Today's Reality

So here we are . . . again! It's life. It's ministry.

A lot is "up in the air". Unsettled. Unsettling.  Too many things not fitting our plans or schedules. Life is getting disjointed; we are off-balance in ministry with the not-so-nice "surprises" and disappointments. It's so frustrating! 

But now what?

Well . . . there is really no benefit in wringing our hands. And I don't think it always helps to just roll up our sleeves and try to tough it out. So how about this novel idea? 

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

Stop the striving. Instead. seize the opportunity all of this disquiet and confusion affords to find and enjoy the stillness and coherence . . . the security and confidence that is in God.

Take time to not only know God but to know Him better.

You can study this further at http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Be_Still/be_still.html

Ray

From an e-mail (10/12/12) to our 

TEAMS field and home missionaries and staff

Heartbeat

“God has only children; He has no grandchildren.”  Have you heard this before?  Well, it’s true and  I think it’s time to affirm it in the strongest terms. Here’s why:

Sometimes questions arise when Jamaica is cited as having the highest number of churches per square mile or when it is said that it is a Christian nation and its people are Christians. What is missed is the sad reality that the majority of Jamaicans do not go to church or, if they do, still can’t tell you how to get to heaven. It is true that some Jamaicans are working for revival but obedient faith has been in decline for so long that the need now is for grassroots evangelism and disciple making.

Because Christianity is part of Jamaica’s history and is still nominally present, some people question whether Jamaica is a  mission field at all! Well it is!  And we at TEAMS are not ready to “shake the dust off our feet" against that country just because there remain some vestiges of Christianity. We will not somehow penalize lost people today because their “Christian” forebears squandered the responsibilities of their spiritual privilege. Nor will we assign them a low priority or make missions work optional just because the country is not between certain latitudes on the globe, or cannot be defined as “unreached”, or is not populated by adoptable people groups.

My friends, people are not more or less lost and without hope because they live in Jamaica instead of Jordan, or reside in Montego Bay rather than Montenegro. Lost is lost and eternity without Christ is eternity without Christ.

“God has no grandchildren.” May we each find our God-directed place in His purposes “for the obedience of faith among all nations.” This is my Heartbeat.

- My editorial from the most recent Vital Signs which reports on the work of TEAMS for Medical Missions in Jamaica, West Indies

Life As A Vapor

Thank You, Lord, for the lives of flawed

and faith-filled saints!

Thank You for grace, amazing grace,

that saves and uses sinners!

Lord, don’t let us dream too small about our lives.

Don’t let us limit Your power

to what we see in the mirror.

Help us to trust You. 

Help us as William Carey said,

to expect great things from God

and attempt great things for God.

We are not great. But You are great.

Your power is made perfect in our weakness.

We surrender all claims on our lives.

Come. Make us useful for the glory of Christ.

In His great name, we pray, Amen.

-- John Piper

Are you frustrated with your church?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.

. . . let [the pastor or zealous member] nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.

From Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein, (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 29, paragraphing mine.

Christianity: The Greatest of All Levelers

I don't know its origin but when a friend quoted this I asked him to write it down for me. And now I come back to it a lot; more often in recent days when I note the borrowed glory of those parading themselves, especially in politics, but also in sports (an Olympian proclaims himself to be "The Greatest . . ."), business and industry, and the like. Wherever there is authority, ability, supremacy or influence that pronounces high words of promise and prophecy, this truth remains: 

Christianity is, in one sense, the greatest of all levelers.

It looks to the elements, and not to the circumstantials of humanity; and regarding as altogether superficial and temporary the distinctions of this fleeting pilgrimage, it fastens on those points of assimilation which liken the king upon the throne to the very humblest of his subject population. 

They are alike in the nakedness of their birth. They are alike in the sureness of their decay. They are alike in the agonies of their dissolution. And after the one is tombed in sepulchral magnificence, and the other is laid in his sod-wrapt grave, are they most fearfully alike in the corruption to which they moulder. 

But it is with the immortal nature of each that Christianity has to do; and, in both the one and the other, does it behold a nature alike forfeited by guilt, and alike capable of being restored by the grace of an offered salvation. And never do the pomp and the circumstance of externals appear more humiliating, than when, looking onwards to the day of resurrection, we behold the sovereign standing without his crown, and trembling, with the subject by his side, at the bar of heaven’s majesty. 

There the master and the servant will be brought to their reckoning together; and when the one is tried upon the guilt and the malignant influence of his [life] . . . —O! how tremendously will the little brief authority in which he now plays his fantastic tricks, turn to his own condemnation; for, than thus abuse his authority, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Take some time with these words. Understand them. Be sobered. But also be encouraged.

Ya gotta be kiddin me!

It's starting to look like this blog is riding on my brother Dave's reports from Europe. It sure has been true the last few days. But this Playful Puppies Bible posting (written last month before his trip) perfectly reflects some very important ReceiveTheWORD concerns. This is one time that you really might actually "read it and weep". Dave writes . . . 

You may think I’m making this up. You could be confused and think I’m writing for “The Onion” and that this is a cleverly-disguised spoof to trick my readers (if I have any). But no, this is for real.

Zondervan Publishing has just announced the release this summer of “Playful Puppies Bible.” The hype goes like this:

If you love puppies, you will love this Bible. Inside you will find 12 color pages of adorable puppy photos with inspirational thoughts that will encourage you day after day. The Playful Puppies Bible is just the right size to take along wherever you go. Features include: * Presentation page for gift giving * Ribbon marker * Words of Christ in red * 12 pages of adorable puppy photos, Scripture references, and inspirational thoughts *

When I first came across this, I thought someone was playing a joke on me. But then it became all-too apparent that this is for real. And so, being the practical guy that I am, I began to dream of ways to make this tool more effective for users.

My fertile mind quickly realized that the usefulness of the “Playful Puppies Bible” could be enhanced if there were various response sections after each reading – here are some examples -

• BOWL OF FOOD (feed on God’s Word)
• PAWS to reflect (meditations)
• SCRATCHING AT THE FRONT DOOR (journal thoughts)
• BARKING AND YIPPING (prayer)
• FIERCE GROWLING (spiritual warfare)
• WAGGING YOUR TAIL (having fellowship with other believers)
• TUMMY SCRATCHINGS (allowing others to minister to you)
• POOPING ON PAPER (giving back to others what you learned)
• ON THE LEASH (daily walk of obedience)

And I wondered how the Bible would be different if the saints of old could have read a version like this. Jeremiah could have written, “Your Word is like a tummy rub,” instead of “Your Word is like a hammer that breaks the rocks in pieces.”

The Psalmist could have written, “It is good that I was scratched behind the ears, that I might learn Your Word,” instead of “It is good that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes.”

Or “Your Word is like a bowl of Ken’l Rations and an dirty sock to gnaw on,” instead of “Your Word is like a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

Jesus could have said, “If you retrieve that stick and bring it back to me, then are you my disciples indeed,” instead of “If you remain in my Word, then you are my disciples indeed.”

All of this is a bit mystifying, I think. If there is a Kingdom-advancing advantage to having a Bible with adorable puppy photos, it eludes me. In fact, it seems like one more of those things that American Christianity does that sabotages the hard-edged Great Commission, wartime lifestyle mentality so essential for the advance of the Gospel.

Somehow “The devil roams around like a junkyard dog wanting to be the alpha male. But you resist him by licking him all over and rolling on your back to bare your throat in submission…” doesn’t pack the wallop that Peter’s advice does: “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith…”

I wonder if people who spend time in the “Playful Puppies Bible” will gain the fortitude to follow Jesus in the hard times, will be willing to forsake all to follow him, and will acquire the resolve to lay down their lives for the sake of the Gospel.

– Dave Shive, June 2012

God's Word - Radical and Scandalously Demanding

I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me (Psalm 101:3).

In the culture wars—I mean within the Church, not outside the Church—there are heated opinions about what we should and should not expose ourselves to in the marketplace of ideas. Here are some familiar opinions from one side:

• We must study and talk about the things the world is doing in order to be relevant to our world and to have a point of contact from which to speak to them. We must reject the legalism of those who say, “Do not handle, do not touch.”
• We must reject all moralistic approaches and remember grace.
• We must be in the world (though not of it) in order to save the world.
• We must know ourselves and our own level of maturity, and whether certain visuals or entertainments would damage our souls.
• We must remember that the Bible itself is full of stories of murder, rape, immorality, and treachery. Therefore, if we think we should eschew these in our culture, then we would have to reject the Bible too.
• We must remember that Paul himself knew Greek and made a reference to their poets at the Areopagus.

I have heard and believed all these arguments in my lifetime. I have seen plenty of movies and plays. (And, to tell the truth, I cannot think of a single thing I learned there about culture that I didn’t know or that turned out to be essential for “point of contact.”)

But when all is said and done, and as the shadows of my own life lengthen, and I tally up all my reasons in Column A, I still have this one nagging item in Column B:

“I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.”

This is how radically and scandalously demanding the Word of God has become in my life.

- Andree Seu Peterson