The fatal mistake of the casually religious

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One of a thousand reasons the Psalms are so well-loved is that once in a while, we will be reading along and come to a place where that psalm nails a truth so dead-on, we sit there gasping for breath. Case in point for me, Psalm 50.

You hate instruction and cast my words behind you. When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.

And then, the clincher:

These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was just like you. (Psalm 50:17-21)

That is stunning.

Thinking that the Eternal God is like us is an ancient tradition with a noble heritage. Every culture has done it, every generation has adapted the art to its own idiosyncrasies, every worshiper struggles with the temptation to pull it off.

It’s been said, “In the beginning, God made man in His image. Ever since, man has been returning the favor.”

Some years back country music legend Johnny Cash paid to have a Hollywood movie made on the life of Christ. In the film, Jesus was depicted as a blue-eyed blonde. On our trip to the Middle East, the only blue-eyed blondes I spotted were in our tour group. Everyone else, all the natives, seemed to be of a sun-dried dark color with jet black hair.

As prevalent as that is–the way we picture Jesus as looking like someone who would easily blend in with our group–a far worse thing it is to think of God as carrying our own prejudices, hemmed in by our narrow-mindednesses, burdened by our brand of negativities, and limited by our own personal convictions.

The Bible’s favorite word to describe God is needed here. God is holy.

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Holy sandpaper, pastor!!

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This is a reprint of an article from August 2010.  The only changes are the names.  It’s been sixteen years and these people are in Heaven and it’s probably permissible to use their names.  Some members of that church in metro New Orleans are still with us, are active on social media and will read this.  I want them to. (It’s all good.) They were agents for our Heavenly Father in this pastor’s life.  

A pastor friend sent me a note just now reporting on his church. He has baptized several this year and had twice that number to join in other ways. I replied that God is using him to turn around that old church and, “Good for you, friend!”

He came back: “The curmudgeons are still there, though, still lurking.”

I answered, “They always will be. But let me tell you what I’ve finally learned about that. These detractors are doing you a favor. They motivate you to greater faithfulness, to do your best work, to keep the focus on the Lord.”

He said, “I call them ‘Holy Sandpaper.’”

The Lord uses them to get the rough edges off His servant.

Interesting how the notes I get from pastors–some are questions regarding ministry–turn out to be the very thing the Lord was talking with me about earlier.

Case in point. Yesterday, I was going through some old correspondence files, trying to decide what could be discarded. I ran across the most critical (as in life-changing) exchange of letters I ever had with a church member in nearly a half-century of ministry.

Here’s the story and our letters….

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The lighter side of Civil War stories

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As a history student (and history major in college), I love to read stories from our past.  I have shelves of books on Lincoln, Churchill, Truman, and the Civil War.  I have walked the battlefields with family members: Shiloh with my wife, Harper’s Ferry with both my sons, Gettysburg with my sons, and Vicksburg with my oldest son and his younger daughter.

Winston Groom, known to most as the author of “Forrest Gump,” is a well-respected writer of historical stuff including Vicksburg 1863.  What makes Groom’s books enjoyable is the human interest stuff he drops into the narrative. Like this, for instance….

ONE. Rebel General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a case study in a hundred things–ego, confidence, brilliance, foolhardiness, etc–caught up with Union Colonel Abel Streight near the Georgia line. Flying a flag of truce, Forrest invited Streight to surrender.  At the time this was outrageous since Forrest was out-numbered three to one.

Streight agreed to surrender if Forrest could convince him that he had a completely superior force.

Forrest was ready.

He had arranged for his soldiers to haul the only two pieces of artillery they possessed around in a circle, “across and behind a high cut in the road, so that it would appear to Streight that whole batteries were being brought up to the front.”

Finally, Streight gave in. “How many guns have you got? There’s fifteen I’ve counted already!”  Forrest said, “I reckon that’s all that’s kept up.”

Sensing the futility of his position, the Yankee colonel handed over his 1,466 troops with all their horses, artillery, and equipment. When he learned that Forrest had only 400 men and two guns, he demanded that his men and arms should be returned and that they should fight it out.  Forrest laughed, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “Ah Colonel, all is fair in love and war, you know.”

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A promise I made to the Lord, which I am trying to keep

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Nearly forty  years ago, when the Lord delivered me out of the pit of destruction (I’m channeling Psalm 40) that was a big oppressive church and when He showed my wife and me the Psalm (#66) with our names and situation in bold print, I made three vows.

I would live simply.  I would give generously.  I would encourage pastors.

The last of these I do all the time.  In fact, that’s what this website is all about, the encouragement of the Lord’s shepherds.

The first of these is a relative term, I suppose.  What living simply means in one culture would be something entirely different in another.  So, I’m going to leave that there.

But the second one is what this is all about.

I have decided to do something I have never done and may never do again.

I have never told others how much I give.

Today, I’m going to do that.

I’m not sure why.  Maybe it will be apparent some day.

It can’t hurt.  I have no congregation and no one to vote for me or against me.  No group of people to get up and walk out of church because I’m doing something they don’t like.  If I am.

No one really cares.

So, it’s just me.

These days in retirement, my income is basically two things but with the occasional smaller things.

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The funniest thing in the Bible

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“And He told them a joke: ‘Two scribes went into a bar mitzvah…”

Okay. There’s nothing like that in the Bible.  And that is all good, believe me.

The Holy Scriptures are not about the humorous side of life and was not given to entertain us. It deals with issues grander, more urgent, deeper, more lasting.

But, since God is the Author of the human personality, and since He used humans to pen the Scriptures, we are not surprised to find humorous–if not outright funny–incidents and aspects to this great book.

Here are a few of my favorites….

1) I hear laughter in Jesus’ voice when He ate lunch that day in the home of Zaccheus. (Luke 19)

Suddenly, in between courses, the diminutive host, chief tax-collector Zaccheus stood, got everyone’s attention, and said, “Lord, I have an announcement to make.”

“Half my goods I am now giving away to the poor! And furthermore, anyone whom I have defrauded, I’m repaying them fourfold!”

I can hear the Lord laughing, “Today, salvation has come to this house!”

It was a joyful moment.

There’s excellent teaching value in this story…

When the Lord gets you, one of the first places to register the change is your bank account.

Want to see what a man’s priorities are in life?  Get his bank statement and see where his money is going, and you have all the answers you could ever require.

Does money get you into Heaven?  You and I are quick to put that little myth to bed, but history supplies plenty of examples of unscrupulous preachers who taught it and gullible people who bought it.

It’s a subtle thing. Let’s say you are raising funds for an orphanage.  The ongoing burden for financial support keeps you hopping in the day and sleepless at night. Then one day, an elderly couple informs you your institution will inherit their entire estate, a sizeable fortune.  You are thrilled and your boss, the director of the children’s home, is elated. You are commended for doing a great job. It’s all you can do not to attribute great Christlike traits to this couple for such a gesture.  Never mind that they’re not actually giving anything out of their pockets, since they will be dead when the bequest is made.  At a banquet in their honor, the executive director cannot praise them too highly for their great kindness and he cites scriptures about generosity.  The orphanage names a cottage in their honor.

The Lord knows the heart. He knew as no one else does that one can give without surrendering his life to God, but no one can surrender his life to the Lord without giving.

To this day, I believe, the Lord laughs with joy when someone gets this right and uses his fleeting riches to do something eternal. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

2) The devil has a sense of humor, although a wicked one.

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When preachers say really dumb things and why

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“Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers” (II Timothy 2:14).

The desire to be clever has tainted many a good minister, sabotaged many an excellent sermon, and probably messed up a few marriages along the way.

On the way home from somewhere, I was listening to a radio preacher. He was local, sounded “live,” and was clearly a biblical conservative, meaning I liked most of what he had to say.  Then, he spoiled it all.

He mentioned a well-known Southern Baptist evangelist who once preached in his church. “I asked him, ‘Brother, how long does it take you Baptists to disciple a new believer?’”

“He answered, ‘I don’t know. We’ve never done it.’”

Then he, the radio preacher, said, “Shameful!”

From that launching pad, he proceeded to disparage churches for not discipling people while telling how it ought to be done.

I found myself wondering two things.

Why would the evangelist say such a patently dumb thing–that Baptists have never discipled anyone!–and then, why would the radio pastor repeat it?  Both are foolish statements, and reflect poorly on everyone involved–the speakers, the churches, and even the Lord Jesus Christ.

I suspect I know why the evangelist said it and the radio preacher quoted it.

The evangelist said it for shock value.  He got the reaction he wanted by making an absurd statement.

Had we said to him, “Do you mean to tell me no one in any Baptist church has ever become a disciple of Jesus Christ?” I’m confident he would have back-tracked and said that was not what he meant, then turned it into something other than the moronic statement it was.

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What a caregiver has to keep telling himself

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I’m my wife’s caregiver.

Pray for her.  I’m so completely unqualified for this.  But I’m trying.

A few months ago the neurologist informed Bertha’s daughter and me that all the tests reveal she has Alzheimer’s.  “Her brain is atrophying. It’s going to get worse.”

So far, she’s done all right, I assume.  She mostly sleeps.  Around the clock, every two or three hours, she goes to the bathroom and looks for something to eat in the kitchen.  So, my role is keeping foods handy on the kitchen counter and washing the bed clothes regularly and seeing that she takes her meds morning and evening.

A friend sent a chart of the seven stages of dementia.  If it’s reliable, then we’re at stage five, looks like.

At night as I lie down beside her, I try to think of what more I could be doing. What did I leave undone? What am I missing?  What’s on the agenda for tomorrow and what can I do to prepare for it tonight?

So, today in the mail came this card from a friend of fifty years containing a Max Lucado quote.

One day I believe you’ll hear the Lord say, “I’m so proud that you let Me use you.  Because of you, others are here today.  Would you like to meet them?”

And on the inside my friend wrote, As I pray for you, I am sometimes impressed to pray against sadness and discouragement.  Please remember that God has you and Bertha in His hands. And He and I love you very much. I praise Him for putting you in my life in my sophomore year at Mississippi College.

I teared up.

Now, it appears to me that what the Max Lucado quote is saying is:  You’re doing good. Keep it up.

That’s so hard for me.  As the caregiver for my wife Bertha, most nights when my head hits the pillow I’m feeling like a failure. I’m not doing well.  Do I dare leave her for an hour tomorrow while I run to the grocery, the cleaners, post office, and bank?  Will I come home one day and find that she is in trouble?

The word angst comes to mind.  It’s a generalized feeling that something is amiss.  Sortof a floating anxiety.

That’s what I feel at night.

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Twelve things I tell deacons

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No one is more surprised than I that the Lord has me leading all these deacon training conferences and retreats these days.

I love deacons and treasure the relationship with quite a few from the six churches I served over four decades.. My oldest son is the chairman of deacons in Mobile Alabama’s “West Mobile Baptist Church.”

But I have a few stories about some deacons.

I carry scars from battles with deacons.  I encountered a dozen or so along the way with mental health of the worst kind, some with stunted and deformed theology, and one or two who thought they were rightfully entitled to rule over the universe.   This website carries many articles on the ministry of deacons. Frequently, those painful experiences and harshest collisions produced the  best lessons and, of course, the most interesting stories.

This list of principles is not something set in stone, handed down from Sinai, but represents the gist of the conferences I hold. See what you think.

1. PRAYER: Nothing you will ever do is more about faith than praying.

Our Lord said, “My house shall be a house of prayer.”  Everything we do should be undergirded by strong prayers, seeking God’s will and His power, protection, and provision.  And we’re not just talking about handing Him our laundry list, but praying prayers of faith, asking God for what we believe to be His will and doing so in Jesus’ name, for Jesus’ sake, by Jesus’ blood.

Prayer is need-driven and faith-powered.  The needs will drive you to your knees, but faith will connect you with the Heavens.

Deacons should be the best pray-ers in the church.

2. CHANGE: If you do not like change or cannot deal with it, you’re going to have a tough time following Jesus.

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Become a child again and ask those questions

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Erma Bombeck said, The worst thing in the world is to wake up on Christmas morning and not be a child.

She was so right.

I will never forget walking down our street in suburban New Orleans at Christmastime holding the hand of my three-year-old grandson.  Grant stayed with us each weekday while his mother worked for a federal judge downtown and his dad, our son Neil, taught school.

Our street was only one block long, a cul de sac, so it was a great place to walk with a child.  Grant was enthralled by all the yard decorations for Christmas, particularly the images of Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child.

Sometimes Grant would pause in front of a house where he was fascinated by the yard display.  “Grandpa,” he would say, “Can I touch it?”

“Sure.” And we would walk into the yard.  Very tenderly this child would reach out and with one finger touch the Baby Jesus. He was enchanted.

To you and me, he was touching plastic.  To him, it was something holy.

The mind of a child is a precious thing.

I tear up at the thought.

I’d like to be a child again at Christmas, wouldn’t you?  So, let’s do that.

Let’s decide to become children for a few minutes and do something childlike.  Let’s look at the figures in the Christmas story and let’s touch them.  Let’s think about them, reflect on what they were doing, and consider what it meant to them.

There is a line famous among Bible believers: God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it. 

It’s wrong, of course.

It’s bad wrong.

They’re leaving out one huge step.

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Some preachers give us substitutes for the Gospel. Not good.

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I like to encourage embattled pastors who may be preaching to people who despise them and are working to remove them from the pulpit.

I’ve been there, done that, in two churches. It’s a lonely feeling, one you would not wish on your enemy.

I encourage such pastors to remember why the message of Jesus is called “good news,” and to preach that.

This is so elementary, such a no-brainer, that one might wonder why I made a point of saying it.

Here’s why: We pastors sometimes feed our people fiber instead of protein, filler instead of nourishment. I’m not saying they do it consciously–“I will now cut corners on my preaching”–but sometimes it happens as a result of neglect, fatigue, or discouragement.

Someone needs to recognize that this is happening and call us back to our God-given task of preaching the gospel. Again, you would think this would be a no-brainer. But I cannot tell you how many times pastors have told me they model their preaching after an Elijah or Jeremiah or Amos. One said his role model was John the Baptist. Personally, I don’t see it. We are called to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:16), and not to address every sinful failing of Washington, D.C. or whoever happens to be the current occupant of the White house.

Having been in active ministry since 1962, I am well aware of those substitutes for the gospel that have a way of creeping into our messages. Here are several I’ve seen in myself and noticed in you. (Consider that a friendly wink at the pastors who read this.)

1. Rather than deliver the gospel, we sometimes deliver theatrics.

Theatrics are the dramatics which often decorate sermons. Usually they involve bodily motions–walking, waving, pointing–and emotions: raising the voice, lowering it, getting tearful or excited or angry or compassionate.

It’s like a Supreme Court Justice said of pornography: “Even if I cannot define it, I know it when I see it.”

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