Why is it that those who consistently fail at establishing any real vocation, fail at being part of a functional local church, and fail overall at life in general …
Seem most inclined these days to promote themselves as “apostles,” apostolic “workers,” or some such nonsense …
Where they only succeed at reproducing their failures in others?
When you begin to grasp God’s majesty and omnipotence …
You can’t help but live a life of reverence and gratitude.
Spiritual warfare is not waged in a prayer closet …
But by going forth to assault the gates of Hell.
The prayer closet is simply where we get our marching orders.
When your ministry becomes your source of validation …
It truly is “your” ministry.
Don’t confuse God’s grace with His delight.
You can experience His grace, which is unmerited …
But then miss His delight, which comes from doing His will and obeying His commands.
If you doubt this, just do a quick online word search for “delight” in any good Bible translation.
Those who deny this distinction with their hyper-grace teachings …
Know not the authentic God of Scripture or His authentic joy.
What we mean by “worship” today seems to have become a distraction …
From what God means by “worship” in the New Testament.
In the original language of the New Testament, the Greek words translated “worship” mean a lifestyle of Godly obedience and reverence …
Not music or musical performances designed to press our feel-good buttons.
In fact, there’s not a single use of those Greek words in the New Testament, or in the context of the common vernacular of the day when the New Testament was written, which even hint at such a thing.
Nope, not, nada …
Just ain’t there.
I’m all for singing God’s praises together, but let’s leave behind the self-absorbed counterfeit “worship” that’s so common today …
And begin to actually worship God by living holy lives of obedience and reverence, as He defines it.
The key to effective ministry …
Is becoming less and less indispensable.
Faith is not so hard to find …
It’s just outside your comfort zones.
A government that wants the power to solve all of our problems …
Soon becomes the problem.
Idolatry takes many forms …
As does its bondage.
May God’s people have the wisdom to resist both.
For me, there’s no greater joy than seeing lives redeemed …
Through the one-on-one ministry of confession, forgiveness and surrendering our associated burdens to the Lord.
There, true repentance happens …
And freedom begins.
Faith presumes no outcome rooted in our own wishes …
But simply trusts God’s goodness.
True liberty is the freedom to pursue virtue …
Not autonomy to pursue vice.
I think I need to be sent to millennial sensitivity school.
Back in 2016, I was having lunch at a local fast food joint with two bros who often ministered with me in the local jail.
We were minding our own business at our own table, talking privately among ourselves about the upcoming elections and the Second Amendment, when a thirty-something millennial dude walked up and told us to stop talking because it was “hurting his feelings.”
Continue readingGod’s no thief.
He won’t take the burdens of our heart – our accumulated regrets, hurts, anxieties and wrongs – unless we give them to Him …
As an intentional act of surrender.
To give them to Him, however, we must first own them …
By honestly and fully confessing them to Him.
Because if we can’t or won’t do that …
Then they own us, and not us them.
Nor is God a cheat.
When we fully and finally release them to Him …
He always gives us peace and resolution in return.
Always!
God’s grace:
Love with conviction,
Mercy with repentance,
Freedom with holiness.
I’ll take relational simple church over staged scripted church any day of the week.
If you’re confused about why it takes victims of sex abuse in the church so long – if ever – to build up the courage to speak up …
Look no further than your own reaction when it involves abuse by someone you support, like or know.
Is church supposed to be a staged event …
Or a functional community that ministers to one another?
Those who claim the Bible is God’s authoritative written Word only in spots,
And by implication that they have the authority to spot the spots,
Are not teaching some new revelation but the same old deception …
Which starts by asking,
“Did God really say?”
I get so tired of the lie, repeated whenever someone wants to avoid the hard work of living by their convictions – or even having convictions – that we must not judge.
Where does Scripture make a blanket prohibition on judging?
Continue readingMoral compromise rarely seeks to deliberately advance evil …
But to preserve our own comfort zones instead.
Which, from evil’s standpoint, is perfectly fine also.
Without hospitality …
There is no ekklesia.
I’d rather gather together as a functional community of believers who express Christ’s presence already in each of us – one to another …
Than go elsewhere for a scripted performance which tries to “usher” us into His presence – stage to pew.
The more I learn to “be the church,” the less I want “the show.”
It’s popular these days to say that Jesus is all about a relationship.
Ok. I get it. People are sick of dead religion. So am I.
But that begs the question:
A relationship on whose terms?
Continue reading
Many burnout by repeatedly ministering to folks who want our time, energy and resources …
Without fundamentally dealing with their underlying issues through honest repentance.
Continue readingI have no problem with the doctrine of “total depravity.”
Apart from God’s grace, I see no evidence to the contrary …
Plus Scripture is clear that apart from His grace, we have no hope.
However, I likewise have no problem with the doctrine that we can resist His grace.
Not because we have any power to frustrate God’s sovereign will …
But because He sovereignly wills to grant us that choice.
Why do some only speak up about fraud and abuse in the church …
When it’s to urge silence by the victims and those standing with them?
They are not peacemakers, but enablers.
They are not courageous, but cowards.
They are not principled, but complicit.
What we call “church” these days is so far removed from the New Testament …
That we dare not let those who see that truth …
Also speak that truth …
Without “correcting” it with a “but,” “and” or “or” …
Rooted in presumptions, anxieties and rationalizations from our own man-made traditions.
Most mornings I wake up grateful.
Before the day starts, I like to sit and quietly watch the sun rise while prayerfully contemplating the many blessings God has restored in my life.
Continue readingMaking everything about my thing, even when it’s a God thing …
Denies His Lordship over all things.
It seems “grace” has become an excuse these days …
For not growing up.
Many claim to have a “high view” and believe in the “authority” of Scripture, but be careful.
Often, they are playing verbal games rooted in the existential philosophy of “theologians” like Karl Barth.
He taught that Scripture is “authoritative” only as a helpful – but flawed – jumping point to personal experiences and “revelation” which, he claimed, are God’s actual “Word” and more authentic than Scripture itself.
Continue readingWhen integrity is displaced by loyalty to a leader …
When folks sit silent amidst disclosures of wrong …
When comforting assurances are offered and accepted in lieu of open, true repentance …
It’s not a church …
But a cult.
There is no basis for authentic unity apart from our identity in Christ …
But that identity has no validity apart from the plenary authority and discipline of Scripture as His written Word.
Unfortunately, that seems to be a hard and offensive “word” for many today …
Who presume the right to define Christ – and thus us – in their own terms.
They create anarchy – as everyone does what’s right in their own eyes – leading to tyranny …
Rather than healthy community and Godly liberty.
Biblically committed Christians need to vote, stand for truth, support candidates who most closely embrace our God-given values for the blessings of all, and be actively engaged.
But let’s keep it in perspective:
We lose our witness when people end up judging our values by particular candidates …
Rather than judging those candidates by our values.
So in our fallen world, where we often must vote for imperfect candidates …
Let’s unabashedly hold even those who get our votes accountable to those values.
I have yet to see lives consistently transformed from despair to maturity in the Lord …
Or viable local churches emerge …
Among those promoting a dichotomy between Jesus as the Living Word and the plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word.
Christians who dismiss some as beyond the reach of God’s redeeming grace …
Stand outside His redeeming grace.
If good never confronts evil …
What good is it?
The greatest threats to liberty today come from so-called “Progressive Christians” and their Leftist buddies.
They reject Scripture as God’s written Word, with plenary authority over all it addresses, including limits on human authoritarianism.
Instead, they want government – in the name of a false Christ they’ve created to reflect their own narratives and sensibilities – to impose their own existential, post-modern ideologies of tryanny and immorality on everyone else.
Biblical Christians, in contrast, take seriously our God-given, individual responsibility for our own wellbeing …
And our personal, God-given (not bureaucrat-driven) obligation to be our brother’s keeper.
For these reasons, we stand firm in answering to God for those obligations, and not to “progressive Christians” …
Who want to use ever-expanding government power to foist and enforce their own statist notions of those obligations – however misdirected or well intentioned – on everyone else.
Fundamentally, God delegates to government the duty to protect us …
Rather than “fix” us by compelling everyone to comply with some so-called “progressive,” existential notion of “good.”
Even God doesn’t ask the State to usurp our individual obligation to provide for our own wellbeing and help those who can’t …
So who do these repressive “progressive Christians” think they are?
Their oppressive agenda of ever-expanding State authority is a threat to all who stand for eternal, Biblical precepts …
Like ensuring authentic civil liberty, and authentic charity, through our God-ordained right to pursue what is true and virtuous – free of government coercion.
You can either answer to God, or you can answer to these new legalists who seek State power to become the new enforcers of their own rudderless, humanistic sensibilities.
Even though we live in an imperfect world, often with imperfect choices, we still have the power to act …
So please, stay active and vote accordingly.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Not choosing is, in fact, to choose the status quo …
And often that’s the greatest evil of all.
I’m less interested in whether your Biblical proof texts affirm your theological position …
Then whether your theological position equally affirms the Biblical proof texts of those with contrary views.
Those who refuse to exceed their comfort zones …
Often lack Godly joy.
Maybe that’s why Scripture says that “the joy of the Lord is your strength” —
Because lethargy brings despair …
But overcoming brings authentic joy.
Jesus says He will build His Church as we go to unreached communities and make disciples …
And His Kingdom then advances.
Instead, we build our churches and hope unreached people will come, form community, and possibly become disciples …
But His Kingdom seldom advances.
Maybe we should do what Jesus says once again …
Not just overseas, but in our hometowns too.
One of the many problems with making a “church” all about “the Pastor” …
Is that if “the Pastor” goes off track, burns out, hits his own personal limits, or whatever, so typically also goes the church.
Perhaps that’s why the concept of “the Pastor” who primarily runs or is the lynchpin of a church simply doesn’t exist in the New Testament.
When we instead adopt the New Testament’s approach to ministry and leadership, there is greater balance and stability with broader discipleship.
Church then becomes a gathering of believers with ministry by one another to one another through the many gifts and callings God bestows between us …
And “pastor” is simply one of the functions performed by elders who emerge among us to lead and minister beside us.
Maybe that’s why God designed US to be HIS church …
Rather than primarily being about one man with a platform.
God still raises up Deborahs.
If that offends you …
You might be part of the reason He chooses to do so.
When did the gifts of the Holy Spirit …
Become the grifts of men?
God is not amused …
And judgement has begun.
The Progressive Existential Revised Version (PERV):
A new Bible translation, where the true Word of God is whatever you feel it should be.
The full meaning of the Greek word translated as “faith” in the New Testament …
Presumes obedience.
Unless we want cheap grace …
We should do the same.
Repentance is not how we become perfect…
But how we deal with our imperfections.
Over the years, I’ve taken a very public stand against the proliferation of for-profit non-prophets who peddle their wares to gullible believers.
In response, I’m often asked if I believe there are prophets today. I think that’s the wrong question, because “prophet” in the original language of the New Testament is not a title but a function.
It applies to anyone who faithfully says – while they are saying it – what God has led them to say. Nothing more, nothing less.
And yes, God still speaks through people today – subject to Scripture and the sound judgement of others.
But that does not convey some elevated position to anyone over anyone.
Using that criteria, my observation and experience is that authentically prophetic ministry is alive and well within healthy, functional, local communities of believers who humbly submit one to another.
Such people have no need, or tolerance, for self-appointed “prophets” who go around peddling so-called “words” for self enrichment and notoriety.
So permit me to pass along some things I’ve learned over the years:
If someone needs to add “Prophet” in front of their name, they ain’t one.
If someone needs to name a ministry after themselves to help sell their “prophetic words,” they have gone off track.
If they are not presently rooted in, submitted to, and humbly accountable to a local, functional community of believers in their own home town, they have no business “prophesying” in anyone else’s home town.
If they need to preface everything with “God told me” to lend it credibility, then it likely has none.
It they routinely play to your fears or tickle your ears, instead of being willing to say what you don’t want to hear, they’re building their own kingdom and not God’s.
Finally, we need to return to wisdom and discernment, and stop listening to those who turn the authentic into freak shows.
And that, my friends, is likely the most authentically prophetic thing you’ll hear me say all day.
😎
How do abusive “spiritual” movements happen?
The spiritually broke, in search of intensity …
Are manipulated by spiritual narcissists, who give them what they seek and call it “God” …
Thus trapping them in tangled webs of dependency, ego and deception.
Decades of ministry to people in emotional bondage from past wrongs (both to them and by them) have taught me a valuable lesson:
Experiencing God’s full forgiveness typically requires full confession.
Consider this:
Often – because of shame, pride or emotional pain – we won’t confess externally what we are hiding or avoiding internally.
Those wrongs are ours, not God’s, but we can’t give them to Him if we continue to hide or avoid them.
This is critical, because God is not a thief. He won’t take what we don’t give Him.
When we do decide to give our wrongs to Him, however, by confessing them out loud and asking Him to forgive us …
He always releases us from them and gives us wholeness in return.
Many, unfortunately, want the freedom of forgiveness …
Without the vulnerability and transparency of confession.
But God, in his infinite wisdom, wants both.
May we live our lives as sacraments of God’s presence before a lost and hurting world.
No one should be allowed into full time ministry …
Until they’ve first learned to successfully make their own way in life through their own initiative and labor.
Otherwise, the Body of Christ will continue to be plagued with legions of insecure people clinging to “ministry” out of need …
Rather than calling.
Paul affirmed this with his own life …
And in his credentials for elders and deacons.
It’s time to return to the Biblical norms he set forth.
Otherwise, don’t be surprised when “pastors” start protecting their positions over others …
Rather than promoting others over themselves as Christ commands.
My wife and I are tired of cleaning up their messes as we minister love and healing to those they’ve insecurely pushed out of the way to elevate their own “leadership” prerogatives …
Because they know they have no other income options.
Jesus didn’t say that “peacekeepers” will be called the children of God …
But that “peacemakers” will.
Big difference!
Peacekeepers tend to tolerate deceit and destruction.
Authentic peacemakers seldom do.
Many want revival …
But God wants repentance.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam chose autonomy over the Father’s will.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus chose the Father’s will over autonomy.
A gospel of no offense …
Is not the Gospel of Christ or His Kingdom.
Biblical discipleship is about folks submitting to Christ’s authority …
Not your’s.
Over twenty years of intense ministry to men in jail, and when they get out, taught me a fundamental truth:
Without healthy functional families – headed by solid, devoted men – everything else in a community breaks down.
Yup, God can redeem individuals from any mess – but that doesn’t change the underlying social relevance of Psalm 11:3 …
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
Many “Christians” define God – and judge Scripture – by their notions of love …
Rather than submitting their notions of love to God and His Word.
They are pseudo Christians …
Who worship themselves rather than the sovereign God of all.
Sometimes it takes grace and wisdom to distinguish between God using a flawed person …
And a flawed person using God.
The older I get, the more I understand that God-centered gratitude, awe and stewardship …
Are essential antidotes to the self-consumed despair, hopelessness and meaninglessness that grip many today.
Sometimes, the smartest thing we can say is …
“I don’t know.”
Plumbline Faith 