Pharisees still resist Jesus

Jesus greatest resistance throughout His ministry years was not from the Romans and their ungodly government, rather it was from the religious leaders of the day, namely the Pharisees. I have noticed that to this day, the same spirit that was evident in the Pharisees opposes the active work of Jesus. As the work of Jesus increases in the world through the active involvement of His body, Pharisees begin to attack it. I have observed some re-occurring themes when it comes to Pharisees (both in Jesus’ day and today).

Pharisees are self proclaimed keepers of the truth – they have a tightly defined system of beliefs about God. Anything that lies outside of that system of belief is immediately and vociferously attacked as from the devil. Because Jesus never seemed to adhere to their system of beliefs, He was proclaimed to be from the devil. They still demonize people who deviate from the accepted system of beliefs. Pharisees freely use the terms like “false teachers”, “snakes”, and “deceived” to describe anyone who would dare to disagree with them. They care more about the protection of their doctrinal systems than about people. To even question their pet doctrines is heretical to them. In a reality, the truth they proclaim is not God’s truth but their own. They may find scriptures that support some of their beliefs, but at the core, they hold to their own truth not God’s truth.

Pharisees are never wrong in their eyes – Since they are the “keepers of the truth”, they cannot be wrong. While they profess to love truth, what they really love is themselves and their projected image of God. Since they cannot be wrong (they will find the scriptures to PROVE they are not wrong), anyone who disagrees must be wrong.

Pharisees refuse to humbly and honestly search the scriptures – Pharisees take a great deal of pride in their adherence to the scriptures. However, they come to the scriptures with their own set of paradigms. In so doing, they frequently make the scriptures say something they were never meant to say. They will allow and even promote shoddy exegesis of the scriptures if it will further their own agenda. They are not “learners” due to the fact that they have God “figured out”. They resist learning from and embracing the pattern of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels. Rather than interpret the scriptures through the life and pattern of Jesus, they attempt to fit Jesus into their belief system. Where He does not fit, He is ignored

Pharisees love judgment – Since they have all truth and are the epitome of godliness in their own eyes, they eagerly await the judgment of those that do not hold to their accepted belief system. They profess that their judgment is motivated by love, but their attitude displays anything but love and graciousness. Sinners MUST be punished and the earlier God punishes the sinner the better it will be. As I stated earlier, they are quick to label anyone who disagrees with them as deceived. They have a clear line of demarcation – people are either “in or out”.

I work with a great deal of pagans as well as new believers in Jesus. The Pharisees always make my work more difficult. Instead of bringing healing, they cause pain. Instead of bringing freedom, they bring bondage. Instead of bringing life they bring death. Instead of encouraging vulnerable learning and curiosity about the scriptures that depends on the Holy Spirit’s teaching, they dictate rigid dogma. At every turn, they resist the work of Jesus.

I believe that we live in the most exciting time in history. Unfortunately like in Jesus' day, the greatest resistance will come from Pharisees. I expect that as God's plan continues to unfold, the Pharisees will beome more vocal and vehement. Be encourage though, their poisonous doctrines will not prevail against the work of Jesus!!

Superstar??? Christians

This week, two stories from the church world made the news. Unfortunately they were not the kind of stories that demonstrate the cause of Christ. On the 23d, the AP broke a story about Juanita Bynum, a female televangelist and author and her husband, Thomas Weeks III, founder of Global Destiny Churches. Apparently the couple had separated and are no longer together. In a confrontation, Weeks assaulted Bynum, choking her and kicking her. Bynum and Weeks were married in 2002 in an extremely elaborate, televised wedding

On the 23d as well, the Tampa Tribune released the news that Randy and Paula White, pastors of Church Without Walls in Tampa, were announcing their divorce. Church Without Walls is reported to be one of the largest and fastest growing churches in the United States. The Whites have been under scrutiny for some time for their lavish lifestyles.

Both cases reveal a deep sickness in the American church. The church has been transformed from the Body of Christ into what is the equivalent of a large corporation. Leading these corporations we have superstar leaders who justify their extravagant lifestyles by pointing to the corporate world. These are the leaders who are placed on a pedestal by gullible believers who carnally desire to have a king.

These two stories reveal the moral rot that frequently exists behind the facade of success. While I have no expectations that leaders live perfectly (they wouldn't need a Savior if they did!), I do have problems with the way they position themselves as superstars, their attitude frequently mirroring that of professional athletes. It is an attitude of "I deserve more". Instead of standing with the people they lead, they stand above - in extravagance of lifestyle, in the demands to be served, in the expectations of financial remuneration.

When placed against the example of Jesus, the lifestyle of these superstar leaders bears no resemblance to the Son of Man. Jesus washed His disciples feet (donkey doo and all). Jesus exercised His authority for the benefit of messy, broken people, not to build a soft life of ease. Jesus freely relinquished His rights to self aggrandisement. In reality, Jesus penetrated the lowest strata of society, choosing to live in a way that indentified with the poor and the marginlized.

Perhaps it is time for the followers of Christ to begin to emulate His lifestyle instead instead of the lifestyles of the rich and famous in our society. Now wouldn't that be a novel idea!

misplaced focus

One of the greatest dangers we face in our pursuit of Jesus is the "good things" that can subtly shift our focus away from Him. Jesus warned that the thief would come and attempt to kill, steal, and destroy. We usually assume that the thief is some evil thing or sin that steals our life, some terrible thing like immorality, substance abuse, or violence. I believe that the most insidious thief poses as things we would call good, things that seem right to us.


Let me illustrate. A young man recently related to me how he had been part of a church who had stressed that God has a specific destiny for each person. While that teaching is correct, he realized that at some point he placed the pursuit of his destiny ahead of his pursuit of God. In so doing, he made his God-given destiny his idol. It happened for me as well. For years I pursued God because I needed Him for successful ministry. It was not until several years ago that I realized that I did not pursue God for Him, I pursued Him for what He could do for me.

We so often subtly shift our focus away from God on to some good thing - things like church, ministry, work, family, worship, prayer etc. In so doing, we sacrifice abundant life; we sacrifice the fruit of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc). Our life becomes consumed with activity and busyness; God 's presence is more of a token afterthought than an ever present reality.

Return to Him, to the simplicity of relationship, to life, abundant life. Pursue Him, not ministry or church, or any other good thing that seeks to steal your focus.

consumer Christians

I have become increasingly aware of how our western culture has affected the church. It seems as if most Christians today are consumers. Let me give you some examples that I have recently observed.

• I spoke on the phone with a woman from another state. She lamented the fact that her family could not find a church where they "were fed". As I processed through our conversation later, it occurred to me that she related to church from the same perspective that she would have seen a store. She was looking for a "store" that had the product she wanted. When I encouraged her to take the responsibility to create what she saw lacking, she resisted the encouragement. She wanted to be fed.
• I recently have noticed that most church advertisements play on this consumeristic mindset. They all, in some form or another, present the message of "we have something you want (or need)". Come and get it.
• A recent post on an Internet forum I frequent at times informed people of the availability of an empty church building in the poster's community. The last line of the post read "the only competition would be a Baptist church down the road". It would seem to me the competition would not be another church, unless you saw church as a product to market to consumers.

When I place these mindsets over the template of Jesus' life, the glaring flaws of this kind of thinking becomes apparent. Jesus never invited people simply to be consumers, using slick marketing tools to promote the advantages of following Him. Instead, He expected people to become involved in His work. He demanded a sacrifice that frightened the consumers away.

If the church is to become a transformational force in our communities, we must address the consumeristic tendencies in people instead of taking advantage of them (the consumeristic tendencies) to build something impressive. We must teach people to feed themselves. We must ask them to make an "all or nothing" choice when it comes to following Christ. If we do not address the consumeristic tendencies, we are doomed to becoming irrelevant to the cause of Christ.

the goodness of God

Several times in the past month I have experienced moments where my heart was overwhelmed with the goodness of God. The words "God is good" seemed too cheap to adequately express the gratitude and wonder I felt. Yet I did not know any other words to express the depths of my heart. Something, somewhere from deep within my spirit deeply longed to touch the heart of God and thank Him for His goodness to me.

I am discovering that we truly were created to experience abundant life. I am also discovering that the abundant life only comes as we follow Jesus, heeding the desires that He places in our hearts.

While following Jesus frequently pits us against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, as we persevere and conquer the obstacles, we discover the Father smiling on us. There were times in the life of Jesus when the veil between heaven and earth was shattered by the affirmation of the Father. The same is true in our life as well. In that affirmation, our hearts readily respond with worship and gratitude.

My prayer for you is that you can discover the goodness of God as I have experienced it. The words "God is good" is not some trite phrase to me. It is experiential reality.

Is it about Jesus or the church?

I have been noticing an interesting phenomena (It's probably been there all along, it's just that I haven't noticed it before.) It seems as if we are more focused on church than we are on Jesus. Let me give an illustration of this. Bev and I have friends that recently moved to another community. As they have been interacting with their new neighbors, a common thread has emerged. They regularly get invited to church and church functions. Yet no one has asked them about their life journey, nobody has talked about following Jesus. The invitation is always "come to church". People talk about the events at "our church".

I see a danger in the church focus. We become numb to the radical, prophetic lifestyle that following Jesus requires when our focus is church and its activities. We invite people to a place, to an activity assuming that the church activities are synonymous with following Jesus. It becomes easy to busy ourselves, engaging in numerous activities that may or may not have anything to do with Jesus.

For the past several years, I have been pursuing Jesus in an intentional way. The interesting thing is that as I have engaged in this pursuit, I have discovered deep heart relationships with other fellow pursuers! As we travel together, we have discovered church life at a deeper level than ever before.

I would encourage each of us to not simply invite people to church hoping that the "professionals" (pastor, worship leader, greeters etc) minister to them, Instead do something more radical - invite people along with us on our own journey with Jesus.

what is God doing?

What do you see God doing in the world today? This is a question that I have repeatedly posed to people who profess to be Christians. Surprisingly, almost no one can give me an answer. Usually the response is a blank stare and and an answer of "uhh.." I am not asking this question to nominal Christians, in fact, most of the people to whom I have asked this question would consider themselves devout, evangelical Christians. Tragically, there seems to be a great disconnect between their understanding of God and the practical reality of His work/activity in the world today.

When I do get an answer, it is usually some generic statement. For instance, a pastor answered the question by saying that God is doing a purifying work today. However, he could give no examples of the practical manifestation of his answer. Might it be that in all our theological intelligence, we have completely missed the real involvement of God in the affairs of people today?

How can we ever participate with God in His redemptive work in the world if we never know what He is actually doing? How can we ever be partners with Him in His restorative, healing, reconciliatory, and redemptive activities if we are clueless to the whereabouts of those activities?

Begin to look for the hand of God. Recently I had a conversation with an older gentleman who has an incredible life story. Most Christians would quickly dismiss him because of the added adjectives in his conversations. (He is an immigrant who knew no English when he came to the USA. I am convinced the first word he learned was the F-word!) As he told some of his life story to me, I began to see how God opened repeatedly open doors for him. I mentioned seeing the hand of God in his circumstances. He replied with a rather lengthy discourse on how God has helped him in numerous ways, miraculous ways for which he can take no personal credit. I am convinced that we will have more God conversations in the future as God continues to draw Gene to Himself.

Where is God in your circumstances, what is He doing? Where is God in the life of your friends, what is His work in their lives? Ministry becomes easy as we discern the actual, practical, and real work of God. When we get on board with what He is doing, the miraculous, transformational power of the Holy Spirit does far beyond anything we could do on our own.

I am convinced we frequently miss the work of God because He operates outside of our expected parameters. Keep your spiritual eyes open. When you see Him at work, jump in alongside Him and participate.