Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Transformation


Do you have a desire to see your life and your community be transformed?  Are you willing to make a commitment to Jesus and your spiritual leaders to ask God to bring at least one person into your life – that you can disciple into the Kingdom of God?

This means –
  • You will pray daily
    • For God to prepare you for this
    • For God to bring that person of his choosing
  • You will grow so you can lead others
  • You will make yourself available
  • You will look for this person
  • Once they have become a believer, you will help them
    • Become committed to a church
    • Read and study the Bible
    • Pray in accordance with the Bible
    • Tell others about their new faith
  • You will share with them the things God has taught you
  • You will do all God calls you to do to help the growth of your family in the faith

Up for the challenge?

Monday, January 19, 2009

Serving Ourselves


(This is a repost from two years ago but of general interest.  Initially, it was an answer to an email from a young Russian lady.)
******
Regard all things with a grain of salt, no matter the source, save for the Bible - and that includes anything I or anyone else tells you.  You alone are responsible before God for your choices - I for whatever I tell you.  If I am admonishing you, it is to be extremely careful with how you choose to live your life, whom you listen to, how you serve our Lord.

We have such finite understanding of the Lord, often only noticing His leading in the past tense.  We live under the control of a God within two wills.  His first is what is called His determinative will.  This covers all those things He desires for us and are well documented in our Bible: how to deal with one another, how to live our lives, etc.  For example hunting spouses whom are already Christian, women ministering to women/men to men, paying your taxes, obeying the law, attempting to live in peace with those around you, etc.

Then you have the permissive will of God.  Here we are dealing in the gray areas of life and it grows harder without discernment to know which way to go.  Sometimes the Bible does not have the answers, sometime we only have a vague direction in which to go.  So, which church should you attend?  Well, the Bible tells you it must be based on Him and nothing else, it should be involved in the raising up and training of the believer, it sponsors missions, it cares for the widows and orphans, does not support sin within the body, etc.  Ok, that is not a whole lot to go on here other than it is service oriented!  It does not say, "Stay away from Pastor XYZ."  But, you must look at the teachings of any church, no matter how traditional, and evaluate where they are walking in their relationship to God.  If it appears their emphasis is upon themselves (health and wealth gospel) - you are not dealing with a Christian church - be they Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic or unaligned. Yah, sounds harsh, and way too many of my friends are wrapped up in these churches, but I have to answer to God for my knowledge of His Word and to my understanding: their teachings do not come from the Bible but from man and his desire to control his environment.  My friends are equally accountable to God for their decisions to be there under this teaching (be that right or wrong for them!).

And given these two wills, one is often left with the questions as to what is exactly right or wrong.  Let us take an example.  You are going to go to St. Petersburg on a mission of some unknown period of time.  Ok, you feel strongly led and are sure it is of God.  Only one problem, you are newly married and your husband does not feel so drawn - but does tell you that it is ok for you to go - after a lengthy fight.  Are you in the will of God or not?  If you say “Yes”, well, you have just blown a stack of scripture concerning your requirement to be with your husband and the running your household.  If you say “No”, you will feel betrayed on the inside and question if you should have ever gotten married.  This is the kind of dilemma I was referring to.  We make choices all of the time and sometimes those choices bring with them dilemmas we never anticipated - and thus are borne all sorts of frustrations with God, of our own making.

If you are interested, here is a real situation:  She alone felt the need to serve in the mission field; her husband has no desire at all but is willing to let her go.  But, even if she does go - she will be serving herself and not God.  How can I say this?  Because, my Bible tells me that God has limited himself to working within a set of rules and her abandonment of her family, even with their permission, is still wrong.  Yes, you can argue from the perspective of logic as to why what she did was the right thing to do, but luckily God does not use man's logic.  And, the outcome clearly showed what she did was completely wrong - they almost ended up in divorce when she got back and are now in counseling to get back on track with one another.  So long term solution is he should have gone with her and if he is unable to, she should have stayed home - to err on the safe side if nothing else.  If God wanted her on the mission field, He will convince her husband to be there with her........

So, I am hoping you are getting the idea here that we are free to make choices but which choices we do make must always err on the side of caution or we will be serving ourselves and not Him.  If this lady had been in submission to her husband, yes she would never have gone to the mission field.  Yes, a great deal of good was accomplished by her being where she went, but you know, God does not specifically need anyone of us to accomplish what He wills.  If her husband could not go, she should have stayed home with him - God would have raised up another to do what needed to be done.  But, this is no excuse for not serving, just realizing that we need to realign our eyes to see what it is we should be doing within the context of where we are.  You can be the best evangelist there ever was, but if you are working outside of the Bible and the Spirit's leading, you are only serving yourself.

Ok, an example closer to home and painful for me.

Our church is going through an expansion phase.  Everyone is excited, everyone is gung-ho, I believe everyone is dead wrong.  Why?  Ok, the mission of the church is outreach and training of the believers.  Well, so far so good.  But, the first thing my church did was to kill the annual Nativity.  Why?  Because it would be inconvenient to hold it while there was construction going on.  Oh, and by the way, once the construction is complete, there will be no place to hold it in the future.  Ok, no Nativity, fine, most churches do not have one anyway.  So what is real the issue here?  It was and remains my church's only real outreach to the community.  It drew people driving by to stop and sometimes question what this ‘Christianity’ thing is really about.  The kid's teachers and friends would attend and sometimes start going to church (not necessarily ours).  Now we will have a big building, which no doubt will always be filled every Sunday, but what about the community outreach?  This continues to be unaddressed.  Is there a reason we could not build or buy a satellite facility somewhere else?  Yes, ‘they’ want a bigger church because ‘they’ are completely sold out to the approach Rick Warren has taken.  But our pastor is not Rick Warren - his walk and ministry are not necessarily what we should be following.  But, this argument is completely lost on those whom lead our church.  They are literally blinded by the concept of Warren’s success and wanting to duplicate it.  And that is completely wrong and not found in my Bible..... 

Following someone else’s program is not following God’s leading.  See the point now?  I am sure God will continue to bless my church, but what part of His blessing will be lost because our eldership’s motivation is wrong?  That is what I worry about for my church and those I feel led to share with.

Even with this letter the same could be true.  If my motivation is to show how smart I am and how dumb everyone else is - that would be sin.  If I am a control freak trying to draw allegiance of others to my way of thinking - that would be sin.  If I have a personal vendetta against Pastor XYZ - that would be sin.  But, if I am trying to share a concern, no matter how unpopular, I am being obedient.  You must discern which is true and go the direction you feel is right.  And, you alone are answerable for your decision.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Word Games

For all of my smart readers.  I could not figure this test out and had to look at the answer. So see if you can figure out what these words have in common!

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up?  Give it another try.... 
Look at each word carefully.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Answer: No, it is not that they all have at least 2 double letters....
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.
.
.
.
Answer: In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place
it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be
the same word. 

Did you figure it out?

Friday, January 16, 2009

Locus of Control Test Results

  >
Locus of Control Test Results
Internal Locus (59%) Individual believes that their life is defined more by their decisions and internal drive.
External Locus (41%) Individual believes that their life is defined more by genetics, environment, fate, or other external factors.
Take Free Locus of Control Test
personality tests by similarminds.com


Locus of Control Test Results
Internal Locus
||||||||||||||
59%
External Locus
||||||||||||
41%

In the 60s Psychologist Julian Rotter developed a theory called Locus of Control of Reinforcement. His theory centered around whether someone thinks their life is more influenced by external factors like fate, genetics, luck, environment (external locus of control) OR by internal factors like effort, tenacity, and free will (internal locus of control).
Your results suggest you tend to believe that internal factors like drive and free will define you more than external factors like genetics, fate, luck, and environment.
Thus, you have an Internal Locus of Control


Yeah, what ever.....

Disfellowshipped


An interesting issue came up regarding my comments about God, sin and choices we make.  My point was that God does forgive, God does use us, no matter the issue (as long as we do repent!).  But, some feel that those in willful sin should be disfellowshipped.

Now here is a subject I can sink my teeth into – because, I have been disfellowshipped three times in my short life!  Yes.  Truth.

The first time was at the First (Southern) Baptist Church of Aurora, Colorado.  My sin?  On youth day, I had girls in mini-skirts take up the offering.  Yeah, sort of in your face, but then again their attitude towards women bordered on racism!

Next up was at the Hoffman Heights (Conservative) Baptist Church, again in Aurora.  These people were actually loony toons!  I was tossed out formally for being a mountain climber.  Yes, I would actually put the “temple of God” in jeopardy by climbing mountains.  Did not matter that this was one of my jobs and I had done so for years.  Sin is sin, so they say.  Just not in my Bible I guess.

Number three was at Grace Christian Church (American Baptist) in Kent, Washington.  Here I really blew it.  I believed that the Holy Spirit was still alive, well and working in the believers lives.  They disagreed and booted me when I refused to deny the Holy Spirit.  If you knew me, you would know how uncharismatic I am by nature!

I have also been a part of disfellowshipping two people based solely on Biblical grounds.  One was a woman whom openly was in sin – in fact causing scandal seemed to be her really only desire in Church.  We went through the warning process hoping to turn her around and finally had to bar her from the Church.  She sued us for all we were worth – and won.  Seems gossip was also a problem in our Church and why she won.

The second person was my pastor.  He was separated from his wife, it was a secret he even had one and I only knew because I knew him in Bible school!  Plus he was living with a girl from my first youth group years before.  At least the elders were Godly men and he was terminated instantly and then disfellowshipped with the girl and her father (one of the elders!).  Most of the church left with the ex-pastor.  Seems adultery is ok if you are a good Bible teacher.  Thirty years later I hear they are still together in their relationship.  It sickens me what the Church has become – a playground for weak minded men with no integrity.

So, would I disfellowship Udi?  No, she repented and lives with the misery she brought upon herself. 

Would I disfellowship anyone whom was willing to repent?  No, that is the point of disfellowshipping someone – to help them see the light so to speak and to return to the family of God.  But, we are discussing Biblical grounds, not these weird made up theologies of denominations!

So, to answer the question – want to live in open rebellion to God?  Then do not expect to be a member of a Christian church, no doubt you will find body of believers whom will support your lifestyle – but they will not be Christian if they do.

Sorry, I know it is not the answer you were seeking…..


Thursday, January 15, 2009

Old Cowhand

“I am an old cowhand, from the Rio Grande.  And, I learned to ride, before I learned to stand….”

Like any boy of the 1950’s, I was a cowboy fan.  Here I am seen in 1958 as my alter ego – Two Gun Chip.

I was talking with the owner of a local business and we got off on old cowboy stars, a few of whom I knew or met as a kid.  So, I thought it would be fun to write down a few memories of them…..

James Arnez – ok, this guy is huge!  I will post a picture of him with my grandfather soon, just to whet your curiosity.  He has made a career of westerns and although I really do not care for ‘Gunsmoke’, because it is just another soap opera, his other work has been quite good.  Nice guy.

Sunset Carson – what a nice man.  I think he really liked kids and every Saturday afternoon it was old western movie day at his place for the kids at the local base.  Yeah, I was to hear it whispered in town that man had a severe drinking problem and should not be around kids but he was always sober when I saw him.  I doubt there were ever more than eight of us and often there were only two of us, but I liked the guy.

Lash LaRue – showed up Sunset’s house a few times and although I had never heard of him, he was pretty interesting too.  I think I liked Sunset’s movies better but hey, any western is better than 2001 – A Space Travesty…..

Audie Murphy – an honest to gosh hero, pretty good western star and one of the more interesting men I have ever met.  I met him when I was a teenager and I was able to ask him some questions.  I will post another time about our conversation.

Roy Rogers – often did the bases so I got to see him almost every year.  Always a gentleman, always a great sense of humor, always a great show.  Most of the kids were really into Trigger, but I knew the real thing when I saw it!  I doubt any other western star could hold a candle to him for genuineness, but then I never knew Gene Audrey either.  I will post another time about my first meeting with him.

John Wayne – only met him once and I will post about him again when I write about Roy.  Let me just sum him up as being a ‘city slicker’  because he really was not a cowboy.

However, I really would have liked to have met William Boyd aka Hop-A-Long Cassidy – my favorite western character.  One of my friends got to see him at Hickman Field, oh was I ever so jealous!  But, at least I was able to get one of his coins he would hand out to the kids.

Gene Audrey is another I would like to have known but his touring days were over long before I was whooping it up with my cap guns.

Well, this is far more verbose than I had intended, so time to ride off into the sunset…..

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Where Are Our Priorities?


Have you ever wondered what life would be like if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?

Would we carry it around in our purses or pockets at all times?

Would we flip through it several times a day?

Would we return to get it if we forgot or left it somewhere?

Would we use it to receive messages?

Would we treat it as if we could not live without it?

Would we give it to kids as gifts?

Would we use it when we traveled?

Would we use it in case of emergency?

Hmmmm……..