Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

There’s a popular Christian song that we sing at church from time to time.  They play it on the radio a lot, too…well, on Christian radio, that is.  It’s called “I Can Only Imagine”, and it’s a song that describes the range of emotions that people might experience when they come face-to-face with Jesus.  The chorus:

“Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel, Will I dance for You, Jesus or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall?, Will I sing hallelujah?  Will I be able to speak at all?

I can only imagine”

It’s a difference of emotions we see in church on Sunday mornings, too.  Some people wear their “Sunday best” and some people come in jeans.  Some people raise their hands in song and some people keep them in their pockets and sway to the music…maybe tap a foot in rhythm.  Some shout “Amen” at meaningful points in a song…while some are silently crying at that same moment.  Some approach God’s throne with boldness like Hebrews 4:16, while some feel like Job “Indeed, I am completely unworthy – how could I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth to silence myself.” (Job 40:4)  Some people are like David in 2 Samuel “I will celebrate before the Lord.  I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” while others are Habakkuk 2:20 “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”  And while some people take an Ecclesiastes 5:2 view of approaching God in worship, “God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few,” others are like Moses and Miriam and the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea safely and you feel like singing and dancing and playing tambourines to praise God (Genesis 15:1&20).

And why did I tell you all of that?  Obviously it was so that I could tell you a story from Lethal Weapon 4.

The end of Lethal Weapon 4 – Mel Gibson wants to marry Renee Russo, but feels bad because he feels like he’s replacing his dead wife “Amanda” (that’s been dead since before the first movie).  So Mel’s at the gravesite talking it over with her headstone.  Joe Pesci comes along and tells him about a frog that he had growing up…one of his only friends was this pet frog “Froggy”, and that now, all these years, later Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are his new friends.  (Although they’ve made jokes at his expense and abused him whenever they’ve gotten a chance.)  But Joe Pesci makes the point to Mel that he and Danny Glover weren’t better friends than Froggy – they were just different.  And Mel realizes that it’s ok to go ahead and marry his new girlfriend…because by marrying Rene Russo, he’s not saying she’s better than his dead wife…just different.  Joe Pesci’s exact line, “You’re not better friends than froggy.  You’re just different, and eh, I just thought that maybe that might be relevant.”

And why did I tell you all of that?  So that I could point out that like David wasn’t better than Habakkuk or like Moses dancing beside the Sea wasn’t better than Job who wanted to put his hand over his mouth, the guy wearing jeans isn’t any better or worse than the guy in the $500 suit.  The people that sit quietly aren’t any better or worse than those that want to shout “Hallelujah” during songs or “Amen” during a sermon.  How you approach God on His throne is between you and God, and only you and God.  If you feel like you worship best dressed to the nines and silent before the Lord, and that your behavior and your clothes are to show God the utmost respect by offering your best, then your conscience will be clear before God.  If you feel that God is open and accepting and looks at the heart and not the clothes, and you’re so excited about a chance to worship that you want to clap, then your conscience is clean before God.  So long as you’re doing it for God.  And when face-to-face with Jesus will you be overwhelmed with joy for your Salvation, or overwhelmed with guilt because it was your sin that helped keep Him nailed to that cross?  Because if you think you’re too enlightened about it all to feel a little guilty then you’re missing something.  Because even the Apostle Paul for all the great things he did for the church after his conversion is every bit as responsible for the death of Jesus Christ as I am.  And what did he tell Timothy?  “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”  And follows that right up with, “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”  It’s the duality of man if you can wrap your head around that.  Joy and guilt at the same time?  Hard to do both at the same time, but it’s the position we’re in.  And we usually pick one or the other.  Rejoicing for my Salvation and ashamed that it was because of me that Jesus died.  Which one wins, when we see Him face-to-face?  Which one wins when we stand surrounded by His presence at church?

God accepts only our best, and you’re the judge of what your best really is.  And your conscience knows if you’re doing whatever you do in order to offer your best to God or if you’re doing it just to be seen by those around you.  Like Cane’s offering was deemed unworthy, and Able’s worthy, only God can judge your worship.  That’s not to say that ONLY God will judge your worship…let’s not kid ourselves here.  Everyone around you is likely to judge (in their hearts) if you mean it or are doing it to be seen.  But only God can truly judge your worship and deem it as acceptable or unacceptable to Him.  But just because your worship is different than someone else’s doesn’t mean your worship is any better than someone else’s.  Dressed in your best suit and remaining silent before the Lord doesn’t make you more respectful of God than David who danced with excitement in his underwear rejoicing.  Wearing jeans, and clapping with the songs doesn’t make you more enlightened about God’s acceptance of us as humans than Habakkuk when he said all the world should keep silent before Him.  Whichever you feel is giving your best to God is what God expects from you.  And if it’s different from someone else’s doesn’t make it better or worse.  It just means that it’s just different…and eh, I just thought that maybe that might be relevant.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

I Ain't THAT Bad!!

In the Danny DeVito Lorax movie, I believe there are enough songs to be able call it a musical.  I’m not sure it’s officially labled a musical, but there is so much singing that I kept expecting the little Bar-ba-loot teddy bear guys to start working on an old, beat-up car while singing “Greased Lightning”.  Then see the sad, dejected, disappointed, mustachioed Lorax sitting on a swingset singing about “Stranded at the drive-in, branded a fool.  What will they say, Monday at school?” aft the last Truffula Tree fell.  But at the point in what would be the standard “musical montage” section of a movie where lots of scenes flash by with musical accompaniment in order to speed along the story, the main character guy “The Flashback Onceler” is singing “How bad can I be”?  It starts after he’s said he won’t chop any trees – just pull the fuzzy stuff off the tops.  As the song starts, he’s chopping down a tree, then more.  And then there’s a factory and pollution and money.  All the while he’s doing more and more of what he said he wouldn’t do.  Then by the end of the song he looks up, and he’s gone so far past the line that there’s no going back.  All while incrementally stepping one toe over the line saying “How bad can I be?”

That’s a universal sentiment.  “In the grand scheme of things, what I’m doing isn’t that bad.”  We compare whatever it is we’re doing to what we see others doing.  That little trick starts all the way back in Little Kid World.  Mom asks, “How did you do on your test today?” and little Junior replies, “ummm…well…I…uhhh…I got a…uhhh…64.” And Mom flips out yelling, “A SIXTY FOUR?!”  At which point, little Junior immediately blurts out “well everybody else did worse!  I was the second highest grade in the class!!”  But what little Junior doesn’t realize is regardless of how it stacks up with the rest of the class, a 64 is never good.  The teacher knows what she taught.  The teacher has been watching how the students are working, and she knows when she thinks they’re ready.  She’s set the standard.  And the expected level of complete achievement based on her standards is 100%.  So when you pull down a 64, then it really doesn’t matter if everyone else is worse.  A 64 is just bad.

God has set a standard for us.  And no, it’s not 100%...the Old Testament proved that He can’t expect 100% from us.  But God’s standard is called being Holy.  Be holy because He is holy (Leviticus 11:45, Levitcus 19:2, Leviticus 20:7, then Peter quotes it in 1 Peter 1:16).  We can’t get close to God without it.  The Old Testament had an extensive list of rules concerning being holy.  Lots of rules and consequences…and blood.  Lots of animal sacrifices were required to pay the penalty of sin.  Something had to die.  You placed your sins on the animal, you offered your repentance and the animal was sacrificed to God.  Then Jesus comes to the world to be the ultimate sacrifice.  Jesus comes to do the work that no animal could do.  To permanently take away sin.  One sacrifice offered for all sins, and in that sacrifice enabled all men to be holy (Hebrews 10:10).  Well, other than the sacrificing of yourself that you have to do.  We don’t like to hear that part, but it’s part of the deal.  Jesus took our sins upon Himself, and we have to take up His yoke.  And what does that mean?  Love God with everything you are.  And then love everyone else as you love yourself.  Full self-sacrifice to Jesus Christ.  Love God first with all that you are.  Love everyone else like Jesus did, and commanded us to do in Matthew 25.  Feed the hungry.  Clothe the naked.  Visit those in prison (ooh, don’t like that one either, do we?)

But we’re still looking around us and pulling the little Junior stunt.  “I’m not as bad as that guy.  What I’m doing isn’t as bad as the guy at work.  I haven’t killed anyone.  I haven’t cheated any old ladies out their retirement.  I haven’t kidnapped anyone.  I haven’t abused my children.”  And Jesus says (like in Revelation) “that’s good, but here’s what I have against you.”  And there’s a scroll unrolled before you with a whole different list of what you’ve missed.  You hate your coworker.  You know you’re not giving enough but can’t bring yourself to change it.  You complain about something you saw someone do to everyone except to the person you saw do whatever it was.  You put football or money or cars or yourself in God’s throne – and you love those things with far more of your heart, soul, mind, and strength than you love God.  You clutter up the world that God entrusted to us with litter.  You sit in church on Sunday mornings and judge people that come forward based on if you think they really mean it.  Basically the laundry list that we would all call “minor offenses”.

Except that God has set the standard.  And the standard is holiness.  It’s an all or nothing game (and thank you for grace that bridges that gap quite a lot).  But it’s not a “well, I got a 64, but I was still the second highest grade in the class!”  It’s self-sacrifice.  It’s separating sheep from goats.  Did you proclaim Jesus Christ as the king of your life?  Did you do as He commanded and feed his sheep?  Not just the sheep on the corner in the dirty jeans and scraggly beard that needs food…but the sheep that have never heard the gospel?  The deeds earn you nothing, let’s not make that mistake.  Feeding sheep is NOT earning salvation.  But just like getting a 100% means you studied and understood the material, feeding the sheep and treating others as though you were doing it for Jesus shows that you understand what you were taught.  Listen for the Whisper that says until you “get it”, you just don’t get it.  It’s not being better or worse than everyone else.  “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?  Or would you pick a bridge that just wasn’t as tall to jump off of and then claim you weren’t as stupid as little Junior.

Stop comparing yourself to others.  It doesn’t matter what the other guy did…that’s between him and God.  You’ve heard THAT before too!  “Well little Junior gets to watch Rated R movies!”  And what did your parents say?  “That’s between little Junior and his parents.  I’m YOUR mom, and I said you weren’t going to do it.”  As a personal aside, I added the “mom” there because I would usually only argue my case with mom.  Dad laid down the law, and there wasn’t much debate about it after that.

And in our case, God laid down the law, and there’s not anything left to debate after that.  The penalty of sin is death.  The way out is accepting Jesus and His commands.  If you decide to live by the world’s standards, then you are judged as the world is judged.  And when it comes time to separate the sheep from the goats, you may very well find yourself in the goat pen trying to argue the point that you’re the best goat in the goat pen.  Might be a goat bragging about how much you acted like a sheep from time to time.  But being the best goat in the goat pen, doesn’t make you a sheep.  Quit worrying about what everyone else is doing and how your actions stack up to theirs.  Worry about doing what God has told you to do, and everything else will take care of itself.  And while you’re worrying about you, make sure that (like the onceler) you’re not steadily sneaking one toe at a time past where you know your Christian behavior limits out to be.  You know where God’s drawn the line, but we all treat it like the speed limit and try fudge a little bit farther and farther over.  And then when we get pulled over we point to the Corvette that was running even faster than we were.  It’s not a matter of asking if you’re better or worse than that other guy – it’s a matter of asking “am I doing what Jesus told me to do as a Christian”.  And only you and God can truthfully answer that one.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

Go Tell It On The Mountain

The Shoney’s in West Memphis just underwent a renovation.  New paint, and all that.  And the sign in the front has the red neon, “SHONEY’S” way up high on a pole for interstate travelers to see for quite a ways off.  But for the longest time, the O and the N have been out.  And I’ve chuckled to myself a hundred times “Their on is off!”  Hyuck, Hyuck. Aren’t I clever?  And actually it does make me chuckle, and, personally, I think it’s a very clever observation.  And up until typing this out, I’ve only ever shared that (by my own admission) clever observation with my wife.  It’s so clever, that I’m going to share it with one whole person.  Although, by the time I’ve typed this, there are several letters that have gone out, so at this point, it’s more like maybe a bear took their HONEY more than “their on is off”. 

Spin that over into Bible study.  I love to read and cross-reference and go look up the greek and everything that goes into study.  I’m a nerd. I know this.  I’m the guy that read the Almanac in high school just because it was there to read.  Literally, every three or four years for Christmas my parents would get me a new one.  Because there were more facts now than there were 3 or 4 years ago.  And some of that Almanac reading has really paid off.  I mean this one time I actually won a game of Trivial Pursuit because I knew the significance of West Quoddy Head, Maine and Cape Alava, Washington.  (Those, of course, are the Easternmost and Westernmost points of the continental United States)  But except Trivial Pursuit, that almanac reading was useless until it came up as a question.  So now I’m reading my Study Bible and cross-referencing these concepts and Bible verses, and until this devotional series started roughly a year ago, was largely sharing it with nobody.

If ever there was a great purpose to Social Media, it’s the passing on things you might have learned doing your own Bible Study.  I’ve seen lots of people posting reflections and things they’ve realized in the reading they’ve been doing.  And if ever there was a higher purpose to Social Media, that would be it.  Not calls for boycotts, or accusations of racism or hate-mongering, or political/religious ideological arguments (or getting drug into one sideways like I had happen to me once), or any of the other “reasons to argue” that gets spread through Facebook and Twitter and the like these days.  Of course, the other thing is the proliferation of the funny pictures…with obscene language typed all over in huge font so that when Cameron walks up to tell me something while I’m looking at Facebook, I have to either stop him where he’s at or minimize the screen.  Facebook and iPads…teaching kids profanity one dirty word at a time.

But what if, instead, there were post after post of people discussing things they’d read.  Not arguing over it, but genuinely sharing enlightenments they’d had.  Sports talk radio has spent the entire summer discussing what MIGHT happen with this steroid case.  What wasted breath.  I mean, I know they’re paid to talk about something, but I meant it just as a general illustration.  If you read something, and it makes a lightbulb go off, share it with someone.  Ask yourself this:  If you can sit down and talk for hours about baseball, or football, or Harry Potter movies, or scrapbooking, or some murder trial that’s 12 states away from you, why can’t you spend 15 minutes discussing the Bible with someone?  Or worse yet, do you not spend 15 minutes discussing Bible with someone because you rarely spend 15 minutes alone reading a Bible?  Or sadly, maybe you don’t know enough Bible to carry on a 15 minute conversation about it?  If so, then ask questions for 15 minutes.

Listen for the Whisper that tells you that really need to study your Bible.  Don’t take someone else’s word for the Word says.  Read it yourself.  The next time you hear yourself lament, “there’s NOTHING on tv tonight,” do yourself a favor and open your Bible and read it a bit.  Instead of falling back on what you THINK the Bible says, actually read it and SEE what it actually says.  Because let’s just put it out there, most of the people that I hear talking about how they think they’re saved because they think that Jesus would be ok with whatever it is…haven’t got a clue what Jesus would think.  Because they’ve never read the Bible for 15 minutes in their lives.  Don’t mean to step on toes, but I’m not backing away from the statement, either.  These are usually the same people that can rattle off the tops of their heads all of the worst of television, because to them that’s more important than God’s Word.  But they’ll throw out the “I Believe in Jesus” phrase that pays every so often.  Mixed up priorities.  Put God first.  And if God’s first, then you’ll want to get to know Him.  You wouldn’t say “Man, I LOVE those Duck Dynasty guys!”  Really?  What’s your favorite episode?  “Oh, I don’t actually watch it or know any of the people in the show, but I hear this one guy at work talk about Duck Dynasty all the time, so I figure I love it, too!”  Because that just sounds crazy.  But it’s the same way with Bible.  “I LOVE Jesus.  I believe Jesus can SAVE me from my sins!”  Really?  What’s your favorite story?  “Oh, I don’t actually read the Bible or know any of Jesus’ specific lessons, but I hear this one guy at church talk about Jesus all the time, so I figure I love Him, too!”

This is one of those that when I texted the “your on is off” reminder to myself, I had no idea it would be so preachy by the end.  But when I look at the world today and wonder why there’s not more Jesus in it, my next look is at the people who are supposed to BE Jesus in this world.  And it bothers me that few of them actually KNOW Jesus, rather than simply knowing OF Jesus.  He took the time to die on a cross for you.  If you claim that salvation, and you try to sound like it’s important to you, then you need to take the time to actually get to know Him.  Read His words.  Read the words that tell what God has done for his people.  Read the Word that He’s given to us to use as a guide to live by.  Then share what you learn with someone.  Like Yoda told Luke in Return of the Jedi just before the little froggy dude croaked, “You must pass on what you have learned.”  But before you can pass on what you have learned, you have to learn it yourself.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com