Finishing Well

A number of things are coming across my desk written around the theme of “finishing well.” I’ve also heard several NFL head coaches and players remark about how they didn’t finish well. They are now heading off to spend a quiet winter instead of the excitement of the play-off games and ultimately Super Bowl XLIII (43). I even spoke on the subject of Finishing Well this past Sunday morning. Whether I finished well or not, I can’t say. All I know is that I finished “on-time.”

As I was reading the end of a book called, “Fusion” I ran across an interesting comment by author Nelson Searcy. He noted the word “commencement” has a double meaning. Strictly defined it means “beginning.” However, when most of us think of “commencement”, we think of graduation ceremony. [In some circles a funeral is referred to as a commencement.] I would assert that in its truest definition, the word commencement means “an ending that leads to a new beginning.” I would also assert that the better the ending, the better the beginning.

In the writings of Ed Cole (Maximized Manhood and many other books) we learn how we “leave” often determines how we “enter.”

There are only a few days of 2008 left. But we can make sure we end this year with thanksgiving and with a determination to trust God’s faithfulness no matter what happens. He is near; he loves me; he hasn’t forgotten me and he is an ever present source of help to me.

Ending 2008 with those words in our hearts and on our lips will help us transition into the New Year and to boldly face the challenge that lay ahead of us. Going out with those words in my heart and on my lips will help going into the New Year and the challenges that lay ahead of us.

It’s great to be In Pursuit! Happy New Year!

Our oldest son will often respond to a statement of truth by simply saying, “word.” I think I’m too old to use that just as he is too young to say, “right on.” The two responses mean the same thing but are separated by a couple of generations. I was cool when I said, “right on” and he is cool when he says, “word.” (Cool has transcended generations but what constitutes being cool hasn’t.)

In 1975 Bill Gaither wrote a lyric in a song that was both “right on” and “word.” The song was included in Ron Huff’s musical “His Love Reaching” and was sung by Dave Boyer. The lyric is, “and the Word of the Father became Mary’s little Son.”

I don’t remember the first time I heard that song but those words have never left me. They have reminded me that the Word of the Father is reality. The Word is not just something that became reality in ages past but the Word is reality. And every Word is reality. Every promise in the Bible is “yea and amen;” every promise has my name attached to it; and every promise is as real as the Word that became Mary’s little Son.

Mary’s little Son became our Savior. Listen to this reality: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to YOU; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)

Now that’s “word.”

Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Special thanks to the research team of "Marvilous and Marvelous" for their help with the Gaither song!

I’m still stuck in Galatians 4…… “In the fullness of time…God sent His Son…born of a woman…to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons.”

My understanding is that the word used here is “adoption.” And it’s such a powerful word in the Scriptures, so much different than in our culture.

At the time of Paul’s writing, the idea of adoption provided quite a picture. A picture of someone being sold at a slave auction by slave traders. Consider human chattel lining the auction block. And in the course of bidding, someone steps up and trumps all the other bids. But instead of condemning them to a life of servitude, he turns to them and says, “Now, I want to adopt you.” “I want to make you my child and give you all the rights and privileges of being my child.”

In Scripture, “adoption” is a term of love and endearment. It refers to being “found” and indicates that we have been given a place at the table with no exclusions. And according to verse 6 of Galatians 4, there are no boundaries or margins to this relationship.

We have a place at the table and we have an unlimited intimacy with the one who purchased us. We can call him “Abba.” The closest word we have to “Abba” in our English language is the word “daddy.” It’s a term of intimate endearment. It’s an expression of a deep love, respect and awareness of who we are and who He is. Now that ought to make your Christmas merry. But there is more.

We are no longer a slave, we are a son. We are an heir. I listened intently as Pastor Crawford Loritts listed six things we are heirs to in a sermon just a few days ago. We are heirs to the: Promise, Righteousness, the Kingdom and the World. We are Heirs of God and Joint Heirs with Jesus. How’s that for some stocking stuffers?

Our lesson Sunday centered on the restoration of Peter. Peter, you might remember, denied knowing Christ 3 times shortly after he claimed he would die for him and then attacked the servant of the High Priest during Christ’s arrest in the garden. (Not sure if this was an act of bravery or madness.)

It’s interesting to note that one of his denials came on the heels of an accusation brought by a servant girl. She was probably very young and a low level servant or she wouldn’t have been where she was. Peter probably could have just ignored her and no one would have paid attention. But he made a scene and denied knowing Christ.

As we discussed this in class we determined that most of us had denied Christ through our words, thoughts and actions on more than one occasion. And that all of us needed the same restoration and grace that Peter received from Christ.

Despite his denials, however, we find him lovingly restored in John 21. Peter seemed to be a bit “put out” that Christ asked him three times if he loved him. He didn’t really seem to grasp the importance of the repetition or remember that he had denied Christ three times during his trials. (Imagine being “put out” as God is pouring his grace into our lives.) But he did seem to understand Christ’s directive to minister to the “flock” because in 1 Peter 5 we find him only doing so himself but instructing others about “feeding sheep” and leading them. These moments with Christ were not wasted.

I’m reminded of something I heard Rick Warren say in one of his teachings from The Purpose Driven Life. He said God will not waste anything that has happened in your life. He will use the good, bad and the ugly if we allow him to bring his grace and restoration into our lives.

Peter could have chosen to remove himself and allow the guilt to control his life but he didn’t. (Again back to John 21). When he saw Christ on the beach, he jumped out of the boat and ran to Christ (he already done that before, remember?).

What a great lesson for us. Even when we have denied Christ through our thoughts, words or deeds, we need to run TO him and not FROM him. His grace will always be sufficient in those times.

In our Wednesday night in our study of Galatians we found ourselves back in chapter 4 discussing verses 4-7. In the last posted blog I referred to the phrase, “In the fullness of time…..” and what a beautiful picture this is of the providence of God at work on our behalf.

The next phrase of verse 7 says, “God sent His Son.” The Greek word used here for “sent” is “apostellos” and is often translated as “apostle” or “one who is sent.” “Missionary” is a common interpretation of this word as well. But “apostellos” not only conveys that he was sent, but that he was sent with the credentials to accomplish the task that he was sent to do.

Many of us have been assigned tasks without authority or without the proper resources to get the job done. But God is all sufficient. He sent His Son with all authority and with all the resources needed to accomplish the mission he was sent to do.

Yet he was “born of a woman,” in other words, he was a man just like us.

I like the idea behind this. Yes, being a man just like us makes him aware of the temptations we face. I understand and deeply appreciate being able to go to God and express some deep feelings and know that He is going to understand and also give me the strength and wisdom to say no to my feelings.

Additionally, just as Christ, the Messiah, was sent for a specific purpose, we have also been sent to accomplish a specific task for his purpose and glory.

And just as God gave Christ the credentials to accomplish his task on the earth, the same God is giving me and you the right tools to accomplish our tasks during our time on the earth. He gave us the authority, resources and whatever else is necessary to accomplish His purposes.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he presents an argument to the Galatians designed to encourage them to continue in the faith and not to follow the teaching of the Judaizers. The “walk of faith” leads to righteousness and an eternal relationship with Christ while the teaching of the Judaizers leads to works, curses, legalism and eternal death.

For a time, it appeared it was the Law that brought man to God. However, the Law did not take away sins nor did it make one righteous. (Faith in God brought righteousness) The Law frustrated many simply because they could not keep all points of the Law. (The purpose of the Law was to point out to man his need of a Savior and it was very effective in accomplishing this.)

I’ve been particularly struck with verse 4 of Galatians 4. “In the fullness of time………” In other words, everything that needed to happen in order for the next thing to happen had happened. (Was this a happening time or what?) I can get overwhelmed when I think how God orchestrated history to prepare the world for the Messiah to come and die.

God moved the Babylonians out of the way, as well as the Medes & Persians, Alexander the Great, the Syrians, and the Egyptians. He then moved the Romans in. Along the way, man developed a common language so the Gospel could be preached to all; the Romans built roads throughout the known world so the Gospel could be “taken” to the world; (and the Romans would deal with a “criminal” in the manner that the prophets spoke of hundreds of years prior to the “fullness of time.”)

In the midst of thinking about these words, I’ve also wondered if today, in my life, there could be an “in the fullness of time” event. In other words, I wonder what circumstances God has been orchestrating in my life that could be culminating “in the fullness of time” today.

I don’t want to be like the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders that were so consumed with the past or with what they thought was their future, that they missed the Messiah.

The phrase “in the fullness of time” conveys not only the idea that everything was ready but also a sense of urgency. I pray for that same sense of urgency so that I don’t miss the events that are ready to happen……..”in the fullness of time.”

Over this past weekend I was deeply challenged as I was reading from a book entitled, “Cat & Dog Theology.” The premise of this book is that some have faith much like a cat and some have faith similar to a dog. What’s the difference?

The difference is that a dog says, “You pet me, you feed, you care for me, you must be god” while a cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you care for my every need, I must be god.”

I’ve never owned a cat but I’m told that you never really “own” a cat. You serve a cat because it’s all about them.

Anyway, the challenge came when the authors of the book started talking about how those with faith like a cat tend to reference certain passages in Scripture such as God raising Moses up to lead the Israelites out of slavery to justify their own entitlements. They are all for God’s deliverance in their lives, as we all are.

But the question was raised, “What about the other forty generations of Hebrews who lived as slaves to the Egyptians? Did God love them less? Did God have a plan for their lives? Or did God only love the generation that experienced deliverance from the Egyptians?

Of course the answer is that God loved the generations of Hebrew slaves just as much as He did the generation that came out of Egypt. And God did have a plan for the generations of slaves just as He had a plan for those He delivered.

But the plans were different. For many generations, the plan was to love God and show it by being the best slaves in the history of Egypt, to excel in the mundane of their slavery and to honor God in everything they did, even the mundane.

It just might be that we overlook the routine or the mundane as something God wants to work through. I’m all for great adventures. I’m all for any interruption God wants to bring along. But I can’t overlook my daily responsibilities as a husband, father, friend and pastor as I search for the next great adventure. If I’m not faithful in the daily routine, some of which is mundane, how can I be faithful with the great adventures?

One of the discussion questions in our Wild Goose Chase this past Sunday was, “Have you been stuck in a rut lately?” Later in the day while perusing through a book entitled, “Cat and Dog Theology,” I read with great interest how the distance between the rails of all railroads in the US came to be four feet, eight and a half inches.

It seems that English engineers helped to build US railroads according to the pattern used in England. So, how did they know to do this? Because the engineers who built the first railways in England had built the rails for the tramways that preceded the railroad. And the engineers who built the tramways used the distance between wagon wheels, which preceded the tramways. So why did the engineers who built the wagons use four feet, eight and a half inches for the distance between wagon wheels? Because this was the spacing between wheel ruts in the road.

The authors of the book, Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison, went on to ask, “Who put the ruts in the roads?” They discovered the roads in England had been built by the Romans, and the Romans built their roads to accommodate their war chariots. And you guessed it: the distance between the wheels of the Roman war chariots was four feet, eight and a half inches.

But why that distance? The authors continued. It seems this distance was the same distance as “the back ends of two warhorses.” And the Roman war chariots all used two war horses. There’s another pretty unique consequence to all of this. It’s almost like a Paul Harvey’s, “The rest of the story.”

On the sides of each space shuttle are two big booster rockets, full of fuel to assist in takeoff. Apparently, the engineers at the manufacturing company based in Utah wanted these solid rocket boosters to be a bit bigger but the boosters had to fit through a rail tunnel in the mountains for delivery to the launch site. The tunnel was only a bit wider than the railroad track. Remember how wide the rail track was? Four feet, eight and a half inches, or about the same as the back end of two Roman war horses.

Who would have guessed that ruts from Roman war chariots in ancient England would have had such a great affect on space travel?

Perhaps the moral of the story ought to be, “Beware of ruts, you may be following the back end of a couple of horses.”

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

As I was teaching from Galatians 2 and got to the part where Paul pointed out Peter’s “hypocrisy” in no longer eating with Gentiles once other Jews arrived from Jerusalem, I started wondering what must have gone through Peter’s mind as Paul was addressing him and the others who had been swayed by peer pressure to revert to their old ways.

Fifteen or sixteen years later, after graciously being restored by Christ, after his triple denial of Christ, Paul was pointing out yet another act of hypocrisy. Did Peter want to run and hide? Probably. Did he want to go back to fishing? Probably. Did he want to lash out at Paul as he did to Malchus? Perhaps. But he didn’t. Once again, he picked himself up and allowed the Holy Spirit to restore him and use him. Evidence shows us that Peter didn’t let this failure stop him, just like he didn’t let the previously.

I don’t believe Scripture details Peter’s reaction to Paul, but I wonder if he heard a rooster crow. I wonder if he thought, “Drat, (don’t know what this would be in the Greek) I did it again.”

In chapter 5 of “Wild Goose Chase,” Mark Batterson considers what might have gone through Peter’s mind when he heard a rooster crow. Crowing roosters would have been fairly common in Peter’s time and could have been a pretty consistent reminder of his failure to follow after Christ.

I wonder how many failures there were. Probably more than what is recorded for us in Scripture. Yet God used Peter, a man of many faults, to help lead the early church, to write two major letters to the church (perhaps 10-15 years after this event) and to help mentor young John Mark, who also was familiar with failure. (John Mark went on to write the Gospel of Mark.) Perhaps God used Peter’s familiarity with failure to help a young man who also had failed.

Rick Warren made a great statement during his teaching of the Purpose Driven Small Group studies. He simply said, “God will not waste anything that has happened to you.” I love that!

For Peter and John Mark, it would have been easy to give up and simply believe they would fail once again. (Perhaps we are also tempted to entertain those same thoughts about ourselves.) But God doesn’t see us as failures. That’s why we still have dreams and things that happen to others still make us cry and pound the table wanting to do something that bring about a change.

Perhaps the crowing rooster is not the end of the race. Perhaps the rooster crowing is really the start of another adventure that God wants to take us on.

As I was leading the Bible study from Galatians 1 this past Wednesday night, I was really challenged by Paul’s words in verses 15 & 16. Paul confessed that he knew he had been “chosen from birth,” “called by God’s grace,” but he also knew it was not about him, it was about Christ being revealed to him and through him.

What a great message! What a great challenge to allow Christ to be seen in everything we do and heard in everything we say.

How humbling it is to know that God chose me, and you, to do works that have been prepared for us before the creation of the world.

And then to know that it’s not through my great ability (whew!) and it’s not through my great intellect (double whew!) that those works will be accomplished, but through His grace and through His Spirit.

He chose us to do these things. That’s already determined. He has also determined that we can do these things, and He has determined to work through us. The only question not determined is whether or not I will step up and do what He has ask me to do.

As I was waking up this morning, I wondered what kind of adventure God had in store for me today. I wondered if it might be a giant that stands in my path or if it might be a trip down the road to Gaza where I would encounter someone else traveling along or if I might happen upon a pit that had a lion in it. (I noted it was supposed to snow today, so I’m kind of looking out for a pit!)

As I reviewed the six cages that Mark Batterson wrote about in his book, “Wild Goose Chase” I found that there’s a little bit of me in every one of those cages. It’s never just one that holds me back from the adventure.

(For those who haven’t read the book or weren't in class Sunday morning, the six cages are: Responsibility, Routine, Assumptions, Guilt, Failure, and Fear.)

Had God told me, as he did Phillip in Acts 8, to go down the road toward Gaza, I might have been so consumed with completing the task that I would assume he meant go “to” Gaza. In all probability I would have viewed other travelers on this road as obstacles and would certainly have been fearful, or suspicious in the least, of someone pulled over to the side of the road appearing to need help. After all, I would have the responsibility of getting to Gaza and if they robbed me or harmed me in some way, I would have been late or not gotten there at all.

But the adventure might be neither giant nor a trip down Gaza road. It might be a kind word to the clerk in the coffee shop; it might be a moment or two spent helping someone with the door or with a package; it might be showing patience with the IT guy when he is working on my malfunctioning computer; or it might be showing mercy to someone who doesn’t deserve it. These are all adventures that God just might have for me today.

And I’m wondering what kind of adventure God might have for you as well. Hit the comment button below and let me know what He has you doing today!

I’m praying that I don’t miss the adventure, and I’m also praying that I don’t run into a lion in a pit while it is snowing. I don’t like snow!