Exercises That Will Help When You’re Offended

Several years ago, I was counseling a woman who had severe depression marked by suicidal tendencies. After a month of counseling, most of the depression had lifted. But every time we made progress, she would return to issues regarding her sister. She could not let go of the pain her sister had caused.

She refused to talk about it. She would get choked up, and the knot in the center of her brow tightened. Finally, after we had exhausted every avenue of getting past this hurt, I told her I didn’t think there was anything else I could do to help her.

I could see her struggle internally – and then she decided to tell me.

“She told everyone in the family I was always going to be fat!” As she said this, her skin became flushed, she knotted her hands together in the middle of her chest and she bent over in pain. This hurt so badly it even caused somatic symptoms. It had happened 27 years before, when the girls were teenagers.

John Bevere, in his book “The Bait of Satan” calls this “personal offense”. He believes that personal offense is the root cause of almost every relationship problem on the planet. I have taught on this truth in seminars and no one ever disagrees with it. Unfortunately, the solution most people recommend is to “gut it out” and “just forgive them.” I really wish it were that simple.

But it isn’t. You cannot  just will away the hurt others have caused you.

But I have found we can dig up the root reasons for why personal offense burrows into our soul and eats away at our peace of mind. Here are eight exercises (and one final healthy response) I recommend to my counseling clients when they struggle to let go of past pain and move forward into forgiveness.

1. Think of a time when you did something similar to the thing you are offended by. Part of the ache we experience comes from a sense of injustice. It is not fair that others lie to us, gossip about us, take advantage of our trust. It is fascinating though, if I ask people to think about a time recently when they did something similar to the way they have been mistreated … people often feel the internal knots start to loosen.

Most of us commit offenses on a semi-regular basis, but we often don’t see the troublesome nature of our actions. It is only when it is done to us that we get upset. As we go through the exercise of thinking how we have done the same thing, it gives us a measure of empathy for those who have sinned against us.

2. Ask God to show you how He sees the situation. Several years ago, a friend of mine made a list of things I needed to improve upon. It was not a pleasant list; many of the items called into question my intelligence and choice-making. I was deeply hurt by the list. After marinating in my inner irritation for several days, I asked God to show me how He saw the situation.

First, God pointed out how some of the list items were actually true. Second, he showed me how my friend had been feeling cut off from me and didn’t know how to express his own hurt. This gave me enough solace so I could forgive him and set up a meeting. During our time together, I expressed my regret at how I had cut him off recently. Then I proceeded to tell him how some of the items on the list were very true. I also ended by helping him see how he had gone beyond the truth in some items as well. We re-established our relationship at the end of that meeting. (By the way, I have his permission to share this story).

3. Ask yourself who the person who offended you reminds you of. If the same person keeps offending you, and especially if your reactions to these offenses seem more intense than they ought to be, ask yourself if this person reminds you of someone else you were hurt by in the past. Often, we have trouble letting go of a personal hurt because the person reminds us of a person or situation we have not forgiven years before.

4. Put yourself in their shoes and ask how they would want others to react to the situation. If we can begin to see how it probably looked from the point of view of the person who hurt us, we may perceive the incident differently. Perhaps what we interpreted as a criticism was just a simple question. Or maybe the attack was motivated by fear for our safety. Even if the offense was truly offensive, we may discern how it was motivated by something we had done. Seeing things from the other person’s perspective softens the blow.

5. Keep short accounts. Wherever possible (and it’s always possible) try to let go of the hurt before the end of that day. Each day you coddle an offense, the larger it grows. Think of it as a debt. The longer you take to pay off a debt, the more you will have to pay and the more onerous the burden.

6. If feasible, talk to the person who offended you. Don’t just assume they know what they did or how you reacted to it. I can’t even begin to count how many times couples have said to each other in counseling, “You know what you did”. The reality: they often don’t.

7. React in the Opposite Spirit. One of the great teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7) is this concept of giving people back the opposite of what they give you. If a person speaks hurtful words, speak a blessing. If they take something from you, give them even more. If they force you to do something you don’t want to do, help them in love. This will completely leverage your own soul and feed it while they witness you are not affected by their hurtful behavior.

Early in my walk with God, a man cheated me at a local business. The details are unimportant. I made plans to go to the local Better Business Bureau with the hope of causing him some kind of grief. My roommate in college offered to pray with me about it. As we prayed, I had a sense I was supposed to go into his shop and ask if I could pray a blessing over it (even though we both knew he had broken something of mine). When I went down there and asked him if I could pray, he mumbled that I could do whatever I wanted. So I prayed God’s blessing on his business. I left that place a free man.

8. Forgive and Release. When you have done some of the exercises above, then meditate on this question: Do I feel free now to forgive them? If you don’t, do some more exercises. But keep testing the water of your soul until the release comes.

9. Set boundaries that are safe and healthy. If a person keeps on hurting you, and if there is something you can do to prevent that hurt from happening, do so. The best medicine, after all, is preventative medicine. I have a friend whose husband had cheated on her four times. At one point, as she concluded he was going to keep doing this, she asked him to move out and get his own apartment. She told him not to tell her about any of his extra-marital relationships. In the end, she fought through her personal offense and decided not to divorce him. She often had him over for family dinners with her and the children.

So why did she ask him to move out? He had truly broken the marriage bonds between them and she didn’t want to keep hating him. If he stayed in the house while continuing to trample their marriage vows, the pain would not end. She truly forgave him, but she put a boundary so she didn’t have to keep looking at his offense.

The woman I mentioned at the beginning of the article did several of the exercises written here. What finally helped was going to God and asking how He saw her sister. God showed this woman that the sister was jealous because the mother favored the older sister. She got revenge by criticizing her sister in public. My client realized she had carried all this pain for years and had no idea what her mother’s favoritism must have done to her sister. Within a year, they had reconciled and now have a healthy adult relationship.

This works wonders if you’ll allow it.

God Can Help you With Money

We now come to the two most popular posts in the past 10 years on this blog. This one (#2) was posted just last year , but already it has been viewed over 15,000 times. The truth is this: Knowing God will change your finances.

In a nutshell: He doesn’t help us with our finances, if by “help”, you mean that God will swoop down and rescue you from financial disaster. God wants to be our partner in everything in life, and that would not be a partnership at all.

However, God does give huge support in our financial endeavors. In the lifestyle we call “following God”, we recognize that everything we do in this world can be a partnership with God. With regards to money,  I can see at least eight ways God can give us long-term support with our finances:

1. Wisdom: There are thousands of traps out there ready to waste our money, steal our money and cause us to lose our money through negligence. Twice in the past five years, people have come to me with incredible investment opportunities. Both times, the risk seemed low and the rewards considerable. Both times, God sent people to me who gave me advice on why I should not go with either investment. Each of these investments went through bizarre disasters, and I would have lost most of what I owned if I had gone with either of them.

2. Defeating the Waste of Self-Absorption: We often think that we don’t have enough money. That is sometimes true (especially of those who live in third-world poverty). For the most part, we have enough money, we just have too many wants. God helps us with our money by showing us how much we are spending on ourselves: Our comforts, our habits, our pleasure and our fears. We are self-absorbed and this costs us a lot of money. Think of the person who spends $100,000 on a sports car and then wonders why God didn’t answer his prayer for more financial success.

3. Rebuking the Devourer: In Malachi 3 God promises if the people of God will begin living on 90% of their income instead of 100% (tithing), he will “rebuke the devourer”. The Devourer is everything in our world that will destroy our possessions. Traffic accidents, household appliances exploding, unexpected medical bills; these are all examples of the Devourer at work. When we tithe we are recognizing a partnership with God. The person who stops living a self-absorbed life, who tithes in recognition of God’s partnership will find that things just don’t break down as often. The pastor of my church growing up lived on very little and gave much of his financial wealth away. He kept a car running until 250,000 miles. When he got a new car after almost 20 years, his old car died about a month later. The mechanic opened up the engine and found there were almost no piston rings left. It should not have run at all. But God kept it going…he rebuked the Car Devourer.

4. Simplifying our Needs: When you follow Christ, your priorities change. One thing many followers of God find is that they don’t want expensive things or too many things to complicate their lives. A simple follower of God is usually quite content to live simply. This will definitely change a person’s financial standing. John Wesley used to teach that a follower of God needed to work as hard as they can, live as simply as they can to give as much as they can to God’s Work.

5. Work Ethic: Those who follow God with a full dedication often work harder than the average person. For centuries, this has been called the “Protestant Work Ethic”. Hard work almost always impresses those for whom we work and it almost always produces higher returns on our money. Hard working salespeople make more sales. Harder working students get better jobs. The work ethic that comes from the Spirit of God will give a person more ability to produce money…and this will dramatically impact a person’s finances.

6. Sin is Expensive; Righteousness spends Differently: Which person will spend more money: The one who spends a week in Las Vegas, or the person who goes to Yellowstone Park? I am not saying everyone in Yellowstone is righteous, but is hard for me to believe that those who deliberately choose Vegas as a vacation spot are doing it in order to enjoy the Godly life. Let’s face it: Sin can be very costly. Look at addicts, adulterers, thieves, alcoholics, liars, swindlers and the like. Though they may all have moments where they make a lot of money fast, they usually lose it even faster. Most people who live Godly lives never waste their money on vices.

7. We Become God’s Channel: When we seek to use our money for God, he sees that we are good stewards of our money. God loves to use good stewards to get some major things done. If you continue to allow your life to be a channel of God’s work, expect he will give you enough money to get that work done. You will never out-give God.

8. Long-term View Always Pays Off: In the world of investing, it is said that those who invest with an eye to the long-term always do much better than those who invest in the short-term. Long term vision often keeps us from spending foolishly. No one has longer vision than God. The person who plants a tree often will not see that tree grow to its full height. But living in Sacramento, a city of Trees as it is known, I can thank God for the vision of people who planted so many of the downtown trees a century ago. The same is true of finances. The longer a vision you have for finances, the better you will handle it. For instance, if you waste five dollars now (money that could have been invested) it is like wasting $25 over the next 40 years. Keep the long view and understand that God may want us to be frugal to bless future generations and not just the here and now.

Why People Follow John the Baptist instead of Jesus

God has called me to love everyone. But I don’t like everyone. I naturally befriend people who are intelligent, have a sense of humor and show a life of integrity. One particular man who exemplifies all of those qualities has been a friend of mine for many years. We enjoy each other and find we agree with each other on many things.

But he did something that confused me years ago and it has never sat right with me since. During this season of our friendship, he gave me a number of books to read. Many of them were written by Dr. T. Austin Sparks (known to many of his readers and followers as TAS). For the sake of clarification, let’s put Dr. Sparks in the category of a Holiness preacher. I knew of his writings before my friend showed them to me, and honestly I don’t care for them. Let me quickly explain.

Dr. Sparks writes mainly about the dangers of sin. I have no problem with any preacher or writer pointing out sin. We humans are an unhealthy race, and we occasionally need to be shown that unhealthiness before we can grasp what it means to live better. But Dr. Sparks is of that race of preacher/teacher that will not teach on anything else. I never heard him preach in person (he died in 1971, the year I became a Christ-follower), but I have been told by those who did hear him  he rarely smiled or joked around when he preached. Though he was not a “hell-and-brimstone” preacher, with acidic tones and booming voice, his content fit that category.

What confused me is why my friend would digest a steady diet of this type of teaching. I asked him and he seemed annoyed I would even question it. “Mike, I thought you appreciated someone who is biblical and encouraged people to live in holiness”. I assured him I did – and do. But I do not agree with any ministry that focuses completely on the negative aspects of our existence without constantly bringing this back to the glory of New Life in Christ.

Here is what confuses me. This kind of preaching still exists and people prefer to listen to it, for reasons I am suspecting are not healthy in themselves. Along with Sparks, there are other prominent scarecrow preachers like Leonard Ravenhill, John McArthur, Paul Washer, Mark Driscoll (though sometimes Driscoll is just bombastic) who have huge followings. Some people tell me it is because sin is increasing in our day and we need more of this type of preaching to stem the tide of wickedness.

Do we? Does that really work? My observations tell me otherwise. Sin is no more or less prevalent today as at any other time in history. The increase in so-called “prophetic preaching” feeds on three things in the human soul:

1. Our innate guilt for many things we have done wrong and never settled.

2. The constant doubt that we are acceptable to God or anyone else.

3. The need to feel superior to others, even if it means we must demean ourselves to get to that place.

I find those who like holiness preaching of this brand already lead pretty decent lives and are probably least in need of the type of preaching these guys specialize in. So why do so many good-thinking and well-meaning Christians follow these Scarecrows of the Faith?

I think the answer is found in the disciples of John the Baptist. John inherited a mantle from a long line of gloom and doom Old Testament preachers. His ministry was stark (he dressed in old rags and lived on locust nuts and wild honey), he called people names, rattled all their cages and asked them if they were ready to die soon. He wore the calling of Elijah well. In fact, Jesus confirms that he is Elijah – or at least that he carried on the same ministry as Elijah did.

But at some point, that all changed. The day that Jesus came down to the Jordan River to be baptized by John, the entire understanding of sin and the Kingdom of God forever shifted. From that point on Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Those who followed John were encouraged from that point on to follow after Jesus. But even after John told them “He (meaning Jesus) must increase and I must decrease”, some of John’s followers couldn’t get the hint. In some ways, not even John the Baptist could fully release his ministry, even after Jesus came along. I get that. Once a prophet, always a prophet.

For instance, John and his followers taught a rigid discipline of fasting. Jesus and his disciples often went to banquets – and they were duly criticized for doing so; not only by the Pharisees, but also by the followers of John.

Listen. I know this world can exhibit evil and will not be entirely cleaned up until God remakes it all. And I know that even followers of God need to be reminded to clean up their room and play nice. Sometimes, they need to be told in clear tones not to cheat on their spouse or their taxes. But I don’t see the point of someone preaching only about sin and leaving Grace, Joy, Forgiveness, Laughter, Fellowship, The Power of God and a hundred other great Jesus teachings lying on the shelf.

The Pharisees in Jesus’ time looked for reasons why natural disasters happened to people. They pinned the blame on the sin of a victim’s parents, on his lineage and even some sin the victim must have committed. The Pharisees found a woman committing adultery and flung her into a market square, daring Jesus not to condemn her.

Instead, he asked them all if there was a person among them who had not committed sin recently. If they had, he welcomed them to stone her first. No one did. No one could withstand the glare on his face!

When all had left, this man of Righteousness, this preacher of Holiness, this Prince of Peace just said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more”. He didn’t follow her down the road heaping condemnation on her head.

Remember, the enemy of our souls is called Satan. The name means “Accuser”. Unfortunately, instead of giving our Adversary a counter-attack from the pulpit, where the love of God and the cleansing of the blood of Jesus could be spoken triumphantly, we sometimes echo the words of the Calumniator all too easily.

Of course, there are those who feed God’s people with a steady diet of Youtube videos, hackneyed cliches and positive thinking. I sometimes think the Scarecrows believe they are countering that unhealthy pap by focusing continually on sin. As we were reminded in Kindergarten, two wrongs don’t make a right

If you have become hooked on the Holiness Scarecrows, maybe it is good to mix some grace in your diet. Otherwise, you may get spiritually constipated.

Here is a Real Treat

In 1981, I sat in meetings taught by Dr. J. Edwin Orr. He was probably the greatest scholar and expert on the subject of Christian Revival. I was mesmerized. I am fairly hard on public speakers, but I could have listened to Dr. Orr for hours and hours.

I just found an archive of old messages by Dr. Orr. If you have any heart for the work of God in our world, then you will be blessed beyond measure to listen to his teaching.

Here is the link to his sermons: http://bit.ly/LLh4Vw.

Here are the ones I would listen to:

Wales Revival

Movements in Latin America

The Resurgence of 1882 onward

Movements between World Wars.

In fact, you can’t go wrong if you listen to all of these.

 

Relational or Relevant: You Decide.

I want to talk about the word “Relevant”. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya (of the Princess Bride): “I do not think that word means what you think it means”. And it is the collective brain trust of contemporary church leaders who may have misunderstood the meaning and direction of this word.This sometimes happens with words; normally it’s not that big a deal. For instance, people often get the words “irrespective” and “regardless” mixed up. People sometimes jumble their definitions and thereby combine them wrongly to make “irregardless”. Irrespective means to know something and then to have no respect for it. Regardless means that you choose not to regard an issue. They are close in meaning, but not exactly the same. For example, I certainly understand what goes into the mind of a man who commits adultery. But I have no respect for his actions. Irrespective of his actions, I take my own actions. But I cannot disregard his actions, especially if they happen to someone close to me. In the case of adultery, I cannot act “regardless”, even though I can act “irrespective”. You see, they don’t mean the same thing.

Relevant is close to another word “relative” and the similar adjective “relational”. Relevant means to stick to the issue at hand. Relative means to relate to something or someone else. Relevant has to do with issues, controversies, position statements, movements and ideas. Relative has to do with people, choices, culture, tastes and situations. A person who is arguing in a political debate and is asked about their position on war will be relevant if their answer has to do with war. If it has to do with political parties, economics or sports, they are probably not relevant to the issue at hand. A great synonym for “relevant” is “pertinent”. The question a person needs to ask when trying to decide if they’re being relevant is this one: Does my approach pertain to the issue at hand?

If someone wants to be relative or relate to others, they should adopt similar styles, dress, language, approach and attitudes. They must agree with those positions to be relative to the issues at hand. Here then, is the big difference between being Relevant and being Relational: A relevant approach addresses the key issues exactly, irrespective of whether they agree with the position of others. A Relational or Relative person seeks to identify as closely with the position and approach of others. So with these definitions in mind, let’s ask ourselves this question: Those churches who claim to be “relevant” to today’s culture, are they indeed that way or are they more “relative” to the dominant memes of our day?

I will be over-generalizing, but this is the only way to make this essay shorter than an entire book. I hear of churches constantly using the word relevant to refer to their public services. What do they usually mean by that? This video mocks the trend, but it is not really all that misguided. Here then are some ways that churches represent themselves as “relevant”:

• Casual, weekend style clothing.
• Modern styles of music, usually reflecting latest trends in style similar to what is played in Christian concerts.
• Use of video, movies, television shows, commercials and trends to show commonality with audience
• Expensive lighting, sound systems and printed material, often eclipsing other public non-profit organizations
• Use of latest software and hardware for multimedia presentations
• Sermon topics relate to the everyday life of listeners, especially in areas of raising children, marriage, finances and use of leisure time
• Advertising material, including websites, brochures and radio/television ads are high quality and often produced by professional advertising agencies.

This, then is what most churches mean by Relevant. I contend that this is the absolute wrong use of the word and has reduced the concept to something much more shallow than it was intended to represent. I will share two reasons why I think we are using this word at the end of this article, but let’s see what this approach really is: Relational.

When church leaders model their dress after the manner people usually wear on the weekend, they are trying to help the average person feel more comfortable. There is no “issue” or “agenda” with this. There is no pertinent value a church seeks to communicate other than this: We are like you. We relate to you. You relate to us. We don’t think we’re better than you. (I do have a minor problem with this: We wouldn’t disdain a bank teller for wearing a tie, or a waiter, or people going out on the town…we allow for all of those to dress for the occasion. What we are saying to people in church is ‘this is not really a special occasion’). Sermon topics that relate to where people live every day are relational. They may also be relevant (ie. when they deal with particular issues that spring from daily life), but generally the approach is to have people know the preacher is aware of what issues accrue when his hearers live their daily life. The style of music is designed to relate to what people are listening to. Many churches now actually use songs written by secular music artists and then give the songs contemporary Christian meaning. This is rarely done to address particular issues, but more to show people that the church is not out of touch with what they listen to. The same can be said of the use of video, television and pop cultural references. All of it is packaged to tell this culture: “We’re one of You”.

That is not being Relevant: That is being Relational. And in the words of Jerry Seinfeld “not that there’s anything wrong with that”.  (You see, I can be relational as well).

I have occasionally joked that I have the secret formula for getting 10,000 people in church next Sunday: Just contract with Justin Bieber to be the special musical guest. It’s the church equivalent of “sweeps week” for the television networks. The idea behind these gimmicks is that if people keep coming, they will eventually fold into the congregation and learn more about God. I hesitated even writing this paragraph because someone is now looking up the phone number for Bieber’s agent.

Now let me tell you what “Relevant” looks like. If you always look and sound the same as everyone else, you are entirely unnecessary. That isn’t being relevant, it is being a parrot. Relevant means we look at the issue everyone is speaking of and realize what isn’t being said and then say it. When Martin Luther pounded his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door, he was addressing one of the most irritating issues of his day: That some priests were selling indulgences as a way to raise money, promising people a quick doorway into heaven if they purchased a large number of them. No one was standing in the way of this false teaching, except Luther. Everyone was copying what they heard from friends because it was safer that way and others liked them. I have to ask today if churches aren’t stuck in that same emotional rut. Like everyone else, we do want people to like us. We want them to hit “like” on Facebook. We want them to keep coming back to services week after week, even if all we’re doing is repackaging what 1000 others have said, perhaps better than us.

Relevant, on the other hand,  is when Jesus noticed that people were being cheated right in the middle of a prayer room and then, in a prophetic act, he upended the tables of the money-changers. Relevant is Jackie Pullinger pulling drug addicts off the streets of Hong Kong and getting them clean when the dominant society ignores them. Relevant is Erin Gruwell addressing drug wars and the deaths of her students with a radical plan to change their learning style. Relevant is Peggy Drake who worked to comfort AIDS sufferers in West Africa while most Christians were saying it was God’s judgment against homosexuals. Relevant is a preacher resigning from his wealthy church because they would not adopt a lifestyle of caring for the poor. Relevant is almost always counter-cultural, it addresses today’s news with timeless truths, it lives the way it believes and garners respect because it doesn’t try to bribe people into following its viewpoints.

How Relevant is your church?

Without a doubt, by fleshing out these definitions, you will realize that churches will fall into four categories:

1. Not Relevant, not relational
2. Relevant, but not relational
3. Relational, but not relevant
4. Both Relational and Relevant

Why then would churches choose to be relational and not particularly relevant? I think there are two reasons for this. First, being relational is much easier and does not cost us much. We all learned in elementary school that it went better for us if we adopted the latest trends and fashions and were friends with the most popular kids. Differing even a fraction from the dominant elementary school culture put us in the outcast group and we hated being relegated there. We still do. Pastors and church members don’t want to think their approach to living is all that much different than their neighbors. They want others to know they don’t indulge in the more extreme activities of secularism (like drug use and listening to Insane Clown Posse), but they are proud to be able to make a comment on the American Idol Final 8 or to express a preference for their favorite cocktail. It is easier to blend in.

Second, most of us don’t think counter-cultural living is valid. We wrongly look with suspicion on anyone who swims upstream on issues –  especially Christian issues. Note how decidely Rob Bell was excommunicated by people for his book on Hell even though most people had not read it. I remember when Tony Campolo’s wife came forward to talk about the issues related to her pro-choice stance. Not only was she summarily rejected by evangelicals, so was her husband. Though I disagreed with her on some points, she needed to bring the issue to the forefront. It was a pertinent voice in a sea of “sound-alike” Christian voices.

There are churches today that are both Relevant and Relational. They are seldom large churches, but I suspect fifty years from now they will be the ones we think back on fondly as having the biggest impact on our culture both secular and Christian. So, the question is this: Do you really want to be Relevant or just call yourself that while simpering away in Relational?

Summertime Passion

As I looked over the large group of people gathered for training, I couldn’t hold back the tears. Just ten years ago, we started our counseling/prayer ministry with one person: Me. At that time, God showed me I needed to begin a training program to equip other counselors to practice what I did. I started with four other help professionals. Since that time, over 100 people have been trained to do this sort of counseling. This large group meeting was a blend of trained people, interested folk, pastors, psychologists and their friends. I watched as those I had trained lead most of the seminar, doing a work I never even dreamed possible all those years ago.

That feeling I had is what I call Summertime Passion. It is the sense that the initial vision and excitement is now beginning to gel into something substantial and long-lasting. It is the feeling of pride a parent gets when their oldest child graduates from something. It is embodied in that moment when a friend quotes something you have said over and over again, and you realize it is now part of their belief system too. I think this may be the most satisfying season of passion.

Spring is the promise of new life to a farmer. But summer is where the farmer works the hardest; tending the new shoots, feeding the burgeoning crops, watering it all. When we think of the passions of our life, Summertime passion takes the most effort. We all know people who come up with a hundred great schemes and visions, only to leave most of them barely beyond the Spring stage. Their plantings are often stunted for lack of work and continued passion. They only get excited about new things and continue to abandon their new seedlings in search of fallow fields and planting opportunities. One person comes to my mind immediately. This person loves to dream and get others excited about the vision. Yet, there is a persistent pattern of losing passion when the real work starts.

How can we avoid shutting off our passions during the summer season?

There are three things that need to be added to initial vision. Just as the farmer must ensure nutrients, water and sunshine get to his growing crops, so too there are three essential ingredients if one is to enjoy the fruit of their labors during Summertime passion.

1. Adding Maturity to New Growth

I was camp director for a teen camp over an 11 year period. One of the sad realities I faced was watching teenagers make commitments for Christ at the camp and then stop following Jesus afterward. At times, teens were wary of making any commitment during the camp for fear they would simply punk out on that commitment when they got home. One year, a brother/sister pair dedicated themselves to obeying Christ every day. It was more than just a verbal agreement; they had both been heavy drug users and they were tired of all it had done to them. The day before camp ended, they came up to me and asked if I would help them draft a plan on how to live after they went home. Most of all, they wanted to stay off drugs. In addition, both of them felt compassion on their friends who were still wrapped up in dope.

Our plan involved inviting their drug friends over for some meetings. Each time, either the youth pastor or myself would share about the love of God after one of our teens shared their testimony of Jesus’ changing power. Honestly, only two of their friends made any move toward faith in Christ. But, those who did not move toward God also did not approach them any more about using drugs. That was an incredible time of maturing for both of them. For the remaining years I pastored that church they were leaders in the youth group and mentors for others trying to kick bad habits.

In Hebrews 5:12–14, it says:

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! ¹³ Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

To be mature means to train oneself to distinguish good from evil. We do that by constant practice and carrying forward of our vision into the realities of life. In agricultural terms, it is so much easier to plant the seeds than to do all the other things that help the growth. When a person enters into the lifestyle that their vision requires, it produces a different kind of passion. This is not just exciting, but gives a sense of firmness and reality to the original vision.

2. Adding Mentoring to New Growth:

In his book, “The Tipping Point”, Malcolm Gladwell identifies one type of person who helps to shape change in our society. He calls this person the “Information Maven”, whose gift is to find wonderful new truths, inventions, trends and ideas and liberally pass them on to others who can make good use of them. This skill set enables the Maven to join together people of vision with people of action. When those two things are mixed together, the results are exciting and quick. The same is true with Summertime passion. Nothing helps us pass along our vision like the process of mentoring someone in that same process. Those we mentor emerge into a new vision for their life –  a springtime passion. For those of us doing the mentoring, the joy is much fuller. We get to have the summertime passion of realizing our vision flowing through another person.

I watch as Jim Harbaugh coaches for the San Francisco 49ers. Harbaugh was a quarterback a long time ago by football years. He won a Super Bowl and had as many good seasons as bad. From there, he went on to successfully coach teams in college and finally this year came back to the pro game. This year, he has taken a quarterback under his wing that most people had given up on. Alex Smith was the first pick in the College Draft and has never had a winning season as starter. Yet, Harbaugh stuck with him and has worked with him many hours each week. He has designed a system to help his team, and his quarterback, be a success. I watched last week as his quarterback threw his third touchdown pass of the game…the second week in a row he has done that. When Smith came off the field, Harbaugh dropped his quiet, determined manner and hugged him fiercely. You can see the Summertime passion all over his face these days. He is not throwing the ball, but it may feel even better to see his protege doing it.

3. Adding Partnerships to New Growth:

The natural outflow of mentoring relationships should lead to a deeper place called a Partnership. With mentoring, the joy is discovered in passing on a set of skills. But the passion released in partnerships is seeing someone take off with a vision in a direction you have not traveled. In the Book of Acts, Barnabas is asked to go pastor a young gentile church in Antioch. The more he spends time with this group, the bigger the task seems to him. To lessen his load, he finds a man named Saul who is now called Paul. The two of them go back to Antioch and co-pastor the church. Years earlier, Barnabas had mentored Paul when no one else was brave enough to be around him. Antioch, however, marked a different stage in their relationship. Barnabas allowed Paul the authority to carry on his ministry without having to be mentored any further. Barnabas worked side-by-side with Paul as equals. A year or so after they started working in that church, God called the two of them to partner in a new venture: A mission to the Gentile towns of Asia minor. Mentoring should eventually lead to partnerships if we do it correctly. Often we don’t allow our mentorees to become partners because we really don’t trust the work we did with them.

It is a different flavor to have people you formerly mentored now serving with you side by side in a project. I find it thrilling to see my trained counselors being sought out by people from other towns because their reputation has gone ahead of them. A few weeks ago, a young lady who has been seeing one of our counselors met me in church for the first time. As we talked, she wanted to know if I did any of the counseling. Ten years before, I did ALL of the counseling. Now, in a given week, I might do a quarter of all the ministry in that area…perhaps less. And it thrills me to know the original vision is now sprouting and taking on a life of its own. That is summertime passion.

What new ideas have you continued to mature in? What mentorees have you brought along with you on your visionary journey? Have you released partners to carry on with you? If you haven’t, then you’re missing out on the joy of Summertime. And once you have seen the summer, the passion of the Fall will amaze you.

Next time.

Discovering the Afterlife – Part 1

A close friend recently asked me if I thought we would be married to our spouses in heaven. We launched into an entertaining and speculative discussion on the afterlife. This followed on an incident two days earlier where an acquaintance asked me if there would be animals in heaven. I liberally shared my very brief opinion on the subject and once again it was entertaining though hardly definitive.

I admit I can’t really get a full grasp on what the afterlife is going to be like. But I am convinced of this: It will be very different from what a lot of people think. I could write reams of articles on what I think will take place after we die, but my opinions, and three bucks, will get you a cup of Starbucks premium coffee. But I do know someone who can tell us the answers.

A Vision About America

Yesterday I travelled out of town to teach at a training school in Montana. During that time of travel and my moments spent traversing airports, I had a lot of time to think and pray. Then, added to that time, this Christian training school had a concerted time of Intercessory prayer this morning that I took part in. The leader asked us to concentrate our prayers on America; which is exactly what I had been doing for over a week now.

So this morning, God gave me a strange vision. I can’t say I have the full interpretation or application of it any more, but I will give you what I have so far. (Note: For those reading this who come here for when I talk about psychology or cultural movements, please bear with this – I think it is incredibly important. Visions are what God can give people by speaking in pictures to them).

In the vision, I saw America as a Circus, entertaining and captivating the world. The audience was watching this circus with awe and wonder. Many acts were featured and feats of strength were performed. I heard in the vision that the Circus acts represented America’s ability to entertain, its strength in communications and media, the powerful force of the economy, the weight of its military force, the promises of low unemployment and a high value on the individual, creativity and personal advancement. The world loves to watch the  Circus that is America because it promises so much, even if it doesn’t always deliver.

But then this circus began to deteriorate and fall into chaos. The elephants began to rampage everywhere and the dangerous cats began to prowl and attack. Circus performers blamed each other as they saw it all fall apart. The audience raced every direction, making matters worse and complicating the effort to bring order to the chaos.

At one point, the ringleader got up and just stood in the center of the ring. A few people noticed the ringleader and came over to see what they would say. But they didn’t say anything…they just stood there. Those people who were willing to stop panicking came over and stood by the center ring where the ringleader stood. Some of them brought others in minor stages of panic toward the center and soon they calmed down. That is where the image ended. There was no resolution, but just a hint at how it all could be solved.

I do not have the fullest of the interpretation, but here is what I understood as I and others prayed into it. The chaos is more than just the deteriorating economy. If it was just that, there wouldn’t have been so many things going wrong simultaneously. It is also the use of drugs and alcohol that people are turning to in order to cope. It was the political machinery going wrong hurting so many in its rampage. It is the many who make their living from pointing the finger at others instead of coming up with solutions that work. As I prayed, my heart turned to this truth: Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a leader who ran for election without promising anything other than to do their best to handle problems with wisdom and integrity. We don’t need more unfulfilled promises – but it is certainly what we vote for. We want to be promised.

The ringleader in this sense is not the cause of the problems, but the person in charge: God Himself. If we turn away from fear and chaos and just listen to what God will say in the quiet places of our hearts, then the fear can be done away with and we can think straight. So few are thinking straight these days, as evidenced by throwing $700,000,000,000 at a problem and hoping it would go away. That didn’t work so well now, did it?

As  you read this, what comes across to you?

The Rehab of Judas

Everyone on the planet gets a chance at rehab, no matter what they’ve done. Judas Iscariot, the so-called “Traitor Apostle” is no exception. I remember sitting in a West End London Theater in 1973 with my family as we watched the mega-hit, “Godspell”. In that recounting of the gospel story of Jesus, Judas is cast as a misunderstood maladroit that just wanted everyone to get along…except the Romans of course.

Later that summer, Weber’s “Jesus Christ, Superstar” made it onto the movie screens. In that retelling, Judas is a sympathetic worrier, best friend type, who is actually made the scapegoat of the entire thing by being tricked into thinking Jesus wants him to be the Betrayer.

In 2006, National Geographic published an article on the newly translated “Gospel of Judas”, an ancient Egyptian manuscript that tells a different story of Judas. They released the translation at the same time as a special documentary and a website splash. All of the media told the same story. Judas was Jesus’ best friend who volunteered to be the scapegoat. Jesus liked him better than the rest and as everyone knows, only a good friend will do your dirty work if you need something done.

As soon as the television special ended, many Coptic scholars downloaded the original document and the translation. Most of them were appalled. Listen to this description in the Chronicle-Review concerning April DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University:

She started the next day on her own translation of the Coptic transcription, also posted on the National Geographic Web site. That’s when she came across what she considered a major, almost unbelievable error. It had to do with the translation of the word “daimon,” which Jesus uses to address Judas. The National Geographic team translates this as “spirit,” an unusual choice and inconsistent with translations of other early Christian texts, where it is usually rendered as “demon.” In this passage, however, Jesus’ calling Judas a demon would completely alter the meaning. “O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?” becomes “O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?” A gentle inquiry turns into a vicious rebuke.

Then there’s the number 13. The Gospel of Judas is thought to have been written by a sect of Gnostics known as Sethians, for whom the number 13 would indicate a realm ruled by the demon Ialdabaoth. Calling someone a demon from the 13th realm would not be a compliment. In another passage, the National Geographic translation says that Judas “would ascend to the holy generation.” But DeConick says it’s clear from the transcription that a negative has been left out and that Judas will not ascend to the holy generation (this error has been corrected in the second edition). DeConick also objected to a phrase that says Judas has been “set apart for the holy generation.” She argues it should be translated “set apart from the holy generation” — again, the opposite meaning. In the later critical edition, the National Geographic translators offer both as legitimate possibilities.

In subsequent months, it has been shown that this Gospel could not possibly have been written by Judas, for it refers to events in the second century. In fact, no one ever claimed it was written by Judas. It was penned by a group of Gnostics around 150 A.D. and their purpose was to show that Judas was not actually a man, but a spirit force sent to guide Jesus through his spiritual path. In the last year, no one talks much more about this Gospel or the books written to laud it, for it stands as a monument to what the media can do to historical truth.

So why does everyone from Andrew Lloyd Weber to Harvard University want to paint Judas in a better light? As with anything, there is no one theory that stands for all. But here is my take on it. People feel uncomfortable with anyone being the worst bad guy in any situation. Except for the most cruel and hate-filled people of history (Hitler, Genghis Khan, Frank Burns) we react with a certain amount of sympathy for those who mess up but still have much in common with us.

Judas is painted in the Bible as greedy, opinionated, wanting the Romans to be overthrown, and impatient with Jesus’ program. He also doesn’t like others to be in the spotlight apparently. I can survey my life in the last ten years and see greed, a bevy of opinions, wanting megachurches to be overthrown, and impatient with Jesus’ program for my life. In fact, I’m not sure I don’t resemble Judas more than I care to admit, even on a bad day.

However, believe it or not, Judas is not painted as just a Betrayer in the Bible.  He actually repented of it later and gave the money back. No, the Bible shows that Judas was destroyed by the belief that he could never come back to God. Think about this: Both Judas and Peter let Jesus down big time. Peter ends up being the leader in the church and Judas has his intestines littering a field. But they both committed equally heinous crimes against their friendship with Jesus. What was the difference?

Judas hung himself because he believed the lie that it could never change. Peter jumped in the water, swam to shore and somehow came back to his friend. This is the difference. Give up hope and there is not much God can do. Keep the door open to God, no matter how badly you fail, and God can still get his stuff done with you.

If we really rehab Judas, he would be Peter.

WDDJD

In actual words…What Devotions Did Jesus Do? By “devotions”, I mean that spiritual moment or time when we spend time with God, whether by reading Scripture, praying, worshipping or even appreciating aspects of his creation. It can include disciplines (like Contemplation or Solitude), attitudes (Confession or Thanksgiving) and even actions (Journaling, kneeling, imagining). These are all human creations to attempt to solidify our tenuous-feeling working relationship with our Creator.

Jesus, the one who was both God and Man, spent time solidifying that Daddy-Son intimacy. Since he is completely human as we are, he felt those moments of isolation and responded to them with discipline and a process of thinking through the day. So what “devotional life” did Jesus have?

My favorite glimpse into his life with Abba comes in Matthew 4. I won’t take time to deal with the entire section, but the first part of Jesus’ encounter with the Father of Lies (satan) in the wilderness shows us something of his life with God. Jesus has just spent 40 days alone with the Spirit of God. This time followed his incredible filling with the Spirit at his baptism and the earth-shaking voice of the Father who said “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. But that was 40 days ago, and as all of us face, Jesus cannot recapture the words spoken over a month ago. Every day has a new impact and even yesterday’s exciting victories ring hollow in the face of attack and hunger.

In verses 2 and 3 of Matthew 4 it says

2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

The word “tempter” means “tester”. As I noted a few weeks ago, this is satan’s role: he is the Proctor, he delivers our tests. We prove who we are through these tests. He designs the tests individually for each of us. This test was for Jesus. It was not as simple as it sounds. Jesus heard the Father, saw the Spirit come down on him. Felt the baptism. But our humanity is frail. He cannot hold onto that memory. Now satan wants to see if he will doubt the Truth of Abba’s words.

Here is what Jesus answered:

4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

His answer can seem glib on paper, but it reveals so much at the first level down below the bare words. First, this quote is from Deuteronomy 8. In fact, every answer that Jesus gives to the Proctor is from Deuteronomy, chapters 6-8. They didn’t have chapters in those days, so let’s just say it came from the same general region in the same historical book. Coincidence? Hardly. You don’t have these answers unless they are recently familiar to you. I get a kick out of teachers who look at this section and tell people this is a takeaway suggesting we memorize Scripture. Don’t bother. The Proctor knows the Bible better than you do. Simply quoting the Bible back to him when your heart hasn’t processed Truth and embraced it won’t pass this test.

Second, Jesus’ understanding of the Truth in Deuteronomy 8 was deeper than just quoting something to do with Bread. The passage in Deut. 8 speaks of Manna and humbling. To go out every day and collect bread in the desert and have to rely completely on God to feed them was humbling in the sense that they had to completely rely on him. Jesus got that! He is telling the Proctor that if God tells him to turn the stones into bread, he will do it. But not a second before. What an incredible answer. He also uses the word “word” correctly in Greek. The Greek word is rhema, which means a message intended for a specific reason, situation or person. If God told Jesus directly to turn the stones into bread that day, for a particular purpose and for God’s glory, then, and only then, would Jesus do it.

Do you prepare yourself in the Scriptures that way? It means bringing the Spirit into that time and preparing your heart with Truth that can be lived (as opposed to Truth that is just memorized to win a discussion). Then when the test comes, you will pass the essay questions as well as the fill in the blank ones.