In case you haven’t heard, another useless church slaying occurred Sunday.  A pastor was shot and killed during service and a couple of others were wounded.  The story can be found here and other places.

This was just another senseless attack in a ever increasing string that has occurred lately.  No one so far even knows what the motive for this one was.  This murderous interruption to a worship service has many in the church discussing the issues of church safety and the carrying of weapons in church services.  There are also larger issues to discuss.  So if you would, I would like to read your feedback and answers to these questions.

Do you think Jesus is okay with any of his followers shooting someone in self defense?

Do you think it would be wise for just anyone to carry a gun in church?  Would you?

If you would carry a gun, under what circumstances would you use it?

If you are against all of this, carrying weapons and using them, then what do you think is our role in protection of ourselves and others?

Finally, what caliber would Jesus recommend?

That last one is just a light hearted one meant to keep us from getting too angry in case we disagree.  But this is a very serious topic and I have read a lot of opinions already.

Care to share yours?

Love you all

One of the most amazing things about God is that he loves us the way he does.  Some people hold a belief that he made us for worship; that he actually made us to adore him.  He has the power to have made us that way or any way that he wanted, but he chose to go a different route.  He made us with free will; to really have the ability to make our own choices.

He took a risk.  Love entails risk.  There is always the chance that those that are loved will not love back.  God knew this and still took the route that he did.  He is not the self centered ego maniac that some theological worldviews paint him out to be.  This is good news for those of us that want to reach out to the skeptics of this world.  We actually have something to say against all of their arguments about a loving God doing evil nasty things.

The bible paints a picture of a God that gets hurt when we forsake him.  The idea that God is impassable is just not presented in the bible.  Our choices cause him pain, regret, jealousy, anger, and sometimes joy.  The reformed believers do not fully accept this.  Some reject it outright.  They seem to do this out of a belief that it lessens God somehow.  They believe that those of us that believe the way I do are trying to make God in my image.  This is not so.

He made us in his image.  So what does that mean?  How could we be made in his image if he does not experience emotion since we are riddled with them, driven by them, and even ruined by them sometimes?

God created us like we are because he wanted true relationships with us.  That whole idea about worship and adoration is a side effect actually.  When someone comes to really know him through a real relationship, they are going to naturally worship and adore him because of who he is.  But we can’t know this until we enter into a love relationship with him.  It is intentional on our part.

Some see love as an emotion and in some sense it is.  But really it is the lasting quality, attribute or aspect, which God has for us or wants from us.  Love is something that we determine and decide we will do.  What we call love in the beginning relationship is really attraction, or even lust.  It then turns into desire and maybe grows into care.  But if it never turns into love, agape as Paul calls it, then it probably won’t last.  And if it does not, if we are to believe the evidence, then relationships don’t last.

Ask any person that you know that has been married forty or fifty years if it was all a bed of roses.  I know a few and for most it was not.  Some of them faced and went through things that cause us to wonder why or how they ever stayed together.  The answer is simple, they made a commitment, and they intentionally kept that commitment.  In our society today we not only do not always commit, even when we do we do not necessarily intend to keep it.

When we make marriage vows today, are we saying that we are going to love, honor and cherish or are we really saying we will love until the attraction is not as strong, honor as long as we receive more, and cherish until someone or something comes along that we are more attracted to.  Even the vows we say in a marriage ceremony show the intentionality of love.  We promise “to love” not that we necessarily “do love”.

My wife and I watched Fireproof last week.  I have been letting the movies concepts run through my head all week.  There was not a lot of great acting in it but the message was powerful.  The message was that love, and marriage, is intentional.  The couple had every stereotypical thing that is wrong in marriage going on but even if we are not all going though all that they were, we still need to get the message, the concept, in our heads and our hearts so that we can turn this crisis called divorce around.  This means we must be intentional.  And we really need Jesus to be our Lord.

We must, especially as people of the Kingdom of God, do what we said we would do.  Marriage is a covenant, which is the way God intended, and covenants are not to be broken.  No matter what.  God could have broken his covenant with us long ago and we would deserve it.  But he didn’t.  He even went so far as to send Jesus to die so that we could stay in covenant with him.  The cross was intentional.

If you are married, or intending to be, watch the movie Fireproof and read the book, The Love Dare, together.  I have read most of it and it is a valuable tool to help you keep any vows you have made.  Being, or becoming more, Christlike demands that you keep your promises.

“But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.” (Jas 5:12)

Intentional.  What does intentional love really look like?  It looks like a cross.  So let your yes be yes.  Be intentional in loving.  Especially in marriage, but also in everything else you do. 

Love you all

I asked a question a couple of days ago and invited all of you to participate.  The response was not overwhelming and I kind of expected that.  The question, while simple, was a decidedly hard one to answer.  Not because most of us do not know the answer but because we are not that willing to share it.  The question was, “What is wrong with you?”

The simple facts surrounding the answer to this question is that most of us are unwilling to share with others what we feel are our deficiencies, flaws or defects.  And there are some who do not even recognize that they have any.  I know that I do and I also believe when we wake up to the fact that we have these shortcomings, we can begin to deal with them.  Further, I believe when we are transparent about them, when we share them with others in our Kingdom family, we can not only find help in dealing with them but we will find out we can help someone also.  A lot of us might think we are the only ones dealing with a certain flaw.  That is not so.  We all have them and there are a lot more of us than there are flaws.  So someone out there has the same problem that you and I have.

I am going to share one of my own here.  I am at times too confrontational.  I sometimes feel that I do not come across as the loving person that I want to become known as.  I teach a couple of classes a week at my church and I am sometimes too direct and always very plain spoken.  I might occasionally use a “big” word but it is usually because I am trying to incorporate it into my speech.  It is not to impress and definitely not to confuse.  If there is one thing I want it is that I want everyone to understand or “get” what I am saying.

I am also passionate about the things of God.  I get loud and even heated sometimes even when there is no one arguing, disagreeing, or even talking for that matter.  And I have told my class many times that I don’t care.

When I say those words, I don’t care, my wife hates it.  She is the one that cares about me the most and she does not ever want anyone to think less of me or see me in a negative light.  And I just don’t care.  She has scolded me and offered suggestions for better ways to say what I mean such as “it doesn’t matter.”  And believe me, I have tried.  But it doesn’t matter because I don’t care.

No one has to say anything to me to get me to declare this and it is not what you may think.  I blurt out those words when I think that some might have an objection to what I am saying.  I also use them when I am describing something a well known theologian or an early church father has said and I believe they are wrong.  An example would be; I don’t care what John Calvin concluded, God is not some sovereign, unloving toymaker in the sky remotely causing every act that people perpetrate on this planet.

Sure, it doesn’t matter might sound better in this instance but is there really any difference.  I don’t think so and I don’t really care if there is.  I am blunt sometimes, to the point and even a little hurtful.  I wish I wasn’t.  I have a friend, Shannon, that seems to be able to respond in a way that is not confrontational to everything and everyone.  He can comment about things that I know are directly opposite of what he believes in a way that lets you know he disagrees but you still come away with a smile.  With me it is probably a frown.

One of my flaws that I am working on is to be less confrontational and to not be quite as blunt as I am.  I am not overly concerned about this though because of one thing.  That is that my Lord and King could be blunt at times to.  I believe Jesus did not really care about Peter’s feelings when He said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” in Mark 8:33.  Or at least it didn’t matter.

Even if this is a flaw that I have, a defect in my speaking technique, it is something that I can live with while I try to change.  And as Jesus demonstrates, sometimes we just have to not care whether feelings are hurt when eternity is at stake.

When I am teaching or discussing the things that pertain to the Kingdom and I say that I don’t care it is actually because I do care.

Love you all

Today is the day that some of us celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  And today is the day that some just enjoy another holiday.  It is also a day which some try their best to ignore because they feel it is a pagan holiday or one for only those bigoted, intolerant people known as Christians.

Whatever your view, and I am sure there are some others, it is still Christmas day.  Whether you try to change it by refusing to say Merry Christmas or just ignore it, you simply cannot change the fact that a little over two thousand years ago, God took it on Himself to become one of us in the person of Jesus.  Submitting Himself to the indignity of being birthed the same bloody, nasty, helpless way that you and I were born.

If a king or a presidents or even a CEO’s son was being born today, they would be surrounded by the best of facilities and personnel, ready to attend to that special new baby.  A clean, sterile environment, cutting edge technology and only the finest doctors would be in order because of the VIP status of the newborn child.

But the King of Kings, the Lord of Glory, the Alpha and Omega, the very Creator of all came to us and was born in the cold of night, surrounded only by a stable of dirty, smelly stable animals.  Nothing clean and nothing warm except the loving arms of Mary were there for this baby who was God.

He came to be among us, to feel what we feel, to experience what we experience.  And it seems He decided to do all of this on the lowest, most common level.  Why?

He did this because He wanted to truly have a relationship with us.  He did all of this because He loves us and He wanted us back.  I am humbled just imagining it all.

I asked you what you enjoyed most of all about this holiday a couple of days ago.  There is no wrong answer to this because it is purely subjective.  And as some noted, it seems to change from year to year based on a number of things.  Family, age, level of spirituality, all of these must affect our answer.  I know for me it seems to change every year as I grow in Christ.

This year, I would have to say that the best part of Christmas is the fellowship opportunities.  As I have said a few times lately, I have a growing hunger for relationships and fellowship with those others in the Kingdom of God.  I believe it must be a sign of maturity in the faith and a necessary component of Kingdom advancement.  We do not spread the gospel or make disciples by being alone.

A lot of people, me included, have looked at Christmas in America and have knocked it and bemoaned the passing of the true celebration of Christ’s birth.  I still see all of the commercialization of this sacred holiday and am saddened by it.  But I must admit that I am not as upset as I have been in the past.  The Holy Spirit has directed me to some things that I want to share.

Christmas is becoming more and more commercial and secular.  But as I look around, I see something that I did not notice before.  That is that love is more evident at this time of year than any other.

People reach out to those in need.  Shoebox ministries to needy kids, the inevitable ringing bell and red kettle in front of Wal-Mart, families being bought food and gifts for the holiday, pleasant attitudes and well wishes in business establishments, and other small and large things that we can see going on around us, if we’ll take the time to notice.  Even the greeting of Happy Holidays, although upsetting to some, is better than the nothing we get all the rest of the year.

And all of this is being done by more than just Christians.  I have been wished a Merry Christmas by some that I can’t even imagine in a church.

I am naturally skeptical and probably a little pessimistic.  But this year, I have been awakened to the fact that there is still some good in this world; and some good people.  It just seems that after a full year of self-centered attitudes, most people let it go for a little while in December and are filled with at least some love for one another.

It has to be because of what the holiday really stands for.

As I said earlier, a little over two thousand years ago, the very epitome of true love stepped off the throne and entered into creation.  A baby named Jesus came to fulfill a rescue mission.

The wonder of it all still fills the air to this day.

I hope that you all have a really wonderful, very merry, Christmas!

Love you all