(Adapted by Glenn Ziegler from Why I Love Her by John Mitchum)
You ask me why I love Him? Well, give me time and I’ll explain.
Have you seen the Father’s glory in the sunset or the rain?
Have you felt the Spirit’s presence as you walk the narrow way?
Have you heard the Savior weeping just outside Lazarus’ grave?
Have you seen the boat full of disciples in the storm - and heard them whine?
Have you seen the Master walking cross the water to their side?
Do the Beatitudes inspire you as you sit at Jesus’ feet?
Have you traveled days to see Him, just hoping to hear Him speak?
Has your life been changed forever by the One who built God’s kingdom on the rock?
Do you think of Him as you pass a homeless person who only has one sock?
Have you seen the way He treats sinners? Have you heard our Savior sigh …
As He watches us ignore the lost, have you heard Him softly cry?
Did you sing Hosanna to heaven as He rode into the city?
Did you feel the Father’s disappointment as He cleared the Temple street?
Have you eaten the bread He blessed, remembering the body of our Lord?
Have you sipped the cup He offered, considering the blood that He outpoured?
Have you felt the disciples’ loneliness as they hid themselves away?
Felt the shame of their self-protection as He gave His life that day?
And were you as doubtful as was Thomas until you saw His hands and feet?
Have you longed to fall as he did confessing his love at Jesus’ feet?
Every day in every place we go, there is someone feeling pain.
Do you seek to share their burden just to help them ease the strain?
Is it the Master’s steps you follow? Is He your reason? Is He your ‘why’?
My Jesus is my greatest love, the One who for us died.
Showing posts with label discipleship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discipleship. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Christians Persecuted In America?
A small home bible study group claimed they were being persecuted by a county office in big, bad, who-knows-what-they-believe-out-there California, USA. (Apologies to everyone who lives in that beautiful and much maligned state. That was a very small attempt at sarcasm related to the way CA used to be viewed in the Bible Belt...and in some areas, still is so viewed by some folks.)
My take on the facts, at this time, after a brief investigation on the internet:
This is a non-issue that was resolved according to county ordinances, given the time for the investigation to work through its legal stages. Someone complained about some issues with a group that was gathered at a house near their friends' home and a standard form letter was sent, but the wrong form letter, indicating that ordinance violations were being investigated and fines and permit fees would be assessed for any violations of local ordinances as to land use and assembly. In the end, it was made clear that the county had no interest in pursuing a mistaken form letter demand. The county admitted the error and followed their internally prescribed steps to investigate and respond to the issue - eventually informing the home owner that the county was dropping the matter because no legal action was warranted.
In a litigious society, it is not surprising that certain individuals and/or groups of professing Christians will also get caught up in the desire to litigate instead of negotiating or (gasp!) serving our neighbors...or simply waiting for the system to have time to work. So few can even begin to grasp the concept of actually deciding not to pursue every right they might claim that religious groups of all kinds (though we admittedly hear disproportionately more from groups professing to 'Christian') are turning more and more directly to civil courts to settle disputes with one another, with local governance/ordinances, and with other interest groups (like neighbors and neighborhood associations and even neighbors' friends). One can only wonder what folks would do if a house was so fully packed with people listening to a guest teacher that you'd have to cut a hole in the roof in order to get in! (How many times and ways can you see THAT turning into lawsuits??!!!)
Further reflections:
It saddens me to think that more and more children are being raised to think of this kind of response from a group (however small or large) of Christians (led by their pastor, no less) as normative behavior. Paul addressed this to some extent, as had Jesus also, to some extent, during His ministry. And it seems important to me that neither Jesus nor Paul advocated the public outrage approach, nor the take-those-who-offend-you-to-court approach, either.
Perhaps this should come as no surprise to someone raised in a spiritual heritage defined, transformed, mutilated and splintered by litigious actions over a hundred years ago - and for which there has still yet been no wide-scale resolution of the original issues. Instead, myriad other issues have been used to solidify the dissolution of a unity movement that died when the first case went to court, no matter how we try to revive its corpses or deny that THAT movement has died. In its place today we have a hollow shell of a claim to similar interests, while most of the things being pursued today bear little resemblance to the kind of efforts that were taken when Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell were alive, much less during the time when they labored so long and hard to get the thing started. What is left today remains more as a testimony to the evolution of groups into that which was once opposed than as a living testimony to the kind of effort Stone and Campbell envisioned and plead for so passionately. So why should we be surprised when someone claims to follow Christ and then takes actions in opposition to those advocated by the Christ and by His apostles?
So, no, I am not surprised. I am saddened, though, that the lost have been handed on a platter more lame reasons to resist efforts to reach them with the gospel; and I am also sadly resigned to having to address the difference between what Jesus taught and what many claiming to follow Him have pursued instead. Stories like this one give me nightmares about what it must be like to hear so many crying out, "Lord, Lord" when there is so little attention paid to what the One being addressed taught. It must rip His heart to hear the cries He longs for coming from us when we ignore His teachings and yet cry when things don't go well for us, as if we should expect things to go well anyway - having chosen to follow One who was crucified, literally, for those very teachings and for the sake of those who killed Him. Shall we expect to be treated differently, on however mild or harsh a level, than He was treated? Jesus said we should expect what He received.
If I follow Jesus, and if I believe Him, then the kind of persecution we will face is going to get a lot worse than an erroneous assembly citation in the mail. And the question remains: What will we do then?
Blessings,
Glenn
My take on the facts, at this time, after a brief investigation on the internet:
This is a non-issue that was resolved according to county ordinances, given the time for the investigation to work through its legal stages. Someone complained about some issues with a group that was gathered at a house near their friends' home and a standard form letter was sent, but the wrong form letter, indicating that ordinance violations were being investigated and fines and permit fees would be assessed for any violations of local ordinances as to land use and assembly. In the end, it was made clear that the county had no interest in pursuing a mistaken form letter demand. The county admitted the error and followed their internally prescribed steps to investigate and respond to the issue - eventually informing the home owner that the county was dropping the matter because no legal action was warranted.
In a litigious society, it is not surprising that certain individuals and/or groups of professing Christians will also get caught up in the desire to litigate instead of negotiating or (gasp!) serving our neighbors...or simply waiting for the system to have time to work. So few can even begin to grasp the concept of actually deciding not to pursue every right they might claim that religious groups of all kinds (though we admittedly hear disproportionately more from groups professing to 'Christian') are turning more and more directly to civil courts to settle disputes with one another, with local governance/ordinances, and with other interest groups (like neighbors and neighborhood associations and even neighbors' friends). One can only wonder what folks would do if a house was so fully packed with people listening to a guest teacher that you'd have to cut a hole in the roof in order to get in! (How many times and ways can you see THAT turning into lawsuits??!!!)
Further reflections:
It saddens me to think that more and more children are being raised to think of this kind of response from a group (however small or large) of Christians (led by their pastor, no less) as normative behavior. Paul addressed this to some extent, as had Jesus also, to some extent, during His ministry. And it seems important to me that neither Jesus nor Paul advocated the public outrage approach, nor the take-those-who-offend-you-to-court approach, either.
Perhaps this should come as no surprise to someone raised in a spiritual heritage defined, transformed, mutilated and splintered by litigious actions over a hundred years ago - and for which there has still yet been no wide-scale resolution of the original issues. Instead, myriad other issues have been used to solidify the dissolution of a unity movement that died when the first case went to court, no matter how we try to revive its corpses or deny that THAT movement has died. In its place today we have a hollow shell of a claim to similar interests, while most of the things being pursued today bear little resemblance to the kind of efforts that were taken when Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell were alive, much less during the time when they labored so long and hard to get the thing started. What is left today remains more as a testimony to the evolution of groups into that which was once opposed than as a living testimony to the kind of effort Stone and Campbell envisioned and plead for so passionately. So why should we be surprised when someone claims to follow Christ and then takes actions in opposition to those advocated by the Christ and by His apostles?
So, no, I am not surprised. I am saddened, though, that the lost have been handed on a platter more lame reasons to resist efforts to reach them with the gospel; and I am also sadly resigned to having to address the difference between what Jesus taught and what many claiming to follow Him have pursued instead. Stories like this one give me nightmares about what it must be like to hear so many crying out, "Lord, Lord" when there is so little attention paid to what the One being addressed taught. It must rip His heart to hear the cries He longs for coming from us when we ignore His teachings and yet cry when things don't go well for us, as if we should expect things to go well anyway - having chosen to follow One who was crucified, literally, for those very teachings and for the sake of those who killed Him. Shall we expect to be treated differently, on however mild or harsh a level, than He was treated? Jesus said we should expect what He received.
If I follow Jesus, and if I believe Him, then the kind of persecution we will face is going to get a lot worse than an erroneous assembly citation in the mail. And the question remains: What will we do then?
Blessings,
Glenn
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