MENS LINK Connecting Tissue for Men of Faith

Here is what the Spirit of God says to us: “Tell him I love him.”

It could be to a friend recovering from bypass surgery in the hospital; it could be to a homeless man, smelly and half nuts; it could to be your husband just going out the door for a few groceries… and never coming back again; it could be to the lady who cut in front of you in line; it could be to your best friend, the one you won’t ever see again who left the party early to walk home. For all of these situations, the Holy Spirit wants to have us “Tell him I love him,” sooner than later.

It could be to the guy you cut off who is pointing to the sky with his middle finger; it could be to the lady who cheated you out of the last parking space; it could be to your kids lying asleep in the still of the night; it could be to the man who took you for a fool and made off with the money before the job was done. It’s what the Spirit wants you to say: “Tell him I love him.”

It could be to the man in drag in the gay pride parade as well as the hate-filled “Christian” holding a sign that condemns him; it could be to the neighbor on one side who keeps to himself, and the one on the other that you wish would; it could be to the friend you just met and the one you’ve known forever; it could be to the one who abused you as well as the one you abused; it could be to the one you owe or the one who owes you; the message is the same: “Tell him I love him.”

The message will always be the same: “Tell him I love him.” You can’t go wrong.

Life isn’t fair; honor God anyway.

No, it’s not a scripture verse; it’s my one-line summary of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. It’s a pretty accurate one, too, as I’m pretty confident anyone who has studied the book would agree. It’s puzzling to think that a philosophical book about the meaninglessness of life would be in the Bible, but I think it’s only puzzling due to our warped sensibilities living in a relatively affluent culture in this time in history.

Let’s face it: we have extravagant expectations and we are disappointed when life deals us what in any other time or culture would be simply what everyone learns to put up with. We expect to be happy all the time, to never grow old, to have successful relationships, to be constantly entertained, and to have the ease and luxury of kings and queens, and as Christians, we mindlessly transfer all these expectations over to what God will bless us with if we believe. We are surprised by Mother Teresa’s dark night of the soul because we expected everything to shine so brightly, especially for those closest to God. Well, hello, I don’t find any such promises in my Bible. I just find: Life isn’t fair; honor God anyway.

Actually, this is not too far from the secular version of the same thing—”Life sucks; then you die”—with one very big exception: God. God makes all the difference, but the differences are more in terms of intangibles such as strong rays of hope, the intervention of meaning, the potential for real love, and the ultimate consummation of all the things we really want when we die. But there are not a whole lot of guarantees about this life when one believes in God. Things are not going to suddenly go well for you when you believe. They might even get worse. No, it just means that God is there, and that’s a pretty big deal.

We need to work a lot harder at removing what is cultural from our interpretation of God and the truth of the Bible. We need to stop reading the scriptures with rose-colored glasses, and accept what it says, especially when it doesn’t agree with the world the way we think it should be.

Whom do you want to define your life anyway… God, or Oprah?

by Dr. Mark Brewer ::

by John Fischer

I will worship God today because it is good and right to do so.

I will worship God today, not because of what it will do for me, or because it is popular, or because it is Sunday, or because I like the worship music, but for the simple reason that I was made to do this. To worship God is what I am here for.

Worship is not an asset. It is not an added benefit to my life like working out or taking vitamins. Nor is it a secret formula that will add a deeper dimension to my life. Worship is the air I breathe. It is the blood pumping through my veins. It is the cells in my body that reproduce and keep me alive for this. Everything else I do is extemporaneous. To worship God is the root of my being.

I understand why, but it is not necessarily good that worship has become a trend—a seminar that pastors attend to learn how to do it better. Music directors are now worship leaders, and this is all well and good, but it can also be demeaning to worship if we end up thinking that this is all worship is: the latest idea that will get more people to come to church.

Remember the pet rock craze? Or canned air? Or rain in a jar? Or anything else so basic that someone tries to make a buck off of packaging, in a clever way, what everyone already has for the taking? In the same way we risk the danger of belittling worship by marketing it or using it as a means to an end. No one needs to sell worship to anyone. Worship is the end. The Westminster Catechism calls it the “chief end” of man. That’s another way of saying it is the most important thing we were created to do. And if it’s that important, then it is accessible to everybody, all the time.

The Lord our God is one God, and we will love him and worship him because of who he is and who we are. It is good and right to do so. It is arrogant not to do so. We are his creatures; he is the creator. We are the sheep of his pastures; he is the shepherd. We are mere people; he is God. To do anything but worship him is to inadvertently put us in his place, and I don’t think anyone in his or her right mind really wants to be there.

Did you ever stop to think about what a bad deal Jesus got when He chose us to be His bride? No one would blame Him if He gave up on us. Good thing He doesn’t think like we do or He would have left this marriage a long time ago.

Listening to our culture, one might get the impression that a good relationship is something for which we all have an inalienable right. This conclusion comes from observing how quickly we look for the back door on any difficult relationship, and how that exit is usually justified on the basis that the current relationship is just too hard – the assumption being, there’s someone out there with whom a good relationship is a much easier proposition. That’s a far cry from realizing all relationships are going to have their challenges, and even the best will be severely tried.

This is when you have to think of Christ’s marriage to us. As Dan Haseltine, of Jars of Clay, wrote in Relevant magazine, “Look at the marriage of Jesus… the one with the bride who sleeps around, never listens, disowns, scorns, dishonors, runs away, intentionally proves to be more interested in anything but her husband, is selfish and bears the children of every affair and the scent of every escapade. It was a marriage that killed Jesus. And it was the Gospel that brought Him back to life to love once more.”

Does God have a right to a better relationship? I suppose so, since He’s God. But does He take it? No. And thank goodness He doesn’t, or we would all be out on the street for sure.

We could stand to think a little more like Jesus when it comes to our relationships. He never allows Himself an out. He is in this for the long haul including whatever suffering is involved. He is able to do this because He isn’t thinking about Himself or His own rights. He is thinking about us. He even sees us as holy and blameless, yes, as even beautiful. He makes it so. We become beautiful in that He sees us that way, even now, when we know darn well we are not. He sees the finished product that He paid for and washed clean through the blood of His forgiveness on the cross. And if He can see us that way, we should be able to see each other that way as well, at least enough to be more patient with the process. This is love over the long haul, and there’s just no way any of us can be in fallible relationships without this.

It’s a conversation that allegedly took place between Abraham Lincoln and his best friend, Joshua Speed. Speed, upon finding Lincoln reading the Bible, laid a hand on his shoulder and remarked, “I am glad to see you profitably engaged.”

“I am profitably engaged,” was the affirming reply.

“Well, if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.”

“You are wrong, Speed,” said Lincoln, looking up from the pages of his Bible. “Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will die a happier and better man.”

I like this for numerous reasons.

1) It’s Abraham Lincoln, an obviously smart and great man who gave God respect, believed the Bible, and relied on Christ for strength to lead America through one of it’s most trying times.

2) It’s a great statement on the cooperation of reason and faith. Christianity is not unreasonable. It does not require blind or stupid faith. It requires a reasonable faith. That would be, as Lincoln described it, a faith that travels along with reason until reason can go no further, at which point faith goes the rest of the way alone. That says that faith is not antagonistic to reason, it’s just that reason alone isn’t enough.

3) Joshua Speed, who was Lincoln’s best friend, did not share Lincoln’s belief. This is a good example for us, because we tend to gravitate, especially with best friends, to people who support the same belief systems we hold. We might have acquaintances that are not believers, but rarely best friends. This account lists Speed as Lincoln’s best friend. I’d be curious as to whether Mr. Speed will be in heaven. It’s hard to imagine a long, close friendship with a man like Lincoln that wouldn’t have convinced Joshua Speed about the reality of all that Lincoln believed at some point.

At any rate, it’s a great example of the kind of friendships I believe we as Christians need to cultivate—relationships of mutual respect with unbelievers (or what I like to call, from a more hopeful perspective: “not yet believers”).

by John Fischer

When God met Moses through a burning bush, He told him to take off his shoes because He was standing on holy ground. I’ve been thinking about that holy ground lately and wondering why God had Moses remove his shoes.

In my research I came upon the teachings of a few rabbis whom I would assume have the inside track on the cultural meaning of this practice. I found there were not one, but a number of possible explanations. One possibility is to symbolically remove the dust and dirt (contamination) from the world so as to enter the holy place. The priests in the temple remove their shoes in this manner.

Another was the idea of humility. One rabbi remarked how Jews cover their heads as a sign of respect, but uncover their feet. That would seem to indicate to both humility and vulnerability.

Rabbi Yaacov Haber commented about that vulnerability. “With shoes, one can walk over stones, glass, water, even fire and not feel a thing. Without shoes, one can feel everything. Step on the slightest protrusion, even a little Lego, and the pain climbs right up the spine.”

If you’re going to be a leader… you must remove the insulation that you wear to protect yourself…. It will hurt but you must be able to feel every bump, every nick and cranny; you must be able to feel the pain. A person who is responsive to external conditions or stimulation is a person who will be susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others. It is this individual who can develop a meaningful relationship.”

As if this wasn’t enough, there is still one more interpretation of the metaphor, and perhaps it is the most important. For Moses, the burning bush represented the presence of God. Today, the kingdom of God has come; His Holy Spirit is here; and thus the presence of God is everywhere. So Rabbi Melanie Aron can say, “The place upon which you are standing, that is the exact situation in which you find yourself, is a holy place. In whatever distracting and difficult situation you find yourself, there are opportunities for holiness.”

Or as Woodie Guthrie wrote in his song, “Holy Ground:”

Take off your shoes and pray.
The ground you walk, it’s holy ground.
Every spot on earth I traipse around.
Every spot I walk, it’s holy ground.

Every spot, it’s holy ground.
Every little inch, it’s holy ground.
Every grain of dirt, it’s holy ground.
Every spot I walk, it’s holy ground.

So which one of these is it? Well, this is what I have found to be true about God’s metaphors. They do not apply to only one aspect of the analogy and we are supposed to figure out which one that is. God is just too thorough for that. He has created the world so that all aspects of his metaphors are true; in fact that is why He created them: so He could say many things all at once.

May we walk today as if our shoes were off — sensitive to the environment and to the needs of those around us, humble and vulnerable before the Lord, and aware of the fact that wherever we step, it’s holy ground.

You are where you are for a reason. Your vocation, your neighbors, your community and your many associations are a world you inhabit to which you were sent. Every one of us has a sphere of influence that involves at least one other person and that makes us eternally significant.

If you ever heard about God sending people to the mission field and assumed everyone like you who didn’t go are somehow without a mission, you assumed wrong. There is absolutely no difference between you and me and Joe Missionary heading out to some South American jungle. In fact, in many environments we can accomplish more than a missionary can because people see a missionary coming and say “Look, here comes a missionary!” and whatever they think of missionaries is immediately predisposed upon you regardless of who you are. People also excuse a missionary’s faith because that is what missionaries are supposed to have. They probably wouldn’t ask a missionary a whole lot of questions about their faith unless they were really seeking God.

I guess I’m thinking about all the people, who, for whatever reason, are not seeking God, but who might be interested in meeting Him if they knew He wasn’t part of a missionary’s agenda.

Contrast this to being just a regular guy. See, if you are just a regular guy, someone might say, “Look here comes a regular guy,” and treat you like they would anyone else. There are no expectations or predispositions. They see you like a normal person (which you are) and they may not be expecting you to have a strong faith in Christ (which you do), so when you end up having one and they already like you and respect you, they will have to give credence at some level to what you have to say, even if they were already pre-disposed in some way against that belief.

Don’t get this wrong either. We are not surreptitious. We are not stealth bombers slipping in under the radar and waiting for the proper moment to drop our bombs on people; we are simply people with a mission who do not broadcast it. Our mission, anyway, is not offensive. It is ultimately to love people and tell them what Jesus means to us, when given the opportunity. Given, some people will find Jesus offensive no matter what we do, but if we have their respect and they are still offended, we will know for sure about the offense. I think it is probably safe to say that more people today are offended by Christians and/or Christianity than they are by Christ.

More people need to have the opportunity to be introduced to Christ. And who, but you, could have a better chance to give them that opportunity, since you are not a missionary?

You don’t need to make a special trip!

by John Fischer

I got a new Starbucks mug yesterday. It’s a ceramic version of the famous cardboard cup with the familiar green circle. I am shamelessly loyal to the Starbucks brand. That’s because coffee is my religion. I can say that because Christianity is not my religion. In fact, I don’t have a religion; I only have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ His Son.

But I drink coffee religiously.

Religion is ritual, habit, doing certain things to get certain results, and pleasing the acceptable god by bowing, scraping and doing all the necessary penance required by that god to please him/her/it. I have been known to bow and scrape to the coffee god, but thankfully, not the real God, because the real God does not require this.

God does want my love and devotion, but He doesn’t want it in the form of religion. He has even been known to get upset with people who make a religion out of knowing him. He does not want our sacrifices, our regular attendance at worship, or even the praises of our lips if our hearts are not in it. And if our hearts are with him, where they should be, none of these things are good for brownie points in heaven. They may be a part of our lives, but they will flow out from us as a natural expression of a loving relationship.

Now I’ve had my old mug for at least 5 years, and this new one has a different set of rituals attached to it that I will have to adjust to. No problem. I can do this; it’s just coffee.

God, on the other hand, would not want to be a 10-year habit broken only by a new church, devotional book or pattern of personal discipline. Discipline is fine when it comes to self-control, but God would not like to be the product of discipline any more than you or I would. God doesn’t want our words, our singing, our sacrifice or our self-flagellation; He wants our hearts.

A real relationship is based on love and wanting to be with someone. That comes from the heart. And if it isn’t in your heart, no amount of religion will ever put it there.

Meanwhile, for my coffee experience, I continue to worship at the Cathedral of St. Arbucks. My coffee religion remains firmly rooted. For me, religion applies to coffee, but not to God. God is too reckless and unpredictable to fit into any religious system or practice. And aren’t you glad?