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Category: John (Page 1 of 31)

Unity Begins with Me

April 22, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I’ve read an excellent article this week that I want to share with you today. The piece is written by Jeanie Shaw, affiliated somehow with the Common Grounds Unity group in California, a Restoration Movement organization working for increased harmony between our three Stone-Campbell branches. It’s a quick two-page read about how our historical Church of Christ hermeneutic has shaped us to be divisive and fractured, instead of together and unified.

Here’s an excerpt:

“I grew up reading the Bible too often as a rulebook, a blueprint that promised clarity and safety if I interpreted it correctly. Like many from my Restoration heritage, I was taught that unity came from agreement–agreement produced by correct interpretation. Without realizing it, that belief formed a judgmental lens. I believed I was being faithful, when in reality I was often rigid, narrow, and inwardly critical of perspectives that differed from my own.”

Shaw tells the story of how her hermeneutic shifted and how that impacted her relationships with her three older sisters. When she began to understand the Bible as a revelation of the heart of God, she began to see that her unity problems within her church and among her sisters started with her.

“I began to understand that Jesus was not calling us to uniformity, but to relational love rooted in the very life of the Trinity. I began to see that the glory Jesus speaks of in John 17, his glory he has given to us, is the glory of humility, self-giving love, and making room for the other, not the glory of being doctrinally precise. This shift in hermeneutic reshaped my soul. It softened me. It unsettled my certainty. It humbled me in ways I didn’t know I needed. It taught me that Scripture is not a weapon for judgment, but a window into mercy. And in that softened place, I noticed my sisters and others differently.” 

Oh, it’s a good article. Here’s the link. 

I talk to preachers and congregational leaders all over the great state of Texas and it is clear to me that the same issues of tribalism and division, suspicion and conspiracy, that are plaguing American society are also infecting our Lord’s Church. The same impulses and (mis)understandings that are ripping our culture apart are also doing severe damage to the Body of Christ. And we in the Churches of Christ might be more susceptible to it because of our historically awful constitutional reading of Scripture.

At the very least, this article could give you some insights and language for conversations you might be having in your own church. In some cases, it might even be something you could forward to a brother or sister who might be open to reflecting on their own roles and responsibilities with the issues they’re having in your congregation. Or, maybe you need to be introspective about the part you’re playing in whatever divisions might be forming in your church. After all, as Shaw writes, unity is not guaranteed by perfect agreement; unity is formed in the heart. Unity begins with me.

Peace,
Allan

 

Receive the Holy Spirit

March 25, 2026 / / 0 Comments

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And, with that, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” ~John 20:21-22

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. I am sending you to do the things I’ve done in all the ways I’ve done them. I’m commissioning you to heal the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God. I’m charging you to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile and love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

We do not have the abilities on our own to do what Jesus did in the ways he did them. We are the Body of Christ, the real, physical, flesh-and-blood presence of Jesus in this world. That’s the call. That’s the charge. That’s the whole point of the Church. That’s the mission.

But how?

We can’t.

He knows. He breathes on us and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit transforms our inabilities. God’s Spirit teaches us things we could never come up with on our own. The Bible says no one can even make the Christian confession, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit transforms our inabilities and gives us the gifts and the powers to do things we just can’t do by ourselves.

“The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” ~John 14:26

“Do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.” ~Mark 13:11

No one naturally loves his enemies. No one naturally turns the other cheek. Nobody naturally lays down her rights or would rather be wronged than fight. But Jesus says those are the things that separate his followers from just good people. Those are the things that are required if we are to be his Church. So the Holy Spirit infuses us with the power to do it. The Spirit forms in us the character traits we need to live like our Lord. He gives us strength so we can follow his way of weakness. He gives us power so we can take care of the helpless. He gives us peace so we can endure the hostility.

If being a Christian is just about being nice and giving to charity and not cussing too much, you don’t need the Holy Spirit for that!

But the Church is following Jesus. And you can’t really follow him–I can’t, you can’t, we can’t–without the fellowship of the Spirit who transforms our inabilities and provides us the power to live like people without the Spirit don’t. Can’t.

The Holy Spirit will teach you. The Holy Spirit will remind you. The Holy Spirit will give you.

And it takes time. This kind of transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process. Sometimes it feels like it’s happening and sometimes it doesn’t feel like anything is happening. And it’s hard to measure. God doesn’t send out quarterly reports. But we know his Spirit is working on us. We know we are being changed.

“We all reflect the Lord’s glory and are being changed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” ~2 Corinthians 3:18

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The 25th Annual Four Horsemen weekend for me and the three men God has used–is still using!–to shape me the most begins with lunch tomorrow at Dan’s home in Garland and then two nights of camping at Cooper Lake in East Texas. I thank God for these three great friends: for Dan’s unquenchable encouragement and contagious hope, for Kevin’s curiosity and reflection and everlasting support, and for Jason’s constant consistent in-the-trenches-with-me brotherly love. I can’t wait to see these guys. We will mercilessly rip each other to shreds and selflessly lift one another up to the Lord in prayer. We will eat good food, throw rocks at raccoons, hike the lakeside trails, exaggerate our stories, one of us will almost be killed, and we will gut-laugh the whole time.

Twenty-five years. The Silver Soiree. Kevin, we might have to revive the historic Chilean Sea Bass. And stop right there.

Peace,
Allan

Body of Christ: Incarnation

March 17, 2026 / / 0 Comments

In the beginning, our God spoke words into the darkness and chaos to create light, to create the heavens and the earth. Our God spoke powerful words from a smoking mountain in the middle of the desert to bring forth a holy nation, his sacred people. Our God spoke words through his prophets in Israel–words of truth and grace, comfort and encouragement, judgment and mercy and love.

And God’s words were not enough. Words are never enough. So God’s Word became flesh. God’s Word became a body.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” ~John 1:14

The holy Son of God has a body. We know Jesus has a body–a real, physical, flesh-and-blood body. Jesus ate and drank, he slept and wept, he walked and talked, he worked and played, he taught and prayed in a real skin-and-bones body. He bled real blood. He suffered bodily pain. And he died a real, physical death. Jesus died.

And when God’s Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the grave, he raised him to life in a resurrection body–a real, physical body. Our risen Lord Jesus, in his real resurrection body, was recognized by everyone who knew him. He ate and drank with his followers, whether he was invited or not. He walked and talked with them, he taught them and prayed with them. It was Jesus’ real, physical, flesh-and-blood body that proved to them he was really alive. It was remarkable.

What’s even more remarkable is that our ascended Lord Jesus is reigning right now today and forever at the right hand of the Father in heaven, but he still has a real, physical, flesh-and-blood body on this earth. Jesus still insists on being skin-and-bones present in this world. Jesus has a body. He still does.

It’s us! It’s the Church! We are the Body of Christ!

Through us, by his Church, our Lord Jesus wraps his real, physical, tangible, concrete, flesh-and-blood presence around the whole world. Today, the physical, skin-and-bones Body of Christ lives and breathes and moves and acts in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the utter ends of the earth–even to West Texas!

That’s us. The Church.

Now, you’ll hear people say sometimes that Jesus never intended to start the Church. These are mostly well-meaning people, I think. They’ll say Jesus was a holy man; they’ll even say he’s the Son of God and the Savior of the World, but he never wanted to start what we call the Church.

Baloney!

That was his plan all along, from the very beginning of the story. Jesus started the Church when he called together that first group, that first body of twelve apostles. The Jesus Movement was always a corporate, social movement–it was never just a collection of religious individuals. The Church was always meant to be the Body of Christ. That’s the way Jesus meets people today, how Jesus interacts with people now–through his Church.

It’s not just a metaphor. This is about Incarnation. This is about who Christ is and who we are in him and what it means for the risen and reigning Son of God to remain physically present in this world through a people.

Jesus’ body, his physical presence on this earth, is the Church. They are inseparable. You can’t have Jesus without his body. You can’t know Jesus without his body. You can’t be in a relationship with Jesus outside his body. Jesus is the Church; the Church is Jesus. Seriously. That’s not just how the apostle Paul sees it (1 Corinthians 6:15, 10:16-17, 12:12, 12:27; Ephesians 1:22-23). That’s the way Jesus sees it. This is how Jesus talks about it. This is how he always planned it to be.

Saul’s on the road to Damascus when the risen Christ appears and blinds him with his divine light. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:1-19) Saul’s thinking, “I’m not persecuting you, Jesus; I’m arresting all these so-called Christians who are blaspheming Scripture.” But Jesus makes it clear that if you mess with the Church, you’re messing with him.

When Jesus sends his disciples out in Luke 10, he commands them to do the same things he’s been doing. “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near!'” (Luke 10:9) Then he adds, “The one who listens to you listens to me; the one who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16). Jesus says the exact same thing in Matthew 10:40. He says that he and the Church are functioning in the same way. Jesus sends his Church as his body on earth to do all the things he did: “I have given you the authority!” (Luke 10:19)

On that last night, at dinner with his gathered followers, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing” (John 14:12).

And we do! We heal the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God! And we turn the other cheek and we go the extra mile and we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Why? Jesus says, “So you can be like me. So you can become sons and daughters of our Father in heaven.”

When we forgive the ones who sin against us, people see Jesus. When we’d rather be wronged than to fight for our rights, people see Jesus. When we sacrifice and serve, when we consider the needs of others more important than our own, people will meet the Lord Jesus in us.

The Church. The Body of Christ.

Peace,
Allan

No Gift to Bring

December 29, 2025 / / 0 Comments

What an indescribable joy to have all the girls, all the sons-in-law, and all the grandsons for five nights and parts of six days over Christmas. We ate our favorite foods, watched the right movie on the correct night, worshiped together at GCR, walked the lights at Centennial Park, gave and received generous and fun gifts, survived a broken garage door and a busted exterior water faucet, played ping-pong, fed the boys their first ever bites of Blue Bell Cookies n Cream, and gave ourselves headaches laughing so hard during five rounds of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.

I thank God for our family and for the time he gives us to spend together. Blessings upon blessings of his grace. Thank you, Lord.

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The lyrics to The Little Drummer Boy are sparse. What words we have are so crowded out by all the “pa-rum-pum-pum-pums” that it’s hard to tell what’s really happening. But when the young boy peers into the manger, the newborn King he sees causes the drummer to say, “I am a poor boy, too; I have no gift to bring.”

We’ve all experienced that moment. We begin to seriously consider Jesus, maybe for the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time ever. We seriously seek Jesus. And something happens. We believe. Really. We understand. Truly. Something clicks. The dots are connected. The light bulb flashes on. And you realize your bankruptcy is totally exposed. You really see Jesus and you really comprehend his glory and you look at yourself and realize, “I am broken. I am empty and poor. I’ve got nothing to bring this King that even comes close to what is due him. All I have is this drum.”

Like the little boy in the Gospels who approaches Jesus and says, “All I have is my lunch, two loaves and five tiny fish.”

Like the widow and her two mites. Jesus says she gave more than all the others combined.

That’s us. We’re the ones who feel completely inadequate and, in some sense, we always will. When we see the King and we understand exactly who he is and his eternal significance, we can’t help but sense our own frailty. Our own poverty. All we have is this drum. What in the world could ever be enough for this King? I’ve just got this drum.

So you ask. “Do you want that? Do you want this stupid drum?”

And Jesus says, “Yes. Bring me your nothing. Play your drum.”

So you play it for him. You play your best for him–declaring that you are small, acknowledging that you are weak, knowing that he doesn’t need you or what you have or what you do. But with all that you are, with every ounce and speck of the nothing you have, you are giving it to him. Like Psalm 103, you are praising the Lord with all your inmost being! You are giving it to him!

“Then he smiled at me; me and my drum.”

The eternal King of Glory, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, comes here to us as a helpless flesh-and-blood human baby. He put aside his power and his status and his position to give to us. By his life of love, his sacrificial death, and his glorious resurrection. our King gives us forgiveness, he reconciles us to a righteous relationship with our God and with one another, he gives us his divine peace and joy and life. He gives us abundant life, life to the full.

“Apart from me you can do nothing… Remain in my love… I am telling you this so my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete… You are my friends… I have called you friends… You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last.” ~John 15:5-17

Without Jesus, you and I have nothing. We are nothing. But because of Jesus, because he came, because he was born in that stable in Bethlehem on that starry night, because of him, we are absolutely, completely, and wonderfully his. Me and my drum–all his!

Jesus is not nearly as interested in my presents for him as my presence with him. That’s all he wants. He wants me. He wants you. Give yourself to him. Give all of yourself to Jesus. And feel his smile.

May we all see the newborn King with fresh eyes and open hearts. And may we follow his lead. Let’s trade our cravings for power for a desire to sacrifice. Let’s be identified by our patience with others, by our service to the least of these, and by our unconditional love for our neighbors. And let’s adopt the humble attitude of the Little Drummer Boy and receive the gracious gift of Jesus.

Peace,
Allan

We’ve Seen It

June 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

“No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only Begotten, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” ~John 1:18

I would love to have this conversation with the writer of John. No one has ever seen God? Come on, man! The Bible tells us all kinds of people have seen God. Abraham had a picnic with God under the oak trees at Mamre. Jacob saw God at the top of that stairway to heaven at Bethel. Moses met God face to face. The 70 elders saw God in Exodus 24–it says it twice!–they saw God and they ate and drank. Isaiah saw God in the temple. Ezekiel saw God at the river in Babylon. Come on, John, lots of people have seen God.

I think John would say, “Look, man, I know all those stories better than you do. But all those visions and dreams, all those epiphanies and theophanies–all of that pales in comparison to this full revelation of God that we have in Jesus! Jesus is the ultimate revelation and full disclosure of who our God is and what he’s all about!”

Jesus himself says it over and over: “I and the Father are one” and “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

Paul makes the same claim: “God gave us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Our God wants so badly to have a righteous relationship with us, so he tells us exactly who he is. He gives us his full name: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. And then he comes here to show us who he is. Jesus Christ is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness! Faithful to the death, is he not? And forgiving! Jesus reveals an undeniable flesh and blood, on this earth with us, reflection of exactly what God describes as his “glory” on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 34.

And John says, yeah, we’ve seen it.

“We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” ~John 1:14

Peace,

Allan

That All of Them May Be One

November 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments

“…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” ~John 17:21-22

Jesus shows us the intimacy and the character of the relationship that exists between the Father and the Son. We clearly see the unity–the community–that marks their very nature. That oneness is then given to us. Jesus says, “I’m giving them the glory that they may be one like us. I’m giving them the power of your name that they be one just like us. I’m living inside them by the Holy Spirit that they may be one just like us.”

We’ve been given a oneness with God and with everybody God has saved. As his children, this unity is our new nature. This is who we are: One with Christ and one with his followers everywhere. What that means is that there is very little, if anything, outside of denying Jesus as Lord in word or deed, that can separate us. If that’s the case–it is!– then our diversity and differences aren’t just tolerated, they’re embraced and appreciated. Even celebrated.

To borrow our Lord’s words, the time has come!

The time has come for us to live into that Christian unity in visible ways that speak to our lost and dying world. The time has come for our “4 Midland” partnership with First Baptist, First Methodist, First Presbyterian, and GCR Church of Christ. The time has come to make every effort with each other in these other churches. The time has come to love one another, to serve one another, and build one another up. The time has come to bear one another’s burdens, to submit to one another, and encourage one another. The time has come for us to defend and protect one another, to speak well of one another, to give the benefit of the doubt to one another, to worship God and serve alongside one another that the world may believe.

Jesus says if two or three of you will agree on anything, I’ll show up just to see that. And I believe he will. I believe he is.

This 4 Midland thing we’re doing with the other churches is only going to get bigger and more important. It’s not just three worship nights and a service project every year. It’s very much about Christian evangelism. It’s about expressing Christian unity in ways that will convict the world of the power and love of God.

All four of our churches are coming together this evening at First Baptist for our first 4 Midland Thanksgiving service. We’re combining our choirs and worship teams and we’re going to praise God and pray and sing and experience and express our togetherness in Christ.

As part of this great day, all four churches are swapping preachers this morning. I’m preaching both services at First Baptist today and Steve Brooks, my brother from First Methodist is preaching at GCR. Darin Wood is preaching at First Presbyterian and Steve Schorr is preaching at First Methodist.

It’s going to be weird. I’ve spent my whole preaching life just making sure on Sundays we get out on time to beat the Baptists. Today, I’m going to be with the Baptists!

Next year, either late spring or first thing in the summer, we’re all going to serve this city together. We don’t know what yet, or how. But all four of our churches are going to come together to work side by side to serve the people of our city in the name and manner of Jesus. We want to cooperate more, we want to share more, we want to express our Christian unity more, to let Midland know that this is for real. To show Midland that, through Christ Jesus our King, the world is changing. People are being transformed. Hearts are melting. Barriers are being destroyed. Walls are coming down. The devil is defeated. And the Kingdom of God is here!

Jesus prays, Father, may they be one. May they all–all the followers, all the believers, all the disciples–until you send me back to finally and ultimately establish your eternal Kingdom on earth, may they all be brought to complete unity so the world will sit up and take notice. So the world will say, oh, my word, he IS the Son of God. He IS the promised Prince of Peace. And he really does transcend all our differences. And then the world will give you, Father, all the glory and praise right now today and forever and ever. Amen.

Peace,

Allan

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