What a mother. A certifiable hero.

Today I was doing a bit of spying again from the back row during chapel and set my sights on a wife and her disabled husband a couple of seats in front of me. Again the homily from an over-trained but well-intentioned chaplain was dry and unaffecting, failing to connect with the core needs of the audience. But never fear, the real sermons happen all around you at a Shepherd chapel. That’s where the scenes and sounds of glory take place. So it pays to sit on the back row sometimes.

But for the record, and as a pastor, I wouldn’t encourage it.

This afternoon’s message came from the pair in the photo. Danny, like the son in the aforementioned story, is a quadriplegic. He cannot move his arms. He would have to be assisted just to give his wife a hug and, even then, would not feel the warmth of her body.

I don’t yet know Danny’s story but I know enough that he was able-bodied when he got married to this woman, and now he moves his chair by blowing into a straw. I wish you could see this marvelous woman love on her man, checking every few seconds to see if there’s anything he needs, jumping up to wipe the spittle from the corner of his mouth, smiling at him just to assure him that he is still the man she married, albeit diminished, and would marry him all over again.

That is truly heroic if you ask me.

I am sniveling as I think of the Sandy’s and Mrs. Danny’s and the mommy’s who rarely get the attention they deserve. We are the victims of fortunately unfortunate circumstances and they are the angels, the saviors, the heroes.

Check out the body language of this wife who, I’ve no doubt, will grow old with her husband through sickness and health. Take careful note that she is seated on a white folding chair, but occupies only half of it—the half closest to Danny. She wants to be as near to him as the space between a wooden chair and a wheelchair will allow. It’s like they were teenagers in love in a movie theater. This is intimacy. Have your Hollywood sex all you want.

I remain transfixed by the love story unfolding before me. Sure there will be new adjustments and—yes—those dratted, humiliating physical limitations, but I applaud this heroic woman for rolling with the punches and braving whatever lies ahead.

I know about heroes. I live with one. If you want to read about Sandy and our amazing love story, scroll down the right margin of my blog to “Categories” and look for “Sandy” in the drop-down menu. Our story is well documented and you’ll get the picture. It’ll make you mist over too.

So…hat tips to the families, the wives, the moms and dads…of all who suffer…

…oh, and to the Emily’s (whose athletic sixteen year old brother became a quad a few months ago and ministers to him as tenderly as if she were his own mother).

From where I sit? You guys are the true heroes. Bless you.

“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”
1 Corinthians 13:12, The Message

We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature…is still soaked with the sense of exile.
–JRR Tolkien

The Father is longing for the day in which He can present to His Son, and to the earth, the one who “made herself ready” for His return.
–David Sliker

Twenty-eight years ago–today–a passel of bridesmaids and groomsmen joined the minister and prospective bride and groom–‘the Sange’ and me–for the rehearsal of our wedding. It was August and it was hot. Even the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwaterians called it hot.

Vows were already written and in the hopper, the gown was hanging ready, tuxes were rented and the accoutrements of the next day’s celebration were gradually taking their place throughout the church. Amid the overbalance of familiar was a sprinkling here and there of transcendence. As the hours grew closer to the unveiling, however, the balance of common and sacred would shift. Dramatically.

Shortly before midnight Sandy and I parted ways: she to her house, me to my hotel. It wasn’t lost on me that the next time I saw her, she would take my name and I would take her home.

In the tension of “yes, but not quite yet” we ran the gamut of emotions in those in- between hours of preparation and realization, consecration before consummation, fine-tuning until finality…one moment we were walking on sunshine, the next walking in the quicksand of time stand still. Waiting. Doubting. Wondering. This is for life, sport. Am I really ready to commit to this? How could I even dare form the question? How many hours yet? Anticipating. Waiting. Then: watching as her face floats up and docks with my conscious thought: ah, yes, she is the one who causes my heart to race!

Until a few minutes after six on August 20, 1983, I had a pretty good idea about Sandy. I had memorized her face–from the gorgeous mole above her left cheekbone to the ‘talent specks’ in her hazel/green eyes. I knew she had a slight discoloration in one of her front teeth from a childhood mishap and a cute, subtle worry line between her eyebrows. I knew the shape and color of her lips that needed no artificial coloring. Yeah, I pretty much had her down.

Yet, all I had in the “yes, but not quite yet” was a blurry familiarity of my girl. It was stick-figure reality compared to the 3-D HD image I would soak in a few hours later. Even still, in my dusky twilight timescape, the image in my mind was Rembrandt in quality. Up until “then”.

And I was in love. Boy howdy, was I in love! I didn’t need any more evidence to convince me I had made the right choice. Or so I thought.

I was pretty composed until the doors of the lobby popped open and a bedazzling white surprise came into view. Suddenly, everything else faded away and I had tunnel vision as I watched this one I thought I had a handle on, move toward me. The most beautiful vision in the room, and she was making her way to me! The transitions from friends to modest lovers and now matrimoniously one was completed. For good. Why would she come to me?

Because nine months earlier I said (not word-for-word translation): “Here’s a crazy thought. Marry me. I promise to love you—and only you—always.” Somewhere in that goofy proposal, for better for worse for life, Sandy could not imagine another life. Thankfully.

Can you imagine “that” Day? The Eternal Day? When all our strifes, burdens, cares, failures, wins, blessings, hardships, doubts, waverings, repentings, struggles, following, pursuing, obedience, disobedience, falling, rising, trusting, warring, defending, sighing, crying and rejoicing—everything we knew of this life and all that was necessary to prepare us for the next—will have run its full course and we will be clothed with immortality. And why? Because, through it all, we believed what He said: “Follow Me, and I will make you…”

Follow Me. Through this narrow gate. Down this narrow road. It’s taking us Somewhere…you will never believe what’s ahead.

We are distressed/hard-pressed/troubled/squeezed on every side…
(Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8)

Nobody puts ‘Baby’ in a corner.
(Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing)

I’m feeling ‘hemmed in’ these days. Diminished. Limited. Grounded, like a teenager: no keys, no car, no friends. Just school, then home.

On top of that, I feel cornered. Outnumbered.

It’s redolent of a scene in Thor where the Viking hero and his compatriots infiltrate the Frost Giant’s lair and are met by a relentless enemy in wave after wave, each giant becoming more formidable than the last and more numerous than before.

Yeah, that captures it nicely.

On every front a vexing battle is being waged and it seems like I am losing ground.

Ministry.

Family.

Finances.

Friends.

Health.

Some fronts are more like skirmishes while others border on “Shock and Awe.” These days I look like the Arizona border, Iraq (in March, 2003) and Afghanistan all rolled into one.

Lord, is it warfare?

Am I being downsized? Capsized? Ostracized?

Then, like good news from home, these words came for me when I was about to arrive at some ill-advised conclusions:

On your behalf I speak to adversity, for I the Lord come to bring the power of My voice over the power that has come against you. For, I have been given all authority, and by that authority I speak over your life that you may be totally free from all adversity, oppression, depression, fear, anxiety and worry. When I am with you, you cannot be defeated. I speak into your life–peace be still. And, there will come a great calm and a great benefit. No longer allow yourself to sit down in the very pit and doldrums of failure, but arise to new heights. As the sun rises each day, arise and shine for you are the people of light; the children of light and the glory of My kingdom upon the earth. It is time for you to come to a new understanding of who you are in Me and who I am in you. It is time for you to feel the power of My wind upon you; the power of the wind that flows through your mind and regenerates your spirit. Come this day and receive a fresh baptism and allow the wind of My Spirit to move you and to lift you. Come and fly with Me, says the Lord.

On the other hand, I could be hearing:

Snip, snip.

That doesn’t negate the rhema word. Whether I’m being intentionally hemmed in (like a time-out for an unreasonable child) or it’s just my time for the gardener’s shears—either way—my trust is in God and I purpose to stay the course.

Faith may not know where it’s going, but it is in love with its Leader.

In faith, this day, I have it on good authority that I am not being shelved or downsized. Neither are you. We’re being prepped for reassignment. “Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.”

In faith, this day, I declare that “friends may fail me, foes assail me” but, hear this enemy: “He my Savior makes me whole.” Jesus. What a Friend for Sinners. I know He loves me to death, but not like Lenny in Of Mice and Men who loved a little too hard. His Hands enfold me, they do not crush me.

Though He slay me…even if there’s no seed in the barn and the cattle barns are empty…no figs on the branches…if this infection never leaves my body and my leg falls off…if (fill in your own blank here)…

Either way.

Whatever.

I say:

I will rejoice in the Lord!
I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
He makes me sure-footed as a deer, able to tread upon the heights!
(Habakkuk 3:17-19)

Hemmed in. Targeted. Isolated. Pressed on every side. Fire on one side and flood on the other.

Do not despair, o my soul.

He always brings us through and out, and gloriously IN.

Related articles (some I haven’t proofread entirely, mind you):

• Watch Rob’s Story
• Will I Get Through This?. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
• Thoughts about what I read this morning (standingatthedoor.wordpress.com)
• Habakkuk 3:19 (jantzika.wordpress.com)

When Abraham Lincoln assumed presidency over a fragile nation, there were 33 states in the Union. Five months later, 27 remained. Virginia, birthplace of seven United States presidents, was expected to tag along. The new president had said he’d rather be assassinated than to see a single star pulled from the flag, but the “great experiment” called America seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

“We will NOT have this man to be king over us!”

Would it, could it, survive?

Thousands.

That’s how many “followed” Jesus long before there was Twitter. They hung on His every word. He spoke their lingo and they liked that His simple lifestyle ran counter to the other rabbis and professional ministers who flouted, flaunted, fleeced and derided them. The religious dudes made them feel condemned. Hopeless. This man was different. Though a holy man, He was not religious and untouchable. It was as common to see him at a dinner party with undesirables as it was to see Him mixing it up with theologues and seminarians. If Jesus was a Facebook button, they would ‘like’ Him…

Oh! And the miracles?

Icing on the cake, baby.

Blindness, gone. Demons, gone. Leprosy, gone. My uncle who has never walked? Saw him skipping through town the other day.

Hungry? Just go see this Guy. He can fix you up.

This was pretty much the climate of the day. For a season. If there was such a thing as a vote, and a vote were held, this Guy was a shoo-in for King. As long as He kept them in bread.

Then one day, just like that, the honeymoon ended. It started out all right. Word spread that the Rabbi was giving a sermon in a synagogue. Don’t know where? Just follow your neighbors. They know someone who knows someone who knows where to go. Don’t bother packing a lunch. It’s a safe bet that your meal is included.

The air in Capernaum was buzzing and crackling. The synagogue was filled to the gills and it was uncertain if the old church could hold them all. It was probably going to be epic. The man called Jesus might just announce His candidacy for King. Who knows? Anyhow, He’s got my vote.

Anticipation was high. All the whisperings in the crowd had to do with what was on the menu. Would quail just magically appear on plates? Would the sky rain bread?

Instead of working the crowd, the Rabbi’s tone carried a weight, a certain gravity. He seemed deadly serious. No rah-rah. No trumpeted charge. No shmoozing. No campaign promises.

Clearly, it wasn’t going to be: YES WE CAN!

It was more like: Oh no, He didn’t.

So long as it feels like a vacation, a honeymoon, a good meal, a shopping day, a parade, Christmas morning, a cute baby in a rustic manger, a dinner party with friends, or being the center of attention, I’m good. As long as you’re hammering on those people, reading them the riot act, overturning their tables, I’ll go along.

Just don’t put me in Your sermon.

I don’t want to be obsessed with You. I just need You around. It’s cool with me just to know you’re there, especially when I’m hungry. So don’t start talking about a committed relationship. Friends with benefits is all I am looking for.

But You keep talking like this? I’ll un-friend You. I’ll hit the “Unlike” button. That quick. Just you watch.

“You don’t need this world’s food. Be nourished by Me! I Am the source of Life! Unless you worship Me, you will perish!”

Um, really? Aren’t you just a carpenter’s son? I’ll accept you as my personal Baker, but not my personal Savior and Lord. No way. No how.

I’m outta here. I’ll not let this Man be King of me!

Along with just about everybody else. The synagogue empties and a vagabond tumbleweed blows by a small handful of wide-eyed would-be followers huddled in a shadowy corner. A couple of them, too, seem to be contemplating the door.

Jesus eyes them up and down. This is what you signed up for, boys. Are you still with Me?

“Will you also go away?”

He looks them each in the eye, one by one, like a judge polling a jury, waiting for their answer.

They needn’t worry.

The Union won’t dissolve no matter how many left. His flag would lose no stars. My Kingdom is yeast running through the batch of dough, he said. This minor setback only signals the certain triumph to come. There will be many more who will fall away on account of Me…

“Will you?”

So I lost a few…we’ll rebuild…as a matter of fact, there’s a woman who is about to be stoned for adultery in Jerusalem. I think I’ll start with her…

He turns. and with an enigmatic smile, calls over His shoulder:

So, boys: You comin’? Or what?

No, a good look.

What you see right now is not exactly what you’ll see 30 days from now.

They say your skin sheds and regenerates every month. Off with the old, and papa’s got a brand new bag! If you’re keeping score at home, that’s about 3 billion skin cells that wave a white flag each and every day. Why does this happen? Glad you asked. Your skin, the largest organ of your body, is also the first line of defense against the body’s enemies: dehydration, infection, injuries, air quality, and temperature extremes. Gotta keep it pristine. Durable. Resilient.

Oh, and your skin constitutes about 20% of your full body’s weight, so, technically, you lose a fifth of your mass each and every month. Before you reward yourself with that extra scoop of rocky road, remember you also put it right back on.

Sorry.

Followers of Jesus also shed and regenerate every day. I like to read Watchman Nee and Oswald Chambers and Paul because they inform me that life in the Spirit is about subtraction. The crucified self. I also thumb through Guyon and Spurgeon and Paul because they bring out the renewing power of Christ in me. So I thought I might sate your palate with a menu that is rich in vitamins and minerals to get us ready for what awaits outside that door in the mean streets of life today.

The following items are more than tools for daily renewal. They are organic, when utilized in the grace of God, to filter, expel and rebuild. They are fuel. They enable us to shed unwanted pounds and take on muscle and bulk. These, then, become the first line of defense against laziness, flabbiness and gluttony, whilst taking up the offensive against the dark rule of the empire. Yeah, it’s that big!

So before we hit the floor or the door, it may behoove us to take our breakfast in bed.

• Early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You…(Psa 63:1)

• In the morning my prayer comes before You…(Psa 88:13)

• Morning by morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; morning by morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation…(Psa 5:3)

Breakfast, it would seem, is the most important meal of the day for God-warriors too . Regardless of time or place, our day should be shaped by the good grace this diet brings. It’s guaranteed to get you, uh, bikini-ready, spiritually speaking. It’ll fine-tune those abs. Flatten ‘em out. Promise.

Start your day, end your day, bookend your day, or fill your day (as the case may be) with these disciplines of grace:

1. A TEACHABLE HEART – come before the Lord with an “amen” in your heart; tell Him “Lord, whatever it is You show me, I will do it.” Open every crack and crevice, corner and closet to His gaze. Come open, ready, repentant, worshipful. Lord, I want a heart that is reachable, a mind that is teachable and a faith that is unimpeachable!
2. THE BIBLE – The Psalmist promises “the entrance of Your Word gives light” (Psa 119:130); it opens up blocked corridors and fills the house with the Presence and fragrance of Jesus who is the Christ, for the Scriptures testify to Him (Jn 5:39). While reading plans are helpful, don’t try to read to accomplish a goal, but for illumination. Stay on a verse or passage. Ask His Spirit to breathe on the scripture and give it life for you. Await His marching orders.
3. A JOURNAL – What else are the scriptures but the journals of His servants who wrote as they heard the living, breathing Word? Your journal is the record of your journey with the Shepherd and a pictorial of the places He takes you and where He lays you down in pastures of grace. On my library shelves sits literally thousands of pages of journaling—my prayers, raw expressions of faith and tables of His mercies in my life—my own books of remembrance that shape my life and keep me in the love of God (Jude 21).
4. A HYMNAL – Certainly the Psalms—the hymn book of the Bible—are a great place to sing back to God the attributes He possesses and the marvels of life in Him; an iPod or CD loaded with worship music is greatly beneficial but get yourself an old hymnal. How rich is the devotion of saints in a bygone era and how much we can learn from their own disciplines! The time with God should not be rushed but nourished and cultivated with overtures of love back to Him.
5. AN EXIT STRATEGY – What good is it to stare at yourself in a mirror, have it reveal what must be seen, then move on without dealing with that cowlick or bit of lettuce in your teeth? Do we rise from our session with Jesus, pat His back and say, “Good talk, Lord”? Here is where we put an exclamation point behind our “amen” and seek His grace to live through us. Did He reveal someone of whom we must ask their forgiveness? The first thing we do must be to grab the cell phone and set up a coffee with them. What did we hear Him say? Faith is not only hearing but doing. What is our takeaway? Our benediction is to follow through with our Shepherd’s instructions. Did He remind us we are not condemned but loved? Then all through the day we must confess those things that reflect that.

Take a seat next to Charles Wesley and let it flow…

Eighty years ago, you were born beneath the thickening clouds of Great Depression yet the little boy with glacier-blue eyes and a mop of sandy-blonde hair atop his head smiled mischievously in the face of hard times and rose above with l’esprit de la vie beautifully marked by resilience, gusto, grit and the grace of God. The sorrows and difficulties of those early years only emblazoned the stuff of greatness deep in your being and tempered sensitivity and kindness from your heart. How blessed are we to say to the world: this man is our Dad!

You are a man of few words yet your life is a library of reference for splendid living. Not long ago, a man who was gifted with a golden tongue said “I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in fifty years what my father taught by example in one week.” Hear, hear. We have learned much from your life, Dad. You are a living epistle of true wisdom that fits beautifully in your children’s hands. The cover is tenderly worn, the edges have gone from crisp to aged and the pages are dog-eared but only because there is so much of your life that is worth bookmarking. So much legacy to mine and plumb.

The Psalmist says, “The entrance of Thy words giveth light” (Psalm 119:130) to which your life, Dad, eloquently testifies. Each of us kids remember that same early morning liturgy rehearsed again and again across the years and how it has planted in us the hunger to know God more through the sacred scriptures.

There you sit, at the breakfast table, always before the early rays of morning gild the edges of the quiet pre-dawn, your head bowed over the Book of books; black coffee steams in a mug at your elbow but before a spoonful of cereal is raised to your mouth, God gets you first. This is how the morning greeted us! Could any other legacy be more necessary for a child? You read as though you were consuming food, for indeed you were, and your inner life glowed hotter than even the day before and not quite as much as it would the following morning. You read so the words would cleanse your soul and send you into the day with a vitality that was not your own.

Each day, every week, month after month and across the expanding bridge of decades, your life has gone up to God as a sweet savor of incense.  It might seem a strange thing to say of a grown man that he is sweet, and yet it so perfectly speaks of you. All who have ever known you, Dad, would agree when the record of your life is tallied, you come up a very sweet man. Sweet, as in, endearing. Winsome. Grace-filled. Affable. Kind.

Handsome, young and fresh out of the Air Force, it was 1953 and you made an amazing, life-changing discovery. Trapped inside a set of revolving doors at the YMCA of Harvey, Illinois, was a beautiful brunette that caught your eye. You tried to strike up a conversation with her but found her aloof and uninterested. Today, your kids are giddy with delight that you did not let this deter you. You Romancer you! You finally swept her off her feet and barely a year later, you married Mom on a glorious spring day, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death should separate you. A long and lasting home was established, beginning with the arrival of your firstborn, eleven months later.

That home became a little slice of heaven on earth, rooted and grounded in godliness, when you were gloriously reborn! Thank God for that little mission church in Calumet City that you, Mom and your little girl began attending, and thank God for the “angel that led you to the Lord”! That angel, of course, was Pastor Wayne Angel, and he saw you in that pew, trembling there under deep conviction, and he walked back to where you were standing, asked if you were ready to surrender your life to Jesus, and you said yes. Bless you, Dad, for saying yes!

In a society of dysfunctional families, it has been our singular fortune to not only be blessed with a Dad, but a very good Dad, a doting Dad with firm hand and loving heart, a godly Dad who has lived only to see his children say yes to Jesus also and establish their homes in Christ. Thank you, Dad, for caring enough to point out the way to us. We, too, have been led to the Lord by an angel.

And when we’ve heard you sing your testimony with songs like “I’d Rather Have Jesus” or “The Love of God” and “How Great Thou Art” in that deep, rich, bass voice of yours, we’ve heard what angels must sound like when they praise the Lamb who sits on the Throne. We know our Father in glory beams when He hears you sing. We sure do.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

May You hear the heavens sing over you this day.

For seventeen years running my weekend ritual has been to use the seventh day of the week to shut myself in the house, keep the TV turned off, and stay bent over the Word of God and the notes He had given me for Sunday’s sermon, tweaking them and generally whiling away the day in the Presence of the Spirit, my Teacher. Occasionally, my van and I would venture out to our “quiet time spot” and stay parked for hours on end, allowing the Eternal Word to filibuster my mind and the Third Person spark on the tinders of my soul until the man was set afire and given the Father’s ringing endorsement as a delivery service.

But it’s Saturday and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I am now a pastor without a congregation. My stained-glass memories will have to suffice and I find them helpful reminders that I am still a man with a call on his life though I do not know what my next assignment will be. So I steal a glance at my home’s all-too-familiar work station, where my sermon paraphernalia would normally have hijacked a section of the dining room table and my heart feels a little squeeze. Sandy’s table décor is still intact, the settings and centerpiece unmoved, no sign of Sunday anywhere.

As I remain fixed here in desultory reserve, questions of “what now?” and “what’s next?” pollinate my mental stigma and everything is…abnormal. Tomorrow a new pastor mounts the platform that has been home to me for nearly two decades and I sigh, not for him but for me. As a shepherd who has loved those sheep, I feel like an unfit parent, a papa with a rolling stone complex though I know this has been in the Plan for some time and my faithfulness in the pastoral role is not in question.

But still…

I chuckle now as I recall a conversation Sandy and I shared in our kitchen that set all these past seventeen years in motion.

“I think God is telling me that I am to be a pastor,” I said, watching for any reaction it might yield.

Sandy hesitated, then made a sound like hmmmmm…

“What?”

“What what?” she blinked.

“What are you thinking?”

“About?”

“About what I just said!”

“About you being a pastor?”

If duh was in my vocabulary back then, I would have used it.

“Yes.”

There was a long space of time then she turned away from the sink and looked straight into my eyes.

“I don’t think you have a pastor’s heart,” she confessed.

I knew she was right. I could sweep into Anytown for a few days, preach and engage for the short-term, then be on to the next assignment; it was how I was programmed, what I was built to do. In the in-betweens I would hide in my cave (home) and recharge my batteries until the next church, school or camp called. Using the metaphor of theater, it is fairly easy to be “on” for the performance (don’t read into that word) then exit the stage and disassociate quickly. Pastoring is a whole ‘nother animal altogether as it requires being “on” all the time, across the span of years, overly exposed, voluntarily observed, painstakingly involved.

I chuckle again as I am afforded the luxury now of looking back. There I sat on a tiny stage on one end of a rented church library, coiffed hair (I had more to kwoff back then) and double-breasted suit, shoes shined to military code and I looked out on maybe seventy or eighty folk who gathered on that brilliant sun-shiny Sunday to celebrate the birth of a fellowship. I, the veteran of hundreds of church services the previous ten years, often preaching before thousands, found myself nervous and uncomfortable preaching before tens. But the people were beaming. They were part of something new. And in my Hybels-slash-Warren eyes-bigger-than-reality dream state, I could only see us going up and up and up.

The next Sunday, reality fell like Damacles’ sword, and I preached to a crowd of twenty.

I’ve seen God add to those twenty through the years, but nothing that would jiggle Richter’s needle much and certainly nothing that would cause Hybels-slash-Warren to turn their dual heads in our direction. But the people love me and know that I love them and would lay my life down for them. They’ve gotten close enough to see the warts and gangrenous imperfections and I’ve let them. And I’m glad I did. I’ve held their babies, buried their mothers, shared their griefs (and they mine), lovingly rebuked, liberally encouraged and earnestly taught, both with my life and the opening of scriptures each week.

Last Sunday was my last as pastor in its official capacity. The house was full; I even saw several I hadn’t seen in a long time. They came to say, you’ve been very important in our lives, Scott. We want you to see us and know we are your crown of rejoicing…I tear up, receiving no praise for myself, but thankful I did, in fact, get a Grinch-like heart transplant. A very close friend wished this upon me: “I pray that when you leave this building today and drive off the parking lot, you will hear the sound of angels standing and applauding a job well done.” I think I did. And I know Who they were standing for.  

My pastorate ended on the anniversary of my pastorate’s beginning but with seventeen wonderful years packed between. I set out in a double-breasted suit and sat down in well-worn blue jeans. Perhaps that is a commentary on those years:  God gave me a pastor’s heart after all and got me comfortable in the call.

Well, it’s Saturday. I think the van and me’ll head on over to our “quiet time” spot and get before the Lord for the next few hours. I need to get ready for Tomorrow…

Our New Testament is fifty-one percent pedagogical (teaching, training) and forty-nine percent practicum (application). Jesus spent ample time with His followers in the classroom of instruction but also sent them into the labs and out into the fields so they could discover the Life for themselves. They did, and marveled greatly.

The Book of Ephesians is a perfect balance of doctrine and exercise. The first three chapters offer fundamental instruction while chapters four, five and six deal with how such a creed looks walked out. I have heard that John Wimber, the now-deceased founder of the Vineyard Fellowship of churches, used to spend the first portion of his conferences giving a lecture then segue into what he called “clinic time” where the power of the Kingdom was manifested, the expounded word would come alive.

The Apostle Paul stressed both the “hearing of faith” (Romans 10:17) and the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26). This is how the ancients learned. While our educational system is purely academia, based on information-gathering, memorizing data and dates and names of battles, the ancient people of God were educated with an interactive approach of learning and doing.  

Recently, I picked up a book that served to attack the conspiratorial presence of the religious right throughout the history of America. It was written by a New York University professor and while I admit to his secular world view, I could not help but be impressed with his comparison between the religious zealots of America and the church that was once upon a time in a place called Jerusalem. In the early centuries, the author commented, the reputation of the church was not only its theology, but its corresponding “biography.”

I love that!

These were a people who not only internalized truth, but externalized the way and the life as they spilled out onto the streets, so that what was said about them (biographical) were things like:

“See how they love one another!”
“We cannot defend their beliefs but we also cannot deny their lives”

In my twelve years as pastor at New River, I have delivered in the neighborhood of 750 sermons, devotions, talks and Bible studies, not to mention the generous dousing of articles, blogs and other written instruction. In recent years the Lord sparked in me a desire to lay down a more solid foundation through the two semesters of the LIFE Institute. I didn’t know it then, but the last couple of years have been my “Deuteronomy” to the flock, the final preparations for our moving from theology to biography, if you will.

That’s not to say that the time of teaching is over. It does mean that you are getting ready to go into the fields with Kingdom power; you have been equipped thoroughly for what is coming. A new era is dawning that marks a vital transition from the “first half of Ephesians” into the next three exciting chapters where you get to go on adventure and walk it out (Eph 4:1,17; 5:2,8,15)!

As in Romans 12:1, you are entering ‘THEREFORE’ ZONE! The first eleven chapters of Romans offer instruction and equipping and in light of all the revelation given, Paul gives what should be our only “reasonable” response:

“Therefore…present your bodies a LIVING sacrifice…which is your
reasonable SERVICE…”

As for me, I couldn’t be more thrilled. A people prepared, a Joshua waiting in the wings, and a whole host of victorious campaigns await. Beloved, a sizzling, hot biography is going to be written about you. Just be faithful to all you have learned and all will be well. Amen.

Far too many in the professing church today are hoping in a false security for all their eternal wants and wishes. Because they prayed a prayer, lifted a hand at a pastor’s behest during an invitation or filled out a decision card, they feel they are “in” and that’s all there is to it. There is no coming under the reign of Christ. They live as they good and well please. The Gospel of Heaven has replaced the Gospel of the Reign of Christ in the modern church.

When John the Baptist came preaching an “at-hand” Kingdom of Heaven, it was clear to him that a characteristic of a Kingdom citizen was one who was continually brought under the Lordship of the Son, the King of that Kingdom, Jesus the Christ.

“He must increase; I must decrease.”
(John 3:30)

The interesting thing about that passage is its Greek construction. The first phrase is a present active reality. “He must be increasing.” Simply put, the Baptizer knew this about the Kingdom economy: its citizens MUST be seen flourishing in the Life of Christ and He must be seen thriving and thrumming in them. The Good News is, this is not something we can work up on our own.

In the second phrase, the mood switches to the passive, morphing the words into these: “I must be BEING decreased.” I cannot break myself nor can I bring holiness to myself. It is the Lord’s doing.

Be forewarned. Those who would follow Christ are ripe for the anvil since we are all rife with self. Paul of the Damascus Road once shouted with his reed: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection (He must increase) and the fellowship of His suffering (I must be being decreased)…”

And still, still after years of hammering and hurting, scraping and scouring, being cast down, cast out and cast off, this hearty old apostle could say at the end of his days it had been “a good fight.” How can you kill a man who’s already dead?

When young Gypsy made Christ Lord of all His Life, it stuck. He made it his life’s pursuit to know Christ.

Eternal life is not gained by the mere lifting of a hand but with a life that abides in His Love (John 17:3). And it is a restful abiding, to be sure. Our work is only to yield (though that seems like hard labor in a prison yard at times as self is so unrelenting!). But His work is to deliver us all the way from Egypt and to Promise.

And one day, maybe a few hundred miles from this moment, or just a few perhaps, may we also turn to a would-be inquirer with glowing face and smiling eyes and give witness to a life well lived.

A life that, by God’s needful grace, never loses the wonder.