Partial Thinks the Sequel:

Here are some more of those things I think about but just can’t get final enough to write a book about.  You do think about things, don’t you, and ask questions like “Why?” and “Why not?”  Well, I hope so!

Counting the cost.  Jesus told a couple parables about folks who needed to figure out if they could finish before they started.  Good advice that is often overlooked today because we think someone will bail us out.  We even think God will rescue us from our ill-conceived, erroneous and presumptive actions.  When it comes to the essentials of His message, I don’t think so!  When He told the parables, he was talking about following Him and being willing to give up everything to do so.  If we are not willing to pay the price, we cannot follow.  This seems pretty simple to me, yet some want to add all sorts of contingencies to the contract.  Sorry, but that is not allowed.  He is God; they are His rules; no one can change them.  Whatever you are clinging to, turn it loose … He is worth it!

Little words can make big confusion!  The church is people — the Body of Christ. We are animated by His Spirit, and we have life.  We are a living organism, and He is the Head and gives direction to the individual members.  We are organized, yet we are not an organization.  His Church is a living thing.

How then do we go to church?  The gathering does not make us; we make it by our presence.  That is a huge difference, and in that difference is the power of grace.  Understand that difference and you are free from the fantastic idea that you can by your actions make yourself acceptable to God.  Fail to understand and you are locked into a religion and may well miss the basic meaning of the Gospel.

Meeting-centered stuff.  Where in the Bible does it say that unbelievers are to go to a meeting of believers (don’t say church) to begin a relationship with God through Jesus?  Rather, aren’t believers of every shape and age to be telling others how to have that relationship all throughout the week?  In the New Testament, the meetings were for believers to study God’s Word, pray together, and share in a covenant meal.  Usually it is easier to be what we should be when we quit trying to be what we are not.

Turkish Delight and other terrible things for which we trade our souls.

In the Christian classic and movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Edmund is so obsessed with his favorite treat, Turkish Delight, and so angry at the world for his mistreatment that he betrays those he really loves.

Perhaps the most tempting and deadly of all these sumptuous treats is the idea that we are special, that the world revolves around us.  This misconception doesn’t rob from us all forms of compassion or selflessness, but it does cause us to put ourselves in a special place that can only be granted to us by others.  This aura of specialness that we surround ourselves with produces a creeping selfishness that infects the way we see the world and relate to one another and if left unchecked will erode our love for others as we sink into a deepening maelstrom of self-infatuation.  The good things within us, our humanity, derive from our closeness to the Lord, not our absorption in self.

Jesus is our example of selfless living.  He said he came not to be served, but to serve others (Mt 20:28).  He also told us that our leaders should be those who serve the rest (Mt 20:27).  There are scores of other references to Jesus and the apostles that deal with love and selfless giving.  We are commanded to love one another, serve one another and put others before ourselves.  We are told to discipline our speech so that it builds up others in their faith in Christ.  We are also reminded not to eat or drink to purposefully offend someone weaker, nor flaunt our religious practices.  On the other side, we are not to expect others to meet our standard of diet and religious piety, but to let the Lord direct them as we labor to restore while maintaining a sense of self-distrust and humility.

As we approach Easter, you can change the atmosphere in your home, job, class and wherever you find yourself, if you will see where you are as a place to serve.  The sweet-tasting candy called “me” will destroy us as sure as poison.   The antidote is to be like Jesus.

Myths and Manipulations

Every once in a while my head gets clogged up with things and I have to clear them out so I can move on. I believe the things I’m going to tell you are errors.  They are either passed on in ignorance or deliberately used to manipulate people. Let’s look at a few of these myths.

Jesus was a wimp.  He was not!  Most of the pictures show Jesus with deer eyes and soft hands.  I don’t think so.  In His livelihood He was a builder, probably a stone cutter or mason, not a carpenter.  His hands were calloused.  He was physical enough to chase the crooks from the temple with a whip made of cords.  He used violence when He did that and turned over their tables.  He was a man’s man.  He had enough courage to look a man in the eyes and ask him to give up his most important possessions.  He was humble but he was no sissy.  Real men like fishermen could relate to Him.  Real men still can!

Self-defense is prohibited in the New Testament.  Sorry, but it is not.  Loving your neighbor does not mean you have to let him take your life, life that God alone can give.  Revenge is forbidden; so is striking out to protect your pride.  That’s what “turning the other cheek” is about.  You can choose not to defend yourself, which will be between you and Him alone, His will for you, not necessarily for me or anyone else.  If you are just cowardly and want to believe nothing can happen if you don’t think it, be that on your own head.  But don’t call someone else to do what you lack the physical and moral will to do yourself.  Want to read more?  Check this out:  http://davekopel.org/Religion.htm or contact me for a list of resources.

Churches should listen to the un-churched.  Myth!  We have had too many polls where people who don’t know Jesus from Derek Jeter are telling us what they don’t like about the church.  C’mon, let’s think for just a minute.  Believers are supposed to have a relationship with God, and the Holy Spirit is supposed to live within them and guide them.  I believe this is true in spite of the problems the church has.  So, why not ask Him what His church is supposed to be like.  Pastors, really all believers, are supposed to read the Bible, God’s Word, and get direction there.  Maybe the reason the church has some of the troubles I mentioned above is because we have made it a haven for folks with no relationship with God and who give no priority to His Word.

Thanks, I feel better!

Question: How do broken, sinful people govern themselves?

Answer: The way porcupines make love, very carefully.

Political commentators have used bales of print and bushels of words since the election last month to convince us that what we really want is for everyone in Washington to get along. I couldn’t disagree more, and I believe the founders of this land shared my opinion.

The founding fathers knew what an unbridled ruling elite could do to personal liberty because they experienced it and rejected it. Their experience caused them to design a system where power was never to be concentrated in the hands of an agreeable few. They (founders) knew that man was fallen and prone to selfishness, so they proposed to use the conflicting self-interest of elected officials and ordinary citizens as a system of checks and balances.

Our system of government pits state against state and the combined states against the federal government. The federal government itself has conflicting powers, the Congress against the Senate and the president against both, with the Supreme Court acting as referee and using the Constitution as a rule book to keep each in line. In each of these powers there are financial interests, issues of ambition and power, as well as regional preference and a multitude of political complexities that stand in the way of “getting things done” and bi-partisanship. Each in the pursuit of his own goal would run into some conflicting goal of another, and the resulting standoff would result in lack of action. Doing nothing is ok; it is the way it is supposed to be. In those rare situations like invasion or some other incident that affects a large portion of the population, there would be agreement on a common solution driven by the several interests involved.

The Tower of Babel illustrates the power of sinful man to rebel against God and do as he pleases. The system of regional self-interest as a curb to man’s godless ambition that our founders used was first used by God. The New Testament tells us to avoid legal agreement with unrighteousness. I’m praying for godly gridlock.

How big is our Christianity?

As citizens of the United States, one of the greatest obligations we have is to vote.  We get to participate in the process of government by choosing those who will make decisions for us for the next few years.  Christians have even a higher obligation, not to government or to fellow citizens, but to God, to express in their vote the principles of Christianity.

Recent published surveys have detailed an appalling lack of biblical knowledge among church attendees.  Maybe we no longer know what principles we are to judge candidates by?  Perhaps we can no longer form an opinion based on biblical truth about taxes, property, crime, and the role of government?  The Founders feared such a time would come, so they encouraged Bible reading and lessons and involvement in church and religion.  They knew that without a virtuous people there would be no virtuous leaders and without virtuous leaders the country they started would fail from within.

As Christians we must be involved in the political process, and we must vote for those who will uphold and further biblical principles.  Moses was told to select able men who feared God as rulers: Exodus 18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:  This is wise counsel for us also and who can argue that it is not God’s will.  God has given us guidelines for whom to choose and how to judge who is best for any particular office.

This poem from an earlier era has often been my prayer.

I don’t have HBO.

If I did, I would have watched the recent mini-series called “The Pacific”.  The series was based on the experiences of three soldiers in the Pacific theater during WWII.  I recently finished reading two of the three books the series was based upon.  There was no emphasis on grand and broad strategy (except to complain) or even on small unit infantry tactics.  These were the experiences of individual soldiers living and fighting in the weary muck and gore of the Pacific Islands.

The armed forces are made up of individuals.

Let’s think about the place of the individual.  What do you think?  Did Jesus come to save the world (all the people all at once) or the individuals that over the generations have made up that world?  Ponder it, please; it may change the way you think about yourself and your relationship with the Lord.

Did Jesus speak to multitudes or to the individuals within that multitude?  Did Apostles like Peter and Paul write to individual believers in some specific location or to a homogeneous mass of humanity?  Remember, they mentioned individual people by name in many of their letters.

Does the Lord expect you to relate to Him on an individual level?  Relate means relationship, doesn’t it?  Do we have an individual or personal relationship with the Savior?  Are we personally and individually responsible for our attitudes and actions, or do we function only on the level of a village?  (No idiot jokes here because that would imply individual behavior unless the whole village was idiots, then who could tell.)

Jesus loves individuals.  He died for all the individuals, you and me and everyone else, but as individuals.  You do not have to be in a meeting of other Jesus lovers to relate to Him.  You can love, serve and worship Him right where you are, even alone.  The meeting is good, but the real church does not cease to function or exist until it gathers. The church doesn’t mystically appear as it funnels into some lifeless steel and stick structure. The church is, always, through you and me as we live in Him.

As soon as it comes out, I’m getting the DVDs.

Whenever I get the ill-conceived idea to work on my house or car, I always find other things, beside the original task, that need done.  A fifteen-minute job can take a day.  I end up doing all sorts of unplanned and unprepared -for jobs.  I’ve learned to write down the original task so I don’t forget it during the marathon.  Better yet, I remember the potential for job expansion and conclude I don’t have enough time which gives me a reason to put it off.

I have the same problem when I think about things. (I try to think about something at least once a month.)  So in this installment you are receiving all the little things I thought about that were not related to my monthly think.  They are incomplete because I ran out of think time.

Why does everyone deserve everything? I saw on TV that I deserve to be safe, a good night’s sleep, and mobility.  If I deserve it, why do I have to buy something, spend money to get it?  It seems that folks are eager to believe they are deserving.  This got me to thinking about what I really deserve.  I didn’t like what I came up with.  The Bible says the wages of sin are death.  Those of us who believe the Bible rarely press to get what we deserve.  Really, I have it pretty good.  My home, family, ministry, and community are all probably better than I deserve.  I hope they don’t figure it out and start demanding what they deserve.

Are we chasing our spiritual tail? I saw an announcement for a Christian group recently that indicated that with their help we could have freedom from our struggles with anger, control issues, anxiety, and perfectionism.  Perfectionism?  Isn’t that what this is all about?  I believe the Lord wants to work within us to make us like Him.  We must beware though, lest we become spiritual hypochondriacs.  Let’s ask the Lord for a good dose of common sense.

Who’s ready to die? I have a picture on my computer desktop of British troops on D-Day, lying on their bellies on the beach while their officer stands over them.  Why was he standing? Thoughtful consideration of the soldiers’ situation reveals, as do their own words, that when they gave up the idea of trying to survive, they became effective warriors and leaders.  In their minds, the only goal was to do the job they were there to do and perhaps save their companions.  We need more Christians who have given up the thought of life for the goal of pleasing the one who has placed us here.

Dear Friends of Lakeview Community Church:

You are receiving this letter because you are now or have been a part of our fellowship.  As we move to within days of the Easter celebration, I want to let you know about some of the things we believe God would have us do in the coming days.

It has been my long-held belief that there are foundational changes that need to happen to the modern Church of Jesus Christ.  I will attempt to list a few of these things in the coming paragraphs.

At Lakeview we are far from perfect, and we have found the changes we have made have come as part of a journey that brings us to new territory at each bend in the road.  We also realize that there is an innumerable group of people who attend church meetings each week who love the Lord and want to serve Him.  Our emphasis is not the people, but the system–a self-perpetuating organizational structure of processes, doctrine and, of course, thought.

Here are (briefly) some of the things we will give our effort to change, in our own hearts and minds and in the Christian world around us.

Believers, alone and together, should be about building people, not organizations. In the United States, there are millions of members of the Lord’s Church and tens of thousands of qualified leaders.  Think of what could be accomplished if our attention was turned from building organizations and meetings to equipping people.

Christianity is not a meeting.  It is unfortunate that most churches believe that their meetings are the most vital spiritual time their attendees will have during the week.  Of greater shame is they believe that is the way Jesus wants it.  Churches even go so far as to teach their people to expect it.  Don’t we understand that Christianity is not a meeting, and that an emphasis like that diminishes the value of the everyday lives of believers?  Those days and hours lived in no one’s presence or accountability but that of the Lord.  Life is not lived in a meeting; Christ is glorified by my work-a-day life, if I purpose it so.

Attendance at a meeting is not a measure of God’s blessing. I’ve been to many church growth and pastors’ meetings that emphasized how to grow our meetings.  You would think this was a command of the Lord.  I can find no direct command or indirect encouragement in the New Testament to make our meetings bigger. Unfortunately, we have few if any qualitative measures of maturity, only quantitative measures based on attendance, conversion cards or offerings.  We don’t know how to measure success and maturity in life because we cannot count the lack of failure.  Children who do not stray and marriages that stay together have no place on the tally sheet.  Our emphasis on numbers has caused us to be carnal in our outlook and evaluation.

There is no biblical basis for modern children’s and youth ministry.  Study after study tells us that parents are the most influential people in their children’s lives; yet when we get to church, we separate them.  We tell parents our children’s workers are trained to minister to their children, implying it takes some special enablement to tell them about Jesus.  Our constant repetition of that refrain minimizes the importance of parents (to whom God gave the task) and makes it easier for parents who now feel inadequate to relinquish their kids to a youth pastor.  Why not keep families together?  A place can be provided for the occasional restless or screaming little one and families can worship and study together.  Kids can see their parents respond to the Word of God and parents can see the same for their kids.  Why have churches taught parents to abrogate their responsibility in this most important area?  I’ll write more later about the false premise of adolescence.

The gospel of self is not the Gospel of the New Testament. The true gospel tells the story of God’s amazing grace. It is the story of a Holy God who loves us and sends His Son to die in our place.  It is amazing because we are completely undeserving and have no value except that which God applies to us.  In this Bible Gospel, we must acknowledge our unworthiness and utter helplessness to better our situation in order to receive this gracious gift.  We bring nothing except our helpless and hopeless state; and we receive because of His grace, not our worth.

Modern Christianity, in an effort to make the story more palatable, has watered down or removed the part of the story about the unworthiness of humanity.  In telling only part of the story, the Church has produced followers who believe the Gospel is about them.  They are demanding of God, without basic humility and without an understanding of God.  They cannot grasp the concept of Christ’s Lordship, or God’s sovereignty. They believe God is there for them rather than their existing to honor and glorify Him.

I’m asking for your help.  My heart goes out to the untold multitude of believers who have been frustrated and hurt by the modern church system.  There are also millions who do not know Jesus and who cannot hear our message because the culture of our church system speaks louder than our words.  I hope that if you agree with any of the above, you will take some time in the next weeks to visit our web site.  We will be adding to these topics regularly.  Further, if you agree I ask you to join us, not with your attendance or money, but with your heart and mind and prayers.

May the Lord bless you with a Christ-filled Easter.

Respectfully,

Pastor Jess

Rev. Jess Jessup

Pastor, LCC

Carly Simon was right about mankind, our culture and, unfortunately, the church when she wrote “You’re So Vain”.  We do think the song is about us, don’t we?

God is wonderful and humans are depraved.  Any other worldview, to whatever degree it departs from this, moves away from fundamental reality.  The Church is supposed to be God’s means of sharing truth with the world.  It is tragically unfortunate that we think His song is about us.

Carly’s song always puzzled me because it was obvious it had enough specifics to be about someone or even more than one.  Wouldn’t they recognize themselves?  Would that be vanity?  I got to thinking about God’s love as manifested in what we call the Gospel.  He loved us (though we have no merit or value except what He assigns to us) and sent his Son to die for us.  When we acknowledge the truth of our need for a savior (we have no merit) and accept His sacrifice as a substitution to pay for our sin, we receive His salvation.  It is entirely a gift (free) of His great love and grace.  We do nothing but receive.  There is nothing we can do; we are powerless to deal with who we are.  All we can do is recognize Him and receive what He has done.

Since God has done it all, you’d think we would understand that the Gospel and in fact all of life is about Him.  It is for His glory.  It doesn’t take us long, however, to usurp the central place for ourselves.  We think that since God said it was about us, that it is about us (insert song here).  Wrong we are.  God’s love and grace extended to us is an indication of how great, loving and gracious He is.  Our unworthiness (further illustrated by our usurpation of the central place) is proof of His greatness.

Like spoiled children, we expect His good gifts and even demand them.  The greater tragedy is that many churches have made this vanity a part of their teaching.  The truth is God is not there for us, we are here for Him.  We are unworthy, and any blessing or gift is a token of His great grace.  We have attempted to lure people to God by telling them lies about themselves.  The realization of who He is, who we are and what He has done is the only thing that can set us free from the vanity of life.  Once free, we humbly give all glory to the Lord, expecting nothing in return.

When it is about us, it is not about Him!  Carly was right, but truth can set us free.

“If the women can’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”  That is a quote from the famous philosopher Red Green of Possum Lodge fame.  One of the shows I remember was called, “The Big Thing”.   All the activity of that misguided and testosterone-driven cabal was centered on the oversize load they heard was going to be passing near the town.  No one wanted to miss the big thing even though they didn’t know what it was or exactly when it would come.  They had a tailgate party along the highway in anticipation of seeing something larger than normal.  They were usually disappointed and frankly, I can’t remember how it ends.  Doesn’t matter to me or especially to them … they were in it for the hunt.

Here in the midst of winter drudgery, it is easy to fall into discouragement and depression, especially if we are waiting on a big thing.  Have you noticed that normal things don’t make the news?  You never see a tabloid with the headline, “Man Goes to Work” or “Mother Finally Gets Kids to Bed”.  In fact, you can do a million things well and no one notices; forget to yield the right of way and you’ll get your name in the paper.  Win the lottery and you’ll make the headlines; lose the ticket and you’ll make even larger news.

One of the writers I take like medicine is Oswald Chambers.  His daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, is good for the soul.  Here is what Chambers has to say, “The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we look for big things to do.  ‘Jesus took a towel…and began to wash the disciples’ feet.’ ”  Jesus did the ordinary slave thing.  It was done that day thousands of times by thousands of ordinary slaves.  He was sent here to serve, he was a servant, and he was only doing the natural thing.  Chambers also says this, “If I do my duty, not for duty’s sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.”

Most of us will never see a big thing; but in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is purpose and meaningful endeavor all around us.  His life has made this so, and we thank Him.

Keep your stick on the ice!