June 19, 2014

"Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4

Can you image what America would look like if it was led locally and nationally by people who were grieved by sin?

There may be a few of us old enough to remember when sin was taken far more seriously than it is today and those were far better days.

Many of you have been around long enough to observe how our culture has continued to disintegrate as sinful behavior has gone from being tolerated to being celebrated.

Allow me to take it one step further. Image what our churches would be like if the people who populate them and lead them were truly grieved by sin.

Jesus says in this second point of His Sermon on the Mount, that those who follow Him must be grieved by sin. They should grieve, first of all, over their own sin. They should be grieved over how their sin grieves God and how it hurts other people.

Would your life be better if you were grieved by the sin in the TV programs you watch and you stopped watching those programs?

How would it impact your life if you were grieved by the sin in the movies you watch at the theater or in your home?

How would your life be different if you were grieved by the sin in the music you listen to regularly?

Would you play different video games if you were truly grieved by sin? 

Would you parent your children differently if you were truly grieved by sin?

Would your marriage change if you were truly grieved by sin?

If you are distressed over the condition of the American culture, how you answer these questions should clarify the extent to which you are part of the problem OR part of the solution.

It is not up to your society to change, it is up to you and other Christ-followers to change according to the teachings of Christ. He began with the Beatitudes and so should you.

June 18, 2014

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us." I John 1:8-10

Sin is serious business. There are no little sins because, as these verses tell you, sin is unrighteous and fills you with unrighteousness. An unrighteous person cannot have fellowship with  a holy God.

To further understand the seriousness of sin consider that your sins, the big ones and the "small" ones, caused Jesus to suffer a horrible death on the cross. The Holy, Righteous Son of God became unrighteous when He took your sins upon Himself. It took a BIG SAVIOR to atone for our sins.

So, how should you respond to such an amazing act of mercy and grace? You confess your sins to God. The word for "confess" means "to agree" with God about your sinfulness. When you "agree" with God about your sinfulness you also "agree" with Him about His holiness. As you come into agreement with God and enter into fellowship with Him it will begin to break your heart for how your sins made Him suffer.

That sounds a lot like Matthew 5:4, "Blessed are they who mourn....." Mourning over your sins and confessing your sins are essentially the same idea. And what happens when you confess your sins in a spirit of mourning, He forgives your sin and cleanses you from all of your unrighteousness! He is faithful and He will do it!

Being forgiven from your sin and cleansed from your unrighteousness sounds a lot like the remainder of the Beatitude, ".....they shall be comforted".  What is more comforting than knowing you have been forgiven and purified by the grace of God in Christ Jesus?

If you want a better understanding of the second Beatitude, get your heart and mind around I John 1:8-10!

You will be blessed and comforted!

June 17, 2014

"Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted." Matthew 5:4

Indiana Wesleyan University is not only a world-class Christ-centered educational institution, but they have also  a well-regarded athletic program. No thanks to me.

I was a brand new college freshman playing a brand new sport in the very first intercollegiate athletic event in the history of Indiana Wesleyan University (then Marion College). The varsity soccer team was playing at rival Huntington University and we were excited and nervous. Not only was it the very first college contest in history, it was also the first soccer match for most of us who had never played competitive soccer before.

Somewhere near the middle of the first half I was sent into the game. My heart was pounding and I was pumped. Like a man possessed I was all over the field making tackles. I was inspired! But then, as I was moving in on a player with the ball he unleashed a rocket of a kick that was whistling right at me about chest-high. (Now remember I was a catcher. For most of my life I was accustomed to people firing baseballs at me at hard as they could and it was my conditioned reflex to put up my hands and catch the ball with my glove). So, it the heat of the moment when a soccer ball is whizzing at me my life-long baseball reflex trumped my newly developing soccer instincts and my hands flew up to react to the ball immediately I was called for a hands penalty. They proceeded to score on the penalty kick and that turned out to be the difference in the game.

We lost and it was my fault! It was a stupid mistake! I knew better and I would never make that mistake again but in that split second I broke a rule and cost my team the game. I let them down! They played their hearts out and my blunder wasted their efforts.

I was devastated. These forty-some years later it still hurts! I am ashamed! I can't believe I am sharing it with you.

When Jesus said, "Blessed are they who mourn", He meant that I should have the same sort of heart-breaking  shame and sorrow over my sin as I did over my soccer miscue. That means sorrow over my sinfulness and sorrow over every sin every time.

Jesus wants me to mourn over what y sin does to Him. He wants me to mourn over the pain it can bring others and He wants me to have great sorrow because sin hinders my fellowship with Him.

Want to be blessed? Be heart-broken over your sin.

June 16, 2014

"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord," Acts 3:19

Probably the greatest barrier of all to repentance is our pride. The story is told of a little boy who went with his sister, Mary, to visit his grandparents at their farm. The grandmother had a pet duck of which she was extremely fond. One day Johnny was playing with his slingshot. He aimed it at the duck and hit it right on the head. The bird toppled over, kicked a few times, and died. Johnny was frightened to death. He looked about and saw no one, so he took the duck and ran into the woods, dug a hole and buried it.

He and Mary always divided the chores, and that evening it was her turn to do the supper dishes. But instead, Mary turned to him after supper and said, "Johnny, you do the dishes tonight." "You're crazy," he said. "This is your night; I am going out to play." Mary said, "Come here. I saw you kill that duck this afternoon. If you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, I am going to tell Grandma what you did. You know what that means. It was her prize duck." "All right," said Johnny, "I will do the dishes."

Next time it was Mary's turn the same thing happened, and this went on for two weeks. Johnny was going around with his tongue hanging out. Every time he would bring up the matter she would always say, "Johnny, remember the duck!" At last he couldn't stand it any longer. Mary had gone to town, and his grandmother was sewing. Johnny went in and stood around and twisted his ear and bit his nails, and finally he said, "Grandma, there is something I just have to say." "What is it, son?" she asked. He said, "It is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, Grandma. About two weeks ago I was playing with my slingshot and I shot at your duck and I killed it."

The grandmother wiped a tear from her cheek, and she reached out and said, "Come here, son." She put her arms about him. "I was sitting upstairs by an open window, and I saw you kill that duck." And then she added, "I wondered how long you were going to take this bondage to Mary. I have watched her give you orders for two weeks, and I wondered how long it would be before you came to me."

Our heavenly Father has seen everything that you and I have done. He himself has taken the consequences of those things by giving his Son to die for us. He is waiting for you to come and confess it, to acknowledge it and say, "Lord, here I am. I want a fresh start. I want a new day in my life. I want a new beginning. I want a new birth. I want to be yours from this moment. I repent. I am coming home."

This will only be the beginning, but the beginning of a wonderful new relationship. Once we have repented, we will still need to confess our daily failures, but now we are heading in a new direction. We are on God's side. We are assured of his unending love, assistance and companionship. And it is a relationship that will last forever. Death itself was defeated in Jesus' resurrection so even that cannot rob us of our Father's love. The greatest things are yet to come.

Get honest with yourself and before God. He knows your secret sins. Repent and run into His waiting arms!

June15, 2014

"My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in."   Proverbs 3:11-12

Which do you think is more difficult, being a dad or tolerating your own dad?

While a Mom will love you and overlook your flaws and reassure you and accept you the way you are and make excuses for you, Dads tend to challenge you to change, to achieve and to measure up to their standards.

One of the things that makes being a dad difficult is that it exposes many of the weaknesses and character flaws that your father used to hassle you over. Those things that bothered him about you are now showing up in your kids and starting to bother you. What bothers you is that must deal with those issues in yourself before dealing with your kids.

That truth is reflected in this letter to Todd Wilson, of The Familyman Ministry:

Oh dear, Todd.

I fear that I have some bad news. I learned of you and met you for the first time recently…I thought for sure that we could be lifelong friends. But lately, I've been having my doubts.

I have read and listened to your weekly posts and podcasts, especially recently. Although they are laden with truth and accuracy, they present a serious problem for me. You see, whenever I read them or listen to them, I feel like I'm being shown the potential that is within me, rather than the reality that I live out every day. It’s like God, through you, is trying to remind me of what I could be as a dad and husband, not just what I am.

As you surely know, this is not desirable. In fact it hurts. It seems to require that I humble myself, and change my ways. And, oh my, that is just unthinkable. To stop and spend time with my kids? To push them on a tire swing? To read them a book or tell them a story before bed? No, no, no. I have too many things on the "to do" list. There just isn't time. Maybe there will be time...later. And anyway, I'm mowing the grass for my family. I'm washing the cars...for my family. I'm tending the garden....for my family. Right? Of course I am. That is what is important to them. That is what they want from me.

I know in my mind that this is fact. It is common sense. And then...here you come in with your writing and your speaking, and try to turn my world upside down. You try to tell me that "there is another way". My mind and perfectionist nature reject your simple suggestions. And how I wish that was all to the story. But...but...something else inside of me (my spirit, or heart, perhaps?) seems to relate to what you say. I'm not sure why, and my mind cannot comprehend it, so I try to suppress it. But then I listen to you again. And then I read another post. And then I hurt worse than the last time. And then I start to cry. Like right now. Me, a grown, independent, perfect father and husband...crying about something that I know I already have total control over. Why do I cry? (Please note the sarcasm in all of the above) (Oh, and the sarcasm ends now).

I cry because I know what you say is true. I cry because what you suggest takes work, and is hard, and oh how lazy I am to work and change. And I know that it’s 'good', but it’s still hard. It’s hard for me to stop being selfish, even if I mask it and call it 'serving my family'. It’s still being selfish and self centered. It’s hard for me to swallow the truth and commit to be better today. To be better again tomorrow. To be the Dad. To stop the doing and start the living. To focus on what’s important.

I cry because I struggle to accept that God loves me for who I am and who he created me to be, not for what I do or how good or fast or efficiently I do it. I love my kids and wife more than anything, but I know I'm showing them that love in my own language, not in their language. I could go on.

I realize now that I've written you the equivalent of a high school term paper... in length at least. Sorry about that.

~J.G.

Dad's, stay in the battle! Listen to your fathers (the one on earth and the One in Heaven) and make the hard changes to be a better Christ-follower, a better husband, a better dad, and a better friend.

June 14, 2014

“My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” Proverbs 3:11-12

One way to emphasize the importance and impact of a father is to consider the results when a father is not involved in the life of his children.

There is no question that children who grow up in fatherless homes have a much greater risk of major challenges in life than those who grow up with a father at home. These statistics are alarming and should give any father pause.

Incarceration Rates. "Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families...those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated -- even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant." (Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in "Father Absence and Youth Incarceration." Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.)

Suicide. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

Behavioral Disorders. 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

High School Dropouts. 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

Educational Attainment. Kids living in single-parent homes or in step-families report lower educational expectations on the part of their parents, less parental monitoring of school work, and less overall social supervision than children from intact families. (N.M. Astore and S. McLanahan,American Sociological Review, No. 56 (1991)

Juvenile Detention Rates. 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

Confused Identities. Boys who grow up in father-absent homes are more likely that those in father-present homes to have trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender identity.(P.L. Adams, J.R. Milner, and N.A. Schrepf, Fatherless Children, New York, Wiley Press, 1984).

Aggression. In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households." (N. Vaden-Kierman, N. Ialongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, "Household Family Structure and Children's Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995).

Achievement. Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes. (One-Parent Families and Their Children, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 1990).

Delinquency. Only 13 percent of juvenile delinquents come from families in which the biological mother and father are married to each other. By contrast, 33 percent have parents who are either divorced or separated and 44 percent have parents who were never married. (Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Social Services, April 1994).

Criminal Activity. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. Source: A. Anne Hill, June O'Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States, CUNY, Baruch College. 1993

If you had a father in your home as you were growing up, be very thankful to him and to God, your Heavenly Father for the distinct advantage you had!

If your father was not a positive factor in your life, I urge you to get to know your Heavenly Father at a meaningful level.

June 13, 2014

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." Luke 2:52

Joseph reminds me of Andrew, the disciple, because he doesn't show up in Scripture very often but whenever he does he is doing something very significant.

Andrew, whenever he is mentioned in Scripture he is seen bringing someone to Jesus.

Joseph, whenever he is mentioned in the Bible he is bringing Jesus to someone!

I honor Joseph as one of the best dads in the Bible, a true model and mentor for any dad who wants to do a better job.

As I have been sharing over the past several days, godly fathers like Joseph and Noah, knew their role was to allow the Heavenly Father to guide them in their parenting. They prayed and then they obeyed!

These fathers also availed themselves of spiritual resources to nurture the faith of their children. They made sure their children were surrounded by people of faith and exposed to good teaching.

They knew their role, they took advantage of their resources and they also embraced their responsibilities. 

What are the Biblical responsibilities of godly dads? To protect their family, to provide for the family and to prepare their family.

In the few brief mentions that Joseph gets in the Bible we see him getting up in the middle of the night to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt to protect them from Herod. We also see him make the decision to take Mary for his wife after she is found to be pregnant. That means that he also decided to provide the child, Jesus, with an earthly father. And, we know Joseph was a carpenter and we know that Jesus was a carpenter before he began His ministry. So, obviously Joseph had prepared Jesus with a trade.

How do you plan to protect your family?

How well are you providing for your family? Are you providing what they need emotionally and spiritually as well as physically?

How are you preparing your family? What are you preparing them for?

Dads, are you looking for a role model or mentor to help you become a better parent? I point you to Joseph and challenge you to learn from him about your role, and about your resources and about your responsibility as a father!

And, by the way, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!