A Forever Leader

The Old Testament is littered with stories about good leaders and the bad that followed them.  So often a mighty, God-fearing leader was raised up only to be followed by a major let down of a leader.  Throughout the history we read in the Bible we are left wishing the good leaders could live forever.

Think of the Israelites in Egypt.  When Joseph was alive there was a righteous Pharaoh that treated Israel and his sons with dignity and respect.  The people thrived in Egypt under righteous leadership then it went downhill.

"Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.  'Look,' he said to his people, 'the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.  Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.'

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor..." Exodus 1:6-11a

Or think about the period of the judges.  After Joshua, a strong and righteous leader, died the people were left with poor leadership.  Time after time the people would do wicked things and then be punished by God, then God would raise up a judge (leader) who would rescue them and then the nation would live righteously until the judge died and the people would return to evil.

"After Ehud died, the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the LORD.  So the LORD sold them into the hands of Jabin..." Judges 4:1-2a

"Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years He gave them into the hands of the Midianites." Judges 6:1

"No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals." Judges 8:33

"Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD.  They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines." Judges 10:6

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years." Judges 13:1

"In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit." Judges 21:25

If you thought things got better when the kings came, you would be wrong.  There was peace and righteousness under good kings, like David or Josiah, but as soon as they died they were almost always followed by a period of evil, civil war and captivity.

When you read the history of the Old Testament you're left thinking, "What if the good leader could have just lived forever?"

In the New Testament we see a passage that makes us remember the thought we just had.  This passage comes during a brief trial before the Sanhedrin involving the apostles.

"But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.  Then he addressed them: 'Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.  Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him.  He was killed, and all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.  After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt.  He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.  Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone!  Let them go!  For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.  But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."  Acts 5:34-39

See, other movements of righteousness and shalom had been tried, but when the leader died the people following him stopped following his ways.  When the leader died the people returned to subjectivity or idolatry. 

But Christianity is different.  The apostles kept following because their leader isn't dead.  Jesus did die like other great leaders of the Bible or leaders of other revolutions, but Jesus didn't stay dead.  The Jesus Movement continued then and continues today because Jesus is still alive!  The resurrection is the reason why continued righteousness is possible for His followers.  The resurrection is the reason why the peaceful revolution continues.

Because He lives our hope lives with Him today.

When Church Feels Stale

Sunday many of us will be back in the pews of our local church.  Most of the time church is an hour during the week that we cherish, but sometimes it just feels stale.

There are those times when going to church feels empty.  It feels more like going through the motions than going to the throne room to worship the King of kings.  Sometimes you wonder if going to the park would have been better time spent than going to the sanctuary of your church.

First, going to church is something you shouldn't give up even if you don't feel like going. 

"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another... and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:25

Not going to church begets not going to church.  The more you avoid it the more you forget your need to assemble with the congregation with whom you've covenanted to worship the Lord; you might think it would increase your hunger, but it's quite the opposite.  As my friend Harold says, "If you want to get hungry, go where the food smells good."

So, let's say you don't neglect going to worship with your brothers and sisters.  Let's say you never miss a Sunday but the whole thing still feels stale.  What then should you do?

I won't claim to have all the answers, but I will tell what's worked for me in these times:

1) Pay attention to each element.

Your pastor(s) and leaders most likely put the service together in a particular way for a reason.  Why did they assemble the elements of the service the way they did?  Maybe the types of things in the service are the same each week.  Why?  Why was that Scripture passage read?  Why was that prayer prayed?  This can be especially powerful method if a church service that is different than your tradition feels stale to you.

2) Listen to the songs more than singing them.

Pay close attention to the words of the songs and hymns.  Most of these songs have powerful poetic reminders of the attributes of God and the glory of the Gospel.  Notice the music itself.  Does the music itself stir your soul?  The writer of the song probably poured his/her heart into those notes and chords to stir you affections toward Christ and the musicians themselves are aiming to do that for you and everyone in that room.  Listen to your fellow saints singing.  The act of listening to others worship in the congregation helps me immensely; those on the stage may be called worship leaders but the congregants in the pews are lead worshippers for those in a dry spell.

3) Pray about it.

If church feels stale to you, pray about it.  The God of Heaven and Earth doesn't want you to be bored by the worship of Him.  As John Piper famously says, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."  When we have great joy in Christ it pleases Him.  He wants full throated, full hearted worshippers.  God is the one that gives us a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26).  Ask the only One that can actually change your affections.  Pray to the one that can take a horse to water and make it joyfully drink.

If church feels stale, know that you aren't unsaved.  We will all go through times like this, but we shouldn't be satisfied by type of church attendance.  If church feels stale then commit to trying these tips today.

Fostering a Broken Heart

Yesterday I was playing with my foster daughter.  As we were cuddling and tickling on the living room floor I was flooded with emotion as a thought crossed my mind. 

There are two extreme results of my time with her: I either walk her down the aisle one day or she forgets me completely.

She won't even turn two years old until late August, so she's quite young.  Her mom is doing great and hopefully will be completely reunited with her sooner rather than later.  So, the chances of her forgetting me is quite high, but I'll never forget her.  Even with the recent birth of my sweet, little Anna this beautiful girl, that I can't even name online, will always be my first daughter.

This may be the hardest part of foster care so far: loving hard core and holding loosely.  Being a foster parent means loving someone with all you have knowing that the best case scenario for them is you getting a broken heart.

I also pray that we can keep in touch with this gorgeous little girl to whom I've given a piece of my heart that I can never get back.  I pray that she and Joshua (my son who is only three months older) can remain friends who get to play together even after the great reunion we've been working toward happens.

The best way I know how to deal with these complex emotions is to make sure I remember our doing foster care isn't about my wife and I.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all you heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters." Colossians 3:23

I can't do this work unto anyone else and keep my sanity and I'm included in the anyone else category.  If I don't remember that I'm doing this labor of love for King Jesus then I will be tempted to think I'm being short sold, that I'm getting a broken heart for a small reward.  However, when I remember that I'm working unto the Lord I call to mind that:

"Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne... everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life." Matthew 19:28a-29

This isn't prosperity Gospel.  This is a realization that in doing foster care I may lose a precious girl from my life, a girl that I love like my very own daughter, but I will gain Jesus Himself more clearly and more dearly in the process.  When one works as until the Lord, one finds that the Lord works side-by-side with them.

Soon I may have a broken heart, but thank the Lord that He knows what a broken heart feels like and will comfort me appropriately.  Help us cheer hard for our hearts to get broken.  Join us in praying for us, for our kids, for our sweet foster daughter and for her mother today.

Lent Challenge 2019

Today is Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent on the Church Calendar. 

A few things about Ash Wednesday and Lent.  Neither are ordinances from Christ.  There is no where in the Bible mandating or prescribing Lent, Ash Wednesday, Easter, Advent, Christmas or the like be celebrated.  If you do not celebrate Lent you are not sinning by any means.  These holidays and seasons, however, are not anti-Biblical.  Throughout the Bible one of the most common commands is to remember.  These seasons help us remember, to be mindful of a particular event or a attribute of our Lord. 

I didn't observe Lent for most of my life, but since 2011 I have made a point to use Lent as a time to remember and fix my gaze on Christ more in more intentional ways.  I plan on doing what I've done every year since 2011 and that is writing every day on this blog.  Rather than abstaining from some unsinful thing as is the tradition during Lent, I add daily writing to help increase my focus on daily Bible reading and daily focus on seeing God.

You don't have to observe Lent if you are a Christian and to mandate it would be more phariasitical  than pastoral; but if you do, below are some good ideas.

1) Memorize a Bible passage each week.

Our church using the Fighter Verses program.  It is a great way to meditate on Scripture and hide it in your heart.

2) Eliminate a social media app on your phone.

If you're like me these apps get tapped into mindlessly.  And if your social media is like mine, most of it isn't Christ exalting.  Try getting rid of the app during Lent and looking at an app like BibleGateway instead.

3) Listen to a daily sermon.

During your commute or your lunch or instead of a TV show you could listen to a sermon.  Sermons from good Bible preaching pastors can be found all over the internet.  You can YouTube several or download an app like Truth for Life.

4) Stop drinking a certain beverage.

Whether it be coffee, pop or beer, cut out a beverage and then use the money you would have spent on that drink to donate to a group that digs wells for people that need clean drinking water.  Many great organizations do it like World Vision.

5) Skip a meal a week.

Fast from a breakfast, lunch or supper each week and replace that time with Bible reading and prayer.  Don't eat bread or drink water and instead feast on the Bread of Life and drink from the Well of Eternal Life.

Whatever you do or don't do this Lent, I hope you use your days to become abide more in the Vine.  Every single day of our life should be used in this pursuit and Lent can help us do this more intentionally.  Who knows you may start a new life building habit today.

Sovereign Over Political Mess

Watching political news and soap operas is really not all that different.

This week if you watched Days of Our Lives and cable news for an hour a day you would get about the same product.  Politics is messy, confusing and intensely personal.  Outside of people coming out of comas at regularity there isn't much difference between the two genres of programming.

This week I read 2 Samuel chapters 3 and 4 and I could have just watched The Bold and the Beautiful.

In the span of two chapters you see: civil war, a man trying to love more women than The Bachelor, political butt kissing, two kings fighting over the love of the people, the simultaneous demise of twenty-four young men in battle, a man killed for not leaving another man alone, a general accused of treason and an affair, a backstabbing of a former political ally, a revenge murder and a highly politicized funeral.  And the next chapter is just as crazy.  How's that for a week on FOX News or CNN?

The life of David and the nation of Israel is drenched in messy, ugly, vengeful politicking.  Yet it is in all this and through all this that God keeps His promise to David.  For seven-and-a-half years after the death of Saul this was the state of David's life.  David thought he was at the finish line after Saul's death and then spent the equivalence of from now to Fall 2026 in the mess of a violent reality show before becoming king.

While reading through this section of 2 Samuel a few things are clear.  First, there is a difference in reading Biblical narrative as description and prescription because there are few things the characters do in this passage that I would suggest anyone do.  The other is that God is sovereign in the mess of politics.

Whether you are on the far Right, the far Left or anywhere in between, we can agree that there are times when it looks like God has taken His hand off the steering wheel.  There are things in my nation and in our world that both horrify me and embarrass me.  But God is in control.

God is always in control and He is always keeping His promises.  This truth is not changed by civil war and messy politics in ancient Israel or modern day Iowa.  

So, be active when you want in the messy business of politics, go ahead and be perplexed at how God is using all this to accomplish His will, but always rest easy knowing that God is in charge of it all no matter how ugly it looks from our seats. 

Trust our Sovereign Lord today.

Elders, We MUST Do Better!

"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name." Exodus 20:7

Recently the breaking of this command has been brought to light again.  If you've followed the stories out of Harvest Bible Chapel or the Houston Chronicle's reporting of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Church (the denomination I grew up in and one of the denominations with which my current church is affiliated) you have felt the grief of this sin.

God's glory is being robbed from Him by the actions of selfish people.  Worse than that, God's name is being defiled and misused by those charged with leading His bride.  This makes me so angry and so sad.  I take no joy in this at all; I lament this totally.  I don't lament that these sins were brought to light; I weep that men and women claiming to represent Jesus did evil and used His name to do it!

"Jesus said to His disciples, 'It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come!  It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.'" Luke 17:1-2

I am one of the elders at Grace Baptist Church in Waverly, Iowa.  I do not claim to speak on behalf of the elders in this blog, but we have sent a letter to our church responding to the horrific news out of the SBC.  I don't claim to have all the answers to these problems in the Church, but I do want to pass on some simple advice that local churches should take.

1) Have a plurality of elders.
One pastor-elder is not a good plan.  Humans are prone to abuse power, especially when it is unchecked.  Pastor-elders need accountability.  Members of churches need to be able to make accusations against pastor-elders if, God forbid, the occasion arises.  Churches must have a plurality of elders (Titus 1:5).

2) Elders are not police.
Elders or deacons or pastors or church boards can handle all sorts of problems in the local church.  However, criminal matters should be dealt with by the authorities (Romans 13).  Too many of these egregious sins were dealt with by elders and not police.  Shame on that!  Elders should never be covering up these sins.  We are not equipped or chosen to be criminal investigators.

3)  Elders mustn't be 'yes men'.
In the case of James MacDonald (or Mark Driscol and others) and in many of these cases of abuse a pastor with a large personality ruled and the elders became nothing more than 'yes men'.  This cannot be.  The senior pastor is a first amongst equals but still an equal.

4) Work hard to be above reproach.
Being above reproach is a basic requirement of an elder (1 Timothy 3:2).  Being above reproach is super-important in guarding against false allegations.  But working to be above reproach will also help the elders, pastors and all in church leadership flee sexual immorality, and all immorality at that (1 Corinthians 6:18).  Better to be made fun of for being prude than to have Jesus tell you it would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the sea.

5) Do your homework.
Many of these stories from the SBC stemmed from the idiocy of not doing basic background checks.  Many of these stories stemmed from not calling former employers to find out truthfully why he/she left the last place of employment or volunteering.  Jesus told us to be aware of false prophets that come in sheep's clothing but are inwardly ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15).  Brothers, let us not be ignorant!  We are charged with guarding the flock, we should do our homework at least as good, if not better, than the local daycare does.

"As a fellow elder... I appeal to the elders among you: Be shepherds of God's flock that is among you, watching over them... And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away." 1 Peter 5:1a-2a and 4

Fellow elders, if we teach the Gospel accurately from the Bible but we don't watch carefully over the flock we will not receive this reward.  This is serious business.  I pray that none of you are one of these wolves attacking innocent sheep.  But if you are: confess, repent and face the appropriate consequences.  For those who aren't wolves, and I pray it is all of you, I encourage you to use these tragedies as teaching moments to do a more thorough job of shepherding the people of Christ entrusted to you beginning today.

How to Bless the Father's Heart

Eight days ago my daughter Anna Kathleen was born.  She weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 19 inches long.  She came quick, as in barely made it to the hospital quick.  The moment she came out of her beautiful mother and was placed on Christine's chest my chest swelled with pride.  My strong and beautiful wife had given birth to a beautiful girl.

Later that day I went up and picked up Joshua and my foster daughter.  Our foster daughter is 18 months old and is a little young to understand, but 21 month old Joshua was excited to meet his baby sister.  He was in love right away.  He held her on his lap and hugged and kissed her.  And a few days later he said his first ever "I love you" not to me or my wife but to his baby sister.  Our hearts swelled to the point of bursting.  I don't think there is anything more joy producing as a parent than witnessing your children love one another.

"How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron's beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows His blessings,
even life forevermore." Psalm 133



My children will fight.  My children will be jealous of each other.  My children will drive each other nuts.  Yet the moments of sweet love are a taste of Heaven and right now we are getting a lot of that taste.

Christians, it must be the same for God.  Our Heavenly Father must delight when His children dwell in unity and love.  The offering of unity is better than that of expensive oil being poured out to God.  Our unity is worshipful.

Christians, how often do we express our love for one another?  How often do we give God the worship of unity?  Does our Heavenly Father delight in seeing us enjoy one another or are our interactions more of a "Do I need to pull this car over?" moment?  How often do we yield our rights to benefit our spiritual sibling?  How often do you pray for the fellow members of your local church?  How often do you pray for other local churches in your community? 

Watching my children love each other blesses my heart, even when that means my toddler nearly smothers his infant sister.

"By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35

Bless the heart of our Heavenly Father.  Love one another today.