Baylor Football, Objective Measures, and So Forth

On New Year's Day, I was sorely disappointed to watch my Baylor Bears blow a three-score lead in the fourth quarter of the Cotton Bowl.  But if you're "America's #1 Offense" and can't put any points on the board in the 4th quarter, I'm not sure you deserve to win a bowl game.

What it told me is that although Baylor is a very very good football program, one of the most exciting in the nation to watch, we're not quite top-tier...yet.

Bowl games (in that sense) are a good, objective measure of the entirety of the football program.  It puts appropriate stress on coaches, players, logistics, fan base, and so on.  When you're not quite ready for the big-time, it shows.  It's an objective measure.

There are a couple of objective measures in our spiritual life, though admittedly they're not as exciting as a bowl game and there's no national television coverage.

Jesus said it this way:  "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  If you want to know the status of your heart, look and see where your treasure is.  Treasure, in this sense, is most easily and significantly monetary resources.  But it can be expanded to anything you count as a resource:  time, relational capital, unique abilities, and so forth.  The heart is the inmost part of our selves, the part Jesus lovingly lays siege to, captures, and ultimately conquers so that He can renovate it to His liking.

In an important way, that's a real gift.  It allows us to really see what the status of our spiritual life is, not what we think it is or hope it might be.  Where our treasure is, there our heart will be too.

But that also works the other way:  if we learn to redirect our treasure, our heart can come into line.  Our priorities determine our passions, not vice versa.

So here at the outset of 2015 with all our resolutions and diets and regimes anew, I hope we all take a moment and take stock, objectively, of the state of our hearts.  I hope we clear some path for our priorities to be realigned as necessary so that when 2016 rolls around the state of our heart is better off than it was today.

Priorities determine passions.  That's objectively true.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Thoughts for a Thursday

Quotable:

"Sweeping generalizations about the poor act like a a cancer that destroys our compassion and generosity...Often, we figure they don't deserve our help, but that is not the issue.  After all, Jesus loves us and died for us even though none of us is deserving of it...Here's the irony:  we judge families who get government help while we fail to help those very same people.  On top of that, we often advocate shutting down the very social programs that keep their kids from starving.  If the government discontinued all welfare programs tomorrow, I'm not sure we would be ready, willing, or able to help all of the people in need in our communities."  ~ Johnny Carr, Orphan Justice, p. 93

Something worth thinking about.


P.S.  As a quick note, I am finding that posting thought-provoking quotes like the one above out of a book or article I'm reading or have read is a worthwhile conversation starter.  Agree or disagree with anything in the quote, I hope it provokes thought and conversation.

The stunning beauty of generosity

I preached yesterday to the church from 2 Corinthians 9, Paul's passage on giving and the blessings of participating in it.  And that's the point of the blog entry today.  Giving is participating.

In what are you participating?  Giving is participating in ministry.  Some can't go or physically do what others can do.  But giving is still participating in ministry because it makes possible the participation of others.

Our church sent a crew to Galveston Island this past summer to work with kiddos who are severely disadvantaged and have some significant emotional and relational needs.  We had 2-3 of our crew that didn't have the money to go because of their own family situation.  The church jumped in and put together about $600 in about 6 minutes and had the rest of the situation covered.  Anyone and everyone who gave to that trip and allowed those kids to go essentially went with them.

From the text on Sunday, when you give you are "abounding in good works."  When you give, you are "sowing."  It is a "ministry of service that supplies the needs of the saints."  All powerful participation principles.

Giving is, in its own right, ministry.  I'm grateful to God that He saw fit to provide a way for a broad swath of people to participate in ministry.  That's what giving does, broadens the participatory strata.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Snakes are Scary: Don't be on this list

You have to kind of be in and around church to get this one, so if you're not, let me give a brief explanation.  The tithe is a gift that is given to the church, specifically one-tenth of the income.  Churches like ours do not receive monies from denominational entities, so all of our income depends on our people giving regularly.  Therefore, to post something like this is equal to the Wall of Shame...

For the record, I have no idea who gives what to our church.  And I'm fairly confident that shaming someone into giving is the antithesis of the "God loves a cheerful giver" and "It's better to give than to receive" teaching of the New Testament.

To link to the original Snakes are Scary post that explains the Friday insanity, please click this link.

Tree of Life Day 78: Acts 3-5

I can't help but think of this story...

St. Thomas Aquinas was walking one day with the Pope (admittedly, different versions of this story have different people involved with Aquinas).  The Pope was commenting on the beauty of one of the cathedrals and said, "It seems, dear Thomas, that no longer can the Church say, 'Silver and gold have we none.'"

Thomas' reply was succinct and poignant:  "But neither can we say, 'In the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk.'"

Father, grant us power by your Spirit - the power to do ministry and the power to handle our prosperity well.  Amen.

PLAN to be generous

Here's a blog post from another pastor named Kevin DeYoung.  It's posted in its entirety.  Worth thinking about this morning...

P – Pray for a generous heart.  Make people a priority over prosperity.  Don’t think: “How much do I have to give away in order to be obedient?”  Ask: “Give me opportunities to sow.”

L – Lifestyle cap.  As we earn more, we should give more. If you are wealthier than you used to be, have you done more to increase your standard of living or your standard of giving?

A – Accountability.  Set goals and find someone you can trust who won’t be threatened by talking frankly about finances. Sex and money–we don’t talk about them nearly as much as Jesus did.

N – No less than a tithe. Whether the Old Testament requirement is a binding prescription or not, I find it hard to imagine that Western Christians who have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ and enjoy great prosperity, would want to give less than was required of the poorest Israelite.  Statistics consistently show that Protestants give less than 3% of their income to their churches. A tithe, for most churchgoers, would be a huge step in the right direction.

Our team in Haiti

We have a team on the ground in Haiti with YWAM where they are building a duplex for two displaced families.  They took with them cereal, toilet paper, trash bags, paint brushes, pencils, a few tools, and some tractor parts.

Tractor parts?

Yes.  Tractor parts.

Kevin, a YWAM staffer, sent an email and told us his tractor broke.  He needed some small parts to come with our team.  Done for a whopping $16.42.

Here's what I think is cool about that:  God knew that the tractor was in trouble, that we were coming, and that there's a Case IH store down the street.  And we got to be a part of God's ongoing work in Haiti because of three little tractor parts for $16.42.

Sometimes Kingdom investment is small but has a big impact.

Seems like Jesus said something about that... (Matthew 13.31-32)

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Any small investment you need to make today?

Christmas Spending, Wisdom, and a Small Insect

So I'm reading through the book of Proverbs right now, trying to live in the wisdom that it espouses.  At least once a year, I read through the book, one chapter per day for 31 days.  It's a practice I encourage you to adopt.  There are so many gems in here.

So on to today's reflection.  In 6.1-11, Solomon contrasts two very different financial situations.  They apply both to individuals and to nations (Congress, are you listening?).

The first person is the person who has pledged his goods to his neighbor to buy something he wants now.  I'm sure none of us are in that situation (to MasterCard or AmEx or the next generation...).  Wisdom says to run to the neighbor and work it out right then and to do so with intensity:  like a gazelle caught by a hunter and trying to get away and flee.  Dave Ramsey's "gazelle-like intensity" comes from 6.5.

In light of our Christmas and Congressional spending as of late, sounds like a good reminder.  Admittedly, our family is not a "no credit and no credit card" kind of family like Mr. Ramsey.  But we can write a check for every expenditure.

The second example is the Ant.  She works hard.  She saves.  She plans ahead.  She has plenty when it gets bad and plenty when it is good, though (honestly) probably not as much as others have when it's good because she's always putting away from when it's bad - and it inevitably gets bad.  The sluggard, in contrast, merely wants to nap.  But when snoozing, poverty and want come along and commit robbery.

Which do you want to be?  And equally as important:  how are you going to get there?  What practices do you need to change to get there?

But that's just me thinking thoughts...