Powerful Perfume

I was doing some editing on my upcoming e-book and came across something I wrote years ago that really speaks to what I'm dealing with today. (And in case you're curious, it will be in the e-book Transform(180). 180 daily readings filled with encouragement, challenges and humor, designed to reignite your passion for God and revolutionize your spiritual journey. Hopefully I can have the complete e-book available on Amazon sometime in October.)

Powerful Perfume

Focus Text: Mark 14:1-6

Key Verse: "It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor." (5)

Comments:
You know, that argument sounds good. Wouldn’t it be better to use the money to help poor people? Let’s face it, dumping something expensive on someone’s head is awfully close to a waste of money even if that someone happens to be the Son of God.

Well, it may sound logical, but it’s wrong and for a couple of reasons.

First, it misses the point concerning where money comes from. God’s still not poor. And don’t forget that when financial challenges arise, it’s normally a case of Him working to raise our faith level more than us trying to raise our finances.

And second, the question misses the idea of importance. We spend hours arguing over nickels in church budgets. We fund things because we’ve always done it. We raise allotments because a group spent all we gave them last year. We cut amounts if giving drops.

And we miss out on doing God’s work, not because He’s not willing to finance it, but because we’re not willing to ask the important question first. “What does God want us to do?”

See, if God wants it done, He’ll provide for it. But we’re not willing to take the time to even ask Him. It might ruffle a few feathers or force us to live by faith instead of by comfortable tradition.

But if God says to pour out some perfume, pour it out. Because the real bottom line isn’t in finances.
It’s in obedience.

Prayer:
[Father, help us to always let Your will guide our spending. And help me to trust You to do whatever You ask.]

Letters from a Birmingham Jail

While I hate to admit it, I’ve never read Martin Luther King, Jr’s, “Letter from a Birmingham jail." Until today.

Seemed appropriate, considering the holiday and all. So I finally read it.

And it is magnificent. Great arguments, brimming with both academic excellence, emotional pull, and above all, Biblical foundation, as one minister (King) responds to a public letter from a group of clergymen opposing King's efforts in Birmingham, efforts that landed him in jail.

I’ve pulled out a few of my favorite excerpts and reproduced them below. I hope you enjoy them and I hope you then go ahead and read the whole thing. It’s rather long, as he admits, but well worth the reading.

...

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns: and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom far beyond my own hometown. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

...

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

...

When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

...

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

...

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God.

...

I'll close with Dr. King's long but powerful assessment of the Church. That last short paragraph certainly looks prophetic almost 48 years later


There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

A Social Network Christmas

Blogging Mad

I know better than to blog mad. But today, I’m making an exception.

I pastor a church filled with military personnel. Every week we pray corporately for literally dozens of men and women from our church who are deployed, and I personally pray for them daily. They are noble individuals, carrying out their orders with dignity.

Too bad I can’t say the same for the government they represent or the Church in America which is turning a blind eye.

This morning I opened the daily e-version of The New York Times. The lead story? With New Violence, More Christians Are Fleeing Iraq.

Believe it or not, it’s a new story, at least “new” in the history of the Church. Christians have lived in relative safety in Iraq for hundreds of years. Until the US invaded Iraq. Now a second consecutive president is choosing to ignore something that is just short of religious genocide. In a country we occupy.

And it’s not the only place. It’s even worse in the other nation where our military are risking their lives. Afghanistan is poised to execute a Christian for, well, being a Christian.

The New York Times has noticed--at least in Iraq--and is speaking up. When will our government?

And when will the Church in America start screaming so loud the government is forced to hear us?

Too Light

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (Isaiah Isaiah 49:6 (ESV)

Too light a thing.

How often do we attempt things for God that are "too light"?

How often do we discount things as impossible that are, in reality, just about right?

Is it possible one reason the world doesn't believe is that we spend all our time on things that are too light? Things that don't let them see just how awesome our God is?

And what's "heavy" enough? Try taking salvation to the entire world. Try the "end of the earth." Try not settling for reaching a small percentage of our community. Try reaching everyone. Try not just impacting Ft Bragg. Try impacting every military base.

Try something that's too big for us but just right for God.

[Father, help me to not settle for "too light" things.]

Christmas Turmoil

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3 (ESV)

If this is true, what does it mean if my mind and emotions are in turmoil?

Yep, it's a gauge. It means my mind isn't set on God.

And the answer?

Try harder? Get cracking on that to-do list? Nope, wrong answer.

Right Answer: Set my mind on Christ. Refocus on God. Realign my thoughts with Him, my being in His presence.

Simple when you think about it.

Funny/sad thing is, this time of year, when our thoughts should be most centered on Jesus, is when we find ourselves in the most turmoil.

Question: What helps you escape the turmoil and re-focus on God?

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!...

3The Egyptians are man, and not God,
and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:1, 3 ESV)

Sounds basic. Trust God, not people and resources.

But it's not easy, and the Bible can even make it challenging, seeming to encourage you to count the size of your army before going to battle.

The answer, I'd guess, is Gideon. Count your troops, and take note of your resources. But not to decide whether to do something, but rather to determine the best strategy to use to do what God has called you to do, using the resources He's provided.

Too often we wait for additional resources instead of figuring out how to attack utilizing the resources He's provided. Moving forward with what He's provided, trusting Him to provide the rest en route.

So, what do you think? Is there something you've put off doing because you don't have everything you think you need instead of seeing what God want to do using what you already have?