The fb on fb and change.

The fb on fb HERE. (guess you have to be a facebook person to access my page, shows how muchI know.  So join facebook, where have you been!) If you get that you are really in the inner circle.  A couple of years ago during a very hard time for some of our friends, I started calling myself the Fat B_ _ _ _ _ _.  I guess you had to be there to appreciate the levity those two words brought into some tough days.  So now I just refer to myself as fb with these particular people.  Now I have a Facebook account and so I am the fb on fb. 

Early yesterday until late last night was spent in a meeting with one of the ministry groups we are attempting to help become more strategic and Kingdom focused.  I was one of the hardest days I have spent in a really long time.  It reminded me of some of the marathon board meetings I used to be part of back in the day.  I had forgotten how hard it is to move organizations into freedom and viability when they are stuck in what used to be. 

Once you have done something for so long, in the same way and get comfortable and settled it is just really hard to get out.  I wonder how many ministries, para and church, begun 40 years ago or more are going through painful changes with the hope of somehow reclaiming past glory.  So many ministries I see just keep rolling the good ol days out there, week after week and wonder why nobody is listening anymore.  Many don’t even wonder… Many don’t even notice… Someone described this loss of focus and just going through the motions day after day as, “rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”

It is a unique leader who can be part of a real move of God in one generation and season and learn to adapt and change to fit what the Father is doing in a new season and generation.  There aren’t many who can do it.  When we get to about age 55 or so there is real danger that the work will begin to become about the salary and the organizations survival and not about advancing the Kingdom, without regard for our own security and the institutions.  I am pretty sure at one level my failure to lead appropriately in the past was motivated in some way by having settled.  Institutions can look healthy on the outside for a long time after the inside has stopped being healthy.

Change is really hard.  Most people in the professional ministry believe themselves to be terribly overworked and busy but the truth is probably that they have found things to do that justify to themselves, showing up and can’t break out of it long enough to evaluate if what they are doing is really accomplishing anything. Ministry is weird that way.  You don’t really “produce” anything that can be quantified by anything other than by how many people came and if the budget is being met.

Not sure how much help we were yesterday.  It is one thing to know something is broken, it is quite another to know how to fix it.  Sometimes the truth is it can’t be.

I hope to write the next installment of 24 today.  Look for it!

24.4

Question #1  When will all this take place? (24:3) 

Matthew 23 flows into 24 with, as you know, no chapter break.  In vv.1-2 of 24, Jesus repeats again that the Temple was going to be totally demolished.  Immediately after His prediction, Jesus and His disciples take a walk up on to the nearby, Mount of Olives (24.1)  When Jesus sits down to have a private conversation with his disciples on the hill across from the Temple, they are looking right down on the place they had just left.  Mark’s account of this conversation confirms the disciples were facing the Temple when they asked the 3 questions (see 24.3 for content of 3 questions).

So, if you were one of the disciples and your leader has just told you the building at the heart of your whole religious and cultural life is going to be pulverized, what would you want to know?  I would want to know when this dramatic and life changing event is going to happen, wouldn’t you?

Now, the futurist teacher assumes the disciples were asking about the end of the world, but that is the third question they ask, not the first.  To Jewish boys, like the disciples, their first concern was for the Temple, because destroying the Temple would be such a huge event to them, they had to be wondering if such an event might not be the end of the world.  It had to be shocking to them that God’s holy Temple would be destroyed.  What would life be without it?  To these simple men, whose whole history was wrapped up in the Jewish life and faith, the Temple was as central as anything in their lives.  To think of it being destroyed would easily have made them think their whole world was coming to an end.

We will come to questions 2 and 3 another time, but for now let’s answer the first question with the context just described firmly in our minds.  When is the Temple (and potentially all of Jerusalem) going to be destroyed?

Have these words of Jesus already come to pass or are we still waiting?  To meet Jesus’ time table of the Temple being destroyed within the “generation” of those to whom he was speaking, the Temple would have to be destroyed by AD 70, about 40 years (a generation) after His prophetic statement.  Did that happen?

Within 40 years after Jesus declared judgement, 20,000 Roman soldiers, under the command of General Titus, surrounded the city for four months, starving the citizens of Jerusalem.  Then the soldiers marched into the city and without mercy slaughtered more than one million Jews.  The soldiers set the Temple on fire and took nearly 100,000 Jews into captivity.  Nothing much is heard about the Jews for the next 60 years until they attempted one more rebellion against Rome.  After 3 years of fighting, the Romans crushed the rebellion, killing another 600,000 Jews.  Israel was not recognized as a nation again until 1948.

The Roman soldiers so demolished the Temple that every stone was carried away and the land on which the Temple stood was plowed under until absolutely nothing was left, just as Jesus said it would be!

Jesus’ answer to question one is in 24:34 “I assure you, this generation, will not pass away until all these things take place.”  If we take His answer literally and understand a generation to be 40 years, then Jesus’ answer was right on.  The Temple was destroyed just as He predicted.

Now, the futurist teachers see all of the events in Matthew 24 happening not in AD 70, but 2,000 plus years (and counting) into our future.  They do not accept that the “generation” Jesus declared in both 23:36 and 24:34 is referring to the “generation” alive when Jesus spoke these words.  Sometimes they redefine “generation” to mean “race,” as in the Jewish “race”, so they say the Jewish race will not pass away until the end of the world, which we continue to wait for.  Futurists must give the word “generation” some other meaning, other than the commonly held 40 year period, if they are to make Jesus’ predictions yet to be fulfilled.

But why would you explain it that way?  Why would you not just take a plain, literal explanation of the text?  If you have no Left Behind books, no Scofield Bible, no prophetic TV to watch, no dispensational theology to confuse you, and you read Jesus’ words without any coaching and with only history to study, could you or would you see His answer as referring to something yet to take place, now more than 2000 years into the future? 

The disciples ask a simple question of Jesus, as they look down on the Temple they were just in, from the hill right across from that building. It is the question I would want answered if I had just heard that the religious and cultural center of my life was to be destroyed. 

If you were given a prediction of the total destruction of Washington DC, the White House and all the other monuments in our nations capitol, by a person you considered to be trustworthy and your promised Savior, what would you want to know?

I would want to know “when will all this take place?” and I certainly would not expect the answer I received would be about something totally unrelated and 2000+ years into the future, would you?

I can’t imagine it.  Jesus knew exactly what He was speaking about, and everything He prophesied between Matthew 23:36 and 24:34 took place just as He said it would, during the generation that was alive when Jesus spoke the words.

While this blog is not the place to try and speak to all the predictions found in Matthew 23-24, I will attempt over the next post or two to write about some of the other predictions Jesus made that some how have been moved from the 40 year period that followed His speaking them, to a day yet in the future. (if all of the predictions in 24 are already fulfilled we are free to read Daniel 2, 9 and Revelation in a very different way.  More on that later.)

If you have read this stuff to this point you might be wondering why you should read on or what my point is.  Here is my reason for putting so much of myself into this study and asking you to work hard to understand it:  What Jesus predicts in these verses is ugly, negative, vicious and life changing for those who live or die as they go through it.  The futurists, of all persuasions, tell us these terrible times are still in our future. Some futurists say the Church will be raptured out before it gets real bad and so find “joy” in the signs of the times.  Other futurists predict we will be here for all these events, while some others say we will stay for half  or less of the bad days. If we choose to believe their report we spend our time and energy in certain ways.

However if we see these events as already fulfilled in the 40 years immediately after they were predicted, then we are free to live another way, building the Kingdom that will never pass away, the Kingdom that cannot be shaken, the Kingdom given to us by Jesus to advance, until as His Bride we are fully clothed in His righteousness and purity, radiantly displaying to the world the glory of His presence.  His Kingdom come, His will be done on earth just as it is in heaven.  Why destroy what you have called your Kingdom citizens to advance?

24.3 + a little Henri Nouwen

Before I jump into Matthew 24 here is this morning’s Henri Nouwen devo.  It has Kingdom all over it: 

The opposite of a scarcity mentality is an abundancy mentality. With an abundancy mentality we say: “There is enough for everyone, more than enough: food, knowledge, love … everything.” With this mind-set we give away whatever we have, to whomever we meet. When we see hungry people we give them food. When we meet ignorant people we share our knowledge; when we encounter people in need of love, we offer them friendship and affection and hospitality and introduce them to our family and friends.

When we live with this mind-set, we will see the miracle that what we give away multiplies: food, knowledge, love … everything. There will even be many leftovers.

Now on to 24!

Question #1.  When will these things happen?

The disciples ask Jesus three questions in Matthew 24: …Tell us, when will these things happen and what will be the sign of your coming, and (what will be the sign) of the end of the age?

Some translations, maybe even yours (for example the KJV) ends this sentence with the word “world” and in doing so makes the 3 questions into an inquiry about the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world.  What happens when the word is translated world is it moves the focus of these questions on to a summary of what the world will be like just before it comes to an end, rather than a “simple” asking of questions related to what Jesus has just spoken about.

But the Greek word aion can also be translated, and in my opinion should be translated, “age“.  By translating aion as age, or a period of time, and not world, we are not tempted to move the fulfilment of this text from its first century setting into the 21st century.  The ending of an age and the ending of the world are two very different things.

The Kingdom view attempts to read nothing into the text, to not see a summary, but 3 distinct questions about how the current age, the age the disciples were living in when the questions were asked, would end.  1. When will these things happen?  2. What will be the sign of your coming? 3. What about the end of the age? 

When we make a decision, to let the text say what it says without adding or summarizing,  it frees us to understand the answers Jesus gives to these questions in a very different way than the futurist sees them.

So, first question; When will these things happen?  What are “these things”?  If you have been taught, like I have the futurist view, we immediately think that “these things” refers to events that will happen right before the second coming of Jesus.  But what does the context of Matthew 24 tell us?  Many of you have been reading it and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach you, so before you read my answer to the question, ask yourself, what is the context here? What is the conversation about?  What is Jesus talking to His disciples about?  Take a minute and read the chapter.  Start back in chapter 23 and let it lead you into 24.

Jesus is speaking in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  The first thing He does is warn the crowd and the disciples to be very careful about the Jewish Temple leadership.  You can see this in vv.2-12.  Next Jesus turns to His disciples and, with no mincing of words, rips the religious leaders.  The flavor of His comments are clear: v.13 … woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.  v.14…Woe to you… v.15…Woe to you… v.16 Woe to you blind guides.  Jesus is ripping into the Jewish Temple religious leadership (and cultural leaders) with an intensity that can’t be missed.  He repeats these same words in vv.23-29.

With even greater intensity, Jesus winds up His beat down in vv.33-36 with a scathing rebuke of these phony and controlling leaders: You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?  Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will beat in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the alter.  Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. (33-36)

Jesus is passing judgment on a generation of religious leaders who have spilled the blood of “every righteous person, from A-Z, Abel to Zechariah” (in the Hebrew Bible Abel is book 0ne and Zechariah is the last book)  Jesus is telling these religious leaders that the blood of every righteous person in their Holy Book, from start to finish is on them.

Typically in the Scriptures a generation was considered to be 40 years.  So if we assume that the judgement Jesus is passing is going to come true in a literal sense (why would we not take it literally) then those who heard Jesus speak these words could expect judgment to fall on them. (Jesus began this rebuke and judgment back in Matthew 23 and some of the specifics of the judgement are included there (vv.37-38).

A literal reading of these verses makes it really hard to see this judgment happening at any other time than during the generation (40 years or so) immediately following the speaking of the words.

Question 1.  When will these things happen?  What things?  Answer: These things= vv.33-36 23:37-38)  When?  Answer: Over the next 40 years or so, from the time they were spoken. 

I find it hard to make this text say anything at all about the time we are living in today.  How about you?

Almost all prophesy writing of a futurist nature (Left Behind series, Scofield Study Bible, Dispensational theology, popular prophetic writing, etc) moves Jesus’ answers from the 40 years immediately following His speaking to the time we are currently living in.  That is really poor hermenuetics (logical guidelines for interpreting historical writings) and there is no reason for it.  Let the text and the historical evidence speak for “themselves”!

Next post.  Did the words of Jesus in Matthew 24, come true during the next 40 years or so, or are we still waiting for them to happen?

24.1

Most of what I know, especially about the Bible, I learned by doing 3 things:  First, I study the Bible itself.  I have always tried to read whatever I am studying several times and just let it say what it says, as opposed to reading what someone else thinks it says.  (that comes later).  During this step I ask myself questions to try and help me understand what is being said, to whom it is being said, why it is being said, who is saying it and so on.  I take notes, I think about it but most importantly, I ask the Holy Spirit to teach me.

Secondly, I carry what I have read around in my head for a while and let it soak.  Over time, could be a few hours, a few days or in the case of Matthew 24, a few years, but when I let it soak, I usually get something fresh, something I have never heard before.  That doesn’t mean no one else has thought of it but it means the Spirit speaks fresh to me.

In the third step I try to find out if anyone else has written anything about the subject I am studying, something that confirms, challenges or affirms what I believe the Spirit has taught me.  This is always the third step because if I do this first or second I never get to see the Spirit guide me into truth and just end up knowing what other people know (that is not always bad).  When I depend too much on what others think I usually end up in the ditch on one side of the road or the other.

Candidly, I have never liked the whole end times teaching that was part of my dispensational upbringing and training.  I never found any joy or hope in things spinning downward through a Great Tribulation, The anti-Christ, “melting with frevent heat” and all that horror.  But just because I didn’t like it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.  Who was I to challenge or disagree with my professors, who were very intelligent men and very sincere and Godly men besides, who I liked and who loved and cared about me?  Who was I to go against the increasingly strong tide of an end game that looked more and more right on with each new world crisis, new war, new famine, new disaster and so on?  So I joined the pre-tribulational, pre-millennial crowd and tried to force the questions out of my mind.

But still questions would boil in my mind and heart whenever I would hear something about the Great Tribulation.  What about the people in the Sudan, Dufar or any of the other beat down, diseased nations where millions have died, is it possible that there could be a greater tribulation for them, yet to come?  Why is it that most of the pessimistic end times scenarios originate in the United States, the richest and most blessed nation in the history of the world?  How come this view of our Father’s plan for His Family has appeared only recently?  Was it progressive revelation that brought it along or was it more a desire to make sense of the bad things that were happening at the time dispensationalism came on the scene?  Why didn’t Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and even thinkers further back than them, not buy into the pessimism of this end times view?

Whatever one chooses to believe about how the future is going to play out begins in Matthew 24.  Depending on how one understands the questions the disciples ask Jesus and the answers Jesus gives, sets you on course to see other prophetic passages like Daniel 2 and 9  and the vision of Revelation a certain way.  So in my mind Matthew 24 is central and critical to determining whether we should view the future as going downhill to an ugly end or view the future as a glorious and beautiful Bride welcoming her Bridegroom to a planet where every knee is, by choice, bowing and every tongue confessing that this Groom is Lord, to the Glory of the Father.

So here is my suggestion to you.  Read 24.  Try to read it in something other than a study Bible and maybe use a fresh translation.  Ask the Spirit to guide you into all truth.   Ask questions and write them down.  If you do that you will be in a better place to interact with where the Spirit has been guiding me.

Next week I will begin to open up Matthew 24 as it has been opened up to me and we will go from there.

By the way, step 3 in my Bible study method led me to a man named Harold Eberle who along with another man wrote a book called Victorious Eschatology.  I was doing a search for positive end times scenarios and stumbled upon Harold’s teaching.  I ordered the book and found it very helpful.  But because I had already done my study and had already made some desicions about my personal convictions, Victorious Eschatolgy was confirmation and affirmation that I was on the right track.  I hesitate to tell you about the book, not because you will not need to read what I write, but because I fear you will do what most people do and simply decide what you believe based on what someone else says, rather than doing your own study, but that is really not my problem.  Follow this link to find the book.  HERE

See you next week!

Monday morning meanderings. Vol.77

Sayre, Oklahoma

Wow!  What a weekend, weather wise.  Wind, lots of wind, some rain, hail, tornadoes on the ground to the northwest, southeast and at least for me, a sense of unsettledness related to the weather, that I have never had any where else we have been.  I suppose I will get used to it, at some level and not pay much attention, like the people who live here, but for now I keep a close eye on the radar and the TV as they track the storms that are rolling in here one after the other.  Here is a link to a map of doppler radar for our area if you are interested.  HERE.

Item one.  One of the best church websites I know of is Bethel Church out in Redding, California.  Not only is it a good website it is also a really good church.  Linda and I get the weekly podcast of their service each week and have learned a lot listening to their teachers.  They now have a subscription service site that is also very good if you want to get live streaming video or archived video of some really good worship and teaching.  The church site is HERE and the subscription site HERE.

Item two.  When I started blogging two years ago, I probably got in at the peak of blogging as a cultural phenomenon.  There are still more than 6 million of us out here but for many blogging was so “a while ago”.  I am thinking about finally going to the next step of getting a MySpace or Facebook page, before it is over.  Do you Twitter?  YouTube?  Yammer? Social networking is not just a fad, or a trend it is the way it gets done today.  My friend Cody, who is a former world champion bull rider and a man who wants to impact the young bull riding generation with the gospel (and one of the most faithful friends I have ever had) followed his kids into social networking and in a few days had a following numbering almost 1000 “friends”.  Cody can now speak into all these young people in ways that were not possible not long ago.  If you are interested in reading more on this subject try HERE.  Social networking is not changing our world it already has!

Item three.  I really do like this song “From the Inside Out (Everlasting)” by Hillsong United, but I post it not so you can hear it so much as to see if I can actually post a video.  Am I getting good or what?

 

Item four.  For those of you who really do read the meanderings but did not want to get extra points last week or really did not understand the statement about a girl in a flatbed Ford, I post this video to educate you in the finer points of music and Winslow, Arizona.

Well, enough foolishness. 

I leave you with this thought: Proper theological foundations, as the center of our faith, never leads to an encounter with God.  

Take it easy.

Utterly supreme over everything, everywhere.

Celebrating the Resurrection in Payson, Arizona

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me–that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said.  He was buried,  and He was raised from the dead on the third day, also as the Scriptures said.  He was seen by Peter and by the twelve apostles.  After that, He was seen by more than 500 of His followers, at one time, most of whom (when this was written) were still alive, though obviously they are all dead now.  Then He was seen by James and then later He was seen again by all the apostles.  Last of all, I saw Him too…

Paul the Apostle (1Corinthians 15:3-8)

The Apostle’s point?  No way this deal was faked!

What difference does the Resurrection make?  Why do we celebrate the Resurrection?  It is the one event in all of history that secures our eternal present and assures our eternal future while at the same time securing the eternal present and future of the unshakable Kingdom.

Then when He has conquered all things, the Son will present Himself to God, so that God, Who gave His Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything, everywhere.

Paul (1Corinthians 15:28

The Resurrection is our assurance that there is no stopping the advancement of the Kingdom nor the day when every knee will bow…

So what do we have to worry about?

Have a blessed celebration of this monumental Resurrection Day!

A place for the people nobody else wants.

Payson, Arizona

When we first went out to Sayre, Oklahoma it was because, honestly, we had no where else to go.  Since our Father is sovereign, we knew that being led to Sayre, in a way that could only be God, Sayre would be the one place where restoration would take place. 

Trinity Fellowship is not like any church or Family I have ever known.  It isn’t perfect and I don’t always think the same way the leadership does about some things, but I have learned so much about the Father, the Holy Spirit and myself out there and have friends I trust and who trust me.  The Trinity leadership has taken seriously the responsibility of Galatians 6:1, something the church I served for nearly 17 years would not do.  For that I am very thankful and frankly a much better man, follower and servant of Jesus.

Pastor Andy hears from God and when he does he is able to put what he hears in terms most of us can understand.  Early on in the genesis of Trinity Fellowship the Father told him to build the church with “people noboby else wants”.  That Word has become the story of Trinity, taking people nobody (no other church wants to spend the time and money on) else wants and turning them into the people everybody wants (faithful, servant minded, humble people).  I have never seen another church, and I’ve been around, that takes its responsibility for the poor (both economically and in spirit) so seriously, at great cost both in time and money, and I believe the blessing of God is on this Family because it takes this role so seriously.

So when I read yesterday’s Henri Nouwen devotional it made me think of Trinity and why, even with it’s flaws and weaknesses, it works as well as it does building Kingdom on the windy plains of Western Oklahoma.

Nouwen wrote:  There are many forms of poverty: economic poverty, physical poverty, emotional poverty, mental poverty, and spiritual poverty. As long as we relate primarily to each other’s wealth, health, stability, intelligence, and soul strength, we cannot develop true community. Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life.

The Trinity Family gave me the opportunity to acknowledge my poverty, accepted me for who I was, broken in spirit and orphaned by the church.  They told me I was OK and valuable, actually more valuable broken than I was “whole”.  They restored my soul and allowed healing to come, simply by providing a place for another one of those people nobody else wants, to feel at home. 

Nouwen concludes: Living community in whatever form – family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community – challenges us to come together at the place of our poverty, believing that there we can reveal our richness.

Monday morning meanderings. Vol.73

Payson, Arizona

When the time changed last week everywhere else in the country it did not change here in Arizona.  They see no point in it, so they don’t do it.  The rest of the country sees no point in it but they keep right on doing it.  It was nice to not have to change and nice to be in the same time zone with our family on the west coast but it did put us two hours off from our family in Oklahoma.  Now we have to change two time zones for the “move” back to Western Oklahoma, but when we visit Washington in a couple of weeks, there will be no change.  Trade offs.

Item one.  Our hosts here in Arizona own a screen printing and embroidery business and work hard doing all the work themselves.  So I volunteered to help during a big push last week and learned a new skill!  I afixed, with a high heat system, embroidered patches onto about 20 dozen hats over a three day period.  Not really that difficult after the first dozen but good, mindless work that was actually fun.  Now I can drive a tractor/trailer rig, put patches on hats and fold tee shirts!  Now that’s a resume.

Item two.  A week ago I visited a start up church here in Payson led by a young man I met when we were here last year.  New churches have an air of excitement often missing in a lot of established churches.  This church has  no building, no offices, no paid staff and meet in a small room in a grade school that they are already outgrowing.  While I might want to do it differently than they are, it was refreshing, full of happy multi-generational faces and I expect they will do well here in this community.  What seemed to be missing, from my point of view, was any emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit to draw people to saving faith and to heal their hurts and diseases.  If they would allow a place for the supernatural in their format I think it would have greater impact and potential.  Just my point of view as the leaders of this church have thought a lot about how they want to do it.  Did make me think about giving church planting a try, though.

Item three.  Two views of the economy, one right of center, one left.  Right, HERE and left HERE.  Have you seen the Hyundai commercials where they promise to take the car back if you lose your job and can’t pay?  Well here is a church that promises to give back all your contributions if you lose your job!  Find it HERE.  You don’t have to go far, these days, to hear some pretty empty preaching.  HERE is a book that might help. 

Item four.  Had to put this link in a new Item so some of the people who skip over stuff they don’t find interesting might see this one.  I have several friends who believe you cannot be saved if you do not have a Mac.  One is my pastor, one is a natural son and the other, that comes to mind, is a son in the Lord.  You know who you are.  Sometimes I want a Mac just so I can be cool like them and then there are those Mac commercials of the fat, total loser of a guy who has the PC (think me) and then the totally hip cool, young guy who has the Mac (think Brad, Tyler, not Andy!) that make me really feel badly.  Here is a post that brings the fun part of the Mac/PC drama out as well as a serious side of the role of advertising in promoting ideas that are wrong.  Find it HERE on Don Millers blog.  It is a good read and in one place even agrees with my conjecture that Macs are really not that superior to the good old Gateway. 

Item five. Over the weekend we drove over to Wickenburg, Arizona to visit Cody Custer’s parents and attend something called a Cowboy Camp Meeting.  After a great steak dinner at Jim and Dixie’s and some good fellowship with our hosts and friends Destry and Terri Haught, we had an interesting evening in the beautiful guest house.  Jake the Dog (find his blog HERE) decided to eat all the dog food of the Custer’s three dogs.  He is not allowed to eat anything other than his own food.  Thank goodness for tile floors as Jake the Dog proceeded to ralph up several servings of food in several locations in the house.  Yeah, gross.  It was a fun night.

Early the next morning, we all piled in the trucks and drove back up into the mountains, up a dirt road, through some huge ranches (think thousands of acres) to a little church where the Cowboy Camp meeting was to be held.  This is an all day event where western Gospel music, preaching and food all come together for a good time.  Destry gave his amazing testimony and Jim sang some great Gospel songs and we ate doughnuts and ate sandwiches on the tail gate of the truck.  Good thing we had our Wranglers, boots and hats on or we would have looked seriously out of place.  Used our new Flip camera to take some videos I intended to post but with great skill I deleted them all!

We love this whole Western culture thing and are blessed to meet so many great people who quietly go about their lives on ranches and farms and in small communities.  They are for the most part simple people (I don’t mean intelligence) of faith, hard work, family and who care about this country.  We could all learn something from these folks.

Have a great week!

Kingdom thinking needed, right now!

Payson, Arizona

Everyone of us has been affected in some way, by this economic tsunami, swamping the world.  You have either been laid off, lost your job, threatened by job loss, had your investment portfolio devalued or someone close to you has, and you are concerned about it.  Right?

I have several friends who are out of work and our trucking investment has been “over” for several months.  In an email conversation with one of these friends I made some statements and asked a question: Anyone can view this situation from a natural perspective.  That’s easy.  It is bad now and it is going to get worse.  When you look at things from a human or natural perspective, what else can you say?  That is the statement, it’s not good and it is going to get worse before it gets better.  Nothing profound about that.

But here is the question.  Is that how our Father sees it?  What might His perspective be on the situation?  We are Kingdom people, full shareholders in a Kingdom that is unshakable (Hebrews 12:28).  Some, I guess view that verse as a statement of the surety of heaven, for the believer.  I won’t argue against that point one way or the other.  But is that all being a Kingdom person is about–heaven?  (sure, I know, that would be enough but…?)

What if we who are Kingdom people, began to think differently, to carefully listen for the mind of our Father?  Began to look at things from the Spiritual and supernatural and not just the flesh or natural?  What if we began to gather in groups of Kingdom people and strategize Kingdom solutions for these problems?  Would it make sense for us to start looking for businesses that are stressed or broken that we could bring some life and health to, by thinking outside the box everyone else is thinking in? 

If we believe what is going on is just a precursor to the End, how does that affect the way we think?  If we are just going to duck and cover during these “so called last” days of grave uncertainty and shaking, will we miss the opportunity of a lifetime to actually bring Kingdom values to bear on the crisis?

(BTW, we have no idea if these are the last days, and have no way of knowing, so Jesus said in Matthew 24:36. There is a lot in Matthew 24 we need to understand from a Kingdom perspective, rather than just an end times approach.  Anyone want to work on that?)

Kingdom people must not focus on a deliverance plan, an out.  I am not convinced, for a lot of reasons, that is the mind of the Father.  (You can read my thoughts about the End written before the great wave hit us.  (HERE)  This is of course not the full answer to this very important, if not the most important issue of our day, but it does have merit.)

If we are just waiting around for Jesus to come back, what happens if He doesn’t come in our lifetime?  I am committed to telling as many people about the saving grace of Jesus as I can.  It is of utmost importance.  However, is there not some Spirit filled creativity we could bring to the table right here, right now?

Pastors, elders, Spirit filled church people… Let’s start by first acting differently  than those around us, that don’t have the mind of Jesus, nor the Spirit.  Let’s rebuke and reject the spirit of fear and think with sound minds.  Let us speak optimistically about what our Father might be up to, rather then just agreeing that the enemy is doing his thing very well.  Pastors and leaders of all kinds, lead us.  Show us a new and different way.  Preach and teach Kingdom life and gospel.  Help us to see the difference.  Don’t just tell us to “hang on, Jesus is coming”.  I hope He does today, but I want help focusing on what we are going to do differently, if He doesn’t.  Even if you don’t know what to do, let’s get together and begin to pray that we will see into the Spirit realm and lock on to what the Father is doing and get hooked up to that!

Kingdom values, when appropriately applied will change culture, other wise, what’s the point?  If you wonder what Kingdom values are try reading Matthew 5-7 or Hebrews 13, you will find them there and all over the Word. 

I have some ideas, so do you.  Start sharing them.  Write about them, preach about them, invite people into your home to pray and strategize together.  Wouldn’t that be more productive and encouraging than hanging on?  If you have a blog, link your thoughts to this blog.  It will spread the word faster than I can do it alone.

As always I would love and benefit by anything you are seeing or hearing.  Please comment for all our benefit.

Attraction.

Payson, Arizona

Been reading parts of a book, our host Chuck gave me, called The Shaping of Things To Come(Frost/Hirch).  This morning I read this:  Built into every fabric of New Testament teaching on the extension of the Kingdom is the assumption that when the Christian community embraces a godly, holy lifestyle, it will so tantalize the wider community that they will seek after God.  And yet so much of what typifies the so-called holiness movement in the fundamentalist-evangelical churches has had the opposite effect.  When the wonders of life in Christ are boiled down to teetotalling, it’s hardly likely to arouse great interest in the community about us.  If by holiness we simply mean no drinking, no smoking and no dancing we have a very limited view of the concept. 

This is not particularly new.  We know withdrawal doesn’t work, but the quote got me thinking about what will work.  Has there ever been a period in American history (perhaps the Civil War era, or the Great Depression) when the culture as a whole needs the Kingdom more than it does today?  The cultural upheaval we are experiencing right now, starting with new leadership, for good or bad, right on through a total revamping of the financial world, has opened the door wide to a Kingdom culture and way of life.  During this shaking season, it appears whatever can be shaken will be shaken, but the writer of Hebrews says “we have been given a Kingdom that cannot be shaken”.  So it makes sense, doesn’t it, the culture badly shaken and still shaking could use something solid to come to for safety?

If we who are Kingdom people will handle this crisis personally, corporately, relationally, economically in a way that mirrors the Kingdom of our God and not the kingdom of this world we will make this Life so attactive that there will be a move of the Spirit in our world the likes of which we have never seen.  If we are respectful, self controlled, kind, loving, and faithful along with soundness of mind, integrity, seriousness and display a faith that sees not what is easily seen by every one, but a faith that sees what our Father sees, there will be an attraction to our King that false holiness has never had.

It is fine to abstain from the use of alcohol out of devotion to God, but if our lives are marked with greed, self-centerdness, arrogance, fear, holding tight to our stuff, and trying to simply gut it out, preserving our own stake, in what way will our light ever reach the culture?

What can we do to shine during these days, so there is an attraction to the Kingdom and not a repulsion? Frost and Hirch offer some suggestions and I have expanded them to reflect what I am Hearing:

• See to it that no one has to face their problems alone.  Challenges like we face today tend to isolate people and loneliness and despair are the result.
• Make safe places for people to reveal their pain and struggles. Let it be OK to struggle.  We don’t have to fix, just care.
• Allow each person to have a voice, not just the strong and the wealthy.  Seek out the poor, weak  and those nobody else wants.
• Don’t isolate the young or the old.  Both ends of the age specturm are the most vulnerable in crisis. Be a real Family.
• Invest resources in people not buildings or programs.  We cannot afford to do business as usual in the Church.  While we must not abandon those who serve us as their vocation, we do need to evaluate every dime we are spending with Kingdom values in mind. Use our Spirit filled creativity to create jobs and grow the resources we have.  Just doing “church” won’t get it done.
• We must not require agreement in order to have deep, meaningful relationships.  This is the part of church the culture just doesn’t get.  Why can’t we get along?  This crisis is going to cause all kinds of fights and disagreements in the government, schools, states and cities and among neighbors and on and on because the world will be doing what the world does, trying to preserve and protect what they have and take advantage of a bad situation to protect themselves.  A “City on a Hill” will be a bright contrast to all that darkness.
• Expect the Supernatural.  Anyone can do what comes naturally but Kingdom people can live Supernaturally and when people see what God can do, they will come in droves!

If Kingdom people will do these things and more, there will be a revival and the culture will be regenerated in a positive, Kingdom way.  Something no bailout will ever accomplish.

Someone must have some thoughts and ideas on this one.