The Recabites

There is an amazing parallel to some of the issues that I've recently been thinking about regarding the Salvation Army in Jeremiah 35. Johnny and my wife and I were talking about it last night over coffee. If you click on the title of this blog you can read the passage at Biblegateway.com.

In fact, you'll need to read it for this post to make sense.

Anywho, Jeremiah was sent to the Recabites with a message for the Recabites. And he was supposed to offer them wine. And he did just as the Lord commanded.

But, the Recabites turned the wine down, saying, we don't drink wine because some old ancestor of ours told us not to - he also told us to live in tents and never plant crops, and a whole bunch of other "regulations" that we still hold to this very day. God later says, somewhere around verse 18, that that's commendable - but in the meantime, Jeremiah has to go back and tell the God's people that they can learn a lesson from this whole thing. The recabites didn't drink et al because an ancestor told them not too. But the people of Jerusalem wouldn't even hold true to God's commandments.

The question that I ask the soldiers among us is, "Why are we agreeing to what we are agreeing too?" Is it because an ancestor told us not to? Is it because William Booth said not to drink Alcohol? There's nothing WRONG with that. I would just hope our commitments go much deeper than that. I would hope that we would be listening to God and what he is saying.

My wonderful wife also brought up a good point. We're VERY self-righteous people. We boast about the commitments we've made. We scorn homosexuals and their lifestyle, we view our homeless neighbors as less worthy, but we're all about the gossip, and anything else thats really of no eternal consequence.

Our commitment to the Army, I'm more convinced, needs to be a commitment to the Army. We've already covenanted with God based on receiving Salvation alone. We've already agreed to certain terms an conditions. Our Articles of War needs to be primarily to the Army, saying that because I love God, I am motivated to FIGHT under these additional stipulations, not that I like the people here, and it's a great way to learn to play the trombone.

I mean we still need to keep Him in the loop . . .

Grace.

In the Army Now

It's time to stop talking about 'the Army' as if it has power to change itself. The more I talk to people about 'the Army', the more I realize that we have to take the plank out of our own eye. Here are some common misconceptions about 'the army".

1) The army makes me wear a uniform - No. As with every other morning of the week, Sunday morning you may choose to wear a lovely chiffon outfit - or a form-fitting black polyester outfit. Either way, your daily woredrobe is a choice.

2) The army overextends (e.g. burns-out) it's congregants (e.g. soldiers) - No. Corps Officers may ask us to do any number of things. Our congregations may lean pretty heavily on 3 or 4 people to do 95% of the work. But we can say, "No." Granted, it may mean that people won't like us - but that's an isolated people problem. It's not an Army problem.

3) The army wants me to never drink alcohol - No. If you're a soldier or an officer, yes, but only because you promised God that you wouldn't.

4) The army wants me to make life-long promises to it and to God at 14 years old - No. The army allows you to make those promises beginning a 14 years old (or 7 for Junior Soldiers), but corps officers and parents, along with the kids, should be the ones to decided when you can 'enlist'.

The Articles of WAR is NOT a membership agreement, or guidelines, our some cushy country-club contract. I'm not entirely sure when it became that. When the the term war become so laxodasical? Yeah, it IS a big deal - and I would ask parents, and corps officers, and youth group leaders, and brothers and sisters to make sure that the people in their realms are NOT being prematurely ushered into somethey they don't understand. It's definitely a big deal. That's the whole point.

It goes back to what I keep saying about choices. We choose each day whom we will serve, and each action speaks of that choice. We can also choose to live under the expectations of people or of God.

I'm in the Army now. I'm not a sunday morning conventionist. There are enough of those - not saying it's wrong - it's just not Army style. If God is calling you to to a traditional church - I pray you find the best one. I chose the Army. I continue to choose the Army. I'm trying to choose to not complain about what I've agreed to.

Grace.

The Salvation Security Force

Wouldn't it be sweet to have Soldiers and/or Officers appointed to various locations around the city for the sole purpose of being a visible unit of the Salvation Army. Just so people know that there are Salvationists around, at the ready to assist, to pray, to help . . .

I got thinking about that just a few nights ago - thinking about the Security Guards at the bus station (read http://charminultra.blogspot.com if you're confused) and how cool it would be to have the Salvation Army equivalent of that. Someone who would walk around, talk to people, be available if anyone had questions, and, more important, help Christ to be present wherever they are.

Just a cool thought.

Grace.

As if 12 Years of Bleeding wasn't Bad Enough . . .

I've got two things I want to share . . . things I've been thinking about this weekend at Youth Councils.

Thing the first: God wants us to declare our love for Him. Publically, emphatically, and truthfully. Here's why I think that . . . there was a woman who bled for 12 years due to disease. She's the one that touched Jesus cloak (inspiring every Newfie corps to sing 'If I couuld but touch the hem of his garment'!). Now, it says that as soon as she touched His clothes, she was healed - but the story goes on. It says that Jesus asked, 'Who touched me?' Like He didn't already know or something. He asked again and the woman came and worshipped at His feet - declaring to Him and to the large group around Jesus that she loved Him.

The Bible also says: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14.

Show me you love me, then I'll bless you.

Second: I'm tired of the "Jesus is my best friend" analogy. I think it's wrong and terribly innappropriate. Jesus isn't my best friend. There are characteristics about my relationship with Him that allude to that - I can talk to him about anything, we love each other, I can trust Him, etc - but there are far more problems than benefits of using this comparison.

Example - If I think about Jesus as my best friend, even though I can talk to Him about anything, there are going to be times that I take Him for granted. There will be times that I would rather hang out with my wife than go out with my friends. Perhaps I'm just a bad friend, but I also don't feel like WORSHIPPING at the feet of my best friends. They don't deseve it.

We use this comparison to teach kids because they 'understand it better'. What's the point if they understand the concept of a friendship if the concept is WRONG as it relates to God. You get a bunch of teenagers and adults who don't understand that God is KING and who need to be 'reprogrammed' if they're really going to get it. Jesus is not primarily my FRIEND. The bible calls Him my Father, my Lord, and my KING, but I really don't know of anywhere where he's called a buddy, a chum, or a colleague. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Love Him for who He is . . . not what you want Him to be.

Grace.

Momentum

I'm AT Youth Councils - writing about an hour before our Saturday Evening meeting. It's been good so far. Very busy. But my wife is here. And she's my wife. It's the first time.

Anywho, to get here, I had to drive the HUGE Emergency Services 5-ton truck. It's big. And it was loaded with heavy things. It was my first time - I'd driven much smaller stuff. So, it was a little intimidating.

AKA, I was scared as a little school girl.

But what I noticed is that once I got moving, it's momentum did most of the work. It was a lot more resiliant to changing it's direction and smashing into Granny in the next lane.

Spiritual things are pretty big - might be hard - or intimidating. But once they get going . . .

Grace

Crazy Times . . .

Sorry, loyal readers. It's been a crazy week. Youth Councils is coming up this week so my life is CRAZY right now. But, hopefully I'll have time to think about other things again soon.

CharMin Ultra

Just in case you don't know - I have another blog that I maintain - called CharMin Ultra that details what happens during our Sunday Night Charlotte ministry. Feel free to check it out.

The Breast Advice I can Give

Today's sermon was about how the Christians' job is to prepare the bride of Christ for their eventual marriage. It was a very cool concept. Think for yourself . . . how would you feel if you had to leave the picking of your spouse to your best friends? That's EXACTLY what Christ has done.

Anywho, as an illustration, Johnny referred to the Rock Opera, Tommy which has an exchange involving these lyrics: "See me, hear me, touch me, heal me." Johnny went on to say how there is a world that is crying these very words . . . a world that wants to be seen and to be touched and healed.

That's where God stepped into my sermon experience. He really got me thinking about a lot of stuff. Particularly stuff like pornography, even just the border-line exploitation that we see in music videos; even stuff like Janet Jackson's breast at the Superbowl. We get so shocked, and so offended at some things. We're so self-righteous about our puritanism, but for whatever reason, it's OK for us to be non-united as a body, looking for entertainment in church, etc, etc.

All the while, hip-hop music videos, playboy magazine, the media, and a whole HOST of everything else in our culture is SCREAMING at us that they want to be touched and healed. That they want to know Christ. But we're offended because the superbowl half-time show was a disgrace. We're fighting the wrong battle here people. Too bad the world doesn't know Christians for our love.

This perceived 'escalation' in immorality as of late makes me think that God is just turning up the volume on our TV sets. The world and our God is yelling, "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM? CAN'T YOU SEE THAT THE WORLD NEEDS JESUS? WHY DO YOU KEEP TURNING AWAY?"

The problem is, when we're in a 'loud' environment we often choose to leave the room rather than turn down the volume. How long does God have to yell? If we're so SURE of our salvation why are we worried about losing it? For the record, it's not a sin to see a breast on television. You probably shouldn't go looking for them afterwards . . . but it sure wouldn't be a bad idea of getting down off of our pedastals of self-righteousness. We hung our king on a cross . . . our perspective on everything else should probably be gauged by that fact.

Nothing should even compare.

Pimp my God

I'm continuing to think about worship . . . a lot. It concerns me. We've done the same thing to the word worship that has been done to the word Church. The Church was not a building, but now that it is, we have to go there to meet with Christ, and to be a Christian, depending on who you talk to. In the same kind of way, we have made worship about us, and have tried to customize for ourselves a God that likes what we like. It's comforting to have the master of the universe on your side. It's even more comforting to be able to tell Him what He likes.

Pimp my God . . . trick Him out so He's exactly what I want.

Unfortunatly, X to the Z can't do much to change what God wants. Neither can we. God has this funny thing where he wants us to love Him. He wants that love to flow from us, whether we are particularly fond of it or not. But instead, we say things like, 'God made me to like contemporary music.' Sure. You enjoy contemporary music . . . I hope we can still worship God if we go deaf, or mute, or all of the acoustic guitars in the worlds are destroyed by a freak sandstorm (sorry, looking for something ourrageous: it's the best I could do).

The other thing that's been wearing on my heart is 'infighting' as Gwenyth Redhead recently put it. I just couldn't find the right word to use. Thanks, Gwen. We gossip, and we talk about people behind their back, and we talk about peoples' views behind their back. We declare ourselves good stwards of our resources, when we use our energy to debunk a fellow believer with whom we don't agree.

All the while, Satan sits just outside our peripheral vision . . . cheering us on. As long as we are preoccupied with the one who doesn't appreciate OUR style of worship, Satan is free to do whatever he well pleases.

¹As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ²Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to one hope when you were called– ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Grace. There's much more to come.