Being Afraid of "Hell"...the word, not the place.

Ok...This may be the strangest confession I have ever made because it isn't really a confession of something "bad" or "evil."

A couple weeks back, my beautiful wife and two great kids were out of town visiting relatives. I couldn't go because I had to work. Or got to work. Feelin' me? Anyway, when I found out she was going to be gone on Sunday, I probably did the exact opposite of what I would've done a few years back. I got on the internet and started looking for churches and their service times, hoping to catch 3 services on a Sunday morning.

"What's that?" you ask. I wanted to map out a way to get to 3 services in one morning. The plan was to make the IFB church at 8, then my church by 9:15, then hopefully my friend's crazy, no holds barred worship at 11. Is that weird? BUT, my friend's daughters were giving a report in their church from a missions trip they recently went on at 10:30, so they kind of messed it all up. I only got to attend 2.

So, when I explained my Sunday plans to my friends and coworkers, they looked at me like I had a third ear growing out of my forehead.

As I thought more about it, I realized I spend waaaaaay more time looking up and listening to sermons on ITunes than I do songs. Piper, Platt, Groeschel, Washer, Chan, Furtick (sometimes), Driscoll (sorry Mom), and the list goes on and on.

My confession? "hi, My name is Lazarus and I am a sermon-aholic."

While I would love to say this has made me a markedly more spiritual person, I certainly have no way of gauging that. But I love hearing men of God speak about the Word. I try to gain something from each.  

What is the difference between me wanting to spend 4 hours going to church vs. my father-in-law wanting to spend 4 hours on the golf course? I am not saying one is better than the other, just trying to make myself feel better about this strange "addiction" I have. Anyway, this brought me to a lunchtime at my desk in my glorious, off-white cubicle here at work. We can get on the 'net during downtimes and during lunch, within certain perameters, of course.

Last week, I was perusing through the website of my own church, because I rarely do that, just to check it out. We have updated it and added new bios of our staff, which we have also added to. there are about 5 new staff members I didn't know anything about, so that was cool to read about their favorite verses, their hobbies, and favorite foods.

Then I clicked on the "SERMONS" tab and remembered that I missed last Sunday's message because I was out of town. So, there I was, feeding my addiction AT WORK!

Anyway, I listened to my pastor and caught something he said...He was speaking on Holiness and during the wrap, he presented the gospel. Clearly. Unabashedly. And he said something I never heard at my former church, or from many preachers these days...he said....hell. "If you do not choose to follow after Christ, you will spend eternity apart from God."

He said that. That seems to be the new PC way to witness to people. It isn't very offensive. It is safe. It won't scare many off. It doesn't make people uncomfortable. It is what I was taught to say in evangelism classes.

But then..."You will spend eternity in Hell."

Why do I think that is important? Because it is the truth. Not a half-truth. Not hedging. Not hiding. Full disclosure.

It seems often modern, relevant presentations of the gospel try to dodge the WORD Hell more than the PLACE Hell.
Hell is real.
Face it.

I am glad I attend a church that tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, SO HELP US GOD!!!

Centerpoint Fellowship Church
centeringlives.com

I Am Lazarus...and Others: Best Actor Award...Blast from the Past

I Am Lazarus...and Others: Best Actor Award...Blast from the Past

Best Actor Award...Blast from the Past

I am not a big fan of movie/tv/music awards shows, but I would be lying if I didn't say I tune in a few times a night to check them out.  Back in my free-wheelin' college days, I was actually into it a bit.  I would try to see all of the films up for Best Picture at the Oscars before the show.  Just a hobby...stop judging. (You have something, too.)

A couple Sundays ago, the Golden Globes were on.  My wife and I turned by when they were giving some kind of lifetime achievement award to Robert DeNiro.  They played an amazing montage of many of his movies.  He truly is fantastic.  Sitting there watching, probably 3 or 4 times I said "I forgot about him in that movie."  He has done a wonderful job in so many films, I guess I remembered the top 4 or 5, and kind of shuffled the rest away.

But when he started to make his speech...YIKES!

We Need To Be Them...and Occasionally Mexican

There is a group of people in the Bible that doesn't get enough credit. 

Wait...that's not how I write...

About two weeks ago, I was in town...alone.  My wife had stolen my kids away in the night and driven to see relatives 4 hours away.  Without me.  I knwe she was going, so I am being a bit overly dramatic, but the point is, I was in my hometown where there are hundreds of people that I know...yet, I was all alone. 

So, what was I to do??

i rented movies my wife wouldn't want to see (aka anything in the ACTION genre) and laid around the house eating Chinese food.  If the old adage "You are what you eat" was literal, I would be Chinese.  And Occasionally Mexican (note to self:  cool sounding name for the indy rock band you may one day but will never start: "Occasionally Mexican").

But as I lay (or is it laid) there trying to get some shut-eye, I felt guilty and a little bloated thanks to all of the fried rice, sugary sauce, battered and fried chicken, the egg roll and the delicious 32 oz. sweet tea I had consumed, so I decided the next morning I would head to the Y to get a workout in.  More to appease my conscience than anything.

So, I finally fell asleep at the latest time I have stayed up until in years...MIDNIGHT!!! 

I awoke, went to the Y and got a great workout in.  Saturday mornings are apparently not very popular for the workout scene.  There were 3 of us there and it was quiet.  No one was awake enough to speak, I suppose.

I burned my 600 calories or approximately 4% of what I had eaten the night before.  When I left, I felt I needed a treat.  

And right next to the Y is a Panera Bread.  Oh YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

To skip all the formalities and the discussion on the idiotic logic behind chasing my workout with a 520 calorie Spinach and Bacon Souffle', I ordered, Zach gladly put the deliciousness in a paper sack and away I went.  As I walked out, another gentleman was beside me.  I held the door for him as he was a step or so behind me and when I looked at him, he looked...well...a wreck!!!

He was covered in flour, appeared like he had been awake for a week straight and was completely a mess.

It hit me...he was the Baker!  He was the guy who made my soon-to-be workout minimizer.

I am a talkative sort, so I struck up a conversation and he obliged.  I found out that he goes to work every night at 11 and works until 8 the next morning, baking all of the tarts, scones, souffles, muffins, etc.  I had never thought about him.  Or that role.  I assumed they had frozen food, microwaved it and overcharged me to the max!  Right?  RIGHT?

But, no...There is a guy who stays locked inside Panera all night...working.  If it weren't for that guy, I would have no souffle.

Again.  I had never thought about him and his critical (overstatement?) role in the process...

There is another group of people I had never really noticed in the Bible.  They filled a critical (not an understatement) role in a certain episode and I have never thought about them.

Literally "them."

That is how they are referred to in John 11:44.  Who are they?  I don't know.  Have no idea who they were and certainly never acknowledged their role in the story.  

Lazarus had just been raised from the dead.  After 4 days.  He came out...Still Bound.  Basically, Lazarus was a nasty, filthy, disgusting, smelly mess.  His body had been restored, but that doesn't mean the cloths on him were now clean and smelled like daisies. He was gross.  Like, Gross Gross.

This hit me the other day...What if "them" hadn't answered the call?  If Lazarus came out, but was left all to himself, what would've happened to him?  He was wrapped tightly and his face and head were wrapped as well. 

He would've died.  Again.

"them" are very important people.  "them" helped restore Lazarus.

Today we need more of "them."

Often we hear great stories about addicts, prostitutes, drunkards and the like are "saved" from their lives of torture.  Very often we unfortunately hear about how they fell back in to sin.  Why? How can that be?

Just like Lazarus, who heard the voice of Jesus plainly and clearly, would've died AGAIN, so are we today.  There has to be a "them" to come along to help.  Why do I think that way? 
1. personal experience.  If you have read the first few posts of this blog, you know I am on a journey.  A journey back from being dead...spiritually and morally dead.  And if it weren't for some of the great men God put in my life and my beautiful, Godly wife...I am 99% sure I would be dead all over again.
2. Jesus easily could've commanded the graveclothes off of Lazarus.  I honestly believe there was a purposeful inclusion of those around to step in and physically become involved.  Jesus was setting an example for us as believers to help each other...no matter how FILTHY our lives look.  No matter how SMELLY our sin. 

Being "them" can be gross, time-consuming, and HARD WORK.

But that's what we need to be.

We need to be "them."

For God's Glory...we need to become "THEM."

Just checking...and a Book Suggestion

So, I am on this new computer here (at work) and this is just a short, meaningless post to see if it will work...blogger has apparently changed some junk since my last post...


Oh, and READ "not a fan" by Kyle Idleman, please. Would love to hear thoughts on it. (look at me writing like people might be reading this. How precious!

I'm Baaaaack (again)

FRIENDS!!!

So Busy.

No Time to Blog.

Please Forgive Me!

Have U Noticed I was Gone?

"Titanic"- Sinking Ship; Sinking Culture

Telling on myself again.  Seems that’s what 90% of my posts are!  Unfortunately, there is so much to tell!!! 

This time, I am actually telling on many folks.  Makes me feel better.

Whatever year that the movie “Titanic” came out, I was teaching a PE class at the Christian school where I was coaching at the time.  Any of you that went to a small Christian school know what I was doing.  Yup, I was sitting on the bleachers, watching mass hysteria, pandemonium, and chaos on the basketball court.  At the beginning of class, I took roll, made the kids stretch, they ran 4 laps (WOW) and then I just let them have at it.  For the next 40 minutes, my job was to sit and make sure Timmy didn’t punch Bobby, and that the “Mean Girls” actually did SOMETHING other than sit on the bleachers and gossip.  If there wasn’t a fight, bloodshed, or broken bone, I had done my job!

Green Bean Juice and My Christian Walk

Obviously when you get married, there are some things you give up for your spouse.  I am not saying it is all bad, and many pre-marital counselors and their cheery, happy guidebooks will try to tell you that “You aren’t giving up anything.  You are replacing it with something better!” (SINGLE PEOPLE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH…Do not read any further here!)  That’s a big old loaf of rotten, disgusting Bologna!

I am in NO WAY trying to say I am not 100% satisfied with my marriage.  The lifestyle I now live versus my single life is no contest.  I would choose to be married and have my amazing two kids every time if given the choice!  Nothing wrong with being single.  But I LOVE LOVE LOVE being Husband and Father.

But there ARE various activities, habits and hobbies that have to be cast away once betrothed.  And all of them are not bad!!!  Some can’t be replaced!  I ADORE MY WIFE, but watching a college football game with her is NOT as enjoyable as when my roommate and I watched together.  IT’S JUST NOT! 

Go Ahead…start bashing me!  “Insensitive, immature, pig of a man!”

Now…tell me I am wrong.  YOU CAN’T!!  Well, I guess you can, but you would be hedging.

On the flipside of the coin, you don’t only STOP doing certain things, but you also START doing things you would NEVER do if still single.  Again, not all are bad things, but some tend to be…Less than Enjoyable. (that is as nice as I could put it, in case my gorgeous Bride decides to read this post.  I love you, C.A.!  You light up my life!  You complete me. You are my Sunshine…my only Sunshine…etc., etc., etc.)

One of these concessions I have had to make is that we occasionally eat GREEN BEANS!  Single me would never…ever…never think of PURCHASING the disgusting little things, much less purposefully and knowingly EAT them. 

When I was younger, I couldn’t bear the thought of them.  My parents would put a number on how many I had to eat before I could get up from the table.  If the number was around 4 or 5, I would stack them all on a fork, close my eyes, and force down the vile nastiness.  If the number was higher, I had another way to cope. I would wait them out.  Sometimes for an hour.  Then my Dad would get up and go about his business, leaving my Mom to stand post, glaring at me, saying over and over “You will NOT get out of that chair, young man, until every green beans is GONE!”  And still I would wait.  What would happen many times was she would start cleaning the table and going to the kitchen.  We actually had one of the double-swing both ways doors that you now only see in some diners and on “The Andy Griffith Show.”  Anyway, when she headed to the kitchen, I would then make those beans GONE, alright, just as she requested!  I would grab them one at a time and launch them over and behind the china cabinet.  This would go on for several beans, until I had it whittled down to one or two beans left, then I would stop chucking them and wait until she saw me eat the last two.  You know, to prove I am an awesome kid…who took 2 hours to eat 12 beans.

I got away with this activity from about age 4 until 6.  Then we moved.  And one of the worst spankings/floggings/whoopin’s I ever got was when the movers came and moved that cabinet.  Dried old hard beans.  Various colors at this point.  And some actually stuck to the wall where they were on display for all to see.

I still think the sore rear end was worth not having to ingest those despicable things.

Fast forward 30 years…there is my lovely wife.  Her first trip to the grocery store as newlyweds, and guess what she proudly threw in the buggy, spending our hard-earned money on?  I can’t even write it. 

I MARRIED A GREEN BEAN EATER!!!!

The Word of God speaks several times about being unequally yoked…I am not sure if it is speaking to salvation, style of living, calling…perhaps it is speaking to those with different views of Green Beans! (that is a joke, people…relax)

So, still once every two weeks or so, after almost 8 years of marriage, we eat Green Beans.  I tried to show her the error of her ways and reason with her…to no avail.  I have grown to where they are tolerable.  I still dislike them, and would NEVER choose them for myself, but if my wife and kids like them, then I can suffer for them.  Ugh.

This past Tuesday, we had Chicken, Mac & Cheese, Orange Slices….and Green Beans for dinner.  No problem.  There was enough that I liked that I could handle it!  I tolerated the Green Beans first, then reveled in eating the other items.

I always take the leftovers to lunch with me the next day, if we have any.  My wife or I put them into a cool 3-Sectioned Rubbermaid container (they should pay me for the free advertising).  There were enough of each item to take all 4 items.  So in the large section we put the Chicken and Mac, then a small section for the Green Beans and Oranges.  Now that is a good lunch!!!  And free-ish!

Lunch time rolled around Wednesday, and I took the meal out of the fridge, and ate the Oranges!  Can’t heat those up!

Then put the container in the microwave.  Smelled so good because of the Mac&Cheese!!!  Then headed to my desk.

My first bite was a piece of the breaded Chicken, and….it was soggy.  It was completely thoroughly covered…IN GREEN BEAN JUICE!!!  I wanted to hurl!  So, I frantically picked up the other 3 pieces, only to find the same thing…then the worst thought hit me…NOT MY MAC AND CHEESE TOO!!!!  My Mac&Cheese was sopping wet, soaking…nay floating in the putrid liquid.  WHY ME?!?!  The only thing NOT ruined by the Green Bean juice was the Green Beans!!! 

Regardless, I ate it all, and it was not fun.  The delicious Mac&Cheese I had been so proud to have was shot.  The tasty Chicken that would have been the envy of desk-workers across the globe was tainted! 

BY GREEN BEAN JUICE

Later, this got my strange brain to thinkin’.  What about my life?  What about my walk with Christ?

Have I kept myself from being tainted by the world?  Or am I soggy with the worldly life?  There are so many things in this life that would do the same thing to us that the GB Juice did to my lunch.  Make us disgusting.  Gross. 

And not just to ourselves!!  Most of us when we realize things are off, or we have sin and vileness in our lives, instead of making it right with God, we want to make sure it is hidden from our neighbors FIRST!!  How flipped is that?

So many people, including myself, want to see Father as so loving and forgiving and over-looking, if I may coin a phrase.  We want to focus on the fact that He sees past our faults.  We love to pull out “as far as the east is from the west.”  We roll around in it and make it our anthem…

But

What about where the Word tells us we can make Him SICK?  We can become so awful and disgusting in our lives that we make GOD become nauseated!  That is a HEAVY THOUGHT.  WOW…that we can make the Creator of all things ILL by our lives…yet, we seem to be totally ok with it. 

We adapt. 

We find ways to alleviate the guilt. 

We can reason away our lifestyles and claim to be “in the world, but not of it” all we want as we become more and more saturated with the worldview that makes GOD WANT TO THROW UP!

Let’s all take the time to look at our lives.  Are we covered in sins that we have become accustomed to, not realizing how sick we are making Father?  Are our lives, that we may have told ourselves are up to par and holy, actually nauseous before our Heavenly Father???

Time to get cleaned up!

Happy Father’s Day? Bah Humbug!

HERE IT COMES!!!

Can you feel it?  I know I can!!!

It is as predictable as Old Faithful, and as on time every year as Christmas!

That’s right…

IT’S TIME FOR THE ANNUAL BASHING THE MEN SERMON, aka FATHER’S DAY!!!

While I cannot predict most events because the world is just that way, there are two things I can predict with certainty…Mother’s will be praised on Mother’s Day…and Father’s will be lambasted on Father’s Day!

Perhaps this is a southern phenomenon.  Mother’s Day includes sermons about how awesome Mom’s are.  Poems.  Birds singing.  Proverbs 31 thrown around like crazy.  Perhaps a segment where the kids describe Mommy in 1 positive, uplifting word. “pretty” “nice” “Iloveher” (which is NOT 1 WORD, but they get away with it on Mother’s Day.)

Fast Forward to Father’s Day.  Low-lifes.  Terrible leaders.  “Step it up!” sermons abound. All of the United State’s problems trace back to the pitiful Dads.  They ask the junior church kids to describe their Daddy, and the words are derogatory and mocking. “lazy” “weird” “long-nose-hair” (again…NOT 1 WORD, but if it is a humorous mockery of ol’ Dad, it is permissible!!!)

Is it at all POSSIBLE that there is ONE family out there where the Father is the better parent?  If so, it isn’t around here!!!  But, I listen to sermons on-line from outside my geographical area, and it seems that Dad’s are awful role models from California to South Carolina to Texas….UN-BE-LIEVABLE!

So, if you are a Father out there…put on the whole armor of God…to be able to stand against the attacks of your pastor this weekend.

And Mom’s go ahead and start practicing your “Amen’s” and “Preach It, Brother's.”  This is your day, not ours!!!

Maybe I will reinforce the sermon’s point and stay home this week.  I am not sure I am up for the verbal beating that awaits me this Sunday.

Happy Father’s Day…yeah, right.