The Next Installment

I have basically finished the second article in the warfare series, but it needs a little polish still. I'm going to let it sit over night and try to clean it up in the morning. However, if you can't wait and want to see it now it is available at my blog Conspiracy of Kindness.

Tomorrow I hope to go and do some work in the garden to do some of the things that still have to be done in the wake of planting. I'll try to remember to take the camera.

On The Money

Democrats have worked hard to bring more religious voters into their fold. As part of their strategy they have promoted a dubious and debatable doctrine that big government should be doing the work of God on Earth. But Democrats want to pick and choose what they like about God and what they don't (Republicans sometimes do this as well in such matters as wealth and materialism).

While government has a role in addressing certain issues that can be considered biblically-based (such as justice and poverty), Democrats see no role for government in helping to restrict sinful man when he wishes to kill the unborn, or allow - even promote - any and every relationship but traditional marriage.

It is in its failure to address these premier moral issues that the Democratic Party has unmasked itself as a party that cares less for God's agenda and more for its own, as it pursues the White House.

- Cal Thomas (excerpt from 'Losing Faith Voters')

Cal is so right on this one. The big problem is that the Democrats don't understand Evangelical Christians. They think that if they try to pretend to be more religious that Evangelicals will buy in and vote for the Obamessiah.

The problem is that Evangelicals cannot support the positions that the Democratic party has taken on life and moral issues. Evangelicals are overwhelmingly pro-life, and this is a make or break issue with most of them. Evangelicals are also overwhelmingly in support of the defense of a biblical definition of marriage - also a make or break issue.

In its stance on both of these issues the Democratic party has shown its true colors in regards to its so-called deep religious conviction. The conviction may be religious, but it isn't Christian, and Evangelicals know the difference.

(If you would like to see who ought to be "doing the work of God on Earth" check out this new post over at Conspiracy of Kindness.)

Neat Video

I just posted a really cool video over at Conspiracy Of Kindness.

It is a very creative interpretation of the song Who Am I by Casting Crowns using a black light and folks dressed all in black with white gloves.

The Least Of These

The past week has been a little disappointing. I had such high hopes for a spiritual feast on Thanksgiving. My heart was so full last Sunday night at the joint Thanksgiving service done by the three local PCA churches that I was eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving Day and some great connection with God. I had even been meditating on some scriptures that the Lord seemed to be bringing to my attention. Yet each day closer to Thanksgiving my soul felt drier and drier - like a turkey baked too long without being basted. In fact, even this morning on my way to church my attitude was so far from where I had hoped that it would be. When the time to worship started I was distracted and mildly frustrated. (Not a good place for the worship leader to be!)

I can't say that things got any better during my part of the service. My guitar strings were buzzing and sounded terrible. I couldn't get it positioned correctly and my arm and hand began to fatigue. It was some rough plowing. Thank God I have a great band behind me. Fortunately things picked up with the pastor's sermon. He has been challenging us as a church to reach out to our neighbors and used as his text the first half or so of Matthew 22.

God has truly called us to a great celebration. His party will blow all other parties away. He even provides everything that we need to be acceptable at His bash, and yet there are so many who refuse to come. Weird. And yet, how guilty are we - the invited - of acting like we are going to be scourged instead of going to a celebration? If we truly believed that God and His reward for us were all that, wouldn't we be eager to tell others? Wouldn't our lives be so full of joy and excitement that others would want to come? And then there are others who try to come but refuse His "party clothes." Thinking about this made me think of some of my loved ones who want to "come to the feast" but don't want to dress according to the code. It makes me shudder for them. Do I say that they aren't saved? I can't make that call, but I can't help but believe that they are in very dangerous waters.

Our church is at a place where I believe that God is calling us to reach out like most of us have never done before. I look at my sister's life and how God has strategically placed her in a neighborhood full of lost folk who love her to death. I look at my own neighborhood and realize that although there are some Christians living around me that there are many who don't know God at all living within a close walk of my house. This is what I am dealing with - breaking the inertia that keeps me from being a good neighbor and friend to the people who live close by. Dealing with the fear of sharing the gospel with anyone. I know it is an absurd fear - most fears are - but it is where I am.

I was talking with my good friend Bruce after the service and we were both feeling kind of low and worn out. We've both been taking a little time in the Lord's crucible lately, and I confessed to him how dry I had been feeling this past week - lonely for the Lord's presence. (Isn't it funny how being lonely for the Lord will often disguise itself as loneliness for other company? But I digress.) He suggested that it was perhaps the enemy's attack. We talked for a little bit longer and in the course of that discussion decided that we should do some servant evangelism together soon. (See Steve Sjogren's book Conspiracy Of Kindness.) As we left the church we passed a car broken down in the middle of the road. I stopped to ask if the guy driving needed help, and he could only answer me in Spanish. I went to park the car and looked up and there was Bruce! He was stopping to help too.

Now you need to understand, I am utterly NOT mechanical. I know next to NOTHING about what is going on under the hood of a car - especially if it isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing. However, Bruce is VERY mechanical. We helped the fellow to get his car out of the road and then Bruce went to work on the car. I used the little Spanish I knew to talk to Carlos and before you knew it Bruce had the car running again! We didn't say a word to Carlos about God or Jesus - I probably could have if I had been in practice - but as we went on our way I felt like I had just touched the Lord's fellowship for the first time in the past seven days. Is it possible that we met the Lord broken down on the road? Matthew 25:40 would seem to indicate that we did.

Perhaps God let me get dry and hungry for His presence so that I would sense it so clearly when I encountered it with Carlos this afternoon. If so, may He not let me forget to seek His presence even amongst "the least of these."

And God, please bless Carlos and help him to learn who You are!