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Good for the Soul

March 2, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Has it been awhile since you openly and honestly confessed your sins to our Father? When’s the last time you got down on your knees, alone in the presence of our Holy God, and confessed your shortcomings and failures? These days between Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday of Lent are a good time to re-engage this scriptural, historical practice.

Maybe you have a hard time getting started. If so, I would humbly suggest something like this. It’s both a terrible and beautiful experience for me. It’s devastating and liberating. Not easy at all, but needed. Desperately needed.

Block out twenty minutes when you can be totally alone with our Father. Not in the back bedroom of a crowded house, I mean in the back bedroom of an empty house. Totally alone. Nobody around. If you have to go to the shed in the backyard, do it.

Now, physically get down on your knees and physically open your hands with your palms up toward heaven. Now, just sit there in silence for a full five minutes — no cheating! —- in the presence of God. After those five minutes, read one of the penitential psalms to the Father out loud. I’m partial to Psalms 32 and 51, but you could go with Psalm 6, 38, 102, 130, or 143.

At this point, I am acutely aware of the presence of God and my own sinful soul. Like Peter, my first thoughts are, “Get away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man!” My feelings are like those of the prophets who proclaimed their own demise in God’s presence. I am ruined. I am dead. I am not worthy. And then I confess my sins out loud to God. And they are many.

I believe the silence and the physical posture of humility and prayer and the holy words of the psalms work together to prime the pump so that what’s in the deepest part of my soul comes gushing out.  It can’t be stopped. And it needs to come out. I need to be open and honest about my sins with my loving and forgiving Father. I need to experience his forgiveness and his blessing, his pardon and approval.

You do, too.

Whatever it takes. Don’t let Sunday come without spending some time in personal confession with our God.

If you need another suggestion, you might consider the words of this prayer of confession we prayed together with our brothers and sisters at First Presbyterian during yesterday’s Ash Wednesday service:

Holy and merciful God, I confess to you that I have sinned by my own fault in thought, word, and deed by what I have done and by what I have left undone. Have mercy on me, O God, and in your mercy, cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Hear me now, as I continue to confess my sins to you…

Most Christian traditions begin every worship assembly with a time of corporate and personal confession. We don’t. We have to work on it. Now’s a good time.

Peace,

Allan

Godly Fasting

March 1, 2017 / / 3 Comments

Fasting is not the purely personal thing you might think it is. Fasting is never between just you and God.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the traditional kickoff of forty days of prayer and fasting leading to Easter Sunday. This is the day to confess, the day to throw off the sins that hinder, the day to begin fasting in order to tune yourself to God. A lot of people give up red meat for the Lent season, some sacrifice their iPhones or their TVs, others fast from caffeine or cursing or Little Debbie snack cakes.

That’s good. Fasting and praying to pay better attention to the voice of our Father during this holy season is commendable. I highly recommend it.

But while you’re giving up these physical and tasty delights, why not consider giving up what our Lord gave up.

Instead of just thinking about it, why not begin living it?

Christ Jesus gave up the glory he shared with the Father to redeem us. He gave up all power, all dominion, all wealth, to come to earth to rescue us. Jesus gave up all his rights, he gave up his own honor, he sacrificed his own security and health, to restore us. He gave up his very life.

How about while refraining from chocolate over the next few weeks, you also give up your right to be offended? Since you’re giving up red meat for a season, how about you also try to keep from saying anything bad about anybody else? No caffeine? Sure! How about no asserting your own way for a while? How about sacrificing your demand for fairness for yourself and seek justice for somebody else? How about considering the needs of others more important than your own?

How about making your Ash Wednesday / Lent fast about something more than just you and your self-improvement? It’s not just about you and it’s not just about you and God. Fasting and praying should always result in Christian ministry to others. It should always lead toward meeting the needs of other people.

“Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter,
when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.”
~Isaiah 58:5-9

Fasting doesn’t do anybody any good unless it leads to doing somebody some real, physical, tangible good in the name of our Lord Jesus who gave up everything to do lasting, eternal, salvation good for us all.

Peace,

Allan

Our Tools Are Weak

February 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

At Central, we’re doing whatever it takes to join God’s pursuit of the people in Amarillo. “Ignite” is funding the vision and sparking the mission. The pledge cards keep trickling in and the total is up to $7.93-million and growing. Last Sunday’s “Launch” witnessed our Lord provide more than $1.53-million in checks and cash. The momentum is building. The church is focused. This is exciting stuff! We’re committed to it because our understanding is that when we do participate in God’s pursuit, God will increase the harvest.

When Jesus sends his disciples out to proclaim the Good News, he gives them a parting prayer request: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2).

This is Jesus’ prayer request: ask God for more workers. We need more workers for the harvest. Not for plowing or sowing, not for preparing soil or weeding or watering or waiting. Workers are needed for the harvest. The time is right now and, apparently, the harvest is huge. Who’s going to get in on it? We are! We’re determined to.

And our tools are weak.

The tools we use are not very impressive by the world’s standards. We’re not using power or politics or threat or force. Our tools for the harvest are love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness. God’s heroes in the Bible used terribly weak weapons: a torch and a jar, a sling and a rock, a morning walk and a trumpet.

We’ve got a church building and some small groups. We’ve got a sack of groceries and a paint brush. A bag of diapers and a prayer.

Remember, Jesus healed ten lepers, not a hundred. He fed five thousand hungry people, not every starving person in the world. Our Lord mostly ministered to the people in the tiny villages around his home town. And that’s what we’re trying to do at Central.

Peace,

Allan

 

$1.5 Million in Cash and Checks

February 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

If you give your money out of a sense of duty, there’s a tendency for your giving to be cold. You’ll seek to give the bare minimum — where does it say I HAVE to give ten percent? And there’s no spiritual transformation.

If you give your money so you can gain control, so you can be in charge and make the decision, that’s a self-seeking kind of giving. That kind of giving is more like a manipulative power play and it’ll only result in temporary joy at best.

And if you give your money in order to be seen by others, to impress people, to increase your status in whatever group you’re in, it’ll backfire on you. You won’t know who your real friends are and your identity will be tangled up in your possessions.

All three of these inferior motives for giving can cause us to view our money as something to be used to benefit ourselves. It stifles our imagination. It stunts our transformation. And it doesn’t bring any kind of lasting joy.

Everything changes, though, when we give with the understanding that we are partnering with God in his holy mission to redeem the world. When you fully grasp that God takes the money you give to directly change lives, to directly impact our city and the whole world for Christ’s eternal Kingdom, then the whole thing changes. Then there is great joy in giving as much as you can and looking for ways to sacrifice in order to give even more. Giving your resources to join God’s mission sparks a limitless imagination, it brings unsurpassed joy, and it results in increased spiritual transformation. It aligns your identity and your soul, not with your possessions, but with our Lord and his vision for his Church.

That kind of giving is the kind of giving we enjoy at Central. This church in downtown Amarillo really knows how to give. This is a mission-minded, servant-hearted church that works tirelessly and gives abundantly for the sake of others.

To launch our two-year Ignite Initiative this morning, our church family contributed $1,527,497.56 in cash and checks. More than $1.5-million during one Sunday morning assembly! It’s humbling. It’s mind-blowing. It’s a testimony to the power of our God to provide the resources in giant buckets when his people commit to joining him in his salvation pursuit of others.

I really don’t know what else to write or say.

That’s a lot of money.

I praise God for the ways he is at work in us and through us to bless others with his love and mercy, his forgiveness and grace. I’m so blessed to be the preacher at Central. And I can’t wait to see how our Lord’s going to use this offering to change lives and impact our city for his Kingdom.

Thank you to all my brothers and sisters at Central for your commitments and offerings made with faith in God and with confidence in our vision for more Christian ministry in Amarillo and around the world.

Peace,

Allan

The Launch

February 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

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Tomorrow morning Central launches Ignite, a two-year initiative designed to enhance and expand our local ministry efforts within the city of Amarillo. Last week we all turned in our two-year financial pledges to fund the vision. Tomorrow we give our money. And I’m going to compare our gifts with a pinball.

Whatever you give, whatever I give, it’s kind of like a pinball machine.

You know, you’re playing pinball and that little silver ball is moving right down the middle and headed for the bottom and it looks like it’s lost. The ball is gone. Game over. But then you hit that little flipper. The flipper! And the ball pops up and now it’s bouncing and pinging all over the place. It touches off a set of strobe lights over there. It bangs into a bunch of noise makers over here. It gets a bonus ball and some extra points up there. It’s just going and going and beeping and buzzing and there’s excitement and energy and possibility and…!

Almost out of nowhere! How cool!PinballBall

Because of Ignite, some of our folks at Central are putting really large sums of money into the plate tomorrow. Because of Ignite, some of our people are putting five dollars into the plate tomorrow when they haven’t given any money to the church in years. Or never.

Your money’s not gone. You’re throwing it into God’s pinball machine and it’s about to come into contact with that flipper. Now you just watch what God’s going to do with it!

Everything you do for God makes a difference. It bounces and pings all over eternity.

Even one cup of cold water given in the name of Jesus makes a lot of noise in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

Whitney is 24

February 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

WhitneyDrinks (768x1024)To my oldest daughter:

For your cheerful personality that brightens up every room,
for the loyalty you show all your friends,
for your selfless acts of service for others,
for your dedication to your job and your co-workers,
for the ways you live and die with your stupid Cowboys,
for your richly embedded competitive nature that lives to win and hates to lose,
for your unquenchable love for our Lord and his people,
for your little quirks that crack me up and bring me so much joy,
for your patience and perseverance when things don’t go your way,
for your deep blue eyes, your tiny ears, and your quadruple-jointed fingers,
for your loving heart and your generous spirit,

I am so very proud of you.WhitneyPinkHat
I’m so blessed to be your dad.
And I love you more than I’ve ever been able to express in words.

Happy Birthday, Whitney.
Dad

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