the G.O.S.P.E.L.

Here is an acronym for our biblical word Gospel.  Before I get to the acronym, the word gospel comes from an old English word, god spel, meaning good news.  The Greek word from the New Testament is euaggelion.  So what is the good news we speak of.  John 3:16:  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."  The gospel is the good news of God's love for us.

God's (John 3:16)
Overwhelming (Exodus 34:6)
Sacrificail (John 15:13)
Perfect (1 John 4:18)
Everlasting (Psalm 136)
Love (1 John 4:16)

Listening to my teenager during 2014.

2014 is the year I have a teenager.  I feel like I already have one.  One of the things I notice most about having a teenager (almost) is - Oh how the tables have turned!  I was once the teenager who had parents who did not know anything, but now I am the parent who does not know anything.  I was once the teenager who had parents who did not understand, and now I am the parent who does not understand.

I have a tendency to tell my almost teenager to stop talking, pardon my language, to tell him to shut up.

Why?  Watch the first episode of the Cosby show.

He says things that make no sense.

Some of you reading already know this - I am the one who needs to shut up.  One of my worst faults is not shutting my mouth.  So this year in 2014 - the year of the teenage fatherhood, I seek first to understand, not to be understood.

I am setting as a big goal to actually listen to my teenager in 2014.

What is your ides for 2014?

Pants on the ground

“Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with your pants on the ground, pull them up” was the song going through my head as I saw the man with his pants at his knee and all of his underwear showing.  I thought to myself, “Doesn’t he realize that is shameful, and that shame is something to avoid?  Doesn’t he know that the lifestyle of pants on the ground is one that leads to incarceration, where they take all your clothes, aka – all your clothes are on the ground?  So it begins with pants on the ground, a wasted life.”

Such were my thoughts as Jesus tried to speak to me.  I say tried because it took some time before I listened.  But faintly I began to hear Jesus say something to me.

“Danny, you are judging him based on only what he looks like.” 

Then Jesus said, “Let me show you something.”

He took me back 2000 years ago to where it started for him, a wasted life.

It started with the Pharisees judging him (Luke 5) much like I judged the man with the sagging pants.  Then Jesus was incarcerated (Luke 22) and he was shamefully stripped of all of his clothing three times (Matthew 27) and as he hung on the cross and his clothing on the ground being bartered for, they mocked him with songs similar to “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, Jesus, you are looking like a fool with your pants on the ground.”

If Jesus died today in your town or state or country, what would the crowd say about him?  What would the Facebook posts say, or the twitter feeds?  We would say the same things we say about the people who are being executed today by lethal injection and all other means around the world. 

Jesus dying on the cross was the “foolishness of God which is wiser than the wisdom of men” (1 Corinthians 1).   In fact, this foolishness of God is the wisest thing that exists, and the only way by which we may become wise.  The weakness of God, Jesus Christ with his pants on the ground, is the only way for us to have strength.  The condemnation of Christ is the way we have no condemnation.  The incarceration of Christ is the way our prison bars are swung open.  The shame of Christ is our honor, the stripping of Christ clothes us with righteousness, and it is by His stripes we are healed, and it is through His death that we have life.  What Jesus wanted to show me is that the man with his pants on the ground was really a picture of Him. 

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

The Pharisees said, “He has a demon, he is a blasphemer.”  God said, “He is my chosen son.”

I said, “Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground.”  God says, “I choose him.”

We say, “She is too sick.”  God says, “I choose her.”

We say, “He is a worthless alcoholic.”  God says, “I choose him.”

We say, “He is a sex offender, unfit to live.”  God says, “I choose him.”

What do they say about you?  God says, “I choose you.”

Why does God choose me?

Because He loves to show how strong the weakness of Christ is.

Because He loves to show how wise the foolishness of Christ is.

Because it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with Christ, and Him crucified.

“I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Paul added nothing to the gospel, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ and him crucified.  We must add nothing either, not “pull up your pants,” or sag them, or drink, or don’t drink, or be circumcised, or be uncircumcised.

When we add one thing to the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified we poison it.  For if we add one thing we say that Jesus Christ and him crucified is not enough.

What if people take the grace of God for granted, what if they abuse the love of God? . . .

It was then that I realized. . .

Oh, the foolishness of God to love us without condition, whether we respond to your love or not, for abused you were, and taken for granted you were.

The foolishness of God.

College Choice 529

For Indiana taxpayers who have children or grandchildren who will eventually go to college, here is one way to get 20 cents on each dollar you put into a tax free 529 account for your kids.  The limit is $5000 per year (regardless of how many kids).  If you put in $5000 in a 529 this year, you would get a $1000 tax return check, or $1000 off your tax bill.

google college choice 529 if you are in Indiana.

Why share a money idea on Christian family ideas?

Because the more money you save, or get back in taxes, the more missionaries you can support, the more you can give to your church, the more orphans and widows you can help in their distress. 

This is the same reason to invest in the stock market through mutual funds.  Let's say you invest in mutual funds $2000 every year.  Let's say that grows to be $200,000 after 30 years (crazy thing called compounded interest).  Now every year your $200,000 makes its own money, about $10,000 a year.

Now this enables you to give $10,000 to Youth for Christ Africa every year on top of what you were already giving.

You could say, well, why not give $2000 every year?

If you are giving $2000 every year to YFC, great!

If not, and you wanted to use compounding interest not for selfish gain but for the kingdom of God, and on top of that you trained your child to also give and she trained her child, and for 3 to 4 generations a family used compounding interest for an actual purpose - glory to God!!!

Christmas Grief

Whenever a death or tragedy occurs around Christmas, people often comment on what a horrible time to deal with death.  Many people, myself included, are dealing with death this Christmas of 2013.  From the empty place at the table to the empty place in my heart, the season of fullness is hollow.
How does someone comfort in a loss at all, let alone a loss at Christmas?
Rachel lost her son, and then she lost her other one.  Her husband could not comfort her, nor could her friends.  She died in her grief.  Even though she died thousands of years ago, her cry is still heard all around the world - the cry of grief, grief that refuses to be comforted.
There were many like Rachel in Bethlehem, and it was no silent night.  It was a night of grief, or despair, of refusing comfort.  Why did you send your Son if He seemed to only bring more pain?  Salvation?  The mothers of Bethlehem were not experiencing salvation but overwhelming grief.
Mary seemed to sneak out of Bethlehem just in time and miss the grief of Herod the Great.
Mary watched her son crawl, toddle, walk, and run.  She fed him and then He fed her, from loaves of bread and fishes to the Bread from Heaven.  If any woman was ever captivated by her son it was Mary the mother of God's Son.  He did not come to escape death, but to walk straight into it.
The small baby Mary held in her arms spread His arms out and died.

Christmas is a story about grief, specifically the grief of a mother.

Jesus walked into our grief, into our death, and came back with the keys of death and hell.
The hope of every mother, from Eve the mother of Abel to Mary the mother of Jesus to the mothers of the Sandy Hook elementary students, is the little baby born in a feeding trough.
Jesus Christ offers eternal life to all of us freely.
Jesus Christ can deliver people from death.

Jesus said to a grieving sister, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Best things to inherit - #1

God inherits us.   "And he said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance."  - Exodus 34:9 (ESV)

The tables are turned.  The best inheritance I can think of is for we, such as we have been and are and will be, to be inherited by God.  Moses recognizes this in the clutch time in the book of Exodus, with the thought of the promised land without YAHWEH to be unthinkable.  

What does it mean for God to inherit us?

Could it really be true, that the Almighty God would want us?  Could he really see us as His inheritance?

To be wanted.

To have a place and a purpose.

To be His, and to belong to Him.

What can be the best inheritance for our children?  It is to know that the Lord God loves them and desires them to be His own.

Do you know that the Lord wants you for His own?

Not because of what you have done, but because of who you are - His.

You have always been His.

The greatest inheritance is the one we are - HIS.

Best things to inherit - #2

The LORD, YAHWEH.  "And the LORD said to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel."  - Numbers 18:20 (ESV)

All or nothing.  If you want the best you forgo the rest.  Yahweh was offering long ago to Aaron the best possible inheritance, but he had to forgo any other inheritance.  We can look at this two ways.  One way is to think of the fact that Aaron and the Levites had no land, no this, no that.  Wow.  What they had to give up.  At this point the Jim Elliot quote is helpful:  "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  Today the lands of Israel are a continued and constant issue of war and conflict, and yet YAHWEH remains untouched by war.  He cannot be conquered or overtaken.  Yet he offers himself in the early pages of the Bible to a most unlikely person - Aaron.  

Just start reading about Aaron and you will be frustrated with him and possibly identify with him.  He lies, he complains, he worships idols, and he is jealous about Moses.  Aaron also experiences tragedy.  His sons die instantaneously.  He lost that which was most dear to him.  He saw how fleeting this life is.

This Aaron is offered YAHWEH as an inheritance.  

How much more are we, the royal priesthood through Jesus Christ the eternal high priest, offered YAHWEH, offered Father, Son, Spirit, as an inheritance?

Our children are offered God Himself.  We must share that inheritance with them, even as the FATHER shares it with us.  We must also show our children that to let go of all other things we cling to He who can not be taken from us.