FOUR THOUGHTS ON CHRISTIAN REPENTANCE

One of the hindrances to repentance is the point that some have never seen a Christian in their circle demonstrate how it is done.

Repentance is one of those categories where we suddenly remember our manners and insist that someone else should go first.

Beware of being patronizingly sympathetic to a repentant person. You may be making it more difficult for them if they have had to overcome the obvious need and still more obvious absence of it in your own life.

Repentance, simply put, is about drawing different conclusions than those which have controlled our thoughts and actions. Sometimes the change is radical enough to need tears; sometimes it is refreshing enough to call for joy; but always - whether in tears or joy, whether with or without words - its reality is known through change.

YOUR FRIEND...ADRIFT !

[A Monday / Wednesday / Friday Devotional Feature of the First Road Blog]

The Apostle Paul wrote: “Woe is me! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death.” We read that heart-cry much too casually, especially if we be of the sort who are heard to say, “I never had that problem.” So, I took to keyboard and screen to unveil a look at the soul-depth darkness some of your friends (Christians or not yet) feel in the “Woe is me” moments. The description here is unresolved. Some of us know what Paul said next, but because we do not pause to consider the darkness, we sometimes do not think really hard about the moment when the Lighthouse sends its beam through the gloom.

When the inscrutable mist drifts in along the ragged shoreline of life,

It cannot be blown away with a whistled little tune.

As you tell me I'm self obsessed 

And need to look to the Lighthouse for my harbor,

You cannot understand why it should be so hard.

You need hear the breeze in the chilling gloom,

As it whispers my unworthiness

In the Lighthouse Keeper’s eyes,

And tells me he is right to let the lamp go dark.

"Other vessels he will guide," the cold waves chant.

"Not yours."

Images of failure, rejection, incompetence;

Realities of rebellion, anger;

And other still present habits of the flesh

Justly mock my efforts to look up,

And surround me with a chaotic silence

Abetted by memories of accusing voices and pointed fingers.

Love, joy, peace, and other fruit of the Father’s smile:

– Buoys of hope –  

– signs of the Keeper’s good life in me –

 – Testimonies of growth in likeness to his Son –

Drift by as fantasies

Vaguely floating in the brine.

No comfort to my destitution

Which will not let me excuse myself

 With that well-worn cliché of lingering self-righteousness:

“I can’t believe I did that.”

”hhcomings 2015

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A Look At One Boy's Legacy

[A Saturday Feature of the First Road Blog]

Looking for some non-technical, rural thoughts on life? I recommend Cliff Schimmels’ 1985 foursome: The Wheatheart Chronicles. On a road trip several years ago I came across an audio cassette of the first book in the series. (At least I think it's the first. You can actually begin the series with any of them.) After Judy and I listened to the story we bought the three companion audio books and have made them frequent companions on our travels.  

By the time you have read or listened to the entire set you feel at home in Wheatheart, Oklahoma, in the early 1980’s. You know the best place to eat, where to go for the local news, the most active church in town, and a lot about the cycle of life in a wheat farming community. You also know a local a kid named Dilbert, a seminarian, the John Deere salesman, the town storyteller, the community’s idolized football coach, the less than idolized high school superintendent, the principal (who could have made a better superintendent), and a wheat farmer and his wife whose only son is a shadow in the background and, yet, a principal presence in each of the narratives. I would call the series a tribute to his legacy.

Rivals of Spring is the only one of the set narrated in the first person. It is a touching chronicle of the development of friendship.

Summer Winds lets the reader (listener) watch a seminary student with big, scholastic dreams endure and then learn from his summer internship in Wheatheart - a community not especially tuned to Sunday sermons on the authorship of Hebrews.

Rites of Autumn, third in the series, unveils the home of the wheat farmer and his wife, introduces us to their son, and through him, helps us understand the struggles of the other leading characters in the community.

Winter Hunger wraps the chronicles together with the discovery of the unsuspected struggles in the life of the one player we and everyone else overlooked.

Very worthwhile stories.

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OFF SCRIPT by Cary Schmidt

[A Saturday Feature of the First Road Blog]

I feel badly for folks who can’t put categories side by side and see relationships. The reason is, they miss the wide range of possibilities in a book like Cary Schmidt’s Off Script: What To Do When God Rewrites Your Life.

This is the account of a man’s journey through an unplanned role as a target of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Each chapter was written in real time on the stage, not after the whole scene had played out. But it is much more than a guide through the ordeal of cancer treatment. It is written in a way which puts the reader alongside the other kinds of script changes which send us a rejection notice on our life plans and impose a whole new story line.

With a mix of satisfactory detail concerning his personal struggle, a healthy dose of wit, and a strong dose of devotion, the author nudges us toward trusting God through our own trials. He does not play the role of the super saint; but he spurns the option of the disillusioned cynic. His theology is robust and not academic. He puts the truth of God’s sovereignty within reach of everyday life. At the same time, he does not try to explain the unexplainable.

Yes, it is one of those books which present a list – “Ten decisions that will transform your perspective in the midst of your trial.” But the list deals with authentic, biblical mind-sets, and it unfolds in the process of the scene, not in retrospection from the vantage point of a favorable ending. Although his journey was successful, the fact that he wrote in the midst of it makes his words credible to anyone who does not know what the final dialogue of their own script will look like.

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THE ATMOSPHERE OF PRAISE

[A Monday / Wednesday / Friday Devotional Feature of the First Road Blog]

If we are to let others praise us instead of praising ourselves, and if praise can be either a flatterer’s trap or the love language of a grace giver, then there are a few implications to be considered.

First, each individual should be concerned with sowing grace more than harvesting accolades. The successful man, especially, should delight in honoring those whose shoulders carry a weight of responsibility for his achievements.

Second, praise is part of doing to others as we would want them to do to us.

But, third and more precisely, praise should be the natural outflow of love for God which directs us to show his love to our neighbor. This is a sanctifying implication. The first two can become self-serving. However, with God receiving all of our love, we express his encouraging grace of good words (blessings) to others inside and outside the household of faith.

This means the cliché “doing the right thing is its own reward,” may be true for the one doing good, but withholding praise for good being done is not an option for the observer or recipient of the good being done.

It also means praise is not to be manipulative. This raises a caution regarding “sandwich psychology.” When praise is habitually followed by a request or by a criticism, it becomes a tool and not a grace. 

By a grace I mean, weeding is important for a beautiful garden, but so is watering. Praise is a way of letting a neighbor or a fellow believer or a family member know you see them as a person of value. And by value I mean something other than his “contribution” to the good of your team. Erford may not be an asset to your bowling league, but he is your neighbor or your brother in Christ. God has put him in your life for a reason. Look for ways to tell Erford you’re glad he exists as a person.

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FEW THINGS FAIL LIKE SUCCESS

[A Monday / Wednesday / Friday Devotional Feature of the First Road Blog]

These were spectacular times. The future apostles had been sent on their first on-the-job training mission and they did some pretty extraordinary stuff. Then they helped host a miracle banquet. After that Peter spoke for all of them when he declared his certainty that Jesus was the Messiah. Not long after that, Jesus took him, along with James and John, to a special “trailer” for the coming Kingdom. But then something began to go horribly wrong. Something which should be remembered when we study the events of Jesus’ last weeks – something which should make us see yellow flags when God grants successes in life.

Success can become one of the most deceptive platforms for failure. God warned us, a man is tested by the praise he receives. That’s why he told us to let others praise us. But that’s tricky. Silence is difficult when we hunger for praise; and it can result in seeking surrogates – others we can train to speak for us. And that can set us up to become a victim of flattery.

In the heady atmosphere of success “a dispute arose among them as to which of them would be the greatest.” It began inside and built up steam until it broke out into overt self-promotion. By the time a larger group exulted, “Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in your name,” us had become the key word, and In your name carried about as much thoughtful importance as In Jesus Name does tacked on to many of our contemporary prayers.

From this point on they did not understand his core message. They were unteachable and, therefore, unprepared. The fact that they were afraid to ask may relate to the fear we feel when we suspect the answer will cut across the agenda of our heart.

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The Look of the Blessing Place

Picture Source

So, exactly what does this “blessing” look like?

On the way to the hilltop I explained blessing itself (to speak good to someone or on their behalf) and its relationship to one generation encouraging another. This was not a time to talk about problems and give projects.

“What I want to do as your pastor, (older friend, father) is let you hear a man’s voice tell you why he is glad you exist and what God has brought into his life through you.”

With that background I parked, got out of the car, and talked about what I admired in the young man. In the process I pointed to the road before us and named it the first road of the rest of your life. I described hills beyond as places the road would take him to intersect with people whose lives would be blessed by his life.

I also explained that my praise was not naive. Young men think we don’t know they have struggles. They are sure we would not say good things if we did. Therefore, they need to hear us say that their struggles are part of the adventure of God’s champions. In Christ the path is not about measuring up but growing up. That is why I tried to dream for them about developing courage and wisdom on the battle fields of their soul.

Then I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving to God for them after which I drove down the road. In the stillness a guy would find his voice to say, “thank you,” in his own moment and in his own way. I never heard it said flippantly, and frequently I discovered they had more to say if I gave them time to get the words out.

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The Blessing Place Remembered

It was a spur of the moment thing. On the way home from a meeting I took a young man to a hilltop, parked on a connecting road between two plowed fields, and surveyed the valleys and the parade of hills beyond them. There I told him the good things I saw God doing in his life.

Over twenty years later I returned to that area to serve my final pastorate. By then the young man had grown older and had become a leader in that church; and almost as soon as we met he asked if I remembered the visit on the hilltop. 

Not long afterward I revisited that spot; and from that visit came a tradition. Over the next fourteen-years I took many men, young and old (including my four sons), to the road between the fields. 

The idea came from a general presence in Scripture of "blessing" others, and especially the blessing of a vision to those of the next generation. Jesus himself practiced it. Therefore, as a member of the older generation, or because of my pastoral position, or as a serious friend, I sought from the Lord the ones whom I might take to, “The Blessing Place.” I did not work from a list. Each trip was uniquely the result of a focus God brought to my prayers. For the most part it was for those who showed signs of the hand of God on their lives. Some were struggling, because they could not see what I could see.

Over time several have reminded me of the event. One afternoon I brought a friend to the hilltop and discovered a car parked a little farther ahead. A man whom I had brought there years earlier approached. Beside him walked a smiling girl with a sparkling ring on her finger. His purpose that afternoon was to use that venue to ask the girl one of the most important questions of his life. 

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A Second Look at "Peace On Earth"

Photo Credit

We make a mistake at Christmas when we consider the message of the angels to the shepherds.

PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN

We are correct to think Jesus is about bringing an end to war and injustice. What we miss is that peace will come as the result of the good will of God toward men; and that good will was first extended in the offer of mercy to any who would willingly receive it.  

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The shepherds may have understood this. Like all disenfranchised Israelis they felt the black hole of the consequences of the nation’s idolatry. Even that night in Bethlehem they recognized their hopeless entrapment in its newest manifestation: the worship of power.

They also may have understood the priority of mercy because they may have been the breeders and tenders of the sacrificial sheep for the temple just six miles away. No doubt there were cynics among them who sneered as they herded their flocks into the pens and received meager pay knowing the priests would gouge the customers who needed an offering to “make God happy.” But others must have remembered that the blood of sheep could not provide the national or personal mercy they needed. These might have understood the title, Lamb of God.

Of course, they would not have known that extending good will would span two millennia and embrace Gentiles; but some should have realized, as should we, before the King comes he must gather together those who will be his citizens – a people who will want his mercy in order, eventually, to be able to reign with him in an atmosphere of mercy driven grace.

When we understand the angelic message this way we must ask, “Have we found the good will of God’s mercy? And, if so, what is our responsibility in a world which spurns it?” 

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The Habits of Sin Do Not Vanish at the Other Side of the Granite Door

Hebrews 9:27-28

Before we look at the third assumption which makes us uncomfortable with the reality of Hell, we need to say a little more about the false hope of a second chance after death. Jesus addressed this matter in Luke 16:19-31. We will have a little more to say about this account in a future article. My interest here is what Jesus says about the attitude of a man awaiting the carrying out of the final sentence.

The circumstances are clear.

1. The man was in torment.
2. The mercy he cried for was motivated by pain not repentance.
3. He did not ask to be brought over to the other side. Rather, he wanted the former beggar, Lazarus, to be sent to ease his agony.

Having been a man of wealth and position and power, it would seem his heart for the privilege of being served had not changed. Unless one has a new nature in Christ, the habits of sin do not vanish on the other side of the granite door. 

Failing to get someone from the servant class to meet his needs, he wanted him to be sent to warn his brothers. But warn them of what? Abraham saw the man's dedication to the false assumption that existential experience is the foundation of right choices. 

• Abraham:  They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them.
• Man in torment:  No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
• Abraham:  If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.

The purpose of the Law is to expose sin and underscore the need for repentance, mercy and change. Repentance based on miracle rather than truth is shallow at best. Such is our dedication to sin that even someone coming back from the dead would not move us. That takes a new birth generated by God’s Holy Spirit.

Have you experienced that new birth?

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Ten Books (Plus One) For Which I Am Thankful

In September Mary Miller, on Facebook, asked friends to list the top ten most influential books in their lives. I misread that to mean the top ten most recent books. So, I posted that list and said I would make theother list at a future date. Thanksgiving, seemed to be a good time to fulfill that promise.

In making my list I need to say these are more representative than absolute. Ask me to list the ten most influential books next month and some titles might be replaced with others. 

This list is also considerably different in character than the list of recent books. The assignment had to do with those which were most influential in my life; and I have to acknowledge the role these particular works have played.

I have sought to arrange the titles in order of the time I discovered them.

I have not included the Bible because my relationship to it is different than any other book. My top ten books influenced me as I read them. The Bible’s impact, on the other hand, was because it read me.

THE LIST

First:   An unnamed book of my childhood. It was a thick but not large book of one to two page “bedtime” stories for children. It covered a wide range of old tales and was a source of much pleasure when, at last, I could read them for myself. I do not know where it went but I sure wish I could find another copy. I owned it in the late 1940’s to early 1950’s. I don’t know if it was a newly published book then.  

Second:  Still another unnamed book of my childhood. I don’t remember a lot of details. It was about someone traveling somewhere. The highlight that sticks in my mind was a pictorial map in the front. I would read a section of the story and then study the progress I made on the map. It began my fascination with maps and roads and life as a journey.

Third:   “The Holy War” by John Bunyan. My first encounter with this was Ethel Barrett’s narrated version. That nudged me to buy the book. It is a classic on sin’s way with the soul and God’s way with redemption and sanctification. It strongly appeals to my delight in the power of a story to condense a tome of explanations. That is not to say the tome is not important, but Jesus himself taught in stories.

Fourth:   “The Horse and His Boy,” part of the “Chronicles of Narnia” series by C. S. Lewis. This choice was difficult since I also wanted to list Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity.” Again, the analogy of the story is a memorable description of God drawing someone to himself but in such a way that it looks like the individual’s search for God.

Fifth:  “How Shall We Then Live?” by Francis Shaeffer. In listing this I have in mind most of his works. It was this book, though, which God used to prod me into a more informed study of worldview issues.

Sixth:  “Tales of the Kingdom,” by David and Karen Mains. The first of a set of three books picturing spiritual truths in adventure-story terms. By now you may ask, “Do you read a lot of books written for kids?” Yes. I take seriously Jesus’ remarks about receiving the Kingdom as a little child. While we are to grow out of childishness, there is a biblical mandate for maintaining a childlike delight in the things of God. That childlikeness, more than any other era of our lives, is seen in the love of stories. However, lest you think this means a Pollyanna view of life…

Seventh:    “Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them,” by Cornell professor James Garbarino. This book jarred my awareness of youth needs through the eyes of a man who worked with teenage boys on death row in our nation’s prisons.

Eighth:   “Spiritual Friends” by Robert Kellemen. This is a Christian counseling manual like no other in that through rich and living analogy Dr. Kellemen describes the process of helping others in an atmosphere of the parakalesis of grace.

Ninth:   “Hope’s Boy” by Andrew Bridge. This presented me with a look inside the foster care system through the eyes of a man who grew up in it.

Tenth:  “The Story Book” by David Boulene. This book appeared in my earlier list of most recent reads. Perhaps  it is the best of the few books I have read on the development of a narrative. Ironically, although a secular writer and never referencing the Bible, Boulene did a masterful job exposing principles God used in unfolding his story in the meganarrative of history and enscripturating it for us in its narrative character in the Bible.

I cannot help mentioning one more. It is a book in progress and its titles have changed as it developed as the first of an intended series called "The Revenge of Dog Mountain." You won’t find this book anywhere. It did appear on line under another title. That was a rough draft and went back to the drawing board for essential improvements. It is the story of an eleven-year-old boy and his father. In its very first form it was a set of bedtime stories made up for a youngster who still enjoyed sitting on the arm of his Dad's chair. Over time it has become an ongoing and unfolding tale and has been a valuable meditative tool - incorporating truths into a narrative.  

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A Remembering Task

Today I have found one of those “round tuits.”

When Judy and I retired in 2012 we also downsized. That required finding a way to consolidate three filing cabinets into one-and-a-half. That meant culling many folders and either pitching the contents or creating easily packable and storable heaps. Among the victims to be heaped were my sermons. Now, at last, as a part of my growing writing discipline, I begin the process of re-organizing the stack of message notes which reach back over fifty years.

I smile at the transition from standard type (remember typewriters?) to IBM Selectric type to DOS print styles to Microsoft Word to non-hardcopy notes stored on my “Study” flashdrive. There are even handwritten notes (remember handwriting?).

Psalm143:5 speaks of remembering the days of old. It refers to Israel’s glory days as a nation led by God. However, if a person has remembered his Creator in the turbulent years since the days of his youth, it is not out of the ballpark to look back to see how he and God have walked together as revealed in the contents of messages preached.

I look forward to this trip down memory lane. Already I discover thoughts which can be brought forward again and tailored to future sermons or devotional thoughts. I look forward to re-acquaintance with things forgotten. Occasionally I lift notes from the pile and hold my breath. How many messages will I find over which I will shake my head and hope nobody remembered them within five minutes after they were preached?

Of special interest is the development of my study and preaching style. As the years progressed I found my own voice and lost the tone of commentaries.

It has been a good adventure so far (three hours), and the review is both humbling and invigorating. 

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When Self-Denial Goes Into Overdrive

Thankfully, there is a reaction to freedomism in our day which is renewing a call to self denial for the cause of Jesus Christ. However, that reaction is in danger of going into overdrive, creating a new self righteousness while leaving many in a spiritual backwater. One does not correct dark shorelines by calling all residents to become lighthouses. There is something to be said for porch lights. 

While it is occasionally true, “When others see a shepherd boy, God may see a king,” it is observably true that, when others see a shepherd boy, God sees a shepherd boy, too. If we forget that, the call to come out from a life of self-indulgence, can become disconnected from real-time life much like medieval monks who spoke of days of meditation and fasting while the common man worked from sunup to sundown in search of his next meal. Unbalanced messages to “sell all you have,” can be as biblically irresponsible as messages to go for the gusto.

The Bible was written to common folks. It tells us, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” For most of us that looks like what Paul described: aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.These are the ones who make it possible for kings to wear wool and NASCAR drivers to have working vehicles.

In other words, help the shepherd boy (plumber, accountant, etc.) to represent God well where he is. Don’t derail him from who he might become by telling him to give up sling shots and harp strumming. At the same time, don’t make him an irresponsible shepherd by telling him slings and harps are the real deal. 

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The Elephant Behind the Freedomist Pulpit

A pulpit is only as good as what is behind it. In the case of freedomists, what is there is an elephant; and the presence of this particular elephant among the promoters of the gospel of liberated indulgence should not be excused, especially if they know it is there and justify its presence.

This elephant is bitterness. Biblically, we find it in the account of Cain and, from the New Testament, we can argue that it is the catalyst for anger, wrath, malice and other absolutely forbidden luxuries of the wounded soul. It is not a badge of godly passion.

Many souls have experienced serious and dark crises, including abuse far more significant than a childhood spent without dancing, movies and the like; but bitterness turns real or imagined victimized people into targets. They become, like Pinocchio, vulnerable to a new breed of predatory control. Peter described the predators as those who promote a personal agenda of promiscuousness with a sales pitch for “freedom" to souls who feel a burden of bondage. 

Bitterness rises when one strays from grace. Far from being a demonstration of righteous indignation, it is a dark and defiling contaminant. To be on guard for such straying means taking ownership of one’s own capacity for bitterness and being ready to help others who are being harassed by it. It is serious. An embittered soul can malign many good and grace-driven people in his vendetta against legalistic injustice.

The freedomist must face the elephant and determine if he has become a voice which indulges gracelessness in the name of grace; but the legalist must look to his own heart as well. Churches are full of sullen members harboring bitterness toward God because he has not honored their self righteousness by giving them the good kids, good health, and good success they think they deserve.

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The Fundamentalist May Have Been On To Something

Often, when something becomes a target of acerbic human wrath, I step back and take another look. To do so may or may not result in a change of mind, but it frequently leads to a greater understanding. This has been true with regard to the vigorous and vicious attacks against the “abusiveness” of Fundamentalism.

Legalism and abuse easily cohabit; however, legalism and Fundamentalism are not synonymous. Frankly, I am indebted to Fundamentalism for solid teaching with regard to the matter of potentiality in the command to abstain from all “appearance” of evil. That potentiality has to do with non-absolute (contextual) self denial issues.

My wife and I have the privilege of serving a ministry to homeless people who seek to get back on track. These individuals come from paths of crisis which necessitate radical adjustments in what they can and cannot allow in their lives. Some of the changes involve matters which you or I might not need to consider, but they are matters which have become catalysts for serious wreckage in their lives.  

I have frequently used card playing as a template for this discussion. The non-legalistic Fundamentalist recognized that some individuals can indeed be lured into bad company and bad choices through an inordinate passion for such innocuous past times. They erred in thinking the problem could be solved by across-the-board prohibitions; but they were on to something notwithstanding. 

Great Fundamentalists such as A. W. Tozer had no intention of telling people that a list of taboos would make them spiritual or acceptable; but they had every intention of confronting individuals with the possibility that some things they allowed in their lives might prohibit them from being all they could be or from accomplishing all they could accomplish in serving the Savior whom they professed to love. This was not legalism. It was simple practicality.

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