Longing

While preparing a message in the Gospel of Matthew, I was reading through the prophetic words of Isaiah today. 

I am still amazed at how truthful and accurate the Word of God is in predicting events and...predicting events that have a near and yet future fulfillment. It's hard enough to predict one but to have a double fulfillment....statistical improbability. 

It is even more amazing to see how the Scriptures can even predict the human personality.

It did this with the yet-to-be-born Son of God. 

Isaiah 42:1-4 is this wonderful passage. 

"Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.  2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;  4 he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope." 

I was standing at the sink doing dishes the other night and I muttered, "God has to be grieved at the wickedness in this world."  I don't know why I said it out loud. I'm guessing that it poured forth from a heart that was just overflowing with that particular emotion. I thought about Noah and how God was grieved that he had made mankind. I also thought about how I yearn for a just world (whatever that means). 

I clearly am not a perfect person but I am striving to be. I have done my share of ungodly things and thought ungodly thoughts. I have been on the receiving side of swindlers and thieves, abuse and lies. I have prayed for forgiveness, offered forgiveness and...yes...prayed the imprecatory psalms over people with "just" intentions. There is something inside of me that just wants to live in world where things are made right. I long for that hope. Perhaps I'm just tired of the struggle, tired of being inundated with the negative all the time. Sequester would be an option but that didn't work well for the monks nor sleep for Ichabod Crane. You just end up being irrelevant and more depressed at the changing times.  

So when I read the description of Jesus given about him 700 years before he entered this world, I found great solace in knowing that the Father planned for him to have a heart for making things right. He has a spirit of justice within him. And the wonderful thing is that, not only does he have the heart, but he has the power to change things. 

Come to think of it....so do I. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_RjndG0IX8

Nobody

First, a word of thanks to all of you who participated in my doctoral survey.  I was able to get enough to formulate some general observations and to move forward on my remaining chapters. Words cannot express my gratitude. 

Second, I have been reflecting on Isaiah 53 for our Good Friday service, especially verses 1-2.  

I have seen hundreds of pictures of Jesus…. long flowing hair….beautiful brown eyes that are filled with kindness and gentleness.  If he were born today he would probably be the captain of every sport he played. He would be the lead in all the plays at the theatre.  He would be the cool guy that everyone wants to be like and liked by everyone. He would be mister popular, mister sophisticated.

Since he is God he would never have acne or have to deal with oily skin. His teeth would always be as white as Mount Hood snow.  His robe would never be dirty and always have a slight glow to it.  All the mothers would be asking Mary what laundry detergent she used. 

Whatever he put his hand to was perfect.  When he worked for his father he never cut a board too short or mis-measured.  When he was called to cut a slab of stone his first swing split it perfectly and he was the envy of all the neighborhood masons.

Of course this is not an entirely accurate view of Jesus.  It certainly isn’t a biblical view of him.  The truth of the matter is that he was insignificant.  He was a nobody from a nothing town.  Up until he started his ministry it would have been “Jesus who?”  Son of Joseph and Mary.  Joseph and Mary who?  He was a nobody and the son of a nobody.  He was a plain boy who grew up into a plain and ordinary man.

His was simply described as sensitive toward the things of God; someone who never really fit in to this world, someone who belonged somewhere else. 

As I was writing this I thought, "I guess I am being made into His image."

Doctoral Survey

This blog post is for my doctoral dissertation survey.  I'm looking for individuals between 18 and 30 years of age to help compare two presentations that have to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You don't have to be a Christian to take this survey, in fact, I'm looking for those adventurous souls who are not. Your help and feedback would be greatly appreciated. The whole survey should not take more than 45 minutes and 25-30 minutes of that is clicking on and watching through my two Power Point presentations. Please be honest in your assessment but also respectful. I'm not trying to convert anyone or offend anyone. I'm just looking for some honest feedback on comparing the two presentations. 

Please review the overview and consent form.  You do not need to sign anything. The survey is an anonymous survey. You simply need to be aware of what will be taking place. 

Your first question will be a statement that you have read and do consent to take the survey and view the presentations. 

Thanks.

Daniel

Survey

Whoops...

Hi, all....

Many of you may have received a partial survey from me....It's a whoops....

My IT person was trying to move a survey from Google Docs into my blog and he apparently hit publish. 

But...be thinking of persons between the ages of 18-30 to take a religious survey for me. It will be coming on my next blog post. It's why I have been a bit absent on my writing of late.  Trying to get this doctoral thesis finished. 

So..disregard if you have received it and pray that I get this finished so that I can get back to my regular blog posts. 

Thanks for your patience. 

Daniel 

Water bucket

"I was all the time tugging and carrying water, but now I have a river that carries me."  Dwight Lyman Moody.  

D. L. Moody (1837 - 1899) has a great life story. Left without a father at the age of four, helping his mother and his eight brothers and sisters put food on the table was more important than education. Like my own grandfather, a sixth grade education was about all you needed. You could read, write, and do arithmetic; in other words, you could survive. Now it was time to get to work. 

He would leave his home for Boston, Mass. and his uncle's shoe store where he would find his talent as a salesman. He would also be led to a saving knowledge of Jesus by a faithful Sunday school teacher in the back of that store. 

Not long after, he felt limited and so left for the great city of Chicago. It was great in opportunity but horrid in corruption and morally bankrupt in character. He would write to his mother and describe the almost unbearable unChristian environment. But the smallest light is able to dispel the greatest darkness. 

He would start with showing the love of God to children of the street. At one point he had over 1500 children in his Sunday school program. He would teach them to read and write using the Bible and make sure that each child knew they were loved by God. 

He would become the head of the Young Men's Christian Association and head up an organization to minister to Confederate captured prisoners.  You would think that he would be pleased with all his accomplishments but instead he was tired and missing something. 

Two small old church ladies would sit in the front pew of his church on Illinois Street and pray through the whole service. One day he asked them what they were praying for. They said, "We are praying for you."  Mr. Moody replied, "Why don't you pray for the people." They said, "We are praying that you will be empowered by the Holy Spirit." He said, "I thought I had the power of the Holy Spirit." After all, he had the largest church in Chicago and an incredible influence in the city. But he knew something was missing. He had the Spirit [the water] but he was tired in spirit. He had been carrying the Holy Spirit instead of the Living Water carrying him. 

And so God helped him with his desire. He sent the Chicago fire and burned up everything that he had and owned. The house, the possessions, the church, the businesses that supported him -- all gone. He left for New York and as he walked on the city streets his attention was on one thing:  the filling, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Then one day on those city streets God revealed himself to his heart in such a way that he could not contain it.  His love was so strong that it overwhelmed him. Moody says that it was so overwhelming that he had to ask God to stop. The spiritual container was overflowing and could not contain any more. 

Moody said that his sermons were not any different; he did not present any new truths, but hundreds were converted.  It was after this that his soul was set on fire and God would use him in great ways in Great Britain and again back in the United States. 

My point is not to enter into a debate on what the filling of the Spirit means [some calling it the baptism of the Holy Spirit] but to address the fact that many, including myself, need to recognize good hearts with tired spirits from carrying the water. It was never God's intention for us to carry the water but that the water should carry us. 

This means that I need to put down the water buckets and get in the boat. It means that I need to put away my own agenda and desires and let God move me and carry me to the various divine destinations that he has for me. 

Are you tired in the Lord service? Perhaps your just doing too much and need to scale back. But perhaps you're doing the right things but in your own strength. Leave the buckets for the servants.  The boat is for the sons and daughters of God.  

Year of the Horse

Psalm 20:7, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." 

Last week began the new lunar year for those in Asia. For those of you non-Asians, the lunar year begins the reign of a new animal. Last year was the year of the snake. This year is the year of the horse. 

This year I have been entrusted to sing "Happy New Year" in Mandarin to the tune "O My Darling." Complicating matters, there seems to be numerous ways to say, "Happy New Year" in Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese). Once again I find myself in the position of public embarrassment, trying hard to be confident while internally wishing that I can get it out with an understandable mumble. 

As I selected the key verse for my closing "talk" I became acutely aware that I am often on the wrong side of this verse. It manifests when I am asked to do things outside of my comfort level. I trust in my chariots. I trust in my horses. It's why I worry about how this will all turn out in the end. At present my horses are all out to pasture and my chariots are in the shop for repair. 

Actually, I know in my heart that any attempt at speaking the Chinese language will be welcomed. Any time I have made an effort to move into my church family's cultural world it has been met with great appreciation. I just feel badly that I cannot verbally engage with them more regarding their "heart" language. God grant me the gift of tongues! 

Psalm 20 is a psalm that specifically speaks of saving the king, the anointed one. And in this psalm the people are not denying that chariots and horses are needed to win the battle. But they are conveying that at any given time there are actually two battles raging:  one physical and one spiritual. In the physical, the psalmist is recognizing that chariots and horses are only successful if they are the instruments in the hand of a much larger power. And without that much larger power it doesn't matter how many chariots or horses you have. Defeat will be coming your way.  

The Apostle Paul eloquently stated this in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:  "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." The weapons of the Christian are prayer and the Word of God. 

I believe this psalm is teaching me that my ultimate strength, my ability to live victorious in this life must be found in the Lord. I am to use the gifts that God has given me to serve him and others well but in the end I need to realize that it is the Lord who will win the battle. It actually makes me appreciate my personal abilities more. They are the tangible instruments that God uses to actually fight the battle. A sword is simply a combination of metals, but in the hand of an expert swordsman, it is a deadly instrument. 

So if my Chinese comes out incoherent this Saturday look around for a little horse poop somewhere close by. It means that I have once again went to the stables rather than the Creator. The battle belongs to the Lord. 

Happy New Year!

Xin nian hao ya!

God, Have Mercy

I write today with a heavy heart. Last night while coming home from a meeting Deb and I were made aware that a 23 year old young woman that we knew was killed in an automobile accident. Her father is the new pastor of the church that I recently left and her mother was my secretary for a number of years. 

I have two adult daughters of my own that are not far from her age and so it gave me pause to think about life, death, and God's mercy and grace. 

St. Gregory Palamas, a 14th century bishop of Thessoloniki in Macedonia, taught his disciples to pray the Jesus prayer found in Luke 18:13.  "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me a sinner." 

He taught that if one kept praying that prayer over and over, not in a mindless mantra but in a concentrated effort to assimilate the truth, that one could actually be brought into an experiential presence of the Lord. 

"God have mercy on me a sinner." After I prayed for comfort and strength for the family, those words came rushing in to my own soul. "God have mercy on me." I was essentially saying, "Please don't let that happen to me."  In my frail humanity I don't want to bear the pain of losing a child or a grandchild. But I was also saying, "Please help me to understand." 

When we cry out for God's mercy we are rightly saying that God has the right to allow these types of things to happen to us all. His children are not immune as we saw last night. But it doesn't preclude us from beseeching God's divine goodness and desiring to live a peaceful, non-tragic life. Human frailty as it is, however, we often look through the eyes of Job's friends in order to justify our perceived gift of mercy from the hand of God and in order to understand why tragedy happened to someone else. 

I remember the words of Jesus recorded in Luke 13.  

"Now there were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, 'Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them -- do you think they were more guilty than all the other living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Whether it is a car accident or cancer or a stroke or a heart-attack, or a brutal rape or murder...we live in a world where bad things happen to redeemed people. It doesn't mean that one is better than another; that one is worse than another. It falls within the providential mystery of God. And so we cry out, "God have mercy." 

I immediately prayed for my own children and grandchildren as if to imply that this will always keep at bay the tragedies of this world. I'm not saying that God does not honor prayers of protection and that we shouldn't pray for the safety of our families, but it is also not the magic shield either. If I miss a day of prayer...if I forget...and something happens...am I to blame?...am I to bear the guilt of the wickedness or pain that might enter my world? I think too highly of myself...as if the world rises and falls upon my desires and my humble requests. God have mercy. 

"Father, if it is Thy will, take this cup from me..."  Jesus prayed. And he was murdered. Am I not glad for this unanswered prayer? Do I not celebrate this act of evil?  Was it not for my good? Is this not the key?  Has God not shown us the reason for allowing such evil -- that good should come of it and that God might receive praise and glory?  God have mercy. 

God have mercy....and in the midst of the pain give us the strength to embrace your will. Perhaps we will never know the reason why but we can trust that it was for someone's eternal good, for His eternal glory, and a reminder that we should all, with deepest contrition and humility, be daily crying out, "God have mercy!"