Dec 7 2011

It’s Enough to Drive a Man to Drink

I read another post tonight about whether it’s ok for a Christian to drink alcohol or not. I posted on this a few years ago arguing against drinking, and it didn’t go so well, so relax. My purpose is to share why I don’t and that I’m ok with that.  It’s not my desire in this post to talk those who feel like they are free to do this out of it.

Am I the only one who notices the hostility that comes from many who have the “freedom” to drink when we just say “I don’t drink?”

The knee jerk statement is “It’s ok to drink! There’s nothing wrong with it! Jesus drank!” with a tone like I’m a Pharisaical legalistic nut.

Ok, hold on! Who are they trying to convince? All I said was “I don’t drink alcohol.” I never attacked their choice to drink. I never told them they are going to split hell wide open if they did. I made a personal choice based on a deep conviction that it would be sin for me to drink alcohol. I don’t wish to be a stumblingblock by being someone’s excuse to get smashed. I’m not in bondage, rather I would be in bondage if I did drink. With all that aside, it’s hard to read God’s Word and not agree it is sin to get drunk, right? God knows where I fail in partaking in things in moderation (hide the chex mix). He knows where it would go. He also knows how I can’t take a Tylenol without passing out, and I would have a low tolerance to the effects of alcohol.

So for me, it’s sin. For many others, they don’t see it that way, and are walking with God.  Just be careful to not use your freedom to do this as a reason to cause others to stumble or to feel like you have to set others “free” to do something that they are convicted to abstain from.

For those on the edge, search the Scriptures, and pray about it. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Is this something I’m exalting above God?
  • Is this helping my witness or hurting it? (I didn’t say it was either way, I’m just asking what it does to your witness?)
  • Can I really do this in moderation? (don’t give me the “don’t eat if you can’t do it moderation” line. You can’t live without food. You can live without booze).
  • Does me drinking give someone else who struggles with it an excuse to?
Oct 25 2011

My Halloween Costume

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.  But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life… Paul the Apostle, from his 1st letter to Timothy

When I am talking about Jesus and share what it means to follow Him, I get a form of this statement back: “The church is full of hypocrites.”

Hypocrisy is defined by Websters as this: A pretense of virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

I struggle with my answer, but in reality it shouldn’t be such a struggle.  I heard a preacher friend say this: “Yes, there are hypocrites in the church.  Do you go to Wal-Mart? Be careful there are hypocrites there too! Don’t go to work either, because you will find hypocrites there, too!”

Nobody wakes up in the morning wanting to be a hypocrite.  I, for one, don’t want to be one.  However many times I find myself as hypocritical as the next guy.  Letting others think I don’t have lustful thoughts, when I might struggle with this is hypocritical.  Letting others think I have a great prayer life, when I fight to have one just like you might be is hypocritical.

You see, it’s called a mask. A hypocritical Halloween costume. So many of us are masters of disguise, and we aren’t really good at it!  (think Edgar, the roach-alien in Men in Black).

There are costumes in the pulpits, the pew, on Facebook and at home.  We all want everyone around us to think we have things together that we actually do not.  Your pastor doesn’t have it all together, probably had a fight with his wife where he was unloving and overbearing just like most other men before he preached that masterpiece of a sermon.  Your Sunday School teacher may have fought thoughts of suicide Saturday night.  The long-standing deacon who seems to be an upright pillar could be fighting back a desire to drink or may have found himself in the bar this week.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

You know, Paul the Apostle, who God trusted and inspired to write most of the New Testament, in his writing seems to have this mask thing licked.  He talks about himself being the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy. He openly tells about his struggle with sin in Romans 7 and how he constantly has to fight it. His thorn in the flesh, although we don’t read what it was, required God’s grace to get Him through daily. I have never read any of Paul’s writings and had the thought that he was perfect. I understand he had a lot of knowledge and teaching skill,  I read that he knew how to fight against his sin-nature, but I read so much of Paul affirming he is a sinner saved by grace!  An imperfect man seeking to walk upright before God, yes. Hypocrite, no. Disguise, no – and God used him mightily.

You and I are royal screw-ups.  Unless we have a glorified body and are in Heaven (I don’t have any visitor counts from Heaven, so that’s not you), we all have something in our lives that we don’t have right.  We may not do the “big taboo sins” that everyone claims they don’t do, but we are no different from those who do by the way we treat people, the ideology of how we think we are right when Jesus would beg to differ, and what hideous thoughts we REALLY think.  The difference between a Christ follower and a sinner is simply that the Christian is saved by grace and is working out his salvation with fear and trembling.  Take the mask off.  Let others see that Christ is working in you, and never claim you are righteous in something you are not.

Oh, and don’t worry about those who come out with their pointing fingers of condemnation when you do take your mask off.  Just picture them as Edgar the roach from Men in Black and pray for them.

Oct 12 2011

Hurry, hurry, hurry…

Being in church all my life, and being in the circles I’ve been in, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen people operate under the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the way the Lord intended, and I’ve seen them turn it into a mockery looking like a circus side show – “Hurry, hurry, hurry, step right up and let our prophet tell your future.”

Honestly, I’ve quit caring about the hoop-lah and the next “exciting time in the Lord we’re going to have at our ‘look how spiritual we are extravaganza.’”  I’ve quit going to those things until I really take the power of the Holy Spirit to the lost.  We’ve (I mean we, as in the Pentecostal church world) turned the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit into a thrill event for those who should be actually demonstrating it.  People get prayed for to receive the power, then flop over on the floor under a power that God wants us to actually walk in daily. This isn’t for our thrills and amusement. This power is given so that we can reach the lost with it.  The power that is in you – believer who claims to be overflowing with the Holy Ghost – is meant to give you power to be witnesses of Christ! It’s not in you to show off how spiritual you are when you get to church.  This is not in you so you can go become a superstar evangelist!  The superstar is Christ. If we are not pointing to Christ with this, we are pointing to ourselves.

Jesus said “these signs follow those who believe” (mark 16:17) – rather than those who believe following the signs as we are seeing in American churches today. We hear of the stories over and over of supernatural miracles taking place in other countries, yet it is so rare here. Look at the venues these miracles are happening in.  They are not believers conferences and campmeetings.  They are in places where the lost have been gathered together in the masses and are presented the Gospel message. They are in the villages where people haven’t heard of Christ.

This isn’t to say miracles and healings don’t happen where believers gather. Of course when we are sick are to call upon the elders of the church, lay hands on the sick and they will recover. I don’t dispute this.  I’m talking about the circus show we’ve turned the “greater works” Jesus declared we would have into.

I’m reminded of stories of both Charles Finney and Smith Wigglesworth, while minding their own business, having people around them convicted of their sin by just being near them.  They didn’t need a Hammond B-3 or a great worship band like Jesus Culture or an angelic choir singing “just as I am” to generate that atmosphere.  All they had to do is know how to walk with God.  Smith Wigglesworth wouldn’t allow newspapers in his home.  He wanted to hear what God was speaking about the world around him rather than the worlds own interpretation of itself!  Do we really want to walk with God like that?

I wonder if God is tired of our meetings and gatherings where we out-do each other’s spirituality.  Jesus didn’t say “Greater works than these shall you SEE,” He said “Greater works than these shall you DO.“  Let’s take this message and power to those who need it, not to those who already have it.