Humble Adoration

          As many of you know, this past February, one of the members of my congregation was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Esophageal Cancer. At the time of his first visit with his oncologist, he could barely swallow his own spit. To put it mildly, he was one sick man and his prognosis was rather grim. The Doc told him that radiation and chemo were indicated, so in a few weeks that regimen began and continued intermittently until a couple of weeks ago, at which time the Doc ordered a CT scan. The results were incredibly good! She advised Roger that his cancer is in remission!

          You should know that I am not simply Roger’s pastor, but I also love him deeply, as does everyone in my congregation. I was with him in the Doc’s office, when she uttered her stinging diagnosis. When I heard it my heart sank. I felt sick to my stomach. To be sure, whatever I might have been feeling could not be compared with what was happening in both Roger’s and Barbara’s world.

I wanted to be strong for them; after all, I am their pastor, and “that is what pastors are supposed to do.” To be honest, however, I was anything but strong, more like a wet noodle. To be honest, I didn’t have much confidence that God would heal him (I knew He could, but “could” and “would” are two different things!) and there is a reason for that lack of confidence—Stage Four Metastatic Esophageal Cancer is deadly. Thinking God would heal him was, at least in my mind, much like jumping out of a 20 story window and thinking God will provide you a soft landing.

You should also know that I strongly believe that God does nothing contingently, absolutely nothing, which means that I also believe jumping though all the religious hoops—saying the right words, refusing to acknowledge the cancer, refusing to accept the cancer, eating broccoli, casting out the cancer, praying fervently, and memorizing Leviticus—have absolutely no bearing on Roger’s (or anyone’s) healing. I do want you to know, however, that I strongly believe that God can and does heal. I just do not believe that He does so as a result of our doing (or not doing) something. God is sovereign and He does as He pleases—period—which is a good thing.

This past Wednesday, when Roger called me to tell me about the Doc’s report, I was eating lunch with one of my church members. This is what Roger said: “The Doc said I will always have cancer, but my cancer is in remission!” To be honest, I wanted to get up and run around the cafeteria and tell everyone what God had done. In fact, I am pretty sure I told Roger that we needed to get together and have a “shouting spell.” After our conversation ended, the strangest thought came into my mind—HUMBLE ADORATION. All afternoon, those words kept ringing in the ears of my heart.

It was later in the afternoon, when I was at the gym walking, that the truth dawned upon me: humble adoration is the kind of adoration, the kind of admiration, the kind of worship you give to God when He has done something incredible wonderful and you know that you had nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing. It is the kind of adoration one gives to Jesus when he finally realizes that He died for him while he was yet a sinner, having nothing to offer, but his own sinfulness.  

You will recognize these words from the old hymn: When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation and take me Home, what joy shall fill my soul; then I shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim “My God, how great Thou art”!

Roger’s cancer is in remission, not because of anything any of us did, but because God chose once again, to lavish His grace upon Him. I really wish each of you could have been in attendance at our service this morning. It was, indeed, a time of humble adoration!

It is my prayer that each of you will spend this week in humble adoration of the One who gave His life for you, while you were dead to Him, having nothing to offer but your own sinfulness.

         

This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29 NASB).

Where is God When I Need Him?

         All of us are very familiar with the adversity that comes our way as the result of our own foolish choices, and for this adversity we have no one to blame but ourselves. Oh, we try to place blame somewhere else, but we know the truth.

Most of us are also aware of the kind of adversity that comes our way through no fault of our own. If, per chance, you are not familiar with this kind of adversity, hang around a while and you will get acquainted with it, very personally acquainted with it. That is a promise! For reasons beyond my limited knowledge, some people experience far more of this kind of adversity than others. Strangely, most of the people who fall into this category are the people we would least expect. Sadly, many of those who manage to escape this kind of adversity become arrogant, truly believing that their obedience has protected them.

As you might imagine, the people who, through no fault of their own, experience this extreme  kind of adversity eventually begin to wonder if God has forgotten them, if He has simply abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves. They attend church, hoping to find encouragement in Biblical truth; instead, they find discouragement in religious jargon. They seek out the fellowship of other believers, but instead of finding fellowship, they find rejection. They carefully watch the lives of those who apparently know the “secret” of living free from this kind of adversity, but instead of finding healing humility, they find disappointing arrogance. They pray, earnestly pray, not for relief from the adversity, but for His touch, His felt presence; instead, they experience silence, deafening silence. In the end, the questions loom before them: Has God abandoned me? Where is He when I really need Him? Has He left me to fend for myself? This usually becomes one of the loneliest places on earth.

To be sure, I do not have any answers to these questions, but I do have another question: Could it be that, in spite of what we feel, He is reaching out to us, touching us, loving us, speaking encouragement to us, right before our eyes, but we are simply missing it? He did promise never to leave us, nor to forsake us.

You think about that—

This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29 NASB).

On Honoring Our Veterans

 

July 24, 2011 [Sunday],

Dear Fellow Travelers,

          If what I am about to say has anything to do with theology, I don’t know what it is, but not to worry, as something will probably surface.

          Anyway, on Friday I attended the funeral service for a 93 year old veteran. It was held at the Veteran’s cemetery in a not-so-far-away town, with full military honors. If you have never experienced one of these services you should. It will make you proud to be an American. Well, that used to be the case. In many ways still will, so read the obituaries, locate a notice for a military person, call the funeral home and ask if this funeral will have full military honors, and make you plans to attend. I am sure the family will be happy to see you, although one or two of them might ask you if you are related to the deceased. Just tell you that you are a distant cousin, and all will be well.

          Now, as I tell you what I am about to tell you, please keep in mind that this deceased had fought in two wars and had, therefore, definitely earned our respect, as well as his small space in this cemetery. 

Just for the record: When his wife dies, she will be buried on top of him to save space. I guess we are running out of land. Maybe we should open more cemeteries in Wyoming and Montana. They tell me they have lots of open land in those states. Hopefully, this cemetery will do a better job of keeping track of who is buried where than Arlington National Cemetery has done. No one will ever know who is buried in many of those graves. I suppose one could say that this is another example of the efficiency of the US Government.

          Like most of these cemeteries, there is a designated place for the service; consequently, it is held there and nowhere else—period. Don’t even bother to ask. If you should, you will hear get an ear full. If you think you are going to have the service at the graveside, think again because you are not—period. In fact, you are not even going to the gravesite, so don’t ask. You will be allowed to visit it after your loved one’s remains have been placed in it and the grave closed, but not a minute before. The cemetery police will be watching, so don’t even dare to chance it.

          Interestingly, this cemetery had only one service that day, so I don’t think there was any reason for a hurried service, but we must remember that government rules cannot be broken—period—and this is certainly true at this cemetery. 

I noticed that some of the cars had tags from very distant places, so I assumed they came, willing and happy, to take whatever time it took to honor this veteran. It was obvious that none of them were in any hurry. I am absolutely certain that most of them came expecting to go to the gravesite for the committal service. I am that certain because I heard them express their desire, rather vehemently. Remember, however, that the government (state, in this case) was involved. 

Now listen up: I heard with my own ears the Director of the cemetery tell the two preachers that the entire service could last only fifteen minutes—music, preaching, praying, everything. I also saw the color of their faces turn from pale pink to bright red. From what I could read in their eyes (remember, I am a preacher!), they both were scrambling mentally, trying to compress thirty minutes into seven and a half. There was no music.

The deceased man’s wife entered this “sacred” hall quite upset, not only because of the brevity of the service, but especially because she could not have the committal service at the graveside.

Now for the clincher: I arrived a bit early (nothing unusual for me), and as I talked with the Director of the cemetery, I asked why there were so few chairs for the family and friends. I will never forget his answer: We don’t want to scratch these floors. I looked down and I will admit that the floors were beautiful hardwood, but I wondered why they weren’t granite or marble or sawdust—anything that would allow for enough chairs for the family and friends of this veteran, whom we were honoring, to be seated.

Then to top it all off, taps was played on some kind of tape player or CD that the Director controlled with what looked like the remote control for a model airplane. Whatever happened to the real, live bugler? Have they all died? Did they have to “listen” to one of the taped travesties at their funeral service?

The Honor Guard was stationed outside this building (a good thing!), so no one had any idea they were even on the grounds. The preacher concluded with a prayer and, without anyone knowing it, the cemetery Director gave a signal to the senior office of the Honor Guard. That’s right. You guessed it—a twenty one gun salute! Some of those unsuspecting folk thought the Iranian army had just invaded the cemetery. There were no bathrooms in this “sacred” hall, so you will have to use your imagination. 

This is my question, and I am very serious: Don’t our veterans deserve better than this? This is another question: Is there anything the government cannot ruin?

I told this story to my congregation this morning and our worship leader, who is a trumpeter, offered his services for taps, the next time I see the need for a bugler, which I considered a noble and patriotic gesture. The problem is that the government does not see any need for buglers, certainly not while we have tapes and CD’s on hand. Why? You guessed it, I am certain.

 Well, maybe this had nothing to do with theology after all.

This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29 NASB).

Walking Closely and Pleasing Him

July 20, 2011 [Wednesday],

Dear Fellow Travelers,

       In response to one of my recent posts, I received the following email from one of the members of The Believers’ Club: “IF a person says to you, 'I just want to walk closely with the Lord and live a life pleasing to Him' do you tell that person he/she cannot??????????"  WHAT do you actually SAY to a person who says to you, ‘I want to be like Jesus?’" [I assume he added the question marks to emphasis his belief that I must be crazy, even for implying such a thing]

            Both questions are reasonable and deserve accurate answers. In response to the latter question, I would advise the person to carefully consider his wanting to be like Jesus, as doing so requires much more than we can give. I know it sounds like a noble goal, and I know it makes good “altar call” fodder, but the truth is none of us really want to be like Jesus. Oh, we probably want to have some of His attributes—kindness, gentleness, peacefulness—but I seriously doubt any of us really want to be like Him. If per chance you do, I would merely suggest that you carefully consider all that will be involved before you make the commitment. I might add that one Jesus is all we need. Surely, He doesn’t need any clones.

            I wonder if we will ever realize that Jesus did not come to make us like Him, but to rescue us from the pit of sin and hell and give us the gift of life—His life. The truth is He didn’t come to model the Christian life for us; instead, He came because He knew that our best efforts at living the Christian life would be as “filthy rags” before God. He came to do for us what we could never do for ourselves—redeem us and set us free.

            As to the former question—IF a person says to you, "I just want to walk closely with the Lord and live a life pleasing to Him" do you tell that person he/she cannot?—my answer is “Yes, that is precisely what I would tell the person.” Now, please do not jump to conclusions, as I do realize that the person who might make this statement is probably very sincere, but I also know that sometimes we are sincerely misguided.

            There are two very distinct issues in this statement: (1) I want to walk closely with the Lord and (2) I want to live a life pleasing to Him. Allow me to shed some light on the first by suggesting that the more appropriate question would be something like this: Lord, I want you to walk closely with me. Then, to refine the request even more, it would read: Lord, thank you for walking so closely with me! You see, we have the very strong tendency of giving ourselves far more credit than we deserve. “I am walking closely with the Lord,” sounds so much better to our proud and arrogant hearts than “the Lord is walking closely with me” would ever sound.

            As to the second issue, I would merely say this: try as we might, we simply cannot live lives pleasing to Him, which is why we need the Savior—desperately need the Savior. Again, saying that I am living a life that is pleasing to Him sounds so good to our proud and arrogant hearts, but the fact is, it is Jesus, not us, who pleases the Father. I wonder if we will ever get over ourselves and realize that the Christian life is about Him and NOT about us. This really is the secret, “Christ in us, our hope of glory.”

            I hope you will give this some serious thought—

This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29 NASB).