Priceless……hidden-in-the-open evil

"And the word of Jehovah was to Zechariah, saying,
So says Jehovah of hosts, saying, Judge true judgment, and practice kindness and pity, each man with his brother.
And do not oppress the widow, or the fatherless, the alien, or the poor. And do not devise evil in your heart, of a man against his brother." Zechariah 7:8-10 LITV

Tom Davis, an author and missionary, who came to my attention when I was checking out of Family Christian Bookstore and saw his book RED LETTERS; Living a faith that bleeds. The title intrigued me, for that is what I'm passionate about…..bring my faith and that of my extended family in Christ out into the real world…out from the closed doors of our homes, our churches and our personal space….into a living, breathing and 'bleeding' example that doesn't require words to attract those un-believers or non-believers into discovering what it is you have……

The Amazon editor's review of this book really says it all……..

"I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."
Matthew 25:42-43 ESV

In many Bibles, Christ's words are set apart with a red font. It should be obvious, but this distinction helps remind us that when God becomes Man and that Man speaks--it's probably something we cannot afford to miss.

So why doesn't the church take these " red letters" to heart? Why aren't we doing more to be Christ's hands and feet to the poor, the disenfranchised, the weary, the ill, the fatherless, the prisoners? It's all there--in red letters. Why has the Church shirked its responsibilities, leaving the work to be done by governments, rock stars, and celebrities?

The Gospel wasn't only meant to be read--it was meant to be lived. From the HIV crisis in Africa to a single abused and lonely child in Russia, the Church must seize the opportunity to serve with a radical, reckless abandon. Author Tom Davis offers both challenge and encouragement to get involved in an increasingly interconnected, desperate modern world.

Tom Davis' advocacy organization HopeChest is a Christian-based group helping child orphans in Eastern Europe and Africa not through the funneling of money into these countries but taking the impact of a faith born of an amazing passion to be a father to the fatherless, a beacon of hope in a world so torn and evil that such fledgling gems are often killed by the harshness of others towards these precious little ones.

Tom's latest book, Priceless, is another example of a bleeding faith lived beyond the comforts of a life that he could have sought and how a life lived in the uncomfortable front lines of this battle for the orphans can be an example and reflection of experienced love, agape love, that we know in the deeply intimate relationship with our Father. Though it is a fictional account, the horror and the reality of the sex-trafficking trade is real.

I would recommend, even without reading the book, that you pick up Davis' latest offering and dare to be a 'father to the fatherless' as this book transforms your thinking into a movement of love, compassion and mercy in a world gone mad.

There is a current 'contest' to win a free copy of Priceless and some Saints coffee.....you can see my post on facebook for the details.

See http://www.hopechest.org/support-moldova/ and http://www.hopechest.org/ministry-centers/."  Tom Davis

http://blog.beliefnet.com/redletters/2010/06/beyond-the-game.html

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/ctomdavis?ref=ts

 

A Friend in need needs a Friend in-deed, part 3

"But I have called you friends, because everything that I have heard from my Father I have revealed to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and your fruit should remain, in order that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. These things I command you: that you love one another." John 15:15b-17 LEB

 

We often lament in this broken and lost world that we are 'winging it' because there is no manual of absolutes that bring us hard and undeniable evidence, facts and directions in which to tackle the hard questions of life. This 'winging it' attitude has led to the 'universal, tolerable and co-existent' attitude of the modern day where we can no longer stand for something because we have to fall for everything. We no longer believe, as the atheists have 'reasoned', in an absolute truth because we, as humans, are only capable of a changing and evolving subjective truth. Society's strongest dictate society's truths. And that truth can be manipulated and changed by changing the society it inhabits.

The Church has tried in the past to confront this dysfunctional view; both by refusing to wade into the cesspool of such corruption and trying to provide hastily fashioned 'islands of leadership' where one might 'pull themselves' out of the muck and by wading into it with the intentionally of being friendly without accountability and directionality…….what has come about is a 'universal, co-exist' movement that is intolerant of absolutes and tolerant of anything goes so long as you are friendly in your disagreements.

This is not the model of friendship that has been given us, nor the example that was lived by the Head of the Christian Church. The uncorrupted view is a harsh-defined, no-wiggle room version of friendship that cannot be simply picked up on Sunday mornings and donned like a suit, nor fashioned in such a way as to fit the user. The model of true friendship, while far beyond the ability of humanity to emulate perfectly, can be attained through the impartation of the Spirit within and reflected through the personal, intimate and deep relationship one has with its author, Master and Finisher; Jesus Christ. If we try to be friendly on our own, as has been our wont and our nature, we have the friendliness of self rather than the selfless nature of true friendship.

The example of friendship, while represented throughout the Gospels through Christ's life, is highlighted in the Gospel of John, the Beloved of Christ…..because, honestly, friendship is love….a love so selfless, so driven and so untamed that it knows no limit, no hesitation and no cost that cannot be reached that would cause it to be withheld. Agape love……unconditional, uncontrollable and uncontained.

It is the kind of love that we, no matter if we are baby Christians freshly washed in the blood or mature Christians with the honor scars of many years of faithful kingdom fighting, cannot give on our own, because we are by our sinful old nature protective of ourselves, but because of our deep, abiding and intimate relationship with Christ are able to extend beyond our limitations because of the unlimited condition of the love realized in Christ and borne daily in our interaction with Him through the Spirit. It is a absolute expression of friendship, incorruptible by humanity's shallow friendly nature.

There are some things of this absolute friendship that I'd like to touch on, although I cannot be totally inclusive of all its aspects……it is not for me to tell you everything but to point out a few waypoints in which your personal journey can go, as garnered from my personal experience.

Because, as I've said, I have been blessed with some spiritual friendships that have awed me as well as humbled me in the recent eight or nine months that I have been under God's discipleship in this area.

The first frame in the structure of Absolute friendship is transparency.

Christ tells us that He no longer called us slaves because honestly the relationship that He desires and pursues with each of us who claim Him cannot happen in the context of Master and slave. Our level of intimacy dictates our level of understanding of Christ, His purpose for us and our maturity in the Spirit to emulate Him. And, such knowledge cannot come from blind obedience that is built on fear but from an awareness and desire to reflect the mercy, compassion and love that we ourselves have come to be 'schooled' in through direct, deep and personal contact with Christ. And such contact is not hidden, God is wide open to us…..but we must pursue that awareness and understanding to obtain its fruit and be bearers of it in this world. Our friendships, while incapable of perfection, are open and honest…..our desire to reach our 'unchurched' or 'irreligious' friends as pure as our realization of our own need to be saved. Our friendships are, even among our 'churched' friends, are as free from agendas and protective distance as we are deeply connected with Christ; the more we are aware of such 'conditions' within our friendship with the Lord, the more we can reflect faithfully its transparency in our lives.

Another frame in Absolute Friendship's framework is intention.

Friendship doesn't happen by default, though we tend to collect the various levels of friends – especially in the age of the internet and distant interactions – like disposable items. Absolute friendships are as diverse as they are unique; neither being totally of one mindset or 'religious persuasion' but rather an intentional collection of people who are intimately personal and intentionally pursuing each other for the greater purpose of bearing the loads and pains of this life not because of a singularly desired protective nature but because of a singularly desire to being a source of comfort, accountability and growth to those whom share this title for the agenda of 'all should have eternal life' not through force-feeding but representational living of the Absolute friendship and Truth of Christ. It is seeking out those who are lost, found, sick and healthy for the intentional living of a life worthy of the example set forth by Christ, especially for those of us who claim His name and title ourselves followers, disciples and friends of His. It isn't seeking out those who will bolster our own opinions, desires and wants but seeking out those who are different from us as to challenge and hone our faith because of their own intentional seeking towards the common purpose of Truth. It is being a friend that a friend would like to have, as the song goes. It is having friends who comfort us, who challenge us and who hold us accountable…..to our own declared relationship with Christ and not our demand to hold them accountable to what we demand.

The third frame of the structure of Absolute friendship I'd like to touch on is timelessness.

Being part of the intentional family of Christ, body of the Kingdom building to which we as brothers and sisters of God's family are called to be active in, requires and evolves as our purposes are coalesced into sharp, crisp definitions through the shaping and molding of His hands……necessitating a constantly changing circle of contact, relational impact and physical interaction as we follow His call into mission fields both domestic and foreign…..but Absolute friendship is, as the timeless classic of Michael W. Smith tells us, 'a lifetime.' The intentionality, transparent and deep friendships that are born of the example set forth by Christ are not bound by the linear progression of this world or by the constant physical orbit of those in its embrace but is forever capable of its best as God's purpose for each of us brings us back into the ebb and flow of our friends' lives, because the commonality of the 'nails' that hold the framework together knows no time limit, bears an eternal remembrance of its embrace and desires at the opportunities to progress its awareness to deeper waters……

Because Absolute friendships are all about the driving, unconditional and passionate love that is a 'laying down of one's life for another'……as expressed in John 15:13.

It is a love that has been felt to the degree that it has to be reflected in a transparent nature faithfully and unconditionally to others by an agenda-less desire to show them the love we ourselves have come to understand because of our own emersion into its depths.

It is a friendship that holds ourselves accountable so that others may be accountable, requires intentional seeking in darkness with light, and unconditional surrender in the face of self-destruction.

This is the example that bears out throughout the life of the ultimate Friend………

Jesus Christ.

"What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear!..................."

Friends in need needs friends in-deed, part 2

"By this we have known the love of God, because that One laid down His life for us; and on behalf of the brothers we ought to lay down our lives. Whoever has the means of life of the world, and sees his brother having need, and shuts up his heart of compassion from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:16-17 LITV)

If we desire to have the type of friends that would lay aside their lives, lay aside their time and maybe even their financial 'nest egg' to step into the storm with us, we have to be willing to be that type of friend. Not the casual, sunny weather type….but a friend who is invested, not just in word but in action. Interaction based on interactional relationship.

"Run your car off the side of the road/Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere/Or get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back/Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare. This is where the rubber meets the road/This is where the cream is gonna rise/This is what you really didn't know/This is where the truth don't lie. You find out who your friends are/Somebody's gonna drop everything/Run out and crank up their car/Hit the gas, get there fast/Never stop to think 'what's in it for me?' or 'it's way too far'/They just show on up with their big old heart/You find out who your friends are" as the song goes…..a friend who faces life's challenges not from the couch or from the sidelines, but is in the thick of it with you.

Look at the early church, that establishment that began when Christ ascended to Heaven with the promise to return. It didn't grow slowly…….it grew explosively, not because the Gospel message was so dynamic, for even then it would've been hard for those who didn't get visited by Christ to simply believe in His resurrection…..but it would've been hard to see these twelve guys who preached a Gospel of a RISEN Christ that clashed directly with the Roman line of body thievery, who put their own lives on the line to tell everyone about the precious gift of salvation. And, even when the thousands stepped forward to accept it, the twelve didn't turn away from them and bid them to jump out on the street and do the same…..no, they gathered everything they owned, sold it and gave each according to their need, in fellowship and friendship. They met together each day for meals, for fun and companionship……and their numbers grew daily.

It wasn't just because everyone 'got' it or that the 'preachers' were gifted in the articulation of the Gospel…….it's taken me so long to write this because I couldn't articulate what brought the number of people to the Church….it wasn't the companionship, though that was helpful…..it wasn't the miracles, though they did happen…..it was something more, something so fantastic and desirable that they dropped what they were doing to discover its origins and to embrace its totality in a way that is absent in the church today……

Pastor Shannon nailed what it was a few Sundays ago in his third sermon on the "Unleashed" series (you can find the mp3 on mosaica2 page on facebook or www.mosaic.org)……written after the church began by one of its greatest apostles, who once was its greatest enemy.……

It is an aroma……a scent so unworldly, so out of place in the decay of humanity that it stood out, oozing from the very pores of the apostles and the believers who followed……………

"…..the aroma of Christ among those who are saved and among those who are dying. To some people we are a deadly fragrance, while to others we are a life-giving fragrance." (2 Corinthians 2:15b-16)

An aroma that defies the stagnant decay of humanity's sinful nature……and brings alive in those who come near us a hope for the promised eternity, or salvation's gift. It is the smell that guides those of us who are called to do mighty things, because of who we have embraced……it is a smell, an aroma of sacrifice….

And when God smells it, He is reminded of the sacrifice of His Son….

It is an aroma that wafts through a relational faith……that allows true friendship and accountability…..true community to exist and the extraordinary growth to its numbers to happen, just as it did in the beginning days of the Church. It was something more than changing deodorants or soaps…..it wasn't even an adherence to some new biblical code or methodology….. it was, to borrow J.B. Philips' words in "Letters to Young Churches," " a real experience…..to them….[an] invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether."

This is the level, the quality and the example of friendship that Christ left us. This isn't something that we can drape on our shoulders as we walk into the halls of our congregational meeting places, our ministry meetings or our small groups. And it isn't something that we, broken human beings that we are, can be on our own.

Sure, we can give our money away, purchasing temporary stays of sufferance for those who strike our fancy or whom we may never even meet because we give to charities…..we can be friendly and nice to everyone we meet, smiling infectiously and being considered a 'nice' person. We can do great and nice things for the homeless, the battered and the torn…..from the depth of the kindness in our hearts. But it doesn't carry the same affect, it doesn't make thousands upon thousands upon thousands desire to share in what you have found, these things….that takes something supernatural and beyond human corruption.

The Holy Spirit.

To be a true friend to the friendless, the hopeless, the battered and torn……to be something beyond a temporary stop-gap in the storms of life, to weather the foaming seas and the crashing waves with them, we need more than our natural tendency to hover around those who 'get' us, those who 'understand' us and reach into those 'demographics' that we would never dream of interacting with and be real…..

We need the anointing of the Holy Spirit to be true friends in this world……….

Part 3 coming……….What does a supernatural, Spirit empowered friend look like?

 

A friend in need needs FRIENDS in-deed, part 1

"By this we have known the love of God, because that One laid down His life for us; and on behalf of the brothers we ought to lay down our lives. Whoever has the means of life of the world, and sees his brother having need, and shuts up his heart of compassion from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:16-17 LITV)

 

It has been a very different eight months than I have ever known in the entirety of my life, going on some forty something years now. Not only because of the harder than ever task of obtaining a new job in the disaster of economic climate that hovers over the state of Michigan and much of the rest of the country, but even in the areas of my faith and my obedience to God. Family dynamics have been challenged, the future seems both bright and glorious as well as dark and frightening as I step into situations and circumstances that often seem to be beyond my control…as if I could ever say that I have had control of my life. Even when it was in my hands.

I'd like to say that I've handled everything successfully; that my faith has grown smoothly and my grace has been sufficiently adequate to the task of growth….but I would be lying. It has been a hard eight months for a man who has been overly blessed without explanation and logical reasoning. Even as I struggle in the darkness of the past wounds of my life, pay for the consequences of a life spent geared to be finished by the age of thirty and cling to a hope that sometimes I think I am far from being able to claim…..even as I live…..God has continued to bring His promises to bear. Even in this place……

In the last eight months, I have found a rare and even harder to accumulate commodity; even in, nay…dare I say….especially in, the Church…… that of friends, not friends that circle in the same ministries as I do…I have a group of men that I consider true friends but we are united by our common desire to minister to men, mentoring them to be what God calls us men to be. No, not the friends that are common to our collective experience on this world and in this broken, difficult life; friends who would 'hang out' with me for a time before life called them away.

Not those friends whom you nod to as you pass them by in the classroom, the hallways of work or even sit next to occasionally in service at Church. Not those whom, as the dictionary puts it, we are ….trusting and 'fond' of……. think well of or are on good terms with….or (even the most basic) who is not an enemy. It is part of the herd mentality of the human species and necessary for the existence and continuance of society that such designations exists…..friends of this surface and shallow level. A 'sunny weather' friend….the basis of which the world lives……and unfortunately, the level at which many of us within the body of Christ chose to stay at.

In this level of friendship, we can greet each other at Church, ask how everything is doing without wanting to hear the truth and stand next to each other in the seats of the worship center praising a "God who is glorious, loving and gave all for us" while we think of how quickly we have to leave to get to the ballgame, hope to get over to that store's sale or home to watch the TV show we're dying for. We avoid deep contact and interaction with those we call "brother" and "sister" and use "we'll pray for you" as the balm of avoidance when those broken, bruised and battered souls of our "friends" walk up to us and answer the standard question within the crowd of "Christians"….'How's things?'..as we hurry towards the exit sign. It is the shallowest of connections…..the humanistic glue of denominationalism or religiosity……and unfortunately it is the biggest flavor of friendship within the body of Christ today. It is the safest, from a standpoint of self-preservation, and the most acceptable form within the walls of our 'community.' It is the secular aspect of our communal life in Christianity that allows those who oppose Christ and His followers to malign and deride them so effectively, because it is the well-known model of a world so bent on self-preservation. It requires nothing from us and we can manage to convince ourselves we are 'good' friends. Like Eliphaz, the 'good' friend of Job, who spoke with great compassion while charging him with weakness and faint-heartedness, or Bildad, first to attribute Job's calamity to actual wickedness and Zophar, who was the most verbally abusive of the three in his reiteration of the three's collective arguments about Job's condition….all considering it a friendly touch while each deeply wounded Job. Interaction without involvement.

It is that level of connection that defeats and convicts upon the world stage the 'religion' of Christianity and its adherents. Justifiably so.

Many of us don't aspire to be such shallow friends, especially in the glow of Salvation's gift……it just becomes a safety net and fall-back position as we run face forward into the clash of a world bent on destruction and the needful cry of the walking wounded that we find, often to our dismay, within our own congregational walls. After all, as the three friends of Job claimed, it has to be a failure of adherence to the 'rules' of faith that cause the wounded not to be healed, the needy to remain needful and the broken to remain incomplete. It is never something that maybe, in the length of its angst, that brings greater glory to God in the 'endurance' rather than the 'overcoming'…..a testimony to the greater power and authority of God. We don't accept that, even within the 'religious' walled fortresses of faith.

We aspire, when we embrace the life of Christianity, to 'quick-fix' the problems of our friends…..to zoom into and then out of the life floundering on the waves of the world's sinfulness, leaving them under the appearance of doing better as we quickly rush back to those less wounded, less needy and less broken. We don't want to remain in those places where we are reminded of our own weakened humanity, our own powerlessness and our own follies. We don't dare return to those dark places where we once languished in agony to bolster a brother or sister in faith who is wallowing in its powerful clutches. We instead throw a torch to them….which often fizzles out before it can even reach them. Then, we shrug our shoulders and walk on….after all, it must be their fault, a sin, or just their own weak faith that forces them to remain in that place. God wouldn't…..or would He?

What affects a greater change in those who live in the perpetual darkness of secularism, humanism and unitarianism , where it is mankind who is in control, mankind who is author and finisher of their destiny? Something they have 'overcome' on their own? It would seem so with the amount of books out there telling us that it is all in our minds and we can speak our future into reality. It would seem that we are nothing more than a step, a word or a thought from our greatest human achievements for all of us……maybe we should all submit to brainwashing….then we'd all be millionaires.

If such is true, why do we……humanity…….need each other, human interaction? Why, if we are a confused and ignorant biological being, do we seek out other confused and ignorant biological beings to associate with? Why are our greatest social establishments nothing more than someplace where people of like minds, tastes or enjoyments are gathered together? Why do we make, break and lose friends?

Why do we admire and secretly desire the type of people who are friends with desperadoes, thieves and liars that go into the lion's den and the fiery pits because of who they are friends with? Why do we want those friends who stand beside their friends in a deadly situation and stand firm? Why do we hope and pray for a type of friend who would be nailed to a cross of wood and DIE for us…in our place, because of our own corruption? Why, so that we could get a 'quick-fix' to our problems? How many of those quick-fix friends do you have left in your life when the 'quick-fix' fails?

Next, what a true friend is and the biblical example of it…….the early church as described in Acts 2.