A Month of Thanks

October is waning and the colors of the trees are quickly being relegated to being the colors of the ground; November is fast approaching.  With November comes one of my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving.

I really love Thanksgiving.  Christmas and Easter have much more meaning and much better meanings, but Thanksgiving occupies a warm spot in my heart.  Thanksgiving itself is a day of eating with people I love with no gifts, few distractions and many conversations.

Another reason I love Thanksgiving is that I love the feeling of being thankful.  I love how I feel when I am appreciative.  In past Novembers I have done and I have seen others do a daily list of things for which to be thankful.  This is an excellent exercise that helps cultivate thankfulness.  But this November I suggest trying something else.

This November will be a month of thanksgiving.

If you are a Christian I assume that you want a thankful heart toward your Savior.  If you are a Christian you want to be perpetually thankful to God for what He has done, and you should want this.  But how can we be thankful to the God we cannot see when we've ungrateful toward people that we can see?

"If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, who he has not seen." 1 John 4:20

As Les Misérables says, "To love another person is to see the face of God."

Well, to be thankful to God, whom we cannot see, is difficult to do if we cannot be thankful toward people, who we can see.  To be thankful to another person is a way to be thankful to the God who made them and put them exactly where He wanted them to be in that given moment.

I think of the "Unforgiving Debtor" parable in Matthew 18.  We've got much for which to be thankful.  When we allow little inconveniences to keep us from being grateful to those around us it screams that we don't really appreciate the great, glorious reasons we have to be thankful for from God.  When we aren't grateful to the people around us it is because we forget to see the very image of our great God written on their faces and we forget the sovereign power of God that blesses us through His creations.

So, how thankful are you toward your wife or husband?  Your waitresses or waiter?  Your clerks?  Your postman or woman?  How have you shown them your gratitude?

November will be a month of thanksgiving. 

How will you show it to the people God has placed around you, many of whom are literally serving you?  Are you going to flash a big smile?  Are you going to leave a gift in the mailbox?  Are you going to (I know, this is a pretty radical idea) say "Thank you"?  I'm not asking for anything radical.  What I'm proposing is a month of a concerted effort to be conscience to the fact that you need to be thankful to so many people and then acting on that in a multitude of very small ways.  Smiles and "Thank yous" will cost you nothing, but I guarantee they will richly reward your soul and theirs.

November is fast approaching.  Will you join me in making November a month of thanks?  If so, think of how you will do this today.

Pillow Talk and Praying

Many reading this don't remember a landline phone let alone a party line.  The other day while discussing something in youth group a young lady made a comment that reminded me of growing up with a landline. 

The kids listened in disbelief as we told how calling a girl to ask her to homecoming was nerve racking for all the reasons it is for them and for the reason that mom or dad might just be listening with another receiver pressed to their ear with the other end flipped up so you couldn't hear them breathing.  The kids couldn't believe that anyone else in the house could listen in on their conversation if they simply had the gall to do that.

Then I talked about party lines.  Now, I never had a party line, but believe it or not when we lived in Missouri there were a couple of rural areas that still had party lines.  I told the students about my favorite Rock Hudson and Doris Day movie called "Pillow Talk".  They again listened in disbelief and laughed at the idea that you had to coordinate calling times with neighbors or that someone in another house could eavesdrop on your call.

What got me thinking about party lines was that one young lady mentioned that 1 Thessalonians 5:17 reminded her that God can always hear what we're thinking.

"pray continually," 1 Thessalonians 5:17

That got me thinking about how my conversations would be different if I remembered that God was on my party line.  The Apostle Paul urged us to pray continually (or without ceasing if you grew up with the K.J.V. in your head like me).  We should direct our thoughts to God always; but let's not kid ourselves, God hears all of our thoughts all of the time. God is on our party line 24/7.

How would your thoughts be different if you remembered that God was on your party line?

What thoughts would you quickly ask forgiveness for?

What thoughts would you all-together like to remove?

When we remember that God is on our party line we pray continuously.  Praying without ceasing isn't to have one's head bowed and eyes closed at all times; no one can or should do that.  Praying without ceasing is in part having a constant awareness that God can and does see and hear us at all times and we can take advantage of that and live in fear of that.

Remember that God is on your party line today.

Walls and Hurdles

I'm helping teach the adult discipleship class at Grace.  Getting to be one of the teachers for this class is a great joy.  Teaching adults is such a source of learning for me.  There is in that room a great wealth of wisdom and I, being a young man, often get much more than I could ever give.

I also learn so much from my time teaching that class because I put myself under the Word and under the guidance of great teachers.  Currently we are going through the book of Acts.  This means I learn from the teacher's guide materials written by a group led by Tim Keller and John Stott's commentary on Acts.

The book of Acts can be split into two main parts.  Part one is chapters 1-12 and highlights the growth of the early church and part two is chapters 13-28 and it follows the ministry of Paul.  We've just finished part one of Acts.

Throughout the first section of Acts we see God working mightily.  In this portion of Dr. Luke's book we see several cultural/racial walls and several hurdles placed before the church.  We read of God smashing through every wall and jumping every hurdle to grow His Church.

I've often said that much of the first twelve chapters of Acts can be summarized like this: "They can be Christians, too?!"  In the first part of Acts we see God at Pentecost bursting through the dividing wall of language to get His Gospel to His people.  We read as God sends people to bring the Gospel even to those the Jews hated: the Samaritans.  We read as God brings the Gospel to a seeking Ethiopian and a rebelling Saul.  We see God grant repentance that leads to life "even to the Gentiles" (Acts 11:18).  And we read as brave, maverick missionaries go to cosmopolitan Antioch to bring Christ to so diverse a group that when those who want to describe them place a label on them they call them Christians because Christ was their only unifying characteristic. 

There wasn't a type of person that the Gospel wasn't for and there isn't a type of person that the Gospel isn't for today.  This isn't a statement of universalism or one that speaks against the idea of limited atonement, it is plainly to say that God has ransomed every type of person in the world to Himself.

In Acts we see many hurdles jumped in the first twelve chapters.  God not only scaled hurdles in the book of Acts, but He used them as part of His master plan.  We see God scaling the hurdles of disease, injury, hypocrisy, selfishness, massive persecution, institutional unfairness in food distribution, stoning and beheadings.  Through all this mad raging of Satan and the other opponents of the Gospel Acts 12:24 tells us: "But the Word of God continued to increase and spread."

Walls and hurdles.

What walls have you set up in your heart that God must break through?  What barriers of culture or race have you erected in your mind?  What types of people do you have a hard time believing the Gospel is for?

What hurdles do you have in your life that you think are too difficult for God to scale?  What obstacle have you decided was a hindrance to your walk with God?  What prayer seems too big for you to pray?

Every wall can and must be broken down.  Every hurdle can most definitely be scaled and will certainly be used for His glory and your good.  Section one of the book of Acts tells us that God is in the business of hurdle jumping and wall smashing.  Join with Him is smashing the walls of division and praying for the hurdles in your life to be scaled and used for His glory today.

Living in a Pattern

We are so surrounded by our culture that we don't even notice it.  The culture we live in is the air that we breathe.  It is nearly impossible to make a decision that isn't informed by or shaped by our culture.

Our culture, and perhaps cultures is the better word, forms patterns that we follow either willingly or blindly.  There can be positive aspects of culture and negative aspects.  There can ironically be counter-culture cultures and mainstream cultures.  But whatever culture or cultures we ourselves are a part of will have an impact in the way we live our life.

Merriam Webster defines culture as: the customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of a racial, religious or social group.
also: the characteristic features of everyday existence shared by people in a place or time.

Culture is everywhere.  Our own culture seeps into our D.N.A. so much that we can even live in multiple cultures and switch our very behavior based on our settings without even noticing it most of the time.

As Christians we are not to be primarily shaped by our culture.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is... His good, pleasing and perfect will."  Romans 12:2

How do we make decisions that are not blindly shaped by our culture and instead make decisions shaped by God and His ways? 

We see in this verse that we are not to conform to the pattern of this world.  We are not to simply conform to the American pattern or the Iowa pattern or the jock pattern or the Millennial  pattern.  We are to do something different.

What are we to do?

We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.  See, we are so engulfed by our culture that our minds must be renewed so that we see the world differently.  We must be in our Bibles and learning what God's culture is so we can transform ourselves into citizens of that culture.  Our minds have to be renewed, to be rewired to the cultural norms of His Kingdom.  Then we will be able to test and approve what is His will.

You follow?  We will have a hard time understanding what a normal thing to do in a situation based on culture norms is versus what is the correct thing to do based on what God wants until we commit our minds to the transformative effort of understanding His ways.

The Bible is our filter.  Through the leading of the Holy Spirit in the understanding of what the Bible says, we can make day-to-day decisions that are good, pleasing and perfect... a.k.a. God's will.

But how do we do this when we've already established that we breathe the air of our culture?

"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." 2 Corinthians 10:5

Our minds think fluently in the patterns of this world and that is why we must slow down and take every thought captive.  We must arrest our thoughts until we put them through the filter formally described to find out if it matches the will of God or simply the pattern of this world.

For instance, buying a new house.  Do we want to buy this house to do as the rest of the culture does?  To move from renting to a starter home, to a larger home, to a larger home, to a larger home...?  Or do we purchase a new home that fits God's will or stay in our current home for the glory of God?  One line of thinking follows the pattern of our culture and the other flies in the face of that in pursuing God's will. 

Living like this might at times look very similar to the culture around you and living like this might make you look downright weird to the culture around you.  Do not conform to your culture alone, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can do the will of God today.

How to Help Foster Children

Christine and I have recently become certified foster parents.  We had thought about this since we were first married and finally began the process this Winter.  We want to share the love of Christ in a tangible way to children and their parents.  We want to show off the Gospel in the ministry of family reconciliation and/or adoption.

Right now we are very excited and a little fearful.  We have not gotten a phone call yet about taking a child but that day will come.  We ask for your prayers that we wouldn't make decisions based on pride or fear.  We don't want to pridefully think too much of ourselves and we know that:

"God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control." 2 Timothy 1:7

Please pray for us.  Pray for wisdom and pray that we aren't controlled by pride or fear.  Pray also for our extended families and their worry about this life-changing certification.

The process of becoming foster parents is not a short one.  There are home studies, background checks, reference checks and a 10-week class (to name a few of the hurdles).  For ten Thursdays in a row we had a 3-hour class in Mason City (which is an hour away).  So, for ten consecutive weeks we needed a babysitter for Joshua for five hours.

We didn't have the money to pay for fifty hours of babysitting, so we relied on some amazing friends and family.  Marc and Becky Harken, Emily Walrod, Amber Drilling, my mother-in-law and my mom all pitched in to help us for free.  We cannot thank them enough.

To those of you that helped babysit, we want you to know that you have made a difference in the lives of children.  We haven't fostered or adopted or done respite care at all yet, but we never could have done anything without you.  What you did is a major work in answering our Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

What Christine and I aren't looking for here is applause, especially since we still have yet to do foster care of any kind.  What we are doing in this blog is asking for your prayers and calling people to action.  We're encourage you to consider doing foster care.  And we encourage you to do something like what Marc, Becky, Emily, Amber and our mothers did.  Helping children in foster care can be something you can do even if you aren't taking in foster children yourselves.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

There is an enormous need in our country.  Please consider doing something in your community to help, because we're talking about children made in the image of God.  And finally, please pray for God to guide us in this and pray for the 437,465 children in foster care in the United States today.

Poison or Rocket Fuel?

When reading narratives in the Bible always be aware of how stories are arranged.  Authors when writing a narrative or a history have a motive or a lesson behind which stories go together.  It is easy to read Biblical narrative and simply think, "Well, that's how it happened."  It certainly is how it happened but there are many other good stories or vignettes that could have been shared.  Always ask, "Why did the author choose this story and why did he place it here?"

The book of Acts is Biblical narrative.  The book is completely historically accurate and Dr. Luke does arrange his stories in chronological order, but he writes about a huge segment of church history and includes only some of the stories that are bound to have occurred.

This all brings me to Acts chapters four and five and a bit of six (this will sound familiar to those who were in the most recent adult discipleship class at Grace Baptist or those who have been through Tim Keller's study on Acts ).  There are two vignettes placed side by side.  One ends chapter four and the other begins chapter five.

After praying for boldness this is said of the believers:

"All the believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.  There were no needy persons among them.  For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." Acs 4:32-35

Can you imagine what the community thought about these believers? 

Acts chapter six also tells us how the believers came up with a way to make certain that widows of all racial backgrounds were taken care of within the church.  As a summary to that section Luke wrote, "So the word of God spread.  the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith." Acts 6:7

Why does Luke mention that a large number of priest became Christians?  Well, it is Luke's way of highlighting that the actions of the Christians in living out their faith convinced the Jewish priests that this faith was a fulfillment of the Old Testament commands.  The nation of Israel was commanded to be doing what the Christians were in deed doing. 

As Tim Keller said, "Luke is saying that the power of the apostles' preaching was both backed by and enhanced by the practical sharing of the Christian community."

So, following the story at the end of Acts chapter four, Luke tells a story that seems quite strange and inordinately violent to many of us.

"Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles feet.

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet." Acts 4:36-5:2

This man and woman seemingly wanted the adulation from doing what Joseph did but didn't want to make the same commitment (I mean the man even got a nickname out of his lifestyle).  The Apostle Peter later says that keeping some for themselves wouldn't have been wrong, but they lied.  They gave the pretense that they were making a bigger sacrifice so they could get the glory from others noticing.  Ananias and Sapphira were being hypocrites.

Peter confronted each with their lie separately and each lied again to his face and each dropped over dead on the spot.  Now, this has always struck me as a bit of overkill, pardon the pun, on God's behalf.  I've often thought that maybe he overdid it; not that God could ever overdo it, but it just didn't seem to me to match up to what I thought I might do if I were God.  But this is a powerful statement by God against hypocrisy.

As G. K. Chesterton was reputed to have said, "the greatest argument against the truth of Christianity is the lives of Christians."  Or for my dc Talk fans they may remember this quote from Brennan Manning "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle.  This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

Dr. Luke arranged these stories side by side for a reason.  I believe the reason is to tell us that how we live out our faith either helps the spread of the Gospel or hinders it.  Our lives can either be a living proof of the change the Gospel makes in the hearts of those adopted by Christ or our lives can shout that Christ's death doesn't change much at all.  Hypocrisy is poison to the church, whereas radical obedience to Christ's call to love the least of these and to trust Him with everything including our finances is rocket fuel for our witness.

Which is your life: poison or rocket fuel?  Does your life enhance the message of the Gospel or make Jesus out to be a liar?  Does your church live out the commands of Christ in a way that attracts people or does your church look like a white washed tomb?

Watch your life and in doing so watch your witness to a lost world today.

Happy 5th Anniversary

Christine and I have now been married five years.

Five years is a major milestone in that all the fives and tens seem to be, but overall we've not been married very long.  Yet in this short time we've had some major milestones and changes and many very ordinary days.  My alma mater's loyalty song says that Wartburg is the college of my brightest days, but my days with Christine Marie Ray have been so much brighter.

In our five years we've had:
two homes
infertility
two kids (one still cooking)
five funerals of family members
many weddings
some tough days
many great days
some ordinary days
some extraordinary days
some days in Bremer County
some days in Europe

We've done a number of things in our 1,826 days together (thanks Leap Year!).

On August 17, 2013 my bride walked down the aisle to a song I recorded with the help of some good friends.  That song was called "I Will Be Here" by Steven Curtis Chapman.  Five years later I understand that that song is the perfect wedding song.  Through all the good days and the bad the only real promise I can make my wife is that I will be here.  Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up" is the same idea.  It may not have sounded all that romantic then but today that's the best promise I can give my wife.  We've been to a lot of weddings since ours and I've heard a lot of outlandish vows and I think the ones we promised each other are ones we've kept well in the brief five years we've been together and ones we can keep for sixty years.

Christine,
I won't give up on us.  I will be here in good times and in bad, when the laughing turns to crying, I will be here.  I've been here to watch your beautiful body change.  I've been here to watch you grow in confidence and strength.  I've been here to watch the many ways you've forgiven me.  And I will be here for so much more to come.

I love you.

Thanks for putting up with me for five years.

To be continued,

Matt

"He who finds a wife finds a good thing
and obtains favor from the LORD." Proverbs 18:22