Category: Possessions (Page 3 of 3)

Many Rooms

June 2, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” ~John 14:1-3

Jesus tells his apostles that the solution to their despair regarding his departure is found in his promised second coming. He expects his followers to put their trust, their faith, in his power. And he shows them (us) that his departure is not just an exit from humanity, it is a continuation of his work on their (our) behalf. He is going to prepare a place. That’s a promise that his work is continuing until that time we are eternally united with him in heaven.

Let’s don’t misunderstand Jesus to be saying he’s going to build the rooms. The rooms are already built. It’s done. The Father already has the rooms ready. Instead, it’s in Jesus’ return to the Father — his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension — that the way to these rooms is being constructed. The road to the heavenly rooms is built by Jesus’ departure.

Heaven is waiting for us. Wow. It’s done. It’s ready and it’s waiting. The work is finished. We anticipate that perfect fellowship with God in Christ. We’re beside ourselves with expectation for eternity. We can’t wait. We’re anxious for it. It’s ready and it’s waiting. And we’re almost there.

What an eternal perspective that should give us. What confidence that should give us to, as Jeff Walling says, live for the line and not the dot; live for eternity and not for the here and now.

Wheaton College professor Gary Burge in his commentary on John puts it this way:

I live in a world that continually offers me temporal securities and comforts, a world that keeps my eye on the near horizon of the present, that denies the limitations of my own mortality. My ‘life of work’ aims not simply to make a contribution to my career, but to provide a means of security in the world: a home, a stable income, an investment scheme, a retirement program. While Jesus is clear that these securities are foolish and unreliable (Matt. 6:19-20; Luke 12:13-21), here he offers a positive incentive. Our true home, our complete security, has already been built for us by him in heaven. Once we embrace the significance of this notion, our attitudes toward this world completely change.

Some of the most thoughtful and meaningful conversations I have are with the older members of our church, men and women in their late 70s and 80s. They are firm in their faith and very, very aware that their hope rests in the Lord and nowhere else. They help give me (us) that eternal perspective that keeps a check on our (my) investments in earthly rooms.

Peace,

Allan

Given Much

September 15, 2008 / Allan / 4 Comments

“From everyone who has been given much, much more will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” ~Luke 12:48

When I see Shaquille O’Neal shoot 35% from the free throw line; when I see Ricky Williams throw away a Hall of Fame career with drug use; when I hear about a record-setting high school quarterback get suspended because he’s flunked Social Studies; I want to scream. All that talent. All those gifts. All that natural ability. All that potential. All those blessings. How in the world can you just throw that away? How can you not see how you’ve been blessed and how you can use those blessings to make yourself and your team better? How does Shaq live with himself, knowing that in a tight playoff game his coach has to sit him on the bench because he might get fouled? How can Williams ever show his face again in the state of Louisiana after what he did to the Saints? How does the high school quarterback walk the halls of his campus knowing how he’s let down his whole community?

We expect much more out of the people who’ve been so richly blessed.

Boy, if I had only been given those same gifts. If only I had those same talents, those same abilities. I’d do everything in my power to use them to their maximum potential. I’d keep my nose clean. I’d work hard. I’d dedicate myself to getting even better. Nothing could ever hold me back or get me down if I had those blessings.

We hate seeing gifts gone to waste. But we drastically change our view when the tables are turned and we become the objects of scrutiny.

Are you blessed? Of course you’re going to say “Yes.” Your wealth is not just measured by your money and your possessions, of which we have more than anyone in history, but also by your options. If you have lots of options, you’re very blessed. For most people in the world, especially if you consider the whole of human history, the main choice of life is, “Will I pick the grain today with my left hand or my right hand?”

In contrast, consider the kinds of questions we ask ourselves today. It’s not, “Will I get to go to college?” It’s “Which college will I go to?” It’s not, “Can I find a job?” It’s “Which job pleases me the most?” We never ask, “Am I going to eat dinner?” It’s always, “What’s for dinner?”

We are wealthy. We are blessed.

And just like us, our God never wants to see all these blessings go to waste. Jesus never wants to see his gifts thrown away.

He expects more.

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Cowboys & Eagles. Monday Night Football. The only thing that could make it any better is if it were being played in Philly (better atmosphere) and if Frank and Howard and Dandy Don were calling the game on ABC.

The Eagles have certainly broken the hearts of the Cowboys many, many times in the past. I vividly remember watching the 1980 NFC Championship Game in Paul Barron’s living room. Tom Landry’s weird Russian fur hat with the earflaps and the collar on his coat up around his neck. Wilbert Montgomery going for 42 yards and a TD on the game’s second play. I remember Paul throwing his not-quite-empty Coke can across his living room after a Danny White sack midway through the third quarter of that 20-7 loss.

Lots of Cowboys misery at the hands of the Eagles. The pickle juice game. The Bounty Bowl. Jaws. Harold Carmichael. McNabb’s 14-second scramble. Andy Reid is 13-5 against the Cowboys. Philly’s beat Dallas in three of the past four meetings. Nobody has a better road record in the NFL over the past seven seasons than the Eagles. McNabb is totally healthy. Westbrook’s one of the four best backs in the league. The Eagles’ defense is menacing. Their blitz is unnerving. Their secondary is excellent. They held Dallas to just six points at Texas Stadium last December.

Eagles 27, Cowboys 20.

Peace,

Allan

Living For Eternity Right Now

September 3, 2008 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven.” ~Philippians 3:19-20

We live in the “already / not yet.” We live in the overlapping period of the arrival of the Kingdom of God and the ultimate fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. Yes, God’s Kingdom has broken into this present evil age. But it’s not here yet in all of its fullness. So our enjoyment of the totality of God’s presence and blessings are still a future reality. Our experience today of God’s power and glory, as great as it is, is still just a down payment of the glories to come. And that, in no way, discounts or disqualifies that future as anything less than an absolute reality.

Once we realize that, once we truly grasp the fact that our hope is in the future and final consummation of the Kingdom to come, we live our lives in ways that relate to that ultimate reality. Whatever we long for and hope for in the future inevitably determines how we live in the present. Hope and its desires are the engines that drive us. The pursuit of the greater good in the future is enough to bring about a willing and persevering self-denial in the present. Our hopes determine our habits. We are a future-determined people. The world to come, not this one, must captivate our minds and our hearts.

“Modern and postmodern culture revolves around a this-world orientation; the only long-term future our culture conceives to be important enough to plan for consistently is retirement. This pervasive preoccupation with living as long as possible, as healthy as possible, and as wealthy as possible has dramatically impacted the church in the West. Our knowledge and experience of God are so weak, and our desire for the pleasures of the present so strong, that we find it almost impossible to imagine that life with God in the world to come could be incomparably better than what we hope to experience in this world.” ~Dr. Scott J. Hafemann, Wheaton College

The apostle Paul writes about this extensively in 2 Corinthians. Paul fixes his gaze and sets the course for his life on what can’t be seen (4:18); on his inner glory instead of his outer suffering (4:17); on his inward renewal, not his outward decay (4:16); on the new age instead of the old (4:18); resurrection life, not dying (4:10-11); the weighty, not the insignificant (4:17); the eternal, not the temporary (4:18); and on the heavenly, not the earthly (5:1-2).

Our courage comes from having the right desires for the future. That leads to having the right ambitions in the present. Those who live in the present desire what this world has to offer. Their ambition is to please themselves with the temporary pleasures of this life. But those who live for their future with God desire the life promised by God. Their ambition is to please him here and now, since he is their true joy and hope.

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What a terrific weekend we enjoyed in Arkansas with Keith and Amanda and their kids and Jimmy & Elizabeth and theirs. My little brother took us on a tour of Harding where he’s in his third year as a Bible professor. I’m not sure our children were supposed to take their shoes off and splash around in the fountains, but they did. We also ran into a couple of our Legacy kids out there pledging clubs. Jarron and Jacob weren’t quite sure how to react to seeing us on their campus on a Saturday afternoon. Paul taught Valerie how to scale interior door frames like Spiderman. Isaac lost a tooth. And Rachel was way too stinkin’ cute the whole time. Keith and Amanda also graced us with Dr Pepper products from Holland.

After 24 hours with Keith and Amanda it was back down to Benton to see Jimmy and Elizabeth. Jimmy was the youth minister at Marble Falls when we were there a couple of years ago. And we miss them tremendously. The Northside Church of Christ, where he serves now, graciously invited me to preach for them Sunday. And it was fantastic. Jimmy was leading singing and I was preaching. We prayed it up together an hour before Bible class. Just like the good ol’ days. We focused our Bible class time and our assembly time on the grace of God as a free gift. We enjoyed a huge fellowship meal together. And we now count the wonderful people at Northside among our dearest friends. Brown’s Buffet for dinner. A Benton tradition, I think. Not quite like the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls. More like a Cracker Barrel on steroids.

The only criticism I have of our weekend in Arkansas concerns an eating establishment we visited in Searcy and noticed again in Benton. Colton’s fancies itself a Texas-themed restaurant. Peanut shells on the floor, cowboy pictures on the walls, Texas icons on the menu, and a huge Texas flag on the roof of the building. But they don’t serve Dr Pepper. It’s Mr. Pibb. And the wait staff use the names of the two soft drinks interchangeably. Like synonyms. When the waitress brought Carley her Mr. Pibb refill (Carley has no integrity) she said, “Here’s your Dr Pepper.” Blasphemy! They should remove the flag and not put it up there again until they can deliver the most basic and fundamental of Texas beverages to their patrons.

Thank you.

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“Just as a television commercial will use an athlete, an actor, a musician, a novelist, a scientist or a countess to speak for the virtues of a product in no way within their domain of expertise, television also frees politicians from the limited field of their own expertise. Political figures may show up anywhere, at any time, doing anything, without being thought odd, presumptuous, or in any way out of place. Which is to say, they have become assimilated into the general television culture as celebrities.

Being a celebrity is quite different from being well known. Harry Truman was well known but he was not a celebrity. Whenever the public saw him or heard him, Truman was talking politics. It takes a very rich imagination to envision Harry Truman or, for that matter, his wife, making a guest appearance on ‘The Goldbergs’ or ‘I Remember Mama.’ Politics and politicians had nothing to do with these shows, which people watched for amusement, not to familiarize themselves with political candidates and issues.

Television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by ‘better’ such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs, more understanding of the interrelations of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with ‘image.’

Men always make their gods in their own image. But to this, television politics has added a new wrinkle: Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be. It is a sobering thought to recall that there are no photographs of Abraham Lincoln smiling, that his wife was in all likelihood a psychopath, and that he was subject to lengthy fits of depression. He would hardly have been well suited for image politics. We do not want our mirrors to be so dark and so far from amusing. What I am saying is that just as the television commercial empties itself of authentic product information so that it can do its psychological work, image politics empties itself of authentic political substance for the same reason.” ~Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 1985.

Peace,

Allan

Mine All Mine

February 20, 2008 / Allan / 6 Comments

Van Halen’s second Sammy Hagar-sung album, OU812, opens up with a song titled “Mine All Mine” that pokes critically at culture, politics, and religion. In ripping religion, rightly so in a couple of lines, the Red Rocker sings,

“Give me truth, give me something real. I just want to feel that it’s mine all mine. Stop looking up, start looking in. Be your own best friend. Stand up and say, ‘This is mine!'”

Remember, as a teenager, how you used to justify to your parents the lyrics to your favorite songs? “But, mom, they’re married!” or “He’s talking about kissing!”

Part of me wants to say Van Halen’s song is intentionally pointing out the irony of searching for something that doesn’t truly exist. But most of me knows Sammy and Eddie and the boys really believe they own everything they have. And they’re spending most of their thoughts and energies chasing to own the things they don’t yet have.

And parts of us (me) fall into that trap all the time.

We own nothing. And the minute we realize that and embrace that, our lives will change dramatically.

Listen to Screwtape in letter #21: “Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered…You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own.’ Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.”

Screwtape goes on to advise his young devil nephew that the man has this tendency to believe he owns everything around him—his time, his house, his boots, his dog, his wife, his country, his God—and that the longer he continues to think that, the better the chances of the man progressing to hell. Screwtape finds it hilarious that people believe they even own their own bodies, “those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another.”

Randy Harris says most people are born on third base and go through life believing they hit a triple.

Jesus says “apart from me you can do nothing.”

The last paragraph of this favorite letter is chilling. Chilling to the core.

“All the time the joke is that the word ‘mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father (Satan) or the Enemy (God) will say ‘mine’ of each thing that exists, and especially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies belong—certainly not to them, whatever happens. At present, the Enemy says ‘mine’ of everything on the pedantic, legalistic ground that He made it. Our Father hopes in the end to say ‘mine’ of all things on the more realistic and dynamic ground of conquest.”

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I’ll be watching with great interest the Mavs-Hornets game tonight from New Orleans. The Jason Kidd trade looks a little better in this final form with Stackhouse staying. But I’m still not convinced this makes Dallas better suited for a run at the NBA title. Kidd is ten years older than Devin Harris. Harris plays much better perimeter defense. Kidd is prone to pouting and even sitting out games with a “headache” if things aren’t going his way. Losing Diop hurts the Mavs inside where he was always a threat to block or at least alter shots. Dampier can bang inside for a while. But he doesn’t scare anybody. Come playoff time, Dallas is going to need a second center to harrass Shaq and Duncan and Ming. So maybe that piece is still to come.

Cuban and Avery are sacrificing a lot for this little window to win it all. Nothing less than a championship will justify this crazy trade. It almost looks like desperation to me. There’s no look to the future here at all. Kidd’s gone at the end of next season. And the Mavs have given up their top picks in the next two drafts.

It’s an all or nothing deal. And making that deal right now is also strange. As tightly packed as the Western Conference is, a three game losing streak knocks you out of the playoffs. So immediate chemistry is crucial. Is Kidd that good? He starts tonight in New Orleans. How good can he be that fast?

Regardless, the move means Dirk never drives to the basket ever again. That leaves only Josh and Jet to take the ball aggressively to the basket. And if one of those guys goes down……..

I don’t like it. Hopefully I’ll be as wrong about this as I was about the Cowboys.

And the first full squad spring training practice for the Texas Rangers begins in a couple of hours in Surprise. That means that by lunchtime today they will be officially mathematically eliminated from the AL West race.

Ian Kinsler said yesterday that every player in the clubhouse is more excited about this upcoming season than they’ve ever been. (????) Scoring a ton of runs and losing 10-8 every night is not exciting.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Possessions (Page 3 of 3)

Many Rooms

Given Much

Living For Eternity Right Now

Mine All Mine

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