Hidden Lamps

How has Yahweh called and gifted you - and what are you doing with it? Stories and warnings abound throughout scripture about people whom Yahweh has called and whom initially respond and then, for whatever reason, walk away, turn their back, refuse obedience to the call. Jesus (who, by the way and in case you were unaware is Yahweh) even speaks to this in Matthew 21:31 and following where two sons are asked to go and work in the field. Still others may fall into complacency, others allow the enemy of our souls to distract us, life situations not grieved well or resentments or a laundry list of things that make our surrendered life about us and turn us from our call - and we hide our lamps under a bushel basket. We have been given much, and so much is required of us and what do we do with it? If we refuse to walk in the call, we will have it taken from us. I am going to walk through several blogs about what I believe God is speaking through several images from scripture.

There was a man named Saul, and when the people clamored for a king refusing Yahweh as their king, the Lord had the prophet Samuel anoint Saul as king to lead over Israel. Saul began the work well, but faltered, and it wasn’t about his behavior, it was about who held the throne of Saul’s heart. In truth it was Saul’s failure to follow the commands and leadership of Yahweh, he took matters into his own hands. It was Saul forgetting who was really the strength of Israel. He became as bad as the people who clamored for a king in believing that it was he who was the true king over Israel. Power went to his heart. Samuel says to him “But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.” (1Sam 13:14 - NIV) In chapter 15, we see Saul directly disobey Yahweh’s command through the prophet Samuel. Saul has the kingdom ripped from his hands not because of what he did but because of his disobedience of heart. It is here we find the oft quoted scripture “to obey is better than sacrifice” as Saul tries to deflect responsibility by claiming that he just did it to offer a pleasing sacrifice - as if Yahweh was incapable of seeing past that and into Saul’s heart. In 15:12 we see that Saul has set up a monument “in his own honor.” Even in his “repentance” Saul’s heart shows through: “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel...” (1Sam. 15:30 - my emphasis). Saul recognized his own skills and forgot who they were from and for what purpose, to glorify Yahweh not Saul. Saul forgot who it was about, and it broke the heart of Yahweh. The broken heart of God, however, did not keep Yahweh from carrying out his own plan for his people. There are consequences to rebellion. He removed the blessing and from one whose heart was not aligned with his, and he called another. As one lamp was hidden, God set another one on the hill.

How does this strike you? Where are your gifts? Are you allowing anything to keep you from glorifying Yahweh? How is your heart?

Next time: The next lamp - David

Proving God?

I am a Biology teacher. I am a Worship Pastor. Its amazing how many people think these are mutually exclusive terms. "Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in creation, or is it intelligent design?” I get questions like this all the time. Lots of times I want to answer like Jesus did: “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine” then ask them why they don’t demonstrably care for the poor and oppressed in society. You see, that’s the rub. We spend so much time arguing points that don’t matter and we lose sight of what Jesus really wants - for us to have honest relationship with him and to behave like we are part of his family, and I don’t mean to rebel and be the black sheep of it or to be a spoiled little brat who wants everything our way. The Bible was never intended to be a science book. Is there science in it, yes; there is more history than there is science, but its not even a history book. Certainly poetry abounds in the Older Testament, and those books are intended to be poetry, but it is poetry about Yahweh and His activity in our lives. My biology texts locate scientists in time and geographically, but it is neither a history nor a humanities book. Do I believe in evolution? That’s not the question for a scientist. The question is do I have empirical evidence enough to support something or not - its not about belief, its about evidence. I could go into a long diatribe about how evolution is simply the shift in allele frequencies within a population, and that we have real world proof of that, and that the whole speciation argument is not as clean, but that’s not the point. Don’t hear me saying I don’t believe scripture, you’d be way off base there. I could argue science and scripture all day long, but that won’t change anybody’s mind, and that is the point. We need to learn the lessons of scripture as God intended - and those lessons are not found in natural science.

I want to preface this paragraph with the understanding that I am not arguing either side of a literal or figurative reading of the following stories, I am proposing what I believe are more important issues. Take Adam and Eve: in my humble opinion, this is way more about how a loving God acted to have relationship with us and how we chose our own way. By choosing to be "like God," we really messed up life in paradise. It is way more about how God restored relationship than it is about dust and ribs. It is also about how, even at the earliest of our choices of disobedience, God redeemed, in a highly prophetic manner, and by that kept us from bondage to ourselves and to sin in the garden, guiding us to the worship of Him instead of ourselves. Was the Exodus story more about plagues and miracles or about God freeing his people from bondage and oppression - and giving us the option of worshipping Him? The "why" is more important than the "how." Follow Exodus with story after story of us believing we were “god enough” and doing things our ways, ignoring Him. The story turns to God intervening when we chose his way instead of our own and once again, you guessed it, freeing us from our self imposed bondage and into life and freedom in Him. Even when Yahweh applied discipline to His rebellious children, He had already provided the redemption. Yahweh or Yeshua, the story is the same because the God is the same. God loves us enough to let us choose, though He may discipline us when we need it, but it is always His sacrifice that provides a way for redemption and restoration into positive relationship with Him. So is scripture about plagues and miracles, of history and poetry, of Arks and fire from on high? Well, yes - and no.

We do not need the Bible to tell us THAT God is, rather we need it to tell us WHO God is and that He has done everything, even in light of our obstinance,  to have relationship with us. I do not believe God cares if we can “prove” Him or not, I think if we could prove He exists or that He doesn’t, someone would already have done so. The intent of scripture has never been to reason God’s existence to us, but to reveal His desire for relationship with us.

Upward Prayer

"God doesn't hear us because we are obedient, He hears us because of the Atonement."

- Oswald Chambers   

How many times does our prayer seem like a "Honey do" list that we present to God? We dump all of our cares down before God and say "You do it!" Then we immediately have 17 different reasons why God won't answer. "I haven't been that obedient lately, why should he care?" or "If I'd do this or act like that, then God will..." It doesn't take much effort to see that this kind of thinking puts the responsibility for answered prayer in our hands - how foolish is that? If we could have handled those things on our own, would we have brought it to God in the first place? This kind of prayer is what gets us put off with God because it isn't about Him - its about us. The problem with this is that, while God wants us to bring our intercession to Him, prayer should be more about deepening our intimacy with Him, to receive more of His revelation for us.

When we pray in intimacy with God, our prayer direction is changed - it goes upward instead of inward. When Chambers talks about intimacy, he speaks to “Your will be done.” We must not say this in depressed resignation that nothing we can say will change things in any way, that we are beholden to a capricious master who will do what He wants no matter what. Instead, it is about submission, not in defeat, but in a true understanding of His right grasp of all that we speak about and our limited understanding. God raises each of us up for His purpose, and through intimate prayer we learn what His purposes are more clearly.  “The difficulty with the majority of us is that we will not seek to apprehend the vision; we get glimpses of it and then we leave it alone.” Rather, we need to pursue God in His vision so that we may truly grasp what it is He has for us to be and to do. 

As a leader, without fully understanding His vision, how can I bring others to that vision? I can’t, so I need to pray, to pay attention. When I first sensed that God wanted me to begin leading our church into prophetic worship, I understood that much, then I left it alone. Maybe I was too busy doing the week to week work of worship that I neglected the vision. Chambers says “Interest is natural, attention must be by effort.” I need to take the time to truly pay attention and so gain more fully the mind of Christ here.

A Cunning Avoidance

To preface this blog, I realize it has been nearly a year since I last posted a blog. Frequently I have gone long periods between writing and then apologized for my lack of postings. I was in Chicago this January for a class and during that time we did an activity that, to make a long story short, made me aware that I am urged to write when I have been more fully and intimately engaged with God. The last year or so has been hectic and I have been remiss in creating intentional time to take sabbath time but have had my life filled with stress and busy-ness. I realized that while I don't journal my thoughts as such, I am inspired to write in blog form when I feel God is speaking to and through me. I have been guilty of being so engaged in activity, both in the church and in my teaching that it may have become "...a cunning avoidance of spiritual concentration in intercession." (Chambers) Of course it is not intentional, but the impact has been the same. And so I return with the following blog. 

Do You Have Ears?

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Revelation 3:19-22

This week we head into what is known as "Holy Week" in the church. In some ways, what we remember this week is a microcosm of what I've been talking about in this series on Laodicea. As Laodicea may have seen it, there is the triumphal entry, some lag time, community time, then a turn, because things didn't turn out exactly how we thought. To Laodicea, the church that began well but then got distracted by their own goals and desires and perhaps the every day, finding that what they thought would match their ideals turned out not to, so they refused it; "We are rich and in need of nothing" (from God). God's reply to them, "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire..."

But what does it look like from God's perspective? Jesus told the apostles to go get the donkey upon which he would enter the city. That should have been the first clue that Jesus was not what many wanted Him to be in this "triumphal" entry. You see, a donkey is a symbol of one who comes in peace. Had Jesus ridden in on a horse, now there would be the image they wanted. A horse was a symbol of a war won, a conquering hero. Still they lauded Him as a king, but they still held to their belief that Jesus would be the conqueror and not the redeemer/reconciler bringing peace. And then He did nothing. For days, nothing. So they turned back to their own needs and desires and wrote off God. But God did not write them off. He gave them one more time to understand, the last supper. In essence, He once again offered gold refined by fire, His body and blood, a sacrifice for redemption. Some of those who had spiritual ears heard, others heard and were unsure of what it meant, and Judas heard that this Jesus was not the one He wanted. "His Jesus" would have been something else. And so he refused. But God was not done. Through pain and suffering and death, he sacrificed Himself for us, and then completed the salvation event through His resurrection, His defeat of death. And He gave us the opportunity to be one with Him.


So wake up from your sleep, Laodicea! Though we rejected Him time and again, He still says to us: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock..." and even Laodicea has the chance to repent and return and join in the victory won over spiritual death and into life in community with our father, as victorious heirs: "To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne..."

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Whitewashed Tombs

A few years ago on vacation, I entered First Mega-Church of the Love of Jesus and it was marvelous. Glass, lots of light, welcome center in the lobby (nobody came and greeted me, by the way) right across from the bookstore with posters of the pastor and his newest book release. Walking into the auditorium, I mean sanctuary, I took my seat up front. The music started, lights and sound were amazing. In fact, the worship team did everything "right,"  but there was something wrong with the sound. No, not the sound from the platform - that was fine. It was the sound from the congregation - or should I say the lack of it. It felt like a worship concert and not a worship service. It felt lifeless, like the congregation was going through the motions. It was, in fact, disturbing to me. There was no community prayer time, no attempt to connect the congregation. Follow that with another sermon about how "if you follow these steps, and here's how I support them from scripture..." and you have a very man-centered and not God centered experience. Where was the spirit? It was a cultural event, something we do because we were born in America between the '40's and the '70's.

A few months later, I was in another church with a membership of over 10,000. I walked in, and it looked very similar. There was a welcome center, and kiosks to tell of all of the small groups available, and I was greeted personally. I entered the sanctuary, referred to by the congregation as "the family room." Lighting, sound, platform, all the bells and whistles like the other church, even a cool follow spot that tracked an infrared device attached to the pastor's collar. They too "did it right." But something was very different -  the sound from the congregation was there - it was engaged, it was connected, it was worship! There was a prayer time for the community, not necessarily an altar call, but it included the option for people to respond to the movement of the Spirit - and the Spirit was moving.

So how does this connect to the title and to the series on Laodicea, the lukewarm church? Do not hear me saying that I am opposed to large churches, I am not. Its about what happens inside churches, large or small. Even ones that like the former one I described can be used by God as an entry point for new people, but it is about what happens after that. It should be fairly obvious if you "have ears to hear." You can look great on the outside, the trappings of worship can be there, but you can still be dead inside, Spiritless, powerless. It's not about what it looks like on the outside - it's what is happening on the inside, both on a church level and on a personal level. The Spirit does not come in, power is not unleashed because of appearances. It happens because people are connected, on a deep level, to their God. Here are two very  similar looking "Mega-Churches" but with dramatically different worship experiences. They both followed a model described by Sally Morgenthaller in her book "Worship Evangelism,"  but with a different slant. The service was not necessarily "Seeker Sensitive" in the second church, but very much so in the former. In the latter worship was focused on the movement of the Spirit in the family.

In a conference a few years ago, Sally announced that she was deconstructing her book because it wasn't really working. Then people argued with her about that - they were getting people in. But what were they doing with them? Its the whole milk vs. meat discussion:

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food.

Heb. 5:12 NIV

Laodicean churches are milk-fed churches. Lukewarm comes easily from an entry level understanding of the scriptures yoked to long-time attendance. When the early movement of the Spirit wanes because people are not discipled well and they are distracted by the world's cares, and not focused on God; when church becomes a place to go and not a place to grow, when we put God into a compartment of our lives and do not make Him the center of our lives, we become lukewarm. The Word of God is still revolutionary, still rings out against the cultural sensitivity of our ears. When we back away from the message because we are afraid to make people uncomfortable, because we are afraid that we might be labeled "intolerant" where Scripture speaks against sin, because we fear we may lose people from the congregation, we water down the message and we become lukewarm. Its comfortable, but its powerless. 

God will not have His Word come back void, so He says that to be lukewarm, to be fence sitting "Christians" is to be spewed out. God is powerful, His Word is powerful, culture changing, not culture absorbing; And it goes way deeper than appearances.

At Ease, Church

The church in America today, at least the one most non-churched people see, is one of ease. It is a cultural construct, just something people do. It doesn't seem to have much impact in changing the life of the churched people that non-Christians have experienced. You go in, have a great light and music show, someone talks to you about how much better, more blessed that your life will be if you just follow these steps, and "oh, by the way, here are some verses from the Bible that happen to support my points." Then we go our way and live out the other segments of our lives - for we are rich and have need of nothing.

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17 NIV)

And those to whom God would have us bring His word see right through us; So we lose the power to impact our world.

As I logged in to the blogspot this morning, I noticed the scripture verse of the day posted, it was Phillipians 1:29 (NIV)

For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ 

not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him

So what does "suffering" look like? The aesetics took it literally and deprived themselves of pretty much everything. I believe that, taken in the context of Phillipians, suffering means that we stand firm in the Gospel, no matter how we are opposed. For us in America today, there is not much in the way of physical opposition, but rather it is and intellectual or societal opposition. So how do we stand? Do we stand by the Gospel or do we become "tolerant" of things that scripture speaks against so that we don't ruffle any feathers and are considered enlightened? God has always been God and has not changed His commands in our lives, though it is not about the rules but about right relationship with Him. Today we struggle with that, we want it both ways, we want the benefits without the submission to the one who gives us the blessings. This is not a new issue. On Sunday mornings we are studying Hosea. It is odd that, as they say, the more things change the more they stay the same. In Hosea 10:2, scripture says "their heart is deceitful." The Hebrew word translated deceitful is hlq or halaq. This word can mean both smooth, as in a smooth talker, or divided, not being of one heart or mind. It's a really long story, Hosea is, but very informative for where we are today. God's people wanted both Yahweh and Baal, in fact, they called Baal, "Baal-Yahweh." And you wonder why God is so hard on adultery? But that's another story. In the words of Pastor Win, they wanted the blessing but not the blesser. 

So do we. we want the benefits without the commitment to be who God asks us to be. Just in case you wondered, God doesn't want us to be "rule followers" first, He wants us to be Yahweh followers. Israel, and religions ever since, have tried to boil God down to following rules, which is both easier and impossible at the same time. It's easier because we can feel if we can balance enough obedient behaviors against our disobedience we can feel good - even superior. It's impossible because we can never meet all of the rules (hence the need for a savior?) - and so it has to be about relationship, not rules, and relationships are hard. We divide our hearts still, we compartmentalize our faith to Sunday and Wednesday, and then we have the rest of our lives to live "normally." We become Laodicea because we want it both ways. We want the blessing without the blesser. We want to feel good, because that's what our world tells us we want. In the words of Paul to the Phillipians though, we need to take a stand for the Gospel:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit contending as one man for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved - and that by God. (Phil. 1:28-29 NIV)

So instead of "Church, at ease" with little to no impact, we need to be "Church at attention," focused, undivided, one in the Spirit. Then, instead of lukewarm impotence, we'll have the hot potency in Yahweh that changes the world.