Matthew 16:18-19
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Revelation 3:7-8
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
“‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut…

A long time ago I told my Dad I didn’t want to grow up because all the cars of the future looked so ugly. I was quite fine with his 1960s Catalina and our ’69 LTD, thank you very much.

So now I’ve grown up and – for the most part – every vehicle I’ve owned is not only of the used variety but usually not even in the same decade. To illustrate, the other day it was a bit rainy so I pulled on the light switch to engage my headlights. When I parked at a Barnes & Noble an hour later, I forgot to disengage them, so I went inside the two-story bookstore and meandered and browsed for awhile. Some time later a guy, who obviously had been searching for me for a time, found me and reported to me my lights were on.

“I saw you park and get out,” he said, breathing heavily, “but I assumed your lights would shut off automatically.” He said it like: ‘it’s 2012, why wouldn’t your headlights turn off like everyone else’s in the universe?’

Sorry, it’s just a cross I choose to bear.

So then yesterday I took my eldest sister to lunch for her birthday and she beat me to the restaurant. When I drove up she was standing beside her new-model Prius, so I asked for a peek. The inside looked like the cockpit of the space shuttle! It had everything, even temperature control, radio and Bluetooth – built right into in the steering wheel!

My jalopy looked sad and embarrassed even sharing the same lot with her Toyota. But, oh well. C’est la vie.

After lunch I wanted to walk her to her car and she gratefully accepted her little brother’s old-world chivalry. When she reached out and pulled her door handle, the door made a sweet unfastening sound and glided open, the aroma of new car fumes spilling out.

“What, you left your door unlocked?”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“I never saw you pull out a key…” I injected, but then it hit me: “Oh! Is it your handprint or something on the handle? It recognizes your print?”

I was grasping.

“No, no,” she explained, “I have the key with me but I don’t have to use it. There’s a sensor or something inside the key, so whenever I am close to the car, the door unlocks itself for me.”

I about fainted with disbelief. I recalled what I told my Dad all those years ago and summarily changed my mind. I wanted one of these newfangled futuristic cars!

So all this got me thinking: remember when Jesus blessed Peter for divulging his supernaturally downloaded Truth to the question of “Who am I?” and told the brash fisherman that submitting to His Kingship would give him (and by extension all followers of Messiah) unequivocal authority before all kinds of doors in the kingdom?

That we would carry KEYS inside us?

How cool to think, like my Sis’s perk with her car door, that when we come upon any closed door in the spirit realm the Lord means to be opened, that our submitted walk to His timing and will – just by our walking up to it – would release locks, disengage doors and open passages into other rooms and deeper realms!

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Back to my old clunker (forgive me Jesus, You blessed me with it and it is special!): it does give me an incredible perk in its own right. It happens to sport a very coveted plate on its rear end that unlocks great possibilities that afford me the luxury of parking in extremely convenient slots right beside the mall and restaurants that are marked with painted blue signs with stick figure wheelchair persons on them.

Jealous?

My friend said, “I’m probably on the third verse.”

Then explained, “The first verse usually gives the overall concept of the song’s meaning. The second verse will give more meaning, makes it more personal, and the last verse pretty much wraps it all up.”

“The third verse,” I said, intrigued. “Huh.”

And then a thought popped into my head. In the denomination I belonged to growing up, we didn’t have worship leaders, we had “song leaders” or “music directors”.

Invariably – perhaps because they were trained at the same music schools? – each would have the audience – sorry, congregation – stand at different intervals, these usually being the opening two hymns (that’s with a ‘ymn’ for the young crowd – these were lines of songs with strange symbols above and below) and the song right after announcements, then once more after the offering. Then lastly, during the invitation. This could last as long as the sermon, only ending when someone finally came forward.

As though it were a canonized statement, each song leader would announce the ‘standing’ hymn with the words, “Please rise and sing the first, second, and last stanzas (not verses) of song number 362 in your hymnals (hardback books containing numbered hymns)…”

Never the third verse. That one got skipped.

Who knows why?

Back to my friend: I was hearing that they were at an unsung, forgotten season of their life. What their life was saying was just not important enough for others to notice. Though they had a lot to offer, they just weren’t getting their just due.

At least that’s what I heard.

It’s been my joy to preach a mini-series at my home fellowship on “endurance” these three weeks. It came as no surprise that the passage God gave me is the scripture that got me through my nine weeks of hospitalization, three surgeries, two separate trips to ICU, and coding on my hospital bed. Through everything, God supplied my own third verse

Hebrews 10:36
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

That’s what Hebrews has to say: stand fast, hold your ground, and progress pilgrim, because going back is not worth it. What is worth everything is when your life sings the lyric that was written just for you, that no one else knows, but needs to learn.

So no one sings your verse? You sing it, beloved. Lean back, tip your chin and just belt it out. It’s your story, it’s your song. It’s about praising your Savior all the day long! Make your verse the one the conductor modulates on. Even if it’s in the minor key, that’s okay, because it can raise the hair on the back of people’s necks like you wouldn’t believe!

Fannie Crosby, blinded in infancy by a quack, used her third verse to sing the message of her life: “If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind … for when I die; the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.” All she did was write 8000 songs and a lot of third verses.

Here’s one:

Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest.
Watching and waiting, looking above -
Filled with His goodness…lost in His love!

A woman I know well has been a quadriplegic since 1967. Her own ‘third verse’ is: “God’s greatest miracle to me has been His sustaining power in my life.” Amen, Joni.

Yeah, we’re not gonna skip verse three. It has a LOT to say and just as much to offer. That’s what I think Hebrews 10:36 is supposed to be: the missing verse that puts it ALL together, giving better perspective to this beautiful, hard, fulfilling and frustrating thing we call discipleship.

It’s beautiful music indeed.

“He who scatters has come up before your face. Man the fort! Watch the road! Strengthen your flanks! Fortify your power mightily.”
Nahum 2:1

Don’t get out of control over matters you can’t control. The enemy wants you emotionally invested in the wrong things so you will be unable to engage in the right things. He wants to sidetrack you, but hold steady. You are not assigned elsewhere. Man your position! You are to be faithful where you are, to those you are with, and for the purposes to which you have been called.

Can you almost see Jesus, mounted on fiery steed, with face painted blue?

Hold…

                              Hold…

                                                           Hold that line!

Oh, and don’t get caught up in the “What about John?” business, either. Pettiness and jealousy do  not become you, Peter. The Lord has other plans for John. You just be available for

whatever,

however,

whenever.

This isn’t a competition for the privileged seat beside Me but the precious joy of knowing I have a path and plan for you too, and will be right beside you in life and in death.

Selah.

I’ll wait.

Can’t remember the last time? Why is it that the church is so ill-equipped with this precious and powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit? Have our doctrines become iron gates so as to occlude our entering in to the secret place where divinely inestimable treasures are kept?

These treasures are for us – for our employment and our enjoyment.

Martin Lloyd-Jones described himself as a Calvinistic-Methodist, influenced both by the unadulterated exposition of Whitefield and Wesley’s ministry of the burning heart. He preached a subsequent work of the Holy Spirit for any of God’s children who ask (see Luke 11:11-13), which may or may not be accompanied by phenomenon we see in Acts. For the record, I am in his tribe.

Here is how the venerable Lloyd-Jones describes this amazing love-gift from God:

Alluding to the teaching of Puritan Thomas Goodwin, Lloyd-Jones said,

A father is walking down the road with his son’s hand in his own and the child is enjoying the presence of his father and knows that he is loved. Then, without the child doing anything special, moved only by the father’s love, the father reaches down and scoops his son off his feet and up into his arms. He hugs the child tightly, showers him with kisses, tells him he loves him more than life itself and sets him down again. The child already knew his father loved him, there was no doubt. But oh the added measure of assurance, the joy of knowing that love is not based on anything you have done but simply flows out of the heart of the father. That is what it means to have God near.

*

John Piper, citing this reference, said,

I think this is basically what happened at Pentecost. And has happened again and again in the life of the church.
— John Piper: You Shall Receive Power, 1990

Are we so afraid that our people can’t handle this added measure of love from God?

This is criminal, if you ask me. During the Middle Ages, Catholicism deemed it illegal for the common person to have access to Bibles. Catholic apologists say it was to stem the tide of heresy, but their own practices were heretical! Wittenberg Door, anyone? So committed to their laws were they that the scriptures were actually chained to the pulpits!

Is this like that?

I am grateful for this subsequent work of the Spirit for life and ministry. For the life of me, I don’t know where I would be without His sweet bathings. Let’s not memorialize Pentecost as if it was a one-time event never to be reproduced, when the truth is, there have been many fillings and (oh, let’s just say it) baptisms, with many yet to come!

D.L. Moody said of his own experience,

I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York — oh, what a day! — I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.

Are you hungry?

Thirsty?

Ask – with a pure heart, yes – but do ask.

And get ready to be swept up in the arms of grace.

__________________________________________________

*Joy Unspeakable, David Martyn-Lloyd Jones

I remember a day when I was a sought-after speaker. I preached before thousands at a time, numerous times. My sermon tapes (back when cassettes were king) were widely circulated and my name was well-known in multiple circles. I shared the platform with a variety of Christian “celebrities” and exhorted professional athletes and could pack out churches for revival meetings.

Here’s where I am:

Most days I am quiet. I sit for hours…just listening. I have one ‘parishioner’ who regularly seeks me out. No church. No recognizable ministry. I’ve preached maybe four or five times.

In three years.

And I have never felt more content with myself, my marriage and my ministry.

Here’s how I got here:

Nope. No sordid story of moral failure. Didn’t run off with my secretary or funds from church coffers. Except for a time when an influential network of churches blackballed me for the heinous crime of accepting speaking engagements — outside the confines of our hallowed denomination — my record could not have been more clean and tidy.

But I was dying spiritually. And physically.

My identity was wrapped up in what I was doing.

Disabled Minister.

Evangelist.

Revivalist.

Pastor.

Speaker.

Preacher.

Yeah, I was a husband and father somewhere in that list.

I would look at my calendar and gloat inside. I was so busy, I had no idea that of all the fields I was working, the garden closest to home was the most neglected. It didn’t make sense to speak that. It couldn’t be. I mean, that’s the plot right outside my window, right under my nose. It was fine as is. Right? When all the time, I was mostly oblivious to the prodigiousness of prodigality in my son and deaf to the internal cries of my beloved.

Somewhere in that space of time the Lord started knocking on my door. He, too, was vying for a place. It wasn’t a question of not being in the word. I read His love letter to me every day and read it from front to back twelve or fifteen years in a row at one stretch.

Aren’t I special?

Here’s the problem:

I was pretty much the manager of all my relationships. I controlled the times, the amounts, the boundaries and assessments. I liked where I was. I could ride this streak straight into glory, for all I cared. I liked pretty much everything about my life. As is.

So what was this discomfort pulling at me?

What, pray tell, was this gnawing?

Why the black hole?

What’s with this niggling discontent?

Turns out I was inside the story of a farm girl and the king who wooed her. You know the one. She’s dark from exposure, but the handsome king calls her lovely. He pretty much throws everything at her and her heart is ravished. Shulamite wouldn’t change a thing. She likes it as is.

The day comes when the king calls to her from behind the wall of her crib. She’s inside, behind the lattice, and, though she is mad about him, she cannot be bothered.

He calls.  “Arise! Come away!”

He had things and places to show her.

But it wasn’t a good time for her. She managed the affair. He won her heart but she still touched its strings.

So He mounted his steed and rode on.

Here’s what I’m saying:

My ministry may have had its successes but my King was trying to awaken me from the mystique of ministry, calling me away from its activity – the fanaticism of freneticism – from clanging cymbals and hollow hallelujahs, to otherness. To set-apartedness. To more.

He needed me still. Quiet. Scaled back. Toned down.

Unplugged.

Before He could slate my thirst He had to make me thirsty. I don’t know where I fit anymore. I’m too charismatic for some. A little Calvin, a little Arminian. Not dispensational enough. A legalist for the radical grace crowd and not traditional enough for others. What church would have me?

Ah, but that’s my head talking. My heart knows otherwise. And THIS is where my contentment comes in. I may not know where I fit, but I do fit. Because He has made a place for me. I just probably don’t fit where some think I should fit, or even where I’d like to fit.

He seems to be unplugging me from spots, then fitting me elsewhere. At times it feels as far as the small toenail is from the earlobe, but I fit. Wherever He wants me. I’m learning to “come away” when He calls. If I stay, I lose something. I lose His spontaneity, His nature to surprise.

If I stay, I start thinking I’ve got it figured out. I become self-assured, having Christ RIGHT WHERE I WANT HIM, which is the deadliest thing for a believer. Oh, and it’s hellishly deadly for denominations too.

Sometimes He is in the banqueting house. Other times, the palace or the gardens or the bedchamber. Occasionally He wants to go for a ride in the fields of wildflowers. Marvel of marvels, He doesn’t want to do it solo. He wants our company. But the catch is: the only way we can only hear the invitation, above the din, amid the clanging cymbals…

Is. To. Get.

Unplugged.

I have a ministry friend who says “Do me, Lord” whenever the Holy Spirit challenges him.

Are YOU ready for Him to “do you”?

That’s, of course, a joke. Take a listen. Hopefully, you’ll have “ears to hear.”

Plus, he’s in a suit. That alone should pique your interest.

This is my 333rd post in 6 years of blogging. Note to self: when I get around to doubling it, make the post about satan.

THEY: “The girl you’ve been dating. We know.”

ME: “No, not her. Another girl. This one I’m sure is the one. I really want you to meet her…”

And so my course was plotted. With heart completely ravished and smitten, I had declared my intent. With hand to the plow, I made it my soul’s mission to make a life with the same girl I had nearly written off when our paths first crossed. Remind me to tell you about that another time. I can only tell you I had sorely and poorly misjudged her.

She sure had me pegged, though.

I got a comment from a friend on another social networking site I use questioning a statement I made about contemporary church. While I am most certainly right and they are wrong–he mocked–it did get me thinking.

In my vast inventory of posts, I have said an awful lot about what is wrong with the church.* I make no apology for that since it has been my burden to carry for the Lord, but I never want to become so jaded that I fail to see the grandness of her highness, the Bride of Jesus.

No, not in the sweet by and by.

Now.

Here.

It’s a dangerous thing to curse whatever He has called holy. What I hope and pray I have addressed is not the genuine but to differentiate it from the mixture that is with His people. May it never be my horrid crime to refer to His bride as ugly.

I have a friend who is a master of the metaphor and one of my favorites is his picture of scaffolding around a building that is being renovated. If we focus on the pipes and boards, buckets and bricks, mortar and trowels, we would be disillusioned, but when the work is finished and all of that is dismantled and cleared away, we stand in awe of the final product.

I admit, sometimes I swear I’m looking at a condemned building when I might just be seeing the scaffolding. Lord, let me see her…

I asked the Lord two nights ago: “how am I to see Your Church, Lord?” The answer came so quickly, I knew I hadn’t the time to tick off the qualities that sprang into my conscious thoughts. I had a fairly good sense I was discovering the King’s heart on the subject.

Here is what I jotted down.

(As an aside, whenever you ask the Lord for His thoughts on a matter, it is often to your advantage to have writing implements close by. That’s free. You’re welcome.)

So what did I hear in my spirit?

• She is My Bride (2 Cor 11:2; Rev 19:7-9)

• She Sits with Me Now (Eph 2:4-7)

• She is My Agent of Reconciliation in the world (2 Cor 5:18,19; 1 Pet 2:9-12)

• She is the Bane of Satan and envy of angels (Eph 3:10; Gen 3:15; 1 Pet 1:10-12)

• She is Robed in Beauty and getting more beautiful all the time, as My coming draws nearer (Isa 54:11-17)

• She is Right on Time (Rom 8:18-30)

• She is Different Than the Corrupt Who Creep In (Jer 5:26; Jude verses 17-23)

Seven things. Seven.

Am I to take anything from that I wonder?

Nah. Has to be a coincidence.

While there’s a whole host of things that need to be addressed with regard to contemporary church, especially in prosperous, non-persecuted regions of the world, there is SO MUCH MORE that is right with her.

You just have to take a second look.

________________________________________________________

*Not THE Church, but what passes itself off as church; I have differentiated between the professing church (outward show and lip-service) and the Confessing Church of Christ (the Bride being prepared and adorned for glory)

A bit of humor for your Sunday…

There is a great story about the little country church somewhere in the South. The pastor is preaching along in the great hellfire and brimstone tradition and he’s condemning all sorts of behaviors as sinful. “Men, if you want to be right with God, you are going to have to quit smoking cigars.”

Everybody yells Amen.

“You are going to have to stop smoking cigarettes.”

Again, everybody shouts Amen.

“You are going to have to stop running around with women.”

Amen.

“You are going to have to give up that demon whiskey!”

Again, the Amens ring out. Then he says, “And you are going to have to give up dipping snuff.”

The sanctuary gets very quiet, and a little old lady with teeth stained yellow and a noticeable bulge in her lower lip, snorts, I“Well, Preacher, now you’ve done it. You’ve quit preaching and done gone to meddling.”

I’m not sure, but it’s fairly likely this occurred in the same church a few Sundays later:

A preacher was winding up his temperance sermon with great fervor, “If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and throw it into the river.”

And the congregation cried, “Amen!”

“And if I had all the wine in the world, I’d take it and throw it in the river.”

And the congregation cried, “Amen!”

“And if I had all the whiskey and demon rum in the world, I’d take it all and throw it in the river.”

And the congregation cried, “Hallelujah!”

The preacher sat down.

The song leader stood up very tentatively and announced, “For our closing song, let us sing hymn #365, ‘Shall we gather at the river.”

Preachers are notorious for fudging on details when giving an illustration, often to move the hearers to an emotional response.

Take, for instance, this excerpt from a speech the British Prime Minister gave to the students of Harrow School on October 29, 1941. You don’t have to be a history buff to know from the date that England was fully vested in war against Germany at the time and Winston Churchill was its fearless leader. Against such a backdrop, this is how Churchill’s speech actually went down:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period – I am addressing myself to the School – surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

But this is how I and other speakers have quoted the renowned orator’s famous speech at the Harrow School for Boys. Please note, before I had the ability to “google” it, I believed this was the actual text. Now that I know the truth, I will never tell the story this way again.

I’m thinking you’ve heard it this way too:

The great man Churchill was invited to give the commencement address at his boyhood school at Harrow. Many came from all around to hear the famed leader with the golden tongue. They sat on the edge of their seats when the great orator strode to the podium. There was not a sound in the audience. All awaited with barely restrained excitement at what the great man would say. Mr. Churchill eyed the boys, pausing for effect, then uttered these words: ” young men, never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never, NEVER give in!” The he turned and walked to his chair where he sat down.

It’s more exciting that way, isn’t it?

Only, that’s not exactly the way it happened. Those famous words, plus or minus an extra “never”, were surrounded by some equally stunning paragraphs that need no embellishment.

We’ve done that to Jesus too. We’ve said things like, “Jesus helps those who help themselves” or “money is the root of all evil” (the love of money is), and “cleanliness is next to godliness”.

We preach a gospel with the hook: “pray this prayer after me…” when there is no such “salvation prayer” documented and we instruct people to “accept Jesus into your heart.” Jesus did not come to be accepted, He only left us with the option to follow Him. Don’t even get me started on un-conditional eternal security, succoring (suckering?) people with an inane promise that if they’ve prayed the aforementioned salvation prayer, they are IN, no matter what they do or how they live.

It may be revisionist, but harmless, to fudge a little on the circumstances of Churchill’s speech at Harrow, but it is eternally dangerous to tweak the words and Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are much too eloquent to mute or distort.

Don’t put things in King Jesus’ mouth. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t take things out of His mouth either.

ANAHEIM HILLS — A small group from Life Baptist church met during the week, but the members have no memory of seeing each other because they were staring at their smartphones the entire time.

“I thought everyone else was keeping up the discussion,” says one woman who successfully ‘Liked’ fifty-five posts and finished two games of Words With Friends during the 90-minute gathering. “I guess no one was.”

Members were so engrossed in texting, posting and Tweeting that it did not occur to them that nobody was talking, let alone leading the meeting. Silence descended on the room as members sat tapping screens, occasionally giggling and typing messages.

“I went into the kitchen at one point to get snacks, and it did seem awfully quiet,” says one man. “Everyone had their heads down. I thought we were praying.”

One man had just bought a new app and was eager to try it out.

“I was tearing it up on Tiny Wings and thought everyone would understand,” he says. “I remember walking into a door, but I’m not sure what building it was — maybe small group or Bed, Bath and Beyond. I don’t have a visual for it anymore.”

Some people even texted and messaged each other while in the same room.“I was having a great conversation with Karen on Facebook and didn’t notice that she was sitting three feet away from me,” says one woman. “She messaged me, ‘Oh, I’m in small group,’ and I messaged her back, ‘Really? Me too!’”

Only later did members confirm that a meeting had taken place by piecing together tweets, texts and Facebook posts.

“It says on Facebook that I checked in at their house, so I must have been there,” says one woman. “Facebook doesn’t lie.”

Others looked at their timelines and Twitter feeds and saw posts like “Heading to small group” and “Picking up chips and salsa” at around the same time. But none have any memory of what happened after that.

“I think I ate a plate of something, but I was pretty engrossed in Fruit Ninja, so I didn’t really notice,” says one man. “It may have been brownie bites.”

One woman and her husband arrived home afterward, sat in their garage, looked at each other and said, “Did we just go to small group?”

“It was a little eerie,” says the wife. “The only thing I can recall is seeing my iPhone screen. Which, by the way, have you checked out this app?”

Members group-texted each other afterward and pledged to actually look at each other next time they meet.

“We felt kind of bad,” says one man. “I told them if I forget to pay attention next time, just Facetime me.”

—via LarkNews.com
H/T to @DrKPrather on Twitter

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*Rolling on the floor laughing