Substitute Dads

In 1 Chronicles 27:32, the writer tells us:

“Jonathan, David’s uncle, a wise and literate counselor, and Jehiel son of Hacmoni, were responsible for rearing the king’s sons.”  (The Message)

They apparently did a spectacularly bad job with King David’s boys.  One son raped his sister; one killed his brother, usurped his father’s kingdom and slept with his father’s concubines in broad daylight for all the neighbors to see; another one tried to usurp his father’s kingdom and sleep with one of his father’s wives only to be put to death by another brother; and one left his faith in the one, true God, because his sexual lust led him into at least 1,000 sexual relationships with women who worshiped foreign gods.

Where was the moral fiber that characterized their dad, “a man after God’s own heart?”  Why didn’t these boys grow up knowing right from wrong?  Why did they fail so miserably?

I believe the main reason is that you cannot substitute for Dad.  Boys need their fathers.  They need that intimate, male relationship in their lives to help them learn what it is to be a real man.  Not a man who sleeps with the most women or who has the most money and toys or who always settles his problems with his fists.  A REAL man.  A man who submits to the authority of Jesus Christ; a man who puts other peoples’ needs (particularly his family’s needs) ahead of his own; a man who commits to one woman and honors her all the days of their marriage.  A REAL man.

Ironically, David was many things that we admire.  He was a warrior; a poet; a musician; a king and even a man who submitted to the authority of the Lord – but he was an abysmal father.  During the years his boys needed him most, he delegated his parental responsibilities to other men.  And while those men might have been wise and literate and many other good things, they weren’t Dad.

God has designed the family as the perfect way to disciple young children into mature Christian faith.  When it works as planned, godly parents live their lives humbly before God and model powerful spiritual disciplines for their children.  It takes place over years and years in real-life situations.  Because it is lived in real life, its credibility is beyond reproach or suspicion.  No teacher, preacher, mentor, friend, book, seminar or seminary will be anywhere near as effective at passing along spiritual wisdom and discipline.  …that is, when it’s done well.

When it’s not done well (as in David’s case), it teaches equally powerful negative lessons.  David modeled that work and personal pursuits were more important to him than his children.  No wonder all his boys could think about was themselves.  They had 20+ years of discipleship in selfishness.

Our boys need us, men.  We can’t delegate fathering to their school teachers or their soccer coaches or even their youth group leaders.  Those men serve an important role, but they cannot replace what God intended for us to provide.

And no, you don’t have to wait until you get your stuff together to start spending more time with your boys and being intentional about discipling them.  Start now, and get your stuff together as you go.  There are powerful lessons that our boys will learn as they watch us struggle against our sinful nature.  In fact, if we pretend to be perfect, we will do more damage than good.  Let’s just live our lives and invite our boys along for the journey.

Send the substitute home.  Class is in session.

Take Your Cross

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

(Mark 8:34)

“We all have our cross to bear,” says the popular proverb, but most who say so have no idea of the meaning of Jesus’ words.  He spoke them right after rebuking Peter, who thought that he knew better than Jesus how to accomplish God’s purposes.

Jesus had been explaining that He must suffer many things and even die before He would rise again, but Peter thought there must be a shortcut.  Jesus replied (if I may summarize Mark 8:33-38), “Get behind me, Satan!  There are no shortcuts!  The cross must do its work.”

The work of a cross was to shame, to make the offender suffer, to kill him and to give warning to others about the consequences of crossing the authorities.  But these aren’t the purposes Jesus has in mind.  God’s perspective on the cross is very different from Satan’s.

Both have death in mind, but Satan used the cross to kill the person; God uses it to kill the self.  When Jesus says to “take up (your) cross,” He means that we should willingly carry the tool that God will use to kill our sinful nature and make us more like Christ.

What the “cross” looks like is different for every person.  For some, it’s a challenging circumstance that brings them to the end of their own resources or abilities. For some, it’s something difficult and painful from their past.  For others, it’s a disability, a limitation, a weakness, a failure…  It could even be a persistent struggle with sin.  It’s whatever God uses to bring us into complete dependence upon Him.

Too often, we give Satan power to use these things to shame us, to make us suffer and to destroy us.  Instead, we should turn them over to God, who makes ALL things work together for the good of those who love Him.  God is not the author or creator of the cross, but He will use it to put to death anything that is not like His Son.

Where Satan intends shame, God develops humility.  Where Satan intends suffering, God develops dependence.  Where Satan intends death, God gives life.  Where Satan intends a warning, God provides a testimony.

Three-Legged Race

Marriage is a three-legged race.  When we pledge ourselves to our partners for life, God sees us in many ways as one person.  We are bound to each other.

This can cause a number of problems.  It’s awkward to try to run with someone tied to us.  We have to re-learn how to move so that we don’t throw our spouse off-balance.  If our spouse runs at a different pace or with a different rhythm (which they almost always do), we have to make adjustments to find a happy medium.

Should our spouse fall, it doesn’t do us much good to try to drag them along.  We have to reach out and lift them up.  This can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially for those of us who are goal-oriented and competitive.  We can see all the other couples passing us by, and the further behind we get, the more irritated we become.

We might feel tempted to scold and blame our spouse.  At best, these might shame our spouse into getting back up, but they won’t ever help the relationship.  Nagging doesn’t help.  Making jokes at our spouse’s expense does not help.  The only thing that will get us back into the race with a committed and enthusiastic partner is to stop and go at his or her pace.

I didn’t come to know Christ until five years into my marriage.  My wife had been a Christian since she was a young girl, and my sudden enthusiasm for following the Lord was a welcome change but somewhat shocking for her.  I quickly committed to all kinds of Christian activities that we weren’t accustomed to.  Church, Bible studies, volunteering, tithing, teaching, conferences, service projects…you name it.

Before long, I realized that I had left my wife far behind me.  Her walk with the Lord had been moving at a much slower pace for many years.  Now, I was trying to force her to go from that walk to a sprint in just a few, short months.  I was disappointed that she wasn’t growing as quickly as I was, and I tried to push her along to catch up with me.  All this accomplished was getting her to dig in her heels and start resenting me for trying to make her go faster than she was ready to go.

Over time, I’ve learned to slow down.  God won’t allow me to cross the finish line without my wife.  We are a team, and the rules of the three-legged race are that you finish together.  When I relaxed and allowed my wife to find her own pace with the Lord, she began to grow faster and faster.

I’ve also learned that fast isn’t necessarily good.  Much of my early speed was about doing, doing, doing for the Lord, but not all of my doing was God’s will. I have a list of things I volunteered for that turned out to be disasters.  If I had slowed down and gone at the Lord’s pace for me, I might have grown more quickly.  Now, instead of doing, doing, doing for the Lord, I’m trying to learn about being, being, being with Him.

It doesn’t matter how super-spiritual you are or how much the world needs you, if you are married, you can’t go faster than your spouse and please God.  Your first ministry is to the one you’ve committed your life to.  Stop, go back to where you left him or her, and help your spouse get back on his or her feet.  Then, run (or walk) the race together at the pace of the slowest person.  You might find that there was much you were missing by going so fast – the first of which will be the joy of running the race together.

Naked Lobster

Ever thought about how a lobster grows?  Because of its rigid shell, the larger it gets, the more uncomfortable the lobster becomes.  Eventually, it has to shed its old shell in order to grow a new, roomier model.  This process is repeated multiple times (as many as 25 times over the first 5-7 years of its life) until it reaches its maximum size.

During the 48 hours or so that the lobster is shell-less, it’s in grave danger.  One hungry tourist with a cup of melted butter….  Or…the lobster could be eaten by any of its other natural predators.  For the lobster, there is no growth without risk.

I see two lessons for us in the story of the naked lobster:

·        You won’t grow without taking some risks.
·        You won’t grow without leaving something familiar behind.

But where the lobster operates on instinct to shed his shell, we have to operate on courage.  Unfortunately, many of us struggle to face up to hard changes.  It’s difficult to leave our comfort zone for the scary unknown.  Success is not assured.  Failure is likely.  Why would we want to leave what’s been working for us for so long?

And the truth is, we don’t always have to.  Sometimes, business as usual (BAU) will get us by.  But that’s all it usually does.  If we want to grow…  If we want to do great things for God… We are going to have to leave the familiar for something better.  We can’t continue to stay in our cramped, little shell convincing ourselves that it isn’t so uncomfortable after all.  We’ve got to feel the pinch and make the move.

Like a Thief in the Night

In the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., Sardis was the capital city in the kingdom of Lydia (now Turkey).  It was the convergence of five trade routes and incredibly wealthy as a result.  Legend had it that King Midas washed himself in the Pactolus River that flowed next to the city in order to rid himself of the golden touch that plagued him.  As a result, the river was said to run with gold and bring riches to the people of Sardis.

The city protected its wealth in a citadel on an acropolis atop a fortified hill that rose one thousand feet above the plain.  Steep cliffs surrounded the city on three sides, and there was only one point of access, a narrow neck of land to the south.  Because of its natural defensibility, the city was called, “Sardis, the Impregnable.”

The king and the people believed that they were invulnerable while within the citadel.  They had turned away many would-be conquerors who tried to lay siege to the wealthy city over the years.  But twice, the city was conquered, and ironically, both overthrows occurred in exactly the same way.

Cyrus of Persia was the first to successfully overcome the stronghold in 547 B.C.  Fourteen days after laying siege to Sardis, Cyrus instructed his officers to tell all the soldiers that the first man to scale the wall would earn a reward.  Many men rushed to make it up the wall, but none succeeded.  Then, a soldier named Hyroeades remembered that he had witnessed one of the Lydians accidentally drop his helmet over the side of the wall the previous day.  Thinking he was unobserved, the soldier had come down the wall at the point that had seemed most dangerous and inaccessible to the Persians.

Because of the tremendous height of the cliffs at this point of the wall, the Lydians posted no guard above it.  Gathering his courage, Hyroeades retraced the soldier’s path and ascended the steep cliff.  Once the Persians realized it was possible, many more followed and joined Hyroeades in sacking the city.

Three hundred years later, in 214 B.C., Sardis was captured again in the exact same way by the army of Antiochus the Great of Syria.  His men scaled the wall at the steepest point and found it unguarded at the top.

While the people slept securely and unaware inside their fortress, Sardis was twice conquered by armies who came like a thief in the night.  The kings and the people assumed that no one would attack them where it was obvious that they were strong.  They became complacent in their vigilance and only invested their soldiers in their weaker areas.

Like Sardis, we become vulnerable when we make the mistake of thinking we no longer need to post a guard against temptation.  When we believe that we have mastered a particular temptation, we are in for a surprise.  We can’t stop “building our walls and guarding our gates.” It’s a lifelong process. When Satan sees that we took our guard down, he’ll tempt us in that very area.

I distinctly remember a men’s group meeting where a brother in Christ confessed to an affair he had been having. Convicted by that evening’s study, he trembled as he unburdened his heart before us. He asked for our prayers to help him end the affair and tell his wife.

Afterward, a few of us met with him to discuss what needed to happen next. At one point, he referred to another member of our group, who had confessed to an affair approximately six months earlier. My friend said, “When I heard him talk about his affair, I said to myself, ‘That will never happen to me.’” Only a few weeks after thinking that thought, my friend was deep into sin and deception as he cheated on his wife.

An unguarded strength is our greatest weakness.

How Do Your Walls Look?

If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you (like the Jews who had lived their lives in the foreign land of Egypt) have been freed from the captivity of the Enemy.  Specifically, I’m talking about being free from the slavery of Satan’s temptations here on earth and from hell and eternal darkness in eternity.  Your temple (your heart) has been rebuilt – made new!

 

And yet, many of us still have little to no defenses against the attacks of the Enemy.  We are like the Jews during the time of Nehemiah.  They had a new temple, but there were no walls around the city to protect it.  Likewise, our spiritual walls, which represent our relationship with Christ, are broken down, and our gates (ears and eyes) are open for whatever the Enemy brings our way.  He assaults us with images and sounds, which we shouldn’t let into our minds, but we are weak without our walls.  He can walk freely through our minds, because we have no way to keep him out.

 

God intended for us to be a light to all we meet.  He intended for us to reflect His glory.  But instead of shining, we’ve been sinning.  Because of what we’ve allowed into our minds, they are full of darkness.  Our mouth gates don’t send out wisdom; they send out perversity.  We laugh at all kinds of sinfulness.  We celebrate it along with all the unsaved people around us.  They can’t tell that we are God’s people, because we look just like them.

 

If we are truly saved, this should cause us as great a distress as Nehemiah experienced when he first heard about the broken walls of Jerusalem. We will never rebuild our spiritual walls until we first weep over the ruins.  In other words, we need to reach a place of repentance for the mess we have made of what God gave us.  God warns that if we continue to be unfaithful, He will give us over to our sins just as he scattered the Jews to the nations.  But if we return and obey, He will restore us to relationship with Him.  Even those of us who have gone to the farthest reaches of sin.  Even those of us who think we’ve gone far beyond what God will forgive.  He will bring us back.

Right-Hand Man

Everyone wants to have a right-hand man (or woman), right?  Someone you trust implicitly.  Someone who will cover for you in a pinch and make decisions just as you would have made them.  Someone you can groom to be your successor when the inevitable promotion opportunities come rolling in.

The expression “right-hand man” (as well as the tradition of seating the guest of honor at the right hand of the host) originated from times when leaders had to worry about assassination on a daily basis.  Before the days of explosives and automatic weapons, the easiest way to assassinate a leader was to have the person sitting to his right grab his sword arm and hang on, rendering him relatively helpless so that others in the room could then kill him.  If you were a leader, it was in your best interest to put the person you most trusted next to your sword arm. Since most people are right-handed, the “right-hand man” came to be synonymous for someone you could trust with your life.

Leadership can be a lonely role.  Having a right-hand man (person) will encourage you when things get rough.  A trusted “second-in-command” can keep an eye on your blind spots and warn you when you’re stepping into dangerous territory.  If you don’t have one, start developing one (or to look for someone with the right qualities to fill your next open position.)

Incidentally, the best “right-hand man” you can have is Jesus.  He’s not seated at your right hand; He’s at the right hand of God, the Father, but he will keep an eye on your blind spots for you.  He will intercede in prayer for you and come to your rescue when you need Him.  He might not make decisions just as you would have made them, but He will make them better.  And He’ll never be your successor, but you won’t experience success in your Christian walk without His power and authority.  Best of all, you can trust Him with your life – both here and in eternity.

On Solid Rock

I have a friend who once had his house jacked so that it was supported by bedrock rather than clay.  He shared with me that his house is now all “womperjawed” (yes, he’s from Texas).  Not a thing in the house is square – but it’s solid.  His house had been founded on clay so long that everything had shifted over time.  In fact, much of it was square before he jacked it, because it had all shifted together.  It looked good and felt comfortable, but it wasn’t solid.

When my friend made the decision to jack the house to found it on bedrock, he gave up the comfort and aesthetics he had before.  His house doesn’t look as good as it once did, but now it’s solid and will stand the test of time.

What a great analogy for what happens to our lives when we accept Christ and anchor our lives to the Rock.  When we accept Christ, the people around us  start to realize that we don’t have it all together like we used to pretend that we did.  Our flaws begin to show, but we can rejoice in that!  God doesn’t waste anything.  He uses our flaws as much or more than He uses our strengths to accomplish His purposes.  We can afford to be vulnerable with people and let them see how “womperjawed” we are, because we’ve got a solid foundation.

“Square” is overrated.  It’s better to be a mess with a message than to be “perfect” without a prayer.

The Mongol King

Seven hundred years ago, the Mongolian Khans had conquered most of Asia and extended their empire into parts of Europe. What started with the famous/infamous Genghis Khan ended with his grandson Kublai Khan, who started the Yuan Dynasty in China. Though their reign was relatively short, these Mongolian kings exerted a huge influence during their time of power.

Kublai Khan, like the other Khans, was open to the influence of different faiths, and he once sent the explorers Niccolo and Maffeo Polo (father and uncle of Marco Polo) to Pope Gregory X to ask him to send one hundred Christian missionaries to come minister to the people of Mongolia. Specifically, his request asked the Pope …

…to send 100 persons well skilled in your law, who being confronted with the idolaters (i.e. Buddhists) shall have power to coerce them, and showing that they themselves are endowed with similar art… When I am witness of this , I shall place them and myself to be baptized. Following my example, all my nobility will then in like manner receive baptism and this will be imitated by my subjects in general; so that the Christians of these parts will exceed in number those who inhabit your own countries.

It was an incredible and unprecedented request, but for whatever reasons, Pope Gregory X only sent two friars and some lamp oil. In fact, the friars never made it. Experiencing some warfare as they passed through Armenia, they turned back. Niccolo, Maffeo and Marco Polo continued on to deliver the oil, but it was an empty gesture.

Who knows what could have happened had Pope Gregory X sent the full 100 invited missionaries to win the hearts and minds of the Mongols. Christianity might have spread strongly throughout all of Asia.

Fast forward. Handfuls of missionaries and missionary groups tried to reach the Mongolian people over the centuries, but they experienced little lasting success. Mongolians were nomadic people, and it was difficult to reach them for Christ as they moved all around the vast country. Even today, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated independent country in the world, with 2.9 million people scattered over 1.5 million square kilometers.

The Communists eventually came into power in Mongolia and declared it an atheist nation. For approximately 65 years, the borders of Mongolia were closed to God and His followers….or so the government thought. Several seemingly unrelated events were taking place that would set the stage for massive spiritual change.

During the 1980’s, the government sent some party-loyal Mongolians to study at universities in other nations. During that time, several of these Mongolians heard about Jesus, and while they didn’t necessarily give their hearts to Christ at the time, seeds had been planted that would one day grow into faith.

At the same time, an Englishman by the name of John Gibbens was working on translating the New Testament into one of the Mongolian dialects. He was assisted by a woman named Altaa, a Mongolian university student, who later became Gibbens’ wife. They finished the translation in 1989, just as the walls of Communism were coming down. Then in July 1990, the first free elections took place in Mongolia, opening the door to religious freedom. Thirteen days later, the first 5,000 copies of the new Mongolian Bible were printed in Hong Kong, ready for immediate shipment.

Even the demographics of Mongolia were changing. More than one-third of the population of Mongolia had come over the years to reside in Ulaanbataar, the country’s capital city. With so many Mongolians so close together, it was much easier to establish churches and spread the Gospel.

The first Christian church (after Communism) started in Mongolia in 1991 with just a handful of believers. (Local Christians can name all four or five of them.) Since then, over 500 churches have been planted and over 60,000 people have given their lives to Christ. Mongolian Christians fan out over their large country taking the Gospel to its most remote places. Mongolian missionaries are even leaving their country to take the Good News into Russia, China, and the “-stan” countries (Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan…). All this has happened in just seventeen short years. It’s nothing short of a miracle!

Centuries ago, Pope Gregory X missed an opportunity to join God in this great work, but God is not dependent on us to accomplish His purposes. He is working powerfully in Mongolia and through the Mongolian people. They may again be on a conquest of the magnitude of the conquests of the Khans, but this time they will be winning spiritual territory throughout Asia and into Europe. I’m excited to say that there is once again a Mongol King, and His name is Jesus Christ!

Worship in Ulaanbataar - March, 2008

IF…

My favorite verse in the Bible for the past few years has been Mark 9:24. A father has brought his only son so that Jesus could cast out a demon from him. But when He arrives, He learns that Jesus has gone up the mountain, leaving the disciples in charge. They try over and over to cast out the demon with no success.

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By the time Jesus returns from the mountain, it’s a circus. A huge crowd has gathered, and the disciples are in a fight with the legal experts of the day about the boy’s condition and what to do about it.

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The boy’s father cries out from the crowd and explains the situation. Jesus rebukes the disciples (they failed to have faith that God could or would cast out the demon) and asks that the boy be brought to Him. When the boy sees Jesus, the demon throws the boy to the ground, foaming at the mouth. All eyes are on Jesus to see what He will do.

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Jesus, diagnosing the problem, asks the father for some background information, and the father tells him that the boy has been afflicted since he was young. Often the demon would throw him into the fire or into the water to try and kill the boy. In the next statement, the father’s heart is revealed:

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“But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

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“If.” It’s the biggest two-letter word in the dictionary. It often communicates more than we intended to say, showing our doubts and our fears. It might be appropriate when we are talking about the capacity of a friend or a boss or a loved one, but it’s misplaced when talking about the capacity of God. With God, it’s never “if He can;” it’s only “if He will.”

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Jesus’ reply might have included emphasis on His first word:

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“If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

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“It’s not about My capacity,” Jesus seems to be saying. “It’s about yours. Can you believe? Can you have enough faith? Can you have more faith than these apostles who have been with me these several years?”

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And then, my favorite verse:

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Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears,

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

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It’s so full of love for his son. It’s so desperate. It’s so….honest! I’ve been there. I want so badly to put my total and complete trust in God to help me with problems, to watch over my kids, to provide for my needs… but I just don’t have enough faith. With the child’s father, I cry out, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

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God always has to meet us more than halfway. He doesn’t require that we have 100% faith before He will go to work, but He does want us to want to believe at the very least. Beyond that, I think the official measurement is “as small as a mustard seed.” And if we can muster up that much faith, all things are possible.