The Beloved Disciple...is me!

²⁰ Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved—the one who had leaned over to Jesus during supper and asked, “Lord, who will betray you?” ²¹ Peter asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?”

²² Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” ²³ So the rumor spread among the community of believers^[g] that this disciple wouldn’t die. But that isn’t what Jesus said at all. He only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”

²⁴ This disciple is the one who testifies to these events and has recorded them here. And we know that his account of these things is accurate.

(John 21: 20-24)

In this moment, the book of John reveals the identity of the "one that Jesus loved". When I first read John as a new believer, it was so weird that one disciple would be identified in this way - who is this especially loved disciple?

But, when I read the end of John 21 it makes sense. Undeniably, Jesus and John shared a special friendship which is evidenced by the fact that John was given charge to take care of Jesus' mother Mary. However, I can understand how a first person account, a very personal account of one's life with Jesus, would emphasize the transforming love of Jesus' affection upon that person.

My own journal has constant references to how much I love Jesus and how grateful I am that Jesus has loved me. That is the beauty of the personal relationship we have with the Savior that is distinctly different from any religion on earth. It is what John emphasizes constantly in his personal recollection in his testimony of Jesus.

The truth is that Jesus not only loved us on the cross, but he also loved us to chase after us two thousand years later and call us to him in the midst of us being trapped in our most sinful ways. On a personal level, I can delineate the start of my new life and the ending of my old life when I was loved by Jesus. It has been such a drastic change from one phase of life to the next that I am constantly grateful for being called by Jesus to come to Him. My life has been so much more blessed in my walk with Him that I marvel at the journey He has led me through.

As much as John knew he was the beloved disciple, I know that I too am the disciple that Jesus loved.

Christ Redirects Us Through Life Changes

"Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation." (Psalm 91:14-16)

Things in my life had been proceeding smoothly - busy and hectic, but smoothly nonetheless. It is usually during these times, that 1 Cor 10:12 typically comes into my mind - "Be careful if you think you stand, lest you fall."

Recently, my boss let me know of a situation with the Company which may or may not necessitate cuts, transfers or large wholesale changes during the next two years. Unlike most people who are suffering from "job insecurity" or unemployment, this situation is more of a slow moving event than and a quick cut. That is a blessing in itself because I have time to prepare.

However, I was running a bit on cruise control in my life and I was enjoying my job, the company culture and everything that went along with it. My wife is 6 months pregnant and we had recently purchased a home. A common scenario here in the USA. So, the first few days or so were filled with many moments of thought about the future.

The overriding theme of my thoughts was just a sense and a coming back to the fact that our lives are really set up by the Lord in ways that we do not and cannot imagine. It is our unfortunate tendency to think that we have a lot of control to plan our lives and we make those plans and expectations in our mind. We think, "First I'm going to do this, then this and then finally this will happen and I'll be happy."

This is not to say that goal setting is unworthy - it is obviously proven to be a key in progressing in any endeavor we do. However, my point is simply that we are not the ultimate arbiters of what will transpire in our lives.

Job loss, Sickness, Accidents, Theft - are just some of the things that can pop up in our lives which will send us spiraling away from the path that we have carefully chosen for ourselves.

The saving grace for those of us who call on Jesus is what He has promised to His followers and believers. We are not bereft of protection in the most dire of circumstances. If a large change in our life occurs, He can not only help us to overcome, but He will help us to use it to help others to move us to a more beneficial place.

We can call on Him in trouble and He will answer. He answers because we know each other and we have a deep abiding relationship that comes many conversations, trials and prayers. Too easily I forget all that He has already done for me in my life and I am glad that He still remembers all those moments and helps me to recall that He has never failed me, and that He never will.

Lord Jesus, you are the ultimate planner and user of my life. Please use me as You will and not as I will. You have never failed me before and never will fail me as You have promised this to those who love You. So, use this event to move my life in the direction that it needs to go. When we called You "Lord", we also gave over control of where and how we are serving. In Your blessed name we pray. AMEN.

I Learned My Lesson - Tithe, Tithe, Tithe

¹⁰ Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the LORD of hosts,

“ If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
¹¹ “ And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the LORD of host
(Malachi 3:10-11)

This is one of the classic scriptures on tithing - one that is quoted virtually everytime when the concept of tithing is taught.

I have tithed since I became a Christian, a real Christian - one who finally decided to dedicate his life to Christ - back in 1998. At first I didn't know if it was a tithe on the gross or net. There can be fierce debate on this subject, and I used to tithe on the gross (I was told - "do you want God to bless you gross or net?"), but now am at peace to tithe on the net.

In this recession, things for my family have gotten tighter and our budget is pretty challenging, but I also realized that my family had piled on too much debt. In an effort to get it under control, I started reading Dave Ramsey (DR) and he's changed my perspectives about debt and budgeting, so we began to get our act together and thankfully did it before our debts piled too high.

What bugged me though was that I was tithing, but it was part of my monthly credit card bill, so we weren't actually paying it off until a month or two later. It seemed like a joke that I was tithing by adding to my debt rather than tithing out of my savings. The more responsible thing seemed to stop the tithe in order address our debt.

Now, I don't know how I came to rationalize and reason this out. DR even specifically advises that we should tithe 10% of our net paycheck. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the pressures and responsibilities of being a husband and a father. I'm the sole breadwinner and there is a huge responsibility in that. It was a hard, hard decision, however. My wife objected to this from the start, but decided to follow my lead and I charged ahead.

I can't tell you how restless my soul felt - I wouldn't call it guilt because it wasn't like that - it was just a gnawing in my spirit (or a wrestling with the Holy Spirit inside me). I had many conversations with God on my commute to work where I was trying to reason with Him about my choice and decision, but I never came to any kind of definitive peace or conclusion that what I was doing in foregoing the tithe was right.

My paycheck would come in and I would sit there, wanting to tithe, but yet I stuck to my "plan" of trying to pay down my debt.

But as much as I wanted to reserve the money that was to be tithed and pay off debt, more bills would flood in. DR calls them "visits from Murphy". And to be honest, Murphy did visit us before, but not that frequently.

Both of our cars required service - $600 - and the service performed was done, but at the same time I did not receive as good a quality of service as I have experienced in the past. Medical bills came in as I required an ultrasound and MRI which turned out, was my responsibility as it was under my deductible - another $500. Then, as I was backing out at Walmart, a woman decided to do the same on the other end of the aisle at the last minute and we have a fender bender. It was a rental and she has insurance so her rental car company wanted to pin the blame on me. WHAT WAS GOING ON HERE!

Then, I realized. And as I was commiserating under the cumulative stress of this with my wife, I asked her, "Is it because we haven't tithed?" She replied with a non-committal, "hmm...maybe," but had a knowing look in her eye. We agreed to pray about it together using our usual technique for important decisions (more on that at a later time). But, I sat at the dinner table by myself and really had a moment with God. In my soul, I knew that because I stepped outside of God's promises, I had opened myself up to the world's risks. By not tithing and being obedient, I had declared that I wanted to do for myself and by myself - so I limited God's ability to protect in my life. Willfully, I was disobeying part of what God told us to do.

I went online and tithed again a few moments later. The release of that moment is hard to describe. There was such a lifting on my soul and I felt such a deep sense of gladness and joy. Again, it wasn't out of guilt, but it was a sense that I was aligned again with the Lord. Something I had taken from granted.

God's promise in Malachi is not necessarily about blessings where we see increases in our salary left and right as we tithe. It is also about holding back the devourer from eating our fruits. By preventing the regular occurrences of life from coming in and nipping at our savings through even small random, unplanned expenses, he is allowing us to stabilize our lives, save and grow our wealth over time.

As a Pentacostal, I also believe in the works of the Spirit...That there is a tug of war in how we engage our Spirit. Some acts weaken the self and hence Satan's hold on our lives, because when you think about it, sins come from a desire to self gratify (disobedience to God, idolatry, coveting, envy, greed, murder, stealing, fornication). Fasting for instance was cited as something which weakens the demons which are attacking a certain problem (whatever you're fasting for) and thereby enhances prayer. While selfish acts where we seek to simply satiate our desires will take us outside of God's covering if we sin.

In Matt 6:21, Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Tithing is the ultimate heart check for a Christian. Can we trust that God will provide by giving up 10% even though we know that we could use that for something that seems necessary? The sacrifice of that for us is purposeful for God because He knows that our Spirits need to be divorced from the reliance on money.

After my experiment in not tithing, I see clearly how much the Lord has done for me via the tithe. Unbeknownst to me, so much over the past 13 years has been held back from entering my life from the Lord's blessing. I got a glimpse of just how that works, and I don't ever want to open myself up to the devourer again.

By the way...am I out of debt yet? As a Dave Ramsey listener would say..."everything except the house." And I know tithing is going to help keep it that way.

The Foolishness of God Saved My Life

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe" (1 Cor 1:18)

Paul is pointing out in this verse that there is a stark difference between the world's wisdom and God's wisdom. What God calls wisdom is seen as foolishness by the world. I can remember moments where I scoffed at church and Christians as a kid, in high school, and even in college. Those memories are shameful to me now, but exhibits the kind of scorn that I had during my developmental years.

I learned all about science in school and the theory of evolution. I went to the best schools from primary through college. No where was I taught spiritual disciplines and truth, but at the same time no one could say that I'm not fully trained in the wisdom of the world.

But what kind of behaviors did my scorn of Godly ways develop? I turned into an unhappy and lonely young adult who didn't feel like I had a sliver of hope or meaning in my life. I was empty.

It was not until I resolved to let God run my life fully and completely that I knew that I had a purpose. I wasn't just a number amongst the seas of evolved accidents, but I was fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in my mother's womb. I also knew how to conduct myself more and more as I read the scripture and learned that God's wisdom was unchanged from the beginning of time. What I had once believed as foolish, gave me the greatest wisdom in the world.

My life changed, and even more importantly, the Holy Spirit had come into my life. I no longer walked alone. Frequent moments of loneliness that I used to have were completely gone. I knew that even when I sat by myself, the Lord was with me. It was an amazing thing - a miracle by itself.

When I hear of suicides or similar acts of desperation, I always despair that that person obviously tried to handle all their problems and issues alone. The weight of the world wasn't meant to be handled by our own strength. As created beings, we were meant to walk with our Creator. I always think, "What if they had only called out to Jesus - not just for a miracle, but to resolve to do everything God's ways?" I know they would have discovered the strength to change, and the way to a life deeper and more fulfilling than they could have ever imagined.

Lord Jesus, thank You for the way out of the downward spiral of my life. Thank You for loving me so much that you continued to pursue me even when I mocked You. If there is a way for me to help others know You, let me do so. In Jesus' name, AMEN.

Respecting Our Work - Building Value

"He also who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys" (Prov 18:9)

As a manager, I recently had a series of staff workers in the same job over the course of the year. The first hated her job, barely performed her duties and rarely turned in a solid 6 hours day...let alone an 8 hour day. We tried to counsel her and found out that she really didn't want to work with us. However, she wanted to be fired to collect unemployment. So we let her go.

The second person was talented, but was slightly overqualified on paper. However, she needed a job so she took the staff position we offered. She started out all right, properly motivated to work, but after 4 months she lost interest and started hinting at needing a promotion (which she hadn't yet earned). After 6 months, she started coming in late and her work product suffered to the point where we had to have a series of chats on issues that we were having. There was some improvement in performance, but the economy improved and she left to a better position after 9 months.

Where this has left us is back at square one. Instead of having a trained person to take on the duties we have allocated to this staff person, we now have to train up another person from scratch. In each case, the two staff persons so resented their job, one because she didn't like the work and the other because she felt like she was better than the work (hence didn't like it), that they had begun to slip in their performance.

While the second person was better than the first person, the end result was the similar - bad attitude resulted in tardiness and shortened work days. The lack of professionalism ended up being disappointing and at the same time, for our company, very little was built that added value to our company.

Slacking off is a phenomenon that I think is more prevalent in recent times. I know it well because I have slacked off many times in my younger days. Analyzing myself, I can see that the root came from an inner weakness and a sense of self entitlement. I wanted respect in my profession without properly earning it. I wanted my work to be constantly interesting, but couldn't realize and see that unless I master the basics, the more interesting things - the artistry of a profession would never be realized. There is no substitute for experience and knowledge gained over time through experience.

There was also a moral failure in myself. I either didn't know God, or I was immature in the Lord at the time. The Bible tells us to "work as unto the Lord" (Col 3:23-24). Regardless of what role we are thrust into, do I work as unto the Lord? Do I appreciate the work granted to me enough to be earnest at it and excel at it?

I still need to ask myself these questions today. Being part of Generation X, I know that I am part of a lazy and self-entitled generation, so my propensity is towards sinfulness and slack. And slack once it goes on over time, so weakens that duties that we are assigned to steward that we end up destroying what we are supposed to keep watch over.

Lord, in the example of my two recent staff, I also see a lot of myself in them. But understanding their reasons for slack doesn't justify it. You have helped me to improve over my past sins of slack, but I know that I still need to be vigilant. Please help me to keep dedicated to my work and to respect that place that you have put me for this season. Thank you for all the opportunities that you've provided to me and the place I am honored to serve in. May I represent You most of all. In the matchless name of Jesus, AMEN.

Laying My Life Down Daily

Reading the June 16 entry from Oswald Chambers "My Utmost For His Highest" was pretty thought provoking for me.

It is easy to be like Peter and in a moment or phase of being "on fire" for the Lord we sacrifice our life for His cause. Most, if not all religions have examples where they have called on followers to die in the name of their religion. In today's world, the suicide bombers of radical Islam are the strongest example of that kind of thinking. If that person has a moment of courage to kill themselves while killing other innocents, they believe they will go to paradise.

How much more difficult is it to instead live in this fallen world and daily live in the way that Jesus has called us to live? The "Yes" that we give to Jesus is a challenge for our sin wracked souls to do - to lay aside our pridefulness and acknowledge the wretchedness within us. I can only speak for myself, but I ran from God for a long time because I didn't want to give up my sins and change my life. It wasn't until I took stock of my life and realized that it was headed to meaninglessness that I finally gave my life over to God.

Yet, how much more difficult is it to live our lives as a follower of God day in and day out? Everything and I mean ever-y-thing around us, even in the United States, is drenched in sin and distraction. While we may not have the animism of tribal Philippines or advanced Japan, we certainly have a pervasive materialism that has invaded our daily lives. With that materialism comes all types of sins as men sacrifice their lives in pursuit of obtaining worldly wealth.

And that is my personal challenge. Lord Jesus, help me to lay aside myself on a daily basis. Am I serving You in the things that I pursue? Have I cleared off my personal schedule enough to see the little ways that I can serve the people around me? Although it scares my flesh in the ways that You might redirect my life with this prayer, I pray for Your strength to do whatever You would have me do. In Jesus' name, AMEN.

God Proves Himself Through Trials

"we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)

It has been a pretty tough week. Not that there was any one thing or one event that has been an issue, but just a cumulative series of small things that have drained me bit by bit. I am reminded of this verse - to glory in tribulations.

Tribulations will definitely span a great range - for most people, such as myself at this time, it will be fairly mundane things that will be a trial, and for others there will be a difficult event that will take a good amount of time to overcome.

But, I really do believe in the cycle that Paul describes in Romans. We are shaped through our trials far more than through our blessings. I know that I spent a good deal of time praying and asking God for strength this week than I have for a while. It is the new things, the new trials that cause us to go to our knees.

What we find however, is that God can successfully bring us through the trials. He really is faithful. Faithful, not in the sense that we won't have difficulties or tragedies happen to us, but faithful to give us the strength to overcome them. And the result of that is we see more and more that God is good to us, and the truth that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

It is through this body of work, that is our personal journey of life through which God proves His faithfulness and His reality. And when each trial has been overcome, we have a track record on which to place our hopes for eternal life. God really is, and He is with us.

Perhaps there is something behind the curse of Adam given to us men during the Fall:

"Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:17-19)

Adam and Eve had just disobeyed God in the midst of a life of ease in the Garden of Eden. If a life of ease did not produce obedience, loyalty and character in them, perhaps God wanted to develop that character through trials instead.

As I think about those who will share the Kingdom with the Lord in the end, they will all have been tested through a life of trial and tragedy. Each will know what evil is, and in contrast, the goodness of God.

Lord Jesus, thank You for being strong in my life. That there are times when I need to lean upon You for strength and simply dwell in Your presence. Thank You for being faithful in my times of need and that You are always true and good. As a family, help us to navigate these waters that will be a challenge. Help us to stay near to You and always have Your character on us even through the darkest days. In Jesus' name, AMEN.