ONE NIGHT STAND

Over the last few years my imagination has been seeking an analogy to explain the great irony of misplaced faith: that those who "believe" in Jesus so as to avoid hell end up remaining as lost as anyone and are perhaps even tougher for Jesus to reach than those who have never heard of Him.

The analogy that popped into my head this morning is perhaps a bit crude, but I think it's on target. You can be the judge:

The person who comes knocking on Jesus' door only to avoid hell is really only seeking to use Jesus as a means to a selfish end.

He is like the guy who approaches a beautiful girl for a date. She's receptive and excited. She sees so much potential.

Unfortunately for her, in reality, he is only interested in her body. 

He picks her up that night looking clean-shaven and respectable. He is all dressed up and takes her out to dinner. Even picks up the check. He makes small talk. 

She gets her hopes up. Maybe this is the beginning of a long term relationship. 

But at the end of the evening, he makes it clear what he's really after. 

She is insulted. She says, "I don't even know you," as she slams the door in his face.

He's left outside her place with no second chance.

The truly sad thing is this: not only did he not get what he came for, but he is left clueless about what he passed by in his selfishness.

She was the perfect woman and she was ready to give her love to him. He could have had a lifetime of love and passion and companionship, and he missed out because he had had his eyes set on too little. An anonymous one night stand. 

He ends up with nothing, but he could have had it all. 

90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN

A man at my church gave me a copy of a book to read. The author is Don Piper and the title is 90 Minutes in Heaven.

And yes, as you can tell from the title, it is one of those first hand accounts of experiencing death, getting a glimpse of the afterlife, and then returning to life.

I never know what to make of such stories. I tend to be guarded in believing anything out of the ordinary. 

I know some of these afterlife stories have proven to be outright lies, but this guy seems pretty sincere and he's been telling the same tale since 1989. Several eyewitnesses could testify to him being pronounced dead at the scene of a terrible car accident. 

The rational, Western, scientific side of my brain wants to say that if the man's telling the truth, what he's really describing are scenes his dying brain created from the trauma or false memories produced during his time on the operating table while doctors worked for hours to patch him up.

But what if he is describing a true out of body experience? What if his experience was exactly what he believes it was?

Most of the Christian books I have read in the last few years have been dense and academic. 90 Minutes in Heaven is not like those books. 

This book forces me to wrestle with a very revealing faith question: 

When it comes to the "afterlife" (which is really going to be true life at long last) - do I honestly believe it is going to live up to its biblical reputation? 

Do you and I believe it for ourselves? 

And do we believe it for those who are dear to us?

If we do ... how come so many of our prayers amount to begging God to delay the afterlife for ourselves and our loved ones?

TOLD YOU SO

When the appraiser came to look over our house two weeks ago - with Melissa and I desperately hoping for a greenlight on our refinance proposal - he reported back to the bank one thing that HAD to be corrected before he could give his blessing.

It concerned the water heater. It needed "a drain line on the overflow valve".

Melissa suggested I call my brother, owner of the family hardware store to see if it was something I could do myself.

A drain line - connecting what to which drain? 

A plumbing project worthy of holding up the bank proceedings? Do it myself?

I couldn't imagine. 

Besides, the top of the water heater looks to be held together by hard water deposits. Even if this necessary drain line turned out to be a problem most people could DIY, I pictured myself spending hours on the project, buying a whole bunch of tools, and ultimately wrecking the water heater itself.

So I didn't call my brother, I called a plumber.

Better to have a professional do the job right.

Right?

After canceling once last week, the plumber came this morning. He attached a brass fitting to the valve on the side of the tank and from it he dangled a couple of feet of blue plastic pipe, open-ended and pointing to floor. 

Like this:

Ten minutes later, he wrote the invoice and said, "I won't charge you for the parts, since it was such a simple thing."

Nice! Thank goodness, because I felt foolish.

Him: "... no parts - just the minimum visit fee and labor: $191.25."

Me: #@&%!!!

To her great credit, Melissa has - so far - resisted the urge to say "I told you so". 

BAPTIZER

I started as pastor of Sardinia Baptist Church about a year and a half ago. I am proud to call myself American Baptist. 

But it wasn't until today that I became a baptizer. 

This morning I had the privilege of baptizing a sweet father and his young son. It was the son who had made the first step a few weeks back - and I was thrilled to see dad join him in coming forward to seek baptism.

The joy I felt in being a part of this morning's sacrament caught me off guard. Nothing could have brought me down.

Long ago I had noticed in the Apostle Paul's writing a pronounced warmth he seemed to feel toward the individuals he had baptized as he went planting churches. After this morning, I can see that there is a certain connection which I feel toward Jason and Braden.

A responsibility too, I suppose. I truly want to see them grow in their faith.

And to cap the morning off perfectly - two more individuals came forward seeking baptism for themselves.

God is at work at Sardinia Baptist.

I pray I get a whole lot more experience in baptizing new brothers and sisters in the coming months and years!

PURSUE LOVE

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard points out a crucial distinction which earnest believers need to be conscious of when reading Scripture. It's worth quoting him at length:

Love, Paul ... tells us, is patient, kind, free of jealousy and arrogance, is not rude or self-seeking, is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs, takes no joy in things that are wrong but instead in what is true. It always protects, always accepts, always hopes, and endures everything. And it never quits (1 Cor. 13:4-8). 

People usually read this, and are taught to read it, as telling them to be patient, kind, free of jealousy, and so on - just as they read Jesus' Discourse [the Sermon on the Mount] as telling them to not call others fools, not look on a woman to lust, not swear, to go the second mile, and so forth.

But Paul is plainly saying - look at his words - that it is love that does these things, not us, and that what we are to do is to "pursue love" (1 Cor. 14:1). 

Yes!

The Christian faith is not about praying for a "get-out-of-hell-free" card.

And it's not about cleaning up your act and flying straight. (And then judging others who aren't as righteous as you are.) 

It is supposed to be about transformation. 

BAPTISM AND NOAH'S FLOOD

I have given myself the daunting task of preaching from 1 Peter 3 this coming Sunday in preparation for two baptisms at the end of the service:

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Even without the weirdness of Jesus "proclaiming" something to "spirits in prison" (which has all the theologians positing different theories), there's a lot to unpack here.

Among the most controversial outside of the prison spirits is verse 21 saying, literally, "baptism ... now saves you". 

What does Peter mean? We obviously are not to take this at face value. (Although some believers have done so in the past.) The rite of baptism in itself has never saved a soul.

So then what?

The people of Noah's day had the same three problems that humanity has had since Adam and Eve:

1. The Sin Problem
2. The Death Problem
3. The Satan Problem

These are the same three that we all struggle with to this day.

The flood of Noah's day was God's response to a rapid multiplication of these problems. You had the rogue angels spreading harm among humans, the human tendency to judge good and evil for themselves, and the ruin of death that reigned outside the Garden. 

So God sped up the ruin which was already in progress even though it grieved Him. He unleashed the chaos that humanity chose over walking with Him. It was both judgment and mercy. A quick death rather than a lingering death. 

When Peter brings up the waters of baptism, he makes it clear that it isn't some bath to make you physically clean. 

No, in baptism you are plunged into the waters of chaos and death - with Christ - and emerge alive on the other side. With Christ. Death Problem solved.

Peter also describes baptism as "an appeal to God for a good conscience". This phrasing deserves some more chewing, but this is where I am so far: It seems to me that our "conscience" is that part of our spirit that (sometimes reluctantly) agrees with God on HIS definition of what is good and what is evil - instead of judging for ourselves. 

We might read "good conscience", then, a bit differently than the normal sense of "I've done nothing wrong". A GOOD conscience might just be one which is truly functioning in tune with God's will. 

The "appeal" that Peter equates with the core of baptism would then be an "earnest seeking after" a fully functional conscience. A genuine desire to do good. (Which the Holy Spirit will give the power to do.) 

Anyway, all of that is meant, I believe, as the answer to the Sin Problem. 

Notice that the Satan Problem is addressed at the end of verse 22 where "angels, authorities, and powers" are subjected to the authority of Christ - an authority He shares with His disciples.

All three problems are tackled and solved in Christ and that reality is reenacted in the rite of baptism. 

UGLY SIDE OF CHARITY

More than once, when my family and I lived in Haiti we witnessed the UGLY SIDE of charity: The well-intentioned generosity of individuals and ministries frequently fostered deep dependency and entitlement.

Mere handouts often brought as much harm as good.

(And sometimes more!)

In the 1990s, the World Bank conducted extensive interviews among the poor of 60 different nations, speaking to 60,000 individuals. The central question was straightforward: “What is poverty?”

While answers did include the lack of material things –food, shelter, medicine – the interviewers were caught off guard by what the respondents stressed most. They used words like “shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness.” *

Too many traditional charitable organizations address needs of the human body and neglect the less obvious needs of the human spirit.

Consider how receiving a handout may temporarily relieve physical hunger while also exacerbating the individual’s sense of shame and powerlessness!

I am glad to be affiliated with Mission Resource because our approach stands apart from other “charities”. A timely loan to buy a sewing machine, fertilizer, or raw materials enables an individual to earn what it takes to provide for the body while empowering their spirit. The loan becomes an exit ticket from shame and hopelessness.

It’s an entirely different approach to combating poverty –and one that I can be fully on board with!

*Check out the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert for an eye-opening discussion of these things. This information is from pages 49 to 51.