The Bullet of Personality: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Part Two, The Message

The power of his great voice is lost to us today, yet his message is as clear and resonant as ever. The following is a brief excerpt from one of Spurgeon’s motivational sermons, “Joseph Attacked by the Archers.” In this sermon Spurgeon recounts the struggles of the great Old Testament hero who, though often attacked by circumstances he could not control, circumstances that put him in the pathway of shame, despair and even death, kept his heart and mind fixed on his Creator. Spurgeon shows us how God used Joseph’s devotion to purity and righteousness, even in the face of impending doom, to bring glory to Himself and bring blessing to many nations. Our hope is that this excerpt will encourage you to face the archers who attack you, and will challenge you to stand firm in the battle we wage daily against the enemies of our Almighty God.

Joseph’s enemies were archers. “The archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.” (Genesis 49:23-24)

Ah! friends, some now present know this verse by heart, “the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him.” Expect it; do not think it a strange thing; all God’s people must have it. There are no royal roads to heaven – they are paths of trial and trouble; the archers will shoot at you as long as you are on this side of the flood.

“The arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the might God of Jacob.” First, notice, concerning his strength, that it was real strength. It says, “the arms of his hands,” not his hands only. You know some people can do a great deal with their hands, but then it is other fictitious power; there is no might in the arm, there is no muscle; but of Joseph it is said “the arms of his hands were made strong.” It was real potency, true muscle, real sinew, real nerve. It was not simply sleight of hand – the power of moving strength; it is not a boasted valor, a fiction, a thing of which men talk, an airy dream, an unsubstantial unreality, but it is real strength. I should not like to have a combat with one of God’s Josephs. I should find their blows very heavy. I fear a Christian’s strokes more than any other man’s for he has bone and sinew, and smites hard. Let the foes of the church expect a hard struggle if they attack an heir of life. Mightier than giants are men of the race of heaven; should they once arouse themselves to battle they could laugh at the spear and habergeon. But they are a patient generation, enduring ills without resenting them, suffering scorn without reviling the scoffer. Their triumph is to come where their enemies shall receive the vengeance due; then shall it be seen by an assembled world that the “little flock” were men of high estate, and the “offscouring of all things” were verily men of real strength and dignity. Even though the world perceive it not, the favored Joseph has real strength, not in his hands only, but in his arms – real might, real power. O ye foes of God, ye think God’s people are despicable and powerless; but know that they have true strength from the omnipotence of their Father, a might substantial and divine. Your own shall melt away, and droop and die, like the snow upon the low mountain top, when the sun shines upon it, it melted into water; but our vigor shall abide like the snow on the summit of the Alps, undiminished for ages. It is real strength.

The Bullet of Personality: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Part One, The Man

“A burning and shining light has suddenly burst upon the moral world.’ Charles H. Spurgeon struck our atmosphere like a meteor – accepting Christ as his Savior at the age of 16, pastoring a significant church in London at 19, and preaching to audiences of 10,000 at the ager of 21; Spurgeon, after a mere 22 years on this earth, became the most popular preacher of his day.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Essex, England in 1834; 1 year after slavery in England had been abolished. His preaching and writing often reflected his fury against social injustice and prior to America’s civil war, his utter condemnation of slavery resulted in an almost total boycott of his works in the United States.

In England, however, thousands came to know Christ though his preaching. The richness of his voice rolled into his listener’s ears like the waves rolling on the shore. Yet his power never overshadowed his message of truth and crowds flocked to hear him preach for thirty years.

The Bullet of Obedience: Obeying God is Always Smart

Jesus Christ didn’t “feel” like going to the cross, but He obeyed the Father and went anyway. The illustration for us is clear, obeying God whether you fell like it or not is not hypocrisy, but plain old obedience.

A woman told me recently that she couldn’t stand another woman in her office and wasn’t going to act like she lover her or even liked her. The Bible’s answer to this is that God commands love for everyone! To love when you don’t feel like loving has nothing to do with hypocrisy, but everything to do with believing God.

One of your biggest problems as finite human beings is obedience to our feelings, rather than obedience to the unfailing promises of God. Obeying God whether you feel like it or not is not hypocrisy, it’s just smart! And one more thing, it always brings gladness and peace!

The Bullet of Obedience: Even Hypocrites Can Be Obedient

My dictionary defines hypocrite as a person who affects virtues or qualities he does not have. In other words, he knowingly pretends to be what he is not …or to put it another way, he thinks he is what everyone else knows he’s not. Two or three exciting things emerge from these definitions. First, it is possible to genuinely believer you are batter than you are. The Pharisees really thought they were righteous, but Jesus called them hypocrites! Secondly, I’ve never met anyone who lives up to all they say they believe; have you? All of us, if we’re truthful, have to admit our good intentions far exceed our accomplishments. Thirdly, obedience to God should be observed whether we feel like hypocrites or not. A man is not a hypocrite who goes against his feelings to be obedient to God’s commands.

This last point has tremendous implications for Christian living. I’ve had people tell me that they’re not going to pray, because they don’t feel like it and don’t want to be hypocritical about it. Likewise, I’ve heard the old excuse, “I don’t feel like going to church so I’d rather stay home than go and be a hypocrite.” Both of these statements are arguments rooted in ignorance. Hypocrisy has nothing to do with how you feel and everything to do with what you believe.

The Bullet of Truth: Aim High, You Hypocrite

The guy who hits town and says his big value in life is to be the town drunk doesn’t leave much room for evaluating his hypocrisy other than the degree to which he has succeeded in becoming a good drunk (HA!). On the other hand, a man who says his big value is being like Jesus Christ is opening himself up as a tremendous target for hypocrisy. The higher one sets his goals, the more apparent is his failure if he doesn’t reach them.

This is why the church crowd’s failures loom so much larger than most other folks. Their publicly confessed target in life is to live like Jesus Christ and when they miss it, everyone knows it. It seems to me that anyone with any sense would rather aim for the moon and hit an eagle rather than aim for an eagle and hit a rock. I’d rather aim at being like Jesus and come short than try to be the town drunk and succeed. All of us need to remember this when we meet our next hypocrite, in or out of church. And by the way, there are a lot of churches in town that would love to have you join them next Sunday. There’s always room for one more hypocrite.

The Bullet of Truth: Recognizing Our Hypocrisy

One of the most frequent charges leveled at Christians is that the church is full of hypocrites. As a pastor, I would agree. I would qualify as a candidate for chief hypocrite. My dictionary defines hypocrisy as pretending to be what one is not. I’m sure all of us would agree that no one is perfect (yet all of us have our times of thinking we are!) Therefore, if on one is perfect, all of us have our moments (minutes, hours, days?!) of pretense and imperfection. No one is totally what he claims to be or wants to be. Our reluctance to be honest about our failures and our attempts to cover up would classify all of us as hypocrites or pretenders.

Everyone pretends (or plays the hypocrite) in the concerns of life he values most. The woman whose passion is clothing or the man who is possessed with financial success will pretend that these values are more important than others. They will act accordingly. The real question concerning hypocrisy is not if you will be a hypocrite but what kind of hypocrite are you going to be? If pretense, imperfection and hypocrisy are inevitable in life, then we should at least strive to live our lives at the highest level of hypocrisy. This is exactly where Jesus Christ comes in with His liberation truth about sin and forgiveness.

In short, the teaching of our Lord says that man is a mess. But if he’ll admit his condition, respond to God’s love and aim for greatness, he will find increasing peace, purpose, pardon and power. Even though man’s problem of hypocrisy will continue to be with him on earth, it will be lessened if he will become a hypocrite for God rather than being a hypocrite for lesser and lower values.

The Bullet of Prayer: Offering Hope to Affect Change

We Christians are most hypocritical when it comes to prayer. An old but very pointed article recently came across my desk that probes our hypocrisy. Read on …

“Ever thought of the daily newspaper as a prayer list? It’s one of the best. A daily reminder of those who most need prayer. Tragedy on the front page? Pray for those involved! Someone’s house burned … victims in critical condition in the local hospital … PRAY! Auto accident … two youths killed? Identify with their parents’ agony and pray for them in their need. You might even write them a note telling them of your prayer … or visit them, offer you love and support.

Public officials are always in the news and whatever our political convictions, we ought to pray for them … more than ever if they are in trouble! After all, praying for those in government is not optional. We are mandated by the Word of God to pray for ‘kings and all who are in high positions’ (1 Timothy 2:2).

If government is ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ … the people have a profound obligation to pray. It is conceivable that a failure of government can be laid as much at the feet of prayerless citizens as to incompetent or corrupt public servants.

Assuming you believe in prayer … can you imagine what a difference it would make if all who did use the daily paper as a prayer list? Millions would be mobilized simultaneously to pray for the same needs locally, nationally, and worldwide!”

Nothing destroys hypocrisy more quickly than the power of answered prayer!!

The Bullet of Prayer: The State of the World

We live in a hypocritical world. Most of us see our own lives as solutions and other people’s lives as problems. Fact is, all of us contribute to earth’s problems. Again, most of us are rarely the channel of solution.

It’s like football “fans” in the stands. They yell at the coach and “boo” the players if they do less than win. It’s idiocy! Imperfect people with imperfect knowledge demanding perfection on the field. Hypocrites!

Thursday, I will address how to change our troubled world and our hypocritical selves.

The Bullet of Victory: A Life That Counts, Win or Lose
Part 3

No matter how complete your game plan or how perfect your execution … some hits, setbacks and even defeats are inevitable. We have many enemies in life and we must learn that truth is the only way to victoriously adjust to their assaults. The greatest “player” in the drama of life was the Lord Jesus. He suffered many rejections and defeats, but they were all temporary. Why? Simple! His commitment to the truth, regardless of consequences, turned them all to permanent victory!

Those of us determined to pursue the God of the Bible should take more seriously the admonition of II Corinthians 1:5, “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” The event/project type of person will never know this satisfaction from suffering that comes to the process/purpose type of folks. We are learning the great gospel promise that all walls of defeat can be turned into new stepping stones to truth! Power to you my friend!

The Bullet of Victory: Teamwork, the Vital Ingredient
Part 2

A championship team must be a “cause” before it is a “project.” If our supreme purpose is to beat an opponent rather than to discover life for ourselves then we have missed the mark. So many people see life as a series of projects instead of a quest for meaning. Immature people are forever content to measure their lives by counting “activities attended.”

The mature recognizes that life on the deepest level is getting into God and people. Meaning, not success, is the true source of joy and fulfillment. Being a team is more important than winning a game if you take the long look. Being one with others (a team) reaps far more benefits than victory in a brief and fleeting athletic contest. The hooker here is that the “real team” usually wins over the “pseudo teams.”

The Bullet of Victory: Losing Can Be Valuable
Part 1

I remember a loss some time ago by one of the local football teams which served as a timely illustration of the realities of life.

The priority of life is to discover truth and not just to get your way. If we have some defeats in life our first purpose should be to discover “why” rather than moan about our weakness. Our greatest lessons about truth usually come out of our adversities rather than our victories. Ecclesiastes 7:2 puts it well, “You learn more about life from attending a funeral than from throwing a party!”

The process of life is more important than any single event. All of us will have some bad events take place in our lives, but bad events need not determine the outcome of our season or our lives. If truth is our main quest … truth about ourselves, our teammates, our world, our values, our goals … then all defeats are only temporary. Bad events can either make us bitter or make us better. It all depends on what we want to make of them. If we refuse to learn truth from our defeats then they become permanent!

The Bullet of Courage: Standing Up for What is Right

What unbelievable times we live in! The changes, confusion, chaos and challenges that face Believers in Christ are overwhelming! The information glut, AIDS, the militant homosexual movement, the abuse of children and the aged, abortion, racial tension, increased hostility everywhere in America against Christianity and Judeo-Christian values, media manipulation and bias, environmental pollution, crushing burdens of debt … both individually and nationally, the glorification of evil, the growth of humanistic materialism and the rejection of absolutes, drugs, weak and corrupt leaders, a despairing youth culture, pop music with major themes of rebellion and sexuality, euthanasia, etc., etc. … need I go on? (This list was originally compiled some years ago. You may think of others to add that were not apparent when it was first composed.)

Yet my heart beats with a new fervency to demonstrate to all the Master’s gift of “the peace that passes understanding!” What insanity we see being proclaimed as wisdom! Our government keeps taxing and spending as though money is the answer to our national deterioration! People are too dense (and too blinded by the demonic) to catch the relationship between moral bankruptcy and disobedience to the principles of God!

What an opportunity for the bold in Christ to reap a harvest! No time in human history have so many millions been in darkness grasping for light! Christians will either “cover up” (try to hide from facing responsibility), “come apart” (yield to the stress, pressures and panic) or “come alive” (grasp the promises of God and give yourself a joyous surrender to His purposes)!

One verse that speaks to me greatly is Micah 7:7, “Therefore, I will look to the Lord, I will wait (pray and obey Scripture) for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” I’m praying for a remnant of Christians to obey that verse and move us into triumphant spiritual battle!

The Bullet of Obedience: The Power of Commitment

I can still remember my first day on a summer job while in college. My initial assignment by the foreman was a back-breaking, dirty, sweaty and suffocating job. I “pretended” enthusiasm while hating the thought of it! In a few days though, my appreciation for the foreman, the praise of my fellow employees, the increase in my muscle strength after vigorous “exercise” and my own self esteem of doing a hard day’s work, turned pretense into commitment. I was no longer pretending. The work was just as hard, but I had “bought in” to the reality of the responsibility.

Those who live by the “Higher Loyalty” than “feeling,” “faking it” and “pretending” always overcome them. The Master didn’t “feel” like being beaten thirty-nine times with the Roman lash, but He wasn’t a hypocrite because he allowed it.

The Savior certainly wanted to pull back from the agony of crucifixion, but you can’t say He was “faking it” when He submitted. The Redeemer certainly didn’t enjoy hanging on a cross with spikes through His limbs for six hours, but you can’t accuse Him of “pretending” just because He went through with it!

I think I’ve grown up a little since discovering the above. I’m going to will to do what’s right in spite of reluctant feelings, accusations of faking it or questions of pretending. All three of these poisonous mental concepts will gradually be destroyed by “right action.”

The Bullet of Obedience: False “Because I Don’t” Reasoning

For years I allowed a popular theological notion to impede my progress, if not often stop my obedience to Jesus Christ! I could kick myself now for my stupidity and unreflective acceptance of error! I know you’ve heard it and been victimized by it in your own life. It goes like this:

I don’t really “feel” like praying, so rather than being a hypocrite I just won’t pray! Or, I don’t like her, so why “fake it” and act like I do? Or again, if my heart is not in going to church, I just stay home rather than “pretend.”

What utter nonsense! Yet how many of us have fallen victim to such false reasoning. Are feeling, pretending and faking it reliable terms when it comes to obeying Truth? I say NO! First of all, great achievers don’t live by their feelings! You’re not faking it, if you do what’s right! I remember the time I was the only “adult” present to clean up the vomit of one of my teenage campers. I hated it, but I did it! Was that faking it?

Third, all of us have been guilty of pretending. Yet we need to remind ourselves that pretending is usually the first step in doing something we don’t like until it grows on us!

The Bullet of Truth: The Goal is Goodness not Happiness

No Christian can live with meaning and power until he realistically embraces a philosophy of triumphant suffering. This doesn’t mean that we are to throw pity parties for ourselves or foolishly and passively accept a defeatist attitude. Far from it! Our obedience to the cross (Hebrews 5:8) reveals to us a glorious secret. Jesus Christ did not die primarily to make us happy but to make us good! A truly good man is destined for horrendous conflict in a basically evil world.

One of America’s foremost Christian psychologists, Dr. Larry Crabb, states the modern Christian’s most profound error, “They are frantically seeking relief from their problems rather than embracing the necessary painful change that will make them like Jesus Christ.”

I am convinced that there is a bedrock, key question that must be answered first if we are to unlock the keys to all the other questions of our lives. Here it is … we must make up our minds what kind of price we will pay and what pain we will endure to be obedient to Jesus Christ. All other issues hinge on that determination.

The Bullet of Truth: Choose to Strive

As I see it, most Christians and churches today, even those who proclaim to embrace the truth of Jesus Christ, are in slavery to “Babylonian” American images and values. The true person of God is called daily to break the bonds of captivity that prohibit him/her from being God’s total man or woman.

The men I know who are serious about the Master face tremendous mountains of opposition. We find ourselves battling for our homes, our wives, our children, our jobs, our churches, our country and often feel overwhelmed in the conflict by our own inner weaknesses.

During the Civil War the great Union General Sherman stated, “The beaches of history are bleached with the bones of those who at the moment of victory sat down to rest.” Even though American culture shouts to us to pursue the life of leisure and self-centeredness, we know that call is a lie. Life on earth for the followers of the true God is a life of conflict and battle. We cannot stop sin from doing its deadly work, but we can discover our own inner peace that “passes understanding” and work in the harvest to bring others to the joy of our light.

The Bullet of Destruction of Worry: Victory Over Circumstances

The majority of people who are chronic worriers make the ridiculous mistake of waiting in agony until the circumstances engulfing them change. This will never work. You must change the circumstances or change yourself to conquer the circumstances.

We will always have circumstances or, as the Latin puts it, “things that stand (stances) around (circa)!” A man is a fool to be “under” the circumstances when he can be “on top” of them. Our Lord was overwhelmed with tragic circumstances but not a single one conquered Him! He promises us the same kind of experience if our mind is not divided but set on life’s one great priority … the Kingdom of God! (Matthew 6:25-33).

Happiness is not a state of becoming. It is a state of being! You don’t acquire happiness. You assume it!! God loves me!! In Jesus Christ He offers me His kind of life. All of His riches … power, love, peace, joy, forgiveness … are mine … if I listen to Him and obey Him! The greatest discovery a person ever makes is when he begins assuming that Jesus Christ is right. Obedience to God’s commandments will revolutionize your life! His power to obey is available to anyone who asks Him. Have you ever asked Christ to be your Savior and Master? His Lordship is God’s cure for the divided mind!

The Bullet of Destruction of Worry: The Divided Mind

Worry is one of … if not the … greatest illness of modern man. Anxiety is as great a stress to one’s emotional health as too much exercise is to one whose body is out of shape. For example, ask a man who is in poor physical condition to do fifty push-ups and he’ll never finish. He will also be exhausted from the eighteen or twenty he completed! Worry … physically illustrated … is life trying to do fifty push-ups a day when you can only handle twenty. Exhaustion eventually disintegrates the emotional health. Worry is a subtle and deadly killer.

The word for worry in the Greek language is merimnao, composed of two words: merizo which means “to divide” and nous which means to “mind.” Worry is having a divided mind. The mind is divided between what is real and worthwhile as opposed to that which is empty and futile. If a person give himself only to what’s worthwhile and spurned the futile, then worry would cease! (Concern would continue, but there is a vast difference between worry and concern. Jesus was concerned but never worried!) Man’s dilemma comes in knowing and wanting what is real and worthwhile. Thousands of worldly options are being peddled, but Jesus Christ states that He alone can give us the ultimate lesson in reality and value. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). “Without Me there is no going! Without Me there is no knowing! Without Me there is no living!”

The Bullet of Creative Circumstances: All for Our Good
Part 4 of 4

The Father’s love for us and His purpose to make us like Christ are clearly visible in the problems that come into our life. These practices sessions in Christlikeness take on their proper significance when seen from this perspective. In the worst circumstances there is cause for rejoicing.

James 1:2-3 tells us to “count it all joy when testing and frustrating circumstances come our way, because these testings make us mature.” Paul further adds in Romans 8:28 that “all things (circumstances) will work for our good if we keep on loving God … seeking His purpose in everything!”

All of us will be tested by various circumstances! Let’s use them creatively and become more like Christ! That’s the reason the Father has allowed them into your life!

The Bullet of Creative Circumstances: Problems are Practice
Part 3 of 4

Coaches and orchestra conductors work with their players to improve their performance where it is inadequate. So it is with our Heavenly Father. In His purpose to make us great human beings like His Son, “He works us where we are weak.” He uses our blindness and the weaknesses of others to put us into circumstances that will develop our strengths, make us tough minded and grow us into “overcomers.”

If you have trouble loving people, He’ll see to it you are surrounded by unlovable people! Christ loves us even when we are unlovable. If you are exceedingly impatient, He’ll put you into a situation where you have no choice but to be agonizingly patient! We need to be as patient with others as God is with us!

A student who keeps putting things off is assigned three tests in three different courses for the same day. His laziness rebels, but, if he would discipline himself, he could do it! God loves a disciplined life … Christ learned obedience through His pressures (Hebrews 5:8).

If you are highly critical of other people, the Father will probably put you in a leadership position where other people will cut your weaknesses to pieces. We need to understand people’s problems before we ever consider criticizing them. God doesn’t criticize us because He understands!

The Bullet of Creative Circumstances: God at Work!
Part 2 of 4

It is at the point of changing oneself by using the circumstances creatively and constructively that the meaning of God’s purpose for one’s life should become clear! Those of us who have embraced Jesus Christ as our authority are called upon to put negative circumstances into proper focus. The ultimate purpose God has for each of us is to recreate us like Himself. The goal of life is to become like Christ (Romans 8:29). All other values are secondary to this purpose from the mature Christian’s point of view. Most human misery is caused because people devote their years and energies to inadequate goals of existence!

Now how does God create His character in us? Simple! He continually seeks to teach us to use our problems creatively. Illustration …. A football player who is having problems learning to block isn’t assigned extra passing drills by the coach! He works on blocking. A conductor who notes that the French Horns are playing one section poorly doesn’t work them extra hard on another portion they are playing right. He works them where they are weak!

The Bullet of Creative Circumstances: Recognizing the Problem
Part 1 of 4

Most of us make the frustrating and non-productive mistake of fighting our circumstances rather than using them creatively. I have know scores of people (I’ve not escaped the trap myself) who allow themselves to be depressed, discouraged and unhappy simply because of negative circumstances.

Let’s face it, we’ll never escape or change circumstances (from the Latin, “the things that stand around”). If you are surrounded by critical, negative people you have to realize that most probably they will not change to fit your ideas. Their prime purpose of existence isn’t to make you happy! Before one tries to change his circumstances he had better try to change himself! In fact, the only immediate control one has over bad circumstances is to instantly change himself by using the circumstances creatively and constructively.

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!

The Bullet of Marriage: Pursuing More

My own personal feeling is that my marriage has to be toward the top 10% of those that are successful, yet, I have a continual earnestness to excel even more. My own counseling experience and the testimony of scores of colleagues betrays the bitter truth that most marriages are characterized by the tragedy of “satisfied boredom!”

Our insane, blind, misguided and flesh-oriented culture shouts continually that physical ecstasy alone is to be pursued as love’s highest goal. This is the great lie perpetrated about love and marriage. What every husband and wife hungers for most is soul and spirit ecstasy. This unbelievable adventure can only ultimately be experienced when a husband and wife are one with another and one with God. That and that alone is the climax of marriage as God intended it to be.

Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead to give every marriage on earth his resurrection power. Oh, that husbands and wives would have the courage to return to the freshness of their initial love, to feed it with the Truth of God’s Word, to be honest about one another’s needs and to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit.

That hardest mountain a man is ever called on to climb is the one of triumphant intimacy with his wife. I hope you haven’t given up the climb … I haven’t, and although I’m not at the top, the view already is spiritually intoxicating!

A marriage can be the closest thing to heaven or hell on earth. I pray for each of my dear readers now strength for the climb. God’s plan is for the husband to be the primary initiator of a deeper relationship. Most men who are faithful to do this find their wives response exceeds their highest hopes.

Indescribably exhilarating of joy, purpose and fulfillment is the prize for those who keep climbing for the top of the mountain!

The Bullet of Marriage: God’s Plan

Next to knowing God, and provided that He has not given you the gift for the single life, the most thrilling and intoxicating experience on earth is God’s intention for husbands and wives.

As my knowledge of the Scripture deepens, as the years enrich my experience and as I taste more abundantly the power of the Spirit, the revelation of God’s fantastic plan for a man and woman literally blows my mind.

In Genesis 2:25 we read that Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed. This speaks of far more than the absence of clothing. God’s plan for husbands and wives was that they might experience a total openness, absolute honesty and soul transparency.

The explosive power of a man and wife who share a mutual vision, feed on one another’s love and who grow in soul oneness together can only be experienced and not defined.

The Bullet of Communication

In our last post we examined levels five through three of John Powell’s five levels of communication. Today we look at the last two levels:

“Level Two: My Feelings or Emotions.” Now the person shares how he feels about facts, ideas and judgments. The feelings underneath these areas are revealed. If a person is to really share himself with another individual, he must get to the level of sharing his feelings.

“Level One: Complete Emotional and Personal Truthful Communication.” All deep relationships, especially marriage relationships, must be based on absolute openness and honesty. This may be difficult to achieve because it involves a risk – the risk of being rejected because of our honesty, but it is vital for relationships to grow in marriage. There will be times when this type of communication is achieved and other times when the communication is not as complete as it could be.

Jesus Christ was the greatest communicator who ever lived. No one will ever learn to communicate without putting himself or herself under the teaching and authority of the Master Communicator. The heart of the good news of Jesus Christ is that He wants to help us communicate. Great results can’t be achieved overnight, but just beginning is a delicious experience. Any marriage is repairable if the time and the tools are available. Most couples have the time but are frustrated because their tools are inadequate. It’s like trying to drive a large nail into a two-by-four with a shoe instead of a hammer! The power and the teachings of Jesus are the tools that have been most effective in healing the scores of marriages I’ve dealt with. When marriages fail, I can’t help but question, “I wonder what tools they were using?” Begin today to use God’s tool to open, honest communication to deepen your marriage. You’ll be glad you did.

The Bullet of Communication

Based on my years of experience in counseling families and the comments of all the experts I’ve ever read on the subject, I would say without question that the major problem in marriage is not … repeat … is not finances, sex, children, location, vocation or health! The greatest problem and major stumbling block to joyous family living is the lack of effective communication. Marriage is an intimate relationship built on mutual understanding, but, in order to truly understand another person, you must be able to communicate with him. A husband and wife can know a great deal about each other without knowing one another.

Definition: Communication is the process that allows people to know each other, to relate to one another, and to understand the true meaning of the other person’s life.


Author John Powell lists five levels of communication in his fine book entitled, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am.

“Level Five: Cliché Conversation.” This type of talk is very safe. We use words such as, “How are you?” “How is your family?” “Where have you been?” “I like your suit.” In this type of conversation there is no personal sharing. Each person remains safely behind his screen.

“Level Four: Reporting the Facts About Others.” In this kind of conversation we are content to tell others what someone else has said, but we offer no personal commentary on these facts. We just report the facts like the five o’clock news each day. We share gossip and little narrations, but we do not commit ourselves or share our feelings about it.

“Level Three: My Ideas and Judgments.” This is where some real communication begins. The person is willing to step out of his solitary confinement and risk telling some of his ideas and decisions. However, he is still cautious and is quick to retreat if he senses that what he is saying is not being accepted.

In our next post we will continue exploring the last two levels of communication where true openness can occur.

Grandfather Love

I want to share the following with you as Father’s Day approaches!

“With all the confessions of preachers in the news I’ve decided to do the same. Just because God created the attraction between male and female I can’t blame it on Him. I thought I was too old to fall in love again but I discovered I didn’t know my weakness.

I had always considered myself to be contentedly settled, assured and experienced. How, then, could this stranger come along and bewitch me so completely?

I never believed in love at first sight until, most unexpectedly and bewilderingly, it happened to me. From the moment I first saw her, it was as though her eyes entered my heart and pierced clear through to my soul. What else could it be but love?

She should have known that I was a happily married, contentedly middle-aged man. But she was beautiful and, oh, how she knew it … and she used that beauty to overwhelm me. I tried to ignore the feelings she stirred in me, but with each day that passed, I knew I was becoming a captive to her charm. I was under her spell completely!

She had so many enchanting moods: She was happy, sad, sweet, cute, pouty, serious, funny, and flirtatious. Each mood followed the other in dizzying succession. And each was effective … helplessly I reacted to each in exactly the manner she expected.

I tried to appear blasé about our relationship; however, that was clearly a façade, and my friends saw through it instantly. Even my wife became aware of the new object of my affections. Surprisingly, she was more tolerant about what was happening than I would have expected. She even seemed to share my excitement over this new woman in my life. This, I might add, immediately gave our marriage a whole new dimension.

Where will it all lead? It’s hard to say. I though the thrill of this new relationship would be soon gone. And yet, several years have passed since she first entered my life, and I am still helplessly smitten. Each time I see her she is more bewitching, and each time she finds a new way to claim my heart. It used to be just a shy glance or a gesture. Now she is bolder and offers me a touch with her little hand, a hug, an occasional kiss on the check. I would gladly giver her the world at such moments.

I guess it’s possible that our relationship is just a figment of my imagination, as she has never spoken to me of love. And yet, when I look at the pretty, dimpled face, when I gaze into her blue, shining eyes, I know in my hearth that she is thinking … ‘I love you Grandpa!’”

I owe the above to author Jack. D. Minzey. I don’t know him but I know he knows the heart of a grandfather!

Illustration: "The Favorite" by Georgios Iakovidis

The Bullet of Marriage: Building Something Larger (Part 3)

In every marriage both mates must go to the cross again and again for one another. Usually one mate will have to go to the cross more often because he or she is the stronger. Balance is rare! Marriage is the perfect object lesson on how Jesus Christ (the stronger) goes to the cross more often than you (the weaker) in your relationship with Him. Remember, the main object of marriage is not your happiness, but to discover the character of God!

It is the character of God alone to which humanity can look with hope. His character is that of divine love. Divine love always seeks to give itself to those in need. One of the greatest verses on marriage is Romans 15:1, “Those who are stronger should bear with those who are weak!” Thousands of marriages would still be together today if husbands and wives had believed that truth. It they had only discovered that their marriages’ first priority was to teach them about God, and not to satisfy themselves, they would have found happiness together.

If your marriage is losing its adventure perhaps you’ve missed the point of why the Father thought it up! It locks us in to loving another person like He loved us … unconditionally! Have you been to the cross for your mate lately?

The Bullet of Marriage: Building Something Larger (Part 2)

The man must initiate the direction! Strong women demand greater leadership. A marriage will not conquer if the husband is passive and content only with his personal goals. God has called them to build a heritage “together!”

Recognizing this and strategizing to move in the right direction is the basic issue of the “call of God.” You start from where you are … with all past mistakes and present agonies … and don’t quit as long as you love … no matter on how many “cross experiences” you have to hang!

Your mate’s weakness is rarely, if ever, reason enough to justify your weak response. Christ responded to our weakness not by being weak (staying in Heaven or refusing to die on earth), but in strength by going to the cross!

The Bullet of Marriage: Building Something Larger (Part 1)

Why are almost half of all marriages ending in divorce? Even many couples who “make it” by staying together live far below their expectations.

What destroys most partners in the absence of a mutual great passion and plan to be used by God. Their ambitions are too small! They share no great purpose beyond raising their children, affluence and pleasure. Their goals are too small to embrace reality. They fall into the trap of using one another rather than being used of God together! Powerful and romantic love cannot be built around routine activities of the flesh. Even great human achievements in medicine, science, politics, business, etc., “come to nothing” (Psalm 112:10), unless purely aimed at the glory of God!

The Bullet of Love: Thoughts from Martin De Haan, Part 2

“I read the Apostle Paul as having been on both sides of life’s fence. He knew what it was to die. He knew what it was to be a victim driven to the edge of despair. Bet he also knew what it meant to be in love … in a deep and rich sense.

For Paul, it was love that made the difference. His enthusiasm for life was not merely to breathe good air, taste good meals, and watch great sunrises as if each might be his last. He knew that when he died his senses would come alive in a place far better than this. What drove Paul was what caused him to say, ‘For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain … nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith’ (Philippians 1:21, 24, 25).

Father, forgive us for wanting to live for any reason other than to love You and to live for the joy of helping those who still need our help.”

The Bullet of Love: Thoughts from Martin De Haan, Part 1

Authentic love … God’s kind of love … is the only great reality of human existence. Martin De Haan hit a new note for me on the difference love makes in living. I had to pass it on!

“Life, some love it. Some hate it. Others sag along like a half-filled radial with a slow leak. How can some take a deep breath and seem to smell orange, apple or gardenia blossoms, while others sigh heavily almost as if to expel the stale weight of that same breath?

Some say it’s all in the circumstances. Others say love makes the difference. There might be something to the latter. Watch someone in love. Whether 14 or 74, whether wise man of fool, someone in love is different. His eyes are alive. He is energized. Each new day is an opportunity rather than a burden.”

The Bullet of Leadership: Seek Greatness

The man who lives immersed only in his own interests, pleasures and sorrows is empty. As Cowper so well put it, “The miserable are nearly always selfish.”

Among the many things which are worse than a shortened life is the person who has become reconciled, adjusted, adapted, programmed and satisfied with failure. We must determine that the complacency and foolishness of others will not diminish our own personal passion for greatness.

A thousand deaths would be sweeter than perennial, perpetual defeat, or its close counterpart, mediocrity. God grant that each of us in these days of darkness will resolve to make them … in our homes, our church, our work, our community … our finest hour! There is no alternative it greatness!

Pictured above: President George Walker Bush visits Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day and lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. White House photo by Tina Hager. (May 2003)

The Bullet of Leadership: True Greatness

Never before has there been such “a time for greatness” as now. Man’s problems, opportunities and challenges are multiplying at an alarming pace. There must be a passion in the heart of each of us to be great in every area of our life’s responsibility. Horace Mann’s advice is for all of us who seek the best: “If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.”

Jesus Christ showed us the way to greatness as no other person who ever lived. He served! He lived His commandment, “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Luke 22:24-27). Make no mistake, Jesus wasn’t a door mat to everyone’s selfish whims but served the best interest of all as guided by pure love. His service was controlled by God’s wisdom of what was best for man and not by man’s ideas of what he “felt” he needed.

The Bullet of Leadership: Greatness

As Prime Minister, the great Englishman Winston Churchill turned England’s darkest days of World War II into their “finest hour.” His great speeches are as lightning bolts against the dark backdrop of tragic world events. I find myself yearning for such a man to lead our nation.

In fact, however, is such a man on the horizon? I am hard pressed to offer up the name of one present-day American whose life towers as granite in the comparative quicksand of national leadership. Many of us are realizing afresh the unheeded warnings that there is a crisis of leadership not only in America, but in all nations.

Regardless of the politics of the following men, they bore the stamp of greatness in the history of our nation … Washington, Henry, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, MacArthur and so many more. Oh, that “their breed” would return!

The Bullet of Love: Real Love Wins

If the clams of Christians are going to make any impact on the world we are going to have to “whip” the opposition by demonstrating real love. Sooner or later people finally catch on to the fact that cheap love is a phony and delivers nothing but ashes and dust.

The primary point in marriage is to teach real love. God says to the husband or the wife, “You’ll never begin to know My joy and power until you start loving like I do. The way to be like Me is to start loving at least one person more than yourself. If you can’t love the person who has given you all he or she possesses … years, hopes, body, mind, destiny, hurts, etc. … then you will never really be able to love anyone.”

“Having love His own … He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). The person who doesn’t really love doesn’t really live. A shame so many miss it!

The Bullet of Love: Pseudo Love’s Limits

The greatest example planet earth ever had of real love is the life and cross of Jesus Christ. Just as His real love won’t ever let go of those who trust Him as Savior (even when they blow it), so it is with all those who really love. Real love sticks! If you think it’s tough being stuck with your husband or your wife just think how God must feel being stuck with you!

All the pseudo loves of this deceitful age insist that others must change or the pseudo love will quit loving. Pseudo love is only interested in loving those who live up to its own expectations. Or should I say down to its expectations? The pseudo lover lives by the philosophy that he only loves what is easy and enjoyable! If a person becomes too unlovable, the pseudo lover just decides he will quit loving and finds someone else his love is capable of loving. It’s easy to see why love like this is so powerless and void of all that is great and noble!

The real lover loves because of what is within himself rather than for what is within the person loved. That’s the way God loves us! It’s in Him to love, regardless of how lovable or unlovable we might be! That’s the only kind of love that will turn lives, churches, families, or the world around.

The Bullet of Love: Pseudo Love Doesn’t Fulfill

Love accepts people as they are! That is, the love that is real and authentic. There are a lot of imitation type “loves” going around these days and Christians are falling for these pseudos right and left. The world makes so much pretense talking about love, singing about love, holding love up as the only hope and promising to love one another, yet it never seems to work.

No wonder one of the leading rock stars at the tip of the charts sings the question … “Why don’t people stay together anymore?” Mad passionate love scenes promise love that will last forever but it ends up in the divorce courts in twenty months. So much for the love of the uninitiated!

The Bullet of Loving Jesus: The True Substance

When I did graduate work in philosophy my professor assigned me a topic for a term paper which blew my mind. Ready? “The background for and implications of Hierarchical Context verses Dramatic Redemptive for Biblical Symbolism.” How could I write on something when I didn’t even understand the title?!

Slowly, it emerged that I was to do a study on the best symbol for Christianity on earth. I was to seek the sources for the “dramatic presence of Christ” and to eliminate the “hierarchies of man produced organized religion.”

Where can one find authentic Christianity … the true message of Jesus … on earth today? Bonhoeffer called it “religionless Christianity.” How can we discover the gospel of Jesus without it being corrupted by man? Where is the “faith that conquers” which goes beyond denominations, church buildings, theological debates and hypocritical lives?

Guess what I came up with? The Cross? No! The Bible? No! Orthodox Creeds? No! The Church? No! The only ultimate symbol of Christianity is the “new creation,” the “new man” (Gal. 6:15). The person who loves is the only true symbol of the gospel of Christ. “The fruit of the Spirit is love…” (Gal. 5:22). Anything less misses the meaning of our Master’s Resurrection!

The Bullet of Loving Jesus: All Our Forms

Seems to me some folks have unusual and sometimes questionable ways of expressing their love for Jesus Christ. The hundreds of responses people make to Jesus can be most confusing.

Some worship with shouting and uplifted hands while others sit in Quiet contemplation. One hears Christian music all the way from bouncy beat piano to minor key pipe organ. There is simple country guitar gospel or complex cantatas by Stainer of Dubois. Songs for Jesus are proclaimed from subjective romanticism to objective transcendentalism. Some would even force us to make a choice between the tambourine or Bach!

What is the true response to Jesus Christ? What is the best symbolic expression for His followers?

The Bullet of Grace: Language

The following story is by radio personality and Bible teacher, Martin De Haan.

“In the aisle of a neighborhood store, a 3-year-old caught my attention. I heard him before I saw him. ‘Ohhh myy Gaaa---d.’ Then he said it again. From the height of his father’s knee, he mirrored the irony of a generation which, while attempting to remove the name of God from public life, has developed an obsession with profanity.

I remember getting my mouth washed out with soap as a child for repeatedly using similar words at the dinner table. Later in my high school years, I spoke the forbidden language among friends in an awkward adolescent rite of passage.

But the problem is not locked in the past. On occasion I still catch myself expressing feelings of self-contempt, frustration or anger in silent or muffled profanity. I cringe at the thought of letting such words and emotions slip out in public. I’m fearful when I hear stories of how the most unlikely people have been known to ‘swear like a trooper’ when coming out of surgical anesthesia.

Where does this profane impulse come from? Profanity doesn’t just happen. It is rooted in the dark muck of fallen human nature (Romans 3:9-14). In a twisted way, it does something for us. The aggressive or careless use of damn or hell or God expresses feelings of anger, anxiety or arrogance. They are aggressive words, which express the opposite of submission or the touch of grace. They sow our latent desire to achieve dominance nor only over the restraints of social custom but over the One who has told us not to misuse His name (Exodus 20:7).

Profane impulses are red flags of the soul. They never signal a submissive relationship to the Father. They never show God’s grace. They never reflect a good awareness of the presence of God, Who is so patient and full of mercy. It is because we see and believe so poorly that we speak so carelessly.”

As I read these words, I’m reminded that the solution to a “dirty mouth” is not soap, but the Savior. He can and will change our attitudes and actions. And, yes, even our words, as we let Him rule in our hearts.

The Bullet of Scale: The Perfect Instrument (Part 3)

Only 6,000 stars are visible from the earth with the naked eye. The most visible from any one location is 2,000. No human equipped with only his “natural ability” would conclude that stars number in the thousands. He could smugly denounce any view that there might be millions with the skeptical retort of “show me!”

Until some “super natural” ability presented itself man would be confined to the limitations of his naked eye. With the development of the telescope, however, we now know that stars are not numbered in the thousands but in trillions. Statistical calculations by astronomers indicate there are at least 100 trillion stars. That’s 100 with 10 zeros after it. There are between one billion and tour trillion stars in a galaxy with the number of galaxies numbered at ten billion! What does puny little man with his “naked eye” know of all that?

Man’s “naked soul” can never see the true reality and glory of life unless some “supernatural Spiritual telescope” falls into his hands. The Father has made us a gift of such an “instrument” … Jesus Christ!

An honest and continuous “look” at Him will reveal to all earnest seekers the wonder and greatness of the living God! It’s an intoxicating experience and the closer you get the bigger He is!!!

Picture credit: “Geologist Elliot Morris at eyepiece of newly completed telescope,” USGS photo P879B, F1221. USGS Open-File Report 2005-1190, Figure 010c.
Image file: /htmllib/btch545/btch545j/btch545z/pap0010c.jpg

The Bullet of Scale: The Size of Stars (Part 2)

Our sun is a star yet one of the smallest. Stars are classed as “supergiants” … 100 to 1000 times the diameter of our sun … and “dwarfs” the great majority of stars including our sun.

But, back to my friend, Antares. I shared with my family that it is so large you could slice it in two as you would an orange and half of it would still be too large to pass between the earth and our sun! That is “big, big.”

A chance comment by my son then gave rise to the following thought. “They look so small, but, the closer you get the bigger they get.” It stuck me immediately that this is exactly how it is with God.

Photo of Antares – Credit and Copyright: D. Malin (AAO), AATB, UKS Telescope

The Bullet of Scale: The Wonder of the Night Sky (Part 1)

My family and I were once spending some sweet and rare time together in our back yard. The dark of the night enabled us to enjoy the wonder of the star-studded sky. The heavens were unusually brilliant and stars of various sizes and intensity became an object for our discussion.

Falling back on my old Air Force pilot-celestial navigation training I pointed out one of my favorite stars – Antares, the first magnitude (brightest) star of the constellation Scorpius (Scorpion). To think that there are eighty-eight constellations (groups of stars in a pattern) identified by humans (such as the Big Dipper) and yet that millions of stars exist staggers the mind.

Image: The M7 Open Star Cluster in Scorpius: Credit & Copyright: Allan Cook & Adam Block, NOAO, AURA, NSF

The Bullet of Knowing God: Finding the Reality (Part 2)

Like it or not, all of us try to act out our view of God, or perfection, or greatness, or our ideal. They are one in the same. First, we play God by assuming we can live independently of others … and even of God Himself. Second, we play God in the casual way we judge, berate, condemn and reject our fellow man. Although we deny it verbally, we act toward others as though we possessed perfect knowledge about their situations. Thirdly, we play God when we put ourselves at the center of our universe. We view ourselves as the whole and not simply a part of reality. Lastly, and most seriously, we play God when we exalt ourselves in rejecting the truth and authority of the True God.

Where does one get clued in on what God is really like? How does a person find his or her place in this vast scheme of things and “plug in”? The answer is in Jesus Christ, the only perfect Man who ever lived. His life defies imitation. It can be explained only in terms of God. He blows humanities’ ideas of God to pieces! He is not vengeful, stuffy, dull, uncompassionate or worried. The God Jesus revealed is forgiving, free, exciting, loving and has everything under control. People experience hell in their lives because they’re attempting to follow “a God” of their own making who is false and inadequate. People’s insane experiment to try and be human without the God who created us is as foolish as trying to live a week without breathing.

Human pride continually projects us into the roll of God – a part we can never play. We don’t possess the power or the script. Only God can be God. Come, let us be human … God’s kind of humanity … is the only realistic choice open to all of us. “Except you become as little children, you cannot see the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 18:3).

The Bullet of Knowing God: What Kind of God? (Part 1)

Come, Let Us Play God is the title of a book that intrigued me. The author (Leroy Augenstein) investigates and comments on the various ways that men and women assume for themselves the prerogatives that belong only to God. Two questions come to mind as we deal with this idea. First, how does one play like God, and secondly, what is one’s idea of the God he’s playing? Let’s take the latter question first.

It would be amusing if it were not so pathetic … the ideas people get about God. Some view God as a celestial Batman eager to swoop down from heaven and clobber “bad guys.” Others view Him as a stuffy “Judge of the Universe” waiting to sternly evaluate all who stand before Him. He sits with arms folded daring anyone to ask Him for anything. Still others indentify God with religion. As religion is usually a “last resort” enterprise, God is viewed as running an “atmospheric flop house” for the drop outs of life. Another view is the Puritan, holier than thou, naughty no-no God. He’s having a dull time in heaven and it “bugs Him” when folks have fun (sin) on earth! One must include the “Know it all” view. I know what’s best, and I’ll do it my way, regardless! Shape up or move out. A computer God, if you please!

Another false view of God sees Him as the proprietor of hell. He’s invested a lot of money in this piece of real estate and will be terribly disappointed if a lot of folks don’t end up going there! There are many more views but a final one for our purposes would be the Frantic View. God is nervously pacing the floors of heaven wringing His hands in despair over the world condition. This is seeing God as a victim of situations too big to handle.

The Bullet of Priority: Choosing the Best

Former President Woodrow Wilson once commented that, “Many people are defeated by secondary successes.” A person who succeeds at business but loses his or her family in the process would have limited success, at best, in the total view. A father who provides his son with money and creature comforts but fails to spend enough time with him to win his respect is no success. Humanities’ major mistake is that they have given priority effort to secondary concerns. Even our success defeats us! No one can ever find true joy and lasting purpose until “the great priority” of existence is faced … God! It is here that those who testify to God’s dullness must answer a critical question, “Have you ever tried living with God as your first priority?” Jesus Christ stated that the solution to all men’s quests (and women’s too) was in seeking FIRST the Kingdome of God! (Matthew 6:33). Making God a low priority insures spiritual dullness!

To give priority effort to secondary causes is unfulfilling and frustrating. To give secondary effort to primary concerns results in guilt and a sense of panic. But, giving primary attention to priority issues leads to excitement, purpose and satisfaction. Jesus Christ promised that only the Father could make us the kind of people we yearn to be. Christians know at least one thing for sure … Jesus Christ is not dull. He is the most exciting Person you can ever meet. His is alive and well on planet earth.

Is life for you dull? Have you checked your priorities? May we suggest Jesus Christ? All who desire can meet Him, the presence of His Spirit, right now!

The Bullet of Priority: What is Dull?

One of the biggest hindrances to possessing an exciting faith is the notion that the things of God are dull! Prayer, Bible reading, church, hymn singing, Christian service and the like are, to the uneducated, a waste of time for the “young man going places.” For the person who’s “getting ahead” at full speed, the encumbrances of religion must be thrown off. Most tell themselves that when they get settled and have more time, they’ll put God back on their agenda. But alas, time gets more hectic and that “settled” illusion seems to still exist somewhere in the future. Hence, the God issue continues as a low priority item throughout life.

The amazing thing is that most folks do not recognize the basic dullness of their daily lives. Up for breakfast, kids to school, garbage out, off to work, sheets changed, lunch and small talk, pick up the kids, hit the grocery store, routine smiles, hi’s and bye’s, deadline at the office (panic), home for supper, “How did it go today?” … “Fine!” Mow the yard, watch the boob tube or just sit around … then off to bed to rest up for your next exciting day of more of the same!! An occasional party, trip or “big” purchase breaks the monotony. Minor problems are blow into crises by folks looking for purpose. Small things are made to look big by people desperately looking fore reality. Thousands of us have pondered the question, either secretly or openly, “Is this all there is to life?” With all of our conveniences and leisure time, life should be full and happy. Yet, authorities tell us that boredom is one of the chief illnesses of the age. One can even be bored with one’s busyness!

The Bullet of The Abundant Life: The Feast

Recently, while eating at a smorgasbord, I was struck afresh with a fantastic new thought about our Lord.

As I walked through the line, I know my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Three salads looked great, but I could take only one! Two meats were my favorite, but I could take only one. They happened to have four delicious desserts … strawberry shortcake, chocolate meringue pie, tapioca pudding and lemon ice box pie … oh, what tempting confusion! Of course I couldn’t take all of them. I could take only one! The blazing lesson was that there was far more there than I could ever take!

How true this is of our Lord! He offers to all of us more than we could ever use! Our pitiful little spiritual receptacles are forever inadequate to drink totally of His bounty. I don’t mean to be irreverent, but just as God offers us a smorgasbord in the natural realm ... night, day, sea, mountains, male, female, youth old-age, etc. … so He does likewise in the spiritual realm.

It’s senseless to compare the beauty of the mountains and the beauty of the seashore. What insanity to debate the glory of Hawaii verses the grandeur of New England. What futility to argue for the taste of steak over ice cream.

All of the above have their place for a person’s taste at the proper time. The variety of our choices is what adds brilliance to life. God can comprehend them all at once. We mortals can scarce take them one at a time!

Those of us who are thirsty for God’s reality should comfort ourselves in knowing that the Father has offered us more than we could ever experience in a hundred lifetimes. Likewise, we shouldn’t be critical of our fellow searchers who have chosen a spiritual dessert or main course different from ours.

All of us can go “through the line.” We don’t have to depend on others to make our selections for us. Nor should we be critical of their appetites and selections! The Father only wants to give us what is good! So long as we select something He has given us in Jesus Christ we can’t go wrong!

Welcome to the feast!

The Bullet of Love: Objects, Objectives and Influences

If you want to multiply your joy then I encourage you to love people who are victorious in life. People who follow Christ have good things happening to them all the time. If your friends and loved ones are those who are always getting in trouble … denying the reality of Christ, the principles of love, concern, honesty and compassion … then instead of multiplying your joys you’ve multiplied your sorrows.

Make no mistake … Christians should love all men and women but there must come a time of separation, choosing to throw our lives in with those who are seeking God, or choosing to be with the crowd that rejects Him. The principle is irrevocable … loving in spite of anything makes us conquerors over everything!

Easter: “Forgive Them …” (Part 2)

The New Testament writer in the book of Hebrews states that none of us has ever been faced with such insults as Christ. We have been hurt but most of us have never bled! What made His forgiving so great was the depth of injury He endured, bitterness or criticism or all three!!

The power of our Lord’s life is rooted in His magnificent capacity to forgive. I know I need God’s forgiveness. I also need the forgiveness of some of you reading this. All of us need forgiveness. Not just once, but again and again. Life is like closets and drawers. There’s not a home anywhere that doesn’t possess a drawer or closet that is untidy, messy, cluttered or filled with junk. There is still a lot of clutter in my own life. I wish I could get rid of it all today, but I can’t. It takes time. In the interim my only hope is that people will forgive me for my junk or mess they see in my life. I’m really pretty stupid about some of the things I do. “They know not what they do.” The only hope for us sinners is forgiveness. “Father, forgive them.” Man, I like that!!

Have you been “crucified” lately? Why not try forgiveness? It’s the Jesus thing to do. Maybe soon you’ll need someone to forgive you!

Easter! Forgiveness!! Rejoice!!!

Easter: “Forgive Them …” (Part 1)

I suppose the most amazing thing Jesus said on the cross was, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” It was the habit of most crucifixion victims to curse their executioners, curse those who watched, curse the world and curse God. The Roman, Ovid, said it was advisable to cut out the victim’s tongue before he was crucified so those watching would be spared the obnoxious noise of his screaming profanities. The Romans developed crucifixion to such an art that, in all of history, it remains the most horrible way for one to die. The victim had to push up with his feet on the wooden support block so he could breathe and relieve the pulling pain in his hands. Exhausted, he would hang again from his hands and suffer shortness of breath. It was a question of agony from pain in the feet or pain in the hands. In reality, a choice of death or death!

The thirst was unbearable. The heat of the summer sun or cold of the winter winds only increased the suffering. Left alone, it could take two or three days to die – sometimes longer. To speed things the executioners would sometimes break the victim’s legs with a staff. Death from suffocation would mercifully follow. The fact that Jesus asked forgiveness for those who nailed Him to the cross is a most staggering thought. Following Him must include that same attitude.

The Bullet of Love: Constancy Counts

I want to share a brief thought with you on the Biblical concept that “love never fails.” If we could learn to love, we could conquer all things. Of course, this is why Jesus Christ came … to give us the power to love as He loved through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is impossible without the indwelling power of Christ Himself. That power comes to us only when we yield ourselves and are ready to accept the Truth about God, about reality, about others and about ourselves.

The joy and power of love was brought home to me recently when it dawned on me that the more people I loved the more my joy would be multiplied. If you truly love a person, then you are not jealous and whatever good things might happen to him (or her) also happens to you! Most of us are resentful or jealous when good and great things happen to other people. In fact, it’s human nature to play them down and play our good things up. However, if you really love, you not only rejoice in the good things that happen to the loved person but, actually, experience the benefits of their good fortune in your own life

The Bullet of Loneliness: Finding the Only True Friend

Loneliness is nothing more than an “emotional pain” that says our goals in life have been too low. Loneliness becomes our “friend” when it forces us to enjoy the friendship of God as much as we would the friendship of others.

All of us have to deal with loneliness! From youth to old age it is with us. It can be an ever encircling web that leads to despair; but if we claim the promises of Christ, each period of loneliness becomes a step that leads to liberation and release!

So says our Lord in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation (loneliness) … but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” Loneliness is curable if we accept Christ’s recommendation!

The Bullet of Loneliness: God’s Perspective

It is an amazing and mysterious truth that God’s heart can suffer because we ignore Him. All loneliness on this earth is a direct result of worshipping something too small to satisfy us. The Bible says that man’s heart and soul are too big to be satisfied with anything less than God!

This is why David exclaimed in Psalm 37:4, “I will delight myself in the Lord and He will give me the desires of my heart.” Expectations for full living derived from things, other people, success or even love are doomed to eventually fail. Expectations in God are always fruitful, rewarding and satisfying.

The Bullet of Loneliness: Missing an Opportunity

Let’s zero in on a critical subject we all deal with more than we care to admit … loneliness. "Experts" tell us that loneliness is American’s greatest "mental disease." One of America’s most listened to teachers defines loneliness this way, "First, loneliness is the anguish I feel when I sense that I am being cut off from the spirit of others. Second, loneliness is the evidence that I was expecting others to meet my needs as only God can." The Word of God speaks to the first definition in Psalm 69:20, "I am full of heaviness, I looked for someone to lament with me; but there was none; I looked for comforters but I found no one."

Psalm 62: speaks to the second experience, "My soul waits only upon God for my expectation is from Him." Loneliness means that at the moment I am lonely, God feels the same anguish toward me because my basic delight of life is not in Him.