Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

Frank thoughts on our times from the view of the Gospel.

Saturday Was A Good Day

bikeSome days are better than others.
Saturday 6-28-08 was one of those days.

1. My daughter, Von Behr, rode her bike for the first time without training wheels. We have been going for long walks most days for the last two months. Angel and Von ride their Razer scooters while Kim and I walk the hike-and-bike trail in our neighborhood for 45 minutes. I think the time on her two-wheeled scooter prepared her for two wheeled biking. She was awesome! A vision on her little purple bike with a purple helmet, two long sleeve shirts, and wool mittens on her hands all in the 90 degree heat. She had a little trouble getting started, but once she was going, she did great. Stopping was not really a problem like I thought it might be. I’m sure we were quite the sight with me running along beside her in case she fell.

2. I found the power supply to my scanner. I’ve been looking for it for over a year. It was in the drawer of our antique buffet. (Of course it was)

3. Kim now has internet access in her home office. Hey, it’s only been a year! I had to buy and install an ATT 2Wire modem/wireless router. For some reason the Netgear wireless router kept locking up.

4. We had dinner at the Clay Family Restaurant (on Clay road). It’s a chicken fried steak kind of place, very Texas. They have a huge playground for the kids with a petting zoo and sandboxes. Kim and I sat inside watching the kids through the big windows in the dinning room. I put Kim’s phone in Von’s pocket, and when our food arrived I called her to come inside. Genius.

5. Our Sony portable DVD player starting working again. We only use it for long car trips, and we are getting ready to take another one. Good timing.

For God and Country

flagTo be patriotic is uncool. Popular culture tells us how uncool it is to be patriotic in every way possible, it’s everywhere we look. For example, if a character in a movie is waving the flag and says that they “love their country” then they will probably turn out to be a bad guy. They will use the motive of loving their country to do some horrible crime against humanity. You know it’s true. You’ve seen that movie, too.

“Born in the U.S.A.” seems like a patriotic song at first glance, until you look at the lyrics. He’s a cool rockin’ daddy in the U.S.A. but he has the flinch of a dog that’s been beat too much by his cruel government. “Little Pink Houses” for you and me, is another seemingly patriotic song, it describes America as a place where blind men sit in poverty feeling the oppression of the rich in the home of the free, baby.

We are told in the media that the rest of the world hates us. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We assume that our leaders are dishonest, shallow and selfish. Each generation gets further entrenched in the self-hating apathy that has become our national self image.

Cheery thoughts.

The heart of the Bible is what Jesus calls the greatest commandment. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” Love God with everything that you are. In all that you think and all that you do. What does it mean to love God?

This love is not a romantic love. This love is better understood as a patriotic love. It is the kind of love that a true patriot would have for his country as he marched off to war to defend it. It is the kind of love that you have for your family. It is the kind of love that you have for a group that you are deeply committed to being part of, a group that you would give up your life for. A group that defines who you are by being part of it.

Jesus is our King. He has established and is establishing a kingdom that transcends national borders. All Christians are to pledge their allegiance first and foremost to the Kingdom of Heaven. Before themselves, before their family and before their country. Our citizenship is in heaven. Our loyalty is with Christ.

We have other duties that flow from this, however. With our heart first given to our King, we are to also love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to honor our mother and father. We are to love our family. With our loyalty first given to the Kingdom of Heaven we are to honor the rulers that God has placed over us in our various countries. 1st Peter says to honor the emperor. Even when the emperor is not honorable, and the emperor is hardly ever honorable.

This brings me back to my original point. Being patriotic is not in style. This makes it difficult for us to understand what it truly means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. It is difficult for us, because we think we are too cool to give our whole heart, soul, mind and strength to anyone or anything other than ourselves.

We need to snap out of it. We need to repent of our national self-loathing. We need to get our priorities in order and let that inform how we live the lives that God has given us.  We need to pray for the leaders that God has placed over us and live as if everything matters.  Because everything matters.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. AMEN

Gravity

astroWhat if the sin of Adam had caused mankind to break the law of gravity? Instead of losing the ability to naturally follow God’s moral law, suddenly he and Eve would float around, grasping at tree-tops to stay on the earth. Making for themselves ropes out of fig vines to tie themselves to the ground and to each other. The ten words that God gave to Moses would describe which way was actually up and which way was truly down, ten ways for mankind to get their bearings. A complete description of what gravity is, for a race of people who could no longer obey it naturally or understand its purpose.

Jesus would have come to earth to restore their relationship with the Father, living His life with both feet on the ground, to the astonishment of all. (It’s a MIRACLE … He can WALK ON DIRT!) Leaving everyone with the hope that someday He would come again, and return them to the promised land.

In the centuries that follow all of the Christians would float around arguing about how much of a “downer” gravity is, even though Jesus didn’t come to abolish gravity but to fulfill it.

The hope is not that in Jesus everyone will float around breaking the law of gravity, but that in Jesus they will once again feel gravity’s pull naturally.

Friends

friends.jpgI have hardly had time to turn around.  Work is filling every space in my life right now which is more of a problem than usual because my wife and children arrived in London a week or so ago.  When they are around I realise that I spend all my time thinking of work and hardly any about them – I am ashamed.  However, the blessing of children (and their curse) is that they will not be long ignored and my life is moving towards more of a healthy balance when they are around.

 

I am blessed in my family and I am almost equally blessed with good friends.  In 1991 Karen and I arrived in Houston with six suitcases and a 3 month old baby – we did not know a soul in Houston.  In the years since then I have made great friends and 3 of them (Buddy, Max, and Paul) came over to visit me a couple of weeks ago.

 

We had a great time investigating some of London’s sights and while also sampling “Dick Whittington’s Ale Trail”.  One thing is for sure, you are not going thirsty following Dick’s footsteps around London.  It was interesting for me to see my new home through their eyes.  Fish and chips were sampled along withpickled eels and pub food.  We had Pimms on my balcony and watched the sun go down.  Like I said, I am blessed. 

These men have without knowing it shared with me the burden of bringing up my children.  Sure, Karen and I needed to be the ones to impose the curfews, wipe the runny noses, and set the Christian example as best we could.  Yes, we did the practical and the necessary work of bringing up the kids.  What these men and their families did was raise the faith of Karen and I above the level of intellectual quirk or weird lifestyle choice.  Because of these friends of ours my son and daughters know that Christian truth leads to Christian life (and, importantly, vice versa).  Because of their faithful lives, my kids have seen other families close up dealing with good times and bad in faithful ways.  They have seen mothers and fathers love and forgive each other, they have seen children be encouraged and disciplined in the faith and made better because of it.  That, is a special gift that not all people get. 

I was glad to share my home with my friends, Buddy, Max, and Paul.  I am glad they had fun, saw the London eye, ate marrow, and enjoyed the Lefe (Google it!). 

Of VBS, Free Babysitting and Flannel Sheep

flanned sheepVacation Bible School (commonly known as VBS) is part of our culture, and not only the “church” culture. VBS is an event that many churches put on in the hope of reaching out to families through children. The hope is that the good news of Jesus Christ and His victory over sin and death will be received in faith by the children who attend the event. The hope is also that the parents of the children might discover a church home if they do not have one. These are noble hopes.

The attraction of VBS from a parents point of view is a couple of things: First, it is a week of cheap (if not free) babysitting for a few hours each night. Second, it seems like it might even be “good for” little Johnny or Susie to hear some things about Jesus. Maybe they’ll behave better … it can’t hurt.

I did not grow up going to church, but I did go to VBS one year. It was held in the living room of a nice lady who lived down the street from us. I don’t remember much about it. I was five years old and I went along with the other 6 or so kids from the neighborhood. The lady was friendly, she gave us Kool-Aid and cookies, there was a flannel board with sheep, and I remember repeating a prayer that included the words, “Jesus, please forgive me and come into my heart.”

For a week or so after the living room VBS, all of us kids in the neighborhood were Christians. The nice lady ended up moving away soon after that, and I never went to another VBS. Our families never went to church. I don’t even know which church the nice lady attended.

When I was twelve years old a very random thing happened. I picked up a Bible, cracked it open to the middle (Psalms), began reading, and found faith. I started going to church, my family followed me, and I have been in a position of ministry most of my adult life. Random, indeed. It’s like God threw a dart at a map and said, “Him. He will be my follower!”

Did it have anything to do with the nice lady, the flannel sheep and the prayer asking Jesus into my heart? I don’t know. It might, since I remember it so well. There are a lot of other things that I do not remember from when I was five years old.

This week I was part of CrossPoint’s VBS extravaganza. It was worlds beyond six neighborhood kids in a nice lady’s living room. We had a full-on rock band, lights, cameras, multimedia, drama, costumes, games, crafts and all kinds of excitement in addition to teaching, prayer, Kool-Aid and cookies. It was a great success from every measurable standpoint. It looked good, it sounded good, it was well attended, and there were smiling people everywhere. I hope that our big production makes it even more memorable to the kids than the flannel sheep were to me. I hope that nothing we did got in the way of the simple message of Jesus’ forgiveness.

We may or may not see these kids and their families in church. We may or may not ever hear what this week meant to them. We planted seeds, and we will mostly not see what grows from them.

Whoever that nice lady was in 1969, in the small town of Edinburg, Illinois, that hosted her own VBS in her living room, whoever you were, I want to say thank you. I may not know your name, but I remember you.  Believe it or not, that little seed grew.

Defining Ourselves

PenguinsIt is a terrible thing when a child is born with a handicap or a physical deformity. And although we may be tempted to stare ourselves, we teach our children not to point or act rude toward the child. We generally have compassion towards the child and we wish that something could be done to make things better for them. What we mean by this is usually that we wish something could be done so that the FIRST THING you see is not the handicap. If the deformity was repaired then their fellowship with us would not be tainted.

Sometimes people are not born with the handicap, but it happens as the result of a tragic event. However, for the purposes of this article let’s assume that the problem has been a part of the person since birth.

This is not an easy subject to talk about.

Let me stretch this idea a little. We are all born under the curse of Adam. We are all born as deformed sinners. When God looks at us He sees our sin and is tempted to stare and point. The Good News is that Jesus stands in our place and makes us look good. He fixes the problem and restores our fellowship with God and also with each other. But, what if we don’t want to be fixed?

What if the blind man that Jesus healed was angry at Jesus? After all, Jesus spit in his eyes and took away his livelihood. He also took away his identity. He was known as The Blind Man who had been blind from birth who sat at the gate and begged for money. That’s who he was. His life had become an existential crisis now that he could see. He was going to have to get a job, and he had no training. What’s a 40 year old blind beggar going to do for money now that he can see?

Add to that the fact that he was born that way. Doesn’t that make it right? Shouldn’t Jesus have left him blind?

We are all born with deformities of the heart, mind and body. Man is not created equal. Some of our deformities are more obvious than others, but we all have them. We all have them, and we are to stop defining ourselves by them. We are to trust Jesus to cover us and heal us of our imperfections, but maybe not in the way the we think.

If we have a certain physical problem, then we have to stop seeing ourself primarily through the distortion of that problem. We are God’s people, human beings, and not blind men, hunchbacks, deaf girls, or cripples. We have a job to do on this planet, and we have to do it in spite of our limitations.

If we have certain spiritual or emotional problems, then we have to stop seeing ourselves primarily through the weakness of our sin. We are forgiven Christians, brothers and sisters of Jesus. And if we have faith in Jesus, then we have the Holy Spirit to live in us to live a new life. This is true even in the very face of our temptation. Temptation is not sin, and temptation may never go away. It was in the original garden and it may very well be in the next garden.

May we learn to stop defining ourselves by our ugliness, our limitations, and our sin. May we learn instead to define ourselves by the work that Jesus is doing through us by the Holy Spirit to the honor and glory of God the Father. AMEN