The Meal Deal Ordeal

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This is the 2nd of a series of 15 devotionals written almost 30 years ago when my oldest three sons were very little …

Many of you have asked about our recent vacation. We went to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, a marine science museum in Virginia Beach, the Norfolk Navy Base, and the Air and Space Museum in Washington – all in one week with three little kids. But if you were to ask our boys what they liked the most, they would mention things like the replica guns they bought at Yorktown, the tape recorders in the car, the motel room and especially the restaurants where they ate.

Their favorite was a restaurant that offered a 99-cent “Kid’s Meal Deal,” which allowed the boys all they wanted from the soup and salad bar. On top of that, two of them could eat free because they were under five and with a paying adult. So, the three boys could eat all they wanted for a combined total of 99 cents.

Some of you have seen my guys eat or have heard me talk about it. We can’t relate to parents who have trouble getting their children to eat or who have problems keeping their children at the table for longer than five minutes. Our kids will keep eating as long as you keep bringing them food. We have to sometimes say, “That’s it, lunch is done, you’re finished, get down and wash up!”

There is now a restaurant in Williamsburg that will no longer be offering the “Kid’s Meal Deal.” My trio cleaned them out! Benjamin exhausted their supply of “the green stuff with the marshmallows” and Nathan ate all of their kiwi fruit. Together, the three of them emptied several bowls of cracker packages.

Of course, with every return to the salad bar, it was necessary to get a new, clean plate. Well, the plates started piling up in the middle of table and the busboy had to come periodically to take them away and keep the bar supplied. He just looked at the kids with a dumbfounded expression.

Other customers at nearby tables were watching and grinning at this unscheduled floor show. The waitresses were standing together whispering back and forth. The kids were pouring it down and heading back for more, weaving between people like O.J. through a defensive backfield. Benjamin hopped on one lady’s foot while he excitedly returned to the bar saying, “I just love, love, love this green stuff!”

Diana and I had long since finished our meal and she was organizing their efforts and trying to prevent them from talking too loudly in unbridled excitement. I was sitting there watching and taking notes for this article. After two hours we finally said, “This is your last trip … And Benjamin, no more green stuff!”  Nathan protested, “But where are the salad bars, I haven’t found them yet!”  I guess he expected something like a granola bar (maybe he could invent one… imagine it – low calorie salad bars; you could eat them for snacks!).

For us, the “Kid’s Meal Deal” was a kid’s meal ordeal more than a deal. We didn’t go on vacation for the purpose of eating in a restaurant. But I’m afraid we are a legend now at that place.

Why do we exist as a church? What is our purpose? I am afraid that many times we are like three hungry little boys in a restaurant, grabbing all of the goodies for ourselves and forgetting the larger context and purpose for being in the community. We are to be a light to the world; but too often we are consumed with pigging out on the feasts of teaching and fellowship within our own context of the church family. We are to surely minister to those within the body who are hurting, but too often the business of chowing down on varied blessings prevents our awareness of another’s hunger.

As a church we have attempted to be one that offers a lot of the variety at the ecclesiastical soup and salad bar. You can get a big bowl of fellowship and a plate full of discipleship, Bible study and edification, all topped with a dressing of prayer. But in our exuberance let us not forget the hungry who stand outside and all about us.

Once and For All

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Today is the first of 15 devotionals over the next three weeks that look back almost three decades to when my oldest boys were roughly ages 8, 6, and 5 … or thereabouts. At that time, while pastoring in New Jersey, I wrote devotionals for a monthly newsletter. They were called “Life with My 3 Sons” … and later the title had to change to “… my 4 sons.”  My mother-in-law recently found these in her keepsakes and sent them to me. I had mostly forgotten about them. Reading them now is interesting, especially if you know these guys as young adults. If not, the stories recount common family life occurrences we all know, along with a biblical application. So have fun reading them. The first one begins …

Tell me you have never had the following type of experience with a child …

One of my boys comes to me with a drawing – excuse me – a masterpiece of what could be best described as abstract art.

“Oh Nathan,” I’ll exclaim. “That is the nicest car I’ve ever seen drawn by anyone!”

“Don’t be silly daddy,” he’ll respond. “That’s not a car; it’s two dinosaurs playing football.”

Oh.

I have learned my lesson. Never do I now respond with a speculation concerning what a particular piece of artwork is depicting. I make open-ended remarks like, “Wow, that is so cool. Tell me about this beautiful picture with all the colors!”

The pictures that children draw are a window to their minds and thoughts. And because of that, I was particularly pleased to hear Nathan’s explanation of the following sketch …

He drew this a few months back while sitting in church with Diana during an evening service, having had a Sunday School lesson that morning on the Tabernacle and Temple system of the Old Testament.

What? Oh? You need some explanation?

The upper left is the altar with the sacrifice on top. The top drawing is the tabernacle tent of meeting. The bottom-left is the Temple with the most holy place outlined. Of course, the bottom center is Jesus on the cross. And on the right is the explanation – “No more. But Jesus died. No more of that.”  Note that the arrows from the “no more” go to the sacrifice, the tabernacle, and the Temple. The “1 time” is listed over the cross.

Hey folks – there’s some very good theology in this drawing. And it is exciting as a parent to see your children learn the Word through their Sunday School teachers (in this case, Peggy McCormick). It illustrates the value of a good children’s education ministry.

Hebrews 7:27 – Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

The Rewards are Out of this World (Matthew 6:19-21)

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You have probably heard the phrase about the performance of Christian service that says, “the work may be of little earthly value, but the rewards are out of this world.” Indeed they are! The Great Story Book says in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”  That is quite an assertion to say that no mind has ever conceived how awesome it is… I don’t know about you, but I think my mind could conceive of some pretty good stuff!

There has always been a hesitance in evangelical circles to talk much about heavenly rewards. The thought is that such a mindset is a sort of spiritual materialism. But the Scriptures do talk about it without shame. Jesus in fact told the disciples to work toward such, with such a perspective in mind…

MT 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What comes first, the heart or the treasure?  Jesus says your heart will follow that which you treasure. That is true. We find time and energy for the things most important to us. It seems to me he could have just as well said it the other way… your treasure will be where your heart resides. The heart is at the center of our values system. We might see it as like two sides of a coin.

Those who have a lot of things in this world need to focus a lot of concern on the things of this world, using a lot of energy to assure they are not stolen. When I was a seminary student in Dallas in 1982, I had a swimming pool cleaning business. Being a poor student, I was driving a rusted old car my dad had cast off… a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.  So on one particular day, I drove my bucket of rusty bolts around to the back side of a client’s especially luxurious home and went to work on their pool. It was not long before a Dallas police car came roaring up the driveway. The officer got out, looked into the windows of my car, saw my golf bag with a Dallas Country Club logo (a Christmas present Diana got me from another seminarian’s wife who worked in the pro shop there) and said, “So, you’re a member of the Dallas Country Club, eh?”  I had to explain a lot to him about that, and finally convinced him that not many thieves were likely to clean their victim’s pool before leaving. He told me a neighbor saw my quality car and called the police. Do you worry about what cars go in and out of your neighbor’s house?

The things of this world truly do become hindrances as well as blessings.  I always admired a former associate who lived with the belief he was eventually going to serve in missions, and accumulating a lot of stuff would only make too much work disposing of it someday. So, when he moved to a new ministry, he was able to put his whole household into a single, small U-Haul. He had the flexibility to go and do whatever God directed at practically a moment’s notice.

There is a faithful God who is faithful to reward a faithful life. And so we labor on, encouraged by the fact that our Father does not forget our diligence in serving Him in this Christian life.

Heb. 6:10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

That is such an encouragement! Everyone else might forget (if they even notice in the first place) but God always remembers, and he is faithful and just. And the future is bright and full of encouraging thoughts.

1 Thes. 4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.

Every great story ends with some version of… “and they lived happily ever after.”  So does your story, the story God is writing that includes your life, your epic journey.

REV 21:22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

REV 22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

A Place Called Home (Hebrews 11)

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There’s no place like home! It is great to go away, take a vacation, etc. But I always enjoy walking back in the door of the place called “home.”  There is nothing quite like it. We have had international students live with us for a summer; and we liked it and they liked it. But after a while, they were ready to go home.

The only thing I like about a blizzard is that I am stuck at the place I most like to be – I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything, because I can’t. I can just enjoy being home!

If you had to live for a while at the home of someone else, would you lay claim to all their things? Would you grasp their possessions like you could not dare to let them go?  Would you pretty much forget all about your real home? Of course not! But we are often like that in our Christian experience. The fact of the matter is that we are not home in this world, so we should not grasp the things of this world like they belong to us in some eternal way.

Abraham was content to wander all his years after leaving his former home to go to a place of God’s calling.

HEB 11:8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

HEB 11:13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country–a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Do you admit you are an alien and a stranger on earth? That is a very healthy perspective to gain, and it demonstrates maturity and godly attitude. In fact, aging and the multiplied sorrows of life may well be seen as a grace of God – to help us let go of this passing world and cause our glance to ever more be cast toward eternal shores.

The following story is one of the oldest illustrations floating around “Evangelical Preacher World,” but does so because it packs a very potent perspective. After the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt ended, he went on an extended safari to Africa and shot many wild animals to bring home for display in the Smithsonian Institution. It was a famous trip in the public eye; and when he returned, a huge group from the press corps greeted him at the dock along with marching bands. On that same ship was an elderly couple, also returning from Africa after a lifetime of service there as missionaries. Unlike TR, there was not a soul to greet them. And in the taxi, the husband spoke a bit sourly of the seeming injustice of the matter as viewed by eternal values. All his wife said was, “Honey, we need to remember that we are not really HOME yet.”

2 Peter 3:13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

This Christian Life is not in Vain (1 Corinthians 15)

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Imagine giving years and years of your life to something, and then to have it come down to the final pivotal moment when all of your work culminates in its reward, only to have it all go awry! That is what a group of scientists must have felt like just a few years ago. Here is the news story…

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah (AP) – Scientists with tweezers picked through the twisted wreckage of a space capsule that crash-landed on Earth, hoping that microscopic clues to the evolution of the solar system weren’t completely lost in Utah’s salt flats.

NASA engineers were stunned Wednesday when neither parachute deployed aboard the Genesis capsule and the craft plummeted to the ground at 193 mph, breaking open like a clamshell and exposing its collection of solar atoms to contamination.

“There was a big pit in my stomach,” said physicist Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory. “This just wasn’t supposed to happen. We’re going to have a lot of work picking up the pieces.”

The capsule held billions of charged atoms — a total haul no bigger than a few grains of salt — that were harvested from solar wind on five collecting disks during the 884-day, $260-million mission.

Helicopters flown by Hollywood stunt pilots were supposed to grab Genesis almost a mile above the Utah desert and lower it gently to the ground by snatching its main parachute with a hook. But before the capture team learned of the parachute failure, the speeding capsule had plummeted into the Utah desert.

Imagine the frustration… to design something like that, send it out to distant space and have it return, only to crash at the very end of the project! But that is a picture of what the lives of many people are like. They spend all of their lives pursuing dreams and endeavors, only to have it all crash at the end because they are not rightly related to Jesus Christ. It is “climbing the ladder of success and upon getting to the top, discovering that it was leaning against the wrong building.”

Man, if this faith thing, this Jesus stuff is not true, we have worked and believed and lived in vain. We crash at the end. We run out of ladder rungs against a cold, stone edifice.  Paul said it this way…

1CO 15:12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

But Paul goes on to say that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, and His resurrection makes all the difference. The story God is writing holds promise for the future… the guarantee for a glorious hereafter. Such knowledge changes the way we live. It affects our priorities on a daily basis. The stuff of this world is only of value for this world, passing away relatively soon after it begins. But our labor for God is not in vain.

1CO 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

This Christian Life is Doable (Hebrews 12:1-3)

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As most of you know, I coached high school kids in cross country and track for 13 years. It is a really different type of sport compared to many others, as the athletes see their opponents very frequently and often spend hours upon hours at meets in the same stadium. Even among fierce competitors, there frequently develops a mutual encouragement society. Track teams are pretty large, and most of the athletes spend a bulk of their time in the stands watching others perform. Usually, there are more athletes in the stands than there are simple spectators. The athletes understand each other, because they know from their own experience the labor that has gone into the preparation by those currently competing on the track.

The writer to the Hebrews must have been familiar with such a spectacle. He speaks of those who have gone on to their reward as those who now sit in the stands encouraging the current participants to finish their race well.

HEB 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

I remember back when I was training to compete in my first marathon race, there were a lot of doubts in my mind as to if I could actually do such a thing as run for 26 miles. Over the months of training, I met a great number of people who had completed such an event.  Some of them were greatly gifted athletes, but some of them were also pretty regular types of people – like me! Their experiences were helpful, and the fact that they had done it encouraged me more than anything. If they did it, I could do it too!

Life is tough, and it can get pretty nasty sometimes as unexpected events roll over us like wave after wave at the beach. But others have gone before, endured such sufferings and beyond, and finished their race well.  I hope that is your goal… to finish well… it is a very doable thing. And throngs of people in the stands are telling you so!

So stay faithful in running this Christian life. And spend time together with the others doing the same, encouraging one another about how doable this thing is.

The Family Tree (Hebrews 2:10-11)

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Every family tree has some sap running through it!

In my family, it was my Uncle Art. It is difficult to describe my Uncle Art – the portly smirking fellow with the ubiquitous toothpick ever clenched between his teeth. Lecherous was a word a woman used one time – but maybe you don’t know what that means! (It ain’t good.)

Well, he was educated through the sixth grade… was often crude, coarse, silly, immature, tasteless, uncultured, uncouth, grizzly… again, with that dumb toothpick ever extruding from his otherwise vapid stare! Other than that he was a fine guy!

Actually, he was a very honest person in business, a man of surprising faith under the gruff exterior, and a dear uncle who thought I was the next best thing to Jesus Christ. When I first knew Diana, I wondered when I should introduce her to Uncle Art. If it was too soon in our relationship, it might completely scare her off! I eventually thought it was safe and chose a time. I warned her sufficiently in advance about what to expect, and he fulfilled it all! Good night, what a bizarre performance! But ultimately Diana replaced me on his “next to Jesus” list.

Do you have any relatives like that?  I’ll bet most of you do!  These are people of whom you are more than a bit ashamed to be known as blood relatives.

Imagine how difficult it is for a perfect person to be accepting of non-perfect folks as his family. But Jesus regards us as brothers and sisters. The word “brother” is used with great frequency by Luke, Paul, John, James and Peter to speak of others in the body of Christ. It is, if fact, one of the most common words of the New Testament. Not only these five authors, but the unknown writer of the book of Hebrews liked it also.  Here is how he frames it…

HEB 2:10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.  

It is really pretty cool that in spite of our sin, the author of salvation is not ashamed to call us brothers and regard us as family. So we are all brothers and sisters of each other… not just for this world, but for eternity! It might be good for us to get used to each other, since we are going to live together forever.

Do you actively and regularly think of others in the church as your family? This can be a wonderful concept, particularly for those who have no family locally, or for those who have family situations that are far from Ozzie and Harriet, or Leave It To Beaver.

So how are you doing with the brothers and sisters?  Is there a sibling you are finding yourself walking a wide circle around – someone you would just rather not claim as your spiritual flesh and blood?  Don’t you suppose that grieves the heavenly father?  If you are a parent of multiple children, you know how you have no ability to rank your love for any one above the other – you love them all with the same intensity. And when you see these people you love so very much… just hating on each other… it grieves you so deeply. You wonder why they cannot just love each other as you love them!  And so it is with God.

1PE 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

1JN 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  

HEB 13:1 Keep on loving each other as brothers.

So, hey… you gotta love the others in the family!  God wrote you into His story to be family with each other, and the hero, Jesus Christ. So my brother or sister – don’t be the sap running through our family tree!

Not Alone in this Christian Life (1 Kings 19)

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Have you ever been in a situation where you found yourself in the midst of a large group of people and you were there feeling very alone – totally different than the rest of folks in that place? In November of 1986, I flew to London to set up the details for leading a youth missions music team to England the following summer. I traveled with the director of the mission agency on Kuwait Airlines – an airline most Americans were afraid to fly, but which fit the mission budget especially well.

The cross cultural experience began on the airplane. It was a Boeing 747 full of people, but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that my friend and I were the only Anglo-Americans on that fight. It was a flight beginning in Newark and going to London, Kuwait and ultimately Bangkok. It was a virtual United Nations on that flight, with people and children sleeping in the aisles, etc.

A university student from Pakistan was seated next to me, and I struck up a political / international issues conversation with him. After a while, he asked me, “What are your views on the nation of Israel?” … to which I looked around me and quietly whispered to him, “I don’t think my views on Israel would be very popular on this airplane.” He looked around also, and quickly grasping the situation said, “I think perhaps you might be right, let’s talk about something else.”

Some years ago I was invited to a Williamsport area event that honored women in sports, and I was in fact given an award at the event for coaching the girls cross country state champions. This was an event by the women, of the women, for the women! I was the only male who made it to the front of the room! It felt kind of silly and awkward.

Maybe that is how you often feel in your world as a believer in Jesus Christ, seeking to live out the values of Scripture. Maybe you feel all alone, totally going against the current. Isolated!

Elijah felt that way! He had just gotten done challenging the hundreds of prophets of Baal and seeing them wiped out by God. Of course, this made Queen Jezebel really angry. Elijah panics and runs away as far as he can into the wilderness and hides in a cave, where God asks…”What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1KINGS 19:14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The following answer of the Lord has always stuck me as rather humorous. Actually, God does not really deal with Elijah very specifically… he basically just gives him another job to do. I can almost imagine the Lord rolling his eyes at such a whining and wimpy answer.

1KI 19:15 The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel–all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Elijah thought he was all alone, when if fact there were 7,000 others who shared his values.

And you are not alone. God has His people everywhere. And God wants His people to be united and spend time together, to encourage one another for the inevitable times we are in single combat against the enemy.

And God also has made it so that we may be a part of what He is doing in the world. We may be players in the story He is writing. How many authors allow the reader to be a living part of the adventure?  … to be a partner with the hero of the story?  You have to admit, that is pretty cool way to live this Christian life!

Just Feet of Clay, Getting Into Step (Galatians 5)

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It is one of those 90/90 days of the summer – heat and humidity, that is. The grass has to be cut; it can’t wait any longer!  The calendar is full of appointments and meetings; so it is now or next week. You do it. You are soaked. You have 15 minutes to eat lunch, shower, and be in the car to the next appointment. There is no time to cook, but you are hungry and hot. Inside the freezer compartment is a half-gallon container of Breyer’s Butter Almond ice cream. It is only half gone. The only things higher than your temperature and hunger are your cholesterol numbers and excess pounds.  … Ah!… worry about that tomorrow, and you empty the container and run! The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.

The flesh is weak. Our experience in this Christian life regularly tells us that we are not made of very substantial stuff. And in fact, the Scriptures on a number of occasions refers to us as clay…

2CO 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

The flesh is weak. Each of us know it all too well. It is one thing to run from bad guys who pursue us…like wicked people and demons and the sort. But it is so discouraging to realize that the pursuit of evil is perhaps more often sourced inside ourselves! Man, that is frustrating! Paul understands, and writes it better than perhaps anyone ever has…

RO 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Wow! That is candid! And we all know IT IS TRUE! Our failures are not because we want to fail. We desire to live well for God in righteous attitudes and deeds. But this “thing” inside us takes us down again and again. Gosh! We are wretched! Ugh!

But Paul immediately references the answer that is there – also within us – Jesus Christ our Lord!  Where else might we turn?  How do we have what Paul calls “the life of Jesus” within us?

Jesus told his disciples near the end of his earthly time with them that he would send the Spirit to not just be with them, but be in them. This indwelling of the Spirit is the common experience of the Christian in the church age, a reality not generally known by the saints of God in previous ages. So, Jesus lives in us in the form of the Spirit. The issue therefore becomes one of yielding control and authority to that inner strength, versus yielding to the inner strength of the flesh and sin nature.

GAL 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

GAL 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  

Don’t you just love that last statement? Keep in step with the Spirit. Remember the old show, “Gomer Plye, USMC’?  Remember Gomer in the introductory clip having trouble getting his feet into rhythm with the marching company, and Sargent Carter screaming into his ear? That is how we look so often when walking with the Spirit, and seeking to see the life of Christ lived out in us. It is time to get in step… and by doing so, we thwart the pursuit of evil, and we live well in this Christian life.

The Beer Party World (1 Peter 4)

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I have a great many wonderful memories about high school and that period of my life. But I also have some very painful reflections, even all these years later. I did not attend a really huge school, as my graduating class had only 129 students. I would compare my school to Clear Spring High School relative to the composition of the community and student body. To my knowledge, there was only one other Christian in that group of 129, though I know some have come to know the Lord since then.

My good memories come from the classes and school days, and particularly the sponsored after school extra-curriculars. The bad memories come from just about everything else beyond that.

It seemed to me that most of my classmates lived for the weekend… to anticipate a beer party somewhere and then to talk and gloat about what happened until the next adventure came around. I remember early evening returns to the school from away games where the camaraderie was great; but the entire scene would change as I was the one person left behind to simply go home, as the rest of them went out on a drinking binge.

I have memories of lying awake in the middle of the night and hearing emergency vehicles going out the primary connecting country road we lived on … wondering who of my school friends might have crashed into a tree this time. It was so pervasive, I almost developed a 6th sense about what was happening. I recall one Friday evening where I got up in the middle of the night, went downstairs and watched out the window for the ambulance to return past our house toward the hospital. My mother heard me go down the steps and followed to see what was wrong. I told her that I felt certain someone I knew was hurt; and sure enough – a couple of them had crashed into a stone wall just a few miles up the road. They survived with few serious injuries, though none the wiser. I knew I did not want to be any part of that scene, but I also knew I was pretty much all alone in my values. It was often a depressing time.

Do you often feel alone in your world, completely out of step with the majority of people around you? The reason for that is because you are! You have been called out of this world and into the kingdom of His Son. That is what the Greek word for “church” literally means. “Ekklesia” is the combination of two words… “ek” = out of, and “kaleo” = to call. So you are part of a fellowship of people called out of the rest of the world to be a part of God’s family.

This sense of being a square peg in a round hole, and being disliked for it, is common-ground experience we share with Christ. Jesus said…

JN 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

I remember one particular occasion of being dropped off at my home after a high school game by an older teammate who could drive, and him saying, “You don’t go out drinking to the parties do you… man, you are so stupid… you don’t know what you are missing.”  The world is amazed that we would not just follow along in their patterns. Here is how Peter spoke of it…

1PE 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do–living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. 4 They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

It really is a beer party world. And it is a challenge for us all, but especially our teens, to see the temporary and foolish nature of this world. We need to focus on the eternal… to make that focus the main idea we identify from the God’s grand story in order to live successfully in this Christian life.

1JN 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.