Currently Reading Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament see related

Broken

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the kings horses and all the kings men

Couldn't put Humpty together again"

Remember that story? Almost all of us have felt like Humpty dumpty at one time or another!!  Everything seeming to go O.K. and all of a sudden everything is broken, including us!  This week has been exactly that kind for me.  It has found be broken before God, asking for his Grace, seeking for his mercy.  Have you ever been there?

If you are a Baseball fan you know the name of Ralph Branka, and you don't know him for his over 100 major league wins, or as one of the better pitchers of late 40's and early 50's, you know him for one thing: He was pitching in a playoff game for the National League title in 1951, It was the bottom of the 9th, his team ahead 5-3, 2 outs 2 men on base...if he gets the next man out, and they are National league champions, all the sacrifice and effort Branka put into his life for baseball would become worth it.....BUT, the pitch he threw was hit out of the ball park by Bobby Thompson, we know it as "The Shot heard around the world"  Branka has never been allowed to forget that moment, whenever his name is mentioned, all the good pitches he threw are quickly forgotten, and one is remembered, the mistake he threw to Bobby Thompson.

In spite of all the positives, Branka was Fractured, broken, he had let everyone down, including himself, and it hurt deeply.....He knew what Humpty Dumpty felt like! We can all relate can't we?

There are broken people all over the place, and they are hurting, suffering, seemingly alone in their world of pain, not physical pain, or they could see a doctor, but emotional turmoil of knowing things may never be the same again.  Some are reeling from self inflicted wounds, mistakes, errors in judgment and yes, sinful actions, which we know bring unwanted yet justified results.

Now to be honest with you, one thing that puzzles me is that at times when people sin, it seems like God's chastisement is immediate and certain, yet at other times it seems as if people get away with their sin!  Asaph the Psalmist struggles with that reality in Psalm 73, a must read for those wondering why God does not bring judgment on sin as quickly as we would like on people that don’t know or follow Jesus.

The reality is that Sin brings brokenness in life, and we are all sinners, then we  all know what it is like to deal with breaks in life. It may be when you got married, you figured you would have a fulfilling relationship, and for the most part you did, you love your wife, and your children, but that gal at the office caught your eye, at first it was just friendly chat, then a lunch, you called it business, and then.....well you know the rest of the story, now you are trying to pick up the pieces, you know what Humpty felt like....BROKEN.

Maybe you have spent your last years building a good testimony on the job, people know where you stood with Christ, and you were praying that God would use you to win your co-workers to Him, but then came argument with that person over you that gets under your skin.  You’re not sure  how it got so out of control, not even sure what you said, but it was bad enough to lose your job, and to blow that testimony you built up for so long, and you know what Humpty felt like....BROKEN.

The illustrations are endless, the results strikingly similar....hurt, pain, despair, and at times resignation.  And praise God the answer is always the same…..Jesus….yes the gospel of Jesus is about putting people back together, the one thing that all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t do….THE KING OF KINGS PROMISES TO DO!

Currently Reading Early Christian Doctrines By J. N. D. Kelly see related

Fearfully and Wondfully Made!

The Psalmist praised the Lord that he was fearfully and wonderfully made.  Our God is a creative genius.  Let me illustrate it for you. There is not 1 part of your body that you can see that was there 10 years ago.  All the cells in your body have been replaced by new cells through the process of mitosis – cell reproduction (except for nerve cells and brain cells, which are never replaced)  That is true of all of us, so that if your wife says “your not the man I married 10 years ago..” You can say… “You’re right!”  Our bodies replace cells a bit slower as we age, especially in our bones, but they continue to replace themselves.

The question that might come to your mind is, why do the new cells look exactly like the old ones?  Why don’t my eyes change color? Why don’t I grow 10 inches with the new cells? Why the same nose, same facial features, same fingerprints, etc.?

The answer is DNA, Deoxyribonucleic Acid. This is a polymer molecule (a large molecule made up of smaller molecules) located in each cell nucleus that determines its makeup.  Within every DNA molecule is over one hundred thousand genes.  DNA is estimated to contain instructions that, if written out, would fill 1 thousand books of 600 pages each.  A muscle cell might operate according to instructions from volume 27 and a kidney cell according to instructions from volume 789, but each cell has the whole DNA.  The RNA within each cell tells it what part of the DNA instructions that each individual cell should operate according to!  Every cell of every person has their personal DNA, and everyone’s is completely different.  If you have ever watched an episode of CSI, you already know this; it is called our genetic finger print.

DNA looks like a long spiral staircase, millions of turns long. How large and long are those DNA? If you took the DNA out of every cell of your body and put them together, they are so compact that they wouldn’t be as big as an ice cube, yet if they are unwound, they would stretch from here to the sun and back…….OVER 400 TIMES!   Isn’t that incredible?  When you look in the mirror today, pause and take the time to praise the God who created you, and remember that you are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.

Currently Reading Interpreting the New Testament Text: Introduction to the Art and Science of Exegesis see related

One  well know Charismatic writer wrote these words:

  "The World awaits a fresh manifestation of the Spirit in the Body of Christ......I am tired of the airy, fairy doctrines of Theologians.  The fresh manifestation of the Spirit will have NOTHING to do with sound doctrine.”"

Is that statement true?  Is it true that a fresh manifestation of the Spirit is going to come independent of sound doctrine?  What is true is that the Church in some circles is accepting just about anything that smacks of spirituality without checking it out with the Word of God first.  We see it in the way the Church has embraced a marketing approach to ministry, viewing the gospel as a product to be hocked. We see it in the therapeutic approach to handling life's problems as opposed to a Biblical approach where God’s Word is seen as sufficient.  We see it in the health wealth and prosperity gospel, where God is seen as a cosmic genie as opposed to the awesome Sovereign Holy One.  We see it in the acceptance of shabby theology in Christian book stores, with books being written that have little to no relation to Biblical teaching.  The extremes are see in the bad theology of some Charismatics to the non-theology of some emergent Church writers.

What is the Problem?  There has been a breakdown of theology on the Local Church level where Pastors have opted out for a perceived better way as opposed to the Pauline example of consistently teaching of the whole counsel of God, and modeling a distinctly Christ-like living pattern.

 As David Wells says in the last Chapter of his fine book “No Place for Truth; Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?”

 "We need reformation rather than revival.  The habits of the modern world, not so ubiquitous in the evangelical world, need to be put to death, not given new life.  They need to be rooted out, not pampered over with some fresh religious enthusiasm.” ( His thesis is that proper theology leads to revival..)  “The death of theology has profound ramifications.  Theology is dying because the Church has lost its capacity for it.  And while some hail this loss as a step forward toward the hope of a new Evangelical vitality, it is in fact a sign of creeping death.  The emptiness of evangelical faith without Theology echoes the emptiness of modern life."

 As the body of Christ we must stand with a balance of love and sound doctrine.  It seems to me that we have swung from an emphasis on Orthodoxy (right belief) to an emphasis on Orthopraxy (right practice). The point is that we need both, without either the Church ceases to represent Jesus.  Pray that Pastors would have a renewed confidence in the Word of God.  God’s people are starving for the knowledge of God and it is time for the Shepherds to step up to the plate and deliver it, line upon line, precept upon precept.

Currently Reading Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples By Thom S. Rainer, Eric Geiger see related

Gaining Perspective

Perspective……an interesting concept isn’t it?  It is so easy to lose perspective in life.  As we go through this life it is not difficult to get so wrapped up in our own lives that we miss the needs of hurting people around us.  It happened to me on my drive home yesterday; let me tell you the story. 

I left my office for the 4 mile drive home and I was in my typical rush.  We were planning on going out after dinner to watch some of our teens play in a softball game and I was running a bit late.  Normally when I go across South Florida Avenue, I make it a point to shift gears and think about my wife Ruth and her needs and break out of the “Pastoral” mindset.  I was ruminating over some ministry issues as I came up to my “perspective changing” intersection, and then I saw it, a back up all the way to the light….not totally abnormal, but now I would be late and it would push all of our plans back.  To be honest with you, I was a bit bent out of shape; convinced that this was a satanic attack on my schedule!  We crawled along for 20 minutes with only 2-3 cars making through each cycle of the traffic lights on Lake Miriam at Cleveland Heights. I haven’t had my blood pressure taken in 10 years, but I am sure it was relatively high by now.  And then it happened, the perspective change.  Along the side of the road ahead I saw that there had been an accident, and I saw a young gal crying as she looked at her new little car which now resembled a crumpled up pancake.  I then notice the older couple, huddled together as the wife was being comforted by her husband, he had already been bandaged up around the head.  “O.K. Lord” I thought, “I get it; all I was thinking about was my little world, my little plans and my little life.  There is a world out here of hurting people who need Jesus, please instill in me YOUR perspective of the world.”

Has something like that ever happened to you?  I am not saying that God had that accident happen to straighten out my perspective, but I am saying that the Lord allows us to providentially come across circumstances daily that are meant to shake us out of our tiny, self-consumed perspective of life on to his global view of a world without hope.  Let us continually seek to see this world as Jesus sees it, then we will have a true and an accurate..…. perspective.

Currently Reading Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives see related

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away

When Job lost all that was dear to him, his response was “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed by the name of the Lord.”  We have a tendency to read those words and think “Well that was Job, super saint in a different age.  It is not possible to have an attitude like that in our day…”  OH?  How about a young couple who was given news months ago that the baby they were expecting was going to have numerous difficulties? Their response was to put total trust in their sovereign Lord.  The baby, Hannah is her name, was born this week with numerous physical challenges.  After surgery yesterday, the Lord took her home.  How did the young, grieving couple respond?  Here it is….from Geoff and Abigail Stalber’s own e-mail:

“Our God was good in giving her to us.

Our God was good in taking her from us.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Wow…..they have found their God to be sufficient in a time of great loss.  To be honest with you, it was no surprise to me, for this is a unique couple with a deep confidence in their Lord.  Geoff is an integral part of our leadership team at Heritage and we love he and Abi deeply.  We sorrow with them this week, for that is what the body of Christ  does, we  rejoice together and we sorrow together……we are a family, and can I let you in on a secret? I love being part of this family even….let me restate that…..ESPECIALLY during the hard times.  People like Geoff and Abi challenge us all to “trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding..”.  Geoff and Abi, we love you.