Risks

            I came across this poem, and it reminded me of how risky God’s call of faith must have sounded to the Christians in the book Hebrews:

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

The hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing does nothing,

            but has nothing and is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or live

Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave; he has

            forfeited his freedom.

Only a person who risks is free.

––Author unknown

How to Stop a Thief

            Have you heard this one before? When they want to punish a thief, the Eskimos will take him before the community, and subject him to laughter. Supposedly, this action holds theft in check.

            This may be apocryphal (I spent some time this morning trying to validate this information, and while I found it referenced in several places, I was not able to validate it to my satisfaction), but I believe the reason this story is told so much is because it strikes a chord within all of us.

            We do not like to be laughed at. This fear drives many people.

            I heard one speaker talk about our fear of laughter. He used teenagers as an example. How many times do teenagers make decisions based upon their fear of their friends laughing at them? Furthermore, how many times the adults do the same thing?

            More than ever, I am reminded of what the author of Hebrews emphasizes: the voice we must listen to is God's. The audience we must play to is God.

            To do so takes great courage, but it is a essential for Christlikeness—and for healthy living.

Being in the Minority

            Being in the minority may not be that bad of a thing. I was reminded several years ago by a fellow’s bulletin article of some famous people who were in the minority:

            Noah (not many joined him on the ark)

            Joseph (only God-fearer I know of during his early years in Egypt)

            Gideon (God sent the majority home)

            David (against Goliath, he was on his own)

            Elijah (took on the 450 prophets of Baal—and the crowd)

            Jesus (on the cross, few stood by him)

            Reading Hebrews, I have been struck by how the minority group of Christians wants to leave the church to join the majority. Bad idea!

            The question is never numbers; it is always names. If we are standing on God’s side, numbers never matter.

Chimney Sweeping

            Doug McIntosh in his commentary on Deuteronomy tells the following story:

            “In the early hours of a wet Evansville morning, a driver lost control of his vehicle smashed through the porch into the front of Lee Roy Book’s home. When a utility crew came to the house and began to check for gas leaks, they found that the home’s chimney and gas pipes were plugged by debris. Because of this, carbon monoxide fumes had been backing up into the house for some time.”

            “The poisonous and odorless gas had been creating health problems for Book for a while. Some two years before, he had begun experiencing flulike symptoms, including unexplained trembling, headaches, chills, and nausea. He would also black out occasionally and undergo periods of forgetfulness. “I'd come to when I got in the fresh air,” he said “but every day it was getting worse and worse. It was awful.” Had the utility vehicle not made its unauthorized entry, he might well have died from the poisonous effects of the gas.”

            Now, here's the irony to this story. You know how Le Roy Book once made his living? He was a building contractor. Of all people “he knew the perils of badly vented furnaces and chimneys. In fact, he regularly urged customers to check their flues every two or three years to keep just such a problem from occurring. Yet it never dawned on him to check his own chimney.”

            “A lot of people make the same mistake spiritually. They rarely consider the many ways the God has blessed them in the past and implications of those blessings the way they should live their lives… The opening chapter of Deuteronomy describes an entire nation that failed to check its chimney. Israel has repeatedly been the recipient of God's faithful acts of kindness, but they had neglected drawing the proper implications of such blessings. In Deuteronomy 1, Moses called on people to remember God's faithfulness as a spur to their own spiritual lives.”

            The book of Hebrews amplifies the ramifications of Israel’s negligence. They were, in effect, poisoned spiritually. Their relationship with God was ruined.

            Lesson learned: check the chimney!

           

Follow the Sun

         A few weeks ago, I was duck hunting with my son Timothy. We were on land that I was not familiar with. We walked deep into the woods for almost two miles before we arrived at the river, upon which we planned to hunt.

         Walking back to the pickup after our hunt, I began to sense we were veering off course. This was an issue to me; I did not want us to get caught after dark trying to find our way on unfamiliar land.

         I had a compass with me, yet something did not seem right. I had been walking according the compass’s data, yet, as I looked at the sun, I became greatly concerned. "When did the sun start setting in the East?" I thought to myself. I knew that winter did crazy things to the sun and the seasons, but this?

         I had to make a difficult decision; should I trust the best data that the world has to offer, or do I follow the sun? I decided to follow the sun, and that made all the difference—Timothy and I safely made it home.

         The book of Hebrews tells us that you and I have to make that same sort of decision. We are confronted with the great question: do we follow the best data that this world has to offer, or do we follow the Son? Hebrews says—Follow the Son!

         That will make all of the difference. The Son will lead us home.

The Conversation

            Sharla was 28. She was a volunteer at her local elementary school, where she mentored a young, fifth-grade student named “Brandy.”  One day, Sharla’s principal summoned her to his office. There was a problem.

            Fulfilling her commitment, Sharla had been arriving at the school each week to eat lunch with Brandy and her friends, and then to share with them a number of activities, including recess.

            Brandy and her friends enjoyed this time. They would pepper Sharla with questions about her life, her friends, and a host of other topics.

            One day, Brandy asked Sharla, “Do you have a boyfriend?"

            Sharla smiled and informed Brandy that she did not.

            Then Brandy asked Sharla, "If you did, would you live with him?"            

            Sharla informed Brandy she would not.

              That confused Brandy. She wanted to know why Sharla would not. After all, every girl who had a boyfriend lived with him.

            That was the moment Sharla knew she had to tread carefully. The elementary school had a curriculum that emphasized "healthy choices."

            Consequently, Sharla gently let Brandy know that not every girl lived with her boyfriend. She had made a choice for herself. Brandy wanted to know more.

            Again, choosing her words carefully, Sharla explained that she tried to make her choices according to what she understood the Bible to say. She was not trying to judge other people’s choices; she was simply seeking to communicate the reasons for her choice.

            What Sharla failed to realize was she had crossed a line. Brandy reported to a friend their conversation. That friend told her mother. That mother called the principal, complaining that Sharla was lecturing schoolgirls about living with men.

            At that point, it was Sharla’s turn to be lectured. The principal called Sharla into his office. He advised her that the conversation with Brandy was inappropriate: healthy choices don’t necessarily include refraining from living with men.

            Want to guess where this conversation occurred?

            California?

            Massachusetts?

            No. Texas.

            My purpose is not to foment fear; rather, it is to recognize what is more and more becoming our reality. Rapidly, we are finding common ground with the Christians in Hebrews:

            All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth (Heb. 11:13.) NIV 1984

When Your Church Property is Seized

            What would you do if your city chose to take the property on which your church building was located? That is the challenge the Cottonwood Christian Center faced in 2002. The City Council of Cypress, California voted to seize the congregation’s property in order to build a Costco.  

            The church filed a lawsuit. Ultimately, a settlement was reached where the city offered the church property to build a new facility in the same relative area.

            According to the book of Hebrews, part of the persecution the church faced was the confiscation of property. Granted, that was more likely private property; however, it was still painful for the Christians—so much so, some were leaving the faith.

            Our American culture has not marginalized Christians to the extent of ancient Rome, but we are headed in that direction. In the past, it would have been unthinkable for a city council to make a decision like that of the city of Cypress.

            I feel the Christianity is headed for more adversity. Will we respond in faith as Hebrews calls for us to do?

The Ultimate Gift

            A story, perhaps legend, goes like this:

            A person volunteering at Stanford Hospital tells of a little girl named, Liza. Liza suffered from an inherited disease. She needed a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother to live.

            Her doctor asked Liza’s brother if he would be willing to donate blood for her. He hesitated and then answered, “Yes, if it will save Liza.”

            The transfusion began. The brother smiled as his sister regained the color in her cheeks. However, his face grew pale. He turned to the doctor and asked, “Will I start to die right now?”

            He had misunderstood. He had thought that he was going to donate his entire blood supply to save Liza's life.

            Fortunately, that brother’s offering of blood did not require his life. My older brother’s offering of blood required his; and it saved mine. My older brother’s name is Jesus.

Story Source: Ron Cline: Beyond The Call

The Welsh Revival

            OUR DAILY BREAD once described an eyewitness report of the great Welsh revival of 1904. Concerning that, G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “The horses are terribly puzzled. A manager said to me. ‘The haulers are some of the very lowest. They have driven their horses by obscenity and kicks. Now they can hardly persuade the horses to start working, because there is no obscenity and no kicks.’”

            A revived spirit changes lives.