Category Archives: Christian

You are a temple of the Holy Spirit

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You are a temple of the Holy Spirit

First St Johns February 23, 2014

“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy”, that’s a tall order Father, what does it mean to be “holy”? How are we to be “holy”? Too often we rely on our own understanding and inevitably find how far off we are. Satan tries to control our understanding of who You are, what we are in You, “Did God really say?” Satan mocks us with this and since we really don’t know, we wonder, we wander, we question where we really shouldn’t be questioning. Help us Lord, to turn to You, to understand that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and there are things we should be grounded in, forgiveness Your Word. Help me, Your minister to Your people, to teach and preach well, exhorting, rebuking, not giving in to the world, to what’s popular. We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father… and all who are a temple of the Holy Spirit sd Amen

We have to remember that what Jesus is saying here is decidedly contrary to current beliefs, what contemporary society would tell you. And as much as those pious ones out there today, who will try to sell you that they are all about Jesus’ words, when they really read them and put them into context, it’s clear that their life doesn’t reflect their words.

So the issue here is how much does our real life stack up against Jesus’ words. I will tell you right up front that I fall plenty short. Paul tells us we are “God’s temple”. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you? …God’s temple is holy and you are that temple.” Heady stuff, almost scary. Paul is telling us that we are God’s temple and that temple is holy, that’s an intimidating idea, if we are bearers of the Holy Spirit, if we are God’s temple, how are we supposed to treat that temple?

Jesus is addressing that issue. If we are God’s temple, then we are going to have to expect that it is God working through us, that He is going to be working through us to His glory, He is going to be using you to draw others to Him, in order to do that, yes you are different, you are not like the average day-to-day, the rest of the world sees in their slices of the world. God is going to move you to be different with people and part of that means living as the Holy Spirit guides you which is in keeping with what Jesus taught.

The story is told by Chuck Swindoll and J Vernon McGee: “a successful Irish boxer was converted and became a preacher. He happened to be in a new town setting up his evangelistic tent when a couple of tough thugs noticed what he was doing. Knowing nothing of his background, they made a few insulting remarks. The Irishman merely turned and looked at them. Pressing his luck, one of the bullies took a swing and struck a glancing blow on one side of the ex-boxer’s face. He shook it off and said nothing as he stuck out his jaw. The fellow took another glancing blow on the other side. At that point the preacher swiftly took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and announced, ‘The Lord gave me no further instructions.’ Whop!”

This entire pericope of Jesus’ is just so counter-cultural to first century Israel, to any period since then, and just as much today. Why on earth would I forgive someone who deprives me of sight or maybe my ability to eat? Why would I just rollover and let someone take my tunic, my cloak? Why would I let that happen? Of course the short form answer is, “Because Jesus tells us to.” Jesus is God, Jesus is telling us what to do, if God wants us to do things a certain way, it’s going to ultimately be in our best interests to do it. Now before you get too puckered, you, me and Jesus, most of all, recognizes that we are not going follow this to the letter, we are imperfect creatures and we will only follow imperfectly. Having said that we should all set high goals. Does that mean we always meet high goals? No! But it does mean that we will strive higher than we would have otherwise. We are to grow in Christ, that’s an important part of being a Christian. So we strive to achieve that, the person that hits us up for something important to us, we are more likely to think what we can do for that person. I’m not saying be a dope about it, because there are people out there who will play you and prey on your Christianity, but I feel the pulling of the Holy Spirit, He whose temple I am, and I try to serve that person. Jesus tells us “ya take the hit”. And obviously Jesus is making a bit of a metaphor here, but it’s going to bring the heat down a little if you don’t just react to a “hit”. Sometimes people do things in the heat of passion and lash out. It doesn’t serve anyone to turn the heat up in the situation by hitting back. I’ve noticed that today, with everyone and I’m guilty of it too. Someone will say something and we’re really not listening to what is really being said, because we’re more focused on our response, on our wise crack back. One of the things that I keep learning is how to read people better. What I might take as a verbal hit is really intended for something else. How can I help that person by not reacting and just lashing back? James tells us: “And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.” I’ve had the experience when I had wished the person had just punched me in the face then say to me the hurtful thing they just said. I know it’s just so cool today to engage in verbal sparring. What you think may be cute or clever means you weren’t really listening, you weren’t really reaching out to that person in love the way the Holy Spirit who is a part of you wants you to react. And I’m not saying that you should take the example of our Irish boxer, let the other person get in a couple of shots and then let them have it? No! Show some genuine Christian understanding and tell them “I hear you saying… and I want you to know that I understand your feelings and that does not mean I love you less and that you are not loved by Jesus any less.

It’s interesting that Jesus says if someone slaps you on the “right” cheek. For example the Bible refers to the “right hand of fellowship”, we confess that Jesus sits on the right hand of God the Father. The right side has always been considered to be the good side, honorable, it meant that to hit on the right side was to be especially insulting, to attack what is best. I’m sure you know that left-handed people have been considered to be a little odd, not good, that it’s normal to be right-handed. As those who are saved in Jesus, He who died a brutal humiliating death as the ultimate sacrifice to pay for our sins and to give us eternal salvation in the resurrection, who endured insult after insult, shame after shame, for us to decide that we are better than our Lord and strike back anyone who offends us, is to mean that; sure Jesus our Lord, He can endure insult, but I can’t. I’m special and I shouldn’t have to endure this affront. We are not more special than the Lord, we are called to take the slap to the right cheek and the Lord’s instructions, by the way are to continue to endure the blows, just as Jesus did from His arrest to His death. Is there any doubt that Jesus was struck more than once? He was struck in front of the High Priest, He was flogged by Pilate, He was struck repeatedly by the guards who were mocking Him, read John 18 and 19 how Jesus was continually beaten. Are we above the Lord who asked the Father to forgive those who were crucifying Him, above Stephen who was being stoned said: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are saved by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. Guillaume Williams points out: “Sin has so deluded our minds that even when we think we know what we are doing, we really do not. If we really knew the consequences of our actions, we would not do the sinful things we do.”1 Sin distorts us so much we just lash back instead of remembering Jesus’ guiding. As is always the case it’s not what we do, it’s what Jesus does to and through us. When you feel that urge to fire one back, and not over the bow, but right into the waterline, ask yourself, am I so special that I can’t forgive? Then turn it over to the Father, saying: “in my own strength Father, I cannot forgive this person, please do it for me.” We grow in holiness like Him.

Take some time this week in your journal, who should you be forgiving, list all the names out, ya, I’m going to be spending awhile on this. For each person you list, write next to the name, Father forgive this person, I rely on Your strength.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

1Guillaume Williams Simply Believe “The Lutheran Witness” January 24, 2014 p 6

Salting and Lighting your world

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Salting and Lighting Your World

First ST Johns Feb 9, 2014

We Make our beginning in the Name of God the Father, and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who are the salt and the light of the world said… AMEN

Are you the salt of the earth? Reminds me of that great song from Godspell, “You are the salt of the world, but if that salt has lost its flavor, it ain’t got much in it’s favor, you can’t have that fault and be the salt of the earth.” Salt and light were precious commodities back in Jesus’ time. If He was talking to us today He might ask us if we are the petroleum oil and the Amana freezer of our time. Salt and light were valuable, unlike today where, relatively speaking oil and refrigeration are relatively cheap, everyone uses oil in some form and pretty much everyone has a refrigerator/freezer in their home. Tory Borst notes: “Salt is one of those common everyday items we use without thought. We grab the shaker and shake. According to the Salt Institute (www.saltinstitute.org), in the year 2002 over a billion dollars were spent on salt in the United States alone using about 24 ½ million tons of salt.” In Jesus’ time it was more the exception than the rule that you would be able to light your home at night or you would be able to salt your food to preserve it. For the average worker, they would do their work during the day, they would get paid on that day and they would buy what they needed to eat for the rest of that day, they simply didn’t have a way to preserve food for a month, even a few days as most people have today. The phrase “he’s not worth his salt” comes from around that period, Roman soldiers would be paid in salt, if they weren’t performing their jobs properly it was said they weren’t worth the salt they were being paid.

It really goes back to a very fundamental question that we should be asking ourselves all the time. Henry Blackaby‘s devotional raised the issue and he points out what should be a constant reminder to us, are we salt, are we that preserving agent in a corrupted, degenerating world. “Your life is designed and commissioned by God to enhance a community and to preserve what is good and right.” (Henry Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day p 51) Origen writes: “As salt preserves meat from decaying, so also do Christ’s disciples, [that’s you and me, not just the 11 guys with Jesus, we are all Christ’s disciples], do Jesus’ disciples have a preservative effect?” That is do we simply decay and degrade along with the environment, or is there something active in us? That being the Holy Spirit. Chrysostom writing again says “The worldly are less like lamps than buckets, lacking in God, they are empty from above but full from below.” Do we want to be stretching toward what’s above instead of wallowing in what’s below? Those around us in the world deserve the same chance following the leading of the Holy Spirit and help those around you to be full from above.

Blackaby points out when we are focused on God and what He is guiding us to do, are we staying in front of God? This may be a digression, but it’s part of being a soldier of the Cross too. Do I go and worship, restrengthened, yes even rearmed in Christ. Have we been in His presence in worship, hearing the preached Word, strengthened by the Body of Christ, our brothers and sisters? If we haven’t been strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ, can we truly be prepared to be salt to a world, that is decidedly unsalty and very corrupt and degenerate world. We are regenerated through the things that God gives us, baptism, Scripture, the preached Word and the Body and Blood. We are not only salt in the world, but we are also sufficiently armed to face the spiritual challenges that keep pushing back against everything that is Jesus. Worship, discipleship, the things that we do to serve and worship God give us our saltiness.

Blackaby asks: “How do we test the ‘saltiness’ of our life? Look at our family. Are we preserving it from the destructive influences that surround it? Examine our workplace. Are the sinful influences in our work environment being halted because we are there? Observe our community. Is it a better place because we are involved in it? What about our church?” Chromatius tells us: “Those who have been educated for heavenly wisdom ought to remain steadfast so as not to be made tasteless by the devil’s treachery.”

No one is saying that your environment is perfect, we are always going to live in a fallen world. But because of our saltiness, is the world around us being impacted? When I worked in finance and during my time on active duty, people did come to me, and they did kind of expect a little more from me, and they did want to “talk”. I was a light in my environment that people were drawn to. Chromatius again, says: “ Jesus’ disciples are called the light of the world because they are illumined by One who is the true and eternal light.” If we are in Christ, we cannot help but project His light. No, it’s not like a lighthouse, “hey look at Driskell over in his cube, all lit up”, but it’s a supernatural radiance that the Holy Spirit produces in you that people look for guidance like sailors looking at a lighthouse. I’m not saying that I was just all that, but it seems that I did make an impact. Many of us, who expect whiz-bang results, I can’t say my results were whiz-bang, but I can say that God was using me. Let’s make it a constant recheck, are we affecting our environment for Christ in the way the Holy Spirit is leading us to impact?

Kevin Haug, who labels himself a Lutheran preacher in Texas told a story written by Warren Hudson of Ontario, Canada. He writes, “One night at the end of a special Saturday night worship service a thunderstorm unleashed a bolt of lightning that plunged the church into darkness.” With the congregation seated in total darkness, the pastor felt his way to the kitchen to find some candles. The pastor handed out the candles to everyone present. Persons lit their candles in much the same way as many churches do on Christmas Eve, each person lighting the candle of the person next to them. The worshipers then made their way through the church’s winding hallways to the front door.
“Peering out, we could see the rain coming down in sheets,” Warren remembers. With traffic snarled, people were running for the nearest shelter. Looking around they realized that the entire city was in darkness. “There in the darkness we stood,” Warren writes, “a little band of Christians, each clutching a light, not sure whether to venture out into the storm or stay inside the church in hopes that the storm would soon blow over.”
Isn’t this an appropriate analogy for many of us in the church? We know there is a world out there enshrouded in darkness. A world out there that is bland and in need of spice. Yet, what do we do about it? Do we face the storm and shine our light? Do we add some spice to the world?”

You really can light up your environment and make it a lot more interesting, a lot more compelling and yes, a lot more challenging. But once you are hooked on jumping in and challenging, not in an arrogant way, or obnoxious, but in a compelling way and in a loving way, showing to others the love of Christ. It is exhilarating, you can’t see it, but as Jesus tells us: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” This isn’t to brag on yourself, but by letting your light shine, seeing what God does through you, You glorify God and others see you being glorified by God. God initiates, He raises you up to be salt and light, you become that to others and by virtue of what you’ve done God is glorified to all. It truly is amazing that by being salt and light God continues to raise us up, raise others through us and justly and deservedly brings glory to Himself.

Spend some time this week, get out your journal, I know all of you contribute so much to your church, your family, your associates, but do they see how God is taking something so ordinary as salt and light and using it to His glory, by glorifying you and turning others to Him through you? How can you help others to know that the true source of your spiciness and light is our Father in heaven?

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

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Hi, my name is Jim and I’m a sinner

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Gordon MacDonald in Leadership Journal (winter 2014 p 29) writes about his experience attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I haven’t finished the article, but immediately I see so many parallels to what church should be:

“I was no sooner seated than the people on either side of me introduced themselves … and expressed gladness that I was there.” Shouldn’t that be what happens at church, a new person sits down and those around him/her make him feel welcome? “In fact, before the hour ended, four men, one after another handed me cards and said, ”I’m John, here’s my cell number. Call me anytime, and I’ll come and meet you if you need a friend.” What can I add to that? I also like that the meetings get right to it, no messing around, no one more quick word with your buddy. We are here for a reason, let’s get to it and do it.

MacDonald takes his turn to speak and tells them (since he’s not an alcoholic he doesn’t say “I’m an alcoholic”) but just says it’s my first time here. The response is “keep on coming, keep on coming”, he says that is said in the same way in church we might say “‘Praise the Lord”. He also notes as the others speak “change does not come easily, but it does come.” This is the same as church, as being a Christian, you do not automatically become right up to snuff, but God takes you, using the Body of Christ, the people there who make up Christ’s Body and begins to change you, begins the process of being more Christ-like. That is so great, everyone there encouraging the person “to keep coming, keep coming.” My take away is that we are all glad to be here, we are glad you are here, we look forward to knowing you better, and being good disciples. So don’t stop now, you’ve only begun!

No one feels they should somehow “chose”, AA , like the church, it is what it is and has stood the test of time. It’s not catering to the new generation or some secular fad, both have proven that when people become serious, about a serious form of worship (read liturgical) the church has been leading people to Christ and feeding them in this form of worship for centuries. Trying to make it into entertainment or buddy-buddy doesn’t move you closer to Christ doesn’t leave you in awe of a great, all knowing, all powerful God who can make real changes in your life, really can lead you into new life in Christ and will ultimately lead you into an eternal resurrection. When you have brothers and sisters in Christ they sometimes become closer to you then family. They are there to help you and guide you. They know that they are just beggars who know where the bread is and help others . They are excited to see you there and want to help you as much as possible. AA, like the church, isn’t there for your convenience or your comfort, it’s there to actually make you feel challenged, a little outside yourself, a feeling that there is so much more and I’m missing it and I’m also messing myself up more by not taking it in and growing in it. (After all the only alternative is the sinfulness, a lost, dead world)And it’s also there to make you very aware of what everyone else needs, for the Church everyone needs Jesus and we in the church have to understand that and look for what our individual role is in helping others to know Him as Savior and Lord.

When there’s someone new, go over and meet them, no pretense, no stuffiness, just simply an attitude of: “this is someone who the Holy Spirit has brought here to worship and since the Holy Spirit has put that person near me, then I have to greet that person as a brother or sister. Excited, enthusiastic (but not obnoxious), looking forward to what God has in store for us, and letting them know that just like any good brother or sister, I am there for them, that I look for what the Holy Spirit has for me to do in that person’s life. Isn’t that great? What an adventure!

Mystery of the liturgy

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The Study of Liturgy (editors: Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold SJ and Paul Bradshaw)

OK, over the introductions, Image

I think one of the biggest beefs with “contemporary” Christianity (CC) and frankly I really don’t take it seriously as “Christianity”, but OK, let’s not fuss at this point. But CC has this obsession with making Jesus out to be our buddy, our friend, “Jesus my co-pilot”). Come on, it’s cheesey, it’s phoney, and it’s just not true.

Jesus loves us, He did an incredibly manly thing through His life, suffering and sacrifice, but He is God! Therein is one of the mysteries of Christianity. How can God be man and God? We want it to be familiar and buddy/buddy, but it simply isn’t, it just isn’t. The church is the Bride of Christ. I would compare being that bride with our worldly marriage. Done right, marriage is a mystery, we come together, pretty much strangers, God brings us together to make us one-flesh. How? We don’t know, but, again when done right, we are brought together with a mysterious person, and as we grow together that other person usually remains a mystery. In God’s leading, the marriage relationship will probably be the closest relationship we will ever have. There is no biological relationship, but in Christ we are brought together in a mystery, a relationship so close, but we can’t really say why it is that close.

Other mysteries are of course the Trinity, baptism, communion (Lutherans teach that we receive the true Body and Blood of Jesus in communion), the redemption of mankind. We can go on and on, but true Christianity is very much wrapped in mystery: “…the NT term ‘mystery’ is not a cultic term and most modern exegetes do not see it as borrowing from the mystery religions. None the less, it has a long history in liturgy, especially in the Roman liturgy,..Keeping to purely NT (New Testament) sources we can see that the mystery exists on three levels:

1. There is the mystery that is God ‘dwelling in light inaccessible’ (1Tim 6:16) and in a plenitude of love that is always giving itself, always being communicated from Father to Son and Holy Spirit and back again. This love God freely communicated outside himself first in creation and then in the redemption so that all could share in it.

2. The mystery, as we have seen, exists in the historical order as we read in 1 Tim 3:16, Christ is the mystery of God: …

3. The third level at which the mystery exists is the liturgy . It is concerned with past events, the saving work of Christ, but it is not concerned with them as past. It seeks to bring about an encounter between the worshippers and the saving mystery. If an event is to be experienced, it has to be experienced as present. As Dom Odo Casel liked to say (and apparently Kierkegaard before him), Christ has to become each one’s contemporary. This is perhaps best expressed by Leo the Great, who in a  sermon the Ascension said: Quod … redemptoris nostri conspicuum fuit, in sacramenta transivit  (what our Redeemer did visibly has passed over into the sacraments). He is considering how, after the forty days of Christ’s resurrection-life, he was lifted up to remain at the right hand of his Father until he should come again Now all that he did in his earthly life is to be found in the sacraments, the liturgy that he and his hearers were celebrating.

Let us take two other examples from the Roman liturgy if only because the word ‘mystery’ is used. an ancient prayer for Holy Week asks that what we are doing in mysterio we may lay hold of in reality. The second is a collect for Good Friday, when the major part of the service consists of words (OT, a Pauline epistle and the singing of the passion according to St John). There is no Eucharist, simply the giving of Holy Communion from the reserved sacrament, and after it we pray: ‘Almighty and merciful God, you have renewed us by the blessed passion and death of your Christ preserve in us the work of your redemption (operis misericordias) that by our partaking of this mystery we may always live devoted to your service’. These texts and a hundred others that could be cited show the Church’s conviction that when Christians celebrate the liturgy they encounter Christ in his passion, death and resurrection and are renewed by it.

What, then, is the particular significance of the use of ‘mystery’ in this third sense? First, it is a link between the past and the present or, rather, it looks to the past to recover the power of the primordial event and makes its power present in the here and now so that the worshipper can encounter the redeeming Christ. What gives it a particular quality is that it does this through symbols which manifest the presence and activity of Christ and, because they are the sacraments to which he committed himself, he through them can convey the saving power of his passion and resurrection. The liturgical mystery can be seen as l’entre deux mondes, and that is part of the difficulty in understanding it. It is not simply an historical event (through its celebration takes place in time), and it certainly does not seek to reproduce historical events. It will have nothing to do with the allegorizing of the writers of the ninth and subsequent centuries,… nor is it sufficient to say that he mystery is a way of remembering the past, … By the liturgical mystery we are actualizing the past event, making it present so that the saving power of Christ can be made available to the worshipper in the here and now…(pp 13-15)

Christianity is in fact wrapped in mystery, it’s not an effort to be familiar with the Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe, it’s to glorify Him, to worship Him, be in fear and awe, not to be His buddy. This is the whole point of liturgical worship. Dr Martin Luther talks about the deus Absconditus “the hidden God”. We have revelation, what God intends us to know, and is there any doubt that what He revealed to us, is a tiny scintilla of what there is to know about Him. We worship in mystery, we worship according to the guiding of the Holy Spirit in a time honored way of ordered worship, intended to strengthen and fortify us for another week, to confront the world in Christ, an alien, secular, sinful, sick, depraved world. We do that in the mystery of faith, we do it in the mystery of being saved in Christ, His baptism, His Body and Blood. We don’t do it being happy and clappy “Jesus is just alright by me, Jesus is just alright”, as seen by those learned theologians the “Doobie Brothers”. But through another mystery of Christianity, through the liturgy, our omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God brings us into real time with the incarnation, the trials of Christ, the crucifixion and of course the resurrection. This is not a reenactment, the Roman practice of the sacrifice at every mass is incorrect. What Jesus did once in Jerusalem has power for all eternity, the sacrifice/redemption of Christ has power for all times, it is through that mystery of the liturgy that we are brought into the very act, once and for eternity.

This is through the liturgy, this is through the faithful serving of the sacraments, through confession and absolution. People gathered together being entertained, conducting discussions about “how to be better”, or some kind of intellectual dissection, or jumping around, can be inspiring, get you all pumped up for Jesus. But it is through the liturgy, time tested through the centuries that bring us into the presence of all the mysteries of being a Christian, a disciple, an adopted child of God the Father. Jesus isn’t my “buddy”, He is the all powerful Savior, Redeemer, Lord of my life, through Him all creation came into existence. I don’t need Him to be my “buddy”, as with any strong leader, father-figure there is an element of mystery, a degree of separation. With Jesus it is almost entirely wrapped in mystery, the mystery of Jesus is that we take His Body and Blood, but He is also so far above, and exponentially so much greater and powerful that me. That is a great thing, my Savior, my Lord is so much more powerful then anything in creation and yet He died for me, He knows everything about me, but only through the liturgy are we put back into that presence of time, place and familiarity.

Fake it ’til you make it, or turn it over to God?

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I’m trying hard to not make this condescending. I’m not trying to be condescending, I feel grief, I feel as if I’m too blame in some way. I ask “how does such tragedy happy?” But there’s no doubt, it is our sinful condition. Even people who should be at the top of their game in the corporate world, conquering new heights, or tilting at windmills, but still sinful, lost. How are they sinful, these are people who were so caught up in their work, in success, in wealth, fame, being first, who can say, but just not handling it according to God’s will and being so consumed with what they were doing.
You can deny it, but we can become so enamored with what we do for work, our entire life consumed by what we do for a living and becoming so consumed, it becomes our idol. That is sin, placing something, anything above God in our lives. Idolatry is not limited to some pagan worshiper bowing down before some statue, or carving or other representation, it’s simply making something in our life our God. We always think we have control over it, we don’t, just like any idol; drugs, sex, money, power, spouse, children, it controls us.
It’s certainly a forgivable sin, Jesus died for idolaters. It’s not “Blaspheming the Holy Spirit”,
The article in “Inc Magazine” describes Bradley Smith whose business grew 1,400 percent in three years and then hit the downside, using all his financial resources, business and personal, his world spiraling out of control.
I worked for a guy in the Coast Guard who used to say “fake it ’til you make it”, he usually said it sardonically, with a grin. The article uses the same expression. We understood what our senior meant, you just aren’t going to learn everything you need to know to go out and deal with weather, seas, people, wildlife, weapons, aggression who knows what and save lives and property, enforce laws, all the Coast Guard missions. You have to go out, project confidence, show ability, rely on your training and yes, God’s grace, and learn while you are doing it.
The big difference is that a Coast Guard coxswain completes the mission, fills out the paperwork, perhaps suffers through any subsequent inquiry, but then moves on. Entrepreneurs can’t move on, a coxswain at some point may have to let the fire burn, may have to let the boat sink. The entrepreneur? Probably thinks he/she doesn’t have that luxury, every waking moment has to be invested in their company.
The article describes two who recently committed suicide and others who dealt with severe mental disorders, all linked to stress, way too many hours, severe depression. The article describes how many coped with their situations: exercise, working out agreements, visualization, not taking it personally. Fine, all good suggestions, and of course, counseling, medication and don’t get me wrong, there are times when these are necessary. We can certainly put our body through such a grinding that we can distort our chemical composition. But have you noticed how temporary, how fleeting?
We were not made to work 12 – 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sure there are times when you have to step up and make extraordinary efforts, but no one can do that and maintain it and I defy anyone to prove to me that is what it takes on an extended basis. You can’t! God simply did not compose us to be able to do it. We end up making an idol to our efforts, all we have is sacrificed to the idol, our life is devoted to this idol and it and any idol other then God will relentlessly grind us down and take everything.
God created us to work six days, go ahead do it. But He required that we have a Sabbath, no it doesn’t have to be on Sunday, there were many times when I had to work on Sunday, but there has to be a Sabbath, a time of rest and to come before God to be strengthened in Him, to be refreshed in Him.
I know, you are thinking, “just another obligation, something else to do.” That’s not the way worship should be. Throughout this entire article I’m thinking “if only they would let God help them, if they would only stop putting themselves over God”. For some of them they lost, for many they ended up on the other side, but I have no doubt even they would say that they have to wonder if it was worth the price.
The article talks about people who become “hypomanic”, they have to run, they have to stay in motion. OK, fine, how about using some of that in service to God, Him using them to serve others? Would that give them some perspective, felt they were serving? After I have served someone else, I have often felt that I received more ministering than that person did. Or how about just spending some time basking in the presence of God who truly does love, you can be as rich as Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or as poor as a church mouse. Fabulously successful or miserable and wretched. He loves you just the same and He longs to touch you with that, to give you hope, to help you know that He wants what is truly best for you. If He wants you to be Warren Buffet and you follow His leading He will do things in life that will astound you. If it wasn’t in His plan for you to be Michael Zuckerberg, you may actually push hard enough to get there, but at a price that will eventually take you down and cost you everything.
Over and over again I heard myself while I was reading this article “what if they’d known Christ, what if they’d taken just a little time to be in the presence of God, to be with brothers and sisters in Jesus, how much would their life had changed?” Your Father in heaven wants what is best for you, grinding yourself to destruction is not His will and will only cost you.
What if some of these guys had a pastor who they could spend some time with, to unload some of their burden, maybe include spouse and children, just a little time, but a little time to be reminded of a loving God, a God that wants to restore and refresh. Working towards God’s glory, who knows maybe you will be the next Jack Welch, or maybe you will be quite content to be less than what you envisioned, but entirely in God’s will and His everlasting arms.
I know this is late, but join us. Feb 12, 10am, the GreenBean Coffee Co, corner of W King St and Beaver St in downtown York, Pa. It would be great to discuss this, or any issues you might be dealing with.