“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!’” (Romans 10:14-15)

Food For Thought: Okay, this may sound a little self-serving since I am one, but I just want to echo what Paul is saying: Up with preachers! The Christian message requires them! The building of faith requires them! The evangelization of the world requires them! You go preacher!

Did you notice, if you will permit me to put it like this, that the Gospel formula goes something like this: Salvation requires belief; belief requires the communicated Word; the communicated Word requires the preacher; the preacher requires a divine call. In the Christian equation, preaching must be kept preeminent! It is the God-ordained tool for building faith, faith that is essential to pleasing God:

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” —Romans 10:17

We live in a culture where far too many churches (one church would be too many) have downplayed the preaching of the Word. People don’t like to be preached at, so they say, therefore preaching is reduced to “sharing” (Oh pah-lease!) or sermonettes (for Christianettes), or motivational pep talks, or the “longhorn” sermon—a point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between. And in the place of preaching, music and drama has taken the preeminence.

Now don’t get me wrong—I love good music, and I believe that churches ought to have the best fine arts approach to worship and evangelism possible. Too many churches turn off spiritual seekers because the song selection is out-of-date, the style belongs in the dark ages, the skill of the musicians and the delivery of their product would be better served as an implement of torture in the hands of CIA agents at Gitmo, and the old adage that “no drama is better than bad drama” has definitely been ignored. There needs to be a commitment to excellence befitting the King of Kings in regards to the worship arts of a church. And I thank God I belong to a church that has that commitment.

But the preaching of the Word must never lose it’s primacy in the ministry of the local church. Churches must be committed to it, and must demand the same kind of skill that I’ve just suggested of the church’s fine arts. Why? Because preaching is the primary vehicle for the development of disciples and for the formation of faith necessary for spiritual seekers to find Christ. The Word of God must be taught clearly, thoroughly, accurately, interestingly, relevantly, passionately and consistently, or the church has failed in its mission.

Richard Baxter, the Puritan preacher once remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” Your preacher must be fully aware that when he or she preaches, eternity literally hangs in the balance. I would recommend that you copy that down on a 5 x 7 card and tape it to the pulpit in full view so that when your pastor steps behind “the sacred desk”, he or she is reminded of their role and senses your supportive expectation that they carry out the central activity of the gathered community of faith: the preaching of the Word of God!

Oh, one more thing. Your preacher may be the one assigned to declare God’s truth to your congregation, but you, too, have been called to preach the Good News. You are a preacher, and the world you find yourself in is your parish. So preach away—both with your life and your words.

Prayer: Dear Lord, I want to thank you for every Bible-teaching preacher that I have ever heard in my life. Bless them for their faithfulness and reward them with the knowledge that their sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears in preparing and delivering their sermons is paying off in the lives of their listeners, including me. And Lord, I would pray that you would enable me to be a faithful preacher, whether behind a pulpit or in the parish of my world. Inspire me to preach to dying men and women as if I might never have the opportunity to preach again. Remind me that someone’s eternity hinges on my words. May the meditation of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing unto you. Amen.

One more thing… Come on, give your preacher a break. Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, once said, “All originality and no plagiarism makes for dull preaching!”

“If a person puts their trust in God, it doesn’t matter if that person is a Jew or a Gentile. There is only one Lord, and he is generous to everyone who asks for his help. All who call out to the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:12)

Food For Thought: When you were a kid, did you ever have the humiliating experience of being the last one chosen when sides were being formed? The captains were choosing sides, and then there were two—you and some other poor chump were the only ones left. And that other poor chump was selected—and he felt like a million bucks, but you were left standing there all by your lonesome. You were the leftover; it was painfully obvious that you were the chump of all chumps. And the unfortunate captain who inherited you didn’t even bother to call your name. She just turned to walk with her team to their side of the field, and you just kind of fell in step at the rear.

Cliques and clubs—we all hate them, especially if we are not in them. We deal with them all of our lives: In the nursery school sandbox, on the playground in grammar school; in Junior High everyone who was anyone was invited to the party, and you were not; in High School it was either in with the jocks and the cheerleaders or hanging out with the nerds—and you were usually at home with the nerds. And to your dismay, those cliques didn’t stop when you donned the cap and gown. As an adult, you faced cliques in your social circles, the good ol’ boys club at work, and sadly, even in the one place where no cliques shouldn’t be—at church.

But the clique and clubs you faced were nothing compared to the one we find in the Bible. The worst, most exclusive clique of all developed among the Jews in Bible times. They had been chosen as God’s people, and it was his plan that through the loving relationship they had with him, the Gentile world would be provoke to holy envy, i.e., they would want what Israel had. From the beginning, it was God’s desire that all the people of the earth would be blessed (saved) through the children of Abraham.

But Israel forgot that. They became prideful in their sovereign election as God’s people and exclusive in their attitude toward a lost world. Rather than becoming good news ambassadors to the rest of the world, they clung tightly to their little secret way of gaining and keeping favor with God—through the observance of the Law of God. They became the 10 Commandment Club.

However, God interrupted that little clique and busted up their little club by sending Jesus to tear down the wall that divided Jew from Gentle; at his death he obliterated every obstacle that prevented the Gentile world from access to his presence. The Jewish faith no longer held a monopoly on favored-nation status with God. Finally, anyone could be in the club—everyone had the opportunity now to gain right standing with God.

Here’s where it stands now: All who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. You don’t get in because of your heritage, because of your observance of religious rituals, or because you have somehow made yourself worthy. You are in simply and only because you call out to God for help—you place your faith in Jesus Christ to save you. When you do that, you become a full-fledged member of God’s forever family—chosen, adopted accepted, sanctified, given a mission and gifted a destiny. And here’s more good news-membership is free. Your fees have been paid in full forever by Jesus Christ.

That’s the Good News! And you have the assignment of telling others that the clubhouse is now open to anyone who will call upon the name of the Lord.

Prayer: Lord, today someone is waiting to receive your invitation—and I am holding it in my hand. Help me to be sensitive—aware at all times that the invitation of all invitations has been committed to me, and those you are calling will only hear it if I do my part as the messenger. When I am sitting at my desk and the phone rings, or when I am at the doctors office or stop by the grocery store and there’s suddenly an unexpected opportunity to engage someone, open my eyes to that one whose heart is ready to receive the Good News. Lord, forgive my exclusive attitude, and help me to be an ambassador for the open door club!

One more thing… “You can take nothing greater to the lost world than the impress and the reflection of the love of God upon your life. That is the universal language.” —Henry Drummond

“Christ is God, the one who rules over everything and is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.” (Romans 9:5)

Food For Thought: Who is Jesus Christ?

That’s the question of all questions, and a correct understanding of who Jesus is makes all the difference in how a person lives in this life and where they will spend eternity.

A friend told me last night of a survey he’d heard on a TV news program that indicated 85 percent of American’s claim to be Christian—followers of Jesus Christ. Obviously, our nation would be in a lot better shape than it is right now if that were true. A lot of people say they follow Jesus Christ, but they are not following the way Jesus called them to follow: “If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily.” Jesus also said, “if you love me, you will do what I say.” Clearly, from Jesus’ own teaching as well as from other teaching in Scripture, only those who have fully surrendered their lives to his Lordship are truly Christian.

A great majority of these who say they follow Jesus are misled. Their “christianity” (I’ve deliberately chosen a lower case “c” for this brand of Christianity) is perhaps a cultural one and not a spiritual Christianity. Some believe themselves to be “christian” by virtue of being born in America, or having been raised by parents who took them to a Christian church twice a year—Christmas and Easter. But going to church or being born to a Christian family or growing up in a “chrisitan” culture doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going through a McDonald’s drive-thru makes you a Happy Meal.

A great majority of this 85 percent who claim to be Christian might even be good and sincere. But goodness and sincerity doesn’t place anyone in right standing with God either. The road to hell will be traveled by a lot of “good” people. There are a lot a sincere people in the world, but they are sincerely wrong.

Being a Christian means having a right understanding for that question, “Who is Jesus?” Paul taught that Jesus was God. Jesus himself claimed, to be God. Not just a god, or one of God’s offspring; not just a good moral teacher or an influential spiritual director. No, he was, is, and forevermore shall be God. In fact, that’s what got him crucified—his claim to Godship. To recognize and reverence Jesus as God is what it means to be Christian.

Since Jesus is God, he therefore has every right to rule over our lives as Lord. We are to obey what he says, do what he commands, think as he thinks, serve his purposes through our lives, and extend his renown throughout the world. We are to love him with our whole being. We are make Jesus the Lord of our lives, that’s what it means to be Christian.

And Jesus is to receive praise not only from our lips, but through our lives as well. Everything we think, say and do are to bring glory and honor to him. Our whole lives are to be an offering of praise to Jesus Christ. We are to offer our everyday lives for his glory and purpose; that is our worship. Bringing Jesus eternal glory is what it means to be Christian.

Jesus is either God, or he is not. If he is not, then we might as well move on to something else and quit deceiving ourselves about Christianity. But if Jesus is God, then we owe him our reverence, our worship, and our obedience.

I’d say those 85 percent who claim to be in his camp need to step it up!

Prayer: Jesus, you are God, and I offer you the praise you so rightly deserve with my lips and through my life. Today, I offer my entire being to you—my thoughts, my words, and my actions—as a sacrifice of love and devotion. I dedicate all that I am and all that I have as an act of worship. May you be glorified through this one life set apart as living evidence of your Lordship.

One more thing… “Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.” –St. Augustine

“The moment we get tired in our journey, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. The Spirit does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our what in our hearts, on our minds, and he keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Romans 8:26-28)

Food For Thought: If you are like me, and so many people I have talked to, prayer can be a real struggle. Sometimes we feel so personally inadequate to come before a holy God in prayer. Sometimes we’ve witnessed prayer warriors interceding with such ease and we feel so intimated because know we could never pray like that. Sometimes we try to pray but we quickly run out of words, or our mind starts to wander and before you know it we’re going down our mental to do list or writing out our grocery list or planning our vacation instead of praying. Sometimes when it comes to prayer, as Ringo Star once sang, “it don’t come easy.”

Guess what! That’s okay! When I don’t know how to pray or what to pray or feel so incredibly inadequate to pray, the Holy Spirit dwelling within me does the praying for me. He takes my inarticulate, jumbled thoughts and raises them to the Father above, making perfect sense of the things that are running through my mind and burdening my heart. My prayers don’t have to be smooth, they don’t have to have perfect grammatical structure, they don’t even have to make sense. They just need to come from a heart that is crying out for the Father’s best in my life, and the indwelling Spirit does the rest.

That reminds me of the story of a father, who one night heard his young daughter speaking, although she was alone in her room. The door was cracked just enough so that he could see that she was kneeling beside her bed in prayer.

Interested to hear what she was asking God for, he paused outside her door and listened. And he was puzzled to hear her reciting the alphabet: “A, B, C, D, E, F, G …”

She just kept repeating it. He didn’t want to interrupt her, but soon curiosity got the best of him and he broke into her prayer. “Honey, what are you doing?”

“I’m praying, Daddy.”

He asked, “Why are you praying the alphabet?”

She said, “I started my prayers, but I wasn’t sure what to pray. I decided to just say all the letters of the alphabet and let God put them together however he thinks best.”

That’s what Paul is describing. We offer what is in our hearts to God—whether eloquent or inarticulate—and he turns them into what glorifies him and is for our good.

That’s not a bad way to pray…and sometimes, that’s the best way to pray, according to Paul. So the next time you’re stumped in prayer, just honestly, simply, and from the heart tell God what’s going on, and let the Holy Spirit form your thoughts and your words and present them before the Father. When the Holy Spirit gets through with them, your prayer will be mountain moving prayer.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, take my inarticulate thoughts, my unclear mind, my insecurity about being good enough in prayer, perfect them and lift them to the Father above. Turn my feeble efforts to pray into mountain moving prayers. As I offer what’s in my heart to you, I will thank you in advance for turning them into that which glorifies God and is for my good.

One more thing… “Pray, and let God worry.” –Martin Luther, in a letter to his wife Kate

“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:11)

Food For Thought: I have heard this particular verse quoted most of my life—usually in the context of praying for the healing power of the Holy Spirit for a physical malady. I have received prayers, and I have offered prayers using this verse as a faith builder—that the same Spirit of God who raised the body of Jesus from death is dwelling in us, therefore we can expect that same resurrection power to bring divine life to our physical bodies as well. And to be sure, I believe that to be true.

What never hit me until this moment is the Biblical context in which this verse is placed. Up to this point in Romans, Paul has extensively been comparing the bondage to sin we experienced while living under the law with the freedom from sin we have living under the Lordship of the resurrected Christ. He has shared his own struggle with sin—of doing what he shouldn’t and not doing what he should. And he has been quite realistic about this back-and-forth wrestling match that goes on in our lives between sin-bondage and Spirit-freedom.

And then he drops this truth on us: We are not alone in this struggle with sin. We don’t have to be disheartened by the overwhelming nature of the spiritual contest we are in. To be sure, we experience a strong pull back into the slavery from which our sinful natures were freed. But praise God, we have an infinitely stronger, incomparably more powerful, indefatigable Person who is dwelling within us and is fighting for us, helping us to overcome sin—and that Person is the Holy Spirit. And with him in us and for us, we cannot lose—if we’ll cooperate with him.

If we work with and walk with the Holy Spirit, we then can tap into the same force he exerted in the lifeless body of Jesus to reconstitute each dead cell and catalyze his breathless spirit to produce something that had never happened before, something that the master of sin, the devil, never counted on: The first fully resurrected man. Moreover, this first fully resurrected man was just the beginning, because all who then accepted Jesus by faith, including you and me, entered into that same resurrection life with that same indwelling resurrection Spirit to enable them to live in that same resurrection power that will not only heal their sick bodies, and not only guarantee their immortality, but will empower them each and every day to resist the pull of sin and live the victorious, overcoming Christian life.

On this day, at this very moment, the same Holy Spirit that coursed through the body of our Lord and brought him back to life again is coursing through you.

Wow! Sin, suffering, and sickness doesn’t stand a chance!

Prayer: Holy Spirit, quicken my mortal body today so that I may live above sin, be healed from all my diseases, and face every circumstance, good or bad, with the knowledge that victory is mine through the resurrection reality of my risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

One more thing… “We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear—the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.” —C.S. Lewis

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

Food For Thought: The story is told of a private in the army of the Greek general, Alexander the Great, who ran after and retrieved the general’s runaway horse. When this lowly soldier brought the animal back, Alexander offered his appreciation by saying, “Thank you, Captain!”

With one word the private had been promoted. When the general said it, the private believed it. He immediately went to the quartermaster, selected a new captain’s uniform and put it on. He went to the officer’s quarters and selected a bunk. He went to the officer’s mess and had a meal.

Because Alexander the Great had said it, the private took him at his word and changed his life accordingly—his way of thinking about the world, his way of perceiving himself, how he acted, and how he lived.

One greater than Alexander went to a cross and paid the penalty for your sin. He completely absorbed the brunt of God’s righteous wrath which you deserved, so that you could stand before God completely guiltless. And the One greater than any other stands in the presence of Almighty God, the righteous judge of all the world, and he declares to his Father that you are not guilty—therefore there is now no condemnation because you are in Christ Jesus.

So how about believing what Jesus has declared to be true of you! How about acting like the work of redemption that he paid for with his righteous blood on the cross had made a difference in your life! Why not take Jesus at his word and change your way of thinking and your way of living!

Dear friend, if you are in Christ Jesus, you are not guilty!

Prayer: Father, you have forgiven all my sins and have cleansed me from all unrighteousness. Before you I am totally clean, completely pardoned, and fully accepted as your child. As I stand in your presence, there is no condemnation—because I am in Christ Jesus. Now I pray that you will enable me to live that spiritual reality in the real world of my everyday life. Enable me to be a walking advertisement of your saving grace.

One more thing… “The blood of Christ stands not simply for the sting of sin on God but the scourge of God on sin, not simply for God’s sorrow over sin, but for God’s wrath on sin.” —P.T. Forsyth

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it… What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death.” (Romans 7:15, 18-20, 24)

Food For Thought: Huh? Did you catch that? What in the world is he saying?

Paul had a complex way of saying something pretty simple, which was simply this: “I do what I shouldn’t and I don’t do what I should—man, am I in trouble!”

Can you relate to Paul? I sure can. He was in a wrestling match with sin, and sin was whupping up on him. It was frustrating, because Paul knew what he shouldn’t be doing—but he was drawn to sin like a bug to a bug zapper. Think about those poor little bugs—they see the bottom of the zapper littered with the bodies of their bug buddies, yet they fly into the light anyway. They just can’t help themselves—ZZZZZZZZAP!

Kind of like us, huh! We’re lured into the light, even though others have gone before us and we’ve witnessed the aftermath of the great zzzzzap! Yet we blindly go into the light, lured by temptation, doing what we know we shouldn’t, and zzzzzzzzap!

Let me ask you this: Where are you most vulnerable to temptation? What represents the zzzzzzzaper light in your world? Do you know what that area is for you? Where in your life do you do what you know you shouldn’t do and don’t do what you know you should do?

I don’t know what your weakness is, but I’ll tell you one of mine: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies—especially in dough form. I could eat a whole box of those cookies in a heartbeat. And if they haven’t been cooked yet, what out!

What’s your cookie? Maybe it’s a box of Krispy Kremes—perhaps you are an overeater. Maybe it’s the letters S-A-L-E—perhaps you’re an overspender. Maybe it’s an adult-site on the Internet or liquid in a bottle—perhaps you’ve got a compulsion for porn, or alchohol or drugs or gambling. Maybe it’s the joy of passing judgment on other cookie eaters—perhaps you’ve got a critical spirit, you’re a gossip or a griper.

Each of us have an area—we’re drawn to the zapper, we can’t resist the cookie dough, we do what we shouldn’t and don’t do what we should. “What a wretched man—or woman—I am! Who will rescue me from the zapper?”

Jesus will! That’s what Paul said in the very next verse, verse 25 of Romans 7: “Thanks be to God—it’s through Jesus Christ our Lord!” When Jesus died, he broke the power of sin, so it no longer has a hold on us. Through the power of the resurrection, he has provided a way out from under every temptation:

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (I Corinthians 10:13)

Did you catch that? Your battle with temptation is winnable. The last part of the verse says, “But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out.” That’s good news. There’s always an escape hatch with sin—always. When you’re tempted, God himself will provide a way out…God will make a way.

Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “deliver us from evil” because it’s inevitable that evil will tempt us. But it’s not inevitable that evil will defeat us, because God has limited it; he has made sure that there’s a way out from every temptation we face—no matter what it is! God has provided a door—but I must look for it and walk through it!

What are those escape routes? There are plenty, but scripture talks a lot about but let me just mention two or three:

The first way of escape is to saturate yourself in Scripture. Psalm 119:9 & 11says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word…I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” In fact, that’s how Jesus, himself, battled temptation in the wilderness. Every time the tempter came at him with something that would tear him away from his Father’s will, Jesus came back at Satan with the truth of scripture. There is no more potent weapon against temptation in your life than in reading systematically, meditating daily, and memorizing strategically God’s Word.

The second escape route from temptation is to become accountable to another believer, especially for your particular weakness. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We’re not going to beat that cookie dough problem on our own. Remember, we’ve got an enemy who is bigger, wiser, more unrelenting that we are. And he’s incredibly good at deception. He is called ‘the deceiver” after all because he’s pretty good at it. And his deception works best in your life if it’s in the dark. That’s why we need to bring our temptation into the light of accountability to other people—as difficult as that may be. Proverbs 27:5-6 says, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

With whom are you accountable for your weakness? Who knows about your cookie-dough problem? If you can’t name someone, then start praying right now for that person. Be accountable—that’s one of those “ways out” Paul talked about..

And the third way out is to ask God to deliver you daily from the tempter. Jesus taught us to pray this daily prayer that acknowledges both our weakness and our need for divine power in this area: Deliver us from the evil one. You know, the amazing thing is, God hears those prayers. And he provides a way out.

Who will rescue you from this body of death, from the zapper, from the cookie dough? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ the Lord!

Prayer: Father, who dwells in the heavenlies, as close as the very oxygen I breathe in moment by moment, I praise your name. May your will be done completely in my life today—including keeping me pure and sin-free. Today I ask that you will deliver me from the evil that the Evil One will tempt me with. I ask this so that I might bring glory and honor and praise to your holy name.

One more thing… “Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided, but because we cannot prevent the birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them nest in our hair.”  —Martin Luther