What Does God Really Require?

Many preachers can out-preach me with one tongue tied behind their backs! 

They can mesmerize crowds with sighs, bring people to their feet by the cadence of their voices and produce hundreds of “decisions” with simple invitations. In most cases, they show no signs of fasting, deep spiritual struggles or extended times in prayer. They ride in expensive cars, live in luxurious houses and dress in opulence. Am I doing something wrong?

I wish I didn’t envy these preachers at times. I would like to have the security that their wealth seems to provide them. They don’t visit hospitals and nursing homes. They don’t do funeral services. They are not called on to counsel people to remain married. They are not criticized for forgetting a name. They lead their organization of paid people. They  ask for funds from their followers without having to do anything other than preach. 

People seem to love these preachers. They buy their books and dvds. They drive hundreds of miles to hear them speak. They pay admissions and stand outside arenas for hours so they can get good seats. Those who come to hear them, do not covet the back rows. They push ahead to sit up front. They bring their cameras, hoping for a chance to get a good shot of their hero. They laugh at all their heroes’ jokes and never fall asleep as they preach.

Do I lack the charisma these preachers have? Of course. Do I lack their ability to tell stories or create elaborate illustrations. Assuredly. Will I ever be able to produce the results these preachers have? No.

Fortunately, my job is not about big crowds who are raptured at my every word. It is not about producing mammoth numbers of people who have made decisions. It is not learning to preach so that no one falls asleep. My job doesn’t  entail criticizing these famous preachers (though I may be called to point out their heresies).

My job is simply to do what is right, love with a kindness that appears supernatural and walk closely and humbly with my God. Sure, I would like other things but this is what I am called to do.

In fact, it is what we are all called to do.

Do you find yourself looking at those around you who seem to be more successful but less spiritual than you are? Do you wonder why they seem to do so well while you are left behind? Well, maybe you’re not as behind as you think. Maybe you are using the evaluation methods of this world. You may be exactly where you should be in the eyes of God. 

Is this hard to accept? Yes, and it will continue to be so as long as you keep looking at others to measure your success.

Micah 6:8 (ESV)

He has told you O man what is good,

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

The Commitment to Christ Goes Deep

Conviction comes without warning. 

 I have been on vacation this week and have had the time to read. I never have this much time to read when I am at work. I believe my work ethic is actually weakening my own spiritual walk. I believe efforts to do the ministry are actually keeping me from the ministry. I believe I am holding onto the world through the church. I believe I am not living up to the commitment I made to Christ when I came to know Him.

Salvation is free but it also requires total commitment. While there is nothing that I can do to earn my salvation, there is a required action to take hold of that salvation. This has nothing to do with earning that salvation. It is an act of faith. 

Christians are not perfect. They still do things they shouldn’t. They sin. This does not negate their salvation. It seems hard to understand that a Christian can give himself totally to God and still sin. They seem to be incongruent. One should preclude the other.

Therefore, giving oneself to God must be a commitment rather than a completed action. It is much like a marriage. The wedding represents the commitment that the couple makes toward each other. The way they live together after the wedding is unequal to their commitment to one another. It takes a great deal of forgiveness to make a marriage work. It is always ongoing. The commitment must remain the same throughout their lives or the wedding is merely a ceremony. Their failures represent their continued fallen nature even though they have been made new by their commitment to each other. Their forgiveness and continuing commitment represents their original commitment. It later not only makes a marriage work but it is the marriage.

Trying to hold onto the world while remaining a Christian resembles trying to remain a person who seeks his own satisfaction while being married. The married individual likes the benefits of the marriage but still seeks to live as if he is single in respect to his own wants. The spouse is merely a convenience rather than the object of a commitment.

Christians often live like those who do not know Christ with the exception of their attendance at church and their admission that they are Christians. They want the benefits of being a Christian but lack the true commitment that makes them Christians. Their efforts to live as Christians come from their own flesh rather than an empowerment of the Spirit. They have lived lives of trying to please God by making their flesh more alive than by crucifying the flesh.

I am convicted that I have lived without a full commitment to Christ. I have been trying to please God through my flesh rather than by fully giving my life to Him. I believe I have always held something back rather than giving Him my all. I have made the utmost effort to please Him as long as I could hold back something in commitment. I have known others who were no more or less committed to the Lord than I who are very successful in the ministry. I have believed that I did not have to be any more committed than they to be just as successful. 

God will have none of this watered-down faith in me. God has a deeper, more fulfilling success for me than to be recognized as successful by other worldly Christians. 

There is only one answer for me. I must cry out to God rather than make another superficial commitment. I must ask Him to help me let go of myself and the world. I must, as He did, seek my own cross. I must be crucified. I will never see the things God has for me in the state I am in. 

I am under this conviction. I asked the Lord about others who seem to be so successful. He told me that this was none of my business. I was merely to follow Him.

Am I alone in this or is God bringing others under the same conviction?

Luke 9:23 (ESV)

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Growing in Grace

I have misunderstood grace. I have always thought that grace was something that I would believe that grace was good in every moment. I have thought it was something I would long for a hope would never pass. But grace is much greater than my ability to discern its goodness or its duration.

Grace is sometimes the hardest thing that you can go through. It is the loss of a job, the criticism from people with whom you are doing your best or condemnation when you desperately believe you need encouragement.

I thought I wanted to be a Baptist Student Ministries Director on a college campus. I worked toward that end. I entered seminary as a part-time director. That was a very discouraging year. The year ended with one someone from the state office chewing out all of the part-time directors for an hour and forty-five minutes. He said that we should do something else (other than becoming directors) if we could. He was absolutely right. I quit soon after that meeting. It was God’s grace though I didn’t recognize it at the time. (This does not mean that his actions toward us were godly. God uses the ungodly to accomplish His grace. This is also a hard lesson to learn.)

So many people talk about surrendering to the call of the ministry. They act as if it is God’s punishment. I will admit that there are times when it is so difficult that it seems to be punishment. I have often tried to leave the ministry but God would give me no peace in my efforts. The calling into the ministry is an act of God’s grace. It is a great privilege. It is the hardest work you will ever do when it is done at God’s call. (I have worked in oil field supply, been a school teacher, bank teller and farm laborer. I have worked from the from the rising of the sun to way passed its setting. I have worked from the setting of the sun until way passed its rising. I have known other work. There is nothing harder than the ministry. Yet, there is nothing more rewarding to those who have been called into it.) 

The ministry never releases you when you take a day off. It remains on your heart at all times. Those who treat it as a job are not called. They simply have a job that involves ministry. Those who are called know that God is the center of their lives at all times. He is the heart of who they are. Nothing comes from them unless it flows through them from Him. Both the calling and the walking in the ministry of the gospel is an expression of God’s grace.

The hard things are often produce the greatest evidences of God’s grace in my life. Life does not guarantee success. Sometimes success fails to appear even when everything is done right. Grace is present even in the most severe defeat. It is still working on the hearts of those who love the Lord even when they can’t see Him. It is still accomplishing His pleasure when the believer feels no pleasure.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Each of these requires grace. Each of these is proved by a testing with fire. Each of these is formed in a furnace. This fruit becomes rare because of the avoidance of the difficulties required to grow this fruit. We turn from the grace of God find ourselves no more than we can produce in ourselves. We accept the difficult things and discover they are the grace of God because we see the fruit produced in our lives.

The Apostle Paul said that he was called by grace. This grace blinded him, stoned him, imprisoned him, shipwrecked him and had him called names by those he was trying to reach. Yet, he saw it as grace. If he did, then so must I.

Grace is what God is making me.

Romans 1:1-6 (ESV)

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of the name among all the nations including who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

Living as a New Creation

I hear people say that the old ways are the best ways. This generalization is seldom true. I don’t like the old ways that computers worked as much as I like the new ways. I don’t like the old ways of getting information from newspapers, tv and radio alone as much as I like getting it from the internet which allows anyone to report. 

This is true in my relationship with Christ. I think often of the things I did before I came to Christ. I know I am forgiven but I am ashamed of these acts of sin. I can’t change them. I can accept forgiveness. 

I think I misunderstand my life as an improvement rather than something new. I can remain in my shame if I am an improved model of something that is flawed. I can’t own my shame if I have been made into a new creation. I am not that person any more. I have been changed by the presence of Christ. I think differently. I act differently. I have a different heart. My mind has been renewed. I understand spiritual things. I bear little resemblance to the person I was before. 

Sometimes it seems as if those sins are calling to me. They are either shaming me or trying to lure me back to repeat them. They seem comfortable from the outside. This is because I carry the memory of what I was with me. My memory does not make me who I am. It tells me who I was. It remembers things with nostalgia so that I remember things better than they were. It forgets the slavery and remembers the security of Egypt just like the Israelites in the desert. They remembered things much differently from what they once were. They wanted security more than they wanted the insecurity of walking with God.  This thought always longs to bring me back to what I was.

Yet, that would be the ultimate failure. I am not the same person. I would not fit in the world I once lived in. I would be disappointed in myself. I have tasted the goodness of the Lord. Only the abandonment of my faith would allow me to continue in my former self. I would have to cut off the friends, church and other spiritual activities in order to go back to what I was. I can’t help but believe that I would know the truth but seek to live in a lie for the sake of sin. I really don’t think I could live that way.

However, I see people who seem to have gone back to what they once were. I wonder if they were ever truly made new or if they just got so close that they said the same things as believers. They tasted His goodness but never truly made the commitment to it. They walked so closely to the Lord that they appeared to be with Him. They were somewhat like Judas. They may not have betrayed Jesus to be crucified but they betrayed Him when they went back to their former life.

That is not becoming a new creature. It is an improvement that doesn’t last. Heaven doesn’t have merely improved individuals. The inhabitants of heaven have been changed. They have been made new. They cannot go back to what they were even if they commit the same acts. 

I must always remember that I have been made new. 

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

In God We Trust

I just finished a book that disparages our American History. It tells the flaws in those whom we have previously considered our heroes. The book leads the readers to believe that our country is no different from any of the other countries in the world. It claims we have as many violations of human rights, as many dishonest dealings and as many areas of corruption as the lowest third world countries. 

The book is juvenile in its reasoning. It assumes that any violation is as bad as any other. It assumes that any area of corruption proves that the corruption is pervasive. It equivocates any measure of human rights violation with any other. It cannot seem to see that a flaw does not make the character of a person or a country.

Let’s admit it: we have had corruption and continue to have corruption in our country. There are those who are committing illegal and unethical acts who are leaders in our country. There have been presidents who have committed illegal acts and have had others lie to congress and the American people. But that does not mean that America and every person whom we have considered a hero is corrupt to the bone.

King David was called a man after God’s own heart. However, he committed adultery, lied, had a man killed and acted as if he had done nothing wrong. Shouldn’t we consider him corrupt? These seem to be some major sins. Shouldn’t we no longer listen to him? Shouldn’t we take him off of our hero list?

No, because that was not his character. He was not characterized as an adulterer because this was not his normal way of acting. Yes, he committed the sin but he was not known as one who did this sin each time he saw an opportunity. 

Does the fact that each one of us has told a lie at some time in our lives make us a nation of liars who cannot be trusted in anything we say? No! There are those who have lied to the point of being characterized as liars. They will have to build trust before anyone can believe them. But most people are not characterized by lies. They can be trusted.

The fact that America is flawed should not be surprising. Our nation is comprised of flawed people. Each of us has done things for which we needed forgiveness. This does not mean that we are characterized by those things and our nation is not characterized by those things either. 

I believe we are characterized by standing up for what is right. I believe we have done remarkable things in helping people around the world. I believe that we have given privately and publicly more than other nations toward the betterment of mankind. I believe this is how we are characterized.

So, when you read that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, don’t be surprised. Don’t think they didn’t know better either for they did. They were flawed just as we all are. However, they are characterized as men of integrity and courage. They are still heroes despite their flaws.

As Americans, let us not accept the wrong as right nor the right as wrong. Let us continue to stand for the right and defeat the wrong. Let us continue to fight corruption within and without our nation. 

Let us be a country which can say: “In God We Trust.”

1 Kings 2:1-3 (ESV)

When David’s time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying” I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.”

Communicating the Gospel

I have flown twice this week. I went to Boston on Tuesday and Austin on Thursday. It is hard to fly and not notice the people around you. You can’t help hearing their conversations. I was wondering if what I am hearing is normal since I don’t make it a habit of listening in on others’ communications. They just don’t seem to be acting right.

I suppose it could be compared to going to another country. I have made several trips to England and still can’t get the British sense of humor. They laugh at things I don’t understand and remain stoic when I think things are hilarious. So, maybe these conversations are only made in the airport because an airport is like another country.

There is another possibility. It could be that I am so outside the current culture that I can’t understand. Either I have finally gotten so old or I have become so isolated that I don’t get it anymore.

This certainly has to affect my own communication. After all, that is what I do for a living. I preach the gospel. This message never changes but the methods of communication constantly change. I must be able to address the culture I am in so that I can communicate. Not understanding the culture must negatively affect my communication.

I used to go to conferences which ostensibly told us what was going on in the culture. I ascertained that these conferences were more about the culture of those who were giving them than my culture. I suppose we each carry our own culture with us. I really doubt that a church would have called me to be their pastor if they thought that I couldn’t communicate. I realized that I knew more about my culture than the guys giving the conferences. I quit going to conferences. Those who continue to go to these conferences and adopt all they have learned usually have problems in their churches before long. I have yet to hear of one who went to a conference and turned everything around in his church because of that conference.

Maybe the people who go to my church are those who communicate as I do. They understand my humor, illustrations and metaphors. But they are also prompted to attend by the Holy Spirit and He straightens out my inadequate communication. Therefore, my communication is only adequate because He has made it so.

Still, I would like to understand the conversations of those around me. I would like to think that I play a part in bringing the gospel to the world. I guess I am going to have to get out more. I spend too much time in my office. I must listen more. I spend too much time talking. 

I should start now.

Romans 10:17 (My own translation)

So then faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ.

Money Is Not the Problem

I often hear of churches, families and individuals having money problems. They tell me what they need and why they can't have it. My issue with this is that money problems fly in the face of a theology which says that God will supply all our needs. If He is the God who provides, why hasn't He done so? How can there be money problems?

Let's consider this: if God is faithful (and if He is  not then even heaven can't help us) we should always have what we need unless there is greater reason for denying what we consider to be our need. This means that one of the following applies:

1. God is increasing our faith. He will eventually supply exactly what we need but not until we need it. He wants us to draw close to Him in prayer. He wants us to proclaim His provision to the world. He wants us to have the confidence that He will supply when there is nothing in the bank.

2. We are not spending what He has given us correctly. We do not have a lack of money. We have a lack of faithfulness. We have failed to use what He has given us correctly. Therefore, we do not have what we need because we have misused what we have received.

3. Others have been unfaithful in their use of money. God has told someone to supply our needs but this person or these people have not done what God has asked. God is waiting on them to be faithful. His patience and mercy are being exercised so that they will know the joy of what they should be doing.

4. God already knows we will abuse His supply. He has given us what we needed in the past but we have failed to use it correctly. He knows we will not use His provision for what He wants. He, therefore, refuses to give it.

5. We have used human means of supplying our needs so frequently that we no longer come to Him for needs. The preacher is so charismatic that he can charm the money from the people. The rest is borrowed. The result is a manmade provision which God is asked to endorse. It seems great but it is minor in comparison with what God would really like to do. God has no part in it.

6. What we are calling a need is not really a need. It is just a want. It appears to honor God but it is not something He is asking for. Remember that Samuel told Saul that God wasn't looking for his sacrifice but his obedience. God is not looking for great things to be created for Him. He is seeking His creation to do great things. This always comes as acts of obedience.

7. We are full of pride. The Bible clearly says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. We are seeking God's grace anytime we are asking for His provision. He will not support our pride. That is why so many formerly great churches are struggling to hold their own today. They became prideful.

Therefore, money is not the problem. It is the symptom of things out of order.

Philippians 4:19 (ESV)
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.