Rich Mullins Quote...

"Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken..."     - Rich Mullins (October 21, 1955 – September 19, 1997)

The above quote was given just prior to Rich's death at a concert.  Leading up to his death, he lived on a Navajo Indian reservation in Tse Bonito, New Mexico in a hogan (traditional Native American hut built into the earth) and taught Navajo children music and Christ.  He gave all of the proceeds from his music sales to his church and charities and he was paid the national average salary at that time which was around $40k per year.  He gave millions of dollars away in his lifetime to the poor and needy.

To read a synopsis of his incredible life and testimony check out this article.

God let us be men and women who live and love like You.  Let us not be enamored with the world's system of living.  Let us live in this world as citizens of Heaven, knowing that with You is where our true treasures are being kept.  

Change me, oh God, by Your Spirit and convict me of all my sins so that I may repent and live my life to love You, Your people and to bring You glory. 

Dead Already...

The thought that "Christians are to be living martyrs," has been swirling over in my mind the last several days.  I heard this phrase while I was listening to some old school Keith Green teaching on sermonindex.net  and he made this statement, "Christians are to be living martyrs."

I've been praying daily for Youcef Nadarkhani, and I've been careful to not just simply pray that God save his life from being hanged by the Muslim government in Iran.  I've asked God to strengthen him for whatever His will is for Youcef.  I've prayed for his family and for Iran and that the Gospel would spread through the country like an uncontrollable fire.  But in regards to Youcef's life, like mine and yours as a believer, we are to be living martyrs.

"I have been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me..." Galatians 2:20 (NIV)

 Do we consider ourselves to be living martyrs? If we could transform our thinking to seeing ourselves in this way, that we've already died to Christ, then we don't contemplate our death to come but are overwhelmed by the life we now have.

Have we been truly crucified with Christ?  What are the things we are still clinging too in this life that we've not given up for Him? Meditate on this today and tomorrow and the next... have I truly died with Him?  Because this is paramount to Christianity.  If there has been no death in this life to self, and ego, and pride, and life here on earth, then our attending church, wearing our cross necklaces, listening to Christian radio are all for nothing because these are NOT necessarily the evidences of a crucified life.

To grow we must die.  To have we must give.  To be something we must become nothing.  To increase we must decrease.  To be a blessing we must first bless.  To be the greatest in the kingdom we must become the least.  This is the nature of the kingdom of God in Christ.  This type of kingdom living only comes when we have truly died to this life so that we can live in the next.  And, really, it's not life delayed but life gained!

Jesus Christ must become everything to us.  He must precede and supersede every living priority we have, or ever will have!  Faith in Jesus' ability to save will, or it should, result in a self-denying life.  This faith in Him should result in a new way of doing things.  And it's not just in the doing, but in the being.  There is no personal  benefit of self-denial in and of itself.  If we are giving up things, or attitudes, or "rights" of our former lives in worship to Christ, then we become one with Him in His death and also alive in His resurrection.  We become dead to this life only through Christ and alive to God for eternity for His glory alone!  

Have we died already?  Have we become living martyrs? Do we live our lives in full surrender to His will and His way simply because it IS His will and His way?  This is the way of the kingdom and there is no other way but through Christ.

"The call to come to Christ is the call to come and die." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

(un)Explainable Life...

"I don't want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit."   -- Francis Chan (from Forgotten God)

 Man, think of that statement for a moment... How much of my life (or your life) can be completely explained completely apart from the Holy Spirit?  Too much..., maybe nearly everything.  I don't want this to be so...

I'm not talking about breathing or the things outside of our cognizant will and pseudo-control.  The Holy Spirit provides every person the privilege of our breathing whether they believe in Him or not -- that is irrelevant. What I'm talking about are our accomplishments, hopes, dreams, aspirations, college plans, business plans, marriage plans, sermon plans, church growth plans, Friday night plans, meal plans, vacation plans, miscellaneous funds plans, offering plans, purchase plans, what-I'm-going-to-drive plans, where-I'm-going-to-work plans, what-I'll-name-my-kids plans, where-we're-going-to-church plans, where-we're-going-to-serve plans... get the picture?  All of these things are so common place to us that we give little to no thought at all what God's plans are.  Most everything we think and do are, for the most part, apart from the Holy Spirit.

What if we lived our lives in such a way that the only way people could explain the things that happened to us or through us is by the Holy Spirit?

How do we change this?  Meditate on that.  No, seriously... let's meditate on that.  Let's seek God and take inventory of everything we have, do, say or plan and give all of it up to Christ.  This is what I'm doing in my life.  It can be a slow process, but the key is giving up my "rights" to everything.  Nothing is mine or my wife's.  Not our children, cars, home, clothes, money, plans.  If the Lord is willing, we'll do this or that... if the Lord wills we will go to Illinois next week.  If the Lord wills, I will leave work at 4:30pm. 

Ordering our life around His will begins the process, through faith in Christ to guide us, in an unEXPLAINABLE LIFE.  Right now everything is pretty explainable...

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani on Foxnews.com **MUST READ ARTICLE***

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani's story has made the front page of Foxnews.com today!  The awareness being raised is refreshing, knowing that the world will have to take note that Christians are being persecuted for their faith in Christ.

This should also be a lesson to us in America.  We praise God for the liberty that we have, yet so often disregard.  It's a sad state when we can worship so freely and minister to our communities so openly and lack the passion to care to do so.  God help us... our brothers and sisters are being beaten and killed for the sake of Christ and we (I!) are more worried about everything else in this life than worshiping Christ!

Keep praying for Youcef.  Pray for God's will to be done in Iran. Pray that the Name of Jesus would blaze across the nation of Iran.  The church has historically thrived under persecution, so pray the same will be so wherever our brothers and sisters suffer.

"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ..." Philippians 3:8 (NLT)

Matthew 28:19 (NLT)

"Therefore, go and MAKE DISCIPLES of all the nations, BAPTIZING them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19 (NLT)
 
Just some questions to consider about this scripture...

First of all, ask ourselves, "Who am I discipling to be a follower of Christ?"  Do we come up with any names?  If not, then how do we change that?

Secondly, who is this scripture intended to instruct?  (Us! The body of Christ.  All Believers. Or at least this is the way that I've always heard it preached from every pulpit making the plea for all to go and preach the good news of Jesus.)

Lastly, has the fact that the practice of baptism being relocated to the "ministry" given us "non-ministers" the sense that it's no longer our responsibility to MAKE and BAPTIZE followers of Christ?

I'm sure someone can offer a worthy theological treatise (I know that's above my skill level) on why the "ministry" alone is allowed to baptize people; and hearing it I might concede with their argument.  But just a simple reading of this text, acting as if I had never read it before , leads me to believe that this is also a part of my responsibility as a follower of Christ.

Maybe the intention of Christ was to raise up licensed ministers to fulfill these duties.  I'm not bemoaning licensing, and I surely can see the chaos that might ensue if every believer was out performing rogue baptisms with no sense of organization or hierarchical structure. The question I ponder though is whether or not the distinction between licensed ministers and the rest of us has sort of mentally relieved us from the duty of making disciples? Have we transferred this responsibility from ourselves to the professionals?  This is just something to consider...

And maybe rogue baptisms would be a good problem for the church to have...  it seems that if this were the case, it would mean that we were out there fulfilling the commission of the referenced text. I think God might forgive us for that...

Youcef Nadarkhani Update...

Voice of the Martyrs is reporting that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani's death sentence has been temporarily repealed by the Iranian Supreme Court.  This reportedly happened Saturday, July 2nd, 2011.  The Supreme Court had earlier upheld a lower court decision and Youcef was to be hanged (see the above length for more information on the details of Youcef's situation).

According to Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), ""The supreme court has annulled the death sentence and sent the case back to the court in Rasht, asking the accused to repent," Mohammad Ali Dadkhah said." 


It's not clear what will happen next if Youcef doesn't recant his faith.  It seems that they're repealing his death sentence in order to give him another chance to recant his faith in Christ and will then spare his life.

VOM is also reporting that Sunday, July 3rd, 2011 Youcef's lawyer was arrested and has been sentenced to nine years in prison, along with a ten year ban on practicing law or teaching at any university.  His charge is reported by VOM to be "actions and propaganda against the Islamic regime".  

Please pray for Youcef, his lawyer and the families involved, as well as the church in Iran.

On Facebook, I've been posting several articles and a letter written by Youcef.  I want to bring awareness of what our brothers and sisters are enduring abroad for the sake of Christ's Name.  Please pray that the Holy Spirit would give Youcef the strength to retain his faith, not recant, but boldly proclaim the Gospel by his unrelenting stand for Christ.

Please also pray for the persecuted church everywhere.  Youcef and his wife and lawyer, sadly, are only one of many families that are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus.

Please visit the Voice of the Martyrs site to see many others who are persecuted as well.  This site has much information and many resources available for your use and interests.

Please, let's pray together for all of our brothers and sisters, and that through everything Jesus would be glorified.

About Casey Anthony and Our Attitudes...

There's a lot of talk in the social media circles currently about the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict from this past Tuesday.  Most of the talk centers on shock and disgust.  The talk that concerns me most is the talk coming from the Christian community.  We simply don't know how to deal with this subject and waiver between two extremes.  One of hatred and one of veneration of a celebrity.  I care what our Christian community has to say on the topic of much debate because whether we want it to or not, it directly reflects who the world sees Christ to be.  And right now we're not making Him look that great.

A lot of the Facebook comments I see deal with the outrage that Casey Anthony "got off" for murdering her daughter.  Most comments run the gambit of "she may have gotten off now, but God's going to get her for sure!" Or, "She'll get what's coming to her in Hell!"  We're even distributing pictures of her and O.J. Simpson together as our own punch lines. I even saw a couple of posts from "Christians" were profanity was used and implied to refer to this "witch" that shouldn't be allowed to live another second.  On the other side I've  read articles from Christian publications that seem so weak and pacifistic that it doesn't seem the editors would lift a limp wrist to defend their own families if an intruder broke into their homes and tried to harm them.

Everyone, for the most part, has assumed her guilt, largely because of her lies to authorities, her party-girl life style, the various circumstantial evidence, and for not reporting her daughter missing for 31 days among other things.  All of these things point to a guilty, or at best, unfit, shady mother in the person of Casey Anthony.  However, despite her lies and party-girl lifestyle the bottom line is that we don't really know who killed this poor little girl.  This being the case, as a Christian community, we should be very careful in pronouncing God's judgment on a person for a sin we don't know who clearly committed it.  This attitude shows clear hatred for someone we don't know is guilty for sure and has now been proven, or tried and found "not guilty" by a jury of her peers in our court system.  Has justice been served?  Only God and the killer and possible family members know for sure.  We the public do NOT.

I typically cry "foul" when Christians quote Matthew 7:1-6 when a Christian wants to deal with or call someones actions sinful.  It nearly never fails that someone will quote a part of this text and say, "judge not so that you won't be judged!"  I usually point out that they're taking that scripture out of it's intended context.  The scripture says that we shouldn't judge someone hypocritically and that we should remove the log from our eye so we can see clearly enough to help our brother with the spec in theirs.  We are to help  keep people accountable for their sins as well as our own.  In light of this verdict, and in regards to the attitudes of a lot of believers on Facebook and other social media, I would say that this scripture would bear some weight in the issue of Casey Anthony.  If we have hate for her and what we think she did - by the way, wanting God's judgment to fall on anyone would certainly constitute a level of hatred given the fierce and eternal nature of His wrath - makes us just as guilty of what we presume she did.  If we hate anyone in our heart, then we have committed the same sin of murder in God's eyes (1 John 4:20).

The Christian communities' position should come from one of love and understanding that God does bring ultimate justice, even if we perceive that it has been missed here on earth.  We should pray for this family because we've seen significant issues and evidence that suggests their lives are not surrendered to Christ and are in need of His forgiveness in a number of areas, much like our own.

Is the murderer off the hook then?  Of course not.  Should we lament the child abuse that took place?  Of course we are.  Should we remove the beam that in sin our eye so that we can rightly remove the speck in others' eyes?  Yes, of course... if there's a beam there, then remove away!  Should we exhibit grace and mercy?  Of course.  Should we tolerate sin and crime and immorality in our lives and nation?  Aboslutely not!  This is why we need to be led by His Spirit in all of our dealings.  We shouldn't give sin a passing wink, nor should our motives be to want any to perish.  God doesn't want any to perish either (2 Peter 3:9)!

This attitude show how ineptly we understand eternal punishment in Hell.  We are so quick to resign people there, but we should note that Christ wsan't.  The most cruel, deserving-of-Hell-people that I can think of are those who mishandled and crucified Christ.  They took the greatest gift ever given to humankind and they trashed Him like garbage.  Yet His response was, "Father please forve them, they don't know what they are doing."  Even then under excruciating pain He cared for them and didn't want to see God's wrath poured out on any of them, deserving as they were.  This doesn't mean that it wasn't, it means that he didn't want it to be if at all possible.  That's why He was on the cross taking the sins of us all on Himself and being punished for them for us.
 
We aren't much like Christ when we become wrath-mongers.  Do not mistake that statement for a liberal, bleeding heart, let's-not-punish-anyone-for their-crimes kind of an attitude. Take it for what it is.  An understanding that we can't possibly know how terrifying and devastating the wrath of God is and that we shouldn't wish it on any person.  Christ has this understanding, and wanted none of us sinners to be apart of it.  Let us stive for a deeper love for the dregs of humanity than our current flippant "cast them all into Hell" attitude that some of us carry.  Let us hunger for justice for this little girl.  Let us pray for justice to come to the murderer as well as their repentance and salvation.  But let us not pray with so much venom in our breath.  Let our hearts long for what is right, even when what is right becomes difficult to live out.  It's not wrong to want justice.  It is wrong for us to hate.

One last point I wish to make... in all of our outcry and rage, let us remember to cry out daily to God on behalf of all abused children who are being taken advantage of presently in our world, and not just when they become celebrities on television.  Let's cry out to God on their behalf daily.  Do we even realize that right now as we read this there is a little girl or boy who is being violently abused by the ones who are supposed to love them the most?  Do we realize somewhere in Thai Land there are little boys and girls who are being systemically raped by wicked, evil men for money and to fulfill a sinful lust, some as young as 18 months of age?  In Eastern Europe, right now, there are young women who are being sexually exploited and trafficked by ruthless thugs who care nothing for these poor girls who are being crushed and lost to prostitution and drugs forever.  Don't our hearts break for these that receive no media attention as well? Or is it just our care to get involved emotionally when our day time television soaps are interrupted and we're forced to finally look and see the evil that's going on in our society every day?