Author: Craig

You don’t have to listen to me…

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My 2+ group read these verses last week and I have not been able to get away from them:  James 3:13-18

13Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

The meekness of wisdom.  Meekness is not a popular word.  So meek and mild.  Why is mild put together with meekness?  It has nothing to do with it.

Meekness has to do with controlled strength.  Think of sitting on the strongest and mightiest horse, giving a subtle command, and having the horse respond.  That’s meekness.  Controlled strength.

That’s Jesus.  Truly He IS the wisdom that came from heaven.  Controlled strength.  See Jesus, the magnificence and majesty of God wrapped up in flesh.  The meekness of wisdom.

Is that me and is that you?  Meek.

The meekness of wisdom says, “You don’t have to listen to me for me to feel good about myself.  You don’t have to listen to me for the world to be set right.  But I will listen to you… for a while.

And then hopefully we can draw out the wisdom of heaven

and all be better for it.”

When Jesus gives you your life back…

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This morning we read Luke 17:11-19 at my breakfast table.  There where no fireworks over our oatmeal but I did feel the Lord move my heart.

When you have lost so much and then Jesus unexpectedly gives it back… gratitude can light up the sky!

The ten people who met Jesus in the story have not only had to deal with a medical condition, they have had to grieve their persistent social alienation day after humiliating day.

And now because of God’s grace they could start over!

Only one came back to tell Jesus, “thank you.”

And I think this one, got so much more than new skin!

Did he get a new heart?

Now he could go home as a changed man.  His “faith had made him well.”

From this day forward faith in Jesus is something he lives with.

So you are planning a mission trip…

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Throughout my years of participation in churches and ministries I have both been part of organizing groups to go and part of organizing our local work to receive groups.  I’m not against the use of short-term mission experiences.  In fact my own call into ministry is rooted in a mission experience in New Orleans with the community built up around the Rachel Sims Mission Centre.  What’s important is how we frame the trip.  What’s important is where we place it in the discipleship journey of the participants.  I believe the difference in mindset between “saviour” and “learner” is so important for teams and their leaders.  The difference in mindset between doing something for or doing something with the community you are entering will shape how you plan.  Whether you are planning a trip to Vancouver, Appalachia, or Haiti, Bob Lupton’s wisdom will be helpful.

Exposing young people (and adults) to the needs of the world and the amazing work of God in harsh environments is important ministry. It opens their eyes, stirs their hearts and draws them into compassionate action. That’s why mission trips can be important in the spiritual development of our youth. And that’s what mission trips should be about—spiritual development, not pretending that they are about saving the world. Not immediately anyway. They are about saving us. Preparing us. Once that is clear, we can venture into Haiti and other places of need with integrity.

Read the whole article.

 

 

Judgement and a full-bodied view of evil

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Scripture:  2 Peter 5:3-10

Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.  Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones…

Observations:

Peter affirms that God is judging those who distort the truth, abuse His name, and  exploit people.

Application:

God is not asleep.  When it seems like wickedness is prevailing Peter reminds these people under pressure that God’s judgment has appeared, and will come again.  This is particularly important because of the hubris that accompanies willful rebellion against God and His Gospel.  A view of God’s judgment also is important for helping us metabolize the lack of mindfulness toward God and the lack of empathy toward people that may characterize people doing evil things.  Jesus said, “Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”  But what do we do, when they do know what they are doing?

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, To trust that you will ultimately put all things right means that I believe you are the solution to evil and to the brokenness generated by our independence from you.  To trust that you are putting things right through Jesus Christ means that I abandon revenge and self-righteousness.  To trust that you are putting things right means that I believe we can find some measure of justice in this world for others who suffer from the evil deeds and decisions humans are capable of.  But even then nothing will be so satisfying as knowing you.  AMEN.

Wrecked… Kin in the Kingdom of God

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This morning I read a post written by Ann Voskamp about her trip to Haiti.  Halfway through I kept having to sweep the tears in order to finish.  Wrecked.  Its too easy to distance ourselves from our kin who live in poverty.  Its too easy rest in the self-righteousness of “where I was born.”  She writes,

And when our Haitian Compassion translator, Johnny, stands in The Alpha Hotel with its rats running down the hallways, he tells us how, after getting his BA in Florida, he’d got his MDiv in North Carolina.

How he’d come back to Haiti to work for Compassion, and took in 5 starving Haitian orphans to raise with his own 3 and saved to send all 8 of them to university.

How he’d walked out of the Hotel Montana not 30 seconds before it collapsed in the earthquake and how after the quake, how he’d climbed from one tree to the next, all down the mountain from the Montana, all the roads blocked with rubble and death, wild to find his kids and wife somewhere in Port Au Prince that is home.

And that’s when I couldn’t stop it – when it came out of me, a whisper, but still too loud.

Like an angry fool, I had asked him, laid my hand on his arm and quietly begged him, “Johnny, I know you were born here – but someday — couldn’t you take your family and move to a land like the States?”

Just step over the rubble and beggars and latrines and garbage and gangs and just get your family out of this place where you were born and come find the land of the free? It’s ugly, but it’s what I thought for our friend: You only get one life here and who really wants to spend it in the slums?

And he looked me in the eyes and he waited, searching mine.

Searching for a way to get the truth right into me, me born into the lap of ease of the West and homesick for the farm and wanting everyone to have the relative ease of the middle class.

“But I am Moses.” Johnny speaks it deep, his eyes never leaving mine, his fatherly hand gently squeezing mine, soothing out my roaring wail.

“I am Moses. I do not leave my kindred.”

And the whole planet and all my heart reverberates.

I am Moses. I do not leave my kindred.

You don’t leave your kin to save your own skin.

You don’t stay in the palace if you want anybody to find deliverance – especially yourself.

You don’t forget who your brother is — when you know Who your Father is.

I turn away, chin quaking hard. I’ve got a passport in my bag and a ticket to ease and he only gets one life here and he’s living in the desperate need of this one for the definite reward of the next one – and how in the world again am I living mine?

If the grace of my life is mostly where I am born, and I am born again into the family of Christ, than how can my life birth anything other than a grace that gives?

Read the whole post and take in the pictures.