TRY TO BE DETERMINED...

.....to give glory to God in all situations. Anybody can dance and sing at a wedding or a birthday party. It's in the dark times that we who believe in God's reality also need to remain encouraged and upbeat.

No circumstances shut us down...so look like it...and live like it...and love others like it.

Whether good day...or bad...there is gigantic hope in either.
Romans 5:1-5

WHERE IS THE HOPE WHEN YOU NEED IT?

It would seem that one of the most powerful elements for any individual is found in the four-letter word; hope.  You see, hope is a curious sort in that evidently what is needed isn't in reality yet.  Yet is the three-letter code-word that allows us into the corridors of the four-letter (H O P E) marvel.

Enormous and unquantitative struggle occurs when the human heart can't find reason to hope.  Simply put, when all hope is gone...there is no hope of present or future.  But God reverses such a scenario and says, Oh, believe me, there is reason to hope.

And just what would be the reason?  Jesus.  The one who was beaten to a pulp, to the extent it appeared that he had no defense against his opponents, is the very same one who roared back to save; even those who chose to slay him.  The one hung out to dry upon the Cross; this one is who arose from death's darkness in order to bring light of possibility to our treacherously discouraging days.

Hope does not disappoint wrote the apostle Paul early in the fifth chapter of Romans. It does't disappoint because of the Holy Spirit...who raised Jesus from the dead.  Go back a chapter.  Read Romans four.  Hold on to every expression from this Word for it assures us that even the impossible bows to possibility because of hope found in the resurrected Jesus.

You can have it.  You are to have it.  Hope is a reality.  Own it.

WHAT ARE WE TO EXPECT...WHEN CARRYING A CROSS?

Concepts of God are liable to become too easily misplaced by an unconscious focus upon archaicism rather than a definitive expectation in the now.  From this I mean to say that speaking of the Cross might lose it's intensity because this age doesn't see public execution of criminals hanging from a cross.  We are more aware of hanging by the neck in Westerns and gas chambers or lethal injections in our penal systems.  The Cross, therefore, becomes more of a church term for drastic commitment rather than a sobering method of serving God.

If Jesus were to address gatherings today he would likely speak in terms understood by those of that locale.  Live from the Gas Chambers and follow me?  Take in the killer solution through your veins and follow me?  It doesn't sound right does it?  The Cross is just as lethal but its potency has become lost in religious discussion.  Yet, His call for us to take up our crosses and follow Him remains pertinent to disciples of the Living God.

This fundamental misconception among churchers is why so many move through the front doors and out the back ones of our congregations.  We.  Don't.  Do.  Trouble.  Odd, don't you think?  The Cross is nothing but trouble.  It is the ugliest --in the times of Jesus--scandal to be viewed in public square.  This fact has lost impact over the centuries.  The hope of the world is God's people upon our crosses.  Yet, basically, if we become offended by the slightest innuendo we seem to bolt because we feel that if we are going to serve in the church we deserve better.  This is one of our gravest mistakes if not the gravest.

What are we to expect...when carrying a cross?  Anything but convenience.  Anything but glory.  Anything but handy.  And, anything but fun.

America isn't in a bind due to the Democrats or the Republicans first.  She is in a deep and desperate struggle for sanity because we have come down from our crosses and transformed them into symbols for decor of sanctuaries, wall-hangings, and jewelry.  Can you imagine a woman wearing a necklace of a gas chamber or hangman's noose?

I want to reinforce your calling from God to take up your cross and follow Him.  We are not going to get our way.  We are not going to move through church without moments of pain, agony, and even abuse.  Rather these negatives are to be what we are about because we are on a severely strenuous rescue mission....doing what we can to cheer a very broken world.

Never give up.  Never quit....not ever.

THE DIVINE CALL TO BREAK HABITUALISM

Jesus was Father breaking into the landscape of His own creation.  God had created us; yet had never experienced the human side of His genius.  Thus, the arrival of Jesus to find out what it is like to become hungry/full, fatigued/rested, and rejected/loved as a created earthling.  This is a most brilliant move of God's many brilliances.

What got Jesus in the most hot water is that he wouldn't march to the cadence of religious tradition.  For those of us who regard ourselves as religious, we must take note.  He was hated for it.  Tradition that isn't of God is habitualism gone dead.  Little has changed over the centuries.  The dilemma in Jesus' day remains intact and is as strong as ever.

The problem with tradition is that it woos the heart into a pseudo-religious participation where one knows church operations; but does not know Jesus.  He said as much in John 5:39ff.  He lived as much on every page of the gospels.  Jesus--perfect innocent Jesus--was beaten to a public pulp because he refused to do the religious dance of meaningless and deadening going-through-the-motions routine. Furthermore, he died to stop it.

In 2016....nothing is has changed.  The challenge remains problematic; not to unbelievers, but to habitual church attendees who can slip into a mode of contribution (a bit of time/a bit of money/a bit of serving) but not complete hunger to know God. This concern is quite personal to me due to the persistent temptation of my own to keep the religious plates a-spinning without time in prayer to, study of, and relationship with Father.  Anyone else with me on this?

A clear message of Jesus was for man to break the habit of doing church in form only. His call is for each of us to be church in reach to/love of others.  The difference is that the former lives by checklist from Sunday to Sunday while the latter enters into zones of inadequacy and risk in trying to bring hope to strugglers; many who are complete strangers.

Just as was true of Jesus on earth, we are called by God to die to ourselves that others could have a new hope of becoming a new sort of people.  Our message isn't just hope to die and go to heaven which is often presented which seems to permit a detachment or a disengagement with society and her needs.  No, our true message is that people can experience life in dead settings, plus see blessing arise when there seems to be no hope, today.

We are very seriously challenged in a time of great and significant need.  The world is drowning in hopelessness while religion continues to offer anemic habitualism which is lifeless; both to the activist and to the onlooker.  I am so able to slip into my daily mode of responding to demands and exercising ministerial actions.  Yet I, too, am called to intentionally look beyond my comfortable ministerial habits and try to imagine with God what can be done to bring a fresh new start to a weary neighbor.

You, too....a bit like me....maybe?

THE POSITIVE LIFE OF BEING OVERWHELMED

The Kingdom of God is deep.  You know that don't you?  Its very design is for its adherents to swim in the risky recesses of the Divine's pool where wow and awe excel. We want to try to ward off our temptation to piddle about in the shallow end of the church pool where there would less likely be threat or struggle.  Work and wonder, potential and power await within those of threatening locations; the very places where we feel that we might likely go under.

It seems odd and backward to deem God's call toward us to launch out into the deep, does it not?   I mean, does He really want us to go into zones of Kingdom Life where we could actually go under simply trying to carry out His imagination for us?  Wouldn't fishing for men from bank's edge be wiser than to just be personally thrust into an unknown, unmanageable, unchartable course?

The Word repeatedly references us walking in the mystery of God.  Mystery? Unexplainable.  Undefinable.  Basically un-many-zones.  Yet, the point of entering into mystery is the allowance that God will be there; He will provide.  I like how Calvin Miller points us into courage by remarking, We do not go deep to study God, we go deep to taste his reality.  In such experience we cannot define God, for he is not definable.  But we do, ultimately, define ourselves.  In the depths we meet our smallness, our powerlessness, our need.

Oh that last sentence pegs me.  I would have assumed that by this ripe age I would be much farther along than what is.  Really, the temptation can be to shrivel up in a corner and admit I'm always going to be this way.  Oh, how I wish it weren't true.  But, it is.  So I (and we as well) offer Him my (our) smallness in hopes that His mystery will kick in to make a meaningful difference.  

Being overwhelmed has all the marks of being a positive blessing.  May we work together on believing this is true.  It seems consistent that the less we are there is more room for the I AM.

THE STRESS OF OUR NATION

We are in a wonderful struggle politically at the moment.  Last week the RNC stood at the Nation's microphone declaring that it had the solution to America's woes.  Yet, their division beat them to the podium.  For a few days it seemed that the DNC should be feeling pretty confident for theirs was assumed to be a harmonistic group....until...until they approached their very first day.  Ooops!  Are we all alike?

Odder yet, both parties call for unity.  It seems that these don't mean a unity of thinking alike in philosophy and plan; but rather in framing a harmony which would mean that a particular party would stand in sync...against the other.  That's it?  To oppose your enemy is hardly meaningful unity if your own group is fragmented.  One party slams the other for their blatant inner division; but then turns only to gloss over their very same practices.  Somehow, it seems that the ones on "my side" get an exemption.  Odd, don't you think?

But not all people of the other political party (nor their biased-media coverage) are divisive, arrogant, or self-serving.  It is upon this awareness of the good, devoted, compassionate ones (on both sides) where our country finds eventual and solutionary hope.

While both of the groups should be slightly (okay, very) uneasy about their inconsistencies, we churches have a few matters to improve ourselves, don't you think? If one believes that society-at- large is turned off by one (or both) of the political groups, surely we of religious bent have work to do on the very same scale.  Where I'm headed with this is that it would seem that what would cure that which ails the church would, in turn, help the field of politics as well.

What if humility were to take the public square?  What if those seeking office were to express regret for their failures rather than shouting over their opponents?  Don't you think we would begin to believe that we may have happened upon someone rather....real?  And so it is in the church.  We are not in a contest to out-shout nor out-maneuver the Methodists or the Catholics or the Churches of Christ.  We are in this field to learn from the walk of Jesus how to more efficiently step aside and allow the tender mercies of God to help each of us get through the day.

I speak not of a cowardly, classless group of church wimps.  Rather, I point us in the other direction.  Jesus won by losing.  Jesus brought life to us by his dying.  This is a matter that would/does bless the church when we can get our hearts wrapped around such kind and potent expressions of outreach.  And if we could get better at this sort of thing, maybe the politicians would be encouraged to be truly unifying rather than divisive; rough around the edges sorta like myself on some days.

The stress of our nation has pockets of negative intensity.  But it doesn't have to remain this way.  The words and the style of Jesus might just cause more of us to dismount from our high horses.  And then wouldn't we all breathe a bit easier if we were to care about our opponents rather than out-yell and out-insult them?

BELIEVING IS SEEING THROUGH TO WHAT ISN'T....YET

I know of nothing more bizarre than faith.  It carries a conviction of things not seen and the assurance of things not yet; but can be ultimately hoped for...Hebrews 11:1.

So what I wish to say to you today is that this element to our daily walk...this thing known as faith...is absolutely a world-changer.  So don't treat it as a non-essential religious chatter which evaporates into mid-nothingness.  Dreams and imaginations and hopes must have the Miracle-Grow of faith.  Otherwise, the mundane filters and then depletes our every day.

Believing takes a gander at a need within the very center of what isn't yet.  And then it becomes convinced that what isn't yet can, indeed, come about.  Too many carry invisible totes of indoctrination to church without the slightest conviction that what is desperately needed among us can become a new reality if faith were to be executed.

Faith changes things and people.  When many think they can't and run into someone who believes they can, often life takes a turn for the better.  All people need to know that possibility lingers upon their paths for greater hope and accomplishment...beyond anything ever to be imagined....Ephesians 3:20-21.

Believing is staring down what isn't....yet....but is assured that such hope can become reality from the very element that falsely says there just isn't anything alive here...Romans 4:17.

YOU KNOW THAT....DON'T YOU?

We are in over our heads.  You know that don't you?  Or do you?

What size is this living God who we follow?  Write out His description.  Try to frame your words in an understandable synchronization that removes the bafflement demanding even more questions?  Our God is untermable and yet we want explanatory, definable terms.

We humans want two extremes.  First, we want God to truly be the Almighty of the entire universal scope of absolutely unfathomable creation.  Second, we want our faith to be comprehendable as well as controllable.  These, the pro and the con of faith, should drive us to be overwhelmed and underdefined.  You know that...don't you?

Desiring to appear upright, we want this faith stuff to look good.  We surely want to be impressive.  Yet, the famous apostle said that his walk and ours looks foolish.  Foolish. Really?  You know that...don't you?

I watch courageous faith be short-sheeted by the silliness of fear.  We tend to be afraid to let go so that we (and witnesses) might see Him at His best.  Mankind is in desperate need of unflappable hope.  There is none greater than the empty grave of Jesus. He....he is the light..and the life..and the hope for all.

May we gain momentum in shedding our hesitancies while raising our public voices of praise as to how much we love Him and how happy we are as we move through the normal routines of life. Yes, wouldn't it be a grand start just to be happy?  Many around us are looking for one spark from a believing heart which would say of our day, We've got this because God has our backs.

You know that....don't you?

HOW THE CHURCH WILL GAIN TRACTION

Society is watching us.  A vast number begrudgingly avoid us.  There is an errant assumption among all of us.  We church people are presumed by those in and those out that we have our acts together.  Announcement to church and community: We.  Don't.

Churches operate under a most subtle threat: we may have gone Jesus-less.  The reason that I would dare make such a statement is that, of course, I found myself to be guilty of such about two decades ago.  I found myself caught up in gaining momentum in the realm of Kingdom truths.  Even this was a facade as I certainly was not.  To cap it all, I realized I was doing a lot of Bible pounding from the pulpit with a very grave absence in referencing the one named Jesus.

The church will gain traction within our ailing communities when we increase our hunger to know this very real Son of God.  There can be no substitute: not doctrine, not works, not activity.  Either Jesus will capture the minds and hearts of the church or else we will simply fade into the unbelieving landscape while campaigning for stronger church attendance.

I watched the Republican Convention this week with great enthusiasm.  I will be equally glued to next week's Democratic gathering.  America's hopes are not built upon the dreams of political leaders.  Our nation's hopes are to be energized by men and women who courageously trade our religious-practicing robes for a suit of Spirit armor as we plunge into the pits of desperate humanity which needs new life.

This is where the church will gain traction; wading into the blind alleys of the brokenness and despair of our neighbors.  We are currently viewed, by some of our neighbors, under the magnifying glass of suspicion.  The church deeply desires to be a blessing everywhere we turn.  All the while, we are a broken people ourselves needing the restart of Jesus day by day.  The secret combination to effectiveness is a broken people and a resurrected Lord.

This is this factor that the onlookers don't get.  They assume that we believe that we have our acts together.  They aren't ignorant.  Their assessment of us us half right.  They see through us.  What they don't see is that we see through ourselves.  When the latter happens we effectively turn our eyes toward Jesus for he is the only one who gets us....warts and all.

Oh how we tried to jump enough religious appearing hoops to ward off the judgment of God.  We tried oh so often....and failed 100% of the time.  It is at this turn that the church seems to openly awaken.  To be in the church without the sense that we desperately need a Savior is to miss the point....completely.  We gain incredible traction when we confess that as long as we have been in the church we are never sharp enough to earn our way.

Our communities need our churches to gain traction.  Arrogance of systemic traditional beliefs will never cut it.  Humility...humble hearts of repentance...will.

THE WALK OF JESUS IS ANYTHING BUT PRIVATE

Could it be possible that even among us who sense devotion to the Christ movement that we move about in somewhat of a stifling fog?  I mean, do we translate Bible life into our walk or do we more basically just focus on knowing our Bibles...the end?  I'm concerned that the fascination of the actual, very real, God-called spiritual exercise anticipated for every individual is being suffocated.  Faith seems to be better regarded as practical; but not exceptional.

Exceptional faith?  Meaning what?

I speak neither of a pushy in-your-face walk.  Nor do I reference a brash and arrogant stance that wishes to regard itself as among the rare who stand for Truth.  No, I merely inquire as to whether we have the faith and the courage and the love to launch out into the vast deep threat of the unknown in order to experience the provisional hand of God.

To put it another way, have we transformed the dynamics of His moves, (such as those of Moses, Joseph, Mary, Peter, and others), from profound to indifference?  Do we regard His teachings as personal and faith-building or do we reference them as mere Bible stories?  Has our belief privilege been stolen by the most subtle fear-traits that perpetually undermine the greatest call on earth which is to respond to the very personal activity of God among us?

I believe that I (we) have slipped into a self-preservationism that is causing the Christian fabric to unravel thread by slow thread.  Go to church is not the call from God.  Be the church is.  The difference is that the former promotes a self-development of right and wrong with a pseudo-satisfaction that our check-list is His check-list.  The latter says things like we will be in over our heads.  We will not know what to do, how to do, nor where to look.  We will be mistreated and are expected to take it.  And, also, that we are to be quite certain that God supplies for His children in ways far beyond our own calculating vision.

We are launched to live.  The cord has been cut.  Earth strategies oppose the Heaven ones.  Ours is a serious, tough, and yet rewarding choice day by day; moment by moment.  We are called to give when we want to keep, to speak when we want to go unnoticed, and to reach when we would rather hesitate.  The walk of Jesus is anything but private.  Through him, Father went public.  And we are expected to follow in his sandals?

THE SIMPLE ACT OF COMPASSION

Society at large is in a world of hurt.  Everyone has enough on their plates; even to the point of overload if not, at least, significant distraction.  To be frank about it, every person hurts significantly.  What we want to address is how to ease the pain; no, cure the burdens we each encounter.

A healthy perspective is to recognize that humanity is a composition fabric.  No one is an island; though we often seem to strive to find our space and guard it ferociously. When we are blended, however, we learn to look out for one another.  Community is to offer substantial strength.

Loneliness, on the other hand, is devastating.  We may find ourselves all alone.  We need at least one someone to help.  Good neighbors, then, like teamwork or family or group carry new health for all encompassed within the expanding populace of valued acquaintances.

From experience (observing others and my own), the strongest way to recovery from feeling abandoned or forgotten is to care for another/others.  Deep within the secret passages of our hearts is the yearn to make a difference....for someone else.  When we set our insecurities aside and wade out into the deep end of the pool to give assistance to another, our weight can seem to lift.  The simple act of compassion is all that is needed for any individual who is struggling with depression or loneliness.

The magic of God is that He noted a hurting world and waded right into the center of its deepest wounds; insult, abandonment, and even death.  He arrived with a message; I.  Understand.  Take a look at Hebrews 2:14-18 and then 4:14-16.  The life that we encounter when we give ourselves away to those who hurt is the fulfillment of what God has promised all along; if we will lose our lives we will find them.

Those who can't find life to be of meaning and purpose are the same ones who measure conversations and actions by what they want without compassion for a neighbor who is hurting every bit as much.  When we give ourselves away in sympathy toward another, we run into the very life we have always craved.

I you happen to be having a very bad day (or even life), bring such to an end by caring more about those around you.  As you lift their spirits by giving your valuable attention He will lift yours.  He promises.  That's the way...the only way.,.life works.  Stop the complaining.  Shelve the criticizing of others.  Do something meaningful.  Love your neighbor more than yourself.  You'll like the results.

EVERYTHING IS NEW AND NOTHING CHANGES

Don't you think that we live in a most curious setting?  We are caught between two very strong forces that oppose one another...all within our own person.  The flesh (outer man) and spirit (inner man) duke it out day by day.  We are in a war that drains each of us.  No one is exempt from the flare-ups and the constant jabs.

Conflict?  Oh, I would say so...and we each know so.  The flesh eventually peaks with a surge toward downhill.  Correspondingly the spirit grows in realization as well as energy and confidence.  The spirit is full of creative imagination because it possesses the vigor of a kindergartner.  Yet, the flesh increasingly merely wants to lie down and rest...a lot.  Eventually it really will.

So what I want to cheer you on about today is that the thing that never changes is that each day is packed with the new.  According to the Spirit of God, who works within our spirits, we can gain momentum in scaling the walls of impossibility and conquering struggles that wish only to intimidate.

Faith, therefore, is the mighty muscle of the inner man.  We believe from the invisible a genuine reality that the flesh can't fathom.  This is why we must not be caught doing church from flesh's preference.  We are to worship; not just do church according to the way we like it.  We are to see in those the world would regard as losers wonderful fact of potency.  Believers believe...simple enough...to see where there is no physical sight nor explanation.

Wishful thinking?  No.  Millions in the world have and are operating by such a thin thread called magnificent faith.  This is where the secrets of God come into reality within the interior of we humans.  There is the Divine connection.  And when the connection takes place everything becomes new...and the new is what never changes.

BE HIGHLY ENCOURAGED

Nothing can shut us down.  Jesus calls us to watch his every move.  Never does he resist the absolute magnitude of living.  Insult?  No flinch.  Distress?  Had to face it. Persecution?  Used it to identify.  Death?  Made it his pulpit.

Nothing can shut us down, so don't spend a lot of time sighing nor in complaint.  God is going on with and in you...and me.  We have people to reach, hearts to console, and courage to give.  We've got work to do.  The world is broken.  Only those of us who have like-wise been injured (as was Jesus) can bring healing to a society that is perpetually in the hunt for a life that really works.

The assignment is full of two things; risk and reward.  Be highly encouraged.  You are in the mix of God's fantastic scheme of bringing hope to a discouraged world.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT JESUS

Jesus is not an imaginary spookish maybe-ism for any who are bent on being churchy of sorts.  No, he stood up to religion and fought off its scammish life-sucking direction. That alone should gain our favoritism toward him.  He broke down the barriers of religious regulation and broke open common relationship with the living and active present-day Father.

While all of that is a wow in itself, one of my very favorite things about Jesus is to know how he knew.  How did he know how the woman at the well felt?  He, too and as she, was being rejected as he walked the streets of Jerusalem.  How does he know what it's like to be you; challenged by opponents, betrayed by best friends, insulted by the religious egoists, criticized by too many?  How does he know?

My favorite thing about Jesus is that he understands you and me because he waded into the very center of human hardship.  Consider as you read the gospels how he was opposed in story after story.  He learned about you and me by hurting in the very middle of where you and I hurt.  The Cross has a message as he hung from it; I IDENTIFY.  Get it?  He didn't identify with the high and mighty.  He understood broken humanity...as he was so very truly broken.

So it is with our crosses that we carry.  They are important because from them, where we hurt, we IDENTIFY with any and all around us who hurt in like manner.  Therefore, regardless of what annoying interference we are going through at any given moment, each is quite important for we are learning how others live in similar agony.

To live by avoiding pain is the worst of waste for it is our very suffering which serves as a classroom of learning how to help others...because we IDENTIFY.  You see, for the most part, we are likely to spend our efforts trying to escape our frustrations, our agonies, our injuries.  As a result, we live frustrated and in agony and full of pain because of one thing; we did not realize their value is for the direct intention of helping us to understand where others hurt and how we might help.

If we don't hurt, we are no help.  Jesus hurt so that he could say to Father, I get it!  I understand why they react the way they do because I had the very same thing happen to me; insult and rejection, pain and agony...even the way of death.  I get it, Father.  Show them mercy.

It is here, in what we believe are our negatives, that we find our value because we understand others in their negatives.  Jesus helped us and we, via our crosses, help others.  One of my favorite things about Jesus is that he understands the hills and valleys of our muddled terrain...and, with compassion, endured so that he could show us the way to meaning-full life!

HABITUAL FAITH

I wish to cheer the entire world on!  Our lands are filled with remarkable and then indescribably remarkable individuals.  Most of whom (if not all of us) are fundamentally oblivious to the dynamic of God embedded within us.  As a result I wonder if even those of a professed faith have engaged in such so repetitiously that the habit of its trek has caused our hearts to grow numb.

Of course a casual Bible student sees this in the constant contest between Jesus and the (church) Pharisees.  Tradition over Movement was the battle cry.  So it is today. Each age ushers one seemingly and eventually into the let's don't upset the apple cart mode.  One more time the church treads lightly as it develops once again for this generation an habitual faith; a belief system that calculates dos and don'ts, got dones and didn'ts over an experience with the living God.

What would you estimate is the reason that our populace is strewn with former church-goers who finally gave out; gave up on us?  My guestimate is that they just didn't find meaningful purposeful life in their congregations.  And why would this be? What would cause the absence of life in these places?  Repetition that became the directive of the congregation rather than risk of faith and launch of hope.

Habitual faith is a killer disease in the church.  It always has been.  Jesus warned us of it.  Yet, we wear its garb of comfort like old pajamas which help us to rest.  We just want things to go well.  That's all.

To all church leaders I would cheer us on to realize that we must perpetuate eyes that see what isn't yet as possibility.  Our marketing power is not who is on staff, our sermon content, our exciting programs, nor our attractive worship style.  Our marketing power is the Cross of Jesus.  And that isn't a pretty sight; so much so that we have groomed a thinking that what will attract our neighbors is a better present-day marketing scheme; anything of other than every member packing a cross.

This shift of emphasis has developed a disastrous legacy of indifference.  The Cross is the key to unlock the stingiest of hearts.  There is no other way.  Education? Activation?  Regulation?  Each of these values are not the code to the community; the church community nor the neighborhood.

Too, the distraction by elevation above the Cross of any of these three is that they can quickly become one's mini-god where engagement in such seems to satisfy the need to be active anywhere except in the territory of touching the lives of the lost around us.   We can have all three of these and still be a selfish, self-centered, self-serving group of habitual believers in what we believe in....which may be nowhere near the power of the Cross. It's just the weirdest thing; but it seems that sometimes we wish to engage in church procedures in order to avoid contact with the individuals in our surroundings.

Habitual faith sucks the life out of its carrier.  Each of us must be aware of this to help one another to develop a living, breathing, engaging, reaching spirit to bring life to our communities by submitting to authentic church life...from the Cross which is anything but habitual.

IS IT OKAY TO BE SAD?

America awakened in shock.  The feeling is that the reverberation will be more so. Emotions run in protest against some of the known and lots of unknown.  Anger drives some.  Disappointment others.  Sadness reigns.

Is it okay to be sad when we believe in God; I mean really believe in God?  Is it okay to experience being bummed over the tragedy and heartbreak that unfolds news bulletin by news bulletin?  Yes.  As a matter of fact we would be blessed as a nation if we did more of it.

Blessed are those who mourn was in the preamble of Jesus' public ministry as he spoke from lawn's podium.  Our struggle isn't that we are a nation who might mourn. Our real struggle is to live in a society which doesn't.  Mourning is heaped with hearts of love and compassion.  The indifferent don't mourn.  The selfish don't either.  And you might need to note that I don't regard the indifferent or the selfish as a they matter; but rather a we issue.

I'm not only mourning the loss and devastation smattering our nation, I'm sad that I want to fix it and yet my mind is useless mush.  Blessed are we as we mourn for God is running the system.  Our first call is to care.  This carries great challenge.  Will we care only for the victims (as seems immediately natural) or shall we have sympathy also for the creators of such havoc (as would be from the spiritual).

Sympathy?  This is the very turf that Christianity needs to flex its muscle.  Do we not realize that even the enemy was neglected, mistreated, forgotten along the way?  This present day conflict isn't about race.  Rather this is about the absence of love and joy and peace and patience toward our neighbor.  Today's demise is a deeply spiritual matter; not a fleshly contest of who's right and who's wrong.

One mourns from the spirit.  And yes, it is most appropriate to be sad.  Such is a kingdom quality which keeps the heart open to social opportunity that we might be spurred on to wage war from our crosses; not from our bully pulpits....or coffee shop chatter.

WHEN EXPERIENCING A DROUGHT OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Take a look at our land.  It is both filled and quite empty.  People, good significant people, live roller-coaster lives of ups and downs.  Families are devastated by possibly the death of a spouse or even the death of a marriage.  And then there is the rising tide of treasured moments as in births or accomplishments or graduations.  The ebb and flow of life has that perpetual push and pull that leaves us enthused and confused.

Sometimes it feels that personal encouragement seems to have hit a drought. Everyone experiences this rough time-line.  There are no exceptions.  Adam and Eve's lack did not hit a large percentage of earth's populace.  Oh no.  It captured the entire lot of us.  So, we know something about every person, don't we?  Every person encounters overwhelming darkness that discourages the heart.

Yet, this is the very place we come in.  It is on this turf that all people walk.  There is not one exception.  Famous or non, the same.  Regardless of gender or role or location or talent, every person we know battles substantial interference of doubt waves.  Oh sure, we've trained ourselves to put on that mask of doing well when in fact on certain days we are dying a slow death in the interior of an outwardly appearing impressive stance.

Here's (a very living cemetery-like place) where there is a dynamic of spiritual power that transcends both the bad news coupled with heartbreaking moments.  The inner person yearns for something that the outer shell simply cannot provide; reason to believe when all seems impossible.

Enter resurrection power.

One either believes in the resurrection from the dead or simply doesn't.  Hope hinges on this faith perspective.  If there is unexplainable, immeasurable, possibility for one extreme to be overrun by another (as in death bowing to new life), then there is not the hopeless setting.  All situations, therefore, are pregnant with new life on its way.  This is indeed great news when experiencing moments of drought.

Be encouraged.  Even the strong day of dread will produce hidden blessings.  This is the thrill of kingdom life.  God is not iffy.  His promises come into existence.  Even when experiencing the roughest of tough stuff, this is mere fuel for a productive good day...and good life.

AMERICA IS NOT STRANDED BETWEEN A HILLARY AND A DONALD PLACE

I love the political scene.  I study it, find interest in it, and enthusiastically want to engage.  Veterans fought for my enthusiasm and I remain sensitive to the privilege. And within this current mix of sound-bite jargon there are gaps of opinions which, shall we say, are polls apart?  It would seem that the political scene is anything but a pretty one.

Should any hold to a particular party, ample fodder awaits for spewing factoidal misdeeds toward the other.  (And yes, I said it.  Factoidal.  And no, it didn't pass spellcheck)  Accusation fuels blame.  Finger pointing is the acceptable sign language.  It just might be that the recent July 4th night sky was lit both by fireworks and by tempers flaring.  The battle for the Presidency indeed seems to be heated.

But before you would wade out into the accusatory river toward any one's political bent, might we Christians take personal inventory in case there might be something we are doing or not doing which contributes to the chronic divisiveness of the day?  Could we have forgotten something key in our walk that would enlighten America more empoweringly than the correct political choice?  I think we have enough work to do in our own house.

Society is in desperate need of Christian action.  While my opinion is that it certainly doesn't sense such as fact, I believe it is, indeed, extremely key to our future.  And here's why.  The political parties are snapshots of society in general; quite divided. Only Jesus knows how to close the gap; opinion against opinion, bias pushing bias, even enemy charging enemy.  He knows what to do.  Not only did he do it (successfully, I might add), he handed us the playbook.

Here's how we create harmony in the war zone.  Die for the offender.

At his crucifixion, Jesus shook the world when he told Father first thing, Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).  This is what goes on upon a cross; our crosses.  Forgiving enemies.  And we are called to carry this tool of mass-correction...each of us...for the same specific reason.  Society can't get well without a cross-carrying believer.  Yet, Christianity seems to have come down from the cross, put up its dukes, and said something to the effect, Bring it on.  

Our social system, economic vision, educational instinct, and even our political gamesmanship will not heal America.  The church as individual spiritual soldiers will. Therefore, this thrusts a serious question upon us. Will we drop our in-house swordsmanship in cutting the other various groups down or will we begin to seriously regain the purpose of carrying our own crosses that even our enemies would come to know the Living God who gives life to the dead calls into being blessings which do not yet exist?

This is what's going on.  Mankind is killing itself.  Of all times, now is one where answers are needed which will bring healing.  It can be done.  It could be done.  We must believe together in order that it is done.

America is not stranded between a Hillary and a Donald place.  America is up in arms because we churches have shifted from faith to being political; possibly much more than we realized.  Every human being needs to run...not for office...but into a God-believer who strives to die from a cross that others (even enemies) might live.  May we be among those who give life to any who have grown to think there is no more hope.

We.  Can.  Do.  This.

THE FORWARDER WE MOVE THE BEHINDER WE GET

Can it be true that each of us is our very own conflict of interest?  Being called by God to give ourselves away that others might be blessed seems to cause consternation, or heartburn, as to how.  How much, to what extent, and exactly where are only three of the immediate and pressing questions.  Can we do this after hours and if we miss an opportunity on Monday could we make it up on Tuesday are two more inquiries.

We are in such a high-speed bind.  Our want-tos far exceed our got-dones.  It would seem to me that this is not due to insincerity nor necessarily one's poor time management.  No, it seems to me that we all have one thing in clear common; absolute and constant interruption.  At times we can't seem to get to the matter at hand because more urgent matters butt in....day after day.  Truly, the forwarder we move the behinder we get.  Really.

I'm of the age (69 last month for any who forgot to send money) where I can remember that communication to those of distances away was basically in the form of U.S. Mail which took a week or two to reach it's destination.  To make a long-distance call required deep thought most likely based upon urgency.  There was no "calling up" a relative or friend long-distance just to be in touch.

Today is different.  We have--well you know what we have without me listing them--gadgets that connect us wonderfully to the entire world now.  And...the entire world contacts us while we are contacting it.  And we wonder why we are distracted?  We don't have a disease that can no longer track the incoming and the outgoing.  We have a communication glut on our hands to the extent that the forwarder we move the behinder we get.

Just now, while reading this, you fell behind in something(s).  So our mission is to catch up to a front-runner of communication...that cannot be caught.  But...the chase continues in avalanche proportion.

So what do we do?  I have one idea.  God spoke wisely when He said through the Psalmist, Be still and know that I am God.  If ever there was a time to treasure being still it would be in the center of a demanding lifestyle that gets bossy; even pushy at times.  We are invited to quit the frenzy of hurriedilistic concepts and simply shut down.  Being in demand is not a compliment.  Being still, in this day and age, is.

I have to go now.  The Price Is Right will be on soon.  Wait!  There won't be a parade in its place today will there?  Uggh!  Yet, another reason for me to worry.  And...I'm in my office writing this post...on a holiday?  This, too, should cause me even more worry.  It seems that I'm falling behind my own words as I strive to catch up.  Having completed this post I am now behinder than when I began.  That doesn't seem right, does it?

THE FORWARDER WE MOVE THE BEHINDER WE GET

Can it be true that each of us is our very own conflict of interest?  Being called by God to give ourselves away that others might be blessed seems to cause consternation, or heartburn, as to how.  How much, to what extent, and exactly where are only three of the immediate and pressing questions.  Can we do this after hours and if we miss an opportunity on Monday could we make it up on Tuesday are two more inquiries.

We are in such a high-speed bind.  Our want-tos far exceed our got-dones.  It would seem to me that this is not due to insincerity nor necessarily one's poor time management.  No, it seems to me that we all have one thing in clear common; absolute and constant interruption.  At times we can't seem to get to the matter at hand because more urgent matters butt in....day after day.  Truly, the forwarder we move the behinder we get.  Really.

I'm of the age (69 last month for any who forgot to send money) where I can remember that communication to those of distances away was basically in the form of U.S. Mail which took a week or two to reach it's destination.  To make a long-distance call required deep thought most likely based upon urgency.  There was no "calling up" a relative or friend long-distance just to be in touch.

Today is different.  We have--well you know what we have without me listing them--gadgets that connect us wonderfully to the entire world now.  And...the entire world contacts us while we are contacting it.  And we wonder why we are distracted?  We don't have a disease that can no longer track the incoming and the outgoing.  We have a communication glut on our hands to the extent that the forwarder we move the behinder we get.

Just now, while reading this, you fell behind in something(s).  So our mission is to catch up to a front-runner of communication...that cannot be caught.  But...the chase continues in avalanche proportion.

So what do we do?  I have one idea.  God spoke wisely when He said through the Psalmist, Be still and know that I am God.  If ever there was a time to treasure being still it would be in the center of a demanding lifestyle that gets bossy; even pushy at times.  We are invited to quit the frenzy of hurriedilistic concepts and simply shut down.  Being in demand is not a compliment.  Being still, in this day and age, is.

I have to go now.  The Price Is Right will be on soon.  Wait!  There won't be a parade in its place today will there?  Uggh!  Yet, another reason for me to worry.  And...I'm in my office writing this post...on a holiday?  This, too, should cause me even more worry.  It seems that I'm falling behind my own words to striving to catch up.

SEEK THE INVISIBLE

Do what you can to rely upon the Invisible today; Father, Son, Spirit, Kingdom Life. The visible bids for our attention; our constant gaze.  Visible therapeutic enterprises insist that we look deeply into all of those things which will eventually fade. Truthfully, we are called to focus upon those things not seen being fully assured that their reality is both legitimate as well as eternal.

Rather than seeking the pleasure of sight and sound today (for those attending a congregation), ponder the potential; the possibility of what can be in/for others even when you don't see it visibly. Set aside the critical eye of why some don't meet up to your standard because our standard too easily slips into that judgmental due to the visible slant.  Rather, give them a break by realizing that all of us battle in the seen/unseen realm of believing fully.

Use faith, not sight, to assess the value of the present and the future of each person near you.  Rely on prayer; that word formulation that dissipates into mid-air according to the visiblists.  Give praises with all of your heart to God who exists in Spirit presence and absorbs our love for Him.

Seek the Invisible all day long.  Speak of His mastery, His beauty, and His splendid glory.  Church isn't an attendance record.  It is, rather, an opportunity for inner man to get to do what it desires within its deepest regions; applaud God for the spectacularistic moves He makes in profound perpetuation.  This, from our invisible position, is who we wish most to become.  Worshipers.

Hey, maybe I did create a few extra words....but they have meaning.  Right?

Right?

Hello?

SEEK THE INVISIBLE

Do what you can to rely upon the Invisible today; Father, Son, Spirit, Kingdom Life.  The visible bids for our attention; our constant gaze.  Visible therapeutic enterprises insist that we look deeply into all of those things which will eventually fade.  Truthfully, we are called to focus upon those things not seen being fully assured that their reality is both legitimate as well as eternal.

Rather than seeking the pleasure of sight and sound today (for those attending a congregation), ponder the potential; the possibility of what can be in/for others even when you don't see it visibly. Set aside the critical eye of why some don't meet up to your standard.  Rather, give them a break by realizing that all of us battle in the seen/unseen realm of believing fully.

Use faith, not sight, to assess the value of the present and the future of each person near you.  Rely on prayer; that word formulation that dissipates into mid-air according to the visiblists.  Give praises with all of your heart to God who exists in Spirit presence and absorbs our love for Him.

Seek the Invisible all day long.  Speak of His mastery, His beauty, and His splendid glory.  Church isn't an attendance record.  It is, rather, an opportunity for inner man to get to do what it desires within its deepest regions; applaud God for the spectacularistic moves He makes in profound pertuation.  This, from our invisible position, is who we wish most to become.  Worshipers.

Hey, maybe I did create a few extra words....but they have meaning.  Right?  Right?  Hello?

WE ARE EXPECTING!!

I feel sure that what I'm about to tell you will be a surprise.  After all I already have three children and ten grands.  So to make such an announcement may seem rather bizarre....I know.  Who would have figured?

But I say to you that we are expecting God to work in fantastic and marvelous ways beyond anything we (all of us) have ever imagined or encountered.  Our God is the Creator, the Supplier, and the Sustainer!  We are, therefore, to be expecting amazing works from above!

However, I wonder if the excitement of expecting has been reduced to the ash heap of hoping to get by another day with no surprises.  Interruption and injury free, we have developed into a belief system that has very little bent toward expecting; we prefer to keep the normal secure.

From cover to cover the Bible presents God in a formation that is anything but safe, predictable, or confined.  Father is simply bizarre.  His followers learn to live expecting.  What will He baffle this time and reverse the next time?  Just when strong leaders figure they've got this one they find that they don't....they weren't even in the ballpark of possibility.

Where Abraham and Sarah were expecting a child at their late date, we are to be just as young in spirit to produce hope and wonder and meaning and life for everyone who crosses our path.  We must not laugh, as did Sarai, when we overhear that God has neighbors and nations to reach through our weary and worn bodies.  Rather, we are to live expectantly that many works that haven't even been thought of (let alone born yet) are available for the one(s) focused upon the sheer and bizarre possibilities of God.

After all, He doesn't seem to slow down with age.  He seems to get newer; and we are to become the same; II Cor. 4:16-18.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

Mankind has a problem.  It isn't a matter of he or she or even they.  At its most basic premise, society struggles as a we proposition.  We are all in this together.

How can that be?  Don't you see, Terry, the culprits of neglect, of irresponsibility, or even of crime?  Yes, I see it very clearly.  But what I didn't see for the earlier decades of my life was that I was guilty of the very same traits as those of whom I desperately accused.  Why is it that we have such a knack of passing the guilt-buck to others...always?

Adam and Eve sent a tremor across all continents of deep and lasting magnitude.  An earthquake hit the center of mankind.  Sin broke us open to rebellion, pride, and blame.  This story-line is printed in bold black letters across our daily newspapers. Brokenness of calamity and shame sneaks in and out of our daily thread....usually with the tag that it was brought about by the negligence of somebody else.  And, of course, our next thoughts are that they should have known better.

As old as we are, why is it that we cannot curb our criticism of another when the Bible is very clear in saying that we are precisely like the ones who irritate, even disgust, us? Why is it that we can play the Adam-and-Eve card of pointing to others for failure with seldom a thought that we are exactly like those whom we freely accuse...guilty?

Do we take the dying of Jesus upon the Cross lightly?  Shall we assume that I am deserving; but they are not?  Or shall we, instead, praise God that He would choose to die for us when we behave in the same manner as the Garden family?  It seems the latter would be the call of God.

So how do we halt the charges we freely wish to level against others; it just seems to be a compelling wave of chatter as if we hadn't even given much thought to it?  It just pops out sort of natural like.  The how is answered in the who; well, really two whos; the first one being Jesus and the second one being self.  Jesus died for everyone because no one is exempt from terrible disorder; not one person. So Jesus (1) and we (2) are the two sources who answer the bell to halt the tirade of negative claims as to those who don't seem to do life the way we would like.

Since we are all in this together, we surely must note the hopeful potential to our earth-walk.  The very fabric of forgiving one another is set in motion for a reason.  We are both more honest and then more civil.  It isn't that we condone sin.  Hardly.  It's that we live aware of our own inventory that changes the world; even the church.  And wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air for all?