TAKING LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY?

Every soul is in the image of God, and every life will be judged by him at the Last Day. Life is important, and eternity is in the balance with the decisions we make over the course of a lifetime.

But some of us take life too seriously. Very few decisions have eternity hanging in the balance; most are actually quite trivial. Yet some treat all events and responsibilities as equal in importance; thus a single episode of failure in some minor thing shakes our equilibrium and undermines our self-worth.

A perfectionist looks at life like bowling. In bowling, each pin has the same value. Knock one down, score one point. All issues are equally weighty. Everything counts the same. And that's why perfectionists get ulcers. Don't sleep well. Can't maintain relationships. They can't shrug off minor setbacks and weigh them against major successes.

Someone with a healthier perspective sees life as archery rather bowling. Even if you miss the bull's-eye, there is still value to hitting the target board. As a matter of fact, some people win archery contests by an accumulation of smaller scores - beating someone who has had a bull's-eye but who has been wildly inconsistent at other times.

Tagamet (an ulcer medication), Inderal (a hypertensive drug), and Valium (a tranquilizer) are the three best-selling prescription drugs in the United States. Does that tell you anything? Stress is eating people alive. Destroying their health. Taking all the fun out of living.

The pace of change in today's world subjects all of us to the draining effects of anxiety. Education challenges our comfortable illusions, and new experiences shatter our prejudices and demand change. Ever-advancing technology is always demanding that we learn new ways of doing old jobs. Leisure and easy credit push us to live the "good life" and keep up with people around us.

But much of the stress we encounter is self-imposed through unreasonable (even impossible) expectations of constant achievement. Always finishing first. Making grades as good as my sister's. Doing a job better than anyone else can do it. Topping last quarter's record sales.

So lighten up. Take up archery instead of bowling. And don't take life so seriously, because you won't get out of it alive anyway!
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 16, no. 40, Sept. 26, 1990]

WHEN THE NEWS ISN'T GOOD

Been reading the newspaper lately? War. Recession. Crime. Teen pregnancy. It's enough to get you down.

Human life is a mixed bag of sunny days and dark ones, good times and bad. We seldom ask why the good things of life come our way: Why should my children be so healthy? Why do I still have a job when so many have lost theirs? These questions seem almost unnatural.

When troubles comes and our hearts are burdened, though, the questions flood over us: What have I done to deserve this? Is this the will of God for my life? What is this supposed to mean? Some people come up with answers for these questions that cause them to lose faith.

There is something of a universal sense of anguish known to humankind. In the midst of his terrible ordeal, Job mourned...(Job 14:1). Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, wrote of the "tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its center."

Life is seldom fair. It is terribly hard for most people some of the time and for some people most of the time. The problem is only compounded when evil people appear to prosper and good ones suffer.

When low times come, we must learn to deal with them without bitterness, self-accusation, or self-pity. God is no respecter of persons. He doesn't love some, more than others, spare some and torment others.

In Jesus Christ we see the ultimate response of God to the human predicament. The God who created all things and for whose glory they exist subjected himself to flesh, natural laws, and human vulnerability. He became hungry and tired, wept over a friend's death, knew the agony of being lied about, and experienced death.

God's grace in a believer's life is not intended to save us from trouble. But it is a guarantee against defeat. The storms of disappointment, frustration, and sorrow still come to Christians. Yet we keep on going in Christ's power and find faith deepened and character refined.
(II Cor. 4:16-18).
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 6, Feb. 6, 1991]

EVERY LIFE...

Though we are unique individuals before God, we human beings have a great deal in common.

Every life needs meaning. Is there a larger purpose for which I am doing all these daily tasks? Is there any reason for me to be honest when others are not? How do I prioritize the things pressing for my time? (Matt. 6:33). The kingdom life really is the best life. It has depth of conviction and breadth of vision. Even the most trivial event of life has meaning as it is done or reacted to in faith.

Every life needs love. (I John 3:1). To hear the story of the gospel is to understand the real meaning of love. It is self-giving, self-sacrificing action for another. Anyone who sees Christ's cross through the eye of faith knows that he or she is loved beyond measure.

Every life needs security for the sake of growth through struggle. (Rom. 8:28.) This verse does not attribute everything that happens in a given human life to the hand of God. He gives good gifts (James 1:17), but much of life is ugly and hateful. Temptation, discouragement, evil - these are not the inventions and bequests of God. They are Satan's means of destroying us. Paul's affirmation is that God will work with us in every situation to bring a good result. He will support and strengthen, bring hope from despair, give victory in what appears to be defeat.

Every life longs to survive death, to live eternally. Jesus' own triumph over death is the assurance that we too will live forever. (I Cor. 15:20.)

If you have ever wondered why humankind cannot rid itself of spiritual yearnings, it is precisely because of these common needs and longings. And if you have ever wondered why God has told us to take the message of the cross into all the world, it is because it alone can satisfy the basic longings of every life.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 7, Feb. 13, 1991]

CHURCH-BASHING

Beginning in the 1960s, we witnessed a public repudiation of the church in American religious life. "Jesus people" became prominent as spiritual individualists without social attachment or corporate life. From this root has grown a pseudo-theology that offers what one author has dubbed a "home correspondence course in salvation."

The New Testament vision of salvation permits no such church-bashing view of Christianity. While it is true that God saves individuals rather than groups, it is nevertheless also true that everyone he saves is immediately - and by the same process - incorporated into the Body of Christ (Acts 2:47b).

Though salvation is both personal and individual, it is not private. One who is born anew of water and Spirit is concurrently born into the family of God. He or she becomes a brother or sister to everyone else who has been spiritually reborn and becomes part of a community of faith. Christians are members of a larger family (Eph. 2:19), citizens within a new race or nation (I Pet. 2:9), and building blocks within the Lord's holy temple (Eph. 2:21).

John Stott has put it this way: "Thus the very purpose of [Christ's] self-giving on the cross was not just to save isolated individuals, and so perpetuate their loneliness, but to create a new community whose members would belong to him, love one another, and eagerly serve the world."

People need to belong, to be accepted, to fit in. Everyone needs to know that he or she is a significant member of a larger entity. Of all people, the church must be able to give this message to its members. "[T]hose parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor" (I Cor. 12:22-23a).

We have been accepted by Christ; we must accept one another. There must be no castes, no favoritism, and no discrimination. The church is Christ's spiritual body, and every member has a role to fill for the sake of its health and well being.

The church is not an option - either in God's eternal purpose or in our spiritual struggles. It is the community through which men and women find meaning in Christ.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 7, Feb. 12, 1992]

A TALE OF TWO SOCIETIES

Two recent trips to a country half-a-world away from America have brought a shocking revelation. Education is not the cure-all solution to our social ills. I have found the two societies to possess a number of parallels.

1. We both have developed complicated systems of justice in which we compromise with criminals.
2. We both dispel the notion of accidental events that call for forgiveness as the proper solution. Instead, we demand that someone pay with money.
3. We both are often burdened with public officials who have lost sight of service as they concentrate on feathering their own nests.
4. We both tend to place low priority on the needs of the helpless and unfortunate.
5. We both see sexual encounters for our children as acceptable so long as they are "supervised" in the privacy of our homes.
6. We both accept dispensing with one's mate in order to take another.

America has sought to enlighten the mind but has neglected to change the heart. Oh, I failed to tell you the name of the other society. It is Papua New Guinea, presently trying to emerge from the Stone Age and one of the most primitive and uncivilized countries on Earth.
[by Buzzy Neil from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 20, May 15, 1991, p. 2]

IRRELEVANT CHURCHES

One social commentator recently predicted that the "God is Dead" phenomenon of recent decades will be replaced by a strong "God is Back" movement over the next several decades.

There is a good evidence he is correct. The Western world is facing up to its moral and spiritual deficits. Lech Walessa and Vaclav Havel have both stirred the imagination and challenged the conscience of their time. Marxism's materialism and atheism created a void which Western liberal ideology cannot fill.

For the sake of finding moral direction and spiritual life, people are turning back to God. They are reading the Bible and Christian literature. Contemporary Christian music is more popular than ever.

The Gallup Organization compiled more than 50 years of public opinion and came up with the statistics that 94% of Americans believe in God, 90% pray, and 88% believe that God loves them. Ninety percent say they have never doubted the existence of God.

But there's a discordant note in all these positive signs. Although there are 40 times as many church buildings in the United States (350,000) than McDonald's restaurants, people say the church is out of touch with reality. Ducking the tough issues. Failing to meet needs.

The Barna Research Group released a report only a few months ago saying that the influence of churches had diminished considerably. The report says: "People, for the most part, see the Church as an outdated institution" with "little to offer to a contemporary person."

What is the nature of the irrelevance? Do the people want to be entertained? Do they want fun and games? Do they want watered-down faith? Absolutely not! They simply want to see churches doing in our lives what Jesus did during his ministry.

They say the churches are too concerned with organizational matters and not enough with spiritual concerns and social justice. Why, that's exactly the criticism leveled at the religious establishment of his time by Jesus of Nazareth!

Do we have the sensitivity to hear a prophetic voice from today's social researchers? Do we have the courage to move out from institutional maintenance, doctrinal minutiae, and traditional programs of work to be God's faithful people?

Both God and seekers after him are waiting for an answer.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 20, May 15, 1991, p. 3]

AMERICAN'S "ACHILLES HEAL"

In my ten years as Chaplain of the Senate, I cannot remember a time of greater frustration among members of Congress and their staffs, or more expressions of anger from the people.

Several years ago there came to my attention a quote from a book written by Alexander Fraser Tytler who lived at the end of the 18th century and early part of the 19th (1748-1813). He wrote a book entitled The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic.

Amazing, is it not, that the following quotation from that book, written about ancient democracy, long before American democracy had been really tested, is so timely.

Tytler wrote:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back into bondage."
(I Tim. 6:10).
[by Richard C. Halverson from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 45, Nov. 13, 1991, p. 3]

A VISA FOR MARTIN LUTHER?

Do you ever get annoyed by the volume of junk mail cluttering your life? The kind that bothers me most is the computer-generated stuff that attempts to "personalize" huge mailings. It can create some funny things.

Take, for example, the mailing from Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank in Washington. It offered a gold card with a $6,000 credit limit free travel insurance, and access to cash through automatic teller machines. One of the letters was addressed to "Mr. Luther."

The letter was delivered to Luther Place Memorial Church. Thus the Mr. Luther in question was, of course, Martin Luther. The Associated Press carried the following report of what happened when the church's pastor - evidently a man with a good sense of humor - received it.

In his reply this week, church pastor Rev. John Steinbruck wrote that Luther was "out of town at the moment resolving some credit problems in Rome..."

Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church after he challenged the church's practice of selling indulgences, or pardons, from sin.

"But I do know what would be his stand on your proposal," Steinbruck wrote. "since we are already offered unlimited free credit (grace) - at no interest - 24-hour customer service - with no VISA required and eternal life insurance tossed in for the sheer love of us, we enjoy as "preferred" a status as we will ever need."

The letter's whimsical touch aside, it is another reminder to me of how wonderful the grace of God is! "Unlimited free credit." "No interest." "24-hour customer service." "Eternal life insurance tossed in for the sheer love of us." "Preferred status" with God.

(Rom. 5:21.)

On the one hand, some must be warned about abusing unlimited free credit. On the other, equally as many need to be freed from paying interest on a debt they no longer owe. So revel in your preferred status, and don't fail to take advantage of the 24-hour service heaven offers.

It's a deal you'd be foolish - no lost - to refuse!
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 43, Oct. 30, 1991, p. 3]

PLAYING WITH WORDS

If you're as old as I am, language is doing strange things to you these days.

An attorney was taking his wife to a party. There were decked out in their best evening clothes. As they arrived at a local hotel, a college student doing valet parking for the night ran over. Handing the guest his claim check, he said, "Bad tux, man!" With the couple flushed and speechless, he walked around to the driver's side of the car. Just before dropping behind the wheel, the student grinned, framed them both in his hands, and said with emphasis, "Seriously stupid! STOOO-pid!"

For those of you who are as offended as the couple was, I hasten to assure you he meant no harm. In fact, he was complimenting them. You see, "bad" means good in today's slang, and "stupid" means wonderful. You just have to know how to translate.

Slang U is a 244-page dictionary of contemporary slang. Published at $9.95, you may need one if a high school or college person at your house is speaking an unknown tongue around you. Here are some of the things you'll find...

A barney is a misfit; a hemorrhoid is an annoying person.

A fossil is someone who has been in college more than four years; a south campus geek is a science major.

You don't want to be a Magoo (old man driving a car too slowly) or a McFly (someone who isn't very smart).

But the religion of Jesus Christ does some attention-getting things with words too. They aren't intended to be funny, but they do wrap up important ideas in the package of paradoxical language.

In order to live, you have to die (II Tim. 2:11).
To find your life, you first must lose it (Matt. 10:39).
If you want to be rich, you must become poor (Matt. 5:3).

When unexpected words crop up in conversation, they tend to get noticed. They awaken curiosity. They can put more punch into communication.

When the words teach spiritual truth, they can save.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 17, no. 34, Sept 3, 1991, p. 3]

POLITICS? RELIGION? HUMAN NATURE?...RIGHT-WING COUPS

Attempts to seize or hold power by right-wing groups are very much in evidence these days.

People on the extreme right sense that they are losing control. They have no means of capturing popular sentiment, so they resort to the only means of power they know - intimidation. They attack and berate, threaten and bully.

Their commonest tactic is to try to isolate the leaders of reform. So they feel free to publish lies that are designed both to undermine their credibility and to put them on the defensive. After all, there is no better way to subvert productive energy than to turn it into self-protective, defensive energy.

They revive tired old rhetoric about the dangers of change. They characterize reform as "heresy" and "anarchy". They label the agents of change with whatever slanderous and fear-engendering names they know. And they try to make people believe that intelligence is subversive, that humility is weakness, and that restraint is cowardice.

What, then, do they offer instead of reform and renewal? They argue that things are fine as they are. They insist on more of the same. Usually, in fact, they plead for the clock to be turned back about a generation in order to return to a time of orthodoxy, vitality, and success.

The people who hear the plea of the "hard-liners" typically react in one of two ways. Some laugh under their breath. They laugh because they know the situation is not healthy and that the imagined golden past is a delusion; they do so under their breath for fear of being thought reactionary or of being censured themselves. Others either get "coup flu" and do nothing or else raise a feeble cheer in support of the plotters. Any cheering is feeble because it comes from a limited number on behalf of a self-serving group known to be protecting its own vested interests.

The right wing of any movement is always looking to fight. They never shy away from shedding blood. And if young people have to be mass casualties of their campaigns, no matter. All that counts is holding power.

The larger world watches. Pale and ashen faces undertake a coup that is transparent in nature and doomed to failure. The God of life, truth, and liberty has determined the outcome.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines]

WHY SHOULD I SUPPORT THE CHURCH?

It's a question worth asking. Should we support the church when we see hypocrisy, poor planning, sin and incompetence? How about the church's priorities? Sometimes the church is not spending its money on what I think is important. What right do the leaders have to call for support from the members?

Personally, I am thankful for the dedication of scores of men and women, boys and girls in the church family. I am not willing to agree that these dedicated people are phoneys and bumblers. Of course we are sinners, we are limited in foresight and make mistakes. Sometimes we fail because of our selfish pride. Repentance is called for. But what group could I support if I demand perfect planning, sinlessness, and absolute genuineness? No business, hospital, law firm, school or family would qualify.

The reasons I should support are several and valid. First, it is the only place in which the cross of Christ is held up before a dying world. The flawed community of believers tells the story of Jesus and his love.

Second, that story translates into tangible encouragement in our life together. The teaching, support groups, service activities and worship services all take place within the story of the God who came to save us.

Third, God chose flawed and imperfect groups of human beings to carry his message and offer his service. He stooped to have fellowship with us, entrusted his work to us and promised to go with us every step to the end of the age.

Fourth, in the church family our children learn faith, hope, and love. Not from perfect human beings, that kind of knowledge would be no use to them when they discover their own sinfulness. They learn it from those who live by God's grace and for his glory.

Fifth, God planned the church from before the foundation of the world and will one day redeem and purify it to be the bride of Christ. The church as God's chosen people, warts and all, deserves my support in time, money, prayer and participation.
[by Bill Love from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 4, Jan. 22, 1992, p. 3]

PURPOSEFUL CHANGE

Historically, people have chosen a church on the basis of doctrine, name and denomination. No more. According to those who have made careful analyses of church dynamics in the last five years, most people choose a church primarily for its style of worship and/or its philosophy of ministry.

They want their church to embrace the fundamental tenets of Christianity but are not concerned about the finer points of theology. Most contemporary Christians desire the kind of worship that represents an honest expression of the heart and that is meaningful and affirming to them. They abhor empty traditionalism. They have no patience with so-called ministries which do not address the needs of contemporary culture.

Some churches have attempted to make our ministries meaningful. They have added such things as a divorce recovery ministry, a counseling ministry, a ministry to homeless people, and others. Their members have been very supportive of these activities.

Whether they like it or not, changes are needed in worship style. This does not entail the changing of the doctrine but does mean that some timehonored traditions may need to be discarded. They have instituted some changes in worship, and others will follow. They continue to study worship as described in God's Word with an honest search for what is most appropriate for the church of the 1990's. This is not easy.

There is risk in making changes. Attempting to relate to our culture in a meaningful way without compromising the fundamentals of the Christian faith is risky. There is always the danger of allowing contemporary societal views to influence our interpretation of Scripture. They are aware of this danger and diligently try to avoid this pitfall.

There is also pain associated with change. Whatever changes are made, there will be a degree of discomfort for some. Their elders share many of the same discomforts, and change is not easy for anyone.

But in spite of whatever risk and pain may be associated with it, change is inevitable. They can make those changes that will keep the church relevant, healthy, vibrant, and a vital part of twenty-first century society. The other choice is to make no changes, and changes will still occur. The church will deteriorate, decay, and die. The real issue is whether to control change or to have change control the congregation.
[by Willis Owens from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 1, Jan. 1, 1992]

MORAL MESSAGES FROM SOCIETY?

There was the collapse of communism and a simultaneous request for Bibles and Christian literature in once-Communist countries. Then came widespread protest against the me-firstism and greed of America in the '80s. And now movies such as "Regarding Henry" and "The Doctor" have dared challenge the shallow lifestyle of "success" as typically understood.

One could hardly imagine what might come next. Events with clear moral implications were getting attention. There was even commentary on these very themes in newspaper columns and on news broadcasts.

Then came a 32-year-old athletic superstar's announcement that he was HIV-infected and retiring from the NBA. Two weeks after his initial statement and a call for "safe sex," Magic Johnson went further and called for abstinence. "The safest sex is no sex," he said, "and that really is the more responsible choice."

Now comes a news report in the International Herald Tribune of January 27, 1992, that several states now require parents contemplating divorce to attend seminars on what the effect will be on their children. The courses usually are made up of lectures, films, and role-playing to dramatize the conflicts that complicate the lives of people following divorce. Some couples have dropped their divorce proceedings and gone for help in trying to rebuild their marriages.

Incredible as it sounds, our culture is taking a look at itself and seeing unpleasant reality. It is acknowledging its own lack of moral framework and the scary result of such a flaw. It is looking around for an alternative to self-centeredness, lawbreaking, violence, and sadness.

Now is the time for the church to come out of its ghetto of isolation from society with the message of Christ. Our moral ills cannot be cured with pragmatic rules of civility or more policemen and bigger jails. We must address the deeper problem of human fallenness. We must acknowledge sin and seek redemption. We must be open to God in Christ.

If society has diagnosed its problem correctly, it is still beyond human cleverness to solve it. That is God's role. That is Christ's work. That is the cross.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 6, Feb. 5, 1992]

THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE

The world is filled with men and women who enjoy commanding their peers. There are thousands of individuals who would like to command armies, to have hundreds and thousands under their authority. Some people enjoy giving orders for others to obey. Such attitudes turn most people off. We want to be treated as human beings, not as animals.

Before anyone jumps to an unfounded conclusion, let me reassure you that we must men and women who give orders for others to obey. There is a time for the top sergeant. There is a time for that tough football coach. There is a time for the father to impress on his son the need to obey. There are times when this approach fits the Christian.

But to live constantly under the total command of others will eventually lead to revolt. Jesus is not an autocrat. Such a practice in the name of Christianity will fail. On the other hand, the attitude that is attuned to Jesus is found in the short book of Paul to Philemon. Such commands as mentioned above could have been used by Paul to Philemon. Instead, he showed a very important aspect of Christianity.

Paul wrote Philemon as a Christian brother, remembering his faith in Christ and how far his faithfulness to the Lord had influenced the surrounding region. Continuing, Paul reminded his friend of the love between them.

Only then does the apostle approach the question of Onesimus. The slave was now a Christian, a brother in Christ. Therefore, Philemon should receive Onesimus as a brother. On the other hand, Paul, out of Christian concern, urged Onesimus to return to his master because he was a Christian.

It is now a different relationship, yet the same. Onesimus still had obligations to Philemon. The change existed because of Christ's love. Jesus changed the relationship between the two men.

What Paul told Philemon will work for us today. All of us need to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. This requires that we fulfill our obligations to everyone. We will not hold a person's past against them. Why? Because Jesus loves all of us. He died for all of us. This attitude, discovered in Jesus, will work. Try it.
[by Robert Hooper from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 7, Feb. 12, 1992]

PEOPLE SEEK JESUS. CHURCHES GET IN WAY!

It could be the headline in "The Jerusalem Post" on any day of the year. People come to the Holy City to trace the roots of their Jewish or Christian faith. In the case of the latter, the interest usually focuses on retracing the events of the life of Jesus. So the traveler-pilgrim searches out such sites as the Temple mount or Gethsemane. Eventually he or she will want to retrace the steps of the Lord from Pilate's Judgment Hall along the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha.

The typical goal of the believer is to affirm the link between history and faith, fact and theology. There is also an admitted attempt to sense something of what it must have been like for Jesus to go through it all. One almost expects to "feel" the event through reading scripture on the locus of some critical event or by quiet meditation and prayer.

But it is practically impossible! It is not so much that there are throngs of people around. After all, Jerusalem was a busy city when Jesus visited it. The city was packed with Passover pilgrims when Jesus played out the final drama of his ministry.

Neither is it particularly bothersome that families live above street level and peer out their windows or that shops are doing business as usual along the sides of the streets. As a matter of fact, my own walk along the Via Dolorosa was made the more startling by a series of meat markets where lambs were being slaughtered and processed in the open air!

The problem comes at the critical sites themselves. Almost every one has been designated and built upon by churches. And the construction is invariably of such a nature that it obscures what you are attempting to see. Sharing locations are the worst of all, for in attempting to carve up the area so everyone can enshrine part of it, chaos obscures any sense of Christ's lingering presence that might otherwise have been perceived.

Isn't that how churches have sometimes functioned across the centuries? They can get in the way of people's attempts to see Christ. They may obscure rather than preserve his lingering presence by division, hypocrisy, or other sins.

Churches must take care not to get in the way of people looking for Jesus.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 9, Feb. 26, 1992]

A BIT OF INAUGURAL WISDOM

My best friend was in New York City two years ago and, with a few minutes to kill, was strolling down Fifth Avenue. When he slipped into a men's department store he spotted a fellow Arkansan, a home-grown politician who had tagged along to the Big Apple with his wife, who was there on business.

My friend slid beside him and said, "We Southern boys have to be careful in the big city, don't we?" The politician, who had gone unrecognized by the twelve trillion (or so) around him, broke into a full-figured smile and said, "We sure do."

It's hard to believe that was only two years ago. When I shared a plane with the politician a year before that, he drew little more notice than anyone else who was squeezed into coach - except from me and a few others whose local news came from Little Rock.

Well, he'll never walk onto a plane or into a department store incognito again. Those days are long gone. Bill Clinton has traded in his 49-state anonymity for front-page coverage. He will be the second most closely watched man in America (Michael Jordan). From now on, every high-cholesterol burger he eats, every public nap he snatches, every opinion he utters, every mistake he makes (remember potatoe?) - all will be public property. One change of hair color will lead to babbling on Oprah, parody on Saturday Night Live, and front-page coverage in USA Today.

President Clinton faces many challenges: crises in Siberia and Iraq, a health care dilemma, an out-of-control budget deficit - just for starters.

But there's another challenge. Somehow crossing the Potomac has a way of separating people who lead from the people they lead. The other side of the Potomac is too often an island that thrives on overdoses of power and self-congratulation.

Maybe the new president, in the midst of this festive week, should hear the advice of my friend again: "We Southern boys have to be careful in the big city." And I would add: "Keep listening to average citizens, especially when the camera lights aren't on. Remember your roots. And be on your knees every day."
[by Mike Cope from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 3, Jan. 20, 1993, p. 3]

SCREAMING TOMB DWELLERS

The Gospel of Mark records the account of a man who lived in tombs and was possessed by an evil spirit. This evil spirit was commanded by Jesus to enter a herd of pigs to be driven into the sea, freeing the man from bondage.

Mark describes this man as a social outcast, crazed, and running naked through the countryside. But, in steps Jesus. In His compassionate manner, He takes a broken spirit, riddled with hopelessness and overcome with evil, and makes it whole.

Bob Bennett writes in his song "Man of Tombs":
In only a moment and only a word
The evil departs like a thundering herd
And man of the Tombs He hears this cry loud
No need to fear, be not afraid
This man of sorrows knows your pain
I come to take away your sin
And bear its mark upon my skin.
When no one can touch you, still I can
For Son of God I am!

The miracle of a life touched by Jesus - that is what this story is about. When we think all is lost, when nothing else can be done, when someone is beyond hope, when we see and feel problems of this life crashing in around us, Jesus can touch what we think is untouchable and make it whole.

I compare those who are called "homeless" or "street people" to the man of the tombs. They are surely considered social outcasts. They live and dwell in areas of the city that most of us would never step foot in. We are afraid of them, not knowing exactly what to do with them. Our opinions of them are that they are lazy and beyond our help. Most of them live with the pain of divorce, alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, mental illness, war, and a life foreign to knowing real love. Their lives are filled with rage, anger, and hate. Their lives scream out for help far beyond a warm meal or warm place to sleep. They must be touched by Jesus! They must be touched by us!

We will never know how much a warm smile, a thoughtful word, a kind deed, a caring attitude, or a loving look may impact these people we call "homeless". Our small acts of kindness may be the only calm they feel in their stormy lives.
[by Mike Hunton from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 52, Dec. 27, 1992, p. 2]

A HEART LIKE HIS

If we knew the details of his physical appearance, many of us would copy it. How did he wear his hair? Did he have a beard? Was there a distinctive turn to his mouth? But we don't have that information.

If we knew his diet and exercise habits, surely many of us would subscribe to the same ones. Was he a vegetarian? Did he eat lamb but not beef? Did he sleep six, eight, or nine hours a night? Did he jog? We simply don't know.

If we knew his study habits, many of us would adopt them. Did he study three hours every day? Did he sit or stand or study on his knees? But we don't have this information either.

So how can we "be like Jesus"? By the power of the Spirit of Christ living with us, we can have his heart. We can learn to see people and situations as he did. We can respond to them as he did.

* We tend to see masses of people (e.g., politicians, Cubans, cancer patients, poor people, etc.), but Jesus seems to have seen only individuals.
* We are inclined to have self-protective feelings in certain situations (e.g., approached by people with bad reputations, divorcees attending our churches, seen in the company of someone with AIDS, etc.), but Jesus was always perfectly at ease and non-defensive.
* Our tactic most often is to be skeptical of or to reject outright the person who is not identified with our own group, but Jesus counted those who were not against him as being with him - and forbade his disciples to condemn or hinder them.

The key to all this was that Jesus saw people as objects of God's love. He looked at them through caring eyes and with a compassionate heart.

As Paul Borthwick has put it: "Compassion is not some superficial or romantic feeling; it is a gut-wrenching sense of the needs of others that motivates us to action." It is God's work to create such a spirit within human beings. But we have to be willing for him to do it.

No, you cannot be sure you are wearing your hair like his, that you are eating his diet and following his exercise regimen, or using his study habits. In these ways you may not be like him. In the matter of his heart, however, you can have one just like his.

A heart like his will change your vision of the world.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 47, Nov. 18, 1992, p. 3]

THE COST OF HIDING

Any secret, whether good or bad, produces, according to psychologists, the same guilt effects on our being that sin does. Any strong emotion, positive ones included, that we contain and store up, rather than learning how to express, work on our being and our environment in unhealthy ways.

Our true nature is not designed for us to hide ourselves. The efforts toward covering that began at the fall of mankind are typical of the whole earthly lifestyle. The energy that goes into hiding is costly to us as persons. Anything we hide forces us to live in a way that will keep what we hide safely hidden. In other words, we become unreal - untrue to ourselves - incongruent.

That unreality is opposite to the nature of Jesus who is the God of reality. No energy was spent in covering his life with a mask. In his, there was no darkness at all.

The poignant statement, "Jesus wept," recorded by John is evidence that even publicly Jesus was free to be real with all of his inner being. His angers were openly expressed. The compassions that moved him, his joys, his griefs were obvious enough that the writers of the Gospels could observe and record them....

It is striking how we, because of cultural influences, are trained to hide our feelings. Sadly, some Christian groups are taught that we must smile through the deepest of hurts. They even deny that these hurts exist, thinking that Christians must always and only be positive, joyful and smiling.

How often couples who are going through difficulties journey unsmiling, not speaking, until just outside the door when they put on "the smile." Then the official greeter asks how they are doing, the standard smiling response come, "Just fine, thank you."

If there is one place where we ought to be able to come with our sins and feelings exposed and find help and healing, it is the church. But more and more it has become the one place where we must be the most careful to hide our true feelings and instead support the appearance of consistent gleeful victory....

In the plan of God, everything said, done or thought will be revealed. For those who hide, it will be disaster. For the open and growing, it will merely be redeemed history.
[by Gayle Erwin in The Jesus Style from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 44, Oct. 28, 1992, p. 3]

TOTAL-LIFE OBEDIENCE

Jesus was trailed by scores, hundreds, and thousands at various points in his ministry. Still his call was for something more. He challenged the curious hangers-on to "follow me" in full devotion to the will of the Father, to give their total beings to righteousness. If we hear him in our own time, his challenge remains unchanged.

Our generation has produced "consumers of religion" by the millions but apparently precious few people with a comprehensive devotion to Jesus Christ.

* These people read religious books but still mistreat their family and friends.
* They listen to Christian music but haven't approached giving ten percent of their incomes to the church.
* They attend church expecting to be encouraged but have no idea what it means to abound in the work of the Lord.
* They feel free to church-hop and criticize without ever doing anything to build up a church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this approach to Christianity "cheap grace." It is grace without repentance, commitment, or submission.

Yes, salvation is altogether a work of grace. But the grace that cost God his Son cannot be cheap for us to receive. Unreserved commitment in whole-life surrender to God is the only response worthy of someone who understands and accepts divine grace. This lifestyle of complete surrender to God is gratitude for grace, not the way to win heaven or deserve salvation.

Maybe the term to use in describing this approach is total-life obedience. It is not meant to convey the false idea that anyone will ever be complete or flawless in his obedience to God's commands. It is meant instead to say that a true disciple sees that his total life is Christ's and not his own. It suggests that everything about her life is dedicated to knowing and doing the will of God in every thought, every decision, every action.

Total-life obedience means that everything about one's life - not just his or her "religious life" - is surrendered to Christ. It is certainly more than most of us give yet no more than he desires or demands.

Trailer or follower? Consumer or disciple? Which are you?
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 48, Dec. 2, 1992, p. 3]

WISE MEN THEN AND NOW

It is said that Queen Victoria was fascinated by the brilliance of the scholars who made up the Royal Society. On one occasion she whispered to Prime Minister John Bright, "Where do all these learned men come from?" Bright replied, "From babies, your Majesty, from babies."

The Christmas story is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which is God choosing to come among us as a baby in a manger. In no other form could he have so touched the heartstrings of people everywhere.

When I think of the Christmas story, I always find myself thinking about the wise men. I don't think about how many there were or where they came from, but I always marvel at the persistence. Contrary to popular Christmas art, they weren't there on the night of Jesus' birth, but arrived some two years later. What faith and devotion must have driven them to continue their search so long and so persistently!

In Henry Van Dyke's beautiful story, "The Other Wise Man," he acknowledges the tradition that there were three wise men, then he identifies a fourth, Artaban, who began his own journey to honor the newborn King.

Artaban took with him three exquisite gifts for the King, a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl. But, during the thirty years of his search, he gave the precious sapphire to a sick pilgrim, the priceless ruby to save the life of an infant, and his wonderful pearl to ransom a young slave. His resources all gone, Artaban was struck a final blow by a falling stone which mortally wounded him.

The young slave girl who tended Artaban as he lay dying noticed that his lips were moving, but she could barely make out his words: "Not so, Lord: For when saw I thee an hungered and fed thee? Or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw I thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? When saw I thee sick or in prison and came unto thee? Thirty and three years have I looked for thee; but I have never seen thy face, nor ministered to thee, my King."

Then the young girl heard another voice answer: "Verily I say unto thee, inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me." Wonder and joy filled the pale face of Artaban. His journey ended, his treasures accepted, the Other Wise Man had found the King.

Melchoir, Balthasar, and Caspar, or whoever they were, found the babe, but Artaban found the King in the only way he can be found - in service to others.
[by Phillip Morrison from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 49, Dec. 2, 1992, p. 3]

WHEN IS RESTORATION SUCCESSFUL?

In the spring of 1990, it was my good fortune to visit Rome ever so briefly. While I was in the City of Seven Hills, work was going on to restore some priceless art.

The Sistine Chapel is one of Rome's most familiar tourist attractions. It was built in the fifteenth century and serves as the private, official papal chapel. Conclaves for the election of popes are traditionally held there.

Although the walls are adorned by paintings from such artists as Botticelli and Rosselli, most of us associate Michelangelo's name with the Sistine Chapel. Between 1508 and 1512, he frescoed the barrel-vaulted ceiling with scenes from the Book of Genesis. His depiction of the creation is among the most famous pieces of art in the world.

As the centuries passed, however, his ceiling frescoes and some other paintings he added later were nearly taken from view. Soot and grime collected on these valuable works until they were reduced to flat, inexplicit shadows. What had once been vibrant color became shades of gray. Fine details were utterly lost, even to the most attentive eyes.

So scaffolding was built, and workers set about a deliberate, painstaking, and careful project. With brushes and special solvents in hand, they climbed and patiently applied a cleansing paste. It was allowed to dry. Then crews brushed away the powder.

They knew their plan had worked when the color and detail of the original art emerged. When I was in the chapel, its before-and-after sections were astonishing for their contrast. Seeing the work nearly complete but still in progress let me appreciate what had been done.

The historic goal of the Restoration Movement will be realized only when the world sees a viable and faithful portrait of the Savior in the life of his church.

Hermeneutics, theology, and worship are merely scaffolding useful for the larger project. We must be careful lest we think that merely building the platform has accomplished the restorative task. What shortsightedness we would exhibit to confuse the tools with the real project!

Our restoration will be successful only when the vision of the Savior it offers is authentic and convincing.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 24, June 16, 1993, p. 3]

SUNDAY'S TRUTH IN MONDAY'S WORLD

Charles officiated at the Lord's Supper on Sunday morning and slept with a woman other than his wife of more than ten years the next day.

Marie taught her Sunday school class of junior high students and later in the same week deposited an insurance settlement of something over $7,000 for a phony neck injury she claimed after a minor traffic accident several months earlier.

Stories such as these can be multiplied. They reveal a frightening "spiritual schizophrenia" that permits people to sing, pray, and even teach one world-view on Sunday and live a contradictory one the balance of the week. Religion is a neat compartment of life reserved for Sunday; money and relationships, professional life and business ethics, integrity and virtue - these have nothing to do with what happens "at church."

Could the problem be just that simple? Maybe "church" is a place and a series of rituals for too many of us. Perhaps we don't understand that the church on Sunday is simply Christians in assembly. What makes us Christians is not that we assemble but that our total lives are surrendered to Jesus Christ.

Christians are still tempted. We mess up. Our lives are subject to pressure and stress. We sin. But we don't excuse our failures. And we certainly don't consciously set out to do things we know are against God's will. (I John 5:18a).

The faith that calls us together for prayer and communion matters on the other six days of the week, unless it is simply bogus. One who is a citizen of the kingdom of God has pledged to surrender all of life - not just an hour on Sunday - to the holy will of God.

A survey done by the Barna Research Group found that only 32 percent of the members of mainline denominations believed their faith had anything to do with life "outside of church".

If we are not Christ's at school, in the office, at play, with family, and in every other setting of everyday life, we do not magically become his by sitting in a church pew. Sunday's talk must be Monday's walk - or else it is irreverent make-believe that justifies the world's harshest censure of the church.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 23, June 9, 1993, p. 3]

GUARANTEED TRUTH

How did Moses and David get beyond the limitations of their time and place to know the mind of God? How can we be sure that Paul was expressing heaven's will about male and female relationships in Christ rather than his personal prejudices? How do we know that Jesus was born of a virgin? My answer to these questions is the same: God enabled chosen persons to know the otherwise unknowable or interpret the otherwise puzzling and communicate these insights correctly. The result is "God-breathed" scripture.

At this point, with a certified scripture in hand, the process called "inspiration" terminates. Contrary to the haughty and patronizing attitude some interpreters exhibit, their efforts at interpreting the Bible are not on a level with the original documents. They are not incontestable, as our historic failure to see the Bible alike demonstrates.

The limitations of our ability as students - coupled with the personal blinders and cultural baggage we bring to the interpretive task - caution us to exhibit great humility with our conclusions.

The fundamental and necessary truths of scripture that are necessary for salvation are much more conspicuous than some more contestable topics. The deity of Christ is more straightforward to Bible readers than our position on instrumental music. The centrality of the cross is plain in a way that eschatology isn't. Scripture is much more explicit on the divine attitude toward homosexuality or lying than on square dancing or wearing shorts. One who is equally dogmatic on all these subjects loses credibility very quickly.

We are called to be good students of the Word. Every interpretation one derives from careful study and honest reflection should be held dear until fuller or clearer facts come into view. God will judge not only our facts (or lack of them) but our integrity with them.

"Guaranteed truth" is a label that belongs on scripture alone. Our honest studies will yield adequate but not infallible conclusions. Thus we can live in the confidence of faith without the arrogance of claiming for ourselves what can only be affirmed of the Bible itself.

Walking in the light doesn't require swaggering through life with a chip on one's shoulder.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 16, Apr. 21, 1993, p. 3]

KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO'S THERE?

There is a story about John Wesley that bears periodic retelling. It points to an issue that was once a matter of priority among people within my own heritage. The topic seems to be a matter of neglect - if not embarrassment - among some today. To others of us, it remains precious and seems to be mandated by the gospel itself.

According to the story, Wesley was once very biased concerning denominations and denominational allegiances. A dream he had changed his perspective.

In his dream, he was transported to what appeared to be the very gates of hell. There he called out, "Are there any Presbyterians here?" "Yes!" came the reply.

"Are there any Roman Catholics?' he continued. "Yes!" was the response again. "What about Congregationalists?" he pressed. Again, "Yes!"

With some hesitation, he summoned his courage and said, "Not any Methodists, I hope!" To his dismay, the same answer came as before. "Yes!" the voice replied.

In that very instant, the dream changed. Now Wesley was standing at the gate of heaven. He began asking the same questions as before. "Are there any Presbyterians here?" "No!" was the firm response. "Any Roman Catholics?" Again, "No!" "Congregationalists?" "No!"

Finally he came to the question he most wanted to ask. "Are there any Methodists here?" He was absolutely stunned when the same stern reply came back, "No!"

In a mixture of shock and dismay, he called out, "Then please tell me who IS in heaven!" And the answer was shouted back, "CHRISTIANS!"

Our world is known by its division - Democrat vs. Republican, haves vs. have-nots, blacks vs. whites, Jews vs. Gentiles, males vs. females, employers vs. employees, etc. Is there no place where unity exists? Is there no bond that will transcend our boundaries and walls?

God has purposed to create unity among all these alienated people in Christ. (Gal. 3:28).

Before you choose to identify yourself by any other label - "I'm Baptist," "I'm Catholic," "I'm Presbyterian," "I'm Church of Christ" - remember the (biblical!) answer that came to Wesley in his dream. Who will be in heaven? CHRISTIANS!
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 15, Apr. 14, 1993, p. 3]

NO BAD THING IS FINAL!

On that terrible Friday afternoon, Peter, John, Thomas, and the rest thought it was all over. Jesus had failed. They had failed. Dreams of the kingdom...EVERYTHING was finished.

They sank into a sad and melancholy period of mourning. Not one in the group could comfort any other. They were all crushed beneath the weight of their disappointment and pain. It was so intensely personal for each. Yet they attached themselves to one another for support. It was too painful to be alone, yet the heartache was no less for still being together.

Two days later they began hearing crazy rumors about his body being seen around Jerusalem. Some were telling wild tales about seeing and touching him. Was there no reverence for the dead? Were these people trying to add insult to injury? Would these people never cease their taunting?

Some of them rushed to the tomb and found it empty. But that probably meant only that the Romans had taken his body and reburied it in a secret place. One thing they knew; death is final and irreversible. It's over. Nothing would ever be right again. Jesus was dead.

Then, in a room whose door was shut and secure, he was standing right before them! Could they believe their own eyes? Had the "rumors" been true? They must have dropped their jaws, glanced around nervously for someone to make a move, and perhaps even pinched themselves. But they weren't dreaming. He WAS there. He was alive and with them again!

Death wasn't irreversible after all. Neither, then, did their pain, unbelief, and fear have to be final. Timidity and a sense of failure could give way to confidence. They could be bold in Jesus' name. When this startling understanding fixed itself in their hearts, these same men who had crept away in fear from Golgotha would stand in the streets of Jerusalem to preach that salvation was in Jesus alone.

Easter signals the same truth of REVERSIBILITY to us. There is no childhood trauma, no humiliating moral failure, no diagnosis of terminal illness, no episode of failed faith in your life that is final. The empty tomb means that darkness can be replaced by light, failure by victory, and death by life.

Easter means that no bad thing - not even death - is final! Believe it. Rejoice. Praise him.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 14, Apr. 7, 1993, p. 3]

WINGS THAT WON'T FLY

The church is always in danger from its left and right wings. These extreme positions work inevitable harm with God's purposes for his people.

The "left wing" of the church is characterized by a very liberal view of Christ, scripture, and authority. They typically question (if not reject outright) such doctrines as the virgin birth and inspiration of the Bible; they tend to have very indulgent positions about abortion, homosexuality, and the like.

Such persons typically have very limited influence in the church of Christ, for their point of view makes them very uncomfortable among people who adhere to a high view of the Word of God. They leave us and go to more congenial surroundings. Sometimes that is a liberal denomination; often it simply means "dropping out" of religion altogether.

The "right wing" is inclined to a very narrow view on all doctrines and issues. These people are of a mind to lump the bodily resurrection of Jesus, abortion, wearing shorts, and solos in worship together and to be equally dogmatic and unyielding on each.

This wing of our fellowship has had undue dominance among us and has dictated our public image. When you let someone know you are a member of the Church of Christ anywhere we are well-known, the typical response is either a polite "I see" or a more direct "Oh, yeah. You're the ones who think everybody is going to hell but you!"

Neither biblical theology nor our own heritage in the American Restoration Movement permits such arrogance. The Lord Christ is judge of heaven and earth, and we dare not usurp his authority. Many Christians whose starting point is not identical with our own are pursuing the same goal of honoring Christ with their lives as we are. They seek and love truth no less than we do. It strains credulity to think God is forbearing with us in our perplexities, failings, and divisions and adamantly austere with others in whose life the fruit of the Spirit is unquestionable disclosed.

We must reject the left wing so as to have a message at all; we must reject the right wing to get a hearing for that message among honorable people who know anything about Jesus and his gospel. Until the extremes are rejected, we have no future as a fellowship in which the Holy Spirit can reside and through which he can draw men and women to Jesus.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 13, Mar. 31, 1993, p. 3]

WHEN ARE WE GOING TO HEAR SOME...SOUND GOSPEL PREACHING?

He had just passed the halfway mark in a series of sermons on the cross. The congregation appeared to be reveling in a deep, reverent study of the love of God that created a way for mercy and justice to meet at the cross - unto our salvation.

So he was caught by surprise when a brother confronted him at the door. "This sounds like what you could hear in any denomination in town!" he said. Then, poking his finger into the preacher's chest, he asked, "I want to know when we are going to hear some sound gospel preaching from this church's pulpit?"

The poor man was just reflecting his background. He had been reared in a heritage that got sidetracked from the gospel. In the name of "preaching the gospel" and "sound doctrine," he had heard a lot of anger and name-calling. He had endured verbal assaults delivered by angry men. The louder the noise and the angrier the man, the "sounder" the preaching was judged to be.

Think about your own experience. Can't you recall the six evening sermon titles of a Sunday through Friday "Gospel Meeting" when you were growing up? Hear. Believe. Repent. Confess. Be Baptized. Live the Christian Live.

Pardon me. Pardon me! These topics can be (have been!) preached repeatedly without any gospel being taught. They are appropriate and necessary responses to the gospel, but teaching these responses without first emphasizing the gospel itself reduces repentance to "Can't anymore!" versus "Says who!" or baptism to "Have to!" contra "Don't either!" or Christian living to "Like we do down at church!" against "Not on your life!"

Authentic gospel preaching is an exploration of the love of God shown in the incarnation. It tells of Christ's treatment of lepers, prostitutes, and flops. It never gets far from the story of the cross. The very shadow of the cross falls on every other topic.

Sound doctrine never leaves the impression that the burden of redemption lies with us and the scrupulous performance of our duties. It always impresses hearers with what God did to take the full burden of our sin to himself at Calvary.

The historic reduction of the gospel to a series of strident messages about human liability to commands has stood the gospel on its head. No, it has repudiated and withheld the gospel. It has produced a counter-gospel that brings the anathema of God on those who teach it (cf. Gal. 1:6-9).

May God raise up more who will exalt Christ with sound gospel teaching.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 20, May 19, 1993, p. 3]

MY, HOW TIMES CHANGE!

I have fond memories of the church I attended as a boy. Some of the fondest memories of all center around the annual gospel meeting. It was a time when we always had an outstanding evangelist. On the first Sunday of the meeting there was dinner-on-the-ground following the morning service. That was the only time in the year when I got all the fried chicken I wanted and my mother didn't fuss when I avoided the green beans and squash. And the ladies of the rural community could cook desserts that were simply out of this world.

I recall the night when someone wanted to be baptized following the evening service. It was one of those moonless, dark nights that can only be found where there is no artificial light at all. We were led to a nearby creek by the light of a few kerosene lanterns. As the preacher and the candidate for baptism waded into the water, the crowd stood on the bank and sang, "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." As a youngster standing there in the dark holding my mother's hand, the music sounded like some heavenly chorus. I recall another evening when five grown men from our community responded to the preaching of the gospel and were baptized. And I recall the evening when my own heart was touched and I was baptized into Christ by Tom Burton, father of our Mary Short and Hortense Summers.

When World War II came along the meetings were discontinued because of gas rationing. After the war, the meetings were resumed but with much smaller crowds. Year after year the annual meetings were held with ever dwindling crowds. Gone were the non-members who once supported the meetings. Even the members lost interest and many did not attend except for the Sunday services. Over the years the membership of that church has declined, and today it is just a vestige of what it was prior to World War II.

I feel certain that the few old timers who are left can recall along with me the glory days of the great meetings. They probably shake their heads and wonder why people are not interested in hearing gospel preaching anymore. The real tragedy is that my home church never found an alternative method for bringing the good news of Christ to the community.

Times change and so must the methods we use to reach people who so desperately need the saving blood of Jesus. The story of Jesus is still appealing and the gospel is still good news. Unfortunately, we have often enshrouded the gospel in the tomb of outdated methodology. May God grant us the will and the wisdom to resurrect again the crucified Savior and let the world know that He still lives and still loves them.
[by Willis Owens from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 21, May 26, 1993, p. 3]

WHY JOHNNY/JUDY CAN'T BELIEVE

The thing that bothers me most about my Christian faith is that its primary defense does not come through exegesis, history, or logic. These come rather easily. It comes instead through personal demonstration in believers' lives.

My friend and I were sitting at his kitchen table. He has come from being an atheist to being an intellectually persuaded believer in Christ. "Intellectually persuaded" means that he has learned enough from scripture, history, and reason to know that Christianity is true. We no longer need to have conversations in which he questions and tests the truthfulness of the Bible or the historicity of Jesus. All these things are settled in his mind.

But he was telling me why, as he put it, "I don't think I can ever be a Christian." The conversation hadn't really started as an attempt on my part to lead him to accept Christ. (He's too bright to be "set up" for conversion. I wait for him to open the door in our visits.) This chat had started with his expressing frustration over some problems with his business.

As he talked, he spoke with obvious disappointment about a partnership he had been forced to dissolve. The partner was doing some dishonest - even illegal - things in handling a government contract they had acquired. He wanted no part in anything unethical. (From a first-hand knowledge of my friend's character and business dealings, there is no doubt that he is a man of principle and integrity.)

He crushed out his cigarette, looked me square in the face, and said, "He is a Christian, and I could not believe that he would do such things. He is a leader in his church." He paused a moment. Then he added, "I don't think I can ever be a Christian."

It wasn't a mean or sarcastic statement. It was not designed to put me in my place or shut off future talks between us about faith issues. I genuinely believe it was a statement laced with sadness.

You see, my friend knows his life lacks something. I even think he suspects it may be Jesus. But the one person who had a better chance than I ever will to lead him to faith blew it. Instead of salt and light, he became an obstacle!

Millions have been spent by government and private foundations to figure out "Why Judy (or Johnny) can't..." read, do simple math, etc. I think my friend has told us why so many of them can't believe.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 21, June 2, 1993, p. 3]

MOUTHING THE PARTY LINE

In the midst of a political year, you cannot have failed to notice the phenomenon of party-line politics. It substitutes shouting for thinking. It makes a mockery of the national interest. It turns otherwise decent people into attack dogs and robots.

Party-line politics works like this...

Each candidate listens to his or her opponent only to find a weakness to exploit in debate. Statements are taken out of context. Lines from speeches are deliberately distorted in order to caricature one's opponent and to attribute positions that the speaker knows are not embraced by an opponent.

People with any sort of commitment to a candidate are asked to join the ruckus. They are asked for blind loyalty that will endorse their party's platform and extol its candidate - even when the candidate is wrong or acts shamefully. They are told not to listen to anything said by the other party and to reject all its members and candidates as unworthy by virtue of their membership to it.

Allegiance is expected to be total to one's party. There can be no admission of inadequacy or failure by one's own party. There must be no concession to the truthfulness of the opposition on a single point.

One must learn to hear those outside his or her own party with resolute prejudice. Anyone speaking for one's party - even when speaking nonsense - must be cheered with gusto.

The goal of the process is neither to discover truth nor to advance the general good. It is to get one's candidate in office. It is to promote the party. It is to attack, undermine, and destroy the opposition.

It is not surprising that one candidate in the single vice-presidential debate this year brought down the house by breaking into one of the partisan 'tis-'taint exchanges to observe that he felt he was an eyewitness to what is wrong with American government!

Substitute "church" for party, "doctrine" for party platform, and "leader" for candidate in the paragraphs above and you will think you have a pretty good feel for what is wrong with denominationalism and sectarian churches. What unholy shame!
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 43, Oct. 21, 1992, p. 3]

YOU'VE BEEN ELECTED!

You thought the election was scheduled for November 3, didn't you? The United States presidential election is set for that date, but a more important one has already been held. And you were elected!

Several biblical passages speak of an "election," "choosing," and "predestination" of saints. Although some understand this election to be an unconditional and sovereign act of God, that seems altogether inconsistent with the Bible's teaching that "God does not show favoritism" with his human creatures (Acts 10:34b).

Although the subject is complex, one of the best explanations I have ever heard came from a man whose name I do not know. Riding down the road one Sunday morning, I happened in on his radio sermon. His rather simple but essentially correct way of explaining the subject has stayed with me.

Here is what he said: "As we understand the term 'election,' it has to do with voting on a candidate. Well, in this case, you were the candidate and the office in view was salvation. God has voted for you; Satan has voted against you. Now it is up to you to cast the deciding ballot. You can either vote with God by learning and obeying his will, or you can vote with the devil by staying in your sinful ways. It's your vote that will swing the election!"

God has elected, chosen, and predestined you to be saved. After all, it is certainly not his will that anyone should perish (II Pet. 3:9). He has elected you unto eternal life. He has chosen you to be his heir. He has predestined you to share in the glories of heaven. But it won't happen against your will.

Ross Perot has had a hard time making up his mind in this political year. To run or not to run? To accept the eager support of volunteers or not? To suffer the slings and arrows of rough-and-tumble politics or not?

Some people of my acquaintance have had an equally hard time deciding to accept God's gracious election. To be in Christ or to spurn him? To accept God's free gift or to try to muddle through on their own? To suffer for righteousness or to flow with the world?

You've been elected. Will you accept the high status God offers?
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 40, Sept. 30, 1992, p. 3]

WITH HIS FATHER'S HELP

Derek Redmond is the British record-holder in the 400 meters and represented his country in the recent Olympic Games in Barcelona. Running in the semifinals, he was hoping to make it to the next round and bring home the gold for his country.

The starter's gun sounded, and he ran with the leaders. Full speed around the turn, he was headed for home. Then he heard a pop in his right hamstring, clutched his leg in pain, and knelt on the track as if in prayer. A gifted athlete who had already endured five operations on his Achilles tendons appeared to be down and out of the race.

Then a man jumped from the stands onto the track. When someone tried to stop him, the man brushed his would-be obstacle aside. It was Jim Redmond, Derek's father, and he was out of the stands to get it his crippled son.

He walked beside him for a moment, encouraging him. The younger Redmond stopped and buried his sobbing face into his dad's shoulder. Then he looked up and pointed to the finish line. A loving father took his hurt son's arm, drew it around his own shoulder, and the two of them made their way slowly along the track.

By now the crowd that had earlier applauded American Steve Lewis' 44.50-second win was applauding even louder for the Redmonds. Rhythmic clapping urged the father-son team on to a finish. More than five minutes after starting - with the official clock already turned off the Redmond's race going into the record book as "abandoned" - Derek Redmond stumbled across the finish line.

That's just the way it will be when all of us get to heaven. We're no "Dream Team," church! Our pettiness, division, and sins better qualify us to be called Freddie's Nightmare. But God has come out of the stands in an event called the Incarnation, become one with us in our flesh-and-blood struggles, and is helping us finish the race. No one will fail to cross the finish line who keeps leaning on those "everlasting arms" that are so infinitely strong.

(Heb. 12:1).

The next time you get discouraged and think there is no reason to stay in the race, remember the God who comes out of the stands, joins with you in the struggle, and guarantees you a crown of life.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 41, Oct. 7, 1992, p. 3]

HOLD FAST TO DREAMS...

Poet Langston Hughes summed up the power of a vision for one's life with these words: "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

Auguste Bartholdi traveled to Egypt in 1856. He saw the grandeur of the pyramids, the majesty of the Nile, and the serene beauty of the Sphinx. While there he met another man visiting the country, Ferdinand de Lesseps. De Lesseps was there to sell the idea of cutting a canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. He succeeded and began a ten-year project that became the Suez Canal.

Bartholdi's artistic genius was inspired by the idea of so grand a canal. He began designing a lighthouse to grace its entrance. He drew plans and built models. He discarded one plan after another until he achieved what he regarded as the perfect design.

But how could his dream become reality? Who was going to pay for its construction? No one was interested. So the Suez Canal finally opened - but without a lighthouse. Defeated, Bartholdi returned to France. Ten years of his life and labor seemed wasted. But he never quite gave up his dream.

Moses would understand that sort of disappointment, wouldn't he? After dreaming of the freedom of his enslaved people in Egypt, he acted at age 40. The plan blew up in his face. For the next 40 years, he appeared to be a defeated man scratching out a living as a desert nomad. But he never quite gave up his dream. Then God acted!

Moses' timing had been all wrong. He had taken the initiative rather than waiting on God. When time had passed, God called and empowered him to live his vision.

And Auguste Bartholdi? After he returned to France, his country's government announced its intention to offer a gift to the United States. He presented his design. It stands now in New York harbor and is called the Statue of Liberty.

Noble dreams eventually find the right open door. Their time comes. Circumstances change and make what was once impossible into a reality.

Know anybody with crushed dreams? Has your own life vision been blurred by something that has happened to make it seem unworkable? Don't scrap your dreams. Hold to them through the darkest hours. Keep them alive until God can pave the way to their fulfillment.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 35, Aug. 26, 1992, p. 3]

LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME

A man once approached the emperor Napoleon and said, "Your Excellency, I am honored to meet you. You see, my parents gave me your name at my birth!"

Learning that the man was of poor character and had a very bad reputation, the emperor was incensed. He sought out the man who had boasted of wearing his name and spoke directly to him. "You either live up to your name," he told him, "or change it!"

It takes little ingenuity to visualize a similar conversation between the Lord and some of us who wear his name. At our new birth of water and Spirit, we were given the name of Christ to wear. The issue of discipleship is largely a matter of living up to that name in terms of...
* the Savior's DEVOTION to his Father in Heaven. He read and discussed scripture intelligently, prayed with fervor, worshipped both publicly and privately, and made obedience to the Father's will the driving force of his life. His disciples love the same things.
* his COMPASSION toward people in distress. He was never unmoved by the plight of the poor, blind, sick, imprisoned, or oppressed. To live up to his name requires the same sort of response he gave to pain.
* an unwavering CONVICTION that religion's trappings will not do as a substitute for genuine spirituality. His cleansings of the temple and confrontations with the Pharisees remind his followers that defending the status quo is not our mission in the world.
* his AWARENESS OF ETERNITY that causes him to keep his own life issues (e.g., poverty, injustice, etc.) in perspective and to point others to their need of salvation. Following his lead requires that we try to make people aware of their ultimate need beyond any immediate need.

Jesus doesn't want people who wear his name to change it. He wants us to live up to it. But the call to do so challenges the best and holist within us.

How is the process coming along at this point in your life?
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 34, Aug. 19, 1992, p. 3]

TRENT DIMAS CAN SMILE

There are always memorable moments in the Olympics. One of this year's came when Trent Dimas of the United States, against all odds, won the gold medal in the gymnastics high bar event. He wasn't supposed to do that. The sports machine of the former Soviet Union was systematically carrying off their usual truckload of medals in gymnastics. Now their superstars had moved into first place ties in the high bar, ready to carry off this one too.

Dimas nailed his act perfectly. His score surpassed the Unified Team. He won. And he smiled! It was an all-American, broad grin.

What struck those watching was Trent's smile...broad, happy, sparkling!

The difference between that smile and the reaction of the former and current communist athletes as they clinched their awards was remarkable. Scarcely the trace of a grin on their part - then back to the serious business of living to perform.

On a tour a few years ago, there were flowers and smiles in Austria. Crossing the border, the iron curtain contained bleak faces and empty store shelves.

The difference is apparent. Under a system based on decades of work-orientation with reward attached to "survival of the fittest," there is little room for smiles. No grace...only a reward for excellence.

There's a parallel between this political-ideology contrast and the works vs. grace approach in spiritual matters. The difference is in the smiles! A works-oriented church assembly is serious, methodical business. Toe the mark. Get the performance down pat. Then, on with the business of trying to survive to earn the unsure, only hoped-for reward. It's little wonder broad grins are rare!

Paul declared it was for freedom that Christ set us free - to not be in slavery. Under Jesus' system, our reward for service becomes a response to a gift the Lord won for us long ago. That is why the worship assembly is punctuated with happiness and joy.

There is a reason for the big smiles on so many faces.
[by Bob Barnhill from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 33, Aug. 12, 1992, p. 3]

WHAT IS SECOND SATURDAY?

The second Saturday ladies meet the second Saturday of every month to prepare sack lunches for the Intensive Care waiting rooms, to send "Thinking of You" cards to our shut-in members, and to prepare and deliver a meal for the Nashville Family Shelter. This group of women reach out to our community in very special and direct ways. But the Second Saturday program is more than an outreach to the outside world.

The second Saturday program has a special place in my heart. Although the agenda is always the same, these seemingly trivial endeavors first introduced to me the sensitivity, love, and caring of the family. Scriptures tell us that "Whoever gives even a cup of water in the name of Jesus, because he belongs to Christ, truly, he shall not lose his reward." On second Saturdays, my reward for helping has always proved to be immediate. When I first came, last Fall, those ladies in attendance unwittingly helped me bridge the gap between loneliness and fellowship.

When we first came here, a lot of hurt existed in my family. We were used to a small congregation where we felt like we belonged and were loved. Although we enjoyed the services, I still failed to believe that a large congregation could ever promote a sense of belonging. There also seemed to be security in anonymity. We remained uninvolved until Oct. 12, 1991, when I first came to second Saturday.

Over the succeeding months, I grew to look forward to those monthly meetings. Christ-like caring always seems to fill the room. The group's prayers for my mother and uncle, who both died this year, sustained me through considerable grief.

It's good that we all can share our love to so many in this way. It's also good that my skepticism about large congregations has been dispelled. Sometimes it takes individual initiative, but there are so many programs within the church family that I feel here - despite our large numbers - it is easy to keep alive that "small congregation spirit."

We could use more hands and hearts at second Saturday. The needs are ever growing. Yet, no matter how large this part of our family grows, I know that closeness will remain. I hope that in the near future, second Saturday will become a very large "small" group of special Christian ladies.
[by Carrie Thornthwaite from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 36, Sept. 2, 1992, p. 3]

URGENTLY IMPORTANT OR IMPORTANT URGENTLY?

Everyone has wished for thirty hours in a day. Each week ends with unfinished job assignments, letters unwritten, and household chores overlooked. What we should have done haunts us.

To assume a "thirty-hour day" would solve the problem is naive. Grandfather worked fifty hours a week. The current standard forty-hour work week has shrunk in some industries to thirty-six hours. But, there is less time than ever in our schedule. A shrinking work week has only increased feelings of guilt over things left undone!

"Hours" are not the issue! The real concern is jumbled up priorities. To say "I don't have time" does not mean there is not enough hours. It is an admission that we consider whatever we do to be more vital than the things we omit.

The paradox of the "urgent" is: things that demand immediate attention are usually unimportant, while the things that can wait are normally the things of lasting value! The term paper at school, a report for the boss, or a ball game at 3 p.m. are all considered "urgent." It's the extra time to pray; the moment to read God's word; the moment to say how much someone means to us - these far more important things can always...wait.

In Jesus' remarkable statement in John 17:4, He claims to have "accomplished everything the Father wanted Him to do." In less that thirty-four years, He "finished everything!"

It wasn't His long hours of hard work. In our fast food society, many do that. The contrast is in what He did and in what we do. We give endless hours to the "urgent." He spent His time on the important - "What the Father wanted." The insistent crowds demanded He honor their requests by touching, teaching, and healing. Sometimes, however, He left insistent multitude sick, untaught, and unfelt. He left the crowd behind...to care for the widow; to forgive a prostitute; to attempt to change a corrupt government office...or to go off alone to pray.

The difference? It's being able to pause in a busy schedule, ignore the "urgent", and allocate time for the really important - time for God and things that are lasting. Unlike a "time out" in a ball game, it's more than time to catch your breath. It's a pause to get back on track to what really counts in the game of life.
[by Bob Barnhill from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 29, July 15, 1992, p. 3]

A HOLLYWOOD SERMON (Luke 16:18b)

Sister act is a surprise summer hit. Starring Whoopi Goldberg, the movie's story line has a Reno lounge singer forced to enter a witness-protection program after seeing a murder. Miss Goldberg's character is hidden away in a convent and wears a habit to disguise herself. Her experience there becomes something of a parable about how religion is viewed by people looking in from the outside.

Nothing is more revealing than the way a jittery Mother Superior focuses on "the wall" separating the nuns from the shabby neighborhood around them. The suggestion of going into the area, talking with people, and getting to know them horrifies her. Her idea of "separation from the world" means nothing more than being isolated from its shabbiness and pain.

When Whoopi and some of the timid sisters actually cross the barrier, the initial skepticism of people quickly becomes appreciation. "The wall" is soon transformed into a bright mural that signals the clean-up and revival of the area.

In a plan to suppress her enthusiasm, Sister Mary Lazarus next puts Whoopi in charge of the choir. Her musical background quickly has the women singing their traditional hymns on key and in harmony. Again, however, Whoopi scandalized the Mother Superior by working in new music that doesn't fit the familiar scheme. Old '60s songs like "I Will Follow Him" and "My Guy" (now "My God") become congregational favorites.

Challenged by the Mother Superior to choose between the "reverent, traditional music" and the new songs, the choir and the Monsignor of the convent choose the latter. At that juncture in the film, a group of teens behind me said "Yeah!" and applauded!

While we do not look to Hollywood to get our view of reality or values for living, we should pay attention to find out how Christianity is viewed by outsiders. You might think of it as an "exit poll" on the church or a chance at seeing ourselves as others see us.

Hollywood is preaching to us. Is it possible for us to hear what is being said? Or will the communication gulf simply grow wider?
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 28, July 8, 1992, p. 3]

WILL L.A. START A NEW TREND?

At the end of the worst week of urban unrest in the history of the United States, more than 50 people were dead, nearly 2,000 injured, and over half a billion dollars in property has been destroyed in Los Angeles. Might it be the start of a new mood from "trendy L.A."?

The problems underlying the rioting are not unique to that California city of 3.5 million. Racism seems to be a constant in all cultures. Whites and blacks stereotype each other, fear each other, wrong each other. Ethnic minorities such as the Koreans seem to have been very specific targets of much of the burning and looting in Los Angeles.

It is also far too late to consider L.A. a trend-setter in such things as excessive force by police or injustice in the courts. These things have been around a long time too. Many of us grew up with them. What the world decried in the American South in the 1960s or in South Africa more recently seem to be constants across history and civilizations.

Other contributing factors to the week's horrors are poverty, high unemployment, government ineptitude, and a general collapse of morality in the population at large. Again, however, none of these is unique to Los Angeles. It is too late for anyone to "set a trend" on these items.

But perhaps the City of Angels could set a new trend by holding individuals rather than groups accountable for what has happened. That would certainly be a novel approach. Personal accountability is the alternative to both left- and right-wing rhetoric. Whether a policeman or demonstrator goes "out of control," let that person rather than his whole race or profession be indicted.

And it would certainly be trendy to put the people most directly affected by the underlying problems and the violence rooted in them at the heart of changing things. When Mayor Tom Bradley announced that Peter Ueberroth was chairing a committee to rebuild the devastated area, Mr. Ueberroth's first condition was the commitment of the people in the immediate area to the project's success.

These old-fashioned ideas of personal accountability and direct involvement in problem solving by the people most directly affected could set a new trend. Let's hope so. And let's pray for their success with the strategy.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 19, May 6, 1992, p. 3]

DEBATING LIFE AND DEATH

Last Monday morning (June 1) I participated in an hour-long radio talk show debate with Derek Humphry about assisted suicide. He is founder of the Hemlock Society and author of the best-selling suicide manual FINAL EXIT.

From the earliest days of Christianity, rational suicide (as distinguished from suicides resulting from emotional instability) has been regarded as a violation of the Sixth Commandment. The murder of self, no less than the murder of some other, has been regarded as both immoral and unlawful.

Those of us who have stood with friends or family members through illnesses that involve horrible pain (e.g., bone cancer) or personal indignities (e.g., Alzheimer's disease) will quickly admit the emotional anguish to all involved. Well-publicized cases like those of Karen Ann Quinlan or Nancy Cruzan convince us that death is not the worst possible fate for human beings.

Perhaps it is these emotional factors that have combined to make Americans increasingly friendly toward "assisted death" and what has come to be known as "mercy killing." Polls indicate that it may not be long until legislation is passed in some states to allow medical intervention to take life.

Perhaps the pendulum is swinging toward acceptance of suicide because of the way society regards suffering. The assumption "no one should suffer" seems to be the near-universal opinion. On the other hand, the Bible teaches that suffering is not only an inevitable element of being human but a necessary condition for both learning and moral improvement (cf. James 1:2ff).

Patient-assisted suicide is neither the ethical nor practical solution to pain. Companionship and support, loyalty and compassion, love and kindness - these are better answers than carbon monoxide or plastic bags.

If we "lose the debate" over suicide, it will likely not be at the intellectual level but the practical one. What are you doing to help some confined, lonely, or suffering person deal with his or her special needs? If we do not care enough about our most helpless neighbors to communicate that we attach great value to them and their struggle, it will be hard for them to value their own lives.

Maybe there's a phone call or visit you need to make today.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 23, June 3, 1992, p. 3]

ADULTS INVADE RESTAURANT!

A recent article in the business section of the TENNESSEAN told of the resurgence of the 21st Avenue fast food restaurants along the strip across from Vanderbilt campus after the end of school. Business is still booming though students vacated the halls of learning two weeks ago!

Interviews with managers of the quick-lunch brigade along the strip all report heavy business as usual. The difference is only in the clientele. They observe a noticeable insurgence of the "over 30" age group as summer approaches. It seems the older folks in the area of Vanderbilt monitor the students' departure schedule and take advantage of the lull to enjoy a lunch at San Antonio Taco, without the hubbub of student lines and the accompanying chatter.

This may say something about the obvious steady year around attendance figures at Woodmont Hills the past year or so. There's hardly a decline in Sunday empty seats when a couple of hundred students take summer break.

It seems possible that many in the Metro area have stayed away because there was little hope of a seat of some services. With school out, they take advantage of vacated spaces.

Our constant pressure of chairs in the aisles has defied church-expert prognosticators who all agree the rule of thumb is: "A church cannot grow once the parking/seating capacity exceeds 80-85% for, after a few months, people quit coming."

That we can expect to see such growth indefinitely without diminishing returns is to bury our heads in the sand. There will be a limit to reaching more people in our present facilities.

Common sense suggests a successful enterprise like Kroger could not continually experience growth if the average shopper had to park two blocks away and then found every shopping cart taken inside the store.

As a people who desire to reach the disillusioned of our city with good news, there should be a message for us somewhere in what's happening just down the street.
[by Bob Barnhill from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 24, June 10, 1992, p. 3]

CAN YOU HEAR THE CALL?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

What a graphic summary of discipleship! It is the call for us to die to self and sin. It is the demand that we be willing to suffer for what we believe. Occasionally it has been the call to die physically for the Lord Jesus.

"How dare anyone make such a radical demand of his followers!" an outsider might protest. And here is the answer a Christian gives: "He is entitled to make such a demand because he has already done so much for us."

Jesus' incomparable life and willing death were both founded on TRUST in his Father. He knew the absolute trust-WORTHINESS of the Father from eternity. God's purposes would not be defeated, and his words could not fail. Therefore God the Son obeyed every part of the will of God the Father.

The resurrection was the ultimate vindication of Jesus' trust in his Father. As we bear witness to that historical event in our preaching today, we would be wise to bear witness as well in a lifestyle which exhibits absolute faith in the promises God has made to us.

When Christ called you to be his follower, he did not call you to pleasantries and politeness. He called you to join with him in doing battle against the spiritual forces of darkness that war against our souls. He called you to step into the breach so that the battle for what is holy, just, and pure can be pressed forward on planet Earth.

How seriously you take this call will depend largely on how earnest a faith you have in God's promise. What looks hopeless by human standards is easy enough for God. So when the call is clear for you to take a disciple's stand to confess Jesus or to act with integrity, measure your odds by the divine scale rather than a human one.

One writer recently said: "We are producing millions of consumers of religion, but consumers of religion are a far cry from true disciples." His statement is so correct that it is embarrassing. Perhaps more of us need to decide whether we are "consumers" or real DISCIPLES.

Now he is calling YOU to come and die. Can you hear the call?
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 25, June 17, 1992, p. 3]

WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!

Have you heard the story of the judge whose daughter appeared before him on a drunk-driving charge? Because he was sworn to uphold justice, he had to find her guilty; then he imposed the heaviest fine allowed under the law. But he immediately stepped down from his chair and paid the fine from his own pocket.

That is a tiny glimpse of what God has done for us. Unable to declare us innocent under the law and knowing we could not set right the wrongs we had done, he pronounced us "Guilty!" and imposed the law's full penalty - death. Then Jesus Christ went to the cross and paid the penalty for us.

Now what is left for us to do to establish the basis for righteousness before God? Nothing. Salvation arises from the grace of God, not at the end of our attainments or on the basis of our merit. To teach that redemption is grounded in what we do is false doctrine of the basest sort.

Yet there are requirements we must meet in order to accept the free, undeserved, and unmerited gift offered in Christ. God's grace will not be forced on unwilling recipients.

First, we must see ourselves as we really are. That is, we must accept the judgment of God against humankind that we are guilty of sin, justly condemned under divine law, and unable to set right our broken relationship with God. Remember the parable of the two men praying in the temple? (Luke 18:9-14). Only one man went home justified that day.

Second, we must be willing to abandon the deeds - and their underlying attitudes - that have set us against God. We must turn away from sin, for it is absurd to expect God to forgive things we intend to keep doing. The biblical term for this requirement is "repentance". Since old habits die hard, repentance is best thought of as a willingness to abandon sin rather than a one-time spiritual event. Anyone following Jesus must "deny himself and take up his cross daily" (Luke 9:23).

Third, having given up on self-justification and self-righteousness, we turn for salvation to the "righteousness from God [that] comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." That we have died to self so as to live in Christ is symbolized in baptism - the reenactment of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Though a symbol of a greater reality, baptism is no mere symbol. It is essential to the objective reality of a sinner's turn from darkness to light, from death to life, from judgment to redemption (Rom. 6:3-4).

As with Abraham and David, so with us: Not because we have worked for it but because we have trusted God's work on our behalf, we are "credited" with righteousness (Rom. 4:1-8). There is no room, then, for boasting. We can only praise the Lord for his grace.
[from Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 26, June 24, 1992, p. 3]

BURNING YOUR BOATS

Some Christians seem to have missed the significance of repentance. Grace not only offers pardon but also demands and produces transformation.

"But that wasn't the case with me," protests someone. "I genuinely repented of my past when I came to Christ, but I just can't break away from pornography (or cursing or fornication or alcohol)." That is distinctly possible. In order to have victory over sin, one must go beyond remorse and sincere determination to turn away from evil. He or she must take an additional step of "burning the boats."

When Julius Ceasar landed on the shores of England with his well-armed legions, he simultaneously made a bold and decisive move to guarantee the success of his campaign. He marched his men to the edge of the Cliffs of Dover and ordered them to look down at the ships that had brought them across the channel. Every one of them was ablaze!

General Caesar had cut off the possibility of a pullback. Now that his soldiers were unable to return to the continent, there was nothing left for them to do but advance and conquer. And they did!

Visits with backsliding Christians often turn up the fact that they never cut themselves off from their former lives. They felt its pain. They wanted to be forgiven of its guilt. But they didn't take the bold step of burning their boats. With the old network of friends and temptations still in place, it was too easy to stray back into forbidden things.

Pornography should be burned. Drinking buddies and past sexual partners have to be left behind. Jobs that compromise Christian principles have to be given up. Until you burn the boats, the possibility (even likelihood!) remains that you will use one of them to cross back into sin and thus leave Christ.

The ultimate test for many of us who have accepted Christ may be found at this point. If we love him enough, we abandon anything that could take us away from him.

What about you? Have you left any boats protected?
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 20, May 13, 1992, p. 3]

"USED TO BE" NEVER WAS

Fictions are strange things. They come to have a life all their own. They survive in spite of facts. One of the most pervasive of all these is the delusion of things as they "used to be."

I heard a version of it the other day when a man said he wished the church could go back to the way things "used to be." He spoke wistfully of the '50s and '60s. "We were really preaching the gospel back then," he said, "and we were the fastest-growing religious group in the country!"

Churches of Christ never have been the fastest-growing religious group in the United States. Back in the early 1960s, when TIME magazine reported that we were, the claim was based on statistics that had no scientific base. When a firm count of our congregations and members was taken several years ago, we discovered we were nearly a million short of the two and one-half million we had claimed.

The last census that attempted to classify by religious preference was in 1946. When encyclopedias or other researchers called Nashville (the presumed headquarters of the Church of Christ!), loose "estimates" were offered that added something like ten percent growth per year. On the basis of these accumulating figures, we were dubbed "fastest growing" of American churches.

All churches grew in the period following World War II, particularly the conservative ones. So we grew in the 1950s, but as part of a general pattern of interest in religion during that time. We were not alone in seeing growth. Ours was neither fastest nor largest.

During the same time, we were going through the bloodiest time in our history. Churches split and split again over orphans home, Herald of Truth, kitchens in church buildings, colleges in budgets, and other "issues." Some of the most mean-spirited preaching evolved during that time about how everybody but us was going to hell. All our churches were segregated. In the place of sound theology, we produced a wicked legalism that ground people up and spit them out.

The best days of our fellowship are not the ones past but can be the ones yet to come. Unless and until we adopt that forward-looking attitude, the false longing for a used to be that never was will continue to distract us from seizing today's opportunities.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 18, no. 21, May 20, 1992, p. 3]

GOD'S DIRTY HANDS

The gods of Babylon, Greece, and Rome were remote from Planet Earth, detached from humanity, and generally unmoved by the human condition. More than that, these gods were seen as being reduced and defiled by contact with matter.

Their presence was most often sensed in the context of major disasters. Then their devotees' primary role was to placate and pacify them with ritual and ceremony. If one of them ever appeared in human form, he was a Superman-type hero who was immune to moral harm.

Yahweh has entered human experience to share our limitation and struggle. In the theophany to Abram and Sarai, he ate what she cooked. His holiness did not preclude his involvement with us. Neither was it compromised by his contact with Earth.

Then the Word was made flesh in Jesus. He was not an invulnerable Superman. To the contrary, his heart could break for hurting and outcast persons. He flinched and bled under the lash. He died on a Roman cross.

Our God is not remote, detached, and unmoved. (Heb. 2:14). In Jesus, we do not have a Savior...(Heb. 4:15).

The only perfect person in history so identified himself with our imperfections that he drew to himself (and made comfortable!) some of the most unsavory characters you can imagine. There was a woman who had gone through five divorces and was living with a sixth man when they met. There were lepers and publicans, political radicals and prostitutes.

Do we have a message about God to preach to the world? Do we have a message from God to share? And are we pained that we are so ineffective in communicating it so as to win converts to our Lord? Do we lament that people don't come to us in the numbers or with the openness they showed to him?

Maybe we have served the true God with the spirit of the false ones. Perhaps we have been remote, detached, and unmoved. Possibly we are perceived as being more interested in our institution than in broken people's pain.

Since our God has dirty hands, we can neither be unconcerned about the human condition nor uninvolved with sin's most unsightly victims.
[by Rubel Shelly from Love Lines, vol. 19, no. 31, Aug. 5, 1993, p. 3]

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