Small things

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Praise

Great news has been filling my week!

- my former Christian Academy of Knoxville student, Amanda Brooks, is "breezing through" her college New Testament class. That gives this old teacher a glad heart. The teaching stayed with her! Thanks to the Lord.

- my former Grace Christian Academy student Justin Rhyne is actively telling others about the truth of Christ while a student at the University of Tennessee. His call last night was a great boost to me.

- my former online international student and great friend across the Pond, Oscar Hyde is preparing for college (Princeton? Cambridge?) but let me know that one of his priorities is to stay strong in the Lord by meeting with Christian friends and groups whenever he steps on campus next fall.

3 John 1:4 - I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Blocking the Way

". . . the cares of this world, . . . choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful"

( Mark 4:19 ).

The church service was a powerful one. The message included a passage on the Father's sacrifice in order to bring us salvation, and it included the testimony of a man who had also suffered great loss but loved Jesus even more. The message was dynamic.

I was puzzled, therefore, when I saw some young adults totally unmoved by this and even flippant about the message whenever we were leaving the service. Now, I am a person who is wary of those who feel that emotion is a necessary part of a service, but this reaction by these people threw me. They even mentioned non-entities such as the background scenery and the expressions of other people in the audience.

How could someone be in the same service and see something totally different? How could someone be completely unmoved by the power of God's Word?

Then I realized that some of the people within that group were dallying in the world and its pleasures at the expense of seeing Jesus work in their lives. They had let selfishness take over. I had noticed it in their speech and habits throughout the earlier months but didn't realize how deeply that attitude had sunk. It had taken anchor in their soul and was clogging up the passageway to seeing God's teaching and blessing.

". . . the cares of this world, . . . choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful"
( Mark 4:19 ).

As I seek God's leading at this next stage of my life, I have no idea of the direction He will take me. I do know this, though. Even though I am not sure of His nudge just yet, I don't want to be pushing away His hand by distracting myself with other cares.

I don't want to be so fixated on the road surface that I miss the mansion.

Impacting the World

If we are to tell people about Jesus, what do we present to them? Is Jesus to be presented as an example...a teacher....a highly moralistic citizen of His country?

Let's look at it as we ourselves contemplate who this Jesus is. Let's get back to square one in our Christian walk. Lay aside the social aspect of church. Forget the musical interludes. Put aside the liturgical emphasis.

Who is this Jesus?

Let's look at just a few of the truths about the Savior we may have forgotten:

He became one of us, weaknesses and all

Heb. 4:15 "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin."

He endured death and defeated it.

Romans 6:9 - "For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him."

He died so that we could live.

1 John 2:2 - "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

His victory proved that He was and is the Son of God

Romans 1:4 - "and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord."

One day everyone will recognize His majesty

Philpns 2:10 - "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth..."

So what is the best way to tell them?

I propose that the best and first way to do this is by telling Jesus "thanks." That's it. "Thanks."

By word and by deed. By thought and by living example.

That's it. Simple.

And yet not so.

Oswald Chambers

Here are profound thoughts from Oswald Chambers from his book My Utmost for His Highest:

When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18 ). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2 ); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. ". . . she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. . . . Jesus said to her, ’Mary!’ " ( John 20:14, 16 ). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. "She turned and said to Him, ’Rabboni!’ " ( John 20:16 ).

In summary (I speak especially to my students from years past) it is of the greatest importance to remember that mere Biblical memorization does not automatically open the door to a oneness with Jesus. Just as I cannot say that I personally know Babe Ruth or Neil Armstrong just because I have memorized knowledge about them, I cannot honestly say that my intellectual grasp of Jesus is enough. It is the experience of submission, frisndhip and worship that completes the bridgespan.

Persecution

Here is a valuable link to use. Whenever you think that you're having a hard time standing for Christ, go over and read some of the persecutions faced today, in real time stories of suffering by Christians around the world.

Click here:

http://www.persecution.com/

This site is provided by the blessed work of the ministry called Voice of the Martyrs. Reading through some of these stories will change your life, I am sure.

Excitement while waiting

One of the hardest things for me to do is to rest. Standing still or staying in one place just about kills me. This past school year featured a special field day for the senior high, and we teachers were relegated to standing around and applauding the efforts of the various student teams to which we were assigned to oversee. We couldn't do anything but stand around. ARGH. I'm telling you, that had to be one of the longest days of my life. I don't like to stand back and observe; I like to get in the mix, even if I fall.

That's what has been so unusual about this summer. I'm standing still quietly...and I like it. I've been holding still, waiting upon the Lord to see what He has for me. In the last few weeks, the verse calling me to "rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" ( Psalm 37:7 ) has been especially important. Having no "churchy" activity has made me take my vision and place it more specifically upon things I've not enjoyed so intensely before. For instance, our vacation trip to Disney World was one of the most enjoyable weeks in my memory. I had a great time (despite the shockingly brutal heat and humidity) being with my family in a quiet and conversational way that I'd not experienced during the school year. My devotional life has taken a new turn. My prayer life has also seen new windows open to truths.

Most surprising of all, I have been contacted for some new proposals in publishing ideas. Those of you who are writers understand the shock of publishing firms approaching you. Most of the time, it is the writer running after the publisher with hat in had. This truly is a "God thing."

I encourage you to take time away from summer diversions to stop and "abide under the shadow of the Almighty" ( Psalm 91:1 ). You may, as I have, see some new things occuring that can only be described as God-generated blessings.

I will keep you posted on the blessings that have been coming our way. Please continue to pray for Jill's dealing with fibro myalgia. It is still a great concern to the family.

Thanks for your patience

I have been in a "retreat" mode since school has let out. I have withdrawn from any teaching, preferring to sit in meetings and assemblies and get fed without the feeling of having to stand up and teach a class within the next 24 hours. Don't get me wrong - I do love to teach, especially relaying God's truths, but there comes a time when I need to sit by the wayside and rest. I lvoe the stillness and the solitude.

Lately it's been more important for me to get away for restful times. I've found myself sitting alone and reading a good devotional book or a passage from the Bible, re-reading a particular truth in order to let it sink in.

I am finding these intensely quiet times as important to my life as exercise or fellowship. This has become increasingly important to me. If I am going to know more about my Friend, isn't it right to just sit at His table and let Him talk to me? How can a friendship be based on inattention?

I want to know more about Jesus and what it is like to truly, truly, truly regard Him as the most important One in my life.

The strange case of Craig

As I was running the track this morning I glanced at the school nearby and fell into a flood of memories about my high school years, to one of my wrestling teammates. When I first met Craig, I learned of his reputation as a pushy, mouthy, egocentric guy who liked picking on smaller people around him. Throught he months of the wrestling season, I became casually acquainted with Craig. He didn't bother me much, but I did see how he could get on people's nerves. He carried an air about him that rubbed people the wrong way. He dressed sloppily, never combed his long hair, and he was loud.

The wrestling season ended, and then the months of school flew by toward the summer. Since he was an upper classman, I didn't see much of Craig the rest of that year or in the summer months.

But in the fall as school started, I was surprised by what I saw. In fact, we all were.

Craig came into school wearing a short sleeved white shirt. His hair was cut to crewcut length. He sported a thin black tie. His black pants and shoes were immaculate. And he was quiet, polite, and reserved.

Ah, you think I'm going to say he became a Christian. No, not at all.

Craig had joined a cult. And in watching his change, i learned something about the Christian walk.

Craig avoided groups and kept to himself. He was mannerly, sure, but he and his sister stayed off to one side and carried an otherworldly gaze in their eyes. They finished up school neatly and reservedly, and we never heard from them again.

My point is this: whereas we saw a change in Criag, I don't think any of us really saw something we found attractive. Craig stopped befriending us. He avoided public gatherings and became withdrawn. He gave us no impression that we would want to be like him.

It helped me understand our Christian testimony's impact.

The Question of Compromise

I remember asking a Russian pastor, "What is it like to pastor a church in your country? Is it difficult?" The pastor responded, "No, it's easy because I know where everyone stands. But how can someone pastor a church in America, where compromise is so common and subtle?" Many so-called Christians want the world's acceptance and are therefore unwilling to take a stand for Christ.

The world is clever in its allurements, the flesh is vulnerable to temptation, and the devil is aggressive in his attack. So it's a battle to remain spiritually stable.

- John MacArthur, Seven Steps to Spiritual Stability

Some good sites

Here are a couple of great sites that I think you need to see:

a complete dramatized Audio Bible unabridged in MP3 Format. Listen to the bible anywhere either on your PC or portable MP3 compatable device. www.audio-bibles.co.uk


one of the best Bible resource places I know: http://www.blueletterbible.org/

Genuine Love of Jesus by a Christian

The love which (early Christians) felt towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion
which they hid within themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only spake of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of the week, and sang hymns in honour of Christ Jesus the crucified, but it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy, that it was visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk, and looked out of their eyes even in their commonest glances. Love to Jesus was a flame which fed upon the core and heart of their being; and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man, and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine Christians.

- Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Julianne on the move

Here are a few of the latest pictures of our little one, Julianne. Our 15 year old Peter took these pictures as Jill was traveling around the countryside, getting some chores done.

Revelation: The Truth About a Throne

Revelation 4:2 - "Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne."

The Greek word "thrao" (to sit) gives us the word "thronos"...a throne. It is designated as more than an ordinary seat. It's the place of authority, of power.

Here, the writer John has been given the ability to see Heaven and he sees the One who sits on that Heavenly throne, with authority over all. The rest of the book shows how the One shows His authority and how He deals with rebellion.

Here's my thought on this passage as I think of the world today:

Atheists say that there is no throne becasue they want no authority over them. Hedonists don't want anyone on the throne to which they must answer. Humanism would not have a problem with a throne, but they woould clearly state that man sits upon it.

As Ecclesistes chapter 3 states, every man has been given the knowledge of eternity in his soul. He thinks of the hereafter and the realm above his earthly life, and so he realizes that there is a throne. Question is, who does he let sit on the throne of his life? He will want someone to sit on that throne.

Maybe it's a political leader. Maybe it's a lifestyle of materialism. Maybe it's a pursuit of knowledge. There is only one that can be on the throne at one time. I have chosen to make it Jesus Christ, God Himself.

Tears

Psalm 56:8 - You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are {they} not in Your book?

Put tears in a bottle? What does this passage mean?

In the Old Testament times and continuing through to the Roman times when Christ walked the earth, tear bottles were used by mourners for the purpose of respect to the deceased. Those who sorrowed would fill tiny bottles with tears and placed them in burial tombs. Called "Lachrymatories," these bottles were considered very precious.

Could it have been the woman in Luke 7 poured her bottle of tears first on the feet of Jesus before anointing his feet with alabaster? This would have been a powerful display of emotion and affection, to pour out the treasured bottle of tears!

The commentator Fausset says : "The custom of bottling the tears of mourners as a memorial, which has existed in some Eastern nations, may explain the figure."

The commentator Matthew Henry says: "(God) observes them (sorrowing people) with compassion and tender concern; he is afflicted in their afflictions, and knows their souls in adversity. As the blood of his saints, and their deaths, are precious in the sight of the Lord, so are their tears, not one of them shall fall to the ground. I have seen thy tears, 2 Ki. 20:5.

God cares.

Are Christians Unable to Decide Right and Wrong?

Isn' t Exodus 20:15's teaching about stealing very clear? Here's troubling news:

" ...a new study conducted by The Barna Group suggests that, despite the widespread coverage of the legal arguments and fight against piracy, most young consumers possess no moral qualms about getting music illegally."

"The study shows that born again Christian teens are not much different than are non-born again teens in terms of holding an anti-piracy moral position. Just 10% of Christian teens believe that copying CDs for friends and unauthorized music downloading are morally wrong, compared to 6% of non-born agains (the four-point difference barely qualified as statistically significant). Also, the proportion of pragmatists was statistically equivalent - 64% of born again Christians and 66% of non-Christians."

For more on this story, click here:
http://www.cmta.com/research.htm

"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." - Shakespeare

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.
It's the life in your years."
Abraham Lincoln

Surprise of the Missionary

This picture is of a first-century fishing boat, used during the time that Jesus walked the earth. It was excavated in 1985.
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Big happenings on Tuesday - my birthday! I'll be a spritely 48 years old! Come and join my party at the Cove, just outside of Farragut, TN.
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I think one of the wondrous things about our God is that He’s a God of miracles. He does things that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

One of my friends Lauren Phillips is a missionary to Eastern Asia. She’s about 24 years old and is energetic in wanting to see the Lord work in and among the people of Eastern Asia. Earlier this year she read aloud a letter given to her from one of her fellow missionaries. They are called the Dao people and the letter from her friends is enough to shock anyone.

The new missionary couples came into a totally new area, the letter said, and yet when they arrived, the men of the village greeted them warmly and let them sit by the fire. While one of the men fiddled with his nose bone and smoked a cigarette, he mentioned casually that his father, now dead for almost two decades, said that the missionaries would come.

"Long ago, when I was a little boy, my father was waiting for you to come, He told me you would come," said the man. The man, in his late thirties, said that there would be people with white skin who would come and tell them about the truth about God and the way to get to see Him. "We had never seen a white person, so he told us all, don’t be afraid of their white skin! They look very different but they will become like our own brothers and sisters. They will be one family with us. They will bring a talk about God."

When the young couple added up the years, they realized that the father had told the message to his village the very year the missionaries were born!

As the missionary heard these amazing things, he thought about the passage in Ephesians 2:10 which said "God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing." This is the God that we read about in the Scripture and we talk to in prayer. He’s not a far-away God. In Isa. 43: 1-4 we read of a compassionate God whom nobody could have ever imagined. A God who openly pursues us with His love and His care. Listen to this passage:
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you...you are precious in My sight...you are honored and I love you."

Concerns about the mood

This photo is of the Garden of Gethsemane if you were to visit it today. One of my lifelong dreams is to go over and visit the Holy Land.

While at the Christian Academy of Knoxville, one of my positions was that of scheduling chapel speakers and heading up our Tuesday chapel time. A few times in this past year I had student-led chapels, and after two of these chapels I was approached by a small band of students. Both times they chastised me for not allowing the chapel to go beyond the scheduled hour that our school has allotted.
Although both chapels were very powerful, I found that this clutch of students were agitated about the length of the service.

"It must be longer - at least an hour more than you've allotted," insisted one boy.

When I asked him why, he responded, "because we need time to get into the Spirit, and the song time is what we need to do this. It's got to be much longer. We've got to get into the Spirit."

Now, I find this curious. I have encountered people who have told me this before, and I fail to see where the Bible gives directions on how Christians need a massive amount of time to "warm up" to the Holy Spirit's movement. To be sure, singing prepares a heart for the Word of God's instruction, but I was told by this group that there must be gobs of songs and lengths of time in order to get ready, and I find this lacking in Scriptural authority. We are to spend two, three hours in singing before we can allow God's Word to be brought forth?

It leads me to see a danger that I will talk about in coming blogs: the danger of over-emotionalism in today's Christian generalization. Many, many times I see the abstract thinkers of Christianity push away the concrete thinkers with an insistence that the service be flowery and mood-sensitive.

Hey, I want to have time with Jesus and praise Him, but I don't want a Woodstock experience to have to achieve it.

Security of the Believer

We Christians are such losers sometimes...could Jesus take our salvation away as punishment?

Many a time in my youth I wondered if Jesus would simply get tired of us. After all, people can be pretty stupid a lot of the time. We endeavor to do right but we fail. We set lofty goals and get nowhere near attaining them. Why would Christ have any interest in us as we keep stumbling about? We Christians attempt to honor Him but we end up wanted to honor ourselves more. We lose control of so many of the ways to give Him glory, why wouldn't He just forget us and deny us Heaven? We're trying to do good, but doesn't His patience have a limit?

Then I look at His Word and I am comforted. Can we lose our salvation? I read the Word and see some powerful truths that tell me otherwise...

1. God does not let saints fall
Micah 7:8 - "when I fall I shall arise"
Psalm 37:24,25 - "Though he fall he shall not utterly be cast down...I have not seen the righteous forsaken..."

2. This is the Lord's doing, and it is not in our power to "undo" it.
Psalm 37:37,40 - "But salvation of the righteous is of the Lord..."
2 Tim. 1:12 "He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day."
Jude 24 - "...now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling..."
1 Peter 1:5 - "who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

3. God knows the believer.
John 10:14 - God tells us He knows His child.
Compare that with the lost He speaks to in Matthew 7:23. "...I never knew you..."

4. The believer is in Jesus' hand.
John 10:28 - "...neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

5. The believer will not come into condemnation.
John 5:24 - "He that...believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation..."

Thank you, Jesus, for making a Way. Thank you for keeping us going on that Way.