the gate

i need to stop reading the newspaper, seriously.   there is no end in sight to the madness that has become our world.  it’s no secret that this world is pretty broken but every once in a while, we get reminders.

like the creepy old dude from austria that locked his own daughter in his basement for 24 years and fathered her 7 children.  ** takes break from typing to vomit **

like the cops that put 50 bullets into sean bell getting their walking papers.  seriously, 50 bullets?  “say hello to my li’l friend.” (c) scarface

what a mess we’ve made of this world.  that which was intended to be a wonderful place for us to live and commune with each other and God has become a cesspool of wickedness.

it’s nothing new though.  cain killed abel right?  the muder statistics in that day were much worse than they are now, i’m sure that no city can cite a 25% murder statistic!  (sorry, humor is my defense mechanism).

so many lost…….so many dying……so many hopeless……

the gospel was not meant to be hoarded, it was meant to be given away.  our society will not be changed through laws, it will not improve through programs, and it certainly will not get better by ignoring it.

this can only change through the gospel.  we must call upon the God of the heavens and we must give people the gospel.  we must.

sonia keeps asking what the gospel is.  not that she doesn’t know, but exploring and understanding the depth and scope of the gospel is a process that we remain in for our whole lives.  it involves moving away from the limited perpective of “the sinners prayer” and figuring our how the gospel speaks into every area of our lives.

consider this quote from “the divine conspiracy”:

when all is said and done, “the gospel” for charles, john, and others on the theological right is that Christ made “the arrangement” that can get us into heaven.  in the Gospels, by contrast, “the gospel” is the good news of the presence and availability of life in the kingdom, now and forever, through reliance on Jesus the Anointed.  this was abaraham’s faith, too.  as Jesus said, “abraham saw my time and was delighted” (john 8:56).

accordingly, the only description of eternal life found in the words we have from Jesus is “this is eternal life, that they [his disciples] may know you, the only real God, and Jesus the anointed, whom you have sent” (john 17:3).  this may sound to us like “mere head knowledge.”  but the biblical “know” always refers to and intimate, personal, interactive relationship.

i hope that your understanding of the gospel reaches beyond “the arrangement” and that it is changing everything about you. 

if you are not morphing steadily into the image of Christ, i say consider your gospel.

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Love is the badge and character of Christianity. A Christian may advance in many areas, including the ability to witness, teach, or even preach, or biblical insight and knowledge, or faith, ser­vice, and giving, but these mean little (“I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal…. I am nothing…. It profits me nothing”) without growth in the most important Christian distinctive—love (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-3)­

When love grows colder, our sin increasingly manifests itself and we look more unlike Jesus. We lose patience easily, whereas I Corinthians 13:4 says that “Love suffers long.” Unkindness becomes common, yet love “is kind.” We become sinfully envious of the advantages and privileges of others, perhaps even of those within our own family; conversely, “love does not envy.” When challenged about our lack of love, we quickly and quite confi­dently list all the sacrifices and other proofs of our love, and yet “love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.” As our hearts harden against love, we become less courteous, especially to those closest to us, in contrast to love which “does not behave rudely” (1 Corinthians 13:5). We begin to consider ourselves and our “rights” as more important than others and their needs, whereas love “does not seek its own.” When love is in decline we are more easily angered, but love “is not provoked.” A lack of love is often faultfinding, and it mentally keeps score of offenses, but love “thinks no evil.”

We’re not growing in love when we have time for projects but not for people. Love is on the downgrade when it fails to protect, whether it’s the reputation of friends or coworkers, or the physical and spiritual health of family members. Love has cooled when it is unwilling to confront when necessary. In the church this may manifest itself by a lack of support for biblical church discipline. You do not love others if you will let them ruin their lives, their testimony, their reputation, and bring shame upon the church and the name of Christ, and you are unwilling to try to rescue them according to God’s plan (see Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5) from the sin that has deceived them.

Love’s decline may also be typified by unconcern for the lost. We become less sensitive to the physical needs of people and less burdened by others’ spiritual needs. A declining love acts but is not “without hypocrisy” (Romans 12:9). Love’s decline is not “given to hospitality” (verse 13). It is too indif­ferent to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (verse 15). Perhaps worst of all, it is apathetic about the rise of things in the heart and life that are contrary to love.

[…]

Love begins with God. We love because He first loved us. The more satisfaction and delight we find in His love, the more we delight in loving others. The more enjoyment we find in God as God, the more we truly enjoy being like Him by loving others. The more we grow in our joy in God, the more joy we find in the joy others find in our loving actions.

from Ten Questions To Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, by Donald S. Whitney

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On Sunday, our kids at our fellowship sang a song. The words stated, “I’m a friend of God.” It quickly reminded me of the passage in the book of John, where Jesus states;

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now YOU are my FRIENDS since I have told you everything my Father told me.

What a powerful verse of scripture. Here the creator of the universe calls his followers friends. It’s true of them and it’s true of us that love one another. This is the command that he gives, that distinguish believers from unbelievers. Jesus says elswhere in scripture that by our love for one another, the world will know that we are his followers.

I find it awe evoking that God would call me his friend and displayed it in the most graphic of ways, by giving his own life. I am just moved to ask, “who am I?”

Will you ponder that truth with me today? That truth ought to transform us and conform us more into his own image.

Here is the video that got me thinking about this verse.

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Rejoice and be glad…today is your last day to work for the government coffers this year! Or not, depending on which state you live in. Let me explain.

Tax Freedom Day is the day on which Americans have earned enough money to pay all their federal, state and local taxes for the year. From an averaging point of view, every penny you’ve earned so far this year—through quitting time today—will have gone to the government. Starting tomorrow, your hard earned money will instead go to your landlord or mortgage company, the fuel companies, the Persian Gulf Sheiks and Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, your insurance providers, the food reseller of your choice, the farmers and migrant workers, clothing retailers, utility companies, and any other consumer goods and services suppliers you choose to support.

For those of us in California, until April 30, we’ll still be paying Arnold, Antonio, Hilda, Gloria, Adam, Maxine and anyone else with their hands in the public coffers (see graphics link below). But why wait until then to celebrate? Why not celebrate—in an average kind of way—tonight after work, and then celebrate for real after you get home from work on the 30th?

The number of days America works to pay for their major spending categories

As Emeril Lagasse would say, “Bam! Let’s kick it up a notch.” The tax burden reached new highs in 1999 and 2000, and Tax Freedom Day arrived 123 days into the year, on May 3, 2000, and that still stands as the latest date ever. (Yep, if you have a job, you’re paying for all those government handouts, along with all the other government waste and non-waste.) Celebrate your generosity…in a frugal kind of way!

As more federal tax cuts were enacted during 2002 and 2003, the tax burden continued falling, and Tax Freedom Day arrived on April 16 in 2003, the earliest date in 20 years. Now that’s cause for rejoicing!

For comparison, Americans only had to work 21 days to pay their taxes in 1900 (Tax Freedom Day came on January 22). You’ve worked 113 days to pay your taxes this year (or 120 days for those of us in California). The UK’s Tax Freedom Day will fall on June 2 in 2008. Rejoice that you’re not there…yet!

Since the government is spending more than they are collecting in taxes each year, the American Institute for Economic Research has begun calculating “Friedman Day” — the day of the year when Americans earn enough money to pay for government spending. Friedman Day falls later than Tax Freedom Day (last year it was May 19), because it includes more than the taxes you pay. It also includes the money the government borrows to pay for all the additional spending that isn’t covered by tax revenue. Friedman Day shows that Americans are working fewer days to pay their taxes now than they did in 2000, not because the government is spending less, but because the government is borrowing more, in the name of tomorrow’s taxpayers. Just pray you’re not in your retirement years when your kids find out what you’ve done to them! (Matthew 24:21)

As the old adage says, “If you don’t like it, do something about it.” And as the word of God says, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24) Now please take a moment to apply 1 Timothy 2:1-2.

Click here for some interesting graphics regarding Tax Freedom Day.

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i usually write about some of my current thoughts about the Bible, but i think today is time for a small departure into another part of my body…my belly.

i don’t know if you guys have heard about the recent crackdown on l.a.’s taco trucks, but the l.a. county board of supervisors decided, in their infinite wisdom, that the trucks should not be allowed to park for more than one hour in any spot or risk a fine.

let’s first think back to our own wonderful experiences with the almighty taco truck, shall we?  no, not the ones where you got sick and ralphed it all out, but the good experiences.

** cue the harp **

i still remember el capitan, my favorite taco truck ever.  it was parked in the same place on whittier blvd. for years, and i consumed my fair share of carne asada tacos there with friends.  what made this particular truck special though, aside from the great food, was the fact that they had a spout in the back with a watered down Tang substitue to wash down your grub.  oh joy!

if el capitan would have been forced to move around, we would never have been able to find it.  they may as well outlaw the trucks, this almost completely destroys their ability to do business anyways.

there’s a certain nostalgia for those of us that grew up in southern california for those trucks.  i can’t imagine them being run off the streets.  they are a part of what makes los angeles what it is, a part of the culture of our city.

listen, i haven’t eaten at a taco truck in a long time, i admit that.  but i also would not hesitate to do it even still.

if i want to sit at a greasy table and order my food from a waitress that looks less than excited to serve me (yet i still have to tip her, right?) and have it arrive on a plate, i will certainly choose that type of establishment.  but if all i have is $1 in my pocket and i just need to have my senses assaulted by delicious carne asada with cilantro, limon and salsa, the taco truck is my choice.

i don’t want to discuss illegal immigration here and whether or not they are the main owners of these tax-free establishments….visit someone else’s blog to whine about that if you want.  but for now, with my voice as loud as ever, my face covered with a bandana and pumping my fist in the air, i say…déme tacos o déme la muerte!!!

more reading:
la times article
carne asada is not a crime (fyi - i signed the petition. #518 baby!)

authors note (apr 22, 10:38am): last night, sonia, steve and i took gabriel to have his very first taco truck experience.  he loved it, and so did we.  el capitan is a distant memory…but my heart now belongs to la golondrina of el sereno.  * sniff sniff *

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We should all ask ourselves this question, everyday. Especially when someone cuts us off on the freeway, or takes our seat somewhere, or just wrongs us some how. I was at the barber shop the other day. I did everything that I was supposed to do. When I arrived I signed my name on the list, and had a seat to wait my turn. So, I waited, and waited, and waited. I saw other people come in and sign the list after me. Yet they got called before me. I was really asking myself, “What in the world is going on here?” as a whole family went ahead before me. So, I waited some more. What really got me mad was when this drug-user looking, man that looked like a woman and vise versa, walked in an hour and a half after me. Guess what? They got called BEFORE ME!!!

Then this verse of scripture hit me like a ton of bricks. Philippians 2:5-8

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something

to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!

I checked my attitude. Who am I that I think higher of myself? If Jesus himself was mistreated, me being skipped to get a hair cut is nothing. In fact just as I pondered this verse in my head, made me feel convicted and I repented before God. So everyday when I’m driving or walking or whatever I’m doing, I think, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”

My brother, my sister. How is your attitude?

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We are having our “storying” seminar April 26, with Linda Wolf. I found this “story” about “storying” a few months ago, and thought I would pass along this excerpt. It is told by Dr. Lloyd W. Rodgers. He gives here another reason you may want to be part of this training.

Last month I attended a workshop on Biblical storytelling in Washington, D.C. My pre-conference assignment was to learn and later tell the story of Jesus’ encounter with the blind man (John 9). When the time came for me to stand up and tell the story before a small group of my fellow students, I did fine, moving right along through the story without any problems – until the very last scene. The Pharisees cast out the man who had been blind, and Jesus went to find him. When he did, Jesus asked him if he believed in the Son of Man. He replied, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus answers, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking with you.” And he responded, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Jesus.

At that precise moment, as I was telling the story in front of the group, I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. My heart overflowed and tears filled my eyes. My voice cracked and I had to stop the story. The image was so intense and the meaning so profound that no words could express them. The story had moved beyond a performance or teaching moment, to become a very personal encounter with the Jesus who seeks and saves, heals and reveals.

I did finish the story, and while the feedback from the group was kind, they were mostly puzzled. Where did that emotion come from?, they asked. I tried to explain, but was not sure even I understood the full impact. But the conference leader, a professional, full-time biblical storyteller who has performed literally thousands of times vast portions of the Bible, including the entire book of John, said, “After listening to you, I will never tell that story the same way again.”

If we are to be effective tellers of the biblical story, we must move beyond merely memorizing the text, to the more profound and spiritual task of learning it by heart. In my case, even though I had finished memorizing the story, I was still processing its message. The difference is fundamental to biblical storytelling as a spiritual discipline.

Deuteronomy 11:18 says, “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” To learn by heart is to “lay up” in our hearts. And until we lay up in our hearts these stories we tell, not only will we miss a tremendous spiritual blessing, but our missionary effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

Our conference leader told a wonderful story that may illustrate my point. The Jewish community celebrates annually the giving of the Law with a joyous ceremony that includes publicly holding high in the hands of the leader a copy of the Torah. During WWII, a rabbi in a Jewish concentration camp felt the burden of not having a copy of the Torah to use for the celebration. He noticed a young boy who had a reputation for knowing the Scriptures. “Do you know the Law?” he asked the boy. “Yes,” came the response. “Do you know it well?” asked the rabbi. “Yes,” he replied, “I know it very well.” And with that, the rabbi took the boy in his arms, and holding him up, they celebrated God’s giving of the gift of the Scriptures.

We are not simply repeating the words, but incarnationally living the Word. If the story does not first impact the teller, you are almost just as well off using a cassette tape or a video to present the story. Are you just telling facts? Or are you in fact sharing the gospel? The Bible story must become your story.

Learning a story by heart in the way I am suggesting can be a huge investment of time. If you invest the time necessary to learn a biblical story by heart, if you exercise it as a constant discipline, if you repeat it and speak it and re-read it and think on it and dream about it and live with it – then you may find yourself making difficult choices. Merely memorizing a story is hard work; laying it up in your heart is a spiritual commitment of missionary strategy.

Here are a few practical suggestions for making biblical storytelling a spiritual discipline.

1. Eliminate the “M” word from your biblical storytelling vocabulary. Do not think in terms of memorization but in terms of learning the story. I memorized John 9 in two days; it has taken me much longer than that to learn it.

2. Frame your learning in prayer.

3. Tell the story to yourself, out loud, over and over again, not as careless repetition, but in careful concentration.

4. Tell the story to someone else, before you tell it to the small group.

5. As you learn and as you tell, try to visualize the story, and look for reactions and feelings within the story that reveal truth.

6. Read a commentary on the story. Not so you can add anything to the telling, but so you can better understand what God wants us to hear, and so that the story itself makes sense to you.

7. Set goals – and I understand that this is very hard – for learning stories that do not necessarily have anything to do with your church planting or discipleship strategy.

8. Share with someone else your joys and insights from the process of learning biblical stories.

Finally, let me share with you a theory I am working on. Those of us who preach know how risky it can be to preach verses out of context. And yet, all of our Christian lives we have been told to memorize verses, by implication, completely out of context. Most of us can share the “Roman Road” with an unsaved person, but would only have a vague idea about the verses before and after. Memorizing individual verses of the Bible is not wrong, but it is incomplete. The reason we only memorize individual verses (and here is my theory) is not so much because of the extra work involved, but because we fail to appreciate the story-ness of the Bible, the meant-to-be-told-out-loud nature of Scriptures, even books like Romans and Galatians and Revelation.

Praying with you – and laying up stories in my heart,
Lloyd W. Rodgers

you may read the entire article by clicking here

[via Returning To Biblical Missions]

UPDATE: For more info about storying, click our OneStory link (under Links/Partnerships) or visit the Chronological Bible Storying website.

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diligence (noun) - constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken; persistent exertion of body or mind.

take a moment and read 2 peter chapter 1.  this is the text that we read and discussed last night at house church.

there are many things in life, particularly the christian life, that are solely the responsibility of God.  these are things that we cannot, under any circumstances, accomplish on our own.  i immediately think of salvation and redemption (among other things).  you can try as hard as you want but you can never accomplish what Jesus did in His sacrifice.

however, there are other things that as a disciple of Jesus we must extend every effort possible to attain.  we cannot neglect to do so on the back of the Holy Spirit, He will both lead us and fuel our efforts.  but change rarely comes as we sit on our recliners and funnel MTV re-runs into our psyche.  we must fight for change, commit ourselves to it, and walk around on stumps if we must.

many times, christians translate the concept of effort into pride and a desire to change on our own.  but peter very clearly tells us the opposite.  we must be diligent in working on self-control, knowledge, moral excellence, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.

diligence and effort are not a sign of pride, but rather a sign of allegiance and commitment to God.  allow God to speak to You and allow His Spirit to work in your heart…and then reign your body into submission for His glory.

in what ways can you apply all diligence in your walk with God?  what things to you need to put more effort into?

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A lot of people think that people like David Blaine and Criss Angel are satanic. Derren Brown is Englands version of them. Except I think he is better than them. He is a mentalist. He is using suggestion, psychology, verbal and non-verbal communication to influence and create magic in their mind. He merely employs what shaman and faith healers do to create so called healing or deliverance in their subjects. You tell me, satanic or mere mind tricks?

*blogger’s note: It is not satanic, but mind tricks, also known as mentalism. You are free to choose to believe otherwise.

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Thomas A Kempis wrote a book called, “The Imitation Of Christ.” In it he writes something that has been burned in my mind. This really ministers to me and hope it does the same for you.

What avail is it to a man to reason about the high, secret mysteries of the Trinity if he lack himility and so displeases the Holy Trinity? Truly, it avails nothing. Deeply inquisitive reasoning does not make a man holy or righteous, but a good life makes him beloved by God. I would rather feel compunction of heart for my sins than merely know the definition of compunction. If you know all the books of the Bible merely by rote and all the sayings of the philosophers by heart, what will it profit you without grace and charity? All that is in the world is vanity except to love God and to serve Him only. This is the most noble and the most excellent wisdom that can be in any creature: by despising the world to draw daily nearer and nearer to the kingdom of heaven.

God’s word tells us that, “He that exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

In James 4:7-10 God tells us exactly what to do to be lifted up by God.

1. He tells us to humble ourselves before Him. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So humble yourself, before He does it. Less painful that way.
2. Resist the devil. We know that pride brought down Lucifer.
3. Draw close to God and He will draw near to you.

There is nothing better than living like Micah 6:8 tells us to and have His favor.

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