Author: Allan (Page 390 of 492)

God's Determined Persistence

March 19, 2010 / Allan / 0 Comments

“I will search for the lost and bring back the strays.” ~Ezekiel 34:16

Our God will go to whatever lengths are necessary, he’ll do whatever it takes, he will not ever give up on saving his people. Even when we resist, he keeps on pursuing. Even when we rebel, he keeps on forgiving. Even when we run away, he keeps chasing. He won’t be stopped in his goal of redeeming his children.

“Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country
and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” ~Luke 15:4

Our merciful Father used the power of a violent storm and the weak witness of a runaway prophet to save the pagan sailors in Jonah 1. He created and commanded the great fish to rescue his rebellious servant in Jonah 2. And in Jonah 3, our faithful God put five Hebrew words into the hearts of a wicked people and turned an entire kingdom upside down for him.

“I take no pleasure in the death of anyone,” declares the Sovereign Lord.
“Repent and live!” ~Ezekiel 18:32

Our God is that relentless hound of heaven C. S. Lewis writes about. He’s on the trail to save and he won’t be stopped. May we see the world as our Father sees the world. May we light the lamps and sweep the floors. May we leave the 99 and go into the wilderness to save the one. May we go into the “streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” May our will and our mindset match that of our Righteous Creator who moves heaven and earth so that all the men and women of the world, all the men and women of your community, will be saved. And may we allow nothing — absolutely nothing! — to get in our way.

Peace,

Allan

Hoops and Harms

March 18, 2010 / Allan / 1 Comment

I don’t know why I filled out my NCAA bracket last night. The farther away I get from my former life, the less and less qualified I am to write in the names of the winners and losers. I used to spend the whole six or seven weeks following the Super Bowl watching nothing but college basketball. I watched every minute of every conference tournament. I recorded the selection show and poured over the newspaper articles. My bracket wasn’t always right, but it was always good.

Now, I have no clue. I can’t even pretend to know anything.

I watched about 20 minutes of a Texas-Baylor game a few weeks ago. That’s it. That’s the only college hoops I’ve watched all season. I have no idea how New Mexico is a #3 seed or how Wofford got in at all. I don’t know who Murray State’s played or whether K-State has great guards or a big front court. I have no idea.

But I’ve still filled out a bracket. Part of it is habit. Part of it is spring ritual. I’ve been faithfully filling out a bracket and watching the tournament for at least 25 or 26 years now. Usually it takes me two or three days.

I did it in about ten minutes at 9:45 last night. Not a good sign.

I won our family “Bracket Racket” five or six years in a row. But now I’m on a two year skid. Whitney unseated me two years ago and Carrie-Anne won it last year. I had intended for this year to be the year I regain my crown. But it’s not going to happen. I have no faith in my picks. But, for the record, here they are:

I’m going with Kansas, K-State, Kentucky, and Baylor in the Final Four. I’ve got an all-Wildcats final with Kentucky beating K-State in Indianapolis. There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t even know where to begin. Three Big XII teams in the Final Four is crazy. It’ll never happen. How could it? Kansas will probably choke somewhere along the way. They normally do. Rolando Blackman is no longer playing for K-State, I know. And is Baylor really going to beat Duke? Nevermind that. Is Baylor really going to beat Notre Dame this weekend? I know they don’t make sense, but there they are.

You should always pick at least one #12 seed to beat a #5, and mine is UTEP over Butler. I have Tennessee upsetting Georgetown for no real reason. And there’s no logic as to why I’ve picked the Aggies to beat Purdue. My picks just have to be better than Whitney’s and Carrie-Anne’s. That’s all.

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What do we do about Ron Washington and the Texas Rangers? Why is the manager of the Texas Rangers the first manager or coach in professional sports history to fail a drug test? For cocaine? Why didn’t Nolan Ryan and Tom Hicks and Jon Daniels fire Washington when they found out about it last July?

Washington and the Rangers are telling us that this was Washington’s first ever time to experiment with cocaine. First time ever. I find that impossible to believe, don’t you? Major League Baseball randomly tests all its managers once per season. Cocaine only shows up in these tests for four or five days after use. After that, it reportedly can’t be detected. And the Rangers want us to believe the odds that the only time Washington was tested all year was within 72-hours of Washington’s first-ever experimentation with the drug?

Even if it’s true, how could the Rangers trust the organization’s decision-maker after he made the decision to use cocaine in the middle of the baseball season? I don’t get it.

The cynical part of me (when Myles Brand was the president of the NCAA, he told me to be a critic, not a cynic; sorry) believes that the Rangers didn’t fire Washington when they found out about this last July because they had just extended his contract a few weeks earlier. Hicks is out of money, MLB was floating the team loans just to cover payroll, and they couldn’t afford to fire Washington. They thought they could cover it up. They thought it would disappear. It was a money decision. It was a calculated PR move.

Now it’s too late. They can’t fire him now. They already made the decision to stick by him. And now the Rangers (including Josh Hamilton who admits to struggling with his various addictions every single day) are being managed by a guy who didn’t think it was crazy to use cocaine last July.

What do we do with that? I feel weird about Nolan Ryan today. He’s supposed to be above all this stuff.

Peace,

Allan

By All Possible Means

March 17, 2010 / Allan / 5 Comments

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” ~1 Corinthians 9:22

There are stumbling blocks in the Gospel message. Big-time stumbling blocks. The cross of Christ is a huge one. The call to sacrifice and service messes people up. The Resurrection can get in the way. The requirement to surrender is a problem. The directive to die is another one. The Lordship of Jesus can be a real issue.

Those are all certainly necessary components to the Good News. But if we’re not consistently preaching and teaching and living those things, then it’s not Christianity. It’s another religion, entirely.

Our mission as God’s Church is to remove each and every unnecessary obstacle, to strip away the things that would prevent an unbelieving world from accepting the grace and forgiveness of Christ. That doesn’t mean running away from our traditions or carelessly discarding our practices. It doesn’t mean we treat our heritage flippantly.

It does mean we are constantly evaluating the things we do and the reasons we do them. It means we are always thinking and reflecting. And we measure our message against the will of our God and the mind of our Christ: not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

It means that when we consider a change, we don’t ask, “How will this affect me?” or “What if this upsets one of our members?” We ask, “How will this reach someone on the outside?” And if it might, we take the risk and we do it. Boldly.

We need to be less concerned with our own congregations and church structure and organization and worship practices and much more concerned with understanding our culture, getting inside the heads of the people around us and determining what makes them tick. We should be eaten up with trying to figure out their access points to the Gospel.

We should never ask, “How many Church of Christ people live within ten miles of our building and how do we get them here?” We should ask, “How many lost people live within ten miles of our building? And how do we win them for Christ?”

Yes, we need to be faithful to our past. But we also need to be faithful to our future. That’s a God-ordained responsibility, too.

Paul says “by all possible means.”

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More empty tomb “tags” from around our community:

How about that “tag” on the grave marker there? Paul Brightwell’s dad died almost a year ago. He sent me that picture last night with these words: “I laughed; then I cried, thinking, someday, because of the empty tomb, we will see each other again; and then I rejoiced.”

That’s what Resurrection Conversations are all about. That’s what the power of the Resurrection and the hope of the Resurrection is all about.

Keep applying those decals. Keep dropping those cards. And when people ask, tell them that the tomb is empty. And tell them that means death has nothing on you. And neither does sin.

Peace,

Allan

We Put Up With Anything…

March 16, 2010 / Allan / 1 Comment

“We put up with anything rather than hinder the Gospel of Christ.” ~1 Corinthians 9:12

Most of the rules and regulations we devise to keep our “decency and order” intact in the church are motivated, I believe, by our deep desire to keep from offending our brothers and sisters. And that’s not an awful motivation. It’s noble, I think, to not want to do anything that would hurt a fellow Christian. It’s very Christ-like, actually.

The problem comes when those brothers and sisters insist on rules and regulations — and even more rules and regulations — so they’re not offended. When believers impose their own comfort zones and cultural or generational preferences on fellow Christians so as not to be offended, it’s just flat-out wrong. They use the “weak” brother position as a weapon of power. They use “weak” as a means to control. And it’s ungodly.

Paul tells us to be careful that the exercise of the great freedom we have in Christ does not become a stumbling block to the weak (1 Cor. 8:9). In that same context — same paragraph — Paul defines the “weak” as a brand new Christian who was just worshiping idols in the pagan temples a few days earlier. These “weak” Christians are still wet behind the ears, figuratively, of course. Still dripping from their very recent baptisms (8:7). And then he goes on to explain that causing a “weak” brother or sister to stumble means to cause them to participate in activities that violate their own consciences (8:10-11).

Generally speaking, the complainers among us are never in a million years going to adopt the practice(s) against which they are railing. Generally speaking, those who gripe are never going to defile their conscience by participating in the debated activity. Generally speaking, these brothers and sisters we’re trying so hard not to offend are not brand new Christians, either. They should know better.

“Why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?” ~1 Corinthians 10:29-30

Paul says we should not cause anyone to stumble, not “grumble.”

If you see a fellow Christian drinking a beer or worshiping God with a piano or sporting a nose ring or vacationing in Vegas or taking communion on Saturday night, leave it alone. Even if you’re really offended. Leave it alone. The only complaint you have is if by seeing these offending practices you begin participating in them yourself and violate your conscience. Let me know when that happens.

“I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” ~1 Corinthians 9:19

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” ~1 Corinthians 9:22

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” ~1 Corinthians 10:24

“I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” ~1 Corinthians 10:33

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Corey and Emily Mullins, Legacy’s missionaries to Australia, are now proud parents of a brand new baby boy. Enoch Elian was born yesterday at 6-pounds-2.5-ounces and 18.5-inches long. Congratulations! You can read all about it and see all the pictures by clicking here to the Mullins’ blog. I got an email last night from Mark Hooper that simply said, “The Mullins’ baby was born naked. Please pray for him.”

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More than 900 empty tomb T-shirts arrived here this morning. Many wonderful volunteers are tirelessly sorting and packaging the shirts for pick-up on Sunday. We also received 300 more empty tomb decals today to meet the still-steady demand. And we still have nearly 3,000 of the empty tomb cards ready to go.

More importantly, the stories keep coming in, too.

The Legacy Church of Christ is engaging our community with the Gospel. Resurrection Conversations are happening out there. Mike Trader with his IT guy at work who saw the empty tomb on Mike’s phone. Keith Alexander and a group of 30 by-standers at a Goodwill store who were intrigued by the “saw blade” design and the “piece of toast.” Richard Ashlock at work. My family at Rosa’s. All the Legacy school kids having Resurrection Conversations in class, during lunch, and in the halls.

We’re hoping that saturating our community with the empty tomb images, and the resultant conversations, will get people into our building during the Resurrection Renewal here April 4-7. A wonderful side benefit for us is that our mindset is being directed to people and things outside our building, not inside. We’re looking out now, not in. And that’s critical for anyone who calls himself a disciple of Christ.

Peace,

Allan

Love Builds Up

March 15, 2010 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” ~1 Corinthians 8:1-2

The “gray areas” of Christian faith and practice are always the ones that get us in trouble. Beliefs and actions that are neither good nor bad in and of themselves tend to be the very things that polarize us and cause ungodly strife and division.

Paul sees the Corinthians church dividing over, among many things, the practice of eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols in pagan temples. The apostle goes out of his way to tell the Christians there that 1) what is good for one believer may not be good for another, 2) true discernment in these matters takes love, not knowledge, and 3) disciples of Jesus have no right to demand their own way.

Whew! That’s tough.

See, the easy thing to do is to just make a whole bunch of rules that legislate exactly what Christians can and cannot do. An even easier solution is to just allow everything, tolerate everything, in the name of Christian grace. The more difficult thing is to advocate and practice that crucial balance between total permissiveness and complete legalism.

Unfortunately, I get the feeling that we’ve been guilty of prohibiting the “gray area” practices that are amoral — neither good nor bad, such as eating meat sacrificed to idols — and allowing or ignoring practices in our churches that are clearly immoral — evil, un-Christ-like. We’ve wound up tolerating immoral behavior and outlawing things that really don’t matter at all.

We’ve gotten it so messed up, maybe, because it’s so much easier to just make a bunch of rules and judge people and praise people and condemn people—even our own brothers and sisters—according to our own pleasures and comfort zones. We tolerate adultery in our churches but we hold meetings and produce positions on clapping hands during “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” We look the other way on drunkenness and shady business dealings but condemn Christians who worship God with guitars. We laugh at and forward racial emails and jokes that make fun of or attack people based on nationality or income or geography but we worry to death over a Christian drinking wine with his lasagna or enjoying an evening of dancing.

“Food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.” ~1 Corinthians 8:8

There’s no spiritual advantage in allowing these “gray areas” or in prohibiting them. None. So, Paul says, concern for your Christian brother or sister is what takes priority. That’s what it really means to follow Christ. That’s really what “love builds up” means.

(Concern for offending your Christian brother or sister by your actions is NOT what Paul’s talking about here. He says don’t cause your brother to “stumble,” not “grumble.”

Maybe we’ll talk about that tomorrow.)

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The “Caps for Tags” deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday March 16. Those empty tomb decals are showing up all over Northeast Tarrant County and flooding my inbox. We’re judging them in three categories: visibility (seen by lots of people), originality (I never thought of putting a sticker “there”), and hospitality (a picture of the decal and the people who gave you permission to stick it). As always, click on the picture to get the full size.

Keep ’em coming!

Peace,

Allan

Salvation Comes From the Lord

March 12, 2010 / Allan / 1 Comment

The most interesting thing about Jonah 2 is that the prophet gives thanks to God for his deliverance while he is still inside the fish! He praises God for his rescue even before he is on dry land!

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.” ~Jonah 2:2

Jonah doesn’t even mention the small matter of his residency in the fish. Instead, he demonstrates a complete trust in the mercy and compassion of God. He is grateful to be in the Lord’s keeping, even if it’s in the belly of a whale.

“You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God!” ~Jonah 2:6

Jonah gives thanks in spite of the uncertainty of still being in the sea. He gives praise knowing he did not deserve to be rescued. He’s grateful for safety in a most unlikely place. He’s thankful even in great discomfort. Jonah recognizes God’s salvation in spite of his unresolved questions and issues.

“Salvation comes from the Lord!” ~Jonah 2:9

Jonah sank to the bottom of the sea. The “roots of the mountains.” Surrounded by the deep. Engulfed by the waters. In the “depths of the grave.” Jonah sank to the ocean floor, and yet he did not drown. He did not die. He was saved by our gracious God. Our mighty God is still in the rescuing business today. Sin and death are no match for his uncompromising love and incomparable power.

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More empty tomb “tags,” these from an increasingly bold Lorie T:

Peace,

Allan

Author: Allan (Page 390 of 492)

God's Determined Persistence

Hoops and Harms

By All Possible Means

We Put Up With Anything…

Love Builds Up

Salvation Comes From the Lord

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