Category: Galatians (Page 10 of 11)

Raised With Christ

April 25, 2011 / Allan / 0 Comments

“All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” ~Romans 6:3-5

Dear Valerie,

It was my great and special honor to baptize you yesterday into the sin-forgiving and salvation-bestowing blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Your baptism, your open heart, and your confessing spirit were an inspiration to all of us who participated in your new birth. It was an especially proud moment for your mom and me.

You have been tremendously blessed by our God. He has favored you, Valerie, with a gentle and generous disposition that considers the needs of others and openly shares kindness and compassion. You are a beautiful and brilliant young lady with an endless amount of potential. The possibilities you possess within you to do good are staggering. You’re so talented, so hilarious, so full of life.

Your mom and I have worked very hard to pass along to you and your sisters our faith in our risen Christ. We have tried to live every day as models of what it looks like to practice what we preach. We’ve tried to be consistent in living out the Gospel in our every interactions within our family and within the world God has given us. Your decision to give yourself wholly to Jesus as the ultimate and eternal Lord of your life is a moment of great satisfaction for us; I won’t lie. It means everything.

“You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” ~Galatians 3:26-29

Be reminded, Valerie, that when you were baptized you put to death that old girl of sin. You buried that girl. You killed her. And when you came up out of the water you were a brand new creature. God has created in you a brand new person, full of his Holy Spirit, to experience everything in a brand new way. You now share in the Resurrection of Jesus. Death has nothing on you now. And neither does sin.

You have renounced the ways of the devil. You have rejected the patterns of this world. You have said ‘no’ to temptation and evil desires that would pull you away from your God. You have now personally and publically embraced salvation from God in Christ. You have put your trust, not in horses and chariots, not in your own talents and abilities, not in your own works and good deeds, but in the Father who promises to save you. Your faith is in him. You have placed yourself in his gracious and loving arms. And he will deliver. Our God is faithful, Valerie. And very, very good.

“Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God… For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” ~Colossians 3:1-4

God has incredibly huge things in store for you, girl. He is going to work in you to transform you more and more into the perfect image of his holy Son. And he’s going to work through you to bless the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people to his eternal glory and praise. And I’m going to be right there in a front row seat, waving your flags and cheering you on the whole way.

You are my daughter in whom I am well pleased.

May you look back often on your baptism, Val, and remember what God has created in you. And may you walk with him always, faithful to the end.

I love you,

Dad

Following Jesus to the Cross

April 15, 2011 / Allan / 0 Comments

We don’t ever come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for me to die. What is the meaning of my daily dying to myself and dying for Christ? And dying with Christ? What does it look like? How do I do it? And what does it really mean?

People say Jesus died so I don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to.

As holy children of God and disciples of his Christ, we die every day. We participate every day in the eternal dimensions of Jesus’ death.

“I have been crucified with Christ…” ~Galatians 2:20

“I die every day — I mean that, brothers! ~1 Corinthians 15:31

“You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ.” ~Colossians 3:3

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We are called to participate in the death of Jesus. We don’t just stand around and ask questions about the death of Christ. We don’t just talk about it and marvel about it. We live it. The death of Jesus shapes everything about the way we live, how we believe and love, why we do what we do.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as his subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the pain and darkness of Calvary where he faithfully and fully submitted to our Father’s will and gave his very life for the sake of the world.

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Tomorrow is Warrior Dash. And I’m not quite ready.

Warrior Dash is a 5K obstacle course highlighted by runs through waist-deep muddy water, climbs over cargo nets and 20-foot hay bales, crawls under barbed wire and through dirty ditches, and jumps over junk cars and pits of fire.

There are runs like this all over the place. Some of them are called Mud Runs. Some are called Jail Breaks. This Warrior Dash is held every year in Roanoke, just down the street from the Texas Motor Speedway. I’d never heard of this, or any other organized obstacle event, until last year when Greg Hardman and his daughter, Emily, ran it together with some of her college friends. His stories and his pictures were truly inspiring. I even used their experience to illustrate a sermon here last spring.

And several of us caught the fever.

Valerie and I made plans to start training in October. I was going to start eating right. I was going to start running more. (By more, I mean just start running. Period.) I was going to lose 15-pounds. I was going to lift weights and really be ready for this thing in April.

I’m not ready.

None of those things happened. Valerie and I have run together at the Northridge Middle School track a total of five times since the middle of February. We did two-and-a-half miles last night. We’re going to do three miles this evening.

We’re not ready. But we’re very much looking forward to it. Valerie has always been my little adventurer. She’s excited to be doing something so outrageous with her dad. And this will be something I’ll treasure with her forever.

There are at least a dozen of us from Legacy running the Warrior Dash in the morning: John & Suzanne, Bruce & Cathy, Mike & Lisa, Keith & Beth, Josh (who promises to stay right with me), Jason, Margaret, David and, from what I understand, a whole slew of our younger marrieds.

My goal is to finish in one hour or less. And to not have to be carried out in a stretcher.

Peace,

Allan

This Is Not God’s Way

December 15, 2010 / Allan / 5 Comments

Winston Churchill told a story about a little boy who was playing on a pier and tumbled over into the water. The boy couldn’t swim and began to cry out for help. A soldier working at a nearby dock heard the desperate screams and dove into the sea. This brave young man swam out to the child, put him on his back, and brought him safely back to shore and into the loving and nurturing arms of the cheering crowd. The next day, the little boy’s mother came back to the docks looking for the courageous soldier. When the pier workers pointed her toward her child’s rescuer, she walked right up to him and asked, “Young man, are you the one who saved my little boy?”

The soldier stood up. His chest began to swell and a smile broke out on his face as he answered her, “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

The woman leaned in and looked right into his eyes, “Where’s his cap?!?”

We preachers and ministers and elders and other church staff believe we are called by God. We believe we are charged by God to do the things we do in the name of his Son. It’s a high calling. It’s a noble vocation. It’s not a nine-to-five gig. It’s an all-consuming passion that compels us to preach and teach and pray and serve.

So when we answer that call from our Lord and move into the ministry, we all believe we’re entering a holy, God-sanctified realm. But the reality for most of us is that we’ve entered a system, a man-created and human-perpetuated system that grinds up and spits out preachers and elders. Broken preachers and elders are all around us. A lot of them are still working. A lot of them are not. Burned out. Trashed. Used. Abused. Walked all over. Stomped on. Chewed up and spit out like the gunk on the floor of a major league dugout.

The expectations we place on preachers and elders, the ways we treat them, the things we say to them and about them — behind their backs and even to their faces! — the things we demand of them, the attitudes of ownership and entitlement that guide our interactions with them, none of that is from God. We’ve been a part of this sick system for so long, we think it’s God’s way. But it’s not. It’s the human way. It’s the world’s way. The way we generally treat preachers and elders is not God’s way.

The reason wives and families of ministers and elders resent the church, the reason so many of our best and strongest and most faithful men refuse to serve when the church calls, the reason so few of our most gifted young people are interested in the call to preach and minister is that they all know they’re not entering into a holy partnership with God and his people as much as they’re entering into a life-sucking, soul-robbing, energy-draining system.

It’s not supposed to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.

It needs to change. We can do better. And we should.

The call from our God is for us to live in mutually-encouraging relationships in Christ. We are to “fan into flame” the gifts from God we see in our preachers and elders, not explode all over them with soaking wet, white fire extinguisher foam.

We are all holy people, set apart by our God to serve his holy purposes. Our interactions with one another should also be holy. They should encourage and inspire, not discourage and depress. We should express gratitude, not attitude. Instead of arguing and complaining and criticizing, our words and actions toward those who serve us should be motivated by the Spirit who lives inside us, the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. And no system.

Peace,

Allan

Holy Emails

November 15, 2010 / Allan / 2 Comments

I’m continually amazed by what winds up in my inbox.

I’m not at all surprised by coupons and get-rich-quick appeals or adverstisements for the various book stores I visit. I’m not shocked by the ocassional shout-out from a former high school or college classmate. Emails from people I’ve never met, from places I’ve never been, asking for prayers or spiritual advice don’t blow me away anymore. They used to. Now I know that’s just one of the crazy ways my God works.

No, what amazes me is the email I get, at least three or four times a week, that exists only to incite hatred or foster division or to ridicule other children of God.

This I do not understand.

Usually, these emails are sent en masse. These emails that criticize or make fun of entire groups of people based on race or socio-economic status or nationality or political party or language or religion are generally forwards of forwards of forwards of forwards. These emails can be forwarded a dozen times from Uncle Frank through some guy at church via that lady at work and her ex-father-in-law’s accountant. By the time it reaches me, these emails have been sent to dozens and dozens of different people, men and women who read the content and then forward it on to others.

And I can’t help but wonder, “What was going through my friend’s mind when he forwarded this to me and other people in our church?”

What’s going on mentally and spiritually here? I imagine that he opens the email from cousin Julie, he reads it, he understands it, and then he decides to forward it. But I know the Holy Spirit lives inside my friend’s heart. This email from him is crass and crude and hateful. How did this happen? I know my friend has died to the ways of the world, he’s died to himself, and now Christ our Lord lives in him. This email from him, though, is off-color and racist. Why did he send it? Who was guiding my friend as he hit the “forward” button and began adding names from his address book on these emails? Did he seriously consider what he had read? Did he pause even for a moment before he hit “send?” Did he pray first?

What made my friend think that Jesus would have approved the sending of that email? What made my friend think that email was holy? Perhaps my friend wasn’ t thinking.

Allow me to borrow from Jack Reese:

I cannot quite grasp it. People who go to church every week, who read the Bible, listen to sermons, take communion and pray, people who say ‘hello’ in the supermarket and root for their grandkids at soccer matches, who edge their lawns, drive under the speed limit, and show pictures of their new puppy at the hairdresser’s, people of good will and good manners with high moral commitments and low tolerance for rude behavior nevertheless speak ill of others, spread gossip, criticize, disparage, and pass judgment on those with whom they disagree. And often they do so in the name of Christ.

In a lot of these forwarded emails, I don’t see much evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self control.

Do your emails encourage or discourage? Are your emails holy? Does God’s Holy Spirit guide what you forward to others?

Email can be a wonderful thing. I’ve also discovered that, if we’re not thinking, it can be commandeered by Satan for his destructive purposes.

And it’ll have our name on it.

Peace,

Allan

In Christ Jesus

August 20, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“You are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.” ~1 Corinthians 1:30

All the doctrine of the Bible is made personal is Jesus. God’s wisdom is Jesus. Our righteousness is Jesus. Our holiness is Jesus. Our redemption is Jesus. Our resurrection is made personal and real in Jesus. Everything we need, and indeed have, for salvation and a right relationship with God is in Jesus.

When you’re down two scores in the fourth quarter you need a Pro Bowl quarterback, not a good playbook. When you’re being sued you need a good lawyer, not a comprehensive law encyclopedia. When you’re sick you need a good doctor, not a user-friendly medical website. And when you’re facing your greatest enemies — sin, death, Satan — you need the Savior of the World!

God’s wisdom and righteousness and holiness and redemption are gifts to you from him. They are benefits, yes. But they’re more than that. They are actually aspects of a relationship with Jesus. It is him in you. For all of us who were baptized into Christ have clothed ourselves with Christ.

When you belong to Christ Jesus you have all you’ll ever need in life and death, in time and space, and for eternity.

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A look back at Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address which he began writing in August 1809, 200 years ago this week inspires the reader to carefully and prayerfully consider our Lord’s call to Christian unity. Scripture’s picture of unity. Our God’s will for unity.

The opening lines — one sentence with tons of commas — goes like this:

“That it is the grand design, and native tendency, of our holy religion, to reconcile and unite men to God, and to each other, in truth and love, to the glory of God, and their own present and eternal good, will not, we presume, be denied, by any of the genuine subjects of christianity.”

The whole thing is a call to unity. Reconciliation. The kind of reconciliation Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 5. Reconciliation between God and man. Between man and man. The kind of reconciliation that drives God’s eternal plans. The very ministry he’s given those of us who’ve professed our faith in him and put his Holy Son on in baptism. Campbell’s words in this document are bold. Aggressive. And they ring with beautiful and undeniable truth. The Declaration and Address, the charter document of our Churches of Christ, calls for a swift end to all divisions among those who claim to be followers of Jesus.

“Has the Captain of Salvation sounded a desist from pursuing, or proclaimed a truce with, this deadly enemy that is sheathing its sword in the very bowels of the church, rending and mangling his mystical body into pieces. Has he said to his servants, let it alone? If not, where is the warrant for a cessation of endeavors to have it removed?”

Campbell claims that tearing down the walls and uniting again with our brothers and sisters in Christ is a “matter of universal right, a duty belonging to every citizen of Zion, to seek her good.” And while the work will be difficult and the opposition will come mainly from within the church establishment, Campbell says it is God’s will. It is the Church’s will. It is the will of those who’ve gone before us. And our efforts will be divinely rewarded.

“…both the mighty and the many are with us. The Lord himself, and all that are truly his people, are declaredly on our side. The prayers of all the churches, nay, the prayers of Christ himself, John 17:20-23, and of all that have ascended to his heavenly kingdom, are with us.”

I thank God for the Campbells and the Stones and other giants of the faith who latched onto God’s holy will as revealed to us in Scripture and. would. not. let. it. go. They lived to obey God rather than man. They swore to use only the Bible as their guide. And they vowed that, despite the opposition, they would remain loyal to their King and his Kingdom. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. We owe them the effort to carry on the difficult work they started 200 years ago.

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24 days until the Dallas Cowboys kick off their historic 50th NFL football season. 24 days from now they’ll be battling the Bucs down in Tampa. And we’re counting down the days with the Red Ribbon Review, a look at the second-best players in Cowboys history, according to jersey number. (This countdown becomes much more important with every Rangers loss. If they lose tonight, I’m blaming it on Lewin’s “1999-ish” comments on Tuesday.)

The second-best ever #24 in Cowboys history is a Super Bowl MVP, cornerback Larry Brown. The Cowboys stole him with a 12th round pick in 1991 and got a starting right corner for five straight seasons, three of them Super Bowl championship seasons. Brown is best known for picking off two Neil O’Donnell passes in the second half of Super Bowl XXX which led directly to the points the Cowboys needed to win their third title in four years. Yes, the balls hit Brown right in the chest. Yes, it looked like one of them would have to be surgically removed after the game, O’Donnell threw them right at him so hard. But a lot of people forget what a great ’95 season Brown had leading up to that game.

The former TCU star collected six picks that season, racked up 124 return yards, and ran two of them back for TDs. All of this just a few months following the tragic death of his young son. It was a great story that year. But most people have already forgotten.

Brown used his three rings and his MVP trophy to cash a huge paycheck in Oakland with the Raiders. That only lasted two years. He came back to Dallas in ’98 and played just parts of four games for the Cowboys before hanging it up for good. He finished his Cowboys career with 13 total picks and 279 total tackles. He played in 13 playoff games, four NFC Championship Games, and three Super Bowls as a Cowboy. And he’s the second-best #24 in Cowboys history.

Peace,

Allan

Christ Is All And Is In All

January 16, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

I enjoyed a fantastic lunch today with Manuel Calderon, our Hispanic minister here at Legacy. We’re planning a bi-lingual worship assembly for next Sunday in an effort to better integrate our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters into our church family at-large. And it’s facsinating to me that the barriers between us—the Anglos and the Hispanics—have much more to do with culture than with language.

They all speak English!

Granted, some communicate in English better than others. But of the 35-40 members of our “Spanish-speaking” congregation, only one or two speak exclusively Spanish. It’s not the language that divides us as much as it is our different cultures, our different socio-economic situations, our different “classes,” our different colors, our different backgrounds. We are increasingly speaking the same language, yet our Hispanic brothers and sisters remain segregated from the Anglos in our Christian churches.

You know, “segregation” is an ugly, ugly word in the history of this country. We have argued and revolted and debated and fought and bled and died to eradicate segregation in our larger society. And we’re still fighting. Because it’s such an awful word. It’s such a horrible distortion of what it is we claim to stand for.

But ‘segregation” seems to be perfectly OK in our Christian settings. And I don’t think we can be perfectly OK with that.

We have black congregations and white congregations and nobody seems to care. We have white congregations with 30 Hispanics meeting by themselves in a back room and nobody seems to care. For some reason it’s approved as OK. It’s brushed aside as “the way things are” or simply ignored as “the way it’s always been.” It’s excused as “the way they want it.”

Is it the way Christ Jesus wants it?

The early church was scandalous in the ways it welcomed all classes, all cultures, all genders, all languages and dialects into its fellowship. We’ve managed to avoid that scandal by segregating ourselves. The early church had to work through many difficulties, had to learn how to sacrifice and serve and look out for the needs of others as they welcomed all comers. We’ve avoided that hardship and the lessons and the spiritual growth that come with it by keeping to ourselves.

As church leaders, we should never wet our fingers and stick them up in the air to see which way the wind’s blowing. We should attempt to change the wind!

I don’t know about you, but Colossians 3:11 means something to me.

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

Galatians 3:28 sounds like truth to me.

“Their is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

We pray for Christian unity. We long for the day when all our differences are ultimately rendered meaningless. We anticipate that great banquet when all the nations and languages and tribes and peoples are gathered around our Lord’s table. We yearn for the realization of the perfect union we share in Christ Jesus.

I think if we’re praying for something, we ought to be working for it too. I think if we see something as God’s eternal will, we ought to be doing something about it.

We’re trying at Legacy. We’re trying. We’re not perfect. We’re not moving nearly quickly enough. It’s messy. It’s hard. But we’re trying.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Galatians (Page 10 of 11)

Raised With Christ

Following Jesus to the Cross

This Is Not God’s Way

Holy Emails

In Christ Jesus

Christ Is All And Is In All

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