Tag Archive for 'Apostle Paul'

The Gospel According To Harley Davidson

Published on November 24, 2009 in Christianity and The Bigger Picture. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

            You might not have been taught the price our Founding Fathers paid to be free.  You might not remember the price paid by the first century church to set the body of Christ into motion in a manner in keeping with the calling God had placed on the body.  That might be because you have been listening to the new Gospel with its new pricing program.

We suddenly live in a place where we do not want to pay a price for anything.  We want it and we want it now.  It would be okay if this were an indictment against the secular side of America.  Unfortunately, it is also an indictment against the spiritual side of America.

            If we were founding America it would look more like Disney World than the country we love—one price gets you into everything, except the food is specially priced just to make sure we got you one more time.

            How do we move forward?  What can stop the slid into meaninglessness?

            There is really only one way—we have to get back to the basics.  We have to realize that we are not special; we are merely some of those called by God to a higher life, a life of giving and sacrifice instead of a life of taking and no pain.

            This also means that we have to quit talking the talk and start walking the walk.  We must find a way to live in the same manner as the Apostle Paul.  He counted all as loss.  The only thing that matter to Paul was the furtherance of the Gospel.  He could live in wealth and he could live in poverty—the moment does not matter, only eternity.

            We have to get past the pettiness of our culture and get back to real life.  That is one of the problems I see with the spiritual state of our world and especially our country.  We spend our time catering to the pettiness, how do we get more people to show up in the Church.  We spend our time trying to figure out how to get more people to raise their hand while nobody is looking. 

            In college we rewrote the lyrics to a famous hymn:  “Raise your hand, raise your hand for Jesus, put it down before anyone looks.  Praise God now you’re saved, your name is in the book.”  That sums up the current Gospel message.

            God wants you to have a Harley; He must because he gave me one.  No, wait, I am more special.

            We need to get back to living our life remembering that one day we will stand in front of God and give account for everything.  God might be love, but love is not syrup on your French Toast; love is justice.  Love is demanding of those to whom it is given.

            That might be a good thing to keep in mind the next time we are in the Harley shop thinking about living the good life.

Maybe Its Time To Reevaluate Our Faith

Published on January 30, 2009 in Christianity. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

 

            We cannot continue like we are going.  Modern Christianity has lost its connection to historic, first century Christianity.  We have lost our way.  Maybe you are a skeptic and want more proof than my bold declaration that we have lost our way.

 

            I think that the proof is in the pudding as they say where I live.  And the pudding is to look at how we are changing our world.  From the time of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry through the end of the first century the Church of Jesus Christ, and of course the master himself, turned their world upside down.  They did it without modern communication.  They did it without written apologetics.

 

            There were no televisions to promote the word.  There was no radio ministry.  Shoot, even their newsletters had to be written on reed parchments.  It was not an easy time to communicate.  And forget about traveling.  To get from one place to another they either walked or rode a donkey or horse.  Nothing was easy for these guys and ladies, and yet, they turned the world upside down.

 

            What did they have that we did not have?  Nothing.  What do we have that they did not have?  Everything.  And therein lays the answer.

 

            Jesus was homeless.  He was also relatively unemployed; in fact, Peter found the money to pay the taxes Jesus owed in the mouth of a fish.  Clearly, Jesus did not have a strong mailing list to go to for help.

 

            Where were the intercessors when Jesus needed them?  Here He is, facing the lord of Hell on a daily basis, and His ministry is not fully developed by our standards.  Yet He managed to accomplish the most important goal of anyone in history.  An accomplishment that stands as the turning point of history—even now.

 

            The second most critical person in the history of Christianity is the Apostle Paul.  A quick look at his life, found in I Corinthians 4:11 “To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless;”

 

            So now we are two for two.  The master and his top man are both homeless.  How many of our leaders are homeless?  How many of our leaders are hungry and thirsty?  How many of our leaders are poorly clothed and roughly treated?

 

            You got it—none!

 

            I am not saying that we all have to be homeless, hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed, and roughly treated to be true Christians.  What I am saying is that there is something missing because the Church, largely on the Christian right, does not have any place for those who are homeless, just as Jesus was homeless. 

 

            It is time we returned to a simpler day.  A day when we placed less value on the things we owned or the size of the reserves in our ministry. 

 

            The problem is that we are not asking the right questions.  We are concerned with what looks right for the staid and set believers around us.  We are concerned with not offending people.  All the time we teach that Jesus was offensive to most everyone he met.  Some He offended into the kingdom.  Some He offended so much that they had Him killed.

 

            Instead of wondering how to keep up with the Jones it is time we learned how to keep up with the Jesuses of our world.

 

            The question we have to ask ourselves is:  How do I respond to those around me the way Jesus did?  How do I learn to appreciate everything in its proper place the way Paul did?

 

            Maybe instead of fighting to get to the top of the heap we should be fighting to get to the bottom of the heap.

 

            Maybe instead of believing God for a new car and a better house we should be believing God to show us how to live with less.  Maybe we should be praying for the prosperity Paul had—you remember, the prosperity of hunger and thirst and homelessness.

 

            Where are the television preachers showing us how to move down the ladder in God’s will, rather than spending years convincing us that God wants us at the top of the heap in the nicest clothes and best cars and mansions in this world?

 

            Maybe I am dreaming.  I am not there.  But at some point we have to come to grips with the truth of the Gospel and not just the parts that make us feel good.

The Next Case Before The European Court Of Human Rights

Published on July 27, 2008 in Christianity, Europe and IHRG's Work. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Tomorrow I am filing an application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.  This is the second case I have filed here in the month of July and the third case this year.  This case involves the right of parents to control the education of their children according to the dictates of their religious beliefs.

 

It is a home schooling case, but you should not turn me off now.  The German school system is unchristian in ways that the American system has yet to imagine.  It is important to these families that they educate their children in the academic subjects while maintaining their Christian base for moral issues.

 

We are standing with these families and making sure we do everything we can to protect the right of parents to raise their children in a Christian environment.

 

These cases are part of a larger spiritual battle that is going on in Europe right now.  The secular governments of Europe, particularly the European Parliament, are seeking to compromise the role of Christianity in the lives of everyone in Europe.  We cannot stand back and let this happen, we must make a stand while we still have a chance to keep the door open for the proclamation of the Gospel in the place where evangelical Christian was first born.

 

The Apostle Paul first brought word of the Christian faith into Europe on his early missionary journeys into Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

 

We do not want to see Europe return to its days without any Christian influence.  That is why I do what I do.