FreeTruth

In our series, Thieves, Thugs, and Christian Faith (which is based on Psalm 37:1-40), we're trying to frame a biblical response to cultural and political evil. You'll have to read back to see what we've covered so far. Today we'll consider how to take meaningful action.

Real, radical Christian social action is this: "Trust in the Lord, and do good...The righteous is generous and gives...Turn away from evil and do good" (Psalm 37:3, 21, 27).

Do good. Be generous and give.

Consider the simple yet radical action to which God calls us when we face thugs and thieves in high (or low) places. He does not call us primarily (if at all) to arms or to political action or to boycotts or to media blitzes. He calls us to do good.

Doing good is biblical parlance for living a generous, kind, compassionate, giving, hands-dirty-with-serving and hearts-connected-with-compassion lives. It's the very opposite of raging and fuming. It's the near opposite of passive news-watching and collective whining via Christian airwaves.

It's getting out there into the real world of human need and doing something through witness, love, kindness, hospitality, service, and compassion for the poor, the outcast, the alone, the alien, and yes, even the thug.

It's not faulting the illegal alien, it's finding him and loving him. It's not condemning the gays, it's befriending them and gracing them. It's not blasting and scorning the politicians, it's praying for them, and pleading for God's mercy upon them--because we actually and truly love them.

Read--and practice--the words of Jesus in Luke 6:27-35. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless and pray for them. Turn your cheek. Give. Lend, expecting nothing in return. Be merciful. That is radical Christian social action. Everything else is bluster. Worse it is quite possibly simply fear, self-righteousness, and/or bigotry.

The best way to change really bad people is to love them. Remember Romans 12:14-21. Make sure to stop and read that Romans text really slowly and thoughtfully, or you'll blow a chance to be transformed.

Simple series of questions (some with answers):

1. What is the best way to overcome evil? Do good.
2. What is the best way to handle the illegal alien problem? Love the alien more than you love a healthy economy or the nation's future well-being and lead the alien to Jesus.
3. Are you more concerned about the homosexual's agenda or the homosexual's soul?
4. If Obama is really an evil enemy of all that is good, then what are specific good things we may do for him to overcome his evil?
5. Are you against higher taxes simply because you want to keep more money in your pocket, or because you truly believe that you can give it away in a more effective, others-helping way than government can? You shouldn't want lower taxes so you can have a higher standard of living; you should want lower taxes so you can invest in heaven through greater giving.
6. Do you speak out and take action more vigorously for the plight of the unborn or the cause of missions and evangelism than you do for the state of the economy or the defence of American style democracy? What have you given more time, attention, and tears to in the past six months?
7. Which worries you more and prompts you to more prayer, generosity, and action: the fact that we have thugs in high places, or the fact that there are neighbors next door who've never really heard the gospel or met a sane Christian with a bold witness, and that there are 10-15 thousand people groups around the world who have never even heard of Jesus Christ because American Christians refuse to give and go in such a way as to finish the task of local and global missions?

With all due respect and deep affection for all the dear saints who are doing much good every day to affect others for Christ, may I say this bluntly about the majority in churches today: maybe American Christians should whine a whole lot less and simply do good a whole lot more.

Labels: charity, Culture War, Giving, Love, Social Action

I confess that it is my tendency to be low key in my expressions of love for the people that I care about. It has been known to get me into trouble at times.

When it is not made unmistakable, love can be easily missed or overlooked.

In Matthew 26:1-13 we find a woman about whom we've heard nothing before now. From nowhere, it seems, she enters the scene with a certain prescience about what the next few days would hold for Jesus. We don't have her back-story, but what is apparent is that she had seen enough of Jesus to be fundamentally impacted by him. We know, by her actions, that her affection for her Savior had boiled over.

You don't just grab an expensive jar of perfume on your way out the door to dinner with church members and leaders thinking, "Eh, I might have need of this while I'm there. I'd better bring it along." Then while at dinner with those friends and leaders, you don't suddenly think, "Oh, I should break this jar and spend it all in an act of love."

No, she planned this event. Overcome with the joy of her Lord, she spent time considering how best she could show it. In her care and concern, in her love, she made a statement about the worth of Jesus that was unavoidable.

In the same way, God didn't suddenly think "Ah, maybe I'll send my Son down there. It might help." Nor, when Jesus was grown did he spontaneously think "Maybe if I just died, it would solve this problem." No, Father, Son, and Spirit planned before time began how to demonstrate love for us and "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Our Father planned how to show his love for us. He planned how to rescue us. He did not make it low key; he made it as obvious as a cross. He did not hold back; he spent it all.

As this woman broke the flask and poured out the perfume, God broke his Son and poured out his blood.

"Love so amazing, so divine..."

How often, when planning a way to show love to someone, do I consider the cost and rein in the concept? How often, when expressing myself, do I choose to reel it in a bit so as not to go too far. How often, when enjoying the love of my Savior, do I hold back rather than get carried away? Understated expressions of love and devotion do not change lives, they do not change worlds.

This woman didn't hold back. Neither did God.

Neither should I.

By Tim W. Shorey

Labels: Extravagance, Guest Post, Lent, Love

It may sound strange but I've often said that the job of a pastor is not finished until his sheep all die, or he does; whichever comes first. He must labor for the souls, and spiritual safety and well-being of his flock until each sheep crosses the finish line and enters into heaven. Until then there can be no ease, no rest, no taking a life break.

In my devotions this morning I came across Numbers 32:18. The context is that the Israelites are about to take over the promised land, the inheritance promised by God. As that is kicking off, two tribes (Reuben and Gad) ask if they can settle just east of there. Moses isn't happy because it appears that they want to settle down and take their ease before the rest of their fellow Israelites enter the promised rest and ease of the land.

In response Reuben and Gad make this promise in Numbers 32:18--"We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance."

This is the way every Christian (not just every pastor) should view life. Life here and now is not about settling down into ease, rest, or retirement; it's about making sure that all the fellow Christians God has connected us to (beginning of course in our families and then in our local church) make it to heaven, their inheritance.

While we are certainly to take periodic Sabbath rests for spiritual and physical replenishment, there is to be no real ease until heaven. So long as I have brothers and sisters who are in the wilderness of this life, and struggling to make it in faith; so long as I have members of my body (the local church) who need encouragement and admonition and help and love and counsel and hope; so long as I have fellow spiritual travelers who have not yet entered their eternal rest, I cannot rest or settle or take my ease.

Rest will come in heaven. Eternity is the Christian's retirement plan. Until then I must labor and lay down my life in behalf of the people of God. And so must every single Christian. This is not for pastors only. It's for every parent, every care group leader, every care group member, every single member of every single church. Each of us is his or her brother's and sister's keeper.

So long as we have one brother or sister who needs encouragement to keep on keeping on against all the foes of body and spirit, we must fight and labor on in their behalf. Let none of us return to his home for rest until everyone of us has gained his inheritance.

Let there be ease only in eternity.

Labels: Church, Love, Servanthood

From "The Mark of the Christian", by Francis Schaeffer:


LAMENT

Weep, weep for those
Who do the work of the Lord
With a high look
And a proud heart.
Their voice is lifted up
In the streets, and their cry is heard.
The bruised reed they break
By their great strength, and the smoking flax
They trample.

Weep not for the quenched
(For their God will hear their cry
And the Lord will come to save them)
But weep, weep for the quenchers.

For when the Day of the Lord
Is come, and the vales sing
And the hills clap their hands
And the light shines
Then their eyes shall be opened
On a waste place,
Smouldering,
The smoke of the flax bitter
In their nostrils,
Their feet pierced
By broken reed-stems.....
Wood, hay, stubble,
And no grass springing,
And all the birds flown.

Weep, weep for those
Who have made a desert
In the name of the Lord.

Evangeline Paterson

Labels: Guest Post, Humility, Love, Mark of the Christian

The war with culture must be engaged not just with words or counter-attack or defense. It must be engaged with love. Christians must connect profoundly to a lost and desperate world with radical love.

I’ve shared a few words from others as I’ve been away this week. Let me add one more citation to stir your hearts to go deeper into the heart and love and imitation of Christ for the sake of our world.

Having written a marvelous chapter entitled “God Incarnate” in his book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer concludes his wondrous teaching on the sacrifice of Christ in becoming one of us with this amazing challenge for us:

We see now what it meant for the Son of God to empty Himself and become poor. It meant a laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony--spiritual, even more than physical--that His mind nearly broke under the prospect of it (see Luke 12:50, and the Gethsemane story). It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who "through his poverty, might become rich." The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity--hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory--because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of Him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round. It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians--I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians--go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas Spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians--alas, they are many--whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christians and non-Christian to get on by themselves. The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christian spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor--spending, and being spent--to enrich their fellowmen, giving time, trouble care and concern, to do good to others--and not just their own friends--in whatever way there seems need.

There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things He will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. "For you know the grace of our Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).

O Lord, may they know we are Christians by our love.

Labels: Culture War, Love, Mission

Gayline cut my hair last evening. As she did, I multi-tasked by training Heidi (our dog) to stay in one place.

Heidi's confiscated one of our hassocks as her "resting" place, typically for about 33 seconds at a shot. We'd prefer her to stay there longer (something closer to 33 hours per shot) so she's not getting into mischief and driving us nuts.

After getting Heidi into place my training consisted of uttering a loud gutteral "Eh!!" every time she began to get up. "Eh!!" is master-speak for a serious sounding "no". When uttered quick and really, really loud, it works.

So while Gayline is snipping my hair I'm hawk-eyeing Heidi to "Eh!!" her every time she shows a hint of relocating. After a couple of early miscues, Heidi got it, and stayed there for about 20 minutes while I kept a vigilant eye. This meant that two things were going on at once: Gayline was focusing on cutting my hair; I was focusing on "Ehing" Heidi. Both required attention, and therefore 20 minutes of nearly complete silence.

We probably should have seen it coming. When Heidi eventually made a quick move and I erupted with a quick really, really loud "Eh!!!", Gayline, much to the surprise of us both, displayed greater veritical abilities than I ever did on a basketball court. My silence shattering "Eh!!" nearly separated my wife from her skin.

Only then did we realize the perilous spot into which I had been placed: she with both sharp scissors (with easy skin piercing capacity) and with electric able-to-shave-off-a-whole-section-of-hair-in-a-second clippers in hand, and me with voice poised to let out a loud piercing attention seizing and silence shattering command to my dog. It never occured to us that we might be headed for either blood or blunder. Thankfully I was spared a major head or hair disaster.

But it all made me think. Gayline could easily have done some damage that folks would have seen behind a pulpit for a month of Sundays. What if she had? How would I have responded? I think that I would have laughed it off, but I'm not sure I want to try it out to see.

What I do know is this: Gayline was not in the least bit angry with me for scaring her out of her skin. Why not? Because she had the grace to know that in the moment I was not acting sinfully or selfishly, but was doing something for the family, for her, for our son, for the betterment of our home.

She overlooked the unpleasantness of having her nerves go "boiiiing" because she saw the bigger picture of my intentions and efforts. I'm grateful for her grace.

There's a lesson there for life: Friends, we often bump up against each other unintentionally while we're doing or intending good things. We just don't see it coming. We're trying to serve. We're thinking of the good of others or of the church. We're pitching in. We're even committed to PEGI (see the 3/1/09 entry), but we're unaware of how this might create a tension or problem with someone else equally committed to service and love. It happens because we're on two very good but very different about-to-collide wavelengths at the same time.

There are times when we're all working toward the same ends, but get in each other's way in the process. These are times for forbearance, for cutting each other a lot of slack, for being grateful instead of angry, full of mercy rather than full of wrath.

So when good efforts meet up with tense moments, let's let love prevail.

Labels: Forbearance, Love, Mercy, Relationship, Servanthood