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Nov

Aftermath

By pasturescott 15 Comments

Categories: 2008 election, Christianity and Reign of Christ

I admit it.

The “I” that lingers nearby, that soulish side of me, is quite saddened by events that transpired yesterday. But the ”no longer I” that dwells in me has a settled spirit today. I have utmost faith that the man God voted for–much as He voted for Nebuchadnezzar to czar over His own covenant people for a time–is in place.

No hanging chad or voter fraud kept God’s choice from gaining the highest office in the land. “It is He who changes the times and epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings…” (Dan 2:21) Asaph declared, “God is the Judge! He puts down one and lifts up another…” (Ps 75:7) The “no longer I” has not one shred of a doubt that God sovereignly decreed it from His Throne and His will was done in the earth.

So why Obama?

It seems clear to me: he isn’t George W. Bush. Many were swayed by rhetoric alone but many more just wanted change from the status quo. And change they’ll get. The presently declining economy admixed with the now-former Senator’s policies will undoubtedly usher in some pretty dismal days.

The mills are rife with rumors: stronger government control. Through the roof taxation. A more accomodating atmosphere for radical ideologies only seven years removed from 9/11. Expanding socialism. A welfare culture that rewards laziness. Just rumors? Perhaps. But take notice: nearly as many that voted for the man voted against the man and half the country is poised for the worst. I’ll go ahead and say it. Judgment is beginning. God is cleaning His house. He is preparing His Bride.

Would I have preferred a McPailin administration?

Depends on which “me” you’re addressing. The ‘ego-me’ or the ‘no longer I’ me? Right about now I’m putting duct tape over the ego-me’s mouth and renewing his/my mind. I’m putting that little guy in a prolonged time-out…crucifying him wouldn’t be such a bad idea either, come to think of it.

In summary, this ‘no longer I’ casts his vote for Jesus, knowing He has ALL authority in heaven and earth. Any ruler below heaven–even those that scare the stuffing out of the natural man and a quaking church–is a delegated authority and is subject to a Higher Authority. God’s Kingdom operates through authority. It is everywhere. Government. Civil servants. Military. Employers. Pastors (couldn’t leave that one out). When Paul was admonishing us to submit ourselves to the authorities, it was a pretty mean dude who sat as Emperor–Nero–even though his maniacal years lie just ahead.

So, at around 11:00 last night, when Obama reached the magical number that would vault him into the White House as our 44th president, I jotted down some things that I believe came straight from the ‘no longer I’s’ frame of thinking. I trust you’ll join me.

pray for President-elect Obama and the awesome task he has ahead of him and submit so long as his delegated reign does not interfere with the arch-reign of Jesus Christ
repent for a worldly, compromising, flaccid church that has stood idly by as satan’s kingdom has slowly knocked the lights out of this land
grieve for the sins of America–especially THE transgression of self-rule that typifies the ego-me
disentangle myself from all idols and attachments because everything that can be shaken will be shaken (Hebrews 12:25-29)
Do not fear man but trust the Lord
And then there’s this:

“Oh Lord, we know all is well. We trust Thee for all.
We love Thee increasingly. We bow to Thy will.”

Bow not as one who is resigned to some heavy blow about to fall or to the acceptance of some inevitable decision. Bow as a child bows, in anticipation of a glad surprise being prepared for it by one who loves it. Bow in such a way, just waiting to hear the Loving Word to raise your head, and see the Glory and Joy and wonder of your surprise.

–God Calling, October 28, p173

That’s called “no longer I” thinking…

Oct

Night And Day Difference

By pasturescott 8 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Church History, Deception, Encouragement, Jesus Christ, Kingdom of God and Reign of Christ

In just a few hours, little draculas, zombies, aliens and hobgoblins will be prowling the streets at nightfall extorting candy from innocent victims who are not safe, even while ensconced in the shelter of their own homes. These menacing little beings promise cruel tricks unless their demands are met. There is no “please” from these potential vandals, simply an order to comply–or pay the consequences.

Cute holiday, huh?

According to Celtic tradition “All Hallow’s Evening” (shortened centuries ago to ‘hallowe’en’) is the end of the ‘dark half’ of the year and the one night during which the separation of the two worlds–the natural and the supernatural–is thinnest and when hostile spiritual beings like ghosts and goblins are free to roam the earth and interact with mankind in mostly violent fashion. If there was any night of the year when demonic jubilation was strongest, as the tradition holds, it was always found on Halloween.

The Welsh refer to it as “Spirit Night.” Detroit calls it “Hell Night.” Witches refer to it as THE Great Sabbath. Everything associated with it is divination, demonic, evil, death and darkness.

Go back with me twenty centuries to the Upper Room on the “eve” of the Christ’s crucifixion. Jesus told Judas on that e’en (actually He was addressing the satan who had entered into Judas) that whatever mission he was on, he’d best do “quickly” (John 13:29) because this was the end of the ‘dark half’ when the separation of the two kingdoms was thinnest and the evil one’s final night to do his menacing work. And the clock was ticking down. Judas bolted from the table and dashed out into the gathering gloom. Verse 30 adds this evocative phrase: “and it was night.”

That single statement paints with bleakened tones and Gothic brushstrokes what was going on in that room that Passover night: Jesus, saddened to see his friend go, the disciples perplexed by recent developments, Judas’ sealing his own doom, the mood suffocating.

“And it was night…”

I believe the night that shrouded the Upper Room was as dark as on that night as when it was actually felt in the Garden after our Original Parent’s rebellion. It was spiritual night, oppressive and hopeless. I can see Messiah staring at the doorway–after his friend–for a few solemn moments. Then, amazingly, I see Him turn to face the addled expressions of those who remained and draw a meaningful breath. The very next words He utters transcend the somber cloud hanging in the room.

“Now is the Son of Man glorified and the Father glorified in Him!”

In almost a single breath, John’s gospel moves from “it was night” to “Praise God! His Kingdom triumphs over darkness because His Son is its King! Glory!” One can almost hear the gas leaking out of the netherworld’s coming-out party like a deflating balloon at that precise moment…and it continues to this day! There’re no parties in hell no matter what Halloween tradition says. The satan’s kingdom operates in wrath, not jubilation, angry that the Son is now and forevermore glorified.

Remember that on this last day of October.

Maybe Linus should come out with this speech on the Peanuts’ Halloween special.

Jun

There’s The Plow

By pasturescott 17 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Discipleship, Jesus Christ, Kingdom of God, Missions, Sacrifice and Surrender

Decisiveness is the fulcrum of true discipleship. Luke says that Jesus “resolutely set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51) He’s about four months away from Calvary and the language that Luke employs emphatically illustrates our Lord’s decisiveness in seeing His mission through to the end. It’s more about His state of mind and not a geographical change. It has nothing to do with His checking MapQuest or getting a TripTik from Triple A. He knew who He was, what He was called for, and nothing was going to get in His way.

A few verses down, He encounters three would-be disciples. He says to each of them, “Decide!” Me? Or the world? Me? Or your will? Me? Or your level of comfortability? In each case they chose what was behind Door Number Two and left satisfied with that.

He says that a true disciple is one who has set his hand to the plow, or, in Elisha’s case burned the plow (see 1 Kings 19:21). Jesus set His face (“like flint”, Isaiah 50:7) to Jerusalem and we are to set our hand to the plow. Plowing is about harvest, and in the succeeding verses, Jesus sent out the seventy with this pep talk: “Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send more plowers into the field.” Some plant, some plow, some water…but the Lord gets His beautiful harvest!

Our Lord cannot use scribes (the first guy) who are worried about looking foolish to their rich buddies when they are found sleeping in caves or under bridges “for a carpenter” instead of their large-mortgage house. He cannot use the ‘I’ll catch up with you down the road but right now I have a lot of personal stuff to iron out’ candidates (the second guy). The call is NOW. And there’s the plow! And He will pass over those who waver between two worlds and the Lord knows this world will usually win out (the third guy).

The call is NOW. And there’s the plow.

Who are the harvesters? Who are the ones “pressing into the Kingdom” (Luke 16:16)? They are people who will empty their entire life savings at His feet even though the religious tell them every reason why they shouldn’t. They are people who will walk away from a lucrative career because their life and livelihood is in His hands. People who will drop the nets at their feet, leaving every security behind because they see the Greater Incentive, a Treasure you cannot refuse.

We need to be more decisive than ever in these changing times. Before I finished that last sentence I was interrupted by a call from someone I know who just won over $20,000 in the lottery tonight. Isn’t that ironic? The world will do stuff like that for us—anything to keep us from treasuring Christ. Anything to keep us from pressing in, pressing on or setting our hand to the plow. Tragically, the third certainty of life—after death and taxes—is that twenty grand’ll be gone in a few days, weeks or months.

Then what?

Decisively pressing in means fighting against that twinge that says, “man, I wish that had happened to me.” It means being unimpressed by what the world offers because you know nothing can compare to the richness of knowing about a Greater-than-all Treasure and going after it.

There’s the plow. It may look worn, earthy, scarred and rusty, but it’s Who you set your affection on at the far end of the field that really matters.

Jun

Just One?

By pasturescott 8 Comments

Categories: Bible, Christianity and Jesus Christ

Darla at Overcomer has tagged me with a near-impossible meme: naming my favorite book of the Bible. Darla, Darla, Darla…just one? Never one to break the rules (perhaps bend them a little), I will comply but only like the little girl who was told to sit in the corner by her teacher: “I may be sitting down on the outside but I’m standing up on the inside!”

(I’m ’standing up on the inside’ with honorable mentions to all the Gospels, all of Paul’s epistles, most of the prophets, the Pentateuch, the historical books, anything John wrote, and the poets–especially David)

So, here is my favorite book of the Bible…ohhh, do I really have to?…okay, okay…sheesh…

It’s….it’s…(out with it, Scott!)…Mark’s Gospel.

Because I am a ‘bottom-line’ guy, I like for people to get to the point and not grate on me with “to make a long story loooonger” details. Just the facts, ma’am. Don’t care what the weather was like or what she was wearing or the mind-numbing rabbit trails you feel I need to follow you on (wait a minute…back up the truck…I think that’s how I write!), but tell me what I need to know. No more, no less. Mark does this with his gospel. He doesn’t waste words but doesn’t skip or scrimp on the awesome power of Christ’s Life. I call it the “gospel on the move” because he takes the three and a half year ministry of Christ in one fell swoop and leaves you swooning! He’s writing to Romans who like stories of power and authority and like it much better when the minutiae is edited out.

I also love the fact that the other gospels borrow from Mark, particularly Matthew and Luke. Mark got his information from the one disciple/apostle who knew everything! Peter was in every crucial narrative that involved the disciples and even a few the others missed out on. Talk about a fount of knowledge!

And then there’s the fact that John Mark’s story is my story. He started out well with the Lord but there’s that season of falling away that is sadly added to his biography. Ah, but gloriously that’s not the end of his story! Yes, he abandoned ship. Yes, he ticked off one of the most anointed apostles. Yes, Paul questioned his stones for some time to come. But, as in baseball, it’s not how you start but how you finish that matters and John Mark finished well. His name is one of only a handful that Paul mentions from his execution cell in the last days of his life. He wanted him nearby. He needed his life to encourage the old saint.

John Mark was an overcomer. And I want that to be my story, right up to the end.

Then there’s Job…

May

Messiah Complex

By pasturescott 3 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Deception, Encouragement and Surrender

Found this in a sidebar of a book I was reading…the list is described as “five unrealistic expectations that can contribute to servant burnout.” Sometimes we take “all things to all men” to extremes it was never meant for. To paraphrase Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law, not one of the hillbillies): “You can’t save everybody, Mo!” (see Exodus 18:17,18)

LIES THAT LEAD TO ‘MARTHA OVERLOAD’:

“There should not be any limits to what I can do”
“I have the capacity to help everyone”
“I am the only person available to help”
“I must never make a mistake”
“I have the ability to change another person”

–from Caring Without Wearing by Carol Travilla

May

Fading

By pasturescott 8 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Jesus Christ, Reign of Christ and Uncategorized

“The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out…”
(1 John 2:17, The Message)

“And this world is fading away…”
(1 John 2:17, New Living Translation)

Allow me to tell you about a near-tragic night when I almost chose to end it all.

It was January, the calendar had recently flipped over to 1978, and the night air was frosty clean. You know the kind of air I mean; such that makes even your lungs feel brand new. And was I ever pulsating with life! I had just taken my girlfriend home and was looking forward to our prolonged good-night ritual. Nothing dirty, mind you, just your garden variety hand-holding, kissing, small talk and listening to 8-tracks. My choice was always Manilow, hers Fogelberg.

We’d been dating for a year or so and both of us were seniors at our own respective high schools; she, at a public high school a half-block from her house and I, at a christian school across town. We met at work, of all places. She worked the jewelry counter at a department store and I was one of three stock boys. The girl was everything to me! Other female employees thought we made the cutest couple while my mates constantly made kissing sounds whenever I ventured near her counter, never having the end of their taunting and teasing. Me, I could care less. I was smitten with she of the auburn hair. I had hopelessly fallen. Hard. Only seventeen, but she was definitely the one.

The prolific engine of her soft blue ‘78 Camaro hummed as it idled in the driveway while we snuggled up in the interior warmth and sat silently in the reverie. Flecks of snow began to hit the windshield and within moments the late evening sky was shaking out an abundance of thick white flakes. I kid you not, amid the wintry ballet all around us, the radio was spilling out the words,

“I think about winter, when I was with her
And the snow was falling down
Warmed by the fire, I love being by her
When there’s no one else around…”

It was truly the most romantic time I’d ever experienced in my young life. I was falling headlong in love with her all over again. I looked deeply into her eyes just then, but saw something that troubled me. I saw doubt. Clearly she wanted to say something but was having difficulty forming the words. It seemed she was not in the same place I was and, finally, the words came out. She held my hand with both of hers and her eyes began to tear.

Continue reading ‘Fading’

Apr

“Just Ignore Me”

By pasturescott 12 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Discipleship, Jesus Christ, Repentance and Sandy

Which is what I had to tell the bride this afternoon, painstakingly admitting to chronic daftness and pleading for the mercy of the court. For the second time in sixteen hours I had nobly offered my unsolicited opinion about someone she was talking about. You must know my opinion was a monolithic leap toward unrealistic conclusions. It was overly harsh. Judgmental. Mean-spirited. Carnal.

Something the “old man” would say, not me!

Sandy just looked at me like ‘where did that come from?’ and I commenced to pull a “Maybell”. Of course, Maybell is our seven-year old ‘chihuahua/corgi/something-else’ dog and whenever she does a no-no sets to wagging her tail like a windshield wiper, hoping you’ll overlook it because of her charming personality and big brown eyes. When you don’t, that tail begins to decelerate and come to a complete standstill, then tuck and fall in a single parentheses between her hind legs.

That’s what I did, in a manner of speaking.

“Just ignore me. That was uncalled for. I repent.”

Why is it that so much yuck seems to surface when your desire to let Christ live through you is the strongest? Have you noticed that? Does the ugly side of you seem to materialize more frequently the closer you get to Christ?

I know my Lord is after something in me: the perfection of His Son. And (thank God) He cannot and will not ignore what frustrates that.

Amen and oh me…

Apr

Let’s Write A Story!

By pasturescott 78 Comments

Categories: Blogging, Christianity, Humor, Writing

Creative minds, front and center!

I found this idea on another blog and thought it might be worth a shot here. Here’s how it goes: I will offer a leading line for a story and I would like my readers to add a maximum of FOUR words to the line. You can come back as often as you want, just make sure you refresh the page before you leave a comment so as not to step on anyone else who might be posting.

Oh, and NOTHING DIRTY (I’ll delete, so help me)…

Well, and away we go!

Here’s the story-starter:

“Late last night I had the most uneasy feeling…”

(remember, comment in four words or less)

Apr

Casting Call!

By pasturescott 5 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Commitment, Discipleship, Encouragement, Jesus Christ, Reign of Christ and Surrender

Sometimes movies can entertain and, on rare occasions, they can actually move you.

Here’s one that moves me to this day:

The scene is both striking and memorable: a clutch of men running barefoot along a beach in slow motion. The haircuts and uniforms suggest an earlier time. The pace is set, the runners all in a tight pack, a near impossible ballet of grace and muscular limbs. Some of the faces register serious business; others reflect sheer joy in the moment. It’s a cloudy day and as the milky grayness of the sky erases the horizon, one is hard-pressed to tell where the ocean ends and the firmament begins. While high-definition water drops splash upwards from the surf, synthesized music drones and builds.

The camera pans and focuses on the one face whose story will be central to the script. It is a handsomely ruddy face, well-chiseled and with a mop of flailing blonde hair. The viewer quickly deduces this runner is exceptional among exceptional athletes, but it is a quiet confidence that pushes him. Almost reverent.

The runner, Eric Liddell (played by Ian Charleson), is the subject of Chariots of Fire, a 1981 best picture classic. The life of Liddell is near-perfectly portrayed by the actor who plays him so believably, one would think Charleson was typecast for the role of the God-fearing athlete/missionary. I get gooseflesh when I recall the Scotsman’s impassioned speech to his sister Jenny: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

The story has all the ingredients of a good flick. It was the summer of 1924 and Paris was hosting the VIII Olympiad. Eric Liddell, the fastest runner in all of Scotland, finds out his qualifying heat for the 100 meter race was to be run on Sunday. He quietly and reverently bows out. Surefire gold for his country is lost. On conviction, this man who lived for Christ first and ran second, would not run on the Lord’s Day. His teammates were incredulous. His coaches were up in arms. The powers that be were despondent. Evidently, this had no great effect on Liddell for he is seen in church on the morning of his heat, quoting from Isaiah 40:31,

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Liddell would, in fact, live to run another day. Though it was for a race he had not trained for, Liddell ran the 400 meter with blazing speed and the wind of God on his back. Impossibly, Liddell won the gold medal despite being tripped and having to make up 20 meters and still flew by the rest of the pack to the finish line.

Though the movie falls short of telling the true drama of Liddell’s life, history fills in the blanks. Two years after winning the gold and bronze medals, Liddell went to China as a missionary. While there, he would be imprisoned by the Japanes during their occupation and would remain in a prison camp until his death from a brain tumor in 1945.

Perhaps you already have this tidbit of insider information, but a few years ago I learned the man who portrayed Eric Liddell in the movie was not, in fact, a follower of Christ at all even though his sympathetic approach to Liddell’s faith almost beg that he be of likesame faith! Turns out, he just “played one on TV.” Not only was Charleson not a follower of Christ, he was a self-avowed agnostic who found God to be a far-off, aloof character, well outside and offstage the drama of his life.

That blew me away!

You know, this isn’t a far cry from how the church role-plays in our time. We can have the best soundtracks, the best costumes and sets, the best storylines, even the best actors! It’s like the modern gospel–say it but don’t live it–has produced its own brand of religious agnosticism where God is “up there, out there, but not IN there.”

How does the apostle put it? Something about a “form of godliness…”?

We have learned that we can memorize the right lines and break into character when it is our cue then break back into our real life persona when the cameras stop rolling. How God—yea, our world—must tire of a brand of Christianity whose followers merely “play one on TV.”

Today I believe God sits in His holy heaven in his Director’s Chair hard at work producing His upcoming masterpiece. His eyes are “roaming to and fro” looking even now to cast a people who are real, sold-out, focused on the Wedding Feast and their Bridegroom Lord, lovesick for Jesus and willing to endure trials that will weaken and decrease them so that Jesus and his power may be front and center of all things.

Man oh man, I want a role in that story.

Mar

A Friday Man vs. A Sunday Man

By pasturescott 10 Comments

Categories: Christianity and Encouragement

You’re gonna need a Hebrew Hymnal for this one.

Got it? Okay, now turn to song numbers 88 and 89. I’ll wait…

All right. Let’s say we brave the depths and scale the heights of these two very different compositions.
All we know from the men who wrote these Psalms is that they were from the same tribe. They were singers in the King’s choir and these two Psalms are their respective solos. They probably knew each other, might even have been brothers, who knows? Whatever the truth is, we know they saw things differently.

Two men.

Two perspectives.

One was a Friday Man.

The other, a Sunday Man.

Two men.

Same choir.

One sang funeral dirges and preferred the Minor Key. The other couldn’t wait for the “Hallelujah Chorus”. One lived in the uncertain times of B.C. The other lived in the new dawn of A.D.

The world today is a vast ocean of Friday Men, people who know very little beyond the Minor Key of Psalm 88. The verbs they identify with are:

“troubled”
“without strength”
“forsaken”
“cut off”
“thrown out like yesterday’s trash”
“afflicted”
“the object of loathing”
“hemmed in”
“wasted away”
“camped on the edge of hell”
“rejected”
“unloved”
“hopeless”
“nobody listens to me”
“nobody sees me”
“nobody cares for my soul”

That is a Friday world. Bleak, broken, unbearable. An insane treadmill that gives the sense of motion but gets you nowhere but the grave. An afterlife? Ha! I can barely stomach the life I’m in. Who needs another?

Trust God? I’ve tried but He never comes through for me. I’ll just make the best of things on my own.

That’s Friday thinking.

Psa 88:10 Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.
Psa 88:11 Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Psa 88:12 Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

These are rhetorical questions that, from Heman’s perspective, have a “no chance in hell” attached to them. “Perform wonders for the dead”? Why, dead was dead and any hope at all is swallowed by the tomb. “God’s lovingkindness declared in the grave”? “Declared” in the grave? The “GRAVE”? The Jews believed the grave—Sheol, Abaddon—was silent and deaf. No words could be spoken or heard in the grayish grim halls of the entombed.

“Wonders in the darkness”? Not on Friday, mister. No how, no way.

The Friday Man cannot see beyond the veil of death. To him, all is pitch. All is inky blackness. To him, there is no light, only thick, penetrating darkness—his very existence is the “dark night of the soul.”

What Heman, the Friday Man, does not know is: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit…”

Jesus is that grain of wheat.

He is the Fruitful Seed.

Heman—a Friday Man—cannot see what is happening beneath the cold concrete of death. A Vine is growing and the strongest, most prolific stone that man can put in the way is no obstacle to the path of such an organic, cosmic force. Like a stubborn blade of grass shoved ever upward through resistant sidewalk until it breaks through to the world above, so life is brewing and brimming and being birthed behind that devilish slab and the Friday world must soon give way to Sunday!

Enter Ethan. You know, the Sunday Man…and his solo is the showstopper! The contrast between these two Psalms is as striking as the Man of Romans 7 and the Man of Romans 8. As different as the Prodigal who found redemption and the older brother who found obscurity. They are as far opposite as the Pharisee who patted himself on the back and the publican who prayed with trembling lips…one is bound while the other is released from the cow-stall of Law…

We see perfectly what the Law and Law alone can do to a man in Psalm 88…unredressed yearning, saviorless despair, bitter isolation and the hopelessness of a man without salvation.

Though the first cry that erupts from the throat of the Friday Man (88:1) is to appeal to the God who saves, chapter 89 is the picture of a man who now swims in the glorious waters of redemption. Hey, no one wants to live in a Friday world, but we need Friday. It is Friday that shows us the demands of a holy God. It is Friday that shows us we are lost and undone if left to ourselves. It is Friday that shows us we need a substitute, a Law-keeper, a perfect, spotless Lamb. The Law—that which is all Heman ever knew—cannot save but it can lead us to the One who does! This is why Paul could say of the Law: it is “holy, righteous and good…it is spiritual.”

Friday is necessary but that’s not the end of the Story.

Seeing these two Psalms, side-by-side, gives this amazing fresco of grace: Friday’s questions give way to Sunday’s answers!

Friday Man gets no redress. But when the Man of Sunday, Christ Jesus, the Tree of Life, marched His way back into the Garden against every assailable force evil could throw against Him, one can almost hear HIM ask the same questions above the gale-force winds of the Destroyer:

Will You do wonders for the dead, Father?
This time, no silence. But this: Oh yes, My Son…You will be the Firstfruit of the resurrection and I will raise ALL those who find themselves in You, for if you take the firstfruit out of the field and offer it to Me, the rest of the field is made holy!

Father, will Your loyal love be proclaimed from the gaping maw of Sheol?
Oh yes, My Son! You will hear the garish shouts of triumph exploding from the damned who are set free while the groans of finality will echo hollowly among the lower denizens of the forever damned.

Those same questions were met with silence for the Friday Man, the man who knows only Law. Will I do wonders for the dead? Will praises be heard in the grave? God’s resounding answer: NOT UNTIL JESUS! Yeshua: the Very One who volunteered for the Greatest Love Story Ever Told. The One who told His Father, “the sacrifices and offerings of men will not release redemption for mankind but through a Body prepared for Me. Yes, Father, I come to do Your will.”

Every concern and question of chapter 88 is dealt with in chapter 89. Agony becomes ecstasy. Tragedy becomes triumph. Grief becomes glory. Isolation becomes adoption. The grave becomes a cradle. “Not yet” becomes “Arise, My Love!” and by the time verse 15 rolls around, Ethan is no longer enjoying a solo. He is now joined by the full choir.

“How blessed are the people who KNOW the joyful sound!”

When was the word “blessed” ever used in chapter 88? How about “joy”? And I just love that word “sound”. In the Hebrew it reads: HOW BLESSED ARE THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE SHOUT!”

Do you know the shout?

I’ll bet it’s on your tongue right about now:

Friday’s over with!

Saturday’s come and gone!

Strike up the band!

Cue the singers!

It’s Sunday!

Let’s go out and tell the world: “I’m a Sunday Man!”

Nov

Giving Up On The Joneses

By pasturescott 19 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Discipleship, Fasting and Sacrifice

Jesus sent His Twelve harvest hands out with this charge…you don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light… (Matthew 10:5,10, the message bible)

Dave Bruno is a guy who thinks he has way too much stuff. Dave Bruno has decided to do something about it. Dave Bruno is paring his life down to “100 things.” That’s right. He is fasting “stuff” and allowing himself only 100 things he can lay claim to and he’s giving the rest away. His website gives more of the particulars, but this is the general gist of what he’s about.

Do you think Dave is crazy?

Or a genius?

If I did likewise (and I am ~~thinking~~ dreaming about it), just the equipment and medical supplies I have to keep around because of paraplegia would take up about half the list. Okay, so a hundred and fifty things for me. Wait. I have about twenty Bibles that are ALL very special to me. And my books. Oh, my precious, dog-eared, musty lovelies! How smooth and inviting your gilded edges…

All right, ~~three~~ four hundred things.

Of course there’s still Sandy and Graham to consider. Okay, so four hundred and one things.

(Kidding!)

This just occurred to me: perhaps Solomon’s life would have been better if he had, say, done some spring cleaning and kept only ‘a hundred’ around the palace.

Nah.

Nov

Bringing Prayer To A Knife Fight

By pasturescott 10 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Intercession, Ministry, Missions, Prayer and Trusting God

This blog post comes from Bart Campolo, an inner-city missionary in Cincinnati, and its title caught my attention. The article reminds me that, as a suburban pastor to the predominantly middle- and upper-middle class, I live a highly sanitized life, far from the grit and grime of what others face every day. In perusing Bart’s posts, I can say I don’t see everything the way he sees it, but it is clear he has some words for the Body of Christ. And I cannot fault him for that, especially while sipping latte from my ivory tower.

I Hate It When All You Can Do Is Pray

I’m not friendly with the white-shirted drug dealers who work the corners near my house yet, but at least they acknowledge me as a neighbor now, instead of looking me over as a prospective buyer or an undercover cop. It’s not fear that keeps me away from them, I think, but rather cold, hard realism. Until they fall, those hardcore guys simply are not “get-able” for anything less viscerally exciting than street life. I hate to break it to all those Christian rappers out there, but loving God and loving people does not qualify in that category.

The fact that I don’t walk up to those guys doesn’t mean that I don’t keep them in mind or pray for them when I walk by. On the contrary, I am fascinated by what goes on, and careful to notice if and when the kids we know start hanging around with the wrong people. And I am always on the lookout for Shareef.

I first saw him on a drug corner two years ago, when we moved here. Shareef is 16 now, but back then he was 14 and looked even younger. He always seemed more like the dealers’ mascot than one of them, but he was a hard-looking mascot at that, and he was out there all the time.

Everybody told me Shareef was a bad kid, so it wasn’t surprising that I only got to know him when he tried to sneak into one of our by-invitation-only dinner parties. I turned him away from that one, but, against my better judgment, I invited him for the following week and, to my great surprise, he turned up again, right on time.

As soon as I greeted him, he handed me his cell phone and told me his grandmother wanted to talk to me, to make sure he was welcome. We’d never met, but as soon as I confirmed his invitation, she spoke directly. “You can feed him if you want, but don’t turn your back on him for a minute, or he’ll steal from you,” she said wearily. “I don’t care if it’s a church, he’ll steal or he’ll get in a fight if you don’t watch out. Understand, I love the boy … but I’ve got to warn you. He’s not right. He’s never been right.”

It was a strange beginning to what continues to be a strange relationship, with a woman who’s had her heart broken again and again, and with a kid who’s had every card stacked against him from the beginning, save one. Shareef may be a streetwise, bi-polar, learning-isabled orphan with A.D.D., a drug habit, and a well-deserved criminal record, but he is so vulnerable and so oddly charming that his grandmother and lots of other good people keep trying to help him.

Unfortunately, at this point, it seems we’re overmatched. Sometimes, when we meet on the street or when he stops by our house, Shareef is energetic and funny, and he talks about getting a job, staying clear of his dealer friends, and doing positive things with his life. Other days, when I see him hanging with the older boys, his eyes are glassy and he barely acknowledges me.

A few weeks ago, after going to the church where his grandmother serves as treasurer, he stole the offering before she could deposit it at the bank and disappeared. Knowing betrayal comes cheap on the street, she and his social worker posted signs around the neighborhood offering $50 to whoever brought him home.

A few hours later, there he was, literally kicking and screaming as three of his “friends” carried him around the corner and threw him onto her front yard in front of a laughing crowd of bystanders. At that point Shareef’s uncle, a muscular ex-con just home from prison, pinned him against a fence and scared away the crowd. I was there, too, doing what I could to help, trying to talk sense to the boy while his grandmother called the police. They locked him up for his own good, but it was ugly.

I hate it when all you can do is pray. I don’t understand prayer very well, and around here it often feels like a waste of time. I know that’s wrong, or at least wrong to say, so you don’t have to write back to me about it. Better that you should pray for me, eh?

Anyway, yesterday I was sitting at the dining room table searching for a way to start this letter when I heard someone knocking at the side door. When I opened it, there was Shareef, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey Bart!” he exclaimed, “Can you come over to my grandmother’s house with me? I’ve got a new foster family, and I’m back on my medication, and I’m doing real good, and the man I’m living with is named Charles Smithson, and he wrote a book about overcoming drugs and police brutality, and in two weeks I’m going to a real high school, and I’m only visiting home for a little while so … can you come right now?” So I went, and got the whole story and more.

We sat on Shareef’s grandmother’s front porch, me and him and her, along with his uncle and his social worker, talking about Shareef’s good news and about Michael Vick (trust me, animal lovers, folks in the ‘hood see that one way differently than you and me) and about a bunch of other stuff that I never dreamed I’d be talking about a few years ago. I think I even got a relational “in” with the ex-con uncle. It was beautiful.

Before I left, I asked everyone for a favor. We put our hands on the boy, and I prayed out loud, thanking God for what was happening and asking for more. At the end of the day, I may not understand or often enjoy prayer, and I may hate it when it’s all you can do, but I’m definitely not above it and I never hope to be.

Nov

The ‘R’ Word

By pasturescott 8 Comments

Categories: Brokenness, Christianity, Confession, Conviction, Repentance and Salvation

Been talking about repentance at The River the past few weeks. The following are some thoughts I had on my heart this past Sunday. Sorry New River-ites, you’ve already seen this, though it has been retooled into a much more readable fashion…

Two men.

Both sinned against the Lord on the exact same night.

Both betrayed Christ.

Both repented.

Only one was justified.

The other penitent soul went straight to hell.

Yikes. Are you listening?

Of course we are talking about Judas Iscariot and his fellow disciple, Simon who was called Peter. Judas betrayed Christ for some coins, striking the necessary spark for Christ’s crucifixion. One gospeler says of the devilish disciple (John 6:70)—the only disciple from Judah—that satan entered into him, so we know this follower of Christ (at least geographically) was possessed by satan himself on that fateful night (John 13:27). Under cover of night, of both the natural and supernatural kind, Judas went out at the direction of Christ (John 13:27) and set in motion the night of all nights.

Judas’ betrayal was sealed with a kiss.

Sifted Simon had his part in the cosmic drama as well. After Jesus had been taken, he followed the retinue of soldiers and the shackled Messiah to the home of the high priest where the Christ was bloodied and bullied all night long. Outside, in the courtyard, Simon was confronted three different times, twice by two different “girls” (Matthew 26:69,71) who were able to expose his weak-kneed faith.

You remember Peter, don’t you? Upstairs? In the Hall of the Last Supper? Yeah, that’s him: loudly heralding his undying commitment and willingness to die alongside Jesus if called upon to do so. And see all the disciples around him? Well, Judas had already fled into the night, but the rest were adding their amens and hallelujahs, each stepping forward and volunteering for the King’s Army of Martyrdom.

Now some scant hours later, Peter-the-spokesman, is tragically and pathetically calling down curses on himself and others if he had had as much as a passing relationship with this Man who called Himself Messiah. The final betrayal, a string of words that would make any salty fisherman proud, was met with the loud and soulful wail of a rooster as it crowed. Or perhaps it was a soldier’s bugle, sounding out “cock-crow.” It didn’t matter. Whether from metal or animal, as far as the future Apostle was concerned, it was surely his death-knell. He must have covered his ears, squeezed his eyes shut and fallen to the earth waiting for the inevitable lightning strike. Continue reading ‘The ‘R’ Word’

Oct

If Spock Was A Seeker

By pasturescott 2 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Church and Humor

A little humor from Jon at ASBOJesus…

Oct

We Don’t Know

By pasturescott 7 Comments

Categories: Apologetics, Christianity, Deception, Discipleship, Encouragement, God, Hope and Kingdom of God

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter but the glory of kings to search out a matter.”
(Proverbs 25:2)

“To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
(Matthew 13:11-13)

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God…”
(Deuteronomy 29:29)

A hmmmmm moment just now.

I clicked on the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) channel a bit ago and caught the tail end of a Q&A with Ravi Zacharias. Just knowing that is enough to glue me to the boob tube for a while! He had just recommended Os Guinness’ book God In The Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond A Shadow of Doubt to a young man whose question reflected concern for those who had felt let down by God. Then he broke off the session with a parable that has me going hmmmm, isn’t that something?

It seems that Elijah was traveling the countryside with a rabbi when they happened upon a dilapidated lean-to owned by a poor man and his ailing wife. Outside the shack was a skinny cow whose ribs were poking through its hide. The couple let Elijah and guest to spend the night with them, offering them the best of their cupboard: a cake of bread, some butter and milk. During the night, suddenly and sadly, a wall collapsed in the poor couple’s humble cottage but Elijah had no miracle for them, despite their hospitality.

Later that day they happened upon a very rich man who entertained them and allowed them to spend the night. The evening’s fare he spread before them included rich, fat morsels and a feast fit for kings. What a bounty! The next morning, a wall also fell in the rich man’s house and Elijah immediately performed a miracle and restored the wall.

As the two travelers continued their journey together the rabbi could not wait to ask the burning question: why would you restore that rich man’s wall and let the poor couple suffer their fate without intervening?

Elijah said, “Ah sir, the Lord showed me the poor man’s wife was going to die the next day and I interceded for her and she was healed. She and her husband are so grateful to God for His overshadowing miracle they will gladly rebuild the wall together out of joy of being restored to each other.”

“As for the rich man,” Elijah continued, “he is so bound to his greed. He is held captive to it. Behind his wall is a pot of gold and because I performed such a miracle for him, he will never know it, never touch it, and never be bound to it.”

Ravi ended the parable by saying that we have many questions as to why this wall fell and that wall stayed up, why this one was left in rubble and the next is miraculously restored. His point was, quite obviously, God has a perspective on all things we do not have and He sees the end from the beginning. He can also see through the wall that looms large and unexplained before us and He holds our tomorrow in His great big Hands. We bow to the supreme great God who will answer our questions one day but we would be well served to remember that our time is but a “speck in a sea of eternity.”

Have you had any hmmmmmmm or aha! moments of late?

Oct

Face of Jesus

By pasturescott 4 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Hope and Jesus Christ

Take a look at the face of our Lord…see anything?

Sep

Father Knows Best

By pasturescott 23 Comments

Categories: Brokenness, Christianity, Conviction, Encouragement and Hope

I’ve been waiting for the question that hasn’t come. But it will, I’m sure of it.

“Scott, aren’t you even a tad jealous that Kevin Everett will likely retrieve all his bodily functions and mobility after suffering a potentially grave spinal cord injury?”

This is going to sound weird, I know, but Kevin should be jealous of me. Hear me out. Kevin Everett is the tight end for the Buffalo Bills who sustained a near-crippling injury while making a tackle in Sunday’s NFL season opener. He launched at his opponent, driving his helmet into the player’s chest and immediately crumpled to the ground. Early indications were that he would be paralyzed for life, his career in football over in seconds. Twenty-four hours later we were hearing he was voluntarily moving his arms and legs and his doctors were hopeful even of a full recovery and return to normal life.

Two roads, he and I, with two patently different outcomes.

When I blew a gust of relieved air with the rest of America, I steeled my mind on the truth of God’s sovereignty. One man’s miracle is another man’s blessing. Sure, the enemy was there with his typical suggestions: “…it’s not fair, is it, Scott? You didn’t get the same break, did you? God is so cruel! I’ve been listening to your prayers for your own healing for almost 26 years now…and what? Nothing. Still stuck in that wheelchair! And you’re a, what, preacher of the Gospel? You’d think your Father would look out for you…”

But I sit here, clacking away at these keys, a blessed man!

(Nice try, Slewfoot.)

The fact I am in a wheelchair does not mean I have not been healed. Oh, I have, believe me! My paralysis is a pathway to glory and I am resting in the knowledge that my Maker has set me apart for a privileged season in His sun. He’s given me a break. You want to know Me? Your brokenness is the essential way. The same Apostle who said his own suffering was working for him an eternal weight of glory, said that in the life to come some will shine like the sun, some like the moon and others like the stars in glory. I’m after the former.

I am thrilled for Mr. Everett but I wouldn’t trade my journey for anything. Years ago I picked up a copy of Jerry Bridges’ Trusting God Even When Life Hurts and found in its pages the answer to my soul’s questions and even now, years later, find myself referring to its basic tenets time and again. Mr. Bridges says that God is sovereign, meaning He can do whatever He wants because He is God. He says He is also all-wise and His children can draw comfort from the fact that while God can do whatever He wants, He knows exactly what He is doing. Everything He does has purpose. The third truth pouring from its pages is that God is all-loving. Ah, this is the most comforting unguent of all! While God does as He chooses, He always does it in view of His own glory, and always, always, for our eternal good.

This is the God of my life and I am determined to follow Him through every vale of sorrow, every mile of struggle, and every season of loss and despair. I can do this because the broken road is the blessed road and my Savior walks it with me. Had feeling been restored to me on October 3, 1981 (the day “after”) and the next 26 years been “normal” for me, I have some doubt whether I would have known the Lord as intimately as I do tonight. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I leave even that to His sovereignty.

I praise the God who sits on the circle of the earth, over those who walk and those who don’t. Over those who succumb to disease and those who get well. Over those who serve Him and those who shake their fists at Him. Makes no difference. He is Lord.

One last thing. There was a time when I could sit down (well, of course I’d be sitting!) and write song after song. Interesting that it was in the early years of my disability and I probably wrote three dozen tunes. One of the songs that flowed out of my belly pretty much sums up how I feel about these matters. Mind you, the lyrics were written over 25 years ago and they show some youth, but they are just as real for me today as they were in the early 80’s. To the praise of His glorious grace!

HE KNOWS WHAT’S BEST FOR ME

I know I can’t walk around and at times it gets me down
But He knows and I’m kept by Jesus’ love
There’s so many things I’d like to do
Run a race and win one too
But He knows and that’s enough for me

He knows how much my spirit can stand
He’s so concerned for my good
He is so wise and He hears all my cries
He knows what’s best for me

Sometimes it’s hard to pray when He seems so far away
But He’s there and He’s listening to my heart
He reaches down in love
From His heavenly throne above
‘Cause He knows what I need the very most

And when my life is done
And my crown of life is won
Then I’ll know my pain was worth it all…

It’s my guess that the question I’m still waiting for won’t come after you read this. Oh, one more thing. Please don’t think I am being haughty and patting myself on the back. The truest thing I know is this: none of this comes from me. Only God could take a broken man’s life and give it meaning and rhyme.

And Father knows best.

Aug

A Prayer For This Day

By pasturescott 6 Comments

Categories: Christianity, Confession, Consecration, Crucified Life, Encouragement, Hunger, Intimacy, Jesus Christ, Prayer, Reign of Christ and Repentance

Occasionally (well rarely…er, never?) I will add something out of my prayer journal and post it for public consumption and that mood strikes me this day. A little context, if you please: my life has been a runaway roller coaster for several weeks now, running from meeting to meeting, imploding under the weight of protocols, agendas, procedures, tasks and deadlines. This push pace has fairly smothered me and I’ve begun to see life ooze from my very spirit.

Serenity Now!

I shared with a friend today that this is not the life I am wired for. At heart I am a cave-dweller, needing much alone time with the Lord in order to have order and integrity in my interior life. And so, even to the point of near rudeness to decline yet another meeting this morning, I “stole” some much-needed intimacy time with the One who, sadly, all too often gets shoved into the “to do” pile of my life.

To my delight, what I found in my holy ground place (my van, you recall) was not a miffed Potentate thumping His watch and pumping His crossed legs impatiently. He was not in a tizzy, giving the cold shoulder until just enough groveling had embarrassed us both. No, I found a Lover patiently waiting by, already coming toward me as I shyly crossed over the threshold, and just like that, we were in the moment.

Blessed Father,

I come to You to worship and praise the God of all gods and every living thing. I worship the One God who rules over all and is a Jealous Lover. The skies spread prostrate before You, the stars pulsate with the energy of Your love, the trees bow and wave to the King who rules, and the seas move in the rhythm of the One who sings over them.

You are God forever and none can compare to You. You are manna from heaven, water from the Rock, the Way through the wilderness, Rivers in the desert, the pillar of fire and cloud who goes before Your people to lead them to their Eternal Rest. You are the Eternal Shabbat and I call You Lord, Savior and Lover of my soul.

You are good and Your love endures forever! In You is ALL my soul should ever long for, pant after and need. The world and all its pleasures are passing away! All that is this “world” is opposed to You and if I am friendly with it, then I am against You. God, may this not be my enduring testimony but may I always and ever seek only after You and may the “One Thing” of my heart’s confession be to find You and be found by You. To live only for Your pleasure and awake in Your likeness.

Oh God! May Christ be fully formed in me! Oh, that I would come into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and that my inner man might be built up in You and may I be sanctified wholly, finished and completed and be found blameless!!!

As a bride adorned and festooned with the jewelry of righteousness (not her own), incandescent with the touch of the holy on me, wearing the fragrance of Christ, giving no doubt to all that I have been with Jesus, wrestled with You, not letting You go without Your breath to fill me inside. I declare in this moment of eternity that I want You to be my First Love without a close second. Woo me today. Seduce me and romance me! I am here, in my chambers, a virgin bride, kept and waiting for the Day of Your Arrival.

There is oil enough for the night—is there? I pray so. That’s why I come to this place of our meeting to express my heart’s yearning for You.

God, my Lord and King, I pray for ALL ties to anything that hinders me from running to Your embrace to be broken. ALL! I am so attracted and dis-tracted by passing pleasures and the siren calls of other lovers and I would not have it this way. This is why I cry for Christ to be fully formed in me—until I am so consumed by Your Life that I see through Your eyes, hear only Your voice, follow hard on Your steps and taste only Your wine and Your lips. Until I am heartsick for You, and have NO appetite except for Your Presence to linger always as close as my own breath.

I am ever Your Shulammite, struggling to turn from Solomon’s overtures because love—real love—is found in my Shepherd Lover. Solomon is relentless and greedy. He has a harem and wants to make me “one of many” but You are in pursuit of me and will spare nothing to lay hold of me, breaking even Solomon’s bewitchments and enticements so that I remain single-eyed for the True Lover of my soul.

“Arise, my darling…” You say.

“Come away with Me!” You call.

Lord, please find that place in my heart where is a sincere desire—a protected secret place—where I want and will to go away with You and truly leave all this far behind…Woo me today. Seduce and romance me! I pray You will not turn away and leave me for Solomon’s consumption.

You are a great, high and holy God! You are ever near to the cry of Your servant and faithful to accomplish all that You’ve begun and with all that Your servant cooperates with You to do. DO ME, Lord! Baptize me in the deepest waters You have! I want this old man to die away! For good! I want him to be belly-up and bloated in the Red Sea along with Pharaoh and his hapless army.

God, my King, do this and draw me into the reality of such a conquering of myself. I repent, Lord, of my own self-rule and taking the Throne when You alone have the right to rule. Reign over me, over my life, over my family! And over all I am attracted to…Reign, O Lord!

In Jesus’ Name, amen.

Aug

15:20

By pasturescott 16 Comments

Categories: Brokenness, Children, Christianity, Compassion, Encouragement, Family, Forgiveness, Gospel, Hope, Jesus Christ, Miracles, Reign of Christ, Repentance and Revival

“And he got up and went to his father. But while he was still far away, his father saw him and was moved with pity for him and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss.”

–First century parable from the lips of Jesus

Long about noon on Saturday a father and son will meet in a giant bear hug far from the horizon that once separated them. And Mom will be there too, just the right touch needed to make a three-corded strand. Perceptive onlookers might catch a glimpse of something arcane and otherworldly in this simple tapestry: a family wrapped, cinched and secured in the keeping power of the Strong-Armed One. I’d call that an unbreakable family bond.

The son is, at long last, coming home. Gone will be the rags and fetters of the far country and, though the memories of depravity and hellishness will linger, the air will be gloriously cleared of the demons that enslaved and harrassed.

I noticed a subtle nuance about that story this afternoon. I found in my Bible, the NASB’s translation of Luke 15:32 to be, “this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live…” The translators took the verb anazoo and made the distinction in it’s aorist tense that a process or action has begun that, if it continues, will certainly end in a completed action or effect.

That’s pretty technical sounding so let me dumb it down for you and me. When I have told others of our son’s return, I (a) do not refer to Graham as a “prodigal” because he no longer wears that moniker by the grace of our Lord, and (b) advise them not to expect our boy to exude an ethereal glow and matching halo. The boy has begun to breathe again the new air of the liberty by which Christ has set him free. He is just now beginning to lay hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of him.

Like me (and you), he will not have “arrived”. He might break our hearts again. (I sure wish there was a verse 33 in that chapter so we could see how it plays out six weeks, six months or six years from the banquet!) He might revert. I pray not, for the scriptural phrase “a dog returning to its vomit” is not such a good thing. It’s deadly, in fact.

All we have is today.

And 15:20.

And verse 32.

And that’s got Mom and me giddy from the word go.

And go we will. To meet our son on a hillside of grace, restoration, reconciliation and…

JUBILEE!

Finally, let me end with this captivating story found in Philip Yancey’