"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your 
ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.—Isaiah 55:8

I heard a man preach about the Kingdom of God.  In fact, I have heard many men preach on the Kingdom of God through the years.  Most of them are a bit random at best.  I have an opinion on why, and even though I am concerned with sounding a bit arrogant, I will share it with you.  I think that one can only study, or preach the Kingdom of God as though they can compare it to something on earth.  Comparing the Kingdom of God to the earthly concept of a kingdom will fall short every time.  This is a concept only revealed by the Holy Spirit.  I personally believe this is a topic that it is best interpreted with the Bible.

The man I heard asked the congregation if they wanted God’s order in their lives. Even though the response of the crowd was “yes,” I couldn’t help but wonder if these mostly fat sassy American Christians really wanted God’s order in their lives.  Do they really understand God’s order?

The reason I am writing about this is because that question and answer really disturbed me.  So if this comes off as me being a bit of a know-it-all, please understand that I am writing about it in order to “process” my thoughts.  If my thoughts seem random or scattered, please understand that is kind of my point: This is a huge concept, and I am going to attempt to process it by using -- for lack of a better way to describe my approach -- “the fairness doctrine,” so to speak.

In my life I have grown up in Charismatic churches and attended Charismatic schools, universities and Bible schools.  I have attended a Nazarene church and even began ministry as a kids’ minister, and the only Charismatic, in a Nazarene church. (Or shall we say “A more traditional church”.)  All of the above had a different concept of the Kingdom of God and “God’s order”. 

Most of what is called “order” in the institutional church is an attempt to control men.   We demand tithes, giving above the tithe if God is going to bless you.  Healing is an act of God’s sovereignty… or is it a result of faith?  Apparently God’s blessing is something we earn by reading, praying and speaking right.  Perhaps you are a worthless loser whom God can’t bless because you didn’t pray, read or say things in line with God’s Word.  In essence, God can’t bless you because of this or that.  After all, the Order of God’s Kingdom requires you to have it all together.  I wish I could see these things as anything less than man’s attempt to control man and call it God’s order. 

We can go the other way and say, “He is a GOD OF LOVE”!  God isn’t concerned with what you give, say, or believe -- only that you love Him.  He won’t hold back blessing, prosperity, health, wisdom, life…because He is a loving Father and His heart is for you.  For you!  Not against you -- faithful to never leave you or forsake you, faithful to heal you, faithful to prosper you…HE IS FAITHFUL.  He isn’t going to abandon you because you and your wife had a stupid argument. 

After much personal study, I lean this way; but one thing I have learned is that prosperity or poverty don’t matter nearly as much to God as it does men.   Even your health isn’t a measuring stick of your faith or standing with your loving Father.  His system of order looks something like Isaiah 55: 8-11: 

"’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.”

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

It looks to me like “order” to God is often far different than our view of “order”.  He is more concerned with you, your heart, your attention, than He is with your being in complete control of life.  Instead, give Him control, follow and obey as He leads.  He is so much bigger than the box you put Him in; so much more faithful than the box you put Him in. 

“He is working all things together for good to them that love Him…”  Sometimes this doesn’t look like you want it to.  In fact, it may take years and horrible, painful situations that look totally awful.  In fact, it may even seem to keep getting worse.  Friends may judge you or you may judge yourself.  But He said, “Seek first the KINGDOM of GOD …and ALL these things will be added to you. 

His Kingdom Order is Jesus first…and all these things will be added to you.  His thoughts really are not your thoughts, neither are our ways His ways…so it is His word that goes out of His mouth:  “IT WILL NOT return to Him empty, but it will accomplish what He desires …”  Rest in our Father’s love, make Him your priority, and you will see the order of the kingdom.

 

Several months ago I was having a difficult time waking up at 4:15 AM to go to the gym.  So, I had the brilliant (but not original) idea of setting a second alarm.  I set the alarm on my watch for 4:20, only to discover that this piece-of-junk watch lacked one very significant item: An Alarm off switch.  Oh, you can make it stop chirping, but I have yet to find (and I have looked extensively) a way to disable the alarm.

Since I was aware of this crazy situation when I went to Tanzania in June-July this year, I decided to change the time of day it would go off, so as not to wake my roommate while on the trip.  I chose 2:20pm.  Why, you may ask? Because I figured that time of day wouldn’t be a distraction to anyone.  I was more or less right.

While there, a 17 year old guy on the team from Belgium heard it early in the trip.  It seemed that he and I heard it and laughed about it everyday.  Since returning home I have begun to notice that 2:20 is a very interesting time of day.  It seems as though I have yet to do the same thing at 2:20 any day of the 14 days since I returned home.

 

THEN…I had a crazy idea:

I wonder if I journalized my daily 2:20 experiences if there would be a message or any spiritual significance?  I wonder if it could be a book?  After all, John Eldridge wrote a book from his daily spiritual journal, and I know several people who loved it.  Needless to say, I have spent way too much time thinking about this.  Now I have decided to do something about it. 

My first stop was to see if there were any significant 2:20’s in God’s Word.  I pulled out my Bible Study software and found several interesting “2:20” scriptures.  Then I remembered the most profound one of all Galatians 2:20:

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”.—Galatians 2:20

Most people who write or preach on this verse seem to have the emphasis a little backward for me.  Their emphasis is on being crucified or being crucified with Christ, and I intend in no way to belittle that.  I just have found that living that out is easier as a fruit of the rest of the passage rather than as a work.  Let me explain.

I come at it from a realization that He loves me at a level that I can’t even begin to comprehend.  The fact that God loved us so much that He laid Himself on the line in bodily form as Jesus, is so humbling that I want to live life like He did; He lived in love, He was and is love, and I chose to live in and by that love.  Then and only then can I lay aside the cares of this life and live by the faith of the Son of God. 

I have often gotten hung up on the statement “Faith works by love”; but if I am to live my life by THE faith of The Son of God, then I “live loved”.  Far too often we fail to allow ourselves to experience life the way God designed it for us, because we fail to embrace His love. 

Most who focus on the “being crucified in Christ” seem as though they missed the “nevertheless I live part”.  Shoot!  I think they are so crucified that they ARE dead, but Jesus came to give us life!  In fact, He came to give us life more abundantly.  That is found in resting in His love.  For me, the approach of “living loved” puts me in a place where my “flesh” is out of the way -- or crucified by His love.  There is another point:  Since He IS love, that love is the greater power, and flesh simply cannot overpower a life that is totally resting in the love of The Father.

I, like many who have been in typical church situations, struggled with this for years.  It’s easier to live life crucified sometimes than it is to live life loved, but when we do the fruit is life crucified and living!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Literally two weeks before I left for a 24 day ministry trip to Tanzania, my father died suddenly, and totally unexpectedly.  As a boy, my dad was larger than life to me.  No matter how old he was, he never seemed to acknowledge that he was old. (We tried to tell him he was old, but he would just tell us, “You’re only as old as you feel”.) Dad was the salesman’s salesman, a carpenter’s carpenter, and on and on.  To my brother and I, he was the world’s Greatest Father.    

When I was 15 years old, he began to teach me to swing a hammer.  That same year, he and I went on our first mission trip together.  In fact, three years later we returned to the island of Jamaica for a second trip.  My dad had a heart for souls and modeled it for me.  He raised me to love and serve God with my life, and to pass that on to my sons.  He raised me to always keep God first, family second, and job third.  He raised me to do everything I do with all my heart and NEVER QUIT! (Unless you know for certain it’s God saying, “Stop”.) 

Yet with all Dad’s coaching there were times I willingly didn’t live up to the expectations of my father.  In those times I didn’t love my dad any less than I did in the times that I did live up to his expectations.  And, in those times, dad was the last person I wanted to see. That had nothing to do with how Dad viewed or loved me -- only my own guilty conscience.

I remember one time when I was 17, I had borrowed Mom’s car to go to a party.  I wasn’t there very long before some of my friends began drinking.  I hated drinking, I couldn’t stand the taste or the feeling.  Naturally, when one of my friends decided he wanted to get drunk, he called and asked his parents if I could give him a ride home.  Once they said “okay,” my buddy proceeded to get SMASHED! 

On the way home he began to vomit -- no that’s too nice -- he puked his guts out all over the backseat and floorboard of my mom’s car.  In between puking spells he would pass out in his own vomit.  I drove around Nashville for nearly two hours, because I was scared to deliver him to his parents, and I didn’t want to tell my parents about the situation.  Finally, like the prodigal son, I decided that calling my dad was better than the situation I found myself in.  Dad came and met me, then followed me to my buddy’s house and helped me get him in the house.  

I knew that dad was disappointed that I had let myself get into that situation, but the only consequence I was given is that I had to clean out the car. The beautiful thing about Dad is that he always loved me the same -- no matter what happened.  I may have gotten a speech or some form of consequence, but I always knew that Dad loved and forgave me. 

The reason I tell this story is to set you up for what I really want to share. 

On the other side, my Dad was one of my best friends.  I worked with him until I was 22.  He was even the “best man” in my wedding.  Since my Dad passed away, God has blessed me with two or three really precious moments in which He made plain to me the mirror image of Him that my dad was in my life. 

Recently I had a dream. I was in the shower and I was adjusting the water “Hot, cold, hot, cold”, and I was singing “Hot, cold, hot, cold…” Suddenly in one of the “cold cycles” I looked to the shower curtain side of the shower and saw the top half of my Dad’s head.  Startled, I said “Dad, you can’t be here now!”

Afterwards, I prayed, “Father show me what that meant.”  I felt as though He showed me that in the dream, my dad represented “Father God”.  The water represented the water of The Word of God -- and that I have a tendency to be hot or cold.  But He wants me to stay in the hot water and finish getting washed off by the water of The Word.  In fact he wants me/us to dive into the heat with Him – or -- STAY HOT.  I know I am not the only one that has hot and cold cycles in my walk with Christ, I just want to challenge you to “STAY HOT”. 

The danger in the cold cycles is the possibility of getting stuck there.  I once saw a clown skit that portrayed this very well.  The clown was watching his friends as they played in the "bucket of sin."  He knew better than to mess with the bucket of sin, but he decided to dip his toe in the bucket of sin and he enjoyed it.  Then he put half of his foot in there and still, nothing happened.  Finally he put his whole big clown foot into the bucket and got stuck.  

It's easy in our busy world to get caught up in the day to day grind, or what the Bible calls the "Cares of this world" and let yourself slip into a "cold cycle".  Look, everybody misses a day or two of Bible reading and prayer from time to time.  I just want to encourage you not to let yourself slip into a cold cycle.  Simply stated: Stay Hot!

 

 

 

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears…”;--2 Timothy 4:3

As I have traveled around the nation sharing the vision of Kids for Christ USA and the concept of Bible Clubs in America’s Public schools I have become aware of something that I wish I wasn’t seeing.  I mentioned it a few months ago in a previous piece on plugging into God and finding His plan for your life instead of your plan.   I have to point out this is what I feel God would have me say in order to bring us all “up higher” in Him.  Mark my words: This piece will challenge you. 

I live in a wonderful city, full of great ministers and ministries.  Many of them widely respected around the globe and some of them misquoted and misunderstood around the world too.  One thing I have learned as I have worked with people and pastors of all denominations is that the enemy has worked very hard to “divide the house”.  That however is not what I intend to point out here today.   

When I was in Bible school over 24 years ago I distinctly remember being taught that our job as ministers is to draw the people to Jesus.  To make them so hungry for him that they want to go home and study His word(s) for themselves.  The objective was not to inspire them so that they will give more in the offering, or to create a following for ourselves.  Yet from my perspective much of ministry in America has become entertainment.  Please understand I think that for the most part it has happened innocently.  I don’t mean to be pointing fingers at my fellow ministers or for that matter, the body of Christ in general.  Actually my intent is to warn and inspire all of us to press into Jesus.

A few years ago I had been going through very tough period and it had continued for an extended period of time.  It seemed that no matter how hard I worked to turn the situation around I just couldn’t do it.  Finally a life long friend of mine who owns a limousine company in Nashville told me, “Bobby, it’s like your in the forest and you’ve run face first into this huge tree.  You just keep running into that tree over and over again.  You’re so close to it that it’s all you can see, but if you’d just take a few steps back from the tree you could see the forest all around you”.  He was right, I took some time to seek God and he gave me the wisdom to know what to do to turn that situation around…WITH HIS HELP. 

Not to long ago I realized that on a large scale we have turned church into a form of entertainment instead of a place of where ministry takes place.  I felt as though God made me aware of what happens at a movie theatre and compared it to church: People watch their show, then the file out as quickly as possible only speaking to the folks who came with them.  I then realized that God was saying to me that church in general, “is entertainment with a Christian theme”.  If we visit with God when we attend church then, when we leave church we might not be so quick to get out.  We might just sit there speechless and in awe of God.

A couple years ago I was in a church to preach, standing on the front row lost in worship.  (Telling God, “This has to be about you, not me.”)  As I stood there I became aware that if I was to obey God that evening, I would most likely not use the message I had spent all day putting the finishing touches on.  When they introduced me to the congregation, I began to walk to the front room to speak when I felt as though God said the most horrible thing he could say to a preacher: “Don’t say a word”!  So, I grabbed a stool sat down and looked at the people.  It was a most uncomfortable two minutes both for me and the people.  It was Holy, it was comical, it was unnerving.  Finally, I felt a release to speak, I proceeded to tell the people that we get too busy to hear God.  In fact we are so busy, that quiet makes us very uncomfortable.  The end result that night was that after 30 minutes of intense exhortation everyone in that room was on their knees or face before God seeking Him, pressing into him.  There was no formal dismissal.  The Worship leader was going to lead a song as we dove into the presence of God, but He said, “I have been playing and singing up here for seven years, but tonight I feel God wants us to just be quiet before Him.  Then he sat down on the floor behind his keyboard.  It was the most Holy moment I have ever experienced in a church. 

I know some of you are saying, “That sounds a little too ‘Charismatic’ for me”.  Truth be told that is a little too much for most “Charismatics” too.  I am concerned that we are all dangerously close to what Paul wrote to Timothy,

 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears…”;--2 Timothy 4:3

Let’s turn that around.  So what if your Pastor was dry or he wasn’t eloquent.  Who cares if the band was good or you liked the music.  Did you leave hungry for more of God?  Five points and a poem won’t carry you when the pressure is on, only real relationship with the Son of the living God will get you through.  Hopefully after reading this, you are totally hungry for Him.

My office is a coffee shop. Actually, in the last 4 years, my office has been a variety of  coffee shops in town. The reason is simple.  My wife baby-sits and it gets LOUD. So I head out the door every morning to “my coffee shop office.”

As I peck away in some corner, writing or working on my laptop, I’ve realized I’m almost invisible after awhile. No one pays any attention to me. As a result, I’ve unintentionally witnessed things that no one should hear. One day as I worked, there was what appeared to be a couple at lunch.  However, as the meal went on tensions elevated between the two of them and I tried so hard not to listen as I realized she was his boss and the poor sap was being fired.

I’ve also heard stories about a daughter’s unwanted pregnancy and a mom’s concerns about the girls their son is bringing home. I’ve come to several interesting conclusions while working away. One is, “People talk more about what concerns them over coffee than anything else.”  But most recently it’s what I’ve NOT been hearing. Guess what: They are NOT talking about the economy! 

Now to be fair I must add that my favorite shops to work in are usually the ones in true middle class or “artsy” areas of town.  I never hear anything about the economy from the men and women in those shops; they simply talk about the things that are most important to them. 

Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not going “blab it-grab it” here, I’m simply saying that we tend to gravitate toward the things we care most about, and therefore we talk more about those things too. 

So if the people I’m hearing in the coffee shops are not talking about the economy, why are believers whining and complaining so much about it.  We sound just like the “world” when we do that.  We are supposed to be people of faith!

Remember the Word says that we are captured by the words of our mouth. Don’t forget life and death are in the power of the tongue. Oh, and here’s the clincher for me, “the tongue is a fire…” 

Is it possible that the perspective we as believers need to take is not to focus and talk about the economy like we are members of the socialist press core-I mean White House Press Core.  I am not saying “deny” anything I am just saying SHUT UP!  There are too many Christians regurgitating everything they hear in the mainstream media. We really don’t have to talk about it-we just don’t.  And here’s why…

As believers we are called to pray!  PWOC (Pray without ceasing) not CNN (Constant Negative News)!  “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray…” Actually my heart in writing this piece is to get us to shift our focus to the one who has met ALL our needs according to His riches in glory-The one who deserves ALL our praise and quite frankly our attention. 

Much of the world sees the church as close-minded pin heads that can’t think for themselves.  Ironically, what they don’t realize is that’s exactly what they have become by reciting everything they hear the press and the President say about the economy.  But what’s sad is: so is The Church. Not being close minded in this case is being focused on what GOD say! In fact that is so far outside the box these days that you may get laughed at.  To which I say, “What a tragedy, you get laughed at for standing on the word of God!”

In conclusion, I came across this quote from Ben Stein, New York Times, that I think is a good reminder to all of us. “We are more than our investments. We are more than the year-to-year or day-by-day changes in our net worth. We are what we do for charity. We are how we treat our family and friends. We are how we treat our dogs and cats. We are what we do for our community and our nation. If you had $100 million or $100,000 a year ago and now you have a lot less, you are still the same person. You are not a balance sheet, at least not one denominated in money.”