Jack LaFountain's Blog, page 9

Lost Crusader #229 Fact Checking

“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  Mark 2:17

 

While scrolling Facebook, I came across a frequently repeated meme. “Jesus spent most of his time with the type of people that most Christians these days don’t want in their church.” The author thought the statement required a second reading. I agree it should be read a second time and more carefully than the first. Of course, I have different reasons for going through it again. Five come immediately to mind.

First, and perhaps most important of all, is the reason Jesus spent time with them. He was delivering the Gospel to those most in need of it—sinners. Christians, using the same words to invite people to know God, is the birthplace of memes like the one in question. If you believe Jesus pulled any punching in calling out their sin, you are probably either monstrously naïve or willfully ignorant.

There is a misconception as well as to who spent time with whom. Jesus went into people’s homes. Each visit, including the one to Nicodemus, qualifies as going to a sinner’s house. He visited cities just to find certain sinners. But, even when in someone’s home, the people came to be near Him, not the other way around. That’s how the need to feed multitudes came to pass.

To be accurate, there were also “church people” in those crowds. They might not have had a high regard for those they were rubbing shoulders with, but they wanted to hear too—some to accuse, others because they recognized their need.

Fourth, I feel quite sure the meme’s author spent no time researching Christian attitudes or polling the millions of church members around the globe to verify his data. Where were the science-trained fact checkers on this one? It’s one of those big lies told so often that it is accepted as fact, even by those who know better.

Finally, the meme is hypocritical. It condemns an entire population group for a behavior duplicated by the author in his statement which perpetuates a false stereotype.

I think I may know the reason why some people feel the same as the author of the meme. Christianity, as preached by Jesus, does not allow us to remain unchanged. Jesus visited sinners so that He might make them righteous, not so He could admire their sin. Pointing out a person’s errors while offering relief is not hate, it’s love.

Maranatha

Know Jack # 438 Spinning a Story

"Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control." ~ Calvin Coolidge

 

I have pretty much made a career of bringing up sensitive subjects in such a way that they cannot be easily avoided and those involved must make a choice. That’s one of the reasons I was never a good pastor and why I have few friends. Don’t get me wrong, I do my share of procrastination and wavering on issues that I don’t find urgent.  However, there are times when it is a person’s duty to set expediency and conciliation aside and take a stand for what honor requires.

 

Just as sure as those times come, the result will be slanted in favor of those who control the sources of information surrounding the action. Victors write the history of events. Those who describe the battles decide who are seen as heroes and who are seen as villains. Controlling the story while it’s being told is better than having another battalion to send into battle.

 

Is looting and burning a neighborhood rioting, or a protest of the offended and oppressed? It depends on who is doing the burning and who is describing it. Is collecting money to fund another person’s college educational debt relief or is it theft? Again, it depends upon the characters in the story and how the storyteller wants to explain their actions.

 

I’ve sat in Literature class and listened to lectures about what motivated the author, what the words he wrote were really saying, and how “this” was the author’s way of saying “that” and “that” was his way of saying “this”. I’d like to be around a hundred years from now and find out what I was thinking while I wrote my books. I have a feeling it will sound a lot like whatever the professor wants me to say.

 

It’s a wise person who knows every storyteller has a point to make and that point is colored by the teller’s own vision. Two sides are one side more than most people care to hear.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #228 Pure Religion

“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

James 1:26-27

 

The word “religion” means a system of beliefs and practices. James, rightly, does not use the word to describe a church or a handed-down measure of conformity issued by an organization. That’s because, as defined, religion calls for the development of a personal practice. Christianity is a religion in the same way music is art. It is a broad umbrella under which there are many genres.

 

Not long after rising each morning, I make and drink coffee—I’m very religious about coffee drinking. It has nothing to do with worship, hanging out with fellow coffee drinkers, or devaluing those who do not partake. Granted, I don’t understand them, but I still value them.

 

The fact is everyone has a religion. Some have bothered to develop one based on thought and investigation of the truth. Others have had a ready-made one handed to them. Neither of these groups is exclusive to the world nor the church. One does not work from faith and the other from reason—both have reasons for what they believe and why they practice the things they do.

 

Religion is visible evidence of the values residing within a person. Jesus once told the story of two sons. Both were commanded to do a certain thing by their father. One said he would go do it but didn’t. The other said he would not go but then did. Which of them valued their father’s will the most? Values may be buried deep and require work to get them to the surface.

 

The sharing of common beliefs and practices within a group that the world associates with religion is rightly called a fellowship. I have been a part of Writers’ fellowship from time to time in which the only common thread was that we all wrote stories. Each one wrote different stories in different genres and with different voices. Yet we shared an hour or so every week to talk about our common “religion”.

 

It is popular to say, “I’m spiritual, not religious”. That such a statement is gobbledygook flies right past the speaker. Few people would deny humans are spiritual creatures; or that we have a spiritual dimension. So, to be human is to be spiritual. Likewise, humans have their own beliefs and practices, ergo a religion.

The statement, “I’m spiritual, not religious” is either parroted nonsense, thinly disguised hate speech, or a mistaken idea about the nature of the speaker’s spirituality.

 

The majority of those I hear utter the phrase are really referring to spiritualism, not spirituality. Spiritualism is nothing new no matter how folks today dress it up. The practice predates the writing of the Old Testament and is itself a “religion”.

 

Peter once instructed a crowd in Jerusalem to “repent and be converted”. To repent is to change one’s mind to “covert” is to return to God. He was urging people to rediscover and repair the break with God that took place in the Garden. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the things we fret over, like religion and spirituality, shall be answered for us.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #227 Living by Faith

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”  1 John 1:3

 

The Bible is the inspired word of God, but it is not the Word in the same way Jesus is the Word. In saying so, I am not taking away from the truth or the living nature of scripture. The Bible is the truth God has chosen to reveal to mankind. Jesus is the exhaustive expression of God—the alpha and omega (and everything in between) of all God is. Jesus said if anyone had seen Him, they had seen the Father. This was not exaggeration or hype. He is the undiluted, completeness of God in the flesh.

 

In much the same way, Christianity is not what someone has told us, a church has declared as true, or something we have read. Christianity is the things we have heard with our own ears, seen with our own eyes, and experienced in our own life. While no two Christian experiences are exactly the same, there is so much that is shared. The reason is that we are all interacting with the same God, and the same Savior, by the same Spirit.

 

Christianity is not a set of rules or an organization to conform to. It is a fellowship of imperfect equals all of whom rely on the grace of Christ for their standing with God. Webster defines a fellowship as a community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience—it is a shared commonality.

 

The fellowship Christians share is not just with one another. Our experience in Christ has brought us into fellowship with God. We are drawn into the Divine Life, into communion with God, and access to His Presence. The scripture says that in His presence there is fulness of joy. There is also a fullness of life, peace, and love.

 

Christianity affords a taste of what that is like. The nearer a person draws to Christ, the more fully grows their shared fellowship with God and one another.

Maranatha

Know Jack #437 Liberty

“…genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he (the average man) lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it…Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means the capacity for doing without…the average man doesn’t want to be free. He wants to be safe.” ~ H. L. Menken

 

Liberty is not for the faint of heart. It is an ugly business that demands constant sacrifice and vigilance. To live free, a person must stand where conscience demands even if it means standing alone. Standing up for liberty, or any principle, requires more than simply holding an opinion. It means to unequivocally state your opinion while accepting whatever consequences may result from doing so.

 

Liberty that does not grant the same freedom to those with whom we disagree is not liberty at all. It is hypocrisy. Liberty is the practical application of the principle of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. In this way, liberty recognizes the personal worth of others and sees them as equals.

 

It should be clear from human history that liberty is not the natural state of humanity. Like light, liberty must be initiated and maintained to overcome darkness. Those who value liberty have left hearth and home, borne the hardships of nature and battle, and surrendered their lives rather than see the light go out.

 

The question is not whether we should fight for our liberty, but when and where do we draw the line that declares “this far and no more”? There are no small or unimportant intrusions on liberty. Every freedom surrendered; every concession made, is liberty lost. Liberty that can only be redeemed by blood.

 

Liberty is more than some political idea or system. It is more than a good idea. It is at the root of our humanity, a divine grant inherent in our design. Rousseau was correct, we are born free. If we are also everywhere in chains, they are bonds of our own making. They are the chains of a craven desire for safety forged in our own hearts.

Maranatha

Know Jack #436 Still Crazy

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?  Too much sanity may be madness…and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” ~Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote.

 

Don Quixote was a dreamer and an impractical one at that. There’s nothing strange about that combination. Who dreams of things as they are? Few people do things that alter the course of the world. A great many of those who do so change it by the evil they inject into life.

 

The good news is that there lies in us the ability to dream of things as they should be and the opportunity to turn those dreams into reality. I may not change the world, but I have the ability to change my world. The people Don Quixote encountered thought him mad because he lived his dream. Every defeat gave way to a new determination to sally forth into acting out his dreams.

 

If we cling to our dreams in the face of this hostile world, those who cannot share our dreams will certainly think us insane. Dreams will always be beyond our reach. Dreams are woven from a fabric of ideals, those strange notions that make for a perfect world.

 

I am convinced that all clear thinking in the universe begins with two facts. First, that perfect people are needed for a perfect world, and we are meant to be those people. The other fact is, we are not those people. Something has gone terribly wrong with us. Dreams are visions of the solution.

 

The person mad enough to live their life as it should be, a life of dreams, is the sanest person on earth. That Cervantes’ dreamer died not knowing that fact is the truly tragic part of this tragic comedy.

 

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #226 Miracle Within a Miracle

“And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them, and they did set them before the people.”

Mark 8:6 (Emphasis mine)

 

I decided against opening the blog by saying most people are familiar with the story of Jesus' miraculous feeding of four thousand men. The Bible purposely does not record every detail of a story. The confessed objective of the gospel writers is to provide enough information to guide the reader toward salvation and peace with God. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

I want to direct your attention to three bits of information provided by Mark. Though it was not a high holy day or a proclaimed fast, the crowd had been fasting for three days. They were not on the brink of starvation, but Jesus was concerned about the physical strain fasting could cause some of them on the way home. It also means there were no hidden lunches in the crowd.

The next thing is the reaction of the disciples to Jesus’ relating that He wanted to feed everybody. They were incredulous. They were in the middle of nowhere with no place to buy supplies even if they had the money. They thought the task assigned to them was impossible.

When it was time to eat, Jesus did not call manna from heaven. He did not ask people to share. He took out the bread they had, prayed, and handed it to His disciples—His disciples—the very men who just complained to Him that the job was impossible. Jesus assigned the chore of taking seven loaves of bread to feed a hungry crowd to ordinary men with doubts and insecurities. Disciples today still have doubts and insecurities, and they are still tasked with this job.

Now, here’s the miracle within a miracle—they went out and did it! No more arguments, complaints, or wondering what to do next. They acted contrary to what their natural senses told them based only on the command of Jesus.

A similar scene was played out another time. They had been fishing all night and caught nothing. When they came to shore, Jesus told them to cast their nets again. “And Simon answering said unto him, ‘Master, we have toiled all night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.’ And when they had done this, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes…” (Luke 5:5-6)

When God directs, He empowers those who will obey His commands. But do not conclude faith is blind. When Jesus spoke to the disciples telling them to set bread before the crowd, they were already in the process of formulating the theory that Jesus was capable of doing anything He said. They had tested the theory multiple times and found, sometimes to their utter amazement, it worked. It worked again that day.

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord…”

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #224 Miracle Within a Miracle

“And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them, and they did set them before the people.”

Mark 8:6 (Emphasis mine)

 

I decided against opening the blog by saying most people are familiar with the story of Jesus' miraculous feeding of four thousand men. The Bible purposely does not record every detail of a story. The confessed objective of the gospel writers is to provide enough information to guide the reader toward salvation and peace with God. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

I want to direct your attention to three bits of information provided by Mark. Though it was not a high holy day or a proclaimed fast, the crowd had been fasting for three days. They were not on the brink of starvation, but Jesus was concerned about the physical strain fasting could cause some of them on the way home. It also means there were no hidden lunches in the crowd.

The next thing is the reaction of the disciples to Jesus’ relating that He wanted to feed everybody. They were incredulous. They were in the middle of nowhere with no place to buy supplies even if they had the money. They thought the task assigned to them was impossible.

When it was time to eat, Jesus did not call manna from heaven. He did not ask people to share. He took out the bread they had, prayed, and handed it to His disciples—His disciples—the very men who just complained to Him that the job was impossible. Jesus assigned the chore of taking seven loaves of bread to feed a hungry crowd to ordinary men with doubts and insecurities. Disciples today still have doubts and insecurities, and they are still tasked with this job.

Now, here’s the miracle within a miracle—they went out and did it! No more arguments, complaints, or wondering what to do next. They acted contrary to what their natural senses told them based only on the command of Jesus.

A similar scene was played out another time. They had been fishing all night and caught nothing. When they came to shore, Jesus told them to cast their nets again. “And Simon answering said unto him, ‘Master, we have toiled all night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.’ And when they had done this, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes…” (Luke 5:5-6)

When God directs, He empowers those who will obey His commands. But do not conclude faith is blind. When Jesus spoke to the disciples telling them to set bread before the crowd, they were already in the process of formulating the theory that Jesus was capable of doing anything He said. They had tested the theory multiple times and found, sometimes to their utter amazement, it worked. It worked again that day.

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord…”

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #225 Who Cares?

“Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

 

It is a cornerstone of Christian thought that the relationship between God and human beings is a uniquely personal one. Unlike the Diest who believes God created everything then sat back to watch His creation spin like a dreidel, the Christian believes that God is involved with every individual, at every moment. In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus reminded us that God is deeply involved in caring for us.

Not only is that true, but it is also not the complete story. While God cares for us, He also cares about us. No place is God more like a father than in His care. He wants to supply us with everything we need and the things that make us happy. To really do so, He wants to be an integral part of our life, to be involved in the decisions we make, the actions we take, and the thoughts that we think.

I question my faith when I hear people say, “God doesn’t care about___.” It makes me wonder if I really know God. The One I pray to cares about everything I think, do, and say. He cares about what I wear, where I go, who I make friends with, and endless other things in a way that reminds me of my earthly dad.

He doesn’t do it to be nosey or up in my business. There’s no need, He already knows. That does not preclude His wanting to be invited in to be a part of my life. I believe people would find God cares about a lot more than they give Him credit for if only they’d invite Him into the decision.

Since God cares about me as an individual, I don’t expect others to do as I do. I do think there is a certain conformity to Christianity. Everyone is to conform to God’s will for them in the application of His principles. However, there is also an essential need for transformation. We are meant to be changed from the person we were before meeting God into the person He wishes us to be.

How we balance the two and get to where God wants us to be is to be worked out between us and God. Ultimately, it is we alone who will reap the just reward of those decisions, good or bad. Be not deceived, God is not mocked as a man sows, so also shall he reap. God cares about that outcome.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #224 A Come to Jesus Meeting

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” ~Matthew 11: 28-29

 

The eleventh chapter of Matthew’s gospel leads off with people anxious about Jesus’ role as Messiah. This was followed by examples of those who, seeking any excuse to justify themselves, sought to tear down the righteous. Then Jesus, as the Son of God pronounced divine judgment on the cities that rejected Him. Because He does not condemn anyone without providing a peaceful means of escape, Jesus offered a seemingly simple solution. Come unto me.

 

Many people complain that the gospel is too simple. Those who do are usually those who have never tried to live it. Jesus summed up what coming to Him means in two easy-sounding sentences. Love God with all you have and all you are. Love your neighbor as yourself. Simple until you try it.

 

To come to Jesus is to make those two ideals the driving force of your life and your purpose on earth. That means all you say, do, and even think is to be in accord with loving God and your neighbor. Many modern people see this as conformity to an organization. That is not so. Christianity is not conformity, it is transformation.

 

Transformation from anxiety, doubt, self-righteousness, and being an object of God’s wrath into being at peace with God by coming to Jesus. To willfully do less is to refuse to postpone the journey to Jesus. I say postpone because every living soul will have a come to Jesus meeting at some point in their existence.

 

What occurs at that meeting is up to us as individuals. Not everyone will meet the same Jesus. Some will meet the Jesus who gave Bartimaeus his sight or rescued Peter from the storm. Others will meet the Jesus who drove the moneychangers from the Temple or pronounced a worse doom on Capernaum than Sodom.

 

Come to Jesus now.

Maranatha