The Call

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Joe Chambers

The college I went to had mandatory chapel service several times a week. They had assigned seating and someone took roll. You got in trouble if you didn’t go. So, I went, but I slept through the entire thing. Usually, there were old stodgy professors who preached, (boring) or young preachers who had come there to learn to be pastors who preached, (boring).

My grandfather and father were Southern Baptist preachers and I had an experience at Church camp that led me to think I might be called to preach. Here I was at this Bible College studying Bible, but I didn’t want to be a preacher. I wanted to be a writer.

As I sat through a horrible sermon from an upperclassman in chapel one day, I remember thinking, “That is so bad, no wonder the church of Jesus Christ is so weak.” Then I felt a metaphorical thump on the back of my head and a loud inner Voice say to me, “If you think you can do better, why don’t you try.”

I interpreted that as a reaffirmation of my call to preach. I took my first pastorate in 1984 at the wise and mature age of twenty-six. My father preached my ordination sermon. His text was Ephesians 4:1,

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.

Then he paused and leaned forward and said, “That verse has nothing to do with being called to preach, Joe. It has everything to do with being called to walk day-by-day with Jesus. That is your primary calling in life. The preaching will come as an overflow of that daily walk.”

That was a long time ago and I have learned that the calling of God and following hard after Jesus is a long process.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest. He wrote a poem that speaks to the sometimes excruciating pace of our transformation.

Listen to these wise words:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
— that is to say, grace —
and circumstances
— acting on your own good will —
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser. Amen.

 

Look at what Jesus says…

Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17)fishermen2

I’ve been taught all my life that this is a soul-winning term. And, in a sense, it is. But it is more than that. It is not as slick and “close-the-deal” like in door-to-door-sales as I had always thought. Becoming a fisher of men is a process, a journey.

In Biblical imagery and Hebrew symbolism the sea is a place of chaos and death; and represents the Kingdom of Darkness. What makes this Kingdom …dark and chaotic? Self-centeredness. Self-kingship.  Self-pity. Self-absorption.

When Jesus says that He will make us fishers of men He is saying, “I’ll make you into someone who knows how to draw people out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.”

A “fisher of men” is someone who has moved out of that chaotic darkness into the serenity of the light and now are so grateful that they begin to draw other people into the light of loving God, loving others and serving the world.

May you walk day-by-day with Jesus as your primary calling in life and Above all, trust in the slow work of God to make you fishers of men.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Despicable Me

Posted on February 10, 2017 by Joe Chambers

Despicable Me (a lament)

O God, You are loving and kind

Yet, I am hurt and angry at Your church

Why did they embrace a despicable man?

Make them see their folly; their idolatry.

For, I am hurt and angry at Your church

I want her to weep and keen

Make them see their folly; their idolatry

Pierce their hearts to feel my pain.

I want her to weep and keen

Why did they embrace a despicable man?

Pierce their hearts to feel my pain

O God, You are loving and kind.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

What Is The Drive-Shaft of Your Life?

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Joe Chambers

“Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  Isaiah 40:3-4

prepareThe prophecy I’ve quoted above is a reference to a coming King to Israel. This King would be unlike any other King. When He comes the truth about the nature of the Living God would be revealed in a three-dimensional and very accessible way.  God would come as a man, the man Christ Jesus.

So?

Sometimes I am asked what is supposed to happen to a person’s functional life when they fully embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How does it change daily behavior when a person becomes a Christ-follower?

I believe this change shows up in at least three significant ways:

  1. It can change the fundamental drive of your life.

We all have a basic motivational drive. It’s what gets us out of bed in the morning and gets us to do what it is we do. For most of us I think it is fear.

Fear of missing out…

Fear of not measuring up…

Fear of failing…

Fear of not having what it takes…

And all religions of the world aggravate this fear. All other religions say God is “out there” and “up there.”  We have to reach Him and religion tells us how.

Buddhism: You must reach the Divine by following the 8-fold path.

Islam: You must keep and pursue the 5 pillars of faith.

Judaism: Keep the Torah (the Ten Commandments)

Secularism: Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.

American Folk Religion: Be successful at all costs. Even if that means losing your family in the process.

I heard a man say recently, “Our work is the summary of who we are.” And that is fine until you can’t do your work anymore. Or when you never achieve the level of accomplishment you dreamed for your life. And If you are an average worker and success is the ultimate measurement of your value, that can only mean that you are a loser.

But the religion that most haunts most of the people I know is as follows:

All you need is to be “saved” and go to church when you can; being a disciple and living the life Jesus actually lived and doing the deeds He actually did is optional and for the special few.

But the truth is that Jesus did not come to this earth, live a perfect life, teach the wonderful things He taught, die on a cross, pass through the hell of death and rise on the third day to give you cheap fire insurance.

He came to give you eternal life at the core of who you are so that you will be able to let Him live His life through your hands, eyes, mind, heart, and feet. That’s how the Kingdom of God comes; one soul at a time.

The Bible says that God has come to us. He has come, and it is possible to have a heart that knows we are loved by God therefore we want to live a life of gratitude. We obey the teachings of Jesus and emulate His lifestyle from a motivation of grateful joy, not out of fear.  Jesus came to us because He knew we could never reach Him.

When this “good news” or Gospel metastasizes in the depths of our souls it also provides us with…

  1. A tremendous resource during suffering

If you really are hurting and you pour your heart out to someone and all they do is give you tons of facts about what you should do or not do. We might be the recipients of good data, but that often does not translate into the best help. Most of us know what we should be doing.

But if you pour your heart out about what’s wrong with you and the person says “I went through that very same thing. And maybe they show you that they even went through worse things. And they tell you the story of their experience, then they say they will be with you as you go through it! How do you feel?

No religion on this planet says that God has been through deep suffering except Christianity.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone. — Edward Shillito

Not only will Jesus change the fundamental motivation of your life and give you a tremendous resource during suffering, He also provides us with…

  1. A wonderful motivation for peace and justice.

Jesus coming into this world means God got a physical body. And when He died He was raised from the dead. Which means He wasn’t just raised spiritually, he was raised physically.

And what this teaches us is that the purpose of Christian salvation is not escape from the material world, but the redemption, the renewal, the healing, of the material world. In other words, it foretells about the end of times when there will be new heavens and new earth.

Therefore, not only salvation of the soul and forgiveness of sins, but fighting disease and poverty and injustice is on the agenda of the salvation of God. Don’t you want to join Him in what He is doing in this world?

This prophecy of Isaiah says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is rooted in the ancient hope of Israel for a king to come someday who would take down every mountain and raise up every canyon and heal the world of all of its disease and brokenness.

We Christians agree with the ancient prophesy and believe, “That King has come.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Hunted

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Joe Chambers

…suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice… Acts 9:3,4

The life of Francis Thompson was a downward spiral that landed him on the streets of nineteenth-century London—a useless vagabond, an opium addict, a starving derelict. There, God caught him. Finally.

The son of a doctor, Thompson started out with great potential. His father sent him to study for the priesthood, and then to another school to become a doctor. But he failed at both professions and be¬came a wastrel instead, running from responsibility, family, and God.

Eventually, this prodigal hit bottom. Wandering the back alleys of London, he was hungry, friendless, and addicted to drugs. With tattered clothes and broken shoes, he barely survived by selling matches and newspapers. Still, God did not relent in His dogged chase to capture the young man’s soul.

A ray of hope came when Thompson began to write poetry. Wilfred Meynell, an editor, immediately saw Thompson’s genius. He published his works, encouraged him to enter a hospital, and personally nursed him through his convalescence. This marked a spiritual turnaround in Thompson’s life. He writes of his flight from God and God’s pursuit of him in the poem “The Hound of Heaven.” A few lines…

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat—

Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.

With this same breathless pursuit, the Hound of Heaven once chased another running man. This person was not a vagrant; he was a well-educated and very powerful Pharisee. Nonetheless, he stubbornly fled from Christ until, one day; the Hound caught him on the dusty road to Damascus. I’m talking about Saint Paul.

He was a Jewish zealot. He despised the very name of Jesus of Nazareth. Not unlike how Osama Ben Laden hated everything America stood for; Saul loathed everything followers of Jesus stood for.

Luke tells us that he enthusiastically approved of the lynching of Stephen and that he ravaged the early church. Who was the meanest man you ever knew? Saul was meaner by ten. Paul could have written:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the Temple and Synagogues;
I fled Him, down the old Damascus road.

He was running.

Clutching the arrest warrants from the high priest, Saul set’s out on his distorted mission. bright_lightHowever, several days into the journey, the Hound of Heaven catches him and turns his world upside down. A flash of heavenly light at high noon knocks him off his horse and a Voice speaks from within the light and Saul is converted to faith in Jesus.

The Hound of Heaven has his teeth deeply in this missionary that will change the Roman world. But look at him now; the story tells us he was blinded by the light and he is shuffling arm and arm with a guide into the city—stumbling all the way. He is a blind and broken man.

Five years ago, when I broke my leg backpacking and the Snohomish County Search and Rescue came to my camp just under Gothic Basin, they took over and started calling the shots. They told me to sit still and they would pack up my gear. Told me to lie back on a litter and they would carry me to the pickup zone so I could be choppered to safety. They strapped me on to the litter wrapped a tight fiberglass shroud around me, folded my arms across my chest so that I couldn’t even scratch my nose.

It hurts to be helpless. But, I’ve learned that grace, like water, follows the path of least resistance.

We dog-ear someone’s life on the page of their greatest failure. But God doesn’t do that. God looks at the totality of their life. He even takes into consideration the good deeds that they will do in the life to come. There is always a clean slate of grace with God.

God sends a gentle saint named Ananias to Saul to touch his eyes and change his life. With tenderness, Ananias ministers to undeserving Saul. As the blinding scales of hate fall away, Saul opens his eyes, and for the first time he sees the truth of Christ’s love. And the two men embrace. Once enemies, now brothers.

Each dawn that peaks over the chalky hills of Damascus brings the soft light of hope and deeper meaning. The Holy Spirit lives inside the man-hater now and he is changed. But somebody had to do a lot of forgiving of Saul. Somebody’s mother had been thrown in prison. Someone’s brother had been lynched. Stephen’s children are crying in the night for their father who will never come home again. A lot of forgiving was given to this former enemy of the Church.

A restoration happened. A mending turned enemies into brothers. It is a healing that only occurs when the Holy Spirit fills the skin of a band of brothers and sisters who are willing to risk loving an enemy. The hunter became the hunted. The persecutor had become the preacher. Saul started out with all kinds of power, and now he is able to live for Jesus with authority that comes from being rescued, mended and restored.

Some of you don’t know it, but He is nipping at your heels.

Or maybe you are Ananias waiting for your orders.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Shepherd

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Joe Chambers

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep…~Jesus

A man tells me of a pornography addiction that has escalated into group sex with strangers and random sexual encounters with men.  I listen and pray with him for weeks and months give the Biblical wisdom about such things.

A woman has an affair with a co-worker and her husband finds out.  My wife and I spend hours, days, and weeks meeting with them.  I get calls and texts in the middle of the night for months from one or both of them because their hearts are on fire with pain and betrayal.  We pray, listen, give counsel from the Bible.  We declare to them both that we will walk with them all the way to a marriage of restoration.  They stay married.

A man comes to faith in Jesus.  I baptize him and spend hours teaching him the basics of the Christian life.  We pray together, we talk, and we walk together for months and then years.  He grows and grows in his understanding of the faith.

Another family joins the fellowship and begins to serve in the church.  I meet with the man for coffee hours after hours and yet he and his wife begin to drift apart and he begins to date a married woman so I ask him to take some time off serving until he settles his marital status.  I pray with him and show him the scriptures clear teaching about such things.

A recovering alcoholic and I meet for coffee and great conversations about life, rock n roll, and Jesus.

A woman and her daughter begin coming to our Church and breathe such a sigh of relief at finding a safe place from which they can recover from a toxic church relationship.  They are enfolded deeper and deeper into the Church and begin to serve.  The younger woman is unable to have children with her husband who is hostile to the Church.  So, we pray and pray and pray for the couple to conceive and give birth to a healthy baby.  We pray for the husband to begin to attend Church.  He begins coming and is faithful to come even when his wife is too ill with morning sickness.  He begins to serve in the Church.  A healthy baby is born to this lovely family.

A single mother and her daughter attend and serve.  I go to her place of employment with the horrible news that her father has suddenly died.  I carry her in my arms with another member to her car and drive her home.  My wife and I pray with her and love her; care for her.

A man and his wife have been in our home to share a meal tells his wife I am a fake.

And now I must stop typing for the tears in my eyes. Those sheep have all left the fold. They have left my church.  Some attend other Churches; prettier and sexier Churches. Others just don’t go to church anymore. They all left in the span of 18 months in a  previous ministry.

shepherdForbes released a list a couple of years ago of the toughest leadership roles – and a church pastor ranks among them. More than 1,700 pastors leave the ministry every month.

This staggering number includes some of the brightest, most inspiring pastors in the country. Over the years of having about as many people leave my ministry sphere as stay, I thought I’d share a thing or two, because I’ve seen a thing or two.

  1. Carry the sheep in your heart, but hold them loosely.

If you don’t carry them in your heart, your compassion will be stiff and stultified—helping no one. If you hold them too tightly your fingers will hurt when they pry them open to go their way. Besides, they are not your sheep anyway.

  1. Lead the sheep firmly, but never let them accuse you of being merciless.

A shepherd never ever drives his or her sheep. It’s a cliché, but none-the-less true: Folks don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. If you are going to make a mistake in leadership, make it on the side of mercy and grace. After all, that’s what your Shepherd has done for you.

  1. Your sheep need a pastor, but you need one more than they do.

A pastor without a pastor is a man or a woman who is trying to be a Messiah. Find someone you can trust that will shepherd your heart with equal parts grace and truth. When you find that safe person, submit the care of your soul to them. Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said, “He who cannot obey, ought not command”?

  1. Feed the sheep in your fold, but nourish your interior life more.

When (not if) they leave you will want to be strong enough to complete your calling and love those that remain in ways that make them look more and more like Jesus. Beyond that, when you stand before the Lord one day, He’s not going to ask you to show Him your sheep. He’ll ask to see your soul. Make sure you have one to show Him.

The calling of a pastor is a heavy one, but we are not without resources. We have a Good Shepherd that holds us as we hold others. Now, excuse me I hear the bleating of a hurting soul and I must go.

For I am a pastor.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Spirit

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Joe Chambers

 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper… I will not leave you orphans. —Jesus

I need help loving folks. You probably don’t, but I certainly do.

Many years ago, I was a corporate trainer, traveling from city to city teaching management and communication courses to businesses. I spent a lot of time in airports. Typically, after 6 hours of training on conflict management or assertive communication skills, my quota of words had been spent and my emotional tank was empty. That meant that I did NOT want to talk to anyone.

The thought of being seated beside a talker on a long flight home is my idea of hell. To mitigate that I would often begin my “Get off my lawn” scowl as I passed through security. I’ve been known, with one look, to put the fear of God in TSA officers. I would also put earbuds in my ears, which is a clear indicator that I am not to be spoken to.

So, in the Oakland airport, armed with a menacing stink eye and with earbuds firmly in place, I prepared to board my Southwest flight home to Seattle. Southwest does not assign seats. You get your choice of seats based on zones and the earlier you check in the better the zone. If you are in zone “C” you very well might get a middle seat. And because I am 6 feet four inches tall and none-of-your-business pounds, I don’t travel well in the middle seat, to say the least.

You might imagine on this day I had zone “C”. I am not a happy man.

As I am waiting to board, I notice a young man who had white bellbottom pants on and wearing a navy-blue pea coat. A large khaki duffle bag lay at his feet. He is talking on a cell phone and tears are streaming down his face. I deduced that he was about to be deployed from Bremerton Naval station up near Seattle on a ship that would take him out to sea for several months. He was saying goodbye to someone he loved. He hung up his phone and began to sob as he pulled the high collar of his pea coat up around his face.

I sighed deeply and heard a pestering Voice say to me,

“That boy needs someone to minister to him.”

“I’m not a pastor anymore,” I thought.

“You have a heart, though. Don’t you, Joe?” A Voice said.

“I’ve worked very hard all day and have no more words or energy.”

“Your meat is to do the will of the Father,” the Voice said.

“He probably doesn’t want some stranger talking to him in such a vulnerable state!”

“Love suffers long and is kind,” the Voice said.

“I know he needs help, but I don’t want to!”

“He that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin,” the Voice said.

“What would I say?”

“I will dwell with you and will be in you,” the Voice said.

“Okay, okay,” I said. If he gets on the plane and no one is sitting beside him I will sit beside him and see if I can help.

The voice on the PA system called for zone “A” to board and he got up and made his way to the plane. I smiled because I am in zone “C” on a very full flight.

I felt good. I had submitted to the pestering voice in my conscience and at the same time that guy is in zone “A” and I am in zone “C”—what are the odds that an open seat would be beside him?  More than a little smugness came into my heart.

As I walked down the aisle to find any non-middle seat I could, I saw the sailor sitting in a window seat—with a middle seat next to him open.

Sigh.

I remembered my promise to the pestering voice that if there were an open seat next to him, I’d sit there.

I sat beside him and as the plane leveled off at cruising altitude I asked him his name and we chatted for a while. His name was Nick; he was newly married and his wife was pregnant. She was going to have his baby while he was at sea. She was all alone in the bay area and he was worried about her.

I asked him other questions about his home town, his interests, his favorite sports teams, (I was relieved to discover he was not an Oakland Raiders fan. #decencymatters) hobbies. He talked and talked and talked.

We landed and I walked with him towards baggage claim and his weeping returned. As we walked together, I told him that SeaTac had a chapel and the USO also had a kiosk. He thanked me.

I started to walk away and looked back to see Nick standing there unsure of where to go next and what to do. He looked as lost as a puppy without it’s mama. I went back and stood in front of him and said, “Nick, Jesus loves you very much. If you will call upon him while at sea, He will never leave you alone.”  Nick nodded his head.

“Nick, can I pray for you?”

He nodded his head.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and said a prayer of blessing and protection over him, his wife, and child—as a sea of humanity swirled all around us.

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”’

After the prayer, I hugged him and walked away.

He called out, “Sir? Thank you.”

holy-spirit-websize-tan-backgroundAs I made my way to my car, you know what? I felt empowered. I felt fresh and energized. My steps were lighter. My heart was full.”

The play write, Arthur Miller described his wife, Marilyn Monroe’s, ability to walk into a room filled with people and point out the folks in the room who grew up in an orphanage. She’d say, “There is a pain and loneliness in the eyes that is absent in all of the other eyes. I know who grew up without love.”

 

That might be true of some of you. Would you allow Jesus to look you in the eyes, like He did His friends 2,000 years ago, and receive these words, “I will not leave you orphaned. I am coming to you”?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Goodbye, Mr. President

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Joe Chambers

On January 20th of 2017, we said goodbye to the first President of Color in the history of our country. My admiration for Mr. Obama has nothing to do with his politics. (Most of which I disagree.) My respect is derived from his character. He and his family conducted themselves with class. Much like the immediate previous occupants of the White House.

President Barak Obama

President Barak Obama

I wrote the article below the day after Barak Obama won the election in 2008. (By the way, I voted for McCain)

I was living in Eastland, Texas the first year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was in full force.  At that time, Texas was not the most integrated State in the land.  I remember specific sections of town being designated “Colored Town.”  (That is what polite people called it.)  Sometimes we would drive over the railroad tracks and pass through that part of town and I remembered the houses on stilts with no skirting and lacking paint.  Here and there a car up on blocks with the wheels removed.

For the most part, yards were neat and tidy with bright, colorful clothes hung on the line in the back yards.  Old men sat on the front porch—some smoking corn cob pipes, others just sitting in straight back chairs with dazzling white T-shirts, wearing fedora hats.    And in my young mind, I felt as if this were not a good thing—this separated place for these people.  I couldn’t say it then, for I did not have the language, but it felt oppressive.  It felt unfair.  Like they had done something wrong and living separated was their punishment.

My best friend that year in school was a girl named Victoria.  Her desk was right next to mine in Mrs. Smith’s first-grade class.  We had nothing in common.  I was a boy and she a girl.  (girls were covered in germs back then) She was very good in school.  I was an average student.  She never got in trouble.  I got in trouble all the time.  I wore plain clothes.  She wore bright colors.  I was quiet in class.  She was outspoken.  I desperately wanted to fit in and play with the cool kids at recess.  She was content to sit alone and read or jump rope by herself.

The one thing we had in common, however, was our sense of humor.  I remember I could make her laugh.  She had an easy and infectious laugh.  That was one of the reasons I got in trouble because she would laugh at my silliness.  And she was just as funny.  We couldn’t play together at recess because boys didn’t play with girls in first grade without some major teasing by the cool kids.  But in class—when Mrs. Smith had her back to us—we had a blast.  Victoria was a great gal.

On parent /teacher night my mom wanted to meet this Victoria that I chattered so much about.  I told her that it would be easy to meet her because she sat next to me.  I was hopeful that she would be there that night at the same time we were there.  My hopes came true.  As my mom and I went into the classroom I took her over to show her my desk and there was Victoria with her mom too!

I turned to my mom and said, “This is Victoria.”

My mom paused.

Then she smiled and bragged to Victoria and her mom about how much I talked about Victoria when I came home from school every day.  It’s “Victoria this and Victoria that.  Victoria said this and Victoria said that.  Joe just goes on and on about Victoria.”

I remembered Victoria smiling and looking down at her shoes in a bit of awkward shyness.  My mom and her mom exchanged some pleasantries.  I just smiled at Victoria and she smiled back.  But her smile eclipsed mine with her white teeth contrasted against her jet-black skin.

Years later my mom reminded me of that night.  She said the thing that she was so proud of about that first-grade friendship was the fact that I never mentioned Victoria’s skin color.  Which told her that she and my father were doing a good job of raising color blind children in a segregated south.

First Grade Class Siebert Elementary School 1965

First Grade Class
Siebert Elementary School
1965

I am the one with the ears…back row third from the left.  I suppose you can guess which one is Victoria.

On November 4, 2008, our country elected its first black president.  When Barak Obama wowed us with his victory speech I remembered “Colored Town. “ I remembered unpainted and un-skirted houses.  I remembered news reports of National Guard troops being sent into volatile places in the south.  I remember George Wallace blocking a doorway somewhere.  I remember my mom crying when a white man killed Marin Luther King, Jr. I remember the news reporting race riots all over the country.

And now my president is a black man!

When President-elect Obama’s wife came on the stage with their two little girls——I also remembered Victoria.

Now some 43 years later I don’t know where Victoria is…. but I bet she is laughing.

I am laughing too, for change has indeed come.  I am proud of our country.

Heavenly Father, please protect President Trump and his family.  Give him compassion for the unborn and voiceless of this world.  Give him strength to protect the innocent.  Close his ears to evil.  Give him discernment to be a good steward of the trust and treasury of our great land.  Give him grace and your blessings.  Let no evil or harm befall him.  Keep him humble and dependent upon You.  May you be glorified through our new president.   Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Lord

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Joe Chambers

 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…

Jesus, who, being in the form of God…made Himself of no reputation…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…  Philippians 2:5,6,10

Despite the current political and cultural climate, there is coming a day when every knee will bow to Jesus

Galaxies and grasshoppers; Angels and ants will bow their knees. He is Lord over Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin. He is Lord over the Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians. He is Lord over Bill Gates and Meryl Streep. He is Lord over Bill O’Reilly and Dan Rather. He’s Lord over Oprah and Big Bird. He is Lord over Dr. Ruth, Dr. Kevorkian, and Dr. Seuss. He is Lord over Steven Spielberg and Lady Gaga.

They may not know it yet, but the day is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and ruler of the Kings of the earth!

Even in our day, in the vocabulary of the world, “down” is a word reserved for losers, cowards, and the bear market.  It’s a word to be avoided or ignored.  It’s a word that colors whatever it touches: down and out, downfall, downscale, downhill, downhearted, and worst of all, down under.  It’s a word for the weak, the poor, the losers, or the dead.

From the world’s perspective, up is the only direction to go.  Just as a compass needle points north, the human needle points up; in each heart is a built-in mechanism that craves self-promotion and advancement, the climb of ego.

Do whatever it takes to conquer gravity. Why? Because that is the direction of greatness. That’s what the world says. But, Jesus is a king who descends into greatness. He is unlike any ruler or authority figure the world has ever seen.

All this language of Lord, Kings, and Rulers is a little unnerving to us on a couple of levels. For one thing, we haven’t had a Lord or a King in this country in quite some time. But on a much more personal level, because we are living lives in which folks in authority over us over have abused their power: parents, pastors, coaches, bosses, teachers…many of us have an allergy to authority.

Therefore, we choose to be ruled by the tyranny of the self.

But Jesus is a king, but a king of a different kind. His strategy for conquest is to love us into submission. Jesus rules through forgiveness, love, and grace. He rules by serving even at great cost to Himself. You can trust a king like that.

Listen, there is no room in the house of your life that you can’t feel safe inviting Jesus to grace-looks-friend-grateful-69765enter. There is no secret that you need to worry about when you give it to Jesus. There is no wound, no matter how deep, that you can’t trust in His hands. Why? Because those very hands in which you place your wounded and broken heart are scarred themselves.

If you want to be truly great, then the direction you must go is down.

If you want to be a real follower of Jesus, then express your Christianity the same way Jesus did…think like Jesus thought…act like Jesus acted…have the same attitude or mind that Jesus had.

You develop the same values, the same mindset…you follow in his steps.

What would it look like for you and me to follow Jesus and joyfully descend? In what ways, can we empty ourselves of our time, emotional energy, and material possessions to serve others and give glory to God?

What about grudges? When you are tempted to walk down another aisle at your local grocery rather than come face-to-face with a person who has harmed you. Will you meet them in the produce section and say, “Hi” and give them a hug? That is a person who is following Jesus down as he loves God and serves others.

When you are in an argument and you decide to let the other person get the last word like Jesus did before Herod and Pilate. That is when you are following the humble King down into greatness.

When you show up to a social gathering and instead of wondering how you might make an entrance that lets everyone know that you are now in the building, you look around for the one person who looks like they are alone and decides that you are going to make them feel as if they are the reason the party was thrown. Who here is lonely? Who here is discouraged? That is a moment in which you are imitating the humble king.

Descend into obscurity in the eyes of the world, and greatness in the eyes of God. You won’t be lonely there. That’s where you’ll find the carpenter from Nazareth.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Father

Posted on January 8, 2017 by Joe Chambers

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” ~ Jesus

This doesn’t seem to be how the analogy should end. The kids need food, not the Holy Spirit.

What could Jesus possibly be saying here?  Here’s what I think He is saying, “Sometimes, what we think we need more than anything in the world is answers, help, a fix, a cure—but the thing we most need is God. We need the presence of God more than we need the provisions of God. What we need more than what God gives, is God.

His very best gift to us is Himself.

Jesus lived for us, died for us, and was raised from the dead for us so that the third person of the Trinity could actually live in our lives. The Christian message is NOT that your life will be trouble-free. It was not true for the people who heard Jesus teach this 2,000 years ago, it was not true of the saints down through the ages, and it is not true for us today.

This was not even true for Jesus Himself. Jesus’ didn’t get His resurrection before His death.

Often awful things happen to very good people. The good news is that when we are confused about why the heavens are silent when we are in trouble, sick, or broken is that the cross and the empty tomb proves that God is with us right now—and that is enough.

And the resurrection is exhibit A that God is mighty enough to right the wrongs of this world and will one day make everything sad come untrue. What God did to the dead and stiffening cadaver of Jesus, He will one day do for this rotten world. He will bring ‘up there down here.’

In 1758, Robert Robinson wrote one of the most beloved hymns of the church, Come, Thou Fount. The words have moved Christians from the time he wrote it.

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love. 

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above. 

A lot of people don’t know that, after writing that hymn, Robinson left the faith. It was not that he no longer believed. He believed in the doctrine but his own failure and sin caused him to lose his belief that God could love him. Years later on a summer evening he was riding in a carriage with a lady friend. They rode past a church and heard the strings of the hymn Robinson had written so many years before coming from the open windows of the church.

Robinson began to cry. His friend asked him the reason for his tears and he told her that the hymn was his. “I would give everything I own,” he said, “to know the peace that I knew when I wrote that hymn.”

I wish I could have talked to Robert Robinson. I would have liked to have told him that he will never know the peace he longs for by being on the outside looking in. I would have told him to get down off his horse carriage and go to the Father, Almighty. He won’t be angry. He’ll love you and it will be as if you had never left!”

That is the hope we cling to when we call God “Our Father, Almighty.”

When I was a trustee on Lifeway Christian Resources back in the 90’s, I was flying into Nashville for a board meeting. Somewhere along the way we hit some of the worst turbulence I’ve ever been through in my entire life. I have flown quite a bit and usually don’t get too spooked about this kind of thing. But this was really bad. That kind of experience tends to make you pray. I prayed intensely during that bumpy ride. But the really irritating thing was that I was seated beside a woman who slept through the entire thing. When we finally landed, she woke up and stretched and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. I said to her, “Lady, we almost died and you slept through the entire thing! How could you sleep through that?

She laughed, and said, “Mister, I can’t fly the plane!”

God and God alone is Almighty.

I have a friend whose father, when my friend was a small boy, placed him on top of a kitchen counter and said, “Son, jump and I’ll catch you.” When my friend jumped, his father turned his back and let him hit the floor. Then his father said, “Son, you have just learned an important lesson. Never trust anybody…ever.”

God says, “Jump I’ll catch you.” When you do, we find that we are caught in the arms of a Father who has never broken a promise, never abused his children, never let us go.

I love the words of the late Brennan Manning:

May all your expectations be frustrated;

May all your plans be thwarted

May all your desires be withered into nothingness…

That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty

Of a child and sing and dance in the compassion of God Who is

Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen.

sistinechapelgodandadam2

If you are a follower of Jesus you don’t need to wonder if you are welcome in God’s presence. There is no gatekeeper to the throne-room of heaven.

You have access to the Living God—because He is your Father.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Voice

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Joe Chambers

toysrus-gettyOne evening a few years ago, I was driving home in the gentle rain of the Pacific Northwest. In the back of my old Jeep lay a gift for the best grandson in the wide world that I had purchased from Toys-R-Us.  The radio was slapping out the music of Bruce Hornsby on the radio and I was trying to sing along to the lyrics:

 

Listen to the mandolin rain

Listen to the music on the lake

Listen to my heart break every time she runs away

I was singing loud in my noisy Jeep cruising down the Highway.  Suddenly, I heard a siren from somewhere behind me and off in the distance a muted Public Address voice with all the authority that comes with someone who carries a badge and a gun, “Halt! Where do you think you are going?”

I squinted into all my mirrors straining to get a glimpse of the flashing red and blue lights of the police officer that is yelling at me.  I looked ahead and to my right then to my left.  He was not ahead of me, not behind me, not beside me…yet the siren was still there and the voice from One-Adam-Twelve was still hollering at me.

I was getting more than a little frustrated and very confused, so I pulled over to the far right lane and wondered what I might have done to irritate the officer so much that he has to yell at me over the PA system and turn his siren on but without flashing emergency lights.

Did I run a red light?  Was I speeding?  Did I change lanes inappropriately?  Did he think I fit the description of a mass murder or terrorist?  Maybe he thought I was a “Deplorable.” What could I have possible done to incur such wrath when the only thing I had been doing for the last hour was to successfully purchase—not contraband mind you— but toys for my grandson?

I started pulling over to make my way off the highway and be frisked by an irritated police officer who had an authority complex.  That badge and gun have gone to this guy’s head, I thought to myself.

Then the siren went off again and the voice on the PA system from somewhere behind me said, “To infinity and beyond!”

The tumblers in my brain clicked in recognition.  Buzz Lightyear had fallen over in the backseat and activated his button and he had been cycling through all his lines from the movie Toy Story.

I started to laugh out loud.  It has been a very long time that I obeyed the voice of a toy no matter how authoritative sounding that voice might be.  I remember saying, “That is funny right there, Joe.  You crossed two lanes of traffic and were about to get out of your jeep, put your hands on the hood of your Jeep and get spread-eagle for a …toy.”

That would be a toy story indeed.

I was not expecting to hear from Buzz that afternoon, but I heard from him and adjusted my behavior accordingly.

Would to God I would be as quick to obey the voice of Jesus as I did the voice of Buzz.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment