, and we need to respect those needs.

  The Bible says our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). Taking care of that temple, therefore, is not an optional thing. When we disrespect our body, we disrespect the God who made us and lives within us.

  Respecting the body’s natural rhythm of sustenance means eating properly if we have that option. I’ve had times when I’ve been so driven by my work that I forgot to eat! That’s not good! I’ve also been guilty of not eating PROPERLY. Junk food doesn’t keep the body healthy. My body has needs, and I need to work a proper diet into the balance of my life. To be honest, this is something I haven’t always done well, but I’m trying to work on it.

• The rhythm of exercise

  If our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, we have no right to abuse it. Exercise isn’t something we are meant to do only when we want to lose weight or get nice looking muscles. Exercise is a need that our body has, and we all need to seek ways to get the exercise our body needs. This takes discipline and, once again, it requires finding the balance we need in our life-schedules to make sure we are honoring our body’s needs thus, as a result, honoring the God who made our body.

  

• The rhythm of rest

  Genesis 2:2-3 says:

  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

  God put the rhythm of what came to be known as the Sabbath rest into Creation itself. Even God rested, and He wants us to follow His example. In fact, the Sabbath was so important to God that He put it into the Ten Commandments.

  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” — Exodus 20:8-11

  I don’t believe that the Sabbath was created as some kind of legalistic “religious” day to be forced upon people. It was created as part of the natural rhythm of creation. We NEED that day of rest each week and, when we don’t take it, we are putting ourselves in danger. The body and soul need time to rejuvenate and be refreshed, and we also need that time for important things like paying attention to our family relationships and our relationship with God.

  Airplanes can only stay in the air so many hours before they start to fall apart. Why is that? Because if a plane stayed in the air TOO long, the stress would pull it apart. The same is true for us. If we stay busy too long and don’t take those times to rest, we fall apart physically, emotionally and spiritually.

  I remember the day I made the commitment to take a weekly sabbath rest no matter what. I was VERY busy and wondered how I could get all my work done if I took a day off, but I also knew I was struggling to cope with the stress and that I was tired all the time. So I decided to SCHEDULE a day off each week and find out what happened.

  Here’s what happened; I discovered, when I took one day off each week, I actually accomplished MORE in the remaining six days of the week than I had previously accomplished while working all seven. I also discovered that I felt better, was happier and easier to get along with. I was beginning to respect the rhythm of life and, as I did so, life began to feel more and more like the beautiful song it was made to be!

God made us for rhythm!

To find out how you can help children like the hungry children I mentioned in Africa, check out When I Grow Up, a glocal initiative started by Redeemer’s Church in Reedley, California.

I’d like to to share this vision with you by dividing it into the 5 things I see myself doing one year from now: 1) Spending a lot of time with Karen, 2) sharing great news with lots of people, 3) teaching others to share great new with lots of people, 4) finding ways to solve big problems, and then 5) spending a lot of time with Karen.

1. Spending a lot of time with Karen

   I’m extremely grateful to be married to such a wonderful woman who loves God and loves me so much! We are both especially grateful, amidst preparing for our life as volunteer missionaries in México, that we have this opportunity to work together. When we first arrive in México at the end of November, Karen’s primary job will be to learn Spanish. She hopes to attend a Spanish school while there and I’ll also continue tutoring her in the language. Then, as time goes along, we plan to work more and more together as a team. I’m so glad have such a great partner in the work!

2. Sharing great news with lots of people

   A big part of our mission in México will be to let people know that religion is dead.

   We’re not interested in spreading religion. There’s enough of that already in the world. Religion is man’s futile attempt to get to God through human efforts, and it tends to lead to judgmentalism and hypocrisy.

   Jesus’ message, however, is about grace. Grace means he recognizes that we’re all messed up people but that God made a way we can be forgiven for all of our “messed-up-ness” and given a new and vibrant LIFE… a life of purpose that lasts forever. When God changes our lives, it’s REAL, and we will be sharing that message with people all across México. God’s message is about never-ending, purposeful life — and it’s also about engagement with the community, not simply through the giving out of tracts but through the living out of Love in practical ways.

   

   In 2010, we plan to focus on ten towns. We’ll first go to the towns to prepare the people in the churches for an outreach into the community by giving them training on how to continue what is started during such an event. Then, two months later, we plan to return to each town and lead a large outreach.

   What is an outreach? It’s simply a time of “reaching out” to people with God’s love and truth. The plan is to present God’s truths to the people, showing them how He engages with the realities of life and offers vibrant, life-changing answers. The plan is also to seek tangible ways of reaching out to the needs of the community; whether it be through meeting unmet medical needs, feeding the hungry, or engaging with its residents about how to tackle unmet social needs within the community in consistent ways.

   Such an outreach isn’t simply a week-long time of reaching out followed by 51 weeks of in-reach. The goal is to train the local church to START things during that time that will then continue throughout the life of the church.

3. Teaching others to share great news with lots of people

   The term they use to describe what I do is “evangelist.” That term has, of course, been used for many kinds of people. Sometimes, when people think of an evangelist they think of somebody who is simply trying to coax people into raising their hands in a meeting or converting to a particular religious cause. Some see an “evangelist” as somebody who is very forceful and legalistic.

   However, the term really just means somebody who shares “the good news.” As the term has been abused and misunderstood by many, I could easily be tempted to look for a different name to describe my job. Yet, this is the term they’ll be using for me in México so — for now — I’ll just concentrate on redefining its meaning, or really trying to “restore” its meaning to the original intent.

   One way that we plan to pursue that is by training up a new breed of evangelists in México and sending them all across the country. I’ve been asked to put together and teach a course with the purpose of training up Mexican evangelists. Through this course, my teaching will focus on a biblical theology of what true evangelism is all about and giving practical training on how to teach the people of México about the good news of Jesus and how to live it out. I’ll also be taking each of the students out with me to various outreaches and teaching them through practice and practical opportunities.

   I’ll be teaching church-planters as well; teaching people how to “plant” — or start — new vibrant churches that have a glocal vision and a relevant impact upon their communities.

4. Finding ways to solve big problems

   México is such a beautiful country, filled with wonderful people. And a lot of these wonderful people have some very big problems. We want to engage with them and try to help them solve some of their practical problems.

   For example, 40 million people in México don’t have access to safe drinking water. Therefore, we want to look for ways to help them provide safe drinking water to their communities.

   There’s also a real problem with violence in the youth culture. In fact, for young people between the ages of 15 to 19, murder is the second highest cause of death. Thus, we want to try to find ways to help young people find purpose and value in life and give them opportunities to engage with the world in a non-violent way.

   As we engage with the people of the various communities and discover more and more about their physical and social needs, we want to always be asking the question:

   “How can we live out God’s love in this community by getting involved?”

5. Spending a lot of time with Karen

   Our work will keep us very busy, and we are very excited about it! We also believe though that God wants us to have balance in life. No matter how good the cause, we can’t take care of others if we don’t also take care of ourselves and one another. I think that’s one of the reasons God initiated the principle of Sabbath at the very beginning of the world.

   He has built our bodies and souls with natural rhythms. When we don’t honor those rhythms, we wear out and break down. If we don’t get enough sleep, our bodies don’t function properly. If we don’t honor our body’s need for food, we waste away. And if we don’t honor our body and soul’s need for emotional and mental rest, everything suffers: our work, our relationships, our health.

   

   For this very reason, Karen and I are committed to balance and to guarding our need for a Sabbath rest. Every week, we take our day off. It’s not an optional thing. It’s as important a commitment as the commitment to our work the rest of the week.

So, a year from now; I see us working hard in the communities, sharing good news, teaching others to share good news, and finding practical vibrant ways to solve very real problems. I also see us taking time to let our relationship with each other grow and to let our relationship with God grow.

Karen and I are increasingly excited about México, and we are grateful for all of you who are a part of what we’re doing through your love, prayers and support!

Remember, you can subscribe to the blog’s feed
& stay up-to-date on the mission to México..

Over the weekend, we got some bad news and some good news….but the good news so outweighs the bad that we are totally rejoicing! I’ll tell you the bad news first…

• BAD NEWS:
  It looks like we’ll actually need about $4000 a year (approximately $333 a month) more than I had estimated in my previous post.
• GOOD NEWS:
  This weekend, $1020 a month in pledges came in. That means we only have about $5,520 to go (or $460 a month) to meet the minimum support needs for our first year. That, in turn, means we’ve reached 77 percent of the goal.

Please pray that God provides the rest, as we’re confident He will!

If you feel led to contribute to our support fund, our online giving page can be found at:

http://web.nazarene.org/goto/goingglocal

The site is set up both for credit cards and for direct bank-to-bank deposits.

God bless you!

Chris & Karen

PLEASE NOTE:
The next post tells what we
envision for the work in México!

http://web.nazarene.org/goto/goingglocal

For all of you out there who are already contributing to this ministry, thank you SO much for helping to make it possible for us to do the work we’re doing! We really appreciate you and, because of you, we have now reached about 40 percent of our goal for the first year of ministry in México.

We do still need another $13,520 (or $1,127 a month) for our first year in México though, so please pray for us that this money will come in soon! We are scheduled to leave in 7 weeks.

We will be working with the North México field of the Nazarene Church and with Latinome Ministries in the work of:

• planting new churches
• leading large evangelistic outreaches across México
• training evangelists & church planters across the country
• seeking ways to help meet the practical needs of poor communities

I’ve also been asked to design and teach a course to train up full-time Mexican evangelists for the Church of the Nazarene in México.

In a follow-up post, I write more about our vision for the work in México and our plans and preparation for this mission!

At the end of a conference I led in Figueras, Spain the last weekend of September, a woman came up to me who had been struggling for years. She told me a monster came to attack and torment her regularly at night. During the day, it continued to be with her and cast an extra shadow that followed her wherever she went. Her sister, a devoted follower of Christ, said she’d also seen the shadow and had also watched once as something took this woman over and spoke through her in a male voice. Once, she said, she even went crazy and seven grown men couldn’t restrain her.

She didn’t actually seem crazy or to be making this story up, so I considered the possibility that this woman was being tormented by demons. I quietly told Karen in English to pray along with me as I prayed for the woman and to not be surprised if there was a manifestation of some kind.

As soon as I started to pray, the demons that had been tormenting her manifested. They started screaming out, and she went into convulsions and started foaming at the mouth. This woman had asked Jesus into her life, so I told the evil spirits in Jesus’ name that they no longer had any authority over the woman and they had no right to remain in her as she had surrendered to Christ. In Jesus’ name, I commanded them to leave. A piercing scream erupted from her throat, and then she briefly fell unconscious.

Shortly thereafter, she woke up, not remembering what had just happened but knowing that she was free. The woman praised God for her deliverance and then said, “Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord!” The pastor and her fellow church members agreed to help her through this next phase of her life, as she leaves behind the things that had opened the doors to the demonic influences in her life and begins to follow the Lord, and everyone rejoiced at what God had done.

Later, I explained all that had happened to Karen. She had seen it but not understood the words as she is just learning Spanish and doesn’t understand a lot yet. Before I got to the last part, however, she said, “I knew she must be free when she said, ‘Jesus is Lord’ three times.” I said I agreed, but was then surprised when she said, “I thought it was interesting that she said it in English though. I didn’t even know she knew English.”

“She doesn’t know English,” I told her. “She said it in Spanish.”

As it turns out, however, Karen definitely heard it in English. When I asked her, Karen didn’t even KNOW the words for “Jesus is Lord” in Spanish yet. We shared that with some of the people from the church, and one said, “That must have been God demonstrating that it really was Him working.” On that occasion, Jesus demonstrated miraculously that He is indeed Lord, binding the power of the enemy and proclaiming His Lordship through that woman in such a way that the words could be understood in any language.

Again, some people will not believe this story. Others will find it offensive because it will clash with their belief systems. Yet, all I can do is tell it like it happened. The woman is free from torment now, and the shadow is gone.

Let’s look at the story where he said that…

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?” 
 “The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. — Matthew 21:28-32

The people Jesus was talking to in this chapter were his culture’s version of the faithful church-goer. In fact, according to verse 23, they weren’t just the church “goers,” they were the “chief-priests and elders,” the leaders of the religious people.

But he was telling them they were getting it all wrong. They were very religious in their dedication to the Temple and to religious observances, but they weren’t serious about a true relationship with God.

In the context of this discussion in the Bible, Jesus is talking about those who had been baptized under John the Baptist. Baptism was seen as a sign of obedience to God, to leaving the old life behind and submitting to Him. A lot of tax-collectors and prostitutes had taken this step, whilst these religious “leaders” had seen it as below them and refused to participate. They were good at doing the religious things that their community thought of as “religious,” but they were lacking the qualities Jesus really valued: submission and obedience to HIM.

I wonder how many of us who are church “goers,” would fit into the same category as these Jewish priests and elders? We go to church and do all the “Christian” things, but do we submit to God when he tells us to live our lives in obedience to Him? After all, that’s what he’s asking of us. Obedience to HIM.

Some think that this simply means living as decent people and going to church, but the people Jesus was talking to would almost certainly have fit into that category.

What was different about the prostitutes and tax-collectors?

A few things really:

1. They realized they were messed up.

   The people Jesus was talking to were self-righteous. They thought they could get by on their own and that they were “good enough.” The people Jesus came for, however, were those who were ready to realize that we’re all messed up. That’s what the Bible really means when it says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We’ve all messed up, none of us is perfect, and we all need grace.

   People who truly realize that don’t feel the need to judge others anymore. They just live in an amazing appreciation for the fact that God has accepted them and forgiven them, even with all their flaws and failures.

2. They realized he was their only hope.

   The people Jesus was talking to actually still thought they could do it on their own. They weren’t going to submit themselves to anything that would suggest they didn’t “have it all together.” They weren’t ready to depend on God because they thought they could make it on their own.

   The prostitutes and tax-collectors knew that they couldn’t make it on their own. He was their only hope. Yet, in the end, I think that’s true for all of us. But too many of us go to church and go through the motions, whilst still believing we can “do it on our own.”

3. They wanted to please God.

   Many religious people are more concerned with pleasing each other than they are with pleasing God. Can you imagine the humiliation these men would have experienced if they’d gone to be baptized by John the Baptist, who was not your typical “church type”?

   But the prostitutes and tax-collectors didn’t care what the world thought. Or at least, if they did, they were more concerned about getting right with God than with getting laughed at by their friends. They knew they needed God, so they went to him.

The people Jesus was talking to would have been known in their day as the cream of the crop in the religious world, but Jesus was essentially telling them, “The prostitutes are better off than you are.” Why? Because they allowed themselves to realize they needed him, that their lives needed to change, that he was their only hope…and they wanted to please God more than to hold onto their own world as it was.

It’s so like Jesus to raise up the prostitute and humble the proud. Sadly, some of us who call ourselves his followers would more likely praise the proud and shun the prostitute. These chief priests and elders would probably have never let them in the Temple. But that was their biggest problem. Their hearts were closed to receiving grace because they were unwilling to give it. May God deliver us from being like that!

He said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’” — Luke 11: 2-4

It’s a very interesting prayer, a very earthy prayer in fact. I’m particularly interested in these words:

“Your Kingdom come…”

Jesus didn’t tell them to pray, “Take me up to heaven someday” but “your kingdom come.”

What did he mean?

It might help us to think about this question: What is the “Gospel”? The word “gospel” is one that is used often by Christians, and it means literally “good news.” But what is the good news that Jesus came to bring?

Some think the good news is simply that, if we will believe in Him, we can go to heaven someday. However, in his ministry, Jesus preached “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17, emphasis mine) He didn’t talk about his kingdom being something that was only far away in the heavens, and his news wasn’t simply that “you can go to the kingdom someday.” He actually talked about something that was near, and when he taught his followers to pray, he didn’t tell them to pray, “Take us up to your kingdom someday.” Rather, he taught them to pray, “Your kingdom come.”

In order to better understand these words, “your kingdom come,” it can help to know something about the world in which Jesus first said them. He was entering into the age-old story of the Jewish people. They had once had their own nation, but then had gone into exile in a foreign land. For years, they dreamed of going back into their land, the land of Israel.

Although living in the land again, they were still in a form of exile. They were living under foreign rule and had for several centuries. They were hoping for freedom and believed, as the Old Testament had shown them, that freedom would come through the Messiah that was to be sent by God. The word Messiah, from the Jewish Scriptures that Christians call the Old Testament, means “anointed one.” They were waiting for the anointed one, the Messiah, to come from heaven and to bring his kingdom.

So what did these words, “Kingdom of Heaven,” mean? They did not refer to a place. Rather, they referred to God’s rule coming to earth; His justice and peace on earth. The Jewish people were waiting for a king.

As to how they interpreted this “rule of God” coming to earth, it depended on who you talked to. While waiting for the coming of God’s kingdom, there were basically three different groups of Jews who each chose a different way to use their time and live their lives until the King came.

1. The first group are the ones we might call separatists. Their approach toward how they would wait for the coming of God’s kingdom was as follows: Separate yourself from the wicked world and just wait for God to do whatever He’s gonna do.
2. The second group are the ones we might call the compromisers. They would be represented by the example of King Herod in the Bible. He took this point of view to heart: Build yourself fortresses and palaces, get along with your political bosses as well as you can, do as well out of it as you can and just hope that God will bless it somehow anyway.
3. Then there was the third group, who were called the “zealots.” This was their approach toward waiting for the kingdom: Take the kingdom by force, fight a holy war and bring in the kingdom on earth by military means.

Now Jesus was a true revolutionary. He came to turn all their expectations upside down. His option was a fourth approach — one that totally fit with the predictions of the Old Testament, but which they’d all missed until he came. He WAS the expected KING, but his KINGDOM was different than anything they’d ever imagined.

Jesus didn’t do things the way people expected him to. From the world’s point of view, in many ways the Kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. When God’s rule comes into a group of people, it takes a form that no other government or political movement on earth would even consider.

In Luke 4, Jesus stood up in front of a Jewish synagogue and explained the values of his kingdom and his interpretation of the words, “good news,” with the following:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” — Luke 4:18-19

When Jesus told his people to pray, “Your Kingdom come,” he was calling for a massive revolution. However, it was a revolution of a different kind. Rather than a call to upward mobility and a fight for free-market economy, it was a call to downward mobility. A call to “humble yourself in the sight of the Lord,” (James 4:10) and to “be the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35) It was a call to speak out for those who did not have a voice in the world, to set the captives free, to release the oppressed. It was a call to the kind of revolution that only comes through love, sacrifice and service.

When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we’re praying that God’s way of thinking would become our way of thinking, and that his concerns would rule in our lives. We’re praying that we would become less selfish and more selfless. We’re not praying that our political party would win the next election, but we are praying that God would help us to stand up for issues of justice in the world and to seek ways to reach out to the poor, the sick and the hurting.

Whenever we reach out in these ways, God’s rule starts to take hold in our world. We get glimpses of his kingdom NOW, knowing that one day his Kingdom will arrive completely.

“But,” someone might say to me, “doesn’t the good news mean we will have eternal life?”

Yes, of course it does! Jesus said:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” — John 3:16

The Greek word translated as “eternal,” however, does not just refer to something that starts at some day in the future after you die. That word, aionios, refers to something that has no end and will never cease. It refers to something that starts now and continues into eternity.

In other words, in biblical thinking, eternal life begins immediately when we trust Jesus. He comes into our life and then desires us to submit to him as King now and forever. Submitting to him as king, of course, does not just mean going to church and doing religious things. It means submitting our very lives into his hands and seeking to live in such a way that his kingdom principles are lived out in us.

And so we pray, “Your kingdom come.”

I wonder, when a young starving boy prays this in an African slum, what kind of image he has in mind. “Your kingdom come.” Or the woman who is being sold into slavery in order for her children to eat, or the little girl dying of AIDS.

When we consider that 25,000 children die every day of hunger, poverty, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes, what does it mean to pray, “Your kingdom come”?

That’s the equivalent of 1 child dying every 3.5 seconds.

And let’s consider the rest of this model prayer Jesus gave us. He said things like:

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Some people act like being a Christian is just about getting by on earth until the “real life” begins in heaven. But Jesus told us to pray that His will be done on earth.

About 1.1 billion people in the world don’t have adequate access to water, something you and I might take for granted, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

Many millions of people around the world don’t have access to healthcare.

Between 1 and 1.5 million people die of malaria every year, a disease that could easily be cured for less than the price of a Happy Meal at McDonald’s.

“Your Kingdom come.”

I wonder what it means for little Peter, a young man I know in the Mathare slums in Nairobi, when he prays, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

As I said, it’s really a very earthy prayer. It’s about praying for God’s rule to come into the everyday situations of life, where people are suffering. And, if we read it in the context of the rest of the Bible, it’s clearly about praying with the knowledge that God wants those of us who can to help play a part in answering that suffering.

Even the words, “Forgive as we forgive those who have sinned against us,” take on an especially powerful tone if we think of them in the terms of their original context.

The original audience lived under Roman rule, in an atmosphere of oppression. They longed for deliverance…

Just like in the Mathare slums, where Peter lives. The people live in “houses” made of the flimsiest, dirtiest of materials. The first time I visited Mathare, I noticed a stream of dirty water running down the uneven, dirt road. I was told that it was both the drinking water and the toilet for the residents. Rubbish lined the roads and filled the corners between the homes.

The pastor of a local church told us that diseases like malaria, diptheria, AIDS, etc. were just as common to them as the common cold is to Americans, if not moreso.

And I was told that the local government charges the people to live there. Their leaders live nearby in mansions partially paid for by their rent.

“Forgive those who have sinned against us…”

What about this part of the prayer?

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil…”

I think about the many children I’ve met who steal bread, and the girls who have been sold into prostitution; spurred on by sheer desperation.

“Yours is the kingdom and the power and glory forever. Amen.”

The Bible assures us that one day every wrong will be made right, God’s Kingdom will come fully, all evil will be judged, the oppressed will be set free…

But the Bible also makes it clear that God’s Kingdom is meant to break into the world NOW through those of us who claim to follow him.

What are you and I doing to see to it that bits of God’s rule breaks into a world where so much pain and injustice still reign? I wonder if, after thinking through their meaning, we’ll think a little differently about these words when we pray, “Your Kingdom come.”

I have traveled across a lot of the country and talked to a lot of church-people about their faith. What I’ve discovered is interesting.

For many church-goers in America, to be a good Christian means to be a good patriot and a good Republican. In fact, the conservative movement, in linking itself with the Christian faith, has been so vocal in recent years that for many — Christian and non-Christian alike — the term “Christian” has come to be nearly synonymous with words like “conservative” and “Republican.”

Of course, there have been those who have resisted these labels, but equally interesting is the observation that many Americans who react to these labels do so by claiming Jesus for their political parties instead. So, for some, Jesus is really a liberal democrat.

How sad that so many of us have completely lost sight of what Christ and his message are all about. I would like to remind my fellow Americans of two facts that we need to remember if we are going to hold on to the integrity of Christ’s message.

1. JESUS IS NOT A REPUBLICAN.

   He’s also not a Democrat.

   When people start to claim Jesus for their particular political agenda, they lose sight of Who Jesus really is and what He’s all about. Jesus said:

   My kingdom is not of this world. — John 18:36a

   There were people among the Jews who thought that the Kingdom of God was about bringing God’s rule to the earth through taking control of the nation’s government. They were called “zealots” and, though they tried to win Jesus to their cause, he was not interested. His kingdom was not the kind of kingdom that could be brought through political or military force. It was one that would be brought through servanthood, love and sacrifice.

2. JESUS IS NOT AMERICAN.

   I’ve noticed that a lot of American churches have a cross, a “Christian” flag, and an American flag all sitting on the platform. The theological message conveyed by this, even by those who don’t consciously realize it, is that the cross and the American flag are equal in importance to the Christian. This has become so ingrained in our culture that most of us go for years before it even dawns on us that this borders on idolatry.

   Jesus never promised a preference for America above other nations, and God never once indicated in His Word that America is meant to hold any kind of status as a new Promised Land.

   Don’t get me wrong. He loves America.

   But He also loves Iran, Britain, Tanzania, and every other country in the world. As Revelation 5:9 speaks of Christ’s sacrifice:

   …with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

   Has He especially blessed America through the years? I think it can rightfully be argued that He has. However, He has equally blessed other nations at times through the years, and He has also removed that blessing according to His will.

We need not ask if God is on our side, but if we are on His.

Many Christians put God and Country on an equal footing, some consciously and others unconsciously.

However, for a true Christ-follower, the Bible tells us that “our citizenship is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20) and that we are part of a different Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. Our first priority, if we are truly Christ-followers, is to His Kingdom and not to any other Kingdom on earth.

This does not mean, of course, that we should not honor our leaders or take part in politics. What it does mean is that our political agendas should never govern our theology and faith. No political party or nation can claim God’s endorsement because these very parties and nations are our creations, not His.

Once we get our priorities straight, placing God’s Kingdom above all other kingdoms, we can begin to work together across party lines and national lines to seek relevant answers to life’s questions and this world’s needs. As long as we let those lines get in the way, we are in danger of missing the very point of being Christ’s followers in the world.

“I don’t need any doctors. I go to my family physician, Jesus Christ.”

Unfortunately, there are some Christians who actually stand by this credo with a passion. They believe that going to the doctor is a sin and a sign of a lack of faith. I’ve had discussions with people who make this claim, and it frankly makes me very sad.

As we talked about in my last post, God does sometimes choose to heal miraculously. However, I am equally convinced that God often chooses to heal through the agency of people He has gifted with the special knowledge and abilities of the medical profession.

I pointed out in one debate that Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, was a physician. One man tried to argue that Luke was a physician, but that he stopped practicing as a doctor once he became a Christian. The implied suggestion was that he repented of the sin of being a doctor once he came to know Christ.

Besides the obvious insult contained in that argument toward all the dedicated Christian doctors out there, this argument simply doesn’t hold water. For one thing, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Luke ever changed his profession after becoming a follower of Christ. In fact, the only biblical evidence indicates the exact opposite. Toward the end of his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul says the following:

Our dear friend, Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. — Colossians 4:14

There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that the early Christians were against doctors. In fact, the only verses in the Bible that talk about doctors are actually quite positive.

Jesus himself used doctors as an example, and when he did so he did it in a positive way. In Matthew 9:12, he said:

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

Some readers, by lifting this comment out of context, might argue that Jesus is referring to himself as the doctor and that, therefore, this comment strengthens the argument that he, and he alone, is the doctor we need. A look at the context, however, refutes such an argument. Let’s look at the whole passage:

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” — Matthew 9: 10-13

The Pharisees were unhappy because Jesus was spending time with people they considered to be sinners. In their legalistic understanding of their faith, they believed that there were certain “kinds” of people they were not to associate with. Jesus was associating with those very people, and so they were offended.

When the Pharisees challenged Jesus about hanging out with “sinners,” he compared himself with a doctor. He said that healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. Then he said that he had come to sinners, not to the righteous.

In other words, he was proclaiming himself to be like a doctor of the soul, one who had come not for those who already had their lives together but for those who did not. He was not, however, using the illustration literally to talk about himself and his relationship to physical health. There are other places where we see him healing people physically, but in this case he was talking about his greater mission to those who were considered “sinners.”

Therefore, he used doctors as a positive example. Just as sick people need a doctor, sinners need a saviour.

This statement, which we’ve just read in Matthew, is also repeated in Mark and Luke. If Jesus acknowledged that sick people need a doctor, how can his followers deny the role of the medical profession in God’s plan?

When it became evident that she wasn’t going to be healed immediately, the people in her church started treating her differently. Why? Because they were convinced of two things:

• If she was ill, it was because there was unconfessed sin in her life.
• If she’d had more faith, she would have been healed.

Eventually, she left that church and found a church with a more balanced, biblical view of her situation. Its people came around her, loved her and helped her in her weakness, never judging her.

How sad, however, that Christians could ever take such a dangerous, non-biblical view. I have heard of others in situations similar to this woman’s whose stories have not ended so well. In some cases, the result has been that people have turned away from God altogether because they became convinced either that they were too sinful to be loved by God or that Christians were all judgmental and that God, therefore, must also be judgmental and unloving.

What would be a biblical response to this lady’s situation? Let me respond briefly to each of the above accusations:

1. If she was ill, it was because there was unconfessed sin in her life.That accusation is certainly not a new one. It represents the same attitude that some of God’s followers had all the way back in the time of Jesus. What’s funny to me, however, is that any Christian today would profess that same attitude when Jesus himself actually addressed it directly in the Bible.

   Lets look at these verses from a story about Jesus in the Gospel of John:

   As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’

   ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’ — John 9: 1-3

   Jesus’ own disciples had fallen prey to this false teaching. They believed that if someone was ill, it was because that person had sinned. When they met a man who had been born blind, however, they found it hard to reconcile with their theology. They wondered how his problem could be as a result of his own sin if he had it from the moment he was born. So they asked Jesus, “Who sinned to cause him to be like this? Was it him or his parents?”

   Jesus’ response must have surprised him, just as it would have surprised the people in the first church from the story above. He told them that his blindness was not the result of personal sin in his life or in the life of his parents. These words of Jesus shatter any suggestion that illness is always a result of personal sin and that it would always be healed if we would simply repent.

   In the case of the man born blind, Jesus said that his blindness actually served a higher purpose, even though the man certainly would never have been able to understand that up to this point in his life. The purpose in his particular case was that the glory of God might be demonstrated through the man’s healing. Might this mean that there is a higher purpose being served behind other people’s illnesses as well, even if in some cases they’re not healed? That raises a lot of other questions that we don’t have the time to go into here, but as we will see in the response to the next accusation, the highest purpose isn’t always immediate healing.

2. If she’d had more faith, she would have been healed.

   The Bible does talk about miraculous healings. One section of Scripture that talks about healing is James 5: 14-15:

   Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

   Does this mean, however, that every sickness will be healed? At first glance, it would seem to be the case. However, this particular verse takes place in the context of a larger argument in James. I can go into that argument in more detail in a different post sometime if anybody asks me to explain it in more detail. For now, though, suffice it to say that it’s too simplistic to assume that this one verse is claiming that EVERY illness will always be healed.

   Besides, reality gets in the way of such a simplistic interpretation. Even all of the original Christians, including James, died. Some of them were killed, but a lot of them also died of natural causes. To say that anyone who is not healed of an illness must be lacking in faith is to suggest that whenever Christ-followers die it is because they finally ran out of faith!

   1 Thessalonians 4 talks about the resurrection of the dead. It says:

   For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. — 1 Thessalonians 4:16

   The hope of the Christ-follower is the hope of the resurrection of the dead, not the avoidance of death and illness.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve known people who have been dramatically healed. Just recently in Africa, there was a blind woman who received her sight when Ernie, one of our team-members prayed with her. My own wife also had an excruciating pain in her back, and when I prayed for her one day it instantly went away.

But then, in the very same week, Karen and I both got really ill with some kind of bug that kept us nearly bed-ridden for a couple of days. When we prayed about that, God didn’t take it away. We just had to ride out that illness until eventually we felt better.

Why is it that sometimes God heals and sometimes He doesn’t? I don’t know. I could share some of the explanations I’ve heard, but the truth is that I don’t know. What I do believe, however, is that He is sovereign and that we just have to trust His final judgment in these things. Perhaps the reason He does NOT always heal is because we need to remember that it’s not ultimately about this life as we know it.

The Apostle Paul said clearly in the Bible that the Christian’s hope is in the resurrection of the dead when Jesus returns. He said in 1 Corinthians 15: 13-14:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Clearly, he did not see the Christian’s ultimate hope as being wrapped up in having perfect bodies here and now. In fact, he went on to say in verse 19:

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

He said that this body is perishable. It is true that God sometimes delays the inevitable through supernatural healings, but even the faith healer dies eventually. Here’s what Paul said:

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. — 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44a

What a wonderful hope we have as followers of Jesus Christ. Though we try to fight off the effects of old age with creams and medicines, the sad fact is that illness, wrinkles and death cannot be held off forever. The good news, however, is that that is not the point! The point is that God is preparing us for an eternity, and when that eternity dawns we all WILL be healed, and our healing will be complete and eternal.

She is a widow, and the child is an orphan. Through the help of our ministry partner, SEED International, they have been brought together to form a new family unit. They are just one example of many.

When I first started going to East Africa regularly, in 1995, I went just to preach. I told people about Jesus, and a lot of people responded to the message and declared that they wanted to become followers of Jesus Christ.

But this was only the beginning.

We soon realized that a lot of the people who responded then disappeared from the new churches that were being started, so we began training the local churches we were working with. We taught them how they could follow-up on those initial decisions to follow Christ by simply loving the people, giving them teaching and helping them to learn how God’s love applied to their everyday lives.

Soon after, we discovered that the people who made those initial decisions to follow Christ were staying in the churches as they realized that they were truly loved and that God’s message to them was relevant to their lives.

But that still was only a beginning.

The work grew to the point of teaching leaders in these churches how to start new churches and use them as bases to impact their communities in a powerful, transforming way.

Mark Redwine, from Montana, joined our team and participated in the teaching. We taught the church leaders that they needed to do more than PREACH about God’s love; they needed to PERSONIFY God’s love by actively loving their communities.

The Bible says a true relationship with Christ means “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27b) Some people think that being a Christian is about being separate FROM the world, but the reality is that a true Christ-follower is meant to ENGAGE the world with radical love. The Christian’s difference from the world is particularly in the way he or she loves the people who are in the world.

Local churches started taking the teaching to heart and began projects in their communities to help the poor, the hungry, and the lonely. They were planting crops and raising chickens that could be used to help feed the hungry, working with the orphans and widows, and coming up with various imaginative ways to engage their local communities with radical love.

Mark Redwine also took the teaching to heart. A very practical man, his heart was filled with a compassion for the people and a desire to help them make this vision a reality. He started SEED International as a resource development organization to come alongside these Christ-followers who were serious about seeing change in their villages and towns, in order to help them develop the resources needed and get the education necessary to learn how to make that kind of difference.

Now, whenever we go to East Africa, we don’t just TELL people about God’s love for them. We are able to work together to SHOW them and, long after our teams have to leave the villages, the work of telling and showing God’s love continues.

One of the many successful projects that have been started by the churches there is the orphans and widows project. Due to the many diseases that ravage the land, there are always a lot of orphans and widows in this part of the world. So here’s what’s happening…

Orphans are placed with widows to create a new family unit, and the widows are helped to set up trade in some kind of industry that will enable them to make a living. This way, rather than children simply growing up in an orphanage and widows being left alone until they die, they are all given a second chance at living life and experiencing the joy of family.

This August, we had a lot of wonderful times with the people in the villages. 290 adults made the decision to become followers of Christ, and that was exciting because we knew that they were sincere and that they were going to be cared for by a community of Christ-followers who would truly love them and help them to experience God’s love in a vibrant and transforming way. We also ran medical camps for people who couldn’t afford health-care, provided education about AIDS to the villages, had team members lead exceptional ministry for the children, and met with and encouraged the men and women who are carrying on this vision to see God’s love transform their world.

I’ll never forget the smiles of this woman and this child. Their smiles reminded me, and will continue to remind me, that all the hard work and difficulties we’ve encountered over the past 14 years are worth every moment. They also remind me that, no matter what challenges or difficulties we face, it’s worth the effort of continuing for many years to come.

I wonder what would happen in the rest of the world if followers of Christ everywhere would follow the example of these loving Tanzanians and begin to engage THEIR communities with this kind of love. Is there any chance this kind of revolution could start in your community through YOU?

This was the first day of the mission in Tanzania. We were at a church in one of the villages. The whole team introduced themselves, and then Ernie Bayton preached the sermon.

As each team member was called forward to say a few words, we could hear the bats behind us constantly. We were sitting along the back wall of the church, facing the congregation. Suddenly, Karen felt something hit her on the head. I took a look…it was definitely bat poop.

Almost immediately after the incident, Karen had to stand up and say her words of greetings. She did incredibly well, especially considering the distraction of having had an unexpected hair “wash” in the midst of a church service.

Karen’s hair seems to attract these kinds of things. A few months ago, we visited Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. In the course of about one hour, Karen’s hair received the special attention of two different sea gulls.

After the service that first Sunday in Tanzania, Karen’s hair received special attention once again during one of the outdoor evangelistic campaigns in the village of Sangera. This time, our whole team was seated under a tree near the platform where I would be preaching. A bird did it’s business right on Karen’s head, but this time at least she wasn’t alone. Fellow team-member, Marilyn Redwine, also experienced the same honour.

Recently, we’ve joked a lot about this special attraction certain creatures seem to have to Karen’s hair. Her hair always seems nice and smooth, so we’ve begun to wonder if maybe these unwanted additions to her hair might actually be serving as some kind of natural “conditioner.” Team-members have even talked about bottling it and marketing it as a special shampoo. However, we suspect that if we had to list the ingredients on the label it might not sell too well.

Seriously though, we’re reminded how these little discomforts can come to us anywhere, but they don’t take away from the joy of loving people. On those very days of the “poop” incidents, we also saw a lot of people come to faith in a loving God who could give them hope and a new life, and we also met a lot of wonderful people who brightened our lives in a lot of ways.

If a moral can be extracted from these incidents, I suppose it is that “poop” happens, but life goes on. I watched happily as Karen joked about her experiences but never let it stop her from loving people and rejoicing in their lives. She could have obsessed with the discomforts, but instead she looked at the big picture and noticed all the wonderful things that were happening around her.

We, too, always have that choice. We can focus on the unfortunate distractions that fill our day, complain about the discomforts that life brings our way, grumble about our aches and pains and regrets…or we can look around us for the blessings that each day brings.

You might not have a bat poop in your hair today, but something will surely happen to try to ruin your day. Don’t let it! Look past the poop to the blessing and thank God for giving you life!