Category Archives: Religion

The ornate office building had a spacious lobby.

Sitting in the corner, in a large, voluptuous brown leather chair, the dapper businessman in the blue pin-striped suit and dark red tie listened attentively.

He had just finished an interview with The New York Times.

Asked what he believed in, he looked earnestly into the eyes of the young reporter. “God, family and hamburgers”.

Then as he got up to walk to the elevator, he turned and smiled broadly. “But when I go in the office I reverse that order”.

Ray Kroc, founder of the McDonald’s empire, had climbed to the top of the world with a ruthless passion for the franchise sale of hamburgers and fries. By the time Kroc died in 1984, the ubiquitous Golden Arches spanned the globe.

Ray Kroc died rich.

In his business, profits came first, followed by family. God came last. He compartmentalized and prioritized his busy life. Sunday may have been set aside, but it had nothing to do with the rest of the week.

God was good. But money was king.

Christians recoil at such a blatant diminution of God. We all profess to put God first in our lives. For me, it’s sometimes easier said than lived. Every day, I face the world, the flesh and the devil. They work in a diabolical tandem to distract my attention from First Things.

Priorities. They may be important but they’re not always easy. Sometimes I find myself inadvertently reversing the order. It’s a challenge – and temptation – that many of us struggle with. We’re in this world, Jesus sends us into the world and we can’t escape the world – nor does the world escape us.

William Wordsworth observed:

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers”.

In the scriptures, God reminds us of the primacy of the spiritual. Jesus drove the point home on many occasions, in many ways.

When the wealthy farmer boasted of his gains and his plans, Jesus tells us that God gave him a dramatic reality check:

“God said, ‘Thou fool! Tonight, thy soul shall be required of thee’” (Luke 12:20, KJV).

Death would sweep away a lifetime of prideful illusions of self – sufficiency in an instant. As often as it happens, man still presumes.

“Man proposes,” wrote Thomas a’ Kempis, “but God disposes”.

“You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail” (Proverbs 19:21, NLT).

“God said …”

God told the man his life would be over that night – not a jealous rival, not a disgruntled employee, not an ignored wife – God said it to him.

Jesus asks each of us:

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36, KJV).

“Is anything worth more than your soul?” (Mark 8:37, NLT).

It’s not wealth that is the root of all evil – that verse is often misquoted and misunderstood. Nowhere does Jesus condemn riches or success. It’s the love of money above all else – especially above our love for God – that is the sin that so easily ensnares us and hollows out our lives.

When we begin to lust for more, when we cut ethical corners to succeed, when we abandon our families to pursue our material goals; when we vainly imagine that our own skill and talent and hard work have given us our money – and, worst of all, when we proudly assume it’s our money and not God’s, then we run the risk of losing our own soul in order to gain the world.

Then wealth becomes our master and not our servant; our idol rather God’s gift; our end and not our means.

When this happens it’s a tragedy. Ebenezer Scrooge could warn us of the shallow folly of a materialistic and selfish life.

God forbid it in our own lives!

Priorities? What is profit – and what is loss? Theologian and author Leland Ryken aptly observed:

“We worship our work, work at our play and play in our worship”.

Ray Kroc may have “reversed the order” of his priorities when he entered his office but on the night God required his soul it didn’t matter how many burgers and fries the world was eating.

Jesus told us our priority – the First Thing of our lives; the One Thing that will forever dwarf all others and insure, when that day of reckoning comes, our life was lived at a profit and not at a loss.

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”(Matt 6:33, KJV).

The day is hastening when it won’t matter who was rich and powerful or popular – or poor, scorned and unknown.

God tells us what’s important:

“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me” (Jeremiah 9:23-24, NKJV).

Try and save your life by trusting in the power and wealth of this world and you will surely lose it. Lose your life for the cause of Christ and his kingdom and you will save it through all eternity.

There is a profit. There is a loss.

What does the balance sheet of your life show?

The two men walked together down the pleasant shaded road.

This was going to be a nice trip – a journey one man knew of and the other wondered about. The one carried a sack on his back. He looked determined.

“Tell me more,” the younger man asked eagerly. “What will it be like, I mean when we get there?” The man carrying the sack explained what he had read in the book he held firmly in his hand.

It all sounded so wonderful to the young companion.

“Wow! That’s amazing,” he enthused. “Come on, let’s walk faster. I can’t wait to get there!” This was the zeal of a new beginning. Hope always abounds at the start.

When Christian, with that load on his back, and Pliable, his spirited but untried fellow traveler, fall into the Slough of Despond, it suddenly becomes an entirely different story.

Neither saw it coming.

As the two men thrash desperately, sinking deeper into the mire that represents the trials of life and the adversity to faith, Pliable asks, “Christian, where are we now?”

Christian didn’t know.

Pliable becomes indignant and worried.

“Is this the happiness you told me about?” he cries to Christian. “If it’s like this now, at the beginning, when we’ve gone only this short way, what is there still ahead of us?”

Struggling in the murky swamp, Pliable finally gets to the bank that is closest to his home.

Crawling out, he turns to Christian, still flailing in the swamp, and announces, “You will have to take the far country without me – I’m going back!”

And back he went.

Back to his old home, his security, his friends and his comforts.

John Bunyan tells us in this early episode of The Pilgrim’s Progress, that of Pliable, “Christian saw him no more.”

Christian is pulled from the Swamp of Despondence by a man named Help. Christian chooses, despite this early adversity, to continue his journey. He loses his burden of sin at the cross, encounters many a deceitful and powerful foe along the way but finally crosses the river and enters that beautiful far country that will be his eternal home.

Christian never gave up.

He also never saw Pliable again.

In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan gave the world the greatest single book of Christian faith and doctrine since the Bible. When he began writing it he was in jail because he refused to stop preaching the Gospel. He spent twelve long years in that Bedford prison.

He suffered for his faith and his conscience.

Bunyan knew adversity and understood the importance of Christian perseverance.

Do we?

For the remainder of our lives on earth you and I will live in a world increasingly alien and hostile to Christianity. Our faith and our determination to live it will be tested in new and different ways in the years ahead.

In his story of the sower and the seeds, Jesus tells us that 75% of the spiritual seeds never grew to fruition. The various trials, distractions and temptations of this life deprived them of taking root in the heart and bearing a crop in the soul. The conditions and pressures were various but each of the three cases ended in the same wasted tragedy.

In each instance, there was a lack of perseverance – the failure of determination to stick with it and remain faithful despite the circumstances and opposition. Every time, the situation triumphed over the promise.

The Bible speaks extensively of the urgent need to persevere and The Perseverance of the Saints is a gloriously recurring and integrated theme throughout scripture and throughout the history of Christ’s Church. In Nave’s Topical Bible, the entry for Perseverance runs more than four pages, with biblical references from Genesis through Revelation.

And what is the entry just before Perseverance in this venerated reference work?

Persecution (six and a half pages).

Over and over again, we read that we shall prevail in our struggles of faith and life, “if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (Hebrews 3:6, KJV, emphasis added).

The writer says that you and I are “partakers of Christ”, sharing in his life and glory, “if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end” (Hebrews 3:14, KJV, emphasis added).

If we trust God “just as firmly as when we first believed” (NLT) – when faith was fresh, the sky was blue and the prospects for our journey glorious – before our first struggle in the swamp of temptation and despair.

Hard times come. They are part and parcel of the authentic Christian experience.

“If you follow Christ” wrote Charles Spurgeon, “you shall have all the dogs of the world yelping at your heels.”

You and I will not need more perseverance than the saints of old needed, but we may need more than we have needed until now.

The Christian has always had to endure “many dangers, toils and snares”.

Let us therefore remain “steadfast, unmovable” (I Corinthians 15:58, KJV).

Let us remember and avoid the tragedy of Pliable. And know that the grace that has led us thus far will take us to that far country – and our eternal home.

It’s a pin inserted around the axle to prevent the wheel from falling off.

No linchpin, no wheel; no wheel and you’re not going far.

That’s one meaning of this word.

Here’s another:

“A person or thing that holds something together; The most important part of a complex situation or system.”

“A central, cohesive element.”

Paramount – central, indispensable, irreplaceable, non-negotiable and irredeemable.

That’s a linchpin.

It defines everything and holds it all together.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the linchpin of Christian belief. If it took place it renders our faith everything. If it did not take place it renders our faith nothing.

No in between.

Certain things in our lives must be regarded as decisive. The resurrection of Christ is the most decisive event in history. It dominates the past, defines the present and determines the future.

For the follower of Christ, the resurrection is the linchpin of life – now and forever.

If Jesus Christ did not rise again, life itself signifies nothing.

In his powerful case for the resurrection, made brilliantly in his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul is categorical and explicit:

“And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless” (I Corinthians 15:14, NLT). We might as well eat, drink and be merry, Paul says, for tomorrow we die and that’s the end of it. We perish in our sins without hope.

Paul argues that but for the resurrection of Christ, life is without meaning and Christianity is a silly superstition.

The one thing that keeps us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, is the fact that he defeated death and the devil when he rose again.

You may reject Christ and Christianity as frauds perpetrated centuries ago upon gullible people by extremist and fearsome quacks. But you must still admit, logically, that the resurrection is central to the understanding of Christian faith.

It is the linchpin.

Paul told the Corinthians that if our hope is limited to this life we are miserable people. Nothing – not our health, not our money, not our homes, or our jobs; not our careers, not our ambitions and not our possessions – none of these things offer us any lasting hope. Not even our family or friends. We search in vain in this life and in this world for anything that will secure our permanent, eternal happiness.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides the only perspective on life that makes any sense.

What is the one thing that gives the person and life of Jesus Christ authenticity and reality? That proves his divine identity beyond doubt?

What is the one thing that delivers us from the fear of death?

What is the one thing that gives us a joy-filled confidence at the graveside that we shall see our loved ones again?

What is the one thing that can make us optimists in the face of life’s trials, tribulations and tragedies? In the sad reality of the fallen human condition?

What is the one thing that gives us security in the face of life’s uncertainties?

What is the one thing that gives us an undying hope for the future?

Without Christ’s resurrection, there would be no reason to believe in him, obey him, follow him or to be his disciple.

The resurrection is more than a theological belief. It is more than a historical fact. It’s more than a comforting metaphor or a colorful annual celebration.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a world view. It is a way of living. It is an attitude. Because it is a fact, this new way of living is a hope founded, not on wishful thinking, but rooted in reliable reality.

The resurrection defines our lives and how we live them.

Because the stone rolled away at the glimmering dawn of the third day, the outcome is no longer in doubt. Because the resurrection is true, we can live a resurrection life now. In this world. Come what may.

The evidence for the resurrection is more than circumstantial – it is overwhelming, incontrovertible, compelling, definitive. Paul – who saw Jesus after his resurrection – builds his entire case for faith upon this undeniable truth: Jesus is alive.

Paul appeals to no other historical fact or confidence than the resurrection.

Had Jesus only been born it would be a beautiful but meaningless story; the manger a lovely but empty scene. If Jesus had only died it would be a heroic tragedy and a marvel of sacrifice; but it would still end in defeat. We would still be hopeless.

“Without the resurrection,” declared Billy Graham, “the cross is meaningless…an unopened grave would never have opened heaven. “

Jesus was unequivocal.

He told Martha that he was “the resurrection and the life.”

Jesus dueled with death and raised Lazarus from the grave; he restored to life a little girl when others laughed at the prospect of a miracle; Jesus touched the casket of the widow’s son and turned a funeral procession into a joyful celebration of restored life.

Jesus’ earthly ministry was the precursor of immortality.

Resurrection Day.

A day of hope. A day of joy. A day of glory. A day of victory.

His day. Our day.

The securing of our eternal triumph. The meaning our faith.

The linchpin of our lives.

Izzy Friedman was what you might call an unforgettable character.

Izzy lived on Deer Isle, Maine, where my mother was born and raised. He owned a clothing store on the island. It was probably the only one.

An outgoing man, Izzy was always excited to see people enter his store. And Izzy was always anxious to please his customers and get a sale. He was nothing if not enthusiastic.

Izzy Friedman was a natural born salesman. You might say he had the gift.

On occasion, customers would attempt to return clothing that didn’t fit. But first, they had to get by Izzy.

And one might say that getting by Izzy wasn’t easy.

“What’s the problem here?” Izzy would ask with a big smile.

When it was the fit, Izzy was prepared:

“If it’s too big,” he’d say, “it will shrink. Too small? It will stretch”.

Izzy didn’t claim that one size fits all. It was more like any size would fit anybody.

How often did Izzy’s logic – and his persuasive manner – prevail? That’s hard to say since I wasn’t there. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

A lot of churches and ministers today are like Izzy Friedman. They want customers and they want sales. Numbers is the game.

Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ too big? Is it too cosmic, too powerful, too holy, and too supernatural? They can shrink it. Is the Gospel too small? Is it too narrow, too intolerant, and too dogmatic? They can stretch it.

Whatever the problem, whatever the objection, whatever the reluctance, these religious salesmen aim to please. They’ll make the Gospel fit. They have to – it’s the only way to get people in the door and keep them in their seats.

Too many churches and too many pastors in America have tried too hard for too long to make Christianity palatable to the postmodern taste. They have used smoke and mirrors, sound and light, and tricks and gimmicks.

They have shrunk, stretched and twisted their message.

As our culture has slouched toward Gomorrah, these shallow attempts at popularity have appeared increasingly pathetic and desperate. People have ended up either cynically rejecting or naively embracing the latest church fad.

Truth can easily get lost in that shuffle – or worse -sacrificed upon the altar of what is mislabeled as “relevance”.

The contemporary church too often longs to be loved by the world. It seeks a credible acceptance of the Christian message – a message too willingly “tailored to fit” the “seeker’s desires”.

We work overtime to find new marketing techniques to sell Christianity to a world grown increasingly hostile to its claims. Tragically, the more we seek to win the world by becoming like the world the more the world holds us in mocking contempt.

That is the sad irony of all this. It cannot possibly succeed, not in the end. Clever tactics may fill a church but they empty the heart and mind of the rigorous truth of the Christian faith. The unsaved have no lasting respect for the apologizing and groveling Christian.

Bait and switch is a poor substitute for authentic Christianity.

The Gospel of Christ – the story of Jesus’ unchanging love and saving grace; his death and resurrection; his perfect humanity and sovereign deity – doesn’t need to be redesigned, reformatted or repackaged. It needs to be preached without compromise and without apology.

We don’t need more accommodation in the evangelical pulpits of this country – we need more courage.

We need more Jerry Mitchells – my friend from California who has been holding forth the Word of Life and preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God at the same church for over a quarter century. Jerry knows God doesn’t pay attention to polls – and neither does Jerry. A gifted communicator, Jerry might have more people at his church if he’d only compromise the truth – just a wee bit. But he’d rather have the approval of God than the praise of men.

May the good Lord increase his kind.

There’s nothing wrong with using technology and crafting creative and appealing strategies. It’s good and necessary that churches upgrade and update their methodologies. But let’s be careful that these methods are our servants, not our masters; our means, not our end.

When he bowed before his Father in the garden, Jesus prayed for us. He asked God to make us “holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth” (John 17: 17, NLT). Jesus added that you and I, as his disciples, would be hated by the world because we do not belong to the world. “The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world” (John 15:19, NLT).

So why should the church mimic the world? Why do we seek so often to fit in when we should stand out?

Jesus warned us against seeking “the approval of others … Popularity contests are not truth contests … Your task is to be true, not popular” (Luke 6:26, The Message).

Now that’s the right fit!

He knelt on one knee and narrowed his steely eyes. With a grim but determined gaze he surveyed the broad horizon that lay beyond the fields.

He was deep in thought.

His devoted field hands watched and waited.

The farmer was silent.

This tall, lanky man of the soil, weathered over the years by the unrelenting elements, looked down at the ground and pulled up a solitary plant. Then he again looked up and stared into the distance.

Finally, he spoke.

“An enemy has done this,” he said in a low voice of certainty.

The farmer had planted wheat and had hoped to harvest a good crop. But the enemy had quietly crept in during the dead of night. While the tired laborers slept after planting all day, the evil adversary had sown tares – weeds – among the wheat. Then he had craftily slipped away into the darkness.

After several weeks, as the wheat began to grow, the workers noticed a strange thing. There, growing right alongside the wheat, were weeds! A lot of them.

How could this be?

The foreman came into the farmhouse. “Sir, you better come and look at this.”

“We know the seed you planted was good. You planted in good soil. Now this field is full of weeds.” The foreman’s well-lined face was cast in anguished bewilderment.

“Where did these weeds come from?” he asked in dismay.

The wise farmer knew in an instant. It was the enemy – he had done it.

The workers volunteered to pull up all the weeds. This would aggressively deal with the unwanted infiltration. It would be a decisive defiance of the one who had committed this dastardly midnight deed.

It was the right thing – the only thing – to do. They must have been stunned when the farmer said no.

“If you do,” he explained, “you will also uproot the wheat – sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference -they look alike.”

The farmer rose to his feet and faced his workers.

“No, let them both grow together for now. When the harvest time comes, I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds from the wheat. They’ll know what to do. We’ll gather the wheat and put it in the barn. Then I’ll have the harvesters take all the weeds and bundle them up and burn them in the fire.”

With that, the story Jesus told was over.

The crowd was silent.

The looks on his disciples’ faces must have mirrored the puzzlement on those of the farm hands in this parable. Because as soon as Jesus left the multitude and took his disciples “into the house”, they asked him to explain the meaning of the story. Matthew alone records this particular parable in his gospel (Matthew 13: 24-30; 36-43).

Jesus explains it.

He tells them that the field is the world. The good seed “are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels” (Matthew 13: 38, KJV).

When the end of the age comes, Jesus, who is represented here by the farmer and referred to as the Son of Man, “shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire …” (Matthew 13: 41-42, KJV, emphasis added).

This is the great separation – and it shall come.

Some of us might enjoy pulling up a few weeds – now. Battling for social, political and religious reform has been a zealous and time-honored tradition for centuries. Christians and the churches they attend have found no difficulty condemning all that is wrong in the world. Rooting out “all things that offend” in the kingdom of God has been a self-appointed task for many believers. After all, there is much that needs to be set right, much that needs to be changed and much that must be opposed.

The scriptures commend Christian action; courage in the midst of corruption; boldness in the midst of timidity and conscience in the midst of compromise.

For the Christian, there is a God-given charge to keep. In the keeping of it, you and I must be wise as serpents, harmless as doves – and brave as lions.

But in this story, Jesus reminds us that the wheat and the weeds, for now, grow together. This is his plan and his purpose. In every society, in every nation, in every culture; in every church and yes, in every home, weeds will grow. And they will grow alongside the wheat.

They grow too in every heart and in every mind; in every life. None of us escapes it. This is our inner struggle; our constant temptation.

The tension between morality and immorality; between justice and injustice; between good and evil will last until God’s final end game is played out.

Then – and only then – will righteousness finally and forever triumph.

What about those of us who have struggled to grow as wheat amidst the weeds?

What becomes of us in the end?

“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43, KJV).

It ends well.

But for now…