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WYSIWYG

24 Aug

Do you know what that means??  This one will really date some of my IT peeps.   WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get.  It dates back to the really old days, the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the days when WordStar and WordPerfect for DOS reigned supreme in the world of text editing.  It was a revolutionary move when we could SEE what all of the control codes in our documents looked like!!  Today we are spoiled with MS Word.  We can see, format, and do everything we need to do on the fly.  It is a much more efficient day.  Because what we SEE (What we KEY INTO THE PROGRAM) really is what we get when we print or display.

As a young student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, I was a WordPerfect for DOS master!!  I knew the Kate Turabian Writing Manual almost as well as I knew the book of Genesis.  And I was taught over and over this truth:  YOU NEED TO BE A WYSIWYG.  Not in those words, but we were constantly reminded that we, as ministers, need to be REAL.  I argue today that genuineness and realness are necessary for EVERYONE who follows Christ, regardless of your profession!!!  Granted, we in ministry HAD BETTER lead the way on this one.  But we all have the highest calling to (not only) be REAL but to BE CHRIST to a lost and dying world!!!  Because everyone really is watching.  And they can tell when we are not genuine!

I was talking to a friend about a situation yesterday.  A meeting with a variety of adults involved.  Some who know Christ.  Some who do not.  In this meeting, a married couple who, as everyone knows, is a minister and his wife.  Another colleague was late to the meeting and the couple proceeded to tear her to shreds publicly, not because she was late, but for some other reason.  Then, she arrived, and sugar would not melt in their mouths as they greeter her!!

IS THIS CHRIST?

What do you think others who witnessed this kind of thing (probably more than once) think about CHRIST and the CHURCH???  When we act no better than the world??  (Specifically to my ministry friends, WHAT do you think those other folks think about ministers when we do things like this?)

Church, WE are called to do better.  To BE better.

In other news, my momma always told me to beware of people who will talk about others TO you.  Because they are almost always talking ABOUT you to others.  I find that to be true over and over again.  Sad …

What can YOU do about this?  Again, Mom would advise me NOT TO BE PART OF THIS.  If you do not give others a listening ear to their rantings and ravings, you are stopping the spread of it all!!!  Honestly, I need to do better.  Because by all means, I am NOT perfect.  It takes work.

The greatest thing that you and I can do is to BE THE BEST EMULATION OF CHRIST WE CAN BE.  Be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect!!  (Some too easily dismiss this quote from Matthew 5:48 because WE CANNOT BE PERFECT.  But it gives us something to strive towards!!  And if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time!!!)

DO BETTER.  BE BETTER.  You can do it!!!

Selective Love

6 Aug

Otherwise known as “Conditional Love,” we practice SELECTIVE LOVE often.  And perhaps we don’t even realize it!!  (But maybe we do …)

All it takes is a few moments on social media and it is apparent that almost everyone in our world has forgotten how to disagree.

We are NOT all alike. We do not believe THE SAME WAY about every issue that we face. And THAT IS OKAY. We are human. The differences between us help to form the unique individuals that we have become.

The danger of 2018 is found in how we allow these differences to polarize us on every level. When we pick and choose whom we will love based on our beliefs or other factors that divide us, we are practicing SELECTIVE LOVE. We are ONLY LOVING those who are like us, who look like us, who act like us, who believe like us, who vote like us, who pull for the same football team. Can you see where this is headed??

This is not only bad for the future of our world, this is in DIRECT OPPOSITION to how Jesus taught us to love in the Sermon on the Mount!!

 In Matthew 5 (NIV), Jesus said:

 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminded His disciples that the civilized world would expect everyone to love their neighbor. And hate their enemy. These things were not only accepted, but EXPECTED of anyone and everyone. But a disciple of Christ is called to DO MORE …

We are called to LOVE OUR ENEMIES. To PRAY FOR THOSE WHO PERSECUTE US. We are called to meet the aggression of our enemies with LOVE. With CARE. And, if we do these things, we will be the sons and daughters of our Father in Heaven.  Again the world says this is CRAZY.   Some of you reading this might even think these words are crazy.  But, remember:  These are the very words of Jesus Christ!

IF you only love those who love you, you are living no better than the rest of the world. LOVE those who do not love you. Go the extra mile, even when it doesn’t make sense.  THAT is God’s kind of love!!

STRIVE TO BE PERFECT as your Heavenly Father is perfect!  (Zig Ziglar said: “If you aim at NOTHING, you will hit it every time.”)

Humility

25 Jul

A dangerous topic for any blogger … Humility.  Being humble.  I’ve been told that bloggers are the most narcissistic people on the web.  Honestly, it slowed my blogging frequency until I realized this:  My blog is another expression of faith and trust in Him.  So, if you are one of those that thinks this is a narcissistic article, I hope you have already stopped reading by now!! (Hopefully, you didn’t start reading in the first place.)

I serve in a profession with many temptations.  Current news outlets are FULL of stories of ministers and denominational leaders who have experienced tremendous falls.  Some for mistakes made years ago.  Some for ongoing transgressions.  Some of these falls are most deserved.  Some of them are heartbreaking.

Now, I cannot sit in judgment over any man or woman in ministry.  Because I have made mistakes over the years, too.  The world might not grade my mistakes as harshly as some others, but God sees all of this differently.  All have sinned and fall short of His glory.  And, to Him, all sin is bad.  But one of the dangerous elements in many of the mistakes made by men and women (not only in ministry, but in life) is the element of PRIDE.  PRIDE is a MOST dangerous element in the life of any and every Christian.  We probably all struggle with PRIDE on a regular basis.  At least, I know I do.

Do you live to SERVE or to BE SERVED?

Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, shared this in Proverbs 16:18: Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.  One of the greatest temptations that has plagued humanity from the BEGINNING is PRIDE.  I do not believe Solomon was telling us not to believe in ourselves.  Having a positive self-image is necessary for our own mental survival!!  Solomon is reminding us not to WORSHIP ourselves.  I believe Solomon was being consistent with the biblical model of HUMILITY, of not allowing our self-image to become an item of worship!!

Today I believe he would write “KNOW WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST!!”

Both Peter and James wrote about this same idea:

James 4:10 – Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

1 Peter 5:6 – Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

If we HUMBLE OURSELVES before the Lord, we are showing the world that HE IS GOD and WE ARE HUMANITY!!  And that is OKAY!!  It is the most realistic ORDER OF EXISTENCE!!!

If we then HUMBLE OURSELVES BEFORE OUR NEIGHBORS, we are showing the world that JESUS CHRIST IS REAL!!  In fact, more simply stated, we are showing the world JESUS CHRIST.

Do YOU live to SERVE?  Or to BE SERVED?  A great question to ask ourselves every day.

 

Pseudo-Code

2 Feb

A lifetime and a half ago, I was working as a systems/software developer for an up-and-coming company in Duncan, SC.  Our mainstay?  Analyzing manual work systems and enabling our clients to collect data and use it to make things better.  This was in the day and age when there was no iPhone app for that.  There was NO IPHONE!!  We barely had electricity and did our math homework on the back of a flat shovel with a piece of coal because we had no pencils ….

ANYWHO …. One of the industry buzzwords that one of my bosses latched onto was “pseudo-code.”  He would come in and want me to develop this elaborate software FIRST in pseudo-code, basically in English as a sort of logical walkthrough.  I always resisted and didn’t see the point in doing the work TWICE.  Why not just code it??  We all understood the actual code, so why would we create a false code, other than to fulfill the popular buzzword???  Never saw the point in that …

This week I was talking to some friends who asked an interesting question:  “Why don’t you preach a sermon about how judgemental people become when they start following Christ?”  Why do people find Christ and then, all of the sudden, become super-judgemental?

I attribute that to the pseudo-code of the day.  Pseudo means “false… Pretend…  Unreal.”  We, as the church, are sometimes guilty of developing a false culture.  A culture in which everyone must DO the same things, like the same movies and books, listen to the same music, dress the same way.  And when someone doesn’t do these things, we judge them.  Sometimes we even cast them out.

HOW TERRIBLY FRIGHTENING AND DANGEROUS!!!!!!!  It is one thing to hold each other, as the church, to a biblical standard.  We are DEFINITELY called to do that.  IN LOVE.  But it is an entirely different thing to hold each other to a standard we have developed.  Because RIGHT and WRONG all becomes subjective.  At the whim of the PERSON who dictates the culture.  The IMPERFECT PERSON who will also make mistakes.  It becomes a Pseudo-Culture.

We talked about this on Wednesday evening at EBC.  It does seem far easier to attempt to TELL everyone how to live, what to wear, and what to do in life.  When we do this, we are bordering on telling the world “YOU MUST BE LIKE US BEFORE YOU CAN BE SAVED!” We are selling short the process of Sanctification, which is not our job but the job of the HOLY SPIRIT.

As the church, we are called to deal with the HEART CONDITION.  To Go Make Disciples.  To Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And to Teach them THE WORD OF GOD.  And to love them as much as we love ourselves.

Why do we judge so harshly??  Jesus reminded us in the Sermon on the Mount to be careful of how we judge, because the same measure we use might just be used to judge US someday………

First Love Lost

25 Jan

Last night we began our study of Revelations in Wednesday Bible Study.  I learned at least TWO things:  1) people are VERY INTERESTED in this apochalyptic work.  2) It is EASY to bog down in minutia and miss the main point of John’s work.

After talking about theories and views of this mystical book, we started moving through the scripture.  We came to the first message, to the church at Ephesus. I hope and pray this would not be Ebenezer, but I see so many similarities.

Jesus told this church “I see all of the things you are doing well, and you do many of them.  But THIS I have against you:  You have lost your FIRST LOVE.”

Passion.  God led me to preach about it last Sunday, and it comes up again this Sunday. Do you remember what it was like when you first came to know Christ??  How you couldn’t wait to tell others, and did not want those you love to miss what Jesus Christ can do for their lives??

How is that going now???

Jesus told that church “If you do not find your first love, I will remove your lamp from its stand.”  I KNOW if we fail to reach those around us, God will raise up another that will.  And we will miss out on the tremendous blessing of helping others know Him.  And a sad day that would be.

Can I get a Witness?

21 Nov

Those of us who follow Christ have heard talk all of our lives about protecting our “witness”…  Having a good “witness” …  What in the church-speaking world is that??

I could go on and on about this and beat around the bush a little, but I haven’t had enough coffee at this point in the day to do that.  So, simply stated, your Christian “witness” is actually the reflection of God, of Christ and His love that radiates out of your life.  It is how much of God that others see in you.  Like it or not, many people will judge the reality of God by how well YOU reflect Him (if you claim to be a disciple).  They look at you and me and want to see if God’s love is genuine.  If He is real.  What they are REALLY seeing is how real He is to us!

Some will immediately claim this as unfair.  We will speak of our own imperfections and try to dismiss our behavior with a myriad of excuses.  And that is pointless.

People who do not know Christ want to know more.  They want to see that He is real.  They want to experience the difference that He makes in lives.  So they draw near YOU and ME.  And wait.

What will they see this week??

Sometimes, we forget

7 Nov

Strength.  A must-have to make it through life today.  All of the stress of life bears down, tightens, wrings you out.  You must have strength to make it through.  From where do YOU draw your strength?

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about basketball drills.  Those difficult physical challenges our coaches placed before us at countless practices.  The best drills have purpose:  Build stamina … Target specific muscle groups … Wear out a bunch of smart-alec teenagers who think they have the answer to everything but really know nothing …  I had a coach in high school that would make us run cross country for our late summer/fall conditioning.  Then, the first two weeks of practice we wouldn’t even SEE a basketball.  Nothing but sprints, drills, jumping, and other physical challenges.  And, honestly, we were in awesome shape when the season started!!  (Didn’t win too many games … but we could run with ANYONE.)

HOWEVER … Basketball is not life.  Basketball is a sprint.  Life is more of a long race.  A feat of endurance.  A matter of pace.  And you will need a DEEP WELL of strength to make it.

I believe this is why God gave us Proverbs 3:5-6.  Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight!  If you are going to MAKE IT in this race, you need HIM!!  You need HIS STRENGTH!!  You need to TRUST HIM!!

Candidly, I will admit that I sometimes forget the previous fact.  Yes, me … A “pastor.”  Not listening to my own sermons again.  I try to put my head down and muddle through life.  And I grow weak.  And life keeps coming like a fire hydrant spraying water into your face.  And the stress presses in.  Then frustration.  Anger.  Helplessness.

And then I realize that I cannot FIX others.  I cannot even FIX myself.  But those words Solomon wrote in Proverbs 3 shine like a beacon.  And I needed to remember.  I can trust Him … He is ALREADY AT WORK on all of it!!  I just need to open my eyes and see Him!!

What Bugs me about the Bible

10 Jul

I am a proud graduate of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  All of my professors taught and reminded me (and others) of the absolute treasure that is our modern Bible.  I’ve studied the history of the best-selling book of all time, I have studied the languages in which it was written, and I continue to study this Book.  And I recognize that the Bible is SO MUCH more than a book!

But, I have to confess there is something that bugs me.  There is just something that is not quite right.  I read it and see it and hear it and there are, from time to time, things that do not sit well with me.  That kind of stick in my gut.  That make me a little queasy.  Sometimes I even search for other answers and different meanings.

You see, the Bible is God’s Word.  Holy.  Set apart.  The Bible is His revelation of Himself, His nature, His activity with humankind, it is His love letter to His creation.  And I find that, the more I study it, the more I immerse in it and allow it to permeate my heart and mind, the more uncomfortable it makes me.  The more I cringe.

And I realize the reason I cringe …. IS ME.  Whenever I come face to face with the perfection of our Holy God, I realize how imperfect and unholy I really am.  (Probably NOT the confession you would expect to hear from a man whose career is pastoral ministry, but there it is.)

Show me a man or woman who LIKES to be called out, who ENJOYS being told how wrong he/she is, and I will show you someone who it NOT telling the truth.  Deep, deep down inside NONE of us enjoy the realization that we are wrong.  Many times as we rock along in this life, WE become our north-point.  Our thoughts and beliefs become our standard.  The Bible actually shows me a greater standard than I could ever develop.  And, quite frankly, that reminds me of my own imperfection.

So, I realize that the very thing that bugs me about the Bible is my heart.  My life.  My human will.  And I guess I should be glad it makes me uncomfortable.  Because it reminds me that the Holy Spirit is not done with me yet!!!

It all boils down to this

26 Jun

I was reading a political commentary this weekend that hit the nail on the head!! I would say this is primarily a first-world problem, but it is everywhere. I might ponder this a modern problem, but this is a problem as old as time. We can blame social media, the immediate publication of news (thanks to the World Wide Web), and modern technology, but this issue existed long before any of those were even dreams in the hearts of men and women.

One HUGE problem with our world today is OUR desire to WORSHIP US. That we each have a desire to do our own thing, go our own way, and the state of our world today makes that all too easy. We pick and choose the issues for which we are willing to die and allow equally important issues to fall by the wayside in the name of political affiliation.

Honestly, we in the United States live in a multi-party system. Each of us who are involved try to find the candidates and parties that most align with our value systems and we follow. If we are smart, we realize the candidate is more important than the party (but we will save that for our civics lesson later this year)…

Each party is developed and driven by men and women. Imperfect beings. Many in these parties will claim their party more closely models the life of Christ, which is the ultimate goal of every follower of Christ. But they all fall short. Why else would some fight for the rights of women and yet the rights of unborn women fall away? Why else would some fight for the rights of all unborn in the name of the Image of God and be so comfortable with war and capital punishment? We pick and choose that which makes us feel most comfortable …

We are swept into a worldwide community that values self-worship above all else. We, in the Body of Christ, are called to operate in this world. To tell the Good News!! To be Beacons of Light and Truth!! And this does make our job more difficult. Makes it a God-sized task.

When it comes to politics, the greatest plea I have for everyone who follows Christ is to PRAY.  And PRAY.  And PRAY more!!  No one is perfect!!  No candidate or party is perfect!!  And yet this is our way as Americans.  We will all make mistakes.  Exercise a little grace and pray for each other!!!!

We live in a world that values SELF-WORSHIP. God Almighty said we are to have NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM. And there is the rub …

We should BE MORE

26 May

There is a disturbing trend in our world today.  We cannot “get along.”  We have forgotten how to coexist with others who might not agree with us.  Who do not look like us, act like us, etc …  We are spiraling down into a world in which the love of Christ is NOT SEEN even in His church.  We are headed for dangerous times, indeed.

Quickly, we might want to blame social media.  I do think social media has fueled this trend, but ultimately WE ARE RESPONSIBLE.  Social media makes it easier to post our thoughts and feelings onto the world wide web with a degree of anonymity.  We will post things, even about people we know, that we would NEVER say to their faces.  Because if we looked them in the eye and said those things, we would have to deal with the pain we inflict.  Even though social media makes it easier to “express ourselves,” we cannot escape the fact that WORDS CAN HURT.  And YOUR WORDS can make a POSITIVE IMPACT on this world just as they can make a NEGATIVE IMPACT.  The choice is YOURS.

So, YOU are to blame.  (I AM, TOO!) We have spiraled down to this point where we terminate relationships and friendships with those that might not see things the same way we see them politically, religiously, economically, and even down to loyalty to sports teams.  My friends, WE ARE RIDICULOUS.  (And I am keenly aware that I might lose a friend or two in saying these things.)

WE ALL NEED TO WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT NONE OF US HAVE THE MARKET CORNERED WHEN IT COMES TO LIFE.  All of us have faults.  All of us have made mistakes.  We all have beliefs that have been shaped by life, by circumstance, by influences, and hopefully by God’s word.  Probably NONE OF US have it exactly as God sees it.  No, God is NOT a Republican.  He is NOT a Democrat.  He is  NOT a Northerner, and as much as it pains me to say, He is NOT a Southerner.  He is not a Gamecock, Bulldog, Tide, Paladin, Buckeye, and (gulp) not even a Tiger.

And yet HE finds a way to LOVE US ALL.  He even finds a way to love our enemies.  And He commands us to do the same.

The cure of all of this??? IT IS YOU.  Not waiting on others to act, but YOU LOVE WITH GOD’S KIND OF LOVE.  And if YOU do it, and if I do it, and if the next few people do it, before long we will treat each other with the dignity and respect HE INTENDED for us.  And you won’t unfriend that person who voted for that other person.  Or who pulls for that other team.  Or who drives a Ford or Chevy.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 “When I was a child, I acted like a child.  But now that I am growing up, I’m not doing that anymore.”

Hey WORLD:  Stop acting like children.  GROW UP.  We were all taught better than this.

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