God On Trial

We've all been moved by the images of what happened in Moore, Oklahoma, last Monday, and I've read more than a few comments asking, "Why God would allow something like this to happen?" The death and destruction seem so random and something in us cries out for justice. But I think a better question to ask is, "Why does God allow any of us to live?" The very fact that we are alive is a testament to God's mercy and grace. When people demand justice from God, I would warn them to proceed with extreme caution.

All that remains of the house we lived in for 8 years. The house was
located only a block from Plaza Towers Elementary.

If God was a truly just God, humanity would have and should have been wiped out generations ago. We are a sinful, wretched race that has continuously, consistently, and unceasingly defied the laws of God. Our rebellion against God should have brought total destruction upon us but God did not visit us with destruction. Instead He visited us with mercy in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Part of our problem is that we have too high a view of man and too low a view of God. In our minds, the greatest injustice that could ever take place is an "innocent" human being killed. When in reality the greatest injustice is the dishonor given to a holy, infinite God by a sinful and rebellious humanity. If all of humanity were weighed against God, He still would have the greater value. He is God. He is eternal, infinite, holy, majestic. Man is not! When man is the center of the universe, then God must answer "Why did You allow this disaster to occur?" But when God is the center of the universe man must answer, "Why have you disobeyed my law?"

This is not to downplay the devastation that has taken place in Oklahoma. I am especially heartbroken because this was my hometown. Many places that were dear to my childhood (my old house, my grade school, my middle school) were destroyed in this tornado. I have many friends who either lost everything they own or they know someone who did. This is not an academic exercise for me, but something I feel in my gut. But I have to view things biblically and truth demands that we view the world from a God-centered perspective and not a man-centered one. Therefore when we ask, "Why did God allow this happen?" we are asking the wrong question. The better question is, "Why does God show mercy to any of us?" In the end, it is not God who will be on trial, but us!

Gone in Sixty Seconds

Once again this week I was reminded that so much that we take for granted and assume will always be there, may not necessarily be as permanent as we think. As we all know a massive tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, this week. We were all shocked by the images of school children being plucked from leveled school buildings.

Rescue workers pulling a child from the rubble of what had been
Plaza Towers Elementary, the grade school I attended from K - 6.

But the images were especially poignant for me because you see Moore is my hometown and one of those schools that was leveled was where I attended grade school for 7 years. The house we lived in for 8 years was a block from the school, you could literally see it out the back door. As of Monday night, we don't know for sure, it is almost certain that that house and the entire neighborhood around Plaza Towers are gone. Two things that represented permanence and stability for me as a child (my house and my school) were literally blown away Monday afternoon. In an instant they were gone.

So much of what we build our lives on are just like my old house at 828 SW 10th Street or my old elementary school, Plaza Towers Elementary. They appear permanent and stable but in an instant they can be gone forever. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." The only thing in this life that will never go away are the words of Jesus. So, what is your life built on? Are you banking on the permanence and security of things that will pass away or are have you placed your trust in the one thing that will never go away, Jesus Christ?

Everybody Needs a Hero

Everyone needs spiritual heroes. If you don't have one, you need one. "Why?" you may ask. The reason we need heroes is because we need standards to aspire to, people who have  gone before us and left us a model to follow. Spiritual heroes help us take the ideals of the Christian faith and put skin and bones on them. They help us "flesh out" what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Our ultimate hero is Jesus, but I also think it's helpful to have heroes who were just as human as us. Sometimes we dismiss Jesus' example by reasoning, "Well He was God in the flesh, of course, I could never live like that." However, when we have everyday men and women as spiritual heroes it demolishes that argument and helps us see that ordinary humans can live extraordinary lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want to share the story of two of my spiritual heroes: Jim Elliot and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 JIM ELLIOT

 "He is no fool who gives what he cannot

keep to gain what he cannot lose."



Jim Elliot served as a missionary in Ecuador. When Nate Saint, a fellow missionary, made contact with a group called the Auca (a much feared and avoided tribe) Jim, Nate and three other missionaries  felt compelled to attempt to take the gospel to them. After months of planning they landed on a sandy river beach close to the Auca and made peaceful contact with three Aucas. But a few days later the entire tribe returned and speared Jim and the others to death.

But that's not the end of the story. Jim's wife Elisabeth and Nate's sister made contact with the Auca and eventually moved into the village of the people who had killed the men they loved. They began sharing the gospel with them and in time won the tribe to Jesus, all because Jim, Nate and the others "did not love their lives even unto death" (Revelation 12:11). As Jim wrote in his journal while still in college, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

Jim inspires me because he willingly laid down his life for the cause of Christ. Jim knew the risks of going to the Auca, but he considered those risks worth taking if only he could preach Christ to a people who were destined for hell apart from the saving grace of the gospel. I pray that I will prize the glory of Christ higher than I prize my own life.

Jim's life story is told in Shadow of the Almighty written by his widow, Elisabeth Elliot.

The story of Operation Auca is told in Through Gates of Splendor, also written by Elisabeth Elliot.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER



"When Christ calls a man, He bids

him come and die."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian. He worked tirelessly to try to open the eyes of Christians in Germany to the dangers of Hitler. He understood that if the church did not stand up to Hitler and the Nazi's evil ideology (even at the expense of its own blood) that Christianity was through in Germany and in Europe. Unfortunately, Bonhoeffer was largely ignored because most Christians were too intimidated by the Nazis to take a stand and his predictions came to pass.

Eventually, Bonhoeffer joined one of the resistance groups opposed to Hitler. He was already in prison for helping a Jewish family escape to Switzerland when an attempt was made to kill Hitler. Thousands were arrested after the assassination attempt and eventually the names of Bonhoeffer and one of his brothers and a brother-in-law were connected to the plot. All three were hanged by the Nazis only a few weeks before WWII ended. Bonhoeffer wrote in his  book Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

Bonhoeffer inspires me because he remained faithful to the truth of the gospel in the midst of a culture that was hostile to Christianity and exerted tremendous pressure on everyone to conform. The pressure to accept the Nazi's racial theories as compatible with Christian faith is similar to the pressure in our day to accept homosexuality as compatible with the Christian faith. I hope that I am able to stand firm, even at the risk of my life, and not compromise the truth for cultural acceptance.

The best recent biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.

Bonhoeffer wrote several books but the most read are Discipleship (sometimes called The Cost of Discipleship) and Life Together.



We Are Ashamed of Jesus

I like people to like me. I want people to think I'm a good guy. I try not to offend people or be rude to people (at least outside my family, but that's for another day). I'm not sure I would have said this about myself a few years ago, but the truth is, I'm a people pleaser. If you don't like me and you tell me, it really bothers me.

Being a people pleaser isn't all bad. But a negative thing I've noticed in relationship to my people pleasing ways is that it affects the way I approach people when talking to them about Jesus. Being afraid to offend people, people pleasers like me (and I know there are more of you out there) we get apologetic when we start talking to people about Christ.

We don't need to apologize or worry about being offensive when talking to them about Christ. We are bringing them the only hope for eternal salvation, not sharing our flu germs with them. Why do we get so worried about upsetting people when it comes to evangelizing? The reality is that too often we're more concerned with the good opinion of man than we are with God's opinion. We are ashamed of Jesus.

I have realized that I need to be asking God for boldness and stop worrying about offending people. If I saw a guy drowning I wouldn't be worried about offending him before jumping in to save him. If I saw a house on fire I wouldn't meekly knock on the front door, afraid I would upset anyone to let them know that their house is burning down. So why are we worried when we are bringing people the eternal, saving truth of the gospel. I think it's because we don't fear hell as much as we fear death. We don't believe in the horrors of hell as much as we do in the horrors of being burned alive or drowning. We need a holy reordering of our priorities.

God Needs to Lighten Up!

Ever been reading in the Old Testament and come across a story that made you question God's mercy? Stories like these:

• 2 Samuel 6 - A poor sap named Uzzah (what a handle!) is struck dead by God for inadvertently touching the ark of the covenant
• Genesis 19 - Lot's wife looks back to see Sodom & Gomorrah being destroyed and is turned into a pillar of salt
• Numbers 15 - Some schlub is stoned to death for innocently gathering sticks on the Sabbath
• Leviticus 10 - Two of Aaron's sons are struck down by God because they used the wrong type of fire before The Lord in the Tabernacle

Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt.

We read these and think, "Well, that seems a bit harsh, maybe God should lighten up!" The problem as David Platt explains in his book Follow Me is that our perspective on sin is incorrect. "We naturally view sin through man-centered eyes." Instead of seeing this as an offenses against an infinitely holy and eternal God, we see them as innocent mistakes by people just like us. Our real problem is that we value humanity, code for ourselves, much higher than we value God.

The penalty for any transgression is not determined so much by the nature of the act as much as who the act is committed against. Platt writes, "If you sin against a log, you are not very guilty. On the other hand, if you sin against a man or a woman, then you are absolutely guilty. And ultimately, if you sin against an infinitely holy and eternal God, you are infinitely guilty and worthy of eternal punishment."

So the issue isn't God needing to lighten up, the real issue is us needing to take sin and God's holiness much more seriously than we do. We don't need to apologize for God defending His holiness. We need to apologize for defending our sinfulness.

Here's a link to purchase a copy of Follow Me by David Platt.

http://www.amazon.com/Follow-Me-Call-Die-Live/dp/1414373287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367947760&sr=1-1&keywords=follow+me

I'm A Momma's Boy



My mom, Jan, and I at my wedding.
This is P.B. (pre-beard), for me, not my mom.

I once heard pastor and author Calvin Miller say that most preachers are momma's boys. I don't remember the exact percentage, but the overwhelming majority of pastors in the US claim that their mother was the primary spiritual influence on their lives. Well, count me in. Abraham Lincoln once said, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." I would have to concur.

As we look forward to celebrating our mothers this Sunday, I think back on the influence that my mom had on me. In our home, my dad was not the spiritual leader. It was my mom who made sure that my brother and I went to church and modeled being a follower of Christ for the two of us. So many moms are raising the children on their own, even in homes where dad is there physically but he's absent spiritually (like the home I was raised in). I want to encourage moms to not grow weary in doing good.

Here are a few things I'd like them to remember:

1. You Are the Greatest Influencer in Your Child's Life I meet so many parents, especially moms, who downplay the influence they have over their children. No, you may not be the hippest, or the coolest, or the greatest mom in the world, but you are still the only mother your children will ever have. Never discount how great your impact is on your children.

2. You Don't Have to Be Perfect Looking back now, I realize my mom wasn't perfect, but I didn't know it at the time, and, more importantly, I don't care now. She did the best she could in a hard situation with a spiritually uninvolved husband. Yeah, she may have made some mistakes, but remember, "love covers a multitude of sins." Families need to be laboratories where we learn to extend grace and forgiveness, and to get along with others.

3. You Never Know the Impact that You'll Have Your job is to be faithful to do what God has called you to do, and leave the results up to Him. You may feel like what you're saying is simply going in one ear and out the other, but they are hearing and eventually it will take root. Now, if you're not being faithful to train your children the way God has commanded you to, you should be worried about the results and I encourage you to make some changes. But in the end, the results of your efforts will not come to fruition for years maybe even decades. "Train up a child in the way that he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). There's a promise there, if you train a child correctly, even when they're old, they won't depart from your teaching.

God bless mothers, "for the hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world." Be faithful, perservere, never doubt the influence you have on your children and God will bless your efforts.