By John Stallings
In the spring of 1984, an Irish band on the verge of breaking through to superstardom was making its way through America.
On the third leg of an international concert tour and not yet able to afford to travel across the country by plane, they were relegated to traveling from show to show on a tour bus. Starting from Dallas, Texas, they criss-crossed the continent numerous times as they finally made their way to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
By this time, the band had seen the Southwest, the Deep South, New England, the Midwest, and the West Coast. The trail they followed was unconventional, but still allowed them to see a landscape that few Irish people, let alone most Americans, get to see in a three-month period.
The band’s lead singer, an ambitious 24-year-old former chess prodigy, decided to try to capture the essence of the country he witnessed as their tour bus rolled from coast to coast and up and down the Mississippi River. The singer strummed along with the band’s 23 year old lead guitarist and together they wrote “Heartland” – a song later featured on the album Rattle and Hum. This five-minute ode to America attempted to delve beneath the glitz and glamour of New York City and Hollywood.
On all future American tours, this band, known as U2 to the world, would fly from city to city, but their epic road trip through rural and urban America had a deep impact on these musicians from a small island. U2’s next album, The Joshua Tree, would contain numerous references to the underside of America and the rejuvenating and cleansing effect it has on individuals.
U2’s feel for America, as outsiders looking in, is not unusual.
AMERICANS FAT WITH PROSPERITY
I read about a seventeen year old young man from India who was trying to move to America. When asked why he wanted to come here he said “I want to live in a country where most of the people are fat.” Of course we’d recoil from a statement like that because we who are “stout” are fighting it with a vengeance because we don’t think fat looks good neither is it healthy.
Incidentally, I’ve been to many parts of the world and have observed that we have the fattest poor people in America than any nation I’ve visited. I don’t say this without compassion because we all know the least expensive food has far and away the emptiest calories. The poor people in other countries are skin and bones, looking as if they’d love a sandwich while in this nation it’s not unusual to see a 300-plus lb. poor person.
I think I see what the young Indian man was driving at. He’d grown up in a nation where people routinely die of mal-nutrition, many in their youth. Large trucks in the cities make the rounds each morning to pick up the many street people who’ve died overnight like the garbage and refuse trucks make their rounds in America. This young Indian felt if people were getting plenty to eat, that country had to be doing something right. At least he had a chance of not starving in America.
WHY AMERICA?
America has always been a “melting pot,” drawing immigrants to its ports, but why America? What makes the United States such a prime destination for many citizens of the world? Although some would point to our more than two centuries of political stability or its continual economic strength, [sadly this is changing for the worse] the lure of America reaches deeper. England, for example, has remained relatively consistent for the past two centuries. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the British Empire, whose size was reminiscent of the Roman Empire. Yet, despite this, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” set their sights on the “Land of Opportunity,” our beloved America.
It would be difficult to pinpoint just one aspect of the American greatness, but political observers have come up with a variety of possibilities and blended them into the concept called “American Exceptionalism.”
1. The first component that’s given by honest historians for America’s Exceptionalism is: God bestowed His divine grace upon the United States from its earliest times. God chose America to serve as an example for the rest of the world. This is illustrated clearly in the great book “City upon a Hill” a sermon preached in 1630 by the Puritan leader John Winthrop, who envisioned a new society to show the Old World how to create a godly and orderly civilization.
2. The second component is genetic in nature; - the United States has benefited by a diversity of race, ethnicity, and other physical characteristics of its people. E Pluribus Unum, a phrase that appears on our currency and in other places means “Out of Many, One." Sounds to me a lot like: - "We're all in this thing together."
3. The third component is environmental: geography, climate, and resources gave the United States all the conditions necessary for its success.
4. The fourth component in America’s Exceptionalism is the fact that Americans have had an enduring distrust of too much federal government.
Note that I said-“We have had an enduring distrust of too much federal government.” Sometime in the middle of the twentieth century, right after the Great Depression, there was a sudden shift and many Americans began to rely more on the federal government.
America is undeniably the greatest country in the world, blessed with unparalleled freedoms and prosperity that for generations have made us an innovative and industrious people. America is exceptional. We’re afforded certain God-given rights that can never be taken away unless we relinquish them. We know that God, not government, bestows upon us these inalienable rights, and because of that, they must not be compromised by the whims of man. This makes us a unique nation, a nation that remains, as President Ronald Reagan once said, "a model and hope to the world."
Unfortunately, some leaders have either forgotten or chosen to ignore the glory of our founding. In April 2009, President Obama told a reporter in Strasbourg, France: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." In saying this, the president implied that American Exceptionalism is nothing terribly special and instead simply chalked it up to “romantic patriotism.”
I can’t tell you how upsetting this attitude makes me because it’s undermining our national portrait and our desire and ability to be leaders in the world. One doesn’t have to look far to see how pervasive “talking America down” has become.
TIME MAGAZINE
Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Time Magazine editor Richard Stengel presented the cover of his new July 4 issue, whose cover features a picture of the U.S. Constitution going through a paper shredder. Written across the middle of the page is a question asking- Does this document still matter? According to Stengel, “it does, but not as much anymore.”
Stengel said “People all the time are debating what’s constitutional and what’s unconstitutional. To me the Constitution is a guardrail. It’s for when we are going off the road and it gets us back on. It’s not a traffic cop that keeps us going down the center. There were no people who argued more about defining principles of America than the framers of the Constitution. They argued both sides of the most powerful issues in American history – slavery, states’ rights, central government, etc.”
IMO America would be better off if those who have disdain for this country and its Constitution would get on a slow boat to China and never return. But make no mistake they’d return and they’d kiss the ground when they arrived. I’ve often said, I wish every American could take a three week trip around the world and they’d see what an indescribable jewel The United States really is. If our citizenry visited a few other nations, if they did nothing but fly over them and smell the air emanating from the cities, [some Far East cities can be smelled from the air as a passenger jet approaches them] we’d have citizens who would return to this country with a new-born appreciation for their homeland.
American Exceptionalism isn’t empty national narcissism, but rather recognition of the blessings of God that keep our nation strong, independent, and free. We see the American story as one of tenacity and triumph. not as one flawed and in need of rewriting. We aren’t in need of “fundamental transformation” either. We recognize the times we’ve stumbled. We haven’t been perfect but if we stumbled, we always stumbled in the right direction and we know that it’s not due to the weakness of our foundation, but rather, human imperfection.
WHY AMERICA IS EXCEPTIONAL
American is exceptional because of our belief in the dignity and creativity of the individual made in God’s image. We know that it’s innately human to work, to risk, and to dream. We understand that these virtues, coupled with the conditions American Exceptionalism provides, allow us to enjoy the economic and social strength that other countries envy.
At their core, those who reject American Exceptionalism view the Constitution as a roadblock, and they yearn for unlimited federal government with more authority than the states and more power than the people. Because they strive for an all powerful federal government, they’re willing to sacrifice the rugged individualism that has made this nation exceptional in exchange for the “collective strength” they believe a vast government provides.
The latter-day darling of the progressive/socialistic movement is, of course, President Obama.
If you’ve read this blog long you’ll know that I’m not a supporter of president Obama’s policies and wrote blogs many months before he was elected sketching out what life with Obama would look like. If I say so myself, I was right on target. In all candidness, millions of others made the same predictions.
Let me be clear, "President Obama: America is the greatest nation on Earth." Our exceptionalism is forever ingrained in our founding documents that spell out exactly the roles of the federal government in relation to individual rights and states' rights.
Simply ignoring the truths of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution won't make them go away. There are tens of millions Americans, who love our country far too much to allow our exceptionalism to be exchanged for greater expansion of an already bloated, out-of-control, money grubbing federal government.
America was founded at a particular time, by a particular people, on the basis of particular principles about God, man, liberty, and constitutional government. The American people are among the most hard-working, church-going, affluent, and generous in the world. The founding of the United States was revolutionary, not in the sense of replacing one set of rulers with another, or overthrowing the institutions of society, but in placing political authority in the hands of the people.
As the English writer G. K. Chesterton famously observed, "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed." That creed is set forth most clearly in the Declaration of Independence, by which the American colonies announced their separation from Great Britain. The Declaration is a timeless statement of human rights, the proper purposes of government, and the limits on political authority.
Our Founders appealed to self-evident truths, stemming from the Laws of God, to justify their liberty. This is a universal and permanent standard. These freedoms should not be unique to America but apply to all men and women everywhere. They are as true today as they were in 1776.
Working from the principle of equality, our Founders asserted that men could govern themselves according to common beliefs and the rule of law. Throughout history, political power was—and still is—often held by the strongest. But if all are equal and have the same rights, then no one is fit by nature to rule or to be ruled.
As Thomas Jefferson put it, “The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately. The only source of the legitimate powers of government is the consent of the governed.”
Americans see our religious liberty as a fundamental right. It’s in our nature to pursue our convictions. Government can’t establish an official religion, but it must guarantee the free exercise of religion. If a free people are to govern themselves politically, they must understand that freedom goes hand in hand with responsibility.
These principles also mean that everyone has the right to the fruits of their own labor. This fundamental right to acquire, possess, and sell property is the backbone of this great nation and the most practical way to pursue happiness. This right, along with the free enterprise system, is the source of prosperity and the foundation of economic liberty.
The United States Constitution defines the institutions of American government: three distinct branches of government that make the law, enforce the law, and judge the law. This gives our government the powers it needs to protect our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The ultimate purpose of these rights and of limiting government is to protect freedom. That freedom allows our society—family, school, church, and private associations—to thrive.
America is great because our founders appealed to a higher standard, that all governments receive their power from the consent of the governed.
Freedom doesn’t belong only to the United States. The Declaration of Independence holds that all men everywhere are endowed with a right to liberty. That liberty is a permanent aspect of human nature everywhere and is necessary to understanding America's success, under God.
The primary responsibility of the United States is to defend the freedom and well-being of its people. To do this, we must apply America's universal principles to the challenges we face in the world.
This is not easy. America has not always been successful. But because of the principles to which we are dedicated, we always strive to uphold its highest ideals. More than any other nation, we have a special responsibility to defend the cause of liberty at home and abroad.
As George Washington said in his First Inaugural Address: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. America's role in the world is to preserve and to spread, by example and by action, the "sacred fire of liberty."
America is an exceptional nation, but not because of what it has achieved or accomplished. America is exceptional because, unlike any other nation, it’s dedicated to the principles of human dignity/liberty, grounded on the truths that all men are created equal and have equal God-given rights.
America's principles have created a prosperous and just nation unlike any other nation in history. They explain why we strongly defend our country, look proudly at our nation's origins, assert our political rights and civic responsibilities, and remain convinced of the special meaning of our country and its role of the world. Make no mistake, it’s because of our Godly principles, not despite them, that America has achieved greatness.
To this day, so many years after the American Revolution, these principles—proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution—still define us as a nation and a people. This is why friends of freedom the world over look to the United States not only as an ally against tyrants and despots but also as a powerful beacon to all.
Someone has said that the difference in a political conservative and a liberal is that conservatives look at the 4th of July as America’s birthday, while many liberals, especially in Washington D.C think that date to be April 15th.
May God continue to bless America!
Blessings,
John
Friday, February 13, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Lord It's Hard To Be Humble!
By John Stallings
Maybe you heard the story of the turtle that lived up north & wanted to go south for the winter.
Smart turtle that he was, he hatched up the idea to get two birds that would be going south anyway to help him. His idea was to ask these strong fliers each to carry the end of a stick in their mouths while he bit down with his mouth on the middle of the stick.
The idea was great & the thousand miles- plus trip passed without incident until they were coming in for a landing in Miami. As they flew low over the heads of the hundreds of spectators, people were saying, “Wow, what a great idea. I wonder whose idea that was?”
Wanting the credit, the turtle opened his mouth to say, “It’s my idea.” That act of pride was the death of him. Oh, Lord, it’s hard, even for a turtle, to be humble.
One time a fly crawled into the ear of a horse pulling a generals chariot. He looked around then said to the horse, “My, aren’t we raising a lot of dust?” Then there was the flea on the back of the Elephant & as they passed over a hanging bridge he said, “Boy, didn’t we make that bridge shake?” The last one concerns a woodpecker that was pecking on a large tree when lightening struck the tree knocking it down. Flying away the woodpecker thought out loud, “My, look at what I did to that tree.” Lord it’s hard to be humble.
Did you ever have an old song that you really didn’t even like get stuck in your head? It happens to me occasionally.
Maybe you remember Mac Davis’ song;
"Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way, I can’t wait to look in the mirror; I get better looking each day. Oh, Lord It’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can."
Most of us smile when we hear this song. We smile, though we’d never admit it, because somewhere deep inside us all lurks the feeling that we’re special, we’re the smartest, the coolest, the richest, the quickest, the most unique or the most popular.
I recently wrote an article dealing with the down side of making assumptions and I stand by that unequivocally. However, there are some places in life where you and I would do well to make an assumption or two.One of those places is in the area of greed. Have you noticed that we can quickly spot greed in someone else's life but find it difficult to spot it in our own life? Another area where most of have a blind spot is in the area of humility. We can spot the other fellow's pride easier than we can spot ours. Am I right?
My feeling is when we approach these two things as well as some others we should just assume that we're to some degree guilty and our periscope can't objectively see the whole truth.Then we can come to God as humbly as we know how and ask him to thoroughly search our hearts.
Ted Turner, founder of CNN once told an interviewer, with a straight face, “You know, if I had a little more humility I’d be just about perfect, don’t you think? Lord, it’s hard to be humble. [Even when you’re stupid enough to give The United Nations a billion dollars.]
When we were kids we’d go to school & boast that our dads were stronger, richer, & smarter than anyone else’s dad. In our teen years we wanted to have the right jeans, the right shoes, the right bracelet etc. so we’d be accepted by the right people.
Parents are just about as bad in boasting about their children & play a perpetual game of one-upsmanship. It goes something like this; “Are your kids smart? Well my kids are smarter, wiser, more athletic & more popular. As a matter of fact don’t get me started on my grand kids. As you might expect they’re super-stars, brilliant & class officers. Did your children go to a community college? Well mine got into Harvard.”
We also like to boast about the town where we live. It goes; “Is your city or area where you live an outstanding place to live? Well my city has a famous baseball team, hockey team, basketball or football team & when the team becomes number one our joyous fans almost riot with feelings of supremacy.” Lord it’s hard to be humble.
What about our churches? With God on our side, church folk love to let the world know that they are happier, more content, more fulfilled, more secure, more successful, more blessed & more at peace than other folk. Their attitude is, “it’s hard to be humble when you go to a church like mine. You say your pastor is on the radio? Well my pastor is on T.V [& by inference that makes him a better preacher.] We dress right, eat right, speak right, believe right, & do right a little bit more than most anybody we know.”
Lord it’s hard to be humble.
Often when some of these deliriously happy church folk get disgruntled, & maybe they have an offended/hurt pastor leading them, they leave the happy church where they were once so joyous & start a new even happier church. And don’t underestimate these people. Before you can say-cat in a hat- they’ll have a beautiful new building built as a monument to the proposition that they were right in making their move.
I don’t mean to be judgmental because sometimes its best when people part ways. Even Paul & Barnabas split up because they couldn’t agree about Mark. However sometimes I think these churches should have on their marquee; --“Church of the disgruntled brethren.”
What’s amazing about all of this is that we church folk convince the outsider that we do actually have it together. We convince them so well that they’re afraid to visit. People who aren’t part of the church drive by & see the huge parking lot stretched out like a free-way & think, “You know, I might not mind going there, but when I look at those steps & think about walking through those big doors, & then I think of all the happy people in there who’ve got it all together, it intimidates me. And besides, I never could sing very well anyway. Plus, I don’t think I could pass the dress code.”[Just in case you’re wondering, there isn’t any—that I know of.]
Some outsiders may flip that attitude & they say, “I’ve read about all the scandals these religious folk have had & I know of some divorces that have taken place among them & I’ve seen their kids fighting at school, & to tell you the truth I feel superior to these hypocrites. These church folk aren’t any better than anyone else; at least I don’t make a big profession.” There thought is; “Lord they ought to be humble; they’re so imperfect in every way.”
Many things the critics of the church say are true. To my knowledge Christians aren’t prettier, happier, wealthier, stronger, smarter, & more physically fit than others. Left on our own, we’re tempted & grapple with our imperfections; we struggle with the same sins, sorrows, & shortcomings as do non-churched people. Just having our name on a church roster doesn’t cause us to sprout wings & start walking on water & go around with a “glory-knot” on the back of our head [ladies hair do] & with a hymn on our lips all the time.
The biggest difference between those in the church & out of it is the fact that we by the Holy Spirit’s power have been graciously brought to Jesus Christ & saved. We, who once were lost, now have been found. None of this makes us better than anyone it just means we’ve responded by faith to the same call others have heard who didn’t respond. We by faith now have a heaven-sent substitute, our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Someone may say, “You Christians aren’t that good,” & they’d be right, but Jesus is “That-Good.”
PRIDE IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL CONFLICT
I repeat -pride is at the root; pride is the cause of almost all conflict. Proverbs 13:10 says;
Only by pride comes contention.
If you’re having conflict in your marriage, or family it’s being caused by pride. The same goes for the church. Pride won’t let things go. Pride won’t forgive. Pride keeps score. Pride puts pressure on people. Parental pride can force a boy to play football when doesn’t even like the game.
Proverbs 28:25 says;
He that is of a proud heart stirs up strife……
Pride is arrogant & obnoxious. Pride will cause you to be rude. When I counsel young people about marriage one of the things I suggest is, watch how the object of your affection treats people in public. Watch how they treat servers in restaurants or people who help them at airports. If they treat others badly you can mark it down they have a spirit of pride & that’s exactly how they’ll treat you after marriage. Rude people are being driven by pride. Pride makes us judgmental. Pride points out everyone else’s errors but isn’t it strange how hard it is for us to see ourselves?
Rick Warren tells the story of a grade school principle that made a royally big mistake. He got on the speaker & said to the entire school—“I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” He became the most popular principle in the history of the school. The kids all said, “I wish I had a dad like that.” And there were probably lots of women who also wished they had a husband like that. Lord it’s so hard to be humble.
GETTING OFF THE ‘PRIDE HIGH-HORSE’ IS THE SECRET OF RECONCILIATION
Swallow your pride & be willing to say- “I was wrong.” Pride prevents personal growth. The moment your head puffs up you stop growing. I stop growing.
Proverbs 11:2 says;
Pride leads to disgrace but with humility comes wisdom.
Proverbs 10:17 says;
Anyone willing to be corrected is on the pathway to life, but anyone refusing has lost his chance.
Have you ever known someone that wouldn’t get help in parenting, in their marriage, in their taxes, with an addiction or anything else? Really now, that’s nothing but pride.
When I break a bone I’m going to a bone expert. I believe in divine healing but if I don’t have the faith to get a healing I’m not going to lay around & die, neither will I allow anyone I care about to do so. That’s nothing but stubborn, obstinate, bull-headed PRIDE.
It’s prideful self-absorption that brings so much stress & tension into our lives. We sit around thinking about ourselves so much, no wonder we’re miserable.
When I was pastoring my first church I was always miserable, wondering what the people really thought of me. One day I read something that turned my life around. It said, “Don’t worry about what people think of you. If you knew how seldom they did you’d be shocked.”
Proverbs 25:29 says;
The fear of man is a trap.
Everything in our culture says “it’s all about you. You’re the best. You deserve it. You’re the greatest. Have it your way. Focus on your image."
I’ve shared with you that Juda & I watch the T.V show American Idol now & then. We’ve noticed that each year the contestants [not all of them] get more & more unteachable & won’t take counsel from the judges. It’s not that I think the judges are always right, but they’re obviously there for some reason.
Certainly it’s good for a youngster to have self confidence & be able to think for themselves. But it makes me uneasy for anyone who won’t take advice at anytime about anything. I guess it’s because I’ve seen so many lives ruined that way.
I used to think a person can do anything they want to if they work hard enough at it. I no longer say that. Even with my Global Positioning, I can still get hopelessly lost. Almost every time I travel I get humbled. Even with a map & GP I can still get lost, consequently I’m never going to be a pilot. I seem to have this horrible sense of direction. [Sometimes.]
Everybody needs something in their life that they’re a total failure at. It keeps us humble. As for me there are only a few things I’m any good at. Another one of my pet peeves is Golf. The holes are too small & the equipment is wholly inadequate for the job. There’s plenty of frustration in life without adding Golf. There are lots of things you & I are never going to be because we don’t have the innate talent. The Beatles had some good advice, “Let it be.”
I fight pride every day in any manifestations that I see cropping up in my life. My wife helps me in the areas I can’t see. Along the way I’ve also had a few others to help me? Don’t you love it when that happens? In truth, other people can’t humble us, we must humble ourselves. Others can humiliate us but we must humble ourselves.
Don’t ever ask God to humble you. Bend your knee & bow your head & pray, “Oh Lord, I humble myself before you. I humble myself before you. Lord, help me get my stubborn pride out of the way so I can continue to grow & be a blessing to others.”
Here’s another tip from a man with a lot of scars, - don’t pray things like “Lord, if I’ve sinned or done anything wrong….” Trust me; you don’t have to say “if.” If you can’t think of anything to confess get out your bible & start reading & you’ll eventually hit it! The Bible judges the thoughts & intent of the heart.
Pride is based on a false image of yourself. Humility is based on a true & realistic factor. There is a good kind of pride, a pride that will move us toward excellence, never perfection. Good pride is rejoicing in what God is doing in & through you. Good pride won’t let you go to the Mall with your hair looking like last years birds nest, or shine one shoe & leave the other unshined.
As we’ve said, bad pride is selfish & stubborn, holds on to grudges & won’t admit when we’re wrong. This kind of prideful life brings no glory to God.
GOD HATES PRIDE
The Bible says;
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6
If you & I are proud we’ve got God & the Devil both against us. Pride got the Devil kicked out of heaven.
Humility has gotten a bad-rap in our generation. I mean, when we think of humility we often think of allowing ourselves to be used as doormats. But that’s not Bible humility. Truly humble people aren’t people who’re always putting themselves down. Humble people are just people who have been empowered by God to make the needs of others the priority in their lives.
Humble people don’t have inferiority complexes. They are secure in who God made them. In fact humility is a mark of an emotionally mature person. We can think of it this way; humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s simply thinking about yourself less.
Humility isn’t just something a person has; it’s something a person does. Remember Forrest Gump’s words-“Momma always said, stupid is as stupid does.” Likewise, humble is-as humble does.
At Ronald Reagan’s funeral, the elder President Bush told a very interesting little story about Mr. Reagan when he was in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound he received during the assassination attempt in 1981.
Just days after the surgery that repaired his life-threatening injuries, his aides discovered him on his hands & knees in his hospital room, wiping water from the floor. Bush said of Reagan, “He did this because he was worried that his nurse would get in trouble.” Bush said, “I knew him well enough to know he never thought he’d be seen doing that.”
The last words & deeds of a person before they die take on larger than life proportions. We’ll bend down to listen to the final fleeting words that fall from the lips of a loved one, memorializing those last words or actions.
The night before Jesus was taken into custody & the final chapter of His Passion began, He could have done many things. He could have had a final teaching session, impressing on His disciples again the necessity of remaining faithful to the mandate of getting the gospel to all nations.
But in those final moments, instead of words, Jesus chose an act. Obviously He felt this was the most important thing He could do with those precious moments. And what did He do? He wrapped a towel around Himself, knelt & washed the feet of His band of rough-hewn disciples.
He was saying through that act, that the disciples must understand theirs was a mission of humility & serving & without that, in the final analysis there would be no completion of His earthly mission.
Pride, self-involvement, ego & elitism won’t accomplish His work but the attitude & action of loving & serving will.
Listen to these words about our blessed Lord Jesus;
Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, & took upon Himself the form of a servant, & was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man he humbled Himself & became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Therefore God hath highly exalted Him, & given Him a name which is above every name.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven & things in earth & things under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. –Philippians 2:6-11
If you & I as Christians do or say things that are misunderstood by some to sound like we’re maybe a little too excited, it’s just that we’re not ashamed or embarrassed by what happened to our Savior in the simple stable or at the shameful crucifixion on Golgotha’s chalky brow.
We praise our heavenly Father who was able to send His Son down to earth having cattle for his first companions & thieves for His last, & wash us from our sins.
Lord, it’s hard to be humble-when we have a savior who's perfect in every way.
Blessings,
John
Maybe you heard the story of the turtle that lived up north & wanted to go south for the winter.
Smart turtle that he was, he hatched up the idea to get two birds that would be going south anyway to help him. His idea was to ask these strong fliers each to carry the end of a stick in their mouths while he bit down with his mouth on the middle of the stick.
The idea was great & the thousand miles- plus trip passed without incident until they were coming in for a landing in Miami. As they flew low over the heads of the hundreds of spectators, people were saying, “Wow, what a great idea. I wonder whose idea that was?”
Wanting the credit, the turtle opened his mouth to say, “It’s my idea.” That act of pride was the death of him. Oh, Lord, it’s hard, even for a turtle, to be humble.
One time a fly crawled into the ear of a horse pulling a generals chariot. He looked around then said to the horse, “My, aren’t we raising a lot of dust?” Then there was the flea on the back of the Elephant & as they passed over a hanging bridge he said, “Boy, didn’t we make that bridge shake?” The last one concerns a woodpecker that was pecking on a large tree when lightening struck the tree knocking it down. Flying away the woodpecker thought out loud, “My, look at what I did to that tree.” Lord it’s hard to be humble.
Did you ever have an old song that you really didn’t even like get stuck in your head? It happens to me occasionally.
Maybe you remember Mac Davis’ song;
"Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way, I can’t wait to look in the mirror; I get better looking each day. Oh, Lord It’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can."
Most of us smile when we hear this song. We smile, though we’d never admit it, because somewhere deep inside us all lurks the feeling that we’re special, we’re the smartest, the coolest, the richest, the quickest, the most unique or the most popular.
I recently wrote an article dealing with the down side of making assumptions and I stand by that unequivocally. However, there are some places in life where you and I would do well to make an assumption or two.One of those places is in the area of greed. Have you noticed that we can quickly spot greed in someone else's life but find it difficult to spot it in our own life? Another area where most of have a blind spot is in the area of humility. We can spot the other fellow's pride easier than we can spot ours. Am I right?
My feeling is when we approach these two things as well as some others we should just assume that we're to some degree guilty and our periscope can't objectively see the whole truth.Then we can come to God as humbly as we know how and ask him to thoroughly search our hearts.
Ted Turner, founder of CNN once told an interviewer, with a straight face, “You know, if I had a little more humility I’d be just about perfect, don’t you think? Lord, it’s hard to be humble. [Even when you’re stupid enough to give The United Nations a billion dollars.]
When we were kids we’d go to school & boast that our dads were stronger, richer, & smarter than anyone else’s dad. In our teen years we wanted to have the right jeans, the right shoes, the right bracelet etc. so we’d be accepted by the right people.
Parents are just about as bad in boasting about their children & play a perpetual game of one-upsmanship. It goes something like this; “Are your kids smart? Well my kids are smarter, wiser, more athletic & more popular. As a matter of fact don’t get me started on my grand kids. As you might expect they’re super-stars, brilliant & class officers. Did your children go to a community college? Well mine got into Harvard.”
We also like to boast about the town where we live. It goes; “Is your city or area where you live an outstanding place to live? Well my city has a famous baseball team, hockey team, basketball or football team & when the team becomes number one our joyous fans almost riot with feelings of supremacy.” Lord it’s hard to be humble.
What about our churches? With God on our side, church folk love to let the world know that they are happier, more content, more fulfilled, more secure, more successful, more blessed & more at peace than other folk. Their attitude is, “it’s hard to be humble when you go to a church like mine. You say your pastor is on the radio? Well my pastor is on T.V [& by inference that makes him a better preacher.] We dress right, eat right, speak right, believe right, & do right a little bit more than most anybody we know.”
Lord it’s hard to be humble.
Often when some of these deliriously happy church folk get disgruntled, & maybe they have an offended/hurt pastor leading them, they leave the happy church where they were once so joyous & start a new even happier church. And don’t underestimate these people. Before you can say-cat in a hat- they’ll have a beautiful new building built as a monument to the proposition that they were right in making their move.
I don’t mean to be judgmental because sometimes its best when people part ways. Even Paul & Barnabas split up because they couldn’t agree about Mark. However sometimes I think these churches should have on their marquee; --“Church of the disgruntled brethren.”
What’s amazing about all of this is that we church folk convince the outsider that we do actually have it together. We convince them so well that they’re afraid to visit. People who aren’t part of the church drive by & see the huge parking lot stretched out like a free-way & think, “You know, I might not mind going there, but when I look at those steps & think about walking through those big doors, & then I think of all the happy people in there who’ve got it all together, it intimidates me. And besides, I never could sing very well anyway. Plus, I don’t think I could pass the dress code.”[Just in case you’re wondering, there isn’t any—that I know of.]
Some outsiders may flip that attitude & they say, “I’ve read about all the scandals these religious folk have had & I know of some divorces that have taken place among them & I’ve seen their kids fighting at school, & to tell you the truth I feel superior to these hypocrites. These church folk aren’t any better than anyone else; at least I don’t make a big profession.” There thought is; “Lord they ought to be humble; they’re so imperfect in every way.”
Many things the critics of the church say are true. To my knowledge Christians aren’t prettier, happier, wealthier, stronger, smarter, & more physically fit than others. Left on our own, we’re tempted & grapple with our imperfections; we struggle with the same sins, sorrows, & shortcomings as do non-churched people. Just having our name on a church roster doesn’t cause us to sprout wings & start walking on water & go around with a “glory-knot” on the back of our head [ladies hair do] & with a hymn on our lips all the time.
The biggest difference between those in the church & out of it is the fact that we by the Holy Spirit’s power have been graciously brought to Jesus Christ & saved. We, who once were lost, now have been found. None of this makes us better than anyone it just means we’ve responded by faith to the same call others have heard who didn’t respond. We by faith now have a heaven-sent substitute, our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Someone may say, “You Christians aren’t that good,” & they’d be right, but Jesus is “That-Good.”
PRIDE IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL CONFLICT
I repeat -pride is at the root; pride is the cause of almost all conflict. Proverbs 13:10 says;
Only by pride comes contention.
If you’re having conflict in your marriage, or family it’s being caused by pride. The same goes for the church. Pride won’t let things go. Pride won’t forgive. Pride keeps score. Pride puts pressure on people. Parental pride can force a boy to play football when doesn’t even like the game.
Proverbs 28:25 says;
He that is of a proud heart stirs up strife……
Pride is arrogant & obnoxious. Pride will cause you to be rude. When I counsel young people about marriage one of the things I suggest is, watch how the object of your affection treats people in public. Watch how they treat servers in restaurants or people who help them at airports. If they treat others badly you can mark it down they have a spirit of pride & that’s exactly how they’ll treat you after marriage. Rude people are being driven by pride. Pride makes us judgmental. Pride points out everyone else’s errors but isn’t it strange how hard it is for us to see ourselves?
Rick Warren tells the story of a grade school principle that made a royally big mistake. He got on the speaker & said to the entire school—“I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” He became the most popular principle in the history of the school. The kids all said, “I wish I had a dad like that.” And there were probably lots of women who also wished they had a husband like that. Lord it’s so hard to be humble.
GETTING OFF THE ‘PRIDE HIGH-HORSE’ IS THE SECRET OF RECONCILIATION
Swallow your pride & be willing to say- “I was wrong.” Pride prevents personal growth. The moment your head puffs up you stop growing. I stop growing.
Proverbs 11:2 says;
Pride leads to disgrace but with humility comes wisdom.
Proverbs 10:17 says;
Anyone willing to be corrected is on the pathway to life, but anyone refusing has lost his chance.
Have you ever known someone that wouldn’t get help in parenting, in their marriage, in their taxes, with an addiction or anything else? Really now, that’s nothing but pride.
When I break a bone I’m going to a bone expert. I believe in divine healing but if I don’t have the faith to get a healing I’m not going to lay around & die, neither will I allow anyone I care about to do so. That’s nothing but stubborn, obstinate, bull-headed PRIDE.
It’s prideful self-absorption that brings so much stress & tension into our lives. We sit around thinking about ourselves so much, no wonder we’re miserable.
When I was pastoring my first church I was always miserable, wondering what the people really thought of me. One day I read something that turned my life around. It said, “Don’t worry about what people think of you. If you knew how seldom they did you’d be shocked.”
Proverbs 25:29 says;
The fear of man is a trap.
Everything in our culture says “it’s all about you. You’re the best. You deserve it. You’re the greatest. Have it your way. Focus on your image."
I’ve shared with you that Juda & I watch the T.V show American Idol now & then. We’ve noticed that each year the contestants [not all of them] get more & more unteachable & won’t take counsel from the judges. It’s not that I think the judges are always right, but they’re obviously there for some reason.
Certainly it’s good for a youngster to have self confidence & be able to think for themselves. But it makes me uneasy for anyone who won’t take advice at anytime about anything. I guess it’s because I’ve seen so many lives ruined that way.
I used to think a person can do anything they want to if they work hard enough at it. I no longer say that. Even with my Global Positioning, I can still get hopelessly lost. Almost every time I travel I get humbled. Even with a map & GP I can still get lost, consequently I’m never going to be a pilot. I seem to have this horrible sense of direction. [Sometimes.]
Everybody needs something in their life that they’re a total failure at. It keeps us humble. As for me there are only a few things I’m any good at. Another one of my pet peeves is Golf. The holes are too small & the equipment is wholly inadequate for the job. There’s plenty of frustration in life without adding Golf. There are lots of things you & I are never going to be because we don’t have the innate talent. The Beatles had some good advice, “Let it be.”
I fight pride every day in any manifestations that I see cropping up in my life. My wife helps me in the areas I can’t see. Along the way I’ve also had a few others to help me? Don’t you love it when that happens? In truth, other people can’t humble us, we must humble ourselves. Others can humiliate us but we must humble ourselves.
Don’t ever ask God to humble you. Bend your knee & bow your head & pray, “Oh Lord, I humble myself before you. I humble myself before you. Lord, help me get my stubborn pride out of the way so I can continue to grow & be a blessing to others.”
Here’s another tip from a man with a lot of scars, - don’t pray things like “Lord, if I’ve sinned or done anything wrong….” Trust me; you don’t have to say “if.” If you can’t think of anything to confess get out your bible & start reading & you’ll eventually hit it! The Bible judges the thoughts & intent of the heart.
Pride is based on a false image of yourself. Humility is based on a true & realistic factor. There is a good kind of pride, a pride that will move us toward excellence, never perfection. Good pride is rejoicing in what God is doing in & through you. Good pride won’t let you go to the Mall with your hair looking like last years birds nest, or shine one shoe & leave the other unshined.
As we’ve said, bad pride is selfish & stubborn, holds on to grudges & won’t admit when we’re wrong. This kind of prideful life brings no glory to God.
GOD HATES PRIDE
The Bible says;
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6
If you & I are proud we’ve got God & the Devil both against us. Pride got the Devil kicked out of heaven.
Humility has gotten a bad-rap in our generation. I mean, when we think of humility we often think of allowing ourselves to be used as doormats. But that’s not Bible humility. Truly humble people aren’t people who’re always putting themselves down. Humble people are just people who have been empowered by God to make the needs of others the priority in their lives.
Humble people don’t have inferiority complexes. They are secure in who God made them. In fact humility is a mark of an emotionally mature person. We can think of it this way; humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s simply thinking about yourself less.
Humility isn’t just something a person has; it’s something a person does. Remember Forrest Gump’s words-“Momma always said, stupid is as stupid does.” Likewise, humble is-as humble does.
At Ronald Reagan’s funeral, the elder President Bush told a very interesting little story about Mr. Reagan when he was in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound he received during the assassination attempt in 1981.
Just days after the surgery that repaired his life-threatening injuries, his aides discovered him on his hands & knees in his hospital room, wiping water from the floor. Bush said of Reagan, “He did this because he was worried that his nurse would get in trouble.” Bush said, “I knew him well enough to know he never thought he’d be seen doing that.”
The last words & deeds of a person before they die take on larger than life proportions. We’ll bend down to listen to the final fleeting words that fall from the lips of a loved one, memorializing those last words or actions.
The night before Jesus was taken into custody & the final chapter of His Passion began, He could have done many things. He could have had a final teaching session, impressing on His disciples again the necessity of remaining faithful to the mandate of getting the gospel to all nations.
But in those final moments, instead of words, Jesus chose an act. Obviously He felt this was the most important thing He could do with those precious moments. And what did He do? He wrapped a towel around Himself, knelt & washed the feet of His band of rough-hewn disciples.
He was saying through that act, that the disciples must understand theirs was a mission of humility & serving & without that, in the final analysis there would be no completion of His earthly mission.
Pride, self-involvement, ego & elitism won’t accomplish His work but the attitude & action of loving & serving will.
Listen to these words about our blessed Lord Jesus;
Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, & took upon Himself the form of a servant, & was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man he humbled Himself & became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Therefore God hath highly exalted Him, & given Him a name which is above every name.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven & things in earth & things under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. –Philippians 2:6-11
If you & I as Christians do or say things that are misunderstood by some to sound like we’re maybe a little too excited, it’s just that we’re not ashamed or embarrassed by what happened to our Savior in the simple stable or at the shameful crucifixion on Golgotha’s chalky brow.
We praise our heavenly Father who was able to send His Son down to earth having cattle for his first companions & thieves for His last, & wash us from our sins.
Lord, it’s hard to be humble-when we have a savior who's perfect in every way.
Blessings,
John
Friday, January 30, 2015
Most Read Blogs Of 2014
By John Stallings
1. Is anyone born
gay? 3/14
2. When we all get
to heaven 4/14
3. Dottie Rambo and
me 11/14
4. Holy
bounce-ology 11/14
5. Putting the
world’s most influential evangelist to the bible test 11/14
6. The man who
kissed the door of heaven and went to hell
10/14
7. A woman named
somebody 10/14
8. Serious
salvation 8/14
9. You might be a
Pharisee if…6/14
Sunday, January 11, 2015
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!
By John Stallings
For this cause I left you in Crete. Titus 1:5
" Part of the hospital’s roof blew off.
Power was lost. Snakes swarmed in the waters that flooded some hallways. We lost our generator within 24 hours. We could not get fuel. We had to “hand-bag ventilate” patients,”
Dr. Albert Barracas said,
"In the midst of this chaos, the hospital’s doctors worked around the clock, putting their patient’s health above their own."
Such heroic stories abound in the midst of the death, destruction & displacement of Hurricane Katrina, the storm which in 2005 landed a cruel blow to the Gulf Coast region of the United States. Katrina led many Americans to do some extraordinary things.Sadly because Katrina was turned into a political football, much of this heroism has been lost.
One thing for sure, the great city of Houston was the unsung hero, especially the homes that took in house guests. Among all those in Houston who sacrificed is Kirby Robinson who took in 27 unexpected house guests.
LEMONADE
There’s an old saying; “when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” These ordinary people made the best of a bad situation. They made lemonade.Many, many people have chosen to “take lemons & make lemonade.” Because they did the world is a much better & safer place to live. MADD was founded because Candy Lightner’s daughter was killed by a drunk driver. Polly Klass’s father Marc has made a huge impact on child abuse laws & Nancy Brinker has raised money & awareness for breast cancer victims in memory of her sister through the Susan B. Anthony Foundation.
There are still hundreds of men & women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today who would rather be home with their families but instead are making lemonade, making the best of a bad situation, which by definition is what all wars are.
“Popular” actress Sally Field made a cheap, sassy remark about our war involvement at the Emmys which had to be “bleeped.” In essence she expostulated that if mothers ruled the world there’d be no more -----wars. First of all I doubt the truthfulness of that statement & secondly, she failed to mention that if we didn’t stand up to the terrorists, most women would be barefoot, pregnant, illiterate & would all be wearing Muslim head gear.
Have you ever been in a bad situation you couldn’t alter, improve or get out of? I heard a man say once that he finally gave up on changing people but he kept a long list of candidates just in case he ever decided to try again.
TITUS IN CRETE
Right after the two Timothy’s there’s the little “post card” sized book called Titus. Though it only contains 46 verses it’s still a powerhouse because it’s chocked full of rich theology pertaining to salvation & Christian maturity.But Titus also contains an intriguing story about a young preacher caught on the horns of a dilemma. Paul is writing to Titus his young protégé’ whom he’s left on the island of Crete & as we read between the lines some interesting facts emerge.Crete is a small oblong island off the coast of Greece with a spine of rough- hewn mountains running right down the middle of it.
Today’s Crete is a picturesque island humming with commerce & would be a delightful stop on any Greek island tour, but evidently in Paul & Titus’ day it left much to be desired.Paul left young Titus on the island on one of their missionary trips & Titus has failed to develop any kind of traction so he wants to leave. That last statement was probably an understatement; Titus is begging to leave. His attitude has become--“anywhere but Crete.”
Scholars believe Paul’s little letter to Titus was written in response to a letter Titus previously wrote him asking to be moved. But of course we don’t have that letter. That’s O.K., we’re on solid ground because of evidence we’ll piece together.
I can relate to Titus here for more than one reason not the least of which is that I’ve always had some sort of anxiety on small islands. No offense to the good people of Key West Florida but for some reason I’ve almost always had a bad feeling when I went & had to stay there more than a night or two. I first visited Key West as a boy of about ten when my father conducted a revival there. Then in the sixties, seventies & eighties I would go back regularly for preaching engagements. Though I don’t know exactly why, and I acknowledge some wonderful people live there, I’m usually a little depressed in Key West.
The reason I say almost always is that we went down to Key West in the mid-nineties with extended family for a visit & that heavy feeling didn’t hit me then. Also, we stopped-over there for one day & night on a 2003 Cruise & I was o.k. with Key West both times. Maybe I’m getting better or maybe Key West is.
Anyway, Key West people are great & we were always treated well by them. I think my feelings have something to do with the 100 plus mile drive over water on a two lane road that caused me to feel I’d never get out of there alive. Other problems are, Key West is about two & one half miles long & a half-mile wide (of course they’ve been enlarging the place for years—dredging) & Miami, the nearest city of any size is several hours north.
There’s something about an island, maybe it’s island fever & maybe that was part of Titus’s problem with Crete, I don’t know. But it’s almost certain that Titus wrote to Paul & said “get me out of here.” In this little letter we have Paul’s response; “No chance buddy, you’re going to stay in Crete.”
Paul agrees with Titus—get this—Paul agrees Crete is a bad place. In verses 10-14 of chapter one Paul tells Titus that even one of their prophets has said terrible things about his own people in Crete. He called them liars, evil beasts & slow bellies or gluttons. Wow! But still Paul refuses to let young Titus off the hook; he stays in Crete!
No matter who we are, we’ve all been to Crete symbolically. Crete is the place we want to leave but can’t. Crete is the place of discouragement & desire to give up & quit. Crete is the place of bad circumstances & extreme weariness. Crete is the place of outward opposition & inward despair. Crete is symbolic of any place that’s getting on your last nerve & you’d give almost anything to get away. Crete represents a place of suffering, a hopeless situation with impossible people.
The problem is you can’t leave. You’re stuck. All the whining in the world isn’t going to change the facts.The only way you can catalogue Crete & make any sense of it is, “You’re going to have to make lemonade. You’re going to have to make the best of a bad situation.” A friend of mine humorously says his favorite scripture verse is, “Grin & bear it.” If that were really a verse, it would be tailor made for Crete.
These ancient Cretans must have been “hum-dingers.” If you mentioned the name Crete people would automatically think of dishonesty, overindulgence & laziness. (Titus 1:12)Paul offers to Titus his reasons for leaving him in Crete. You might call it Paul’s CRETIAN FORMULA.”Titus must stay in Crete because;
1. TITUS NEEDS CRETE!
What!? Yes, this terrible place called Crete was going to build character & endurance in Titus. We hear more these days about deliverance than we do development but God is greatly invested in our spiritual maturity. How are we ever going to see God work miracles for us if we are constantly leaving the place where the miracle is needed?
When we pray for God to make us sweet we expect Him to turn over a bucket of honey in our soul, but instead God sends “sister sandpaper” along to test our patience. When we want to be more loving God sends the unlovely into our lives. Isn’t it strange how that works? That’s God again, turning man’s wisdom on its head. We want spiritual strength & stamina so God sends us to his “spiritual gym,”-- pressure.
I heard a man tell about going into a potters shop once while visiting Israel. The potter opened his Kiln & let him see the different vessels that were at different stages of baking. The man asked the potter how he knew when it was time to take a vessel out of the heat, whereupon the potter reached in a got one of the vessels & thumped it. He said, “When I thump the vessel & it doesn’t ‘sing” or have that certain sound, back into the oven it goes.” That man left the potters shop carrying with him the following lesson; --when God puts us in the fire, if we want out, we’d better “sing” or we go right back in.
We have the tribe of Gad with us today. You might wonder who the tribe of Gad is. They’re the millions of Christians who’re in “Spiritual orbit” gadding from one place to the other looking for that perfect situation. They are looking for smooth sailing. If we could see the kingdom of God the way God sees it, we’d see something comparable to millions of fleas hopping & popping up & down trying to leave the circumstances they’re in. God’s challenge to us is, “If you want to grow & mature, stay in Crete.”
Titus isn’t in Crete to be punished but perfected.Titus isn’t in Crete to be miserable but to become mature.Titus isn’t in Crete to be comfortable but to be conformed to the image of Christ.Titus will learn patience in Crete & that will lead to perfection.Titus will face tough opposition in Crete, & someday thank God for all he endured.Yes, Titus needed Crete, but also;
2. CRETE NEEDED TITUS.
In the second chapter of Titus Paul tells Titus just how much the people of Crete need him. The women, men & young people desperately need him, his teaching & his example.Titus was young so maybe we’ll give him a little slack here, but what did he want, a beach ministry? Did he want to ride a gravy train with biscuit wheels? I’ve heard people say if things went bad for America we should all move to the country, hide out & grow tribulation food. That sounds good but then who will minister to all the human need? Who’ll be around when people need spiritual answers? When things get bad in the world are we called to retreat to hiding places & let the world do the best it can? No! We are the salt & light department.
What if every Doctor said; “You know I’m tired of sick people. I’m sick of listening to people whine all day long. I want to be around healthy people from now on?” What then would sick people do?What if every teacher said; “I’m tired of being around uneducated & ignorant people. I want to spend the rest of my life around smart people?”What if our policemen & women got tired of keeping us safe & said, “I’m sick of dealing with the worst of humanity & fearing for my life at every traffic stop. I want to quit & spend the rest of my life around good, upstanding law-abiding folk?”What if our fire-fighters got tired of fires & left their jobs to go become farmers? If all these public servants said, “get me out of Crete” we’d all be in trouble.
What if Jesus had said; “Father, I’m tired of these human beings. They don’t like me, they don’t even know who I am & I’m definitely not appreciated. Even my home town of Nazareth ran me off. I don’t think this whole thing is working. Please let me come back to heaven, this is just too hard?” Jesus even said that He could have done that but aren’t we glad He stayed with His mission until all of man’s sin debt was paid? Jesus made the best of not only a bad situation but a situation that defies description because He was constrained by love to finish His task.Paul told Titus in chapter two verse 14;
---Who gave Himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, & purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.
In chapter three of Titus, Paul reminds him that he used to be foolish, deceptive, lustful, pleasure loving, envious hateful & malicious. Then He gives to Titus & also to us the great verse about our free salvation;
Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration & renewing of the Holy Ghost….The third thing Paul stressed to Titus was;
3. GOD NEEDS YOU IN CRETE.
God uses people to reach people. God needs Titus to be in Crete for a witness of His love. In spite of their bad reputation, in spite of their seeming unlovely ness, God still loves them & wants to redeem them & that’s why He needs Titus to be there.If there were ever a place you’d think would be beyond God’s love it would be Crete. But Titus’ presence there proves Crete mattered to God. How could God love Crete?It’s not that Cretans are lovable; it’s because God is love.God loved Crete not because of what they were but what He is.His love is not dependent on their character but His character.
In Titus 1:5 Paul tells Titus to “set in order” things that were wanting. A medical term is used here; like a doctor setting a bone. He’s telling Titus to put relationships back together among the Cretans. We don’t think of setting a bone as healing but in truth it’s a very vital part of the healing process.
A lot of people are sick because they’re “out of joint” in their relationships & wont properly heal until they’re back in place like a doctor sets a bone in place.In Ephesians 6:18 Paul tells the church there;Praying always with all prayer & supplication in the Spirit & watching thereunto with all PERSEVERANCE & supplication….The word perseverance means to persist or endure in spite of elements arrayed against you. From its Latin roots the word literally means “through severity.”
In an age of instant oatmeal & microwave popcorn we’re not too big on perseverance. Before we can persevere we need to be in severe circumstances.Perseverance was what Paul was asking of Titus in Crete. But Paul wasn’t asking Titus to do anything he didn’t do & with regularity.
Listen to 2 Corinthians 11:24—Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night & a day I have been in the deep; journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness & painfulness in watchings often, in hunger & thirst in fastings often in cold & nakedness. Beside those things that are without that, which cometh upon me daily, -- the care of all the churches.
One of the necessary elements of perseverance is TIME. Time is a requirement for us to say we’ve persevered. When a child asks “are we there yet,” without a sufficient amount of time passing, you know they’re not doing too good at persevering. Time is where we have our biggest problems & not coincidentally, time is one of the things God uses to test us. The very fact that we live in time not timelessness helps us to realize that everything has a lifespan & so will our trials & tribulations.
Paul said,--For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh in us a far more exceeding & eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things that are not seen….2 Cor. 4:17-18
Life is often rough & if you are blessed to sails its seas for long you’ll hit a storm or two. Don’t jump ship or ask God to discharge you. Maybe you’re living in Crete or working in Crete. Maybe your marriage seems like Crete to you.For Titus to be successful in Crete he was going have to trust in God. Trusting will help us in Crete like nothing else.
Psalm 37:5 states; --Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.
Don’t pray for a better place, pray for strength to stay where you are & prevail. Don’t get into the spiritual fetal position. God is making you into the kind of person He wants you to be & when you’ve been tried you’ll come forth as pure gold.If you have to, take that old bitter lemon and make lemonade-but.....
STAY IN CRETE.
Blessings,
John
For this cause I left you in Crete. Titus 1:5
" Part of the hospital’s roof blew off.
Power was lost. Snakes swarmed in the waters that flooded some hallways. We lost our generator within 24 hours. We could not get fuel. We had to “hand-bag ventilate” patients,”
Dr. Albert Barracas said,
"In the midst of this chaos, the hospital’s doctors worked around the clock, putting their patient’s health above their own."
Such heroic stories abound in the midst of the death, destruction & displacement of Hurricane Katrina, the storm which in 2005 landed a cruel blow to the Gulf Coast region of the United States. Katrina led many Americans to do some extraordinary things.Sadly because Katrina was turned into a political football, much of this heroism has been lost.
One thing for sure, the great city of Houston was the unsung hero, especially the homes that took in house guests. Among all those in Houston who sacrificed is Kirby Robinson who took in 27 unexpected house guests.
LEMONADE
There’s an old saying; “when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” These ordinary people made the best of a bad situation. They made lemonade.Many, many people have chosen to “take lemons & make lemonade.” Because they did the world is a much better & safer place to live. MADD was founded because Candy Lightner’s daughter was killed by a drunk driver. Polly Klass’s father Marc has made a huge impact on child abuse laws & Nancy Brinker has raised money & awareness for breast cancer victims in memory of her sister through the Susan B. Anthony Foundation.
There are still hundreds of men & women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today who would rather be home with their families but instead are making lemonade, making the best of a bad situation, which by definition is what all wars are.
“Popular” actress Sally Field made a cheap, sassy remark about our war involvement at the Emmys which had to be “bleeped.” In essence she expostulated that if mothers ruled the world there’d be no more -----wars. First of all I doubt the truthfulness of that statement & secondly, she failed to mention that if we didn’t stand up to the terrorists, most women would be barefoot, pregnant, illiterate & would all be wearing Muslim head gear.
Have you ever been in a bad situation you couldn’t alter, improve or get out of? I heard a man say once that he finally gave up on changing people but he kept a long list of candidates just in case he ever decided to try again.
TITUS IN CRETE
Right after the two Timothy’s there’s the little “post card” sized book called Titus. Though it only contains 46 verses it’s still a powerhouse because it’s chocked full of rich theology pertaining to salvation & Christian maturity.But Titus also contains an intriguing story about a young preacher caught on the horns of a dilemma. Paul is writing to Titus his young protégé’ whom he’s left on the island of Crete & as we read between the lines some interesting facts emerge.Crete is a small oblong island off the coast of Greece with a spine of rough- hewn mountains running right down the middle of it.
Today’s Crete is a picturesque island humming with commerce & would be a delightful stop on any Greek island tour, but evidently in Paul & Titus’ day it left much to be desired.Paul left young Titus on the island on one of their missionary trips & Titus has failed to develop any kind of traction so he wants to leave. That last statement was probably an understatement; Titus is begging to leave. His attitude has become--“anywhere but Crete.”
Scholars believe Paul’s little letter to Titus was written in response to a letter Titus previously wrote him asking to be moved. But of course we don’t have that letter. That’s O.K., we’re on solid ground because of evidence we’ll piece together.
I can relate to Titus here for more than one reason not the least of which is that I’ve always had some sort of anxiety on small islands. No offense to the good people of Key West Florida but for some reason I’ve almost always had a bad feeling when I went & had to stay there more than a night or two. I first visited Key West as a boy of about ten when my father conducted a revival there. Then in the sixties, seventies & eighties I would go back regularly for preaching engagements. Though I don’t know exactly why, and I acknowledge some wonderful people live there, I’m usually a little depressed in Key West.
The reason I say almost always is that we went down to Key West in the mid-nineties with extended family for a visit & that heavy feeling didn’t hit me then. Also, we stopped-over there for one day & night on a 2003 Cruise & I was o.k. with Key West both times. Maybe I’m getting better or maybe Key West is.
Anyway, Key West people are great & we were always treated well by them. I think my feelings have something to do with the 100 plus mile drive over water on a two lane road that caused me to feel I’d never get out of there alive. Other problems are, Key West is about two & one half miles long & a half-mile wide (of course they’ve been enlarging the place for years—dredging) & Miami, the nearest city of any size is several hours north.
There’s something about an island, maybe it’s island fever & maybe that was part of Titus’s problem with Crete, I don’t know. But it’s almost certain that Titus wrote to Paul & said “get me out of here.” In this little letter we have Paul’s response; “No chance buddy, you’re going to stay in Crete.”
Paul agrees with Titus—get this—Paul agrees Crete is a bad place. In verses 10-14 of chapter one Paul tells Titus that even one of their prophets has said terrible things about his own people in Crete. He called them liars, evil beasts & slow bellies or gluttons. Wow! But still Paul refuses to let young Titus off the hook; he stays in Crete!
No matter who we are, we’ve all been to Crete symbolically. Crete is the place we want to leave but can’t. Crete is the place of discouragement & desire to give up & quit. Crete is the place of bad circumstances & extreme weariness. Crete is the place of outward opposition & inward despair. Crete is symbolic of any place that’s getting on your last nerve & you’d give almost anything to get away. Crete represents a place of suffering, a hopeless situation with impossible people.
The problem is you can’t leave. You’re stuck. All the whining in the world isn’t going to change the facts.The only way you can catalogue Crete & make any sense of it is, “You’re going to have to make lemonade. You’re going to have to make the best of a bad situation.” A friend of mine humorously says his favorite scripture verse is, “Grin & bear it.” If that were really a verse, it would be tailor made for Crete.
These ancient Cretans must have been “hum-dingers.” If you mentioned the name Crete people would automatically think of dishonesty, overindulgence & laziness. (Titus 1:12)Paul offers to Titus his reasons for leaving him in Crete. You might call it Paul’s CRETIAN FORMULA.”Titus must stay in Crete because;
1. TITUS NEEDS CRETE!
What!? Yes, this terrible place called Crete was going to build character & endurance in Titus. We hear more these days about deliverance than we do development but God is greatly invested in our spiritual maturity. How are we ever going to see God work miracles for us if we are constantly leaving the place where the miracle is needed?
When we pray for God to make us sweet we expect Him to turn over a bucket of honey in our soul, but instead God sends “sister sandpaper” along to test our patience. When we want to be more loving God sends the unlovely into our lives. Isn’t it strange how that works? That’s God again, turning man’s wisdom on its head. We want spiritual strength & stamina so God sends us to his “spiritual gym,”-- pressure.
I heard a man tell about going into a potters shop once while visiting Israel. The potter opened his Kiln & let him see the different vessels that were at different stages of baking. The man asked the potter how he knew when it was time to take a vessel out of the heat, whereupon the potter reached in a got one of the vessels & thumped it. He said, “When I thump the vessel & it doesn’t ‘sing” or have that certain sound, back into the oven it goes.” That man left the potters shop carrying with him the following lesson; --when God puts us in the fire, if we want out, we’d better “sing” or we go right back in.
We have the tribe of Gad with us today. You might wonder who the tribe of Gad is. They’re the millions of Christians who’re in “Spiritual orbit” gadding from one place to the other looking for that perfect situation. They are looking for smooth sailing. If we could see the kingdom of God the way God sees it, we’d see something comparable to millions of fleas hopping & popping up & down trying to leave the circumstances they’re in. God’s challenge to us is, “If you want to grow & mature, stay in Crete.”
Titus isn’t in Crete to be punished but perfected.Titus isn’t in Crete to be miserable but to become mature.Titus isn’t in Crete to be comfortable but to be conformed to the image of Christ.Titus will learn patience in Crete & that will lead to perfection.Titus will face tough opposition in Crete, & someday thank God for all he endured.Yes, Titus needed Crete, but also;
2. CRETE NEEDED TITUS.
In the second chapter of Titus Paul tells Titus just how much the people of Crete need him. The women, men & young people desperately need him, his teaching & his example.Titus was young so maybe we’ll give him a little slack here, but what did he want, a beach ministry? Did he want to ride a gravy train with biscuit wheels? I’ve heard people say if things went bad for America we should all move to the country, hide out & grow tribulation food. That sounds good but then who will minister to all the human need? Who’ll be around when people need spiritual answers? When things get bad in the world are we called to retreat to hiding places & let the world do the best it can? No! We are the salt & light department.
What if every Doctor said; “You know I’m tired of sick people. I’m sick of listening to people whine all day long. I want to be around healthy people from now on?” What then would sick people do?What if every teacher said; “I’m tired of being around uneducated & ignorant people. I want to spend the rest of my life around smart people?”What if our policemen & women got tired of keeping us safe & said, “I’m sick of dealing with the worst of humanity & fearing for my life at every traffic stop. I want to quit & spend the rest of my life around good, upstanding law-abiding folk?”What if our fire-fighters got tired of fires & left their jobs to go become farmers? If all these public servants said, “get me out of Crete” we’d all be in trouble.
What if Jesus had said; “Father, I’m tired of these human beings. They don’t like me, they don’t even know who I am & I’m definitely not appreciated. Even my home town of Nazareth ran me off. I don’t think this whole thing is working. Please let me come back to heaven, this is just too hard?” Jesus even said that He could have done that but aren’t we glad He stayed with His mission until all of man’s sin debt was paid? Jesus made the best of not only a bad situation but a situation that defies description because He was constrained by love to finish His task.Paul told Titus in chapter two verse 14;
---Who gave Himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, & purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.
In chapter three of Titus, Paul reminds him that he used to be foolish, deceptive, lustful, pleasure loving, envious hateful & malicious. Then He gives to Titus & also to us the great verse about our free salvation;
Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration & renewing of the Holy Ghost….The third thing Paul stressed to Titus was;
3. GOD NEEDS YOU IN CRETE.
God uses people to reach people. God needs Titus to be in Crete for a witness of His love. In spite of their bad reputation, in spite of their seeming unlovely ness, God still loves them & wants to redeem them & that’s why He needs Titus to be there.If there were ever a place you’d think would be beyond God’s love it would be Crete. But Titus’ presence there proves Crete mattered to God. How could God love Crete?It’s not that Cretans are lovable; it’s because God is love.God loved Crete not because of what they were but what He is.His love is not dependent on their character but His character.
In Titus 1:5 Paul tells Titus to “set in order” things that were wanting. A medical term is used here; like a doctor setting a bone. He’s telling Titus to put relationships back together among the Cretans. We don’t think of setting a bone as healing but in truth it’s a very vital part of the healing process.
A lot of people are sick because they’re “out of joint” in their relationships & wont properly heal until they’re back in place like a doctor sets a bone in place.In Ephesians 6:18 Paul tells the church there;Praying always with all prayer & supplication in the Spirit & watching thereunto with all PERSEVERANCE & supplication….The word perseverance means to persist or endure in spite of elements arrayed against you. From its Latin roots the word literally means “through severity.”
In an age of instant oatmeal & microwave popcorn we’re not too big on perseverance. Before we can persevere we need to be in severe circumstances.Perseverance was what Paul was asking of Titus in Crete. But Paul wasn’t asking Titus to do anything he didn’t do & with regularity.
Listen to 2 Corinthians 11:24—Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night & a day I have been in the deep; journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness & painfulness in watchings often, in hunger & thirst in fastings often in cold & nakedness. Beside those things that are without that, which cometh upon me daily, -- the care of all the churches.
One of the necessary elements of perseverance is TIME. Time is a requirement for us to say we’ve persevered. When a child asks “are we there yet,” without a sufficient amount of time passing, you know they’re not doing too good at persevering. Time is where we have our biggest problems & not coincidentally, time is one of the things God uses to test us. The very fact that we live in time not timelessness helps us to realize that everything has a lifespan & so will our trials & tribulations.
Paul said,--For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh in us a far more exceeding & eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things that are not seen….2 Cor. 4:17-18
Life is often rough & if you are blessed to sails its seas for long you’ll hit a storm or two. Don’t jump ship or ask God to discharge you. Maybe you’re living in Crete or working in Crete. Maybe your marriage seems like Crete to you.For Titus to be successful in Crete he was going have to trust in God. Trusting will help us in Crete like nothing else.
Psalm 37:5 states; --Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.
Don’t pray for a better place, pray for strength to stay where you are & prevail. Don’t get into the spiritual fetal position. God is making you into the kind of person He wants you to be & when you’ve been tried you’ll come forth as pure gold.If you have to, take that old bitter lemon and make lemonade-but.....
STAY IN CRETE.
Blessings,
John
Sunday, December 7, 2014
ABUSE OF POWER
By John Stallings
Why did the writers have to put this story in the Bible?
It would have been so easy to leave it out. This is such an evil & appalling episode in a man’s life it could easily have been swept under the rug. Why tell everything?
Some writers & painters throughout history have reconstructed the scenes in this story to make the women a seductress, deliberately displaying her charms in front of the poor hapless man -making him a victim. They would have us believe the man in the story was lured into the relationship.
But the Bible makes it clear. The woman in this story wasn’t responsible for what happened to her. She was simply going through the ritual of taking a bath.
I’ve been sickened at times hearing preachers [few, thankfully] depict this woman preening, styling & profiling & trying to get the man’s eye. That never happened. The Bible says not one word, not one suggestion, nary even a hint that this woman has any agenda of her own nor any part to play- beyond being the object of a powerful man’s lust & greed. Sad to say the woman was “collateral damage.”
Women who live in countries where God is honored & the gospel is preached, should get down on their knees in praise & honor to a Savior that has raised their gender above the level of beasts of burden. One only has to fly mere minutes by jet from the United States to see that multitudes of women in our world are still treated as nothing more than chattel. Where the gospel goes, women are released & elevated.
WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A ROYAL POWER-TRIP
Of course I speak of King David & Bathsheba. David was anointed king behind Saul’s back, even while Saul was still king. David was brave, strong, clever & handsome. The kind of guy legends are based on. He made Israel a nation to be reckoned with, a secure land in which to live. David was a king anointed by a prophet of God. I thought about it & I can’t think of a man alive today or for that matter- a man I’ve read about in recent history that, considering all his gifts could stand in David’s shadow. However, if David were alive today we might raise our eyebrow at his warlike tendencies & we’d definitely raise them at the story we’re considering now.
Having risen from his siesta one afternoon, David noticed Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most devoted men, Uriah. He called for her & seduced her. On discovering that she was pregnant he made arrangements to get the husband brought home on leave so it would look as if he was the father.
But it didn’t work & David ended up having Uriah murdered, bringing Bathsheba into his harem, as if he didn’t have enough wives already. Power had finally gotten to David’s head. He had come to see himself as someone who could use power to get whatever he wanted. One brave soul, the prophet Nathan dared to criticize him & to his credit David accepted the criticism & repented.
But the consequences of David’s abuse of power were horrific for all concerned. Bathsheba lost not only her husband but also her child & was obliged to marry the killer of her husband & her seducer. All she could do was bow to David’s power, the oppressor & the oppressed inexorably bound together.
In this one act, an act that more than qualifies as a terrible sin plus a hideous crime, David sets himself up as a paradigm of the abuse of power. If there ever was a power grab this was it & Bathsheba fell victim to it. It all happened very quickly. There is nothing I can find in the story that says David is interested in anything more than a one night, or afternoon stand with Bathsheba. No love or affection is mentioned & no lasting relationship is desired. David is done with her until she sends him the message, “I’m pregnant.” That changes everything. This thing isn’t over.
Just a few words about sexual sins; in today’s culture, people seem to think sexual sins are just about like all the others. We even say-in the eyes of God; sexual sin is a sin alright but so is lying & stealing. However, we’d do well not to be so blasé on this subject. Sexual sin has many consequences other sins don’t have, such as feelings of guilt, self-condemnation, anxiety, damaged self-esteem, hypocrisy, emptiness, anger, depression, dishonesty, wasted time, diminished effectiveness, regret, abortion, crime, punishment, disease & death. Sexual sin harms our testimony & our usefulness to God.
But, there’s good news. We have a God who will forgive us of every sin & remove it from us as far as the east is from the west. However, it’s always good to keep the aforementioned things in mind less like David; we are tricked into thinking that our actions won’t have any negative repercussions. As we’ve shown, all sin is sin but sexual sins have a different stigma & the long term effect can certainly be more devastating.
It seems to be difficult if not impossible, outside the grace of God for a human being with power to maintain their integrity. If we look closely at Abuse of Power it takes on the attributes of a plague, a rampant- infectious disease. It takes extraordinary integrity, insight, & strength of character to have power & not abuse it.
People in power somehow have always felt above the law. Social mores & legal codes that the rest of us follow to maintain order in our society don’t apply to them. They assume that respecting others & their rights no longer applies. They feel that to show their power, maintain it & accomplish their agendas they can break all the rules, thinking that the end justifies the means.
Here’s something interesting.
In 2 Samuel 11, we are given the details of David’s sin with Bathsheba. Earlier in this piece when I questioned why the writers of the Bible would include David’s awful sin, maybe you thought, “Stallings, the writers didn’t have any choice. God saw to it that this sin was to be exposed.”
If this was your thought, I would then direct you to 1 Chronicles 20 where the same story is again told but told a little differently. Chronologically this passage of scripture speaks of the exact time in David’s life but the entire disastrous episode with Bathsheba & Uriah is left out. The whole catastrophic story in David’s life & career is glossed over. Thankfully in 2 Samuel 11the story is preserved in detail. In this passage we get a complete picture of David as a human being.
In the interest of full disclosure, it very well might be the writer of first Chronicles felt it best not to commit overkill on the subject of David’s sin with Bathsheba. It’s possible that leaving it out in this passage was saying-we already know that part so why obsess over it? Anyway, the point remains that all this could have been hushed-up but God saw fit to let the world know about it.
Keep in mind this is David we’re talking about. David the anointed one, -whose linage will produce the Messiah. In getting a full & complete picture of David’s life we are allowed the chance to find ourselves in him. We’re allowed to see what it means to fail, what the consequences are & how God relates to us in the midst of our failings, working to redeem us & the damage we’ve done.
Again, women in David’s time were considered property, first of their fathers, & later their husbands. Which may explain why the narrative says nothing about Bathsheba’s reaction to any of this, or why she goes so calmly to David afterward to tell him she’s pregnant, or why after the mourning for her husband is over, following his death in battle, there’s no mention of resistance on her part to becoming a part of David’s harem.
A CLOSER LOOK AT POWER
Have you ever considered how much frustration & anger manifests because we feel powerless in a situation? Power is a dynamic in every relationship. Power exists in national & international relationships as well as on a smaller scale of relationships within our families, our colleagues or employees & our friends. In each of these relationships we are faced with a choice between using that power to serve our own needs & wants & using it to meet the needs of others. We can empower each other or try to overpower each other.
YOU AND I MAY NOT BE COMPLETELY INNOCENT HERE
We’ll get back to David but we may need to do a “mirror check” right about now. We all have power of some sort. Maybe it’s parental power, the power of a caregiver, pastoral power, chairman of a committee or company, a therapist’s power or the power of an attorney or banker. We all have power of some kind & none of us are immune to the temptations to abuse it.
Maybe that’s the reason the Bible writers preserved this horrendous chapter of David’s life. God, ever the great storyteller, must have felt this true story would be a warning to us all.
Fear of losing power is scary to many people because there’s a myth that somehow there isn’t enough power to go around, so you & I both can’t have it. This is crazy on its face. If I have power that doesn’t mean you can’t have it. Like oxygen, there’s enough power to go around. The real issue is how we’ll use that power.
The Bible trumpets & teaches us emphatically that the abuse of power is almost as common as breathing in the human family. In that respect --“all have sinned & come short of the glory of God.”
NABOTH’S VINEYARD
In the book of 1 Kings there’s the story of a little guy named Naboth. It’s not a pleasant story. It’s a story of the abuse of power. King Ahab wants Naboth’s little vineyard because it’s so close to his palace. Ahab’s wife Jezebel schemes to get it for him by having Naboth falsely accused & killed. Once Naboth is dead, Ahab takes possession of the little plot of land but soon Elijah finds out about it & pronounces God’s judgment on him for it.
Naboth refused to sell his land because he got it as a result of an inheritance. As a matter of fact, he tells Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” There are many places to “hang our theological hats” in this story.
We have here a henpecked husband & a conniving, manipulative wife. Although Ahab repented, & acknowledged his sin he still didn’t’ escape the consequences of his deeds. Elijah told Jezebel that soon dogs would lick her blood from the street & that indeed was the case in short order. This is just another example of God looking with disdain on the powerful throwing their weight around & it will always culminate in judgment.
SARAH, ABRAHAM AND HAGAR
What can these three teach us about abuse of power? The story is in Genesis 16. Our matriarch feels powerless to bear children so she suggests her husband & Hagar, their servant girl produce a child. Isn’t this the most harebrained idea that ever came down the pike?
This is never going to work. When Hagar has the child Sarah feels she’s been lowered in Hagar’s eyes. After all, Hagar is pregnant with Abraham’s seed. She becomes furious & asked her husband to intercede & old Abe doesn’t use his power right. As a matter of fact he gives his power away to his wife -& Sarah, in her pitiful jealous rage deals harshly with the servant girl.
Now on the Lam, Hagar runs into the desert & she is soon sitting & crying because her son is near death. God intervenes for Hagar & sends an angel to save them. God is the only one in this story who uses His power for good.
IMHO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ABUSES POWER
Some things about the president haven’t shocked me. I knew he’d never so much as ran a candy store .
However, I’ll have to admit that even I have been shocked by president Obama’s clueless ness about the mood of Americans & what they want. The man who smashed the Clinton machine, almost from the time he walked into the Oval office has been disjointed & alienated from the people who put him there.
The recent"shellacking" handed to president Obama, by giving the Senate to his opponents, IMHO, was such a shock to his system that he immediately confirmed the old saying that "Denial is more than a river in Egypt."
To me it seems like he doesn’t care that huge chunks of the country have given up on him. When a large percentage of the country are saying they don’t want ObamaCare, nor do they approve of the way He's bypassing Congress in the illegal alien situation , can we categorize Obama’s uncaring attitude to what the country wants as anything other than abuse of power, when he persists in ramming things down the throats of the people-all in the name of, “I don’t give up?”
What do you call it when voters by a large margin have said for months they don’t want his brand of healthcare so he pushes it even harder? I call it abuse of power. People thought he & his Chicago buddies would deliver bipartisanship bur he insists on giving his hard-left allies the keys to the kingdom.
Obama supporters worry about terrorism so he wants to close Gitmo & move the worst of the worst to the homeland. His approval ratings drop like a rock & over 60% say the country is on the wrong track & he responds by giving himself a “good solid B-plus” for his first years. Each & every day new voices in his own party are saying-“he just doesn’t get it.”
The story we’re considering about ancient king David is obviously a story from the distant past. But when you look at some of its salient points & compare them with our current president, it seems shockingly similar, especially as regards abuse of power. To be fair, I must say Obama isn't the first to do this & probably won't be the last.
When something goes wrong, it’s not Obama’s fault. - “greedy” insurance companies, doctors who cut off limbs just for the money, special interests, the media—have all taken their turns being blamed for what he hasn’t fixed. One thing for sure—the buck doesn’t stop at Obama’s desk.
BACK TO DAVID
It seems that being God’s anointed isn’t enough to save David from his own nature. When David hears Bathsheba is pregnant, he must now go into damage-control mode. He sends word to Joab his general & asks him to send Uriah back from the battlefield for consultations with the king.
You have to admit David has come up with a rather simple plan to take care of his problem.
THINGS GET OUT OF CONTROL
Up to now David has been in control of his life, but watch how that control slips away from him. Now everything is basically in the hands of others.
Understand that I don’t take a super-spiritual attitude about sexual temptations. I’ve always been as red-blooded as other normal men & certainly know what temptation is. But I’ve never really understood how a preacher could commit adultery & think he’s going to walk away from it as if it never happened. Doesn’t he know anything about human nature? Better yet, doesn’t he understand women any better than that?
I’ve often said, “If I ever, God forbid, commit adultery, I hope I’d have a better excuse than—“I thought she’d keep the secret, I thought she wouldn’t tell.” What does an individual whose committed adultery do when the phone rings late at night or a mysterious knock comes at their door? There are many warnings given in God’s word about sexual sins, but if that wasn’t the case, if the Bible was silent about it, to me one of the reasons not to do it, other than concerns about your own character, & your love for your spouse, would be-you have to put your life & reputation in another person’s hands, & like David, your life isn’t your own anymore.
Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband came back from battle & David did everything he could to get the boy to go home but noooooo—he wasn’t going home. He turns out to have more integrity than the king. He’s a straight-up kind of guy. Since he couldn’t get Uriah to go home, David’s cover story starts to fall apart. His scheme didn’t work. Isn’t this about as repulsive a story as you’ve ever heard?
DAVID’S FINAL, UGLY ACT OF POWER ABUSE
David orders Uriah into one of the sharpest areas of battle & gets him killed. David has solved his problem or so he thinks. At last he can breathe freely again. His neck is out of the noose. Or is it? God is still going to face him with his sin by sending Nathan. The sword will never depart from David’s house.
So the last word hasn’t been spoken yet in David’s tangled web. David feels a relief but a relief that won’t last.
That human beings will abuse power seems to be a given. A fact of life. Let’s be honest... David’s actions were appalling but hardly stand out from what the leaders of our day do routinely.
Though we pray we’ll never do anything on the scale of what David did, we can find ourselves in this story; coveting what isn’t rightly ours; forgetting who we are & whose we are, hurting or stepping on others to get what we want; taking great measures to cover up what we’ve done; using others who seem nameless & inconsequential like Bathsheba for our own gain.
How we or anyone uses their power is a choice we make. The choice can only be truly made by staying in touch with the real power through prayer & communion with God.
David & his family paid a heavy price for his abusive moment of self-indulgence but God wasn't finished with him just as He isn't finished with us. He's in this project called humanity for the long haul. I think it no accident that hundreds of years after David passed; Matthew began his gospel with a list of ancestors of Jesus. He did something rarely if ever done in Jewish genealogies; he named a number of women among Jesus’ ancestors & one of them is Bathsheba.
Matthew understood that no abuse can ever thwart God’s power to redeem & create new beginnings.
That should give us hope that even the destructive consequences of our own abuses of power may be forgiven & redeemed as well.
Blessings,
John
Why did the writers have to put this story in the Bible?
It would have been so easy to leave it out. This is such an evil & appalling episode in a man’s life it could easily have been swept under the rug. Why tell everything?
Some writers & painters throughout history have reconstructed the scenes in this story to make the women a seductress, deliberately displaying her charms in front of the poor hapless man -making him a victim. They would have us believe the man in the story was lured into the relationship.
But the Bible makes it clear. The woman in this story wasn’t responsible for what happened to her. She was simply going through the ritual of taking a bath.
I’ve been sickened at times hearing preachers [few, thankfully] depict this woman preening, styling & profiling & trying to get the man’s eye. That never happened. The Bible says not one word, not one suggestion, nary even a hint that this woman has any agenda of her own nor any part to play- beyond being the object of a powerful man’s lust & greed. Sad to say the woman was “collateral damage.”
Women who live in countries where God is honored & the gospel is preached, should get down on their knees in praise & honor to a Savior that has raised their gender above the level of beasts of burden. One only has to fly mere minutes by jet from the United States to see that multitudes of women in our world are still treated as nothing more than chattel. Where the gospel goes, women are released & elevated.
WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A ROYAL POWER-TRIP
Of course I speak of King David & Bathsheba. David was anointed king behind Saul’s back, even while Saul was still king. David was brave, strong, clever & handsome. The kind of guy legends are based on. He made Israel a nation to be reckoned with, a secure land in which to live. David was a king anointed by a prophet of God. I thought about it & I can’t think of a man alive today or for that matter- a man I’ve read about in recent history that, considering all his gifts could stand in David’s shadow. However, if David were alive today we might raise our eyebrow at his warlike tendencies & we’d definitely raise them at the story we’re considering now.
Having risen from his siesta one afternoon, David noticed Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most devoted men, Uriah. He called for her & seduced her. On discovering that she was pregnant he made arrangements to get the husband brought home on leave so it would look as if he was the father.
But it didn’t work & David ended up having Uriah murdered, bringing Bathsheba into his harem, as if he didn’t have enough wives already. Power had finally gotten to David’s head. He had come to see himself as someone who could use power to get whatever he wanted. One brave soul, the prophet Nathan dared to criticize him & to his credit David accepted the criticism & repented.
But the consequences of David’s abuse of power were horrific for all concerned. Bathsheba lost not only her husband but also her child & was obliged to marry the killer of her husband & her seducer. All she could do was bow to David’s power, the oppressor & the oppressed inexorably bound together.
In this one act, an act that more than qualifies as a terrible sin plus a hideous crime, David sets himself up as a paradigm of the abuse of power. If there ever was a power grab this was it & Bathsheba fell victim to it. It all happened very quickly. There is nothing I can find in the story that says David is interested in anything more than a one night, or afternoon stand with Bathsheba. No love or affection is mentioned & no lasting relationship is desired. David is done with her until she sends him the message, “I’m pregnant.” That changes everything. This thing isn’t over.
Just a few words about sexual sins; in today’s culture, people seem to think sexual sins are just about like all the others. We even say-in the eyes of God; sexual sin is a sin alright but so is lying & stealing. However, we’d do well not to be so blasé on this subject. Sexual sin has many consequences other sins don’t have, such as feelings of guilt, self-condemnation, anxiety, damaged self-esteem, hypocrisy, emptiness, anger, depression, dishonesty, wasted time, diminished effectiveness, regret, abortion, crime, punishment, disease & death. Sexual sin harms our testimony & our usefulness to God.
But, there’s good news. We have a God who will forgive us of every sin & remove it from us as far as the east is from the west. However, it’s always good to keep the aforementioned things in mind less like David; we are tricked into thinking that our actions won’t have any negative repercussions. As we’ve shown, all sin is sin but sexual sins have a different stigma & the long term effect can certainly be more devastating.
It seems to be difficult if not impossible, outside the grace of God for a human being with power to maintain their integrity. If we look closely at Abuse of Power it takes on the attributes of a plague, a rampant- infectious disease. It takes extraordinary integrity, insight, & strength of character to have power & not abuse it.
People in power somehow have always felt above the law. Social mores & legal codes that the rest of us follow to maintain order in our society don’t apply to them. They assume that respecting others & their rights no longer applies. They feel that to show their power, maintain it & accomplish their agendas they can break all the rules, thinking that the end justifies the means.
Here’s something interesting.
In 2 Samuel 11, we are given the details of David’s sin with Bathsheba. Earlier in this piece when I questioned why the writers of the Bible would include David’s awful sin, maybe you thought, “Stallings, the writers didn’t have any choice. God saw to it that this sin was to be exposed.”
If this was your thought, I would then direct you to 1 Chronicles 20 where the same story is again told but told a little differently. Chronologically this passage of scripture speaks of the exact time in David’s life but the entire disastrous episode with Bathsheba & Uriah is left out. The whole catastrophic story in David’s life & career is glossed over. Thankfully in 2 Samuel 11the story is preserved in detail. In this passage we get a complete picture of David as a human being.
In the interest of full disclosure, it very well might be the writer of first Chronicles felt it best not to commit overkill on the subject of David’s sin with Bathsheba. It’s possible that leaving it out in this passage was saying-we already know that part so why obsess over it? Anyway, the point remains that all this could have been hushed-up but God saw fit to let the world know about it.
Keep in mind this is David we’re talking about. David the anointed one, -whose linage will produce the Messiah. In getting a full & complete picture of David’s life we are allowed the chance to find ourselves in him. We’re allowed to see what it means to fail, what the consequences are & how God relates to us in the midst of our failings, working to redeem us & the damage we’ve done.
Again, women in David’s time were considered property, first of their fathers, & later their husbands. Which may explain why the narrative says nothing about Bathsheba’s reaction to any of this, or why she goes so calmly to David afterward to tell him she’s pregnant, or why after the mourning for her husband is over, following his death in battle, there’s no mention of resistance on her part to becoming a part of David’s harem.
A CLOSER LOOK AT POWER
Have you ever considered how much frustration & anger manifests because we feel powerless in a situation? Power is a dynamic in every relationship. Power exists in national & international relationships as well as on a smaller scale of relationships within our families, our colleagues or employees & our friends. In each of these relationships we are faced with a choice between using that power to serve our own needs & wants & using it to meet the needs of others. We can empower each other or try to overpower each other.
YOU AND I MAY NOT BE COMPLETELY INNOCENT HERE
We’ll get back to David but we may need to do a “mirror check” right about now. We all have power of some sort. Maybe it’s parental power, the power of a caregiver, pastoral power, chairman of a committee or company, a therapist’s power or the power of an attorney or banker. We all have power of some kind & none of us are immune to the temptations to abuse it.
Maybe that’s the reason the Bible writers preserved this horrendous chapter of David’s life. God, ever the great storyteller, must have felt this true story would be a warning to us all.
Fear of losing power is scary to many people because there’s a myth that somehow there isn’t enough power to go around, so you & I both can’t have it. This is crazy on its face. If I have power that doesn’t mean you can’t have it. Like oxygen, there’s enough power to go around. The real issue is how we’ll use that power.
The Bible trumpets & teaches us emphatically that the abuse of power is almost as common as breathing in the human family. In that respect --“all have sinned & come short of the glory of God.”
NABOTH’S VINEYARD
In the book of 1 Kings there’s the story of a little guy named Naboth. It’s not a pleasant story. It’s a story of the abuse of power. King Ahab wants Naboth’s little vineyard because it’s so close to his palace. Ahab’s wife Jezebel schemes to get it for him by having Naboth falsely accused & killed. Once Naboth is dead, Ahab takes possession of the little plot of land but soon Elijah finds out about it & pronounces God’s judgment on him for it.
Naboth refused to sell his land because he got it as a result of an inheritance. As a matter of fact, he tells Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” There are many places to “hang our theological hats” in this story.
We have here a henpecked husband & a conniving, manipulative wife. Although Ahab repented, & acknowledged his sin he still didn’t’ escape the consequences of his deeds. Elijah told Jezebel that soon dogs would lick her blood from the street & that indeed was the case in short order. This is just another example of God looking with disdain on the powerful throwing their weight around & it will always culminate in judgment.
SARAH, ABRAHAM AND HAGAR
What can these three teach us about abuse of power? The story is in Genesis 16. Our matriarch feels powerless to bear children so she suggests her husband & Hagar, their servant girl produce a child. Isn’t this the most harebrained idea that ever came down the pike?
This is never going to work. When Hagar has the child Sarah feels she’s been lowered in Hagar’s eyes. After all, Hagar is pregnant with Abraham’s seed. She becomes furious & asked her husband to intercede & old Abe doesn’t use his power right. As a matter of fact he gives his power away to his wife -& Sarah, in her pitiful jealous rage deals harshly with the servant girl.
Now on the Lam, Hagar runs into the desert & she is soon sitting & crying because her son is near death. God intervenes for Hagar & sends an angel to save them. God is the only one in this story who uses His power for good.
IMHO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ABUSES POWER
Some things about the president haven’t shocked me. I knew he’d never so much as ran a candy store .
However, I’ll have to admit that even I have been shocked by president Obama’s clueless ness about the mood of Americans & what they want. The man who smashed the Clinton machine, almost from the time he walked into the Oval office has been disjointed & alienated from the people who put him there.
The recent"shellacking" handed to president Obama, by giving the Senate to his opponents, IMHO, was such a shock to his system that he immediately confirmed the old saying that "Denial is more than a river in Egypt."
To me it seems like he doesn’t care that huge chunks of the country have given up on him. When a large percentage of the country are saying they don’t want ObamaCare, nor do they approve of the way He's bypassing Congress in the illegal alien situation , can we categorize Obama’s uncaring attitude to what the country wants as anything other than abuse of power, when he persists in ramming things down the throats of the people-all in the name of, “I don’t give up?”
What do you call it when voters by a large margin have said for months they don’t want his brand of healthcare so he pushes it even harder? I call it abuse of power. People thought he & his Chicago buddies would deliver bipartisanship bur he insists on giving his hard-left allies the keys to the kingdom.
Obama supporters worry about terrorism so he wants to close Gitmo & move the worst of the worst to the homeland. His approval ratings drop like a rock & over 60% say the country is on the wrong track & he responds by giving himself a “good solid B-plus” for his first years. Each & every day new voices in his own party are saying-“he just doesn’t get it.”
The story we’re considering about ancient king David is obviously a story from the distant past. But when you look at some of its salient points & compare them with our current president, it seems shockingly similar, especially as regards abuse of power. To be fair, I must say Obama isn't the first to do this & probably won't be the last.
When something goes wrong, it’s not Obama’s fault. - “greedy” insurance companies, doctors who cut off limbs just for the money, special interests, the media—have all taken their turns being blamed for what he hasn’t fixed. One thing for sure—the buck doesn’t stop at Obama’s desk.
BACK TO DAVID
It seems that being God’s anointed isn’t enough to save David from his own nature. When David hears Bathsheba is pregnant, he must now go into damage-control mode. He sends word to Joab his general & asks him to send Uriah back from the battlefield for consultations with the king.
You have to admit David has come up with a rather simple plan to take care of his problem.
THINGS GET OUT OF CONTROL
Up to now David has been in control of his life, but watch how that control slips away from him. Now everything is basically in the hands of others.
Understand that I don’t take a super-spiritual attitude about sexual temptations. I’ve always been as red-blooded as other normal men & certainly know what temptation is. But I’ve never really understood how a preacher could commit adultery & think he’s going to walk away from it as if it never happened. Doesn’t he know anything about human nature? Better yet, doesn’t he understand women any better than that?
I’ve often said, “If I ever, God forbid, commit adultery, I hope I’d have a better excuse than—“I thought she’d keep the secret, I thought she wouldn’t tell.” What does an individual whose committed adultery do when the phone rings late at night or a mysterious knock comes at their door? There are many warnings given in God’s word about sexual sins, but if that wasn’t the case, if the Bible was silent about it, to me one of the reasons not to do it, other than concerns about your own character, & your love for your spouse, would be-you have to put your life & reputation in another person’s hands, & like David, your life isn’t your own anymore.
Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband came back from battle & David did everything he could to get the boy to go home but noooooo—he wasn’t going home. He turns out to have more integrity than the king. He’s a straight-up kind of guy. Since he couldn’t get Uriah to go home, David’s cover story starts to fall apart. His scheme didn’t work. Isn’t this about as repulsive a story as you’ve ever heard?
DAVID’S FINAL, UGLY ACT OF POWER ABUSE
David orders Uriah into one of the sharpest areas of battle & gets him killed. David has solved his problem or so he thinks. At last he can breathe freely again. His neck is out of the noose. Or is it? God is still going to face him with his sin by sending Nathan. The sword will never depart from David’s house.
So the last word hasn’t been spoken yet in David’s tangled web. David feels a relief but a relief that won’t last.
That human beings will abuse power seems to be a given. A fact of life. Let’s be honest... David’s actions were appalling but hardly stand out from what the leaders of our day do routinely.
Though we pray we’ll never do anything on the scale of what David did, we can find ourselves in this story; coveting what isn’t rightly ours; forgetting who we are & whose we are, hurting or stepping on others to get what we want; taking great measures to cover up what we’ve done; using others who seem nameless & inconsequential like Bathsheba for our own gain.
How we or anyone uses their power is a choice we make. The choice can only be truly made by staying in touch with the real power through prayer & communion with God.
David & his family paid a heavy price for his abusive moment of self-indulgence but God wasn't finished with him just as He isn't finished with us. He's in this project called humanity for the long haul. I think it no accident that hundreds of years after David passed; Matthew began his gospel with a list of ancestors of Jesus. He did something rarely if ever done in Jewish genealogies; he named a number of women among Jesus’ ancestors & one of them is Bathsheba.
Matthew understood that no abuse can ever thwart God’s power to redeem & create new beginnings.
That should give us hope that even the destructive consequences of our own abuses of power may be forgiven & redeemed as well.
Blessings,
John
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Praise report about John Stallings' song..."Love grew where the blood fell"
By
Paul Davis
Music
is a powerful avenue for bringing about change in the lives of men. In the
Bible we see examples of how the children of Israel
We
also see that David was able to set King Saul free from being tormented by
devils as he played his harp. The prophet Elisha called for a minstrel to come
when he was asked to bring the Word of the Lord in the
midst
of a situation.
When Jesus and His disciples finished the Last
Supper, they sang a hymn together before they left their gathering before Christ’s
trials.
Today
we have the testimony of a song in our midst that worked to bring about a great
blessing in a gathering of believers.
Recently
the brethren in Africa
were gathered for a conference in a large meeting hall in Abuja , Nigeria
Suddenly, a brother stepped forward to the
microphone and
started to sing the verses of the song, which were not well known by
the congregation. Immediately, the power of the Holy Ghost
began to flood into the auditorium.
All
those gathered
came under the influence of the Holy Spirit and under the
anointing of the words that were being sung. The
whole strength of the meetings was sealed in that
Instant,
because the song about His shed Blood was sung
with the anointing of the Spirit of the living God.
May
this song be a blessing to you and all in your house.
The Benson Company inNashville Tennessee
The Benson Company in
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