Tag Archives: the church

December 16, 2015 · 6:23 AM

Holiness Over Hygiene 

When I was younger, every once in a while, our church would do a foot washing service. I typically reacted like Peter: You ain’t washing my feet! Number one, I don’t like taking off my socks and shoes in public. Number two, it’s uncomfortable to sit in a chair, in front of everyone, while a leader in the church washes your feet. Even though I understand it a little bit better now than then, it’s still one of those things that makes you want to protest having it done for you.

In John 13, the disciples and Jesus were at the Last Supper. After dinner, Jesus took off His robe and put on an apron. He poured water in a basin and began to wash their feet. When He got to Peter and he protested, Jesus replied, “If I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing” (MSG). Jesus wasn’t just talking about not being a part of the foot washing, He was talking about not being a part of building His Church.

Peter’s reply to Jesus was to not just wash his feet, but to wash his whole body then. I’m sure Jesus and the others chuckled at that. But Jesus’ next words were the crux of what He was trying to do. He said, “My concern, you understand, is holiness, not hygiene.” It’s not about having your feet washed. It’s about being humble enough to serve someone you lead or to allow yourself to be served by someone you respect. Either way, it’s humbling.

Jesus is teaching us that none of us will ever become so great that we will be above doing the most humbling of tasks. Nor are any of us so insignificant that we are below having those we respect serve us in a manner that honors us. On both ends of the spectrum, our pride clashes with humility. Either we have too much pride to humble ourself completely to serve someone else or we have too much pride to let someone we respect humble themselves at our expense. Jesus said if we fall into either of those traps, we will have no part in what He’s trying to do.

I Peter 5:5 says, “Clothe (apron) yourselves, all of you, with humility [as the garb of a servant, so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you, with freedom from pride and arrogance] toward one another” (AMP). We are to put on the apron of humility like Jesus did, free ourselves of pride, and serve one another if we are to be a part of building His Church. It’s in the ground of humble servanthood that holiness grows. Pride is a weed in that garden that will choke it out. Get rid of your pride and learn to serve others in humility of you truly want to be like Christ. 

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July 20, 2015 · 5:16 AM

Fit Perfectly Together (Video)

He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Ephesians 4:16 (NLT)

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July 7, 2014 · 7:56 AM

God’s Garden

Recently I was talking with a lady I have known my entire life. She was sharing how her grandfather had a garden, her father had a garden and how she and her husband have a garden. She’s worried because she doesn’t see many people after her generation planting gardens. The art of digging into the earth, planting seeds in their season, watering the seeds, keeping weeds out, tending to the growing plants and bringing in a harvest is being lost. Some are ok with the thought of that being a past time, but with it goes a lot of understanding of scriptural principles too.

Whether or not people continue to plant gardens, the law of sowing a reaping will still be true. Will the next generation understand what sowing and reaping is if they never plant anything? If they never plant anything, will they understand the time and dedication it takes to reap a harvest? If they don’t understand what it takes to bring in a harvest, how can they be expected to work in God’s vineyard? Jesus said, “Pray that the Father would send laborers to work in the vineyard.” The idea of labor is hard work.

God is looking for people who are not afraid of hard work. Ones who know that to get a harvest, it takes tilling, sowing, tending and watering. People who know that just bringing in the harvest is not enough. There’s more work to be done after you bring the harvest in. Once the harvest is brought in, you have to prepare the land for the next planting season. The work of the Kingdom is like that, it never ends. It’s a continuous cycle just like the garden. We must continually be about our Father’s business. We must always be tilling, planting, watering, tending and reaping. Our work won’t be finished until he comes.

The more we plant, the bigger the harvest we can expect. My friend told me that her husband planted 18 pounds of potatoes and got 500 pounds in the harvest. Imagine if he had planted a hundred pounds! The harvest we are seeing in our churches is small because we haven’t planted enough. It’s time we began to sow the Word of God into the lives of others bountifully. We then need to water that Word with prayer. We can tend to it by having conversations that are godly and uplifting. When the time is right, those souls will be ready for a harvest. It won’t be just them, but their families too.

What are you planting into the lives of others? If you haven’t been planting, you can start today. Yes, it’s hard work and it won’t be easy. God made gardening hard work on purpose. He’s looking for people who aren’t afraid to dig in to the dirty parts of life, plant seeds of His love in their life and then shower them with blessings. It’s time we got back to the basics of what we were called to do. It’s time we started planting again because there can be no harvest if no one plants. Whose life will you sow seeds in today?

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March 5, 2014 · 7:51 AM

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

When I think back to the time in my life when I was hurting inside deeply, I think back to what I did, where I went who I hung out with. I was reeling from a wife who left me for another man, a business that was failing and the possibility of having to file bankruptcy. Instead of finding my strength and help in the church, I turned away. I was ashamed of everything that was happening in my life and I didn’t want to admit to those who knew me what was going on. I was embarrassed at what was happening so I disappeared.

I found myself in a bar each night trying to numb the pain. I found new friends who wouldn’t know who I was and could accept me for who I was just forced to become. People from the church tried to reach out, but I ignored them because now I was floating further from the person I was supposed to be. After a while the calls slowed from the church and they picked up from my bar friends. I sat in the bar each night feeling sorry for myself and for who I was becoming.

There was a plaque on the wall behind the bar that read, “In times of trouble, friends are recognized.” I remembered thinking, these are my real friends. They’re the ones who are here during my time of trouble. I blamed the church for not helping me when I’m the one who left. I’m the one who didn’t return the calls of the few who did try to reach out. I felt like I had been abandoned by the church and embraced by the people in the bar, but I wasn’t being me. I was being the person who was letting my circumstances define me.

I knew life there was hallow and would be temporary, but I enjoyed the anonymity and lack of expectations. The while time, I knew that wasn’t who I was, however I was changing slowly into that person without realizing it. One afternoon, a co-workers husband asked me, “When was the last time you were in church?” I let him know it had been a while. He looked me in the eye and said, “Boy, you need to be where people really love you and can help you. Your church doesn’t care what’s happened. They will love you anyway. You need to be around them so they can help nurse you back to health.”

For those of you who are in the position I was in, my church did accept me back. They loved me no matter what. The fears that people would talk about me or reject me were unfounded. Those thoughts were used to keep me away from where I needed to be. The truth is that only those who knew the real me had the ability to truly love me. They are the ones who had the power to bring healing. If you’re tired of running, hiding and pretending to be someone you’re not, it’s time to go back to church for healing.

For those of you in the church, when you see those who have left come back, they need your love and acceptance more than you know. They need your unconditional love to nurse them through the pain. Be like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Instead of asking where they’ve been or what they’ve done, open your arms, run to them, wrap them in love and make them feel welcome. It’s harder than you think to walk back through those doors and face people you think you’ve disappointed. Don’t make it more difficult on them by shunning them or ignoring them. They need a friend, not a judge.

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November 27, 2013 · 7:31 AM

Reaping Where You Haven’t Sown

Today is the last day before the official holiday season. From now until the end of the year we’ll be bombarded by Christmas commercials, mall Santa’s, bell ringers and sales at every store. Everyone wants the money in your pocket because this is when we spend like no other time of year. Today, I just want to take a deep breath and relax in the calm before the crazy begins. I want to purpose in my heart that I won’t let all those other things get in the way or ruin the real reason for the Christmas season. Before I go, go, go, I want to thank the one who came.

A young girl sang a song in church on Sunday that asked the question, “Where’s the line to see Jesus?” It talked about the lines in the stores and the lines to see Santa, but where are the lines of people to see Jesus? We’re willing to camp out for great deals, stand in long checkout lines and endure cold weather, but complain when the sermon goes 5 minutes over. We wonder why our nation doesn’t turn to Jesus and we pray for an awakening, but we’ve got to wake up first.

I’m not against all the sales, standing in line or camping out. I’m just asking, “When is the last time we sacrificed for God? When have we truly given up something important for the advancement of the Kingdom?” I look at my life and wonder why there’s so little fruit, it’s because I’m planting in one vineyard and trying to reap in another. It doesn’t work that way. Not only will we reap what we sow, but we will reap it where we sow it. We can’t plant seeds of selfishness and expect to grow trees of righteousness. We can’t sow our time in things that don’t matter and expect a return in the eternal. Yet we do and then wonder why God isn’t bringing in a harvest.

If we want to have God move in our churches and nation, we’ve got to sow the seeds of time in prayer. If we want to reap a harvest of souls, we’ve got to sow effort in helping our communities. We can’t stand by the church door, ring the bells or put on amazing media presentations in the church and hope they’ll come. The law of God has always been about sowing and reaping. The Church has always understood that until this generation. We are expecting to reap without having sown. We are expecting an increase without having decreased. We are expecting gain without the pain.

Where does God want you to sow seeds in this holiday season? How can you water seeds that have already been planted? Are you ready to harvest? Look around you while you stand in long lines. You have a captive audience to plant seeds. God is looking for those who are available to work in the vineyard. He’s willing to pay full wages even if we don’t work the whole day. It’s up to us to see the opportunities, to say yes to His will and to begin planting seeds that will bring a harvest.

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August 15, 2013 · 8:12 AM

Are We Goats Thinking We’re Sheep?

I’ve got Haiti on my heart this morning. Partly because I’m headed back in a few months and partly because we watched a video from Richard Stearns from World Vision last night. He reminded us of the scripture in Matthew 25:35-40 where Jesus told of the day where God will separate the sheep from the goats. Jesus said that He will turn to the sheep and say, “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.’ (MSG)”

What stood out to me last night as he read that scripture was the response of the sheep. They said, “Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’ (MSG)”. They didn’t even realize it was Jesus they were doing it to. They were doing those things because God’s love compelled them to.

That’s a stark contrast from where the Church is today. The Barna Group released the results of a study yesterday. They interviewed over 700 self-professed Christians and asked a series of 20 questions about attitudes and actions. In the end, only 14% of self-professed Christians were found to have the attitudes and actions of Jesus. Another 14% had the actions of Jesus, but not His attitude. The results show a lot more and if you like, you can see it here.

If we add those numbers together, barely a quarter of Christians act like Jesus. He spent His time in ministry to the poor, the hurting, the outcasts, the leppers and the unwanted. He spent very little time with those who were looking for power and prestige. He made it clear that He wanted us to do the same. You can see that in what He said in Matthew 25. The ones who made it to Heaven were those who fed the hungry, gave drinks to the thirsty, sheltered the homeless, gave clothes to the poor and visited those who were sick or in prison. When is the last time we’ve done any of those things?

We’ve spent millions building bigger, more stylish churches and only thousands on taking care of the poor. I look at those results of the Barna group and ask myself, “What area do I fall in? Do I have both the attitudes and actions of Jesus? Am I in the 28% or in the other 72%?” Those are tough questions that God and I are going to work through. I encourage you to ask the same questions. If you’re not in the 28%, what can you start doing today to move in that direction? How can you be one of the sheep instead of a goat?

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