By John Stallings
“That’s none of your business.” How often have you & I heard that statement made? How about this one; “if I’d wanted your opinion I’d have asked for it?” Let me interject right here; --- when people say this they really mean it.
Recently Juda & I watched the movie, Margaret, about the Queen of England. It dealt especially with the time period when Princess Diana was killed. Since she was no longer in the Royal family at the time of her death in a car wreck in Paris, the Queen & her husband didn’t want to leave their summer retreat to personally join the grief stricken millions in the London area. The upshot was that the newly elected & youngest ever Prime Minister Tony Blair had to engage in some expert arm twisting to get the Royals back to London for the sad occasion.
I had expected the movie to be somewhat stodgy but the tension between Blare & the Queen was totally engrossing. You were allowed to see & actually feel the acrimony the Queen had for Blair as he continued to cajole & seek to persuade her to not ignore this event. Blair was forced by virtue of his position & this historic event to walk into an area “Where angels fear to tread.” The phrase, “It’s none of your business” wasn’t uttered but the sentiment hovered just beneath the surface in every conversation between Blair & the Queen. I hadn’t realized how close the Royal family came to sticking their heels in the sand & refusing to dignify Diana’s death, nor the superb job young Tony Blair did in finally saving the Royals from themselves.
Sadly, Mr. Blair will leave office soon & I for one think the world will miss him. Maybe his stock is down for his early views on Iraq, but more than likely differences within his own party did him in. Nonetheless, he has been a stand up guy in a world of politicians who use focus groups to make their decisions.
Let’s talk about this thing called unsolicited advice & its perils.
Proverbs 26:17 says, --He that passeth by & meddeleth with strife belonging not to him is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.
I’ve never tried picking a dog up by the ears but I can imagine what an awful response a person would get from the dog if they tried it. If the dog had any size, he’d without doubt do that person some real damage & if he was just a little pup, the pain would be so intense his squealing & howling would make it a very unpleasant experience to say the least. Either way it would be a very ugly scene & it’s very likely a doctor would be involved.
What is a person supposed to do? --To advise or not advise. It could be something as mundane as a co-worker with bad breath & body odor to a daughter-in-law who serves food half cooked. Or maybe it’s a person in church who spreads gossip like kids spread peanut butter. Here’s another important thing to remember if you’re a person who likes to “get your two cents” in; --People as a rule don’t take well to unsolicited advice. To put it a little stronger, most people have a strong aversion to it. But does that mean that we should never give it?
Here are some guidelines that will be helpful in deciding what to do if faced with a situation where we must make such a decision.
1. Pray,-- but don’t only pray,--- pray long and hard before you do it.
James 1:5 says; --If any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God. I remember back in the sixties when I was starting out as an evangelist. It was the big thing in those days for people in local churches to go to another individual with a “word” for them or sometimes a verse of scripture God had given to them to pass on the other person. Having the advantage of traveling nationally, I saw what was happening. Many people were passing off to others what God was trying to tell them. I would tell people to make sure when they felt compelled to give someone a “word” that it wasn’t something God was trying to say to them & they were rejecting it personally. We can always ask God to clarify His message for He knows for sure who the message is for. Ask Him.
2. Scope out the terrain & be sure your timing is right.
When we were raising our kids, they knew that ice cream was allowed but ice cream thirty minutes before a meal was not. If it involves a spouse, you’d want to make sure you didn’t open a can of worms at bedtime. Bad timing. The same would go for mealtimes or as soon as someone gets home from work. A fight on the way to church won’t work & certainly a fight in front of the children is a bad idea. It wouldn’t be advisable for a spouse to say, “You should have been kinder to your Dad when he was alive.” It’s a little too late to fix that isn’t it? When dad was alive that might have been good advice but the timing is all wrong now.
In scoping out the terrain, other relevant questions would be; is the wife going through PMS? Is the husbands head spinning because he had a run-in with his boss? Did your daughter just break-up with her boyfriend? Is the person ill? Ask yourself-would you want to hear what you’re about to offer? It’s not that we should deny that our advice needs to be given nor should we analyze an issue to death but we certainly should ask God’s guidance. Many a good word has been lost because of bad timing.
When a Christian Brother or sister is going through trouble, they are probably under satanic attack. In times like these we can be used as tools of the devil if we’re not careful. One of Satan’s delights when a person is undergoing an attack is to use the people close to them as accomplices to unwittingly compound their hurt. He did this with Adam & Eve & he did it by using those closest to Jesus to hurt him. He certainly did it with Job by using his wife & closest friends to give him all sorts of crazy advice. It’s a good thing Job didn’t take his wife’s advice to curse God & die, but instead chose to bless God & live.
3. Don’t make a habit out of telling someone how to run their life.
Sometimes rather than “straightening someone out” maybe we could just act as a sounding board. Maybe it would be better to help someone sort out their options. Maybe we can just listen, that’s a lost art these days. I have known people who had a word spoken to them about whom they should marry; they followed the advice & ended up divorced.
In Exodus 18:17-27, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro saw he was overburdened, so he came to Moses & advised him to seek out wise men within the camp to help & advise him. Moses was wise enough to heed his father-in-laws words. Although Jethro didn’t play a large role in Moses life this one word of wisdom to the great leader made him even more effective.
Now if we saw Jethro coming to Moses constantly with some complaint or suggestion, we’d quickly pick up on it & feel he must have had some control issues in his life. You & I can take a lesson from wise Jethro.
4. Ask yourself if it’s your place to offer advice.
Maybe there is someone closer in relationship that is better suited to speak to the individual. A parent, a spouse or maybe the person needs professional help. You may see the need but that doesn’t mean you should be the one to speak to it.
Tiger Woods may be in a slump & I may see it but that doesn’t make me qualified to offer him counsel. One reason among many would be that if I were ranked as a golfer, I’d be somewhere around the bottom 5,000 golfers in the world. See the point? If your burden is great enough, & you still feel checked about going to a person, maybe going to a pastor, spouse or parent to get them involved would be the answer. Then again, if God is making you aware because you are the one to go, you should go. Just be sure it’s God.
5. Does the situation merit your unsolicited advice?
I’ve learned that some things bother me that don’t bother God in the least- or the other person. Some things aren’t sin they’re style. They aren’t a trespass they’re an annoyance. They aren’t a matter of conviction but a transgression. Some people pronounce tomato different than I do. They say potato differently than I do. Some people play Rook in their church annex while other people would have a stroke if they saw a deck of cards near a church. If you don’t watch some people, they’ll stick their biscuit in gravy right at the table (heaven forbid.) The Bible is silent on some issues & we’d be wise to be silent there also. There have been times when unsolicited advice has saved a life & times when it’s ruined a life.
6. Limit what you say.
A lady in a church I pastored once called & asked if she could come over to the house & speak with my wife & me. I of course said yes. She arrived & sat down on the couch & pulled out a yellow legal pad & proceeded to read a list of grievances with the church & my pastoral style. After the first two or three things I stopped her. I told her that she’d made a terrible mistake to sit back for months making her list when she could have come sooner when it was only two or three things. My children came in from school while the lady was there & afterward they asked what in the world it was all about. They could feel an awful spirit permeating their home, brought by this woman. Even a child can sense a raunchy attitude.
The take-away lesson from that is; words of correction are strong medicine best given in small doses. Have you ever noticed when you get on an elevator that they have a weight limit posted? Even a modern elevator can only take so much. We human beings are the same & we all have our load- limits. We don’t want to be guilty of overloading an individual with our criticisms no matter how well meaning our intentions are.
7. Ask permission to speak.
Give the person an out. Don’t start by saying you have a word from God because then they have no way out. Ask them if the time is right or if they’d mind if you share something that’s on your heart. If a person indicates a desire to receive what you have to say it will be much easier. If they don’t grant permission they are telling you they won’t listen or heed what you have to say so you might as well save your breath. When you stop to think about it people are bombarded every day with free advice from every direction from Oprah to Dr, Phil & many people can be on “advice-overload.”
Another thing I’ve learned about giving advice in person or in letter form; the person you speak to will probably have something to say in response, so you’d better be sure you have heard from God & that your skin is thick enough to hear it.
You may remember that when Nathan went to David telling him “thou art the man” in regards to his sin with Bathsheba, David fell under deep conviction. But when Samuel confronted Saul about his sin in not destroying the Amalekites & all their livestock, Saul lied through his teeth even though he had the Amalakite king walking by his side. Saul was always so preoccupied & busy with self-justification it makes his life painful to read.
8. Analyze your motives.
Make sure you’re not wanting to get the other person “told.” Make sure you have their best interest at heart & you’ve prayed until your love-level is high. Are you seeking to bless or curse? Just to be safe, check your heart-felt motives before you go. Remember there is something about advice giving that can promote pride, & the moment you have a superior attitude shining through your ability to help another person will as a rule be nil.
9. Listen
James 1:19 tells us to be slow to speak & quick to listen. This is doubly true when we give advice. There is much you & I don’t know & the other person is in a good position to help us understand them. If you feel a person is unwilling to talk in some areas, let them lead to the areas they are open in & that way you’ll stay our of harms way. We earn the right to speak by listening.
We can all have a tendency to get preachy when giving advice. Don’t do it. Preaching is a powerful tool when done by one person to a group but it doesn’t work one-on-one. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get off the soap box, open it, take out the soap & wash our brother’s feet.
10. Properly discern the level of your relationship.
There are things you’d say to a close friend that you wouldn’t say to the butcher or the baker. A surface relationship won’t allow you to say things you’d say to someone who knows you well & visa versa. How long have you known the person? True relationships require time. Do you have their number on your speed dial?
A person who deigns to grab a dog by the ears had better be careful. So it is with speaking into another persons life. Proceed with great caution. Hopefully some of the truths in this article will be helpful. One thing is for certain, we all have our unique set of needs & concerns & we all come from different backgrounds with our own expectations, perceptions & fears. God can use each one of us if we remain humble & know that only Jesus has unlimited knowledge. We must at all times keep pointing people to Him.
As for receiving reproof, if it happens to you, it’s far better to hear it than to reject it. Thank God for it; for someone who cared enough to risk their neck to share it. If it’s inaccurate, you’ll live. But more times than not there’ll be some merit to it. I’ve been there & done that. So have you.
Take it. Think on it. Pray over it. Be grateful for it.
John
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Friday, December 4, 2015
The Seven Last Words Of A Dying Church.
By John Stallings
Did you know the first cars built in the early 1900s didn't have rear-view mirrors?
Drivers might carry a little hand mirror so occasionally they could see what was behind them. The first car reported to have a rear view mirror was in 1914 at The Indianapolis 500. The reason was the driver couldn’t find a mechanic to ride with him to watch the traffic behind.
On the windshields of most cars today hangs what we have come to think of as an indispensable devise. We call it the rear-view mirror & most of us wouldn’t dream of driving without it.
In Isaiah’s time, there were no rear - view mirrors or cars to put them in but he had some important words from God for the people of Israel about looking behind them.
Remember not ye the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness & rivers in the desert. Ish.43:18-19.
In Isaiah’s time God’s people were stuck in the past & the past can be a trap when we linger over it. Israel was constantly re-living their glory days when God delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt & brought them into the Promised Land.
Those days were gone.
Now they were captive in Babylon, about 600 miles from home. Those miles seemed like an impossible barrier to them & though they knew God had done great things in the past they weren’t expecting great things now.
Isaiah’s words must have shocked the people. Was he saying to forget their rich history? It’s good to cherish the past & even some traditions. After all our generation isn’t the first generation & the folk who lived before us weren’t stupid. There were great & valuable things in Israel’s past & there are great things in our past & we’d be fools to ignore or forget them. Not only that, a person without a past is like a person with no memory. A person with no memory of the past is a person who doesn’t know who he/she is. So it’s critical to have a past & cherish that past.
Isaiah isn’t talking about totally wiping the past from memory, but rather he’s talking about “living in the past.” We sometimes call these people “nostalgia freaks.” They romanticize the past & not only that they falsify the past. Did you ever notice that time puts a halo on things? In looking back we tend to forget the bad & remember mostly the good. We create a past that never was. Would anyone want to go back to a time when people didn’t have vaccinations, inoculations or something as simple as aspirin? I don’t think so. We should have a past, cherish our past but never try to live in it.
I traveled as an evangelist for many years & I learned that many churches are totally preoccupied with the past. They aren’t interested in new & innovative ways of doing things; they are spending their lives looking in their rear-view mirrors. If you were to suggest a new idea to them you’d hear their favorite phrase, the last seven words of a dying church;
WE'VE NEVER DONE IT THAT WAY BEFORE.” That statement drips with nostalgia, & the most destructive kind; not just respecting the past but totally living there in every way possible. It’s a battle about time. Leaders will encourage their people to move forward while the people want to preserve who they’ve been. It’s virtually impossible to have church unity when we can’t even agree on which era we’re living in.
Churches will disagree about the songs they should sing. Some want to sing from the song book & some want to sing choruses off the wall or a screen. The difference will be methodological or technological. Maybe it’s going from an overhead slide projector to a video projector, making up 30 years in three. Yet many churches fight “holy wars” over slight changes like this & accusations will fly that the church is becoming worldly when all they’ve done is move from words to picture images. To some people you’re now moving at the speed of light.
Memories aren’t intended to provide us with an alternative reality in which we can hide from present challenges. Memories are intended to be fuel for future faith. God is telling Israel through Isaiah, & He’s also telling us, that He is doing something worth living for right now & it’s happening right in front of our eyes. The tragedy is that we may not even see it.
Though a rear-view mirror is an extremely valuable thing, the little mirror takes up only about 5% of the windshield. What would happen if you spent 75% of your driving time looking through it? You’d get lost, hurt or possibly killed. That is why Isaiah is telling Israel to forget the former things.
Some people have been captured by the past. The past is a seductress that can tempt us to leave the present & forfeit our future. Living in the past can be intoxicating. The further from the past the better we remember it-----but not the clearer. Important details are lost with the passage of time & in the final analysis, what we remember never existed. That’s why it’s so dangerous to look back, with a hankering to go back.
Look in the mirror. What do you see? Nowhere do we look at the present but see the past more than our mirror experience. We don’t have a distortion of sight when we see ourselves in the mirror but a distortion of time. We’re not as much seeing a different body as we are seeing a different time. That conviction that we still look pretty much the same is a conscious or subconscious desire for a different time. When church people say those seven deadly words—WE’VE NEVER DONE IT THAT WAY BEFORE- they are saying in essence they want to time- travel back to how things used to be. They see the past as the present, the present as the future & the future as the past, & wait for the good old days to return.
The next thing a past- dweller will do is attempt to keep others in their “time-place” & then you have tremendous conflict. People want to keep their children as they remembered them yet they also want them to mature. Our child’s determination to move into their future forces us to relinquish the past & step into the present. It’s a sobering realization to see that little baby has finally grown up.
In the book of Ezra chapter 3 there’s a very interesting passage. God’s people were in the process of rebuilding the Temple. The foundation had been laid & the psalmist began to lead the people in celebration.
“Then all the people gave a great shout praising the Lord because the foundation of the Temple had been laid. Many of the priests, Levites & other leaders remembered the first Temple & they wept aloud when they saw the new Temples foundation. The others however were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting & the weeping mingled together in a loud commotion that could be heard far in the distance."
Those who were looking back were weeping, those who were looking forward rejoicing.
God is leading us forward not backwards. When Jesus asks us to follow Him he’s talking about time as much as place. But His invitation is pregnant with promise;
I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good & not disaster, to give you a future & a hope. In those days when you pray I will listen. If you look for me in earnest you will find me when you see me.
I will be found by you’ says the Lord.Ish.29:11-13
Suppose you were competing in a 100 meter race. What would happen if when the gun fired & you bolted out of the box, you slipped & then you looked back at the box to see why you slipped? What would happen? Most likely that one instant you looked back would cost you the race.
Or suppose you were running a 400 meter race & you positioned yourself beside a runner known for his speed. When the gun was fired, you thought you saw the runner beside you starting falsely but there was no indication from the officials it was true. Would you turn to argue with the officials about it? If you did you’d probably lose the race.
It’s clear that you only have one chance of wining the race & that is to forget what previously happened & simply pursue the goal. The same is true in the Christian life. If we’re going to press on in a great sense we must forget what lies behind so that there will be nothing hindering us as we stretch toward the goal. To be preoccupied with the past can only be an unfortunate, debilitating distraction that could very well keep us from finishing the race.
We don’t want to get hung up in our past accomplishments. We don’t want to be hindered by our past mistakes or sins as long as they’re under the Blood of Jesus. We must minimize distractions.
Listen to Hebrews 12:1,--Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight & the sin which doth so easily beset (entangle) us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto the Jesus the author & finisher of our faith……
Are you fixing your eyes on Jesus? Are you running well? Are you pressing toward the goal? Run Christian & don’t look back or you’ll be like Lot’s wife, frozen in time.
JESUS IS WAITING AT THE FINISH LINE.
Blessings,
John
Did you know the first cars built in the early 1900s didn't have rear-view mirrors?
Drivers might carry a little hand mirror so occasionally they could see what was behind them. The first car reported to have a rear view mirror was in 1914 at The Indianapolis 500. The reason was the driver couldn’t find a mechanic to ride with him to watch the traffic behind.
On the windshields of most cars today hangs what we have come to think of as an indispensable devise. We call it the rear-view mirror & most of us wouldn’t dream of driving without it.
In Isaiah’s time, there were no rear - view mirrors or cars to put them in but he had some important words from God for the people of Israel about looking behind them.
Remember not ye the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness & rivers in the desert. Ish.43:18-19.
In Isaiah’s time God’s people were stuck in the past & the past can be a trap when we linger over it. Israel was constantly re-living their glory days when God delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt & brought them into the Promised Land.
Those days were gone.
Now they were captive in Babylon, about 600 miles from home. Those miles seemed like an impossible barrier to them & though they knew God had done great things in the past they weren’t expecting great things now.
Isaiah’s words must have shocked the people. Was he saying to forget their rich history? It’s good to cherish the past & even some traditions. After all our generation isn’t the first generation & the folk who lived before us weren’t stupid. There were great & valuable things in Israel’s past & there are great things in our past & we’d be fools to ignore or forget them. Not only that, a person without a past is like a person with no memory. A person with no memory of the past is a person who doesn’t know who he/she is. So it’s critical to have a past & cherish that past.
Isaiah isn’t talking about totally wiping the past from memory, but rather he’s talking about “living in the past.” We sometimes call these people “nostalgia freaks.” They romanticize the past & not only that they falsify the past. Did you ever notice that time puts a halo on things? In looking back we tend to forget the bad & remember mostly the good. We create a past that never was. Would anyone want to go back to a time when people didn’t have vaccinations, inoculations or something as simple as aspirin? I don’t think so. We should have a past, cherish our past but never try to live in it.
I traveled as an evangelist for many years & I learned that many churches are totally preoccupied with the past. They aren’t interested in new & innovative ways of doing things; they are spending their lives looking in their rear-view mirrors. If you were to suggest a new idea to them you’d hear their favorite phrase, the last seven words of a dying church;
WE'VE NEVER DONE IT THAT WAY BEFORE.” That statement drips with nostalgia, & the most destructive kind; not just respecting the past but totally living there in every way possible. It’s a battle about time. Leaders will encourage their people to move forward while the people want to preserve who they’ve been. It’s virtually impossible to have church unity when we can’t even agree on which era we’re living in.
Churches will disagree about the songs they should sing. Some want to sing from the song book & some want to sing choruses off the wall or a screen. The difference will be methodological or technological. Maybe it’s going from an overhead slide projector to a video projector, making up 30 years in three. Yet many churches fight “holy wars” over slight changes like this & accusations will fly that the church is becoming worldly when all they’ve done is move from words to picture images. To some people you’re now moving at the speed of light.
Memories aren’t intended to provide us with an alternative reality in which we can hide from present challenges. Memories are intended to be fuel for future faith. God is telling Israel through Isaiah, & He’s also telling us, that He is doing something worth living for right now & it’s happening right in front of our eyes. The tragedy is that we may not even see it.
Though a rear-view mirror is an extremely valuable thing, the little mirror takes up only about 5% of the windshield. What would happen if you spent 75% of your driving time looking through it? You’d get lost, hurt or possibly killed. That is why Isaiah is telling Israel to forget the former things.
Some people have been captured by the past. The past is a seductress that can tempt us to leave the present & forfeit our future. Living in the past can be intoxicating. The further from the past the better we remember it-----but not the clearer. Important details are lost with the passage of time & in the final analysis, what we remember never existed. That’s why it’s so dangerous to look back, with a hankering to go back.
Look in the mirror. What do you see? Nowhere do we look at the present but see the past more than our mirror experience. We don’t have a distortion of sight when we see ourselves in the mirror but a distortion of time. We’re not as much seeing a different body as we are seeing a different time. That conviction that we still look pretty much the same is a conscious or subconscious desire for a different time. When church people say those seven deadly words—WE’VE NEVER DONE IT THAT WAY BEFORE- they are saying in essence they want to time- travel back to how things used to be. They see the past as the present, the present as the future & the future as the past, & wait for the good old days to return.
The next thing a past- dweller will do is attempt to keep others in their “time-place” & then you have tremendous conflict. People want to keep their children as they remembered them yet they also want them to mature. Our child’s determination to move into their future forces us to relinquish the past & step into the present. It’s a sobering realization to see that little baby has finally grown up.
In the book of Ezra chapter 3 there’s a very interesting passage. God’s people were in the process of rebuilding the Temple. The foundation had been laid & the psalmist began to lead the people in celebration.
“Then all the people gave a great shout praising the Lord because the foundation of the Temple had been laid. Many of the priests, Levites & other leaders remembered the first Temple & they wept aloud when they saw the new Temples foundation. The others however were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting & the weeping mingled together in a loud commotion that could be heard far in the distance."
Those who were looking back were weeping, those who were looking forward rejoicing.
God is leading us forward not backwards. When Jesus asks us to follow Him he’s talking about time as much as place. But His invitation is pregnant with promise;
I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good & not disaster, to give you a future & a hope. In those days when you pray I will listen. If you look for me in earnest you will find me when you see me.
I will be found by you’ says the Lord.Ish.29:11-13
Suppose you were competing in a 100 meter race. What would happen if when the gun fired & you bolted out of the box, you slipped & then you looked back at the box to see why you slipped? What would happen? Most likely that one instant you looked back would cost you the race.
Or suppose you were running a 400 meter race & you positioned yourself beside a runner known for his speed. When the gun was fired, you thought you saw the runner beside you starting falsely but there was no indication from the officials it was true. Would you turn to argue with the officials about it? If you did you’d probably lose the race.
It’s clear that you only have one chance of wining the race & that is to forget what previously happened & simply pursue the goal. The same is true in the Christian life. If we’re going to press on in a great sense we must forget what lies behind so that there will be nothing hindering us as we stretch toward the goal. To be preoccupied with the past can only be an unfortunate, debilitating distraction that could very well keep us from finishing the race.
We don’t want to get hung up in our past accomplishments. We don’t want to be hindered by our past mistakes or sins as long as they’re under the Blood of Jesus. We must minimize distractions.
Listen to Hebrews 12:1,--Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight & the sin which doth so easily beset (entangle) us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto the Jesus the author & finisher of our faith……
Are you fixing your eyes on Jesus? Are you running well? Are you pressing toward the goal? Run Christian & don’t look back or you’ll be like Lot’s wife, frozen in time.
JESUS IS WAITING AT THE FINISH LINE.
Blessings,
John
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