THE MANKIND DILEMMA

I weigh our dilemma constantly.

All of mankind possesses the same hurt, longs for the same need, and has the interest from God to provide the most unimaginable cure.  The equation of life is ultra-simple: 

          Born - eventual dead in sin + born over in Jesus = eternal life now and forevermore.

What every person wants every person can have; abundant life!  Yet, we fight one another constantly for the temporary which ultimately disappoints as it does not satisfy.  It always fades.

So why can't we get there?  Why can't more of mankind  land upon God's proposal for relief?

It seems we can't get there because Satan has meticulously divided us into continents of unbelievers and believers.  Each of these groups were then dismantled yet again into wicked unbelievers, indifferent unbelievers.  To top this fragmentation the believing are split into denominations which split again and again among ourselves; each claiming either to be the one true pathway to heaven or rolling our eyes at those who make such claims. 

This causes the dark world to mock as they may not know what is right; but they know this isn't.

Mankind's dilemma is the religious every much as the irreligious.

This affirms that when the Lifegiver (being only Jesus) is not in the equation....there is simply entangled turbulence.  Such unrest prolongs frustration as the inner person yearns for something to fill the hole in our hearts.

Jesus is our all.  Many don't believe this too-good-to-be-true gospel because they look at us instead of him. 

May we make assertive strides to draw more in to the solution.  And may the solution be in the Person of Jesus and not in our organizational modes nor our doctrinal distractions.  When we get to Jesus, he will help us with both organization and doctrine.  We first must grow in him.

ESSENTIAL ELDER QUALITY NEEDED

Elders can make or break a church. 

They can set a place free or put the clamps of slow death on it.

What causes this chasm?

One thing.

There is an ingredient understood in shepherd qualities spelled out in Timothy and Titus.  The assumption that such a man is to be led by the Holy Spirit is a given.  The Holy Spirit is assumed to be active within any elder because he has been baptized.

However, much of the church refrains from such a faith.  Thus, the qualifications without the presence of the Spirit leave the church with merely the business oriented leaders reaching for the best minds of human reason. 

And this simply will not do.

Why won't it do?

All Christians, and especially elders, are to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  This fruit always shows up only when one is under stress and strain.  Anyone can fake the various elements of the fruit when matters are going to his liking.  But, only under the burden of stressful negativity can the fruit of the Spirit show up in a leader.

Those without the Holy Spirit cannot help but live agitated, domineering, and controlling.  Their smiles may be broad until...until they don't like a proposal or a move or a concept of another.  When found opposed, such a one will not be able to bear good fruit unless the Holy Spirit resides within.

Therefore, any time a congregation is in search of new elders, this one trait must be prominent for this reason; one led by the Spirit will offer life.  One who will not yield to the Spirit will lead all into death; either immediate or eventual. 

Jesus came that we might have life abundant.

From experience I can testify that when the shepherds are led by the Spirit of God incredible harmony and fruit follows.  Joy abounds.  Faith grows.  Second chances rule.

ON OUR KINGDOM TOES

I contend that The Story has opened me to a zone of possibility that I thought I already knew; yet am proven once again to be a mere novice....and even that level could be exaggerated as too high.

I have never had trouble accepting the Bible as the true Word for God.  However, it appears my flesh-bossiness and controlling nature has smothered much of it.  My desperation to know my Bible has landed me in the very center of Jesus' admonition that I could know my Bible and not know God....Jn. 5:39-42.

My initiation into this brand new kingdom style back in the early 70s appears to have taken a strange turn.  In the name of Truth I am found guilty of padding my ego for those future moments when the world would call on me to provide the right answers.  I was all about answers and none about knowing God.  None.

From that perspective Bible study was selective, not conducting a Bible-study with an unbeliever was a guilt trip, giving was a burden, and prayer was ashamedly non-existent.  There was no need to be on my toes for I formed personal security by carefully engaging in the old paths that would help me come out looking good....I had hoped.

Today I find, as a follower of Christ, I must stay on my toes because God will not fit any of my predetermined orders of how I expect Him to respond and to behave.  God is both fluid and flexible.  That's why many in the brotherhood (which included me at one point) mistakenly reject the Holy Spirit's activity.  We can't make that error stick in the Word; but we do so try because we believe we can run the show without Him.

God is mobile and mysterious.  Guys like me have not presented such a God.  We have rather offered news of One which would not keep us on our toes; but hopefully would draw more to our pews.  It won't work.  And if it did....it would be really wrong.

Before I hit publish this post is already antiquated compared to the newness of God moment by moment.  Keep on your toes.  Anticipate God-surprises.  Let Him give us life....life unmanipulated by man.

EVANGELISM: WHAT IS IT AND HOW WOULD IT LOOK?

One of the more stinging criticisms I receive year after year is that I am not evangelistic.  In my beginning years at Memorial it came from within as well as critics outside of our congregation.  Still in 2012 I receive the snubs from some church leaders around the nation for the same reason.

As usual, such accusation really hurts my heart.

I constantly think about winning souls.  Really.

So what's missing about me?  I don't know.

What made me think about this is that I have prayed for over a year for the vacant house two doors down; that someone would move in needing God.  This morning a sold sign stands in the yard!  I began to wonder if it will be a couple, a family with children, or two gay men? 

What will be their story?  The bigger question will be what will God need from me to connect with them for His cause?

And then I thought about how long God and I have spoken about those eventually inhabiting this house.  I am guessing this would not count as evangelism to some; but it is one area where I love to work.

Yes, I once believed evangelism was a Tuesday night event where we would study with the lost.  Over time, however, I see it as a 24/7 kind of teamwork among the seed sowing, watering, and harvesting body of Christ.  I believe we children of God (as a partnership body) converted souls in New Jersey and Singapore over night while the most of us slept.

To me evangelism is a big deal and we are to be so engaged.  For me?  I direct the Tulsa Workshop.  The fact that we updated the title by eliminating Soul Winning (as in Tulsa Soul Winning Workshop) gives proof to my critics that their accusations are correct.  That I would produce a film titled 100% Natural Evangelism, again, irritates those frustrated with me for this seems lazy and sloppy to them.

For some, evangelism is an attentive and personal advancement of campaigns, studies, and baptisms.  I get it.  I was it. 

All I can say is that today I feel no less enthused about reaching the entire world with the good news of Jesus.  Whether to be criticized is of no significance.  We are to be about the Lord's business of spreading the good news. 

For those who have a knack of aggressive evangelism, I say awesome. 

For those who don't sit at a kitchen table to study the book of Acts with a neighbor, but stand in your kitchen to bake cookies for VBS so that a child can be filled with VBS joy and eventually bring her parents to Sunday morning class that they might be invited to a Class BBQ which would discuss a film being shown next quarter regarding raising children which would mean they would stay over for the assembly and hear the singing by the shy lady with a microphone only to conclude that maybe they two should be baptized because the youth minister baptized three of his teens at the conclusion of the morning and then they were handed a loaf of bread baked by another sweet and shy lady for the sole purpose of blessing a family who might happen to be encouraged by their attendance simply to find that the gentle secretary sorted the visitors cards put in the pews by a widow woman that no one noticed during her kingdom labor which caused a deacon to take their card and give them a call during week and then to find the Tuesday morning Ladies Class sent them a card which really touched the couple that they should study with an Elder in the church and be baptized....well I say to these forty-eight people who won this couple....awesome.

Evangelism: it isn't a one-way for all.  It is all-ways to win one.

WHY THE JESUS-MODEL OF LEADERSHIP IS REJECTED

In Denny Gunderson's book, Through the Dust, of twenty years ago, three points appear to be important to effective leadership in God's kingdom:

1. The natural mind of western man is obsessed with formula and technique.  Jesus simply won't fit into our comfortable equations for success.  About the time we think we have God nailed down, He shifts and this bugs those of us who work from both categories and comfort.
2. Jesus' servant-style leadership goes against the grain of human ego.  I believe I will always be grateful for what Memorial's elders have done to mentor the staff and then the church to stay out of the way.  Church isn't about us.  It is all about Him.  Kingdom isn't about how we are producing.  It is about His timing, His impact, and His glory....never ours.
3. Our utter concentration upon "success" fuels us with a tainted incentive to look good.  I am all about looking good....except I can't keep it up.  Gunderson nailed me when he wrote, The problem is that servant leadership cannot fit into the straitjacket of immediate results, as its environment is the rarefied realm of the long range.  Eighteen straight years of my basic failed attempts to make things click at Memorial were indeed necessary and valuable.  I learned by enduring, but not leaving, that I could not make a church tick....fact and final.  Simultaneously, I learned He knew how if I would get out of the way.

So permit me to quote from Mr. Gunderson one more time to drive home this very needed theme. 

One's destiny also becomes one's test, however.  The person driven to act out and prove that he is God's specially called man (or woman) can easily forfeit his anointing to lead.  The initial calling may well be from God, but when stained by human ego, destiny degenerates into the fetid stench of empire-building, and empire builders have the unfortunate tendency of ending up as false prophets! 

The leader who wishes to emulate Jesus resists the great temptation to build ministry around himself.  He chooses to abandon himself to the will and the pleasure of God on a moment by moment basis.

One of my downfalls also turned out to be one of my best classrooms.  I wanted to please AND TO IMPRESS the loud voices of the brotherhood.  Yet, as I noted patience rather than fleeting numbers and the kindness of Jesus over my own bold clarionship, it became clear to me that my understanding of church motivation and leadership was both Christless and ego-centric.  I hungered for immediate approval of my peers over long range waiting for God to move.

Only by His grace did enough good friends surround me, that I could hang on to get to see merely a glimpse of the Jesus-style which is ever freeing and always right.

THE PARTING OF THE RELIGIOUS SEA

Many don't care.  Many do.  Some are energized while others are annoyed. 

I speak of religion.

Questions abound.  Answers are equally abundant.  True, however, we who are bent toward some label of faith can be presumptous and quite contentious.

Mankind is flooded by a religious sea overflowing and out of its banks.  From the East or from the West, from prophets to popes, and from writings, to cards, to stars, all cultures are drowning in a perpetual flood of tugging and straining concepts.

Everyone has an opinion; even if it is that they have no opinion.

Striving for truth can sound efficient...and could be most resourceful.  In many cases, like in my own, we the public can be guilty of blurring the simplicity and beauty of God with personal bias.  Political has become a mark of religion every bit as much as authentic faith.  There is God...and then there are agendas.  The best of us strain to keep the two separate.

I am learning that only one thing parts the religious sea effectively as well as accurately.  It is the name Jesus.  It is not the names of branded churches.  Neither is it the parade of noble and good works.  It is the name of Jesus.

Yes, I might even be biased in this conclusion.  Well, I am biased and I'll tell you why.  No other name lived among men, died, and rose again.  None.  Jesus defeated death while delivering life.

Jesus parts the religious sea of arrogance, favoritism, and ignorance.  We followers may blur the scenery; but Jesus can hold his own without us.  If he would be the one lifted up it just could be that all men would be drawn to him.  He would and could part the religious sea...if we will let him.

"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." Jn. 12:32

WHAT IF THE PRODIGAL SON REPRODIGALLED?

I know of no other more fascinating story than the Prodigal Son.  Of course, you have your favorites.

I was wondering about this prodigal.  I was wondering how the Father would have felt if once the robe had been draped upon the son's shoulders, the sandals slipped upon his feet, and the privileged ring bestowed upon his hand....what if the prodigal retreated to the corn husks of the swine?

I don't speak of repeating the activities of his sinfulness.  Rather I speak of his return to the hog pens because he felt both unworthy and unacclimated to the lifestyle of lavishness along with forgiveness.

What if the prodigal reprodigalled because he could not get it into his heart and mind that he was to live a higher life?  A richer life?  A more Father-blessed life?

And this caused me to think about us.

Is is feasible that Father has rescued us from the pig pen of earth-boundness, placed us in the citizenry of heaven, only to watch us return to the poverty of restricted and visionless flesh life?  Is it conceivable that we trash our robes and sandals...not out of rebellion, but....out of perpetual unawareness and recall that we have been lifted to greater heights of living?  To a far more advanced life that operates out of heaven's corridors and not from here?

Have we given ourselves to the great organization known as the church only to live a dumb-downed scenario of barely getting by and hoping to make it through the day?

Have we reprodigalled?  Have we forgotten to let our voices pronounce confidence in His Spirit?  Have we assumed that frowny faces in the church system are simply the way life goes?  Have we diverted the powerful God experience for a numbing routine of repeated appointed times to gather?

I think not!

I think we are a people who have been called home; not to roost in safety, but to advance the daring cause of the Living God.  I think His people respond to excitement and awe and glory and challenge and opportunity and Presence....His.

If the Prodigal Son had chosen to reprodigal, it would be a tragic ending to a most uplifting start.  We must be conscious of His presence in us and us in Him.  We are each in the other.  May our tempo and our disposition communicate such to a world which strives to know Something more than the routinely known.

THE STORY

Memorial continues our trek through The Story.  God's ability clearly rises above people's best shot.

I'm glad we are moving through this study today and not ten years back.

If I had entered into its study a ways back, I believe I would have been critical because the story-line doesn't seem to emphasize the matters I controlled.  I would have missed its marvel by sheer blindness to my own lack.

Today, though, God has helped me to open to the truth that I am unspeakably shallow.  From that pit I find myself wowed by the over-arching provision, supply, and strength of God.  By this time in my life a few of my legalistic scales are beginning to peel away.

In other words, God has broken me from being a professional answer man to become an amateur seeker of His glory and handiwork.

The Story: an encouragement to seekers and probably a stumbling block to defenders of our small percentage of faith.

OUR GLARING OBSESSION WITH TRUTH

I know.  The title of this post could seem profane to a few.  Rather what we have done in the name of Truth has been the truer profanity.

Our Church of Christ tribe is equal in bias mistakenism to many others by our insistence that we do things the Bible ways.  This has been addressed, has it not, with great attention.  However, we remain guilty of that which we have been repeatedly informed.

The Truth is we do many things well from Bible authority.  Great blessings flow.

From my personal and useful struggle through the delightful maze of learning, however, I have been found to approach the Word from defense rather than eagerness to absorb.  By my intent to be faithful to the Bible, I found myself abusing it.  I would not let it speak to me except through the Restoration Movement's eyes.

Bad mistake.  Tragic mistake.

Among us---and many other tribes---too many carry Bibles as proof texts only.  Proof is surely a Bible concept; yet it turns our faces beet red when calling us to a relationship with God through the Spirit in the name of Jesus.  Many are not sure we should go that far.

Jesus is the train wreck that must happen to any tribe.  He will not let us continue to do church our smug and small ways.  Yes, narrow is the way; but narrow isn't that we don't allow much.  Rather, narrow is defined by one singular Son of God named Jesus....as the author of salvation....and no one else.

Many do many things biblically well.  I have grave concern, though, for any who sit in Church of Christ houses believing where they roost is proof of their destiny.  Again, I speak from what I was taught when converted and believed well into my preaching ministry.

Could it be that the truth is we miss the truth by being obsessed with it?

CAN YOU SAY "AH"?

You have noticed an eventual shift in the spelling of Abram and Sarai.  Both names were adjusted to "AH"; AbrAHam and SarAH.  This is significant to yAHway which from the Hebrew simply had the four letter YHWH.

God inserted the AH into both Abram and Sarai's name.

James Garlow makes a strong case regarding such an insertion, I think, when he points to God, When He made covenant with Abram, He put the "H" from His name into Abraham's name and changed Sara's name to "Sarah".  The Hebrew letter "H" is the sound of breath, generally signifying the breath or presence of God.

And then he continues to draw our attention, What made Adam live?  The breath of God.  We see the same concept in the New Testament.  The Holy Spirit is called the "Holy Pneuma" in Greek.  Pneuma means wind.  Literally it means the Holy puff of breath of God.

The way that we try to get a campfire to ignite by blowing onto an ember, God puffed life into the very center of Abram's name....and of Abraham himself.

This is what God's covenant with us does.  He gives us life because God breathes life into us.

His Spirit in us.  Abram learned to say "AH".  We, too, possess the Holy Pneuma....and we really live....
I Thes. 3:8.

WE LIVE IN MUCH DIFFERENT TIMES...OR...WE ARE NOW OFF TO THE RACES

I speak as if I am 65 years old.  Well, I speak that way because I am.

Things are different these days and I take some of them as challenges to the church.  We live in much different times.  Are churches offering a sensitive kingdom which is ahead of the current culture (or at least up with it) or are we operating from the 80s when the church in the 80s was stuck in the 50s?

I'm not saying that we are not current in any zone.  However, one of the challenges to these times is that the new is nearly old before it is introduced....as in the mini-iPad that just came out on the market.  Trying to text on my ten-key phone pad is....well....trying.  But that phone was upscale when I bought it...I thought.

This morning I unlocked the office door; but the motion detector would not take my code.  With noises beeping, I'm trying to beat the clock....using the code to my home system instead.  Uh huh. 

I'm now at the point that when someone or something needs to know my code, I freeze.  Which code goes where?  The one to my home security, my office security, the balcony security, my blog security, my computer security, or my car security.  I have one for the latter...and can't recall where I put it...really.

We live in a So-Much So-Fast highway that we can hardly take the time to evaluate.

I wonder...maybe I'm just having a senior moment....but I am concerned about the state of these times.  I wonder if the need among us will continue to be the opposite; quiet in the Spirit, rest in Christ, trust in His pace, and wholeness of the mind, body, and spirit.

Communication is so fast and so much that we are behind before we begin.  These times, to me, are bound to take their toll on our minds for there is too much to take in as we shop in these media warehouses for the latest and greatest.

I would think we are tapping many of those avenues.  Surely we are.  Yet, a message of slow-down-and-smell-the-roses is going to become a needed trend...if it isn't here already. 

One more time we may discover that mission trips and study guides beg for the question of Who is this Jesus that the church rumors?  He will always be our life...singularly and only.

We live in much different times.  Yet, as in all centuries, this one pleads for sanity of life.  The response is always consistent....For God so loved the world He sent His only begotten Son....

THE SUN IS ALWAYS SHINING....ALWAYS

Creation was one of God's best weeks!

I was thinking about Him and His system driving to work in the dark. 

Soon the sun will be shining.  Even when overcast, we know by faith the sun is shining.  More, even at midnight we are sure by faith the sun is not dimmed.  For our eyes?  Yes, momentarily.  For our understanding?  The sun is always.

So it is for our perspective of the Son.  He is always shining.  Our dim eyes and dark days could be used against us to invite the guest of doubt.  But why should we ever?  Just as we definitely know the sun is shining from the very center of any midnight hour, we can be just as certain the Son is shining...every moment.

May we never flinch in doubt.  Regardless of dark discouragement, wait for the Son to rise.  All darkness is destined to evaporate.

The Son shines.

That is what our hearts need to know.

WHY LIFE GOES NOWHERE FOR SOME

Life is amazing.  Yet, it is not a blessing for far too many.  Rather it is a daily meandering, ritualistic, and useless burden for the latter.

The problem is sin. 

The recovery is life in Jesus.

Referencing Adam and Eve's debacle, Malcolm Smith pegged it, From then on, this was where they would find their life and the meaning of their existence---in the realm of the creature flesh.  Men and women would now spend their lives searching for meaning within their magnificent brains, intellects, emotions, feelings, and passions, which all exist in the organs of their bodies.

But for every human being, the questions regarding the meaning of existence will not go away.  Men and women cannot forget the dream they cannot remember!  The human is plagued by "Why am I here?" "What is the point of my existence?" "What is the meaning of my life?"  Midlife crisis is due to looking at life and realizing that the elusive meaning has not been found and time is running out.

We simply cannot let the doctrine we cherish in new birth, reconciliation, and re-creation slip into the mundane religious tone of any given day.  Rather we must be perpetually aroused by the Spirit-treasure implanted within each of us that we be driven to the unfathomable highest of hopes even when in the deepest of pits. 

Remember Paul and Silas in prison?  Even when apparently set back it was found that they merely stepped forward.

Nothing is to steal again what the devil stole from us through Adam and Eve.  The reason life goes nowhere for some is they have not absorbed the message that Jesus reversed life's course once and for all and we are declared meaningful. 

When a world clamors for meaning to existence and purpose to one's walk, we know the answer with stunning precision.  His name is Jesus.

RELIGIOUS WANDERINGS

I was watching a YouTube piece by Malcolm Smith when I noticed a list to the right of other clips of other speakers.  I began to wander into one and out and then to another and out.

Very interesting.

John MacArthur was bashing Joel Osteen.  No sooner did I leave that video and I went next to a man I don't know with a Baptist church in Ft. Lauderdale.  He was bashing John MacArthur...severely.

Ah, my need to know more about what Jesus taught and thought.

Yes, so many of us believe our ways are so simple that anybody could believe them if they would just study their Bibles.  Yet, a difficulty the religious of us have is that we are so politically biased in many of the doctrines we think we can prove to come from the Word.  All groups possess the same blemish.

It isn't that the Word does not call us to facts and faith.  It is that we are flawed in both our search and development.  And yes, we do discover and mature in Truth.  However, it may be much more gradual about ourselves than one might assume.

The Bible clearly calls us to proper development of faith.  Error was called out.  However, a problem I soon developed in my Christian beginnings was my eyes were soon trained to see the errors of others while blind to my own.  And, does not the Bible also address that?

An angst arises from within for the community of unbelievers is thriving in lostness with hopes someone will throw them a lifeline.  We could do it.  But the religious world--me being a part of it--has gazed at our belly buttons so much so long that our neighbors walk about in a fog.

Recall Jesus speaking of making some twice the sons of hell as before?  Are church recruits in danger of finding Jesus to learn poor faith-system habits to the extent we do more harm as believers? 

Church.  It is the body of Christ.  It is neither God's Legal Court nor Business School.  It is, rather, a band of former rejects ourselves who turn on a dime to see that the lonely and the abused and the neglected discover the love of God....found within us; very average human beings who now try to shine via the Spirit of Christ. 

Religious wanderings are keeping a segment of society distracted, prideful, and dumb.  When our devotion is to work our religious orders with attentive defense while neglecting any who need moments of tender compassion, we have missed His calling...and begun to follow a self-made one.

MAY THOSE WHO HAVE EARS HAVE SOMETHING TO HEAR

We preachers will only have something of kingdom value to share on Sunday if on the prior Monday through Saturday we intensely learned of the presence and power of our transforming God.

BURDEN OF TRUTH

As time swiftly moves along I sense an unusual and constantly renewed burden for Truth.  I speak not of that old and musty grim-faced I'm right!  You're wrong!  And I can prove it! smugness that I and those of my schooling paraded.

I speak of the marvel, wonder, and immeasurable holy presence of God.

The burden of Truth is that we have no option but to get to know Him.  His utmost desire is that we know Him.  John 5:39ff is but one verification.  The Bible assumes something we easily miss; that we walk with God and He with us.

No, I spent my early decades of learning to not be about God; rather to be about why others didn't have their religious facts straight.  Yes, I could be hateful.  Yes, I could be smug.  And yes, I could deny my own deep and erratic ignorance.  None of that mattered to me for I operated in the name of You shall know the Truth....and I thought I did.

Time has proven, as recently as my study today, that I am an ignorant man.  Mind you, God is willing to use ignorant men.  Yet, my heart is flooded with excitement of assuming every day that He lets me awaken that I am about to learn insights to knowing Him that I once assumed to be liberal heresy. 

After all I had the facts because louder voices than mine assured me...and we...that I did. 

Wrong. 

Simply wrong.

I knew a few things about the Word.  Those few things remain of the gratitudinal sense for me to this day.  But I did not know that I needed to know God.  I understood "we" needed to know we were the right ones.

God awaits our love for Him, our friendship with Him, and our worship of Him.

I'm just getting started.  What joy of excitement and hope we possess to live in the church as if it is a dream...that really lives.  The burden of Truth is the personal hunger and thirst to know the wow of our living God.

THE CRISIS

Challenge, disturbance, and problems; three things we don't want.  Therefore we guide our children to safer ground.  (Could this be a fundamental reason the bulk of our children leave the church by age 20?)  We fundamentally don't do trouble.  It may and does hit us.  So we hunt for the fastest exit.

Yet crisis is basic training for the believer.  We must have it.  The cross is neither gimmick nor decor.  It is a roadway to experience the Eternal Life of God.

Oswald Chambers wrote, The disciples approached Jesus by the way of sincerity, and he put them through crises until they discovered that they could never be disciples in that way; what they needed was to have the disposition of Jesus given them.

So fascinated with Jesus, the disciples left all to follow him.  Three years later it is recorded that they all fled to that which they had left.  Why?

Discipleship isn't about assumed victory and it is not about convenience.  It is about life in the center of crisis.

Even when we are having a bad day we are having a good day as faithful followers of this one who defeated even death.

I'M JUST SO INEPT

For any reader who feels rinky and dinky, let me make your day.

Ineptitarianistic is surely what I am.

How can I possibly be so flawed in so many, many ways?

Surely you don't think I work at it!  It just comes natural to me.

Today my sermon is to be in sync with The Story-line that classes and small groups studied throughout this past week.  My sermon is to ice the cake of this week's devoted studies.  The material is to be from Judges 2-4, 6-8, and -13-16.

Yes.  I know that.  I read every page from Lucado and Frazee's The Story for this week's drama.

So I've studied and let it simmer.  Yesterday I put the final touches by deciding exactly which Judges morsel I wanted to accentuate. 

I came in this morning, as usual every Sunday, to put all the parts of my fragmented study together.  I had it!  This will be great!  Until....

As I was preparing from chapter 3, I noticed at the top of the page the word Joshua.  What?  What?  Joshua?????  No.  No.  Not Joshua.  Judges.  Please be Judges.

Today's lesson is from Joshua.....which is so very close to Judges.

I am embarrassed, humiliated, and then....wondering what God has going this morning for the sermon really does have good stuff in it.  I'm just so inept.  Fortunately for me, this isn't anything new to this congregation....but they keep me anyway.

OUR LOVE OF GOD

Could it be that the simplest theme is our greatest need?

Could it be that the first and greatest command is truly our first and greatest need after all concurrent centuries?

Is the question about our couples, singles, teens, retirees, etc. in the church still, Do you love God with all your heart?

From personal experience I can express that our love of God is assumed.  But such assumption is blind-siding our efforts.  I was enamored with the Restoration Movement and how men came together from various denominations.  But I wasn't crazy about God.

For a long time I was devoted to time in prayer....which was agonizing for I didn't like to pray.  As a minister I felt obligated to engage in it.  When I shifted to truly loving God, I visit with Him at all hours over the slightest of details.  I just want Him to know that I know Him....with great delight.

So I had all of these lower-class gods: a capella singing, true church organization, and Bible-based sermons without my heart given to God.

This mistaken lack of love for Him continues to plague our efforts and energies.  What's in it for me? is so forceful among us that we might even slip into worshipping worship rather than worshipping the Father.

Our love of God remains the big question for each.  Attitudes and actions can be good and abundant while failing to be in sync with the greatest command.  It is a challenge for the 21st Century church, indeed.  And...we are grow to such a task.

May we be a people crazy about God!

HOW WILL YOU VOTE?

Will the turn-out be great?  Or, will some shrug shoulders of indifference and fail to offer personal support?

We have such a remarkable privilege.

Soldiers have paid the price for such uplifting moments.

Other countries don't have what we tend to take for granted.

Every person matters.  Each individual vote counts.

Dollars are spent with the hope all will be touched.

Travel criss-crosses our nation with the idea that hearts will be rewarded.

How will you vote?

Will you vote to attend the Tulsa Workshop in March?  Will you vote to hear Francis Chan and others at this huge event that packs a mighty kingdom wallop?

I hope so!  Vote with your intentions to be here March 20-23!

And, would you pass this information along to ten other would-be/could-be/should-be voters?

www.tulsaworkshop.org