The Bullet of Fellowship: Look to the Perfect Head not the Imperfect Body

The non-church crowd is ridiculous in their two-faced attacks. (At least those who do criticize, some non-church folks couldn’t care less.) On the one hand, they criticize the church if we let sinners of all breeds in … cursers, drinkers, gossipers, selfish types, immoral, etc. … because we have “hypocrites” in the church then. All healing is not instantaneous. When one “joins” the church he doesn’t immediately leave all his sinful ways behind him. A boy with a broken leg isn’t healed the minute he sees a doctor or a woman with mental problems who sees a psychiatrist.

On the other hand, if the church folks try to keep “sinners” out and let only “the saints” in, they are accused of self-righteous, pious, holier-than-thou religion. All of us detest this.

What’s the answer? Truth! For the church not to welcome sinners is like a surgeon refusing to use his operating table or a lawyer refusing to see people who are in trouble or a hospital limiting its services to the well and healthy.

The church I’m a member of constantly fails to reach its goal. All other churches I know of fail with us. But we do have a goal! Jesus Christ! What’s yours?

The Bullet of Fellowship: Looking for Reasons to Avoid the Church

The older and wiser (?) I get the more I appreciate King David when he prayed, “Give me understanding that I might find life!” (Psalm 119:144). One of the greatest stupidities of human existence is the destruction of one another through war, hatred, gossip, bitterness and unthoughtful, malicious criticism.

Continuous denouncements and charges against the church are excellent illustrations of man’s unloving judgment. I am always hearing the same old lines, “I’m not coming to your church because member so-and-so cusses,” or “I know Deacon Pious and he’s a hypocrite,” or “I’ll not go to your church because I know one of your members who’s having an affair, so don’t expect me to take Christianity seriously,” or still yet, “Preacher Blotz is too cocky so I’ll never listen to him!”, etc., etc.

By the non-church-goers’ standards, it would seem that no one should be in church unless they are perfect. What folks don’t seem to understand is that the church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners. The only perfect Man who ever lived was rejected by the crowds then and it would be the same if Jesus walked on earth today.

The church is nothing more than a spiritual hospital for the spiritually sick. Some folks don’t think they’re sick but in reality they are. I have known dozens of folks who refuse to see the doctor for fear he’ll find something wrong with them and put them in the hospital.

The Bullet of Authenticity: Focus on the Truth not the Lable

I recall a University student who came to my office for counseling about joining our church. He said his mother was hesitant because they had always been Methodists. I told him if God was leading him to be a part of our fellowship what difference does a label make? They are all “temporary” anyway. There are no man-made labels in Heaven.

If God would lead this young man to be a part of our church, he would give up nothing of what God gave him and taught him while a Methodist. Christ measures His truth to the hearts that seek, not to the labels we possess! At the same time, “taking the label” of the church I pastored would not guarantee a deeper walk with God.

There is a dynamic woman in our town who is a happily married mother. She wears the label of Catholic and possesses a joyous, rich, contagious faith in Jesus Christ. I wish I had “twelve” of her in my own church! What an asset she would be! She puts some Baptists I know to real shame! She is a prime example that there is no power in labels. God above gives power to those who love truth.

Real disciples see to it that every touch on another human life points forward to Christ and not backward to a label of the past. The mature are not misled by labels. They also taste the true wonder of heaven a little in advance!

The Bullet of Authenticity: What is in a Name?

What is God going to do about denominational labels when “the true believers” arrive in heaven? I believe the answer to that question is that He will ignore them! The reality of what we are when we stand before God (and all of us shall) will not be determined by the labels we wore on earth but by the truth that possessed us in our living.

I am not against labels … even denominational ones! They help and they are necessary. But we must see them as a place of beginning rather than a conclusion. When I was a boy I developed a dislike for the child stare, Shirley Temple. To me she was just a prissy little girl who adults bragged on too much. In my immature resentment toward her I also included the name Shirley. It became my least liked female name! Never did I dream that I would fall in love with and marry a beautiful young woman named – you guessed it – SHIRLEY!

Too many of us blame a good label for the less than good people who have impacted our lives negatively! One bad Baptist, or Catholic, or Doctor, etc., doesn’t say a thing about the other thousands … only about the one. A label is only an indication of where a person has come from and not where he or she is going. The labels of our past should have little or no power over the goals of our future.

Bullet of Meaning: Content is More Important than Labels

In our last post we looked at the shorthand of labels. Today let’s dig deeper.

I know one thing for sure. A label doesn’t always guarantee contents. Pour a Dr. Pepper into a Coke bottle and it’s still Dr. Pepper! But there is a vast and enormous difference between God and Dr. Pepper! The bigger the idea, the less effective is the label. It’s a simple matter to label a thing; label a six-inch-long piece of wood that makes marks as a pencil. When you’ve said, “pencil,” you’ve said it all. It’s impossible, however, to reduce God to a label. Pour Him into a Baptist label, Methodist label, Catholic label or what have you, but you can never say it all. God is too big to label. Try to define “love” in one word! You can’t! Love is too big, too involved, too great to describe even in a book, much less a one-word label.

I’ve born a lot of religious labels in my life, but none of them has had any power. Power doesn’t come from labels but from reality. I’m sure most true believers wish they could drop their man-made labels and be known simply as Christians who love Jesus Christ. But, alas, it looks like labels are here to stay.

So, what’s the answer? Labels are only for the mature. The wise person examines the contents before he believes the label. Some Presbyterians are great Christians, other are mediocre and nauseous. Some Baptist live like Christ while others live like the devil. The real disciple will look beyond his label and make Jesus Christ the issue. It makes little difference what label you bear unless God’s lifestyle is evident in your actions. The issue is not labels but contents!

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Jesus said that to everybody, regardless of their labels.

The Bullet of Meaning: Labels are a Shorthand to Meaning

All men and all things carry labels. The dictionary definition of a label is “something attached to show contents.” In other words, labels are attached to show truth, save time and make for better communication. But even labels have to be understood. If I asked you for your first thought when I said, “Buick,” what would it be? Buick is simply a label for a car made by General Motors in the middle to high price class. But the Buick label means something different to everyone. Most of us would think of a Buick we had owned (hardtop or station wagon, green or blue, etc.) or, perhaps, the nut who ran the stop sign last year and crunched in the side of your car (in his Buick)! The Buick label for me brings the immediate thought of the 1939 Buick in which I learned to drive in the late forties. (I guess that really dates me!)

Labels for cars, shoes, drinks, football teams, watches, etc., might tend to be confusing at times, but when one attempts labels in religion, it is a nightmare. The labels of Methodist, Assembly of God, Baptist, Catholic, Church of Christ, Presbyterian, non-denominational, charismatic, Lutheran, Episcopalians, etc., mean very little until the contents of what a person really believes is examined. I know Presbyterians who believe like Pentecostals and Assembly of God folks who live and believe like Episcopalians. I have a friend who says, “We Methodists just believe in backsliding, but you Baptists practice it!” Frankly, I never thought I’d be a Baptist. I couldn’t stand them – or should I say, I didn’t care for the few I met who identified themselves! I attended Catholic parochial school as a child, was a member of the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) for ten years, joined the Presbyterian Church for seven years and graduated from Southern Methodist University (a Methodist school). My mother was raised in the Church of Christ and my dad was an Episcopalian. I’ve decided I’m either thoroughly confused or have a fantastic background. (I hope it’s the latter!)

In our next post, we will dig deeper into the meaning of religious labels.

The Bullet of Happiness: Total Satisfaction in Jesus

If a man is to find reality and abundance, he must limit himself to the great priorities, to the “Pearl of Great Price,” to a love that never fails, to something or someone to put his whole soul into that will not disappoint.

The world’s options are a cataract of nonsense. There is no way any of us can get in on all the fun or deviations unbelievers call “meaning.” Even the longest human life can only begin to explore the avenues of knowledge and pleasure.

The Gospel of Jesus says to work, suffer and wait now, for His kingdom will come. The philosophy of unbelief says take it all now for there is no future! We must commit ourselves to one or the other!

The Scripture declares that “When people follow their own thoughts, they walk in ways that are not good” (Isaiah 65:2).

The Father says His ways are not like our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:6). The “way out” of all the confusion and bewilderment is to choose the way of God. Jesus said, “I am the Way.” Those who strive to follow Him have found that He is really there!!

The Bullet of Happiness: No Satisfaction in Things

We are living in an age of intolerable diversity. There is no way any of us can fully respond to the maddening deluge of information, commercials, inventions and “opportunities” that bombard our senses. More has been accomplished in our lifetime than all the other civilizations in history put together. Yet, frustration and boredom seem to dominate the emotions of men and women rather than contentment and excitement.

Sociologists reported a few years ago that at the beginning of the twentieth century the average American wanted seventy-two things and considered eighteen of them important. Fifty years later the want list had risen to four hundred ninety-six, of which ninety-six were considered “necessary” to happiness. Only God knows how rapidly these figures are climbing! Things we used to consider “nice to have” have become “have to have.”

Yet, with all this “getting” there is no power to enjoy. Joy comes only from God, the Father, and, when our affections are not first on Him, all else will fade to emptiness. The Scriptures tell us that preoccupation with material things will prompt God to give us “leanness of soul” (Psalm 106:15) and that He will take away our “power to enjoy” the things we possess (Ecclesiastes 5:19 and 6:1-2).

America the Good

The founding father’s knowledge was empowered by their virtue and that of the great majority of the American people. In his presidential farewell address, George Washington, our nation’s greatest citizen, stated, “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

Today virtue has been redefined out of existence. Thousands of mindless and self-serving Americans are seeking to blur the distinction between right and wrong. The “anything goes” philosophy produces a life where “nothing helps!”

This crisis of character in our children results from the spiritual and moral decline among our nation’s adults and the breakup of our nations’ homes. To return to the greatness and vision our forefathers, we must return to their emphasis on knowledge of truth and virtue of character.

Spiritual and moral excellence must become American’s first priority. James Madison put it this way: “We have staked the whole future of the American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future … upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

These words concerning Israel over 3,400 years ago are fit commentary for our nation’s slide from virtue: “They forgot God, ignored His counsel, gave into their cravings, and rejected His leadership. So God gave them all they wanted but sent leanness and a wasting disease to their souls” (Psalms 106:13-15)

It’s not too late! American’s moral and spiritual strength depends on the moral and spiritual strength of each individual. The choices you make can turn the tide.

Photo Credit: A Fourth of July fireworks display at the Washington Monument, 1986, taken by SSGT. Lono Kollars.

America the Free

America, despite her weaknesses, despite her failures, stands firm as the most successful experiment of human government since the dawn of civilization. Beginning with the Declaration of Independence, establishing herself with the Constitution and securing her people with the Bill of Rights, America has provided more stability and protection for her citizens than any other competing system of government.

One of my finest international friends is Paul Pillai of India. A moral and spiritual giant, he heads one of the most effective forces for Christianity in that chaotic nation of over 400 million. Paul once told me, “What is good anywhere else in the world is better in America. What is bad in America is worse everywhere else.”

Alexis de Tocqueville’s perspective on the young American republic was stated as, “America is the place where the Christian religion has kept the greatest power over men’s souls; and nothing better demonstrates how useful and natural it is to man, since the country were it now has the widest sway is both the most enlightened and the freest.”

America owes her greatness to two essentials – knowledge and virtue. When James Madison arrived at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he carried with him a manuscript he had compiled entitled, “Of Ancient and Modern Confederacies.” It was a study of governments from the Greeks to a “modern” attempt in 1579. He had done his homework. From this framework our founding fathers hammered out a system of government, though in need of refinement and stabilization, that would amaze the world with its genius!