Courage begets honor

"‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’/Was there a man dismay’d?/Not tho’ the solider knew/Someone had blunder’d/Theirs not to make reply/Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do & die/Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred/Cannon to right of them/Cannon to left of them/Volley’d & thunder’d/Storm’d at with shot and shell/Boldly they rode and well/Into the jaws of Death/Into the mouth of Hell/Rode the six hundred."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote this poem to memorialize a suicidal charge of British light cavalry against Russian forces. It is the same war that propelled Florence Nightingale into renown for her battlefield nursing.

It is the poem that comes to mind when I read the devotional for the E.A.C.H. 33:3 preparation campaign.

“If you want favor with both God and man, and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely; don’t ever trust yourself. In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success.” Proverbs 3:4-6 TLB

In the movie, “The Blind Side”, Michael Oher writes about the charge of the Light Brigade in the final essay of his senior year that drives his grade point average up to the point where he qualifies for a college sports scholarship and then into the fame of the NFL. He writes, “Sometimes it is best to shoot for courage and hope for honor.”

247 of the 637 British soldiers to charge the Russian position were killed or wounded, just over a third of the whole unit lay on the battlefield because of the mistake of someone who was in charge. Courage caused them to spur their steeds onward, honor kept them pushing forward. Honor, in that circumstance, is indeed something you find in the midst of the chaos and it is something that requires the courage to seek it within yourself.

A friend of mine told me that someone had once told her that one should take on the responsibilities of a desired role before actually attaining the title of that role. In the early church, there was a preacher, a teacher; proclaiming and confessing Christ as Lord.

Maybe that is why the Light Brigade and the verse have set off such a deep feeling for me. In all things, it is what you trust in (the men around you, your training, the leaders above you) that drives you to take courage and seek honor.

Even when the leadership tells you that the direction you see God calling you isn't the direction He's calling you. Courage to seek God's vision even if there's those who don't see it. Risking the cannon fire of those who can't dream so large. Taking courage so God can forge honor in the fire of trials.

That is all the success I hope for in the battles for the Kingdom; to be honorable for my King.

A Letter Home

Dear God,

It was great to get to spend time with You last night, just You and me one on one. It is always a delight and a growing experience to me to sit at Your feet and listen, to be totally immersed into what Your visions cast and Your words bring to life. It is always with a heavy heart that I have to get up and watch You go on Your way. I know it is unusual for me to write a letter to you, what with the instant communication that we share nowadays, but I wanted to express in writing like I used to my appreciation for our relationship. A permanent record of what I feel for You and what You are doing in my life, through my life and with my life. Much like Your record of love letters You've written to me that I call the Bible.

Remember all the times You told me that I had to be ‘like a child’ in my pursuit of You? That such simplicity would be the only way I’d enter the Heavenly gates? I’ve never really understood that until tonight, as You spoke to me through the “Letters to God” movie. Tyler was both physically and spiritually a child in his relationship with You. A child dying of cancer who had lived more than I have as an adult. Although there was no indication of Your answering him, in the end lying in front of him on that stage were the results of the work You had set his hands to and it was beautiful. It is there that I realized what You meant by ‘as a child.’ The simplicity of faith in a world that denies it unless it is instantly proven.

You have brought me far on this journey home and there is not a moment of true depreciation that I’ve ever experienced, though sometimes in the darkness after the campfire burns low and the night falls silent I may have quailed before the enormous size of the task at hand. You have shaped me and molded me into a warrior with a cause, a special operations member of a team designed to fight in the darkness for those lost. Help me, my Friend and Mentor, to have that simplistic faith of a child in the tasks You are preparing for me.

You know those momentary distractions that keep me from a focus totally on Your work; the financials, the family and the daily minuet that carries my attention away from the true dance of the redeemed. You know that I trust in You to provide what my family and I need so that we can use what we’ve been given to reach out to those who don’t know you. That line from the Cars movie echoes in my head, “I elicit feelings in others that they themselves don’t understand.” I would trust that those feelings that my life and my words elicit reflect You and brings those people to Your gentle knocking on their doors for a relationship such as the one we share.

There are many things we talked about last night, my dearest Friend, and many grand adventures You and I have left to take upon this earth if what You said was true (and I have learned You never not tell the Truth). There are many titles that people will give me; Chaplain, Pastor, Friend, Father, Brother, Fool, Idiot and Disillusioned Man. Some will believe and see Your Spirit anointing me anew into the purpose to which You have set me to. Some won’t. But, just as they did with You, calling You many names (Savior, Messiah, Fool, Fake), I trust that You will carry me into the Will and Purpose of Your design as our Father in Heaven carried You.

You told me that You have enabled me to do greater things that You Yourself did while You were here on this earth and my mind cannot grasp at the sheer audacity of such vision. You said that You were molding me for that purpose set before I took my first breath upon this world and I still wonder if I am worthy of such grand dreams. You mentioned that there is still work to be done, still souls to be saved and that time is growing short.

I humbly submit all that I have, am and will be to You to use as You see fit.

I look forward to our next time where I once again can sit at Your feet and just hear You speak the Truth into my life to the point of overflowing so that I can in turn be a source of its utterance into a world gone mad with its own reality.

I am, and always will be, in Your service.

Love,

Jim

God moment....

“God, Your faithful love is so valuable that people take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They are filled from the abundance of Your house; You let them drink from Your refreshing stream, for with You is life's fountain. In Your light we will see light. Spread Your faithful love over those who know You, and Your righteousness over the upright in heart.” (Psalms 36:7-10 HCSB)

It is not that often, gathered with the immediate members of the vast family of God, that my mind wanders and my thoughts drift away from the course of the message being given or the lesson being taught. Because I so love to listen to the virtues of the Word and the imagery that He’s given to someone about a particular passage or thought that is being expounded upon. I used to be, in the earliest of my new life, particular about the whole ‘functionality’ of the pastorship and those who are put (or put themselves) into positions of leadership for a congregation simply because it was MY ears they were reaching and it was MY family in which they were ‘in charge.’ I’m probably not alone in that, and it is a sad state of affairs that the body is so fractured because of the human side of the equation…..we still tend to elevate those in pastoral, directorship and even elderships into extremely isolated pockets were only the godly can walk (or so we assume) and the righteous lounge without fear of eviction (or so we believe).

It is not that often even absent of the fellow believers that I know (even if they don’t know me) that I wander when approaching the manner of being in the Word. There have been only a few times, and a few choice places, where the ‘fortunate’ occurrence takes place….without my noticing, at least in the beginning…

I call them ‘God-moments’ because the clarity and profound peace that I feel during them can only mean He is very near……..molecules of air close…..

Worship was heightened for me today, I just couldn’t seem to stop smiling even as my heart was carried away by the essence of the songs…the words both meaningless and profoundly impacting, even though I’ve heard them before. The worship band, led by Marshall Mobley, performed both as they normally do (exceptional) and with an apparent brush of the divine whispering amongst the chords and strums, beats and depressions made on the musical instruments and interspersed among the amplified voices of the singers. It wasn’t that Nellie Fowles was helping or even that she gave a powerful reading from the Word, stepping boldly into a powerful song with a heart dripping with the passion brought on by the Holy Spirit…something I’ve seen her do, miles away behind some dark red doors in a environment called New York City.

Maybe it was her voice so burdened with a heart for God that tripped the ‘God moment’ for me, or at least started the turning of my world into the mystical, peaceful and charged place where God sits in the Holy of Holies. If so, I owe her a debt of thanks.

Maybe it was the heartfelt prayer before service, where I asked to be emptied of the blessings given before that moment so that all could be filled with an overwhelming, overfilling amount of the Spirit so that we were driven into the streets burning with the flame of the redeemed.

Maybe it was my son, as they read off the announcements today and the Bowery Street Mission trip was once again mentioned, who tugged on my arm and whispered as I leaned close, “You’re going there, Dad!”

Most likely, it was simply a matter of God’s success in getting and securing my attention beyond the realm of the physical and the mental. A firm grip on the hand of His son, a moment where the world was put on hold as we sat together and He displayed the wonders of the plans that He set aside for me even before the world I know began. A simple invitation to “Come, worship Me.”

I know it wasn’t Shannon Nielsen, the lead pastor for the church I go to called Mosaic A2, and his need today to expound upon the minutia of the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel that is the central focus for the topic today from Tim Keller’s book, Counterfeit Gods….. how marrying your cousin and marrying more than one wife was not the ‘truth’ of the Bible but rather humanity’s customs at the time that bothered me to the point of drifting, though I was bothered by the necessity that seemed to overwhelm the meat of the topic today, “Love is not all you need”, by a defense of what was being read. A momentary thought of annoyance drifted in my mind and was gone, as was my centering on the voice coming from the stage.

I spotted Shannon Carey sitting down in the seats on the main level (I have taken to sitting in the back upper level, off to the side) and I was filled with a happiness for her, a certain and expressed ‘knowing’ that whatever God was facing with her, whatever dealings He whispered in her ears as she swam the mighty oceans of His Word or whatever prompting He was gently prodding her with was a great and mighty thing that is leading her closer and closer to the ‘sweet spot’ He’s reserved for her even before her world was begun. I would’ve loved to be a part of that, just to watch it unfold in the life of such a special daughter of God, but that seems to be a momentary, selfish wish that isn’t going to happen. Maybe it was meant to be but was altered by the wounds of this world, but I think it wasn’t meant to unfold other than the way it did. Still, I know our paths will cross again someday as God draws us both into the paths He would have us walk as we journey towards home. And in the end of it all, that is what matters. Today, that was a moment glimpsed that God gave me to settle a part of this life.

There were others in the group, this band of members that I fellowship with silently among the borders of their community, where I felt a heightened sense of “blam, there He is” or “Hoooray, He walks there”….. some that I have known and been known by and others who, though part of the same family and community, have never crossed that invisible line between seen and being known. But each seemed to glow with a certain light or a different posture that whispered “God’s there” to me.

For me, I was ensnared by the picture I carry in my bible from the Bowery trip last year, one of many that are stuck in the zippered outer compartment of my bible pack……..one of the Red Bowery Doors and nothing else.

I want to go back to behind those doors, I realized today, with a very intense and powerful desire. Tim Keller tells us to think about what we daydream and what whispers in the darkness of our sleep, for there are what the gods of our lives reside and drawn their enslavement of our hearts from. Even good things, born of a desire that shadows out God and replaces our relationship with Him for the objects hidden behind our mind’s eye. It is not my desire to go to the Bowery Street Mission because it’s a week away from the kids, family responsibility and a chance to travel; nor because I want to be preaching again at the famous Bowery Chapel where Presidents and other notable figures have stood and given God’s Word to the community there. In the intensity of the God-moment today, it was simply one reason and one reason alone.

To be joyfully broken by my God.

To be used as an instrument after being crafted again at His hand, to embolden and incite a community and to be a piece of the work that is being overseen by the Holy Spirit and those God has emplaced in that city to be His eyes, ears, hands and feet to a people who would turn from His salvation for the lack of experience.

The money needed to go will come, the ‘babysitter’ for the kids will be identified and the experience of the Bowery will once again grow me further and farther than I have been in a week for in the midst of the desire to be an instrument for the caring of His people, both the lost and the found, there is the welcomed opportunity to be shaped and molded by walking alongside Him in the work He is doing.

As the service wound down and the moment that I was given to walk hand in hand, step to step with my God faded into the backdrop of this reality, all I could do is whisper;

“Wow, what a great and mighty God is He……”

My reason for my seasons

"I have become a fool; you forced it on me. I ought to have been recommended by you, since I am in no way inferior to the "super-apostles," even though I am nothing." (2Co 12:11 HCSB)

It just gave God’s word to the seasonal theme of this time; not just the unemployment or the move to a different city or even the loss of someone that I truly loved but also the events that have carried me from that moment in October 2004 until now……bits and pieces of the work that He began way back in February 2004 until today that I thought were seasonal changes of my journey. As I sit here and stir the campfire in the dark echoes of the night, listening to the nocturnal creatures of its inky blackness, I have realized that there has been only one season since the end of the cold winter that began that February day. It has been a long journey and there are some who would say that I am no closer to the ‘goal’ than I was that October day in Chicago. Others would say I’ve become a ‘burden’ to the cause. Some will say I’m about as ‘godly’ as a addict or as ‘saved’ as a person drowning. Others, that quiet majority, have said that God is amazing in what He has done in my life, to this point, and the direction they perceive Him to be taking me on.

It has not been easy; this journey in the deepest heat of the summer past. It would seem for the majority of the trip so far, it has been through swamp and murky bogs….attacked by mosquitoes and pursued by bears. Always on the defensive, always working on wounds and new hurts and old recurring nightmares, grasping at peace and running to try and capture joy. Pursuing what I perceived God to be only to find that He was nothing like what I had thought. Seeking that direction to achieve the purpose He has set within my bones, that desire that seems to ebb and flow with the beating of my heart only to feel mislead by the directions and opinions of those who have come into my life. I have proclaimed the purpose He has called me to and been laughed at…..told to stop being foolish and do the ‘responsible’ thing. In several ways, by several people, for several different reasons.

I have been defensive in some of this season; fighting the perception of those both right and wrong, those who are lovers and haters and those who truly want what God is doing in my life, around me and through each of us. I have been offensive; fighting for the development of the purpose, seeking the ‘in’ to the ‘inner sanctuary’ though all the doors seem locked. I have argued, cajoled and calmly interjected. I have written, I have preached and I have volunteered. I have experienced the fullness of many opportunities and shied away from others. It has been a long, tiring and unrealized journey through this season.

And it boils down to what a friend said to me that I believe these verses speak from God’s own mouth. “I should…be…act…think…” has to be replaced with “God is” and that is enough. No longer, from the moment of my salvation can I expect myself to achieve, but (and he said this was from a seminar he went to) I have to consistently put myself in situations where if God doesn’t show, He’ll look foolish. In the absence of our own abilities and skills, where there is no rhythm or reason to the success of the struggle, the goal or the dream….in that the only thought that can be given is that God has done the work. We are merely the putty in His hands, shaped and fired to meet the requirements of the vessel for the Holy Spirit to fill.

I presented myself to the Church as a candidate of calling; there are those who have seen it and those who have not. There are those who, checking off the list of ‘requirements’ have forgotten the one sole requirement God has given to them…to disciple and further God’s cause in the call. The rejection of the Church has been a damaging wound to my life, but I have realized there was never a ‘Church-requirement’ of approval in the things that God has purposed me to do. Only my obedience and movement towards Him.

There are those who say I’m foolish to still dream, to still question whether or not God has called me to go into fulltime ministry……. If I am foolish for the impossibilities of God, then so be it.

So, now as the unemployment runs out and still no job on the horizon…..as the last of the money is poured into my gas tank for fueling the car…..and I face the coming New Year without apparent prospects, I wonder and trust in the provision of God for me and my family. I am awed by the questioning of my heart to pursue His big, audacious and hairy dreams for me or to sulk into a job to ‘just get by’ if I can.

As a pastor challenged his readers in an blog he wrote about “Daring to pray this prayer,” I can only bow my head in supplication and raise my hands in adoration…….and pray this prayer for 2011. For this is what God has taught me in the theme of this season…..He will have me where He wants me to be.

"Two things I ask from you; do not refuse me before I die: Remove falsehood and lies far from me; do not give me poverty or riches, feed me with my allotted portion of bread, lest I become satisfied and act deceptively and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or lest I become poor and steal and demean the name of my God." Proverbs 30:7-9.

It is my only resolution for 2011. What is yours?

Uncomfortable mutterings...

“I will remember these things as I pour out my soul: how I used to walk with the crowd and lead it in a procession to God's house. “ Psalm 42:4a (GW)

I went to my blog today to add a blog of the Senior Pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, which I’ve interacted with on an occasion of serving the homeless shortly after I had returned from the Bowery Mission in New York with my-then girlfriend and ministry partner, Shannon, who led me to it. It was shortly before I moved to A2 myself with the family and so the city was totally new….but the ministry to the homeless, ingrained by the impact of the Bowery, wasn’t. Things have changed since those days of March.

In many aspects of my life, my faith and my direction.

When I arrived at my blog, there was a ‘unmoderated’ comment by a young woman from Virginia whom came across my blog posting of the Bowery Street Mission in Lower Manhattan, New York. That, in and of itself, is not new…. Somehow in the course of investigating various topics and interests there have been those who have been directed to a comment I’ve made or a blog post I’ve written. I’m not saying that to boast, it’s just the nature of the research engines to bring odd things to the surface as you search….or not, dependent on your engine and your ability/desire to dig. She had experienced the Bowery too, an unique connection that defies age, culture, and location. Once a Bowery-changed person, always a Bowery-changed person.

She left a nice comment and I went to her blog. After reading it, I posted it to my list of blogs and sites (renamed from Sites I visit). I recommend, even if I don’t always agree with what’s posted, these blogs….. we are a vast, unique and wide body within Christ’s family and I believe none of us have everything fully right except for the foundational truths that binds us together as brethren under the blood.

But that’s not the energy that runs through my fingers to write about today…… Not even the Bowery Mission, which is forefront on my mind each day as I sit down at this desk because of the apron displayed with the signatures of the men I met my first time there that my eyes fall upon as I ponder the Word, think about God, and feel for the direction He wants me to take in my humble offering called posts. Anthony Johnson……Marvin Campbell….Cuba Edy….some names written big, some small…..like the Constitution of the United States signature section at the end. A connection to a world that I skirt the edges of each and every day as the unemployment continues.

“I may have glanced in a mirror at the man who walked between those two red doors if I had but known that I would never see him again. Then again, I may have not.”

I think now that I wished I had, glanced in a mirror at the man who walked in the doors of the Bowery so that I could compare him to the one who walked out. I don’t know if I would’ve still willingly, though with some reluctance, walked in those doors because the course of my life was inalienably changed that week and even as I walked away from it with new feelings in regards to those I loved, those I was responsible for and those whom I would’ve counted strangers in the weeks before……I didn’t know the path I would be traveling and the havoc it would play upon my emotions, my feelings and my faith.

I walked in the doors of the Bowery uncomfortable because of the painful connection it had, even in its total newness to me, to my life that lay in devastation behind me……. I walked away from the Bowery uncomfortable in the perceived direction and emotions that lay exposed in my life….. and as I sit here in Ann Arbor, I realize in this moment as I think again and again of the past year that I have been unemployed, that I have never been comfortable since.

And I fought against it like a horse against the reins or a child against the rules. Which made me more uncomfortable, which made me more uncertain and which made me sit at the campfire in the darkness of this journey far too long because I didn’t want to answer the questions posed by the stirring of my uncomfortableness or listen to the only Truth that such questioning could bring. God has ebbed and flowed in this place, much like a faithful friend who coaxes you from the safe and the comfortable by walking away and comes back when such efforts don’t seem to move you. My beliefs have cried out for untapped boundaries even as my faith quails in failure to support such reaching….. I have been driven both by my human fear of the unknown impossibilities of God and my spiritual fear of God, the push and pull of the tide of my beliefs bringing me to the point of drowning in the immensity of God because the lifesaver of my faith fails to support the dead weight of my body.

I don’t believe I was meant to be single, but singleness is the only seemingly constant in my life……….

I believe I was meant to preach, but the inadequacies and impossibilities of such an endeavor seem to be insurmountable…..

God has called me to impossible heights of His glory and grace even as I realize that I am not worthy (and never will be) of such elevation……..

I want to be comfortable in the environs and community of the Family of God; to be respected, to be loved, to be a powerful force of truth and change even as I am changed by association. I want to be everything that I am supposed to be within His purposes and His kingdom………..the talents lay in my hands, the gift of my Master as He departs for home to prepare for His return…….

To invest those talents means to live on the edge constantly and forever uncomfortable even in comfort, joyful even in sorrow and loving even in the painfulness of community.

I remember those times when the world would wander away and God was real and present with me at the campfire……those times when the gifts given were used for Him in the immense uncomfortableness of doing what He has called and purposed me to do……..

In the duality of living for the King…….uncomfortable in the comfortableness of His embrace, working alongside Him as He prepares the world for His coming.

The year

‎"As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water; her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock." Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon.

I’ve tried for the last week or so to write this blog. For some reason, I get going on it and then look at what I’ve written and hit the delete button. I’ve done that often lately as I’ve tried to write for the blog…..if you are reading this and notice such things, my numbers have truly dropped off. It’s funny, with being unemployed for the last year, as of Nov 13^th, you would think that I’d have all the time in the world to write and some people would say that’s all I’ve probably done instead of being hard-core job searching and willing to take anything to be employed again. As with salvation, the proof is in the fruit and there has been no fruit from the writing tree in months.

It has been quite a year.

I thought I had found a ministry partner and found out that ‘love’ is fleeting unless it is really true. I have watched two communities of believers react in different ways to the situation my family has struggled through in the last year since the call on the phone telling me that my job was no longer there. I have had friends struggle with the situation; not wanting to ‘enable’ me to be lazy but also not wanting to be cruel in their accountability of supporting me in the job search. I have experienced sorrow and joy, peace and discontentment and disillusionment with insight. And, it has (as in all journeys) brought me here. And, as in all things human and fragile, here is not where or what I thought I would be.

I love the sea. I think that it was part of my genetic makeup that went wildly out of control. My grandfather was a Navy vet of WWII. He had entered the service as an enlisted man and they commissioned him as soon as they discovered he was a Detroit Diesel Engineer. They put him in charge of a PT training squadron out of Florida. My grandmother said she would look out to the sea and see the squadron on maneuvers, knowing as soon as they turned into the canal that she could start dinner because he’d be home by the time she was finished with it. My father, a storekeeper, was in during the Korean war and served as a driver for the Director of Navy Intelligence in Japan. I served in the Navy myself as a Damage Controlman.

It has been a difficult year.

My image of myself; that core-ness of who I am took a devastating blow that November day last year. A shot amidships right at the magazine storage. And, despite my best attempts in the days that followed I slowly sank lower into the waves and took on water. No longer was I heading toward a destination but I was in a fight for my very survival. Far from land, far from assistance and well into the locker of Davey Jones……I truly gave up for a while. Oh, I floated up the dream of Seminary and finding the wealth of support that would get me and my family through the three years or four (max) that it would take to get my Masters of Divinity degree that would ‘legitimize’ my calling in the faces of those in charge of the human side of church. Or going back to school to get that degree that was the reason for my demise.

But in a world where my future was traded in the past for the moment of survival that I gained, such were only mere momentary measures that failed almost as soon as they were implemented. And, as each attempt was stripped away, the hardened ‘image’ of a visceral man who has survived for so long….even despite himself, was shaken and wiped away layer by layer. Soon, the young boy who had set sail so long ago in the passage of time was the only thing left.

Standing waist deep on the deck of the ship in the sea.

Love….a endeavor I was ill-equipped to undertake and a temptation that I thought was conquered that merely was forgotten in the dailiness of being upon the sea of this world. Community, that strange island passed on the port bow full of the rumors and tales of a strange people so outrageous that it had to be impossible. Future?, a mere moment-to-moment thing devoid of any grace or grandeur. Merely a teasing distraction to the water filling the cracks and crevasses of the hull, a temporary filling of the sails fallen to the deck and a fractional movement forward.

A boy standing on the water-filled deck facing the impossibility of overcoming the storm, alone, knowing that all that he thought was real was simply an illusion of his sinful and depraved mind.

Often, when we are faced with such complete and utter destruction, we beg whatever we have to and promise whatever we have to and grab whatever hand we see presented to get ourselves out of the situation at least for a moment so that we can breathe and ponder its immensity so that we can face what we have to do to never come to that place again. I know, because I have been here before and I have done the same thing.

Add to that the picture of the rest of the crew, incapable of doing the work themselves and relying on you to see them through……picking up on your fear and your isolation that causes them to pull away from you and cling to those who can give them peace in the troubling winds…… that moment comes when the house of cards that is you falls apart and scatters to the floor, trampled on in the urgency of the situation.

A boy standing on the water-filled deck up to his neck.

Not exactly the future I had envisioned staring out of the second story attic of the world of my childhood as the sounds of Johnny Horton extolling the tale of the Bismarck. Not exactly the man that I envisioned myself becoming in the glories and battles of the open sea.

There was no sudden ‘salvation’ on the horizon this year, no sudden insight that enabled me to bring about victory from defeat or a miracle born of ingenuity that would make you shake your head in the amazing simplicity of it. No, merely a little boy frightened beyond his days slapping at the waves that threat to overwhelm him and a deep-soul burden cry of disillusionment and fear shouted to the unseeing sky.

And in that moment of my despair, where I have realized that I cannot do what needs to be done by myself and the pride that once made my backbone so ramrod straight was imaginary and useless; then…….

We moved out of my family’s house that was stressing everyone and moved into a place of our own…….friends providing the funds to buy and renovate it.

We are settling into school and healing from the wounds we have caused each other in the dark of the storm………

And my faith, once that jewel that adorned my crown, has been discarded in the light of its uselessness……………………..

Even in the reality of being guided by the hand on the helm of my life, that God/Man that commands the seas to calm or rage, hasn’t shaken me as much as losing my faith.

It brings me back to the moment in time when I was strapped into a harness with a thin, two inch piece of rope wrapped around the metal mast of the ship and told to climb the 40 foot thin pole that was jokingly called a main mast to replace the top running light on the port side arm. With the sea tossing it in a two to three inch arc through the air. It took me a half an hour to do what the deck hands, the Bosun Mates, would’ve done in ten minutes.

Fear caused my limbs to freeze, the nearness of danger my heart to race and the impossible heights that I was called to go making me wish to be someplace else……..

That moment, each and every step I took or movement I made, where I overcame the fear, danger and uncomfortableness to reach the next rung, the next jump of the rope or to reach over dependent only upon the support I had judged inadequate……..that moment I am reliving today.

That moment in-between the flight of dreams and the reality of gravity……and the realization that you’ve reached it.

God is passing by and my eyes fear to look up, even if it is only to see His back…………

God has given me a bucket and the sheer foolishness of bailing the entirety of the ocean with a five quart bucket makes me want to cry……….

But I bail because I have nothing left but the reality of who God is and the promise that He has made to me and you………even in the neck-deep water that has washed over our gunwales………..

Whether the ship slips beneath the cold waves and disappears from the air of this world……..or some miraculous salvation comes over the horizon……..

I bail….

Because from the helm comes the chant of promise, the declaration of love and the eternal future……..

“I know the plans I have for you…..plans to prosper you and not to harm you………”

“Plans to give you a future and a hope….”

So, even as I bail the depth of my depravity and sinful temptations that have sunk me so low into the world……..

Even as I struggle to fellowship with the community of God and have those who are so inclined to walk alongside the truth in my life…..

My belief in God grows stronger even as my faith weakens…..and my heart sings……

‎"Make music to praise the LORD, you faithful people who belong to him. Remember his holiness by giving thanks. His anger lasts only a moment. His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but there is a song of joy in the morning." Psalm 30:4-5 GW

Unlosable Salvation.......unforgettable faith

“My sheep give ear to my voice, and I have knowledge of them, and they come after me: And I give them eternal life; they will never come to destruction, and no one will ever take them out of my hand. That which my Father has given to me has more value than all; and no one is able to take anything out of the Father's hand. I and my Father are one.” John 10: 27-30 BBE

It has been one of ‘those’ weekends, where the defining line between hope and despair are dimmed and the reality of the impossible faith becomes see-through in the light of day. And in ‘that’ weekend, I typically consume myself and wonder if I am some kind of cosmic joke to God….a checker moved about a board of real harsh reality, at the whim of the pleasure and amusement of a God that doesn’t care……that has predestined me for the scrap heap rather than the treasure pile.

The furnace isn’t coming on as it should have and it’s getting colder.

It is funny how quickly the fabric of my life unwinds under the pressure of living. Seems there is always a crisis to overcome, a moment in time that bears some pain and the continuing saga of struggle against something; sin, financial insolvency, depression, or a host of other things. I have a huge electric/gas bill, a ‘penalty’ bill from DirectTV and no gas/non-food money for a while….at least two weeks, until I can start working as a cab driver….which I need really to get some glasses to make it easier to read street signs and a dentist to help with some tooth pain.

Money can’t buy you love but it is the currency for everything else.

Pastor John McLean, the former Elder Pastor of Berean Bible Church was giving the sermon at church last Sunday, to which I had arrived late because I ran out of gas on the way into church….ironically outside another church that was meeting at a local middle school on Hix road…..two people blasted past me at the entrance to the school and walked into service. Guess there’s nothing like being late for service?! Pastor McLean was giving a sermon on 1 John 5:18 ff about how to identify a Christian.

Always of interest for someone in the position like mine.

One thing that struck me that he said was that a Christian will always struggle against the tendency to sin…..the temptation if you will…..to allow the old nature to supersede the new. Daily we have to face that old nature, that lives within ourselves, a duality that seems to be impossible but isn’t in the reality of this place. It amazes me that there are those who claim to be sin-free in this world, who walk a clearer path, truly, but still face the temptations and the slippery slope of sinfulness. In their denial lies sin.

We claim to follow Christ and yet, in the very basic structure of that we lose the meaning of following Him….of being made righteous in His sacrifice and brought instantly into perfection because we are a linear people, unable to project ourselves into that reality even as we struggle in this one. Christ walked the earth in a dual nature; fully God, fully Man. I’ve often wondered why that was the case, why God….one of the Trinity….would have to suspend His Godliness to be human so that He could save the whole of mankind. Oh, I understand that He had to stand in for each of us, to be a substitutionary payment of the sins that have kept us from God’s relationship, the perfect Lamb without blemish taking on the blemish of the world. Without reason, without right…..we have the ability because of the part of God that is within us (faith) to claim that sacrifice, that payment, as ours and become co-heirs with Christ.

But in that duality of nature; where Christ was fully God and fully Man, it brings a greater and more meaningful understanding why He came to live among us, to save us and stands waiting for the time when He will come again to claim what is His and His alone. A lesson, a promise and the methods to which we can walk in the duality of our own nature as He did….being true followers, disciples, of the Lord God, our King and Redeemer. We will never lose this old nature that has been harbored in this corrupt body and we will never be free of the sinfulness of the world that has decayed along with the rest of creation as it waits for mankind’s redemption. We can’t, for in the realization that we are corrupt lies our salvation, in our realization of the depravity of ourselves we find the ability to turn to Him and see where the truth lies, where the hope is born and where the righteousness of the Spirit embedded in us from the moment of our salvation resides. We find our abilities, our works, and our moralistic ‘goodness’ paled and worthless in the light of God. We realize that we cannot, will not, and are not able to walk with God by our own strength.

“When the soul discovers this divine influence, they leave aside all their good works, practices of devotion, methods, books, ideas and spiritual persons in order to be guided by God alone, entrusting themselves to that purpose which has become the only source of perfection for them.” Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, The Joy of Full Surrender.

As George Mueller related to us, it is at that moment where we reach the impossibility of ourselves to do the work and purpose to which we have been designed, endowed and set aside for in the perfect and glorious plan of God for the permanence of His kingdom here on earth…….when we realize beyond that shadow of a doubt that we cannot be the person needed for that job…..when we face the depravity of our nature and realize it cannot be in the same room as a holy and righteous God, at that moment

We become free.

Because we can face the depravity of our old nature with the dominance of the new because God is in control and God has the power to overcome the sinfulness of that nature and bring us towards the righteousness we have already be imparted with. His elect have been already identified and He is shaping each one of them to pick up their crosses at the time of His perfection so that they become the mighty warriors the Kingdom has to fight against the evilness of the lost one and his minions.

We are sheep…… moving at the sound of our Shepherd’s voice and gathering together under His protection for the promised safety, the imparted comfort and trust that comes from surrendering ourselves to the authority and power that lies within us because of the impartation of the Holy Spirit. We accept the brokenness of our nature, our bodies and our world, surrendering it all to the thrashing floor of God’s house…….we become journeyers without a map, guided by a pillar of smoke in the day and a column of fire at night.

Restless souls longing for home at complete and utter peace as we journey on.

“God’s action is forever new.” Father de Caussade writes, “It never retraces its steps, but always marks out new paths. Those who are led in this way never know where they are going. Their roads are to be found neither in books nor in their own minds. God’s action moves them step by step, and they go forward only by His leading.”

That is the duality of living that Christ showed us, while He was fully God yet He surrendered Himself and His path to the will of the Father and brought His fully human nature constantly under the mantle of God’s control. He walked in the truth because He surrendered Himself to it and never strayed because God Himself cannot sin, God Himself cannot commit evil and if God Himself is in control, how could Christ do wrong?

Once we accept Christ as the Savior who died for our sins, confessing with our mouths and being baptized in representation of His death and resurrection as a public declaration of who’s we are……we can never be shaken from that salvation.

The rest of the journey is developing the faith we have been given to the awesome and inspiring heights of glory for our God through the divine influence of His power, perfection and sanctification.

And it is when we have reached those plateaus of doubt, where belief cannot survive and faith requires us to accept that which we cannot understand…..at that moment, we become the greatest weapons in our Father’s arsenal.

For the greater glory of God.

On the edge of faith and belief....

“God works through different people in different ways, but it is the same God who achieves His purpose through them all” 1 Corinthians 12:6 (PH)

It is not the job I expected, nor one that I suspect that I will particularly excel at, but it seems to be the job that God has made me wait for eleven months for before presenting it to me late one night as I perused Linked In, one of my network sites, and discovered a fact that I had missed in the ten months of really working the networking syndicates….they have a job section. I send in the ‘online’ application, honestly answering that I couldn’t pass a street test if required for employment (I have been in A2 since July and still am a newbie). They called the next day and we spend the rest of that day and the next chasing each other on the phone.

Thursday, phone interview….Tuesday, meeting with the Hiring Manager and a race to the Secretary of State for a Chauffeur license and driving record copy….then dropping the application off, with the quickly snapped ‘passport’ quality photos, at the “Taxi Officer” of Ann Arbor Police Department, Officer Clock….

Monday, a call from Officer Clock saying he needed my chauffeur license copy. When I brought it in, he asked me to wait and came back with my application approved. A paid cabby license later and I’m officially licensed to be a taxi driver in the city of Ann Arbor. Tomorrow I call Betty and let her know I can attend training starting on Monday coming.

This is not what I was expecting…..ministry job aside.

There is no grace period here, no cushion of mercy that should I fall upon this ‘face for radio’ mug that will not cause further damage. I spend all of my funds on the licensing, running around and such…..I’m literally 180 miles from empty and there are some mighty bills due by mid-month. I had to go out and get pick through some ministry’s clothing bank for some work pants….they didn’t have any shirts…..and I can only hope the car maintains for a few more months until I can get it fixed. If for some reason, any reason, I can’t make this job work…….it is going to be a pretty big crater when I crash.

Not the beginnings I expected either……..dreaming aside.

It is no surprise to me how my secular life has followed my spiritual one. As one continued to fail, so did the other. I have come a long way from where I was six and a half years ago, when on Valentine’s day, God truly opened my heart and all the nastiness that a dying heart can gush out. He started me on a journey that day, a journey that has not ever worked out the way I imagined it would from the moment I surrendered; one that still twists through the valleys and the swamps of this wilderness with amazing dexterity and suddenness. Some would say I appear to be no further along that I was on the blustery February day, but I know that’s not true. Some would say that I’m worse off now that I ever was way back then. Maybe, but then one could say that Christ felt the same way when He hung on the cross and cried out to a Father that turned away from Him. Maybe I am worse off, but then that simply makes me that much closer to the prize.

As I have learned to subsist on a meager shadow of what I once earned, I have mirrored a meager fare in the spiritual life as well….slowly wearing off the edge of desire to be in ministry service in God’s church. As I have let go of those things I wanted above all else when I was employed, I began to give up those things I wanted above all else in the spiritual as well.

I should not be here in this place…….in all honesty.

As my beliefs have strained to the breaking point, both in my professional and spiritual abilities, I have let them go…..snapping them against the cruel taskmaster of faith and reality…..and they haven’t come rebounding back. I stand here on sheer ice, in both worlds, waiting for the breaking tearing that will signify my doom where my faith dies and my professional ability prove inadequate to the task.

I am at a point where I cannot encourage, sustain or support myself anymore, both in the spiritual and the secular world.

I am at a point where God has the clear opportunity to use this ‘different’ job to show me a ‘different’ work to do for Him…..

The job has changed, the life has changed and even my faith has changed……

But He stayed the same.

Integrity of faith

"We say, then, that faith must not be inert and alone. Rather, it should be accompanied with investigation. For I do not say that we are not to inquire at all." Clement of Alexandria (C.195, E), 2.446.

I sit here alone, in this home that friends have helped make for me and two of my three children. Time to reflect and ponder the incalculables of this life, this place and the methods and means that have brought me here.

I sit staring at a photograph that was taken four years before my firstborn son, Malcolm, was born. You can't tell it by the photo, but my wisdom teeth had been removed in the middle of the night by an upset Dental officer who was on-call when the emergency happened. One of the wisdom teeth had gotten impacted or something like that....it was killing me.

Anyway, you can't really see the puffed up cheeks unless you really look.

It is a simple photo taken by all the military recruits, not just in the Navy, but in all the other services as well. It is to symbolize the transition from civilian to military, a rite of passage that has happened throughout this nation's history even before it could be documented in such a fashion. I look at that young man, twenty-three years old, and wonder where the passion in his eyes disappeared to, where the hint of happiness drifted away to and where the freshness in his (closed mouth, but still noticeable) smile went to.

You can see it in the eyes of that young sailor, the belief in the system that created the military might that helped protect a nation's birth and its journey through the painful growth years. You can see the patriotism that drove the young man to 'jump ship' on his civilian life and be something meaningful and powerful as a military man.

You can see a little bit of the father in that young man, there's a small photo of him in the corner of the frame (covering a tear in the photographic paper) that was taken at the USO in Hawaii when the father served. You can see the similarities in their posture, look and appearance, even though the periods in which they served are vastly different.

The father served in Korea and Vietnam, the son during Desert Storm.

I stared at that photo for a few hours today at this desk.......

A verse drifts across my thoughts as I ponder that fresh, crazily young man staring at me with a smirk about the absurdity of the photo....(trying not to smile so you won't see the red-bloody mouth). Robert McGee opens his book, The Search for Significance, with it.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24 NIV

We know this verse, or at least the more largess picture of the chapter of 139....it is about the 'ever-present God,' who knows our every thought and the meaning in our words all before we even think to utter them....for we cannot hide from Him, even if we choose to and it is those who harbor 'wicked ways' that fills the psalmist with loathing even as he recognizes the 'possibility' of them existing within himself. He surrenders that hidden part of him to God, to thoroughly investigate and exercise those 'wicked ways' so that he may know 'permanent peace.'

How many of us truly surrender those hidden places to the light of God? How many of us go to our friends, our pastors and our congregations....those places where God's accountability is supposed to exist and pour our brokenness out, our fears and failures? We don't, because we know humanity will disappoint us and the church will destroy us if we don't appear to be making progress in the journey of believing in God, about God and life with God.

Much like that young man believed in the rightness of entry into the US Navy.....
Life has not happened the way that young man once believed it would......he had left that legalistic God presented to him in his youth behind...this was the concrete step into a future he believed he was entitled to, capable of and worthy of.

That was before.........

Much like that young man, reality has set in on my faith. Reality.....those impossibly high mountains that stand in the path that I have journeyed on these almost forty-three years. Mountains of painful childhood, ignorant adulthood and wounded fatherhood. Mountains of broken relationships, isolated love and rejected emotions. Mountains of inept financial management and stupid choices. Mountains that Christ said I could move with a mustard seed of faith.

If they haven't moved, then it would be 'christian' to assume that my faith is non-existent. Never existed, cut off at conception and born deathly still in the hospital of this world......burned in the incendiaries of the corruption it spawns.

After all, the great faithful....those who 'get it' walk confidently in their lives; yes, some even on days other than Sunday and when they boldly proclaim the purposes to which God has called them....they are surrounded by those who would 'help God' along with the plans......they don't want those 'chosen' to sit in the filthy and muck of this world for long.

After all, they can live vicariously through the abilities of the 'chosen ones.' God wouldn't leave someone in the muck and mire and require those 'benefactors' to sit there with them and learn from their sorrows or pains. Nope, if there was faith operating in that darkness, well....the God of Israel and Christians would lift the 'chosen' up and rinse him clean with the blood.

There wouldn't be any need to discuss the 'darkness' or the 'hidden wicked places' that haunt the faithful's life....to condone such utterances would be foolish and unwise. To be significant in the Body of Christ, one has to be seemingly perfect and totally silent about their broken hearts and disillusioned dreams. They cannot experience joy amid sorrow and peace amid chaos. They should know only the joy and blessings of being one of Jesus' saved.

Yet......faith remains within me for who Christ is and was, and the authority, power, wrath and love of the God who is His Father and by adoption, my own.

It is that faith that beckons me in this place where God has become silent and the fire burns smaller as the fuel is consumed and darkness encroaches.

It is that faith that has me prostrate on my stomach in the night, pouring my heart out to this God that I know hears, even as I recognize that I don't listen too well.

It is that faith that gets me up each day even as my humanity quails at the thought of another day spent in the agonies of this life.....dealing with 'my stuff',' as one mentor put it.

Sitting in the mire of my muck......

It is the integrity of my faith.

The Church of the P.F.Y.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18 (New International Version)

It is one of the ‘culturally acceptable’ ways to get out of having to go outside your comfort zone for someone else…..to act like you are actually concerned and want nothing but the best for the person who comes across your path who is struggling. It is one I’ve faced in the recently ended season of my life….and why I’ve come from Holly to Canton…..when faced with someone who has a need, a struggle or difficulty…..you whisper:

“I’ll pray for you.”

And then nothing is done…..no memory to pray for that person comes to your mind as you offer up prayers for your family, your finances, your job and that enough people will ‘pony up’ so that the seats needed for the worship center can be purchased outright. You’ve forgotten the prompting of the Spirit that led you to offer to look for people within the ‘family’ who might be able to address the need, contact businesses that you have a relationship with to see if the need can be addressed in a way to help alleviate the burden that has been placed upon the person you’ve said, “I’ll pray for you…..” to.

Nothing gets done, and the person feels rejected…alone…and afraid. Pettiness, perceived grudges, real slights and hurts that develop into anger and causes the person to reject the Gospel message because the church, represented supposedly by individually redeemed souls, has forgone the commission in favor of worldly things. And it is so easy to fix this situation before it becomes a source of corruption and decay within the Body…..

Prompt action, candidness, clearing the air and moving step by step….not just to address the need but to bring that person into a place where the situation is truly resolved….as I’ve said before….not only teaching a person to fish, but making sure they have the right equipment, developed skill and self-image to achieve continuous and effective fishing. Mentorship, discipleship and friendship…..such easy things to give, most of the time, but harder and harder to maintain as time, money and personal investment are required.

Instead, we get to a point where “I will pray for you” is the leadership line, the ministry tag and the flippant remark we throw up in the face of the burdened…..slang for, “I don’t want to help you. You need too much, or You shouldn’t be experiencing this.”

We usurp God’s declaration, minimize Christ’s ultimate sacrifice and reject those who may be the workers in the revival to come before the end of days. Maybe even reject the angels who have come at God’s prompting to test us…..and fulfill the word of Christ who said, “I came hungry, without clothes and nothing to drink and you sent Me on my way (paraphrased).” If we treat our brethren this way, do we not also reject Christ….for we are all supposed to be the ‘children of God,’ part of the same family. It is the ‘Church’ that seems to have the most problems resolving such conflicts in a clean and happy way where harmony is restored.

We repeat the example set by Cain and Abel….the first family rift that became two distinct and separate families….that still feud against each other to this day. Abel; the example of righteous living, love, pity, righteous conduct and fellowship and Cain; evil, death, murder, hate, unrighteous conduct and hostility towards the truth.

One represents the commandment ‘from the beginning’ (John says earlier in his writing) to love one another… so clearly defined by Christ, who represented the love of the Father and whom all who are ‘born of God, living in the light’ are to reflect into the family of God. We cannot reflect God’s righteousness if we do not love as Christ loved….not to ‘the best of our ability’ but beyond the reasonable expectation of human ability into the realm of where God is primary and our own ‘agenda’ is mute.

There is no….”do your best” but rather….feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless. Not according to your comfort but rather with the degree of compassion that lead Christ to be put upon a Cross of pain and suffering for the sins of humanity who even as He walked among them rejected Him and tortured Him.
Of course, some would point to the passages before this as an example of the more ‘obedient to God’ the “church” is, the more discord and disconnection to the world it would experience…and justify the inaction, rejection and laziness that caused the conflict in the first place….alienating the ‘problem child’ as unsaved….evidenced by the continued struggles.

We judge the heart, ‘which no man can truly know’, and decide what God will do in the situation for Him. Much like Cain did, which led to the distinction of being the first of many murderers in the family…..and set a generational conflict that exists in the world today.

Does the Church represent today the unparallel love as represented by Abel and lived by Christ today or does it look more like Cain? Is the love for ‘its’ brother conditional on what it feels it can do, the offering that was rejected by God, and more ‘understandable’ in a worldly sense and therefore more representative of the world of the dead? Does the actions of the ‘church’ rob the brethren of life? Does it look upon the ‘problem children’ as burdens unfairly cast upon its shoulders, too many with too few resources, or does it look at them as opportunities to live the life that Christ empowers it, dare I say commands it to live, by His example?

It is not by our buildings, our worship style or even our programs that we are assured of our being in relationship with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit….it is not the size of the congregation, the impact of our sermons or the amount of tithe that are weekly gathered that shows how ‘biblical’ the congregation is. Nor is it the amount of opposition to a vision, a plan or a preacher that represents our proximity to God……

John tells us that we will experience, as the church left by Christ in the hands of His followers, hostility with the world simply because of conflicting loyalties and values and the attempt by the world to dissuade the children of God from the commitment to God. The challenge facing the church, to which it has failed in the modern day, is to discern between opposition that is God-inspired because of a wrong undertaking or from the evilness of the Cainian world.

As Matthew Henry says, “While the world's hostility is to be expected, it is not to be made a badge of the quality of our Christian life.” Whereas the love of one’s brother will lead to an Abelian offering of their first fruits, regardless of the attraction, desire or comfort of using it for oneself will lead to life-giving, the Cainian offering of ‘okay’ fruits that protect that attraction, desire and comfort for oneself leads to the murder of one’s brother.

Love for one another shows our separation from the world, the distinction between self-protection and living to die for one another and brings an undeniable testimony of how much we have experienced the love of God for us, developed in our understanding of God’s character and our discipleship under the self-giving love obediently lived through the commandments of Christ.

Love is not a simple expression of compassion, uttered too quickly in the form of ‘pray for you,’ but lived in the transformational, illogical (by the world’s standards) example that sets forth the fertile grounds for the transforming power of God to work in our lives, the lives of those who we interact with and even within the walls of the church.

It is the words of the ‘beloved’ apostle of Christ, one of the three closest to the Messiah, that undeniably sets the definition of love…..set forth in two distinct and conjoined statements as set forth by Christ’s sacrifice.

It is the example for us, as followers of Christ, to follow…undeniable and active, not merely words or thoughts but a lifestyle lived in the face of human self-protection.

It is the revelation of the extent of God’s love for us….though we were in sin, and rejected the source of our salvation, God was faithful in His provision to provide a way for us to know Him, have life and live a abundant life in the arms of His love.
Neither is something that can be simply admired, celebrated and cheered. It must be lived….

A person who stands upon the ship and tosses a life preserver overboard, turning to you and saying, “I’d save you if you were drowning.” It doesn’t mean much while you are safely standing upon the deck, secure and dry. So does the comment, “I’ll pray for you.”

But, if you are at the mercy of the sea and he jumps overboard to save you…..there is no questioning of his sacrificial love for you, even more so if he is a stranger to you. By that action, you know you are valued, loved and cherished…..the reality and greatness of the Father’s love is evident in an undeniable way through the action of that person….who’s love is an active, living and sacrificial thing for them….to the point where their physical life and comfort is not a hindrance, but a first fruit to give as a sacrifice to God for your sake.

The community of Christ, often labeled the church, manifests itself as a community that loves one another to the point where action and truth nurture a strong community where love is king and “self-giving” love is modeled after Christ’s example….drawing those away from destructive behaviors by representing actions that lead to life and healing and wholeness.

In voluntary, live-giving, truthful and giving from our abundance……..rather than building a bigger community that allows isolated living, hidden agendas and self-promotion, it would keep a close, interactive and relational community that gives birth to others and values that transparency that promotes accountability, prevents untruth and brings harmony under the banner of truth. Jesus' death and love creates the community of life and love.

Those within that community ought to manifest a love for others that serves the end of nurturing community (v. 16). And one does not strengthen community by speech alone, but by actions and in truth.

It is the commitment of the community to the ideals exampled, defined and lived by Christ to the truth, life and love of His bride that is reflected not in its moral superiority so much as its undeniable and humanly illogical commitment to what the reality lived in pursuit of those things that is the persistent aim and goal of relational living in the body as experienced personally in the relationship we have experienced in our relation with the Father.

The community should be able to give up what we possess in order to bless others….not waiting for the ‘right’ motivation but because it is the right thing to do. Often, it is the action of doing right that leads to a willingness and motivation to continue such rightful living.

It is manifested in so many undeniable ways, even in the culturalized western church of today:

In the travelling of a woman for an hour to deliver some money to a brother in Christ who she only knows by prayer requests to bless him with a 1,000.00 to put towards his needs…..

In a brother, blessed by an unexpected bonus through work, that gives 2,000.00 to another to help him by a car to get to work……

In a band of brothers who refuse to allow another who they know to stay in the darkness of his past, but continue to accept him as he is and call him to grow……

In a community that spans the world who comes together to promote the commission…regardless of the foolishness the world perceives it to be……

What would it look like in the community of believers who belong to the greater family of God, bound only by geographical location to the gathering they attend?

The mega-churched congregation who splits and mergers with other smaller churches not to incorporate under a common pastor, but to promote community, fellowship and the commission….

the larger giving freely to the smaller…..at the physical costs of newer buildings, fancier worship centers and comfortable relationships to instill, edify and promote the unity of the body….regardless of human denominational banners but because of the unifying foundations of Christ………

the free movement of small groups to other groups not to disrupt the teaching but to promote greater relationships beyond the familiar and to reach out to the unfamiliar within their own congregations…..

the discipleship of believers not to remain in the congregation, but to become apostles in the community as a whole; village, city, township, county, state, nation and the world………

the mentorship of disciples to be leaders who replicate the process; relationally being apostles to disciple those who seek a greater relationship with God by their examples……

What a church that would be against the tide of humanism and self-promotion of the secular world and such a desirable bride to the Bridegroom….