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This morning I read in Acts 16 about how Paul and Silas experienced extreme injustice in Philippi. Despite being Roman citizens, they're condemned, beaten, and jailed without trial - their rights were completely trampled. For many of us, once thrown in jail, we'd likely be complaining about the injustice and likely scheming about how to get the corrupt officials who had done this removed permanently.

Imagine what Paul and Silas could have tweeted in that moment:

"HELP! Falsely accused and jailed! Hate this town and its officials!" #miscarriageofjustice #firethephilippianjailer

Or they could have gone on a Facebook rant to decry the unreasonable and completely unjustified treatment they received. They had rights and should be granted the protections afforded by those precious rights. Nobody would have blamed them for truthfully posting their frustration with the situation and the people responsible.

Obviously they had no smartphones, but note how they responded in verse 25. It recounts that Paul and Silas are found praying and singing praises to God. This is powerful, but it was the final phrase of the verse that arrested my thoughts this morning.

"and the prisoners were listening to them...."

Do we feel the implication of that today? Yes, we have all been and will be trampled on in a myriad of ways (e.g. politically, emotionally, vocationally, spiritually, relationally, physically, mentally), but have we forgotten that our responses are being heard by listening ears of the "prisoners" all around us?

Does my presence on social media (which I recently heard aptly described as "that swamp of indiscretion") reflect a heart of prayer and worship? Am I, in any way, using facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat or whatever my preferred platform to talk past others? I may be convinced I am speaking the truth, but I can be right and be wrong at the top of my voice or with my pejorative and condescending tone.

Jesus was so wonderful because he perfectly blended grace and truth (John 1:14). Would people say that describes my public reaction when things irritate me, when others trample on me, when my world is being threatened unfairly? What's the flavor of my social media presence - especially in this political season?

The story continues with an earthquake that destroys the jail and releases Paul and Silas with all the other prisoners. The jailer arrives on the scene ready to kill himself because he fears the prisoners have escaped and nothing short of his own death will suffice as payment for the escape of even one prisoner. Before he can harm himself, however, Paul cries out that ALL of the prisoners are there.

Now I get why Paul and Silas stuck around, but why would all the other prisoners forego personal freedom in this situation? I can only imagine because they had listened to Paul and Silas and knew they were the real deal who served a real and living God. The things they heard from Paul and Silas (both words and our tone) impacted them greatly. And it holds true today.

When you go to tweet or post today, please remember this: plenty of prisoners are listening.

What will they hear?

At NPBC, we're moving through a four week series called Money Lies. The title is designed to be a double meaning with the dual force of:

1) In our American culture, we have some deeply held beliefs about money that are patently false.

2) Money can be personified in the sense that it actually speaks seductively deceptive words to us.

In the first three weeks, we've explored the following lies:

• Accumulating treasure is wrong
• If you win, I lose
• Money is the root of all evil
• Godliness brings material blessing
• I could be satisfied if I only had enough money
• If I had enough money I'd be secure
• Generosity flows from surplus
• I earned my wealth
• Giving will impoverish me

If you're interested to listen to any of these, check out our Sermon page:

http://npberean.org/sermons-2/

For just a few moments, I'd like to highlight that second-to-last lie, "I earned my wealth."  In the previous post I referenced 2 Corinthians 8:9 that states, " For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich."

The spiritual and material worlds often mirror one another and Paul's point is this - it was by the kindness of Jesus and his willingness to impoverish himself that we could receive any spiritual riches. What did we do to earn that spiritual wealth? 

Absolutely nothing.

Jesus did not save me on the basis of my righteousness (Titus 3:5). His grace is simply a free gift that I could not do anything to earn (Ephesians 2:8-9). Jesus bestows (isn't that a great word) his riches on all who simply call on him in humility (Romans 10:11-13)

And just like the spiritual world, we don't actually earn our material wealth. Yes, I'm sure you work as hard, if not harder, than I do. But who gives us the ability to work hard? Who gave us the opportunity to be born into the country where we could have our job? Who gives us the health to continue in our job? Who gave us the mind or body to face the challenges of our job?

The answer to each of these is God. And God anticipated we might think we're the ones creating our wealth. Check out Deuteronomy 8:17-18 for God's perspective on how income is generated.

And when we realize how much we've been given, we understand that every iota of wealth we currently possess is simply a gift. Without God's kindness, we would have nothing. 

And that's why we can be generous with any wealth we do have - it's all a gift from him to us. Now we have the opportunity to use that gift for Kingdom purposes. But we'll be ever-tempted to veer toward stinginess when we think we earned it with our efforts. 

Let's reject that lie.

Lepers -- All of Us.

So I was reading the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (which is well worth your time to read and can be found here: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards)

Here's the one that grabbed me today:

69. Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Aug. 11, 1723.

Immediately I was stirred that I often read the writings of others and wonder if I should try to write as well. I confess that I feel intimidated that I don't really have anything of real value to say. I'm pretty convinced that my best thoughts are those that I glean from other people, and I don't consider myself the most creative individual. An insecurity of what people might think about me and my less than perfectly formed thoughts has stopped me from writing publicly since 2009.

Emboldened by Jonathan Edwards' admonition, I'm giving it a shot today. 

Read Mark 1:40-41. Slowly. Don't move too fast. Here it is:

And a leper came to him, imploring [Jesus], and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, "I will; be clean."

How marvelous is that?! And isn't this an amazing picture of how it is for everyman and everywoman who would approach Jesus? Notice the richness of the text.

The leper came imploring. The man clearly understood who he was - an outcast of society and he had no right to even be near Jesus (let alone ask Jesus for a favor). His posture is one of imploring (notice he kneels as he speaks) Jesus for help. We are lepers - spiritual outcasts who have no right to be near God on our own merit, so we come in humility pleading for His intervention. 

The leper had faith. "If you will, you can make me clean." What a great statement of faith. He was absolutely confident that Jesus had the power to heal - if only He would graciously condescend to heal this undeserving leper. We must approach Jesus with the faith that He really can restore us from the spiritual leprosy that plagues us.

Jesus was moved with pity. I love the emotion that Jesus shows here, but I couldn't help but think about the many times when I've heard a person say, "I don't want your pity." There is still pride in that sentence, but the leper was unfazed by the pity of Jesus. In fact, the pity of Jesus was exactly what he desired, and then Jesus went a step farther.

Jesus touched the leper. It's one thing for Jesus to pity this man but another entirely for him to actually touch the leper. This ceremonially unclean leper, if touched, would spread his uncleanness to the unfortunate person who touched him (intentionally or not). Jesus will be unclean by touching the leper! And yet, in a stunning twist, Jesus isn't corrupted. His holiness and purity overcomes the man's disease.

I will; be clean. Those are the wonderfully sweet words to a heart imploring Jesus in humility to bring healing. Those are the same words Jesus offers to any sinner who would recognize her or his sin problem. 

Naturally, we are all lepers. Spiritually unclean whose only hope is to implore Jesus, in humility, to heal us of a disease from which we can't rid ourselves. Jesus sees that heart and, moved with pity, touches us in our sinfulness and consents to cleanse us. 

And He did so at the greatest cost to Himself - His own death on a cross.

That's worth marveling at today.

Christmas Carol

In late September I went into Winco and saw half an aisle dedicated to Christmas decorations. Aside from being irritated by the ugliness of the commercialization of Christ's birth, I was shocked by the reality that it was starting 3 months before the day would actually be celebrated.

So when I heard that 95.7 started playing Christmas tunes a few weeks back, I decided I wouldn't listen to them until after Thanksgiving. The other day, however, I was reading a short book and the author made the comment that we should "abandon anything that isn't of God." I believe it is the Spirit's role to explain to you what isn't of God in your own life. I could make a list for you, but God may be dealing with you differently than me. Our best bet is to square our lives and thoughts with Scripture and see if we're increasing in the fruit of the Spirit. Anyway, in that moment of reading, the Spirit convicted my heart about the time I've been spending in the car listening to inane talk radio and mindless sports shows recently.

Now, I could just turn off the noise and be silent in prayer or talk to the Lord audibly in the car, but honestly that is hard for me. Instead, I tried to think about a radio station that could move my thoughts to the Lord, and the Christmas station came to mind.

Plenty of the songs are fluffy (though even those songs can lead us to the qualities of Christ -- peace, joy, hope). After a few of these, "The Little Drummer Boy" came on. Great Words. Near the end of the song, the "King" (one of the wise men) says of the newborn child, "He will bring us goodness and light."

As I heard that reminder the other day, it made me long for the day when the Child-turned-King will return to judge the earth perfectly. On that day (HIS DAY), He will bring us goodness and light in its fullness. It is our role, as agents of His Kingdom to provide glimpses of that coming fullness in the way we talk, think, act, and relate to the people in our school, work, home, on the road, in the grocery store, etc.

This morning I was again out driving early and flipped on 95.7. What was on?

He will bring us Goodness and Light. Come soon Lord Jesus.

Encouraging Surprise

Thank you to the many people who replied to yesterday's post with such encouraging words. I hadn't really expected much response, and was very both surprised and grateful for your comments.

Forgive me if I don't reply personally to your notes, but please know that I was blessed by your kindness.

Blogging is good for me to reflect, and hopefully it will bless you too. I'll pray that the Lord uses it for the encouragement of His body.

Blessings on each of you,

John

Just an Update

After having not blogged for several months, I've been thinking for a few weeks about posting some again. I don't know who might read this, but it struck me that there may still be a few who wonder exactly what has happened in the past year. Even if not, I've found it is good for my own soul to write what is happening in my life as a discipline of reflection. So here goes:

The last many people knew, I was really enjoying substitute teaching in the KSD and RSD. That ended with the school year in June. During the summer I washed windows and had the privilege of tutoring a young man from Kamiakin. In addition to this, I began a program that will result in me receiving a fully-accredited teaching certificate from CWU (probably in early February 2010). I began this school year as a student teacher and just completed my 6th week of teaching 8th grade math all by myself (called a solo). People have asked me if I am enjoying it and the answer is yes -- I enjoy the students. Much of this last year (February through September) I had the opportunity to preach on a weekly basis at a small church in Pasco. I stopped that as I began my student teaching, and I find that I really miss preaching. I am still trying to sort out how my desire to do this, my thoughts on the need to have significant relationships outside the church, and how to earn a living for my family coexist.

In this past year I have felt so many emotions. Highs of joy, anticipation, peace, hope, and confidence have been mixed with lows of fear, sorrow, confusion, hurt and doubt. I find it a bit ironic that as people have told me that I am inspiring to them, many times I feel like I am walking in circles. I'd love to say that this past year has been one of constant growth in my relationship with Jesus, but that's just not true. More accurate is that, in my better moments, I am grateful for the mercies of God which are new every morning.

I still believe God's word to me is Wait. That very clear word was spoken to me over two years ago, and I don't think God has changed that yet. If I come to mind, please pray that I'll wait faithfully, hopefully and contentedly.

I really am planning to finish my purpose/mission statement thoughts in the upcoming posts, but tonight there was something that came up naturally that I felt was worth relating to you.

Will has just started playing little league baseball, and it is fairly involved. When we first registered we were told that there would be two Saturdays of "try-outs" which would be attended by the coaches of the leagues (think 4 divisions -- A ball, AA, AAA, and majors). When I played as a 9 year old I just got stuck on the Blue Blazers team with a bunch of guys from my neighborhood. Knowing this arrangement about Will's league, however, we prayed that the Lord would place Will on the team that He wanted him on to further the mission of the Kingdom. When we found out his team, we thanked God for moving us to that spot.

Tonight, as we were saying goodnight, I asked Will to pray for the guys on his team and he prayed (earnestly as much as I could tell) that they would KNOW God and not just know about church or things like that. Needless to say I was very heartened.

After the prayer he excitedly shared that another boy on his team told the coach that he'd have to leave early from practice for a church event. And then he asked a huge question that thrilled me, "Dad, do you have to go to church to be a Christian?" I told him that I thought a mark of a Christ-follower was wanting to be with other Christ-followers, but that going to a place on Sunday morning was not the pinnacle of Jesus' plan when He talked about entering His Kingdom. This started a good discussion and Will shared his thoughts on what church could be like (very interesting).

As he shared his comments, I had a flood of my own thoughts and feelings centered around the idea that too often we want to know if we're making an impact immediately. We create measurements and evaluations designed to tell us quickly if things are going as they "should." Under these expectations, one could easily look at my life and qualify it as a failure at this stage since I am not leading/shepherding as many people as I used to, bearing as much emotional/spiritual weight as I have in the past, or even exercising as much responsibility as I've had up to this point in my life. Of course, I've heard it said that Jesus' life was an unqualified failure by many of the metrics that we use today to measure the health and success of our spiritual endeavors.

And with that in mind, what if one of God's biggest purposes for my life is not to have me accomplish anything of measurable significance, but rather to launch my son(s) well to be leaders in the Church of future that will likely be a pretty dark spot. Can I be content with that road, or do I have to be recognized and admired for my personal achievements and accomplishments in the present? This is a great question for me, and one that I am sure I will continue to wrestle with in the days ahead.