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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness.... (Galatians 5:22-23)
"Would the gentleman from North Carolina please yield the floor?"
"The gentle lady from California makes a good point."
The U.S. Senate may be the last place in this country where people are recognized as being gentle. It's a nice trait. "Gentle" means you are not bombastic, not mean-spirited, not rude or unkind or harsh.
My goal is to become more gentle in this life.
Various translations make this "kindness" and "goodness." Same difference, I suppose, although there is something about "gentleness" that weighs heavily on my mind.
Did you hear about the local preacher who was protesting a "gay and lesbian pride" march winding its way through the French Quarter? According to the news reports, the minister was preaching to the participants in harsh and condemning tones. At one point, a woman decided that this angry man of God (we're giving him the benefit of the doubt on this point) needed a hug. So, she stepped out of the crowd, walked over to him, and kissed him.
He has filed charges against her. Accuses her of assault.
On my Facebook page, I made a little joke about this, pointing out that if that preacher doesn't know the difference in a kiss and an assault, he has lots of problems. Within hours, I had fifty comments. Some took me to task for my levity, some pointed out that if the woman was HIV positive and had some kind of openness on her mouth, she could infect him. Others wanted to weigh in on the homosexual issue.
My concern was lost in the uproar. I was wishing the preacher had been gentler, kinder, nicer.
If the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness--and it is--then is it not true that whenever a person claiming to be a follower of Jesus is anything but gentle and kind, we may conclude from their actions that they are not Spirit-filled?
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23).
John Cameron Swayze crowned a long career in news and television work with a series of commercials he did for Timex watches. After subjecting a wristwatch to brutal treatment, he would retrieve it (from the hole in which it had been buried, the building they had just blown up, whatever), hold it up to the camera, and observe, "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking."
That's you. That's me. That's the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we do it right.
The Lord told His followers that as a result of their identification with Him they were most definitely going to "take a licking." In one passage, for instance, where we are commanded to love our enemies, Jesus said we can expect to be hated, cursed, threatened, and spitefully used. If we are struck on the cheek--that sounds like a licking to me!--we are to turn the other to our assailant. If someone steals our cloak, we are to offer our tunic also. (Luke 6:27-30)
In order to love the person who hits me, hates me, curses me, and forcibly takes what is mine, I am going to be needing one resource that does not come as standard equipment with the human animal: restraint.
The Greek word "makrothumia" is literally "long-tempered." (makros = long; thumos = temper) Various translations call it longsuffering, as well as forbearance and patience.
Let's stick with "longsuffering." That word says it as well as any.
Longsuffering is self-restraint. When being provoked, one does not lose control and dish out the same kind of treatment he/she has received.
Perhaps a good way to emphasize what the word means is by thinking of its opposites. Here is my short list of the reverse image of longsuffering.
Earlier this week, I posted this note on Facebook: Wanna hear something funny? I certainly do. If you saw something, read something, heard something funny or unusual, pass it on. The rest of us need laughter in our lives, and if you have some to share, you are Heaven's gift to us today.
What I anticipated is not what I received. I figured some FB friends would agree on the need for laughter. What I got was funny stories.
Here they are. All of them.
1) After an especially hard landing by an airline overseas, the captain dreaded standing at the galley door looking people in the eye and thanking them for choosing this carrier. He knew someone would have some sarcastic remark about his landing on this particularly windy day. However, no one commented until near the end when he spotted one little lady approaching him with a cane. As he thanked her, she said, "Sonny, I have one question for you. Did we land or were we shot down?" (from Gordon Donahoe)
2) A riddle from M-Fuge camep: How did they dig up gold and silver in Old Testament times? Answer: Miner Prophets. (from Keith Jones)
You're sitting in church, working hard to worship. You've had a hectic week and this Sunday morning has had its share of stresses. But finally, you're here, in place, in the Lord's house, sitting in your favorite pew. You've joined the congregation in singing the first hymn of the day. The minister has started the service right with a wonderful call to worship. And then it happens.
The person leading the opening prayer strays across an invisible border and says something that offends you or frightens you or angers you or troubles you or at the very least disturbs you.
That's what this is about.
Just so you will know, I'm a pastor. We pastors have the same reaction you do when the person praying--whether a layman or a trained minister who should know better--says something very wrong or quite stupid or somewhat offensive. We wonder what that was all about, where he learned that doctrine, or where he picked that weird phrase up and decided to incorporate it into his public prayers.
Everyone has his/her list of prayers that cross that deadline. Here is my list of the Top ten prayers I hope never to hear again.
10. "And Lord, we want to tell you...and Lord, this, and Lord that."
My neighbor Kay Swanson hears people pray, "Father God, Lord, I pray....and Father God, that you would...Lord God, Father God, be merciful to us...." Kay says, "Please! When you're speaking to me, you don't invoke my name between every couple of words. Why do you do this to God?"
Using the Lord's name as punctuation is a no-no.
Anyone who reads my stuff on this website knows I am a preacher and am pro-preacher. I've seen so much mistreatment of God's servants over nearly a half-century in the ministry that it weighs heavily on my heart. I want to do anything I can to encourage these beloved friends and anything I can to help churches and church leaders know how to relate to them.
However.
Periodically, someone will write, "Yes, but what if the preacher is in the wrong? What if he is---" and you fill in the blank. What if he's a bully? a dictator? a flirt? a heretic? a liberal? a nut? an abuser? a molester? a criminal? a thief? a liar?
Let me emphasize that I am under no illusions about human nature. We are all sinners and daily in need of God's mercy, Christ's forgiveness, and compassionate understanding from one another. I know also that some men in the pulpit have no business there.
There are times when godly lay leaders in a church absolutely must rise up and deal with an out-of-control preacher.
Those times and occasions are rare, thankfully.
More often, the problems are smaller, subtler, safer (if you will), and less of a threat. Even so, every church needs a system for speaking to the pastor who needs a rebuke, even if it's only a gentle one.
If you thought I was leading up to a story, you're right. Several, in fact.
Question: Pastor, is there anyone you can go to with a serious doubt about the Christian faith?
Let's say you are struck by contradictions in the Bible. But if you preached these from the pulpit, you would have caused great harm. Psalm 73:15 comes to mind.If I had said, "I will speak thus," behold, I would have been untrue to the children of your generation.
But you need answers. Where do you turn?
You are burdened by the suffering in the world. "How," you wonder, "could a powerful and loving God allow such?" Perhaps you say, as some have, if God is almighty and allows this suffering, He is not all-loving. If He is loving and does nothing to stop it, it must be because He is not able. But, you reason, since suffering exists, we cannot have it both ways.
Who can you talk to about your questions?
If you have no friend to whom you can turn, there is a serious gap in your life. You are in need of another friend or two or three.
We do not mean just any kind of friend. We may have hundreds of "friends" on Facebook. But most are only acquaintances at best. Few if any are "friends" in the deepest sense.
A friend, they say, is someone you can call in the middle of the night to help you bury the body. He shows up and never asks for the details, but helps you carry out your unpleasant little task.
Maybe so. Maybe not. I prefer to think a real friend would confront you and force you to come to terms with what you have done. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. (Proverbs 27:6)
This is about two friends: a young Billy Graham and a young Charles Templeton. The story of that friendship and the doubt that drove them into separate life-paths is told in "Billy," a book by William Paul McKay and Ken Abraham.
Billy Graham you know. What you may not know is that when he began his ministry of city-wide crusades, Charles Templeton was "the" evangelist drawing the big crowds, seeing great results, getting all the press. Templeton was tall, movie-star handsome, articulate, dynamic, and popular. He was a star, if we may use that word, when Billy Graham was just stepping onto the stage.
Instead of becoming rivals or competitors as we might have expected, these young men developed a great friendship. Each appreciated what he saw in the other. Both helped to organize Youth For Christ, the post-World War II evangelistic ministry which brought the gospel to a new generation. Billy Graham was its first full-time evangelist.
As young and dynamic evangelists, both Graham and Templeton went through a valley of doubts and questions regarding the Bible, God, and the Christian faith. Graham emerged stronger than ever; Templeton's faith did not survive the test.
Billy Graham had friends to help him through his crisis; Charles Templeton did not. That, I believe to be the primary reason for what happened to each evangelist.
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. (John 14:27)
My young friend Josh Woo is visiting his parents' homeland of Korea while on summer vacation from his studies at the University of Southern California. Today, I read the email he sends occasionally to friends and family. Over the weekend, he visited the DMZ, that "demilitarized zone" marking the border between North and South Korea, part of the settlement which ended the Korean War in 1953. Josh sent several pictures, including one showing a sign with the number: 21,172.
"That's the number of days since the Korean War ended," he said. Then he surmised, "This probably means that in their minds that war is not really over."
I expect he's right. What we have here is a truce, an agreement to disagree. For each of those thousands of days, relations between these two nations and its people have been strained.
What we do not have is peace.
When I went off to my freshman year of college, that truce was five years old. I recall our history professor, Mae Parrish, lauding the agreement that ended that war, calling it a mark of maturity among nations. Rather than a fight to the death, rather than demanding "unconditional surrender" of one side or the other, the combatants agreed to disagree.
That's about the best we humans can do sometimes. And, let us be quick to say, it's a far cry better than slaughtering our young men and women to make a point or have our way.
But let us not call it peace. Peace is something else altogether.
Scripture knows three kinds of peace: with God, within ourselves, and between one another The implications for Christ-disciples are enormous.
You worship that which you do not know. But we worship that which we know.... (John 4:22)
It's not easy making generalizations about the worship activities of every person on the planet, other than this one: something within the heart and soul of each human cries out--reaches out, strains, hungers--toward its Creator. The forms which that heart-cry take are as varied as the races and cultures of men. Some bow before the waterway flowing through their village, some sacrifice to the volcano looming above their community, and some build massive cathedrals which they decorate with ornate images, all as expressions of their worship. Others enter their church, their synagogue, their meeting place, and sing hymns, offer prayers, read from their holy book, and give offerings.
For those who worship the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ--for those of us who call ourselves Christians--making some generalizations is easier. We share many things in common, not all of them desirable.
I know five things about your worship, Christian. You make safely conclude these are likewise true about my worship.
1. You don't do it very well.
"We are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. (Luke 23:41)
Every other day, it seems, the New Orleans newspaper tells of some group angry at a government entity for not "giving us what we have coming."
Following Hurricane Katrina (August/September 2005), the federal government (in embodiments such as FEMA and the Corps of Engineers) arrived with billions of dollars to restore the city of New Orleans and help people rebuild their flooded homes. I have no idea how many billions were paid out, but the lasting remembrance some of us will carry to our graves are the disgruntled home-owners complaining about "not receiving my fair share."
Recently a lawsuit was settled with the government handing out additional truckloads of cash. Plaintiffs claimed their homes had been appraised by the feds on the basis of what they were worth pre-Katrina and not what it would take to rebuild them.
The letters to the editor page regularly features stories from citizens not getting their fair share.
Watch for it in your area too. It's coming. Belly-aching residents who are not getting what they deserve. It's a national disease.
It's all about justice.
In justice, I get my fair share. I get what's coming to me. What I deserve.
Last week, as I write, untold millions watching the Casey Anthony trial from Orlando were stunned when the jury acquitted her of any responsibility in the death of her little daughter. A hue and cry went up from across the nation calling for justice.
I don't know about you, my friend, but I do not want justice. Not in any shape or form.
I want mercy.
In the 1950s, Frank Lovejoy was a popular movie and television actor. Wonder how someone decided to join those two fruit-of-the-Spirit qualities into one name. And wonder if anyone has tried it with any of the others. Is anyone on the planet named Gentlenessgoodness? Faithfulnesshumility? Probably not.
No question but the first three qualities that make up this Christlikeness--love, joy, and peace--are the best-known and best-loved of the nine. I suspect ten times as many sermons have been preached on these three than all the remaining six combined.
Joy is the flag flown from the castle of your heart to show the king is in residence.
I would have thought C. S. Lewis' book "Surprised by Joy" dealt with his meeting Joy Davidman Gresham who became his wife. Instead, its subtitle gives it away: "The Shape of My Early Life." The joy which took this Oxford professor of English literature so by surprise arrived when he put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He had built up such an army of misconceptions regarding the Christian life that when it arrived, he found it to be nothing like anything he had anticipated. He was unprepared for the joy.
"Joy," Lewis later wrote, "is the business of Heaven."
If it is--and who can doubt that, based on so many revelations of Scripture--then, for a believer to experience joy is to have a "foretaste of glory divine," as the hymn puts it.
In thy presence there is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)
Our Lord Jesus said, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10).
Do you find it strange that the one described in prophecy as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3) would devote so much attention to making sure His followers experienced joy in a full and permanent way?
Let me say up front that I do not have 7 ways to name your sermon. The title is stated this way as a concession to the fact that people like reading articles that offer 10 ways, 5 principles, 7 shortcuts, whatever. That is what this article is about!
Recently on this website I wrote an article which I called "Worship: Doing It the Wrong Way." It was a one-idea theme, basically that when we go to church to "get something out of it," we're doing it all wrong. We ought to go to "give to the Lord the glory due His name" (Psalm 29:1).
As with many other articles we post here, the little essay was promptly picked up by an online sermon service that repackages my writing and forwards it to something like 100,000 of their closest friends. No problem whatsoever with that. And in case anyone wonders, no, no money changes hands. No blogger that I know of makes a dime from articles which these services pick up and send out. That's not why we do this. Certainly not why this farm boy does it.
What was interesting about that, however, is that in selecting the article and sending it out, the sermon service felt they should rename it in order to make it more attractive to readers. For reasons that I find baffling, they redubbed it "Seven Things We Get Wrong About Worship."
I went to their site and enjoyed reading a large number of comments from readers. Most were positive, a few were combative, but not a one picked up on the fact that there were not seven things or even five or three things in that article which people get wrong about worship. There was just the one.
By now, I've done this enough to know that editors seem to gravitate toward articles that offer bullet points--7 things, 10 easy steps, 5 insights. I suppose it's a concession to the reading habits of the modern male. Male? Since something like 99 percent of ministers are male, yes, that would be who these headings are directed toward.
Someone says, "I thought men weren't readers." Fact: ministers are. They have to be.
Only, they just like 7 points. It's easier to follow. After all, they do not plan to devote a lot of time to any one article.
So, after giving it some thought, I've hit upon some titles for which I'm considering writing articles and posting here on this website in the near future. See what you think.
How many are there? You know the answer to that.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.... (Galatians 5:22)
Recently in a McComb, Mississippi, coffee shop, a lady whom I had just sketched felt she had to tell my pastor friend and I about her switch to another religious system from the Baptist church of her youth. She said, "Every Sunday the priest preaches about love. No matter what the sermon is on, he manages to mention it in some way."
We said nothing. And even though I know better, what I felt was, "Oh, great. He mentions love. Well lah-de-dah." You'll be glad to know I did not speak that. I'm glad to know I instantly rebuked myself for even thinking it.
The simple fact of the matter is that love is a biggie. Love is the very nature of God, we're told in I John 4:16. Anyone who takes God seriously is not allowed to cavalierly dismiss the subject as unworthy of their attention.
No New Testament writing is so saturated with love more than the First Epistle of John. It is no stretch to say that those who know the Lord Jesus Christ will themselves be saturated with love.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Half the people I know in church have this list of Christlike qualities memorized. But I find myself wondering if they also know the list of counterfeits which precedes it. In some respects, it's every bit as important to know the negatives, the dark side, the alternate universe if you will, of those wonderful positives.
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also toldyou in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)
Note that these ugly traits are:
1) Of the flesh. Man-generated. We can't blame them on God.
2) Against the Spirit. "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." (Gal. 5:17)
3) Anti-love, every one of them. Earlier, Scripture says, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal. 5:14). Each one is a perversion, a corruption, of true love.
4) Your ticket to hell. "Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
At this, the beginning of a series on the fruit of the Spirit, let's take a closer look at these counterfeits.
They invite you to bring a talk, a lesson, or a sermon on prayer. Your first thought, if you are normal, is, "Who me? What little I know about prayer you could put in a thimble."
There may be some Christian somewhere who considers himself an authority on prayer, but I have yet to meet him. The truly godly men and women known as prayer warriors will tell you they feel they have just enrolled in kindergarten.
I'm confident of this one thing: our Heavenly Father is not happy with any of His children claiming to have the inside track on how to approach Him, how to "get things from God," "how to make prayer work for your benefit," and how to get on His good side.
Jesus Christ has done everything necessary for us to enter the Throne Room of Heaven. See Hebrews 4:16.
Jesus Christ has opened the divider between man and God and we have an open invitation to "come on in." See Hebrews 10:19-22.
If you and I are not entering God's presence and lifting up our needs and petitions and interceding for those on our hearts, it's not God's fault. It's not the fault of Jesus, who did everything necessary to make it possible for us to pray effectively.
So, come on in. Come in humbly, for this is the Throne Room of the Universe. Come in worshipfully for the One on the Throne is the Lord of Lords. Come in boldly because your Authority is the Blood of Jesus. Come in regularly because you live in a needy, fallen world. Come in with Jesus: in His Name, by His blood, for His sake.
That's what we want to teach others.
But there are some things we do not want to teach, no matter how great the temptation.
Here are three cautions for anyone about to stand in front of others to teach prayer.
That's the only way to say it: "Fun Discoveries." You're reading the Word, you find a passage that holds your attention, you find yourself fixated on it, even if you don't know why, and then it all begins to fall into place.
If you are a preacher, what happens is that you bring a sermon from that passage. However, instead of moving along to a new text for the next sermon, you can't get that one out of your mind. The Holy Spirit is holding you for that lesson and holding the lesson for you. "Did you think the revelations of Heaven could be downloaded and understood from one week's study?"
It's frustrating to the pastor. Since you've already preached on it--forcing you to work through a passage until you make it your own, so to speak--you can't very well preach another one from the same text. "Hey folks, I know I preached this two weeks ago, but I've found more in it since then."
Well, you could, but you don't. Much of it would be a repetition of what you just got through saying. But you keep thinking about it. It stays on your mind, maybe even bugging you a little.
And then it happens. You see something there not seen before. That passage, that text, opens before your eyes and unfolds. You see a progression to its content, insights you had missed before, and a connection to other teachings in the Word.
That one especially--a connection with teachings and stories found throughout the Bible--is one of the most fun things to happen when you have lingered with a text longer than normal, you have patiently studied and thought and prayed over it, and now the Holy Spirit has rewarded you.
All of this is preparatory to sharing how this happened with me recently. Here's the text.
But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who threaten you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you.
And when someone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back. However you want men to treat you, do to them.
But if you love those who love you, where's the profit in that? Even sinners do that. And if you do good to those who do good to you, where is the profit in that? Sinners do that. And if you give to those who give back to you, where's the profit in that? Sinners give to one another, expecting a full return on their investment.
But love your enemies. Do good, and give, hoping for nothing in return. And (two things will happen:) your reward will be great, and you will be (called) sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. (Luke 6:27-35)
Someone once said the unexamined life is not worth living. I imagine that's right. In the same vein, I would like to propose that the unexamined worship is not worth offering.
Worship that is not examined tends to sink to the lowest common denominator.
Being retired now and in a different church almost every Sunday, I see every kind of worship service you can imagine. Some give evidence of much thought, serious planning, and loving attention. Others appear to be the same form that congregation has followed since the Second World War, with even the hymns being unchanged.
Once or twice the thought has popped into my mind that it would be interesting to stop that deacon in the middle of his prayer or the song-leader in the midst of his/her exercise and say, "Hey! What is this all about? Why are you doing this?"
Those are good questions. I suggest anyone involved in worship leadership pose them (and a few others) to himself.
Why are we doing church this way? Why do we sing these hymns and not those? Why do our prayers sound the same week after week? What would happen if we changed the format? Why would I want to do that? What are we doing here on Sunday mornings? What is our purpose? What do we expect to get out of this?
In the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown said there is no heavier burden than great potential.
Young pastors know the feeling. You arrive on the field, move into the parsonage, meet with the leaders and begin your ministry. You are feeling your way through each day, trying to find the handle for everything, hoping to get a sense of who this church is and how you can best minister to it. Meantime, you're still trying to find out who you are and what the Living God had in mind by fingering you of all people to turn into a pastor. And some well-meaning member comes up to you.
I just want you to know, pastor--we are expecting big things from you. We waited a long time for you. This church is sitting on ready. All we need is a leader to point us in the right direction.
That sounds so good on the surface. They believe in you. They want you to succeed. They're on your team.
Maybe.
Hope so.
But those words carry a great burden. They imply that if great things do not begin to happen soon, the pastor is at fault. All the other parts of the machinery were in place. If the pastor is "God's man," then we will move forward and have great success. If success does not come, then he is not "God's man."
Sound familiar? Bear in mind, this is never stated in so many words. But it sums up the consensus of the leaders of many a good church as they welcome the new preacher.
A great opportunity. A heavy burden.
Woe to the preacher who does not meet the expectations of those who called him and who convinced the congregation he was the greatest thing since Billy Graham.
I have known pastors who were relieved of their employment because (ahem) they did not live up to their potential. According to the leaders, the pastor did not deliver on the expectations they had been led to believe would follow his ministry.
Did the pastor over-promise or did the committee over-expect? Or is something else going on here?
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and that I am your servant.... (I Kings 18:36)
Elijah was confronting the prophets of Baal when he prayed that brief but potent prayer. But he was not trying to win these renegades over. His target audience was the multitudes of Israel who in their shallow affection were going with the God (or "god") who could produce the most dramatic fireworks that day.
I have prayed that prayer.
Many a time as I entered the sanctuary for the Sunday morning service, I sent up this plea. "Lord, there are a few people in this church who are roadblocks to us doing anything. They fight me on every proposal. And they do it in Your Name. Father, please--let them know that You are God and that I am your servant."
Now, you would think it was the second part of that prayer that occupied my attention, that what I wanted most of all was for this bunch of nay-sayers to get clear on the fact that God in Heaven had sent me as His ambassador. But you'd be wrong.
Before anything else, I wanted the same thing Elijah wanted for God's people that day: for them to settle once and for all that the Living God is Lord and in charge and in this place. That He is "God in Israel."
I am personally convinced that the trouble-makers in most churches do not really believe in God. Oh, they do, theoretically. If you press them, they can tell you when they professed faith in Jesus and were baptized. Call on them to pray in the service and they will render up an invocation or offertory prayer with the best of them. It's just that they don't really believe God is on the premises.
The proof of that is how they play fast and loose with the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ. The way they mistreat the family of God shows beyond a doubt that the "God" they serve is some kind of absentee landlord who is not around to defend Himself and they can do as they please.
These people need to know two things: The Lord is present and He is on the job; and that man standing behind the pulpit is on assignment for Him.
One is just as critical as the other. As essential. As vital.
The problem in writing a blog is that you are putting your opinions and convictions out there--exposing them to the world--where they can be shot down, vilified, criticized, and dissected. Yes, and also praised, lauded, reprinted, reposted, and remembered.
That's what keeps us blogging, I suppose, the knowledge that someone somewhere reads it and is blessed or helped, encouraged or instructed.
The trick is to think seriously about what you're writing and not post anything you're not prepared to go to the mat for. Nor do you want to take a position on something sure to enrage a lot of your readers, particularly if the payoff is poor. That is, you will not see me attacking President Obama's position on almost anything on this website. The issues are far more complex than most of of my friends think them to be, I'm not smart enough to know all I should on the subjects, and most importantly, I have something far more important in mind than who's in the White House at the moment.
I'm working for eternity here.
This is a God thing for me.
You'll not find me opening up an article here announcing that "this morning God told me to tell you" anything. Even so, I know the inner voice of the Lord. As all believers, I know what it is to hear God speaking to my heart, guiding me toward this and away from that. (See John 10:27 and Psalm 23:3b)
Still, it's a precarious business, writing a blog, particularly if your ego is fragile and constantly in need of a booster shot. (Instead of "ego," however, I prefer to call it a reasonable self-confidence. I am well aware of Paul's admonition "not to think more highly" of oneself than we ought to.--Romans 12:3)
So with preaching.
A man--and sometimes, but less frequently, a woman--stands in front of a handful or a multitude, opens the Word and declares "Thus saith the Lord."
He's putting himself at risk.
In a typical congregation there are people sitting before him who are offended he would:
--be so presumptuous as to speak for God.
--call himself a holy man with the right to address them on celestial matters.
--overlook the flaws in his own life and counsel them as to theirs.
--speak to them about death and the afterlife, make claims about Jesus and God, when we know so little.
Welcome to the ministry, young pastor. The antagonism you are picking up from a few members of your congregation is normal, widespread, and probably good for you.
If you can't handle that, you had no business accepting the call to represent Jesus Christ before mankind. This, incidentally, is what your call into the ministry amounts to. I hope you are clear on that.