Quote of the Day!
Remember the story about the reporter asking Karl Barth what was the greatest theological truth he'd ever heard? The answer from the wizened old professor was, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
~ Internet Monk {Michael Spencer}
Let me begin this post with the dictionary definition of stupid because right now some of us may be ignorant of its meaning… uh, what’s that? I used the word ignorant in my discussion of defining stupid and that seems redundant? Whoa.. wait. Let’s get the cart behind the horse where it belongs then. Here is the the dictionary definition of ignorant:
lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned
versus the dictionary definition of stupid:
characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless
So there is a difference between the two – one can be ignorant without being stupid. However, an example of stupidity would be to act as if you have knowledge of something when you don’t. Because that is just plain foolish. For example: a person who has never sky-dived (lack of knowledge of the sport) decides to pack his own parachute and go base jumping from a bridge (very, very foolish – aka, stupid).
I like to characterize that as the highest level of stupidity and have deemed it willful ignorance – choosing to remain ignorant but acting or speaking as if educated in the subject.
So how am I stupid – and how are you stupid?
While I could give multiple societal examples, especially in the political arena, I want to steer this conversation to a topic called sanctification. Whew.. another big word. Let me simplify it this way – its the work of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with teachings from the Word of God to make change in a person to become more like Christ. I know that sounds churchy but it’s a churchy word so I don’t know how to make it less churchy. Yeah, this is one of those posts.
Most people in America can by some form or another, possibly osmosis, create an image of what is expected of a person who claims to be a Christian. That very term creates a checklist of morality that we confuse for godliness and because of our ignorance we strive in our own power to accomplish our task list in order to be acceptable before man. And in our stupidity, we call that sanctification.
It is the highest level of stupidity because we choose not to be educated because we don’t plug into the Holy Spirit and we don’t pick up the bible. Or if we do, we have become so callous to our condition that we don’t believe we can be taught anything new. Don’t believe me?
Ask yourself this question:
When was the last time the bible challenged my beliefs?
Now I am not talking about those times when we recognize a truth that we already know and haven’t obeyed that we agree we should obey – but won’t. That is a whole other topic that we could dig into but I don’t want you to miss the point of this topic. When was the last time you read something in the bible and it shook you to your core because it broke a long-held belief that you had accepted as truth? When was the last time the Holy Spirit said, “You’re wrong”?
Maybe in our cockiness we believe that we have already arrived and there are no new truths to learn about our character in light of God’s word.
In our willful ignorance we are willing to live by our own definition of what Christianity should be not realizing there is no joy in that. Stupidity has consequences like base jumping with no instruction – there may be a short-lived thrill until the realization sinks in that the chute won’t open. At that point the only thing left is desperation.
Know any desperate Christians? Maybe you are a desperate Christian.
Sanctification was never about what we could accomplish. It has always been about what God could accomplish in us through the redemption of His Son, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the instruction of His Word. It doesn’t start with a predefined, mental checklist. It takes humble obedience over a lifetime…. and even then we won’t have learned everything there is to know.
The book of Philemon details the story of Onesimus, a runaway slave. His owner, Philemon, was most likely a wealthy man as he was able to afford to own slaves and his house was large enough for the church to meet in it. In Paul’s letter to Philemon, he had nothing but praise and good things to say about this wealthy man.
So why did Onesimus run away? If Philemon was a generous and godly man, what prompted Onesimus to flee?
I would like to hear your thoughts before I add mine. It’s a short book so it won’t take you long to read it.
I don’t know that it would take a great deal of bible study to recognize there was a difference in the disciples before the day of Pentecost and the days that followed. Those days following Christ’s crucifixion and before the coming of the Holy Spirit, the church was running scared. Including those that had been closest to Christ – His disciples.
But then something happened on that day of Pentecost that put power into the early church movement. The people gathered obediently and were filled with the Holy Spirit. No more running. No more denying. No backing down. No watering down. No dressing up. Just the pure simple beauty of the gospel message presented through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thinking on that I can’t help but be introspective about my own beliefs and the impact of the Holy Spirit in my life. I feel that I fall miserably short of the example set in that early church.
Am I the only one?
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1-7.
Am I running scared? Are you?
What will it take to galvanize the church to lay a hold of the power?
Think on it. Let me know your thoughts.

I was driving home this evening and I was thinking about this question:
Are Christians today ready to go to heaven or hoping to?
I believe there is a difference and I believe that difference has a vast impact on how the two different groups behave and are perceived. Before I give my two cents on the subject, I would like to hear what you think on the subject.
Philippians, Chapter 1, has some application to this thought process… so I will give you that bit of help to get your cognitive processes engaged.
I haven’t posted in a while. Life has twists and turns and they take their impact on what can be accomplished in a day’s time. Tonight I am going to post some thoughts that I have had about the inability of humans to understand the concept of God’s holiness. I am not in bad company with my struggles to comprehend what that looks like. RC Sproul and AW Tozer are two men that I have turned to in my attempts to get a better grip of that concept and they have wrestled with that concept as well.
As creatures created by the Creator, we are left with but one perspective – that of fallible flesh grasping after the infallible.
We are used to describing things. I would say that it is a God-given call since He asked man (Adam) to name the animals. We naturally label things – we name them. The problem with our present abilities with describing things is that we contextualize our perceptions of the thing being described. Let me give you an example.
Imagine that you are walking down the street and you see a little girl eating an ice cream cone. A big, purple smile is painting her face as she eats the raspberry chip flavored delight that is in her hand.
It would be easy to describe the girl as being happy and that the happiness is a direct consequence of the ice cream. In the back of our mind, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine what would happen if the girl were to drop her ice cream on the ground. For the sake of the rest of my explanation on contextualization, let’s assume that we know the girl’s name is Susie.
Based on my hypothetical situation, I can propose the following issues with the human ability to understand God’s holiness.
- Qualify: We look for reasons why situations exist. With the Susie, we qualified her happiness by the presence of ice cream.
- Quantify: We expect that there are varying degrees to the state of things. Susie seemed to be extremely happy with the raspberry chip flavor, but would she have been as happy with vanilla?
- Transitional: We don’t expect things to stay the way they are. We understand that when the ice cream is gone, whether by accident or by consumption, that Susie’s happiness will dissipate. In the chance that it is an accidental loss, her transitional state may be extreme.
- Meaningless Labels: We accept and expect that some labels are non-descriptive. The girl’s name is Susie – a label that does not describe her. Its just a mechanism by which we can separate her from the girl next door.
No wonder it can be so hard to get our minds around the thought of God’s holiness… especially when it transcends our ability to contextualize.
God is holy. Period. His holiness does not have to be qualified. We don’t have to seek a reason behind His holiness.
His holiness doesn’t ramp up or down based on circumstances. It is an eternal, absolute state.
He cannot transition from holiness to some other aspect. In His love, He is holy. In His anger, He is holy. In His compassion, He is holy. And in His judgment, He is holy.
Finally, his holiness is not a meaningless label. We can’t limit Him by thinking of His holiness as a way to separate Him from the unholy gods. The most accepted definition of holy is Set Apart. And, He IS.
As I have studied this concept, I looked to the bible for insight and Exodus chapter 3 has lead me to believe that understanding the holiness of God is impossible without experiencing it. Read about Moses’ encounter with God through the burning bush and really look into what happens in those first 6 verses. Moses was 80 years old and well acquainted with the concepts of religion and God. but look for yourself at how he responded in verse 6 to the holiness of God.
This is another installment of my thoughts from World Changers in upstate New York.
Her tired eyes are shining as she instructs me, “Ask him what a transformer sounds like”.
It sounds like a simple request but the 6 year old has been bouncing off the walls and tables ever since he entered the cafeteria. That’s why I had noticed them – he was literally bouncing off the walls and tables in his own unique way. From his wheelchair, he would grab the corner of a support beam and swing his chair towards a table where he would use his arms or legs to bounce away from it.
He is the splitting image of the little boy from the movie Jerry Maguire right down the curly blond hair and glasses. I keep waiting for him to ask a question about how much the human head weighs. Instead, I catch up to him and ask him, “Hey, what does a Transformer sound like?”
He stops moving long enough to look up and articulate, “hol-hol-hol-uh-uh-hol-hol”, and then he is off moving again. The impression is terrific and I am left standing there in the wake of air he created with a smile stretching across my face. I watch him as he runs up against kids playing cards and he has the same affect on them as he steals a 4 of hearts and takes off with it. They all look after him and smile. He’s contagious. His exuberance rubs off on those he comes into contact with.
His name is Joshua and he does a great job of breaking down walls.
Before I leave the cafeteria, I spend some time with his mother and she tells me their story:
“Joshua comes here every year looking for people that he met from last year. We love World Changers and the church we used to attend would always support World Changers when they came into town. But I haven’t been able to part of that since Joshua’s dad died and I have had to take care of all his medical needs by myself. His condition is degenerative and he is going to need a lung and heart transplant. And though he is a little mentally delayed, he is such a little Casanova with the girls and loves to be around the boys because he misses his daddy.”
Our conversation went back and forth for a while and Joshua would come up to us from time-to-time so that he could bounce to a new adventure. Each time he was in reach, I would give him a high-five or ask him a question about his chair. His answers were quick and to the point because he had bouncing to do.
I left the cafeteria not knowing if I would see Joshua or his mother again. God knew.
Later that evening, I found a place to sit in the back of the auditorium that was serving as our worship venue for the week. Just so you are aware, all good Baptists sit in the back to make sure no one takes the Holy Spirit with them as they try to sneak out the back door. I had just got comfortable when I heard Joshua’s voice preceding the halting stop that his wheelchair came to right behind my seat. I looked over my shoulder and was pleasantly surprised to see that both he and his mother had joined us for worship.
Joshua quickly whispered something to his mother that I couldn’t make out and I could tell she wasn’t sure how to respond to Joshua. Her delayed response allowed him time to speak his request again, this time more loudly and clearly.
“I want to cuddle.” This statement became a request because he was motioning to his mother that I was to be the recipient of that cuddle.
It wasn’t hard to see that his mother was struggling with how to respond to Joshua, so I offered, “If its okay, I will hold him.” Those words were barely out of my mouth before he was crawling out of his chair and across the back of mine. He sat down in my lap, laid his head against my chest and said, “I want you to be my daddy.”
Heart-warming. Gut wrenching. I didn’t know how to respond. His mother saved me, “He can’t be your daddy, he has a wife and children of his own.”
Joshua didn’t sit still for very long. The next fifteen minutes was his time to entertain those of us at the back of the auditorium. He would bounce from lap to lap and try to bang people’s heads together. At one point, he was standing on the chair next to me facing back towards his mother and she used that opportunity to get onto him for moving around so much. He started to slide down the chair, to the seat of the chair, and eventually the floor. The whole time he was sliding he was saying in his best witch voice, “I’m melting!”
I can’t say for sure but I think he was stealing the hearts of all of us that were part of his displays that evening.
When he finally melted to the floor, he crawled underneath my legs and the legs of the teen aged boy beside me. He looked up and noticed where he was located and in a dramatic voice relayed the following statement:
“I better move before you guys pee on me.”
I have never heard that in a church service before. I doubt I will again. But this I can say, I wasn’t bothered in the least to hear it that night. Joshua broke down walls and left smiles. Before he left my lap for the final time that night, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
There are several kids from Jersey that were heartbroken when Josh had to leave the following night to go to his next hospital appointment. I hope they read this and add some of their own stories about Joshua.
We all learned something valuable from him. In our desire to bless those around us, God sent a 6 year old to bless us. Our circumstances and station in life do not limit the capacity to impact someone else’s life in a positive way… especially, if we will just be who God is working in us to be.
