elon

[4 minutes, 674 words]

No, not that Elon. Today’s meditation is about an Elon of the tribe of Zebulon, who was listed as one of Israel’s judges. All we know about him is that he judged for ten years and where he was buried.

Elon, who was from Zebulun, judged Israel after Ibzan. He judged Israel ten years. And when he died, he was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.
Judges 12:11-12

Two verses. That’s it.

No dramatic battles. No miraculous exploits. No lengthy narrative. We may surmise that, being buried in a Levite town, Elon was also a priest. Other than that, his life didn’t move any needles that we can see. Nothing heroic is mentioned and yet Elon served a vital role in the history of Israel. And because there is no mention of scandal, we can assume he did his job with integrity.

The church is filled with these kind of leaders. They are everywhere. We don’t really know much about them because their testimonies don’t show up in books, nor are their names dropped in conversations. They never see the big stage, don’t pastor big churches, and their sermons never go viral. They are, for all intents and purposes, unknown in their respective fields.

But not to God. He knows their names, and what they do, and how hard they struggle.

My February read is Pastor, Jesus Is Enough by Jeremy Writebol. The author takes the reader through the seven letters of Revelation, reminding us that they are, first and foremost, addressed to the pastors of those churches. Most of the letters do not flatter the pastors or their congregations.

Sandwiched between the dead church (Sardis) and the lukewarm church (Laodicea) was the only church whose pastor received Jesus’s glowing commendation.¹ He served the church in Philadelphia admirably, even bravely, standing strong in the face of overwhelming opposition.²

Jesus told him, I know you only have a little bit of power in the place where you are ministering. It feels like you’re all alone. You feel inadequate and useless. I assure you, you are not. I picked you. I put you where you are because I want to do God-things through you.

“Jesus doesn’t love the pastor of the big church more than the one who has a smaller, less-well-known ministry. He doesn’t delight more in the international traveler and evangelist who speaks to millions than he does the guy who speaks to the same fifty people every Sunday. His affections aren’t attuned more to the brightest young stars in evangelicalism than they are to the unknown and forgotten pastors who labor faithfully in insignificant places.”
—Jeremy Writebol, Pastor, Jesus Is Enough

Hey you. Yes, you. This post is for you even if you’re not a pastor. God sees you. He sees you in that lonely place where you are faithfully serving the King in spite of your weakness, opposition from others, anonymity, thanklessness, and lack of reward. Nobody else may see what you’re doing and what you’re up against, but your Heavenly Father does.

Most of us will live “Elon lives.” We won’t make headlines. We won’t move any needles. Our follower count will look tame by any metric. But we matter by God’s. So we’ll keep calm and carry on. We’ll simply show up — day after day, year after year — faithfully doing the work God has placed before us. We’ll raise children, serve our neighbors, love our families, and quietly point others to God. And that matters.

God doesn’t measure significance the way the world does. He doesn’t need your life to be spectacular to call it meaningful. He’s calling us to be faithful.

Elon judged Israel for ten years. That was enough. Your quiet faithfulness is enough too.

Prayer: Lord, help me to be faithful even when no one notices. Remind me that significance in Your kingdom isn’t measured by applause but by obedience. Give me the grace to serve You well in the ordinary, everyday moments of my life. Amen.

Selah, beloved.

Revelation 3:8 ↩︎
Revelation 3:9 ↩︎

the thirty percent

[5 minutes]

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. II Timothy 4:7

How important is it to you to finish well?

Biblical scholar and teacher Dr. J. Robert Clinton studied the lives of one hundred main characters in the Bible. What he discovered was hard to swallow. Fewer than 30% of them finished well.

Which people of the Bible might you add to a list of those who patterned exemplary faith? Joseph! Daniel, for sure. You have to include Ruth. Job had his moments, but he ultimately came forth as gold. Remember, it’s not about being perfect — or whether you stumble along the way (we all do!) — but rather how you finish.

There are noteworthy examples, but none more deserving than Paul. When I die, I hope with all my heart that I am able to echo what Paul confessed before he left this world:

I fought hard.

I ran a good race.

I’m ready.

“Finished” in the scripture highlighted above is τετέλεκα — an echo of the very proclamation Jesus made from the cross: It is finished. While the Savior completed his divine mission to perfection, Paul faced his own human death with Christlike finality.

Do you know what I really love about Paul’s ‘death-bed’ confession to Timothy? Ten years earlier, Paul had a shoreline meeting with some church elders at Ephesus when he declared at that time:

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.
—Acts 20:24

A decade later, Paul sent a letter from a Roman prison to the young pastor of that same Ephesian church to say: “Mission accomplished.”

I fought the good fight.

I ran a good race.

I kept the faith for a good death.

Oh how I long to meet my Savior having the same bravado! I pray I’ll not to be a shipwreck or footnote.

In Clinton’s study only 50 of the 100 Bible characters researched had enough print about their life to determine whether or not they finished well. That means the other 50 didn’t have enough data points to know one way or the other.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t want anyone guessing about my life. I pray there is ample evidence to sift through! One day, by the grace of God, I hope a flag is planted over my bones that declares, “Here lies Scott Thomas Mitchell. He loved Jesus to the death.”

Last October one of my ministry heroes, Charles Swindoll, preached his final sermon at age 90. In a time of great shaking, scandal, heresy, and controversy in the pulpits, it is refreshing to hear of a man who faithfully ran his race and finished his course in a worthy manner.

And yet — shockingly — as the celebrated pastor was preparing for his exit, one of his own staff pastors was fired for moral misconduct a few months earlier. Two men. Two entirely different outcomes.

It’s a mercy of God that as we age our goals for end of life become more streamlined, focused. While in our younger years our dreams were all over the map, old age has a way of shaking them out and latching on to the ones that stick.

Early on in ministry I had a pastor/mentor say to me, ‘You know what my goal is? When I die, if they say ‘he loved God and he loved his wife and family’ then I’ve achieved my goal.’ At the time I thought that was incredibly lame. Years later, I get it. Such wisdom.
— an anonymous pastor

Aging Scott gets it, too.

Three verses after anticipating his own triumphant homegoing, Paul grieved about a man named Demas. Still bruised, the apostle sadly reflected over the tragic outcome of his former companion’s faith.

Howard Hendricks, a renowned seminary professor who died well in the Lord, interviewed 246 men in the clergy who had started out well but failed within two years. Here are some of the common threads he found in those 246 case studies:

None of the men was involved in any kind of real personal accountability.
Each of the men had all but ceased having a daily time of personal prayer, Bible reading, and worship.
More than 80 percent of the men became sexually involved with the other woman after spending significant time with her, often in counseling situations.
Without exception, each of the 246 had been convinced that sort of fall “would never happen to me.”

It’s not only pastors or church leaders who should be wary of finishing poorly. In a letter to a congregation in Greece, the apostle Paul offers this solemn charge: “So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.” (1 Cor. 10:12)

Consider for a moment this alarming statement:

In American Christianity today, there are more defections than conversions.
— The American Beliefs Study, 2022

There is plenty of evidence corroborating people leaving the institutional church, but the above annotation is taken from a study of those leaving the faith.

Jesus himself knew the sting of such numbers. As the gathering shadows fell across his popular ministry years, a raft of followers decided his way was no longer their way.

Finishing well is hard work. Paul called it a fight, a grueling race to be legged out. The world, the devil, and our greedy flesh each distract and frustrate us to no end. We drop the baton. Knock over a hurdle or two. Or three. We get downcast. We fall and lose precious ground. But we keep legging it out.

The race isn’t over. Wherever you are on the track, beloved, there’s still time to jump back in. Run for the prize. Compete for the crown. Be one of the 30%.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Stay the course.

And finish well.

Selah, and see you at the finish line, dear one.

wesley was right.

[6 minutes]

Do all the good you can,

by all the means you can,

in all the ways you can,

in all the places you can,

at all the times you can,

to all the people you can,

as long as ever you can.

John Wesley

Years ago the New York Times ran a feature asking for people to share their Thanksgiving (horror) stories. There were a number of funny anecdotes along with the disaster stories, but in the mix came one tragic comment from somebody who called themselves “Sad Person”:

My Holiday horror story is that every year I am reminded that my family doesn’t want me and I don’t have any friends. I wish the world wouldn’t stop for eight weeks every year and I could just be in peace.

There were a good many responses to “Sad Person” but I thought this one captured the gist of my post today:

A note to sad person. What you say about your family may be true, but I certainly hope not. However, remember, if you want a friend you have to also be a friend to someone, too. It’s not a one-way street. Be kind to someone who is lonely, do a good deed for someone in need, do volunteer work at a hospital/charity, and smile at everyone you meet. You will make people feel very special and you will feel wonderful for doing it.

I got the idea for today’s blog piece from a recent rereading of Galatians. In chapter 6, Paul appeals to a congregation of tired, irritated, even selfish believers who had lost the plot. He even said, “Y’all got me SMH” (Gal 4:20). This whole section, from verse one on, could fall under the title: “CHURCH IS HARD” or “SAINTHOOD IS EXHAUSTING.”

People sin and break your heart. They can drag you down with their drama and be a royal burden. You and I can be a piece of work also, let’s not forget. The flesh is loud and whiny and arrogant and is always trying to kill you when you’re not looking. It won’t ever shut up, or let up, or give up. The struggle is real. Saints don’t happen overnight (Gal 4:19).

good advice

So, given all that, just do all the good you can to anyone and everyone as you have opportunity. Don’t complicate things. Don’t overanalyze. Don’t overthink it. Just do good (v10). You’ve got shortcomings, I’ve got shortcomings; we’re not going to have everything figured out. Just. Do. Good. In the name of Jesus. Don’t withhold it because you don’t think they deserve it (newsflash: you don’t either!). Do good anyway.

There’s so much drama, yes. On the daily there’s a never-ending pile of (pardon the French) doo-doo we have to deal with all the time. “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble,” Jesus said. True to all of that, but that means there’s never-ending possibilities to do good, to make someone’s day, to punch holes in the darkness, to right wrongs, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

Sainting is hard. Loving is hard. Bearing one another’s burdens is hard. Bearing our own loads is hard. Fighting the flesh is hard. Getting up and being motivated to face another day is hard. But we do it for Jesus. We are kind for Jesus. We are patient with others for Jesus. We fight what we’d like to say for Jesus. We fight airing our grievances for Jesus. We fight jerking a knot in somebody’s tail for Jesus. We overcome evil with good…for Jesus.

There are some I’ve had to halt praying imprecatory prayers for because God told me “I want you to pray good for them. Leave that other stuff to me.” So I pray good on their day. I ask God to bless them. I pray for opportunities to serve them in little ways. What I can’t do is be around them because that’s not good for my mental and spiritual health, but the good I can do is to pray good for them…and leave the other stuff to God to work out. Lord knows I fail, but I’m starting to fail a little bit less these days.

due season

Another motivation to “do all the good we can” is that, one day, there’s going to be a reaping (v9). And the reaping is going to be epic. It’s going to be so good. “Every ounce of Christian suffering will be compensated for with millions of years of rest, and still more besides. This suffering will be merely a blip on the radar of an eternity of peace, a grain of sand compared to the global beaches of God’s comfort in the world to come” (Jared C. Wilson).

So keep doing good even if the only good you can do right now is to smile at someone or finally finish that chore you promised or pay for the person’s coffee behind you in the drive-thru line. Or text someone you’re on the outs with and just say, “I’m sorry. I love you.”

Hey brother- (or sister-) -in-Christ:

“You were running well”…..now you’re just going through the motions

You were “standing”……now you’re bowing in defeat

You were “walking in the Spirit”……now you’re wasting away in inertia.

You were “doing good”…..now you’re questioning whether your good is doing any good at all.

Anne Lamott tells of a friend who told her “‘I’m not suicidal, but sometimes I wish I was dead.’ This is the point beyond exhaustion, when you can’t see how you’ll ever fill up again. And then she does, through what she calls lunch-money faith: nothing dramatic, and just enough.”

Perhaps you don’t have the emotional currency right now to invest in something that will cost you dearly, but you have just enough coin in your pocket to buy someone a cup of cold water in Jesus’s name. Lunch-money faith, right? Your level of faith right now has you in the shallow end of the pool when you can distinctly remember a time when you swam in the deep end. It’s okay. You can make a splash there too.

Wesley was right. Do all the good you can, etc. But if “all the good you can” is only enough to fill a thimble, offer that thimble up to God and ask him to bless it, then give it to somebody in Jesus name. Then ask for him to give you a cup for next time. I hear Jesus really enjoys a cup of cold water now and again.

Selah, beloved.