A Crowd & A Cripple

Mark 2:1-4 And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.

There are two sets of people in this story. The first set, the majority, is a crowd that has gathered at what seems to be someone's home to listen to Jesus teach. The second set is a group of ragamuffins who were committed to any length, including digging a hole through a roof, to realize their NEED for the very TOUCH of Jesus to heal their broken crippled friend. Jesus loved, and gave to both crowds the need they had come to have fulfilled. To the crowd he gave teaching, the cripple he gave a new life.

There are two sets of people in the story that is God's church. The first set, the majority, is a crowd that gathers in what seems to be a public facility to listen to the teachings of Jesus. The second set is a group of ragamuffins who will go to any length, including digging their way out of the world around them, to realize their NEED for the very TOUCH of Jesus to heal their broken crippled lives. Jesus loves, and gives to both crowds the need they come to have fulfilled. To the crowd he gives teaching, the cripples he gives a new life.

Set around Capernum that day is a world that needs Jesus' touch. This story is about poverty. It is about the poverty of the crowd, the poverty of their neighbors, the poverty of broken lives. The crowd can not see their own poverty, the crowd can not see the poverty around them. That motley crew seeking Jesus' touch feel the pulse of poverty. They feel the poverty of their friends crippled legs. They tear the roof off the status quo of the crowd around them, to bring that poverty before Jesus. Jesus doesn't see a ruined roof instead he touches and heals the poverty.

Set around us is a world that needs Jesus' touch. Our story is about poverty. It is about the poverty of the churches, the poverty of our friends, the poverty of our world. It is about the broken lives in the parts of town good Christians avoid. It is about the brokeness hidden behind the shuttered windows of good Christian homes. It is about the hopelessness that leads to an AIDS epidemic, and a nation of orphans in Swaziland. It is about the economic inequality that leads to Jihad in the Arabic world. It is about the oppression of girls in the Asian sex trade industry. It is about the forgotten children enslaved to produce our chocolate and our apparel. It is about the lepers dying on the streets of Calcutta. It is about... Poverty is the all pervasive state of a fallen world. The crowd can not see their own poverty, the crowd can not see the poverty all around them. Those seeking Jesus' touch feel the pulse of poverty. They feel the poverty of an entire world fallen from life, community, and peace with it's God. These vagabonds tear the roof off the status quo of the church around them, to bring that poverty before Jesus. Jesus doesn't see a ruined roof instead he touches and heals the poverty.

Which set is your life in? Are you the crowd who goes to church on Sunday and Wednesday to get a dose of Jesus' words, or are you a rouge to this world, who is willing to dig through the barriers separating you and the brokenness of an impoverished world around to altogether get to the abundant life that comes from the healing touch of Jesus? Which set reflects your church? Are you a crowd of listeners, or a brotherhood of friends willing to carry each others brokenness to Jesus?

One set got a goodly lesson that day, the other got a new life.

My Depravity In Adulthood

"I ran across an old box of letters
While I was bagging up some clothes for Goodwill
You Know I had to laugh that the same old struggles
That plagued me then are plaguing me still"
- Caedmon's Call

I would like to tell you that after facing the humbling reality of my depravity in my teens years I went on to stop chasing the slavery that I was in bondage to. Although it was on that day, I decided to stop the diet pills and caffeine, I did not let go of the myriad of other addictions that had led me to abuse the substances. I certainly had a problem with speed, but I had a much bigger issue with this unyielding desire to impress people. The addiction to being admired was entrenched much deeper than any substance abuse. Admiration fed the demons of control and social position. These three formed a mighty beast of self satisfaction in me.

Unfortunately, that beast was not slain as easily as the substance addiction. That beast slipped back into the recesses of my mind where he still preys on my fears and insecurities. My carnal nature is never further than the recesses of my mind which I have not yet let the Kingdom of God be formed in.

To give you an example as recent of a few weeks back. I spoke on Saturday afternoon at camp. After my sermon was dinner time. The closing prayer was concluded and the entire camp went off to line up for supper. Not ONE person came over to make any compliment what so ever of the message. Even my own wife, did not give me a "Great Job!" My depravity crept out of it's cavernous abode and began to torment me. Feeling unappreciated and socially diminished I was blessed by God with a vision to illustrate the damage I was allowing in my mind. There stood this dragon pulling me apart, one limb at a time. I had to choose in that moment to let my enemy lure me back into the danger of his self promoting cave, or to let the Kingdom be formed over the wound. I had responded to the Spirit's leading and preached the message he gave me, so this was should never have been about my pride in anyway.

I give this example because it is visible, still I struggle everyday with my needs for appreciation, control, and social struggle. The recognition of our depravity, is not a one time obstacle that once overcomes raises us to a higher place in the journey, instead it is a parallel road that appears less treacherous and more appealing.

Matthew 7:13-14 “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

I have seen the hell my mind becomes separate of the redemptive forming of God's Kingdom. I therefore recognize my depravity daily and choose to walk through the gateway that leads to life. This narrow road leads me to the alien, the cripple, the beggar, and the orphan because I acknowledge that in my own power I can be nothing more than they are.

"Lord God, let me never see my self as anything other than a stranger, given citizenship in your Kingdom; a cripple made to walk in your light, a beggar living off the wealth of your grace, and an orphan adopted to be a prince of the King. Let me also never forget that you are always found in the midst of these peers."

The Depravity of the Good Kid

I was a good kid. I got good grades, was involved in extra curricular activities, held down a job. I did it all, and maintained a good relationship with church and parents. I was a good kid.

I also had an addiction. It isn't the kind of seedy addiction you are expecting in this confession. I am a speed addict, but by that I mean I was addicted to high caffeine drinks and diet pills. I used them to maintain all the good I was. I wanted the good grades, the praise for my accomplishments in theater, and the spending money from the job to look the fashion of the world around me. I wanted all this, and all the praise I got at church and from my family for being such the good kid. So I took diet pills, and slammed them down with super caffeinated beverages. Still, I was a good kid.

In my mind, at that time, I would have never called myself an addict. In fact, I thought I was the very model of youth perfection. I had it all together, I was the kind of kid other parents used to shame their own. I was proud of my life, my accomplishments, my faith, my perfection.

The minister at the church I spoke at on Sunday came out after my message and asked me how to connect the principles of my message to the people who have never done anything really bad. I found this to be an intriguing question, since had you asked me even the day before I was forced to face my depravity, I would have surely let you know I was that person.

Then came that lunchtime where I faced my blackness. Between the work of advanced placement classes the production we were working on for theater, my job at the movie theater, and watching late night television; I was not sleeping. Adding to that stress, I was out of money, and therefore had not purchased my daily supply of diet pills and Nitro. I was strung out and stressed out. Sitting at the table behind me was a mentally disabled student who laughed incessantly the entire lunch period. The laughter grated against my strung out nerves like nails on a chalkboard. After twenty minutes of this I could not take another moment. I grabbed the closest metal utensil to me, and proceeded to propel it backward to stab him in the back. As the fork and my hand flew toward his back, one of my table mates grabbed my arm, and stopped in midswing I dropped the fork to the ground.

I sat, stunned with a groundswell of shame and guilt. There was nothing in this moment that looked respectable, admirable, or in control. I had tried to injure a person most of society strives to protect. In one moment, I stood toe to toe with my depravity. I stood face to face with what my need to be the model of the good kid had led to. I looked as pitch black and broken as all the people who lives looked very different than my own. One second difference in my life, and I would have been on my way to juvie.

My addiction was respectable, in fact my entire catalog of addictions were encouraged. Yet here I stood in their wake with nothing to cling to. The grades, honors, clothing, church standing, parental approval it all meant nothing as I looked at the depth of brokenness I held inside me.

The "good kid" looks good because he has spent his entire life building a castle of cards on the praise of men. The "good kid" looks honorable because everything he does revolves around holding onto that honor.

Luke 10:39-41 Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.

God's plan to clean us from the inside out starts when we realize how dirty and stained the inside is. So long as a person is basing life on what the people around him call goodness and success, they can not see that God starts his healing and release from bondage when we venture out to join him from the home of depravity. When I am able to see myself as broken and poor, I can join God in his Kingdom of paupers, whores, and cripples.

RCC Columbus Day Audio

I have the talks from our retreat this weekend. If you would be interested in what we were doing with the teens this past weekend, this would be the place to find out.

1. Stephen Lamb – A Brief History of God
2. Glen Fitzjerrell – Jesus Mission & Ministry
3. Kevin Bowman – A Master and A Slave
4. Rob Carris – A False History of God
5. Glen Fitzjerrell – My Limited Belief
6. Glen Fitzjerrell – Salvation In Our Context 1
7. Rob Carris – Salvation In Our Context2

Why God Wants All of Me

A friend of mine texted me today to let me know that he had not been fired over a poorly made decision at work. His decision was not malicious, it was just poorly thought out. It was the end of the day on Friday he was worn out and his blood sugar was low and in a moment of lesser thought he made a decision he regretted only moments later, and was thankful today to let me know the consequences were not more outstanding. Like my friend, my body often causes me to act contrary to how I know I should behave. Likewise my Spirit and my mind do not always agree.

Our body, mind, and spirit are all realized perfectly in the 3 persons of our triune God. In the person of God the father, we see the very mind of God. In the person of Jesus, God the son, we see God's physical presence. In the person of God the Spirit, we see the dimension of God's spiritual manifestation. We are truly made "like us in our image" as the Godhead agreed to do in Genesis 1.

Yet, in the perfect triune nature of God, He is always in agreement. There is no challenge for control in God. The father does not usurp authority over the son, the son does not act independent of the father, and the spirit too aligns perfectly the will and activity of the father and son.

That fact inspires me to understand why God leaves us with the words of the greatest commandment. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD (YHVH) our God, the LORD (YHVH) is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart (Spirit) and with all your soul (Mind) and with all your might(Strength). " Since there is no division in God and his body does only that which is in perfect agreement with his mind, which is at perfect peace with his spirit. That means that all of God loves me with the radical love that caused Jesus to give up the wealth of heaven for less than the poverty of humanity, but a humanity destined for death to self. God loves me with the kind of love where the master becomes the slave. God loves me with the kind of love that cost heaven it's beloved on a gamble for the earth. God loves me with all his heart, soul, and strength.

The invitation is to allow my lover to come in to me, and prove his love by placing the seed of his love to be formed as a new life inside me, a life that loves him with all my body, mind, and strength.

Economic Bailout & Ethics

Ron Paul the last serving constitutional sentinel posted an editorial that attempts to shed more light on the mortgage crisis bailout and made argument that this kind of government meddling only worsens the problem. Although the editorial is fabulous and informative, I am struck by the fact that even Dr. Paul does not see the ethical quagmire this bailout creates.

The real issue to me is that the Federal Reserve bankers are asking the government to bail out banks and investments institutions that are ultimately tied to their own portfolios with money borrowed at interest from the same banks and financial institutions. In essence they are saying, "Please pay us to bail us out of our mess."

For those of you who do not understand how a fiat currency and the central bank system works you will probably think I am a conspiracy nut, but I personally would like to see a real conspiracy nut trace out the money and prove I am right.

UPDATE: The central bankers will make over $4 million dollars a day in interest on this loan.

Services For Unwed Homeless Mothers

The intermittent volunteer shared a concern in her post "Pregnant and On the Streets" about a street family who were denied services and ultimately lost their pre-born child because of the reality that the church provides most all homeless services and therefore the unwillingness to house an unwed couple.

Although I believe it awesome that from her experience the mantle of care for the homeless is rightly placed within the church. I am concerned by the ideology that our service is based on the morality of the recipients rather than on the morality of the church. Better stated, the church should serve not based on the merit of those being served, but on rather on the Biblical mandate to serve.

I imagine the consequences of my life story if God reversed the roles we have filled together. In every stage of life God has based his saving grace on his own merit, and the receipt of that merit has compelled me to be changed into the moral vision he had for me. Imagine how differently the "woman caught in adultery" would have played out if Jesus had based his decision about the stoning on the code of a moral life that she had never sought to be bound by. Instead, Jesus calls her as a response to him to live under a new vision of moral hope.

I had this similar fight at our church when our work with the children of the migrant families at the Arlington Racetrack was bullied out by those who felt that it did not value the vision of the church, since we were not gaining numerical attendance results from the work. This is not our motivation.

All our decisions and motivation towards acts of service must be based on our responsibility to be participants in God's moral vision for our participation in bringing His kingdom to earth. It is our morality, as the representatives of Christ on earth that most concerns him, since after all his good name rests on our shoulders. Perhaps we should be wholly concerned with the vision of healing the sick, and preaching the good news to the poor that he called us to, then we'll let God take care of the rest.

Mark Moore - Another Great Post

I don't get the haters of the world, I just don't have the energy. Mark Moore has responded to them, and to their meaningless boycott this time against Wal-Mart.

If you want to hate Wal-Mart, hate them for this: they continue to seduce our society, including Evangelicals of all stripes, into a rampant materialism that is so grossly at odds with compassion, generosity, and global welfare, that it can only be contrary the core message of Jesus Christ.

Read The Full Post: Why Republicans Hate Wal-Mart

Mark Moore on Pacifism

Pacifism is not a spineless resignation—it is a deliberate methodology which calls attention to the injustices of this world. Pacifism is not quiet or nice—it is deliberately aggressive ideologically while refusing any right to retaliation; it deliberately provokes response (often violent) to force the "enemy" to put all his cards on the table for the watching world to witness.

If you have not seen the video of police at the Republican National Convention last week brutally attack a peaceful protester as she is visibly attempting to surrender to arrest then you might not have the context to understand why a principled, reasoned explanation of Christian pacifism is so necessary.

Please visit Mark Moore's Post to read the entire context of the quote above.

Entire Bible In 13 Weeks

The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.

The most important thing I had to do was to read the Word of God and to meditate on it. Thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed. - George Muller May 7, 1841

I read somewhere last week that George Muller was committed to read the Bible 4 times a year. I thought that was an ambitious, yet impressive commitment to time under the tutelage of the Lord. I know that the Bible In 90 Days is a popular resource, but I am also self aware enough that this program would fail the first weekend I started it. Our weekends are incredibly busy and we are often out till very late. I needed a program that was built on the 65 work days each quarter, so that I could make it a part of my daily regimen on the more predictable routine of work nights.

I searched and could not find such a program. So I decided that if this was a commitment I wanted to make, it was up to me to develop the resources. I developed a web page several months back to help us with our oldest daughter's reading. This page displays the Bible In Basic English combined with the Dolch word list. All Dolch words are highlighted green, while all other words are red. So I already had the underlying table data for the full text of the Bible. From here I divided the total number of verses by the 65 days. This method naturally broke chapters unevenly, and had no respect for distribution of the text, it was just a simple query. So from there I manually went through the 65 days and decided to round the "break chapter" either forward or backward based on where it broke in the chapter. In a few days I had to do just a little more massaging than that to even out a couple days over chapters that were particuarly long and fell right on the day breaks.

All of that is to say, that I invite you to join me in the 13 Week Reading Challenge. Already in the first three days I have completed God has spoken deeply to my heart. The first day I was inspired to greater reflection of becoming more like Christ through new insight into the difference between Abraham and Lot. The second day, I read about how God used his manifest presence as bookends to the time Jacob spent in Laban's house. I was reminded once again that part of God's destiny for us is filled in the monotony of the seasons of life. Last night, I was able to see how Joseph was for his brothers, and archetype for the greatness Jesus prepared for us when we fully realize our citizenship in the Kingdom of God.

I am so excited about the great truth, and inspiring changes God will bring in my life as Christ is formed in me, through the discipline of this challenge. This is not an excercise in academic accomplishment, but instead an invitation to see God's entire story unfold in all it's flowing glory. I hope you use this page, and are inspired to greater love and service in God's Kingdom.

My Heart is Not Negative

I was told recently by a good friend that all my posts of late have been negative. I do not want to come off as negative, condescending, or accusing. I am none of those. I am passionate. I want people to want more. I want people to hear an invitation from God to live in the mansions Christ prepared for us, in the here and now. I want people to understand that abundant life is promised, and our destiny is being fulfilled right now, in the place God has placed us. I have a destiny, today in this place, in this city, in this time. So do you!

We do not need to go to a far away place, to a remote people... but we must GO! Here where we are... The good news CAN be lived out in the places we are going everyday!

Please know I say this from a heart exploding with love as an exhortation!

Destiny & Tension

God has great news for you! It is amazing exciting news and you need to hurry out to share it. The news was so amazing, that it was determined before time. In fact there is a lot of background work that had to be done so you could receive it, but all that has been taken care of already, the prep work is finished!

That is the message Joseph's brothers received when they arrived in Egypt. God had a prepared a destiny for them... God had engineered the system so that their living in peace and abundance was already handled on account of the work Joseph had done.

Genesis 45: 7-9a And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father...

This is the same promise we receive when we appear before God in starving desperation. Jesus was sent ahead to be our salvation. Jesus prepared the way to preserve us that we could be saved, that we could be living. Jesus' prepared work compels us to GO! in celebration of the peace and abundance that is prepared for us.

There is a bigger issue at work here than first meets the eye... The question of why? What is God doing in the world? What is my place in the work God is doing? Israel must have had these same questions.

Genesis 46:2-3 And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, "Jacob, Jacob." And he said, "Here am I." Then he said, "I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation.

God answers Israel, and addresses him by his given name. God speaks into Jacob's carnal worldview and assures him that he has a destiny. He and his family will 'soar on wings' to be the very people of God. His family will become not just a nation, but THE nation through which the world will see God. His children, their tribe, is being crafted by the very hand of God.

The answer of God is the same into our carnal realities. God is making us, in the place we are in, in the moment in time and space we occupy into the very people of God. God has a destiny for us, we too will 'soar on wings' when we accept the destiny of citizenship in the people God.

Jesus' work was spent to prepare a place for us, a purpose for our existence. Jesus' life was given to give us life that is abundant, full of His manifest presence through us. Jesus sends us to proclaim this nation, to be this people. Jesus invites us into our destiny.

Our destiny is where the tension lies. Our world, and sadly often our churches too wants to pin us down by the famine of hopeless reality. College students tell me they want to do God's work after they get their degree. Graduates tell me they will GO after their college debt is paid. My peers tell me that GOing is on the horizon, after the kids are raised. Then it is the impending retirement, the grand babies, and so on! WE MUST GET WITH IT!!!! There will never be a safe time to GO! We must choose to soar, to fulfill our destiny in Christ; or we choose to be held down, pinned by the god's of our pagan famine.

The Kingdom of God has invited you to the feast on the best, will you eat or starve?

Bart Campolo Interview

My friend Jeff interviewed Tony Campolo's son Bart on his blog. He had some great things to say that are definitely worth reading. Here is an excerpt of my favorite part...

"So, why should people who follow Jesus care for the poor? Easy. Why should an organization trying to get a thicker chunk of the American cultural landscape care for the poor? Gosh, I don't know. They probably shouldn't. You don't see the Democratic or Republican parties bending over backwards to give to the poor, because it's not really going to help their movement very much. Those people don't have anything to give, [and] they'll suck a lot of your resources. Organizationally, it's not really a good move."

Check out the whole article.

Kingdom Doors

The Kingdom doors are rusty
They don't see that much usage
Few people go looking for power
In the places that call the bottom tops
Scant a crusader quests for glory
In the world's skid row kitchens.

Our church doors work much better
Clear glass where we can see the other side
Power to those who yearn for titles and offices
Glory & Positions for the earnest
Jesus wants to give you
Everything you work hard to attain.

The Kingdom doors are rusty
Yet still they invite me in
For His Power and To His Glory
The strength of emptiness they take to open
Jesus stands to make you
Everything you were created to attain

The Kingdom doors are rusty...

I saw this picture by one of my former campers, Lisa Curry, in an album on Facebook. It was a moving picture to me, with so much depth and contrast. The first stanza to the poem materialized in my head as I looked the picture. I rarely blog poetry, since to me it is a deeply personal activity, between myself and God. I made this exception.

Homeschool - Stuff We Needed

I have spent most of the day today preparing worksheets for my wife to use this week. With the move to Africa we decided to just go ahead and start homeschooling now, so as to separate some of the shocks in the kids lives.

If any of you are interested, I wanted to link to the things I created.

JOURNAL SHEETS:

• Monday, September 8
• Tuesday, September 9
• Wednesday, September 10
• Thursday, September 11
• Friday, September 12
• Extra Pages

PRE-K NUMBER WRITING SHEETS

• Number 0
• Number 1
• Number 2
• Number 3
• Number 4
• Number 5
• Number 6
• Number 7
• Number 8
• Number 9

ADDITION FLASH CARDS

• Addition Cards 0+X
• Addition Cards 1+X
• Addition Cards 2+X
• Addition Cards 3+X
• Addition Cards 4+X
• Addition Cards 5+X
• Addition Cards 6+X
• Addition Cards 7+X
• Addition Cards 8+X
• Addition Cards 9+X
• Addition Cards 10+X

I also some time back wrote a small program for making random math tests quickly. It is a very useful project that we use each day. You can put in the highest and lowest number to use, and also choose between addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and a few combinations.