March 16, 2003: Tell The Truth

Be honest, all the time, about everything.

The following stories are true, and they all involve Christians. I've changed their names.

- Heather told a potential employer that, since she was making $11 an hour, they would need to offer her at least $13 to entice her to change jobs. But she was really only making $9.50.

- Alice went to a funeral and was embarrassed that her grown children did not attend. So she signed their names on the guest register. They received thank-you notes from the bereaved.

- Ed needed to run an errand, but did not think his boss would give him time off for it. So he planned to tell him that he had to take his wife to the doctor.

- Wilma was asked by people who wanted to buy her house what her heating bill usually came to. She gave a figure that was low by $100.

I'm afraid I could go on with many more examples. The lies are troubling enough, but what really knocks me off my feet is that Christians report their fabrications to me without a shred of guilt, without any indication that they need to repent. They would do it again, and it seems they assume that I approve or that I would even do it myself. Well I wouldn’t. And I don't approve. It is wrong to lie.

The Bible says, "Do not lie to each other" (Colossians 3:9). In Matthew 5:33-37 and 23:16-22, Jesus rebuked people who thought they only had to tell the truth when they were under a carefully crafted oath. He said, "Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Lies are of the devil. In John 8:44, Jesus calls Satan "a liar and the father of lies."

Several years ago a church officer told me what he thought was a really funny story. His mother called in sick to work so that she could go to a Cubs' game. She sat in the bleachers and got sunburned, and then had to scramble to explain at work the next day why she was so red. Ha ha. Later, when this church leader was slandering me with malicious falsehoods, I remembered the story he told about his mother and thought, "Of course! It all fits. His mother raised him to lie." He had learned on his mother's knee that lying was just something you did to get what you wanted - whether that was an afternoon at the ballpark or a pastor out the door of your church.

Don't lie. Ever.

March 9, 2003: We Murder Millions

Last Friday night I heard a preacher say that the two worst evils in our nation today were racism and materialism.

He was wrong. I don't know what our second greatest sin is, but the greatest is abortion. If our nation were a house, then racism, bad as it is, would be like a leaky faucet compared to the 10-ton abortion elephant stomping about the living room. We'd rather not think about this, but the simple, brutal fact is that our nation has, over the last few decades, mass-murdered tens of millions of innocents. Add up the number, and you will find that Stalin starved fewer Russians and Hitler gassed fewer Jews.

If you were to ask a German pastor in the early 1940s what he thought was Germany's greatest crime, and he answered anything other than, "We're slaughtering millions," then you would have to regard him as hideously misguided and in need of serious correction. So I regard “in need of serious correction" all Christians who do not yet understand that murdering babies is wrong - and more than merely "wrong", it is our nation's all-consuming holocaust. Those who do not take a vigorous, principled stand against it are no better than the quiet German townspeople who did nothing while trainloads of Jews were carted off to the ovens.

In a couple weeks we'll have a guest speaker from the CareFirst Pregnancy Centers tell us about the good work their organization does in saving lives from abortionist death mongers, and in saving mothers from becoming active participants in their babies' destruction. I encourage you to learn about and support this work. Once again I'll be going on the "Hike for Life" in May to help raise support. I hope to do more. Join me in praying against abortion and fighting it on all fronts.

March 2, 2003: When Suffering Makes You Compassionate

A word of encouragement for any of you who have a sorrow deep enough to make you cry, or troubling enough to rob you of sleep.

Last night my teenage son Ben was telling me about friends and acquaintances of his (12 of them!) who are suffering from distresses ranging from anorexia to suicidal depression to bipolar disorder. He prays for them, talks to them, and has gotten them help from authorities at school. I rejoice over Ben's compassion for troubled friends. I think of Rabbi Saunders' words in Chaim Potok's great novel The Chosen: "A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!"

I believe that Ben's heart of compassion has been refined by his own horrific experiences. Last year at this time he was in and out of a psychiatric ward with episodic depression severe enough to be life-threatening. My wife and I were at our wit's end. There were Sundays I did not want to preach for fear that I would not be able to hold myself together.

Now, a year later, Ben has been restored to such a degree that we dare whisper the word "healing." Glory to God. And more glory to God for the good that has come from his sorrow. I do not claim to know all that God is doing, but I think that anyone can see that Ben has, from his pain, become better equipped to touch hearts with the comfort wherewith God comforted him.

There is divine purpose to your sorrow. You must believe that. You must believe that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Take courage.

His purposes will ripen fast
Unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower.

February 23, 2003: Filled With The Spirit

Someone sent me these questions: How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit? How can I tell when I'm Spirit filled? Here is my response:

Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Make it a regular prayer request. Jesus said, "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13) That last part, to those who ask him!, is important. God likes to be asked. Perhaps the reason that some Christians are less Spirit-filled than they could be is because they do not ask for it. (See James 4:2b: "You do not have, because you do not ask God.")

I believe the Bible uses the phrase "filled with the Spirit" in two different ways. There is the temporary, powerful, even miraculous indwelling of the Spirit that is given for a particular purpose, as in Acts 4:8: "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said...", or Acts 13:9: "Then...Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas...". I would distinguish that focused, temporary filling of the Spirit from the more general type that speaks of a person's character, as in Acts 6:5b: "They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit."

This latter type of being Spirit-filled is not binary (either you are or you aren't), but a matter of degree. Some are "more full" than others. See Ephesians 5:18, where fullness of the Spirit is contrasted with drunkenness: "Do not get drunk on wine...Instead be filled with the Spirit." The more you drink, the drunker you get - so also the more you partake of the Spirit, the more full of him you will be.

How can you tell when you are Spirit-filled? I am not sure that is for us to say. It is the job of others, and ultimately God, to determine whether you bear the fruit of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23) that are the signs of the Spirit's presence.

An example may help:

I doubt that my sister would be the type to conduct a spiritual self-examination and afterwards conclude, "I am full of the Holy Spirit." But she is full of the Spirit, and I'll say it for her. Last Tuesday she stood in a courtroom and embraced the sobbing young man who murdered her son last year. She did this without the support of
her husband, a hell-bound lying adulterer who stayed home. How can she do that - how can she forgive a murderer, and continue faithfully to fulfill her marital vows to a beast who renounced his? Only by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God. Sometimes the best way to understand what it means to be full of the Spirit is to find a good example and say, "Oh, I see. THAT is what it looks like to be Spirit-filled."

February 16, 2003: Not Ashamed To Pray

I hope you're not embarrassed to pray for people. By "people" I mean even total strangers, and by "pray" I mean out loud, in front of them.

A few years ago I was in the parking lot at Dominick's grocery store when I saw a troubled lady looking all over the place for something. I asked her what she was looking for, and she said she had lost her keys. She was frantic. The keys were work-related, and she was afraid she was going to lose her job. I helped her look.

I also asked her if I could pray for her. She said yes, and we stopped briefly and I prayed. I wish I could say the keys appeared suddenly after that. They didn't - I really don't know if she ever found them. But she was thankful that I stopped and prayed and helped her look.

I've had lots of opportunities to pray for strangers and near-strangers, and I find that they almost never say, "Are you crazy?" On the contrary, they tend to be appreciative. It happened again last week, when I stopped on the shoulder of Interstate 80 to provide some roadside assistance to a young man and his mother whose
car engine had caught fire. The fire was mostly out by the time I got there, and they had already called for help. There wasn't much I could do but listen to the poor woman's story and say, "Can I pray for you and your son?" She was so pleased! It made me happy I stopped and offered to pray.

Pray for people, and do not worry about whether you might come across as a religious freak. Just do it, just plunge in and offer to pray. Good will probably come of it.

February 9, 2003: He Knows What Wounds Are

Our God is a wounded God.

There are good reasons why, when Jesus rose with a renewed and glorified body, his wounds remained just as they were. For one thing, they rebuked the doubts of Thomas. Thomas had insisted that he would not believe the resurrection until he saw Jesus standing before him, wounds and all. Jesus showed up and obliged him. "Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.' Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:27-28)

The wounds of Christ not only silence doubt; they also bring about a silence of spirit to those who, like Jesus, bear wounds in their bodies and grief in their souls. The poem Jesus of the Scars, written by Edward Shilito after he had witnessed the carnage of World War I, speaks of the way in which Jesus' wounds address our sufferings. The last two stanzas read,

If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know today what wounds are, have no fear.
Show us Thy Scars; we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

I am thankful that my God has wounds. He knows by experience the pain this world inflicts. His "rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified" stand as eternal testimony that he entered into our suffering, and took upon himself more of it than we could bear. Now his wounds are a balm to ours. The Bible says that by them we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

A seminary professor told us about the time a practical-joking fool shook hands with Pastor A.W. Tozer and said, "I am Jesus Christ!" Tozer looked at the man's hands and said calmly, "No you're not. Jesus’ hands have nail-scars." Tozer was right. The hands of our Lord still show the scars that bore away our sin, and false pretenders to his throne lack his credentials of pain. Not a god has wounds, but Christ alone.

February 2, 2003: Grin

A merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. (Proverbs 17:22)

Let me recommend a smile.

I never used to smile much when I was young, and people often commented on it. I tell you the truth - several times people actually came up to me and asked me what was wrong, and I'd say, "Nothing, why?" and they'd say, "You look grim." I didn't feel grim, especially, but apparently I looked that way. I’m embarrassed now to look at old photographs and see that not only did I not smile, but sometimes I looked positively ticked off.

People can misinterpret a dour countenance. I remember one time preaching as a guest speaker at a church where my mother was visiting. During the sermon I looked her way and saw that she was glaring at me! For the rest of the message I was trying to figure out what I had said that had bothered her so much. When I asked her about it later, she said no, she liked the sermon, and was shocked to hear that she had looked so upset. Apparently she resolved (with her typical earnestness) to change that, because the next time I preached and looked her way, she plastered on a grin so forced and toothy that I had to look away to keep from laughing. I didn't dare make eye contact with her for the rest of the sermon for fear that she would make that clown face again and I would lose it.

Charles Spurgeon once told a class of grim seminarians, "When you speak of heaven, let your face shine. When you speak of hell, your normal face will do." Take care lest your "normal face," your default expression, be one that reflects the gray misery of hell. Look to God, practice joy, and let your face shine forth the merriment of heaven.