Men

"Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive. 1 Corinthians 10:23

The other day I vented a bit on Facebook about the show “Two and a Half Men.”  I linked to an article about Angus T. Jones, who apparently is one of the actors on the show.  He was quoted recently as saying the show was ‘filth’ and he urged people to stop watching the show.  Apparently these comments are made as the result of a recent conversion experience to Christianity. Apparently he backpedaled  a little yesterday, feeling he had disrespected his fellow actors and workers on the show.  Still, his words were strong.

And he was right.  The show is filth.  I don’t generally watch it, but have rarely when someone else I was visiting happened to be watching it.  And it made me blush.  The show seems one long repeated X-rated joke.  Admittedly, the older I get the more of a puritanical streak emerges from me at times.  Don’t know if that is good or not, but it just is. There is just stuff out there anymore that spins my head.  Ouch, that makes my neck hurt.

The reality is though, as Christians, saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, we should be free to do just about anything we want to.  We are not saved by following a set of laws and rules.  If anyone understood this it was the apostle Paul, as a Jew and student of Old Testament law.  Yet he writes, "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive.

Yes everything, I suppose, is permissible.  But as a follower and truster in Jesus, there is just so much that is not beneficial or constructive to my walk with Him.  Frankly, the deeper I get into my faith, the less I want to walk in those ways; after all “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (visit 2 Cor. 5:17)

It is here.  Looking in my mirror I see that new creation.  Admittedly, I don’t always like what I see, or what I do.  Because sometimes what I do is filth also.  I’m thankful for the grace, and the start of each new day.  I love the freedom that there is in Christ!  So much is permissible, and I continue to learn what is not beneficial and constructive. 

I pray that Angus T. Jones is experiencing the grace we have in Christ, and responds accordingly.  And…I pray that for myself also.  For this day.  A day that will not include Two and a Half Men.  But it will include a lot of grace….

Holiday

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.  - Colossians 2:6-7

The Holiday season has started.  Thanksgiving is just past; Christmas and News Year’s are right around the corner. Celebration is in sight.  But as I write this, it is a holiday in Western Pennsylvania. It is.  Deer season opens today, and yes, schools are not in session! It is an official holiday. 

Look out Bambi!

Holiday.  The word is a compound; formed when two distinct words are merged together. In this instance the words are holy and day.

Today then is a holy day.  It is.  And that fact has nothing to do with deer. 

Paul says, “…live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”  

If we strive to “live our lives in him,” and be “rooted and built up in him,” and “strengthened in the faith as you were taught,” then is goes to form that we would live “overflowing with thankfulness.”

Friends every day can be a holy day. If we are “overflowing with thankfulness.”  But the Bible says even that takes work.  Some measure of discipline for sure, but it also depends a bit on being aware of what is going on around us.  If we can’t see thankfulness overflowing around us, then it might be difficult to experience it ourselves.

So again…what are you thankful for as we head into Advent; into the Christmas season?  Health…family…friends…the birth of the Christ child….   There is so much to be thanking our God for.  Not just on a day that has been set aside as a holiday; but on any day that we decide is a holy day.

Even today.   Look out Bambi, but give thanks to God!

Thankfulness

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. Psalm 95:1,2

A couple of you sent me emails asking why I hadn’t posted as much recently.  I could say I’ve been very busy, and that is true.  But it’s also an excuse.  The reality is that I just don’t post everything I write. About half of what I write, I share. I don’t share everything for good reason.  Not everything that comes to my mind needs to be shared.  For instance I wrote a reflection Monday morning that I did not share. Why? Because: 1: It was deeply personal and 2: it was deeply angry.

There have been a few circumstances in my life lately that have been less than optimal.  This is not unusual.  I know I’m a pastor, but I’m also a deeply flawed human being like anyone else. Just because I have this weird call in my life (that’s how I describe being a pastor) doesn’t mean that I’m not subject to the ups and downs of everyday life.  I generally have a good attitude, but sometimes I can get down like any other human being.  And so it was on Monday.

Yesterday when Bible Gateway sent this snippet of Psalm 95 to me and I read, “let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song,” my first reaction was, “I don’t want to.”

Fortunately my second reaction was, “Slow down, breathe – notice all the good that is in your life, and give thanks to God for it.” 

As I go into another season of Thanksgiving, I am intentionally looking at all the many, many blessings I have in my life.  Susie who puts up with me, family, friends, a core of deeply committed followers of Christ that I have the absolute privilege to work with.  As a pastor, I am gifted with the single greatest message that the world needs to know, and I get the honor to share it with people! The reality is that I have so much to be thankful for, I could, and maybe I should, spend the rest of the day listing it all.

Thank you Jesus!

So, as you go into your Thanksgiving holiday.  Are you thankful?  Truly?  “Slow down, breathe – notice all the good that is in your life, and give thanks to God for it.” 

Let me leave you with something my Greek professor in seminary shared this morning:

"It's a wonderful and worthy thing to go into your 'prayer closet' and thank God in private for all of his blessings. Yet, there is something grand about sharing your thanks to God in the presence of others." – Mark Roberts

Live this day in thankfulness!

Balloon

“Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.”  - 2 Timothy 2:16

Ugh.

I know this verse is really about either false teaching or just plain gossip in the church.  But as I read it, I couldn’t help but apply it to just what I see around me every day; it also applies to what is sometimes in my heart.

“Godless chatter”.

There is a rather huge scandal going on within the top CIA and military.  It’s all about sex, lies and emails apparently.  Only time and time again I hear in the media, “It’s not about sex. Who cares who he sleeps with?”

Bullfeathers.  I’m guessing the General’s wife cares.  Heartbreakingly.  But this is where we are at in our nation these days. “…those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly….” 

If you think about it, as a society we are winding down in moral chaos.  I vision it like this: think of a balloon that you have blown up and you let go of the opening and now the balloon just goes firing off in no particular direction, changing course as the balloon size decreases and the air spurts out of the opening.  Where it lands is anyone’s guess.  

So. Where will our society land?  It is anyone’s guess.

Does it matter?  “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” (visit Hebrews 12:14)  As we continue into the abyss, we will be missing much.

Gut check time.  Where is my heart?  Where is yours?  If I’m not careful, I might wind up with one of those balloons guiding me also…..

 

Praying

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,”  - Colossians 1:9

I got up yesterday morning with music running through my head.  Not just any music.  But music performed by The Who, whom I saw in concert the night before.   Amazing concert; loud, energetic, pounding, at times visually stunning; rather amazing since the real two remaining band members are, well, pushing 70 years old. 

Then this passage gets emailed to me, and it hits me like, well not like a ton of bricks (that was The Who’s job), but like a gentle evening breeze.  The apostle Paul is reminding a small struggling church that he has been in prayer for them.  Personally.

So I ponder.  As I was out enjoying that great concert Sunday evening (not excessively enjoying it, mind you), was there someone praying for me?  During that time? 

I am reminded of an older couple that lived next door to us when I was a child growing up in Southern California.  They didn’t live there long (at least that what I seem to remember). I can’t even remember their names.  I kind of feel bad about that. But they gave me my first Bible.  And just before they moved away, they told me that they would be praying for me.  For me. Frankly, I couldn’t fathom why they would.

And so I ponder.  I became a Christian at age 23.  This morning I wonder if that was an answer to older couple’s prayer.  I wonder how much their prayers had to do with my turning to Christ as an unsettled young man.  I wonder.  Admittedly, pray is a bit of a mystery to me.  But it is something we do in obedience to our God who honors such actions.

“For this reason...” Paul writes”… since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you.

Not stopped.  Can you feel the breeze?  May the prayers people have been praying for you become the music running through your head today….

And maybe later today you can mix it up with a Who song if you would like….

Choices

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”  - Joshua 24:15

Life is full of choices. Some are minor. For instance, I chose to eat Cheerios for breakfast this morning.  I had several brands of cereal to choose from, but I chose Cheerios.  Which, by the way, is my normal choice.  My choice for breakfast, outside of proving I make very wise and tasty choices, will mean very little for the rest of my day, much less the rest of my life. There are hundreds of such minor choices we make each day.  Sometimes they may add up and make some sort of difference in our day.  Sometimes. Sometimes not.

The Scripture this morning is, however, about the single most important choice we have to make any morning.  In some ways, we have to make this choice intentionally every morning of our lives.  Even God’s elect have this choice to make. It’s about more than just accepting the fire insurance, if you catch my drift.

Israel was told “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” 

We are told the same.  Ironically, on a week in which we chose collectively who will lead our nation for the next four years, the reality is that you and I have had far more important choices to make this week than President of the United States. “…Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.”

Whom we will serve.  Oh yes, daily we face and dance with the other gods in our lives.  They are nipping at our toes. Be they the gods of our ancestors or the gods that the society that we live in that we have become wrapped up in.  Don’t believe me?  How many of you got all caught up in the god of politics this week?  You would have thought that we were electing a savior or something. While I may have been personally disappointed by the outcome of Tuesday’s election, I do understand that the candidate I supported was not the Messiah.  Far from it.

We all have a choice today: as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.  I choose to stand with Joshua here. But it’s a choice I feel I have to make every morning. Because the others gods are there waiting for me each and every day. 

So, this day….whom will you serve?  And after today…tomorrow?  Who will you serve? You do have a choice.