Merry Christmas

I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, as we celebrate our Savior's birth during this season. May we keep it in our hearts all year long.

We are taking a 2 week blog vacation over Christmas, and will return in the New Year on Tuesday, January 5, 2016. See you then!

Don't Just Want to Be Happy

When asked what we want out of life, often we answer, “I just want to be happy.” In truth, that answer's short-sighted.

“Happiness is not a destination; it's a byproduct.” – Michael Hyatt.

When we live for our own happiness, we drift through life like a ship with no rudder randomly knocked around by the waves of life to some random end.

But when we understand our God-given calling, and intentionally move toward that goal, happiness happens. We enjoy happiness, not by selfishly pursuing it, but as a byproduct of doing what we were created to do.

God Restores

If you read yesterday's post about losing a piece of your heart forever whenever you have sex with someone, and that's you – if you're praying, “OMG, I don't have any heart left, what do I do? Is it too late for me?”

It is never too late for you with God. It's never too late to repent. We serve a gracious God. He wants to heal and restore your heart. Restoration is his deal. Your deal's repentance.

Repentance isn't an emotion – feeling sorry for what we did, although that often accompanies it. Repentance is an act of the will – a change of behavior. It means deciding to not sleep around any more, and sticking with it.

If we truly repent (change behavior), then God will restore our heart. A fresh start, as if we had never sinned. Woof!

The Heart of Sex

CS Lewis put it this way: “The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there is, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.” (The Screwtape Letters, Letter XVIII) Think about it – a relationship that is either eternally enjoyed or eternally endured. Either way, eternally felt and experienced.

There's no sex without a heart transfer – we give away a piece of our heart permanently to the other person forever. After enough partners, we have no heart left.

When we finally find The One, who wants all the past lovers from broken relationships in the bedroom with you? Or all of theirs? That's why it's important to do this God's way. One partner. For life. After marriage. Woof!

Defending Christian Tradition

Hungary’s prime minister has warned his countrymen repeatedly that his nation needs to defend its Christian traditions against the incoming waves of Muslim refugees; namely, by denying them entry to Hungary. I respect his loyalty and patriotism to his country. And I appreciate the security and economic concerns the refugee crisis brings. But that's the wrong answer.

Turning away the poor that God's dumped on your doorstep is not the way to defend a country's Christian traditions. Practicing what Jesus taught by helping them is. (See Jesus' sheep & goats parable in Matthew 25:31-46.)

Let's not make the same mistake here in the US. They are fleeing the terror and murder of raw Islam. Let them experience the raw love of Jesus. If we are Jesus to them like we should be, many will convert to Christianity. Then when they return home, and many will, they'll take the gospel with them, and change their country from the inside out.

God is bringing the mission field to us. Let's not botch this holy opportunity.

Which Error Would We Rather Explain?

Regarding the refugee crisis, standing before the Throne on That Day, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord (see Joel 2:31), which error would we rather explain? Which report of ourselves would we rather tell the Lord on That Day?

Door #1: “Lord, we erred on the side of security. We left thousands of innocent refugees, whom you gave us the means to care for, on Europe's doorstep for someone else to deal with, because one of them might have been a terrorist. We ignored real needs to protect our own people from potential danger.” Somehow, I just can't envision this conversation going well.

Or, Door #2: “Lord, we erred on the side of love. We risked potential danger to our own people in order to meet the desperate humanitarian needs of strangers.” Personally, I would much rather have this conversation. How about you?

Thanksgiving with Abraham Lincoln

Did you know Abraham Lincoln instituted Thanksgiving as a national holiday? In the middle of the civil war, no less! During the worst time of national crisis the country had ever seen up to that point. That blows my mind. You could argue that an actual shooting civil war is the worst national crisis we've experienced ever. (Although both world wars, abortion, and same-sex marriage are close seconds.)

In the middle of national crisis, President Lincoln called for nation-wide Thanksgiving to God. Quite the prophetic dude. Really smart, too. We could learn from him.

We certainly are in the middle of national crisis now, on several fronts, with enemies within and without trying to take down America and what we stand for, with varying degrees of success. What better time to dedicate ourselves to giving thanks to the Lord, trusting him in advance to bring the national repentance we need to save this great country.

Thanksgiving with King David

King David (presumably) says it much better than I ever could. So I think before Thanksgiving I'll just leave you with his words from Psalm 100 (NIV):

    Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

    Worship the Lord with gladness;

    Come before him with joyful songs.

    Know that the Lord is God.

    It is he who made us, and we are his.

    We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

    Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

    Give thanks to him and praise his name.

    For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

    His faithfulness continues through all generations.

The Seed of the Church

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” Tertullian, an early church father, in 197 AD. ISIS doesn't realize it, but they are planting a really strong future Christian church on the very ground where they are now spilling innocent blood.

So we need have no fear accepting refugees. If we offer these strangers mercy and aid, and they repay our kindness by killing us and doing evil to us, then they are only making Islam fall faster.

Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Terrorist

Normally I don't get political on this blog. But this is a Christian, Kingdom-of-God issue, not a political one. For the record, I consider myself a Reagan-conservative, lest any of my fellow conservatives accuse me of being a liberal. Not that that matters.

In the wake of the horribly deplorable terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday, several US state governors have closed their states to Syrian refugees. After all, so the argument goes, at least one of the terrorists came into Europe with the refugees.

The problem is a lot of other people came with the refugees, too; namely, refugees. Families. Children. Desperate people rejecting ISIS' caliphate and fleeing from it with the clothes on their backs. How many hundreds or thousands of innocents are we willing to leave out in the cold to thwart one terrorist?

My answer is 0. Zero. Zip. Nada. I think this is a Kingdom-of-God issue. Very black 'n' white, according to Matthew 25:31-46, the parable of the sheep and the goats. If we have the means to do so, we have to help those in need, regardless of the risk. Jesus would. We must.

We don't have to be stupid about it. We can use facial recognition software and/or other screening technology to weed out the terrorists. We can monitor their movements, activities, and communications once they're in-country until we've convinced ourselves they're vetted. Yes, no process or technology is perfect; we will miss some. But we will have helped so many more.

At the end of the day, God will not judge us based on how many terrorists we caught, but on how many people we sacrificed to help. He will judge the terrorists for their actions, and he will judge us for ours. In the face of so much evil, let's be found doing good.

To Fear or Love, That Is the Question

At the end of the day, there are only two motivations for all actions in the human experience. Only two. Fear or Faith. That's it. It's that simple.

In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were like, “This fruit will make us wise? A wisdom God wasn't going to give us? He's been holding out on us!” They were afraid they were missing something. They didn't have faith anymore.

Then, after the ate the fruit, they were really living in fear. “Oh no, I'm naked! I've got to cover up!” And we've been living to cover our shame ever since. Out of fear of being exposed.

Fear says, “I have to take care of myself before I help you, because otherwise I won't have enough.” Fear of failure. Fear of being known. Fear of being alone. Fear of being rejected. Fear of not being loved.

Faith says, “I can afford to sacrifice this for you, because I know God will make it up to me.” Faith God will provide even though we can't see it. Faith it will be ok even though we don't see how or when. Faith through uncertainty. Faith we are loved.

All negative, sinful actions are motivated, ultimately, by fear. So when someone's being a hurtful jerk, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what they're afraid of. And what you can do to serve them, bless them and disarm their fear.

When you realize this, you treat people differently and it works. Tell me in the comments your how it works for you.

The Pig I Have

One morning a rural pastor was out visiting folks in his congregation and had this conversation with a poor farmer.

     Pastor: “Farmer Brown, if you had two horses, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

     Farmer: “Absolutely, Pastor, you know that I would.”

     Pastor: “If you had two cows, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

     Farmer: “Without thinking twice about it, in a heartbeat, Pastor.”

     Pastor: “If you had two pigs, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

     Farmer: “Well, now, Pastor, that's not fair. You know I have two pigs.”

(Kudos to Pastor David Sauer for this great story.)

We're happy to give God what we don't have. “Lord, if you let me hit the lottery, I'll give you a million dollars, pay off the church's property, and then I'll start tithing. And since I won't have to work, I'll spend 4 hours a day praying and worshipping, reading my Bible, and communing with you.”

But God doesn't want the horse or the cow we don't have. He wants the pig we do have. He knows our schedule. He doesn't want the million dollars or the 4 hours a day we don't have. Or even the hour a day we don't have. He wants the 10 minutes a day, even the 5 minutes a day, that we do have.

Let's start there. Let's start daily. With something. No guilt, we're not checking a box here. Just giving him what we do have.

That's how you build intimacy with the Lord. Spend that daily time, just you and him, no matter how small. Faithfully. As you're faithful, you'll be amazed and how faithful he will be in giving you more time. Watch it grow. Tell me in the comments what happens.

Parental Inversion

Parental inversion is when the child has to be strong for the adult. It's when the adult draws emotional strength from the child. It's rampant in our society because we adults don't know how to be adults. Children, and I include teen-agers where it is especially prevalent, don't know any better – when their parent is hurting, of course they want to be strong for them. But they aren't equipped to be. They aren't supposed to be.

We adults are supposed to be strong for our children. We adults are supposed to show by example the Christian life of long-suffering and self-sacrifice, flowing out of beautiful and rich intimacy with the Lord. When we frequently receive that abundance of his presence directly from him, we can sacrifice to ourselves because we're overflowing with Jesus. We never don't have enough.

But instead, often we don't spend enough time with him (if any) to get that overflow. So we live from crisis to crisis, in fear that we won't have enough. And we pull our children into adult responsibilities and adult concerns that they aren't emotionally equipped to deal with. It breaks the heart of God when children can't be children.

But there's hope for parental inversion. If this is you, get counseling, get help. You cannot do this alone. For your children's sake, if not for your own.

We get out of parental inversion by coming to the place where Jesus is a real person we commune with, and he gives us the emotional support we need, instead of drawing it from our kids. We get out of parental inversion by sacrificing our safety in the crisis. By risking not having enough. By trusting he'll give us enough.

We know he's enough because we've lived it. We put our trust in him when it was all on the line, and he came through. Maybe not how we wanted, but he came through how he wanted and we're still standing. So we can sacrifices ourselves in whatever crisis we face, for the sake of our kids. That's the example they need to see.

“But I Go to Church...”

“I go to church! What else do I need?” Good. I'm glad you go to church. We should. It's hard to have relationship with somebody if you never go to their house. But that's not enough. Not nearly. Because that doesn't make a relationship.

The Bible compares our relationship with God to a marriage. If you're married, try spending only an hour or two a week with your spouse and see how that works. Yeah, you laugh because you know that won't cut it. Not by a long shot. You can't have intimacy with somebody on a few hours a week, and that in a group setting.

If you're not married, I bet you laughed too when you read that sentence. That's not the marriage you hope for – only seeing the person you're spending the rest of your life with once a week for a couple hours.

Yet we're too often content to spend only a few hours a week with the person we're going to spend the rest of our eternity with. That's pretty jacked up.

Church is good, and we need that corporate worship time; it's very important. But we need intimacy with Jesus, just him and us, too. Just like with our spouse. In fact, he wants to be closer than our spouse. No other religion boasts a god who wants that! Woof!

Intimacy Not Insurance

Jesus didn't die to give us salvation. Controversial statement, I know. But it's true. He died to give us relationship with him. Salvation was just the prerequisite.

Jesus didn't die to be our insurance salesman. Often we get distracted away from the intimacy he wants with us right now in this life. We think it's ok because we have a policy with Jesus Christ Mutual Life. But without a lifestyle of intimacy with him, we're not keeping up on the premiums. We're in danger of hearing, “Away from me, I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23). Policy cancelled.

He died to be our Lover-King. Read Song of Songs – that's the kind of personal intimacy with us he wants. Lover close, private intimacy. Yes, we need corporate worship also, there's power there. But we also need that private time – just him and me. Just him and you.

“We [the Father and Jesus] will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23). Catch that? He wants to move in. He's not standing at the door and knocking because he's selling fire insurance or the latest sin vacuum. (Revelation 3:20).

Christianity is about so much more than salvation. There. Is. So. Much. More. It's about a wonderfully unpredictable and adventurous relationship with our Living Lover-King God.

One Heart at a Time

There's a strategy put forward in Kirk Walden's book The Wall for ending abortion. It has nothing to do with changing laws or reversing Roe v. Wade. In fact, it requires no action from the government at all.

It has to do with pro-life community crisis pregnancy centers. Such grass roots centers are actually making a huge difference nationwide. Women in crisis pregnancies come into the centers for a free ultrasound and get so much more. They are listened to, some for the first time in their lives, loved on, told they have value. And more importantly, shown they have value by how they're treated. They are introduced to a world of free resources to help them parent.

As more and more women choose parenting or adoption, business at abortion mills declines. Unlike the community crisis pregnancy centers, they are for-profit businesses. Once business drops below profitability for long enough, they close. It's very black 'n' white. We are seeing them shutdown all over the country.

The feminists can keep their precious piece of paper, the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, keeping abortion legal. But if no one has one, abortion is still defeated. They can keep their piece of paper; I'll take the hearts of the people, one heart at a time.

It's the same thing with the same-sex marriage Supreme Court decision. I believe we can defeat the homosexual agenda one heart at a time, by loving the ones God's placed in our path. We can love them without condoning their lifestyle. Jesus was an expert at it. If we love them like he loved the woman at the well and the tax collectors, bringing them the healing they need, same-sex marriage can be defeated just like abortion is being defeated.

Revealing the Heart of a Nation

When a nation has righteous laws, the people can appear more righteous than they really are. How many people would really live in an immoral way if the laws were not in place? The nations true heart remains hidden.

When those righteous laws are removed, the nation's heart is revealed.

I'm not a Libertarian; I don't necessarily think removing righteous laws are beneficial or good. However, it does reveal the nation's heart. That's what I think God is doing in the recent US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nation-wide. He's revealing the heart of our nation.

The Next Barrier

While much of the country rejoices over the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the country, I, and many other Jesus-lovers, mourn.

One of my friends who was rejoicing asked me why I feel threatened. But I don't feel threatened at all, although religious liberty is coming under overt attack through this. Christians who have wedding-related businesses and feel its against their religion to participate in same-sex weddings are being prosecuted under anti-discrimination laws. Pastors are exempt for the moment, but for how long? There is already talk by certain law-makers of revoking churches tax-except status if they don't allow their facilities to be used for same-sex weddings.

But all of that's not why I mourn. The marriage line fell in the '60s and '70s, and the gender line just fell now in 2015. What's the next line to fall? What's left? Probably the age line. NAMBLO, the North American Man Boy Love Organization, has been trying to legalize child molestation for decades. It doesn't even have to be homosexual. What if a 60 year old man wants to marry a 12 year girl. If they both consent, what's wrong with that? How about incest? Why is that still wrong? Any argument defending any sexual standard except the Bible's (which is God's standard -- one adult man and one adult women, inside marriage only), whether it's living together, same-sex marriage, or whatever, can also be used to defend these and other perversions.

So that's why I mourn this devastating Supreme Court decision. I mourn for the future of our children. We have no idea what we've just unleashed on ourselves.

Our Rights Are Killing Us

California become the first state in the United States to pass a right-to-die law. That means terminally ill patients can opt for physician-assisted suicide. Many other states have proposed similar laws. It's probably only a matter of time before the US Supreme Court declares it legal across the nation. Other nations in Europe are already there.

The Corinthians were as obsessed with their rights as we Americans and Europeans are. They had a saying, “Everything is permissible for me.” Their false logic was that, since Christ set us free from the Law on the cross, we're free to do whatever we want. They were even proud that of one their members was living in an incestuous relationship with his step-mother. They were proud that they'd gone beyond what even the pagans of their day would do – celebrating their freedom in Christ! (1 Corinthians 5)

As enlightened 21st century citizens of the first-world, we don't need the false logic around the cross of Christ. We've turned our rights into an idol so we can do anything we want. Really, we pretty much can. We can kill our children before they're born. We can have our perverse life-style sanctioned by the government as “marriage,” complete with medical benefits. Now, we can even opt to kill ourselves. It's not bad being god of your own life. Or is it?

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, trying to appeal to them using their own logic, “ 'Everything is permissible for me' but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible for me' but I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)

The Kingdom of God is very un-American. It's not about our rights. Gasp. It's about dying to our rights to further our relationship with Jesus and to serve others. And in that place God the Father will meet us with such pleasure we'll be wondering why we didn't abandon our stupid rights sooner.

Not that rights are bad. The rights America was founded on are awesome, and rightfully belong to everyone on the planet, although unfortunately most live under very oppressive regimes and are denied these basic human rights. But when we're falling on our sword over our right to sin, then it's become an idol and we need to repent and let it go, whether it's legal or not.

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ok. Being legal doesn't make it good. The greatest pleasure of our existence is found by loving Jesus with abandon, with all that we are, not in exercising our American or European right to practice our sin of choice.

Somebody Has To Say It

The temptation of the Garden of Eden is still alive and well and with us today. It's the ultimate question each of us has to decide that will determine our eternity. Who is god of my life? Me or God? That was the serpent's deception to Adam and Eve, “Eat this fruit and you'll be gods unto yourselves, deciding what's right and wrong.”

Evolution is saying, “We made ourselves. Therefore we can decide right and wrong.” Not true – God made us and he decides right and wrong, not us.

Bruce Jenner (yes, I will call him Bruce not Caitlyn) says we can decide our gender. No, we can mutilate our private parts and take drugs to fake out Vanity Fair, but we can't change our gender. He's a man and always will be. God made him that way.

Rachel Dolezal says we can change our race. No, we can fake it, but we can't change it. God made us who we are on purpose. (BTW, it amazes me that people support “Caitlyn” Jenner and not Rachael Dolezal. That's logically inconsistent. Any argument supporting one also supports the other.)

Not accepting who God created us be is rebellion. It's sin. There, I said it.

These people have deep wounds that have scarred their identity. Instead of facilitating the healing God wants to bring them, our society has officially sanctioned their rebellion. How sad to miss out on the wonderful adventure of who God created them to be!

How about you? How about me? Will you let God heal your identity scars and show you who you really are? I will! I can't wait to find out what God has in store for me. How about you?

Created To Be

Can we decide who we are? Can we decide who we want to be? Can we, like Bruce Jenner, decide our gender? Can we, like Rachel Dolezal, decide our race? Did God make a mistake when he made us the gender or race we were born as? Did God make a mistake when he wired us with the personality we have? Or with the unique giftings we have, different from everyone else? Should we spend our lives wishing we were, and trying to be, someone else?

Is it ours to decide who we are? Or did God create us to be who we are? Let's do something novel and ask God's opinion:

Psalm 139:13-14: You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Jeremiah 1:5a: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before your were born I set you apart.

1 Corinthians 12:7: Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

Hmmmm, our Creator seems to have the opinion that he's our Creator, imagine that. We are not a mistake. We do not have the right to decide who we are, including our gender or our race. Our life does not belong to us; it belongs to God. He made it, we did not make ourselves (sorry to disappoint all the evolutionists out there).

This life is not a hollow, self-filled, selfish journey of “who do I want to be today because it's all about me.” What a horrible deception. Instead, it's wonderful, awe-filled journey of discovering who God made us to be. 

The 3 Is

Identity. Intimacy. Integrity. The three most important Is in the human experience.

We can't live our true identity without intimacy with the Living God – he's our creator and it's in those intimate lover-moments that he whispers to our heart who we really are – who he created us to be.

We can't live in intimacy with him without integrity. For long, at any rate. He leans towards certain things and away from other things. If we lean towards what he leans away from, eventually we will fall away from each other. Then, as he slowly withdraws the sweetness of his presence desperately longing for us to repent, without his intimacy in our life, our sin traps us in a false identity.

But Jesus died so his blood gives us power to overcome the sin that so craftily pulls us away from him. We are free to lean toward what he leans toward – the fruit of the spirit and holiness (ie, integrity).

And the pleasures of intimacy with him and worth more than all the sinful desires of the world put together. Intimacy with the Lord is true pleasure.

Intimacy Wants To, Not Has To

Obedience is easy when you're in passionate love. In fact, we don't even think of it as “obedience.” We so want to please our lover that anything we even get the inkling they would like we are totally ready to do. And more. “Really? That's all you want? You can have more. I can do more.”

We invent ways to please them, to surprise them with what we did, just to see them smile. If what they want us to do is also actually good for us, that's a bonus. We'd have done it anyway.

That's the way our morality should be with God. If we obey his laws and follows his ways from a place of intimacy, deep lover-passion, it's not burdensome, which it's not anyway because his laws are good for us. Unless we're deceived, then it can be burdensome.

But in the truth of his intimacy, it's a delight. Pleasing him brings us closer to him, our lover. And we're disappointed we can't do more, because we want to be even closer to him.

It's not about “earning” closeness to him, or doing good to get close. It's about doing good because we are already so close. Out of love, not obligation. It's a world of difference in perspective.

Intimacy Serves

The mark of our intimacy with Jesus is not how awesome our experiences with him are. Nor how long they are. Nor how often.

The mark of our intimacy with him is how we serve others. The Bible says it better than I ever could:

“The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45).

“[Jesus], who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7).

“In humility, consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3b).

We reflect the person we spend the most time around. Jesus was the biggest servant humanity ever saw or ever will. If we truly have intimacy with him, we'll show that by serving those around us, and loving doing so.

Identity from Intimacy

Who we really are, our true identity, flows out of spending time with Jesus.

The world shouts at us constantly. Lies about who we are. Lies about how to be who we are told we want to be. Contradictory lies, one for every possible vulnerability. The enemy only has to win once.

But Jesus whispers who we are. Who we really are. Who he created us to be. Our true destiny. Constantly. Consistently.

If someone's shouting and someone's whispering, you have to be really close to the whisperer to hear them. And we will eventually believe the one we hear the most.

Finding our true destiny depends on our intimacy with Jesus.

Why Emotions?

Some people ask, “Why do my emotions have to be involved in my Christianity? Why can't I just read my Bible and go to church and that's enough?”

Reading our Bible and going to church – those are essential things – but if that's the extent of our Christianity, then we just know about God, instead of knowing God. Those are great avenues for building intimacy. But if we're just moving our eyes over words on a page or just parking our butt in a pew so we can check a box – there's no intimacy.

The Bible describes our relationship with Jesus like a marriage – we're the bride and he's the groom. So let's ask that question in the context of marriage: “Do we want to know our spouse – it's enough to just know about them – just read their bio – right? Why would we want our emotions involved in our marriage? Who would want that?” Obviously, in a marriage context, these questions get very ridiculous really fast.

It's the same with God. We pity a bride (or a husband) whose spouse is emotionally disconnected from the marriage. God feels the same heart-pain when we're emotionally disconnected from him.

So spend time with your lover-God today. Give him your fears. Tell him your hopes and dreams. Ask him for his. After all, good marriages are built on intimacy.

Who's the Enemy in Our Relationships?

When we're hurt by and/or angry with another person, we often forget who the real enemy is. We easily get deceived into thinking the other person is the enemy.

There is an enemy. He wants to destroy both us and the other person with every fiber of his being. Satan, the prince of this world, is our real enemy. But we forget that.

Not knowing who the real enemy is condemns us right up front to fight a losing battle. Why? Because we're fighting the wrong person with the wrong weapons. Once we get the real enemy right, we can fight effectively with a whole different strategy and a whole different armament. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world (see 2 Corinthians 10:4). This was brought home beautifully in the movie “War Room” which I highly recommend and strongly encourage everyone to see.

So pray with me: Lord, we repent this day for wrongly thinking ________ is the enemy. (Fill the blank for you.) They aren't the enemy, Lord, they are just a hurting person like me that you love. We acknowledge our true enemy is Satan and we ask you Lord for your strategy against him in this situation. Help me be a blessing to them even when they aren't to me.

Who's the Enemy on 9/11?

When we're hurt and angry, we often forget who the real enemy is. We easily get deceived into thinking the other group is the enemy.

That's why America's so divided. Both political parties are deceived into thinking the other one is the enemy. More than that, both sides on any political or social issue you pick, think the other side is the enemy. But the other side, the other party, the other country, is not the enemy.

There is an enemy who wants to destroy both sides, and he's getting away with it because we're confused about who the real enemy is. Satan, the prince of this world, is our real enemy. But we forget that and so get suckered into doing his work for him.

Not knowing who the real enemy is condemns us to fight a losing battle. Why? Because we're fighting the wrong people with the wrong weapons. Once we get the real enemy right, we can fight effectively with a whole different strategy and with a whole different armament.

So on this day, 9/11, let me come right out and say it: Muslims are not the enemy. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are the enemy. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are the enemy. Not even ISIS is the enemy. The true enemy is the Principalities and Powers behind them – the forces of darkness in this world (see Ephesians 6:12).

That does not mean we act naively. The government does not bear the sword in vain, but is appointed by God to punish evil-doers (see Romans 13:4). ISIS certainly qualifies. We should confront them militarily and defeat them. We should probably be doing more.

But even while do what we must, using our military to dispense justice and stop evil like ISIS (the nazis of our time) we pray for them. We should not rejoice over the death of our earthly and military “enemies”, because they are just people Jesus loves and died for, prisoners-of-war, taken captive by our real enemy.

True victory will only come when the spiritual demonic forces behind ISIS are dethroned over that land. That will happen as missionaries successfully bring the truth of Jesus and God's love to the region. This is our ultimate battle prayer.

Just like air-support is crucial and often turns the tide of victory in an earthly war, so our prayers and intercession for missionaries in the middle-east provide “air-support” in the spiritual battle, the real battle they face every day. So let's get involved! Every Christian can do this. Our prayer support is what they desperately need to win the real war.

Really Knowing

Is Christianity, at its core, about believing in God, or is it about knowing God? Is it about intellectual ascent to the right doctrine, or is it about having a real relationship with the Creator of the universe?

Experiencing real relationship, with the real man Jesus Christ, and his Father – that's real Christianity. If we've really experienced him, we'd be longing for deeper and deeper experiences with him, ruined for this world (like Isaiah, see Isaiah 6).

At the same time, not everyone needs our particular experience. God has their own for them. We need to be careful not to turn our wonderful experience into a doctrine everyone else needs or a badge to show how much more spiritual we are than the next person.

We need to submit our experiences to our Pastor, for him to help us navigate, as we discover the interpretation, the application/wisdom, and the timing.

Our experience should make us more like Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (see Philippians 2:6). So should we.

So our experience, while absolutely necessary to live out all the fullness God has for us, should never be an end in itself. Jesus is always the end in himself. He's the point. It's all about him.

A License to Serve

If our experience with the Living God really increases our intimacy with him, like it's meant to, then it will also increase our desire to serve others for free. (Service to others that's not free, that comes with strings attached, isn't service. It's employment.)

Mark 8:34 says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Denying ourselves means saying no to our pleasures and preferences. Taking up our cross means willingly enduring the suffering we have the power to avoid, like Jesus did.

That's where experiencing God, when it's walked out rightly, takes us. Greater humility, greater service to the people around us, and it's all worth it for the greater intimacy with him. When you're in love, spending time with him makes it worth it.

Our God-experience is a license to serve, not a badge of spiritual superiority.

Not a Badge

Sometimes we turn our wonderful God-experience into a badge of spirituality. We wear it down everybody else's nose, “Look at how spiritual I am!” We might even start feeling superior to our pastor. “After all, he hasn't had the experiences with God that I have.”

The experience was meant to bring us greater healing and into greater intimacy with our Lover-King. But we just lost any intimacy we gained the moment we started bragging about it. Pride cannot live in the presence of the Living God. That's why Satan was thrown out of Heaven.

When we do this, we become the hypocrites in Matthew 5, who “have received their reward in full.” Their reward was that single moment of glory before people. Hope they enjoyed; no eternal reward from God.

It's really sad to trade the eternal for the temporary.

Our Experience Is Meant for Us

The title of this blog entry seems obvious. But often, when we have a awesome experience of closeness to God, especially if we get healing or touched in some physical way, it's tempting to try and impose our experience on everyone else. In our zeal, we make a doctrine out of our experience. But God gave that experience to us and for us.

Yes, everyone needs to experience God, but everyone's experience will be different. The rest of the world doesn't need our experience; they need their own.

It's one of the enemy's favorite tricks. If he can't stop God from coming close by deceiving us into resisting, then he'll go to the other extreme and try to deceive us to worship the experience, instead of the One we're experiencing.

When he can do that, he can get us to turn our experience into a doctrine that everyone else needs. Then the experience that was meant to bring us closer to God becomes a club to bludgeon the rest of the body of Christ with.

So let's not be fooled. Tell the enemy to go pound sand – he's not pulling that one on us. We will respect and honor the experience of others just as much as our own.

Faith Isn't... Faith Is...

Faith isn't trusting God that nothing bad will happen to us. Faith is trusting God through everything that does happen to us – good and bad.

There's a false prosperity gospel floating around, that God wants us to be rich and anything bad in our lives is a result of our lack of faith. Not!

Yes, God wants us to be prosperous, but as defined in the Kingdom of God. It has nothing to do with our bank account's bottom line. It has everything to do with our degree of intimacy with the Father. That's real wealth in the Kingdom of God.

Through Trials, Not from Them

Sometimes it's tempting to think people deserve their problems. And sometimes we do. Some of us have turned doing stupid things that mess up our lives into an art form.

But sometimes, often even, bad things happen to good people. Like me. Like you. Like us. People who love God. It's actually God's kindness to us, to bring us closer to him.

We tend to think our closeness to God and our experience with him will keep the bad things away. But do you see how that thought-pattern leads to trusting our experience instead of God?

Our experience with God is not meant to protect us from trials, but to safeguard us through them.

Joy vs Happiness

Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus never promised us happiness. In fact, he promised us just the opposite: “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Happiness is situational. When things are going great, we're happy. When they're not, we aren't. Happiness is neither stable nor dependable. Nor is it within our control, because it relies on outside circumstances. That's why trying to be happy just leads to, ironically, a lot of anxiety instead!

Jesus promised us something so much better – Joy. Joy is not situational. It is a inner peace from God that outside circumstances can't touch.

As Christians, joy is totally within our control. We can choose to believe God about our situation and have his joy in the midst of trouble, or not. It's totally our choice. But choosing joy means trusting him – operating in surrender not in control. Simple to say, sometimes hard to do.

Incomplete Experience

Actual experience with God is very necessary, not for salvation, but to know the fullness of all he has for us. We don't know what we don't experience. The whole point of Christianity, which is a relationship not a religion, is to know God. We can't know him without experiencing him.

But as necessary as experience with God is, it's incomplete. It's not an end in itself.

Experience is not:

• The Goal of Church. That would be ministering to the Lord and to the lost.
• The Evidence of Salvation. That would be his Holy Spirit in us, not the Spirit's manifestations.
• The Anchor of our Faith. That would be the Word of God, not out experience.
• God's Stamp of Approval. God's only requirement for experiencing him is a willingness to receive, not the spiritual maturity to walk it out rightly. We need to be pastored through it.

So our experience, although wonderful and necessary, is never an end in itself; it's never the point. Jesus is always the point. God is doing something through the experience to bring us closer to him.

What God Uses

What does God use to change our life – to make us more like him?

Look at the woman at the well in John 4. She asked Jesus theological questions, like about where to worship – mostly because he was getting too close for comfort talking about her life. She was trying to change the subject. He answered her question, but steered the conversation back to himself and to her.

Her life was changed by that encounter on a hot afternoon, but not because he taught her such awesome theology about where to worship. Her life was changed because of her experience with him.

Good theology is important, but God changes our life through experience with Him, not through our theology.

Entering His Rest

Quiet confidence and peace in the midst of a tornado of stress – that's what resting in the Lord means. Hebrews 3 and 4 talk about entering into God's rest. The author makes the point that not entering into God's rest is tied to unbelief and disobedience, which he uses synonymously (see verses 3:18, 3:19, and 4:6).

Unbelief and disobedience (a.k.a. sin), go hand in hand. When we don't believe God, we do what we want. We try to fulfill ourselves and protect ourselves. Neither works – causing more stress and hardship than we tried to avoid by doing it our way in the first place. And trying to do it our way is anything but restful.

We can only enter his rest – that is, possess that quiet confidence and inner peace that displaces worry and anxiety in the midst of chaos – when we walk in both faith and obedience (a.k.a. holiness, a.k.a. integrity).

Both. It's not enough to just believe. We have to walk it out with obedience. That's the point of James 2. We can't enter his rest, or even say we believe in him, if we're sleeping with our girlfriend/boyfriend or fiancee, for example.

Truly believing in Jesus means having private intimacy with him. Out of that flows faith – we believe him. And out of that flows obedience because we want to please our lover whom we trust. And out that flows his rest – quiet confidence when the world is falling apart around us. It's a great way to live.

Rest Wins

One of the most effective weapons against stress and oppression from the enemy is rest. Not relaxing or sleeping or just chilling, although those are all good – no, I'm talking about God's rest here.

Resting in the confidence of who He says we are and what He says we're called to.

Resting in God's rest means resting in confidence. So with turmoil going on all around us, and with the enemy showering us with negativity through the voices of others and in our own thoughts, we can declare what God says – who we are and what we're for.

If you don't know, ask him. Spend intimacy time with him. He'll tell you. And then it's all about who you believe and what you declare. The negative voices, or who God says you are and what you're for, what you're called to.

Everything's a Lab

As a mathematician and an engineer, I prefer lectures to labs. I wish God would explain first what's about to happen in a lecture, and then we could go out in the world and do it (the lab bit). No surprises, no crisis. Good luck with that!

In real life, everything's a lab. The experience comes first, and then God explains it. And he explains it through the experience. We learn so much more from the pain of living through the experience then we would from the just the lecture.

That's why James can say, “Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). So let's partner with him and not resist what he's trying to teach us. 

God uses the crisis in our lives to provoke us in the area he wants to heal next.

Experience Leads

It's ok for our experience to get ahead of our theology. It's ok for God to do things we don't understand yet. And he often will.

Just look at the blind man in John 9, who Jesus healed with mud on the Sabbath. Jesus knew the religious leaders would consider making mud “work” and hence unlawful on the Sabbath. He intentionally did a Messiah miracle in a way they thought the Messiah wasn't supposed to do miracles. So they had a choice – they could choose their theology – the box they thought they had God in – or they could choose God (Jesus).

We have the same choice when we see God do things we don't understand or manifest in ways we don't like. The key is to look at the fruit and not be biased by our personal preferences. Often God will intentionally do things to offend us and heal us from our personal preferences.

It's ok for God to do his God-thing in a way we don't like. After all, which one of us is God?

Who's on the Throne?

My friend “Nate” was a pot smoker. Generally a good guy who loved the Lord. But a pot smoker. In the course of our friendship, I felt led to address this area in his life. (And as his small group leader, it was my place to do so.)

It was a friendly conversation because we had a good relationship. I had all my reasons why it was a bad idea, and he had all his reasons why it was ok, every one of which I disagreed with, but he was sticking to them. We were just going round and round, getting nowhere. Maybe you've had that conversation.

I silently prayed, “Lord, what can I say that will make a difference? What do you want me to say?” And I got an answer.

So I said, “Nate, we've gone round and round on a lot of stuff we're just going to have to agree to disagree about. But let me leave you with this thought. There are two things we both know are true. First, you smoke pot because you want to? Not a condemnation, just a fact. Yes?”

Nate agreed, “Yes, I do want to. I like it.”

“Ok,” I continued. “The second thing we both know is true is that God does not want you to.”

Nate sighed, “Yes, I know that's true.”

“Then the final thought I'm going to leave you with is, Who's sitting on the throne of your life?”

How about us? Is there any area of our life we're arguing with God about? It's time to give up.

Pastoring Vs Controlling

What does it mean to pastor someone through something? What does it mean to be pastored? What does it mean to let your Pastor pastor you through your God experiences?

Pastoring is not control. A good pastor will not tell you what to do. And he won't try to do it for you. He will give you wise guidance from the Holy Spirit that will guide you through it, and, if you're lucky, even stretch you uncomfortably a bit.

For a godly, wise pastor, it's ok for you to be in process. He doesn't (and often won't) tell you everything he knows or thinks right away, because he senses you probably can't handle it all at the moment. But he will follow the Holy Spirit's prompting and share with you what you need to hear at that moment, whether you want to hear it or not.

Ever see a hockey player take the puck down the ice? He rarely belts it straight down the ice. No, he keeps it in range of his stick and gives subtle, gentle corrections on each side, so the puck zig-zags down the ice, but generally moves in the right direction overall.

A good pastor does the same thing – giving us loving but bold instruction and even correction when we need it so we keep going in the right direction toward the goal.

It's a privilege and a huge blessing from God to be pastored through our God experiences. We just need to be spiritually mature and humble enough to accept it.