What's TFC's More of God?

What is TFC's More of God?

Someone asked me this today; here's my answer:
During our More of God seasons (3-4 times per year) we encourage folks to alter their lives a bit by giving up a little food for all or just parts of a couple of days, so that they can give a bit more time and focus to prayer.

The fasting part of M.O.G. is optional. We don't mandate that people fast. But just becasue it's not mandated doesn't mean that it's unimportant. Congregational fasting shows unity in prayer and in a display that we all, together, desire God even more than food.

The prayer part of MOG shouldn't be viewed as optional (unless folks have other unavoidable stuff going on). TFC members really should join us in the two day season of prayer since in the Bible church leaders have the responsibility to call congregations together for seasons of prayer, and every believer needs to be a part of this at least on some occasions.

During the days of each More of God event, we encourage people to pray alone, with each other, and with their families more than they might normally. We suggest that they spend time praying for their families, their care groups, their church, their pastors, the various ministries of the church, the mission of the church, and unbelievers that they are trying to reach for Christ.

It all comes to a climax on the Friday PM at 7:00PM, when we gather to pray specifically for "more of God": more of His love, more of His power, more of His grace to live transformed lives, more of His Holy Spirit to give us spiritual gifts and power to edify each other and reach our world, more of His presence to change us and to change others through us.

This Friday time is normally a free flowing time, with no set agenda by the pastors. We simply start by singing (normally) and then pray and speak and share prophetic words of encouragement as God brings these all to mind. We don't want to manage God on these occasions; we want God to control and lead us.

There you have it!!

Don't Run; Root. (Psalm 37 #10)

One of the temptations we face when thugs take over government or the workplace or the neighborhood or the home is to run. We're tempted to try to escape, find a safer place, go into hiding, get away from the danger zone. I'm not sure this is the best way.

I wouldn't say that there is never a time to escape (after all I do remember an Acts 9:23-25 scene in which Paul escapes Damascus in a basket lowered over a wall, a scene that makes me smile as I play back the grainy footage of that night-time escape in my mind; a bit of a humbling moment for a mighty apostle, wouldn't you say?). Friends, if there is imminent danger to body or soul, escape is a very real option, and in some cases duty.

But something tells me that often God's preference for us in hard times, when the heat of persecution or cultural meltdown increases is not that we run but that we root.

You'll remember that Psalm 37:1-40 is God's counsel to us when thugs rule and evildoers turn up the heat. And among the many commands given us is that of Psalm 37:3--"dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness."

The Hebrew word translated "dwell" means to settle down, reside, stay. This is a call to stay put; to dwell in the land; to root rather than to run.

The additional admonition to "befriend faithfulness" is our translator's attempt to capture an uncertain Hebrew phrase. Check other translations and, instead of "befriend faithfulness," you'll find "feed on faithfulness" or "enjoy safe pasture" or "cultivate faithfulness."

One thing all the translation attempts have in common is a picture of steady, staying grace. Psalm 37:3 is either a call to settle down and be faithful, or to settle down and feed on God's faithfulness, or to stay and graze in the pasture of God's grace. One thing it is not is a call to run.

I'm reminded of God's words to His exiled people in Jeremiah 29:4-7. Folks, while in our own Babylonian captivity under thugs and thieves in high places, perhaps the best thing we can do is "build houses (or rent apartments) and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce" and then build godly families as Jeremiah commands.

In other words perhaps the best thing we can do is take root and bear fruit. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to go about the business of everyday living, quite indifferent to the turmoil around, just minding our own business (as Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12), taking care of our own affairs, working hard, tending our families, living quiet lives of consistent godliness, and whatever happens, simply keeping on keeping on.

Hard times are not times to run and hide; they're times to stay and shine (Matthew 5:10-16). What the world needs today is not more Christians moving away from the hot spots, retreating into safety to build communes, but Christians dwelling in the cultural war zones and staying put come what may.

Today's world and church need willing Christian stayers: men and women who'd rather be faithful than safe; who'd choose deep roots in a war zone over a cozy bunker in the country; who stick it out in church and society even when the times get hard indeed.

Real Social Action: Taking Radical Steps to Undermine Thievery and Thuggery in High Places

In our series, Thieves, Thugs, and Christian Faith (which is based on Psalm 37:1-40), we're trying to frame a biblical response to cultural and political evil. You'll have to read back to see what we've covered so far. Today we'll consider how to take meaningful action.

Real, radical Christian social action is this: "Trust in the Lord, and do good...The righteous is generous and gives...Turn away from evil and do good" (Psalm 37:3, 21, 27).

Do good. Be generous and give.

Consider the simple yet radical action to which God calls us when we face thugs and thieves in high (or low) places. He does not call us primarily (if at all) to arms or to political action or to boycotts or to media blitzes. He calls us to do good.

Doing good is biblical parlance for living a generous, kind, compassionate, giving, hands-dirty-with-serving and hearts-connected-with-compassion lives. It's the very opposite of raging and fuming. It's the near opposite of passive news-watching and collective whining via Christian airwaves.

It's getting out there into the real world of human need and doing something through witness, love, kindness, hospitality, service, and compassion for the poor, the outcast, the alone, the alien, and yes, even the thug.

It's not faulting the illegal alien, it's finding him and loving him. It's not condemning the gays, it's befriending them and gracing them. It's not blasting and scorning the politicians, it's praying for them, and pleading for God's mercy upon them--because we actually and truly love them.

Read--and practice--the words of Jesus in Luke 6:27-35. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless and pray for them. Turn your cheek. Give. Lend, expecting nothing in return. Be merciful. That is radical Christian social action. Everything else is bluster. Worse it is quite possibly simply fear, self-righteousness, and/or bigotry.

The best way to change really bad people is to love them. Remember Romans 12:14-21. Make sure to stop and read that Romans text really slowly and thoughtfully, or you'll blow a chance to be transformed.

Simple series of questions (some with answers):

1. What is the best way to overcome evil? Do good.
2. What is the best way to handle the illegal alien problem? Love the alien more than you love a healthy economy or the nation's future well-being and lead the alien to Jesus.
3. Are you more concerned about the homosexual's agenda or the homosexual's soul?
4. If Obama is really an evil enemy of all that is good, then what are specific good things we may do for him to overcome his evil?
5. Are you against higher taxes simply because you want to keep more money in your pocket, or because you truly believe that you can give it away in a more effective, others-helping way than government can? You shouldn't want lower taxes so you can have a higher standard of living; you should want lower taxes so you can invest in heaven through greater giving.
6. Do you speak out and take action more vigorously for the plight of the unborn or the cause of missions and evangelism than you do for the state of the economy or the defence of American style democracy? What have you given more time, attention, and tears to in the past six months?
7. Which worries you more and prompts you to more prayer, generosity, and action: the fact that we have thugs in high places, or the fact that there are neighbors next door who've never really heard the gospel or met a sane Christian with a bold witness, and that there are 10-15 thousand people groups around the world who have never even heard of Jesus Christ because American Christians refuse to give and go in such a way as to finish the task of local and global missions?

With all due respect and deep affection for all the dear saints who are doing much good every day to affect others for Christ, may I say this bluntly about the majority in churches today: maybe American Christians should whine a whole lot less and simply do good a whole lot more.

A Vale of Tears and a God Who Is Enough

Just a brief word for today.

This morning I serve at a funeral for a dear old saint who passed away this past Saturday evening. She was the kind of person whom one could not visit or see in church without walking away smiling. How she brightened a room with her zest for life and her growing faith!

Now she's gone home, much happier still.

This world is filled with sorrows--illness, family griefs, financial losses and crosses, deep loneliness, death, and taunting and rejection for one's faith in Jesus. Indeed, this morning I am called to care for the griefs of others having a good share of my own griefs.

But God lives. And in all that I have been called to endure myself, this is what I have found: trials are not so much about God testing us as they are about God proving Himself.

It's about God proving His sufficiency in our deficiency.

It's about God allowing us to find out that He Himself is our enough.

Have you discovered that yet?

A Passing Gospel Thought: Jesus friend of Sinners

Friday Gayline and I shared the gospel with two people: one a 40 year old God-cursing, foul, furious sinner, the other a smiling, smug, 80 year old God-refusing do-gooder. The first hated God because he'd been molested by a priest. The other refused God because, well, she was simply so good that she couldn't conceive how she needed Him.

Both were equally doomed; both equally in need of grace; both equally savable at the foot of the cross. But probably the first will find that salvation long before the second. Unlike her he won't have to dig through mile-deep self-righteousness before he finds the filth within and sees his need.

He's the kind the Savior came to save, for Jesus is the friend of sinners. On the other hand, the 80 year old is in trouble for Jesus is the worst nightmare of the self-righteous.

Food for thought.

Delighting in God: How to Expel your Fear of Thugs and Thieves (Psalm 37 #8)

So in Psalm 37:4 we are told to "delight in God and He will give us the desires of our heart." As mentioned yesterday this is a way of saying that when evildoers seemingly have the upper hand (which is the case in Psalm 37 and today), believers must gaze at God with affection and delight rather than at their surrounding circumstances or the powers that be.

In so doing their fear, fretting, and fuming will dissipate, and their desires (for more of God and grace and joy) will increase. The spiritual formula is really quite simple, even if not always easy to apply. Here it is: In hard times, delight in God. When times grow dark gaze at the Light. When times are tough, turn to the bright, pleasing, satisfying Wonder, whose name is God.

When you do, fear will be expelled and desires satisfied.

One reason why so many Christians today are all hot and bothered to the point of spiritual distraction is because they are spending far more time gazing at problems than at the God above those problems. Time doesn't permit me to expound at length about how to remedy this, but can I suggest a simple piece of advice (which I know you're all smart enough to figure out how to apply)?

For every ten minutes you spend watching the news, evaluating economic and political theory, critiquing politicians, reading the lastest alarms from conservative watchdog groups, or keeping current on the latest scandal in Washington or on Main Street, spend an hour delighting in God.

I'm not exaggerating or kidding. Ten minutes watching the news should be preceded or followed by an hour in the Word of God or prayer or fellowship with believers or reading a book extolling the attributes or gospel or grace or glory or sovereignty of God.

Delight in God and he will give you the desires of your heart. Wallow in the gutter of political thuggery and theory or cultural decay and you will only get mad and afraid.

I heard yesterday (in a conversation) about a local civic leader apparently taken down in an FBI investigation. Guess what: in a total of five minutes of conversation and follow up reading I knew all I needed to know about it. If I spend any more time on it, I lose joy, fuel anger, get weak, start sinning.

I can get all the news I really need daily in a very few minutes of headline reading. More than that and I'm headed for the gutter. Instead I choose to spend my time beholding the One whose glory fills the earth and whose hand rules the nations.

Delighting in God, I get more of God and all the joy he gives, even when the world is upside down with corruption.

Today's thought.

But Why Trust God when Thugs Rule?! (Psalm 37 #7)

Psalm 37:1-40 is as good a soul-antibiotic as you'll find anywhere to remedy the disease of discontented rage infecting Christians in our topsy-turvy world today.

The first call of the Psalm is for us to trust; to trust God and commit our way to him. But why trust God? What do we know about God that is worthy of such trust when jobs are lost, careers screech to a halt, freedoms are curtailed, politicians remake our country, evildoers conspire in back rooms, and cultural morals sink lower (and stink more) than a cess pool?

I count no less than a dozen promises from God and about God that David passes on to us to undergird our trust in him. Let me point out a few:

1. God will break, crush, wither up, laugh at, obliterate, cut off, and in all other ways destroy the wicked (Psalm 37:2, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20, 34, 36, 38). God doesn't put up with wicked nonsense for long. There will be a day--in this world and in the next--when they will meet their end.
2. God will act (Psalm 37:5). I love that. Aslan is on the move. God moves, acts, works, does, rules, all to enact his plans. God is not silent and he's never still.
3. God will make justice blaze like the noonday sun (Psalm 37:6). Are we really being wronged? It'll be made right. Are our rights really being violated? God will not let that stand. Is injustice really happening? We need not fuss, fume, and fight for our rights. God will never let it go unresolved.
4. God is multi-generationally committed (Psalm 37:18, 25, 26). God loves us and our children. While evildoers will come and go, our children will remain forever, the blessed of the Lord. Friends: don't worry too much about your children's future in this mixed up nearly bankrupt world. They'll be fine. God has promised to see to it himself.
5. God is a spiritual hedonist (Psalm 37:4). Delight yourself in God (we hope to discuss how to do that tomorrow) and he'll give you your desires (i.e.-your delights and cravings). Think about that and you'll realize that it means that if you delight yourself in God, making him you highest desire and joy, you'll get more of God. God knows how to make his children happy, filling them with pleasure. It's by giving us himself during the raging afflictions of life.

Friends: don't curse the day or bemoan the times. Today's crises fuel the furnace out of which the pure gold of knowing God and delighting in God emerge. God loves to please us, so he's promised to give us our deepest desire: to know and be known by him. The Bible and experience tell us that trials, tribulations, thieves, and thugs do not diminish the believer's joy; they accentuate and increase it.

So let us embrace these troubled times as a gift from God through which he is going to give us more of himself! Do not fret over evildoers, for what man means for evil, God means for very great, very enjoyable, very satisfying good.