Follow Me

Jesus was not lengthy in His call of the disciples.

In Matthew 9:9-12 we read of Matthew’s call to be a disciple. It was short, to the point and was met by a willing heart rather than excuses as to why he wouldn’t be good for the job. In fact, the impact on Matthew was immediate and extensive. The text says, “Matthew got up and followed him.” (NIV) We read nothing about wrapping things up at the tax collecting booth or giving two weeks notice. His following was as quick as the call. Jesus called and Matthew followed. Yet, the extent of the impact on Matthew is seen by the fact he then invites some of his colleagues (other tax collectors and sinners) to have dinner with Jesus, which He didn’t refuse. Why would He? He had a room full of people who needed Him.

As a tax collector, he was looked down upon by the religious leaders of the day and likely the majority of society as well. Quite possibly he had been crooked in his dealings with others, maybe in a similar way to that of another tax collector by the name of Zacchaeus. But, what is so striking about Matthew’s call is the fact that Jesus didn’t care about his past because he was about to give this tax collector a new future. Jesus is not worried by the things we have done in the past; He is concerned with the future He wants to give you.

Most of us get stuck on our past and sometimes even IN our past, so much so that we fail to be impacted by the call of Christ to bring Him to others. Matthew receives the call to follow Jesus and understands that Jesus is meant to be shared with others, not simply reserved for the last part of our weekend for a select group of people gathering on a Sunday morning in a church service. Jesus said it best, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (NIV)

The question is, how are we following Him? In our society, many encourage Christians to get involved politically and somehow make a difference that way. I firmly believe that since we are given the right to vote, we ought to use it to the fullest extent of our convictions, but Jesus didn’t come to be a vehicle for politics in the church. He came to change lives and give people the hope of eternal life. Are we following Him in a way that impacts people’s lives? Matthew’s life changed that day because he heard the call of Christ, responded and then began pointing others to Him.

Where Have I Been?

A family member recently commented that I had not blogged since January 30th and they were correct. Clearly, blogging on a consistent basis it is a great challenge for those of us who are not writers by nature. It is increasingly more difficult as my time is consumed with trying to complete a degree program through directed research. My Alma Mater, Zion Bible College in Haverhill, MA has been kind enough to institute a program for those of us who graduated under their three year ministry training program to “come back” and complete the degree through directed research. The Lord willing, I should be done soon, but blogging has been demoted on the priority list for the time being.

For the latest in devotional thoughts, you can keep up with our latest sermons on the Podcast page of our website.

God bless you.

God in the Silence

Silence. It’s sort of a mixed bag. For instance, when I’m trying to study, I need silence. I used to be able to listen to music and study at the same time. Things have changed. I need silence in order to get things done. As parents, when do we worry about what’s going on with our kids the most? When it suddenly gets real quiet in the house. As the father of two kids ages 7 and 3, I experience this on a fairly regular basis. My wife and I don’t interpret the quietness as inactivity, quite the opposite. We are aware that there may be some things happening that should give us reason for concern. When the kids are playing loudly, or even fighting, we know what’s going on and there is an element of comfort that we gain by the noise.

For many of us, we come to our spiritual experience and even life experience with the sense that there has to be some noise for us to feel that things are OK. However, silence seems to lend itself to a great deal of anxiety. Unlike how we interpret the silence of our small children, we tend to interpret the silence of God as inactivity on His part. This assumption, however, is not reality.

Recently, I re-read the account of Joseph and besides determining that it is in fact one of my favorite stories in all of Scripture, I was reminded of the great contrasts in his life as compared to his father Jacob, grandfather Isaac and great-grandfather Abraham. Those three men all had something in common — very clear and precise promises from God. When you read the book of Genesis, you see some of the character flaws in all three of the aforementioned patriarchs, but you really have to dig to see anything in the life of Joseph that remotely resembles a flaw (I’m not suggesting he was perfect) and when you do think you’ve found something, you’re not 100% about it. However, the most striking contrast in his life when placed alongside his forefathers is this...silence. God spoke to Abraham on several occasions. God spoke to Isaac and to Jacob.

Yet, as you scour the last one-third of the book of Genesis which deals with the life of Joseph, you have no hint that God spoke to him in the way that He had to the patriarchs. In fact, Joseph seems to go through some terribly painful things without even a clue that God saw what was going on, much less cared about what was happening to Him. Let’s face it, most of us would have concluded in bitter anguish after being sold off by our own family members into slavery that God didn’t care. Then after being falsely accused of making advances toward Potiphar’s wife, which landed him in an Egyptian prison, you would expect that somehow God would show up and tell poor Joseph to hold on because he would eventually promote him to be the number two guy in the nation, but God didn’t. What did He do? The Lord stayed silent and didn’t speak to Joseph about it. And, by the time Joseph interprets the dreams of the butler and baker only to be forgotten about by the butler to seemingly waste away in an Egyptian prison, you might think that if God doesn’t speak to him now, then it would be safe for Joseph to not only assume that God doesn’t care, but that God didn’t exist at all.

Unfortunately, we make the very bad mistake of assuming that silence on God’s part means that He’s inactive, uncaring and worse, not there! Joseph, in all he went threw, never jumped to such a ridiculous conclusion. Instead, we find a man who, in the middle of what seemed to be silent injustice served upon the innocent, stood by God in complete faithfulness. Joseph remained true to God from Potipher’s house to the penitentiary, and at just the right time God brought him out of his painful crisis and caused him to see a plan that was larger than him. So big was this plan that he was able say with forgiving confidence to his brothers “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” (Gen. 45:5 - NIV)

Joseph didn’t understand what was going on in the silence, but he eventually saw that there was something going on and that silence didn’t mean inactivity on God’s part. He never allowed the “negative” stuff to make him bitter; he just trusted God no matter what happened (or didn’t happen).

Oh, and the dreams Joseph had in Genesis 37 (dreams that God gave him) where the stalks of wheat bowed down to his stalk of wheat, and then the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed down to him, all came true.

My Move to the Mac and Accordance Bible Software

One of my hobbies is computers. I like what they can do and certainly how they have helped me in my ministry and in everyday life.

I first started using a computer in 1994 when I was hired to work in a mailroom. I had no clue even how to turn a computer on and thought explosions could occur if left alone with one. However, the IT person was very patient and assured me that I wasn’t going to mess anything up. As I sat down in front of a Mac Quadra I was struck by how cool the MacOS interface was at the time. My introduction to computers was not on a PC, but on a Mac. That having been said, I ended up buying a PC for personal use and from there on in, I dove into the world of computers tinkering with this part or that, upgrading memory, hard drives, software, etc.

As a pastor the challenge had been to effectively and efficiently research my resources to be able to find exactly what I needed. The time looking often outweighed the actual time of study or reading. I soon realized that Bible software was the way to go and I somehow stumbled on Quickverse 3. I was soon compiling notes and sermons on the computer and the time to actually find what I needed was cut down greatly so I could study more and broaden the scope of my study. I used Quickverse all the way up to version 7. However, somewhere in the midst of version 7, Parson’s was sold to FindEx and it was the beginning of what I believed to be the dumbing down of my favorite PC Bible Study Software. Version 8 for me was a disaster and I soon headed for Logos Bible Software.

Logos had been around for a long time and seemed to have a big following. At the time I moved to Logos, they were coming out with the Libronix Digital Library System (LDLS). This took some getting used to and there was a definite learning curve. I spent a lot of time moving my notes from Quickverse to Logos (that’s right copying and pasting). However, I never would come to feel as strongly for Logos’ software as I had Quickverse (honestly, anything above Quickverse 4 was also a step in the wrong direction - in my opinion). Maybe it was that Quickverse had been my introduction to the power, speed and efficiency of Bible Study on the computer as opposed print.

I came to find that Logos had enormous amounts of resources and I would use the LDLS right up until version 3 came on the scene. The frustration mounted that some of the things I could do with my own personal notes in Quickverse 4, were note so easily handled in LDLS or even Quickverse 5-7 for that matter. Creating notes and being able to search them was a big deal to me. I guess it’s because they are uniquely mine and was often the basis of a future sermon. It seemed that any kind of notes feature within LDLS was more of an afterthought and they were not searchable in any kind of way.

It was right about this time that more than one virus had wiped out my data. On one occasion, I even had an anti-virus program with updated definitions. It told me I had a virus, but it neither prevented it nor could it clean it. At this point, Apple Stores were popping up all over the place, and I decided to take the plunge. I bought one, tried it out and then returned it. Bought another one, then returned that one. It would be about a year before I finally got completely fed up with the PC and got a Powerbook. I never looked back. I suppose my indecision over the Mac was simply the fact that I had put some money into Bible Study software on the PC that I wouldn’t be able to use anymore. Virtual PC was around, but mind-numbingly slow, so I had to find Bible software that was native to the Mac.

I ended up at the Accordance Bible Software website. I started with the Introductory version and purchased my preferred translation. Opening up the software, I could see right away it was different than all the other Bible software I had used. It took some getting used to and there was a learning curve. Honestly, isn’t there with most things that are new and unfamiliar to you? Anyway, my big beef with the PC Bible software had been the fact that the notes feature seemed to be an afterthought and you couldn’t do much with it. Not so with Accordance. My standard had been Quickverse 4 on a PC, but almost every other Bible Study annotation feature after QV4 on the PC, including the subsequent versions of Quickverse seemed to be an add-on in which you could make notes, read them, copy and paste them, but you couldn’t search them. I realize grading Bible Software for any platform based on its notes capabilities may not seem to be as noble as its handling of Greek and Hebrew resources, but after building a fairly extensive notes file, I wanted my notes to be part of my Bible Study experience. When Accordance landed on my Powerbook, it outdid every other Bible software for Mac or PC by giving me the ability to create user notes that could be searched (for essentially anything). And, there was the ability to create a User Tool as well, which could be your own work or a public domain work, and this too would be a completely searchable module. So a separate database of my sermons preached over the years, became a module that was integrated with all my other resources. To me, this was extremely useful. Here I am 4 years later using Accordance 8 for pretty much every aspect of Bible Study and sermon preparation.

I realize that Logos came out with their Mac offering and I cross-graded from my Windows version. There are lots of resources, but you can’t do much with them. Oh, and no notes in the Mac version. Quickverse is no longer a player in my mind for Windows or Mac (and they have both versions too). There’s WordSearch and they have their engine running on a Mac under the X11 environment using WINE. They have good resources too, but it’s not a native to the Mac. I have them all (except for Quickverse), but my only choice (daily) is Accordance. They don’t have as many “resources” as other companies, but then again they don’t actually count their resources the same way as others do. Additionally, they have some “resources” or “modules” as they call them, that other companies do not have. Oddly enough, what pulled me to the Mac environment was the announcement by Logos that they would have a Mac version of their software within about 6 months of the announcement. After 2 years they still hadn’t produced the Mac version. It was during that time that I found Accordance. So, I look at it that Logos helped bring me to using a Mac, while Accordance gave me reason to continue using the Mac.

So, when it comes to Bible Software for your daily use, my recommendation is always, get a Mac and use Accordance. This program alone is reason enough to move to a Mac and stay with it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the only virus in my household from time to time is... a cold!

Keeping Christ In...

Christmas is just a few hours away, but I wanted to share some thoughts about how we hear so much about Keeping Christ In Christmas.

At this season of the year, I hear many believers make an important statement - something like, "We need to keep Christ in Christmas." I completely agree. Unfortunately for many this tends to be a seasonal soapbox rather than a daily, year-round commitment to "contend for the faith." I don't know, maybe it's because we feel that the daily balance of greetings at this time of year tips the scale too far in the direction of Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas. And, then there's the whole X-mas abbreviation that is completely annoying and yet in my humble opinion, totally powerless to stamp out the true meaning of Christmas. Jesus said, "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Keeping Christ in Christmas is not some kind of conservative political statement that absolutely must be made at this time every year just because we've heard some generic greeting too many times. Frankly, that idea is too small. Jesus didn't come into the world to create some subsection of a political party that would jump on a bandwagon of slogans at Christmastime. He came into the world to reach out with great love and compassion to the unbeliever (some of whom will claim to be offended at being wished a Merry Christmas). We who claim to be followers of Christ get offended at their offense and then start on a mission to somehow change it all. But when reading the Gospels, you will find that Jesus dealt with non-believers with grace while the "religious" crowd were often handed stinging rebukes for their outward piety and inward emptiness.

I don't think Jesus came into the world just to be at the center of Christmas. He came into the world to be the center of our lives every day of the year. After Christmas is over, are we keeping Christ in our New Year? We must pursue Him daily, not just at specific seasons of the year.

How do we accomplish this? Scripture always offers the best solution for us. The best way to keep Christ in Christmas is to keep Christ in our hearts and our daily lives through prayer. The greatest voice the Christian has is not at the polls or on some kind of soapbox at Christmas or any other significant Christian holiday, but the voice that James 5:16 says is "the prayer of the righteous" and that prayer is "powerful and effective." Keep Christ in... well, just keep Him in...everything!

From my heart to yours, Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Celebration

If you're in Chicago, you are invited to join us at Praise Tabernacle this Sunday morning, December 20, 2009 at 11:00 for a celebration of Christmas. The Praise Power House kids will be singing and the Praise Tabernacle Ensemble will be ministering in song as well. If you can't make it, please pray for the Lord to minister through us to convey the true meaning of Christmas - Jesus!

Pillars

I’m not a builder. I now wish I had been, at least to some extent. I suppose I could’ve been, had I listened to my father a little more when he tried to teach me about carpentry, but I was too busy pursuing my junior high and high school baseball careers, which yielded little in the grand scheme of my life.

But, enough about the past. I do know a little bit about pillars, those vitally important support structures for buildings. I have been in a number of high-rise office buildings in downtown Chicago and have seen the massive columns as I walked through the lobbies. Without those supports, it would be impossible to build a Sears Tower or Hancock building.

What may strike you as you walk through one of those places and see those enormous pillars is how beautiful they are made to look on the inside. However, whatever kind of decorations are placed on those pillars to beautify them, the beauty of their function is not how ornate an interior decorator can cause them to be. Their beauty lies in the fact that they are holding up an entire building without any sound of stress. I would think twice about walking into a building where I heard the columns begin to creak and crack underneath the stress of that major structure. In fact, I think most of us would likely turn around and walk out the door getting as far away from the building as possible.

I was reminded a little while back about how essential it is to have pillars (spiritual pillars) in the local church. I battled illness for two days, and had to call upon a few people to help fill in the areas of responsibility that are generally mine to fulfill. These are the people that hold the whole thing together, or I should say, they hold it up so it doesn’t fall down. It is the strength of their faithfulness and their willingness to keep things moving forward in moments of minor crises that caused me as the pastor be grateful that I have a few pillars around upholding and supporting the ministry of our church.

So how is a pillar characterized in the local church?

1. First and foremost, a pillar must be spiritual. Since the ministry of Christ was a spiritual ministry, our ministry in and to the local church must first be a spiritual ministry which meets the spiritual needs of those in attendance.
2. Secondly, a pillar must be strong. The strength of a pillar is vital to the success of the local church. In times of storm and stress, their strength shows through.
3. Lastly, a pillar must be supportive. A pillar within the church, doesn’t seek leadership, but doesn’t shy away from it when called upon. The person carries out an important support role.

These three essential qualities of individuals within the local church will help the church to grow as it should.