From The Desk of a Geek

From The Desk of a Geek:

Like Iron Sharpens Iron

One of my favorite movie characters is Doc Holiday in Tombstone. He’s not a model of Christian by any means, but there’s one scene that has always moved me. 

Doc and Wyatt Earp are seeking to liberate an area from the “Cowboys,” but Doc has grown ill with tuberculosis.

Nevertheless, out of love and loyalty, Doc rises from his deathbed to fight with Wyatt. 

In one solemn dialogue, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson asks, “Why are you doing this, Doc?” Doc replies, “Because Wyatt Earp is my friend.”

When surveying the life of the apostle Paul, we see his firm belief in the sufficiency of the gospel and his willingness to suffer for it. But there’s another, often overlooked, feature of the Paul’s mission: friendship. 

As Paul planted churches throughout the Roman world, he didn’t do so as a one-man band.

Paul was relationally wealthy. He traveled with friends; he stayed with them; he visited them. He worked alongside them; he preached alongside them; he was beaten alongside them. He even sang in prison with friends. He encouraged them, and was encouraged by them. At times, Paul disagreed with his friends. And at times, he reconciled with them.

A quick read through Acts shows Paul’s commitment to, and genuine concern for, his friends: Barnabas, Titus, Silas, Luke, Priscilla, Aquilla, Lydia, Onesiphorus, Epapharoditus, John Mark, the Ephesian elders, and more.

In Romans 16, he mentions more than 30 names. The whole list oozes with affection; it also magnifies the gospel, demonstrates beautiful diversity 

(race, rank, gender), and contains moving expressions of honor.

Paul’s constant interaction with his friends was a sign of maturity, not deficiency. Even the mighty apostle needed friends—and he needed them for the same reasons you do.

As people who mirror God, we were made for relationships. In the Garden of Eden, everything was glorious, everything “very good,” except one thing: Adam was alone.

We need friends because we are human beings, not trees. Our hearts ache when a friend or loved one has died. We miss their company. And when we’re on our deathbeds, it won’t be our accomplishments we long to hold (books, diplomas, trophies, house keys, and so on); we will want to hold people.

God regularly strengthens us through the presence and ministry of others. Consider Paul’s statement about Titus: “For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus”. 

God used Titus to lift and strengthen Paul.

We need these kinds of friends because our hearts are fickle; because sin never sleeps; because Satan rages; and because the gospel is of first importance. 

We must not underestimate the importance of coming alongside one another in the fight of faith.

After sharing his vision to visit Rome, Paul tells the church of his desire to see them—in person. He’s just written them a long letter, but he wants more: “I want to enjoy your company”  and “be refreshed in your company”. Even though Paul could communicate through writing, he knew that deeper joy and refreshment could only be experienced in person.

Don’t settle for Facebook friends. We are emotional beings. You might be able to convey aspects of who you are online, but the online world will always fall short. The internet can’t replace being physically present with people. We are people who feel, imagine, and react; we touch, move, and communicate through nonverbals.

Loyal friends are priceless gifts from God.

Lonnie...

From The Desk of a Geek

From The Desk of a Geek:

The Past Is In The Past

Without realizing it, we often carry something around with us everywhere we go. We bring it out in our conversations, and it shows up in our attitudes. 

Whatever that thing is from the past may never have really existed, yet its power lives inside us and keeps us from moving forward.

Listen to people talk throughout the day, and take note of where their conversations are grounded—in the future, in the present, or in the past. Where would you guess most conversations draw from....

The answer is "the past."

Some of us take our negative past with us everywhere we go, towing it along behind us. But God commands us, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” because we will miss the new thing He is doing right in front of us!

When people talk about or think about their past, it seems to take on the characteristics of a real-life being. The past cannot breathe, talk, think, or do. However, it is immensely powerful and can take over our future if we let it. 

It’s like the sirens on the shore, luring you toward the rocks over and over again. Focusing on the past will certainly limit your choices for the future.

For a lot of people, I know the past holds a difficult childhood, an abusive marriage, or a financially draining job loss. Yet no matter how painful our past may have been, for some strange reason we often choose not to let go. 

In order to get on with our future and simplify our lives, we must choose to make a clean break and leave the past behind.

There’s an engaging Peanuts cartoon where Lucy is apologizing to Charlie Brown for missing a fly ball during a baseball game. She’s sorry she missed the fly ball and says it’s because she started remembering all the others she missed. “The past got in my eyes,” she says.

Each of us has a powerful choice. We have the ability to create our own simplified future by starting with a blank sheet of paper and a heart surrendered to God’s will for our lives.

Choose to leave the past behind, and begin living a life filled with new possibilities!

Lonnie....

From The Desk of a Geek: Life Is Not a Family Sitcom

From The Desk of a Geek:

Life Is Not A Family Sitcom 

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find an example of what we would call

a “healthy family” in the Bible? 

It’s a lot easier to find families with a lot of sin and a lot of pain than to find families with a lot of harmony. For example, here’s just a sampling from Genesis:

* The first recorded husband and wife disobey God.

* Isaac and Rebecca play favorites with their twin boys, whose sibling rivalry becomes one of the worst in history.

* Sarah’s grief over infertility moves her to give her servant, Hagar, to Abraham as a concubine to bear a surrogate child and when it happens, Sarah abuses Hagar in jealous anger. 

Why is the Bible loud on sinfully dysfunctional families and quiet on harmonious families?

Well, for one thing, most families aren’t harmonious. Humanity is not harmonious. 

We are alienated from God through sin. So put alienated, selfish sinners together in a home, sharing possessions and the most intimate aspects of life, having different personalities and interests, and a disparate distribution of power, abilities, and opportunities, and you have a recipe for a sin-mess.

But there’s a deeper purpose at work in this mess. The Bible’s main theme is God’s gracious plan to redeem needy sinners. It teaches us that what God wants most for us is that we: 

* Become aware of our sinfulness and

our powerlessness to save ourselves. 

* Believe and love his Son and the gospel he preached.

* Graciously love one another. 

You know what, it turns out that the family is an ideal place for all of these to occur.

But what we often fail to remember is that the mess is usually required for these things to occur. Sin must be seen and powerlessness must be experienced before we really turn to 

Jesus and embrace his gospel. 

And offenses must be committed if gracious love is to be demonstrated. So if we’re praying for our family members to experience these things, we should expect trouble.

Family harmony is a good desire and something to work toward. But in God’s plan, it may not be what is most needed. 

What may be most needed is for our family to be a crucible of grace, a place where the heat of pressure forces sin to surface providing opportunities for the gospel to be understood and applied. And when this happens the MESSES become MERCIES.

My point is this, if your (AND MINE) family is not the epitome of harmony, take heart. God specializes in redeeming messes. See yours as an opportunity for God’s grace to become visible to your loved ones and pray hard that God will make it happen.

Trusting Jesus is hard. It requires following the unseen into an unknown, and believing Jesus’s words over and against the threats we see or the fears we feel.

Lonnie....