gambling, alcohol, church and emptiness

Last week I spent some time in the Midwest for continuing education with the company for which I work. Thursday evening a group of us decided to go out for the evening. Since I drink only moderately, I was the designated driver. I made some startling observations during my time on the town.

Our first stop was at a new casino just several miles from our hotel. We arrived at the door, declining the valet parking. We were greeted by well-dressed greeters that opened the doors and welcomed us inside. The interior decor was rather elaborate. The lobby area had absolutely beautiful and wonderfully comfortable leather sofas and easy chairs. I watched as people played various games of chance, slots, roulette, poker, and more. Every once in a while a voice announced a big winner.

I began to look closer, to observe those playing the games. I saw elderly people, people in wheelchairs, and several people on oxygen tanks. While not everyone playing the games were elderly, the vast majority appeared to be old enough to collect social security. As I looked closer, past the feverish tempo, I saw empty people. People whose eyes were tired as they pursued the high of winning.

We left the casino to go the the grand opening of a sports bar complex. The atmosphere there was much more relaxed. The pretty bartender shouted a greeting as we walked inside. As the evening progressed, more people showed up and mingled. A band (not a very good one!) played music. My co-workers began to hit the alcohol, drinking non stop. People began to gradually show the effects of the alcohol. I had several conversations with complete strangers, for that moment in time we were friends.

Once again, I began to see past the alcohol, the inferior music, and the laughter. I saw people desperately trying to have a good time. I saw middle aged women desperately trying to recapture their teen years again. Overweight middle aged men strutted like body builders. Alcohol causes people who can't dance think that they can. And yet, just like in the casino, there was a great deal of emptiness behind all the noise.

As I sat at the bar and watched people, I realized several things. First, I felt somewhat out of place. It didn't have anything to do with either gambling or drinking. Rather, the entire atmosphere in both places was set by people attempting to fill a deep void with external activities. At the casino, the hope for happiness hinged on winning the jackpot. At the bar, people slowly lost their inhibitions in search of a feeling of community and happiness.

The second realization struck most forcefully. I realized that I felt the same way that I frequently do when I am "in church" or with people who profess to be Christians. I am not sure that there is much difference between people in the bar or the casino and people in church on Sunday morning. We try some external activity hoping it will bring us happiness and fulfillment. We busy ourselves with activities and noise, yet in the end we feel empty. Unfortunately our emptiness drives us to drink more, gamble more, or engage in more religious activities.

True fulfillment comes not from winning the jackpot, losing ourselves in alcohol, or increasingly busy church activities. The fulfillment for which we yearn comes only as we are reconciled with God deep in our heart. We will never satisfy our God-yearning with any external activities.

The Blessing of Exposure

For several years, I have been sensing that we are entering a time of exposure. God is revealing the things that "truly are". It will become increasingly hard to hide ungodly attitudes, actions, and mindsets. A friend of mine told me recently that to her it seems like God is poking and prodding people until the "ugly" manifests. While initially it is frightening when confronted with our ugliness, the revelation of the sin allows for the healing power of God to transform us (if we allow it).

This past week, an increasingly familiar scenario occurred. For the past months there has been a great deal of hype about Todd Bentley and what was happening in Lakeland. Unfortunately we are discovering some "rot" in the life of Todd. Any time this kind of revelation surfaces, it creates a great deal of turmoil. Those who held Todd in too high regard are devastated. Those who for one reason or another disliked Todd feel vindicated. (Unfortunately neither attitude comes from the heart of God).

Several weeks ago, I woke up with the words "there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed" in my spirit. I realized that these were the words of Jesus from Luke 12:

“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.

Later in the morning as I was pondering what I heard earlier, I again heard the following phrase in my spirit: "fall on the rock". Once again I immediately recognized the words of Jesus from Luke 10:

Then He looked at them and said, “what then is this that is written: The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’? Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

The inescapable fact of exposure leads to the dilemma of a response to that which is being exposed. For those to whom the exposure leads to a brokenness, abundant life results. For those to whom exposure leads to an attempt to conceal that which God exposes, destruction results. If Todd Bentley embraces the exposure of the faults and falls on Jesus, he can expect healing and life. However, if he attempts to minimize the faults, destruction will find him.

In my own life, recently God exposed a deeper weakness. The exposure demolishes any kind of self-righteousness and any measure of self-goodness. Once again I am required to cry out to Jesus for His grace to face my ugliness. My awareness of my susceptibility to ungodly thought patterns and actions has deepened. On the other hand, my awareness of the goodness of God has deepened as well. As I throw myself on the Rock, as I am broken, I discover life.

In observing what is happening in the world around me I notice another phenomena. I see people who are experiencing God's exposure. Instead of embracing the work of God, they continue in the attempts to hide from the exposure. At best, they minimize the work of God by pointing to their "goodness". At worst, they resist the work of God by calling it the work of the enemy. Ultimately, the Rock will fall on them and they will be crushed by Him.

From personal experience, I can say that this time of exposure is a blessing. It allows me to be in a position to truly experience the redemptive power of God. While many will blame the enemy for Todd Bentley's faults, I believe this is not the work of the enemy. Rather, I believe that this is the work of God revealing what "really is" so that an opportunity for healing can manifest.

The demonization of Jesus (and those who follow Him)

I was reading in John 8 today. Jesus is engaging with the Pharisees, causing them to face the reality of their godlessness. As the conversation progressed, they became increasing vicious in their attacks on Him. In the ongoing dialogue, there is a statement that reveals at least one contributing factor to their anger. Verse 30 sums up what was happening with the following words - As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.

I believe that the Pharisees were fully aware that their religious control over people was being threatened. For years, in spite of differing views, the religious sects of the day played by the same rules. They were more interested in protecting their systems and theology than they were about the restoration of people. As long as all the different groups played by the same set of rules, the religious equilibrium was stable.

However, the entrance of Jesus on the scene upset the status quo. His words and actions indicated that God cared more for people than for the established religious systems. He healed on the Sabbath. He interacted deeply with unclean sinners. He touched the untouchable. And now people were drawn to Him. His words and actions gave them hope. Furthermore, Jesus' words revealed the condition of the Pharisee's heart. Their self-god was being exposed.

As the exposure increased, so did the vicious nature of the attacks. The Pharisees implied that they were better than Him because they were not born in fornication. (As if Jesus could have done anything about the circumstances surounding His birth!) As their anger increased, they continued to attack Jesus. They accused Him of being a Samaritan, of being demon possessed.
Finally, their rage culminated in an effort to kill Him.

A hallmark of people following the self-god is this kind of demonization. The self-god operates behind a facade of godliness. When the presence of God exposes the hypocrisy, the one through whom the presence of God is manifest must be demonized. Demonization of the person justifies the feelings of superioirity and rage. Ultimately it opens the door for all kinds of ungodly actions toward people.

Jesus said that a servant is not greater than His master. Those who follow Him should expect the same kind of treatment from the modern protectors of the religious systems.

How Big is Your God?

Lately I’ve been thinking a good deal about our perception of God. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about the way we make God into our image (or perhaps make a god in our image). Now, none of us would ever admit to making God in our image. However, our perception about the greatness of God is usually limited to our own abilities. In other words we limit our picture of God to what we can or cannot do ourselves.

Let me illustrate – I frequent an Internet forum that has the stated purpose of seeing revival break out. However, instead of talking about revival, most posts deal with the dangers of deception. Posters obsess with who is deceived and who is okay in the church world. Continual warnings are posted about various deceptions.

Why the obsession with deception? I believe it has to do with people’s perspective of God. They do not believe that God is greater than any deception. Therefore, deception must be feared. They doubt God’s ability to reveal deception; therefore they must take matters in their own hands. They have to be very careful lest some deception from another person “gets on them”.

Somehow we inherently believe that world or deceptions are greater than the God in us. We are afraid that the “world” will taint us. If we really understood the nature of God, we would expect the God in us to “taint” the world. We would expect the God in us to expose deception. Light is greater than darkness, life is greater than death.

I have a friend who talked with her church leaders about a desire to penetrate society. She was quickly warned about the dangers of associating with the world. She was told that it takes a mature Christian to withstand the allure of the world. Huh? The God in my friend is the same God that dwells in mature Christians. God is able to keep her fully.

The problem with the advice my friend received was that it minimized God. I believe that subconsciously, her leaders had a small view of God. Their statements reveal that they hold to a view that the world is more powerful than God.

How big is your God? Is He capable of handling the things you face? Is He capable of getting you back on track if you get lost? Do you expect Him to affect those around you in a powerful way?

Into the Shadowlands

I postedthis early last year. I felt like I needed to share it again with you all.

Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” (Mark 10:32-34)

From my leadership experience, I have discerned a startling truth – People will willingly follow a good leader almost anywhere except into the valley of the shadow of death. God’s pattern of leadership as revealed in Jesus requires leaders to embrace what feels like a downward spiral into the shadows, into a place where the glory of leadership dissipates completely.

Jesus’ disciples were astounded that He would choose to travel to Jerusalem in the face of imminent danger. His steady movement toward a place of apparent death struck fear to their hearts. Their consternation with Jesus’ travel plans blinded them to see through the valley of the shadow of death to the glorious reality of the resurrection.

Jesus’ disciples had dreams of Jesus being a king like David. In their minds, not only was Jesus destined to be a king, but they were poised to have leading roles in this emerging glorious kingdom. Therefore, Jesus’ journey into the shadow lands of death caused a great deal of consternation in them. They needed Him to establish a kingdom, to be the monarch of the new Jewish superpower.

In the context of Jesus’ journey into impending death, in the context of their fear, James and John came to Jesus asking for positions of power in the empire that they were certain that Jesus would establish. (Read Mark 10:35-37). It was as if they were reminding Jesus that He had a responsibility to establish the new Jewish superpower.

Jesus’ experience with His disciples mirrors much of my own experience. People will follow a leader as long as the leader is building something magnificent. They deeply desire to be a part of something grandiose.

For leaders seeking validation from the people they lead, it becomes easy to never make the journey into the valley of the shadow of death due to the expectations of those being led. To not complete the leadership journey, however, will negate the leader from engaging with God’s pattern for leadership. Consequently the Kingdom of God is never established through that leader.

It is important to note that Jesus’ own journey into the shadow lands was the prelude to resurrection power. God was establishing His kingdom through Jesus. Even so today – leaders must journey to the shadow lands of death to discover a new and fresh authority and life.

From my own experience I can tell you that any leader who makes the journey into death and the cross will probably not be popular. Throughout the years of leading and being a catalyst in the emergence of God’s Kingdom on earth, I have experienced the resistance that comes from the demonic hordes seeking to destroy the new things God was bringing forth. However, the greatest resistance I have received on my walk with God occurred when I intentionally followed God into the valley of the shadow of death.

Many of the people I have led consistently applied pressure on me to abandon the journey into “nothingness” regardless how much I tried communicate with them the power (and the Jesus pattern) of the journey into “nothingness”. Beyond the pressure from people, my own desire for significance was compounded by the voices of the enemy encouraging me to choose a less threatening path to resurrection life. (Which, incidentally, does not exist).

For the past number of years, the gentle whisper of heaven, the voice of the Father, has invited me to choose the way of the valley of the shadow of death, to enter a place that seems and feels insignificant. I have chosen to resolutely heed the invitation, knowing that in all likelihood, I would find myself not on some grandiose stage, but in the shadows of the world and the church.

However, I have found some diamonds in the place of darkness. In the shadow lands I have found that the barrier between heaven and earth are minimal. In the shadow lands, I experience the kiss of the Father for an extended period. His kiss has sustained me in my resolution to press ahead. In the shadow lands, I discover God as my friend. I become acutely aware of the invitation to participate with Him in the redemption of creation.

Press on to Jerusalem; it is the way of God. Purpose to enter the valley of the shadow of death as God invites you to do so. To grasp at our dreams of greatness will cause us to miss the point, to miss resurrection life.

The work of God

I am overwhelmed at times that God desires me to be involved deeply in His work in the world today. His invitation moves me from being a spectator to being a participant, not as some insignificant pawn in His hand but as a partner. Paul, in his letter to the church at Corinth, understood the invitation.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The invitation of God is to a ministry of reconciliation. As we reconcile people to God, they discover abundant life. This ministry of reconciliation is not some ethereal concept but a practical lifestyle. People get lost. They wander away from God, heeding the allure of the self-god. As they
give ear to the self-god, they become even more lost until all that they can hear is the enemy of their soul speaking through the self-god.

Our ministry is to bring people back to God in a practical way. The ministry of reconciliation requires us to become deeply involved with people. Bringing people to abundant life cannot be done from a distance. The example of Jesus coming to earth to live with us points to the deeply interactive nature of this ministry. God immersed Himself in our world, living among us. He felt what we feel, experienced the suffering we suffer so that He might reconcile us to the intended relationship with God. (Again - I am not talking about a theoretical relationship but a practical interaction with Him).

In the same way, if we are to be involved with God in His work of reconciling people to Himself, then we have to get involved with people. We must interact with broken, wounded people; people whose sin repulses the religious. Our interaction with them cannot be from a position of superiority based on our goodness. Our attitude must be one of humility born from the realization of our own tendencies toward sin. I had a man ask me why I pursued him. I replied that someday I might need him to pursue me.

For far too many years, I wanted to reconcile people to God from a distance. I wanted the recognition that I was working with God but I was unwilling to draw close to those who needed reconciliation. A number of years ago, God began to show me that while we had started churches, while we looked successful as defined by secular success, in reality, we never really discipled people. We didn't participate with God in His redemptive work on a heart level. When we started Grace Covenant Church, we built our house in a wooded area that the base of a mountain. One purpose for choosing that location was that I wanted to get away from people when I was not preaching/teaching. I wanted to be involved in the ministry of reconciliation from a distance.

Fortunately, God has been gracious with me. He gave me another chance to become involved with reconciling people to Himself. For the past several years, we have had the privilege of interacting with broken people, people who have gotten lost. We have seen the process of reconciliation begin to affect their lives. We've seen them discover God and life. We've cried together, eaten together, and shared our stories together. When we have experienced breakthrough, we've celebrated together. In the process, God's work of reconciliation affected us as well, drawing us closer to Him, restoring us to a partnership with Him

Spiritual warfare

I have been thinking about spiritual warfare a good deal lately. Let me preface my thoughts with my own experiences. I have been involved with what we call spiritual warfare exercises most of my life. I have gone on prayer walks, prayer drives, and have prayed at "strategic" locations. I have rebuked evil, spoke truth, and made declarations.

When I look at spiritual warfare in the life of Jesus, I see another aspect of spiritual warfare. The Bible never tells us about the content of the conversations between the Father and Jesus in those times when Jesus went to the mountain to pray. Maybe Jesus prayed that principalities would be bound, that truth would be released, but it is never recorded. What is recorded is the spiritual warfare that took place as Jesus interacted with individual people. Jesus perceived that an evil spirit bound a man that could not speak, He cast the demon from the man. When a Peter spoke from his human intellect and became a mouth-piece for the evil one, Jesus rebuked Him. When a woman was brought to Him that was caught in the act of adultery, Jesus spoke words to release her from the curse of condemnation.

It seems to me that Jesus engagement in spiritual warfare occurred primarily in the life of individual people. He plundered the enemy by freeing people from bondage by His words and by His interaction with them.

In my own life, the most intense spiritual struggles and battles occur as I interact with people heart to heart, as I get involved in their mess. Tearing down strongholds in the minds of people can be intense at times. On the other hand, seeing freedom and life come to people in a practical way is exhilarating as well.

Might it be that we would rather pray over a geographic area than get involved with the people in that area. Might it be that we would rather rebuke the evil one than show people how to live by interacting deeply with them? Is it possible that we would rather proclaim from afar instead of engaging with broken people?