Coasting on Faithful Fumes

I worship a Savior who was beaten up and killed for me. He didn't come riding on a horse, a tactical missile, or a drone and take over the world. He came in love, eventually bearing a cross that He was nailed to. If you are willing to surrender yourself to Him and His mission to love others...If you want to be part of a group of people doing the same, then following Jesus and getting involved in a church should be just the thing for you.

In the New Testament we are never called to mimic God's justice; we're called to mimic His love. He reminds us that vengeance is His, not ours. We're called to love our neighbor, enemy, and everyone else. Even when it is not convenient, cultural, or safe.

We, the church - you and me - people in relationship with Jesus and each other - not a building - we, the church are striving to be the people God wants us to be, loving the world the way God wants us to love it.

Are we really doing that? Or do we just say it? Are we striving to be the people God wants us to be, or do we just want to do enough to "get saved?" Are we loving the world the way God wants us to love it, or are we just loving it when it is convenient to us, fits nicely into our schedule, and doesn't really cost us anything?

This week, I was blessed with the opportunity to be the middleman in delivering a $1000 anonymous gift. God had laid it on another person's heart to give a certain family that money. They were faithful and did it. So I was able to deliver a great gift, a tremendous blessing, at really no cost to myself.

And I enjoyed being used to do that.

Then it struck me. Everything I do is like that. God has given me everything; it's all a blessing from Him. One of the greatest lies that we buy into as Americans is that we actually deserve this. We deserve to wake up every morning and have food available unlike others around the world. We deserve to be in a loving family unlike others around us. We deserve to have all the excess entertainment options we enjoy unlike those less fortunate. We deserve this and we deserve that. Because we work hard. Because we're smart. Because of this or that.

But it's all a lie. We don't deserve it.

It's by God's grace. Don't get me wrong. I think we can create fair and just systems that help accommodate His blessing. We can live lives that God's grace can more easily flow into. But we have become prideful. We think we deserve God's blessings because of how great we are. And we don't. That's the nature grace. It isn't something deserved. All our blessing, We don't deserve them. When we think we are deserving, then we fail to see all the love being poured into us.

We're coasting on the fumes of the faithful who have come before us. If we don't turn back to God soon, those fumes will run out. We'll sputter to a stop and find ourselves left on the side of the road of life - hungry, weak, without a family, without all the entertainment. All the blessings that our prideful selves have taken for granted will be taken from us. But the good truth is that you don't need to hit rock bottom to turn and respond to God's grace.

Instead of building up pride, God's grace should inspire selflessness, service, faithfulness. His grace should inspire in us a desire to draw as close to Him as we possibly can. It should inspire us to work toward His vision of living that we each have been called to. We should start (or continue if you are already) feeding the hungry.

We truly love God and live for Him when we love others. Love, in this case, isn't some emotional, fuzzy sort of thing. You can tell a needy person that you love Him and not help Him, but you can't trick God that way. He knows your heart, and He knows your actions. He says that if you love the needy person, then you should help her. If you care for the hungry, then feed him. If you love the homeless, then house them. He says that in doing those things, you are loving Him.

It doesn't matter how emotional you get when you worship God, whether you're spinning around in a wheat field with your arms raised, raising your hands in worship, or you imagine Him wrapping His arms around you in your quiet time. What matters is how you treat the least of these. Strangers. The hurt. The hopeless.

Because all that we do to love others is like that opportunity I was given this week. We don't earn what we are able to bless others with. It was given to us by God. It actually still is God's possession. And we must learn, if we claim to follow Jesus, to use the things that are His in a way that will bring Him glory.

Do you really want to follow Jesus?

I Am A Sinner

I am a sinner.

Those seem like difficult words to say in our society. It doesn't fit in with our artificial self-esteem building, the "I can do anything" spiel, or the "I am perfect the way God made me" talk.

They say that the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous is the most difficult step: admitting that you are an alcoholic. But you can't progress through the other steps until you admit that first one.

Prior to having GPS, most ladies could relate to being driven around in a car in which the driver was lost, wouldn't admit it, nor would he stop to ask for directions. The first step to finding your way is to admit that you are lost.

But we have trouble admitting our faults. For some reason, we like to pretend that we are Superman. Never wrong. Never weak. Never mistaken.  Except, unlike Superman, we have no kryptonite. Or at least we like to pretend that. We might not dress up in a Superman outfit anymore. We have grown out that. But we like to dress up in pride and arrogance and pretend we're perfect.

The word "sinner" has such a bad connotation attached to it that we don't want to take that label on ourselves. But taking that bad connotation and applying it to ourselves is exactly how spiritual growth begins. Like the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous and finding your way when you are lost, the most difficult step in growing spiritually is also that first step: "I am a sinner."

This inability to acknowledge sin has permeated our culture too. We can't call anything a sin because that would be intolerant to people living in sin. We can't instruct what right living should look like because we might offend those who have chosen a different path. We are labeled as being hypocrites and judgmental when we call something a sin; attacks that discourage us from teaching the right course of action that brings freedom because that would be intolerant to those that may have chosen a different way to live.

Now, we have a few exceptions. We can call rapists or pedophiles sinners. There may be a few more actions that our society easily labels "sin." But these things that we can call sin have to be the loftiest of sins. Never mind the contradiction in the crowd that teaches tolerance turning around and being intolerant toward the things they believe are significant enough to call sin.

This shows that the real issue isn't whether we can be intolerant toward sin; it's what we think is sin. All people are intolerant toward the things that they view as sin. Some are even intolerant toward sinners. The real issue is whether we believe there is or what we believe is sin.

There is the popular saying among Christians, "Hate the sin. Love the sinner." It's origin is unknown, but its meaning has roots in Scripture. Jude wrote, "But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. (Jude 1:20-23 ESV).

Keep yourself in God's love, but hate the garment stained by sin. Hate the sin. Love the sinner.

Our  natural instincts tell us to hate the sinner. We want to hate the pedophile, the rapist, and the Boston bomber. But then we are reminded, "Hate the sin. Love the sinner." And those who aren't wrestling with this don't understand hating the sin and loving the sinner. They think we hate people because we think that something is a sin, or they think we are too loving when we choose to love those who are, from our perspective, the most disgusting.

Which leads to me. I am a sinner. I can still be loved despite my sin. For while I was a sinner, Jesus died for me. He didn't die for me because I was perfect. Actually, His death is meaningless to me if I live pretending that I am perfect. He died for me because He loved me. And He didn't just die for me; He died for all of us. So that in Him, we can move beyond the mistakes (sin) we have made into the life that He has called us to.

On the other side of that first step, when we stop to ask for directions, is the destination we were made to head toward. Don't believe in a lie that keeps you remaining lost. You aren't perfect. You aren't the best person in the world. You aren't God's gift to humanity. You are a sinner, like me and everyone else, in need of grace and a change in direction toward the path that God designed us for.

A Little Love

A few years back, Steve Stone, the pastor at Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tennessee, learned that the lot next to him had been purchased for an Islamic Center.  And what did the Christians in the community do when they heard that an Islamic Center was opening up? Well, they grabbed their picket signs and protested it. 

Unlike the well-intentioned yet misguided Christians who took to protesting the Muslims, Pastor Stone placed a sign out where the lots met that said, "Heartsong Church Welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the Neighborhood."  Stone’s church even invited the Muslims over to the church to share a meal. In a touching moment, the Muslim women brought flowers to give to their Christians hostesses.  

Instead of protesting against the Muslims, Heartsong Church lived out the life of Christ and started the process of reaching the unreached. Because of this approach, relationships are being built, bridges that Jesus can walk over rather than walls that would obscure one's view of Jesus.  

Somewhere along the road to where we are, many churches have become confused and started to think that being filled with slander, wrath, malice, and anger – characteristics of the old self (Colossians 3:8) – is how we should respond to those different than us.  In many circles it has become improper to even dialogue with those that disagree with you because you wouldn't want to appear accepting of them; that might cause people to think that you are like those you disagree with.  We don’t just do this with other religions, we do it with other denominations and even churches within our own brotherhood.  And on a personal level, we do it with other people. You can't spend time with so-and-so or have others see you talking with him or her because they may think you approve of what they are doing. Too bad that Jesus didn't take that advice when he hung out with tax collectors, sinners, and the forgotten ones of society.

But, we like to keep Jesus at a distance. We like to sing along to Carrie Underwood, and say, "Jesus take the wheel." Yet then we see a road that we want to go down - a road that we know that we shouldn't go down without Jesus. We say, "Jesus, I know you'll understand. I'll pick you up on my way back, but I want to go down this road. Could you just wait here for me? I'll be right back." We drop him off at the corner so he can't influence us in our social interactions. We keep our distance from the least of these because if we didn't, it would hurt our reputation.

The story of Heartsong Church, welcoming the Islamic Center, didn’t just end with a church being Jesus in their community, welcoming their unreached neighbors into the neighborhood.  Across the world in Kashmir, the contested and violent religion between India and Pakistan, the story of Heartsong welcoming the Islamic Center was covered on the news. 

Pastor Stone got a call from a group of Muslims from a small town in Kashmir. The Muslim man said that they had been watching CNN when a segment telling the story of Heartsong Church came on. And the action of a church outside of Memphis touched the hearts of Muslims on the other side of the world. One of the community's leaders said to those who were gathered, "God just spoke to us through this man." Another said, "How can we kill these people?" A third man went straight to the local Christian church and proceeded to clean it, inside and out.

Pastor Stone said that he was just trying to love his neighbors, as he says Jesus instructs him to do. And that love is always contagious. Small actions, when linked to Jesus, can instigate extraordinary things. As a result of loving their neighbors in the Memphis area, some Muslims in Kashmir said, "We are now trying to be good neighbors, too. Tell your congregation we do not hate them, we love them, and for the rest of our lives we are going to take care of that little church."

A little church in Kashmir being taken care of by Muslims. This was possible because a church in Tennessee discarded its selfish impulses that define our old selves and put on the new self of Jesus. Instead of just being saved, they decided to live as Jesus would live. Through little acts of faithfulness that we can do when we actually allow the love of Jesus to penetrate every aspect of our lives, our world can be transformed the world, one loving act a time. Let's start loving.

Find Your Johnsonville

To put down thoughts regarding our mission trip to Liberia resembles telling people of a great painting by only showing them one square inch of that painting. But words and stories are all I have to hopefully inspire and drum up more interest in what God is doing in Liberia. It is in this feeble attempt to express what God did that I hope His Spirit intermingles with our souls and brings vitality and passion where our souls too often slumber.

I'm going to deal with the biggest achievement of the trip. But in doing this, I realize that God often turns what we thought was an insignificant moment into the most significant event, while the things we thought were great and amazing become a passing footnote to our lives.

Don Winters (left) and John Bennett (right)

Last year, our small Hope 2 Liberia team of four people, traveled to the Heart of Grace school in Lower Johnsonville, outside of the capital city of Monrovia. What we saw there was amazing. This place was different. It was kept up. It was clean. We are part of Hope 2 Liberia, but this place, on the outskirts of Monrovia, was really a place of hope for Liberia. Something was happening here. It was a city on a hill. It was a beacon of hope in the darkness.

But there was also a great problem. A problem we wouldn't have known about except for a random, divine encounter in the airport that eventually led us to Heart of Grace. The school and the surrounding community lacked water. The school had been given a well by a Rotary Club out of Lafayette, Louisianna, but the well had dried up. A man in the neighborhood had spent days hand digging a new well, only to never hit water. The only water they could get was down a steep cliffside. A journey they would make every day, bucket after bucket, because water is life.  

So we saw the situation, but we did not have the pumps and equipment to do something incredible. I remember the feeling in that small group that something would be done. And one of our group members, Jon Bennett, said, "I'm going to come back here and fix this problem." So he went home, 5,000 miles away from Lower Johnsonville and the Heart of Grace school, but that community stayed on his heart. He worked out a plan. His passion to help Johnsonville and his commitment to work hard to meet the needs of those who did not have the ability to meet their own needs, combined with the engineering know-how of John Pierce, brought eventual change. As you are reading this, someone from the community in Lower Johnsonville is probably filling her bucket with safe, purified water. Water that was unsafe to drink at the bottom of the cliff, that traveled through lines laid, and was filtered prior to reaching a spigot at the top of the hill.

Eric Wowoh

Eric Wowoh, a Liberian, founder of the Heart of Grace school, the executive director of Change Agent Network, and a servant of God of the sort I have never before encountered had this to say:

"We now have plenty of water flowing through our school and community here in City View, Lower Johnsonville. Water has always been a major problem for us in this community, especially during the dry season or summer months. We have never had a public system for running water, which has meant everyone had to travel many miles for their water.  In our case, this has meant walking up and down a very challenging, rocky hill to get to a well. Heavily pregnant mothers journeying up and down to fetch water each day has been very normal since people have lived here."

"This is now history as God sent twenty-four members of the Hope 2 Liberia team to help bring an abundance of fresh, safe, clean drinking water to the thirsty in this 17,000 strong community of Lower Johnsonville, including all of the students and staff that use our school, the Heart of Grace."

"Thanks for your continual support and prayers! We are very grateful to all who have helped. This is a huge moment for us - real development and real change. Water is, indeed, life. May God water and refresh your life as you have helped to water the lives of others in such need."

All of this challenges me. And I hope it challenges you. All too often we see the world off kilter from what God has designed it to be, but we just turn a blind eye and unleash our apathy. We say it's a fallen world and things will be this way until Jesus returns. But those teachings weren't given to us so that we could be complacent. They are an acknowledgment that we will always have a mission to accomplish.

People from the Johnsonville community
waiting in line for water.

But do you see what happened here? Thousands of people now have clean drinking water because of the passion of one man. John Bennett - not a pastor, not a plumber, not an engineer - founder and owner of Cool Cayenne Authentic Printed Shirt Co. in Muncie, Indiana. He made a difference. He would be the first to say that he couldn't have done it by himself, but what is happening in Johnsonville right now, as we sit in the comfort of our own homes, wouldn't have been accomplished without his faithfulness to Jesus. When John stands before Jesus and Jesus says, "I was thirsty and you gave me a drink." John will humbly say, "When did I see you thirsty? When did I give you a drink?" And Jesus will say, "Johnsonville."

May we each find our Johnsonvilles. May we each strive to make a difference. Instead of pretending we don't have to do anything and that God's plan will magically get done, may we take seriously God's call to be His hands and feet. We have to get busy being faithful. We are surrounded by the hungry, the thirsty, the immigrant, the naked, the sick, and imprisoned. And in loving them, we love Jesus. Let's love Jesus. Let's love our fellow man.

You Shall Love Your Neighbor As...

Some of our neighbors in Liberia.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39 ESV).

Love your neighbor as you love yourself? Couldn’t he have said, “Everyone fend for themselves?” Or maybe, “Love your neighbor so that they have all their needs?”

But that isn’t how Jesus taught we are to love. He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

How much do I love myself? What kind of clothes do I give myself? What kind of food do I feed myself? Where do I sleep at night? What is the water like that I drink? Am I really supposed to love my neighbor as I love myself?

Too often we are led astray by our pride. We think we deserve more than our neighbor because we work harder than our neighbor or we work smarter than our neighbor. We think we are allowed to live more blessed than our neighbor because of who we are and what we have done. Oh, the pride.

Palm is a source of life for the Liberian people.
Sadly, you can see a bloated stomach one of the
kids in the background.

Love your neighbor as yourself. That's tough when you think about it.

Are we living in a way that everyone can live? Or are we living in a way that only a few can live?

We have been greatly blessed here in America. But that blessing comes with a  great responsibility. With great blessings comes great responsibility. With our blessings, we are to be a blessing. We have been blessed, not for self-indulgent enjoyment, but to be a blessing to those who need blessed.

Are we a blessing? Or are we just blessed? Do we live in opulence while allowing others to wallow in their plight? How long do you think that blessing will last if we are not using it to bless others?

Now I understand that we don’t want to just give handouts. But how about handups? How about we help in such a way that we can actually bring about a better world for those less fortunate? Instead of watching television, saving for another vacation, spending countless hours on the internet, or reading another book, maybe we could invest in making the lives of others better.

A neighbor of ours standing by a tree in the
city of Buchanan, Liberia.

But where would we find the time? We are so busy running our children here and there. Another sporting event. Another activity. We have to get to the gym. We have to watch our favorite show. We have to do this and do that. While we are so busy in our own little world, people around the world are crying for help.

God hears the cry of the afflicted. And He is prompting His people to go help. Are we listening? Or are we just too busy. What happens if we don't listen?

Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is part of a series that I wrote showing the mission trip I took to Liberia.

I divided the subjects into individual pages, for ease of use.

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Economy

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Wilfred

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - A Few Notable Places

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Food

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Heart of Grace Elementary School

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - The Children

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Water

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Monrovia Hope Center

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Marshall Hope Center

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Leadership Training Institute

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Gifts

2012 - Liberian Mission Trip - Our Brothers and Sisters

Here are a few articles that I wrote upon my return:
One Drop

You Shall Love Your Neighbor As...

Sunrise in the Clouds over Europe

Who Will Be God's Ambassadors?

FAQ on Liberia trip from questions asked at an Indiana Tech Sociology class

Hands and Feet

Are You A Vampire?

With the Halloween season in our midst, I thought I would ask the question that many a Twilight enthralled teenager ponders, “Am I a vampire?”

When I was a kid, the only vampires out there were the evil villains of Fright Night or Count Dracula. Nobody wanted to be a vampire. But since my childhood, vampires have received a makeover. Since then we have had Lestat from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Edward from Twilight.

Now it is hip and cool to pretend to be a vampire. And not just on Halloween. You can find all sorts of lists on the internet to help you figure out whether you are a real vampire or not, so you don’t even have to pretend. Why pretend to be something you are?

Let’s ponder one element of vampire mythology, the drinking of blood. The reason vampires drink blood varies depending on the author making the stuff up. The general idea though is that vampires need blood and in consuming blood they are taking the source of life from others so they can survive. Now a good vampire would only take as much as they needed to live, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he is taking from others. A vampire is a life sucker. Are you a life sucker?

We don’t have to be vampires to be life suckers. Do you profit off of others without every giving back? Are you always trying to get one over on people and come out ahead at their expense? Do you give back to your community or school or just keep enjoying the hard work of others? Do you participate in church activities without ever volunteering your own time to give back? Most people don’t have fangs, but a lot of them are still vampires, sucking out life while not giving back. Those life suckers are worse than vampires because - I’ll let you in on a secret - vampires are not real.

In Jesus, we see a different approach to life than those who suck life out of others. Instead of being a life sucker, he is a life giver.

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56 ESV).

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate verse for the Halloween season. We flesh eating and blood drinking. If you can get past the past the gory analogy, what you will see is that Jesus gave his life for others. We, if we claim to be His followers, should do the same. Not let people eat our flesh and drink our blood, but, like Jesus, give of ourselves to serve others. All too often we confuse Christianity with only having right thoughts and proper actions so that we can get to an eternal life in the future. What we fail to realize is that our eternal life has already begun. We are living it here in the now. We must join with Jesus in giving our lives to others to help restore the world into what it was intended to be. We are to be life givers not life suckers.

A healthy church plays a role in that. It should be a group of people that encourages, enables, and empowers each other to restore the world around them and give life to others. Vampires can have their covens and suck the life away from the world around them; I’ll take the church over that. A group of people giving life sounds way more fun to join than a group of people sucking life.


We might not drink blood when gather together as believers in Jesus, but every week we pretend too. In that act, we are reminded of the life-giving sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. An act that we can join in on if we are willing to be life givers rather than life suckers.

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You might also be interested in "Are You A Zombie?"

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Here is a great clip from the Colbert Report on vampires.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Difference Makers - Patrick Rodgers
www.colbertnation.com
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Becoming a Homeowner, The Gift of Stability, and The Desire to Wander

Lindsay and I purchased our first home a few weeks ago. People, when they hear about it, usually say, "Congratulations!" But I was not all that excited. It's a house. To me that means that it comes with a lot of strings attached. Now, I will have to spend my days worrying about how to take care of it. When something major breaks, I will have to have the money to fix it. Living in town means that I will have to take better care of my lawn. There are a lot of burdens that come with owning a house. Home ownership seems more like a mixed drink, a money pit mixed with emotional and physical drain, that when imbibed will consume my life.

Becoming a homeowner was something that I never intended to do. I had hoped that I could be a wanderer, to see the world, to continue moving and never settle down, meet many different and interesting people, and to have some exciting bohemian adventures along the way. Now, that dream is ending, and I am establishing a home. I guess it is about time with four children and another one on the way, but I imagined that we could be some happy traveling hippy clan.

To be honest, I have always had this arrogant streak that thought that not owning a home was more spiritual. I still wrestle with it, especially when I am having trouble on an improvement project at the house. Jesus, as far as we know, did not own a home, and, of course, I want to be like Jesus. I assumed that it would be more Christlike to not have the worries of a house in my life. All the time, I missed the point that being like Jesus is more than being carefree, having long hair, wearing sandals, and not owning a home. I have tried all that, and it has not made me more of who God has designed me to be. Being like Jesus is about taking on the characteristics of Jesus in all areas of my life.

John wrote, "By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked" [1 John 2:5-6 (ESV)]. To be his followers, we need to walk the way he walked. This doesn't mean that I have to walk with some gansta limp because I assume that Jesus had a vicious gansta limp to show how cool he was. It is about an attitude of love in our lives. John goes on to explain, "Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes" [1 John 2:10-11 (ESV)]. John is not just talking about our biological brothers and sisters; he is talking about neighbors and everyone that we encounter. We can walk like Jesus while we are wandering sojourners, and we can walk like Jesus when we are planted firmly in a community. Each one has its own drawbacks and unique sets of opportunities. The key to walking like Jesus is to love all the people around us.

With that said, I have realized that my calling is to be planted firmly within a community. You might have a similar calling. Then again, you might be called to be a wanderer, or you might be ignoring your calling completely. Within that specific calling, we must never forget our larger calling: we are called to love everyone around us.

I have to learn to shift gears and look at how to love God while being firmly planted in one location. Rose Marie Berger wrote in her article, The Art of Householding, "The 'gift of stability' is considered the fourth vow in Orthodox and Benedictine monastic life. Poverty, chastity, and obedience are the 'evangelical vows' that make one radically available to those in need of the gospel. Stability, as Thomas Merton put it, means to 'find the place that God has given you and take root there.'"

In Wendell Berry's 10 Hopes, he explains, "Love your neighbors - not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have." That, my friends, is much easier said than done.

You might be called to put your roots down. It might be to start going to church or stop church shopping and become part of a flawed spiritual community. Flawed because every spiritual community is. It might be to become part of an organization despite not agreeing with them on every point. We don't even agree with ourselves from five years ago on every point. It might be to stop wandering and to permanently move into a community despite it not having everything you want. Out here in the rural Midwest, no town will have everything we want. Whatever the case, putting your roots down is about building healthy and authentic relationships with the people around you. Together, we can do much more than we can do alone.

We need to invest in relationships. Our world in five years will only be as good as the investment we make in it today. You want a better church, a better organization, a better town, a better state, and a better nation, it starts by building a better relationship with your neighbor.

It has never been my desire to ever be firmly planted in a community. One thing that my wife has always blessed me with in our marriage, despite all of my kicking, screaming, and arguing against it, is stability. In this case, like many times in my relationship with her, I must realize that what she wants is actually better for us. That is the beauty of good relationships. It is not always about our individual selves, but in chasing after collective happiness we will find that we are happy individually.

An Article Worth Reading

Pandemic Love

In stark contrast to such hopelessness and fear, the Christians showed how their faith made this life, and even death, meaningful. Cyprian, for example, almost welcomed the great epidemic of his time, knowing that it was an opportunity for the church to give witness to the hope that was within them. He was so overwhelmed by a sense of confidence that the members of the Alexandrian church were accused of thinking of the plague as a time of festival.

Instead of fear and despondency, then, the earliest Christians expended themselves in works of mercy that simply dumbfounded the pagans. For them, God loved humanity; in order to love God back, one was to love others. God did not demand ritual sacrifices; he wanted his love expressed on earth in deeds of compassion.

Our time is not unlike the twilight years of the Roman empire. The god of materialism provides no hope, the structures and institutions of society that are meant to address social needs are indifferent and cold, and the current adversarial atmosphere of mistrust, suspicion, and violence breed fear and loneliness.

Pandemic Love

My Brothers and Sisters in Jesus, Be Careful of Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand has been growing in popularity in recent years through economic conservatives latching on to her teachings of self-reliance and individualism, views that seem to run contrary to the teachings of community and love for others in Scripture.

Ayn Rand in a 1965 Playboy Interview

“My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue."

Jesus in Matthew 25:37-40 (ESV)

"Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’"

Excerpts from Mike Wallace's interview with Ayn Rand in 1959.

Rand: “You love only those who deserve it.”

Wallace: “And then if a man is weak or a woman is weak he is or she is beyond love?”

Rand: “He certainly does not deserve it. He certainly is beyond it."

Wallace: “Isn’t it possible that we all believe in it [collectivism] because we’re all basically lonely people and we all understand that we are our brothers’ keepers?”

Rand: “You couldn’t really understand it because there is no way in which you could justify, nobody has ever given a reason why man should be his brothers’ keeper, and you have every example, and you see examples around you of men perishing by their attempt to be their brothers’ keeper.

Wallace: “What’s wrong with loving your fellow man? Christ, every important moral leader in history has taught us that we should love one another. Why, then is this love in your mind immoral?”

Rand: “It is immoral if it is placed above love of oneself."

The Apostle Paul writing about Jesus in Philippians 2:3-8 (ESV).

"Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." 

You decide. Do the teachings of Paul and Jesus line up with the teachings of Ayn Rand?

Who Will?

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese drove home from work, parked her car, and began to make the short walk to her apartment.  All of a sudden she was attacked by Winston Moseley.  Winston stabbed her multiple times but stopped when a neighbor yelled from a window, “Let that girl alone!”  Winston fled the scene, but nobody came to help Kitty.  She tried to get into the building but found herself unable to.  Ten minutes later, Winston Moseley returned to the scene to finish his crime.  He proceeded to rape and kill Kitty Genovese.  Nobody came to help.

This story encouraged psychologists to study the psychological phenomenon named the bystander effect.  It is the idea that the presence of other bystanders decreases the likelihood that an individual will stop and help.  In the case of Kitty Genovese only one person called out of their window and nobody came to help.

In being used by God to bring about His will into our communities, neighborhoods, workplaces, sphere of relationships, and families, we often fall prey to the bystander effect and end up doing everything for ourselves and nothing for God.  We think, “He’s God.  He doesn’t need to use me.”  Or we presume, “John and Jane down the street will do that.”  In the process of making up excuses to not follow God and continue living for ourselves, we miss out on the blessing of bringing God’s reality more fully into our reality.

Maybe you know a neighbor who is lonely.  Your neighbor needs someone to be her friend.  Knowing the situation, you also know that your neighbor has made all the dumb choices and that her loneliness is her own fault.  Being a pragmatist, you know that being a friend takes time and can be an inconvenience.  But someone needs to be your neighbor’s friend.  Who will?

Maybe you go to church outside of the community you live in.  You must realize that your church will not have the mission to make a difference in your community.  They are called by God to make a difference in their community.  That’s why God has put them where they are.  But somebody will have to answer that call to serve in your community.  Who will?

Maybe you know a teen who needs some attention and help so that they don’t make destructive decisions that will cause long-term damage to their life.  Being a realist, you know that you could invest plenty of the time and see no positive results.  But somebody has to take this kid aside and mentor him.  Who will?

We know all sorts of people that are in need of help.  And somebody needs to help them.  Who will?

Who will?  It’s easy to say that someone else will, but I hope that you will.  When God asked, “Who shall I send?  And who will go for us?” Isaiah replied, “Here am I!  Send me.”  May we have the same willingness to do God’s will.  God partners with us to bring about His will.  If we aren’t willing to surrender and bring His will about, then He will wait.  It hurts for Him to wait, but it doesn’t hurt Him.  It hurts us.  May we learn to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, stop selfishly living for ourselves, and start living for others.  By surrendering our lives, we will find ourselves right in the middle of God’s will.  We can be a bystander that makes a difference.