3 Good Reasons for Getting People Mad at You

Everybody knows that home teams have the advantage when playing games on their own courts or fields. Home teams more frequently win.

The explanations usually offered for this seem reasonable. You know them: the home team feels comfortable in its own "friendly environs," the away team is frazzled by travel, the home team is encouraged by homers in the stands.

But according to authors Tobias Moskowitz and L. John Wertheim, writing in their book, Scorecasting, the conventional wisdom represented by those explanations is wrong.

The reason for home field advantage, they say, is the officiating. Competent, honest referees and umpires tend to give the close calls to the home team. More often than they think, the people with the whistles are cowed by the crowd.

But let's not be too hard on referees and umpires. None of us wants to get people upset with us. (I know that I hate it.)

And frankly, people who go looking for trouble are generally narcissists. They want the world to revolve around them. This attitude springs, I believe, from the inborn default mode of every human being, what the theologians call original sin.

That doesn't mean that we should avoid offending people at all costs.

As a Christian, I follow Jesus Christ, Who I believe was and is God in the flesh. Jesus got Himself into trouble with people who weren't interested in letting God be their King and Savior. And though forcefully invited to change His way, Jesus never changed His course.

For His steadfastness, He got a cross. It's fortunate for us that this happened. Jesus' death on the cross was the way He took to resurrection on the first Easter Sunday.

Because Jesus resisted the temptations offered by the crowds and the world, keeping His face on His mission of dying and rising for us, He won new and everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Him.

What about us? We're not God. But Jesus promises that all who endure in believing in Him are the ones who will be saved from their own sin and from the death sentence every one of us deserves (Matthew 24:13).

Be warned: Belief in Christ will sometimes get you into trouble.

But when you know that you belong to an everlasting Savior and King, what the crowd says doesn't matter as much.

The apostle Paul experienced rejection because of his faith in Christ. It didn't stop him. "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).

I can think of several good reasons for incurring the anger of others.

1. It's worth making others mad at you by standing up for the despised, neglected, or helpless.

Christians are called to stand up for the well-being of others. Psalm 82:3 says: "Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and destitute."

And Proverbs 31:8-9 says: "Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy."

2. It's worth making others mad at you by doing the right thing.

We're all going to endure the anger of others in our lives.

Sometimes, their anger will be justified. When we hurt others simply because of something we want to do, we deserve anger and condemnation.

But there also will be times we get people angry with us for doing the right things. Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are three people who incurred people's condemnation because what they were doing was right. So too are the countless Christians around the world trying to share the saving good news of Jesus who are thrown into prisons or executed for their allegiance to Christ.

The apostle Peter wrote to Christians in first-century Asia Minor: "For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps." (1 Peter 2:19-21)

3. It's worth getting others mad at you because you're sharing Christ with others.

We all know Christians who spout Bible verses and Christian cliches and think that in doing so they're witnessing. If they're really intent on sharing Christ, they'd be better off praying and studying their Bibles. Look in the New Testament to see how Jesus and His first followers invited others to faith in Jesus:

• They met people where they were
• They asked questions, including how they could help those they met
• They sought to understand the people with whom they spoke and, while never changing the content of the message about Jesus, tailored the "packages" in which they gave the gift of Jesus to them

But even if, as a Christian, you exercise tact, love, and consideration for people as you let God guide you in telling others about Jesus Christ, there will be times when you'll still incite people's anger.

Is it worth the hassle?

A guy about to get himself clocked in a bar fight might rebel as you drag him away from certain injury. That's OK. Taking him to safety will be its own reward.

When we Christians share Christ with others, we may have to share tough stuff with them that they don't want to hear.

• Like "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Or, "your sins [mine too] have hidden [God's] face from you." 
• Or, that despite our sin and separation from God, which inevitably lead to death, God has created a way for us to be right with Him and to have eternal life with Him, a punch in the gut of human pride.
• Or, that way is Jesus: "...there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, Himself human..." (1 Timothy 2:5). And, "...God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). 
• People may not even want to hear it when you tell them the good news that can change their lives today and in eternity: "...[I]f you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).

If you share these truths with some people, they'll react like the guy you pulled from the bar fight. They'll be mad. But sharing truths like these is all part of loving others. And if it makes them mad to be loved, so be it. 

As long as Christians live this life, we will be pushed and pulled to make the wrong calls, to have our actions and thoughts dictated by the crowd, to go along to get along. The Bible says that we are "aliens and strangers" in this world (1 Peter 2:11).

We should never seek anger, confrontation, or controversy, of course. But if we make people mad because we're

• doing the right thing, 
• standing for the despised, neglected, or helpless, or 
• seeking to faithfully follow and share Christ, 

we should be able to look ourselves in the mirror without guilty consciences.

We should live with humble confidence in God and His love for us, knowing that we always have a home in His Kingdom.

"Thy will be done"

Yesterday, on the anniversary of Martin Luther's death on February 18, 1546, the Institute of Lutheran Theology shared this incredible prayer by Luther over on Facebook:

"O Father, it is indeed true that we cannot be strong by our own power. How can we stand before your might if you do not yourself strengthen and comfort us? Therefore, dear Father, embrace us, accomplish your will in us, that we may be your kingdom to your praise and glory. But, dear Father, strengthen us in this life with your holy word. Give us our daily bread. Establish in our hearts your dear Son Jesus Christ who is the true bread of heaven. Sustained by him, we may gladly bear and suffer the breaking and the dying of our own will and the fulfilling of your will. Give grace to all your churches. Send us educated pastors and preachers who will not give us the crumbs and chaff of foolish fables, but who will teach us your holy gospel and lead us to Jesus Christ." Amen.

[Thanks to my son for pointing the prayer out to me.]

Forgiveness Doesn't Mean Trust

I've been reading Steve Sjogren's new book, Heaven's Lessons: The Things I Learned When I Died, and just finished his chapter on the need we all have to forgive others in order to become the loving people God wants us to be. (And that we might want to be.) Here's how Steve ends his helpful thoughts on forgiveness:

One final thought I want to leave with you as we close this chapter: forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean trust.

When we were elementary school kids, at recess some kids just couldn't keep their hands to themselves. News flash: It doesn't get any better when we grow up. You'll find the same kinds of people in your adult life. They may even be bullies who are dangerous to you. Avoid them, at least until they learn to play nice. If you have done all you can to make peace on the playground, there comes a time to get off the teeter-totter. Forgive them, sure. But you don't have to trust them...

What People Are Giving Up for Lent, 2013

Being pope is number one. But much of the rest of the list, garnered from Twitter-user's self-disclosures, is interesting.

"The Power of Demonstration"

The most powerful sermons aren't usually given by preachers, but by any Christian who, however imperfectly, seeks to live the faith in Christ she or he confesses!

What Makes a Church a Church? (Augsburg Confession, Part 7)

[This sermon was shared during both the 8:30 and 10:15 worship services of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church of Logan, Ohio, today.]

Matthew 16:17-18
When I first meet people and they learn that I’m a pastor, they usually ask me the same question: “Where is your church?”

Of course, they want to know the location of the bricks and mortar associated with Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. So I tell them, “In Logan” or “On East Hunter at Orchard.”  But I always feel a little badly about those answers. That’s because this building is not Saint Matthew Lutheran Church.

As we continue to look at what it means to be a Lutheran Christian through the witness of The Augsburg Confession, one of the basic statements of Lutherans’ understanding of Biblical, Christian faith, we’re going to consider what the church is.

Please turn to Matthew 16:17-18. To set the context: Jesus has been asking the twelve apostles who people are saying that Jesus is. Then Jesus asks them, who they say He is. Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

As we’ll see, Peter doesn’t fully understand what he’s saying when confessing that Jesus is the promised Messiah or “the Son of the living God,” a phrase putting Jesus on the same level as God.

But Peter’s confession is right and that elicits these words from Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah [Simon, son of Jonah or son of John], for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter [Petros, meaning Rock in the Greek in which the Gospel of Matthew was originally written], and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

In these few words, Jesus tells us a lot about what the Church is. Let’s break them down a bit.

First, Jesus acknowledges that Peter sees Him through the eyes of faith. Without the eyes of faith, Peter may have agreed with what other people’s evaluations of Jesus. He might have said that Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist (even though the Bible says that there is no such thing as reincarnation), or that Jesus was Elijah or Jeremiah or another prophet from Old Testament days. Most of the crowds looked at Jesus and saw Him as just a man.

Even today, people--some of them pastors, bishops, assistants to bishops, and theologians in our own denomination--look at Jesus and see only a man. They lack faith.

But through the eyes of faith, Peter saw that Jesus was more than just a man, more than just the son of Mary’s virgin womb, but also God. God in flesh appearing! The King above all kings!

As we’ve said before, faith in Christ does not come naturally to anyone. We’re born with a mistrust toward others, especially toward God, because God threatens our desire to be our own bosses, to be our own gods.

This is why Jesus says that Peter believes what flesh and blood finds unnatural and can’t and won’t see about Jesus. “Flesh and blood” hadn’t helped Peter to see Jesus through the eyes of faith. God had! “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, [Peter],” Jesus says, “but My Father [God] in heaven.”

The same is true for all of us. We can only believe that Jesus is our Savior, God, and King because God creates faith in Christ within us. First Corinthians 12:3 says, “No one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord [meaning, God and Master of the universe] except by [God] the Holy Spirit.”

Because of his faith, Jesus gives Simon the new name, Rock, Peter. And Jesus says: “On this rock I will build My Church.”

Peter was the first to see Jesus for Who He was (and is) and to confess the truth he saw about Jesus. It’s on this confession that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God that Jesus says He will build His Church.

Jesus certainly wasn’t saying that He would build His Church on Simon Peter. You can’t build anything straight or tall or strong on a flimsy foundation. And just a few moments after making his confession about Jesus, Peter showed how flimsy he and his faith were. When Jesus told him and the other apostles that He would soon go to Jerusalem, be rejected by the world, die on a cross, and then rise from the dead, Peter tried to correct Jesus. “This will never happen to You,” Peter says.

Jesus immediately upbraids Peter, you remember? He speaks the exact words to Peter that He spoke to Satan when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. “Get behind Me, Satan,” Jesus says to Simon Peter, the rock, “for you are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of [humanity].”

Peter confirmed how shaky a foundation he personally would be for Christ’s Church when, on the night of Jesus’ trial, he denied knowing Jesus three times.

The sure foundation on which Jesus builds His Church isn’t Peter, but the confession Peter makes that Jesus is King and God, the conqueror of sin and death, the one Who gives new life to all who believe in Him.

Christ’s Church exists wherever people hear and believe the Bible’s Word about God, Jesus’ Word about Himself: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). The first thing the church is then, is a group of people in whom the Word of God has created faith in Jesus Christ as God and King of the world.

On the foundation of faith, Jesus says, He will build His Church. The word Jesus uses that we translate as church is, in the original Greek of the New Testament, ekklesia.

Ekklesia literally means called out ones. The church is people who have been called out of the world and into the kingdom of God by the Word about Jesus that has created faith in Christ within everyone from the littlest child singing, Jesus Loves Me, to the oldest believer dying with the praises of Jesus on his lips.

Ekklesia also means assembly, gathering. And this is the second thing Jesus teaches us about what the Church is: The Church is a group of people who, together hold to the same confession of faith in Christ as Peter. There is no such thing as a solo Christian.

Whether the Word of God about Jesus that creates faith within us is given to us through a Bible left in a hotel bedstand by the Gideons, through the sermon of a preacher, through the witness of a parent, grandparent, Sunday School teacher, or friend, through the Word given in, with, and under the water of Baptism or the bread and wine of Holy Communion, no one comes to faith in Jesus apart from His Church.

And no one can keep believing in Jesus in this hard, sinful, dying, cynical, self-serving world without the fellowship of the Church.

Let's be clear: The Church is filled with sinners and hypocrites like you and me. And there’s no doubt, as Jesus says in Matthew 7:21, that not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will “enter the kingdom of heaven.”

But just as surely as a limb sawed off from a tree will die, so will the faith and eternal lives of Christians die if they sever themselves from the Word of God about Jesus that’s preached, taught, and given through Christ’s Church.

That’s why the preacher says in Hebrews 10:24-25: “...let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not neglecting the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the Day [of the risen and ascended Jesus‘ return to this world] approaching.” The second thing the Church is then, is the assembly of people called to faith by the Word of God. And the church is the only way anyone receives or keeps hold of saving faith in Jesus. It's for the sole purpose of sharing the Word of God about Jesus that Jesus has called the Church into being.

In His words to Peter and the other apostles Jesus also says of His Church: “...the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” “The gates of Hades” or, as is mentioned several times in the Psalms in the Old Testament, “the gates of death” are expressions that refer to anything that might cause a person to enter hell or eternal separation from God.

Jesus is saying that His Church, the fellowship of believers built on faith in Christ will never die. The Church is eternal.

Jesus promises all of us who trust Him when He says that He is the way and the truth and the life and that no one comes to God the Father except through Him (John 14:6) that He is “the resurrection and the life” and that all who believe in Him, though they may die, will live with Him now and in eternity (John 11:25).

The worship, service, and honor we offer to the God we know in Jesus Christ imperfectly here in the Church on earth will continue in perfection for those of us who are part of the Church in eternity.  

Three truths Jesus teaches in Matthew 16 then, are that:

• His Church is founded on faith in Christ, 
• His Church is His indispensable fellowship for receiving and growing in faith in Christ, and 
• His Church eternal. 

The Augsburg Confession conveys these three truths especially in three places: Articles 7, 8, and 15. We only have time right now to read a portion of Article 7, which may be my favorite article in the entire confession. It says:

Our churches teach that one holy Church is to remain forever. The Church is the congregation of saints [saints are sinners saved by the grace of God through their faith in Jesus Christ] in which the Gospel [the Word that all who believe in Jesus will not be condemned to hell for their sins, as those who refuse to believe in Jesus will be] is purely taught and the Sacraments [Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, the Word about Jesus given through water, bread, and wine] are correctly administered. For the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree about the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. It is not necessary that human traditions, that rites or ceremonies instituted by [human beings], should be the same everywhere...”

The true Church isn’t defined by the buildings it owns, the kinds of hymns it sings, or the earthly denominational structures to which its people belong. The true Church can’t be identified by whether, during worship, its pastors wear robes or suits or Polynesian shirts. There are many churches in our own denomination, the ELCA, where every note played in worship is pitch perfect and the liturgy is done with slavish exactitude, but where neither its pastors or its people believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that He is God in the flesh, or that He physically rose from the dead, or that He gives life beyond the grave, or that Jesus is the only Son of God and Savior of the world.

Less than forty miles from here, there is a pastor in our ELCA, highly thought of in our denomination who once told me about what, to him, seemed to be a rewarding experience. He had read and discussed a book by Marcus Borg, a theologian who was raised Lutheran and is now an Episcopalian. The book is called, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. In it, Borg argues that Jesus wasn't born to a virgin, wasn't God in the flesh, didn't rise from the dead, and can't save us from sin and death. Borg has become all the rage in the ELCA, appearing often to give lectures at ELCA colleges, seminaries, and pastoral retreats. A number of our bishops and theologians approve of his ideas, which veer about as far from the confession of faith in Christ on which Jesus says He builds His Church as one can imagine. This pastor told me with evident satisfaction that after he and members of his congregation had read Borg's book, a member of the discussion group said, "I'm so glad I don't have to believe that stuff any more."

Such rejection of the revealed truths of God about Jesus Christ to instead embrace a religion that gives us license to believe whatever we want to believe--even that Jesus was only a man and not also God, that He died but didn't rise, and that He won't return one day to judge the living and the dead--is increasingly accepted and encouraged in our ELCA.

I pray almost daily about the sad state of our denomination and I wonder whether if it will long be possible to be either a Christian or a Lutheran in the ELCA. I wonder whether it doesn't make more sense for those who seek to be faithful to Christ and to the Lutheran confessions to leave the ELCA, as hundreds of other congregations have done since 1999. I think that those are questions worth your spending time to pray about too.

There are many congregations today that may look like churches. But appearances can be deceiving.

That’s why it’s essential in this day and age when there are so many wolves in sheep’s clothing for God’s people to remember what it means for a church to be a church.

The Church exists where the truth is told about the Gospel--the good news of Jesus--and where the Sacraments are administered according to the will of God.

The Church is the fellowship of people with faith that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, the only crucified and risen Savior Who can forgive sin and give eternal life.

The Church is the only fellowship in the world in which we receive faith and can have that faith strengthened.

The Church is the fellowship of Christ that will last for all eternity.

Remembering these truths and living in accordance with them are truly the difference between life and death. Amen

Has Facebook Peaked?

Has Facebook peaked? Is it settling into a particular social media niche? Today's Daily Stat from the Harvard Business Review would seem to indicate that the answer to both questions is, "Yes":

FEBRUARY 14, 2013

Number of Users Spending Less Time on Facebook Outweighs Number Spending More Time

34% of Facebook users say they spend less time on the site now than last year, while just 13% say they spend more time on it, according to a Pew survey. Additionally, 28% say the site is less important to them now than a year ago, compared with 12% who say it's more important. Decreases in engagement with the site seem to be most prevalent among the young: 42% of users ages 18-29 report spending less time now on the site.

Source: Coming and Going on Facebook

Personally, I feel that Facebook is good for some things, like communicating with family, friends, and groups. But as a media for receiving or transmitting information or opinions, Twitter is better.

My guess as to why that's so has been that Facebook is more, pardon the unintended pun, "in your face," whereas the 140-character limit of a tweet on Twitter limits the irritation one might derive from an unpleasant political post, coarse comments, or other irritating posts, pictures, and forwards.

Each week on the PBS Newshour, Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz converse on the cultural impact of digital media. I was struck by several of their comments in the segment two days ago, which seemed to dovetail with my thoughts:

CHRISTINA BELLANTONI [the anchor conducting the segment]:  ...So we're finding actually that some people seem to be a little overloaded on Facebook, right? You have some data...
LAUREN ASHBURN: And they're taking a vacation from Facebook; 61 percent in the new Pew study, as you can see here, are taking a break from Facebook.
HOWARD KURTZ: Of several weeks or more -- a vacation, virtually.
And there's another 20 percent who were on Facebook, not anymore. And the question is, Lauren, why are they bailing out?
LAUREN ASHBURN: Why are they bailing out?
I mean, I think we could just have a discussion around this table about why we would want to bail out of social media. But I actually posted this on my Facebook page. And I think you have it on yours as well, that the reason, in addition to the ones that the study has, are the fact that you don't like what people are saying politically.
We saw that a lot during the campaign season, that it is affecting your family life, that you are obsessed. And you are spending too much time on social media and Facebook while your 3-year-old child is drawing on your carpet.
HOWARD KURTZ: Facebook fatigue could be a factor, but I also just think that some people are just bored with it. Facebook has been around now.
It's got a billion users worldwide. I don't think it has quite the buzz factor that it used to. So, some people may say, well, I can go on my mobile gadget and do other things, play other games, go on other social networks. Facebook has competition now.
LAUREN ASHBURN: And a lot of people say that Twitter, too, Christina, has almost usurped the place of Facebook in terms of getting information.
I think Facebook is now much more family-oriented and that your network is really your network of friends. But Twitter is where, if you're a journalist, or anyone else ...
HOWARD KURTZ: Public person or a politician.
LAUREN ASHBURN: A public person -- you can get -- disseminate information.
CHRISTINA BELLANTONI: In short little bursts there.

The digital world moves at a lightning pace. We're all still figuring things out. I still use Facebook. But I'm now on Twitter much more than Facebook. It's my social media of choice. Others seem to be drawing the same conclusion or opting out of social media altogether.

Ash Wednesday: Lenten Disciplines for Life

[This was shared during the Ash Wednesday worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio on February 13. The Bible lesson was Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.]

The sermon for tonight didn’t start out as a sermon.

It was going to be my presentation for this month’s women’s group. When the women’s group got snowed out, I posted it on my blog. Some of you have read it.

But it says what I want to share with you on this Ash Wednesday, as we begin the often misunderstood and misused season of Lent.

But, even if this is a re-run for you, you may notice things you didn’t catch when you read it on the blog.

Plus, like a DVD of a movie or TV show, there are a few added special features. In any case, I hope you find it helpful.

Many people use Lent to align themselves with Christ. They do this through the adoption of what are called spiritual disciplines. Lenten disciplines can be good, strengthening faith and helping us to love God and love others more faithfully.

But like many good things, we human beings have a way of messing up the whole idea of Lenten disciplines.

"I'm going to give up chocolate," some will announce.

"I'm not drinking beer during Lent," others might say.

"I've decided to give up cussing until Easter," they might say.

But, here's the deal: If something is getting in the way of our being Christians, isn't it also worth asking God to help us get rid of it, not just during Lent, but through our whole lives? Why is something bad during Lent, but not bad the rest of the year?


And, if something we add to our lives as our Lenten discipline helps us grow closer to Christ and to live in a more Christ-like way during Lent, can't it do the same things all year long?

If, this Lenten season, you're giving up chocolate just to lose weight, or giving up beer to please a spouse, or giving up cussing to make yourself more acceptable to some people, your "giving up" is meaningless from God's perspective.

Under such circumstances, you're not undertaking these disciplines to honor God, but as part of a self-improvement kick!

Self improvement is fine. But we shouldn’t claim anything we do just for self-improvement as a spiritual discipline, as something we’re doing for God.

Otherwise, we risk being the kinds of people Jesus condemns in tonight’s Gospel lesson:

• People who practice piety just to be seen as pious, religious people; 
• People who give to charity to be seen by others as generous;
• People who pray so that others will think they’re faithful; 
• People who fast in order to get kudos for others for being heroically self-sacrificing.

But if your intent is to grow closer to Christ and more like Christ through your discipline, it can be a very good thing.

Our Ash Wednesday liturgy mentions four disciplines most closely associated with Lent. These four disciplines might be ones you'll want to consider adopting this year.

But don’t adopt  them with the attitude that, "I'll give them up after Lent." Use Lent as a time to integrate these disciplines into your life, for keeps.

The first Lenten discipline the liturgy mentions is repentance.

Repentance gets a bad rap. It's often seen as a humiliating exercise in which we make ourselves miserable for our sin.

Confession and sorrow for sin are parts of authentic repentance, but the main words used in the Bible for repent tell a fuller story. Simply put, repentance is changing the direction of our lives, changing our minds to think more like God. We refuse to walk away from Christ and instead, turn around to walk toward Him and the way of life He has pioneered for us. [See Hebrews 2:10-13 and Hebrews 12:1-2.]

Knowing that Christ has died to save us from paying the price for our own sins, we ask God for the power to live a life in which the will of God is our highest priority.

Repentance can be a painful thing because it means owning up to our sins, imperfections, and need of God.

But repentance is also a joyful thing because through it, God gives us forgiveness, fresh starts, and the power of the Holy Spirit to help us live the life God has made for all who believe in Jesus.

Christians who choose repentance for their Lenten discipline would do well to adopt the prayer of King David, found in Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God...See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” When we repent, we ask God to show us our errors and change the course our lives are taking, steering us toward Christ and new life!

A second discipline mentioned in our Ash Wednesday liturgy is fasting. Fasting can mean simply doing away with things that get in the way of our following Christ or living life God's way. It may also mean doing without some things that aren’t bad in themselves--things like food, hours on the computer or watching TV, going to sporting events, window shopping at the mall--that keep us from prayer, worship, reading Scripture, attending to our primary relationships, or serving others.

I always suggest replacing the thing from which a person fasts with a positive, God-honoring activity. When we vacate a bad habit, it leaves a hole in our lives and schedules. It’s too tempting to indulge the behavior from which you’re fasting if you don’t have something good to take its place. If you've decided, for example, to give up watching television one night a week, you'll be able to follow through on your discipline and imbue it with some meaning beyond being a forty-day stunt of your will, if you use your usual TV time volunteering at a food bank.

A third discipline mentioned each Ash Wednesday is prayer. Prayer is conversation with God. Of course, believers should, as the Bible teaches, "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). But focused times of prayer, at set times each day, become our special appointments with God, deepening our faith, giving our lives both peace and direction.

One point about these special prayer times I would make is to be certain that you always begin your prayers by reading a chapter from the Bible or a devotion based on a passage of Scripture. Since prayer is conversation with God, it's good to let God get in the first word. Otherwise, our prayers can devolve into monologues about our wants and our feelings.

Psalm 37:4 gives us the priority our prayers should reflect: “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Put God first. When you do that, your desires will change. God’s priorities will become your priorities. What you pray for will change. God and you will be moving in the same direction. And you’ll find God empowering you to do things outside of your comfort zone.

My buddy Steve Sjogren has a new book out called, Heaven’s Lessons. There, Steve tells about his going to a Best Buy one day, looking for an accessory for his iPhone. He saw a sales clerk who, Steve says, didn’t look different from anybody else there.

But some time before this shopping trip, Steve had been praying that God would help him to do whatever God wanted him to do. Steve assumed that God would help him to do things he was comfortable doing.

As he stood in the Best Buy though, he sensed God telling him, “If you approach that salesman and offer to pray for him, I’ll give you one of my prayers to pray.” That seemed crazy to Steve, walking up to a stranger and offering to pray with him! But then he thought he was probably never going to see this guy again and if things got weird, he could just skip going to Best Buy and shop online for a few months.

Steve walked over to the guy and said, “You obviously don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but sometimes I pray for people, and good things happen. I feel like I’m supposed to pray for you for ten seconds. Would that be all right?”

The guy looked around, evidently to see if the coast was clear, and told Steve, “Yeah, go for it.” Steve closed his eyes and touched the guy’s arm. As he did, he got a clear mental picture of this Best Buy employee sitting in a medical school classroom, wearing a white smock, his initials embroidered on the pocket. Steve prayed, “Lord, on his first day of medical school, show him that he didn’t get there by his own hard work, but by the favor you gave him as his grandmother prayed for him.”

The prayer was over. But when Steve looked up at this guy, “his eyes were wide open. His jaw had dropped. His nose was running, and tears dripped down his cheeks.” “How did you know about me trying to get into medical school?” he asked. “Who are you?” Steve explained, “I’m just a guy who sometimes prays for people.” This young man later became a Christian, a member of Steve’s church, and a doctor.

We aren’t all going to be used by God in the exact same ways God uses Steve when he prays. But when we pray God’s way, delighting in the Lord, putting ourselves at the disposal of God for His purposes and not our own, God will give us the desires of our hearts. And what could anyone desire more than to be a partner with God in fulfilling His plans for the world?

A fourth Lenten discipline is doing works of love. Jesus says that whenever we have cared for those the world regards as "the least of these,” we actually serve Him (Matthew 25:31-46).

There is no place in the world that can’t be made better by the love of God. And there’s no end to what God will empower us to do to pass along the love God gives through Jesus Christ.

One work of love we may undertake is reaching out to a family member who has been ostracized from the family.

Another might be participating in a kindness outreach.

Another, picking up groceries for a homebound neighbor.

It might be doing something many of you often do, sending a card to a shut-in.

Whatever the work of love you do, if it's done in the Name of Jesus Christ, you'll find that what started out as something you thought you were doing to benefit others will, miraculously, benefit you, freeing your from your slavery to yourself, turning you out toward the wider world. You will feel and you will be more alive for it.

Jesus says, "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).

Now, if in what I’ve said (or ever said) I've come across as some "expert" either on Lenten disciplines or on being a Christian, let me close by saying that I am a sinner in daily need of Christ's forgiveness and help to live as the human being I was created by God to be.

I am, like you, a disciple. That word disciple translates the Greek New Testament word, mathetes, and it means student. I’m a student learning what it means to follow Jesus.

And if you’re like me, a sinner learning to follow Jesus, you might consider adopting one of these four Lenten disciplines--repentance, fasting, prayer, works of love--this year.

Your Lenten discipline could do a lot more than reshape your waistline; it could reshape your soul.

It could change your life not just your Lent, but for eternity. Amen

2 From NeedtoBreathe

"7 Qualities of Über-Productive People"

I like this piece on seven qualities of super-productive people.

Thanks to Phil Gerbyshak for pointing to it.

Tyler Perry's Thoughts on Anniversary of Whitney Houston's Death

Here. Tyler Perry ends his remembrances of Whitney Houston with a call for prayer:

We can keep her daughter and her family lifted up in prayer. We can also pray for other people in this business, especially these young people who come in so bright eyed and eager, only to have it tear at their very souls.

I thank God I didn’t become successful until I was older. The younger you are when you start in this business, the more at risk you are.  Speaking of that, we can also pray for the children of these people. If you only knew what people in this business have to endure to sit in their seat. I’m not asking you to feel sorry for anyone. I’m simply asking you to pray for us all.

Makes sense to me. Can you imagine what might happen in our culture if not-famous Christians started regularly praying for all those people, famous and not famous, who have a part in the creation and production of movies, TV shows, video games, and books?

I'm not even advocating prayer requests to God for what we think these talented people should be producing.

Instead, I mean praying that God will give them a sense of His presence and love for them each day and that they would be protected from the trails of sycophants who want pieces of them or to sell them self-destruction, one-kilo, one-needle track, one bottle at a time.

Pray for the famous and the families of the famous that they may be protected from the dangers and the ills of fame.

Pray for those who help entertain us and inform us, that God will guide them and help them experience God's goodness, Lordship, and love every single day.

I'll pray that prayer, Mr. Perry! And thank you for your fine post.

[By the way, in 2005, I wrote a piece regarding the effects of fame on the famous here. Also see here.]

Do Headlines Like This Make You Laugh?

"Before He Died, Steve Jobs Said He Wanted Apple to Make a Car"

Did it really need to be expressed in that way? Does anybody think that Jobs said he wanted an Apple car after he died?

By the way, I love Apple products. So, I'm not dissing Jobs. Headlines like this just crack me up.

Even Bank Robbers Are Going High Tech

They're eschewing the time-honored tradition of sticking up banks in person and, instead, going online.

Of course, there are some 70 year olds who still rob banks the old fashioned way.

FEBRUARY 11, 2013

Criminals Give Up on Robbing Banks and Head for the Internet

The FBI is leaving more bank-robbery investigations to local police now that bank holdups in the U.S. are on the decline, says the Wall Street Journal. Bank robbers stole $29.5 million, or $7,600 per heist, in 2012, down from $107 million, or $12,400 per crime, in 1997. Would-be robbers are responding to tighter security in banks, tougher sentences for offenders, and the allure of easy money in internet crime: The American Bankers Association estimates criminals netted $1.8 billion in check and debit-card fraud in 2010.

Source: Crime That No Longer Pays

What About Good Works? (Part 6, The Augsburg Confession)

[This was shared during worship this morning with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, and our guests.]

This morning as we continue to explore what it means to be a Lutheran Christian, we need to begin by getting a clear understanding of the meanings of two different ways of living.

The first way of living is religion. Our English word for religion comes to us from the French language and it has the idea of being tied to, or fastened to a deity for whom one has fear or dread, but not necessarily love.

In religion, people feel tied down or tethered by a god that expects them to follow orders like submissive slaves. When a person is part of a religion, all of life is a grim obligation. Their speech is full of phrases like, “I have to...” “I should...” “I must...” They may say similar things to others, as in, "You have to..." Or, "You should..." And, "You must..."

When a people follow a religion, they're never certain if they’re good enough to warrant the favor of their god.

And in religion, almost anything can be one’s god: a man, a woman, a family, a career, the approval of others, or some strange, fictionalized version of God. That’s religion.



But there’s another way of life. It’s the life of faith in Jesus Christ.

When you have faith in Christ, you know that when you repent and turn to Jesus Christ as the only place where hope and life can be found, God accepts you, as the old hymn puts it, “just as I am, without one plea, but that Christ’s blood was shed for me...”

You know that you are made right with God not by the things you do--”not by works, lest any one should boast,” as the New Testament book of Ephesians puts it--but only because of what Jesus Christ did for you when He died on a cross and rose from the dead and because you believe in only Him.

Faith means that you trust Christ with your life. You know that there is nothing you can do, nothing you could do, or nothing you ever will do to earn His approval.

But just as a drowning person, otherwise sure to be overcome by the wind and the waves, grabs hold of the outstretched hand of a rescuer, you and I are saved simply by taking the hand of our Savior Jesus by faith.

Religion is the natural impulse of human beings. Terrified of their god though the adherents of religions may be, religion fits with the original sin with which we are born. Original sin means that we’re born without any ability to trust in God or anything else.

When people believe in a religion, they don’t trust in God. They trust in themselves. They trust in their ability to be good enough to squeak into heaven.

And when they get into scrapes, they try to make deals with God. They try to negotiate with God as though He were a retailer in a marketplace: “If you’ll do this for me, God, I’ll do that for you.”

Faith knows that there’s nothing we could give God, no good work that we could perform, that God needs or that could cleanse our souls sufficiently of sin to make us worthy of God’s help, or love, or favor, or of being declared innocent, justified, right with God.

As God’s Word puts it, “by grace [we] have been saved, and this is not [our] own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast...”

Faith is the supernatural gift God grants to those who let the God revealed to the world in Jesus Christ love them.

Religion thinks that we can be self-sufficient.

Faith in Christ knows better than that.

Faith knows too that being right with God, with ourselves, and with others depends only on Christ and on what Christ has done for us.

Now this is radical stuff. It’s not the way the world thinks. It’s surely not the way the Roman Catholic Church in 16th-century Europe, where the Lutheran movement began, thought.

The official church theologians of that time accused Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and the other evangelical reformers of doing away with good works.

People still accuse Lutherans of this. “You Lutherans think that as long as you believe in Jesus, you don’t have to live like a Christian,” they say.

No doubt there are Lutherans who are great hypocrites, sinners who forget that God loves the sinner while hating our sin; who forget that the Ten Commandments are still in force; who forget that repentance, turning away from and renouncing our sin, is part of faith in Christ.

But we believe God’s Word when it tells us that we sinners are saved not by our works, but by what Christ has done for us and by our faith in Christ.

Our good works flow from our faith in Christ, sometimes without our even realizing it and never to be noticed or to gain brownie points with God.

We believe in good works; we just don’t believe they say anything about us. Instead, they say everything about the God Who saved us.

We know, in the words of Ephesians 2:10 that “we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Every truly good work, every deed performed by a believer in Jesus that lets others see the glory and goodness of God, comes not from us, but from Christ, Who created that good work and empowered us to do it centuries before we were even born.

You all know that I like to thank people. I like to let people know I appreciate them. But I got a lesson in Lutheran Christianity 101 from a woman of one of the congregations I served before coming to Saint Matthew. She had undertaken some ministry in our church and I said, “Thank you.” She looked at me with a smile telling me that while she loved me, she was about to school me in God’s truth. “Pastor Mark,” she told me, “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for my Lord.”

Good works spring from gratitude for grace undeserved. They are done with no thought of self, but only of the One Who sets us free from sin and death.

Turn please to John 15:5. These are words Jesus spoke to His disciples in the upper room just before He was arrested, tried, and killed on the cross. Here, Jesus speaks of the importance of abiding in Him, staying connected to Him. But don’t be confused. Connection to Jesus isn’t the same thing as religion’s restricted tethering. To abide in Jesus is to enjoy a connection that brings us life and the freedom to be who God made us to be. Jesus says: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing.”

To “bear much fruit” means to do the works of God--to love God, to love neighbor, to tell others about Christ, to engage in acts of service and mercy. And Jesus says that we cannot do these things--these good works--unless He is working in us, living in us, powering us. The only ones who can do the works of Jesus are the ones in whom Jesus has taken up residence. Without Jesus at the center of our lives, we can do nothing. No matter how the world may applaud what nice people we are, our works will mean nothing. But when Christ lives in us, when we know that we have been saved by Him, God will do good, loving works through us that the world may not notice, but that heaven cheers.

This is what Article VI of The Augsburg Confession, one of the foundational expressions of the Lutheran understanding of Biblical Christianity, affirms. It says, in part:

Our [Lutheran] churches teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruit...It is necessary to do good works commanded by God..., because of God’s will. We should not rely on those works to merit justification before God. The forgiveness of sins and justification is received through faith. The voice of Christ testifies, ‘So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty...” [Luke 17:10]

Good works are central to anyone with faith in Jesus Christ. Unlike all the religions of the world, faith in Christ views good works as expressions of our thanks to God for the new life we have through Christ.

When people mired in religion do good deeds, the deeds are dirtied by their motives. It’s as if they’re saying, “Look at me. Look at how I serve God. Look at what a good person I am. Look at how much I sacrifice for others.”

When we first think to express our thankfulness to Christ by doing good deeds in His Name, it may require us to think about them and we may always think about them to some extent. After all, Christ may forgive our original sin, but it won’t die until we have died and risen again in the image of Christ. But, the person who wants to do the deeds Christ is a little like the person who sets out to learn to shoot a basketball, or pitch a baseball, or dance a step, or play an instrument. After a time, the shooting, pitching, dancing, or playing becomes part of who the person is. And here's the thing: The closer Christians grow to Christ, the more their good deeds are done without thought of self or even of the deed.

As you and I draw closer to the cleansing, enlightening flame of Jesus, the more our lives are set on fire by His love, the more the way we live is changed.

The apostle John says this in 1 John 4:9-10: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love...” 

The greatest deed ever done for you happened when Jesus gave His life for you.

You can never repay Him for that gift. But you can thank Him.

Ask God to help you love others the way He loves you and He will give you a lifetime of good deeds He designed for you alone to do.

Live a life of good works not because religion says you must, but because faith in Christ says you can.

You’re allowed to do them.

You’re empowered to live a life of faith active in love.

Christ has set you free to truly live.

So, live! Amen

"Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror"

NASA's compelling video about Curiosity's final seven minutes before landing on the surface of Mars is exciting to watch!



Here's a Spencer Michels' report on the Mars lander, as presented on this past Friday's PBS News Hour.

Watch New Discoveries From NASA's 'Curiosity' Rover's Mars Mission on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

There were so many things that could have gone wrong as Curiosity prepared to set down on our nearest planetary neighbor, the fourth rock from the sun. The elegant design for the craft's landing on Mars is a marvel in itself.

The story of Curiosity is a great one that needs telling more often. It testifies to the importance of taking risks and reminds us again of how people can devise technologies that make it possible for us to explore this universe in which, I believe, God has placed us.

Regular readers of this blog know that I don't usually opine about political decision making here. But for so many reasons, I believe that every penny the federal government can spend on space flight enhances technologies we use here, opens up new commercial possibilities which, after NASA does the pioneering for us all, can then be opened to private companies, and teaches us more about the universe we live in, knowledge that can be applied in yet unknown ways.

All these things have been experienced as wonderful, life-changing fallout from previous commitment to space flight and space exploration. When something's working, you don't stop.

NASA still inspires me!

I hope that after you watch these two pieces, it will keep inspiring you too!

'Family'

Love this honest prayer in song by TobyMac!

Lecrae Talks About His Life and His Music

Love these excerpts from a PBS interview with Lecrae. (After that, what's probably Lecrae's most well-known track, Just Like You.)

Watch Lecrae Extended Interview on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

"I told him, 'It's OK to do the right thing.'"

This is such a cool story!

Turner, who is from Chicago, met Pitts through a mutual acquaintance — an assistant coach on Turner’s high-school team — and the friendship grew as both began to realize they shared similar interests and personalities.

“We would text and talk and I came to Ohio and we’d hang out and I saw a little bit of myself in him,” Turner said. “He’s kind of quiet and trying to find his way. The difference is, with the shyness and insecurities, I had a brother, Darius, who made me feel comfortable. Devon didn’t have any siblings. I just tried to lend an ear and lead by example. I told him, ‘It’s OK to do the right thing.’”

Evan Turner is da bomb!

Surprise!

Recently, a man visiting our church from out of town asked me, "Tell me, was it always your dream to preach in Logan, Ohio?"

He said it tongue-in-cheek, but since I didn't know this man, I played it straight. "I don't know if it was my dream," I told him, "but it's my call to preach in Logan, Ohio."

Having dreams for our lives can be good, as long as in our dreaming we accept that God's dreams may be different from our own.

Life has a way of making pretzels out of the straight lines to our dreams that our imaginations draw. In life, you never can tell what's going to happen, good or bad.

The unknowns are only multiplied in the lives of those who seek to follow Jesus Christ.

That's because if we want Christ to be in our life, we have to leave it up to God to draw the lines to His dreams for our lives. Since God wants us to love others and to have the servant mind of Christ, His lines for our lives are apt to go all "squiggly" with stops we never imagined, even diversions that may, to us or others, seem like setbacks or comedowns.

But when the call of God sets us down unanticipated pathways, it's good to remember James' words in the New Testament: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.' Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring...Instead, we ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that."" (James 4:13-15

In Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, a fictional tale He told to convey the idea that our neighbor is anyone whose life situation is known to us, two holy men had their own ideas about what they needed to do as they walked on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Those ideas didn't include a detour to help a man who appeared to be suffering, but who could have been a diversionary trap set by some of the thieves often on this road.

A Samaritan man, on the other hand, was willing to follow God's line, however frightening it may have been or whatever it might have done to his "schedule."

Followers of Jesus know that their lives do not belong to them. My life doesn't belong to me. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:20, "You were bought with a price." Jesus has already saved those who turn from sin and turn to Him as their only God and Lord. On the cross, He paid the price to buy us out of slavery to sin and death. The lines of our lives move toward the day we see Him face to face, on a pathway of His choosing. "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves," Paul writes elsewhere. "If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's." (Romans 14:7-8)

In the meantime, if you follow Christ, don't be surprised where God takes you when you dare to pray, as Jesus taught you to pray, "Your will be done." Life with Christ is full of surprises!

[This was inspired by today's installment of Our Daily Bread by Joe Stowell.]

Judge for Yourself

Aaron Craft probably didn't get a chance to go to the foul line for Ohio State at the end of the Buckeyes' overtime game against Michigan at Ann Arbor, despite what appears to me to be three fouls committed by two Wolverines against Craft in the span of a few seconds because, just moments before, he wasn't called for what also appeared to be a flagrant foul committed by him.

Was the no-call a make up for that? Who knows? After all, referees may have objective rules to follow and for the most part big college refs are excellent, but many judgments are, inevitably, subjective. I certainly don't envy them having to make quick calls with 15,000 would-be refs in the stands.

But for Buckeye fans like me who saw our team fight in a hostile environment against the #3 team in the country for a chance to tie or win on the last possession of overtime, the end of Tuesday night's game was a little less than satisfying.

Fans, of course, can afford the luxury of looking back and rehashing a loss. But in the rush of a season in America's best college basketball conference, the Big 10, coaches and players can only look back for a few lessons and then move ahead.

I'll let you be the judge of whether a foul should have been called on this play...and then move on.

Go, Buckeyes!

[UPDATE: I really do love the Wolverines' fluorescent yellow sneakers. They are cool! And that's hard for a Buckeye to admit.]

Important!

"Let us be warned. Seeking righteousness without Christ, by works, merits, or Law rejects the grace of God and despises the death of Christ." (Martin Luther)

"Good Mood Helps Boost Brain Power in Older Adults"

Be good to your brain: Cultivate a good mood by loving your neighbor. Research conducted by folks from The Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, Cornell University, and Linköping University (Sweden) seems to point to that conclusion.

No surprises here. We are engineered by God to operate optimally when we love God and love others:

When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40)

Just Purchased at Half Price

I always thought it was cool when Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit blogger, would simply note, "In the mail..." and then list a book he'd ordered.

So, here's my low tech version of that practice. Here are two books I picked up Half Price today.



I only paid two bucks each!

Barzun died this past October at the age of 104. He published From Dawn to Decadence, a history of the world from 1500 to "the present" (2000), when he was 92. That prompted this comment from Ann Althouse: "Imagine writing something that ambitious when you're in your 90s and still having more than a decade of life left."

By the way, I just noticed that "it was cool" to read Reynolds' blog posts about his latest book orders, even though Reynolds is still blogging and still noting his latest book purchases. I was going to change that phrase to the present tense until I realized there's a good reason for my putting it in the past tense: It's been ages since I read Instapundit. No editorial intended, just funny to note how sometimes your mind tells you the truth without you realizing it.

[UPDATE: In the interest of equal time, I should probably add that I haven't seen Chris Matthews' show since 2007. Our local cable provider, Time Warner, doesn't run MSNBC on basic cable. CSPAN 2 and 3 are also missing, along with ESPN 3 and ESPN U. C'est la vie.]

A Tale of Respectful Dialog and Unexpected Friendship

Here.

"How to Write a Worship Song (in 5 Minutes or Less)"

This cracked me up!


(Thanks to Pastor Paul "Ukulele Man" McCain for linking to this video on his blog.)

For Those Who Want to Dig Deeply Into What Lutherans Believe

This commentary on The Augsburg Confession is a classic and has been a help in my preparations for the sermons I'm doing on what it means to be a Lutheran Christian. I recommend it for those who want a scholarly look at Lutheran Christianity.

A Book for Those Who Feel They've "Bottomed Out"

My friend, Steve Sjogren, has a new book out and it should be great!

Steve and I became friends nearly two decades ago. He had started a congregation, Vineyard Community Church in the tricounty area of metropolitan Cincinnati and had started Friendship Lutheran Church in Clermont County, in Cincinnati's eastern suburbs, a few years later.

Even before we met, I got fired up with the possibilities for real, no-strings-attached evangelistic outreach through acts of kindness which Steve had explained in Conspiracy of Kindness, a book that still exercises a profound effect on my thinking and living as a Christian and on my leadership as a pastor.

You can imagine then, how shocked I was when out of the blue one night, I found an email from Steve, suggesting that we get together over lunch. He wanted to help me and our fledgling congregation. And he did.

I was with Steve during some of the horrors he endured after nearly losing his life on a hospital operating table for what was supposed to be a routine gall bladder surgery. Months and years of recuperation followed, although it should be said that even a substantially debilitated Steve Sjogren found more new ways to serve God and spread the gospel than most pastors without such limitations could ever do.

Some of the horrors went through back then are described in Heaven's Lessons and I'm looking forward to the learning from the lessons my friend learned at that time.

You won't find a finer people of God or ones more committed to Christ than are Steve Sjogren and his wife, Janie. I am proud to call them friends! And I find that I am always learning more about what it means to follow Jesus from them. They are blessings!

Here's a preview of Heaven's Lessons:


 

The World Needs the Church and the Church Needs Lots of Leaders

Management, though a valuable and essential commodity for any organization--from the nation-state all the way up to the local church, is not the same thing as leadership. As John Kotter, professor emeritus of Leadership at Harvard University's Business School, writes:

...management is a set of well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and problem-solving, which help an organization to predictably do what it knows how to do well. Management helps you to produce products and services as you have promised, of consistent quality, on budget, day after day, week after week. In organizations of any size and complexity, this is an enormously difficult task. We constantly underestimate how complex this task really is, especially if we are not in senior management jobs. So, management is crucial — but it's not leadership.

Leadership is entirely different. It is associated with taking an organization into the future, finding opportunities that are coming at it faster and faster and successfully exploiting those opportunities. Leadership is about vision, about people buying in, about empowerment and, most of all, about producing useful change. Leadership is not about attributes, it's about behavior. And in an ever-faster-moving world, leadership is increasingly needed from more and more people, no matter where they are in a hierarchy. The notion that a few extraordinary people at the top can provide all the leadership needed today is ridiculous, and it's a recipe for failure.

Organizations need managers. But they die without leaders, lots of leaders who can shepherd ideas from vision to reality.

In my experience, the best leaders are first of all, servants. They're not people who bark out orders or, as the Brits say, "put a bit of stick about." Leaders know that even if they have the power of coercion over the people they've been called to lead, coercion is, at best, management. Leaders persuade, convince, inspire.

They're people who put their hearts on the line, have a passion for moving in a certain direction, and accept the probability of rejection and ridicule. (After all, it's always easier to be a lemming who goes with the flow than a leader who dares to call a halt to most organizations' suicide marches.)

And, in my estimation, anyone who tries to lead in the power of their own personality is crazy. I have come to understand the truth of what Jesus says to His followers "apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:8) and of what Saint Paul writes, "I can do all things through [Christ] Who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). The very best leaders I have ever known, like my internship supervisor, Pastor Jim Petteys, and my colleague and friend, Pastor Steve Sjogren, have also been humble servants of Christ who have relied on Him above all.

I have jettisoned the idea that only certain types of people are meant to be leaders. Jim and Steve, for example, are very different in personality and temperament. But both, in their own ways, showed me what a leader looks like.

Here's the thing: Everyone is called upon to be a leader sometimes.

But most people shirk from leadership and here's why: It's a lot easier to master the techniques of management or, worse yet, to pretend that we have nothing to offer others, than it is to take the grief of leading the charge for a vision, especially if we believe that vision has been planted in our minds and hearts by God.

If you feel God has called you to lead, I share this simple imperative from Paul directed at those God has given the spiritual gift of leadership, given, as all the gifts are, not for the benefit of the recipient of the gift, but for the ministry of the Church and the strengthening of fellow believers. He says if you are a leader, then lead "in diligence" (Romans 12:8).

Everyone has different leadership styles. Few leaders are the flashy charming types who wow people. Some are plodders. But whatever your style, if you have been gifted by God to lead, whether you're a pastor or a layperson, if you have a passion for a ministry that will help the Church do its one and only mission in the world--make disciples--and you feel called by God to spark the ministry in your Church, then lead.

In his phenomenal book, Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels wrote:

...the church has an utterly unique mission to fulfill on planet Earth, and...the future of our society depends, largely, on whether or not church leaders understand that mission and mobilize their congregation accordingly.

I believe that's true!

4 Disciplines for Lent

Lent is the forty-day season that falls between Ash Wednesday (this year, February 13) and Easter (this year on March 31), minus the seven Sundays that fall within those two days. (Sundays aren't counted in Lent's forty days because Sundays are always celebratory "little Easters" when we remember Christ's resurrection from the dead.)

Lent isn't a mandate from God. It's a completely human creation. With the other seasons and days of the Church Year, Lent is, in essence, a means of teaching Christians and those seeking to understand Christianity what it means to believe in and follow Jesus Christ.

Many people use Lent to align themselves with Christ. They do this through the adoption of what are called spiritual disciplines.

Lenten disciplines can be good, strengthening faith and helping people to love God and love others more faithfully. But like many good things, we human beings have had a way of messing up the whole idea of Lenten disciplines. "I'm going to give up chocolate," some will announce. "I'm not drinking beer during Lent," others might say. "I've decided to give up cussing until Easter," I've heard people proudly announce.

But, here's the deal: If something is getting in the way of our being Christians, isn't it also worth asking God to help us get rid of it, not just during Lent, but through our whole lives?

That includes things that aren't intrinsically sinful, but which we realize, keep us from living as followers of Jesus. For example, a learned friend of mine has, since the beginning of the year, been on a "book fast." He isn't buying any books, new or old, unless he needs them for his work. That's because he feels that his love for books, learning, and bragging rights of knowing something can sometimes block out God's priorities for his life. He wants to honor God, not feed his ego.

Are books bad? Of course not. But as Paul writes in Romans 14:12: "...whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." My friend understands that.

If you're giving up chocolate just to lose weight, or giving up beer to please a spouse, or giving up cussing to make yourself more acceptable to some people, your "giving up" is really meaningless from God's perspective. You're not undertaking these disciplines to honor God, but as part of a self-help kick.

And if your "discipline" is about trying to prove your "will power," forget it! A will that isn't bent to the will of God may make you feel like you've got something to brag about. But God isn't impressed!

But if your intent is to grow closer to Christ through your discipline, it can be a very good thing.

The Ash Wednesday liturgy we use in my tradition mentions four disciplines most closely associated with Lent. There are many more, of course. But if you've never observed a Lenten discipline, these four might be ones you'll want to consider in 2013. But undertake them not with the attitude that, "I'll give them up after Lent." Use Lent as a time to integrate these disciplines into your life, for keeps.

1. Repentance. Repentance gets a bad rap. It's portrayed as a grim obligation in which we make ourselves miserable for our sin.

Sorrow for sin is part of authentic repentance, but the main words used in the Bible for repent tell a fuller story.

• The usual Old Testament word literally means to turn around, to change directions. When we acknowledge our sins, we turn away from our sins, which are thoughts, words, and actions that find us walking away from God, and turn back to God and relationship with Him. 
• The word usually used for repentance in the New Testament means to change one's mind. In repentance, we submit to God in order, in the words of an old Bob Dylan song, "change our way of thinking."

So, repentance entails approaching the God made known to all through Jesus Christ, then

(1) confessing our sins to God
(2) receiving forgiveness and the power for new living that belongs to those who follow Christ. 

Paul had both elements of repentance in mind when he encouraged believers to "let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:4). That means humble submission to the crucifixion of our old selves so that our new selves, recreated in the image of Jesus, can rise to life with God.

Repentance is a painful thing because in it we confess our sins, imperfections, and need of God.

But repentance is a joyful thing because it allows us to receive the reconciliation and new with God which Christ's death and resurrection make possible.

This is why when Martin Luther spoke of repentance, he talked about "repentance and renewal."

2. Fasting. We've already touched on this. Fasting can mean giving up those things that get in the way of our following Christ or living life God's way.

It may also mean doing without some things--food, hours on the computer or watching TV, going to sporting events, window shopping at the mall (a vice of mine which I used to indulge a lot)--that might keep us from prayer, worship, reading Scripture, attending to our primary relationships, or serving others.

This is why I always suggest replacing the thing from which you're fasting with a positive, God-honoring activity. If you've decided, for example, to give up watching television one night a week, you'll be able to follow through on your discipline and imbue it with some meaning beyond being a forty-day stunt of your will by, for example, scheduling to volunteer at a food bank on your fasting night.

3. Prayer. Prayer is conversation with God (see here). Of course, believers should always "pray without ceasing." But focused times of prayer, at set times each day, become special appointments with God, deepening our faith, giving our lives both peace and direction.

One point about these special prayer times I would make is to be certain that you always begin your prayers by reading a chapter from the Bible or a devotion based on a passage of Scripture. Since prayer is conversation with God, it's good to let God get in the first word. Otherwise, our prayers can devolve into a monologue about our wants and our feelings.

If you're wondering what to say when it's time for you to pray, the so-called ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) I first read about in a book by Bill Hybels and which I explain here is a good way to start.

And you can never go wrong with the Lord's Prayer, using its profound and exhaustive petitions as a skeletal framework for your conversation with God. (See here for Martin Luther's explanation of the Lord's Prayer found in The Small Catechism.)

4. Works of love. Jesus says that whenever we have cared for those the world regards as "the least of these...you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40).

Caring for and serving others in Christ's Name is one way we can fulfill both the great commission of making disciples, because people who experience the love of Christ we share through our deeds of kindness will want to follow Jesus, too AND the great commandment that we love God completely and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

One work of love we may undertake is reaching out to a family member who has been ostracized from the family.

Or, volunteering at a homeless shelter or a food bank.

It could mean participating in a kindness outreach.

Whatever the work of love turns out to be, if it's done in the Name of Jesus, you'll find that what started out as something you thought you were doing to benefit others will, miraculously, benefit you, freeing your from your slavery to yourself, turning you out to the wider world. Forgetting ourselves through Christ has the byproduct of filling us with more joy and life than we could possibly derive from spending time worshiping at the altar of me. This miraculous transformation probably shouldn't surprise us because Jesus says, "Those who find their life will lose it, and lose their life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).

Now, if I've come across as some "expert" in all this, let me close by saying that I am a sinner in daily need of Christ's forgiveness and help to live as the truly human being I was created by God to be. If you share this trait with me, you might consider adopting a Lenten discipline this year. It could change your life.

[This was originally intended to be my presentation for the Saint Matthew Lutheran Church women's group tomorrow. But because the meeting has been canceled and presenting it at the March meeting would find us three months into Lent, here it is.]
 

This is a Tough Message

But it's also life-giving: He is rich who is satisfied with what he has.

Not So Much: Dodge's Use of God's Name to Sell Trucks

Yes, God did make a farmer. The farmer's name was Adam. Someone should have told the late Paul Harvey of that fact when he wrote his essay years ago.

But even overlooking that, I don't think that God's Name was given to the human race to sell Dodge trucks, as it is in the long-form commercial Chrysler unveiled during the Super Bowl, images of farmers accompanied by Harvey reading his essay, God Made a Farmer.

God gave His Name to us so that we can pray to Him, praise Him, and thank Him. Any other use of God's Name is useless and so, disrespectful.

There's a commandment for that: "You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain." (See here, checking out the Second Commandment and its meaning.)

Did Dodge violate that commandment with its Super Bowl ad?

God needs to judge that.

But if I were a Dodge executive and the idea for this ad had been pitched to me, I'm sure that I would have felt at least a little squeamish about it.

For all its invocation of God's Name, it's really about glorifying not the Maker of the farm, but the one entrusted with taking care of the farm...and those men who identify with Harvey's farmer, guys who perceive themselves to be rugged individuals, sometimes conquerors of the world who tough things out.

Like lots of advertising then, the ad appeals to our egos or our fantasies about ourselves. And it continuously invokes God as second fiddle in its paean to tough guys.

All for the purpose of selling us trucks.

Whether the Chrysler folks feel good about that or not, they'll have to answer for themselves.

But as for me, I am definitely not down with it!

The Christian Creed v. the American Creed

Among the reasons that, for all the lip service given to faith in our public life, Christianity isn't entirely at home in the United States is that the value most highly prized by Americans isn't the highest value commended by God.

If you ask the average American what the ultimate value is, the one thing for which they would be likeliest to fight to the death, I think the answer would be freedom.

On the other hand, though the Christian gospel--the good news of forgiveness and new life for all who believe in Jesus Christ--brings the ultimate freedom to people, setting them free to be the people God made them to be and not what sin, their own or others', dictates, freedom is not the ultimate value of Christian faith.

The ultimate value of Christian faith is love.

Christian love is self-giving love. It willingly divests itself of what the world knows as freedom in order to love others.

This is the love that Jesus gives.

The Christian gospel tells us that Jesus divested Himself of the freedom of being God in order to take on humanity and undertake love's greatest deed: God, unblemished by sin, submitting to death without resistance for His beloved, the human race, then rising to take an eternal kingdom, not for Himself, but for the benefit of all who believe in Him.

Christians are then called to live out the same sort of self-giving love. Paul writes in the New Testament book of Philippians:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:4-11)

Jesus has the Name above all names not because He lived and died for freedom, but because He lived and died and rose for love.

And He calls us to give His kind of love the ultimate place in our lives. 1 Corinthians 13:13 says: "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

When freedom is your ultimate value, you can become a monster: self-centered, ego-driven, materialistic. Make freedom your ultimate value and you will ultimately be enslaved by the things you chase as an expression of your freedom. You will be separated by a self-constructed wall from God, grace, and other people.

If freedom is your ultimate value, you might love, after a fashion.

But if God's love is your ultimate value, you also will be truly free.

And this brings up another reason Christianity doesn't entirely fit with our American culture. Americans are taught to believe in self-sufficiency, the notion that we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and that, if we decide to be loving, or free, or decisive, or whatever, we can make it happen.

But no Christian is taught to believe that she or he can resolve to be loving or anything else. Christians know that resolutions and good intentions won't change us. Only Christ can do that. That's why the apostle Paul writes in Romans: "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15). And later, "Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25) Only the love of God, given in Christ, can set us free to be our best selves.

This applies especially to the ultimate value of love. We may learn over time to be loving by letting ourselves be loved by the God we see in Jesus, by submitting ourselves to no master but Jesus.

We open our wills to Jesus and let Him make us over into His image, including taking His love as the ultimate good in this life and the next. We cling to the words of John:

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 1:10)

There have been Christians imprisoned for their faith in Christ who were infinitely more free than the jailers who held them and had the freedom to go wherever they wanted. That's because freedom is, in the end, not about getting to do what you want to do, it's about getting to be the person the God of love sets you free to be through Jesus.

I love my country. But I'll take "faith, hope, and love" over "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That's because in Christ, happiness has already pursued me. So has love. I don't have to go looking for it. I simply let Jesus Christ in. And that, by the by, brings freedom!