Danger in following Jesus

I've been pondering this statement I read today:

Contemporary theologian Scott Bader-Saye has written, “Following -Jesus will mean surrendering the power that masquerades as security in order to love the neighbor and welcome the stranger. It will mean avoiding the safe path in order to pursue the good. But in a culture of fear, we find such risks all the more difficult since our natural inclinations lead us to close in on ourselves when we face danger. How can we maintain the posture of the open hand toward a world that scares us?”

Does following Jesus cost us something?  Is there a sense of danger, of risk, and of holy adventure?  Would that sacrifice and suffering drive us closer to Him?  Lord, awaken my heart to beat in rhythm with Yours.  Amen.

Now that's a prayer!

In the words of Morgan Freeman (taken from the Bruce Almighty film), THIS is a prayer!

"God, give us discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that instead we may live deep within our hearts. Grant us anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of -people, so that we may wish for justice, freedom, and peace. Bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen."

(borrowed from today's reading from commonprayer.net)

The way of humility

From the ancient followers of Christ we can still learn valuable lessons - here is one:

Augustine of Hippo, a fifth-century bishop and theologian, wrote, “The way to Christ is first through humility, second through humility, third through humility. If humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, if it is not before us to focus on, if it is not beside us to lean upon, if it is not behind us to fence us in, pride will wrench from our hand any good deed we do at the very moment we do it.”

We're called to be humble.  Like the Tim McGraw tune, it ought to permeate our lives.  James reminds us:  "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you."

Lord, may we walk humbly with you in this life!

Pathway of a Songwriter

Lately I've stopped worrying about being interrupted while praying with phrases and ideas for new songs.  Music & lyric have played a crucial role in my life and ministry so, you know what, I'm going to embrace that reality.  God may in fact be spurring me toward new songs as I pray and think on Him in my daily routine!

Here's a few ideas that came to me this morning:

Ring the bells, shout for joy, death has died

From the cross to the grave Jesus Christ arose

Born again brought to life from crimson to white

Tell the world the good, good news

This is the gospel, the gospel of Jesus

The Way of Jesus

This morning I was taken back by the daily Bible readings in Exodus 24 and 1 Thessalonians 5.  In the Exodus passage, Moses and his leadership team actually hang out with God!  Then, Moses gets some special time with God up on a mountain.  I read it several times and am still blown away by the interaction recorded!  

Then, in the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, he wraps up with a pretty powerful summation of walking in the light and following the way of Jesus.  Here is how the ESV renders it:

12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle,[c] encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.  23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Lord, help me as a leader to encourage the idler, lift up the fainthearted, strengthen the weak and overall, be patient!  Help me rejoice always, keep to praying and give thanks always...

So help me God!

Recent books I've read...

I just finished reading Thomas Merton's book New Seeds of Contemplation which he wrote in 1961.  Among the many quotable passages, I really resonated with his thoughts on humility.  He wrote, "When a proud man thinks he is humble, his case is hopeless." (p49)  Not seeing one's own pride is dangerous indeed!

I also am in process of reading through J.R. Parrish's 2009 book You Don't Have to Learn The Hard Way which is written from a business man's perspective on success through great human relations.  Its a great perspective on how to be a person that other people are drawn to.  On being an unnecessarily difficult personality, he writes, "Generally speaking, if you are contradicting, you are losing." (p39).  He speaks of taking ownership of how you react to stress and to people - good practical stuff like:

• Be on time.
• Send hand-written thank-you notes.
• In the presence of others, turn off your cell phone.
• Smile.
• Return calls promptly.
• Compliment.
• Use people's names when addressing them.

And so much more...

Our Past and Our Potential Future...

I just finished reading JD Vance's best-seller, Hillbiliy Elegy, and found the author's frankness refreshing.  Though it reads a bit like a documentary on the poor, white lower class society, I found the ending helpful.  We are all born into a story and our childhood experiences shape our thinking.  As we mature, however, we begin to make our own choices that will determine our own story and potential future.

What choices are we making now that could impact a brighter tomorrow?  Good food for thought Mr. Vance!

Here's a link to the book - probably at the library as well:  https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547

Let the Kingdom show!

Read this today in my devotional time.  Here, on day 3 of the season of Easter fasting we call Lent, I found it a powerful statement from an amazing woman of faith:

Pandita Ramabai, a nineteenth-century Indian activist, said, “People must not only hear about the kingdom of God, but must see it in actual operation, on a small scale perhaps and in imperfect form, but a real demonstration nevertheless.”

Indeed, Lord, let Your Kingdom come and will be done!  Followers of Christ, let us reveal the Kingdom in our hearts and lives this season!

Ancient words

I'm finding great wisdom in reading some of the early church's leaders.  Here is one I came across from common prayer.net:  

Clement, an early bishop of Rome, wrote, “When the heathen hear the words of God from our lips, they marvel at them as something beautiful and great. However, when they find out that our deeds are unworthy of the words we speak, they turn from this to blasphemy. They say it is a myth and a delusion.”

Our orthodoxy meets orthoproxy in a beautiful partnership to show the world the good news of Jesus!

Counting the cost

Too often people see the church as an emergency help organization or another agency to work among the poor or marginalized.  In one sense, this is true, however, if that is all she is, there is a great bit of truth missing.  The cross, suffering, sin, and the whole idea of God's Kingdom and eternity.  I read these words this morning related to this:

Flannery O’Connor said, “I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. What -people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”

I would walk...15,000 miles???

I was doing some research on the walking situation that would have been the norm for travel in the first century and I ran across this article in Christianity Today:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-59/on-road.html


The article points out that Jesus likely logged 15,000 miles of walking in His short life.  Wow!

Those early followers of Christ walked!  Jesus walked.  People did some serious walking.  It makes me think that in our world, walking might just need a resurgence!  When we walk or hike, we're talking, observing, connecting with each other, with nature, with God's presence.  We are experiencing the natural world and our senses are engaged.

Maybe the most spiritual thing we might do this new year is endeavor to WALK more!  I know I am!

J.D. Salinger and The Jesus Prayer

Most know Salinger's book The Catcher in Rye but I'd never read anything else of his until his book Franny & Zooey was recommended.  I was pleasantly surprised that the main content of the book involves a brother and sister's wrestling with the place of the Jesus Prayer in life and the Spiritual journey.  Today I reread this phrase by the brother to his sister Franny:

"Jesus...in the New Testament...He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible...Jesus realized there is no separation from God...Jesus knew - KNEW - that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us...

I wonder if the early church leadership would say the same?  Sounds like Jesus' teaching on prayer doesn't it?  "May your kingdom come, your will be done..."

Ben

Charming the muse...

In an effort to jump-start my own creative work this new year, I read the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield today.  He mentions praying / mediating on this invocation before he starts his writing work each day.  It at least provides an insight into some of the mystery of the creative world that artists occupy...sort of odd, but, hey, I'd never heard of anyone going through such a routine!

The Odyssey of Homer

translated from the Greek by T. E. Lawrence

INVOCATION

---

O DIVINE POESY
GODDESS-DAUGHTER OF ZEUS
SUSTAIN FOR ME
THIS SONG OF THE VARIOUS-MINDED MAN
WHO AFTER HE HAD PLUNDERED
THE INNERMOST CITADEL OF HALLOWED TROY
WAS MADE TO STRAY GRIEVOUSLY
ABOUT THE COASTS OF MEN
THE SPORT OF THEIR CUSTOMS GOOD OR BAD
WHILE HIS HEART
THROUGH ALL THE SEA-FARING
ACHED IN AN AGONY TO REDEEM HIMSELF
AND BRING HIS COMPANY SAFE HOME

VAIN HOPE—FOR THEM
FOR HIS FELLOWS HE STROVE IN VAIN
THEIR OWN WITLESSNESS CAST THEM AWAY
THE FOOLS
TO DESTROY FOR MEAT
THE OXEN OF THE MOST EXALTED SUN
WHEREFORE THE SUN-GOD BLOTTED OUT
THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN

MAKE THE TALE LIVE FOR US
IN ALL ITS MANY BEARINGS
O MUSE

Stay-cation

From Christmas through New Years my family took a break from our normal routine of work and spent time resting.  During that time I was able to read 3 books - one of which I took several notes on called What God You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith.  A few notes I made were:

p82 We can’t see in ourselves what we can see so clearly in others.

p90 I won’t learn less (by hearing people out)

p154 There’s no on/off switch for caring, empathy and showing respect.  it’s always on.

p174  Helping people be right is more productive than proving them wrong!

p221 The great Western Culture disease lies in the phrase, “I will be happy when…"

Some good stuff to ponder here and some sound very familiar to the Biblical texts like...

Matthew 7:1-4  "Plank in your own eye first..."

James 1:19 "Be quick to listen..."

Galatians 6:9 "Let us not become weary in doing good..."

Matthew 20:16 "So the last will be first and the first will be last..."

John 10:10 "I have come that they may have life, and life to the full!"

Additionally from Sunday's message...

In regards to the challenge to see eternity as a reality and that Christ followers live today in ways that echo into eternity, Former Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright of Durham has written:

“The whole point of what -Jesus was up to was that he was doing close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term in the future. And what he was promising for that future and doing in the present was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing -people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose —  and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that large project.”

John Piper's Passion of Jesus Christ

I just finished this short book this morning and found some powerful statements that I just wanted to share:

p49 being sanctified means that we are imperfect and in process

p59 don’t follow a defeated foe.  Follow Christ.  It is costly.  You will be an exile in this age.  But you 

will be free.

p62  Christianity is not first theology but news.

p87 Christ-inhabited, Christ-sustained, Christ-strengthened (self) - That’s what a Christian is.

p94  Christ died to create comrades on the Calvary road.

p117 Paradise will not be a hall of mirrors.  It will be a display of majesty.  And it won’t be ours.

Here is a link to the book:  https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Jesus-Christ-ByJohn-Piper/dp/B003AUD338

Learning to coach

I have recently been through an 8 week crash course in learning to be a life coach and it has really opened my eyes to a reality of our human condition.  We don't like to be told what to do!  In fact, in a recent post by one of the teachers of the crash course, he writes, "it goes against human nature to accept someone else’s ideas in place of our own."

Jesus wasn't ignorant of this.  I think of all the times that He coached people to discover truth by simply using really good questions.

I am on a new mission to give less advice and trust that by using good questions, people can discover some great solutions for life.  Wasn't it James that told us to be "quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry"?  Good words there!

Strange word from 1 John 2:2 explained...

In the text we studied in our 2nd message in the series “Overcomers - The Letter of 1 John” we didn’t talk about a strange word John uses in 2:2 that the NIV and the ESV English versions translate as “propitiation”.  In context, John writes, 

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.  2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

The word comes from a Greek term that signifies an ‘atoning sacrifice’ (for sin) or an ‘expiation’ of sorts.   Ok, those terms may not help us much. The term has been defined like an ‘appeasement of wrath by an angry diety’ but, this is the true picture for the story we find in Christ.  As John Stott puts it, 

There can, therefore, be no question of human beings appeasing an angry deity by their gifts. The Christian propitiation is quite different, not only in the character of the divine anger but in the means by which it is propitiated. It is an appeasement of the wrath of God by the love of God through the gift of God. The initiative is not taken by us, nor even by Christ, but by God himself in sheer unmerited love. His wrath is averted not by any external gift, but by his own self-giving to die the death of sinners. This is the means he has himself contrived by which to turn his own wrath away (cf. Pss 78:38; 85:2–3; 103:8–10; Mic. 7:18–19).

Stott, J. R. W. (1988). The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 19, p. 92). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

So, God is the one who not only pursues us fiercely because of His love, He actively paid for our sins Himself to satisfy and fulfill all righteousness.  It is ALL ABOUT GOD here!  That is some GOOD news!

Pastor Ben

Rain falls

So the Bauman family had a tough day yesterday as Dylan was pre diagnosed with moderate Chron's Disease.  We are sad and shocked by the news and are now reading and learning all we can about this condition.  We are also just praying for God's comfort and presence with Dylan as he wrestles with the reality of this news.  Lord, have mercy on us.

Hitting 9

This past weekend Dallas Church reached a milestone - 9 years old and counting!  I had a lot of mixed emotions heading into the weekend.  Overall, I wanted to see the church still engaged in our community, still interested in seeking people far from the Lord and building a community of faith that puts faith and love into ACTION!  

The message Sunday was simply the story of how God created Dallas Church.  It was a personal, risky and at times scary journey for my family and others.  Here are a few things I also wanted to communicate Sunday...

Taking a cue from the story of the sheep & goats (Matthew 25), we find that love without action is sentimentalism; actions without love is cold legalism, but, love flowing through action is beautiful.  

So, the big question is, what is God calling YOU to do?  What are your resources, gifting, talents and passions pointing YOU to?  It may not be to move across the country and start a new church like the Baumans, but, there is a role for YOU to play in growing God's kingdom and network of love here in our world.

Here are a few big sky dreams I believe God may be calling us all to...WHAT IF:

We were a catalyst for arts in our community?

Our worship gatherings were more dynamic, engaging, challenging, inspiring were people were spontaneously praying for each other in our gatherings; encouraged one another - challenging and supporting each other?

We were all having meals and connecting w/ friends, neighbors who are not part of a church?

Our disciples went into the US south/Bible belt to plant new churches?

We were known by our love of people and our devotion to prayer and we had an undeniable hunger & thirst for the Lord & His kingdom?

God performed miracles in and through us as we prayed hard for His will daily?

Our faith was so strong in the Lord that we could indeed move mountains?

Marriages in our church were stronger than ever?

Our generosity reached such a level that we changed some people's lives forever?

It's time to keep dreaming about what God could do in and through us in 2017!

Join me in the journey!
Pastor Ben