The Most Important Things

Yep. It’s that time of year again. The annual top 10 list. This year I have decided to line out my top 10 books of the year. For the record, these will all be non-fiction books. I can’t remember the last time I read a fiction book (probably college and probably the “left behind” series until it got weird). I am currently reading “Decision Points” by George W. Bush, it will take until the new year to finish it. I have also included some light commentary, not an in-depth review. So, without further ado…

10) For God’s Sake Grow up!  David Ravenhill (Son of Leonard Ravenhill) – The title is pretty self-explanatory. A very direct book on Christian maturity.

9) Successful Leadership through the Government of 12, Caesar Castellanos – A really good book on leadership, not necessarily a vision all should follow.
7 Levels of Intimacy, Matthew Kelly – A well written book about relationships. Relationships (along with biblical principles and finances) are things that should be read over and over again. The mind needs to be renewed continuously.

7) Boundaries, Townsend and Cloud – I finally read it. And it’s good. A book all should read.

6) Shadow Boxing, Henry Malone – A new classic on deliverance, freedom and fasting.

5) The Fires of His Holiness, Sergio Scataglini – God is Holy and wants His people to be Holy. A really great perspective and revelation on being holy.

4) Kenneth Hagin – A Fresh Anointing, How to turn your faith loose, Healing belongs to us – 3 mini-books by Dad Hagin. If you have never read one of his books, you should. They are essentials to understanding faith.

3) Paul, the Spirit and the people of God, Gordon Fee – This book is an amazing exegesis on the use of the word s/Spirit in the New Testament.. Brilliant writing about true community in the body of Christ. It’s actually a slimmed down version of 7000 page work I may peruse that in 2011.

2) The Cross, Cathy Ciaramitaro – 300+ pages on everything that took place before, leading up to, during and after the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This radically transformed my perspective on so many things this year.

And finally….

1) Alan Hirsch. He’s not a book but, an author of two of the best books I have read in a long time. They are, The Forgotten Ways and Untamed, respectively. “The Forgotten Ways” is a great book on the body of Christ and surrounding revival movements. “Untamed” is a book on discipleship. But not in the way we typically think about it. He tackles some of the greatest hindrances and battles the American/ Western church faces today. For example, consumerism, sexuality and our view of Jesus. Both of these are must reads.

And the real number 1 is the bible. Read it everyday, for the rest of your life.

Your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people on the Earth. Exodus 33:16

That’s the best way to put that. I don’t think there is a better way to describe “us.” Ussus (southern colloquialism) is Christians. We are supposed to be defined and set apart as people who have the presence of God. In the book of Acts, the Apostles were described as “those who had been [in the presence of] Jesus.” We are not defined by anything other than the presence. And from that presence, flows culture, language, standards and purpose; among many other things.

Some people have placed the culture, language, et al above His presence when “presenting” the Kingdom of God. This only leads to lifeless religion and works-based theology. We must continue to distinguish ourselves as people of His presence. This is the bottom line. When we walk in His presence, all day long, we are able to properly relate to people. How? We are in tune with the Spirit of God. He leads us and He guides us. We enter into situations aware that the holy Spirit wants to do something and we are prepared for it. Instead of our current state of encountering people in need and walking away saying “I should’ve prayed for (or witnessed to or …) that person.” When we don’t live in His presence, we are surprised and interrupted by humanity rather than prepared and led to make contact with humanity.

When the Holy Spirit descended and remained upon Jesus, it was signifying an unbroken, intimate communion with the presence of the Father. Jesus was showing us the way to be led by the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit all day. He was showing us how to be prepared and led to reach humanity with divinity.

Are you in the Spirit right now? What about tomorrow afternoon? What about [insert time and place here]? You can be, and God is desiring to be with you. Acknowledge the presence of the Holy Spirit right now and let Him lead you today.

The events of this past week in Haiti have been horrific and unbelievable. The numbers are staggering as to the assumed death toll (100,000 to 500,000) and to the amount effected (3 million people). Just about everyone on Earth is joining in to help out. Roughly $10 million has been texted to Red Cross in support. And hundreds of millions more pledged from countries all over. ($100 million from US alone, not sure I totally agree with that specific number considering we owe China BILLIONS, but there is great need nonetheless.)

In the midst of it all there have been some great misunderstandings. Specifically, this one: Pat Robertson’s now famous quote. However, if you listen to it, you will hear one thing that he didn’t say. He did NOT say, that this earthquake was a judgement from God. He did say that historically, Haiti made a pact with the devil. Which, if they did, would definitely lead to bad things. The problem I have with all of this is, that 1) the news media jumped all over it and misrepresented what he said, and 2) Christians jumped all over it and began to disown the man as if HE made a pact with the devil.

As far as the news media is concerned, who cares. When have they ever reported anything without bias? And, as long as Jesus hasn’t returned they never will. It’s an uncontrollable situation, so I am over it. As far as Christians disowning Pat Robertson… that annoys me to no end. I wonder how many people watched the video, before re-tweeting what somebody who watched CNN or The Daily Show said, and took what they said as the truth. I read numerous tweets from people I respect and admire who either directly or indirectly JUDGED Pat Robertson for “judging” Haiti. (I remember Paul saying something about that in Romans 2.)

What bothers me about this situation is that many Christians were trying to distance themselves from Pat Robertson and trying to look presentable to the world. Even the democratic party, in the midst of racial slurs within their party, did not do so much washing of their hands! (Here for more info) My question is when will we bother to get down to the truth and either choose to make no comment or make an educated comment. Regardless of whether Haiti made a pact or not is beside the fact. The real issue is whether or not we have made a pact to be a family, a church and a Kingdom. If this is how we treat family… well you get the point.

I think this whole situation can be summed up best by this quote: “They (Haiti) need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.” Pat Robertson. By the way, Operation Blessing, Pat Robertson’s “social justice” arm, has been in Haiti for the last year. More info about that here.

Bottom line, we all need more of Jesus!

In the last post I brought up the question of who is church for? I asked the question is church for believers or unbelievers. In this blog, I would like to re-ask that question from a different view point. Who is church for, Jesus or the world?

According to a number of scriptures in the bible (OT and NT), God refers to His people as…well HIS! In the Old Testament we find numerous occasions where God calls His chosen people back to Him. He pleads with them to repent and stop mixing themselves with the world’s religions and systems. His heart for them is unending. And His desire for them is to be holy as He is holy. This theme continues in the New Testament. Jesus comes on the scene preaching about a bride and a bridegroom. He consistently uses this type of imagery over and over again in the Gospels. He talks about the bridegroom being taken away, the bridegroom celebrating and the bridegroom returning . You cannot have a bridegroom without a bride. Who is the bride that Jesus desires to return to? The church, His people.

Who is church for? It’s for Jesus. It is the pure, spotless bride of Christ as Paul reveals in Eph. 5. She, the church, is supposed to be undefiled and without wrinkle. She is supposed to be a radiant, beautiful bride. The desire of all nations. She is supposed to be holy and pure saving herself for the bridegroom.

Problem. She is not. She is being presented to other bridegrooms. She is being prostituted out to the world system. Any time we present the church, the bride of Christ, to the world we dishonor the bridegroom. It seems in many of our churches we are more content to look good in the eyes of the world, than in the eyes of God. Every time we present our bride (which is really ourselves) to the false bridegrooms of fame, cultural relevance, compromise, tolerance, etc. we slap Jesus in the face and say, “you’re not the perfect bridegroom”.

How do we know when Jesus is pleased with His bride? I believe He shows His great pleasure in to His bride through miracles, His glorious presence and supernatural, unstoppable growth. Does that typify our modern, western-style churches? Not really, as in, no. In fact, most of our services have all but eliminated any room for the Holy Spirit to move and are now catered to other bridegrooms, namely the unsaved. Many churches now play secular music, show movies that aren’t godly and “give talks” that don’t go anywhere near Golgotha (aka the Cross). Any wonder why Jesus doesn’t want to show up?

Imagine, for a second, you are a groom on your way to your own wedding. When you get there, all the music, all the colors, all the decor that you and your bride had picked out; was changed by the bridal party in an effort to “draw more people in”. Would you stay for your own ceremony? All that investment you made into your own wedding was changed by the people you chose to help maintain your wedding celebration. That would be horrific.

Who is church for? Who are we presenting the bride to? If it’s the world, then no wonder God has decided not to come to the party. But if we are truly presenting the church to God, then we must begin to iron out the wrinkles, spot-clean the stains and sanctify ourselves. Make no mistake, Jesus is coming back. And He is coming back for a spotless, unblemished bride. Can that be said of you and your church? Could you be accused of turning the bride of Christ’s interest onto false bridegrooms?

If so, repent there’s still time. And there’s still time to prepare the Glorious Bride of Christ for the arrival of the Bridegroom! Let us trim our wicks, fill our lanterns with oil and arise a Glorious, wise virgin. Arise Church!

“Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet Him!” Mt. 25:6

On every website, on every cell phone, on every computer and just about everything we encounter nowadays there is a subtle hidden feature. It’s the “my preferences” feature. On your laptop you can adjust everything from icons to screen saver to background image. The same goes for your cell phones as well. The same also applies to your favorite homepage on the internet. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Well, nothing really. Except that it does cause a reinforcement of one thing: self-centeredness. It’s subtle. You are always being asked, how do YOU want it? Whether “IT” is a cheeseburger or a computer or a ringtone. What is your preference?

The more things we prefer, the more we have to have it our way. The more things we have our way, the more self centered life becomes. Self-centeredness is the essence of sin. Jesus was constantly emptying Himself of His privileges (Phil. 2). Jesus gave up many rights that we, in our modern times, have no (or very little) concept of. For example, here are some rights Jesus gave up.

He gave up the right to:

eat (Mt. 4:1,2; 6:25),
sleep (Luke 6:12, 22:40-46; Mt. 14:13)
have privacy (Mark 8:2, Jn. 19:23)
have a home (Mt. 8:20, Jn. 14:1-8)
have an honorable reputation (according to the world) (Phil. 2:7, Gal. 3:13, Is. 53:3)
live (Phil. 2:8, Mt. 27:50, Is. 53:7,8)

Those are all “god-given” rights we have as Americans. Yet, in direct contrast, Jesus gave up ALL of those rights so that he could rescue our souls from eternal damnation. I think as Christians we need to start laying down our sense of entitlement. NOBODY OWES YOU ANYTHING. We all know what we really deserve, save for divine Grace. The next time you are demanding a “right”, think twice. It’s really time we stopped looking like the world, who demands entitlement, and it is time we began to trust in God to take care of our needs.

“After all these things, the gentiles seek. But you. You seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and then all these things will be added to you.” (paraphrase of Matt. 6;32,33) My preferences are your preferences, Lord. Let your preferences come on earth as they are in heaven. AKA nevertheless, not my will (or preference) but your will be done.

Poor St. Francis, so many people have blasted him for a comment he never made. Perhaps, you have heard the phrase: “preach the gospel, if necessary, use words”. A lot of people think St. Francis coined that phrase. (He didn’t, his real quote: In Chapter XVII of his Rule of 1221, Francis told the friars not to preach unless they had received the proper permission to do so. Then he added, “Let all the brothers, however, preach by their deeds.”) Regardless, that “deeds” theology has pervaded in Christianity. It’s wrong. It’s off-balance. In James’ epistle he covers faith and works, so I don’t need to here. But I do need to cover the truth that the gospel must be preached, not “worked”.

All throughout the bible, OT and NT, there are ample scriptures regarding the necessity of declaring truth with your mouth. It’s inescapable. But we have settled into a social justice/ works gospel, while in and of itself it’s not entirely wrong, it’s just not right. If all we had to do on Earth was build wells for clean water, feed the homeless and build shelters to get people saved; we’d be experts. However, God demands that we use our words to preach. Isaiah ponders the question of salvation, he writes: how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never HEARD about Him? And how can they HEAR about Him unless someone tells them?

In order to hear something, someone must say something. Take a look at Acts 8:26-39. Philip meets an Ethiopian Eunuch. He says to the eunuch, “do you understand what you are reading?” The Eunuch responds, “how can I unless someone instructs me?” Then it says, “Philip TOLD him the Good News about Jesus.” Notice it doesn’t say Philip dug him a well and the man got saved. Or that Philip gave him food for a year. (And all of those are necessities) It says, Philip told him the Good News. That is the REAL NECESSITY.

So why would we rather use words if necessary when it comes to preaching the gospel? Bottom line, social justice is easier. It’s not offensive or confrontational. We can perform social justice and the world will love us. It’s so hot right now, too. It’s also devoid of the power of God. For He says, “the Kingdom of God is not just in WORD, but in POWER.” God has built a throne of righteousness and justice. This world needs both. Not justice at the expense of righteousness. For with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.

Preach the Gospel, with your mouth.

The battle rages on in the kingdom: to drink or not to drink. Many denominations have relaxed their stance on ministers drinking alcohol. Many mainline preachers have given themselves over to social drinking (and the occasional curse word) and decried it as “relevant” and “I am not perfect”. These comments are of course ludicrous and obvious for a number of reasons, here’s one: relevance has nothing to do with you being friends with the world. (The book of James can instruct you in that basic premise, specifically James 4:4.) As a result of the rise Christians accepting lower standards, we continue down the broad path of compromise. All the while asking ourselves, “why don’t we see the miracles of the New Testament?”

I was reading in my daily reading plan and came across this verse, Isaiah 5:22:

I laughed. I found it amusing and scary. When ministers talk casually about substance abuse or misuse, I think we all need to do some soul searching and bible reading. We are not in a good place. When the world’s pleasures (or wines of the world) become our primary focus over the harvest and discipleship… renewing of the mind must occur.

I know what the “heroes” will say, Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine. Jesus was CALLED a wine bibber, His first miracle was turning water into wine, etc. Well, you are not the Son of God (who is God), neither do you walk in Paul’s apostolic authority/miracles/writing 2/3rds of the NT/ anointing. Not a good enough reasoning? How about we go back to Genesis and read that we are to have dominion over ALL the earth? Including (but not limited to) hops, grapes, animals, satan and spiders. So, are you being dominated by hops and grapes? Or are you having dominion?

It’s time we stopped having a fetish for the world’s pleasures and gave ourselves over to the New Wine of the Holy Ghost – righteousness, peace and joy in the Kingdom, not eating and drinking.

Here’s a link to a blog I read every now and again. It deals with a classic question, for the church, or workplace or wherever. The question is: which is better, attitude or execution? If you go with attitude only, the extreme position is that you have like-minded people with little or no skill. If you go with execution, then the extreme position is to have hired-hands who get the job done but have no true DNA.

This question comes up time and again, it’s can be a major source of contention and strife. When you lean to execution, in your business or non-profit or church, you bump up against people who minor on details that can be endless. You also run the risk of disloyalty and rebellion. The hired-hand comes to a place where they deem that they can do it better and leave, often taking many people with them. If you stick with attitude only a lot of times you run into the problem that they know nothing different. There can be mental barriers to achieving new levels. There can also be a lack of initiative within the attitude only camp. Only being able to respond to orders rather than creating new ideas or taking initiative.

So, what’s best? The blog I referenced above put a very useful and insightful hierarchy together. It looks like this:

1. Attitude
2. Approach
3. Goals
4. Strategy
5. Tactics
6. Execution

This is only an opinion but I think it’s a valid one. Placing an emphasis on attitude first will help the execution-ists remember their “why”. And using a hierarchy of approach, goals, etc helps the attitud-ers focus and advance their “hows”. I have found when people love their job their workflow increases and the result is a better product. (Be it a disciple, a widget or a program)

I like twitter, theoretically. I like it’s short format and soundbite-esque quality. But I am continually on the fence, in regards to it’s usefulness. I follow a number of people. Some are consistently interesting and some are consistently lame (I usually drop those people). Here are a couple of my pet peeves about tweets: (don’t get mad at me, this is just my personal opinion)

1) Trying to create a christian movement on twitter. (Everyone hash tag WWJD!) Nobody’s gonna get saved by that.

2) Telling me about how your life is better than everyone elses. I am so happy for you. Are you asking me to be jealous about your life? I don’t really agree with that theology, neither does the bible coincidentally. If it’s a praise report I will be the first to celebrate with you. If it’s you just sounding off of your undying love to someone or something or idolizing your life… that’s just not very interesting.

3) Constant re-tweeting or quoting. I like quotes as much as the next guy, in fact, you’re probably just re-tweeting a quote I just posted.

4) Always talking about where you are going to eat. We get it you eat a lot. Maybe that’s why America is obese!

5) Christian cussers. Seriously, get some self-control over your mouth. No more “freaking”, “dang” or “crap”. Idle words are still going to be judged according to Jesus.

Those are just my top 5. And at one point or another I have been guilty of those as well. So, why would anyone use twitter at all? Well, I like things that actually ADD VALUE TO OTHERS. It’s not just a “this is what I am doing now” outlet. Is it something hilarious? Is it something really deep? Is it an image that is one of a kind? To me that adds value or at least a laugh. Now, I understand that some of the previous peeves may actually fall into the “add value” category. But always tweeting the same thing is boring. Who watches the same rerun all day long? That’s why I added the “to others” clause. Will this tweet really add value to others?

Of course, that brings up another question. How do YOU define “value”?