I can imagine it now.

I have been in line for a while now and have heard many wonderful things said about those in front of me.  One by one they present themselves before the throne.  The King of Glory looks down on one of them with a smile on His face and declares, “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully served me by giving your time, your labor, and your financial aid to spread the gospel to what used to be third world countries.”  There are many cheers from those gathered to witness the proceedings.

Then another moves forward and Jesus says, , “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully attended many in the hospitals and nursing homes, giving them a lot of love, joy and happiness in their pain and suffering.” Again, a loud procession of cheers and applause occurs.

The person directly in front of me moves forward and the Savior of the world again declares, , “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully ministered to and fed the homeless, the addicted, and the abandoned in my Name for many years while you lived in that previous world.”  The cheers are as expected.

Then it is my turn.  I move forward, not really ready because I have heard a lot of things that I never did.  Feeding people, visiting people, loving people, these seem to be the things that have gotten the accolades so far.  I stand and look on the awesome visage of the Creator of all things and He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant–you have faithfully fought to keep the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.”

Suddenly the throne room erupts.  There is so much noise and cheering that it is deafening.  It is much louder than I had heard before and seems to go on and on.  Then, I simply cannot contain myself any longer and start jumping up and down, shouting and crying at the same time.

This goes on for a while and finally the Judge of all creation raises His hand, a huge smile still on His face, and the room starts to quiet down.  Finally He beams down at me once again and asks, ” How, exactly did you realize what was really the most important thing I left you to do, when so many did not see it?”

I’ll stop here.  If you are reading this, I guess it shows what a glutton for punishment I am.  It means I actually posted it, knowing that some will disagree and maybe take it as a belittling of their convictions.  This is not what this is about.

I was just reflecting on all the thoughts and commentaries out there that I have been reading about Christian political activism on many sites and the current hot topics on my own site about duty and I had this vision.  But I am pretty sure, no, I am certain; it did not come from God.

Again, this is not a slam on anyone’s personal convictions.  I just realize that I need to look deep inside myself and actually determine if my convictions, and where I put all my strengths and focus my efforts, really do honor our Lord.  And do they mean anything at all in the eternal scheme of things?

Merry Christmas and I

Love you all

Tags: Christ, Christmas, Creation, Creator, Faith, Giving, God, King, Love, Pain, Personal, Self, Servant, throne room, War, witness

Yesterday was a very good day.  It was my birthday and the day ended up having my wife orchestrate a small surprise gathering of friends at a local restaurant before church.  Then she brought a cake, baked and decorated to look like an open bible,  to share with my Wednesday class, which was also twice as large because of a Christmas displacement issue in our church so that another class needed to attend my own.  And anybody who knows me knows how much I like to talk about God and His Kingdom.

Yes, it was a very good day.  But it was not that many years ago that the things that went on today would just not have moved me, especially the gathering of that many people around me.  I know I have probably stated it here already, maybe even a couple of times, but I just didn’t use to like people.  Now it seems, I almost can’t get enough of the fellowship of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is also sort of what I taught and what I had in mind when I posted about the house church issue Tuesday.  It seems from reading the comments that not very many of you really knew what I was asking about.  I am no expert either, but from what I have read, the house church concept is about more than just a small amount of believers gathering together.  So while very small churches may find they practice what the concept is calling for, they have not set it up on purpose.  Most small churches would love to get larger.

It seems to be about some Christ followers not seeing a way to find authentic relationships within the structure of the modern church.  Instead, they find it necessary to stop “doing” church and start “being” the Church, at least to a few like minded believers.

When I first heard about it I thought it was probably just a new movement among the younger crowd to find a way to feel good about going to church, without having to go to church.  But now I don’t think so.  Sure, there are probably a few of these around, but from some of the things I am reading, it seems this movement is being fueled by those that are feeling disillusioned about the reality of any love being found in a lot of churches.  And the way the churches are set up, they do not push the great commission because it would hurt their model.

It seems the church model has become based mostly on a business model.  Growth is based on selling a product instead of training an army.  And the product is the church itself.  They want members, and they do not want these members to leave.  They want the amount of members to increase more than anything else and are willing to do most anything to achieve this, including obscuring the Truth, sometimes even denying it.  The modern church does not truly foster real, meaningful fellowship either.

When soldiers are in training together they know that someday they will be sent orders.  These orders will move them out of training and into the actual war.  Our churches do not want too many to leave and enter the war.  We want to build up the numbers, not the body.

True soldiers also develop a sense of camaraderie that we should also strive for.  If you’ve ever seen a group of veterans get together years after they served together you realize how truly close these guys are.  They were there for each other in a way most of us can’t imagine.

We should be the same.  We also are in a battle, not for lives in a temporary sense but in an eternal one.  We may not see torn limbs and bloody wounds, but one day we will know of the weeping and gnashing of teeth.  And even here, we all know someone, maybe even our own selves, that need the comfort of knowing someone “has our back.”

The house church model seems to be about these very things; a smaller group of believers that want to reach out and minister to each other in real loving relationships.  But with the goal of building each other up for promotion and advancement to actually leave and spread outward; taking the battle to other places by starting new fellowships and doing it all again.  Imagine that, advancing the Kingdom, instead of growing a “business”.

The reason I believe the ones espousing this model are real about their desire to love and disciple each other, and then send each other out to really advance the Kingdom, is that it seems to be a model that is focused on relationship rather than numbers and money.  It seems most of the people involved are not paid staff.  They are just Christ lovers that take the mission seriously.

It all boils down to the fact that we need each other.  Christ even prayed that we become “one” as He and the Father are “one”.  (John 17:11)  And it was because He was sending the out into the world; to conquer and destroy the works of the enemy.

I know Heath has a lot more knowledge about this.   He is actually a part of a house church.  Go to his sites here and here for more.

It does seem that a lot of us tend to “do” church when we are supposed to “be” the church, as I noted earlier.  The house church model seems to about this whole concept, this being the church.   I may be wrong and if I am, please let me know.  I am not saying that the churches out there can’t fulfill the mission either.  But we are letting a lot of souls fall through the cracks.

In smaller settings, the cracks would be fewer.

Love you all

Tags: Christ, Church, Enemy, Fellowship, God, Kingdom, Love, mission, relationship, Relationships, Truth, War, Work

“But I am an American. I am a Christian. I have a duty to God and Country.”

This is the statement that started the conversation for last Tuesday.  I did not give much background information, just posited a statement that was made on another site.  I also said that it bothered me but not how or why.  Then I gave all of you the opportunity to respond and you gave some excellent thoughts about the whole issue of duty.

Duty, as stated by one of the commentator’s, has a definition that anyone can look up in the dictionary.  I did it and most do.  When we do this we see that out of all the listings it boils down to basically two different things can be meant by the word.

It can mean a duty is something that you have to do or should do because of your job or some role that has been assigned to you.  While in the army of this nation it was my duty to fight because of the job I took and the role I was given, not to mention the oath that I took.  But it is also the duty of the janitor to sweep and mop floors.  It is his duty, in this sense of the word, because it is his job.  We tend to reserve the word duty, in this definition, for people that are a little higher profile than the janitor, but we shouldn’t.

Now the second sense, or definition of the word, is that duty is something we ought to do.  Morally, legally, or spiritually I really ought or owe something to someone.

Read the last statement again and maybe you can “foreknow” or “foresee” what bothered me about the statement.

If duty, as the statement is implying, is something I owe, then it has to be to someone or some group of someone’s.  In my view, the statement we started with has a couple of things wrong with it.  First the implication is there that being an American and being a Christian are somehow equal and can be true.  Before some of you get mad at me, I know we are Americans.  But only in the sense that we live on a certain piece of dirt not in a sense of true identity.  As people, Americans are not anything special.  I am a Christian because the One who made that certain piece of dirt, and even made us out of some of it,   chose to adopt me into His family thereby guaranteeing my eternal citizenship in the Kingdom of God. (Christianity)  And we are special people.

As one of you stated “my allegiance is also to the Lamb” and therefore cannot be to the USA.  This is a recent change in me, by the way.  I can live here, work here, raise a family here, and even fight to protect what I have here, but it is still so very temporary.  And I do not owe anything to America.

“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

This was a moving statement, provoking a sense of duty, possibly at a time when it was needed.  But it is still a load of hogwash.  (What is hogwash?)  I believe you get what I mean.

A nation, especially this supposedly great nation, is supposed to be set up to serve and represent the people in it.  Do I need to capitalize people here?  This would be a time when I could go along with the sense of owing a nation, if it was meant to owe a group of people.  But the United States is not a servant of the people anymore and according to JFK we shouldn’t even expect it to be.  This nation stopped being about people a long time ago and instead is a machine grinding out one new group of self interested parties after another.

I owe it nothing.  This country never made me, it never cared for me, and it never saved me.  This country is an it.  It is a place to live.  It is a piece of dirt.  I am paying monthly for my little piece of dirt so what else do I owe.  The ones I am buying my dirt from bought it from someone before them, who bought it from someone before them,… who stole it from someone before them, who took it from someone before them,… who parked themselves on it and claimed it as their own before them, while the One who truly owns it all just has to be laughing at our ideas about possessions.

I do not believe we owe or have a duty, as implied in the statement starting all of this, to any nation.  I am conservative in most of my values but getting more liberal in my affections every day.  I believe this is what becoming Christ like is all about.  I owe nothing to any entity but do owe all to God and also to you.

So many conservatives lashed out at every compassionate attempt at a solution to the illegal immigrant issue.  (Which has been waylaid again)  There have always been objections, and I think rightly, to any plan that lets someone come and be a citizen here if they are not willing to learn the language and forsake their allegiance to the country they are leaving.  But Christian Americans are hypocritical in this sense.  We just don’t want to forsake our allegiance to America for the Kingdom.

That seems to be because some of us have mistakenly believed America is the Kingdom of God here on earth.  But we have fellow citizens all over the world.  Some are even being blown up by American Christians right now.  America never was a Christian nation and it never will be, unless God annexes it into the New Jerusalem.  It was a nation founded on Judeo Christian values and that is that.  Freedom of religion was a guaranteed right, from the start, no matter how many of the founders were Christians themselves.  They seemed to understand what we sometimes don’t and that is, that this Kingdom we are supposed to be a part of is not a Kingdom advanced by the sword, but instead experiences growth only through loving service to PEOPLE themselves, not to a nation or any piece of dirt.

I am an American by definition based on where I live, but I am a child of the King, a citizen of The Kingdom of God, and an Ambassador for Christ and His Kingdom while he leaves me here on this piece of dirt called America.

To answer my own questions; I don’t like the statement and believe it to be false as stated, I have a duty to the God that saved me and He really only expects that as a loving duty and not coerced, and I don’t owe this nation a thing.  It owes me the protection and service that it was set up for and even that I have to pay for.  So that even proves that in one sense of the word, America has a duty to me.  It is its job.

Love you all

Tags: allegiance, America, Christian Americans, Christians, Compassion, Conservative, God, god and country, Jerusalem, Kingdom, Liberal, Love, Self, Servant, USA, Work

Okay.  It is December.  It is probably the busiest month of the year.  The month when most people try to see family, shop for gifts, throw and attend party after party, decorate the yard, the house and the tree, and so on and so on.  It is an exhausting month of celebration but not often celebration of who it is supposed to be about.

Please don’t forget Christ as you go about the hustle and bustle of this season.

But it is Tuesday so I hope you can spend a few minutes here also.  I have held this topic for a few weeks because it has, I believe, the potential to get controversial.  But then again, I’ve thought that before and was wrong.

I was reading some comments on the internet a few weeks ago and someone made the following statement.

But I am an American. I am a Christian. I have a duty to God and Country.

They went on to expand on this to say what they had to about the topic at hand, which I can’t remember, but I could not forget it so I saved it.  I am referring just to the statement above that is in bold text.  It bothers me on some level.

• What do you think about the statement?

• Do you believe it is a truthful statement?

• What is this idea of duty and do I have a duty to these two entities?

• Do I have a duty to anything or anyone else?

What do you think?

Love you all.

Tags: America, Believe, celebration, Christ, December, God, Hope, Lie, Love, season, town hall, Truth