-Romans 14

Now I don’t think that Elvis and Tupac are still alive. I don’t think that the Queen of England or the Pope are demonic reptilian creatures. I don’t entertain spiritism or ghost phenomena as those things are directly related to demonic occult-like activity and are forbidden by Scripture.

But things like UFOs, aliens, cryptozoology (i.e. Bigfoot), secret government conspiracies, and strange coincidences do get my heart racing when I need to take a break from the pressures of life. Some like to sit in their underwear and play first-person-shooter video games on their couch all day. I like to watch conspiracy and unexplained phenomena videos for an hour or so per week. Call me crazy.

The reason I bring all of this up is because of some pretty spectacular videos that came out of Israel last week. In the heart of the crisis in Egypt, something very unusual was taking place elsewhere in the Middle East; right at the heart of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

On, what I understand to be, January 28th 2011 around 1:00am, two men captured video of a bright orb hovering over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (Watch Video Here!) The orb quickly descended to the Dome of the Rock, and hovered there for a short time. After hovering over Islam’s second most holy site, a bright burst of light is seen from the vicinity of the orb, then it rapidly shoots into the air to an area where there are a number of red lights high in the sky.

That all would have been interesting enough; IF there wouldn’t have been a second video surface, then a third, and then a fourth (the best by far!); all of the same object from different vantage points moving in perfect synchronization to the other videos. Here is another possible video filmed from the man with the cell phone in the 1st video. And here is a video of three of the videos compared side by side.

As a Christian, it’s difficult to watch these videos without automatically thinking of Old Testament prophetic visions and visitations from the divine that took place in this exact same place. Visions of Ezekiel are automatically conjured into my mind. And it’s hard to separate this event, if it is indeed real, from what is taking place a short distance away in the prominently Muslim nation of Egypt; a nation that has been Biblically tied to Judaism and Christianity for nearly four thousand years.

It is possible that these videos are fake, but if they are would have taken expert digital special effects artists to  create and geographically sync the perspective and timing of all four videos. In my opinion, the videos seem too raw, too realistic, too significant to be a hoax or simple misunderstanding. The emotional and verbal response of the people in the videos seems too authentic. And the technology too far removed to be something from the physical realms of earth.

Am I saying it is alien in origin? A secret government technology? An angel or a demon? A yet-unknown atmospheric occurrence? No. This is however, for now, a real bona-fide Unidentified Flying Object (if it’s an object at all). And it is worth taking a look at! Reports of objects like this are increasing like crazy around the world and are gaining the attention of our news outlets and military powers. What was once considered crazy and fringe, is now becoming more accepted as possibility. It’s time that we wake up and take notice; not to fear or to allow these things become the object of our sole focus, but to observe, pray, and consider what the implications may be. They are phenomena that are not going away; only growing more common.

If you are an undependable employee and call in sick whenever you have a sniffle or are tired from a long weekend, chances are your children will have an even harder time holding a job than you unless they beat the odds and make a conscious decision to not follow in the footsteps of your bad example.

If you binge, constantly over eat, don’t monitor what kind of food you are eating, and get no physical activity; chances are you will have children even more obese than you unless they beat the odds and make a conscious decision to not follow in the footsteps of your bad example.

If you smoke around your children in your house, in your car, and whenever you’re around them; chances are they will smoke more than you do and will have more health problems associated with smoking than you do unless they beat the odds and make a conscious decision to not follow in the footsteps of your bad example.

Likewise, if you claim to be Christians in front of your children, but keep them out of church for any and every sporting event, birthday party, or community children’s activity; the chances that your child will attend church, or even be a Follower of Christ, when they’re adults are minuscule.

So, like my post yesterday, loving the Bride of Christ is so crucial to following Her Groom. Keeping your children around the Bride and teaching them to respect Her is vital to them getting to know and developing a lifelong relationship with Her Groom.

So model the impotence of gathering with the Bride for your children. Keep it consistent. Prioritize your time and don’t allow other women to ruin your family’s date with the Bride.

This weekend I will be presenting part two of the series and focusing on premarital relationships and sexuality.

Here’s some of my thoughts on the topic that I’m tossing around and will be presenting this weekend(a preview if you will).

One question that many Christians like to ask is;” How far is too far (for me to go sexually with my boyfriend or girlfriend before it is considered sin)?

But that’s really the wrong question to be asking. A better question to be asking would be;” How can I honor and worship God the most?”

Do you think that God is impressed by your “How far is too far?” question?

It’s like asking Him;” God, what’s the least I can do to be saved?” “What’s the least I can do to please you?” “How can I get to heaven with the least amount of commitment to You?” ” What’s the least I can do to get my ‘get-into-heaven-free-ticket?’ “How much sin can I commit without going to Hell?” “I know You took on my sin and died an excruciating death on the cross, but You don’t mind if I willingly commit the very sins You died for a little more, do You?”

Get the picture? These kinds of questions that we ask, that I ask, are despicable and come at things from the completely wrong approach. These questions are all about us, and not about God! We try to make life all about getting into Heaven. Well maybe that’s not the case. Let me rephrase that; rethink that. I believe that we try to make life all about getting out of Hell.

And it’s not that wanting to go to Heaven is a bad thing (FAR from it!), or that wanting to avoid Hell is a bad thing either. It’s that our primary goal in life should line up with our primary reason of existence: to worship God, reflect Him  well, and to find joy and satisfaction in relationship with Him. And while that desire isn’t something that necessarily comes naturally or easily to our sinful selves, we need to seek God for it and allow God to change our hearts to be inline with where He has ordained them to be. Anything less is essentially self-worship: How can I get this? How can I avoid that? How can I…

This goes back to the essentials of our romantic relationships. It’d be like me asking my wife;” How far can I stray from you before you divorce me?” “How many nights a week can I go to the strip club…?” “How many girls can I sleep with before you…?” In other words, love for someone is not seeing how far we can go before they ‘reject’ us. Love for someone is seeing how much you can do to please them?

So do you want to really please God, your future (or current) spouse, and yourself with your sexual decisions? Ask yourself this;” How far would be too far for my husband/wife to go sexually with another woman/man?” And wherever that lines is; that’s how far you should go with your current boyfriend/girlfriend because someday, they’ll be someone’s husband/wife. Andy Stanley says that sexual purity leads to intimacy (with your future spouse). So keep pure today, so that someday you can be more intimate with the one you will spend the rest of your nights with.

A week and a half ago my wife and I went to a one day pastor’s conference in Seattle (blog pending). We were gone for three days.

We pulled back in to Salem on a Friday evening to pick up my kids from my parent’s house. As we approached the bridge to cross over the river to get to their house, the light turned red. We were in the right turn-only lane and there was no traffic approaching the bridge from the street perpendicular to us- the coast was clear. I slowed down as
I approached the light, made sure again that the streets were empty, and made the right turn onto the bridge.

We had been driving in stop and go traffic for approximately 6 hours up to this point, were very tired, hungry, and just wanted to pick up our kids.

There was just one thing that slipped my mind, apparently, as we turned onto  the bridge that evening after such a long day- stopping at the red light. I, for some reason, disobeyed a law. It wasn’t intentional, I meant no harm, and the streets were literally empty. But I broke a law nonetheless.

In fact I was completely unaware that I had broken a law and forgotten all about the circumstances leading up to my crime until I received a picture in the mail showing four pictures of me running this red light- Four Pictures…of me…without knowing it…without my permission. I was a little angry when I looked at the pictures. I felt as though my privacy had been violated.

My city had set up cameras, at least two of them, to take a picture of me IF I broke the law. It was like a trap, like a game camera set out in an apple orchard hoping to take a picture of a prize buck so that it could be shot the next night as it repeated its eating habits. If I do something wrong they want to know about it: So they can warn me and advise me not to let it happen again for the sake of my safety and everyone else’s in the city? Heck no! They set a trap for me so that they could benefit from it. Because IF I make a mistake and IF they catch me making said mistake they can fine me for…nearly $300!!! $300 for rolling through a stop light on a night when the streets are empty?!

I’m still mad if you haven’t caught my drift. The circumstance brings a truth to mind for me as a Follower of Christ (one who breaks the law by the way): That there are people out there who hate Christianity, hate the Bible and what it stands for, and hate Christ. These people would like nothing more than for a Christian to fail (i.e. break a law) so that they can point out the sin and use it to justify theirs and to belittle the changing power of the Gospel that the caught-in-the-act sinning Believer claims.

And the more influence or power you have as a Christian, the more people want to see you fail. Just look at scenarios like that of Jimmy Swagger, Jim Baker, and more recently, Ted Haggard. The media, and the unbelieving public, had a hay-day with these guys and used their sin to try to destroy the truths of our faith and to justify their own sins.

One of the words that comes to mind so quickly for the American public when the word Christian is uttered is “hypocrite”. People love to watch for Christians who talk one way, and act the other. And when preached the Gospel and invited to church, these people usually will use the excuse that they’re not interested because Christians are hypocrites.

They are right. And we should be the first to admit that: That we are messed up people saved by the grace alone of God by the finished work of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit who still make messed up decisions because we still live in a carnal body and in a world filled with temptation and sin.

But on the flip side it is a Christian’s desire to please God and to do good works on His behalf so that he may be brought more glory. And that’s something we keep in mind as we are going about our lives in the world. If we are not bringing God glory with our actions, then we are defaming His Name to a world that is just waiting for us to make mistakes. And sometimes they’ll set up cameras (so-to-speak) to catch you in the act.

My fourth grade teacher Mrs. Handley used to make her students write out a certain sentence whenever they got in trouble; sometimes hundreds of times. I’ll never forget it. It went like this:

“I know the ways I act and the things I do are watched by others who desire to be just like me, therefore I need to be a good example.”

But not only are the things we do watched by the ones who want to be like us (our children), they are also watched by the ones who want us to be like them, and want nothing to be like us. What we do and how we talk has huge impact on our witness. Therefore we need to be good examples.

1. Become a Christian-
Trust in the finished work of Jesus (his perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection) and give Him control of your life, then His Spirit will dwell within you.

2. Be open an willing to do whatever He leads you to do, whatever-

3. Ask Him to lead you-

4. And, eliminate conflicting voices- Things drunkenness, drug use, and actively pursuing sin which will shut out the Spirit’s leading in your life and make Him hard to hear or to distinguish.

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to speak three times. It’s exhausting but exonerating at the same time. I hope to be a part of a move of God where I’d be speaking that many times or more on an average weekend to thousands more people than what I currently minister to.

But this last Sunday was powerful. I spoke on learning to rest in Christ at both of our morning services. I saw people empowered to trust in God in resting instead of working so hard for what they cannot achieve on their own, I saw people released from being such workaholics, and led at least one person into new life in Christ- awesome!

On Sunday night I spoke at our annual youth camp on ‘Transforming Your Life’: how we are all in desperate need of transformation from our life of sin, yet are unable to bring it about ourselves, and need Jesus to transform us instead. Many young people started life in Christ, asked Him to transform situations in their lives, and sought to be transformers for Christ within their communities. It was great!

Days like those make everything worth while.

This won’t work without Jesus

Anytime two sinners join together in a relationship meant to last a lifetime, things are bound to go wrong. Two wrongs certainly don’t make a right when it comes to relationships!

The first couple on earth had God in the center of their relationship when everything was going well.

We too, thanks to the equal access we have to God through salvation in Jesus Christ, can keep God as the center of our marriages. This means putting God first in every decision and seeking Him in all you do as a couple:

Pray together; study the Word together; discuss the joys and mysteries of God and life together; get involved in a local church together; give of your time, talent, and money together; connect with other Christian couples together; etc…

Doing these things will bring you peace, satisfaction, and lots of perspective in your marriage. And as you put God first, your commitment level to each other will increase. Little arguments will seem…well…littler. Life’s problems will be put into the perspective of God’s time. And God will bless you and your marriage by putting Him first.

To stay in love; love better; and be an example of love to others; stick with the God who is love because this won’t work without Jesus!

We were at The Enchanted Forest; a small story-book themed amusement park South of Salem, Oregon. It’s a nice little amusement park that I have been going to for as long as I can remember.

I held my daughter tightly as we walked down the brick pathway and into the “ice cream house”. She is two years-old, has big dark blue eyes, and the most beautiful blonde pony-tailed hair you’ve ever seen. Her body perked up with excitement as she approached the house.

This was not simply an ice cream house though, it was the witch’s house from the morbidly strange children’s story ‘Hansel and Gretel’. And from the moment we got about two feet from the entrance to the house, Kylie knew something was afoot that wasn’t quite right.

Her little body stiffened with fear and her bobbly head reluctantly peeked around the door frame to see what was hiding inside this house deceptively made of ice cream. And with her adorable little two year-old voice she said something that sounded like;” I squaied….” Which I’m pretty sure means “I’m scared.”

Then, she saw the thirty+ year-old antequated animatronic witch luring in Gretel while Hansel was being held in a cage dangerously close to a fire, and began asking to “Go home!”

Then I remember that, I too when I was little, was terrified of this same attraction at The Enchanted Forest. I knew it was fake, I knew Hansel and Gretel was simply a fairy tale, I too was intrigued by a house made of candy and ice cream, and I knew that my older sister and brother-in-law would protect me if something went awry. But I was still terrified.

Now my daughter Kylie is only two and she doesn’t know anything about witches, what canabalism (Hansel and Gretel) is, and originally had no idea what was even inside, but for some reason she knew to be afraid.

Jesus’ words to Peter after Peter declared Him to be the Christ are brought to mind when thinking about my daughter’s fear today; and mine when I was a child. He said,” …on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

So many Christians live in fear of the unknown, worry about things they have no control over, blame every little hang-nail on the devil, hide from the world in fear of being infected by the “contagious” illness of sin, and never step out to accomplish God-sized things because they’re afraid of failing.

Either they’re too young in their faith or too naive to know why they are scared; or they know that there is truly nothing to be scared of in light of what God has promised them, but for some reason they just fear.

I think fear is instilled in us from a very young age. Since the culture around us has become so familiar with fearing particular things, we follow suit, and it becomes our very nature.

I’ve watched videos of newborn babies being surrounded by snakes, and they weren’t afraid at all. So I guess it’s more nurture than nature when it comes to our fears. But how are we nurturing a culture of fear; especially within the church??

We as Christians, as the Church, are called and established to be Hell-Busters. We literally have the power achieved by the finished work of Christ through the  Holy Spirit to break down the very gates of hell! No one can stop us from accomplishing the God-sized things we’ve been called to; no one except for ourselves. It is only our fear that will stop us from accomplishing what God has put in front of us.

So whether it’s a witches house made of ice cream, an opinionated gossiper, or the devil himself; we have no reason to fear because the battle is not ours- it is the Lord’s. Satan, sin, hell, and death are being done away with, but the victory of Christ and the assurance thereof lasts forever.

We talked about ministry, pastoring, evangelism, and the Church. We
discussed how small churches who want to make a lasting difference in
their communities are to respond to the “big box churches” who are
doing a much better job than them. We talked about a lot of things.

But as we stared at the magazine during our conversation, I realized
that I wanted to be like the ‘mega star pastor’ on the cover. But then
I realized something else- that the non-Christians sitting around us
at Starbucks had no idea who this magazine-cover pastor was. The only
people who knew who this pastor was, were Christians- particularly
pastors!

And, I wondered with my Starbuck’s friend; “What’s the point of having
all sorts of Christians know about you anyways?!” Had I been desiring
to be a Christian celebrity?! For years I had dreamed about being the
pastor who was invited to speak at Christian conferences- I still do-
but I realize that speaking to thousands at Christian conferences
entitles…speaking to Christians!? And while I want to help
Christians grow and advance in their faith, my (our) primary concern
is to speak, to preach, and to teach the Gospel to those who are lost.

So the question in my mind that popped up, that I asked my friend,
was; “Are their any pastors or Christian leaders within our nation,
who are not famous only amongst Christians, but non-Christians as
well?” After all, the best place that we can leverage our notoriety
for the Gospel, is not amongst Christians, but amongst non-Christians.
If people are looking to us- if we ‘had the favor of all the people’
like the early Church in Acts- for advice, and entertainment,
teaching, and etc..then we could use that fame and notoriety as a
platform to preach the Gospel. And while pastors, myself included, are
trying to find ways to be famous within the Church world, maybe we
should start looking for ways to become famous in the real world.

There’s a few leaders I can think of that have gained some notoriety
in the real world that are making a difference for the Kingdom: Rick
Warren, Joel Osteen, Bono, John Maxwell, and Tony Dungy are a few of
those, but most of their ‘Christian influence and notoriety’ still
takes place within the Church. What if there were modern day prophets
like Daniel who could greatly leverage their fame and notoriety to
influence a nation for the Kingdom? Is it happening?

What about on a city-wide smaller scale? Are there any leaders in your
community who the community knows about-not just the Church- who are
using their notoriety to spread the Gospel and influence their region
for Christ? If so, I want to know!

I want to start dreaming and instilling dreams in the hearts of young
Believers about how we can become mighty influencers, not of just our
churches ( which do need to be influenced), but also our lost world.
That would be something worth giving your life to.