When you’ve been burned here’s what I’ve learned

One afternoon, while visiting my daughter and her family, we talked a little about some people she knew who had served as missionaries in Hungary. I already knew the basics of the story: they had been sent to Hungary by a church and while there their doctrinal perspective changed. Their newly embraced viewpoint differed from that of the sending church and when this became known they were dismissed. In our talk that day I learn a few more details about this unfortunate incident.

The saddest thing about all this is the affect on some of those missionaries: out of the ministry, out of church, divorced, out of the faith, atheism. Our discussion began when I mentioned one of the men who went back to seminary, became a Presbyterian pastor and recently converted to Roman Catholicism – that was quite a journey! In saying all this, I’m not trying to run them down, this is just an overview of the fallout.

These folks feel like they got burned. Now, I don’t know these people, so I don’t know what was in their hearts. Nor was I privy to the secret counsels of the church they were part of. I think they understood that their doctrinal changes would result in some kind of disciplinary action. I don’t think that was the problem. I hope not, anyway. The problem seems to be how this was done, how they were treated. That was when they felt they got burned.

I understand that. I can sympathize. But . . .

What should you do when you’ve been burned? Been genuinely dealt with in an unjust, non-Christian way by a believer? by a church? by a Christian organization? How should you respond?

I confess, I can understand bitterness creeping in. It’s not right, but I can understand it. This is something that you have to guard your heart from, I mean, they “done you wrong.” If tolerated (or worse, fed), bitterness can become a root of bitterness and defile you in a variety of ways. This is like a sore or a wound - if untreated it can fester and cause all sorts of problems. The cure for this is forgiveness.

What I don’t understand is falling away from the Lord. Someone does you wrong, hurts you, offends you, let’s you down, sorely disappoints you and you leave the faith? Quit the Lord? I admit, I don’t understand that at all. Keith Green had a song that speaks to this:

And if you've been burned

Here's what I've learned

The Lord's not the one to blame *

Many years ago I learned a very helpful truth: No one else’s sin can take away my peace or joy or faith in Christ, only my own sin can do that. So, if someone does me wrong, hurts me, offends me, let’s me down, sorely disappoints me and I lose the peace of Christ, the joy of the Lord, or abandon the faith as a result, that’s on me. Somewhere in all that I sinned. I took a wrong turn or something was deficient in my spiritual life to begin with and this thing that happened simply exposed it.

I want to say again, I do not know the people I mentioned above, so it would be foolish of me to try and diagnose them from such a distance. I mentioned them as a specific example, I’ve known a lot of people who, when faced with similar circumstances or worse, such as the failure of a leader, just quit the faith. How utterly sad. Your Pastor falls and you now no longer believe in Jesus?? I have to wonder, Was their faith in Jesus or in their pastor/parents/church?

When you’ve been burned here’s what I’ve learned: Some one person, or some group of people may have failed you or hurt you etc. but that’s not Jesus. It’s not even all believers in Jesus! We need to learn to do as David did: David encouraged himself in the LORD his God and to believe as David believed: When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. Let the hurt, sorrow, disappointment, offence drive you closer to Jesus, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Amen.

So many laughing at Jesus

While the funniest thing that He's done

Is love this whole stubborn rebellious world

While their hate for Him just goes on *

* How can they live without Jesus by Keith Green

Signs and Wonders

My reading last night included:

Matt 15:30-31  And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them: Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.

Amen. what an amazing passage!

There are those who say, “Well, if Jesus really did it back then, how come he doesn’t do it today?” Then there are those who say, “We can expect the same today.” I thought about both when I read this. My conclusion? Both labor under a misunderstanding.

What about miracles, signs and wonders today? Jesus spoke to this twice, once before the cross and once after the resurrection:

John 14:12  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

Mark 16:17-18  And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Amen. I believe this. I believe that through faith we can receive great things and through unbelief we can miss great things. The Book of Acts and subsequent Church history reveal that God has often done great things when the gospel is preached. And I believe we should still pray: And now, Lord…grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

Yet, in another and very important way, the ministry of Jesus was unique. As Peter preached, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. The signs and wonders in the ministry of Jesus were signs that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised Savior.

I believe we should read the Gospels and see the miracles, signs and wonders in Jesus’ life and ministry for what they are: evidence that Jesus is the Coming One. The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. Seems clear to me that we can tell the Gospel stories and say, “See, Jesus is the One sent from God. He is the Son of God. He is the Messiah.”

So what about signs and wonders today? As I have already said, I believe we should pray for and expect mighty works from God, but this is a different and further post. My point in this post is simply to stress, the…works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. Our first emphasis should be: “See what mighty and wonderful things this man Jesus did? That is because He was sent from God, He is the promised Savior. He is the Son of God. These miracles, signs and wonders are the proof. Believe in Jesus.”

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Why can’t you marry your brother?

Tiernan, Isabelle, and Jack spent Saturday night with us. Isabelle and Jack came over in the afternoon and shortly after they arrived we all went to clean the church building. On the way back, out of the blue, Isabelle asked, “Why can’t you marry your brother?”

Isabelle is 6 years old. I have no idea why she would be thinking about this. But it’s a good question, so I turned to face her and launched into an explanation. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something like this: “The government has learned that there can be problems when a brother and sister marry, so they made a law saying you couldn’t do it. This law is also based on God’s law that says brothers and sisters shouldn’t marry.” Something like that. When I finished, she look either confused or not satisfied, so I asked her what was wrong. She said, “I still don’t understand.”

Before I could say anything, Tiernan said, “She doesn’t understand ‘government’.” (Great, my answer was so clear that I have birthed another question!) So Tiernan set about explaining what government is. He did a pretty good job, but Isabelle still didn’t understand. Now it was my turn.

I told her that the government is a group of people who have been voted on/chosen to make laws that keep us safe. She seemed satisfied with that, so I returned to my earlier explanation about how brothers marrying sisters can cause problems and that God has also said this was not a good thing. So they made a law saying you can’t do this.

“Why isn’t it safe? What can happen?” Mary and I then tried to explain about children and genes: how Grandmama has genes and I have genes, and when we have children we share our genes with them; and weaknesses in genes; and how when two people with the same weak genes have children, then there is a greater chance for problems. (In all this, I might have whispered something to the effect that I donated the good genes and Grandmama the weak genes, and then admitted that I am the only one who will wear jeans with holes in them. After all, we're talking to children and I can’t help but have fun with them! We all laughed.)

But Isabelle wasn’t finished. “Has it always been that way?” So we told her about the creation of Adam and Eve, and the fall, and its' effects on us: “In the beginning it was OK to marry your brother. In fact, you had no other choice! But after a while, when there were enough people, God told us not to do that anymore. We are all related, we all go back to Adam and Eve, but we don’t have to marry our brother anymore . . .” This seemed to satisfy her and besides, by this time we were nearing Charandas Mexican Grill and Cantina, where we planned to eat supper, so everyone's attention was now focused on food.

I love this! I know we don’t have children with us all day and therefore we are not bombarded with questions from dawn to dusk, but I love their questions! I love being asked these things and having the opportunity to answer them. I want them to be able to ask away – how else will they know if they don’t ask? And what big questions they ask! What a challenge it is to try to answer such big questions in a way that a 6 year can understand! I know, they can't take it all in at once, but “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.”

Supper was great too!

My losing battle

I am waging a very small scale battle against the growing confusion between “envious” and “jealous”. One that I know I will lose.

People are increasingly giving double duty to jealous and ignoring envy. Aren’t they synonyms? No. Oh I know, dictionaries are now listing them as synonyms, but they are only reflecting the modern usage and confusion.

“So what’s the difference?”

To be jealous is to not want others to have what is yours. Such as the love, affection, and attention of your spouse. You can be jealous of your possessions, your time etc.

To be envious is to want what another has. If it is not a synonym of covet, they are very similar. “You got a raise? I’m envious.”

I ask again, Aren’t they synonyms? And again I say, No. The Bible describes God as a jealous God. Can we substitute the word envy and say our God is an envious God? NO! But He is a jealous God - He does not want to share your love and worship and trust with anyone/anything else.

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife

And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.

Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long.

As you can see, sometimes jealously is not a bad thing. But I think envy is nearly always presented in a negative light.


I know, I know, this is a losing battle. We are so sloppy and lazy in our use of language today and these two words are slowly merging into one in the common parlance. Nevertheless, I continue the effort!

A test, an announcement & etc

TEST
I’ve had reports that something is wrong with the appearance of my blog, resulting in it being unreadable. So I’ve changed the appearance. It is rather plain right now and I don’t care for it, but please let me know if it is readable.


ANNOUNCEMENT
I believe it is 'pert near certain, I will have the opportunity to teach Sunday School for the quarter beginning June 2 or 9. I will be teaching the Sermon on the Mount. I’m excited. This will either be a spectacle, a fiasco, or a blessing. I will leave it to you to guess what I am praying for.


& ETC

I was mowing the grass, looked up and saw this. I cannot tell you how much I love this!








Speaking of mowing the grass. We have a good sized yard and have used a riding mower the last two or three years.

(Our yard, back and front ↓)

 

This year I cannot get it started. I believe I know what is wrong but I do not have the know-how to fix it. When I learned how much it was going to cost to repair, I resorted to my push mower. I discovered the riding mower has gotten me out of shape! As long as I feel it when I cut the grass, I think I will stick to my push mower - it’s cheaper and it’s good for me.

Wednesday Night

Wednesday night was busy. It was more like a Friday or Saturday night. And I had a few interesting encounters.


There is this woman who used to come in every night after work. She would buy beer and cigarillos for her husband. I used to tease her about the beer and tobacco because she was pregnant. Really pregnant! I asked her how long she planned to work and she said and she said as long as she could. I believe she worked nearly till her labor started. I had not seen her in a while and knew that meant she had had the baby. I saw her last night. She told me she had a healthy boy and that she had started back to work this past Monday.
I asked her, “How is work going?”
She said, “It’s fine. I didn’t have any parent-child separation issues. This is my third one, so I’m used to it.”
I don’t know the details of her family life and I’m not questioning her love for her children, but I think that is so sad.


Last night was like “tobacco night.” People were buying lots of cigarettes AND cigarillos. One girl bought one pack of cigarettes and ten Dutch Master cigarillos! Ten!


I thought it was busy and a deputy came in and said they were busy too. Crazy night.


Then there was the mop bucket incident. We have two free-standing coolers that I need to drain and then refill with ice. I started with the smaller one because it usually only takes one bucket. As it drained I filled the mop bucket with soapy water to mop the floor. When it was full I checked the cooler. There was water everywhere! I grabbed the small mop, too much water. I grabbed the large mop, too much water. I knew this meant I needed to bring the mop bucket out on the floor. So I emptied it, brought it out, and began to mop it up. Just as I finished, I squeezed out the mop one last time. That last squeeze tipped the bucket over and spilled all the water I had just mopped up! I set it back up and cleaned it up again. As I headed back to the drain the bucket tipped over again!! I admit, I was furious. I mopped it up one more time and said out loud, “I am NOT putting this mop back in that bucket.”
It didn’t tip over. I drained it and filled it again with soapy water. Just as I finished re-filling it, the buzzer went off. Isn’t this just great?!!
I went to the register. It was an older woman getting coffee. I remembered her from the other night – she got the wrong lid both nights. “I guess you're still at the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“This must be serious.”
She said, “Yes. Tomorrow the doctor will decide what to do about my husband.”
Oh, that kind of serious. Now I feel terrible about being disturbed by the buzzer. I told her I would be praying for her.


There is this brother who works nights at the grocery store across the street. He used to come in on his break and then he stopped. I would see him after work when I went to Bi-Lo and once I asked him if everything was OK. He said yeah. I told him I had been thinking about him and was concerned. Well, he told me last night that he had backslid for a while. I think my question then touched him. Praise the Lord he has been (mostly) restored!


Then I got off! And I saw my schedule, I’ve got Friday and Saturday off again. Nice.

Observations from behind the counter – Thursday Night

Thursday night was a really busy night. I had a lot of people between 11 and 5 (that is when I close out the day and Friday begins for the store). Then I had just as many people between 5 and 8:30 (when I got off)! I had a few interesting encounters, too many for facebook, so I thought I would post them here.


I got into my jeep and started down the driveway with just enough time to get to work. I looked at the dash board and remembered, I probably don’t have enough gas to get to work! So I turned off the engine, found my little can of gas for the lawn mower and poured as much as I could into the tank. As I put the can back, I noticed it was making a funny gurgling sound - I have no idea what that was all about. And off I go.

There is this man who comes in every single night to buy lottery tickets. Several times a night. I understand this starts before I get there. Last night he came in saying he was broke, asked for $4 worth of tickets, and plopped a bunch of change on the counter. I asked him, “Is that supposed to be $4”
He said, “Supposed to be? It is $4. If it ain’t, I flunked math.”
He left and I counted it out - $4.20. He must’ve flunked!

A woman came in to get some gas. She told me how much and I put it in the system. She swiped her card and when it came to part where she had to what kind of card, she asked me, “Debit or credit?” I said, “Ma’am, I don’t know your card.” At least she laughed at herself.

A little later a man came in who looked like an airline pilot. After he paid, he said, “You sure are a brave guy.”
“Why?”
“Working in a convenience store at night. I just watched a bunch of videos on youtube about convenience stores being robbed.”
I laughed and said, “Ah, the secret is, Don’t watch those kind of videos. And it’s not that bad, this is a good neighborhood”
He told me that he had worked in a convenience store and been robbed. I told him I had been robbed too.
I said, “What do you do?”
“I’m a commercial airline pilot.”
I said, “Talk about dangerous!”
He said it wasn’t that bad and I said, “But you could fall out of the sky!”
He replied, “I do work in the top 10 most dangerous jobs - but yours is in the top 3!”

About an hour later a man came in and wanted $40 worth of lottery tickets (all of them $2 tickets) and paid with a hundred dollar bill. He left the store but not the parking lot. Then he came back in and bought $20 more. A little later he was back in again and bought $30 worth. This time I couldn’t help myself, “You sure have a lot of money.” To waste is what I’m leave unsaid.
No. I got nothing to do. The guys are working and I’m just playing, seeing if anything happens.”
Be nice if I had $100 to throw away!

After all these years, still the most irritating thing is people who appear out of nowhere! All night long, as soon as I entered the cooler, somebody would materialize and come walking in the front door! This went on all night! One of these times was a man who has been coming in late at night. He said he was “taking it to the house” and that his wife was getting out of the hospital tomorrow. We had talked about this before, he works all day then sits up at the hospital with his wife at night.
“Well, that’s good news, right?”
He said, “Thank God! Now I can finally get some sleep!”
Okay . . .

Over the years I have met a few Saudi Arabian students attending Winthrop University. One of them came in last night and told me he had graduated. I congratulated him and asked what he was going to do now. He said he was going back home to work for a year then maybe come back and get his masters.
“Remember Jehad?” (Jehad was a guy who used to come in all the time and we would talk about the Lord, the Bible, and Islam.) I said yes and he said, “Jehad has a job back home and he said he would get me one there too.”
I told him that Jehad used to come in all the time and we would talk and he said he knew about that. So I said, “If you remember, when you get back home, tell Jehad I said Hello.”

Around 5:30 a regular came in a got coffee. He looked really tired so I said, “Today the coffee is free, Have a good day.”
He said, “I love you, man.”
I said, “Hey! Come back here, I’m charging you double for that!”
He came back to the counter and said, “I was up till 11 last night working on a school project.”
I knew what he meant, but I said, “I didn’t know you were in school.”
“Good one. I tell you this, if he doesn’t get a 100 on this, I’m going up to the school and punch some teacher in the mouth!”

That's some of my Thursday night. Now I'm off for three days!!

Faith and Prayer

At the end of end of March I made a fb post that asked a question. I have searched for the post but now I can't find it, so I can't even quote myself, but it was something like: “Nearly every church service begins with a prayer asking the Lord to be with them in the service. Does the Bible tell us what to look for so we can know whether our prayer was answered?” The only feedback I received was one that rebuked the whole notion of “calling on God to be with us" and dismissed it as “begging God.”

The premise of the objection was, “You don’t need to ask God to do what He has already done. You have Jesus in you. There is no need to ask for Him to ‘come.’” I don’t want to rehash that conversation, but I do want to ask, If God has promised something, does this mean I no longer need to pray about it? If the Bible says it is already mine in Christ, does it show a lack of faith to pray for it?

It has been my understanding of the Christian life that faith and prayer work together. That is, when I see that God has promised something that I am not experiencing, I should pray for it until I have it. I believe we receive from God through faith and prayer and patience. So, my bigger question is, Has my understanding and practice all these years been deficient? 

Here’s more on how I have understood faith and prayer to work.

† You see something in the Word that God has promised you and you determine that you don’t have it. You believe the promise is for you so you begin to pray for it.

† And because you believe the promise, you pray expecting to receive it.

† And because you believe and expect to receive you continue to pray; you persevere in prayer. How long do you continue to pray? Until one of two things takes place: you have it or until God speaks to you about it.

Let me illustrate how I have understood this to work.

In Daniel 9 Daniel understood by books the number of the years... that is, he read Jeremiah and learned that they were to be in Babylon for only 70 years and then to be returned to Jerusalem. He read it, then he looked at the calendar and saw that the time was up.
What does he do with this? Does he begin to announce to everyone, “We’re going home!” No, he began to fast and pray. We’re talking about the purpose of God. God said this is what He was going to do, why does Daniel need to pray for it to come to pass? In his prayer, a great intercessory prayer, he confesses their sins, asks God to forgive them, and to accomplish His purpose. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
By praying and fasting, Daniel was committing himself to praying for this until he saw it or God spoke to him. Turns out, God spoke to him. The angel Gabriel came and gave Daniel the wonderful prophecy of the 70 weeks.

I believe this shows us the ways of God. Behind every work of God there is somebody praying, “Thy will be done.” Someone who sees what God wants to do, has promised to do, and prays it into reality. (That is one part of the way of God, the other is someone to carry out the work. In this case that other person was Ezra, then Nehemiah.)

Then there is Paul and his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Paul says he had a thorn in the flesh. Whatever it was is not the point right now. He says, For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. Three times he asked the Lord to remove it! First time he prayed, nothing. Second time he prayed, nothing again. What do you do when you pray for something and nothing happens? Pray again! You pray until you get the answer or God speaks to you about it. So Paul prayed a third time. Then the Lord spoke to him, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. From that moment on Paul had a new attitude toward this thing, Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. This is a wonderful and rich passage, but my application of it now is, Paul prayed until God spoke to him.

This has been my practice and my teaching – When you discover something in the Word of God, something that God promises or has provided in Christ, and when you see that you do not have that, you begin seeking God for that grace, in faith, with repentance and confession. And you pray until you have what God has promised.

A friend of mine has a blog he calls History Makers. In one of his posts he wrote about the “Hallelujah Lasses,” “about half-a-dozen young women” from the Salvation Army. They went “among the lowest classes in the town, and they have succeeded in the most remarkable manner... They have got such a hold upon the masses as to tame some of the worst of the characters. A thorough transformation has been effected in the lives of some of the most thoughtless, depraved and criminal.”
What can have enabled these Salvation Army girls to achieve such breakthroughs? A total conviction of the power of Jesus' redeeming blood to save even the worst, together with the freshness of the Holy Spirit's filling (for which Salvationists spent whole nights of prayer) kept them pressing into territory where other feared to go, and expecting results.”

As I have said, this has been my understanding. When you see that you lack something that God has promised and provided in Christ, you believe Him for it and because you believe you pray and seek God until you have what He promised. His promise is what give me confidence to pray for it. His promise is what moves me to expect to receive it. His promise is what enables me to pray until. These are not perfunctory or superficial prayers, but prayers offered in faith.

This is how I have understood the Christian life. Has my understanding and practice all these years been deficient?