Walking in the Spirit

Greetings,

I won’t waste words this week with long introductions. It occurred to me that I haven’t really discussed in this blog what my job here at the church is. I’m primarily a painter here in the maintenance ministry. This week I have been repairing the plaster and painting in “The Tunnel.” The Tunnel is in the basement of this immense church. It has been dubbed as such because it is just a long, twisty corridor of narrow passages with lower-than-average ceilings. I could paint the ceiling by hand without the use of a ladder or extension pole. I’m not finished with this project yet, but I have finished the first long hallway.

This past Sunday I also worked security on the third floor of the Annex, which is the children’s department. This was the first time that I have worked security on that floor and I felt unprepared. Unlike painting, there’s nothing really physically demanding about doing security, but it is mentally taxing because you have the responsibility of paying careful attention to all that goes on and all the hundreds of people and children who go in and out of there on any given Sunday. It’s a HUGE responsibility! For the sake of not harming anyone even by a little mistake, I’d rather paint. It stresses me out to think about what could happen if I got distracted even for a minute at the wrong time while doing security. But just like everything else, I have no ability to perform this responsibility in the weakness of my flesh. My self-effort will only result in disappointment and failure. We have to walk in the Spirit and believe God for His ability for everything that we do. God makes Himself available to us for this through Christ Jesus. Our activity is either done in the flesh or in the Spirit; there is nothing in between. Regardless of what the activity is, God wants us to rely on Him; to do EVERYTHING as unto the Lord. Do you think that it pleases God for you to do even the most seemingly meaningless task by self-effort? Did it ever occur to you that performing your daily tasks by self-effort in the weakness of your flesh is the very reason why some of you hate your jobs? You go home irritated and exhausted because you performed your job all day by self-effort—by the flesh. We don’t hate our jobs merely because we aren’t passionate about them. I have come to realize that only focusing on what you are passionate about is a lie of the devil. And it is the reason that many people my age change majors in college seven times and then can’t find a job that they enjoy. Even something you love can become meaningless, boring, or burdensome if you are doing it in the flesh, by self-effort. Nothing you do in the flesh has any power to produce the fruit of the Spirit, namely love, joy, peace, patience, etc. These are the things we are longing to find in our daily work, and these are the things that we need to perform our daily activities and interactions, but these fruits cannot be produced by the work of the flesh. We know this, and yet we fail to trust God to perform through us, by His Spirit, even the smallest tasks. Even washing dishes can become an act of worship if you let the Holy Spirit work through you, with thanksgiving to Him. This is not because washing dishes is important! It is because you are washing dishes for the Lord with His help! Don’t you know that God wants to live through you? He wants to be intimately involved in our lives. The Holy Spirit wants to be a co-laborer with you to empower you.

Worship is not by means of a particular activity; worship is by means of the attitude of your heart. Anything done for God with thanksgiving and dependence on Him is worship. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everything done in the flesh is sin. Maybe this is something that God will have to reveal to me, but I cannot see how sharpening your pencil in the flesh is an outright sin. But at the same time, it doesn’t bring pleasure to God either. It is simply meaningless and counts for nothing as far as worship goes. God will reward the widow in heaven for offering her last penny for the Lord, trusting Him to provide her needs. Meanwhile, the businessman who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, established a billion-dollar company and then gave millions away to charity will receive nothing in heaven because he did it all in self-effort without even acknowledging God. He has already received his reward. This principle seems backwards to our thinking, but, like it or not, it is the way the Kingdom works.

Last Sunday when Pastor Carter, the senior pastor here at TSC, returned from vacation, he confirmed what God has been showing me since before I moved here and which I have been writing about in my blog entries. Pastor Carter related to the congregation that Sunday morning (August 9^th) how he and Pastor Teresa, his wife, experienced one of the most rewarding seasons of prayer while on vacation. He then announced his message, entitled “The Secret of Spiritual Power.” I will not relate the content of that sermon here. Instead I encourage you all to listen to this message yourself. You can download it at http://www.tscnyc.org/sermons.php. And just what is the secret of spiritual power? Servanthood. After hearing his sermon, which he based from Luke 22:24-30, I became even more convinced of what God informed me that He would be dealing with me about while I am here at Times Square Church: “Establishing my authority from a low place.” Not only that, but it is evident to me now that the Lord is very interested in instilling this principle and lifestyle, by the Spirit, in all of His Church abroad, or at least His church in Times Square. It is by following in Jesus’ footsteps—being a servant to all—that we will receive/achieve greatness and authority from God—(cf. Luke 22:28-30). And this is always the case. If you think that once you are anointed a delegated authority for God that you can stop serving, you have missed the point entirely: ministry (service) and authority are inseparable. One has received authority because he or she has been given a ministry.

And so, here I am at Times Square Church just serving. Yet this is the highest thing anyone can do. But remember this: if we serve and invest in man/for man, we will always be disappointed or discouraged because we are looking at results or depending on our efforts. But if we do everything as ministry to the living God with dependence on Him we will not be disappointed for it will no longer be results or success or striving that matters, but Spirit-empowered obedience to God. Disobedience and God-ordained authority cannot co-exist.

Lord, enable us to serve with total dependence upon Your power to perform, and help us to serve others, not begrudgingly, but as serving You.

Promises, Blessing, and chastisement

Today marks a small milestone. Exactly one month ago I left my home state, friends, and family of Alabama to live here in New York City. Just getting out of my complacency and coming to Times Square Church has sparked a powerful chain of events which will render my life altered forever. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I assure you it is not. God is fulfilling His promises, providing for me like never before, and humbling me like never before too! I was just telling Helen last night that God is making me more painfully aware of myself and my shortcomings. And I am becoming more convinced than ever of my need of Jesus, my savior. I cannot even pray without Him. I cannot even overcome minor irritations apart from Him. I need salvation and sanctification; and HE is my salvation and sanctification. I want to continually be thankful, no matter how I may feel about myself at the moment. It is amazing! Here are some examples of what I am talking about:

1) For the first time in five years, (and only the second time ever) I am in a courting relationship with a girl. And not just any girl, mind you. This would not be the awesome provision of God if Helen were not such a gem. She is a very dear friend and has a unique intimacy with God that I admire most of all. God tells her special things.J So I am very thankful for her and I want to praise her publically so that all of you will know. For the first time ever, my loneliness is subsiding, despite the fact that we are 900 miles away from each other.

2) I have more money than I’ve ever had. First of all, the week I left, several of the brethren donated what I consider to be an exorbitant amount of money for “my cause.” That is laughable! I’m just so blessed that anyone would even consider donating funds to me. My brother in the Lord and co-worker, Hector, and I were just recently blessed with some painting work outside the church, in Brooklyn at John and Teresa Ash’s new house. In addition to our regular hourly wage that the church pays us, Ms. Teresa also paid me, Hector, and his son extra for the work!! I asked Hector afterwards, “What do I do with this money?” I was thinking that I should get rid of it because I already have more than enough. But he gave me some good counsel: “God wants us to be generous, but He also wants us to be wise and save. Of course you should tithe off of that money, but you should save the rest because you don’t know what the Lord may have for you to do with it later. Maybe a mission trip; maybe more schooling, or a monetary donation later.” I do need to pay off my student loans, after all. I might add that God has blessed me with wise and godly co-workers. I praise God for Hector. He is a great man of prayer.

3) In addition to those things, the Lord has been exposing me and showing me what a hypocrite I am. Don’t even think for a minute that I’m about to go on a tirade of self-condemnation. This has been an answer to much prayer and the gentle discipline of the God who loves me and counts me as a son. He wants me to be sanctified. It is His will. It’s just that I am more in tune with it now. The best part about it is the renewed dependence on God that I have. I realize just how worthless and futile self-effort is. I am sensitive to every little irritation and every ounce of pride. The fact is, I don’t want to be this way (to be infected with pride), but I cannot seem to help caring so much about other people’s perception of me, and the inability to be patient, humble, and kind in the face of intimidation, judgment, correction (no matter how unnecessary I see it as), and scruples that I have, like people who talk too much and don’t listen enough, or people who make assumptions about me. These things are not merely their problem. They are primarily my problem, for it matters to God how I deal with them. Instead of snapping back a smart remark at people, or, depending on the situation, feeling the need to defend myself, I should just humble myself before God and find my identity in Him. For, you see, I seem to care more about maintaining a reputation of intelligence than I care about maintaining utter dependence on God. Some of you are rightly thinking, “Yeah, I can see how that would be the case with you.” And you’re right! I’m sick of getting agitated though, just because someone tries to tell me something that I think I already know how to do. I tell myself that I want to learn and want to be corrected if I don’t know something. Why then can’t I endure it if someone attempts to teach me something that I already know? Instead of receiving it, I take it as an insult to my intelligence, as if they are purposefully trying to make me feel stupid. But even if they are, it matters how I react to it. It matters that I do not defend myself, because if I defend myself to that person it means that I am giving them the right to judge me. I put myself on trial and set them up as judge and jury over me. But only God is our judge! If I really believed that, then I would just let God be my judge and say nothing or little in response to those who knowingly or unknowingly reproach me.

I am also convinced that the only way to have deliverance from such attitudes is to receive the holiness of God; and to receive it from Him by spending time with Him in prayer. Proverbs 9:10 says, “Knowledge of the Holy One IS understanding.” If you want to know anyone you must spend time with them. If I really want to be understanding, I must spend time getting to know God intimately. If I want to be holy as God wants me to be, then I must receive it from the Holy One. This is the only way. The flesh counts for nothing. I will never be any different if I keep striving. I can only cast myself at the feet of the Lord Jesus and ask Him to transform me into His image. He is more than willing to do that.

Spiritual Warfare and Apologetics

Today I went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore on Fifth Avenue and 46^th street. I bought a book by Mortimer J. Adler entitled Ten Philosophical Mistakes. After that I visited the New York Public Library, where the beginning of Ghostbusters the movie was filmed…you know, where the two statues of lions sit adjacent to each other in front? Can you tell by my activity on this, my day off, that I like to read? More than that, I like learning. I want to tell you that the NY Public Library is vast and the selection is expansive. They have the largest collection of religious literature and references that I have ever seen! The picture that I posted is a painting of Moses dashing the Ten Commandments to pieces. The man sitting below the painting is there to give you a point of reference about the scale of the painting, although he may not have known that was his role for this blog. There are several impressive works of art like this in the Library. I can’t wait to see the museums in New York! I also took pictures of the Guttenberg Bible, circa 1466! It was one of the first documents ever printed on the printing press, in fact I think it is the first, but I was too busy paying attention to the Bible itself to read the whole caption describing it. The Guttenberg Bible is the first printed copy of the Latin Vulgate. I would post the pictures, but they aren’t very clear—the Bible just looks like a regular old book. And isn’t that true? The Bible appears to be just another book passed down to us from antiquity. But I want to tell you with the utmost conviction that the Bible is the very Word of God and it was passed down from antiquity for the very purpose to give us a tangible point-of-reference by which to pattern our lives, gain faith and doctrine, and preserve the truth about God, and specifically Jesus Christ. It is our standard by which to judge ourselves, like a measuring tape for a precise cut of wood. But unfortunately, as Paul conveys,

“But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament (the Scriptures), because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty…But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”—2 Corinthians 3:14-17; 4:3-4.

There is a little known fact about me, which only my close friends realize, and I want to express that fact right up front. I am a Christian who believes in both the Scriptures and the power of God; the Spirit and truth. I am a Charismatic Biblicist—or at least that’s the best explanation I can think of. I appreciate balance. So many times these days I find Christians who either emphasize one or the other—dead religionists, on one end of the spectrum, who only stress the importance of fidelity to the Bible, and on the other end, religious fanatics who only care about feelings, so-called moves of the Spirit, and ecstatic religious experiences. But the early church fathers weren’t that way. The great revivalists weren’t that way. And I praise God the pastoral leadership here at Times Square Church are not that way. They all stress the importance of BOTH life by/in the Spirit of God and belief in right doctrine, or the truth as revealed in the Scriptures. The combination of those (and nothing less) leads to salvation through sanctification—cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13. That being said, I am convinced that in order for the veil of blindness to be removed from those who are perishing, I must pray and engage in spiritual warfare on their behalves against the god of this age, and that I must engage in intellectual warfare against every vain philosophy that sets itself up against the knowledge of God; in two words, intercessory prayer and apologetics. I am merely insisting on what I, as one member of the Body of Christ, must do. This is what I am compelled to do in order to reach the lost for Jesus and edify the body of Christ. The reason should be obvious. First of all, we fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities, and rulers of darkness in the heavenly realms. So we must engage in spiritual warfare to aid evangelism. Second, and more tangible, is the fact that many pseudo-scholars, scientists, and the self-proclaimed intellectually elite have perpetrated and perpetuated ideas that criticize the historical, scientific, and theological integrity of the Scriptures, and thus undermine faith in God for untold millions. It is the task of apologetics to expose such vain ideas as the falsehoods that they are by using sound arguments based on good evidence. (And make no mistake. There IS good evidence to believe in the Bible. Just read The Case for Christ as merely one example. Or go online and listen to apologetic lectures by Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig, to name a few.) Apologetics is useful to remove any excuse that the skeptic and unbeliever may have. This discipline serves to show the skeptics that the Bible is not just another old, out-dated book, but that it is indeed reasonable to believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. The combination of these two tactics will be a powerful aid in evangelism, will restore unwavering faith in the Bible and bring about true deliverance in the Spirit. Somehow, this is my task, and I’m not alone, although I wouldn’t impose my calling on anyone else. Pray for me as I continually prepare for this ministry, both here and elsewhere. And remember, Jesus has appointed YOU as a specific member of the body with specific gifts and passions for a specific ministry. If you don’t know what that ministry is yet, please seek the presence of the Lord diligently until He shows you. The power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us is the most precious gift we have and the most important for enabling in our ministry. (Might I add that the Holy Spirit is not an “it.” That is neither grammatically accurate to the Bible, nor respectful of God. The Holy Spirit is God with us. He is our only direct and intimate connection to the Godhead at this time and we cannot live without Him.)

Also, would you pray for me and my special friend Helen as we get to know each other with intentions of considering each other for a more long-term relationship? Helen and I are communicating regularly from a distance. She is in Alabama (via England) and I am here in New York. We just desire God’s perfect will for each of us.

Thanks and grace to you all.

In All Things

Web log, star date seven, twenty-five, o’nine:

I just got back from a walk to the Big Apple Meat Market on 42^nd Street and 9^th Avenue, prior to which I communed with the Lord over what I should speak about today. And whereas I have been thinking and praying about a great deal of things lately, I feel led to write out my thoughts and God’s thoughts about the following.

What I’m about to go into has been almost my universal experience as a Christian thus far. The fact that it has been almost my universal Christian experience is disappointing because what I’m about to describe to you is evidence of immature Christianity and the result of wrong thinking. What I have noticed is that almost all the Christians I know (except for a small few) are individually proponents of one way of doing things—call it a method, system of thinking, preference or particular passion—over and against all others. This is a little hard to explain, so I’ll give you examples.

What I have found by and large is that if you talk to Christian A about, say, “How to reach the lost,” they are going to give you their preferential way of going about doing that, and usually, this is based on either their own personal experiences and desires or lack thereof. So let’s say Christian A holds the position that the best (and whether they say it or not, in fact, the only) way to reach the lost is to just love them and wait for them to ask you questions about your faith. This is a relational type of doing evangelism; a perfectly good way to reach the lost. HOWEVER, this is not the ONLY way to do evangelism, nor should it stop at this single approach. But what I, and I suspect, you have often found is that when challenged to think broader than his or her personal preferences this type of Christian either recoils or reacts, sometimes vehemently. And I ask myself and the Lord, “why is this?”

I’m just going to call this what it is, if you will bear with me. This sort of “my way or no way at all” mentality is the very natural stance of the rebel. This is nothing less than the obstinate position of the kind of man or woman who has never encountered God’s authority. This is the type of Christian who is quick to say “I want to be obedient to the Lord’s will,” but in their hearts they are liars because what they really believe is, “God I will be obedient, but I will be obedient only to the things I want to be obedient to and I will do it my way.” This is the same attitude as that of Satan and, unfortunately, it is just as subtle and difficult to detect. But, fortunately for the discerning of heart, it will eventually be made known that the rebel is indeed a rebel, no matter how he or she tries to cover it up with his good deeds and sacrifices, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It just so happens that people like this usually like to talk a lot, proclaim their own goodness, and impose their opinions on you. You can always tell if a person is rebellious when they are unwilling to listen to other’s opinions, or to mutually submit to one another out of reverence and love to God. They are especially unwilling to receive correction. They think things like, “If God has anything to say to me, I will listen, but nobody can tell me what to do. I don’t need to hear what man has to say.” This sounds very good and almost right, doesn’t it? But this only reveals that they have no concept of God’s delegated authority. Ephesians 4:11-14 makes it clear enough that God delegates His authority to men. It says,

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

It is true that God speaks directly to us, but often He speaks through His delegated authorities. Anyone who God legitimately speaks through is His delegated authority because that messenger speaks the very word of God which is to be believed and obeyed; he speaks on God’s behalf as his representative. Such was the case with Moses, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah and all of God’s prophets. Priests too were delegated with God’s authority to minister atonement on His behalf to the people. In fact, every minister is God’s delegated authority in that particular ministry, which means that we all (as members of the body of Christ) represent God’s authority to a degree in some way or another, because we have all been gifted by Jesus with a particular gift for ministry; we all have a specific role to play as members of one body. Since that is the case, to insist that things must always be done “this way” (which is really another way of saying “my way”), is to be at odds with the rest of the body and worse than that, to be in rebellion against God. It is like the eye saying to the hand, “You must see. That’s the only thing that matters—seeing. If you can’t see then you’re useless or weak.” That is the attitude that will ultimately make the eye useless, because if the whole body were an eye, then where would the hearing be? In fact, if the whole body were an eye then the body would die because it could not protect itself or provide for a thousand of its other needs. The point is, just because you or I have been gifted a certain way, and thus have particular preferences in the way we approach different things, doesn’t mean that we should insist that everybody else should be like us and impose our preferences on them. This leads to a noxious and arrogant self-righteousness, and it is a result of many Christians attempting to establish themselves as authorities or as superiors. But this is not the way God ordained authority in the body of Christ. We are to mutually submit to one another’s delegated authority in our particular ministry out of love and need for one another, and out of sincere worship to God. The body cannot function properly without all the members working together as a unit. The head of the body is Christ, so we know the head is functioning properly, and since that is the case, we each ought to readily, even involuntarily obey whatever the Head commands, if in fact we have had an encounter with His authority.

Any Christian who claims that “this” is always the proper action in this or that scenario, or “this” is always the proper way to think, or “this” always ought to be our focus, causes me to become skeptical. Fill in the blank for whatever “this” may be. I’ll give you a personal example. I was just meeting an otherwise well-intentioned brother (we did not previously have an acquaintance) with whom I shared that I had just graduated from college because he asked me if I was a student. He asked me what my major was and I told him that I received my bachelor’s in religion from Liberty. He then proceeded to explain to me the dangers of having religious knowledge. Now remember, he did not know me from Adam’s housecat! He presumed that I was just an educated Pharisee who learned dead religion from the cemetery--(that is a sarcastic idiom for seminary). And what was funny and ironic to me was that he used his knowledge in order to educate me that knowledge is bad (he even quoted 1 Corinthians 2:4-5) and that having a “religious” education is dangerous. And to be honest it bothered me, until I remembered the Lord Jesus in earnest again. Thankfully the Holy Spirit had been speaking to me about that very thing, in 2 Corinthians chapter six. Paul relates,

“We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God; in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”—2 Corinthians 6:3-10.

I don’t know if you noticed, but Paul includes knowledge in that list of things by which he endeavored to commend himself as a minister of God. I did not stress that fact because it would be wrong to emphasize the importance of one of these items over the other. And that is just the point. Paul says “in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God.” Not just in this thing or that thing, but in all things. After all, why forsake the word of truth for the sake of kindness? Or why keep the power of God at the expense of sincere love? Or why exclude purity for the sake of knowledge when you can retain knowledge and purity and also uphold all the other things? For Proverbs 15:2 says, “The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly…” As long as one is wise, which implies humility, knowledge doesn’t have to puff you up. You can use knowledge rightly along with all other things in order to do the will of God. The problem is those Christians who insist on emphasizing one item as more important than another because of their personal preferences, passions, or particular giftings. In the case of Christian A, if he is passionate about and/or gifted in relational evangelism then let him make friends with the lost in hopes of winning them for Christ. But let him not insist that his way of doing things is the only way and the way that everyone else should do it. That is the attitude of pride and rebellion. God has gifted us all differently and given us each different passions according to the way He made us. So let us all bear with one another and accept each other’s particular passions and support each other’s specific giftings. We each benefit from what the other members supply, and the result is that edification, unity, and maturity of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4) occurs. We need each other and the world needs everything we have to offer, not just bits and pieces.

Thanks, grace to you all, and sorry this one is so long.