Is God's Glory Safe??

James Cook, English explorer and discoverer of the Hawaiian Islands, was immediately identified and worshiped as God. Somewhat an understandable mistake on the part of the islanders given the unique appearance of Cook and his party, the accoutrement they possessed and the force they displayed with their guns and other weaponry.

Less understandable though was Cook’s acquiescence to the islanders’ mistake. Cook apparently relished the treatment he received and did nothing to dissuade the islanders’ worship. Cook liked being God!!

The time came for Cook to move on with his party. Lavish farewells occurred and all the wealth of the island that could be placed in the ship’s hold sailed away with Cook and his party. Shortly, though, a fierce storm came up. Waves nearly took the ship under and men and cargo were about to be lost. Cook turned the ship around and returned to the island; a wise action, at least, as to the avoidance of the storm.

Upon giving the islanders the explanation of the storm as his reason for returning, he was surprised as to their next action. Rather than the God-like treatment he had previously enjoyed, the natives determined him to be a deceiver, a perpetrator of a lie to further his own good. They reasoned if he was truly God, he would have easily overcome the storm. Cook met his death at the hands of angry islanders – a victim of his own prideful deceit.

Taking credit from God is a bad idea. The scripture is replete with examples. Adam and Eve “bit into” the deception of the serpent because they desired to be like God. Moses was denied entrance to the Promised Land because of his taking credit for God’s provision of water from the rock. Ananias and Sapphira stole glory belonging to God.

Today, men continue to relish glory. In my life, I must be so careful. I know that pride is lurking just below the surface of my life – and at times it breaks through with it characteristic odor of displeasure to our Holy Lord. A challenge for me – and my challenge to you – is to see God’s work in every aspect of life. Once this is seen, then we must be certain that we are men with whom God’s glory is safe.

Kingdom Irrelevance

My eleven-year-old son recently competed in a fifth-grade basketball tournament in Hot Springs and on our seventy-minute drive home we were talking about one of teams that was really good. I mean, scary good, for a group of fifth-graders. (They had a kid who was supposedly widely known to be the best fifth-grader in the state.) We also discussed another team that was really bad (I won’t say which one).

But we didn’t say anything about the other teams.

So I said to my son: “Quinn, I don’t care if you’re horribly bad at basketball or exceptionally good; the one thing I don’t want you to be is irrelevant. In other words, if you hit the locker room after a hard-fought game and no one even noticed that you played, you’ve blown it. If you try hard and miss every shot, I’ll still be proud of you. If you take a gamble on defense and fail, I’ll still be pleased. But if you don’t work hard, hustle, and give it all you’ve got, then you might as well not play.”

It seems to me that this is the Lord’s mindset as well.

Passion. Risk. Abandon. These are all unmistakable aspects of allegiance to Christ. Jesus illustrated that by saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

Is there anything worse that kingdom irrelevance? What will we be remembered for... our passion or indifference?

Knowledge vs. Practice

Knowledge vs. Practice

I find that the Christian life is hard to live out, it’s not necessarily that difficult to understand. I have known “how” to live the Christian life for some time, "Admit who I really am, accept Christ as a replacement for that, acknowledge that He now has ownership of me, then listen for what the boss wants me to do, then do it." Pretty simple right? So for me it’s not the knowledge that’s lacking, from time to time it’s the willingness, or the discipline. I always thought that the more I “knew” the easier it would be to “do.” Does that make sense? But, sadly, I’ve found that is not always accurate. I wish it were that easy. I guess in some cases and in some specific areas in my life that has been true. For instance, I was married when I was 19 years old and really, at 19, you’re lucky if you remember where you parked your car at the mall. So needless to say, I wasn’t prepared to be the “SPIRITUAL and FINANCIAL” leader that I probably needed to be (I realize that for those of you who know me well, it will be difficult to imagine me deficient … try to picture it though :-) Seeing this deficiency in my budding character, I started attending and serving in a program at our church called “Men’s Fraternity.” There I was challenged, pressed, often offended, pushed and encouraged to face the inescapable realities we all must face in our lives, but to face them in a way that would allow me to become a different sort of man, one that views life through a different lens. Gaining “knowledge” in that area helped me change in “action” as well. The result??? Now I’m perfect. I know… it’s hard to believe, but it’s true… just ask my wife…

The point is, it sometimes works. Gaining knowledge about life and how it is to be lived sometimes changes us in positive ways, but only if that knowledge translates into action on our part. If our goal is to glorify God, to paint a more accurate picture of who God is, then our values will reflect our goal. If we lived out our values at home, at work, at school, at church, when we were out to eat or at the football game, when we were in our cars or on an airplane… that picture of who God really is would be accurately shown to countless people. That is very attractive, but just having the knowledge and ability to paint that more accurate picture of God without the follow through of actually doing it falls flat.

Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t pursue knowledge, as a matter of fact I’m a huge proponent of the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge. I believe fully that the more we understand scripture, the more we ponder the deep issues and struggle to apply God’s truth to them, the more we will be able to put into practice the knowledge we have. That is the desired effect of knowledge; however, it doesn’t always have the desired effect. Knowledge for knowledge sake is of little good. It makes us feel better about ourselves and soothes our conscience from time to time, but if we don’t put it into practice, you know, make it a real part of our hour to hour life, it may only serve to make us arrogant and lazy.

I believe that we should take the knowledge we have acquired, you know the everyday, experiential knowledge that comes with making it this far in life, and the knowledge that we’ve had to fight tooth and nail for, through study and pain and mistakes, and be intentional about making our decisions based on that knowledge. In other words, in our everyday lives, our knowledge must guide our tangible steps. It’s not enough to know about the difference the truth makes in our lives, we must live that difference out in front of a watching world. Know the Difference, Live the Difference… huh, it’s almost like I’ve heard that somewhere before.