Are You Guilty?

If we were brought into court, and accused of being Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict us? What in your life or activity, would link you with the crime of loving God?

We have watched enough T.V. police stories to know how it all proceeds…If there was a stake-out on us: would we be observed eating and drinking a ceremonial meal called the Lord’s Supper? Would wire-taps have picked up our voices saying a meal-time grace? Would anyone have seen us reading subversive literature known as the New Testament? Would the D.A. be able to prove that we had tracked into the homes of the poor, or that we had identified with people who were oppressed, or tried to lift the burden of being black?

But what about other factual evidence? Does our checkbook state a clear case of involvement with the ministry of Jesus? Are there any books of the faith in our home library? Have we been seen going regularly to that Christian gathering known as Church? Would the attorneys draw to the attention of the jurors that we had been guilty of certain forms of behavior…such as forgiving a person who had offended us…or, loving someone who had treated us unfairly? The case is building up…the prosecutor gets to his feet and offers his final summation…”This person”, he says, “even walks like a Christian…whether he is driving his car, or riding up an elevator…he has an infectious sparkle to his life.”

The facts are in…the verdict comes through: “This person is guilty of Christianity in the first degree!” Guilty!...Hallelujah!

Isn’t it great to see many who are guilty as charged: filling their pockets with unexpected love, guilty of modesty, guilty of caring about others, guilty of loving people rather than hating. Some people just can’t keep their connection with Jesus Christ a secret. They’re guilty!...Praise God!

Oh, to be with that Divine Warden, who has the Keys of Life. May He lock us up in His eternal love, forever!

Noah Was Prepared For Rain... Are You?

The following is a test: “How many animals did Moses take with him into the ark?” You flunked it, if you said “2”, because Moses didn’t take any…Noah did!

Old jokes like that never seem to die, but a lot of people do, because they remain deaf to God’s plea to be prepared.

There is a book called “The Devil’s Dictionary” with wit and witticism that is not always the kindest. But for the word “deluge” or “flood”, the definition is given: “A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins and the sinners of the world.”

Noah lived at a time when people were careless about their lives, but Noah knew when to come in out of the rain when it was time. The story of the flood in the Bible is trying to teach us that we have a God who cares, and a God who saves. God has made provision for His people. Punishment for our moral bankruptcy is there, but salvation is there too. Things may get awfully bad, but there is also a rainbow. There is Hope. Don’t ever give it up!

A world in revolt against God brings retribution. As the morals and decency of a nation or a people disintegrate, there comes a point when something has to break. For about so long, the forces of decency upon the earth are able to hold out, and then the floods come.

The wars and the brutality of our world are like a horrible nightmare, and the wash and welter of it may prevail not only “a hundred and fifty days” as in the time of Noah, but through dragging decades in which the aftermath of evil still spreads its slime of bitterness and suffering.

The ancient story is a parable of terrible reality. Whenever man begins to live as though God did not exist; whenever people take truth and bend and twist it to their own convenience, then the tides of cause and effect begin to build up. Perhaps we shall need an ark very soon!

With all of its imperfections, sometimes we wonder whether the Church (not any one Church, but the Holy Universal Church) is today’s “ark” for mankind? Sometimes “the stink within, is worse than the storm without”, but still the Church exists for a few people here and there who still believe in righteousness, and who long for the Kingdom of God upon earth, and actively work for its fulfillment.

There are clouds upon the horizon, and there is rain a-comin’…it is the flood of moral retribution which has been held back thus far. Enter the ark, then, not as saints, but as sinners who are humble enough to be ashamed. The Church of Jesus Christ is the saving remnant. Will we be sensible enough and obedient enough to get in?

Blackballed With Balloons

We saw a birthday celebration the other day at a local business. One of the employees had reached 40. Signs here and there read, “Over the hill”. And all around were balloons: red, yellow, blue, and here and there black ones!

Why black? Through the years, we have never associated black with joy or celebration. Perhaps if we were of the black race, we would do so…”black is beautiful”. Yes it is!

Although I love the daylight, and the colors of the day, sometimes I love even more the quiet beauty of the night. How peaceful, how quiet, how beautiful when you realize that only then can the stars come out.

Maybe 40 isn’t “over the hill”, but sometimes people who are getting older begin to wonder whether life holds much for them up ahead. Sometimes the eyes begin to dim…the hearing gets distant, and the health falters and fails. But, in truth, only when some of the noise and confusion of the chaotic world around us begins to slow down, and maybe even go away…only then do we begin to discover that night is but the wonderful prelude to another day.

Only then do we begin to see that God is preparing us, in the quiet times of retirement, for a Special Day…a Day so bright and glorious, so marvelously different than the one in which we have been living for three score years and ten, that truly “black is beautiful”, and the night is not the end of anything, except the beginning of something uniquely new.

The apostle Paul had his complaints too. And in Romans 5:3ff, he says we may even be able to “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.”

I’m a sucker for “hope”. And I can’t help but believe that God doesn’t “blackball” us, but that He beautifully rewards us with all the colors of the rainbow, along with a certain amount of darkness, in preparation for an eternity with Him.

Casually Yours

Many years ago, Hitler said something that was very true. Just because he was an evil man, does not mean that sometimes bad persons do not say something good. Even a clock that is stopped gives the right time twice every day. Hitler in his “Mein Kampf” once wrote, that the revolution that he was preparing, could be stopped only by those who brought against it, “an explosive idea”. And Hitler was right! Because there is an explosive idea that puts a stop to the kind of thing that Hitlers and dictators try to do. It is the explosive idea of Christ and Christ’s teachings.

Christians have a bombshell! Jesus Christ explodes hatred, wars, immorality, fear, and the evils that prevail upon this world. The apostle Paul would never agree that two plus two could ever equal 5. It has to be 4. And so it is with belief. It has to be the right answer. It has to be the explosive love of Jesus Christ. In Romans 10:8, Paul says “For the secret is very near you, in your own heart, in your own mouth! It is the secret of faith, which is the burden of our preaching.” (Phillips translation)

In a ladies department store, a coat was listed for sale under the name, “Casually yours”. Perhaps that fits people of our day. The advertisement said, “This coat captures beautifully that fine air of informal unconcern.”

Is this what is wrong with us? We have too much of that “fine air of informal unconcern”. The sin of casualness…careless casualness…that’s the nail that crucifies the Christ again and again. A Christian must never be “casually yours”. But always “devotedly yours”, or “enthusiastically yours”.

The secret of our salvation is “belief”. And belief must move us to commitment, and commitment must shove us always to do a little more, give more, care a lot more, and let the love show! It’s not the “casual” thing to do.

The Hilarity of the Gospel

Do you recall the hell-fire and damnation preaching, the “Amen” shouting, the “saw-dust trail” of past decades in the church? Or surely you have heard about it? Although we may not wish to return to them, at times we have become so formal in the life of the church, so staid and sour, that we no longer act or sound like Christians.

There was something marvelously relaxed and joyous about the life of our Lord as he walked this earth. It is something we wish we might duplicate.

In the book of Acts, we read that the early disciples proclaimed the risen Christ with such hilarious joy and exuberance, that they were accused of being addicted to wine. Peter said, ”No, it was too early in the day for that.” This was not alcoholism, but the heady wine of the Spirit. It was that which caused men to see visions, and dream dreams.

Diedrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian, executed on the Nazi gallows, defined “hilaritas”, the Latin word, as a certain confidence in your work; as a certain boldness and defiance of the world and of popular opinion; and as a certain steadfastness that what we do, benefits the world.

The Christian works with a kind of assurance of freedom. We are not under Law, but under Love. The burden of the Law was like shackles of steel. The fruit of Love is exhilaration, joy, peace, and freedom.

The early Christians learned the cost of freedom, but they would not be shackled again. They could be persecuted, burned at the stake, but they would sing as they burned. They could be thrown to the lions, but they went rejoicing.

With our small sacrifices today, have we forgotten the Gospel with its joy, with its Good News? Call me a fool, if you want, for Christ’s sake, but I don’t care. I have Jesus. Accuse me of indulging, if you will, but the only intoxicant I have been drinking is the wine of the Spirit. I have filled my cup with the sacrament of Life, and I am hilariously happy with the Savior!

Love Is Not Optional

When you buy a car, you first get a price that is very basic. It may seem like a lot, but the salesman convinces you it is a bargain. Then you talk about the extras: the “On Star” phone connection, the sun-roof, the CD player, the computer analyzer, etc.

It may seem very difficult, but it is possible to refuse the extras, and still get the car.

In the Christian life, some people want the superficial extras, but think they can get along without the basic equipment. They can take the sacrament, they can attend church, have their names on the rolls, come to the church suppers and even sing in the choir. They are sold on the extras, but just as a car is not a car without wheels, so the Christian is not a Christian without love. Love is not optional!

The epistle-writer says: “If any one says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar’. (I Jn. 4:20). We thought maybe this basic equipment could wait. We know we are supposed to love our neighbors, but at the moment, we just can’t do it. So, we’d like the optional equipment first, and maybe some day get around to the basics. It doesn’t work. It’s no soap! It isn’t good logic, and it isn’t good Christianity.

I have no alternative. I may not agree with my neighbors. I may not like my neighbors, but nonetheless I must love them. Love is not optional. And this comes at times, as a terrifying reality. It moves me out of the theoretical into the realm of the actual.

The story of hate down through the centuries has been a grim one. Hatred is not just an absence of love, it is a violation of the law of love. Just as holding your breath is a violation of the law of breathing, so hatred is a violation of the law of loving. The effects are deadly!

There is a cross that stands at the center of our faith. And the epistle-writer says: “Herein is love…that God loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” He then concludes. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (I John 4:10,11)

If I am a Christian, I have no choice. My job is not to change my neighbor, or even to agree with him in everything. My job is simply to love him. I may not learn to like the garlic he eats, or enjoy the music to which he listens. I may not like the way he combs his hair, or the cut of his clothes, but I must love him as I love myself…to want for him, what I want for myself…to guarantee for him every freedom which I wish to guarantee for myself.

Sometimes this drives me to distraction, but the automobile of faith won’t move without it.

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Begin With "Good -Bye"

The good Lord surely knew what He was doing when He made us! He gave us a front and a back, and our heads were screwed on so that we look towards where we are going, and not where we’ve been. I can look back, and there are times when I need to do so, but I was designed to look ahead.

It is sad when some people live in the past. They glory over past victories, until they become a stumbling-block, preventing them from living in the present. And there are others who get hung up on their failures, and on personal misfortunes, and with deep sorrow, they bury themselves in self-pity.

The Scriptures tell us that Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt because she couldn’t leave the past. She kept turning around, grieving over what she was leaving. She was not ready to face the future. And because of this, she had no future!

There are circumstances in life when we need to begin with “good-bye”. Beginning a New Year is one of them. Moving to a new community is another. Taking a new job is such an experience. There must be a movement from grief to new beginnings. Sure, last year had its good moments. Yes, your own community means a lot to you, and the old job wasn’t all that bad. But life goes on!

The apostle Paul was wise enough to say that “he died daily”. As parents, we died a little death, when we released our first child to go to school. We died a little death when our daughter walked down the aisle to her future husband. We die little deaths when we go for surgery. On each of these times, we trusted ourselves and our loved ones to Life.

Perhaps God has so ordained that we die these little deaths so that we can make a final transition some day. Unless we can trust, and really say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded, that He is willing to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him, against that day.” (II Timothy 1:12) then we are not ready for that final act of BEGINNING.

Endings and beginnings are built into all of life, to keep us conscious of this truth. Each morning, we get up…each evening we go to bed. There is healing in saying the smaller good-byes, in dealing with the smaller death, so that we may be able to deal with the larger separations that come to us.

The past is past. We must learn to say “good-bye” to our sins, to our failures. Lay your sorrows and your hang-ups, your fears and your tensions at the feet of the Savior. For He is faithful and just to forgive your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, if you come to Him. (I John 1:9) To deny that He does this is to blaspheme God and His promises.

Let today be the first day of new beginnings, and say “Good-bye” to yesterday with all its failures.