Old Man Rant

Be warned, I'm going on an "old man rant" today.

I was in my car this morning headed across town to have breakfast with a friend when a song I'd never heard before came on the radio. I usually listen to Christian radio, but for some reason, this morning I was on one of the local stations.

The song was "In My Head" by Jason Derulo.

Right away, I knew this was a song with which I would have an issue. The first two lines are:

Everybody's looking for love. Oh. Oh.Ain't that why you're at this club. Oh. Oh.

And then the bridge:

Just leave with me now, Say the word and we'll go.I'll be your teacher. I'll show you the ropes.You'll see a side of love you've never known.

OK, old man rant time.

THIS ISN'T LOVE!

A one night stand isn't love. And while it may be exciting and new; it isn't even like.

IT'S LUST.

Lust is fleeting. Lust is fantasy. Lust is selfish.

Lust leads to regret.

Love.

Love is eternal. Love is committed. Love is self-less.

Love leads towards unity.

Jason Derulo proves my point in the second verse:

Some dudes know all the right things to say.When it comes down to it, it's just a game.Instead of talking let me demonstrate. Yeah.Get down to business let's skip foreplay.

This guy in the bar is in it for his own pleasure. Sure, he is saying the girl will also find pleasure, but her pleasure isn't his ultimate goal; he's selfish. He just wants to get to "the end;" the place he finds pleasure. Skipping foreplay is in essence saying, "I don't care if you have ultimate fun, as long as I get to where I want to be quickly."

OK, so I've tried to keep it PG-13 here, and maybe my "cleaning up the imagery" is weakening my argument, but please hear me today.

Ladies, don't fall for this guy. He is simply using you.

Gentlemen, don't be this guy. Women are to be honored, to be cherished, to be adored.

Women are not objects!

A real man isn't someone who can walk into a club and walk out with a beautiful woman willing to go home with him for the night.

A real man is one who walks her down the isle, and thirteen years later, twenty years later, fifty years later she is still madly in love with him.

You want to find real love, you have to be willing to commit everything for all eternity. Then, and only then, will you "see a side of love you've never known.

And It All Came Tumbling Down

Today's post will be a converging of two of my worlds.

As many of you who know me are aware, I've spent the past 5 years traveling the country working with churches who are upgrading their AVL (audio, video, lighting) systems. Today, I received a phone call from a church here I Lexington I've been working with these past few months; it seems their screen had begun to fall.

Sure enough, one of the three rigging points had failed, and the screen was tilting when I walked into the room.

As I got up on the lift and went to look at what had gone wrong, I found the person who had hung the screen originally had not used appropriate cables. The screen had been hung using lighting safety cables, and not high quality safety cables at that.

The screen had been hanging for some time, I'm not exactly sure how long; but it eventually failed.

As I was repairing the screen, replacing the three points with four new points, I starting thinking about how this failure of the screen rigging related to life.

Specifically, sin in our lives.

You see, sin can be just like those cables holding that screen. For a while, we don't even realize there's a problem. But right from the start, everything is just not safe. The longer we allow the sin to permeate our life, the closer to disaster we come.

Eventually, everything will come tumbling down.

Jesus Stooped Down

I'm listening to a sermon online this afternoon and the pastor read the line, "Jesus stooped down" taken from John 8:6 in the New Living Translation of the Bible. The message was so profound, I had to pause the video and switch over to my blog to jot down my thoughts.

Instantly images of Jesus stooping down rushed to my mind. This line is from the story of the woman caught in adultery, brought to Jesus by the religious leaders of the day. Jesus' response upon hearing the accusation, to stoop down.

Why?

Because that is where the woman was.

This isn't the only time Jesus stooped. He stooped down to make mud so he could heal a blind man. This miracle is recorded in the very next chapter of the Bible, John 9.

While the text doesn't say he stooped, I'm sure Jesus stooped down when he spoke to the man at the Pool of Bethesda. John 5 records Jesus' interaction with the man. John tells us the man had been sick for 38 years. At the time he met Jesus, he was laying on a mat near the pool, but not close enough to be the first person into the pool.

I'm sure Jesus didn't stand over the man during their conversation. Again, the text doesn't say specifically, but I picture Jesus stooping down next to the man's mat to converse with him, and ultimately heal him.

But more importantly, Jesus stooped down when he left Heaven to enter earth as a baby. Philippians 2:5-11 tell the story. Jesus gave up the Divine to become human; he stooped.

Jesus stooped, and I gained the ability to be reconciled to God. Thank you Jesus you loved me enough to stoop down!

Red Letter Christian

I heard a new phrase yesterday, Red Letter Christian. Tony Campolo was speaking to the students of Lee University during chapel when he made the reference.

A Red Letter Christian is someone who lives their life by the red letters of the Bible. Basically, they live life according to the words of Jesus.

Now, I've been a Christian for nearly 38 years, and in all that time, I can assure you I've rarely lived the life to which Christ called me. I am ashamed to say, I have never lived my life as a Red Letter Christian.

I want to. Each day that passes I long more and more to live the life Jesus modeled. But each day I find myself falling into the traps of this world. You see, I've allowed myself to fall into the myth that is American christianity.  I've bought the lie of the prosperity gospel.

If you follow this blog, you will know my wife and I have made it our life's goal to give away money to further God's kingdom. We even have a name for this giving, Kingdom Works funds. And while our desire is Godly, our approach isn't.

You see, we have a line-item in our budget for these Kingdom Works Funds, but that is as far as we've been willing to go. There is a line we have not crossed.

When asked by the Rich Young Ruler what he lacked in his ability to truly follow Jesus, our Savior's response was, "One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21 - NIV)

Those are red letter words. That is the example needed to live the life of a Red Letter Christian.

But wait, you scream. That was Jesus' call to that man. His wealth was hindering him from truly following Jesus. That isn't Jesus' call to me.

It isn't? What did Jesus say to Peter, Andrew, James, John? He said, "Come, follow me" ... and they LEFT THEIR NETS and followed Him. (see Matthew 4:18-22 - emphasis mine)

Red Letter Christians leave everything to follow Jesus. And that is what Jesus expects of us. Material possessions are meaningless to Red Letter Christians. They are simply tools, or in many cases hindrances, to their ability to live the life to which Jesus has called.

So while I strive to live the life of a Red Letter Christian, I so often fail. Fortunately, my God is a God of grace, and each time I fail, I know I'm already forgiven. All I have to do is accept that forgiveness, take up my cross, and follow.

The Wages of Sin

I receive a few emails from organizations that "follow" Christian events ... One recently posted an article about a Tweet sent by a pastor of a large church in the Pacific Northwest on Inauguration Day.

I won't quote the Tweet and I won't name the pastor here; those are not relevant to my thoughts. However, as I read the article and then began to peruse the 732 comments (as of the writing of this post), I couldn't help but open a new tab in my Internet browser to jot down some of my own thoughts about the very few (10 or less) comments I'd read before needing to "vent."

In a world where EVERYTHING is available to EVERYONE almost INSTANTANEOUSLY (and once posted, nearly IMPOSSIBLE to remove ALL traces), I find it amazing how many people simply DON'T CARE what they publish in public forums!

So, what set me off? Nearly immediately, people began to "compare" sins. Abortion was brought up. Homosexuality was brought up. Hitler was brought up. Being a liar was brought up.

And quickly, someone had the audacity to say "I agree sin is sin but hitlers sin will exact a greater penalty than a liar." (lower case not mine)

This statement shows just how much people don't understand God, or His word, the Bible. Through the words of Paul, God made it clear in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus or Lord."

People, we try to rationalize that Hitler was very bad, so his punishment by God will be very bad. We try to set ourselves apart from others by saying, "but I'm not as bad as (fill in the blank)."

Yet God makes it very clear. If you do not accept the free gift offered through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, your payment for sin (any sin) is death.

While our minds strive to create a sin hierarchy, in God's economy, sin = death. Any sin.

We need to keep that in mind when we are talking about sin. Without Jesus, there is no forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7). That should be our message to a dying, hurting, lost world.

Just Writing It Down Isn't Enough

I've been recording my daily calorie intake in a smart phone app called MyFitnessPal for just over a year now. And when I first started, I saw some great results. In the first six or seven months of 2012, I lost over 40 pounds!

But then something happened. With the application, each time you lose 20 pounds, the program "recalculates" your plan. With more weight lost, you need to make changes to your eating habits if you want to continue to see similar results.

The problem was I had grown accustomed to my daily intake of 2050 calories, so when the plan shifted to just over 1900 calories each day, I continued to record my calories, but wasn't too concerned if I was over.

I'd seen dramatic weight loss to that point, and began to simply "go through the motions" so to speak. In this new paradigm, weight loss was no longer the primary goal, seeing how many consecutive days I could record my caloric intake became my driving force.

And as you can imagine, simply logging my intake of calories each day didn't continue to produce the results I sought when I started the program. In fact, on the 1-year anniversary of my tracking my daily calories, while I had a net weight loss, I was no where near my lowest weight of the year.

Looking back over the log, at the 1-year mark, I was back to where I weighed in April 2012. All of my "work" between May and September of 2012 (the date of my lowest recorded weight), was lost as I steadily began to gain back the pounds.

Today, 385 consecutive days into tracking my daily caloric intake, I am still gaining weight, not losing weight.

It is that way our Christian life too. While reading the Bible daily and praying are great, they are necessary for growth, James 1:22-25 tells us that simply hearing the Word of God isn't enough. We must DO what we've learned.

So, just as recording each thing I eat at every meal every day of the past year hasn't resulted in a continual loss of weight; simply reading the Bible and praying every day isn't enough for my spiritual diet. I must reduce my calories if I want to lose weight. And if I want to grow spiritually, I must also take action and put into practice the things God is teaching me during my time with Him.

Only then will I be "blessed in what I do" according to James 1:25.

Where Was the Church?

From the top of this post, you need to know my source of information is Facebook, and we all know how accurate that information can be, but even if this latest information isn't true, it does not change the substance of my blog post, so please indulge me as I muse for a few moments here about "Where Was the Church?"

The world was stunned just over a week ago when a gunman walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and started shooting. Well, most of the world, that is. The congregants of Westboro Baptist Church however, felt the funerals needed their brand of protesting, insisting the shooting was potentially linked to the recent decision of Connecticut voters to legalize gay marriage.

As most of humanity asks how could a loving God allow such atrocities, this "church group" shouts it was God's hand that brought this judgement to the community of Newtown.

Let me be clear, Westboro is WRONG! God is not a vindictive God. He is a fair judge, He is just and holy, and He is LOVE. There are many stories in the Bible which we consider horrific, how could God command the new nation of Israel to completely destroy the Amalekites? What kind of loving God slays a man and his wife (Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts) simply because they told a lie? What kind of loving God would allow the baby of King David, a man after God's own heart according to Acts 13:22, to die despite the fervent prayers and fasting of David and his household?

Each of these questions is an entire book in itself, and I'll pass on answering them for now to continue with my primary goal of this post. However, I believe God is LOVE and Westboro is WRONG.

So why did my Facebook friends post a picture showing Hells Angels motorcyclists standing between the Newtown residents and their antagonists? Where was the church? I applaud the Hells Angels for standing in the gap. However my heart hurts that churches were not leading this charge against hate.

It is a difficult place to be, asking churches to stand against other "churches" ... but when it comes to showing love to a hurting world, when it comes down to "protecting" the innocent from blatant hate-mongers, when doing the right thing is clearly evident; the church needs to take the lead.

Only then, only when the church finally stands up for the lost and hurting in our midst, will there be "peace on Earth and good will towards men."