Fractured Saints - never beyond mending - a christian blog for the broken ones

I considered several topics for the blog post this week.  Some were ok topics, others were relevant to what is going on around me.   They were all personal and many dealt with how I need to live or act.  But to be honest, I realized that a lot of them were essentially just me whining.  Specifically whining about why I can’t be a better Christian.   I don’t know about you, but I do that a lot.  Sometimes I worry so much about why I am not a good  Christian  that I forget to just go out and be  the best servant that I can be.  I let myself get caught up in too much thinking and not enough doing.

When those times of doubt come, it is usually good to get back to the basics.  If I am having trouble serving, maybe I need to take a moment and worship.  I need to spend time in prayer. In my reading this week were Psalms 104 and 105.  Psalm 104 is a great meditation on the wonder of God and His creation.  But 105 opens with:

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! 2 Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! 3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! 4 Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! 5 Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered

The Psalmist lists some of the works God has done for His people and why they should be thankful.  I could fill a book with the blessings that God has rained down on me.  When I begin to doubt what I can do I need to remember that it isn’t about me, it is about what He can accomplish through me if I just let Him.  I am a child of a mighty God who guides me for His purposes.  In other words, I need to remember who I work for.  And I need to set aside time to worship Him.   I have to admit that lately, thanks to Johnny Cash and the fact that I am driving to work again every morning, I have had some uplifting time during my morning “commute.”

I want to hear when ya’lls favorite worship time outside of church happens.

One of the great things about teaching Sunday School is that it has really forced me to study the bible more.  As I have told my students, the best way to learn something is to have to teach it!  What bothers me is that the more I read of the word of God, the more of a disconnect I see between what is written and what we live.  Now, I have always known that there have always been hypocrites and failures among the church (heck, I just need to look in the mirror if I want to see a hypocrite!)  Many of the the principles that are in the Bible are being twisted, ignored or misapplied.

Look at how the bible tells us to treat one another as Christians.  Paul does a great job throughout the New Testament describing how we should view ourselves as the Body of Christ left on earth to fulfill his work.  A beautiful metaphor, something that is apt, easy to understand and should probably be the guiding principle whenever we have differences of opinion or opposite ways of working.

Romans 12 is just one section that lays out how we are to act towards one another.

If we were filled with the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t we follow what Paul writes:

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Such a great picture of what living the Christian life should be like. How much of the world could be brought to Faith if His followers acted as Paul says?  Look at where his focus is.  It is on love, hospitality, humility, forgiveness and harmony.  When I look around at those in my church, at a lot of the Christians in my area, on the internet and yes, in my own life; I do not see a striving for the qualities that Paul calls for.  And yet I think we all KNOW that we are to life with these priorities. What is stopping us? What are ways in which the Church in America is failing to be the body of Christ?  And what can we do to change it?

7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-11)

Of all the things I find upsetting about Christians, I guess one of the biggest is our lack of love.  I wonder why it is such a struggle for so many of us to show love to our neighbor.  If God abides in us, then we should be able to reflect His love to others.  It makes sense.   It should be easy, right?

When you think about it, we must be huge jerks.  I mean, we have been given this great gift of eternal life.  We are part of the family of the Creator.  We have a priceless inheritance and yet we squander it daily.  Only a jerk would take such riches and then not give any of it away.

And it isn’t like this is some earth shattering insight.  I am talking about something that should be pretty foundational and basic to our faith.  Really, we have no excuse for not showing love to those who don’t deserve it  (although I have a million of  ‘em.)  When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus didn’t hesitate.  He let us know in no uncertain terms that we are to love God AND people.  We don’t have a choice.  Which kinda sucks.  People are not exactly lovable.  Heck, even a lot of Christians aren’t lovable.

So, today I am going to try and NOT throw God’s gift to me back in His face.  I am going to swallow my pride (thanks, JohnB) and let the Spirit work through me to share the love of God that I have been fortunate enough to experience.

Those who know me realize that I am a little bit of a history buff.  So it is no surprise that I have really enjoyed teaching some of the lessons for our Sunday school class lately that concern the history of the books of the bible.   During the study a couple of things really struck me.  The first thing is how little I really understood the timeline of the writing  of the bible.  Before this study I had never really had a clear picture of how long it took to complete the Old Testament or exactly the order and timing of the New Testament book’s appearance.

The second thing that jumped out was the number of times in the New Testament that the authors wrote against false teachers.  Until this study I don’t think I realized how much time was spent talking about guarding against false teaching.   I guess I had never really appreciated how hard it was in the first century to establish an orthodoxy.  It seems that there were a LOT of people running around the churches spreading false doctrine.  I guess it was the nature of the new religion that allowed people to make up what they wanted to believe instead of what was taught by the Apostles.  Many could have taught just by claiming the authority.  There would have been precious little written down that was accepted as scripture in which to base a foundation of common belief.

This is definitely not a problem that we have solved today.  It doesn’t take much to see many of the false prophets and teachers that are still around just by turning on the television.  Many of them are easy to spot because their greed is so apparent or their ideas are just crazy.  But what about the false teachers who aren’t on TV?  The teachers who say things that don’t sound too bad or maybe even good.  The teachers that we want to believe, even though what they say, if we are really honest with ourselves, doesn’t match up with the Spirit or the Word.  I think there is a difference between a false teacher and a teacher who is simply wrong.  It lies in their motivation.

What are we to do when we run across false teaching or false doctrine?   What was the most egregious lie that you have heard taught by someone who claimed to be teaching you Christian values?

For father’s day, my wife bought me the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  I am not though with it yet, but wow is it a convicting book.  He is in essence critiquing the American church and our “American” approach to Christianity.  I just got through reading the chapter entitled “Profile of the Lukewarm.”  He begins the chapter by retelling the parable of the sower (in which the seed lands on path, the rocks, the thorns or the good soil.)   When I hear that passage, I of course know that I am the good soil.  Don’t we all?  Chan points out that we shouldn’t assume that we are the good soil.  He writes:

“I think that most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns.  Thorns are anything that distracts us from God.  When we want God and a bunch of other stuff, then that means we have thorns in our soil.  A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions or commitments are piled on top of it. … I will say it again: Do not assume you are good soil.”

He then goes on to list a lot of ways in which lukewarm people live.  What I like best is that in the book, he follows each with a passage of scripture, not just a citation, but an actual passage.  I found a place that has a .pdf of the full list (with just the citations)  here: http://www.dublinvcc.org/Portals/0/Crazy%20Love.pdf

Probably the most convicting one of the list was this:

“Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to.  They don’t have to trust God if something unexpected happens—they have their savings account.  They don’t need God to help them—they have their retirement plan in place.  They don’t genuinely seek out what life God would have them live—they have life figured and mapped out.  They don’t depend on God on a daily basis—their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are in good health.  The truth is, their lives wouldn’t look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God.”

This is followed by Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the man who tore down his barns to store more of his goods, only to have his life demanded of him that very night.

When we look at this list, read the scripture and really examine ourselves, which of us can say that we burn for Christ?  Who of us is salt and light for our Lord?  Are we truly answering the call to love the Lord our God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind?  I measure myself against what I am called to do by Christ and I find myself falling short.  Not because of a lack of trying but a lack of love and obedience.  Personally, I know that I hold too much back.  Like so many other lukewarm people I want to make Jesus a part of my life instead giving Him all of my life.  I have heard more than one preacher say that it is ok to have nice things.  I think we need to reevaluate and learn that it is ok to have enough and no more.  We need to accept the love of our Father and give all of our lives to Him and not just part.  If we hold back from Him, then we are told that any of our righteousness is as filthy rags.  I pray that I can be transformed by the love of Christ into the kind of servant that He desires.

Acts 8:9-24 (New King James Version)
⁹ But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, ¹⁰ to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.” ¹¹ And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time. ¹² But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. ¹³ Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.

¹⁴ Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, ¹⁵ who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶ For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
¹⁸ And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, ¹⁹ saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
²⁰ But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! ²¹ You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. ²² Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. ²³ For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”
²⁴ Then Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.”

The story of Simon the magician is one that fascinates me.  It is one of the biblical stories that I think many of us just want to gloss over without delving into and looking at both the details and the ambiguity that it contains.  It is easy enough just to kind of paint Simon as a two-dimensional character who was greedy and only wanted to profit from the power of God.  Like so many Biblical characters, we look at Simon and judge his actions harshly.  “Of course he was evil,” we say “he tried to buy his way into having the power to pass on the Holy Spirit.”  Why would that matter to us?  It isn’t as though someone today is going to be foolish enough to think that they can buy their way into Christianity.

I think that there are a couple of questions that the bible doesn’t answer for us.  Wasn’t Simon a believer?  It says that he believed.  It doesn’t say that he saw what Philip was doing and wanted in on the racket.  It says he believed and was baptized.  He began to follow Philip and was amazed at what he saw.

Also, in the story, it isn’t until he sees that the Holy Spirit is passed thought the laying on of hands that he offers money to be given the power.  He had followed Philip and seen him heal the sick, cast out demons and perform other miracles and the bible doesn’t say that he tried to gain Philip’s power.  But there was something about passing on the power of the Holy Spirit that made Simon want the ability that the Apostles had.

Peter rebukes Simon on two counts. The first is for thinking that he could obtain a gift of God through money.  The second is for the “intent of your heart.”  Peter tells Simon that his heart isn’t right before God.

The story ends with Simon making a rather odd plea for forgiveness, but doesn’t tell us what happened next.  He doesn’t seem to be immediately struck down and doesn’t go on to become important enough to be mentioned again.  The only things we “know” about Simon after this episode are legends and accounts given in writings at least one hundred years later.

Personally, I think the problem with Simon was that he had never gone from belief to faith.  When he met Peter and John, he was still thinking in terms of the world.  He had the outward appearance of a follower of Christ, but his heart wasn’t quite there yet.  I think he succumbed to a temptation.  Church tradition holds that Simon only followed Philip to gain power.  But if that was the case, what lesson could we learn from this?

In my view, Simon believed and probably really thought he was doing what was right.  But he was depending on Philip’s faith.  He was following Philip and not the Lord.  Peter saw this.  His rebuke isn’t to get away from him.  He didn’t call Simon evil.  He tells Simon to repent, to ask forgiveness and to seek the grace of the Lord.

The story of Simon is a warning to us.   If Simon wasn’t a bad guy, then he was a misguided one.  And who among us can’t occasionally be misguided?   How often can we convince ourselves that we can obtain God’s gift through our tithes, our morals, our witness or our works?  We need to know that a simple belief isn’t enough to turn our hearts to the Lord.  We must move beyond a belief to actually following the will of our Savior or we will all be in the bond of iniquity.

Couple of interesting items popped up on the Christian Post this week:

Rick Warren is warning “Fake and Passive Christians” that they aren’t going to like his church and Brian Bloye is telling his church members to “lose their religion and become true followers of Christ.”   Pastor Craig Groeschel is warning “Christian Atheists” that they need to shed their hypocrisy and become true followers of Christ.  The last one is my favorite, although  haven’t read his book.

I have two reactions when I am reading about these big name, megachurch pastors get on board with the original gospel.  The first is hope that there are Christian leaders who are (hopefully) getting back to the basics and preaching the good news instead of the good candidate.  The second is a little disappointment.  I mean this is not new stuff they are talking about.  Why do we still not get it?  I think sometimes we as Christians have created a culture in which we can have it all.  We want to be consumers and happy and comfortable, but believers as well.  We seek to follow both the world and Christ.

Personally, I want to follow Christ.  Far too often, though I seem to lose my way.  I think that is why it helps to have our leaders in this world who are willing to call us out for our mistakes.  Now we just have to listen.

Supposedly, Fred Phelps is coming to our town.  An American soldier from our town was recently killed and they say they are coming to picket the funeral.  The very thought of that group protesting a funeral just down the road from me makes me ill.  To think that they will be blaspheming the name of my God while a family is in the midst of such trying circumstances is repugnant.

If they show up, I will be there.  Already a group is forming to encircle the WBC folks in an effort to “shield” the family.  I hate that we have to do it.  The Patriot Guard Riders have been invited.  The Guard is a wonderful group, if you haven’t heard of them you should check out what they do and how they do it.  I don’t want the WBC to get any more attention and yet I know that someone should stand up.  I pray that all of us who are going to encircle the protesters will remember why we are there.  Most of all, I pray that they don’t show up.

That day should be about honoring a loved one and showing respect for a fallen soldier.  This day should absolutely be focused on the grieving family and what they need in this difficult time.  This is a time for grief and not hate.
And you know what bugs me the most?  As I was looking over his websites and all the hate he spews, I realized that I have been instructed to love this man.  And by the grace of god, I will.

I was listening to a sermon this week and something he said really jumped out at me.  He said, “The problem with Christians today is that we love the sheep and goat story too much and ignore the stories of coming together.”   Like the Pharisees, I think we can too often be so smug in our Salvation that we kind of imagine ourselves separating the sheep and goats.  You know, just helping out the Lord, in case He had missed the sins of this person or that person.

I was pretty smugly thinking of all the Christians I know who are always talking about every one else who is going to hell and then I realized what I was doing.   Sitting in judgment of anyone, even my fellow Christians, is not exactly the action of a “sheep.”  Now, I am all for gentle correction within the spirit, but to stand there and try to sit in place of the Lord is probably not the best thing to do.

If we worked harder to be sheep and didn’t worry so much about who the goats were, we would be a LOT better off.

A couple of the posts this week have really reminded me of the need for community.  I know that “community” is a much overused word, but as a concept I think it is something that we desperately need and rarely experience.  It is hard to be a good Christian without being able to open up to our Brothers and Sisters and confess sins, encourage each other and gently correct each other’s behaviors.  That kind of openness and honesty only comes from family and we are to be a family in Christ.  How incredibly hard it is to develop a family from the strangers we see at church!  When we are called to be the Body of Christ, I am afraid that we too often agree only verbally and not completely with our hearts and spirits.
No matter what you call it, as Christians we are called to be one community, one family, one body.  We should be connected by the spirit in a way that shows the world around us that we are children of the Lord.