Bread Lessons

To the Church in Laodicea

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

A couple months ago, I was preparing my bread dough, a new recipe so I read into the details of making the perfect batch. The trickiest part of bread dough is the yeast, of course. Bread recipes and bakers will advise to let the yeast soak into lukewarm water. Lukewarm water is ideal for yeast to be absorbed and your bread will rise faster. Cold water does absorb the yeast but it takes the dough much longer to rise. But the thing you never want to do with yeast is to absorb it with hot water. Hot water kills the yeast and the dough will not rise.

I have made bread many times before without knowing the reason for avoiding hot water. This new lesson in bread making reminded me of yeast in the Bible. In most instances, the Bible speaks of yeast negatively, like the yeast of the Pharisees and Saduccees-- their hypocrisy (Matthew 6:6-12). Paul likens yeast to false teaching (Galatians 5:9).

As Paul is addressing a situation involving a sexually immoral brother and the Corinthians improper handling of the sin, he writes:

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (I Corinthians 5:6-8).

To attain the nice-looking, puffy loaf of bread we Americans are accustomed to, we soak our yeast in lukewarm water since the yeast thrives in lukewarm. To our shame, we Americans—in some areas of the church—have attained a nice-looking, puffy church, with the yeast of sin able to thrive in our lukewarm spirituality.

Lukewarm spirituality was the mighty rebuke of Christ to the church of Laodicea. The strong image of Christ vomiting the church out of his mouth causes me to shudder and wonder. It seems that Christ is so sickened by indecision, flip-flopping, people trying to please both God and man, so sickened by a church that confesses Christ with their lips but their hearts are far from him (Isaiah 29:13), that He would vomit. He would actually prefer us to be cold over lukewarm! At least we and the outside lost would know where we stand if we were cold. Lukewarm makes it hard for an unbelieving world to distinguish truth from all else.

This church, and its direct implications to the church age in which we live, seems doomed and condemned as Christ proclaims that [we] are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. And we think we are rich.

For us and for Laodecia, a hopeless state. Sin runs rampant even in the church, and like the Corinthians, we not only tolerate it, sometimes boast in it. In the name of tolerance and living down to the standards of the world, we are afraid to share the intolerance God has for sin. We are afraid to tell people of their impending judgment before the Almighty.

We refuse to share the truth of John 3:36, Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. The wrath of God is a destructive force and nothing can assuage it except Jesus Christ Himself. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! (Romans 5:8-9) If people cannot understand our death sentence, people cannot understand why we need Jesus.

And with the Joel Osteen’s, Benny Hinn’s, and Rob Bell’s shaping so much of the American church, the “good news” is reduced to lukewarm, ho-hum news. That we would reduce our Jesus and His sacrifice to nothing seems the great sin of our lukewarm American experience. We seem to have no more truth to offer or good news to share. If the “people walking in darkness” don’t see their need for rescue, will they follow the Light even when they see it, as He reveals Himself? Will we open the door to Jesus who declares “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock”?

I could write pages on the aforementioned men, but what about me? How rapidly does the yeast of my pride—sin—rise in my lukewarm spirituality? How often can I be confident that I am “hot” for Jesus? How foolish of me to not remove the plank plunged into my own life. I thank God that while He will not tolerate lukewarm, He gives us hope. He gives me hope: Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.

Unlike other churches, Jesus had nothing with which to commend Laodicea. But His love is deeper still. Because He loves us Laodiceans, He warns us with rebuke and discipline. That we would repent in earnest before it is too late!

The Counselor says we are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

The refining fire is hot, it will kill sin in the process of purification. As we put our trust, hope, even our very lives into Jesus, He will give us white clothes of His righteousness. Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall become like wool.  Jesus Himself initiates reconciliation and restoration. I pray that we would follow the counsel of Jesus and rub our eyes with the Word of God, the Word Became Flesh, and see Jesus for who He is. Then we will recognize His knocking at the door of our church.

Hot is the only temperature that kills yeast. If we let the Spirit of Christ overtake us, we can only be hot for Him—He allows no cooling. And the yeast—our pride and sin—will die. And we will open the door.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Epitaphs

Noah walked with God. Genesis 6:9

Confounding

I recently returned from my first trip to Israel. That I am even able to write that is confounding to me. As I was there, map scales and boundaries became real, and became really small. While in Israel, I was able to see into Lebanon ("yeah, it's right over there"; "huh."), Syria ("and those ridges there have several missiles pointing here", "huh."), Jordan ("yep, remember, just across the Dead Sea"; "oh yeah! huh."), the West Bank ("seriously?! there, RIGHT there?!"; "yes, that's it"; "huh.") And, though we weren't close enough to see into the Gaza Strip, there were enough IDF choppers and fighter jets in the air as they were again launching rockets into Israel, I got the point.

The fact that Israel exists, that an obscure people-group that were scattered across the globe nearly 2000 years ago after the Romans sacked Jerusalem and chased them down to the point of worrying about the 960 that made it to Masada, the same obscure group that was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust directed at them, that this group still exists and is in their own homeland, is just bizarre. There, of course, is no logical explanation that, though surrounded by enemies on all sides and beyond, this tiny strip of land is a national home for the Jewish people. As a student of history, this would be enough to convince me that something more is in the works: the fact their existence is so befuddling would have me considering a supernatural phenomenon. But dare not take my word, nor anyone else's. God's Word stands true and uncorrectable. Bizarre? Illogical? No, God.

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.


This is God's covenant to His people Israel, descendants of Abraham. Earlier in Genesis 12:2, God promised to make a great nation through Abraham. In Galatians 3, Paul explains that, as Jesus is the "new covenant", those of faith...are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blesses.' So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (Galatians 3:7-9). Some would use this passage to deny the Jews their covenantal homeland.

BUT, God's covenant in Genesis 15, written above, was a covenant He made with Himself. Though He made it TO Abraham, Abraham did not make it WITH him. Abraham, who is representative of the Jewish nation, does not have to hold up any end of the bargain, so to speak. God holds both sides. God makes this covenant unconditional, backed by God Himself. And, of course, God cannot go back on His own Word. The land of Israel-- though not yet fully experienced in modern-day lines-- is a homeland for God's chosen people, the Jews. (The focus here is the land of Israel, for more on the misconstrue-ings of replacement theology, perhaps a study in Romans 11 could get you started).

So, the confounding nation of Israel is a testament to God's faithfulness and His faithful Word. As the borders seem small and enemy nations foreboding, God is bigger. God is real and still connected to His people Israel, remaining faithful even in their unfaithfulness, not because they are holier than the rest of us, but because God is holy. So, as I have experienced tiny Israel, I have experienced a big, Holy, Faithful God.

"What Happens in Israel Stays in Israel"

Ironic that very phrase which is my quote is the opposite of what God has been using to convict and refine me within the days of my return. There is much to write about-- life lessons and transformation that I hope to write about for years to come. But in the past few days, the one incident that I did not want shared, that I wanted left in Israel, is the one that has been speaking to me and bringing me to confession.

Last Sunday evening I found myself in a Jerusalem emergency room. An IV with fluids and I was back in the hotel in a few short hours. Me being me, I was embarassed to suddenly be the center of attention and stubborn about going. I begged not to go, I told the nurse that I didn't need to be there, and argued with the doctor about a silly x-ray, of all things (a signature on a form said "I won", by the way).

And, again ironically, the fact that I didn't want to be the center of attention made me just that when it should have been God that was the center as His family worked to care. Christ's body was to be glorified in the actions of my new family surrounding me. In what I may have thought was humility was actually my pride in full swing. My pride covered up the love and willingness of God's saints who wanted to wash my feet in a sense. My pride, guised as humility (a false humility to be certain), overshadowed the steadfast love and care of Val, Mark, Chris, Marlene, Marlys, Max, John, Derrick, Carl, Pam, Helen, Harry, Brad, Lynn, Shelly, Dick, Jane...and all the others who were doing exactly what Christ has called His body to do. I am so sorry.

If my pride had not been present, I probably would not have ended up in the fiasco anyway. There were earlier chances to realize and repent. At dinner that night, I knew a few people were watching me, since signs of illness began earlier in the day. Knowing I needed to eat and drink, but knowing I was shaking too much to do so, I figured I would wait out everyone at the table and eat and drink when they had left. All I had to do was have the humility to ask for a straw and I would have been able to get the water down...something I couldn't do later. Pride wins small battle. When things got worse, and now everybody knows, I could have taken the wheel chair up to my room and perhaps gotten liquids in there-- my pride had me walking to my room, not being wheeled up by someone else. Pride won, pride got the best of me, pride landed me in an Israeli ER. My dark pride, my false humility, could have covered up all the other people who were shining around me. Thankfully, the light of Jesus shines brighter.

Thank you for being the love of Christ to me Val, Mark, Chris, Marlys, Max, Heather, Victoria, Kevin, Marlene, Ron, Eileen, Marilyn, Jackie, Mick, Phil, Donna, Brian, Linda, Harry, Helen, Gill, Sharon, Dick, Joy, Harvey, Jane, John, Tammy, Karl, Pam, Derrick, Anne, Shelly, Greg, Debra, Brad, Tammy, Carol, Paula and Leah. I love you my family and I have tears of joy thinking of you and what you mean to me.

Prayer

I don't know how to say it
I don't know what I need
The great longings of my soul
Oh Spirit, intercede

And here I am again
Worrying on my knees
Hindered prayers again
Spirit, won't you please

Come convict me of my sin
Cleanse me, free me from within
Plead my case and make it known
Intercede before the throne

Search me, cleanse me, intercede
Renew, transform me
That my prayer would be

Sweet to you like incense
In every circumstance
My own will gone
Your will be done

I approach the throne of grace
Lord, I seek your face
Covered by my Savior's blood
Confident of your true love

Search me, cleanse me, intercede

Renew, transform me
That my prayer would be

Aroma for your bowl
Lips cleansed with coal
My will foregone
Your will be done

Your Call is a Destination

I listened to someone share a devotional with a group two weeks ago. I wish she hadn't. On the other hand, I am glad she did because, once I got past that sick-feeling welling up inside, it made me think. A few notes I jotted down from the devotional are:
Your call is a journey, not a destination.
You will have obstacles and roadblocks: make a U-turn then search out a new path.
Find pursuits in which you are passionate.

I'm guilty. I've said things similar, I believe: We are all on the journey and all in process. And this is true. But when these thoughts and words are brought to their logical conclusion, we get mixed up. Yes, God teaches and refines us in the process-- on the journey-- while He guides and disciplines us. Are these words so familiar to us that we don't ask the obvious: what is the process? what is the journey? I have not even defined those words, but most people familiar with Christian-ese probably don't need a definition. However, I would caution that most people who watch Oprah would not question what the journey or process is either. We need to be careful that our journey with Christ does not become our own, as a "Christian" author suggested in the aformentioned devotional reading.

Your call is not a journey. Our call from God is clear. Your call is a destination.

There are numerous Biblical examples of God calling people with a specific goal in mind. None may be more familiar to us than God calling His people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. God had a clear call, a clear direction and clear guidance (God's GPS was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night). Miracles were daily on the Israelites journey, great moments for God's people to be in fear of God, in awe of God, and in never-ending praise of God-- all on their journey towards the Promised Land. And God led them directly there.

Upon arrival, they hit a God-sized roadblock: the inhabitants in the land were giant and scary. So, instead of letting the Creator God of the universe take out the obstacle (indeed no obstacle for Him), they followed the advice we hear today: You will have obstacles and roadblocks: make a U-turn then search out a new path. Now they were no longer on a journey, but a forty year wandering in the misery of a desert. When we take our own path, we too begin a wandering of misery-- that is not God's journey. God's plan was a destination and He provided the means and the way.

Among other callings, perhaps the most important we are called to "Be holy because I [God] am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). This, of course, is even more impossible for us than a few million Hebrew men, women, and children, escaping Pharoah, crossing the Red Sea and conquering the Promised Land. But it is our calling. And our call is a destination. "Be holy because I am holy."

The only holy man is Christ Jesus. Therefore, He is our goal. He is our calling. He is our destination. We are not holy without being covered by Christ's shed blood. There is no reconciliation with God without Jesus Christ. Dying to self and living for Christ is giving up the wandering of our path for the road that leads straight to the cross of Christ. There is joy and suffering on that journey, in which God lovingly refines us. But beware of thinking that the journey is the call. We have a destination.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.  Matthew 7:13-14

When Justice Rolls

"...With liberty and justice for all." Perhaps our founding fathers and the writer of the Pledge of Allegiance spent some time reading Amos. Maybe these men spent some time reading Matthew 25. Perhaps we, the evangelical church in America today, would find that revival would come if-- among other factors-- we better understood and applied the over 2,100 Biblical references mentioning poverty.

Concepts like "liberty and justice for all" are not human-inspired. God created the idea and God is still waiting for us to believe in it. I know that the evangelical church in America is changing lives by the hour with the saving news of Jesus Christ. I know that this same church contains the most charitable people and sacrificial givers. I believe the tide of the new generation being raised in the church will bring us closer to the goal of "justice for all." But I also know that God will not leave us with an excuse when we come before Him and try to explain why we stopped so short of bringing justice to the poor and needy.

The Son of Man will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left....Then the King will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me." They also will answer, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?" He will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." Then they will go away into eternal punishment... (Matthew 25: 33, 41-46)

Similarly, God (through Amos) repeatedly warns Israel what would befall them because they continued to trample the poor. The book of Amos begins with the condemnation of the Gentile nations around Israel. Their sins were immense and horrendous, including atrocities such as oppression to the point of many deaths of Israelites in threshing teeth; selling Israelites into slavery; and ripping open pregnant women.

After the condemnations and prescribed punishments for such lewdness of the Gentile nations, God turns the focus to His own people, Israel. We must remember that God holds Abraham's seed-- of which the evangelical American church is an adopted heir-- to higher standards: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Luke 12:48).

What could God's foremost grievance against His people be? If God has a grievance against us, it would behoove us to listen up! Pay attention! Israel, church of America, my followers: "[You] sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. [You] trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed" (Amos 2:6-7).

It seems God could say today, "My church in America, a country I have blessed since its inception, a land I have made fruitful, and land with so much abundance, why are there poor among you? Why are the oppressed not brought justice? Why are you hoarding my blessings? Take a look among you and your blessings, then see the great need around you and in the rest of the world."

• More than 1 billion people live on less than $1 per day
• A child dies every 3 seconds from AIDS and/or extreme poverty
• Sub-Sahara Africa spends $14.5 billion repaying debts to the world's richest countries and institutions, many spending more each year on debt repayment than on health care or education
• The worldwide number of orphans is 132.7 million
• (www.worldvision.org/about_us.nsf/child/enews_aids_200610?Open&lid=orphans) (one.org/issues and one.org/aids)

The old adage, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, applies to America today, just as it applied to Israel in Amos's day. Compared to the rest of the world, we who live in the United States are the rich-- even the poorest among us. We are a giving people, a charitable people. The church in America has done incredible things with God's inspiration and power to help the poor, the needy, the orphan and the widow. Yea church!

But we run the risk of giving to charity, being charitable, then wallowing in our complacency: "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion..." (Amos 6:1). We have not come close to finishing the job. Part of our apathy and complacency may be due to a large misunderstanding. Everyone likes to feel good by charitable giving: in fact, it is rewarded by tax breaks. But what if charity is not the issue?

This [reaching out to the poor and AIDS-inflicted people in Africa] is not about charity in the end, is it? It's about justice.... And that's too bad. Because we're good at charity....But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties; it doubts our concern, and it questions our committment...This is not about charity: This is about Justice and Equality. (Bono. Bono: Keynote Address at the 54th National Prayer Breakfast)

We have substituted the word "charity" for "justice". These are vastly different words with vastly different connotations. Amos lamented against injustice, how we trample the poor, turning "justice into poison" (Amos 6:12) and "deprive the poor of justice in the courts" (Amos 5:12). Charity involves little responsibility: justice requires much of us.

The concept of justice in America is linked to equality-- everyone should have equal opportunity and all are as valuable as you. God's standard is much higher than this: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3).That which God asks is that another's justice is more important than me feeling justified. This statement is a far cry from the trampling of the poor and needy to which we are getting dangerously accustomed.

Trampling the poor, oppressing the needy, neglecting the widow and orphan are acts of disobedience to God. Our disobedience leads to God's judgment of wrath upon us, His rejection of our sacrifices and offerings, even his not listening to our songs and prayers, according to Amos 5.

But what effect would delivering justice to the poor and oppressed, as God has commanded, have on the evangelical church in America, if we let "justice roll on like a river, [and] righteousness like a never-failing stream" (Amos 5:24)?

Revival. God's continued blessing. An acceptance of our sacrifices and offerings. God's ear turned to our prayers and hymns. Eternity with the King.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separated the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me somthing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me someting to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"

The King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:31-40)