Pictures of Christ

I remember an old story that was a great picture of Christ.  It was spring of 2006 and I took my little in Big Brothers Big Sisters to a local fish hatchery / fishing location.  He was not very interested in fishing that day but rather, he wanted to hike up the hill.  This boy was very scared of most things, but he was so focused on climbing up that hill.  He ran so fast up the hill that I had a very hard time keeping up with him.  Finally he got way up the hill and then stopped.  Once he turned around, he saw how high up the hill he was and he became instantly paralyzed by fear.  he had no idea how he got into the situation that he was in.  He even started to tear up about it.

I called him by name and put my arm around his back.  I walked him slowly, step by step, back down.  He was very scared, but he got down nicely thanks to my help.  Once he reached the bottom and we found the path in the woods, he took off running again.  he ran ahead of me, forgetting momentarily that I was right behind him.  That is a great picture of us.  We get moving up a hill and do not realize how fast up we go.  We turn and see the consequences of our actions, and become paralyzed by fear.  It is Christ, however, who reaches down and guides us step by step back to the right path.  Usually, once we are comfortably on the path, we forget about Him and run ahead.

We see this picture in the Old Testament when Joshua dies and the Israelites are in the promised land.  It got very comfortable and the people would forget to follow the Lord their God.  They would turn away and God would bring trials on them in the form of the Cannanites that were still in the land.   At time, God would raise a Judge that would draw the people back to Him, and then they would overcome.  You can read seven such cycles in the book of Judges.  Christ desires us to surrender all things to Him.  Although we do not always do that, he forgives us anyway and we go on with Him.  Remember Romans 8:1, There is now therefore no condemnation in Christ.  If we confess our sins, He forgives our sins (1 John 1:9).  Let us keep Christ right behind us!

Posted in Interacting with Youth | 1 Comment »

The Evil of Football

I was out after church with a bunch of sports freaks.  You know the type: loud, rowdy, teasing each other about the jerseys that they were wearing.  I got to talking to another person that was there that, much like myself, was not really into sports.  We made an interesting connection between evil and football!  That is right.  We came to the conclusion that football is fleshy and should be destroyed!  We take our text today from the book of Galatians, chapter 5 verses 16-21:

¹⁶ But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. ¹⁹ Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, ²¹ envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul is writing this to a group of people that were overly consumed with their actions, trying to win salvation for good works.  Here, Paul is telling us that we should not live by our fleshy desires, for that sets itself against the flesh.  Let’s examine the basic conduct of football fans against this list in scriptures, shall we?

Immorality – This refers to general debauchery of the society.  I have to say that this one is not very common, there is too much focus on idolatry.  Besides that, 3 pages of a Google search did not yield any relevant to the search term.  I guess they are off the hook for this one.

Impurity – This would mean anything that taints perfection.  Football fans are becoming increasingly violent and profane in the cheering of their teams.  This passes the vulgarity down to next generations as kids are brought in droves to stadiums around the country.  It may even start with sharing drinks with kids at a ripe young age which will clearly send them to hell.

Sensuality – This root of this means to gratify the senses, or in biblical terms, to fulfill fleshy desires.  How many justifications occur for football, beer, overspending, etc all in the name of doing what feels good!

Idolatry – Football is synonymous with idolatry.  This is the biggest fruit of the flesh that that there is in the sport, but it exists to undying ends.  Take some mild and lukewarm Christians who are in a Bible study, they know very little about the Bible, where things can be found, etc.  But if you bring up the topic of football, the crowd will go wild!  People will start praising and worshiping at the image of the team, rattle off statistics, and arguing with one another about their god being better than everyone else’s god.

Sorcery – This is to practice divinity, witchcraft, and the other Harry-Potteresk Hogwarts classes.  We agreed in our conversation that if this indeed happen related to football, it is definitely not in the mainstream, so we are ok here.

Enmities, Strife – This means to have something against someone or something to a point of hatred, diabolical plans enter in and overtake your emotions to the point where you have a single mind to hate.  Enmities is also what is described by what happens when one group of college kids meets a group from the opposing team.

Jealousy – This is to have feelings of depressive anger toward someone for spending time with someone else, it can also stem from an intense desire to have what someone else has (like a victory).  You can see the presence of this.

Outbursts of Anger, Disputes, Dissensions, Factions – I group these together because they are all closely related.  Disputes and anger go hand in hand, dissensions and factions occur from the point of anger, and the people break into roaming hate-mobs (OK, so I am exaggerating this point a little too much, but the point remains, sports fans can be very violent and rowdy).

Drunkenness – Do we even have to talk about this one?  I think that beer was invented for football, or at least the other way around.

Carousing – This is teasing / taunting / being generally uncontrollable.  We see this in sports fans all the time.

So there we have it, the majority of the fruits of the flesh are all bound up in football!

OK, so that article was a little accusative, and yes, it was satirical.  The truth is, football is like anything else that is neutral in this world.  We can make it good and we can make it bad.  Paul says several times in 1 Corinthians that all things are permissible, but he would not be mastered by anything.  That is the truth.  Watch football during this season, enjoy yourself, but remember to be more focused on God than you are on your hobbies.  Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.  Resist the Devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7-8a).

Posted in Examine the Word, Satire, Thoughts on the Culture | No Comments »

Sanctification – Of God or Man?

A great debate has occurred in my church with some of the members, it was related to that oh great debate of Predestination!  The conversation quickly moved onto the topic of sanctification.  This is not usually misunderstood (or at least not debated hotly), but it was in this case.  One side of the argument suggested that we have a role in our spiritual growth while the other side of the debate shouted that it is all of God!  So which is it?  Sadly, I think that the debate among church members is not concluded, but I have wrestled through this topic many years ago, so I wanted to discuss this topic today.  Is it of God or of man?  The answer is ‘Yes!’

Process of Salvation

To understand sanctification, we must first understand what it is, and what it is not.  There does exist a great coin, the coin of salvation.  I use the illustration of a coin for our salvation because there are two parts to the process, but they are the same coin.  The first is Justification, and the second is Sanctification.  Justification is entirely of God, the term is a legal word meaning that we are no longer culpable for our sins before God.  Justification happened at one space-time point for all people from Adam to the child that is not born yet.  It happened when Jesus Christ died on the cross.  At that point in time, the sins of the elect were covered and God no longer considered them.  All Old Testament saints looked forward to it, all New Testament saints look back to it, one point, when Christ died.  You can read more about it on Grace to You.

Sanctification is a process, and it is a process that must include God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and man the sinner.  It is the Father that decided that you will be saved (if you are or will be saved), it is the Son that accomplishes that task (on the Cross), and it is Holy Spirit that guides your conscience toward Him every day.  There is a past in sanctification, we were set apart for salvation (Ephesians 1).  There is a present in Sanctification, where we are right now in working toward becoming like Christ by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2), and there is a future when we will be perfectly sanctified in the process of Glorification meaning that all sin is removed from our bodies (this point is after the second coming of Christ).

I want to focus this article on my position for the present, the fact that our present sanctification is dependent on both God and man to accomplish.  We do have a free will, not to the degree where we choose our salvation, but rather, a will to make our every day choices.  I can choose to go home and look at stuff on the internet that I should not see, or I could choose to go home and focus on God in prayer, the Word, or by some other means.  God, the Holy Spirit will move me toward the things of God, but my sin nature will lure me into the sins of man.  The one that I tend to feed by my habit of choices is the one that will usually win (Romans 7:14-25).

How to Be Sanctified

Fortunately, there is a prescription to move toward sanctification given in 2 Peter 1:1-11.  The book starts with this opening statement (2-4):

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; ³ seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. ⁴ For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Peter is telling us that we have been selected, everything that is of life and Godliness is granted to us, we are given promises that we have divine truth, and we can escape the world.  There is so much in that paragraph that we could write pages just on that, but I digress.

Peter then moves on the prescription for sanctification.

Verse 5a – We need to be diligent about being morally excellent.  Of course many modern Christians think that striving for moral excellence is synonymous with self-righteousness and fleshly living.  I submit to you that this text means exactly what it says.  Peter is commanding you to work hard at living a moral life.  We should not be passing gas and laughing, stealing paper and pens from work, teasing people and jesting and joking about it.  We should live with very upright and moral lives and quit blaming our sin nature on the fact that we are not perfect.

Verse 5b – We should start to accompany our moral excellence with knowledge.  That is knowledge of the doctrines of the Bible, not the surface fluff.  Again, I see many American Christians that want to stay at the basic level of the Gospel, but is that not a negative as reported by the author of Hebrews?  No.  We are rather to seek the knowledge of God.

Verse 6a – Once we have moral excellence and knowledge, we need to add in a dose of self-control.  This is also called discipline and it is one of many exhortations in the scriptures.  The word self-control appears many times in the book of Titus, and Paul uses the concept of discipline in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 about living our Christian life.  Sadly, many Christians do not discipline themselves in anything whether it be to Biblical study or a plan to lose weight!

Verse 6b – Perseverance is a critical step.  It is means to stick with it.  See it through.  I experience this difficulty every morning.  I need to discipline myself to get out and run.  Once I do that, I need to keep perseverance to not stop running (at least for seven minutes which are the hardest seven in a run).  Scripturally, this means not giving in to sin and saying, “what does it matter, I am covered by the blood, I will do it just once”.  No, we need to keep up the faith understanding that we will be persecuted.  Be strong.

Verse 6c – Adding Godliness means that we will start to live out our life not with the external morality (by the way, it is a great start to have external morality in the flesh), but Godliness is when the morality impacts our conscience and we are truly living the Fruit of the Spirit in our attitude, not just our body.

Verse 7a – Once the Fruit of the Spirit is inside of our regular attitude, we will be able to love other people.  Brother in this verse refers specifically to Christians.  That is the start of love to the whole world, first you love the brothers and sisters in the church.

Verse 7b – Once we can love our brothers, we are commended to love.  Love extends to all people, all places, all (dare I say it) religions!  We are simply to love other people and by that love, the Mark of the Christian is manifest in our life.

The next statement that Peter makes is the center of it all.  If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. By verse 9 is the negative correlative: For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Amazing.  Not only do we participate in this process through hard work and discipline, but Peter says that we are blind if we do not do them.  He concludes the statement on sanctification with verses 10-11 placing the responsibility on the practice of these things with us.  Once we work hard and diligently at these things, the Holy Spirit will unite with that work in us and make us more and more like Christ.

So in the final analysis, Sanctification is a process that requires us to start it, and God to finish it.  We cannot lay back claiming to be covered by the blood and not work on our spiritual growth.  To do so, we demonstrate to God that we have forgotten about our cleansing from Sin.

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Stretch Me, Lord!

Here in America we are too comfortable.  Of course, we as a country have pressed hard for the American Dream, which was loosely defined as having money, at least enough to not have to worry about it, having cars, a house, and 2.5 kids (usually two kids and a dog).  When the World War II veterans returned from the war, the young generation of men who were fighting and women who were keeping the country together seemed to click that life is too short to fight.  That was a correct conclusion to a degree.  The problem was they gave and gave their kids to the point where the kids did not learn much on the maturity and responsibility front.  Those kids became the free-love propagators of the 1970′s.  With that generation, they started to open up to sex, drugs, and pragmatic pleasures much to the decline of the society.  That generation eventually had babies and gained some maturity from the table-scraps of their parents.  But the generation that came after that became so devoid of responsibility and working for the things they have that a culture of entitlement was born.  With entitlement, all remnant of working for what we want has been eroded from our youth.

An old fitness adage is true: “No pain, no gain”.  I know that my workout tonight was great because I feel stretched, tired, used.  That is true for our physical body and also for our mental body, our spiritual body, and also our emotions.  It is true for ministry and goals.  It is universally true.  I thought about this concept at a Bible study the other day when a student was announcing that they received all A’s on a report card.  As a former teacher, I said that she needs to get into the topic a little more advanced, and she insisted that she wants to stay where it is easy to get good grades to make it into a good college.  That attitude will kill her motivation and her education in the long run.  Below I will detail why from the book of John.

In the 15^th chapter of the book of John, we read about our relationship to Christ and our relationship to each other, and then finally, about our relationship with the world.  The latter will not discuss here.  The first portion, John 15:1-11, talks about how we are to stay in Christ.  Jesus talks about how we are already clean because of the word, he talks about the fact that if we are in Him, we will bear fruit, and of significance here if we bear fruit, God the father will prune us so that we bear more.  This is a picture from gardening or farming.  If you have a plant that is producing fruit, you cut off the branches as they are starting to flower.  The plant will then produce two more branching the leaf-stem of that cut branch and each of those two will bear flowers, so cutting the fruit (pain) increases the fruit (gain).  The rest of the first section talks about bearing much fruit, obeying the Word, and those are evidence of Christ.  God as the vine-desser (gardener) does the pruning on your spiritual life.

The second part, John 15:12-17, Jesus is talking about the command to love one another.  He talks of the believers to love each other as Christ has loved them, and He concludes this section with the command to go and bear more fruit.  I have come to the conclusion that bearing much fruit with love to your fellow Christian is to serve together and create deep friendships around loving other people and helping those around you grow in Christ.

From these first two parts of John 15 we see that we are commanded to do good works, to work, to stretch ourselves (loving your brother is more of a spiritual discipline than an inherent emotion).  It is only through the process of pruning and stretching that God grows us, but I believe that we can also contribute to that pruning.  If we sit around and do nothing with our Bible, we become spiritually dead.  We can talk about a lot of Bible terms and argue over doctrine, but we are not actually growing.  If we sit around and do not exercise, we become obese, if we do not map out our future, we end up in the same place we are now just with more wrinkles and more convinced that the rich just get richer and the poor get poorer.  My encouragement to you is to set goals in all areas of your life, serve people through church or parachurch ministries.  Get exercising, and challenge yourself in your education.  You will be surprised at where you are in just a few years of consistently doing these things.  Here are some resources to help.  Some of these resources I am familiar with, others I am not as familiar with, but I wanted to give some diverse options.

Getting Started

I have studied goals from every angle that I can find.  I want to know how successful people have done it, so here are some ideas that will help you out.  First, my top pick book on goal setting is The Power of Focus.  I also like the time management organization of First Things First by Stephen Covey.  Dave Ramsey also has some great tips on his website.  In his method, there is a five step process:

1.) Your goals should be specific

2.) Your goals should be measurable

3.) Your goals should be your goals

4.) Your goals should have a time limit on them

5.) Your goals should be written down.

I personally follow a system that is like this one.  I have set goals in the area of fitness, personal, spiritual, business goals, and goals to develop new business ideas.  Each of my goals is written down specifically, with a time line and a way to measure them.  The goals also list a reward for achieving various levels complete with pictures of what I want as a reward for the goal.  The goals and the measurement logs for the goals are in the same place and they have a master dream plan for my life, all assembled as a booklet.  This booklet took about a week to type it all up and make it very nice to look at.  Other than my Bible, it is the only book that I go to every single day and focus on.  Here are some other resources that I have found on goal setting.  Note that my system is a hybrid of various methods that I have read.  I created the one that works for me.  What will work for you?

Mind Tools

Top Achievement

Goal Setting for Success

Spiritual Help

As I have mentioned before, we should focus on several methods of growth spiritually.  I believe that we will grow best if we do the following:

1.)    Read the Bible quickly as an overview one or two times a year

2.)    Do an in-depth study of specific books

3.)    Make prayer a regular part of the day

4.)    Listen to what other people have said about the Bible in the form of sermons.

In my last article, Filling the Empty Cup, I talk a little more about growing spiritually and I also give my recommended general reading list.

Ministry

Local ministry can be found in most places. The best thing to do is to ask your pastor of any needs in your church.  If you like working with kids, check around your church or other churches for Awana.  If you can not find one, consider starting a chapter here.  I personally tend to work as a minister in non-Christian arenas (it tends to help my prayer life) and I prefer Big Brothers Big Sisters.  You can also check to see if Child Evangelism Fellowship has a chapter in your area.  Your local Christian radio stations also likely have some opportunities.

Exercise

I have frequently heard the expression, “I wish I had that kind of energy” usually when someone sees kids running all over.  This is usually the time that I start doing the same thing.  I have energy because I have a regular exercise pattern.  I have found that in times that I do not keep up with it, I tend to get groggy and lack energy, but it is amazing what 15-20 minutes of running in the morning will do for your day.

This is what I recommend. First, if you are over the age of 20 you should probably check with a doctor before you start an exercise program, but I promise, he will be all for it!  If you are out of shape, first start by walk/walk about 3-5 minutes on and then walk for a bit and build up until you can run non-stop for whatever your target time is.  Even if you can run for 25 minutes straight, the first 5 minutes is still the hardest running time.

Next, find some method of weight training.  It could be pushups, sit-ups, etc, or you could get a pass to a gym.  I do weight training three days a week, usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  This method seems to work out best for me, and I get nine exercise sessions in a week (6 days a week running and 3 days a week weight lifting).  Here are some fitness websites:

Bodybuilding

workoutz

Posted in Confronting the Culture, Examine the Word, Interacting with Youth, Ministry | 5 Comments »

Filling the Empty Cup

Change never happens in the absence of conflict, and ministry never occurs in a vacuum.  I recall frequently coming home late from various ministries and being tired and worn out.  Some people are under the impression that if you go out to serve people by talking about God and teaching doctrines, you should become very on fire.  I do not see that in scripture.  Though there are some fun times, ministry is wearing on the body, the mind, and the spirit.  I first deeply noticed this at the end of my first week of camp counseling in 2005.  After six days, I sent these seven kids home and I was immediately overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of sadness for letting these kids go, and tiredness for finally having a moment of silence.  We see this same pattern in the life of our Lord.

A reading through any of the four Gospels will show us similar patterns, but I will outline parts from Mark because of the smaller size (not wanting you to read too much of course).  We read about numerous actions from Christ including the temptation, calling of the disciples, casting out demons, healing Peters mother-in-law, and them more healing and demon-outcasting.  In the 35^th verse of Mark 1, we read that Jesus woke up long before the sun was up and sought a solitary place to pray (Mark 1:35).  We see a lot of other ministry that Jesus did, mostly passing through towns, then He ministers to another large crowd at the time of feeding of the five thousand.  He sends the people away, and then sends the disciples across the sea and returns to a solitary place to pray (Mark 6:45-46).  There is much more ministry, conversations with the disciples, and then the very telling last time recorded in the book of Mark about His alone time in the garden in Mark 14:32-42 which actually records His prayer.  We see that Jesus retreats after times of intense ministry to pray.  It is these times that build us up.

I believe that this is the model that we need to have in our life as we minister to those around us.  I envision the ministry as the interaction of people with a cup.  Suppose that you are ministering to people.  You are like a cup that people are drinking out of.  As you minister, your cup starts to get empty.  Time alone with God will fill that cup up, time with people will cause it to drain.  If we find ourselves not filling our cup, we start to do ministry on our own power, which can accomplish something, but not what God has intended.

How to fill your cup

If I take all of this time to motivate you to fill your cup, I had better give you some ideas on how.  The first that comes to mind is to renew your mind with the Word of God.  I like to read the Bible at least one time a year as an overview, and then actively study something in the scriptures more closely.  If you read three chapters of the Bible a day, you can finish it in one year.  Six gets you twice through, etc.  In addition to the quick read, I like to study other books in greater detail by reading it more carefully and also reading books by other people and how they have studied that book.  This can be a book on a general topic or a commentary.  The Bible is the first great place to start.

Next, modeling prayer after Christ is a good thing to do.  Getting some regular, daily, and alone-time prayer is a great personal booster.  We in America tend to pray when things get bad in our lives, when things do not work out.  However, if you re-examine the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, you will see that prayer is far more about forming our will to God, rather than getting things from Him.  Set aside some regular time to pray and conform your life and attitudes to the will of God.

Finally, I would also add listening to great sermons throughout the week.  If you came from the background that I did, you will not grow quickly in Christ by listening to one teaching on the Word of God a week.  I grew the most when I was listening to many sermons a day by a variety of different pastors.  If you do not have a list of favorites, check out oneplace.com for some ideas.  Using a combination of prayer, studying the word, and listening to other people’s teaching will grow you in Christ by leaps and bounds.  Fill up your cup!

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Youth are Still Kids, Not Autonomous Adults!

I do a lot of work in the tech field.  I can fix computers, build home networks, write webpages, and do graphic design.  My current day job consists of many of these elements.  I am also expanding my skills (a concept that I think everyone should do), so I was doing a few internet searches for tutorials on doing some specific work on Adobe Illustrator when I encountered a tutorial on how to draw an emo kid.  I looked at that photo for a while and I thought about the pain behind the child.  Granted, I am looking at a cartoon drawing, but it made me reflect back on my own years in middle and high school.  What is that draws kids to a sub-culture?  What sub-cultures are out there?  How are they evolving? How does this relate to the title of this post?  These questions, and more, I will address.

Looking for Love

At the core, kids are looking for love.  Studies show that a girl who grows up in a home without a father lacks male affection and she tends to reciprocate by getting sexually active at a younger age to find that male affection that her heart was made for.  One teenager recently told me that dating was like a status symbol for girls in middle school now.  We are hard-wired for love (Genesis 2:18-24, Matthew 22:37-39), created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-29).  At the bottom line, all kids are looking for love, and that usually means time, and meaningful conversations.  It is true even in our day of media, movies, and entertainment.

What usually happens is that little kids (babies to about five) get all sorts of attention, they are so ‘cute’  but as they grow up and gain more independence (6-12), parents pay less and less attention to them.  Once they become a teenager, they are as tall of the parent; they have underarm hair, and develop a deeper voice.  And at this stage, many parents just let them be who they are, mom and dad stop paying attention, let the teen do what they will with very little input, or very little attempt to enter their world.  This is a mistake.

Teens will rebel outwardly about mom or dad wanting to know what they are doing, but inwardly, it is what they truly crave.  Not total control, but trust, and trust comes from love.  And love is expressed by time and meaningful conversation.  I can recall one such conversation.  I wrote about it a journal in 2004.  I was just starting to get involved in Big Brothers program, I had not yet met my first little, but I was starting to open my eyes to ways on how to communicate with kids.  I remember being at a small group event and spending over 35 minutes talking to a kid that was about 8 or 9 years old at the time.  The usual parental idea of a kid at this age would be described as fidgety, wanting to run off and play or watch a movie, but this kid sat down for a long while and talked.  He talked about interests, amusement parks, even some of what he wanted to do with his life.  I learned over the years of working with kids and teens that what they truly want is someone to talk to that does not judge there position and have an answer for everything.  I recently read an article about Millennials that echoed these personal observations of mine.

Sub-Cultures

As parents pay less and less attention to their kids and teens, the kids break into friend groups.  The expression “Birds of a feather flock together” is the manta here.  Kids will automatically segregate by music styles, clothing, interests, etc.  You will find that bad kids associate with other bad kids, good kids associate with other good kids, athletes associate with other athletes and so on.  This is the birth of the subcultures.

In my own middle and high school years, we only had a few groups, though a few more were starting to immerge.  Our middle school had what we referred to as preppies, jocks, and outcasts/head-bangers.  I fit into the latter category.  We were mostly defined by long or scruffy hair, slashed jeans, heavy metal T-shirts, and leather jackets.  Basically, if we did not fit into other groups, and we did not have a goal in life, we were here, and we started to look the part.  It is very true what the scripture says, where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained (Proverbs 29:18).  I think to the eighth grade when we started to make those distinctions ourselves.  Our little group consisted of myself, Mike, Spring, Bryan, and a few others.  Mike committed suicide after battling heroine addiction at the age of 20, Bryan has also died, but I do not know how, I can not find any information about Spring, but I have emerged, learned the lessons of the past sub-culture, and carry some of the hurt of those days in my heart.  My sub-culture was not good for me.

Kids dive into these sub-cultures because they are looking for affection.  If they can not find it at home, they look for it among their friends.  Thus, a group is born.  Now, the groups have evolved a little bit, mostly among the outcasts.  The jocks and preppies are still around (just ask any kid that does not fit in well), but now we have goth, emo, skater, and a few others.  Usually it is sadness that drives youth into these groups, and it is the social-outcasting that happens which keeps them in.  As I tell one youth over and over: Even if you are not doing something bad, if you take on the appearance of people that are associated with doing bad things, you will be accused as well. Once the youth is accused, they may start to follow suit.  The sad thing is, sometimes this is the only time kids get attention, negative attention it may be.

Time

Kids spell love ‘T-I-M-E’.  You can say that you love your kids, but if you do not spend time with them, get into their lives, hang out, do things they want to do, it can send a double message, or what the psychology field will call a ‘Double Bind’.  This means that your words are saying one thing and your actions are saying something different.  The best thing to do for your teenager is to spend time with them without judging they are, their appearance, or trying to solve all their problems.  Just hang out, learn who this young person is.  Only then will you be able to speak into their life and help them develop and achieve goals.

Scripture

The Bible has only one commandment for young people, though the specific ages are debated on.  Kids have to obey their parents, so that places all responsibility for their behavior on the parents, or else on the child only in the position of disobedience.  Parents are accountable to teach their kids how to live a live that pleases God, but they are given more specific commands not the exasperate their children (Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21).  Your teens are still young people, inexperienced in life, and need of direction.  They are craving time from you, and will eventually let you speak into their life with your experiences.  Spend time with them, love them, give them rules and stick to those, but do not anger your kids with unpredictable behavior, give them guide rails and stick to it.

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Keeping Up with the Children

I love working with youth, I have done it for many years, I have worked with over 200 kids by name, seventeen weeks of summer camps, four years of club programs for boys, four weeks of Vacation Bible School, three years of weekly Sunday School, and five years of mentoring in Big Brothers, Big Sisters, plus a few other scattered programs here and there.  I know the hearts of kids, and I seem to have an incredible gift of interacting with kids.  I am afraid for the children of the world.  I would like to explain a little bit about why and how I came to write this article.

I have collections of hundreds of sermons, and due to donations to many different ministries, I am given free sermons all the time.  Over the last year, I have accumulated a few sermons that have spoken to the issue of raising kids in our modern world.  This article actually comes from just listening to the most recent sermon on this topic entitled “Is Technology Helping or Hurting our Kids?” by Chip and Ryan Ingram.  So that I do not keep you wondering, there are many great aspects of technology, so I am not going to deliver a message that says to avoid it, that is foolish, but I would like to give some guidelines on how to keep your kids safe with the technology that they do have.

Scared for Myself

I was raised as one of the first generations to commonly not have a father in the home.  That had a lot of impact of my life, and not for the positive.  Some of the long-lasting effects that it had on me was a low self-image and lots of anger.  My home was very turbulent, but even still, there was still a level of control in the home, even though my mother worked many hours and left us unsupervised.  Even still, I had very little supervision growing up, no real boundaries, and lots of negative influences.  In fact, my mother did ignorantly move us away from a city where I lived as a child so that the influences would not reach us through adolescence.  The first summer we moved to the small, but affluent town, we had learned how to shoplift.  Problem: A change in scenery rarely changes the view!

I grew up hating God and people, running from one sin to the next, and the rest of my story can be found elsewhere.  My main point here is that I ended up in a very bad place both emotionally and spiritually. We had very few influences in our lives that were bad in those times.  We had MTV, and any cassette tape we could sneak into the house that my mother did not approve of.  If we wanted pornography, it was a hard search to find it.  The world feeds the sin nature that is within us, but understand that we are sinners by nature and that means that the outside influences will impact our personal lives. As parents, you need to understand that the world is not the same as it was when you were the age of the youth today.  We must be careful.

Scared for the Youth

The main reason that I am scared for youth in this world is that the sin nature is still within them, but we are now in a post-Christian, post-modern world where kids are encouraged to think down dangerous paths devoid of morality, while simultaneously, having uncontrolled access to the entire world at any time.  The worst part is that in our youthful days, it took a lot for us to ruin our lives, now, it can be done very quickly, and in the ‘safe’ privacy of our own homes.  Let me scare you silly with what I mean.
Today, everyone in America has access to the internet.  I almost wrote the world ‘almost’ but that would not be accurate because everyone can use a public library and public libraries in our country have internet access.  Most free speech interpretations prevent the libraries from filtering content (though fortunately, many of them do).  Further, the internet can be reached from most video game consoles (wii, xbox360, PS3), many IPods and mp3 players, cell phones.  Even televisions are coming with wireless receivers and are internet ready.  From the internet, it does not take much creativity to find inappropriate things.  The internet is easy access to anything and everything, good or bad, and it does not have a conscience of it’s own.  Do not assume that your kids are being good and not looking at inappropriate things.  They have both a sin nature, and far more technosavy than most adults.  I am not trying to paint them as totally evil, but understand that the average age that a child starts to view pornography in this country is now as low as age 8!  The internet can be a great tool, but it can also be very dangerous.

Devices that can access the internet are not the only problem.  Ted Bundy, the serial sex killer, gave an interview with Jim Dobson before his execution.  This was many years ago, but in that interview he says that the programming on cable television now [in the year 1989] is programming that would not be shown in an adult theater only a few years earlier.  Since that interview, television has gotten so bad that many of the ‘cartoons’ are full of open sexuality, the programming that is designed specifically children is either mind-numbing or still inappropriate (From Disney, ICarly, Suite Life on Deck, Wizards of Waverly Place to name a few all have young teens pursuing dating and making a status symbol of a first kiss; which is of course performed on the camera).  In short, the programs that most kids are watching are full of sexual references, inappropriate garbage, and things that assist in depleting any fiber of morality left within them.
I am scared for the youth of today, but we can indeed fight back.

How to Fight Back

First and foremost, the best protection for your kids is love.  If you love them and trust them, grace will slowly win over their heart and they will likely become open to communication with you.  That is the ultimate key.  If kids know that they are loved, have boundaries, and can talk to you without your judging their thoughts or culture, you will open the doors to communication and earn the right to speak into their life (many parents think that they can speak into their child’s life because they gave birth.  Do not fall into this error, if you want to be respected you must earn it).  In my experience, many kids do what they want because parents see the kids as autonomous adults.  They look like adults, they are as tall as you if not taller, so you let them go, and then freak out when they mess us.  You need to model the love, you need to model the care, and you need to model the regulation of media influences yourself. Overall, the best protection for your young person is that you spend time, and a lot of time, with them, and make sure that they know how loved they are.  Make the connection that you are acting as a guardrail when they are a teenager.  You are letting them make decisions that are age-appropraite, but you are keeping them on the right path and not letting them go over the cliff.

Next, you need to enter their world.  They may not like that, but you should certainly lovingly know where they are going and go where they are going.  Have you first talked to your kids about negative influences in the world and what long-term impact they will have?  That is key, but it is not the end-all.  Kids are not usually forward-thinkers, they are now-thinkers which means they will be caught up in the emotions of their friends.  So you need to do some checking up on them.  Not snoopishly, but respectfully.  Make sure that you know all of the passwords to all of the accounts that your kids have.  Go onto their facebook from time to time and see what is going on.  Be sure to reward and compliment good behavior, and discuss bad behavior.  If your kids do not respond to discussion, restrict access for a while.  This applies to all accounts and devices.  If they have an mp3 player, borrow it, place it on random and listen.  If they have a phone, be sure to pick it up from time to time and check over the contents.  Enter your child’s world and let them know you are their for them.

Youth usually are very social (even the introverted ones).  Make sure that they have their friends over often, learn who they are and have meaningful conversations with your child’s friends.  As a general rule, your kids will mold into the behaviors of their friends and vice-versa.  If two kids spend lots of time together, they will end up must like each other, and usually conforming more to the worst behavioral standard of the two kids.  This is because of that sin nature within us, and also the fact that two kids are trying to show who is cooler, mostly by demonstrating who is worse (have you ever seen kids brag about the good things they have done?)  If you know your kids friends, you will invariably learn more about your child, too.

Concluding Remarks

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting some articles on protecting your kids in our world.  I have included some resources below that have helped me to understand a lot of the problems, and how to interact with kids.

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Give Your Money…Give Your Life

Once again a book crosses my path that made me think a little bit, and even reflect on my past, contemplate my present, and plan my future.  I read a book on money!  I have read the Christian argument for giving from every possible angle in the Christian circles.  Some people will quote lots of Old Testament passages like Malachi 3:8-12 and other related ones and say that God absolutely commands that you give 10% of your income or else you may not even be a Christian.  Some people say that giving is not even required to live a Christian life.  Like most other doctrines the truth lies somewhere in between these two poles.

Before I get into the specific book, I want to outline briefly what I believe the key doctrine of giving actually is.  We first note that the ‘tithe’ arises in the Bible as early as Abram giving 10% of the spoils of war to Melchizedek, king of Salem, Priest of the Most High God (Genesis 14:17-24).  Of course there is not any other reference of Abraham giving a tenth of all of his possessions or earnings to God.  We notice that sacrifices are as early as Cain and Able, but no percentages are given (Genesis 4:3-5).  Jacob offered God ten percent of his earnings IF God would be with him (Genesis 28:20-22).  I would not derive a mandatory ten percent giving from these.

Next, we have the Levitcal Law.  The law mandated to give certain amounts at specific times which amounted to about 23% of increase from the land to be given to the priests, but understand that these were made to the governmental concerns of the country.  Since I could write an entire article just on this topic, I would rather refer to John Macarthur’s advice on this matter here.  It all boils down to all governmental giving is mandatory while all giving to God is voluntary.

The chief controversy is in the fact that giving to God is always voluntary, but always leads to blessing.  I am not preaching a health and wealth gospel, but rather, the truth that God is not mocked.  As you sow, so shall you reap!  The best New Testament concept on giving comes from the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:6-8:

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;

God blesses the cheerful giver, but we have too many churches these days that are trying to mandate giving.  I was even in a church a few years ago where the pastor said that “The Bible absolutely commands that you give ten percent of your income to the church.”  This was right before he passed the offering plates.  Obviously, this is not taught in the scriptures.  But giving of money is not the only type of giving; there is so much more at stake here.

The book, The Genius of Generosity, by Chip Ingram is a great book that covers the concept of giving, including what more is at stake.  Chip is able to gently discuss this topic without the legalism that is so common in the midst this discussion.  Chip starts by outlining a meeting with an elder in the church who was a very wealthy man named John.  John did not have the chance to meet the needs of people because of his demanding schedule as a partner in a firm, but he was able to give a large sum of money to Chip to use to fill needs that Chip saw in the course of daily ministry. Chip learned some valuable lessons from this arrangement, first, that all of our possessions actually belong to someone else, namely God.  By giving, we grow closer to God and to other people.

Far more than money, God calls us to be a steward in all areas of our life.  Money is the best way to illustrate the point because it is important to us as people.  We are a steward of our time.  Do you use yours in a way that honors God, or do you waste large chunks of time?  Even the house, the car, the computer, and all of own possessions, they all belong to God.  Are you using your possessions in a way that honors him?  All of these things are God’s way of testing us.  To illustrate this point, Jesus tells a parable about the ten talents in Matthew 25:14-30.  God is testing us with the small things to see if we can be trusted with the great things he has in store for our future.  Are you being a good and faithful servant?

There is a correct saying, “You can’t out-give God”.  God is the ultimate giver, and He gives to those that give (Revelation 22:12).  He looks at the test results of the hearts and minds of His children and chooses to bless the lives of the people that give the most.  Of note, God does not necessarily bless with the same currency.  You may give a lot of money, and never receive a penny back, but he will bless you in some way on the earth, and also, He will bless you greatly in Heaven.

The last chapter of the book answers the question of how God measures generosity.  Chip indicates that God measures the generosity of the gift by the amount of sacrifice that is produced.  Does your giving impact your lifestyle?  Does the money you give impact your personal spending?  Do your time and possession gifts get in the way of your selfishness?  That is what God is looking at.

Before I started to talk about this book, I said that the stakes are more than money.  That is so true, even in my own life.  Before I moved to Wyoming, I was a teacher for Sunday School, a youth group, a boys club, and I was also a member in several small groups, and a mentor in Big Brothers / Big Sisters in addition to helping younger recruits in the graduate program at school.  I can say that I sacrificed a lot of my time.  I did not have much money to give at that time as I was a graduate student, but my giving God the best portion of my time gave me more friends, family and blessings than I ever thought was possible for such a person as myself.  This book covers the concepts of giving from a Godly perspective.  Have a look at this or some of my other favorite Chip Ingram resources.

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Grace Among Us

We are all prodigals.  We run from Christ, righteousness, and holiness.  But in this message, unlike usual, I do not want to dwell on that.  I want to focus on the response.  In a way, this will be a review of a little book that I just received from John MacArthur entitled Grace for You, which is a summary of the A Tale of Two Sons: The Inside Story of a Father, His Sons, and a Shocking Murder.

In the book, MacArthur outlines the parable of the prodigal son, but adds a very well thought out twist to the story (you will need to keep reading for that).  The story starts out by discussing the sinner, and then moves onto a discourse on truth about the nature of sin.  After sin, MacArthur moves onto repentance, salvation, and complete restoration.  The final section is titled The Stately Sinner, which if I could retitle, I would call, “The Acceptable Sinner”.

As we embark in the well known parable found in Luke 15:11-32, we first note the sinner.  This punk kid basically says to his father, “I wish you were dead!  Give me my inheritance.”  Fortunately, most of us do not give our inheritance to own kids who are likely teenagers (at least he acts like it in this parable), but this father does.  If you were raised in the church, you probably can not even imagine the sins that this kid committed.  He lived wastefully and extravagantly.  But he did so without having any source of income.  He ran out of money in his sin, and having nowhere else to go, he took on a job that was only detestable to his upbringing.  MacArthur says “When all attempts at avoiding sin’s payday are finally exhausted, the sinner truly hits rock bottom.”  In my difficult experience, only when you hit rock bottom can you truly look into that bright light and beg the Savior to grab your hand.

Repentance leads to salvation, and salvation leads to restoration.  When a sinner looks into his life truthfully and says, “I am a sinner, and I am unable to change that, and I so desperately want to change that….but I can’t” that is the point where Jesus steps in and salvation has been found.  When you recognize your inability over sin, and believe on Jesus Christ, you have found salvation.  When Jesus redeems you, you begin the process of sanctification.  It is this journey that is a combination of you and Christ together that leads to soundness in faith and also to restoration.  Once sin is atoned for and forgiven by God, it is grace that now enters.  Grace says that we understand that all of these other fellow humans are not perfect just as we are not perfect.  Grace frees us from the guilt of our sin, and opens us up to the Love of the Father.  It was grace that this prodigal received, and it is grace that causes us to be transformed more and more like Jesus.

But notice the older brother.  He was not full of grace, but rather hypocrisy.  He was angry that his father would honor this sinning brother, rather than happy for his return.  The very twist is that this parable is about the Pharisees who do not rejoice over the salvation of these sinners.  They do not want to give grace to the sinners.  Notice the stories, The woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-26), Anointing of Jesus (Luke 7:36-50).  There are many more examples.  Let us not be these Pharisees that point out the sins of others, but rather, let us have the grace to love them.  For only through grace and love and people brought safely into the kingdom.

I would highly recommend this book, and I do look forward to reading the expanded version, A Tale of Two Sons: The Inside Story of a Father, His Sons, and a Shocking Murder, when I get the opportunity.

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Democratized Faith

This article has been on my heart for a long time, and I hope that it is as good as it sounds in my head.  For I fear that my time away from daily writing has deeply impacted my ability to clearly convey a point as poignant as this.  So what does the term ‘Democratized Faith’ mean?  This is a reference not to a political party (I do not care if you are a republican, a democrat, a tea-partiest, etc.) but rather, a not-so-well-known definition of the word democracy which stems to the ‘principals of social equality and respect to the individual within a community’ as it is defined in my American Heritage Dictionary.  The term refers to choices, and here in America, we have too many of those!  Of course, choices can be a very good thing.  We have the ability in our country to choose things that we like.  We can choose the type of car, the brand of car within that type, our computer operating systems, and styles.  We can choose the soft drink for lunch, in fact today I had Coke and then Dr. Pepper.  So we have many amoral choices, or choices that do not really matter.

The faith part of the title refers to how we live out our Christian lives.  Democratized faith is to hold strong to the moral root of our life in Christ even while we have to sojourn in this wicked land.  We have so many choices before us, do we have the faith to choose that which is right, not that which feels good.  Do we define our orthopraxy by the standard of truth in God’s Word, or by what feels good?  Are we babies and children in Christ, or are we adults?  Dave Ramsey says, “Adults devise a plan and stick to it; children do what feels good.”  I would have to say that looking out over most of American Christianity, there are indeed a lot of children running around and too few parents to guide the way via discipleship (sounds like our youth culture today, but that is a story for another day).

The topic of this article is a call to holiness and repentance.  In our age of democratized choices, we also have the choice in many respects to be immoral in this country without incurring the wrath of man (human government).  This is where we need to make an observation.  In the United States of past generations, this country was referred to as a ‘Christian Nation’.  Of course, not all people here were Christian, but the concepts in Christianity tended to rule in the legal system and ethics of the country.  But perhaps you have heard that we are now a post-Christian nation.  That means that our legal system, social ethics, etc, are not really guided by Christian principles.  Many politically charged Christians have a desire to legislate morality, but I submit that you can apply every Biblical principle to this country and you will not have made anybody one step closer to Christ.  You see, we are NOT saved by the law, but rather, by grace.  Does that mean that we go on sinning?  Heaven forbid!  We do not go on sinning, but we can not stop the pagan world around us from sinning, for we are bound to a different master than they are (See Ephesians 2).

So let us reconcile this:  In our culture, we can do a lot of things that Christ condemns and we will not fall under the judgment of the human authority.  Though for the believer, we will fall under the judgment of the Holy Judge, God the Father at the Bema seat.  So in effect, as a Christian, we are held to a higher law, a higher morality, one that transcends our culture and is guided by the spirit that is within us.  Does that mean that we picket the immorality around us?  Not necessarily.  You see, though I have in the past read that board members at McDonalds serve the homosexual community, that does not stop me from enjoying McDonald’s food on a limited basis.  And is it Coke or Pepsi that fund all of that evil stuff?  Well, I don’t know, I can’t remember, and it is honestly not a concern of mine as the world will end when the Father determines, and a pagan will be a pagan no matter what I do, and if we boycott of the immorality around us, we will have to end up secluding ourselves to a little Christian bubble and avoid all contact with that dirty evil stuff outside!  Let us not do that, let us serve the community by our standards, being in the world, but not of the world.

Let us preach the Gospel without words for a while.  Speaking to the community of non-believers that may be reading this article, I think that you all have ‘heard the words’ of the Gospel by hypocrites.  Now, we believers are still sinners, do not get me wrong, but as a believer, I need to hold my morality (not yours) to a higher standard.  And when you ask why I will not watch drunken sexual debauchery (like any Will Ferral movie), I will indeed be ready to give an account for the hope that is within me with my words!

So now speaking to those Christians who are reading, please let the holy spirit in and let Him change your life.  Let Him guide your morality and choices.  Choose to do what is right, and avoid entertaining yourself with the things that Christ has died for.  According to Matthew 5, we are the salt and the light of the world.  The salt is like the salt found in beef jerky.  With it, it makes the shelf life of meat at room temperature almost infinite.  That is us; we increase the shelf-life of the culture, holding back the unrestrained evil that is so prevalent in our culture.  So a word to those whom would like to legislate morality, are you perfect?  According to James, whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles at any one point, he is guilty of all.  So do not be quick to make the Christian principles law unless you are willing to give up the sin that is being pumped into your television set every day.  Second, we are the light, and that is the light which points out sin (which we will not point out in our actions if we are doing it (See John 3)), but rather, we are to live a holy life in this culture to show the way to Christ through Godly living.  Only then will the people around us be interested in what we say.

In our culture, we have choices upon choices.  We have choices that are moral, amoral, and immoral.  Let us, as professing believers, seek only that which is moral, or non-consequential.  Let us run from the immorality that is around us and choose to live pure in an impure culture.  Let us preach the Gospel with our actions and let the words be the by-product of our Godly living.  Then we might have a church that is as deep as it is wide.

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