Whups... We Forgot One.

We Fundamentalists tend to be big on obeying God's commands. We recognize the truth of I John 5:3 that the measure of our love for God is how well we keep His commandments. Done properly, this isn't legalism - we're not asserting that keeping a list of commandments will get us saved, but rather that we keep those commandments because we are saved.

But there is a command that Fundamentalism has forgotten. I see it neglected by the people in the pews, and I see it neglected by the preachers in the pulpits. In the times when it ought to be most obeyed, I see it most neglected.

The command? Philippians 4:4 : "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice."

Yet as I look about the pews (and our church is far better in this regard than many I've been in), the evidence of joy is so rare. Even the smiles often look like they barely extend beneath the makeup. (On the ladies, of course! Fundamentalist men don't wear makeup. Unless we're on TV. Then we wear lots, and the smiles often look even more fake.)

I'm not saying we should cover up our problems - on the contrary, we should be bearing one another's burdens, and to bear a burden, you have to know about it. But if we're obeying the Lord's commands, shouldn't that be evident to someone who looks? Shouldn't it show in something other than a pasted on smile that we're rejoicing in the Lord?

When I listen to believers, there is far more discussion of trouble than triumph in most conversations. Often, even the praises are a lead-in or a cover-up for the complaints. "All things work together for good, the Lord knows what He is doing, and He sure is good, but this bad thing happened, and that bad thing went on, and there's this terrible situation, and I don't know what we're going to do, and Aunt Edna is really sick, but God is in control... I just wish I was!" Well, okay, I rarely actually hear that last part verbally, but it sure seems like it's trying to get out past all the effort to make complaining sound like faith. We work hard to obey the commands to witness, to be different from the world, and so on... but we forgot the command to be joyful. Yet our joy is one of the greatest differences between us and the world and one of our greatest testimonies to the world.

What makes me saddest in this is what I see from some of our leaders. I attend a preacher's fellowship, and there is a time set apart for prayer. Now, I don't much care for the balance of the requests, but that's a post for another day. What really bothers me is the sense of unmitigated despondency that accompanies them. I understand that there is a rightful sorrow over sin and that our hearts may cry out in compassion for those in pain, and even that we may shed tears both within and without at the agonies of soul we endure. But is there any time we should be more joyful than when we approach together the throne of grace of our beloved Savior and God of all?

Through the compassion and the tears, our approach to that throne should be unmistakeably joyful. There is so much in Scripture about joy - in fact, one of the very REASONS for Scripture is to give us fulness of joy (I John 1:4). We who lead the flock of God ought to be leading in joy as well as in soul-winning and doctrinal conviction. I know well the weight that rests upon a pastor's shoulders and heart. Fortunately, I know also the God who helps him lift it.

How can we rejoice in every situation? Because Christ is with us in every situation. Our joy is dependent only upon the Lord, not the circumstances -- it is, after all "the joy of the Lord." We are told to "rejoice in the Lord." I think this is simply enjoying our relationship with God. Since He is perfect, yet infinite, there are infinite pleasures in His companionship. There are no skeletons in His closet, no dangers and no risks save to our flesh in knowing Him more deeply. We are blessed literally beyond measure in having this relationship. Shouldn't we enjoy it?

And if we do not, should we not confess that as sin and plead that the Lord would restore to us the joy of our salvation? It's a command, after all.

So Nice to Talk without the Shouting

I had another post in the works, but things have gotten crazy around here because of Christmas ministry madness, and I wanted to mention something else anyhow. I've really been enjoying the conversation with author Bruce Baker in the comments thread of this post. Even if we never come to complete agreement on the subject, we have found much common ground, and I, for one, have been forced to carefully think through my position, the Scriptures I'm resting it on, and the implications of it. Thought like that is always a good thing.

It's a given that believers, even Fundamental believers, won't walk into every conversation agreeing with each other on every point. It should be a given that our mutual goals are the glory of God and all of us getting closer to Him. That means we need to be gracious in our communication with each other, especially where there are points of disagreement. I'm not talking about compromising on the fundamentals - I'm talking about discussing the Scriptures in a way that edifies all involved and all who see and hear. That doesn't mean ignoring the differences in viewpoints, but it does mean not shouting about them and descending into name-calling over them. It means discussing them with clarity and gentleness.

It's such a blessing to find other believers who view interaction about the Scriptures the same way. Conversations like this give me greater hope for Fundamentalism than even our apparent growth rate does.

What Is Christmas?

I'm becoming more convinced all the time that there are really two Christmases. They just happen to be celebrated around the same time of year.

The first is that one we celebrate by putting up manger scenes, singing "The First Noel," and talking about the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Then there's that other one, the one we celebrate by having lots of family we can barely stand over, singing "Jingle Bells," and maxing out credit cards in an attempt to buy a few moments of the illusion of love. (What, me, cynical? Nah.)

For the longest of times, I didn't realize they were two separate things. Fundamentalists have either been opposed to them both or viewed the secular one as a corruption of the sacred.

But I'm thinking more and more that they are two separate celebrations. One is God's people celebrating an immensely important Scriptural event with representations of that event (like manger scenes, gifts, and songs about the nativity). This one strikes me as a lot like the Jewish people celebrating Purim. There's no command in the New Testament that we celebrate Christmas, and there is no example of believers doing it. That doesn't make it wrong to commemorate such an important event in Scripture. God didn't command the Jews to celebrate the feast of Purim, yet they did it to glorify Him for the deliverance recorded in the book of Esther. (Of course, this means that if a believer doesn't want to celebrate Christmas, there's no obligation to do it, either - the Apostle Paul made that pretty clear.)

The second Christmas is not a Christian thing - it's a cultural thing. It's a celebration of family, winter, and goodwill. This strikes me as being a lot like the 4th of July. There's nothing in the Bible about July 4th. There are lots of people who go beyond what I think is Scriptural in their celebration of this great nation. Some use it as an excuse for drunkenness. Some go way too far in glorifying an earthly nation to the detriment of their true allegiance to the Kingdom of God. Some have turned the event into an exercise in bad theology, applying promises and commands to the United States that were really only given to the nation of Israel. Yet there's also nothing wrong with thanking the Lord for the nation He's placed us in, supporting its troops, and remembering its heritage. Just because some people abuse the holiday doesn't make it wrong for me to use it. That applies to Christmas - even the social aspects like the sleigh bell songs - just as much as it does to the 4th of July.

Of course, then we have to have a cage match, no holds barred, in 15 rounds over what to do about Santa Claus. Is it okay to tell the kids he's real when he's not? Is it better to encourage them to sneer at their poor misguided and deceived friends led astray by their parents?

I'm going with the "It's a bad idea to deliberately deceive your children" theory - but I don't get irate about a picture of Santa any more than I do a picture of a troll in a children's book. They're both pretend conventions of our society. Treated rightly, they're not wrong. The fact that they can be abused doesn't mean they should never be used.

So whichever Christmas you celebrate, I hope you enjoy it. If you celebrate the version of Christmas most Fundamentalists love, I hope you remember that Christ was born (though almost certainly not on Christmas day), and I hope you remember why He was born. I hope you remember that His birth has nothing to do with hot chocolate, Christmas trees, and how much money you spend on each other.

If you celebrate society's Christmas, have fun with your family, laugh at the clean shows, and leave your credit cards home when you go shopping. Just don't turn liberty into license, abusing that which you've got every right to use.

We Want God's Power... On Our Terms

The call came in around 2:30 AM. When the phone rings at that time of morning, as soon as the grogginess passes enough to realize that it's the phone, not the alarm clock or the fire alarm in a dream, even as the pastor stumbles out of the bed to grope for the phone, his heart is racing. His stomach feels like an alchemist's experiment in turning flesh to lead. It's never a good thing when someone calls much after 10 or much before 7.

In this case, the man on the other end was desperate. He was out of town, he'd been in a drunken brawl, and he had narrowly avoided getting put in jail. His drinking was wrecking his marriage and his life. I had only met him a time or two, but he had family who went to our church, and when he called them in the middle of the night, they told him that I truly wouldn't mind if he called me. His wife had been urging him to get into church and let God help him with the drinking, and he was finally ready to quit fighting the battle alone.

We set things up for him and his wife to come see me, and it became immediately apparent that the drinking wasn't the only problem. The dynamics of the relationship were unhealthy from top to bottom. We established that both of them had trusted Christ for salvation in years past, but they hadn't been in church or doing anything for the Lord in quite some time.

The man seemed serious about living for the Lord, and there was an immediate difference. He stepped away from the drinking completely, and he got into church. He started attending regularly and talking about being involved.

Then his wife put on the brakes. She'd wanted God to stop her husband from drinking. But she hadn't really wanted God to take over his life. Quite simply, she still wanted to run his life. She just wanted to use God as a tool to change something she wanted changed. She'd just signed up for a non-drunken husband, not one who wanted to go listen to God's Word and hang around with other Christians more than once a week. Why couldn't he just show up one Sunday morning a month for his God fix to keep him off the booze?

The guy was trying, he really was. But he adored his wife, and he'd been going along with her for the sake of peace and harmony for a long time. So when she wanted to go to a country music concert instead of church that time, he went along. And when she put a beer in his hand, he drank it. She decided she would rather take her chances with the alcohol than risk ceding control of her marriage and her husband's life to God.

I don't think they've been back to church since that concert. He is back to drinking, of course. The marriage is struggling, and I don't think either of them are happy.

God is not a tool. Yet so often, we think of Him that way (and by extension, Christ's body here on earth, the church). We want someone to change - but we only want them to change this specific detail. Sometimes it's ourselves we want to change. But God isn't just interested in changing details. He's in the business of transforming lives. When we're ready for that, He's able to do it. But He won't be used by anyone. He doesn't just want our cigarettes or our beer - He wants us. If we want His power in our lives, we're going to have to be willing to let Him control what He does with it.

I've Had It Up to Here with Anger

Fundamentalists often seem like angry people, don't they? That's certainly the steriotypical perception, and I'm afraid I've met some who reinforced that steriotype.

In fact, some of us are even proud of our anger. We call that good kind of anger "righteous indignation."

We're righteously indignant about the President wanting to use our tax money to murder babies. We're angry about the Muslims and their thousandth mosque in the U.S. We're angry about the New Evangelicals being willing to compromise the identity and work of Christ in the name of Christ. We're righteously indignant about the drug dealers and the pornographers and... well, pretty much anything that makes us mad, so long as we can justify the anger by saying the other person or group is sinning. If they're sinning in what they're doing, it's okay for us to be angry about it. Hey, God gets angry at sin, so shouldn't we?

Sometimes I think our movement's key verse is Ephesians 4:26a, "Be ye angry, and sin not." So long as we don't actually punch someone in the snoot or blow something up, isn't it okay to be angry, especially over sin? To listen to our preaching, sometimes, you'd think we actually have an obligation to be angry.

There's a tiny problem with all this anger that's flying around: the Bible. In our rush to excuse anger we think is justified, we've grabbed a magnifying glass and expanded Ephesians 4:26a so large we can't see the rest of the page.

What's on the rest of that page? Ephesians 4:31-32. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Wait... we're supposed to put ALL wrath and anger away from ourselves? Yup, that's what it said.

Is that an aberration we should explain away, doing a little exegetical gymnastics to reinterpret it? Um, nope. Psalm 37:8 says, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil." In the preceding verse, it even tells us not to fret about people who bring wicked devices to pass. Rats... guess it's not okay for me to vent in anger over people, even if what they are doing is wrong.

In fact, as I perused the Scriptures, I couldn't find any situation in which God commanded an individual to be angry, nor could I find a case in which He commended a person for being angry, let alone acting in that anger.

Time and again, God warns against being hastily angry, acting in anger, or staying angry (that's the point of Ephesians 4:26 - we all feel anger sometimes, but we shouldn't let it linger or cause us to sin.) Yes, God acts in anger - God also enacts vengeance and seeks worship, neither of which belong to us.

Anger is fundamentally wanting to right a wrong, I think. It's being upset the world didn't work the way we thought it should, that someone didn't act the way we knew they should. But I'm not sure we have a "right" to that. Yes, people wrong us, sometimes. But ultimately, every sin is against God. He's the one who established the order of creation and gave the dictates of morality, not us. He has the right to be angry, to set right the wrongs, to expect the world to work as He desires. We don't. It's not our job to set things right - it's our job to do right.

We may experience anger as an emotion - but we ought not live in it or act on it.

God told us in James 1:20, "For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." Yet I hear sermon after sermon that seems fueled by anger and wrath, rather than by compassion and love. Is it any wonder that people don't seem moved by the preaching at times, despite the energy poured into it and the eloquence exercised in it? When the energy is man's, the work accomplished is rarely God's.

Another Thought-Provoking Post

This from Jon at Stuff Christians Like. He's got some great insights, especially in his Serious Wednesday posts. You don't have to agree with them all to get a lot out of some of them.

A Deceptive Fundamentalism

As a pastor, I say very little about politics from the pulpit. In general terms, I decry the deceptiveness and immorality of many in our political system. In moral terms, I preach against things like abortion and homosexuality. But the followers of Christ are never called upon to change laws in their political system to make other people be moral. We ought to be salt and light in a dark world, but our primary role is bringing people to Christ. If enough lives are transformed by Christ, society will change. Thus, I use my pulpit to speak on and from Scripture, with social and political commentary only when a social or political issue concides directly with the passage of Scripture I'm preaching from.

That doesn't mean I don't have political views, nor that those views are not informed by my Biblical convictions. As an involved member in our society, this post caught my eye. For quite a while now, the advocates of global warming as a manmade phenomenon seem to me to have been acting more like steriotypical fundamentalists than most of the Christian Fundamentalists I know. I don't approve of what was done to gain the information revealed in that post - but I'm well aware that God sometimes uses one wrong to expose another.

We Love Being Scared

The other day, a man came to talk to me. He was vastly concerned about the new hate crimes legislation signed into law by President Obama. His concern was that we would no longer be permitted to speak openly about what the Bible says about homosexuality. It seemed that he was worried that if we would get in legal trouble for speaking the truth, we might stop speaking truth.

I have come to the conclusion that we Fundamentalists like being scared more than horror movie junkies.

At a preacher's fellowship recently, we were warned that the government already has numerous concentration camps built and being readied for Christians. Any day now, secret police might come along and snatch us up for unspeakable torments and death. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. There were supposedly hundreds of these camps, but no one had seen one or knew where one was or knew anyone who had seen one or knew how all this construction had been funded. But it sure was fun to be scared by those elusive camps for a couple minutes before we headed out to eat fried things.

Now, I'm a cynic. I know that. I'm not even really ashamed of it. Although I give individual people the benefit of the doubt because that's what love does, on the whole, I believe that human beings are just plain messed up. I know that Christians in many places are abused, persecuted, and even killed. I suspect that if I live out my natural days, before I'm dead, we'll see that here in the United States. I'm not blind, and I can see the writing on the wall - we're heading into the limitation of free speech in the interests of protecting the feelings of special interest groups.

But I'd rather have truth than fear. The hate crimes legislation is, in my opinion, a betrayal of justice. All victims of crime should have the same legal protections, regardless of their gender, race, religion, and yes, even morality. To give some groups extra protections is to create an inequality in justice, for the unprotected now have less protection from violence than the protected. In that, I think this legislation is a foolish, short-sighted thing. (And why in the world is it still attached to a defense bill?)

However, this hate crimes legislation specifically states that freedom of speech is protected. I am free to oppose homosexuality, telling the truth about it as sin and a moral choice. I'm simply not allowed to go assault or steal from a homosexual - but if I break the law, committing an act of violence or theft against anyone, I should be prosecuted for that, anyhow. This legislation allows for extra penalties if I select a homosexual victim because he's homosexual, but typically, I think the penalties for violent crime are too lenient, anyhow. I'm sorry to drizzle on the fear-parade... but this law does not forbid us to speak truth. It merely adds extra penalties for things we shouldn't do anyhow. It takes blind justice and gives it a peep show sponsored by special interests - but it doesn't limit my free speech or the right to exercise my faith.

If we Fundamentalists intend to be taken seriously when we trumpet legitimate messages of impending doom, we need to be careful to get our facts straight and be able to support our statements. Truth needs to be more important to us than the rush of momentary fear. (Or the sense of bravery we feel when we determine to stand up to the scary thing, no matter the cost.)

The time will come when that bravery is needed. The time will come when some of these scary things will be realized, and that time is now for some believers around the world. But our weapon then is the same as it is now - truth.

Let's just be careful to speak the truth as accurately as we can. We don't need lies or misinformation. If we are to well represent He who is love and the Truth, we best do it with careful, loving truth.

Keeping Our Balance

Wisdom is the principal thing, God tells us in Proverbs 4:7. Principal means number one. Numero uno. The most important quality a person can develop. (Yes, more so even than faith, hope, and love - all of those are guided by wisdom and without wisdom will swifty go astray.)

But what does Godly wisdom look like? A high IQ? Lots of post-grad degrees?

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace." (James 3:17-18) There's God's answer: real wisdom is first pure, then peaceable.

Fundamentalists have latched onto the first of those characteristics of godly wisdom. That's why I'm a fundamentalist - purity of doctrine and life is essential. That comes first. Any peace we have must be a peace in purity. Any unity must be a unity of agreement with truth, not an agreement to ignore truth.

Time and again the Scriptures tell us to separate from both wrong doctrine and wrong behavior. The refusal of the church at large to obey our Lord's commands about separating from those who preach a false gospel or live like the unsaved is one of the great blemishes upon the cause of Christ in our age.

Wait, the Bible says we should refuse to associate with people who live in blatant sin but call themselves Christians? "But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat." (I Corinthians 5:11)

But what about working together with unsaved people for good causes? "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (II Corinthians 6:14-18)

But what about people who call themselves Christians, but believe that salvation works differently than what the Bible says - surely we can associate with them, even if we don't agree with them, so long as there is some benefit to it? "As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:9) "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them." (Romans 16:17)

The wisdom that is from above is first pure - there can be no peace between the true gospel of Jesus Christ and any false gospel. There can be no peace between the righteousness of Christ and the filthiness of sin. The followers of righteousness in Christ ought not to fellowship with the followers of a different gospel or of unrighteousness, no matter whether the people call themselves Christians or not.

Different people draw the line in different places, but a line must be drawn, and that line must not be drawn short of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ - otherwise, we disobey God, arrogantly thinking our wisdom is superior to His.

But there is a second characteristic of true wisdom.

In this characteristic, many who call themselves Fundamentalists have failed miserably. Once purity is assured, peaceableness should be the next concern. Even in our purity, we ought to seek peace. The point of all that separation is not to inflict harm on those we separate from, nor is it to assert that we are better than they in ourselves - it is to restore the erring brother to right living and to bring the person who has misplaced faith to genuine salvation in Jesus Christ.

While many Fundamentalists point at the blatant disobedience of many evangelicals (particularly the so-called "New Evangelicals") to the commands for separation and purity, I fear that we have often just as blatantly disobeyed plain commands of Scripture. "And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themsleves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." (II Timothy 2:24-25)

We have ignored for ourselves the warning that only by pride comes contention. We have excused our lack of gentleness with proclamations of purity. We have attacked our brothers instead of lifting them up. We have assaulted the people most in need of help. We have become the brawlers and strikers that pastors are forbidden to be. We insult, though Jesus condemned it. We act in anger, though we were told to put all anger and wrath away from ourselves. And in doing these things, we neglect godly wisdom. We have refused to seek peace, instead choosing to disobey our Lord and embrace conflict.

Many Fundamentalists find smaller and smaller things to argue, fight, and separate over. We went from separating over the fundamentals of the faith to separating over any major doctrine to separating over any doctrine clearly taught in Scripture to now separating over human interpretations and applications of doctrines taught in Scripture. In our prideful pursuit of purity, we have lost our balance. (Yes, I suspect that much of this is rooted in pride, because only by pride comes contention, and only through pride does it seem likely that men who know so much of Scripture would so plainly disobey the commands to be gentle and seek peace.) Too many no longer care about being peaceable.

Many Fundamentalists are bold speakers of truth. We need that. But we need to remember to speak the truth in love.

We cannot compromise our purity of doctrine or life - to do so would be to disobey our Lord. But we need to remember in our pursuit of purity to also seek peace and to be gentle. It can be a difficult balance to keep. But the wisdom that is from above has precisely that balance.

Choosing an Imaginary Hell

People often complain about Fundamentalists or Baptists talking about hell. "Scare tactics," the cry is. The implication is that we're bullying people into doing something on the basis of an imaginary boogie-man.

Based on Scripture and the way Jesus Himself talked about hell, I think we're more like a fire alarm, alerting people to a very real danger and giving them the means of deliverance.

Here's an excellent post by John Piper on the subject of hell and why people choose it.

The Old Bait-and-Switch

I used to think bad marketing was good evangelism.

It seemed the height of wisdom to advertise a big youth activity - pizza, games, skits, fun for all! Fliers would go out. Teens would be urged to play it up to their friends, to hype it at school, to urge it on their family.

In reality, there might be rather pathetic cheese pizza, 15 minutes of games, a skit performed by some people who ought to have known better, and then the youth leaders had fun herding all the teenagers into a big room to listen to a 45-minute sermon.

Sometimes, this was effective in getting people to trust Christ or make decisions for Him - the gospel is a powerful thing, even if it's abused by poor marketing. Depending on how dynamic or funny the speaker was, sometimes many would come back for more. But just as often, the kids who came were one-shot wonders, annoyed at being tricked into a church service when they were promised games and fun.

Now, believe me, I've got nothing against pizza. I'd be thrilled if they'd give it its own food group, and maybe put it down at the bottom of the pyramid, with roughly the same recommended portion as grains, veggies, meat, and dairy combined. (After all, those are all on a worthwhile pizza - why can't we just eat lots of pizza and call all those things done?)

I love games, and I especially love the kind of games that get played at youth rallies - lots of enthusiastic violence and mayhem, little refereeing, plenty of potential for exciting injuries. And if someone is really funny, let the man work!

But I don't like deception. And we don't need deception. If the world needed more games, Christ would have founded Nintendo instead of dying on the cross. If it needed more pizza, He could have served that instead of representations of His own flesh and blood at the last supper. If it needed more laughs, He could have told jokes instead of going to the cross in silence. What the world needed was good news - the gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins and risen from the dead. So that's what He gave us. And that's what we have to give the world.

There's no need to dress it all up and trick people into coming. Teens (and adults, for that matter) are desperate for real answers, for peace with God, for love, joy, hope, purpose, and acceptance. We've got all of that. Why hide the true power of what we possess behind a facade of skits and games? We're not here to entertain - we're here to transform.

I still have youth activies (and young adult activies, and so on). And they still involve lots of potential for injury, loads of pizza, and we laugh all the time. But I don't try to cover it up that we'll be looking at the Bible and talking about what it says, either. I try to make it clear what people can expect.

As we've done that, as we've renewed our focus on the Bible, as we've been up-front about when we're having a Bible study, when we're having a game day with a brief challenge, and when we're having a church service, the Lord has blessed. We're seeing young people saved, we're seeing them bringing their families to church with them, and we're seeing God work.

We don't have to trick people for Jesus. His truth is far more powerful.

"Asking 'Is It True?'"

The other day, I came across this post at Stuff Christians Like. It’s a neat post reminding us of God’s unconditional love for us and our position in Jesus Christ. The believer has already been made to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and we have been made suitable to that station. When Christ took our sinfulness on the cross, He granted to us His righteousness. When He took our death, He gave us His life.

That’s our position in Christ. But how we live is sometimes something completely different.

Back in the days when I could still play baseball without risking a pulled groin and aching for two days afterward, I was playing second base at a friend’s house.

The other team took only an inning or two to figure out that if they slid into second feet-first, deliberately aiming for my shins, I would get out of the way. Thus, even if the throw was beating them there, they could still be safe – and they could steal second at will.

Kids being kids, it took approximately 2.35 nanoseconds for this realization to make the transition to teasing and taunting.

Lacking the emotional alligator-hide I developed as life went on, I ended up fleeing home in tears to tell my dad, “They called me a chicken!” (This was especially meaningful to a boy who grew up on a small farm, where chickens are not only fearful, but also the smelliest and most disgusting of barnyard creatures to clean up after. Pigs got nuthin’ on chickens when it comes to stink.)

Looking back now as a dad on that situation, I’m sure it caught my dad a bit off guard. We parents are never really prepared for the crucial moments that sneak up on our children’s lives. Being the practical fellow that he is, he improvised and responded, “Well, are you?”

I suspect that his intent was to bring the conversation to the same place that Jon took it with his daughter. My presumed answer would be, “No, I’m not a chicken!” He could then say, “Well, then it doesn’t matter what they say, does it? You and I know it’s not true. Sticks and stones, blah, blah, blah.” (Sorry, parents never actually say, “Blah, blah, blah. But sometimes, I think we might as well.)

That’s how I expect he expected the conversation to play out. But his question brought me up short. It was one thing for neighborhood kids to call me a name and laugh at me – it was easy to disregard that as them being mean. But my dad wasn’t mean. And now he asked me to evaluate myself: was I being a chicken?

I was forced to admit to myself that, yes, I had been a chicken. I was afraid of getting my shins bumped, so I was running away. I admitted to my dad that I had been a chicken (though he was gracious enough not to comment on smell), and I headed back over to the neighbor’s.

The passing years have dimmed my memory of the exact course of events, but I think the next person or two who slid into the base aiming at my shins connected. And I didn’t run away. I hung onto the ball, and I fell on top of whoever slid into me. I wasn’t big, but I was bony, and that swiftly put a stop both to the teasing and to the problem my friends had with casual base-theft.

Sometimes, we’re hit with an uncomfortable accusation, whether from within or without, and we have to ask, “Is that true?” Is it true that I’m lazy? Is it true that I’m being a lousy husband/wife/dad/mom? Is it true that I’m making bad decisions in some area of my life? Is it true that I’m weak, cowardly, and insufficient?

It might be comfortable to shrug it off and rest happily in our standing in Jesus Christ. But what we do and how we live needs to match what we are in Him. And sometimes that means we need to face those tough questions, acknowledge the uncomfortable answer, and go change what needs to be changed.

Sometimes, instead of reminding us how wonderful we are in Jesus Christ, God, our Father, reminds us of how pitiful we are apart from Jesus Christ. Fortunately, this is never to beat us down – it’s to lift us up to living on the higher plane that is our birthright in Jesus Christ.

When He reminds us of failure, it’s to bring us to victory. When He confronts us with our weakness, it’s to grant us His strength. When He disciplines disobedience, it’s to motivate us to obedience. When He shows us our sin, it’s to bring us to repentance and His righteousness.

We simply have to be honest about what we are and be willing to change what He tells us in order to live as He has made us.

How to Win, part 5 - Finding Fulfillment

Why do people give in to addictions in the first place? Now, the first use of a cigarette or the first glance at porn or the first sip of beer may be a flippant thing - but what keeps us coming back? For you, the specific answer may be different than it is for me. We're all individuals.

Nonetheless, I think the root is pretty similar for all of us. We perceive a need or a desire, and we fulfill that need or desire through the addiction. Usually, we know the addiction is wrong - but it's the place we go to satisfy that need. As long as the need remains unmet elsewhere, the temptation is always going to be strong to return to the addiction.

If you're going to beat the addiction, you usually need something else to satisfy the need you perceive, something else to slate the hunger you feel for whatever you find in drink or drugs or porn.

Where do you find that fulfillment? The short answer is, "In Jesus Christ." If you've never been saved, you don't know the peace and joy that can come from walking with Him, no matter how bad the circumstances are. If we trust and obey Him, He really can meet every need. That won't take away the chemical element of an addiction, but it certainly does take care of the spiritual element.

Yet going beyond that, there are many legitimate outlets that He uses to meet our physical and emotional needs. What need does your drinking fill? Find the legitimate place you can get that need met. What need does your smoking fill? Find where you can get that apart from the addiction.

For me, it was porn, and it was rooted in the need to perceive respect and intimacy. Yeah, porn is a lousy substitute for a real relationship - any intimacy and respect that exists there is purely imaginary. But I think that's what I kept coming back there for.

What's the legitimate place to find that? In marriage, of course. Proverbs 5:15-20 reveal that an exciting, fulfilling relationship with your spouse is a great guard against immorality. And I Corinthians 7:2-5 are perhaps even more explicit. Spouses should protect one another from the temptation of immorality by being actively, joyously intimate (physically and emotionally) with each other. In fact, marriage is the ONLY legitimate place for sex, and it should be a haven of respect, as well.

The excuse comes easily, though. He/she won't let me. I'd love to have the real thing, but I'm stuck with the imaginary, because my spouse won't give me the real.

It's the same with drinking and drugs, a lot of the time. Those are used to escape problems. But they don't make the real problem go away, do they? They just make it easier to ignore.

Fundamentally, this is laziness. Instead of drinking or doping away the problems, go solve them with the Lord's help. Instead of turning to the imaginary intimacy of porn, make your marriage work.

Don't you think you'd work a little harder on your problems if there really were no other way out? Don't you think you'd work a little harder on making your marriage work right if you really didn't have any other outlet? You have to stop letting the addiction be the back door out of the hard work of solving problems. Odds are, the addiction not only is not helping you solve the real problems - it is contributing to them. So long as you allow yourself to walk out that back door, you are preventing yourself from getting the help you need or having the courage to take the stands you need to take in order to have the need met in a legitimate way.

So instead of turning to the imaginary and artificial, go back to the legitimate places of fulfillment. Start with Jesus Christ, and then use what He gives you, rather than substituting an addiction for a morally legitimate solution. I guarantee you it's more satisfying. It's one of the keys to long-term victory over addiction - getting the need met where it should be met.

It's All About Me!

I’m so important to God that Jesus Christ would have died on the cross just to save me, even if I were the only person on planet earth.

Let’s just take a moment and bask in the amazing love, mercy, and grace of God.

Let’s think about how precious we must be to God. Let’s focus on all the neat things He has done for us. Let’s make it all about us. Salvation is all about me, isn’t it?

Whups. Wrong answer.

There is blessed truth in some of what I just said. Jesus Christ really did die for my sins (along with the sins of the whole world). He really did reach out to me when I was in sin, an abominable wretch with no goodness in me and deserving of no goodness from Him. This proved His love beyond all possible doubt. He really does love me, and He really is my friend, not just an impersonal God. I'm not just a number to Him - I'm His precious child.

But it’s not all about me. Truly, it’s all for His glory. And even in the human scheme, I am not a stopping place for God’s love. I was never intended to be merely a destination for His love.

I John 4:12 says, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.” The people of this world cannot see God. But they can see you and me.

God is love. (I John 4:8) But since they can’t see God, the only representation of the character of God that people have is how we who claim to be Christians treat them.

Only when we love them like God loved us is God’s love perfected in us. That doesn’t mean God’s love is flawed until we do something to make it right. That means God’s love hasn’t accomplished its intended purpose until it has flowed through us and touched someone else.

When we make salvation and the love of God all about us, we bottle up something that was meant to flow. We try to make a battery out of what should be a wire. We aren’t saved so we can sit around feeling snuggly in the love of God – we are saved so we can take His love to other people. Only when we do that is His love doing what it was meant to do in our lives.

Putting People in the Wrong Places

In the business world, people work their way up through the ranks. It's a great system, far better than so many social and economic systems where a person is locked into a particular role simply because of their race or parents.

I'm afraid, though, that many of our churches are applying this model to something it shouldn't apply to.

Here's how it works in many fundamental churches:

Young guy decides he's called to preach, goes to Bible college. If he's smart, he usually finds a way to work in a local church for at least some of the time he's in school.

Young guy graduates from college with minimal experience, but a fair bit of book-learning, and possibly the most balance in his education he'll have at any point in his life.

Young guy looks for a church. At this point, there are several courses open. Strangely, big, healthy churches that can afford to pay well enough to comfortably support a family and that aren't likely to explode or implode within the next year rarely hire a kid fresh out of school. They're able to attact someone with experience, someone who has proven himself. Sometimes, the young guy becomes an assistant pastor at one of these healthy churches, where he learns the ropes of big-church ministry under an experienced pastor. These positions are limited, though, and frequently, the duties in such a position are very limited too, so that he becomes an expert at one aspect of ministry, but doesn't learn much about the practical side of the rest of it.

Sometimes, he becomes an assistant, but at a church that isn't so strong and healthy - he might have to work part-time or even full-time to support his family, but at least he's getting some experience, and hopefully some training from an experienced pastor. Unfortunately, if the church can't afford an assistant, it's often because the church has some kind of problem. Many times, the young guy becomes the fall guy when there's a problem. Note that he's also receiving training from someone who is not the pastor of a strong healthy church - sometimes, this is because the pastor isn't capable of building and operating a strong, healthy church, and thus, his training is flawed.

Sometimes, he goes straight into the pastorate himself. But since the strong, healthy churches are already being served by experienced, knowledeable men, he winds up with a small, unhealthy church. The problem is that while he's got a pretty balanced education, there's no way even a graduate degree can prepare him for all the tensions and problems a small, struggling church can have. So the young guy gets a trial by fire. Sometimes, he gets fed up and quits. Sometimes, the church demonstrates why it's small and unhealthy by running him off. Sometimes, he manages to learn on the job fast enough to keep his job and survive to either build the church up or to be noticed by one of those strong, healthy churches, where he goes as soon as he can.

There's a problem here. The guys who actually have the knowledge and experience to navigate the troubled waters of small-church ministry aren't in the small churches anymore! They've taken easier, better-paying positions at large, healthy churches. The guys who are getting the problem cases are the ones who are the least prepared and qualified to handle them.

Now, I know I'm speaking in generalities here. I know guys who came out of Bible college quite capable of starting a church or taking a troubled church, and by God's grace, and without too much hindrance from the congregation, making it work. I know that in some ways, it's a different skill set to administrate a church of 1,000 people, as opposed to shepherding the small flock of 40. (This is part of the problem with the young guy being an assistant in a large church, then expecting to step out and pastor a small church successfully.) The man who can do one well may not be able to do the other well.

I also know that faithfulness in the small is required before responsibility in the large, and it would perhaps be a greater disaster to put someone incompetent in charge of a church of 500 than a church of 50.

But rather than sorting out who is best suited to what kind of ministry, we do it like the business world - throw them in the water, sink or swim, and the guys who make it get the cushiest spots on the island.

Now, I'm not about to disgard the traditional Independent Baptist model of pastoral selection. I don't want some group over me telling me which church I have to go work for, or telling churches who they can and can't hire as pastors. I especially don't want said group shuffling me from church to church every few years - it can take years to really become effective as pastor of a new group of people. It takes time for their vision to adapt to your leadership and for you to learn the personalities, strengths, and weaknesses of a congregation.

The current system takes men who could have been good pastors and throws them to the wolves before they are ready. It takes men who belong in administrative roles or primarily preaching roles and has them in situations the Lord never gifted or equiped them for.

Do I have a great solution, a better system?

Well, the solution is not a system. The solution is to get back to choosing pastors based on Biblical guidelines rather than business-world models. A church is not a business. The right pastor is not necessarily the person with the most apparently-ideal education, background, and family makeup. The right church for a pastor is not necessarily the one that pays the best or is the most comfortable.

Both churches and pastors need to step away from a business-world way of thinking and ground their decisions in the Word of God, trusting the Spirit of God. God knows the right man for the job, and He knows the right job for the man. If we let Him put the bodies together, I suspect they'll work a whole lot better.

What do you think about churches and how they get pastors?

How to Win, part 4 - Run Away, Run Away!

There’s this guy named Tito. Tito is not a nice guy. Tito likes hurting people, especially me. He hangs out on a street corner I walk by on the way to work, and pretty much whenever I see him, we get in a fight. Not just a little disagreement or shoving match – a fight, the kind that doesn’t end until someone pulls the two of you apart or one of you can’t get up.

Those fights hardly ever seem to go well. Two fights ago, he cracked two of my ribs. In the course of the fights with him, I’ve lost a couple teeth, gotten three concussions, dislocated both shoulders, hyper-extended my left knee, broken my wrist, and forgotten how many stitches I’ve ended up needing. But I’m not going to let that guy beat me, so I keep going back there, and even though I lose more than I win, and even though I get hurt badly every time I lose, I keep fighting him, because, hey, I’ve got my pride.

Probably every man who reads this is nodding, either hoping they’d do the same thing, thinking about the times they’ve done the same thing (and proud of it), or wishing they had the guts to do the same thing. Men, we’re stupid sometimes, aren’t we? (It’s not like we’ve got a monopoly on stupidity; I could tell you stories, if I didn’t value my life… but isn’t this pretty typical guy thinking? Isn’t this rooted in pride, and don’t we know where that leads?)

There is no guy named Tito. Well, okay, there is, and he really is a tough guy, so, Tito, if you’re out there, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m not exactly a cupcake, but I’ve got NO desire to end up facing off with you.

But Tito or no Tito, there is temptation. It’s like that big bruiser just waiting for you to come by so he can pick a fight with you. Now, you may be a tough guy yourself, but you know you don’t always win those fights. And whatever your win-loss record, you know that when you lose, man, it hurts.

Paul told his protégé Timothy in II Timothy 2:22, “Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” He didn’t say to stand up to and fight the lusts head on – he told him to run, Timothy, run.

You can’t lose a fight you’re not in. So why go by that corner where the bruiser is waiting for you? Much of the time, we could beat addictions a lot more easily if we got serious about cutting off the sources of temptation.

Problem with drinking? Don’t go near a bar, and don’t hang out with friends who drink. Problem with drugs? Yeah, it might get ugly, but find a way to cut yourself off from your supply, even if it means turning people in to the police. Problem with lust/porn? Get a filter and/or tracker (such as Covenant Eyes) on your computer, and stay away from entertainment and places that make it hard to control what you look at.

This will probably mean changing the places you go, the things you usually do, and the people you hang around with. But then, do you really want to stay the same? If this will help you escape that addiction, isn't it worth it?

Get smart. You know yourself enough to know when and where you usually give in to temptation – the best defense is no be there.

If you’re trying to reduce the battles you lose, there are two things you can do – prepare to win more of the fights you’re in, and avoid any fight you can. A smart Christian will do both of those. You can’t avoid every temptation, because this is a pretty messed-up world we’re in. But you should avoid every one you reasonably can.

Don’t stroll by the corner hoping you can beat Tito this time – take another way to work, so you get there with your ribs intact.

The First Month

It has now been a little over a month since everything changed.

It hasn't been an easy month, and it hasn't been a perfect month. At least twice, I've caught myself deliberately looking at things I shouldn't have, and on many others, my eyes have lingered on things they should have glanced away from. But I praise the Lord that despite the struggle and small failures, I haven't gone back where I came from. I haven't looked at porn once in that span. That's not to my credit - I tried and failed for 20 years to leave that stuff behind but was never able to overcome it. It's entirely due to the work of Jesus Christ in my life.

I thank Him also for my wife. I was determined to let God change my life and to do what is right no matter what her response was. I knew that my confession would hurt her terribly, and I had no idea how she would respond. By God's grace and His work in her life, she's reacted as well as I could have expected. There are still some rocky trails to travel, but at least we're still traveling them together.

Things aren't quite what I expected, incidentally. Between stepping away from the addiction and moving away from goofing off on computer games and the like to focus more on ministry, I figured I'd have a terrific influx of time and energy. I figured I'd finally get caught up on the backlog of work I've got and be able to really work ahead on some things and do some things I've wanted to tackle for a while. It turns out that there still isn't enough time in the day/week. I still feel behind, and though I've been able to get more done, I guess, it still seems like it's not enough.

However, that's countered by what feels like an increase of power. It's strange... even when I wasn't consistently getting victory, I think I was still right with God most of the time. But there is such a difference between that and what I have now, where the pattern is victory instead of failure. It's hard to put a finger on what the difference consists of - but I think there is a real difference. It's not that I have time to do that much more, or even that I do it that much better - but it seems to have more effect. Or maybe that's just perception. But I don't think so.

So that's what the first month has been like for me. If you've beaten an addiction, what was the first month free like for you?

The Life of a Pastor....

I've been wanting to post here on nearly a daily basis, or at least on a regular 3-4 time a week schedule. But doing this quietly and doing it so that there is not obvious overlap between what I post here and what I use in ministry places a handicap on that.

Oddly, the life of a pastor is not all sitting around composing thought-provoking blog posts. Ministry is rather like juggling when there's one more item in the air than what you can normally handle. Whenever you feel like you've finally gotten the hang of keeping it all up there, somebody tosses another knife or torch or chainsaw into your pattern. Every once in a while, you're able to get far enough ahead to retire one of the items and breathe for a moment. In those moments, I try to blog. But the last week has not had many of those moments.

(And no, reading articles about the NFL has nothing to do with this time shortage. Nothing at all.)

So, I'll try again tomorrow. Not the NFL reading - there's only two more articles I care about to read tomorrow - the blog posting.

Needing Meat to Meet

I have been accused of not being sufficiently in touch with my feminine side. Come to think of it, I think the accusation was more along the lines of my not possessing a feminine side at all.

Really, I'm okay with that, actually, so maybe I should take it as more of a compliment, even though it was meant as an accusation. Given that the hobby I persue most actively these days involves arm bars and throwing people, it's probably a good thing that any feminine side I might possess is well-concealed.

That being the case, this awesome take on the Christian men's retreat cracked me up.

How to Win, part 3 - Going to the Right Place

I'd love to visit New Orleans right now. The Cajun food, the way the Saints are playing on both sides of the ball, the warm weather, the alligators... ahhh, the destination of my current dreams.

The last place in the USA I want to go is Chicago. Not even the Jay Cutler-led Bears or the deep dish pizzas are enough to make me want to visit that place. The wind, the weather in general, the ugliness of the city, the corrupt politics - it really is the one place in the entire country I have the least interest in visiting.

In fact, I'm so determined not to visit there that I mapquest Chicago from the address of every place I go, so I don't accidentally start heading there. I have bought roadmaps and highlighted all the routes that might lead to Chicago from where I live. I've contacted the airlines and checked into all the flights that lead to Chicago, just to make sure I don't get on one. Even the railroads and the bus schedules have all been checked and memorized to make sure I don't end up going there, even by accident.

I've got pictures of the skyline, and I've memorized a good portion of the city map, so I never drive those streets. There's a calendar of Chicago scenes hanging on my wall to remind me not to visit Chicago and see those scenes. There are menus from 14 Chicago pizza places in my desk, because I definitely don't want that pizza to lure me into going there and have me end up in those places.

I've got a sports card collection that features the complete Bears team for the last 18 years, the Bulls since Michael Jordan started for them, and the last few years of the White Sox. (Nope, no Cubs stuff... why even think about them, since they're not likely to tempt me to go there?)

I have six scale models of the Sears Tower, and in fact, I buy all of my appliances from Sears to remind me never to visit the Sears Tower. I focus on almost all things Chicago in my obsessive determination not to go there. I don't want to go to Chicago. I want to go to New Orleans.

This is stupid.

If I want to go to New Orleans, why am I thinking about Chicago at all? It's not like Chicago is on any legitimate route to New Orleans from where I live. Why buy maps that lead to a place I don't want to go? Wouldn't a much more effective way not to visit Chicago be to prepare to go to New Orleans? It'd be smarter to get maps and schedules for routes I want to travel than to obsess about avoiding the place I don't want to go. It would be smarter to collect things from the place I long to see than to pull together things that remind me of what I want to avoid.

But this is exactly what most of us do with sin, especially addictions. We say, "I want to live righteously. I don't want to fall into this sin." Well, that's great. It's important to define where you are and where you want to go and to recognize that there are places you never want to return. It's important to know what the real problem is and what was stopping you from beating it. It's the next step where we are so often stupid.

After having determined where we don't want to go, we then spend our time, thoughts, and energy obsessing about where we DON'T want to go. That's ridiculous. If you don't want to go there, but there is someplace you do want to go, focus on the destination you WANT to reach. If you're traveling to New Orleans by any legitimate route from where I live, you will NOT end up in Chicago.

This is Biblical.

Galatians 5:16: "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." The way to live holy is not by avoiding sin. The way to avoid sin is by being holy. You don't walk in the Spirit BY not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. You walk in the Spirit so that you DON'T fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Don't focus on the sin you're trying to avoid. In fact, in a sense, don't even try to avoid it. Instead, focus on living for Christ. If you're living for Christ, you will not be sinning. Throw out the maps that lead to sin. Throw out all the souvenirs of it and all the connections to it. Fill the house of your mind instead with the things of God. Plan your journey to the righteousness of Christ, and set foot on that journey, and there is no way you will end up in sin, because they're on completely different routes.

A spiritual battle (which any addiction is) is ultimately fought in the mind. And when you give footholds to the thought of sin, eventually you go back to it. Even if you start off thinking bad things about it, just continuing to think about it eventually corrupts your mind, and you end up back there in it again. (Yeah, I know this from experience.) So don't let yourself dwell on the sin or addiction, even if you're excusing it by trying to come up with all the reasons why it's bad and you'll never go back there.

Know how to ensure that you don't go there? Go someplace else. Someplace right.

Please understand that I'm not saying to pretend there is no problem if you really have one. I'm not talking about shoving sin into the mountain of stuff under a rug. Sin thrives on darkness, and if you're bound by it, you won't beat it by pretending it's not there. But once you've acknowledged that what you're doing is sin, you've confessed it, and you've determined to forsake it, don't even give it a foothold in your mind by dwelling on not going there.

Focus your thoughts on righteousness, and by default, they won't be foul. If you win the battle in your mind, you'll win it in your body too. Philippians 4:8: "Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

This can also be summed up as the replacement principle. If there's something bad in your life you want to get rid of, you don't just chuck it out and expect everything to be super awesomeriffic. You replace it with something good. If you don't replace the bad thing, it leaves a vacuum, and that vacuum is often filled with something you really don't want in there. Instead, you shove out the bad thing by replacing it with something good. If you don't want to take a trip into sin, start traveling toward righteousness.

Don't want to go to Chicago? Then start heading for New Orleans. Don't want to walk back into addiction? Then start taking steps into righteousness.

John Piper on Fundamentalists

John Piper is a guy I have a lot of respect for. I don't agree with the presuppositions that underpin much of his theology (though he can doubtless argue his position far more eloquently than I can mine), but he has a brilliant mind that he devotes to glorifying God and exhorting His people. So I thought this was pretty cool.

Why John Piper doesn't take potshots at Fundamentalists.

How to Win, part 2 - What Is Stopping You?

When struggling with an addiction, it's easy to get blinders on. That way lies frustration, dejection, madness, and probably bad breath.

It's all too easy to get wrapped up in combatting the specific problem. It's easy to berate yourself for not having the sheer will-power to say no to the cigarette, the website, the needle, or the Starbucks coffee. I mean, it should be simple - Just Say No, right? You know it's bad for you, you know it will cost more than it will pay in the long run, so why do you keep going back to the addiction? You end up beating yourself up over and over again because you didn't have the will-power to say no, even though you knew you should. But I don't think the real problem is necessarily will-power.

Remember, it's all spiritual. Yes, even the temptation to have that second helping of your sugar/fat combination of choice can be spiritual, if it's an issue of addiction. Spiritual problems can be pretty sneaky, because they're rooted in a very deceptive place - our hearts. They're good at getting tangled up with each other in the darkness, and that makes it hard for us to beat them, because sometimes we're fighting the wrong one.

A breakthrough came for me this past summer. I was at a Christian camp, and I have no idea what the preacher was speaking on at the time, but it suddenly hit me. My problem was pornography. But that wasn't what was stopping me from getting freedom. What was stopping me from getting freedom was pride. It wasn't the thing on the surface, but it was stopping me from ever getting sustainable victory over the thing on the surface.

In I John 2:16, sin is broken down into three main categories: the lust of the flesh (the desire to feel good), the lust of the eyes (the desire to have good), and the pride of life (the desire to be or be seen as good). Pornography, depending on its use, would seem most obviously to fit into one of those first two categories (as would most things recognized as addictions, I suspect). But for me, it was pride that had me fighting in the darkness, entirely apart from the motives for using the porn (which also centered more around pride than you might think).

It was pride which had me thinking I was different than everybody else, and I really could beat this thing on my own. I'd seen it in other people fighting drugs and alcohol, and I'd always shake my head and urge them to get help, to quit trying to do it their own way and start trying God's way. As long as they kept on hanging onto their own attempts at victory while trying to project a good face to everyone around them, they inevitably failed. Yet here I was, thinking I was going to be different - better, stronger, smarter than everyone else. That was pride.

And when I used the porn, I was deluding myself into thinking I was different than all the other fallen pastors and deacons and fathers and husbands I'd known or heard about. I was the one who was going to get away with it. I was the one who was smart enough not to get caught, strong enough not to let it destroy his marriage and ministry. That was pride.

Those two elements of pride had me wrestling this alone in the darkness instead of dragging it out into the light of God. They had me fighting it on my own, instead of telling my wife. And so although I was sinning with pornography, the chains it had me bound in were formed of my own pride.

For me, it was a huge step when I went to God and admitted I wasn't different from everybody else, I wasn't stronger and smarter and better. I had to go to Him and tell Him I'd do whatever He wanted so I could beat this. And then the chains were broken. They're still constantly trying to reform around me... but now I know what they're made of.

Knowing the battle you're in is a huge step toward winning. Identify not just what you're fighting... but what is keeping you from winning.

How to Win, part 1 - Recognize the Roots

How do you beat an addiction?

First, and most important… recognize the struggle is spiritual. If you don’t know what game you’re playing, you will lose pretty much every time. You’ve got to know the game, the rules, the techniques, especially to play in the big leagues. And when we head into the area of addiction, we’re on spiritual territory, not just physical or emotional or psychological.

There are two huge implications to that fact. The first is that what you are dealing with is sin. It is wrong. This is not merely a disease, not just a weakness. This is sin. This is something that offends a holy God. That’s true of any addiction, I think – we should not be brought under the power of anything but Him. Our wills should belong to Him, to be exercised in accord with what He wants.

While there are physical, emotional, and psychological elements to any addiction, and probably to any sin, ultimately, the fight is not just of the body, feelings, or thinking. It is spiritual. That addiction to alcohol, drugs, or porn is a sin, and if you’re going to beat it, you must recognize it for what it is. So long as it gets whitewashed, renamed, minimized, and justified, it will never be defeated.

I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a lot I don’t know about the physiological element to withdrawal symptoms for a lot of drugs. I’m not a doctor, and I’d probably get tongue-tied if I played one on TV. But I do know that the real fight over whether a person goes back to an addiction is spiritual.

Since it is spiritual, you can’t beat it without Jesus Christ. Even if you beat the substance or the behavior you were trying to change, you just get mired in self-sufficiency and pride, which can have worse eternal effects than any drug.

Since it is spiritual, you can have victory in Jesus Christ. He died for that sin, and when He rose from the dead, He proved He beat it. You can’t beat sin on your own – but you don’t have to. Once you realize that - that you can’t do it, but Jesus Christ already did - you’re finally in a position to really begin to win. Faith in Jesus Christ isn’t just the only way to go to heaven (John 14:6 - “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father, but by me”) - it’s the only way to real and lasting freedom and victory in this life.

Once you’ve trusted Him to save you, you don’t have to defeat that sin, because you died to it in Him, and you’re risen to walk with Him in newness of life (Romans 6). The whole process of getting freedom from addiction starts with the realization that in Christ you are already free. The shackles have been broken and trampled beneath His feet. Any victory you get is something He won.

For some people, this simple realization is all it takes. The battle is in the mind, and once they really believe the sin they fight was already defeated by Jesus Christ, they can just walk away from the battle and never struggle with the temptation again. Many just ask God to take away the desire for the sin (and some don't even ask), and He does. They never struggle with it again.

Maybe their faith is greater than mine, because I wasn’t like that. In Jesus Christ, I am dead to sin. But I’m far from dead to temptation. Yeah, there’s victory in Jesus, but I’ve got to be willing to live in that victory from decision to decision, and all too often, I’ve decided that defeat looked better than victory.

So if you’re dead to sin, but the temptation is still camping outside your door, what do you do when it knocks? How do you live in that victory Jesus already won?

I’ll get down to more practical measures in the succeeding posts… things like accountability and thinking for success. Some of those tools might work in specific situations, even apart from the spiritual foundation for them. In fact, I know that they can and do. But I like to have the whole picture. I don’t like swapping an obvious problem for a more subtle one. I want solutions, not problem exchanges. I like to know where the roots of a problem are, so I can weed them out. And the roots of the weeds of addiction are sin, burrowed deep into the heart of man.

How to Win, introduction

In a comment on my last post, I was asked about my thoughts on accountability. It's a dramatically under-used tool in beating sin in general and addictions in particular. It's not a cure-all, of course; you can have accountability and still fail, and some have succeeded without it. I don't even think it's the most important tool (given its relative prominence to other truths in Scripture). Nonetheless, it's a valuable tool, and it bears discussion. Sin thrives in darkness, and it shrivels in the light. Accountability is one way to shine light on your life.

However, that got me thinking. Instead of just dealing with one tool for beating an addiction or sin, why not address several? So I'm going to do a series of posts on how to get victory over sin and addiction.

For anyone who's wondering, yeah, I'm still clean. I guess if I'm going to talk about how to beat sin and addiction, I'd better stay that way. I'd hate to end up the spiritual equivalent of Jake Delhomme giving an off-season clinic on how to avoid throwing interceptions.

Have you won or are you currently winning a battle against a sin or addiction? What tools did you use, and which ones helped the most? Did you find ways to use those tools that worked better than others?

Two Tough Weeks

We're now up to the two week mark since everything changed. I won't say they've been easy. There has been struggle on every front. There's no sense of sportsmanship or fair play with Satan, and he's got no problem kicking you when you're down and assaulting you when you're weak.

These two weeks haven't been easy, but they have been victorious. Satan may attack while I'm weak, but God's strength is made perfect in weakness. To God be the glory; great things, He hath done.

Why I Don't Believe in Religion

I don't believe in religion. Yes, I'm a Fundamentalist. But, no, I still don't think much of religion, for the most part. I know of only one place in the whole Bible where the term "religion" is used positively, and it has nothing to do with how a person gets to God or has a home in heaven or receives eternal life.

Why would I be generally opposed to religion? Because religion, at its core, gets the most important thing wrong. Religion is man's efforts to please God. It's usually all wrapped up in what you do and how you do it. Often it brings in rituals and rites, observances and sacrifice. It's usually rooted in morality, and it often has some fine things to say about the duty of man. But when you come right down to it, religion is man trying to make himself good enough to please God. Or it is man trying to find the right levers to pull to make God happy enough to accept him. It is man trying to work his way to God.

That's backwards. Man can't ever, on his own, be good enough to please God. Romans 1-3 systematically proves that no one, not even the most religious, is good enough to please God through his works. And the clincher is that truly, none of us seek after God. Lots of people call themselves seekers - but they are usually trying to find their own way to God, to blaze a path of their own devising.

Religion has it all wrong. Man can't work his way to God. God came to man.

Religion has it backwards. Men don't seek until they find God. God isn't lost, needing us to find Him. WE are lost, needing Him to find us. Jesus Christ came to this world to seek and to save that which was lost.

I don't really have a religion. I have a relationship with God, based on the work of Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for me. I'm not some poor searcher standing at the door of heaven, frantically pulling at levers on a cosmic board, hoping to find the combination that makes God happy and convinces Him to let me in. I've already been brought into the household of the King. It wasn't because of anything I did or any good that I am. It was all because of what He did. He sought me and He saved me. All I did was believe in Him to receive that gift of salvation.

So don't call me religious, please. I'm trying to please God, sure, but it's not so that He'll let me in. Instead, call me a child of God, trying to please Him because I am in.

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us."

What Is a Christian Fundamentalist?

In order to address what I mean when I call myself a Fundamentalist, I'm going to have to take a little time off from my busy schedule of practicing my anti-Obama chants, working on my AK-47 marksmanship, and developing bombs. That makes me mad enough to blow something up.

Oh, wait. I don't mess much with political stuff (especially in my role as a pastor), I don't own an assault rifle, and I've never built a bomb. (Well, that egg-drop project back in high school might have come close... but nobody got hurt, aside from the smell. The fire wasn't really all THAT big.)

Despite the impressions you may have gotten from media outlets (which can rarely be troubled to make careful distinctions - it's hard to clarify who really is what in a 600-word article or 2-minute television news report), Christian Fundamentalists have virtually nothing in common with the Islamic Fundamentalists or Hindu Fundamentalists who have done such violence recently.

The reason the media can apply the term "fundamentalist" to all of us is that we all take what we believe seriously, and we're deeply attached to core tenets of our faith. But our faiths are radically different, and that's what gets missed in the popular image. I don't know of a single self-professed or accepted-by-the-community Christian Fundamentalist who has committed any act of violence in the name of his faith. We don't kill people for God, and we don't blow things up for God. We're willing to die for our faith - but we would never kill for it. That would be a foolish denial of the very fundamentals we stand for.

So if I'm not defined by radical politics or violence, what makes me a Fundamentalist?

A Christian Fundamentalist is one who holds to and is willing to stand up for the basic truths of Christianity. The list of fundamentals differs from person to person, but they pretty much all boil down to the essential truths for salvation, and those all revolve around Jesus Christ: who He is, what He did, and what we must do in response. This is no surprise - it's a Biblical idea, even though the name is recent. The Apostle Paul repeatedly told people to know doctrine and to be willing to separate from (not work with or fellowship with) people who denied core truths or who lived in blatant sin. The Apostle John nailed it down really clearly in I John 4:1-3. The person who accepts the truth about Jesus Christ, whatever else they may be wrong about, has a relationship with God. The person who hasn't believed the truth about Jesus Christ, whatever else they may be right about, has no relationship with God. When a person teaches the truth about Jesus Christ, whatever else they may get wrong, they are helping the cause of Christ in that at least. When a person teaches error about who Jesus is and what He did, whatever else they may get right, they are hurting the cause of Christ.

The difference between a Fundamentalist and other Evangelicals is not in what they believe about the gospel - both believe that salvation is by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, as the Scriptures make so plain. We all agree the Jesus Christ is God the Son who came to earth as a man, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. The difference between Fundamentalists and the rest of the Evangelicals is the Fundamentalist's willingness to obey the commands to evaluate and separate from those who don't believe the gospel.

Am I a Fundamentalist because I hate people? No! I'm a Fundamentalist because I love God and want to do what He says. (This is the test of love, after all: "If ye love me, keep my commandments.") I'm a Fundamentalist because I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ to be the most important truth this world has ever seen - so important that I can't pretend I'm the same as someone who rejects it. I want to share it with anyone who will listen - but I don't want to work with someone who won't, at least not joining together in so-called ministry.

That's what makes me a Fundamentalist - believing the fundamental truths of Christianity and being willing to take a stand for them. The movement by the name of Fundamentalism has gotten tangled up in a lot of other things, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't. (It's made up of people, even people like me, which guarantees it won't be perfect.) At its heart, though, Fundamentalism is about the gospel of Jesus Christ and obeying Him.

Now I think I'll go and make another ... sandwich, a sandwich! What, you thought I was going to make something explosively dangerous, just because I'm a Fundamentalist? Well, okay, that description might suit any sandwich I make.

The Deed Is Done, And The Chips Are Falling

I delivered the letter last night. One of the toughest things I've ever done in my life. I still don't know how it's all going to play out - you never do when you hit someone with news that big and devastating. There has to be time for it to sink in and the reactions to begin to distill.

But something is working... I'm up to 10 days now, which might be a record in recent history. And the victory is really all due to surrendering to God and doing it His way.

The End of a Letter, The Beginning of Nervous Waiting

The letter has now been finished. I'll probably give it another once-over sometime this afternoon, then print it up. (Yes, it's typed... painful though it may be, I want her to be able to read it, and that ruled out my handwriting.) I don't much like it... it's so hard to write something that's not rambling, doesn't include justifications or excuses, and breaks things as gently as possible.

I expect the best opportunity to give it to her will be tomorrow or Tuesday night. Feel free to pray for us.

One Week Down, One Eternity to Go

I'm now seven days clean. The letter still hasn't been completed, much less delivered, but I'm hoping to accomplish that in the next few days.

Seven days. So little, set against most of a lifetime of failure, and even those seven not without their momentary stumbles of thought or glance. But by God's grace and with His help and doing it His way... hopefully just the first days of an eternity of victory.

That Growing, Dying Dinosaur

"So, Sonny, back in my day, there were these guys called Fundamentalists."

"Really, Grandpa? They were like what, professional fun-thinkers, game-makers or something?"

"Heh. Not if you believed Mencken."

"Who?"

"Never mind... he's deader than they are now. Though a lot of those Fundamentalists had a lot more fun than folk realized. Sneaky fun-havers, a lot like the Puritans."

"Who?"

"Never mind - the Puritans wouldn't have liked the Fundamentalists, either. Mostly, the fundies just said and thought stuff people didn't like. Got 'em in all kinds of trouble."

"Wait... I heard about those in school. They're the ones who were always blowing themselves and other stuff up until they just died out, aren't they?"

"Well, that's pretty much what you'd expect to happen to people who blow themselves up, isn't it? But nah, you're thinking of the Muslim kind. I'm talking about the Christian ones. Mostly they just blew up at people until they blew themselves out and all dried up because nobody wanted to be one."


Will grandads and grandsons be having this conversation in twenty or thirty years? Probably, if this article by Michael Spencer in the Christian Science Monitor is correct, and grandads who tell their sons about the good old days and all the bad things that happened in them haven't all gone out of style or into nursing homes before then.

The consensus among those who even have a clue what Fundamentalism is (more on that in another post) seems to be that Fundamentalism is a dinosaur. The meteor that smashes the movement into oblivion like an out-of-date species has already crashed someplace up north. The dinosaur is breathing in all that dust, and its lungs are getting black on the inside like a five-pack-a-day smoker (not that most Fundamentalists would ever condone smoking, even among dinosaurs, unless, of course, it's a way to make dinosaur jerky). The dinosaur is about to keel over and die any day now, if not from lung cancer, then from the cold because of all the dust it didn't breath in and get stuck to the inside of its lungs.

Now, Mr. Spencer is a smart guy. He's probably running a couple of post-graduate degrees hotter than your average Fundamentalist, too. He says some very sharp things in his article, some very insightful things that I agree with completely. He's also humble enough to admit that he's definitely wrong in some of his predictions. And I think I know what one of them is, because in his routine filling-in of Fundamentalism's death certificate, he missed one obvious, glaring thing about the dinosaur: it's still growing.

The dinosaur of Fundamentalism really is pretty old-fashioned in a lot of ways. In some of them, it goes beyond old-fashioned into timeless and eternal, I think. In others, many of its members have ideas and practices that make Amish buggies look positively space-age. But Fundamentalism is not wheezing its last breaths and wasting away because its throat is clogged with second-hand asteroid smoke.

Like it or hate it, understand it or have no idea what it really is, Fundamentalism is alive and growing. A recent survey of independent Baptist churches (the most common culprits in the harboring of Fundamentalists) done by Global Baptist Church Planters (there's a book coming out with Paul Chappell, based on the study) found that among respondents, the average church has grown by 20% since 2005. It reported that the average independent Baptist church was seeing people saved, baptized, and becoming faithful members. Maybe this dinosaur is so resilient it made one of those desperate space missions starring Bruce Willis to blow up the asteroid, then immediately junked the technology because, of course, all technology not at least one generation out of date is probably evil unless it's really useful.

I am not honestly convinced the study was enormously scientific, from what I've seen of the data. It tries to be aware of and compensate for obvious deficiencies, and they made it on the largest scale they possibly could. However accurate the actual numbers are, the general trend confirms what I've seen. Fundamentalists are out there, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, which the Bible calls, "The power of God unto salvation." Thus, even as mainstream evangelicalism staggers toward the brink of destruction, its lungs clogging further with every step, this group that has always been out-of-step with the rest of the group now finds itself marching in a completely different direction.

Many Fundamental independent Baptists have somehow managed to hang onto a portion of the Bible that is strangely disappearing even faster than the dinosaurs did - the bits that tell them to tell other people about Jesus Christ and to be bold and active in doing it. (This is the "aggressively evangelistic" trait Mr. Spencer referred to.) And it kind of makes sense - the people getting their message out there are the people who most likely to propagate themselves, wouldn't you think? And the people actually doing what God told them to do with His power are the ones most likely to fully realize it, aren't they?

Maybe this dinosaur is better equipped for the post-meteor (whatever that mysterious meteor of destruction might be) world than most of so-called Christianity. Maybe it's even good enough at the core of what it does that it can even deflect or evade that big rock completely (even without Bruce Willis' help), though tough times are surely coming. It may not be good with technology, and it may not be as socially conscious as some other dinosaurs - but neither social consciousness nor techonology are the power of God unto salvation.

This dinosaur ain't dead, and it ain't dying. Whether it scares you or excites you, it's growing.

Upcoming

To let you know this blog won't be all self-examination, introspection, and navel-lint-picking, despite the opening post, here are some of the things I plan to look at as we go along (not necessarily in the following order):

Why I don't believe in religion.
Why I do believe in sex.
Don't make me take my earrings off.
What is a Fundamentalist, and do they really get to blow things up a lot?
Fundamentalists and movies, television, and video stores. Ah.... Netflix.

What would you like to hear from a Fundamentalist on?

Just don't ask me to reveal my identity... talking about this stuff can get a guy in big trouble... though maybe not as big as this.

The Courage to Pay the Cost

Everything changed on Saturday, September 12, 2009.

But that’s not what this blog is about. Not primarily, anyhow. I want this blog to be a frank recounting of the life and observations of a (sometimes) thinking Fundamentalist, a young pastor who likes to watch, think, speak, and sometimes laugh about what he sees and thinks.

However, there’s a danger to speaking out about a movement (in good or in ill). There’s even a danger to describing your own life and how you see things. That danger is pride. It’s thinking you’re somehow better and smarter than the people you critique. It’s trying to make yourself look good for the people you’re addressing. Both of those are all the easier when the setting is anonymous. They’re easier yet when you’re trying to be funny while you do it.

So I’m going to tell you I’m not perfect. But I’m going beyond that obvious statement (usually a prelude to, “…but here’s why I’m more perfect than this person is!”). The second purpose of this blog is to lay bare one of my most shameful imperfections. I hope something which loves darkness will shrivel in the light.

*deep breath*

I’m a pastor. I’m a Christian, a married man, and a father. But I have struggled with pornography in its various forms for years. Okay, for decades, and the sad thing is, I’m still young. I’m sick of losing that struggle, of being dominated by that addiction. It’s time to win.

And so, on Saturday, September 12, 2009, I quit. I quit trying to fight the battle my way. I quit trying to do it alone, without letting anyone else even know the struggle was going on. I gave in to God instead of caving in to sin, and I determined that I was willing to do whatever He wanted, whatever it cost to win.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and that means He already triumphed over this sin. If He could triumph over it even in His death, He can give me the victory in my life.

But few meaningful victories are won without courage and without cost.

For years, I’ve kept the struggle with internet porn a secret from my wife (and everyone else too, for that matter). The one time I admitted to visiting a porn website, it hurt her terribly, and it’s had repercussions in our marriage ever since. I’ve been afraid that telling her I’ve fallen to it not just once, but throughout our years of marriage, will hurt her too badly for her to endure it and possibly wreck our marriage. If my marriage is wrecked, then my ministry is ruined too. That’s a real danger, and a terribly high cost for me. I have so much to lose.

In short, until now, I haven’t had the courage, and I’ve been unwilling to risk the cost to win the battle.

Now I’m writing a letter to her, putting it as gently as I know how, and pleading for her forgiveness, hoping for her help. I hope to give it to her in the next several days, when the opportunity is there for her to respond as she will. Perhaps I'll tell you how that goes.

Sin thrives on darkness, and it thrives on fear – my actions have been motivated by fear, and they’ve had me fighting a black thing in the darkness. No matter how she responds, whether in forgiveness or in anger, and no matter what it costs me, I’m going to win this battle, by God’s grace and through His power. Doing what is right is finally more important than doing what is safe.

There’s another factor here, though. As a fundamental pastor, if I were to admit to regular people in my church or to other preachers that I struggle with this, it would very likely end my ministry. Though everyone quietly knows that almost everyone either is struggling with or has struggled with this, when the knowledge becomes public about a particular person, that individual becomes a peculiar sort of pariah, looked on with either condescending pity or sneering scorn. A problem with porn is a quick route out of the pastorate.

Yet when I help other people fight a sinful addiction, be it alcohol, drugs, or porn, one of the best things I can tell them is to get someone or several someones to keep them accountable. Have people who know about your struggle and will keep checking up on you. Don’t slip back into the darkness where the sin thrives, but force it out into the light if it wants to ensnare you.

That’s the second purpose for this blog – since I can’t come clean, so to speak, with people who know me in real life, you, the hypothetical reader, are now my accountability. I’m going to try to be completely honest here, and I plan to give frequent updates to let you know how I’m doing. If I go a bit without posting, someone jog me with a comment or email.

This kills two birds with one stone – it’s a continually humbling reminder that no matter what criticism I may level at another’s ideas or practices, and no matter what praise I may heap to myself, I’m among the chiefest and most despicable of sinners. It also gives me the accountability I need to get victory over one of my oldest and most hated foes.

Perhaps my recounting of this battle in the days to come can be a help to someone else. I hope so. But even if no one ever reads this, or no one ever cares, I’m going to win this battle, because I gave up fighting it my way. It’s all God’s now, and He’s already won.

I’m under no illusions that this will be easy – remember that I’ve struggled and failed time and again for decades. There are steps to victory I haven't listed here in a single simple blog post; maybe another time. But now it’s time to stop fighting and start winning. I hope you’ll come with me on this journey of victory.

So, in case you’re out there and are ready to step into the light too, what do you struggle with? Are you winning? I’m four days clean. How about you?