Hope and Change

Well the long Presidential campaign is over and not a minute too soon. There is no doubt that this years election brought to the forefront some of the problems that our great country faces. At least one hurdle has been cleared and that is the election of an African American to the highest office in the land. What a day to be proud of. I must say many of the things that Barrack Obama campaigned on, I am in favor of: Health care, education, helping the middle class and the poor, making our country strong, being good stewards of our environment. I only differ in the way that these things should be handled and is why I could not vote for him. However now that he will be president and is going to try to empliment his policies I have a suggestion, here it is. "Oprah, if we are going to start this whole redistibution of wealth thing, I would like to encourage you to go ahead and get a headstart, and I would like to even cut out the middle man and allow you to just send me a check for some of that wealth you have that needs to be spread around. I know I haven't worked for it, earned it, or deserve it, but i believe that if you would just send me about $100,000.00 it would give me the HOPE I need to make a CHANGE in my life and stop having to break my back everyday for a measly $32,000 per year. Seems FAIR doesn't it?"
"HOPE and CHANGE". That used to mean to me "I HOPE I can find enough CHANGE in my couch cushions to buy a Soda." Now it means what people are looking for in a President. (I wonder how many twins will be born in the next few years that will be named HOPE and CHANGE.) I just want to go on the record as saying if you are looking for HOPE or CHANGE in any man, you are looking in the wrong place. Our HOPE should be in God. Our HOPE should be in His Glory, His Salvation, and His unfathomable love for us. His promises that He will never leave us or forsake us, that if we seek His Kingdom and His righteousness all the stuff we tend to worry about will be taken care of. And the only true CHANGE is the CHANGE that comes from allowing Jesus into your life and create in you a new creature. The CHANGE that America needs is for His children to allow Him to transform them and start not just saying I am a Christian, but start living that way and knowing His word and obeying it. I can say all day long that i am a conservative, but am I living according to those principles and showing that they work? In the Same way, I can say I am a Christian, go to church, attend Sunday School, give to the Church, but if I ain't livin' what it's teaching, No one in their right mind would believe it is real.
Where does your HOPE lie? I Know my King will always be on His throne and His plans and policies are perfect and he will never fce re-election. The CHANGE I am looking for is the transformation in my life and others as I allow God to form me into the person He created me to be, so that I may be effective in bringing His HOPE and CHANGE to a lost world.

I Left My Heart In Zambia

This is worship in a small village called Nashoongo. I think its cool. I had the honor to preach in this little mud hut church, as well as present them 2 Bibles from our church to theirs. 1 for the men and 1 for the women. They had began this church, had begun meeting, and even formed a choir, yet had no idea of who Jesus really was and what salvation really is. We taught them several stories from the Bible like Nicodemis, Parable of the sower, Good Samaritan and others to explain who Jesus is and what it means to be a Christian. They were so open to the Gospel and eager to learn. There were 7 who accepted Christ this day and many have since and have been Baptized. Pray that they will continue to grow strong in the Lord.

What Was I Thinking?

As I write this this blog post I keep asking myself "What were you thinking?". Earlier today, My family attended a Sunday School party at the lake, where we had fun and frolicking in a couple of boats on the water. Now for some people this would be no big deal, however for me and my infinite lack of wisdom and discernment, this was a time of being drug through the water on a giant inner tube at 35 mph. Actually, the being pulled through the water is not the bad part, it is the being thrown off the tube at just under the speed of sound and skipping across the water like a 240lb halibut on acid. At the time I was having a blast, and of course all that man ego stuff kicks in and you feel it necessary to conquer what ever the tube of doom can throw at you. You say things like "Faster, sharper turns, and I think I can stay on no matter what." I think about it now and wonder why? I feel like I went over Niagara Falls in a barrel filled with anvils, only to be pulled to shore by a 7 foot physical therapist named Helga and twisted into a pretzel as she repeats in a heavy Scandinavian accent "Yoga is good, no?" I feel like I was eaten by wolves and crapped over a cliff. I feel like the only surviving member of the parachuteless sky diving club.
You know that is the way sin is also. You think "This is a blast", and you are really not thinking about the consequences. Things like pride, ego, or selfishness kick in and before you know it, you are making poor choices. But eventually your sins catch up with you and you pay the price and inevitably ask yourself "What was I thinking?"

Air Guitar

This afternoon we were watching a highlight video from McKinley's baseball team, and the parent who put it together, put music to the video. One of the songs was by Van Halen, and as Eddie Van Halen played his face melting solo, I pulled out my trusty old air guitar and played along quite masterfully I thought. I was quickly pulled back down to earth by the cutting words of my 13 year old son, "Dad, Quit being lame!". It is official. I am no longer cool. I guess it is time to retire the ol' air guitar and start driving 10 miles per hour under the speed limit and start saying things like "Maybe I just need more fiber in my diet."
On a side note. The other day i saw a short story on the news about the Air Guitar national championships. I had no idea there was such a thing. I couldn't help but wonder if people actually took air guitar lessons, or go to an air guitar store. Can you imagine being backstage at such an event and hearing "Mr. Smith you are up next." and a guy dressed like the lead singer of Loverboy saying "Oh my gosh, I cant find my air guitar. I sat it down somewhere over here and now its gone!" I wonder if the winner got an air trophy or the real deal.
I think maybe sometimes we have air guitar worship. We can go through the motions and really think we are doing something, but in reality we are just being lame. There is no real substance. Just like an air guitar makes no noise, neither does empty worship. When we worship it should be as beautiful and genuine to God as Mr. Van Halen's ax grinding is to me. It is pouring yourself out before God. Giving Him your very best. Realizing who He is and what He has done for you and His everlasting love for us. Only then do we set down that air guitar and pick up that Fender Strat and start making a joyful noise.

Hell is in the Bible Grandma

I worked with a new temporary employee for the city on Friday. As I talked with him, I mentioned something about my time in Zambia (There is a real shocker:). He told me he was always scared of a preacher man. I wasn't for sure how to take that, but he went on to say he could probably handle it now that he was trying to get his ducks in a row. I proceeded to tell him how I chased ducks for a long time and could never get them in a line until I found Jesus and that any duck rows I had were all being held together by God and not me. He said that his grandmother was the only person of faith and source of religion in his family.He said she was practically her own church. He told me he used to aggravate her by saying "Hey granny Hell is in the Bible." "Did you know the word Hell was in the Bible Granny?" "I can say hell because it is in the Bible." He said she would finally say "Boy, you better shut yo mouth, you just wantin' to cuss!" She told him "Ass was in the Bible too, and he was acting like one."
I just happened to think later that there are a lot of things in the Bible that we just like to say, because it sounds good, or we know it is what we are suppose to say. Sometimes we are not too unlike a young child just saying things out of the Bible because we can, yet we have no more impact on our walk with God than saying "Hell" and then snickering. How about, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Oh we can spout that off in Sunday School like a kindergarten kid who just mastered his ABC's, but do we really mean it or better yet practice it. I will confess that loving my neighbor as myself is a real challenge to me. I am not talking about the people next door, they are fine people, and it is not that I am overly in love with myself.(Although who could blame me.) It is just that we all tend to focus more on self, than on God and others, so we can quote that verse all day long, and it will not make a hill of beans difference unless we realize what that verse means, and act upon it. The Bible is full of great quotes and warm fuzzy feel good stuff, and we can quote them all day long, but if we are not putting it into practice, we are doing nothing more than saying "Hell is in the Bible, Grandma."

Man Church

I just finished reading an article in Homelife magazine about how today's churches do not appeal to men. I would have to say I agree. Do not get me wrong, I love my church and look forward to the worship and teaching every time I go. But sometimes I wish church could be a little more masculine. Jesus was kind and loving and forgiving and merciful and full of grace and gentleness, and I love that about Him and would never want to downplay that, but He also made a whip and assaulted the money changers in the temple. He called the Pharisees a generations of vipers, or sons of snakes, which is close to calling someone the son of a female dog. There is also the returning King with the fiery eyes and the big sword who will return and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord, and while Satan is on his knee confessing, he will be cast into the lake of fire and chained there for all eternity. How awesome is that? That is more manly than "We are Sparta!" and kicking some guy into a pit. I am a man, I want to here some man stories. Tell me about Elijah challenging the profits of Bale, then talking some smack, and eventually killing them all. Men don't want to join hands with the person next to them unless they are going arm wrestle. We don't want flowers and plants on the pulpit, we want big screen TVs or something to blow up or catch fire occasionally. I for one even get a little uncomfortable singing "You're all together lovely." or "Beautiful Savior" , "How beautiful is the body of Christ." Come on for crying out loud, where are the songs written for men like "Jesus rocks and He is going to kick the Devils butt one day and I am on His team!" Or "Act right, or I am going to make a whip and drive you out of the church"
Perhaps Brad Stine says it best when he says our society has tried to feminize everything including church. "I got in touch with my feminine side, I got married, I'm good. I got feminine side coming out my ears 24/7.
Books like "Wild at Heart" and others talk about how men are to be men and we do things differently for a God created reason, so it would only make sense that men and women worship and do church differently. Here are some manly suggestions.(please note the tongue is in the cheek):

• We should be able to throw our offering at a target in the front of the church and keep score for closest to the plate.
• Cage wrestling between the associate pastor and Pastor prior to all business meetings.
• A remote control that is capable of fast forwarding through the lady who sings the opera sounding song.
• Portable televisions made to look like Bibles just in case the Preacher gets a little long winded, you can check the score of the football game.
• Little alarm clocks that vibrate any time the word "Amen" is spoken, so in case you doze off during the sermon and the Preacher makes a really good point you can wake up and nod knowingly, or in case you fall asleep during that Pharisee prayer that goes on forever.
• Pyrotechnics!
• If you can't feel the bass drum in the praise and worship, turn that puppy up!
• Instead of flowers on the altar, have a tripped out 427 big block motor
• Come on with the tiny Lord's supper cups. Give me a half a loaf of unleven pita bread, and fat glass of welches finest. I know Jesus wasn't that stingy a his last meal.
• Turn to 2 or 3 people around you and ask them "Who are your picks for the final four?"
• Random pictures on the big screen of record Bass or whitetail deer.
• Concession stand
• Intermission to go out side and pass gas or grab a refreshment

O.K. that's enough. I would love to hear your ideas. I am not saying completely change the way we do church in America, but just remember we need to bring men back into the church, so it wouldn't hurt to maybe mix it up a little. maybe a good benediction would be a collective primal scream of "CHARGE!!!!" instead of "Go in peace, serve the lord."

Stewardship and my gas tank

OK. I know we are suppose to be good stewards of the earth God created, but come on, $4.00 a gallon gas. I keep seeing stories each night on the news about gas saving tips and more mileage for your buck. What about a poor sap like me who has been doing all these tips for 20 years just to get by? Throw me a bone like turn your gas gage upside down in your dash so it looks like your tank is filling up while you drive. Or how about outlawing drive-thrus? I wonder how much gas is wasted while people sit in line at a fast food joint or a bank. If people had to actually park and go in, it might make for a healthier country and save gas. Maybe we could eliminate junk mail from the postal system? How much extra weight is added to mail trucks and vehicles by junk mail no one reads? How much more weight is added to garbage trucks to hall off the tons of junk mail I through away each year.
Or here is an original idea; DRILL FOR OIL! WHILE WE RESEARCH AND DEVELOP OTHER ENERGY SOURCES. I saw a shirt the other day that said "I would drill through a polar bear's rear end if it had oil in it."
I also have heard about all this oil in Alaska, but apparently it is a caribou breading ground, and we don't need to disturb that. My lot where my house stands now was once a whitetail deer breeding ground. You know what? Come every November they are in my yard or close to it doing what deer do. Development where I live seems to make the deer thrive, I practically have to dodge them every morning on the way to work.
Call your representatives, senators, even the White House and tell them to drill for oil before Paul's family starves to death.

I Am My Own Gilligan

Remember on Gilligan's Island how everytime it looked like a sure thing that the castaways were going to get rescued, Gilligan would inevitably do something to mess things up and they would be stranded again. That is a lot like my life. God has time and time again came to rescue me from my sin, and I always seem to pull a Gilligan and remain trapped on my island. How many times has God come to rescue me from my mundane life and replace it with the abundant life and I pull something ignorant and blow the whole deal. Things like, I can handle this on my own, or I cant do that, or If God will just give me a sign, or these are the cards I have been dealt and I just have to play them.
Just like Gilligan, if I would just stay out of God's way I would be a lot better off.

Staggering Statistics

Do you remember the old sugarless gum commercial that said "4 out of 5 dentist surveyed recommend sugarless gum to their patients who chew gum."? Do you ever wonder who that one dentist was who recommended sugar gum. He must have been one greedy dude. He was probably telling his patients to chew gum, brush with cake icing, rinse with coke, and floss with licorice. Maybe he just owned stock in the sugar industry.
I read recently that 1 out of every 5 kids born in the world are Chinese. I am the youngest of 5 children, yet other than a love for egg rolls, I don't appear to be Chinese at all.
According to recent research, if you were to take every hockey puck in the world and stack them one on top of another, it would be an indication you have far too much time on your hands.
Here is actually a serious statistic. 10 out of every 10 people die. And 100% of those who die without being born again by accepting Jesus as their Savior will spend eternity in hell. The bible says that God wishes that none should perish. Think about the day that we will all stand before the judgement of God, and He will separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep being Christians, and the goats being those who do not know Him. Can you stand the thought of looking at the hopeless and helpless goats headed for eternal separation from God, and seeing faces you know? Faces crying out, "Why didn't you tell me?". Will you be able to truly say you did everything you could? Jesus is too good to keep to ourselves, 100% of mankind need Him.

Do You Know Mr. Luke Warm

There is a disturbing image in the book of Revelation that I think of quite often. It is a message to the church in Laodicea and Jesus says "You are neither hot nor cold, you are lukewarm and it makes me want to throw up!" (That is the Paul translation.) Do you ever shudder at the thought that it is possible that you can make God sick at His stomach? Pretty scary, huh? Well you can. You see, when we say Jesus is Lord, it involves a lot more than most of us realize. Total commitment is the only acceptable option when it comes to being a Christian. There are those of us who say Jesus is Lord, but we have so at ease at being a Christian that we have forgotten what it was like when we first fell in Love with Jesus. Remember when you were on Fire? What happened? Did you let other lukewarm Christians tell you to just settle down? Did you hear the lukewarmers say things like, "You can't push Jesus and your beliefs on others" so you quit witnessing, or "You shouldn't judge people", so you stopped holding people accountable for their actions, or "You can't protect your children from everything", so you just let them watch whatever,dress however, and listen to whatever because you want them to fit into the world? Have you listened when they have said "That's just not the way we do things in this church."? Have you let them down play the amazing power of God and the miracles and wonders that He does everyday? "Just calm down, people are going to think you are some kind of Jesus Freak". Why do we listen to that stuff?
Think about when you fell in love for the first time. Did that desire to please that boyfriend or girlfriend make you act a little crazy? Granted testosterone can make a man do some some strange things, but when we are in love we all do some crazy things. For instance, my wife and I went to see an M.C. Hammer concert on our first date. I could not stand MC. Hammer, but I was in love and it didn't matter. All I know was where she was, that is where I wanted to be. That is the same craziness we need to have for Jesus. We are so in love it doesn't matter what we like or dislike, what we want, where we go, all that matters is we want to follow Jesus no matter what.
Do you remember when you realized that you were a sinner and on the expressway to hell, but Jesus reach out from the cross and snatched you out of the abyss you were getting ready to plunge into, and you were so broken, so thankful, so grateful, that you wanted to tell the world about what Jesus had done for you? You wanted to read every word of the Bible so you could get to know this wonderful savior even better. Do you remember? Does it still burn in your soul to do what ever Jesus says because you are in Love? It should. Are you still acting crazy like when you first fell in Love? Go on that mission trip, witness to a friend or co-worker, let down all your barriers and allow yourself to worship God, read His word, talk to Him, share your testimony to someone who needs to hear it, open your eyes to God working around you and the wonders He does in your life and the world around you. Don't allow Mr. Luke Warm to bring you down. Let your life reignite their flame and crazy love.

What would Jesus do at the Ballpark?

You ever have one of those weeks when regardless of what you do, everything seems to stress you out? I am having one of those weeks. I am doing all the right things, Praying, spending time with God, studying His word, yet every little thing seems to get on my nerves. You ever have days or weeks like that? You tell yourself things like "Turn your eyes on Jesus upon Jesus and the things of this world will grow strangely dim." and about that time, someone who is obviously posessed by a demon of road rage, cuts you off in traffic. Or, you talk to your kids baseball team about being good sports and having a Christ like attitude and doing all things as though you were doing them for God, when suddenly the bus that says "School for the Vision Impaired" pulls up and the umpires get off the bus and yell "playball". At this point, it is all you can do to smile and pray for that poor umpire, that those scales will fall off his eyes and he will clearly begin to see things your way before you erupt into some kind of Mt. St. Helens explosion sending dust ,bats, hats and grumbles into some layer of the atmosphere that you haven't heard of since 8th grade. So what do you do? What would Jesus do at the ballpark?
In all reality the guy in traffic probably just didn't see you or maybe he is having as bad or worse a week as you are. And the umpires are probably doing a terrific job at something most of us wouldn't dare do or have the skills to do. They are doing it for the Kids mostly. Yet the stress is still there and perception is reality. The ol' straw that breaks the camels back was put on about 20 straws ago and the world keeps piling those straws on. So, what do we do? We ask that age old question "WWJD?" Our first thought would be, he would cast out the demon in that car driving like a bat out of the place prepared for the devil, or perform a miracle of healing on the umps eyes. However if you are like me, and exorcism and healing are not your strong suites, you may have to look elsewhere for some answers.
Do you fashion a whip out of strips of leather like Jesus did and just start driving people out of your life that seem to be ticking you off? There is a time for some righteous wrath, but if used in the improper way, can be considered assault and battery. No, I believe there is a time when you just have to get away and be by yourself and talk to the father. That is what Jesus did on a few occasions. It if is what Jesus did, it probably is a good thing for me too. There is no Biblical account of what Jesus said or prayed about when He went up on the mountain, but I often wonder if it didn't go something like this:
"Dad, you have got to help me out here. This place is driving me nuts. I understand now why cousin John stayed out in the wilderness eating locust and honey and dressed like a Sasquatch. These people are getting on my nerves, I mean I love them, but good grief! I got all the Pharisee's stirred up trying to trip me up everywhere I go, and they are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites with there 2 hour prayers and there noses in the air looking down on everyone. Then there are the disciples. They still just don't get it. Thomas always doubting everything. Judas has his hand in the teal. Peter blurting out crazy stuff all the time. John is so "In Love" with me, he wont give me any space. Then there is the multitudes. Everyone has to have a miracle. Sometimes I feel more like a wonders vending machine than I do the Son of God, Messiah. Cranking out miracles, healings, words of life, not to mention no one ever packs a lunch and we have to keep making fish and chips buffet for 5000. I am more like a Holy ATM than the source of all life."
Maybe His conversations were nothing like that at all, but it is how a lot of mine are. And you know what? I always feel better when I go to Him and just lay it all out there for Him. I think of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, interceding there for me saying "He is right, I have been there. Those people will drive you crazy. Lets give Paul an extra dose of that peace that surpasses all understanding."
When the world is trying to tear you down, go sit and talk with Jesus. He will build you up, and strengthen you. After all, He's been there.