Living a Life that Makes Sense

Greetings All!








This week's "thought" comes to you from Francis Chan, and is taken from the book, "Passion" (a collection of different articles focusing on living the Christian life in earnest).  This excerpt comes from the chapter by Chan entitled, "Living a Life that Makes Sense."  It speaks of how Chan, a well-known pastor here in the U.S., learned to be bold in speaking the truth, and consistent in living out his faith, from members of poor and persecuted churches in India, China and Thailand.  His words are very challenging yet inspiring. Enjoy.

     "I've heard stories -- you've probably heard them as well -- about Christians overseas. I've heard stories about the underground church in China, for example. Or stories of people in India who give their lives to Jesus and literally sacrifice everything... I've been hearing these stories all my life, and I finally reached a point where I decided that I had to see for myself.  I had to meet some of these Christians around the world. I had to know if they were for real.  So I spent a few months overseas with my family. I didn't do this because I was godly; I did it because I knew I wasn't, but I desperately wanted to be.  I looked at my life and saw that I was lacking boldness. I didn't have the guts to say everything God wanted me to say.  So I wanted to learn from Christians who were bold enough to follow Jesus no matter what it cost. 
     We traveled first to India and I had an opportunity to to speak to a huge group of people there. You have to understand -- these people were the persecuted church. Many had watched family members be beaten to death for their faith. And there I was, standing on stage in front of all these people.  I didn't know what to say to them.  I told them that what I really wanted to do was hear their stories -- and that's what I ended up doing.  I listened to a woman tell me about how she came to know the Lord. As soon as her village learned that she was a Christian, the whole village came to her hut. They brought decapitated lizards and told her that she and her husband needed to drink the blood and convert back to Hinduism. They gave her an ultimatum. She had to deny Jesus.  At this point in the story the woman looked at me and said: "I couldn't do it. I couldn't deny Jesus." So she grabbed her Bible and she and her husband just ran. The whole village had rejected them -- they would be killed -- so they ran into the jungle to hide. She was pregnant with their first child at the time. So as they hid in the jungle, her husband helped her deliver their first child. They were desperate for food for themselves and this newborn baby. But God provided. He got them through it. This woman told me, "We weren't going to deny our Lord. I just held on to my Bible. I would not let any of them take my Bible from me. That was the only thing we grabbed, and we ran."  I talk to a woman like that and I think, 'That's a life that's worthy of the Gospel. She understands that Jesus is all that matters. Her manner of life is worthy.' 

     I talked to another guy who showed me the scars on his head and his back. He told me that within a few months of becoming a believer, a huge group of people surrounded him and started beating him. He was thinking, "Okay God, this is it. This is the way it's going to end. That's ok. I'm not going to deny you."  He told me he was able to crawl away, but looked back and watched the crowd beat his friend to death. He endured all this, and he had only been a follower of Jesus for a few months!   I talked to so many people who went through these kinds of things, that I finally asked one of the leaders, "Don't you have any people in your churches who just call themselves Christians but don't really live it out?" He just looked at me and said, "That wouldn't make sense. [Over here] If you call yourself a Christian, you automatically lose everything. Why would someone volunteer for that if they weren't serious?" He told me his story -- that when he was eleven years old, he gave his life to Jesus.  He told me, "I still remember coming home and telling my dad. It was pouring down rain outside. I told my dad that I was a Christian, and he took everything I had and threw it outside into the mud. Then he looked at me and said, "Don't you ever call me Dad again."

     Think about it. This is an eleven year old kid!  What would you have done? He said, "I went over and picked my Bible out of the mud, along with a few other items, and I just wandered around looking for somewhere to go."  He eventually became a pastor, a husband, and a father. Twenty years later he even reconciled with his dad, who became a believer himself.  That is powerful stuff!  I hear these stories and I can't help but think that his manner of life is worthy of the Gospel...

     Then we went to China. We visited part of the underground church where they train leaders... They asked me why it was so strange to hear their stories. I had to explain that things are different where I come from. I told them that most Americans talk about the church, but they're referring to a building.  I explained we have a ton of these buildings, and you can choose which one you want to attend. Then I told them that people might attend one for a while, but when when they find another with better music, they'll switch. That's when these students started laughing hysterically.  I swear I wasn't trying to be funny. Some times you're saying something serious and everyone thinks you're joking.

     I kept going. I told them that if one church has better child care than another, then a lot of parents are likely to switch. The students started laughing harder.  I explained that sometimes people will switch if the service times are more convenient, or if they like one speaker better than another. The students were dying with laughter.  I felt like I was doing a comedy routine. But all I was trying to do was explain the American church to the underground church in China.  As they were laughing I realized they're right.  It doesn't make a lot of sense.  I look at their lives and everything makes perfect sense. I look at our lives and I wonder...  When we hear stories of Christians overseas, we think they're weird. But we're the strange ones. This is how Christianity works around the world, and we're over here in America getting caught up in our consumer-driven approach to church...  Where is the manner of life that lines up with the Gospel?"

     In my trips to India I have seen the same.  I've spoken with people who have really suffered for Jesus and the Gospel. I prayed with one woman who had all her possessions thrown into the street and trashed, and was then threatened to be burned alive -- along with her children -- if she told another person about Jesus. But she wasn't going to stop.  "It would be an honor to die for Jesus," she told me.  I felt like a midget among giants.  I also saw poor pastors who traveled hours to attend a conference, and others who bore in their bodies the scars they had received for being faithful to Jesus.  It all made sense.  It all made so much sense.

In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

The A21 Campaign

Greetings All!

Stop!  Before you're tempted to close out this 'thought' because it's "too long" (which in our fast-paced society tends to be anything more than a paragraph or two) I would encourage you to read on. What is shared in this thought is VERY important -- both for you and many others around the world -- 27,000,000+ others to be exact.  Believe me it will be worth you time; and all the more so if it moves you to do something in response to it.
It comes from a lady named Christine Caine, and is found in a book called, "Passion," edited by Louie Giglio, and containing articles by many authors including Francis Chan, John Piper, and others. Christine is the  founder of the A21 Campaign, one of the largest non-profit 

organizations in the world, dedicated to rescuing the victims of human trafficking (labor and sex slaves) in 12 countries. This article tells why she chose to get involved. It is impossible (if one has a heart) to read what she writes and not be moved. Please do.

Divine Interruptions

     "I found myself speaking at a conference in Greece around the time that a little girl named Madeline went missing in Portugal. Her picture was plastered across the TV, in airports, and in magazines. Interpol was searching for this little girl everywhere. I was, of course, very saddened by the disappearance of this little girl, but I didn't know her.  I hadn't met her... Then I saw a second poster for another girl that was missing. This child was named Sophia -- the same name as my second daughter... Suddenly these missing children weren't numbers. They weren't posters and they weren't statistics. They were real -- someone's daughters. Someone's sisters and classmates. I stopped and began to wonder if that were MY Sophia on that poster, what would I do to find her? What wouldn't I give up to see her safe? 

     I later found out that these children were the alleged victims of human trafficking, something that at that time I didn't even know existed. I assumed that the slave trade was abolished with William Wilberforce, but I was wrong. On my watch, in my generation, the current state of slavery has been flourishing in the dark rooms of the world.  With all our great Christian gatherings, our tremendous churches, our wealth of worship songs and resources, right now in the 21st century, there are more slaves on earth than ever before.  It was incomprehensible to me.  How could this be true? How could this happen in our day?   Yet it's true. During our day, more people are being trafficked and sold for labor or sex than ever before in human history. This is unacceptable not merely from the standpoint of human rights; it's unacceptable from the standpoint of the teachings of Jesus...

     With knowledge comes responsibility. We know the slave trade is alive and well right now. We know this, and because we do, we are responsible to do something about it... We might be tempted to equate compassion with getting sad watching a movie or hearing a story. That's not compassion; that's sentiment.  Compassion isn't compassion until you are actually interrupted. It's not real until it inspires you to action.  It was the action of the Good Samaritan, not his sentiment, that separated him from the others that walked by the beaten man on the side of the road... In our choice about whether to cross the road, we must begin by realizing that at one point or another, we were the one lying in the ditch and Jesus crossed the road for us.

     I am a rescued person. I did not discover I was adopted until I was thirty-three years old. Though our parents never told us the truth, on a single day we discovered this family secret and the truth was jarring to say the least. Suddenly I didn't know who I was.  I didn't know whether I was conceived in an adulterous affair or a one-night stand. I didn't know if I was the result of a rape or an underage pregnancy.  But as the panic set in, the Lord reminded me I didn't have to know the specific facts to know who I am... I may not know who I was, but I know who I am; I have been rescued by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  Jesus walked across the road between heaven and earth so that I might cross the road for the sake of others.  I was saved by grace that I might walk in the way Jesus did in the world. This is the plan of God -- to use rescued people to rescue people... Jesus has set us free so that we might set others free. He rescued us so that we might rise up, reach back, and rescue others... It could be any one of the twenty-seven million slaves in the world right now.

     But that twenty-seven million must cease to be a number.  Just like you and me, these people are living, breathing human beings created in the image of Almighty God, full of God-given destiny and God-given promise. The same Jesus who set me free can set them free, but how will they hear those words if we do not go tell them? How will they ever know the truth if we, together, don't raise our voices and declare that we will not allow this injustice to prevail? The Apostle Paul said that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1), and we must take that declaration to the world.

     Not long ago I was sitting at one of our shelters with Sonia, one of fourteen rescued victims. One of these young women, one that wasn't a statistic anymore, began telling me about how she was shipped to Istanbul in a container with sixty girls. During the trip, the oxygen tank broke, and when the crate was actually opened, thirty of the girls were dead.  The ones left alive had no passports because the traffickers had taken them. They were locked in an apartment and raped several times a day by men wearing law-enforcement uniforms, so the girls would not trust the police. Then, they were put in a little rubber dingy to be taken from Istanbul to Athens through the Greek Islands. While en route, the traffickers were spotted by a coast guard patrol, and so they threw the girls overboard. Keep in mind that these girls were from villages and had barely seen running water, let alone been in a body of water to swim. Only five survived. Sonia was one of them.

     She was eventually brought to our shelter when police raided a brothel in Athens. It was about that time in this unbelievable story that a Russian girl sitting near us (who had been rescued only one day before Sonia) began to ask me loudly in broken Greek: "Why did you come?" As best I could I began to tell her about how Jesus had rescued me and so I wanted to help her. I told her that God has a plan, a purpose, and a destiny for her life; that it didn't matter what she had gone through -- God was big enough to redeem her past. But it's what she said next that I'll never forget. As I was telling her this good news, she yelled back at me, "If what you are telling me about your God is true, then why didn't you come sooner?"

     Why didn't I come sooner? Those words are haunting. What is so important in our temporal lives that will distract us from the eternal purpose God put us on earth for? What deserves more attention than the very people Jesus died for?  Safety, comfort and security are NOT the goal of Christianity; freedom is.  And because it is, we must rise together to declare that this will not happen on our watch.  Not today.  Not ever again." 

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     I have heard many sermons on the Old Testament passages which speak of the "watchmen" posted on the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Men who scanned the roads and dark outlines of the surrounding terrain all day long, and all night long, watching for danger or any signs of the approach of invading armies. But Christine is right. As Christians we are to do more that simply watch out for threats to the people of God, or the Church. We are to watch out for evil and injustice wherever it occurs, and sound the alarm for other's outside "Jerusalem" who are being mistreated, abused, or are victims of the new forms of human labor or sex slavery.  Many of these victims who are forced into labor or prostitution are children as young as 11 years old (some younger). The question is what are we doing to stop it? To use her words, "we must rise together (as the Church) and declare that this will not happen on our watch."  We are placed on the walls to ensure such things do not go unnoticed or unaddressed.

     The question facing the Church in every generation is: Will we speak up?  Will we somehow get involved?  Will we take the necessary risks and make the necessary sacrifices? Or will we turn a blind eye, and like the majority (at least here in the States), pretend it's not happening around us so we can continue to pursue the three gods of our culture -- "safety, comfort and security."  If it were your 11, 12, or 13 year old daughter (or son) would you simply express your sad "sentiment" or would you be "moved by compassion" to do something to put an end to such evil -- even if your part is to rescue just one of the twenty-seven million slaves worldwide?  God has placed you as watchmen on the walls -- will you allow such a thing to happen on your watch without lifting your voice, or pen, or hands to do something to stop it? As the old Christian hymn declares: "Rise Up Oh Church of God..."  Will we?   Will we think, "How sad..." or will we be,  "moved by compassion..."

In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

Suffering Hearts Need A Person, Not An Answer

Greetings All,

     This week's 'thought' comes from Joni Eareckson Tada.  As most of you know, she was paralyzed in a swimming accident at 17 (in 1967) which left her a quadriplegic, in a wheelchair, without the use of her hands or legs ever since.
     I came across her thoughts in a book of messages (sermons?) called, "Sunday's Best."  And it is true -- it was one of the best -- along with messages by Tim Keller, Jill Briscoe, Francis Chan and the like.
     It comes from a section of her message entitled: "Suffering Hearts Need A Person, Not An Answer."  It's a message I personally needed to hear as one who tends to want, or feel I need, answers. In college I was trained as an engineer and thus I struggle with an inner compulsion to figure things out and have things make sense. I tend to crave reasonable or logical explanations for life's difficult questions and will search till I find something that resolves that inner conflict.  Yet her message said that's not what most struggling people need or want. Her explanation made sense. Ok. Rebuke accepted... :)   Enjoy.

     "I will be the first to tell you that when your heart is wrung out like a sponge, a list of sixteen biblical reasons as to why all this is happening can sting like salt in a wound. You don't stop the bleeding with reasons or even answers, even though they are great, solid and true... They don't get to where it hurts in the gut and heart. That's because the problem of suffering is not about something; its about someone -- someone in your gut and in your heart... In the heat of emotion and disappointment you cry, 'What gives?' to Someone... And God, like a father (who knows he must simply be there for his child) does not always give advice. He does not always give reasons or answers. He goes one better. More often, God gives himself.

     If you are the one who is at the center of the universe holding it all together so it does not split apart at the seams; if everything moves and breathes and has its being in you, like it says in Acts 17:28, you can do no more than give yourself.  In Isaiah 54:5-6 God becomes the husband to the divorced woman or widow. In Psalm 68:5 he becomes a father to the fatherless. In Zechariah 2:5 he becomes the wall of fire to those who need protection. In Isaiah 62:5 he becomes the bridegroom to the person grieving that she'll never marry. In Psalm 103:3 he becomes the healer to the sick. In Isaiah 9:6 he becomes the Wonderful Counselor to the confused and the depressed. In John 4:13-14 he becomes living water to those who are thirsty. In John 6:35 he is the bread of life to those who are hungry for more than this world can give.

     Friends, you know me. And you know I staked my life on the fact that God's got good reasons. I have written books about it. But we cannot distance the Bible's answers from God. Even Jesus said in John 5:39, 'You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

     That God is a part of the problem of suffering may not complicate matters after all. How or to what extent he created the problem is not the question. He is the answer, and we need him. We need him desperately... God gives himself, not a list of answers. He is the answer. He doesn't gives us a bunch of words. He is the Word, the Word made flesh -- nails gouged, hands nearly ripped off, spat upon, beaten, bloody, flies buzzing, hatred hammering. These aren't merely dry theoretical facts about the Lord Jesus. This isn't love as an abstract idea -- all cool, detached, and theoretical. No, as someone has said, this is love poured out like wine as strong as fire.

     I'm so glad sitting in this wheelchair that I can trust a God who got messy when it comes to suffering. He smeared his blood on his cross writing in red ink, 'I love you,' saving us from hell-fire. Which, incidentally, is the ultimate suffering, right? Here on earth, you and I only experience hell's splash over. One of the best answers to the question 'why is there suffering?' is because there is a hell. I don't want to go to hell, and suffering only reminds me of that. God gives us tiny little tastes of hell on earth so that we might be awakened out of our spiritual slumber with the ice cold splash of eternal realities in our face... We would all stumble through life thinking this parade of twenty-four-hour days was just going to continue on... until suddenly we're smack-dab against our gravestone.

     It's a little too late to think about heaven and hell then. We'd all stumble through life unaware of a heaven or a hell were it not for God giving us a taste of suffering. And so God allows suffering between him and us so that nothing will come between him and us...

     If ever we are tempted to forget the goodness of God -- as I once was, lying on that hospital bed -- if ever someone challenges you on the goodness of God, the only way, the best way, the most supreme way God's goodness is made manifest is in Jesus Christ our Lord. God is good not because he explains the reason why, but because he explained himself on Calvary... the God of life conquered death by embracing it, destroying the power of sin by letting it destroy him.

     This is what I Corinthians 1:25 is all about. This is 'the foolishness of God' far wiser than human wisdom, 'the weakness of God' far wiser than human strength. Christ is God's foolishness. Christ is God's weakness. God wrote the book on suffering and he called it Jesus. This is why God is good. He is good because He gives himself."

     And we might add -- there is no greater or better gift that He could give. As Christmas approaches it would be good to remember that Christ not only experienced the fullness of wrath, suffering and bearing our hell for us (a hell we deserve to experience ourselves) He actually came knowing that was His primary purpose in coming.

     He came to live and suffer and die as the sinners substitute, and thereby supply us with the only true and necessary answer to all our questions about suffering -- Himself. Yes, to all our many questions about pain and suffering He repeatedly offers us the same answer -- Himself.

With you in the struggle to rest entirely in Him, Pastor Jeff

A Profile of the Obsessed

Greetings All,       

     This week's 'thought' comes to you from Francis Chan, in his book, "Crazy Love -- Overwhelmed By A Relentless God."  In it he considers the radical nature of the love we should have for God, and what our response to Him should be in light of all He has done for us.  This selection comes from chapter eight, which is entitled: "A Profile of the Obsessed."

     In a world where fanaticism is most often seen as bad -- especially when it comes to people of faith -- Chan challenges us to see that the notion of being "balanced" -- if we follow the world's definition of being reserved, or half-hearted, or holding back so as not to be seen as too extreme in our devotion for Christ -- does not come from the Bible.  In fact, that type of balance essentially makes us virtually invisible to the onlooking world where we are called to live in such a way that we stand out; being salt and light and committed without reserve.  His book is a call to wholehearted devotion to Christ (and what truly Spirit-birthed Christian would not want to pursue that)?  Enjoy.

Obsessed: To have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic.  The idea of holding back certainly didn't come from Scripture. The Bible teaches us to be consumed with Christ and to faithfully live out His words. The Holy Spirit stirs in us a joy and peace when we are fixated on Jesus, living by faith, and focused on the life to come.

I think sometimes we assume that if we are nice, then people will know that we are Christians and want to know more about Jesus. But it really doesn't work that way. I know a lot of people who don't know Christ and are really nice people -- nicer and more fun to be with than a lot of Christians I know. There has to be more to our faith than friendliness, politeness and even kindness...    

 Lovers: People who are obsessed with Jesus give freely and openly, without censure. Obsessed people love those who hate them and who can never love them back (Luke 6:32-34 / Luke 14:12-14). 

Risk Takers: People who are obsessed with Jesus aren't consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else.  Obsessed people care more about God's kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress (Luke 9:1-6 / Luke 10:1-12).

Friends of All: People who are obsessed with Jesus live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another. Obsessed people believe that Jesus talked about money and the poor so often because it was really important to him (I John 2:4-6 / Matt. 16:24-26).

Crazy Ones: Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don't always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth. As Martin Luther put it, 'There are two days on my calendar: this day and that day [that is, the day of judgment when we will stand before Christ to give an account of all that have done in the flesh] (Luke 14:25-35 / Matt. 7:13-23 / Matt. 8:18-22 / Rev. 3:1-6). 

The Humble: A person who is obsessed with Jesus knows that the sin of pride is always a battle. Obsessed people know that you can never be 'humble enough,' and so they seek to make themselves less known and Christ more known (Matt. 5:16). People who are obsessed with Jesus do not consider service a burden. Obsessed people take joy in loving God by loving His people (Matt. 13:44 / John 15:8). 

Givers: People who are obsessed with God are known as givers, not takers. Obsessed people genuinely think that others matter as much as they do, and they are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world (James 2:14-16).

Sojourners: A person who is obsessed thinks about heaven frequently. Obsessed people orient their lives around eternity; they are not fixed only on what is here in front of them (I Peter 1:17-23).

The Engrossed: A person who is obsessed is characterized by committed, settled, passionate love for God, above and before every other thing and every other being.

Unguarded Ones: People who are obsessed are raw with God; they do not attempt to mask the ugliness of their sins or their failures. Obsessed people don't put it on for God; He is their safe place, where they can be at peace.

The Rooted: People who are obsessed with God have an intimate relationship with Him. They are nourished by God's  Word throughout the day because they know that 40 minutes on Sunday is not enough to sustain them for a whole week, especially when they will encounter so many distractions and alternative messages.

The Dedicated: A person who is obsessed with Jesus is more concerned with his or her character than comfort. Obsessed people know that true joy doesn't depend on circumstances or environment; it is a gift that must be chosen and cultivated, a gift that ultimately comes from God (James 1:2-4).  

 Sacrificers: A person who is obsessed with Jesus knows that the best thing he can do is be faithful to his Savior in very aspect of his life, continually saying 'Thank You!' to God. An obsessed person knows there can never be intimacy if he is always trying to pay God back or work hard enough to be worthy. He revels in his role as child and friend of God."

Chan gives us a lot to think about; not only in his words, but also through his lifestyle (deciding after a trip to Africa to sell his larger house and move into a smaller one (half the size) -- so that he could have more money to give away).

Is that crazy, or obedience to Jesus? Is that "radical," or the normal response of a person who takes his commitment to Jesus seriously?  Unfortunately, too many of us are more obsessed with fitting into the American lifestyle and what that looks like, than being a sold-out follower of Jesus and what that might look like. It's no easy battle -- especially for those who have children and know how much they desire to fit it.  Yet it's a battle we're called to, and lose, the minute we think we don't even need to be concerned about it.

With you in the immense struggle to live as Jesus calls us to live, Pastor Jeff