Free The Church

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A child of God is immature, but sons are responsible and inherit the kingdom.

Why There is Evil

“If God is good, why is there evil in the world?”  Frankly, I have never heard a good answer. But the answer is basic and foundational to our lives in Christ.  First, let me reaffirm that God does not create evil, nor does He do any evil (James 1:13).  Yet He takes full responsibility for the existence of evil.  He fulfilled His responsibility for allowing evil into His creation on Calvary.

Evil was a calculated consequence of giving life free will, and specifically mankind.  He counted the cost (Luke 14:28) of this calculation which is why He was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8).

Evil can be summed up in one word: selfishness.  The essence of godly love (agape) is selflessness: i.e., other centered. Whereas the essence of worldly love is self centered; i.e., what’s in it for me?

So, why is there evil? Read the rest of this entry →

Death is a transition

In my last post I mentioned two fascinating ideas presented by JRR Tolkien in his work, “The Lord of the Rings.” The first was the unending life of the mortal elves (a contradiction in terms) and the gift of death given to men. It is the second idea that I am addressing here.

Death in the New Testament writings of Paul is presented as our enemy.

Rom 6:23
23    For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (KJV)

Rom 8:6
6    For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (KJV)

1 Cor 15:26
26    The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (KJV)

1 Cor 15:54-57
54    So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55    O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56    The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57    But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (KJV)

After becoming a Christian, these and other verses that declared death to be our enemy, made his statement ludicrous.   So what did Tolkien mean when he called death the gift of men?   He was a Catholic, so he had a some Christian world view that he wrote from.  And I think he had a Christian meaning in this statement. Read the rest of this entry →

The elves of Middle Earth are immortal yet can not die

Long before I ever knew Christ personally, I loved JRR Tolkien’s, “Lord of the Rings.”  His depiction of elves fascinated me.  All I knew  before that time was the tiny pointed ears of  Santa Clause and Keebler cookies.    For the elves to be  this strange and majestic people who lived forever, yet could die in battle, amazed me.   I had always thought this characteristic to be odd.  Why should Tolkien  create characters who could live forever, yet could die in battle?  Equally mystifying to me was his oft repeated claim that death was a gift for the children of men.

I put these thoughts aside after I came to know the reality of Jesus Christ. The hope that all believers share is immortality.  As a new Christian I used to think that our glorified bodies would be like Superman.  Our example is Christ in his post resurrection appearances.  It seems that He was able to appear and vanish in a blink of an eye.  It seems that He could walk through walls, enter rooms when doors were locked.  Philip was translated and instantly moved from one location in Israel to another.  Besides, we will all have died before we get our glorified bodies, so when we return with Jesus on white horses in the sky to stop the Anti-Christ,  we can’t die again.  That battle will be a cake walk for us.  No fear of death since we have already died, and the brightness of His coming will end the conflict instantly. Read the rest of this entry →

It is a mistake to expect blessings as an obligation of God

For the last few weeks I have been entering data for my business that I began three years ago. I finally found a class management program that suited both my needs and my price. Reviewing what I have done over the last three years has given me a big picture perspective that I am using to plan my future business practices.

For new readers, I run a Christian gymnastics school and all my clients are Christians. Anyone may come into my program, nor do I discourage non-Christians from participating.  However, I make it clear to all who enroll that I always speak from a Christian world view, and speak freely to the children and parents regarding Christ and His Church.   If they do not accept that, then they can find another school that appeals to their world view.  Consequently all my customers trust in Jesus Christ.

The point of this post is to address the attitude that Christians have regarding God blessing them.  We are all familiar with Christians who out right manipulate others by worldly means, bouncing checks,  looking to be the exception to the rule.  There have been several families that I had been grieved by who would pay late, or expect some other special favor.  I would struggle as a Christian businessman in how I dealt with them.  I wanted to minister grace to them as fellow heirs of the gospel, but would end up resenting them for their taking advantage of me.  Nonetheless, I know that my Father will take care of me no matter what behavior I encounter from my customers. Read the rest of this entry →

The spiritually mature care for the young

Leadership Requires Knowing Where You are Taking Others

I am a gymnastics coach. If  I do not know what the “big tricks” are and how to train athletes to do them, my coaching will only go so far.  Knowing where you are going with the training has to be known before one even begins to coach.  For the very first steps have to be done with these goals in mind.

So when I read the Barna Group survey recently published entitled, “Many Church Goers and Faith Leaders Struggle to Define Spiritual Maturity“.  They came up with a variety of problems.

…an underlying reason why there is little progress in helping people develop spiritually: many churchgoers and clergy struggle to articulate a basic understanding of spiritual maturity. People aspire to be spiritually mature, but they do not know what it means.

Not only the congregation, but the pastoral leadership has little understanding of what spiritual maturity means.

Pastors want to guide others on the path to spiritual wholeness, but they are often not clearly defining the goals or the outcomes of that process.

For the majority of believers they think that spiritual maturity means following rules and having consistent devotional practices.  This is encouraged by the pastoral leadership who view maturity by the activitivities of their congregants.  And yet to their dismay,

…a minority of pastors believe that spiritual immaturity is a problem in their church.

Well, of course…  if these pastors think spiritual maturity is outward actions, then no wonder their congregation is spiritually immature. Read the rest of this entry →

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

Ecclesiastes and the Dark Side of the Moon

Previous posts in the series:

Chapter 1/Speak to Me-Breathe

Chapter 2/On the Run

Chapter 3/Time

Chapter 5-7/The Great Gig in the Sky

Chapter 5-6/Money

Chapter 4-9/Us and Them

Chapter 1-10/Any Color You Like

Chapter 10/Brain Damage

The end of the book, “Ecclesiastes,” and the end of the album, “The Dark Side of the Moon,” brings us to the decision.  To choose life or death?  Solomon, throughout this book and Proverbs,  makes the contrast between wisdom and folly.  To choose life is wisdom.  To choose death is folly.  For my illustration I have used actor Ian McKellen who portrayed Gandalf in the movie, “The Lord of the Rings,” because wizards in the world were considered a picture of the wise men.   Wizards are portrayed as old men who have lived long lives, thus having obtained wisdom.   And the answer of  Solomon echos this view.  Choose wisdom and live a long life.

Every choice brings a consequence.  Hinduism calls it “karma kickback”.  Science calls it Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: “for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.”  The Bible calls it “sowing and reaping.”  At the end of Ecclesiastes, Solomon advises his readers to take this seriously and to make good choices in one’s youth.  To “cast your bread on many waters” means to be generous and try your hand at many good endeavors.   In chapter 11 he gives a variety of word pictures illustrating that each action has a consequence.  If clouds are full, they rain;  trees remain where they fall; and procrastination because of weather brings no harvest.  The Creator is Lord over His creation and makes the final choice of what will prosper or not.  Therefore, apply your self to many good endeavors, for we do not know His choices.

Chapter 12 sums up Solomon’s point.  Good choices have to be made while we are young, for old age and the consequences of bad choices come upon us quickly.  Good choices may bring long life, but even with a good life, the infirmity of old age affects us all. He describes these infirmities with another set of word pictures.  “Sun light darkening” and “clouds cease rain” becomes a picture of death;  “keepers of the house” and “strong men bow down” picture the waning of our physical strength;  “grinders cease and are few” and “windows dim” picture teeth falling out and eyesight diminishing;  “rising at the sound of the bird” and “daughters of music brought low” picture the light sleep with the tendency of early rising along with deafness affecting the ears;  “fear of height” and “terrors in the way” picture the ease of injury in old age;  and finally, “grasshopper burden” and “desire fails” picture the diminished sex drive and inability to maintain erections in men.

Old age brings everyone face to face with death, from which there is no escape.  So Solomon reminds us that we all face God in judgment, therefore we should obtain a fear of the Lord early in life to make our way in life as successful as possible.

But not so with the main character in the “Dark Side of the Moon.”  He had no understanding of God, became overwhelmed with the world, went insane and sought a living death as relief from his suffering through a lobotomy.  The lyrics of Pink Floyd recount all that he knew would be lost to memory.  What Pink Floyd’s character does not understand is that the consequences of his choices remain, even though he loses consciousness of them.  To yield to the world system, choosing to live life in that way, is the path of death.  To believe that death will end the suffering is to deny the judgment of God that we all face and the punishment  of God upon all who have rejected Him and His Way of Life.   As Solomon said, dear reader, remember now the Creator in the days of your youth, and choose life, not death.

 Our choices have consequences [4:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ecclesiastes Chapter 11

1    Cast your bread upon the waters,  For you will find it after many days.

2    Give a serving to seven, and also to eight,  For you do not know what evil will be on the earth.

3    If the clouds are full of rain,  They empty themselves upon the earth;  And if a tree falls to the south or the north, In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.

4    He who observes the wind will not sow,  And he who regards the clouds will not reap.

5    As you do not know what is the way of the wind, Or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, So you do not know the works of God who makes everything.

6    In the morning sow your seed,  And in the evening do not withhold your hand; For you do not know which will prosper, Either this or that, Or whether both alike will be good.

Chapter 12

1    Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,  Before the difficult days come,  And the years draw near when you say,  “I have no pleasure in them”:

2    While the sun and the light,  The moon and the stars,  Are not darkened,  And the clouds do not return after the rain;

3    In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,  And the strong men bow down; When the grinders cease because they are few,  And those that look through the windows grow dim;

4    When the doors are shut in the streets,  And the sound of grinding is low; When one rises up at the sound of a bird, And all the daughters of music are brought low;

5    Also they are afraid of height,   And of terrors in the way;   When the almond tree blossoms,  The grasshopper is a burden,  And desire fails.  For man goes to his eternal home,  And the mourners go about the streets.

6    Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed,  Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,  Or the wheel broken at the well.

7    Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,  And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

13  Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:  Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.

14    For God will bring every work into judgment,  Including every secret thing,  Whether good or evil.

11. Eclipse
(Waters) 2:04

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

“There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it’s all dark.”

The Dark Side of the Moon is eclipse of light, which is a metaphor for knowledge.  To have a lobotomy may remove all ability to feel the pain of this world, but it does not cut out the human spirit.   Until he dies his spirit is trapped in a bodily prison that no longer participates in the creation.

The creation is not evil. The joy of life and the experiences of the senses is a gift from God to all creatures, mankind and animals.   But sin and selfishness are the driving forces of the world system that causes the pain and suffering in this world.  Life is not hard, sin and death is hard.  The more pleasurable life is, the greater the impact of tragedy when it occurs.  The natural defense of the body is to develop calluses.  The skin thickens to deaden the pain.  This happens in our spirits and conscience, too, as our hearts harden through time.

The answer is not a lobotomy. The answer is the circumcision of the heart by the cross of Jesus Christ.  God wants to help all people, and does in whatever way He can that does not violate our free wills.  But to gain His full aid in life, we must come into the covenant relationship that He offers the world through Jesus Christ.   The word covenant has its root meaning in “cutting away.”  To cut away the frontal lobe of the brain, does nothing to cut away the root cause of sin in our hearts.  The victom in the Pink Floyd drama lives senselessly in his sins and selfishness even after his lobotomy.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news in deed.  Jesus promised the abundant life.  That does not mean that He changes His creation, rather, it means that He will enhance our senses to appreciate all the good in life that is always here already.  Goodness in life is by far greater than the evil of the world.  For God means Good, and He is greater than all His creation.   He has filled His creation with goodness and beauty in every facet.  The new birth enables us to see that beauty and goodness everywhere.  However, anything scrutinized under a microscope will make the miniscule seem extraordinarily large.

And this is one of the failings of the Church of Jesus Christ.  Emphasis has been placed on the evils of the world instead of the good. Jesus told Nicodemus that the world was already condemned – a condemnation that began in the garden of Eden – but He did not come to condemn the world, but to save it.  We are not called to condemn the world, and that is how the lost in the world perceive the Church.   Rather we are called to point the world to true salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.    Not prosperity.  Not deliverance from struggle.   Not to self righteousness.   But to the eye opening wonder of knowing the eternal being who created everything, and the knowledge of His wonderful ways.

The Dark Side of the Moon is only a shadow.  The sunlight always remains.  Simply move out of the shadow into the sunlight and see again.

As a final word on this series, I want to commend those incredible musicians who crafted this classic work.  The Church has an “Us and Them” mentality that makes God appear to be separated from all people outside Jesus Christ.  This diminishes the glorious goodness of our Father.  He is involved in the lives of every person in creation.  He is not in covenant with every person,  which is why the Great Commission was given, but He is in love with every person, and helps them within the limitations that sin creates.   I believe that God inspired this work of Pink Floyd.   I believe that He wants the message of disaster that life without Christ creates.    This band saw the world system clearly and understood the destructiveness of the world system.  Their album clearly documents that destructiveness.

I encourage all believers to listen to this album in its entirety again with the lens of Ecclesisastes that I have tried to focus for you here.  You can buy the CD from Amazon.com and elsewhere.   Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright I thank you for your creative genius.  This album had touched my heart decades before I ever knew the Lord.  And because of my knowledge of the Bible, I now appreciate your work even more.

Teach a man to fish

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. We all have much to be thankful for. I truly hope that everyone spends time with people that they genuinely love. I trust that all will recognize the blessings that God has given them and be grateful to God for those blessings.

Father shared two realizations that I at first did not see the connection, but now I understand are part of a Thanksgiving message.

The first is based upon the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) and how it relates to our being joint heirs with Christ. Read the rest of this entry →

The blood of Jesus has been transfused into our system.

I asked Christ into my heart in the bedroom of a Messianic Jew on a Friday, then on the following Sunday morning I made a public confession of Christ at an Assemblies of God congregation in front of 500 people.

So the AOG has had an early influence upon my understanding of salvation.  One of the songs that was frequently sung in that congregation was a song written in 1878 by Elisha Hoffman called, “Are You Washed in the Blood?“  The lyrics to the chorus are as such:

Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

The song draws its inspiration from the book of Revelations:

Rev 1:5
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, (KJV)

Rev 7:14
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (KJV)

These verses address two different aspects of the cleansing of the blood.  The first is internal and the second is external.  The first deals with our sin nature and the second deals with our works of righteousness. Let’s consider the first  verse. Read the rest of this entry →

Sunday morning my wife and I went to the local Assemblies of God Sunday School class.  We have no more interest in attending the services, but we do enjoy the interaction that the Sunday school class provides. As it turned out the class teacher had just come back from Buenos Aires having participated in the revival that began with Claudio Friedzon in 1992.  So instead of a discussion they had brought back a video of a service for everyone to watch.

My wife turned to me and asked me if I would like to go.  I said that I would like to watch for awhile.  Four years ago when we attended another AOG congregation we helped put on a week long campaign hosted by the AOG college in Waxahachie, SAGU (Southwestern Assemblies of God University). So, this peaked my interest. Read the rest of this entry →

The expression “growing in Christ” is a convenient term, but is somewhat misleading.   What makes it misleading is the implication that we “work” at growing “Christ-like”.   Many in the church fully understand that we cannot grow ourselves, but it is God who causes the growth (1 Cor. 3:6).   And this is true.   But the gospel is not about “repair”, but death to the old man.   In my article. “The Rock of Offense,” I address this work of God.   The gospel is about exchanging lives.   We die to self so that Christ may live through us instead.   Christ does not grow.  However, Christ is hindered by our Old Man, so His work in our lives is to arrange circumstances to effect the cross in areas of our lives that have not yet been crucified.  When we truly die in an area, then He  resurrects it again in the holiness of His own life.   So what is called “growth” is in truth surrender to the cross.  What do you think?