Just a question I started asking myself after the Israelis started going after Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Let's talk reality - not political mumbo-jumbo or spin, but what the deal really is.
Islamic Fascists have two goals - first, to kill all the Jews. Second, to kill you and me. Christians, Americans, all of us. That is not Newt Gingrich's view. Or Rush Limbaugh's view. It's the Fasicsts view, stated over and over and over. They are possessed by the most horrific evil we have seen embodied since Hitler. Pol Pot and the Killing Fields. They want nothing short of world-wide domination and Islamic control, with all the infidels (that's you and me, buddy) either bowing their knees to Allah or being blown away by an AK-47.
Oh, come on! We live in America! That would never happen to us here! That is hopelessly naive. We are sitting ducks. We are targets. If our government does not get serious about sealing off our borders, the terrorists could come waltzing into our neighborhoods and just start picking us off one by one.
Those who want to live a godly life will be persecuted, Peter wrote. I'm sure he could never imagine the hell the Fascists want to unleash upon us.
What would most Christians do? Would we turn tail and run? Stand firm, like the students at Columbine? I hate to say it, but we are a wimpy nation. We are, as a whole, not ready for that kind of plot against us. What would YOU do if you were driving down the street on a Sunday or Wednesday after church and, at a red light, a terrorist comes up to your car and sticks a gun in your face.
"I saw you leaving that church! You are an infidel! I will kill you dead now unless you get out of your vehicle now, bow down, and renounce Christ and pledge yourself to Allah!"
It's coming. Someday. Are you ready? Are you ready to die for your faith?
7.30.2006
We are not alone
Like it or not, we do not live in a vacuum. Garbo’s famous line, "I want to be left alone!" does not apply in the Kingdom. Paul Simon wrote, "I am a rock. I am an island. And a rock feels no pain and an island never cries." What a miserable existence! What a selfish existence. All that matters is self-preservation. The protected soul says, "Stay far away! You may not come any closer. And by this fortress I will never be wounded again." It is the trap of billions who have been stung far too often. The problem with this defensive posture is that if we do not allow our souls to be vulnerable, our hearts to be exposed, we are greatly deceived. We feel our greatest happiness will come from isolation with no risk. Truth is, this will only give us our greatest depression. For certainly great pain and heartache can come from vulnerability. But also most certainly great love and joy only comes from vulnerability.
If God has allowed certain situations into our lives - abuse, destruction, violence, just about anything an unredeemed life can throw at you - we need to go to God and ask why. It is not in the character of God to hurl oppressive life circumstances at His children just to punish us. He’s not sitting in heaven going, "Nah Nah Nah!" with his tongue stuck out. There is always a point. When my brother in the Lord Derek Levendusky laid in a sick bed in Africa, on the brink of death from malaria and a harmful overdose of treatment medication, he could have gotten bitter and said, as Job’s wife did, "I’m going to curse you now, God, so I can die. You brought me all the way over here to finish me off? Thanks a lot!". But he didn’t. In asking God why this was happening, God spoke clearly.
"Derek, didn’t you ask me to make you a soldier? Didn’t you cry out to be like me and to be usable to me? Well, are you ready to be my soldier now?"
Sometimes, God has to go to great lengths to get our attention. Some of us are so headstrong and clueless, God has to throw everything but the kitchen sink at us to get us to see that what He really wants in us is not faint or lose heart, but to GROW! God’s ultimate purpose in us is to manifest His glory. And He’ll work by any means necessary to achieve that purpose in us.
The Christians the book of Hebrews was written to were facing struggles that seemed overwhelming. They were being abused physically and verbally, their property was being stolen, persecution abounded. But the writer of the book does not let them wallow in self-pity. In fact, in chapter 12, the readers are told to EMBRACE the hard times (v. 5-6) and to endure, because there is a reward - "the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (v.11). Are many Christians lacking soul righteousness because they refuse to go through trials? Maybe a better way to say it is some Christians automatically think a trial is a satanic attack and they pray for God to take it away. When really the response is, as Derek did, to take the situation to God and ask, Lord, what’s happening? Why is this going on? What are You trying to teach me here? There’s always a lesson to be learned, an answer. It may not come immediately, but it will come. For some, it is simply individual growth. And for some it is to live out 2 Corinthians 1, to go through the crucible of pain so that God can get the glory on the other side.
Spurgeon wrote, "The temple of glory is built on the threshing floor.". How true it is. His greatest glory can come out of the hardest, toughest area. Do you think you’re immune to hardship? If the heroes of faith from Abraham to David and all in between went through tough circumstances, from God saying to kill your children to kings chucking spears at you, do you really think you’ll make it through this life with out going through it yourself?
But we run and hide from it all. It’s easier in my mind to construct this whole world where I’ve been wounded and abused and ignored. And because the whole world hates me and doesn’t appreciate me, I’m going to take my ball and go home. It seems easier to just blow off my destiny. There were times when I thought I’d be a pastor and - I’m not kidding - plan on cheating on my wife. I thought it would be cool to have this "big secret" that everyone would find out about only after I was long gone and dead. Our flesh is always looking to sabotage God’s best.
My pastor said something interesting to me recently which I had never really considered. I always assumed that to be transparent to your closest friends meant 24/7 complete and absolute openness. But looking at Jesus’ life, there were time that He wandered off alone. He went to pray to the Father. He went to struggle against His flesh to perform His work. The disciples would question each other of his whereabouts. No one would know. Then Jesus would reappear after a day or an evening. The disciples would get no answer for His vanishing act. But Jesus would dive right back in and serve and preach, recharged by the Holy Spirit.
There’s nothing wrong with solitude, being alone. Because in being alone, we’re never really alone. Jesus, of course, is always with us. And some, like me, are just typically introspective and somewhat reclusive. I like my time by myself. It stems from all the time I spent by myself when I was growing up. As an only child, it was me, myself and I most of the time. But D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says in his book Spiritual Depression that those who spend much time looking within, focusing on self, tend to become severely depressed. Because the focus is always on the self; and considering how spiritually bankrupt we are on our own, it’s no surprise we are brought down low by the enormity of the mountain of problems we may have.
God said of Adam in the early moments of Genesis, "It is not good for man to be alone.". We are meant to have companions, friends, soul mates. Certainly, He was talking about a wife in the Garden. She is the ultimate companion. This is why marriages fail so often. Because even though the man and the woman live under the same roof, they are really by themselves. Emotionally, they never fuse together. Why? Many are afraid of being hurt. Those whose spouses are that distant tend to have no friends at all. Their hearts are pleading for intimacy. Often, they’ll find that bond with a man or woman who is not their husband or wife. He/she really understands me, they say.
I know Tricia and I had a great surface relationship. We could laugh, joke, have a good time. But our depth went about as far as the relationship you have with a co-worker. You may know some details, share a deep thought or two, but you would never tell them THAT! What are you, nuts? We could never really connect. Because I liked being alone. I don’t tell anyone my feelings. You just don’t do it. Because really no one cares. They’ll just use it against you later to control you. And we spent years fighting. Her underlying thought through all the wars was, "Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on! I need you to come through for me." And mine was, "Shut up and leave me alone". Small wonder I ended up emotionally tied to contortionists on the internet and our marriage almost blew up for good.
It is not good for us to be alone. God is commanding us to risk our hearts and love radically. Speak truth from the deepest reservoirs of our hearts. It doesn’t mean we have to ooze all of our feelings all the time, wearing our hearts on our sleeves and telling complete strangers our every thought (though for a period to get over the hump, it may not be bad to error the other way). We need to engage, we need to share. It is the pathway to finding who I really am. Like Gideon, I will never become a mighty man of valor if I’m content hiding in the winepress. Paul calls us to shine like stars, as we hold out the Word of Truth. Buechner says the original glory God put in us is our "shimmering self" that cries to come out.
Let it shine, men. Let it shine.
Writer's note... Over the next few weeks, I'll be re-posting some of my favorite posts from the last year or so. Just like on TV, the summer will be full of re-runs. I'm trying to re-organize my archive and I can't get an answer on how to post certain archived articles and not others. So I guess I'll do it myself. Keep checking back to see them.
If God has allowed certain situations into our lives - abuse, destruction, violence, just about anything an unredeemed life can throw at you - we need to go to God and ask why. It is not in the character of God to hurl oppressive life circumstances at His children just to punish us. He’s not sitting in heaven going, "Nah Nah Nah!" with his tongue stuck out. There is always a point. When my brother in the Lord Derek Levendusky laid in a sick bed in Africa, on the brink of death from malaria and a harmful overdose of treatment medication, he could have gotten bitter and said, as Job’s wife did, "I’m going to curse you now, God, so I can die. You brought me all the way over here to finish me off? Thanks a lot!". But he didn’t. In asking God why this was happening, God spoke clearly.
"Derek, didn’t you ask me to make you a soldier? Didn’t you cry out to be like me and to be usable to me? Well, are you ready to be my soldier now?"
Sometimes, God has to go to great lengths to get our attention. Some of us are so headstrong and clueless, God has to throw everything but the kitchen sink at us to get us to see that what He really wants in us is not faint or lose heart, but to GROW! God’s ultimate purpose in us is to manifest His glory. And He’ll work by any means necessary to achieve that purpose in us.
The Christians the book of Hebrews was written to were facing struggles that seemed overwhelming. They were being abused physically and verbally, their property was being stolen, persecution abounded. But the writer of the book does not let them wallow in self-pity. In fact, in chapter 12, the readers are told to EMBRACE the hard times (v. 5-6) and to endure, because there is a reward - "the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (v.11). Are many Christians lacking soul righteousness because they refuse to go through trials? Maybe a better way to say it is some Christians automatically think a trial is a satanic attack and they pray for God to take it away. When really the response is, as Derek did, to take the situation to God and ask, Lord, what’s happening? Why is this going on? What are You trying to teach me here? There’s always a lesson to be learned, an answer. It may not come immediately, but it will come. For some, it is simply individual growth. And for some it is to live out 2 Corinthians 1, to go through the crucible of pain so that God can get the glory on the other side.
Spurgeon wrote, "The temple of glory is built on the threshing floor.". How true it is. His greatest glory can come out of the hardest, toughest area. Do you think you’re immune to hardship? If the heroes of faith from Abraham to David and all in between went through tough circumstances, from God saying to kill your children to kings chucking spears at you, do you really think you’ll make it through this life with out going through it yourself?
But we run and hide from it all. It’s easier in my mind to construct this whole world where I’ve been wounded and abused and ignored. And because the whole world hates me and doesn’t appreciate me, I’m going to take my ball and go home. It seems easier to just blow off my destiny. There were times when I thought I’d be a pastor and - I’m not kidding - plan on cheating on my wife. I thought it would be cool to have this "big secret" that everyone would find out about only after I was long gone and dead. Our flesh is always looking to sabotage God’s best.
My pastor said something interesting to me recently which I had never really considered. I always assumed that to be transparent to your closest friends meant 24/7 complete and absolute openness. But looking at Jesus’ life, there were time that He wandered off alone. He went to pray to the Father. He went to struggle against His flesh to perform His work. The disciples would question each other of his whereabouts. No one would know. Then Jesus would reappear after a day or an evening. The disciples would get no answer for His vanishing act. But Jesus would dive right back in and serve and preach, recharged by the Holy Spirit.
There’s nothing wrong with solitude, being alone. Because in being alone, we’re never really alone. Jesus, of course, is always with us. And some, like me, are just typically introspective and somewhat reclusive. I like my time by myself. It stems from all the time I spent by myself when I was growing up. As an only child, it was me, myself and I most of the time. But D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says in his book Spiritual Depression that those who spend much time looking within, focusing on self, tend to become severely depressed. Because the focus is always on the self; and considering how spiritually bankrupt we are on our own, it’s no surprise we are brought down low by the enormity of the mountain of problems we may have.
God said of Adam in the early moments of Genesis, "It is not good for man to be alone.". We are meant to have companions, friends, soul mates. Certainly, He was talking about a wife in the Garden. She is the ultimate companion. This is why marriages fail so often. Because even though the man and the woman live under the same roof, they are really by themselves. Emotionally, they never fuse together. Why? Many are afraid of being hurt. Those whose spouses are that distant tend to have no friends at all. Their hearts are pleading for intimacy. Often, they’ll find that bond with a man or woman who is not their husband or wife. He/she really understands me, they say.
I know Tricia and I had a great surface relationship. We could laugh, joke, have a good time. But our depth went about as far as the relationship you have with a co-worker. You may know some details, share a deep thought or two, but you would never tell them THAT! What are you, nuts? We could never really connect. Because I liked being alone. I don’t tell anyone my feelings. You just don’t do it. Because really no one cares. They’ll just use it against you later to control you. And we spent years fighting. Her underlying thought through all the wars was, "Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on! I need you to come through for me." And mine was, "Shut up and leave me alone". Small wonder I ended up emotionally tied to contortionists on the internet and our marriage almost blew up for good.
It is not good for us to be alone. God is commanding us to risk our hearts and love radically. Speak truth from the deepest reservoirs of our hearts. It doesn’t mean we have to ooze all of our feelings all the time, wearing our hearts on our sleeves and telling complete strangers our every thought (though for a period to get over the hump, it may not be bad to error the other way). We need to engage, we need to share. It is the pathway to finding who I really am. Like Gideon, I will never become a mighty man of valor if I’m content hiding in the winepress. Paul calls us to shine like stars, as we hold out the Word of Truth. Buechner says the original glory God put in us is our "shimmering self" that cries to come out.
Let it shine, men. Let it shine.
Writer's note... Over the next few weeks, I'll be re-posting some of my favorite posts from the last year or so. Just like on TV, the summer will be full of re-runs. I'm trying to re-organize my archive and I can't get an answer on how to post certain archived articles and not others. So I guess I'll do it myself. Keep checking back to see them.
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