A Pastor’s Prayer Journey
Two Preachers Sharing Prayers & ScriptureArchive for April, 2009
The Spiritual answer to the Health issue: Ownership
It is no secret, Americans are unhealthy. Just look around you people are getting wider and sicker by the day. Shows like the Biggest Loser” are a hit because Americans are trying to find answers to many of their healthy issues. For the longest time I have believed that when it came to health it was really a matter of luck. Some people were lucky and had no health problems and others were unlucky and had all kinds of health problems. We have believed that diseases pick and chose people at random. Spiritually speaking their are very few voices who seem to believe that health and diet are related to the spiritual. We believe that God created a healthy World but once the fall came we basically had no more instructions on how to live our lives. Sadly I believe we have done ourselves a disservice in the church by believing that God has nothing to say about health. Not too long ago I believed this as well. I believed that my health really had nothing to do with God. But the more I try to understand God I have come to the realization that God is concerned about my health. Matter of fact I believe that many of the health problems we face today are a result of not understanding one word. Ownership. Let me see if I can simplify this by sharing my personal journey.
3 years ago I had a little health crisis in my life. I weighed nearly 355 lbs. By all definitions I was obese. I have nobody but myself to blame. My eating was out of control. To deal with my health problems I began to put myself on a diet. I wanted to lose the weight so I could get in shape. But the problem that haunted me was what was I going to do different this time that I had not done in the past. I have tried many diets and have lost weight only to gain back the weight that I had lost. Knowing that I needed help beyond myself I turned to God. Oh it was not immediate nor deliberate turn but I kept seeking him more and more on this issue. During this time God began to reveal something to me that I realized that was missing in my life. I had been dieting for all the wrong reasons in the past. Matter of fact when I looked at why I wanted to lose weight in the first place I realized how selfish my intention were and how they had nothing to do with God. Why did I want to lose weight? Well I could say that it was to be healthy, but that was still a selfish motive. It was all about me. What God revealed to me was something which we do not hear from many churches, if their are churches at all sharing this message. So what has God shared with me. It is that word: Ownership
When I was 21 years of age I surrendered my life to Jesus. I told him that my life was His. He was my master. Now some 23 years later I realized that I surrendered a lot of areas in my life but I did not give all to Him. I still had ownership over my body. Oh I knew that having sex outside of marriage defiled his temple but what about my health. Did this have anything to do with God’s temple? Here is the realization that I came to. For many years I lost weight for me. I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to look good, I wanted to be in shape, I wanted to do all these things for me. But I never asked the question of what do you want for me God? You see if my body really is God’s than I should be healthy not for me but because God wants a temple that is fit and shape to carry on his work. Oh I know that we are in a fallen world and that our bodies will break down but many of us including myself are destroying God’s temple well before it would naturally break down. Ultimately we should do everything not for ourselves but for God. If He is the true owner than I lose the weight not for my benefit but how it will benefit the kingdom. Imagine if Christians decide to make God the owner of their bodies when it comes to their physical health, this would make a major impact in the World. Many health problems that are related to obesity would disappear. Even those not related to Obesity would change because we would eat better and exercise more and live healthier and the whole time giving credit to the one who owned us. Jesus.
I am certain that many of my readers are already objecting and thinking about all the freedom that we have in God’s grace to live like we want. Well first and formost God’s grace does not allow us to live like we want. It certainly covers our sins but God’s desire is for us to commit everything to Him. Our health is part of everything. God calls us to live disciplined lives. When we are obedienent to Him God bestows blessings on us. I am certain that if we give ownership of our health to God we will see a healthier and more vibrant church. I would love to hear from you on this issue. Let me hear your thoughts. Thanks
The Grace of Being Broke
In the course of some reading this afternoon in preparation for a blog post on Matthew 13, I read the following paragraphs from Capon’s wonderful book The Parables of the Kingdom.
These paragraphs speak to the untidy nature of the parables and strange nature of the God whose Kingdom is spoken of by Jesus. God, as it turns out, turns all of our notions about himself upside down and inside out. We do not get from him what we might expect, and he does not give to us as we might desire. Those who are first are last and those who are last are first.
It is this strange way of grace that keeps us anchored to him. It is his own strangeness that keeps us coming back to his well of grace. We know that even if all else fails, grace will not.
“In the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we find him addressing a group of people who are smugly content in their confidence that they are upstanding citizens—and who are convinced that anyone not exactly like themselves has no chance of making it into God’s guest register. So he tells them the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. Note not only what an insulting story it is, but also how small the prospects are that his audience will ever be able to get past its details to its point. Far from being an illustrations that shines an understanding they already have on something they haven’t figured out, it is one that is guaranteed to pop every circuit break in their minds.
“God, Jesus informs them, is not the least bit interested in their wonderful lists of moral and religious accomplishments. Imagine the scene for a moment. You can almost hear the reaction forming in their minds: ‘What do you mean, God’s not interested? We have read the Scriptures—with particular attention to the commandments. We happen to know he is absolutely wild about fasting, tithing, and not committing adultery.’ But Jesus ignores them and presses the parable for all it’s worth. Not only is God going to take a dim view of all their high scores in the behaving competition; he is, in fact, going to bestow the gold medal on an out-and-out crook who just waltzes into the temple, stares at his shoelaces, and does nothing more than admit as much” (7).
So you can be reminded of what Jesus said that day and why Capon’s words are so important:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The trouble with this parable is in the assumption that we know who Jesus is speaking to (‘those who were confident in their own righteousness’) and the assigning of roles. This is exactly what we must not do with this parable. It’s too easy to do so. It’s too easy to know exactly who is the publican and who is the sinner and the minute we start assigning roles we have ceased being a player (either a publican or a tax-collector) and started being the one who justifies one and not the other (i.e., God). It is only God who justifies and therefore only God who can assign roles.
Jesus didn’t tell this parable to us so that we would take it upon ourselves to assign roles. He told it to us so that we would recognize the grace of God. What is amazing is that the grace of God was available to both the publican and the tax-collector, but one understood it and the other did not. That is, the publican thought he deserved it because of all his righteous acts; the tax-collector did not even though he begged for it on the slim chance that there might be some for him.
Those who are warped by the grace of God get this, sort of. These are the ones who come before God singing ‘nothing in my hands I bring simply to the cross I cling.’ They recognize that they are broke, broken, and full of brokenness. They recognize that before God they are empty and need everything. These ones fall on their faces saying, “God what do you have for me?”
Those untouched by grace do not get it. They are the ones who come before God with a laundry list of their accomplishments and gifts and achievements talking out loud to God and saying, “God what can I give to you?” They have to do this because, as people who have everything already, there is nothing left for God to give them. They don’t need his grace because they don’t want it. They don’t want his grace because they don’t need it.
So God turns upside down and inside out notions of who he is and what his kingdom is like. It’s certainly nothing like we might expect. His is a kingdom where it is far better to be broke than it is to be fixed, far better to be empty than filled, far better to be the sinner than the righteous.
With each passing day, grace becomes more and more alive to those who are willing to cast all of their life on Jesus who can and does what we can’t and won’t. Grace. A sweet word. A sweet sound.
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Father, I have no business coming before you. I have no business asking you for anything. Why would you want me, a disfigured and maimed sacrifice, to come into your Holiness? And yet…and yet…have you not made a way through Christ? Have you not invited me in to worship and pray and commune with you?
I don’t even know if you expect me to recognize that I am one and not the other. In all likelihood, I am the publican. I’d rather come before you with a list of accomplishments than a list of needs. I’d rather brag to you of all I have done than to be like Jesus and cast myself on your grace and cry out, “Give us this day, your will, your name, your kingdom, forgive us, lead us not.” I’d rather tell you about all the right things I did than all the wrong things. I’d rather take the focus off of you and your grace and redirect it to myself. I’d rather you not even look at that fellow over there who is in such obviously bad shape–why look at him and all his misery when you can look at me in all my perfection?
Am I not your type? Help me, by your grace, to see myself for who I am so that I will recognize that I need your grace. And, Father, pour out your grace in abundance. Spare me not, Abba. Spare not a drop, Papa. Spare not a drop.
Forgive me Father. This is all I can ask. Even though I am the Publican and I am, too ,the Tax-Collector. Have mercy on me, Father, a sinner. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Have mercy.
Amen.
Facebook Christianity
Do you remember the days when you called a business and actually talked to someone instead of a recording? I can still remember them vividly. Oh what a joy to be able to actually talk to a live person. Oh I know I am getting old and bucking against the advancement of society. I suppose my kids will do the same at some point when they get older and begin to scoff at the latest inventions. Anyhow they have to wait because it is my time to speak.
I am always blown away by how we continue to advance in communication and ways in which we communicate. Think about e-mail and it’s ability to communicate and send information all around the World in a matter of seconds, it is amazing. When I first started using e-mail my first thought was how this could be a blessing to missionaries in sending and receiving information. Of course we have advanced well beyond email now. We can instant message and even facebook with old friends that we have not spoken to in years.
I suppose this is where I want to begin. As much as I am amazed by our advancements within technology and especially in the area of communication, I am finding that our communication even though it is more it has actually become less. No longer do we sit down to talk to someone in person. We might IM them or send them a e-mail to save ourselves some time, but personal touch has disappeared. I find it funny that many times we will not say a word to people at church but will bare our soul to the world wide web. I understand the reasoning behind this. It is very easy to hide behind a keyboard. But I believe that “facebook Christianity” is really damaging to us spiritually.
In a day and age where the World seems more and more disoriented and broken the one thing we do not need is the ability to hide. Now hopefully you hear me. I am not opposed to such things as facebook or blogging or the Internet in general. Actually I am excited about them. Yet I am convinced that as a church we must have personal contact to make an impact for the Lord. People do not need a recording of how to find Jesus they need to see Jesus in us. Ministry will only be effective as we place our touch on people’s lives. As I once told a friend, “please call me when you want to talk rather than e-mail.”
Just as pornography is a cheap imitation of the real thing that God has meant for good, I believe that our new ways of communication can be cheap imitations for something that can be a whole lot better. Next time you have something important to say to someone let me encourage you to call them rather than e-mail or even better yet go and share a cup of coffee with them. If your concern is time just think of how much time you would save by not sending them all that forwarded garbage you send. And anyways doesn’t it say a lot more when someone cares enough to actually speak to you in person. Yes the World is advancing. And I am sure that automated voices will solve many of our problems, but oh how I yearn to hear a real voice from time to time.
Preaching To the Dead
I remember my first days in Bible College. Wow was I on fire. I had just recently given my life to Jesus Christ. I had known the effects of sin. My life was spiraling out of control and then when all hope was lost Jesus was right their. So with a fire in my heart and a passion to save the World I entered Bible College. I soaked up as much as I could. I looked forward to the day that I could teach and preach at my first church. And finally that day came. I was hired. Or as I would like to think, I was called in to ministry. With a Bible in my hand and a desire to do damage for the kingdom I strolled into my first church. And since that day I have learned something about many churches. They are filled with dead people.
I think it is time we start talking about the elephant that is in the room. Many churches in America are dead. Oh we have nice buildings and sing songs but let’s not kid ourselves we are dead. Our churches are filled with people who are more concerned about their own comforts than the souls of lost people. We are more concerned that we get our way rather than asking the question, “what is God’s way?” Our board meetings are filled with a spirit, but it is neither holy nor convicting. Many times we ask those who are newest in the church to change so as not to unsettle those who have been in the church the longest. We become more concerned by what is played musically rather than if worship is taking place at all. Oh I could go on but the truth is the truth and it is time for us to act upon it. The church is dying because we have allowed Satan to take refuge in our churches.
And my dear preacher friends you probably could Amen me on this. But let me say that we are part of the problem. Every time we get down from the pulpit and get praises for our eloquent sermons and simply do nothing to stir the death that exist in our church we allow the disease to grow. Maybe it is time to tell some of the little ole church ladies that they are wicked. Call them out by name. Let us approach weak-minded men who have no spiritual “balls” to repent of their unwillingness to lead their families. Let us call the sin that really exist. And as we call out the sin to the dead let us check our own hearts. For many of us are dead. But now is the time to wake up. Now is the time to repent and allow the Lord Jesus Christ to move mightily in our lives.
I truly believe that the best days are ahead for the church. But I also believe that the church we know today will not make an impact on our World. It is time that we start a revolution in the church. It is time to either wake the dead or it is time to move on. But as a warning I have found that waking the dead is an impossible task. I am not saying it cannot be done but I am convinced of this, it will not be done until repentance takes place. God is good and he wants to save lost people. He has saved me. And for that I am eternally grateful. I give praise to Him because I was on my way to Hell. But today I am on my way to an eternity with Him. I no longer plan to preach to the dead. Send me to the dying but not to the dead. I would love to hear from others. Please make your voice heard.
